by Casey Hill
“We’ll try to make this as brief as possible, Mr. and Mrs. Hackett. We just have a few questions we’d like to ask to aid us in our search for your son’s attacker.” Kennedy said, his voice in the same placating mode.
“Is your other son - Simon - here?” Chris asked, his eyes zeroing on another door of the suite.
Mrs. Hackett shook her head and brought a handkerchief to her nose, daintily blowing it before answering fully, “He left a while ago, for a walk to clear his head.”
Chris didn’t buy this, but he did his best to hide his suspicion. The poor parents had just lost a son; they didn’t need to know that the detectives on his case considered their remaining child a person of interest.
“I’m sorry, here, please, take a seat,” Mr. Hackett said then, gesturing to the sitting area where his wife already sat.
The detectives sat down opposite them, and Mr. Hackett sat next to his wife on the chaise longue, finding her hand and holding it gently.
“Let’s start with Graham’s school life. Were things going well?”
Mrs. Hackett sniffled, “Oh, yes. Graham was very good in school and was planning on going to UCD in the autumn. He was very active, really sociable and had so many friends. He’s always been a … spirited boy but he was very respectful and well behaved. I still can’t believe he’s …. This would have never happened if we hadn’t -”
Her sentence broke and Mr. Hackett wrapped his arm around her in a comforting gesture. Chris felt for the poor woman, but at the same time, he agreed with her.
He figured that no matter what a parent did, their child could never be perfectly safe, but something like this wasn’t likely to happen if the boys hadn't been home alone and unsupervised.
He couldn’t imagine Kennedy leaving his daughters by themselves during something as stressful as exams – in fact, he couldn’t imagine the big man leaving them home alone, full stop.
“Graham was a good boy,” Mr. Hackett stated, like it was something that needed to be reinforced.
“What was your relationship like with your son?”
Mr. Hackett’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “We love both of our boys,” he said, “our children mean the world to us. There’s nothing else that matters more.”
Besides a trip to Spain, Chris thought rather uncharitably.
“Can you tell us anything about Graham’s relationship with Holly Glynn?” Kennedy asked then, to assess if their story matched up with what they’d heard from Holly herself.
Mr. Hackett looked confused, but Mrs. Hackett waved her hand through the air, her handkerchief trailing behind as she spoke, “Oh, the Glynn girl and Graham went out for a little while a few months back, I think. It wasn’t anything serious, and it didn’t last that long either. I don’t know if they’re still friends, now, even. With teenagers you can never tell. But she’s a nice girl and a good influence, I thought.”
When the detectives didn't reply, Mrs. Hackett gasped, as if realising something, “You don’t think it was the Glynn girl who did this, do you?”
Kennedy shook his head. “No, Mrs. Hackett. The person who attacked your son was strong, considerably stronger than a female and likely taller than Graham too. We’re asking about his relationships simply to get a feel of what his life was like. It might help us figure out where to go next. In any case Holly Glynn was also the victim of an attack that night, and we’re still trying to establish if both incidents are related.”
“I see…I didn't know. Is she OK?”
“A bit shaken, but she’s fine.” Chris continued on with the questioning, “And what about your other son? What was Graham and Simon’s relationship like?” He watched the expressions on the parents’ faces, not wanting to miss any sensitive first reactions to what (to him at least) was a loaded question.
“Oh the boys are very close,” Mrs. Hackett was quick to say, “Were close, I mean. They grew up playing Gaelic games together you know, and of course sport brings boys together. Graham always looked up to Simon, and Simon always protected his little brother. I remember once there was a boy in primary school who was bullying Graham for some time, and Simon just went for him, and the boy stopped.”
“And now?” Chris asked, scribbling down a note, “The two of them still that close these days? There was some talk of an argument on the night in question.”
Mrs. Hackett glanced at her husband, “Well we were in Spain, so we really don’t know …” she trailed off, as though unsure what to say. She seemed to sense the thoughts running through the detective’s heads though, because she was quick to add, “Our boys loved each other, that I know for sure. Even if they might have had a strange way of showing it.”
KENNEDY POLITELY DUCKED out of the interview as his phone continuously buzzed against his leg. It was Inspector O’Brien demanding an update, and he was just finishing up when the elevator opened and Simon Hackett stepped into the hallway, a distracted look on his face.
When the older teen saw the detective he cursed under his breath, but continued on to the suite he and his parents were sharing.
Kennedy hung up quickly, intercepting the boy before he could get to the door. “Just the man I’ve been looking for,” he said pleasantly, “mind if I ask you a few questions?”
Simon raised an unimpressed eyebrow, “Didn’t you already do that yesterday? I feel like I should have a solicitor or something …”
Kennedy raised an equally unimpressed brow in return. “Not if you have nothing to hide.”
He rolled his eyes. “You think I don’t know what you lot are about? You want to twist my words and make it seem like I did something I didn’t do. Instead of asking me the same questions over and over - why not try and find out who killed my brother?”
Simon moved the to the door and Kennedy, in one last attempt to get the kid to talk honestly said, “Your parents are in there right now talking to my partner, without a solicitor.”
At the mention of his parents, Simon’s hand stopped an inch from the doorknob and he turned to Kennedy. “Okay,” he demurred, “there’s a coffee dock downstairs. We can talk there.”
Kennedy nodded his consent, and the two of them rode the elevator down to the lobby area. He expected the kid to order some fancy milk and sugar concoction, but to his surprise, Simon ordered his decaf coffee black, just like his.
After they’d brought their drinks to the small, secluded booth in the corner, Kennedy opened up his notebook and took a sip of his coffee, revelling in the sharp, bitter taste.
Simon did so too, readying himself for another barrage of questions.
“Did Graham have any enemies?” Kennedy asked, “Anyone who had something against him?”
Simon snorted and put his coffee down. “Yeah, probably. For one thing, my brother didn’t seem to know when to keep it in his pants. He had all sorts of lads pissed off at him after he hooked up with their girlfriends, or whatever. Some of ‘em probably jealous of his talent on the pitch too,” he added.
Kennedy almost chuckled at that – from what Graham’s best friend had told them, a large part of Graham’s ‘talent’ had come from little white pills in his underwear drawer. Nevertheless, he took a note of Simon’s insights. “We found some drugs in Graham’s room. Know anything about that?”
Simon’s eyebrows knitted together. “What do you mean? What kind of drugs?”
Determining that the kid really didn’t seem to know what he was talking about, Kennedy continued. “Steroids, Simon. Do you have any idea where Graham might have gotten the stuff?”
Simon’s expression turned angry and he shook his head, “Jesus. I warned him about that shite and he swore he - ” He paused, vehemently shaking his head. “The game; it’s about doing the best you can, working every day to get better. It’s not about pumping your system full of fucking chemicals to get one up on the other guy. There’s no honour in it. That’s not what the game - our game - is about.”
“And what is your game Simon?”
“Hurling of
course.” Simon seemed to realize he was ranting a little, so he stopped and cleared his throat. “Sorry. It’s just, I told Graham that drugs were never the way to go. Ever. No matter what. You’d think he’d listen to me about some things, but as usual, Graham thought he knew better.”
“As usual?” Interesting that the brothers had disagreed about the doping - could that be the cause of the argument Tiernan Williams had referred to? Maybe Simon had in fact, found out that Graham was juicing and became enraged, confronting him about it?
“Yes. My brother liked to go his own way. He might be younger than me, but he was no kid.”
“How about you walk me through everything that happened that night as you remember it,” Kennedy asked, pen poised. “But this time, go back a few days to before your folks left for Spain.”
Simon sighed and took a long drink of his now cooler coffee. “Graham hadn't studied much for the exams, so was staying up late cramming a couple of nights in the run up to them. I helped him out with it, I remember what it was like.” Here Simon’s gaze grew annoyed. “The little prick could be so ungrateful at times. He thought I was being too hard on him. He never thought about schoolwork in the same way as sport – you have to work your ass off in both to get anywhere, but Graham didn’t think so. After all, shit came easy to him.
“So on the night the exams finished, he posted some crap on SnapChat about our house being free for the night. Then, he sends out an invite to all his WhatsApp mates too. By the time he got back to the house after practice, he had nearly half the school promising to turn up for a session. At first I was pissed off – obviously the folks would hit the roof if they knew we were having a party, but what could I do only go along with it? A couple of my mates came over too, so at least I wouldn’t be completely surrounded by kids the whole night.
“So I stayed around and kept a watch over the whole thing until roughly twelve, when we and my mates headed into town. I didn’t see Graham or anyone else when I got back to the house sometime after three. And then when I woke up the next morning, that’s when I found him.”
It seemed like he was finished, so Kennedy started to reply, but then Simon gripped his coffee and continued.
“I was going to his room to tell him he had to help clean up the mess. I was pissed off that we’d have to spend the time before we left for Spain cleaning up the bloody house, and packing too, so I steamrolled to his room. I threw the door open and saw Graham there … like that and … I don’t know, it took a couple seconds for it to sink in. That my brother was dead. I mean, it was obvious; he was staring right at me and half of his fucking head was missing, but still it didn't twig with me. And there was so much fucking blood and I remember thinking, fuck, now we gotta clean this mess up, too? I actually told him to get up, twice. That’s when things actually sunk in and I understood that my brother wasn’t going to be getting up. Ever.”
Kennedy watched Simon closely, gauging his state of mind. The kid might have appeared unaffected when he and Chris had questioned him at the scene yesterday, but now he was showing very obvious signs of emotion, like clearing his throat and scrubbing at his face, not to mention real tears brimming in his eyes.
He knew then that their initial suspicions of this kid were off. Simon had a chip on his shoulder - that much was for sure - but now Kennedy could sense true grief beneath the kid’s apparently emotionless façade.
“Okay,” he said, after asking a few more questions, “I think that’s all I need from you. For the moment at least.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Simon replied, his tone once again sarcastic but Kennedy sensed his relief at the same time, “think everyone can leave me alone now?”
12
Reilly read through the social media correspondence Rory was beginning to collate from the teens in attendance at the Hackett party, trying to ascertain a clear timeline for the night, as well as exactly who was at the house and when.
A tricky task given nobody used their real names online, preferring self-aggrandising screen monikers.
(HackR 7:18 pm) End of Exam session at my house 2nite!
Having been initially puzzled by some of the Irish lingo on her arrival from the States, Reilly had long since figured out that a ‘session’ in Ireland was shorthand for a booze-filled get-together.
Graham’s initial share about the ‘session’ in his house had managed to acquire multiple reactions from others, ‘liking’ the post, confirming that they would be there, or asking if they could bring others along.
“This guy posted an Instagram picture of him, Graham Hackett, Holly Glynn and another girl at the house just after ten thirty that night,” Rory said, pulling the photo up along with the associated timestamp.
Reilly leaned forward to look at the teens grinning faces. At that point, Holly’s dress was still intact and her innocence unsullied, and Graham’s face was smiling and unbruised.
“Yes. Holly did say that she and her friends arrived at the party shortly after ten …” she mused, but Rory cut her off by bringing up another response to Graham’s missive.
(CatWoman 9:59 pm) We’re here to wreck the gaff…
Reilly thought back to the wreckage in the Hackett ‘gaff’ and judging by the state of the house the following morning, most of the kids that had been to the party had done just that. Looking at the social media interaction, and taken with early witness reports, the estimate of teens at the house that night now stood at around twelve people at peak.
The investigators had to face the sobering fact that with so many people in the house at the time, it would be very difficult to determine exactly who (if any) had killed Graham Hackett, and whether that same person - or any other partygoer - had been involved in Holly Glynn’s assault.
“Any interaction from Simon Hackett on the social media?” Reilly asked, conscious of Chris’s initial suspicions about the older brother.
Rory shook his head and took a sip of his energy drink. “Nope. I compiled a list of all the replies to the post, as well as screen names of anyone who posted anything with the hashtag - #HackRhouseparty.”
Reilly shook her head in bewilderment at how kids were communicating these days – she didn’t consider herself to be that old or out of touch, and she did have a (mostly dormant) Facebook page so she could keep in touch with some of her old work buddies back home, but a lot of the things happening on the internet now didn’t make sense to her.
Everything was so fast and instant, giving people less time to react and formulate responses. Some of the stuff Rory was talking about and the terms he used were apparently common parlance amongst Millenials, but double dutch to her.
She didn’t partake in any of the image-based social media like Instagram and SnapChat, but knew enough about the world and the things that happened in it, to know that posting information about yourself where anyone could see it was a very bad idea.
A case she had been involved with not too long ago - the one in which she herself had fallen victim - centered around a serial killer who poisoned his victims. The last girl the guy targeted before he was caught had been contacted via social media. Without such interaction, it would have taken him much longer to get to her, or he might not have been able to at all.
It struck her suddenly, that members of her own team might well have profiles on all sorts of social media sites. They were all considerably younger than she, enough to make a difference. She turned to Rory. “Do you have a SnapChat account?” she asked him, already knowing the answer by the incredulous look on his face.
He grinned sheepishly, having sensed the reason for her question. “Social media isn’t dangerous if you know how to use it boss,” he defended. “Anyway, what I do on my own time is none of your business.”
Reilly looked back at the screen and muttered under her breath. “It does if the next case we work is yours.”
Laughing, Rory ignored the comment, instead pushing back from his desk and wheeling his chair to the other side of the room, where Graham Hacke
tt’s broken iPad was situated. He scrolled through some of the apps listed on the homepage, showing them to Reilly. “Some of these are harder to get into. The kid was pretty savvy, as far as teenagers go, and he has much of his personal information mildly protected. It’ll just take me a little longer to access.”
She watched as Rory went through some of the victim’s correspondence with his friends and some girls via private message. “Still, you can see a few interactions here between Hackett and Holly Glynn, which might be of interest. These are from a couple of months ago, and indicate that the two were romantically involved at that time. Then the messages are fewer and far between until they stop completely. There isn’t any direct communication at all between them before or during the party other than being tagged together in photos.”
Rory scrolled back through some of the other messages. “When you read these, it’s clear most of these guys were at the party. I checked out their profiles: they all go to the same school and most were on the club Gaelic team with the victim. I managed to work back from the screen names and interactions and figured out most of their real names as well as home address.”
Reilly nodded. “It’s a good start, thanks. I’ll pass the info onto the detectives.”
“This girl though …” Rory said, opening some correspondence between Graham and a girl using the relatively run of the mill screen name Becks, “is the person our victim contacted the most in the run up to that night. And they’re best friends on Snapchat.”
Reilly ignored his last comment, not entirely sure what it meant, and looked through some of the messages. Most were harmless flirting, just two teenagers going back and forth, but something about the more earnest tone of the conversation sent her on alert.
