Endgame: CSI Reilly Steel #7

by Casey Hill

  The two players stopped tussling, and one caught the sliotar under his foot. “That’s me,” Edward said, stepping forward. His teammate slunk back toward the goal, knocking the ball around and occasionally hurling it into the net.

  “We have a few questions to ask you in relation to the incident at Graham Hackett’s house,” Kennedy began, taking out his notebook. He rattled off the relevant date, “You’re Graham Hackett’s former teammate yes? And you attended the party at the Hackett residence on Wednesday night?”

  “Yeah, I was at that party and Graham’s my mate,” Edward said warily, reaching down and grabbing a sweatshirt. He snatched a water bottle from the ground and took a long drink before pulling his shirt on.

  “Can you just run us through everything that occurred as you recall it?” Chris put in, watching the boy’s reaction carefully.

  “Yeah. Well, we were down here training for a bit, then afterwards we went for something to eat and then over to Graham’s - at around ten o’clock I’d say. We hadn’t really planned on staying at his house that long, we just wanted to finish up the booze Simon scored for us, then maybe head into town -”

  “Hold on,” Kennedy said, his eyes narrowing, “are you saying Simon Hackett bought alcohol for you? What age are you?”

  Edward shrugged as if it was no big deal. Which in reality it wasn’t. Underage drinking was par for the course in Ireland and Chris wasn't sure if he was impressed or horrified that the kid didn't even bother to hide it. “I’m seventeen and yeah when we got there Simon was heading out to the off licence so we asked him to get us a few flagons.”

  “Cider?”

  Edward nodded. “As more people showed up at the house more alcohol showed up too - beer, whiskey, tequila too, I think. I don’t know if Simon bought it all, or it was just in the house or whatever, but it was there.”

  “Okay,” Kennedy said. “So there was no shortage of alcohol at the house that night. Tell us what else you remember.”

  “Some of the girls showed up, so we stayed around a bit longer having the craic with them. Then, just as me and a few of the others were about to head away, Simon and Graham got in a spat over some stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Chris asked.

  “I’m not really sure. Graham said something smart about Simon’s hurling, and I know that must have hit a sore spot.”

  “I see,” Kennedy said, “what about you and Graham Hackett? How was your relationship?”

  Edward shrugged, “Dunno really. We were teammates, not like best friends or anything, but he was good craic. We hung out a bit now and then, but not usually just the two of us or anything. He was sound though - didn't deserve what happened to him.”

  “Do you know if anyone else might have had anything against Graham though?” Kennedy continued. “Anyone that was jealous of him - who might want to hurt him?”

  “No,” Edward said, appearing to think for a moment, “I don’t think anyone really had a problem with Graham. Other than some of the teachers, just for not getting his homework done, or whatever. But not enough to… you know…”

  Chris was watching the other kid on the pitch puck the ball into the net again and again, each one aimed with more intensity. He drove the sliotar with a precise skill that must have been honed by hours upon hours of practice. “Who’s your friend?”

  Edward glanced over his shoulder as if he didn’t remember who he’d been practicing with. “Conor - our best player.” Now he was blushing furiously, his cheeks burning a brighter red than they had been when he was training. “He’s the best football player in the school too, leaving for Australia soon to go play Aussie rules in Sydney. We’ll miss him though … I mean, I’ll miss training alongside him. I reckon I can learn a bit from him, wouldn’t mind a shot at Down Under myself, but I’m not so great with the bigger ball…”

  Kennedy seemed to have skipped over Edward’s rambling while focusing on the other kid’s talent, but Chris had paid close attention to the boy’s curious emotional reaction to the question. “Conor … Glynn?” he asked, recognising the name.

  Edward swallowed, hard, and Chris watched his Adam’s apple bob in his neck. The kid’s cheeks reached a new level of maroon as he said, “Yeah. He’s Holly’s brother.”

  “And was Conor at the party that night?”

  Edward shook his head and glanced back over his shoulder at the other boy, “No,” he said, his voice holding more than a hint of discomfort, “he doesn’t really hang around in our crowd.”

  Chris gave Edward a reassuring pat on the shoulder, understanding his situation to some extent. It was a certain kind of hell to be interested in a teammate - especially for a traditionally macho sport like Gaelic games.

  Poor divil.

  “And does Conor have a girlfriend or …anything?” he asked pointedly, and Kennedy whipped back round, suddenly interested in the odd direction the interview had taken.

  Edward met his gaze, confirming Chris’s unspoken question. No, the object of his affection did not know the extent of Edward’s feelings, nor his sexuality. “Not that I know of - but I don’t really know him well outside of training.”

  “One last thing,” Kennedy asked then, “what can you tell us about Dean Cooper? He a friend of yours?”

  Edward rolled his lips into his teeth. “Dean? He’s all right, I suppose. Used to play with the club at one stage, but he put out his shoulder a few seasons back, didn’t bother coming back after. He’s more of a gym bunny these days.”

  “We found some pills in Graham’s room, Edward. Know anything about that?”

  The teenager looked away and reddened afresh. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me one bit. A lot of the lads on the team use stuff now. That’s why some of them have it even more in for the likes of me and Conor – he doesn't do any of that shit, and he’s still the best on the team.”

  Chris raised his eyebrows, “And yourself?”

  “I couldn’t afford it even if I wanted to.”

  “You have the right idea - only talentless gobshites do that stuff,” Kennedy reassured Edward, as they finished up their questioning.

  “Did you see the Glynn kid out there?” he said to Chris as they left the pitch. “Some technique. He’ll be playing for the Dubs before I hit forty.”

  Chris looked sideways at him, and chuckled. “Well if he’s off to Oz soon, he’ll hardly be playing on the Dublin team. And aren’t you fifty-two?”

  Still chuckling, he reached into his pocket to take a call from base. Then he looked back at this partner. “Nice one. For once a public appeal paid off. One of the neighbors in the Hackett housing estate just found something interesting in their wheelie bin.” He threw a glance back at the training pitch. “We might have our murder weapon.”

  25

  All heads turned when later that evening, Gary carried a long, plastic-clad piece of wood into the GFU lab, having safely retrieved it from the family who’d found it in their wheelie bin not far from the Hackett house.

  “Well?” Reilly asked, with raised eyebrows. “What have we got?”

  “Looks to be the weapon all right.” Gary was breathing heavily with the excitement of a potential breakthrough, coupled with his purposeful trot with the new evidence from the van to the lab. “Whoever put it there certainly wasn't trying to cover his tracks too hard. There’s blood on the end - the bas - and lots of prints on the handle. I’ve dusted the wheelie bin too, so here’s hoping …”

  “OK, let’s take a look.” Reilly took the lead, removing the hurley stick from the large evidence bag. Putting the bag to one side, she carefully placed the slender wooden implement - about eighty centimetres in length - down on the examination table’s recently sterilized surface.

  This was Reilly’s first look at a hurley up close, and it struck her how much craft had gone into shaping the stick from what was apparently a single piece of timber.

  Her eyes scanned the flattened bottom, the now dried-in blood was indeed covering a large portion of
the curved ‘bas’ as Gary had referred to it. There were small clumps of bloodied skin tissue and even some hair protruding from beneath a thin metal band nailed around the curved and flattened base.

  She immediately recalled the impression marks on Graham Hackett’s autopsy photos, now realizing they made sense. “Julius, get ready to run analysis on the blood to confirm it belongs to our victim, and more importantly, if any of it belongs to our doer. Lucy, you do the prints.”

  “I thought this was interesting …” Gary pointed with a pen towards the edge of the bas. “I’d say this has seen plenty of action, there’s a few small chips out of this end, so much so that the edges are starting to flake off.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Those small flecks of organic fibre the ME talked about - inside some of the victim’s wounds? Could be wood chips from there?”

  Reilly nodded in agreement as she leaned in for a closer look, studying the banding. “Anyone know what this actually does?” she asked indicating the metal strip. “I would have thought it would be a dangerous addition to what already looks like a pretty lethal piece of sports equipment …”

  “It’s added to give strength; stops the wood breaking in challenges,” Gary told her. “Ever hear the expression; Clash of the Ash?” When she looked blank, he shrugged and continued. “Ash is a strong wood, and it needs to be to withstand the punishment these get in a game. Hurleys are typically made from the denser timber found in the lower sections near the root of the tree, but the metal is still added at the business end, for even more strength.”

  “I’d imagine it helps to puck the ball even further too,” Julius commented.

  “It’s not allowed in camogie though, is it?” Lucy mused. “The banding I mean.”

  Reilly was baffled. “Camogie?”

  “Women’s hurling,” Gary told her.

  “Then why the hell isn’t it just called women’s hurling?” She shook her head bewildered by such intricacies. “Gary, process any trace and prints you took from the bin, and cross reference with the Hackett crime scene. Lucy you do the same with the stick, and with luck we’ll soon be able to confirm we do indeed have our weapon.”

  Despite the gruesome circumstances, she felt a familiar, almost instinctive thrill when a breakthrough, a real breakthrough presented itself.

  Finally, they were getting somewhere.

  26

  Biception: Hey G, saw that pic of you lifting the Inter-schools trophy - nice one. Pecs looking ripped; that don't come free, you know.

  HackR: Listen man, I’ve said you’ll get your money. Lay off with the smart comments on my page, I saw what you wrote.

  Biception: Well then, pay up and maybe I’ll shut up. It’s nearly 3 weeks since that last batch, you’ll owe me a tonne at this stage.

  HackR: I said I’d sort you out FFS.

  Biception: Fair enough, those candies are the good stuff though, so don’t go thinking of getting cheap imitations somewhere else. They might make your c**k fall off…

  HackR: Actually, there’s a couple of other lads on the team that might be looking for ‘improvement’ - maybe cut me a deal if I introduce you?

  Biception: Absolutely bro, as long as they aren’t like that other snowflake p***k.

  HackR: Don’t mind him, he’ll be out of our hair soon.

  Biception: The sister is a different story tho, think you could hook me up - you’ve hit that up before, haven’t you? Might be able to write off that last batch you owe me for…

  HackR: Don’t think a classy chick like H would be interested in a gym rat like you tbh. You’d be too busy making love to yourself to pay her any attention…

  Biception: We’ll see - I don’t usually have any complaints in that department. Anyway, don’t forget me bro, I have overheads to pay. If you’re looking for anything coming into the summer hols let me know and I can get you stacked.

  HackR: You’re unreal D-man, coming on here to shake me down, and then end up trying to sell me Skittles too! Good luck with that.

  REILLY READ through the printout Rory had left on her desk of Graham Hackett’s (who they’d since established used the screen name HackR) recent online correspondence. She was guessing from the topic of conversation that ‘Biception’ was the screen moniker of Graham’s friendly steroid dealer, identified by some witnesses as Dean Cooper. Despite the detectives’ - and indeed Rory’s - best efforts, they hadn’t yet been able to locate Cooper.

  Notwithstanding the fact that Graham was clearly falling behind on his payments - an obvious motive - it also seemed that the two were discussing Holly Glynn, albeit in a harmless generic manner.

  It seemed to her that Cooper was a decent possibility as a suspect; perhaps on the night of the party he and Graham Hackett had an argument over this unpaid debt, resulting in a struggle that resulted in Cooper beating the former with a hurley stick? Cooper certainly knew how to use the thing - according to what Rory could ascertain, the teen had once been a member of same club Graham played for, before apparently picking up a shoulder injury.

  Still injury aside, the kid would have been well capable of wielding the weapon with enough force to cave in his former teammate’s skull.

  But would an unpaid debt have provoked such rage?

  Just then, Reilly’s phone rang interrupting her thoughts, and she picked it up, immediately feeling a rush of mixed emotion when she saw Todd’s name on the caller ID.

  As soon as she answered, his voice was coming through the speaker in a steady stream.

  “Hey!” Todd greeted. “Good morning.”

  “Well, it’s afternoon here but good morning to you,” she said.

  “So my flight’s due in at three tomorrow. Still all good for you to come pick me up - or should I just get a cab to your place?”

  Reilly bit her lip. Picking him up might work, but what she wasn't sure was if this whole visit was all good.

  She had no idea what would happen once she and Todd came face to face and they had to confront the uncomfortable situation they were in. Not to mention try figure out how to work it from here on out.

  “It’s fine - I’ll pick you up,” she finally replied.

  She could hear the smile in Todd’s voice as he said, “Great, see you tomorrow.”

  She hung up the phone and leaned back heavily in her chair.

  For some reason, despite herself, Reilly’s thoughts turned to Chris - something that happened a lot these days when she spoke to Todd. The kiss they’d shared before she’d discovered her pregnancy, the many times he’d consoled her with his arms, relaxed her with his words, saved her from the worst.

  Every so often she was reminded of the feel of his hands in her hair and his inimitable musky scent. She determinedly shook the thought away as following a soft knock on the doorway, she came face to face with the man himself.

  Think of the devil…

  “Hey, good stuff about the hurl, ”Chris stepped into her office.

  She nodded. “It is. We’re still waiting on analysis, but we’re pretty sure it’s the weapon used on Hackett. Nice catch at the autopsy about that band.”

  He shrugged modestly. “Kennedy’s just in with tech, hoping Rory can help us track down that Cooper kid.” Chris then quickly outlined the progress or more to the point lack thereof, he and Kennedy had made in finding Graham Hackett’s drug dealer. “Seems kids are getting into this stuff younger and younger,” he went on, shaking his head. “Idiots. You can only imagine the amount of damage it does. I see it all the time with some of the lads at the gym too.”

  Reilly tried her utmost to keep from her mind the image of Chris pumping iron at the gym, but it was difficult. “You haven't been tempted to buff up too?”

  “What - you don’t think I’m buff enough?” he quipped, a twinkle in his eye and she was glad that after the other day’s wobble, they seemed more at ease with each other once again.

  “True. Maybe it’s Kennedy who needs help that way,” she chuckled, thinking of
the other detective’s increasingly rotund form, despite his wife’s best efforts.

  “I wouldn't chance saying that to his face if I were you,” Chris warned. “Poor divil would have a stroke at the notion of performance enhancement of any kind. Though” he added wickedly, “I’d be interested to know what Josie has to say.”

  She suppressed a laugh as Lucy appeared at the doorway. “We’re all set up with iSpi whenever you’re ready,” the younger woman told them.

  “Thanks. We’ll be right there,” Reilly stood up, and Chris followed her out towards the Tech room.

  Murder weapon aside, the investigative team hadn’t had much luck with either the evidence or the interviews for the Hackett investigation so far.

  Hopefully, the virtual reality program would give them another perspective.

  “SO YOU’RE PRETTY sure most of Graham’s team mates and friends from the party are too short to be his murderer …” Reilly mused to the detectives, her hand on her chin as she paced back and forth in front of iSPI’s virtual reenactment of the crime scene using the data Gary had inputted from the various scene markers and spatter analysis at the Hackett house.

  The dark figure depicting the killer projected onscreen was about half a foot taller than Graham, but about the same build. Predominantly right-handed, he gripped the weapon - a composite rendering of the recently-found hurley stick - with both hands as he advanced.

  As the footage played through, the virtual assailant stalked forward while the victim lay on the floor, bloody and beaten, but not yet dead, before setting up the weapon for the final blow that would end his life.

  “Holy feck,” Gary whispered. Watching this on iSPI he knew it would be a long time before he sat down to watch a hurling match with his mates again - if ever.

  Chris and Kennedy were standing in front of the projection, both going through the notes they had gathered from their interviews.

  “Certainly none of the girls at the party would have been strong enough to inflict this kind of damage,” Chris pointed out. “And not just that, but all have solid alibis - Simon Hackett excepted.”