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

  “Right, so tell me what happened, Brandon.”

  He did, the quick version. A good deed gone astray.

  “Why bother?” the cop said.

  “Sitting around. Seemed like the right thing. And I had time.”

  Davey eyed him, considering it.

  “Stir crazy already?” he said.

  “Yeah. The worst thing about it, nothing to do but sit around and think.”

  The cop nodded, traffic flashing past behind him.

  “Who called it in?” Brandon said.

  “Couple people. One was a Dunkin’ employee.”

  “No complaint from the guy?”

  “No.”

  “Classic domestic violence perp.”

  “You get his name?” Davey said.

  “Hell, no. He just started in swinging.”

  “Caller said you beat him up.”

  “I just put him down. You know how it looks. Probably already up on YouTube.”

  “I hear you,” he said.

  “He was drunk, pretty big. Tried to explain but he wasn’t having any of it. Kept saying she was cheating on him.”

  “But not with you?”

  “Never saw her before in my life.”

  Davey hesitated. “Didn’t arrange to meet her for sex? Escort thing?”

  He shook his head. “No, I have a girlfriend.”

  Davey looked at him, boring in. Brandon knew the routine, the way a cop’s mind works.

  “What’s her name?”

  “My girlfriend?”

  “No, the woman at Dunkin.”

  Maybe he wasn’t so soft.

  “Danni. With an I. Last name Moulton. At least it was in high school. She’s on Facebook. From your town. Grew up here.”

  Brandon saw a flicker.

  “You know her,” he said.

  Two cops reading each other’s minds. Davey looked back at the cruiser, his face illuminated by the strobes.

  “So what’s the deal?” Brandon said.

  “No deal, really. I know Danni by sight. Works in a sandwich place. Know the boyfriend some.”

  “Lucky you. Frequent flyer?”

  “Not really. Name’s Clutch. Last name is Tedeschi. I don’t remember his real first name. Joe? Joel? I’m not sure. Has a wrecker. Used to do a lot of repos, around when the bakery closed. People lose jobs, can’t make payments. Vultures swoop in.”

  “So you’d get calls?”

  A little shrug.

  “Nothing big,” Davey said. “Just a lot of disagreements, people seeing him hook up to their vehicles, getting irate.”

  “So no domestic violence record?”

  “Not that I know of,” Davey said. “Of course, I’ve only been here like four years so I can’t tell you the long history. But other than the repo stuff, he keeps a pretty low profile. What I can tell, picks up a few cars at the auctions, cleans them up, sells them off the lot at his garage.”

  “Lock the doors and terrorize the wife?”

  “I don’t think they’re married. But no, nothing I’ve seen. From the little I have seen, Clutch is kind of an odd combo. With the repos, he could get angry, acts tough with the owners. But then we show up, he backs right off, all polite and respectful, yessir, yes ma’am. Like he doesn’t want trouble.”

  “Didn’t back off with me,” Brandon said, “not at first.”

  “And then you told him you were a cop?”

  Brandon thought back.

  “Yeah, in a way. Said I’d lock his ass up. He was fighting and when that came out, he just went slack.”

  “Right. Some people, they seem like idiots but they’re smart enough they just don’t want to mess with law enforcement,” Davey said.

  Brandon thought of Thatcher Rawlings, the gun pointed.

  “And some people don’t know any better,” he said.

  Davey caught it. There was a lull in the conversation as cars passed, red lights glowing as drivers braked for the tollbooth. The light reflected off of Davey’s glasses. What did they call them? Rec Specs?

  He cleared his throat and then, still looking out at the traffic, said, “I hope this doesn’t come off as weird. My wife says I’m nosy. But I have to ask you. What’s it like?”

  Brandon looked at him, not surprised.

  “To shoot somebody?”

  “And have them not live,” Davey said.

  Brandon hesitated, not sure how much to open up. But a fellow cop, could be in the same situation...

  “Surreal,” he said. “Just when you think you’re starting to get used to it, you still can’t believe it happened.”

  “I’ve never fired my weapon,” Davey said. “I mean, just on the range.”

  “You and most cops.”

  “Never even touched a gun until the academy. I mean, I sold insurance. Didn’t hunt. I worry about it, to be honest.”

  “That you’ll have to kill someone?” Brandon said.

  “Or I won’t be able to do it if the time comes.”

  “I waited too long to fire.”

  “I have two kids,” Davey said.

  “I let him hold onto the gun, even though I thought it was real.”

  “For how long?”

  “Ten seconds. Maybe more. I was telling him to put it down. Most of the time he had it pointed at my feet.”

  “Jesus. You know how quick he could raise and fire? The academy, they said a third of a second. My god, you could be—”

  “I know.”

  They pondered it for a moment, both knowing a millisecond difference, a shot that didn’t take the perpetrator out, and...

  “How old are your kids?” Brandon said.

  “Two and four. Boys. Tyler and Jacob.”

  “Nice,” Brandon said.

  “I know the procedure. A warning and then if the armed perp doesn’t comply, you fire. You keep firing until the threat is neutralized.”

  There was a pause, the two of them standing there in the darkness, the headlights and taillights streaming by.

  “I heard it all at the academy,” Davey said, more quietly now. “But with everything that’s been going on.”

  Ferguson. Videos of knucklehead cops, racist cops, cops who just lose it. All of it going viral, whipping up a war on the police.

  Brandon hesitated, then decided to open up, just a little more. Something about Davey’s directness, his unassuming way. “Nope, not the same at all. When we had training it was, like, boom, boom. Over in a flash. When it’s really happening it’s totally slow motion. Like you’re watching yourself in a movie.”

  Davey listened, every word.

  “You can’t undo it,” Brandon said. “Not any of it. The kid’s dead and I caused that to happen. And you know you I had no choice, everybody saying I did the right thing, I could have been killed. But still, it doesn’t feel like the right at all.”

  He paused.

  “And these days a lot of people instantly hate your guts.”

  Davey looked away and said, “I’m going home to my boys.”

  Brandon nodded.

  “I hope you don’t have to ever make that decision,” he said.

  “Could be tonight. Could be in an hour,” Davey said.

  “Why they pay us the big bucks,” Brandon said.

  Davey reached for his mic, telling dispatch he was back on the road.

  “Hey, before you go,” Brandon said. “This guy Clutch. Where’s his garage?”

  Davey looked over at him and said, “No offense, Brandon Blake, but I don’t want to see you again.”

  Brandon put the truck in gear, said, “You won’t.”

  “I know your type, my friend. Once you get on to something, you don’t let go. You ride it into the ground even if you go down with it.”

  He started to pull away, stopped and reversed. “With all due respect, I’m gonna give you some advice,” Davey said, “even if you don’t want to hear it. Go home. Tomorrow’s another day.”

  Brandon nodded. “Right.”
/>   Davey pulled out and Brandon watched him jump into the left lane, put the blue lights on as he made a U-turn in front of the tollbooth, head back into Woodford. He flicked his phone on, typed Clutch Tedeschi, wrecker, Woodford.

  Waited. The search turned up a record from a court case, somebody taking Clutch’s Wrecker and Repossession Service to court for taking the wrong car and damaging it in the process. The suit said the owner’s reputation had been damaged because friends and associates saw his car being repossessed from his place of employment. The post didn’t say how the case turned out. It did list an address for the business: 878 Western Highway. Brandon typed that in. Started the truck. Considered making the U-turn by the tollbooths but got off at the next exit instead.

  And circled back.

  Western Highway had been a what passed for a highway fifty years ago. Now it was just a two-lane road with businesses and homes scattered like they’d been scattered randomly like seeds. Brandon passed small ranch houses with oversize garages, an appliance repair shop tacked onto a mobile home, a shuttered hot dog stand, plywood hammered over the windows. And then a lighted sign, one of those portable rigs with replaceable letters.

  CLUTCH AUTO

  CLEAN RIDES, REASONABLE PRICES

  WE FINANCE

  Brandon braked, passed slowly. The sign had an arrow that pointed at a row of six used cars and a pickup, lined up with colored pennants clipped onto their windshields. The cars were older, an assortment of nondescript sedans. The pickup was a bright red Ford, the name of a fire department painted over on the door. There was a breeze out of the northwest and the pennants fluttered in the glare of a spotlight mounted to a tree, the tree trimmed so it was just a trunk, like a limbless torso. Beyond the row of cars was a two-story garage, a metal pre-fab sort of building with three bays. Parked next to it was a wrecker, black or dark blue with no visible lettering. When you do repo, you go stealth.

  To the left of the garage was a ranch house, with lights on. There was a lawn out front with a wishing well at the center, the kind with the bucket hanging under a shingled roof. Brandon wondered what Danni and Clutch wished for. Layoffs? Economic collapse?

  He coasted by, continued a quarter-mile down the road and turned around in a lot full of rubble, six-foot mounds showing like the place was home to giant moles, the mounds sprouting a fringe of weeds. He drove back, slowed as he approached the house. He could see a carport out back. Underneath it, a pickup and the white Ford were parked side by side. The pickup was a silver Dodge, a metal rack mounted behind the cab.

  The windows glowed yellow, making the house look deceptively cozy. What was going on in there, Brandon wondered. The guy punishing Danni for wrecking his evening? Danni warning that if he ever did anything like that again, she was gone? The two of them sitting in stony silence? Or had he beaten her up, was sucking down beers and nursing his anger and jealousy while she cried herself to sleep.

  An average guy might have been taken down by Clutch’s windmilling arms and fists. He probably pictured standing over the sprawled boyfriend, telling him to back the hell off or next time it would be worse. Then he could take his woman home, lock her away where she belonged.

  Instead, it had to be Brandon, who fought for a living.

  “Sucks to be you,” he said to himself.

  He gave the house a last glance, then hit the gas and started for home. As he settled in, he looked to the passenger seat. The blood on the diary had turned dark, like the cover had been smeared with black ink.

  What was it that Danni had said about that time? “God, I was a disaster.”

  Hard to argue, and if she was a disaster then, what was she now? What had the forlorn and hapless girl in the diary become twenty years later? Finally found a man, it appeared. But behind those shaded windows, was he controlling? Abusive? Did she live in fear?

  Brandon drove the bleak stretch of back road, past the shuttered businesses, the rest of them doomed, awaiting their fate. He slowed for the turn for the interstate.

  Brandon figured he’d hear from her again. He didn’t know if that was a good thing.

  Eight

  Brandon was getting off the connector, headed into the west end, when his phone lit up. Mia texting. He picked up the phone and glanced at it.

  Where are you? I’m worried.

  He put the phone back down on the seat. It lit up all the way through the west end, onto Commercial. He picked it up at the light at the corner of Fore.

  text me as soon as you can.

  Onto Fore Street and into the Old Port, the crowd headed for the bars. Guys and girls on the sidewalks, nobody staggering yet. Early days.

  The phone buzzed and Brandon picked it up. Kat this time: Text me back. Don’t be an idiot.

  Brandon tossed the phone aside, muttered, “Nag, nag, nag.” Picked the phone back up. Stopped at the crosswalk on Exchange, he texted:

  I’m fine. Went for a ride, clear my head. Headed back to the boat. Don’t worry.

  Another text, this one from Kat again:

  I know what you’re doing. You can’t do this alone.

  Brandon put the phone down, stopped at the crosswalk at Exchange. The crowd filed past, a couple of guys looking up at him, squinting into the headlights. Brandon pulled his hat lower, slid down in the truck seat. The phone buzzed and this time Brandon didn’t look. “Yeah, right,” he said. “Like you’ve ever killed somebody. Gonna tell me how to handle it.”

  The route to Mia’s place was straight through, up Fore Street and a left on Munjoy. Brandon started to cross the intersection, braked and went left. He made the light at Congress, continued west and took a left on Marginal Way. From there it was a few blocks to Forest Avenue, where he took a right and drove. Two miles out was a convenience store, the Forest Avenue Pop-In. Cambodians ran it, the older ones barely speaking English.

  They wouldn’t read the paper. Probably didn’t watch the news, working 18 hours a day.

  Brandon pulled in, parked by the back fence in the dark. He got out of the truck and walked back to the front of the store. The parents were behind the counter, the mom running the register, the guy rummaging around beside her. A hipster-looking guy with glasses and a beard was buying cigarettes, the lady asking for ID. Brandon hurried past, went to the beer cooler and reached out a 12-pack of Baxter IPA.

  He paused in the aisle in front of the chips and pretzels until the hipster guy had left. Then he walked up, put the beer on the counter and looked down as he fished a loose $20 bill out of his pocket. The lady looked at him, said, “You got ID?”

  Brandon looked off to the side as he dug out his wallet. His police ID flashed as he opened it, the guy seeing it and smiling and saying, “Hi officer. Beer on sale. Ten dollars.” The guy grinned at Brandon and then his grin fell away. Brandon looked at the woman and said, “No, I’ll pay the full price.”

  And then the both of them were staring at Brandon, who stared back until they looked away.

  The woman gave Brandon his change, didn’t make eye contact. He slid the beer off the counter and headed for the door. On the way out he heard the guy say, “That’s the cop shot that kid.”

  Brandon grimaced, headed for the truck. He yanked the door open, heaved the beer across the seat. Got in, slipped his phone out and texted:

  Hey, baby. Me again. I’m done in. Exhausted. I’m going to sleep. Don’t want to leave Bay Witch unattended, the kids from the high school out there and all. I’ll call you first thing in the morning.

  Hit send.

  He was still in the parking lot when Mia texted back:

  You sure? I can come over. Be with you.

  The motor idling, Brandon replied:

  It’s OK. I’m just going to sleep. No worries.

  Back out onto Forest and into town, the beers clinking in the carton beside him. Through Monument Square, the panhandlers on the corner, one guy with a sign that said, DESTITUTE. NEED HELP.

  “Yeah, right,” Brandon said. “Like you’ve got problems.�
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  Down the hill and across the bridge, the lights of the harbor twinkling in the wind, the surface of the water shimmering in the spotlights of the container docks. He swung into South Portland, followed the harbor east and zigzagged his way through darkened streets to the marina.

  He slowed as he approached. The parking lot was dark. There was nobody in the yard. Lights glowed from the cabins of the few live-aboards. He pulled the pickup into the lot, drove to the far side and backed the truck up to the fence. He turned off the motor and shut off the lights. There was a moment of blindness and then the shadows emerged from the blackness.

  Brandon looked out on the lot for a minute, then another. He eyed the road beyond the fence, looked for anything moving, anyone parked. It was dark and still.

  He reached up and turned off the truck’s dome light, opened the door and slid down. He reached back for the beer and started to close the door and stopped. He opened it again and reached across and came away with the flowered book, the stain black now, like the flowers had been killed by frost or some pestilent blight. With the beer in one hand, the diary in the other, he started walking across the lot. The light by the gate was askew, the far side of the fence in shadow. He shifted the diary to his left hand, started to reach for the touch pad.

  Stopped.

  Something moved in the shadows, something dark along the ground. Brandon reached for his waist, slipped his gun out.

  “Don’t move,” he said.

  But the dark clump did, raising up slowly until it became a figure. It was seated, then Brandon saw arms reach out for the ground as the person started to stand.

  “Stay on the ground,” he barked. “Arms out in front of you.”

  The figure slowly stood, Brandon’s gun raising, pointed at the center of the dark mass, thinking, please god, no, not again.

  “Hands up,” he said, and then saw a glimmer of brightness, teeth, a mouth.

  “What are you gonna do?” a girl’s voice said. “Shoot me?”

  He lowered the beer and the book to the ground, and with the gun still leveled, slipped his phone out and flicked it on. A girl showed in the blue light, maybe 16, her dark hair disheveled under a dark sweatshirt hood. She was glaring at him, her eyes puffy, her cheek speckled with dark bits of something. Gravel from the lot.