The Chill of Night (20 page)

He went back to Goff’s bedroom, moved the pile of clothes from the tub chair to the floor, and sat. Empty stomach or not, the whisky would’ve felt good going down. Just what he needed. Just what he didn’t need. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander. Why had Lainie posed for the nude photographs? Why had she hung them here? If she was an exhibitionist, she was a careful one, exposing herself only in the most private of places. Whose eyes were the pictures intended for? Lovers and potential lovers? If so, why? To arouse them to a higher level of excitement? That idea seemed both ridiculous and redundant. Lainie in the flesh would arouse far more powerfully than any framed image, no matter how erotic. No, he decided. The pictures weren’t for her lovers. They were for her.

He looked across at the bed and saw Lainie, or Sandy, he wasn’t sure which, lying under him, dark hair fanned across white pillows, pleasure skittering across her face, shallow and transitory like cat’s-paw ripples on the surface of the sea. From a vantage point of years, McCabe the auteur observed McCabe the lover’s urgent thrusts, trying always to reach something deeper in the woman he married. Trying but failing. He knew their lovemaking was an act. It had always been an act, but it was an act that for years he couldn’t resist. He looked into her eyes, preposterously blue, filled with love, but not for the extraneous, if sometimes useful, appendage she had married. Instead she focused on the images on the opposite wall. Narcissus at the pool, utterly enchanted with the perfection of her reflected self.

McCabe was jarred from his reverie by the sound of the apartment door opening and closing. Had the searcher returned to finish the job? McCabe slid the .45 from the holster to his hand, switched off the light, and felt his way through the dark to the other side of the room. He pressed himself into a corner between the bedroom door and the wall of photographs. He heard a soft thump, a whispered shout of ‘Shit.’ A dim light came on, leaking under the closed bedroom door. Not a steady light but moving like the beam of a flashlight in someone’s hand. He heard steps coming closer. He held his breath.

The bedroom door opened. The searcher stood there, moving a circle of light across the wall above the bed. He paused on the chair where McCabe had been sitting, then moved on. Seconds passed. A small man advanced into the room, his back to McCabe. He was no more than five-three or -four and slender. No, not slender. Skinny. One thirty, one forty tops. Thinning hair. Maybe the oddest thing about him was that, with ten-degree temperatures outside, the searcher wasn’t wearing a coat. Just a checked shirt and an open cardigan. Mr Rogers visits a murder. He supposed the guy could have left his coat in the hall or taken it off in the other room, but why would he? Maybe he lived in the building.

The intruder had no sense he wasn’t alone. No sense someone was standing less than four feet away pointing a .45 at the center of his back. Most people can tell. This guy couldn’t. McCabe watched as he continued moving the beam of light around the room. He stopped when he got to the nude photographs. He moved closer and gazed at them, transfixed. Then he looked down into the open dresser drawer. Instead of continuing to rifle through the contents as McCabe expected, he pulled out a pair of Lainie Goff’s lacy black thong panties and pressed them against his cheek. Finally McCabe raised the .45 so the guy would see it. ‘First I’d like you to put the flashlight on the bureau,’ he said, ‘nice and slow, beam up. Then drop the panties.’

The guy turned toward McCabe, his expression more puzzled than surprised. He looked down at his own right hand, the one holding the light, but made no move to do as he was told.

‘Be a good boy.’ McCabe wiggled the barrel of his gun. ‘No discussion. No arguments. Just put it down.’

The guy did. ‘Are you the one who killed her?’ he asked. His voice was quavery, as if he thought he might be next on the hit parade.

Maybe it was an honest question. Or maybe just a way to divert suspicion. McCabe moved to the bureau, picked up the flashlight, and pointed the beam against the opposite wall. ‘Please step over there, lean against the wall with both hands, and spread your legs.’

‘You mean assume the position?’

‘Very good. Assume the position.’

‘Who are you?’ the guy asked in a high-pitched voice.

‘I’m the man with the gun. That means I get to ask the questions and you get to do as you’re told.’

The guy went to the wall and leaned against it. His left hand was still clutching Lainie’s panties.

McCabe switched on a standing lamp next to the bureau. The sudden brightness revealed that the intruder was a soft, nerdy-looking man in his early forties, more milquetoast than murderer. He was wearing a brown leather tool belt around his waist. Pliers, screwdrivers, a hammer, some other stuff.

‘Undo the tool belt and let it drop to the floor.’

The guy did.

‘Very good. Now, my first question is, who are you?’

‘Me?’ the guy squeaked.

‘I don’t see anyone else in the room. Do you?’

‘No. No, I don’t. Name’s Andy Barker,’ the guy said. ‘I own this building.’ Then, as if it just occurred to him, ‘Actually, you’re trespassing on my property.’

McCabe ignored the last remark. ‘Got any ID, Mr Barker? Don’t reach for it. Just tell me where it is.’

‘In my wallet. Back pocket. Left.’

McCabe walked over and kicked the tool belt out of reach. He patted the guy down, then fished out the wallet. He found a Maine driver’s license. Andrew Barker. Age forty-two. Address 342 Brackett Street. He shoved the wallet back in Barker’s pocket. ‘Thank you, Mr Barker. For the record, I’m Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe, Portland police.’

Barker let out a long breath he’d been holding in for a while. Probably thought a cop was less likely to shoot him than some random guy with a gun. ‘Police, huh. Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘Yeah. That’s what I figured.’

‘I have another question.’ McCabe holstered the .45. ‘What are you doing here?’

Barker shrugged. ‘Like I told you, I own this building. I’m Lainie Goff’s landlord.’

‘Do you normally visit your tenants’ apartments unannounced –’

‘Unannounced? Who am I supposed to announce it to? Goff’s dead.’

‘Unannounced at four fifteen in the morning?’

‘I’m an early riser.’ Now he was playing the wiseguy.

‘Keep talking.’

‘Well, I figured I was gonna have to find a new tenant. I wanted to see what kind of shape the place was in. How much stuff’d have to be moved out.’ They both knew that was bullshit. Barker was just trying it on for size.

‘You were carrying the tools for what reason exactly?’

Barker shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. I usually wear a tool belt. In case anything needed fixing?’ His voice rose at the end of the last sentence, making it more question than assertion.

McCabe decided it was time to cut the crap. ‘I think you can do better than that, Mr Barker. Now, what were you doing entering a murdered woman’s apartment carrying a flashlight and a set of tools in the middle of the night? And what exactly are you doing with her underwear?’

Barker started looking around like he wanted to be anywhere but leaning against a wall in front of McCabe. ‘Mind if I sit down?’ he asked.

‘Over there,’ said McCabe, pointing to the tub chair. Barker lowered his hands and sat.

‘Now answer the question, Mr Barker. Why are you here?’

‘I was curious. Like I told the other detective, the woman, Ms Savage, I’m kind of a fan of police stuff. Wanted to have a look around. Scene of the crime and all that.’

More bullshit. ‘You were up here before, weren’t you, Mr Barker?’

‘Yeah. Sure. I’ve been up here a couple of times. When Ms Goff needed something fixed or had a problem with something.’

McCabe went to where Barker was sitting, put his hands on the chair’s two arms, and leaned in close. ‘I want some straight answers, Andy,’ he said. ‘You don’t mind if I call you Andy, do you?’

Barker looked up and shook his head no.

‘That’s good, Andy. Now no more bullshit. You came up here earlier tonight, didn’t you?’

Barker shook his head again. ‘No. Well, yes, but only to let the other detectives in.’

‘Then you came back. After they left. And you started going through Lainie Goff’s belongings like you were looking for something, didn’t you, Andy? And it wasn’t just underwear, was it?’

Barker shook his head, confused.

‘What were you looking for?’

‘I wasn’t looking for anything. I wasn’t even up here.’

‘Was it something incriminating? Something that might tie you to the murder? Is that what you were looking for?’

‘I told you, I wasn’t here. I wasn’t looking for anything.’ Barker tried to get up out of the chair, but McCabe was blocking the way. He sat back down. ‘I want to go home now.’ He sounded like a child who wasn’t having fun with his playmates anymore.

‘I’d rather you stayed where you are, Andy. I’d rather you told me what you were looking for when you came up and ransacked Lainie Goff’s personal things earlier tonight.’

‘You’re trying to make like I had something to do with her murder, aren’t you? ’Cause if that’s what you’re trying to do, that’s just total bullshit.’

Barker seemed near tears. He was looking everywhere except at McCabe. Mostly he was glancing over at the wall of pictures above the bureau. The nudes of Lainie Goff.

‘She was a good-looking woman, wasn’t she, Andy?’

‘Who?’

‘Your tenant. Ms Goff.’

‘Yes. She’s beautiful. She
was
beautiful.’

‘Woman like that could make a man do all kinds of things he might not do otherwise, don’t you think, Andy?’

‘What are you talking about? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Are you a married man, Andy? Is there a nice little Mrs Andy downstairs in 1F waiting for you? One who’ll vouch for where you were Tuesday night around, oh, I don’t know, eleven o’clock or so?’

‘No. I’m not married. Besides, I don’t see what business it is of yours where I was Tuesday or any other night.’ Barker’s voice was swinging wildly between panicked and petulant.

‘You’ve got a key to this apartment, isn’t that right, Andy?’ asked McCabe.

‘Of course. I’ve got keys to all the tenants’ apartments.’

‘And you just used that key to gain access to this apartment?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

‘I told you I wasn’t looking for anything.’

‘Not even a pair of Lainie Goff’s black lace thong panties?’

Barker looked down and realized he was still clutching the panties in his left hand. He dropped them like they were on fire.

‘Maybe you also used your key to gain access to this apartment earlier tonight? After the crime scene people left and before I showed up.’

‘No.’

‘Maybe you came in and went through Lainie Goff’s drawers and personal effects?’

‘No.’

‘What were you looking for, Mr Barker?’

‘I’m not talking to you anymore.’

‘Something personal? Maybe something even sexier than those panties? Something that might turn you on?’

‘I know my rights, and I don’t have to talk to you. I have the right to remain silent.’

‘I know. I’ll bet you were looking for more pictures of Goff naked. I mean, if she’s got those over there right out in the open, she’s probably got even better ones in her drawer, don’t you think? Is that what you were looking for?’ McCabe pointed over to the open drawers in the bureau. ‘Or maybe you’re just into underwear? Frilly, lacy black underwear? She probably has lots more of it in there. You the kind of guy that gets turned on by a good-looking woman’s underwear? Is that what you were looking for?’

‘I have the right to remain silent,’ Barker said again. ‘Anything I say can and will be used against me in a court of law. I have the right to have an attorney present during questioning –’

‘Yes you do, Mr Barker, but you’re not under arrest or anything like that. We’re just having a friendly little chat. Guy talk, that’s all.’

‘I have the right to remain silent,’ Barker repeated.

‘I’m just trying to figure out what you were doing wandering around up here with a flashlight and a bunch of tools at four o’clock in the morning.’

‘I’d like you to leave my house now,’ Barker said.

‘What were you looking for, Barker?’

‘I want you to leave my house. Or get yourself a warrant and come back later.’

This was a murder victim’s apartment, and McCabe didn’t need a warrant to be here. On the other hand, it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to get anything else out of Andy Barker. He needed to find out what, if anything, the evidence techs had found here and what they’d found in the house on the island. More than either of those things, he needed some sleep.

In the end McCabe told Barker to go back down to his apartment but not to leave town and to make himself available if he was needed for further questioning. Then he called 109 and told Dispatch to send over an evidence tech to see if the searcher had left behind any fingerprints or other evidence and then padlock the place and make sure nobody else snuck in. When the tech got there, McCabe left.

The snow was still coming down at 5:00
A.M
. when McCabe got back to his own place on the Eastern Prom. The light in the living room was still on; Kyra was in the bedroom still asleep. He stripped down and slid into bed next to her. He had that ten o’clock meeting but still had time for a few hours’ sleep. With Casey at Sunday River, he wouldn’t have to wake up until about nine thirty to make it downtown by ten. Trying not to disturb Kyra, but feeling a need for her warmth, he pressed his body, spoon fashion, against the bend of her back. He rested one arm along the curve of her hip.

‘I’m glad you’re back,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to worry.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘You didn’t. I’ve been awake pretty much all night. Anyway, welcome home.’

He pushed himself even more tightly against her. ‘It’s good to be home,’ he said. He meant it. He was glad he did.

Fifteen

Portland, Maine

Saturday, January 7