‘I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill anyone. I’ve never killed anyone. She came over and she gave me a blow job and then she left and that’s all there was to it! That’s all! She gave me a blow job!’
McCabe was about to speak again, but Maggie caught his eye. She gave him a look that said, ‘Back off.’ McCabe nodded and moved to the end of the deck. He leaned back against the wooden railing and waited. Kenney was still rocking forward and back in his chair, still holding himself.
Maggie spoke softly. ‘Tobin? Why don’t you just tell us straight out what did happen that night.’
Kenney glanced over at McCabe. ‘Don’t worry about him,’ Maggie said. ‘Just look at me. Look at my eyes. He won’t ask you any more questions. Just tell me what happened between you and Katie so we can finish this up and we can leave you alone and you can get some rest.’
The assistant girls’ soccer coach sat there for what seemed like a long time, saying nothing. Then he began to speak. His voice was flat. Toneless. Without affect.
‘After the movies, I picked up a pizza from Torrelli’s, like I said. I got home about ten. I got a beer from the fridge and ate a couple of slices. I had a bunch of papers to grade. I usually grade papers on the sofa. I put the graded ones on the coffee table, the ungraded ones next to me on the couch. That’s how I organize them.
‘A few minutes after I started grading, the doorbell rang, and it was Katie. She was all sweetness and “Gee, can I come in and talk for a while?” But she looked a little weird, like she’d been crying. Like she was stressed out. So I let her in. I asked her what the matter was. She sees I’m drinking a beer and says, “Can I have a beer, too?” I tell her she’s too young, that we could both get in trouble. Then she takes my hand and starts stroking it and says, “Oh, come on, Mr. Kenney.” She actually called me Mr. Kenney. “Please. I’m not going to tell anybody.”
‘Right there, I should have put her in the car and driven her straight home, but I didn’t. I was feeling lonely, and one part of me wanted her to stick around. So, like a jerk, I got her a beer. She takes a swig, and we sit down on the couch where I was grading the papers. She’s wearing this tiny little miniskirt and it’s riding up over her crotch. She asks me if I think she’s attractive. I say yeah, she’s very attractive. Then she asks me if I think she’s sexy. I don’t answer — but I don’t get up, either. Then she says, “If I were your girlfriend, would you go screwing around with other girls?” I say, “No, I wouldn’t.” Then I say, “Get up, I’ve got to take you home.”
‘But she doesn’t get up. She lies down and puts her head in my lap. She takes my hand and she puts it on her breast, and I’m thinking to myself, “Holy shit, what’s this all about?”
‘She asks me again if I think she’s sexy. By this time, I’ve got an incredible hard-on, and I know she can feel it ’cause she’s got her head in my lap. God help me, I really do want to fuck her, but I know I can’t. So I ask her what happened with Ronnie Sobel. He’s her boyfriend. She says Ronnie’s an asshole and she doesn’t give a shit about Ronnie and don’t I think she’s sexy? I say sure she’s sexy, but I’m a teacher and she’s a student and we shouldn’t be even thinking stuff like this, but then she rolls onto her front and I’m looking down and she’s unzipping my fly.
‘Look, Margaret, or whatever your name is, I know I sound like a jerk. Your buddy over there thinks I’m worse than a jerk. Maybe he’s right. I’m twenty-six years old and she’s sixteen. Even worse, I’m her coach — her teacher — and there she is, opening my zipper. I’ve got this fucking hard-on that’s ready to explode. Then she’s got her mouth on it and boom, like in ten seconds flat, it’s all over. I’m coming all over her face and all over my pants and the couch and whether you believe it or not, Margaret, I feel like the biggest asshole in the world. You know something else? I still do. But I did not fuck her and I did not kill her.’ Kenney just sat there for a while, looking nowhere, saying nothing.
‘What happened next?’ asked Maggie.
Kenney looked at her. ‘She left.’
‘Just like that?’
‘No. After I came, I’m thinking to myself, holy shit, what have I done? I got up and got her a towel to wipe her face. Then I told her to get in the car. I’m going to drive her home. She says she wants to spend the night. I tell her she can’t. She gets angry, and we argue about it for a while. Then she slams out the door and she just stands there on the front steps, screaming at me through the screen that I’m an asshole. She just gave me a great fucking blow job, she says, and I won’t even let her spend the fucking night. She calls me a bunch of names. Tells me to go fuck myself.
‘Then she was gone.’ Kenney looked up. ‘Just like that she was gone. Ran off into the night, and that’s the truth of the matter. I didn’t kill her and I didn’t fuck her. Maybe that sounds like Bill Clinton. “I didn’t have sex with that woman” — but it’s the truth.’
‘Why didn’t you come in and tell us this when she was reported missing?’ asked Maggie.
‘I picked up the phone about a hundred times, but I couldn’t do it. I knew it would cost me my job, and I guess I convinced myself that she’d just run off and would come home after a while. Pretty stupid, but who knew she was going to go out and get herself killed? If I’d just pushed her in the car and driven her home, none of this would ever have happened.’
Maggie believed him. In spite of his anger, so did McCabe.
‘Is this going to get me arrested? Statutory rape?’
‘You screwed up, big-time, Tobin,’ said McCabe. ‘In Maine, any sexual act between a teacher and a student under eighteen is a crime. Doesn’t matter who started it. Maybe, if you’re real cooperative, real contrite, they’ll let you off with a suspended sentence. Maybe not. Either way, you better go find yourself another career. Another life. There’s no way you’re working with kids anymore. Not now. Not ever.’
Later, in the car, before driving away, McCabe sat there thinking about what Kenney’d told them. ‘Why do you think he talked?’ he asked Maggie. ‘It would have been so easy for him just to stonewall the whole thing.’
‘Guilt.’
‘You think?’
‘Sure. He’s just a kid himself. Probably not a bad kid. He was already feeling guilty about the blow job. Then when Katie turned up dead, it got a whole lot worse. You heard him. He was blaming himself. He had to tell somebody. So he told us. Which leaves us with the question, what do we do now?’
‘I don’t know. Try to find some dude from Florida with cowboy boots and a fancy SUV. If he really is from Florida. I’ll see if Cahill will do a doctor/Lexus cross-check down there. We should also get some people talking to the girls on the soccer team again. See if any of them remembers him. Maybe he talked to more than one kid. Or maybe they saw him talking to Katie.’
15
Sunday. 6:00 P.M.
Purely on impulse, McCabe picked up the Bird and drove to the West Side. There was still plenty of light, and on a Sunday evening crossing from one end of the city to the other took less than ten minutes. He drove west on Spring Street, passing Mercy, Portland’s smaller hospital, on his right. Covering the same distance in New York could take an hour.
He slowed as he passed 24 Trinity Street and then rounded the corner. McCabe parked where the Bird wouldn’t be seen and walked back. Philip and Harriet Spencer’s home was a private place, a sizable property surrounded by an ancient wrought-iron fence, free from rust and in perfect repair. A glance at the house and grounds told him that if Spencer was somehow involved in Katie’s Dubois’s murder, money wasn’t a motive. The house itself was a century-old redbrick Georgian with a slate roof and black shutters. Graceful and classically proportioned, the work of a well-schooled, if unadventurous, architect. The solid oak front door was polished a lustrous brown. It looked easily capable of deterring the efforts of any unwelcome visitors, at least any not equipped with a battering ram.
McCabe pushed the bell. Chimes pealed inside. He hadn’t planned the visit and found himself hoping Spencer wasn’t home. He wanted to talk to the doctor’s wife. Failing that, he hoped, at least, to get a sense of how the man lived. As McCabe waited, his eyes took in the lush grounds.
Every corner of the neat, nearly secret garden was meticulously planned and planted. Even late on a cool mid-September afternoon, the perennial beds were a mass of summer color. Clumps of Montauk daisies vied for attention with asters, hollyhocks, foxgloves, and purple coneflowers. The names of plants and flowers recalled from another Sunday, one spent with Casey, roaming the grounds of the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Even
