‘I’m on my way up to Katahdin,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a couple of days off, and I’m gonna do a little snowshoeing and some winter camping. Some ice climbing as well. That’s what that ax is for.’
She put the hot chocolate in the cup holder and rested her hands on her lap. If he was going camping in this weather, he was even crazier than she was.
He must have sensed what she was thinking, because he said, ‘No, really. It’s fun, Abby. Least it is if you have the right equipment.’
She didn’t say anything. Just tried to get another peek at the gun. He was putting on his seat belt and she couldn’t see it. Then he waited while she did up her belt. She watched him release the parking brake and turn in his seat so he could see to back up. When he did, there was the gun again, poking out.
‘Are you going to shoot me?’ She hadn’t planned on asking him that. The words just spilled out all by themselves. He stepped on the brake and stopped the truck halfway in and halfway out of the parking space.
‘What? What in hell are you talking about? I think maybe you are crazy.’
‘You have a gun. I saw it.’
‘Yes, I have a gun. I’m supposed to have a gun,’ he said.
‘Nobody’s supposed to have a gun.’ Maybe he was Death after all.
‘I am. I’m a cop. Really, Abby, it’s okay.’
He smiled again. That friendly reassuring smile that made the Voices yawn and go back to sleep. He took out a wallet from a jacket pocket and flipped it open. A badge and an ID card with his picture on it. Portland Police Department. Joseph L. Vodnick. He handed her a card and said, ‘Listen, Abby, if you’re ever afraid of something or worried or anything, you just call the number on this card and I’ll come right over. Okay?’
Abby looked at the card and nodded, but she didn’t say anything back. After that she just stared straight ahead as they drove, watching the wipers wipe the snow away.
Sixteen
Portland, Maine
Saturday, January 7
9:00 A.M.
McCabe inched toward consciousness, eyes closed, sunshine warming his face. Someone must have opened the blinds and let the sun in. The brightness hurt even behind his closed lids. Not a nice thing to do to someone who’d only had a couple of hours of sleep. He slid his hand over to the other side of the bed, felt around, and came up empty. Explored further. Nothing but sheet.
‘Looking for something?’
Kyra’s voice came from behind him. She sounded amused, and he thought she had a hell of a nerve sounding amused at this ungodly hour of the morning. He thought back and remembered all he’d drunk and all he hadn’t eaten the night before. Amazingly he didn’t have a headache. Just a hell of a thirst. Nothing that would qualify as a hangover. He figured that most of what he was feeling was from lack of sleep. He flopped over onto his left side and squinted at her. ‘What time is it?’
She was sitting in the bentwood rocker sipping coffee. ‘Nine fifteen.’
He absorbed this information. Nodded. Okay. Nine fifteen. Four hours’ sleep. Plenty enough for anyone. He opened his eyes farther. She was wearing an oversized New York Giants jersey with Tiki Barber’s number twenty-one on it and a pair of plaid pajama bottoms. Both were his.
‘Can I get you some coffee?’
He grunted something vaguely affirmative. She pulled herself out of the rocker and headed for the kitchen. By the time she got back he was sitting up. She put a mug of coffee on the bedside table and handed him a large glass of orange juice.
‘Here. You looked like you could use this as well.’
‘Thank you.’ He chugged it down in a couple of gulps, then traded the glass for the coffee. ‘How was your show last night?’
‘Excellent. Over a hundred people. Two red dots and a lot of positive ego massaging from all and sundry.’
‘Including Kleinerman?’
‘Umm. Yes. He interviewed me. Said there’d be a piece in tomorrow’s paper.’
‘Tomorrow tomorrow or tomorrow today?’
‘Tomorrow tomorrow. Sunday. How was your murder?’
He took a deep breath. ‘Pretty ugly,’ he said, sipping at the coffee. ‘A young woman. Lawyer here in town. Somebody stuck a knife in her neck and stuffed her body into the trunk of her own car. She was frozen solid. The weird thing, at least for me, was that she was the spitting image of Sandy. I mean identical.’
She looked at him curiously. ‘Did that bother you?’
He didn’t respond for a minute. Finally he said, ‘Yeah. It did. At first. For a minute I had this crazy idea that it was Sandy and that I’d done it, like in my dreams. But once I got used to the idea that the victim wasn’t either my ex-wife or my kid’s mother and that I wasn’t the murderer, I calmed down.’ Not quite the whole truth, but close enough to holler at. Even better, it hadn’t bothered him telling her about the murder or Goff’s resemblance to Sandy, which he figured had to be a good sign.
‘Do you know who did it?’
‘You know the old cliché, everyone’s a suspect, which, roughly translated, means we haven’t got a clue.’
‘Which, roughly translated, means this case is going to take all your time and attention.’
‘For a while, yeah, I think it will.’
Kyra sipped her coffee, thinking about what he’d said. Finally she nodded. More to herself than to him. ‘Okay. I’m going to move back to my own place.’
‘For good?’
‘No. For the time being. Until this is resolved. Until we can really be together again.’
‘That isn’t necessary.’
‘I think it is. It’s what I was talking about yesterday. I don’t want to spend all my time wondering what you’re doing or what time you’re going to be coming home. If I’m at my place I won’t be thinking about it so much. Just let me know when it’s over, and I’ll come on back, happy as a clam, wagging my tail.’
He ignored the mixed metaphor. Or simile. Or whatever it was. ‘So we’re not going to see each other at all?’ He noticed his bare foot tapping on the floor. ‘What about having dinner together?’
‘We can do that. If you’re ever free for dinner, which, based on past experience, I don’t think is likely. The way I figure it is when you’re up to your ears in a murder we don’t see each other anyway.’
‘You won’t mind if I call you?’
‘I’d mind if you didn’t.’
‘Okay. I guess.’ McCabe brightened. ‘How about conjugal visits? Like they allow in prison?’
‘Really? They allow that? In prison?’
‘In New York they do. And I think California.’
‘How about Maine?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, there you go, then.’
While Kyra went off to take a shower and collect her stuff, McCabe threw on a robe and went into the living room to call Henry Ogden’s home number, the one Beth Kotterman had given him. The lawyer picked up on the third ring. McCabe told him who he was and why he was calling, but before he could ask for a meeting Ogden slipped smoothly into corporate bullshit mode, letting McCabe know that Beth Kotterman had called him late last night and informed him of Lainie’s death and what a shock it would be to everybody at the firm, especially to those who worked closely with her, as he did, in Palmer Milliken’s M&A practice area. Yes, it was a terrible thing, and the firm would have to do something special in the way of a memorial service. McCabe closed his eyes and let Ogden rattle on for a while, only half listening, trying to attach a face to the voice. Randall Jackson’s description of that last Friday before Christmas ran through his mind. Ogden sounded like Jackson said he looked. A rich white guy.
Finally McCabe cut in on the oration. ‘Excuse me, Mr Ogden. I understand how upset everybody must be, but I was hoping you and I could have a little chat in person.’
‘About Lainie?’
What the hell did he think McCabe wanted to talk to him about? ‘Yes. About Lainie, and about her murder.’