City of Ports

by Jeff Deck

  If they’re locals, they’ll already know me as Divya Allard, the cop that snapped. Just living up to her reputation as the town ogre, because who’d want to let that kind of title slip away?

  I make good time reaching the waterfront park. I slow down as I see the blue lights strobing on Mechanic Street, in front of the bridge over to Peirce Island. By the time I reach the police blockade, I’m walking at a normal pace and my breathing is even. I see a familiar face stationed at the bridge. Familiar, but not exactly welcoming.

  “Milly,” I say warmly. I extend my hand.

  Officer Milly Fragonard, tall and watchful, recoils from my hand. That hurts. But after everything I did to the department—I can’t have expected even our friendship to survive.

  “Allard, this is a crime scene,” she says. Her body is as stiff as her tone. “Please step away.”

  She’s waiting to see if I do something insane. In fact, her hand is hovering above her duty belt. I’ll need to convince Milly that I’ve given up the insanity game.

  I make a show of looking around in the darkness. “I don’t see any signs of a crime here. Maybe you mean one happened on the other side of that bridge?”

  “Hmm.”

  “So if the bridge itself wasn’t involved, how about letting me walk across it? I promise I’ll stop at the other end.” I give her what I think is a charming smile.

  Milly’s expression just gets more perplexed. Her hand rests on the handle of her Sig P226.

  “Step away,” Milly says. “Don’t push me, Allard.”

  I raise my eyebrows and my hands, and I take a few steps back. I hadn’t been closer than a few yards in the first place. What was this, one psychotic breakdown and I’m out?

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, but this has got nothing to do with you,” she goes on. “Clear out of here before I notify Chief Akerman.”

  So she thinks dropping Akerman’s name will be enough to scare me away. I should take this as the cue to exit, stage right, before I get arrested and lose all future chances to find out about the corpse (and, just as important, unmask Anonymous Caller).

  But you know I’m a stubborn woman. The thought of leaving without landing myself even a tiny clue . . . it doesn’t sit well.

  So I say, “Before I go, and I am going, just tell me one thing—what did you find on his wrist?”

  I feel a mean little squirt of satisfaction at the shock that crosses Milly Fragonard’s face.“How did—” she starts to say, then clamps down and changes tack: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Allard. Can we leave it at that, before I decide that this does have something to do with you?”

  Anonymous Caller has just been validated.

  A jovial voice rings out then: “Oh my God! The two Injuns, reunited! Will somebody get a goddamn picture?”

  Officer Ben Ulrich enters the scene, trotting down the bridge. Suddenly the new Allard is nowhere to be found. I’m the old Allard again, with anger about to burst my seams.

  I close my eyes, briefly.

  My therapist Kathryn taught me all about recognizing the signs. The triggers. It took me a long time to listen, but eventually I realized that the therapy was not, in fact, bullshit. We weren’t reaching back to try to figure out the “roots” of my anger. We weren’t going to explore whether I was ultimately pissed at my MIA birth parents, etc. We were doing something scientific. And I respect science.

  The internal bursts of emotions that I feel are involuntary. They’re beyond my control. But I can control how I respond to them. I can replace the old destructive reactions—screaming at other people, throwing my personal belongings or using said belongings as clubs—with more measured, reasonable actions. I just need an intentional pause to step back and drive the anger train before it drives me.

  So while I have a sudden mental image of grabbing Milly’s sidearm, blowing out both of Ben Ulrich’s kneecaps, dragging him to the bridge’s edge, and then pitching him over the stone rail headfirst to sweep away in the rapid current of the Piscataqua River, the only outward tell of my anger is a slight tightening of my expression. In the darkness, it will not be noticeable. I’ll call that a win.

  I open my eyes and say, with as much false cheer as I can muster without gagging, “Hey, Ben! Milly here was just telling me about that weird thing on the dead guy’s wrist. What do you think?”

  As I predicted, Ulrich’s first reaction—his own involuntary emotional response—is to join the conversation. Ulrich never met an occasion for gabbing that he didn’t like (as it happens, one of the main things I loathe about him, even more so than his racism). “Oh yeah, I don’t know what that gadget . . .”

  He stops, then. Remembers who he’s talking to, just as Milly barks out a protest or a warning or both. “Hey, wait a minute. What the fuck, Fragonard? She’s not in the department anymore, or did you forget that during your girl talk?”

  “I didn’t say a dang thing!” Milly snaps. I feel a little bad for hanging her out to dry. “She must have some source.”

  “Oh, a source, huh?” Ulrich says.

  “Don’t you have a job to do? Because tonight I have an extremely low tolerance for your—nonsense.”

  “Sure, just keep in mind how low a tolerance the chief has for leaking information to civilians. Even if they used to wear the uniform . . .”

  During this argument between my two former colleagues, I step away, just as Milly originally suggested. They notice me going, but they’re too busy attacking each other to care all that much. I’ve gotten everything I need to know from these two. Anonymous Caller was telling the truth about the wrist thing, and Akerman was going to cover it up. Just like he did with you.

  You did a lot of weird things to yourself. I guess it was one element that attracted me to you in the first place—this willingness you had to scrawl graffiti all over the temple of your body. My polar opposite. My other half, the free spirit counterbalancing Lady Uptight herself, me, unwilling even to get my ears pierced. After I met you, I still felt no desire to tat myself up or put a ring in my clit, but I finally understood the impulse. You saw hypocrisy everywhere you looked: misplaced ideas of purity, focused on appearance while ignoring deeper truths. You called them “false gods” of various types—false gods of the body, false gods of the street, false gods of the city. You wanted to tear them all down.

  (And okay, maybe all that self-righteousness didn’t make you so easy to live with. But my God (false god?), I still ache for you to be here.)

  Anyway, even with all your existing tats and piercings, the wrist body mod never rang true to me. It didn’t seem like something you would do. The fact that Chief Akerman had impressed upon Skip Bradley to cover it up in his report just made it seem even more important, of course.

  Even after I confronted Akerman that night and blew up my own job, I still searched desperately for information on the wrist implant. All I could figure out was that it was probably a silly biometric device of the sort that exercise fanatics would use. I stalked around the fitness clubs in the area until I finally spotted someone with a similar wrist device, going into the Tenacious Trainers gym. The fact that the gym was located in the plaza close to where I’d found your body made me doubly suspicious.

  But, stripped of my badge, I no longer had the freedom to investigate as I pleased. The first time I sneaked into the Tenacious Trainers gym was also the last. I quickly tripped an alarm system and triggered an arrest by my own former colleagues. Given my past record, a judge was all too happy to ban me from going within a hundred feet of the facility.

  By then, I had to ask myself just what I was actually doing. Harassing fitness freaks based on a connection that could be solely circumstantial? So you’d joined a gym shortly before you died. So fucking what? I was feeling acutely unwell in my own head, and lots of people happened to be pointing that unwellness out to me. I acknowledged that . . . they had a point. That was the day when I gave up the search and started to take my therapist’s advice. I couldn’t
imagine you wanting to see me in jail for something as stupid as a gym break-in.

  Now—well, now I’ve got a clue to follow up on once again, and it isn’t just an angry voice in my head telling me to do so. I can thank Anonymous Caller for rewarding me with a little validation.

  I have to find out who the body on Peirce Island was. I check the short piece on portsmouthporthole.com for updates, but it has no info about the dead man’s identity and little info about anything else.

  I’ll bet someone in the PD knows by now. If not Milly or Ulrich, then Akerman, and/or the reporting officer. No help in that direction—I burned all those bridges last year when I called every single one of them an “uncle-fucker.” Oh, and a “cunt-licking, cat-piss-drinking colostomy bag.” There’s more, but you already know all my usual insults.

  Fortunately, I have another avenue of approach. And if I’m not mistaken, it’s almost her lunchtime.

  3

  “You know I can’t stay long,” says Figueroa. “Especially on a night like tonight. You’re lucky they let me go out to grab some food.”

  I smile. “Must be that grande dame seniority. You’re the one running the show on the night desk, yeah? Anyway, don’t worry, we can order to go.”

  Christine Figueroa shifts in her seat and looks around nervously at the bright, eclectic space of the Friendly Toast: vintage metal signs and tacky velvet art on the walls, every server either a hipster or just dressing the part to get paid. “Yeah. It’s just … nobody particularly looks like they’re in a hurry here.”

  It’s true. The Friendly Toast service is notoriously slow. But I’ve coerced Figueroa to come to the Toast not for the peanut-butter-and-pickle pancakes, but for the covering noise, the relative privacy, and the fact that I never go here. I’ve chosen a table up against the wall where I’ll be able to see if anyone is watching us and taking notes. Such paranoia is, oh, I don’t know, maybe inappropriate at this stage of the game. But I don’t know the motives of Anonymous Caller, do I? He could be trying to fuck me, and not in the nice way.

  “I’m gonna get right down to business, then,” I say in a low voice. “Do they have a name for the Peirce Island body?”

  Figueroa nods. She writes on one of her napkins and slides it over to me. Figueroa is overweight and pallid, appropriate for a creature of the night. She works as a copy editor and page designer five nights a week for the Portsmouth Porthole, and that’s a three to midnight shift. Sometimes even later if, say, a fire breaks out on Bow Street at 11 p.m. Wherever there’s crisis, the Porthole is there to cover it. At least while they can afford to pay their reporters.

  I take a look at the napkin: Graham Tsoukalas. I stuff the napkin in my pocket.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Thank you!”

  “Eric Kuhn’s on the story,” Figueroa says carefully.

  Right; I saw his byline. I bite my lip. Don’t tell me I’ll have to cross paths with that fucker. He dragged my name through the mud—yours too—with a series of articles last year chronicling my downfall. Nevertheless, if he has any helpful information, I’ll have to be able to speak to him without throttling him.

  I lean in to press the copy editor for further details, and that’s when young Solomon Shrive shows up with pad in hand.

  “Detective Allard!” he shouts, clearly delighted and clearly ignoring my discomfort at his decibel level. “Welcome to the Toast. And who’s your buddy?”

  I suppress a groan. I thought I could avoid familiar faces here, but I should have known better. Portsmouth is really a small town at heart, not a city. Still, I was almost positive my number one fan Sol didn’t work here.

  “Hey, Sol,” I say. “New job?”

  He nods. “Things didn’t really work out at the Martingale. Or Cava. Or, uh, the fancy Mexican place on State Street. So I needed to lower my standards a little, just for the time being. I’m sure I’ll be back among the upscale crowd in no time.” Sol sketches a bow as he says, “Thank you, m’lady, thank you, sir,” and he knocks a glass ketchup bottle off our table. He’s in luck this time; it just bounces a couple of times on the parquet floor. He doesn’t trouble himself to pick it up.

  “Listen, we already have a server,” I say. “That nice girl Rose with the bar in her nose. You don’t want to encroach on her territory this early in your new career, right?”

  Sol tips me a wink. “Absolutely right, Detective. I will leave you to continue speaking with this suspect.”

  “Suspect?” Figueroa says. “I’m—”

  “Just a friend,” I finish, “and I’m not a detective, Sol. Let’s catch up later.”

  The young man nods, but he’s slow to walk away. Only when another customer calls out, “Excuse me, sir? Excuse me? Sir?” does Sol return to his section of the floor.

  I first met Sol while on duty: the night he overdosed on opioids. I saved his life, in fact, with a dose of Narcan. It was early in my career, when I cared a little too much about the ne’er-do-wells I met on the streets. I visited Sol occasionally during my off-hours, introduced him to the local Narcotic Anonymous folks. Even played wingwoman for him one night on a field trip to Ogunquit (Jonathan’s, but sadly for Sol, none of the studs were biting at his lure). When I went on my rampage after you died, Sol was the only person who had my back. Even at my craziest.

  So don’t get me wrong. I like the guy. Bit of a naïf for sticking by me, but sweet. He’s worked hard to recover from his addiction. He’ll make a great partner for some lucky man someday. However, Sol can keep a secret about as well as a leaky gundalow can float. I need him far, far from the radius of my investigation.

  Is that what I’m calling it now? An “investigation?” Trying on the detective hat after all, dear old Div?

  “No!” I say, and Figueroa starts. “Sorry.”

  Figueroa sits up. “Here comes Rose with our boxes. I’m sorry, Divya, I have to bounce. Matt will have my head if my ass isn’t reading galleys ten minutes from now.”

  “The journalist’s sorry lot,” I say. “Remind me never to ask what they’re actually paying you, Christine. Hey . . . before you go, can you tell me anything else about, mmm, G?”

  She casts a wary look at me. “His folks live out on Thornton Street. I think he was still living with them. That’s all I can really say. Eavesdropping only got me so far, with the newsroom locked down.” She grabs her box from the server and gets up from the table, shrugs on her coat.

  “What do you mean, locked down?”

  Christine Figueroa looks truly apprehensive now. But the chatter of the other customers in the Friendly Toast provides enough covering noise to give her confidence. “Your old boss stopped by earlier tonight. Chief Akerman. He had a meeting with Matt behind closed doors. Afterward, Matt told us all to walk lightly. To not trust any sources of information except for the police.”

  “That’s odd,” I say. “Your newsroom ever operate that way before? On the PD’s leash?”

  “Used to not be that way,” Figueroa mutters. “Used to be a real paper. But lately . . . Fuck, I’ve said too much. Bye, Divya. Let’s have a real meal soon.” And with that, she’s gone.

  I clutch my own styrofoam box but leave it closed, chewing on her parting words instead. Akerman actually going into the newspaper offices to tell them what to print and what not to. I’d think any executive editor worth his salt would be shitting a brick—a great salty brick—at the gall of a cop who’d do that, even the local captain of the blue.

  Had Akerman scared him?

  I shake my head. Not relevant. At least, not yet. The Portsmouth Porthole’s editorial independence would have to be explored some other time. Right now I have to pay a visit to the Tsoukalas house.

  I’ll just drive by slowly, I tell myself. I won’t barge in or ask them any questions. I wouldn’t want to take that next step into actually interfering with an active investigation, now, would I? Kathryn would be so disappointed. She’d call it backsliding. She’d call it letting my emotions rather than my thoughts dictate
my behaviors.

  Maybe you’d be disappointed, too.

  Or maybe you’d want me to uncover just what the fuck happened tonight, if it has even a remote connection to your death.

  I’ve still got Figueroa’s words ringing in my ears as I arrive at Dennett Street, where the Tsoukalas family lives. I’m tempted to dwell on the possibility of conspiracy in the Portsmouth police department, just based on Akerman barging in and making dictates on the newspaper’s content. After all, I didn’t hesitate to draw those kinds of crazy lines last year. The PD’s dismissal of the investigation just seemed too . . . quick, convenient.

  Then again, that was also when I was going out of my head. I don’t want to revisit the Land of the Mad anytime soon.

  I park well away from the Tsoukalas house. I’m still not sure if I’m going to cross any ethical lines—like, say, pretending I’m still on active duty with the Portsmouth PD. Nah, honesty will be the best policy. I know this little adventure will come back and bite me in the ass somehow—but honesty will make the bite less painful.

  I march up to the front door of the Tsoukalas house. The shades in the first floor are open. I see a group of people gathered in the living room. Many of them are crying and hugging each other. Guess the word already got over here. I wonder if I’ve actually managed to beat the Portsmouth PD visiting the family, though.

  Okay. I’ve got to summon that old charm that I used to practice in front of a mirror. Let the record state that Divya Allard can be likable when she needs to be. I wasn’t a complete disaster at witness interviews back in the day.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss . . .” I mumble to myself as I ring the bell.