James Hayman - The Cutting

However, Kane must have pissed somebody off. In March of 2001, somebody stuck a 12-gauge up under his chin and turned his jaw and face into hamburger. His body was found naked and tied to an overturned chair in his apartment. Nobody admitted hearing the blast. Four or five hours after the shooting, Kane’s live-in lover, a body builder and hanger-on named Duane Pollard, discovered the body and called the police.

Visual ID of the face was impossible, but the corpse was the right size — six two, 205 pounds — and fingerprint matches were found all over the apartment and the Beemer. Identification was officially confirmed through DNA analysis. No other evidence was found at the scene. Boyfriend Pollard had an airtight alibi. Miami Beach PD looked elsewhere and eventually figured the murder was drug-related since Kane was a known dealer. A detective named Stan Allard theorized the local drug lords killed Kane to rid themselves of a semipro competitor who was becoming annoying. McCabe got the feeling the investigators were just as happy Kane was dead. They let the case go cold after a couple of weeks. The elderly father, Maurice Kane, reportedly suffering from congestive heart failure, refused public comment on his son’s death.

McCabe called the Miami Beach PD and asked for Detective Stan Allard.

‘I’m sorry, there is no Detective Stan Allard here.’

‘Allard? A-L–L-A-R-D?’

‘I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know that name.’

‘Would you connect me with someone in homicide?’

A male voice answered. ‘Detective Sessions.’

‘Sessions? Hi, this is Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe, Portland, Maine, PD.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m looking for a Detective Stan Allard who worked homicide in Miami Beach a few years back. Is he still with the department?’

‘Who is this again?’

‘Name’s McCabe. Mike McCabe. I’m a detective with the Portland, Maine, PD.’

‘What do you want with Allard?’

‘I just want to talk to him.’

‘Well, you’re going to have a hard time doing that.’

‘Yeah? Why’s that?’

‘Stan Allard hasn’t done a whole lot of talking to anybody the last four years.’

‘Are you telling me Allard’s dead?’

‘They were pretty sure that was the case when they buried him.’

Maybe Sessions thought that was funny. ‘Look, I’m working on a murder that might have a connection with a case Allard handled.’

‘What case would that be?’

‘The murder of a man named Lucas Kane. Do you know who Allard’s partner was at the time?’

There was a pause at Sessions’s end of the line. McCabe thought this might be like pulling teeth. Finally Sessions spoke. ‘Yeah, that would’ve been me. We worked the Kane murder together.’ Another pause. ‘How’s Kane connected with your case?’

McCabe instinctively disliked Sessions. He decided to keep it vague. ‘An old buddy of Kane’s may be involved in a murder up here.’

‘Involved how?’

‘We’re not sure yet.’

They danced around for a while. Nobody wanted to be the first to offer substantive information. Sessions blinked first. ‘Okay, what do you want to know about Kane?’

‘I read the press accounts of Kane’s murder. Sounds like you guys felt it was a gang hit.’

‘That was the default option. We never got any decent leads. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything. Nobody knew anything. All we had was a body tied to a chair with its face and head blown half off. Weren’t even any teeth left in good enough shape for a dental records match.’

‘How’d you know it was Kane?’

‘Easy enough. Size, weight, and hair were the same. Prints on the body matched prints we found all over the apartment. More prints in his car. Also, Kane’s live-in lover officially ID’d him. Said it was Kane’s body. Hair, moles, and scars in all the right places. Even made some jokes about the guy’s pecker. “I never forget a penis,” he said.’

‘So you’re sure it was Kane’s body you ID’d?’

‘Yeah. In the end we proved it with a DNA match. Plus there was no more Lucas Kane swanning around the clubs and the beach. We’re sure.’

‘What do you know about Kane’s background?’

‘Not much. His father was a famous musician. They didn’t have much to do with each other. Kane wandered down here from New York in the late eighties about the time the deco craze and the gay scene were really getting going in South Beach.’

‘How’d he support himself? Did he have any money?’

‘Not as far as we know, but back then South Beach was easy pickings for a good-looking guy like Kane. He lived off sex for a while. Then he branched out. Ended up as a high-end pimp and a dealer.’

‘You get an FBI match on the prints you found in the apartment?’

‘Not on Kane’s. Apparently he was never previously fingerprinted. Never arrested for anything.’

‘That’s surprising.’

‘It surprised me. I figured with his habits Kane would have been busted at least once or twice, but no, not even by us.’

‘Any other prints in the room?’

‘A bunch of partials and smears. Mostly the boyfriend.’

‘Duane Pollard?’

‘How do you know about him?’

‘Just reading the papers. Tell me about Pollard.’

‘He was Kane’s bodyguard and muscle as well as his lover. Ex-marine. Basically a gorilla. Liked to beat people up.’

‘A gay gorilla?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Unusual.’

‘It happens.’

‘Any chance he was the shooter? A lovers’ quarrel?’

‘None. At least six people put Pollard in a South Beach club called the Groove that night. Said he was there the whole time Kane might have been offed. At least two of them said they had sex with him.’

‘Was there a funeral?’

‘Yeah. A small one, hosted by Pollard and a few of Kane’s fuck-buddies from the Beach. Kane’s father showed up to bid him farewell. So did a few of his old friends.’

‘Sounds like a fun time. Did the name Harry Lime ever come up during your investigation?’

‘Lime? Like the fruit? No, never heard of him.’

‘So what about Allard? What did he die of?’

‘He died of suicide.’ McCabe’s gut tightened. Sessions went on. ‘It happened a couple of months later, after the Kane case went cold. We were working on some other stuff.’

‘What happened?’

‘He stuck his service weapon in his mouth and pulled the trigger. In a sleazebag motel down on the beach.’

‘No connection to the Kane case?’

‘I don’t think Stan’s death had anything to do with Lucas Kane. Let’s just leave it at that. He was my friend as well as my partner, and I don’t feel like chatting about stuff that’s none of your business. You want to know more, you submit an official departmental request.’

McCabe thought about pushing Sessions a little harder to talk about Stan Allard’s death, but he couldn’t see how it would help him find Katie Dubois’s killer or Lucinda Cassidy, so he let it go and hung up. He looked again at the byline on the Herald stories on his computer. Melody Bollinger. He filed it away for future reference.

Even in the blackness of the room, Lucy could feel his presence. She lay perfectly still, holding her breath. She knew he was there, but where? And why? She listened as hard as she could but heard nothing.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, two hands touched her face. Her heart jumped. Her muscles tightened. She stifled a cry as she felt the hands slide slowly and smoothly down her neck, then over her body, exploring, probing. Still she was afraid to move, afraid to speak. One at a time she felt him loosen and release the restraints that held her hands. He took her wrists, rotated and massaged each in turn. Then his hands moved down her legs. He released the ankle restraints, then moved her feet as he had her hands.