The Night Gardener

2005
CHAPTER 2

The wiry little man in the box, sitting low in his chair, was William Tyree. In the opposite chair was Detective Paul 'Bo' Green. A can of Coca-Cola and an ashtray holding dead Newports sat on the rectangular table between them. The room stank of nicotine and the crack sweat coming off Tyree.

'Those the kicks you were wearing?' said Green, pointing at Tyree's shoes. 'Those right there?'

'These here are the Huaraches,' said Tyree.

'Those shoes you've got on right now, you saying you weren't wearing those yesterday?'

'Nah, uh-uh.'

'Tell me something, William. What size you wear?'

Tyree's hair held specks of fuzz. A small cut, now congealed, was visible below his left eye.

'These here are nine and a half,' said Tyree. 'I wear tens most times. You know them Nikes be runnin big.'

Detective Sergeant Gus Ramone, watching the interview on a monitor in a space adjacent to the interrogation room, allowed himself the first smile of the day. Even being questioned for murder, even under the fluorescent lights of an interrogation, a man damn near always felt the need to lie about or explain away his shoe size.

'Okay,' said Green, his hands folded on the table before him. 'So those Nikes you got on now… you telling me you weren't wearing those yesterday?'

'I was wearin Nikes. But not these ones, no.'

'Which type were you wearing, William? What I mean specifically is, which type of Nikes were you wearing when you visited your ex-wife yesterday at her apartment?'

Green's brow wrinkled as he considered the question. 'It was the Twenties.'

'Yeah? My son has those.'

'They're popular with the young ones.'

'The black Twenties?'

'Uh-uh. I got the white with the blue.'

'So, if we were to go to your apartment, would we find a pair of white Twenties, size nine and a half?'

'They ain't at my apartment no more.'

'Where are they?'

'I put 'em in a bag with some other stuff.'

'What other stuff?'

'The jeans and T-shirt I was wearin yesterday.'

'The jeans and T-shirt you had on when you visited your ex-wife?'

'Uh-huh.'

'What kind of bag?'

'One of those bags from Safeway.'

'A grocery bag, says Safeway on it?'

Tyree nodded his head. 'One of those plastic ones they got.'

'You put anything else in that bag?'

'Besides my clothes and sneaks?'

'Yes, William.'

'I put a knife in there, too.'

Detective Anthony Antonelli, seated beside an impassive Ramone in the video monitor room, leaned forward. Bo Green, in the box, did the same. William Tyree did not pull back from the space that Green was invading. He had been sharing the box with Green for several hours now, and he had grown comfortable with his presence.

Green had started slowly, small-talking Tyree but dancing around the murder of Jacqueline Taylor. Green and Tyree had gone to the same high school, Ballou, though not at the same time. Green had known Tyree's older brother, Jason, a pretty fair Interhigh baseball player, now with the post office. They had talked about the old neighborhood, and where the best fish sandwich could be gotten in the 1980s, and how the music had been more positive, and how parents watched their kids more closely, and if they couldn't, how the neighbors chipped in and helped.

Green, a bearish man with gentle eyes, always took his time and, through his familiarity with the area and the many families he had come to know over the years, endeared himself, eventually, to many of the suspects in the interrogation room, especially those of a certain generation. He became their friend and confidant. Ramone was the primary on the Jacqueline Taylor case, but he had allowed Green to conduct the crucial interview. It appeared that Green was about to close this now.

'What kind of knife, William?'

'A big knife I had in my kitchen. You know, for cutting meat.'

'Like a butcher knife?'

'Somethin like that.'

'And you put the knife and the clothing in the bag…'

"Cause the knife had blood on it,' said Tyree, like he was explaining the obvious to a child.

'And your clothing and shoes?'

'They had blood on 'em, too.'

'Where'd you put the bag?'

'You know that Popeyes down there on Pennsylvania, near where Minnesota comes in?'

'Uh-huh?'

'There's a liquor store across the street from it…'

'Penn Liquors.'

'Nah, farther down. The one got a Jewish name to it.'

'You talking about Saul's?'

'Yeah, that one. I put the bag in the Dumpster they got out back in the alley.'

'Out back of Saul's?'

'Uh-huh. Last night.'

Green nodded casually, as if someone had just told him the score of a ball game or that he had left the lights on in his car.

In the video room, Ramone opened the door and shouted to Detective Eugene Hornsby, his ass parked against a desk, half-seated, half-standing beside Detective Rhonda Willis, both of them in the big office area of VCB.

'We got it,' said Ramone, and both Hornsby and Rhonda Willis straightened their postures. 'Gene, you know that liquor store, Saul's, on Pennsylvania?'

'Over there by Minnesota?' said Hornsby, a completely average-looking man of thirty-eight years who had come up in the infamous part of Northeast known as Simple City.

'Yeah. Mr Tyree says he dumped a butcher knife and his clothes in the Dumpster out back. And he put a pair of white-and-blue Nike Twenties in there, too, size nine and a half. It's all in a Safeway bag.'

'Paper or plastic?' said Hornsby with a barely detectable grin.

'Plastic,' said Ramone. 'It should be there.'

'If Sanitation didn't pick up the trash yet,' said Rhonda.

'I heard that,' said Ramone.

'I'll get some uniforms down there straight away,' said Hornsby, snatching a set of keys off his desk. 'And I'll make sure them rookies don't fuck it up.'

'Thanks, Gene,' said Ramone. 'How's that warrant coming, Rhonda?'

'It's comin,' said Rhonda. 'Ain't nobody going in and out of Tyree's apartment until we get it. Got a patrol car parked right out front as we speak.'

'All right.'

'Nice one, Gus,' said Rhonda.

'That was all Bo,' said Ramone.

In the box, Bo Green got out of his seat. He looked at Tyree, who had sat up some in his chair. Tyree looked like he'd had a fever that had broken.

'I'm thirsty, William. You thirsty?'

'I could use another soda.'

'What you want, same thing?'

'Can I get a Slice this time?'

'We don't have it. All's we got like it is Mountain Dew.'

'That'll work.'

'You got enough cigarettes?'

'I'm good.'

Detective Green looked at his watch, then straight up into the camera mounted high on the wall. 'Three forty-two,' he said before leaving the room.

The light over the door of the interrogation room remained green, indicating that the tape was still rolling. Inside the video room, Antonelli read the sports page of the Post and glanced occasionally at the monitor.

Bo Green was greeted by Ramone and Rhonda Willis.

'Good one,' said Ramone.

'He wanted to talk,' said Green.

'Lieutenant said to come on back when you had something,' said Rhonda. 'Prosecutor wants to, what's that word, interface.'

'Rhonda says we drew Littleton,' said Ramone.

'Little man,' said Green.

Gus Ramone stroked his black mustache.