Mike McCabe 01 - The Cutting

by James Hayman

  2

  Friday. 7:30 P.M.

  The summer crowds in the Old Port had thinned now that Labor Day had come and gone, but the air was warm, and Exchange Street bustled with energy. Shops and restaurants were open late and busy. Packs of teenagers in varying states of grunge – some with piercings and tattoos and some without – spread themselves across the sidewalks, forcing middle-aged tourists out onto the narrow streets.

  Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe and Kyra Erikson walked in step, side by side, holding hands. Seeing them absorbed in each other’s company, chatting happily, it would have been easy for a passerby to conclude, correctly, that they were lovers.

  Tonight they were heading for Arno, the city’s latest northern Italian hot spot. As usual, it was Kyra’s choice. McCabe’s restaurant habits were as predictable as they were unadventurous. He pretty much always ordered the same thing: a rare New York strip steak, preceded by a single malt Scotch – no ice – and accompanied by a couple of bottles of cold Shipyard Ale.

  Kyra, on the other hand, was a real foodie. She was looking forward to one of Arno’s specialties, ‘duck-meat ravioli, served,’ she recited, practically drooling, ‘in a light brown sauce with thin slices of rare grilled duck.’

  McCabe considered their differing approaches to dining a minor incompatibility. He had no problem indulging her passion for haute cuisine. After dinner they planned to go back to his apartment and watch a movie, John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar, with Tom Courtenay and a young, very sexy Julie Christie. An old favorite from McCabe’s former life in film school at NYU. He’d never told Kyra she reminded him of Christie in this role. She had the same curly blond hair, the same liquid eyes, the same full, almost pouty lips, except, thank God, Kyra almost never pouted. The resemblance was one of the things that first attracted him to her. He wondered if she’d appreciate the comparison.

  They paused by a young street musician seated on the pavement, his back against the brick wall of a small jewelry shop. He was playing a beautifully polished violin. A hand-lettered cardboard sign, propped against the wall, identified him as a JUILLIARD DROPOUT. They listened for twenty or thirty seconds. Then, before walking on, McCabe dropped a couple of dollar bills into the man’s open violin case.

  ‘You’re in a good mood.’

  ‘Why not? It’s a beautiful night. I’m with a beautiful woman. He’s a good player and I like the piece. Mozart. Violin Concerto.’ McCabe paused, but only for a second, searching his memory. ‘Number Three.’

  It wasn’t that he knew a lot about classical music. He didn’t. He knew nothing of music theory or the styles of various composers. He only occasionally listened to it. It was just this weird mind of his. Once he had seen or heard something – anything – he almost never forgot it. They walked on, the silken, sensuous notes of the violin fading behind them.

  McCabe knew Kyra had found it unsettling when she first discovered he could repeat, verbatim, lengthy passages from a book or an investigation report he read months before. She assumed what he had was a photographic memory. He said not. ‘There is no such thing,’ he told her. ‘Nobody’s ever been able to prove that a brain can “photograph” an image and then “see” it again.’

  ‘You remember everything?’

  ‘Only if it interests me. I’ve got something called an eidetic memory. My brain is just unusually efficient at organizing stuff and filing it away where it can lay its hands on it.’

  They continued up Exchange Street. They passed a black-and-white patrol car pulled into a space marked with a NO PARKING sign. A young, round-faced female cop sat behind the wheel. She smiled as she spotted McCabe with someone so obviously his girlfriend. ‘Hey, Sergeant, how ya doin’?’ she called out.

  He smiled back. ‘Keeping an eye on the delinquents?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, Friday night. Another few hours the drunks’ll start pouring out of the bars.’

  Arno, as expected, was crowded and noisy. Two or three groups stood by the door waiting for the hostess to notice them. Since their own reservation wasn’t for another fifteen minutes, McCabe and Kyra wandered into the small bar, where squadrons of young business types, male and female, jockeyed for position. He noticed the distinctive squat shape of a Dalwhinnie among the bottles at the back of the bar. It was one of his favorite malts and not always available. He signaled the bartender and ordered a double, neat, for himself and, without having to ask, a Sancerre for Kyra. Glancing over, he saw she was chatting with one of her art contacts, Gloria Kelwin, a gallery owner he’d met a couple of times before. McCabe brought the drinks over and handed Kyra her wine.

  ‘Why, hello, Michael,’ Gloria purred, bending forward to brush McCabe’s cheek with her lips. ‘Caught any bad guys lately?’ She spoke in a mannered way McCabe found consistently irritating. Not waiting for his response, she turned her attention back to Kyra. Kelwin’s gallery, North Space, carried Kyra’s paintings and prints, and Kyra was hoping to schedule a solo show. McCabe watched Kyra’s face, animated and alive, as she described a new series of figure studies she was working on, small oils of young dancers, bodies abstracted in fluid athletic poses. He found her quite irresistible, watching her when she didn’t know he was watching. In the end, he was happy shutting out the words and concentrating instead on the smooth peaty burn of the Scotch as it traced its way down his throat, wondering for the hundredth time how he’d managed to attract this sensual, sensitive woman.

  As he sipped, McCabe felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out in time to see the call was from Maggie Savage. While a chance encounter with an overbearing gallery owner couldn’t spoil the evening, McCabe knew Maggie’s call might. Placing his nearly empty glass on the bar, he excused himself and stepped out onto Exchange Street. The air felt fresh, and he could smell the sea. He leaned against the building and waited a moment before calling her back. Then he punched in her number.

  Maggie was the number two detective in McCabe’s Crimes Against People unit. Technically, as the unit’s leader, McCabe wasn’t supposed to have a partner, but he’d stretched the rules, and they’d worked together since his arrival in Portland three years ago. Back then, she hadn’t been shy about letting him know she resented the ‘so-called star’ from the NYPD sweeping in and taking the job she felt she’d earned for herself. In her view, the department passing on her application was nothing more than simple sexism. The fact this was the first time they’d ever brought in a senior detective from outside, regardless of expertise or experience, reinforced her conviction. Nevertheless, McCabe knew that in the process of working together, he’d earned her respect – and she his.

  Maggie picked up on the first ring. ‘Hate to interrupt a night on the town, McCabe, but we’ve got kind of a mess here.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘A teenaged girl’s body was found in that scrap metal yard off Somerset. Looks like it could be the Dubois kid.’

  Katie Dubois had disappeared more than a week ago. ‘I gather the body’s pretty cut up,’ she continued. ‘Maybe a sex thing. I don’t know. You’re the murder expert.’

  ‘Aw, shit.’ He let the idea sink in. Portland wasn’t New York, and murder wasn’t all that common. Hell, there’d been only nineteen homicides in the whole state the previous year. Just two in the city of Portland.

  ‘Alright, I’m at Arno. Y’know, the new place on Exchange? Pick me up here. I’ll run in and apologize to Kyra.’

  The noise level in the bar had risen to a din, and McCabe didn’t want to shout to make himself heard. He tapped Kyra’s shoulder and led her over to a marginally quieter corner near the coat room. ‘I have to go,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said, disappointment spreading across her face. ‘It’s taken us weeks to get this reservation.’

  ‘Someone’s been murdered. A teenage girl.’

  Kyra closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and nodded. ‘Okay. You go. I’m sure I can join Gloria.’ She looked up and kissed him softly on the lips.
‘Don’t worry. It’s what I get for falling in love with a cop.’

  ‘I’ll see you at the apartment?’

  She nodded, smiled, and turned to go back into the bar.

  Maggie was waiting at the curb in an unmarked Crown Vic when McCabe emerged. He slid into the passenger seat. ‘Any more background?’

  ‘The body was found by a homeless guy. Drunk. Possibly disturbed. Other than that, nothing. No ID. No wallet. No clothes. Nada. The uniforms on the scene are pretty sure it’s Dubois.’

  They rode in silence for several minutes.

  ‘So how’s the food at Arno?’ Maggie asked. ‘As good as everyone says?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  Maggie peered at him in that owlish way she had. He’d seldom seen a cop who looked less like a cop. ‘I forgot,’ she said. ‘You only eat Scotch and steak.’

  ‘The Scotch was great, but I never got to the steak. We never even got to the table. Kyra’s probably just sitting down now with a gallery owner we ran into in the bar.’

  ‘Well, I am sorry to have dragged you away.’

  ‘Not your fault.’

  It took less than five minutes for McCabe and Savage to reach the scene. There were a couple of black-and-white units, blue lights flashing, blocking access to the area. Maggie pulled in behind one. They got out. McCabe grabbed a Maglite and a pair of latex gloves from the trunk.

  The area was a small industrial wasteland slated for eventual development. Maybe two or three acres, no more than that. Most of it was surrounded by a deteriorating chain-link fence. Yellow crime scene tape stretched across the openings in the fence and back another thirty or so yards. Piles of rusting scrap metal littered the landscape. A few clumps of weeds struggled for life in the stony hardpan. Other than that, just dirt, a lot of trash, and a dead body. Identity would have to be confirmed, but as they moved closer, McCabe became certain it was Katie Dubois.

  Even in the empty grayness of death, he could see Katie once had a pretty face. Round with chubby cheeks. Shoulder-length blond hair tied in a ponytail. Eyes open and clouded over, revealing none of the horror one expected in the eyes of someone facing imminent slaughter – and slaughter it was. She’d been sliced practically in half by a deep cut that angled from just below her neck to just above her navel. The flaps of skin were folded neatly back into place. Circular burn marks were visible on her breasts and on her thighs near her genitals. There might be others hidden from view.

  The girl was naked. She lay on her back, knees up, legs spread, one arm angled straight back as though she’d been reaching for something overhead. Or maybe doing the backstroke. McCabe was sure she hadn’t fallen this way. Someone had arranged the body in this position.

  He stood for a couple of minutes, scanning the corpse, remembering the details of the case. Katie Dubois was sixteen years old. She’d gone missing Wednesday before last. A junior at Portland High School and a star soccer player, she hadn’t come home from a night out with her friends. She was last seen in the Old Port, hanging out with five other teenagers. Flyers with her photograph were stapled to telephone poles all over town. Tom Tasco and Eddie Fraser were the lead team on the case. They were experienced detectives, and they worked it hard. McCabe read their investigation reports and found them impressively thorough.

  None of the other teens had any idea where Katie might have gone. Her boyfriend, Ronnie Sobel, told detectives he was talking to some friends and when he turned back, Katie was gone. One of the girls said that wasn’t quite how it happened. She claimed Katie and Sobel were arguing. She thought it had to do with Ronnie hooking up with another girl, but she wasn’t sure. Anyway, she said, when Ronnie walked away from her, Katie stormed off. Most of the department as well as dozens of friends, family, and volunteers had been looking for her ever since. They’d combed the city. The nearby Scarborough marshes. A lot of people thought she might turn up in the harbor. She hadn’t. She’d turned up here.

  McCabe felt a familiar rage growing within him. Murder in Maine tended to be a family affair, husbands killing wives, friends killing friends. As often as not they called the cops themselves as soon as they realized what they had done – but this was different. This had the random, brutal anonymity of the big city, and McCabe allowed himself a moment to mourn a universe where one human being could do this to another, especially to a teenager. Then he put these thoughts away and let the cop side of his brain kick in, inspecting the corpse, inspecting the ground where the girl lay, trying to figure out if there was anything he should be noticing. Anything that would give him a better idea of what happened to Katie Dubois and who was responsible for it. He saw signs of duct tape adhesive across her mouth and ligature marks on her wrists, ankles, and neck. Her clouded eyes revealed no signs of pinpoint hemorrhaging, suggesting that mutilation, not strangulation, was the immediate cause of death.

  Standing here in a scrap yard in Portland, Maine, McCabe suddenly had the feeling he was back in New York. It wasn’t like he was imagining it. Or remembering it. It was like he was really there. He could hear the rush of the city. He could smell the stink of it. A hundred bloodied corpses paraded before his eyes. His right hand drew comfort from resting on the handle of his gun. Mike McCabe, once again lured to the chase. He knew with an absolute certainty that this was his calling. That it was here, among the killers and the killed, that he belonged. No matter how far he ran, no matter how well he hid, he’d never leave the violence or his fascination with it behind.

  McCabe stepped back from Katie’s body, careful not to trip over Maggie, who was kneeling a few feet behind him, writing her notes. He approached the uniformed officer who’d found the body. He remembered the man’s name. Kevin Comisky. ‘Kevin,’ he said quietly, ‘what do we know?’

  ‘Not much. I was on patrol. Quiet night. I just made the turn off Marginal onto Franklin when this drunk comes running out, waving his arms around. He’s screaming something about murder, but he’s pretty incoherent, so I put him in the car, which, by the way, he stinks up pretty bad. I ask him to tell me where he saw whatever he saw. He manages to direct me here. I see the body. Call Dispatch. They send Kennerly as backup. Then they call you guys.’

  McCabe used his cell to call police headquarters at 109 Middle Street. Two evidence techs were currently on duty. He told both he needed them at the scrap yard ASAP. Then he called Deputy ME Terri Mirabito. Portland, with a population a little over sixty-five thousand, wasn’t big enough to have its own medical examiner’s office. Normally whoever was assigned would have to drive down from the state lab in Augusta, a good hour and some away, but Mirabito lived in town, and if she was home she could get here a lot faster. She answered on the first ring and said she’d be right over.

  ‘Where’s the drunk now?’ he asked Comisky.

  ‘Still in the unit,’ said the cop. ‘It’s gonna take more than a paper pine tree and a squirt of Lysol to get the stink out of that baby.’

  ‘Either of you guys touch anything or move the body around?’ McCabe addressed both uniformed officers.

  Both responded negatively. One said, ‘It’s tough enough just looking at her.’

  ‘Okay. I’m going to wander around, see what I can see. Then I’ll want to talk to your friend in the car, so please make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.’

  He turned to Maggie. ‘Where are Tasco and Fraser? I thought this was their case.’ He knew he was sounding irritable, but tough shit. A detective should never lose track of his case.

  ‘Mike, they’ve been putting in eighteen-hour days for over a week. Anyway, Tom’s on his way in. I couldn’t find Eddie.’

  McCabe nodded. ‘Find him.’

  He turned away and used his cell to call home. Casey answered. ‘Hey, Case, how’re you doing?’

  ‘Hello, Daddy dearest. I’m fine,’ McCabe’s thirteen-year-old daughter said in a playfully proper tone. ‘Are you still eating dinner?’

  ‘We never got to dinner. I’m working.’ He wondered if Casey had known Katie Dubois. They
were both soccer players. Probably not, he decided. Casey was still in middle school. Eighth grade. ‘I’m going to be late. What are you up to?’

  ‘I’ve got some friends over. Do you want to talk to Jane?’

  ‘Oh, really? Who’s over?’

  ‘Gretchen and Whitney.’ They were two of Casey’s best friends and lived nearby on Munjoy Hill. ‘We’re kind of in the middle of something.’ Doing her best to put on an aristocratic British accent, she added, ‘I don’t want to go into it. I’ll fetch Jane.’

  ‘Okay,’ he laughed. ‘Fetch Jane. As long as you’re not doing something you’re not supposed to.’

  ‘Dad, I’m not a baby, y’know.’

  ‘Okay. Get Jane. I love you.’

  ‘Love you, too.’

  McCabe could hear Casey shouting, ‘Hey, Jane, it’s Dad,’ the single syllable drawn out, ‘Da-aaad!’

  Jane Devaney was a sixty-year-old retired nurse and high school sex education teacher McCabe employed on a part-time basis to look after Casey. She also rode a Harley. Casey found that indescribably cool. So did McCabe.

  Jane’s voice came on. ‘Hiya, Mike.’

  ‘Everything good there?’

  ‘Oh yeah, we’re fine. Kids are fooling around. Girl stuff. I’m deep into Supernanny. Keeping tabs on the competition. I take it you’re working late?’

  ‘It looks that way.’

  ‘Want me to spend the night?’

  ‘Not necessary. I’m not sure when I’ll be home, but Kyra should be there as soon as she finishes dinner.’

  ‘Well, if you decide you want me to stay, just let me know. It’s not a problem.’

  ‘Thanks, Jane. I appreciate it.’

  McCabe closed the phone and returned it to his pocket. He pulled on the surgical gloves he’d brought from the car. Pointing the flashlight at the ground, he started inspecting the area where the girl’s body was lying. Senior evidence tech Bill Jacobi and his partner would arrive soon enough, but McCabe wanted to have a more thorough look around first.