Port City Crossfire (A Brandon Blake Mystery, Book 1) Read online

  “Grandparents die,” Brandon said. “It happens.”

  His own grandmother, Nessa, dying of alcoholism, liver gone, kidney failure what finally took her. A messy combo. Deep down, Brandon was still grieving.

  Maddie didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “I hope this isn’t a problem. Kat and I thought it was the best way to get a look at these folks.”

  “Did you go to their house?”

  Maddie hesitated. “Yeah. I figured it would look odd if I skipped them. But nobody answered. If their cars were there, they were in the garage.”

  “See anything from the craziness?”

  “Some broken glass in the driveway. Burnt stuff in a trash can.”

  “Huh. Listen, thanks for doing all of this.”

  “You can’t just roll over for them, Brandon,” Maddie said. “I mean, I know it’s hard. Taking a life and all but...”

  “Not so hard,” Brandon said. “You just pull the trigger.”

  He rang off, put the burner phone down on the console. Opened the truck door, then reached over to get his phone from the passenger seat. He missed once, leaned in further.

  A boom.

  The windshield shattered.

  Twenty-One

  Another shot, the windshield spidering, the back window above his head, glass falling on his neck and ear. Rifle shots, slugs that would go through the back of the cab like it was tin foil. He kicked the door open behind him, wriggled out and grabbed his Glock from under he seat on the way by. Scrambled to the front of the truck, crouched by the bumper.

  His phone. Still in the truck. His radio on the seat.

  He crouched, gun out. Waited. Too long a pause now. The shooter would be running, driving off, not risking a third. Or would he?

  Brandon waited. Heard the jingling of the rigging. Cars still passing overhead. The rustling in the brush. He turned, gun leveled. Something moved. A rat, oblivious to the shots, not the target.

  He turned back. Looked across the street and up, the steep embankment between Commercial and Brackett. Someone could have spotted the cruiser, circled around and taken the high ground. But they didn’t shoot at the cruiser, at Kat and Park. They waited for a clean shot at the pickup. Took so long to set up that the cruiser was gone? Brandon didn’t think so.

  When he heard sirens, he darted around the truck, staying low. Stretched out on the floor of the truck, reached up for his phone or the radio. Felt the phone and pulled it down, slid back out. Crouched low and made it to the front of the truck again. Called 911. More sirens as he waited.

  “Portland Police Department. How can I—”

  “Chooch. It’s Brandon Blake. Commercial Street, shots fired.”

  “Yeah, we know. Units are—”

  “Two shots through my truck. Under the bridge.”

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Same place. Outside the truck. For cover.”

  “We’re coming,” Chooch said. “Stay on the line.”

  He pictured her keying the mic. “All units responding to West End. Target is under the bridge on Commercial. It’s Blake. They missed. Active shooter.”

  Blue lights around his truck, passing on Commercial, spots and flashlights flickering through the yards on top of the hill. Kat and Park pulled in, saw for themselves that he was okay, drove away fast. Sergeant Perry set up a command post, his SUV. Detectives in unmarked cars, drug cops in pickups, cruisers blocking the road. Brandon at the center of it all, feeling waves of déjà vu. The night of the Rawlings shooting. Sitting in the back of the cruiser.

  They were standing in the darkness, thirty feet from Brandon’s truck. Looking up at the embankment. The shots had hit halfway up the back window, lower on the windshield. A downward trajectory, from top of the hill.

  “You don’t reach for your phone, you’re gone,” Perry said. “Dodged that fucking bullet.”

  “As they say,” Brandon said.

  Cops were canvassing the houses at the top of the hill. Brandon heard the call. Dever had a woman said she heard a noise in her side yard, then the shots. She went to call 911. Didn’t see anyone.

  O’Farrell arrived. The chief right behind him. O’Farrell gave Brandon a pat on the shoulder, said, “We’ll get him.” He coached youth hockey. Brandon felt like a goalie, just let one go through his legs.

  The chief ignored Brandon and went to Perry. “Go,” he said.

  “Lady hears something in her yard, right up there.”

  Perry pointed to lights on a house at the top of the hill, to the left.

  “Books it out of there with a long gun,” Perry said. “Car running. Back into town or out onto the interstate. He had three, four minutes.”

  “Or he’s still there,” Garcia said. “Remember that Boston bomber asshole hiding in the boat. I want you to drive that neighborhood like you’re driving deer.”

  Perry was back on the radio. Brandon could hear cops signing on: day shift, desk guys, old fat guys, everybody coming in. Garcia walked over to him, turned and looked up at the hill.

  “You probably feel like a eunuch standing there, not being able to chase him.”

  Thanks, Brandon thought.

  “Something like that,” he said.

  “Gotta get this motherfucker before he kills a cop,” the chief said.

  He said it like Brandon wasn’t one. Brandon nodded.

  “What were you doing down here, Blake?”

  “Stopped and said hi to Kat and Park.”

  “Like, ‘Hey, how you doing?’”

  “Exactly. Hang in there and all that.”

  “How long were you here?”

  “Five minutes. Maybe a little longer,” Brandon said.

  “Where were you coming from?”

  “South Portland side,” Brandon said.

  “Could you have been followed?”

  Brandon pictured the drive from Woodford, traffic heavy on Route 1.

  “I suppose. I didn’t notice anything but I wasn’t trying to shake anybody, either.”

  Perry walked over and joined them. “Got 20 on Brackett,” he said to the chief. The chief nodded without looking at him.

  “Where were you coming from?” Garcia said to Brandon.

  “The south.”

  The chief waited.

  “Woodford,” Brandon said.

  “Family down there?”

  “No.”

  “Where is your family?”

  “I don’t have any,” Brandon said.

  Garcia caught himself, like he vaguely remembered Brandon’ story. Mother killed in some drug smuggling thing with a boat. Grew up with grandparents but they were dysfunctional. Smart kid but maybe not the best hire. Too much baggage. Thank O’Farrell for that.

  “So who is in Woodford?” the chief said.

  “Friends,” Brandon lied.

  “Then maybe you oughta stay there, Blake,” Garcia said. “No offense, but around here, you’re a fucking lightning rod.”

  Brandon didn’t answer, fingered the burner phone in his pocket.

  The pickup was hauled off on a ramp truck. Cops were still going door to door when Mia called.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine,” Brandon said, then caught himself. The word she now hated. “I’m okay. But it’s after 12:30. Shouldn’t you be asleep.”

  “I can’t sleep. And this is all over the news. People are calling. They got the texts.”

  “All’s well that ends well.”

  “Where are you going to go?”

  “I don’t know. The boat, maybe.”

  “You could come—”

  “No.”

  “You need a car, right?”

  “I’ll get a rental.”

  “You should keep swapping them,” Mia said. “Like every day.”

  “Now you’re thinking,” Brandon said. “Make a cop out of you yet.”

  They paused, and then Mia said. “How much did they miss by?”<
br />
  “A few inches.”

  “My god.”

  “An inch is as good as a mile.”

  “I think you should go far away,” Mia said. “Like out of state. California or something.”

  “I can’t leave. The shooting. They need me here.”

  “I need you alive.”

  “I know.”

  Another pause.

  “What have you been doing?” Mia said.

  Images of Danni swept in. Leaning close, her lips parted. Just kiss me and we’ll get this party started.

  “Not much. Trying to keep moving.”

  “Is Kat staying in touch?”

  “Yeah. She’s got my back.”

  “I do, too, you know,” Mia said. “I’m with you. If you’ll let me be.”

  “I know that. But you can’t be, and that’s hard.”

  “I barely sleep,” she said. “I need to see you.”

  Another image of Danni. We’re in our own bubble.

  “Soon,” Brandon said. “They’ll catch this guy and things will start to get back to normal. Or at least closer.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I know so,” Brandon said. “He can run, but he can’t hide.”

  “What makes you so sure it’s a he,” Mia said.

  Danni again.

  “We need to talk,” Brandon said. “I’ll call in a while.”

  He got a ride to the airport from O’Farrell in his unmarked SUV. O’Farrell went inside the terminal and rented a dark gray Jetta from Enterprise, put it on his personal credit card. They drove over to the lot and Brandon followed O’Farrell, in the Jetta, out of the airport. In the parking lot of the Comfort Inn, they switched vehicles. O’Farrell got in the passenger seat of the VW as the SUV idled beside them.

  “Don’t crash it,” he said. “I didn’t get the insurance.”

  Brandon nodded and said, “Sorry about this shitstorm.”

  O’Farrell shrugged. “Not your fault, Blake. It’s a domino effect. Kid does something stupid, gets himself shot. Community goes ballistic but that’s a domino effect from all this other stuff around the country. Race gets entered into the equation but that’s a domino effect from civil rights and everything else.”

  He put his hands on his knees, tried to stretch out his legs.

  “We’re just the tail on the dog here.”

  “I think Rawlings was committing suicide,” Brandon said.

  “Hard to know what was going on in the kid’s head,” O’Farrell said.

  Hard, Brandon thought. But not impossible.

  “Just keep your nose clean, Blake. Ride this out. Someday it’ll be in the rearview mirror. You’ll file it away. We all will.”

  Another image of Danni, desperate for the anniversary paper. File it away? Sometimes you can’t.

  O’Farrell gave him a pat on the shoulder, got out and slammed the door behind him. Brandon waited until the SUV swung around him, then counted to 30 and drove out of the airport exit road. At the first light, he eased deeper into the seat and pulled his hat down. Called Mia.

  “Headed into town. Gonna leave the car in the garage at Monument Square. We can talk there.”

  Mia said, “Okay,” and rang off. Brandon swung up onto 295, drove into the city. Low tide at the Fore River, a trough of water, a swirling pattern in the mud. He glanced over, then, when a pickup passed, looked straight ahead. The car was anonymous, invisible. He got off at Congress, drove up past the bus station, the hospital. Even trying not to look, he counted six guys with a history, at least two he knew had outstanding warrants. Brandon watched the road, drove the speed limit.

  At the light at Longfellow Square, a panhandler moved down the line of cars with the sign that said, “HOMELESS VETERAN.” Brandon looked more closely and knew him: a perv they’d busted for indecent exposure, never in the military for a minute. Sat in his car with his pants down across from an elementary school. Brandon put his hand over his face as the guy passed.

  And then he was in the garage, drove up to the third floor and parked next to the exit. It was deserted and dark, the restaurant crowd already at their tables. Brandon called Mia, said, “Drive up to the fifth, then back down to the third. If it’s clear, I’ll step out.”

  He waited. In five minutes, Mia’s Volvo SUV passed him, continued to the spiraling ramp and disappeared. Nothing passed. In five more minutes, she swung around the corner. Brandon stepped out from between the cars and Mia stopped. He got in and she started off. On the second floor, he pointed to an empty space and she pulled in.

  “I think you should back in,” he said, and Mia hesitated, then pulled back out and in again. They faced the traffic lane, the motor running.

  Mia turned to him. Waited. He watched the mirrors, counted to ten, then turned and they embraced. Brandon could feel the Glock in his waistband.

  “God, you look awful, Brandon,” Mia said. “Have you been eating?”

  “Sure,” Brandon said, but couldn’t remember his last real meal.

  “You’ve got to take care of yourself. This is hard enough without—”

  “It’s okay. I’m—let’s just not go there.”

  Mia cooled, just a degree or two.

  “Okay,” she said. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Back in time. A week ago.”

  “If only,” Mia said.

  She fell back into the seat.

  “Thanks for coming,” Brandon said.

  “Are they close to catching him?” she said.

  “I don’t know. You can’t just go around the city shooting at cops and get away with it.”

  “But they are.”

  “Matter of time.”

  Mia looked at him, left him a chance to elaborate. He didn’t. She said, “You’re still shutting me out.”

  Brandon shrugged. “There’s nothing to let you into. Nothing good.”

  She waited.

  He looked straight ahead. A car swung around the corner and he squinted against the headlights. And then it was dark again and he took a deep breath, tried to muster a reply. “Maddie asked around. On the Rawlings’ road. The guy’s mother died, Thatcher’s grandmother. OD’d in their house. Got into the medicine cabinet. They said she had dementia or something. The kid wigged out.”

  “Like how?

  Brandon told her. The fire. The bottles. The scraped-up Mercedes.

  “And then he got himself shot?” Mia said. “That’s pretty serious grieving.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe he was messed up already.”

  “But nobody’s saying that.”

  “Nobody who?” Mia said.

  “The neighbors Maddie talked to. His friend Amanda.”

  “What happens to Kat if it gets out her wife is asking questions about the family of a shooting victim?”

  “He’s not a victim,” Brandon said. “He’s a suspect who got shot. That’s the line I’m supposed to follow.”

  “So what happens?”

  “Nothing good.”

  “Did you tell her to stop?” Mia said.

  “No,” Brandon said.

  “Aren’t you afraid this will—”

  “Drag Kat down with me? Yes.”

  Brandon was quiet. Mia looked away.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Around. Keeping moving.”

  “That’s not an answer,” she said.

  “It’s true.”

  “It’s like saying you’re fine.”

  Brandon looked down at the console of the car, fiddled with the shifter.

  “What’s in Woodford?” Mia said.

  “What?”

  “I know you were there. Your phone. You put Find My Phone on my laptop.”

  “So you’ve been tracking me?”

  “I got worried.”

  “Still—”

  “I have good reason,” Mia said.

  Brandon looked out of the window, didn’t answer.

  “So what’s in Woodford?” Mia asked
again.

  “Danni,” Brandon said. “But not her personally. I went to talk to a cop down there. There was a big murder on that date she wrote down. Two bikers got killed, a local guy with them. Shot in a gravel pit.”

  Mia watched him and waited.

  “So what does that have to do with—”

  “I don’t know,” Brandon said. “Maybe nothing. But this dead kid Sash knew Clutch, her boyfriend. A guy in a bar told me that. And then I was walking down the street and Danni drives by.”

  “Ah,” Mia said.

  “Kind of a small town.”

  Mia looked out at the deserted garage, the concrete walls, a sign that said, “Compact cars only.”

  “Don’t tell me. She hit on you this time.”

  A pause, Brandon trying to figure out how to answer.

  “Yeah, and then when I turned her down she wigged out. She’s desperate to get that paper.”

  “God, Brandon,” Mia said. “Don’t you have enough going on in your life?”

  Brandon didn’t answer and they sat in the darkness. A couple popped out of the door by the elevator, a man and woman their age. They were both weaving, holding each other up. They fell into a white Passat, the woman behind the wheel. She drove off without turning on her headlights. A good DWI stop.

  “Maybe this was a bad idea,” Brandon said.

  He looked away, toward the railing of the garage. Thought of Amanda, over the railing and down. What did they call it? Collateral damage?

  They sat in silence for another minute, squinted into the glare of a passing pickup, headlights aimed high. Brandon could hear her the raspy noise of Mia breathing through her nose.

  “I’ll go,” Brandon said.

  “To where?”

  “The boat.”

  She looked at him.

  “It’s on a mooring,” Brandon said. “It’s like having a giant moat around you.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’ll get an Uber.”

  Mia had her hands on the wheel, clenched tightly.

  “I feel like when we say goodbye, I won’t see you again,” she said.

  “I’ll be fine,” Brandon said, the words like a gate swinging shut.

  She turned the key and started the motor, said, her voice stone cold, “I’ll bring you to the street.”