The Chill of Night Read online

  Thirteen

  Portland, Maine

  Saturday, January 7

  3:00 A.M.

  ‘I’m not in real good shape to talk right now,’ Janie Archer told McCabe, ‘but you said it was urgent, so, hey, here I am.’ He was standing on the deck of the Francis R. Mangini, waiting for one of the crew to finish tying the fireboat up to her regular slot on the Portland side.

  Archer was slurring her words. McCabe could hear a male voice shouting something unintelligible in the background. He was tempted to tell her to get some sleep and he’d catch her in the morning, but it already was morning, and from the sound of her she might be out of commission for most of the rest of the day. He decided to get what he could now.

  He followed Maggie up the slippery ramp to the pier. ‘Ms Archer. My name’s McCabe –’

  ‘Yeah, I know. You’re a cop. You said that on the message.’ He heard a giggle. Then Archer must’ve pressed her hand over the receiver, because he could just make out her next muffled words. ‘Stop it, Brett. I’m talking.’ Then a loud whisper, ‘To a cop.’

  Maggie mouthed the words ‘Good night’ and signaled she was headed home to bed. McCabe threw her a distracted wave and watched her disappear into the night. It was snowing even harder on this side. Three or four inches already, and the wind was swirling it into drifts. They predicted a big one, and it looked like, for once, they’d be right.

  ‘Are you sure you can talk now, Ms Archer? Sounds like you’re busy.’

  ‘No. I’m okay. It’s alright. You said it was about Lainie. What is it? What’d she do?’

  Had Janie Archer been next of kin, McCabe would have been required to arrange for someone from the NYPD or another agency to visit her apartment and inform her of Lainie’s death in person. But she wasn’t. She was only a friend. ‘Ms. Archer. I’m sorry to have to tell you, your friend Elaine Goff is dead.’

  He heard an intake of breath. ‘Oh shit.’

  My sentiments exactly, thought McCabe.

  ‘Lainie’s dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lainie’s really dead?’

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid she is.’

  ‘I thought she was in Aruba.’

  ‘She never made it to Aruba.’

  ‘What happened? Was she driving that fucking Beemer too fast again?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t an accident,’ he said.

  ‘Not an accident? Then what? She didn’t OD or anything like that?’

  No attempt to hide Goff’s drug habit. Maybe with Goff dead Archer figured it didn’t matter. ‘Was she a heavy user?’ he asked.

  ‘Occasional. Social. It wasn’t a big deal with her.’

  McCabe reached the five-minute parking zone to find his car covered in a layer of snow. He wasn’t going anywhere until he had a chance to scrape it off. ‘Do you know the name of her dealer?’ he asked, unlocking the door.

  There was hesitation on the other end of the line. ‘Uh … gee … no. No, I don’t.’

  He climbed in and started the engine. ‘Ms. Archer, Elaine Goff’s body was found earlier this evening. If you can give us the name of her dealer, it would be a big help.’ He waited. There was no response. He decided to press harder. ‘Your friend didn’t just die. She was murdered. Drugs were found in her car. There may be a connection.’

  Now there was shock. ‘Murdered? Lainie was murdered?’ He could hear the depth of it in her voice. People like Janie Archer, nice people, middle-class people, people with real homes and good jobs, never believed the people they knew, their friends or family, could ever be the victims of anything as ugly as murder. That sort of thing didn’t happen to them. Not in a city like Portland, Maine. Not anywhere. In their minds it only happened to poor people, black people, people in the projects.

  ‘Do you know the name of her dealer?’

  ‘She never told me his name. She called him the hot-dog man. “Gotta go see the hot-dog man,” she’d say.’

  It didn’t mean anything to him. He wasn’t sure if ‘the hot-dog man’ was a dealer’s tag or if selling hot-dogs was what the guy ostensibly did for a living. Easy enough to find out unless he was a total amateur. The narco guys were aware of most of the pros in town. Even the part-timers. There were a few seconds of silence.

  ‘You’re really a cop? This isn’t some kind of stupid joke?’ The slurring of words was gone.

  ‘I’m really a cop. Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe, Portland, Maine, Police Department, and no, it’s not a joke.’

  ‘Funny. I was pissed off ’cause she hadn’t sent me a card from Aruba. Stupid me. You better give me some ID. A badge number or something I can check later.’

  McCabe repeated the number slowly so she could copy it down.

  ‘That’s McCabe? M-C? Not M-A-C?’

  He told her M-C was correct. After that he could hear her talking to her boyfriend again, this time more calmly. ‘Alright, Brett. It’s time for you to go home.’ Pause. ‘No, I’m sorry, but tonight’s over.’ Brett said something McCabe couldn’t make out. Then he heard Archer again. ‘Yes, something’s happened, and no, I don’t need your help. Just go.’ Pause. ‘Thank you.’ Then another pause and a muttered ‘Asshole.’ Finally he heard a deep breath, and Archer was addressing him again.

  ‘Where did you get my name?’ she asked.

  He pushed the defroster to high, but the car hadn’t yet warmed up enough for it to accomplish much of anything. He realized he was shivering. ‘Elaine Goff listed you as her emergency contact at Palmer Milliken. I got your number from the head of HR.’ Behind him he could hear the loud scraping of a snowplow. He hoped the guy didn’t block him in behind a wall of snow, forcing him to dig his way out of the parking space.

  ‘Jesus, Lainie was murdered,’ Archer said. This time it wasn’t a question. It was a statement, delivered in a flat voice. Quietly, without affect, as if Janie Archer were merely trying the idea on for size. As if by saying it aloud, she’d be able to tell if such a thing was even possible.

  McCabe waited for her to say more, but there was only silence on the other end of the line. ‘Ms. Archer, do you know if Lainie had any family? Anyone who should be notified of her death?’

  ‘What? I’m sorry. What did you say?’

  He repeated the question.

  ‘No. I’m probably the closest thing to family Lainie had.’ Archer’s voice morphed from disbelief to sadness as if she’d just accepted the reality of her friend’s death and was beginning to mourn. ‘Janie and Lainie they called us. We were so close it was almost like we were two sides of the same person.’

  ‘What happened to Lainie’s parents?’

  ‘Her mother died while we were in college. At the end of sophomore year. After that and right through law school, she spent Thanksgivings and Christmases and a couple of summers with my family in New Jersey. Lainie was the sister I never had.’

  ‘How about her father?’

  ‘She never knew her real father. He was killed in a car accident when Lainie was a baby.’

  ‘His name was Goff?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think so. It may have been her mother’s maiden name.’

  ‘There were no siblings?’

  ‘No. She was an only child.’

  ‘You just said, “She never knew her real father.” Was there ever a stepfather who might still be around?’

  ‘She had a stepfather, but he hasn’t been part of her life since she was a kid.’ Archer hesitated again. ‘I don’t think she’d want him notified of anything.’

  ‘But he’s alive?’

  ‘Not as far as Lainie was concerned.’

  ‘Can you give me his name?’

  ‘Albright. Wallace Albright. He lives in Maine. Camden, I think.’

  ‘What was Lainie’s problem with Mr Albright?’

  Archer didn’t answer right away. When she did, all she said was ‘I think you better ask him that.’

  McCabe thought about pressing the issue but decided instead to wait until he talked
to Albright. He changed the subject. ‘How’d she pay for school?’

  ‘She had a scholarship. And loans. And summer jobs. After her mother died, she also had the equity on her mother’s house and the proceeds of a life insurance policy. Couple of hundred thou altogether. She used that to live on all the way through Cornell and for a little time after. Until she started at Palmer Milliken. It was barely enough. Lainie had expensive tastes. Always did. Officer … I’m sorry, what’s your name again?’

  ‘McCabe. Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe.’

  ‘Officer McCabe, you said Lainie was murdered – but you didn’t tell me when or how. Do you know who did it?’

  ‘There isn’t very much we can tell you yet. We only found her body a few hours ago, and the investigation is just getting under way.’

  ‘Are you sure it was Lainie you found?’

  ‘As sure as we can be. Because death was the result of a homicide, there’ll have to be an autopsy. Probably at the end of the week. After that it looks like it’ll be up to you to make funeral arrangements once the body is released.’

  ‘I guess so,’ Archer said. ‘Somebody has to be there for Lainie, and I guess I’m it. I’m the only one she has. What kind of … I don’t know how to put this delicately. What kind of shape is her body in? Did the killer …’

  ‘She’s not mutilated or grotesque in any way, if that’s what you’re getting at. She’s simply dead.’ There was a brief silence; then McCabe asked, ‘Is there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to harm her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or any reason anyone would want to see her dead?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Did she ever mention a Palmer Milliken life insurance policy to you?’

  ‘No.’

  He asked her a few more pro forma questions; then, just as they were about to hang up, she said, ‘Ogden.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ogden.’

  ‘What about Ogden?’ Lainie left the office looking pissed. Ogden left ten minutes later. Was he pissed as well? He looked like he always looks. Like a rich white guy.

  ‘You ought to talk to him about Lainie. Talk to Henry Ogden.’

  ‘Were they having an affair?’

  There was only a slight pause and a sigh before Archer answered. ‘Talk to Ogden.’

  Before he could ask her anything more, the phone went dead. He didn’t call back.

  McCabe pulled out of the ferry terminal and turned right onto Commercial Street. At a little after three o’clock on a snowy January morning, the streets were empty in a way New York’s never would have been, not even in the middle of a blizzard. There was no traffic, and there were no people. Bars and hotels were shut up tight, and the last of the Old Port revelers had long since gone home. With an overnight parking ban in effect, there weren’t even any parked cars. Nothing moved but the snowplows, scraping their way up and down the streets, orange lights flashing, giant insects on the prowl.

  The Crown Vic’s heater was finally generating some warmth, and he turned the blowers on high. He took a left by the Japanese restaurant on India and a right at the treatment plant on Fore Street, steering the big Ford gingerly through the snow, hoping that the Eastern Prom had been plowed and that the car’s rear wheel drive would get him up the hill.

  The road turned out to be passable, and it took only a minute or two longer than usual to reach the big white Victorian at the top. He looked up. Kyra had left a living-room light on to welcome him home. Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.

  But instead of turning left into the building’s parking area, he pushed on through the deepening snow, straight up the Prom all the way to Congress, where he took a left. He drove three blocks, made another left, and then another, completing the circle. He pulled to a stop across the street from the building.

  He sat in the dark, engine running, and imagined Kyra waiting upstairs. This afternoon’s lovemaking seemed weeks and not mere hours ago. Here he lies where he longed to be. It was true. Still, something else tugged at him.

  Did you love her then? Do you still love her now? Richard Wolfe had asked him during their sessions.

  Not in the way you mean.

  In what way, then?

  In the only way I ever loved Sandy.

  He needed time and space to understand why he reacted the way he did down at the Fish Pier. Why he was pushing Kyra so hard to marry. That would be impossible to do with her lying next to him. He knew that no matter how silently he crept into their room, she’d wake and smile. No matter how carefully he pulled off his clothes and slid between the sheets next to the warmth of her, she’d open her arms and wrap them around him in greeting. She’d ask about what happened at the Fish Pier and later on Harts Island. He’d tell her to go back to sleep, promise to tell her about it in the morning. She might do that. Might give him space to think. But she might not. And if she didn’t, if, instead, she raised her head and propped it up on one hand and looked at him with those glorious, inquisitive eyes and said no, no, it was alright, he could tell her now, well, that just might be a problem. Because he wasn’t ready yet to talk to her about the feelings Goff’s resemblance to Sandy had triggered in him. He needed to understand all that himself first.

  He glanced over at the snow-covered mound that was his own car. The classic ’57 T-Bird convertible he and Sandy splurged on the first year they were married. The Bird was the only project that ever held both their hearts for more than a minute. And that included the daughter she never really wanted, the pregnancy she threatened to abort. He remembered how the two of them spent weekend after weekend working on the car together, restoring it to a gleaming newness that drew stares and admiring whistles from everyone who laid eyes on it. A thing of beauty and a joy forever. Sort of like Sandy herself. At least the beauty part. The car and Casey were all that remained from the ten years he invested in a failed marriage. Except, of course, for the rage and desire he sometimes felt in his dreams. Tonight on the Fish Pier those things made him feel, on some level, like he was being unfaithful to Kyra. He wasn’t happy with that. It was something he needed to deal with.

  McCabe slipped the car into drive and plowed his way back into the road. Once again he turned left toward Congress Street. This time he didn’t drive in a circle.

  Fourteen

  Three forty-two Brackett was a three-story brick Victorian with a slate mansard roof set in a neighborhood where the elegance of Portland’s West End began its slow transition into the small apartment houses, strip malls, and gas stations that lay farther north and east toward Longfellow Square. McCabe pulled in across the street and sat for a minute, engine running, and studied the building. Nice enough to serve as appropriate digs for a young lawyer on the upswing of her career, but not, he was sure, what Lainie ultimately aspired to.

  There were no other cars on the street, the overnight parking ban having chased them all to designated downtown garages or school parking lots. He couldn’t even see any evidence of Tasco’s canvassers. They’d probably already covered the area and by now were blocks away.

  On the porch McCabe could make out six small black mailboxes hung in two rows to the left of the glass-fronted doors. Six mailboxes. Six apartments. Headlights from a police cruiser approached in his rearview mirror. The unit passed by without slowing. When its taillights disappeared in the distance, McCabe pulled out and took a right around the corner. Fifty yards up, the familiar stone spire of St Luke’s Episcopal loomed out of the snow-filled sky. The parking lot behind the church had already been plowed, probably a couple of times. He found a protected spot in the lee of the building and pulled in. He stuffed a flashlight and a pair of evidence gloves in the side pocket of his overcoat. He scrounged around the glove box but couldn’t find any lock picks. Shockley sneered at such stuff as ‘TV copudrama bullshit.’ Maybe so, but useful bullshit as far as McCabe was concerned. Well, he’d have to do without.

  He wrapped his coat tig
htly around himself, walked back to Brackett, crossed the street, and climbed five steps up to the porch. The tenants’ names were printed on strips of white card stock and inserted into slots at the bottom of each numbered mailbox. E. Goff had lived in 2F. F had to stand for ‘front,’ because the only other letter designation was R. Apartment 2R was occupied by someone named K. Wilson. Like Tasco told him, Andrew Barker, the landlord, lived directly below Goff in 1F. A. Rosefsky and P. Donelley shared 1R. S. Hanley resided in 3F. And a pair of Chus, N. and T., were in 3R. None of the names meant anything to McCabe, and Tasco’s team would have already knocked on all their doors and spoken to those who answered. Still, he might want to talk to them later. Apartment dwellers in Portland tended to notice the comings and goings of strange faces. He wondered which of them had known Lainie personally, which had been willing to share information about their dead neighbor.

  Twin ovals of beveled glass, covered on the inside by white lace and framed in polished oak, graced the double front doors. He thought about ringing the bell for 1F and waking Barker but decided if he could handle the locks he’d rather go in unnoticed. He glanced back at the street. No one in sight. He slipped on the evidence gloves and pushed down on the brass handle. To his surprise the door was unlocked. No copudrama bullshit required.

  He found himself in a handsome if slightly faded hallway. Etched glass sconces bathed beige walls in soft light. The dark oak floor and stairs were covered with an Oriental runner that, despite a few worn spots, would muffle the sound of his steps. The place looked like Barker was trying. As he passed, McCabe glanced at his own image reflected in a large gilt-framed mirror hanging at the bottom of the stairs. He looked like shit.