by Gerry Boyle
Three Somali kids wheeled up and down on bikes. A guy with a gray ponytail and a red bandanna headband was walking a three-legged dog, a black-and-white shepherd mutt. By 317 the dog paused to sniff, pee, and maybe poop in the gutter. A car, an older Chevy sedan, pulled up, turned into the driveway, and stopped. Annie Young got out, said something to the guy with the dog. He said something back. The driver’s door still open, she walked toward him, pointing her finger.
“What did you say?” Annie Young shouted.
The guy turned, raised a fist. The dog turned, too, barked at Annie Young, who was shouting, “Go ahead. Go ahead.” The kids on bikes had passed but they were circling back. Brandon got out of the truck, hurried across the street, came up behind the guy.
“Calm it down,” he said, flashing his badge. “Portland PD. Just cool it.”
The guy turned. “This woman threatened me. I want to press charges.”
“No charges. Hey, it’s a nice day. You and your dog, go enjoy it.”
“There’s a dog ordinance in this city,” Annie Young said. “And you, Officer Blake, have a responsibility to enforce it.”
“Miss Young.”
“You guys know each other?” the guy said. “What is this? A sting?”
“One more minute and you’re going in for failure to disperse,” Brandon said.
“I ain’t done nothin’. My dog ain’t done nothin’. This lady’s whacked. I have a right to walk down the street.”
“Not if your filthy mutt defecates all over my property.”
“He ain’t defecated yet. He’s still sniffing. He’s got a right to sniff.”
“He’s smelling other dogs’ shit,” one of the kids said, sitting on his bike. “Dogs is always smelling shit.”
“I’m gonna count to ten,” Brandon said. “One, two, three—”
“Okay,” the guy said. “I’m leaving. You can have your property, lady, you crazy bitch.”
“Don’t you ever—” Annie Young said.
Brandon held up his hand.
“Enough,” he said.
The guy turned, yanked the leash. The dog hopped after him. The kids on the bikes followed, one of them saying, “Hey, Dog Man. Where’s his other leg?”
“Filth,” Annie Young said. She turned and walked back to the car.
Brandon followed. He saw grocery bags in the backseat, said, “You need any help?”
“No,” Annie Young said. She turned back to him, said, “Why are you out of uniform?”
“It’s a long story,” Brandon said.
“Hmmph,” she said.
“You sure I can’t help you bring those in?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
Annie Young stood by the back door of the car, facing him. Brandon stood, too.
“I’d like to talk to you more about Fatima,” he said.
“Poor girl. But that’s what happens with these Africans. Mama’s right; the women are treated like livestock.”
“And you think that had something to do with her death?”
She stood in place, arms folded under her bust. “That girl was between a rock and a hard place. Try to be totally American and they’d beat her. Stay African, they treat her like a servant. You know they don’t let the girls go to school?”
“Fatima went to school.”
“For now,” Annie Young said. “They don’t last.”
“You seem to know a lot about Sudanese culture.” Brandon moved closer.
She stepped toward him, took him by the shoulder, turned him away. Whispered, “I was going to call you.”
“Yeah?”
“Early this morning, around two. The African hoodlums from upstairs—”
“Edgard and Samir?”
“Whatever their names are. They came outside, and three or four of their gang, or whatever they call it, they stood out here and talked, and then they started off down the block.”
“So?”
“I heard them say something. They said, ‘Messy, going to mess him up.’ And then they said some things about what they were going to do. Things I won’t repeat.”
“Lil Messy. He’s an art student, lives down the street. Mess him up?”
“That’s what they said.”
“Was it Samir or Edgard saying that?”
“I don’t know. They all sound the same to me.”
Brandon started back toward his truck. Annie Young stood by the car, like she was waiting for someone to come out. Brandon got back in the truck, picked up the radio, put it back down.
He looked at the house, Annie Young standing there. He looked to the front apartment, seeing if her mother was in the window. She wasn’t. He looked upstairs, saw the curtain move in the front room of the Ottos’ apartment on the second floor. The third floor was still. He glanced up at the roof, the rusty ham radio antenna, Mr. Young talking to people around the world to keep from having to talk to the two of them.
He started off. Annie Young, still by the car, watched him pass.
Could have been just talk, Brandon thought. He was at the front door of Messy’s building, pressed the broken button for apartment 4, waited a minute, then pressed the buttons for 1, 2, and 3. He rapped on the door with his flashlight, heard rattling inside. The door fell open and a guy peered out: fiftyish, unshaven, a stain on the swollen belly of his white T-shirt. TV noise could be heard in the background. Someone shouting, “Police! Put down your weapon!” Then shots.
Brandon showed his badge.
“The kid upstairs. Seen him lately?”
The guy shook his head. “Nah.”
“Heard anything up there?”
“Nope.”
“Seen anybody coming or going?”
“Mind my own business. Got enough problems.”
“Sure,” Brandon said, and he pushed the door open wider, the guy pushed backward with it.
“Hey,” the guy said.
“Sorry,” Brandon said.
“What’s your name, anyway?”
“Blake.”
“Young for a detective, ain’tcha?”
“Very,” Brandon said, and he squeezed by, bounded up the stairs.
Second floor: auto parts laid out on greasy rags, a baby stroller at the door. Third floor: boxes of clothes, CDs scattered on the floor, stuff left behind when a tenant skipped. Fourth floor: the door closed but the jamb splintered. Brandon pushed with the flashlight and the door opened. He slipped his gun out, stepped in.
Paint everywhere, smeared, spattered, tubes flattened on the floor. Paintings ripped, smashed, stomped. Graffiti on the walls, gang signs. TSW. True Sudanese Warriors. Brandon called, “Police. Anyone here?”
Nothing.
He crossed the room, feet sticking on the paint. The bathroom door was closed. Brandon listened, looked down. Blood had seeped from underneath, the edges of the puddle dried dark.
He pushed the door open with the flashlight, gun low and ready. Saw a bare foot, the ankle purple and swollen. The rest of Lil Messy, curled up on the floor between the tub and the toilet.
Messy was alive. Barely. A weak pulse in the carotid artery. His face was covered in crusted blood, eyes swollen shut, nose torn, lips ballooned. The blood seemed to have come from his scalp, where it was split, and skull showed through the hair.
One arm broken, still raised in a defensive position. The ankle broken, too.
“Stomped,” Perry said.
Lil Messy was wearing green gym shorts and a white T-shirt, now black with dried blood. They’d dumped a bottle of shampoo on him, shaken out a can of Ajax.
“Ran in here to get away,” Detective Smythe said.
“Think they thought he was dead?” Brandon said, as the paramedics poked in the needle for the IV, eased Lil Messy onto his back.
“Could be, soon,” the sergeant said.
The evidence tech was taking pictures of the footprints.
“I think it’s art,” Dever said. “Who’s the guy who just threw all the paint on
the floor, mushed it around? The one who was in the movie.”
“Jackson Pollock,” the tech said.
“Right. Monkey could do it, and they sell the pictures for a million bucks.”
“We’ve got an Air Jordan. A couple of different Reeboks,” the tech said.
“Better check Blake’s shoes,” Dever said. “Hey, Blake. Didn’t they teach you not to walk through the crime scene?”
The EMTs wheeled the stretcher out of the bathroom, Lil Messy strapped down, IV bag beside him. He looked small and battered, like a child pulled from a plane crash.
“What’d the lady at the house say again?” Perry said.
Brandon repeated it. “An honor thing. They avenged what he did to dishonor their sister. Or at least what they think he did.”
“What, you the expert on Sudanese now?” Dever said.
Perry nodded to Smythe. “We’ll hit the kids’ apartment first. They’re not there, we’ll just keep looking.”
“Let’s go,” Perry said.
“Could work out for you, Blake,” Dever said, as they headed for the door. “Get off the street, just go around being a consultant. Explain all this African shit to us dumb street cops.”
Outside, the usual gawkers had gathered, kids maneuvering to get a look at Lil Messy on the way to the ambulance. “It’s all about the drugs,” the guy from the first floor was saying, to no one in particular.
“The first-floor neighbor,” Brandon said to Perry.
“Dever,” Perry said. “Talk to that guy.”
“You sure you don’t want the ace detective to do it?” Dever said, but he turned back, headed into the crowd.
O’Farrell was waiting outside 317 Granite. He nodded to Brandon as he got out of his truck, then went in the side door of the building with two of the day-shift patrolmen. Smythe parked behind Brandon, walked up, all business, said, “Fill me in on the mother-daughter thing.”
Brandon did. Annie Young and her mom hunkered down, resenting the Africans, druggies, most everyone else. “Annie’s pretty sour, mom’s a total curmudgeon. Like life is a crime and she’s the victim. Dad died in an accident and—”
“That’s enough,” Smythe said, and strode away. She went to the Youngs’ door and knocked. It opened. Smythe stepped inside.
Brandon waited.
O’Farrell and the patrolmen emerged first. They climbed in the black-and-white, the kids from the street just arriving from Lil Messy’s building. Then Smythe came out of the Youngs’ apartment, tucking a notebook in her pocket. She nodded to Brandon, walked over to O’Farrell and talked briefly. Smythe got in her car and pulled away. O’Farrell walked back to Brandon, stood by the truck.
“We’ll find them. Nowhere to go but Portland,” O’Farrell said.
“Maybe they don’t think they did anything wrong,” Brandon said. “An honor killing.”
“Except he lived.”
“Pays to double-check your work,” Brandon said.
“Think the painter knocked up this African girl?”
“Kat says Lil Messy is probably gay.”
“Yeah, well, some people, it isn’t either-or.”
“I suppose,” Brandon said. “But I don’t know.”
O’Farrell looked at the apartment house. Cleared his throat. “I thought Perry told you to take a day off,” O’Farrell said.
“I am off,” Brandon said.
“Interesting hobby you have, Blake.”
“Yeah, well—”
“Go fix your boat.”
“I did that.”
“Then take it out for a sail.”
“It’s a powerboat,” Brandon said.
Watch the Red Sox.”
“No TV.”
“Then just hang out with your friends.”
Brandon didn’t answer.
“There’s an order to this,” O’Farrell said. “It’s like the military. I need to know who’s running around the battlefield.”
“I know.”
“No room for freelance.”
“Right.”
They stood for a minute.
“I was talking to this homeless lady, Big Liz,” Brandon said.
“Oh, yeah?”
“She says she hears people from underground. The under-grounders, she calls them. Or the cellar people.”
“I’m sure she hears people in the fucking trees, too,” O’Farrell said.
“She says they have Chantelle’s baby. She’s heard him crying.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Maybe she’s right. Walks all the time, out all night. Maybe she heard the kid.”
“Any particular place?”
“I don’t know. But she has a list of addresses where she hears these voices. Writes them on her arm. Wouldn’t take long to—”
“Brandon.”
“Yeah?”
“No.”
“What if somebody has him—”
“In the sewer? She makes the whack jobs who’ve been calling in baby sightings seem credible.”
Brandon didn’t answer.
“Go home,” O’Farrell said. “Stay there.”
Again, no answer.
“Word to the wise,” O’Farrell said. “If you want to keep this job.”
He turned and walked to his car, got on the radio. Brandon heard O’Farrell talking to Smythe, Smythe saying Dever had spotted two gangbangers on the basketball court in Kennedy Park. Perry got on, telling Dever to wait—like he’d roust a Boy Scout without backup. The sergeant was calling the team in, putting people in place for a felony arrest, without the warrants.
Damn, Brandon thought. O’Farrell looked back at Brandon, sitting in the truck, listening. On the radio, Brandon heard him say to somebody, “Call my cell.”
Brandon started the truck. O’Farrell pulled away. Brandon glanced up at 317. Annie Young was in the window, watching him. He waved. The curtains pulled shut.
The sun had been overtaken by clouds, the wind shifting from the southwest to the southeast. By noon it was raining, dark clouds rolling over from the west, showers spattering the deck, flattening the little bit of chop on the harbor. Brandon was at the table in the salon, laptop open, police radio beside it. They’d picked up the two guys at Kennedy Park, found one in possession of a handgun. Good thing to have a weapons charge, leverage if they were going to try to turn the guy. Brandon listened but the radio went quiet.
He’d searched for the Ocean Princess, found the cruise line headquarters in San Diego, a contact-us 800 number. He called, got a woman with a purring telephone voice, better to soothe somebody who’d left a diamond ring in the bathroom on level six.
Brandon said he was from the Portland, Maine, police department. He was looking for information in relation to a shooting; who could he talk to? The woman said, “Oh, my goodness,” said he’d have to call a different number. He did, and another woman answered, this one all business. He repeated his question, got silence, then a third number. A man picked up, southern American accent, said “Ms. Alvarez’s office. This is Jamie.”
Brandon repeated his request. Jamie said Ms. Alvarez wasn’t in.
“I’ll talk to her supervisor,” Brandon said.
“That’s assistant vice president level,” Jamie said.
“Good,” Brandon said.
“I don’t think they’ll be able to help you right away.”
“This involves a shooting that resulted in a homicide—an official police investigation.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but—”
“What’s above assistant vice president?” Brandon said.
“I don’t think it will be necessary to—”
“How ’bout if I just start at the top and work my way back down to you.” He tapped at the keyboard. “The CEO. Let’s see. Here’s her name right here. There’s even a phone number. Nice website, by the way.”
There was a click, a silence.
“Ms. Alvarez just came back.”
“Lucky me,” Brandon said.
/> Another click.
“Lucille Alvarez.”
Brandon made his pitch: attempted homicide, an actual death resulting. Police searching for a motive, an indication that the shooting could have stemmed from a case of mistaken identity involving a crewman on the Ocean Princess.
“How unfortunate,” Ms. Alvarez said.
“Yes.”
“And you want the crew list?”
“Yes.”
“That information really is confidential.”
“This is a police matter. Do we need a subpoena?”
“It’s just that we pledge to our passengers that—”
“We could query on all the cruise ship travel websites, making sure we name the ship and your company. And the fact that there was a shooting.”
“To which our ship is only tangentially connected, if that,” Ms. Alvarez said.
“Most homicide investigations are filled with tangential connections,” Brandon said.
“Who is the crewman?”
“Alston Kelley. Jamaican. But he died in a fire in Canada, while your ship was in port there.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yes. Very sad.”
A long pause.
“I’ll have to run this by Legal,” she said.
“Okay.”
“And if they approve it, we’ll need the request in writing. And a copy of your ID. It’s Brandon Blake?”
“Yes.”
“And you are?”
“Assisting with this investigation,” Brandon said. “If you’ll give me your fax number, I’ll get that right out—so when you hear back from your people, you’re ready to go.”
“They might say no,” Ms. Alvarez said.
“Aren’t they there to protect your interests?”
“Of course.”
“Then they’ll say yes,” Brandon said.
Brandon had letterhead from the department, atop a letter outlining his benefits. He put it in an envelope, put on a windbreaker, slipping the envelope underneath. Closing the hatch door, he switched on the motion alarm, stepped off the stern, and headed for the truck, radio in hand, the Glock snug to his waist.
The squalls had turned to a steady rain, keeping boaters home or snug inside their cabins, no one on the docks or in the yard. Brandon made sure the security gate was closed behind him, walked to the truck, unlocked it, got in. He sat—motor running, no wipers—and texted Mia.
