by James Hayman
Whitby looked down and stared at his shoes. “I’m so sorry. I never meant for that to happen.”
“I have a strong suspicion that you paid two and a half million dollars for that painting, far more than it’s worth, not because it’s a painting of your great-grandmother and not because it’s a famous painting by a well-known artist. I think you had to have it because it’s a portrait of Aimée. Not the first Aimée. Your Aimée.”
“That’s ridiculous. If I wanted a painting of my ‘favorite’ daughter, as you put it, I could have commissioned one far more cheaply.”
“Yes. But then you would have had to commission paintings of both your daughters. Or one painting of the two of them. And no way would you have wanted the other daughter, the not quite so beautiful one, to share wall space with the girl, the woman who is—and let’s be honest about it—the one true love of your life.”
Deirdre finished her whiskey, went to the drinks cupboard, added a handful of ice cubes to her glass, and poured four more ounces of Johnnie Walker Black over them. Edward finished his own drink, got up and did the same.
“In fact, Edward,” she said as he put the bottle back in its place, “I’ve often wondered, at least since she started growing breasts, if your love for that child . . . let me see, how can I put it delicately? Ever strayed beyond the bounds of propriety.”
“How dare you?” Whitby roared. “How dare you even hint at such a thing?”
“It’s true, isn’t it, Edward?” said Deirdre, hissing out the words like an angry cat. “Not only did you love your little Aimée more than you loved me or Julia or anyone, you’ve been proving your love by fucking her all these years, haven’t you?”
Edward Whitby’s face reddened with rage. He drew back and slapped his wife across the face with all the strength he could muster. The blow was hard enough to knock her to the floor in front of the fireplace. The glass she was holding fell upon the stone hearth and broke into a thousand pieces.
“You’re blind, aren’t you, Edward?” she said, spitting the words up at him, “totally blind to the fact that your ‘dearest, favorite’ daughter . . . the one you loved so much, was not only a slut who fucked every man she could get her hands on but also a total bitch.”
Whitby stood over his wife, his fists clenched, his face scarlet. “You killed her, didn’t you?” he roared. “You called your fucking brother and paid some fucking contractor to kill my daughter, didn’t you?”
“No, of course I didn’t,” Deirdre screamed. “I don’t do things like that.”
“Don’t lie to me, you fucking bitch. You killed her!”
“You know something? I didn’t kill her, but I’m glad somebody did! That dirty little slut deserved to die.”
Because Deirdre McClure Whitby turned away from her husband at that instant and covered her face with her hands, she never saw Edward pick up the poker from the fireplace and swing it with all his might against the side of her head, striking her just above her right ear. She did, however, feel a brief explosion of pain as the pointed hook at the end of the poker entered her brain.
Edward Whitby stared down at his dead wife, the rage drained out of him by this singular act of violence, barely believing what he had done.
He slid to the floor and sat next to where she lay, his hand on her shoulder, blood leaking from her head and staining his trousers. He sat for a full ten minutes. The curse, he thought. The stain. It had come again. Finally he rose, took a business card from his breast pocket and punched in the number on his cell.
“This is McCabe,” said a voice on the other end.
“You’d best come and get me, Sergeant. I’m afraid I just killed my wife.”
Chapter 56
MCCABE AND KYRA had been sitting in the living room of the apartment on the Eastern Prom for the last half hour, rehashing ground they’d been over a dozen times before. He asking, or perhaps pleading was the better word, for her to come home from San Francisco. She asking him to join her out there.
“You haven’t found someone else?” he asked.
“I told you I haven’t been looking. It’ll take me a while before I get to a point where I want to start a new relationship. What about you?”
“No. I still love you.”
“What about Maggie? I could always tell there was something there by the way you looked at her, spoke of her.”
“That’s something that might have been but never has. At least not so far.”
The insistent ringing of the phone in his pocket cut the conversation short. He resisted the temptation just to let it go to voice mail when he checked caller ID.
“This is McCabe,” he said.
“You’d best come and get me, Sergeant. I’m afraid I just killed my wife.”
“Where are you?”
“At the house.”
“Stay right where you are,” McCabe said. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Who was it?” asked Kyra. “What is it?”
“Another murder. Edward Whitby just killed his wife. And I have the awful feeling it might be, at least partly, my fault.”
McCabe dialed 911. Andrea Simon, the PPD day shift dispatcher, came on the line.
“Get a MEDCU unit and a couple of cruisers over to the Whitby mansion on the Western Prom. ASAP. Lights and siren all the way. Get an evidence team over there as well.”
McCabe next called Maggie. “Whitby just killed Deirdre.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Not kidding. He’s at his house. Where are you?”
“109.”
“Okay. Meet you there in five.”
He ended the call. Got his jacket and weapon. “Gotta go,” he told Kyra.
“I understand. I won’t be here when you get back.”
McCabe paused, thought about it and nodded. “I’m sorry about that.”
THE TWO DETECTIVES reached the Western Prom within seconds of each other. Two cruisers and an ambulance were already there. A young cop McCabe didn’t recognize was stringing yellow crime scene tape across the front of the house. Some passersby had gathered on the Prom to watch. Sergeant Pete Kenney came out to greet them. Probably his last crisis call, McCabe thought. His last homicide.
“It’s pretty much a mess in there,” said Kenney. “The body is in the living room to the right of the front door. She’s lying by the fireplace. Had her head bashed in with a fire iron. The hook on the end went through her temple. EMTs say she died instantly. Murder weapon’s lying next to her.”
“Where’s Whitby?” asked Maggie.
“Sitting on a chair looking at the vic. We’ve got him cuffed. But he’s totally docile. Hasn’t said a word except ‘I killed her,’ which he’s said two or three times.”
“You read him his rights?”
“No. Thought I’d let you guys do the honors.”
“Anybody else in the house?”
“A woman. Name’s Brenda Boatwright. Says she’s the Whitbys’ housekeeper. She said she heard a lot of screaming but was afraid to go into the room. Says the Whitbys fought a lot and she knew enough not to interfere. She didn’t find out what happened in there until things quieted down. She’s pretty much in shock herself.”
The PPD evidence van pulled up. Bill Jacoby and two techs climbed out. Maggie filled them in and told them to go into the living room and start doing their thing.
Maggie and McCabe entered the house. McCabe escorted Whitby out of the living room, sat him down on a bench, then sat next to him. He turned on a small digital recording device and placed it between them. Neither man looked at the other.
“I told you we were cursed,” said Whitby. “In spite of our wealth, or perhaps because of it.”
“This is Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe. Today is Saturday, June 16, 2012. I’m at the home of Edward Whitby at number 22 Western Promenade, Portland, Maine. Please state your name.”
“Edward Whitby.”
“Edward Whitby,” McCabe said, “I’m arresting you for the m
urder of your wife, Deirdre McClure Whitby. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” He went through the rest of the Miranda script, asking the required questions at the end. “Do you understand each of these rights I have explained to you?”
“Yes.”
“Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to us now?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Whitby, would you please tell me in your own words what occurred in the living room of your home at number 22 Western Prom at approximately five fifteen this afternoon?”
Whitby began not at five fifteen but with his conversation with McCabe earlier that afternoon. He ended with his picking up the poker and killing his wife in an uncontrollable rage.
Whitby turned and looked at McCabe for the first time. “She is dead, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she’s dead. Prior to hitting your wife with the poker, did you ask her if she was involved in the murder this past Friday of your daughter, Veronica Aimée Whitby?”
“Yes.”
McCabe took a deep breath and asked the question he knew he had to ask even though it might mean the end of his career. “And why did you do that?”
“Because of you,” Whitby said. “You planted the seed in my mind when we spoke earlier. When I gave you the journal.”
“How did your wife respond to your question?”
“She denied having any involvement in Aimée’s death.”
“Do you think she was telling the truth?”
“I don’t know. She seemed to be. But then Deirdre was always an accomplished liar.”
“So can you tell me what exactly made you so angry that you picked up the poker and struck her?”
“She accused me of loving Aimée.”
“Of course you loved her. I love my daughter. That’s part of being a father.”
“I don’t mean that kind of love.” Whitby swallowed hard. “She accused me of sexually abusing my daughter.”
McCabe frowned. “Was there any truth to what she said?”
Edward Whitby didn’t answer.
“Was there any truth to what she said?”
“None whatsoever. But . . .”
“But what?” McCabe asked again.
“She was right when she accused me of loving Aimée more. More than Julia. More than Deirdre. I did love her more. She was so beautiful. Not just physically but in every way,” Whitby said in little more than a whisper.
McCabe waited for more, but Whitby just sat, slumped on the bench, no longer an arrogant master of the universe but someone emotionally and, it seemed to McCabe, even physically diminished.
“Mr. Whitby,” McCabe finally said, “you’ve admitted to killing your wife. Did you also kill Byron Knowles and your daughter Veronica Aimée Whitby at approximately 2:00 a.m. Friday morning?”
Whitby turned and looked at McCabe as if he had understood nothing “Of course not. How could I kill Aimée? She was the one person I’ve always loved more than anyone else in the world. The one person to whom I could refuse nothing. I don’t think someone like you could possibly understand how deeply a father’s love for his child can run.”
Whitby was wrong. McCabe understood perfectly.
“What could possibly lead me to harm someone I loved so much?”
“The same thing that might have led your great-grandfather to kill the person he loved more than anyone else in the world. And to kill her lover. Rage driven by jealousy.”
“But he didn’t kill her. Haven’t you read the journal?”
“Not all of it. Not yet.”
“It doesn’t matter. The answer to your question is still no. I didn’t kill my daughter. Nor would I. No matter what her faults, and they were many, I would have killed myself before hurting her in any way.”
McCabe turned off the recorder and went over to Sergeant Pete Kenney.
“I’ve arrested Edward Whitby on charges of murder,” he said to Kenney. “He knows and understands his rights. I would appreciate it if you would please deliver him to the Cumberland County jail and make sure they put him on suicide watch. I don’t want him escaping his guilt by killing himself.”
Kenney gave McCabe an odd look but said nothing. He walked over to Whitby, took him by the elbow and led him out of the house.
Chapter 57
AT EXACTLY 5:00 A.M. on Monday morning, McCabe’s cell phone alarm broke into the first few bars of Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith’s “Feudin’ Banjos.” He fumbled around on his nightstand for a few seconds before he managed to find the phone and quiet the jangle. It took him a couple of seconds to remember exactly why he was getting up before dawn on a June morning. Simple, really. They still didn’t know who killed Aimée, and the number one suspect, Deirdre McClure Whitby, being dead, was unfortunately unavailable for questioning. McCabe figured his next best source on whether or not Deirdre had hired a contract killer was Mr. Orion himself, her brother Dennis.
McCabe pulled himself out of bed and into the bathroom. He showered, shaved and briefly debated whether a white shirt or a blue-and-white striped one would work best with the CEO of a company that specialized in safeguarding the lives of State Department and Pentagon bigwigs. He decided on stripes. Added his only red power tie and then put on the one decent suit he owned, purchased with the advice and consent of Kyra two years earlier for her favorite uncle’s funeral.
A cab was waiting downstairs. Fifteen minutes later it deposited him in front of the brand-new terminal building at the Portland International Jetport. He had time for two cups of coffee and a glazed donut before boarding the six forty-five US Airways flight to Reagan National. The flight was, as all flights seemed to be these days, totally booked, but at least he had an aisle seat and it took off on time. A little over two hours later, he emerged from a taxi in front of a nondescript modern office building on Crystal Drive in Arlington. No signs on the exterior indicating the names of any of the tenants. He walked through the revolving door and checked in with a blue-jacketed security guard seated behind a curved desk in the center of the lobby.
“How can I help you?”
“I have a 9:00 a.m. appointment with Dennis McClure of The Orion Group.”
McCabe signed in as instructed and produced photo ID. The fact that he was a cop raised no eyebrows, and the security guy phoned upstairs.
“Please take a seat. Mr. McClure’s assistant will be down in just a few minutes.”
A few minutes turned into fifteen before a stunning black woman in a gray pants suit approached.
“Detective McCabe?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Edwina Starling, Mr. McClure’s assistant. I apologize for the delay, but he had an early meeting.”
Orion occupied the building’s top three floors. Ms. Starling pressed the button for the top floor.
The doors opened on a reception area paneled in rich walnut and decorated with some first-rate modern art. To McCabe the place looked more like a white shoe Wall Street law firm than a company that specialized in sending heavily armed security guards into the hottest of the world’s hot spots.
Ms. Starling offered McCabe coffee. He declined and was then ushered into a large corner office with floor-to-ceiling window walls on both sides.
A trim, athletic-looking man in his early fifties rose from behind a large glass desk and extended his hand.
“Sergeant McCabe? Dennis McClure.” McClure pointed him to the visitor seat in front of the desk, skipped any prelims and got right to the point. “I assume you’re here to talk about my sister’s death.”
McCabe could detect no obvious signs of grieving in McClure’s face or manner. No signs at all of being upset that his younger sister had had her head bashed in by her husband.
“Were you and Deirdre close?”
“Yes, we were close. I was the big brother she counted on and confided in. We spoke regularly by phone. Our families spent holidays together. Skiing. Sailing. Whatever. Last
year we all went to Africa and climbed Kilimanjaro. I feel personally devastated by her death. Even more so because it was Edward who killed her. Now what else do you want to know?”
“You employ and have, over the years, employed a lot of people who know a lot about killing people.”
“Correction. They know a lot about protecting people. That’s what my company does. We protect both government and corporate personnel who are required to work in dangerous and unfriendly environments.”
“Yes. That’s what it said on your website.”
“We also provide our clients with confidential intelligence and intelligence assessments, not available from public sources, about opportunities and potential problem situations in what people generally call ‘hot spots.’ ”
“Yup. Saw that on your website too.”
“So now you know all about us. How else can I help you?”
“Ever hear the line ‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?’ ”
“Not that I recall.”
“It’s what King Henry II supposedly called out when he was looking for somebody to knock off Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“And the significance of this bit of trivia is?”
“Did Deirdre ever ask you for the name of someone to rid her of her troublesome stepdaughter?”
McClure raised both eyebrows in obvious surprise. “You think Deirdre had something to do with Aimée’s murder?”
“I think it’s possible. I also think Edward may have killed your sister because he suspected that she did.”
“If that’s what you think, then both you and Edward are full of shit.”
“A lot of people have told me that. On the other hand, most of them were people who had something to hide. Is there something you’re trying to hide?”
“The answer is no, she didn’t ask me for the names of any hit men.”
“Would you tell me if she had?”
“Probably not. But on the other hand, Deirdre worked here for a couple of years before she headed north in search of Whitby’s riches. I’d be surprised if she didn’t have a contact or two of her own left over from the old days.”