An Unexplained Death

by Mikita Brottman

  I realize I will have to go down to the office in person. It is an overcast December day, and I am reluctant to leave the Belvedere, where D. is grading a pile of student papers with the dog snoring contentedly by his side, providing a noisy counterpoint to Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony which is playing on the radio. Loath to quit this peaceful scene for the bleak chill outside, I put on a pair of heels and wrap myself in my pink fur coat to have something bright and warm around me, something to make me visible in the fog.

  The police records office website lists a downtown address. I park some distance away and continue on foot. I pass through the Block (Baltimore’s red-light district), past Circus and Club Pussycat, then down Water Street and Custom House Avenue, past old dockside buildings, former banks, insurance offices, and counting houses—once-genteel Federal structures, now in crumbling disrepair. I emerge in a slightly more respectable precinct, pass the Two O’Clock Club, and finally arrive at a large concrete edifice that I assume is the building I am searching for. In fact, it is not the police records office, but the police headquarters, which is not open to the public—at least, not according to the belligerent policewoman who sends me back out into the cold when I walk through the front door. She then buzzes the intercom.

  “What do you want?” she asks me.

  I tell her I am looking for the Central Records office, and she comes to the door, opens it slightly, and hands me a form—the same document I downloaded from the website.

  “Fill this out,” she demands. “Then take it to the Central Records office.” She gives me an address that is different from the one online. “Then they call you when they get your record. It could take a few months.”

  “I can’t,” I tell her. “That’s why I came down here. I don’t have an incident number.”

  “Hold on,” she says, retreating inside. For a moment, I actually believe she is going to help me. Then she returns with another copy of the same form.

  “I’ll give you two of them,” she says. “You’ll probably mess up on the first.” Then she closes the door and turns the lock.

  I walk back through the mist to my car and make my way to the address given to me by the policewoman. It’s about five miles away, in another part of town. At first, I think I must have got the wrong place. The building looks like an industrial warehouse. There is nothing to identify it as the police records office, and what appear to be the doors—at the side of the building, opening onto the parking lot—are locked.

  As I stand there wondering what to do, an older cop with a gray mustache and a winter coat over his uniform comes out for a cigarette. He tells me they are closing soon, but he will help me if he can.

  I tell him about the Rivera case. I have written down the name, the date of the incident, and the precinct involved. “I’ve been trying to get hold of the police report,” I tell him.

  “What’s the case number?”

  “That’s what I am trying to get hold of,” I tell him. “I have the autopsy report number, if that helps.”

  “That’s the medical examiner’s report number,” he says. “They use a different system. Let me take a look.”

  He takes the piece of paper out of my hand, finishes his cigarette, and invites me to take a seat on a plain metal bench in the bare reception area of the records office. I sit there waiting for fifteen minutes or so. There are no magazines, no plants, no decorations, nothing but an overflowing ashtray, a soda vending machine, and a pot of burned coffee hissing on a hot plate in the corner. From the warehouse-like office space to my rear, I can hear raised voices, shouting, and loud male laughter. It sounds like a sports bar full of men watching a football game.

  Finally, the cop with the mustache returns, empty-handed.

  “You sure there even was a police report on this?” he asks.

  “There must have been,” I say. “It was an unexplained death.”

  “Let me take another look,” says the cop, before disappearing back into the records office.

  I wait for ten more minutes. Every officer who comes out of the room to go for a smoke or to get coffee gives me a friendly smile and asks me whether I am being helped. For a moment, I can’t help but feel warm toward these kind and friendly men—but only until I remember that, to them, I am a quiet white woman in a pink fur coat who has asked for their help. I am just the kind of person they like to assist. In fact, helping me is what they are trained to do.

  As it turns out, they are no use at all. The cop with the mustache comes back empty-handed again. “I can’t help you with this,” he says.

  “Where else can I go?” I ask him.

  “You could check the police archives in Annapolis,” he suggests cheerfully. “Though a lot of records from back then were lost in the flood.”

  As a member of the general public, I am not allowed to set foot inside the Baltimore Homicide Section of the Crimes Against Persons Division, so all my dealings with the officers in this unit are by email or phone, although “all my dealings” is not a very accurate summary of the matter. In fact, I am trapped in an infinite loop of dismissal. Every one of my letters and emails, even those in which I ask questions as innocent and innocuous as “How would I go about finding a police report number for an incident?” elicit the same cold, impersonal, responsibility-dodging phrase: “We are unable to provide assistance with your request.” In retrospect, after dealing with the Homicide Division, my experience at Central Records seems not friendly but dead sinister—the bare, unmarked warehouse; the male laughter; the loud camaraderie; the smoking men coming in and out of the door smiling at me, the records “lost in the flood.”

  And then, after I have lost all hope of ever obtaining a copy of the police report, when all my requests have been ignored and my checks returned uncashed, the report suddenly appears in my mailbox, like a magic trick.

  The detectives named in the police report are no longer working for Baltimore Homicide. Michael Baier, Marvin Sydnor, and James Mingle have all retired. This should have been good news. Retired detectives are generally more helpful than those still on the force, whose jobs can be put at risk if they discuss a case with an outsider. From public information searches, I find the home addresses of the three retired detectives and write them each a personal letter about my interest in Rivera’s death, giving them my email address and phone number. I tell them I would be very grateful to hear from them. When this approach yields no results, I try the more direct method of making “friend” requests on Facebook. My requests are ignored.

  I email Justin George, a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun, asking him where I might obtain contact information for retired detectives. He suggests I call the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3. When I do so, the lady who answers the phone tells me condescendingly that she is not permitted to release information about individual members of the order. She suggests I call the Baltimore Police Department media liaison officer. I do so. His assistant tells me he is unable to help me because I am not “media.”

  I file Freedom of Information Act requests with the FBI for everything related to the Rey Rivera case. Six months after filing the request I receive a letter informing me that the FBI possesses eighteen pages of documents about the case, but that because of “sensitivity of information,” the file is confidential. However, according to the accompanying letter—which implies this is a great privilege—two pages of the file (thick with redactions) are being “released” to me. These turn out to be the first two pages of the 2003 SEC civil action against Agora, Pirate Investor, and Frank Porter Stansberry. I have long been in possession of the entire document. It is, in fact, available at the SEC’s own website.

  The Rey Rivera case is utterly perplexing. I cannot even find out if it is open or closed. No one will talk about it. But there are problems on my end, too. I am awkward and self-conscious, aware of my inexperience and lack of credentials. I am a literature professor and a writer, not an investigative reporter, definitely not a journalist. I have no connections, n
o clout, no names to drop.

  * * *

  Exploring a distant area of the city I have never been to before, I discover grand old streets lined with what must once have been splendid brownstones, their doors and windows now boarded up with plywood. I slip down an alleyway behind backyards filled with old mattresses, cable spools, abandoned strollers. Nearby, somebody is playing a saxophone. It is not the poverty that fascinates me so much as the grandeur. These nineteenth-century houses, built to last forever, stand proudly despite the neighborhood’s collapse into decrepitude. The finely detailed brickwork, cast-iron balconies, and sturdy porticos seem a denial of the truth around them, a refusal to acknowledge that the kind of people they were built for left the neighborhood long ago.

  The back streets here are, as always, full of surprises. I discover a mural of constellations surrounding the head of a man in a leopard mask riding a tiger; chickens and a rooster in a pagoda-shaped hutch; a sign outside a church declaring “Jesus Has Your Back”; a gang of stray cats gathering on the front steps of a house that looks inhabited. Are they waiting to be fed? Perhaps they’re seeking shelter. They know a storm is coming. The air is thickening, the sky growing hot and black. The wind rises suddenly; sheets of plastic and cardboard are blown from the roofs of patched-up buildings. Thunder roars. The sky flashes violet through the vacant windows of ruined buildings, then turns black, as though night has suddenly fallen in the middle of the afternoon. The scene reminds me of an old painting I once saw of the fall of Rome.

  When the rain hits, my dog and I escape down the forsaken main street until we come to a lone store whose front window is lit up, as if offering refuge. In the front window is a crowded pageant of African masks, dolls, and fetishes. Everything is jammed together in a big pile—voodoo masks, pendulous-breasted Yoruba deities, Egyptian idols, paintings of Haile Selassie and Malcolm X, a bust of Obama, an Aunt Jemima figurine. Many items are on their sides or upside down. A second window display by the front door contains old press and newspaper photographs of black musicians, all neatly labeled: Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Smokey Robinson, Jackie Wilson, Aretha Franklin, Jr. Walker and the All-Stars. Next to the window, a large blue hand-painted sign reads, “No Loitering. King Syrup Sandwich 20c. Inqurer Within.” The K and S in “King Syrup” are topped with ornate crowns.

  When we burst through the door, we bring a gust of rain inside with us. The door slams behind us in the wind. The owner, a middle-aged man with waist-length dreadlocks, introduces himself as E. He says I am welcome to stay in his store until the rain stops.

  As I am thanking E. for his hospitality, my dog, who loathes rain, indulges in a strenuous, indignant shake, almost lifting himself off the ground in his frenzy, but E. shows none of the aversion some people display at the smell of wet dog. In fact, he appears to regard the dog as one of my personal effects, like a backpack I happen to be carrying.

  He asks whether I would like some tea. I thank him. While the storm rages outside, we drink tea, and E. smokes a thin cigar.

  “Do you play chess?” he asks me.

  “I know how, but I haven’t played for years,” I confess. “I’d be terrible competition.”

  We sit in silence for a while. The shop smells of patchouli and sandalwood. Streams of rain run down the outside of the storefront windows. My dog sniffs around for a while, then settles down at my feet.

  “Is there much of a market here for African artifacts?” I ask E.

  “Hell, no,” he says. “Never was. This place is just where I store my merchandise.” He blows out a thin line of smoke. “Nobody lives ’round here anymore,” he adds. “Most of these houses are empty.”

  “Some of them look well kept up.”

  “One or two,” he agrees. “But those people don’t come in here. Those people think I’m some kind of witch doctor. The only people who come by here are the rich white people from Jewtown, and the mailman. Eighty percent of my goods I sell on eBay.”

  “That’s very smart of you.”

  E. asks whether I want to know how he got so smart.

  I guess: “From some magic herb or root?”

  “No.” He smiles. “From playing chess. Chess teaches me always to be thinking three moves ahead. My magic is not so good for making people smart. I have magic for blessings and curses, but the curses work better than the blessings.”

  I ask, “How do you know?”

  “More bad things happen than good,” says E.

  I can’t help thinking that perhaps that’s just how life is.

  E. does not try to force any of his potions or fetishes on me, or persuade me I need to be healed, but this does not mean I trust him. Nor, on the other hand, does it make him a fraud. There is no clear line between charlatan and magician.

  E. has nothing that works to solve mysteries, or to summon up the dead. But he says I need no special tools or concoctions to contact the Other Side. I just need to sit with a pencil in my hand and wait for the message to come through.

  Back at home that evening, I make my first attempt at automatic writing, sitting in the dark, waiting to feel the gentle touch of spirit fingers. I sit for hours waiting for a hint, a sign, a clue, but nothing happens. Not a breath.

  Perhaps I am caught up in my own expectations, trapped by my own idea of what ought to be happening, what the writing should look and feel like, what it should say. It may be the same problem I had with my old psychoanalyst, Dr. B.—the inability to let go of my expectations and allow my mind to wander. Have I been resisting what I cannot control, shying away from my fears, unbeknownst to myself? Or perhaps my faith is just not strong enough. I am not sure I believe in life after death, or even that I am capable of such faith. My temperament may be too gloomy and cynical. Yet as I sit there silently, pencil in hand, I can feel something growing in me. I hope it is faith, but it could be despair.

  Curious to learn more about automatic writing, I begin spending time in the George Peabody Library, a few blocks from the Belvedere; it’s a beautiful and cavernous space once described as a “cathedral of books.” The southeast corner on the top floor houses the books classified as 130 in the Dewey Decimal System: parapsychology and the occult, dreams and mysteries.

  Here are some things I learn:

  Things are fifty times more interesting on the Other Side than they are here.

  Those who have passed over would not come back, not for anything you could give them.

  Many people who pass over will not believe it for weeks. They think they are just dreaming.

  It is natural to find yourself a little confused, even a little depressed, when you first wake up. It is like finding yourself in a strange city, with strange people all around you.

  You can have pets on the Other Side.

  It is so surprising how many people come up to you, shake you by the hand, and speak to you.

  Everyone seems to be interested in you, and wants to say “How do you do?”

  The following week, D. and I visit an exhibition of artifacts recently unearthed from Faiyum, a city in Middle Egypt, whose people worshiped Sobek, the crocodile-god.

  That night, I dream I have managed to convince a judge to order the exhumation of Rey Rivera’s body. Uncharacteristically, I am terrified of seeing the corpse. The idea fills me with horror, but I know I have to follow through with my investigations. I wake with a sense of deep dread, and it takes me a few moments to recall, with some relief, that Rivera was, of course, cremated.

  Only in retrospect do I connect my dream with the unearthing of the artifacts from Faiyum. The terror may have been compensation, or perhaps wish fulfillment, since the Egyptian exhibit was crowded and disappointing. The statue of Sobek, the crocodile-god, was especially unimposing. Only fragments remained. Even so, as the informational plaque pointed out with no shame, “the snout is a modern reconstruction.”

  * * *

  On a conspiracy-theory discussion forum, I find a post by a man named Carlos, who claims to have been affili
ated with Agora, discussing the Rey Rivera case. I send him an email letting him know about my project and asking whether he can help me.

  Two days later, Carlos replies, telling me that he is no longer involved with Agora. “Unfortunately,” he writes, “I really would have nothing of any value to offer to your project: I never once met, knew, or talked to Rivera, nor do I know any more about his death than was published in the papers. I would not even have enough knowledge to engage in speculation.” Tantalizingly, he concludes: “It is true that certain ‘sources’ have been keeping up a steady drum beat of conspiracy over the years, but I have no reason to believe this was anything but a tragic suicide, [or] that those continuing that line of thought are any more than nutjobs themselves.”

  “OK. Well, thanks anyway for getting back to me,” I reply, jauntily concealing my disappointment. I cannot help but wonder whether Carlos might be including me among the “nutjobs,” a diverse squad whose key player is a blogger who goes by various aliases, including, most frequently, Beau Brant (which may in fact be his real name). Brant, who admits he incurred heavy financial losses after taking investment advice from one of Agora’s newsletters, has been bombarding the Internet for years with increasingly opaque conspiracy theories detailing Agora’s connections to Israel, the CIA, the Rothschild family, and the US government. Whatever pseudonym he chooses, Brant’s long, semi-dyslexic sentences always give him away. There is no concealing his idiosyncratic style. Here is a typical example:

  It may have been no coincidence between that [sic] death of Rey Rivera and the fact that his name had been placed on Porter Stansberry’s latest penny stock fraud promoton [sic] rag called “The Rebound Report” at that time, and that none of the sleazy pump and dump “public companies” it promoted “rebounded” from their worthless share prices any more than Rey Rivera “rebounded” when he crashed through the roof of the building below the Belvedere Hotel, but instead plunged even lower thus defrauding anyone who took their advise [sic] to buy!