The Chill of Night (22 page)

‘Are you going to shoot me?’ She hadn’t planned on asking him that. The words just spilled out all by themselves. He stepped on the brake and stopped the truck halfway in and halfway out of the parking space.

‘What? What in hell are you talking about? I think maybe you
are
crazy.’

‘You have a gun. I saw it.’

‘Yes, I have a gun. I’m supposed to have a gun,’ he said.

‘Nobody’s
supposed
to have a gun.’ Maybe he was Death after all.

‘I am. I’m a cop. Really, Abby, it’s okay.’

He smiled again. That friendly reassuring smile that made the Voices yawn and go back to sleep. He took out a wallet from a jacket pocket and flipped it open. A badge and an ID card with his picture on it. Portland Police Department. Joseph L. Vodnick. He handed her a card and said, ‘Listen, Abby, if you’re ever afraid of something or worried or anything, you just call the number on this card and I’ll come right over. Okay?’

Abby looked at the card and nodded, but she didn’t say anything back. After that she just stared straight ahead as they drove, watching the wipers wipe the snow away.

Sixteen

Portland, Maine

Saturday, January 7

9:00
A.M
.

McCabe inched toward consciousness, eyes closed, sunshine warming his face. Someone must have opened the blinds and let the sun in. The brightness hurt even behind his closed lids. Not a nice thing to do to someone who’d only had a couple of hours of sleep. He slid his hand over to the other side of the bed, felt around, and came up empty. Explored further. Nothing but sheet.

‘Looking for something?’

Kyra’s voice came from behind him. She sounded amused, and he thought she had a hell of a nerve sounding amused at this ungodly hour of the morning. He thought back and remembered all he’d drunk and all he hadn’t eaten the night before. Amazingly he didn’t have a headache. Just a hell of a thirst. Nothing that would qualify as a hangover. He figured that most of what he was feeling was from lack of sleep. He flopped over onto his left side and squinted at her. ‘What time is it?’

She was sitting in the bentwood rocker sipping coffee. ‘Nine fifteen.’

He absorbed this information. Nodded. Okay. Nine fifteen. Four hours’ sleep. Plenty enough for anyone. He opened his eyes farther. She was wearing an oversized New York Giants jersey with Tiki Barber’s number twenty-one on it and a pair of plaid pajama bottoms. Both were his.

‘Can I get you some coffee?’

He grunted something vaguely affirmative. She pulled herself out of the rocker and headed for the kitchen. By the time she got back he was sitting up. She put a mug of coffee on the bedside table and handed him a large glass of orange juice.

‘Here. You looked like you could use this as well.’

‘Thank you.’ He chugged it down in a couple of gulps, then traded the glass for the coffee. ‘How was your show last night?’

‘Excellent. Over a hundred people. Two red dots and a lot of positive ego massaging from all and sundry.’

‘Including Kleinerman?’

‘Umm. Yes. He interviewed me. Said there’d be a piece in tomorrow’s paper.’

‘Tomorrow tomorrow or tomorrow today?’

‘Tomorrow tomorrow. Sunday. How was your murder?’

He took a deep breath. ‘Pretty ugly,’ he said, sipping at the coffee. ‘A young woman. Lawyer here in town. Somebody stuck a knife in her neck and stuffed her body into the trunk of her own car. She was frozen solid. The weird thing, at least for me, was that she was the spitting image of Sandy. I mean identical.’

She looked at him curiously. ‘Did that bother you?’

He didn’t respond for a minute. Finally he said, ‘Yeah. It did. At first. For a minute I had this crazy idea that it was Sandy and that I’d done it, like in my dreams. But once I got used to the idea that the victim wasn’t either my ex-wife or my kid’s mother and that I wasn’t the murderer, I calmed down.’ Not quite the whole truth, but close enough to holler at. Even better, it hadn’t bothered him telling her about the murder or Goff’s resemblance to Sandy, which he figured had to be a good sign.

‘Do you know who did it?’

‘You know the old cliché, everyone’s a suspect, which, roughly translated, means we haven’t got a clue.’

‘Which, roughly translated, means this case is going to take all your time and attention.’

‘For a while, yeah, I think it will.’

Kyra sipped her coffee, thinking about what he’d said. Finally she nodded. More to herself than to him. ‘Okay. I’m going to move back to my own place.’

‘For good?’

‘No. For the time being. Until this is resolved. Until we can really be together again.’

‘That isn’t necessary.’

‘I think it is. It’s what I was talking about yesterday. I don’t want to spend all my time wondering what you’re doing or what time you’re going to be coming home. If I’m at my place I won’t be thinking about it so much. Just let me know when it’s over, and I’ll come on back, happy as a clam, wagging my tail.’

He ignored the mixed metaphor. Or simile. Or whatever it was. ‘So we’re not going to see each other at all?’ He noticed his bare foot tapping on the floor. ‘What about having dinner together?’

‘We can do that. If you’re ever free for dinner, which, based on past experience, I don’t think is likely. The way I figure it is when you’re up to your ears in a murder we don’t see each other anyway.’

‘You won’t mind if I call you?’

‘I’d mind if you didn’t.’

‘Okay. I guess.’ McCabe brightened. ‘How about conjugal visits? Like they allow in prison?’

‘Really? They allow that? In prison?’

‘In New York they do. And I think California.’

‘How about Maine?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, there you go, then.’

While Kyra went off to take a shower and collect her stuff, McCabe threw on a robe and went into the living room to call Henry Ogden’s home number, the one Beth Kotterman had given him. The lawyer picked up on the third ring. McCabe told him who he was and why he was calling, but before he could ask for a meeting Ogden slipped smoothly into corporate bullshit mode, letting McCabe know that Beth Kotterman had called him late last night and informed him of Lainie’s death and what a shock it would be to everybody at the firm, especially to those who worked closely with her, as he did, in Palmer Milliken’s M&A practice area. Yes, it was a terrible thing, and the firm would have to do something special in the way of a memorial service. McCabe closed his eyes and let Ogden rattle on for a while, only half listening, trying to attach a face to the voice. Randall Jackson’s description of that last Friday before Christmas ran through his mind. Ogden sounded like Jackson said he looked. A rich white guy.

Finally McCabe cut in on the oration. ‘Excuse me, Mr Ogden. I understand how upset everybody must be, but I was hoping you and I could have a little chat in person.’

‘About Lainie?’

What the hell did he think McCabe wanted to talk to him about? ‘Yes. About Lainie, and about her murder.’

‘I’m not sure what I can add …’

‘As an attorney, I’m sure you understand how important it is that we talk to everyone who knew her, everyone who worked with her. We want to get as complete a picture as possible of Lainie’s life and why someone might have wanted to end it.’

Ogden tried to interrupt, but this time it was McCabe who kept talking. ‘I’d like to meet with you as soon as possible. Later this morning or early this afternoon if that works for you.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not terribly convenient. Barbara and I are having guests from out of town over for lunch. She’s been planning it for some time, and you know how women are when husbands mess up their plans.’ He chuckled in a man-to-man way.

McCabe wondered if Ogden was trying to avoid a meeting – and if so, why? He wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily. ‘It’s important, Mr Ogden, and it shouldn’t take very long.’

‘Couldn’t we do this tomorrow?’

‘Today would be better.’

‘Oh, alright,’ Ogden said, not trying to hide his impatience. ‘If you can be here at ten thirty I’ll see if I can spare you half an hour or so.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Cape Elizabeth.’

McCabe checked his watch. It was nine thirty. No part of Cape Elizabeth was more than twenty minutes away. If he moved fast he could grab a shower and still be there easily. He’d rather meet with Ogden at 109, but then again, going to his house would give him a chance to see how the man lived. The only other problem was the ten o’clock meeting with his detectives. He’d have to ask Maggie to run it and fill him in later. He was sure she’d be okay with that. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at ten thirty sharp.’

‘Good. Our cottage is at 367 Ledge Road. Do you know where that is?’

‘No, but I can find it.’

McCabe was showered, shaved, and out the door by ten. The parking area downstairs was plowed, and it took him less than five minutes to clear the snow and ice from the Crown Vic and pull out onto the Eastern Prom. He headed down Fore Street and then veered left by the statue of John Ford onto York Street heading toward the bridge. He’d be on Ledge Road with time to spare unless the bridge was stuck in the open position for the passage of a freighter or high-masted sailboat. It wasn’t. He followed Route 77 through South Portland and into Cape Elizabeth. The town was one of Portland’s most affluent suburbs and consisted mostly of broad, curving streets with large, comfortable colonials and Victorians set on oversized wooded lots. It housed a significant percentage of Portland’s doctors, lawyers, and stockbrokers and, he guessed, the largest percentage of stay-at-home moms in the entire state.

It was a bright, clear day. Crisp and cold but still beautiful. Virginal snow lined either side of the roads. Following the directions he found on Google Maps, he turned left at Old Ocean House Road, left again at Trundy Point, then a slight left onto Ledge Road, which ran no more than a hundred yards inland from the open ocean and had to be one of the best addresses in town. Number 367 was on the left, marked by a large black rural mailbox. Just numbers. No name. The house itself, as well as the ocean behind it, was hidden from view by a dense stand of birch and maple, bare limbs covered in a delicate filigree of snow. He turned down a private drive that, at ten thirty on a Saturday morning, after a more than twelve-inch snowfall, was already neatly plowed and sanded. The drive curved through the woods for nearly a hundred yards before opening onto a white gravel parking area, also immaculately plowed. He pulled the Crown Vic into a parking area to the right of the house between a black Mercedes-Benz 500 S-Class – appropriate wheels for one of the top lawyers in town – and a ten-year-old Ford Taurus with a dented rear fender. No snow on the Merc. Ogden had already been out and about this morning.

McCabe got out and looked around. The hundred-year-old shingle-style cottage, as Ogden called it, was a cottage the same way Mt Washington was a hill. McCabe gauged the house at a minimum of six or seven thousand square feet set on at least three acres of spectacular oceanfront property. He was five minutes early but had no intention of standing around in the cold until the appointed hour. He headed up the path to the front door and rang the bell. Chimes echoed inside. The door opened, and a middle-aged woman, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and holding a plastic bucket, stood looking at him.

‘Mrs Ogden?’ he asked, pretty sure it wasn’t her.

‘No. I’m Chloe. I’ll go get her for you.’

‘Actually, I’m looking for Mr Ogden. I’m Detective Michael McCabe.’

‘I know who you are. Come on in. You’re letting all the heat out.’

McCabe moved into the front hall.

‘I recognize you. I saw you on TV last year. After that murder of the teenaged girl. Katie Dubois. That was you, right?’

They called Portland a city, but it was amazing what a small town it really was. Everybody knew everybody. In New York no one would have remembered. ‘Yup. That was me.’

‘I’ll get him. Take your shoes off before you walk anywhere. I just finished the floors.’ He did as he was told. ‘You can give me your coat.’

She went off, bucket and coat in hand, and disappeared down the hall to the back of the house.

McCabe looked around. Oversized cottage or not, the place was spectacular. High ceilings, fabulous moldings, and stained glass windows. From where he stood he could see at least two fireplaces. Both had wood fires burning away in them.

‘Lieutenant McCabe?’ A good-looking man, tall and slender, with expensively cut gray hair and a confident manner, walked toward him. Even dressed down in faded blue jeans and a Helly Hansen fleece jacket, and even with a day’s growth of gray bristle covering his pink cheeks, Ogden looked like a Hollywood casting director’s dream choice for an A-list lawyer. ‘Hank Ogden,’ he said, extending a hand. McCabe shook it. He recognized Ogden as one of the guys standing next to Goff, wearing black tie, in the photo Tasco had shown them.

‘Thanks for the promotion, Mr Ogden, but it’s Sergeant. Detective Sergeant, actually.’ McCabe held up his badge wallet. Ogden ignored it, so McCabe put it away. ‘Beautiful place you have here.’

‘Yes, it is. An early John Calvin Stevens. Built in 1897 and, except for the kitchen and bathrooms, still mostly original. It’s been in my wife’s family for some time.’

McCabe had heard of Stevens. The best-known Portland architect of the last century, he’d been the go-to guy for fancy houses in and around the city from about 1890 until the 1930s. Anybody who lived in a John Calvin Stevens house bragged about it. Even taciturn Yankees. They just bragged more discreetly.

Ogden led him into a small book-lined study. A fire was gently crackling in yet another fireplace, this one an Adam. He pointed McCabe to one of two red leather wing chairs. He sat in the other. He studied McCabe for a moment, then took a sip of coffee from a bone china cup with pink flowers printed on the outside. McCabe wouldn’t have minded coffee himself, but Ogden didn’t offer any, and McCabe wasn’t about to ask.

‘As I told you on the phone, Sergeant, my time’s limited, so let’s get right to it. What would you like to know?’