by Jen Blood
I followed her up a flight of stairs at the back of the house and down a narrow hallway decorated with plaques and commendations. Her office was tiny and hot. A box fan blew in the window; hunks of amethyst and beach stones held stacks of paperwork in place.
“Sorry about the heat,” she said as soon as I sat down. “It’s only a problem for a month or so. Then winter comes, and we freeze our asses off for eight months. It’s a problem for a lot of people, but my sister and I practically grew up in this house. You get used to it after a while.”
“Practically grew up here. How did that happen?”
“An old friend of our family used to own this place—Bobby Davies. The Portland councilman? He’s the one who donated the property to the program.”
“Wow. That’s generous.”
“He’s a generous man,” she said. Her smile became unexpectedly sad. “A truly good man. When we were little, he let us have the run of this place. He still has a lot to do with the program, of course. I think he spends more time tinkering in the basement here than at his current home.”
I tucked that information away for the moment. “So... Nine months of misery in this place, huh? What are the other three months like?”
She grinned—a mischievous, surprisingly seductive grin. “Gorgeous. Of course, we’re not talking three months all at once. A day here, a week there.”
I laughed.
She settled into her seat, took a breath, and got serious. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be joking. I think we’ve all just been so immersed in this thing since we got the news...” She shook her head. The grief in her eyes appeared real—and profound.
“It’s all right,” I said. “Grief’s funny, doesn’t really follow the rules you expect it to. A grief counselor told me once it was like a pendulum: you sort of swing back and forth between the extremes... I always think of it more like a wrecking ball, though. One minute you’re fine; the next, a memory hits or you hear a song or see someone who looks like her on the street, and it’s like the plaster’s coming down around your ears all over again.”
“Yeah,” she said. She nodded, thinking about that. “That’s more like it, you’re right.”
“Anyway, you don’t have to worry about it—I understand. I just wanted to ask a few questions about Charlene, since she worked here.”
“You and every other reporter in the country,” she said with a grimace. I looked at her in surprise. “So why am I talking to you?” she guessed.
I nodded but stayed silent, waiting for her to continue.
“To be honest, it’s selfish reasons,” she said. “You were the reporter who found her body...and you were the one who provided the description of that man for the police. I just thought it would be better if you got the whole story.”
“That story being...?” I said, more alert now.
She arranged the papers on her desk in a neat stack. I got the sense it wasn’t something she did often—straightening. “Charlene was an amazing woman. She came from unimaginable circumstances in Sudan, and used things that would have broken anyone else to make something beautiful here.”
“Here being the agricultural program,” I said.
“Among other things. We have thirty-eight refugees from countries throughout Africa working with us. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s huge for Maine. It’s inspiring the way these people—men mostly right now, though Charlene was working on that—come here and are able to take control of their own lives.”
“By working the farm,” I clarified. She shook her head, a tiny challenge in her eyes.
“By working their farm,” she said. “They buy in for a plot of land—or else they work off the money, since a lot of them don’t have the fifty bucks it takes to buy a quarter-acre here. That initial financial investment is important; it gives them a sense of pride up front, a reason to succeed. Once they get the land, they work it themselves, raise the crops, take them to farmer’s markets around the state... It’s transformative, what these guys are doing.”
“And Charlene started it?” I said.
“I think initially it was just an idea for herself... You’ve never seen someone garden the way she did; she could make anything grow. It was magical. She missed that when she came to America. Once she came up with the idea, she ran with it.”
“Do you have any idea why she would have been on the pier the day she was killed?”
She frowned. “I talked to the police about that earlier, actually. We have space at the Portland Public Market, but Charlene was talking about getting our own store down on the waterfront. She told me she had an appointment to look at a place there on Wednesday morning.”
“And you didn’t see her after that?”
Her eyes filled. She swallowed convulsively, shaking her head. “No. I didn’t even get an address for where she was looking—Charlene always had a dozen ideas she was working on at a time. I’d learned over the last couple of years not to sweat the details until she had something concrete.”
She gave me a little more information about the program before it started to feel like we were going in circles. It was good to get background on Charlene, but it was clear there was something else Laura wanted to talk about. I fished around for a while, sweating through my shirt and getting progressively less patient, until I finally hit it.
“You mentioned something about the description I gave the police...” I began.
Instantly, Laura tensed.
Pay dirt.
“Do you know who he is?” I asked.
“I do,” she admitted after a moment. “He works here sometimes—he doesn’t own any land, but he’ll come in and work with some of the others who do, during planting or harvesting time.”
I sat up, my discomfort forgotten. “And you haven’t mentioned this to the police?”
“I wanted to talk to you first. He... Jacob is his name, and he’s already been through a lot. Maybe more than anybody I’ve met here—and when you hear some of the stories, you’ll know what a feat that is.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“Not much, but one of the men who works with him has agreed to talk to you, on condition of anonymity. But first, I just...” She stopped and knotted her hands together. “I wanted to ask you first. Do you think he did this? Based on what they’re saying in the news, I can’t figure out if he’s a suspect or not. But if he is, and the police go after him... I can’t imagine how far it would set him back, something like that.”
“I don’t know if he did,” I said. “But to be honest, it wasn’t the sense I got. He said he didn’t... In the situation we were in, he wouldn’t have had much reason to lie. If he had killed Charlene, why not just kill me too?”
“Okay.” She looked relieved. “That’s good. Let me just get Robert—the man who worked with Jacob. I’ll let you two have the office.”
“Hang on,” I said before she could go. “If this man on the pier didn’t do it, do you have any idea who it might have been?”
There was a flicker of something, a certain hardening in her eyes, that suggested she had someone in mind. She shook her head, and the look vanished.
“No. Sorry.”
“What about Rick Foster?” I asked. She was better at hiding her feelings this time, but there was still a flicker of unease there.
“What about him? The congressman has been a huge proponent of this program. Half our funding has come from his own efforts.”
“So he and Charlene knew each other,” I said.
“That’s hardly a secret.” She stood. “Let me go get Robert for you—I promised I’d put in some time in the fields today, and I’d love to get out there while it’s sunny.”
She left before I could ask a follow-up or pursue another line of questioning.
While she was gone, I took the time to check out more of her office. The walls were filled with photos of the farm—lots of smiling faces of all ages and ethnic backgrounds. There were shots of Charlene working in the fields
; one of her looking up from paperwork; several of her with a little girl with lighter skin than hers, the two of them caught laughing in most of them.
Her daughter, I assumed.
“Laura said you wanted to speak to me,” a man said from just outside the office, with that same musical accent I was starting to become accustomed to. He peered in uneasily. He was tall, reed-thin, perhaps thirty years old, his skin the deepest black I’d ever seen.
“You’re Robert?” I asked.
“Robert Ayaok Badawi. Yes. Yes, I am.” He shook my hand, but didn’t seem sure about sitting since the only available seat was behind Laura’s desk.
“Would you mind taking a walk with me?” I asked. “It’s a little stuffy here. I could use the fresh air.”
“Yes,” he said with an enthusiastic nod. “Good. A walk is always good.”
Robert gave me a tour of the farm, saving his own plot of land—a full acre—for our last stop. So far, he’d been effusive about the program and endlessly informative about farming in general. Every time I tried to steer the conversation in the direction of the scarred man in the sketch, however, he avoided the topic.
“I grow beans and peas. Cucumbers. Zucchini—you like zucchini?”
“Yeah,” I told him. “My mom used to make zucchini bread... I always used to sneak extra slices when she wasn’t looking.”
He laughed. I liked him—he was clearly shy, but he had a good smile and a subtle wit that came out so unexpectedly it took me a moment to figure out when he was joking. “Zucchini bread is good. That’s good. My wife makes very good bread. You give me your address, and when she makes her next batch, I will send you some. No charge. Maybe not so good as your dear mother, but it is very good.”
“All right. That’d be great, thanks.” We were running out of topics. Robert was so polite he’d probably just let me stand there all day while he didn’t answer my questions, but I was running out of time. “Listen, the sketch they’ve been showing on the news... That man who was on the pier the night Charlene was killed...”
He shook his head, his forehead furrowed and his lips pursed. “So sad. What happened is very sad. It breaks my heart, to think about that.”
“Laura said you know the man who was in that sketch.”
“Yes,” he said uneasily. “Yes. I know him.”
I took a seat on a rock by a row of cucumbers. Robert took the stone next to it.
“What can you tell me about him?”
He took a deep breath. “I can tell you not much. Very little. He is a ghost—I tell you that much. The rest of us come from Africa to live new lives. We come with friends, family, or we make new friends. But Jacob—Jacob Deng is his name... He does not have friends. I don’t know where he lives. He comes here sometimes to work. I know that.”
“Do you know how Charlene knew him?”
Again, a shake of the head. He wouldn’t look at me. “I don’t know any more than that. I can’t say more.”
He was shutting down, which meant not only would I not get anything further from him, if I kept pushing there was no way he’d talk to me again. I backed off, thanked him for his time, and gave him my card in case he thought of something else. He studied the card and nodded.
“Daniel Diggins. Okay. One week, maybe two weeks, and you check your mail—I’ll have my wife bake that bread for you. Zucchini, special recipe.”
“Thanks,” I said. I started to walk away, past the plots of farmland and the men who worked their hard-won acres, when Robert called after me. I turned, and he ran to catch up.
“I just want to say one more thing... Then, truly, I can say no more. But Jacob... Like Charlene, he has power. That power saved his family one time. It saved his life in Africa, but it cost him very much. If you find him, it would be a mistake to forget this.”
“What kind of power—”
He shook his head. “I say more, and that power could come back against me. It’s all I can say.”
“I do appreciate it,” I said. “If you think of anything more, just call.” We shook hands one last time, and I left him to his land.
Chapter 8
I spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering Portland, making basic inquiries into Charlene Dsengani and Jacob Deng. There was plenty of information on Charlene out there, but Jacob Deng appeared to be exactly what Robert had said: a ghost.
Solomon came home from work and disappeared into the bathroom at around six-thirty. I got progressively more anxious as minutes passed and it got closer to the time when we’d head over to Johnny’s for the big show. At quarter past seven, she emerged while I was in the kitchen getting another beer from the fridge.
“What do you think?” she said. I had my back turned to her. When I spun around, she stood in the doorway in a little black Audrey Hepburn number I’d never seen before. She fiddled with the hem and wobbled on her heels and, eventually, looked at me with her hand on her hip and her head tipped to the left.
“What?” she asked, in the same tone she usually used to tell me to piss off.
“Nothing,” I said. I wasn’t sure where to look, since her legs looked longer than it seemed possible and the neckline, while tasteful, gave enough of a hint of cleavage to continually draw my eye there. “It’s a nice dress.”
“Thanks.” She hesitated, torn between the tough act and a clear need for reassurance. “I...uh, do you think it’s right for a party like this? I mean—obviously I go to parties at Wellesley all the time, but something like this... Do you think everyone else will be in shorts or something, and I’ll look like an idiot?”
I realized I’d left the refrigerator door open, and shut it without getting that beer. Instead, I looked at Solomon—this time allowing myself the luxury of truly taking her in. Her heels were black, her calves toned... The dress fell just above her shapely knees, hugged her slim waist, and did incredible things for that cleavage I’d not been noticing all summer. She’d pulled her hair up, so that soft tendrils brushed against her neck. Her cheeks turned pink under my gaze, the blush extending all the way to her chest.
I swallowed past the desire to tell her she should change—preferably into a caftan or a burka—and shook my head. “Nobody in their right mind would think you look like an idiot,” I said.
Her blush deepened. “Oh. Okay...good. Thanks, I guess.” She fidgeted with the hem some more, and fell off her heels. I risked a step closer.
“Hey—Solomon. Look at me.”
She did, green eyes wide. “What?” Again with that pissy little edge.
“I’ll be right beside you. And even if Johnny’s a complete prick—and we know he is—I trust Wolf. He’ll have our backs. You wanted to play in the big leagues. Sometimes, this is what it takes.”
“I know.” She grimaced. “I just wish it involved something other than a sexy dress and heels. Your big break, all you had to do was prowl around in the desert and not get shot for a few days. That’s nothing compared to the bra I’m wearing right now.”
◊◊◊◊◊
An hour later, we pulled into the private lane leading to Johnny’s place on Sebago Lake. The house was three stories, lots of windows and lots of space, and it was lit up like Vegas when we got there. Cars lined the road for a quarter of a mile in either direction. Solomon and I drove up and found a parking spot in the shadows, where we went over last-minute instructions before going in.
“You sure you’re ready for this?” I said.
“Not at all,” Solomon said. She pulled at the bottom of her dress again and readjusted the top, then sighed. “But what the hell, right? Let’s do it.”
We got out. I wore jeans and a short-sleeved, button-up blue shirt that Solomon said made my eyes pop. She fiddled with her dress some more, and I wished yet again that I’d told her to pick something else. She took my hand.
“You’re supposed to be my date, remember?”
How could I forget?
I pulled my hand from hers and draped my arm around her shoulders, pullin
g her a little closer. “I haven’t held a girl’s hand since I was six. Just sticking with the cover.”
“That’s my Diggs—always willing to go that extra mile for the job.”
The length of a perfectly manicured yard was strung with red, white, and blue lights, littered with empty beer bottles and abandoned paper plates of food. Johnny Cole might know how to throw a shindig, but he was no Gatsby.
A group was just coming in from the lake—six women dripping wet, beers in hand. A brunette in a string bikini passed us, with legs up to there and a couple of other noteworthy assets it was hard to miss. She couldn’t have been much older than Solomon, but I was guessing she’d been around the block a few more times. She grinned at me, slowing to wave as she passed me by.
Solomon elbowed me in the gut, and I scraped my jaw off the lawn. We moved on.
“Look,” Solomon whispered to me after a few more steps. She nodded to a distant spot to our left. Under one of the canopies, a black woman in a serving outfit and dark headscarf dumped half-empty plates into a large plastic garbage bin. She looked away when our eyes met.
“I think that’s Charlene’s sister,” I said, recalling the woman I’d seen with Thibodeau at the police station.
Before we could go after her, Wolf stepped out of the shadows like he’d been lurking there all along, just waiting for us to make a move. He wore a bland brown sport coat that did nothing to hide massive shoulders or the equally massive gun holstered at his side.
“Johnny’s been looking for you,” he said to Solomon. He looked at me like I was the dregs at the bottom of the outhouse. I tried not to take it personally. “If you had a brain in your head, you would have stayed away from here—both of you.”
“I’m not known for my smarts,” I said. “Modest brawn and a pretty face—it’s all I’ve got going for me these days.”
Wolf grunted. “You sure you don’t want to turn around and go home now?” he said to Solomon.
“Nope,” she said. “Thanks, though. I’m with the eye candy.”