by Gerry Boyle
Otto snapped at his son in Arabic. Edgard scowled but kept silent.
“They lead you away, Officer Blake,” Otto said. “They lead you out of this world.”
The room filled up with cops. Brandon and Kat, O’Farrell and Sergeant Perry. Detective Smythe. They stood. Otto, looking weary, sat on a folding chair. The brothers leaned.
“So, one more time, Mr. Otto. At three-twenty in the morning Fatima gets up,” O’Farrell said.
Otto nodded.
“You think she’s going to the bathroom.”
Another nod.
“And you go back to sleep.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t hear the door open. The outside door, I mean.”
“Right.”
“And when you wake up, she’s gone.”
“I think she’s gone out.”
“Fatima gets up and goes out without leaving you a note or anything? Telling her mom?”
“My daughter, she’s been acting strange. Since the shabah.”
“The baby’s ghost,” O’Farrell said.
“Right.”
“She gets up and wanders off?”
“She gets up. Can’t sleep with hearing the crying.”
“But she doesn’t usually just take off.”
Otto shook his head.
“But I saw her out walking after midnight,” Brandon said. “And then she went into the house.”
“She’s outside middle of the night,” Otto said. “They lead her away. Little by little.”
Another cop came in, shook his head.
“Dog lost her in the driveway,” he said.
“Like she got in a car?”
“Maybe,” the cop said.
“Where do you think she’s gone?” O’Farrell asked Samir.
Samir, startled, looked at his father, hesitated. “She’s been hanging out with this guy,” he said.
“Hanging out?” Otto said. “What do you mean, hanging out?”
“You know. Talking. Chillin’,” Edgard said.
“Who’s the guy?” O’Farrell said.
“Some art-school dude,” Samir said.
“This guy have a name and address?”
“Kids call him Lil Messy,” Edgard said.
“Has paint all over his clothes,” Samir said.
“Where’s he live?”
“Other side of State Street, the corner. Top floor. Across from the community center.”
Perry nodded at Kat and Brandon.
“Description?” Kat said.
“Skinny,” Edgard said. “Kind of a beard, long hair.”
“Like hanging down on his face,” Samir said.
“This Messy, he violated my daughter, it’s all over for him,” Otto said.
“Easy,” O’Farrell said. “Easy.”
“We escaped. We had very many difficulties. This cannot happen.”
The demonstration had folded as soon as the TV trucks left. A few kids lingered, the heavy guy leaning on his sign, smoking a cigarette. Kat and Brandon scanned the street to the corner. No one in sight who fit the description of Lil Messy.
They pulled up across from the community center first, Perry behind them. Brandon and Kat got out and Kat walked across the street to a group of children on bikes, some of the same from the demonstration. They pointed to the top floor of a triple-decker at the corner.
Kat came back and they started for the door as O’Farrell and Smythe arrived. The detectives started up the alleyway to the back of the house. Brandon and Kat took the front stairs.
There were toys in the entryway, a plastic tricycle. On the second-floor landing a mountain bike was chained to the wooden railing and there were running shoes lined up. Third floor there were white trash bags, two of them, stuffed full. Brandon stepped over and lifted them. They were light, too light. He looked at Kat and shook his head.
She knocked with her flashlight, the rapping filling the hallway.
“Portland PD,” Kat said.
She rapped again, harder. Perry came up behind them. They looked back at him and he nodded.
Kat tried the knob, pushed. The door was locked. She took two steps back and squared her shoulder. The door swung open.
A sleepy-looking guy stared out. He was wearing gym shorts, no shirt. He was skinny, a tuft of hair that looked like it had been glued to his sunken chest. Another tuft under his lip. His dark straight hair fell over his eyes and his forearms were spattered with paint. Tattoos showed between the spatters.
“Lil Messy?” Brandon said.
“What? Yeah—I mean, what’s with all the cops?”
“We’re looking for Fatima Otto,” Kat said. “Got a minute?”
It was one big room, a kitchen in an alcove. The furniture was a couch covered with a once-white sheet, a sleeping bag open on top of it. There were paintings strewn on the spattered floor: on paper, a piece of plywood, sketches of all sizes. Jars of thinner. Coffee cans holding brushes. Squashed tubes of paint. Spatula-looking things.
The paintings were of disjointed, fractured faces. One, on the easel, was of a young black woman, eyes disproportionately large. Fatima stared from the canvas.
He knew the kids on the street called him Lil Messy, but he said his real name was Paul Boekamp. “It’s Dutch,” he said.
“You and Van Gogh,” Brandon said.
“Yeah,” Boekamp said.
“So she hasn’t been here?” O’Farrell said.
“She’s never been in here. I asked her up once. She said her brothers would kill me. Some Sudanese thing. Whatever.”
“But you painted her?”
“Yeah.”
“Where did you meet?”
He shrugged his hair out of his face. It fell back. He shrugged again.
“On the sidewalk. What, you’re thinking something happened to her?”
“Just want to find her,” O’Farrell said.
“Who else does she hang out with?” Brandon said.
“The brothers,” Boekamp said. “Some other Sudanese girls, I guess. She walked by with them sometimes.”
“Any reason you can think of why she’d take off?” O’Farrell said.
Boekamp hesitated, flipped his hair. “I don’t know. It’s kind of crazy.”
“The ghost,” Kat said.
“You know about that?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Then you know it was inside her head. I mean, sometimes she heard it. Sometimes she thought she imagined it.”
“It was bothering her a lot?”
“Oh, yeah. I mean, dude, wouldn’t it bother you? She said that house was freakin’ cursed. Like somebody put some sort of hex on the place. Africans believe all that shit. But I think she was right. The kid disappears. The mom jumps off the bridge. Now Fatima. Oughta burn the place down.”
He looked at them. “Without the people in it, of course,” Boekamp said.
“Of course,” said O’Farrell.
They all waited. Boekamp messed with his hair, crossed his bare legs, fingered his soul patch. “You don’t know what’s going on inside people,” he said.
“No?” Brandon said.
“I mean, these North Africans. The women all covered up, don’t talk to men. I mean, not white dudes like me.”
“It’s not proper,” Kat said.
“No, but Fatima, she had a lot going on. Her interior self, you know what I’m saying? She was thinking, watching, all the time.”
“She observe her neighbors?” Brandon said.
“Oh, yeah. She had her thoughts. Her opinions. Like I said, a lot going on inside there.”
“Like what?” O’Farrell said. “What were her opinions?”
“I don’t know if she—”
“If I were you, I’d keep sharing,” Kat said.
Boekamp, startled by her serious tone, looked at Kat. Swallowed. Started in.
“She thought the mother with the kid, she was very sad. Very damaged. Only thing she had, the baby, and she, t
he mom, I mean, like, totally messed it up.”
“Was she surprised Chantelle killed herself?” Kat said.
“No,” Boekamp said. “Were you?”
“The others?” Brandon said.
“Okay, let’s see. She talked about this biker dude,” he said. “Said he was a creeper. Like he was looking through her clothes. No easy thing, either, all the crap she wore. One time he told her she was too good-looking to be all covered up, that he’d like to see her in a halter top and shorts. You know, sketchy stuff. She said Chantelle, the druggie, even she told her to stay away from him.”
“And Mrs. Young and her daughter?”
“The lady and her mom, she said they were sour people. Really pissed off at the world, you know? Like they never smiled. Never laughed. Just sat in the apartment, peeking out the windows and grousing about the neighbors. Peeking out the windows, hiding behind the curtains.”
“About right,” Brandon said. He thought of the movie, the baby crying in the otherwise-silent apartment.
“And she also told me stuff about Sudan, you know, the camp they were in? Except it was in Chad, which is the next country over, I guess.”
“To the east,” Brandon said.
“Yeah, well, she said babies died, kids died, people half starved walking across this shithole of a country to get to the place. Well, she didn’t say it was a shithole. That’s my word, freakin’ a hundred degrees and desert and no government, just a total friggin’ free-for-all.”
“It’s more an ethnic thing, fighting over land,” Brandon said. “But keep going.”
“Right, well, they make it, the lucky ones, they find there’s guards beating the crap out of people, trading food for sex. I mean, these girls having to put out to feed their mom and dad, brothers and sisters.”
He looked at them, relaxing now, maybe enjoying it. Brandon had a flash of Jesus as a kid, preaching in the temple.
“You know the Darfur thing. Janjaweed and all that. People getting raped and murdered and shit, and this country, the good old US of A, won’t do anything to stop it because there’s no oil there.”
He paused, started to say something, stopped.
“What?” O’Farrell said.
“You can tell us, Paul,” Kat said.
“You’re not protecting her now,” Brandon said. “It’s time to help her out.”
Boekamp scratched his nose, fidgeted with his feet. Then, without looking at any of them, he said, “She said she thought the ghost was trying to lead her to something—that’s why it wouldn’t leave her alone. She was gonna go check it out. But she had to sketch around, ’cause of her father. He was, like, way protective.”
“When?” O’Farrell said.
“Last night. Like, two-thirty. She texted me.”
“Go where?” Kat said.
“She didn’t say. But, I mean, she didn’t drive or anything. How far could it be?”
It was seven-ten, the kids back in the middle of Granite Street, bikes swerving, skateboards clattering. Brandon parked in the driveway of 317 and he and Kat got out, started for the side door. Outside Cawley’s window they heard the bedspring squeak, a woman say, “Oh, baby.”
“Gonna be glad to see us,” Kat said.
Brandon knocked, first his fist, then the flashlight. After a minute they heard a door open inside, footsteps. The door cracked. Cawley peered through.
“Yeah.”
“Need to talk to you,” Brandon said.
“Kinda tied up.”
“Important.”
“Yeah, well.”
“This or a warrant,” Brandon said.
Cawley stared. Waited a three-count.
“With a warrant we search every inch of the place,” Brandon said. “Without it, we just talk.”
Cawley looked at Kat, back to Brandon. “Learning fast, ain’tcha, kid?” he said.
“Your call,” Brandon said.
A long stare, and then Cawley turned away. “I’ll tell her to get dressed,” he said.
They leaned in the kitchen, the blonde woman, Tiffany, back in her shorts and tank top, hair disheveled, smelling of sweat and sex. She sipped Diet Coke out of a can. Cawley, bare-chested and muscled, in gym shorts, took a long pull on a Budweiser longneck. On his big shoulder was the grinning-skull tattoo, Brandon getting a better look now, seeing the knife through the eye socket.
“Muslim chick never talked to me. Acted like I’d rip her robe thing off. I mean, you say hello and they freak out, these Somalians.”
“Sudanese,” Brandons said.
“What?”
“The Ottos are from Sudan.”
“What is this? Fucking geography class?” Cawley said.
“Okay,” Kat said. “Let’s stay on track. You saw her early this morning?”
“Yeah. Out in the driveway, her outfit on, the head thing. Looked like some kinda witch, standing there.”
“Just standing there?” Brandon said.
“Yeah.”
“Like she was waiting for someone?” Kat said.
“No,” Cawley said. “More like a dog, sniffing the air.”
“Sniffing?” Tiffany said. “What was she sniffing for?”
“I don’t know,” Cawley said. “She was just standing there, like listening.”
“To what?” Tiffany said.
“Jesus, babe, how the hell should I know?”
“This was around three o’clock?” Brandon said.
“About that. I don’t know. I got up to take a leak.”
“And then what?” Kat said.
“I went back to bed,” Cawley said.
“You hear a car pull up?” Brandon said.
“No.”
“You awake long?” Kat said.
“A while.”
He and Tiffany exchanged glances.
“You hear Fatima go back inside?”
“No.”
“You hear anything?” Brandon said.
“Her talking.”
“To who?” Kat said.
“I don’t know. Nobody talked back. Maybe just herself. These people, they’re different, you know?”
“What was she saying?” Kat said.
“I have no idea. It wasn’t in English.”
“And then what? Anything?” Brandon said.
“I heard her walking. She was just kinda shuffling. That’s what it sounded like.”
“Like walking away? Like—down the street?” Kat said.
“Down the driveway, past the window.”
“Toward the street,” Kat said.
“Yeah.”
“Did you hear her, Tiffany?” Brandon said.
“No. I was, uh, distracted.”
The glance again.
“And then?” Kat said.
“Then I didn’t hear her no more,” Cawley said.
They stood, the four of them, didn’t speak. Tiffany raised the Diet Coke and drank, then held it in two hands in front of her, like a goblet of wine.
“I bet I know who saw where she went,” she said.
They all looked at her.
“That old lady and her daughter. They don’t miss a thing. I came here the other day, she’s in the window, giving me the evil eye.”
“Which one?” Brandon said.
“Which eye?”
“No, which of the Youngs.”
“Oh,” Tiffany said. “The old one.”
“You think they’d be up at three in the morning?” Kat said.
“The old lady, she never sleeps,” Cawley said. “I get off the bike, look over, there she is.”
“Nosy old bag,” Tiffany said. “Always watching. Probably listening, too, the perv.”
“I thought she watched movies all the time,” Kat said.
“That’s the thing,” Tiffany said. She looked around, like Mrs. Young might be listening. “Sometimes you can hear the TV, see the light on. But she isn’t in there watching it. She’s in the other room, in the window, standing there in the dark, loo
king out.”
“Ever hear a movie with a baby crying?” Brandon said.
“No, I hear mostly talk shows. You know, like Judge Judy, Dr. Phil,” Tiffany said.
“But she’s in the window,” Kat said.
“Right,” Tiffany said. “Like the TV is a . . .” She searched for the word.
“A diversion?” Brandon said.
“Right,” she said. “You read my mind.”
Tiffany recrossed her legs. Jiggled her foot. She smiled, like the conversation was a game show and she’d just scored.
Kat looked at Cawley. “Fatima, in the driveway,” she said. “Ever seen her out there at that time before?”
Cawley shook his head. “Nope.”
“I been telling him, ‘You gotta move. This place has got the voodoo hex on it,’ ” Tiffany said.
Kat looked at Brandon.
Tiffany continued. “The missing baby. The dead junkie. Now this African girl. It’s like it’s working its way down, you know what I’m saying? Knocking us off, one by one.”
“Mama’s resting,” Annie Young said. “Can you come back tomorrow?”
“No,” Kat said. “It won’t take long.”
Annie Young scowled from behind the cracked door. Closed it. They heard footsteps receding. After a minute, she was back. The chain rattled and she opened the door and turned away. They followed her into the apartment, smelled a strong waft of air freshener. Marguerite Young was in her chair, crumpled-up tissues arranged on the upholstered arm. She was in her pink bathrobe, blue-veined feet in white terrycloth slippers. The TV was on, cowboys heading off a stampede. Lightning and thunder.
Mrs. Young glared.
“Isn’t there any crime going on in this godforsaken city?” she said.
“Yes, Mrs. Young,” Kat said. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Suppose you caught the circus outside. I’m sick, too. No consideration, these people.”
“No,” Kat said. “But we want to talk to you about Fatima.”
“Who?”
“Fatima Otto. From upstairs.”
“Talk to Catholic Charities. They bring these foreigners here.”
“She’s missing,” Brandon said.
“The girl? Says who?”
“Her father.”
“Probably ran off with one of her brothers’ hoodlum friends,” Mrs. Young said. “Those two are headed for trouble, mark my words.”
