late and Edna is coming in to work early. I have undoubtedly entered the bizarro world.
Kevin has characteristically analyzed our case and laid out the things we need to do to really get started. First on the list is a trip down to the Walter Timmerman murder scene. He knows that I always like to start at the beginning and get a feel for myself what happened. I know I’m not going to magically find some evidence that the police missed, but it helps me feel grounded.
We still haven’t heard from Marcus, and I’m starting to get a little worried. I also haven’t heard from Pete Stanton, though Marcus was supposed to bring Childs to the police when he was done with him.
Kevin and I arrive at the murder scene, and my guess is that if you had given friends of Walter Timmerman’s ten thousand guesses as to the location where he might someday die, this actual place in downtown Paterson would have placed behind Mozambique and Mars.
I’m sure the feeling Kevin and I have is different from what we would experience if we came here at night, which is when Timmerman took the bullet. At this hour of the day the feeling is dreary and hopeless; it seems as if all available energy has been sucked out of the neighborhood. The unemployed, many of them probably homeless, get through the day talking on the corners and reclining on the curbs. For some reason I think of the line in the Simon and Garfunkel song, “A good day’s when I ain’t got no pain. A bad day’s when I lie in bed and think of things that might have been.” By that standard, these people seem to be experiencing a good day, but their lives have surely long ago started “slip-sliding away.”
Were we here at night, we would likely be afraid. It would be a threatening, dangerous environment. Of course, the only way Kevin and I would come here at night would be in an army tank, encased in a bulletproof bubble, guarded by a marine battalion and Marcus.
I can’t stop thinking about Marcus. What if Childs somehow prevailed after we left? Maybe he hit Marcus over the head with a pipe when he wasn’t looking. Marcus is not invulnerable; even Luca Brazi sleeps with the fishes.
Timmerman was shot in an alley behind a convenience store.
Kevin and I enter the store, which seems to only sell items identified by their Spanish name, and we talk to the clerk behind the counter. He’s about eighteen years old, and watches us approach with obvious indifference.
“Hi. We’re investigating the murder that took place in that alley awhile back. We’d like to look around, if that’s okay with you.”
He doesn’t say a word; I can’t tell if he doesn’t understand English or is just not interested in the way we are using it.
“So we’ll just look around, all right?”
Again not a word.
“Kev, you want to jump in here?” I ask.
“No, you’re doing great.”
“Thanks.”
I reach for a package of Mentas, which looks and sounds like it must be mints, and hand the clerk a twenty-dollar bill. “Keep the change,” I say, and for the first time I see a flicker of understanding.
“We’ll be out back,” I say, and Kevin and I leave the store.
“Out back” is little more than a few Dumpsters and some garbage that didn’t make its way into one of them. It is no longer a protected crime scene, but there remains the faint outline of a chalk mark that identified where Timmerman’s body was found. It is covered by an overhang from the building, which is why it hasn’t been completely washed away by summer rains. There are also what appear to be faded bloodstains on a cement wall nearby.
There is not going to be anything for us to find here, and I can’t imagine Walter Timmerman felt any differently that night. From what I know about him, there does not seem to be a possible reason for him to have come here willingly. In the unlikely event he was out for drugs, or sex, he could have found a much better venue.
It seems far more likely that he was brought here for the purpose of being killed.
“He had to have been forced to come here,” I say.
Kevin nods. “That’s how I see it as well. Especially at night.”
“Why don’t you come back here tonight and check it out?” I ask.