Port City Black and White Read online

  “Who shot him?”

  “She says she did. Your friend.”

  “My God. I just thought it would have been—”

  “The boyfriend. I know. But he said this Gayle guy broke in, had a gun, demanded money, then the boyfriend—”

  “Winston.”

  “Right. The dead guy, not dead yet, he orders Winston to give him all the money.”

  “From what? The restaurant?”

  “I guess Mr. Winston—”

  “That’s his first name, actually,” Brandon said.

  “Right. I guess he sometimes took the receipts from the restaurant home with him. Looks like preliminarily the perp followed him home a little after three, waited until everybody was asleep. Breaks in. Door was pried open. They look up, he’s standing by the bed, pointing a three fifty-seven.”

  “Jesus.”

  “So your friend Lily there, all she’s said is that she couldn’t let him die. Her boyfriend.”

  “So she got the gun away from him?” Brandon said.

  O’Farrell looked away as the crime-scene guys arrived. “Third floor. Can’t miss him.”

  They trudged past, boxes in hand.

  “Had her own gun—or they did. Way I picture it, the intruder gets the drop on the guy, orders him out of the bedroom to get the money. Doesn’t realize there’s a gun in the bedroom. The girlfriend, she gets the gun, follows them out, and pow. All she wrote.”

  “One shot?”

  “Hers. Down he goes.”

  “But if he’s brandishing a weapon, making threats.”

  “Self-defense, way they tell it.”

  “Where’s Winston?”

  “They’re taking his statement out back.”

  “He upset?”

  “Not as much as the lady. Then again, he maybe just got his life saved. What do you know of him?”

  “Just met him a couple of times. Seemed like a nice guy. Likes to tell stories, buy people drinks at Rendezvous—named after his hometown on Barbados.”

  “I knew he was from somewhere like that,” O’Farrell said.

  “He and the girlfriend pretty tight?”

  “Oh, yeah. I mean, very. Kind of the cool Portland couple.”

  “What’s she do?”

  “Hangs out. Socializes. I don’t know what else.”

  “Not hurting for income, looks of things.”

  “I think her family has some serious cash,” Brandon said.

  “Trust-funder,” O’Farrell said, like it explained a lot.

  “His car here? The shooter?”

  “We’re thinking it’s this Lexus, parked around the block. Stolen out of New Jersey, illegal New York plates. Had ’em bring the drug dog, sniff around. Dog lit up.”

  “Drugs in the car?” Brandon said.

  “No, but lots of residue.”

  “So he’s a runner?”

  “Musta already made the drop,” O’Farrell said. “This Winston guy dealing, you think? Out of the restaurant or something?”

  “No sign of it that I’ve seen. But I can say he’s no wimp. Guy tried to pick a fight with me here at their house, this dinner party we were at. Had a thing about cops. Winston slapped him down, hustled him out the door, nice wrist lock.”

  “Well, Mr. Tough Guy oughta be glad his lady friend is quick on the draw.”

  They stood for a few minutes, O’Farrell on the phone to New York, Brandon watching the scene. He turned to watch as the ME’s people bumped down the steps with a stretcher, a green plastic sheet over the dead guy, the legs of the stretcher scissoring out. The guy’s feet were sticking out, Nike logo on the soles of his shoes. The stretcher rattled by, and Brandon got a closer look. Air Jordans. O’Farrell turned to go, turned back. “Blake. You know the Tribune is asking about you.”

  “Estusa?”

  “It’s been a year, hasn’t it?” O’Farrell said.

  “And three weeks.”

  “They’re cooking up something.”

  “What’d you tell him?” Brandon said.

  “That you had the makings of a very good cop,” O’Farrell said.

  “Thanks.”

  “I got you hired, Blake,” O’Farrell said, with the barest hint of a smile. “Just protecting my ass.”

  Lily and Mia were still in the back of the cruiser, Mia’s arm around Lily, Lily’s face pressed against Mia’s shoulder. Brandon walked by the car, heard Lily’s sobs through the glass, saw Mia patting Lily’s arm. He read her lips: “It’s going to be okay.”

  It hadn’t been okay for Brandon and Mia, not for a long time. Mia had wanted to go to counseling, so Brandon had gone with her, but the counselor, a bald guy with a beard and little round glasses, kept asking Brandon how he felt.

  “Relieved,” Brandon had said.

  “That’s good, but aren’t you also troubled, having taken a life?”

  “Not really,” Brandon had said. “I’m just glad he was the only one.”

  “It’s really okay to let it out,” the counselor said, smiling in a way Brandon supposed was meant to get him to spill his guts. “What are you feeling deep down?”

  “Deep down?” Brandon said. “I’m really, really glad I didn’t miss.”

  But everybody was different. That’s what the shrink at the Academy—another guy with a beard and glasses—had said. After a fatal shooting some cops were fit for duty the next week. Others were never the same.

  So Brandon could try to talk to Lily, tell her not to focus on her shooting the guy, but on the alternative. This dirtbag kills her. He kills Winston. He goes and spends their money on a week of hookers and a couple of cases of Cristal.

  Be glad you didn’t miss.

  Brandon walked up toward the side door of the house, saw curtains move in the windows of the big Victorian next door. When he turned the corner he saw Winston, head in his hands, sitting at a patio table with Pelletier and a detective from homicide named Amy Smythe, worked day shift. Brandon had seen her picture in the paper, nodded to her in the hall. She was a stud; he was a newbie.

  “Officer Blake,” Smythe said.

  He walked over as they all got up. Smythe put a recorder in her jacket pocket. Winston looked at her and she nodded, and he walked toward Brandon. He looked weary, like he might fall. He extended his hand and Brandon took it and Winston drew him close, clasped his arm, then pulled him into a hug. Brandon felt the other cops watching, the rookie all tight with some guy mixed up in a drug shooting. He stiffened, tried not to recoil.

  “Brandon,” Winston said. “It’s crazy, man. I can’t believe it. It’s like a movie.”

  “I know. But it turned out all right. It’ll be okay.”

  “Coming from you, I believe that, man. Keep telling me. Lily—”

  “Mia’s with her.”

  “The detectives, they’ll talk to her now?”

  “Nothing to worry about. She just tells exactly what happened. It’ll sort itself out.”

  “Right. But man, this guy, he was gonna kill us, I know. He wanted us to go in the car, go to the bank.”

  “That’s never good.”

  “Lily had no choice.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Brandon, they said you could take me for a coffee. We can’t go back in the house.”

  Brandon said okay, and they turned. Smythe had gotten in the cruiser, on the other side of Lily, Mia still sitting there, Lily with her head raised, wiping her eyes.

  “Oh, baby,” Winston said, and he started for the car.

  Brandon grabbed his arm, said, “You can’t talk to her yet. Let’s go.”

  “She’s gonna have trouble with this. I mean, man, she’s, like, sensitive.”

  Brandon led Winston away, toward the truck. “She’ll get over it,” he said. “Believe me.”

  They were crossing the lawn when someone called, “Officer Blake.”

  Brandon turned back, saw Smythe, beckoning him with a forefinger, like a schoolteacher pulling him aside on the playground. He walked
over as Pelletier led Lily back to the patio table, Mia standing by the cruiser.

  “Your buddy there,” Smythe said.

  “Not really my buddy.”

  “Whatever. Pay attention to what he says.”

  “Why?”

  “Easy to tell the truth twice,” Smythe said. “If you’re fudging it, then each time it gets harder. You lose track.”

  “You think something’s not right?”

  “I don’t think anything, Blake, not until I’ve got all the data.”

  Data, Brandon thought. It was like she was a teacher. Blonde hair pulled back, square serious jaw. Mrs. Smythe, cute but tough.

  “Kinda awkward, like I’m wearing a wire or something. I mean, these are my girlfriend’s friends.”

  “You’re a cop, Blake,” Smythe said, as she turned away. “Get used to it.”

  They went to Starbucks, the triangle building at Monument Square, took a table in the far corner. Winston sat on one side, Mia and Brandon on the other. Mia had tea, Brandon a black Colombian, Winston a mocha latte. They sat with their hands wrapped around the hot cups. Nobody spoke, and finally they sipped.

  “She saved my life,” Winston said.

  “Thank God,” Mia said.

  “And now she pays a price,” Winston said.

  “There’s counseling,” Brandon said.

  “You tell me who’s good,” Winston said. “We’ll get her right in. Fix this before it burrows into her, you know? Before these guilty thoughts, they find a home inside her.”

  Odd the way he used the language, Brandon thought. A different culture.

  “She had no choice,” Mia said. “We just have to keep telling her that. This was a situation that was put in front of her. She didn’t cause it.”

  “Right,” Winston said.

  They were quiet again. Sipped. A woman came and sat at the next table, opened a book.

  “She didn’t want to have a gun in the house,” Winston said.

  The woman looked up, just her eyes.

  “I said it was insurance, you know? I leave the restaurant last. People, they watch you.”

  “Were you carrying it?” Brandon said.

  “No. Lily said it scared her. She said I’d shoot myself.”

  “But you kept it?”

  “Put it in the drawer in the table by the bed. Kind of forgot about it.”

  “But Lily remembered,” Mia said.

  “Yes.”

  “How did she get to it?” Brandon said.

  “He said to get out of the bed. Lily, she had on underpants only. She didn’t want to get out of the bed without a top. He pointed the gun at her. She said, ‘Let me get my shirt.’ I get out, take my jeans, my shirt off the chair. He says, ‘Get the effing money.’ I say okay, he puts the gun on the back of my neck, and we start to walk out of the bedroom. Lily opens a drawer in the bureau. He spins around with the gun.”

  “Oh, my God,” Mia said.

  “I thought he was going to shoot her, right in the back. He says, ‘Put up your hands, you—.’ He used some bad words. She did, and he said, ‘Turn around.’ I think he wanted to see her. See her from the front. He says, ‘Very nice.’ I say, ‘Do you want the money or what?’ I didn’t want him to, you know, get other ideas. So I start out of the room and he turns to follow me, and she must’ve turned around again, taken the gun from the drawer.”

  Winston paused. The woman with the book pretended not to listen.

  “The gun was loaded?” Brandon said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’d showed her how to use it?” he asked.

  “No. She wouldn’t touch it. She said it scared her.”

  “Where did you get it?” Brandon said.

  He felt Mia’s glance.

  “From a guy who used to work in the restaurant. Washing dishes. He saw me with the money bag, he say, ‘Winston, man, you need protection.’ I say, ‘This is Portland, Maine. Not New York or LA or even Atlanta.’ He says, ‘You think there aren’t bad guys out there? You’re kidding yourself, man.’ ”

  “Did you?” Brandon said. “Buy the gun?”

  “No. I mean, I kinda forgot about it. Then this dishwasher guy, his name was Jake—he worked under the table. He brings the gun in. We go out to his car. He says he’ll sell it cheap. He’s selling stuff to pay child support. I pay him three hundred dollars. The gun and a box of bullets.”

  “Where’s Jake now?” Brandon said.

  “He quit. Said he was leaving the state, going to Florida or someplace. Something about the ex-wife hounding him.”

  “Well, thank God you had it there,” Mia said. “Who knows what would have—”

  “He had to kill us,” Winston said. “I mean, we could identify him. His face.”

  “Probably right,” Brandon said.

  “He said, ‘We’re going to take a ride.’ I’m thinking, we’re not coming back from this. What do I do? Drive the car into a tree? Tell Lily to jump out? I’m thinking this, and he has the gun back on my neck, pressing it hard.”

  Winston turned, showed a pinkish circle on the back of his neck. “It made a mark?” he said.

  “Yes,” Mia said.

  “So then what happened?” Brandon said.

  “I’m thinking, what are we going to do? And then Lily, she just—”

  “Shot him,” Brandon said.

  “Yes. He falls down. Looks up at me for a second, like he couldn’t believe it. And then he sort of breathed really hard. Three or four breaths, and then nothing.”

  He exhaled, like he was reenacting the guy’s last breath.

  “Winston, I’m so sorry,” Mia said.

  “I’m not,” Brandon said. “What kind of gun is it?” They both looked at him. Winston thought for a moment.

  “A Smith and Wesson. I don’t know much about guns. I remember Jake said they use the same gun on CSI Miami.”

  “So you had the safety on?”

  “In the drawer? Yes. I mean, you can’t just leave a gun around with the safety off, right?”

  “Good thing Lily knew to take the safety off.”

  “If it had just clicked or something?” Winston said. “Good Lord, I don’t want to think about it.”

  “Oh, don’t even say it,” Mia said.

  “She said she slid the thing forward, figured I wouldn’t have left it with the safety off,” Winston said.

  “Smart,” Brandon said. “Some people, they would have just panicked. Pointed it and tried to pull the trigger.

  “I mean, to think of it, to get the gun out, with this guy standing there with his gun on my neck.” Winston shook his head.

  “And she didn’t miss,” Brandon said.

  “Lily,” Winston said. “She’s just unbelievable. I love her so much.”

  The woman with the book looked up at the last part and smiled.

  They were in the galley, Mia making chicken caesar salad for lunch She hacked some cooked chicken breast into pieces with a butcher knife.

  “It was like you were interrogating him,” she said. “What difference does it make, what kind of gun it was? Was the safety thing on or off?”

  “I was just curious,” Brandon said. “It was pretty amazing, what she did.”

  “So just say that.”

  “Winston didn’t mind talking about it. Maybe it was good for him.”

  Mia chopped, put down the knife. She opened the refrigerator and took out a bunch of lettuce, started to tear it apart.

  “I think we should just let them talk about it when they want to. It doesn’t have to be this kind of grilling.”

  “It wasn’t a grilling,” Brandon said. “You want to see a grilling, wait until O’Farrell gets ahold of him the second time around. Every little detail.”

  “Let him do it, then. These are our friends.”

  “More yours than mine.”

  Mia took out two tomatoes, slammed the refrigerator door shut.

  “Why is everything so separate, Brandon? My friends, your frie
nds. My life, your life. We’re supposed to be together. It’s supposed to be one life.”

  “It is, but you just know her better. I’m not in your book club.”

  “You can at least be nice to her.”

  “I am nice to her.”

  “So just try to think about what she’s been through.”

  “I know what she’s been through, Mia,” Brandon said. “Have you forgotten?”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Mia said. “You’re the one who’s forgetting.”

  She let go of a tomato. It rolled off the counter, across the deck. Mia stood with her eyes closed and started to cry. Brandon went to her, took her in his arms.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered.

  “I’m sorry. All of this—it just came flooding back.”

  “I know.”

  “I was all right. I’ve been all right.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “I want it to stay away.”

  “I know.”

  “But Lily, sitting in the police car with her, it was like she was me. I was holding her but I was watching myself, all over again.”

  “I know. The guy on the stretcher, that’s when I felt it.”

  “We’ve got to stay together, Brandon. We’re in this together, right?”

  “Yes,” Brandon said. “We’re—”

  “Ahoy,” a voice called from outside the boat.

  They turned and saw Winston and Lily on the dock. Mia hurried aft and out onto the stern deck. Brandon picked up the tomato, put it in the bowl, and followed.

  They were hugging on the dock when he emerged. Lily, in khaki shorts and a sweater, looked frail and somber. Her eyes were hidden by big sunglasses, but her face was red and puffy. They came up the steps and Mia helped her aboard. Brandon leaned to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “How you doing?” he said.

  “Okay,” Lily said. “Just kinda worn out.”

  Winston said sorry, he had to run, he was late for the restaurant, Saturday lunch; his line chef had called in sick.

  “We’ll take good care of her,” Mia said, smiling. “We’ll see you tonight.”

  Winston jumped aboard, gave Lily a hug and a kiss, said, “I love you, baby,” and stepped down to the dock, hurrying off with a wave.

  Mia said, “Let’s eat, I’m starved,” and led Lily into the aft salon, up to the galley. Brandon followed, pulled a chair out for Lily, said, “After lunch, how ’bout a cruise?”