Mike McCabe 01 - The Cutting

by James Hayman

  Closer to the steel platform on which she lay, Lucy could see a large electrical saw, its articulated arm hanging at a strange angle. Even closer, a tray of gleaming stainless steel instruments. The platform itself rose at a slight angle so that her head was higher than her feet. Near the bottom, between her ankles, she could see a round drain. For what? Water? Blood? The terror rose within her. Suddenly the bear and the marionette burst into hysterical laughter, pointing their arms directly at her, laughing at her because she was going to die. The laughter went on and on. She had to stop it. She had to shut it out. She tried to cover her ears, but her hands wouldn’t move. She closed her eyes and screamed.

  McCabe ran into the open central hall, where the stairs rose up in a broad spiral toward the third-floor landing. He looked up and saw a heavy oak door blocking the entrance to the room where Maggie must have seen the light. His mind was racing. He could rush up the stairs, but the door would be locked. If he tried to break it down or shoot his way in, Kane, armed with a scalpel, if not a gun or a knife, would use Lucinda as a shield or, worse, simply cut her throat. He thought he heard a scream. Sharp. Short. Quickly cut off.

  He ran back to the utility room just as Maggie burst in through the back door. He found the circuit breaker box. Removing a heart was easy, Spencer told him – but not in the dark. Not without power. Kane couldn’t see where to cut. The surgical saw wouldn’t work. He’d have to come out of the room to find out what was happening, to reset the breaker. That might give them the chance they needed. Maybe.

  The scream barely escaped her lips. Moving with astonishing speed, the man slapped a strip of silver duct tape against her mouth and pulled it tight, cutting off the sound. She opened her eyes. His face was close to hers, his deep-set eyes shining brightly. She could hear his breathing, feel the breath on her skin. Short, shallow, rapid. He untied and removed her gown, then pulled on a pair of latex surgical gloves. He selected a scalpel from the tray and placed it flat on her chest, between her breasts. He turned on a bright light clipped to a tall silver-colored metal stand, the kind she’d seen in photographers’ studios. He adjusted the light until it shone right at her. He picked up the scalpel and, using a sponge, washed her chest with something that felt cold and smelled antiseptic. He smiled at her. Then he leaned over and gently kissed her cheek. ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed our time together, Lucinda,’ he said.

  McCabe tugged at the panel door. Shit. Painted shut. He pulled again. Still it wouldn’t open.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Maggie, her voice a whisper, but barely.

  He ignored the question. His eyes darted around. He was losing precious seconds. He imagined Kane cutting a neat red line down the middle of Lucinda’s chest. He spotted a retractable box cutter on top of the moving cartons, grabbed it, and flipped it open. He ran the blade around the painted edges of the door. He pulled again. Still stuck. This was taking too long. He thought he could hear the whine of the Stryker surgical saw. Nearly frantic, he used the knife again and pulled even harder. The dry paint cracked. Then, finally, it gave way.

  Her lover slid a surgical mask over his mouth. He placed the point of the scalpel against her skin at the bottom of her throat. Lucy retreated into the cold steel platform that held her, trying to pull back into its impenetrable hardness. He pushed. She felt a shock of pain as the blade broke her skin. She closed her eyes and prayed to a God she’d never believed in for the peace and redemption that death would bring. The lights went out.

  The utility room went black. The Goldberg Variations ceased. McCabe flipped on his Maglite and raced for the stairs that circled the open hallway. He took them two at a time. He was breathing hard by the time he got to the third-floor landing. He could hear Maggie running close behind. Kane was nowhere in sight. Was he still in the room with Lucinda? What was he doing in there? Without power, Kane couldn’t see to cut, couldn’t use the saw. So what was he doing? The plan was for Kane to come out of the room to investigate the loss of power, to come out where McCabe could get him before he killed Lucy. Where the fuck was he?

  McCabe forced himself to calm down. He pressed his body against the wall on one side of the door, his .45 in his hand. Maggie took up a position on the other side. He flicked the Maglite off. An unholy blackness filled the space. Okay, Kane, get your ass out here. Investigate. Don’t you want to know why the power went off?

  Finally the lock turned, the door opened, and Lucas Kane emerged into the blackness of the hall. He walked three tentative steps.

  ‘Kane,’ McCabe said. The man turned to face him. McCabe switched on the Maglite. Lucas Kane raised his left hand to shield his eyes from the light. He peered toward the detective.

  ‘Lucas Kane, you’re under arrest,’ said McCabe, his voice flat, hard, matter-of-fact. ‘Turn around slowly and put your hands behind your head.’

  Kane didn’t move.

  ‘Just so you know, Kane, or is it Harry Lime? I’m pointing my gun right at your heart. I’m going to kill you if you don’t do exactly as I say.’

  Maggie rushed into the darkened room. McCabe could hear Cassidy’s muffled cries. She was still alive.

  ‘Lucas Kane,’ said McCabe, ‘I repeat, you’re under arrest for the murders of Katherine Dubois and Philip and Harriet Spencer. You have the right –’

  ‘Only those three?’ Kane interrupted the recitation of his rights. ‘What about the others? What about Elyse Andersen? She was my first, you know, and in some ways, the best. We used Elyse’s heart to save dear Daddy’s life.’

  ‘Out of love for the old man?’

  ‘Love? Good God, no. It was for the money. I’d already been written out of his will. There was no love between my father and me.’

  ‘You did the surgery? Or was it Wilcox?’

  ‘Only the harvest,’ he said. ‘Matt Wilcox did the transplant. He’s done them all. A talented surgeon, Matt. Elyse’s heart is still beating, right downstairs, inside the old man’s body.’

  McCabe was growing impatient. The longer this went on, the greater the potential for a fuckup. ‘Alright, Kane. Enough. Lie down on the floor. Now. Hands behind your back.’

  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Kane’s right hand slipped out of sight. A smile passed his lips. The smile of the hunter, not of the prey. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I have no intention of letting you or anybody else truss me up like a pig for the slaughter.’

  Suddenly Kane lunged. He was fast for a big man, amazingly fast. Something small and shiny flashed by McCabe’s face. McCabe dodged the blade and fired, point-blank, into Kane’s chest. The slug had to have hit, but Kane kept coming.

  ‘You can’t kill me, McCabe,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you know I’m already dead? Murdered in Florida?’

  Kane advanced slowly. McCabe backed away. He felt pain and wetness in his left hand, the one holding the Maglite. The scalpel, if that’s what it was, must have sliced the flesh between his thumb and index finger. He let the light fall to the floor, but it stayed on, illuminating the hall in a shadowy semidarkness.

  Kane slashed again, this time at McCabe’s face. McCabe fired again. Kane staggered but kept coming. Now there was blood leaking from his mouth. ‘I’m a ghost, McCabe. A ghost that’s going to slit your throat.’ Kane’s words came out in a choking cough.

  McCabe drew back farther, amazed Kane was still walking, still upright. Either one of those shots should have killed him. McCabe felt the edge of the banister press against the small of his back. Behind him, he knew, there was nothing but air, three stories down to a stone floor. Finally Kane threw himself forward, his arm swinging the scalpel wildly. McCabe crouched, ducking under the slashing blade. Then he lunged forward himself, rising up and under. The camera in McCabe’s mind recorded the next few seconds in slow motion. Kane’s momentum, aided by McCabe’s shoulder as he rose, lifted him up and over the rail. McCabe stared. Freeze-frame. Kane stared back, suspended for an instant, like a cartoon character, in midair. Then he wa
s falling, still clutching the scalpel, his arms flapping as if he could fly. Kane landed headfirst on the flagstone floor below.

  McCabe felt blood trickling from his wounded left hand. He holstered the .45, found some Kleenex in his back pocket and pressed it against the wound. He retrieved the Maglite and shone it down on Lucas Kane’s body three floors below.

  51

  Saturday. 12:30 A.M.

  ‘Is he dead?’

  McCabe turned and saw Maggie leaning against the door frame, watching, her weapon in her hand. Even in the dim light, she must have been able to see his left hand covered with bloody Kleenex, because she walked toward him and raised it over his head like a child in class who knew all the answers, though he knew he really didn’t. ‘How’s Lucinda?’ he asked.

  ‘Physically okay, I think. Otherwise? Who knows. The wound in her chest is superficial,’ Maggie said. ‘He must have been drawing the process out. Killing her slowly.’

  ‘Sadistic bastard,’ he said. He paused. ‘Kane’s dead.’

  ‘I know. I heard the shots and came out to help. Saw him go over the rail.’

  McCabe looked straight into Maggie’s eyes. They were practically the same height. ‘He came at me with a scalpel,’ he said. After an awkward moment, he waved his bloodied hand in her direction as a kind of proof that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  She touched her hand to his cheek. ‘You don’t have to convince me, McCabe.’

  Then she took the Maglite, and together they went back into the room where Lucinda Cassidy lay on a steel autopsy table, still naked, her hands and feet still bound to the table, her eyes wild with fear. A thin red line of blood ran neatly from just below her neck to just above her navel. It was already drying.

  Maggie bent down and retrieved the hospital gown from the floor. She covered Lucinda’s body, tying the strings around her neck. ‘Lucinda,’ she said, pointing the light at her own face, ‘you’re safe. I’m a police officer. Detective Margaret Savage.’ She shifted the beam to McCabe. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe. Nobody’s going to hurt you.’ She handed the light back to McCabe. ‘You’ll be all right now. You’re safe,’ she said, speaking gently like a mother trying to comfort an injured child. Lucinda’s frantic eyes darted rapidly from one to the other of them.

  ‘I’m going to take the tape from your mouth now,’ Maggie continued, ‘and unbind your hands and feet.’

  McCabe watched, sure Lucinda would start screaming and thrashing, as Maggie pulled away the duct tape and untied the restraints. She didn’t. She let Maggie take her in her arms and help her to a sitting position. Then Maggie hugged and stroked her and told her over and over that she was safe. That she would be okay. That the nightmare was over. To McCabe’s surprise, Cassidy simply closed her eyes, laid her head on Maggie’s shoulder, and quietly wept. She babbled a little, the babbles mostly incoherent, except for the word ‘Mommy,’ repeated a number of times. For Lucinda it was going to be a long road back. McCabe put the light on the autopsy table next to Maggie and went downstairs.

  In nearly complete darkness, he felt his way to the back utility room and flipped on the main power switch. The lights came back on. The Goldberg Variations picked up where they’d left off. In the hallway, Lucas Kane lay in the middle of the floor. Dead once. Now, dead again. This time for good. It was over.

  McCabe could hear sirens. He walked to the front door and opened it in time to see three Maine State Police cars and a MedCU unit scream into the compound. Maggie must have called Ellsworth after all. Good for Maggie.

  Troopers poured out of the cars dressed for combat. McCabe walked out of the house, hands in the air, holding his shield high over his head for the troopers to see.

  ‘McCabe?’ one of them called. A sergeant. Apparently in charge.

  ‘Yes,’ McCabe shouted and went to join them by the cars.

  ‘Sergeant Bill Dickinson, Ellsworth Barracks.’ He held out his hand.

  McCabe shook it. ‘Katie Dubois’s murderer is inside the big house. He’s dead. My partner’s upstairs caring for a female hostage.’

  ‘The Cassidy woman?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He turned to the EMTs, one of whom was bandaging his cut hand. ‘The woman upstairs – she’ll need to be sedated. Otherwise she seems okay. Third floor.’ They nodded and both of them headed for the building.

  ‘What else?’ asked Dickinson.

  ‘Some people are holed up in a large basement area under the cottage over there. A doctor. Some nurses. An old man with a serious heart condition. He’ll need medical attention, too.’

  ‘Armed? Fortified?’

  ‘No. They’re using it as an operating room. Just let them know you’re here. My guess is they’ll come out without a peep.’

  Two heavily armed troopers rushed the building and tried the door. Unlocked. They slipped inside.

  McCabe watched them go, then turned and started walking back toward the house.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Sergeant Dickinson’s voice boomed out behind him.

  McCabe looked back. ‘Me? I’m getting my partner and going home.’

  52

  Saturday. 1:00 A.M.

  They started back to Portland the same way they’d come. Maggie was at the wheel. McCabe stared silently out the window, thinking about nothing, thinking about everything. The road was nearly empty now, and Maggie drove fast, easily overtaking the few cars they encountered along the way. Temperatures had fallen down near the freezing mark, but the promised flurries hadn’t materialized. ‘Get some sleep,’ she said. ‘We can trade over in an hour or so.’ He nodded and closed his eyes, but they wouldn’t stay closed. Instead they focused on the center stripe, reflected in the headlights, rushing toward them, then disappearing under the hood of the car.

  In the warmth generated by the heater, McCabe’s weary brain played and replayed the final seconds of Lucas Kane’s life, watching from another vantage point as he and Kane engaged in their slow, final dance of death. He saw Kane, already bleeding from two bullet wounds, lunge forward. Saw himself duck beneath the arc of Kane’s slashing blade. Then from his crouching position he saw himself drive forward, his shoulder striking Kane just below the waist. Finally he watched himself as he rose and, using Kane’s own forward momentum, lifted the bigger man up and over the railing. He watched the fall. The flapping of the arms. The fatal impact.

  Each time he watched, McCabe came to the same conclusion. If he hadn’t risen, if, instead, he’d moved straight forward, or angled left or right, Kane wouldn’t have gone over the rail. He would have just been knocked to the floor. In all probability, he would have died from the gunshot wounds anyway. Either way, the question McCabe had no answer for was a simple one. Had he flipped Kane over the rail on purpose? Had he, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, wanted to make absolutely sure that there would be no trial? That there would be no Sheldon Thomas finding some slick way to get the killer off? He wasn’t certain of the answer – and if truth be told, he finally realized, he didn’t really care. Just as he’d told Kyra about TwoTimes, the man was vermin and he deserved to die. Ambiguity. McCabe was comfortable with that.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Maggie asked, glancing over at him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said finally, after thinking about it a little longer. ‘Yes. I’m fine.’ He gazed out the driver’s side window. They were crossing the Penobscot River east of Bucksport on the old Waldo-Hancock Bridge. The skeleton of the new bridge, still under construction, rose out of the darkness just south of them.

  Near Stockton Springs, they stopped for coffee and a couple of candy bars at an all-night gas station. Neither had slept in nearly forty-eight hours. They were both exhausted. The last thing they needed was for one or the other of them to fall asleep at the wheel. McCabe filled the tank. Then they switched around and he drove.

  He checked his watch – 2:00 A.M. Casey would be asleep in Boston now. In a big bed in a fancy hotel. Anyway, he hoped she was sleeping and not lying awake worrying. He wonde
red if she and Sandy were sharing a bed. If so, he hoped Sandy had given her a choice about that. He also hoped Sandy hadn’t made any remarks about Casey being too old to still be sleeping with Bunny.

  His cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID. Shockley. He flipped the phone to speaker mode so Maggie could hear. ‘Hello, Tom. I guess you heard about Kane.’

  ‘You’re damned right I did. Good work. Great work.’ Shockley sounded excited. ‘I issued standing orders for Dispatch to wake me if and when we got this bastard. Can you let me have a few of the details? I’m talking to the press in a little while.’ McCabe smiled, imagining visions of Blaine House, the governor’s mansion, dancing like sugarplums through Shockley’s overeager brain. ‘Mike, can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Chief. By the way, you’re on speaker. Maggie’s here.’

  ‘Fine. Can you give me any of the details? I need to get this right.’

  McCabe took Shockley through the whole thing, starting with his call to Priscilla Pepper and ending with Kane’s final fall to the stone floor and Cassidy being found alive.

  ‘Was the scalpel still in his hand when he died?’

  ‘Yes,’ said McCabe. ‘It was.’

  ‘I saw the whole thing, Chief,’ added Maggie. McCabe glanced at her, knowing she’d only come out of the room in time to see Kane go over the rail. ‘Use of deadly force was justified,’ she said.

  ‘Well, thank God for that,’ Shockley replied. ‘The media briefing starts in about twenty minutes. Will you two be back by then?’

  ‘No. We’re still the other side of Belfast,’ said Maggie. ‘A couple of hours out.’