The patrol officer nodded, slid behind the wheel, turned the key, and opened all four windows before starting off.
Bill Jacobi and Terri Mirabito were completing their tasks. There didn’t seem to be much more McCabe could do. He approached one of the other uniformed patrol officers. ‘Keep the reporters out until the body’s picked up and the area’s clear – and don’t listen to any of their bullshit.’
‘Don’t worry, Sergeant. I’ve heard it all before.’
McCabe and Maggie Savage got into Maggie’s Crown Vic for the short ride back to the office. ‘Do you want to join Sturgis interviewing Lacey?’ McCabe asked.
‘No. There’s no way he’s the killer. I’m sure Carl can get whatever else there is to get. I just hope he doesn’t start doing his bullying Carl shit. Lacey’s got enough problems already.’
‘Well, Maggie, that’s very thoughtful of you. Maybe, instead of interviewing Lacey, we should just get him a bottle of Jameson’s and ask him to read us some more Yeats.’
Maggie didn’t laugh. ‘You know, McCabe, I love you dearly, but sometimes you’re really an asshole,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I called Katie’s mother and stepfather when I saw the news van pull up. I didn’t want them hearing about their daughter’s death from News Center 6. So I told them, as gently as I could, that I thought we’d found her and that we needed to talk to them again.’
‘How’d they take it?’
‘About what you’d expect. The mother broke down sobbing. Couldn’t talk. Just wanted to know if I was sure it was Katie. I told her I was, and she put the stepfather on the phone. He was quieter. They agreed to come downtown and talk to me when I told him how important starting fast could be on cases like this. We’ll see if maybe they can remember anything new.’
‘Okay. Just drop me off. I want to take another look at the missing persons file on Katie. Then I’m going to hit the computer. See if anybody’s reported anything similar.’
Maggie pulled into the curb in front of 109 Middle Street, the PPD’s small headquarters building on the edge of the Old Port.
‘You’ve got the world-famous memory. Anything ring a bell?’
McCabe didn’t answer. He just sat staring out the windshield. A few raindrops were splattering against the glass. Why the hell would anybody neatly and precisely cut a girl’s heart out of her body? Sexual nutcase? Some kind of anatomical collector filling his trophy case?
‘McCabe?’
He looked at her and nodded, almost imperceptibly. ‘I do remember something,’ he said.
‘D’ya want to share it?’ she asked.
‘Let me check it out first. I also want to set up appointments with a couple of the cardiac surgeons up at Cumberland Med. Find out what it takes to cut out somebody’s heart.’
‘Think this could be the start of a serial string?’ Maggie asked as McCabe exited the car.
McCabe turned back and leaned in the open window. ‘I don’t know. It’s sure got the earmarks.’
The streets were emptier now. As McCabe walked toward the building, he could feel that the air had become noticeably cooler, the first hint of the coming autumn and the dark winter that lay beyond.
3
Friday. 10:30 P.M.
Two foam cups partially filled with cold coffee greeted McCabe at his desk. He checked his messages. There were two from his boss, Lieutenant Bill Fortier. In the first, Fortier delivered fair warning that Chief Tom Shockley was going to take a personal interest in this case. In the second, he asked McCabe to set up a detectives’ meeting for the morning to organize the investigation. Finally, there was one from the great man himself, Portland Police Chief Thomas H. Shockley. ‘Hey, Mike. It’s Tom Shockley. We need to talk about Dubois ASAP. I’m giving a speech at a fund-raiser tonight. I can fend off the press until tomorrow, but then I need a complete update. Meantime, don’t talk to the media. I’ll handle that. Give me a call at home tomorrow A.M. You’ve got the number.’
McCabe knew Shockley liked making any and all public statements on major cases himself. He thought he was better at it than anyone else in the department, and that was probably true. Shockley was a political animal, and McCabe knew that could be useful even in a small city like Portland. Still, it amazed him how much the chief loved looking at himself on the tube.