Darkness First

by James Hayman

  ‘Ever go to her apartment?’

  ‘Only once. A grubby little place on the other side of the river from campus and, frankly, a little too close for my taste.’

  She thought about Sam committing murder and planting incriminating evidence at Harlan’s place. She supposed it was something he might do if he was drunk enough and pissed off enough about Tiff dumping him. But Tiff had dumped Sam way back in May and Sam, always impulsive, always slightly out of control, would have gone after her right away just like he did the woman in the hotel room in Philadelphia. No way would he have waited two minutes let alone two months before striking out. Nor would he have killed Tiff in such a sexually savage way. No, Maggie didn’t think Sam was the killer. As far as Sam was concerned, what she was most curious about was what else beside the name Conor Riordan might have found its way into his manuscript.

  Maggie and McCabe stared silently at the rushing water below for another five minutes.

  It was McCabe who finally spoke. ‘Still angry with your old man?’

  ‘Yes. And with Sean Carroll.’

  ‘How about Ganzer?’

  ‘Ganzer’s just an oversized jerk with too much testosterone. I wouldn’t have expected anything better from him.’

  ‘Aren’t you overreacting a little?’

  ‘I don’t think so. And if you plan on taking sides on any of this, McCabe, please make sure it’s my side.’

  McCabe didn’t respond.

  ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Not a problem.’

  ‘I think my father’s buying into this bullshit without thinking it through because he’s always been ready to think the worst of Harlan.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just the way it’s always been. Trevor was the good son. Harlan the bad one.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘I’m the only girl and the only one to honor what my father did by following him into law enforcement. But Harlan never had a chance. He never was and never could be the good and dutiful son my father wanted and expected. He’s impulsive and uncontrollable. He drinks too much. Gets into fights in bars. Makes his living, such as it is, bouncing from job to job. None of those things are likely to endear him to a father who’s a lifelong law enforcement officer. But, more than any of that, my father has never forgiven Harlan for not being around more when our mother was dying of cancer. I haven’t forgiven him for that either. But it doesn’t make him a murderer. And it doesn’t make him somebody I can’t or won’t love.’

  ‘Mag, I know how difficult this has got to be for you.’ McCabe reached out and took one of her hands in his. ‘But can you really discount all the evidence against your brother on nothing more than gut instinct?’

  ‘I’m not discounting it. The evidence is real. I don’t question that. My problem is only an imbecile would bring all that stuff home and leave it lying around just begging to be found.’

  ‘Maybe not an imbecile, Maggie. Maybe just someone so consumed by guilt, at killing Tiff, or maybe from killing all those people in Iraq, he couldn’t live with what he’d done.’

  Maggie pulled her hand from his in a sudden surge of anger. ‘You too, huh?’

  ‘No, not me too, huh. You told me on the phone this morning Harlan showed no remorse, no emotional reaction at all to Tiff Stoddard’s death except to start talking about how many people he’d killed in Iraq. Yet this was a woman he supposedly loved. We both know there’s something wrong with that picture. Isn’t it at least possible the brain injury made him into someone you no longer know? It does happen.’

  ‘Yes, it does happen and I’m sure he has problems coming out of the war. Displaying emotion may be one of them. Death hasn’t shocked me in a very long time.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what Harlan said when I asked him how he felt about Tiff’s death. Then he started talking about Iraq. Having flashbacks to Ramadi. That’s where he was wounded. He said he gets the flashbacks a lot. They’re not like remembering, more like he’s really there.’

  ‘Isn’t it possible he killed her in the middle of one of those flashbacks? Maybe thought she was one of the enemy?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Maggie sighed. ‘That’s pretty much what Sean Carroll said.’

  ‘Carroll may be right. He’s supposed to be a smart detective.’

  For a moment Maggie felt herself reluctantly accepting McCabe’s words. Then she stopped herself. ‘No, damnit. I don’t think he is right,’ she said, punching the railing on the bridge with her fist.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You didn’t see the cuts on Tiff Stoddard’s body. I did. The killer cut her nose and lips and breasts. Mutilated her vagina with multiple stab wounds. He attacked all the places on her body that made her female. This guy’s a pervert who on some level hates women. Derives sexual pleasure from torturing them. That’s not Harlan. Never was and never could be, no matter what happened to him in Iraq. Even if he thought he was killing an Iraqi woman, an enemy, no way would he have killed her like that. I think the real killer, let’s call him Conor Riordan, was involved with Tiff in the drug trade. Probably killed her because of some kind of falling out. But it wasn’t a simple execution. One drug dealer bumping off another. This was a sex act. This killer enjoyed what he did. Got off on it. And when he finished his little blood orgy, he went and planted all the incriminating evidence at Harlan’s place so he could get away with it and maybe do it again some other place with some other woman. Maybe Emily, if he thinks she can identify him.’

  ‘Okay, I respect your instincts. So let’s say the killer’s not Harlan. But if he isn’t, what made the killer choose him as the fall guy?’

  ‘That one’s easy. Harlan and Stoddard were lovers. Maybe the guy learned she was having sex with Harlan and didn’t like it. Or maybe he saw their affair as an opportunity to cut the investigation short. Being an Iraq veteran makes Harlan a great choice for a frame-up. Papers are full of stories about vets coming home and doing bad things. People almost expect it.’

  ‘Who knew Harlan and Tiff were lovers?’

  ‘Who knew?’ Maggie shrugged her shoulders. She hadn’t thought about that. ‘I don’t know. Probably a lot of people. Me, ’cause Harlan told me. My father, ’cause I told him. Sean Carroll knew, because I told him as well. Most likely everybody who attended Carroll’s detectives’ meeting, including Ganzer and Heinrich. Tommy Flynn, the guy who owns the Musty Moose. That’s where Tiff worked. Emily’s ex-husband Sam Harkness may have known, ’cause Tiff dumped Sam to hook-up with, quote, someone younger. Sam told me he wasn’t pleased about that. And anyone else who might have seen them together, including Tiff’s landlady, a woman named Paula Laverty, who according to my father is a big-time gossip who might have mentioned it to anybody and everybody in Machias.’

  McCabe frowned. A lot of possibilities. ‘But Carroll knew for sure,’ said McCabe. ‘Emmett Ganzer as well?’

  ‘Yes, Ganzer knew. No way Carroll wouldn’t have mentioned it at the meeting.’

  ‘We also know Ganzer went to Harlan’s place yesterday. Easy enough to plant the evidence after he was done licking his wounds.’

  ‘So you’re saying Ganzer’s the killer? That Emmett Ganzer’s the real Conor Riordan?’

  ‘I’m thinking about it,’ said McCabe.

  Maggie pictured Ganzer’s leering face as he sat in her car the previous day. His hand sliding on to her leg. His last threatening words before he got out. She had no problem seeing the guy as a psychopath. A sadist.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ McCabe continued, ‘that maybe Ganzer didn’t just go there to plant the evidence. If Ganzer is Conor Riordan and he wants Harlan to take the fall he sure as hell wouldn’t want the case going to trial, where, planted evidence or not, a tough defense attorney might start asking difficult questions. On the other hand, if the presumed suspect …’

  ‘Harlan.’

  ‘Yeah, Harlan. If Harlan is dead, hey, guess what? No trial, no defense attorne
y, no tough questions. And no more Conor Riordan. Everybody’s happy.’

  ‘So Ganzer went there intending to kill Harlan?’

  ‘Yes. To plant the evidence and at the same time to kill Harlan and call it self-defense. We both know that song by heart. Words and melody. Justifiable use of force against an armed suspect resisting arrest. No witnesses, because Ganzer didn’t bring back-up. But when Harlan’s body was found, a loaded weapon with his fingerprints on it would no doubt have been found lying next to him. And all the evidence any prosecutor could possibly wish for is right there lying all over the place.’

  ‘Means. Motive. Opportunity,’ said Maggie.

  ‘They’re all there,’ said McCabe. ‘Now all we need is some evidence proving Ganzer’s the bad guy that’s not totally circumstantial.’

  They stood silently for a while, watching the falls, enjoying the feel of the soft summer night.

  ‘McCabe?’

  He turned and looked at Maggie standing close to him, her dark hair reflecting moonlight, taking in the familiar scent of her shampoo. While he knew it had been much smarter for him not to accept Anya’s offer to stay at the house on Center Street, he was kind of sorry he hadn’t. On impulse, as if pulled by some magnetic force, he leaned in and kissed Maggie on the lips. She slipped her arms around him and kissed him back. At first softly and then harder.

  Finally she pulled back.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, avoiding the silent question on her face. ‘But right now I could use a drink. And maybe something to eat. Didn’t get more than a nibble of that chicken dinner.’

  36

  12:40 A.M., Monday, August 24, 2009

  Pleasant Point, Maine

  Staying away from the roads, traveling cross-country, avoiding contact with the cops or, for that matter, anyone else, Harlan spent most of the day and much of the night getting as far as the Passamaquoddy tribal lands at Pleasant Point. The most dangerous part of the trip lay just ahead. If the troopers were already out in force, as he suspected they were, passing over the narrow causeway on to Moose Island and then into Eastport was where he’d most likely be spotted. Cops didn’t take kindly to anyone taking down one of their own. At least he hadn’t killed the sonofabitch. Though he’d been sorely tempted.

  It hadn’t been a conscious decision to head for Eastport to find Tabitha. Harlan’s legs just seemed to know where they were supposed to go. He supposed it was destined to come to this. Right from the beginning he’d told Tiff it was a dumb idea to steal the drugs, an even dumber idea to ask an eleven-year-old kid to hide them for her. But Tiff, being Tiff, insisted she knew best. Anyway, he was in the middle of it now. He knew what he had to do.

  Harlan’s plan was simple in concept, trickier in the details. First find Tabitha Stoddard. Somehow convince her to give him the Oxycontin. Once he had the pills and Tabitha was safe, he’d use them as bait to lure Riordan into the open. Get the fucker to show his face. Then kill him. As slowly and painfully as he had killed Tiff. He owed Tiff that much. Owed himself that much as well.

  When Riordan was dead and the drugs destroyed, Harlan didn’t much care what happened next. If it turned out to be violent death at the hands of a state police SWAT team, so be it. If he had to turn his own gun on himself, that was okay too. The only thing he wouldn’t let them do is lock him up. Not now. Not ever.

  As he walked, his mind flashed back to the night that began the final act of his affair with Tiff. He remembered the dancing and the loving and the song that was destined to become the soundtrack for what he guessed would be the last days of his life. I will follow you into the dark.

  It had been a warm, wet Tuesday near the end of June. Tiff was working the bar at the Moose and Harlan came in late like he usually did. The place was empty except for a couple of regulars shooting pool in the side room. He slid on to the last stool and Tiff came over. They started shooting the shit about nothing in particular. He bought her a drink and she put on some music she liked. A Ray LaMontagne song. Since there was nothing else to do, she told him she felt like dancing. He wasn’t much of a dancer but she came out from behind the bar, took his hands and pulled him on to the floor. He put his arms around her and they started slow dancing, though he supposed some people wouldn’t have called it dancing at all.

  Mostly it was the two of them standing there, holding on to each other and swaying to the soft, sexy sound of LaMontagne’s ‘All the Wild Horses’, which, for some reason, Tiff had set to play over and over. ‘All the Wild Horses’. He guessed it was just Tiff’s kind of song.

  Tommy kicked them out at one in the morning. Told Tiff to take Harlan home if that’s what she was planning to do. Told her not to worry about the cleanup. He’d take care of it himself. Wasn’t much to do anyway.

  They drove in convoy through a summer rain back to her place. Then ran up the wooden stairs on the side of the building, Tiff just ahead of him, his hands on her ass, pushing her up to her place on the second floor. They stopped on the deck and kissed for a while before she had a chance to find the key.

  Once inside, there was a hurried tearing at clothes until they both fell naked on to the bed in Tiff’s room. Not really a bed. Just a king-sized mattress on the floor. The first time they made love that night it was eager and urgent and they both came quickly.

  After they finished, and Harlan was lying there still breathing hard, Tiff got up and put on some more music. Not LaMontagne’s ‘Wild Horses’ this time but Death Cab for Cutie’s ‘I Will Follow You into the Dark’.

  With the music on, Tiff came back to bed and they made love again. Not fast and hungry like the first time but slowly, sweetly and full of promises he knew, even then, they’d never get to keep. When they finished, the two of them lay side by side, a warm breeze from the window playing over their naked bodies, the prophetic lyrics playing in the background. I will follow you into the dark.

  That night, for the first time since they’d started seeing each other, he told her he loved her. She laughed a wicked laugh and told him to be careful using words like love because one of these days she might make him prove that he meant what he said.

  He told her he was ready to prove it any time she wanted.

  She tucked her body in close to his, her head resting on his chest, one leg draped over the two of his.

  ‘If I asked you,’ she whispered, ‘would you go away with me? Just pick up and get away from this place as far as we can go? Never let anybody know where we are and never come back?’

  He asked her what she was getting at. What this was all about.

  ‘Just answer the question,’ she said. ‘Would you do it? Go away with me? Follow me into the dark?’ she said, mimicking the song.

  He laughed and said he would.

  ‘Even if it was dangerous? Even if somebody might try to kill us if we left?’

  He thought at first she was kidding. But there was something in the way she said it that told him she wasn’t. So he told her yes, he was ready to risk dying if it was for something as good as her. He meant it, too.

  That’s when she first told him about Conor Riordan and the drugs. About arranging the boat for him. About Riordan’s run to Canada and back. How she was in it up to her ears and, even though she wanted out, she knew he’d kill her if she tried walking away. She said there was only one way anybody ever left a job with Conor Riordan and that was dead.

  ‘Conor Riordan? That his real name?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think it’s just a name he uses. Nobody knows his real name.’

  ‘But you know he’s killed people?’

  ‘I can’t prove it but I know it. He likes hurting people. He likes hurting me. It turns him on.’

  He didn’t ask her what Riordan did to hurt her because he didn’t want to know.

  She told him about her plan to steal some of Riordan’s drugs. ‘He goes away sometimes,’ she said. ‘Two or three days at a time. Sometimes more. I don’t know where he goes but it doesn’t really matter. What�
�s important is I found out where he keeps the stash,’ she said. ‘The drugs and the money.’

  ‘He doesn’t take the stuff with him?’

  ‘No. Too easy to get caught with it.’

  ‘How’d you find out?’

  She smiled a wicked smile and told him she knew how to find out things.

  ‘No, really.’

  ‘It’s better you don’t know too much. But the next time he leaves, I’m going to take what I figure he owes me. Y’know? For services rendered? No more. No less. He’s got so damned much I’m not sure he’ll even notice what’s missing. We can use what I take for seed money to start a new life together as far away from this fucking town and this fucking county and this fucking state as we can possibly get.’

  Harlan lay there thinking about what she said and the more he thought about it the surer he was it wouldn’t work.

  ‘Tiff, listen to me. Forget the drugs. Forget the money. Wherever we go we can make out on our own. We can work. We can get jobs.’

  ‘The money’s mine, Harlan. I earned it. I want it.’

  He shook his head. ‘If you take the drugs, what do you think this guy Riordan’s going to do? Just shrug his shoulders and say, “Oh well, I guess I owed Tiff that much”? Baby, he won’t. We’ll be looking over our shoulders the rest of our lives. Every time somebody looks at us a little funny we’ll be thinking the next sound we hear is gonna be the bullet that blows our brains out. Only we won’t hear it, ’cause by the time the sound gets to us, we’ll already be dead.’

  ‘Not if you kill him first,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not killing anyone,’ he said. ‘At least not so I can start selling drugs to a bunch of fucking addicts. I don’t want you selling them either.’

  She got pissed when he said that. Jumped out of bed and started pacing around the floor. Insisted she wasn’t going to go away poor. With him or anyone else. Wasn’t going to go without her share of Riordan’s nearly five million dollars. She’d worked too hard for it, taken too many risks. She’d earned her share and she wanted it.