The Chill of Night (6 page)

‘I guess I had a few.’ He left it at that and tossed two white pellets into his mouth. If truth be told, he felt a bit sick. He might have trouble walking the proverbial straight line. He handed the box back. ‘Anything new?’ he asked. He wondered if he was slurring his words.

‘Just what I told you on the phone. Woman’s body is stuffed in the trunk,’ Maggie said. ‘Frozen solid.’

McCabe shivered. ‘I know how she feels.’

‘She’s packed in there so tight, I’m not sure how we’re gonna get her out. At least not till she thaws.’

‘Who called it in?’

‘Guy named Doug Hester a little after six.’

About the time he was deciding to go to Kyra’s show.

‘Hester’s office is over there,’ Maggie continued. ‘The one with lights on on the second floor. He runs a one-man marine insurance agency. Says he could see the car from his desk. It’s been sitting there, illegally parked, since at least seven thirty yesterday morning when he came to work.’

Thirty-six hours. ‘What took him so long to call it in?’

‘It wasn’t just him. There must have been fifty people who saw that car parked where it shouldn’t be, and for two solid days none of them called it in. Either to us or to a towing service. I asked Hester why. He said people on the waterfront don’t like to pry into other people’s business.’

McCabe nodded. A familiar scenario. Citizens not wanting to get involved. Too polite. Too fearful. Too lazy. It was a problem for police departments across the country. It bugged the hell out of McCabe, but it was tough to figure out what to do about it.

‘He said the car wasn’t bothering him,’ Maggie continued. ‘Didn’t seem to be bothering anyone else. So he, quote, didn’t pay it no never mind, unquote. Also he says it’s not that unusual for the wife of one of the captains to leave a car for her husband for when his boat gets in.’

‘So what made him change his mind?’

‘He started thinking how none of the fishing families he knows is likely to have a brand-new BMW convertible. Not with the business in the dumper the way it is now. And, even if they did, they sure as hell wouldn’t leave it sitting at the end of the pier for two days. So, at long last, he walks over and takes a closer look. Sees the keys in the ignition. Tries the door. It’s not locked.’

‘Getting his prints all over everything?’

‘Probably. Though he says just the door. Anyway, he gets suspicious and finally decides to call.’

‘Okay, so the car wasn’t here when Hester left work Wednesday night, but it was here when he arrived Thursday morning. So sometime during that twelve-hour window somebody, presumably the killer, but possibly the victim, drives it in and parks it in the most prominent position on the pier.’

‘Looks that way.’

‘Why?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Hester pop the trunk?’ asked McCabe.

‘No. That was the responding officer. Uniform named Joe Vodnick. He popped the trunk and found the body. Little over an hour ago.’

‘Was there probable cause for opening the trunk?’

‘I think there may be some question about that.’

McCabe thought about it. Opening the trunk was no big deal if the car belonged to the victim. Elaine Goff or whoever it was wasn’t going to complain about illegal search or seizure, dead as she was and stuffed inside. On the other hand, if the dead woman wasn’t Goff, if Goff was the killer or somehow connected to the killer, the investigation could be compromised even before it began. ‘Which one’s Vodnick?’

‘The big guy over there on the right.’

Vodnick was big alright. Six foot six. Built like a linebacker. Probably weighed 260, maybe more. He was busy bullshitting with a couple of the other cops. ‘Did you ask him about probable cause?’

‘He said the car roused his suspicions.’

‘Roused his suspicions? That’s nice. Anything a little more substantive?’

‘Nope. He just said here was this expensive car, parked in a place it shouldn’t have been for two days. Doors unlocked. Key in the ignition. He checked with Dispatch, and the car wasn’t reported stolen. So he looked in the trunk. Listen, Mike, I don’t know what a judge would say about probable cause, but I do know we probably wouldn’t have found her otherwise. Hell, she could have been sitting in a tow yard until she thawed and somebody noticed the smell. I say he made a good call.’

‘Assuming some slick-ass lawyer doesn’t have the whole case thrown out on a technicality. I assume Vodnick’s prints are on the car as well?’

‘He says just the outside door handle and trunk release button, which is under the dash to the left of the wheel. Claims he was careful. Tried not to smear other possible prints.’

McCabe stood silently for a long minute, breathing in cold, damp air that smelled like seaweed and rotting fish, scanning the scene, burning its details into the hard drive he carried in his brain. A brand-new Beemer, unlocked, keys in the ignition, sitting there for two days. Amazing nobody tried to steal it. In New York it would’ve been gone in the blink of an eye. Maybe that was the bad guy’s intention. Have some clueless kid take it for a joyride. Get his prints all over it. Get blamed for the murder when he was finally caught, nobody believing his denials. Not a bad plan. Might’ve worked. Except this was Maine, and nobody bothered stealing it.

He could see half a dozen trawlers tied up, two abreast, on either side of the pier. All good-sized commercial fishing boats. Some of the names were visible.
The Emma Anne. The Katie James. The Old Jolly.
They looked dark and empty, and none of them looked very jolly. McCabe wondered if any of them might have been here the night the car was driven onto the pier. If anyone might have seen anything. Probably not. Trawlers must be in and out of this place all the time. Taking on ice and fuel. Unloading fish for the auctions. Worth checking, though.

‘Who takes care of the boats while they’re here?’ he asked Maggie.

‘What do you mean, takes care of?’

‘Services them. Fuel. Water. Ice. Stuff like that.’

‘Actually, I do know. Company called Vessel Services. Right over there. I know someone who works for them.’

‘Suppose they keep a record of which boats were here from Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning?’

‘Probably. But if you’re thinking witnesses, why would someone spend a freezing cold night on board when he didn’t have to?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘An out-of-town boat, maybe. A Portland boat, I doubt it. These guys spend too much time at sea not to be home with their wives, girlfriends, or whoever they can rustle up. Specially in this kind of weather.’

‘Would you mind calling your friend at Vessel Services anyway? Maybe we’ll get lucky.’

Maggie told him she’d call. McCabe’s mind went back to the scene. The BMW was backed up close to the edge of the pier. Why? Was the killer getting ready to toss the body overboard? If so, why hadn’t he? Maybe it was already frozen into the trunk and he couldn’t get it out. Maybe he was interrupted by someone walking by or someone on one of the boats. Again, a possible witness.

‘Have we learned anything about Goff?’ he asked.

‘Not much. Full name’s Elaine Elizabeth Goff. She’s a lawyer at Palmer Milliken. Twenty-nine years old. Single. Lives’ – Maggie stopped herself – ‘or possibly
lived
at 342 Brackett Street here in town. Car’s brand-new. Initial registration dated the first of December.’

‘We think that’s Elaine in the trunk?’

‘That’s what we think. Officially, she’s still Jane Doe.’

‘You tried reaching her?’

‘No listed number. Probably only uses a cell. I tried her extension at Palmer Milliken and got voice mail. I’m waiting on the Call Center to come up with a number for the cell. I asked Tom Tasco to track down her landlord.’ Tasco was one of the unit’s senior detectives.

McCabe took another deep breath of cold air. His head was clearing, but he still felt a little sick. ‘Do we know what killed her?’

‘Can’t tell from looking.’

‘No obvious wounds or trauma?’

‘Some marks that look like bruises, that’s all.’ Maggie paused. ‘They don’t look lethal. She’s lying on one side with her knees tucked up tight, so you can’t see that much of her.’

‘Could be a wound on the other side.’

‘Could be. Also her hair’s covering her face, so you can’t see that at all.’

‘Terri on her way?’ Terri was Terri Mirabito, a deputy ME with the chief medical examiner’s office in Augusta, an hour and some away. Because she lived in Portland, Terri was always the first choice when a body turned up at night in the city. She was McCabe’s first choice anyway. He couldn’t stand her boss, Maine’s chief medical examiner, Donald A. Fry, a.k.a. the Donald. A pompous know-it-all who never missed an opportunity to demonstrate to McCabe and his detectives how dumb they were and how smart he was.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mac, it’s obvious what happened here, isn’t it?
No, Donald, it’s not obvious. Also he had that habit of calling McCabe ‘Mac.’ It was a nickname McCabe loathed. Even when Fry was right, as far as McCabe was concerned, Fry was wrong.

Maggie nodded. ‘Yeah. I called her cell. She was on her way out for a big evening with some new guy I think she has the hots for.’ McCabe smiled. He enjoyed the image of the short, bubbly pathologist nursing a case of ‘the hots.’

‘Where was she headed?’

‘A night at the opera.’

McCabe smiled again.

‘No,’ Maggie said with a sigh, ‘not the Marx Brothers. The Kirov. They’re singing at Merrill. I caught her just as she was parking her car. Tough ticket to get. She wasn’t real happy hearing from me. Anyway, she said she’d let her friend know and then run home and get her kit.’ Maggie glanced at her watch. ‘Should be here any minute.’

‘Okay. Let’s take a look,’ he said. In spite of Maggie’s concern for his boozy breath, McCabe felt sober, his head clear at last. He slipped under the crime scene tape. ‘You coming?’

‘I’m coming.’

He headed toward the car, watching where he walked, shining Officer Ly’s light on the concrete platform of the pier, flashing left and then right, trying to spot anything that shouldn’t be there. There was nothing visible. Not even any tire tracks on the dirty patches of ice and snow. Too cold. Too hard. He reached the car. He peered in through the open driver’s side door. Moved the light around the interior. Looked clean and new. He noted the key, still in the ignition. No other keys on the ring. No house keys. No office key. Just a plastic membership tag for Planet Fitness, a gym over on Marginal Way. He knew the place. Kyra went there. He wondered if they’d ever run into each other. McCabe squatted down and moved the light slowly across the floor and under the seats. He could just see the edge of a small plastic bag pushed under the driver’s seat. He pulled it out. Pure white powder. Possibly coke. Jacobi could run a field test to be sure, but it looked like either Jane Doe or her killer was a user. Or maybe a dealer? He pointed it out to Maggie. She shook her head, indicating she hadn’t seen it before. Either way, probable cause was established. They just had to let Vodnick know what he’d seen.

A couple of scenarios ran through McCabe’s mind. One, Goff drives here to meet someone. Maybe her dealer. He gives her the coke. She hides the bag under the seat. They have a disagreement. He gets pissed, kills her, and takes off. Possible. But if that was the case, why would the body be naked? Maybe the dealer demands sex for payment. She says no. He rapes her. Panics and kills her and takes off either in a second car or maybe a boat. Again possible, but it didn’t feel right. Not the way the car was positioned in the most public place on the pier. Unless he backed it up to the edge after he killed her to dump the body overboard. So why didn’t he? It wouldn’t have been frozen yet. He could have tossed her into the harbor easily and driven off. Instead, he packs her into the trunk and leaves her. No. None of that felt right. More likely somebody brought the body here already stuffed in the trunk. Somebody who wanted the car to be noticed. Who wanted the body to be found.

Finally McCabe flicked off the light and stood up. He took a deep breath and walked toward the trunk, preparing himself for the first few seconds he’d spend alone with the victim. The cop and the corpse. A unique and strangely intimate relationship. Just the two of them. It didn’t matter to McCabe who the victim was. A gangbanger or an innocent child. Either way, for him, it was this moment of shared intimacy that turned what for some cops was merely a job into an obligation. A sacred trust. To find and punish the killer, to right the wrong, to balance the scales. The Lord may someday get His turn – but for now, McCabe believed, vengeance is mine. I go first.

In the dim light of the open trunk, the woman’s frozen body shone back at him bluish white, her flesh waxen. She was on her side. Head down. Knees and arms curled in. Like the tuck position divers squeeze into after they leap from their boards. Yet even in this position there was something familiar about her.

He flipped on the Maglite and suddenly found himself looking at a body he knew better than his own. Sandy. His faithless bitch of an ex-wife. The one who’d walked out not only on their failed marriage but also on their only child. How many times had he silently wished her dead? Now, somehow, she was. Dead. Frozen. Stuffed in a trunk. What in hell was she doing here? It made no sense.

He moved the beam to the thick waves of dark hair covering her face. It was longer than he remembered, but he hadn’t seen her in a while. He knew he shouldn’t touch any part of her body, not even the hair, until Terri got here. Too bad. Jacobi had his pictures, and there was no way he wasn’t going to look. He felt around in his pockets for the plastic ballpoint he was sure was there. Grasping it by one end, he slid it under her hair, wondering briefly if, like her limbs, the hair would be frozen stiff. It wasn’t. He lifted it off her face, squatted down, and shined the light in. Couldn’t see much, but it was enough. The curve of her lip. The tilt of her nose. Worst of all, one lifeless blue eye staring out. Still mocking him even in death.

‘McCabe, are you alright?’

Maggie’s voice. He didn’t answer. Just raised his left hand and waved her off. The rational side of his brain told him the body couldn’t be Sandy. But if not Sandy, who or what was it? Some kind of delusion? Brought on by what? Too much booze? Too much emotion? Maybe he was going nuts. In his dreams he’d seen her dead often enough. In some of those dreams he even killed her himself. But always with a gun. Never like this. Never without marks. Never left her to freeze in the trunk of a car. Not even a BMW. Though, to be sure, Sandy would rather be found in a Beemer than a Ford.