Midnight Lullaby

by Jen Blood

  “I know, ma’am,” he said. His voice had lost its edge, a genuine note of sorrow in his tone. “She was a good woman. I promise you, we’ll catch whoever did this. Now if you can answer a few questions...”

  I caught his eye, and he glared at me. Before I could react, he ushered her toward his office and slammed the door behind them.

  I stood there for a moment after they were gone, considering everything that had happened. The woman was most likely Charlene’s sister—Thibodeau wouldn’t be talking to someone outside the family about the details of the case, and there was definitely a resemblance between the two women. I tried to summon any enthusiasm for the story at that point, but came up short when I thought once more about the vibrant photo of Charlene Dsengani in life, and then the violence she’d endured in her final moments. I hadn’t known the woman, but there was something about her: the curl of her hand in death, the vulnerability of her naked body... I wanted to tell her story.

  More than that, though, I wanted someone to pay for her death.

  Chapter 5

  Johnny Cole was already holding court at Old Port Billiards, seated at a corner table with Lisette, when Buzz and I got there later that night. It was eight o’clock on a warm Thursday night in July, and we left the tourists at the door. OPB has good, cheap beer, plenty of pool tables, and a set of narrow angled stairs that are hell navigating drunk, as though deliberately placed there to keep out the riffraff. Tourists don’t frequent the place, which makes it that much more appealing for the locals. Buzz and I came in on a wave of frat boys and fishermen. Johnny Cole picked me out of the crowd easily, his pale blue eyes fixed on mine for the space of a heartbeat. Buzz glanced at me.

  “What was that?” he asked, close to my ear.

  “No clue. Want to find out?”

  He grinned. Nodded. “I’ll get the drinks. You get us a seat.”

  I picked my way through the crowded bar to Johnny’s table. Springsteen was loud on the jukebox and the place was already full. The news of Charlene Dsengani’s death, and a rough approximation of the state of her body, had been released to the media by that time—it was on just about every station, and the mayor of Portland had already called a press conference for the following day to address people’s questions. If anyone here had known Charlene, though, they were hiding their grief well.

  Wolf was seated on one side of the wooden table. Lisette sat close to Johnny, her head down. She met my eye and a flicker of recognition crossed her face, her chin tipped up in an oddly defiant gesture. She didn’t want me here.

  “Mind if I join you?” I asked Johnny.

  “You bringing that redheaded dish you usually have clipped to your hip?”

  “Not tonight,” I said. He smirked at my tone, and I knew he already had my number...and just how fast things could get messy.

  “Just your old man with you tonight, then,” Johnny said.

  “He’ll be over in a minute. That okay?”

  “Sure. Have a seat.” He set his hand on Lisette’s arm in a gesture that seemed more about possession than affection.

  Wolf got up and went to find another chair. I took a seat on the other side of the highly lacquered wooden table, opposite Lisette and Johnny.

  “I heard you got an eyeful last night,” Johnny said once I was seated, leaning across the table to be heard over the noise. “You think they’ll catch the guy who did it?”

  “I hope so.”

  Buzz came over and set a pint in front of me, taking the stool to my right. Introductions were made, but Buzz was the only one who cracked a smile.

  “It was a hell of a thing last night,” I agreed. I refocused on Lisette. “I know you’d just gotten a phone call when you left the bar. Who was that from?”

  The question did what I’d intended: caught her off guard. There was just a flicker of surprise that crossed Johnny’s face before he shut it down and went back to being coolly impassive.

  “It’s none of your concern,” she said.

  “Fair enough,” I agreed. “Did you know the woman who was killed? I mean—did you know her well.”

  Johnny’s eyes flicked toward Lisette, then back to me again. Her lips were pressed tight, her fists clenched. She wore a sheer scarlet top and a short skirt that showed off a mile of dark, slender legs. Wolf returned with a chair that he set at the head of the table without a word.

  The tension was thick enough to choke on.

  “She worked for Johnny for a short time,” Lisette finally answered. “Of course I knew her. She was very kind. A very kind woman. She will be missed, I have no doubt.”

  “What about you?” I asked, shifting to Johnny. “What do you think about all this? She worked for you—and her sister is still with you, isn’t she? This must be a blow on the home front.”

  He shrugged. “I’m an equal-opportunity employer... A lot of people work for me. Like Lisette said, she’ll be missed. Do the cops have any suspects?”

  “None that they told me about.”

  “Except you,” Wolf said. He leveled his unwavering gaze at me. I’d heard through the grapevine that Wolf was former Special Forces. He sure as hell looked the part.

  “I don’t know that I’m a suspect at this point,” I said.

  “You were there,” Johnny said.

  “Wrong place, wrong time.” I looked at Lisette as I said it. To my surprise, she didn’t lower her eyes this time.

  “That’s not an excuse they accept for very long,” Lisette said. “Guilt by association—you have heard of that?”

  “I have,” I said. “Since you knew the victim, maybe you’ve also met the guy I ran into there.” I kept my gaze locked on hers, studying her reaction as I reached into my back pocket. “Between twenty-five and thirty years old. Black. Big guy with a scar across his right eye.”

  I withdrew my copy of the police sketch Rachel Thibodeau had drawn. I unfolded it, smoothed it carefully, and slid it across the table. Lisette didn’t even look at it.

  “I have seen the sketch on the news already,” she said. “I don’t know this man.” She appeared cool and calm, untouched, so it took me a second before I noticed that her left hand was clenched so tight the knuckles had gone pale. Wolf and Johnny looked at me curiously, then her. Beside me, Buzz leaned forward.

  “Are you sure about that, Miss?” he asked. “Maybe take a closer look.”

  “No. I’ve never seen him before,” she said without hesitation.

  I weighed the wisdom of telling them what the man had said to me, but the topic was clearly getting old. I shrugged. “If you’ve never met him, you’ve never met him. Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

  An awkward silence fell before Buzz started things up again by turning the conversation to baseball. Lisette stood.

  “Excuse me. I’m just going to...” She nodded in the general direction of the restrooms.

  Johnny watched her go in silence, but Wolf stood when she was a few feet away. “I’ll make sure she’s all right,” he said.

  Johnny waved him on, barely sparing a glance before he returned his attention to me. “So, it must’ve been a hell of a thing, seeing that body like that,” he said when they were both gone.

  “I’ve had better nights.”

  “And the man you saw there—the one in the sketch. Did he say anything to you? Did you see anything?”

  “No,” I lied. “Not a thing. It all happened pretty fast.”

  Johnny’s eyes cooled. We remained silent, gazes locked, until my attention was drawn to the entrance.

  And a pretty redhead in a short-sleeved blouse and a pencil skirt, just coming through the door.

  Shit.

  Buzz saw her at the same time. He looked at me in surprise, eyebrows up. Johnny turned to follow my gaze.

  Solomon was with her boss, Paul Rafferty, and a few of the other Tribune lackeys. I knew her well enough to know her showing up here was no coincidence, particularly given our conversation earlier. I watched as she produced her fake ID and ordered a
beer at the bar. She scanned the crowd for only a moment before her eyes found me.

  She said something to the rest of her group and nodded in my direction. Rafferty frowned. Apart from his height—or lack thereof—he was an average man in every sense of the word: brownish hair, medium build, nondescript eyes and a nondescript personality. I’d worked for him for a summer when I was first coming up in the business, but our styles never gelled. While it was strangely gratifying to watch Solomon leave him in the dust, I wasn’t happy when she made a beeline for Buzz and me—especially considering the way Johnny watched her as she approached our table.

  “Okay if I join you?” she asked me, flashing a quick smile at Johnny.

  “As a matter of fact, we’re already pretty crowded here,” I said. “Sorry.”

  She frowned. Silence followed, while Johnny and Buzz waited for me to recant. Which I had no intention of doing.

  “You can sit by me,” Johnny said when the silence had dragged on too long. “Diggs here told me you wouldn’t be joining us tonight.”

  “She’s not staying. And that seat’s taken.”

  “Hey,” Johnny said quietly. “I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but the lady asked for a seat. I happen to have one, right next to me. Come on over, red.”

  “What about Lisette?” I asked.

  “She won’t be back,” he said, to my surprise.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She gets that look in her eye, it means she’s cutting out. Wolf will give her a lift home.” He smiled at Solomon. “See—plenty of room.”

  Before I could do anything about it—not that there was anything I could have done—Solomon sidled over to Johnny’s side of the table and settled herself beside him.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said to her when she was seated. “Though I’ve seen you with this mook a few times. The name’s Johnny.”

  “Erin,” she said. She took a long pull from her beer, then held out her hand. When they shook, Johnny held on three seconds longer than necessary for a friendly, platonic handshake. The tension ratcheted up a notch in my chest.

  “Thanks for brightening up the table, Erin,” he said. Solomon’s cheeks flushed pink, though in my experience it’s not that easy to make her blush. She was playing him—or she thought she was. Not a good sign.

  “So what is it you do, Johnny?” she asked. She took another slug of beer, her eyes as wide as a Hollywood ingénue’s.

  Johnny moved in closer. Buzz was watching them now, too. “This and that. I’m an entrepreneur, I guess you could say.”

  “No kidding. From Maine originally?”

  “Dorchester, actually. Me and Wolf moved up here together, once he got out of the service.”

  This wasn’t getting us anywhere, and as much as I didn’t want to leave Solomon alone with this jackal, I needed to talk to Lisette before she left. I stood abruptly. Solomon didn’t look surprised, as though this had been the plan all along.

  “I’ll be right back.” I looked at Buzz, leaning in slightly. “Keep an eye on her, would you?”

  He nodded.

  “We’ll be right here,” Johnny said to me. His smile showed too many teeth, his eyes still cool. “Take your time.”

  ◊◊◊◊◊

  Wolf was talking to a couple of guys at the bar when I got there, and I saw no sign of Lisette. I took that to mean that she really had needed to use the restroom before she and Wolf ditched us. There was another woman in the ladies room when I went in—a lanky brunette with crooked teeth and bloodshot eyes. She blinked uncertainly at me when I came through the door.

  “You got the wrong john, bub.”

  “Sorry. I’m looking for someone.” There were three stalls, the mint-green doors closed on each of them. “Lisette?” I called softly.

  The woman nodded to the farthest stall. “She’s not looking too good, but she’s in there,” she whispered. “You do anything to her, though, and I’ll make sure Wolf knows. He’ll cut off your balls and use ‘em for lobster bait.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

  I waited until she’d gone before I ventured to the handicapped stall at the end of the cramped bathroom. My knuckles grazed the door. “Lisette? It’s Diggs. I’d like to talk to you.”

  “You need to leave me alone.”

  “I just have a couple of questions about Charlene. Please. And the man in that sketch—he had a message for you I think you’ll want to hear.”

  Silence. A couple of seconds passed, while I listened to Aerosmith play outside the bathroom walls and read graffiti on the bathroom stall door. By all accounts, someone named Wanda C. could show me a hell of a time.

  Then, the door opened. Lisette stood blocking the stall, peering out from behind the partition door. Her thin body was rigid, full lips pressed tight. I’d never seen anyone put more effort into holding herself together. “I can’t talk to you.”

  “Please,” I said. I put my hand on the door, but made no move beyond that. “It’s your choice, but I wish you’d give me a couple of minutes.”

  Another beat passed before she stepped out of the way and let me in.

  There was just enough room inside the stall for both of us. There was a checkerboard-patterned floor beneath a cracked porcelain toilet that had once been white. The toilet seat was down, a compact mirror on top with two neatly cut lines of white powder across it. Lisette nodded to it.

  “You can have it, if you like.”

  “You don’t want it?”

  “I thought I did. It’s been nearly two years, though... It’s better not to start again.”

  The surprise must have shown on my face, because she bristled. “You assumed I was an addict.”

  “No,” I lied, then took it back when I realized she wasn’t fooled. “Fine—maybe not an addict, but your history with drugs when you were modeling isn’t exactly a secret. I just figured being with someone like Johnny...”

  “If I had wanted to keep using, he would have gotten me whatever I asked for. But there are more reasons to stay away than to return to it. I didn’t get out of Africa and then leave New York to flush my life down the toilet here.”

  My ex flashed through my mind: long dark hair, full lips and wide smile... Remnants of white powder at her left nostril, her pupils dilated, dark eyes panicked. I’d expected something similar from Lisette, I realized now. I wasn’t disappointed to be wrong.

  “I don’t want it,” I said, nodding to the coke. Despite my words, there was still a pull there. It shouldn’t have been that hard to turn her down, but there it was. “Thanks anyway.”

  She shrugged. Picked up the compact, lifted the toilet seat, and flushed the powder. Just like that—like it was nothing. I tried to imagine what Marcy would have done if she’d seen that, then stopped. I’d been there; I knew exactly what she would have done. I’d watched her snort powder off the bathroom floor, shoot up in an abandoned alley that last night... I had plenty of friends who didn’t miss a step on a little coke, a few pills to take the edge off, but Marcy wasn’t one of them.

  Lisette put the toilet seat back down and sat gracefully, tucking one long, lean leg beneath her. I crouched opposite her so I could look her in the eye.

  “What did he say to you?” she asked.

  “First tell me who he was.”

  “I already told you: I don’t know who he was. Or is. I’ve never seen that man. But if he had a message for me, I would like to hear it.”

  “Okay—sure, if you want to play it that way. He said Charlene wasn’t the first; that more of you would die. ‘No one bearing the mark is safe.’ That’s what he said. That doesn’t mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t know what kind of mark he’s talking about?”

  She shook her head, stubborn and silent.

  “Did you know Charlene before she started working for Johnny?”

  “I didn’t,” she said without wavering. Lisette’s tell, I was fast learn
ing, was no tell at all. I was sure she was lying. “The first time I met her was when I moved to Maine.”

  The way she was seated made her skirt ride low and her top ride up, just slightly. I noticed a thick, jagged scar at her left hip—an old one, by the look of it. I thought of all those reports that said Lisette was from a wealthy family in Cape Town. Both parents dead. She had no siblings; no one to corroborate her story.

  The scar on her hip didn’t look the kind of scar well-to-do girls get, though. It looked like someone had butchered her.

  She followed my gaze and pulled her shirt down quickly. Her cool façade slipped for an instant. “You need to leave now.”

  “Just a couple more questions, please,” I said. “You saw how Charlene was killed. The state her body was in when she was found?”

  “I saw.”

  “Do you know anything about that? The way she was killed—the ritual involved... Does that ring any bells for you?”

  “You mean because I am African? You think such brutality, such savagery, would only happen on the Dark Continent—that we brought this violence to your shores?”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth—that’s not what I said. I’m just trying to understand. I’ve heard of bodies being left that way before. Do you know of anyone who might perform this kind of ritual? Black or white, doesn’t matter. Someone here who might practice that type of witchcraft?”

  A sharp spark of fear returned to her eyes at the word. “You must leave,” she said.

  “Not until I get my answers. You know something—I know you do. Something having to do with the people who killed Charlene.”

  “Why does it matter? Charlene is gone. She is dead. Her organs used to feed the gods. Her blood taken to sate their thirst. Don’t you see? The man was correct, whoever he may be: She is the first sacrifice, but she won’t be the last. These people don’t stop at one. I will be next, if they see me speaking with you.”

  “Then help me catch them before they’re able to do that,” I said. “For Christ’s sake, Lisette, all you have to do is talk to me. How do you know that man in the drawing?” She didn’t say anything. I was running out of cards to play, so I finally laid down what I believed would ultimately be my ace. “What I told you that man said... That wasn’t everything.”