The Death of an Irish Lover (7 page)

By ten that morning, preliminary reports from the tech squad had arrived.

A half hour later, McGarr gathered the three members of his staff—who would help him there in Leixleap—for a working breakfast in the dining room on the inn side of the hostelry owned by Tim Tallon and Sylvie Zeebruge. Noreen joined them.

Tallon himself served the group and kept hovering about, offering more coffee and tea, until McGarr asked if they could have some privacy “for official purposes.” Even then they caught sight of Tallon from time to time, walking past the open doorway to the hall and stealing worried glances their way.

“What gives with that yoke?” Bernie McKeon asked. “Even without the feathers, he’d give Mother Hen a squawk for her tea.”

“He found them,” said Hugh Ward, distributing the photographs around the table like he was dealing play
ing cards; the pictures made the dead pair, who had been pitiful in death, seem grotesque in still life. There were also pictures of the suite, its closet, and toilet from several angles.

“Any bids?” Ward continued. “Two hearts is out until after the first rubber, because I’ve got news for you.” Ward tapped a second envelope.

“And you wouldn’t want any of us to go off half-cocked,” McKeon added, fanning the photographs in front of him. A burly man in his early fifties with a thick shock of once-blond hair and dark eyes, he was the Squad’s chief interrogator and—McGarr once declared—their “irrepressible wit.” To which a junior staffer had added to the delight of all, “By half.”

“I wonder,” he now asked, “does blood flow to the lowest point after death, or did your man here just have a mickey that would make Uncle Mike proud?”

“You must be comparing it to your own, Bernie, since on the whole this one is only average in size,” Ward quipped.

Detective Inspector Ruth Bresnahan traded glances with Noreen.

She had heard the Murder Squad staff gibes about other cases over the years and she well understood that the humor—albeit, black—provided them with some distance on the mayhem and carnage they encountered on a nearly daily basis. But the photographs of the naked and dead couple were nothing short of lurid.

“Poor woman,” Bresnahan muttered, “out for a bit of a lark with a rotter who had pissed off the IRA, if the Chief can be believed. Pardon me, Chief—if a suggested avenue of investigation in the Chief’s report proves accurate. It’s a classic case of her being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Really? What about the two thousand pounds of crisp banknotes that said rotter had in his billfold?” Ward shot back. Bresnahan and he had only recently ended a longtime affair after a woman—who had borne Ward’s child—came back into his life. And the relationship between the two staffers was still strained.

“As I seem to remember,” Ward continued, “pissed-off former IRA gunmen are not known for their ideological stance in regard to quid. And these three”—he distributed three more photographs to the others—“have the reputation of nicking anything not nailed down.”

The additional photographs were mug shots of two bearded and rough-looking men.

Replied Bresnahan, “Theft is one thing, murder another. What about their long-distance attempt on Carson’s life in the Chief’s car. If that wasn’t attempted murder, I don’t know what was. From near or far”—she shook the photographs—“these two are killers.”

“Granted.” McKeon was holding the photos in the light from a nearby window. “But why didn’t they take her weapon as well? You know how the IRA trains its wankers—they can get kneecapped for leaving a gun behind.” McKeon’s youngest daughter had been killed in an IRA bomb blast, and he had little sympathy for their cause.

“They didn’t take her weapon because they used his to murder them, and once it was fired they panicked and split.”

“Ah, Rut’ie—you’re all wet. When are you going to get the
hang
of this racket. If there’s anything classic about this sordid…er, tale, it’s a classic case of poor performance on the job. Just look at her position. Sure, it looks perfect for what they were doing, but as anybody with two eyes can see, there’s no congruence.”

“Can’t you give your suspect macho illusions a rest, Bernie? Or could it be talk is all that’s left?” A tall, statuesque redhead, Bresnahan forked a hand through her auburn tresses, and said to Noreen, “To think that I have to put up with this day in and day out.”

But McKeon continued undeterred, “And when your man—who was the boss after all—needed her to take a bullet for him, she botched that as well.”

“Being soft in the head,” Ward put in, reaching for a second manila envelope that contained the preliminary report from the tech squad and pathologist.

McKeon eased back in his chair. “Conclusion? Incompetence proved her undoing. Pity she had to take Officer Pork with her. And out of season.”

“It’s Burke.
Burke!
” Bresnahan groused.

But even McGarr, who had been musing over his coffee, glanced at McKeon.

“Doesn’t Pascal mean Easter?” he asked. “Sure, Easter is whole months off.” Where a large roast of pork was consumed in many parts of the country.

Eyes rolled, and McGarr tapped the table, signaling that it was time to get down to business.

Ward had arranged the tech-squad report before him and was now scanning it. Once an amateur boxing champ, he was a dark well-built man in his early forties, who had recently been promoted to detective superintendent and was widely regarded as McGarr’s successor.

Always well turned out, he was dressed for the cold, wearing a heather brown tweed jacket over a tan cashmere polo neck jumper that had been a present from Bresnahan, all knew. His dark eyes glanced up. “Looks as though Bernie was right.”

“Me
mahn!
” cheered McKeon.

“Shhh!” Noreen hissed, tired of McKeon’s carry-on.

Ward shook his head. “I can’t imagine how it could have happened, but the report from the pathologist says that they didn’t die from the same bullet, and they didn’t die together.

“In fact,” plainly disbelieving what he was reading, Ward paused and raised a hand to his chin in a thoughtful manner, “it says here they died at least three hours apart. But the ballistics report claims they were both shot with the same weapon. A Glock 9mm.

“Him in the chest, her in the head. And both bullets were found to be lodged in him, the one that killed her having passed through her head and into his chest but in a slightly different place.”

Said Bresnahan, “With his missing gun.”

Ward snapped the pages taut. “We can’t know that, can we?”

“Aw, c’mon—can’t you at least be academically honest, Superintendent? How many Glocks can possibly be floating around this town?”

Ward ignored her. “And listen to this—there’s evidence in and on the condom that they—or at least Burke—had sex sometime immediately before he was shot directly through the heart.”

“What about her?” McKeon asked, struggling to suppress a laugh. “I mean, it’s not difficult to consider the implication, if she died three hours later. When she saw he was dead, she doffed her duds and climbed up on your man for a wee bit of necro—”

“Bernie?” Noreen asked. “Would you please shut your bloody gob? We’re all quick enough to understand the implication, your implication. But there are other implications as well. And your suspect humor is—”

“What about it, Hughie?” McGarr asked, cutting her
off, since McKeon’s question was apt, and often in the past the free flow of chatter had proved crucial to assembling the events of a difficult murder scenario. Also, Noreen—no matter how helpful she had been in other investigations—was not a staffer.

“Do you want me to leave?” she asked. “If I’m getting in the way, I’ll leave right now. Just say the word.”

McGarr reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. He’d hear from her later, he knew.

Which for some reason made him think of Tallon, who lived and worked with his common-law wife in the same building. He wondered how much time they spent together, and if they ever got the chance to get away from their work. And then, singly or together.

“Well, it was a line of inquiry that occurred to the pathologist, given how Ellen Finn was found, naked and on top of Burke. But the report says it’s impossible to tell, since”—Ward canted his head, as though embarrassed—“since her vagina had been lubricated. But there was no trace of semen…you know, about her person.”

McKeon held up one of the pictures. “It being as plain as the nose on your face why? A T’underbolt condom, which is where the lubricant would have come from.”

But the others had fallen silent, trying to imagine the scenario that had led to the deaths of the two eel police.

Bresnahan was the first to speak. “Let me get this straight—he, Pascal Burke, Sergeant Pascal Burke—was shot through the heart after having had sex. Three hours later, Ellen Finn, his assistant, was shot through the head with the same gun while perched on top of him, as though they’d been having or just had sex.”

“And as though somebody entered the room and shot them together. Once,” Noreen put in rather breathlessly. “To make it seem like a crime of passion. There’s the note from the husband about her affair with Burke, Burke’s reputation as a Lothario, their clothes neatly hanging together in the closet. Whoever did this orchestrated the crime—a double murder—over the course of several hours.”

Having noticed her animus, the others were now staring at Noreen.

“And, can I tell you something else?”

They waited. Like McGarr, she was a redhead, her hair a bright arrangement of copper-colored curls. Her eyes were green. Patches of red had appeared on either cheek. “I’m worried. Worried for Quintan Finn. Whoever did this is either strong, or there’s more than one of them, and they’re trying to pin it on him. Think of what it must have taken to get her into this position.” Noreen jabbed at the most graphic photograph. “On top of a cadaver. She was young, she appears fit—”

“And she most probably resisted,” Bresnahan put in.

“Without question. Unless they disabled or shot her someplace else, then arranged her like that and shot her again.”

“Making three shots?” McKeon asked.

“Yes.”

“And there’s nothing about bruises on her body,” Ward said. “The only other salient details about her are the butterfly tattoo and her being pregnant.”

“What?”
both women said together, Noreen adding, “Well—that changes everything, doesn’t it?”

The three men only stared at her.

“Are they thick?” Bresnahan asked. “Or…?”

“Thick. Veritable dunderheads!”

“Make that dunderbolts,” McKeon quipped.

“Do you think she would have asked Burke to wear a condom if she was pregnant by him?”

“It’s one of the few times in a young woman’s life when something like that isn’t necessary,” Noreen put in, “when many women can allow themselves to be most passionate.”

McGarr tried not to react, such having been the case between them when Noreen had been pregnant with Maddie.

“What about disease?” Ward asked. “Maybe she demanded he wear one because she knew he was…messing about with who knows who?”

“And she was out for a bit of a lark, like you said earlier, Rut’ie.” McKeon shook his head and tsked.

Cocking her head, Bresnahan raised a hand as though trying to grasp something. “Let me tell you two boobs something”—

“Now there’s a start,” McKeon muttered.

“And get this straight.” Head cocked, Bresnahan leaned over the table, her sizable breasts—which today were swathed in sea-green cashmere—splaying to either side, her smoke-colored eyes darting from Ward to McKeon. “I’ll bet my last farthing that Ellen Finn, this victim, was not that kind of woman. I’m from a small country town myself, and if she was pregnant, she was pregnant by her husband and nobody else. And if she got murdered like this”—her hand slammed down on one of the forensic photographs—“it’s because it was fooking arranged.”

Having succeeded in nettling her, both men were smiling slightly. “Maybe they both just liked the feel of the thing,” McKeon said to Ward. “Thunderbolt Condoms—the name’s a stroke of genius, if nothing else.”

“Bernie,” Bresnahan said, two bright patches having risen to her cheeks, “sometimes you’re a flamin’—”

“Anything about the toilet?” McGarr asked, cutting her off.

They waited while Ward found the entry; a party of fishermen passed by the open door and looked in. Several were speaking Dutch.

“No. Only that it had been cleaned ‘most thoroughly,’” Ward said.

“No tile chips, no blood.”

Ward shook his head. “The chemical analysis of some wetness discovered behind the commode says the cleanser was Ever Fresh. An empty bottle of it was found in the waste bin and is being examined for fingerprints.”

“I never heard of that,” said Noreen.

“A note here says it’s a commercial product, sold in bulk by restaurant and hotel suppliers.”

“Anything further in the report about her wound, Hughie?” McGarr asked.

Ward scanned the sheet, and the next, and the next. “Yah—here’s something—the pathologist says that she would like to explore the possibility that the amount of bruising around the wound seems excessive, and there are tears in the flesh of her temple not usual to bullet wounds.”

Ward read some more. “The second bullet—entering Burke’s body was just slightly off center from the first. But this is only a preliminary report. We could put a rush on the final and get the full thing pronto.”

“By tomorrow morning, if we make it high priority,” said McKeon, who handled such things.

McGarr nodded his approval.

“Finally, a single strand of blond hair was discov
ered on the pillow beside the two corpses. Dyed blond and not belonging to Ellen Finn, whose blond hair color was natural. As with the condom, the lab will perform a DNA analysis.”

Another moment of silence passed, as the five considered what they knew of the crime.

“Oh the other hand,” McKeon finally said. “We have two thousand large in Burke’s uniform jacket and the snapshots of the Frakes rustling eels down by the river, the pix that were found in her bag.”

“Which could have been planted,” Noreen shot back. “If you were the Frakes and you did this, would you have left that stuff lying about?”