Among the Shadows

 

Dedication

For Kevin.

 

Epigraph

The past is never dead. It's not even past.

William Faulkner

 

Contents

 

Chapter One

T
HE BITTER STENCH
of urine and impending death permeated the small dingy bedroom. Hawk stood next to the bed, looking down at O'Halloran. The ancient warrior lay withered and gaunt. Patches of dull white hair clung to his age-­spotted scalp. Eyes, once calculating and sharp, were now yellowed and dim. O'Halloran was dying.

Hawk moved quickly, snatching the pillow from beneath the old man's head. He covered O'Halloran's face and pressed down firmly, his well-­developed forearms flexed.

O'Halloran thrashed about, nearly toppling the chrome IV stand, but Hawk caught it easily. Muffled screams vibrated up through the pillow. He held fast as O'Halloran's bony legs slid back and forth like eels under the coverlet, kicking the sheet free on one side. Hawk closed his eyes, attempting to block out the image before him. The old man's feeble struggles, no match for Hawk's strength, tapered off, then ceased.

In the next room a clock chimed, shattering the silence and signifying that the hour was at hand.

Warily, Hawk lifted the pillow. The warrior was gone. O'Halloran's eyes were lifeless and wide, projecting a silent narration of shock and fear. He closed them with a gentle hand, smoothed the disheveled hair, then fluffed the pillow and restored it to its rightful place. Lastly, he slid the old man's bony white foot back under the sheet and retucked the bedding.

Standing upright, he surveyed the room. Everything appeared in its proper place. O'Halloran looked serene, like he'd simply fallen asleep. Satisfied, Hawk walked from the room.

 

Chapter Two

D
ETECTIVE
S
ERGEANT
J
OHN
B
YRON
parked his unmarked Taurus behind a black-­and-­white cruiser. Neither the heat nor humidity were helping his foul mood. Only seven-­thirty in the morning and the temperature displayed atop Congress Street's fourteen-­story Chapman Building already read eighty-­four degrees. Though September had nearly passed, summer wasn't quite ready to release the city from her sweltering grasp.

Portland autumns were normally cool and comfortable. Normally. Tourists returned to whichever godforsaken corner of the globe they had come, kids returned to the classroom, and the days grew increasingly shorter.

Byron's poor attitude had more to do with the day of the week than the weather. Wednesdays always put him in a bad mood, because it was the day Chief of Police Michael Stanton held his weekly CompStat meeting, a statistical midweek tough-­mudder designed to give the upper echelon an opportunity to micromanage. Today's administrative migraine was accompanied by one of Byron's own creation. He knew of no better cure than a little hair of the dog, but nothing would land him in hot water with Lieutenant LeRoyer faster than the scent of Irish on his breath. Instead, he opted for the mystical healing properties of ibuprofen and caffeine, with a breath mint chaser. He closed his eyes and swallowed the pills on a wave of black coffee, pausing a moment before giving up the solitude of his car. On his game as always, in spite of his current condition.

Officer Sean Haggerty sat behind the wheel of another police cruiser, parked further down the street under a shady canopy of maples. The veteran officer was speaking with a young auburn-­haired woman. Byron guessed she was the nurse, primarily because she wasn't in hysterics, as most relatives would've been. He was pleased to see Hags on the call. Hags did things by the numbers. The same could not be said of every beat cop. They exchanged nods as Byron headed up the driveway.

A skinny uniformed rookie stood sentry at the side door to the Bartley Street home. Byron knew they'd crossed paths before, but couldn't recall his name. What had once been a phenomenon was occurring with far greater frequency, a clear indication the cops were either getting younger or he wasn't.

“Morning, Sarge,” the rookie said as he recorded Byron's name into the crime scene log.

“O'Donnell,” Byron said after stealing a glance at the name tag. He gestured with his thumb toward the street. “That the nurse with Haggerty?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Who's inside?”

“E.T. Pelligrosso and Detective Joyner. First floor, back bedroom.”

Evidence Technician Gabriel Pelligrosso, a young, flat-­topped, ex-­soldier, was known for being methodical, thorough, and dependable, traits Byron's own father had harped on. “If every cop on the job had those qualities, sonny boy, it'd be a sorry fuckin' day to be a criminal.” Byron stepped inside.

The odor assaulted him upon entering the kitchen. An all too familiar blend of bladder and excremental expulsion, which, thanks to the humidity, would undoubtedly linger in the fabric of his clothing all day.

He listened to their footsteps on the hardwood floor along with the occasional click of Pelligrosso's camera as they recorded the scene. Not wanting to interrupt them, he waited in the kitchen, making mental notes of everything he saw.

A 2015 Norman Rockwell calendar depicting several boys and a dog running past a No Swimming sign hung on the wall beside the refrigerator. Notations had been made with a red pen in what resembled the flowery script of a woman, perhaps the nurse. The days of the month had been crossed off up to the twenty-­third. Someone had been here yesterday. Maybe a family member or one of the nurses. He'd check with Hags.

“Sarge, you out there?” Diane called from down the hall.

Diane Joyner, Portland's first female African-­American detective, was a tough-­talking New Yorker. Tall and attractive, she'd lulled more than one bad guy into thinking he could get over on her. Prior to arriving in Portland, she'd worked homicides in the Big Apple for seven years. Byron didn't know if it was her confidence or thoroughness that made some of the other officers insecure about working with her, but those very same traits made Diane his first choice for partner on murder cases.

“Just waiting on you,” Byron said.

“We're all set in here.”

Byron walked down the hall and entered the bedroom. “What've we got?”

“One stinky stiff,” Diane said. “Formerly Mr. James O'Halloran.”

“O'Halloran?” he asked. Byron had known a James O'Halloran. Was this the same man? The emaciated corpse lying in the bed bore little resemblance to the squared-­away Portland police lieutenant from his memory. “Did we find an ID?”

Diane handed him an expired Maine driver's license. The photo, taken seven years and at least a hundred pounds ago, was definitely Jimmy O. The same man who had sat beside him in the church, on the worst day of Byron's life.

“You know this guy?” she asked.

“Retired Portland cop,” he said, returning the license. “What's the nurse got to say?”

She referred to her notes. “Nurse Rebecca St. John says she left here yesterday evening around six-­thirty, after changing his bedding and giving him his meds for the night. She returned this morning and found him like this.”

Byron looked at the IV. “Was he being fed?”

“Still feeding himself. Hospice care.”

“And the IV?”

“Pain dope. Keeping him comfortable and waiting for the cancer to do the rest.”

“If he was under a doctor's care, why are we here?”

“Nobody's been able to locate the doctor. Sounds like he's away on vacation.”

Of course he is, Byron thought.

“St. John said this was expected, just not so soon.”

Byron remembered the lieutenant as a chain-­smoker. “You said cancer. Lung?”

“And bone,” she said. “Pretty shitty way to go out.”

“How about the M.E.?”

“I spoke with Dr. Ellis,” Pelligrosso said. “Said he'd have the attending physician sign off if we don't find anything.”

“I was gonna take care of notifying the next of kin,” she said. “Unless you'd like to?”

Byron considered her question. He couldn't imagine anything more enjoyable than breaking the news of death to a loved one, especially on a sweltering day in the middle of Indian summer while still in the grips of one bitch of a hangover. It would be the high point of his day. But it was the right thing to do. “Got a number?”

Diane handed him the scrap of paper the nurse had provided. Written in the same flowery script was the name Susan Atherton along with an out-­of-­state telephone number. Byron recognized the given name, Jimmy O's daughter, as well as the Florida area code. The surname must be her married name. He wondered why Susie was still in Florida and not here with her dying father. “I'll take care of it,” he said.

Adding to Byron's discomfort, his sweat-­soaked dress shirt clung to his back. He retreated from the home's stuffy interior to the quiet air-­conditioned comfort of the rookie's black-­and-­white. While the AC in his own car was nonexistent, the air coming from the vents in O'Donnell's cruiser was icy and soothing. Byron noticed a
City of Portland Street Guide
, standard issue for all new officers, sitting atop the dash. He thought back to his first day on the job, when he was issued one of his own. Having grown up on the peninsula, he'd biked or walked every inch of Portland's in town and hadn't needed a street guide, at least not until he was assigned to patrol a beat in the Deering section of the city. Bordering the towns of Westbrook and Falmouth, Deering had been as foreign to him as another world.

He despised making death notifications, all the officers did. And yet it came with the territory. If asked, he wouldn't have dared guess how many he'd made over the years. The short answer was too many. He preferred making the notifications the way he'd been taught, in person. Death was personal and news of it should always be delivered face-­to-­face. However, in cases where the recipient of the bad news wasn't nearby, he'd occasionally sought help from the local authorities. This notification was different, as he knew Susie personally. As bad as the news of a loved one's death by phone was, he knew it would be far better coming from him than some stranger in uniform. A stranger who likely wouldn't have the best delivery.

He lowered the volume on the cruiser's base radio, then pulled out his cell and dialed Atherton's number.

A woman's voice answered in mid-­ring. “Hello.”

“I'm looking for Susan Atherton.”

“This is she. And whatever you're selling I'm not—­”

“Susie, it's John Byron.”

There was a brief pause at the other end of the line. “Johnny? Oh my God. How are you?”

He couldn't remember anyone having called him Johnny since high school. “I'm well. It's good to hear your voice.”

“I was about to say the same. It must be, what, thirty years?”

“Listen, Susie, this isn't a social call, and I apologize for dropping this on you. I'm afraid I have some bad news.”

Another pause. “Is my father dead?”

“He is.”

“Good riddance.”

Byron thought he'd experienced every conceivable emotion associated with hearing the news of a loved one's death. Some ­people fainted, some got angry, some blubbered, some punched things, but he honestly couldn't recall anyone ever telling him they were happy about it.

“Susie, I'm very sorry—­”

“Don't be.”

He wasn't sure how to proceed. She clearly didn't want his pity. He understood her feelings of resentment toward her father. They were feelings with which he was all too familiar. “Susie, I'm not sure if—­”

“We hadn't spoken in years.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

“Because he was a son of a bitch, John. A no good, lying, cheating, boozing piece of shit. What I wanted, needed, was a father, and my mother needed a husband. What we got instead was a drunken asshole.”

The conversation turned awkward and they both quickly ran out of things to say. Byron thought he heard her voice cracking as she said goodbye.

He was startled by a knock at the window. Haggerty. Byron opened the door and stepped out.

“Hey, Sarge, didn't mean to interrupt, but they're asking for you inside.” Haggerty's pained expression suggested whatever they'd found wasn't good. Byron sincerely hoped the phone call he'd just made hadn't been as premature as it now felt. His headache, which had begun to fade, was threatening to return.

“Where's the nurse?”

Haggerty pointed to the side lawn. “Calling her boss.”

“Make sure she stays here,” Byron said as he slammed the car door and walked back to the house.

They were waiting on him as he returned to the bedroom. “What's up?”

“Think we've got a problem,” Pelligrosso said. Wearing white latex gloves he peeled back O'Halloran's lips. “See the purple discoloration?”

Byron saw it and it wasn't the first time. “Bruising?”

“That's what it looks like,” Diane said.

“Could it be something else?”

“Maybe,” Pelligrosso said. “But I'm certainly not qualified to make that call. And here's another thing.” He pulled down the bottom right eyelid. “Petechial hemorrhaging.”

Hemorrhaging of the small capillaries around the eyes often appear as dark-­colored dots called petechia. Any number of things can cause these vessels to rupture: violent coughing, vomiting, crying, and certain medications. God only knew what medications had been administered to O'Halloran. And, as they were all well aware, petechial hemorrhaging can also be indicative of asphyxiation.

In his twenty years on the job, Byron had only seen two confirmed mercy killings, but this had all the makings of a third.

He phoned Dr. Ellis, deputy medical examiner for the state of Maine. Ellis lived a short distance from the Casco Bay Bridge, in South Portland. With any luck, he hadn't yet left for Augusta.

“John Byron,” Ellis said as he picked up on the second ring. “I was just thinking about you. Got something for me?”

“Not sure, Doc. You still in town?”

“On the interstate almost to Falmouth, but I can turn around and be there in fifteen.”

“You need the address?”

“Bartley Street, right? I'll look for the one with all the police cars in front.”

“We'll be waiting.”

Ellis was something of a throwback. He wore his dark hair slicked back with Elvis-­style sideburns. As medical examiners go, he was as thorough as they came, only a bit eccentric. The more peculiar the case, the better Ellis liked it. More than once he'd left his wife sitting alone at a restaurant so he could check out a “weird one.”

He arrived wearing shorts, running sneakers, and a black AC/DC T-­shirt, which stretched unflatteringly over his ample belly.

“Thanks for coming, Doc,” Byron said.

“Morning, John.” He set his worn black medical bag down and turned to address the others. “Lady and gentleman. What do we have for Dr. E?”

Diane spoke up. “James O'Halloran, seventy-­two, advanced stages of lung and bone cancer. He was found this morning by the agency nurse.”

“Uh-­huh,” Ellis said as he pulled on a pair of blue surgical gloves. “And when was Mr. O last seen alive?”

“Nurse said she left here last night around six-­thirty,” Pelligrosso said.

Ellis lifted one of O'Halloran's arms, attempting to bend it. “Not in full rigor yet, but he's getting there. Best guesstimate, he died some time between eight and midnight. Am I correct in assuming this was in-­home hospice care?”