The Cutting (7 page)

McCabe opened the driver’s side door and gingerly climbed out. It had stopped raining. He could see stars in the eastern sky over the bay and the first hints of red on the horizon. He climbed the three flights up to the three-bedroom condo he shared with Casey and, as often as possible, with Kyra.

Taking off his muddy shoes, he left them in the hall and went in. He opened the door to Casey’s room. He knelt by the side of her bed and watched her sleeping face. ‘Have I lied to you?’ he asked silently. ‘Have I encouraged you to believe there’s safety in a world that knows no safety?’ Of course he had, but it was a loving lie. Harsh truths would intrude soon enough. He could only hope they wouldn’t come in the brutal way they had for Katie Dubois. He brushed a strand of dark hair from over her eyes and gave her a kiss so soft he was sure it wouldn’t wake her.

Her lids flickered open, and her blue eyes, so like Sandy’s, looked up at him. She was bathed in the faint predawn light of an autumn morning. ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘You look really awful.’

‘It was kind of a rough night,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry I woke you.’

‘I was sort of awake anyway. Are you okay?’

‘You should see the other guy,’ he smiled.

‘You were in a fight?’ She sat halfway up to get a better look at him.

‘No, I’m only kidding. Go back to sleep. I’ll tell you about it in the morning.’

She looked out her window at the thin red line slowly widening in the eastern sky. ‘It pretty much is morning.’

‘There’s time for more sleep.’ He kissed her again. She put her arms around his neck and pulled him down to give him a hug, ‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘you’ll get all muddy.’

‘That’s okay,’ she said, releasing him. ‘Kyra’s here. Jane went home.’

He smiled. ‘Good night, sweetie. I’ll see you in the morning.’

He went to his own bedroom.

Kyra’s sleepy voice rose from the bed. ‘I’m glad you’re back. I was beginning to worry.’

‘Is everybody in this house an insomniac? A man can’t sneak into his own bedroom without causing a commotion?’

She flipped on the brass bedside lamp. ‘You don’t look so good.’

‘I kind of fell over a cliff.’

‘In the line of duty? Or just for the fun of it?’

He took off his torn jacket, let it fall to the floor, and sat in the birch bentwood rocker in the corner of the room. ‘We found the Dubois girl.’

‘I heard. It was on the eleven o’clock news.’

‘Any details?’

‘Not really. Just that she’d been murdered and maybe raped.’

Kyra was lying on her side, looking at him, head propped up on one arm. She was covered only by a thin cotton sheet that revealed the curves of her long, slender body, and in spite of his weariness McCabe found himself wanting her. In fact, needing her.

‘You’d better take a shower,’ she said, sensing his desire. ‘I’m not making love to anybody who looks like he finished on the wrong side of a mud wrestling tournament.’

She slipped out of the bed, naked, and walked to him. ‘Here, let me help you,’ she said.

She pulled him to his feet and began unbuttoning his torn shirt. He let her undress him, holding out his arms like a child so she could unbutton his sleeves and pull off his shirt. She unzipped his trousers and, along with his underpants, they fell to the floor. He stepped out of them. She ran her fingers, teasingly, up and down, along the underside of his erection. He reached for her.

She backed away. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘Not till you’re clean.’

They got in the shower together. The hot water played over them and stung the scraped, reddened skin on his chest and arms. She gently washed his body and then his hair, commenting, as always, on how many more gray hairs there were than the last time. Then he washed her. After that they just stood for a while in the hot water and stroked each other.

When they had dried, McCabe lay on his back on the bed and Kyra climbed on top of him. He entered her and they made love, slowly, sweetly, silently, for what seemed like a long time. Then he fell asleep, watching the horizontal patterns of light and shadow play against both floor and walls as the new morning sun shone through the slats of the wooden blinds.

He woke around seven thirty. His bruises hurt, and he was disappointed that the other side of the bed was empty. Kyra must have gotten up early and gone off to her studio. He wanted her here. He hadn’t yet had his fill of her. He pushed the sheets back. He was still naked, and with the windows open the morning air coming through the blinds felt soothingly cool on his scraped skin. He grabbed a pair of ancient red sweatpants that lay in a heap on the floor behind the bentwood rocker and pulled them on. The words
ST. BARNABAS TRACK
running down one leg represented the last remnant of Mike McCabe’s less than heroic career as a middle distance runner on his high school squad. He walked to the window and pulled the cord to open the blinds further. He stood, looking out at Casco Bay and the islands. That view and the fact that it was less than a mile’s walk to police headquarters were the primary reasons he’d paid more than he could afford for the three-bedroom condo when he signed on, three years earlier, as chief of the PPD’s Crimes Against People unit.

It was one of those golden September mornings. Not the kind he would have chosen either for investigating a murder or attending an autopsy. Cool air and a good breeze. He watched the down-bay ferry chug toward Portland and a small sailboat, its yellow-and-red-striped spinnaker billowing, move left to right across his field of vision. Absentmindedly he fingered the old scar that ran seven inches across his abdomen, a souvenir from his days as a newbie, still wearing a uniform. He’d been careless making a collar, and a drugged-out teenager slashed him with a four-inch switchblade. He hadn’t seen it coming, but he didn’t shoot the boy. He was proud of that. He brought the kid in. He was proud of that, too, but he’d vowed never to be so careless again.

There was a knock at the bedroom door. ‘Yeah,’ he called.

Casey came in and flopped down on the bed. ‘You looked pretty beat up when you came in last night.’

‘I was pretty beat up.’

She positioned the tattered remains of Bunny, a stuffed animal she’d had since she was a baby, on her lap. It was now little more than a fuzzy rag with ears, but she refused to give it up.

McCabe lay down next to her. ‘Did you have a good night?’ he asked.

‘It was okay. Gretchen and Whitney were here till about eleven. We just messed around till Whitney’s mom came and got them. Kyra came in about ten thirty. She’s gone?’

‘I think she went to her studio.’

‘Are you going to marry Kyra?’ Casey asked, a serious expression on her face. She was fiddling with Bunny’s ears.

‘I don’t know. Maybe, but not right now.’ He had no idea where this conversation was going. ‘How would you feel about that?’

‘Is that important?’

‘How you feel? Yeah. It’s real important.’

‘I dunno. I like Kyra. Would that make her my mom?’

‘Your stepmother.’

‘You think I look like Mom? I mean my real mom?’

‘Yes, you do. Your mother’s a beautiful woman. You will be, too.’

He looked down and was surprised to see that Casey was holding a picture of Sandy. In the picture, Sandy was wearing cutoffs and a bikini top and leaning against the T-Bird. The black hair. The ice blue eyes. The face the camera loved.

‘Where did you find that?’ He hadn’t seen the picture in years.

‘I’ve had it,’ she said. ‘I brought it with me from New York.’

‘Really?’ This was news to McCabe. ‘Do you have any others?’

‘A couple. This is the best one.’ They sat quietly for a moment, neither quite knowing what to say next.

‘Do you want to see your mother?’ he finally asked with more than a little reluctance.

There was another silence. Longer this time. ‘No. Not right now. Why were you so late last night?’

‘We were investigating a murder.’ McCabe wondered how much he should tell her about it and decided to offer an expurgated version. She’d see it on the news soon enough anyway. ‘A girl was killed,’ he said, ‘not much older than you.’

‘She was murdered?’ There was shock in Casey’s voice. She found it hard to believe such a thing could happen to someone her own age. ‘That’s horrible. Was she that soccer star, the one in those posters they had up all over town?’

He nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘God, she was actually murdered?’ Casey fussed with Bunny, pulling at his ears, not saying anything for a minute and then playing with the word ‘murdered,’ repeating it softly to herself once or twice to make it real. Finally she asked, ‘Do you know who did it?’

‘Not yet.’

‘But you’re gonna catch them?’

‘Yeah.’ He sat on the bed beside her, pulled her up onto his lap, and gave her a long, hard hug. ‘It’s an awful thing, but there are awful people in the world. That’s why I do what I do. That’s why you never talk to strangers. We’ll catch him. C’mon … this is supposed to be quality time.’ Teasing each other with the words ‘quality time’ was one of their private jokes. ‘Let’s get dressed and I’ll take you down to the Porthole for a cheese omelet. Then I’ve got to go back to work. Jane’ll take you to soccer.’

‘Okay.’ Casey said, smiling. She loved riding on the back of the Harley. She ran down the hall to her room to get dressed.

As McCabe watched her go, he recognized the small knot of fear that began to grow in his stomach. A fear that was as real and hard as a fist. A fear that one day, perhaps soon, he might no longer be able to protect this child whom he loved and for whom he would so readily lay down his own life.

6

Saturday. 9:00
A.M.

McCabe headed for Middle Street right after dropping Casey off at the apartment. He checked to find what, if any, progress had been made on the two cases during the hours he’d been away. That didn’t take long. Basically, there’d been none. An e-mail from Terri Mirabito informed him the Katie Dubois autopsy was scheduled for 3:00
P.M.
Maggie had been copied. He hit ‘Reply All’ and told Terri they’d both be there. There were two phone messages from Bill Fortier, who sounded nervous. Before returning them he called Tom Shockley’s home number.

‘Tom. It’s Mike McCabe.’

‘Mike. I heard about the Cassidy woman.’ Shockley sounded juiced up, excited. McCabe ran down the current status of both cases for Shockley. Much of the information the chief had already heard from other sources. ‘I’m talking to the press at eleven. I want you with me.’

‘Chief, press conferences aren’t really my thing.’

Shockley was in no mood to be dissuaded. ‘Mike, I’m just asking you to give me an hour. The press has to be briefed.’

Knowing Shockley, McCabe imagined it’d be a real circus. ‘Maybe so, but I don’t think we ought to give away too many details. For one thing, it gives the killer what he craves: publicity and attention. For another, it might give ideas to would-be copycats.’

‘McCabe, we’ve just had a horrible murder of an innocent teenaged girl. On the very same day, another young woman is kidnapped. The public has a right to know what’s going on. What we’re doing to catch the killer. The media expects you to be part of the briefings, and so do I. Cases like these don’t happen in Portland – at least not very often – but they’re part of the reason I pushed back against both the union and department tradition to offer you a job. Don’t worry. I’ll do most of the talking. All you have to do is stand there and look professional.’

For a moment McCabe just stared at the picture of Casey on his desk and said nothing.

‘Mike, are you there?’

‘What time does the party start?’

‘Eleven. Outside City Hall.’

‘Alright. Just do me one favor, Chief. A case like this is going to bring the nutcases out of the woodwork. So let’s not give out too many details.’ Knowledge of the details was exactly what they could use to separate genuine informants from the fakers.

‘Fair enough,’ said Shockley. ‘How about we don’t mention the earring or how the body was arranged?’

‘How about we don’t say anything about her heart being cut out either. That’s the big one.’

Shockley didn’t respond. He knew the details about Katie’s heart would really turn the media on. McCabe figured he was reluctant to give that up.

‘Alright,’ he said finally. ‘We’ll keep the heart to ourselves.’

‘That’s the right decision,’ said McCabe. ‘I’ll be there. So will Maggie.’

‘Good,’ said Shockley. He hung up.

McCabe stared angrily at the dead phone in his hand. He knew it wasn’t the need for a press briefing that was bugging him. That was a given. Part of the game. What was really pissing him off was his feeling that, deep down, Shockley saw Katie Dubois’s murder as an opportunity to generate headlines that’d make him look good, headlines that might even lend traction to his rumored run for governor. Especially if it was Mike McCabe, the cop from away, the cop Shockley hired over the objections of many in the department, who cleared the case. That’s what was pissing him off.

McCabe forced himself to put Shockley’s press conference out of his head. He pushed the button to boot up his computer and Googled ‘Cumberland Medical Center,’ ‘Portland,’ and ‘heart surgery.’ On Cumberland’s Web site he learned its cardiac unit, the Levenson Heart Center, was the jewel in the hospital’s crown, named one of America’s top one hundred cardiac facilities three years running. A little more digging told him a Dr. Philip Spencer headed up the cardiac unit and was, apparently, its superstar surgeon.

He clicked on Spencer’s name, and his bio popped up on the screen. Tufts University Medical School, 1988. Residence in cardio-thoracic surgery, Bellevue Hospital, New York City, ’88 through ’92. Advanced training at the Brigham in Boston in heart transplant procedures, ’92 through ’96. Came to Maine in 1996, nine years ago, to start Cumberland’s transplant program. Spencer’s list of honors ran for several paragraphs. Obviously, if anyone knew how to remove a human heart and who else in Maine had the skills to do it, Spencer was the guy.

He called Spencer’s office at Cumberland, but the doctor wasn’t there. To McCabe’s surprise, his home number was listed. He lived on the West End near the hospital. McCabe tried the number. A woman answered.