Port City Black and White

by Gerry Boyle

  “I got gum, Lizzie.” He reached into his shirt pocket, took out a pack. Held it out and the old woman snatched it away, stuffed it somewhere under her layers. Sweatshirt, sweaters, greasy parka.

  “You think of something you forgot, you give a shout, honey,” Kat said.

  “I had a baby,” Lizzie said. “Gestapo took it.”

  “Sorry,” Brandon said.

  “Had the devil in her,” the old woman said. “You gotta drive a stake in ’em. You gotta drive a stake through their little hearts.”

  She smiled, not quite toothless. They looked at her uneasily, got back in the cruiser.

  “There’s a birth mother you don’t want to go searching for,” Brandon said.

  “I guess,” Kat said.

  “So where do you think it is?”

  “The baby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know,” Kat said.

  “Maybe she killed him, by accident,” Brandon said. “Got rid of the body. Or maybe one of the crackheads killed him, took the body with him when he left, tossed it in the trunk.”

  “Jeez, Blake,” Kat said. “Glass half empty or what?”

  It was 7:30, an hour and a half after the shift ended. Brandon was on a laptop in the duty room, writing the report. He was down to the daughter and her mother, the bitter old woman. He wondered what they did for fun, the two of them. Watch TV? Play cards? Go on and on about the way the neighborhood had gone down—

  His phone buzzed. He flipped it open.

  “Hey,” Brandon said.

  “Hi there. You coming home?”

  “Just about out of here. Had a missing kid, right at the end of the shift. Reports to do.”

  “What, the kid wander off?” Mia said.

  “No. It’s a little baby.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Very.”

  “One of those custody things?” Mia said.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone else wanted him.”

  “Sad.”

  “Yes.”

  Brandon typed.

  “I had a thought,” Mia said.

  “Yeah?”

  He heard gulls, the slosh of a wake, the floats rattling.

  “I just thought maybe when you got home, we could rock the boat a little,” Mia said.

  “That would be nice,” Brandon said, picturing her sitting on the foredeck, wrapped in a blanket, cup of coffee in two hands.

  “But now it’s too late. I have to go to work.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brandon said. “I tried to get out of here.”

  “It’s okay,” Mia said. “I understand. A baby.”

  Kat walked into the room, caught his eye. Brandon got up from the table.

  “Be right there,” he called. Then to the phone, “Sorry, I just have to catch her.”

  “It’s okay,” Mia said.

  “Home in twenty minutes.”

  “Right,” she said, and she flipped off the phone, put it down on the deck. Gulls swooped low, checking to see if maybe there was a muffin with that coffee. Mia wrapped the blanket tighter around her. There was a big sailboat motoring out from the marina next door, a pretty wooden yawl, forty-five feet of gleaming varnish. She sipped, wished Brandon were here to see it. Wished Brandon were just here.

  Kat was waiting in the garage, where the cruisers were lined up.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Kat said.

  They crossed the garage, the German shepherd in the K-9 car pitching a fit as they walked by. On the far side Kat stopped, waited for the dog to settle down.

  “Today,” she said.

  “What about it?” Brandon said.

  “You lost it a little.”

  “With Chantelle? She needed to hear it.”

  “Right then? From you?”

  “It’s true. She’s an irresponsible mother.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a time and place.”

  “We needed her to focus. That got her attention,” Brandon said.

  Kat waited.

  “Okay. My turn then. You’ve got issues, Brandon.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “We all do. Something. But you can’t bring ’em to the job.”

  “But she lost her baby.”

  “And you came on too strong.”

  “What was I supposed to say? ‘It’s only a baby. Let’s do some more drugs.’ ”

  “Brandon.”

  She grabbed him by the shoulder, turned him toward her.

  “I’m trying to help you. I like you. I want you to succeed.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Your mom.”

  “It was twenty years ago. I’m over it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You a shrink or you my partner?” Brandon said.

  “I’m your field training officer. Training, as in teaching. I teach, you learn.”

  Brandon looked away.

  “Being a parent isn’t a game,” he said.

  “Like your mom treated it?”

  He swallowed.

  “Yeah, maybe. If she’d stayed home with her kid, she’d be alive right now. Instead she goes off on her South Sea pot-smuggling adventure.”

  “I understand that,” Kat said. “But here’s what worries me: What if I hadn’t been there today? What if you went to that call alone? Would you have chewed that girl out? Worse?”

  “She needed to hear it.”

  “She needed help. The baby needs our help.”

  Brandon didn’t answer.

  “Okay, here’s another thing that worries me, and this isn’t your FTO talking. This is somebody who’s trying to be your friend. Why do you find it so hard to let people in?”

  Brandon shrugged. “How I roll.”

  “Don’t let anybody close, you don’t get burned, right?”

  “Jeez, Kat. You really oughta apply for the shrink’s job at the academy. Big raise, nobody shoots at you.”

  “Because it’s true. The keeping people out.”

  “I’ve got Mia. I’m not keeping people out.”

  “She slipped in and the door slammed shut behind her,” Kat said.

  “I thought we were talking about a crackhead on Granite Street.”

  “We are. And about how your personal experience affects the way you do your job as a police officer.”

  They both paused. A detective walked past the dog and it started up again. The detective nodded, kept walking.

  “So what’s yours?” Brandon said.

  “My what?” Kat said.

  “Your issue. The one you carry around. You said everybody has one.”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Sure.”

  Kat looked away, scowled.

  “Okay. Fair enough. My brother . . . he’s three years older.”

  “The rich guy.”

  “Right.”

  “I thought you liked him.”

  “He’s fine. We don’t have a lot in common or anything. I mean, he thinks I’m nuts, doing this job.”

  “Maybe you are.”

  “Well, anyway, growing up, he was smarter than me, better looking, more popular. Harvard on a scholarship, Wall Street; wife is pretty, MBA from Duke. They’ve got two gorgeous little kids. Two-million-dollar house in Connecticut.”

  “But can he do a leg hold?”

  “Me, I’ve got a one-bedroom apartment, an ex with a gambling addiction who still comes by and cadges money. My cat has three legs and diabetes, meds cost two-fifty a month. And I’m gay.”

  “I don’t see how those things are in the same category.”

  “They are for my parents,” Kat said. “They’ve written me off as a total loser.”

  “Who can run triathlons, wrestle with crackheads, rescue babies from burning houses, and break down a Glock. And your partner is a college professor.”

  “Literature. Another waste of time to them.”

  “But you’re a good person.”

  “Doesn’
t matter.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they don’t love me,” Kat said.

  A pause.

  “Huh,” Brandon said. “Why’s that? Because you’re a lesbian?”

  “No. They didn’t love me before. Me being gay, that’s just a good excuse.”

  “Whoa,” Brandon said.

  She was looking away, staring at nothing. Her eyes were moist and she blinked, wiped them with a finger. Wiped the finger on her uniform trousers.

  She mustered a grin. “How’s that for baggage, Blake?”

  He smiled back. “Not bad.”

  “Go home to your honey,” she said.

  “I’m trying. I got waylaid.”

  “I got waylaid, but it’s been a while,” Kat said.

  Brandon looked at her. She smacked his arm.

  “It’s a joke, Blake,” Kat said. “Lighten up.”

  Brandon drove through the gate at 8:10, parked his pickup in the reserved slot, that privilege and the free slip his only perks as very part-time marina manager. He hopped out of the cab, reached back for his briefcase. It was sunny but cool, dry northwest wind, a little chop on the harbor. Boat owners were standing on the floats, chatting, coffee mugs held belly high. They waved to him but didn’t approach, something about the uniform, like he was still working. Brandon walked down the first float to his slip, No. 2, second on the right. He climbed the stairs, stepped over the transom and down. Bay Witch rocked almost imperceptibly. He went through the salon to the helm, heard Mia below. Brandon bent and moved down the steps to the cabin.

  “Hey, baby,” he said.

  “Hi, honey,” she said. She slipped a tank top over her head, yanked it down, reached for a sweater.

  “You leaving?”

  “Gotta be there for nine.”

  He moved toward her, put his case, his gun belt, on the berth. “Shoot. I thought—”

  “That was almost three hours ago, Brand. Where’ve you been?”

  “Reports. The baby.”

  “They find it?”

  Brandon shook his head, hugged her, lifted her blonde hair and nuzzled her neck.

  “Nope. Not yet.”

  “Maybe one of her friends took it home for safekeeping. She’s a drug addict, right?”

  “Yeah, but not totally gone. In and out of it.”

  He nuzzled her some more.

  “You sure you have to go?”

  “Only if I want to get paid.”

  “Let ’em check out their own books.”

  “They wouldn’t. They’d steal them, and I’d have to call you to arrest them.”

  “My pleasure,” Brandon said. “We can make love now. I’ll arrest them all later.”

  Mia squirmed away, reached for her sandals with her foot, fished them toward her with her toe.

  “Must’ve been long reports,” she said. “I would’ve thought my offer would’ve had you out of there on the run.”

  “Well, then there was Kat. She wanted to talk.”

  “What was it this time?” Mia said, alert.

  “Nothing too bad,” Brandon said, starting to unbutton his uniform shirt.

  “How bad?”

  “Oh, she thought I came down too hard on the mom.”

  “Did you?”

  “She’s cracked out, has no idea the baby’s gone. Six months old, for God’s sake.”

  “What’d you tell her?”

  “The truth. That the baby was her responsibility. Hers, nobody else’s.”

  “You gotta go easy, Brandon. You’re still on probation.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to coddle these people. This Chantelle, she’s sitting on the couch, zoned out in front of the tube. Place is a total pigsty, unbelievable pit. Kid’s bed is a dirty bare mattress on the floor.”

  “Call the State?”

  “Detectives will, I’m sure.”

  “They’re watching you. They told you they would be. After everything from before.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then let somebody else be the bad cop.”

  “I’m not a bad cop,” Brandon said.

  “You know what I mean. Just bite your tongue sometimes. For your own sake.”

  Brandon did. Tossed his uniform shirt on the berth, his T-shirt. Mia was leaning into a tiny mirror, inspecting her face.

  “How’d the writing go?”

  “Good. Most of a chapter. I like it.”

  “Great. You’re rolling. Is this the part about the handsome rookie cop?”

  Mia hesitated. “That’s another story. But I gotta run. I’m so late. We’re going to dinner, remember. Drinks on the deck first. We have to be there at six.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Lily and Winston.”

  “Oh, yeah. Where’s he from again?”

  “Barbados.”

  “Huh.”

  “She’s been with him a couple of years. Before it was this preppie jock stockbroker, played lacrosse at Amherst.”

  “From lax bro to West Indian chef. Broadening her horizons.”

  “And Winston is way more exciting. Just opened his own place on Exchange Street.”

  “Right. You told me the name.”

  “Rendezvous.”

  “He’s got money, right?”

  “I guess. Lily said he sold a restaurant in Barbados.”

  “Long way from home,” Brandon said. “Why Portland, Maine?”

  Mia shrugged. Put the mirror back on the built-in shelf.

  “I don’t know. Change of scenery?”

  “Witness protection program?”

  “Brandon,” Mia said. “You’re off duty.” She gave him a quick hug, a longer kiss. “Relax.”

  And she was up the three steps, pretty legs under her denim skirt, and headed for the stern. He felt the slightest lift of the boat when she stepped off the stern, heard her sandals slapping on the wooden slats of the float. And then Mia was gone.

  He kicked off his boots, picked them up and put them in the cabinet. Peeled off his uniform pants, put on shorts, a T-shirt, flip-flops. He took his phone, went through to the salon and grabbed a beer, then went around to the foredeck. Mia had left the chair up there and Brandon sat down, opened the beer and sipped. He looked out on the marina, saw Johnny C. easing his big Grady-White up to the fuel dock, twin 150s ready to suck up some gas. Sylvie and Sarge LaFrance polishing brass on their vintage Hinckley sloop. A new couple, scrubbing an old Pearson 32, good entry-level boat, little blond kids playing behind the rail netting. Beyond the marina was the harbor: a tug nosing an oil barge upriver, a scallop dragger approaching the fish pier under a cloud of gulls, the ferry terminal empty, the Casco Princess in Nova Scotia.

  And then the waterfront. Houses rising up the hill, the downtown skyline, and just out of sight, Granite Street. Brandon took a long swallow of Shipyard, picked up his phone, punched a number.

  “Choo-Choo, it’s me, Brandon. . . . Anything new on that baby? . . . Listen, will you run the mom for me? Right. Chantelle Anthony. Warrants, probation conditions, like no drugs or alcohol —anything you can find. Also, the boyfriend. Lance something. Lance McCabe, I think. Should be under Chantelle’s known associates. Anything in there about kids, sex offenses, assaults on children. . . . I owe you one, Chooch. Mocha latte, extra grande, coming your way. Me? No, I’m off, back Sunday. Just doing a little homework.”

  He hung up. Stared out at the water. A wake approached and the boat rocked. Brandon picked up the phone.

  “Chooch, me again. Listen, this thing with Anthony. Between us, okay?”

  Chantelle had noticed it, had told her mother when she brought the baby over there to let her mother have some Grammie time. “He’s starting to roll over, Ma,” she said. “You watch.”

  Lincoln had been on the rug, in the living room of the little house in South Portland, out past the interstate. Chantelle’s mother had just come in from the porch, a cigarette break. She sat down on the floor next to the baby. Like a dog, Lincoln roll
ed over on cue.

  “He’ll be walking soon enough,” Chantelle’s mother said. “Then he’ll keep your ass running.”

  Chantelle had stuck a cigarette in her mouth, hunted for her lighter in the couch cushions. She got up and bent over, her T-shirt riding up, showing the bones in her spine, the tattoo of a moon and stars.

  “Look at the little pissant,” her mother had said. “There he goes again.

  Now Lincoln could string together five or six rolls, all to the right, his heavier head and shoulders serving as a sort of anchor, his feet and legs moving ahead. The result was that he moved in a sort of semicircle. When his legs hit the wall, he’d start to cry in frustration so you had to get up quick, pull his legs past the wall, let him complete the circle.

  That worked pretty well, but you had to pay attention, just like at night. You had to get right over to him with the bottle, the pacifier, as soon as you heard that little whimper. If you waited, he’d turn up the volume and that would not be good.

  So it was tiring, this baby thing. Hard to get anything else done, not if you wanted to do it right. Lincoln ate every two or three hours, chugging that bottle right down, Chantelle figuring the breastfeeding wouldn’t be good, with her still using. He liked a little rice cereal, too. Sometimes you could let him sort of gnaw on the spoon, the one coated with rubber, which seemed to make him happy. He had a tooth coming through on the top. Have to get one of those teething rings, the kind filled with water or something, let him chew on that.

  Hopefully, he wouldn’t start to really fuss about the teething, the way the magazines said some babies did. The magazines were usually right. It was their idea to get the gurgling-water CD, which worked like a charm. He’d lay there on his back, sort of gurgling himself, and before you knew it, he’d be asleep.

  And quiet. For now, quiet was the most important thing.

  Brandon slept for six hours or so, woke up at three p.m. He lay in the berth for a while, the fan humming, the cries of the gulls wafting through the bow hatch. He could hear the faint rumble of passing boats and ships and could gauge the approach of the wake. Counting down from twenty, he’d say, “three, two, one,” and then feel the boat start to rock.

  That one was the tug, headed for the outer harbor. It was out of sight when Brandon came up to the galley. A quick glance showed a few boats out, three couples hauling coolers up float No. 2 in dock carts.