Port City Crossfire (A Brandon Blake Mystery, Book 1) Page 18

  He glanced at her, hesitated, said, “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like, who’s gonna understand? I mean, really. If they haven’t been through it.”

  “Shot somebody?”

  “Yeah. I mean, you can think you know what’s it’s like, you can imagine it, but it’s not the same. As actually doing it, I mean.”

  “No, it’s not the same,” Brandon said.

  “How’s it going with your girlfriend there? She was on the news. Wicked cute.”

  “Mia? She’s hanging in, I guess.”

  “You’re not sure?” Danni said. She turned toward him on the seat, her white running shoes on the rail.

  He felt himself draw back, away from the probing. Then something about her. It was like she understood.

  “Well, it’s hard,” Brandon said. “I don’t want to drag her into everything. But then she ends up dragged in anyway. It’s like it’s my problem—”

  “And you have to carry it alone, right?” Danni said. “Because nobody can walk in your shoes. Nobody would get it ’cause they weren’t there. And you have to carry the whole thing and it gets heavier and heavier until sometimes it feels like you’re gonna bust in half.”

  She caught herself.

  “You sound like you’ve been here,” Brandon said. “In my shoes.”

  She slipped down from the seat, looked flustered, tugged at her ponytail. “Nah. I mean. Nothing like you’re doing.”

  “Like what then?” Brandon said.

  She looked like she was going to reply, then stopped. Took a deep, deliberate breath. Another. And then she moved to the ladder, looked at her phone and said, “Holy shit. I can’t believe I’ve been here this long. I’m late. Can you row me back?”

  Danni turned, stepped carefully down to the deck. She hurried to the stern, waited for him to untie the dinghy. He held it as she climbed in heavily, the diary clutched in one hand. Brandon eased down and in and sat and took the oars. He rowed away from Bay Witch, toward the yacht club float. Danni was quiet, looked away from him and out at the shoreline: the water lapping at the greasy rocks

  They reached the float and Brandon swung the dinghy broadside, held on to a cleat. Danni put the diary on the float first, then heaved herself up onto her knees, stood and turned and said, “Don’t mind me. I just have an imagination, you know?”

  Brandon nodded and she turned to go. Then turned back.

  “Maybe we could talk again,” Danni said. “I mean, I’m not hitting on you. Not one of those cougar things. There’s just something—”

  A flash of motion, a guy coming from the shingled yacht club building.

  “Hey,” he called, approaching. “This is private property. And is that your boat on that mooring?”

  He was onto the float, stopped next to Danni, looked down at Brandon. A tanned, stocky guy, maybe 70. Khakis and boat shoes and a dark blue polo shirt with an insignia Brandon didn’t recognize. “You can’t just come in here with that old thing, tie up anywhere. This is members only and that’s the Griswold’s mooring.”

  “Where’s their boat?” Brandon said.

  “It’s out for the season but that’s not the point.”

  Brandon slipped his wallet out, flipped it open and held up his badge.

  “Police business,” he said.

  The guy stopped.

  “We’re conducting an investigation. Up river.”

  He waited for the guy to get it. He did.

  “Drugs, huh? Woodford’s full of ’em.”

  Brandon didn’t answer. Danni looked at him and said, “Roger that,” and turned and walked away. The guy looked out at Bay Witch and said, “Do what you need to do, but don’t let the members know I said so.” Brandon nodded and the guy hurried away before he could be seen.

  He sat in the dinghy, took out his phone. He flipped through his contacts and tapped the number. Waited, the dinghy gently rocking.

  “Officer Davey? Brandon Blake. Portland P.D.”

  He never had to worry about whether somebody remembered him.

  “When you have a few minutes, I’d like to talk,” Brandon said.

  Davey said he had a few minutes. Brandon told him where he was.

  “I came by boat.”

  “I know,” he said. “It was on the news.”

  Brandon sat, waited. Reached into the back pocket of his jeans and took out the page from the diary. Folded it carefully and slipped it back. Wondered how long it would take Danni to call.

  Sixteen

  Brandon watched it on his phone: a video of his boat rumbling away from the wharf in Portland, Bay Witch showing on the stern. The blurb said, Portland Police Officer Brandon Blake sails away from an altercation with RealPortland editor Matt Estusa. Blake assaulted Estusa as he attempted to interview the embattled cop, who had just left a grilling by Portland police higher-ups. Portland police refused to comment on the incident, which comes just three days after Blake shot and killed Thatcher Rawlings, 16, in the city’s Old Port.

  On Facebook, the video had 436 views. 39 shares. The comments went off the screen. “Why is this guy not in jail?”

  “Jesus,” Brandon said.

  “Hey, Officer Blake,” Davey said.

  He was looking down at the float and the dinghy. He motioned with a nod back to his cruiser, idling in the parking lot. “Your place or mine?”

  Brandon hopped up on the float, double-checked the bowline. Walking to the cruiser, he gave the yacht club guy, watching from the clubhouse deck, a discreet salute. Police business had commenced.

  “You look like crap,” Davey said, swiveling his computer away from Brandon and buckling his seatbelt.

  “Don’t like the beard?” Brandon said.

  Davey reversed, turned the SUV around, wheeled out of the lot.

  “Trying to grow a disguise.”

  “Things pretty rough up there, huh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Come down here to escape?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What’s the rest of the something?” Davey said.

  They were driving along the road off of the peninsula, stately shingled houses with long driveways and stone gates. They all looked the same, like a housing project for old money. Brandon gazed out, mulled the question. Problem with being around cops, they were all pretty good interrogators, saw right through the bullshit.

  “Danni. The woman with the tow truck guy.”

  “And Clutch,” Davey said.

  “Right. Repo man.”

  “I just saw a story. Somewhere out west. Said repo guys used to carry guns, pull the thing out, calm a situation down. Now everybody’s carrying. You pull the gun out, you’d better be shooting.”

  “Practice your quick draw.”

  “Guns friggin’ everywhere,” Davey said. He caught himself, looked over at Brandon. “Guess you know that. Your woman with the book there. And the jealous husband.”

  “Boyfriend. And it’s a diary.”

  “Right. After we talked the first time, I did ask around. Word is they keep kinda to themselves, especially him. Man of few words.”

  “Just what a used-car salesman needs,” Brandon said. “Makes his money off the wrecker?”

  “I don’t know. One of the old guys, sarge on desk, said he remembered a story Clutch got some kind of big insurance settlement years ago. What got him the wrecker and the garage.”

  “Car accident?” Brandon said.

  Davey shrugged, “Don’t know. Before my time. But give him credit. Most of these bums blow the money.”

  “Booze,” Brandon said.

  “Drugs.”

  “Vegas.”

  “All of the above,” Davey said.

  They were on the main drag, the old downtown. A café with an awning. A mill turned to condos. Scruffy people trudging down the sidewalk like they’d been displaced. Davey swung off Main Street, back into a neighborhood of tenements. Kids eyed the cruiser coldly. Cops, the occupying army.

&n
bsp; “Ever heard of anything kind of big with them? Domestic assault?”

  Davey shook his head.

  “Not in my time. Kinda quiet, really.”

  “Anything in July? She said something about July. I was thinking maybe he beat her up particularly bad or something.”

  “If he did, they kept it to themselves.”

  They drove, Brandon settling into the cruiser, this viewpoint on life. Like riding herd.

  Davey glanced over and said, “I think I know why you’re here.”

  “Had to return the book,” Brandon said.

  “No, I mean, here. With me.”

  Brandon looked at him. “Cheaper than a taxi?”

  “You miss being in a cruiser. You miss being around cops. You needed to come to a place where you’re not so well known.”

  “You ought to be a detective,” Brandon said.

  “Welcome to ride along for a while.”

  “All you need, protesters down here, too.”

  Davey looked doubtful. “Long way from liberal land up there,” he said. “Where do you want to go?”

  “How ’bout the library?” Brandon said.

  “You and the homeless people?”

  He smiled.

  “Me and the rest of the homeless people,” Brandon said.

  The library was a brick place on Main Street, vintage Carnegie on the outside, kindergarten colors on the inside, bright orange and green. The garish colors were muted by the drab people sitting at the tables, at a bank of computers. Women in sweatpants. Guys in camo. Some taking notes, some just staring.

  Brandon followed the arrows in the carpet to the service desk, found a gray-haired woman peering at another computer screen. She said, without looking up, “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so. You have the local newspapers on microfilm?” Brandon asked.

  “There’s only one. The Argus.”

  “May I take a look?”

  “What are you looking for? Maybe I can help you?”

  Still staring at the computer screen.

  “Real estate stuff,” Brandon said. “Foreclosure notices.”

  “Plenty of those around here, a while back.”

  “I imagine.”

  “Bakery shut down. Can’t pay a mortgage with nothing.”

  “Right.”

  “People living check to check. Lose the house. Lose the car. Maybe even lose the kids. Drugs. Drink.”

  “That right,” Brandon said.

  “Money makes the world go round,” the woman said. “Turn off the spigot, whole thing come to a stop.”

  “Right.”

  “Desperate times there for a while. Thank god for welfare.”

  “Better now?”

  “A little.”

  “Jobs came back?”

  “No,” the woman said. “People left. To the right, all the way down, then to the left. Microfilm room. Drawers have them by date. If you can read, you ought to be all set.”

  “I’m good,” Brandon said.

  “Used to be a nice town,” the woman said. “Now it’s everyone for themselves.”

  There were two machines side by side, one occupied. An older guy wearing a ball cap, reading glasses perched on his nose. He looked up and nodded. Brandon could see sports pages on his screen, football photos. Woodford Wins State Gridiron Title. Glory days.

  The cabinets were gray steel, big sliding drawers that shut with a bang. Brandon went back to 2012, found July. Then he went drawer by drawer, pulled July going back another five years. He went to the machine and sat, the other guy glancing over, shifting in his chair.

  Brandon didn’t know what he was looking for. Something that would warrant an anniversary. If Danni had meant their first date, their first sex, their first puppy, he was wasting his time. But he didn’t think so.

  He spooled the film on, pushed the lever. The days began streaming by, baseball scores, school kids winning awards, a house fire, a mother and toddler killed in a car crash.

  And then July 22. Town council trying to bring business in. Not much luck. A local woman who found her long-lost sister in Arizona. There was a resemblance. A guy arrested for trying to burn his own house down. He was drunk and his name wasn’t Clutch.

  Brandon checked July 22 through 25, figuring a daily newspaper ought to report a July 21 incident by then. 2012. 2011. 2010. More chronicling of the life of a mill town: car accidents, businesses closing, roads closed for repairs, new books at the library. 2009, 2008. People resigning from town boards, replacements sought. A cat that jumped out of a car and walked 12 miles home. A dog that saved its owner from a house fire. A local musician who made it big and was playing small clubs in Boston. A high school principal arrested for having sex with a student.

  Brandon pulled the reel off, put it on the used pile. Threaded 2007 onto the machine. The film whirred.

  July 18, 19, 20, 21. And then on the 22nd:

  A front-page story, three men found dead in a gravel pit. A local guy and two bikers from Lawrence, Mass., shot each other in what was believed to be a dispute over drugs. The bikers had long records; the local guy was Damian Sash, 20, arrests for possession of cocaine, drunk driving, and disorderly conduct, smashing a windshield during an argument with his mother. “While the case is still under investigation by the Woodford police, it is believed that Sash shot the two men before being shot himself. All three succumbed from their wounds.

  “Sash worked as a mechanic at Woodford Tire & Wheel. Calls to the tire shop requesting comment were not returned. A woman at the Sash residence on River Street declined comment, saying, “Get the f--- off our property.”

  A mechanic in Woodford? It had to be a small world. And the guy was around Clutch’s age. If he had been a longtime local, they might have known each other.

  Or not.

  What had Danni written? A guy who could do that and not blink an eye. Do what? Hurt her in some awful way? Strangle their puppy?

  Brandon leaned back in his chair. He looked over at the sports guy, who was taking notes in a binder.

  “How’s it going?” Brandon said.

  The guy looked over, startled.

  “Good. You?”

  “Fine. Hey, you play football here?”

  The guy puffed up. “Four years. State championship in eighty-one.” He nodded toward the screen.

  “Wow. Must’ve been something.”

  “Never forget it. The feeling. Holding that gold ball.”

  Brandon smiled. “I’ll bet.”

  “Play ball?” the guy said.

  Not a time to explain being homeschooled.

  “Basketball.”

  “Starter?”

  “No. Sixth man. Then the younger guys got better.”

  The guy nodded. “Happens.”

  “Listen, you’ve lived here a while, right?”

  “My whole life, ’cept for two years in the Air Force in Texas. Lackland.”

  “Here in 07?”

  “Oh, yeah. Daughter graduated from the high school in 2006. Played field hockey. All-state two years.”

  “Really,” Brandon said.

  “R.N. now, moved away. Lives in Portland. Don’t see her much or the grandchildren. Says I can look at their pictures on Facebook but, hell, I don’t have time for that.”

  “Right.”

  Brandon’s turn to nod to his own screen.

  “Remember this?”

  The guy leaned over, eyes narrowing as he peered through his glasses at the screen.

  “Oh, sure. Scumbags killed each other. Saved taxpayers a chunka money, not having to feed ’em in prison.”

  He looked at Brandon, waited.

  “Write for magazines. Thinking of doing a story on biker gangs trafficking in drugs.”

  “Christ, oughta line ’em all up and shoot ’em.”

  “Right,” Brandon said.

  He paused.

  “Know this Sash guy? Damian Sash? He was 20.”

  “I did.”

  “
Wow, really.”

  “Not that surprising, really. Christ, know most boys in this town, if they play ball. And that’s most boys, at least when they’re younger. This Sash kid played freshmen for a few weeks. Then he quit, like losers do. Turned into a druggie. I tell the kids on my teams, you can play ball or you can throw your life away. Your choice.”

  “Ever have a guy named Tedeschi? Sells cars out on Route 1?”

  “Nope. Had his brother, though.”

  Score, Brandon thought.

  “Yeah, big boy, had lots of potential. Linebacker type. I said, ‘Toby, you have a choice. Right path or the wrong one.’”

  “Which did he choose?”

  “Drinking, partying. Sixteen, he got drunk, racked up his car, now he walks with a cane. Hate to say I told you so but I did.”

  He didn’t seem to hate it at all.

  “Had to learn the hard way,” Brandon said. “You know, I met the other one. The guy with the wrecker. They call him Clutch.”

  “Toby’s little brother. Pulled my wife out of a ditch once. Was driving by, she’s stuck in the snow. Driving not her strong point. I said to the wife. ‘Well, at least one of ’em amounted to something.’”

  “Running a business and all.”

  “Right. And a wrecker, that runs you a pretty penny. Had that rig, Jesus, he couldn’t have been more than twenty-two, twenty-three. Rest of the Tedeschi crew, a sorry bunch. Shacking up, robbing off somebody’s welfare check.”

  Brandon nodded. “Always the way, isn’t it?”

  The guy held out his hand. “C.J.”

  “Brandon.”

  C.J. peered over his glasses. “You’re a writer, huh? Musta seen your stuff somewhere. You look awful familiar.”

  Brandon stood, gathered up the microfilm reels.

  “So when these biker guys were killed, was that a big deal around here?”

  C.J. shrugged. “Don’t recall it that much said about it. Good riddance to bad rubbish, you know?”

  “And the local kid. Sash? He know Tedeschi?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, once they quit the team, they were dead to me. But they were around the same time. 2006. Maybe 2005. Somewhere in there. I mean, must have bonded a little before they wimped out.”