Текст книги "The Chill of Night"

Автор книги: James Hayman

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

‘Gee, that’d be great.’ Maggie leaned back again, letting the jacket fall open. ‘Just a few more things to cover, Andy, and then we can let you go home. Did you ever see anybody who didn’t live in the building going into or out of Lainie’s apartment?’

‘You mean like boyfriends?’

‘Yeah. Or other women.’

‘She sometimes had a friend of hers from New York staying with her. Janie something or other.’

‘How about guys?’

‘There were some. Sure. I keep a pretty good eye on the place, and I noticed them.’

‘Do you know any of their names?’

Barker thought about that. ‘No, I really don’t. Again, it didn’t seem like any of my business.’

‘Okay. Well, thank you, Andy.’ Maggie stood up and held out her hand. Barker shook it. ‘That’s really all we need. You’ve been a big help.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Pause. ‘Maggie.’

‘Do you need a ride home? I can have an officer give you a ride.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll just catch a cab.’

Maggie watched him go. She waited until the elevator doors closed in front of him before turning and going into interview room number two, where an Asian woman was sitting at the table waiting for her.

Twenty-Four

At ten thirty on a Saturday night, the fourth floor at 109 was quiet, overhead lights dimmed to semidarkness, a feeling of loneliness about the place. McCabe came back to the office after leaving Wolfe’s because he needed somewhere to go that wasn’t his empty apartment. Here, at least, there was work to be done. A small lamp on Maggie’s desk was lit. That and the glow from her computer screen threw twin circles of cold light across her face. She was hunched over, fingers dancing across the keyboard. He pulled up a chair and watched.

‘Hi,’ he said after a minute.

‘Hold on a sec,’ she said, not looking up. ‘Just want to finish this. Okay. There.’ She looked up. ‘Hi.’

‘Where is everybody?’

‘Tasco’s still out on Harts with Jacobi and the ETs. I told everyone else to go home to their wives, girlfriends, and kiddies. Get a good night’s sleep. Start fresh in the morning.’

‘How about you? Aren’t you tired, too?’

‘Me? Haven’t you heard? I’m Superwoman. Besides, I don’t have a wife to go home to.’ She leaned back. ‘Sometimes I think,’ she said, stretching and yawning, ‘that that’s what I really need. A wife.’

‘And kiddies?’

‘Maybe someday. What brings you back to Happy Valley?’

‘Work, I guess. Plus, at the moment, I don’t have anyone to go home to either. Casey’s at Sunday River with a friend. Kyra’s decided to wait out the murder at her own place.’

‘How come?’

‘Apparently I’m not much fun to be around when there’s a killer on the loose.’

Maggie smiled. ‘She may have something there. Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. I was going to call you. Found out some stuff you’ll need to know, and I didn’t want to interrupt you at Wolfe’s.’

‘Okay. You want some coffee first?’ he asked. ‘I can put on a fresh pot.’

‘Nah, I don’t think so.’

‘I’ll make you some anyway. That way you won’t be stealing most of mine.’

He walked down to the small kitchen alcove at the end of the hall just across from the conference room. Maggie followed and watched as he poured out the dregs of the old pot made hours ago and now as thick as sludge. He tossed the grounds and washed out the pot. Then he poured in cold water and measured out coffee into a fresh filter. He could feel her presence behind him, leaning against the wall.

‘Never thought of you as being domestic,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘a real homeboy.’ He flipped the switch on the Mr Coffee. The machine started making gurgling noises. He turned. She stood in the shadows watching him, her long body nearly as tall as his own, less than two feet away. He caught her scent. Eau de cop? No. Something sexier. A lot sexier.

‘It’s not a good idea,’ she said.

‘What isn’t?’

‘What you’re thinking.’

He smiled. The Maggie radar. Always on target. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s not. As you once noted yourself, I’m taken.’

‘Yes. You are.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Don’t be. Kyra’s a terrific woman.’ The Mr Coffee made hissing noises indicating the brewing cycle was finished. ‘Why don’t you pour us some coffee?’

They went into the conference room, flipped on the bright overhead fluorescents, and sat at opposite ends of the long table.

‘Alright,’ he said, ‘now what is it you think I should know about?’

‘I’m pretty sure Barker’s been eavesdropping on Goff’s apartment. At least an audio bug. I think video as well.’

‘Hidden cameras?’

‘Knowing the guy, yes. He’s the perfect peeping-tom type. Horny. Afraid of women. Afraid of rejection. Probably been ignored or dumped on by every woman who ever laid eyes on him. Then Goff turns up. She’s at work all day, and he has a key to her apartment. How could he resist?’

‘What are you basing this on?’

‘I brought Barker in for an interview. Sat him down. He couldn’t take his eyes off my chest.’

McCabe smiled. ‘It’s a very nice chest.’

‘Try to restrain yourself. Anyway, between Andy sneaking peeks, I managed to wheedle out of him that the photographer of the shots on Lainie’s wall was Nancy Chu.’

‘Of the 3R Chus?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is Chu a professional photographer?’

‘No. She’s a software engineer. Says photography’s her hobby but she’s passionate about it.’

‘She’s also talented.’

‘Yes, she is. Apparently Chu and Lainie became friendly about a year ago. She told Lainie about her interest in photography. Lainie asked to see her work. She showed her the industrial shots. Lainie bought the six that are hanging in the apartment. Then she asked Nancy if she’d be interested in photographing her in the nude. Nancy told me she always wanted to try figure work. Lainie made a gorgeous model. So Nancy said sure.’

‘How does Barker know Chu took the shots?’

‘How indeed? The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. I had Chu in for an interview right after Barker left. She’s positive Lainie wouldn’t have told him. She only posed on the condition that Chu keep it all absolutely confidential. She also went to some lengths to make sure her face was hidden in the nude shots. Plus, Andy himself told me, more than once, Lainie never said a word to him about the photographs.’

‘Chu didn’t let it slip somehow?’

‘She says not. She said yes, she took the pictures at Lainie’s request, but no, she never said anything to Barker or anyone else about it. In fact, Chu is sure she never even mentioned her interest in photography to Barker. She finds the guy creepy and doesn’t talk to him. Never talks about personal things. She won’t let him into her apartment unless her husband is there.’

‘Did he ever see similar pix hanging in the Chus’ apartment?’

‘There aren’t any nudes. Chu said she does have a couple of the industrial shots hanging there, but they’re not signed, and she insists there’s no way Barker would know she took them.’

‘Where were the two of them when Goff asked her to take the photos?’

‘In Goff’s apartment.’

‘Did you ask Barker how he knew Nancy Chu took the pictures?’

‘No. I didn’t want to tip him off about what I suspected about hidden mikes or cameras.’

‘What do you think Barker was doing last night when I caught him with his flashlight and tool belt?’

‘I think he went up to Goff’s to remove his cameras and mikes before we found them.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes. I did a little digging and discovered Andy used to work for a specialty electronics outfit. His job was doing high-end video installations. Getting the right stuff and putting it in would have been right up his alley.’

‘Jacobi didn’t sweep the place for bugs or hidden cameras last night?’

‘Nope. We never thought about it.’

‘So, assuming Barker records what he sees, he may have some pictures of whoever it was who tossed Lainie’s apartment.’

‘Yeah. Among other things.’

‘And if there are videos, they’re in his apartment?’

‘I would think so.’

‘Did you get some people over to sweep Goff’s apartment for the equipment?’

‘No. I want to wait until we have a warrant to search his place as well. If he knows we found the cameras, he’ll destroy any videos he has hidden away in a New York minute.’

‘Wouldn’t he have destroyed them already?’

‘I don’t think so. If he has videos of Lainie, I think they’ll be precious to him. He won’t want to get rid of them. Especially now that she’s dead. He’ll just hide them away really well. Still, I have a uniform watching the apartment for any late-night visits to the dump. Or anywhere else, for that matter.’

‘You requested a search warrant?’

‘Judge Krickstein has the affidavit now. Said he wanted to sleep on it but he’d get back to me first thing in the morning.’

‘Okay,’ said McCabe. ‘Anything else I should know about?’

Maggie slid a black-and-white photo across the table. ‘Kyle Lanahan,’ she said. ‘The hot-dog man. Tasco brought him in for a chat.’

McCabe looked down at a mug shot of a good-looking man in his mid– to late forties. Gray hair. Straight features. Probably a real ladies’ man. ‘Anything?’

‘Nah, I don’t think so. That pic’s about five years old. He did a little time for burglary. Now he sells hot dogs for a living and presumably coke. Both kinds. Anyway, he’s got airtight alibis for both the twenty-third and last Tuesday. Tommy doesn’t think he’s our guy. Neither do I.’

McCabe nodded. ‘Okay. What else?’

‘Sturgis talked to the cleaning crew. Three men. Three women. All Muslim. He needed an interpreter to help with some of them.’

‘How’d he do?’

‘So-so. Five out of the six gave us nothing. Number six tried to be helpful. She’s a Somali woman named’ – she checked her notes, then read out the name slowly – ‘Magol Gutaale Abtidoon. Ms Abtidoon said she noticed someone coming in with them wearing a heavy coat with a hood on his head. All she could see of him was his glasses. Heavy black frames, she said.’

‘Kelly wears glasses like that.’

‘He didn’t have any on in the party photo.’

‘He did when I spoke to him. Let’s show Ms Abitoon some pictures of Kelly plus some other men with black glasses. Maybe something will click.’

‘Okay. How’d you do with Dr Wolfe?’

‘It was an interesting conversation. He said she has no friends he’s aware of. Has no idea where she might be hiding. He thought she might have gone to Sanctuary House. Thinks we ought to search the place. I don’t think so. Kelly said she wasn’t there. I don’t think he was lying, because too many people would have seen her there.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah. He wondered if Abby might not have killed Goff herself.’

Maggie frowned, considering the possibility just as McCabe had earlier. After a minute she said, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘I didn’t either. Let’s hear your reasoning.’

‘Okay, Abby’s schizophrenic, and yes, schizophrenics do sometimes go off the deep end, but there’s no way Abby would have done it the way it was done. A neat little hole carefully placed in the back of the neck? Carting the victim back and forth to the mainland on the ferry? Leaving notes from Amos in her mouth? No way. Forget it.’

‘Great minds think alike. I didn’t give Wolfe all those details, but if I did, I think even he would agree.’

‘Is that it?’

‘No.’ McCabe slid the photo from the party down the table to her. ‘See that tall guy in the middle?’

‘What about him?’

‘That’s Todd Markham. According to Wolfe, Goff knew him well enough to hit him up for a big donation to Sanctuary House just before Christmas. Goff and Kelly closed the deal.’

‘How does Wolfe know about it?’

‘He’s on the Sanctuary House board. So was Goff.’

‘How big was the donation?’

‘Ten thousand dollars big.’

‘Not bad.’

‘Not bad at all.’

‘You suppose she was sleeping with Markham, too?’

‘It occurred to me. She was killed in Markham’s house.’

‘Well, I know Markham’s not the killer. His story checks out six ways to Sunday.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m sure. Both his clients separately confirmed they had dinner with him in Chicago Tuesday night. Markham paid for the meal with his American Express Platinum card, and AmEx has a record of the charge. Later, at exactly 11:17 P.M. Central time, 12:17 Eastern, about the time Abby Quinn was running away from her monster and forty-five minutes or so before she woke up Bowman, Markham ordered a nightcap in the hotel bar. A Macallan single malt, by the way, which cost him fifteen bucks plus tip. You have expensive tastes, McCabe.’

‘Just an educated palate.’

They both sat silently for a moment, weighing the possibilities. ‘On the other hand, Markham did tell you, did he not, that Isabella sometimes comes up to Harts Island in the winter when he’s away on business?’

‘Yes, he did. And if he was sleeping with Goff –’

‘And gave ten thousand dollars to Sanctuary House in consideration of that relationship –’

‘And Isabella found out about it –’

‘Could the seventh person on the Monument Square video have been a woman?’

‘Possible. Of course, Abby told Bowman she saw a man.’

‘Yes, but Abby hallucinates. We both know that.’

‘Okay. Let’s get the Markhams up here for prints, DNA, and a discussion.’

McCabe waited while Maggie made the call.

Twenty-Five

Murder/suicide seemed the simplest solution. Quick. Clean. Easy. Two fat birds with one deadly stone. The cops’d buy it. Why wouldn’t they? A pair of crazies. One known to be suicidal, under enormous stress, and, as it turned out, carrying a loaded gun. How would the papers report it? SCHIZOPHRENIC WOMAN SLAYS FRIEND, TURNS GUN ON SELF? Yes, that sounded good. In the darkness of the living room, the rest of the story played out in the killer’s mind.

Following an anonymous tip phoned in to the Press Herald early this morning, police went to an apartment at 131 Summer Street in Portland, where they found the bodies of two women, Leanna Barnes, 31, of Portland, an inventory clerk at Seamon’s Plumbing Supply in South Portland, and Abigail Quinn, 25, of Harts Island. Ms Quinn worked as a waitress at the Crow’s Nest Restaurant on the island.

In a late-morning press conference, Portland police chief Thomas A. Shockley told reporters that Ms Barnes’s body was found in the apartment’s lone bedroom lying on the bed. She had been fatally shot with a .22 caliber pistol, possibly while sleeping. Ms Quinn’s body was found next to her. According to Chief Shockley, Ms Quinn apparently shot Ms Barnes twice and then took her own life with a single shot to the head, fired from the same weapon. He said evidence technicians had found gunshot residue both on Ms Quinn’s hand and on her head. ‘That pretty well seals it,’ said Shockley.

The weapon used in the shootings was registered to Ms Quinn’s late father, Earl Quinn, a Harts Island lobsterman who passed away in 2002.

Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe, head of the Portland Police Department’s Crimes Against People unit, told the Press Herald police had been looking for Ms Quinn as a material witness in the earlier slaying of Portland attorney Elaine Goff, whose body was found Friday night on the Portland Fish Pier. Asked by reporters if Ms Quinn was considered a suspect in the Goff murder, Sergeant McCabe would only say, ‘We’re considering that possibility.’

The two victims, both of whom were diagnosed as schizophrenic, met while they were patients at Winter Haven Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Gorham. Ms Barnes was released from the hospital eighteen months ago in June of 2005. Ms Quinn was released two months later. She lived for six months at Sanctuary House, a shelter for runaway teens in Portland, before returning to her mother’s house on Harts Island early last year. According to Dr Richard Wolfe, a psychiatrist on the staff of Winter Haven, Ms Quinn had attempted suicide twice in the past. ‘However,’ he added, ‘we all thought Abby was doing well lately. This tragedy comes as a terrible shock to everybody at Winter Haven who worked with either of these two patients.’ Dr Wolfe continued treating Ms Quinn after her release from Winter Haven at his office on Union Wharf in Portland. Asked if he had any warning that Ms Quinn posed a threat either to herself or anyone else, Dr Wolfe replied, ‘Not to others, no. Abby tried suicide in the past, so I knew that would always be a danger for her, but we had no inkling she represented a danger to anyone else.’ When asked if he thought Ms Quinn might be the killer of Portland attorney Elaine Goff, Dr Wolfe simply replied, ‘No comment.’

Twenty-Six

Maggie dropped McCabe off at his condo on the Eastern Prom around ten thirty. ‘Good night,’ she said. ‘Get some sleep.’

‘Good night yourself,’ he responded. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

McCabe watched the taillights of her car disappear down the Prom, kind of wishing he’d asked her up for a drink. He didn’t go upstairs right away. Instead he dawdled in the parking area, brushing soft snow off the Bird until he couldn’t find any more snow to brush. Then he got the mail and looked at that. Bills, circulars, and Casey’s report card. He thought about walking down the hill to Tallulah’s and getting a drink. The noise and warmth of the place seemed appealing. The idea of watching other people having a good time didn’t.

Finally he climbed the three flights to the empty apartment, flipped on a single lamp, and put the bills on the desk, the circulars in the recycling bin, and the report card, unopened, on Casey’s pillow. Their deal on report cards was she got to read them first. Then she showed them to him. There was never anything to hide since she almost always got As.

Still wearing his overcoat, he foraged in the fridge for something to eat. There wasn’t a whole lot. Just a couple of boxes of frozen lasagna, some wilted lettuce, most of a loaf of bread. There was also half a container of milk, Casey’s tipple of choice, and half a bottle of Sancerre – Kyra’s. He made a mental note to stop at Hannaford’s tomorrow and pick up some groceries before Casey got home from Sunday River. The Palfreys would probably leave the mountain when the lifts closed at four. That meant they’d be back in Portland no later than six.

He stuck one of the lasagnas in the microwave, set the timer, hit START. Then he reached down for his crystal glass and poured himself a couple of inches of the Macallan. He walked back into the living room and picked up the landline. The quick beeping of the dial tone indicated messages. The first was from Casey. ‘Hi, Dad, it’s me. I’ll see you tomorrow. The snow was great. The boarding was great. The hot tub was great. I’ll be home by six. Love you.’ He hit DELETE.

Next Kyra’s voice came on. ‘I’m just calling to say good night and to tell you that I love you. We’ll talk tomorrow.’ He played it again.

The third message was from Sandy. ‘McCabe, I’ve tried calling your cell a couple of times, but apparently you’re not taking calls from me at the moment. I guess whatever you called about last night wasn’t all that important. However, there is something we ought to discuss. Peter and I have been talking. Casey’s going to be a sophomore next year, and Peter feels she’ll have a better shot of getting into a first-class college from a good prep school than she will from Portland High. Peter’s a trustee at Andover, and he thinks he could probably get Casey in as a lower-middler. That’s what they call sophomores there . . .’

McCabe hung up the phone before the message finished. He didn’t want to hear any more. It wasn’t enough that Sandy had abandoned her daughter with about as much thought as a snake shedding its skin. Now she wanted to dump her in some boarding school and take her away from her father as well. Why? So she could tell the other bankers’ wives about her beautiful daughter who just happened to be away at a top-notch boarding school? Probably. Well, it wasn’t going to happen. McCabe pulled off his coat and tossed it on the couch, found an old Coltrane/Miles Davis collaboration and put it on the machine, and parked himself and his Scotch in the big leather chair in the living room. The one Casey called Dad’s chair. He sipped the whisky and regretted Kyra’s move back to her place. He wanted to be with her tonight. He didn’t want to be thinking about Sandy.

It was funny how his ex-wife never seemed to regret anything. Certainly not any of her extramarital affairs, and there’d been plenty. Kyra once asked him why he hadn’t divorced her sooner. The answer was simple. ‘Fear of losing Casey,’ he told her. ‘In most divorce proceedings the mother gets custody. The father gets to visit. I wasn’t about to let that happen.’

He could hear Sandy’s oh-so-rational arguments even without listening to them. Boarding school would be good for her. Help her grow up. Help her get into Harvard or Yale or whatever Ivy League school Peter, the man who didn’t want to raise ‘other people’s children,’ had graduated from. Maybe the saddest part of the whole thing was that Sandy wasn’t suggesting private school because she wanted Casey living with her. If she had, she could have proposed sending her to Brearley or Dalton or one of the other hotshot schools in Manhattan. No, Sandy didn’t want her daughter back. She just didn’t want McCabe to have her either.

He sipped his Scotch and let the familiar music flow over him. He realized the last time he’d listened to it was the night the marriage finally ended. The night Sandy walked out. More accurately, the night he kicked her out. The last night they made love, though by then, of course, love had nothing to do with it, the act having become no more than reflex copulation. Even in the last days of the marriage Sandy knew she could always turn him on, and she loved proving it. He wondered if her efforts were driven by ego or a need to demonstrate her power or maybe she just liked sex.

He smiled bitterly as the memory of that night replayed in his mind. It had been a hot, sticky night in late August, and McCabe and his partner, Dave Hennings, were working late trying to drill confessions out of two seventeen-year-old crackheads who barged into a dry-cleaning store at ten that morning brandishing guns. They ended up killing the owner. It took most of the night, but McCabe had finally gotten the confessions they needed to put the pair away.

McCabe got back to the apartment on West Seventy-first about one fifteen in the morning, hot and tired, his shirt soaking with sweat and sticking to his back under his jacket. Cool air and the unmistakable scent of Sandy in heat hit him smack in the face when he opened the door. The lights were low. The air-conditioning high. Miles and Coltrane were already providing appropriate background music. Sandy was leaning against the wall in the hallway, wearing a sheer silk nightgown, her naked body silhouetted by the light shining from behind the open bedroom door. She’d always been good at provocative lighting. Probably could have made a career of it. McCabe used to joke to himself that what Shakespeare was to tragedy and Michelangelo was to chapel ceilings, Sandy was to sex. A true genius. The real thing. A Hall of Famer.

She led him to the bedroom and helped him take his clothes off. Then she washed his body all over with a cool moist cloth. When that was done, she slipped off her nightgown, knelt down, and took him in her mouth. She brought him almost to the point of climax, then waited a few seconds and did it again. Finally she led him to the bed, climbed on top, and guided him into her. Sex with Sandy was always good. Often it was great. This time was one of the best. Knowing what came next, he wondered if she’d intended it as some kind of farewell gift. Something to remember and regret after she was gone. If so, he supposed it had worked. It was only last night, in Lainie Goff’s apartment, that he’d finally broken the spell. At least he hoped he had.

He remembered how, when they were done and he was utterly spent, she slipped out of bed and walked to her dressing table, where she sat, still naked, and examined her face in the mirror. Then she began rubbing some kind of cream into it. Midway through, with streaks of white still showing, she said lightly, almost as an aside, more to her own reflected image than to him, ‘Peter Ingram’s asked me to marry him.’

McCabe didn’t answer. It wasn’t unexpected. He didn’t really care.

‘I’ve told him yes,’ she said.

Still McCabe said nothing. Just waited for the other shoe to drop.

She turned back to the mirror and began rubbing in cream again. ‘The wedding will be at Peter’s house in East Hampton as soon as the divorce is finalized,’ she said, speaking again to his reflected image.

That wasn’t the shoe he was waiting for. ‘What about Casey?’ he finally asked.

‘Casey?’

‘Yes. You remember Casey? Our daughter? The one who hopefully is asleep on the other side of that wall. What about her?’

Sandy ignored the sarcasm. ‘She’ll be staying here,’ she said. ‘With you.’ She finally turned and looked at him instead of his image in the mirror. ‘I expect you’ll be happy about that. She was the only one of us you ever cared about anyway.’

That wasn’t entirely true. He had loved Sandy once. Though he couldn’t remember exactly why.

‘You won’t seek custody?’ he asked.

‘No, McCabe, I won’t seek custody. You’ll have your little princess all to yourself. Peter has no interest in raising other people’s children.’

Other people’s children? It was the casualness of the delivery as much as the phrase itself that enraged him. The tossing off of a bit of debris from a life she no longer wanted. Nothing more. McCabe looked at her image in the mirror and realized he had never hated anything as much as he hated Sandy at that moment. He thought about shooting her. It would have been easy enough. His holster and gun were only a few feet away, draped over the chair in the corner along with his clothes. Then he thought about hitting her. How satisfying it would be to feel his fist connect with the middle of her face. Feel her familiar flesh and bone give way, her nose break, her blood spurt out. He closed his eyes. Forced the thoughts of violence away. Sometimes in dreams those feelings had come back, and in dreams he’d often played them out. But that night, five years ago in the apartment on West Seventy-first Street, thanks, perhaps, to his love for Casey, he managed to hold them in check.

‘I’ll be moving to Peter’s place in the morning after Casey’s left for school,’ she said, her tone again matter-of-fact.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said, his voice flat and angry.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, her eyebrows going up as she spoke to emphasize the certainty of the thing. ‘It’s all arranged.’

He pulled on a pair of boxers and walked over to her dressing table. ‘No,’ he said, ‘what is arranged is that you have exactly five minutes to get yourself dressed and out of this apartment.’ To emphasize the point he reached across the table and swept all the lotions and creams and tubes of mascara onto the floor with a single swing of his arm.

He saw doubt and, for the first time, maybe a little fear showing on her face.

‘You’d better get moving,’ he said. ‘You’re down to four and a half minutes. If you’re not out of here by then, I’ll toss your naked ass out on the sidewalk and you can walk to Ingram’s just the way you are.’

She pulled on a T-shirt, a pair of jeans, and some flip-flops and made it to the elevator just before her time ran out.