by James Hayman
‘We could try a plea bargain,’ said Tasco, uncertainty creeping into his voice. ‘Offer him a lesser sentence for letting us know where she is.’
McCabe turned to Lund. ‘Talk to the man, Burt. You’re the prosecutor. You seriously think the AG’s office would go for a plea bargain that lets a serial killer off the hook, a serial killer who’s mutilated and maimed at least five innocent people and, God knows, maybe a whole bunch more?’
Lund shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Frankly, I don’t think Spencer would go for it either.’
Tasco turned back to McCabe. ‘Okay, McCabe, you’re the boy genius. What do you suggest we do now?’
‘Keep looking. At the same time, keep a loose rein on Spencer. If we don’t let him know we’re watching, maybe he’ll lead us to her.’
‘Or maybe not.’ Tasco sounded glum.
‘Okay, or maybe not, but right now he’s the only connection we’ve got.’
Tasco left. McCabe and Lund followed, just in time to watch Spencer in his preppy sweater and Sheldon Thomas in his pin-striped suit disappear behind a pair of closing elevator doors. ‘Well, one thing we know for sure,’ McCabe said, his eyes moving from Thomas to the rumpled Burt Lund, walking by his side, busily munching on a handful of M&M’s.
‘Yeah? What’s that?’
‘Their side dresses better than ours.’
42
Thursday. 4:30 P.M.
McCabe asked Maggie to meet him for a drink at Tallulah’s. Despite the high-toned name, Tallulah’s was a neighborhood hangout for the singles crowd on Munjoy Hill. As usual, the place was noisy and crowded. A couple of off-duty cops were hanging at the bar, ones McCabe didn’t know very well. They found an empty table in the corner, far enough away from the cops not to be overheard. An artist friend of Kyra’s, Mandy something or other, took their order. Like most artists, she couldn’t support herself selling her work, and, unlike Kyra, she had no trust fund to take up the slack. Everyone should have a trust fund, McCabe thought. Of course, then there’d be no waitresses or dishwashers or plumbers or cops. Just artists and drinkers. McCabe ordered a Glenfiddich with a Shipyard chaser. Maggie just ordered the Shipyard. Then, after a brief, losing struggle with her inner demons, she also ordered a plate of nachos. McCabe could never figure out how she stayed so slim.
Kyra’s friend left to get the drinks and food.
‘Okay, I found out some interesting stuff.’ Maggie went first. ‘Number one, Cumberland Medical Center’s not the blood-type connection. Only one of our four victims was ever a patient there. Number two, they all used different doctors.’
Before Maggie could tell him number three, Mandy came back with their drinks. ‘Your nachos’ll be here in a sec.’
When she was gone, McCabe asked, ‘So what is the connection? A testing lab?’
‘Nope. The Red Cross.’
McCabe considered that for a second. ‘Blood drive?’
‘Yes. Wendy Branca, Brian Henry, Katie Dubois, and Lucinda Cassidy all gave blood within the last year.’
‘So somebody hacked into the Red Cross computer?’
‘No. Here’s where it gets interesting. For the past eighteen months, wouldn’t you know, a certain doctor’s wife has been volunteering at the Red Cross three days a week.’
‘Well, do tell. With full access to the records?’
‘According to my source, yes.’
McCabe stirred the warm whiskey with his index finger and then sucked it off. Pieces were falling into place. Pieces he hadn’t expected.
Maggie continued. ‘The way I see it, McCabe, we always thought one of the Spencers was involved. Why should we be surprised if both of them are?’
The nachos arrived, cheese dripping off. Maggie positioned a jalapeño in the middle of one and managed to lower it neatly it into her mouth.
‘Interesting. Just when I was beginning to have doubts.’
Maggie stopped munching. ‘Doubts about what?’
‘Doubts about Dr. Phil. About his involvement. At least in the murders. Maybe now in the surgery as well.’
‘McCabe, if it’s not uncool to remind you, yesterday you had no doubts.’
‘Today I have doubts.’ He sipped the Scotch.
‘So what’s changed?’ She took another nacho and offered him the plate. He shook his head.
‘For one thing,’ he said, ‘Sophie seems pretty damned sure he’s not the recruiter.’
‘Okay. He could still be the surgeon. He could still have cut out Katie’s heart.’
‘Yes, he could, but whoever the recruiter was, he told Sophie his name was Philip Spencer. If Spencer was involved, why would the recruiter do that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Maggie shrugged. ‘To frame Spencer in case the shit hit the fan?’
‘Framing Spencer only makes sense if Spencer had nothing to do with any of it,’ said McCabe. ‘If Spencer was one of the surgeons and he found out “Harry Lime” was framing him, he’d talk. Anybody would.’
‘Which means framing Spencer only makes sense if he knows nothing, if he’s innocent.’
‘Right – and there’s more. We just had Spencer in for an interview at Middle Street.’
‘And?’
McCabe signaled Mandy and ordered another Glenfiddich. Maggie settled for a seltzer. ‘He didn’t behave like he was guilty. He was too relaxed. I mean, whoever killed Katie and the others knows we have a witness. He ought to be worried about it. Hell, we know he’s worried about it. He’s already tried to kill her twice and failed both times. His hit man is dead.’
Maggie pulled out another cheesy nacho. McCabe waited until it was safely in her mouth, then said, ‘Spencer wasn’t worried. I don’t think he had a clue.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah. Jacobi’s guys found blood in the back of the Lexus – and Katie Dubois’s earring.’
Maggie’s eyebrows went up. ‘Incriminating evidence, don’t you think?’
‘It ought to be, but Spencer didn’t recognize or react to the earring when Tom showed it to him. On top of that, I had Tasco ask him about Paul Oliver Duggan and Carol Reed. He never heard of them.’
‘Who’s Carol Reed?’ asked Maggie.
‘The director of The Third Man. The male director. Any real movie buff, anyone using the alias Harry Lime, ought to at least know the name. Spencer didn’t. I’m sure of it. Anyway, we’ll know for sure in forty-eight hours. We gave him a glass of water and got a saliva sample. The lab’s doing a DNA match with the blood on Cassidy’s dog’s teeth. That’ll prove it one way or the other.’
‘Okay, let’s suppose Spencer isn’t the murderer. So how did the blood and the earring end up in the back of the car?’
‘Maybe you just gave us the answer to that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Hattie.’
‘Hattie Spencer?’
‘You know any other Hatties?’
‘C’mon, McCabe, maybe Hattie Spencer dug up Katie’s blood type, but she didn’t rape her or kill her. Or dump her body.’
‘No, she didn’t – but she probably passed on the information about the blood types to somebody who did.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know who, but she did tell me she lent the Lexus to a friend last Wednesday through Friday while she was up in Blue Hill. At the time, I thought she was covering for her husband. Now I think she may have been telling the truth.’
McCabe picked up a nacho. The jalapeño slipped off the top and landed on his shirt. ‘Shit.’ He picked it off and ate it, but it left a greasy ring behind.
Maggie dipped her napkin in the seltzer, went around the table, and dabbed at the spot on his shirt. He watched her, a grumpy expression on his face. She looked up and smiled. ‘Y’know, you’re really very cute when you get all pouty.’ She leaned down and kissed him softly on the lips. ‘Too bad you’re taken.�
�
He glanced over to where the two cops had been sitting.
‘They left ten minutes ago,’ she said, ‘and the waitress is in the kitchen. Nothing to worry about.’ She turned to go to the ladies’ room. ‘Be right back,’ she called.
McCabe thought about what Maggie had done. Totally unexpected, but not totally unpleasant. In fact, he kind of liked it, wouldn’t have minded doing it back. Except he was taken – and, for now at least, he was happy with that.
Maggie slid back onto her chair. ‘Sorry about that. Anyway, Hattie lent the Lexus to a friend. What friend?’
McCabe looked into her dark brown eyes and realized, not for the first time, how attractive she was. There was no time to think about that now.
‘Mike, what friend?’
He held up a finger.
‘What friend?’
‘Just give me a minute.’ He forced his mind back to the picture in Spencer’s office. Four surgeons. Four friends. All gazing down from the summit of Denali. We all went to medical school together. We did residencies together. All but one in cardiac surgery, transplant surgery … bringing the dead back to life. The Asclepius Society.
All but one. Lucas Kane. Lost his license. Murdered in Miami. A tragic, tragic loss. A great talent. In some ways, the most talented of us all.
Spencer went to the funeral. Hattie didn’t.
Lucas Kane was somebody I knew a long time ago, Hattie had said. His parents had a summer place not far from ours.
Was Lucas Kane a friend?
A friend? No, I never would have called Lucas that. If not a friend, then what? A lover?
What about the other surgeons in the picture? DeWitt Holland and Matthew Wilcox. One in Boston. One in North Carolina. Did they attend Kane’s funeral as well? Did they all meet the shooter there? McCabe wondered if there was a press photographer at the funeral, if there were pictures. Maybe it was time to contact Melody Bollinger, the Miami Herald reporter who covered the case.
‘Mike, what are you thinking about?’
He told her about the Denali picture. ‘Sophie said there were two surgeons in each of the transplant operations. Maybe it’s time we talked to Dr. Holland and Dr. Wilcox.’
She considered this. ‘Makes sense. Surgeons. Old med school chums. If Spencer wasn’t involved, maybe one or both of them were.’
‘I’ll see what I can find out about Wilcox,’ said McCabe. ‘Meantime, you drive down to Boston and talk to DeWitt Holland.’
‘I’m supposed to be confined to my desk, you know?’
‘Holland won’t know that.’
‘Yeah, but Fortier will.’
‘Call in sick.’
‘I guess. Anyway, I’ve got an old pal on the Boston PD. Homicide guy. We used to date. I think he’ll help.’
McCabe took another nacho.
Maggie looked thoughtful. ‘McCabe, you said there were three other surgeons with Spencer in that picture. Holland and Wilcox are two. Who’s the third man?’
‘The third man,’ he said, ‘is Lucas Kane – and, like Harry Lime, he’s supposed to be dead.’
43
Thursday. 6:00 P.M.
Had anyone been watching, the two figures would have appeared almost spectral. A man and a woman, both dressed in white, moving together across a translucent, nearly monochromatic emptiness, where sand blended into sea and sea into overcast sky without perceptible delineation.
For a time, they seemed lost in thought, each looking down, each noting the prints their steps left behind in the sand. After a while they stopped and the woman turned toward her companion. She took one of his hands in hers as if willing him to move closer. He didn’t. She let go. A wisp of blond hair blew across her face. She brushed it away.
She spoke, but her words were impossible for anyone but the man to hear. He shook his head. They resumed their walk, legs moving in tandem, as if attached by invisible cords. He slipped an arm around her waist. She leaned in close.
A small bird, a purple sandpiper, ran across their path, flapping furiously with one good wing. The other hung broken and useless. They watched it for a moment. Once again she asked a question. Once again there was a shake of the head. The bird rushed off. The two people continued down the beach.
Finally, where the sand ended, they came to a small parking lot, which was empty save for a single car. A black Porsche Boxster. The man offered his hand to help the woman up onto the wooden boardwalk that separated the beach from the blacktop. She took it and climbed up. Resting a hand on his shoulder, she stood, first on one foot, then on the other, and shook the sand from her sandals. Then they walked to the car. She leaned against the door, raised her arms around his neck, and pulled him to her. He slid a hand under her jacket to stroke the smooth skin on her back. She leaned into his caress. His hand came around to the front and cupped her small breast, squeezing it gently, playing with her nipple until it was erect. Then it slid to the other side. He stroked the scar tissue where the other breast used to be. She stiffened and moved his hand away. He put it back. She moved it away again and once again he put it back. This time she let it stay.
She looked up and found his lips with her own. ‘Why are we doing this?’
‘Because it feels good?’
‘Beside that.’
‘Because the risk excites you?’
‘Yes. I suppose it does.’
He slipped his hand down between her legs and probed gently.
‘They searched my car,’ she said, her breath starting to come faster. ‘They found that girl’s earring. The one who was killed in the scrap yard?’
He pulled back, studying her with deep-set eyes, saying nothing.
‘O-negative, wasn’t she?’
Still he said nothing.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, leaning in to kiss him again. ‘I won’t tell a soul.’
‘No,’ he responded after a moment. ‘No, I’m certain you won’t.’
His fingers found the top button of her trousers and worked it open. ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Someone might see.’
He pulled down her zipper and slid her pants and panties down over her slim hips.
‘Yes. Someone might,’ he whispered. ‘Isn’t that what excites you?’
They could both feel her heart pounding against her chest as his hand moved back between her legs. Two fingers slid inside.
‘Wait,’ she whispered. She stepped out of the pants and folded them neatly, then placed them through the open window onto the front seat of the car. She watched as he did the same, except he left his in a heap on the ground. She took him in her hand and he grew hard. She leaned back against the car. She let out a little gasp as he entered her.
As they moved together, he studied her face. Eyes closed, lips parted, moaning softly in pleasure. He slipped his left hand around the back of her neck, his right hand into the pocket of his jacket. He felt the handle of the folding knife just where it should be. Hiding the knife behind his back, he pressed its small button, flipping it open. She didn’t notice. He rubbed his thumb across the edge of the blade. A minute later, at almost the exact instant Hattie Spencer reached orgasm, her gasp of pleasure morphed into a cry of pain.
*
Sixteen hundred miles to the south, all sound was drowned out by the screaming twin engines of the Learjet 35 lifting off runway 23 at Boca Raton Airport. The plane’s flight plan listed its destination as a private airfield in northern New Hampshire. The Learjet was outfitted as a flying ambulance. In the back, a doctor and a nurse tended a single patient, an old man in the last stages of congestive heart failure. Up front, the crew of two, pilot and copilot, ignored their passengers. They didn’t know their names and had been exceptionally well paid not to ask.
44
Thursday. 6:30 P.M.
After leaving Tallulah’s, McCabe headed back to his apartment and called Dave Hennings in D.C. His partner fo
r nearly five years, Hennings was a tough, smart cop who’d moved on from the NYPD after 9/11 and was now a player in the federal air marshals program. He had connections with all the major airlines.
‘McCabe, my man, how the hell are you? It’s gotta be, what? At least a year since we spoke.’
‘At least that, Dave. I’m okay. How’s Rosemary?’ Hennings’s wife was a breast cancer survivor.
‘Still hanging in. Five years and counting. We keep our fingers permanently crossed. You and Kyra still an item?’
‘Definitely an item,’ said McCabe.
‘I read about the murder of that girl and thought about how you were so sure things would be nice and quiet up there in Maine. Guess you were a little optimistic.’ McCabe smiled to himself. Wait till Dave heard the rest of it. ‘Anyway, that’s not why you called.’
‘Dave, I need a favor.’
‘I figured. Go for it, partner.’
‘There’s a doctor in North Carolina named Matthew Wilcox. He’s a big-deal heart surgeon at UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill. I need to know if he traveled from Chapel Hill to Portland on any or all of three separate occasions.’
‘He have something to do with your murder case?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I can’t talk about it now. So I’d appreciate it if you could just trust me on this one.’
‘I always trust you, McCabe. Always have.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Anyway, back to your doctor. Going out of Chapel Hill, he would have flown out of Raleigh-Durham,’ said Hennings. ‘Going to Portland, he’d probably take United. Maybe US Air. Most likely changed planes in D.C. What are your dates?’
‘December 2004 and April this year. Last trip would have had him here sometime last week. No firm travel dates. We’ll need to check a range.’
‘You don’t want to make a formal request to the airlines?’
‘Not if you can get the information quicker. I don’t have a lot of time on this one.’ He didn’t tell Hennings there was another life at stake.
