TRACE - CSI Reilly Steel #5 (Forensic novel Police Procedural Series)

by Casey Hill

  Run with a partner. Safer and much more fun.

  See you at the next run!

  My message to the lovely Constance.

  I have my first session with the running group in two nights’ time. They are bound to be a bunch of amateurs, huffing and puffing their way through a mere 10k, but the boredom is worth it. She will be there and I will see her in the flesh for the first time.

  Usually I would be left feeling bored and lacking after a success such as I had the other night. But finding out about Constance has given things an extra flavor. I now have a goal that supersedes all others. I will not rush this. It’s tempting to kill her as soon as I can, but it needs to be right.

  I will put in all the right preparation.

  Rory, the GFU’s true computer maestro, was back. Gary was good, but not quite at the savant levels as Rory. In only a few hours, he had managed to get them unrestricted access to Jennifer and Naomi’s emails as well as their dating profiles and the private messages therein. He had even dug up a few of Rose Cooper’s old emails.

  ‘He’s a genius,’ said Chris, echoing Reilly’s own thoughts. ‘But with the amount of stuff he’s dug up, we’ll be here all night. I’m going to get some food downstairs. Do you want something?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe a pizza slice? Or salad. Yes, get me a salad, please.’

  He left the room and Reilly continued scanning emails.

  “I just can’t commit right now,” she read in one of Naomi Worthington’s emails to her sister. “I love my job, and it takes up all of my time. I can’t seem to manage that AND a serious relationship.’ Reilly sighed. The similarities between her and these women were a little too glaring sometimes. Married to their jobs basically. Unable to handle emotional intimacy. Here she was, after practically having thrown herself at Chris, and then backing off completely. It was the right thing to do though. Particularly since she just wasn’t sure how she felt about anything at the moment. She kept reading emails. The best thing she could do right now was to keep her mind on the job. Glued to it, in fact.

  “…don’t know what to do,” read another of Naomi’s emails. “A baby was never part of the plan. At least, not for a few years. But I keep thinking, maybe this is meant to happen. Maybe I want it to happen. I’m starting to love this thing despite myself.”

  It was all so sad. Naomi had deserved the chance to see where motherhood took her. It had been snatched away from her cruelly. She was just a woman who like to have a little fun. She like some pleasure in her life. It didn’t mean she was incapable of loving something, or of being a good mother. Reilly could relate to her. Whys should a woman have to go without? Men got to have all of those things: a career, sex, relationships, a family. Why couldn’t she have the same?

  Naomi’s email revealed much the same as Jennifer’s. They were mainly about work and the ones that were personal talked about the dates she was going on, or restaurants she had been to. Like Jennifer, she frequented high end restaurants. Reilly noted that she had been to Hammer and Tongs at least twice.

  Rose Cooper’s emails were a different story. Mainly pleading messages from her mother, begging her to go home. “You sound so unhappy,” one read. “I just wish you would come home.” If only Rose had listened to her mother, things might be completely different.

  Then she saw something that made her heart beat a little faster. An email from Harry McMurty. “I’ve got a little treat for you…not the kind of treat you can put up your nose. Something almost as good though. I know a guy from a big restaurant and he said he could interview you. Wants your number. I gave it to him but thought I should let you know.” Someone must have written it for him, it was far too legible. But this could be the thing they needed. It was too bad he didn’t use any names, but they would definitely need to pay Nico Peroni another visit. So what if he said he met Harry McMurty only after Rose’s death? People lie.

  ‘Anything interesting?’ Chris asked when he came back. He slid a plate of salad and a slice of pepperoni pizza across the table to her.

  ‘A couple of things. Another possible link to Nico Peroni. We’ve been slack. We have to get him in for questioning.’

  ‘We don’t have much to hold him on,’ said Chris. ‘But we’ll get him in. If you think it’s something.’

  ‘Apart from that,’ said Reilly. ‘It’s mainly just really sad. These women just trying to make sense of their lives – ‘ she picked up the pizza and the spicy scent of the meat overwhelmed her. There was no escaping, it she was going to be sick. She flew from the room, with Chris right behind her. She reached the toilet just as she was ill. He stood in the doorway to the bathroom while she was in the stall to give her a little privacy.

  ‘This goddamn stomach bug,’ said Reilly. ‘It’s maddening.’

  She saw Chris’s serious face in the mirror as she washed her face.

  ‘Reilly,’ he said gently. ‘Maybe you don’t have a stomach bug. All this tiredness, high emotion, nausea. You’re the one who’s usually first to put all the pieces of a puzzle together.’

  When she said nothing, just continued to stare blankly at him, he came up beside her and put a hand on her arm. ‘Is it at all possible,’ Chris suggested kindly, ‘that you might be pregnant.’

  Chapter 29

  I attended my first running group tonight. As expected, it was full of idiots. People who have no form, who can’t run to save themselves.

  But there, in the middle of all this, was Constance Dell, shining like a light. She has long red hair, pale skin and blue eyes. She is nothing like her mother.

  We began at a slow jog, and I fell into pace beside her. I made it seem quite effortless, though I had to shorten my stride noticeably.

  ‘You’re holding your breath,’ I told her. ‘Just try to breathe normally.’

  She flashed me a smile, too short of breath to talk. She smelt like vanilla and cinnamon, like a cake freshly risen from the oven.

  I will enjoy this, I thought. I will enjoy this very much.

  After the run, she approached me. Cheeks flushed, décolletage glistening with perspiration.

  ‘You’re the guy who gave me the pointers on Facebook, aren't you? Thank you so much.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘Any time’.

  ‘I’ll definitely be in touch if I need some advice,’ she said.

  And I hope she will be. She radiates calmness and pleasantness. Again, the complete opposite to her mother.

  As she walked away I watched her braid slither down her back like a gold snake.

  There is no greater boon than hunting something beautiful.

  ‘Has anyone considered that poison is typically the murder weapon of choice for women?’ said Gary. ‘Maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree completely here.’

  ‘Maybe we would get a break on this case if people would stop coming up with completely idiotic suggestions,’ said Reilly bad-naturedly.

  Lucy and Gary exchanged a glance, realizing that their boss was not in the mood for joking around that morning.

  And Reilly wasn’t. She had endured a horrific sleepless night after Chris suggested she might be pregnant. She flat-out refused to entertain the idea, but there it was, niggling at the back of her mind. She and Todd had indeed neglected to use protection that one night together, but what were the chances? Some enduring jet-lag and an out of whack appetite were not enough reasons to make the automatic leap to pregnancy. The up and down emotional stuff was worrying though, because her emotions had been all over the place lately, so much so that she’d wondered if she was going mad, or suffering a particularly severe cause of SAD or something.

  There was one way she could find out for sure of course, but Reilly wasn't willing to go down that road. Not yet.

  Today was a big day, in any case. Kennedy and Chris were bringing Nico Peroni in for questioning and she wanted to sit in on the interview. She would have to ignore everything else that was going on and try be at her sharpest with Peroni. If he was the killer, it was
clear that he was no dummy. She needed her wits about her. She couldn’t be distracted by notions of pregnancy or indeed anything else.

  ‘I want everyone to keep on with this case today,’ she said. ‘No distractions. I want you combing through every email, every piece of information we have. Rory, where are we on those private messages?’

  ‘Got them,’ he said. ‘Not a problem.’

  ‘OK. So everyone has work to do. There are about a thousand trace samples in the lab that still need analysis. I know it’s boring work, but it still needs to be done.’

  ‘I’ve got the results back on the Worthington bedcovers,’ said Julius. ‘Same chemical compound as the other one. Likely spandex, again. And that yellow powder? Pollen.’

  Reilly nodded. It was good to hear that the evidence was mounting. It would merely make it easier to put the killer away when they did catch him.

  If only it could reveal how they might do just that.

  Constance Dell was no fool. She was used to men hitting on her. Every day, someone would find a new and novel way to ask her out. It might be funny or amusing if it wasn’t so annoying. What gave men the right, anyway? Did they really think if they followed you around for long enough, or told you how great your legs were, that you would just fall in love with them?

  Running was her outlet. Having been a pre-work park jogger for years, she was finally getting more serious about it. It was true what they said about running: it did amazing things for your body, it focused you, it taught you strength and endurance. So the last thing she needed was another guy ruining her buzz as she pursued her passion.

  But the guy at the running group didn’t seem interested in her like that. Maybe he had a wife, although she didn’t see a ring. He just seemed to want to help her get the most out of running. At the second group run, he had shown her some great stretches and had done so without touching her, except to pull her shoulders back a little. It was great.

  ‘Not all men are sexually attracted to you. You know that don’t you?’ said her mother when she told her about it over the telephone. She could almost hear her mother’s eye roll from Oxford.

  ‘Of course I know that,’ said Constance.

  ‘Great, have fun,’ said her mother, and hung up before Constance could reply.

  It was a typical farewell from her mother. She was notoriously brusque and not hugely affectionate. The point was that she tried.

  Constance had given up trying to explain her relationship with her to others. While other girls she knew spoke of rushing to their mothers for advice about love and jobs, all Ruth would tell her daughter was: “Do what you want, Connie. You have to do what you want.” And forget going to her for comfort if you had a broken heart. She would pat you on the back for a couple of seconds and say: “That’s pretty much my capacity for motherly love, Constance.” It was true. Ruth loved her in spades. She just had trouble expressing it.

  Instead, Constance and her mother debated politics, sex and religion. Anything under the sun, really. Sometimes Constance took a viewpoint that was completely the opposite to the one she really had, just to see if she could argue her mother under the table. In most cases, she could.

  She had studied to be a lawyer, but the hour before she sat the bar, she thought: Is this what I really want? Screw it.

  She moved to Dublin and became a music teacher instead. Her mother never expressed disappointment with Constance’s whimsical approach to her career and other major life decisions. It was the same old adage: Do what you want.

  And I do, Constance thought deliciously, as she ate ice-cream in bed at 9am on a Friday morning. She would spend the day reading Something From Tiffany’s and lying in the bath until the hot water ran out. Because who could stop her, after all?

  Reilly watched through the one way mirror as Kennedy and Chris questioned Nico Peroni. Even from here she could see the sweat pouring off the restaurant owner. It wasn’t necessarily a sign of guilt. He was nervous. Plus, fit people sweated more easily, she knew. The body was accustomed to cooling itself down.

  ‘First off,’ said Kennedy, ‘we would like you to submit to a DNA test.’

  ‘Do I have to?’ asked Nico. ‘What are my rights?’

  ‘Legally,’ said Kennedy, ‘you have the right to refuse. However we can gain a court order that will force you to comply.’

  ‘Then that is what you will have to do,’ said Nico.

  Kennedy shook his head and made a note.

  ‘We need to ask a few more questions,’ said Chris. ‘You told us you met Harry McMurty roughly eighteen months before he died, is that correct?’

  ‘Give or take,’ said Nico.

  ‘How about you try to narrow it down,’ said Chris. ‘Be more specific.’

  ‘Maybe a little longer than that,’ said Nico.

  ‘Did you know him before Rose Cooper was killed?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘So that’s a definite yes?’ asked Chris.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nico.

  At this stage, anyone with a sense of self-preservation would have demanded a lawyer. But it seemed not to have occurred to Nico, despite his assertion of his “rights.”

  ‘What was the capacity of your relationship with Mr McMurty before he worked for you?’ asked Chris.

  On this Nico seemed clear. ‘An acquaintance. He worked at the restaurant of a friend of mine.’

  ‘Why did you lie before about the length of time you had known Mr McMurty?’ asked Chris. ‘It seems like you wouldn’t forget that he had worked for a friend of yours.’

  ‘Well, I really began to know him once he worked for me. Before that, I just knew of him. Saw him round, so to speak.’

  ‘So to speak.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you tell us where you were last night?’ asked Kennedy.

  ‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything. If I am in trouble for something, you should just arrest me.’

  ‘Answer the question, please,’ said Kennedy tiredly.

  ‘I was out on my bike.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the Phoenix Park.’

  ‘Can anyone confirm this?’

  ‘Only if you can track down the hundreds other people who were in the park at the same time. I’m getting a bit tired of this,’ Reilly watched as it dawned on the guy at last. ‘I want a lawyer, please, if you continue going on in this ridiculous vein.’

  ‘We’ll get you your lawyer, Mr Peroni,’ said Chris. ‘In the meantime I would strongly suggest that you submit to that DNA test. Resisting only makes it harder for everyone.’

  The suspect shook his head. They would have to get a court order.

  Back at the lab afterwards, having successfully avoided Chris at the station by slipping out before the interview was over, she started to go through the mail on her desk. Lots of correspondence regarding other cases, jiffy bags full of documents that she would have to read sooner, rather than later. It never ended.

  There was something else. A thin grey envelope. So cheap and thin you could almost see right through it. She recognized the stamp on the back. It was from the Prison Service.

  She almost didn’t open it. She received things like this every now and again, sick notes from men the GFU had helped to put away and had seen her when she testified in court. Dirty, badly written things about what they would do to her if they ever got out. Which they wouldn’t.

  But when she saw it was postmarked as being from Mountjoy, she opened it. It might be abusive, but it might also tell her something.

  The script inside was elegant and ornate, so she had a little trouble at first making it out.

  “Dear Ms Steel,” it read. “I know you will probably want to tear this up when you see who it’s from and that’s fair enough. I just wanted to say sorry for last week. I lost my temper, and in the process I came close to hurting you and I am sorry for that.

  At the time, I wanted to hurt you. I don’
t deny that. I have these flashes when I want to, or I actually do, these awful things, and afterwards I just can’t work out why. I do have a counsellor here. He is helping me with my anger problems, but I still have a long way to go. Obviously.

  My rage has been with me for so long that I worry that I would be unrecognizable without it. It shields me. I wonder if you can understand that? Is there anything that you cling to, knowing that without it, you might not know who you are anymore?

  My counsellor is also trying to help me to see the truth about my brother. Sometimes I see Brendan as my saviour, the only person who ever truly loved me, and sometimes I know him for a monster. I don’t think I will ever be able to feel just one way about him.

  I know what you want from me. I know that you want to know what happened to Grace. And part of me wants to help you. But what do I get in return? Here I am, and I know this is as far as my life goes. I don’t believe in any redemption for myself. But I could do one last good thing, if I wanted.

  I want to know: what will you give me in return? I don’t ask for much. I am a lonely man. If you reply this letter in kind, it may be incentive enough.

  Darren Keating.”

  Reilly refolded the letter very deliberately and put it in her handbag. It left her with a cold, creepy feeling. Grace Gorman’s old boyfriend was truly a man broken into many pieces. The letter had been sincere in parts, manipulative in others. He was charming, then repulsive. He showed self-awareness, but a total lack of will to do anything with it. Reilly knew that to write back would be a huge mistake. Prisoners like that were con-men. They knew how to play with people.

  But what if he did have something to tell her?

  Chapter 30

  ‘OK, just one little pointer,’ the guy said to Constance as they ran.