When McCabe got back to his desk, the phone was ringing. ‘This is McCabe.’
‘Detective McCabe?’ An older woman’s voice, harsh with a smoker’s rasp.
‘That’s right. How can I help you?’
‘It’s about that girl who was murdered. I may have seen her.’
‘May I have your name and address?’
Maggie was at her desk, and he signaled her to listen in on the call.
‘Annie Rafferty. I live at 22 Hackett. That’s off Cumberland on the East Side.’
‘I know the street. Can you tell me what you think you saw?’
‘I know what I saw. I’m getting older now – seventy-four, seventy-five in November – but my eyes are still good. The thing is I don’t sleep so good anymore. I get these pains in my legs. When it’s bad, I get out of bed and sit and look out the window. Well, the other night – the night the girl went missing – I was sitting there wishing the pain’d just go away. Across the street the front door opens and this girl who looked like the one they’re showing on TV, well, she’s standing in the doorway yelling and screaming at somebody. Then she takes off, fuming mad. I got a good look, and I tell you it was the Dubois kid.’
‘Can you remember what she was screaming about?’
‘Oh, you know, f-ing this and f-ing that. I’m no prude, and I cursed out more than one jerk in my time, but I wouldn’t want to repeat what I heard her screaming. Even to an Irish cop who I’m sure has heard it all before. All the while, she’s standing there wearing this tiny little miniskirt, showin’ off her cute little ass and swearing like a sailor.’
‘Do you remember what time it was?’
‘About eleven thirty. The clock said eleven fifteen when I got out of bed, and not much time’d passed.’
‘Who lives in the house, the one across the street?’
‘Well, that’s what was so surprising. It’s this nice young man. Always real polite. Shovels my steps for me when it snows, brings me groceries –’
‘Mrs. Rafferty, can you tell me his name?’
‘He’s a teacher over at the high school.’
‘His name? Please.’
‘Yes … his name. It’s Kenney. Tobin Kenney.’
‘Well, whaddyaknow!’ Maggie mouthed the words both silently and loudly, if such a thing were possible. She smiled and gave McCabe a thumbs-up.
‘Mind if we stop over, Mrs. Rafferty?’
‘Annie.’
‘What?’
‘Call me Annie.’
‘Okay, Annie then. Please don’t go anywhere or talk to anybody about any of this till we get there.’
*
Hackett was a short street, running just two blocks along the northern edge of Munjoy Hill. Small frame houses built around 1900 for the families of merchants and tradesmen lined both sides. Like much of the Hill, Hackett Street had fallen on hard times in the sixties and seventies as a generation of younger families fled Portland for the city’s growing suburbs. Many of the houses were broken up into small apartments. Others simply deteriorated. Now, after decades of decay, gentrification was taking root, and some of the houses were being restored by young urban homesteaders. As McCabe and Maggie pulled up, it was easy to see Annie Rafferty’s wasn’t one of them. The house had long ago abandoned its middle-class pretensions, and nobody was fixing it up. The dark green asbestos siding, probably put up forty years ago, was deteriorating. The trim was badly in need of paint. Drooping lace curtains, once white, had turned a dusky gray.
Maggie rang the bell. As they waited, they noted that Tobin Kenney’s house stood directly across the street and that the car in the driveway was a Subaru. She rang again. Finally Annie Rafferty, wearing a stained polyester housecoat, dark blue and decorated with big pink flowers, answered the door. From the way the thin fabric clung to her bony body, McCabe could tell she had nothing on underneath. While Mrs. Rafferty hadn’t bothered to dress for their visit, she’d definitely made up her face. She wore lipstick that was bright red and freshly applied. Pink blusher shone from the hollows of her cheeks. Her thinning hair was colored a shade of red McCabe had never seen before. At least not on a human head. She smelled of cigarette butts.
‘Mrs. Rafferty?’ asked McCabe.
‘You must be Sergeant McCabe,’ she said. ‘You aren’t Tessie McCabe’s boy, are you? From Windham?’
‘Sorry. I’m Rosie McCabe’s boy. From the Bronx.’
Rafferty glanced at Maggie and then back to McCabe. ‘I thought you said you was comin’ alone.’ She winked at him. ‘Too bad you didn’t.’