Darkness First (18 page)

9:45
A.M.
, Sunday, August 23, 2009

Machias, Maine

S
ean Carroll had scheduled a detectives' meeting to start promptly at ten. Maggie decided to walk. It was only a few blocks from the house to the Sheriff's Department on Court Street and between the reporters, state troopers and tourists in town for the last day of Blueberry Festival, parking would be tough, if not impossible, to find. She managed to slip in the back door without being seen by any of the reporters clustered out front.

She checked with a deputy to make sure Sam Harkness had shown up as scheduled. He had. She was told he'd been fingerprinted and had left a saliva sample but nobody knew anything about a manuscript. Next she looked for Carroll and found him standing in the hall, talking with a couple of MSP detectives she hadn't met before. He made introductions. Maggie smiled, shook hands and told Sean she needed a minute.

‘Can it wait till after the meeting?'

‘I think it's better if we talk first.'

Carroll nodded and led her into Savage's office, about the only place in the building that afforded any privacy. He sat behind the beat-up oak desk that had been her father's for seventeen years. She settled back in the guest chair.

‘What do you have for me?' he asked.

‘Couple of things you need to know.'

‘Go ahead.'

‘It appears that Tiff Stoddard was sexually promiscuous.'

‘Why does that not surprise me? You have the names of any partners.'

‘Yes. Two. An English professor at UMM named Samuel Harkness.'

‘Kaplan's ex-husband?'

‘Yeah. My guess is she was screwing Harkness for grades. Or maybe because he's rich. He came in this morning and gave us some prints and DNA.' She didn't mention the manuscript.

‘Okay. Who else?'

Maggie sucked in a deep breath. Let it out slowly. ‘My younger brother Harlan.'

Two deep frown lines appeared between Carroll's brows. ‘Your brother? Is he rich?'

‘Anything but.'

‘That complicates things,' he said. ‘How do you know about it?'

‘I stopped by the Musty Moose last night after dinner. Harlan was there. We talked. He told me.'

‘He say anything else?'

‘Yes. Harlan was aware Tiff was involved in selling Oxycontin. I don't think he was involved himself but he's heard the name Conor Riordan.'

‘Really?' The frown lines got deeper. ‘In exactly what context did your brother know Conor Riordan?'

‘All he would say was that Tiff had mentioned the name once or twice. I had to work hard to get even that much out of him.'

There was a brief silence.

‘Are you going to ask me to stop working on the case?' Maggie asked.

Before answering, Carroll held up one finger to signal a time out, picked up John Savage's desk phone and punched in a number. ‘Emmett? It's Carroll. Listen, I'm going to be a few minutes late for the meeting. Would you please ask everybody to hang in and I'll be there quick as I can. Thanks.'

‘Are you going to ask me to stop working on the case?' Maggie repeated the question.

‘What do you think?'

‘I think you'd be nuts not to.'

‘So do I. You're off the case.'

‘Will you complain to the AG's office if I don't leave town?'

‘I don't know. Maybe. It's obvious your local contacts make you a valuable resource. I have a feeling you may be able to find out more about this whole affair than Ganzer or any of my other people.'

That much was true. Maggie knew Tommy Flynn never would have tipped off anyone else to Harlan's relationship with Tiff Stoddard.

‘So here's what I think,' Carroll went on. ‘You keep nosing around. Working your contacts. Asking your questions. Just do it discreetly. Don't flash your badge or tell anyone you're working for us, 'cause you're not. Just keep me posted on anything you find out and I won't tell a soul where it came from. Not the AG's office. Not my boss. Not your boss either.'

‘In other words you want me to become your snitch?'

‘I prefer the term confidential informant.'

11:55
A.M.,
Sunday, August 23, 2009

Whiting, Maine

M
ost Sundays Harlan Savage slept late. Especially when he was sleeping alone, as he was on this particular Sunday. According to the electric clock next to his bed it was a few minutes before noon when he rolled over for the third time, intending to snooze a little longer. That's when he was jarred awake by the sound of a vehicle pulling up in front of the ramshackle single-wide that had been his home going on four years now.

Not expecting company, Harlan leapt out of bed and grabbed the loaded M40A3 Marine Corps sniper rifle he always kept within reach. A bolt-action weapon that fired only one round at a time. Harlan had learned long ago that he seldom, if ever, needed more than one round. Not as long as he was shooting at only one target.

He opened the door still in his skivvies and pointed the rifle at a big guy with a square jaw and a crew cut and just the beginnings of a gut. The guy was staring back at Harlan with small piggy eyes and was wearing a tie and jacket. This, in Harlan's view, meant he was either a cop or, since it was Sunday, possibly a bible thumper. From the look of him Harlan opted for cop.

‘Who are you and what do you want?' Harlan asked.

‘What is it about you Savages?' the man asked, shaking his head and holding his arms wide to show he wasn't reaching for a weapon. ‘Do you always get all hostile and defensive when all the other person wants to do is have a pleasant conversation?'

‘Who are you and what do you want?' Harlan repeated.

‘Name's Ganzer. Detective Emmett J. Ganzer. Maine State Police.'

Detective Emmett Ganzer pulled one flap of his jacket aside and revealed a gold shield clipped to his belt. ‘If I'm not mistaken, you're Harlan Savage.'

‘And what if I am?'

‘Well, Harlan, if you'd kindly put that rifle down, I think you and I ought to have a little chat.'

‘'Bout what?'

Harlan couldn't see anyone else sitting inside Ganzer's car. He scanned the woods and the dirt road leading out of the place for a second car. Or at least a second cop. He didn't see one. This he considered odd. Having grown up in a cop's household, he was well aware that pretty much the first rule of law enforcement was never to confront a potentially violent suspect without backup. And Maggie hadn't minced words telling him he was a suspect.

‘Only take a few minutes,' said Ganzer. ‘I just want to talk to you about somebody I believe you knew.'

‘Oh really? Now who would that be?'

‘Put the gun away and then we'll talk.'

Seemed reasonable. Also seemed reasonable to get dressed instead of standing out here in the yard talking in his underwear. Harlan went back inside the trailer. Came out a minute later without the rifle and wearing a pair of khaki-colored cargo pants, black boots and a black t-shirt with the logo of a group called The Killers on it.

‘You live all the way out here alone?' asked Ganzer.

‘Alone suits me. Now what is it you want to talk about?'

‘Young lady by the name of Tiffany Stoddard.'

‘Never heard of her.'

‘Be better if we didn't play games, Harlan.'

‘I said I never heard of her.'

‘That's not what you told your sister last night.'

‘What I told my sister is between her and me. It doesn't concern you.'

‘In fact, it does concern me because I happen to be investigating Tiff Stoddard's murder.'

‘I don't know anything about that.'

‘Funny,' said Ganzer, looking right at Harlan's chest.

‘What is?'

‘That t-shirt you're wearing? The Killers?'

‘What about it?'

‘The name of the band for one thing. Considering that you may become a suspect for murder. Also the fact that it's identical to the shirt Stoddard was wearing when we found her body. Except Tiff's shirt was all cut up by the killer's knife. Just like the rest of her. Cuts all over. 'Specially the sexy places. Her boobs and between her legs. That kind of thing turn you on. Harlan?'

Harlan closed his eyes and the image of Tiff's body lying on the ground filled his brain. Not just her shirt but all her clothes cut off. Blood pouring from a dozen different wounds in a dozen different places. And just for an instant she wasn't lying in a state park in Maine but on a dusty street in Ramadi and he couldn't understand how Tiff had gotten there or why. Couldn't understand why they had to kill her. But he knew he wasn't the one who killed her no matter what they thought. He knew that. Or did he? Yes. For an instant he wasn't sure but then he was. He hadn't. At least he didn't think he had.

The sound of Ganzer's voice broke through. ‘Funny the two of you,' the cop said, ‘wearing the same exact shirt like that, isn't it?'

Harlan opened his eyes and looked hard at Ganzer, trying hard to keep himself in the moment. ‘Yeah?' he said in a toneless voice. ‘Well. I guess we just liked the same kind of music.'

‘Probably go to the same kind of concerts, huh? I heard that band, The Killers, was playing down in Bar Harbor a month or so ago. Tickets going for a hundred bucks a pop. Even more for the good seats. A lot of money for a guy like you, Harlan, doing odd jobs and all like you do.'

‘Well, you never know, now do you, how much an odd job might pay.'

‘What I also heard was you and Tiff Stoddard were getting it on. Can't say I blame you. Good-looking girl, that one. And you're supposed to be some kind of a stud yourself. Willing to stick it in just about anything that walks.'

Harlan took a deep breath to keep himself from going after the cop. Big as he was, the cop looked slow and Harlan figured he could take him. Especially if Ganzer didn't know what was coming. Still, it wasn't a good idea, he told himself. Not a good idea to beat the crap out of a cop. ‘Since what I stick it in sure as hell doesn't include an oversized pile of shit like you, Ganzer, why don't you go back to whatever hole you crawled out of and fuck yourself?'

Ganzer's face turned red with anger. ‘All right, Savage, why don't we just cut the shit. We both know you were fucking Tiff Stoddard. Now we can talk about what else you might have done to her right here or we can go into town and talk about it at the Sheriff's office. Makes no damn difference to me.'

‘I don't have to talk to you. Not about Tiff Stoddard. Not about anything else. So unless you've got a warrant for my arrest just get the fuck off my property and leave me alone.' Harlan turned and started back toward the trailer.

‘All right, Mr Savage, I suggest you hold it right there.'

Harlan stopped, sensing Ganzer had drawn his weapon and was pointing it at him. Harlan had never liked people pointing guns at him. But since Ramadi he really, really didn't like it.

‘Now drop flat on the ground and put both hands behind your head.'

‘You telling me I'm under arrest?'

‘I'm telling you to do exactly what I say. Put your hands on your head.'

Harlan turned around slowly and stared into the little black hole pointing at him from the end of Ganzer's automatic. ‘Or what? You'll shoot me?'

Ganzer smiled. A nasty little smile. ‘Don't tempt me Savage or I might just do that. Hell, why not? An armed man resisting arrest. Threatening a police officer with a deadly weapon. Feel good to finish this case fast.'

Harlan moved a step closer to Ganzer.

‘That's close enough, Savage.'

‘An armed man resisting arrest? You're the only one armed.'

‘Yeah,' Ganzer said with a mean little grin. ‘But nobody knows that except you and me. Now get your ass on the ground.'

Nobody knows that except you and me
? Was that why Ganzer had come alone? He didn't want any witnesses, not even another cop, when he shot and killed the suspect he could claim was resisting arrest. A suspect with a loaded rifle lying nearby with the suspect's prints all over it. Maggie was right. They wanted him for Tiff's murder. What she didn't know was the way they wanted him was dead.

Harlan put his hands behind his head. Started telling Ganzer to relax. That he wasn't gonna give him a hard time. But before he finished telling him that, Harlan's right foot landed, the boot hitting Ganzer's gun a microsecond before the cop pulled the trigger. The kick knocked the barrel wide to the left. But not quite wide enough.

A 9 mm slug tore through the right side of the Killers t-shirt just above Harlan's waist, taking a small chunk of flesh along with it. Before Ganzer could swing the gun back and fire again, Harlan slid his left arm through Ganzer's right. After more than a year as a hand-to-hand combat instructor at Pendleton this part was easy, even with a guy who had to outweigh him by thirty pounds. He snapped the cop's wrist backward and at the same time used his left leg to sweep Ganzer's right leg out from under him. The cop went down hard. His Heckler & Koch automatic skittered beyond reach. Ganzer reached for it, sensing there was no way he could take Harlan without it.

Harlan picked up the weapon first and then, hoping Tiff was looking down from somewhere in heaven cheering him on, he slammed his size twelve steel-toed work-boot into Ganzer's face. The cop rolled over on to his knees. Blood poured from his broken nose.

Harlan pulled a hunting knife from his back pocket, and lifted it to strike. To finish it off. For an instant all he saw, all he felt, was the warm red blood of a young Sunni fighter pouring out all over his hand.

He closed his eyes to break the spell. Opened them again, not on the streets of Ramadi but on the verdant Maine landscape. He slid the knife back in its sheath. Instead of killing the cop who'd come to kill him, he settled for kicking him again. This time in the balls. The cop gasped in pain.

Harlan opened the base plate on Ganzer's automatic and emptied the seven hollow-point rounds from the nine-round magazine as well as the one that was lodged in the chamber. He threw them into the woods. Tossed the empty gun after them. He removed Ganzer's back-up weapon from an ankle holster, thought about it for a second and then tucked that in his own waistband.

He started back toward the trailer. Changed his mind and turned back. The dazed cop was now sitting up, blood pouring from his nose, trying to focus his attention, or perhaps just his eyes, on pushing some buttons on his cell phone. Calling for the backup he should have brought with him. Harlan walked over, pulled the phone from the cop's hand, and placed it on a good-sized rock. He picked up a second, smaller rock and slammed it down, crushing the phone between the two. He then took the smaller rock to Ganzer's car and used it to smash the radio, adding, he supposed, destruction of government property to the charge of assaulting a police officer.

Harlan tossed away the rock and pulled his knife from its sheath, debating whether or not to go for the trifecta. At this point cutting Ganzer's throat was a very tempting thing to do.

‘You better kill me, soldier boy, while you've got the chance,' the cop said. ‘'Cause if you don't, I promise you, you're fucking dead meat.' The cop spat out a mouthful of blood, turned over on to all fours and started crawling toward the car. Harlan caught up with him. Kicked him one more time in the side of the head and Ganzer was out.

Harlan looked at the unconscious cop. Looked at his knife. Then walked to Ganzer's car and used it to slash and flatten all four tires.

That done, he went back inside. Pulled off his shirt. Splashed alcohol over the wound. Taped a double layer of cotton gauze over it and changed his shirt. He stuffed all the cash he had, ninety-two dollars and twenty-six cents, into the pocket of his cargo pants. Then he rolled his sleeping bag. Stuffed a backpack with half a dozen high-protein breakfast bars and a few other necessities, including a fleece jacket, a night-vision sniper scope and a spare magazine for the M40A3. He threw in a disposable cell phone that still had a few minutes left on its card. Finally he added a roll of tape and a half dozen more gauze pads and the alcohol. The bleeding from the wound hadn't stopped yet. Last thing he needed was for the damn thing to get infected.

The enemy had declared their intentions. They wanted him dead. Well, they just might get their wish because he had no intention of being taken alive. He turned off the lights. Locked the door.

Outside, he went back to Ganzer. Pulled the wallet from his jacket pocket. Left the credit cards but took the cash. One hundred and twenty-six dollars. That gave him a total of nearly 220 dollars. Enough to get started. He tossed the wallet on the ground, climbed in his truck and set off. At the end of the dirt track, he turned right, heading away from Route 1. A mile further down he turned left on to another dirt track, drove to the end and pulled the truck as far as he could into the woods, got out and threw some loose branches over the back. Satisfied that he'd hidden it about as well as he could, he climbed out, unscrewed the plates and stuck them in his backpack, locked the truck and set off on foot. If he needed a vehicle, he'd borrow, or if necessary requisition, one later. In the meantime, ATLs, Attempts to Locate, would go out for a '97 dark-green Dodge Ram pick-up which they wouldn't find. Leastways not on the road.