by Gerry Boyle
“Maybe,” Kat said, “but we heard she may have been out in the driveway. Early this morning, around three.”
“So?”
“So we thought you may have been up, noticed her outside.”
“I’m sick. I’m not up at three in the morning, babysitting the neighborhood.”
“So you haven’t seen Fatima? You, Miss Young?”
The two heads shook in unison. Then Annie Young looked away and back. “I don’t want to start rumors,” she said.
“About what?” Brandon said.
“I have seen her. I mean, not today or yesterday, but lately. Down the street, with a boy.”
“Across State Street?” Brandon said.
“Yes. Around there, on that corner.”
She paused, added, “A white boy.”
“Well, there’s your answer,” Mrs. Young said. “Somebody got to her. Matter of time.”
“We’ve talked to that young man. He says he hasn’t seen her in a couple of days.”
“Lucky if he sees her ever again,” the old woman said. “These people, one of their young women starts fooling around—doesn’t have to be a white boy. Could be someone from the wrong tribe or clan, or someone who didn’t pay enough goats.” She blew her nose. Folded the tissue and dabbed.
“It was on TV. One of these Moslem girls, she starts dating this boy. Not some hoodlum, either. Did something with computers.”
“Mama,” Annie Young said. “I don’t think the officers—”
“Pretty girl, too, what you could see of her.”
“Mama, they’re here about—”
“Well, her family, they got wind of it. But you see, they hadn’t approved of it or arranged the marriage, whatever it is they do.”
“Mama, I think that was in Pakistan,” Annie Young said.
“All the same, these places—hot and dusty. Can see why they want to get the hell out. But anyway, this girl’s male relatives, her uncles and brothers and her father, too, they locked her in a room and they beat the daylights out of her. Whips and tree branches and all sorts of things. Horrible. And the poor defenseless girl, she died.”
“So you think—” Kat said.
“And when they caught them? Didn’t even deny it. Said she disgraced her family and had to be punished.”
“I don’t think—” Brandon began.
“Only difference may be that this Mr. Otto, the father, he’s been here long enough to try to get away with it. Isn’t going to prison for twenty years.”
“Have you seen him punishing Fatima?” Kat said.
“They don’t do it in the middle of the street,” Mrs. Young said.
“Heard anything?” Brandon said.
“No, but they might’ve put a pillow over her face or something. They’re crafty, these people. Guess they have to be, to survive in that horrible desert. But they don’t belong here. It’s like putting a camel in the Maine woods. Nothing wrong with a camel—if you keep it where it belongs.”
“Mama, please,” Annie Young said, putting a hand on her mother’s shoulder.
“Women do all the work, too,” Mrs. Young said. “And they’re treated like second-class citizens.”
“Mama,” Annie Young said.
“Don’t shush me, dear,” Mrs. Young said, and then, to the cops, she said, “I’d go ask the Somalis, if I was you.”
“They’re Sudanese,” Brandon said.
“Same difference,” Mrs. Young said. “Wouldn’t surprise me one bit, you find out they have her locked up someplace, beating her with sticks.”
Kat and Brandon exchanged glances. Annie Young rubbed her mother’s shoulder. Mrs. Young blew her nose again, crumpled the tissue, and lined it up with the others on the arm of the chair, like cookies on a baking sheet.
“So, neither of you has seen Fatima in the last day or so?” Brandon said.
The heads shook, stopped.
Outside, Kat and Brandon gave the house a last look. Brandon was thinking of Tiffany’s notion that bad karma was working itself down from the top. Kat was picturing Fatima Otto getting a whipping for talking to an art student from down the block.
They got in the cruiser and Brandon backed out, headed up the block toward State Street.
“I know how she feels,” Kat said.
“Who?” Brandon said.
“Fatima. I mean, if she got in trouble at home for hanging out with Lil Messy there.”
“You hang out with art students?”
“No,” Kat said. “I hung out with a girl who was a very out lesbian.”
“Your family beat you with sticks?”
“Different culture,” Kat said, half smiling as she remembered. “We weren’t Amish, but my family had the shunning thing down pretty good.”
“Lay the guilt on you?”
“Disappointed them. Hurt them. Disgraced them. Humiliated them.”
“So they stopped talking to you?” Brandon said.
“More or less. Shut me right out.”
“For how long?”
“It’s been almost eleven years.”
“That’s shunning, all right,” Brandon said.
“I don’t see Otto hurting his daughter.”
“If she was having sex with a white American art student?”
“Well, maybe the art student part,” Kat said.
He looked at her.
“Just kidding. But I think he might send her away,” Kat said.
“But why would he report her missing, then?” Brandon said.
Kat thought for a second. “Maybe because the punishment got out of hand and she died?” she said.
They rode in silence, both contemplating that sad prospect. Brandon turned onto State Street and started up the hill. Coming down the sidewalk toward them were three women in head scarves, colorful long skirts. Not Fatima.
The cruiser passed them. They looked at the cops, then quickly looked away.
“No,” Kat said. “Mr. Otto wouldn’t want to get involved with us.”
“Then we’re left with the shabah,” Brandon said.
They cruised Parkside up to Longfellow Square. Students, a few homeless guys, blending in with their backpacks. A drunk with a coffee cup, panhandling. Out Congress toward Maine Med, three African guys walking, in no hurry. Brandon slowed, pulled over. He and Kat got out, walked back. The African guys put on their masks, no expressions, like tigers going still in the grass.
Brandon remembered Sergeant Perry’s instruction: Remember—where these people come from, men in uniforms rob and rape you.
“These are Somalis,” Kat said.
“Can’t hurt to ask,” Brandon said.
They stopped and gave their spiel. The three Somali guys shook their heads, a runaway Sudanese girl not their problem, white cops holding nothing but trouble.
Back in the cruiser, circling down the hill toward the Expo. Two guys on a stoop, both sex offenders. “Maybe somebody grabbed her off the street,” Brandon said.
“There’s one I haven’t seen yet,” Kat said, “somebody picking off Sudanese girls.”
Driving past the Oaks, the park quiet, a bald white guy sitting alone in a parked Jeep under the trees. “Always a first time,” Brandon said. He was writing the guy’s plate number down when his phone buzzed.
Mia.
“Hey,” Brandon said.
“Something’s going on.”
She was breathless, tense.
“What? Where are you?”
“Lily’s. She didn’t want to come back all alone.”
“Where’s Winston?”
“The restaurant.”
“So—”
“There were two guys. Sitting in a car out front, up a little.”
“Yeah.”
“I saw them. A white guy and a black guy...I don’t know. They just didn’t look like they belonged here. Looked, I don’t know. Big city. I said to Lily, ‘Probably it’s nothing but—’ ”
Brandon ran a yellow light, headed east. Ka
t watched him, listened.
“They still there?”
“I don’t know. I’m in the bedroom.”
“Where’s Lily?”
“She took off. When I told her, it was like she’d seen a ghost.”
Another one, Brandon thought.
“Took off where?”
“I don’t know. The restaurant? She said to stay, lock the door.”
“Did you?”
He hit the gas, the blue lights, crossed the intersection at Forest.
“Yeah.”
“What kind of car are they in?”
“A blue one. A Toyota or something. But not a little one. Maybe a Camry? But maybe I was imagining things, but they seemed to be watching the house. I mean, I looked at them and they looked right at me.”
“Stay there.”
“Brandon,” Mia said. “Please get here fast.”
Kat and Brandon came in from Washington Avenue, down the Eastern Prom. Perry came in from the east, Bannon and Dever down Congress.
The blue car wasn’t in front of the house.
Brandon and Kat pulled up in front and got out, trotted up the drive, the stairs. Brandon called again.
“We’re here.”
The security chain rattled and there was Mia, pale, wired. Brandon took her hand, squeezed it. He looked back and they stepped out, then up to the deck.
“Hi, Kat,” Mia said.
“Hey, Mia,” Kat said. “How you doing?”
“Show us,” Brandon said.
Mia pointed down at the empty street.
“They were there.”
“Maybe they followed her,” Brandon said.
“Or they were just two guys minding their own business and I’m being paranoid,” Mia said.
“Maine plates?”
“I don’t know. I just saw the men.”
“And they saw you?”
“Must have. I mean, when I pulled in I looked right at them.”
“Old? Young?”
“Thirties. One, the driver, was sort of good-looking. Kind of like Winston.”
“Jamaican?”
“I don’t know. Does ‘Jamaican’ have a look? They didn’t have dreads, if that’s what you mean.”
“And the other one?”
“Really short hair. A goatee thing.”
“It was a Toyota?”
“Or something like that. They kind of all look the same.”
“Would you know the car if you saw it again? The guys?”
“Probably. Maybe.”
They got back in the cruiser, Mia in the backseat. Brandon swung down the hill to the boat ramp and they did a sweep. A pickup, a couple necking, wide-eyed in the spotlight, the woman clutching at her shirt. A minivan, kids hiding beers. An old guy in a white Nissan, doing who knows what.
No blue Toyota.
Bannon and Dever were back up Congress, swinging off onto the side streets. Perry was on the east side of Congress, working his way north.
“Nothing yet,” Perry said.
“Negatory,” Bannon said. “Girlfriend sure it was blue?”
They took the Prom down to Commercial Street, shot over to the restaurant. It was closed. Monday.
Brandon swung around the block, up the alley. Lily’s Land Rover was parked there. They got out, checked the car. Locked, empty. Brandon banged with his flashlight on the back door of the restaurant. He called out, “Winston. Lily.”
A door rattled next door and a kid—long hair, blue bandanna—popped his head out.
“They split,” he said.
“When?”
“Five minutes. Lily came and they left.”
“Say where they were going?”
“No. Just waved and backed out.”
“See a blue car in here at all?”
Bandanna shook his head.
They walked back to the cruiser, Mia out now, leaning against the car.
“Can you call her?” Brandon said to Mia.
She did. No answer. She left a voice-mail message: “I’m fine, but call me. Brandon, I mean, the police, are looking for you.”
They swung through the Old Port, coursing the blocks, waiting for tourists, eyeing the couples headed for dinner, the college kids hurrying to the bars. There were three blue sedans. A BMW. A Nissan. A Ford.
Mia shook her head.
There were a few black men, some white. No pairs.
Mia shook her head again.
And her phone buzzed.
“Yeah. . . . Where are you?”
She put the phone down.
“She’s back at the house. With Winston.”
“They’re okay?” Kat said.
“Fine. They were looking for me.”
The cruisers pulled off the Prom, into the driveway. Neighbors watched from porches. Winston and Lily came down the stairs, approached holding hands, apologetic smiles in place.
“Oh, I’m so sorry to get everyone all worried,” Lily said. “But with everything that’s happened—”
“It’s okay,” Perry said. “What we’re here for.”
“You ladies can call anytime,” Bannon said.
“You didn’t see them?” Brandon said.
“No,” Winston said. “Nobody.”
“Check the whole house?” Perry said.
“Yes,” Lily said. “It’s fine. I’m sorry. I guess I just panicked.”
“For good reason,” the sergeant said.
“Nobody came to the restaurant?” Brandon said.
Winston shook his head.
“No, I was cleaning up, doing some ordering, planning for the week. I don’t hear from nobody. Lily, she came, we come back to check on Mia. When she’s not there, oh, boy.” He grinned.
“I’m sorry to worry you,” Mia said. “You were worried about me. I was worried about you.”
“And all’s well that ends well,” Perry said. He looked at Mia. “But next time, get a plate number, if you can.”
She nodded, looked to Brandon. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said, the other cops moving toward the cruisers, the radios rasping new calls. Winston and Lily started for the house and Brandon took Mia’s hand. Kat waited until the others had pulled away, then said, “You ride home with her, I’ll follow you over.”
She smiled.
“Some quality time,” Kat said.
They were quiet in the car, Mia at the wheel, Brandon and his equipment belt squeezed into the Saab.
“I texted you,” he said.
“I got it. I was with my dad, and then I was going to call you, and then I decided to wait.”
“What’d he say?”
They were on Congress, headed toward downtown. Brandon looked out, waited for Mia to answer. He recognized a junkie he’d warned for panhandling, another guy brought in for car burglaries, a kid who’d stolen women’s underwear off a clothesline, a woman who thought she was Howard Hughes’s granddaughter and the CIA was hunting for her. Right up there with Big Liz.
“Oh, the usual,” Mia said.
“Like what?”
A longer pause this time, until they were at the light on Franklin Street, a skateboarder crossing in front of them, board clacking.
“He’s worried about me.”
“What about you?”
“My life. My job at the library. He calls it desk duty. My writing, which he sees as a total dead end. He says I’m veering too far off course.”
“With your cop boyfriend.”
“No, from the usual college-graduate route.”
“What’d you say?” Brandon asked as the light changed. Two young guys, slouched under hoodies, saw the green and sauntered in front of the car anyway. Mia waited. Brandon, too.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Nothing about love will find a way?”
She didn’t answer.
“He’s only looking out for me.”
“I am, too.”
“Meaning?”
“You were right to c
all me about those guys. Even if it was nothing—this time.”
“You think somebody else will come?”
“The guy Lily shot? He’s a member of a Jamaican posse. They may want payback.”
“But it wasn’t her fault. He came after them.”
“I’m not sure they’d look at it that way?”
Mia was quiet, turning and driving toward the harbor.
“He also said it’s pretty unlikely this guy Gayle would just pick somebody out on the street and rob them.”
“Then why did he?” Mia said.
“Where did they meet?” Brandon said. “Winston and Lily?”
Mia thought. “When he came to look at property in Portland. Some real estate broker friend of hers met him, they had dinner with a group. Lily was there, they hit it off.”
“They usually keep it in the gang world.”
Mia turned.
“Brandon, what are you saying? That Winston is in a gang? That’s absurd.”
“No, I’m just saying it’s unusual for somebody like Renford Gayle to get involved with people like Winston and Lily.”
“They weren’t involved. He tried to rob them.”
“Still. How long has Winston been in the United States?”
They were on Commercial Street, cars moving slowly, people crossing in clumps.
“Because when you think about it, what do you really know about the guy? Hard to make a go of a restaurant. Maybe he’s got a side business. Maybe he owed Gayle money? How much does Lily really know about—”
A car had pulled out on their right. Mia swerved the Saab into the parking space, slammed to a halt.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“They’re my friends. You can’t just go around investigating my friends.”
“She shot a guy dead, Mia.”
“In self-defense, for God’s sake,” Mia snapped. “She’s a freaking hero, Brandon. You, of all people, should know that. And Winston loves her completely. He’s a good person. Don’t turn my friends into criminals just because you want to play your little cops-and-robbers game.”
Mia caught herself. For a moment they were both quiet.
“Is that what you think I do?” Brandon said.
Mia didn’t answer.
“Or is that what your father calls it?”
“My father’s got nothing to do with this.”
“It’s not a game.”
“I know that. I just think you can stick to reality. Plenty of stuff around here to deal with without making things up.”
