by Kate Flora
She had her hand splayed across her chest like a shocked matron in an old movie.
"None of this has to leave this room," Burgess reminded her. "I'm not going to say anything. Dylan isn't going to say anything. The school's reputation is intact. You get points for treating everyone fairly and for finding an opportunity to remind your students about harassment and respect for religious differences. Seems to me that it's a win-win."
She slapped the handbook shut, turning her back on them as she stuck it back on the shelf. They both watched her back, her shoulders rigid, her head erect, as she stood awhile, her fingers resting lightly on the edge of the shelf.
Finally, she turned back to them. In a slightly strangled voice, she said, "I'll see you in the morning, Dylan."
She took a couple of calming breaths, then held her hand out to Burgess. "Detective Sergeant. I sincerely we hope we do not meet again."
In the moment, he wanted to grant her wish, but he'd be back here again. It was the nature of the job and the nature of schools.
"It's pretty likely that we will, Dr. Jorgensen. Portland police are in and out of the schools all the time. I'm surprised we haven't met before. Have you been here long?"
"Dylan and I started on the same day," she said.
"It's a great school," he said. "I hope you'll be happy here. And don't think, for a moment, that I don't appreciate the difficulty of your job."
Two more breaths, and she thawed.
"Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome."
Burgess and his son left.
Chapter 18
Three girls in headscarves were sitting on a bench outside the school, looking like they were waiting for someone to pick them up. Although all three avoided actually looking at him or his son, Burgess sensed an acknowledgment from the smallest one. A gesture so admirably subtle it looked like she'd spent a lifetime keeping everything about herself under wraps.
"Leyla," Dylan whispered. "Don't look at her."
Burgess complied.
As soon as they were in the truck, Dylan wanted to talk, but Burgess held up a hand. "Got to check my phone," he said. "Someone's been awfully anxious to reach me all during that meeting."
Dylan nodded. A quick study in what it meant to be a cop's kid, he stuck his earbuds in his ears and settled back to wait.
Burgess pulled out the dancing phone. Kyle looking for him. Perry looking for him. Melia looking for him. Captain Cote looking for him. The hospital looking for him. When he saw that message, his heart jumped. Please don't let something have happened to his mystery girl.
He decided to call Melia first. "Vince, it's Burgess. What's going on?"
"Officer on patrol found your translator in a the trunk of a car. Ambulance has taken him to the hospital, but he's in bad shape, shot twice. Terry says it doesn't look good."
"I'll head on over there. Anything else I should know about?"
"Nothing pressing. The captain would like details about the autopsy, when you have time."
"I'm trying, Vince."
"Keep me in the loop."
Vince always said it. Burgess tried to honor it. He disconnected and called Kyle.
"Fill me in," he said, when Kyle answered.
"About an hour ago, patrol spotted the license number of the car that picked Osman up at the hospital last night in a lot out toward the Westbrook line. Guy stopped to check, saw blood on the seats, and popped the trunk. Found Osman in there. Someone beat him pretty bad, then shot him a couple times and left him in the trunk."
"No sign of the driver?"
"Nope."
"Remind me. Who was that car registered to?"
"Woman named Rihanna Daud. We've got people going by her house. I'm not getting a good feeling about it, though."
"I'll be there soon. Gotta drop Dylan off at home."
"Dylan? Oh crap," Kyle said. "The soccer game."
"Brief me, then head out there. You can still make part of it. Stan can cover things there."
"Stan's gone to the computer store. He was feeling kind of itchy to make something happen."
A feeling they were all experiencing right now.
"Take me with you, Dad," Dylan said. "That'll save you some time."
Amazing what the kid could hear with those earbuds in. Why not take Dylan along? He'd already said he was curious about what his father did. This would be an uncensored glimpse.
"I'm on my way now, Terry," he said, and headed for the hospital.
"Where are we going and why are we going there?" Dylan asked.
"We have a translator, name of Hussain Osman, we used for an interview last night. Later, Stan and Terry were looking for him, swung by his house and found someone had attacked him. They brought him to the hospital. We asked him to wait for us after he was treated, so we could interview him about the attack, but he skipped out on us."
Burgess wondered how much of this he should tell. "He didn't show for a meeting today, so Terry and Stan went looking for him. Patrol just found him in the trunk of a car. He's been shot."
"Why?"
"We don't know yet. Hope he lives long enough to tell us."
Was that too blunt? Dylan had been raised by a lawyer and a judge, but how protective had they been? He had no idea. Figured he might as well ask. "Your mom and dad talk to you about their cases?"
"You're my dad."
"Stepdad. The judge. What did you call him, anyway?"
"The other kids called him 'Dad,' so I did, too, but he never seemed to feel like he was my dad."
What an ass the man had been. "So, did they talk about their work much?"
"Mom did. Sometimes she'd take me to court with her, or to the office, if I didn't have school. And in the car, she'd tell me about her cases and ask for my reactions. She represented a lot of kids, see, and she thought my perspective might be helpful."
"At the hospital," Burgess began.
"I know. Stay out of the way and keep my mouth shut, right?"
"Right."
They drove in silence a while, but it was a comfortable silence, not their too-frequent awkward one. "I'd better call Chris and let her know why I'm late," Dylan said. "Or Doro, I mean. She's a cool lady."
Burgess agreed. Doro was a cool lady. A wise lady. She reminded him of his mother. Someone who put love for family first. Unlike his mother, Doro wasn't afraid to speak her mind.
He made a quick call to Sage Prentiss, to see if he'd had any luck getting that floor plan from the Imam. Didn't get an answer, so he moved it back to the to-do list and called Melia again.
"We have someone from the AG's office on this yet? Because I need a bunch of subpoenas for the Imam's records, the mosque's records, and I'm not getting any cooperation there."
"One of your favorite people, as a matter of fact."
Rita Callahan, voice like Brillo on a screen, face like a pounded steak, and the tenacity and charm of a pit bull. Luckily, Burgess didn't need charm and he wanted tenacity. "Great. I'll give her a call."
But she wasn't at her desk, so he left a message, and that became another task that stayed on the ever-growing list.
* * *
Kyle was pacing the waiting room, wearing all the controlled potential for a violent explosion a panther might. The other people in the room were watching him warily, like they feared they might be his chosen prey. Burgess knew Kyle had no idea how he struck people. The general population at any rate. Kyle absolutely knew how to turn his cold gaze on someone who needed settling down. Generally, people regarded Burgess, with his bulk and his scarred face, as the scary one, but Burgess knew Kyle was one of his secret weapons. Bring out that cold gray-eyed stare and tightly coiled anger, and people often gave it up pretty quickly.
"Fill me in, Ter, and then get the hell out of here. You're scaring the citizens."
Kyle looked around at the sea of staring faces. "Sorry, Joe. I forget."
"Yes. You do."
"Hey, Dylan," Kyle said. "Pretty soon you're gonna
be patting this guy on the head."
"I hope so, sir," Dylan said.
Kyle smiled and patted the boy's shoulder, and the three of them went off into a corner to confer.
Burgess liked his son's innate politeness. Something of a rarity these days. And what he'd learned this afternoon at the school of his son's protective nature. He'd been a big brother, knew something of the job. He liked that his son seemed to be taking it on. Nina and Neddy could use another champion.
Burgess got out his notebook and wrote down Kyle's information. The location of the lot, the name of the car's owner and her address. The same name and same car that had picked him up at the hospital last night.
"We've got Osman's cell phone," Kyle said. "It was in his pocket. I can go over it when I get back to 109, look for calls and texts. You can get his wallet and his clothes. I've arranged to have the car towed. That's how many cars in the last twenty-four? Three?"
"Did we collect Ismail's car or just work it there on the street?" Burgess couldn't remember, and that scared him. Getting to be such an old fart things were slipping his mind.
"At the scene," Kyle said. "Then it got towed to a dealer to get the glass replaced. Captain Cote would have a fit if we'd brought in three cars. He might have to park on the street."
"I wonder why someone is targeting him?" Burgess sad. "Osman, not Cote. That I would understand. There were bad vibes between him and the Imam's crew, but why this?"
"Maybe because of what he said to us as he was leaving. About Hawala?" Kyle suggested. "Maybe we need to talk with our friends the Feds, see if they know anything they're willing to share."
"The Feds" and "willing to share" rarely belonged in the same sentence, but a cop could always hope. "You know anyone over there?"
"We're supposed to have a liaison working with them on just this sort of thing, Joe. Vince was going to check that out, make the call. You know how much our friends over at world's greatest like to deal with rank. Even if they do piss all over it."
Dylan had been trying to keep a straight face. Now he smiled. "You know, Dad—" He put a hand over his mouth, remembering he was supposed to shut up and listen. Then he went on. "I'm pretty good at computer stuff. Searches. Maybe I could help?"
"Maybe," Burgess said. He didn't want to involve his son in this, not even just sitting at a keyboard. Something he'd have to think about. Consider if they kept meeting dead ends. But there was an undercurrent of indifferent violence to this case. A cold savagery that wasn't usual. Something he didn't think they'd seen the end of yet. It made him wonder about motorcycle gangs. Some of the things they did smacked of this. As did some of the drug-fueled violence they saw, both from users so strung out they'd lost touch with their humanity and from dealers who simply cared about nothing but their profits. People who used horrific violence to keep other people in line.
Or was it simply the actions of people coming from a country so riven by war that social structure had crumbled? Two of his kids had already seen unimaginable violence. He wanted to keep the home front a safe place. One of the reasons Akiba Simba Norton's threat had made him so angry. Things at home had to be secure so he could go out and do this job.
"Okay, Ter. I've got this. You go catch the end of that game. We'll meet up later."
Kyle was out the door like he was being chased. He was, of course. Chased by guilt. By the specter of social services and the court watching him, making him prove he was able to be an adequate father to his girls even while working a demanding job. A whole lot of that fell on his girlfriend, Michelle, just like a lot of Burgess's job fell on Chris and Doro. Recent events were giving him a lot more respect for single parents.
He left Dylan in the lobby while he checked in with the ER. Osman was still alive and had been taken to surgery. They would keep him posted. It did not look good. Burgess collected Osman's bloody clothes, shoes, phone, and wallet. Left his cell number for updates.
Then, since he was already at the hospital, he went to check on his mystery girl.
Remy was gone and Andrea Dwyer was in his chair by the bedside, reading. She turned quickly as he came in, her hand going automatically to the gun at her side.
"Oh. Joe. It's you. Sorry."
She looked past him at Dylan, lurking in the doorway. "What did you do, Sarge, get yourself cloned?"
"Something like that."
Dwyer unfolded from the chair and went to Dylan, her hand out. "Officer Andrea Dwyer," she said.
Dylan took her hand politely. "I'm Dylan. I'm Joe's son."
"I can see that," she said, rocking all of the boy's adolescent insecurities with her grin and all the rest of her charms. "Just wondering how he did that so fast. Last I heard, Sergeant Burgess was a grouchy old bachelor."
"Oh, he's still all of that, ma'am," Dylan said. "But I believe that grouchy, unmarried men can still father children."
Dwyer laughed aloud. "Got all his father's tact and charm, I see."
Dylan blushed, and Burgess turned away from them to look at the girl in the bed. She was still curled on her side. That seemed to be her favored position. But now her eyes were open. She was watching them, those dark eyes flitting from him to Dylan and back to him. Beyond the bed, on the rolling table, was an untouched lunch tray.
"Joe Burgess," he reminded her. "And that's my son, Dylan. Which I guess you can tell. Can you excuse us for a minute?"
He herded Dwyer and his son outside the door. "I need to talk to Officer Dwyer for a minute. Do you think you could find your way to the cafeteria and bring back some ice cream? Chocolate, I think. Get one for yourself, if you want. Andrea, you want anything?"
"Coffee would be good. Black. One sugar."
Burgess took ten dollars from his wallet and gave it to Dylan. He and Dwyer stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the boy's retreating back.
"It must be spooky," she said.
"What?"
"Seeing your young self like that. He looks exactly like you."
"It is," he admitted. "Today we were sitting beside each other, and we each folded our arms and shifted our weight in just the same way at just the same moment. He seems pretty genial today, maybe because I just got him unsuspended from school. Usually we're fighting tooth and nail."
"Unsuspended? I'll bet that was something to see."
He sighed. "I don't think I behaved very well, actually."
"Most parents don't under those circumstances."
"So catch me up on our girl."
"I don't think she's screwing with us, Joe. I think she really can't speak, because there were a couple times today when it looked like she really wanted to. Like when Remy left. He's probably left you some notes on this, but the woman from psych says extreme trauma can do this. That we just have to be patient and let it happen on our girl's own terms. She'll talk to us when she's ready. And we're not supposed to push her."
He nodded. "Just wondering what we do with her when she doesn't need the hospital anymore."
Dwyer looked down at the floor, shifted uncomfortably, then said, "She'll have to be here a little longer. She's going to need some surgery. I guess she got pretty torn up, delivering that baby, and no one took care of it. Stitched her up, I mean. I mean, dammit, Joe. Who in hell lets this happen to a child like that? Even a hundred years ago, a midwife knew enough to stitch a woman up. But whoever had her just didn't bother."
Whoever had her. That was just what it looked like. The girl had been someone's prisoner. Had "belonged" to someone who hadn't bothered to take care of her. Maybe someone who wanted a child but the woman, the mother, didn't matter. It was consistent with everything they'd seen.
He saw that her hands had curled into fists. Dwyer spent her life working with the city's kids. She saw no end of awful things. But this was really getting to her. He knew just how that was. The rule was to maintain objective distance and generic caring, don't get involved with victims. Otherwise, the job would bleed you dry. But sometimes, you couldn't help it.
"You get
ting anywhere with this?" she asked.
From Cote, that would have been a criticism. From Melia, an anxious nudge. From Dwyer, it was just a question.
He shook his head. "Got a couple of helpful witnesses, I think, like Jason Stetson, but we're running into a stonewall from the Somali community."
"So many years of fighting in their own country," she said, "they're pretty careful about who they trust. You can trust your family, your clan, and you can't trust the police. Makes our job a whole lot harder. It's going to change with the next generation. The ones who don't become thugs and gangstas are going to become more American. It's just a frustratingly slow process, from our perspective. I've got some sources who might be helpful. I'll see what I can do."
Impatience washed over him like a fever. This whole case was about waiting.
"I know," she said, as though she had read his mind. "It's very frustrating. But we're going to win in the end. We are, Joe. You have to trust that."
Was this how the torch was passed? When the next generation of cops started stepping up and helping the old farts to limp through their last days?
"I think I need a good, swift kick," he said.
She gave him one of her quick, surprising smiles. "You're our role model, Joe. What is it you're always saying to me? Shoulder to the wheel? Patience and determination? I'm just reminding you."
"Thanks, Andrea."
They watched Dylan returning with a tray. Two cups of ice cream and a coffee. He seemed unusually content, the sullen look gone from his face. Burgess wondered if he should bring his son along more often.
He took a spoon and one of the cups of ice cream, and sat down beside the bed. The dark eyes watched him as he spooned some up. "You like ice cream?" he asked.
He moved the spoon toward her mouth. She shifted, never taking her eyes off the spoon, and let him feed her a bite of ice cream. Then another. And another. Opening her mouth like a hungry little bird.
