by Kate Flora
Burgess nodded.
"I'll see what I can learn."
"You going to brief the press or is the captain doing it?" Burgess asked.
Melia's smile was a thin, cynical line. "Guess. I keep waiting for him to pop through the door, demanding reports and updates. Like we have anything to say at this point."
There was a knock at the door. They all straightened, expecting Captain Cote, then relaxed again. Cote didn't knock.
"Excuse me, sir?" An officer came in with a folder, set it in front of Burgess.
Burgess flipped it open. Copies of the pictures of the girl and the baby he'd snapped with his cell phone at the scene. He set them on the table and everyone leaned in. They were poor quality. There hadn't been time, under the circumstances, for lighting and focus. But it was just that hurried quality that gave them their power. The girl's face was visible, but she was surrounded by a blurred sea of moving hands. The baby was lost behind a mask and tubes, just a tiny head with dark skin and dark hair. More visible were the set faces of those who worked on him.
There was a long moment of silence. Then Kyle shoved back his chair. "Is that all? 'Cuz I gotta go see my kids. What time are we starting tomorrow?"
Melia stood, too. "Going to go see mine, too. Lucas hasn't been feeling well, and Gina's a little worried. I'll let you know, Joe, when the ME calls with a time."
Burgess realized that he needed to go see his kids as well. Stan was still sitting, staring at the photo. When they all rose, he looked up. "You old farts quitting already?"
"Someday, this might happen to you," Vince said.
"No way. I'm gonna be like Joe. I ever have a kid, it will be just fine if I get a phone call fifteen years down the road, like he did. Congratulations, detective. It's a boy."
Burgess had thought exactly those words when he'd learned about his son Dylan. But coming from Perry's mouth, they seemed ugly. He realized Perry had been acting ugly all day. Something was going on. Perry had a childish ability to act out when something in his private life was bothering him. He'd have to get Perry alone and figure out what was up. He'd had enough of pulling the kid's ass out of the fire.
He sank into his chair again, shoving back the urge those photos had incited to rush home and hug the ones he loved. "Let's take a moment and plan tomorrow," he said.
But Perry was staring at one of the photographs. He slid it across the table to Kyle. "Do you see what I see?"
"Isn't that a Christmas song?"
"Just take at look at it, Ter, okay?"
Reluctantly, Kyle picked it up. Burgess knew he wanted to be gone, but Kyle was a good cop. And even when Perry was being a pain in the ass, they trusted his good eye. Kyle looked at the picture, then shoved back his chair. "Be right back," he said, and walked out.
"Where is he going?" Melia said.
"To get a magnifying glass, so the rest of you blind old farts can see what Kyle and I can see," Perry said.
Burgess grabbed the photo. At first, he didn't see anything new. Then he saw it—a band of dark bruises around one of the girl's wrists.
"And what does that remind you of?" Perry said.
Burgess passed it to Melia. He watched Melia's face and saw recognition.
"Looks like when a rookie or a sadist puts on the cuffs too tight."
"Exactly."
Now Perry was back on the reservation. "Which means we've got to send some nice evidence tech over to the hospital and get us some pictures of that before the bruises fade."
Kyle came back with the magnifying glass and they all took a closer look.
"We'd better get her clothes, hers and the baby's, from Aucoin, get them back here to the lab," Burgess said.
He remembered he'd promised to send someone to relieve Aucoin. Aucoin could bring them back himself. "Vince, can you make sure patrol has someone with her at all times? Looks like there are people out there with a big interest in keeping her from talking to us."
Melia nodded. "She's not talking?"
"Not so far. Tomorrow I'll spend some time there, talk to her doctors, see what's going on. Aucoin said the nurses told him she's retreated from the world. Went into some kind of fugue state right after they told her about the baby."
There was a noise in the hall, and they all looked toward the door like misbehaving kids who expected a parent. What they expected, and wanted to avoid, was Cote. Sooner or later he would brief the press. A fire at a mosque was big news and Cote loved the limelight. Far too often, he revealed things they didn't want made public. Since he hadn't talked to anyone working the case, they had no idea what he knew, or what he would say.
When no one came in, Melia said, "What time tomorrow? Eight?"
"Unless we hear from the ME."
On his way to the door, Burgess had a thought. "I'm going to take a look at Rudy's video footage of the crowd, Stan, see who crawled out of the woodwork. You want to join me?"
"With pleasure. I wonder if any of our friends from the mosque were there?"
A few minutes later, they were watching Rudy Carr's crowd footage on one of the monitors. A sickening display of people laughing, talking, pointing, and jostling. Burgess scanned the faces. He couldn't get a good visual but back in one corner, two men sat in shadow, flashing lights bouncing off the chrome on their motorcycles. He hit pause.
"You see that, Stan? I wonder if Rocky might be able to get us some faces?"
Perry leaned in toward the screen. "Like we'd ever get that lucky. But I'll cruise around there tomorrow, see if anyone around might have a surveillance camera. Seriously, I thought the Imam was bullshitting us when he said that."
Burgess didn't know yet. At least one of their local gangs favored Nazi-style lightning bolts on the patches that celebrated a "hit." Things had been quiet lately, but they'd had plenty of motorcycle gang rivalry in the city, something that set the local merchants off, especially after a shoot-out in the Old Port in broad daylight. It was known some of their local bikers didn't take kindly to the city's new citizens. Definitely something they had to take a look at. He'd leave a note for the gang people, asking them to take a look at Rudy's tape. See if there was anything they recognized. A note for Rudy, asking if he could make stills of the men and the motorcycles.
"Let's see what else we've got." He hit play and the crowd scene began to roll again.
Suddenly, like a game show contestant hitting his buzzer first, Perry said, "There. Stop. Back it up."
They backed up and moved forward, frame by frame, until Perry said, "Right there. At the back of that group by the tree? You see him?"
Burgess saw. It was the man from the Imam's living room who had jumped when he'd told them the baby was dead. A face made memorable by a big scar on the man's forehead. The man who wasn't there.
"There's something else for tomorrow's to-do list," Burgess said.
He checked his notes for the name and address. Ismail Ibrahim. The address he'd given was the Imam's. If all the people who claimed to live there actually did, the place was crammed with cots from basement to attic.
"Why wait for tomorrow, Joe? It's not late."
Perry was right. It wasn't late. But there was the small problem of finding an interpreter.
"I'll call Osman," Perry said. "I'm sure he'll be happy to assist his local police department again. And get paid for it."
Osman didn't answer his phone. Burgess got out his notes and read through them. In their discussion out at the curb, he had asked Osman which of the men spoke English. Of this man, he had been certain. He had good English. The interpreter had said that the man worked at the mall.
"Osman said he speaks English."
Stan was bouncing from one foot to the other, eager for the chase. "So what are we waiting for?"
* * *
It was just before nine when they pulled to the curb. Lights were still on inside, and they had said they'd return for the plan of the building, so they ought to be expected. Once again they climbed the steps and knocked on the door.
This time, no one answered. Stan knocked again, a forceful assault of big knuckles against the wood. Burgess watched the living room light go out. Even through the door, they could hear footsteps thumping up stairs.
Perry looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
"Once more, with feeling," Burgess said. "And tell them who we are."
Perry's fist was raised to knock again when Burgess heard a noise. He put up a hand and then cupped his ear. Perry lowered his hand. In the quiet night, they could hear the scuff of shoes on the driveway that ran along the left side of the house. Silently, Burgess signaled for Perry to go that way, while he went the other, circling around the right side of the house and along the back. When he reached the driveway, he could just make out a figure disappearing between the houses facing on the next street. Tall and lean. Probably male.
Stan was moving quietly behind the figure, so Burgess slipped along the other side of the house, moving faster this time, and came out into the next street. So far, no dogs had barked and no one had flung open a window and demanded to know what they were doing there.
He and Stan hit the sidewalk together, closing in on a man who was bent over, opening a car door. A man they'd spoken with earlier in the evening and seen in the crime scene video. A man who'd said his name was Ismail.
"Excuse me, Ismail," Burgess said. "Hoping I can have a few minutes of your time? Some follow-up questions about the fire?"
The man froze, key in the lock, body rigid, as he turned to face Burgess. "I told you earlier. I know nothing about that."
Demonstrating he both spoke, and understood, English.
"I think you do," Burgess said. "And we appreciate your willingness to assist us in our investigation."
"I don't... I'm not—"
"We've got your picture at the scene."
"That wasn't me. You people think all Somalis look alike."
You people. And the police were accused of stereotyping and profiling?
"You telling us you have an identical twin?" Perry said. "Who wears identical clothes? With an identical scar above his eyebrow?"
The man deflated a little, then pulled his key out of the lock. "What did you want to ask?"
Burgess noticed he hadn't said "want to know." They could ask, apparently, and then he'd decide whether he would answer. "You want to invite us inside? Talk to us there? Or would you prefer to come and sit in my car?"
"I would prefer not to speak with you at all."
"An option that isn't on the table," Burgess said. "Now, my place, or yours?"
"It would not be a good thing if it were known that I had spoken with you. I don't know anything that will help you in your investigation."
And how in hell would he know that before he heard their questions?
Perry had moved into the man's personal space so that he was backed right up against the car. The hand that held the car keys was shaking slightly and they made a metallic chatter against the side of the car.
Burgess heard a car turning the corner and heading toward them, but when he glanced that way, there were no lights.
Then the lights came on and the car accelerated.
"Get down, Stan!" he yelled.
He grabbed the man and pulled him onto the sidewalk as the car flew toward them, its passengers firing a barrage of gunshots.
Bullets plinked off metal. There was the rustle and chatter of falling glass. Auto glass is designed not to break into sharp shards. That doesn't mean it won't break, and it has its own special sound when it does.
Keeping one hand on Ismail, Burgess got on the phone to dispatch. "Shots fired. Gray or black Honda. Maybe six or eight years old. At least three people inside and they're armed. Last seen heading toward Brighton Avenue."
When the car had disappeared down the street, they jumped up, grabbed Ismail, and raced between the buildings back toward their car.
Chapter 6
They shoved Ismail into the back seat, jumped in the front, and sped away from the house, ignoring his protests that he had to stay and reassure his family about the gunshots.
"We can have an officer go by if you want. Let them know everything's okay," Burgess said. "Or you can call them. You have a phone?"
Instead of responding, Ismail clammed up.
Burgess was still trying to catch his breath. Only TV cops got into gunfights and sloughed it off with no reaction. Drive-by shootings weren't that common in Portland. He didn't like it happening in his city. Even less did he like it happening to him, though he was pretty certain the shots had been aimed at Ismail. He hoped patrol would find the car and the shooters. If he were a betting man, though, he'd bet against that.
One thing he did know—that the department would be swamped with complaints from the neighborhood, and that that those complaints would be coming back down to him. It was another aspect of the challenge of integrating refugees into the community. If there were random gunshots fired in one of the public housing projects, the good citizens in other parts of the city could ignore them. But when refugees realized the American dream, and moved into a decent house in a "nice" neighborhood, the neighbors often didn't know how to deal.
Part of the problem was just another kind of cultural dissonance. While other houses on the block might contain a single family and one or two vehicles, the refugee families tended, where members of multiple generations had managed to survive the conflicts at home, to contain an extended family, often with the result that the neighbors objected both to the crowding and the noise, and to the multiple vehicles parked where there would otherwise be lawn.
Not that there weren't plenty of nice folks who'd lived in Maine for generations who parked cars on their lawns. They just weren't usually so ambitious about upward mobility and didn't do it in nice neighborhoods. As his mother—a kind woman but a realist—might have said: they knew their place. There were exceptions, though. He'd met some really appalling ones on a recent case, a family so deeply into selfishness and criminal acts they'd barely noticed when one of their children was brutally murdered.
Letting his mind wander like an old fart. He jerked his attention back to the moment. One silver lining from those predictable complaints was they might provide names and phone numbers. People he could contact who might have observations about goings on at the Imam's house. A detective never knew where good information might come from.
"You okay, Stan?" he asked, as he took the turn at the corner way too fast.
"Got a little dirt on my pants."
"Ismail?"
There was silence, then the man said, "I think that I am bleeding."
Burgess jerked the wheel, turned into a little strip mall parking lot, and slammed the Explorer into park. He snapped on the overhead and turned to the man in the back seat.
"Show me," he said, nodding at Perry to keep an eye on the man. It wouldn't be the first time they'd had someone fake an injury so they'd stop and he could jump out of the vehicle.
Ismail held out his hand. Blood oozed from his palm where it had scraped along the sidewalk. An eight-year-old kid who'd fallen off his bike wouldn't complain about something like that. Burgess passed him a handkerchief. He bought them by the dozen, and gave them out nearly as fast. Decades of binding up his city's wounds—physical and emotional—with little squares of white cotton.
"Anything else?"
The man's face was closed and sullen. Just like Burgess's son, Dylan. Burgess couldn't seem to win any popularity contests these days. Like his training officer had told him, back in the day, "You can't be a cop if you need to always be loved."
Substitute "ever" for "always" and you'd have it about right.
Ismail stared from Burgess to the door handle. Finally he said, "No."
"We get to headquarters, you can wash the gravel off in the men's room. Unless you'd rather we took you over to the hospital?" Burgess pretended to consider. "Might not be a bad idea. We could take you to see our little mystery girl. See if you recognize her. If she recognizes you."
/> Ismail gave Burgess one of those "if I only had a weapon, I'd kill you now" looks. "I don't need the hospital."
"Good. Then we can find ourselves an interview room at 109, and have a friendly chat."
"Fuck you."
"Nice way to talk to someone who just saved you from getting shot," Perry said.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The car without lights? The gunshots? The reason we grabbed you and pulled down behind your car?"
"I didn't hear any gunshots."
"Right," Perry snorted. "Thought you just said you needed to reassure your family. About what, I wonder, if it wasn't the gunshots? That little scrape on your hand?"
Ismail, not entirely imperturbable, made an angry noise.
"Okay," Perry said, "Maybe in Somalia, they don't call them guns? So I'll explain it to you. Tomorrow, when you go to get in your car, you may notice there are some small round holes it? Couple windows blown out, glass all over the seats and the sidewalk? A car, by the way, that we notice you have parked on a different street from where you live?"
He shifted in his seat, a sudden, angry gesture. "See, in this country we have these things called guns. They shoot projectiles called bullets—"
"Enough, Stan."
Perry shut up, but Burgess could still feel his angry vibe in the silent car. He'd meant to use this drive to probe into what was bothering his detective, something sergeants were supposed to do for the people they supervised, but they'd gotten kind of sidetracked.
He called Melia, told him about the gunshots and that they were bringing a witness in. Asked if he wanted to sit in. Melia told him to handle it.
There was a long silence, then Melia said, "Call me you're done. I'll fill you in on the press conference."
That sounded ominous. Burgess drove the rest of the way to 109, imagining the many ways in which Cote giving a press conference without a briefing might have screwed things up for his investigators. His first choice was the man pursing his duck's ass mouth and uttering smarmy platitudes about getting justice for their newest citizens. His worst nightmare was that Cote had spewed out everything they knew about the girl and the baby. Not that there was much to spew at this point, but he didn't want the GP to know about the locked closet. Or that the baby had died. Yet.
