Текст книги "The Chill of Night"

Автор книги: James Hayman

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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Forty

Portland, Maine

Maggie and McCabe returned to 109. The photographs from New York were waiting for them in McCabe’s e-mail in-box. They both peered at the screen and flipped through them one at a time. There were six in all, and Lainie was right. All six were both graphic and disgusting.

For what it was worth, the girl in the photos wasn’t Tara. It was someone who looked much younger with a thin, barely developed body. She may have been sixteen, but, as Astarita said, she looked more like twelve.

‘I’m glad he’s dead,’ said Maggie, staring at the screen.

‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that.’

‘I only wish we could have made it more painful.’ She turned away from the images and went back to her desk. ‘Maybe we’ll find her alive,’ she said as she eased herself down in her chair. ‘Maybe she managed to get away.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ said McCabe. ‘You never know.’

They both knew they were blowing smoke. The odds of Wolfe’s having let the girl live when he’d killed all the others were next to zero. Even now, teams of cops equipped with ground-penetrating radar and a couple of cadaver dogs were out searching John Kelly’s five-acre property. If they didn’t find her there, they’d extend the search to the rest of the island. But the truth was, her body could be almost anywhere. The girl didn’t fit into Wolfe’s scheme to frame John Kelly, and like Maggie said, Maine was a big state.

‘I guess Kelly will be able to tell us who she is,’ he said. ‘Maybe help us find her.’ The District Attorney’s office had authorized the ex-priest’s release less than an hour earlier. He was probably already home.

McCabe shut down his computer, stuffed a couple of files in his bottom drawer, and stood up from his desk. ‘Why don’t you go home?’ he said to Maggie. ‘You’ve got to be at least as tired as I am. Maybe more. I don’t have the benefit of two bullet holes in me. Tom or Brian can go over the pictures with Kelly.’

‘You go,’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember what I told you last night? I’m Superwoman. Besides, I’d like to finish this up myself.’

McCabe called Kyra from the car. Told her it was over. Told her he was back. She was in her studio, she said, putting the finishing touches on a new painting. She told him she’d be home in an hour.

‘Wagging your tail and happy as a clam?’

‘Absolutely. I’ll stop at Hannaford’s on the way for some groceries. Somehow, I have a feeling you guys could use a decent meal.’

The lights were on in the apartment when McCabe pulled into his place on the Eastern Prom. He climbed the stairs to the third floor and unlocked the door.

‘Hello,’ he called. There was no answer. He tried again. ‘Anybody home?’

Still no answer. He headed for Casey’s room. She should have been here by now.

She was. Sitting on her bed, back resting against the headboard, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince propped on her knees. Ear buds in her ears. He studied her face, serious and intent on the story.

‘Haven’t you read that before?’ he shouted to be heard over the music.

‘I’m reading it again,’ she said. Her eyes remained glued to the book.

‘Can I come in and maybe get a “hello, I missed you, and I’m glad to see you” kiss?’

‘In a minute . . . just let me finish this chapter. Just another . . .’ She flipped the pages. ‘Three more pages.’

‘Oh no!’ He threw a hand over his heart, ‘Rejected again.’

Apparently she didn’t find that funny, ’cause she didn’t laugh. ‘Just a couple of minutes, okay?’ she said.

‘Okay.’ He went to the kitchen and poured a couple of inches of the Macallan into the cut crystal glass, came back to her room, and eased himself down onto the dark wood floor, resting his back against the door of her closet. He sipped the Scotch and studied her face. She was growing up fast, starting to look even more like Sandy than she had as a little girl. A lot more, he realized now, than Lainie Goff ever had. She had the same mouth and nose. The same silky dark hair. The same startling blue eyes. The same perfect skin. Fourteen years old and not even the trace of a zit. She was facing the blessing and the curse of being a drop-dead beautiful woman. Just like Sandy. But, thank God, that’s where the resemblance ended.

Inside, Casey was totally different. She was bright and funny and giving in a way that Sandy never was, and she had a silly sense of humor that was totally a McCabe gene. She’d taken the best of both her parents. There was going to be no stopping this kid.

‘There,’ she said, marking her place and closing the book. She got up and walked to where he was sitting, opened her arms wide, closed her eyes, and squeezed her lips in an exaggerated pucker. ‘Get up,’ she said. ‘You may welcome me home.’

‘Not sure I want to now,’ he said, looking up. ‘You blew your chances.’ He took another sip of his Scotch.

‘Well, then pooh on you.’ She turned away and headed for the kitchen. ‘By the way, there’s nothing to eat,’ she called back. ‘Just a dead lasagna that looks like it’s been in the microwave since before I was born.’

He got up and followed. ‘Hey!’ he called after her.

‘Hey, what.’

‘Hey, pooh on you, too,’ he said, wrapping his arms around her slender body. They gave each other a long, hard squeeze.

‘Kyra’s picking up some food,’ he said, releasing her. ‘She’ll be here in an hour.’

She flopped down on the couch. He sat in Dad’s chair.

‘How was the boarding?’

‘Awesome except for the tow lines. We got a ton of snow Friday night.’

‘I heard.’

‘Saturday and today were both gorgeous. You and Kyra should have come. You would have loved it.’

‘I’m sure. How was your report card?’

‘Good.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘Sure.’ She went back to her room and returned with the card. Four As and one B. He wanted to ask her about going away to school without biasing her by telling her it was Sandy’s idea. He didn’t think it would be anything she’d want to do. Still, he needed to be sure.

‘Have you thought any more about where you want to go to college?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. Orono, I guess. Or maybe USM. Then I could live at home.’

‘How about Harvard? Or Yale?’

‘Yeah, right,’ she snorted. ‘Nobody gets in there.’

‘Somebody must. They have a whole bunch of students at both places. Grades like these, you could be one of them.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘You could if you went to a good boarding school first.’

‘Boarding school?’ She looked at him as if he’d suggested taking classes on Mars. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘Just a thought.’

‘Not a very good one. I don’t want to go to boarding school. We can’t afford it, anyway. You’re always saying you can’t even pay the bills we already have.’

‘They have scholarships,’ he said. ‘You might get one.’ If she decided she did want to go away to school, there was no way he’d let Peter Ingram pay for it. She was his daughter. Not Ingram’s.

Her eyes narrowed. Her version of his Clint Eastwood squint. ‘I don’t want to go to boarding school, and I don’t know why you’re even bringing it up. You sound like you want to get rid of me or something. Like Mom did.’

He went over and sat near her on the edge of the couch. ‘No, I don’t want to get rid of you, and no, I don’t want you to go to boarding school. In fact, I’d hate it if you weren’t here.’

‘Then what’d you bring it up for?’

‘It’s something your mother suggested, and I just needed to be sure it wasn’t something you wanted to do before I told her no way.’

‘No way.’

‘Okay. Good. No way it is, then.’

‘Besides, like I told you before, I want to be a cop. Like you.’

The family business. He smiled to himself. Would it suck in yet another generation of McCabes? It hadn’t missed a single one since his great-grandfather joined the force in New York back in the 1890s. How long could they keep the string going? How long did they want to?

‘I don’t think I need to go to Harvard to do that.’

‘No, but you do need to go to college before you decide.’

‘Orono’s fine.’

‘It’s better than fine. It’s a good school.’

He hugged her again. They heard the front door open and close. Kyra appeared carrying a bag of groceries. ‘Hello. Could I have one, too? A hug, I mean?’

He took the shopping bag and put it on the floor and wrapped his arms around both his women. ‘Welcome home,’ he said.

‘It’s good to be home,’ said Kyra. ‘In fact, I don’t think I’ll be leaving again.’

‘Not even if I have another murder?’

‘Not even.’

He looked in the bags. ‘What’s for dinner?’ he asked.

‘Chicken Saltimbocca,’ she said. ‘Sautéed chicken breasts topped with prosciutto and melted mozzarella cheese in a butter and wine sauce.’ Kyra was at least as good a cook as she was an artist. Whatever she made would be delicious. ‘I’ll start it now.’

‘I’ll help you,’ said Casey. ‘Okay?’

Kyra looked surprised. ‘Okay.’ She’d never asked before. ‘Of course.’

McCabe poured Kyra a glass of Sancerre, then hauled himself up on the kitchen stool, sipped his Scotch, and watched them work.

A couple of minutes later, the doorbell rang. He debated whether or not to answer it, but then it rang again, and so he did. John Kelly was on the other side.

‘Hello, John.’

‘I stopped by police headquarters. Detective Savage told me I’d find you here.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘I saw the pictures.’

‘I’m sorry we had to put you through that.’

‘Yes. Me, too. Her name was Kimberly Watkins. She was one of Lainie’s girls. She disappeared from Sanctuary House just before Christmas.’

‘You didn’t report it?’

‘No. I didn’t think much of it. Kids take off all the time. She’s from a town called Mapleton up near Presque Isle. I thought maybe she went back for the holidays. Even the runaways get sentimental sometimes.’

‘Well, maybe she did.’

‘Yeah, maybe. But I doubt it. So do you.’

McCabe nodded. ‘Yes, I do. Anyway, what can I do for you?’

‘Nothing really. I just wanted to thank you.’

Thank him? McCabe had spent over an hour verbally beating this guy over the head and he wanted to thank him. ‘Thank me? For what exactly?’

‘For digging deeper. For not accepting the easy answers. From me or anyone else. For stopping that bastard.’

McCabe shrugged. ‘It’s my job. I do it the best I can.’

‘A lot of cops wouldn’t have bothered. You did. I wanted to thank you for that.’

‘You’re welcome. Would you like to come in? Join me for a Scotch?’

‘Thanks, no.’

‘Or some Irish? I’ve got a bottle of Black Bush around here somewhere. My brother sent it. Wanted to prove the Irish make whisky as good as the Scots any day.’

‘Some other time, maybe. Teddy’s waiting for me downstairs in the car. You go on back to your family.’ He held out his hand. McCabe shook it. Kelly left.

McCabe returned to the kitchen and climbed back up on the stool.

‘Who was that?’ asked Casey.

‘One of the suspects in my murder case.’

‘I assume it was one who didn’t do it,’ said Kyra.

‘Yes, it was. I was wondering,’ he said, ‘do you think, after dinner, you might be able to borrow the keys to the gallery?’

‘I don’t know. I can call Gloria and ask. Why? What do you have in mind?’

‘I thought maybe, after dinner, we all ought to stop by and take a look. I understand they’re showing some new work by a major Maine artist. I heard she was really good.’

Kyra smiled. ‘Yeah, I heard that, too. I’ll see what I can do.’

Keep reading for a sneak peek at

Darkness First,

the next installment

in the McCabe and Savage series

One

7:47 P.M., Friday, August 21, 2009

Machiasport, Maine

At 7:47 on a Friday evening in August, Dr Emily Kaplan’s office was still open, as it was every Friday night, for the convenience of those who found it difficult to come in at any other time.

She was finishing with her last patient of the day and, for that matter, of the week, a lobsterman named Daniel Cauley who was seated on the other side of the battered antique farm table that had served as Emily’s desk ever since she had opened her solo practice, Machiasport Family Medicine, four years earlier come September.

As she handed Cauley a prescription for the cholesterol-lowering drug she wanted him to take, she glanced out the window and caught sight of a young woman standing in the shadows at the end of the driveway staring at the house. Who, she wondered, could be standing and watching so intently at this hour? A late patient waiting for Em to finish with the one she was with now? Or perhaps someone waiting for Cauley. A daughter? Possibly a granddaughter?

‘Think these’ll help?’ Cauley’s question brought her back to the moment.

‘They will,’ she said. ‘Even more if you follow the diet I gave you last year. And maybe try getting a little more exercise.’

Cauley nodded. Said he’d try. She doubted he would.

It was five after eight and the office was technically closed by the time Cauley left. Emily walked out to the porch with him, curious to see if the woman was still there. Still watching the house. She was.

She made no move to join Dan when he climbed in his truck. As he put the vehicle in gear and executed a tight three-point turn, the beams of his headlights briefly illuminated her. She looked young with a slender figure and shoulder-length dark hair tied back in a ponytail. She also had what looked to Emily like a black eye and other bruises on her face. The truck pulled out. The headlights disappeared. The woman became, once again, more shadow than shape.

As the sound of the truck faded in the distance, she emerged from the edge of the woods, walked a dozen or so steps toward the office and then stopped as if she couldn’t make up her mind. Was she trying to summon up the courage to approach? Or had she seen the tall doctor peering at her from the porch and been put off ? She gave no sign of either. Just stood in the driveway studying the century-old two-story colonial with its peeling yellow paint and black shutters as if trying to memorize its form and structure.

The house Emily grew up in had served as her office ever since she’d come back to Washington County four years earlier with her husband Sam to set up her solo practice. A year later she and Sam divorced and the house once again became her home. A small but pretty colonial farmhouse set at the end of a country road on the outermost edges of the village of Machiasport. A good quarter mile from its nearest neighbor, the property was surrounded on one side by dense evergreen woods and on the other by a blueberry field. It was, she liked telling the few friends from med school who bothered to visit, the global headquarters of Machiasport Family Medicine. They would smile at her small joke and tell her how much they admired her decision to work here, among the people of the poorest and most underserved county in a poor and underserved state. A few told her they were sometimes tempted to do the same sort of thing. But, as far as she knew, none ever had. Her classmates had richer fields to till.

Deciding there was no point in waiting for the young woman to start moving, Emily descended the porch steps and approached her visitor to see how badly she was injured. As she drew closer, Emily guessed she was no more than twenty-one or twenty-two with what, under the bruises, seemed a strikingly pretty face. It might even have been called beautiful if it wasn’t so messed up. But, at the moment, her left eye was black and swollen shut. She had a bent and possibly broken nose. A scab had formed over a cut in her upper lip. Emily wondered what other damage she’d find in the examination room. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Doctor Kaplan. Who’re you?’

The girl didn’t respond. Just shook her head.

Emily needed to know who she was dealing with, but it seemed more important to check out her injuries first. She could always ask questions later. She put one hand on the woman’s shoulder and began steering her toward the office. ‘Okay, come in and let’s have a look at you. By the way, how’d you get here?’ she asked. ‘Somebody drop you off ?’

‘No. I drove.’

‘Really? Where’d you leave your car?’

‘Down by the state park. I walked back up.’

Emily wondered why she’d done that. The park was over a mile away. As the two women climbed the porch steps in the fading light of a late-summer evening, a pair of headlights lit them up. Both of them turned and looked. A car had pulled into the driveway but was now backing out again as if it had just been using the driveway as a convenient turn-around. Nothing unusual. Cars did that all the time once the drivers realized there was nothing down this road other than this small medical office.

Her new patient watched the car go, then stood staring into the darkness at the now empty space. Emily realized that, in spite of the warmth of the evening, the young woman was trembling. Either she was in shock or something was scaring the hell out of her.

‘Come on in,’ Emily urged. ‘Let’s have a look at your face.’

She held the door open. The woman went inside. Emily followed. The wooden screen door banged shut.

Em led her still nameless patient into the lone examination room and flicked on the fluorescents. Under the harsh lights her face looked even more battered than it had outside. Definitely in her early twenties, Emily decided. Around five-foot-four with a trim figure, and pale skin. She wore designer jeans, tapered at the ankle, and white sandals with silver studs adorning the cross-straps. Around her neck Em noticed a slender gold chain with a starfish pendant that had a diamond, or perhaps zirconium, stud in the center. A black t-shirt with the words The Killers emblazoned across the front completed her outfit. Below the words were red silhouetted images of four musicians holding instruments. Emily wasn’t sure who The Killers were. Some obscure rock band she supposed. Or maybe not so obscure. Em wouldn’t know one way or the other. She mostly listened to Mozart and Beethoven.

The girl carried a small green backpack. Emily told her to toss the pack on to a chair and hop up on the table.

‘Was there an accident?’ Em asked as she began probing the girl’s face, gently feeling for possible fractures. ‘Is anyone else hurt? Anyone else who needs help?’

The bony areas around the eye, cheek and forehead all seemed intact. So did the jaw. To be sure, she’d order an x-ray.

‘No,’ the girl said in a quiet, but firm voice. ‘It wasn’t an accident. And no one’s hurt. At least not in the way you mean.’

The girl winced as Emily opened her swollen left eyelid and peered in with an opthalmoscope. There was some bleeding on both the white of the eye and the inner areas of the lid but there didn’t appear to be any serious damage. Emily daubed her split and swollen upper lip with antiseptic and then looked in her mouth.

‘All right then, what happened? Who did this to you?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Emily frowned. ‘Of course it matters.’ She wiggled a front tooth that was loose. ‘You’d better have a dentist look at this. It’ll be coming out any time now. Do you know a dentist?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll give you some names and numbers before you leave. Now I need you to tell me who beat you up.’

‘I told you it doesn’t matter. It’s not why I’m here.’

Emily frowned. ‘Really? Then why are you here?’

The girl took a deep breath. ‘Because I’m pregnant and I need to get rid of the baby as soon as I can.’

Emily looked at her curiously. ‘I don’t do abortions, if that’s what you’re after.’

‘I know that. What I was told . . . what my . . .’ The girl paused as if deciding on an appropriate descriptor. ‘. . . my friend told me was . . . you could give me some pills that would cause, I don’t know, a spontaneous miscarriage.’

Emily cocked her head. ‘Really? And who exactly was the friend who told you that?’

‘Just a friend.’

Emily sighed. This was going nowhere. ‘Okay. What makes you think you’re pregnant?’

‘I’m late. I’ve never been late before. Usually, I’m regular as hell.’

‘Did you take a home pregnancy test?’

‘Yes. It came up positive.’

Emily glanced at the young woman’s tummy. If she was pregnant it had to be early. Maybe that’s why she’d been beaten up. A boyfriend unhappy learning he was about to become a father.

‘What’s your name?’ Emily asked. ‘Where do you live?’

‘I told you. It doesn’t matter.’

‘And I told you it does. You’re in my office. You want me to treat you. I need to know your name and where you’re from.’

‘If it’s getting paid you’re worried about, I can give you money.’

The girl reached over and grabbed her backpack. She unzipped it, rummaged around inside and pulled out a wad of bills nearly an inch thick. She thrust the bills at Emily. ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘It’s a lot of money. I can get more if that’s not enough.’

The top bill was a fifty. If the rest were all fifties there had to be at least three or four thousand dollars in the wad. Where in hell did a twenty-something kid in Washington County get that kind of loot?

‘Put your money away,’ Emily said.

The girl sighed. ‘Okay. Then what do you want?’

‘Your name for starters. Where you live. Who told you to come to me. I’d also like to know who beat you up.’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t tell you any of that.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Both. Either.’

‘But you still want my help?’

‘Yes. I need to get rid of this baby. As soon as I can. It’s important.’

As she spoke, Emily ran her fingers along either side of the girl’s nose. A fairly minor break. ‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘This is going to hurt a little.’

Without waiting for a response she inserted an instrument called a Boies elevator into one nostril. There was a slight tensing of the girl’s body as Emily pushed with her thumb against the break and popped the nose back into alignment. A painful procedure she’d experienced more than once when she was still boxing competitively. Still, there was no crying out.

‘You’re a pretty tough kid, aren’t you?’ said Emily.

The girl smiled bitterly. ‘Not tough enough.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-two.’

Emily checked the girl’s temperature. 98.5°. She wrapped a blood pressure cuff around the girl’s arm and pumped it up. One twenty over eighty. Temp and BP both normal and healthy.

‘Who’s the guy?’ she asked as she drew three small vials of blood.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know. The guy whose child you’re carrying.’

‘Trust me, you don’t want to know.’

‘As a matter of fact, I do.’ Emily labeled and dated the vials and put them in a tray. She’d write in a name later if she ever got the girl to give her one. ‘Is he the one who likes beating you up?’

‘Look, doc. No more questions, all right? I’m a big girl. I wasn’t a virgin. I wasn’t raped. I just need to get rid of this fucker’s baby so I can get the hell out of town.’

Emily sighed. ‘If you want my help, I’m going to need some answers. I’m going to need the truth.’

‘The truth? Look, Doctor Kaplan,’ the girl said in quietly angry tones, ‘I’m sure you’re a nice woman and I’m sure you mean well. But I really can’t tell you anything more about this than I already have.’

‘Why not?’

The young woman slid off the table and looked straight at Emily with her one uninjured brown eye. ‘Because if I told you or anyone else what you call the truth, the guy who did this,’ she said pointing at her face, ‘would do a hell of a lot more than just beat me up. He’d probably kill me. No. I take that back. Not probably. Definitely. And get his rocks off doing it. And if he found out I told you anything about him, he’d kill you as well.’

‘Kill?’

‘Yes, kill. First me. Then you.’