Port City Black and White Page 23

  “You saw them outside the house. Maybe they’ll wait until you’re with Lily. Two birds.”

  “I have a job here. My writing. A life.”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Yeah, well, right now I have to pack.”

  “Keep the door locked. Your car, too. You have your Mace? Check the backseat before you get in, because—”

  “Jesus,” Mia snapped. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want to deal with it right now, all of your police crap. Check it at the door, Brandon. Leave me out of it.”

  She turned, slammed the refrigerator door shut, stormed out of the room. Brandon heard the bedroom door shut, drawers opening and closing. He let himself out.

  He made sure the door locked behind him.

  The TV cameras were back at Granite Street. A missing baby; two young women leap to their deaths. One of the news crews was from Boston. The reporter—an unnaturally handsome young guy—had cornered a couple of passing Somali kids and was interviewing them, the camera rolling.

  “Their fifteen minutes,” Kat said.

  “The American dream,” Brandon said.

  The radio chirped.

  “O’Farrell,” Kat said. “The Oaks.”

  The brown Crown Vic was parked east of the duck pond. Brandon pulled up alongside, buzzed the windows down. O’Farrell was on the phone. They waited.

  “Yeah. New ball game. Oh, yeah. Full crew. We’re ready to rock and roll.”

  O’Farrell put the phone down. He looked somber, serious, even more so than usual.

  “How’s it going, Kat?” he said. “Blake.”

  “Got something for you,” Kat said.

  “Likewise,” O’Farrell said. He reached over, tapped at his laptop. Said, without looking back, “Shoot.”

  Kat looked at Brandon and nodded. Brandon told the cruise ship story: Alston Kelley on the ship, then dead in St. John, New Brunswick. More Jamaicans and drugs.

  O’Farrell looked up from the laptop, across at them. “Makes more sense than what we’ve got.” He thought for a moment. “Need a photo of this Kelley character. Cruise line can supply it.”

  “You want me to—” Brandon began.

  “What, you doing this on your own time, Blake?” O’Farrell said.

  Brandon shrugged. “Kinda hard to get anything done, chasing drunks all night in the Old Port,” he said.

  “Short on experience, long on ambition,” Kat said.

  “How ’bout you, Kat,” O’Farrell said.

  “Supplying sage guidance, when I can,” she said. “For my headstrong assistant.”

  “Speaking of which, keep it zipped on what I’m about to tell you. Won’t be released to the press for a couple of days.”

  The cops waited.

  “Fatima Otto,” O’Farrell said. “Prelim on cause of death. Drowning.”

  Something in the way he said it. They listened.

  “Water in the lungs.”

  “No other way to drown, right?” Kat said.

  “But it wasn’t water from the harbor.”

  They waited.

  “Freshwater,” O’Farrell said.

  “What?” Kat said. “Like she drowned in a stream and washed down?”

  “Freshwater with chlorine in it. Like she drowned in a bathtub, or a swimming pool.”

  “Fucking A,” Kat said.

  “Killed her,” Brandon said, “and then threw her off the bridge.”

  “She was pregnant,” O’Farrell said. “Four, five weeks.”

  “Oh, jeez,” Kat said.

  “Talk about dishonor,” Brandon said.

  “Tell me about it,” O’Farrell said. “We got shame coming every which way but Sunday.”

  The plan was to hit the house, twenty-one hundred hours. “After the news crews are gone,” O’Farrell said. “Check the bathtubs, the toilets, the sinks. Want you there, ’cause you know these people.”

  “Drown somebody in a sink?” Kat said.

  “You can drown somebody with a garden hose,” O’Farrell said, “if you can hold ’em down.”

  They assembled with the command unit at the Oaks, went to the apartments simultaneously, patrol cops and detectives, evidence techs heading for the bathrooms, bags in hand.

  The Ottos sat on the couch, all lined up like they were waiting for an audition. The boys kept checking their phones, looked sullen when Kat said, “No texting, please.” Mr. and Mrs. Otto looked defeated, murmuring a couple of words in Arabic but mostly staring straight ahead, like life as they knew it was over—again.

  Other cops had Cawley and the Youngs. The techs lighted the bathrooms for blood traces, found some in the Youngs’ bathtub, Cawley’s bathroom sink. The Ottos’ place was scoured.

  Everybody gave blood samples, Mrs. Otto clutching her husband as the process was explained to her by the interpreter, a pretty Iraqi woman with gold hoop earrings. Mrs. Otto kept shaking her head until Edgard rattled off something in Arabic, the only English words, TV and Law & Order. Once the techs had packed up and left, O’Farrell and Smythe took the Ottos out to the kitchen, one by one.

  Brandon and Kat stood in the living room. The boys had put earbuds in, sat on the couch, flicking through their iPhones. Mrs. Otto sat on the other end of the couch, legs pressed together, feet in turquoise-blue slippers. She jerked when she heard her husband’s anguished cry, “No.”

  O’Farrell and Smythe came back to the living room, Mr. Otto was wobbly, ashen-faced, like he’d just been tortured. Smythe smiled at Mrs. Otto and she looked to her husband. He murmured in Arabic and Mrs. Otto got up and walked to the kitchen, Smythe behind her.

  This time the cry had no words, just a soft wail. On the couch, the brothers were oblivious. When their time came, O’Farrell, leading the way to the kitchen, had to tell them to take the earbuds out.

  Brandon and Kat waited, standing by the television, Fatima’s framed photograph on the table beside it. A high school picture, the dark-skinned girl leaning against a white birch tree. Another weird American custom. Brandon kept glancing at the picture, Fatima barely smiling, but still a presence, something in the eyes.

  The Ottos sat side by side, upright and stiff, stared straight ahead. And then the brothers came out, sobered, the detectives behind them. “Mr. Otto,” O’Farrell said. “I’m sorry for your loss, and I thank you for your time.”

  Otto nodded, got up from the couch. His wife remained seated. The cops headed for the door, Brandon bringing up the rear. He felt a tug on his arm and turned back.

  Otto stood there, his wife watching from the couch. The boys stood side by side and listened.

  “Officer Blake,” Otto said. “When you know who killed my daughter, I only ask you this one favor.”

  Brandon waited.

  “Give us the name first. That’s all I ask.”

  “I really can’t do that, Mr. Otto,” Brandon said.

  “I will pay you,” Otto said. “You tell me how much. Whatever it is, I will find the money.”

  “I don’t want your money, sir,” Brandon said.

  Edgard looked at him. “Get lost, Five-Oh,” he said.

  “We take care of this ourselves,” Samir said.

  They clasped hands, twisted them, tapped them together. The good son. The gangbanger son. Their father leaned over, put his hand over theirs, like he was giving his blessing.

  Brandon was about to say, “Let the police handle it,” but he caught himself. He was the police. He turned and let himself out.

  “If you lie about an honor killing, does it diminish it somehow?” Brandon said.

  “Like, where’s the honor if you have to lie about it?” Kat said.

  “Something like that.”

  “If they’re really gonna handle it themselves, why tell us?” she said.

  Brandon thought. The motor idled. The strobes flashed and clicked. “Because they already handled it?” he said.

  “Just part of it, unless they got their own sister pregnant,” Kat
said.

  They were on Preble Street, just down from Congress, backing up Dever and Bannon on a DWI stop. Dever was giving a kid a field sobriety test, a young woman sitting on the curb watching, talking on the phone. The kid, a skinny white guy in gigantic shorts, staggered. Dever shook his head wearily, turned the kid and put on the cuffs. The girl, in short-shorts and heels, got up, started walking wobbily down the block, still on the phone.

  Dever, stuffing the guy into the back of the cruiser, looked up to give her backside a long look.

  “What a slime,” Kat said.

  “And then there’s Fatima, all those clothes on. The artist, you think?”

  “I think Lil Messy might be gay.”

  “No, he’s just a hipster,” Brandon said.

  “So who’s that leave? Cawley the Creeper?”

  “Could have been a relative stranger. Think Fatima would have told anybody if she were assaulted, or even coerced?”

  Brandon thought. “Maybe not right away,” he said.

  “Not if the guy used that as leverage,” Kat said.

  “More sex or he tells her father?”

  “And the woman is maybe even more responsible.”

  “For dishonoring the family,” Brandon said.

  “Right.”

  “But she says she’s going to tell. Can’t live like this.”

  “Guy knows the brothers will be coming after him, the gang maybe,” Kat said. “So he has to kill her before she rats him out.”

  “Make it look like suicide.”

  “But clumsily, it turns out,” Brandon said. “Who would know they could test the water in her lungs?”

  “Cops,” Kat said. “Anybody who reads Patricia Cornwell.”

  “Or watches CSI.”

  “So we find somebody who doesn’t read and doesn’t watch TV,” Kat said.

  “Narrows it down,” Brandon said.

  “Tell O’Farrell we broke the case,” Kat said, as Dever’s cruiser pulled away. Brandon switched off the lights and pulled away. At the corner of Congress they looked right, saw the girlfriend. She’d stopped and was leaning against a storefront, taking off her shoes. Barefoot, she continued on.

  “Give her a lift?” Brandon said.

  “Sure,” Kat said. “I don’t feel like pulling another one out of the harbor.”

  They dropped the girlfriend at an apartment house on Brackett Street, across from the school. There was a group hanging out on the basketball court, Cambodian gangbangers, their girls. Brandon and Kat sat in the cruiser while the woman, shoes in hand, fiddled with the key in the lock, then went inside.

  “This car stinks now,” Kat said. “Cigarettes.”

  “One of the brothers’ friends?” Brandon said. “Some gang thing?”

  “Hook up with the homie’s sister, keep it in the family?” Kat said. “I suppose. We still got that air freshener?”

  “In the trunk. Could’ve been some sort of offering.”

  “Their little sister?”

  “What’s mine is yours,” Brandon said. “To prove their allegiance.”

  “Jesus, Brandon,” Kat said, getting out to find the Lysol, the Cambodian guys watching. “Couldn’t they just shoot somebody?”

  A fight on Free Street, a kitchen knife on the ground but nobody stabbed. Two guys who ran from a convenience store on Munjoy Hill, picked up as they climbed a fire escape with the stolen thirty-pack of Bud. A three-year-old wandering down Congress, mom all apologies when they located her, said she fell asleep watching Comedy Central. “The kid musta got away. Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Brandon said she was welcome. Next time they’d call Human Services, so she’d better start watching her son a little more closely, unless she wanted the social worker knocking on her door. Parenting, he said, is a full-time job.

  The mom looked hurt and flounced away. Kat said, “That’s better.”

  It was almost 1:30 a.m. when Brandon pulled into the marina lot, shut off the motor. It ticked. Brandon reached for the door handle. There was a footstep to his left.

  Brandon turned, his hand to his gun.

  “Don’t shoot,” Winston said, flashing his big grin. “I’m just the delivery boy.” He was by the driver’s door, a white takeout tray in one hand, a plastic cup in the other.

  “Sorry,” Brandon said. “Didn’t see you coming.”

  “That’s because the night and me, we’re both very dark.”

  Another grin, Brandon opening the door, sliding out. Winston put the cup on the roof of the truck, held out his hand. Brandon clasped it, squeezed.

  “Good to see you. They got you on deliveries now?”

  “Oh, no, we just closed up. Lily, she tells me you having a bad day, my friend. So I’m thinking you need a good meal and a drink. Cheer you right up.”

  He held out the tray and Brandon took it.

  “Some curried lamb, macaroni pie,” Winston said. “Bajan comfort food.”

  “Thanks. That’s nice of you.”

  “Oh, and that’s not the nicest part.” He reached for the cup, covered with a lid. “This is the nicest part. A nice rum punch, my secret recipe, with the Foursquare rum. Everybody knows the Mount Gay. It’s very good, but the Foursquare—that to me is Barbados rum.”

  Brandon took the cup, ice rattling inside. “You didn’t bring two?”

  “Oh, gotta be up early, time to get home. Next time you have a day off, I’ll bring the bottle. To thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For the explanation. The guy on the ship who musta looked like me. Without that, none of it made sense, you know? Why me? I mean, I run a little restaurant. What’s that got to do with these posse guys?”

  “It could be the answer,” Brandon said. “Just a weird coincidence.”

  “Dodged the bullet, man,” Winston said.

  “You’re very lucky.”

  “I got a good woman, I’ll tell you that. I’m lucky to have her.”

  “Yes,” Brandon said. “And that you had a gun. And that she knew how to shoot.”

  “Oh, yes,” Winston said, smiling. “You don’t want to miss, not with these bad boys.”

  He patted Brandon’s arm.

  “Hey, but this is work for you. You go eat, have your drink. We’ll sit another time and solve all our problems,” Winston said.

  “It’s a deal.”

  “Things will work out. Mia, she loves you, man. I mean, you can tell.”

  “Not lately.”

  “Oh, women, they gotta process things, you know?” Winston said. “She’ll be back.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Been there, done that, my friend. I know a good lady when I see one. Learn that the hard way. Come to this country, get settled in. Bring my lady friend up from the island. Man, I thought it was true love, you know. Gonna have babies, get old and gray together.”

  “Didn’t work out?”

  “Oh, Regina, she’s a beautiful woman. Oh, yeah. She’s here with me for three months. We’re in Atlanta. Then she trades up. A real estate man. Millionaire. Many millions. Regina, she kicked me to the curb.”

  He grinned.

  “Hey, I don’t blame her. We all trying to get ahead. Last time I see her she’s getting out of a new Lexus, a convertible. Gorgeous black woman in this fancy car. People turn and look. Who’s that? Some supermodel? They don’t know it’s just Regina from Bridgetown, little two-room house with her brothers and sisters, Papa works on a golf course, keeping it green and smooth for the tourists. Now his little girl, she’s uptown, baby. Hey, all the power to her.”

  Brandon smiled. “I don’t think Mia’s moving up. I think she’s just moving out.”

  “Well, you don’t know. Absence, it makes the heart grow fonder. Sometimes people just need a little break.”

  “You and Lily?”

  “Hey, we got a good thing going. But that girl, she needs her space—you know what I’m saying?”

  “Mia says I’m not around eno
ugh. And when I am—”

  “Oh, time, it’s the great healer. You guys, you’ll work it out.”

  Brandon didn’t answer. Winston leaned forward and they clasped hands again.

  “You take care now, man. Tomorrow, it’s always another day, right?”

  Brandon nodded. Winston walked back to his Mercedes, parked in the darkness at the back of the lot. He must have been sitting there waiting for me to pull in, Brandon thought. It gave him a tingle of nervousness, that anyone could wait for him in this lot, nobody around at 2 a.m. A shot in the dark.

  He balanced the cup on top of the box, carried his bag in the other hand. The gate hadn’t closed and he was thankful for a second, pulling it open, no need to put his stuff down to punch in the code. He pulled the gate hard behind him, and it rattled, didn’t latch. He tried again.

  “Damn thing,” Brandon muttered, added it to his list for the morning.

  He crossed the yard, a cloud of bugs fluttering around the light on top of the main shed. A rat scurried under a rotting skiff, reminding Brandon it was time to put out more poison. His footsteps were muffled on the gravel and then he was on the ramp, walking quietly down. There were lights showing here and there on the boats, and he didn’t want to wake the live-aboards, anyone who had decided to stay over. The float creaked, rattling softly. When he came to Bay Witch, he put the food on the transom and stepped aboard. He slid the door open, carried the food into the salon, put it down on the table. Then he went below, got out of his gear, kicked off his boots, peeled out of his uniform. He put on shorts and a T-shirt, found his flip-flops in the locker, and went back up to collect the food.

  Nice of them. Maybe he was wrong, always thinking the worst.

  Grabbing a fork from the galley, he went out the sliding door, circled along the rail and up to the foredeck. There were two chairs there, only one needed now, and he pulled one to him, facing the water. Brandon sat.

  Fog was draped over the harbor, blurring the lights of the city skyline. The red strobes on the towers flashed like fireflies. A truck rattled across the bridge. A gull cried in the darkness.

  Brandon opened the box and the aroma billowed out. Curry and onion. He took a bite of the macaroni pie and it was good and rich. He tried the curry and the spices were hot, a slow burn. Brandon reached for the rum punch, popped the lid off the cup and sipped.