Beyond the Truth

by Bruce Robert Coffin

  “That’s me,” he said. “Who is it this time?”

  “Don’t you want to see our IDs?” Nugent asked, reaching inside his jacket.

  “Trust me. No one steps into this place, looking like you do, unless they’re cops or selling something.” His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You’re not selling anything, are you?”

  “No,” Byron said. “We’re not.”

  “Good. Who you looking for?”

  “Lucas Perez,” Byron said. “Does he live here?”

  “He in some kind of trouble?”

  “He might be a witness to something we’re investigating,” Byron said.

  “We just wanna talk to him,” Nugent said.

  “Building F, apartment six,” the man said. “Perez lives there with his baby mama.”

  Byron and Nugent stood on the snow-covered steps to unit six. A rusting black metal mailbox dangled on the outside wall by a single screw. The name taped to the front of the box was Perez/Gomez. Byron banged on the storm door with his gloved hand a second time. He’d already tried the doorbell but heard nothing from inside. He was about to slip his card in the door when the inside door opened. A pretty young woman of Hispanic descent stood looking at them through the glass. She held a baby wrapped in a blanket to her chest.

  “Yes?” the woman said in a thick accent.

  Both detectives displayed their credentials for inspection.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am. I’m Detective Sergeant Byron and this is Detective Nugent. We’d like to speak with Lucas Perez.”

  “He isn’t home,” she said, concern registering clearly on her face. “Is something wrong?”

  “Are you Mrs. Perez?” Byron asked.

  “I am Maria Gomez. Lucas and I are not married. Why are you looking for him? Is he in trouble?”

  “No, ma’am,” Nugent said. “We think he might be a witness to something and we’d like to talk to him.”

  Nugent had no sooner uttered the words when a beat-up gray Cherokee pulled into a parking spot directly in front of unit six with Lucas Perez behind the wheel.

  Perez jumped out of the SUV and began shouting at Gomez. “Get back inside, Maria. Don’t talk to them.”

  Gomez remained in the doorway as if she hadn’t heard him, or didn’t care what he had to say on the subject.

  Perez approached them and yelled at her again. “Didn’t you hear me, mujer?”

  She shouted something back at him Spanish, then turned and retreated inside the apartment.

  “You shouldn’t talk to her like that,” Byron said.

  “I’ll talk to her any way I like, asshole.”

  “And you definitely shouldn’t talk to him like that,” Nugent warned.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Perez asked.

  “We’re police detectives,” Byron said, needing every ounce of restraint to not get into the man’s face.

  “What the hell do you want?” Perez asked as he stepped up onto the sidewalk.

  “We came to speak with you about the shooting you witnessed.”

  “Who says I want to talk to you?”

  Byron took a deep breath and counted to three, although he wasn’t sure that three was going to cut it. He had hoped it wouldn’t go like this. But given the current state of things he probably shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “We saw your interview on television,” Byron said. “We were hoping you might share what you saw with us.”

  “Yeah? Well, you hoped wrong. I ain’t telling you shit.”

  “You little bastard,” Nugent said as he took a step toward Perez. Byron put an arm out, stopping him.

  Perez took a half step back but kept his head up and his chest puffed out, trying to maintain his tough-guy routine. It wasn’t working.

  “We aren’t looking to cause you any trouble, Lucas,” Byron said, hoping that by using the man’s given name he might establish a bit of rapport. “Maybe you could tell us who you were visiting in Kennedy Park the night Tommy Plummer was killed?”

  Perez laughed. “Cops have always meant trouble for me. Kinda funny that one of yours is in trouble now, huh? You want my statement? Okay, here it is. Fuck and you. I got nothing to say. Now, I’m going inside my apartment. Try to stop me and I’ll have my attorney sue your asses.”

  Nugent pushed against Byron’s outstretched arm again. For just a moment Byron contemplated letting the bald detective go after him. Perez’s eyes widened slightly in fear as if he had intuited Byron’s dilemma. Finally Nugent relaxed, and Byron lowered his arm. Both detectives stepped aside, allowing Perez just enough room to squeeze past. The instigator eyed them warily before scurrying inside and slamming the door.

  As they returned to the car, Byron glanced back toward the apartment and saw Maria Gomez peering at them from an upstairs window. She stepped away, letting the sheer curtain fall back over the glass.

  “Well, that was fun,” Nugent said as they trudged through the packed snow. “You know, Sarge, there’s nothing I like better than fresh air and getting out and meeting folks in the community. It’s just so awesome to know that it’s our job to protect people like that asshole.”

  “Protect and serve, Nuge,” Byron said. “Protect and serve.”

  It was nearly two-thirty by the time Byron and Nugent pulled into 109’s rear garage. They had been monitoring radio chatter about the protesters at headquarters during the return trip from South Portland, but neither was prepared for the swarm of people now marching around the PD’s plaza. Byron waited in the car while Nugent moved one of the black-and-whites to allow him a place to park. The shouts of the protesters echoed throughout the garage.

  The two detectives trudged up the ramp toward 109 just as Sergeant Pepin was exiting his black-and-white SUV.

  “Can you believe this?” Pepin said, shouting to be heard above the chanting.

  “Where’s-our-jus-tice? Where’s-our-jus-tice?”

  “That’s some catchy shit,” Nugent said.

  “Have they started a detail yet?” Byron asked, referring to an overtime assignment to keep the protestors in line.

  “Ha!” Pepin said. “They’re still trying to decide where the money’s gonna come from.”

  Byron looked out at the sea of angry faces and wondered what the cost might be if they didn’t get a handle on this uprising.

  “Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?” Nugent asked.

  “Exactly,” Pepin said. “They’ve already convicted Haggerty. That’s messed up.”

  Byron wondered how much Perez, their newfound friend and reluctant witness, had contributed to the chaos.

  The three men descended the steps to the plaza, then headed toward 109’s rear entry door. Someone in the crowd yelled out, “How about an eye for an eye?”

  Byron, who had started to punch in the key code to the door lock, turned around just in time to see a man hurl something large and rust-colored in their direction. “Look out!”

  The object caught Pepin squarely in the right side of the head, momentarily stunning him.

  “What the fuck?” Nugent said, echoing Byron’s own thoughts perfectly.

  Pepin reached up to where he’d been struck. When he pulled his hand back it was covered in blood.

  Byron maintained focus on the man he’d seen execute the toss. The young white male wearing a mustard-colored field jacket was trying to lose himself by backing into the crowd.

  “What the hell was that?” Pepin said.

  “A paving stone,” Nugent said, bending over and retrieving it from the ground.

  “Call for backup, Nuge,” Byron said as he headed into the fray. “I’m grabbing this kid before he disappears.”

  “Hey, don’t shove me,” a faceless protestor said as Byron passed by.

  “Freeze, asshole,” Byron said as he saw Yellow Jacket pushing through the crowd toward the steps that led down to Middle Street.

  “Careful they don’t shoot you,” a comedian wannabe shouted.

  “Don’t
tempt me,” Nugent yelled back from somewhere right behind Byron.

  Byron pushed through the crowd like a lineman as he watched the man slide effortlessly toward his chosen escape route. An unseen foot was thrust out, its owner trying unsuccessfully to trip Byron. He had nearly reached the front of the plaza when the suspect’s head disappeared from view.

  “He’s on the stairs,” Byron yelled. “White male. Yellow jacket.”

  Byron and Nugent reached the top of the stairs nearly simultaneously. Yellow Jacket leapt down onto the sidewalk, skipping the last four steps as he did so, then turned left heading east on Middle Street, dodging several picketers who had stopped to see what was happening. Byron descended the steps two at a time, sliding his hand down the steel tube railing as he went. Yellow Jacket glimpsed back to see if he was still being followed.

  “We’re gonna get ya, you little shit,” Nugent yelled.

  “Leave him alone, you big bullies,” another protestor yelled. Byron and Nugent reached the sidewalk, then headed toward Franklin Arterial.

  Yellow Jacket was halfway past the front of the police station when he cut right to evade his pursuers by crossing Middle Street. He never saw the westbound car that struck him and sent him flying.

  Twenty minutes later Byron stood perched on the sidewalk in front of 109, looking on as MedCu attendants and several firemen used a backboard and cervical collar to immobilize Pepin’s assailant.

  Yellow Jacket turned out to be Jeremy Scott, a nineteen-year-old undergraduate student from the University of Southern Maine. A self-proclaimed revolutionary with three misdemeanor priors for disorderly conduct, Scott had just graduated to a felony.

  From somewhere nearby, Byron heard the catcalls and derogatory comments being made about him specifically, and about the Portland Police Department in general. After more than twenty years on the job he had learned to let it roll off. He’d never understood how a community could be so quick to condemn the police, accusing them of rushing to judgment when in so doing they were themselves rushing to judgment. He didn’t have an issue with people getting together to protest whatever they liked, so long as they did it peacefully. Protesting was an American institution going back to the Bostonians throwing tea into the harbor as a not-so-subtle message to the Crown. But bouncing bricks off the head of police officers wasn’t a protest; it was an act of aggression. Aggravated assault to be exact. Byron couldn’t remember it ever having been this bad. He wondered how much of the antipolice hysteria had been caused by online social media platforms where everyone with a Google app was an instant expert on everything. Sadly, it had become the norm. It was one of the reasons he didn’t maintain a presence on social media. The other reason was his disdain for computers.

  Fifteen minutes after the ambulance had departed, Byron stood in LeRoyer’s office. The door was closed.

  “What the hell happened out there?” LeRoyer barked. “I’ve got a police sergeant up at Maine Med getting staples in his head and at least a half dozen pissed-off people down in the lobby making out complaints against all the officers involved in this.”

  “Complaints about what?” Byron said.

  “You name it. False arrest. Excessive force. Criminal threatening.”

  “Criminal threatening? Give me a break, Marty. Who are they alleging made a threat?”

  “Specifically? One of the plainclothes officers.”

  “Well, there were only two plainclothes officers out there, me and Nuge. What did we allegedly say?”

  “According to one complainant, one of the cops threatened to shoot him if he didn’t get out of their way.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Yeah, John. I am.”

  “First off, in case you haven’t noticed, Nuge and I look nothing alike. And secondly, if anyone said anything derogatory it was me and what I said was, ‘Freeze, asshole.’”

  “Is this a joke to you, John? Because I’ve got multiple people coming forward and they’re all saying the same thing.”

  “And you’re surprised by that? Perhaps you didn’t notice, but that mob of people outside congregated for the sole purpose of protesting us. Nuge and I chased that Scott kid after I witnessed him throw a chunk of brick at Pepin, striking him in the head. I’ll bet none of your honest witnesses saw that though, right?”

  LeRoyer shook his head. “No. They didn’t.”

  “There’s a shock. Next you’ll be telling me that someone’s accusing us of pushing Jeremy Scott in front of that car.”

  LeRoyer raised his eyebrows.

  “You’re not fucking serious?”

  Chapter 12

  Tuesday, 3:30 p.m.,

  January 17, 2017

  Byron was seething as he left LeRoyer’s office. He wondered how long it would be before Mayor Gilcrest inserted herself in this latest fiasco to bolster her “get the thin blue line back in line” campaign. He shoved the heavy wooden door open and marched into the CID locker room. At the sink he splashed cool water on his face and on the back of his neck. As he reached toward the paper towel dispenser and found it empty, it occurred to him that the old John Byron would have done much more than just splash a bit of water on himself. His thoughts turned to the bottle of spirit-lifter that had previously resided inside the bottom right-hand drawer of the desk in his office. His mouth suddenly felt very dry. He shook the water from his hands and grabbed a wad of toilet paper from the stall to finish the job.

  The mini-uprising was nothing but a distraction. Perspective was what he needed, what they all needed right now. Staying on point and piecing together what had happened in Kennedy Park. The events that had led up to Tommy Plummer’s death were the only thing that mattered. Plummer’s death was the match that had ignited the city. And locating the second robber, and ultimately the gun, were the only things that would extinguish the flames.

  The locker room door flung open as Detective Nugent marched in.

  “What a shit show that turned out to be,” Nugent said as he approached his locker and banged open the door. “Did you know they’re all downstairs right now filing formal 50s against us?” he asked. 50s were the police code for internal affairs complaints.

  “I heard,” Byron said as he picked off the last remnants of the toilet paper stuck to his hands.

  “That kid’s family will probably blame us for the accident.”

  “How’s Andy?” Byron asked.

  “Pepin’s got a hard head. He’ll be all right. Maine Med put a few staples in him. You know that fucking plaza out there, with its loose pavers, makes about as much sense as those quaint little brick sidewalks that this city is so in love with. Jesus. Why not just put up signs that say Free Weapons? Or better yet, Free Burglar Tools?”

  The very same thought had occurred to Byron.

  Nugent dumped a puddle of aftershave into his palm, then slapped it against his cheeks. “So, what’s next, mon ami?”

  “We get back to work,” Byron said. “Someone put a gun in Plummer’s hand and I want to know who. I’m gonna see what Dustin has come up with.”

  “Hey, Sarge,” Tran said as Byron entered his office.

  “Any progress?” Byron asked.

  “I think I may have found something that will interest you.”

  “Great. What?”

  “Well, I ran a check on each of those names. Then I queried their addresses, looking for relatives, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.”

  “And?”

  “I didn’t find anything major in-house on the friends list, but when I checked on the relatives a couple of things popped up. First, Tommy Plummer and Nate Freeman are cousins.”

  “I knew that already. What else?”

  “Abdirahman Ali’s father, Ahmed, owns a small halal market on Congress Street.”

  “We were just there yesterday. What about the shop?”

  “Ahmed Ali has filed three robbery reports in the last two years. Two of the robberies occurred in the last nine months.”

  “I’m
not following,” Byron said.

  “I was just thinking, perhaps Mr. Ali got tired of getting ripped off. Maybe he decided to purchase himself a little protection in the form of a handgun. And maybe little Abdi Ali borrowed it to show it off to Tommy Plummer.”

  Byron considered what Tran was saying. Maybe he had been looking at this all wrong. Byron was thinking that the gun used during the robbery likely belonged to Tommy Plummer or to his father. Mr. Plummer had denied any knowledge of a gun, but then refused to let them search through Tommy’s room. Maybe Tran was onto something. Maybe the gun hadn’t belonged to Tommy after all. Perhaps one of his schoolmates had come by the gun on the street or taken it from one of their parents. Hugh Plummer had told Byron that he had no idea where his son would have come by a firearm, and maybe that was true.

  “Anything in-house on Ahmed?” Byron asked.

  “I checked the concealed weapons files as well as the applications. I went back five years. Nothing.”

  Assuming Tran was right, there were only so many places in town where, for the right price, a shop owner tired of being victimized might get his hands on an equalizer. Pete’s Trading Post on St. John or Honest Jimmy’s Pawn Shop on India Street were two great possibilities. Neither one of them had a sterling reputation. Byron decided that he would pay a visit to both, beginning with Honest Jimmy.

  Byron tore a sheet of paper out of his notebook and wrote down the name Christine Souza. “Add this to the names on your list.”

  “Any idea where she lives or her date of birth?” Tran asked.

  Byron briefly considered giving Tran more background information, but decided against it. “No. But I know she attended Portland High. See if you can find any links between her and the others.”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, and do me a favor. I need you to find the link to her on your own. Understand? I never gave you her name.”

  Tran grinned, ripped up the paper, and tossed it in the trash. “You got it, boss.”

  An electronic bell chimed in the distance as Byron stepped into the narrow front room of Honest Jimmy’s stolen goods emporium. He figured the trigger was either connected to the front door or located under the doormat that he’d just crossed. At the far end of the room two teenaged boys stood in front of the counter dealing with the Honest One himself. All three turned to stare as Byron entered.