by Ingrid Black
“Have you come to any other conclusions?” I asked.
“Tell me what you think first.”
“Me? I don’t know what to think. Everything seems so...” - I searched for the word – “unremarkable. You’d never guess anything out of the ordinary had happened here.”
“You’ve hit the nail on the head. Unless I’m missing something blindingly obvious,” Fisher said.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“You keep your sarcastic putdowns to yourself, Special Agent. All I mean is that this looks like one of the rare cases when what you see really might be all there is to see.”
“That’s significant in itself, surely?”
“It’s the most significant aspect of the whole business. No one blundered in here unexpectedly and murdered this poor woman. You only have to look at the crime scene to know whoever did this felt comfortable here. At home even. He wasn’t rushed or stressed.”
“So you’re saying it wasn’t one of her casual pick-ups?”
“I’m not saying it couldn’t be, but I don’t think she would’ve brought someone she met through the S&M scene back here for sex. The environment is just too sexless and anonymous to match their requirements. I’m assuming she went elsewhere for that. To clubs, or to the men’s own houses. Besides, would a casual pick-up have felt so comfortable here?”
“More of a regular boyfriend then?”
“A boyfriend? Yes, that might work. But the truth is we don’t know who felt comfortable here. There could have been men in and out of Marsha’s house all the time that we don’t know about, men who could have become familiar with the layout of the place. They could fit the bill as easily. Till we know who they are, we can’t rule anything out.”
“It definitely wasn’t a random attack, though?”
“No way.” Fisher shook his head firmly.
“You mean this was an organised scene?”
“Organised is too simple a description. It’s more complex than that.”
I knew what Fisher meant. Amateur profilers made much of the differences between organised and disorganised crime scenes and what they meant, but nothing was ever that straightforward. It was one of the things I’d explained in my lectures to my students, the difference between a fictional crime scene where the evidence and nature of the attack were signposted, and an actual crime scene where things were less absolute.
Not that the classifications were worthless.
Everyone had to start somewhere.
It was all a question of trying to determine how motive affected a crime scene. Basically in an organised crime scene the crime scene reflected the control which the killer brought to the place of the killing. The scene shows planning, premeditation. There would be an effort to avoid detection. The killer is aware of what he’s doing and does all he can to avoid leaving incriminating evidence behind. Disorganised crime scenes, by contrast, show clear signs of spontaneous action and frenzied assaults. Victims are selected at random. Weapons might be chosen the same way. The attack will be hurried, the crime scene disarrayed.
At least, that’s what the text books say.
In that sense, Marsha Reed’s house fitted the classic organised scene, especially when it came to the use of restraints. Organised killers need to control their victims. They need to minimise resistance. On the other hand, organised killers usually picked targetted strangers as their victims, and if Fisher was right then Marsha was no stranger to her killer.
They also usually took the body away, or made some effort to conceal it. That accorded with the desire to escape detection. The most inexperienced killer would know that the longer a body is kept away from the police, the better his own chances of getting away with the crime.
Here, no attempt was made to hide the body at all. In fact, it was openly displayed, making discovery inevitable. Covering it with a sheet certainly hadn’t been a serious attempt at concealment. The significance of that act lay elsewhere. The body hadn’t even been moved after death, though could simply have been a consequence of necessity. The killer would have found it difficult to shift a body from Marsha’s house down the laneway and into the street without being seen.
Alternatively, it could be a sign of his confidence again. He didn’t care whether the body was found, because he didn’t expect the police to be able to catch him whatever he did.
Another difference was that Marsha’s killer must have lingered on the scene for some time after committing the murder, hence the dried blood on the sheet. Equally, that could point to the killer having returned subsequently to the scene of crime, which in itself was recognised as a reason why a crime scene showed signs of organised and disorganised behaviour simultaneously. But why would he have taken the risk or returning? Because he’d left incriminating evidence behind? Or because the need to take some trophy overrode any sense of caution?
Another commonly cited reason for finding conflicting evidence at a crime scene was because there were two killers. Could that have been the explanation in this case?
“Or it could be,” I said slowly, groping my way through the possibilities, “that this whole scene has been staged to throw investigators off the scene.”
“Now you’re getting somewhere,” Fisher said with a smile.
I realised that he’d been gently leading me to this point the whole time.
“You’re saying you think the scene was staged?”
“I think there is no doubt that this scene was staged,” said Fisher. “The place was arranged to make some point, to tell some story. The question is, what story?”
“To know that, you’d have to know first what it looked like before.”
“Now that forensics have finished up, Grace planned on getting some of Marsha’s friends in here individually to take a look around. We certainly don’t want them coming by in a crowd and confusing one another. If anything has been moved around and changed by the killer in an attempt to convey some message, they’re the ones most likely to spot it.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“The only problem,” Fisher replied, “is that her friends don’t seem to have come round here much. She seemed to socialise with them mainly in town, or at their houses.”
“The solitary type.”
“In that respect, she was. In others, obviously she was a little less shy. But any friends from her secret life who did come here aren’t exactly going to be rushing round to help the police make an inventory of the fixtures and fittings. Of course,” he added, “I could be wrong about her knowing her killer at all. Maybe he’s just the type who feels confident enough to move in spaces that are foreign to him as easily as he moves in his own house.”
“Then that makes him all the more dangerous,” I said.
“I don’t think we need any further proof that the man we’re looking for is a dangerous individual,” commented Fisher bleakly. “We have his handiwork as evidence.”
Chapter Nineteen
Fitzgerald was standing on the gravel drive in front of the church, talking to Seamus Dalton, when we finally stepped outside.
It was Dalton who noticed me first - and if I could’ve anticipated the mingled look of confusion and loathing on his face at the sight of me, it would have single-handedly dispelled any doubts I had about accepting Stella Carson’s offer. He couldn’t have been more taken aback if Marsha Reed herself had come out of the church, making a noise in response somewhere between a wordless moan and a profanity.
The noise alerted Fitzgerald to the fact something was wrong with Dalton, and she followed his gaze until her eyes met mine. She hid her own surprise well, but I could tell she was pleased. That was harder to hide. A smile was flickering on the edges of her mouth.
“There you are, Saxon,” she said. “No need for any introductions in present company, at any rate. You both know each other. I did mention Saxon would be joining us for a time, didn’t I, Dalton? The new Commissioner has invited her to offer her expertise on the investi
gation.”
Dalton didn’t answer.
Most likely, he didn’t trust himself to answer civilly. I doubt I would’ve been able to either if the roles were reversed. I tried not to enjoy his discomfort too evidently.
“Detective Dalton’s just brought round Marsha’s phone records,” Fitzgerald went on, pretending not to notice the strained atmosphere which had descended on proceedings.
“I didn’t realise you were here,” I said.
“Only arrived a moment ago. I spent the morning with Desdemona.”
“Desdemona?”
“Solomon’s girlfriend. She’s playing the main female lead in his latest production.”
“Desdemona’s the name of the character,” Fisher whispered to me helpfully.
“Right. I did wonder. What’s her real name?”
“Ellen Forwood. Seems Solomon was either telling the truth, or they’re both lying. She says he was with her from after the play ended on Friday night until the next morning.”
“So he couldn’t have sneaked over here and killed Marsha?”
“Not unless he has a body double,” muttered Dalton.
No chance of Dalton ever getting a body double, that’s for sure. Where would they ever find that much excess fat to replicate his waistline?
“Did his fiancé know about Solomon’s relationship with Marsha?” asked Fisher.
“Not until this morning, when he confessed all – and not, I hasten to add, out of the goodness of his heart. The press got wind of his relationship with Marsha Reed.”
“And?”
“She says she’s forgiven him. That everyone makes mistakes. According to her, they were planning on an autumn wedding before all this blew up, and nothing has changed.”
“If marriage was in the offing, that would’ve made it all the more inconvenient,” I said, “if Marsha Reed decided to make life difficult for Victor Solomon. It would give him the perfect motive to want rid of her.”
“That still doesn’t explain how he can be in two places at once,” said Fitzgerald.
“True.”
“Plus we’ve been through the records we can find of cars in the area at the time and there’s not a sniff of Solomon’s presence. Not that that’s conclusive proof,” she added.
“Any joy with the phone records?” pressed Fisher.
“Sort of. That’s why I came round to let you take a look at them.”
She handed a bundle of sheets to Fisher.
“The top sheet is a list of the calls she made on the night she died,” said Fitzgerald. “Then they go back in reverse chronological order for six weeks.”
“The highlighted ones?”
“Those are the calls to Solomon,” she explained.
“Did she always call him this often?”
“Quite the contrary. Initially she hardly called him at all. It could be she didn’t need to, because she was seeing enough of him. Or it could be she was more careful at the start to maintain his privacy. She must’ve known about his relationship with Ellen Ward. Then as her own relationship with Solomon started to cool off, the calls increased in frequency.”
“There must be over a dozen each day,” observed Fisher, lifting each sheet in turn.
“And on the last day, more than twenty.”
“Few of them lasting more than a few seconds,” I said, as Fisher handed me the record.
“Solomon says she kept calling and begging him to meet her again. He kept telling her it was over and to stop harassing him. Harassing was his word. By the end, he was just cutting Marsha off every time as soon as he realised it was her on the other end.”
“What about the other numbers?” I said.
“Some of them are probably men she met through the club she belonged to,” said Fitzgerald. “A handful have already come forward to admit they knew her. The others -”
“Are probably married,” I finished for her.
“I shouldn’t wonder. I’ve already put Dalton onto the job of tracing them.”
And boy, did he look delighted with it.
“And this one?”
“That,” Fitzgerald said, “is the last number Marsha Reed ever called.”
The call had lasted only a couple of minutes, but the time recorded meant that it must have taken place less than an hour before the pathologist’s estimate of the time Marsha died.
“Who is it?”
“His name is Todd Fleming. And,” she said to me, “there’s one curious feature I thought might grab you. He used to work as a locksmith. Remember what Niall Boland said about the criminal propensities of errant locksmiths? Here’s someone who wouldn’t have had any trouble getting in and out of Marsha Reed’s house if he wanted to.”
“You say he used to work as a locksmith?”
“That’s right. Currently he’s working the night shift at a 24 hour internet cafe down in Temple Bar.”
“Has his name come up in the investigation thus far or not?”
“Not. It’s the first we’ve heard of him,” said Fitzgerald. “We’re going over there now to have a word with him. Healy’s waiting in the car. You can come with us,” she added to me.
I didn’t need to be asked twice.
I felt Dalton’s eyes burning resentfully into the space between my shoulder blades as Fitzgerald and I walked down the laneway back to the road. He wasn’t going to be pacified by being told my presence was the Assistant Commissioner’s idea. That only gave him additional excuses to mistrust her and me together. Like he didn’t have enough already.
“Damn,” I said.
“What is it?”
“I forgot about my car. I parked it round in Ossory Square earlier.”
“Give me the keys,” said Fitzgerald. “I’ll get one of the drivers to bring it round to Dublin Castle later. If it still has any tyres on it by then, that is. Some of the kids round here can strip a car back to its constituent elements quicker than a school of piranha can strip a shark’s carcass back to the bone. What were you thinking of, leaving a car unattended down here? Not that your Jeep being burned out by joyriders would be any loss, you understand.”
“You leave my Jeep out of this. That car’s like family to me.”
“In your case, that’s not much of a compliment. The last time you saw your mother more than twice in the same calendar year was when you were in high school. And Saxon?” She checked over her shoulder quickly to make sure we were out of earshot. “I’m glad you decided to accept Stella’s invitation,” she said. “Really I am. I think this is what you need.”
“I don’t want to get in your way...”
“You’re not in anyone’s way.”
“Try telling that to Dalton,” I pointed out.
“Dalton’s just going to have to learn to adjust,” Fitzgerald said firmly. “It wouldn’t be before time. Though coming on top of the new Assistant Commissioner being a woman as well, the shock of your arrival might just tip him over the edge.”
“We can only hope.”
“Here,” she said.
We were back in the street.
Healy was parked up on the sidewalk, and was sitting with his head back on the seat and his eyes closed. Fitzgerald rapped on the glass good-naturedly to wake him up.
“Look sharp,” she said. “We’ve got company.”
“I see that,” said Healy as Fitzgerald slid easily into the front seat and I clambered more awkwardly into the back. “It’s good to have you back on board, Special Agent.”
“Don’t give me that Special Agent crap, or I might be tempted to change my mind.”
“You’re the boss.”
“No, I’m the boss,” said Fitzgerald. “She’s not taken the whole place over yet.”
“Only a matter of time,” said Healy. “Only a matter of time.”
**********
It was way too early to find Todd Fleming at work in the cafe. Instead we headed north, up Francis Street, over the river onto Church Street and Church Street Upper. At Cross G
uns Bridge, we turned right into Whitworth Road and from there took another left into the maze of streets that thronged darkly, despite the sunshine, underneath the railway line.
Healy and I waited in the car whilst Fitzgerald strode to the front door of the house at the front of which we’d eventually stopped and turned off the engine.
She was back within moments.
“No luck,” she said. “A neighbour in the flat below says he’s usually out around this time picking up his son from nursery school. He should be back in ten minutes.”
But ten minutes turned into fifteen.
Fifteen into a half hour.
Still there was no sign of him.
“Do you think the neighbour warned him we were here?” suggested Healy.
“So he decides not to come home?” said Fitzgerald. “He might as well just tattoo the word GUILTY onto the front of his forehead. No one is that stupid.”
“Half our arrests happen because people are that stupid,” said Healy.
“Is this him now?” I said.
A man had turned the corner at the end of the road, walking hand in hand with a young child of five or six, a little blond-haired boy in blue shorts, awkwardly carrying a large box underneath his arm with the name of a famous toy store written on the edge.
The man whose hand the boy held was about thirty years old, and he looked, from the rumpled state of his long hair and unshaven cheeks, like he’d only recently got out of bed. Maybe he had. If this was the right man, he had the working hours of an owl. The day would be for sleeping. He was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt bearing the name of some local football team, and in his free hand he carried a half-empty shopping bag. He had piercing eyes, which he trained on us as he neared the place where we waited.
“Todd Fleming?” said Fitzgerald through the open window.
“Who wants to know?”
She got out and showed him her badge.
“Chief Superintendent Fitzgerald,” she said. “I wonder if we could have a word?”
Fleming glanced from her to Healy and me in the car, then back to Fitzgerald.