“Yes, Chief.”
I turn back to Helen. “This is great work. We now have a shot at finding Geraldine’s bag and phone. Let’s get a team out there.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she says, pleased.
I can see Clancy is eager to leave, and as he’s never been one to miss an opportunity to breathe down my neck, it makes me anxious. He walks toward a chair at the front of the room, where he’s thrown his coat. He has it half on when I step up behind him.
“My office?”
His cheeks pull inward and he hoists his coat up over his shoulders. “Thought you’d never ask.”
Clancy settles down into the chair at my desk, stretches out his legs, crosses them at the ankles, his hands gripping the seat like it’s about to take off. His eyes cast downwards, searching for more questions to keep the real ones at bay.
“Have you spoken to Hegarty again?” I ask before he has time to think of one.
“Not heard a fucking peep from her. I won’t be the one to invite that headache in.” He laughs.
I sit across from him. The desk between us. “What happened with the Seán Hennessy case?”
His hand goes to his forehead and he pushes it through his hair. “Fuck sake.”
“I don’t understand why he would confess then retract it?”
“If that’s surprising you after all these years then I don’t know what to say. These fuckers do it all the time.”
“Was he beaten?”
Eyes harden. “I’ll pretend you didn’t ask that.”
“You said yourself, it was different back then.”
“Is that some fucking shitty way to get me to open up, huh?”
“No.”
“It fucking sounds like it. It fucking sounds like you think I’m going to step into that one, lie on my back and let you tickle me bits.”
“Jack, come on. It’s me you’re talking to. You told me you barely touched this case. That it breezed by your desk, in the early hours. You know I’ll get to the bottom of this; it would be easier if you just told me what’s going on.”
He stands but leans over the desk; his face grows heated, crimson patches light up over his neck. “I’ve never laid into any of the inmates in my charge. Although, if there was one I woulda happily sent into a corner with my right boot, Seán Hennessy would have been it.” He runs a hand over his face. “That fucker murdered his parents, tried to kill his own sister. He’s fucking darkness itself.”
I blow air through my lips. “Okay. Sorry.”
“Fuck it.” He takes a juddering breath. He walks toward the door, opens it, but turns at the last moment. “Be careful with this, Frankie. Sometimes when you look into the mouth of that kind of evil, it’s hard to look away. You think, give it another few moments, your eyes will adjust, you’ll see the bottom of that darkness, understand it. It’s alluring. Addictive. And whilst you’re standing there rooted to the spot, you’re not noticing that the fucking shadow is closing over you and you’re disappearing.”
He walks out. Closes the door. I sit there for a long moment, wondering at the spiky shoots of distrust that are pushing up inside me when I think of Clancy. Maybe I shouldn’t, like he suggests, indulge the past too much. I look up to the pin board above my desk. A miniature of our case board, so our current investigation is always standing over me, never out of my peripheral vision. I study Geraldine Shine’s white corpse. The red wounds down her back.
I unpin the photo from the board, hold it in my hands. Along the edge of the photo, the camera has caught Alan Shine’s hand open, the murder weapon, the knife, cold and spent in his palm. The skin over the palm a deep purple, the creases at his wrists a creamy yellow where after death his hands were flexed in on themselves.
I can just about make out the edge of the black shirt, part of the vestments the killer dressed him in. The sight brings Father Healy to my mind. I think of Geraldine Shine’s phone, Healy’s reluctance to talk, and the ease with which he would’ve been able to move to and from the church. I dial Helen. It takes her only a few moments to do a location analysis on the path Healy’s phone took on the evening of the Shine murders and compare it with Geraldine’s.
“His phone hit tower 2195 on Cliff Walk, Howth; 7:01 P.M. on the evening of Ger Shine’s murder,” she says.
“That’s the same tower?”
“The same.”
The void in the blood spatter at the church stands out in my mind. I lean back into the seat. I should feel jubilant, but instead I feel confused. I think through the day, interviews with those closest to Conor Sheridan, his autopsy, and any possible connections between Healy and Conor Sheridan. “Get out to him immediately. Bring him in and make him comfortable for a few hours. Secure the parochial house; send Keith out there if you can.”
“You think he did it?” She sounds doubtful.
“I don’t think so. He knew the Shines but where’s the connection to Conor Sheridan? Reckon this fecker is just about selfish enough to fuck up a murder investigation to protect his own rep. I think he took the bag because there’s something on that phone he doesn’t want coming out.”
“Oh.”
“A killer this organized does not lay out his masterpiece only to leave a great big smear on the canvas and a handy little techno trail to where he dumped the victim’s phone.”
She sighs. “No, I guess not.”
“Let’s get Healy in and see what he has to say, and can you send Jane Sheridan’s address to my phone? I want to get out there before Abigail’s finished with the autopsy of Conor Sheridan.”
CHAPTER 13
CONOR SHERIDAN’S EX-WIFE lives on a nice street in Clontarf: wide-open drives, windows all turned to the morning sun. Her house detached but identical to its neighbor. Two floors and a loft conversion. Stucco-clad front. Pebble-filled drive. She answers the door in a breathless rush, a dog barking at her heels. Her blond hair looks unwashed, unbrushed, piled high in a clip at the back of her head. Fake tan is caked along her hairline, around the small lobes of her ears. Behind her is the sound of spoons against cereal bowls, children crying. She glances at me then grabs hold of the dog’s collar.
“Hang on,” she says, turns, then shouts, “Jax, give it up or it’ll be straight home after school.” Immediate silence slams down over the house. She lets go of the dog and he lumbers out into the wet garden, flops down under a rosebush. “Sorry about that,” she says. She takes a step back. Her thin face pinches over her eyes as if she’s seeing me for the first time. “How can I help you?”
“Mrs. Sheridan?”
“No. That’s my old married name. I’m Mrs. Brennan now.” She waves a diamond ring at me. “What’s Conor gone and done this time?”
“Mrs. Brennan, I’m Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan. Would you mind if I came in?”
She frowns, glances back down the hallway as if anticipating another outbreak of noise. “I’ve to get the kids to school. We’re late as it is.”
“Is there someone who could help you out? It’s important I speak with you.”
Her blue eyes narrow; black mascara flakes onto her cheek. “Is Conor okay?”
“I’ll give you a few minutes to get the kids organized. I’m in that car there.” I point back toward the street. “Tap the window when you’re ready.”
She looks out over my shoulder. “Okay.”
I walk back to the car. As I open the door, I hear her shout.
“Jax!”
I watch the commotion from the driver’s seat. Helen’s background check tells me that Jane divorced Conor five years ago, citing irreconcilable differences. Childhood sweethearts broken by the reality of adulthood and the confinement of white picket fences. She has no criminal record. Worked as a hairdresser from her teens but no steady employment recently.
I send Helen an email, see if she’s got anything on th
e new husband yet, although I can’t see jealousy being the problem here. Only Jane’s reaction when she answered the door, What’s Conor gone and done this time, makes me consider it. And if Conor was making a nuisance of himself around Jane, there could be a motive for murder here. But even as I send the email, the Shine case nags away at the back of my head, unable to marry any motive Brennan could have against Sheridan to the Shines.
I phone Baz, look for some feedback on Sheridan’s autopsy.
“Well, when the clothes came off, this fella’s death wasn’t as clean as we thought,” he says down the line.
“You’ve a cause of death?”
“Sheridan was shot. Right through the chest. The wound was cleaned out thoroughly. Abigail here thinks she has a couple of fragments, no bullet. It went through him.”
“So the killer shot him, cleaned him up, dressed him, then dumped him?”
“Yep. As we thought, he’s been stored for a few days. Lividity over his right side, through the scalp. None at the backs of the knees or across his middle. Wherever he’s been held, he was curled up on his side.”
Three murders in the space of weeks, my stomach turns.
“Abigail’s still got a lot of work to do,” he adds. “Where are you?”
“I’m at his ex-wife’s house.”
“I thought I had it bad here.”
No one likes breaking bad news to a victim’s family. It’s been years since I’ve knocked on someone’s door and fractured their life into before and after. I almost always send a uniform. But beyond Jane Brennan’s grief there’s information on her ex-husband and I’ll do almost anything to get to it.
Jane Brennan appears at the door of her house, throwing sharp orders over her shoulder. She’s changed out of her tracksuit, into white jeans and a peach blouse. Her hair is still piled at the back of her head but her face is freshly painted. I think between them, Conor Sheridan and her must have been quite the couple once upon a time. She stands on the doorstep and looks expectantly up the street then folds her arms and disappears back inside.
“I’ll be over as soon as I can,” I say into the phone. “I gotta go. Let Clancy know we may need to assign firearms if we’re dealing with a gunshot wound.”
“Already done,” he says.
I glance out the window at the dirty gray sky, the swirling misty air. A little way down the street, a dark car pulls up. The door opens and a man gets out. I watch him approach and enter the Brennan house. In a couple of moments, he exits again, Jane Brennan close behind, her hands on the backs of her kids, pushing them out the door.
I hang up. Get out of the car and walk toward them. Jane folds her arms when she sees me.
“Mr. Brennan?” I ask.
He turns and I hold up my badge. He directs the kids toward the car and I wait for them to clamber inside.
“Howya,” he says sharply. His expression one of controlled tolerance. “Is everything okay, officer?” His accent is broad and he makes the most of it, every word a punch out of his mouth. There’s a stud in his right ear, could be a diamond but I’m thinking zirconia at best. He’s wearing a pink shirt, two buttons open to show off a chunky silver chain and a gray nest of chest hair. White trainers, white jeans; a brave move by any stretch, braver still if you live in Ireland.
“I need to speak with your wife, Mr. Brennan.”
He nods, seems a little too okay with that. “I’ll get the kids off to school then.” He leans across and plants an awkward kiss on Jane’s cheek. “Phone me if you need anything.”
She nods but doesn’t say anything in reply.
David Brennan gives me a final glance. “Well then,” he says, “I’ve work to be doing.” He walks to the car, gets in without a backward glance, and slams the door shut. I watch him pull away.
“He doesn’t like to be disturbed from work. You’d better come in,” she says to me, irritation thick in her voice. She turns on her heel and heads back to the house without waiting.
“Thank you,” I say, and follow her up the short drive.
She opens the door, waves me inside. The hallway is cool, tiled floor, white, white walls.
She flicks a glance at me. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
The white continues into the kitchen. My shoe hits a football; it rolls beneath a chair. Jane Brennan scoops up the kids’ cereal bowls, uses a tea towel to wipe down the table, mopping up soggy Cheerios and milk, breadcrumbs and spilled orange juice. She indicates a high stool.
“Take a seat, there.”
I sit. She pours water onto instant coffee, fishes an ashtray out of one of the cupboards, lights a cigarette, takes a drag, then turns, places two mugs on the table between us. I smile my thanks.
She sits across from me, cigarette pinched between her fingers, the end hanging over the ashtray. “Well?”
I clear my throat. “Mrs. Brennan, early this morning a body was found on the beach. We know it to be the body of your ex-husband, Conor Sheridan.”
I watch her face; the skin drops, muscles sag along her jaw, lips thin, pale. She blinks but her gaze holds mine, waiting for more. I can see her eyes darken, fear, misunderstanding, confusion taking turns like clouds over a blue sky.
“Conor?” A thin line of smoke draws up from her cigarette.
“Yes.”
A head shake followed by a sure smile. “No. You got the wrong fella there. He doesn’t live round here anymore. He’s beyond in Tallaght.” She reaches for her phone, as if to contact him.
“When was the last time you saw him? Spoke to him?”
She leaves the phone where it is, brings the cigarette to her mouth. Fingers shake. Ash floats then sinks into her coffee. “I don’t know. He took the kids out for a day, maybe a fortnight ago. Sure, he wouldn’t be stopping in; he’d just wait by the door.” She looks down, mascara heavy on her lashes. “To be honest, Dave is not all that fond of him being round the house.”
“Oh?”
She reaches back, scratches a fake nail beneath the mass of hair on her head. “He gets a bit possessive sometimes. You know yourself.” A brief flash of pride crosses her face, then she seems to remember again why I’m here. “How did he . . . how did he die?”
“We’re still in the process of ascertaining that but it appears he was murdered.”
“Murdered?” A squeak of a word. Hysteria on the edge of her voice. “Who’d want to harm Conor? I mean, he was harmless.” Her hand leaves the mug, and her arms snake around her stomach. Her eyes water.
“Sorry if this is a personal question, Mrs. Brennan, but we’re trying to build a picture of Conor’s life. Could you tell me why you divorced?”
She closes her eyes briefly, as if she doesn’t want to look back, and when she speaks, she focuses on the ashtray rather than me. “We were young when we got together. Maybe had kids too quickly. Conor did all the laboring jobs he could get even though his heart wasn’t in it and really, he wanted to write.” She throws me a glance, sighs. “And I think that was it, really. He was unhappy with his lot. Frustrated, I guess.
“He started drinking. Couldn’t stop, you know. It broke him. It broke us. Whatever shattered bloody dreams he had, at the end of the day, we’d two kids that needed looking after. And he was still acting the lad and he in his thirties; spending money like our mattress was stuffed with it and coming in at all hours. I couldn’t do it anymore.” There’s more than a hint of bitterness in her voice. “Are you sure? I mean, you’re sure it’s him?”
“When I arrived, you seemed to think he might have been in trouble. Why was that?”
She shrugs, a sad little smile turning down her mouth. “Only I thought maybe a drunken fight or something, drink-driving maybe.” She gets up, pulls a chunk of paper towel from a holder over the counter, dabs under her eyes, sits down again.
“Did Conor have any enemies that you k
now of?”
“No. I mean, I wouldn’t know now. We kept our distance, really, since the divorce. We only communicated when there was something that needed organizing for the kids.”
“Girlfriend?”
That wins a small cynical grin. “I’d be the last one he’d tell.”
“Was he still doing construction jobs for work?”
“Yes. And there seemed to be more of it lately, taking up his weekends and that, less time for the kids, you know. It upset them.”
“The last time you saw him, how did he seem to you?”
She shrugs. “The usual. I don’t know.”
“Stressed? Happy?”
She purses her lips. “He might’ve been a bit stressed, sure.” When she sees me frown, she continues. “He wrote a thing. A long time ago now. For a paper. It was controversial at the time. Although, who knows why, everyone was thinking it. It caused a bit of trouble for us.”
I feel the ache across my forehead. “Why would that make him stressed now?”
“It was a local piece on a murder case.” Tears gather along the rims of her eyes. She wipes the wad of paper towel under her nose, sniffs.
Unease prickles across the back of my neck. “A murder case?”
“Yeah. A young fella slaughtered his family. Here! In little old Clontarf. Conor wrote it, the local newspaper published it, and then the nationals took up the thread. It went big.” She reaches back to the counter, tears off another sheet of paper towel, blows her nose. “The guy who did it, he’s been released. They’re doing some shitty documentary about the whole thing. Conor texted me when he found out. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I’ve moved on from all that.”
The bright kitchen darkens. I can feel it, the past walking out the story in heavy footsteps down my back.
“Seán Hennessy,” I say, more to myself than anything. To hear the connection spoken out loud.
Her face clears. Eyes widen. “Do you think? It couldn’t be that, could it? It was a lifetime ago.” She punches out the cigarette on the ashtray.
The Killer in Me Page 15
