by Kate Flora
"Not much. But I've opened the door. You know how it is, dealing with a source, especially when you haven't got leverage. It's like dating. You gotta give 'em reasons to like you before they'll let you get to first base."
Burgess read frustration with a game-playing resource. Kyle wasn't usually crude.
"You eat?" he asked.
"Sat with the kids while they ate. I don't remember eating anything myself."
"Well, I'm starving. Chris says I missed a great dinner tonight. Woman loves to stick that needle in and wiggle it around."
"Don't be an ingrate, Joe. You're lucky to have her. And look at the alternative. You could be all on your lonesome, prying the lid off a tin of soup, or trying to make peace among the warring tribes."
"Instead of out here trying to do the same?"
"That what you think this is?"
"I know jack about what this is. Just saying that so far, everyone acts like those three monkeys—what are they called? See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
"'Fraid using the word 'monkeys' will get you labeled as a racist. It's like niggardly. Freakin' public doesn't know anything, then sees a slight behind every bush."
Niggardly. Grudging and petty in giving or spending. From an old Swedish word meaning miserly. It had nothing to do with the word nigger, which derived from the French word for black. When his drunken father was at his rampaging best, young Joe Burgess had hidden behind a dictionary, ready to swing it up to defend himself if necessary. Along the way, he'd learned a lot of words.
He turned onto Franklin and headed up the hill, blasting his horn at a kid with earbuds who had strayed out into the crosswalk against the light. "Know I say this every time, but this one is gonna be a bitch. So. What do you want to eat?"
"Anything but pizza or Chinese. I'm beginning to speak Mandarin with an Italian accent."
"Meatloaf sandwich?"
"Make it two."
"Can you pick up some coffee?"
"Roger that," Kyle said.
Burgess disconnected and called Perry. "I'm picking up some sandwiches. Meatloaf okay with you?"
"Make it two."
"Funny. That's just what Terry said."
"Great minds." Perry clicked off.
While he waited in the market, Burgess called Remy at the hospital. "She say anything yet?"
"She's conscious," Aucoin said. "But she won't say anything to anyone. When they told her about the baby, she kind of fell into this weird state, like she'd disconnected from everything. Dissociative, I think they called it. They're gonna get a psych consult. Hold on a sec."
Burgess pictured him stepping outside the door, where the girl couldn't overhear. Whatever state she was in, there was no way to be sure she wasn't hearing what people around her were saying.
"Okay, I'm back," Aucoin said. "That nurse you know, Maryann? She says they don't think this girl's a day over fifteen. Maybe even younger. Something weird going on. I did ask if the baby was hers. They couldn't say for sure, but she had recently given birth, and was nursing. Poor thing. Just a kid herself. I wonder if anyone's going to come forward to claim her."
Burgess was betting that she was a throwaway kid, that homelessness or violence or vulnerability had let her get into this state. "Stay with her," he said. "If you have to leave the room, make sure someone's there to cover for you. Use security. Cote will have my head if I ask for any more personnel over there."
Oops. He wasn't supposed to talk negatively about his superiors with a junior officer. Not that everyone in the department didn't know about his antagonistic relationship with Captain Paul Cote, an antagonism that had begun when Cote had screwed up the evidence against a man who'd raped and killed a child. The killer had walked, and Burgess had never forgiven Cote for the screwup. When they were forced to interact, he and Cote circled each other like fighters in a ring, Burgess trying to watch his back, Cote trying to stab it. But protocol was protocol. "Forget I said that, Remy."
"Said what, sir?"
"Good boy. Call me if anything changes."
"Sir? I'm off in a couple hours. What should I—?"
"I'll call your sergeant. Have someone relieve you."
"Thank you, sir."
"And get security to take a photo of our girl, if they haven't already. Maybe we can find someone to ID her."
"Sergeant?" Remy's voice was hesitant. "Security's pretty busy fending off the blood maggots."
Reporters trying to get into the room. Shoot questions at that poor damaged girl. Get the story. They'd snap a photo of the dead baby if they could, sure it would increase their circulation. Even since he'd dealt with a dead kid up in Knowlton Park, and a reporter had talked her way into someone's attic with a telephoto lens to snap a picture of the body, he'd had nothing but contempt for some of the local reporters. They plastered that photo—in color—on the front page, causing people who'd loved that boy so much pain. Not that he'd ever had much use for most reporters. There were good ones. Decent people who did their homework and wrote serious stories. And then there were the blood maggots.
"I'll see about getting you some backup, Remy."
He clicked off as the man behind the counter handed over a bag of sandwiches. "Having a party tonight, Sergeant?"
Burgess nodded. "With a bonfire and everything."
The counterman handed him a second bag. "Some chocolate chip cookies. My wife made 'em. They're really good."
"Thanks," he said. "Tell her the guys will really appreciate them."
He headed back to his car. The sky over the city had turned a marvelous deep blue, the color of the midnight blue crayon in his childhood Crayola set. What a treat those big boxes of crayons had been. Hours and hours of pleasure from such a small investment. Today kids needed electrons and something jumping on a screen to hold their attention. It had been enough for him and his sisters to sit with coloring books or a block of paper.
He stood a minute, trying to smell the spring air, but all he got was smoke from his clothes. He gave up and drove to 109.
* * *
The desk officer gave him the usual greeting. "Captain Cote wanted an update as soon as you came in."
Captain Cote always wanted updates. Paid no attention when he got them. Besides, Burgess was sure he was gone for the day.
"Thanks," Burgess said. "I'll give one as soon as I have something to tell him."
He should take the stairs. He hadn't gotten much exercise today, but beating down doors and rescuing people had left him bruised and cranky, and his bad knee was already talking to him about rest. In his world, RICE wasn't something you had with Chinese food. It was rest, ice, compression, and elevation. Things a busy detective had no time for.
If he'd known what a penalty he'd pay, back when he was playing high school football, would he still have done it? Absolutely. First, because it had been such a high he couldn't have let go of it. Second, because the young are invulnerable and never believe the "just you wait" stuff that adults want to dish out. So he'd traded poetry in motion then for a gimpy lumber now. He'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Perry beat him to the conference room. Kyle was right behind him with a tray of coffees. They sank into their chairs and sat a moment, gathering themselves. Lieutenant Vince Melia, their boss, who was in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), came in as Burgess was handing out food and stared longingly at the fat sandwiches. Burgess gave him one. "Don't want anyone feeling left out, do we?"
Looking after each other. It was what they did.
Before the wrappers had finished rustling, Burgess was rolling. He asked Melia, "ME scheduled an autopsy yet?"
Melia shook his head.
That was unusual. Dr. Lee always scheduled homicide victims fast, and he liked to do them at an unholy hour of the morning. Too often, the Portland cops found themselves driving the forty-five minutes up to the medical examiner's office in Augusta without ever having gone home or gotten any sleep. Lee could take his time, Burgess thought. Un
less something broke before they were done here, he was going to bed.
"Any of you guys ever work with a Somali interpreter named Osman?" he asked.
"Arrogant little SOB," Perry said.
"I think he was scared."
"I think June used him on a case recently," Melia said. "You could ask for her impressions. There a problem?"
Burgess shrugged. "Just a feeling I get. That he has some kind of antagonistic relationship with the men we interviewed tonight. Makes me wonder if I got the full story. We've got a meeting with him tomorrow to follow up. Maybe we'll learn more then."
"And you were interviewing whom?" Melia asked.
As the lieutenant, he was supposed to keep his finger on the pulse of this thing so he could report up the food chain. A suspicious fire at a mosque building that was scrawled with anti-Muslim graffiti and a dead child meant the brass would be paying attention. And that plenty of other agencies would also want a piece of it.
Cluster fucks came with the job. They also made investigation a hundred times harder.
"The Imam and some people whose roles we haven't quite figured out," Burgess said. "Not other elders, I don't think. Family members? Clan members? We didn't get much. He said he rented the building, but was silent about who he rents it from. He knew about the anti-Muslim graffiti on the building. Said it wasn't there yesterday, but was there this morning. I got some photos of that before the fire ate it."
"You get any feel for who might have written that?" Melia asked. "Anyone who's been giving them trouble?"
"The Imam said they'd been harassed by some locals on motorcycles. He gave me a description, but it would fit any of a number of men. We'll check with the gang folks, see if it rings any bells with them. Take a look at any field notes in the files."
"Press gets their hands on that, they'll have a field day."
"I expect they know about it. We'll have to wait and see what comes down the road."
Melia made a sound that was somewhere between exasperation and a sigh. "What about the girl and the baby? That locked closet? The Imam have anything to say about that?"
"Nothing helpful. He knew about the fire, but hadn't seen any reason to rush over there, which seems implausible. Agreed that they, and some social service groups they run, had sole use of the building. But he said he had no idea how someone might have come to be locked in a closet. Another man who was there, who gave his name as Ismail Ibrahim, jumped like a startled frog when I said the baby was dead, but denied having been there. We'll follow up with him. Might take a different interpreter, though, if we've got one."
He made a note and raised his eyes to Melia. "Who have we got on the fire investigation?"
"Scott Lavigne."
"Scotty gonna be able to stand up to PFD?"
"I think so. We picked the right guy to send for fire training this time. Usually we have to twist arms, but he loves to get his teeth into it. He grinned like a madman when I told him he had the job."
"Who's coming from the fire marshal's office?"
Melia smiled. "Davey Green. They're already out there, doing preliminary stuff."
Burgess smiled, too. "That's a piece of good news." Until his retirement, Davey Green had been one of them. He was a superb detective. A methodical, by-the-book man who was a genius at getting people to talk. The information flow always worked better when they worked with someone who had a police background. It helped cut down on the territorialism.
"Scotty's already out at the scene, and just to affirm our concerns, I'll put a call in to Davey," Melia said. "Ask him to keep us in the loop. And you'll have our gang coordinator at your meeting in the morning."
Burgess looked at Stan Perry. "Got anything to add, Stan?"
"Just that they're a bunch of liars, Joe, which we already know, and that it's gonna be a bitch to find a way in."
"Not the first time," Burgess said. He shifted to Kyle. "Tell us about your informant, Terry. What do you think you might get from him?"
Kyle's two sandwiches were gone, nothing but a few meatloaf crumbs on the ketchup-stained paper. Kyle ate like a starved wolf and stayed lean as one.
"Her," Kyle said, crumpling up the paper. "And I'm gonna get jack unless I can come up with an iPod. We got enough money for that in our informant's budget, Vince?"
"You're using a kid?"
"She's eighteen."
Melia made a face. "Maybe. You think what she's got is worth it?"
"Don't know," Kyle said. "You never do. She gave me this much, as a teaser. Couple days ago, she saw two men get out of a car and drag a veiled woman into that building. And it looked like the woman was holding a baby."
Chapter 5
"If that's the teaser," Burgess said, "I wonder what the main course will be?"
"I'm hoping for details. Descriptions of the men. Of the car. Time of day. Who else was around. Whether she knows who they are or has seen them there before. She claims she's holding back 'cuz she's scared, but she's a big-time game player. Knows how to pump it up so I'll think it's worth something. She could be lying. There's enough on the street already, she had something to work with. On the other hand..."
Kyle looked sadly down at the empty space in front of him, then at Burgess. "You don't have any more—"
Burgess shook his head. "But she has come through a few times?"
"Yeah. It just takes a lot of work."
"Sometimes you just want to grab 'em and shake 'em until their little pea brains rattle," Perry said.
"Really?" Melia said. "You do that just once and you've got shaken career syndrome."
"That's a good one, Vince."
"That's a promise, Stan. We're going to be walking on eggs on this one. There's nobody who isn't going to want a piece of it, and a piece of us if anything goes wrong. Profiling or stereotyping be damned, we are dealing with a population where some elements are anti-police and believe we're out to get them. So everyone, watch your backs on this."
Melia looked at their Dunkin' Donuts coffees, started to say something, then shook his head.
Kyle reached under his chair, brought up another coffee, and pushed it toward the lieutenant. "Looking for this, Lou?"
"More like hoping."
"Almost forgot," Burgess said, grabbing the bag the counterman had given him. "Jose's wife made all you nice boys some cookies."
"A ray of sunshine in our fucked-up lives," Perry said.
Melia shot him a look. He didn't like his detectives swearing. They all did, they just developed "us" and "them" vocabularies. Perry had a bad habit of letting it spill over.
"We got patrol doing a canvass of the neighborhood?" Burgess said.
"They're asking."
"Think it would make any difference if they knew a baby died in there?" Burgess said.
"Wish I could think so," Melia said, "but I'm doubtful. Still, it's a mixed neighborhood. Some people who've lived there a long time. One of them might still have some sense of community."
Melia sounded depressed. Burgess thought it was anticipation of the unpleasantness ahead. This kind of case, where every forward step had to be taken so carefully, and much of what they needed to know required them to rely on other agencies, was miserably hard. It was hard enough to work a case when it was just theirs. And Melia would be troubled about the baby. He got bummed whenever they had a case involving a child and he'd be feeling guilty about asking Burgess to work another dead kid.
"Oh, listen, Vince," Perry said. "These people got a sense of community. It involves picking the pockets of our community so theirs can thrive."
"So much for sending you to sensitivity training, Stan," Burgess said. "You sound like an rabid anti-Muslim. Ya know?"
"Just keep it in here, Stan, okay?" Melia interrupted. "You've got a right to your opinions, but I hear you've been voicing them around the city, and I'll have you on the dog poop squad."
"Hey," Kyle said. "I'm the one wants to be on the dog poop squad. I'd be so good at it. I'd have the city budget b
alanced in no time, the way I'd hand out tickets to people who didn't scoop the poop, violated the leash law—"
"Enough!" Melia waved his arms like an umpire calling them all out. "Low profile. Careful. By the book. Record every damned thing you do, and whenever possible, do it with another cop as a witness. Are we clear?"
"I think I got it," Kyle said. "Watch our backs, watch each other's asses, watch our mouths, venture no personal opinions outside the sacred walls of 109. And go catch a baby killer."
He reached out to snag the last cookie, but Melia beat him to it. "Pulling rank, Vince?"
"Just hungry."
Burgess was hungry, too. For information and clarity and for the case to be solved quickly. He didn't think any of his appetites were likely to be satisfied.
He tossed his last bit out on the table. "Something odd about that closet where we found that girl and her baby," he said. "The only locked room in the place? The shelves were lined with computer boxes. A whole lot of high-end stuff. I only had a few seconds... but I saw enough to know the seals weren't broken and the boxes were pristine. Funny that that stuff was there and the Imam didn't mention it. Funny that they didn't rush down to try and save it."
He paused. "I think there was a whole lot more going on in that place than religious services and some community service. I just don't know how to find out what."
Kyle smothered a yawn. "Follow the money?"
"Good idea," Burgess said. "Starting bright and early in the morning, that's just what we're going to do."
"What about that hawala thing that Osman suggested we look into?" Perry said.
Burgess looked at Melia. "Who knows about that? Homeland Security? Or is that FBI? Haven't we got someone working with them?"
Melia rolled his eyes. "Joe, you really think we call up the world's greatest and they're gonna tell us what they know, even if it does involve a death investigation?"
"They might be interested in working with us?" He considered. "A cop can dream, Vince. Can't he?"
"No, Joe, he can't. He just has to put his nose to the grindstone and get results." Melia looked down at the table, scratched a note, then looked back at the team. "Your interpreter really made that suggestion?"