The Cutting mm-1

by James Hayman

  ‘See you when you get here.’

  One minute later they pulled into the ambulance bay at the Cumberland Medical Center ER. The ambulance crew grabbed both sides of the stretcher and exited the vehicle at a run. McCabe followed. Twin automatic doors burst open, and they hurried Sophie directly into the hospital’s brightly lit trauma room. A full reception committee, at least ten doctors, nurses, residents, and students, stood in position, ready to receive.

  The EMTs and a pair of residents lifted the sheet under Sophie and used it to transfer her to the trauma room stretcher. Someone in scrubs called out, ‘Trauma room three!’ They headed where she was pointing.

  As they went, a serious-looking young woman, thin with a long horsey face, checked Sophie’s IVs and oxygen, then addressed one of the EMTs. Her plastic badge identified her as Dr. Maloney. ‘Give me what you’ve got.’

  ‘Gunshot wound to the left arm. Pulsatile bleeding with a lot of blood at the scene. Seems to have missed the bone. BP seventy-five on the way in. Two lines full out. She’s taken two liters normal saline.’

  McCabe waited while she called out to her team, ‘Okay, start another line in her right groin. I want four units O-negative stat.’ A group of residents and nurses began to make it happen.

  ‘Are you the husband?’ A man in his forties addressed McCabe, who’d come into room three right behind the EMTs.

  ‘No.’ McCabe indicated the badge pinned it to his bloody shirt. ‘I’m Detective McCabe, Portland PD. Who are you?’

  McCabe could hear the young woman’s voice directing her team from the head of the stretcher. ‘I want blood sent out for type and screen.’

  ‘I’m Dr. Kennedy, emergency attending. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait outside, Detective.’

  McCabe shook his head. ‘I’m not going anywhere. This woman is a key witness in a murder case and somebody’s trying to kill her. She needs protection.’

  The doctor paused only a second or two. ‘She’ll be alright in here.’ His tone was friendly. ‘We’re trying to save her life, not end it. There’s no room for extra bodies in the trauma room. She’ll be going up to surgery in about ten minutes.’ Dr. Kennedy indicated McCabe’s blood-covered clothes. ‘In the meantime, you can shower in the doctors’ locker room. Do you know the patient’s name?’

  ‘Put her into your system as Jane Doe, and tell your folks while she’s here she’s under protective custody of the Portland PD.’

  The doctor nodded. He turned to a young man, a medical student, McCabe guessed. ‘Get Detective McCabe some scrubs to put on and show him where to clean up,’ he said. ‘You can join her in the ICU recovery room on five when she gets out of the OR, which won’t be for two or three hours. Until then she’ll have about ten reliable people around her at all times. I’ll let you know.’

  The young man found a large plastic bag for McCabe’s clothes and a smaller one for his wallet and keys. He then led him to a small locker room with a row of shower stalls. McCabe stripped down and stuffed the clothes plus his gun and holster into the larger bag. He tied a knot in the bag to seal it and took it with him into the shower stall. He wasn’t going anywhere unarmed tonight, and he wasn’t leaving any guns lying around untended. As the hot water hit him, rinsing Sophie’s blood off his face and arms, he watched the reddened water swirling around and down the drain. The shower scene from Psycho played in his mind.

  Sophie was in surgery on the fifth floor. About thirty feet from the doors to the OR, along a partially darkened corridor, McCabe sat in a plastic chair in the otherwise empty ICU waiting room. He was dressed in scrubs. He pinned his shield to the blouse. He debated whether to strap his. 45 over or under and opted for under the loose-fitting garment. He hooked his cell phone to the gun belt. His hand rested loosely on the weapon.

  According to the doctors, the sniper’s bullet passed cleanly through her left arm about five inches below her shoulder. It missed the bone but ruptured the brachial artery. A vascular surgeon was working now to clean out the damaged tissue and reconnect the artery itself. McCabe got a little lost in the medical jargon, but the terms ‘de-bridement’ and ‘anastomosis’ stuck in his mind.

  The surgeon said it would take about two hours to repair the arm but she’d probably be just fine, not lose any function. He also said the biggest threat to Sophie’s life was infection. McCabe didn’t bother telling the doctor that really wasn’t the case.

  McCabe extinguished the lights and muted the TV, allowing its colorful silent images to remain the only movement in the room, their glow the only illumination. He stared silently through the glass wall at the hallway in front of him. There were few passersby. A couple of nurses, an elderly man pushing a bucket and mop, a young man in scrubs. He watched each for signs of threat. A bank of three elevators stood directly across the corridor from the waiting room. McCabe kept his eyes on the little lighted numbers above the doors, watching for one that might stop at five, though he doubted the shooter, if he was coming, would choose such a direct route.

  31

  Tuesday. 11:00 P.M.

  The shooter figured it’d take him about six hours to walk back to Portland. Finding a vehicle he could requisition might prove a little tricky, but he’d keep his eyes open. Where he could, he’d travel cross-country, avoiding the roads. He assumed the cops would be scouring the area, starting where they picked up the woman and working out from there. He wondered if they’d bring in dogs. His scent’d be all over the damaged Blazer. He didn’t know if they’d pick up any prints. He’d tried to be careful about that, but he didn’t have time to wipe anything down before he flew out the door. He touched his face where he’d banged it against the steering wheel trying to duck when the cop unloaded that shotgun. Then the air bag whacked him again. Fuck it. Too late to worry about that now. Left his favorite Pierotucci leather jacket in the backseat. That pissed him off. It was practically new and set him back four hundred bucks. Looked great, too. He didn’t think there was anything in the pockets. Other than that, just a couple of old Billy Ray Cyrus CDs and a DVD of an old movie, Day of the Jackal. He’d already seen it a couple of times but was planning to watch it again tonight. Now that was all fucked up.

  If they did bring in dogs, he’d be easy to track. Another reason to find a car. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about dogs. ’Course, he wasn’t real sure about that. A special ops guy he met in Kuwait in ’91 told him trained bloodhounds could even track someone driving away in a car. Something about the car’s vent system exhausting the interior air out through the back and carrying the smell of the passenger with it. Sounded like bullshit. Probably was bullshit. How the fuck could a dog smell something like that, anyway? Fuck it. He put it out of his mind. Anyhow, they wouldn’t have time to organize any fucking dogs. With another six hours of darkness, he’d be to hell and gone before they got anything going.

  Just a little hike through the countryside. He was only pissed because he’d missed the bitch’s heart. Hadn’t accomplished the damned mission. Then that cop unloaded on him with a fucking shotgun. Bastard. Anyway, calm down, be cool, he told himself. Be cool or be dead.

  Still, it bothered him that he missed. He shouldn’t have missed. Shit, he never missed. It was just because of the fucking cigarettes the bitch kept sucking on, moving around, tossing them out the window. Jesus. Didn’t she care what they were doing to her lungs? Didn’t she have any fucking respect for her body? And that hairball cop letting her do it. Didn’t he know how bad secondhand smoke could be for you? Him a father and everything. Well, he’d give them both something better than butts to suck on. Be cool, he warned himself again. Calm down. Don’t let the rage take over.

  He walked silently along a line of trees at the edge of a meadow. He didn’t know how bad the woman was hurt. The green image through the night-vision scope made things pretty blurry. Specially when they were moving around like she was. He was pretty sure he hit her arm. Couldn’t tell how bad the wound was. Might have hit a bone or an artery or maybe both. T
hey would’ve taken her to the hospital. There were two hospitals in Portland. He’d head for the bigger one.

  He held the M24 sniper rifle in the crook of his left arm. Good weapon. Accurate. He stroked it with his free hand. Shooting someone always got the juices going, and he was getting a hard-on. In fact, he’d had it for a while and it wasn’t going away. If you had a hard-on for more than four hours you had to go see a doctor. That’s what the TV ad for that limp-dick medicine said. Well, he guessed he’d see a few doctors tonight. He came to a dirt road. Looking both ways he couldn’t see much of anything. He was trying to figure out which way to go and thinking about how to get himself a vehicle when he saw a pair of headlights approaching him at a good clip about a half klick away. He squatted down in some scrub. Unlikely to be a cop, but you couldn’t be sure. As it drew closer he picked out the shape of a pickup truck. Not a cop. He set the M24 down in the grass by the side of the road and walked into the middle, real cool and casual like, and waved the truck down as it approached. It slowed to a stop. The driver was a kid, seventeen or eighteen years old.

  ‘What’s the problem, mister? Car break down?’ He was a good-looking boy. Long blond hair. A cute little soul patch growing under his lip. He had broad shoulders and what looked to be a nice body. The shooter nodded and flashed him his best smile.

  ‘Yeah. That’s right. My car broke down. ’Bout a mile from here.’

  ‘Don’t ya have a cell?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Nah. It ran out of juice.’

  ‘Well, here, you can borrow mine. You belong to Triple-A?’ The kid held his cell phone out the open window. The shooter moved closer, as if to take the phone, then, in a single motion, pulled open the door of the truck with his left hand, grabbed the back of the kid’s head with his right, and slammed it hard against the steering wheel. Then he slammed it again. Blood spurted out of the kid’s nose. The boy was screaming, ‘You broke my fucking nose. You broke my fucking nose.’ Still holding the boy’s neck, the shooter unhooked his seat belt with his left hand and pulled him hard out of the truck. He threw him onto the road. ‘You broke my fucking nose,’ the kid cried again.

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ said the shooter. He kicked the boy hard in the face. ‘Just shut the fuck up.’ Then he kicked him again for good measure, this time in the gut. The boy squeezed into a fetal position. He was sobbing and gasping for air, but, shit, that was no reason not to have a little fun.

  The shooter knelt down and unbuttoned the kid’s jeans and pulled them down. His pink boxers were decorated with little rows of red hearts, which made the shooter smile. Cute, he thought. Maybe he’d get himself a pair like that.

  The shooter went back to the truck, turned off the engine, and extinguished the headlights. In the distance he could hear a siren. More than one, in fact, and they were getting closer. Fuck it. He better haul ass. He walked over to where the rifle was hidden. He picked it up. The boy was lying on his side, sobbing quietly. Too bad wasting such a good-looking kid, but he’d seen the shooter’s face, and the area was crawlin’ with cops. The shooter placed the barrel of the rifle about an inch above the boy’s ear. He pulled the trigger.

  32

  Wednesday. 2:00 A.M.

  McCabe stared across the room. His mind wandered. He remembered how much he hated hospitals. They were strange anonymous places where the people he loved died. He was fighting off the urge to doze when the sound of a man’s voice outside the room jarred him to full alert. The voice was coming from beyond his sight lines, down the corridor to the right. Keeping his hand on his. 45, McCabe rose and walked to the door and peered around.

  ‘Fucking sons of bitches, fucking sons of bitches.’ A dirty man who had bandages wrapped around the top of his head limped in McCabe’s direction, muttering the same phrase over and over again. He was a big man. Tough to tell what age. His face was bruised, and it looked to McCabe like he’d come out on the losing end of a bar brawl. He seemed out of place in the hospital, out of place in an ICU, but maybe he had a friend who was hurt worse than he was. He wore a dirty blue sweatshirt with a picture of a lighthouse and the words MAINE, THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE printed on it. The man glanced at the badge pinned to McCabe’s scrubs. It didn’t seem to faze him. He leaned in closer. ‘You got any smokes?’ he asked. McCabe noticed a trace of a southern accent in his hoarse voice. He didn’t answer.

  ‘I said you got any smokes?’ the man repeated. His breath carried the unmistakable smell of Altoids. McCabe hated Altoids.

  He shook his head. ‘Sorry, pal. Even if I had ’em, you couldn’t smoke ’em. Not in here, anyway. Beat it. Take off before I have you escorted out of here.’

  The man looked like he was about to argue and then thought better of it. ‘Aw, fuck it.’ He turned and limped off the way he’d come, presumably in search of someone with cigarettes. McCabe watched him leave, wondering how he’d managed to find his way into the ICU unit and if, in fact, there was a reason for him to be there. Had he been looking for Sophie? Maybe, but why come tromping in making noise and dressed in a way sure to attract the attention of every security guard in the place?

  A chime sounded to his left and one of the elevator doors opened. Maggie stepped out, carrying a bag from Dunkin’ Donuts in one hand and a small overnight bag in the other.

  She handed him the overnight bag. ‘You wear tidy whities,’ she smiled. ‘I always wanted to know.’ She looked at his scrubs. ‘Cute outfit.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, relaxing a little for the first time in hours. ‘I think the color brings out the blue of my eyes, don’t you?’ He let out a breath he realized he’d been holding in for a while.

  ‘Oh, definitely. Here. I’ve brought you some coffee and something to eat.’ She held out the doughnut bag.

  ‘Glazed chocolate?’

  ‘Of course, and Bavarian creme.’

  He took a doughnut, and she handed him a large Styrofoam cup. ‘Why don’t you drink the coffee while it’s hot? You can change later.’

  They sat down side by side in the darkened room and began sipping the coffee.

  ‘What’s in there?’ She pointed at the big plastic bag.

  ‘My clothes.’

  Maggie unknotted the bag and peered in. ‘Jesus Christ. This woman’s still alive? How could she possibly have any blood left in her?’

  ‘She probably didn’t have a lot. It was a pretty close thing. If our friend had hung around and forced me into a firefight while we were waiting for the ambulance, she’d have bled to death.’

  ‘They think she’s gonna live?’

  ‘That’s what they tell me. I just hope she doesn’t clam up. She was pretty frightened before. She’ll be terrified now.’

  Maggie nodded. ‘The bad guys are going to come after her again.’

  ‘I’m sure of it. Either here or as soon as she gets out.’

  ‘So we put her in protective custody.’

  ‘That’s what I’m thinking, but not in a cell. That’d just piss her off and make her less cooperative. Easy enough to organize round-the-clock coverage here at the hospital. This is where she’s most vulnerable. Afterward, maybe we find her a quiet, out-of-the-way motel. Register her under a phony name and have a female cop, maybe Davenport, bunk with her.’

  ‘She could stay at my place.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Too traceable. They know you’re working the case. Plus I’d rather have you in the hunt than playing bodyguard.’

  ‘Tell me again what she told you.’

  McCabe repeated, more or less verbatim, what Sophie had told him in the car.

  ‘She told you Philip Spencer recruited her?’

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  ‘Why the hell would he give her his real name?’

  ‘Beats me. The only reason I can think of is it’s on his passport.’

  ‘He had to show her his passport?’

  ‘No. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s weird.’

  McCabe’s cell phone vibrated against his hip. The caller was
Bill Jacobi.

  ‘You up in Gray, Bill?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m at the site now.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Yeah — quite a bit, actually. For one thing, we know how he followed you.’

  ‘I wasn’t followed.’

  ‘Yeah. You were. Only not visually. We found small GPS transmitters attached to the undercarriage of both your car and the woman’s car. All the shooter had to do was look at his screen to know precisely where you were and where to go for a clear shot.’

  McCabe was annoyed with himself. He should have considered the possibility and checked out the Bird before he left Portland.

  ‘We traced the line of fire and pretty much pinpointed where he positioned himself for the kill. A little rise just off the road about five hundred yards in front of you. Looks like he used a post-and-rail fence as a firing platform.’

  ‘Any shell casings?’

  ‘No. He only fired once, and he must have policed the brass before he left.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Well, we won’t know about prints till we can flatbed his SUV back to Middle Street and check, but given he left the car in a hurry, my guess is we’ll find something, maybe quite a lot. Oh, here’s a weird one. There are fresh semen stains on the driver’s seat and on the floor under the seat.’

  ‘The guy jerked off?’

  ‘Apparently. I doubt he had another consenting adult with him.’

  ‘Interesting. I guess he finds shooting people stimulating.’

  Jacobi didn’t respond. Instead McCabe heard some indecipherable chatter. In the background he could hear a siren. Then Bill Fortier’s voice talking to Jacobi. Then Fortier’s voice on the phone. ‘McCabe, get your ass up here. We’ve had another killing.’

  ‘Just a minute.’ McCabe got up and shut the door to the waiting room and put the cell on speaker. ‘Okay. Maggie’s here. What happened?’