Midnight Lullaby

by Jen Blood

  “Not on your life.”

  “I’ve done it before. In Washington in ’98 I worked with the cops on the Green River Killer case—”

  “They haven’t solved that,” he interrupted.

  “But they had some leads they’re still working... Call the chief of police up there. He’ll tell you—I worked like a dog, did everything they asked, and I never once jumped the gun going to print before I got their go-ahead.”

  Thibodeau flipped open a file beside him on his desk. “That’s how you got the exclusive with Jenny Bandy’s family, yeah? Won some pretty big-time awards for that one.”

  “And I did it without stepping on anybody’s toes at the department. Ask anyone.”

  He closed the file. Looked me in the eye. “No dice.”

  “But—”

  “Tell me what happened with Detective Doug Philbrick, out at the LAPD.”

  Three months later, and just a mention of the name was still enough to make my intestines twist. “That was a mistake.”

  “Damn right it was a mistake,” Thibodeau said. “And I sure as hell won’t be the one to give the man who made that mistake a second chance. I don’t help cop killers.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” I said. It didn’t sound convincing. “He killed himself.”

  “Yeah, but you put the gun in his hand, didn’t you?” Thibodeau hopped off his desk. “Get out. Have that gash in your side looked at. And leave this thing alone, if you know what’s good for you. You’ve already got a reputation on one coast. Don’t screw it up out this way too.”

  ◊◊◊◊◊

  Buzz Bowdoin was waiting for me in the lobby of the police station when I left Thibodeau’s office. He and Thibodeau exchanged a civil nod before Sergeant Pritchett—the heavy-handed lady cop who’d felt me up to get the film out of my jockey shorts—ushered us out the door.

  Once we were safely out on the street, Buzz handed me a cigarette and then lit one for himself. It was just past six a.m., the air warmer than it had been but not uncomfortably so. Buzz was a couple of inches shorter than me, early sixties, with gray hair and a scruffy beard and ice-blue eyes that made women look at him at least as often as they looked at me. We were often mistaken for father and son, though I didn’t really see the resemblance. He sure as hell felt more like a father than my own ever had—maybe that’s what people were responding to.

  “Have you seen Solomon?” I asked before I lit up.

  “Already back at the apartment. She’s fine.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Buzz eyed me as I lit my cigarette. I inhaled a long, deep drag and savored the first-smoke-of-the-morning high as nicotine flooded my veins.

  “Now, you want to tell me what the hell’s going on?” he prompted when I was done.

  “Give me a lift back to the apartment. We’ll brief you there.”

  We drove Buzz’s behemoth ’72 Plymouth Satellite the mile or so from Middle Street back to Munjoy Hill. Solomon had already filled Buzz in on everything worth knowing about the night before, so we spent most of the drive smoking in silence, windows rolled down and Sinatra up high.

  Buzz was old school—the kind of reporter who wore a fedora, chain smoked, and thrived on pastrami and rye. He’d been my mentor coming up at the Downeast Daily Tribune, where Solomon and I both cut our teeth. Three years ago, he lost the Trib in a poker game. He gave up booze and gambling in a single go the next day, moved to Portland a month later, and started up a weekly rag devoted to the stuff he’d been wanting to report on for most of his career: politics and social commentary mostly, with a little human interest on the side. As far as I knew, he hadn’t had a drink or so much as played the lottery since.

  When my career came crashing down around my ears out West, Buzz saved my ass and my sanity when he called out of the blue and offered me a job. The pay’s shit, circulation’s down, and everybody keeps telling me print is dead. But you’ll get your own office, you make your own hours, and so long as you don’t use your fucking wife as a source, you’ve got free rein on your stories.

  “Thibodeau’s already shutting me out,” I said when we were about a block away from the apartment. “Whatever we stumbled on last night is big, but I’m not getting shit from him. I don’t think he’ll change his mind, either.”

  “He won’t,” Buzz agreed. He turned the music down. “He’s not a bad guy, but he hates the press.”

  “It felt a little more personal than that.”

  “The Philbrick thing,” Buzz said with a nod. “Sure. Thibodeau’s blood runs dress-blues blue. He knows you had something to do with a dead cop and I expect you’re done in his book. You can pretty much write off the Portland PD as a source this summer. That’s all right—I’ve got my own sources I can tap. How much do you think Lisette Mandalay has to do with this?”

  “Everything,” I said without hesitation. “She’s right at the center of it all. Has to be.”

  He pulled up at the curb in front of my apartment. Before I could get out, he reached across and stayed me with his hand on my arm.

  “The kid mentioned you got stuck pretty good last night. Did you have anybody take a look at it?”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “He kept the cut shallow—whoever he was, he knew what he was doing. Just another scar, but nothing to write home about.”

  “Solomon was pretty shaken up.”

  I paused to look at him. I couldn’t quite read what he was trying to say. “What’s your point?” I said.

  “If roles had been reversed and she’d been the one who got caught by this guy—”

  I stopped him with a hand in the air. “I know. Believe me, I know. I’ll keep her out of this as much as I can. Give her some legwork that’ll keep her far from the eye of the storm.”

  “She thought you might say that.”

  I didn’t care for the look in his eye. “Jesus. Are you kidding me? She put you up to this—that’s what this is about?”

  “She just wants to be in on it. She was there, same as you. I don’t know if you’ve taken a good look at her lately, but she’s not the over-pierced teenager you brought up through the ranks back in Littlehope. She deserves a chance to show you what she’s got.”

  “Unbelievable.” I shook my head. “So that’s what you two have been doing while I was cooling my heels at the precinct? Conspiring against me?”

  “Hey!” Solomon poked her head out the third-story window and called down to us. “You guys gonna hang out on the curb making out all morning, or are you coming up here?”

  I looked at Buzz. “She hasn’t changed that much.”

  “You keep telling yourself that. Now come on. Let’s see if you can come up with a story out of this mess, maybe earn your pittance for a change.”

  ◊◊◊◊◊

  Our apartment was on the third floor of an old Victorian on Munjoy Hill—once the sketchy side of Portland, now going through a renaissance thanks to a few developers with deep pockets and an eye for what could be versus what was.

  The renaissance hadn’t hit our Victorian yet.

  A shabby two-bedroom overlooking Congress Street, the apartment was dark and dismal and perpetually chilly. Not a bad thing in July, but there was no way I wanted to spend a winter there. Solomon greeted us at the door in a fresh pencil skirt and short-sleeved, silk blouse. Her hair was still wet from the shower.

  “Hang on,” I said. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen, I just want to change.”

  While Buzz and Solomon went to the kitchen, I went to my bedroom—a small, single-window room with a double mattress on the floor and a box of dog-eared books overflowing beside it. On a clear day I might not be able to see forever, but I had a great view of the neighbor’s shower.

  I’d had worse views.

  I stripped to my boxers and sat on the bed gingerly, twisting to get a look at the bloody mess at my side as I tore off the gauze I’d put on myself in the bathroom of the precinct. Solomon came in without knocking and sat down wordlessly beside me. She had
gauze and peroxide with her, and impatiently pushed my hands away when I tried to take them from her.

  “I don’t suppose you had a doctor look at that,” she said.

  “Why would I do that? That’s what I’ve got you for.”

  Growing up, Solomon had been an unwilling apprentice to her mother, Dr. Kat Everett, from the time she was ten years old. Much to her mother’s dismay, she’d decided to study journalism at Wellesley rather than go to medical school. There were a lot of reasons Kat hated me, but introducing her daughter to the magic of the news game was definitely at the top of the list. Still, the kid had learned a thing or two as her mother’s right hand all those years.

  Solomon dumped peroxide on one of the cotton balls and motioned for me to move my arm. “When was your last tetanus shot?”

  “A couple of months ago.”

  She nodded. “It might sting. I know you’re too manly to care, but figured I’d warn you anyway.”

  “Thanks.”

  The wound was a couple of inches long, but it wasn’t deep. I winced at the cold, but otherwise managed to save face. No screaming, no tears.

  “I really am okay, you know,” I said.

  She didn’t respond, taping fresh gauze to my side with skilled hands. Afterward, she got up without a word. Fear still lingered in her eyes, though she was doing her damnedest to hide it.

  “You’ll live,” she said. I nodded. She stood in front of me, her gaze locked on mine, and caught her plump bottom lip between her teeth while she thought through whatever it was she wanted to say. Finally, she shook her head. “Just don’t do it again, okay? Christ, Diggs. Be smarter than the dumbest guy in the horror flick next time.”

  “I had you call the cops—the dumbest guy in the horror flick never would have thought of that.”

  “And then you took off in the dark after a dead body in the middle of the night.” She shook her head again with a slow sigh. “Whatever, screw it. I’m just glad you’re all right. There’s no way I can cover your half of the rent if you get murdered before the summer’s out.”

  “That’s what I love about you, Solomon. That sentimental streak.”

  “Yeah, right.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, avoiding my gaze, and I realized then just how terrified she must have been. Not that she would ever admit to it. “Now get dressed and meet Buzz and me in the kitchen. I’ve got some information you’ll want to hear.”

  I waited until she’d gone before I stood, then rooted around the room until I’d found clean boxers, board shorts, and a fresh-ish t-shirt. Despite Buzz’s reassurance, it still bothered me that I’d been able to get so little from Thibodeau. Not that it was surprising, but it was a disappointment. Before the story that killed my career in Baja, I’d had a great relationship with the cops; I was one of the first reporters they’d call when a story broke. Now, I was starting at less than zero.

  My gut tightened, by now a reaction I was used to whenever California crossed my mind. Thibodeau had been right: I might not have killed Doug Philbrick, but I didn’t do much to keep him alive, either. I could lay the blame wherever I wanted—with Marcy, my ex, for feeding me lies in the first place; with Philbrick for continually dodging my calls when I tried to follow up; with my editor for running the story when I’d been clear that I was looking for another source to confirm things. Ultimately, though, I was the one who wrote the thing. I was the one who sent unsubstantiated copy to my editor. I was the one who got Philbrick booted off the force at thirty-six, a veteran with a lot of ghosts, a penchant for beating the shit out of low-rent hookers, and a service revolver with a single bullet in the chamber with his name on it.

  I pushed all thoughts of the shit storm in Baja far from my mind. It was over and done—Marcy was in the past, and Philbrick was dead and buried. I could drive myself nuts obsessing over all the ways it had gone to hell, or I could move past it and focus on the present. Right now, the present seemed a hell of a lot more interesting.

  Buzz and Solomon were waiting for me in the kitchen when I got there. A piece of half-cooked toast with peanut butter slathered on and a bite taken out of the corner was on a plate in front of my chair.

  “I made you breakfast,” Solomon said.

  “Thanks. You’re gonna make somebody a hell of a wife one day.” I took a bite. It was cold and dry, but I hadn’t eaten anything in long enough that I didn’t care. I sat down. “So, what have you got for us?” I asked her.

  She looked surprised. No doubt she’d been anticipating a lecture from me listing all the reasons she needed to step back from this and let Buzz and me handle it. I was uneasy about skipping that lecture myself, but the nod of approval from Buzz convinced me to stick with his plan for now.

  “I developed the shots you got,” Solomon began. “They’re in the darkroom. And I checked the Tribune this morning, but there’s nothing about the woman you found last night. There was some mention of it on the news, but no details and they’re not releasing her name. So far, it looks like the cops are sitting on this.”

  “They won’t be able to do that for long,” I said.

  “No,” she agreed. “Especially considering the victim. But for now, nobody’s talking.”

  “‘Considering the victim,’” Buzz repeated. “Does that mean you’ve got an ID?”

  A slip of a triumphant smile was quickly replaced by what appeared to be genuine sadness. Since Solomon doesn’t go out of her way to fake this stuff, I took it for the real article. “Who was it?” I asked.

  “Her name’s Charlene Dsengani.”

  “Shit,” Buzz said quietly. “You’re sure?”

  “She looked familiar when I first saw the pictures,” Solomon said. “So I did some digging, got some other photos of her. I’m positive.”

  “Damn,” I said. “No wonder Thibodeau was trying to keep a lid on this.”

  Charlene Dsengani had emigrated from the Sudan a few years before. She was an active part of the refugee community, working in outreach programs to assist other Africans trying to adjust to the vastly different world—and climate—they found in Maine. I’d never met the woman before, but was well-acquainted with her name and reputation.

  “Are the shots still in the darkroom?” I asked.

  “Yeah. They’re not pretty, but they sure as hell tell a story.” She led the way to the darkroom—technically a utility closet, but that closet was what had ultimately sold us both on the apartment. Solomon and I had agreed that crumbling plaster and leaky windows were well worth the tradeoff of having our own space to develop film. Solomon stepped into the cramped room first, the smell of developing fluid thick enough for a contact high. Buzz followed, while I brought up the rear. A single red light bulb illuminated the space, a dozen 8x10s drying on a clothesline strung across the length of the room.

  Buzz swore softly when he got a look. The night came rushing back at me, that much more tangible now that I knew the victim. I pushed it back and focused on the photos.

  “You got some good ones,” Solomon said. Her voice took on the detached tone of a seasoned veteran—more thanks to her mother’s influence than any reporting she’d done in the field. “If you look there...” She pointed to a shot of the body cavity. Buzz grunted, but he didn’t say anything. “See the incision there? No ragged edges. It’s a clean cut by someone who knows what they’re doing. But then you look at the way the throat is slit...”

  She moved to the next photo, showing Dsengani’s neck. Buzz didn’t look this time, stepping back. Intrigued now, I followed her direction.

  “This one is sloppy,” I said. “There’s a hesitation mark, right there.” I pointed at the left of the woman’s throat.

  “Exactly,” Solomon agreed. “I’d say the neck wound is what killed her, but once she was dead whoever did her was efficient.”

  “Two killers, then?” Buzz said.

  “It’s possible,” Solomon said. “It definitely wouldn’t be easy to do something like this alone.”

  “What ab
out our friend with the knife?” I asked. “Any clue who that might have been?”

  “No idea. But I was trying to figure out Charlene’s connection to Lisette and the Cole boys—I mean, they don’t exactly run in the same circles, you know? Or at least I didn’t think they did.”

  Buzz perked up at that, already at the door waiting to be liberated. “What’d you find?”

  “Charlene Dsengani actually worked for Johnny Cole when she first moved to Maine—and her sister still does. She’s their live-in housekeeper now. And from what I’ve been able to find out so far, Charlene lived there, too.”

  I led us back out of the room, stopping in the kitchen once more. For the first time, I noted how tired Solomon looked—circles under her eyes, her body more tense than I’d noticed before.

  “Did you find out anything else?” I asked.

  “I looked her up on the Web,” she said. She went in the other room and returned a minute later with a manila folder. She set it on the kitchen table and pushed it toward me. I opened it. A smiling black woman, eyes bright, looked back at me. Her hair was longer in the photo, but there was still no question as to who it was.

  “That’s definitely the woman on the pier,” I agreed.

  Buzz looked at the picture, then sank into a chair beside me. “Jesus. Hell of a thing—whatever this is.”

  “Had you met her before?” Solomon asked.

  “I interviewed her a couple of months ago for this program she’s doing with some local farms,” Buzz said. “She was a good woman—well liked around here, both in the African community and by the locals. What did Thibodeau say to you about her?” he asked me.

  “Nothing. He wouldn’t give me an ID. Spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether I knew who she was, though.”

  “Understandably. It’s gonna be a blow when word gets out. I’m sure he was just trying to figure out if you knew what you’d stumbled onto.” He scratched the back of his neck, thoughtful now. “We should figure out a game plan from here.”

  Solomon glanced at the clock on the microwave. “Damn it—you guys will have to figure it out without me. I’m gonna be late for work.”