The Chill of Night (38 page)

Kelly hung his head and clenched his teeth. Then he looked up. He spoke quietly and slowly. ‘I have devoted my entire life to protecting kids. To helping them. Not to abusing them. Or killing them. That is the covenant I made with God. That is the covenant I have honored. And God knows, even if you don’t, that is the simple truth.’

‘Really? When was the last time you were out there on Harts Island?’

‘I already told you.’

‘Oh yeah? I don’t remember. Tell me again.’

‘I don’t use the place in winter. I haven’t been there since, I don’t know … I think Teddy and I went out the weekend before Thanksgiving.’

‘You sure you haven’t been out there more recently? Say in December? After it started getting cold and the ground froze too hard to dig.’

McCabe slipped two of the crime scene photos of the boy, lying in the snow dead and frozen, across the table. ‘Like maybe for a little recreational outing?’

‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’ Kelly stared at the pictures, one in each hand, looking first at one, then the other.

‘You do know this boy, don’t you, John?’ McCabe dropped the teasing tone. His voice was hard now. Threatening. ‘Well, don’t you?’

No answer.

‘Answer the question, goddammit, Kelly. You do know this boy, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how exactly is it that you know him?’ McCabe was standing now. He spat the words out, leaning in across the table, his face inches from Kelly’s.

Kelly looked up. His face was pale. He spoke softly. ‘He lived at Sanctuary House.’

‘Really? Well, then, I guess you must know his name.’

‘Callie Connor.’

‘Callie?’

‘Short for Calvin.’

‘You last saw Calvin when?’

‘I don’t know. Sometime before Christmas.’

‘Is that when you took him to the island? For … what was that phrase again? A recreational outing?’

‘No.’

‘Maybe one that included a little fucking?’

‘No.’

‘And stabbing?’

‘No.’

‘And burying his naked body in the snow? With his ass all cut up and bruised from what you did to him?’

‘No!’ Kelly screamed. ‘No! No! No! No!’

When Kelly stopped, he looked at the pictures again, eyes blinking, tears forming.

‘And maybe Lainie Goff found out about it? Didn’t she? So you had to kill her, too? Isn’t that what happened? Isn’t that what you did?’

Kelly looked up, silent.

‘Goddammit, answer me!’ McCabe shouted, slamming his open palm down on the table so hard the empty file flew up.

Kelly didn’t answer.

McCabe sat back down, and his voice dropped from a shout to just above a whisper. ‘Isn’t that what really happened, John? You killed this boy. You killed him because you were abusing him, and he told Lainie about it, and she called you and threatened you. She wasn’t about to let you get away with it, was she, John? So you had to kill her, too. To keep her from telling people. Isn’t that right, Father Jack? To keep her from telling people like me? Isn’t that what really happened?’

‘I’ve never killed anyone.’

‘You know what I still don’t get? What I still don’t get is why you left Lainie’s body out there on the Fish Pier with that note stuffed in her mouth. Amos. Chapter nine. Verse ten. Right where you knew we’d find it and connect it to you. You remember the words, don’t you, John?
All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us
. Did you do that because you knew Lainie wasn’t someone who could just disappear like Calvin Connor did? People would miss her. People would look for her. Powerful people with powerful connections. So you stuck her out there and tried to make it look like some religious whacko did her in?’

Kelly folded his arms on the table and dropped his head on them.

‘Might have worked, too, Jack, except you made one mistake. You didn’t destroy that book in your bookcase at Sanctuary House. The one on Old Testament prophets. You didn’t destroy your old college paper either. I don’t know why that was. Was it because you thought the guys in blue suits – isn’t that what you called us, Jack? The guys in blue suits? Was it because you thought we just wouldn’t be smart enough to put two and two together?’

‘I never killed anyone,’ Kelly said, his voice muffled by his arms.

‘
Or maybe, Jack’ – McCabe leaned in again, his face just inches from Kelly’s – ‘maybe you left her there with the note in her mouth and the book still on your shelf so we
would
find you and put a stop to the evil things you were doing. To put an end to your guilt? Is that what it was, Jack? Is that what you wanted?
All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword.
All the sinners, Jack. Including you. Except we don’t have the death penalty here in Maine. So you’ll either have to live with your guilt – or confess it.’

McCabe lowered his voice so that it was barely more than a whisper. ‘Is that what you want, Jack? To put an end to your guilt? If it is, we can help you with that. All you’ve got to do is confess your sins. Tell us what you did to Calvin Connor. Tell us what you did to Lainie Goff. Come on, do it, Jack. You know what comes next. First there’s confession. Then there’s absolution. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Come on, Jack, say it. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Then tell me how you killed Callie Connor and then, when she found out, how you killed Lainie Goff.’

‘Fuck you, you stupid bastard,’ Kelly screamed. ‘I never killed anyone!’

After that McCabe sat back in his chair. He didn’t say anything for a minute.

‘Well, if you didn’t kill them, who did?’

‘What?’

‘Somebody must have killed them.’

‘Yes. Somebody else.’

‘Oh, really? Well, then, if that’s the case, maybe you’d be good enough to explain how it happened we found this on your phone?’ He raised his left hand in a silent signal to Cleary in Fortier’s office.

Lainie Goff’s voice filled the small room. ‘I know what you’ve been doing, you asshole, and you’re not going to get away with it. We need to talk.’

‘You found that? On my phone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which phone?’

‘On Harts Island. In your cabin. What do you think about that?’

Kelly shook his head and shrugged his shoulders more or less at the same time. ‘What I think is, I think I need to call a lawyer.’

‘Well, that’s your privilege, Jack. There’s only one small problem I can see.’

‘What?’

‘You told me your lawyer was Lainie Goff, and I’m sorry, Jack, but I don’t think she’s taking any calls at the moment.’

Thirty-Five

‘Nice job, McCabe. You did good.’ Maggie was standing with the aid of a cane and leaning against the wall behind Cleary and Fraser in Bill Fortier’s office. The monitor was still turned on, showing an empty interview room.

‘Not so good. I didn’t get a confession. And you know what else?’

‘What?’

‘I walked out of there with this crappy feeling that he may not be our guy.’

‘You’ve gotta be kidding,’ said Fraser. ‘We’ve got evidence up the wazoo.’

‘Yeah, we do,’ said McCabe. ‘Most of it circumstantial.’

‘McCabe,’ said Maggie, ‘I saw the sonofabitch with my own eyes. He fired a gun at me.’

‘What you said, and I quote, was “It was dark. He had his hood up. All I saw was his glasses. Black frames.” ’

‘That’s right. Glasses. Black frames. Just like he’s wearing now.’

‘Lots of people wear glasses with black frames.’

‘Maybe so, but most of those people don’t have quotes from the Book of Amos sitting in a box in their island hideaways. Or a murdered boy buried in the snow in their backyards. Or incriminating phone messages. McCabe, what the hell more do you want?’

‘I don’t know. For starters, I guess I want to see the DNA results, which we don’t have yet.’

‘We’ll have reads on the semen stains any minute now,’ said Eddie Fraser. ‘Tasco told Joe Pines to make them top priority.’

‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ McCabe asked Maggie. ‘Why aren’t you still in the hospital?’

‘Well, you see, Sergeant McCabe, nobody’s ever shot me before. So let’s just say I bullied my doc into letting me go. Like I told him, this time it’s personal.’

‘This time it’s personal?’ McCabe smiled. ‘You said that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Great line. Advertising theme for
Jaws: The Revenge
. Also known as
Jaws 4
. It was the best single thing about one of the worst movies ever made. I was at NYU when it came out – 1987.’

Maggie sighed. ‘Listen, McCabe, at the moment, I’ve got a sore ass and a short temper, and I’m in no mood for Trivial Pursuit.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Why don’t you think he did it?’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t think he did it. I said I had a feeling. I wasn’t sure.’

Cleary cocked his head. ‘Y’know, boss, that ain’t the song you were singing when you told us to bring him in.’

‘I know.’

‘You know, McCabe, the GO’s in there right now,’ said Maggie, ‘just itching to tell the world about Kelly’s arrest. Personally, having just listened to your little tête-à-tête with Kelly, I think he should.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Okay, what’s your problem? Why, suddenly, aren’t you sure?’ Maggie winced as she spoke. ‘Sorry. This sucker hurts.’ She flipped open a prescription bottle of pills and dry-swallowed one. ‘Percocet. I’m popping them like M&Ms.’

‘Should you even be walking around?’

‘Yeah, the doc said it was good for me.’ She shifted position to relieve pressure on her right leg. ‘Anyway, you were going to expound on your theory of Kelly’s possible innocence.’

McCabe moved behind Bill Fortier’s desk and sat. ‘A couple of things bother me about Kelly being the bad guy. Obviously, the MO’s one of them. The whole scene at the Fish Pier was pure show biz. It was too cute by half. It still doesn’t seem to be the kind of thing Kelly would do.’

‘You explained it pretty well in the interview room. Convinced me. Besides, people sometimes act out of character.’

‘Yes, they do,’ McCabe admitted, ‘and maybe that’s what’s going on here.’

‘You said there were two reasons. What’s the other?’

‘The phone message. There was something we left off when we let Kelly listen to it in there just now. Something I didn’t think about till that very minute.’

‘What?’

‘According to the Verizon computer voice, the call was received on Tuesday, December twentieth, at 6:44
P.M
. The whole message says, “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.” ’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘ “I’ll try your other line”? That means she called the island number first. Why? Kelly says he hardly ever uses the place in winter.’

‘Maybe Lainie didn’t know that. Or maybe he told her he would be there that particular day,’ said Maggie.

‘Maybe, but why would he be? It was a Tuesday, and on Tuesday nights Kelly’s usually working at Sanctuary House. I think Lainie would have known that and called him there first. Or called his cell phone. The island phone should have been the last place she called, not the first.’

‘It should be easy to check if he was at Sanctuary House that Tuesday,’ said Fraser. ‘Also easy to check his cell messages.’

‘I agree. Let’s do it. However, I’ve also got a small problem with the rest of the message. The first time we listened to her say, “I know what you’ve been doing, you asshole, and you’re not going to get away with it,” we were at Kelly’s cottage. Ten minutes later we find the boy’s frozen and sexually assaulted body on the edge of the property. It was only natural to assume that abusing Callie Connor was what Lainie meant by “I know what you’ve been doing.” ’

‘It was – and it is. We were right. It fits,’ said Maggie.

‘Why? Because Kelly’s gay?’

‘No. Not just that. You told me Kelly was abused himself when he was a kid. We both know most adult abusers were abused themselves as children. Besides, whether it was the first number she called or the last, the simple fact is that Lainie’s message was on Kelly’s phone.’

‘Yeah, but you know what suddenly struck me while we were playing it for him?’

‘No, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.’

‘It struck me that maybe it wasn’t Lainie who left it there.’

‘What do you mean? We know it was Lainie. It’s her voice.’

‘Yes, it’s her voice – but what if she originally left the message on somebody else’s voice mail or message machine and not on Kelly’s? Now let’s suppose that person – whoever he was – decided to kill Goff to keep her from revealing what she knew. Let’s further suppose that that person – whoever he was – decided to frame Kelly for Goff’s murder. Wouldn’t it be a good idea for that person to re-record Lainie’s original message onto Kelly’s island voice mail? Easy enough to do. Especially since she never called him by name. Just called him “you asshole.” Re-recording it onto the island phone instead of his cell or Sanctuary House phone is a brilliant move because Kelly never uses the place this time of year and almost certainly won’t check or erase the message before we hear it.’

Maggie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Interesting. He re-records the message where he knows we’re bound to search,’ said Maggie, ‘where he knows we’ll find the quote from Amos and where he knows we’ll find the boy’s body.’

‘Sounds like you’re agreeing with McCabe,’ Fraser said to Maggie, ‘that Kelly’s not the killer.’

‘Well, I’m agreeing with McCabe that he
might
not be the killer. I’m not totally convinced yet one way or the other.’

McCabe got up and moved to the window. He stood looking out, watching the light Sunday morning traffic flow by on Franklin Arterial.

‘What’s that twisted brain of yours thinking about now?’ asked Maggie.

‘I was just wondering exactly what Lainie was referring to when she said “I know what you’ve been doing.” ’

Maggie shrugged. ‘Presumably to the fact that Kelly – or possibly the real killer – was sexually abusing Callie Connor.’

McCabe turned and looked at her. ‘How would Lainie have known about that?’