by Casey Hill
‘Missing?’ Bernard Ryan was dismissive. ‘He’s not missing – he just hasn’t bothered to contact us in a while, which, believe me, is nothing new.’
‘Do you have any recent photographs of him? Something that might help us locate him for you?’ Chris asked.
Gillian Ryan headed for the sideboard at the other end of the living room, where a small selection of family photographs was displayed. Chris remembered briefly running his eye over these pictures the first time they’d visited, but he hadn’t really studied them. He certainly hadn’t figured on them helping him identify Clare Ryan’s dead companion.
‘Here,’ Gillian handed them a photo. ‘This is probably the most recent one we have of Justin. It was taken at Clare’s twenty-first birthday party last year.’ Clare looked happy and carefree, sitting on the sofa alongside a young guy playing the guitar. ‘That’s our son there,’ Gillian clarified.
Not that her clarification was necessary. Because almost as soon as he’d laid eyes on the photo, Chris realized that the guy in this picture was the same man they’d found in bed with Clare. He knew this because on his right upper arm, Justin Ryan was sporting the very same oriental-style tattoo as the body they’d found.
But as he continued studying the photograph, something else jumped out at him – something that hit him with all the force of a ten-ton truck. And while the first realization might have brought things to a tidy conclusion, the second sent the entire investigation into absolute disarray.
9
‘You were right,’ Chris said to Reilly, handing her the photograph they had picked up at the Ryans’ house. When he and Kennedy had finished up with the parents, he’d phoned Reilly to ask if she could meet them in the incident room back at the station. If she could confirm what they’d now discovered, they needed to present a whole new set of facts about this case to O’Brien – who would probably go ape.
While the investigation had never exactly been straightforward, there was no question that it had now taken on a much more sinister turn. A murder with incestuous overtones was sufficiently gratuitous to send the media into an even greater frenzy, and if there was one thing their boss despised, it was high-profile cases.
Kennedy had mostly been silent on the drive back to Dublin, as if refusing to admit that they had been going about the investigation all wrong.
‘Look, it doesn’t prove anything,’ he’d protested when they’d left the Ryan household and Chris had filled him in on his discovery.
‘It proves that we’ve been chasing our tails while the GFU was trying to point us in another direction – the right direction,’ he replied, nodding at the photograph Kennedy held in his hands. ‘Reilly was right about them being siblings and now this means she’s probably also right that everything isn’t as it seems.’
‘Come on – we still don’t know that for sure.’
‘Look at that photograph, Pete. You know as well as I do what it means. Even if he did shoot his sister, the kid couldn’t have pulled the trigger on himself – not voluntarily anyway.’
‘So what other explanation is there?’
‘The one that Reilly’s been trying to open our minds to from the beginning,’ he reiterated, his mouth tightening into a grim line as he drove. ‘There’s somebody else involved.’
‘But how?’ Kennedy couldn’t seem to get his head around it. ‘There was no break-in, no motive, no nothing other than a few scraps of paint and a bit of dog hair that could have come from anywhere.’
‘Animal hair,’ Chris corrected. ‘We already know the Ryans don’t have pets. Clare didn’t have a pet – and neither, for that matter, did Jim Redmond.’
‘You’re not telling me that you seriously think this is connected to that guy Redmond’s suicide, are you?’ Kennedy protested, turning to look at him. ‘What the hell has Steel done to you?’
Chris accelerated through an amber light, keen to get back to the station and talk to Reilly. Never again would he make the mistake of discounting her insights so readily, not when she’d been certain there was something off about this case from day one. ‘Opened my eyes, that’s what.’
Now, as the three sat together in the incident room, the Ryan file open and the crime-scene photos scattered across Chris’s desk, Chris handed Reilly the photograph of Justin Ryan. ‘Take a look at that.’
She studied the picture. ‘This is the brother? No surprises there, he fits the identity profile, and the tattoo is pretty conclusive—’
‘Take a closer look,’ he interjected, impatiently, ‘a closer look at what he’s doing, or more importantly, how he’s doing it.’
Her interest piqued, Reilly scrutinized the photograph for a few moments more before it finally hit her. ‘Whoa,’ she said, looking from one detective to the other, her eyes widening in realization. ‘The guitar – he’s right-handed, isn’t he?’
‘That’s what we thought. Which means—’
‘Which means that he couldn’t have voluntarily fired the gun.’ Reilly tried to keep the exultant tone out of her voice, but her glee was obvious. ‘The trajectory went from left to right. I knew it, I knew there was somebody else in that room.’
‘Yeah well, I hope you don’t mind if we save the champagne till later,’ Kennedy muttered. ‘We’ve got a case to run.’
‘You’re welcome, Detective,’ she retorted with no small measure of triumph. ‘Glad to be of help.’
‘Yeah, well,’ he shifted in his seat, ‘we would have worked it out … just maybe not as soon.’
‘Wow, is that actually a thank you I’m hearing?’
‘It’s the closest you’re going to get to it in this place, sweetheart,’ he shot back, a hint of a smile on his face.
‘Seriously, Reilly,’ Chris said, turning to her, ‘thanks for the heads-up. If it wasn’t for you, we might never have discovered this.’
She shrugged. ‘Hey, that’s what I’m here for.’
‘OK, OK, enough of the you’re-great-I’m-great stuff,’ Kennedy growled, sipping on a stale cup of coffee, ‘let’s get back to business.’ He spluttered as the cold coffee hit his tongue. ‘Jesus, how old is this?’
‘It’s the one you made this morning – before we visited the Ryans,’ Chris replied, sardonically. ‘You might want to freshen it up a bit.’
‘No shit.’ He stood up, hitched his trousers up over his belly. ‘Anyone else want one?’
‘If you’re buying.’
Kennedy waddled over to the coffee machine and busied himself making three cups of coffee. ‘How’d you take it, Steel?’ he threw back over his shoulder.
‘Black, no sugar, thanks.’
‘Bloody health freak,’ he muttered to himself. Reilly met Chris’s amused glance. Clearly Kennedy’s bark was worse than his bite and he was likely a big softie behind it all.
The detective returned with three mugs clutched in his big hands and set them down on the desk. ‘Firstly, I think we need to get all of this straight before we ruin the boss’s year and start giving the tabloids orgasms.’ He eased himself back into his chair and sipped his coffee. ‘Ah, that’s better. Now, it’s been a while since I’ve been involved in ballistics,’ he said to Reilly, ‘so is there any way of telling whether or not somebody else fired both shots?’
‘You mean shot Clare as well as setting up the brother to look like he shot himself?’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll take another look but if you ask me, I think it’s likely. I’ve always thought the gunpowder residue found on the brother was suspect, and there’s no reason as yet to believe that he would have shot his own sister.’
‘I wonder if this other person might have known that they were brother and sister, that it might have been his – or her – motive?’ Chris ruminated. While they’d established that Clare had no jealous exes or current boyfriends that might have taken offence to their relationship, what about Justin? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and all that. Surely most women would be utterly repulsed by the discovery that the man in her life was sleepin
g with his own sister. Hell, who wouldn’t be?
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Reilly said, studying him. ‘And I think we now have to assume Clare and Justin’s … close relationship must have been the motivating factor for these murders. Whoever did this discovered them in bed together, or set out to discover them in bed together and then …’
‘Which means we can’t rule out the parents,’ Kennedy mused. ‘Although if I found out my kids were up to those sort of shenanigans, I think I’d want to put a bullet in my own head, not theirs.’ He shuddered at the very thought.
‘So what about the Redmond suicide?’
‘I still don’t see how it’s related to this one,’ Chris replied. ‘I know about the fibers and the hairs, but still—’
‘Well, I’m still willing to bet it’s not cross-contamination,’ Reilly protested. ‘And the Freud connection means something – I’m sure of it.’
Chris started to argue, but hesitated, seeing the conviction in her eyes. ‘OK, so say for the moment we go with your belief that these are connected. Where does that lead us?’
She sighed. ‘Nowhere, yet.’ She toyed with her coffee cup. Chris noted her chewed-down nails and was almost relieved to see a chink in her armor. ‘But what it does mean is that we need to formally include the Redmond “suicide” in our case file, and start looking more closely for anything else that might tie the two cases together.’
‘Fan-fucking-tastic,’ Kennedy grumbled. ‘Just what we need – an extra case. O’Brien’s going to love this.’
She drained her coffee and stood up. ‘I’m going to attend Redmond’s autopsy this evening,’ she said. ‘See if Karen can give me anything else to go on.’
‘It’s scheduled for later today?’ Chris knew the ME’s caseload was almost always full and suicide victims often ended up at the bottom of the pile.
‘Tonight at eight.’
‘We’ll come with you,’ he said, and out of the corner of his eye spotted Kennedy’s surprised look. ‘Look, I know it still doesn’t feel like one of ours, but if Reilly really believes there might be something—’
‘Fine,’ his partner growled. ‘I said I’ll go with the flow on this one but you can count me out for tonight,’ He shivered.. ‘You know I only go to the dungeon if I really have to,” he added, referring to the recently built city morgue building. ‘It might be all shiny and new but it still gives me the creeps.’
‘OK, then I’ll come with you,’ Chris said. ‘If there’s a chance this might have something to do with the Ryan murder, then it wouldn’t kill us to check it out. If it doesn’t – great, but if it does, it might just save us a lot of time later.’
‘Well, as I said, count me out.’
‘Fair enough.’ Chris shrugged. ‘How about I go to the dungeon – and you can visit the lion’s den?’
Kennedy began gathering paperwork and putting photos back into the file. ‘Brilliant. By the time I’ve finished breaking the bad news to O’Brien, we’ll be lucky if the two of us don’t end up in the bloody dungeon.’ He paused and looked again at the photo of Justin, smiling, playing his guitar. ‘Families, eh? They can get you into a shitload of trouble.’
10
As they were both going to the city morgue, Chris had suggested to Reilly that they meet for something to eat beforehand. Because the GFU lab was situated on the outskirts of the city and the morgue on the opposite side, they’d agreed to meet halfway, in a small, laidback bistro off Grafton Street, where the food was good and, more importantly, quick.
Although he was keen to hear what she had to say about the case, he was also intrigued by her. Smart, focused and extremely driven, from what he’d seen so far, she was a terrific asset to the investigative team.
‘Kennedy was right, you know,’ he said, toying with his spaghetti. ‘There is something a bit warped about eating before an autopsy.’
‘You think so?’ Reilly was sitting across from him at the tiny round table, munching her way through a cheeseburger about the same size as her head. Since leaving the lab she had changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and let her hair hang loose around her face. He’d only ever seen her wear it in a severe ponytail and the transformation was startling. Right then, she looked about eighteen years old. ‘Sorry,’ she said, swallowing hard. ‘I know I shouldn’t talk with my mouth full, but I’m absolutely starving.’
He laughed. ‘The morgue doesn’t affect your appetite then?’
‘Not the gruesome stuff if that’s what you’re referring to,’ she replied, wiping a blob of ketchup off the side of her mouth. ‘What bothers me is that these guys have died suddenly, and usually violently. I want to know how that happened, who did it, why they did it.’
Chris reached for his water. ‘Which I take it, is the reason you went into forensics in the first place?’
She didn’t reply immediately. He though he saw a faint shadow cross her face but the look was gone before he could pinpoint it.
‘Pretty much,’ was all she said. ‘What about you? How’d you make detective so fast?’
‘So fast?’
‘Sure. What are you – thirty, thirty-three?’
‘Thirty-nine, actually,’ he corrected.
‘Wow. You must work out a lot.’
He shrugged, secretly pleased that she thought that. ‘Whenever I get the time. But there hasn’t been much of that lately.’ He wasn’t about to tell her that these days he’d been feeling so worn down he barely had the energy to lift the kettle, let alone a couple of hundred-pound weights. ‘So how are you finding life in Ireland?’
‘So far so good.’ She sipped at her drink. ‘My dad grew up here; his family emigrated to the States when he was thirteen.’
‘Ah. With a first name like Reilly, I thought there might have been some Irish connection.’
‘It was my dad’s mom’s maiden name so I guess I’m kinda named after her,’ she told him.
‘Does your dad get back much?’
Her expression closed. ‘He actually moved back here a couple of years ago … but there’s no other family left now.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Chris could see this was a subject she didn’t want to linger on. Yet it certainly explained why she’d left the bright lights of the West Coast to come and work in dreary old Dublin. ‘I’d imagine this is a big change from California,’ he said, picking up his glass again. ‘Whereabouts are you from?’
‘Marin County, San Francisco Bay area.’
He gulped his water. ‘Never been there. I hear it’s a great city though. You must find things very different over here – like the weather for starters.’
‘Yeah, that is kind of hard to get used to,’ she admitted. ‘And I really miss the seafood. The shrimp you serve here is mostly frozen and very pricey. We get some great stuff back home, you can buy it fresh at the harbor, right off the boat.’
A waiter arrived to clear their plates and they were silent for a moment before Reilly spoke again. ‘What I really miss most, though, is the waves,’ she said, dreamily.
‘What? You surf too?’
‘All Californians surf,’ she replied with a smile. ‘You learn before you can walk. This Californian especially.’
‘Never tried it.’
‘You should, there’s no feeling like it.’ Her voice softened, and a faraway look came into her eyes. ‘Riding the waves, feeling them crash over you … it’s like there’s nothing but you and the surf – it’s awesome.’ Her love was clear in her voice.
‘I’m sure it must be.’
‘I know there’s a place up north somewhere that has some good surf, but I haven’t had time to check it out.’
He nodded. ‘Maybe when things quieten down a bit here you might get the chance.’
‘Do things ever quieten down around here? I must admit I expected Dublin to be a sleepy little place, not exactly a hotbed of serious crime.’
‘Sign of the times, I suppose,’ he replied. ‘Though to be truthful, I’m gla
d we’ve got someone like you around.’
She cocked an eyebrow. ‘You must be the only one.’
‘Don’t think like that. It’s nothing personal. I suppose some people, guys like Kennedy for instance,’ he added, ‘are just used to doing things the old-fashioned way. Things have changed so much in this country over the last ten years, you wouldn’t believe it.’
‘Well, I’m glad it’s not just me.’
‘Definitely not. Give them a bit more time to get used to you.’
‘Good, ‘cos I’ve pretty much had it with the dumb blond jokes by now,’ she said rolling her eyes good-naturedly.
‘I don’t blame you, and I’d say you really appreciated that red swimsuit too,’ he added, his tone delicate.
‘You heard about that?’
‘Yep. Sometimes it’s like being back in school around here. But you did the right thing by not reacting to it. It’s exactly what those lads want.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, they got the size just about right so at least I could use it – unlike the cheerleading costume.’
Chris nearly spat out his drink. ‘What? When the hell did that happen?’
‘Second week on the job.’
‘Idiots.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Reilly. I hope you know we’re not all like that.’
‘No need to apologize.’ Her eyes danced with humour. ‘The way things were going I thought I’d end up getting a brand new wardrobe for free. Anyway, that’s peanuts compared to the stuff we got thrown at us at the Academy,’ she added, telling him about the time fellow trainees had planted a cadaver in her dorm room.
They chatted some more about their respective careers, though Chris suspected that Reilly was skimming over the impressive credentials that helped her attain such a position in the force. But when he tried to probe again into her reasons for taking a job in a place that could only be described as a sleepy backwater compared to what she was used to, she again became distinctly closed.
