James Hayman - The Cutting

‘The Cassidy woman?’

‘Yeah.’ He turned to the EMTs, one of whom was bandaging his cut hand. ‘The woman upstairs — she’ll need to be sedated. Otherwise she seems okay. Third floor.’ They nodded and both of them headed for the building.

‘What else?’ asked Dickinson.

‘Some people are holed up in a large basement area under the cottage over there. A doctor. Some nurses. An old man with a serious heart condition. He’ll need medical attention, too.’

‘Armed? Fortified?’

‘No. They’re using it as an operating room. Just let them know you’re here. My guess is they’ll come out without a peep.’

Two heavily armed troopers rushed the building and tried the door. Unlocked. They slipped inside.

McCabe watched them go, then turned and started walking back toward the house.

‘Where are you going?’ Sergeant Dickinson’s voice boomed out behind him.

McCabe looked back. ‘Me? I’m getting my partner and going home.’

Saturday. 1:00 A.M.

They started back to Portland the same way they’d come. Maggie was at the wheel. McCabe stared silently out the window, thinking about nothing, thinking about everything. The road was nearly empty now, and Maggie drove fast, easily overtaking the few cars they encountered along the way. Temperatures had fallen down near the freezing mark, but the promised flurries hadn’t materialized. ‘Get some sleep,’ she said. ‘We can trade over in an hour or so.’ He nodded and closed his eyes, but they wouldn’t stay closed. Instead they focused on the center stripe, reflected in the headlights, rushing toward them, then disappearing under the hood of the car.

In the warmth generated by the heater, McCabe’s weary brain played and replayed the final seconds of Lucas Kane’s life, watching from another vantage point as he and Kane engaged in their slow, final dance of death. He saw Kane, already bleeding from two bullet wounds, lunge forward. Saw himself duck beneath the arc of Kane’s slashing blade. Then from his crouching position he saw himself drive forward, his shoulder striking Kane just below the waist. Finally he watched himself as he rose and, using Kane’s own forward momentum, lifted the bigger man up and over the railing. He watched the fall. The flapping of the arms. The fatal impact.

Each time he watched, McCabe came to the same conclusion. If he hadn’t risen, if, instead, he’d moved straight forward, or angled left or right, Kane wouldn’t have gone over the rail. He would have just been knocked to the floor. In all probability, he would have died from the gunshot wounds anyway. Either way, the question McCabe had no answer for was a simple one. Had he flipped Kane over the rail on purpose? Had he, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, wanted to make absolutely sure that there would be no trial? That there would be no Sheldon Thomas finding some slick way to get the killer off? He wasn’t certain of the answer — and if truth be told, he finally realized, he didn’t really care. Just as he’d told Kyra about TwoTimes, the man was vermin and he deserved to die. Ambiguity. McCabe was comfortable with that.

‘Are you alright?’ Maggie asked, glancing over at him.

‘Yes,’ he said finally, after thinking about it a little longer. ‘Yes. I’m fine.’ He gazed out the driver’s side window. They were crossing the Penobscot River east of Bucksport on the old Waldo-Hancock Bridge. The skeleton of the new bridge, still under construction, rose out of the darkness just south of them.

Near Stockton Springs, they stopped for coffee and a couple of candy bars at an all-night gas station. Neither had slept in nearly forty-eight hours. They were both exhausted. The last thing they needed was for one or the other of them to fall asleep at the wheel. McCabe filled the tank. Then they switched around and he drove.

He checked his watch — 2:00 A.M. Casey would be asleep in Boston now. In a big bed in a fancy hotel. Anyway, he hoped she was sleeping and not lying awake worrying. He wondered if she and Sandy were sharing a bed. If so, he hoped Sandy had given her a choice about that. He also hoped Sandy hadn’t made any remarks about Casey being too old to still be sleeping with Bunny.

His cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID. Shockley. He flipped the phone to speaker mode so Maggie could hear. ‘Hello, Tom. I guess you heard about Kane.’

‘You’re damned right I did. Good work. Great work.’ Shockley sounded excited. ‘I issued standing orders for Dispatch to wake me if and when we got this bastard. Can you let me have a few of the details? I’m talking to the press in a little while.’ McCabe smiled, imagining visions of Blaine House, the governor’s mansion, dancing like sugarplums through Shockley’s overeager brain. ‘Mike, can you hear me?’

‘Yes, Chief. By the way, you’re on speaker. Maggie’s here.’

‘Fine. Can you give me any of the details? I need to get this right.’

McCabe took Shockley through the whole thing, starting with his call to Priscilla Pepper and ending with Kane’s final fall to the stone floor and Cassidy being found alive.

‘Was the scalpel still in his hand when he died?’

‘Yes,’ said McCabe. ‘It was.’

‘I saw the whole thing, Chief,’ added Maggie. McCabe glanced at her, knowing she’d only come out of the room in time to see Kane go over the rail. ‘Use of deadly force was justified,’ she said.

‘Well, thank God for that,’ Shockley replied. ‘The media briefing starts in about twenty minutes. Will you two be back by then?’

‘No. We’re still the other side of Belfast,’ said Maggie. ‘A couple of hours out.’

‘Okay. I’ll handle it. By the way, Kevin Comisky’s funeral’s scheduled for three o’clock Monday. Full departmental honors. I hope you’ll be there.’

‘We’ll be there,’ said Maggie.

‘Can you let me have his wife’s address and phone number?’ asked McCabe. ‘I’d like to call on her.’

‘I’ll have Deirdre e-mail it to you.’

‘Thanks.’ Then, not wanting to listen to Shockley anymore, McCabe hit the off button before the chief could answer.

He looked over at Maggie. ‘Use of deadly force was justified? That’s what I’m supposed to tell Casey when she asks if I had to kill the guy?’

‘Yes. That’s what you’ll tell her because we both know that’s the truth. You had no choice.’ She looked back at him. ‘Just like you told me the other day, it was a clean kill. It needed to be done.’

He felt Maggie’s eyes studying him as they drove on in silence. ‘Now what are you thinking about?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Nothing. Sometimes I just wonder if Casey wouldn’t be better off living a life where phrases like “clean kill” and “justifiable use of force” didn’t enter the lexicon. Where she wouldn’t have to lie awake nights wondering if her father’s gonna come home dead or alive.’

‘I can’t help you with that.’

‘I know.’

‘I would if I could.’

‘I know that, too,’ said McCabe.

‘I just think you should stop torturing yourself. You’re one of the good guys. You always will be.’

He reached out from the wheel and took her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back. He remembered her brown eyes gazing down at him in Tallulah’s and smiled. ‘You know what else I’m thinking about? I’m thinking about a kiss I got from a really good friend of mine the other day in Tallulah’s, and I’m wondering what she might have been thinking at the time.’

‘Oh, that,’ said Maggie. ‘That was just an impulsive thing on your friend’s part. Don’t let it worry you. Like she said at the time, you’re taken.’