by James Hayman
I pinned her flat, pulled her legs apart and thrust myself inside. “Is this how Garrison does it to you?” I pushed my face an inch from hers. “Is it? Answer me, you lying, unfaithful bitch.”
She stopped struggling and waited until I had finished before answering.
“No,” she said in a quiet voice, tears rolling from reddened eyes, blood dripping from her mouth, lying flat on the floor where I had raped her. “He’s far gentler than you. Far gentler than you’ve been for many years. And a much better lover than you’ve known how to be since we were young and newly married.”
I flinched at her words. I sat down on the bed and began to weep. “Why?” I asked. “Haven’t I always given you everything you wanted? Everything you asked?”
She rose from the floor, went to her armoire and began to dress. “You have,” she said. “Everything except the willingness to remain the man I met and fell in love with in Paris. The man I married.”
Finally she took the bedroom key from my pocket and walked out of the house. I don’t know where she went that night. Perhaps to a hotel. Perhaps somewhere else. I only know that she didn’t return until late the following morning.
I didn’t ask where she’d been. I only begged her to forgive me for my actions the previous night. I broke down and wept. Told her through my tears that I had never loved another woman as I loved her. And that I was sure that somewhere in her heart she still loved me. As I wept I fell to my knees and buried my head in her lap as a wounded child would. She stroked my head gently and told me that all she wanted in life was for me to go back to being the man I was when we had met but that she didn’t think that possible. I told her I could. I swore that I would. Begged her to forgive me and swore that I would turn the reins of the company over to Charles and that she and I and the children would go to Paris and live our lives the way she wanted if only she would come back and be my wife again.
She asked how she could trust me after what I had done. I swore over and over it would never happen again and that when we moved to Paris our relationship would truly return to what it once was.
Finally she said that if I would make that sacrifice, if I would truly give up Portland and Whitby &Sons, she would tell Garrison she could never see him again. In turn, I had to swear I’d never repeat the violence that I had visited upon her the night before. When I asked her if we could make love, she said no. Not yet. The memory of last night was still too fresh in her mind. It would take her some time before she could trust me again. Still, I was certain that if I kept my part of the bargain, I would soon have my wife back and that as soon as I could wind up my affairs at the company, we’d be once again living the life in Paris that I’d dreamt of as a youth.
The next day my younger brother Charles and I left for New York on the noon train to wind up negotiations with the board of the Poseiden America Lines for the construction of a new transatlantic passenger steamer. I had been working hard for two years with our best designers and engineers on the project, and I felt certain the ship we were proposing would not only set a new standard for comfort and luxury but also surpass all others in the speed of the transatlantic crossing.
I debated telling Charles of my and Aimée’s plans on the train but decided it might be better to tell him after our meeting with Poseidon. Upon arrival, we checked in and spent a quiet night at the Waldorf Hotel on Fifth Avenue.
At our meeting the next morning, the Poseiden board announced that they were accepting our proposal. Emerging from their offices, I asked Charles to join me in celebrating our success with a luncheon at the Union League Club. Once we were seated in the grand dining room, I ordered a bottle of my favorite champagne. I waited until the wine steward had poured us each a full measure, then raised my glass to Charles.
“I would like to propose a toast,” I said, “not just to our success this morning with Poseiden but also to you, Charles, and to the continued success of Whitby & Sons under your leadership as the new president of the company.”
His jaw literally dropped. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Today,” I said, “I am the happiest of men. Aimée and I have agreed that I should leave the company in your very capable hands. We will be moving back to Paris. Once settled, I will once again try to become the artist I always believed I could be.”
Charles did his best to dissuade me. “Edward, you know as well as I do I’m a financial man, not a boat builder,” he said. “The company may make money with me at the helm, but it is you who has the genius and vision for designing innovative ships. Without you, I fear Whitby & Sons will ultimately wither and perhaps die.”
Deep down, I feared Charles might be right. Nonetheless I tried to convince him otherwise. Following lunch I took a hansom cab down to Tiffany’s on Union Square, where I purchased a pair of diamond and sapphire earrings for Aimée, which I chose because the dark blue of the sapphires very nearly matched the blue of her eyes. Leaving Charles behind to wrap up final details with Poseidon, I caught the overnight Pullman sleeper to Portland, where I planned to surprise her with the earrings as a symbol of our renewed commitment to each other.
Chapter 48
AS FAR AS Maggie was concerned, Munjoy Hill was getting too damned crowded for its own good. There was only one very tight parking spot on Vesper Street, and it was a good hundred yards from her house. Maggie mentally measured the space and figured her TrailBlazer could just about make it. She pulled alongside the car in front and, relying on her right-side wing mirror, she turned the wheel all the way to the right and then left and squeezed into the space in a single try. She got out of the car and looked. Damned good parking job if she did say so herself. Less than a foot from the curb and barely two inches of clearance from the cars both front and rear.
She grabbed her bag, locked the car and started walking toward the small frame house where she lived.
That’s when she heard the scream.
A broken, guttural scream, barely human, it seemed filled with the emptiness of despair. Maggie stopped for a second, her hand going automatically to her Glock. Her eyes slid from one side of the street to the other, checking every house, every porch, every landing. For the next few seconds she heard nothing but a gentle breeze rustling the leaves in the trees. And then a second scream. This time she was sure the sound had come from the right. Possibly from the porch of her own house. She pulled out her gun and broke into a run. A second later, she heard the muffled sound of a shot fired by a silenced automatic. Maggie sprinted toward the sound.
From fifty yards away, she saw a smallish man, no bigger than five-six or five-seven, dragging a body down from the porch. Lucy McCorkle’s head thumped on each of the three steps. Then the man pulled her toward the back of a white TrailBlazer she’d seen double parked in front of her house. Maggie crouched and pointed her gun in a two-handed stance. She shouted, “Police! Freeze!”
The man swiveled toward her. Light from the streetlamp above his head struck the bottom half of his face. He had a square jaw covered with two days’ growth of gray stubble jutting out from under a blue Red Sox cap. The man dumped Lucy, looked toward Maggie and aimed.
Maggie leapt to her right, simultaneously dropping to the ground behind a hundred-year-old maple. A large-caliber slug tore off the bark inches above her head. A splinter struck her forehead, and she felt a dripping of blood. Steadying her Glock on the ground in front of her, she returned fire. Three shots in quick succession.
Maggie saw a spray of blood. The man staggered. Fell to one knee.
“Drop the gun! Freeze,” she shouted. “Police.”
The man’s only response was a flurry of covering shots as he hoisted himself up and, using the hood of the car for support, staggered around to the front.
Maggie jumped to her feet. Fired two shots back. Both missed.
Using the car for balance, the man fired back. Three shots as Maggie sprinted zigzag toward the SUV. All three missed their target.
Taking cover behind another t
ree, Maggie pulled out her phone. Punched in 911. Was instantly connected to PPD dispatch Kelly Haddon.
“Vesper Street! My block,” Maggie shouted breathlessly into the phone. “Shooter firing at me. Dead or wounded victim down.”
She stuffed the phone in her pocket knowing Kelly would have every available unit there in minutes. Maybe even seconds if there was one nearby.
Maggie’s next round struck the right rear window of the SUV, spidering the glass. The man opened the driver’s door and leapt in. Slammed the door. Maggie fired again, aiming this time for the right rear tire. Missed.
The car’s engine roared to life. Maggie dropped to one knee and, taking careful aim, fired at the left rear tire of the vehicle. The round went high through the plastic bumper. She fired again as the vehicle squealed out. Swore at herself as she missed again.
Maggie ran toward the bundle on the sidewalk as the car pulled out. One of Lucy McCorkle’s eyes was open. The other was gone. Torn away by a bullet passing through her eye socket.
The SUV roared toward the corner. White Maine plates. Black numbers and letters. Too far away to make them out, but the letters looked like K and N.
The first black-and-white pulled up just as the white SUV swerved wildly left onto the Eastern Prom.
Maggie pulled Diane Rizzo from her cruiser, jumped in and took off after the killer, lights flashing, siren blaring.
Sliding around the corner, she could see the killer’s red taillights in the distance. It had to be him. She wasn’t gaining on him. But she wasn’t falling farther behind either.
Maggie radioed dispatch that the suspect was fleeing in a white TrailBlazer with Maine plates. Last letters probably KN. “He’s on the Eastern Prom heading toward Washington Ave. and maybe 295 north. Victim on Vesper Street appears to be dead.”
Kelly responded by alerting all units to follow Maggie. “Stay on the line for updates.”
The killer swung down and around onto Interstate 295, barely missing a car that was pulling over into the right lane. Maggie followed. She saw no other flashing lights from either Portland or state police cruisers in her rearview mirror. For now, at least, she was on her own.
The killer was pushing the TrailBlazer for all it was worth, but it was no match for the powerful Ford Interceptor’s big 365-horsepower, 3.5-liter engine. She was steadily gaining on him. Probably realizing he couldn’t outrun her, the bad guy swerved right onto Exit 10, and then right onto Buckham Road in Falmouth. He then took another right onto Route 9 and finally a quick left onto a small residential cul-de-sac called Jackson Way. Maggie wondered if the guy knew he was trapping himself. On the other hand, with no backup behind her, maybe he thought he was trapping her.
At the end of the cul-de-sac, the guy skidded to a stop and climbed out of his car, ignoring his wounded left leg. He was now holding what looked like an AR-15. Maggie, suddenly outgunned, turned the Interceptor so the passenger door with its reinforced ballistic side panels was facing the bad guy. She flopped down onto the seat as he fired a few bursts on full automatic, destroying both front tires and windshield. Maggie told Kelly to send Portland PD’s heavily armed Special Reaction Team.
Another half a dozen rounds slammed into the side of the car. Shit. If the cavalry didn’t get here soon, she was dead meat. Maggie dug into her bag and pulled out the spare magazine she always kept there. Then she slithered out the driver’s side door, taking her phone with her. She put her gun over the hood and fired off a couple of blind rounds to keep the guy pinned down. Not sure how many rounds she had left, she fired once more, then stopped to change magazines.
Lights were going on in several houses around the cul-de-sac. She hoped none of the civilians would be stupid enough to come running outside to see what the ruckus was all about.
Maggie peeked over the hood to check on the guy and stared in disbelief.
He was leaning on the hood of his car and pointing a long tube in her direction. She knew exactly what it was.
Abandoning the cover of the car, she leapt into a small drainage ditch on the side of the road. Landing hard, she looked up just in time to see a cloud of gas emerge from the back end of the tube.
The last thought that entered Maggie Savage’s mind before a huge blast turned her cruiser into a fiery coffin was, Who the hell did this guy work for? Al Qaeda? She didn’t have time to figure out a logical answer before her world went black.
Chapter 49
MAGGIE HAD NO idea where she was or why. She could hear an odd buzzing inside her ears and seemed to be surrounded by an obnoxious mixture of burning oil and rubber. The pounding inside her head was as bad as any headache she could ever remember having. Worst of all, her eyes seemed glued together.
She felt someone pick up her hand and begin stroking it. She didn’t know who was doing the stroking, but since it felt really good, maybe it didn’t matter. She just hoped whoever it was would keep on doing what they were doing.
After another minute or two, Maggie made a greater effort to open her eyes. When she finally managed it, she saw a pair of McCabes sitting in identical chairs next to her bed. Not exactly two whole McCabes. More like one McCabe overlapping with another, giving her the impression that he now had three eyes, one and a half noses and a really long mouth.
“How do you feel?” one of the McCabes asked. Or maybe it was both of them.
It seemed like a stupid question, so she didn’t bother answering.
“Do you know where you are?”
She looked around. “Hospital?”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Of course I know who you are. I’m just not sure why there happen to be two of you.”
Both McCabes must have thought that was funny, because both their extra long mouths chuckled when she said it. Maggie didn’t chuckle back. Having more than one McCabe didn’t seem funny at all. Nor was a throbbing that felt like a mule had kicked her in the head any laughing matter.
As she kept looking at him, the two McCabes slowly melded into one.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Eight thirty in the morning.”
“Saturday morning?”
“Yup. Saturday.”
“What time’s the graduation?”
“Starts at ten.”
“Can somebody give me something for the pain?”
McCabe went out into the hall. A minute later he came back with a nurse, who asked her a few questions, then gave her a Percocet.
“Now that you’re awake, maybe you can give me your version of what happened.”
Amazingly, she remembered it all in detail. The shoot-out in front of her house. Lucy McCorkle lying dead, half on and half off her porch steps. She recounted it all, right down to the point where the sonofabitch picked up the RPG and she dove into a ditch to avoid the explosion. “Poor old Lucy,” Maggie sighed. “Never even got to spend the four hundred bucks she pulled from the ATM. Had to be her biggest payday in years. Please don’t tell me the bad guy got away.”
“Yup. He got away, all right.”
“Shit.”
“Guess he thought you’d been killed by the explosion, or maybe he just heard the sirens coming. Either way, he raced out of that cul-de-sac like a bat out of hell and disappeared without checking to see whether or not you were dead. Couldn’t have been more than a minute or so before the cavalry arrived. A couple of units reported hearing the explosion, so they may even have passed him going the other way.”
“How’s the car I was driving?”
“What car would that be?”
“That bad, huh?”
“A burned-out wreck. You jumped just in time to avoid being turned into a crispy critter. According to the doc, you suffered what he called a blast-related concussion. Pretty common in war zones. Not so much in Maine. They gave you a CAT scan, which didn’t show any brain damage, so the neurologist thinks you’ll be fine.”
“Thinks?”
“Just covering his ass. Concussions are tricky.”
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Maggie didn’t like thinking about that. At least the Percocet was taking effect and the pain in her head was fading out. “So when can I get out of here?”
“Pretty much whenever you want.”
“Right now sounds like a good time to me,” Maggie snorted. She kicked McCabe out of the room and changed back into her clothes.
Ten minutes later, she had checked out and was following McCabe out to the Bird. “Where to?” he asked.
“Home to shower and change. These clothes are filthy.”
They headed toward Vesper Street. “I want to get that bastard,” Maggie muttered, staring out the window at the empty Saturday-morning streets.
“No more than me. At least we now know for sure that it was a third man and not Byron Knowles.”
“I shot him, you know.”
“No. I didn’t know. Where and how bad?”
“His calf, I think. If it missed the bone, it probably went straight through and out the other side. Jacoby should be able to find both the bullet and blood spatters in the road by the front of my house. Could give us the DNA we need to nail the guy.”
McCabe called Bill Jacoby and told him there might be blood from two people at the Vesper Street crime scene.
“Lucy McCorkle’s on the porch steps. The killer’s by the curb. Get somebody over there and make sure you’ve got both. Then put the highest priority on getting the reads.”
Ending the call, McCabe said to Maggie, “Okay, now all we need to do is find a match.”
“We will if the guy is ex-military, which I think he is. If he served in Iraq, which he might have, they’ll have his DNA on record. Harlan told me they recorded DNA for everybody they sent over there.”
“Really? Why?”
“To identify the dead when there wasn’t enough left of them to tell who they were any other way.”
“Is it the RPG that makes you think he’s ex-military?”