No Easy Answer

by Valerie Keogh

  West shook his head. ‘No takers on that bet. She looked too smug when she told us to go ahead.’

  A comfortable silence settled over them. It was broken by Baxter, who turned in his seat to look at West. ‘I was going to say how odd it was that we were investigating two cases where both victims were octogenarians. But Doris Whitaker was ninety so what does that make her?’

  ‘A nonagenarian.’

  ‘I must use that on Andrews when we get back. Bet you a fiver, he’ll be using it before the end of the day.’ He looked towards the car pulling into the driveway. ‘Here they are, I’ll go and fill them in.’

  West tuned the radio to a classical music station, put his head back and shut his eyes. An octogenarian and a nonagenarian – it didn’t matter how old their victims were, they’d try their best to get justice for them.

  15

  The garda technical team couldn’t find anything overtly suspicious but they took a series of swabs from Lynda Checkley’s car and left.

  ‘It was worth a try,’ Baxter said, climbing back into the passenger seat. He raised an eyebrow at the music but wisely made no remark. ‘We still going to talk to the husband?’

  ‘There’s not much point. His wife will no doubt have rung him as soon as we’d left so we’ve lost the element of surprise.’ West started the engine and edged the car onto the road. ‘They’re an unlikeable duo, I’d like to find them guilty of something.’

  ‘Nothing?’ Andrews asked as he put a mug of coffee on the desk.

  ‘Mrs Checkley is sticking to her statement,’ West said, picking up the mug and taking a sip. ‘Word for word which is suspicious in itself. We had the technical team take some swabs from her car but I’m not holding out any hope there.’

  ‘She’s had plenty of time to clean it,’ Andrews said philosophically. He sat back and slurped his coffee. ‘You think she’s capable of cold-bloodedly running someone over?’

  ‘They have one of those big houses on Brennanstown Road. Wide, curving entrance drive, manicured gardens. Inside, everything is high-end including Lynda Checkley. Contrary to her tearful performance when she was here, she came across as a cold, hard woman. She’s used to living well, too, being broke wouldn’t suit her.’

  ‘Killing to protect her lifestyle… it’s not the worst motive for murder I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘We’ve no proof of any wrongdoing,’ West said, putting his mug down and linking his hands behind his head.

  ‘Yet,’ Andrews said, getting to his feet. ‘If they had a hand in the old dear’s death, we’ll find the proof.’ He stopped in the doorway and looked back. ‘We’re still set for six to pay a visit on Liam Hennessy and Cara Donaldson?’

  ‘Yes. Maybe we’ll have better luck and find a freezer big enough to have kept Muriel Hennessy’s body.’

  ‘It would be nice to have either the octogenarian or the nonagenarian case solved,’ Andrews said before heading back to his desk.

  Baxter would have won his fiver, but West never bet on certainties. He switched on his computer and spent the remaining time on the never-ending paperwork.

  At six, Allen, Jarvis and Andrews crowded into his office for a final meeting before leaving for the Donaldson and Hennessy homes.

  ‘We know Muriel Hennessy was kept in a freezer for two to three days,’ West said. ‘She wasn’t a big woman but it would still need to be either a chest freezer or maybe one of those full-size American-style freezers.’

  ‘Do we impound it if they have one?’ Jarvis asked. ‘I’m thinking of the freezer in my parents’ house. It’s generally crammed with stuff.’

  ‘Unless they have two,’ Allen suggested. ‘People do, you know, a small one in the kitchen for ice cream and stuff and a bigger one in the garage for–’

  ‘Frozen turkeys and bodies,’ Jarvis interrupted.

  West held his hand up. ‘If we find a suitable freezer anywhere, house or garage, we ring the garda technical team. I’ve already spoken to them. They’ll oblige us again and come and take samples if we need them to.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘Of course, if it is an obvious crime scene–’

  ‘Like if we find her dentures in the bottom of the chest freezer–’

  ‘Or long nail scratches on the inside of an American freezer door,’ Jarvis added.

  West met Andrews’ eyes and sighed. ‘As far as I’m aware, her dentures weren’t missing, and let’s not drift into Edgar Allan Poe territory.’

  ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ Jarvis said with a grin. ‘A grave not a freezer, I was using artistic licence.’

  This time it was Andrews and Allen who exchanged glances. ‘Let’s head,’ Andrews said to him. ‘If they’ve started on Poe, they’ll soon drift to Agatha Christie.’

  ‘Not from Poe,’ Jarvis said with an expression of mock horror. ‘It would be to Wilkie Collins, of course, the writer of the first modern detective novel.’

  But Andrews had long gone.

  It was left to Jarvis and West to discuss The Moonstone as they made their way to the car park where Andrews and Allen were already pulling out.

  Cara Donaldson lived in a moderate-sized semi-detached house in Cabinteely. That the Donaldsons were comfortable, rather than Brennanstown Road rich, was West’s estimation as they climbed out. Despite the impression Cara had given them, the car in the driveway was six years old, and the house itself looked as if it could do with a bit of TLC.

  Or maybe, unlike the Checkleys, they were a family who lived within their means.

  West parked on the road outside. ‘Let’s see what we find here then,’ he said, getting out.

  Light shone through a pane to one side of the uPVC door. West pressed the doorbell and heard the chimes echoing within. He stepped back, Jarvis at his side and waited. Only seconds passed before they saw a figure appearing down the hallway. It disappeared behind the solid door, then there was the rattle of a chain being put in place. Security conscious, or determined not to let visitors inside?

  It was an unknown man’s face that peered through the gap the chain allowed. ‘Yes?’ a deep voice asked.

  West held his identification forward. ‘I’m Detective Garda Sergeant West and this is my colleague Detective Garda Jarvis. We have a few questions to ask Cara Donaldson.’

  There was a snap as the door was shut, then the rattle of the chain as it was removed before the door was opened wide. ‘Cara’s only just home,’ the man said, standing to one side and waving them in. ‘I’m Ross, her husband.’ He shut the door behind them and indicated a room. ‘Take a seat, I’ll give her a shout. I assume this has to do with the death of her mother. A shocking business, she’s really cut up about it.’

  ‘It’s always a difficult time,’ West said neutrally. He’d not got the impression that Cara was in any way upset about the death of her mother but maybe she was simply good at concealing her grief. He needed to keep an open mind.

  West and Jarvis sat as Ross left the room shutting the door after him. They heard his quick step on the stair, then his deep voice reverberating through the floorboards followed by her voice, louder, higher-pitched. Definitely annoyed.

  ‘We have that effect on people,’ Jarvis said. He got to his feet and crossed to a tall shelving unit on one side of the mantelpiece. Framed photographs filled up spaces between rows of books; he examined each intently as if the answer to all their questions lay in them.

  Amused, West sat back and strained to hear what was going on upstairs. The voices died away, followed moments later by heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. Ross didn’t reappear. West heard the opening and shutting of another door, then the sound of a TV.

  It was ten minutes before the door opened and Cara came in. If she’d been annoyed when she heard they were there, there was no evidence of it, her expression bland and almost bored. ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting,’ she said, sinking onto the small sofa in the corner. ‘Now to what do I owe this interesting visit?’

  West reached into his inside pocket. ‘We
have a warrant to search your house for a freezer, Mrs Donaldson.’

  Instead of appearing shocked, Cara blinked, shook her head slowly and started to laugh. She had a deep earthy laugh that instantly made a listener smile, a contagious, genuine laugh that told West and Jarvis, who had sat again, that whatever they were looking for, wasn’t going to be found there.

  ‘You’re serious,’ she said, her laughter dying away. ‘You think I might have killed and frozen my mother?’

  ‘Someone did.’

  Cara, for a change, seemed stuck for words. ‘Right,’ she eventually managed to say. ‘I suppose you’d better come and see our freezer then. Luckily for me, you’re going to be disappointed.’

  She led them into a room that stretched across the back of the house. It had obviously been extended at one stage, but it had been badly designed and the shape was awkward. A small sitting area was stuck in one corner with a too-large TV overpowering the space. Cara’s husband sat, with his feet up on the sofa, engrossed in a football game. He spared a brief glance before returning his attention to the screen.

  ‘Here you go,’ Cara said, opening the door of an integrated fridge-freezer. The top freezer section was small. It would have been barely adequate to store food for a small family; it was definitely not suitable to freeze a body.

  ‘Do you have a second one?’ Jarvis asked. ‘In the garage or an outhouse?’

  ‘We don’t have an outhouse,’ she said. She pulled open a drawer of the kind found in every home, packed with all kinds of paraphernalia. Cara rummaged for a moment and pulled out a set of keys. ‘Here you go. Have a look yourselves. We don’t use the garage very much. Someday we’re going to get it converted into another room.’ She waved a hand around the higgledy-piggledy room. ‘And get this sorted too. The previous owners made a right hash of extending.’

  Jarvis took the keys and headed out the front door to investigate the attached garage.

  Cara crossed the kitchen, picked up a glass and filled it with water from the tap and stayed with her back to West drinking it. When she turned her eyes were shining. ‘My mother and I didn’t have the closest of relationships but she was my mother. I wouldn’t have wished her harm. You are convinced I am lying about visiting her that weekend. Believe me, Sergeant West, I did see her. There is no reason for me to lie.’

  ‘Science doesn’t lie either, Mrs Donaldson. And science tells us, that your mother had to have died at least eight days before she was found.’

  Cara put the glass down carefully and folded her arms. ‘I’m telling the truth. You think your science is telling the truth. It seems to me that there is something seriously wrong with that because we can’t both be telling the truth. But I have an advantage, Sergeant West… I know I’m not lying.’

  16

  Not many miles away, Andrews and Allen were having an equally unsuccessful time.

  When they arrived outside Liam Hennessy’s small townhouse there was no lights at any of the windows and no response when they pressed the doorbell several times.

  Allen stepped back and peered at the upstairs window. ‘Looks like nobody’s home.’

  ‘We’ll sit and wait,’ Andrews said, heading back to where they’d parked their car on the roadside. ‘He has two teenage kids, doesn’t he? I wonder where they are.’

  Since there was no way Allen could have known, he assumed Andrews wasn’t expecting an answer. He rested his head back and shut his eyes.

  ‘Tired, are we?’

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m knackered.’

  ‘No stamina, you young lads.’ Andrews turned on the radio and pressed buttons till he found a music station he liked.

  The strains of country music filled the air. Allen opened one eye and groaned. ‘My flatmate decided to buy a cat. It kept me awake most of the bloody night mewling; now I have to listen to that!’

  Andrews shot him a look but reached down and turned the radio off. For a few minutes, there was silence in the car.

  ‘Do you think they’re in it together?’ Allen asked. ‘That they killed the old dear?’

  Both this case and the death of Doris Whitaker had been spinning around Andrews’ brain. Until they were solved, they’d be there, niggling him. ‘Somebody froze Muriel Hennessy’s body several days before she was found and her two nearest and dearest are swearing they saw her within that period. There is something wrong with the maths there; we need to find out what that is.’

  ‘But it could have been an accident.’

  Andrews looked at him. ‘What? She accidentally fell into a freezer?’

  ‘Happens.’

  ‘In a bad TV series maybe. Not in real life.’

  Allen opened his eyes, sat up and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘There’s some quote about stranger things happening in real life than on TV, but I can’t remember what it is.’

  ‘Good,’ Andrews said bluntly. ‘Next thing you’ll be quoting Poe or Wilkie whatever his name.’

  Allen opened his mouth to reply but stopped as a car pulled into the driveway. They watched silently as Liam Hennessy climbed out. He stood for a moment holding onto the car door, the bright interior light reflecting on his lined and weary face. Only when the light went out, did he push the door shut and trudge to the front door.

  ‘He doesn’t look too hot,’ Allen said.

  ‘Guilt can make a poor companion.’

  ‘Is that a quotation?’ Allen grinned and got out of the car.

  By the time they got to the front door, only seconds later, both had fixed suitably official expressions on their faces. Andrews pressed the doorbell, then pressed again a minute later but it wasn’t until the third, longer ring, that the door was pulled open.

  Liam Hennessy’s face fell when he saw who was on the doorstep. ‘I thought… I was hoping–’ He shook his head and irritation flitted across his face. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘May we come in?’

  Hennessy’s glare told the story: he was going to shut the door in their faces.

  ‘We do have a warrant,’ Andrews said quickly.

  Hennessy’s eyes grew wide, his mouth opening and closing as his brain tried to understand. ‘A warrant?’

  ‘It would be better to discuss this inside.’

  It was another few seconds before reality got through. Then Hennessy stood back and flung the door open with such force it banged off the wall behind, the sound startlingly loud.

  The house was small. A kitchen to the front, and to the back a combined sitting-dining room that gave little space for either. Dirty plates and cutlery cluttered the small dining table and old newspapers formed a pile on one end of a two-seater sofa. A fine layer of dust covered the TV and a shelving unit that was empty apart from a few books and one frame holding a photograph of two children.

  The room stank of stale food, neglect, and despair.

  The two detectives followed Hennessy’s stiff back into the room and took the seats he waved them to while he stood, one hand gripping the other.

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  Andrews frowned. The man seemed on edge. He looked paler, more anxious than when they’d seen him last. ‘Where are your wife and children? Are you expecting them home soon?’

  A laugh rang out, startling both detectives. ‘No, I’m not expecting them home soon,’ Hennessy’s lips twisted and there was a sneer in his voice as he spat out, ‘I’m not expecting them home… ever.’

  Andrews and Jarvis exchanged glances. Trained to expect the unexpected, they were still often caught unawares by a change in circumstances and this was one of those times.

  ‘Why is that, then?’ Andrews asked, keeping his voice calm, treading carefully.

  ‘None of your damn business.’ Hennessy wrung his hands together and glared at the two men. ‘This warrant… what’s it all about?’

  Andrews decided to leave the question about the wife and children for the moment and proceed with the reason they had come. He took the warrant out. ‘This gives us th
e right to search the house, garage or outhouses for a freezer.’

  Hennessy’s laugh was almost amused. ‘Well, that won’t take long. The kitchen is through there. I don’t have a garage or an outhouse.’

  It took Allen only minutes to confirm what he said, and to rule out the tiny freezer in the kitchen as being in any way suitable to house the body of even such a little woman as Muriel Hennessy.

  When Allen returned and gave an almost imperceptible head shake, Andrews stood, turned to Hennessy and jerked a thumb upwards. ‘Do you mind if I use your bathroom?’

  ‘I do.’ A second passed before he lifted his hands in defeat. ‘I suppose I’m obliged to say yes. Up the stairs, second door on the left.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Although he’d never spoken about it, Andrews knew all about West’s traumatic experience prior to his transfer to Foxrock. The domestic incident that West and his partner had been called to… the murder of the partner… the dead body of the woman and her children in an upstairs bedroom.

  Andrews gripped the handle of the first door and slowly opened it. There was nobody in the room. An unmade bed, a tangle of clothes on every surface, that stuffy, unpleasant smell that shouted neglect. No dead bodies.

  He skipped the bathroom door and headed to the second bedroom. Two single beds neatly made. A small wardrobe. Andrews slid the door open and set the empty hangers rattling. It was a sad, desolate sound. He looked around the room. No personal belongings, no messy, childish clutter.

  Frowning, he opened the final door to the small bathroom. He probably should have flushed the toilet to support his story about wanting to use it but he didn’t want to continue with the deception.

  Back downstairs, he joined Allen who was standing in the living room, his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘He hasn’t moved or said a word since you went upstairs.’

  Andrews crossed the room and sat opposite the man whose face was half hidden by the hand resting over his mouth. ‘Where are your wife and children?’ There was no movement and he didn’t think he was going to get an answer but slowly the hand was dropped and the pale face lifted.