came and got them. Kyra came in about ten thirty. She’s gone?’
‘I think she went to her studio.’
‘Are you going to marry Kyra?’ Casey asked, a serious expression on her face. She was fiddling with Bunny’s ears.
‘I don’t know. Maybe, but not right now.’ He had no idea where this conversation was going. ‘How would you feel about that?’
‘Is that important?’
‘How you feel? Yeah. It’s real important.’
‘I dunno. I like Kyra. Would that make her my mom?’
‘Your stepmother.’
‘You think I look like Mom? I mean my real mom?’
‘Yes, you do. Your mother’s a beautiful woman. You will be, too.’
He looked down and was surprised to see that Casey was holding a picture of Sandy. In the picture, Sandy was wearing cutoffs and a bikini top and leaning against the T-Bird. The black hair. The ice blue eyes. The face the camera loved.
‘Where did you find that?’ He hadn’t seen the picture in years.
‘I’ve had it,’ she said. ‘I brought it with me from New York.’
‘Really?’ This was news to McCabe. ‘Do you have any others?’
‘A couple. This is the best one.’ They sat quietly for a moment, neither quite knowing what to say next.
‘Do you want to see your mother?’ he finally asked with more than a little reluctance.
There was another silence. Longer this time. ‘No. Not right now. Why were you so late last night?’
‘We were investigating a murder.’ McCabe wondered how much he should tell her about it and decided to offer an expurgated version. She’d see it on the news soon enough anyway. ‘A girl was killed,’ he said, ‘not much older than you.’
‘She was murdered?’ There was shock in Casey’s voice. She found it hard to believe such a thing could happen to someone her own age. ‘That’s horrible. Was she that soccer star, the one in those posters they had up all over town?’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘God, she was actually murdered?’ Casey fussed with Bunny, pulling at his ears, not saying anything for a minute and then playing with the word ‘murdered,’ repeating it softly to herself once or twice to make it real. Finally she asked, ‘Do you know who did it?’
‘Not yet.’
‘But you’re gonna catch them?’
‘Yeah.’ He sat on the bed beside her, pulled her up onto his lap, and gave her a long, hard hug. ‘It’s an awful thing, but there are awful people in the world. That’s why I do what I do. That’s why you never talk to strangers. We’ll catch him. C’mon… this is supposed to be quality time.’ Teasing each other with the words ‘quality time’ was one of their private jokes. ‘Let’s get dressed and I’ll take you down to the Porthole for a cheese omelet. Then I’ve got to go back to work. Jane’ll take you to soccer.’
‘Okay.’ Casey said, smiling. She loved riding on the back of the Harley. She ran down the hall to her room to get dressed.
As McCabe watched her go, he recognized the small knot of fear that began to grow in his stomach. A fear that was as real and hard as a fist. A fear that one day, perhaps soon, he might no longer be able to protect this child whom he loved and for whom he would so readily lay down his own life.
6
Saturday. 9:00 A.M.
McCabe headed for Middle Street right after dropping Casey off at the apartment. He checked to find what, if any, progress had been made on the two cases during the hours he’d been away. That didn’t take long. Basically, there’d been none. An e-mail from Terri Mirabito informed him the Katie Dubois autopsy was scheduled for 3:00 P.M. Maggie had been copied. He hit ‘Reply All’ and told Terri they’d both be there. There were two phone messages from Bill Fortier, who sounded nervous. Before returning them he called Tom Shockley’s home number.
‘Tom. It’s Mike McCabe.’
‘Mike. I heard about the Cassidy woman.’ Shockley sounded juiced up, excited. McCabe ran down the current status of both cases for Shockley. Much of the information the chief had already heard from other sources. ‘I’m talking to the press at eleven. I want you with me.’
‘Chief, press conferences aren’t really my thing.’
Shockley was in no mood to be dissuaded. ‘Mike, I’m just asking you to give me an hour. The press has to be briefed.’
Knowing Shockley, McCabe imagined it’d be a real circus. ‘Maybe so, but I don’t think we ought to give away too many details. For one thing, it gives the killer what he craves: publicity and attention. For another, it might give ideas to would-be copycats.’
‘McCabe, we’ve just had a horrible murder of an innocent teenaged girl. On the very same day, another young woman is kidnapped. The public has a right to know what’s going on. What we’re doing to catch the killer. The media expects you to be part of the briefings, and so do I. Cases like these don’t happen in Portland — at least not very often — but they’re part of the reason I pushed back against both the union and department tradition to offer you a job. Don’t worry. I’ll do most of the talking. All you have to do is stand there and look professional.’
For a moment McCabe just stared at the picture of Casey on his desk and said nothing.
‘Mike, are you there?’
‘What time does the party start?’
‘Eleven. Outside City Hall.’
‘Alright. Just do me one favor, Chief. A case like this is going to bring the nutcases out of the woodwork. So let’s not give out too many details.’ Knowledge of the details was exactly what they could use to separate genuine informants from the fakers.
‘Fair enough,’ said Shockley. ‘How about we don’t mention the earring or how the body was arranged?’
‘How about we don’t say anything about her heart being cut out either. That’s the big one.’
Shockley didn’t respond. He knew the details about Katie’s heart would really turn the media on. McCabe figured he was reluctant to give that up.
‘Alright,’ he said finally. ‘We’ll keep the heart to ourselves.’
‘That’s the right decision,’ said McCabe. ‘I’ll be there. So will Maggie.’
‘Good,’ said Shockley. He hung up.
McCabe stared angrily at the dead phone in his hand. He knew it wasn’t the need for a press briefing that was bugging him. That was a given. Part of the game. What was really pissing him off was his feeling that, deep down, Shockley saw Katie Dubois’s murder as an opportunity to generate headlines that’d make him look good, headlines that might even lend traction to his rumored run for governor. Especially if it was Mike McCabe, the cop from away, the cop Shockley hired over the objections of many in the department, who cleared the case. That’s what was pissing him off.
McCabe forced himself to put Shockley’s press conference out of his head. He pushed the button to boot up his computer and Googled ‘Cumberland Medical Center,’ ‘Portland,’ and ‘heart surgery.’ On Cumberland’s Web site he learned its cardiac unit, the Levenson Heart Center, was the jewel in the hospital’s crown, named one of America’s top one hundred cardiac facilities three years running. A little more digging told him a Dr. Philip Spencer headed up the cardiac unit and was, apparently, its superstar surgeon.
He clicked on Spencer’s name, and his bio popped up on the screen. Tufts University Medical School, 1988. Residence in cardio-thoracic surgery, Bellevue Hospital, New York City, ’88 through ’92. Advanced training at the Brigham in Boston in heart transplant procedures, ’92 through ’96. Came to Maine in 1996, nine years ago, to start Cumberland’s transplant program. Spencer’s list of honors ran for several paragraphs. Obviously, if anyone knew
