by Jen Blood
“Screw that. I got an invite—I’m going.”
I pulled the zipper up, already missing the smooth expanse of freckled skin. She turned to face me.
“Hair up or down?”
“Up. Better access to your neck... And maybe you’ll let me take it down later.”
She smiled a little, the color deepening in her cheeks. “Jesus. You’re too smooth for your own good. You need help with your tie or what, Casanova?”
I let her help, though I didn’t actually need it. Her proximity and soft hands, the wrinkle in her forehead while she concentrated, the way she bit her lip when she got it wrong... The smell of her, this close... It was more than worth it when the tie came out slightly crooked in the end. Solomon looked up at me when it was done, and ran her hand down my cleanly shaven cheek.
“What do you think?” I said. “Will I make GQ this month?”
“You look good.” Her eyes ran down my body, then up again before she settled on my face. She paused when she reached the bruise at my cheek. “I wouldn’t hold my breath on scoring the cover, though.”
“The bruises give me a certain charm though, right? Girls love a bad boy.”
“You don’t really look like the bad boy so much as the schmuck the bad boy kicked the shit out of.”
“You’re great for my ego, you know that?”
She frowned. “I’m still mad at you.”
“I know.” She twisted her hands in the lapels of my jacket. I looked down and held her eye, waiting for her to make the first move. When she didn’t, I lost patience.
I leaned down and touched my lips to hers, then deepened the kiss before she could pull away. She didn’t. I waited for the familiar tug of guilt at taking advantage of her youth or her fear or her misguided belief that I was worth her time.
It never appeared.
Buzz called ten minutes before the fundraiser was scheduled to start, to tell us we were good to go. I escorted Solomon to the curb at ten past eight, and surveyed the street. No Foster, Wolf, or Lisette. And no ghosts, either.
It had been more than twenty-four hours since I’d seen Philbrick last. Maybe I didn’t have to actually say goodbye; maybe he’d just gotten the hint, and gone.
“You all right?” Solomon asked. We stood on the curb beside my Jeep. A summer breeze rustled her hair, and I caught the scent of honeysuckle in her shampoo. She stood three inches taller in her heels, steadier now than she’d been that first night at Johnny’s. Older, somehow. I opened the door for her.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m good.” She got in, and I leaned down before she’d really settled herself and kissed her. I was starting to get used to it. It was surprising how little time that had taken. Her hand came up and cradled the back of my head, pulling me closer.
I pulled back and couldn’t help but grin. “Definitely good,” I repeated. “You ready for this?”
“To bust into a political fundraiser so we can accuse the guest of honor of raping little girls and his sidekick of murdering refugees? Sure. With a plan like that, what could possibly go wrong?”
◊◊◊◊◊
The party was already in full swing when we got there. A live swing band played Tommy Dorsey as we made our entrance at the ballroom of the Portland Club, just across the street from the church Solomon and I had crashed to accost Councilman Davies on Sunday.
The club is housed in the Hunnewell-Shepley mansion, designed by Alexander Parris at the very beginning of his career, in 1805. In 1920, the Portland Club—then an exclusive men’s club founded by Maine’s most prestigious Republicans—purchased the mansion and set up shop. When we arrived, the lights were low, the bar was stocked, and the ballroom was already packed with Portland’s elite, all dressed up and finally with somewhere to go.
Solomon handed over our tickets to a kid who was probably closer to her age than I was, but nowhere near her league. He started to flirt but paused at sight of me and my bruises. I smiled at him.
He didn’t smile back.
“Don’t frighten the children,” Solomon said when we’d moved along.
“He was thinking lascivious thoughts about you.”
“He couldn’t even spell lascivious.”
“Neither can I. Doesn’t stop me from thinking them.”
“So you’ve—” She stopped.
Twenty feet from us, chatting with a notable lack of enthusiasm with his wife, was Bobby Davies. The moment he saw us, he went still. I searched the area until I saw Detective Thibodeau in his dress blues. He’d spotted us at exactly the same time, and didn’t look pleased. Solomon started forward, intent on Davies. Before she could make a move, however, the very last person I wanted to see stepped in her path.
Paul Rafferty.
He nodded stiffly at Solomon, then me.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, to be honest,” he said to Solomon. “It’s a shame the way this whole thing’s had to end. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in your behavior over the past several days.”
“I was—” Solomon began.
“And then for you to simply disappear after our conversation on Sunday,” he continued. “I would have at least thought you’d come in on Monday to talk to me face to face.” He looked at me pointedly, pausing at sight of my cheek. I was starting to get self-conscious.
“You have a big career ahead of you, Erin—if you surround yourself with the right people. But you can’t just drag your old friends along with you. Buzz Bowdoin? Diggs here? There’s no way you can do this if you’ve got them pulling you down.”
“Look, Paul,” Solomon said, cutting him off. She took a step toward him. He actually stepped back. In his place, I probably would have done the same. “I don’t know what it is you think you can do for me that Diggs and Buzz can’t, but I’ve talked to a few of the interns you kicked to the curb in summers past. If I wanted a raging case of the clap and a mediocre letter of reference that half the time you don’t even come through on, then you’re obviously the man I’d call. But that’s not really what I’m after. So, I appreciate the advice, but if it’s all the same, I’m going to stick with my guys.”
She pushed past him and into the crowd. I couldn’t stop grinning.
“She’s had a rough week,” I said to Rafferty. “Better luck next time.”
I found her at the dessert table, looking very serious about a platter of chocolate brownies.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little turned on by that whole thing.”
“Glad you were amused.” She looked over at the spot where Davies and his wife had been. The wife was gone, but Davies was still exactly where we’d left him. “And it might not have even cost us our big moment.”
We slipped back across the room. I hadn’t seen any sign of Foster yet—no doubt he had a big entrance planned, and was just waiting for his moment. Davies grimaced when we cornered him. He was pale, and it looked like he’d lost a couple of pounds since we’d seen him on Sunday. The glazed look in his eye didn’t sit well with me.
“What do you want?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Just to talk,” I said. Rafferty was watching us from a corner, which wasn’t good. There was no way I wanted him scooping us if he got a scent of the real story behind the recent murders. I turned my back to him, just in case he could read lips.
“You’ve heard about what happened,” Solomon said, a hint of sympathy in her tone. “Jacob Deng’s death. Maisie Dsengani’s disappearance.”
“Of course,” he snapped. “I don’t live in a bubble. I’ve heard—I’m sick about it.”
“What do you know about the rituals Sefu Keita used to perform?” I asked.
He took a step back. “What? Nothing. That was always Rick’s area. I didn’t want anything to do with it.”
“You knew Charlene pretty well,” Solomon said, never allowing him a second to get his bearings. “What about Jacob Deng? He knew you, right? Trusted you?”
“I knew both of them,” he said.
He looked around nervously. Sweat had soaked through the collar of his shirt. “This whole thing is...an abomination. Unimaginable. But I can’t help you with whatever it is you’re looking for. I don’t know anything.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I countered. “I think you know a lot more about everything than you’re letting on.”
I’d expected more of a reaction than I got: his eyes cool, his manner detached. “I know exactly as much as I need to,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have guests to greet.”
Before we could argue, he turned and strode into the crowd.
“What now?” Solomon asked me.
There was a lull in the conversation around us, and a moment later the band took it down a notch as Rick Foster made his entrance. He was well-coiffed and cut a nice picture in his tux and tan and too-white smile. A black woman, striking and slender in an African-print dress, was on his arm.
“She’s a fundraiser with United Charities for Africa,” Solomon whispered. “They’ve been seen together a few times lately.”
“Great,” I said. “The perfect way to make him look even more devoted to the cause.”
Reporters and guests converged on the couple in seconds. “Think we can make it through the fray?” Solomon asked.
“We should split up. One of us is bound to get through, right?”
“You don’t think it would be better to double team him?”
I had to think about it for a minute. There was a certain level of finesse involved here. If we went for publicly blindsiding him, the best we could hope for would be a single off-the-cuff remark from Foster before Thibodeau and his men bodily threw us from the room. And Foster wasn’t the kind of man prone to off-the-cuff remarks.
“No,” I said. “No hardball up front, he won’t take kindly to that. We already know he hired Elias to take us out—which means he’s well aware of who we are. But maybe if we can just get some time with him in a public place... You go in first, see if you can get him talking. You’ve got the T&A advantage, I don’t.”
Instead of looking offended, she grinned. “Sweet. And what are you gonna do in the meantime?”
“I’ll go in once you’ve got him relaxed. Don’t worry about it, just do your thing.”
I could almost see her steeling herself. She stole a flute of champagne from a passing server, took a long gulp, and sneezed—nearly falling off her high heels. She handed the rest of the drink to me. “Damn. That was gonna look so smooth.”
Because Solomon’s small and looks sweet and dainty, no one ever expects it when she starts elbowing old ladies out of the way to get where she’s going. I watched from a safe distance while she made a beeline for Foster and his date, alternately excusing herself and shoving through whatever openings she could find, until she reached her destination.
She started with the date first, which was a good move: this thing was too high profile and there were too many eyes on him for Foster to ditch the woman he’d come with and slink off with someone else. Better to start a conversation that included both of them, and draw him in. The woman laughed at something Solomon said. I saw Paul Rafferty start toward them, and pushed my way past three older women with tight perms and gowns that swept the floor, excusing myself as I went. Rafferty frowned when I grabbed his arm.
“Just the man I was looking for,” I said.
“Lucky me.”
“I just thought we should have a talk. I’d hate to think you might end up being one of those petty pricks who holds a grudge just because someone was smart enough to see past all the bullshit you dish out—”
He turned on me with eyebrows raised, a vein throbbing in his temple. “All the bullshit I dish out? Go to hell, Diggins. Your little protégé has a real shot at a career here—you can tell yourself the only reason I’m interested in her is to get in her pants, but that’s not giving her a hell of a lot of credit, is it? What I’m offering her is a future—”
His argument was a sound one, but he lost some points when a pretty young blonde smiled at him in passing and his focus shifted.
“Paul?” the blonde purred. “Paul Rafferty, right?”
He at least had the grace to look embarrassed at the fact that my point had been made so handily.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I said to him. “Just stay away from Solomon from now on.”
With Rafferty out of the way, I pushed through the crowd until Solomon, Foster, and Foster’s date were in sight. Solomon smiled when she saw me, gesturing me forward.
“Diggs. This is Congressman Foster and his date, Kidist Fekadu. And this is my...uh, date. Daniel Diggins.”
“Diggs, please,” I said. I shook Foster’s hand, then Ms. Fekadu’s. There were people already jockeying for position around us, so I knew I didn’t have a lot of time to waste. “Erin and I have been following your career with great interest, Congressman. We were actually researching that trip you and Councilman Davies took to Darfur in 1986. Lisette Mandalay had some interesting things to say—”
For a split second, Foster’s game face slipped. It was just a quick tensing of his jaw, the briefest moment when I saw a flash of violence in his eyes, before the look vanished.
“So that was you, was it?” he said smoothly. “Ms. Solomon never mentioned that, but of course I held the press conference this morning and answered all relevant questions there. Afterward, thanks to your allegations, Detective Thibodeau dragged me in and nearly made me miss an engagement this afternoon. I’m afraid you’re under some misconceptions about the work I’ve done.” He shifted his attention to his date. “This is what I was telling you about, Kidi—apparently these are the reporters who thought they’d unearthed something with those photos.”
“The pictures are quite striking, aren’t they?” she said seriously. Her accent was more British than Ethiopian, her voice richer, more resonant, than I had expected—the voice of an older woman. “Charlene Dsengani endured so much at the hands of Sefu ... I’m just grateful that Rick and Mr. Davies were eventually able to extract her from the situation. For her to die so tragically now, though...” She shook her head sadly. When Foster looked at me, again that game face flickered—now with a smirk. He thought he’d won.
“So these allegations by Ms. Mandalay, then,” I said, undeterred. “They have no basis in fact?”
“As far as I am aware, Ms. Mandalay was not even in Darfur at that time. The girl she’s claiming was her in those pictures... I’m sorry, but there’s very little resemblance. For nearly a decade, she’s said she was born in South Africa. For her to change that story now...” Foster sighed. “She’s been through a lot, there’s no question. And now the loss of Ms. Dsengani and her daughter... I think the pressure has just proven too much. I don’t know why she’s created this lie, but she obviously needs psychological help.”
“Looks like you have all the answers,” I said.
“It’s easy to have the answers when you’re telling the truth,” the congressman said. He smiled again. The natives around us were getting restless. “I’m sorry, but I should probably move along—there are several other people who wanted to speak with me before the night’s out.”
“So you don’t know where Maisie Dsengani is,” I said. I stepped in Foster’s way when he tried to get away.
“Of course not,” he said, voice cooler now.
“And if I told you I was assaulted recently by a man named Eugene Elias,” I continued, “and that he told me you hired him to take me out of the picture, and to kidnap Lisette and Maisie Dsengani...”
“Then I’d say Lisette Mandalay isn’t the only one in need of psychological help,” Foster said. “If all this happened, where is this Eugene Elias? How is it that the only one here to tell this story is you?”
“What’s the matter, Congressman?” Solomon asked. “You’re looking a little flushed.”
“I did some research on you,” Foster said to me. He didn’t even look at Solomon. “After this whole business this morning, I thought I s
hould know what I was up against. You know what I found?”
“Rick,” Kidist said. “We should move along.”
“A dead policeman whose career you ruined,” Foster continued, ignoring her. “And an ex-wife from a failed two-month marriage, with a history of drug abuse, petty larceny, and prostitution. I’d be very careful about whose reputation you go after next, Mr. Diggins.”
“Awfully touchy, isn’t he?” Solomon asked me lightly.
“Why do you suppose that is?” I asked. “I mean, we’re basically nobodies, right?”
“You certainly are,” Solomon agreed.
“What do you suppose he’d do if we told him we know where Elias is, and he’s just agreed to an exclusive?” I asked Solomon, still loudly enough for Foster to hear. I glanced sideways at him. For the first time, I saw a flicker of concern there. Kidist didn’t look nearly as comfortable with the congressman as she had moments before.
“Congressman Foster!” A spiffy-looking aide swooped in before things got any messier. “We were just looking for you.” He took Foster by the elbow and nodded toward the other side of the room. Kidist smiled at us awkwardly as they made their exit, while the congressman didn’t even say goodbye.
Solomon and I just stood there for a minute after Foster had gone.
“So... Thirty minutes in and we’ve already alienated Davies and Foster,” she said. “Now what?”
“Good question.”
The music had come up again, and people were actually starting to dance. The crowd was predominantly white, most of them considerably older than me; Solomon was practically a baby among them. It occurred to me that a week ago, Charlene Dsengani would have been one of the guests here. I saw no one there who could begin to fill the void she’d left in the community.
More couples moved toward the dance floor. A good-looking guy about my age, maybe a little older, headed for us. Solomon smiled when she saw him, and introduced him as Doug something-or-other, the reporter from the Tribune who’d helped get the dirt on Davies. We made uncomfortable small talk for thirty seconds before Doug asked Solomon to dance. She agreed. Doug had dark hair and glasses and was a little shorter and a little thinner than me. A serious-looking guy.
