The Cutting mm-1

by James Hayman

  McCabe took the coffee back to his desk and called Bill Bacon’s cell. It looked like it was going to be an even longer night than he’d thought. Bacon picked up. ‘Hiya, Mike.’

  ‘Where are you guys?’

  ‘In the car. You heard about our missing person? We just finished with her ex-husband. Says he’s very upset. I personally think he’s full of shit. Anyway, we’re on our way to her apartment.’

  ‘Back it up, Bill, and give me the two-minute drill on this.’

  ‘Missing woman is named Lucinda Cassidy. She’s twenty-eight years old. Works for an advertising outfit on Free Street, Beckman and Hawes.’ Bacon sounded like he was reading from his notes. ‘Young management type. She was supposed to meet her ex-husband for dinner at Tony’s at six thirty. Guy named Dave Farrington. They’ve been divorced less than a year. She’s not there when he arrives. He orders a drink and waits. By seven she still hasn’t turned up, which he says is very unlike her. He orders another drink and starts making calls. First he tries calling her numbers. There’s no answer either on her landline or her cell or at the office. So next he looks up her boss’s home number and reaches him. The boss, a John Beckman of Beckman and Hawes, says she never showed up for work this morning. He’s pissed ’cause she missed some big meeting or something. Tells Farrington he thought maybe she was sick or maybe there was a family crisis, but when she didn’t answer her phone, he didn’t know what to think. Naturally, the schmuck doesn’t think to call us.’

  ‘You said you thought the ex was full of shit? You think he had something to do with the disappearance?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. Not yet, anyway. I just think he’s a slick-assed jack who’s a little too full of himself. Anyway, Farrington next calls Cassidy’s sister, his ex-sister-in-law. She hasn’t heard from Lucinda in a couple of days. So now he’s really worried. He calls 911 about eight. Wants to know if there’ve been any accidents reported or if anyone brought her into any of the local hospitals. The answer is no. Dispatch routes the call to us. First thing, we go to Tony’s, talk to Farrington, who’s still there, having another drink. Then we go with him to her apartment to see if maybe she’s home and just not answering the phone. She’s not. At least, there are no lights on and she’s not answering the door either.’

  ‘Is that it?’ McCabe asked.

  ‘Not quite. Will checks her vehicle and plate numbers and sends out an ATL just in case she’s on the road somewhere. About an hour later we get a call from a unit on the West Side. Connie Davenport. Cassidy’s car’s been found. Beige ’99 Corolla. Parked on Vaughan Street by the old cemetery. Neighbor tells Davenport the Corolla’s been there all day. Turns out Lucinda’s a jogger. She runs every morning, usually on the West End. Farrington told us she was training for a 10K.’ Bill Bacon stopped talking, and there was silence on the phone.

  ‘What are you thinking, Billy?’

  ‘Mike, I’ve got a bad feeling about this one,’ he said finally. ‘I just called the evidence techs to check out the scene on Vaughan. Then I want them to flatbed the car to 109 and check it for prints, blood, fibers, the works.’

  ‘Busy night for the techs.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess for all of us. Like I said, we’re pulling up to the apartment now. Landlord’s meeting us here with a key. If she still doesn’t answer the door, he said he’d let us in.’ Another pause. ‘I’ll call you back.’

  ‘Is Farrington still with you?’

  ‘No. I got a uniform to take him down to the station to give us a set of prints. We’ll check for matches both in the apartment and in the Corolla, but I’ll bet he can prove he’s been in both places before.’

  ‘I’ll wait for your call,’ McCabe said and then hung up the phone.

  Next, McCabe called Lieutenant Bill Fortier at home. Fortier’s wife, Millie, answered. She went to get him. In the background McCabe could hear sounds of the Sox game. ‘Yeah, Mike, what’s up?’

  McCabe filled him in on what was going on at the scrap yard and what Bacon had told him about Lucinda Cassidy.

  ‘You think she just took off?’

  ‘Leaving her car sitting there on the street? Doesn’t seem likely.’

  ‘You think it’s the same guy?’ Fortier asked. He sounded like he was munching on something crunchy.

  ‘Seems like the timing’s all wrong, but who the hell knows? Our boy would have to finish with one vic and right away go pick up another. Most freaks don’t work that way.’

  ‘Yeah, doesn’t one killing usually satisfy the lust for a while?’

  ‘It’s supposed to,’ said McCabe, ‘but all these sadistic whack jobs have their own little quirks. Anyway, nobody’s killed Cassidy yet. At least as far as we know. Let’s not hurry her along.’

  ‘You think I should come in? Get everybody together tonight?’

  ‘I’d rather have our people on the street tonight than sitting in a conference room. They know what they’re doing, and I can coordinate by cell. If the same guy’s responsible, we ought to get a jump on it. Besides, there’s not much to report yet, and, like I said, Cassidy may still be alive.’

  ‘Alright — but we better make quick progress, or the wrath of Shockley will come down on all our heads.’

  As he hung up the phone, McCabe looked up to see Maggie leaning against his desk. Nearly six feet tall, she was a lean, slightly gawky-looking woman with bright, searching eyes. McCabe always thought she looked more like a college professor than a cop. ‘So?’ he asked.

  ‘Parents think the boyfriend’s to blame,’ she said. ‘According to Tasco’s report, he and Katie were seen arguing just before she walked off and disappeared.’

  ‘He’s got a solid alibi. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘True. There were five other kids in the group. They all say he stayed with them for at least two hours after Katie left, which would have made it about midnight. After that, he says he went home to bed. His mother says he got home around twelve thirty. She was still up.’

  ‘What did her parents say about him?’

  ‘They don’t much like him. They see him as being pretty much an operator. Stepfather says Katie came in drunk a couple of times after dates with Sobel, and she was out all night more than once.’

  ‘Having sex?’

  ‘The mother thinks so. Says Katie had a prescription for birth control pills, and she told her always to carry condoms. “Don’t depend on the guy to carry condoms.” That seems to have been the sum total of her motherly advice.’

  ‘It’s pretty good advice.’

  ‘Yeah, but it shouldn’t end there,’ said Maggie. ‘Not for a sixteen-year-old.’

  ‘C’mon, Mag, you know as well as I do Sobel as the murderer just doesn’t figure. You don’t acquire the skills to neatly remove a human heart cutting up frogs in biology class. Plus, if he did kidnap her, where does he keep her for a week before he kills her? Under his bed at home?’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’

  ‘Where are the parents now?’

  ‘On their way home. I paid for a cab.’ Maggie paused, waiting for McCabe to react. He didn’t.

  ‘I’m putting in for it,’ she said. ‘I expect to be reimbursed.’

  ‘Did I say anything? Fortier’s the Scrooge around here. Not me.’

  ‘Don’t pull that Mr. Innocence stuff with me, McCabe. Fortier’s afraid of you. He’ll do whatever you tell him to do.’

  ‘What makes you think he’s afraid of me?’

  ‘You’re smarter than he is and he knows it. Plus that memory thing of yours. Always calling up little-known facts out of thin air. That really makes him nervous. He always thinks you’re going to show him up in public. Or, even worse, around Shockley.’

  ‘How much was the cab?’ asked McCabe.

  ‘I gave them ten bucks. I don’t expect the Ceglias will send back any change.’

  ‘Ten bucks!’ McCabe exclaimed in mock alarm, but before Maggie could react he added, ‘Sure, put in for it. By the way, another shoe just dropped.’

/>   ‘What sort of shoe?’

  ‘We’ve got a brand-new missing person.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus. Already?’

  McCabe filled Maggie in on Lucinda Cassidy’s disappearance.

  ‘Are we assuming it’s the same guy?’ Maggie pulled her own desk chair across to McCabe’s desk and sat down. She produced a big bag of Rold Gold pretzels, poured a mound of them on the desk, put her feet up, and started munching.

  ‘Definite possibility. Whoever arranged Katie’s body so artfully out there in the scrap yard was showing off. He’s preening. Wants us to notice him. I’d love to minimize the media feeding frenzy and deny him that pleasure.’

  ‘I don’t think that’ll be possible. We’ve got the gruesome murder of a teenage girl. Add in Cassidy’s disappearance and they’ll be all over it.’

  ‘Shockley will be thrilled.’ McCabe’s phone rang. He checked his watch. It was after midnight. Bill Bacon was on the other end. ‘What did you find?’ He silently signaled Maggie to pick up on the other line.

  ‘Not much. It’s a four-unit house on Pine Street. Cassidy’s got a one-bedroom on the top floor. Place is a mess. Bed’s unmade. Lipstick and mascara and other girl stuff scattered around the bathroom. Panty hose over the shower rail, that sort of thing. There’s one dirty dinner dish in the sink and the remains of a frozen pizza in the trash. Her briefcase is on the couch in the living room with papers from her office scattered around. Her laptop’s there, too. She was probably working at home last night.’

  ‘Getting ready for the big meeting Beckman was talking about?’

  ‘Kind of looks that way.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yeah. Farrington said she had a dog. Small mongrel named Fritz. There’s dog stuff around the apartment — dog bed in her bedroom, food bowl in the kitchen — but there’s no leash and no dog. He also said she was a runner, but I don’t see any running shoes. My guess is she took the dog for a run this morning and never made it home. She was supposed to be at work at eight thirty, so it had to be early.’

  ‘What time did the neighbor spot the car?’

  ‘She said first thing, around seven.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s get as many people as we can scouring areas where people jog, starting on the West End where we found her car.’ Without being asked, Maggie left to begin making the necessary calls. ‘Any photos of her in the apartment?’

  ‘Yeah, plenty, and Farrington gave me one. He was still carrying it in his wallet.’

  McCabe told Bacon to meet them on the Western Prom and hung up.

  Maggie was back in less than five minutes. ‘I’ve managed to round up half a dozen uniforms plus a couple of detectives from across the hall. Bill and Will make ten. You and me make an even dozen. I think that’s about it. At least until morning. What about Tasco and Fraser?’

  ‘They’re working the neighborhood around the scrap yard. Let’s take Batchelder. If nothing else, the walk will do Jack good. We’ll leave Carl here. Somebody should be manning the phones, and I don’t think I can bear spending the night listening to Carl whining about how wet he’s getting.’

  Ten minutes later McCabe and Maggie joined a dozen wet cops combing Portland’s Western Promenade and adjacent neighborhoods for any trace of Lucinda Cassidy. They’d broken up into teams. McCabe and Maggie along with Jack Batchelder and Officer Connie Davenport were moving along the western edge of the Prom itself. The rain was heavier now, and McCabe knew it might be washing away evidence.

  About fifteen minutes after they’d started, Officer Davenport called out, ‘Hey! I think I’ve found something! Look at this.’

  She was shining her flashlight on a wet Sea Dogs baseball cap. It had been partially hidden by weeds protruding from the edge of the steep drop-off that bordered the far side of the Prom. ‘Could be hers,’ said Connie. She knelt above the cap and poked a ballpoint pen under the little Velcro strap in the back. She slid the cap into an evidence bag. If the cap was Cassidy’s, there might be more evidence nearby. McCabe peered over the drop-off. ‘I’m going down to have a look.’

  He handed Maggie his gun and holster. He figured that was a sensible precaution against accidentally shooting himself, should he slip and fall on the way down. ‘I’m supposed to be management, you know,’ McCabe wisecracked to the others. ‘I’m not supposed to be doing this shit.’ Nobody laughed.

  The only response came from Jack Batchelder. ‘Don’t break your leg,’ he said. ‘It’s dark, and the rain’s made that sucker slippery.’

  ‘Thanks, Jack. I’ll do my best.’ McCabe stepped backward over the edge and began working his way down the wet, weedy embankment. Rivulets of water trickled past him, cutting small indentations in the soil. He had no rain gear, and water was soaking through his thin jacket to his skin. Drops of rain slid behind the collar of his shirt and traced their way down his back. Holding the flashlight in his right hand, he created handholds with his left wherever he could find them. He crisscrossed the slope, shining his flashlight left and right, not quite sure what he was looking for. He was breathing heavily, a little surprised by how tricky the descent was proving to be. He made himself a promise to cut down on the Scotch and to hit the gym at least three times a week. Well, two anyway.

  About fifty yards from the top, a small rock outcropping McCabe was using as a toehold gave way, and before he could stop himself, he slid a good ten feet on his chest through muddy, stony soil. He came to a painful stop against a tree root. His flashlight landed about three feet to his right. It was still on. About ten feet beyond the flashlight, reflected in its flickering beam, two black eyes stared back at him. He lay perfectly still, slowing his breathing, carefully watching whatever it was that was watching him. He could hear the voices of the others shouting from the top. ‘Hey, Mike, are you alright?’ ‘Did you hurt yourself?’

  He didn’t shout back for fear of startling the animal or whatever the hell it was. A cat? Maybe a big rat? With his left hand he scooped up a small handful of wet soil and tossed it in the direction of the eyes. Nothing. He gingerly nudged his body a foot or so toward the light. Still nothing. He slid another foot. Then another. He wrapped his hand around the barrel of the light and lifted it up. Still no movement. The shouts from the top grew more insistent. He pointed the light directly at the eyes. They shone back brightly. Now he could see the shape of a face. A white muzzle. A black nose. He crawled toward it. Not wanting to shout, he pulled out his cell and hit Maggie’s number. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m okay,’ he told her. ‘I found her dog. It’s dead.’

  4

  The throbbing beat of a headache provided the accompaniment to Lucinda Cassidy’s slow return to consciousness. She was alive. She was certain of this, but she wasn’t sure where she was or why. She opened one eye. Then the other. She was looking straight up into bright overhead lights that forced her to squint until her pupils adjusted. She was lying flat on a bed with raised sidebars in a small, nearly bare room. Practically everything in it seemed white except for the hospital gown she was wearing. It was the kind that opens at the rear with little blue flowers printed all over it. Hospital bed. Hospital gown. She supposed that’s where she must be. In a hospital. Had there been an accident? She couldn’t remember. The headache didn’t make it easier.

  The room didn’t look like any hospital room she’d ever seen before. There was no TV or telephone. No privacy curtain hung from the ceiling. No buttons or buzzers to summon a nurse. Nothing but the bed, a small bedside table, and a single chair that stood against the wall near the door. Lucy tried to lift her hand, wanting to rub away the throbbing pain behind her eyes and in her temples, but her hand wouldn’t move. She pulled harder and realized that what she thought were bandages wrapped around her wrists and ankles were, in fact, restraints tying her to the bed. Both her hands and her feet were secured with canvas straps. No. Not a hospital. A prison. She wasn’t a patient. Someone was holding her prisoner. But who? And why?

  Slowly, as gr
ogginess receded, she began to remember. She remembered the fog. She remembered running along the Western Prom, and meeting the man with the hypodermic, the one who called himself Harry Potter. With a kind of despair, she remembered Fritz.

  The man must have brought her here. Wherever here was. Okay, that was who. The why, she supposed, must have something to do with sex. It certainly couldn’t be ransom money. Sex slavery? Jesus Christ. That happened to girls from the Ukraine. Not Bates graduates with good jobs in New England ad agencies.

  She supposed Harry Potter would rape her. The juxtaposition of the name and the act made it seem ridiculous. To be raped by an adolescent fictional wizard. A British adolescent fictional wizard. ‘Officer, it was ’Arry Potter what done me wrong.’

  ‘Oh, no, miss, it couldn’t be, he’s such a nice little fellow.’

  Ridiculous. Terrifying. She began to laugh. A little hysterically. She was certain he would rape her. When rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it. Isn’t that what all the assholes say? Bullshit. She’d fight the sonofabitch every step of the way. Given half a chance, she’d pull a Lorena Bobbit and bite his cock off. The idea of defiance made her feel a little better. Was it possible he’d already raped her while she was conked out? She didn’t think so. Even unconscious, she was sure she’d have some sense of it if that had happened.

  If he raped her, what happened afterward? She knew what he looked like. He wouldn’t let her go with a promise not to tell anyone. Maybe he’d keep her for a repeat performance. Or a bunch of repeat performances. Like anything else, though, rape would get old. Then he’d kill her. A knife? A gun? He had a hypodermic. Her mind played with the words ‘lethal injection.’

  Never had she imagined life ending this way. She began to cry. Not in great heaving sobs but softly, quietly. This happened to other people. Not to strong, competent people like her. ‘I won’t let it.’ She mouthed the words, a ritual to build conviction. ‘I will not let this happen.’ She didn’t know what she could do — but something. Was this denial? When facing imminent death, isn’t one’s first reaction always denial? What follows in that famous litany? Fear? Anger? Acceptance? She couldn’t remember. Well, if it was fear, she’d just zipped past denial in a hurry. Because now all she felt was deathly afraid.