Port City Black and White Page 20

  “The Garden Posse isn’t made up,” Brandon said.

  “You know I’m not saying that. Don’t twist my words.”

  “I’m not. I’m just telling you, I don’t think you should be around them if somebody from New York comes calling.”

  “So I drop my friends?”

  “I’d just give them a wide berth, I guess. Until we figure out whether this really was some random thing.”

  “And you’ll tell me when it’s safe for me to go outside?”

  “I’ll tell you what I find out.”

  “Goddamn it, Brandon. So I’m supposed to pretend to be friends with these people while you’re playing detective?”

  A couple, sweaters tied around their necks, a baby in a stroller, turned and looked at the couple arguing.

  “I’m not playing anything. I’m trying to keep something bad from happening to you.”

  “Well, I don’t need protection. I just need a normal life. I just need us to be us, and not you be a cop all the time and have me standing there on the sidelines, waiting for you to come home. And I want to be able to go out. And I want to have friends. I want us to have friends, together. I want things to be the way they were before.”

  Mia paused.

  “Before I joined?”

  “Right.”

  Another long pause, both of them staring straight ahead.

  “I can’t go back,” Brandon said.

  “I’m beginning to see that.”

  They sat. Brandon heard a radio squawk, turned to see Kat waiting in the cruiser. Mia saw Brandon look over, said, “Go ahead, go with her.”

  “I’ll get you home,” he said.

  “I can get myself home.”

  She put the car in gear, turned away from him.

  “Mia, this is—”

  “Go, Brandon. It’s what you want, so just fucking go.”

  He put his hand on her arm but she shrugged him off.

  Brandon got out and walked to the waiting cruiser. Kat waited as Mia backed out and pulled away.

  “Follow her across the bridge?” Kat said.

  “Yeah,” Brandon said. “But hang way back.”

  They followed the Saab, saw Mia punch in at the marina and slam the gate behind her. A silent ride back over the bridge, Brandon grim as the night began.

  A DWI stop on Park Street, habitual offender from Westbrook, floor covered with empty Bud cans. Woman on Munjoy Hill, somebody covering her car with poop. Guy reported saying lewd things to girls from a car in the Eastern Prom Park. They located him, Brandon telling him to go back to Lewiston; if he saw him in Portland again, he’d arrest him so fast his pervert head would spin.

  Kat gave Brandon the look.

  Dinner was takeout from Whole Foods, eaten in the car. Brandon was quiet and Kat waited until they were done before she asked.

  “So what is it?”

  “What?”

  “The trouble on the home front.”

  He told her: Mia’s dad, Mia wanting him to turn it off and on, being a cop.

  “Isn’t that easy. Kind of like being a minister—you’re never totally off duty.”

  “That’s what she’s afraid of.”

  “You care about each other, you’ll work it out,” Kat said. “We did. When I first met Roberta, I mean, she’s teaching at USM. I’m out on the streets, wrestling drunks. Then turns out she’s really afraid of guns.”

  They tossed the trash in the bin, headed back out. Chooch called, said a subject on Mellen Street was reporting his Nissan SUV stolen. Kat said they’d head over. Brandon drove.

  “So she’s afraid of guns?” he said.

  “Can’t even look at them.”

  “So what’d you do?”

  “We found a way. Guns in the gun locker. I go easy with the stories from work.”

  “But do you go to faculty cocktail parties?”

  “Sacrifices, Blake,” Kat said. “The things you do for love.”

  They were headed in town on Forest, took a left onto Park. Chooch again, saying the guy had called back, his girlfriend had the car. Never mind. Brandon took the left on Mellen anyway, a right on Granite.

  “How’d I know you were gonna do that?” Kat said.

  Brandon didn’t answer, drove down the block. Approaching 317 he slowed. There were two Harleys in the driveway, black and stripped down, both with Massachusetts plates.

  “Cawley’s got company?” Kat said.

  “Mi biker casa es su biker casa,” Brandon said.

  “When Cawley’s away?” Kat said.

  They parked across the street, Brandon typing in the registrations of the bikes on the laptop. They came up with owners in Revere and Chelsea. Brandon ran the names, came back with nicknames (Chico and Hammer) and gang affiliations: Blades Motorcycle Club.

  Chico and Hammer had not unsubstantial criminal records—assault, criminal threatening, drug trafficking—but nothing recent, no active warrants.

  “We’ll just see if they can direct us to Mr. Cawley,” Kat said.

  They went in the side door, heard heavy metal playing, Brandon stepping up to knock. Both of them freezing. Listening.

  A girl’s voice saying, “Stop it, stop it. No, don’t.”

  Kat and Brandon looked at each other, heard the girl again, “Let me out of here. Stop it!”

  Brandon lifted his boot, kicked the door open.

  The girl was sitting on the couch—skinny, hair dyed clown red—a big bearded guy on each side. Her top was hiked up above her breasts, her shorts pulled down. A Jack Daniel’s bottle on the floor.

  “Friggin’ A,” the guy on the left said, the other guy coming off the couch, the girl bolting for the door, little steps as she pulled her shorts up. Kat reached for her but the girl ducked and dodged, was out into the hall, the outside door banging.

  “I’ll get her,” Kat said, and ran out. The other guy stood, too, said, “You ain’t got no warrant.”

  “Girl was in distress.”

  “Says who?”

  It was the guy on the right—way over six feet, jacked, tattoos covering both arms, the skull with the knife in the eye socket.

  “Says me.”

  “Why don’t you go find your mama,” the other guy said, “and get the fuck out of here.”

  They started toward him.

  “I wouldn’t advise you to do that,” Brandon said.

  They stopped. Grinned. The smaller guy—six feet, shoulders like a wrestler, shaved head and goatee—said, “What are you gonna do? Shoot us?”

  “Only as a last resort,” Brandon said.

  The radio spat. “She’s fourteen,” Kat said. “Hold ’em.”

  “Said she was eighteen,” the big guy said.

  “Wanted it bad,” the smaller guy said.

  “Sit back down,” Brandon said.

  “You don’t know who you’re fucking with,” the wrestler said.

  “Chico and Hammer,” Brandon said.

  They stared. “You better hope you got help coming,” the wrestler said.

  Brandon reached for his belt.

  “Gonna spray me, kid?” Hammer said.

  “Gonna arrest you,” Brandon said.

  Hammer leapt, grabbed for Brandon’s shoulders. They spun together, Chico watching, waiting for an opening. They slammed against the wall and Brandon got the pepper spray out, gave Hammer a blast. He hung on and Brandon sprayed him again, Hammer letting go with one hand, reaching for his eyes, Brandon putting a leg in, slamming him to the floor.

  The house shook. Brandon was on Hammer’s back, yanking the arms up, the guy pulling one arm underneath him.

  “Stop resisting!” Brandon shouted, reaching for the yellow Taser gun, turning and aiming it at Chico, coming toward him.

  “You first,” Brandon said, the gun’s ready-light on, and Chico stopped. Kat blew into the room, leapt over Brandon and Hammer, and drove Chico back onto the couch, kicked his legs out, rolled him over, locked his legs up with hers, and cuffed him.
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  “You’re under arrest,” she said, “on a charge of unlawful sexual contact, criminal restraint, supplying alcohol to a minor. You have the right to remain silent,” Kat said.

  “Kiss my ass—,” Chico said.

  “Wouldn’t kiss your shadow,” Kat said. “And I promise that every filthy word that comes out of your filthy mouth will be held against you.”

  Hammer let his other arm go slack and Brandon yanked it up, got the cuff on the wrist.

  “Where’s Cawley?” Brandon said.

  “You’re a dead man,” Hammer said.

  The arrest wagon, Hammer and Chico with fists full of cash for bail, the girl turned over to a state child protective worker. More reports, typed out in the cruiser, e-mailed in.

  “They can say what they want about you, Blake,” Kat said. “You’re no pussy.”

  Brandon pulled away, headed toward the ballpark, quiet with the Sea Dogs away. He took a right and Kat cleared her throat, said, “This thing with Mia.”

  “Yeah,” Brandon said. “I guess she just feels like—”

  Kat held up her hand. The radio had garbled something and they’d missed it, but other units were coming back.

  “Black or white?” someone said. Perry.

  The dispatcher, Mary Vee, not Chooch, said, “Young black female.”

  “Shit,” Kat said.

  “What?” Brandon said.

  “Another floater, Blake,” she said.

  Cruisers on the wharf, a police launch easing up to the float below, a lump under a green tarp on the stern deck, water puddled around it. Cops peering down.

  Déjà vu.

  It had started to rain, a shower that came in bursts with the wind. A rescue truck rolled in, no siren, lights flashing, wipers keeping time. The crew yanked a stretcher from the back, dropped the wheels down, rolled it to the edge of the ramp, carried it down to the float, lowered it again. The EMTs stepped over the gunwales of the launch, reached back and eased the stretcher onto the deck. For a moment they stood, looking down, and then they squatted. Lifted. Water ran onto the deck, then onto the stretcher as they laid the body on it. The rescue crew, a man and woman, hopped onto the float. The launch officers lifted the stretcher back onto the float and the rescue crew raised the stretcher and pushed it up the ramp to the wharf.

  Gulls circled and cried, waiting for scraps from the catch. A bare foot dropped from the edge of the tarp, the sole the color of cooked salmon.

  “Oh, no,” Brandon murmured. Kat, standing beside him, touched his arm.

  O’Farrell and Smythe, grim-faced, stepped closer. It was O’Farrell who nodded to the woman from Rescue. She reached for the edge of the tarp, peeled it back. Fatima Otto stared up at them like a patient from a hospital bed. Rain fell on her skin. One drop. Another. Another.

  “God damn it, ” Brandon said.

  O’Farrell looked at him.

  “The Otto girl?”

  Brandon nodded. O’Farrell crouched over Fatima, her open lips pinkish like her feet. The rose-colored hijab had slipped down and was gathered in a sodden lump under her neck. Her hair was black and thick, clinging to her head like seaweed. Crabs had already started on her nose and ears, the picks showing white.

  “Going over the rail here like freaking lemmings,” Perry said.

  “That’s a myth,” Brandon said.

  “What?” Perry said.

  “That lemmings commit mass suicide.”

  Perry looked at Kat.

  “It’s like riding with a Trivial Pursuit game,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, these girls, no myth about that,” O’Farrell said.

  O’Farrell nodded to the Rescue tech and she covered Fatima gently, as if not to wake her. The detective stood.

  “I can see Chantelle, blaming herself for losing her child,” Brandon said. “But not Fatima.”

  “You don’t always know what’s going on in a person’s head,” Kat said.

  “We’ll look for a note,” O’Farrell said. “Maybe she told somebody.”

  “We can round up the Ottos,” Perry said.

  “The painter kid,” Kat said.

  “Cawley, the biker,” Brandon said. “He hit on her. At least, that’s what she told Lil Messy.”

  “Who else did she talk to?” O’Farrell said. “Who were her confidants?”

  “I talked to her once,” Brandon said.

  “What’d she say?”

  “Said she didn’t really fit in here. Felt like she didn’t fit in anywhere.”

  “And she had this ghost thing going on,” O’Farrell said.

  “So the ghost, it’s one more thing that isolates Fatima, makes her feel even more alienated,” Kat said.

  “It’s never just one thing,” O’Farrell said. “It’s a lot of straws, and one just happens to break the camel’s back.”

  He looked over as the rescue techs slid Fatima into the back of the truck.

  “So to speak,” O’Farrell said.

  The three cruisers rolled down Granite Street, Kat and Brandon, O’Farrell and Smythe, Perry alone. Well past midnight, and kids were on the sidewalks, looking up, calling out, “Hey, Five-Oh.” The cars pulled up like they were delivering an important person, not just grim news.

  O’Farrell led the way up the driveway, motioned to Brandon and Kat, saying, “Start on the building but give me five. I want to tell the dad first, out of respect.”

  He went inside with Smythe. Brandon checked his watch. Kids had gathered at the end of the driveway, wondering what the cops wanted, sensing that this wasn’t the usual noise complaint, someone serving a warrant. The crowd started to grow, bicycles coursing back and forth, one kid dribbling a basketball. And then, four minutes gone, there was a shriek from inside. Then a wail.

  The kid held the basketball. Mrs. Otto had gotten the news. They waited and O’Farrell got on the radio. They were going to have tea with the parents. Everybody else could move.

  “Let’s go,” Perry said.

  Kat and Brandon hit the first floor, no answer at Cawley’s, no bike in the driveway. The Youngs were home, the television cackling. They rang the bell, waited. After five minutes they heard shuffling inside, the TV still playing loudly. Brandon hit the bell again and they stood close, out of the rain. Another five minutes passed and then the chains rattled and the door shuddered open.

  Annie Young appeared, bathrobe snugly in place.

  “Now what?” she said.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Kat said.

  “I’d like to say it’s no bother, but it is, getting someone out of the shower at one in the morning.”

  “Sorry,” Kat said. “But it’s important.”

  Kat told her why they were there. Annie Young said, “I’m very sorry. She seemed like a nice girl. Isn’t that always the way, though? The good suffer all sorts of calamities while the hooligans and criminals go their merry way.”

  “Had you seen Fatima recently?”

  “Just walking down the street.”

  “Not to talk to?”

  “No. We wouldn’t have much to talk about.”

  “The weather? Things in the neighborhood?” Brandon said.

  “Africans don’t make small talk with white people,” Annie Young said.

  “So you wouldn’t know if she’d been despondent?” Kat said.

  “The black thing on their heads, they always look like they’re going to a funeral,” Annie Young said. “But no. She was very quiet. Kept in her place by her father, I would say. That’s how those families work.”

  “Really.”

  “You should know that, working with these people. Cultural differences are very important.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Kat said.

  “How is your mother?” Brandon said.

  “In general, fine. This moment, sleeping.”

  “I hear her TV,” Brandon said.

  “She sleeps right through it. And it drowns out the scum on the street and the fornicators next door.”
r />   “Fornicators?” Kat said.

  “The biker and his porn star.”

  “Oh.”

  “I tell you, this street has gone completely to hell.”

  “In general, or in the past few days?” Brandon said.

  “In general.”

  “It does seem like one thing after another,” Kat said. “Especially since Chantelle’s baby went missing.”

  She looked away, then back at Annie Young.

  “What do you think happened there—if you had to come up with a theory?”

  “Well, none of my business, but Mom and I figure she probably gave it away. Traded it for pot or something.”

  “Is that right?” Brandon said.

  “Too addled in the head to know what she had.”

  “What she had?” Kat said.

  “You know what white families will pay for a healthy white American baby?”

  “It’s illegal to sell a child,” Brandon said.

  “Oh, there are ways a mother can be compensated. Look at the way these women rent out their wombs.”

  “Surrogates,” Kat said.

  “Right. It’s like these lesbians and gays, they can’t make their own so they need to adopt from someone normal. Sometimes they even take the egg from the lesbian and the, well, you know, from some man, and they do the implant thing and the lesbian actually has a baby.”

  “No kidding,” Kat said.

  “Any aberration you can think of, it’s out there.”

  “Really,” Brandon said.

  “I think one of her crew, the druggie crowd, they looked at that little baby and they saw a gold mine. Stole him and sold him on the black market. You’ll never find him.”

  “We’re working on it,” Kat said.

  “Might be a good thing in the end. He had no future there. Fifteen years, he’d have been drinking and drugging himself.”

  “You sound like your mother,” Brandon said.

  “Like my mother says, apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Annie Young said.

  They paused. Brandon thought Annie Young seemed remarkably chipper for someone who had just learned that one of her neighbors had been fished out of the harbor.

  “So, Fatima, she would have been imagining the ghost, if Lincoln had been sold to some couple somewhere.”