“I just wish somebody would tell me what’s going on,” Helene was saying. “Why you and those other people were at Barbara’s house. I called her again this afternoon.”
“What did she say?”
“Same as this morning. That you were just asking her a few questions. Which is absurd, that early in the day. And why was that dog there? The biggest one I’ve ever seen. Given how upset Barbara was the first time you stopped by, it doesn’t make sense.”
I opened my pantry door and pulled out a bag of penne. I tucked the phone between my right ear and shoulder and carefully tore open the bag.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Anything more will have to come from her.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Why all the secrecy?”
“It’s just how it has to be, for now. But as long as we’re on the subject.” I asked her if she knew that Abdi Mohamed and Faith Monroe were dating.
“Who told you that?”
“A little bird I snooped on. So did you?”
“No. And I find it hard to believe.”
“Why?”
“Just how things work, I guess. Abdi was pretty Americanized, but his family is still devoutly Muslim. And Faith’s father is a minister, obviously.”
“Montagues and Capulets?”
“Please. This is real life we’re talking about.”
“I agree. Just as I believe love is a many-splendored thing. But if it’s true, what’s interesting is the way it muddies the water when it comes to the firebombing. On the one hand, it gives Abdi a motive since her father was not exactly enamored with the idea of them being together. On the other hand, if Abdi really liked Faith, trying to destroy her father’s church is a funny way to show it.”
“Have you asked Barbara about this?” Helene said.
“We’ve discussed it.”
“And?”
“Like I said, you probably need to talk to her.”
“Let me get this straight. You can ask me questions about Abdi, but you won’t tell me anything about what’s going on with Barbara?”
“It’s a fair point. There may come a time when I can explain more.”
She didn’t respond right away. I went to the fridge, pulled out a couple of brats from Schuman’s meat market, cracked a second can of Black Label, dumped it into a skillet, and added the brats.
“She’s grateful, you know,” Helene said.
“Who is?”
“Barbara. I mean, that’s the impression I got, whatever it is you’re up to. I asked her if she wanted to file a complaint. With the police, for harassment.”
“That was nice of you.”
“The thing is, her reaction took me aback. It was as if I’d said something insulting. She said absolutely not. That you were a good man. That she didn’t know what she’d do without you.”
“She said that?”
“Her exact words. She just won’t tell me what you did.”
“And as I said—”
“So I guess thanks are in order. And an apology.”
“For what?”
“For thinking the worst of you. Apparently you have one or two redeeming qualities. I just wish I knew what they were.”
After I hung up I salted the water in the pot, waited for it to boil, then dumped in the pasta. I pulled a half-empty jar of Carfagna’s marinara sauce from the refrigerator and threw the contents into another pan on low. I turned the heat down on the brats, covered them, went into the living room, and flipped on the TV. I surfed until I found a tennis match being played someplace overseas, which seemed the least boring thing of everything else on at the moment. My phone buzzed with a text. Abukar Abdulkadir, wondering about any updates on Mike and Todd Bowden. I replied with a terse Nothing new. I couldn’t see the point of mentioning the gentleman’s agreement I’d struck with Patty Bowden, that I’d call her first, before the police, once I located the two. If I located them. He didn’t respond.
I watched a game and a half, stood up, went into the kitchen, drained the pasta, and turned the brats. I opened a third beer—technically only my second—and took a long pull. After another minute I turned the heat off under the brats, tossed them onto a plate with the pasta, added the marinara sauce, and went back into the living room. As I ate, I thought about my conversation with Abdulkadir in the restaurant earlier in the day. I thought about the anger and frustration local Somalis were feeling with the eyes of the law on them after Hassan Mohamed’s treasonous trip to Syria, and now the allegations against Abdi. I thought about Mike Bowden and his son. For just a moment, I considered the possibility that someone from the Somali community had been a step or two ahead of me and the police and Patty Bowden, figured out who they were, and taken matters into his own hands. Maybe they weren’t just missing. I took measure of the idea: was it all that far-fetched?
Most Somalis I knew were hardworking entrepreneurs, scrambling to make a buck like everyone else, and eager to put the violence they’d fled far behind them. But what if some rogue player from the authoritarian government that fell during the civil war had quietly acted on his own? I considered Abdulkadir’s vague responses when I asked him what he did back home. Remembered that he drove a truck all over the Midwest. To West Virginia sometimes, which depending on how he went could mean passing Brenda’s Books ’n Things. Passing the country road where Mike Bowden and his son lived.
At the rate my mind was starting to churn, I would have thought a lot more about the idea that night. I would have cracked a third beer for myself. But my phone vibrated with a text from Mike, and then one from Kym, and then another from Anne, and before I knew it the rest of the evening was spent on a flurry of preparations for Red, White & Boom. At this point the plan was to grab dinner at a food truck, watch the fireworks on the street, and then return to Ben’s office to let the crowds thin out. He had a DVD player and a big-screen TV and plenty of movies and snacks and pop and beer for the adults. Of course he did. Why should I have expected anything less?
40
I CALLED HENRY FIELDING ABOUT MIKE and Todd Bowden as soon as I figured the first pot of morning coffee was on in the homicide desk’s sixth-floor offices downtown. I gave him their names and a general idea of where they lived. It wasn’t exactly a breach of my contract with Patty, I decided, since it wasn’t like I expected to see her money anyway.
Next, I called Ronald McQuillen. As unlikely as his involvement in hacking Barbara Mendoza seemed, there were still plenty of unanswered questions in the Garden. He picked up on the tenth ring, and it was clear I’d awakened him. I apologized and, when I was sure I had his attention, reviewed my meeting with Patty Bowden. I told him the little I knew about her missing brother and nephew, and then explained about Brenda Renner and her son, Trey, and Brenda’s Books ’n Things.
“There’s a video,” McQuillen said, clearing his throat.
“Of what?”
“The Ohio Grassman. I’ve seen a few seconds of it.”
“Give me a break.”
“It’s true. I’m negotiating with somebody who knows somebody who took it. It’s pretty convincing.”
“So was Piltdown Man. Back to reality, if it’s OK with you. Does any of what I told you ring any bells?”
“Yeah, it’s interesting stuff,” he said. I could tell from the way he’d lowered his voice that he was warming to the information I’d given him, despite the fact I’d awakened him at the crack of 8:30. “I can run some traps on the Bowdens. I’ve heard of Brenda Renner. I knew she knew Derwent, but God knows how much she really understood what he was up to. One thing, though, about what you said. The way you said she got paid?”
“In cash, yeah. What about it?”
“Well—” he started to say. My phone pinged with an incoming call. Freddy Cohen.
“Sorry. Other line. I need to take this.”
“No problem,” McQuillen said curtly. “It’s not like I was doing anything before you called, other than sleeping.”
“I’ll call you back,
” I said, ignoring his sarcasm. “There’s one other thing I need to talk to you about.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“We’ve got another problem,” Cohen said when I’d disconnected with McQuillen and picked up his call. “Thanks to you, as usual.”
“What now?”
“Morris just called. She wants to know what’s going on at Abdi’s counselor’s house. Mendes?”
“Mendoza. Barbara Mendoza. Are they sitting on her?”
“I don’t think so. Morris swung by for a follow-up interview. Said there were people there who wouldn’t identify themselves. And something about a giant dog.”
“That’s Goldie. But Irish wolfhounds are bigger, for the record. Some of them are like ponies—”
“Fuck the Irish wolfhounds. What’s going on?”
I paused. “It’s a little complicated.”
“Really? With you involved? What a surprise. Anyway—”
“Actually, it’s really complicated.”
I TOOK A MOMENT to compose myself. How was I supposed to explain the dilemma that Barbara Mendoza faced without betraying her and the deal we’d struck? My three days weren’t up. But I realized I hadn’t factored the FBI’s continued interest in Barbara’s connection to Abdi into my planning. Hadn’t taken a lot of things into consideration, to be honest about it.
I decided to come clean. Maybe it was concluding that I couldn’t sink any lower in Cohen’s estimation because of how much he hated my guts anyway, because of his wife and the affair I’d uncovered. Maybe it was feeling like he deserved to know because of the connection to Abdi’s disappearance—or at least the impression someone was trying to leave of the teen as a newly radicalized extremist. Maybe it was because I was exhausted from all the blind alleys. In any case, I ended up telling him everything, up to and including the night at the warehouse.
“Good God,” Cohen said when I finished. “You’ve taken the phrase ‘off the reservation’ to a whole new level.”
“It’s not a pretty picture. Sorry.”
“Not a pretty picture? It’s Nightmare on Andy Street, for Chrissake. Anything else you’ve lied about up to this point?”
“Leaving stuff out is not the same as lying.”
“Don’t split hairs with me.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.” Cohen’s insistence on letter-of-the-law tactics on behalf of clients was legendary around the courthouse.
“How dare you—”
“Save it for closing arguments. I have another concern I want to share with you. As long as we’re laying everything on the table.”
“Another concern? You mean this gets worse?”
Ignoring the comment, I told him my suspicions about Abukar Abdulkadir.
“You can’t be serious,” Cohen said. “A Somali guy creeping around rural Ohio? He’d stick out worse than you attending a performance of La Bohème.”
“Joke’s on you. I went last year and no one noticed.” Roy and Lucy had dragged me more or less kicking and screaming. To my surprise, I’d enjoyed it, though I hadn’t rushed out to buy an Opera Columbus subscription quite yet. “I know it sounds crazy. But he had incentive and opportunity. He’s on the road a lot, including over that way. I don’t really know what he did before he came to the United States. Do you?”
“No. Does it matter?”
I said, “Life in Mogadishu made the Wild West look like a carnival ride by comparison, from what I gather.”
“If you say so. I take it you have no evidence of anything?”
I acknowledged the point.
“Then for God’s sake keep it under your hat. The last thing we need right now is to lose our connection to that community thanks to your conspiracy theories. Got it?”
“Sure, I get it. You can’t stand me and don’t believe anything I’m saying. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong, either. It’s hard to discount anything right now. You have to see that.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning it’s hard not to wonder if a couple of yahoos getting their rocks off harassing Kaltun Hirsi isn’t somehow connected to a couple of other guys in dime store masks forcing Barbara Mendoza to push an extremist agenda about Abdi. Unless it was the same two guys.”
“Didn’t you say you doubted that?”
“It doesn’t seem likely, from what I remember of Mike Bowden. But whoever they are, they want to be damned sure Barbara sticks to the terrorist script. Which suggests at the very least they have a vested interest in perpetuating that story. Or worst-case scenario—”
“They had something to do with Abdi’s disappearance.”
“Hold the presses. We finally agree on something.”
“Last time for everything,” Cohen said.
“But the thing is, where’s it get us?” I continued. “What do fake license plates and drooling over the third brother have to do with lone-wolf extremism?”
“The third what?”
I explained about David Derwent and the twisted theology involving “Seth” as a kind of Aryan super-sibling.
“Sounds pretty fucked up. But nothing I’m surprised by. Those types are seeing nothing but green lights these days. As far as they’re concerned, it’s open season if you’re brown-skinned and have an accent.”
I kept quiet. I knew Cohen was sensitive about the subject of militias, as he should be, since many of their beliefs involved anti-Semitism, sometimes lightly disguised, sometimes full in your face. Even in this day and age Cohen was still the target of the occasional slur. Not two months ago, the uncle of a murdered teenage girl had called him a “dirty Jew” in a courtroom hallway after Cohen successfully brokered a plea deal of thirty to life for his client instead of a possible death sentence.
“OK,” I said after a moment. “It’s all out there. The good, the bad, and a really ugly dog. I’m sorry I haven’t been forthcoming. But the question now is, is any of this useful? Does it help our—your—case?”
“It’s our case, Hayes.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that.”
“Don’t be. Because once this is over, we’ll either walk free together or hang together. I can’t condone any of what you’ve done, but you were right about one thing—the counselor has legitimate concerns when it comes to her daughter.”
I stayed quiet again, not trusting myself to say anything that might ruin this split-second of harmony.
“Everything you’ve told me muddies the water, that’s for certain,” Cohen went on. “But here’s the central problem: the fact that Abdi’s on video throwing a Molotov cocktail at Mount Shiloh clears the water right back up, along with that message board threat that followed. I can proffer all this, for sure. See what they say. But I wouldn’t cross my fingers.”
“And what about Barbara Mendoza?” I said. “For all I know, she’ll go underground the second she thinks her niece is in danger. The feds are going to weigh her story of being blackmailed with the fact she lied to government investigators during a terrorism investigation. Hell, they could charge her, too.”
“Believe it or not, I get that,” Cohen said. “But I’ll have to come forward with all this eventually, and sooner rather than later. If nothing else, it lays the groundwork for an appeal. I can hold off for a couple of days. But not much longer.”
“You’re saying we’re running out of time?”
“Oh, no. We’re out of time. Only thing we’ve got now is the possibility you could do your job for once.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, would you please find that kid before it’s too late?”
41
AFTER I HUNG UP I CHECKED IN WITH OTTO Mulligan, who’d tag-teamed with Troy and Goldie for the day shift at the counselor’s house. He reported that with the feds gone all was quiet again, and that his hostess was feeding him more than enough to make up for any lost wages on his part. I told him to be wary of guys in suits and sunglasses pretending to deliver Amazon packages.
Despite Cohen’s skeptical reaction to my suspicions about Abukar Abdulkadir, I decided it was time to have another talk with the Somali truck driver. He didn’t pick up when I called. I knew he lived in the next apartment complex over from Abdi Mohamed’s parents. With nothing else to do I drove there, figuring at the very least that if he wasn’t around or on the road somewhere I could look up Abdi’s sister, Farah, while I was in the neighborhood and see if she’d learned anything new. Abdulkadir didn’t answer his door when I knocked. A neighbor who said he recognized me from the news suggested I try a coffee shop and restaurant in a large indoor Somali shopping center around the corner.
The Global Mall sits in the middle of a strip plaza on Morse Road on the north side, a part of town teetering on the brink of resuscitation after years of decline. Shops packed with scarves and dresses and jewelry fill the mall’s interior, each business boasting a brighter and more colorful collection than the last. The air smelled of incense and cardamom and sweets. Women in their own scarves and dresses strolled down the aisles examining the clothes, which hung from floor-to-ceiling racks like the world’s largest collection of exotic prom dresses. I made a circuit of the shops, looking around for Abdulkadir. I was paid scant attention, despite being the only white person there. Reaching the other side of the mall, I walked up to a small coffee shop where a line of men stood waiting to place orders. Looking around, I spied Abdulkadir sitting at a table with someone I didn’t recognize. His eyes went wide when I approached.
“See tahay,” I said, having practiced the greeting.
“Andy,” he said. “Asalamalakim. Peace be with you. What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
“Of course, of course. One moment please.” He finished his conversation, stood, and directed me to two empty seats by the window overlooking the parking lot. When we were settled, he said, “What is it? Is something wrong?”
I decided just to come out with it. “Something I need to clear up. Your trucking. Did it happen to take you to eastern Ohio recently?”
He looked puzzled. “I was on route 70 last week, on my way to Wheeling. Why do you ask?”
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