Port City Black and White

by Gerry Boyle

  THINKING OF YOU. ALL QUIET HERE. MISS THE SOUND OF YOUR VOICE. LOVE, BRANDON

  He added another:

  WORKING ON THE NY QUESTION. SEE YOU SOON, I HOPE.

  He sent it. All the way into Portland he watched the phone. It lay there on the seat beside him. Silent.

  There was a fax machine at the library by the computers. He copied the letterhead onto a blank piece of paper, typed his request to Alvarez, asking for a reply via e-mail. He walked across the room to the printer, took the blank paper out, slipped his letterhead in. Hurried back and hit print, waited a moment, and trashed the document, emptied the trash. One of the genealogists, an old guy with a pencil behind his ear, stepped in front of him and pulled the paper out as it slipped from the printer.

  “Whoa, that’s not mine,” he said, as Brandon took the letter from him.

  “No,” Brandon said, smiling.

  “Budget cuts? No printer at the department?”

  “On the blink,” Brandon said, as the guy looked him over.

  “Don’t want to leave that paper around.”

  “No.”

  “Somebody might use it for the wrong reasons.”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been with the police?”

  “A year or so.”

  “I was gonna say.”

  “Say what?”

  “That you look young.”

  “I suppose,” Brandon said.

  “Probably look older in uniform,” the guy said.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Not to pry or anything, but I’ve always thought you fellas should be looking at these cruise ships.”

  Brandon turned the letter away.

  “That right?”

  “Sure. I told my wife, two thousand people get off that boat, they march around downtown. We have no idea who they are.”

  “I suppose not,” Brandon said.

  “Nobody checks them. Could be a terrorist in there someplace. This one of those terrorist things? Homeland Security involved?”

  “Confidential. Police business.”

  Brandon winked. The man adjusted his pencil, smiled.

  “Gotcha.”

  “Keep it between us,” Brandon said.

  “No problem. I was in the MPs. Vietnam, but I never got out of California. I can keep a secret. Good to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you boys are working on it. Undercover, too. You can tell your bosses I said so. Name’s John Q. Public.”

  He winked back.

  Brandon bought coffee at Starbucks on Congress, drove slowly back down the hill and up onto the bridge. The moored boats in the harbor were all turned to the southeast, like gulls facing the wind. He got a glimpse of Bay Witch from the peak of the bridge, looked back again and saw two tiny figures on the ramp.

  One had hands raised. Taking pictures.

  Crime-scene techs long gone, no reason to come back. He sped up, swung left, made the light on the yellow. One of the detectives? The fire marshal’s office?

  He made the second light on green, drove the three blocks, took the left. The pickup banged over the speed bumps, swung into the lot. Brandon slid out, trotted to the gate, punched in the code. He crossed the yard, started down the ramp. On the dock beyond Bay Witch two people were sauntering out, a man and a woman.

  Brandon hurried down the ramp, passed his boat. The man turned. Grinned.

  “Officer Blake.”

  Brandon slowed. Matt Estusa tapped the woman, who turned, a camera slung over her shoulder. They started toward him. The woman, in a red rain jacket, black baseball cap, hung back, took a step to the right, framing Brandon with Bay Witch behind him. The shutter clicked. Brandon waited.

  “Officer Blake,” Estusa said.

  “The marina is private property,” Brandon said.

  “Oh, we didn’t know. The gate was open.”

  “That right?”

  “Listen, sorry about your boat. But man, sounds like you were lucky to get out alive.” Estusa smiled, feigning relief that Brandon wasn’t dead.

  “Who says?”

  “Oh, I just heard around that somebody torched the boat. Stuck a chair in the trapdoor thing. Somebody happened to come by, or you would’ve been toast.”

  “No comment.”

  “Because it’s under investigation?”

  “No comment because I have no comment.”

  “Oh, sure. Well, between us, I’m glad that you’re okay.”

  Brandon nodded.

  “So, I’ll have to talk to somebody else at the department?”

  “Talk to whomever you’d like.”

  The photographer fired off a few more frames. Brandon looked at her. “I don’t want photos of my boat in the paper,” he said. “I prefer that the general public not know where I live.”

  The photographer shrugged, looked to Estusa.

  “This is Jane,” Estusa said. “I’ll have to take that up with my editors.”

  “Photos taken without permission on private property?”

  “I could shoot with a telephoto, get the same shot from the road,” Jane said.

  “I could take your camera, toss it in the water,” Brandon said.

  “And we’d write about that in the paper,” Estusa said.

  “Might be worth it.”

  “Brandon, come on. What’s with all the negativity?” Estusa said.

  “I don’t like you. I don’t like this invasion of privacy.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Likewise—or trying to.”

  Estusa shifted on his feet, looked up as a gull swooped low. “Another reason I came by, Brandon,” Estusa said.

  Brandon waited.

  “I’m working on a story. It’s about PTSD in police officers. We had cops in fatal shootings, a couple of them didn’t come back. So I’m interested in the psychological trauma that something like that can cause.”

  Brandon stared. Estusa paused, cleared his throat.

  “So I know you haven’t had a fatal shooting on duty,” Estusa said. “But you had one before you came on the force.”

  Brandon waited, teeth clenched.

  “And I’m interested in how you’ve coped with that. I mean, I know you had to shoot Joel Fuller to save your girlfriend’s life. Mia, I mean. But still, it has to be something you carry around. And I’m interested in how that affects a police officer’s ability to do his job.”

  Brandon took a step toward the boat.

  “Just because you don’t talk doesn’t mean I can’t include you in the story, Brandon. You’re a public person. It was a public event, the Fuller shooting. The investigation, the whole thing. Losing your mother at a young age. The circumstances of her death.”

  Brandon turned away.

  “And I have to tell you—sources are telling me there’s some concern about your performance on the job.”

  Brandon turned back. “Who’s your source?”

  “I can’t disclose that.”

  “You’re both chickenshits,” Brandon said.

  “I’ve been told there’s concern about your ability to put your work aside. I was told you were warned not to fraternize with people involved in ongoing cases, while you’re off duty. Are you too emotionally involved? Does that stem from your recent trauma? And is that something that could affect your ability to protect the public? Can a police officer really go on and do the job effectively after one of these incidents? How does it affect the judgment you need to be a good officer?”

  He paused.

  “You and the others. I mean, you’d just be one example.”

  Brandon faced him, the rain coming down, puddling on the dock. Estusa stood with his hands in the pockets of his anorak, water dripping from the bill of his Sea Dogs cap. Jane stood off to the side, stone-faced, watching.

  “Gonna come back to bite you,” Brandon said.

  “Is that a threat?” Estusa said.

  “Just what I said.”

 
“Can I quote you on that, Officer Blake?”

  “I don’t care what you do,” Brandon said, stepping up onto the boat.

  “Anything else you’d care to say?” Estusa said, edging closer.

  “Yeah,” Brandon said, stepping down from the transom and turning back. “Fuck off.”

  “Sorry you feel that way,” Estusa said, with a half-smile.

  They were halfway across the boatyard when Estusa took the recorder from his pocket. He switched it off.

  “Not once did he say any of that was off the record,” Estusa said.

  “Nope,” Jane said. “Boss cops ain’t gonna like that. Six- thousand-dollar camera? I don’t think so, pal.”

  She wiped the viewfinder of the camera, held it up for Estusa to see. In the photo Brandon was scowling in front of his boat, BAY WITCH, PORTLAND MAINE showing plainly behind him.

  “That captures it nicely,” Estusa said. “Officer Brandon Blake, walking time bomb.”

  The shore power and water lines were disconnected, the engine idling. Brandon had undone the bowline, was walking to the stern, ready to shove off. He bent to slip the line off the cleat on the dock, turned and looked up.

  Kat was standing there, rain dripping off her jacket, her hair shiny wet.

  “Nice day for a boat ride,” she said.

  “I like it out on the bay in the rain,” Brandon said. “Nobody around. Gives you a chance to think.”

  “Want a passenger?”

  He looked at her.

  “Sure.”

  Kat stepped aboard. She was wearing a yellow anorak, black yoga pants, and running shoes. Her cap said TEAM GLOCK.

  “Hat must intimidate the other triathloners,” Brandon said.

  “I intimidate the other triathloners,” Kat said.

  Brandon trotted up the ladder and moved to the helm. Kat stood beside him as he eased on the throttles, cut the wheel hard to port, cleared the pilings, and idled past the slips, into the harbor.

  “Where we headed?” Kat said. “Portugal? ’Cause I’m on at five.”

  “Miss me?”

  “Yeah, if you want to know.”

  “I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

  “Yeah, you kinda pissed Perry off.”

  “O’Farrell, too,” Brandon said.

  “Yup.”

  “So, you heard anything on Lil Messy?”

  “Out of the woods, but he’ll be in the hospital a while. Lots of stuff to fix.”

  “They pick up the Ottos?”

  “Last I heard, still looking.”

  “Somebody’s hiding them.”

  “Yeah. Now they’re talking a Sudanese safehouse in another state.”

  “Protect their own,” Brandon said. “To be expected.”

  “Like us.”

  “Except we don’t,” Brandon said.

  Standing there at the helm, he told her the Estusa story. Somebody saying he was too gung-ho, couldn’t let the job go, Estusa making the jump to say it was due to Brandon’s history.

  “Who told him all that?”

  “His buddy Dever, be my bet.”

  “Gonna catch up with him, yapping to the press,” Kat said.

  “Yup.”

  They were in the channel, moored sailboats on both sides. To starboard, a lighter was unloading, the oil smell heavy on the water. To port an offshore lobster boat was approaching, loaded, low in the water. Brandon reached for binoculars, checked to see if it was the Marie G. It wasn’t.

  “Well, I think we’ve got to talk to Booker,” he said. “And Toby.”

  “Right.”

  “And Cawley. Bikers are into drug dealing, extortion, prostitution. Why not sell stolen babies? Couples spend tens of thousands of dollars for a baby. Sell the stolen one cheap. Say twenty grand.”

  “I’m sure it’s been done,” Kat said.

  “Blades have other chapters. They could whisk the kid away, sell him in California or someplace. Who the hell’s gonna know? New couple moves in, has a kid. You gonna ask them if their baby was abducted?”

  “Probably not,” Kat said. “They got four, five years to come up with a fake birth certificate for school registration.”

  “Bikers just change a few diapers.”

  “Easy money.”

  Brandon eased the throttles forward and Bay Witch gathered herself up, then pitched into the chop, building from the southeast. Spray spattered the windscreen as the wiper waved and Kat grabbed Brandon’s arm to steady herself.

  “Brandon,” she said, over the rumble of the engine.

  “Yeah?”

  “What is it?”

  “What’s what?”

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “Nothing.”

  Kat looked at him.

  “Okay, maybe it’s not nothing.”

  “Spill it.”

  “Or you’ll get out the rubber hose?”

  “Or I won’t be able to help you.”

  Brandon looked out at the gray water, the gulls lifting off in front of them. “Wanted this for a long time,” he said. “Trying to do the job right, and now I’m getting slapped for it.”

  “That’s the surface,” Kat said. “I want to know what’s underneath.”

  A longer pause. Brandon adjusted course, bore for the buoy west of Great Diamond Island.

  “It’s because of me, at least partly, that Chantelle’s dead.”

  “You can’t say that. She was a total wreck, physically, emotionally. Who knows what went through her head?”

  “I pushed her too hard, made her blame herself.”

  Kat looked out at the bay, said, “Who knows how that affected her? If at all.”

  “Can I tell you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m still pissed about my mother.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean, who goes off marijuana smuggling, leaves a three-year-old at home?”

  “Yup.”

  “That shrink they sent me to at the Academy, he said I had unresolved issues relating to my feelings of abandonment.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  They were quiet. They were moving beyond the point on the South Portland side and the chop was bigger, the spray coming across the bow.

  “And?” Kat said.

  “And what?”

  “And what else?”

  Brandon moved the wheel back and forth, throttled down slightly.

  “I don’t know if I can do this Mia thing.”

  “You don’t love her?”

  “I do. But I don’t know how we’re gonna work together. I don’t fit in with her friends, her whole world.”

  “The trust-fund woman, the guy from Barbados?”

  Brandon hesitated. The boat rose and fell. The wiper slapped.

  “I just don’t buy it. His act.”

  “They ran him after the shooting. Nothing showed up.”

  “I know,” Brandon said. “Emigrated to Canada from Barbados. Moved to New York, then to Maine. No criminal record in any of those places. Successful in the restaurant business. And he’s a nice guy. Even brought me dinner from the restaurant. After Mia left. But still, something odd.”

  “Like what?,” Kat said.

  “He has a handgun.”

  “So do a lot of law-abiding people.”

  “And he gets home-invaded by a guy from a Jamaican gang.”

  “And then somebody tries to burn you up in your boat.”

  “Or Mia.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Who saw the New York guys outside the house. We think.”

  They paused. The Eastern Prom was passing to port. Somewhere up there in the gray rain was the house where Renford Gayle had died.

  “So what are you going to do?” Kat said.

  He told her—checking out the link to the dead guy.

  “And the baby?” Kat said.

  “I want to talk to Cawley. Love to know where he’s traveled since Lincoln disappeared. Maybe spend some more time
with Big Liz. She said she’s heard a baby crying.”

  “Brandon,” Kat said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re not getting it.”

  “What?”

  “Listen to me now, and you’re not gonna like this, but I’m saying it to help you. You didn’t go to the cops when Fuller and Kelvin took Mia. No, you handled it alone, and . . .” She paused. “And it almost got her killed. That’s a hard fact.”

  Brandon didn’t answer.

  “Now it’s the same thing. Let the detective division handle it.”

  “They’re not doing it. I told O’Farrell about Big Liz, he acted like I was as nuts as she is.”

  “Brandon, listen to me, as your field training officer and your friend. None of that is your job.”

  “But that’s just it,” Brandon said, staring out at the rainswept bay. “This is more than a job to me.”

  “So what is it? Your mother was killed, and you spend the rest of your life getting revenge?”

  Brandon didn’t answer.

  “Keep it up, I won’t be able to protect you,” Kat said. “You’ll be on your own.”

  “Always have been,” Brandon said.

  She looked away at the gray sea, the splintering chop.

  “I gotta head back,” Kat said, nothing more.

  He spun the wheel, put the bow into the wind.

  There was a single text from Mia, two words: STILL THINKING. He tried calling but her phone went directly to voice mail, and he left another message, said he hoped all was well. And then he sat at the helm seat and listened to the rain.

  It continued to fall, steady and patient, the weather radar showing a swath all the way to Massachusetts. The rain kept the boaters inside or ashore and the marina was quiet. It was after six. Roll call was done, the team would be headed out. Perry and O’Farrell, their two-hour overlap. Kat and Dever and Smythe. The K-9 unit and the drug guys popping up here and there around the city.

  And Brandon on the bench because—how had Kat put it?—his mother killed, Brandon spending the rest of his life getting revenge. But that wasn’t true, was it? He’d taken care of Nessa; he still did. He stood from his vantage point at the helm, went below and changed his shirt.

  Nessa had finished her dinner, was sitting in the chair in her room. The television was on: Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. Brandon stood in the doorway, watched as Nessa tried to mouth the words.