The Galway Homicides Box Set
Page 10
“Of course, Mum and Dad didn’t approve, but here we are ten years later with two kids living in the bog!” she said, still smiling.
“What can you tell us about the night the body was found?” Flynn asked.
“God, it was awful. Gerry was very late, I was thinking something dreadful had happened to him. It was a dirty night too with strong wind and lots of rain, and when he came in he was soaking.”
“He told me the story of how the poor girl had been found up at the road. He was really very upset. We didn’t sleep at all that night, he was so put out,” she said.
“Where had he been working till that hour?” Flynn asked.
“In Roundstone. He was doing up a holiday cottage at the far end of the town. He works really hard you know, I have no complaints in that direction,” she said.
Flynn felt that it was rather an odd thing to say. Did Mary Maguire have reason to complain about her husband in some other area of their apparently blissful married life? He felt it better not to dig into that possibility for the moment, but he filed it away in case it might have some significance to the case at a later point.
Their lunch was rounded off with a good thick slice of tea brack, generously spread with butter, and more tea from a freshly made pot.
“You’re not working today?” asked Dolan, getting up from the table in readiness to leave.
“No, well not in the tourist office, but there’s plenty of work here as you can see. I don’t go in on Thursdays at this time of year. There’s no need for two of us and I’m happy to have the chance to catch up at home.”
The two men thanked her profusely for her hospitality, and left feeling that their hunger had been fully satisfied, but that they still had no new information to add to the investigation, but they agreed that Mary’s story seemed to confirm what Gerry had told the Gardaí on the night in question.
The rest of the day was fruitless. Again, they called on several houses that had been locked up for the winter. The few residents that they did come across knew nothing of the incident, and they both got the feeling that somehow, at some level, the natives had closed ranks. While there was no open hostility to their presence, they could sense that even if someone that they were interviewing had seen the whole thing unfold before his very eyes, he wouldn’t have said a word.
* * *
Gerry Maguire came home early that day. He had finished a job he had been working on in Clifden and took a rare few hours off to get back home in time for tea. When he arrived home, he was met by Mary, who was not in the best of humour.
“We had those Gardaí here again today, nosing around. They were nice enough, but they were asking a lot of questions about you,” Mary reported.
“They can ask all they like. I’ve nothing to hide. And I suppose you told them everything without batting an eyelid. You know sometimes, Mary, I think you’re really thick,” Gerry said, sneering a little.
“I’m thick is it. I’m thick – well that’s a good one. Here we are living in the middle of bloody nowhere having to send the kids back to my parents for a bit of civilization, we’ve bugger all money. I haven’t had a holiday in the eight years since I married you, and you’re never even bloody well here. And you call me thick!” she said, raising her voice an octave or two.
Gerry Maguire slapped his wife hard across the face with the back of his hand sending her reeling across the room and causing her to lose her balance and fall against the sink.
“Right, that’s it, you big bully. You can feck off with your tea,” she said throwing his plate of eggs on the floor, “and you can sleep in the barn tonight – again. You’re not coming near me, that’s for sure.”
* * *
The Ryanair flight from Krakow touched down at a few minutes past six, fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. The Polish police had arranged that Palowski should be taken off the flight first, and as soon as he reached the bottom of the aircraft steps he was met by two special branch Gardaí who took him, handcuffed him, and put him in the back of the unmarked Mondeo.
There was no conversation with the Polish man during the drive to Galway. Neither did they stop en route, so that it was just after nine o’clock when they delivered Palowski to Sergeant Flannery at the front desk of the Garda station in Galway.
Palowski was provided with a take-away meal from the nearest burger joint, and placed in a cell for the night, minus his belt, shoelaces and tie. Flannery checked him every hour or so, and he appeared to sleep for most of the time, perhaps pondering his fate when morning came.
Chapter Fourteen
Friday, 8:00 a.m.
Somehow, the newspapers had got wind of Palowski’s return to Ireland. “Polish suspect returns to Galway,” read the headline in the Connaught Tribune.
“Just what we don’t need,” said Hays to Maureen Lyons over their morning coffee in Hays’ office.
“Can you get the media relations guys on to it and ask for a little space for a day or two? Promise them we’ll give them any developments as they happen, but we need to be able to move around without a pack of journos up our arses,” Hays said, feeling vexed that this information should have leaked out.
“Any news from the lads out West?” he asked.
“Nothing much,” she said as she related the visit to Mary Maguire’s house. “It’s pretty deserted out there at this time of year to be honest.”
“OK, let’s get them back in then if there’s no one coming forward.”
“I want to take Palowski on a reconstruction run today. You can note down everything he says. We’ll get him to drive one of the pool cars to make it realistic and go over the drive out to Ballyconneely where he supposedly dumped his sister out of the car in the rain,” Hays said.
“Caution him before we go,” he added.
“Did you get anything from the lab yesterday afternoon?” Lyons asked.
“Dozy buggers say it will be Monday before they have the DNA report. They say they got four different semen samples from the waste bin in her bedroom, and countless more from the sheets. They are focussing on the four samples initially. They say they should have something by Monday morning,” he said.
“Any plans for the weekend?” Hays asked.
“Not yet, but I’m forever hopeful,” she replied, smiling at her boss.
At ten o’clock they took Piotr Palowski out of his cell where he had spent a most uncomfortable night. He was nervous, probably envisaging some more of the Nowak treatment.
They outlined the plan, explaining that he was still under caution, and went outside to find the grey Opel Astra that they had booked out for the reconstruction.
The weather was cool and dry, but overcast, and it wouldn’t be long before the south westerly wind deposited more Atlantic rain on the region.
They drove out along the N59, out past the University and on through Moycullen towards Oughterard. Palowski was silent for the most part, just occasionally commenting on some local feature as they passed by.
Lyons tried to engage the man in conversation about his sister. She asked if they had been a close family growing up. What their parents did for a living, where they had gone on holidays as children, and what kind of community they belonged to in Krakow. Palowski said that they had been a fairly happy lot, but that it had been very hard during the communist times. His father worked in insurance, and he worked hard for a small salary by European standards. His mother worked as a civil servant and had sometimes been called upon to teach in a primary school when there was a shortage of qualified teachers.
He said that when communism ended, everything changed. His father’s company was privatized, and he began to earn better money – not a fortune, but enough to put some by every month when the essentials had been paid for.
Lisa had always been the clever one, getting good grades at school. She said one day she wanted to be a doctor. Not a medical doctor, a doctor of the mind. Mr Palowski had saved like crazy and borrowed from his brothers to send Lisa to Ireland to stu
dy and fulfil her dreams.
“And what did she do?” he said, thumping the steering wheel with the flat of his hand, “she pissed in his face. Kurwa!”
At Maam Cross they stopped for a coffee at Peacock’s souvenir, grocery, café place that attempted to provide every one’s needs at all times, and the only commercial operation for miles. They welcomed the break, and an opportunity to stretch their legs, and although the rain was threatening and the sky a heavy grey, it had held off so far.
Just after Recess, Hays instructed Palowski to take a left onto the R341 for Roundstone. Palowski slowed right down to navigate the narrow and twisty road. They passed the Angler’s Rest where the road to Cashel branched off and continued on into Roundstone village. On a grey day in late October Roundstone was virtually deserted, with just the little green An Post van meandering slowly up the main street. Even the car park opposite Vaughan’s hotel was almost empty.
As they drove out past Gurteen and Dog’s Bay, Palowski became sullen again, and reflecting his mood, the clouds darkened and the rain began to fall. Lyons began to probe him again as they made their way slowly across the old bog road towards Ballyconneely.
“What were you and Lisa talking about at this point?” she asked.
“She had told me about what she was doing. She said it had started just as a way of making a little extra money to help her through college. She had been at a party one night and had quite a lot to drink. One of the tutors had offered her a hundred euro to sleep with him, and as she sort of liked him anyway, she said ‘why not.’ Before she knew it, she was making twelve hundred euro a week, but she had to give up most of her studies to make time for her ‘business’.”
“At one stage she even sent money home, saying that she had got some part-time work, and didn’t need it. Pah – dirty, filthy money,” he sneered.
Lyons couldn’t help thinking that Lisa Palowski wasn’t all bad. Not your typical escort girl at all. She wondered how many other students from Poland and other poorer Eastern European countries would not have done exactly the same if they were blessed with her good looks and found themselves in a faraway country.
As they approached Ballyconneely, Hays told Palowski to provide a running commentary on exactly what had happened that Tuesday night. He wanted every detail.
“We were driving just along here when Lisa’s phone rang. She fished it out of her coat pocket and was going to answer it. It was clear to me that it was one of her clients. I got very angry. I grabbed the phone from her, opened my window, and threw the thing out. She screamed at me that it was the only number her clients could contact her on, and she needed it very badly. She begged me to stop to find it, but I wouldn’t. I just kept driving.”
“The weather was awful. The rain was blowing across the car, and I couldn’t see very well. I was tearful as well, listening to my beautiful sister who had so easily become a whore,” he said.
“I was shouting at her and then the car suddenly hit the edge of the wall, and of course we stopped. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid the car wouldn’t go again. Lisa told me to back up a bit, and as she had a good coat, she would get out and see what the damage was. When I saw her outside in the light from the headlights, I had a flash of inspiration. I was looking at her standing there in her fancy new clothes, looking quite beautiful, her hair blowing all over her face in the wind, and I just couldn’t stand it,” he said.
“I reversed the car quickly across into that gateway over there, turned and drove off. She must have realised what was happening, because she came over to the car and started beating on the windows. I had locked the doors, but she started shouting ‘Piotr, Piotr, what are you doing?’, but I ignored her and just kept turning the car, and then I drove off into the night leaving her by the side of the road. I didn’t hurt her, but I am responsible,” he sobbed, burying his head in his hands.
The Astra was now stopped at the side of the road close to the wall that Palowski had hit on the night his sister died. Hays told him to turn off the engine and give him the keys, and then told Palowski to get out. Hays and Lyons got out too, and the three of them stood there in the rain. Hays got Palowski to show them exactly where he had stopped that night and to point out the gateway that he had reversed into to turn the car.
“So, you were in a rage with your sister, out here, no one around. She had provoked you, and then there was the phone call from one of her punters. I think you lost your temper completely and followed her outside, picking up a rock from the bridge that had fallen on the road, and whacked her over the head. Isn’t that what actually happened, Piotr, isn’t it?” Lyons demanded.
“No, no, of course not. I told you, I drove away and left her. She was fine. How do you think I feel now that she was killed out here? I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I wish it had been me that was knocked over the head, not Lisa. It’s so horrible,” he sobbed.
“Well she was hardly fine, now was she Piotr?” Hays cut in. “Outside, in foul weather, miles from anywhere on a strange road, being deserted by the brother that she loved and respected. No, sir, not fine at all.”
“Look, why don’t you tell us what really happened, Piotr?” Lyons said in a softer tone. “Get it over with. You’ll feel better, and we can release Lisa’s body so she can be buried – don’t leave her lying on a cold slab in a mortuary. It won’t be so bad. You’ll probably get to serve most of your sentence in Poland anyway.”
“Listen, I’m telling you, I shouldn’t have left her here. I know that, and I am truly sorry for what happened to her. I will never forgive myself, and if I could turn back time, I would do things very differently. But I didn’t harm her. I couldn’t do that. You must believe me, you must.”
* * *
“Maureen, have forensics still got Palowski’s hire car?” Hays asked back at the station.
“Yes, it’s in the garage covered in a tarpaulin.”
“OK, get them to examine the carpet in the driver’s footwell. If Palowski got out of the car to kill his sister, he will have brought some Ballyconneely gravel or sand back into the car on his shoes. Probably quite a bit, given the weather. Get anything they find on the floor analysed and compared to road grit from the scene.”
When she had put the call through to the forensic lab, Maureen came back into Hays’ office.
“What do we do now?”
“Not much we can do till Monday. We’ll have the forensics from the car and the flat then. Let’s see what that brings,” he said.
“Do you think it was the brother?” she asked.
“Probably. But we’re going to have a hell of a job proving it unless he confesses. Maybe we should get Inspector Nowak over to beat it out of him.”
“Maybe.” Lyons paused for a moment and then went on, “Listen, I have a voucher for a one-night dinner bed and breakfast for Killarney. They have rooms available for tomorrow night. Fancy it?”
“Yeah, OK, sounds like fun. Why don’t I pick you up at yours at, say, ten tomorrow morning?”
“Cool. You’re on,” she said.
As an afterthought she said, “What do we do with Palowski?”
“Leave him downstairs. A couple of days down there living off Galway’s finest fast-food may loosen his tongue a bit. We’ll talk to him on Monday.”
Chapter Fifteen
Monday, 8:00 a.m.
Lyons was at her desk when Hays arrived on Monday morning. They were both still basking in the warm afterglow of their night away in Kerry. They had enjoyed it immensely, leaving behind all the anxiety of the case and soaking up the peace and beauty of the countryside around Killarney.
Back in the real world, the duty sergeant told them that Palowski had spent a sullen weekend in the cells. The sergeant had tried to engage him in conversation, but he was having none of it, suspecting that the sergeant’s friendly attitude was a ruse to get information from him to pass on to the detectives.
“Any more thoughts about the Pole?” asked Lyons.
At nine o’clock the other two members of the team arrived. They had called to every occupied property along the old bog road, in the vicinity of the murder, and had come up with absolutely nothing. No one had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary on that Tuesday, in fact no one had seen anything at all, ordinary or otherwise.
Hays asked Flynn to go back to the garage where Palowski’s car was being kept, and to hurry along the analysis of the grit from the driver’s side footwell.
Soon afterwards, the detailed forensic report from Lisa’s apartment came in. Hays brought Lyons into his office and handed each page to her as he finished reading it. It was the third page that caught his attention.
“Well fuck me,” he exclaimed, “you’re not going to believe this!”
Hays was looking at the DNA results from the waste paper basket that had been taken from beside the bed in Lisa’s room. The third entry showed that Gerry Maguire’s DNA had been found in a semen stained tissue, and also on the bed sheet.
Hays handed the page over.
“Christ! So nice happily married handyman Gerry was a client of Lisa’s,” she said, hardly believing what she had read.
“Yeah, I know. If it is him, he’s one cool customer, and don’t forget he has an alibi. How do you think we should play it?”
“I think we should pick him up from home with a marked squad car, blue lights and all. Bring him in here and let him sweat for a while,” she said.
“Agreed. But before that I want to talk to whoever gave him that alibi in Roundstone where he was supposed to be working that night. If we can crack that open, we might just have our man,” Hays said.
“Let’s wait till he’s home tonight before we lift him. It will be more dramatic after dark anyway, and it will give us a chance to get out there and see about this alibi.”