Darkness First

by James Hayman

  ‘Found this in a bedside table drawer.’

  It was a picture of Tiff and Harlan taken at night. The two were standing in what looked like an outdoor concert venue. You could see a crowd of people milling around, some bleachers in the background. Both Tiff and Harlan wore broad smiles and black Killers t-shirts. Harlan had his arm around Tiff’s waist. She hadn’t seen her brother look that happy since he got back from the war.

  ‘The Killers played a concert in Bar Harbor last month,’ said Ganzer. ‘It looks like they went down to catch the show.’

  ‘This doesn’t prove anything,’ said Maggie. ‘Except they had a relationship.’

  ‘Yeah. They had a relationship. Until last week, when she dumped him. Gives us what we need, Savage. Motive for murder. You know, the jilted lover? It’s classic. Happens all the time.’

  Maggie seethed at the smug certainty of Ganzer’s words. The snarky little smile that darted across his face. Visions of sergeant’s stripes no doubt dancing in his head like sugarplums on Christmas Eve.

  ‘We still don’t know for sure it was Harlan who killed her,’ she maintained stubbornly.

  ‘Give me a break, Savage. I know this guy’s your brother but even you’ve got to recognize a slam-dunk conviction when you see one.’

  ‘Is that what you think too, Sean? That my brother not only killed Stoddard but also killed your wife? And Laura Blakemore?’

  Carroll gave her a hard look before answering. ‘We don’t know for sure about Liz or Blakemore yet. But if Harlan and Tiff were running the drug trade together it’s entirely possible. You never did ask him where he was last January, did you?’

  ‘No.’ Maggie answered in a small voice. ‘I never did.’

  ‘Maybe you should have. Anyway, as far as Stoddard goes, your brother’s starting to look pretty damn solid.’

  ‘We’ve got more proof of the relationship,’ said Heinrich, handing the photo to Carroll along with a magnifying glass. ‘Take a close look at the pendant she’s got hanging around her neck.’ Carroll peered through the glass at the photo then handed it to Ganzer, who did the same before giving it to Maggie. Using the magnifying glass, she could clearly make out the color and shape of the pendant. A gold starfish with what appeared to be a small diamond stud in the middle.

  ‘Okay,’ said Carroll. ‘A starfish pendant. What about it?’

  ‘We found it in the drawer under the photo.’ He held up another plastic bag that contained a piece of jewelry identical to the one Tiff was wearing in the photo.

  ‘If you turn it over you’ll see a tiny inscription on the back that reads “To Tiff. We’ve only just begun. H.” ’

  Maggie’s heart sank. H. had to be Harlan. By itself the pendant didn’t prove his guilt. Any more than the t-shirts did. But what Maggie hadn’t told Carroll or anyone else was something Emily had said in the hospital the day before. That Stoddard had been wearing a gold starfish pendant when she arrived at Em’s office. That she still had it on when she left. Since they hadn’t found it on her body or anywhere around the crime scene, the only logical conclusion was that the killer pulled it from her neck before cutting her throat. Taken it with him when he fled. And now here it was. The first seeds of doubt about Harlan’s innocence began taking root in Maggie’s brain. She tried pushing them away, but they refused to go. Maybe Iraq had changed Harlan more than she could ever have imagined.

  33

  Maggie sat quietly all the way back from Whiting listening to Ganzer whoop it up in the front seat. A couple of times she caught Sean Carroll glancing back in the rear-view mirror. Once she saw him mouth some words that in the reverse image of the mirror looked like, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Maggie turned and stared out the window. She was sorry too.

  Carroll pulled up in front of the house on Center Street a little before six.

  A beautifully restored cherry-red ’57 T-Bird convertible was sitting, top down, in the driveway behind Maggie’s Blazer and Savage’s Subaru. Carroll walked over and looked at the Bird admiringly.

  ‘Man, that is one gorgeous car,’ he said. ‘Not yours, is it?’

  ‘No, it belongs to a friend,’ said Maggie, wondering what McCabe was doing here but, at the same time, with all the evidence piling up implicating Harlan, feeling glad she had at least one certain ally.

  ‘Your boyfriend?’ asked Carroll.

  ‘No. Just a friend.’

  ‘Lucky friend,’ said Carroll. ‘Car like this must have set him back a bundle.’

  As he walked around the T-Bird, gazing admiringly both at the body and the interior, he started talking to Maggie in a low voice. Anyone watching would have assumed they were talking about the car.

  ‘I didn’t want to say this in front of Emmett and I’m sorry to keep hammering away on it, but Maggie please make sure you let me know if your brother contacts you in any way. Or if you figure out where he’s gone. Things will go much better for him if he gives himself up and cooperates than if we have to hunt him down. That’s especially true if, somehow in spite of the evidence, it turns out you’re right and he didn’t do it.’

  Maggie folded her arms around herself. The air was feeling decidedly cooler. ‘But you don’t think that will be the case do you, Sean? You’re certain he’s guilty.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Given what we’ve just seen, I am. And so should you be.’

  ‘Don’t you wonder, even the tiniest bit, why someone like Harlan, who grew up in a house with two cops who talked constantly about crime and criminals and the rules of evidence, why somebody like that would be so incredibly stupid as to leave all that stuff – the gloves, the murder weapon, the bloody shirt, the pills – just lying around where he had to know the police would find them? Didn’t even try to hide anything or burn it or bury it? Left it more than twelve hours after I personally warned him he was going to be considered a suspect? Left it even after Emmett shows up to question him? Doesn’t take it with him when he flees? Don’t you find that level of carelessness a little bit strange? No, not a little bit strange. Totally nuts? And,’ she added with more conviction than she felt, ‘as far as I’m concerned, totally unbelievable.’

  ‘Yes, it does sound crazy. But your brother happens to be someone who, maybe because of his experiences in Iraq or maybe because of the brain injury he sustained in the war, may, in fact, be mentally unbalanced.’ Maggie wondered how Carroll knew all that stuff about Harlan. Maybe Savage had told him. ‘Or maybe,’ Carroll continued, ‘Harlan left all that stuff because deep down he feels so guilty about what he did that he wants to get caught. Wants to be punished for it. Psychically needs to be punished. We’ve all seen stranger behavior from criminals.’

  ‘I don’t buy it, Sean,’ she said with more certainty than she felt. ‘Even if Harlan is suffering from some form of PTSD or guilt disorder or whatever you want to call it, don’t you think the evidence we saw at his house today was just a little too perfect? Everything a prosecutor could possibly ask for all placed exactly where anyone with half a brain would know the cops would look first and have no trouble finding it.’

  ‘You’re saying you think someone planted the evidence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that someone is … ?’

  ‘Whoever really killed Tiff Stoddard. He’s the only one who would have had access to it. The only one who would benefit by having us pin the crime on Harlan. Assuming, of course, it’s all genuine and both the blood and the hair match Stoddard’s.’

  ‘And this real killer of yours figures the cops will buy it?’

  ‘That’s right, Sean. He figures the cops will buy it.’ Maggie was starting to tire of the conversation and wanted to be done with it. ‘In fact,’ she added with more than a little anger, ‘it looks like the cops have already bought it. Including the one cop who’s so hot for a promotion to lieutenant that maybe he figures a fast conviction on a high-profile case will get him where he wants to go just a little faster than he would have gotten there otherwise.’

>   ‘That’s what you really think of me?’

  ‘Yes, Sean. That’s what I really think. Of you and of that jerkwater buddy of yours over there who’s convinced himself the minute you make lieutenant he’s getting sergeant’s stripes.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. I don’t believe this.’ Carroll sighed deeply and shook his head. ‘If you actually think I would play games like that when there’s more than a damn good chance whoever killed Stoddard also killed my wife, well all I can say to you, Maggie, is why don’t you just go fuck yourself.’

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to get control of her anger. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said. It wasn’t fair and I am sorry about what happened to your wife.’

  But Sean Carroll didn’t hear any of that because by the time she opened her eyes he was already heading for the driver’s side of the unmarked Impala. She repressed an urge to call him back. To apologize to his face. To hope he accepted it.

  Maggie stood next to McCabe’s T-Bird and watched Carroll and Ganzer drive off. She was still gazing into the empty street after the car was long out of sight. As she stood she was aware of tears forming in her eyes. She didn’t want anyone to see them because everybody knows cops don’t cry. Certainly not the cop Detective Carl Sturgis down in Portland liked to call ‘Little Miss Hardass’. She heard a familiar voice behind her. ‘C’mon, Mag, let’s go inside.’ McCabe slipped his arm around her shoulder and walked her back toward the house.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked before they went in.

  ‘Like I told your old man, it was a beautiful day for a drive.’

  34

  8:12 P.M., Sunday, August 23, 2009

  Machias, Maine

  Anya served company dinner. Roast chicken with pan gravy, mashed potatoes, snap peas from the garden and home-made buttermilk biscuits.

  Savage opened a bottle of a good California Cabernet and shared it around.

  ‘How long are you in town for, Mr McCabe?’ Anya asked.

  ‘Two or three days. And please call me Michael or Mike or even just McCabe. That’s what Maggie and most everybody else in Portland calls me.’

  ‘Okay, McCabe,’ she smiled. ‘You call me Anya.’

  It was obvious to Maggie that Anya had noticed the absence of a wedding band and was sizing McCabe up as potential husband material for Maggie. Anya made no bones about thinking it was wrong that Savage’s only daughter was already well into her thirties and still unmarried. On the other hand, she had no idea that a woman named Kyra Erikson even existed. For better or for worse, McCabe was taken.

  ‘Well, I know you’ve made reservations down at the Inn but it seems kind of silly to pay for a hotel when we’ve got two perfectly good bedrooms going begging right here.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, but I don’t want to impose.’

  ‘Nonsense. I insist.’

  ‘Well, thank you. Let me think about it.’

  After that there was nothing but the sound of eating and drinking for a good five minutes.

  Finally Maggie figured somebody had to acknowledge the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

  ‘I went up to Harlan’s place this afternoon. With Carroll and Ganzer.’

  Everybody looked up. Nobody spoke.

  ‘They’re going to charge Harlan with Tiff Stoddard’s murder. I expect they’ve already got a full-scale manhunt underway.’

  A pained expression appeared on Savage’s face. ‘They already had one,’ he said. ‘But it was for assaulting a cop. Not for murder.’

  ‘It’s about to be upped to murder,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m sure they’ve already issued ATLs. To all their own units plus every local department in Maine and New Hampshire. Probably Canada as well, considering how close we are to the border.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Savage, looking at Maggie from the head of the table. ‘That was mighty quick. What makes Carroll so sure Harlan did it?’

  ‘Carroll, Ganzer and I just got back from Harlan’s place in Whiting.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said McCabe. ‘Are you talking about a detective named Emmett Ganzer?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Maggie. ‘Why? You know him?’

  ‘I’ve heard his name. Just this morning. In kind of an interesting context.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. You finish up what you were saying first.’

  John Savage listened stony-faced as Maggie went through the evidence Bill Heinrich’s techs had found at Harlan’s place earlier in the day. ‘Sean Carroll’s convinced Harlan’s the killer,’ Maggie concluded.

  ‘And you’re not?’

  ‘No. I don’t believe Harlan could ever do what I saw done to Tiff Stoddard.’

  ‘My God, Margaret,’ Savage shouted. A loud bang reverberated through the room as he slapped the table hard with an open palm, clattering the china and nearly spilling his wine. ‘All that solid evidence and you’re still not willing to accept it?’ There was an angry edge to Savage’s voice. ‘I swear to Christ you’re exactly like your mother. Joanne’s beautiful baby boy could do no wrong. Ever. Not even when I caught him in the act. What in hell is it gonna take to convince you that your little brother is no damned good? More than no good. He’s a goddamned killer.’

  John Savage rose from his chair and stormed out on to the porch, slamming the screen door loudly behind him. Maggie got up and followed. And then McCabe.

  Anya sat by herself for a minute, surveying the wreckage of her meal. Then she quietly rose from her seat and began clearing away the remains of the half-eaten dinner.

  ‘Can’t you see it, Pop?’ Maggie stood close by her father’s side. He was leaning against one of the porch columns, not looking at her, instead staring out into the night. ‘Or are you so filled with anger and hatred for Harlan that it’s blinded you to the truth?’

  ‘And what truth would that be, Margaret?’

  ‘For one thing, if Harlan really killed that girl there’s no way he’d be dumb enough to leave all that stuff lying around. About the only thing they didn’t find implicating Harlan was a notarized letter of confession.’

  ‘Harlan’s always been careless.’

  ‘Careless, maybe, but not stupid. And not looking to be locked up the rest of his life. All that stuff had to be a plant.’

  ‘Not stupid, you say? He was stupid enough to attack a cop, wasn’t he?’ Savage spat out the words. ‘Whacked him in the face with a rifle butt’s the way I heard it.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, that’s bullshit too. Big as he is, Harlan wouldn’t have needed any rifle butt to take Emmett Ganzer down.’ Maggie was surprised how angry and defensive her own voice sounded. But at this point she didn’t give a damn. She was as pissed at her father as she ever had been.

  ‘So you think everybody’s making all this stuff up. That the state police are so hot to pin this murder on poor innocent Harlan that they went out and planted fake evidence all over the place just so they could get their man. Is that what you think?’

  Maggie took a deep breath, determined to keep her temper in check. ‘No. I don’t think the evidence was faked. I think it was the real thing, planted by the real killer.’

  ‘And why would this real killer decide to pin the murder on Harlan?’

  ‘Because he found out about Harlan’s relationship with Stoddard and decided to take advantage of it.’

  ‘Someone like who?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it was Emmett Ganzer. We know he was all by himself on Harlan’s property for we don’t know how long.’

  ‘You think a cop did this?’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the first time a cop turned bad. Or maybe it was Sam Harkness. I know he was having sex with Stoddard and, unlike Harlan, Sam has a record of assaulting women. Most likely I think it’s somebody we haven’t thought of yet. The investigation’s not even forty-eight hours old and I get the feeling Tiff was the kind of girl who was involved with a lo
t of guys.’

  Savage didn’t respond. Just tamped out the remains of the butt on the bottom of his boot. Field stripped the paper and tossed the unburned tobacco over the railing and on to the lawn.

  ‘Maggie,’ said Savage, ‘maybe you’re right. I hope you’re right. But we’re both cops, you and I. It’s our job to weigh the evidence as best we can and then act on it. Not twist the evidence to fit some theory concocted to protect someone you love.’

  ‘Or maybe concocted to convict somebody you no longer love.’

  Savage stared hard at his daughter, then went inside, ending the conversation. At least he didn’t slam the door.

  Maggie walked down the porch steps. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

  ‘Mind if I come along?’ asked McCabe.

  ‘Suit yourself. Just don’t talk.’

  They walked side by side in silence, heading north up Center Street away from the center of town. Then they circled around and came back south.

  35

  10:21 P.M., Sunday, August 23, 2009

  Machias, Maine

  In the language of the Passamaquoddy, the earliest inhabitants of Washington County, the word Machias means bad run of water and for most of its seventy-five miles the Machias River lives up to its name, twisting and raging through a forested wilderness before indulging in its final, swirling tantrum, a short whitewater rush down a rocky incline in the center of the city of Machias called Little Bad Falls.

  After walking in near-total silence for more than an hour, Maggie and McCabe found themselves standing side by side on the narrow footbridge that spans the river just below the falls. They stopped midstream, leaned against the steel railing and looked down at the rush of water coursing furiously over and around the rocks below. On one side of the bridge was the campus of UMM, where, in the English Department offices in Kimball Hall, Sam Harkness first met Tiff Stoddard. You know me Maggie, I took one look at those luscious legs and invited her in. Just a few hundred yards upstream on the other side of the bridge was the small four-unit where Tiff Stoddard had lived.