Broken Harbor (28 page)

His head turned towards me. Those gray eyes were clear as still water, all the night’s tension and turmoil drained away. “No,” he said. “No one.”

“You loved them. Didn’t you?”

A nod.

I said, “Let me tell you the biggest secret I’ve ever learned, Conor. All we really need in life is to make the people we love happy. We can do without anything else; you can live in a cardboard box under a bridge, as long as your woman’s face lights up when you get home to that box in the evening. But if you can’t manage to do that . . .”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Richie easing backwards, off the table, leaving the two of us in our circle. Conor said, “Pat and Jenny were happy. The happiest people alive.”

“But then that went, and you couldn’t give it back to them. Probably someone or something out there could have made them happy again, but it wasn’t you. I know exactly what it’s like, Conor: loving someone so much that you’d do anything, you’d rip out your own heart and serve it to them with barbecue sauce if that was what it took to make them OK, but it’s not. It wouldn’t do one fucking bit of good. And what do you do when you realize that, Conor? What can you do? What’s left?”

His hands lay spread on the table, palms upturned, empty. He said, so low I barely heard him: “You wait. All you can do.”

“And the longer you wait, the angrier you get. At yourself, at them, at this whole terrible fucked-up mess of a world. Till you can’t think straight any more. Till you barely know what you’re doing.”

His fingers curled inward, fists tightening.

“Conor,” I said: so softly, words falling weightless as feathers through the hot still air. “Jenny’s been through enough hell for a dozen lifetimes. The last thing I want to do is put her through any more. But if you don’t tell me what happened, then I have to go over to that hospital and make her tell me instead. I’ll have to force her to relive every moment of the other night. Do you think she’s strong enough to take that?”

His head swayed, side to side.

“Neither do I. For all I know, it’ll push her mind so far over the edge that she’ll never find her way back, but I don’t have a choice. You do, Conor. You can save her from that, at least. If you love her, now’s your time to show it. Now’s your time to get it right. You’ll never have another chance.”

Conor vanished, somewhere behind that face as angular and immobile as a mask. His mind was going like a race car again, but he had it under control now, working efficiently and at furious speed. I didn’t breathe. Richie, pressed back against the wall, was still as stone.

Then Conor took a quick breath, ran his hands over his cheeks and turned to look at me. “I broke into their house,” he said, clearly, matter-
of-factly, as if he was telling me where he had parked a car. “I killed them. Or thought I had, anyway. Is that what you were after?”

I heard Richie let his breath out, with a tiny unconscious whimper. The hum in my skull rose, screamed like a whirl of diving wasps, and died.

I waited for the rest, but Conor was waiting too: just watching me, with those swollen red-edged eyes, and waiting. Most confessions begin with
It wasn’t like you think
and go on forever. Killers fill up the room with words, trying to coat over the razor edges of the truth; they prove to you over and over that it just happened or that he asked for it, that in their place anyone would have done the same. Most of them will keep proving it till your ears bleed, if you let them. Conor was proving nothing. He was done.

I said, “Why?”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It’s going to matter to the victims’ family. It’s going to matter to the sentencing judge.”

“Not my problem.”

“I’ll need a motive to go in your statement.”

“Make one up. I’ll sign whatever you want.”

Mostly they loosen, after the river’s been crossed. Everything they had went into clinging to their safe bank of lies. Now the current’s ripped them away, buffeted them dizzy and gasping, smashed them down with a tooth-cracking jolt on the far bank, and they think the hard part is over and done with. It leaves them unraveled and boneless; some of them shake uncontrollably, some of them cry, a few can’t stop talking or can’t stop laughing. They haven’t noticed yet that the landscape is different here; that things are transforming around them, familiar faces dissolving, landmarks vanishing into the distance, that nothing will ever be the same again. Conor was different. He was still gathered like a waiting animal, made of concentration. In some way that I couldn’t spot, the battle wasn’t over.

If I got into it with him over the motive, he would win, and you don’t let them win. I said, “How did you get into the house?”

“Key.”

“To which door?”

A splinter of a pause. “Back.”

“Where’d you get that?”

That splinter again, bigger this time. He was being careful. “Found it.”

“When?”

“A while back. Few months, maybe more.”

“Where?”

“Street outside. Pat dropped it.”

I could feel it on my skin, the sideslipping twist to his voice that said
Lie
, but I couldn’t put my finger on where or why. Richie said, from the corner behind Conor’s shoulder, “You couldn’t see the street from your hide. How’d you know he’d dropped the key?”

Conor thought that over. “Saw him come in from work in the evening. Later that night, I went for a wander around, spotted the key, figured he had to be the one that lost it.”

Richie wandered over to the table, pulled out a chair facing Conor. “No you didn’t, man. There’s no street lighting. What are you, Superman? See in the dark?”

“It was summer. Bright till late.”

“You were prowling round their gaff while it was still bright? While they were still awake? Come on, man. What were you,
looking
to get arrested?”

“So maybe it was dawn. I found the key, I got it copied, I got in. End of story.”

I said, “How many times?”

That tiny pause again, while he tested answers in his head. I said crisply, “Don’t waste your time, old son. There’s no point in bullshitting me. We’re well past that. How many times were you in the Spains’ house?”

Conor was rubbing at his forehead with the back of his wrist, trying to hold it together. That sheetrock wall of stubbornness was starting to waver. Adrenaline can only keep you going for so long; any minute now, he was going to be too exhausted to sit up straight. “A few. A dozen, maybe. What’s it matter? I was there night before last. I’ve told you.”

It mattered because he knew his way around the house: even in darkness, he would have been able to find his way up the stairs, into the children’s rooms, to their beds. Richie asked, “Ever take anything away with you?”

I saw Conor dig for the energy to say no, and give up. “Little things, only. I’m not a thief.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“A mug. Handful of rubber bands. A pen. Nothing worth anything.”

I said, “And the knife. Let’s not forget the knife. What did you do with it?”

That should have been one of the tough questions, but Conor turned towards me like he was grateful for it. “Into the sea. The tide was up.”

“Where’d you throw it from?”

“The rocks. South end of the beach.”

We were never getting that knife back. It was halfway to Cornwall by now on some long cold current, rocking fathoms deep among seaweed and soft blind creatures. “And the other weapon? The one you used to hit Jenny?”

“Same.”

“What was it?”

Conor’s head fell back and his lips parted. The grief that had been looming under his voice, all night long, had made its way to the surface. It was that grief, not fatigue, that was leaching the willpower out of him, scouring his concentration away. It had eaten him alive, from the inside out; it was all that was left.

He said, “It was a vase. Metal one, silver, with a heavy base on it. Simple thing, it was; beautiful. She used to put a couple of roses in it, have it on the table when she made fancy dinners for the two of them . . .”

He made a small sound between a swallow and a gasp, the sound of someone sliding underwater. I said, “Let’s rewind a little, shall we? Start from the point when you entered the house. What time was it?”

Conor said, “I want to sleep.”

“As soon as you’ve talked us through it. Was anyone awake?”

“I want to sleep.”

We needed the full story, blow by blow and packed with details that only the killer would know, but it was heading for six o’clock and he was heading for the level of fatigue that a defense attorney could use. I said gently, “OK. You’re nearly there, son. I’ll tell you what: we’ll just get what you’ve told us in writing, and then we’ll take you somewhere you can get a bit of kip. Fair enough?”

He nodded, a lopsided jerk, like his head had suddenly turned too heavy for his neck. “Yeah. I’ll write it down. Just leave me alone while I do it. Can you do that?”

He was at the end of his strength, way past trying to get smart with his statement. “Sure,” I said. “If that’s what works for you, not a problem. We’ll need to know your real name, though. For the statement sheet.”

For a second I thought he was going to stonewall us again, but all the fight was gone. “Brennan,” he said, dully. “Conor Brennan.”

I said, “Well done.” Richie moved quietly to the corner table and passed me a statement sheet. I found my pen and filled in the header, in strong block capitals:
CONOR BRENNAN
.

I put him under arrest, cautioned him again, went through the rights sheet again. Conor didn’t even look up. I put the statement sheet and my pen into his hands, and we left him there.

* * *

“Well well well,” I said, tossing my notebook onto the table in the observation room. Every cell in my body was fizzing like champagne with pure triumph; I felt like throwing a Tom Cruise, jumping up on the table shouting
I love this job!
“Now that was a whole lot easier than I was expecting. Here’s to us, Richie my friend. Do you know what we are? We’re a bloody great team.”

I gave him a pumping handshake and a clap on the shoulder. He was grinning. “Felt like that, all right.”

“No two ways about it. I’ve had a lot of partners in my time, and I can tell you, hand on heart: that was the real thing. There are guys who partner for years and still don’t work together that smoothly.”

“It’s good, yeah. It’s good stuff.”

“By the time the Super gets in, we’ll have that statement signed, sealed and delivered to his desk. I don’t need to tell you what this is going to do for your career, do I? Let’s see that prick Quigley give you hassle now. Two weeks on the squad, and you’re part of the biggest solve of the year. How does it feel?”

Richie’s hand slid out of mine too fast. He still had the grin, but there was something unsure in it. I said, “What?”

He nodded at the one-way glass. “Look at him.”

“He’ll write it up just fine. Don’t you worry about that. He’ll have second thoughts, of course he will, but they won’t kick in till tomorrow: emotional hangover. By then, we’ll have our file half ready to send to the DPP.”

“It’s not that. The state of that kitchen . . . You heard Larry: the struggle was full-on. Why isn’t he more beat up?”

“Because he isn’t. Because this is real life, and sometimes it doesn’t go exactly the way you’d expect it to.”

“I just . . .” The grin was gone. Richie was digging his hands into his pockets, staring at the glass. “I have to ask, man. You’re positive he’s our guy?”

The fizz started to fade out of my veins. I said, “That’s not the first time you’ve asked me that.”

“I know, yeah.”

“So let’s hear it. What’s got up your arse?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. You’ve been awful sure all along, is all.”

The anger shot through me like a muscle spasm. “Richie,” I said, very carefully keeping my voice under control. “Let’s review for a second, shall we? We’ve got the sniper’s nest that Conor Brennan set up to stalk the Spains. We’ve got his own admission that he broke into their house multiple times. And now, Richie, now we’ve got a fucking
confession
. Go ahead and tell me, old son: what the fuck else do you want? What the
fuck
would it take to make you sure?”

Richie was shaking his head. “We’ve got plenty. I’m not arguing there. But even back when we had nothing, only that hide, you were positive.”

“So
what
? I was
right
. Did you miss that part? You’re getting your knickers in a knot because I got there ahead of you?”

“Makes me nervous, being too sure too early. It’s dangerous.”

The jolt hit me again, hard enough to clench my jaw. “You’d rather keep an open mind. Is that it?”

“Yeah. I would.”

“Right. Good idea. For how long? Months? Years? Till God sends choirs of angels to sing you the guy’s name in four-part harmony? Do you want us to be standing here in ten years’ time, telling each other, ‘Well, it could be Conor Brennan, but then again, it could be the Russian Mafia, we might want to explore that possibility a little more thoroughly before we make any rash decisions’?”

“
No.
I’m only saying—”

“You
have
to get sure, Richie. You have to. There is no other option. Sooner or later, you shit or you get off the pot.”

“I
know
that. I’m not talking about any ten years.”

The heat was the kind you get in a cell in a bad August: thick, motionless, clogging your lungs like wet cement. “Then what the hell
are
you talking about? What’ll it take? In a few hours’ time, when we get our hands on Conor Brennan’s car, Larry and his boys are going to find the Spains’ blood all over it. Around the same time, they’re going to match his fingerprints to the prints they found all over that hide. And a few hours after that, assuming that please God we get hold of the runners and the gloves, they’re going to prove that that bloody shoeprint and those bloody handprints were made by Conor Brennan. I’d bet a month’s salary on it. Will that make you sure?”

Richie rubbed at the back of his neck and grimaced. I said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Right. Let’s hear it. I guaran-damn-tee you, by the end of today, we’ll have physical proof he was in that house when that family got killed. How are you planning to explain that away?”