James Hayman - The Cutting

Now she lay silent, using memories, vainly, to drive back the numbing fear, to keep the silence from destroying all reason. She concentrated on reliving her childhood day by day, on remembering every detail. Today was a Sunday in summer. She was four, Patti was seven. They sat at the kitchen table in the white frame house on Keepers Lane in North Berwick. They moved from that house two years later, but that was later. Today, Poppy, always up before Mommy on Sunday mornings, was making blueberry pancakes for breakfast. She loved blueberry pancakes. Saliva formed in her mouth at the thought.

The eternal cigarette dangled from Poppy’s lips, an impossibly long ash hanging over the batter, the scent of burning tobacco filling the room. Patti warned Poppy she wouldn’t eat the pancakes if the ash fell in. He cupped his hand under it and walked to the sink, plucked it from his mouth, and held the tiny butt under the water to wash away the ash and extinguish the burning tip. The cigarettes would kill him a few years later, but not yet.

This was the year Poppy bought them the pony. She and Patti. ‘A small thing,’ he told them, though he looked big enough to Lucy. ‘Only thirteen hands high. Fifteen years old.’

Thirteen of whose hands, she’d wondered. Surely not hers, which were so small compared to his own. Not Patti’s, which were only a little bigger.

They named the pony Keener. Poppy said it was because he was always keener to go for a ride than any other pony he had ever known. Patti, who was wise in these things, said it was really because Poppy bought the pony from a farm near Keene in New Hampshire and considered him a Keener, just as they called people from Maine Mainers.

Keener was a leopard Appaloosa, gray with dark spots all over him. As the youngest, Lucinda got to ride him first. Poppy hoisted her up onto the shiny brown leather saddle. English. Not western. No pommel to hold on to, he told her, just the reins. He adjusted the stirrups so her legs would reach. Put a foot in each. Then off they went. Poppy held the pony’s harness. He walked alongside as she rode, talking gently all the while, telling her to hold her back straight, telling her to let Keener know who was in charge. After a bit, without her noticing it, he let go of the harness and she rode on her own for the first time. ‘Nothing to be afraid of,’ Poppy said. ‘Nothing to be afraid of.’

Nothing to be afraid of.

Only the blackness and the man who came to do things to her body and sometimes to hurt her. No food. Just some disgusting chocolate stuff in a can that gave her diarrhea. For the thousandth time she took an inventory of the things in the room. Things she couldn’t see but knew were there. The most important, the bottle of Gatorade on the wooden table by the bed. He told her where to find it. She’d knocked it over once, feeling for it and missing. She’d had to wash the sticky stuff from the floor. He hit her for that.

The only other thing she could find was the bucket in the corner she used as a toilet, and the roll of paper next to it. She supposed he emptied it when he came. The room didn’t seem to smell.

He’d led her to it, the first time. Held her hand while she squatted down and peed. So strange, peeing in the dark, her jailer clutching her hand to keep her from falling. He led her hand to the paper, showing her where it was so she could clean herself. The bottle and the bucket, the bed and the chair. All there was. Her entire universe. Beyond them, just the darkness, the memories, and visits from the man.

‘When will you come again?’ she wondered, longing for sensation. ‘Perhaps if I do the sex well enough, perhaps if I please you well enough, perhaps you won’t, so quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly…’ She repeated the single word over and over again — but couldn’t give voice to the word that followed.

Wednesday. 11:00 A.M.

‘They’re restricting me to desk duty pending the investigation.’ Maggie emerged from Al Blanchard’s office, closing the door behind her. Blanchard was the PPD’s only full-time Internal Affairs officer. He was assisted by a sergeant McCabe didn’t know, someone rotated on a temp basis out of Community Affairs. ‘I’m not supposed to work on the case.’

‘Shit,’ McCabe said, more to himself than to Maggie. He was seated outside, waiting his turn with Internal Affairs.

Maggie sat down next to him. ‘That’s the regs,’ she said. ‘I fired my weapon. IA gets to say if the use of force was appropriate, if I really needed to kill him.’

‘You did.’

‘I didn’t announce myself. I didn’t yell freeze. I just saw him swinging that knife toward your neck and I pulled the trigger.’

‘If you hadn’t killed him, he would’ve killed me,’ said McCabe. ‘He already killed Comisky.’

‘I could have wounded him.’

‘You had to go for a head shot. Any lower and you would have hit me. You did the right thing. The guy was pure fucking evil.’

She considered this. ‘You’re right.’ She nodded uncertainly. ‘Blanchard said it wouldn’t take long. The investigation, I mean.’

He supposed she was looking for absolution. A remission of sins. He couldn’t offer it. Neither could IA. If she felt any guilt, she’d just have to live with it. He put his arm around her shoulder. ‘You saved my life,’ he said. ‘In Chinese philosophy, that means you’re responsible for it.’

She turned and looked directly into his eyes, forcing a smile. ‘I guess I should have let him kill you.’

A uniformed sergeant named Toomey appeared. ‘Okay, McCabe, it’s your turn.’

Al Blanchard was seated behind his desk. Toomey took a seat to Blanchard’s right. Bill Fortier stood leaning against the wall behind Blanchard. McCabe hadn’t expected him to be there.

Fortier made the introductions. ‘Mike McCabe. Sergeant Pat Toomey.’ Each of the men nodded; neither extended a hand. ‘Pat’s been assigned to IA for this inquiry.’

McCabe had heard Toomey’s name before. He had a reputation for being Tom Shockley’s eyes and ears in the department. Most cops watched what they said in his presence, knowing it would eventually get back to the chief. McCabe ignored Toomey and addressed Fortier. ‘Maggie said you’re pulling her out of the investigation, Bill. With one killer still on the loose and Lucinda Cassidy still missing, I think that’s crazy. It’s obvious she shot him to save me.’

Blanchard spoke first. ‘Sergeant, regulations say we restrict an officer any time a firearm is discharged in the line of duty. Anyway, it shouldn’t be for long. The facts seem clear that Detective Savage was justified in using deadly force. We’ve just got to be sure.’

‘Alright, Mike,’ said Fortier. ‘I want you to tell us everything that happened from the moment you first saw that woman, Sophie Gauthier, right up until Maggie killed that guy in the hospital.’

McCabe told it all. They asked questions. He answered them. It took close to an hour. In the end he said, ‘That’s where we are. You want me on desk duty, too?’

‘No,’ said Blanchard.

‘Really? Why’s that? Hell, I discharged two firearms. Both in the same night. Maggie only fired one.’

Blanchard was silent.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ McCabe was feeling tired, angry. ‘We’ll just put the case on hold for a couple of days. Hell, I can use the rest. I’ve got issues at home. Maybe,’ he said bitterly, ‘maybe we can get the bad guys to postpone killing Cassidy until the good guys get their ducks in a row. On the other hand’ — he shrugged — ‘maybe we can’t.’

‘You know, McCabe, you’re pretty damned arrogant.’ It was Toomey who spoke. ‘I heard that about you, strutting around like a New York big shot. Now I see it’s true.’