The Night Gardener

'Your son was tight with this boy?' said Rhonda Willis, riding shotgun in the stripped-down, four-banger Impala, the most basic model Chevrolet produced. She and Ramone were going up North Capitol Street.

'Diego has a lot of friends,' said Ramone. 'Asa wasn't his main boy, but he was someone Diego knew fairly well. They played football on the same team last year.'

'He go

'I don't know. When my father died, he felt it because he saw the grief hit me. But this kind of thing is wrong in a different way. It's just u

'Who's going to tell him?'

'Regina will pick him up at school and give him the news. I'll call him later. Then I'll see him tonight.'

'Y'all talk about the Lord much in your house?' said Rhonda.

'Not too much,' said Ramone.

'This one of those times you should.'

Rhonda's adult life had been challenging, what with having to raise four boys on her own. The God thing definitely worked for her. It was her rock and it was her crutch, and she liked to talk about it. Ramone did not.

'What's in your gut?' said Rhonda, cutting the silence in the car.

'Nothing,' said Ramone.

'You knew this boy. You know his family.'

'His father and mother are straight. They kept a close watch on him.'

'Anything else?'

'His father's kind of an unyielding guy. Athletics, the classroom, everything… He rode his son pretty hard.'

'Hard enough to push the kid someplace bad?'

'I don't know.'

"Cause that can do as much damage as not bein there at all.'

'Right.'

'You ever have any kind of indication or feeling that the boy was into something wrong?'

'No. That doesn't mean he wasn't. But I got no reason to think he was.'

Rhonda looked across the bench. 'Did you like him?'

'He was a good kid. He was fine.'

'I'm sayin, how did you feel about him? You know, how a man looks at a boy and sizes him up?'

Ramone thought of the times he'd seen Asa on the football field, making half-assed tackles, sometimes moving away from the man ru

'He lacked heart,' said Ramone. 'That's about the only thing that comes to mind.'

There was something else Ramone had felt sometimes, catching a kind of weakness in Asa's eyes. Like he could be got or took.

'Least I got an honest opinion out of you.'

'Doesn't mean anything,' said Ramone, mildly ashamed.

'It's more than Garloo's go

'I just need to get up there and get a look at things.'

'If we ever get there.'

'They give all the real vehicles to the regular police,' said Ramone.

'We do get the bitch cars,' said Rhonda.

Ramone punched the gas, but it only made the engine knock.

The crowd at the crime scene had thi

'The Ramone,' said Wilkins. 'Rhonda.'

'Bill,' said Ramone.

Ramone sca

'Got a call from the office that you were coming out,' said Wilkins. 'You knew the decedent?'

'Friend of my son's,' said Ramone.

'Asa Johnson?'

'If it's him.'

'He was wearing one of those middle school photo IDs on a chain around his neck. His father identified the body.'

'Is the father here?'

'Hospital. His wife lost it completely. The father's there with her now. He wasn't looking so good himself.'

'Anything yet?' said Ramone.

'Kid was shot in the temple, exit wound at the crown. We found the slug. Flattened, but we'll get a caliber on it.'

'No gun.'

'Uh-uh.'

'Casings?'

'No.'

'What're you feeling?'

'Nothin, yet.'

Ramone knew, as did Rhonda and Loomis, that Wilkins had already formed a likely scenario and eliminated some of the other possibilities. The first assumption that Wilkins had made, seeing a black teenager with a fatal gunshot wound, was 'drug thing.' A murder involving business, what some D.C. cops openly called 'society cleanses.' Darwinism put in motion by those in the life.

Wilkins's thoughts would then have gone to murder in the commission of an armed robbery. Except what would a kid this age have, in this middle-income part of town at best, that could be of any real value? The North Face coat, the one-hundred-dollar sneaks… but these were still on him. So this scenario was doubtful. He could have been robbed for a roll of money or his stash. But that would have brought it back to a drug thing.

Maybe, Wilkins imagined, the victim had been hitting some other yo's girlfriend. Or looked at her like he wanted to.

Or it could have been a suicide. But black kids didn't do themselves, thought Wilkins, so that was not likely. Plus, no gun. The kid couldn't have punched his own time card, then disposed of the gun after he was dead.

'What do you think, Gus?' said Wilkins. 'Was this kid in the life?'

'Not to my knowledge,' said Ramone.

Bill Wilkins had acquired the nickname 'Garloo' because of his massive size, pointed ears, and bald dome. Garloo was the name of a toy monster popular with boys in the early to mid-'60s, and Wilkins had received the tag from one of the few veterans old enough to recall the loin-clothed creature from his youth. It suited Wilkins. He breathed through his mouth. His posture was hulking, his walk heavy. He appeared to those who first met him to be half man and half beast. The FOP bar kept a construction paper medallion, strung with yarn, with the name 'Garloo' crudely crayoned across its face, which Wilkins wore around his neck when he was drunk. In the evenings, he could often be found at the FOP bar.

Wilkins had six years to go on his twenty-five and, having lost the desire or expectation for promotion, was left with only the diluted ambition to hold on to his rank and position at VCB. To do so, he would need to maintain a reasonable closure rate. To him, difficult cases were curses, not challenges.

Ramone liked Wilkins well enough. Other homicide police went to him frequently with questions regarding their PCs, as Wilkins had outstanding computer literacy, facility, and knowledge, and was always ready to help. He was honest and a fairly decent guy. A little cynical, but in that he was not alone. As far as his investigative skills went, he had, as Rhonda said, a dull mind.

'Any witnesses?' said Ramone.

'None yet,' said Wilkins.

'Who called it in?'

'Anonymous,' said Wilkins. 'There's a tape…'

Ramone looked over at the uniformed police officer leaning against his 4D squad car within earshot of their conversation. He was on the tall side, lean, and blond. On the front quarter panel of his Ford were the car numbers, which Ramone idly read, a habit from his own days on patrol.