The Cutting (38 page)

‘Well, my friend, that means you’ve got serious cause for concern. Because Dr. Wilcox may be back in Maine as we speak.’

Oh, Christ. Lucinda Cassidy.

‘He flew out of Raleigh-Durham Wednesday afternoon on American 1560, landed in Fort Lauderdale.’

‘Lauderdale? I thought you said Maine.’

‘Hold on. I’m getting to that. His return flight’s Sunday morning. From Portland. No info on how he gets from Lauderdale to Portland. Airline calls it “arunk.” Arrival unknown. Just to be sure we had the right Matthew Wilcox, I called his office at UNC. Assistant said he was out of town. Wouldn’t be back until Monday. I asked her if she knew where he was going. She said no. Not real friendly for a southern gal. So I took the obvious tack and scared the bejesus out of her. Told her she might be aiding and abetting terrorist activity.’

‘Jesus, Dave. You could get your ass in a sling for that.’

‘Nah. I’ll be alright. She didn’t sound like she wanted any trouble. Anyway, she finally told me he’d gone to Boca Raton on personal business and then was heading to Maine for the weekend.’

‘Did she say where in Maine?’

‘Said she didn’t know. I also checked his cell phone. It’s been turned off since he left town.’

‘Let me have the number,’ said McCabe. Hennings gave it to him. ‘The airline have any information on where he’s staying in Maine or possible car rentals?’

‘No. None. I called Hertz and Avis directly. Nothing there either. I haven’t had time to check the others. Also haven’t checked the chain hotels. Of course, there’s a million independents up there in Maine. He could be at any one of them.’

‘Or none, and he could be using an assumed name.’ The driver pulled up around the corner from Spencer’s house on Trinity Street. Tasco and Fraser were already there in one car, Maggie in another. Half a dozen uniformed officers completed the search team.

‘Good hunting.’

‘Thanks, Dave.’

‘My pleasure. By the way, we’re now officially even on favors. You may even owe me a couple.’

‘Absolutely. Love to Rosemary.’

The detectives huddled in the street discussing strategy. Because Lucinda Cassidy might be a hostage, McCabe told the others he wanted to enter quietly and not force a confrontation. They deployed the uniformed officers to the sides and rear of the property to cut off avenues of escape. Tasco and Fraser covered the driveway. Maggie and McCabe headed for the house.

Twenty-four Trinity Street had an empty, forlorn look about it. Windows shut. Shades drawn. On the front step, Maggie stood to one side of the door, her back against the house, McCabe to the other. He rang the bell. They waited. Rang it again. Quietly, McCabe tried the handle. Locked. They could either break in or pick the lock. Again McCabe preferred the quiet option. Less likely to panic anyone hiding inside. The front lock was an Ilco tubular model. Pickable but not easy. Plus you needed special tools they didn’t have.

They slipped around to the kitchen door and looked in through the glass. Empty. A coffee mug on the round oak table, nothing else out of place. He tried the knob. Locked, an older-style Schlage pin-and-tumbler dead bolt. He took out the small leather wallet he’d brought from Maggie’s car and withdrew a slender tension wrench and one of three stainless steel picks, each shaped like a delicate dental tool, a small hook on the end. He knelt, putting the lock at eye level. Maggie drew her weapon and waited.

McCabe inserted the wrench in the keyhole and turned it a quarter turn to the right. Then he slid the pick in, probed, found a pin, and eased it onto the narrow ledge of the cylinder. One by one, he lifted the remaining pins. When all five were clear of the shear line, he turned the wrench. The lock slid open.

Inside, weapons drawn, the two detectives looked and listened to the silence. A slow drip from the kitchen faucet. The ticking of a clock. A motor turning on in the fridge. The coffee mug on the table was filled about halfway with clear liquid, traces of lipstick marking the rim. McCabe sniffed. The scent of gin. A familiar ploy of drunks the world over. Every morning, for years, Tom McCabe senior sipped his Bushmill’s from a bone china teacup. ‘Pa’s tea,’ he called it. Mom never spoke of it. Never let the kids say anything either. Not to the old man. Not to anyone. She grew angry when Tom junior, Tommy the Narc, brought it up the day they put the old man in the ground. Sixty-one years old. A liver ailment. Mom only forgave Tommy his indiscretion after he himself was dead.

Four interior doors led from the kitchen. The first opened on an empty butler’s pantry. The second, a set of back stairs leading up to the second floor. Behind the third, more stairs, this time down to what looked like an unfinished cellar. The last door led into a broad central hall. They decided Maggie would stay in the kitchen to block anyone exiting from either the back stairs or the cellar. McCabe would check the other rooms.

To the right of the hall he found a formal dining room, a gleaming mahogany table and eight Duncan Phyfe chairs in the middle. He had a vivid memory of Sandy coveting a similar set in an antique store in Connecticut. Frustrated and angry they couldn’t afford even one of the chairs on a cop’s salary, she sulked all the way back to New York. Probably had the whole set now.

Beyond the dining room McCabe found the small den he’d seen from outside on his first visit. It, too, lay silent and empty, the
New York Times
crossword still in the same place, still half finished. He crossed the hall. A pair of massive pocket doors, each weighing several hundred pounds, blocked entry to what he assumed was the living room. He gave one a gentle push. The beautifully balanced door rolled silently and smoothly into its pocket on the far side, revealing another empty room.

An open bottle of Tanqueray stood on a silver tray on a walnut chest. The source, he supposed, of Hattie Spencer’s morning nip. On the opposite wall, a pair of tall windows looked out on the front garden. He remembered Hattie’s slender form outlined in the far window, seeing him off the property, just days before.

Something soft rubbed against his leg. A small black-and-white cat looked up and purred, then continued past, squeezing itself under the protective legs of an upholstered chair. It peered out at McCabe. McCabe peered back. The animal decided to ignore the man and began licking its once white feet, now stained a dark red.

The trail of cat’s prints led out into the hall and up the broad stairs that arched gracefully to the landing on the second floor. McCabe probably wouldn’t have noticed them against the dark wood had he not been looking for them. He touched a finger to one at the top of the stairs. Still damp. The paw prints led to a room at the end of the hall, its door open just enough for a small cat to have slipped through. McCabe walked to the end of the corridor, raised one foot, and gently pushed. Silence. He entered and scanned the room, pointing the .45 first left, then right. Sheets lay rumpled on a queen-sized four-poster bed, dark red bloodstains providing a vivid counterpoint to the white lace canopy above. Beyond the bed, McCabe saw a thickening pool still spreading slowly across the not quite level floor. He swallowed hard and walked around the end of the bed to the other side.

Philip Spencer’s naked body lay on its back, his smug arrogance gone, his once handsome face contorted in agony. An overturned chair indicated a final struggle. He’d been stabbed half a dozen times. Where Spencer’s legs met, there was now only an open wound. On the wall above the bed, written in Spencer’s blood, a line from the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

McCabe counted the ways and counted again. Each time, the only answer that made any sense was the one that added up to Lucas Kane.

47

Friday. 12:30
P.M.

McCabe’s eyes darted back and forth between Spencer’s body and the bloody writing on the wall. In his mind’s eye, he saw Lucas Kane standing triumphant atop Denali. Lucas Kane. Spencer’s lover. Spencer’s betrayer. Spencer’s killer.
How do I love thee,
Kane had asked. The only truthful answer was the one Browning had written.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.
Assuming, of course, Kane’s soul was, as Melody Bollinger described, vicious and voracious, sex defining nearly everything Lucas Kane did. McCabe was sure Bollinger was right about these things. He was now also certain she was right about Kane being alive – and deep down inside himself, in a place of which he was only dimly aware, he knew that was something he was going to have to change.

He heard steps in the corridor. Maggie’s long figure appeared in the door. She saw the bloody sheets on the bed. He held up a hand to stop her. Ignoring it, she crossed the room and looked down. She closed her eyes, opened them, looked around, walked to the master bathroom, bent over Harriet Spencer’s fancy French bidet, and threw up.

‘Sorry about that,’ she said.

‘Not a problem.’

He took out his cell and hit Tasco’s number. Just as it rang, they heard the steel basement hatch, outside the back door, clang shut. McCabe moved to the bathroom window. A tall figure, dressed in black and wearing cowboy boots, walked quickly but calmly to the side door of the garage. Then the man turned, looked up, and, for an instant, smiled at McCabe in the window. Before McCabe could get a shot off, Lucas Kane disappeared.

‘Mike, Mike, answer me. Dammit.’ Tasco’s voice, shouting from the cell.

‘The garage, Tom. He’s in the garage. Get him.’

‘Spencer?’

‘No, Spencer’s dead. The murderer.’

From his right, McCabe saw Tasco and Fraser sprinting up the driveway, weapons drawn.

‘Careful, Tommy,’ he shouted into the cell. Tasco wasn’t listening.

An engine roared to life. Garage doors slid open. Tires squealed. Philip Spencer’s black Porsche Boxster hurtled down the driveway, spraying gravel. Tasco leapt out of the way. Eddie Fraser stood his ground and fired twice. The car sideswiped Fraser, tossing him into the air. He landed hard on the lawn. The small Porsche just made it past Tasco’s blocking vehicle. It turned left and screamed away. Tasco squeezed off two rounds. Both missed. He ran to the radio in his Crown Vic. ‘This is seven-two-two. Detective down. I need an ambulance at 24 Trinity Street. Hit-and-run suspect vehicle heading west toward Vaughan. Black Porsche Boxster. Maine registration Two-Eight-Zero-One-Victor-Romeo. Repeat Two-Eight-Zero-One-Victor-Romeo. One male subject in vehicle. Consider armed and very dangerous. Over.’

‘Roger, seven-two-two. MedCU en route, 24 Trinity. We’ll be right there. Out.’ This was followed by the loud electronic signal that would alert all units that a priority transmission was about to be broadcast.

The two patrol units that had been parked around the corner roared by in pursuit, lights flashing, sirens screaming. McCabe and Tasco reached Fraser simultaneously. Eddie was clutching his side, trying to sit up. Blood poured from a gash on his forehead. ‘Stay down. Ambulance’ll be here in a second,’ said McCabe.

Tasco opened a first-aid kit, tore the paper wrapping from a bandage, and pressed it onto Fraser’s bleeding forehead. McCabe rose, walked toward the house, and stopped, reconstructing the scene in his mind. Had someone been in the car with Kane? Yes. A woman. A blonde. Hunched over in a strange position. Maybe shot. He walked back to Fraser. ‘Eddie? How many people did you see in the car?’

Fraser held up two fingers.

‘You’re sure?’ asked McCabe.

Fraser nodded and spoke through the pain. ‘A guy driving. A woman next to him.’

‘Did you hit either one?’

He shook his head. ‘Shitty shooting, huh?’

McCabe radioed from Tasco’s car. Two people in the suspect car. A dark-haired man and a blond woman, possibly Harriet Spencer, possibly Lucinda Cassidy, either a possible hostage.

He wondered where Kane was heading and if the blonde was, in fact, Hattie Spencer. He’d only seen the woman for a split second as the Porsche sped down the driveway. Had she been restrained in any way? He backed his mind up to the single frame in which her image appeared just as he would a video editing machine. The frame was blurry. It flashed by so fast he couldn’t be sure.

He returned to the house.

Upstairs, he gazed at Spencer’s mutilated corpse. The sirens faded in the distance. The crime scene techs were on their way. He had to figure out what to do next. For the moment, he didn’t have a clue.

Maggie appeared at his side. ‘McCabe, what in hell is this all about?’

‘It’s about Lucas Kane.’

‘I thought Kane was dead.’

‘Kane faked his own death.’

‘Why?’

‘Lots of reasons. Probably figured being dead would keep the cops from watching his new business venture too closely. Probably thought disappearing into the grave was cool.’

‘Cool like Harry Lime in
The Third Man
?’

‘
Cool like that.’

‘Why’d he have to castrate Spencer? Why couldn’t he just kill him … well … normally?’

‘I think it’s about power.’
Sex defined nearly everything Lucas Kane did.
‘In Kane’s mind, cutting off the genitals might have been a way of symbolically neutralizing an enemy’s power.’

Maggie looked dubious.

‘That’s not a new idea. Balls have been a metaphor for bravery and power for a long, long time.’

‘Sick.’

‘Very.’

‘You’re sure it
was
Kane you saw down there?’

‘You know me. I never forget a face.’

‘Jesus, McCabe, doesn’t this creep ever take a vacation?’ Bill Jacobi called from the door. ‘My guys can’t keep up with the corpses.’ He looked down at the mutilated body. ‘Cute. What did he do with the guy’s schwantz? Keep it for a souvenir? Terri here yet?’

‘Not yet. We’ll get out of your way so you can do your job.’

Outside, the scene had changed dramatically. An ambulance and half a dozen patrol units were pulled up, plus a couple more unmarked Crown Vics. Crime scene tape surrounded the property. Neighbors and passersby gawked from the street. Rumors of Philip Spencer’s violent death brought the media out in force. Flies to honey. News Center 6’s Josie Tenant once again in the lead. McCabe had no doubt her reports would go directly into NBC’s national feed. He owed Melody Bollinger a call, but that’d have to wait.