by James Hayman
“What kind of Scotch?” asked McCabe.
“Oh Christ, I don’t know. Something expensive. Johnnie Walker Black, I think. Does it really matter?”
“I was just curious,” said McCabe.
Maggie took Rachel Thorne’s iPhone from her pocket and set it on one of the magazines littering the table. “I’d like you to listen and tell us what’s not here.” She hit Play.
She watched Fischer’s face while it played. Especially when it ended with him saying: “Yes. Listen, Rachel, I’m a good liberal and I normally don’t believe in capital punishment but I believe your husband murdered my wife. I believe he deserves to die for what he has done.”
“Are you planning on killing him?”
“Who knows? Maybe I will.”
The recording stopped. “Is that it?” asked Fischer. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“That’s it. You said there was more to the conversation than that.”
“Yes. That’s when Rachel suggested we go to the apartment. She didn’t record what we said there?”
“Not that we know of,” said McCabe. “I take it you didn’t either.”
“No. I did a lot of drinking and a lot of talking about Hannah and how she had died. Rachel seemed very sympathetic. She also seemed majorly pissed about Josh. Not just the rapes but what kind of person he was. She said she’d been thinking about divorcing him. Starting over. That kind of thing. I told her that would just free the bastard to rape more women. She said he didn’t need to rely on rape. When he was really hot to get laid he would only use force to save time.”
“He only used force to save time?” Maggie looked incredulous. “She actually said that to you?”
“Yes. I’d already had my second drink and remarks like that were making me wish he actually was there so I could shoot the bastard on the spot. Rid the world of a sociopathic monster.”
“Did you have a gun with you?”
“Yes. I had Hannah’s handgun with me.”
“What kind of gun is it?” asked McCabe.
“A small Sig Sauer. I told you both Hannah and I went to a range and learned how to use it.”
“And you wanted to kill Joshua Thorne?”
“Yes. Loughlin too. And maybe the others. But mostly it was Thorne I wanted to kill.”
“Did you? Kill him, I mean?” Maggie asked as if simply curious. “Not in New York but two nights ago in Portland?”
“No, I did not. I’d have liked to but I didn’t. I think maybe she’s the one who killed him. Rachel, I mean. She’s a hell of a lot tougher than me and she had plenty of motive. Joshua Thorne wouldn’t be the first guy murdered by his wife.”
“Where is this gun?” asked McCabe.
“That’s another thing. It’s gone. I think she may have stolen it. When I showed it to her, she took it and handled it. Looked like she knew what she was doing.”
“It was stolen before or after your trip to New York?”
“Definitely after. I remember clearly putting it back in the drawer when I got home. And then one night a week later I looked in the drawer and it wasn’t there.”
“The cabin wasn’t locked?”
“No. I never lock the place. Hannah was always adamant about locking up. Even had new locks installed. But after she died I reverted to old habits and never bothered. I reported the theft to the Durham police. They took down all the information but I don’t think they ever did anything about it.”
“Who knew you had this gun?”
“Lots of people. I discussed the fact that Hannah wanted to buy a gun with several of my colleagues in the Psych Department. We agreed if she decided to take her own life she probably wouldn’t do it by blowing her brains out. Turned out we were right. The gun was there and she didn’t use it.”
“Who else knew you had the gun?”
“I told you Rachel did. I told her how I fantasized using it to kill her husband.”
“Did you tell her where you kept it?”
Fischer frowned as if trying to remember. “I don’t remember. I was pretty drunk by that time. I might have.”
“And you told her where you were living?”
“I told her I worked at UNH. Gave her a business card. But I don’t remember if I told her about the cabin. But c’mon, Detective, even if I did, it’s a long haul from Brooklyn, New York, just to steal a gun. These days even crazy people can buy a gun pretty much anywhere. Including on the Internet.”
True, thought McCabe. Unless you were a crazy person who wanted a specific gun with a specific serial number that just happened to belong to someone with a strong reason for wanting to kill your husband.
“Do you still have the receipt from when you purchased the gun?”
Fischer nodded.
“Would you show it to me?”
Fischer retrieved it from one of the file drawers that were holding up the desk and handed it over. A Sig Sauer Nitron purchased from a New Hampshire dealer four years earlier. Maggie made note of the serial number. McCabe simply committed it to memory.
“By the time we both had . . . God, I don’t know how many drinks but really a lot . . . we started playing a game. Or what Rachel called a game. She named it Double Jeopardy. Like from the TV show.”
“And how did this game go?” asked McCabe.
“She decided I was the contestant so I had to go first.”
“Go first and do what?”
“Invent a way to kill Josh in which I wouldn’t be caught. Of course I suggested something stupid. Like waiting for him to come home from work, hiding behind the door and blowing his brains out as he walked in. She laughed at that idea and said, ‘Oh no, you’ve got to be a lot more clever than that. And I’m not sure I’d want all that blood and bits of Josh all over the apartment.’”
McCabe wondered if Fischer was making all this shit up. The whole game business sounded too stupid for words. On the other hand, he’d learned firsthand how much Rachel liked playing games. Dangerous games. He’d also learned she was a manipulative liar. So who the hell knew?
“I asked Rachel what she meant by ‘clever.’ She said if I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in jail I had to think up a way to kill Josh that nobody would figure out. ‘Like what?’ I asked.
“‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘You’re the contestant and I’m the moderator. You know? Like Alex Trebek. I make the rules and ask the questions. If you come up with the right answer you win the prize.’
“‘And what is the prize?’ I asked.
“‘The ultimate one,’ she said. ‘At least for you. Revenge for the rape of your wife. For me a big pile of money. And not having to put up with a cheating husband anymore.’”
“And how well did you do in this game?” asked Maggie.
“Not very. I’m not very imaginative.”
“When you were playing your game of How Do We Kill Josh, did Rachel ever suggest hiring a prostitute to lure Josh Thorne to his death?”
“No. I mentioned it. Remember, I was the contestant. She was the moderator. I came up with that idea in response to something she said. That there were only two things in the world that truly interested Josh. Money and fucking. I told her I didn’t have access to the kind of money that would interest him. But fucking seemed like a good idea. So I suggested hiring a really hot woman to use as bait to lure him to a place where he could be killed anonymously. That turned out to be the only idea of mine she liked.” A crooked grin spread across Fischer’s face. “She gave me an A plus for it.”
“An A plus?”
“Yes. I’m sure you know Rachel’s a teacher. So am I. We both give out grades all the time.”
“What happened next?”
“Nothing. It was already dark out and I had to leave to catch my bus back to New Hampshire. The whole trip back I was thinking she actually wanted me to do it. Kill her husband the way I dreamed up in the game. And maybe she did. That way, I would be the one who’d have to go to jail. And she could play the mourning wife and coll
ect millions in insurance.”
“Did you talk about Hannah’s book? Her novel?” asked Maggie.
“Yes. Like I told you I gave her a copy to read. Certainly appropriate since it was about a victim murdering a rapist.”
“In the book, neither the husband of the victim nor the wife of the rapist are the killers, are they?” asked Maggie.
“No. In the book it’s the victim herself. She plans the murder and carries it out.”
“How does she do it?”
“I told you. With a knife.”
“Yes, you said that. But what does she do with the knife?”
“She castrates the rapist and then cuts his throat. I think that’s how Hannah always fantasized getting back at Thorne.”
“Did you tell Rachel how the rapist was murdered in the book?”
“No. But if she read it she would know.”
“Would you let me read the book?”
“I don’t know. I’d hate doing that without Hannah’s permission, which at this point she can’t give. The parts about the murder are pretty brutal.”
“You let Rachel read it.”
“Yes. I wanted her to know in a much stronger, more immediate way than I could possibly describe what her husband and the others had done to Hannah. And how she’d suffered from it ever since. I guess I wanted her to want to kill Josh every bit as much as I did. Or as Hannah did.”
“Do you think Rachel killed her husband?”
“I don’t know. I think she may have.”
“But you didn’t do it?”
“No. I didn’t do it.”
“Because you didn’t want to spend the rest of your life behind bars.”
“That part doesn’t bother me.” Evan Fischer laughed a small bitter laugh. “The rest of my life may well be very short.”
Maggie threw McCabe a look he understood immediately. She wanted to take Fischer in under protective custody. He was clearly a danger to his own life. McCabe merely nodded.
“Can I see the book?” asked Maggie.
“It’s in the computer. I’ll e-mail it to you.”
“Would you do that now?” Maggie handed him her card. Fisher went to the laptop, and attached a word document to an e-mail addressed to Maggie. He hit Send.
While Fischer was writing and sending the e-mail, McCabe went outside and called Bill Bacon. Asked Bill to take down the serial number of Fischer’s gun and compare it to the one they’d found in the trunk.
“Now?”
“Yeah, do it now, Bill. I’ll hang on.”
Two minutes later Bacon was back on the phone. “You got it, McCabe. Same serial number. Same gun. It’s the one that killed the woman in the trunk. Whoever she was. FBI has no record of her fingerprints. Or her DNA.”
McCabe came back in the cabin.
“I need to talk to you for a couple of minutes,” he said to Maggie. Turning to Fischer he added, “And I need you to stay right where you are.”
Maggie headed for the door. As she was leaving she noticed Fischer pouring himself a large glass of Scotch. No ice.
Chapter 38
MCCABE SHUT THE door behind them and they walked far enough away from the cabin so there was no chance Fischer might overhear what they were saying. But close enough that they could keep an eye on the door.
For the next five minutes, McCabe filled Maggie in on his phone conversation with Bill Bacon. He told her about the discovery of the Altima on Lawn Avenue. Norah’s near frozen body still in the trunk. The gun that killed her right beside her.
“Bill checked the serial numbers. Fischer’s gun killed Wilcox. Which as far as I’m concerned pretty much seals it. Mild-mannered professor or not, Fischer’s got to be our guy.”
“What about Rachel driving up here to steal the gun?”
“To use to murder a woman Fischer had nothing against? I can’t see even someone as devious as Rachel driving twelve hours round trip just to get her hands on Fischer’s gun. Too easy just to take one of Josh’s and throw it in the ocean after the deed is done.”
“She might do the drive if she wanted to seal the deal against Evan.”
“Mabe, but I think we go back to the cabin now, put the cuffs on the professor, let Wally Eckridge know what we’re doing and take Fischer back to Portland. Then we put our mild-mannered professor in an interview room and not let him out until he confesses to all three murders or until we find at least a shred of hard evidence that it was Rachel who did the deed.”
Maggie sighed and shook her head. “Maybe you’re right. But I still don’t think the guy has it in him to be that kind of killer. Maybe of Thorne and Loughlin. But no way would he kill a bystander like Wilcox. And even if he did, why would he be stupid enough to leave his gun sitting in the trunk right next to the body?”
“I don’t know. Because he’s the nervous type? Panicky. Probably forgot he left it there when he dumped the car.”
“Even if I grant you that,” said Maggie, “why compound the stupidity by handing two cops the receipt for the gun purchase with the serial number printed on it when he could just as easily have told us he’d thrown the receipt away?”
“Again I don’t know, Mag. Because he’s careless? And not very good at being a murderer? Because I surprised and panicked him by showing up unexpectedly at the house on Hartley Street? Maybe Fischer was hiding upstairs admiring his surgery when I came in. When he hears me open the trunk of the car and discover Wilcox lying there dead, he sneaks down, bops me on the side of the head and drives off. If it had been Rachel there’d have been no bop on the head. She would have just gunned me down without shedding a tear. Then chuckled when she rolled the car over my corpse on the way out.”
Maggie nodded. She was inclined to agree with that. “Okay. Maybe. But I’m still not convinced. Aside from anything else, do you honestly think Evan Fischer would have a clue how to hire an expensive prostitute? Even for sex, let alone to lure Thorne to his deathbed? I just don’t see it.”
“What about the fact that Evan Fischer just happened to have asked a girl named Norah Wilcox to the senior prom. How the hell was Rachel Thorne supposed to find that out?”
“The same way Bill did. By researching the guy. Don’t you see what’s bugging me, McCabe? It’s just too goddamned perfect. Using the Norah Wilcox name was just another little piece of the frame-up.”
“Even if I grant you that, what about the Day Runner? Dead Norah kept a very thorough date book, which I went through page by page, and you know me, I remember every name, date and place written in that book. Evan Fischer’s name was written in right next to the time and place for picking up Josh and delivering him for the kill.”
“Rachel could have written that in and left it for us to find.”
“Look, Maggie, all the evidence we’ve got points straight to Fischer. All of it. The gun. The Day Runner. The audio recording of him saying he wants to kill Joshua Thorne. Hell, even the method, castration and cutting Thorne’s throat, came right out of Hannah’s book.”
“And none of this so-called solid evidence points to Rachel?”
“That’s right. All we’ve got on Rachel is Fischer telling us that she invited him to her apartment where in her role as Lady Macbeth she lures him into playing a game the objective of which was to come up with a clever way to murder her husband.”
“Yeah. And isn’t it interesting that she didn’t record that portion of the conversation?”
“Maybe because it never happened,” said McCabe. “Maybe Fischer made the whole thing up. Maybe the conversation ended like Rachel said on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.”
“Then how do you explain him describing what her apartment looks like. I doubt he’d make up details like that. Too easy to check. He even noticed what kind of Scotch she keeps there.”
“All right,” said McCabe. “You’ve got me on that one. We’ll have to ask her about that.”
“I’m sure she’ll have thought up some clever explanation.”
“Reall
y? Like what?”
“I don’t know. But she’s thought of everything else. I’m sure she’ll have some kind of explanation ready.”
“I’ll give you that one. He was even right about her brand of Scotch. She had a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black in her room when I did the NOK notification. She drank some herself and offered me some.”
“Which I assume you turned down.”
“I did.” Remembering the scene in the Governor’s Suite, McCabe felt himself begin to blush. He wondered if it showed or if the bruises on his face provided adequate camouflage.
Maggie didn’t respond. She just looked at him like she was trying to figure something out.
“Look,” said McCabe, “I know you don’t like her . . .”
“Really? Not like her? How could that be? Is it just because she’s a selfish, lying bitch who likes to flirt with you and probably every other good-looking guy in the world and has a nasty attitude toward me and probably every other woman she considers a competitor? None of that stuff means I don’t like Rachel. It means I absolutely detest her. However, I can assure you my personal feelings about the woman are totally beside the point.”
“The point being?”
“I think she killed her husband.”
“I’ll grant you Rachel may have had a motive for killing Josh . . .”
“Six million motives.”
“Okay, six million motives. However, I can’t think of a single one why she’d want to kill Charlie Loughlin. Fischer had a motive for killing Loughlin but Rachel barely knew the guy and I just don’t see the selfish rich girl as you describe her taking on the role as the avenging angel of all rapists.”
“Sure she had a motive. And you’re demonstrating it right now. The easiest way for her to frame Fischer for killing her husband was to link that murder to the killing of a man she barely knew and had no reason to kill.”
“You really think she’s that much of a psycho?”
