‘Sheriff’s deputy found it about a mile and a half from where we found your car and the SUV. I’m headed there now. Come up to where you were. Follow Bucks Mill about a mile, then take a right on Taylorville Road. Go for about a mile and you’ll see a whole shitload of flashing lights. State’s saying this one’s MSP jurisdiction. We’re saying it’s an extension of the Dubois case so we’re still primary. Anyway, we’ll work it out with Matthews. By the way, your car’s being impounded as evidence. So’s the shotgun. Get yourself a rental. We’ll pay for it.’
McCabe took the overnight bag into the bathroom and changed into the clothes Maggie had brought for him. Jeans. Black turtleneck. Beige windbreaker. Not exactly what he’d choose for a murder investigation, but fuck it. When he came out, two uniformed officers were already talking to Maggie. One was Kevin Comisky, whom he’d last seen leaving the scrap yard on Friday night. The other cop he’d seen a number of times at 109. He didn’t know his name.
McCabe skipped the pleasantries. ‘Detective Savage fill you in?’
They nodded. ‘Alright, let me reiterate. This woman is a key witness in the Dubois investigation, and her life is in danger. Someone’s already tried to kill her once. He’ll try again. I got a quick look at the bad guy from the rear. Shaved head. Big neck and shoulders. Maybe five-ten. Might be him coming for her. Might be somebody else.
‘She’s listed in this hospital as Jane Doe, and that’s the way it stays. When she comes out of surgery, you stick like glue. Walk with the gurney that takes her to her room and park yourselves outside the door. If one of you has to take a leak, the other stays put. When hospital personnel go into that room, doctors, nurses, anyone, you check their ID and then go in with them. Under no circumstances does a Dr. Philip Spencer go anywhere near her.’
‘If it’s Spencer, how do we stop him?’
‘Just tell him it’s orders, you have no choice — and don’t take any shit. He’s an arrogant bastard, and he’ll try to bully you. Clear?’
‘Clear,’ they said practically in unison.
‘Hospital security knows you’re here, and they’ll back you up. If anyone gives you a hard time, call me on my cell.’ He wrote down the number and handed it to Comisky. ‘Let me have your cell number.’
‘It’s 555-6655.’
‘Thanks. If any cops show up to relieve you, even if you know them, send ’em home. You’re on duty here until I personally relieve you.’
33
Wednesday. 4:30 A.M.
Maggie drove fast. McCabe sat next to her, pondering their next move. Neither spoke. This thing was metastasizing, McCabe thought grimly. First Dubois. Then Sophie. Now this kid. Next maybe Lucinda Cassidy. They had to move fast before any more victims were claimed. In the dark, Maggie gave McCabe’s forearm a reassuring squeeze. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get him,’ she said.
The flashing light bars of half a dozen police cars, state and local as well as the PPD, lent an eerie glow to the night sky above Taylorville Road. A young trooper flagged Maggie to the shoulder a hundred yards short of the crime scene. He checked their IDs and told them they’d have to walk from there. Terri Mirabito’s van pulled in right behind. Terri grabbed her bag, and the three of them approached the yellow crime scene tape cordoning off the area where the boy had been killed. Inside, teams of crime scene techs, Jacobi’s and one from the state crime lab, were making measurements and taking pictures.
McCabe and Maggie saw Bill Fortier standing with a senior MSP officer, and they went over to join them. Fortier made the introductions. ‘Detective Sergeant Mike McCabe, Detective Margaret Savage, this is Colonel Matthews. Colonel, you probably know the assistant ME.’
Matthews extended his hand first to McCabe, then Maggie. ‘Ed Matthews,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you two.’ He smiled over at Terri. ‘I do know Dr. Mirabito.’
McCabe’s mind played with the name. ‘Ed Mathews. Third baseman. Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta Braves. Only man to play with the Braves in all three cities. Five hundred and twelve career home runs. Tied with Ernie Banks for seventeenth on the all-time list. Voted into the Hall of Fame in 1978. Spelled with one T.’ What a lot of shit. Sometimes he wished he had a delete button for all the unwanted detritus that lingered in his brain.
‘Colonel Matthews and I have been discussing jurisdictional issues,’ said Fortier. ‘This could be considered an MSP case because the kid was killed out here in East Hoo-Haa and not in the City of Portland. On the other hand, with the obvious connection to the Dubois case, if that holds up, and we think it will, PPD has a material interest. What we’ve decided is that Portland will continue as the lead agency, you and Maggie as lead team, but MSP will commit any resources we need — detectives, uniformed assets, whatever. Anybody involved reports to you, Mike, and through you to me and then to Shockley.’
‘Feel free to call on me for whatever you need,’ added Matthews. ‘If we’ve got it, you’ve got it.’
McCabe nodded, his hands stuffed in his pockets against the early morning chill. ‘Works for me.’ Truth was he couldn’t have asked for more. He was still running the show, but the new arrangement gave him extra resources whenever and wherever he might need them.
*
Maggie, Terri, and McCabe all donned latex gloves and paper booties and walked over to where the body lay in a small drainage culvert that ran between the side of the road and an open meadow beyond. In the predawn light, with his pants pulled down and his arms and head turned at improbable angles, the boy looked like an oversized puppet that had been carelessly tossed away. A cop shone his Maglite on the corpse. Dirt from dried tears marked the boy’s cheeks just below the eyes. An ugly star-shaped wound, black, red, and orange, shone like a gaping eye an inch above the left ear. The boy hadn’t bled much from the wound, but there was a lot of dried blood below his nose on his lips and chin and some spattered on his sweatshirt.
Terri knelt in the culvert and examined the wound. ‘Not much question about cause,’ she said. ‘Contact wound from a rifle. The killer must have held the muzzle up close against the kid’s head. This stippling effect’ — she pointed with a finger — ‘was caused by muzzle gases burning and staining the skin.’ She pointed to a clearly round indentation in the center of the wound. ‘Muzzle impact.’ Then, looking up, she said, ‘It’ll match the bore of the weapon.’ She wiggled the boy’s nose with a gloved hand. ‘Nose is broken. The guy must have roughed him up first.’
‘Time of death?’ asked Maggie.
‘Only a few hours ago. Between midnight and 2:00 A.M. ’ She gently moved one of the boy’s wrists back and forth. ‘Rigor hasn’t set in yet. Looking at the scrapes on the back and buttocks, I figure he was shot up there on the road somewhere and dragged here postmortem.’
‘We’ve found the slug.’ Jacobi walked over from the road, carrying a small evidence bag. ‘Imbedded about six inches into the road. Should match the one we took from the seat of the T-Bird.’
‘It’ll match,’ said McCabe.
‘’Course it will,’ said Jacobi.
Maggie and McCabe drove back to the crash site behind Bill Jacobi. They pulled in behind the crime scene tape about fifty yards away from the damaged vehicles. The shooter’s SUV was pretty nearly totaled, its hood smashed in against a two-hundred-year-old maple with a trunk that had to be six feet in diameter. A flatbed driver had positioned his vehicle behind the SUV and was preparing to haul it up onto his truck. Tom Tasco and Eddie Fraser were standing nearby.
‘He must have been doing forty at the moment of impact,’ Jacobi told McCabe. ‘The air bag deployed. Probably smacked him in the face. I’m surprised the son of a bitch was able to walk, let alone run.’
‘Anybody run the vehicle?’ asked McCabe.
‘Yeah,’ said Tasco. ‘Rented on September 13 at the Budget counter at Logan under the name of Paul Oliver Duggan. D-U-G-G-A-N. We assume that’s an alias.’
‘It is,’ said McCabe. ‘It’s another movie character. From Day of the Jackal. Paul Oliver Duggan was the name on the Jackal’s fake passport. Did Mr. Duggan have a reservation?’
‘No. He was a walk-up. No history of renting with Budget before. We’ve requested passenger manifests on all flights that arrived within three hours of the rental, but we doubt we’ll find the name Duggan.’
