Forensic Songs

by Mike McCormack

  The pathologist pulls the hood back from his lab suit and fixes his gaze in the middle distance. ‘I have to do a full examination but based on lividity and rigor mortis I would say the corpse is about twenty-four hours old, certainly not a lot more.’

  The pathologist leaves the room and the detective steps aside to let the crime-scene photographer circle the corpse a final time. Now he turns his attention to the room itself. The large table in the middle of the floor is littered with open journals and copybooks, reference books and a small ashtray with a few butts in the bottom. Among the journals is a wallet. It contains a couple of credit cards, a library photo pass and a couple of twenties. Nothing else, no photos of loved ones, no receipts, no address. He looks up and sees his new assistant detective across the table from him. He hands the wallet to her.

  ‘Detective Kennedy.’

  ‘Kenny, sir.’

  ‘Kenny, yes. There’s a name, a few other bits and pieces here, see what you can find,’ he says and then turns out of the room into the daylight where time and circumstance pick up the run of themselves once more.

  ‘Here.’

  The man hands his wife a mug of tea and sits apart from her at the other end of the sofa. It is a large sitting room dominated across its centre by the sofa, which faces the fireplace and the flat-screen TV. The room is lit from the rear by two up-lighters that cast down a soft glow. Over the fireplace there is a fine line drawing of a child in three-quarter pose, a sensitively realized piece that shows real talent on the part of the draughtsperson. The man stretches out on the sofa, his whole body and posture asserting his right to slob out in his own house at the end of a day’s work.

  ‘So what’s happened?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s just begun,’ his wife says. ‘The detective has been called to a crime scene. A young woman is found in a rented house lying face down with her head bashed in. There is blood on the walls but no sign of a struggle.’

  She is sitting with her bare feet tucked up under her and in spite of the late hour there is an energy and alertness about her that gives the impression she still has work to do. Her dark hair is pulled back in a girlish headband, which gives full exposure to a face that is clearly in its late thirties but has yet to show any signs of droop or sag. And if she is too plain to be anyone’s idea of beauty, it is easy to see that most men will eventually confess to being attracted to her without being able to say why.

  ‘And these are the crime-scene photos?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The detective spreads a series of photos across his desk. From various angles they show the young woman lying face down on the timber floor, her head haloed in a pool of blood. The picture sequence glances over the deep wound on her left temple, the blood on the wall over where she stood, and ends finally in a couple of wide-angle scenes of the room itself. She is lying between the table and the wall, her head near the skirting board. Using her body to establish scale, it is easy to calculate the size of the room as something like fifteen feet by twelve. A large table in the middle of the room is scattered with books and open writing pads; a couch stands against one wall and the others are decorated with cheap prints of old masters in generic frames. The last photo shows a single window opening onto a large beach over which a high summer sun shines.

  The detective has a theory about corpses, specifically murder victims. His theory has it that all murder victims are ashamed; all are acutely aware of themselves as a blemish on creation, a despoiling of the natural order. They feel this deeply and they protest that they are not merely this brutal set of circumstances, this shambles lying here on the floor. At the moment of death they make one last flailing attempt to establish their death within the widest laws of the universe. This is their last despairing act of faith in the world because the dead, no more than the living, cannot abide chaos and will not lie in eternity without making peace with the world …

  No, he has never voiced this theory to anyone and he is unsure what part of himself is responsible for it. All he knows is that he can never look at photographs like these without thinking of it. He shuffles through the photos and stops on a close-up of her skull. He studies the angle of the wound and by shifting the photographs he lines it up with the spray pattern on the wall above her. Now it is clear that she had to have been struck by someone who was left-handed. That narrows it down. Is this what he is looking for?

  With nothing more to be gleaned from them, the detective squares the photos into a file. A mortuary technician leans into his office.

  ‘We have a time of death – close to the original guesstimate, she died sometime in the middle of Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘Any other wounds?’

  ‘None, no impact marks, no ligatures, no sign of sexual assault.’

  ‘Just the single blow.’

  The detective turns his gaze back to the file on the desk. The camera pans back from him and in this uncertain mood the scene freezes and fades to a title screen; cue the first ad break.

  The woman on the sofa takes up the remote and turns the sound down. She turns to her husband.

  ‘So,’ she says abruptly, ‘what’s your alibi, mister?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your alibi, you’re dragged in for questioning on this.’

  The man does not have to think – he sees instantly what’s afoot. They are both fans of these late-night cop shows and sometimes they have this game of second-guessing the plots with the sound turned off. It’s a game they have played several times for their own enjoyment. There are no winners or losers, just the shared satisfaction of building a coherent story that covers the facts and the circumstances; a convincing account they can both agree on with as few holes and contradictions as possible.

  But tonight the man is not in the mood. He groans deeply; he’s had a long day and he’s bone-tired. But one look at his wife’s vivid expression and he sees immediately that she will not be thwarted. He will have to ease himself into it; he decides to begin by playing for time.

  ‘Why am I dragged in for questioning?’

  ‘You’ve been seen with her. This is a small town, people have seen you buying drinks and flirting with her.’

  ‘I’m a suspect?’

  ‘You’re the only one.’

  ‘What would I want with her? I’m a married man with two kids.’

  The woman shakes her head with a pitying expression; apparently this protest is so naïve it barely warrants further comment.

  ‘Look at her,’ she urges, ‘her looks, the sexy summer dress, the rented house – this is exactly the sort of woman a married man might have a fling with. A couple of months screwing her over the summer and when September comes she will have gone back to where she came from. You’d better have a pretty secure alibi because right now you’re the only suspect.’

  Early as it is in the game, he sees that there is something especially forceful about her tonight, something pointedly relentless and aggressive.

  She is looking at him without blinking. This is a more forceful and sudden challenge than he is used to. The sequence of photographs flashes through his mind.

  ‘OK,’ he relents, ‘as it happens I do have an alibi, a secure one with witnesses.’

  ‘Good, let’s hear it.’

  ‘Time of death was established as twenty-four hours before the corpse was found, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s say twenty-four hours ago was the afternoon of Sunday 27th.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Well, in the middle of Sunday afternoon, almost exactly at the TOD, I was thirty miles away, lining out at wing forward for our club in the first game of the championship. In the twentieth minute I got yellow-carded and my name was entered into the ref’s notebook; in the fifty-eighth minute I scored an equalizing point and that, too, was recorded by the ref and witnessed by the whole team and no less than a hundred spectators. Furthermore, later that week, the local paper carried a photo of me jumping for a ball in that same game. So, all these t
hings, eyewitness reports, referee’s game report and photos place me at least thirty miles away at the time of her death. I couldn’t have done it.’

  The man sits back. He has surprised himself with this sudden inspiration; he has seldom been this sharp. Now he considers; if there is a flaw in his reasoning it is not immediately obvious. The woman nods appreciatively.

  ‘That’s good,’ she concedes.

  ‘It’s better than good, it’s waterproof. You have to let me go.’

  ‘Maybe. It remains to be seen how your alibi holds up when we begin to examine it.’

  ‘What do you mean, “when we begin to examine it”? There is no flaw in it as far as I can see. You keep holding onto me and I will bring a case of unlawful detention.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  She picks up the remote once more and points it at the TV.

  Detective Kenny enters his office. She is new and eager and she has that bright appearance of someone who is used to bringing good news. Now she pauses inside the door with what may be a dramatic sense of her new role, or may be something more diffident. Either way he lets her stand there, framed from behind in the blue light; whatever the moment he has no wish to spoil it for her.

  ‘We have an ID,’ she eventually blurts.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The cards in her wallet tell us that her name is Alice Rynne. She was twenty-five and she worked as a counsellor for the Irish Adoption Authority. For the last three months she had been on sabbatical while she completed a course of study – she was doing a postgrad diploma through the Open University. She rented the house from a family friend and was staying there while she wrote up her thesis. Her topic was on attachment disorders in Romanian adoptees. The theme has special resonance for her – she herself was adopted from an orphanage in Arad in western Romania when she was two years old. She had been living in that house for the last two months.’

  ‘Did she have any callers, friends or boyfriends?’

  ‘We’re checking that at the moment.’

  ‘This is a small town, a single woman with her looks would have drawn attention. Let me know when you have something else.’

  She leaves the office and the detective watches her go.

  The woman turns to her husband and looks at him expectantly. In moments like this he has the uneasy feeling that he is not wholly himself but more exactly the willed object of her imagination, something she has drawn up out of thin air. It has often crossed his mind that he is nothing more than her imaginary friend, something she constructed long ago in the bored afternoon of a gifted childhood. He also feels himself to be attention dependent – without her gaze he might flicker and fade away entirely. But right now he feels totally invoked and compelled to participate in her game. Whatever her childhood pastimes, her games are more complex now, the rules and objectives knotted in ways he can barely guess at. Having no choice, he decides to enter the game immediately.

  ‘So I’m having an affair with this woman.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m a married man with two kids.’

  ‘I didn’t say you weren’t.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘That’s why they’re called affairs.’

  ‘Let me guess – my wife and kids have driven me into the arms of this woman.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You have disappointments, grievances.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You might as well spell them out.’

  ‘OK, these are the facts. You are a small-town man so you have small-town grievances – the wife and kids you lumbered yourself with in your early twenties and the football career which suffered as a result; all the travel you never got around to; screwing the same woman your whole life; the aging mother left on your hands by a brother and sister who took off when they saw the writing on the wall; all these things.’

  ‘That’s some list.’

  ‘Yes, it is. There is no single item on it capable of driving you into the arms of another woman but all of them together and targeted at that raw spot … well, this is the kind of bitterness you succumb to in a small place like this.’

  ‘There’s a big gap between being pissed off and being a killer.’

  ‘Yes, admittedly motive is a bit blurred at the moment.’

  ‘And with no motive you have no case?’

  ‘The investigation is ongoing.’

  She turns her attention back to the television. On screen the assistant detective has entered a local pub. The place is quiet – four or five men along the counter supping their pints. The barman stands with his back to the shelves, his arms folded across his chest. Detective Kenny takes her drink to a table by the back wall and listens to the hum of conversation. Talk goes up and down the bar.

  ‘… riding her …’

  ‘… so I believe …’

  ‘… no …’

  ‘… yes …’

  ‘… lot of talk …’

  ‘… dúirt bean liom …’

  ‘… always be talk …’

  ‘… lads putting legs under it …’

  ‘… I’m only saying …’

  ‘… put it past him, though …’

  ‘… always fond of it, the same boyo …’

  ‘… the wren’s nest …’

  ‘… yes …’

  ‘… in fairness …’

  ‘… aren’t we all, if we could get it …’

  ‘… unless he’s changed …’

  ‘… and changed in a big way …’

  ‘… I don’t know …’

  ‘… lads doing more talking than riding …’

  ‘… talking …’

  ‘… sympathy for him …’

  The assistant detective stands in the doorway and coughs. It is clear that she is still finding her way in this new environment. As yet she is not wholly sure of her cues and entrances. She waits for the detective to raise his head.

  ‘She was having an affair,’ she says simply.

  ‘Who was having an affair?’

  ‘Alice Rynne.’

  ‘You’ve asked around?’

  ‘Yes. As you’ve said, this is a small town; she was seen flirting with a man and there is definite word that she was having a thing with this person.’

  ‘He’s local?’

  ‘Yes, forty years old, married with two kids.’

  For the first time he notices that she has a gap between her two front teeth, a gap that seems to take its cue from the severe centre parting that runs through her hair. He remembers reading somewhere that in some cultures this signifies a certain type of sensual promise; he makes a note to himself that he must stop watching the Discovery Channel. Her CV mentioned that she has training in ballistics but beyond that he does not know much about her. She has shown real eagerness and efficiency in this investigation so far, but there has also been a degree of impatience with the slow progress. He has yet to decide if this is a newcomer’s proper anxiety to impress or whether it is indicative of something more headstrong. Time will tell.

  ‘Will we bring him in for questioning?’ she asks.

  He shakes his head. ‘Not just yet, it’s too soon and we don’t have enough on him. Believe me, if we go hauling in every married man in the village who bought her a drink we would have the place full in no time. No, go to his house, show your face and ask him a few questions; let him know how much you know and see how he reacts.’

  She nods, turns on her heel and is gone.

  ‘So what would you say to her?’ the woman asks. ‘Suppose the doorbell was to go at this moment and she was there on your doorstep, flashing her badge, wanting to question you. How would you react?’

  ‘How do you think I’d react? I’d just give her my alibi and that would be it, game over.’

  ‘So you’re wagering all on this alibi of yours?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t buy it,’ she says softly. ‘It’s too anxious.’<
br />
  She sweeps the remote through the air and kills the sound on the TV. Now he senses that she is about to pounce – all her energies and pulses seem barely contained within her.

  ‘What’s too anxious?’

  ‘Your alibi.’

  ‘I was playing football, what’s anxious about that?’

  ‘That’s not what you said.’

  ‘I said I was playing football.’

  The woman shakes her head and looks into the distance. ‘No, you didn’t. The exact phrase you used was “lining out at wing forward”. I took note of it.’

  ‘So? That’s what footballers do, they line out. You’re clutching at straws.’ He stifles an urge to throw up his hands in exasperation. ‘This is going nowhere.’

  ‘Think about it, it’s ridiculous. You’re forty years of age, three stone over your fighting weight, what makes you think you can still get a game at wing forward?’

  ‘I was a good footballer, skill doesn’t leave you.’

  ‘Skill no, but speed yes. You can’t tell me that at your age you’re still getting a game on the wing. You may have the skill but you do not have the legs for it. In fact, the foul you got carded for was for pulling and dragging – that’s exactly the type of foul that someone whose speed has deserted them would be pulled for. Your alibi is at least questionable on one point.’

  ‘That’s a small point.’

  ‘I reckon the only way you are going to get a game in the championship at your age is on a scrappy junior B team: stick you in at full forward where you won’t have to do any running.’

  It takes him a moment to acknowledge that he will have to concede this further point. ‘OK, I was playing junior B, another minor detail.’

  ‘Not so minor at all.’

  ‘It does not disprove what the ref and the spectators saw.’

  ‘Yes, the spectators – about a hundred, you said.’

  ‘About that, give or take.’

  ‘Only a hundred spectators at a championship game on a summer Sunday?’

  ‘The first game of the championship, it was a slow start.’

  ‘My guess is that it wasn’t a Sunday. Summer Sundays are not clogged up with scrappy junior B games. Junior B matches are played on weekday evenings or on Saturdays. Either of those makes it possible that you were at the crime scene around the time of her death. That alibi of yours is full of holes.’