Mike McCabe 01 - The Cutting

by James Hayman

  ‘So you’re sure it was Kane’s body you ID’d?’

  ‘Yeah. In the end we proved it with a DNA match. Plus there was no more Lucas Kane swanning around the clubs and the beach. We’re sure.’

  ‘What do you know about Kane’s background?’

  ‘Not much. His father was a famous musician. They didn’t have much to do with each other. Kane wandered down here from New York in the late eighties about the time the deco craze and the gay scene were really getting going in South Beach.’

  ‘How’d he support himself? Did he have any money?’

  ‘Not as far as we know, but back then South Beach was easy pickings for a good-looking guy like Kane. He lived off sex for a while. Then he branched out. Ended up as a high-end pimp and a dealer.’

  ‘You get an FBI match on the prints you found in the apartment?’

  ‘Not on Kane’s. Apparently he was never previously fingerprinted. Never arrested for anything.’

  ‘That’s surprising.’

  ‘It surprised me. I figured with his habits Kane would have been busted at least once or twice, but no, not even by us.’

  ‘Any other prints in the room?’

  ‘A bunch of partials and smears. Mostly the boyfriend.’

  ‘Duane Pollard?’

  ‘How do you know about him?’

  ‘Just reading the papers. Tell me about Pollard.’

  ‘He was Kane’s bodyguard and muscle as well as his lover. Ex-marine. Basically a gorilla. Liked to beat people up.’

  ‘A gay gorilla?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Unusual.’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘Any chance he was the shooter? A lovers’ quarrel?’

  ‘None. At least six people put Pollard in a South Beach club called the Groove that night. Said he was there the whole time Kane might have been offed. At least two of them said they had sex with him.’

  ‘Was there a funeral?’

  ‘Yeah. A small one, hosted by Pollard and a few of Kane’s fuck-buddies from the Beach. Kane’s father showed up to bid him farewell. So did a few of his old friends.’

  ‘Sounds like a fun time. Did the name Harry Lime ever come up during your investigation?’

  ‘Lime? Like the fruit? No, never heard of him.’

  ‘So what about Allard? What did he die of?’

  ‘He died of suicide.’ McCabe’s gut tightened. Sessions went on. ‘It happened a couple of months later, after the Kane case went cold. We were working on some other stuff.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He stuck his service weapon in his mouth and pulled the trigger. In a sleazebag motel down on the beach.’

  ‘No connection to the Kane case?’

  ‘I don’t think Stan’s death had anything to do with Lucas Kane. Let’s just leave it at that. He was my friend as well as my partner, and I don’t feel like chatting about stuff that’s none of your business. You want to know more, you submit an official departmental request.’

  McCabe thought about pushing Sessions a little harder to talk about Stan Allard’s death, but he couldn’t see how it would help him find Katie Dubois’s killer or Lucinda Cassidy, so he let it go and hung up. He looked again at the byline on the Herald stories on his computer. Melody Bollinger. He filed it away for future reference.

  23

  Even in the blackness of the room, Lucy could feel his presence. She lay perfectly still, holding her breath. She knew he was there, but where? And why? She listened as hard as she could but heard nothing.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, two hands touched her face. Her heart jumped. Her muscles tightened. She stifled a cry as she felt the hands slide slowly and smoothly down her neck, then over her body, exploring, probing. Still she was afraid to move, afraid to speak. One at a time she felt him loosen and release the restraints that held her hands. He took her wrists, rotated and massaged each in turn. Then his hands moved down her legs. He released the ankle restraints, then moved her feet as he had her hands.

  He pulled off her gown and washed her all over with a warm, moist cloth that smelled like lavender. She could feel the warmth of his body, the movement of air from his breath. ‘I think, Lucy,’ he said, his voice a whisper, ‘it’s time for you and I to get to know each other a little better.’

  She stiffened and froze, pressing her legs tightly together, balling her fists, waiting for the inevitable.

  24

  Monday. 8:00 P.M.

  The note was in the mailbox when McCabe got home around eight. He didn’t notice it at first, hidden among the advertising circulars and bills piled up from deliveries he hadn’t bothered to collect. It was in a plain white envelope with the words DETECTIVE MCCABE, 134 EASTERN PROM penciled in block letters across the front, as if written by a child’s hand. No stamp. No postmark. No return address. He decided to wait until he was upstairs before opening it. A blast of music from Casey’s bedroom assaulted his ears as he entered the apartment.

  ‘Hello. I love you,’ he shouted from the doorway, ‘and turn that damn thing down.’

  He heard no response, either verbally from his daughter or in a reduction of decibels from her room. He crossed to the kitchen, dumped the junk mail in the recycling bin, took a bottle of Geary’s from the icebox, opened it, and took a long swig. He was in a foul mood, pissed at Sandy, pissed at Shockley, pissed at the world. At least the cold fizz of the beer felt good going down.

  McCabe went down the hall and leaned against the frame of Casey’s open door. She was sprawled, tummy down, diagonally across her bed, feet resting on her pillow, head hanging over the edge, reading what appeared to be a science text open on the floor below. He couldn’t figure out how she could actually see the words on the page from that position, but it didn’t seem to be a problem. She mostly got A’s.

  ‘Hi, honey, I’m home,’ he called from the door, shouting to be heard over the music. Casey looked up and then, without acknowledging his presence, looked back down at her book. McCabe went to the stereo and hit the power button. Silence flooded the room. Casey looked up again. ‘Isn’t that why I bought you the iPod?’ he said. ‘So I wouldn’t be subjected to that noise?’

  ‘It’s not noise. It’s Propaganda.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Propaganda. That’s who’s singing. They’re very hot.’

  ‘I can tell. The iPod. Please.’

  Wordlessly she rolled off the end of the bed, walked to her desk, got the iPod, inserted the earbuds, and resumed her position on the bed. McCabe retreated to the living room.

  He tossed the bills on top of the small desk in the corner, where they joined an unopened stack. He sat in the big chair, feet on the glass coffee table. More bills than money. Always. How much longer could he afford being a cop? In a few years there’d be college to pay for on top of everything else he couldn’t afford. He could sell the condo. Move to a smaller place away from the water. Move backward. Move down. Maybe Sandy was right dumping him for a rich guy. Maybe the rich guy would pay for college. The idea depressed him.

  Maybe he should quit the department once the Dubois case was resolved. Shockley might fire him anyway for his big mouth once there was no longer a political price to pay. A guy he knew at NYU who was now CEO of a hot biotech in Boston once talked to him about a corporate security job. The dollars mentioned were a lot more than he was making now. Even so, he wasn’t sure it was worth it. Maybe he could become a PI. Spade & Archer? Savage & McCabe? He could do a passable Bogey imitation, but there were damned few Maltese Falcon cases out there. Mostly he’d spend nights sneaking around hot-sheets motels, getting the goods on philandering husbands and wives. Nope. Not a PI.

  Fuck it. Snap out of it. Suck it up and deal. He was still a cop. It was a calling McCabe believed in. Go out on the streets and get the bad guys, as many as you could. Then put them away for as long as you could. Simple and honorable. He liked it that way. It was why he dropped out of film school, why he gave up his dream of someday being a director
for the simpler dream of being a cop.

  He pressed the icy bottle against his forehead, hoping to pre-empt the headache that was forming. He closed his eyes. Images of New York came tumbling back. Images of his brother Tommy. The big brother. The surrogate father. The hero figure with the feet of clay. Tommy the Narc. Tommy the cop on the take. Images of the drug dealer named TwoTimes. ‘Some may fuck with me once, but there’s none what fucks with me two times.’

  TwoTimes who shot Tommy dead. They caught the little fucker, but he walked. Wouldn’t even cop a plea. Walked right out of court on that bullshit alibi and right back to pushing his shit. ‘I got an alibi, Your Honor. I was fuckin’ my fiancée when the cop got popped,’ said TwoTimes. ‘Yeah, she can tell you. Her mama was right there, and she can tell you, too.’

  ‘Yeah, Your Honor,’ said the fiancée, ‘that’s the truth. He was fuckin’ me the whole time, so he couldna shot the man. I swear it.’

  ‘Yeah, Your Honor,’ agreed the mama. ‘TwoTimes was fuckin’ my little girl. He was humpin’ her ass like hell wouldn’t have it. So he couldna shot that cop. No way. No, sir. No way at all.’

  All of it bullshit, but the cop-killer walked anyway. Never would’ve happened in the old days. That’s what McCabe’s father, a retired and highly decorated captain, would’ve said had he been alive at the time. Never would’ve gone to trial. A perp shot to death resisting arrest. No questions asked. No answers needed. Simple solution for a simple problem: simple – and honorable. Now Dad was dead and so was Tommy, and the simple solutions weren’t so simple anymore.

  McCabe snapped out of his reverie. Casey was walking through the living room on her way to the kitchen. ‘You’re not supposed to wear your gun in the house,’ she said, barely looking at him. ‘It’s a bad influence on an impressionable child.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. He got up, went to his bedroom, and put the .45 in the locked box in his closet where he kept the shotgun. He felt naked without it.

  He heard the fridge door open and close. Then Casey’s face appeared in the doorway of his room, a can of Coke in her hand. ‘I’m not going to see her. I told her that, but she said she was coming anyway.’

  ‘Did she call again?’

  ‘Yes. Right after I got home from soccer.’

  ‘Casey, you may have to see her. We may not have any choice about that. Have you thought about why you don’t want to see her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t want to. She’s a real bitch, you know.’ Casey went back to her own room.

  McCabe followed. Once again he found himself standing by her open door. ‘Well, you don’t know her very well. Maybe once you get to know her a little better, you’ll like her a little more.’

  ‘I don’t think so, and I don’t know why you’re even saying something like that.’

  He didn’t know either. He just wanted to make the inevitable meeting more palatable to her. He also wanted to end the discussion, but Casey kept going. ‘I don’t understand you. You hate her as much as I do, but you’re making out like she’s just some kind of regular mom or something, and you know that’s just crap. So stop trying to sell her to me. I’m not buying.’ She closed the door, leaving McCabe on the outside, staring at wood.

  He didn’t know if there was anything else to do or say. He wanted to shout through the door that he wasn’t trying to sell her anything, and sure as hell not Sandy. Although that seemed a stupid thing: to shout through a door at a thirteen-year-old, even a thirteen-year-old who sometimes sounded like she was thirty. So he didn’t. He just went back to the kitchen, got another beer, retrieved the envelope that had been left for him in the mailbox, and sat back down in the big chair.

  Inside was a single sheet of lined paper, maybe torn from a school notebook. The message was written in pencil in the same block-letter style as the envelope. He supposed the writer was trying to disguise her handwriting. He assumed it was a her. The woman from Exchange Street and the cathedral. McCabe, it said, meet me Tuesday night at nine. It’s about the murder. Drive your red car. Come alone. The word ‘alone’ was underlined twice. Take the turnpike north to the Gray exit. Follow Gray Road about six miles. Take a right turn on Holder’s Farm Road. Go 1.3 miles and pull over onto the side. Flash your lights on and off twice to signal that you have not been followed. People are watching. When you get there, wait. I’ll come to your car.

  The note wasn’t signed. He still didn’t know who the mystery woman was or if the note was even from her. Whoever wrote it obviously knew where he lived and what kind of car he drove. He considered the possibilities. One, it could be a legitimate meet with someone who felt threatened being seen with him. Two, it could be a crank sending him on a wild-goose chase. Or three, it could be someone setting him up for an ambush. The third possibility, the most dangerous, seemed the least likely. He wasn’t close enough to finding his quarry for anyone, including Spencer, to feel threatened enough to take him out.

  McCabe went to the kitchen and got a plastic ziplock bag out of a kitchen drawer. He slipped the note inside. He’d have it checked for prints. His own would be on it, but so might someone else’s.

  He heard footsteps coming up the stairs to their apartment. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He heard the sound of a key probing the lock. With his systems on high alert, McCabe’s hand went to his hip, where his gun should be and wasn’t. Shit. He slipped behind the door, where he wouldn’t be seen when it opened. He held his breath. The door opened. A familiar scent. He let the breath out.

  Kyra stood in the front hall, arms loaded down with half a dozen plastic bags of groceries. She smiled. ‘Hello, handsome.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were coming. I thought you had to be in the studio, quote, half the night, unquote.’

  ‘You want me to leave? I can always find someone else to make a delicious dinner for. I don’t suppose either of you has eaten.’

  McCabe had forgotten about dinner. ‘Oh yeah, food.’

  ‘McCabe, you’re a parent. You’re supposed to see that your kid gets decent nourishment.’

  ‘Hey, she has a whole bag of chocolate chip cookies right there on the floor next to her bed.’

  ‘Well, that takes a load off my mind.’ Kyra tried walking around McCabe to the kitchen. He blocked her path, relieved her of the bags, put them on the floor, put his arms around her, and settled his lips on the back of her neck. He slowly nibbled his way around to the front until he found her lips.

  ‘I’m starved,’ he murmured.

  ‘Me, too,’ she said, pulling away, ‘but you’ll have to settle for chicken breasts.’ She picked up the bags and headed for the kitchen. She looked back. ‘You may get a chance at mine later. If you’re lucky.’

  McCabe loved watching Kyra cook. A foodie in her natural habitat, she moved around the kitchen with ease and an economy of motion. The simple act of chopping a bunch of scallions became performance art, Kyra’s fingers manipulating both the vegetables and the finely honed blade with astonishing speed. He poured a Macallan single malt for himself and a chilled Pouilly-Fumé for her. They clinked glasses and sipped.

  ‘Tell Casey we’ll be eating in twenty minutes.’ He slid off his stool and went to deliver the message. Then he came back and climbed onto the stool again.

  ‘Okay?’ Kyra asked.

  ‘Yeah, fine. She’s in a bit of a sulk right now. Worried about seeing Sandy again.’

  ‘I don’t blame her. I would be, too, after three years.’

  McCabe got up, stood behind Kyra, and began kneading the muscles along her shoulders and nuzzling the back of her neck.

  ‘Alright, that feels great, but either I cook or you nuzzle. We can’t do both.’

  ‘Are you sure –’

  ‘Yes, I’ll cut my finger off.’

  ‘What I was going to say was, are you sure what you said about us not getting married being the right answer?’

  She put the knife down and turned to face him. ‘Why are you bringing this up again?’


  ‘Because I love you?’

  ‘I love you, too – but it strikes me that your timing, bringing it up right now, just might be more about you and Casey and maybe you and Sandy than it is about you and me. That somewhere in your devious mind you think giving Casey a substitute mother will somehow take the pressure off.’

  McCabe didn’t know if Kyra was right. She might be. He backed away and went to refill his Scotch. ‘Let’s wait until this visit with Sandy is over,’ said Kyra. ‘We can talk about it again.’

  That night, after they made love, he dreamed of TwoTimes.

  He dreamed he was climbing the stairs inside the house on Merced Street. Flight after flight of rotting boards wrapped around a central well. His two hands clutching a Glock 17. Pressed against the wall at the side of the stairs. No lights. No backup. Pitch black. Yet somehow he could see through the dark. A stink of decaying flesh growing stronger as he climbed each floor. His foot hit something soft.

  ‘Hey, kid, watch where you’re walking.’

  He looked down. His brother Tommy splayed out on the stairs looking up. Smiling that patented smile no one could resist. Even though Tommy was dead, even though his smile was marred by two large exit wounds where the bullets that entered the back of his head came out the front, carrying with them a spray of brains and bits of Tommy the Narc’s oh-so-blue right eye.

  Looking down he saw that the dead, but not dead, Tommy had a girl on each arm. Ellie Pearlman to his right. The Jewish girl who lived on the next block. His father’s voice rang out. ‘Tommy, are you still messing around with that Jew girl?’ On Tommy’s left was Mag O’Connell, her shirt off, her bra unhooked and hanging by one strap. Then Ellie Pearlman was gone and Tommy was standing behind Mag, his arms wrapped around her, one hand cupped under each of Mag’s large, soft white breasts with the big pink nipples. Tommy holding Mag’s breasts out for the ten-year-old McCabe to admire. ‘Hey, Mikey, bet you never saw anything like these before.’ He shook his head. No. No, he hadn’t. ‘Wanna have a feel?’ He hesitated before putting his hand out and stroking Mag’s soft, pliant flesh.