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

  “Ballistics will be able to get some idea,” Whalen said. “Ten feet? Fifteen?”

  “In position when the light went on.”

  “And you just saw somebody in black?” Rothstein said. “Big? Small? Woman? Man?”

  Brandon shrugged. “It was dark. They were behind the boats most of the time.”

  “Who knew your boat was on the buoy? Not on the dock, I mean.”

  “Anyone who knew where my slip was would know the boat was gone. You’d have to know the boat to spot it out here.”

  “Who knows your boat?” Rothstein said.

  Brandon thought of Estusa’s reporting, the photos, video.

  “Anyone with a pulse,” he said.

  “Did you sail it in?”

  “I came by Uber. Walked over from the restaurant. Rowed out.”

  He nodded toward the lights.

  “What time?”

  “One-thirty. Around then.”

  “So anybody who saw you walk in, get in the rowboat, they’d know which boat.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t they shoot at you on land then?”

  “I don’t know,” Brandon said.

  “Seems like it would have been a lot easier. The spotlight and all that.”

  “It’s been a sniper set up. Not somebody walking up and shooting point-blank.”

  “Easier getaway for a sniper,” Rothstein said.

  “Evidently,” Brandon said.

  Twenty-Three

  The Portland police stood on the float until the South Portland launch came over and ferried them out. Bay Witch was low in the water, from the weight of cops. Kat and O’Farrell stood in the stern and eyed the bullet holes.

  “This thing isn’t gonna sink or anything, is it?” Kat said.

  “No,” Brandon said. “Way above the waterline. I’ll fill them with silicone putty.”

  “How close was the first shot?” O’Farrell said.

  “I don’t know,” Brandon said. “I could feel it first. Then I heard it. Hard for me to tell how close. I’ve never been in combat or anything.”

  “This is combat,” O’Farrell said. “If you could feel it, I’d say within a foot of your head.”

  “The spotlight. That changes things,” Rothstein said.

  Nods all around.

  “Not just one loner nut job,” Kat said. “Coordinated and planned.”

  “Like an insurgency,” O“Farrell said.

  Kat turned to Rothstein, said, “He was in Iraq.”

  “Terrorists,” Rothstein said.

  They turned and looked toward the bridge, lights strung across the harbor. Envisioned the shot coming out of the darkness. Their eyes moved to the blackness of the shoreline. Nobody said anything but they knew. It wasn’t a question of whether the shooter would try again. It was when.

  O’Farrell looked at Brandon and said, “Theories, Blake?”

  “You kill somebody’s kid, the rules change,” Brandon said.

  “You shoot at cops, that changes the rules, too,” O’Farrell said.

  Kat said he couldn’t stay there, not on the boat, not that night. It was an order, not a suggestion, and Brandon said, “I can go to a hotel.”

  “Negatory,” Kat said. “Maddie’s on her way.”

  She was, waiting at the marina gate when Kat and Brandon came off Bay Witch in the dinghy, tied it off in the slip, and made their way up the float. The yard was dark, the few operating lights dim and feeble. Maddie was in black, jeans and a fleece that, when Brandon opened the gate, he could see had USM on the chest. She reached for his shoulder like Kat was handing him off, then turned and pointed to the left, where her car was parked.

  “Get some sleep,” Kat said, and went right, toward her cruiser, parked next to the S.P. cars, O’Farrell’s unmarked SUV. Maddie said, “Let’s go,” and they walked along the vine-covered fence.

  And something moved to their left.

  Brandon spun, crouched, pulled his gun from his waistband. A white light came on and a voice said, “Jesus, Blake. Is that always your first reaction?”

  “Show yourself,” Brandon said, and the light moved left, Estusa stepping from the shadows, his phone in his outstretched hand.

  “Still carrying a gun, Officer Blake,” he said. “Some cops would swear never to hold a gun again, after killing an unarmed teenager.”

  Maddie grabbed Brandon by the upper arm, his left, not his gun hand. She said, “Let’s go, Brandon.”

  Estusa was moving closer, the camera panning from Brandon to Maddie. Estusa said, “Hello, Professor. Good of you to get up in the middle of the night to help out your friend.”

  He swung the phone back to Brandon.

  “What happened out there, Officer Blake? Someone take a shot at you? What’s it feel like to have some incoming? I imagine it’s different from looking down the barrel. Have you ever been shot at before? I know you’ve had many physical altercations as a police officer. And the Rawlings fatal shooting, the fatal shooting of Joel Fuller, just missing Ms. Erickson. But how does it feel to be—”

  Estusa broke off as Brandon set himself to swing at him, take Estusa’s head right off his shoulders, break teeth, face, bones. But Maddie yanked him backwards, staggered, righted herself and grabbed his shoulder again, saying, “He’s not worth it, Brandon.”

  She was pulling him away, Estusa following with the camera still rolling, saying, “When is it worth it to take a life, Officer Blake? How do you make that decision to pull the trigger? Why was Thatcher Rawlings worth shooting but I’m not? Have you learned something from this experience? If you could do it again...”

  They were at the car, the red Honda. Estusa was still shooting video, the laser-white light glowing like an alien eye. Maddie slammed the car in gear and lurched past him, Estusa leaning down to get video of Brandon in the passenger seat.

  Maddie snaked her way through the neighborhood of dark houses, a few lights showing. They were on Broadway when Maddie said, “What a vile creature.”

  Brandon didn’t comment.

  “I mean, to goad you like that. What would his editor say? Oh, I suppose he’s his own editor. That’s the problem. No checks. Somebody like that needs a grown-up reining him in. What sort of journalist is that?”

  “He knew who you were,” Brandon said.

  Maddie drove through the lights, headed for the bridge.

  “He called me—”

  “Professor.”

  “So he must know I teach there. But do you think he knows?”

  “Why else would we be together?” Brandon said.

  “You can’t hide everything,” Maddie said.

  “He saw the car, the license plate.”

  They were up on the bridge, both looking right out at the harbor. The police launch was still by Bay Witch, lighting the boat for the crime-scene crew. Brandon figured they’d be winding down. Maybe they’d tow the boat, could park it with his truck.

  He turned away from the water, looked straight ahead.

  “I’d jump up on the interstate,” he said. “I’ll watch behind us.”

  Maddie got on the highway at Forest Avenue, drove north to Falmouth, then backtracked through Deering. Nobody followed, and it was almost 4 a.m. when they pulled into the driveway of the house on William Street.

  “What shift is Kat working?” Brandon said.

  “All of them, I think,” Maddie said. “I barely see her.”

  Brandon reached up and turned off the dome light. He got out and walked up the driveway along the house and into the backyard. There was a carriage house at the head of the driveway, a picket fence around the backyard. Brandon stood at the gate and listened and looked, gun at his side, finger on the trigger. The yard was quiet behind the chirping of crickets. And then rustling in the leaves in the garden.

  He swung around, raised the gun. The rustling continued. Mice. Maybe voles.

  Brandon walked to the back door, tried it. It was locked. He walked back down the driveway, p
ast Maddie, wide-eyed in the car. He crossed the front lawn slowly, peering into the shrubs. Nothing, no one showed. He walked up the front steps and tried that door, too. It was locked.

  He stepped back down, started to circle the house. There was a nightlight on in a room in the house next door. A bathroom. He walked to the rear of the house, found nothing. Retraced his steps to the car and said to Maddie, “All clear.”

  She got out, the lights still off. Brandon followed and she unlocked the back door and let them in. Turned on a small lamp on the kitchen counter and said, “You must be exhausted.”

  “I’m fine,” Brandon said. “How ’bout you?”

  “I’m good. There’s a comforter on the end of the couch in the guest room.”

  “Thanks. I’ll leave the door open.”

  “We should sleep,” Maddie said.

  “Yes.”

  “You know what Hemingway said. ‘I love sleep. My life has—”

  She stopped herself.

  “Has what?” Brandon said.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “It had to be something.”

  “Well, he said, ‘I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake.’”

  Brandon smiled. “I know the feeling,” he said.

  Maddie gave him a pat on the shoulder, and then walked down the hall and up the stairs. Brandon opened the cupboard and got a glass and filled it with water at the sink. There was a photo on the counter, Maddie and Kat on the coast, arm in arm with the ocean sparkling behind them. They were smiling. Thoroughly happy. It seemed like it was from a different time, like nothing he’d seen lately. Not he and Mia, Brandon keeping her at arm’s length. Not Danni and Clutch, holding each other in some weird captivity. Not the Rawlingses, calculating even in their loss.

  They were the same, somehow. Kept together, it seemed, more by collusion than affection.

  Brandon walked to the guest room, left the door open and the room dark. He sat down on the couch and put his gun on the cushion beside him. He took off his trainers and arranged them neatly. Leaned back and reached the comforter down and shook it loose. Still sitting, he pulled the comforter over him. Reached over and felt the gun.

  He stared into the shadows, listened to the ticks and creaks of the house. What was it Estusa had said? Some people would never pick up a gun again? As if he had that luxury. He kept his hand on the butt as he stared into the shadows of the house. Live by the gun, die by the gun, he thought. Sometimes he thought he’d died by the gun already. As he drifted off to sleep, the Glock slid down the cushion and lodged against his thigh.

  A hand on his shoulder. Brandon felt for the gun, heard a voice saying, “Easy. Easy, Blake. It’s me.”

  Kat was bent over him, still in her uniform. His fingers found the Glock. Kat reached down and pushed it aside.

  “I’m one of the good guys,” she said.

  “You catch ’em?”

  “No. Everybody’s pushing it but nothing. Figure they’re local. Take a snap shot, slip back into the woodwork.”

  “With a thirty-ought,” Brandon said.

  “And a scope. And a handheld floodlight.”

  “I had an idea,” Kat said, sitting down on the side of the couch. Brandon had a glimmer of déjà vu, his grandmother sitting down on the edge of his bed to say good night. She always reeked of alcohol.

  “What if they didn’t shoot from land? What if they shot from a boat?”

  “There were no boats moving.”

  “What if it wasn’t moving. What if it was anchored there.”

  “Moored,” Brandon said. “Nobody was anchored.”

  “Alright. Whatever you call it. But the boat was stopped. They take a couple of shots, go down the hatch or whatever. We go beating the bushes while they’re sitting in the bilge.”

  “Nobody at the marina would do that.”

  “How many of those boats are unoccupied at night?” Kat said.

  “Almost all.”

  “Row up or whatever. Sit there and wait for Brandon Blake to get back to his cabin cruiser. He sits out on the deck. A nice target.”

  Brandon considered it.

  “He’d have to be higher than your boat,” Kat said.

  “That narrows it down. Did you tell Perry?”

  “I just thought of it as I was pulling into the driveway.”

  “They’d be gone by now,” Brandon said. “Wait until everybody had left, slip away the way they arrived.”

  “Might leave some residue.”

  “Only two boats in that direction with higher vantage points. Coyote, she’s a Parker with a tuna tower. And Magellan, that’s a Silverton with a sedan bridge.”

  “Who owns them?”

  “Rich people,” Brandon said. “They generally like cops.”

  “They likely to be aboard last night?”

  “No. Haven’t seen them in weeks.”

  Brandon pulled himself up and they sat side by side. Brandon tucked the barrel of the Glock into the crack between the cushions. His stocking feet were next to Kat’s black tactical boots. It seemed fitting—Kat still on the street, Brandon on the shelf.

  “Maddie,” he said. “That was a gamble.”

  “I thought it was just an idea,” Kat said. “Then she comes home and says she’s already been out there.”

  “Jesus.”

  “She wanted to help you.”

  “Yeah, well. Estusa saw her tonight. He knows who she is.”

  “Does he know we’re married?” Kat said.

  “I don’t know. If he doesn’t now, he will very soon.”

  Brandon reached for his running shoes.

  “Where you going?”

  “Out of here. I’m dragging us all down.”

  “‘Us all.’ You got that part right,” Kat said. “We’re in this together.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He laced the second shoe and stood, reached for his phone, his gun.

  “Stay here. Hunker down. I’ve got lots of history books. Drink coffee and ride this goddamn thing out.”

  “I can do that by myself,” Brandon said.

  He took his flannel shirt from the end of the couch, put it and started buttoning it.

  “So where are you going?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Who’s this woman in Woodford?”

  Brandon turned to her.

  “Who told you about her?”

  “Mia,” Kat said. “She’s afraid you’re leaving her for some barfly, all part of flushing your life down the toilet.”

  “She’s got that all wrong. I’m not leaving her.”

  “You’re leaving all of us, Blake.”

  “Chief said it. I’m a lightning rod. Stand near me, you could get hurt.”

  “Stay.”

  “I need to move my boat. Next thing somebody will torch it.”

  “Only if you’re on it, for god’s sake,” Kat said.

  “I’ll be a moving target,” Brandon said. “And I’ll look at those boats while I’m there.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “Yeah, well, nobody does.”

  She shook her head, then said, “The Rawlingses are having a press conference today. Monument Square.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. Lawyer’s been tweeting it, says it will be a major revelation in the case.”

  “Huh.”

  “It’s going to be livestreamed on Facebook.”

  “What time?”

  “Nine. We’re supposed to stay in the background.”

  “Big crowd expected?”

  “Social media and all that. The thing’s taking off.”

  “Estusa must be coaching them,” Brandon said.

  “Team asshole,” Kat said.

  Brandon stood up.

  “I still think you should stay, partner.”

  Brandon smiled, leaned down and gave her shoulder a squeeze. With his other hand he slipped the Glock out of the cushi
ons, put it in the waistband of his jeans, at the back, slightly to the right.

  “Stay safe,” Kat said.

  “Keep Maddie home,” he said, and he was out the door, down the driveway.

  Twenty-Four

  It was half-dark, shadows emerging from the gloom. He walked up the street, hit the Uber app. Only one driver close, but he was on Forest. Two minutes.

  Brandon crossed the street to get out of the wash of a streetlight. He stood, stamped his feet, rubbed his unbrushed teeth with his tongue. The street was deserted, then it wasn’t. A guy walking on the opposite side, a block down. Hoodie, hands in his pockets. He crossed, continued toward Brandon, hands still in his pockets.

  Fifty feet away, he looked up, glanced at Brandon, held his gaze. The guy was white, in his 20s, tall and thin, a goatee. Timberlands and jeans and the black sweatshirt. His hands were moving in his pockets now, then he slipped his right hand out and reached behind him. Brandon did the same, slipping his right hand up under his shirt, gripping the Glock in his waistband.

  Thirty feet, the guy’s hand still behind him.

  Twenty feet, the guy fiddling with something.

  Fifteen feet, the guy’s eyes locked onto Brandon’s. His arm started to lift, the elbow coming up. Brandon turned, drew his gun, leveled it in two hands.

  “Police,” he said. “Turn around and show me your hands.”

  The guy was frozen, eyes fixed on the barrel of Brandon’s gun. A light went on, second floor of a house across the street. The guy still hadn’t moved. Brandon trotted toward him, gun still leveled. When the guy started to bring his right arm out, Brandon lunged, locked the guy’s arm up, spun him around.

  There was something black in his right hand.

  A phone.

  “Jesus Christ,” Brandon said. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  He patted the guy down, shoved him away. The guy stumbled, righted himself and turned back. The phone was up. He held it in two hands, shooting video.

  “Random meeting with the famous Brandon Blake, Portland, Maine,” he said. “In this case, Officer Blake did not pull the trigger. Thanks, Officer Blake. This is Trad Jones, for realportland.com”

  Brandon turned his face away, stepped into the street as a car approached and slowed. A Prius. It stopped, the bearded Uber driver fiddling with his phone. Brandon got in, said, “Parking garage, Monument.” The realportland guy was standing alongside, still shooting video.