The Girl on the Bridge

by James Hayman

  “Murder? Jesus. Who’d he kill?”

  “Can’t tell you yet. But I do need to talk to him. Listed landline goes to voice mail.”

  “Then he’s probably at his cabin. Hang on and let me try his cell for you.”

  Maggie waited while Heller made the call. A minute later he was back on with Maggie. “He’s not there either. Leastways he’s not answering his phone. If we’re talking something serious like murder . . .”

  “That’s what we’re talking.”

  “All right, why don’t I send a car over to the cabin and see if he’s there. If he is, we’ll sit with him till you get here. If not, I’ll call you back and let you know. You in Portland now?”

  “No. I’m in Connecticut. West Hartford. But if you do find him I’ll head up to Durham tonight. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”

  Maggie gave him her number and Heller said he’d let her know and the two detectives started back toward their cars. “Okay,” asked Bernstein. “What do you want to do first?”

  “Get something to eat and wait for this Heller guy to get back to me. If Fischer’s at the cabin I’m off to the races.”

  “We’re off to the races.”

  “Fair enough. If he’s not there, I better find a cheap place to stay tonight. Either way I’ve got to let my boss know what’s going on.”

  “Yeah. I know a terrific place you can both eat and sleep.”

  “Cheap?”

  “Not only cheap, it’s free. It’s called Chez Bernstein.”

  “Your place?”

  “My place. We’ve got an extra bedroom we keep all made up in case the prodigal son ever decides to visit. Which is next to never. An excellent bathroom and shower you can have all to yourself. And my husband’s already put together a homemade lasagna that’s just waiting for my call to be popped in the oven. And trust me, Lennie’s lasagna is to die for. Work for you?”

  “You sure your husband won’t mind a strange woman turning up at eleven at night?”

  “Nah. Lennie loves having guests. Loves having people tell him what a great cook he is.”

  Sounded a whole lot better than a Motel 6. Even if they did leave the lights on for you. “I think you’ve got a deal.”

  Chapter 25

  ONCE BACK IN the house McCabe headed straight for the closet where Thorne’s clothes had been stuffed. He wanted a look at the wallet before Jacoby’s people arrived and started doing their thing. Pulling on a fresh pair of gloves and holding the wallet carefully by the edges, McCabe pulled it from the jacket and opened it. Inside he found Joshua Thorne’s New York State driver’s license with a shot of a smiling Josh in the top slot. Born November 5, 1979. Died March 5, 2014. A Scorpio. Four months short of his thirty-fifth birthday. Below the license McCabe found an American Express Black Card with Thorne’s name on it. A rich man’s status symbol that charged a seven thousand five hundred dollar fee just for the privilege of applying for one. No surprise someone like Josh carried one. In the slot below that was a keycard for a room at the Regency. In a back slot he saw the white tops of what looked like a batch of business cards. He pulled them out and leafed through them. Most were for various real estate executives Thorne was presumably courting for deals. But one didn’t fit the pattern. A card for someone named Evan Fischer, Ph.D., who was, apparently, an associate professor of Behavioral Psychology at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. A strange card for Josh to be carrying. What sort of business would he have with a psychologist in New Hampshire? And why was he carrying the card in his wallet? Was Thorne planning on doing something that required the expertise of a psychologist? Didn’t make much sense but McCabe figured it most likely didn’t mean much. Still he committed Fischer’s address, phone numbers and e-mail to memory and put the card back where he found it. He next checked the back pockets of the wallet. Nine hundred and sixty-two dollars in cash plus a couple more credit cards, a AAA card and a membership card for the Downtown Association, one of New York’s most exclusive private clubs.

  McCabe pushed the wallet back into the jacket pocket, closed the closet door and went back upstairs. He first did a quick check of the other bedroom and the bathroom. As expected both were empty and looked unused. He then went back to the scene of the crime and allowed himself a more thorough look around the room. A bunch of cardboard boxes labeled Earle W. Noyes & Sons, a local moving company, lined the walls. Filled, he supposed, with stuff the Bickles hadn’t taken with them to Florida. Winter jackets and long underwear? Maybe. He’d leave all that to Jacoby’s people to go through.

  There was a closet door on the wall across from the foot of the bed. McCabe pulled it open. A few empty hangers swung on their hooks with the sudden rush of air but there was nothing else inside except another half dozen movers’ boxes.

  He closed the door and turned back to the end of the bed to view the corpse from the angle the original photo had been taken. Had the killer taken a second shot? A postmortem photo of the surgical handiwork? If so, had it been e-mailed to Rachel Thorne? McCabe hoped not. Seeing what McCabe was seeing now might destroy her. Still Starbucks might find something in a new photo that could possibly provide some kind of clue.

  Seconds later he heard the first of the sirens screaming their way up Forest Avenue toward Hartley Street. He went downstairs and out the front door to deploy the troops. The first responding officer climbed out of her cruiser.

  “Sergeant McCabe, I’m Officer Willetts.” Cleary was right. Willetts was “a babe.” One of the best-looking female cops he’d ever seen and that included a certain six-foot-tall senior detective who looked pretty damned good herself. He doubted Brian would heed his advice about it not being smart to date other cops. No more than McCabe would have done back when he was Brian’s age. Or even now when he was well past Brian’s age. Well, good luck to that.

  “What do you need me to do?” Willetts asked.

  “First thing,” he said, “let me borrow your cell phone.”

  The young cop looked puzzled but handed over her phone and gave him the pass code. He punched in his own number and listened for the ring, hoping it was somewhere in the house. He heard nothing.

  While Willetts waited, her face paled as she looked first at McCabe’s bruised and swollen face. But she said nothing. If she was ever going to make it to a senior level in the department she’d better learn to ask more questions.

  “Can I keep this for a little while?” asked McCabe. “I need to make a few calls.”

  Willetts nodded. McCabe pocketed the phone. “I’ll return it as soon as I can. And I won’t look at anything private,” he added, wondering if anyone who’d made it through the Academy would be foolish enough to engage in sexting.

  “Yessir. Thank you, sir.”

  McCabe first called Avis Rent-a-Car and after some back-and-forthing he managed to get the plate number for a Nissan Altima that had been rented to a Norah Wilcox. The car had been rented three days earlier at Portland Jetport. The renter was listed as arriving on a JetBlue flight from JFK. She’d turned down additional insurance and was the only driver authorized to operate the vehicle. Both the driver’s license and credit card used for the rental had been issued to a woman named Norah Wilcox.

  Three more units and the PPD Crime Scene van had already arrived by the time McCabe ended the call. The assembled uniforms were busy circling the house with yellow tape. McCabe directed a couple of them to keep the press and gawkers, who were already beginning to gather, as far back as possible. Before going back into the house he gave Jacoby and two of his Tyvek-suited techs a two-minute summary of what they’d find inside.

  “I didn’t see either murder weapon,” he concluded. “But I didn’t make a thorough search. I’m leaving that for you guys.”

  Jacoby grunted something about how he would find the weapons if they were there. “You oughta be more careful about letting killers sneak up behind you. You could just as easily have a bullet hole in your brain as a black and blue face. Which maybe you
woulda deserved for general carelessness.”

  “Thanks, Bill. I appreciate your concern. Speaking of carelessness, I’m sure you’ll be happy to know a bunch of the bloody footprints on the second floor and coming down the stairs are mine,” he told Jacoby. “I stepped in the goo before I realized it was there. Still you may also find some prints from the bad guy.”

  Jacoby held up a plastic bag containing McCabe’s bloody booties and grunted his displeasure at McCabe’s screwing up the evidence search. “Next time, be more careful.”

  McCabe patted Jacoby’s Tyvek-covered shoulder. “It’s okay, Bill. You know I do my best.”

  Jacoby handed McCabe a fresh pair of booties and had one of his techs bag the bloody ones. Bill was getting grumpier every week. The guy was good at his job but McCabe wondered if it might not be time for him to consider retiring. He’d been doing this for over thirty years. Seemed like it was getting to him.

  Back inside, McCabe pointed to the closet door. “You’ll find the male victim’s clothes in there. Rolled in a ball behind a vacuum cleaner. A leather wallet’s in one pocket of the suit jacket. I looked through it but I was careful not to smudge any prints.”

  They walked across to the other side of the room. McCabe pointed at the coffee table. “Be sure to check those two martini glasses for DNA. I also noticed a mostly empty whiskey glass in the kitchen that needs checking too. We know our two victims were drinking martinis on the night of. I suspect it was the killer who drank the Scotch. I want prints and DNA on all three ASAP.”

  From the kitchen, they moved to the garage. “One of the bodies, the female, was out here in the trunk of a rented Nisson Altima. Whoever bopped me drove off in it. Assuming he came down to the garage and discovered me right after killing Thorne. Any bloody footprints showing shoes not booties would have been his.”

  Jacoby nodded without comment. Then he pointed to a wooden rolling pin on the floor. “Must have bopped you with that.”

  It seemed likely.

  They went back inside and climbed the stairs to have a look at Joshua Thorne.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Jacoby, staring at the raw wound between Thorne’s legs. “Somebody must have really hated this guy.”

  “I just now noticed,” said McCabe, “there’s what looks like dried semen on his thigh. Right where Thorne might have squirted.”

  “When he still had something to squirt with,” said Jacoby.

  “Make sure it came from him.”

  “Who else?” asked Jacoby.

  “Could be the killer’s. He, if I’m right and it was a he, might have found all this violence so stimulating he couldn’t keep himself from jerking off out of sheer excitement.”

  “Make him a pretty weird fella, if you ask me. Any chance Thorne was gay? Or maybe swung both ways?”

  “I don’t think so. At least, not if what his wife told us about him is accurate.”

  “Anyway, you know me, McCabe. My team will go over this whole house with a fine-tooth comb. One tooth at a time.”

  “The semen DNA probably matches traces on one of the glasses downstairs. Of course we’ll need all the DNA testing done ASAP.”

  “So what else is new?” said Jacoby. “I’ll try to light a fire under Pines.” Joe Pines was the DNA specialist at the Maine State Lab in Augusta. “He’s begun using this new RapidHIT method. Gets you a usable read in just a couple of hours.”

  “Good.”

  “This the blindfold?” asked Jacoby. He was holding a silk necktie by a single gloved finger. “Found it at the foot of the bed.”

  McCabe took the tie. It was definitely similar in color and pattern to the blindfold covering Thorne’s eyes in the photograph. Red silk Ferragamo with a herd of tiny gold elephants running downhill in diagonal rows. McCabe wondered again if the killer removed the blindfold not just to make Josh Thorne witness his own castration but also to let Thorne have a look at who was killing him.

  “Hey, McCabe? You anywhere in the house?” Brian Cleary’s distinctive bellow was coming from just inside the front door. Tasco was with him.

  McCabe excused himself and went downstairs.

  “Jesus,” said Cleary, staring at him. “What happened to you?”

  “Somebody hit me.”

  “Somebody hit you?” Cleary rolled his eyes. “No shit somebody hit you. Last time I looked that bad was the night I got the crap beat out of me by some Golden Gloves champ from the Bronx. It’s what convinced me to give up boxing.”

  “I was coldcocked from behind. Had to be the killer.”

  “Got a hell of a punch if he did this with his fists.”

  “It was a wooden rolling pin. I went out like a light.”

  “Jesus, lucky he didn’t kill you. Any broken bones?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe you should check for concussion.”

  “I’ll ask the EMTs to check when I go outside,” said McCabe. “Anyway, I found Wilcox and Thorne.”

  “I take it they’re both dead?”

  “Very.”

  Bill Jacoby came downstairs and shooed them out of the house. “Okay. Why don’t you people wait outside and stop contaminating my crime scene? With two murders we’ll be at this for a while.”

  McCabe pulled off his gloves and booties. Jacoby took them and stuffed them in a plastic bag and the three detectives went outside. The temp had dropped at least ten degrees since McCabe had arrived and a light snow had started falling. Blue lights were flashing from one end of Hartley Street to the other. A couple of news vans had managed to squeeze in just beyond the cruisers and a gaggle of reporters stood on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape shouting out questions. Beyond the reporters a small scattering of neighbors, braving the cold with coats thrown on over their pajamas with most wearing slippers, watched the real life version of Law and Order play out on their own quiet street.

  McCabe spotted a MedCu unit, went over and asked one of the medics to check his face for broken bones. The guy said he didn’t think there were any but McCabe should have it checked by a doctor anyway. He swabbed the area with some antiseptic that stung like hell. Then gave him a proper ice pack to help bring down the swelling. McCabe then rejoined Tasco and Cleary and the three detectives headed over to Tasco’s Honda CR-V, which he’d double-parked next to one of the cruisers. Inside the car it was still fairly warm. Tasco started the engine to keep it that way. It could be a long night.

  McCabe brought the others up to speed on the location and condition of both bodies. Told them that the killer might be a psychology professor at UNH named Evan Fischer. There was no proof yet but it seemed like a possibility.

  “You think it was a guy who cut off his balls?” asked Cleary.

  Tasco shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think any guy would ever do that to another guy. I mean, could you do that? No matter how much you hated the guy, you couldn’t, could ya?”

  McCabe just shrugged. Enough chatter. He told Cleary and Tasco he wanted them to take charge of the site. He started getting out of the car.

  “Where you going?”

  “Gotta let a few people know what’s going on. I also have a book I want to read. Then I’m going to notify Mrs. Thorne of her husband’s death.”

  Chapter 26

  MAGGIE CHECKED VOICE mail as soon as she got back in her car.

  “Detective Savage. My name is Ian Landis. I’m dean of students at Holden College. President Nixon asked me to give you a call. I’m leaving the office now but you can call me at home up until midnight tonight. After that, I’m afraid your questions will have to wait until tomorrow morning.”

  Landis provided a number and Maggie jotted it down. She had about an hour to call before what she supposed was Dean Landis’s bedtime.

  She started her car, flashed her lights to signal she was ready to go and followed Toni Bernstein home. The drive took less than ten minutes. On the way a call came in from the Durham Police Department.

  “Detective Sa
vage, this is Officer Norm Heller from Durham. Just to let you know we had an officer stop by and Fischer’s cabin is empty. No one in residence.”

  “Did the officer go inside?”

  “No, ma’am. Need a search warrant to do that.”

  “Of course.”

  Maggie thanked him and followed Toni Bernstein as she turned into a town house community on Timberwood Road. At the second row of buildings Toni reached out the window and waved her arm, pointing Maggie to a parking area marked Visitors.

  Toni waited at the door finishing yet another Camel as Maggie walked up carrying her briefcase and duffel bag.

  “Let me just take a few more drags before we go in. The deal I made with Lennie is I can smoke as long as I don’t smoke in the house.”

  “Ever tried quitting?”

  “A million times. For years, Lennie kept hocking me to quit.”

  “Hocking?”

  “Yiddish for nagging. I’d try but then a few days or a few weeks later I’d start again. Once I stayed off for a full two months. When I went back Lennie accused me of loving my Camels more than I loved him. When I told him he might have something there, he backed off and we made our deal. I still smoke but never in the house or in his car. He tells me he plans to have my tombstone carved into the shape of a large granite camel like the one on the pack. The epitaph will read, Here lies Antoinette Bernstein. She loved her dromedaries more than she loved her life.”

  “Sounds like my father,” said Maggie. “Except the dromedaries he smokes are the short old-fashioned ones without the filter, which I have to believe are even worse for him.”

  “How old’s your father?”

  “Going on seventy-six. Still alive and kicking and still working as the sheriff of Washington County, Maine.”

  “Good for him. At his age, he’s entitled.” Toni snuffed out the cigarette and unlocked the door. The rich scent of garlic, tomatoes and cheese wafted out and Maggie followed Bernstein in.

  “Wow, that smells wonderful.”