by Kate Flora
Stan Perry had spent hours interviewing Flaherty's neighbors, but none of them had seen or heard anything unusual. Maybe someone being severely beaten wasn't unusual? Press Devlin was working his way through Flaherty's band of brothers, looking for a lead about who might have wanted Flaherty dead. No one was sharing anything of value. The ME thought they were looking at blunt-force trauma and not GSW.
Burgess's head buzzed with questions. None of this seemed to make sense, but history had taught him that if he was patient, the connections would gradually appear. Meanwhile, he reined them in. Sorting out what any of this meant would have to wait until they were finished here.
After another hour, he and Kyle had learned that Butcher Flaherty was no housekeeper and too infrequently did his laundry. He ate canned food and fast food and spent more on drink than nutrition. He had a doting mother in Gray who wrote often and liked to tuck twenties in the letters, perhaps to ensure that he'd open them. The ruse hadn't worked. Unopened letters had been piled up on his kitchen counter, along with unopened bills. The only items of interest were a key wrapped in plastic at the bottom of a coffee tin, and a bank statement buried in the unopened mail that showed periodic deposits of large amounts of cash, all carefully under $10,000.
They had his keys and would get the clothes he'd been wearing at the autopsy. The key from the coffee can, the bank account, and maybe the credit card bills and his wallet were fodder for some able detective. Right now, Burgess felt disabled by anger, impatience, and sinuses and lungs full of the disgusting smell of decomp. There had been no cell phone on the body and they'd found none in the apartment. Did that mean someone had taken it? Did that make his cell phone records that much more valuable? There had been a phone bill in the pile on the counter.
Across the room, Kyle finished going through the pockets and dropped a pair of enormous jeans onto a growing mound of clothes. "We done here, Joe?"
Burgess gave the room one last look. They had found no hidden stashes of cash or drugs. Nothing under the mattress. No reading material except men's magazines, motorcycle magazines, and Guns & Ammo.
"We're done. Let's tell Remy to seal this place and go see how Stan is doing."
"Hate to say it, but I'm hungry."
Burgess was, too, but there was no way any of them could eat until they'd gone back to the station and showered and changed. "A good crime scene'll do that to you."
Kyle raised an eyebrow. "This is a good crime scene?"
Burgess just shook his head and gestured toward the door. "After you," he said.
It was like entering a different world, a world with a bright sun high in the sky, making them blink after the dark gloom of the apartment. The air was soft, the sky was a lovely light blue, and the budding trees at the end of the crappy alley were hosting noisy birds.
Predictably, Kyle read his mind. "Which is the real world? This or the one we just left?"
They collected Stan Perry, glowering with frustration over his failure to find a single witness with the integrity to step up, got in their vehicles, and headed back to 109 with all the windows open.
Chapter 23
Forty minutes later, they'd showered and changed and were sitting in a conference room unwrapping sandwiches. The showers helped, but their sinuses were still full, and a miasma of Butcher Flaherty filled the room.
Melia was in his office, on the phone, and the pinched look he'd worn at the crime scene told them he was deeply enmeshed in his son's illness. They all desperately wanted to take concerns over this case off his mind, but the paucity of information gave them small hope of doing that. Up the food chain, they'd care little about the loss of Butch Flaherty, but they'd care about the bad PR value of two violent deaths and an assault that had left another victim in a coma within three days. Crime was bad for tourism, and Portland was courting the cruise ships.
Sage Prentiss had carried his warrant application over to the courthouse, and was headed over to Flaherty's garage to collect the Harley and see what else he might find.
As they munched in collective gloom, Burgess tossed the key they'd found onto the table. "Any thoughts about this?"
"Looks like a padlock key. Storage locker maybe?" Perry said.
It was a good guess. And another task for their endless to-do list. He started putting the incidents up on the white board, drawing arrows to show connections. The dead baby and kidnapped girl with the mosque. The girl with Kimani Yates at the hospital. The girl and the baby with Akiba Norton and the man with the watch and ring. The computer store robbery with the mosque. White box trucks at the mosque and white box trucks at the robbery. Kimani Yates with the stakeout at his house. Osman acting as translator for them with the Imam, then beaten and later nearly killed. Butcher Flaherty harassing people at the mosque. Now Butcher Flaherty dead.
Was there something going on at that mosque valuable enough to make it worthwhile to threaten a police detective? Kill a translator? Kill Flaherty? Why had someone shot at Ismail Ibrahim? What did any of it mean?
He was still hungry, but everything tasted like death. He gave up and threw the rest of his sandwich in the trash. "Cote canceled our security detail at the hospital," he said.
"What's up with that?" Perry said. "You'd almost think he wanted her to get killed." Like Burgess, he gave up on his sandwich and tossed it. "So what would you like me to do next, Joe?"
Burgess pushed the key toward him. "See if you can find out what this opens."
"Needle in a haystack," Perry said.
"Maybe not," Kyle said. "Start with the places nearest Flaherty's apartment, work out from there. You might get lucky."
"I used to think getting lucky was a good thing."
Before Perry could fall back into his recent funk, Kyle said, "Getting lucky in a murder investigation is still a good thing, Stan. Maybe one of those places out near Deering Corner. Morrill Street or Warren Ave. Maybe you even get luckier and they'll have surveillance cameras or something."
"I'm going," Perry said, snatching up the key. "Stay tuned for some good news."
"Our prayers go with you," Kyle said. They watched the door close behind him. "Best thing for that lad is to keep him busy. Don't give him time to start feeling sorry for himself."
"Best thing for all of us," Burgess said. "I'm going to see where the AG's office is on those warrants. Then catch up with Jason Stetson."
"And I'm off, iPod in hand, to see a girl about a story."
* * *
The morning that they'd missed had been lovely. But as they said about New England weather, you had to get up early to enjoy it. The afternoon sky was gray and a sharp wind had come up, swirling down the streets and lifting the lightest winter sand into clouds that looked like tan smoke. Sand gets in your eyes, Burgess thought as he trudged back from the courthouse with a fistful of warrants. A warrant for the Imam's house and outbuildings, his trashcans and his cars. A warrant for Kimani Yates's cell phone. Another for Butcher Flaherty's phone. Yet one more for Hussain Osman's apartment. Warrants for the cars.
That ought to keep them busy for the next several days. He'd turn the cell phones and warrants for cell phone records over to Rocky. He gave the warrants for the Imam's house and Osman's to Melia.
"Vince, can you put someone on the Imam's house? I'd love to do this when he isn't at home. And we're going to need some bodies for this one, for the search and for crowd control."
"Poor choice of words, Joe."
What Burgess himself had said only yesterday. Or was it yesterday? The days were already blurring. "Right. Today I'd say being a Portland detective is a poor choice of career."
Melia said what he always said, "You've got a bad attitude, Joe."
"And who vetoed my request for that charm course? I was going to learn to curtsey and smile politely. Treat maggots with decorum and respect."
"Not in the budget," Melia said. "Nothing in the damned budget. Pretty soon we're going to have to cut all overtime and recruit a couple volunteer psychics to help
us solve cases."
Burgess shook his head. "Nah. We just need better technology. Just insert a chip into the bad guys when they're convicted. Then we'll always be able to find 'em."
"It's too brilliant, Joe. One of those damned amendments, second, fourth, fifth, would say we couldn't do it."
"Yeah. Everybody's got rights but the thin blue line." He studied his boss's face. Melia had aged ten years in a week. "What's up with Lincoln?"
"The bad news or the good news? Bad news is maybe it's leukemia. They're waiting on a test. Good news is if it is leukemia, it's one they can usually treat. Gina's about out of her mind, though."
"She should talk to Chris. No one's steadier than an experienced nurse at a time like this. Not that she wouldn't be just as bad with our kids—"
He stopped, realizing that Melia was looking at him funny. "I've been on the fence about all this. You know that. Too old a dog to learn new tricks. But after last night, I don't know. Something happened."
"A threat to your family will do that."
"It's not supposed to happen, Vince."
"That was the old world, Joe. In the new world, the world without social structures and imbedded values, without community? All bets are off. Anyway, this one is bad all around. You start with an imprisoned child mother and a dead infant, you know you're dealing with people who have few boundaries on what they'll do to others."
"Speaking of imprisoned child mothers, how are we supposed to keep that girl safe? I've got hospital security covering, but that won't last. They're as sticky about the bottom line as he who will not be named."
Melia sighed. "I'm working on it, Joe. Be a big help if I could toss a suspect on his desk instead of a fresh homicide."
"That was not a fresh anything, Vince. That was a half-baked maggot factory."
"I think this case is getting to you."
"Right," Burgess stood. "Take a look at my desk, you'll see all the brochures for exotic places I'm going to visit in my retirement. Just as soon as I toss some suspects on some other desks."
"Speaking of toss—"
"The divine Lorna is typing up some reports even as we speak."
Melia made shooing motions with his hands. "Go away. And call me in a hour and I'll update you on executing those warrants."
Burgess left.
Chapter 24
In a crazy case like this, crimes tended to pop up like whack-a-mole. Sometimes the whole business was like whack-a-mole. When they got lucky, answers might start popping up, too. Burgess hoped that they'd get some of those answers from searching the Imam's house. He had lower expectations about Osman's place, but he'd gotten used to surprises. So maybe there would be something there.
When Melia called, it wasn't to update him on the timing of the warrants, it was to say that the ME had scheduled Butcher Flaherty for tomorrow at 8 a.m. Typical of Dr. Lee. He liked to cut bright and early.
Burgess wrote it in his notebook. Then he sat in the car, waiting for inspiration. He wasn't a spiritual guy. He was a realist. But sometimes his city spoke to him, if he listened carefully to it. With the window partway down, he could feel the rush of the wind. In Maine, it's April, not March, that comes in like a lion. Sometimes the lion likes to hang around. Little windblown bits of sand clattered against the glass like tiny chips of ice and shrouded the windshield in pale, translucent gold.
Sometimes a cold wind can bring clarity. Clarity this time in the form of a phone call from Rocky Jordan. An interesting tidbit. The Imam had found a new temporary location for the mosque. A warehouse down by the waterfront. Owned by a fishing boat captain turned entrepreneur named Addison Westerly. Plans were afoot to turn it into condos. For now, it had become a mosque.
Burgess knew a librarian could be a cop's best friend. As soon as he'd noted Rocky's information, Burgess was on the phone to the reference desk at the Portland Public Library, and confirmed that they did have Maine Maritime Academy yearbooks in their collection. A book that went by the unusual name Trick's End. Echoes of a long-ago Masefield poem. That was where the April wind would blow him next.
Or it would have, but Melia called and said he had a team ready, the Imam and his entourage had just left, and did Burgess and the Crips want to execute a search warrant?
Burgess and the Crips absolutely did.
He called Perry and Kyle and headed for the Imam's house.
* * *
The expression "it was like herding cats" couldn't have been more appropriate. As he'd imagined the other night when he was there, surveying all the cars, noting how many people gave that address as their residence, and hearing the soft sounds of women and children behind closed doors, the place was a warren. Bedrooms were crowded with beds and the attic was lined with bunks like a dormitory. Only the first floor had a residential character, and there he found what he expected would be the Imam's office. The door was locked and none of the five women who filled the air with their whining, wailing, and complaints admitted to knowing where there might be a key. At any given moment, without any noticeable diminution in the noise level, at least two of them were also talking on cell phones.
All five of them, along with babes in arms and small, clinging children, had been herded into the living room while the search was conducted.
Sage Prentiss was doing his best with his limited Somali, but all it seemed to be earning him was a larger ration of complaints.
"Tell them that if we can't find the key, we'll have to break the lock," Burgess said.
Prentiss translated. The commotion got louder. And no key was produced. Burgess gave up trying to be considerate and instructed two patrol officers to break the lock.
The rest of the house might be shabby and worn, but the Imam had been generous with himself. A large, solid wood desk, an expensive desk chair, three leather visitor's chairs, a banquette under the window piled with cushions, and a row of new, locked file cabinets. There was a lovely rug on the floor. Burgess rummaged in the desk drawer for keys, but couldn't find any. That left him three choices: call a locksmith, break the locks, or simply truck them to 109 to investigate at leisure. In the end, after repeated requests for cooperation that brought no results, Melia made the decision to break the locks.
Anything that looked potentially relevant was loaded into banker's boxes and taken back to the conference room at 109 to be examined. While Kyle searched the drawers and packed boxes for officers to carry out to the waiting van, Burgess went through the Imam's desk drawers. He found some phone bills and insurance bills that might be helpful and added them to their collection. There was no sign of the plan of the mosque that they'd been promised.
A search of the rest of the house yielded little beyond clothing and baskets of children's toys, until Kyle noticed scratch marks on the floor and had a large wardrobe moved. Where it had stood was a locked door. Once again, they asked for a key and once again, they didn't get one. This time, a screwdriver did the trick.
Behind the door was a windowless closet with a blood-stained mattress on the floor, a small basket lined with baby blankets, and some woman's and tiny baby's clothing. A search found nothing personal. No jewelry, hairbrush, toiletries, notes, papers, books, letters, or receipts. Nothing. They couldn't be sure until fingerprints or DNA confirmed it, but it looked like this closet, like the locked closet at the mosque, had been a holding place for their mystery girl and her baby. Maybe even the place where the baby had been delivered.
"The locked closet mystery?" Kyle muttered, as he and Burgess waited for Wink to take photographs and dust the room for prints.
"If they were keeping her here, why move her to the mosque?"
"Maybe that crying baby was driving everyone nuts. The neighbors complained? Or someone here was too sympathetic? Or that was a temporary move on the way to somewhere else," Kyle said. "I wonder if Stan found anything in the garage? Of if there was anything in the trash?"
Searching people's garages, basements, and going through their trash. It was part of their glamo
rous life. Burgess's reflections were interrupted by a commotion from downstairs, men's voices, raised in anger, and Sage Prentiss, shouting in Somali, words that were recognizable to anyone in any language as "calm down."
"Looks like Daddy's home," Kyle said. "Let's go downstairs and say hello."
* * *
The Imam stood in the door of his office with part of his entourage, waving his arms and trying to stop the officers who were carrying out the boxes. The gray beard and hair and wrathful expression looked like the picture of an angry God from a children's bible. An older woman who had come in with him had herded the other women into the corner and was speaking with them quietly.
Burgess threaded his way through the crowd surrounding the Imam. "Mr. Ibrahim? Detective Sergeant Burgess. We met the other night. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the way and let these men finish."
The Imam turned what could only be called "fiery" eyes on him, and muttered a mixture of Somali and English, the only clearly decipherable word of which was "outrage." The next clear phrase was "city manager." He was starting a third volley, beginning with "discrimination," when Burgess held up a hand, signaling him to stop.
"Sage, you want to give me a hand here."
The Imam sputtered. Burgess kept his hand up. "Be quiet, sir. Please."
When Sage had joined them, Burgess said, "Now, we both know that you understand English. And speak it. But I'm going to ask Detective Prentiss to help with translation."
He gestured for Melia to hand the Imam the warrant that the women had refused to accept. "This is a warrant to search the premises, including the garage and basement, and any vehicles on or about the premises which are registered in your name. We are looking for information relating to the identity of a girl and an infant found imprisoned in your mosque during the fire. Also, as you have refused to cooperate with our investigation or answer our questions, we are looking for any and all documents pertaining to the rental and ownership of the building, as well as to any service agencies operating out of that facility."