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

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Kill me.”

  “Why would I do that?” Brandon said, lowering the gun but only slightly.

  “Because of this,” the girl said, and she slipped a knife from the front of her sweatshirt. She held it in front her, blade out, waist high.

  “That’s a terrible idea,” Brandon said.

  “I’m not afraid of dying,” she said.

  “Why would you want to die?”

  “Thatch wasn’t afraid, was he?”

  Brandon didn’t answer. The girl took step toward him, the knife still extended, the blade glinting in the light of Brandon’s phone. It was a kitchen knife. Wooden handle, serrated broad blade. Something you’d use to slice a ham.

  “You’re a friend of his.”

  “Not a friend,” the girl said, louder and shrill. “We were in love.”

  “I’m sorry. But doing this isn’t making things any better.”

  “I’m not trying to make things better,” the girl said.

  She took another step. Brandon backed up.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Who cares?”

  “I do. I like to know who I’m talking to.”

  “Before you kill them?”

  “I’m not gonna kill you. So what is your name?”

  “Amanda,” the girl said. “But it doesn’t matter.”

  “Sure it does. Now you’re more of a real person. You’re Amanda. From Moresby?”

  “I’m asking the questions,” the girl said.

  “So ask away, Amanda,” Brandon said.

  She took a wavering step toward him and he backed away, lowered the gun.

  “What are you doing, cop?” she said. “I could kill you.”

  “No, you can’t,” Brandon said.

  “I can and I’m going to,” Amanda said. “Unless you kill me first.”

  “You should drop the knife, Amanda. I know you’re upset, you’re grieving. And I don’t blame you. Not one bit. But you’re just making an awful situation even worse.”

  “It can’t get worse.”

  “If you’re in Long Creek?”

  “I’m not going to Long Creek. I’m going to heaven. With Thatch. I’m going wherever he is right now, this second. We’re gonna be together. He promised. That we’d be together forever.”

  If Thatcher was Romeo, this was Juliet.

  She took a step closer, then another. Skinny black jeans, pants legs rolled up. Black Converse All-Stars. A theater kid. Brandon matched her, still retreating.

  “Just toss it away,” Brandon said. “And we can talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk. Did you talk to Thatch before you killed him?”

  She was moving steadily, small careful steps, her shoes scrunching softly on the gravel.

  “What did you say to him? Before you killed him. Shot him over and over.”

  “Told him to put it down, just like I’m telling you.”

  “And I’m saying you’re a murderer,” she said, starting to sob. “You piece of cop garbage. You filthy piece of—”

  She broke for him, the knife held out awkwardly in front of her like a horn on a charging bull, Brandon sidestepped, dodging back as she awkwardly waved the blade in the general direction of his belly. And then he was on her from behind, wrapping her up with one arm, reaching around her with his gun hand and hacking at her forearm. She screamed, dropped the knife and stumbled over it. Brandon spun her around, hustled her fifteen feet back to the fence and pressed her against the chain links.

  “You bastard,” she screamed. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you.”

  He holstered his gun as she started to sob, pushed her harder as she flailed at him with both arms. She was skinny under the clothes, a child. Brandon held her in place with one hand while he searched her with the other.

  “Oh, Thatch, I tried. Oh, my god, Thatch. Oh, my god,” she cried.

  He ran his hand across her chest and belly, swept the inside of her legs. Now she was crying, a braying wail of despair. Brandon stepped away from her and she turned and slumped to the ground, her back against the fence. She snorted and sobbed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand. The hand was pale in the darkness, a flicker of light.

  “How did you get here?” Brandon said.

  A snort.

  “Uber,” Amanda said.

  “Why did he do it?” Brandon said. “You guys were together, right? What was it? Some sort of suicide pact?”

  Another shrug.

  “Did he want to die?” Brandon said.

  She didn’t respond, then lifted her thin shoulders in another shrug.

  “You don’t know?” Brandon said.

  “He had stuff going on.”

  “What sort of stuff?”

  “Just stuff.”

  “Enough to die for?”

  No response.

  “Please tell me.”

  She looked at the ground, her head in her hands.

  “You know why I want to know?”

  A slight shake of her head.

  “Because I want to know if I was just a tool, a way for him to kill himself.”

  No reply, just a sniff from the darkness. Brandon looked at her, felt a wave of anger and frustration.

  “Because he’s gone. Sure, it’s sad. Horrible. A tragedy. But you know what else? I have to live with that. I’m not the same any more than you are. You lost your boyfriend or whatever the hell he was. I lost...”

  Lights came on out on the float. Brandon figured somebody was calling 911. He leaned down and said to her, “I’m asking you.”

  She looked at him, their faces ten inches apart. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and dirt and her face was flushed.

  “He didn’t want to die,” she said. “He loved me.”

  “I’m sure. Then why did he do it?”

  “He didn’t. It was a video and you came in all tough and acting like a cop and killed him. Like the rest of them. You’re all the same. You get off on it. Gives you a hard-on, killing innocent people.”

  Brandon let off, took a step back and to the right, bent low and picked up the knife. He turned and threw it into the darkness, turned back.

  “You don’t believe that, Amanda. What was it? What was wrong with him? He pointed the gun at me and said, ‘Bang, bang. You’re dead. And so am I.’”

  A stretch by one word.

  “He was joking. Don’t you get it? He was funny, like totally ironic. He thought life was so absurd. Especially around here. All these pathetic plastic people.”

  A siren in the distance. Brandon said, “He wasn’t joking. He knew I was going to shoot him.”

  “He didn’t.”

  She’d pulled her hood back up and over her head, had her hands in the pockets at the front.

  “Did he have some problems? Was he addicted to drugs? Was he being bullied? What was it?”

  “He had me,” Amanda said, shaking her head. “He didn’t want to die.”

  “He may have had you,” Brandon said, “but he wanted to die. No question about it.”

  “No. He loved me.”

  “Maybe he loved you and he wanted to die.”

  “No,” Amanda screamed, “he didn’t,” and she slipped a hand from her pocket, yanked at her sleeve, and started hacking at her thin, pale wrist.

  “Jesus,” Brandon said, leaping at her, grabbing her arm, squeezing her wrist, screaming, “Drop it. Drop it.” A razor blade flashed to the ground and he grabbed the other wrist, squeezed it tight, blood seeping between his fingers, then dripping onto his palm. It was warm and slippery and she yanked her hand away suddenly, blood spurting, then shoved him and tried to run. He overtook her in two steps, kicked her legs out and put her on the ground on her belly. She had both arms underneath her and he yanked the left arm out. It was slick with blood, crusted with dirt and pebbles. He turned the arm, held it palm up against the ground and pressed the wrist. He could feel the cuts, the soft flesh splayed open. He held
the wrist tight, waited as the siren got closer.

  Amanda writhed weakly, her head turned toward him, her cheek pressed to the gravel. “I’m coming, Thatch,” she whispered. “I’m coming to you.”

  “Sorry, but you’re not,” Brandon said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  It was Robichaud, the big guy. He put the spotlight on them as the cruiser slid to a stop, slid out and loped toward them. “Off her, hands in the air,” he shouted. And when Brandon stayed crouched over Amanda, Robichaud barked, “Get the fuck off her.”

  “Attempted suicide,” Brandon said. “She needs—

  And then Robichaud scooped him up, flipped him to the ground, screaming, “Show me your hands. Show me your hands.”

  Brandon did, and they were red with Amanda’s blood.

  “Blake,” Robichaud said.

  “She’s a friend of Thatcher Rawlings. She slashed her wrist.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Robichaud said, falling to his knees, picking up the bloody forearm, looking for the wound, pressing her wrist. With the other hand he pressed his shoulder mic and said, “We need Medcu here asap. Royal Point Marina. Woman with serious laceration.”

  A blurted response. Blake and Robichaud hunched over the pale, bleeding waif.

  “Talk to us, Amanda,” Blake said.

  “Amanda, look at me,” Robichaud said. “Why’d you go and do this, nice girl like you? You live around here?”

  She looked at him vaguely, sweat beading on her forehead, her breathing shallow and rapid.

  “She’s going into shock,” Blake said.

  Robichaud lifted Amanda’s legs up to increase blood flow, leaned close to her and said, “Listen to me, honey. Gonna fix you right up. What’s your last name, Amanda?”

  She looked at him, eyes going in and out of focus.

  “Shakespeare,” she said, squeezing the word out.

  “Really?”

  Amanda gave a bleary nod.

  “No kidding. You must be related to William.”

  She was turning gray, dark splotches under her eyes.

  “Any other injuries?”

  Blake shook his head.

  “Just showed up here and cut herself?”

  Blake nodded.

  “Christ,” Robichaud said. “Just a kid. My daughter’s age.”

  Amanda’s breathing was coming more rapidly and her eyes were rolling back. They could hear the traffic on the bridge, the rattle of the metal grating as cars and trucks crossed to Portland. And then a siren, a whoop and then a howl, and then the siren turning off. The ambulance skidded into the gravel lot, rolled up close to the cruiser. The EMTs got out of the cab, trotted to the trio on the ground. Robichaud and Blake fell back, Robichaud saying, “Left wrist. Deep.”

  They bent over her, wrapping the wrist, putting in an IV, rolling a gurney over and lifting Amanda up and on. She lifted easily, like a child, which she nearly was. When the ambulance pulled out, lights flashing, two other cruisers pulled in, a blue SUV from South Portland, a black and white cruiser from across the bridge.

  Kat.

  She stayed back as the South Portland sergeant, an older guy named Leopold, walked with Brandon to the SUV. They stood there in the strobe light, the sergeant’s silver hair turning momentarily blue.

  “From the beginning, Officer Blake,” the sergeant said. Officer Blake. Like the sarge wanted him to know he thought he still was a cop.

  Brandon told the story. Amanda waiting for him in the darkness. Amanda pulling a razor blade from her pocket and cutting her wrist.

  “Came here to make you watch?” Leopold said.

  “I guess so.”

  “How’d she get here?”

  “Uber, she said.”

  “What else she say?”

  “That Thatcher was just fooling around, that he thought everything was absurd.”

  “Absurd. Point a gun at a cop in a dark alley. What else?”

  “Said she was going to Thatcher. Join him.”

  “Goddamn, kids do stupid shit,” the sergeant said.

  “Sometimes they do,” Brandon said.

  “How you doing?”

  “Been better.”

  The sergeant leaned closer. “You hang in there, buddy. Anybody comes around here, you hit the phone and we’ll be here. I’m gonna keep a unit close all night. Got your back, Blake. The next one might want to do more than cut herself.”

  Brandon nodded. The sergeant turned, climbed into the driver’s seat, swiveled his laptop over and started typing. Kat moved closer.

  “Company?” she said.

  “Don’t you have to protect and serve?”

  “We get a dinner break.”

  “Galley’s pretty bare.”

  “I’ve eaten.”

  “Coffee then.”

  “Sure,” Brandon said.

  “You can tell me the story,” Kat said.

  “I think you just heard it.”

  “That was the sanitized version, Blake. I can tell those a mile away.”

  Nine

  There were dark drops of blood on the gravel, scuff marks where he and Amanda had so briefly grappled. Brandon picked up the beer and the diary, walked to the gate and punched in the code. He pushed the gate open and they stepped through and he closed it behind him, making sure it latched. There was a puff of cool breeze from the water and it carried the smell of the harbor, oil and brine and the fetid, rotting seaweed that lined the shore. They walked side by side down the float to Bay Witch. Brandon stepped over the transom first, went to the cabin door and unlocked it, turned on the stern floodlight. Kat came on board, said, “I still don’t get what’s wrong with dry land.”

  She followed him below, sat back on the settee on the starboard side. Brandon put the beer and diary on the table, slipped the Glock from his waistband and laid it beside them. He filled the kettle, put it on the burner and lit the gas. The flame puffed and flickered, blue wavelets in the dim light.

  “Who you riding with?”

  “Tommy Park,” Kat said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Mostly talks about high school soccer.”

  “His kid,” Brandon said.

  “No worse than you talking about boats,” Kat said. “How it took you two hours to replace the boondoggle on the foreskin.”

  He smiled.

  “Only one cup?” she said.

  “It’ll keep me up.”

  “You sleeping?”

  “No, but if I can, I want to be ready.”

  She waited as he watched the kettle, his back to her. It hissed, then steamed, then whistled. He poured the water into the French press. Stared at the press as the water dripped through. After a minute he poured the coffee into a mug and turned and hand it over.

  “Not the best looking barista I’ve ever seen,” Kat said.

  “I get by on my personality.”

  She leaned into the steam and touched her lips to the coffee. Pulled back.

  “That the diary?” she said.

  Brandon looked at it, wished he’d left it in the truck.

  “Yeah.”

  “Carry it around with you?”

  “I was going to give it back to Mia.”

  “Where is she?”

  “The apartment.”

  “Don’t tell me. You told her you wanted to be alone.”

  Brandon went to the carton and took out a Baxter. He opened it with the coffee spoon. Drank.

  “What are you doing, Brandon?”

  He didn’t reply, knew the question was rhetorical.

  “Gonna play the stoic.”

  “Kinda hard to understand if you haven’t been there.”

  “Kinda hard to help if you’re shut out.”

  “I’m not shutting you out, Kat. You’re right here. We’re talking.”

  “You put the wall up, Blake. Just like you did...”

  A pause. She put her mouth to the edge of the mug.

  “The last time?” Brandon said.

  “
Didn’t really know you then but that’s what I heard. Did the macho tough guy thing. ‘I don’t need anybody.’”

  “It’s not a group project. I pulled the trigger all by myself.”

  “Could just as easily been me. I went left and you went right.”

  “Luck of the draw,” Brandon said. “And now I play out my hand.”

  He drank. The beer was half gone. He felt it starting to hit him—a warm and enveloping wave of calm. Kat sipped the coffee, lowered the mug and fixed him with her hard stare, the one she used when she was about to say something he wouldn’t want to hear.

  “You’re feeling sorry for yourself, Brandon,” she said. “Sliding into the abyss of self-pity.”

  He swallowed. Smiled.

  “What the hell am I supposed to be? Be glad this all happened? Hey, look at all the OT. Maybe I’ll get paid for the deposition.”

  “Don’t give me your wise-ass shit, either. You can’t do this alone. Nobody can. Not even Brandon Blake, the loner cop raised by wolves.”

  “A dead mom and a drunk grandmother, to be more precise,” Brandon said. “Wolves would have been more fun.”

  “The orphaned waif who wandered the docks of Portland harbor. It’s a movie. Not a good one, but a movie. And you’re falling right back into the role.”

  Brandon gripped the can.

  “In your best moments you’re honest with yourself, Brandon. So be honest now. You’re hurting. This totally sucks. It’s tragic and sad and you’re wondering why the hell it happened to you. Could you have done something differently? Again, fair enough. But don’t think you can just take this on as your personal burden. Don’t be a goddamn martyr.”

  Kat looked at him. Took a deep breath and a swallow of coffee.

  “So there it is,” she said. “I like you too much to let you do this to yourself.”

  Brandon held the beer with one hand, looked down and away.

  “Orphaned waif,” he said. “Very literary. Stole that from Maddie.”

  “Horatio Alger’s got nothing on you, Blake,” Kat said.

  They both smiled. The boat rocked slowly, the water slapping softly on the planks. Brandon sipped the beer and ran through the night in his head. Dunkin’ Donuts. Danni and her boyfriend. Amanda looming from the darkness like a zombie.