The Killer in Me

by Olivia Kiernan

  Keith meets my eyes. “Well, look at that,” he says. “Mark it up, boys.”

  For all our caution, none of us expected the bloody crime scene at the church to extend to the Shine house. The question is whether it was before or after Geraldine Shine’s death. The thought brings new angles to the shape of the investigation. There’s one reason someone would’ve come here before the killing: to pursue their victim. And many reasons for coming back to the house afterward: to steal money, drugs, some secret document, or to destroy evidence that could lead to their arrest. And the presence of blood here suggests the killer returned after the scene at the church.

  “Why would he come back here?” I say, mostly to myself but Keith rocks on the balls of his toes and gives out a puff of air.

  “I just collect the deets, Detective. This might be his own blood or even a droplet that fell from his clothing; when he came through the window. That was a pretty vicious scene at the church; I’d be surprised if he came away clean or unmarked.”

  I’d be surprised if he got a single scratch on him. His attack on Geraldine Shine was sudden. He came at her from behind. His hands would have been covered, his sleeves likely taped down. He’s too organized for this. I recall Geraldine’s complaint of stalking, the phone call to the local station that she believed someone had been in her home.

  “Was the gate at the side open?”

  He pulls himself upright. “No. We had to use the bolt-cutters. Nice new brass lock. It’s in the tent there if you want a look at it.”

  “Thanks.” But I remain in the kitchen, transfixed by the path picked out from window to floor.

  In the oven there’s what could be a roast, burned. The oven is off.

  Keith follows my line of vision. “A nice Sunday roast on the go? I’d thought she’d put it on early, forgot about it. It burned and she turned it off before she left but now . . .”

  “He turned it off.”

  Keith shrugs. “Might suggest he knew the routine. Knew she might have had a meal on, needed to turn that oven off. Maybe why he returned. Why the bleedin’ hell he’d be worried about a burned dinner now is beyond me. Or a burned house, for that matter. Lord only knows how the minds of these fuckers work.”

  “I agree. This has cost him,” I say, smiling down at the speck of blood.

  “I wouldn’t get too excited yet.” He nods to the tiny drop of blood. “I break wind that leaves more of a mark.”

  “Undoubtedly true.”

  But there is a footprint. It’s barely more than a smudge but the arc of the sole is visible, the impression suggesting a heavy boot or a thick-soled trainer. I look across the kitchen. Two strides and anyone could get across it. A SOCO appears in the doorway.

  Keith turns to her, his expression softening so much it looks likely to drip onto the floor: “What is it, Lisa?”

  “I think we found a piece of her clothing.” She flushes, holds up a clear plastic bag, a white top, blood in dark smears over the fabric.

  I take it, turn it about. The frilled edge and wide shoulders look identical to the top worn by Geraldine Shine on her Facebook page yesterday morning.

  “Where was it?”

  “Hanging in her wardrobe among the party frocks.” She doesn’t add, what the actual fuck, but I can hear it in her voice.

  “Show me.” I turn to Keith. “Get a photo of the footprint back to the Bureau as soon as you can with a note to Steve Garvin.”

  He gives me a salute and I follow Lisa out of the kitchen.

  Geraldine and Alan Shine’s room is depressingly pink. Pink sheets, dark pink curtains, a creamy pink carpet. An overdose of chalk paint on every piece of furniture, the headboard, dresser. Plain wooden drawer handles have been replaced with shining knobs of glass. Nothing has escaped the pseudo vintage effect.

  The SOCO leads me to the wardrobe. “The rest of the clothes were pushed back so that the blouse was clearly visible,” Lisa says. “We’ve taken them from the wardrobe. And we’re going through the laundry now.”

  I see the marker placed where the blouse was found. There’s a row of footwear slotted neatly onto shelves on the floor of the closet.

  “You should take them too,” I say, and she nods. I look in at the wardrobe, stripped bare of its contents. There are many reasons a perp might return to a house after offing someone, but I can’t recall a single case where someone comes back to deliberately leave a whopping piece of evidence behind. I look at where the blouse had been, try to think why the killer would risk getting caught for this. The thrill? Or maybe the fantasy he was trying to replicate required an item from his victim to be returned to the house. He would’ve had to move quickly after he’d finished at the church, a quick search of the rooms to find Geraldine’s. Although there’s a good chance he knew already where her bedroom was, and if that’s the case it could play nicely for us. We can deduce one of two things from it: Either he was her stalker or he’d been here before.

  Hoping for the latter, I ask Lisa, “You got many prints?”

  Lisa turns from the bed, looks to the door handle and the light switch, which are covered in black dust. “A good sample, yes.”

  I take a deep breath of hope. “I don’t see the husband’s clothes in here,” I say, pointing at the wardrobe. I remember the call to the gardaí, where Geraldine said he’d left only a week ago. Had he actually left the marital home? Or had he not come back because he was already dead?

  “There’s a spare room, down the hallway. Most of his stuff’s in there. A right mess and that’s before we got to it,” Lisa adds.

  She goes to the bed, unhooks the sheet from the mattress, folds the corners inwards to capture every particle that remains of Geraldine.

  I move to the window, look out on the street. The room points to the houses across the road. A mirror image. To the left the gray slab of the sea, to the right the tips of the Poolbeg chimneys are just visible against the rain-streaked sky. My phone beeps from my pocket and I remove it. Helen has sent through the summaries of the witness statements. Pictures painted of the Shines’ lives. I scroll through the reports, add shade to the victims; color, depth, detail. The uniforms have been busy this morning. Door-to-door, collecting words and memories from neighbors. A dismal summary of the marriage. Geraldine a shy but friendly face on the street. She liked to run in the mornings. She was spotted at about eight yesterday morning, Windbreaker on and heading off toward the promenade. She returned an hour later, her movements slow, muscles cooling down, no sense of urgency in her gait. No outward signs of distress.

  One woman neighbor, from across the street, reported a delivery at about ten A.M. Geraldine spent a lot of time sending out and accepting deliveries for her business, but the aged Nancy Drew noticed this one. Who gets a delivery on a Sunday? she asked. That was odd. The deliveryman didn’t arrive in a vehicle either, but walked up to the house. The woman saw Mrs. Shine sign and the deliveryman went off down the street.

  Her description of the man could be any Tom, Dick, or Harry within a thirty-mile radius. Above average height, hood up, possibly white. She’d spotted the exchange from a top window but her eyes weren’t the sharpest any longer. Although she’d thought it odd at the time, there were odder things about and she wouldn’t be mentioning it if it weren’t for been asked.

  I catch sight of Keith, below, exiting the tent. He ducks down against the rain and trots to his van on the other side of the cordon. I put away my phone and peer down at the front of the house. Ger Shine would have had to press her face against the glass to see who was at the door or to see up the street. I look out over the road, across the rooftops, off in the direction of the church.

  I leave the bedroom, walk down the stairs and out through the tent. We’ve got what we were supposed to find from this house. I retrieve my raincoat from the car. Throw it on, pull up the hood. The teens have taken shelter under one of the trees across th
e street. One of them gobs spit at the ground when he sees me looking. I start the walk toward the church. I move slowly, taking the same route Geraldine Shine would have walked yesterday afternoon.

  Cars pass, wheels spinning water out over the pavement. People rush toward their vehicles, umbrellas down over shoulders, weaving through the puddles filling up the path. A bus heaves by, the number 50. I look up, count four dark shapes behind the condensation of the window. Make a mental note to check if it runs the same time on Sundays. I wait at a pedestrian crossing, watch for more potential witnesses of Geraldine’s last movements. The traffic stops and I step onto the road. I glance in at the drivers; windshield wipers tip over and back at full speed.

  I hurry to the other side of the street and the church is there. The roof a pointed shadow through the gray curtain of rain. The area is still cordoned off. Garda cars stationed at all access points, the cleanup van in the churchyard.

  It has taken ten minutes, at most. Ten minutes for the killer to pick his pace. Was he in his car at this point? Parked. There are vehicles all along the street. The meter says free on Sundays. I look back, see the rows of houses looking down on me. A curtain shifts in an upstairs window. A child appears; a cuddly toy waves at me through the damp pane. I lift a hand and the curtain falls back.

  The rain pours. Sheets of water, waves of it stand against the horizon. The water gathers debris, litter, dirt, a sodden mulch, carries it down the road. Soaked through, I head back to my car. Quicker now. Almost a run. I’m back at my car in seven minutes.

  Opening the door, I drop into the driver’s seat and peel the raincoat from my body. Throw it onto the backseat. I check my phone. Looking for the next step, my foot already lifted, waiting for a lead. There’s nothing yet. Baz is still in Whitehall, overseeing the autopsies. I picture the knife in Alan Shine’s hand, the angry puncture wounds down Geraldine Shine’s back.

  I try to see her, imagine her passing the window of my car. Make her walk those steps toward the church again but instead I see the past, Bríd Hennessy, a frantic shuffle in her step, down the dry, bright road. Hot, hot day. I close my eyes on the image. I’m not sure what it is about Geraldine Shine that calls up Bríd Hennessy’s ghost in my mind. A shared history of domestic violence, perhaps, or that I’d met Seán Hennessy the same evening I saw the Shine bodies in the church. Or maybe I’m realizing that both women conjure up another feeling in me, a discomfort, a little knot of guilt.

  I rub a fist against my stomach, take a long breath, look out at the garda cordon, the blue tent pitched up against the Shines’ front door. Perhaps it’s this place: Clontarf. A place that’s always been a haven for me but now I’ve a sour feeling that’s akin to betrayal, as if I’ve been hoodwinked somehow. That my mind has managed to rewrite the past in some way, rewired my memories around the jagged canker of the Hennessy murders, of crimes past. And now, I can see the place for what it is, like everywhere fucking else. Full of creeping evil behind safe houses.

  Searching through my emails, I find Seán’s files, select a clip at random, and press play. Letting my head tip back on the seat, I listen for truth:

  “The first few days could well have been sentence enough for any innocent man. And I was not more than a boy. I still had hope, you know. I thought: Any minute now they’re going to see, they’re going to realize it wasn’t me. They’ll let me out. Hold on. Hold on. And the anger. Pure frustration. Whoever did this could still be out there. What if it wasn’t my da? What if it was some other sicko and no one’s looking for them?”

  There’s a pause and I hear him take a ragged breath before he goes on.

  “When the lights went down. Nine sharp, you know, whether you were tired or not. That voice. Boom. It echoed down the hallways like the call of the apocalypse itself. It clanged through that place: Lights out! And there was nothing. Nothing could coax sleep to me.

  “I lay there, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Hours staring down the length of my sentence. Hours picking out the patterns between the bricks in the wall. The whole nightmare tumbling round my head, and my mind willing to take always the darkest of thoughts to live in for the night. What if this is it? But it couldn’t be; they’d soon see it was someone else. They’d still be looking. But then another day would come by, sauntering up through the fucking window. And on it went. Those first few days, yeah, they were sentence enough.”

  CHAPTER 6

  BAZ FLOPS DOWN at my desk. I pour a glass of water and dump it into the base of my bonsai tree. Its straggling branches are reaching toward the window. The clippers lie unused next to the pot. The tree appears to enjoy rubbing it in, satisfying itself by growing unchecked and wild until I’ve the nerve to hack it back.

  “You know I’ve taken about three showers this afternoon and I can still smell Alan Shine’s corpse on my skin.” He pulls back his sleeve, presses his nose to his forearm, inhales, then grimaces.

  “Tell me you gleaned something other than a keen sense of smell at the autopsy.”

  “Freezer burn along his right side. Which, to be fair, is what we’d suspected. A great big fatty liver, which the doc says was near-on cirrhosis. Alcohol in his blood. Cause of death strangulation. The missus, as seen at the church, throat slit, cause of death. Stab wounds down her back, definitely postmortem.”

  I turn away from the bonsai, sit across from him, check the time. Clancy has yet to grace the office with his presence. “When I went to the house, there was a blackened roast in the oven.”

  “I heard about the killer’s little visit there. A full roast would be a bit much to be eating on your own. Maybe she was expecting someone else?”

  I lean back, look to the ceiling. “Her husband? There’s no file for separation. His things were still in his bedroom. Perhaps he was due to come home.”

  “Or she put on a bit of dinner for a date, a lover, say. She knew her husband wouldn’t be walking in any time soon for one of two reasons.” He makes a fist, sticks up his thumb. “One, she’d kicked him out, or two”—he points his index finger—“she knew he was dead. She could’ve been involved in his murder or hired someone, didn’t pay up, and this is the interest.”

  “This is too involved for a pro, who’d want to get in and out quickly. If the bodies were found any other way I might go with that but as it is, no.”

  There’s a knock and Helen’s face appears round the door. Good news. I can see it’s caught in her chest, her breath seized up with it. “Chief, Ryan’s fed back on Seán Hennessy’s alibi for the Shine murders. He said he went to the chippie at about six fifteen. Ate the takeaway at a bench across the street. Ryan’s verified with a witness, the chip-shop owner, said he should be able to get CCTV footage to confirm it.”

  And I’m not seeing why this should make Helen excited, we’re down a subject.

  She goes on: “But we have had some success on the CCTV around the Shine house,” she adds with a smile. “We’ve got the delivery guy that the neighbor reported. Approaching the Shine home. Clear as day. I’ve sent it to your screen.”

  “Good,” I say. Then thinking about Geraldine Shine’s blouse, “How about later? Any footage of our perp going to the house after the murders?”

  “No. The view from the camera is obscured.”

  “Obscured?”

  “At six thirty a couple of tourist buses pull up to collect holidaymakers. They’re stationed at the bottom of the road for about half an hour. But I’ve notified door-to-door on the street, given a description to see if any of the neighbors saw someone return later.”

  “Thanks, Helen. How about Geraldine Shine’s phone records?”

  “Nothing on those yet, Chief.”

  “Chase them up. See what we can pull from them. If the phone is still on, we might get a location.”

  Clancy appears behind her, and she keeps her eyes to the floor, as if looking directly at him could scald her retinas. “Right away, Chi
ef,” she answers, stepping to the side to let Clancy pass. She reverses away from the door, closing it quietly as she goes.

  Clancy moves across the carpet, throws a nod of greeting at Baz, then pulls up another chair and sits himself at my desk with a huff. He tips his head, settles those eyes, busy, blue-bottle blue, on mine.

  “Well, where we at then?” He pushes his coat back, choosing to leave it on despite the dry warmth of the office. Clancy as always, on the move, ready to leave before he’s even here. We give him the sad summary, the few nibbles we’ve had from the killer’s plate, the initial autopsy reports, the tiny spot of blood on the Shine kitchen floor, the partial footprint, and the oddity of the blouse. And now the footage of the deliveryman approaching the Shine house. He nods, his tongue working behind his cheek, rolling over the bitter offering.

  He flicks his eyes at my computer. “Spark her up then, let’s have a gander at this fucker.”

  Baz reaches out, starts the CCTV. The footage is remarkably clear, the first images almost over-bright. Baz adjusts the exposure on the screen. The camera is stationed to the west of the Shine house. Facing the bedroom, you can make out the gray flats of Dublin Bay reflected in the window.

  A young woman appears at the lower end of the screen. She powers up the road, one hand pushing a buggy, a toddler housed beneath clear plastic. Her face is buried in her phone. In a blur of time she’s gone.

  The ticker counts on the minutes, then at 9:55, another figure steps into view. An apparition, a flicker of charcoal grays and blacks. One hand in his pocket. His head held stiffly, like a bird of prey looking for movement. His walk is slow, a slight bounce at the knee with each step. The quirk to his stride gives him the look of someone who’s ready to push off, to take off at the first sign of a chase.

  The woman with the buggy would have passed him, might’ve recognized him if she’d looked up from her phone. But she’s gone and now I look. Let my eyes feed off his image, pick it apart for any detail that might give him away.