Endgame: CSI Reilly Steel #7

by Casey Hill

  When she had first been officially confirmed pregnant by her GP, the doc had told her she could keep running throughout her pregnancy. What the woman hadn’t predicted however, was that Reilly was expecting to keep up her morning runs right until the baby actually made an appearance - and with luck, pretty soon thereafter.

  But at a recent appointment when Reilly was complaining of shin splints, the doc suggested that she partake in yoga, instead. So now every morning before work, she grabbed her stretchy pants and marched to the yoga studio, much to the enjoyment of the other women in the class.

  If middle-aged women had a tendency to fawn and coo at babies, the only other thing that even matched that level of strange dedication, was a middle-aged women’s reaction to a pregnant one.

  They doted on Reilly and asked her all sorts of odd questions about what she was eating and where/how she planned to have the birth, all the while congratulating her on keeping her figure while at the same time carrying a hefty bump. This special treatment even extended to some of the poses; Reilly struggled to remain zen when the rather hippy dippy instructor called Tina continually singled her out in an irritating way.

  ‘Maybe Momma and babs should skip this pose,’ and ‘If Momma and babs want to lie on the back rather than the stomach…’

  Reilly knew the woman was just being kind by adapting the routine to suit pregnancy, but the constant reminder of her burgeoning size grated like hell.

  Not all of the women in the class were so supportive however, and Reilly was pretty sure some of them had a betting pool on how long she would go before quitting. She hoped at least one of them had bet right until the end, because they would be winning a lot of money. She planned to go to the class while actually in labour if she could.

  AFTER HER YOGA CLASS, she was the first one to arrive at the GFU lab. She immediately began processing evidence collected from the crime scene and the assault victim the day before, and as she prepared swabs and trace for analysis, dozens of questions kept racing through her mind.

  Were the murder and attempted sexual assault connected? Was there something Holly Glynn wasn’t telling them? And what about Graham’s brother, Simon? Chris seemed certain the older Hackett kid knew a lot more about what had happened than he was willing to reveal.

  Now was the time to start connecting some of the puzzle pieces.

  She was hard at work when Lucy and Gary strolled in, laughing happily together. Reilly turned a wary eye on them as they approached their workstations and the two lovebirds, having not expected anyone else to be in the lab before them, stopped their giggling immediately.

  They’d recently started a relationship and while they were usually very good about not letting this affect their professionalism, the knowledge of it tugged at the part of Reilly’s brain that was willing to at least partially admit to her loneliness.

  She continued working, extracting the nail scrapings taken from Holly Glynn as well as any remaining trace from the girl’s shower-soaked clothes to prepare for comparison with any evidence taken from the Hackett crime scene.

  A few hours later she stretched, deciding it was time for a pick me up. Before making her way downstairs to the vending machines, she stopped by Lucy’s work station. “How are we doing?”

  “Well, obviously lots to get through considering how many people were in that house - it’s a mess of treads, fingerprints and whatnot,” the younger girl said. “Nothing yielding much so far. Most of the blood in the bedroom came from the victim obviously, but I think I’ve also isolated some skin tissue from the room which Julius thinks might be useful for epithelial DNA. We can only hope it belongs to his attacker.”

  “Sounds promising…”

  “I’ve also since cleaned up the iPad and send it down to Tech,” Gary told her. “Not a lot to go on from that trace-wise, but quite a bit found on our victim. The usual hair and skin, as well as some interesting chemical components that require further analysis.” He shrugged. “But early days, you know yourself.”

  Reilly nodded, satisfied as much as she could be with their progress thus far.

  After that, she made her way to Julius’s work station. The older tech looked up at her as she approached, already knowing what she was going to ask.

  “Yep Lucy’s right, I’ve extracted some epithelial DNA from organic tissue found in the victim’s bedroom. What’s interesting is I’ve also matched some of that with the female assault victim, taken from what you brought back yesterday,” he added, confusing Reilly.

  “What’s the source?”

  According to Holly Glynn, there had been no sexual contact between her and Graham on the night of the party, but of course that didn’t mean there was no contact at all. Holly and Graham were friends, and had even been a couple at one point, so she may well have been Graham’s room that night, or sometime before.

  “Just skin tissue, nothing sinister,” he said, quieting her concerns somewhat.

  But was Holly’s presence in the bedroom significant in any way? And had she lied about her interactions with Graham on the night of his murder, or lack thereof? Reilly didn't think so, but who knew with teenagers - scared ones especially?

  “Anything else?” she asked Julius then.

  “Eliminated most of the surface prints in the bedroom as the victim’s as expected, but there are dozens of unidentified partials in there too - including the older brother’s. Would be good to get those comparatives for all family members when we can - the parents especially.”

  Reilly nodded - she knew the detectives would aim for prints from the parents as soon once they had the opportunity to see them upon their return from Spain.

  She grabbed a coffee and a muffin from the vending machines, and then headed over to the GFU’s newly created Cyber Unit, which sounded snazzy, but was basically just Rory and a bunch of computers. It was also typically where they set up the iSPI virtual crime scene simulations.

  The computer whizz looked right at home. “You got the iPad from the Hackett house?” Reilly asked him.

  He rolled his chair out from his desk, can of Red Bull in hand, took a sip and nodded toward his work station. “Just came down this morning. I’m running a diagnostic on it now.”

  “If you can, try get a solid handle on the social media and electronic correspondence for the kids at that party. Would be good to set up some kind of timeline for the night so we can narrow a few things down. As well as figure out who knows who and how.”

  “You got it, boss,” Rory saluted her as she turned to leave.

  10

  A couple of hours later, she was on her way back to her office when Kennedy and Chris intercepted her.

  “Good timing,” she groaned with heavy irony. “I was just headed out for lunch.”

  “Could do with a bite ourselves anyway,” Chris shrugged. He looked washed out in the florescent lights of the GFU offices, his skin pale.

  Another area in which Todd Forrest and Chris Delaney were almost directly opposite, Reilly thought. So rarely exposed to the sun, Chris shared the same pasty color she herself sported now, while Todd was lucky enough to be exposed to the sun all year round in Florida, so his skin held a permanent golden hue.

  She sighed wistfully then, thinking of white sand and palm-fringed beaches.

  Chris looked speculatively at her. “You do sound hungry. Let’s head out and we can catch up over a bite.”

  They glanced at Kennedy, who was just then desperately trying to wrench his ringing phone out of his pocket. When the older man caught her and Chris looking at him, he waved them away.

  “Go on ahead without me,” the big man said, still trying to wiggle his phone free from its tight hold in his pocket, “I’ll catch up.”

  The two made their way downstairs and out of the GFU building to one of their regular haunts down the street - a gastropub that was usually heaving with workers from the surrounding businesses in the industrial estate.

  Inside, several people were gathered for lunch and some ea
rly-bird drinkers had already taken up posts at the bar as Chris and Reilly slid into opposite facing seats in a booth.

  They were silent as they viewed the menu – even though they knew the offerings almost by heart. Kennedy could get his fill of greasy, fried food, while Chris and Reilly could order salads or wraps without feeling too guilty about it.

  But today, Reilly did not order her usual.

  “A burger and a milkshake?” Chris queried, genuinely surprised at this out of the blue request. In all the years he had known her, he couldn’t say that he had ever seen her order junk food.

  She shrugged and shook around the ice in a glass of water while they waited for Kennedy. “It sounded good,” she shrugged. She wanted to add that a lot of things in her life just now didn’t sound so good, so one freakin’ burger couldn’t be that bad.

  Milkshakes reminded Reilly of childhood hot summer nights in California with her sister Jess. They would haul out their blender and drop vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup in until they both had freezing shakes to take the edge off of the summer heat. Of course, they would leave the mess out on the counter for their mum to clean up the next morning.

  Happier times …

  Yup, a milkshake sounded good.

  Chris nodded once, unsure how to continue the conversation. Even after brushing away all of the bias and obvious assumptions about how this pregnancy wouldn't affect her, he was left with the resounding knowledge that she had changed - a lot.

  Though chances were Reilly’s current behaviour wasn’t due just to her pregnancy, but also the ever-growing discomfort between them. No matter how often they tried to talk about the personal boundary they’d overstepped a few months back, or overcome the gulf that remained as a result, they still couldn't quite manage to get truly back to normal.

  The two sat in silence for a moment, both searching for something to say, until the food came.

  Reilly’s resistance to chat fell away as the waitress slid a towering burger surrounded by deliciously thick fries under her nose, then a cool milkshake just in front of the plate.

  Chris munched on his salad in silence, almost wishing he had followed her lead and indulged a little. When they had cleared the bulk of their food, he brought up the one thing that always got Reilly talking.

  “So any preliminary results from the Hackett scene yet?”

  Reilly shook her head, her mouth full of fries. She waited a moment, then said, “Too much to sift through before anything jumps out, though we did a lot of the prep work yesterday afternoon, and Gary is isolating potentially helpful trace from the bedroom. The rest of the house is a mess though; so many people at that party.” She paused for a moment to take a drink of her milkshake and offered Chris a fry, which he took willingly. “Any handle on a suspect so far?”

  He finished his salad and began wiping his hands off in the meticulous way he did, one finger at a time with extreme detail-orientation. He really would make a good criminal, she thought idly.

  “Talked to the neighbors who previously reported noise disturbance from some of the get-togethers the Hackett brothers had been throwing when their folks are away.” He shrugged. “Potentially grounds for motive: annoying kids play their music far too loud too often and the long-suffering neighbour gets a little too worked-up, marches over to the house, they argue and he grabs the nearest weapon. Then, when we get the call for the Holly Glynn thing, you’d have to assume the obvious, but having spoken to the father and based on what you got from the girl, I’m thinking sheer coincidence.”

  “You don’t think that maybe the father rushed over to the Hackett house to defend his little girl’s honour?” That was certainly Reilly’s first thought, though they had yet to assess whether the timelines added up.

  Chris nodded. “It’s the obvious one, but it’s too easy. For one thing, I don't think the father - a solicitor remember - would’ve been that keen to have the authorities involved so quickly in what was an attempted - rather than all-out assault.” He shook his head. “Nah, I’m not feeling the revenge thing, Reilly. In any case, the girl seems adamant that it was a stranger who pounced on her and why would she lie?

  Why indeed? Reilly thought. But as always, there was still a hell of a lot about this picture that they weren't seeing. Hopefully that would change soon.

  “Have you talked to the parents yet?”

  “They flew home from Spain late last night and are holed up in a hotel somewhere while the house is still off limits. Heading there today once we get the details.”

  “Could be a while yet before we release the crime scene,” Reilly told him. “We’re only getting started.”

  With that, Kennedy arrived, took one look at Reilly’s burger and promptly ordered the same - minus the milkshake.

  “That was O’Brien on the phone,” he told Chris, referring to their immediate superior. “He says Michael Glynn is throwing shapes already, trying to make sure we don’t prioritize the Hackett thing over his little princess.”

  “I hope the Chief reminded him that unlike the Hacketts he still has his little princess,” Chris said, unimpressed. But he supposed he shouldn't be too surprised - parents only wanted the best for their kids, and Holly Glynn’s father obviously wanted to ensure no stone remained unturned in finding his daughter’s attacker.

  “So, besides a ginormous feck-off burger,” his partner said, licking his lips and stealing one of Reilly’s fries. “What have I missed?”

  Chris and Reilly got him up to speed on what they’d discussed so far.

  “Tech’s working on the retrieved iPad, focusing on the victim’s social media posts, photos etc to help pin down a timeline on the night, as well as a list of those in attendance.” Reilly popped another fry into her mouth “I’m hopeful that will throw something up. Luckily for us, kids these days actually do leave a virtual breadcrumb trail. I’ll have Rory email you anything of interest - particularly in relation to key witnesses, and we’ll obviously keep you guys updated on any lab findings if and when they turn up. Autopsy’s happening Monday, Karen says, and she’s ordered toxicology reports based on the pills found in the kid’s room.”

  “Ah yes, one of the victim’s friends has already confirmed our boy’s impressive physique was bought and paid for,’ Kennedy told her and when Reilly looked blankly at him, Chris translated further.

  “Seems Graham Hackett was using steroids to help his game. You saw the room; the guy’s an out and out sports freak. Seems he wasn't the only one on the team using either.”

  “Well, that’s interesting,” she mused, kicking herself for not immediately recognizing the pills as illegal medication. Hence the foreign language instructions. “So we could be talking a deal gone bad, or maybe an unpaid debt; something like that?”

  With drugs involved, all bets were off.

  But she felt a bit sad that the dead boy had already gone down that road at such a young age. Kids experimented, certainly, but it sounded like Graham Hackett was doing more than that if he was actively seeking out performance enhancing drugs to boost his physique and thus his game performance.

  “Who knows?” Kennedy said wiping his mouth, as he read a text message on his phone. “In the meantime, we’d better love ya and leave ya Blondie - just got word about the Hackett’s location.” He nodded at Chris. “Time to talk to Mum and Dad.”

  11

  Chris looked at their surroundings as he and Kennedy entered the lobby of the hotel in which the Hackett family were staying while their house remained cordoned off as a crime scene.

  Fountains sparkled and real plants grew from every turn of the room. A large chandelier hung over the center of the reception area, the natural glow from the skylight shining through each crystal.

  They approached the desk, where an older, smiling attendant was speaking with a hotel guest. Other people bustled through the lobby, dressed up in business clothes or elegant and expensive outfits – the cost of which Chris didn’t even want to hazard a guess at.

 
“We’re here to see Mr and Mrs Hackett,” he announced, approaching the counter and offering his credentials. “They’re expecting us.”

  “Ah, yes, good morning, detectives,” the man said, typing something into his computer. “They are in suite 3B.”

  Kennedy shook his head as he and Chris moved to the elevators – where inside a concierge pressed the button for them. “You’d think being well off meant you couldn’t do anything for yourself,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Well, if you’ve got enough money to pay someone to push your buttons, why shouldn’t you?”

  When they reached the Hackett’s hotel room, they were answered by Jim Hackett, Graham’s father, and his wife Tara. The man appeared to be in the state anyone would expect from a father who had just lost his son in such a violent and unexpected way.

  Despite the extravagance of the hotel, Jim looked the worse for wear. His clothes – a grey shirt and checked pajama pants – were rumpled and worn. His chin and cheeks were speckled with a salt and pepper beard that hadn’t been shaved in days, and his eyes were baggy and red-rimmed.

  “Detectives,” he said, his voice tired and rough, “come in.”

  Tara Hackett seemed to be doing mildly better than her husband, as she had managed to get dressed for the day, but her advancement stopped at the jeans and blouse she sported. Her hair was at a point just before being wild, and her face lacked even a dash of mascara or lip-gloss. Her eyes matched and surpassed the redness of her husband's, and both detectives knew that she had been crying, perhaps non-stop since learning of her youngest son’s demise.

  “Our sincerest condolences for your loss,” Chris began, knowing the words passed right by the bereaved parents. He glanced around, but didn’t see anything to alert them to the presence of Simon.

  The hotel suite was just as elaborate as the lobby had been. The carpets were plush and immaculate, the adjoining bedroom looked bigger than Chris’s own apartment, and he could see the corner of a claw-footed bath from where he was standing in the sitting area. He hadn’t ever been in a hotel room that had its own sitting area. This was a place where people usually came to luxuriate and treat themselves, but the bereaved parents in front of him were immune to the niceties.