by Jen Blood
Afterward, he made a beeline for me while Laura and Rachel spoke with Rick Foster, Rachel’s son at her side. I ducked into a throng of people in order to lose Thibodeau...and found myself face to face with Mary Dsengani.
She winced at sight of me, as though my presence were physically painful. In this case, I understood the reaction.
“I just came to pay my respects,” I said. “I really am sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” she said. She wore a black headscarf and a dress that seemed too large for her small frame. She didn’t look at me, and I realized after a moment that her focus was on Congressman Foster. Rachel and Laura had left him, and he and Davies stood together now while half a dozen reporters surrounded them.
“Maisie isn’t here?” I asked.
Mary shifted her focus back to me. “She couldn’t make it—I did not want her in the middle of this.”
“So she’s all right, then?” I said. If she and Lisette had truly come home since this morning, I wondered whether Wolf would have gotten in touch to let me know.
“She just lost her mother,” Mary said, her tone even. “Of course not.”
Her eyes were as dry as they’d been the night before at the party, her whole body tensed and held carefully upright. She held her left hand—the prosthetic—close to her body. If she was on the brink of falling apart, she did a hell of a job covering it.
“I was just asking because Wolf told me this morning that Lisette and Maisie were missing. It’s good to hear they’re back...” Her eyes slid from mine. In the distance, apart from the throng of people surrounding the politicians in the fray, I saw Rachel and Detective Thibodeau again, their son beside them. He was with another boy—dark-haired, a little pudgy, dressed in a dark suit too hot for a day like this.
“You should stop following this,” I heard Mary say, as though from a distance—a voice whispering across a wide body of water. I barely caught the words. The boy in the suit stood just behind Thibodeau’s son—I couldn’t make out his face. Thibodeau’s son was looking at him, though, talking animatedly while Rachel and Thibodeau ignored them both, caught in their own conversation.
“I’d like to talk to you about Sefu Keita,” I said. It was an effort to refocus on Mary, but I managed. She froze at the name. “He took you, didn’t he?” I continued. “You and Charlene and Lisette... Were you all part of that school he raided in ’86?”
“I told you,” she whispered harshly. “Past is past. You don’t know anything about this—about the harm a story about this would do. You do not know what it feels like, to never be safe. To hide under a bed with your loved ones each night, waiting for a monster to steal you away.”
“That was the past, though,” I said, not without sympathy. “I promise, you’ll have absolute anonymity...but people should know about this.”
“Why?” she demanded, her voice rising. “Why should they know? What business is it of anyone’s? What good will it do?”
“Other Africans—”
“Other Africans already know what I speak of. They were there. It is why they fled. People here are kind and open—you think explaining to them will make things better? I need no pity.”
The reverend was coming toward us now, clear displeasure on a face that had been welcoming until that moment.
“The magic that was practiced with Sefu Keita...” I continued. I made a point not to look back toward Thibodeau, but it was like fighting a magnet that continually drew my gaze back there. “That was the kind of ritual they followed to kill Charlene. And someone left something in my apartment last night—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Thibodeau family again. The dark-haired boy turned toward me; Thibodeau’s son followed his gaze. I froze, caught in eyes I’d seen only in dreams for fifteen years. My brother frowned at me.
“What did they leave?” Mary asked, sharply enough that I knew she’d had to ask the question more than once.
“A doll made of cloth, and a sachet with a message in it...” I thought of the words on that stupid piece of paper. “Something about ghosts rising—haunting me. And there were symbols on my wall.”
Her eyes went wide, wild. She stepped away from me, nearly crashing into the reverend.
“Stay away from me,” she whispered to me. “You have no idea. You do not understand what it means. What he will do.”
“So help me understand—” I said.
“I’m sorry,” the reverend said coolly to me, her arm around Mary’s shoulders. To my surprise, Mary didn’t shy from the contact. “Mary is needed elsewhere. We welcome all here, but this is meant to be a day to pay our respects—a day of quiet reflection. Not one of interrogation.”
I nodded, but my attention had already shifted back to the Thibodeau family. Rachel and the detective stood talking with their son now, the three apparently deep in conversation.
There was no sign of another boy.
◊◊◊◊◊
I followed Thibodeau and his family out to the front steps. The rain had stopped, but the air was still dense, heavy with humidity. Thibodeau frowned when I approached them. A few more receptions like this and I’d start to take it personally.
“Glad to see nothing last night slowed you down any,” he said to me.
“Just here to pay my respects,” I said. He grunted. I shifted my focus to Rachel. Her sister was nowhere in sight, but her son stared at me openly. “I saw you talking to Congressman Foster—you two know each other?”
“I told you about the work that I do with the Maine Coalition for Africa. The congressman’s done a lot for the organization.”
“No kidding,” I said. I shifted gears and looked at the boy. “And I assume this is your son?”
“Jed, this is Diggs. He’s a reporter, works for Buzz Bowdoin.”
Jed smiled at the name. I looked at him in surprise. “You know Buzz?”
“He taught a journalism workshop at my school last year,” the boy said. Though he looked frail, his voice came out strong and clear.
“Cool. Listen, I thought I saw you talking to another boy a few minutes ago. Do you know him?”
He just stared at me. Rachel studied me, confused, while Thibodeau seemed oblivious, more interested in the group surrounding the congressman.
“He’s been with us the whole time,” Rachel said to me. “You weren’t talking to anyone, were you?” she asked him.
Jed shook his head, but his eyes held mine. “No—nobody to talk to but me,” he said.
“So you didn’t see a dark-haired boy in a suit, about this tall.” I put my hand up about an inch higher than Jed’s head. Thibodeau frowned again, returning his gaze to mine.
“He’s been with us all morning, Diggins—why don’t you go home and get a little rest, huh? Seems like maybe you’ve been inhaling too many fumes in the darkroom... Get out of here. Take a breather.”
He turned to Jed and Rachel and nodded toward the street. “Why don’t you two go on over to the car, get the A/C going. I’ll be right there. We’ll just do a quick pit stop at the meeting, and then we can head home.”
They both said a polite goodbye to me, Jed’s gaze still fixed on me as Rachel led him away. I don’t believe in ghosts—Solomon does, she believes all that shit, but I’m more in the camp that even so-called miracles usually have a logical explanation.
My brother was dead. I didn’t know why Thibodeau’s kid was lying about talking to the boy who looked so much like Josh, but I meant to find out.
“You sure you’re all right, Diggins?” Thibodeau asked me.
“Fine,” I said. “I was just wondering if you could tell me a little about black magic around here. You saw the thing they left on my wall last night—any idea where I might go to find out more about the symbols that were painted there?”
“You think I run in those circles?”
“No,” I said. “But if there’s something like that going on around here, it stands to reason you might know about it.”
; “Even if I did, you forget: we’re not working together. I’m running an investigation, and you’re in my way. You want to learn about black magic, find your own leads. Stay away from mine.”
“You know, being a prick twenty-four-seven is a choice,” I said. Irritation bled into the words. “You could lay off every once in a while.”
He looked moderately chastened. “The kid you asked Jed about—what was that about?”
“Nothing important, just someone I thought I knew. It’s not a big deal.”
Someone jostled me and I stepped out of the way. People were everywhere, the crowd the kind you’d expect for royalty. I was aware of Thibodeau watching my every move. “You sure you’re all right, Diggins?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. Thanks.” It took some effort, but I pulled myself back into the real world. “You said you were headed to a meeting after this—that have anything to do with Charlene Dsengani?”
“Yeah, it does. Doesn’t have anything to do with you, though.” He shrugged when I offered no response to that. “Rachel’s work—MCA—is having a little get together with Foster and Davies and some other muckety mucks to talk about what’s happened, and where they go from here.”
I’d heard nothing about it. “Without the press?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Thibodeau said with a frown. “This isn’t about photo ops or poll percentages, believe it or not. Charlene Dsengani was a good woman. All we want to do is get together, talk about how to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again, and maybe figure out what it means going forward. Without a bunch of assholes asking useless questions.”
Clearly, there was a reason I’d heard nothing. “Well, if anything comes out of it that you’d like to talk about, I’d be grateful if you gave me a call. Off the record if you want.”
The grunt I got in response suggested I’d be waiting a long time for that phone call. He said a terse goodbye and turned his back just as I saw Rick Foster catch his eye. I watched him walk away, leaving me alone on the steps with Foster still following Thibodeau’s progress as the detective strode away.
◊◊◊◊◊
Actually getting a word with Foster or Davies proved impossible, even for a creative thinker like myself. By three-thirty, everyone worth a damn to the story had left the building—presumably bound for the top-secret meeting the press hadn’t been invited to. I tried calling Solomon, but she didn’t answer her cell. For the next hour, that pricked at me like a pebble in the bottom of my shoe. I left her a couple of messages that she didn’t return, and finally called it a day. I’d interviewed every secondary person I could find remotely related to Charlene Dsengani, and gotten some good background information for the piece. Using the logic that Solomon would hopefully be waiting for me, I got back in the Jeep and headed uptown to the Tribune office.
Enough time had passed that I’d convinced myself that seeing Doug Philbrick and my brother were both the result of too little sleep, an overactive imagination, and the power of suggestion thanks to the effigy on my wall. Whatever I thought I’d seen in Jed Thibodeau’s eyes could be explained away at the same time. It still unnerved me, but I was dead certain it was all in my head.
When I got to the Tribune at quarter till five, Solomon stood out front smoking with Paul Rafferty. Rafferty had his hand at the small of her back, his head leaned in to talk to her. She laughed at something he said, though I’d never thought of Paul Rafferty as an especially funny guy.
“Solomon,” I called, stepping out of the Jeep. Rafferty scowled at me like some 1920s villain in the old talkies. I reminded myself that there was a possibility we’d all be working together in the near future, and managed a grimace that I hoped Rafferty would take for a smile.
“You ready?” I asked Solomon.
“I was just trying to convince Erin to join me for a bite,” Rafferty said. “I figure she’s earned a decent meal. Long day in the mines... You know how that goes.”
“Sure do,” I agreed. I looked at Solomon. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, the business skirt and blouse replaced with jeans and my Stooges t-shirt. I liked this look better. The way Rafferty was looking at her, I suspected he did too. My next words were out before I could stop myself. “After the night we had last night, though, you must be wiped out,” I said to her. “I just figured you’d want to get home before it got too much later.”
The words had the effect I’d intended: Rafferty dropped his hand from Solomon’s back. Unfortunately, Solomon didn’t seem grateful for my chivalry. Instead, she looked at me like she was ready to commit murder.
“Give us a couple of minutes,” she said to me, nodding toward Rafferty. Cool as dry ice now. “I’ll meet you in the Jeep.”
She returned her attention to Rafferty.
“Sure,” I said. “I can give you more time if you want. I was thinking of heading over to the office—I got a couple of leads...”
That got Rafferty’s attention. “What’s Buzz got you working on these days, anyway? It’s a damned shame how the shit hit the fan out West for you. Must be a step down being back here in Maine, huh? Fetching coffee for the old man and covering the blueberry queen scandal up in the County.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much my life, Paul,” I said. “Coffee for the codger, scribble something on the doings around town, and call it a night with Solomon here.”
The glare Solomon shot me could have wilted a man at twenty paces. “Right,” she said. “So before we head home, why don’t you give me that couple of minutes you promised.”
“Sure thing. Nice seeing you, Rafferty,” I said over my shoulder as I returned to the Jeep. I watched Solomon say goodnight to Rafferty from my spot in the driver’s seat, undeniably tickled when he returned to the Tribune alone. Solomon strode to the Jeep and got in without a word. I let her seethe for a few seconds before I said anything.
“You knew I was coming,” I said. “If you’d bothered returning my calls, you could have told me you needed more time. I was worried.”
“Sorry—I meant to, but things were crazy in there. Worried wasn’t the only thing you were, though.”
I glanced at her before I returned my gaze to the road. She was slumped in her seat, her gaze turned to the window.
“Since when do you smoke, anyway?” I asked.
“You always said it was one of the best ways to get a source to open up—go outside, share a smoke. That’s all I was doing. Turns out you were right.” She still wouldn’t look at me.
“Rafferty’s a bastard,” I said.
“I know that,” she snapped. “You really don’t think I know he’s a slimy creep? That doesn’t change the fact that the guy has the key to some things we’re both after right now. I’m not going to sleep with him, but if I can get in good, maybe get some information by shooting the shit with him, laughing at his crappy jokes—”
“It doesn’t end with that, and you know it.” She didn’t say anything. The silence crawled between us. “What kind of information?” I asked finally.
“He and Bobby Davies are tight. He had some interesting things to say about what Davies and Foster were up to in the mid ’80s. We were going to talk a little more over dinner.”
“Until I showed up.”
She turned to look at me. The anger was still there, but it was undercut by fatigue. “Until you showed up and practically peed on me. I’m not yours, Diggs. Not your territory, not your protégé. I’m not...” she trailed off.
I took Franklin Arterial down past Marginal Way and took a right onto 295 North, dodging a steady stream of traffic along the way. “You’re not what?” I asked her.
“I’m not your girlfriend,” she said. She kept her eyes on the road. There was no missing the uncertainty in her voice.
“No. You’re not.” She didn’t say anything while she waited for me to come up with something. I had no idea where to go from there, unfortunately. “I know things have been a little...intense, the last few days. I’ve crossed a line mo
re than once—”
“Don’t do that,” she cut me off. “Don’t act like you’re taking advantage of me. Like I’m some innocent ingénue and you’re...I don’t know, Paul Rafferty, for Christ’s sake. I know what I’m doing. I know what I want.”
Before I could ask her what that was, exactly, she realized that we weren’t headed back to the apartment.
“Where the hell are we going, anyway?” she asked irritably.
“I remembered a place that might have some information on the ritual performed on Charlene—and the graffiti they left on my wall. I wanted to check it out before we report back to Buzz tonight.”
“Where?”
“Boothbay Harbor. It’s a store called Enchantments... I’ve been there a few times, though not in a while. I think someone there might be able to answer some questions about the ritual stuff we’ve seen so far.”
She didn’t say anything to that, so I kept going in the hope that a little conversation might nudge her out of the mood I’d put her in. “So, what about your day? Get anything worth spending hours languishing in the depths of the Tribune with Rafferty?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” she announced. She shuffled some papers around and hauled out a stack of what looked like photocopied news articles. “Namely... Davies was the one who got Charlene, Mary, and Maisie out of Africa in ’94. Before that, he and Foster used to be tight—went to college together, family vacations, all that jazz. They worked together for a few different African charities, but it seems like things got chilly between them around ’86 or ’87. They took a trip to Darfur in the spring of ’87... And after that, they really didn’t have much to do with each other until just recently.”