The Night Gardener

CHAPTER 37

Dan Holiday drove back to the lot across from the gas market on Central Avenue, only to find that T.C. Cook had disappeared. He tried to reach Cook on the Motorola and then on his cell but could not get him either way. He noted that Reginald Wilson's Buick was still parked beside the market. Holiday assumed that Cook had tired of the surveillance or was simply fatigued by the workday and had headed home. He thought he'd go to his house and check up on him, just to be safe.

Cook's Marquis was not in the driveway when Holiday arrived at his yellow-sided house on Dolphin Road. Holiday sat in his Town Car and dialed the home number for Cook but got the answering machine. A porch light was on, but Holiday guessed it had been activated by a timer or darkness. There were no lights on in the house.

He dialed the number to Ramone's cell.

'Yeah.'

'It's Holiday.'

'Hello, Doc.'

'Where you at? It sounds like a party.'

'Leo's, having a beer. What do you want?'

'Me and Sergeant Cook caught up with our police officer friend. Car four sixty-one? It turned out to be nothing.'

'Big surprise.'

'But I lost Cook somewhere. I had to leave him for a bit, and when I came back, he was gone. I tried his house, and he's not there, either. I'm thinking he got confused or something. I don't even know if he can read street signs.'

'He had a stroke, not Alzheimer's. He'll turn up.'

'I'm worried about him,' said Holiday. He waited for a response but heard only bar sounds on the other end of the line. 'Gus?'

'Keep me posted. I'll be here for a while.'

Holiday hit 'end.' He sat in the Lincoln and thought about the old man and where he could have gone. There was only one place that came to mind.

T.C. Cook sat behind the wheel of his Marquis, parked on a side street in Good Luck Estates, a community off Good Luck Road in New Carrollton. He was looking at the ranch-style home of Reginald Wilson. There were no lights on in the house and few lights in the neighboring homes. The street was quiet and dimly lit.

Cook had been here for some time, thinking.

When Reginald Wilson came out of prison, he had moved into this house, which had been the home of his parents, both deceased. He had to have had his pre-term possessions in storage, or his parents had simply stored them here in this house. Cook knew that Wilson would never have abandoned his beloved collection of electric jazz albums. Maybe there was a clue to be found in all that vinyl. In any case, Cook surmised that Wilson would have kept the hair samples, his trophies from the Palindrome Murders, consistent with the behavior of this type of killer. Cook had to believe that those bits of hair, cut from the heads of Otto Williams, Ava Simmons, and Eve Drake twenty years earlier, were somewhere in the house that he was looking at now. Cook had convinced himself that this was a good time to see if he was right.

He knew that what he was about to do was a crime. But he felt that time was growing short. There was a good chance the hair samples were not in the house. But perhaps something was. Something that could link Reginald Wilson to the deaths of those kids. Enough of a something to warrant the reopening of the case. He was looking for an undeniable piece of evidence that would influence Detective Ramone to go to a judge and initiate DNA testing on Wilson. Cook was certain, as certain as he had been in '85, that Wilson was the one.

He retrieved his mini-cassette recorder from out of the glove box. He pushed the red 'record' button and spoke into the microphone.

'This is Sergeant T.C. Cook. I am about to enter the home of Reginald Wilson in Good Luck Estates. I have reason to believe that there is evidence inside the house that will connect Mr Wilson to the so-called Palindrome Murders, which occurred in Washington, D.C., in 1985. I'm looking for hair samples, specifically, that m-might have been taken off the decedents. I have no warrant. I am no longer an active-duty police officer. I've been working with a young man named Dan Holiday who is good police. But I want to state that he had nothing to do with this action I'm about to take. I am doing this of my own accord, hoping to bring some peace to the families. Also, to those beautiful children who were killed.'

Cook recorded the time and date, and shut off the machine. He wanted all of this on record, in case he was mistaken for a burglar and shot while he was trying to enter the house. He didn't want his legacy to be that of a crazy old man, burglarizing homes, like some fool who'd wandered off the streets in his bathrobe. He wanted people to know his intent.

The night was cool, but Cook was sweating right through his jacket. He took it off, folded it, and laid it on the passenger floor. He removed his Stetson as well and looked at the perspiration marks on the inner band. He placed the faded hat on the seat beside him, next to the recorder. He flexed and unflexed his left hand and stared at it because it felt stiff and odd.

Cook opened the trunk, using a switch mounted low on the dash, and got out of the car. He stumbled a little, walking to the back of the Marquis. Once there, he unscrewed the lightbulb under the trunk's lid. He didn't want to attract attention and he didn't need the illumination. He knew where everything was.

Cook put on a pair of latex gloves. He found his Stinger flashlight and his jimmy bar and put one in each hand. He found it difficult to hold the flashlight because that arm was numb. He heard his own heavy breathing and waited for his heart to slow down. He felt sweat trickle down his back. He closed the lid of the trunk and walked toward the house.

Cook began to go around the side of the house. His plan was to use the jimmy bar on a rear door and, once inside, negotiate his way using the flashlight. But he was feeling poorly and he stopped walking.

He had become very dizzy and he felt the need to lie down. He went back to the car.

The backseat was inviting. He slid into it, dropped the jimmy bar and the flashlight on the floor, and closed the door behind him. He lay on his side, with his right cheek on the cool vinyl covering. His left arm ached terribly, and now the ache had traveled up into his neck and caused an awful pressure in his head.

This will pass, thought Cook.

He closed his eyes. Drool dripped from his open mouth onto the vinyl seat.

When T.C. Cook opened his eyes, it was daylight. He had slept the night away in the car. He felt better than he had before.

Cook sat up. He was back on Dolphin Road, parked in front of his house. The yellow siding was as clean as the day he had installed it many years ago. In the bay window that fronted the house he could see a woman looking through parted curtains. She looked like his wife. A boy and a girl were on the sidewalk, swinging ropes for double Dutch, and another girl was between them, jumping.

Cook picked up his Stetson, which looked brand-new. He fitted it on his head and got out of the car.

The sunlight was pleasant on his face, and he could smell lilacs in the air. His wife tended carefully to the tree that blossomed in the front yard. It must be April, thought Cook, as he walked toward the house. 'Cause that's when those lilacs bloom.

He approached the kids playing on the sidewalk. The boy holding the ropes on one side was fresh in his teens, with thick eyeglasses and a gangly build. The girl holding the other side was also young but had the lush curves of a woman. She had a hint of mischief in her eyes.

The girl in the middle, who was double-Dutching with ease, had beautiful dark brown skin and eyes. The sunlight winked off the colored beads in her braided hair. She jumped out of the ropes fluidly and stopped to stare at Cook, standing by the curb. She smiled at him, and he returned her smile.

'Hello, young lady,' said Cook.

'Sergeant Cook?'

'It's me.'

'We thought you forgot us.'

'No, darling,' said Cook. 'I never did.'

'You wanna play with us?'

'I'm too old. You don't mind, I'll just watch.'

Eve Drake made a come-on gesture with her hand, and the kids resumed their game. T.C. Cook stepped toward them in the bright and warming light.