‘What was her number?’ he asked Joanne.
‘It’s 207-555-6754.’
McCabe punched it in. He heard ringing, then ‘Hi, you’ve reached Katie. Leave a message.’ He hung up.
‘Do you think this scout is the person who killed Katie?’ Joanne Ceglia asked.
‘We don’t know. We think he might be, Joanne,’ said Maggie.
‘Will you catch him?’
‘Yes,’ said McCabe, ‘we will catch him.’
‘Do you mind if we search her room?’ asked Maggie.
‘You’re welcome to, but your people already took it apart a couple of times and didn’t find anything. I don’t know why they didn’t find that card. Maybe it just didn’t mean anything to them.’
Sloppy police work, thought McCabe. The evidence techs should’ve picked up on the card.
The two detectives headed up to her room and searched it again. Thirty minutes later they were willing to admit there was nothing else to find at Dexter Street and headed back to 109.
‘Tell me about her cell phone,’ McCabe said to Maggie.
‘Tasco checked with Sprint. Ran down all the calls to and from the cell starting two weeks before she disappeared right up till Friday.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing meaningful. Prior calls mostly to friends. A couple to local businesses. Saved messages were mostly from her girlfriends. A couple from Ronnie Sobel. One was pretty sexual. No completed calls at all after she disappeared. Some new messages from Frank and Joanne and some from her friends.’
They drove through Deering Oaks Park with its massive two-hundred-year-old trees and headed south on State Street toward Spring. McCabe told her about last evening’s visit to chez Spencer.
‘Spencer’s head of cardiac surgery at Cumberland?’
‘Yeah, and a buddy of Shockley’s. He called the GO this morning to complain about my going to the house, questioning his wife. Shockley told me to lay off. That’s what his come-see-me-ASAP note was all about.’
Maggie glanced over at him. ‘I hope you didn’t lose it with him.’
‘Basically, I told him to go fuck himself.’
‘Gee, just when I was beginning to like you.’
‘The good news is Crimes Against People just might get its first female sergeant. Although nothing’ll happen until this case is resolved. If Spencer’s the bad guy, I’ll be a hero. If he’s not the bad guy, but I get whoever is, I’ll still be a hero. Either way, unfireable. On the other hand, if we don’t get him, or somebody else gets him, I get fired. Maybe I’ll deserve it.’
‘Think you’ve got enough for a warrant?’
‘Doubtful. Unless we can find ourselves a nice flexible judge somewhere. One who doesn’t belong to the Pemaquid Club. I’ll check in with Burt Lund. Maybe he can help.’
20
Monday. 11:00 A.M.
‘Ever hear of Dr. Philip Spencer?’ McCabe asked as he watched Burt Lund ease his large round bottom onto one of JavaHut’s small round bentwood chairs. A prosecutor in the attorney general’s office, Lund had a reputation as a bulldog. A chubby bulldog. Once he got his teeth into you, they said, he hung on no matter what.
‘The heart surgeon? Sure, I’ve heard of him. Never met him, though.’ Lund looked around. They had the coffee-house pretty much to themselves. ‘Kind of a big cheese, isn’t he?’
‘Seems to be. He’s buddies with Shockley. Hangs out at the Pemaquid Club. There’s a picture of him with Bush senior and Olympia Snowe on his office wall.’
‘He’s your suspect?’
‘Maybe a long shot, but yeah.’
‘What makes you think Spencer’s cutting up little girls?’
McCabe told Lund about the Lexus turning up in the surveillance video, again at Katie Dubois’s soccer practice, and finally in Spencer’s garage.
‘That’s it? His wife owns a Lexus? Even assuming the accuracy of your video manipulation and the coach’s recollection, I hope you have more than that.’
‘I do. Terri’s autopsy indicated Dubois’s heart was most likely cut out by a cardiac surgeon. Spencer’s one of the best. He has no alibi for the critical hours, and he matches the description we got from Kenney — ’
‘From the rear — and from a distance.’
‘He’s also the same height as the guy in the video.’
‘It’s pretty thin, McCabe. There must be a million doctors who own Lexus SUVs.’
‘Four hundred and ninety. We’re checking them out.’
‘Spencer have any history of sexual kinkiness?’
‘None that I know of, but the guy gives off strange vibes. Not exactly sexual, not exactly not. When I was in his office, he described to me how it felt to hold a human heart in your hand. It was strange, like he was getting off on it. Also, I have a feeling he may swing both ways.’
‘Is that relevant?’
‘Probably not.’
Each of them sipped at his cardboard cup of coffee. Finally McCabe spoke. ‘I want a warrant.’
‘What are you searching for? Even if Spencer’s your guy, what do you think he’s holding on to?’
‘Souvenirs. Serial killers often keep them. An earring was missing from Dubois’s left ear. Assuming there were previous victims, and a chat I had with a cop in Florida convinces me there are, Spencer might just be hiding a little collection.’
Lund said nothing. Just nodded thoughtfully.
McCabe continued, ‘I want to go over the Lexus for any trace of the victim. Fingerprints or anything that can give us DNA. Hair, blood, anything else in the back cargo area.’
‘He’d have cleaned it out.’
‘Tough to hide blood traces from Luminol. No matter how hard you clean.’
‘Fair enough. Of course, you might not need a warrant to search the car.’
‘I will if it’s locked in Spencer’s garage.’
‘True.’
‘You think I’ve got enough for probable cause?’
‘The connection to Spencer’s pretty thin. I wish you had more. Although that’s not all that’s bothering me.’
‘What else, then?’
‘Letting Spencer know he’s a person of interest. If the guy was Joe Schmoe, no problem, but he’s not. You know as well as I do the minute you show up at Spencer’s house with a warrant, he’s gonna howl bloody murder. Start calling all of his influential pals. Get himself lawyered up, and it won’t be with some court-appointed nobody. You go after somebody with Spencer’s resources, you’d better have hard evidence tied down six ways to Sunday or the guy walks.’
‘Like OJ?’
‘For example, and compared to the evidence they had against him, you don’t have beans. Why not wait till you have a little more?’
‘We can’t afford to wait.’
‘Oh yeah? Why’s that?’
‘Lucinda Cassidy.’
‘What about her?’
‘I told you I talked to a cop in Florida? A woman named Elyse Andersen was murdered in Orlando in 2002. Whoever killed Andersen used the same alias, Harry Lime, and the same MO as the guy who cut up Katie Dubois.’
