Portland, Maine
At 7:47 on that same Friday evening in August, the air outside police headquarters at 109 Middle Street was heavy with a kind of heat and humidity more natural to the bayous of Louisiana than to the streets of Maine’s largest city.
Inside the building it was even worse.
The antiquated air conditioning system, held together with spit and baling wire for at least a decade beyond its useful life span, had been grinding and wheezing most of the day in a valiant but vain attempt to bring conditions down to a more tolerable level. Two hours back it had stopped working altogether. Any of the cops still on duty who could find the slightest excuse to work outside the building did so. Others simply snuck out, some saying the hell with it and heading home early and more than a few slipping into one or another of the Old Port’s bars and pubs to enjoy the cold blast of AC that worked and an even colder pint of Geary’s or Shipyard.
On 109’s fourth and top floor, where the detectives of the Crimes Against People unit were housed, temperatures had risen almost to triple digits. It was even hotter in the small windowless interview room where Detective Margaret Savage had been confronting a suspect for over an hour and a half. Yet, in spite of the oppressive heat, in spite of the stink of sweat and body odor rising in waves off a 300 pound bozo named Kyle Carnes and in spite of the rivulets of perspiration trickling down under her own arms, Maggie wasn’t unhappy. She figured if she could keep Carnes from lawyering up, sooner or later the wretched conditions might just help drill a confession out of him. She was sure she could take the heat longer than he could.
As the senior detective in Crimes Against People, Maggie spent her days and often her nights chasing murderers, rapists and other assorted lowlifes. She didn’t like any of them but the creeps she liked least were the ones who got their jollies beating the shit out of the women they supposedly loved.
The guy in front of her was a habitual abuser. The first two times he beat up his current girlfriend, a woman named Mary Farrier, there’d been no witnesses and Farrier had been unwilling to press charges. Same old story Maggie had lived through a hundred times before. A woman too frightened to testify. Too terrified of what Carnes might do when and if he got his hands on her again. Too convinced that in some weird way it was all her own fault.
But this time Kyle wasn’t going to get away with using Farrier’s face as a punching bag because this time Maggie had a witness. A neighbor willing to swear she heard Kyle screaming through the door at Mary that he was gonna fuckin’ kill her. Then some grunts and thuds. Then Carnes opening the door and rushing from the apartment in a rage. The neighbor went in, found Farrier on the floor and called 911. The victim happened to hit her head against the sharp stainless steel corner of a coffee table on her way down and was now in a coma in the ICU at Cumberland Medical Center suffering acute cerebral edema. If she died, and the docs thought that was a definite possibility, the aggravated assault charge Carnes was facing would be elevated to murder.
‘You’re in a deep pile of shit, Kyle,’ Maggie told him, her easy smile and friendly tone belying the words as well as the intensity she felt inside. ‘Best thing you could do for yourself is stop stonewalling and tell us what went down in the apartment. If you do, well maybe we could talk to the DA.’
Kyle lifted his head, a glimmer of hope in his eyes, and looked at her ‘You mean like a deal?’
Maggie raised both hands and offered a non-committal shrug, one that seemed to say hey, you never know. ‘I mean like maybe you really didn’t mean to hurt her. Not so badly, anyway. I mean maybe you didn’t. Or did you?’
Kyle shook his head almost imperceptibly.
‘Say it in words, Kyle. Shaking your head doesn’t count.’
‘I didn’t mean to hurt her. Not so bad.’
‘You told us you loved her, isn’t that right, Kyle?’
This time Kyle nodded, sweat beading on his shiny bald head and dripping down his fat face.
‘Words, Kyle, words.’
‘I loved her.’
‘And she loved you?’
‘She loved me.’
‘So you think it was you hitting her that did the real damage? Or was it just that stupid table she cracked her head on?’
‘It was the table.’
‘’Cause you didn’t hit her that hard?’
‘No.’
‘No, what?’
‘I didn’t hit her that hard.’
‘How hard did you hit her?’
‘Not hard.’
‘But you did hit her?’
‘Yeah, I hit her. But not hard.’
‘Hard enough so she fell down and cracked her head on the table?’
‘Yeah, but the table’s what hurt her. Not me hittin’ her.’
‘Even though you were heard shouting, “I’m gonna fucking kill you, you fucking bitch”?’
‘I never said that.’
‘Oh yeah? Anybody else in the room who might have said it?’
‘Just her.’
‘No other guys?’
‘No.’
‘Well that’s kind of a problem for you, Kyle, because we’ve got a witness who says she heard a guy’s voice saying those words and since you were the only guy in the room I guess it must’ve been you.’
‘Fuckin’ bitch doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’
‘That’s for a jury to decide.’
Maggie felt her cell phone vibrate, glanced down, saw the name Savage, John appear in caller ID. She hadn’t spoken to her father in a while but there was no way she could talk to him now. He’d have to wait.
‘The witness also says she saw you pull open the door and rush out of the apartment. She went in and found Mary Farrier unconscious on the floor.’
‘I told you, she hit her head on the table.’
‘Yes, you did. You also told me you hit her.’
‘Yeah, I hit her but not hard enough to crack her head open.’
‘So it wasn’t your punches that fractured her cheekbone, broke her jaw and knocked out three of her teeth? It was her hitting the table?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. The table did it.’
‘Funny.’
‘What’s funny?’
‘According to the docs over at the Med the table only struck the back of Mary’s head. It couldn’t possibly have done all that other stuff. You did.’
There was a knock on the door before he could respond.
‘Come!’ Maggie shouted.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Detective Brian Cleary said. ‘This just came in from Cumberland Med.’ He handed Maggie a note. Maggie unfolded the sheet. Sighed. Shook her head. Muttered the word ‘Shit.’
‘What? What is it?’ asked Carnes.
‘Kyle Carnes,’ she said, ‘I’m arresting you for the murder of Mary Farrier.’
‘Murder?’
‘She died ten minutes ago. Brian, will you read Mr Carnes his rights and then get him out of my sight?’
‘I didn’t hit her that hard,’ Carnes said as Cleary was cuffing him.
Maggie, resisting a strong urge to smack the prisoner right then and there, just shook her head and left the room.
She went to her desk, grabbed her bag and weapon from her locked bottom drawer and headed down Middle Street toward Starbucks for an iced mocha and a little air. Too damned hot to call her father back from here. Passing Sebago Brewpub, she changed her mind and opted for a cold beer instead.
A couple of cops hanging at the bar invited her to join them. She waved them off and took a solo stool down at the end, where the blow from a big-ass AC unit hit her right in the face. The cold air felt heavenly.
The bartender, a mid-forties dishwater-blonde wearing a halter-top and too much makeup came over. ‘Hate to say it, hon, but you look a little bedraggled.’
‘Hate to say it, hon, but I feel a little bedraggled.’
‘What can I get you?’
Maggie checked the list of available drafts and ordered a Frye’s Leap IPA.
Then she called her father.
‘Well, hello, my darling daughter. And how the hell are you?’
‘Hot. Very, very hot. What’s going on?’
‘Well, if you aren’t working this weekend, I’d like you to come up and visit. Aside from the fact that it’s been way too long there are a few things we need to discuss.’
He was right about it being way too long. She hadn’t been home since Christmas and before that only once since John and Anya’s wedding, which had been over a year earlier. ‘What sorts of things?’ she asked.
‘Important things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Nothing I care to discuss over the phone.’
‘Is anything wrong? Is anyone sick?’
‘Margaret,’ he said, his voice taking on a lighter, teasing tone. ‘As an experienced police officer, you know perfectly well I have the right to remain silent and I’m damned well going to.’
She shook her head in frustration. ‘Listen, I’ve just spent the last two hours locked in a hotbox with a foul-smelling killer so, please, stop with the humor.’
‘Maggie. This is important.’
Maggie had rarely known her father to be this evasive and that alone was enough to worry her. She did have plans for tonight. But there was no reason she couldn’t go up in the morning. She was off-duty till Tuesday so she could spend at least a couple of nights in Machias.
‘What’s the temperature up there?’
‘About ten degrees cooler than it is in Portland. They’re predicting thunderstorms for later tonight so tomorrow should be even better.’
‘Good. Sounds wonderful. I’ll leave first thing in the morning. Ought to be there by noon.’
She checked her watch: 8:20. The Sea Dogs game should be going into the seventh or eighth inning. Just enough time to run home, take a quick shower and change before meeting her date at nine.