Mike McCabe 01 - The Cutting

by James Hayman

  She’s got freckles on her butt,

  She is nice.

  He heard sirens. First in the distance, then closing fast. Less than a minute later, two state police cars and an ambulance screamed onto the quiet road. The ambulance and one of the cars pulled up next to the Bird. A young trooper sporting a Marine Corps-style buzz cut swaggered over, picked up the Mossberg, and signaled McCabe to roll down the window. He did.

  An EMT pushed past the trooper and opened the door. ‘Are you injured, sir?’

  ‘I’m fine. She’s shot in the upper arm. Arterial bleeding. A lot of it.’

  ‘If you can slip out of the car without letting go of her arm, I’ll lean in and we’ll trade places.’

  McCabe did as he was told. The EMT slid by McCabe in the opposite direction, reaching into the car until his hands could join McCabe’s on the wound. McCabe slipped out. The EMT and his partner slid Sophie onto a stretcher and hurried her toward the ambulance.

  McCabe turned. The trooper had his service weapon out and pointed at McCabe. ‘All right, sir. Please turn around slowly and place both hands on the car.’

  McCabe did as he was told. ‘I’m a cop,’ he said to the trooper. ‘Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe, Portland PD.’

  Pause. ‘Where’s your shield and ID?’

  ‘Back pocket. Left.’

  McCabe felt the trooper’s hand enter his pocket and extract the wallet. The man opened it and looked it over.

  ‘Okay, you can turn around,’ the trooper said. McCabe did, and he handed the wallet back. He holstered his weapon. ‘You’re a little off your turf, aren’t you, Sergeant? What’s the story?’

  McCabe gave a weary sigh. He wasn’t in the mood to explain his presence in Gray or discuss jurisdictional issues with a gung-ho ex-marine. ‘Just call Colonel Matthews and tell him I’m here in conjunction with the Katie Dubois murder investigation. It’s a Portland PD case. And get reinforcements. There’s a skilled sniper with a rifle and probably a night-vision scope fleeing this area. On foot, for now.’

  The medics were sliding Sophie into the back of the waiting ambulance. ‘I’m going with them,’ McCabe announced.

  From the driver’s seat of the Bird, McCabe retrieved his cell phone, as well as the bloody jacket that had been covering Sophie and the .45. He turned and trotted toward the ambulance. ‘By the way, take care of that Mossberg for me,’ he shouted to the trooper. ‘It’s a fine weapon, and I want it back.’

  The EMTs already had Sophie’s good arm hooked up to an IV when McCabe hopped in behind the stretcher. ‘I’m riding with you,’ he said. It was a statement, not a question. The medic looked up and nodded but said nothing. McCabe closed the door and squeezed himself into a corner against lockers filled with medical supplies.

  McCabe looked out the back door. He could see the trooper hesitate for a moment, then pick up the shotgun and walk to his car, no doubt to start the radio calls that would work their way up the chain of command to Matthews. The ambulance took off, its lights flashing and siren screaming an unmistakable urgency to the quiet countryside.

  Somewhere in the dark, the shooter watched and listened and began planning his next move.

  30

  Tuesday. 10:30 P.M.

  McCabe watched the EMT work from his perch in the back of the ambulance. The man placed an oxygen mask over Sophie’s nose and mouth. He wrapped what looked like an Ace bandage as tightly as he could around Sophie’s wound and resumed applying pressure against the artery above the wound. He looked competent. There was no conversation.

  Up front, the driver radioed the ER dispatcher at Cumberland Medical Center. ‘Cumberland, this is Gray Emergency. We’re coming in, lights and siren. We’ve got a woman. Gunshot wound. Left arm. Arterial bleeding. Kind of shocky. We’ve got one line normal saline, wide open. Hundred percent O2. BP soft.’

  ‘Eighty-five over sixty, pulse one ten,’ shouted the man in the back.

  The driver relayed the information. ‘ETA seventeen minutes,’ he added. ‘Please advise.’

  The voice from the hospital crackled from a speaker above McCabe’s head. ‘Open a second line if you can. The trauma team will be ready and waiting. Give us your one-minute ETA.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  McCabe leaned back as best he could. He looked like an accident victim himself, covered with Sophie’s blood. He pinned his shield to his bloodied shirt and used his cell to call Maggie.

  ‘McCabe, what’s going on? I thought you’d be back by now.’ He could barely hear her through the scream of the siren.

  He filled her in on the shooting, omitting anything he didn’t want the EMT to hear, which was most of it.

  ‘I’ll meet you at the hospital,’ she said. ‘I’ll call Jane Devaney and get her over here before I leave.’

  McCabe hesitated, trying to figure out if that was the best way to keep the bases covered. He hated waking Jane in the middle of the night but, in the end, figured that was the best solution. ‘Alright. Can you bring me some clean clothes? I’m a little unsightly at the moment.’

  ‘Anything in particular?’

  ‘No. Underwear’s in the dresser. Shirts and pants in the closet. Bring some kind of jacket.’ She said okay. ‘Also please call Bill Fortier and have him coordinate the search with the staties. Ditto the crime scene people. I want Jacobi working that SUV.’

  ‘Sure. Have you had anything to eat?’

  McCabe had to think about that for a minute. ‘No. Not really. Everything good there?’

  ‘Yeah. Casey’s a little nervous. She just went to bed, but I don’t think she’s sleeping. You want to talk to her?’

  ‘Not from here. Just tell her everything’s fine, I love her, and I’ll see her tomorrow.’

  They were on the turnpike now. Sophie seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness.

  ‘BP softening to seventy-five systolic, pulse up to one twenty,’ the EMT called to the driver. ‘I’m inserting the second line.’ The ambulance slowed and pulled over to allow the man in back a steady platform to insert the needle for the second IV. He put it in above the first in Sophie’s good arm.

  He taped the needle in place. ‘Okay, go!’ he shouted.

  The ambulance started back on the road and roared south on 95. What little traffic there was pulled to the right to let them pass. They cut across Washington Avenue and then south on 295. About half a mile north of the Congress Street exit, the driver again spoke to the hospital. ‘Cumberland, this is Gray. Second line open full. One minute from touchdown.’

  ‘See you when you get here.’

  One minute later they pulled into the ambulance bay at the Cumberland Medical Center ER. The ambulance crew grabbed both sides of the stretcher and exited the vehicle at a run. McCabe followed. Twin automatic doors burst open, and they hurried Sophie directly into the hospital’s brightly lit trauma room. A full reception committee, at least ten doctors, nurses, residents, and students, stood in position, ready to receive.

  The EMTs and a pair of residents lifted the sheet under Sophie and used it to transfer her to the trauma room stretcher. Someone in scrubs called out, ‘Trauma room three!’ They headed where she was pointing.

  As they went, a serious-looking young woman, thin with a long horsey face, checked Sophie’s IVs and oxygen, then addressed one of the EMTs. Her plastic badge identified her as Dr. Maloney. ‘Give me what you’ve got.’

  ‘Gunshot wound to the left arm. Pulsatile bleeding with a lot of blood at the scene. Seems to have missed the bone. BP seventy-five on the way in. Two lines full out. She’s taken two liters normal saline.’

  McCabe waited while she called out to her team, ‘Okay, start another line in her right groin. I want four units O-negative stat.’ A group of residents and nurses began to make it happen.

  ‘Are you the husband?’ A man in his forties addressed McCabe, who’d come into room three right behind the EMTs.

  ‘No.’ McCabe indicated the badge pinned it to his bloody shirt. ‘I�
��m Detective McCabe, Portland PD. Who are you?’

  McCabe could hear the young woman’s voice directing her team from the head of the stretcher. ‘I want blood sent out for type and screen.’

  ‘I’m Dr. Kennedy, emergency attending. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait outside, Detective.’

  McCabe shook his head. ‘I’m not going anywhere. This woman is a key witness in a murder case and somebody’s trying to kill her. She needs protection.’

  The doctor paused only a second or two. ‘She’ll be alright in here.’ His tone was friendly. ‘We’re trying to save her life, not end it. There’s no room for extra bodies in the trauma room. She’ll be going up to surgery in about ten minutes.’ Dr. Kennedy indicated McCabe’s blood-covered clothes. ‘In the meantime, you can shower in the doctors’ locker room. Do you know the patient’s name?’

  ‘Put her into your system as Jane Doe, and tell your folks while she’s here she’s under protective custody of the Portland PD.’

  The doctor nodded. He turned to a young man, a medical student, McCabe guessed. ‘Get Detective McCabe some scrubs to put on and show him where to clean up,’ he said. ‘You can join her in the ICU recovery room on five when she gets out of the OR, which won’t be for two or three hours. Until then she’ll have about ten reliable people around her at all times. I’ll let you know.’

  The young man found a large plastic bag for McCabe’s clothes and a smaller one for his wallet and keys. He then led him to a small locker room with a row of shower stalls. McCabe stripped down and stuffed the clothes plus his gun and holster into the larger bag. He tied a knot in the bag to seal it and took it with him into the shower stall. He wasn’t going anywhere unarmed tonight, and he wasn’t leaving any guns lying around untended. As the hot water hit him, rinsing Sophie’s blood off his face and arms, he watched the reddened water swirling around and down the drain. The shower scene from Psycho played in his mind.

  Sophie was in surgery on the fifth floor. About thirty feet from the doors to the OR, along a partially darkened corridor, McCabe sat in a plastic chair in the otherwise empty ICU waiting room. He was dressed in scrubs. He pinned his shield to the blouse. He debated whether to strap his .45 over or under and opted for under the loose-fitting garment. He hooked his cell phone to the gun belt. His hand rested loosely on the weapon.

  According to the doctors, the sniper’s bullet passed cleanly through her left arm about five inches below her shoulder. It missed the bone but ruptured the brachial artery. A vascular surgeon was working now to clean out the damaged tissue and reconnect the artery itself. McCabe got a little lost in the medical jargon, but the terms ‘de-bridement’ and ‘anastomosis’ stuck in his mind.

  The surgeon said it would take about two hours to repair the arm but she’d probably be just fine, not lose any function. He also said the biggest threat to Sophie’s life was infection. McCabe didn’t bother telling the doctor that really wasn’t the case.

  McCabe extinguished the lights and muted the TV, allowing its colorful silent images to remain the only movement in the room, their glow the only illumination. He stared silently through the glass wall at the hallway in front of him. There were few passersby. A couple of nurses, an elderly man pushing a bucket and mop, a young man in scrubs. He watched each for signs of threat. A bank of three elevators stood directly across the corridor from the waiting room. McCabe kept his eyes on the little lighted numbers above the doors, watching for one that might stop at five, though he doubted the shooter, if he was coming, would choose such a direct route.

  31

  Tuesday. 11:00 P.M.

  The shooter figured it’d take him about six hours to walk back to Portland. Finding a vehicle he could requisition might prove a little tricky, but he’d keep his eyes open. Where he could, he’d travel cross-country, avoiding the roads. He assumed the cops would be scouring the area, starting where they picked up the woman and working out from there. He wondered if they’d bring in dogs. His scent’d be all over the damaged Blazer. He didn’t know if they’d pick up any prints. He’d tried to be careful about that, but he didn’t have time to wipe anything down before he flew out the door. He touched his face where he’d banged it against the steering wheel trying to duck when the cop unloaded that shotgun. Then the air bag whacked him again. Fuck it. Too late to worry about that now. Left his favorite Pierotucci leather jacket in the backseat. That pissed him off. It was practically new and set him back four hundred bucks. Looked great, too. He didn’t think there was anything in the pockets. Other than that, just a couple of old Billy Ray Cyrus CDs and a DVD of an old movie, Day of the Jackal. He’d already seen it a couple of times but was planning to watch it again tonight. Now that was all fucked up.

  If they did bring in dogs, he’d be easy to track. Another reason to find a car. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about dogs. ’Course, he wasn’t real sure about that. A special ops guy he met in Kuwait in ’91 told him trained bloodhounds could even track someone driving away in a car. Something about the car’s vent system exhausting the interior air out through the back and carrying the smell of the passenger with it. Sounded like bullshit. Probably was bullshit. How the fuck could a dog smell something like that, anyway? Fuck it. He put it out of his mind. Anyhow, they wouldn’t have time to organize any fucking dogs. With another six hours of darkness, he’d be to hell and gone before they got anything going.

  Just a little hike through the countryside. He was only pissed because he’d missed the bitch’s heart. Hadn’t accomplished the damned mission. Then that cop unloaded on him with a fucking shotgun. Bastard. Anyway, calm down, be cool, he told himself. Be cool or be dead.

  Still, it bothered him that he missed. He shouldn’t have missed. Shit, he never missed. It was just because of the fucking cigarettes the bitch kept sucking on, moving around, tossing them out the window. Jesus. Didn’t she care what they were doing to her lungs? Didn’t she have any fucking respect for her body? And that hairball cop letting her do it. Didn’t he know how bad secondhand smoke could be for you? Him a father and everything. Well, he’d give them both something better than butts to suck on. Be cool, he warned himself again. Calm down. Don’t let the rage take over.

  He walked silently along a line of trees at the edge of a meadow. He didn’t know how bad the woman was hurt. The green image through the night-vision scope made things pretty blurry. Specially when they were moving around like she was. He was pretty sure he hit her arm. Couldn’t tell how bad the wound was. Might have hit a bone or an artery or maybe both. They would’ve taken her to the hospital. There were two hospitals in Portland. He’d head for the bigger one.

  He held the M24 sniper rifle in the crook of his left arm. Good weapon. Accurate. He stroked it with his free hand. Shooting someone always got the juices going, and he was getting a hard-on. In fact, he’d had it for a while and it wasn’t going away. If you had a hard-on for more than four hours you had to go see a doctor. That’s what the TV ad for that limp-dick medicine said. Well, he guessed he’d see a few doctors tonight. He came to a dirt road. Looking both ways he couldn’t see much of anything. He was trying to figure out which way to go and thinking about how to get himself a vehicle when he saw a pair of headlights approaching him at a good clip about a half klick away. He squatted down in some scrub. Unlikely to be a cop, but you couldn’t be sure. As it drew closer he picked out the shape of a pickup truck. Not a cop. He set the M24 down in the grass by the side of the road and walked into the middle, real cool and casual like, and waved the truck down as it approached. It slowed to a stop. The driver was a kid, seventeen or eighteen years old.

  ‘What’s the problem, mister? Car break down?’ He was a good-looking boy. Long blond hair. A cute little soul patch growing under his lip. He had broad shoulders and what looked to be a nice body. The shooter nodded and flashed him his best smile.

  ‘Yeah. That’s right. My car broke down. ’Bout a mile from here.’

  ‘Don’t ya have a cell?’ the boy asked.
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  ‘Nah. It ran out of juice.’

  ‘Well, here, you can borrow mine. You belong to Triple-A?’ The kid held his cell phone out the open window. The shooter moved closer, as if to take the phone, then, in a single motion, pulled open the door of the truck with his left hand, grabbed the back of the kid’s head with his right, and slammed it hard against the steering wheel. Then he slammed it again. Blood spurted out of the kid’s nose. The boy was screaming, ‘You broke my fucking nose. You broke my fucking nose.’ Still holding the boy’s neck, the shooter unhooked his seat belt with his left hand and pulled him hard out of the truck. He threw him onto the road. ‘You broke my fucking nose,’ the kid cried again.

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ said the shooter. He kicked the boy hard in the face. ‘Just shut the fuck up.’ Then he kicked him again for good measure, this time in the gut. The boy squeezed into a fetal position. He was sobbing and gasping for air, but, shit, that was no reason not to have a little fun.

  The shooter knelt down and unbuttoned the kid’s jeans and pulled them down. His pink boxers were decorated with little rows of red hearts, which made the shooter smile. Cute, he thought. Maybe he’d get himself a pair like that.

  The shooter went back to the truck, turned off the engine, and extinguished the headlights. In the distance he could hear a siren. More than one, in fact, and they were getting closer. Fuck it. He better haul ass. He walked over to where the rifle was hidden. He picked it up. The boy was lying on his side, sobbing quietly. Too bad wasting such a good-looking kid, but he’d seen the shooter’s face, and the area was crawlin’ with cops. The shooter placed the barrel of the rifle about an inch above the boy’s ear. He pulled the trigger.

  32