James Hayman - The Cutting

The girl was naked. She lay on her back, knees up, legs spread, one arm angled straight back as though she’d been reaching for something overhead. Or maybe doing the backstroke. McCabe was sure she hadn’t fallen this way. Someone had arranged the body in this position.

He stood for a couple of minutes, scanning the corpse, remembering the details of the case. Katie Dubois was sixteen years old. She’d gone missing Wednesday before last. A junior at Portland High School and a star soccer player, she hadn’t come home from a night out with her friends. She was last seen in the Old Port, hanging out with five other teenagers. Flyers with her photograph were stapled to telephone poles all over town. Tom Tasco and Eddie Fraser were the lead team on the case. They were experienced detectives, and they worked it hard. McCabe read their investigation reports and found them impressively thorough.

None of the other teens had any idea where Katie might have gone. Her boyfriend, Ronnie Sobel, told detectives he was talking to some friends and when he turned back, Katie was gone. One of the girls said that wasn’t quite how it happened. She claimed Katie and Sobel were arguing. She thought it had to do with Ronnie hooking up with another girl, but she wasn’t sure. Anyway, she said, when Ronnie walked away from her, Katie stormed off. Most of the department as well as dozens of friends, family, and volunteers had been looking for her ever since. They’d combed the city. The nearby Scarborough marshes. A lot of people thought she might turn up in the harbor. She hadn’t. She’d turned up here.

McCabe felt a familiar rage growing within him. Murder in Maine tended to be a family affair, husbands killing wives, friends killing friends. As often as not they called the cops themselves as soon as they realized what they had done — but this was different. This had the random, brutal anonymity of the big city, and McCabe allowed himself a moment to mourn a universe where one human being could do this to another, especially to a teenager. Then he put these thoughts away and let the cop side of his brain kick in, inspecting the corpse, inspecting the ground where the girl lay, trying to figure out if there was anything he should be noticing. Anything that would give him a better idea of what happened to Katie Dubois and who was responsible for it. He saw signs of duct tape adhesive across her mouth and ligature marks on her wrists, ankles, and neck. Her clouded eyes revealed no signs of pinpoint hemorrhaging, suggesting that mutilation, not strangulation, was the immediate cause of death.

Standing here in a scrap yard in Portland, Maine, McCabe suddenly had the feeling he was back in New York. It wasn’t like he was imagining it. Or remembering it. It was like he was really there. He could hear the rush of the city. He could smell the stink of it. A hundred bloodied corpses paraded before his eyes. His right hand drew comfort from resting on the handle of his gun. Mike McCabe, once again lured to the chase. He knew with an absolute certainty that this was his calling. That it was here, among the killers and the killed, that he belonged. No matter how far he ran, no matter how well he hid, he’d never leave the violence or his fascination with it behind.

McCabe stepped back from Katie’s body, careful not to trip over Maggie, who was kneeling a few feet behind him, writing her notes. He approached the uniformed officer who’d found the body. He remembered the man’s name. Kevin Comisky. ‘Kevin,’ he said quietly, ‘what do we know?’

‘Not much. I was on patrol. Quiet night. I just made the turn off Marginal onto Franklin when this drunk comes running out, waving his arms around. He’s screaming something about murder, but he’s pretty incoherent, so I put him in the car, which, by the way, he stinks up pretty bad. I ask him to tell me where he saw whatever he saw. He manages to direct me here. I see the body. Call Dispatch. They send Kennerly as backup. Then they call you guys.’

McCabe used his cell to call police headquarters at 109 Middle Street. Two evidence techs were currently on duty. He told both he needed them at the scrap yard ASAP. Then he called Deputy ME Terri Mirabito. Portland, with a population a little over sixty-five thousand, wasn’t big enough to have its own medical examiner’s office. Normally whoever was assigned would have to drive down from the state lab in Augusta, a good hour and some away, but Mirabito lived in town, and if she was home she could get here a lot faster. She answered on the first ring and said she’d be right over.

‘Where’s the drunk now?’ he asked Comisky.

‘Still in the unit,’ said the cop. ‘It’s gonna take more than a paper pine tree and a squirt of Lysol to get the stink out of that baby.’

‘Either of you guys touch anything or move the body around?’ McCabe addressed both uniformed officers.

Both responded negatively. One said, ‘It’s tough enough just looking at her.’

‘Okay. I’m going to wander around, see what I can see. Then I’ll want to talk to your friend in the car, so please make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.’

He turned to Maggie. ‘Where are Tasco and Fraser? I thought this was their case.’ He knew he was sounding irritable, but tough shit. A detective should never lose track of his case.

‘Mike, they’ve been putting in eighteen-hour days for over a week. Anyway, Tom’s on his way in. I couldn’t find Eddie.’

McCabe nodded. ‘Find him.’

He turned away and used his cell to call home. Casey answered. ‘Hey, Case, how’re you doing?’

‘Hello, Daddy dearest. I’m fine,’ McCabe’s thirteen-year-old daughter said in a playfully proper tone. ‘Are you still eating dinner?’

‘We never got to dinner. I’m working.’ He wondered if Casey had known Katie Dubois. They were both soccer players. Probably not, he decided. Casey was still in middle school. Eighth grade. ‘I’m going to be late. What are you up to?’

‘I’ve got some friends over. Do you want to talk to Jane?’

‘Oh, really? Who’s over?’

‘Gretchen and Whitney.’ They were two of Casey’s best friends and lived nearby on Munjoy Hill. ‘We’re kind of in the middle of something.’ Doing her best to put on an aristocratic British accent, she added, ‘I don’t want to go into it. I’ll fetch Jane.’

‘Okay,’ he laughed. ‘Fetch Jane. As long as you’re not doing something you’re not supposed to.’

‘Dad, I’m not a baby, y’know.’

‘Okay. Get Jane. I love you.’

‘Love you, too.’

McCabe could hear Casey shouting, ‘Hey, Jane, it’s Dad,’ the single syllable drawn out, ‘Da-aaad!’

Jane Devaney was a sixty-year-old retired nurse and high school sex education teacher McCabe employed on a part-time basis to look after Casey. She also rode a Harley. Casey found that indescribably cool. So did McCabe.

Jane’s voice came on. ‘Hiya, Mike.’

‘Everything good there?’

‘Oh yeah, we’re fine. Kids are fooling around. Girl stuff. I’m deep into Supernanny. Keeping tabs on the competition. I take it you’re working late?’

‘It looks that way.’

‘Want me to spend the night?’

‘Not necessary. I’m not sure when I’ll be home, but Kyra should be there as soon as she finishes dinner.’

‘Well, if you decide you want me to stay, just let me know. It’s not a problem.’

‘Thanks, Jane. I appreciate it.’

McCabe closed the phone and returned it to his pocket. He pulled on the surgical gloves he’d brought from the car. Pointing the flashlight at the ground, he started inspecting the area where the girl’s body was lying. Senior evidence tech Bill Jacobi and his partner would arrive soon enough, but McCabe wanted to have a more thorough look around first.