Darkness First

by James Hayman

  ‘Wouldn’t Sean Carroll’s people have all that?’ Lund sounded suspicious.

  ‘They ought to. I’d like to find out if they do.’

  ‘Ask Carroll.’

  ‘I don’t want Carroll knowing about it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Having no idea how Burt Lund would react, Maggie figured this was no time to be beating around the bush. ‘I have reason to believe,’ she said, ‘that Sean Carroll may have been responsible for Tiff Stoddard’s death.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘I’m absolutely serious.’

  There was a long, pregnant pause on the other end of the phone. Lund knew Maggie well enough to know she’d never make an accusation like that unless she had good reason.

  ‘Do you think he killed his own wife as well? And Laura Blakemore?’

  ‘I do.’

  Another silence.

  ‘Exactly what are you basing this on?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that just yet. Trust me, Burt, this is for real.’

  ‘Have you mentioned your suspicions to anyone else?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘McCabe. And Susan Marsh.’

  ‘If I didn’t know you as well as I do, Savage, I’d hang up now.’

  ‘Well, you do know me well enough. If I’m asking for the records I have a reason. So please, Burt, can you get me what I need? If I’m wrong you can just say this conversation never happened.’

  Maggie heard a sigh on the other end of the line. A deep sigh. ‘All right. I’ll call you back with whatever I find out in the morning. The real morning.’ Lund broke the connection.

  Maggie climbed back on the couch. McCabe turned off the lights. They both managed to fall asleep. This time Maggie didn’t dream.

  Sheriff John Savage’s phone call woke them less than an hour later. He told Maggie she better get her butt back to Machias.

  58

  5:50 A.M., Tuesday, August 25, 2009

  Downeast Community Hospital, Machias, Maine

  It had been a slow night in the ER.

  One sixty-eight-year-old woman with a false-alarm heart attack.

  One teenager ODed on Oxycontin.

  And Dr Emily Kaplan, who had been shot in the chest with a dart containing what Dr Bill Brill hoped was a less than lethal dose of Etorphine, a powerful drug used to tranquilize large animals in the wild.

  Maggie and McCabe entered the hospital and found Savage and Anya sitting side by side in the waiting area, looking worried and holding hands.

  ‘How is she?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Alive,’ said Savage. ‘Just. The guy didn’t give her quite enough to kill her. Maybe he didn’t realize how big she was.’

  At six foot three and more than a hundred and eighty pounds, most of it muscle, Maggie knew Em weighed more than twice as much as the Stoddards’ Rottweiler. Nearly forty pounds more than Maggie herself.

  ‘Can we go see her?’

  ‘Not yet. Bill Brill is with her now. Also a veterinarian who works with the Maine Warden Service. Apparently there’s a reversal agent that works with this stuff. They’re giving her a shot now. The vet says it ought to bring her around.’

  ‘She’s being treated by a veterinarian?’

  ‘He’s got more experience with this drug than Brill or any of the other docs. Question I’ve got is, if the guy wanted Em dead,’ said Savage, ‘why in hell didn’t he just shoot her with a bullet instead of with some drug? Or at least give her enough of the drug to do the job?’

  Maggie thought about that. ‘I guess because he didn’t want her dead,’ she said. ‘At least not right away. Maybe because he wanted something from her first.’

  Savaged winced. ‘I don’t even want to think about that.’

  ‘I’m not talking about anything sexual, though he may have had that in mind as well. He may have wanted to know about the drugs that were found in her pocket. Or maybe he wanted to know if her memory had come back from the night of the murder. Wait a minute,’ Maggie paused, frowned and looked hard at Savage. ‘Who knew Emily was staying at our place?’

  Savage shrugged. ‘Nobody.’

  ‘You didn’t tell anyone Em was staying there?’

  ‘No. Just the nurse when we were leaving the hospital.’

  ‘And nothing to anyone else?’

  ‘I take your point. How did the bad guy find out?’

  ‘He didn’t. It just occurred to me. My car was still in the driveway. Em was wearing my pajamas. Sleeping in my house. It wasn’t Em the sonofabitch was after. It was me.’

  Maggie heard her name called and turned to see her father’s longtime doctor, Bill Brill. ‘She’s awake and alert,’ Brill said. ‘She’s asking for you.’

  ‘Not me?’ asked Savage.

  ‘No. Just Maggie. Follow me and I’ll take you to her room.’

  Emily was lying in a small single room. Maggie bent down and kissed her friend on the cheek. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Pretty bad. On top of everything else that was already hurting, now it feels like I’ve got a doozy of a hangover. Plus a puncture wound in my chest.’

  ‘At least you’re alive.’

  ‘So they tell me. Anyway, we need to talk.’

  ‘We certainly do. Is it okay if I make this conversation an official interview?’

  Emily nodded and Maggie turned on her recorder. ‘This is Detective Margaret Savage of the Portland, Maine, Police Department. The time is 6:15 A.M., August 25th, 2009. I’m interviewing Dr Emily Kaplan in room 214 in Downeast Community Hospital in Machias. Dr Kaplan, can you tell me what happened last night?’

  ‘Well for starters, my memory came back.’

  ‘When did that happen?’

  ‘Around 3:30 this morning. I couldn’t sleep because of the pain,’ Emily explained. ‘So I was sitting in Harlan’s bedroom, looking out the window. I thought I saw movement to my right. By the big maple. But I wasn’t sure until I saw a man run out and make a dash for the house.’

  ‘Did you get a good look at him?’

  ‘Not his face,’ said Em. ‘It was too dark and he was looking down. But there was something in the way he moved that clicked. Triggered a latent memory. I’m sure it was the same guy who killed Stoddard. He was running left to right like he ran that night. Same tilt to the body. Same quick, athletic moves,’ Em said. ‘Like a point guard driving into the paint.’

  ‘But you couldn’t see his face?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Either on the night Tiff Stoddard was killed or last night at the house?’

  ‘No. It was too dark.’

  ‘Both times, both places?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s too bad. But you’re sure it was the same guy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Maggie imagined holding a lineup of five guys running left to right … five point guards driving into the paint … and seeing if Em could pick out the right one. Wondered what a jury would make of that. Wondered what Burt Lund would.

  ‘Do you know how long they’re going to be keeping you here?’

  ‘Bill said overnight. Till they’re sure I’ve got all of this crap out of my system.’

  Maggie flicked off the recorder and headed for the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Emily.

  Maggie looked at her from the door. Just shook her head.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Em. ‘Just let me know when you catch the bastard.’

  Out in the corridor, Maggie asked her father to arrange for a deputy to watch Emily’s room. Also asked if he could have somebody run the razor, band-aid and dental floss down to Joe Pines at the Maine State Crime Lab in Augusta. As an afterthought she added the jar containing Emmett Ganzer’s saliva. A rush job, she said. She needed to know if any of the DNA samples matched the fetus in Tiff Stoddard’s womb as fast as Pines could get even preliminary reads.

  Maggie waited till 7:30 before calling Sean Carroll from the house on Center Street.
/>   ‘Maggie,’ he said. ‘I was wondering where you’d disappeared to.’

  ‘I had to run down to Portland, Sean, to pick up some personal things. Got back late last night.’

  ‘Anything new to report?’ Carroll asked. He sounded cheerful. Glad to hear from her. No mention of last night’s visit to Machias. Or her visit to Ellsworth. No mention of Susan Marsh. Or Emily Kaplan.

  ‘Not really. I’m calling because I wanted to tell you how sorry I was about what I said after we got back from Harlan’s place the other day. I said some unforgivable things. You didn’t deserve it. I shouldn’t have shot off my mouth like that.’

  ‘Oh, hey, listen. I understand. You were upset about your brother. I said some pretty unpleasant things myself.’

  ‘Well, Sean, it’s been bothering me. Matter of fact I was passing through Ellsworth last night on my way back from Portland and I stopped off at your apartment. Took a chance you might be there so I could apologize in person. In fact, I ran into one of your neighbors who was walking her dog. Alice somebody or other. She told me you weren’t home. Guess she didn’t mention it.’

  ‘No. I haven’t spoken to her. I’ve been staying in Machias. Thought you knew that. Been here since Saturday. Listen, Mag, there are a couple of things we really do have to talk about.’

  ‘Oh yeah, like what?’

  ‘Like Ganzer told me you were the one to sound the alarm about Pike and Donelda Stoddard.’

  ‘That’s right, I did.’

  ‘How did you know what was going on?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said, not wanting to tell him about the aborted call from Tabitha Stoddard. ‘I just had a feeling something bad might be happening. So I called Frank Boucher …’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know, the police chief in Eastport. I think I mentioned him the other night at dinner. Anyway, I asked him to go to Stoddard’s and check it out.’

  ‘At two in the morning?’

  ‘Yeah. You know. It was just one of those instinctive things I couldn’t get out of my head. I’m sure you’ve had them yourself.’ She was sure it sounded like bullshit to Carroll. It certainly did to her.

  ‘So you didn’t get a call from Harlan?’

  ‘Harlan? No.’

  ‘And you don’t know where he is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you tell me if you did?’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know.’ She figured he was more likely to buy it if she admitted that. ‘You know it would be hard for me to do that. I still don’t think he’s guilty. But the truth of the matter is I haven’t seen or heard from Harlan since Saturday night at the Musty Moose. I haven’t a clue where he is.’

  Carroll didn’t respond so Maggie continued. ‘Y’know, when I went up to Stoddard’s, I also tried calling you but you weren’t picking up.’

  ‘Yeah. I saw your number on recents. Emmett tells me when you were there you flat out accused him of being Stoddard’s killer. Don’t you think that’s going a little far?’

  Maggie didn’t answer immediately. She wondered if it was possible that Susan Marsh hadn’t told Carroll about her accusations in Augusta.

  ‘No. I don’t think it’s going a little far,’ she said, finally responding to his question. ‘I think Emmett may well be Conor Riordan.’

  ‘Based on what?’

  ‘Mostly opportunity. We all know he was at Harlan’s place hours before the evidence was discovered. Nobody had a better opportunity of planting the stuff there. As for the obvious nature of it all, well, nobody ever accused Emmett of being subtle. If he’d managed to kill Harlan at the same time, which I think was his goal, well, that would have sealed the deal. You know the headline. Armed suspect shot and killed resisting arrest. Conclusive evidence of murder found at suspect’s home. Yadda, yadda, yadda.’

  ‘Interesting. I suppose that’s possible. Listen, Maggie,’ Sean said, his voice becoming softer, more intimate, ‘maybe you and I could discuss all this over dinner tonight. There’s a Mediterranean place I like in Ellsworth. Cleonice.’

  She had a hard time sounding interested. But she managed. ‘Are you asking me out on a date, Sean?’ she asked, making her voice sound more coquettish than she was sure McCabe had ever heard it.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Sean, sounding a little flirty himself. ‘That wouldn’t be appropriate. I’m asking you to meet with me as a confidential informant. To discuss the case.’

  And what about after dinner, Maggie wondered. Did he plan to take his confidential informant home for a little spiked brandy, maybe followed by a little non-consensual sex, maybe followed by a little non-consensual murder? You could say one thing about the guy. He sure as hell had a big set of cojones.

  ‘Gee, Sean, I’d really love to but I don’t see how I can possibly make it tonight. I’m sure you heard about Emily being shot with an animal tranquilizer. I have to be with her.’

  ‘Yes, I did hear about it. I understand.’

  ‘All right. Some other time, then.’

  ‘Yes. I’d love to. Some other time.’

  ‘What’s your take?’ asked McCabe when she broke the connection.

  ‘More convinced than ever. He’s the guy. For starters he lied about going home last night and talking to Alice Spaulding. No mention of Susan Marsh either. Which worries me. The only reason for Carroll to have come home last night is if Marsh told him she needed to discuss something urgent.’

  ‘Our accusations?’

  ‘Yes. If she did, she could be in trouble. Believe it or not, Carroll also asked me to have dinner with him tonight.’

  Burt Lund called Maggie twenty minutes later. He’d already obtained Tiff Stoddard’s phone records.

  ‘It’s interesting,’ he said, ‘Tiff had not one but two iPhones registered in her name. Both with AT&T. One has a recorded greeting from Tiff herself. The other a greeting from someone who identifies herself as Tabitha Stoddard.’

  Maggie told Burt about the call she’d received from Tabitha’s phone the night her parents were murdered.

  ‘Yeah. I see your number here on the sheets.’

  ‘What about other activity?’

  ‘Well, Tiff made and received a lot of calls to and from untraceable cell numbers,’ said Burt. ‘She didn’t receive a lot of voicemails, though. Mostly innocuous ones from friends and family. Three were of particular interest because they came in after Tiff was dead.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘Her sister. Tabitha Stoddard. All three times Tabitha was aware she was leaving messages for a dead person.’

  Christ, Maggie thought, what that kid must be going through. ‘Can you play them for me?’

  Lund played them. Then he played them again and Maggie recorded them on her digital recorder.

  ‘Any recent messages from my brother Harlan?’

  ‘Not for the last couple of weeks. No text messages either.’

  ‘Did you ask AT&T if there were any other requests for the records?’

  ‘I did. There weren’t.’

  ‘Not even from Sean Carroll?’

  ‘Not even.’

  59

  7:12 P.M., Tuesday, August 25, 2009

  Moose Island, Maine

  Harlan shook Tabitha awake a little after seven P.M. Told her it was time to get ready.

  Tabitha didn’t say anything. Just nodded.

  While they waited for the last of the summer light to fade, Harlan buried the empty cans of fruit, the wrappers from the breakfast bars and any other visible signs of their brief habitation at Toby Mahler’s grandfather’s house.

  Then he wiped the bottle of pills and the three stacks of fifties clean of fingerprints. Finally, he stuffed both the bottle and the money back inside the teddy bear.

  ‘I won’t be able to sew him up,’ Tabitha said.

  ‘That’s okay. We’ll push some newspaper in back. That ought to hold him together well enough.’

  Harlan filled his canteen with water from the stream and they left. ‘How far do
you think you can walk?’

  ‘Pretty far. I sometimes go on hikes with Tiff. Went on hikes with Tiff,’ she corrected herself. ‘We’d go four or five miles.’

  ‘We may have to go farther than that tonight. Do you think you can make it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice determined.

  They reached the cannery at Parnell Point a little before ten. The last of more than a dozen canneries that once anchored the economy in and around Eastport, the ruins of Parnell Point remained only because of a protracted legal battle among the heirs of the former owners.

  An eight-foot-high chain link fence, now falling into disrepair, surrounded the place. A No Trespassing sign hung from the padlocked gate. Harlan, with Tabitha in tow, circled the outer perimeter of the property, checking for possible entry points and stopping every thirty meters or so to scan the area inside for any sign that Conor Riordan had arrived early.

  He helped Tabitha slip through a break in the fence near the main gate and then went through himself. Half walking, half jogging, they crossed a broad, open area devoid of cover. Nothing but low brush, rocks and cracked clay all the way to the building.

  As they drew closer, the structure rose before them, alone on the edge of the land, like a black dead thing rising from the black dead water behind. The place was falling apart. Much of the roof and interior ceiling had collapsed and the old wooden walls were rotting away. All secondary entrances and exits had been boarded up for decades, leaving only a pair of large barn doors at the front. These were protected by a padlock and another No Trespassing sign. Harlan told Tabitha to move behind him. He destroyed the lock with a single shot from the M40 and pulled open one of the doors.

  ‘Are we going inside?’ Tabitha asked, her voice quavery.

  Harlan didn’t like the idea of leaving her outside alone but the kid was obviously terrified.

  ‘Okay. You stand guard out here and try to be invisible. I’ll only be a minute.’ He handed her a baseball-sized rock. ‘Bang on the wall with this if you see or hear anyone coming.’

  ‘Three times?’

  ‘Just once.’

  Tabbie nodded. She used her shirt to wipe the mist from her glasses and scooched down next to the building. Harlan took Harold and went inside. Even from out here Tabitha could hear dozens of tiny rat feet skittering across the wooden floor. Fighting an urge to scream, she forced herself to lie still and watch the darkened landscape for intruders. She had to be brave, she told herself. Had to do this one thing. Not just for herself but also for Tiff and for her mother and even for Pike.