The Chill of Night

by James Hayman

  ‘This what you’re looking for?’ The sudden sound of Jacobi’s voice made McCabe jump. Jacobi was holding out a spiral-bound booklet with a clear plastic cover. McCabe took it. The first page contained only title, author, and date. ‘An Examination of the Prophetic Tradition in the Old Testament. John Kelly, TOR. May 2, 1994.’

  He opened it and began reading. At the top of page 21 he found exactly what he was looking for. An italicized quote, All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us. Beneath it was what appeared to be a lengthy and scholarly discussion of how and why a vengeful God would deal with those who ignored his precepts. McCabe stared at the quote. Seeing it on paper seemed to seal the deal. Kelly was guilty. McCabe just needed a motive and some hard evidence that would convince a jury. Jacobi got up from his chair and stood looking over McCabe’s shoulder.

  ‘So Kelly’s your pither, huh?’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  The quiet in the room was broken by the William Tell Overture, the part that used to be the theme music from The Lone Ranger on TV. Tasco hit a button on his phone. The music stopped. ‘Tasco,’ he said. ‘Yeah? Okay. Good. Let me write that down.’ He removed a small notebook and pen from his coat pocket and made a notation. ‘Thanks, Andrea. Yeah, you, too.’ He looked at McCabe. ‘That was Verizon.’

  ‘Kelly’s password?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Bunch of numbers.’ He read from the note. ‘726288279.’

  ‘It spells “sanctuary.” ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The numbers. They spell out the word ‘sanctuary’ on a telephone keypad. Should’ve guessed that one an hour ago. I must be losing it.’

  They went into the bedroom. McCabe picked up the receiver and dialed the number for Verizon voice mail. ‘John Kelly,’ said a male voice.

  Then a computerized female voice came on. ‘Please enter your password.’

  McCabe entered the letters S-A-N-C-T-U-A-R-Y.

  ‘You have one new message. To listen to your messages now, press one.’

  McCabe pressed one.

  ‘First new message. From unknown caller. Received Tuesday, December twentieth, at 6:44 P.M.’

  ‘I know what you’ve been doing, you asshole, and you’re not going to get away with it. We need to talk. And don’t try ignoring me. I’ll try your other line.’ McCabe realized he’d never heard Lainie Goff’s voice before. Still, he was sure it was her.

  ‘To hear the message again, press one.’

  He pressed one. ‘I know what you’ve been doing, you asshole, and you’re not going to get away with it. We need to talk. And don’t try ignoring me. I’ll try your other line.’ I know what you’ve been doing, you asshole. What exactly was Kelly doing? Was it the motive McCabe was searching for? He handed the phone to Tasco and let him listen.

  The front door opened and closed. Bowman’s voice called out, ‘Hey! McCabe! Where are you?’

  ‘In here.’

  Bowman appeared in the door of the bedroom. ‘Get your coats on,’ he said. ‘You guys better come see what we found.’

  It was still dark, and McCabe didn’t see it at first. Not until Bowman positioned the beam of his flashlight right on the spot. A human hand, sticking up out of melting snow and attached to about six inches of skinny arm that was covered in a solid mass of blue tattoos. Young and almost certainly male. Both hand and arm looked frozen. The same waxy sheen he’d seen on Lainie Goff’s body. McCabe looked around to position himself. They were standing in a wooded area a couple of hundred feet southwest of the house. ‘This still Kelly’s property?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bowman. ‘It goes back another fifty feet about to that big pine tree over there.’

  Two of Jacobi’s techs, Jeff Feeney and Carla Morrisey, had already started stringing yellow crime scene tape in a wide perimeter around the spot, shooing away a couple of the local searchers. They retreated to the far side of the tape.

  I know what you’ve been doing, you asshole, and you’re not going to get away with it. Goff’s accusation played over and over in McCabe’s head. Was this what Kelly was doing? Abusing teenaged boys from Sanctuary House? Just like the priest who had abused him? Had Goff found out about it and accused him? Had he killed Goff, and this boy as well, to keep her from going public? To keep her from calling the cops and, in the process, destroying him and his life’s work, Sanctuary House? McCabe shined his own light on the hand and arm sticking out of the snow. He was sure he’d found a motive that, for John Kelly, would have been far more powerful than mere money.

  When the area was circled in tape, Feeney and Morrisey hauled a small generator and a couple of powerful floods out of the back of their van. Feeney began setting them up on top of steel tripods. Morrisey unrolled heavy black cable from the generator to the lights. She plugged it in and flicked a switch, and suddenly the burial site was lit up like center field at Yankee Stadium.

  McCabe called Terri Mirabito at home again.

  ‘Jesus, McCabe, don’t you ever sleep? What is it now?’

  ‘We found another body.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

  ‘Frozen.’

  ‘Pithed?’

  ‘Don’t know yet.’ McCabe watched as Feeney began shooting the crime scene photos with a high-end digital camera. Morrisey was taking measurements to precisely position the spot where they found the arm on a location diagram. ‘All we can see so far is an arm. Looks like a boy’s. The rest of the body, assuming there is a rest of the body, is still buried in a couple of feet of snow and ice. If the weather hadn’t warmed up and melted a bunch, we wouldn’t have found it at all.’

  ‘Okay. I’m getting dressed. Where do I go this time?’

  ‘Head on down to Casco Bay Lines. I’ll make sure the fireboat’s waiting for you.’

  ‘Harts Island?’

  ‘Yeah. There’ll be a car waiting on this side. I’m calling Fortier, too, so don’t take off without him.’

  It was nearly six o’clock, and Fortier was already awake sipping coffee. He said he’d throw some clothes on and be at the dock in fifteen minutes. Before he hung up McCabe asked him to bring along some dry socks and, if he had them, an extra pair of waterproof boots, size eleven or thereabouts, and, oh yeah, if he didn’t mind terribly, maybe a hair dryer. Fortier said he’d see what he could rustle up.

  By the time all the crime scene photos were shot and the measurements taken, a thin strip of orange was beginning to appear over a mostly green and gray eastern horizon. Feeney and Morrisey had started gently digging away the snow from around the arm. They worked carefully, like archeologists uncovering a precious artifact. McCabe looked up and saw Terri trudging through the snow toward him, carrying her little black doctor’s bag. Fortier walked behind her, holding a white shopping bag with MACY’s printed on both sides. He handed the bag to McCabe, who took it and headed for the cottage, forcing himself not to look back at the smirk he was sure was planted on Bowman’s face.

  Inside the white bag McCabe found a pair of dark blue crew socks rolled in a ball, a pair of size eleven L.L. Bean trademark boots – green rubber on the bottom, tan leather on top – and a small portable hair dryer. He located an electric outlet, one of only two in the room, and dragged over a wooden chair. He removed his shoes and socks. His toes were totally numb, but they didn’t look as frozen as the kid’s arm. He took that as a good sign. He plugged in the dryer and started blowing warm air over his feet. It didn’t feel good. After only a few seconds his toes started hurting like a bitch. He wondered if PPD regs said anything about a detective’s fitness for duty if he happened to be missing a toe or two. It was time, he told himself, to start dressing properly for Maine winters. Manhattan was a long time ago and a long way away.

  It took about half an hour of careful scraping before the frozen corpse of a teenaged boy began to emerge. He was lying on one side and was naked except for the ta
ttoos that covered both arms and the rows of silver rings that were pierced into the skin above his right eye and along the curve of his lower lip. Even in death he had the sweet angelic face of a child, one that reminded McCabe of the face of Edward Mullaney, the abused altar boy he’d known so many years ago. The altar boy who was now a convicted pedophile and rapist. And so the cycle of sin continues, McCabe mused to himself, transmitted like a virus from abuser to abused, down through the generations and back again.

  Judging by the layers of crusting ice around his body, McCabe figured the boy had been buried three snowfalls ago. He stood between Fortier and Terri and watched the techs take pictures of the uncovered corpse. ‘We’ve managed to move Goff’s limbs enough to straighten her out,’ Terri said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I think she was sexually tortured. There are burn marks in and around the opening of her vagina.’

  McCabe closed his eyes and sighed deeply, wondering why Kelly had had to do that. It was so hard to think of the man as a sadist. The minute anyone starts thinking they know who or what John Kelly is, it’s time to think again.

  ‘What about the bruising we saw in the trunk of the car?’

  ‘My guess is those bruises are old. She probably fought back when he grabbed her. Then he drugged her and kept her drugged, except maybe for the torture sessions. I have a hunch when we finally get the tox reports, we’ll find she was heavily sedated at the time of death.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No. Nothing under her nails, and other than the burns, the body is as clean as a whistle. I think he may have bathed her just before he killed her.’

  Maybe that’s why he took her to Markham’s house, thought McCabe. No heat or water here. Plenty of both there – and, as Markham himself said, half the island knew where the key was hidden.

  When the techs had finished, Terri knelt down next to the body in the hole they’d made and began her preliminary examination with gloved hands. ‘Yep. He’s been pithed, alright,’ she said. ‘There’s also considerable bruising and what looks like bleeding and torn skin around the rectum.’

  ‘Rough sex?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Either that or …’

  Terri paused. She didn’t look happy.

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘I think our friend may have enjoyed pushing sharp objects into places they didn’t belong.’

  McCabe winced again. Lainie Goff’s words came screaming back to him one more time. I know what you’ve been doing, you asshole, and you’re not going to get away with it. Unfortunately, Kelly got her before she got him. At least she was right about one thing. He wasn’t going to get away with it.

  Thirty-Four

  Portland, Maine

  At exactly 8:30 A.M. Sunday, McCabe dropped Maggie’s keys off with Kyra. Half an hour later he strode into 109. In spite of the fact that he’d had about six hours’ sleep in the last forty-eight, he felt good. Better than good. Thanks to the adrenaline rush of uncovering Lainie Goff’s killer, combined with four large cups of coffee, he felt locked and loaded. Primed for confrontation. Ready to rock and roll. Coffee number five was warming his hand. Tanzanian Peaberry Fair Trade Dark Roast from the Coffee by Design on India Street.

  A handwritten note from Shockley greeted him at his desk. Come see me ASAP. I’m in my office. P.S. Congratulations!!!

  McCabe headed down the hall for the chief’s office on the southeast corner of the floor. He could hear the reporters buzzing from fifty feet away. He spotted Shockley standing at the door, jacket off, tie loosened, arms folded, sleeves rolled up. A textbook image of the hard-charging leader who’d been up all night leading his troops in the apprehension of a vicious killer.

  At the moment the GO had the ear of Luke McGuire of the Press Herald. The rest of the sizable room was crammed with just about every other crime reporter in the state plus a few stringers from the Boston and New York papers. McCabe scanned the room and found Shockley’s girlfriend, Josie Tenant. She was in the corner writing some notes, no doubt preparing to broadcast good news to the world as soon as Shockley gave the go sign. Cameras were pointed toward Shockley’s desk, awaiting the chief’s reassuring message to an anxious and waiting city.

  ‘Mike! Come on in.’ The chief leapt up, grabbed his elbow, and steered him through the throng to his desk. He smiled expansively. ‘Thought I’d make the announcement from right here in my office. Kind of give the viewers an inside look at the department. What d’ya think? Nice touch, huh?’

  It wasn’t exactly the way it was supposed to be done. That’s what the pressroom on the ground floor was for. McCabe knew Shockley didn’t care. He probably figured announcing Kelly’s arrest from his office, perhaps sitting casually on the corner of his desk, would let the public know that they could credit him personally with catching the bad guy.

  McCabe didn’t care about that either. With Kelly in custody and Quinn safely in Winter Haven, today was a good day, and Shockley’s bullshit couldn’t screw it up. After all the darkness, the sun was finally beginning to shine. They’d caught Lainie Goff’s killer less than sixty hours after finding her body at the end of the Fish Pier. Maggie was okay and getting out of the hospital. Casey was coming home. And, best of all, so was Kyra. They’d have a good dinner. They’d make love. Maybe he’d get a little sleep – and he wouldn’t have any ugly dreams about his ex-wife.

  ‘Sure, Chief, that’s great. You enjoy yourself. Just do me a favor. Let me see what I can get out of Kelly before you make any major announcements.’

  ‘Hold on, McCabe,’ Shockley said in a lower, more private voice. ‘We need a conviction on this.’ The smile was gone. ‘Are you telling me you’re not sure you’ve got enough?’

  ‘Just let me interview him.’

  ‘What more do you need?’

  ‘A confession would help. We’re also waiting on DNA results from Augusta. Joe Pines promised the matches for this morning. The last thing you need is to make a big announcement and then have to take it back.’

  ‘Alright.’ Shockley sighed. ‘For now, I’ll just say we’re talking to “a person of interest.” That’ll hold ’em for a while. Just do me a favor. Don’t wait too long.’

  McCabe headed out into the corridor. ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.’ He could hear Shockley’s voice behind him, the man’s trademark smile in the delivery. ‘This morning, as you may have guessed, I’ve got some very good news …’

  On the monitor in Fortier’s office, McCabe watched Kelly sitting alone in the small interview room. He didn’t look happy. ‘Did you have to cuff him?’

  ‘Yeah. I think he might have gotten violent if I didn’t,’ said Brian Cleary, ‘and then I would have had to get violent back.’ Cleary grinned. ‘And I know how you hate that.’

  ‘He say anything?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Eddie Fraser. ‘Other than to tell us several times we were assholes. He’s just sitting there seething.’

  ‘Ask for a lawyer?’

  ‘Again, not yet.’

  Even on the monitor, McCabe could feel anger radiating off the man in waves. He stared at the image, trying to square Kelly’s hot temper with the cool, methodical MO of Lainie Goff’s murderer. He was sure Kelly was capable of killing Goff. He was just surprised at the way he went about it. The whole scene at the Fish Pier didn’t feel right. It was too showy. On the other hand, maybe he was reading the guy wrong. The minute anyone starts thinking … Wolfe’s words played in his head again. Maybe that was it. Maybe he’d better think again.

  Before entering the room, McCabe unbuckled his holster and weapon and handed them to Fraser. He’d decided to remove Kelly’s cuffs, and he knew Kyra would be really pissed if he let a prisoner shoot him with his own gun. Probably never agree to marry him.

  ‘Hello, John,’ McCabe said in a cheerful voice. ‘Sorry about the restraints.’

  Kelly looked up. His blue, nearly violet eyes bore into McCabe for a few seconds. Then he turned away.

  ‘I
can remove the cuffs if you like.’

  No response.

  ‘You’ve just got to promise you’re not going to get crazy on me or anything.’

  Kelly looked down. Closed his eyes. Took some deep breaths. McCabe could see his jaw muscles working as if he were clenching his teeth. Finally he looked up. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay what?’

  ‘Unlock the cuffs. I won’t beat you up.’

  McCabe smiled. ‘Good. My girlfriend will be glad to hear that.’

  He went behind Kelly’s chair and freed his arms. Then he walked around to the other side of the table and sat.

  Kelly stretched his arms, rubbed his wrists, then clasped his hands on the table like a student in Catholic school waiting for the teacher. Neither of them said anything. They just sat there looking at each other for a while.

  McCabe spoke first. ‘We searched your cabin.’

  ‘Yes. I know. I gave you permission. Remember?’ There was still an edge in his voice.

  ‘We found the quote.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘The one from the Book of Amos. It was in the paper you wrote. The one from grad school.’

  Kelly shrugged. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Oh, by the way. We also found the boy.’

  He saw a flicker of doubt in Kelly’s eyes. Then it disappeared. ‘What boy?’

  ‘The one outside your cabin.’

  ‘I don’t know who or what you’re talking about.’

  ‘He was only about fourteen or so, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘The boy you sexually abused? Then killed. Then buried in the snow. At your place? On Harts Island. You did a hell of a job, John. What did you stick up his rear end? The same knife you used to kill Goff?’