how to remove a human heart and who else in Maine had the skills to do it, Spencer was the guy.
He called Spencer’s office at Cumberland, but the doctor wasn’t there. To McCabe’s surprise, his home number was listed. He lived on the West End near the hospital. McCabe tried the number. A woman answered.
‘Mrs. Spencer?’
‘Yes?’
‘This is Detective Michael McCabe, Portland police. Is Dr. Spencer at home?’
‘No, I’m afraid he’s not. I think he’s gone out for a run.’
‘Could you ask him to call me when he returns?’
‘May I ask what this is in reference to? We’ve already given to the Children’s Fund.’ Her voice and manner were pure Yankee blue blood.
‘Mrs. Spencer, this is not about a donation. We’re investigating a homicide, and Dr. Spencer may be able to help.’
‘Oh, I see. It’s about that poor girl, isn’t it? Do you have any suspects yet?’
‘Mrs. Spencer, I’m sure you’ll understand, I’m not at liberty to discuss the case.’
‘Of course. I’ll have Philip call you.’
McCabe gave Spencer’s wife his cell number. He looked up and saw Tom Tasco and Eddie Fraser standing by his desk. They looked tired. Normally Eddie had a kind of jumpy energy. He couldn’t stand still. Right now he was standing still.
‘We may have a witness,’ Tasco said.
McCabe hung up the phone. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Eddie and I were canvassing all the commercial properties in the area to see if anybody saw or heard anything,’ said Tasco. ‘There’s a moving and storage company on the other side of Somerset? Richard A. Morgan Van Lines?’
‘I know the place.’
‘Seems they’ve got a night security guy. Student at USM. Name’s Mark Shevack.’
‘How long has he worked there?’
‘About a year,’ Fraser said. ‘He got the job when he started over at the U. last September. My guess is he mostly snoozes or listens to his iPod, but he occasionally has to wander around and check things out. Says he thinks he saw a car stop and park on Somerset on a line with where the vic was found. It stayed there about ten minutes, then took off.’
‘When?’
‘Thursday around midnight.’
‘That works okay with time of death, but it means she was lying there for nearly twenty-four hours before anyone spotted her.’
‘Not many people go in there.’
‘Did Shevack get a decent look at the car?’
‘Not really,’ said Tasco. ‘He says it was a dark-colored SUV. Couldn’t tell what kind. Thought it might be European. Curvier look than a Jeep or Explorer. He couldn’t make a color or plate number either. He says it was pretty dark and he really wasn’t paying much attention. He’s only responsible for checking the warehouse. He only noticed it because cars don’t stop on Somerset very often. Almost never that late.’
‘Is that it?’
‘No. There was a security camera, too,’ said Fraser.
‘That’s good news.’
‘Yes and no. Unfortunately, it’s mostly pointed on the warehouse area, but on a corner of the frame, it picked up what might be part of the car in the background.’
‘Might be?’
‘Yeah. It’s time-coded, but way the hell out of focus. You can see a dark car-blob stop where Shevack said at eleven forty-eight. A human-blob gets out of the car-blob and goes to the rear, where, as best we can tell, it unloads what might possibly be the body and carries it into the yard. Then the human-blob comes back without the possible body-blob, gets in the car, and drives away. It’s eleven fifty-nine.’
‘Eleven minutes?’ McCabe considered how long eleven minutes could be. Too much time just to carry the body to where it was dumped, arrange it to his liking, and walk back. So what’s he doing in there for eleven minutes? Admiring his handiwork? Jerking off? That’s some cocky bastard.
Eddie Fraser was trying to get his attention. ‘Mike, it’s gotta be our guy. It’s gotta be. Starbucks is trying to computer-enhance the image now. C’mon, let’s see how he’s doing.’
McCabe and the two detectives went downstairs to the small cubicle where the PPD’s resident brainiac sat in front of a computer setup far more sophisticated than McCabe’s. He was a Somali kid named Aden Yusuf Hassan. When he started working for the PPD a few years earlier he was instantly nicknamed Starbucks by the cops, more for his addiction to strong coffee than for any resemblance to the Melville character.
Starbucks had arrived in Portland at age fifteen back in 2000, in the first wave of Sudanese and Somali refugees who came fleeing genocide in their own lands. Shockley hired him part-time while he was still in high school, part of a brief flirtation with building racial diversity in the department. The kid had never touched a computer in his native country, but he learned fast. He was a natural. One of the best McCabe ever saw. He could teach himself the basics in complex programs in just a couple of hours, mastery in a few days. Without question, he was the number one computer geek in the department, maybe in the whole city. Starbucks sat hunched in front of a flat-panel monitor, his dark brown face scrunched up in concentration.
He looked up as McCabe and the others approached. His face exploded in a huge smile. ‘Good news, Detectives!’ He said it emphatically, practically shouting out the word ‘Detectives’ with only a trace of a Somali accent, his only language until age fourteen. ‘I make the car as definitely an SUV. Maybe a Lexus. Maybe a BMW. A 2002 model, maybe 2003.’ Starbucks traced an index finger along the back edge of the blob that, thanks to his efforts, now looked more like a car. ‘See? Follow the rear roofline? Now look.’ A second, more recognizable SUV popped up on the screen next to the still-blurry shot from the security camera. ‘Here is a known 2002 Lexus SUV. Same position. Same angle. You can see the line’s the same.’
The outlines seemed nearly identical. Then the Lexus image was replaced by another similar one. ‘Now here’s a BMW,’ said Starbucks.
Again a similarity to the blob. Not quite as close. Without taking his eyes off the screen, McCabe said, ‘Eddie, can you guys check DMV for all ’01 through ’06 Lexus SUVs registered in Maine? Check BMWs as well while you’re at it, and throw in New Hampshire. Then see if you can cross-check ownership against a database of male MDs. Especially surgeons and pathologists. Maybe biologists or biology teachers. Eliminate anyone over the age of sixty. Our guy’s not that old. Starbucks, can you do anything to tell us more about the guy who gets out of the car?’
Starbucks advanced the tape frame by frame searching for an image of the man that might provide additional information. McCabe watched. Just as the man-shaped object reached the back of the vehicle, he paused and turned toward the road, maybe to check if he was being watched, but he never looked right at the camera. At best, it was a one-quarter to one-third profile, more side than front. Still, it was something.
Starbucks’s fingers worked his keyboard, and the image on the screen became more of a man, less of a blur. ‘Starbucks,’ said McCabe, ‘keep a record of exactly what you’re doing to enhance this image. If the tape’s ever going to be admissible in court, you’re going to have to be able to repeat and verify every single thing you do.’
‘No problem, Sergeant. I’m keeping notes, and I’m recording each step on a nonerasable CD. Repeatable and verifiable. How much it will tell us about the bad guy is less certain.’ Both McCabe and Starbucks knew that even if the tape led them to the killer, by itself it wouldn’t be sufficient to positively identify the guy or prove he did it. They’d need more.
The young Somali zoomed in, isolating the portion of the frame where the man-blob could be seen in direct relation to the car. ‘Since we know the height of the car and the height of the fence, we can see the man is quite tall. By simple triangulation I estimate his height at six foot one or, at most, six two.’
‘Anything else?’
‘His face is mostly turned away, and the source material is of poor quality. However, he has broad shoulders, appears to be Caucasian, and is wearing a baseball cap. Even from this angle we can see he has quite a long face. Maybe a big nose, but that’s less certain.’
‘A tall, thin-faced white doctor in a cap. Well, that narrows things down some,’ said Tasco.
