by James Hayman
‘Did you? Use the words?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What, exactly, did she make you swear?’
‘I just told you.’
‘Tell me again.’
‘That I wouldn’t tell anyone that I’d seen her. Not even the cops, she said. Not even you guys. Death would get her if I did. Like Death was some dude she knew.’
McCabe wondered, was he some dude she knew? Cleary didn’t ask the question. Instead he asked, ‘How’d you feel about that?’
Bobby Howser looked down. Spoke in a low voice. ‘I gotta tell you. When Abby gets crazy like that she scares the hell out of me. She’s tried to kill herself a couple of times, y’know. She wasn’t like that as a kid. We were pretty good friends back in middle school. Right through high school. She was normal. Like everyone else.’
‘How is she now?’
Howser gave Cleary a frustrated look, as if he were tired of repeating himself. ‘I already told you. Crazy. You never know where the stuff that comes out of her mouth comes from.’
‘Okay, so you swore to her you wouldn’t tell. Is that why you lied to me about seeing her?’
Bobby looked down, embarrassed. ‘Yes.’
Cleary’s voice softened. ‘It’s alright. You did the right thing. She needs help, and we’re trying to help her.’
Bobby looked up, a flicker of hope on his face.
‘Then what happened?’ asked Cleary.
Howser shrugged. ‘She locks herself in the head. Stays in there the whole way across. When we got to Portland, I had to knock on the door to let her know we arrived. She comes out, puts that stupid mask back on, and runs off into the night.’
‘What else was she wearing?’
‘Running clothes. A black Nike jacket. Nike shoes. Air Pegasus. I noticed ’cause I have the same kind. She was carrying a small backpack. And a fanny pack.’
Cleary hit stop. Howser’s image froze again. ‘That’s pretty much it,’ he said. ‘I told the kid that what he told me was confidential. If he told anybody anything he’d be in deep shit. He said he wouldn’t. I made him swear.’
‘Cross his heart and hope to die?’ asked McCabe. Cleary grinned.
‘And he didn’t know where she went?’ asked Maggie.
‘Nope. Like he said, she just ran off into the night. Gone. Poof. Just like that.’
McCabe supposed it was progress of a kind. Knowing for sure Abby was on the mainland. Knowing she was still alive, at least as of midnight last night. Knowing what she was wearing. Of course, the downside was it gave her a whole lot more geography to get lost in. Or get killed in. Or freeze to death in. Finding Abby had to be job one. For the cops and the killer. McCabe had the advantage of greater resources. An advantage that would be neutralized if the killer knew her well. Knew who her friends were. Knew where she was likely to go. It was going to be a delicate balancing act. Eddie Fraser leaned into the room. ‘There’s something on the Monument Square videos you guys ought to see.’
Cleary switched off the monitor and said he’d get the information on what Abby was wearing out to all units. They followed Eddie over to Starbucks’s cube. The area wasn’t much bigger than a walk-in closet, but they all managed to squeeze in. It was lined with an array of the latest electronics. The young Somali’s face broke into a huge grin as they entered. ‘Sergeant McCabe,’ he called out. ‘We’ve found something good here, I think.’ After only seven years in America, Starbucks spoke English almost without an accent. Only the occasional odd construction and a formality gave him away. ‘I’ve been helping Detective Fraser review the surveillance videos from the lobby of Ten Monument Square. Both Thursday the twenty-second and Friday the twenty-third.’
‘Cleaning crews came into the building both nights and left again later when they finished their work,’ said Fraser.
‘Here’s the lobby just before the cleaners arrived Thursday,’ said Starbucks. There were two video monitors mounted side by side on a shelf just above Starbucks’s head. He directed their eyes to the one on the left. ‘As you can see, the camera has a wide-angle lens and is shooting down from a height of ten-point-five feet.’ The time code read 12/22/06. 6:05:40 PM. The lobby’s revolving door and two sets of regular doors on either side were all clearly visible. So was the steel door Randall Jackson said led down to the lawyers’ private garage. Starbucks hit play, and McCabe watched a cluster of people enter the door on the left. Because of the angle, he was looking more at the tops of heads than at faces. They walked about eight feet into the lobby and then turned in a group like a school of guppies and exited through the garage door. ‘Where are they going?’ asked McCabe.
‘There’s a supply room downstairs where the cleaning stuff is stored. There’s also a small locker room where they stow their coats and bags while they work, and a unisex toilet.’
‘The entrance to the lawyers’ garage is there, too, right?’
‘Yeah. I went down and looked around,’ said Fraser. ‘You go down one flight of stairs to a short corridor, turn left for the supply room and locker room. Go straight ahead for the restroom. Turn right for the garage. There’s also a freight elevator at the end of the corridor that takes the cleaning and maintenance crews to any floor in the building. Also an emergency exit to the street. Locked from the outside. Sets off an alarm if you open it from inside.’
‘So theoretically our killer could have walked through that lobby door down to the basement and ended up anywhere in the building?’
‘Yeah,’ said Fraser. ‘The question is how he got out again. I checked the alarm on the emergency exit. It was on and working. The only other ways out are up through the lobby or out through the lawyers’ garage. You need a key card to open the gate in the garage.’ Ogden, of course, had a key card. So did Lainie. So did every other lawyer at Palmer Milliken, all 192 of them. If they descended to the garage level via the freight elevator, they wouldn’t have shown up on the videos. He asked Maggie if Jacobi had found Goff’s key card in her car. He hadn’t. ‘Watch the rest of the video,’ said Fraser. ‘Starbucks picked up on something I didn’t notice first time through.’
‘Here are the cleaners arriving twenty-four hours later, on Friday night,’ said Starbucks. On the right-hand monitor McCabe and Maggie watched a virtual replay of Thursday night’s action. The cluster of people arrived at 6:08 instead of 6:05. Everything else was the same. They came in through the same entrance. Turned right at the same point and left the lobby through the same steel door.
‘See the difference?’ asked Fraser.
‘No.’ If there was something different, McCabe wasn’t sure what it was. Not the first time through, anyway. ‘Play Thursday again,’ he requested. Starbucks did. ‘Okay, freeze it right … there.’ Starbucks stopped the video just as the cleaning crew cluster stretched out to pass through the steel door. ‘Okay, now roll Friday and freeze at the same point.’
This time he caught it. The extra man. At least he thought it was a man, based on size and the way the figure moved. Bundled up in a long dark coat with a hood, you couldn’t tell for sure. On Thursday six cleaners went through the door. What appeared to be three men and three women. On Friday there were seven. The seventh was pretty well hidden while the group was bunched up, shielded from the camera, practically invisible. Even as number seven filed through the door he kept his head down and turned away from the camera. He had one hand raised and blocking his face from the camera like a starlet avoiding the paparazzi. No question. He knew it was there. ‘Gotcha, you bastard,’ McCabe muttered. ‘You check with the cleaning company?’ he asked Fraser.
‘Yup. Joe Maguire of Capitol Maintenance Corp. told me six cleaners were assigned to the building both nights. The same six. Maguire’s son, Joe junior, dropped them off at Ten Monument Square in a company van, which is why they all arrived together. He also picked them up at the end of the shift. He said there were only six going each way each night. That’s all the van holds, not counting the driver.’
‘So the
bad guy waits outside until the cleaners arrive and sneaks in with them?’
‘Looks that way,’ said Fraser. ‘Maguire gave us names and contact info for all six cleaners. Sturgis is out tracking them down now. See if they remember the extra guy coming in with them.’
‘How about the security guard? Name’s Randall Jackson. He might have seen the guy’s face.’
‘Spoke to him already. He never noticed anyone extra at all. Just the cleaners.’
McCabe sighed. He wasn’t sure how much they were going to get out of this. ‘Can you show me the video of the cleaners leaving Friday?’
Starbucks fast-forwarded to the early morning hours. The steel door opens, the six cleaners file into the lobby and leave the building. No number seven. Lainie Goff’s probable killer checked in, but he didn’t check out. The time code read 12/24/05. 2:04:32 AM.
‘Nobody else left after that?’
‘Nope.’
‘So he kidnaps her, and they both leave in her car.’
‘Looks that way.’
‘Let’s find our best shot of the guy.’
Starbucks rolled back to where the cleaners entered the building. Then he advanced the video frame by frame, until he settled on the best view they had of cleaner number seven. It wasn’t great. His head was down. His hand was hiding the side of his face. The hood hiding the hair. A small patch of white chin was all that could be seen. Starbucks tightened the frame to a close-up of the head. That made it too blurry to see much of anything. All you could tell was that the person was Caucasian and taller than the other cleaners. The heavy hooded coat hid everything else. Normal enough in this weather. McCabe stared at the frozen image. Assuming this was the killer – and that was still an assumption – it was further evidence that Hank Ogden wasn’t their guy. No need for Ogden to be sneaking into his own building when he was already upstairs in the Palmer Milliken offices both earlier in the day and later that night. He supposed it could all be a deliberate trail of disinformation designed to lead the cops away from Ogden as the killer. Maybe that was what all that other stuff was, too. The Bible notes. The trip to Harts. The body left on the pier. Maybe it was all a setup to divert suspicion. But McCabe didn’t think so. If at 6:08 on that Friday night Ogden was still sitting in the partners’ meeting and not sneaking into his own building, well, that’d pretty well settle the issue. Assuming, of course, that cleaner number seven was, in fact, the killer.
Twenty
Dr Richard Wolfe returned McCabe’s call a little after seven. ‘You said it was urgent. What’s up? Is it the dreams again? Are they coming back?’
‘No, it’s not the dreams,’ McCabe said. ‘In fact, it’s not about me at all. I’m calling as a cop. I need to talk to you about one of your patients.’
‘Really?’ Wolfe paused to consider that. ‘Well, that could be a problem. You do understand professional ethics forbid me to reveal private information about any of my patients. To you or anyone else.’
‘Yes, I understand that. But there are circumstances under which you would be able to talk, aren’t there?’
‘Yes. If I have knowledge that the patient has committed a crime. Or is about to commit one. Or if you can document that the patient or someone else will be put in danger by my failing to speak.’
‘Then I don’t think you’ll have any ethical issues here. One of your patients has been involved in a crime and may be in serious danger. We need your help.’
There was a long pause on Wolfe’s end of the line before he spoke. ‘Alright. Can you tell me which patient?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you. Where are you?’
‘In my office. Trying to finish a paper I’m writing for one of the journals.’
‘Why don’t we meet there in, say, twenty minutes?’
‘Alright. That’s fine. I need to break for some dinner anyway. If you haven’t eaten yet, why don’t you join me? I’ll order some takeout, and we can eat while we talk.’
‘Deal.’
‘Good. What do you feel like? Chinese? Thai? Pizza?’
‘Your choice.’
‘Ring the buzzer to the right of the front door. The building’s locked on weekends. Office 301.’
‘I remember.’
‘Yes. Of course you do. If I don’t come down and get you right away, it means I’m on the phone. So just wait and don’t buzz again. Okay?’
McCabe decided to walk. It was ten minutes from 109 Middle Street to 23 Union Wharf, and the air was warmer than it had been in a month. Upper twenties, according to Weather.com, and still rising. Leaving the building, he overheard a couple of uniforms talking about a January thaw. Sunday temps, they said, might hit fifty or more. He imagined frostbitten Portlanders leaping out of their long johns into shorts and T-shirts, hoping for a winter tan. He might even join them. McCabe headed east on Middle, turned left, and walked down Exchange. The Old Port shopping district was crowded with people, some even pausing to check out shop windows instead of just darting from car to doorway and back again.
He called Kyra. Wherever she was, he could hear voices in the background. ‘I’m having people over for drinks,’ she explained. ‘Reestablishing connections. Letting my friends know I’m still alive.’
‘Anyone I know?’
‘Mandy’s here. Said she served you and Maggie lunch today. And Joe Turco. You know him.’ Turco ran a letterpress printing operation in the old bakery building where Kyra’s studio was. Limited edition portfolios. Art books. Other high-end print jobs. McCabe had met Turco a couple of times. ‘We’re heading over to Joe’s studio in a while to look at the proofs for a new edition he’s printing …’
Kyra talked some more about the portfolio edition. McCabe only half listened. He was missing her already, and she’d only moved out this morning.
‘How’s your murder going?’ she finally asked.
‘I guess we’re making progress. Hard to tell sometimes. Actually, I have a question for you.’
‘About the murder?’
‘Yes. You know most of the good art photographers in town, don’t you?’
‘Most of them,’ she said. ‘The ones I don’t know personally, I know by reputation.’
He described the shots on Lainie Goff’s bedroom wall. ‘I’d like to know who shot them.’
‘Industrial detritus and naked lawyers? Interesting range. Does Goff still look like Sandy? With her clothes off, I mean.’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s it?’ Kyra teased. ‘Just yes? No elaboration?’
He didn’t answer, so Kyra changed the tone. ‘The prints weren’t signed?’
‘No.’
‘Interesting. If they’re as good as you say, they’re worth less without a signature. Besides, most serious photographers want people to know their work.’
‘Maybe Goff asked the photographer not to sign them. Maybe she didn’t want people to know who was photographing her in the nude.’
‘Possibly. Or maybe the photographer isn’t a pro. Just a talented amateur. Or,’ she said, a tinge of conspiracy creeping into her voice, ‘maybe Goff and the photographer were lovers and she wanted to keep the affair a secret?’ McCabe smiled. Kyra was getting into this. ‘I’ll nose around for you,’ she said. ‘See if any of my friends have any idea who’d shoot that kind of stuff.’
‘Thanks. Just be discreet. Don’t tell them why you want to know,’ said McCabe. She said she wouldn’t. He continued, ‘Any chance of me seeing you tonight?’
‘None. I’ve got to make my willpower last more than one day, don’t you think? Anyway, I love you.’
He sighed, told her he loved her, too, and put the phone back in his pocket. He turned right onto Fore Street and jaywalked to the other side. Overly polite Maine drivers stopped in the middle of the block to let him pass. Had he tried the same thing in New York, they would have been swearing and laying on their horns. Or maybe just running him over. He glanced at the sex toys in the windows of Condom Sense. Pasta boobs and marzipan penises.
He wondered who bought that stuff. A few doors down was Edward Malinoff, Purveyor of Rare Wines. Malinoff also carried a great selection of single malts and the odd box of contraband Cuban cigars, the latter available only to Malinoff’s friends at astronomical prices McCabe couldn’t afford. Not a problem. McCabe hadn’t smoked a cigar in years.
He turned left at Union Street by the Portland Harbor Hotel, went down the hill past Three Dollar Dewey’s, crossed Commercial Street, and walked out onto Union Wharf, one of the many piers that form most of Portland’s working waterfront. Wolfe’s office was in an old three-story wooden building toward the end. He could see lights shining from a wall of windows on the third floor. A shiny black Lexus IS 350 was parked directly in front. He figured it had to be Wolfe’s. The rest of the building looked dark and empty. McCabe climbed three steps, pressed the buzzer for 301, and peered through the glass into the dark lobby. Once a warehouse or maybe a fish processing plant, the building’s interior space had been updated in a style McCabe liked to think of as SoHo Modern. Shiny black walls, exposed pipes crisscrossing the ceiling, big windows looking out on the harbor.
Dr Wolfe apparently wasn’t on the phone, because he pushed the door open less than a minute later. McCabe’s former shrink was in his mid-forties, six-one or maybe a bit more, with close-cropped gray hair that was considerably shorter than McCabe remembered it. He wore round rimless glasses that seemed to intensify the blue of his eyes. Dressed in a black pullover, black pants, and black canvas walking shoes, he looked more like the film director McCabe once dreamed of becoming than a successful Portland psychiatrist. More LA cool than L.L. Bean.
