Midnight Lullaby

by Jen Blood

  In that space, shrouded by fog, I thought I saw a light flickering close to the ground. The wind shifted, something distinctive and sickly sweet riding on the air. An electric current of fear and then remembrance ran through me. I knew that smell. I grabbed Solomon’s elbow before she could take another step.

  “Hang on.”

  “Why?”

  “Just—because.” I almost said, ‘because I said so,’ but stopped myself in the nick of time. Barely conscious I was doing it, I unzipped the camera case at my side.

  “What’s going on?” Solomon pressed.

  “I want you to go back to the Porthole, use your cell, and call the cops.”

  She shone the flashlight directly in my eyes. I blinked in the glare and pushed it away. “Damn it, listen to me. If you want us to work together, I need to know you’ll follow my instructions when it matters. Now go back to the goddamn bar—”

  “Okay,” she interrupted. “Don’t freak out—Jesus. I was just going to ask what you want me to tell the cops.”

  If I told her what I suspected, there was no way she’d leave me alone to move forward. I wet my lips and shook my head. “Just tell them to come.”

  Chapter 2

  To her credit, Solomon didn’t question me further—though it was clear she was dying to. As soon as she was out of sight, I continued into the darkness.

  As I got closer to the end of the pier, I could see that the single column of flickering yellow light was in fact four columns of flickering yellow light. I took my camera from its case and took another step. I was eight or nine feet away now. The stench was unmistakable—something I’d smelled for the first time when I’d topped a hillside in Kosovo two years before with two other U.S. reporters, on a diplomatic mission that went to hell before our eyes.

  It’s not a smell you forget.

  The light came from four votive candles—there had been five initially, but one had gone out. I got closer, and finally stopped when I was no more than a yard away. The veggie burger and beers I’d had earlier at Manny’s climbed my gorge. I pushed them back down, and trained the flashlight on the body at my feet.

  The woman lay on the concrete, her body arranged carefully. She was nude; legs splayed, arms outstretched. She was black, not more than mid-twenties, tall and lean. Her thick dark hair had been hacked short. I paused, stomach rolling. In my line of work, I’d seen bad things before: people killed in heinous ways for despicable reasons, or for no reason at all. I’d never seen anything like this, though. I turned away and breathed through my mouth, forcing back the bile that climbed my throat.

  Then, I turned around again and forced myself to look. To bear witness—the only thing we reporters are really good for, anyway.

  The woman’s eyes had been plucked from her face, leaving bloodied black holes that stared back at me. Despite everything that had been done to her, I thought she looked familiar—I just couldn’t tell from where. Her throat had been slit, the wound grinning at me in the darkness. Another wound laid her open from sternum to pubis, deep enough to expose her innards. The heart was missing; by the look of things, it wasn’t the only organ that had been taken. The candles had been placed with one in each hand, one at each foot. The fifth had been set inside the cavern of her opened belly, the flame flickering close enough to singe her flesh.

  I stepped away when I couldn’t keep the burger and beer down any longer and vomited into the harbor, stopping only when my stomach was empty. When I got up, my hand was already curled around my camera.

  On autopilot now, I began photographing the scene. The camera’s flash exploded in the night, the photos coming fast enough to create a strobe effect. I focused on the shots, not the body—taking care to get pictures of the ligature marks at the wrists and ankles; the clean incision that had sliced her open. I thought of the phone call Lisette had gotten in the bar. The look on her face when she’d come running toward me in the darkness. What was her connection to this woman?

  Something beside the body caught my attention when I snapped another picture.

  I took a step closer and knelt on the concrete. Beside the woman’s left hand was a figure carved in wood, about the size of my thumb. The totem caught me, resonating somewhere deeper than this emptied body had. A young girl stared back at me, startlingly lifelike, her head tipped back and her mouth open—laughing. My stomach clenched again. I took a picture of the wooden girl, straightened, and stepped away.

  Before I could raise my camera again, I heard footsteps behind me.

  “I thought I told you to stay with Manny in the bar,” I said.

  There was no response. Fear ran icy fingers up my spine. “Sol?”

  I turned with the flashlight in hand. A tall black man—four or five inches above my six feet, easily—stared back at me. A scar ran across the left side of his face, the skin sewn closed where an eye should have been. He held a knife in one hand.

  “Get away from her,” he said. He nodded toward the dead woman. I took a step sideways. He advanced regardless. “You took pictures of her like this? Her body like this?”

  He had a thick accent—Eastern African, I thought, rough and difficult to understand.

  “I’m a reporter,” I said. “I saw the body and—” Before I could say anything more, another set of footsteps sounded in the stillness. Solomon emerged from the fog just as I was warning her back.

  The man with the knife moved with the speed of a ghost, in front of me one second and behind me the next. He wrapped his arm around my throat, the knife digging in just below my ribs.

  “Stay back,” I said to Solomon.

  She froze. I’d dropped my own flashlight when the man jumped me, but Solomon pointed hers directly in my eyes. I blinked in the glare.

  “What’s—”

  “Why would you take photographs of this?” the man demanded, cutting her off. He smelled of sweat and earth, his arm damp against my skin. “Do you understand what was done here? Do you see—”

  “I called the police,” Solomon interrupted. Her voice shook with those first words. When she spoke again, though, she was steadier. “They’ll be here soon. Whatever the reason you did this—”

  The arm tightened around my throat. I felt the blade pierce my side and dig in.

  “I did not do this,” the man insisted. “She was a good woman. A strong woman, brave—I do not hurt women. Not any longer. They are after the girl. You understand?”

  I didn’t understand—not by a long shot. When I didn’t say anything, he dug the blade in deeper. I felt blood trickle down my side, warm and wet.

  “Yeah,” I ground out. “Okay—we get it. So why don’t you go before the cops get here. I’m thinking the fact that you’ve got somebody in a death lock with a knife carving into his ribs won’t do a lot to plead your case.”

  “Lisette. She was here—I saw her come here,” he said, ignoring me.

  “She was,” Solomon said. “She took off. Let him go and I’ll draw you a map to her doorstep, though.”

  “Tell Lisette he has come,” the man said. “More of us will die—no one bearing the mark is safe. There is too much power there—too much at stake. But she must save the girl. You understand? Tell her that, for me.”

  Sirens were getting closer now. The brownout ended abruptly, so that suddenly the scene was bathed in the yellow-white glow of the streetlights around us.

  “You tell her,” the man said. He released me just as I saw blue lights a couple of streets over. I went to my knees. The blood had soaked through the side of my t-shirt, flowing thicker now. Solomon met me on the ground. Her hand fell to my side instantly, but I pushed her away. We didn’t have much time.

  “Take the film from my camera, and run,” I said.

  “What?”

  Still on my knees on the pavement, I grabbed my camera. I opened the film compartment, took out the film, and shoved it into a plastic container I’d had in my pocket. I took the roll that had been in the container and shoved it down my pants.


  Two cop cars, sirens screaming, tore around the corner onto Custom House Wharf. Solomon looked almost comically baffled.

  “Go, damn it!” I said. “They’ll arrest me, patch me up, whatever. Any way you slice it, though, they’re taking my film. Take it and go. And call Buzz.”

  “Right,” she said. She finally grabbed the film and took off a split second before headlights would have caught her in their glare. I stayed on my knees, watching her go, and raised my hands weakly when one of the cops stepped out of his cruiser.

  Solomon was already long gone.

  Chapter 3

  “I want to know what you’re charging me with,” I said. I’d been saying the same thing for three hours now, but so far no one seemed overly concerned about answering me.

  “Obstruction of justice,” Detective Carl Thibodeau finally said. The detective was a small guy—wiry, sharp-eyed, mid-forties. Still, there was something about him that suggested I’d be wise to keep my mouth shut and play nice. Thibodeau wasn’t the kind of cop you wanted for an enemy.

  “How am I obstructing justice?” I asked. “I told you everything I know. I handed over my film.”

  “Sergeant Pritchett took your film from your goddamn jockey shorts, Diggs. Don’t give me that bullshit.”

  “All right, fine—she took it from me. And not gently, either. Didn’t even buy me dinner first. What the hell does it matter? You’ve got it now. You know the story—now let me get out of here. In case you don’t recall, I came in here with a knife wound.”

  “Which you refused to have anybody look at—that’s not my problem. You can go just as soon as we’re done. I’m still not clear on what the hell you were doing out there tonight.”

  “We were having a beer at the Porthole—Solomon and I had just gotten off work over at the Casco Ledger.”

  Yet again, I told him the story. I told him about Wolf, Johnny, and Lisette; about the phone call Lisette had gotten. The fight between her and Johnny. Her running into me after she’d seen the body. He stopped me there.

  “And you’d never spoken with her before—the victim.”

  “I’d never laid eyes on her before,” I said. “I think Lisette knew her. I don’t have a clue who she is, though. Was.”

  “So, Lisette and the Cole boys leave,” Thibodeau continued. “Then what?”

  “Then I had Solomon call you guys. I just wanted to take a quick look around while we waited.”

  “And take a few pictures, maybe?”

  “I didn’t take any pictures,” I lied. “What kind of ghoul do you think I am? I’m sure you guys are checking the film now—the only thing you’ll find in there is a bunch of shots from the latest Sea Dogs game. That’s it.”

  “Then why the hell was the film in your jockey shorts?”

  Excellent question. “I panicked. You’re not new at this—I’m sure you know my record by now. There aren’t a lot of cops who’d list me as their favorite reporter these days. I figured it wouldn’t matter what you guys found on me, you’d find a way to give me a hard time about it.”

  “Okay. Let’s say for the moment that I believe that story... Then what happened?”

  Telling the same story sixteen times over was getting old, but I knew that was Thibodeau’s point: He was waiting for me to screw up. Never mind that it just happened to be true.

  “Solomon went and called you guys. I was at the body. I heard someone behind me. I turned.”

  “And this big African fella with the scar was standing there with a knife,” he said. There was an edge to his voice that rubbed me the wrong way.

  “Yeah—that’s right. What, you think I stuck myself and made the story up? What does that get me, exactly?”

  “I’m just making sure I’ve got all the facts straight. This guy tells you more people will die. That’s what he said? More people who bear the mark.” He referred to his notebook briefly, though I got the sense it was purely for effect. I’d seen the look on his face when I’d repeated the words to him—there was no way Thibodeau would forget that message any time soon. “Then he said all that was left was to protect the girl. And he didn’t say which girl?”

  I shook my head. “He didn’t say. But obviously it has something to do with Lisette.”

  Thibodeau didn’t comment. His gaze was still on his notebook. When he asked the next question, he kept his tone casual. Didn’t look up. “How much did you have to drink tonight, Mr. Diggins?”

  That did it.

  “All right, enough,” I said. “I’ve been up all night. Met up with a ghost in an alley, was eyeball to eyeball with a woman who’d been gutted like a fish, and was nearly skewered myself. I’ve been more than nice about hanging out here until dawn repeating the same story a dozen times now, in the hopes that maybe we could work out an arrangement as this story unfolds. But you know goddamn well I didn’t do this—”

  “I do, do I?” Thibodeau asked, pissed himself now. “Tell me again what you were doing out West before you decided to pack up your gear and head back to Maine? Before you fried that cop’s ass for no good reason—”

  “I got a bad lead,” I said, my own anger rising at mention of the story that had put an end to life as I knew it in California. “My editor ran the story before I got a chance to re-check the facts. My source lied.”

  “Your source being your wife,” Thibodeau said. “A strung-out junkie who used to sleep with the cop you hung out to dry.”

  Something tightened in my chest. An image of my ex—dark, lithe, passionate, and destructive as a hurricane—flashed through my mind. I stood, forcing my voice to stay low. “If you already know the story, why ask the question?”

  “Sit down, Diggins.” There was no room for argument in the detective’s tone. “Listen to me: I’ll cut you loose, but I want to get a couple things straight. First, if I see so much as a single photo with your name on it from that scene—I don’t care if it’s just a pretty little still life of a goddamn fishing boat off the pier—then I’m hauling you in here and I’m throwing the book at you. I’ve got enough problems with this thing without some asshole writing up the story before we have any of the facts.”

  “I know my reputation’s shit right now, but I’m not a hack,” I said. “I don’t put people’s lives in danger. I sure as hell don’t publish shots of what I saw tonight. If I had any pictures, which I don’t, you can be damned sure it’d be for my eyes only. Part of the investigation—that’s it.”

  The detective scratched his balding head and arched an eyebrow, waiting for me to settle down. “You finished?”

  “More or less.”

  The phone rang on Thibodeau’s desk. He picked it up and answered with a gruff, “Thibodeau,” listened for three seconds, and nodded as he eyed me. “Give us another two minutes and I’ll send him out.”

  After he hung up, he looked at me like he expected me to bolt for the door. He wasn’t the only one who wanted something from this conversation, though.

  “The woman who was killed,” I said when he didn’t break the silence. “The way she was positioned... I’ve seen that before.”

  I had his attention. He sat on the edge of the desk looking down on me. “Oh yeah?”

  “Her organs had been taken. And her eyes. There are rituals—”

  “I already thought of that,” he interrupted. “We had some problems with Satanists up north a couple years back, but it was nothing like this.”

  “No, not Satanic. There are rituals in Africa, though... She was African, wasn’t she? A refugee? Maybe recent?”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know her.”

  “I don’t. But... I mean, it doesn’t take a genius after everything the guy who knifed me said. I’m not an idiot.”

  “All right, Sherlock. What about these so-called rituals? What else can you tell me?”

  “There are tribes where human sacrifice is still practiced—I read a piece on it not too long ago. Kids, virgins... They’re murdered, then bled and disemboweled, their e
yes and organs offered up to the gods.” I had him. He listened closely, his face impassive. All I had to do was convince him I was someone he could use, and I had an inside track on the investigation.

  “In Africa, huh?” he asked.

  “Eastern Africa mostly at this point, I think,” I said. In my mind, I called up the articles I’d read, stories I’d seen. “Uganda, Sudan. They’re trying to crack down on it, but it’s a big problem.”

  “You know how many African immigrants we have in this town right now?”

  I shook my head.

  “Just over fifteen hundred. And my guess is that that number will more than double over the next decade. You know how many complaints I field from ignorant pricks convinced they’re moving here to steal jobs, start gangs, and marry our white women?”

  Any hope I’d had melted like kindling on a funeral pyre; I’d made the wrong move. “I’m guessing more than a few.”

  “A hell of a lot more than I should, considering it’s the twenty-first century and every Somali, Ugandan, Sudanese, and Ethiopian I’ve met so far keeps their heads down, takes care of their families, and works their asses off. It gets out that there’s a murderer killing according to traditional African rites and I can name two dozen guys off the top of my head who’ll be out there looking for a lynching.”

  He stopped. It was the first time I’d gotten any sense there was a human being under the arrogant façade. I looked at him seriously.

  “I told you before: I’m not printing anything until I have the facts. That’s a promise. Despite what went down in Baja, I still have cops out there who’ll vouch for me: I don’t endanger investigations for the sake of a story. I’ll keep my mouth shut, but I want in on this. I’ll do whatever you want—I’ll be at your beck and call. Plant fake leads if that’s your angle. Use me however you want while you’re investigating.”

  “In return for what?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “An exclusive once you’ve got the guy. And I want to be there when you take him down.”