Mike McCabe 01 - The Cutting

by James Hayman

  ‘Roger, seven-two-two. MedCU en route, 24 Trinity. We’ll be right there. Out.’ This was followed by the loud electronic signal that would alert all units that a priority transmission was about to be broadcast.

  The two patrol units that had been parked around the corner roared by in pursuit, lights flashing, sirens screaming. McCabe and Tasco reached Fraser simultaneously. Eddie was clutching his side, trying to sit up. Blood poured from a gash on his forehead. ‘Stay down. Ambulance’ll be here in a second,’ said McCabe.

  Tasco opened a first-aid kit, tore the paper wrapping from a bandage, and pressed it onto Fraser’s bleeding forehead. McCabe rose, walked toward the house, and stopped, reconstructing the scene in his mind. Had someone been in the car with Kane? Yes. A woman. A blonde. Hunched over in a strange position. Maybe shot. He walked back to Fraser. ‘Eddie? How many people did you see in the car?’

  Fraser held up two fingers.

  ‘You’re sure?’ asked McCabe.

  Fraser nodded and spoke through the pain. ‘A guy driving. A woman next to him.’

  ‘Did you hit either one?’

  He shook his head. ‘Shitty shooting, huh?’

  McCabe radioed from Tasco’s car. Two people in the suspect car. A dark-haired man and a blond woman, possibly Harriet Spencer, possibly Lucinda Cassidy, either a possible hostage.

  He wondered where Kane was heading and if the blonde was, in fact, Hattie Spencer. He’d only seen the woman for a split second as the Porsche sped down the driveway. Had she been restrained in any way? He backed his mind up to the single frame in which her image appeared just as he would a video editing machine. The frame was blurry. It flashed by so fast he couldn’t be sure.

  He returned to the house.

  Upstairs, he gazed at Spencer’s mutilated corpse. The sirens faded in the distance. The crime scene techs were on their way. He had to figure out what to do next. For the moment, he didn’t have a clue.

  Maggie appeared at his side. ‘McCabe, what in hell is this all about?’

  ‘It’s about Lucas Kane.’

  ‘I thought Kane was dead.’

  ‘Kane faked his own death.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Lots of reasons. Probably figured being dead would keep the cops from watching his new business venture too closely. Probably thought disappearing into the grave was cool.’

  ‘Cool like Harry Lime in The Third Man?’

  ‘Cool like that.’

  ‘Why’d he have to castrate Spencer? Why couldn’t he just kill him … well … normally?’

  ‘I think it’s about power.’ Sex defined nearly everything Lucas Kane did. ‘In Kane’s mind, cutting off the genitals might have been a way of symbolically neutralizing an enemy’s power.’

  Maggie looked dubious.

  ‘That’s not a new idea. Balls have been a metaphor for bravery and power for a long, long time.’

  ‘Sick.’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘You’re sure it was Kane you saw down there?’

  ‘You know me. I never forget a face.’

  ‘Jesus, McCabe, doesn’t this creep ever take a vacation?’ Bill Jacobi called from the door. ‘My guys can’t keep up with the corpses.’ He looked down at the mutilated body. ‘Cute. What did he do with the guy’s schwantz? Keep it for a souvenir? Terri here yet?’

  ‘Not yet. We’ll get out of your way so you can do your job.’

  Outside, the scene had changed dramatically. An ambulance and half a dozen patrol units were pulled up, plus a couple more unmarked Crown Vics. Crime scene tape surrounded the property. Neighbors and passersby gawked from the street. Rumors of Philip Spencer’s violent death brought the media out in force. Flies to honey. News Center 6’s Josie Tenant once again in the lead. McCabe had no doubt her reports would go directly into NBC’s national feed. He owed Melody Bollinger a call, but that’d have to wait.

  A pair of EMTs lifted Eddie Fraser into the ambulance for the short ride to Cumberland. ‘Three or four broken ribs and a concussion,’ Tasco told them. ‘Maybe some other broken bones as well.’

  McCabe and Maggie walked over to Shockley and Fortier. ‘Anybody get the Porsche?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Shockley spoke first. ‘Nobody’s seen it since it left the West End.’

  ‘We’ll find him,’ said Fortier. ‘If he’s still in it.’

  ‘He won’t be.’ McCabe told his bosses about Lucas Kane.

  ‘You’re sure it was Kane?’ asked Fortier.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘He’s got a hostage?’ asked the chief.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. We spotted a blond female in the car.’

  ‘Harriet Spencer? Lucinda Cassidy?’

  ‘My money’s on Hattie.’

  The call came less than a minute later. A female shopper pulling into a space on the upper level of a garage off Monument Square noticed a blond woman slumped in the Porsche parked next to her. She thought the woman might be sick, so she looked closer. Then she called 911.

  Five minutes later McCabe peered through the Porsche’s window himself. There was no doubt about it. The blond was Harriet Spencer, and she was dead. Stabbed in the heart, naked from the waist down, seat belt still engaged, pants and panties folded neatly on her lap. When they looked, the crime scene guys found sand in her panties. Beach sand, they thought.

  Kane must have driven into the garage, parked, and driven out in another vehicle. The garage didn’t have a surveillance camera. The cashier didn’t notice a thing. ‘Just great,’ said McCabe. ‘Now we don’t even know what kind of car we’re looking for.’

  ‘So what now?’ asked Fortier, frustration palpable in his voice.

  ‘Beats the shit out of me,’ McCabe muttered. ‘I guess we’ll think of something.’

  He checked his watch. In an hour and a half Sandy would be arriving to pick up Casey. He asked Maggie to give him a ride back to the condo.

  48

  Friday. 2:30 P.M.

  They drove in silence, their minds focused on Spencer’s death, needing to figure out what to do next. Images of the city slid by. At the end of Danforth, a bronze statue of John Ford, a Portland native, relaxed in an oversized director’s chair. Nearby, giant fish kites fluttered above a Japanese restaurant. Maggie took the half right onto Fore Street and headed into the Old Port. McCabe gazed absently at the passing parade, strategies, angles of attack, taking shape in his mind. He watched a pack of noisy teenagers, boys in baggy pants, girls showing too much skin, pointing and giggling at the silly sex toys in the windows of Condom Sense. A trio of Muslim women, heads and bodies covered, gave the same windows sidelong glances as they passed.

  Did you consider Kane a friend? he’d asked Hattie. She’d smiled an ironic smile. No, I never would have called Lucas that. No. Kane wasn’t Hattie’s friend. He was her lover. A lover Hattie helped by fingering candidates with the right blood types. Fingering candidates for murder. Was Spencer dead because Hattie told him about it? Or maybe he figured it out on his own and confronted Kane. Either way he had to be eliminated – and so did she. In the Porsche, Harriet’s pants and panties lay neatly folded on her lap, sand inside the panties. Kane must’ve screwed her on a beach and stabbed her then and there. Death at the moment of orgasm? He imagined Kane getting off on it.

  Maggie missed the light at Pearl. While they waited, McCabe watched a group of office workers cross the street in front of them, probably escaping early for a September weekend. He envied them their freedom. When the light changed, Maggie drove across India and up Munjoy Hill, where Fore Street turns into the Eastern Prom. Casco Bay glittered before them.

  As she pulled in behind his condo, McCabe broke the silence. ‘Did you ever talk to DeWitt Holland?’

  ‘On the phone,’ said Maggie. ‘Not much joy in it. Said he hadn’t seen Spencer in a couple of years. I made a date to interview him in person tomorrow.’

  ‘Did he seem nervous?’

  ‘Not especially. Claimed he didn’t know anything about
the murder, hadn’t even seen it on the news. “I don’t pay attention to things like that” is how he phrased it.’

  ‘Telling the truth?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He was pretty smooth.’

  ‘Maybe you better call your homicide buddy on the Boston PD. If Holland was involved or knew anything about it, he could be next on Killer Kane’s hit list.’

  Maggie reached for her cell and dialed. ‘His name’s John Bell,’ she said to McCabe as she flipped the phone to speaker mode.

  ‘Hey, Mag,’ Bell’s voice boomed out, ‘how goes the investigation? When are you coming down?’

  ‘John, I’ve got my partner, Mike McCabe, with me. You’re on speaker.’

  ‘Okay, that’s fine. What’s up?’

  ‘We’ve had another murder up here. Victim was a top heart surgeon. We think Dr. DeWitt Holland, a heart surgeon at the Brigham, may be the killer’s next target.’

  ‘Jesus, somebody have something against heart docs? Can you give me a little background on this?’

  McCabe slipped a note under Maggie’s nose. How much do you trust this guy?

  She scrawled underneath, Completely.

  ‘Mag, you there?’

  ‘Sorry, John.’ Maggie told Bell what they knew, starting with Katie Dubois’s murder and ending with Philip Spencer’s.

  ‘How does that connect with Holland?’

  ‘Spencer, Holland, and another transplant surgeon named Matthew Wilcox all did their residencies with Kane in New York in the eighties,’ McCabe said. ‘They were big buddies. Called themselves the Asclepius Society after the Greek god of healing. They stayed friends at least through the nineties, climbing mountains together, stuff like that. When Kane dreamed up this illegal transplant idea, naturally he needed a surgeon or two to help. Now we think Kane’s closing the business down and wants to get rid of anyone who knows anything. He’s already killed Spencer and Spencer’s wife. He may have killed Wilcox. We don’t know for sure if Holland’s involved, but if he is, he’s in grave danger. I suggest you get him into protective custody or at least have him covered if Kane comes calling.’

  ‘I’ll e-mail you what we have on Kane,’ said Maggie.

  ‘Any pictures?’ asked Bell. ‘Our guys will want to know who they’re watching for.’

  ‘An old one, taken maybe ten years ago,’ said McCabe. ‘Shows the four friends on top of a mountain. We’ll have our computer guy age Kane a little and send it down.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Bell. ‘You still coming down, Maggie?’

  ‘Yeah, but not today. How about I let you know?’

  ‘I’d love to see you. It’s been what? Five years?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Maggie switched off the phone.

  ‘Flame still burning?’ asked McCabe.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Maggie. ‘Anyway, like you, he’s taken. Married with a new baby.’ She smiled at him. ‘Good luck with the ex,’ she said. ‘You’ll want to spend some time with Casey, and I’ve got a lot that needs doing.’

  Though a good height for her age, five-four and still growing, Casey looked small in his big chair, feet not quite reaching the floor. Her red duffel, the one for overnights, waited on the floor by her side. Bunny sat perched on her lap. Casey fiddled with the animal’s remains, mostly just ragged ears.

  McCabe figured he could use something to fiddle with, too. A bunny for grow-ups. He thought how good a cigarette would taste right about now. It’d even make Sandy happy. She could report him for secondhand smoke. He pushed the urge away.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Ready to go?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re taking Bunny?’

  She looked up, her oval face, framed by dark hair, more like Sandy’s every day. ‘Yes,’ she said firmly, as if expecting him to object.

  ‘Okay.’

  She had on one of her new outfits. He supposed the rest of the new clothes were packed in the bag. Sitting there she reminded him of the last kid at summer camp, the one whose parents always arrived late to pick her up. He sat opposite on the white couch. ‘It’ll be fine. You’ll have a good time.’

  She looked at him as if he’d said something stupid, then looked back at Bunny.

  They didn’t say anything else for a while. Finally he got up and knelt in front of her chair. He took both her hands in his. ‘Casey, I know how hard this is after three years. Really. I do. I think one of the reasons your mother wants to see you is because she realizes how much she’s missed by not being part of your life and how sorry she is about that. I also think maybe you’re feeling that by spending time with Sandy you’re being disloyal to me. You’re not. I think it’ll be good for you to get to know your mother again. When I say I hope you have a good time, I’m not talking about staying at a fancy hotel or going to shows or any of that stuff. I want you to have a good time being with your mother. Not because I love her – that’s way over – but because I love you. Does that make sense?’

  McCabe kissed his daughter. Then he went back to the sofa and sat down. After a couple of minutes she got up and climbed into his lap and hugged him. They sat together like that until, at five minutes after four, the doorbell rang.

  ‘Hello, McCabe.’

  ‘Hello, Sandy.’ She looked as gorgeous as ever. Wealth agreed with her. He felt his heart beating hard in his chest. He breathed deeply to try to slow it down.

  ‘May I come in? Or are we just going to stand here in the hallway?’ He moved to one side, and she walked into the apartment. ‘Hello, Casey,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to see you again.’

  Sandy offered Casey her hand. Casey took it, and they shook. ‘Are you all ready?’

  ‘I just have to go to the bathroom.’

  ‘Okay. Off you go.’ Casey went down the hall. McCabe figured she needed a minute to adjust.

  ‘Nice view,’ said Sandy, gazing out at the boats in the bay.

  ‘That’s one of the nice things about living in Portland. The water’s never far away. You’re staying at the Four Seasons?’

  ‘Yes, the suite’s booked under Peter’s name. Ingram.’

  ‘I remember. Will he be there?’

  ‘No. He’s in Europe on business. It will just be us girls.’

  ‘Casey will have her cell phone with her, but why don’t you give me yours just in case.’ She recited the number.

  ‘Here’s mine,’ he said. He handed her a slip of paper with the number on it. ‘Call if there’s any problem. Any problem at all. You should get her back by five on Sunday. She’ll need Sunday night for her homework.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  Casey returned, unzipped her bag, and stuffed Bunny inside. McCabe looked at his daughter. ‘Remember what I said about having a good time.’

  For the first time, she smiled. She was trying to reassure him. ‘I will,’ she said.

  He watched them from the window as they got into Sandy’s rental car. A Chevy Impala. He’d been expecting her to turn up in something fancier. A Mercedes. Or a Jag. Or a Lincoln at the very least. They pulled out of the visitors’ parking space and drove off. McCabe went to the kitchen and poured himself a Scotch. Still a little early, but fuck it. He didn’t go out for cigarettes.

  49

  Friday. 4:30 P.M.

  He called Maggie. After leaving his place, she’d driven to Spencer’s office, retrieved the Denali picture, and taken it back to Middle Street, where Starbucks produced a high-res scan of Kane’s face, then aged it by ten years. Maggie e-mailed the resulting image to John Bell, to MSP, and to every sheriff’s department and local jurisdiction in the state. Shockley’s office released it to the TV stations and newspapers. Kane was long gone, but at least the searchers would know what he looked like. Aside from that they knew nothing. Not what kind of car he was driving or what direction he was headed in. He could be driving back to Florida for all they knew. McCabe asked Maggie to e-mail the picture to Aaron Cahill in Orlando a
long with an update.

  Next he called Tasco, who was still at 24 Trinity Street. Jacobi and an additional team of techs from the state crime lab in Augusta were going over the place. So far they’d found nothing of significance except Hattie Spencer’s cell phone, turned off, in a kitchen drawer under the toaster. Terri Mirabito came on the line, her voice weary. ‘I’ve got one Spencer scheduled for tomorrow morning, one for the afternoon. A two-for-one special. No extra charge. I’ll e-mail you the particulars.’

  *

  McCabe found a Maine road map, a ruler, a piece of string, a red marker, and a yellow highlighter. He spread them all out on the kitchen table and began reconstructing Sophie’s ride to the surgery site. From her description, McCabe was certain Pollock headed north on 95. Through the first tollbooth at York. Then another thirty-five miles to Portland, where he could have stayed on 95 or diverted to 295. Slightly shorter that way, but it didn’t much matter. Both were four-lane interstates, and they came together again a little south of Augusta. Three tolls either way. Based on Sophie’s estimates of time, locations of tollbooths, and the assumption that Pollock was careful to stay at or just slightly above the speed limit, it still made sense that he exited at Augusta and drove maybe forty to sixty miles on local roads.

  McCabe lined up the string with the scale of the map and marked it at forty and again at sixty miles. He drew a red semicircle on the map in an arc, west to east, forty miles from the exit and another parallel arc at sixty. He colored the area between the two red lines with yellow highlighter. Hundreds of square miles.

  Lucas Kane was someone I knew a long time ago, Harriet Spencer said. His parents had a summer place not far from ours.

  In Blue Hill?

  Near there.

  Blue Hill was inside the yellow zone.

  McCabe booted up Casey’s computer. He went to the Web site for the Town of Blue Hill. On it he found a phone number for Priscilla Pepper, Town Clerk, Tax Collector, and Registrar of Voters.

  ‘Town of Blue Hill.’ An older woman’s voice. Her accent pure Downeast.

  ‘Priscilla Pepper, please.’