Darkness First

by James Hayman

  She drove through Machias and continued south on Port Road through the small village of Machiasport and on toward the state park. In the early light of a cool summer morning she could see the flashing light bars of a bunch of cruisers from half a mile away. As she drew closer she counted three from the MSP, two more from the Washington County Sheriff’s Department plus a couple of unmarked state police cars and her father’s white Subaru Outback.

  A young trooper signaled her to pull over in front of some yellow crime-scene tape that was cordoning off the entire area from the state park to the spot where she guessed Emily had been hit. ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid you can’t stop here. You’ll either have to turn around or continue through on that far shoulder.’

  The trooper’s plastic name badge identified him as J. W. Willett. ‘Trooper Willett?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Maggie held out her badge wallet and opened it for the trooper. ‘Detective Margaret Savage, Portland PD.’

  ‘You’re a little far from home, aren’t you?’

  ‘See that tall guy down there? I’m with him.’

  ‘Sheriff Savage?’ He glanced at her name again. ‘You his daughter?’

  ‘Last time I checked.’

  ‘Yeah,’ the trooper nodded, ‘I can see the resemblance.’ He spoke into his shoulder mike. Somebody on the other end told him to let her through.

  Maggie parked the Blazer, slipped under the tape and started toward the park. She stopped where the evidence techs had marked the precise point of impact where Emily had been struck by the fleeing car. Had she been trying to stop the killer when he ran into her? Or help the dying girl? Maggie knew Em’s first instinct would have been to save a life.

  There was nothing much to be seen here except some skid marks that showed where the car had swerved. Other than that, nothing. No paint chips. No blood or broken glass. By now the techs would’ve collected whatever could be found and tucked it away for analysis.

  She continued toward the park. John Savage broke away from the group he was with and came to meet her. A lean six-four, with a gray mustache and a weathered face, Savage looked more like a sheriff in a John Ford western than one in a rural county in Maine. He was even armed like Wyatt Earp with his pride and joy, an original 1873 long-barreled Colt.45 Peacemaker, strapped to his waist. All he needed was a horse and a Stetson hat to complete the image. And somewhere at home Maggie was pretty sure he had the hat. Polly Four, a blond Lab who was John’s constant companion, jumped from the open back of the Subaru and trotted alongside. People tended to ask John the significance of the ‘Four’ in Polly Four’s name. Nothing real complicated. Her father always named his dogs Polly (‘Keeps things simple,’ he’d explain) and this one was his fourth. Polly Four, in dog years, was about the same age John was in people years. Just like Pollys one through three, she had a deputy sheriff’s badge clipped to her collar.

  Polly Four wagged furiously and butted her nose against Maggie’s leg. John opened his arms. Maggie stepped into them, rejoicing in the familiar scent of the only man she’d loved forever. A pot pourri of unfiltered Camels, J. W. Dant Straight Kentucky Bourbon and wet gun dog.

  Then she pulled back and examined him closely. He looked thinner than she remembered, but then he’d always been lean. There were a few new furrows on his always furrowed face. A little less hair on his head. None of this, at his age, was much of a surprise. She saw nothing more than worry reflected in the dark-brown eyes everyone said looked exactly like hers. Still, at seventy-four, it was way past time for John Savage to admit he was getting older and stop working so hard at a job he should have retired from years earlier. Except he loved the job. Lived for it. Probably kill him if he quit. Kill him if he didn’t. Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.

  ‘How you doing, Mag?’ he asked as they broke the hug.

  ‘Hanging in,’ she told him. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Aching all over. Should have been in bed hours ago.’

  As they started back, John reached into his shirt pocket for his pack of Camels, the short unfiltered kind he’d been smoking forever. She waited while he tapped one out and lit up. He took a deep drag and blew a steady stream of smoke into the crisp morning air, the blue smoke tinted bluer by the flashing light bars of the cruisers.

  ‘Thought you promised me you’d give those up,’ Maggie said.

  ‘Yup. I did. Promised you. Promised Em. Promised Anya. But the truth of the matter is I don’t really want to give them up. I enjoy smoking. I enjoy bourbon too. And sex when I can manage it.’

  ‘The bourbon and sex probably won’t kill you.’

  ‘No, but I’m turning seventy-five next month. At this point it seems more’n likely something else’ll kill me first.’

  Maggie wondered if he had anything specific in mind. But that conversation would have to wait. In the meantime she knew enough not to argue. John was at least as stubborn as she was.

  8

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Margaret Savage,’ Emmett Ganzer said when they joined a small group of cops clustered a little way from the murder site. Ganzer didn’t look happy to see her. ‘What brings you up here from the big bad city?’

  ‘Keeping the old man company, Emmett,’ Maggie said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Me? I’m fine. I’m always fine.’

  ‘Margaret Savage?’ The question came from a good-looking man she hadn’t met before. ‘Are you Detective Margaret Savage? Portland PD?’

  ‘Yup. That’s me. Who’re you?’

  ‘Sean Carroll. CID out of Ellsworth. I’m the lead on this investigation.’

  Sergeant Sean Carroll. Maggie had heard the name before. Seen it in the paper too. Carroll had a reputation as one of the best investigators in the state. Only thirty-three and already rumored to be on the fast track to succeed Tom Mayhew as next lieutenant of the State Police Northern Division CID. He held out his hand. She shook it.

  ‘Nice to meet you too,’ she smiled. ‘Most people call me Maggie.’

  ‘Okay, Maggie. This is Detective Scott Renzo and Bill Heinrich,’ said Carroll. ‘Bill is head of our ER team.’ ER stood for Evidence Retrieval. ‘Y’know, I’ve heard a lot of good things about you,’ he added.

  ‘Really? I’m flattered.’

  ‘Don’t be. You’ve got a damned good reputation as a homicide investigator. You and McCabe both. From what I understand, it’s deserved.’ McCabe was Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe, head of the Portland Police Department’s Crimes Against People unit. Technically, Maggie’s boss. More accurately, more importantly, her partner and friend. They’d worked together for nearly five years.

  Maggie nodded her thanks and studied Carroll as he turned his attention back to Heinrich for a moment. Six-one or maybe six-two with a trim, muscular build and dark, curly hair cut a little longer than most cops would wear it. She found herself checking his left hand and noting the absence of a wedding band.

  ‘Mind if I take a look at the vic?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s not a pretty sight.’

  ‘I can handle it.’

  ‘I’m sure you can, but why?’ Carroll looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘Are you here for something other than just visiting your father?’

  Maggie figured what the hell. Might as well leap in with both feet. ‘Yes. I’d like to work with your people on this investigation.’

  ‘Really?’ Carroll sounded surprised. ‘What’s your interest?’

  ‘Emily Kaplan, the woman hit by the getaway car, is my oldest and closest friend.’

  ‘Ahh. So you want to catch the guy who tried to kill her?’

  ‘I do. I also think I can add value to your investigation.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Maggie shrugged. ‘I grew up in Machias. Still have a lot of contacts here. Plus Emily trusts me. She’ll talk to me more freely than to any of your other detectives. Also, if you’re coordinating your investigation with the Sheriff’s Department, I’m obviously well connected there
as well.’

  Carroll nodded. Maggie felt his eyes, an almost startling gray-blue, study her as if there were no one else in the small circle of cops or for that matter anywhere else in the world. Just her. She felt them drawing her in.

  ‘Let’s talk about this in my car,’ he said, ‘I think it merits a private conversation.’

  Carroll led Maggie to an unmarked gray Impala with state police plates. She got in the passenger side. He slid behind the wheel. They sat side by side in the dark.

  ‘You seem very intent on this,’ he said.

  ‘I am.’

  Carroll nodded, his eyes still on her. ‘You know normally if a detective with your experience and reputation volunteered to help in what could be a very difficult investigation, I’d jump at the chance to bring you in.’

  ‘But … ?’

  ‘But I have concerns.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as whether your relationship with Kaplan will affect your ability to weigh the evidence objectively.’

  ‘I can promise you it won’t.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a promise you can keep. You do know we found a stash of illegal drugs, over a 150 Oxycontin tablets, in your friend’s pocket?’

  ‘Yes, my father told me. I don’t know why those pills were there,’ Maggie said, choosing her words carefully. ‘But I’m sure Emily has nothing to do with buying or selling Oxycontin. Or with the murder of that young woman.’

  ‘Tell me something,’ Carroll said. ‘If I say thanks for your generous offer, but no thanks, I have plenty of good people assigned, what would you do? Go home quietly? Or nose around on your own anyway?’

  ‘I’d have to think about that.’

  ‘But you might decide to play private eye? Work it on your own?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘I need a more definitive answer than that.’

  ‘All right. The definitive answer is yes. I’d work it on my own. I’m not going to sit quietly by while some scumball takes a second shot at my friend.’

  ‘Even if I told you, warned you, that if you did that I might feel obliged to issue a formal complaint up the line, maybe as far as the Attorney General’s office.’

  ‘I’d go ahead anyway.’

  Carroll exhaled loudly. He turned away and stared out the window. Maggie hoped he wouldn’t decide to punt.

  ‘How long are you here for?’ he asked after what seemed like a long time.

  ‘I’m due back in Portland Tuesday morning. But since I just cleared the only case I was working on I’m sure I can stay longer if necessary.’

  ‘If I say yes, will you agree to report directly to me? Play by my rules and not go off freelancing on your own?’

  Though she knew she wasn’t being completely honest, she gave Carroll the affirmative answer she knew he required. If he stuck her out in left field just to get her out of the way, all bets were off.

  ‘Okay. Tell you what,’ Carroll said, ‘we’ll give it a shot. See how it goes until Tuesday, when you’re due back in Portland anyway.’

  ‘That’s not a lot of time.’

  ‘Consider it a free trial offer.’ Carroll smiled and Maggie was struck again by the blueness of his eyes. They were quite intoxicating. ‘A chance to see how we get on together,’ he continued. ‘If it works we’ll take it from there. If not, no further involvement. No harm done. Fair enough?’

  Maggie knew she wasn’t going to get a better offer so she decided to play by Carroll’s rules. At least until Tuesday.

  ‘Fair enough?’ he asked again.

  ‘Okay. Fair enough,’ she said.

  They headed back and joined the assembled group. Maggie slipped a pair of paper booties over her shoes and continued down to where Tiffany Stoddard’s body lay a few feet away from a rusty green Taurus.

  9

  Violent death had been Maggie Savage’s stock in trade for a long time. Six years in uniform and eight more working homicide had brought her face to face with more of the dead than she cared to count or remember. Human beings stabbed to death, shot to death, bludgeoned to death and burned to death. Bodies torn apart in accidents. Bodies fished out of the bay, bloated and rotting from weeks in the water. Bodies lying naked and exposed on stainless steel tables awaiting the final indignity of the pathologist’s blade.

  Fourteen years of living with death and yet the first encounter with a victim as brutalized as Tiff Stoddard wasn’t easy. One of the hardest parts was not letting her genuine feelings show through. As a woman she had to seem tougher than that to the guys she worked with, most of whom would see any honest display of emotion as further proof of female weakness. But the simple truth was she still took each death hard. Especially when the victims had their damned eyes open and were staring at her, or, as in the case of Tiffany Stoddard, one eye open.

  The viciousness of Stoddard’s killing seemed incongruous in the sweet cool air of an August morning. She was lying where she fell, in the middle of a pool of drying blood, bra hanging loose, pants pulled down, one eye battered shut, the other mirroring the horror of her last moments. Tiff’s hands still clutched her nearly severed neck, her final futile attempt to keep her life from bleeding out.

  Maggie squatted down and studied Tiff Stoddard’s bruised and beaten face. Noted the cuts through her nostril and her lip. The cuts on her breasts. The shallow vertical cut down her middle. The bloody mess the killer’s knife had made between her legs. Lips, breasts, vagina. A sexual sadist’s work. Assuming his fun and games had been interrupted by Emily’s appearance, had he been forced to finish fast by going for the jugular? Coitus interruptus? Sort of. She was sure Emily’s unexpected arrival must have frustrated his sadistic desire, stoked his rage, his need to cause pain.

  ‘She probably wasn’t his first.’

  Maggie turned at the sound of Carroll’s voice. She hadn’t heard him approach.

  ‘Really? You’ve found others?’ she asked, rising from her squatting position. ‘Cut up like this?’

  ‘Just one. Woman named Laura Blakemore. Body turned up third week in February.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘Part-time waitress. Part-time drug dealer. Twenty-three years old. Attractive. At least she was before she was cut into pieces and stuffed into four heavyweight garbage bags, the kind they use on construction sites. The killer tossed all four into a dumpster behind a Wal-Mart in Brewer. It was only by accident she didn’t end up as landfill.’

  ‘Who found her?’

  ‘Homeless guy rooting around in the dumpster for throw-away food. He opened one of the bags and saw Blakemore’s severed head staring back at him through a layer of Saran Wrap. Poor bastard almost had a coronary. Anyway, he had enough sense to flag down a Brewer patrol car and we took it from there.’

  ‘Your case?’

  ‘Yes. One of the privileges of rank. I get to pick and choose what I work on.’

  ‘But you haven’t found the killer.’

  ‘No. The investigation’s still open.’

  ‘You attend the autopsy?’

  ‘Such as it was. More of a reconstruction project than an autopsy.’

  ‘Did she have cuts like these?’

  Carroll shook his head. ‘Blakemore was in twenty pieces. There were cuts everywhere.’

  ‘Any other connection to Stoddard?’

  ‘Yes. Oxycontin. Blakemore was wholesaling Canadian 80s all over Penobscot County, mostly to small-time pushers. Maine DEA had her in their sights and was using her to connect the dots to her source of supply. Unfortunately, someone learned she was about to turn snitch and she ended up in the dumpster before providing any significant information. What I’m wondering is if Blakemore’s supplier might not have been Stoddard. Or, admittedly less likely, Kaplan.’

  ‘It wasn’t Emily.’

  Carroll sighed. ‘Y’know, that’s the kind of assumption that made me hesitate bringing you into this case. There are doctors who break the law. Sometimes easy money can be very tempting.’

&
nbsp; Maggie decided not to argue the point.

  ‘Anyway, we know the origin of the Canadian product. You ever hear of Saint John?’

  ‘I assume you mean the city and not the apostle?’

  ‘That’s right. The city. Saint John, New Brunswick. Up until this winter selling Ox in Maine was mostly a mom and pop business. Phony prescriptions for thirty tabs. People with legit prescriptions making a few bucks selling their leftover pills. Very occasionally somebody would bring in a few hundred tabs from out of state. Until this year almost all Oxycontin sold in Maine was manufactured by Purdue Pharmaceuticals in the US.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Last January that all changed. Forty thousand tablets with a street value of nearly five million dollars were stolen from a big pharmaceutical distribution center in Saint John. Within weeks, Canadian tabs, CDN stamped right on them, started showing up all over the state. Our DEA guys say they’ve got to be from Saint John. Our neighbors to the north claim we’re just blaming them for our drug problems.’

  ‘Even though the pills are obviously Canadian?’

  ‘Even though. They say the thieves in Saint John were two local kids arrested previously for dealing. They tried to get away by water and capsized their kayak. Their bodies washed up down the coast a couple of days later. Both were positively identified from surveillance videos which show them killing a security guard and taking off with the goods in a small duffle bag.’

  ‘The drugs didn’t wash up with them?’

  ‘Never found.’

  ‘How about the kayak?’

  ‘That turned up a couple of days after the bodies. A bag was still in the storage compartment containing their wallets and a Glock 17 with one of the kids’ prints on it. Two shots fired. Definitely the same gun that killed the security guy.’

  ‘A little neat, isn’t it?’

  ‘I agree. But the Canadian cops insist the drugs sank to the bottom of the Bay of Fundy. Or maybe washed out with the tides. DEA says that’s nonsense. Far too many “CDN” tabs turning up in Maine for it to be anything else.’