‘Left the priesthood?’

‘Yeah, and it was too bad, because he’s just the kind of young idealistic guy they desperately need. Instead he went out on his own, raised enough money to get started, and bought a big old house on one of the side streets off Longfellow Square. I’ve never met Kelly personally, but from what I hear he’s a hell of a charismatic guy. A real charmer.’

Charismatic fit with the face they’d seen in the picture. Charismatic and intense. The windshield was clear now, and he slipped the car into gear. What Maggie told him was interesting, but it still didn’t explain Goff’s interest in Sanctuary House. ‘Anything else I should know?’

‘Just a rumor that John Kelly was abused by a priest himself when he was a teenager.’

‘Unsubstantiated?’

‘I don’t know, but the story goes that’s what made him so determined to help other kids, church or no church.’

The Casco Bay Lines ferry terminal sat on the edge of the Old Port between Commercial Street and the water, less than a five-minute drive from Ten Monument Square. By the time McCabe clicked off the phone he was already there. The Bay Lines’ half-dozen ferries provided frequent and regular service to the handful of out-islands that fell within the city limits of Portland. Harts, with a year-round population of just under a thousand, was the biggest. McCabe left the unmarked Crown Vic in a five-minute parking space at the side of the terminal building, its PPD plates protecting it from the packs of contract towers that circled the place. He got out and headed toward the dock where the PFD fireboat, the Francis R. Mangini, was tied up. At midnight on a Friday, McCabe could hear loud Irish music spilling across the water from the bar that occupied the adjacent pier.

As he approached, he speed-dialed Kyra’s number to let her know she wouldn’t be seeing him for a while. She didn’t answer. He left a message and put the phone away. He spotted Maggie and a couple of firefighters waiting for him in the stern of the Mangini. A pair of twin diesels was already churning up the water behind the sixty-five-foot steel-hulled vessel. McCabe eased himself down an icy aluminum gangway and climbed aboard. As soon as he was safely on, one of the firefighters unhitched the lines, and the boat pulled out. He led McCabe and Maggie to a small galley behind and below the wheelhouse where they could stay warm and have some privacy. Then he went up and joined his buddy and the officer piloting the boat. Inside the galley, McCabe noticed a pot of hot coffee. He held it up. Maggie shook her head no. He poured a mug for himself, dropped a buck in the can, and sat across from her at the dining table.

‘Okay, what’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Like I said, we may have a witness.’

‘On Harts?’

‘Yeah. While I was at Goff’s apartment I got a call from one of the uniforms assigned to the island. Guy named Scotty Bowman? You may not know him. He used to work in town, but he’s been out on the island for a while now. Always been kind of a pain in the ass. Perpetually pissed off because his career never took off like he thought it ought to. Sees himself as one of the best and the brightest.’

‘And he’s not?’

‘Scotty’s smart enough, but he tends to be a whiner and a malcontent. Also a chauvinist. He likes patting fannies.’

‘Ever pat yours?’

‘Only once. I cured him of that affliction in a hurry.’

McCabe smiled. Knowing Maggie, he imagined the cure must have been painful.

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I get this call from Bowman, and he tells me he’s not sure how significant it is, but a woman named Abby Quinn came charging into the station on the island Tuesday night claiming to have witnessed a murder.’

‘Four nights ago?’

‘Four nights ago.’

‘Did you ask what took him so long to report it?’

‘I asked. The short answer is he didn’t believe her.’

McCabe frowned. ‘What’s the long answer?’

‘It seems Abby Quinn has a history of mental illness. She’s been in and out of Winter Haven at least a couple of times. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She’s given to delusions and hallucinations. Sees things that aren’t there and hears voices nobody else can hear. She’s tried to kill herself more than once.’

Not exactly an ideal witness. If the cops on the island didn’t believe what Abby Quinn was telling them, why would any jury? Beyond that, if Goff really was killed on Harts, why and how had the killer transported her body across the bay to the Fish Pier? It didn’t make a whole lot of sense. He guessed they’d cross those bridges when they got to them.

‘Quinn lives with her mother in a cottage on the island,’ Maggie went on. ‘Bowman says she’s okay as long as she stays on her meds. He also says this wasn’t the first time she’s come barging into the station spouting some craziness or other. Last time it was aliens from outer space taking over our bodies.’

Scenes from the fifties sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers flashed through McCabe’s mind. Walter Wanger and Don Siegel’s black-and-white original. Not the remakes from ’78 or ’93. He wondered if Abby Quinn had seen any or all of them.

‘So he didn’t bother checking her story out?’

‘No. Not at the time. Just figured she’d gone off her meds again.’ Maggie helped herself to a sip of McCabe’s coffee. ‘Figured she was having a psychotic episode.’

‘Did he do anything at all?’

‘Not really. He says he thought about bringing her in to the emergency room, but when he told her that’s what he was thinking, she quieted right down. Apparently the idea of going to the hospital scared her more than any murderer. First she pleaded with Bowman not to take her, then told him he was right, it was a hallucination, but it was over now and she was okay. She must’ve convinced him, because, quote, against his better judgment, unquote, he took her home. Back to her mother’s house. After that he took a quick run by the alleged crime scene.’

‘Which is?’

‘An empty summer house on the backshore.’

‘Where he doesn’t find a body?’

‘Where he doesn’t find anything. Inside or out. Just some tracks in the snow between the road and the porch, which he figured were Abby’s. No body, no weapon, no murder. The only thing remotely questionable was a frying pan he spotted lying in the snow under some shrubbery.’

‘A frying pan?’

‘Yeah. He figures it’s random junk, picks it up, and takes it back to the station and forgets about it until tonight. If you want my personal opinion, McCabe, Bowman was just too lazy to seriously investigate a story coming from a known crazy. Too lazy to even send her to the hospital and spend time writing up a report. He just took the easy way out and dropped the whole thing.’

McCabe gave her a half-smile. ‘You really like this guy.’

‘Gee, how could you tell?’

McCabe sat at the galley table, sipping his coffee, staring out the window, thinking about what Maggie had told him. His eyes followed a yellow and white island ferry chugging through the icy waters back to the Portland terminal. He checked his watch. After midnight. He didn’t realize the boats ran so late. ‘Okay,’ he finally said with a frustrated sigh, ‘so Bowman drops it. Then four days later he changes his mind and calls it in. Why? What suddenly makes him think maybe Abby Quinn wasn’t hallucinating?’

‘He heard about our murder,’ said Maggie, helping herself to another sip of his coffee.

‘Y’know, they have a whole pot of this stuff right over there. I’ll be happy to get you some of your own.’

‘No, thanks.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll just sip at yours.’ She took one more swallow and returned the mug to the table. Sometimes, he thought, she behaves more like a wife than Sandy ever did. Or Kyra for that matter.

‘Anyway,’ Maggie continued, ‘Bowman was off duty tonight, sitting at the bar at the Cross-Eyed Bear.’ The Cross-Eyed Bear, in spite of its cutesy name, was a serious drinkers’ joint on Silver Street, just down the block from 109. A lot of the cops coming off shift hung out there. So did guys who worked the waterfront. Not too many tourists or kids, though, and the few who did wander in rarely ventured beyond the front door. ‘He’s having a quiet drink by himself when a couple of his buddies come in and join him. They all start bullshitting, and they tell him how they were just working a crime scene down at the Fish Pier and how the reporters and TV crews showed up and how they’re all gonna get their faces on the eleven o’clock news. Naturally, they also tell him about our frozen stiff.’