Port City Black and White

by Gerry Boyle

  “I had to subdue him because he was hitting his fiancée.”

  “And you weren’t working?”

  “Off-duty police officers are still responsible for upholding the law,” Brandon said.

  “Daddy, if you’d seen—”

  Mr. Erickson held up his hand to silence his daughter.

  “Complicates things, the off-duty part. He can argue that he didn’t know you were a police officer, that you didn’t identify yourself, that he was defending himself from what he thought was an attack by another civilian.”

  “Daddy—”

  “That’s why—I mean, I’m not an expert, but I would think taking action while off duty would be something you’d only do in unusual circumstances, just because of the increased liability.”

  Brandon didn’t answer.

  “Just a little advice,” Mr. Erickson said. “I don’t know who you have for your personal attorney, but if you’re looking for somebody, I can have somebody at the firm make some phone calls.”

  He reached for the throttle controls, tapped at them.

  “Problem is, the fees are still considerable, even if you successfully defend yourself. I mean, it’s not like you have deep pockets.”

  “My pockets are fine,” Brandon said.

  Mr. Erickson turned away.

  “Well, what do you say, Mia?” he said. “Can I take you two kids to lunch?”

  “Sure,” Mia said.

  “You guys go,” Brandon said. “I have to be in early. Mandatory OT.”

  “What, this missing baby thing?” Mr. Erickson said.

  “Yeah,” Brandon said. “It’s a priority.”

  “Don’t know why police bother with these custody battles,” Mr. Erickson said. “Isn’t there enough real crime to keep you busy?”

  A kiss on the cheek from Mia as he left the boat, a whispered, “He doesn’t mean anything by it.” A firm handshake from her dad, Brandon squeezing back like the hand was Mr. Erickson’s throat.

  “Doesn’t Brandon look good in his uniform?” Mia said.

  Mr. Erickson ignored his daughter, said, “E-mail me if you need that lawyer.”

  An hour later Brandon was idling down Exchange Street in uniform, in the truck, slowing as he passed Rendezvous. There were three older couples at a table in the window, tourists sipping wine, resting their feet. Brandon took a left, glanced into the service alley that ran behind the block. When he looked up, the silver Mercedes was coming toward him. Winston was driving, waiting to turn. Lily was beside him, big sunglasses on for a cloudy day. The Mercedes pulled in and parked. Brandon slid into a space, adjusted the mirrors, and watched.

  Winston and Lily stayed in the SUV. Brandon watched and waited.

  Ten minutes went by. Were they talking? Why didn’t they go inside?

  Cars passed. A traffic cop doing tickets. A white delivery van pulled in and parked behind the Mercedes.

  The driver of the van—white, clean-shaven, shock of red hair, black T-shirt and black jeans—got out and approached the SUV. He spoke to Winston for a moment, walked back to the van, opened the side door, and came out with a cardboard shoebox.

  Walking to the back door of the restaurant, he put the box down on the step, turned, and strode back to the van. He had a jaunty stride, up on the balls of his feet. He climbed in and started to back the van out, the backup thing beeping.

  The van edged toward the street, the guy in the passenger seat looking back to check traffic. Brandon turned.

  Bruises. Cuts.

  Lance. Chantelle’s Lance.

  He turned in his seat as the truck pulled away, got the plate number, and scrawled it quickly on his notepad. “Small world, Portland,” Brandon said.

  Winston got out of the Mercedes and Lily slid into the driver’s seat. He walked to the door, opened it with a key, picked up the box, and, pushing the door open with his shoulder, went inside. Lily jockeyed the SUV around and drove back out. Brandon turned away as she passed. He pulled out and followed.

  She went to Whole Foods, came out with two bags. Drove to Home Depot in South Portland and came out with two more. Stopped back in the Old Port at a wine shop, returned to the car with a cloth sack, full. The next stop was the gym on Forest Avenue. Carrying a backpack, she went inside.

  Lily was keeping herself busy, take her mind off it?

  Brandon headed for the PD, feeling a little guilty, staking them out, following Lily. It was something he couldn’t tell Mia, another wedge driven between them.

  He still was an hour early for his shift, went up to Dispatch, the big room dark, lighted by computer screens. Chooch, a tiny woman with an outsized voice, was in her chair, saying, “Yes, ma’am, an ambulance is on its way. Can he talk to you? So he’s conscious, that’s good . . .”

  Brandon tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up.

  “New York?” he mouthed.

  Chooch nodded, sorted through the papers in a wire basket. Found a sheet of paper, handed it to him.

  He mouthed, “Thanks.” She said, into the phone. “So he’s talking now. That’s a good thing.”

  Brandon read the sheet in Starbucks, tucking himself in a corner booth with his laptop. It was all Brooklyn, all the time, mostly drugs: possession of a scheduled substance (crack cocaine) with intent to distribute, illegal possession of firearms, aggravated assault (four charges, three dropped), criminal threatening.

  The home address was Flatbush Avenue. Brandon googled NYPD Brooklyn gangs, searched around, got a number for the Brooklyn North Gang Unit. He called it, waited. A woman answered, barking her name: “Mastro.”

  Brandon identified himself as Portland, Maine, PD, said he had questions about a guy killed in a shooting: Renford Gayle. “Hey,” Mastro said. “We were just talking about that.” And then, away from the phone, “Hey, Luis. We got Portland, Maine, PD on the phone, wants to know about Swinger.”

  A rattle, the phone handed off.

  “Gang Unit, this is Detective Martinez.”

  “Brandon Blake, Portland PD. In Maine.”

  “Hey, Mr. Maine. What can I do for you?”

  Brandon could hear typing. A pause. More typing. Martinez googling him. Brandon heard him say, “Huh.” The shooting story.

  “We have a dead guy up here, one of yours.”

  “And we got a few busloads more, gonna send ’em north.”

  “What’d you call him—Swinger?”

  “Baseball bat,” Martinez said. “One of his weapons of choice. Aluminum. Softball, ’cause they got the skinny handle, good bat speed.”

  “Nice.”

  “Also known to shoot people in the legs.”

  “Nicer. This is all drug-related?”

  “What else is there?”

  “So Gayle was—?”

  “Low-level. Deliveries. Message boy. Enforcer. They’d point Swinger at somebody, he’d deliver the message; hence, the name.”

  “Why Portland, do you think?”

  “Don’t know. Yet. Somebody probably knew somebody who knew somebody who wanted to buy a quantity of crack. My guess is he was doing a little freelance on the side.”

  “Would Swinger be likely to do a robbery while he was up here?”

  “Well, it’s like I was telling somebody else in your department yesterday, Detective—”

  A rustling sound.

  “—O’Farrell. Like I was telling your Detective O’Farrell, Mr. Gayle wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, you know what I’m saying? He may have gotten way up there in Maine, figured it was ripe for the picking. Sees some chump with a wad of cash, figures he’ll supplement his income.”

  “No mask.”

  “I guess he wasn’t planning on leaving witnesses.”

  “Instead, a young woman shoots him dead.”

  “Hooray for her,” Martinez said. “I got a few more I’d like her to dispose of. Freakin’ Garden Posse.”

  “Was Gayle one of them?”

  “Yeah. I told O’Farrell that. Support staff,
but still a posse mem-ber in good standing, with all the associated rights and privileges.”

  “It’s all Jamaicans, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Why we let them into this country, I don’t know. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Some hardworking people. But these guys, like inviting termites into your house. You know where the name comes from? They get into a place, they blossom. Like that stuff in Florida. What is it, that jungle weed you can’t get rid of?”

  “Kudzu,” Brandon said.

  “Right.”

  “You know one of the victims—not the shooter—is from Barbados.”

  “Huh,” Martinez said.

  “Not a whole lot of West Indians in Portland.”

  “Hey, so Brandon—it’s Brandon, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s the one explanation, Brandon. Swinger is up there, makes the drop, has some time to kill. Maybe goes to this guy’s place—they serve that kinda cuisine?”

  “Yeah. Plantains and fish and stuff.”

  “Okay. So Swinger goes in, has a drink, some Jamaican soul food, whatever. Scopes the place out, too. Picks out this guy as his mark. Gonna grab some spending money. He follows ’em home. Sticks ’em up. Plan is to drive ’em out to some deserted place, pop the two of ’em, head back to New York. I mean, it’s Portland freakin’ Maine. How hard could it be?”

  “Kill two people? Doesn’t happen too often around here.”

  “Lucky you, up there in the country,” Martinez said. “Down here, Brandon? Had four yesterday. One fourteen years old. A baby. Three the day before. More coming tonight. They leave ’em on the sidewalk, we sweep up after ’em. Life is cheap, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I guess so,” Brandon said.

  “But, like I said, that’s one theory. Not the most likely one.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because these posse guys, I mean, random crime? Bad for business.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Whack another gangbanger, well, it’s not like we don’t care, but we don’t care as much. Hey, they know what they signed up for.”

  “Sure.”

  “But some regular guy, kid caught in the crossfire. That’s a motivator.”

  “Right.”

  “So this restaurateur. Good guy?”

  “Appears to be.”

  “Not a known criminal?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “What about the shooter?”

  “Young woman, mid-twenties. Pretty. Rich family. Kind of a preppie.”

  Martinez guffawed. “Renford Gayle popped by a preppie,” he said. “Well, stranger things have happened, I suppose.”

  “What about the posse guys? They gonna miss Mr. Gayle?”

  “Probably not terribly. But this is a gang, remember. You hurt one of their own, that demands a response. This preppie lady?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was her and her boyfriend, I’d watch my freakin’ back. And front and sideways, too.”

  Brandon texted Mia, asked her to call him. She texted back, said her dad was still there. It was 5:15. A serious lecture.

  Brandon and Kat were walking down the hallway to the stairs.

  “Blake,” the voice barked.

  They turned. Perry was at the top of the stairs. He jerked his chin, a summons.

  “You, too, Malone.”

  They did an about-face, headed back to the detectives’ offices, found Perry behind his desk, looking at a notepad.

  “NYPD just called. Looking for Detective Blake.”

  “They got that mixed up,” Brandon said.

  “Quickest promotion in the history of law enforcement,” Perry said. “You talk to them?”

  “I wanted to know more about Renford Gayle. What he was into.”

  “They tell you they’d already talked to O’Farrell?”

  “Yeah. This was sorta personal. Lily Lawrence and her boyfriend there, Winston—they’re friends of Mia’s. I wanted to know if this was likely to be over.”

  “Could’ve asked me,” Perry said.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

  “Next time, clear it. I don’t like to look stupid.”

  “Right.”

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “What’d they say?”

  “It’s a gang. They always get even.”

  “But they don’t usually have somebody taken out by a law-abiding woman from Maine,” Kat said.

  “Maybe they’ll think of it like an accident,” Perry said. “Like Gayle got hit by a truck.”

  “Sounds like wishful thinking,” Brandon said.

  The phone buzzed. Perry looked at the ID, picked it up.

  “No, not really. Working it hard, of course. Something will break. . . . Right. Okay.”

  He put the phone down, said, “This goddamn baby.”

  Perry took a deep breath, reached for his coffee mug, looked into it, put it back down. “How you doing?” he said to Brandon.

  “Fine,” Brandon said.

  “The newspaper?”

  Brandon shrugged. “Is what it is.”

  “I’ll find out who talked to them from here.”

  “I’m not worried about it,” Brandon said.

  “I am,” Perry said. “The coach calls the plays. I didn’t call this one.”

  “Fatima Otto,” Brandon said. “She says she’s hearing the baby’s ghost.”

  Perry looked over the desk at him. “What?”

  Brandon explained. The shabah. The Youngs. The movie.

  “When was this?” O’Farrell said.

  “Yesterday.”

  “Were you gonna tell me?”

  “I sent you and Perry an e-mail.”

  “Fucking e-mail. I’m buried.”

  “I didn’t think it was really founded,” Brandon said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, the movie with the baby crying. The old lady watching it over and over.”

  “Go get Miss Otto and bring her in here. We want to talk to her.”

  “Really? About the ghost?” Kat said.

  “This freakin’ baby. The mom, the hub of the whole investigation jumps off a bridge. Everybody else is drugged out. Her family is totally dysfunctional, no surprise. And the dad was fifty miles out at sea on a fucking fishing boat. So yeah, we want to talk to this girl.”

  He flung his pen onto the desk. It rolled in a semicircle and fell to the floor.

  “She can imagine the baby’s ghost, I can imagine we’re making some progress,” Perry said.

  They were out back in the cruiser, unpacking, settling in, when they heard the radio traffic—Bannon asking for some help with crowd control on Granite Street.

  “Go,” Kat said.

  They cut around past the Oaks, down Park and up State. By the time they got to Granite Street, other units had arrived. Cruisers were sideways on both ends of the block, blue lights flashing. Beyond the cruisers was a mob in the street. Beyond the mob were two TV satellite trucks, booms extended.

  “Whoa, live feed,” Kat said.

  Brandon eased past one cruiser, pulled in just short of the house. He and Kat got out, walked closer. A camera was set up on a tripod. A handsome guy reporter, mic to his mouth, was ushering a blonde woman closer, his arm clamped around her shoulders, bare and tattooed under her sleeveless tank top.

  Chantelle’s mother, Stacy. Her sister, standing in the wings. A crowd encircling the whole scene. Milling teenagers, the kids on bicycles, a very young mom jiggling a toddler in her arms, a kid on a skateboard, doing tricks in place. Another tank-topped woman was in front of the crowd, holding up a sign for the TV camera. portland pd: find lincoln anthony. A heavy guy beside her had a sign, too, this one on a stick: we’re poor but we count. He started a chant: “Portland PD, you don’t care. Portland PD, you don’t care.”

  The crowd joined in, turning to the nearest cop and pointing. Kat stood with her hands on her hips, expression hard and neutral. “Stay cool, Blake,”
she murmured.

  “You see her?” Brandon said.

  “Not out here,” Kat said.

  “I’ll check the house,” Brandon said.

  He skirted the cameras and the crowd, made his way to the side door. Cawley was leaning on his Harley in the driveway, watching the festivities. Snuggled against him was a woman with a mane of red hair, a t-shirt stuffed with breasts, denim short-shorts. Cawley had his arms around her waist. He grinned at Brandon, said, “Sucks to be you, huh?” Brandon didn’t answer, walked past. He could see the Youngs in their parlor window, glaring out. Looking up, he saw Mr. Otto in a window on the second floor.

  Brandon went inside, bounded up. At the Ottos’ door, he knocked. Waited. Knocked again. Waited and turned the knob. The door opened.

  “Mr. Otto,” he called. “Brandon Blake, Portland Police Department.”

  He walked into the living room, started toward the front of the house. He called again, no answer. When he got to the front room—a double mattress on the floor, a dyed-red mat-like thing on the wall—he saw Otto still standing in the window. Mrs. Otto, in a black jilbab, was sitting on a folding chair, arms folded. Samir and Edgard—shorts, NBA jerseys, Samir in Timberlands and Edgard in Jordans—leaned against the wall, staring grimly. Mrs. Otto got up and walked out of the room. The crowd still was chanting. Nobody looked at Brandon. The cop in the room.

  “Mr. Otto,” Brandon said.

  Otto, in his blue work clothes, finally turned. His eyes were big and dark and moist.

  “Officer Blake,” he said.

  “Mr. Otto, is Fatima here? We’d like to talk to her. At the police station.”

  “No,” Otto said.

  “You can come with her, sir. I’m sure it won’t take long. My partner and I can drive you both over, bring you back.”

  “No,” Otto said. “My daughter, she’s not here.”

  “Is she outside?”

  “No. She’s gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  Otto turned away.

  “Just gone,” he said.

  Brandon looked at him, glanced at the brothers.

  “The shabah didn’t take her, Baba,” Edgard said. “That’s bullshit.”