Darkness First (8 page)

‘Her body was taken to the medical examiner's lab in Augusta early this morning. An autopsy is required by law. When the autopsy's complete, Tiff's remains will be returned to you for whatever service you and your husband plan.'

‘All cut up like a gutted fish?'

‘They'll do what they can to restore her for burial but an open coffin's probably not a good idea.'

‘I see. Okay,' said Donelda.

A minute or two passed. No one spoke.

‘I'm so sorry for your loss,' Maggie finally said. Stupid inadequate words that tumbled out only because Maggie felt a need to break the suffocating thickness of silence.
I'm so sorry for your loss
. Just words. But somehow words seemed better than silence. ‘I'm so very sorry.'

Pike rolled his chair over to a sideboard. Found a glass. Poured some whiskey and drank it down fast. Offered none to his wife. ‘Who did it?' he asked. ‘Who killed her?'

Donelda looked up, her face red and twisted with crying. She shook her head. The look she gave her husband was one of pure hatred.

Pike poured himself another whiskey.

‘H
ave you caught him?' Pike Stoddard asked again. ‘Have you caught the bastard who killed my daughter?' He swallowed the remains of his second whiskey of the morning.

‘No, not yet,' said Maggie. ‘It would help if I could ask you two some questions.'

‘Now?' asked Donelda, looking up, her eyes red and tearful. ‘You march in here and tell us our daughter's been murdered and you want to ask us questions? Interrogate us? Now?'

‘Now would be the best time.'

‘Look, lady, why don't you just ask your questions some other time,' said Pike.

‘I'm sorry, Mr Stoddard. Pike. I understand how you feel. But trust me when I say we have a much better chance of finding Tiff's killer if we don't wait until “some other time”.'

Pike started to protest again but Donelda held up a hand to silence him and nodded her assent.

Since both Stoddards were possible suspects in the drug-smuggling scheme, standard police procedure would have been to first interview them separately, then maybe bring them together. Under the circumstances, Maggie didn't think that was an option. She turned on a small digital recording device and started with some general questions. ‘Tell me about Tiff,' she said. ‘What kind of person was she? What did she want out of life?'

‘The first thing to know about her is she wanted to get the hell out of Eastport,' said Donelda. ‘What you've got to understand about this town is there just isn't much here any more for a young person. It's real pretty. Real picturesque. But there are no jobs. No future. We've got summer people buying up some of the houses on the water but they mostly take off after Labor Day and that's about it.'

‘Okay, Tiff wanted out, I get that. But what was she looking for?'

‘What she called the good life. First one in this family to even think about going to college. She talked sometimes about becoming a TV news reporter. Or maybe selling pharmaceuticals. Said a smart, good-looking female could make a lot of money doing either of those things.'

Selling pharmaceuticals? It was kind of hard letting that go by without comment but Maggie did.

‘Mr Stoddard, Pike, you told me earlier Tiff handled your boat, I think your phrase was “pretty damn near as well as I did”.'

‘Yeah, so?'

‘Did Tiff ever ask to borrow the boat? Use it when maybe you weren't?'

Pike eyed Maggie warily. ‘Use it herself? Nah, not really. Why?'

‘Not really? Or not ever?'

‘Not ever. Why?'

Maggie ignored the question. ‘Can you tell me where your boat was last January? Let's say from the sixth to the eighth?'

Pike eyed Maggie suspiciously before answering. ‘Where it should have been in the middle of scallop season,' said Pike. ‘Out scalloping.'

‘You got a regular captain?'

‘Old mate of mine. Guy named Luke Haskell. Luke picks up whatever crew he needs.'

‘And Haskell had your boat in January?'

‘That's right.'

‘It's a pretty quick run from here to Saint John, isn't it?'

‘What are you getting at, detective?' asked Donelda.

‘We have reason to believe Tiff or maybe someone Tiff knew took a boat to Saint John and back in the first half of January. I wondered if maybe it was your boat. And if it wasn't Tiff who took it, I wondered if maybe you rented the
Katie Louise
to someone else.'

‘No,' Pike said. ‘I wouldn't rent my boat out. Certainly not to someone I didn't know.'

‘How about to someone you did know? Or Tiff knew?' asked Maggie.

‘No. Not to anyone. Lot of insurance and licensing issues. Get in a heap of trouble that way.'

‘So you're sure it was Luke Haskell who took your boat out in January to go scalloping?'

‘Yeah, I'm sure. Go ask him yourself. He'll tell you.'

‘You have Haskell's number?'

He gave it to her. She wrote it down.

‘Luke'll be out on the water now. Hauling lobster. Ought to be in this afternoon. Three, four o'clock. When he's done unloading he usually heads straight for a dive called Dirty Annie's.'

‘Where's he sleep?'

Pike shrugged. ‘Sometimes with Annie if she happens to be in the mood. Otherwise on the
Katie Louise
. Specially in summer.'

‘Let me ask you something, Pike,' said Maggie. ‘What if somebody offered you money, let's say a whole lot of money, to rent – or maybe
borrow
would be a better word – to borrow your boat? Then maybe offered you more money to keep your mouth shut about it. What would you say to that? Hell, I'd understand if you said okay. Times are tough, money's hard to come by. Why not take a little easy cash?'

‘I don't rent out the
Katie Louise
. Or let anyone borrow her either.'

‘You're sure of that?'

‘I'm sure.'

‘Y'know, I'm sorry to hear you say that, Mr Stoddard,' said Maggie, wondering if she could bluff another story out of him.

‘Yeah? Why's that?'

‘Because just this morning somebody who seemed to know what they were talking about told us that you
did
rent out your boat. Now if that somebody was right …' Maggie put her hands on either side of Pike's wheelchair, leaned down so she was only inches away and looked straight into his frightened face, ‘and if you'd be willing to tell me who it was you rented it to, well, we just might have the key to finding out who the sonofabitch was who beat the shit out of your beautiful daughter and then picked up a great big knife and slashed open her neck like a hog in a slaughterhouse.'

‘You get out of my house.'

The dog looked up, alerted by the anger in Stoddard's voice. Maggie's hand slid to her Glock but otherwise she ignored the animal. ‘What do you say, Pike? Are you going to tell me the truth? Or not?'

‘I already told you. I didn't rent the boat. I don't rent the boat. I would never even consider renting out the goddamned boat.'

‘You lying bastard,' Donelda Stoddard said, staring across at her husband. ‘You did it, didn't you? You went ahead and did it. First you killed Terri. And now you've killed Tiff as well.'

‘You shut the fuck up,' Stoddard snarled at his wife. ‘You don't know what you're talking about. And you,' he said to Maggie, ‘you get the fuck out of my house.'

Maggie looked at the two of them: first Pike, then Donelda. Then she looked over to the staircase and saw a child, Tabitha Stoddard, peeking down and, no doubt, listening to every word. Maggie wondered how much she'd heard.

‘What about it, Donelda? Pike says you don't know what you're talking about. But you do, don't you?'

‘I know now,' said Donelda. ‘And if he doesn't have the balls to tell you, I will.'

‘I'm listening.'

Donelda spoke in a voice choked by the effort to hold back tears. A voice Maggie had to strain to hear.

‘It was December twenty-first. Four days before Christmas. I was working late over at Wiley's. Packing and shipping the last of the wreaths for this year. I remember the date because the twenty-first, long as it's not a Sunday, is the last day we can ship wreaths if people want them in time for the holiday, and we're always in a rush to get them packed before the UPS guy makes his last run.

‘Anyway, I got home about ten o'clock and Tiff's car was in the driveway. I was pleased because I figured she'd come home early for the holiday and maybe we'd get to spend some time together. Tiff's always making out like she's got something more important to do.

‘I walk in and they're both sitting here. Pike where he is now and Tiff on the couch next to him. As usual, he's drinking whiskey. She's drinking something else. Coffee brandy, I think. They both stop talking soon as I walk through the door.

‘ “What's going on?” I ask Pike.

‘ “Nothing,” he says. “We're just talking about what to get you for Christmas.”

‘Well, a three-year-old would've known that was bullshit, 'specially the way he said it, so I ask them again what's going on.

‘ “Go ahead, tell her,” says Tiff. “The boat's half hers.”

‘So Pike looks me square in the eye and says Tiff wants him, us, to lend the
Katie Louise
to somebody for a week or so.

‘ “
Lend
the
Katie Louise
?” I say. “In the middle of scallop season?”

‘ “Yeah.”

‘ “To
somebody
?”

‘ “Yeah.”

‘ “Somebody who?”

‘ “This guy she knows. Conor something,” says Pike.

‘ “Conor being his first name or last name?” I ask.

‘ “His first name,” Tiff tells me. “Last name's Riordan. Conor Riordan. He's a friend of mine,” she says. “Somebody we can trust.”

‘ “And what's this Conor Riordan want our boat for?” I ask. “Scalloping?”

‘She laughs at that. “No,” she says. “He's not interested in scalloping. He just needs a boat. But you can't say anything about it to anybody. Can't breathe a word.”

‘ “Oh yeah?” I say. “Some guy named Conor Riordan needs a boat. Our boat. What for? Pleasure cruising off the coast of Maine in the middle of January? Jesus, Tiff, you must think we're nuts. Or maybe stupid. Why in hell would we lend an 80,000 dollar boat to some guy we've never met and is probably up to no good?”

‘ “Because,” says Pike. “He's willing to pay us 10,000 dollars cash for one lousy week. No crew split. No taxes. No nothing.”

‘ “Ten thousand up front?”

‘ “Up front. And another 2,000 a day every day he needs her beyond the week. Plus another 10,000 cash security deposit we only give back to him when he brings the boat back undamaged. Shit, Donelda, we can live for six fucking months on 10,000 cash. How many fucking bloodworms you have to pull for that kind of money? How many lighthouses you have to paint? Jesus woman, use your fucking head.”

‘ “Ten thousand dollars? Twenty with the deposit? Boat's worth four times that,” I tell them. “What if he just takes off with it? Never comes back?”

‘ “He's not gonna do that. I told you. He's a friend of mine,” says Tiff.

‘ “Yeah. Fine. He's a friend of yours. What if this
friend
never comes back?”

‘ “Boat's insured,” says Pike. “We just report her stolen. Get the insured value on top of the twenty and blow the hell out of here. Go down to the Keys, sit in the sunshine and forget about the whole damn thing.”

‘ “You got it all planned out, don't you, Pike?” I say.

‘ “Yeah. Something like that.”

‘ “But you weren't planning to tell me?”

‘ “No. Because I knew you'd fuck it up. Just like you fuck up everything else.”

‘ “And if the boat disappears you think the insurance company's just gonna hand you a check for 80,000 dollars without conducting an investigation? You think they're that stupid? Are you that stupid?”

‘ “Nothing's gonna happen, Ma,” says Tiff. “Conor's a good guy and he knows what he's doing.”

‘ “And how would you know that?”

‘ “Because I took him out on her today and, trust me, he knows what he's doing.”

‘ “I suppose you're sleeping with this Conor guy. Screwing him?”

‘ “No. No, of course not,” she says. Tiff tells me this all wide-eyed and innocent like I'm supposed to think she's some kind of virgin.

“Bullshit,” I said.

‘ “Okay,” she says. “Fine. You're right. I'm screwing him up one side of the bed and down the other. Just like you were screwing Pa five minutes after you rode into town. But you know something else? This deal has nothing to do with sex. It's strictly a business deal. Ten thousand cash for you guys, maybe more. And you don't have to do a thing to get it except not ask any more questions. Take it or leave it, 'cause there are other boats in Maine and this conversation's going nowhere.” '

‘What did you do?' asked Maggie.

‘Well,' said Donelda, ‘I've got to admit it was tempting. Ten thousand may not be a lot of money to some people. Maybe some of the tourists down in Bar Harbor spend that much for a two-week vacation. But it'd mean a hell of a lot to us. But it was too damned obvious this Conor guy was up to no good. He wanted the boat for something illegal. My guess was smuggling drugs 'cause that's what everybody around here who wants to make money's into these days. It's about the only big-money business left in Washington County. Drugs and blueberries, and everyone knows drugs are a whole lot more profitable. I didn't want anything to do with it. It struck me as stupider than shit to get involved in something illegal with some guy we never even met and who, for all we knew, was working some kind of sting for the DEA. Boat's half mine. So I said no.'

‘You said no?' asked Maggie.

‘Yeah. Pike argued with me for a while. Tiff bitched and moaned. But I said no and Pike finally said okay, just forget it. Forget the whole fucking thing. Told me I was right anyway. Said he hadn't considered the possibility of a sting.'

‘So, that was that?'

‘Or so I thought. I thought Pike was gonna tell the guy to get lost. But you know what? I was wrong. I just figured it out. My asshole husband's got 10,000 bucks salted away somewhere and I've got nothing. Not even my second daughter. 'Cause now he's gone and killed the two of them.'

Donelda started weeping again. Great heaving sobs. Then she rose and walked to Pike's chair and smacked him as hard as she could across the face. He sat there and took it. ‘This, you fucker, is for lying to me.'

She smacked him again. ‘This is for killing Terri.'

Smacked him a third time. ‘And this one is for Tiff.'

Donelda turned and went up the stairs.