Darkness First (4 page)

2:22
A.M.
, Saturday, August 22, 2009

Portland, Maine

I
t was too damned hot to sleep. After a couple of hours tossing and turning, Maggie Savage found herself wide awake, sheets kicked off, body soaked in sweat. Like most Mainers, she'd never considered installing AC and the air in her apartment on Vesper Street felt as dank and steamy as it had in the interview room at 109. But it wasn't just the heat that was keeping her awake. It was the evening she'd just spent with Billy Webb. At least the last part of it.

I really like you, Maggie. I'd really like this to go somewhere.

She'd met Billy back in early June when he arrived in town to take up duties as the replacement pitching coach for the Portland Sea Dogs, his predecessor in the job having keeled over with a massive and subsequently fatal coronary in a bar in Altoona, Pennsylvania, home of the Altoona Curve. Billy had been pursuing Maggie enthusiastically, if unsuccessfully, ever since. The pursuit was, of necessity, intermittent since he was ‘a travelin' man', as he put it, available for dates and other social engagements only when the Sea Dogs were playing at home and not off visiting one Eastern League competitor or another. The Binghamton Mets. The Trenton Thunder. The Akron Aeros. All towns and teams Maggie had never been to and had no desire to see.

The two of them had spent the early part of the evening drinking margaritas and eating a steak they'd grilled over a charcoal fire out on Ferry Beach in Scarborough, where the air was marginally less oppressive than it was here in town. Afterward, he'd driven her home and for the fifth time in five dates she turned down his earnest and ardent pleas to allow him into her bed.

I really like you, Maggie. I'd really like this to go somewhere.

Thinking she ought to level with him, she told Billy she didn't think things were going to work out between them. That they probably shouldn't see each other again. He didn't argue. Or even want to talk about why. Just told her he'd call her in two weeks after he got back from the next road trip and drove off into the night.

And now she was lying here by herself. Feeling more than a little lonely and more than a little depressed about the prospect of starting all over again.

Still, she was sure Billy wasn't right for her. Yes, he was a nice guy. Certainly attractive enough. He had a decent sense of humor. But he wasn't what she was looking for. Billy had been married and divorced twice. He was the father of a twenty-year-old son he hadn't seen or spoken to in eight years. And next season he could just as easily be coaching pitchers in Greenville, South Carolina as in Portland, Maine. Maggie was thirty-six. She wanted to get married and have at least one or maybe even a couple of kids before it was too late. A guy who bounced from city to city year after year wasn't a good prospect either as a husband or a dad. However, all of these considerations paled against what was, by far, the single most important entry on the negative side of Billy's ledger. The simple fact that he wasn't the man she wanted to spend her life with and she knew he never would be. Hanging on now, letting it go any further, would be too much like an admission she was getting desperate. Grasping at straws. And she was damned if she was ready to admit that. Not to herself. Not to anyone else either. At least not yet. Maggie was mulling the implications of that when the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony rang out. Da-da-da-dum!

She grabbed her phone from the nightstand. Caller ID said ‘Savage, John'. Why was her father calling in the middle of the night?

‘Okay, what's going on?' Maggie asked. She walked into the living room, turned on a single lamp and sat down on the couch. There was a lot of noise and interference on the other end of the line. ‘Where are you?'

‘Machiasport,' her father shouted into the phone. ‘In the parking area by the state park. We're in the middle of a thunderstorm so if we get cut off I'll call you back.'

Maggie's mind cleared instantly. The phone line crackled. There was a sound like thunder exploding in the background.

‘Can you hear me?' her father shouted.

‘Yes, I can hear you.'

‘You may want to get up here a little earlier than planned.'

‘Really? Why's that?'

‘We've got ourselves kind of a mess. A double mess actually.'

‘What kind of mess?'

‘A murder mess. A young woman had her throat cut just a few hours ago. The killer damn near took her head off. Among other things. She must've bled out in minutes.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that but what's it got to do with me? Call the staties. It's their jurisdiction.'

‘I'm calling you because Emily was nearly killed at the same time.'

Maggie felt her gut tighten.
Nearly killed
he'd said. That meant Em was still alive. ‘How bad?'

‘Bad.'

‘Is she going to die?' Maggie held her breath and waited for the answer. Emily Kaplan had been Maggie's best friend since pre-school. Her fellow star and alter-ego on the Machias Memorial High School state championship basketball team. Em was the closest thing Maggie had to a sister. A twin sister, except Em was three inches taller and a much better athlete. If Emily died a big part of Maggie would die along with her.

‘I don't know,' John Savage told her.

Maggie exhaled long and slow. ‘What happened?'

‘Best we can tell, Em was hit by a car near where the murder victim was found. Cracked her head pretty hard going down. My theory is after the killer sliced up the victim he jumped in his car and literally ran into Emily on the way out. She's been lying in a ditch by the side of the road ever since. Three or four hours at least. Getting rained on for the last hour or so. If a pair of teenagers hadn't pulled into the parking area for a little late-night kiss and giggle, both of them could've been lying there all night. A Life-Flight chopper's on its way now. They'll fly her down to Eastern Maine.'

‘Staties there yet?' asked Maggie. The Maine State Police, the MSP, were responsible for investigating all murders in the state of Maine outside the cities of Portland or Bangor. Sometimes they enlisted the support of the county Sheriff's Department and/or local police. Sometimes not.

‘Detective named Emmett Ganzer and an evidence team got here about ten minutes ago. Before that it was just me, one of my deputies and a couple of troopers. Now that he's here, Ganzer's marching around like some oversized drill sergeant telling everybody what to do.'

Maggie knew Ganzer from the Academy and didn't much like him. He was a good detective. Smart but overly aggressive and difficult to get along with, especially for the female students.

‘Two other things you might want to know.'

‘Go ahead.'

‘About quarter to nine this evening, Emily called both my phones from her office. Left one message to call her back. Another to get down to her place. Said it was urgent.'

‘Where were you?'

‘I was taking a shower and Anya was out of the house. I called her back but she didn't answer. So I jumped in the car and headed for her house, lights and siren. By the time I got there she was gone. I was still looking for her when we got the call from the kids.'

‘She didn't call 911?'

‘There's no record of that.'

‘What else can you tell me?'

Savage sighed before answering. ‘I'm 100 percent certain the hit and run was no accident. Guy was going at least fifty and from tire marks on the road it's pretty clear he swerved to make sure he hit her.'

‘Taking out a witness?'

‘That's my reading.'

‘What else?'

‘Em must've been working. Had on a white lab coat with a stethoscope stuffed in one pocket and a ziplock bag in the other. Bag had over 150 Oxycontin tablets in it. Maybe more. Eighty megs. Canadian manufacture.'

‘What the hell was she doing with them?'

‘Don't know yet. We'll talk about that when you get here.'

‘All right.' Maggie's mind was racing. ‘I'll get there as soon as I can. But I'm gonna stop at the hospital on the way up.'

Maggie took a one-minute shower, towel-dried her hair and threw on some clothes. She strapped on her Glock 17, and slipped into a lightweight jacket long enough to conceal the weapon. She shoved her laptop into her canvas computer case and stuffed a duffle with enough clothes for a week. Nothing fancy. Just jeans, t-shirts and underwear. A couple of sweaters in case it got cold. As an afterthought, she threw in two spare magazines for the Glock. As a second afterthought, she added her backup weapon. A lightweight Kimber Solo 9 mm automatic, an ankle holster and a six-round magazine for that. She sincerely hoped she wouldn't need body armor.

M
aggie headed north on the 295/95 combination out of Portland. It was not only the fastest way to get to Machiasport, it also took her past Bangor and Eastern Maine Medical Center.

At three in the morning the interstate was nearly empty and Maggie pushed her TrailBlazer's big V-8 engine to the max, hoping a brand-new murder investigation and her Portland PD creds would convince any trailing troopers to forget about issuing speeding tickets. Happily, no troopers materialized.

Her father called before she hit the tolls at Augusta.

‘Got a call from the hospital. CAT scan showed some bleeding on the brain. But they said it wasn't too bad. She ought to be in post-op by the time you get there.'

‘Post-op?'

‘Yeah, surgeon drilled a hole in her head to relieve the pressure.'

A hole in her head? Jesus.

Maggie hit the entrance to Eastern Maine on State Street in Bangor less than an hour and a half after leaving Vesper Street. She pulled into a no-parking zone near the emergency entrance, tossed an
Official Police Business
sign on the dashboard and ran in. Typical Friday-night, Saturday-morning crowd in the ER but at least someone was manning the desk.

‘Are you a relative?' the woman asked.

Maggie hesitated, unsure if being a relative or a cop would get her information faster. ‘Actually, I'm a police officer,' she said, producing her gold shield. ‘Detective Margaret Savage. Dr Kaplan was the victim of a crime. I need to talk to her doctor.'

The woman at the desk hit some keys on her computer, muttering to herself, ‘Kaplan, let's see, Kaplan. Here she is.' She picked up a phone and asked some questions. ‘Uh, huh. Okay. I have a police officer here. A detective.' Pause. ‘Okay, I'll send her up.' She hung up. ‘Dr Kaplan's just out of surgery but Dr Collins said he can talk to you. Take that elevator over there to the second floor ICU. He'll meet you there.'

A middle-aged man wearing surgical scrubs and a distracted look was standing by the elevator doors talking to a nurse when Maggie stepped out.

‘You the detective?' he asked.

‘Yes. Margaret Savage,' she said, showing her badge and ID. ‘I'm also a close personal friend of the victim.'

‘I see. I'm Dr Collins. Stanley Collins. I'm a neurosurgeon here at the hospital.'

Collins pointed Maggie toward some plastic chairs in a waiting area and they sat.

‘Is she going to make it?' Maggie asked thinking about what happened to Mary Farrier.

‘Yes. I'm very optimistic she'll soon make a full recovery.'

‘How soon?'

‘Hard to say exactly. She's had a bad blow to the head and is currently comatose. There was some fairly minor blood leakage. We've inserted a catheter through her skull to relieve and monitor any pressure on the brain. We've also got her intubated to help her breathing. Impact with the car also cracked a couple of ribs. Otherwise, except for some scrapes and bruises, she's fine. Overall, considering what she's been through, I'd say she's doing surprisingly well. She's a very strong woman.'

Surprisingly well? Attagirl, Em. You surprise the bastards
.

He spun some further medical bullshit Maggie didn't understand but which sounded generally positive. But then he finished with: ‘Unfortunately we can't be sure she's 100 percent out of the woods. Soon. But not just yet.'

Just covering his ass, Maggie thought
.

‘How long will she be unconscious?'

‘Hard to say. Could be just a few hours. Maybe a day. Possibly longer. We'll know more after twelve hours.'

‘Can I see her?'

‘She won't know you're there.'

‘I'd just like to have a look.'

The doctor shrugged. ‘No reason you shouldn't. You can hold her hand. Talk to her. It all helps. I just suggest you don't stay too long.'

Maggie nodded. She didn't intend to stay long anyway.

O
ut of Bangor Maggie picked up Route 9. The Airline as it was called. Sixty-five miles due east over a string of mountains on a well-maintained two-laner. Her only company the whole way half a dozen pick-ups and a pair of eighteen-wheelers hauling heavy loads of fresh-cut timber. All were easily passed. Best of all, the thunderstorms Savage warned her about had already gone through, leaving drying roads and cooler air. Maggie gazed into a clear eastern sky as it morphed from delicate pink to a full red to a glorious orange. As the shimmering disk of the sun poked up over the horizon, Maggie slipped on a pair of Oakley Inmates she'd splurged on after she started dating Billy. She figured they'd make it harder for friends to spot her sitting in the wives and girlfriends section at Hadlock Field during Sea Dogs games. Then she called her father.

‘I stopped by the hospital,' she said.

‘They let you in?'

‘Just showed my badge.'

‘How is she?'

‘Still in a coma.' She told him what the doctor told her. ‘She's going to be fine. It could have been much worse.'

‘Where are you now?' he asked.

‘At the moment? Passing through Clifton by Parks Pond.'

Savage started to say something, then his voice cut out. Maggie looked at her phone. A little
no service
message appeared in place of the bars. She put it away.

At Wesley, Maggie turned south on to 192 and descended toward Machias and the coast, passing Northfield and the familiar dock and landing at Bog Lake where John Savage had taught all three of his children, one-on-one, each in their turn, the fine art of fishing for, and occasionally catching, the landlocked salmon that once abounded in the lake and the brown trout that still did.

She wondered if Emmett Ganzer would be running the show and, if so, what his reaction would be when she told him she wanted to join the investigation team. There wasn't an agency in the state that couldn't use an extra pair of experienced hands, and working with the staties would give her access to a lot of resources she wouldn't have working on her own. Still, she didn't know Ganzer all that well, hadn't seen him since they attended the Maine Criminal Justice Academy together. She remembered Emmett as someone who hated it when anyone – but especially a female student and double-especially one named Savage – came up with the answers in class before he did.

She drove through Machias and continued south on Port Road through the small village of Machiasport and on toward the state park. In the early light of a cool summer morning she could see the flashing light bars of a bunch of cruisers from half a mile away. As she drew closer she counted three from the MSP, two more from the Washington County Sheriff's Department plus a couple of unmarked state police cars and her father's white Subaru Outback.

A young trooper signaled her to pull over in front of some yellow crime-scene tape that was cordoning off the entire area from the state park to the spot where she guessed Emily had been hit. ‘Sorry, ma'am,' he said, ‘I'm afraid you can't stop here. You'll either have to turn around or continue through on that far shoulder.'

The trooper's plastic name badge identified him as J. W. Willett. ‘Trooper Willett?'

‘That's right.'

Maggie held out her badge wallet and opened it for the trooper. ‘Detective Margaret Savage, Portland PD.'

‘You're a little far from home, aren't you?'

‘See that tall guy down there? I'm with him.'

‘Sheriff Savage?' He glanced at her name again. ‘You his daughter?'

‘Last time I checked.'

‘Yeah,' the trooper nodded, ‘I can see the resemblance.' He spoke into his shoulder mike. Somebody on the other end told him to let her through.

Maggie parked the Blazer, slipped under the tape and started toward the park. She stopped where the evidence techs had marked the precise point of impact where Emily had been struck by the fleeing car. Had she been trying to stop the killer when he ran into her? Or help the dying girl? Maggie knew Em's first instinct would have been to save a life.

There was nothing much to be seen here except some skid marks that showed where the car had swerved. Other than that, nothing. No paint chips. No blood or broken glass. By now the techs would've collected whatever could be found and tucked it away for analysis.

She continued toward the park. John Savage broke away from the group he was with and came to meet her. A lean six-four, with a gray mustache and a weathered face, Savage looked more like a sheriff in a John Ford western than one in a rural county in Maine. He was even armed like Wyatt Earp with his pride and joy, an original 1873 long-barreled Colt.45 Peacemaker, strapped to his waist. All he needed was a horse and a Stetson hat to complete the image. And somewhere at home Maggie was pretty sure he had the hat. Polly Four, a blond Lab who was John's constant companion, jumped from the open back of the Subaru and trotted alongside. People tended to ask John the significance of the ‘Four' in Polly Four's name. Nothing real complicated. Her father always named his dogs Polly (‘Keeps things simple,' he'd explain) and this one was his fourth. Polly Four, in dog years, was about the same age John was in people years. Just like Pollys one through three, she had a deputy sheriff's badge clipped to her collar.

Polly Four wagged furiously and butted her nose against Maggie's leg. John opened his arms. Maggie stepped into them, rejoicing in the familiar scent of the only man she'd loved forever. A pot pourri of unfiltered Camels, J. W. Dant Straight Kentucky Bourbon and wet gun dog.

Then she pulled back and examined him closely. He looked thinner than she remembered, but then he'd always been lean. There were a few new furrows on his always furrowed face. A little less hair on his head. None of this, at his age, was much of a surprise. She saw nothing more than worry reflected in the dark-brown eyes everyone said looked exactly like hers. Still, at seventy-four, it was way past time for John Savage to admit he was getting older and stop working so hard at a job he should have retired from years earlier. Except he loved the job. Lived for it. Probably kill him if he quit. Kill him if he didn't. Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

‘How you doing, Mag?' he asked as they broke the hug.

‘Hanging in,' she told him. ‘How about you?'

‘Aching all over. Should have been in bed hours ago.'

As they started back, John reached into his shirt pocket for his pack of Camels, the short unfiltered kind he'd been smoking forever. She waited while he tapped one out and lit up. He took a deep drag and blew a steady stream of smoke into the crisp morning air, the blue smoke tinted bluer by the flashing light bars of the cruisers.

‘Thought you promised me you'd give those up,' Maggie said.

‘Yup. I did. Promised you. Promised Em. Promised Anya. But the truth of the matter is I don't really want to give them up. I enjoy smoking. I enjoy bourbon too. And sex when I can manage it.'

‘The bourbon and sex probably won't kill you.'

‘No, but I'm turning seventy-five next month. At this point it seems more'n likely something else'll kill me first.'

Maggie wondered if he had anything specific in mind. But that conversation would have to wait. In the meantime she knew enough not to argue. John was at least as stubborn as she was.