The Chill of Night

by James Hayman

  ‘Well, they’re about to get a healthy chunk of money.’

  ‘From what I hear, they can use it.’

  Kotterman closed down her computer and leaned back. She looked tired. ‘I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got. Is there anything else I can do for you, Detective?’

  ‘Did you know Lainie well?’

  ‘No, hardly at all. Palmer Milliken has over three hundred employees. I’ve only talked to her occasionally. Usually about HR procedures.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘At our Christmas party.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Friday, December sixteenth. At the Pemaquid Club. Most of the partners are members, and the firm took over the whole place.’ The Pemaquid Club was a membership-only gathering place for Portland’s rich and well connected. It was housed in a century-old redbrick mansion on the city’s West End.

  ‘Did you speak to her at the party?’

  ‘Just in passing. Merry Christmas. Have a great holiday. That sort of thing. Lainie wasn’t a woman who’d waste much time chatting up someone like me. She had bigger fish to fry.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as the partners. Especially the senior partners. Most especially the male senior partners. She was, from what I hear, an extremely ambitious woman.’

  ‘Really?’ said McCabe. ‘Now, who did you hear that from?’

  Kotterman rolled the question around in her mind before answering. ‘The grapevine. People talk.’

  ‘While they were talking, did any of them say anything about Lainie Goff being involved?’ he asked. ‘Maybe with one of the partners? Maybe with more than one?’

  ‘You know, Detective, it’s late and I’m tired. I’ve probably said too much already.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Ms Kotterman, but I’d also appreciate it if you could tell me who you saw Lainie talking to at the party. Who she spent time chatting up, as you put it. Anyone in particular?’

  ‘I didn’t notice.’

  McCabe knew Kotterman wouldn’t give him much more, but he had nothing to lose by trying. ‘A minute ago you said she had bigger fish to fry? I’m wondering who that might have been.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Detective. I probably misspoke. I didn’t know Lainie all that well. As you can imagine, I’m very upset by the news of her death. I’m sure everyone in the firm will be. Why don’t we just leave it at that?’

  ‘Just a few more questions.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  McCabe wondered if the head of HR was going to refuse to tell him anything more. It was her right to do so. ‘It’s important,’ he said.

  Kotterman sighed. ‘Alright. As long as your questions aren’t of a personal nature.’

  McCabe nodded assent. ‘Okay. How long has Lainie Goff been with the firm, and what exactly did she do here?’

  ‘She’s an attorney. A senior associate. She started here shortly after she graduated from Cornell Law in 2000. She worked in the Mergers and Acquisitions Group.’

  ‘Was she on track for a partnership?’

  ‘I have no idea. The partners don’t generally share their intentions with me. My role is more administrative.’

  ‘But she would have wanted one, right?’

  ‘Of course. All associates want partnerships. The ones who don’t get offers usually leave the firm.’

  ‘Do you know who her friends were at the office? Who she hung out with?’

  ‘I already told you I didn’t know Lainie very well. Why don’t I make you a list of the people who worked in the same practice area? That might be the simplest thing.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s start there.’ McCabe watched as Kotterman turned back to her computer. It was clear the older woman didn’t like Goff. That wasn’t surprising. The Beth Kottermans of the world didn’t like Sandy much either. So how much of what she implied was based on truth and how much on simple resentment of the beautiful diva? He needed to find out. ‘Who was Lainie’s boss?’

  ‘The senior partner in charge of M&A. Henry Ogden. She reported to him.’

  Ogden. Okay. He was the guy who signed out of the building ten minutes after Lainie. Had Henry Ogden seen Lainie that night? Was he the last person to see her alive? McCabe had no answers. Just possibilities. He had a lot of work to do. ‘Does Ogden know about Lainie’s death?’ he asked.

  ‘Not from me. I was waiting until I knew for sure it was Lainie. Until after I’d spoken to you. I’m going to call him at home after you leave.’

  ‘I need to speak to Mr Ogden as soon as possible. Can you give me his home number and, if you have it, his cell?’

  She wrote both numbers on another Post-it note and handed it to McCabe.

  ‘Is there anything else you need from me, Detective, before I go home?’

  ‘Yes. I’d like to take a look at Lainie Goff’s office.’

  ‘I can show you where her office is, but I’m afraid you can’t go in. She almost certainly kept her files in there, and we’d have big client confidentiality issues.’

  ‘That could present problems.’

  ‘You can check with Henry Ogden, but I’m sure his answer will be the same. That Lainie’s office, her files, and her computer are off-limits unless and until you get a subpoena. Even with a subpoena I’m not sure we can give you access to our client files.’

  ‘Fine. We’ll request a warrant first thing in the morning. In the meantime I’m going to post a uniformed officer and have a padlock put on the place. We’ll also put a DO NOT ENTER sign on the door. I’d appreciate it if you could let everyone at Palmer Milliken know that the office is off-limits.’

  Eight

  Harts Island, Maine

  Friday, January 6

  11:30 P.M.

  Abby Quinn didn’t know how long she’d been in the closet at the Castellanos’ empty summer cottage, but it seemed like a long time. The thin strip of daylight that earlier seeped under the closed door had faded hours ago. This was her fourth hiding place since Tuesday, the fourth in four days, but now she’d made the decision to leave the island it would also be the last. Her plan was simple. The Castellanos’ house was no more than a hundred yards from the ferry landing. The last boat Friday nights left the island at eleven fifty-five. Bobby Howser was the mate on the late boat. She went to high school with Bobby. He used to be a friend. As soon as she saw him getting ready to haul in the gangway, she’d sprint the hundred yards and, if she timed it right, leap on just as the boat was pulling away from the dock, leaving the monster stranded on the island. The monster she thought of as Death.

  Abby pushed the button that lit the face of her old, cheap digital watch. Twenty-five minutes to go. She pressed back against the wall of the closet and wrapped her arms around her knees. She squeezed as hard as she could, as if by squeezing, she could push the fear from her body, the urge to run screaming into the night.

  Last Tuesday replayed itself in Abby’s mind for the thousandth time. The day had started out normally enough. Another day so cold Abby couldn’t think of a good reason to get out of bed. She slept late, and when she finally woke up she spent most of the afternoon lying under her heavy quilt reading the latest Stephanie Plum and listening to her mother clank around downstairs.

  Things were going pretty good for a change. She was staying on her meds, and they seemed to be working. The Voices were quiet. She was living like a real person and not some freak. She was working the dinner shift at the Crow’s Nest and doing okay. Taking orders and getting them right. Reciting the specials from memory. Writing out the checks. Asking customers how they were. Telling them she was doing fine. She was making money and saving it and thinking she might somehow have a life.

  Yes, the drugs were making her fat like they always did, but this time she was fighting back. No beer. No snacks. No desserts. Plus, most nights after she finished at the Nest, she jogged the four-mile circuit around the island even though it was late, even though it was cold. Abby was too self-conscious about her jiggling
flesh to even consider jogging in the daylight. Someone would see her and laugh at the crazy lady trying to get her floppy body into shape. The Voices might even wake up and start mocking her. No. That wasn’t acceptable. Night offered cover, and cover was good. If she could keep up the diet and exercise, maybe in the spring she’d enroll in a couple of courses at USM. Get a few more credits toward her accounting degree. Yes, she decided. That’s what she’d do if she could stay on her regimen and lose the weight and could keep the frigging Voices quiet.

  Her psychiatrist told her over and over the Voices weren’t real.

  ‘No,’ she insisted, ‘they are real. I can hear them.’

  ‘Hearing voices is a symptom of your illness, Abby. A symptom we can control with medication.’

  She didn’t answer. Her shrink was full of shit. The Voices were real.

  ‘When you hear them,’ he asked, ‘are they loud? Or are they quiet?’

  ‘Sometimes quiet. Sometimes loud. Sometimes so loud I can’t hear anything else.’

  ‘When they’re loud, do other people hear them? Or just you?’

  ‘Other people hear them. They just pretend they can’t.’

  He thought about that. ‘Do you ever hear them in this office?’

  ‘Sometimes. Yes.’

  ‘Do you hear them now?’

  She listened. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are they saying?’

  She smiled slyly. ‘They’re saying that you’re full of shit.’

  He returned her smile. ‘Sometimes I am full of shit,’ he said, ‘but not about this. I can’t hear them, Abby. Really, I can’t. I’m not pretending.’

  She didn’t buy it. The Voices were real. They hated her. They wanted to kill her. She didn’t tell him any of that. She just thought it.

  But he always seemed to know what she was thinking. Maybe he had a way of listening in.

  ‘In one way the voices are real, Abby,’ he said. ‘They’re real to you. But they’re real only in your brain. Not outside. And while we can’t get them out of your brain, we can control them. We can keep them quiet. Keep them from interfering with your life. Isn’t that what you want?’

  She nodded silently. Yes, that’s what she wanted. If only he knew how desperately she wanted it. She nodded again, this time more vigorously.

  ‘Okay. If that’s what you want, you have to take your medication every day. No slipping or skipping or pretending you don’t need it.’

  ‘The pills make me fat.’

  ‘We can’t totally prevent that, Abby, but you can minimize it. Watch what you eat. Exercise. You were an athlete in high school, weren’t you?’

  Yes, she was. Emphasis on the past tense. Was. Seven years ago. Varsity field hockey and lacrosse for the Portland High School Lady Bulldogs. The Barkin’ Bitches, the boys called them.

  ‘Weren’t you?’ he asked again.

  She nodded.

  ‘Tell me in words, Abby. Don’t just nod.’

  ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘Then train your body like you’re still trying to make the team.’

  She listened, and together they wrote out a diet and exercise plan. And she was sticking to it, It seemed to be working. She felt normal. She was still fat, but not as fat as before. She was getting stronger. Even though, when she looked at her naked body in the bathroom mirror, it still looked more bloblike than she could bear.

  Tuesday was a quiet night at the Nest. Only two couples came in for dinner all night, and they were early birds. Paid up and gone by seven o’clock. After that, just a couple of the regulars hung out at the bar. Hard-core drinkers who wanted a break from the bar at the Legion. Lori was annoyed about staying open with just a couple of drunks for customers. But what the hell else did she expect on a freezing Tuesday in January with nobody but year-rounders still on the island? The big spenders, the summer people, had long since drained their pipes, boarded up their windows, and fled back to their real lives in Boston or New York, Dallas or Atlanta.

  Abby spent the hours till closing sweeping the floor, putting stuff away, and bullshitting with Travis Garmin, who was tending bar and, as usual, hitting on her. Sometimes she was tempted to take Travis up on it. He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. In fact, Lori said Travis was so dumb if a customer gave him a penny for his thoughts, he’d have to give ’em change. Still, he looked good and didn’t seem to mind that she was fat. Didn’t even notice when she started getting weird. Just smiled at her with that goofy grin of his.

  By eight thirty, Lori said the hell with it and announced they were closing early. They finished putting stuff away and locked up around nine. Travis asked if she wanted to go park on the backshore, look at the waves and maybe smoke some weed. She said no, she wanted to go for her run. He didn’t push it. Just said okay and dropped her off at her mother’s house behind Tomkins Cove. She climbed out of his truck and stood on her front steps for a couple of minutes. She watched his taillights disappear up the hill. Probably going off to smoke by himself. Or maybe find some other island girl to fool around with. Abby breathed in the cold fresh air and gazed at the full moon and the million stars that were spread across the dark sky in a wide swath. She sometimes thought that’s where the Voices came from. They were visitors from a galaxy far, far away, and they were taking over the bodies of earthlings one by one by one. Sooner or later they’d control everybody. One time she told her shrink about this theory. He got this worried look on his face that made her wonder if he might not actually be one of the aliens. Maybe he planned to kill her to keep her from telling the authorities. So she backed off real quick. Told him she was just kidding. He didn’t laugh. Just asked her if she’d gone off her meds. Afterward Abby tried telling the police about the aliens and about how humans were controlled by them. She was pretty sure they didn’t believe her either.

  She went inside. No key needed. Her mother’s front door hadn’t been locked in twenty years. She shut it fast to keep the heat from escaping. What heat there was. Inside, she could hear some jerk screeching away on American Idol. What crap. Even the Voices sounded better than that. She clicked the TV off and glanced at her mother, Gracie, to see if the sudden silence would wake her up. It didn’t. She was lying nearly prone on the recliner. Her head was back, her mouth open. A wet rasping sound, half snore, half gurgle, was coming out. Abby picked up the half-dozen empty Bud Light cans scattered on the floor around the chair and tossed them into the recycling bin. She’d try to remember to return them to the store before work tomorrow. Thirty cents was thirty cents. She tossed a log into the woodstove and checked the monitor. It was throwing about as much heat as it was capable of. Before heading upstairs, she studied the worn face of the woman who’d given her life. Not fifty yet but fat and pasty looking. Like the Pillsbury Doughboy’s grubby older sister. Gracie was stuffed into a dirty Old Navy sweatshirt that was two sizes too small for her and baggy jeans that were two sizes too big. Her teeth were brown and stained, the ones she had left, anyway. Even counting the broken ones Gracie’s mouth was a whole bunch short of a full set. Please God, Abby thought, don’t ever let me end up like her.

  She went up to her room and pulled off the black pants and white button-down shirt she wore at the Nest. She stepped on the bathroom scale. Not bad. Down another half pound. She still looked blobby in the mirror, though. Still had a ways to go. Her running clothes were piled on the chair in her bedroom. She put them on, layering them for warmth. Long polypropylene underwear over her bra and pants. A long-sleeve cotton turtleneck. A Thinsulate-lined shirt. A pair of black Gore-Tex storm pants. A fleece vest. Some thermal socks and her Nikes. Last, she ripped open a plastic bag and pulled out a brand-new Blue Lightning Neoprene Face Mask. She slipped it on and checked her image in the mirror. She smiled broadly. Spider-Man was looking back at her. Only this Spider-Man was blue, not red. Either way she’d scare the shit out of anybody she passed on her run tonight. The idea pleased her. She growled at herself in the mirror.

  Downstairs, Gracie looked li
ke she was out for the count. ‘Go to bed,’ Abby yelled in her ear. No reaction. ‘Say good night, Gracie.’ Her father’s old joke. Still no reaction. The hell with it. Abby sat on a kitchen chair and pulled on her ice cleats over the Nikes. The last thing she needed was to slip on the ice and break something. Finally she put on her black Gore-Tex jacket and her fanny pack with a mini flashlight and her meds already inside. She clipped a key ring to her belt. It held thirteen keys. One for the back door of the Crow’s Nest. One for each of the twelve summer cottages Abby kept an eye on while their owners were away. Her jogging route took her past all twelve. Easy work. Easy money. More important to Abby, it proved that a whole bunch of people could trust her with their expensive homes.

  The thermometer nailed to the tree in the yard read twelve degrees. There was no wind. Abby figured that’d change when she hit the backshore and the open ocean. No worries. She was prepared for the cold. She took off and broke into an easy jog. Hard-packed snow crunched under her feet. A full moon lit her way. A moon made for creatures of the night. Weirdos and werewolves and crazies like her. She followed the dirt track that led for about a half mile from her house to the backshore. The ice cleats slowed her down some, but that was okay. They made her feel sure-footed climbing the icy rises.

  She passed the Healys’ log cabin. One of her houses. Only deer tracks marred the crunchy layer that covered the snow, and she ran on. Watching the cottages involved little more than keeping an eye out for storm damage or signs of a break-in. Nothing much ever happened. One time she did notice a broken window at the Morrisseys’. A B&E, the cops called it. Breaking and entering. Turned out vandals had spray-painted dirty pictures all over the walls. Men with big dicks and dangling balls banging away at bent-over women with huge boobs. Some stuff was stolen, too. A flat-screen TV, some stereo equipment, and, according to Dan Morrissey, three bottles of Kahlúa. The cops thought stealing Kahlúa was weird, but Abby knew lots of island kids who loved the stuff. Shit, why wouldn’t they? It not only got them drunk, it tasted like dessert. The cops never caught anyone. Just wrote up an incident report so the Morrisseys could file an insurance claim. That was the cops for you. Do-nothing assholes.