by J. D. Robb
“Yes. Sorry. I’ve never . . . we don’t. I’m not quite sure what I’m about.”
“You’re about to take a witness report, secure this scene, then call in whoever it is around here who investigates homicides.”
“There really isn’t anyone—that is, not right around here. I’ll have to contact the sergeant. We just don’t have this happen here. Not here.” He looked at her. “Would you help me? I don’t want to make a mistake.”
“Names. You have mine. That’s Roarke. This is Brian Kelly, a friend from Dublin. This is Sean Lannigan.”
“Yeah, I know Sean here. How’s it all going then?”
“I found her.”
“Are you doing all right there, lad?”
“Sean, tell the officer what you know, what you did.”
“Well, see, we were all over at the park there, having another picnic, and the dogs ran off in here. They wouldn’t come back and were barking like the mad. So I asked my lieutenant cousin to come find them with me. We all came in the wood, and I went on ahead to where the dogs were barking. And I saw her there, the dead girl, and I ran back and brought our cop to see.”
“That’s a good lad.” Leary looked appealingly at Eve.
“We’ve remained here since the discovery. Roarke and Sean walked to the road and back. The dogs have been all over the scene, as you can see from their prints in the softer ground. You can also observe shoe prints, which would most likely belong to whoever put her here, as none of us have gone closer than we are now.”
“Shoe prints. Aye, I see. All right. I can’t say I recognize her.”
“She’s not from around here.” Eve dug for patience. “She’s city. Multiple tats and piercings, neon polish, fingers and toes. Look at the shoe. She didn’t walk in here wearing those. This is a dump site.”
“You’re meaning she wasn’t killed here, but put here, as you said before.”
“There’s no sign of struggle here. No bruising on her wrists or ankles, so she wasn’t restrained. Somebody punches you in the face a few times, chokes you to death, you generally put up a fight. You need to record her, call in your ME, forensics. You need to ID her and determine time of death. The animals haven’t been at her, so she can’t have been here very long.”
He nodded, kept nodding, then pulled an ID pad out of his pocket. “I’ve got this, but I’ve never used it.”
Eve walked him through it.
“She’s Holly Curlow. Lives in—lived in—Limerick.”
Eve tipped her head to read the data. Twenty-two, single, bar waitress, a couple of illegals pops. Next of kin, mother from someplace called Newmarket-on-Fergus.
Where did they get these names?
“I’ll, ah, need to get the other equipment—and I’ll contact the sergeant. Would you mind staying, to secure the scene? To keep it that way, I’m meaning. This is a bleeding mess, and I want to do right by her.”
“I’ll wait. You’re doing okay.”
“Thanks for that. I’ll be back quick as I can.”
She turned to Sean. “We’ve got her now, okay? I’ll stay with her, but you need to go back. You and Brian need to go back, take the dogs. Leave this to me now.”
“She has a name. She’s Holly. I’ll remember it.”
“You stood up, Sean. You stood up for her. That’s the first thing a cop has to do.”
With a ghost of a smile, he turned to the dogs. “Let’s go, lads.”
“I’ll look after him.” Brian laid a hand on Sean’s shoulder and walked with him.
Eve turned, looked at Roarke. “There are always bad guys.”
“It’s a hard lesson to learn that young.”
“It’s hard anytime.”
She took Roarke’s hand and stood over the dead, as she had countless times before.
3
A GREEN COP, A DEAD BODY, AND NO LEGITIMATE authority added up to frustration. Leary tried, she gave him that, but he was struggling to navigate through what was for him completely uncharted territory.
When he confided to Eve that the only dead person he’d ever seen was his granny at her wake, she couldn’t decide whether to pat his head or boot his ass.
“They’ll send down a team from Limerick,” he told her, shifting from foot to foot as the doctor who served as the ME examined the body. “And my sergeant will come back if he’s needed, but for now I’m supposed to . . . proceed.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe you could help me. Just give me a pointer or two.”
Eve continued to study the body. She didn’t need the ME to give her cause of death, not from the pattern of bruising around the throat. Manual strangulation, she thought, and her instincts pointed her toward violent argument, crime of the moment, desperate cover-up.
Too soon, not enough data.
“Get the ME’s opinion on cause of death, time of death.”
The ME, who with his lion’s mane of snowy hair and eyes she thought would have been described as merry under other circumstances, glanced up.
“She was throttled, good and proper. Beaten a bit about the face first, then . . .” He demonstrated by lifting his hands, curling his fingers in a choke hold. “She’s some skin and blood under her nails, so I’d say she got a piece of him before she went down. And she died just after two this morning, rest her soul. Not here,” he added. “Not from the way the blood settled. I’ll take her in, of course, when you’re ready for that, and do the rest of it.”
“Ask him if he’s calling it homicide.”
“Sure and it’s murder, no question there. Someone brought her here after, miss, and left her.”
“Lieutenant,” Eve said automatically.
“Um, if she scraped the skin off him, it’d show, wouldn’t it?” Leary asked. “Seems she’d go for his face or his hands, wouldn’t she? So he’d have marks on him that show.”
He’s thinking now, Eve decided. Trying to see it.
“And wouldn’t bringing her here this way, without even trying to bury her, mean it was all done paniclike?”
“Well, I’m not a detective, Jimmy, but that seems logical enough. Would you say, Lieutenant?”
“Even a shallow grave would’ve bought him time, and the ground’s soft so it wouldn’t have taken that much effort. She’s listed a Limerick address, but that’s miles from here according to my data. Panic and stupidity probably merged on this, but not enough for me to buy the killer drove a dead woman all this way.”
“So . . .” Leary’s brow creased. “They were nearby when he killed her.”
“I’d say the probability’s high. You should run that. She’s dressed for a party or a fancy night out. So you try to run down where she might’ve gone, with whom. You show her ID picture around, check to see if anyone knows her or saw her. And when you notify next of kin, you ask about boyfriends.”
“Notify . . .” He didn’t turn green this time around but sheet white. “I’m to do that? To tell her mother?”
“You’re currently primary of this investigation. They’ll run the skin and blood under her nails, and with any luck you’ll get an ID through the DNA bank.”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “Look, whoever did this isn’t very bright, and it’s botched so badly it was probably a first kill. Your ME’s going to check for sexual assault, but she’s fully dressed, underwear’s in place, so it’s not saying rape to me. It’s going to be a boyfriend or somebody who wanted to be, somebody who used to be. You have the data—where she worked, lived, went to school. You run it down. Either she or the killer had some sort of a connection with the area.”
“Tulla?”
“That or the surrounding area, one of the towns within, most likely, an hour’s drive. Run the probabilities, connect the data, use the data. You’ve probably got your killer with what’s under her nails, but until you have an ID, and a suspect to bring in to interview, you work the case.”
“Well, her mother lives in Newmarket-on-Fergus, that’s not far at all.”
&
nbsp; “Start there,” Eve advised.
“Go to her mother and tell her . . .” Leary glanced at the body again. “You’ve done that before.”
“Yeah.”
“Can you tell me how, the best way?”
“Quick. Take a grief counselor, or,” she said, remembering where she was, “maybe a priest. Maybe the mother has a priest you could take with you. Then you say it, get it done, because when she sees a cop and a priest, she knows it’s bad news. You identify yourself—rank, name, division, or whatever it is around here. You’re sorry to inform her that her daughter, Holly Curlow, has been murdered.”
Leary looked at the body again, shook his head. “Just like that?”
“There’s no good way. Get her to tell you all she can, and tell her as little as you can. When did she last see or speak to Holly, did she have a boyfriend, who did she hang with, what did she do. You have to have a feel for it, you have to guide her through it.”
“Christ save us,” he murmured.
“Use the priest or the counselor, offer to contact someone to come be with her. She’ll likely ask you how, and you tell her that’s being determined. She’ll ask why, and you tell her you and the investigative team will do everything possible to find out, and to identify the person who hurt her. That’s the only comfort you can give, and your job is to get information.”
“I wonder if I could ask if you—”
“I can’t go with you,” she said, anticipating him. “I can get away with what I’m doing here because I’m a wit who also happens to be a cop. It makes me, unofficially maybe, an expert consultant. But I can’t investigate or interview or notify next of kin. It’s over the line.”
She stuck her hands in her pockets. “Look, you can contact me after you get some of this done, some of it lined up. Maybe I can give you some angles if you need them. It’s all I can do.”
“It’s been a great deal already.”
“You’ve got my contact information. I’m due to leave for Italy tomorrow.”
“Oh.” He looked pained.
“You get an ID from what’s under her nails, Leary, and you’ll have a suspect before nightfall. I’ve got to get back.” She took one last look at the dead. “You’ll do all right by her.”
“I hope I do. Thank you.”
She started back to the park, a little uneasy about walking through that green wood—not of killers or maniacs, but of fauna and the stupid faeries she didn’t even believe in.
So she pulled out her ’link to contact Roarke. She’d asked him to go on back rather than wait.
“There you are,” he said when his face came on-screen.
“I’m heading back. I can’t do any more here.”
“Difficult.”
“On a lot of levels. The local’s okay. Not much confidence but a decent brain. She has trace under her nails, blood and skin. If he’s in the bank, they’ll ID him quick enough. Leary’s got to notify the mother, and with any luck she’ll give him a name or two. It has the smell of a slam-dunk to me—impulse, stupidity, panic. The killer may try to run, but they’ll get him. He’s as green at this as Leary is.”
She scanned the area as she walked, just in case something four-legged and furry made an appearance. “Got some cops coming down from where she was living. I expect they’ll knock on some doors first, get a sense of her.”
“What’s your sense?”
“Young, maybe a little wild, more tats showed up when the ME started his exam. More piercings. Sexy panties, but they were still on her so I’m doubting sexual assault. But I’m betting the murder had its roots there. She left with the wrong guy, or she flirted with somebody, and the guy she was with didn’t like it. Argue, slap, scratch, punch, passion and fury, he chokes her out of that fury or to shut her the hell up—and kills her before he pulls it together again. Panic. This can’t be happening to me. Self-preservation. Get rid of her, get away from her. Go home and hide.”
“Did you run probabilities?”
“Maybe.” She smiled just a little. “To pass the time. I guess this kind of screwed up the day.”
“It certainly did for Holly Curlow.”
“You’ve got that right. If you come pick me up, we can go back and do whatever it is we’re supposed to do with the rest of it.”
“Happy to.”
When she stepped out of the woods seconds later—with only the slightest shudder of relief—she saw him. He sat on the lip of the fountain, looking toward her.
“You made pretty good time,” she said into her ’link.
“No reason to dawdle.”
“What’s a dawdle exactly? Is it more than a pause, less than procrastination?”
Now he smiled. “Somewhere in that vicinity.”
She shut off the ’link, slipped it into her pocket as she approached. “People should be able to dawdle when they’re on vacation.”
“So they should.” He took her hand, drew her down to sit beside him. “This is a fine spot for dawdling.”
“It didn’t spoil it?”
“No.” He draped an arm over her shoulders, pressed a kiss to her temple. “Who knows better than we that death happens even in good places? You wish you could finish it for her.”
“I can’t. She’s Leary’s. Technically,” she added when he kissed her again.
“Then know that she was lucky you were here. And that if it doesn’t go as you think it will, we can easily spend a few more days in Clare.”
Part of her wanted to agree, to hold him to the offer. But the rest, what had evolved between them, had her shaking her head. “No. This isn’t my case, and this is our time. Let’s go back to the farm. I think I could use a pint.”
Leary contacted her three times, with information and for advice. She tried to be discreet about it, easing her way out of the room to take the transmission. And she kept the updates to herself even though the family—including Sean, who’d wheedled his way into an overnight—stared at her on her return.
By moonrise, he was on the doorstep.
“Good evening to you, Mrs. Lannigan. Sorry to disturb you, but I wonder if I could just have a word with the lieutenant.”
“Come in, Jimmy. How’s your ma doing then?”
“She’s well, thanks.”
“How about a cup of tea?”
“Sure I could use one.”
“Come on back to the kitchen.” Without looking around, she pointed a finger at Sean when he got to his feet. “Sit where you are, lad.”
“But, Gran, I—”
“And not a word out of you. Eve, why don’t you come on back? You and Jimmy can have a cup and talk in private.”
Removing his uniform hat, Jimmy stepped in, looked around. “How’s it all going then?”
“Well enough,” Aidan Brody told him. “You’ve had a hard day, lad. Go have your tea.”
Sinead fussed a little, setting out the tea, adding a plate of the cookies they called—for reasons that eluded Eve—biscuits. She gave Leary a motherly pat on the shoulder.
“Take all the time you need. I’ll keep that lot out of your way.”
“Thanks for that.” Leary added sugar and milk to his tea, then with eyes closed took a long sip. “Missed my supper,” he told Eve and grabbed a cookie.
He looked tired, and considerably less green—in complexion and experience—than he had that afternoon. “Murder usually trumps food.”
“I know that now, that’s for certain. We have him.” He let out a little breath, almost a surprised laugh. “We have the one who killed Holly Curlow. I wanted to tell you in person.”
“Boyfriend?”
He nodded. “Or one who thought he ought to be the one and only for her, and who she’d decided to shake off. They’d been at a party in Ennis last night, got into a bit of a spat. They’d come, it seems, as a kind of reunion for her with some mates from that neck. They’d—Kevin Donahue is his name—been seeing each other for a few months with him more serious about the thing than she. I went
up to Limerick myself when we got the DNA, and they’d picked him up. She’s scored both his cheeks like a cat would, and good for her, I say about that.”
He took another sip of tea. “It just tumbled down from there, you could say. They had me sit in on the interview, but it was quick. Three minutes in and he’s bawling like a baby and telling all.”
He sighed now, and Eve said nothing, asked no questions, let him gather it up in his head.
“They’d fought again in the car,” Leary went on, “and she’d told him she was good and done and to take her on to her ma’s, or just let her out. They’d been drinking, the both of them, and probably that added to the temper of it. He said he pulled over, and they shouted at each other more. It got physical. Him slapping, her scratching, then he said he just snapped. Hit her with his fists, and she kicked and hit and screamed. He claims he doesn’t remember putting his hands around her throat, and it might be the truth. But he came back to himself, and she was dead.”
Leary shook his head at the waste of it, scooted up a bit to hunch over his tea. “He told how he tried to bring her back somehow, how he just drove around a bit, trying to make it all not so. Then he pulled off at the wood, you see, carried her in—her other shoe was still in his car when they picked him up. He says he said a prayer over her and left her.
“He’s very sorry for it,” Leary added, with a hard bitterness in the tone that told Eve he’d lost a lot of his innocence that day. “He said, more than once, as if that would make it all right and tight again. He was very sorry for choking the life out of the girl because she didn’t want him. Bloody gobshite.”
He flushed a little. “Beg your pardon.”
“I’d say that’s a pretty good description.” Gobshite, she thought. She had to remember that one. “You did good work.”
“If I did, it was because you told me how.” His gaze lifted to hers. “The worst of it all was standing on her mother’s doorstep, saying what you’d told me to say. Watching that woman break apart that way. Knowing, even though it wasn’t you who’d done what was done, you brought that pain to her.”
“Now you’ve given her and her daughter justice. You did the job, and that’s all you can do.”