‘Yes. The famous pianist. I remember a sad old man. He came with a much younger woman who was supposedly his assistant. Maybe she was. Maybe she was more. I think the mother may be dead.’
‘Did anybody think to do a Y-chromosomal DNA match between father and son? That would have confirmed the body’s identity beyond a doubt.’
‘Wouldn’t have helped.’
‘Why not?’
‘Kane was adopted. On that note, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to take a short break and find the little girls’ room.’
Bollinger rose and wandered off. McCabe got them both another coffee and considered the possibilities. Suppose Bollinger was right and the body they buried wasn’t Lucas Kane. Pollock would have to have known. He ID’d the body. Said it was Kane. Hair, moles, and scars in all the right places, Sessions told him. Even made some jokes about the guy’s pecker. ‘I never forget a penis,’ he said.
Suppose Kane had killed someone else to convince people he was dead. Why? So he could become Harry Lime? In the film The Third Man, Harry Lime faked his own death on the theory that the police would never go after a dead man. Had Kane done the same thing for the same reason? The choice of names seemed almost too obvious. Once again the risk-taker? What about the other name? Pollock’s alias, Paul Oliver Duggan. The name used by the assassin in Day of the Jackal.
McCabe replayed Spencer’s words again in his mind. A tragic, tragic loss. In some ways Lucas was the most talented of us all. Talented enough to perform transplant surgery on elderly patients after fifteen years of not being a doctor? Seemed like a reach. Talented enough to be someone’s assistant? Holland’s. Wilcox’s. Or even Spencer’s. Maybe they were all in on it. The Asclepius Society. Killing healthy young people to bring the dead back to life.
McCabe let his mind range over the possibilities. What about the victims? Katie Dubois. Lucinda Cassidy. Elyse Andersen. Wendy Branca. Brian Henry. All blond. All athletes. All physically attractive. All but one female. The Harry Lime name was linked to both Dubois and Andersen. Dubois was raped before being murdered. Dubois and Andersen had their hearts cut out. The fate of the others remained uncertain.
McCabe wondered about Kane’s sexuality. In Miami he lived an openly gay lifestyle. Maybe he was bisexual. Common enough. He remembered reading Kinsey Institute statistics claiming 11.6 percent of white males between twenty and thirty-five were equally attracted to men and women.
Bollinger returned. He handed her her coffee. ‘What do you know about Kane’s sex life?’
‘Ah, now we’re getting to the fun stuff,’ said Bollinger.
‘Seriously. I know he had an ongoing relationship with Pollard — excuse me, Pollock — but beyond that?’
‘Lucas Kane was a sexual predator. Men. Women. It didn’t matter. He was vicious and voracious.’
‘You mean AC/DC?’
‘No. That’s too gentle a word for it. Sex defined nearly everything Lucas Kane did. He consumed people. Used them and abused them. Most of his targets were young and fit, but lack of beauty never deterred Lucas. If he wanted something, he used sex to get it. He even hit on fat old me on more than one occasion.’
‘Did he score?’
‘Not that it’s any of your business, but no. Lucas Kane was physically attractive, very attractive. Beautiful, really, but I found him psychically repellent. Like a snake. Lucas would take you, suck you dry, and throw you away. Darryl Pollock was the only human being I can think of, and I use the term “human being” loosely, who was tough enough or insensitive enough or sociopathic enough not to care. A match made in heaven. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s change the subject. Lucas’s sex life gives me the creeps.’
‘Okay. Tell me about Stan Allard’s suicide.’
‘I guess that’s weird thing number three. I don’t think it was suicide.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What happened is, a little after Kane’s death, Stan’s marriage finally broke up and he moved into this grubby little place called the Endless Dunes. Basically a hot-sheets motel a couple of blocks from the beach. The way Sessions tells it, Stan was so depressed about splitting with his wife that he just wanted to end it all.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘Stan wasn’t depressed. He was overjoyed. A few days before the supposed suicide, I had a couple of drinks with him. You know what he said about the breakup? “Best thing that ever happened to me. I should have walked out on the bitch years ago.”
‘Then we started bullshitting about the Kane murder, and I told him about some of my concerns about the fingerprints and DNA. All he said was, “I’m working on that.”
‘I said, “What do you mean you’re working on it? I thought the case was closed?”
‘He said, “It wasn’t cleared. It isn’t closed. I’m working on it.” Listen, McCabe, Stan Allard was a smart, tough cop. A survivor. I say there’s no way he shot himself.’ Bollinger paused.
‘You think it was Pollock and Kane.’
‘One or the other. Or both. Duane did most of Kane’s dirty work, but they both liked hurting people. Probably liked killing them.’
‘They killed Allard because Allard was getting too close to proving Kane wasn’t dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sessions didn’t do anything about it?’
‘I’ve got some pretty good sources who tell me Sessions was on Kane’s payroll. Hired and paid for. He wanted everyone thinking Kane was dead. Again nothing I can prove. Or even print.’
‘How do you think they did Allard?’
‘I think Kane and Pollard, sorry, Pollock, may have been waiting in Stan’s motel room. When he gets home, they render him unconscious, sit him in a chair, wrap his hand around his gun, stick it in his mouth, and bang. There were powder burns inside Stan’s mouth and evidence of saliva on the barrel of the gun.’
‘What kind of gun?’
‘A Glock 17. It was Stan’s.’
‘Where did they find it?’
‘On the floor by the body.’
‘Nobody heard the shot?’
‘Nobody they could find. Nobody willing to talk. Remember, the guest list at the Endless Dunes is mostly hookers and other romantic types who don’t want to get caught.’
‘So Sessions doesn’t blow the whistle…’
‘Because Kane can prove he was on the take.’
‘He leave a suicide note?’
‘Nope.’
‘Any sign of a choke hold or drugs in Stan’s blood?’
‘No.’
‘So you can’t prove a thing.’
‘Damn, you’re good, McCabe.’
46
Friday. 10:30 A.M.
McCabe half expected Sandy to turn up on his flight back to Portland. Thank God, she didn’t. Sitting next to Sandy, chatting about her coming weekend with Casey, would have been more than he could have handled. Anyway, it was early. Sandy was probably still in her West End Avenue apartment, picking out the perfect wardrobe for parental visitation. Something conservative and motherly. Sandy was good at playing roles, equally good at dressing for them.
The plane was one of those small commuter jobs with undersized seats. He looked around to see if he could snag an empty row before squeezing into his assigned aisle seat. No such luck. The flight was packed. Next to him a distracted businesswoman in full New York chic rummaged through her Ferragamo briefcase. He smiled at her. She smiled back as she extracted a Wall Street Journal and stowed the briefcase under the seat. Then she
