Darkness First

by James Hayman

  Emily gave it a few seconds thought but no more. ‘That’s easy then. First Wednesday every month I go to a book group at the Porter Library. The book was Cutting for Stone by a writer named Abraham Verghese. Since I suggested it, I led the discussion.’

  ‘How many people saw you there?’

  ‘Probably seven or eight.’

  Maggie asked for the names and wrote them down. ‘Okay, now why don’t you tell me what happened last night? Everything you remember.’

  ‘Where do you want me to start?’

  ‘The beginning.’

  Emily pointed to a pitcher on her side table. ‘There’s some ice chips over there. Can you get me a cupful of them?’

  Maggie handed Em the plastic cup. She put a few of the bigger chips in her mouth and began to suck. After she’d swallowed a few, she began. ‘Okay. It started when I first saw Tiffany Stoddard.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Around eight o’clock last night.’ For the next twenty minutes Emily took Maggie through the whole story. How the young woman had come in to the office, her face beaten and battered. What she looked like. What she was wearing. How Em checked her bruises and reset her broken nose. How she wouldn’t tell Em her name or where she had come from or who had beaten her up.

  ‘Did you ask her why she wouldn’t give you any of that information?’

  ‘She said if she told me any of it, the guy who beat her up would probably kill her. Then she corrected herself. Said there was no probably about it. He would definitely kill her. And he would kill me too.’

  ‘She used those words? Kill her? Kill you?’

  ‘Yeah. At first I thought she was exaggerating. But she said it with such intensity I figured maybe it was true and somebody really had threatened to kill her.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘She told me she was pregnant.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Maggie interrupted. ‘Tiffany Stoddard was pregnant?’

  ‘Said she was. I never had a chance to check but she said she missed her period and a home pregnancy test turned up positive. Told me the real reason she came to see me wasn’t because of the beating but because she wanted me to terminate the pregnancy.’

  ‘As far as I know you don’t do abortions.’

  ‘No, but very occasionally, I have prescribed drugs that terminate early-stage pregnancies. Somehow Stoddard knew about it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She said a friend told her. Told her to come see me.’

  ‘What friend?’

  ‘I asked. She wouldn’t tell me that either.’

  Maggie held up one hand. ‘Hold on a second would you?’ she said. She found her phone and speed dialed Terri Mirabito’s cell. Mirabito was one of the Assistant Medical Examiners for the state of Maine. She was also a good friend.

  ‘Hi, Mag, what’s up?’

  ‘You doing the autopsy on the kid they brought in this morning? Tiffany Stoddard?’

  ‘Yup. That’d be me. Heard you were working with the staties on that one.’

  ‘Yeah? Heard it from who?’

  ‘Emmett Ganzer. He didn’t sound real pleased.’

  ‘Well, that’s his problem,’ she said. ‘When are you cutting?’

  ‘Early tomorrow morning. First thing. How can I help you?’

  ‘I just found out Stoddard may have been pregnant.’

  ‘Couldn’t be very pregnant.’

  ‘It’s early stage. Maybe six weeks.’

  ‘Interesting. You think it’s the daddy-to-be who offed her?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. Listen, if there’s a fetus in there, can you get the DNA reads as fast as possible?’

  ‘All I can do is alert Joe Pines. Try to light a fire under him.’ Pines was the DNA guy at the state lab in Augusta. ‘You have any suspect matches for Joe to check them against? Any idea who she was having sex with?’

  ‘Not yet, but I’m working on it. Plus we may get a hit out of CODIS. I think the guy may be a sex offender.’

  CODIS, or the Combined DNA Index System, was an FBI-controlled database that kept DNA profiles of all sexual offenders in the United States as well as most other criminals convicted of a felony.

  ‘Sex offender? Jesus, Maggie, based on what he did to this kid I’d love to personally cut his balls off. And I don’t mean after he’s dead.’ Maggie had never heard Terri sound so angry about wounds inflicted on a victim. ‘This creep used his knife like a substitute penis. Must have gone in and out of her twenty times. I’m just wondering if he actually came.’

  ‘Any signs of ejaculate?’

  ‘Not on her body or clothes. And trust me I looked. But maybe Heinrich ought to double-check the killing zone. Fucker might still have been dripping as he ran to his car.’

  Terri took a deep breath to calm down before continuing. ‘I’ll also have Joe check if the fetal reads match any foreign DNA I find on Stoddard’s body. If we get a match with fetal, that’ll at least tell us if the killer and the father are the same guy. How’s Kaplan doing?’

  ‘Other than looking like she just went fifteen rounds with Mike Tyson, pretty damn well. Awake and alert. She’s the one who told me about the pregnancy.’

  ‘Okay. Good. I’ll give you a call soon as I know.’

  ‘Thanks, Terri.’

  Maggie broke the connection. ‘Okay, first order of business. Who knew you prescribed these drugs? Maybe told Stoddard about them?’

  ‘Lord, I don’t know. Like I said, I’ve only prescribed them, let me think, three times. The first time I was still down in Portland. Patient was a thirty-eight-year-old woman who already had three kids, no job and a boyfriend who’d just walked out on her. She was desperate not to have another. I suppose she might have known Tiffany Stoddard and mentioned it but that seems really unlikely. The second time was right after I opened my practice in Machiasport. About four years ago. Patient was a twelve-year-old girl who’d been raped by her father. Mother and daughter have since moved out of the area and the father’s doing time. Again unlikely.’

  ‘And the third?’

  Emily sighed. ‘I guess that’s the one. I never told anybody about it before because, frankly, I really didn’t want anybody to know. Not even you. It was right before my divorce from Sam, when the marriage was really turning ugly. This young woman, a student over at UMM, tells me she’s pregnant and wants to terminate the pregnancy. Unlike Stoddard, she’s perfectly willing to give me her name and insurance card and all the other necessary information. I ask her if she knows who the father is and, if she does, do either of them have any interest in getting married and maybe having the baby. Well, she laughs at this. Thinks it’s kind of funny. Says yes indeed, she knows who the father is and, no, she doesn’t think he’s going to want to get married. I ask why. She says, among other reasons, because he’s already married.’ Emily paused and shook her head. ‘I almost hate to ask you but by any chance was Tiffany Stoddard a student at UMM?’

  ‘Yes, and somehow I think I know where you’re going with this,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you do,’ Emily sighed. ‘Did Stoddard ever take any English courses? Creative writing perhaps?’

  ‘I guess we’ll just have to find out.’

  ‘Maggie?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Before you talk to Sam, make sure you call Detective Louisa DelCastro on the Philadelphia Police Department. Ask her about what happened about three and a half years ago at the Palomar Hotel in Philadelphia. Sam is more than just the preppy, wiseguy drunk he pretends to be. Be careful.’

  Before leaving the hospital, Maggie called Detective DelCastro. She wasn’t available. Maggie left a message asking the detective to please call her back as soon as possible. It concerned a murder and was urgent. Her second call was to her father.

  15

  2:03 P.M., Saturday, August 22, 2009

  Eastport, Maine

  Tabitha Stoddard stared vacantly out her bedroom window at the irregular patterns of sunlight and shado
w that stretched across the yard like witch’s fingers pointing toward the toolshed at the back.

  She was sitting, knees up, head and back propped against the painted white wooden slats of the headboard Pike had made for her when she was little. Just before the accident that killed Terri.

  Back then, when Pike could still use his legs, he did things like that for her. Made headboards and showed her how to handle the Katie Louise. He used to keep the boat painted up and in good shape instead of letting her slowly disintegrate into the rotting bucket she’d become.

  Sometimes back then, Pike would take all three of his girls out to cruise around the harbor. He’d tell the other captains and anyone else who’d listen how he liked showing off his three beautiful daughters. But Tabbie knew, even then, that it was only Tiff and Terri who were beautiful and not her. No, Tabitha was the ugly duckling. Only this ugly duckling was one who would never grow up to be beautiful or graceful or smart. This ugly duckling would never grow into a swan.

  Still, Tabbie loved the headboard. Each of the slats had a carved wooden bird perched on top. Pike drew up the design himself. Cut out each of the bird shapes with his jigsaw so they all were exactly the same size and shape, the only difference being that the ones on the left side of the bed faced right, and the ones on the right side faced left. When he screwed the two sides together and placed them behind the bed, the two birds in the middle ended up looking into each other’s faces, beaks about half an inch apart, like they were squaring off to have a fight or something. Over the years Tabitha named all the birds. The two in the middle were Roxie and Dick.

  Making the headboard was the last special thing Pike ever did for her. He screwed it together and attached it to the bed frame just days before he crashed his motorcycle into the tree, killing Terri and crippling himself.

  Afterwards he never did much of anything except drink whiskey and scream at Donelda and sometimes at Tabbie that he needed one of them to get her ass down here right away to do something for him and what the fuck was taking her so goddamned long anyway.

  Tabbie knew Pike wasn’t as helpless as he pretended to be. He managed to get stuff for himself – food for lunch, treats for Electra, the TV remote – when she was at school and Donelda was out digging for winkles and bloodworms or sometimes during blueberry season, when the two of them were out together raking berries to make a few extra bucks.

  She knew Pike spent a lot of time training Electra. He was good at that. Liked talking about how, if someone tried to sneak into the house, she’d tear their fucking throats out before they knew what hit them. Pike also spent a lot of time cleaning his gun. He always kept his gun with him just in case somebody tried to break in. Although why anybody’d want to break into this house she couldn’t imagine. Sure as hell wasn’t anything worth stealing.

  Tabitha was the last of the daughters. The afterthought they called her. The accident. Now with Terri and Tiff both dead she really was the last. Tabitha was quite certain that if Pike and Donelda knew they were only going to have one daughter left, they certainly wouldn’t have chosen her. They’d have taken either Terri or Tiff way before her. Trade Tabitha in on one of the others about as fast as they could get the words out.

  Tabbie supposed, if she was really going to be super honest about it, she couldn’t argue with that. She’d do exactly the same thing in their shoes. It was the only logical choice considering how beautiful and cool Tiff and Terri both were and how semi-fat and funny looking she was.

  Tabbie got up, went to the bathroom and pulled a length of toilet paper off the roll. She wiped away the tears that had been rolling down her cheeks most of the day, blew her nose and flushed the paper away.

  No, Tabbie wasn’t much good at anything and she didn’t have any friends except Toby Mahler, who was in her class at school and was clumsy like her and much fatter and no good at sports or much of anything except computers. All Toby ever did was screw around on his computer and talk about stuff she didn’t understand. She figured he knew even more about computers than Mr Cory, the science teacher. Still, he was a real dork. But at least he kind of liked her and hung out with her and almost no one else did. Though she was pretty sure she didn’t like him back. Leastways not in a romantic way.

  In fact, the only things Tabitha really liked doing were reading, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets being her all-time favorite, and sitting in her room or up in the attic letting her mind wander. Anyway, she told herself, she shouldn’t be thinking about herself now. She should be thinking about Tiff being dead and what she was going to do about that.

  Tabitha had been sitting here in the same position since about 10:30 this morning, when the cop left. The lady cop who told them about Tiff being dead. What the cop said – and Tabbie remembered her words exactly – was that some sonofabitch had picked up a great big knife and slashed open Tiff’s neck like a hog in a slaughterhouse. She was pretty sure the cop couldn’t have seen her peeking around the side of the stairwell when she said those words. Wouldn’t have said them if she knew an eleven-year-old was listening. An impressionable eleven-year-old with a vivid imagination. ‘Tabitha has such a vivid imagination,’ Miss Weigel, her fifth-grade teacher, wrote on all her report cards last year. ‘I only wish she would concentrate more on her studies and not let her mind wander in class.’

  Miss Weigel was right. Tabitha’s mind did wander a lot. But right now it wasn’t wandering at all. It kept coming back to the last time she saw Tiff. Yesterday afternoon. Tiff sent her a text in the morning. Need 2 C U. Alone! Don’t tell anyone!!! 3:00 @ school playground.

  Tabitha rode her bike over to the school in plenty of time, locked it in the bike rack and was sitting on one of the swings when she saw Tiff’s green Taurus pull into the parking lot. Her sister waved her over.

  ‘Hi, hop in.’

  ‘Jeez, what happened to your face? Somebody hit you?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. Just get in the car.’

  Tabitha climbed in and they started driving.

  ‘You didn’t tell anyone you were coming to see me?’ Tiff asked.

  ‘No. No one.’

  ‘Swear to God?’

  ‘Swear to God. Why? Where are we going?’

  ‘Nowhere.’ Tiff handed her a package. It was wrapped in layers of newspapers and taped tight. ‘I need you to hide this for me.’

  The package weighed next to nothing. Tabbie shook it and thought she heard some stuff rattling around inside but couldn’t tell for sure.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ said Tiff.

  ‘What’s in it?’

  ‘A secret. Something I don’t want anyone to know about or see. Including you. So don’t open it. I’ll know if you do because I wrapped it in a special way. When you get home hide it where nobody will find it and don’t say anything to anybody. That’s very important. You can’t tell anyone. Not Mom or Dad. Not any of your friends. Nobody. Ever. Can you promise me that?’

  ‘I guess. How long do you want me to keep it?’

  ‘I’ll come and get it from you when I’m sure the coast is clear. Or call you on the iPhone and tell you where to send it.’

  ‘Okay. I won’t open it.’

  ‘You promise?’ asked Tiff. ‘You’re the most honest person I know, Tabitha, so if you make a promise I know you’ll keep it.’

  Tabbie looked at her big sister, a serious expression on her face. She didn’t know what all this was about, but it seemed important. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Tell me what you’re promising.’

  ‘I promise to hide your package where nobody will find it and not open it or anything and not tell anybody anything about it.’

  ‘No matter what they tell you?’

  ‘No matter what they tell me.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  And because Tabitha made a promise and because she always kept her promises, when she got home she did exactly what her sister asked. She cut open the back of Harold, her biggest stuffed teddy,
who was a hand me down from Terri and Tiff, pulled out Harold’s stuffing and pushed the package deep inside. It just about fit. Then she pushed as much of Harold’s stuffing back inside him as she could. She sewed the teddy back up so you couldn’t see any stitches and put him back on the bookcase between the bunny and the panda. The package kind of pushed Harold out a little bit in one or two weird places so he didn’t look quite as much like Harold as he used to but she didn’t think anybody else would notice.

  ‘I’ll come and get it from you in a few days when I need it.’ That’s what Tiff had said. ‘And honey, when I do I’m going to blow this town. This county. This whole freezing-ass state. And believe me, once I get out of Dodge, I am never, ever coming back.’

  ‘Can you take me with you?’

  ‘I wish I could,’ said Tiff. ‘But that just won’t work. I’m going to be moving fast. I don’t even know where I’m going except it’s gonna be someplace warm, and the last thing I can deal with is a kid trailing along with me.’

  Tabitha said she understood. But she really didn’t. She wouldn’t be any trouble at all. She was never any trouble to anyone and someplace warm sounded awfully good. But now Tiff was dead and wasn’t coming back to get the package or anything else. She wasn’t going anyplace warm either except maybe to hell.

  Tabbie had a hard time thinking of Tiff as dead. Everything about her big sister had always seemed so alive. Tiff was everything Tabitha always wanted to be but knew she never would. She was beautiful. Smart. Fun and funny. The idea of someone like Tiff being dead seemed crazy. Ridiculous.

  Tabbie told herself to stop being stupid. Anybody could be dead and at eleven years old a person really ought to understand what being dead meant. Dead was dead. Just like Terri was dead and had been for three years. Just like Grammy Katherine was dead. And their old dog Lucy. She was dead too. Tabbie’d gone to the vet with her mother when they gave Lucy the shot. The vet put the needle in and just like that Lucy went from being an alive thing to a dead thing. At eleven years old a person obviously knew what dead meant.