by Jen Blood
“Right. What about the way she was killed?” I said.
“Sure. Someone who performs a ritual like the one done to Charlene doesn’t live in a vacuum. They’d need the right ingredients, herbs, monkey paws, whatever. And that statue thing that was with her... The cops must be following up on that angle.”
“So I’ll just call information and ask for witch doctors in the Portland area. No problem.”
“Funny,” she said.
She stood and retrieved a mug from the cupboard before she made a beeline for the coffeepot. Now that some time had passed, it was clear that she’d been more affected by Johnny’s actions than she was letting on. There was a bruise forming around her wrist, and she moved more carefully than usual, which made me think she’d downplayed things considerably. When she went to pour her coffee, she slopped half of it over the side and swore under her breath. I got up and took the pot from her.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“The Macarena. What does it look like? If we’re going to work, I need coffee.”
I put the coffeepot back and set her mug aside. “I don’t think you need caffeine right now. This will wait until morning. How about you get some rest—you haven’t gotten more than a few hours since this thing started.” When she protested, I tipped her chin up until she looked me in the eye. “Don’t fight me on this, all right? Sleep.”
Surprisingly, she nodded after a beat or two of thought. “Tomorrow, I want to start digging into Charlene more, though. If she was with this Sefu guy and she was married to Jacob the One-Eyed Ghost, there’s a hell of a story there. This may have something to do with Lisette, but she wasn’t the one lying dead on that pier. There has to be a reason for that.”
“Got it, champ. Tomorrow, we’ll tear it up.”
She gave me a terse nod goodnight, and I watched her pad down the hall to her bedroom. When she was gone, I retrieved my laptop and returned to the kitchen table. I did an online search for the name Charlene Dsengani, which yielded nothing more than the basics we already knew: Emigrated from Uganda in ’94. Employed by Johnny Cole for a year before she spearheaded the project with Applewood Farms, which struggled for a couple of years before it took hold. From there I did a search for black magic in Portland, Maine, but turned up nothing but a New Age store in Boothbay Harbor that I remembered from high school. I made a mental note to take a trip up the coast to see what they could tell me.
Then, lacking any better ideas, I returned to the photo Maisie had given me of the three girls with the witch doctor and the young man Maisie said was her father.
I typed “schoolgirl abduction Sudan” into the search engine. The first results that came up were the Aboke abductions, when 139 girls were taken from a secondary school in Uganda by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. That was in 1996, though, and Charlene and Mary had already been in the States for two years by then. Besides which, they said they were from Sudan, not Uganda.
I kept searching.
Eventually, I came up with the kidnapping of ten girls in 1986 from a small private school in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. The abduction had been blamed on the witchdoctor pictured with the girls in Maisie’s photo—Sefu Keita. I could find no follow-up on the abductions, and no mention of the names of the ten girls. As far as I could tell, none of them had ever been seen again.
I thought of the scars Wolf had spoken of. It was surreal to think that Charlene, Mary, and Lisette had all been students taken by a witchdoctor who seemed more bogeyman than human, but there was no arguing with the photo I held in my hand. What I couldn’t figure out was how their past had anything to do with what was happening now. Sefu had been killed in 1997, the pictures of his dead body widely circulated in the media at the time. Could Charlene have been killed by an admirer of his work, maybe? Or someone else who’d been taken by him?
I got up and put the laptop away. I needed a cigarette. Solomon and I were really going to have to work something out—traveling three floors down at two a.m. for a smoke was getting old. I slipped my sneakers on, snagged a pack of Camels from my jacket pocket, and headed for the door. Before I left, though, I opened the curtain and peered out the window that looked out on the street below.
A dark figure stood beneath the streetlight, his gaze fixed on our apartment. I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell even from there that it wasn’t our scarred friend. A wave of cold fear warred with a surge of anger made more potent by Solomon’s run-in with Johnny earlier. I let the curtains fall shut, left the apartment, and closed the door quietly behind me. Then, I raced down the stairs.
By the time I reached the street, he was gone.
I walked up and down the street a couple of times, but didn’t see anyone who looked like the thug who’d been lurking outside our apartment.
The party next door had slowed down, but a couple of college kids were smoking on the front stoop. Adrenaline still running high, I lit my cigarette and crossed the street.
The college boys nodded to me when I approached. One was lean and lanky, the other soft around the middle but not yet gone to fat. They listened to a lot of Dave Matthews, played hacky sack on warm summer days, and had been eyeing Solomon since we’d moved in. I’d smoked a joint or two with them since we’d hit town, but that hadn’t led to pledging their fraternity just yet.
The soft one handed me a half-smoked blunt without making me ask for it. I accepted, breathed the smoke in deep, and held it until my lungs gave out.
“Thanks,” I said on an exhale. I handed it off to the taller one. “Listen, did either of you notice the big guy under the streetlight a while ago?”
“Sure, man,” the tall one—Chip, I thought—said. “He gave us this—said you’d come looking for it.”
He handed me a yellow envelope that had been resting under his beer. The soft one took another toke, and gave it to Chip. They looked at me curiously when I didn’t open the envelope right away.
“He a friend of yours?” Chip asked.
“Not exactly,” I said. “This might sound a little weird, but could you describe him? What he looked like?”
They looked at each other, like maybe I’d smoked one too many tonight. Chip fished a Pabst Blue Ribbon from a red cooler for me, the ice long melted inside. I accepted and took another toke myself while I waited for them to decide how to approach this.
“He kind of looked like—well...” Chip hesitated, looking to his buddy again. “We thought it was funny, because remember that show Magnum, PI? The big guy with the mustache?”
“He looked like Tom Selleck?” I said.
“Right,” the soft one nodded, pleased we were on the same page. “That show was cool, right? That dude with this fuckin’ estate—surfing all day, all the pussy he can handle.”
“And the dude with the chopper,” Chip added, equally as enthusiastic.
“TC,” I said. “So, this guy who looked like Magnum—”
“No,” the soft one said. “Not like Magnum—but like maybe he was trying to, right? Had the Hawaiian shirt and the ‘stache, and he’s got a sick little car.”
“You saw his car?”
“Yeah. He was by yesterday, too. Got a cherry little Corvette,” Chip said. “But silver—not red. But this guy’s no Magnum. He’s older, for one thing. Forty, maybe fifty. And a little fat. Still, I wouldn’t dick around with him.”
“Okay,” I said. I drained my PBR and handed the can back to them. “Thanks. Listen, can you do me a favor?” I dug my business cards from my wallet and handed one to each of them. “If you see this guy around again, will you give me a call? Doesn’t matter what time. That’s my cell phone—I’ll pick up.”
“Anything else we should do?” Softie asked.
“Yeah,” I said grimly, unease doubling at the addition of this mysterious new player. “Stay out of his way.”
◊◊◊◊◊
I went back to our building and stood in the hallway on the first floor while I opened the envelope. It occ
urred to me that I should be careful about fingerprints, but even if Magnum had left some behind, the frat boys had probably obliterated them. All the same, I tried not to make a total mess of things when I opened it.
Inside, I found three photos. All were color 8x10s taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. They were good quality, the camera most likely expensive.
The first picture was of me on the pier with the scarred man, his knife at my side and his arm around my throat. It wasn’t a great shot of me, since I looked ready to shit a brick, but it certainly told a story. I just wished I knew what the hell that story was. And why this guy would have been there that night...unless he was the one who’d killed Charlene Dsengani.
The second photo was of Solomon and me, kissing in the bar. My hand was tangled in her hair, her hand curled around my bicep. Again, a nice action shot. I thought of the crowd at Old Port Billiards that night. Someone must have noticed some guy who looked like Magnum PI gone to seed, snapping shots in the middle of the chaos.
The third photo was of Solomon. This was the shot that officially punctured my good humor. She stood in our apartment wearing the black dress—which meant it had been taken earlier tonight, most likely through our kitchen window. My anger was effectively gone now—all I felt was fear. Someone had scrawled a message across Solomon’s face, in red ink.
You’re in over your head.
Leave it alone.
I put the photo back in the envelope and went upstairs, moving slower now, beer, weed, and fatigue running its course. Wet cement would have been easier to walk through.
Inside the apartment, all was as I’d left it. I put the photos on the kitchen table and then went through and closed all our curtains. Locked the front door and the one to our fire escape. When I walked past Solomon’s bedroom, I noticed her light was still on.
I pushed the door open a crack.
She sat on the edge of the bed, knees pulled to her chest, her back to the door. There was an open book beside her, but her attention was focused on the window.
“Can’t sleep?” I said quietly.
If I’d surprised her, she gave no indication. “I will in a minute.” I stepped further into the room. She turned to face me when I made no move to go. “It’s fine. I’m fine. And I’ll go to bed soon.”
Her curtain was shut at least, which gave me some solace. She eyed the door, stopping just shy of pushing me out. There was something about the way she was holding herself that made me stay, though—the way her knees curled in; how tightly she’d wrapped her arms around them.
Instead of leaving, I took another step inside. “You sure all he did was grab you, Sol?” I asked. I steeled myself for an answer I didn’t want to hear.
“I’m sure.” She looked me in the eye, softer now. The knot loosened in my gut. Solomon’s always been a shit liar; she was telling the truth. “I just... I’m just a little shaken up, I guess. It’s stupid.”
I realized then what she’d been trying to hide: though she was doing her best not to clue me in, she was shaking from stem to stern.
I toed my shoes off, closed the door behind me, and sat down beside her on the bed without waiting for an invitation. Despite the liberties I was taking, I was careful to keep some distance between us
“It’s the adrenaline,” she said.
“What’s the adrenaline?”
“The reason I’m shaking—I mean, I know that. The whole fight-or-flight thing. It takes a while to come down from it. I’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, you’re right. That makes sense.” I wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, though it wasn’t cold in the room. She didn’t pull away. “You should stay warm. You want me to make some tea?”
“I hate tea.”
Right. I moved closer, until I could feel the warmth of her body and the trembling and, beneath it all, the fear she was trying so hard not to acknowledge.
“Do you want me to go?” I asked.
It took a few seconds before she shook her head, silent. I knew her well enough to recognize the admission for the leap it was. Solomon doesn’t do vulnerable well.
I got up and gestured for her to do the same, then pulled the blankets back. “Get in.”
When she was tucked in, I turned out the light and managed to navigate the dark room safely to get to the other side of the bed. I lay down beside her, both of us tense and unmoving. I rolled to my side and stretched out my arm. “Come here.”
She hesitated. We’d slept—just slept—together before over the years, maybe three times when things had gone to shit and one or the other of us needed a shoulder. That was before, though. Before Solomon grew up and we got a place of our own and I blew everything out of the water by kissing her in front of everyone in a seedy bar in the Old Port. I waited for her to work things through for herself.
“You sure?” she asked eventually.
“I’m sure.”
She turned to face me, settling her head on my shoulder. I pushed the hair back from her face. She ducked her head into my chest, fisting her hands in my shirt.
“Is this okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. Her voice sounded rough, but still steady. “This is good.”
It didn’t take long before her breathing evened out and I felt her body go slack in my arms. Sleep didn’t come so easily for me.
◊◊◊◊◊
I woke the next morning from a dream in which I was a kid again, biking beside my brother through our old hometown. He was laughing, but when he spoke, his words were lost on the wind. I pedaled faster, trying to catch up to him. Fear built in my chest the farther he got from me, his bike seemingly poised on the edge of the horizon—as though he might plummet out of my sight, out of my life, at any moment.
I lay in bed for a few seconds after I’d woken, disoriented. The sun was just coming up outside, casting the room in a warm golden glow. It was pleasantly cool, a light breeze coming in.
Beside me, Solomon was still out.
I shifted to my side, focused on her. Her right hand rested on my stomach. I thought of the dream I’d had, and wondered whether the physical contact had been for her benefit or mine. Solomon has always had her own night terrors—her own reasons for running from sleep until her body is too tired to fight it. The first nine years of her life, she lived in a sort of cult on an island with her father... A year after her mother pulled her out of there, the whole place went up in flames. Her father was the only survivor, but he hardly escaped unscathed. From that point on, he lived the life of a madman out on the island alone. Solomon didn’t talk about it much, but there was no doubt she had plenty to keep her awake at night.
She wasn’t fighting sleep now, though. I reached out tentatively and brushed the hair from her forehead. She shifted, her hand slipping from my stomach to the mattress.
I felt the absence, the lack of warmth, all the way to the bone.
The apartment was quiet when I got up. I poured myself a tall glass of water, and considered the day ahead. The photos were still on the table. They were no less threatening in daylight. Outside, it was reassuringly peaceful—the hum of the city interrupted by the occasional vehicle passing by; a construction truck rumbling down the road; someone’s radio tuned to BLM—the best of rock n’ roll, Maine style. Pink Floyd came on, distant and low.
I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast yet, but Sweet Lady Nicotine was calling my name so I pulled on jeans and a t-shirt and headed out the door. Solomon and I could talk about the pictures over breakfast, but then I’d call Detective Thibodeau and give him a heads-up on the Selleck impersonator who may or may not have killed Charlene Dsengani.
Just as I reached the second floor, I heard the door below open from the outside.
I stopped moving.
Heavy footsteps hit the stairs at a good clip, bounding toward me. I stood there for a second, caught between staying where I was, going back to the apartment, or meeting the intruder head on.
By th
e time I’d made the decision to keep going, the choice was moot: Wolf Cole stood at the end of the corridor, his breath coming hard. He didn’t look good.
“What did you do with Lisette?” he demanded as soon as he caught sight of me.
He charged me before I could answer.
Chapter 11
I held up my hand a split second before Wolf took me out in the stairwell. “Wait—what the hell are you talking about?”
He backed me up against the wall just a couple of feet from the stairs. “Lisette. I know you talked to Maisie last night—now they’re both gone.”
“And you think they’re here?”
“Maisie told me you were asking questions.”
“Because that’s my job—it doesn’t mean I took them home with me afterward.”
“Then where the hell are they?”
“I’m telling you, I don’t have a clue.” I glanced around the stairwell. We were both too loud—something my neighbors wouldn’t appreciate on a Saturday morning, no matter how pressing the conversation might be. “I was on my way out—come on. We’ll talk outside.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why can’t we go upstairs?”
“Because my roommate had a rough night after your shithead brother knocked her around, and I don’t want to wake her up. You have a problem with that?”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I thought.”
Outside, the sun was up and the sky was clear, temperatures already rising for the day. When I asked Wolf if he wanted a cigarette, he looked at me like I’d suggested he join me clubbing baby seals.
“That’s a disgusting habit, you know,” he said. “No wonder you couldn’t keep up on the run yesterday.”