‘Let me check the manifests when they come in. The guy likes to use movie names. I may recognize one you miss. How about license and credit card?’
‘He had a California license and a valid Capital One Visa card. Both listed his home address as 5333 Zoo Drive, Los Angeles,’ said Eddie Fraser.
‘Let me guess. The L.A. Zoo?’
‘You got it.’
‘These guys are real comedians. Anything in the car?’
‘We’ll check for prints in Portland. The semen sample is going to a lab in Brunswick.’
‘He left the car in a hurry. He leave any stuff behind?’ asked McCabe.
‘Yeah,’ said Tasco. ‘A couple of country music CDs and an old DVD, apparently purchased out of the used pile at VideoPort on Middle Street. I guess after killing people, he likes relaxing with a movie.’
‘Let me guess again. Day of the Jackal.’
‘Two for two. There was also a pricey leather jacket. Nothing in the pockets except one of those tins of breath mints. Almost empty.’
McCabe froze. ‘Altoids?’
‘Yeah, Altoids. Also a couple of empty tins on the floor. The guy must have been an addict.’
‘Shit.’ McCabe reached for his cell and punched in the number Comisky had given him.
34
Wednesday. 6:30 A.M.
The shooter studied his image in the restroom mirror as he unwrapped the bandages from around his head. Nice touch for a hospital, he thought, hiding his shaved head with bandages instead of a hat. He once thought he ought to get a rug. It’d change his look alright. In the end, though, he decided there was no way he was gonna compromise his cool with something that looked so frigging ridiculous. He fingered the bruising under his left eye. It hurt. Fucking air bag smacked him in the face like a punch. Fuck it. Couldn’t do much about that now. He pulled off his jeans, rolled them into a tight ball, and hid them as best he could behind the toilet. He put on the scrubs and the little blue hat the cop had left behind in the bathroom. With the scrubs, he’d fit right in.
He checked the Blackie Collins switchblade strapped to his leg. Nice to know it was there, though his two hands were all the weapons he’d need. He didn’t have the rifle. That was hidden in the truck, parked two blocks from the hospital and bearing a new set of license plates.
The shooter looked again in the mirror. Blew himself a kiss. Forced himself to breathe in. Breathe out. Slowly. Deeply. Once. Twice. Three times. Keep it cool. Not too edgy. Not too excited. A stealth op. Excitement causes fuckups.
Time for recon. If he was gonna get into the bitch’s room, he needed one of those plastic ID badges they all hung around their necks. He’d have to borrow one. That was job one. He exited the restroom, turned out the light, and quietly closed the door.
‘A lot of people suck Altoids, McCabe.’
Maggie and McCabe were heading back down the turnpike toward Cumberland Medical. There was more traffic on the road now, the forward edge of rush hour, and McCabe was weaving around cars, siren blaring.
‘Yeah, I know, but I knew there was something not quite right about that guy. I should have seen it. I should have recognized him from his body shape. Didn’t fit with an old drunk sailor.’
‘Well, don’t take it so hard. I know you sometimes see yourself as SuperCop, but, like they say, shit happens. We make mistakes. We all do, even you.’
‘Work homicide long enough and it becomes part of your DNA that mistakes kill innocent people. Even not so innocent ones like my brother Tommy.’
McCabe pulled off 95 by the mall and took the connector to 295. A couple of minutes later they were at the Congress Street exit heading to the hospital.
Sophie Gauthier was out of recovery and in a room on the third floor. Finding the room turned out to be easy. When the shooter spotted a cop carrying two cups of coffee and a bag of something out of the cafeteria, he just followed the jerk right to the room. Then he kept walking. No one asked any questions. No one even looked up. Not the cops. Not the hospital security guys hanging around outside the room trying to act like they, too, were the real deal. Assholes.
Okay, so he knew where she was. Now he just had to stop crapping around in the hallways and get the goddamn ID badge. It had to look at least a little like him. They’d for sure check the picture. It took the shooter a while, going up and down stairs, roaming the halls to find the right guy. Finally, on the fourth floor, a guy walking toward him looked close enough to work. Same shaved head. Same shape to his face. The shooter checked the badge as they passed each other. Charles Lowery, Radiology. Okay, Charles, let’s find somewhere we can be alone. The shooter did a quick 180 and followed Charles to the elevator bay at the end of the hall. Charles pressed the down button and waited. The shooter stood next to him. If the car was empty, he’d take Charles right away. When the body was found, it’d cause a commotion. Doctors, nurses, and the security guys, they’d all come running. Maybe the cops, too. Could be the opening he needed.
Charles Lowery glanced at the shooter. Nodded his head. The shooter smiled and nodded back. A little bell rang and the elevator doors opened. The car was empty. They got on. Charles pressed the button for the ground floor. The doors closed.
When the car began moving, the shooter turned to face Charles. In a single swift motion, he swung his right arm around Charles’s neck, pushing his head down and under his own left armpit. The shooter’s left forearm went under Charles’s throat. He pushed forward with his hip, made a quarter turn to the right, and jerked upward with his left arm, instantly breaking Charles’s neck. It all took less than three seconds.
With Charles’s head still under his arm, the shooter lowered the body to a sitting position against the back wall. He pulled off the plastic badge, put it around his own neck, and took a deep breath.
The elevator bounced to a stop on one. The shooter faced forward as the doors slid open. An elderly woman looked in with wide eyes. She looked down at Charles. Then up at the shooter. ‘Heart attack,’ the shooter said. ‘You stay here. I’ll get help.’
She nodded. Before leaving the elevator, he reached back and pressed a button. Then he slipped out through the closing doors, smiling at the woman, who still stood outside. The elevator, empty except for Charles, ascended to three.
The shooter walked to the nearest stairwell and stepped inside. On the landing he examined Charles Lowery’s picture. It wouldn’t pass close scrutiny. Charles was smaller, skinnier, but that didn’t matter. The badge only showed a head shot, and that was close enough. It’d do.
Maggie’s Crown Vic squealed to a halt at the main entrance just as the shooter started up the stairs. McCabe killed the engine and siren and bolted out of the car at a run, Maggie right behind. Comisky told him they were putting Sophie, who was heavily sedated, in room 308. She’d be there by now. They entered the hospital and sprinted toward the elevator bay down the hall to the right. An elderly woman with gray hair and a red face stood by the closed elevator doors, shouting, ‘He had a heart attack. He had a heart attack! He’s in the elevator!’ A hospital employee was trying to calm her down. McCabe glanced at the lights above the elevator doors. The car she was pointing to was stopped on three. The other was descending from seven. It could stop two or three times before it got to one.
McCabe scanned the area, looking for the nearest stairs. Spotting the sign, he ran toward them.
The shooter exited the stairwell on three and looked down the hall toward the open elevator doors. Pure chaos. Even better than he hoped. Doctors, nurses, and security guys all shouting and running toward the open elevator with Charles’s body in it. Even the cops left their posts. One ran from the door of Sophie’s room toward the crowd, then stopped ten feet down the hall, his back to the room, looking toward the commotion. The second cop stayed by the door but was out of his chair, watching the action, his back to the shooter.
From what he could hear, it sounded like Charles was still alive and they were treating him for a broken neck. Tough little bugger. That snap should have finished him off. The shooter grabbed an abandoned meal cart and rolled it toward Sophie’s room. He pulled to a stop at the door. As quietly as possible, he opened the door and pushed the
