by Kate Flora
He'd been reading the pulse of this city for a long time. Even as he plodded along, dotting the i's and crossing the t's, a cop learned to trust his instincts. Right now, his instincts told him that the next few days could be explosive.
Chapter 34
PPL@9. The text came in at four in the morning, waiting for him when he finally dragged himself out of a drugged sleep.
That was cutting it close. It was already eight and he had to drive Dylan to school. His ribs, feeling like he'd been kicked by a very big horse, argued for a day of rest. He got his eyes fully open, struggled to his feet, and gulped the pills Chris had left beside the bed. He felt sour and at odds with the universe. But duty called, and he was a slave of duty.
There were nine messages in his voice mail. Ignoring them, he called Kyle. "Got someone wants to meet at the library at nine," he said.
"And I've got your back. How do you feel?"
"Like crap."
"Only consolation is Ibrahim feels worse."
"Small consolation."
"Check your messages yet?"
"I'm deep into avoidance."
"Stay that way. Cote wants us in his office at nine."
"No can do. Working on a case," Burgess said.
"Funny. So am I."
"The captain will not be pleased with us."
Burgess sighed. "My life's work, pleasing Paul Cote. Gotta get the kids off to school. See you at nine."
"I love hearing you say that," Kyle said.
"Say what?"
"Kids," Kyle said and disconnected.
That nagging feeling that something was about to go very wrong still dogged him, so much so that he did something he never thought he'd do—called the patrol commander and asked for someone to be sure Doro got Nina and Ned to school safely.
He got a brisk "Not a problem, Sarge," and after a quick bit of chatter about yesterday's standoff, it was done. He'd worry about the other end of the day if he got that far.
Dylan was waiting for him, leaning against the counter as usual, book bag over his shoulder, and foot tapping impatiently, but his expression was mellow instead of sullen. Looking at his son, he heard Chris's words: he's like you. A big brother, like Burgess had been, looking after his sibs. A bit of sunshine in the wallow of this case.
Dylan watched with concern as Burgess carefully levered himself into the truck, but didn't say anything. He just tuned the radio to his favorite station, not too loud, and sat, listening. Halfway there, he stirred in his seat, pulled up his backpack, and started rummaging. "Almost forgot," he said, "I've got something for you."
"Nasty note from Dr. Jorgensen?"
"Nothing like that. Actually, I think she likes you. Respects you, at least." He rummaged. "That was something, you know."
"I don't think I behaved very well."
Dylan grinned. "I think you behaved like a parent."
"Tough learning curve," Burgess said.
His son fished out a folded sheet of paper. "This is from my friend Leyla. Something she thought you might want to know."
"Know what it says?"
Dylan shook his head, handing him the note as they pulled up in front of the school. Burgess debated, then said, "Keep an eye out, today after school, and when you get home. Things are still feeling kind of unsettled."
"I'll be careful, Dad. We don't want Chris to be worried."
Burgess rolled his eyes. "Go learn something useful, so you don't grow up to be a flatfoot like your old man."
Dylan grinned. "I hope I do," he said. Then, in a flash, he'd gone up the steps and disappeared into the building.
Burgess unfolded the note. It said only Rihanna Daud and an address.
His phone rang. Captain Cote. He let it go to voice mail. The possibility that his boss had anything useful to contribute to this investigation was slight. It was far more likely that Cote wanted to turn the whole thing over to the Feds, who would jerk it around for a decade and, in their never-ending quest to catch the biggest fish, let everyone really involved in torture, murder, gun and drug trafficking, and sexual slavery off the hook in return for some promised cooperation that would never amount to squat.
Or Cote wanted to remind them that the city fathers and mothers required sensitivity in dealing with their new neighbors. Burgess couldn't find it in himself to be sensitive to the feelings of criminals who'd behaved as these people had, and if he was going to treat people evenhandedly, he'd need to be as deeply considerate of the rights and feelings of Iron Angels. As Melia often remarked, he'd sent them to sensitivity training and it just didn't take. Melia was right. Burgess could know that bad guys and their extended families, gangs, clubs, clans, or groups had feelings, too, and just not give a damn.
* * *
Wrestling a vest on was so painful it made his already sour mood black, but he was supposed to set an example of good sense and proper procedure. He couldn't very well take rookies to task if he didn't follow his own advice, but by the time he reached the library lobby, he was ready to spit nails.
Things didn't improve when he got a text: 2nd flr. Pkg. gar. Blk Honda. He'd had enough of black Hondas. He forwarded the text to Kyle, got a Roger that, Stan is with me, and lumbered off down the street. He had no idea what the Crips were getting into. After yesterday's cluster fuck with Iron Angels and the Imam's people, anything was possible.
He ought to call Melia and give him a heads-up but the probability that Melia was with Cote was too great. Lumbering down the sunlit street, he felt like a geriatric Gary Cooper going to meet modern-day bad guys who didn't play by the rules. Given that he kept having flashbacks to yesterday's slow-motion bullets, it was not a pleasant feeling.
Commuters were still pulling in, a mixed blessing that gave him the security of witnesses, but also the necessity to protect those witnesses if bad things went down. Moving into the building with the sense that dozens of eyes were watching, he took the stairs and eased his way out on the second floor into the damp concrete gloom of the garage, edging into a dark corner. He could see the up ramp, but not around the corner.
This was stupid. If he went looking for a black car, he'd be a sitting duck.
He texted By the elevator, and waited. Another text arrived, this time an address. The address looked familiar. He pulled out the crumpled note he'd gotten from Dylan, and it was the same.
He texted Why should I meet you?
And got back: Ismail Ibrahim.
How could this not be a setup?
Kyle's car pulled up beside them and the window slid down. "Everything okay?" Kyle asked.
He looked at Kyle and Perry. "Meeting place has been changed again. To an address we've got for the elusive Rihanna Daud. It's about Ismail Ibrahim."
"We've come this far," Kyle said. "Might as well see it through."
Burgess gave the address and Kyle said, "I'm really feeling like the Three Musketeers this morning."
"Could be worse. I was feeling like Gary Cooper. What about you, Stan?"
"Feeling like that slacker dude in Knocked Up," Perry grunted. "Trying to decide how it would feel to join you old farts as a family man."
"In that case," Kyle said, "we'll try not to get you shot."
"Not funny," Perry said.
They headed for Rihanna Daud's. The address was out toward East Deering, near Dylan's school. Near where Osman's empty apartment was. Not far from where he'd been found in Rihanna Daud's trunk.
Burgess was uneasy. In their world, "When you've gotta go, you've gotta go" often meant bad guys waiting when you got there.
They couldn't do a drive-by. It was the last house on a dead-end street. A small, plain white house. One story. In need of paint and repairs. Shades drawn. No garage. No cars in the driveway. There were no people on the street. No cars parked nearby. No signs of life. Anywhere.
"I don't like the look of this, Joe," Kyle said.
Burgess didn't either. His sense that this was a very bad thing in a series of bad things was seriously amped u
p. He texted: Come outside where we can see you and got no reply. Walking up to the door and knocking felt like an invitation to get shot.
The street ended in a grove of trees. Beyond them, more woods, then a tall fence, and the top of something that looked industrial. "Let's drive around," Burgess said. "Get a feeling for the neighborhood. See if there's another way to approach the house."
Kyle nodded.
"My Spidey senses are saying something is very wrong with this picture," Perry said, breaking his long silence.
"That makes three of us," Kyle agreed.
"Dylan got this address from a girl he knows at school," Burgess said. "And it's where the texter said to meet."
"We should talk to her, the girl from Dylan's school," Kyle said as Burgess reversed into a driveway and headed back the way they'd come. They cruised the streets as they conferred.
"Not easily. She's Muslim. And very shy," Burgess said.
"Better than going in blind."
Burgess agreed. When three experienced cops all shared the same gut feeling that something was wrong, they had to listen. He called Dr. Jorgenson, made his way through some guarded pleasantries, explained their problem, and asked if she could get Leyla to the phone.
"I can have her in my office within fifteen minutes, Sergeant Burgess," she said.
"I would be forever grateful, Dr. Jorgenson."
"I'll do my best," she said. "But Leyla is a worrier. What do I say this is about?"
"Assure her that she's not in trouble, just that the police need her help."
The minutes crawled by. They'd cruised the neighborhood, found a possible approach from the rear, and then parked. Kyle and Perry were out knocking on doors along Rihanna Daud's street before Burgess's phone finally rang. Dr. Jorgensen said, "Here's Leyla."
Burgess heard some soft words of reassurance, and then a tiny, timid voice said, "This is Leyla."
"Detective Burgess," he said, "Dylan's father. We went out to that address you gave and no one seems to be there. I'm going to need some more information from you. Can you do that for me?"
"I can try. But Rihanna was there this morning. I saw her when I was on my way to school. She said she wasn't going to work today. She had to stay home and take care of—" She broke off suddenly. "Oh. No. I'm not supposed to say that."
"It's okay to tell us, Leyla," Burgess said. "We're the police. We're trying to keep more people from getting hurt, like your friend Rihanna. But we will need your help." He kept talking, not giving her time to think or let fear or loyalty or secrets keep her from speaking. This would have been so much easier face-to-face. "Who was she taking care of?"
And then he knew. Even before she answered, "Ismail," he knew. Why Osman had been so nervous going in with them to interview the Imam. Why he was beaten. How Rihanna Daud figured in all of this. "How is Rihanna related to Hussain Osman?"
"She is his sister."
"And what is Rihanna's relationship to Ismail Ibrahim?"
There was a silence so tangible he could sense her fear about answering. At last she said, "They wish to marry, but the Imam has forbidden it, because she is Bantu, and he has chosen another wife for Ismail."
"Thank you," he said. "Now I understand things better. So Rihanna was home this morning. And she was staying home to take care of Ismail. Do you know why he needed to be cared for?"
"Only that he was beaten. That he defied his grandfather, and he was beaten. She was very sad, and worried that he should go to the hospital, but he refused."
"Leyla, do you know if the Imam or his followers know where Rihanna lives?"
"I do not. Her brother kept another address, and that was the one they gave to people, and for bills and mail and the car."
The empty apartment explained. People were forced to live such complicated lives. It was hard to imagine, here in Portland in the twenty-first century, that tribes and clans would create such barriers between people from the same country. But was it? He thought about his grandparents. How upset they would have been if his mother had married out of the Catholic faith. Things changed so slowly.
"Have you ever been in Rihanna's house, Leyla? Can you tell me how it is laid out inside?"
She had, and she did. In a slow, painstaking way, with a lot of questions, he pulled out information about the layout of the house. Affirmed that there was a back door. And a basement. That was about all he was going to get from her.
He thanked her, and was about to hang up, when she said, "I thought you were going to ask about the motorcycles."
This was really bad news. "Tell me about the motorcycles."
"There were four of them," she said. "Turning into the street this morning as I was leaving."
"Around eight?"
"Yes."
"Four men?"
"Yes."
Her responses were getting smaller and smaller. Burgess thought he was infecting her with his own anxiety, but he had to keep going. "Could you identify any of them if we showed you pictures?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure. They were scary, Sergeant. I tried not to look."
"Did you notice anything distinctive about any of the motorcycles?"
"One of them had a picture on it," she said. "A raised fist with wings like an angel."
Iron Angels. That bastard Westerly had set this in motion. Using people for his own ends without any thought for what he might stir up. The Iron Angels were a clan just like Imam Ibrahim's, with the same need to stake out territory, get the biggest share for themselves, and protect and avenge their own. And with the same indifference to human suffering and human life.
Ismail Ibrahim was the only one of the Imam's grandsons who wasn't in custody. The only one they could still get at. And by now, word would have gotten about, in the way that bad news traveled even when it hadn't been made public, that Butcher Flaherty had been tortured before he was killed by someone who wanted to get into that locker and get those guns. He hated to think what they were going to find in that house.
"I hope Rihanna is okay," Leyla said. Burgess read voices, and in hers, tears were close.
"I do, too," he said, "and thank you for your help. Too often, people don't want to cooperate with the police. I think they have the idea that we are bad, and dishonest, and help other powerful people do bad acts. We're not like that."
"I know that," she said. "I know because Dylan wants to protect people, and he is your son."
Straight to the heart. How long had he been Dylan's father? Four or five months? But maybe that was okay, too.
"Will you let me know? Let me know she is okay?"
"I'll let you know what happens."
* * *
Kyle and Perry finished canvassing the street and joined him at the car. "Iron Angels," Burgess said.
"Yeah. Four of them," Perry said. "Parked in the street, went into that house, stayed maybe an hour, then drove away. The lady across the street who seems to spend a lot of time watching that house says they went in and out a few times with some equipment. She says she never saw Rihanna while they were there, and hasn't seen her since. She says her sister, who lives next door, may have more information. I guess the two of them have some kind of competition going. The sister is out right now."
"I wonder what kind of equipment?" Kyle said. "You learn anything, Joe?"
"Definitely Iron Angels. Leyla saw the logo on one of their motorcycles. She says there were four of them. She also says that Rihanna stayed home from work today to take care of Ismail Ibrahim."
"Why does he need taking care of?" Perry said. "Grampa give him a beating for not being more like his brothers?"
"Exactly. That and the fact that he wants to marry this Rihanna Daud, and the Imam doesn't approve because she's Bantu. Leyla says the Imam has another wife in mind."
"What does the Imam want from him? To be in jail like the others?"
"Maybe, if we find him and he's still alive, we can ask," Burgess said, "but I am not getting a good feeling about this."
"Can y
ou get a worse feeling?" Perry asked. "I was already not feeling good."
Shoulder to shoulder, they stood, leaning against the car, staring down the street at the small white house. Burgess couldn't stop the pictures of other crime scenes. They kept piling in, one nightmarish scenario after another.
"This would be a good moment for X-ray vision," Kyle said.
"Or for SRT," Perry suggested. "Or to remember that we're supposed to be meeting with Captain Cote."
Burgess looked at Kyle, and, like the old married couple that they were, Kyle said, "Yeah. We gotta go look in the windows. Shall we draw straws?"
"I'll go," Burgess said.
"We'll all go," Perry said.
The neighborhood was still as death as they walked down the sunny street toward the house. Burgess was seeing red. The many shades of red of remembered scenes. Rusty red, black red, pinkish red, true red. Flat, splattered, oozing, pooled, glistening. He shook his head to clear it, but the images were stuck.
Into the valley of the shadow of death. This was no valley, but they all felt the shadow.
Chapter 35
Burgess wanted that house to be empty more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. Empty. Silent. No bodies. No blood. No signs of violence. He wanted to call this a dead end and go back to 109. He'd even take Cote's duck's-ass pout and raving stupidity over another gruesome crime scene. He was badly in need of attitude readjustment or a long, quiet vacation. Next week, the kids were out of school. Maybe they'd go somewhere like Boston, ride the swan boats, see Paul Revere's house.
But what Perry liked to call his Spidey sense was on red alert. They'd been led here for a reason. He didn't know what that reason was yet, but it felt like danger to them as well as to the woman they were looking for. The Iron Angels never liked the police, and his team had kept them from getting their guns back. He was certain now that the messages luring them here had not come from Rihanna Daud.
As they approached the house, they could see footprints in the tender new grass. He said, "Watch out for trip wires or sensors. Watch your feet. Walk where they've walked. Look, but don't lean. And don't touch anything."
