The Chill of Night (16 page)

‘She was wearing this mask because …?’ asked Maggie.

‘She was out jogging that night. The winds on the backshore can be brutal on bare skin, and I guess it was part of her gear. Anyway, when she passed the Markhams’ cottage –’

‘That’s the crime scene?’

‘Yeah. As she passed she saw candlelight in one of the windows. Since it’s one of her houses –’

‘What do you mean, her houses?’

‘Abby makes a few bucks keeping an eye on some of the summer cottages for the owners. She has keys to all of them. This was one of them. According to Lori Sparks at the Nest, she takes the responsibility seriously. I guess that’s why she went in to investigate.’

McCabe’s eyes, narrowed almost to slits, bored in on Bowman. ‘Wouldn’t she have taken the mask off when she went inside?’

‘I don’t think so. She had it on when she got here, and she kept it on. I couldn’t tell who she was, and I had to ask her twice to take it off. She finally did, but only reluctantly, and even then she wouldn’t let go of it. I think she saw it as some kind of whatchamacallit, a talisman or something.’

McCabe’s mind played with the possibilities. If Abby was wearing a mask when she saw the murder, if the killer couldn’t see her face, as Bowman suggested, it changed the dynamic of what they were doing. ‘You’re sure Sonny Cates didn’t tell the searchers why they were looking for Quinn?’ he asked. ‘He didn’t say anything about her witnessing a murder?’

‘No,’ said Bowman. ‘He couldn’t have. Like I told you, he didn’t know that himself. All I told Cates was that Quinn was missing and we needed to find her. In fact, that’s all Daniels knew till we went to pick you up off the boat.’

Okay, that was good. ‘How about her mother and the people at the Crow’s Nest?’

‘Same thing. I just asked them if they knew where Abby was, they said no. Travis Garmin told me to try her cell number. He knew it by heart. We did. Got no answer.’

McCabe walked to the window and peered out at the dark street. Snow was beginning to fall. Small hard flakes, not the fat fluffy ones he preferred. He let the idea of the mask perk around in his brain for a minute or two. Clearly they had to find Quinn ASAP, either here or on the mainland. At the same time, they didn’t want to put Quinn’s life in danger by letting the killer know who it was who had barged in on the murder. He thought about classifying Abby as a confidential police informant, a CI. That way they could legally keep her identity secret pretty much indefinitely, or at least until the discovery phase of a trial, if this thing ever got that far.

McCabe’s only problem was that this particular CI was missing, and it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to find her if they couldn’t tell anyone who they were looking for. No. Formal CI status wouldn’t work. They had to play it both ways. Tell people who they were looking for when they had to, but under no circumstances tell anyone why. At least Bowman hadn’t screwed that up yet.

McCabe took out his cell and tapped in Starbucks’s number. The PPD’s resident computer brain, Starbucks’s real name was Aden Yusuf Hassan. A Somali kid, he’d arrived in Portland back in 2000, in the city’s first wave of Sudanese and Somali refugees fleeing genocide in their own lands. When he started working for the department a couple of years later, the cops dubbed him Starbucks because of his addiction to strong coffee. The name stuck. Starbucks had never touched a computer in his native country, but he learned fast. He was a natural. One of the best McCabe had ever seen.

His mother picked up on the third ring. ‘I’m afraid Aden is not at home, Sergeant,’ she said in heavily accented English. ‘He’s out for the evening with a friend.’

McCabe thanked her, said he hoped he hadn’t woken her up, and tried Starbucks’s cell. ‘Yes, Sergeant.’ Starbucks was shouting over loud music. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Sorry to break up your night on the town,’ McCabe shouted, ‘but I need you to get over to 109 now.’

‘Oh.’ Disappointment in his voice. ‘Okay.’ Pause. ‘That’s fine.’ The voice brightened up. ‘I’ll have to apologize to my friend and take her home first.’

‘Apologize for me, too.’

‘I will, but not to worry, Sergeant, the job comes first. What can I do for you?’

‘I’m having three photos of a woman e-mailed to you. When you get to the office, take the one where she looks old and fat. Photoshop about thirty pounds off of her. Then take the other two and add maybe five years. Could you hear all of that?’

‘Yes, Sergeant,’ Starbucks shouted back. ‘I hear you very well.’

‘Good. When you’re done, send the photos to Cleary’s computer.’

‘Is he at 109?’

‘He will be soon.’

Maggie started to ask a question. McCabe held up a finger, signaling her to wait. He called Cleary.

‘Hey, boss, you solve the murder yet?’ Nearly one in the morning and Cleary was still full of beans and ready to take on the world. That was good. McCabe needed somebody aggressive on this.

‘Not yet,’ McCabe told him. ‘The canvass turn up any results?’

‘Not yet either. We’re still working it.’

‘Tell Tommy I’m pulling you off.’

‘Yeah?’ Cleary sounded surprised. ‘Why? Whaddaya need?’

McCabe filled him in on everything they had learned so far, including the fact that Quinn couldn’t identify the killer and that the killer might not be able to identify Quinn.

‘Does the bad guy
know
she couldn’t ID him?’

‘No. Which is why we need to find her before he does. As quick as we can. Without letting people know why we’re looking, and without using her name any more than we have to. Otherwise we could have another corpse on our hands.’

‘Jesus,’ said Cleary, ‘this is all kinda weird.’

‘Yeah, kinda. Anyway, Starbucks is working on some pictures. By the time he’s done with them they ought to be pretty good likenesses. I want you to send out a confidential ATL to all of our units plus every other department in Maine, plus the staties both here and in New Hampshire. Get someone to check with all the taxi companies in town. And cover the train and bus terminals. She might head there. Trailways has a 3:15
A.M
. departure to Boston.’

‘Who goes to Boston at three in the morning?’

‘I don’t know. Just make sure Quinn’s not one of them. Also check for early departures out of the Jetport.’

‘Nothing’s gonna be flying out of there for a while. Not with this snow coming in.’

‘Probably not, but tell our guys to keep an eye open anyway. If I were Quinn I’d be running as far and fast as I could.’

‘Yeah, but you’re not crazy. She have a car?’

‘I don’t know. Check that, too. See if there’s one registered in her name. Or maybe her mother’s. Grace Quinn. Same Harts Island address.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah. Call my cell when you’re done.’

McCabe hung up.

‘You know, McCabe,’ Bowman snorted, ‘you’re tryin’ to keep this so damn hush-hush – but what about Quinn herself?’

‘What about her?’

‘Your witness has no control over her own mouth. She’s probably out there right now blabbing her head off.’

McCabe shrugged. ‘Yeah. She might be. Nothing we can do about that. But hey, maybe nobody’ll believe her. You know. The rantings of a psychotic nutcase and all? Now I’d like you to stop worrying about that and take me through the rest of what happened Tuesday night.’

‘You pretty much know it all. She came here. She ranted. She raved. Then I took her home. End of story.’

‘You visited the crime scene afterward? Isn’t that right?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, I did. It’s a fancy backshore cottage right across the road from the water. Belongs to some banker type from Boston. Guy named Todd Markham.’

‘Everything look normal to you?’

‘Yep. I went through every room, including the master bedroom, which is where she says it happened. I saw nothing out of place. No weapon. No body. No blood. Not where she said it was and not anywhere else.’

‘On the other hand, you weren’t expecting to see anything out of place, were you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that if there was something not quite right there, if you weren’t expecting it, it wouldn’t be surprising if you didn’t see it.’ McCabe knew all too well how expectations create their own reality. How they cut off even a smart cop’s ability to consider other possibilities – and Bowman wasn’t all that smart. ‘Let’s just hope you didn’t destroy any evidence.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘How’d you get in?’

‘The door was open.’

‘Front door? Back door?’

‘I went in the front.’

‘How about Abby?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Was the back door locked?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘No signs of B&E?’

‘No. I told you. Abby had a key. She let herself in.’

‘Yeah, I know. You told me. Abby had a key. How’d the killer get in?’

Bowman’s brow knitted. ‘I don’t know.’ Pause. ‘I hadn’t thought about that.’

He hadn’t thought about it because he was so damned sure Quinn made the whole thing up.

‘You guys have Markham’s number in Boston?’ asked McCabe.

‘We can get it.’ Daniels woke the desktop computer from its sleep and began tapping keys. He wrote some numbers on a Post-it note. McCabe nodded at Maggie, who nodded back, took the Post-it, and disappeared into the back room to check on Todd Markham’s whereabouts Tuesday night.

‘Abby couldn’t describe what the bad guy looked like?’

‘No. Just a lot of craziness that didn’t make any sense.’

‘Like what exactly?’

‘You really want to know?’

‘Yeah.’

‘She said he looked like a man from the back, but when he turned to look at her he was a monster. Let me see if I can remember her exact phrases. “A fiery fiend. An evil animal face. Icicles for eyes.” ’ There was a nasty mocking tone to Bowman’s voice.

McCabe let it pass. ‘Maybe he was wearing a mask as well.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Bowman. ‘Abby’s a whacko. She hallucinates. That’s all her description of a monster was. A hallucination brought on by the stress of the moment.’

‘What did she do after she saw the murder?’

‘Not clear, but I think she turned and ran. There were footprints broken into the ice and snow leading to and from the front door. All messed up like they were made by someone running fast. Looked to me like they were all Abby’s. In one spot it looked like she took a fall.’

McCabe glanced out the window. It was snowing even harder than before.

‘Todd Markham says there is a key to the back door. It’s hidden inside a lantern on the exterior wall next to the door,’ said Maggie, coming back into the office. ‘I asked him who knew it was there. He said half the island. Plumbers. Electricians. Anybody who ever worked on the house when the Markhams weren’t there. By the way, Markham was in Chicago Tuesday night. Says he had dinner with a couple of clients. Stayed at the Hyatt. Didn’t get back to Boston till –’

McCabe nodded. ‘Okay. Tell me about Markham’s alibi later. Right now I need you and Daniels to get over to his house. Photograph and preserve any readable footprints before the snow out there covers them up. You guys have any plastic sheeting here?’

‘No sheeting,’ said Daniels, heading toward the rear of the station, ‘but we’ve got a bunch of tarps out back.’

They piled the tarps into the back of the Explorer, along with metal tent pegs to secure them, a digital camera, and a couple of lights. It wasn’t perfect, but it’d have to do.

The front door opened just as they left. ‘Jeez,’ said Sonny Cates, stamping snow off his boots, ‘it’s colder’n a witch’s tit out there.’ He was a round, jolly-looking guy with white hair. Santa Claus without the beard. He pulled off his glove. ‘Mike McCabe, right?’

McCabe waited at the window until the Explorer pulled out before nodding and taking Cates’s extended hand. ‘Any luck?’

‘Nah. Not yet.’

‘Take me through what you’re doing.’

They walked over to a large laminated aerial map of the island pinned to one wall. An erasable marker was hanging next to it. ‘Basically, I divided the island into six more or less equal sectors.’ He drew a red line horizontally across the center of the island, then two vertical ones. ‘Assigned a team to each.’

‘Communications?’

‘All the teams have cell phones.’

‘How’s the reception?’

‘Sketchy. Some places okay. Some places nonexistent. Two of our teams have trucks with radios. I put them in the areas where cell reception’s worst. We’re checking outdoor areas first. In this weather, if she’s stuck outside, she’s gonna be in trouble pretty quick. We’re also checking the old bunkers here, here, and up over here.’ Cates pointed to three places on the map. ‘You know about the bunkers?’

McCabe did. During World War II, North Atlantic convoys sailed in and out of Portland harbor, and the army made Harts a key element of Portland’s shore defenses. Concrete bunkers and observation posts were still dotted all over the island. Some had been converted into garages, storage sheds, and summer houses. Others were simply abandoned. One, Battery Victor, was big, dark, and empty, with multiple rooms and plenty of hidey-holes.

‘How about the empty summer houses? The ones she had keys to?’

‘So far, visual inspection only. Snow makes it easy to see if anyone’s been marching up to them.’

‘Anything suspicious?’

‘Other than deer tracks, not so far. Just around the Markham place, which is here.’ Cates pointed to a spot on the map. ‘This new snow’s gonna cover everything up pretty quick, though. Then we’ll have to start calling the owners and looking inside.’

‘Anybody ask why we’re looking for her?’

‘Just told them she’s missing and we’ve got to find her. They all know she’s got mental problems and tried suicide twice, so nobody’s asking too many questions.’

They saw headlights pulling up outside. Maggie and Daniels were back.

Twelve

It was a little after one thirty in the morning when Maggie pulled the Explorer up in front of an oversized gray house on Seal Point. McCabe studied the place from the passenger seat. There were just the two of them. Bowman and Daniels had been left behind, and Cates had rejoined his search teams. The fewer people who tramp around a crime scene the better, even one that might already be compromised. Forensics 101.