Mike McCabe 01 - The Cutting

by James Hayman

‘I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill anyone. I’ve never killed anyone. She came over and she gave me a blow job and then she left and that’s all there was to it! That’s all! She gave me a blow job!’

  McCabe was about to speak again, but Maggie caught his eye. She gave him a look that said, ‘Back off.’ McCabe nodded and moved to the end of the deck. He leaned back against the wooden railing and waited. Kenney was still rocking forward and back in his chair, still holding himself.

  Maggie spoke softly. ‘Tobin? Why don’t you just tell us straight out what did happen that night.’

  Kenney glanced over at McCabe. ‘Don’t worry about him,’ Maggie said. ‘Just look at me. Look at my eyes. He won’t ask you any more questions. Just tell me what happened between you and Katie so we can finish this up and we can leave you alone and you can get some rest.’

  The assistant girls’ soccer coach sat there for what seemed like a long time, saying nothing. Then he began to speak. His voice was flat. Toneless. Without affect.

  ‘After the movies, I picked up a pizza from Torrelli’s, like I said. I got home about ten. I got a beer from the fridge and ate a couple of slices. I had a bunch of papers to grade. I usually grade papers on the sofa. I put the graded ones on the coffee table, the ungraded ones next to me on the couch. That’s how I organize them.

  ‘A few minutes after I started grading, the doorbell rang, and it was Katie. She was all sweetness and “Gee, can I come in and talk for a while?” But she looked a little weird, like she’d been crying. Like she was stressed out. So I let her in. I asked her what the matter was. She sees I’m drinking a beer and says, “Can I have a beer, too?” I tell her she’s too young, that we could both get in trouble. Then she takes my hand and starts stroking it and says, “Oh, come on, Mr. Kenney.” She actually called me Mr. Kenney. “Please. I’m not going to tell anybody.”

  ‘Right there, I should have put her in the car and driven her straight home, but I didn’t. I was feeling lonely, and one part of me wanted her to stick around. So, like a jerk, I got her a beer. She takes a swig, and we sit down on the couch where I was grading the papers. She’s wearing this tiny little miniskirt and it’s riding up over her crotch. She asks me if I think she’s attractive. I say yeah, she’s very attractive. Then she asks me if I think she’s sexy. I don’t answer – but I don’t get up, either. Then she says, “If I were your girlfriend, would you go screwing around with other girls?” I say, “No, I wouldn’t.” Then I say, “Get up, I’ve got to take you home.”

  ‘But she doesn’t get up. She lies down and puts her head in my lap. She takes my hand and she puts it on her breast, and I’m thinking to myself, “Holy shit, what’s this all about?”

  ‘She asks me again if I think she’s sexy. By this time, I’ve got an incredible hard-on, and I know she can feel it ’cause she’s got her head in my lap. God help me, I really do want to fuck her, but I know I can’t. So I ask her what happened with Ronnie Sobel. He’s her boyfriend. She says Ronnie’s an asshole and she doesn’t give a shit about Ronnie and don’t I think she’s sexy? I say sure she’s sexy, but I’m a teacher and she’s a student and we shouldn’t be even thinking stuff like this, but then she rolls onto her front and I’m looking down and she’s unzipping my fly.

  ‘Look, Margaret, or whatever your name is, I know I sound like a jerk. Your buddy over there thinks I’m worse than a jerk. Maybe he’s right. I’m twenty-six years old and she’s sixteen. Even worse, I’m her coach – her teacher – and there she is, opening my zipper. I’ve got this fucking hard-on that’s ready to explode. Then she’s got her mouth on it and boom, like in ten seconds flat, it’s all over. I’m coming all over her face and all over my pants and the couch and whether you believe it or not, Margaret, I feel like the biggest asshole in the world. You know something else? I still do. But I did not fuck her and I did not kill her.’ Kenney just sat there for a while, looking nowhere, saying nothing.

  ‘What happened next?’ asked Maggie.

  Kenney looked at her. ‘She left.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘No. After I came, I’m thinking to myself, holy shit, what have I done? I got up and got her a towel to wipe her face. Then I told her to get in the car. I’m going to drive her home. She says she wants to spend the night. I tell her she can’t. She gets angry, and we argue about it for a while. Then she slams out the door and she just stands there on the front steps, screaming at me through the screen that I’m an asshole. She just gave me a great fucking blow job, she says, and I won’t even let her spend the fucking night. She calls me a bunch of names. Tells me to go fuck myself.

  ‘Then she was gone.’ Kenney looked up. ‘Just like that she was gone. Ran off into the night, and that’s the truth of the matter. I didn’t kill her and I didn’t fuck her. Maybe that sounds like Bill Clinton. “I didn’t have sex with that woman” – but it’s the truth.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come in and tell us this when she was reported missing?’ asked Maggie.

  ‘I picked up the phone about a hundred times, but I couldn’t do it. I knew it would cost me my job, and I guess I convinced myself that she’d just run off and would come home after a while. Pretty stupid, but who knew she was going to go out and get herself killed? If I’d just pushed her in the car and driven her home, none of this would ever have happened.’

  Maggie believed him. In spite of his anger, so did McCabe.

  ‘Is this going to get me arrested? Statutory rape?’

  ‘You screwed up, big-time, Tobin,’ said McCabe. ‘In Maine, any sexual act between a teacher and a student under eighteen is a crime. Doesn’t matter who started it. Maybe, if you’re real cooperative, real contrite, they’ll let you off with a suspended sentence. Maybe not. Either way, you better go find yourself another career. Another life. There’s no way you’re working with kids anymore. Not now. Not ever.’

  Later, in the car, before driving away, McCabe sat there thinking about what Kenney’d told them. ‘Why do you think he talked?’ he asked Maggie. ‘It would have been so easy for him just to stonewall the whole thing.’

  ‘Guilt.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Sure. He’s just a kid himself. Probably not a bad kid. He was already feeling guilty about the blow job. Then when Katie turned up dead, it got a whole lot worse. You heard him. He was blaming himself. He had to tell somebody. So he told us. Which leaves us with the question, what do we do now?’

  ‘I don’t know. Try to find some dude from Florida with cowboy boots and a fancy SUV. If he really is from Florida. I’ll see if Cahill will do a doctor/Lexus cross-check down there. We should also get some people talking to the girls on the soccer team again. See if any of them remembers him. Maybe he talked to more than one kid. Or maybe they saw him talking to Katie.’

  15

  Sunday. 6:00 P.M.

  Purely on impulse, McCabe picked up the Bird and drove to the West Side. There was still plenty of light, and on a Sunday evening crossing from one end of the city to the other took less than ten minutes. He drove west on Spring Street, passing Mercy, Portland’s smaller hospital, on his right. Covering the same distance in New York could take an hour.

  He slowed as he passed 24 Trinity Street and then rounded the corner. McCabe parked where the Bird wouldn’t be seen and walked back. Philip and Harriet Spencer’s home was a private place, a sizable property surrounded by an ancient wrought-iron fence, free from rust and in perfect repair. A glance at the house and grounds told him that if Spencer was somehow involved in Katie’s Dubois’s murder, money wasn’t a motive. The house itself was a century-old redbrick Georgian with a slate roof and black shutters. Graceful and classically proportioned, the work of a well-schooled, if unadventurous, architect. The solid oak front door was polished a lustrous brown. It looked easily capable of deterring the efforts of any unwelcome visitors, at least any not equipped with a battering ram.

  McCabe pushed the bell. Chimes pealed inside. He hadn’t planned the visit and fou
nd himself hoping Spencer wasn’t home. He wanted to talk to the doctor’s wife. Failing that, he hoped, at least, to get a sense of how the man lived. As McCabe waited, his eyes took in the lush grounds.

  Every corner of the neat, nearly secret garden was meticulously planned and planted. Even late on a cool mid-September afternoon, the perennial beds were a mass of summer color. Clumps of Montauk daisies vied for attention with asters, hollyhocks, foxgloves, and purple coneflowers. The names of plants and flowers recalled from another Sunday, one spent with Casey, roaming the grounds of the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Even the Latin names would stay etched forever in his memory. McCabe rang again. Still no one answered.

  He moved to the left of the front door. There, two tall windows had been left open, he supposed to admit the fresh breezes of this cool early fall day. Open windows suggested someone was home. McCabe squatted down and peered into the room. It was furnished as an informal library or sitting room. Inside, near the window, not far from his nose, the New York Times Sunday magazine lay abandoned on a small cherry side table, the crossword puzzle half completed, in pen. Built-in bookcases covered the two far walls. Squinting, McCabe could make out some of the titles. To the left, recent fiction, memoirs, gardening books, their bright jackets lending a splash of color to the otherwise brown room. The shelves on the right presented a more somber aspect, books with plain, academic gray or green covers. McCabe couldn’t make out the titles but assumed they were medical texts. Philip’s books. Philip. The superstar surgeon. The man who climbed mountains and transplanted hearts. To test himself. To see how far he could push the limits. When I do remove a heart, sometimes I hold it in my hand for a minute or two knowing it will give new life to a dying patient. An extraordinary feeling.

  Still no one answered the door. McCabe gave it up and walked around to the right of the house. A black Porsche Boxster waited on the white and pink gravel driveway. A tiny trunk. No one could carry a corpse, not even a diminutive corpse like Katie, in that. Beyond the Porsche, behind and to the right of the main house, stood a sizable unattached building. Probably once a carriage house. Today, he guessed, a garage. It had double-wide sliding barn doors, each with a row of glass windows.

  He walked back. He looked around, saw no one, decided to have a peek. The windows were a little higher than he imagined and a little grimier. He stood on tiptoes and blocked the reflective light by cupping his hands. The interior was surprisingly dark. There was room for three cars. Only one was there. A Lexus SUV. A 2002? A 2003? He couldn’t tell. Couldn’t be sure about the color either.

  ‘Are you looking for something?’

  McCabe turned from the window. A tall, lanky blonde was looking at him, a pair of lopping shears at the ready. She seemed prepared to use them. The Press Herald would love it. PORTLAND POLICE DETECTIVE LOPPED TO DEATH BY IRATE HOUSEWIFE. Even in her faded gardening jeans and baggy sweatshirt, she was the kind of woman whose stance and attitude exuded old money. ‘Are you Harriet Spencer?’ he asked.

  ‘I am. Who are you, and why are you peering in my garage?’

  McCabe held up his shield and ID. ‘Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe. We spoke briefly on the phone yesterday, and actually I was looking for you.’

  ‘In the garage?’

  ‘Well, I tried the front door and no one answered. So I thought you might be in there.’

  ‘I don’t normally hang out in the garage, Detective.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t, Mrs. Spencer. I was also prepared to look around the grounds.’

  ‘Well, now that you’ve found me, what can I do for you?’

  ‘I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.’

  ‘If it’s about that murder, I’m not sure how I can help you. Did my husband return your call?’

  ‘He did. He and I spoke yesterday afternoon. Can we go into the house? It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.’

  Harriet Spencer thought about that for a moment, then led McCabe through a rear door that led directly from the back garden into the kitchen. She directed him to a red oak farmhouse table. ‘Would you like some coffee or a cold drink?’ she asked.

  ‘Only if you’re having some,’ he said.

  ‘I am.’ She took out a black bag of coffee beans and began preparing a pot. ‘I only noticed you by the garage because I was coming in for coffee anyway.’

  He looked around the large kitchen while she measured out the coffee and water. If he expected something out of Architectural Digest, he would have been sorely disappointed. No Sub-Zero refrigerators or Viking ranges here. The appliances and the décor were plain and functional, the cabinets old-fashioned wood, painted white with glass fronts allowing one to see inside. There was a butler’s pantry off to one side. McCabe guessed the kitchen had last been updated sometime after the end of the Second World War. The Spencers, it seemed, weren’t the kind of people who made a competitive sport of cuisine. Perhaps only the newly rich played those games. Mrs. Spencer handed McCabe a mug of coffee and a spoon. She put a small jug of milk and sugar on the table and sat down. ‘I’m a private person, Detective, so I’m warning you in advance, I may decide not to answer your questions.’

  ‘That’s your privilege, Mrs. Spencer, but any information you can offer could be helpful on this case. How many cars do you and Dr. Spencer own?’

  Her expression betrayed a sense that this was not the kind of question she expected. ‘Three. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘The Porsche in the driveway?’

  ‘Yes. That’s Philip’s toy.’

  ‘The Lexus in the garage?’

  ‘That’s mine.’

  ‘How about the third one?’

  ‘Philip has a BMW he drives when he’s not fooling around in the Porsche. Once again, why do you want to know?’

  ‘Does Dr. Spencer ever borrow your Lexus?’

  ‘Occasionally, when he needs to haul something or other.’

  Like the remains of dead teenage girls or kidnapped joggers, McCabe thought. ‘He takes the BMW to work?’

  ‘Only when he has an appointment away from the hospital. Or if it’s raining. Otherwise he walks.’

  ‘Do you recall if he used your Lexus last Thursday or Friday?’

  ‘I don’t know. He may have. No. Actually I lent it to a friend. I was away. From Wednesday morning to Friday. Visiting my mother in Blue Hill. She’s quite ill, and I try to get up there as often as possible. I took Philip’s BMW. I prefer it to the SUV on long trips.’

  McCabe’s mind went back to the photograph on Spencer’s wall, and finally he knew what bothered him about it. ‘Do you know a man named Lucas Kane?’ he asked.

  She looked at him oddly. ‘How on earth do you know that name?’

  ‘Your husband mentioned it.’

  ‘Lucas Kane was someone I knew a long time ago. When I was growing up. His parents had a summer place not far from ours.’

  ‘In Blue Hill?’

  ‘Near there.’

  ‘Did you know him well?’

  ‘No. Mostly our parents were friends. I lost track of Lucas after we both started prep school. Then, eight years later, he turned up in Philip’s class at medical school. I introduced them, and they became good friends. They did their surgical residencies together in New York.’

  ‘Kane was a surgeon?’

  Harriet Spencer examined McCabe’s face before answering. ‘No. Lucas never practiced. He lost his license.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll have to find that out on your own. But you’re a detective, aren’t you? It shouldn’t be hard.’

  ‘Did you consider Kane a friend?’

  ‘A friend?’ McCabe saw the hint of a smile flicker across her face. ‘No, I never would have called Lucas that.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘I haven’t seen Lucas Kane in more than fifteen years.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Dead. Murdered. In Florida. I believe that’s wh
ere he lived.’

  Florida again. ‘Did you go to the funeral?’

  ‘No. Philip went. I had no interest.’

  ‘Can you tell me why?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s any of your business.’

  ‘What friend?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You said you lent the Lexus to a friend. Last week. What friend?’

  ‘Alright, either you tell me why you’re asking these questions or this conversation stops here and now, and you can just pick yourself up and leave my house.’

  ‘Mrs. Spencer, have you ever heard the name Harry Lime?’

  ‘No.’

  McCabe paused, visualizing the Denali picture. Philip Spencer and Lucas Kane. What was it? Admiration? Affection? No. More than that. In the end, the question asked itself. ‘Mrs. Spencer, were your husband and Lucas Kane lovers?’

  ‘That’s it, Detective. It’s time for you to go. I don’t like being questioned like a common criminal. If you have any further questions, you can ask them through my attorney.’

  ‘Were they? Lovers, I mean?’

  ‘Get out.’ Harriet Spencer stood, walked to the kitchen door, and opened it. ‘Get out now,’ she said, ‘and don’t come back.’

  McCabe went to the door and left. Descending the two steps, he looked across to the garage and thought about sneaking in. He wanted a closer look at the Lexus. He knew it was a stupid idea. He didn’t have a warrant, and Harriet Spencer certainly wouldn’t give him permission to conduct a search. If he was seen, anything he found would be compromised as evidence.

  Could he get a warrant? Maybe. The Lexus matched the vehicle in Starbucks’s surveillance video. Philip Spencer was the right height and had the necessary skills to ‘harvest’ Katie Dubois’s heart. Harriet Spencer was away from Wednesday until Friday. The Lexus was here. She lent it to a friend, she said. Also, Philip Spencer’s whereabouts during the critical hours were unknown.

  Where were you around midnight last Thursday night?

  At home. In bed.

  Your wife was with you?