The Chill of Night (29 page)

He turned left at Union Street by the Portland Harbor Hotel, went down the hill past Three Dollar Dewey’s, crossed Commercial Street, and walked out onto Union Wharf, one of the many piers that form most of Portland’s working waterfront. Wolfe’s office was in an old three-story wooden building toward the end. He could see lights shining from a wall of windows on the third floor. A shiny black Lexus IS 350 was parked directly in front. He figured it had to be Wolfe’s. The rest of the building looked dark and empty. McCabe climbed three steps, pressed the buzzer for 301, and peered through the glass into the dark lobby. Once a warehouse or maybe a fish processing plant, the building’s interior space had been updated in a style McCabe liked to think of as SoHo Modern. Shiny black walls, exposed pipes crisscrossing the ceiling, big windows looking out on the harbor.

Dr Wolfe apparently wasn’t on the phone, because he pushed the door open less than a minute later. McCabe’s former shrink was in his mid-forties, six-one or maybe a bit more, with close-cropped gray hair that was considerably shorter than McCabe remembered it. He wore round rimless glasses that seemed to intensify the blue of his eyes. Dressed in a black pullover, black pants, and black canvas walking shoes, he looked more like the film director McCabe once dreamed of becoming than a successful Portland psychiatrist. More LA cool than L.L. Bean.

‘Good to see you,’ said Wolfe. He ignored the elevator and pointed McCabe toward the black steel stairs. They started up. ‘Been about a year, hasn’t it?’

‘A little over.’

‘How have you been doing?’ Wolfe asked, the question clearly medical, not social.

‘Fine,’ said McCabe. ‘How about yourself?’

‘No more nightmares?’

‘Nothing I can’t handle.’ Not quite the truth, but what the hell.

‘Still taking the Xanax?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Glad you don’t need it. Still drinking?’

‘Some.’

‘Too much?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Wolfe shared the top floor with another psychiatrist named Leah Peterson. ‘Let’s talk in my office,’ he said.

The contrast between the office and Wolfe’s treatment room next door, where the Abby Quinns and Michael McCabes of the world came to tell their tales, was startling. Two different worlds both inhabited by the same man. The treatment room was small and cozy with a big comfy couch facing the doctor’s chair and walls lined with books and bric-a-brac. Designed to put patients at ease. The office was nothing like that. Instead it mirrored the cool, hard-edged modernity of the lobby. All shiny glass and chrome with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the harbor. McCabe looked out. A pair of tugs were pushing a large container barge toward the International Marine Terminal. The lights of cars moved in a steady parade across the Casco Bay Bridge.

There was a separate seating area with four chrome and leather chairs surrounding a free-form glass table.

‘I ordered Thai,’ said Wolfe, pointing McCabe toward one of the chairs. ‘From the Siam Grill.’ McCabe knew the place. High-end Thai and creative martinis on Fore Street. Some of the best Asian food in town.

‘Coconut shrimp. Fresh spring rolls. Hot basil duck. Should be here in twenty minutes or so. Work for you?’

‘Perfect.’

‘Scotch?’ asked Wolfe, producing a bottle of Dewar’s from his desk drawer.

‘Is that allowed?’

‘Why not? You’re not here as a patient.’ Wolfe poured himself a drink from the bottle.

McCabe resisted temptation. He was working even if Wolfe wasn’t. ‘Not at the moment. You have any water?’

Wolfe went to a small fridge behind his desk, added some ice cubes to his drink, and found a bottle of Poland Spring for McCabe.

‘Thanks. Helluva view.’

‘Yes. Leah Peterson and I are both sailors and kayakers. When we can’t be on the water we like being as close as possible.’

‘You own the building?’

‘The two of us do. How’d you know?’

McCabe smiled. ‘You and the design seem to fit each other so well.’

Wolfe returned the smile with obvious pleasure. ‘Thank you.’

They sat. The smiles faded. ‘Now, who’s my patient?’ Wolfe asked. ‘The one you say is involved in some crime?’

‘Woman named Abby Quinn.’

‘Abby?’ Wolfe looked surprised. ‘What on earth has Abby been doing?’

McCabe decided to lay it out. ‘Witnessing a murder.’

Wolfe took a minute to absorb the information. ‘The Elaine Goff murder?’

‘Yes.’

‘Abby saw it happen?’

‘Yes. You knew Goff, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, but not well. We served on a board together. Sanctuary House. We saw each other once a month at board meetings.’

‘When was the last time you saw her?’

‘Goff or Abby?’

‘Goff.’

‘At the last meeting. They take place the second Tuesday of each month. That would have been …’ Wolfe flipped through the pages of a Day Planner. ‘Tuesday, December thirteenth. From seven till nine.’

‘And Goff was there?’

‘Yes. As I recall she came in late. The meeting had already started.’

‘Who else attended?’

Wolfe rattled off a list of names. None of them rang any bells for McCabe except John Kelly.

‘How long have you been treating Abby?’

‘Since her first stay at Winter Haven. Right after her first suicide attempt. A little over three years now.’

‘So you know her well?’

‘Yes. Probably as well as anyone.’

‘Who were her friends?’

‘Abby doesn’t really have any. Not close ones, anyway. I wish she did.’

‘Who would she turn to if she needed someone to take her in? Perhaps to hide her?’

‘Abby’s hiding somewhere?’ Wolfe asked. ‘Is she in danger?’

‘She may be. Where do you think she’d go?’

‘I don’t know. I would’ve hoped she’d come to me.’

‘But she hasn’t?’

‘No.’

‘Is there anyone else?’

Wolfe considered the question. ‘Maybe John Kelly. He might take her in. Give her sanctuary, as it were. There’s also Lori Sparks, the woman she works for on Harts Island.’

‘Kelly said he hasn’t seen her. So did Sparks.’

‘I don’t know, then. Are you sure Abby actually saw the murder take place?’

‘Yes.’

Wolfe sipped at his Scotch. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that. Abby’s been doing so well lately. This could be a major setback.’

‘Did you think she was cured?’

‘No. Abby’s schizophrenic. There’s no cure for what she has. It’s more about treatment and control. The last thing she needed was a major trauma.’

Wolfe peered at McCabe through the rimless glasses. He looked puzzled. ‘One thing I don’t understand, though. Since you apparently don’t know where Abby is, how is it you know she saw the murder?’

‘The night Goff was killed, Abby ran to the police station on Harts Island and told the officer on duty that she saw it happen.’

‘And?’

‘And he didn’t believe her.’

‘Because of her illness?’

‘Yes. He thought she was hallucinating.’

‘I see.’ Wolfe nodded. ‘And what, exactly, has convinced the Portland Police Department to change its collective mind?’

‘Abby told the cop details of the murder she couldn’t have known unless she was there. Unless she actually saw what she said she saw. By the time he reported it to us, she was already gone.’

‘Was she able to identify the killer? Was it someone she knew?’

‘No. That’s where this gets messy and where I may need your help as her doctor. All she could tell us was that he was a naked male. When the officer asked her for a description, she couldn’t provide one. Just said his face exploded in fire and he had icicles for eyes.’

‘That’s it? No further details?’

‘The conversation wasn’t recorded, but as far as we know, that’s it. She said it a couple of times.’

Wolfe sighed. ‘She is hallucinating. Which either means she’s off her meds or the trauma’s making them less effective.’

‘Does that happen?’

‘It can under extreme stress. I was worried something was wrong when she didn’t show up for her session Wednesday.’

‘When did you last speak to her?’

‘Two weeks ago. Just before Christmas. Abby’s sessions are Wednesdays at eleven. That would have been, let’s see …’ He flipped again through his Day Planner. ‘December the twenty-first.’

‘What about the following Wednesday? The twenty-eighth?’

‘The office was closed between Christmas and New Year’s. No sessions.’

‘What about this week? Last Wednesday? You said she was a no-show?’

‘Yes. I wondered why.’

‘Did you check?’

‘My receptionist called. She didn’t get an answer.’

‘Has Abby ever missed an appointment before?’

‘Yes. Twice. Both times when she convinced herself she could cut down on her medication.’

‘Why would she want to do that?’

‘Because she thought she was okay. She felt normal. Let me give you a little background. Abby’s on a drug called Zyprexa. It’s a strong antipsychotic. She’s on the highest dose I generally prescribe. It works well. Prevents most of the symptoms. However, it has a number of side effects. The primary one is weight gain. Abby doesn’t like that. Not surprising, of course. Being physically attractive is important to a young woman in her twenties. So when she begins to feel normal, when she isn’t experiencing psychotic symptoms, she’ll say to herself, “Hey, I don’t need this stuff anymore,” and she either cuts down on the drug or, as she did on one occasion, cuts it out completely. She hasn’t been experiencing psychotic episodes lately. Entirely possible she’s gone off again.’

‘What happens when she does?’

‘Depends how long she’s been off, but it seems she’s already hallucinating. The emotional trauma of witnessing a murder could also trigger that. Or exacerbate it. Abby’s tried to kill herself twice already. It could happen again. I think we need to find her quickly.’

‘You’re right. For two reasons.’

‘What’s the other?’

‘We may not be the only ones looking.’

Twenty-One

Andy Barker smiled as he watched the thermometer stuck to the outside of the window rise. After weeks of wretched cold, things were finally moving in the right direction. Thank God. He just hoped it’d last. From early October to late May he kept all the windows closed and locked, all the cracks sealed with weather stripping, all the curtains drawn day and night. The same lined brown velvet curtains his mother had hung there more than forty years ago when Andy was a little boy. Even so, the cold had a way of seeping in.

Maybe if he had more fat on his body Maine winters, even bad ones like this, wouldn’t be so miserable. Whale blubber keeps whales warm. Shouldn’t people blubber do the same? All those bulbous blimps he saw waddling around the mall probably didn’t even feel the cold. At least not the way he did.

Andy had had no personal experience with fat. When he was a kid Mimsy constantly urged him to eat. ‘For your own good,’ she’d say. ‘Help you grow up big and strong.’ No matter how hard Andy tried to force down the food, though, it never seemed to help. He was small and skinny and funny looking, and that was that. An ugly duckling who was never going to turn into a swan.

Aunt Denise, Mimsy’s youngest sister, used to call him delicate. She was only ten years older than Andy, but she always treated him like a little kid. ‘Don’t worry about him so much,’ she’d tell Mimsy when she came to take care of him when Mimsy was going away overnight. ‘Andy’s okay,’ Denise would say. ‘He’s just a little delicate.’

God, how he hated that word. Delicate. Made him sound like some damned fairy. Well, he wasn’t a fairy, and if anyone knew that it ought to be Denise. Hell, he knew she knew it. The way she walked around the apartment flashing her goodies in that see-through nightie when she came to take care of him when Mimsy was away. The way she’d tease him mercilessly when she caught him sneaking peeks. Bitch.

Sometimes Andy’d peek through the keyhole when Denise was in the bathroom taking a bath or shower. He always liked doing that, at least until that last time. There he was, fourteen years old, down on his knees, his eye pressed against the door, and, boom, she whips it open and catches him in the act. Bitch.

‘Was there something you wanted to see, Andy?’ she asked, standing over him without a stitch on with a smirky little smile on her face. Her voice oh so sweet, butter wouldn’t melt.

‘No, no. I was just … just here.’

‘Haven’t you ever seen a naked girl before?’

He didn’t answer.

‘You haven’t, have you?’

He couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Just got to his feet and stood there blushing. He was sure she could see the bulge in his pajamas where his erection was pushing out. Sure he was going to explode and start squirting all over himself.

‘Well, go ahead and have a good look, Andy,’ she said, with a mean little smile. ‘Just don’t touch. That wouldn’t be right, now would it?’ Bitch.

He remembered her closing the door, leaving him on the other side. He was sure she’d tell Mimsy what he’d done. She never did, but the threat was always there. After that, when she came to stay over, the bathroom keyhole was always covered. He never saw her naked again.

No, Andy shook his head sadly, he liked girls alright. As much as anyone. It was just that they didn’t like him back. None of them did. Thinking about it, he felt the old sense of despair breaking out. He tried to push it away. He didn’t want to go there. Not now. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself.

His mother was gone now, taken by cancer nearly five years ago. He missed her. He really did. Even though, if he was going to be super honest about it, her being dead wasn’t all bad. Apartment 1F was all his. It didn’t stink of dead cigarette butts anymore, and he didn’t have to hide his stash of magazines or videos or worry about her finding them. It also meant he wasn’t always being hassled to go out and
find a nice girl
.

Somehow Mimsy never got it. Girls didn’t like him, not even ugly girls. Occasionally he worked up the courage to convince some girl he found on
Match.com
or eHarmony or Craigslist to go out with him. One who was ugly enough or desperate enough to give him a try. But it never worked. There never was a second date, and Andy was tired of being dumped on, stood up, and turned away. Besides, he didn’t really want an ugly girl. He wanted a girl like Lainie. Now even she’d been taken from him. It wasn’t fair. God had really fucked him over.