TRACE - CSI Reilly Steel #5 (Forensic novel Police Procedural Series) (11 page)

Chapter 17

Hammer and Tongs had a cold, clinical feel to it. Chris didn’t like it at all. He was glad they weren’t eating here.

But he was taken aback and more than a little worried that Reilly had cried off on the visit today. Especially given what had happened on Friday…

To say that he was shocked was the understatement of the century. He had no idea what had happened in the prison, but the sight of her when she came out … he automatically moved to comfort her. And then, when she’d turned her face up at him like that looking so vulnerable, so unlike her … He shook the thought away and tried to concentrate on the task in hand.

Harry McMurty escorted them to the kitchen. He smirked when he saw Kennedy again. ‘Come to arrest me then, have you?’

‘All in good time, mate.’

In the frantic kitchen, they were greeted by a tall red headed woman. ‘Better make it quick,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a full house today.’

‘Are you the Chef?’ Kennedy asked.

‘No, I’m the bloody Queen of England. What do you think?’

It occurred to Chris that this woman was probably used to being harassed in the workplace. The restaurant business was short on female chefs. Cooking at home was a supposedly woman’s business, but being a chef required the strength and creativity of man. Or so the theory went. You needed to rule the kitchen with an iron fist.

‘Are you the only chef here?’ he asked, the woman who eventually introduced herself as Gemma Collins.

‘I’m the daytime chef. The owner, Nico usually does the night work.’

‘Popular, isn’t it?’

‘Best food in Dublin,’ flashed the woman, proudly. ‘Tony and Nico are doing amazing things.’

‘And you use Joker Fruit?’ Kennedy asked.

‘Not any more. We did once or twice ages ago, but it’s a bit old now, isn’t it? In this restaurant, we don’t need to put poisonous foods on our menu to impress.’

‘Well when you did use it, were you involved in the preparation of it?’

‘No, Nico did all of that. He’s licensed.’

‘And is Nico here?’

‘Sleeping, probably. He works until very late. You can catch him in the evenings but I don’t think he’d welcome you. We don’t have problems with drugs among our staff, if that’s why you’re here.’

‘Why would you think we were here because of that?’

‘Everybody who works in hospitality takes amphetamines to stay up. Long hours,’ said Collins. ‘But our staff don’t deal. They’re good kids.’

‘What about Harry McMurty?’ interjected Kennedy.

‘Harry? Yeah, he’s a bit of a snake all right. But he can cook. Nico’s mentoring him. Lets him into the kitchen and teaches him things.’

Kennedy shot Chris a triumphant look.
This
was the link he had been looking for.

‘It’s solid. He murders one girl he’s seeing with sleeping pills, starts working at this fancy place and murders the next one with something harder to trace. I don’t know why we didn’t bloody book him the first time round.’

‘Patience. We’ll get him in for questioning. But I don’t know if he’s the right fit for both. He’s so young for starters. Too young to date Jennifer Armstrong.’

‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ Kennedy said. ‘Too young to have a relationship, maybe, but not too young for something casual.’

‘I agree that this guy seems cocksure. Too in your face. By Julius’s assessment, this unsub is supposed to be a loner.’ He sighed. ‘We’ll bring him in for questioning tomorrow. But I just don’t think he’s the one.’

That afternoon Reilly read the background on Brendan Keating. It didn’t make for pleasant reading.

When their parents split up, Darren had been 3 and Brendan 7. Brendan went to live with his father, a truck haulier who took his son with him to work. By age ten, Brendan had seen all of the country, and much of Europe, but had also been witness to the worst of his father’s vices: women, alcohol and speed. It was no secret that truck drivers, like hospitality workers, often took drugs in order to work the long hours they needed to.

At age ten, Brendan Keating’s father considered him old enough to stay at home by himself. Young Brendan started getting into the kind of trouble that you might expect from a sixteen year old: robberies, vandalism, intimidation. He was sent to foster homes and correctional facilities for youth, but to no avail. The damage was done. He had a list of convictions as long as Reilly’s arm. There were three charges of sexual assault that had been dropped before they went to court. Interestingly, Brendan’s criminal history stopped at age eighteen, around the time when he reconnected with his brother. Reilly couldn’t put this down to Brendan turning over a new leaf, however, since this was when Darren started to get into trouble too. She thought that Brendan had still continued to commit crime, but perhaps had used his brother as a scapegoat.

Soon after, Brendan Keating dropped off the map. His brother had been doing a short stint in jail, and when he got out, Brendan had disappeared. The official theory was that he had been killed, but a body had never been found.

Reilly couldn’t help but increasingly feel that Brendan was involved somehow in Grace’s disappearance. From the sound of things, Darren Keating had been a good kid until he turned up. She needed to do two things: dig deeper in to the pasts of the brothers, and see if Lucy’s hypnotherapy sessions turned up anything else in the meantime.

At the moment all she had was a hunch, but it was a strong one.

She picked up a photograph of Brendan Keating and studied it. Like Darren, he had also been a good looking kid. He had a scar running down the side of his face from an accident he’d been in. His father’s truck had flipped on the ice on a windy road up North. Miraculously, they had both survived.

Reilly had a feeling it would have been better for Grace Gorman if he hadn’t.

Chapter 18

Later that evening, Kennedy was happy enough to sit in his car and watch Harry McMurty. He was in one of the seedier parts of Dublin. Josie had her book group this evening, which generally consisted of too much wine and shrieking, so Kennedy thought it was a good chance for him to escape the house. He had just ordered a burger from the fast food place he was parked next to, and had put a Johnny Cash CD on.

McMurty was lurking about in a bar across the road. Kennedy knew it to be a notorious hang out for dealers of amphetamine. If nothing else, he could probably go in and nab McMurty on a possession charge. But that wasn’t the way they did things. You had to respect the turf of others. He and Chris were homicide detectives, and they had done their stints in Vice and Narcotics. You couldn’t go stepping on people’s toes. There could be an operation here that he didn’t know about.

Chris had offered to come with him but Kennedy had told him not to bother. Surely a young buck like Chris had other things to be doing. Though he knew Chris’s life wasn’t quite as exciting as it should be. He should have women climbing all over him, that fella. Well, maybe he did and he was just quiet about it?

And Steel was no better. Why did a good looking woman like that spend her nights alone? He didn’t understand what people were up to these days and his thoughts drifted back to the murder victims.

Why spend your time looking for love on a computer when there were thousands of people out there, just waiting for someone special. He had met Josie at friend’s wedding. That’s how it should be done.

Kennedy’s reverie was interrupted by a knock at his window. A man stood there holding a bag from the chipper he had ordered his burger from. He rolled down the window.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘You’re welcome,’ said the man, with a quick grin.

Funny, thought Kennedy. He didn’t look like the guy he’d ordered from. He was a little older. And come to think of it, he was wasn’t wearing the uniform either. Maybe he was the manager or something.

He unwrapped his burger and took a bite. Delicious – wait, no, there was something not quite right. He poked around in his burger and found the culprit. A mushroom. He hated the things, wouldn’t let them near the house. Smelt like an unwashed drawer of socks.

Kennedy didn’t like complaining, but the mushroom had tainted the whole burger. He was sure they would give him a replacement. He got out and walked through the frosty air to the fast food place.

An odd feeling assailed him as he walked. Kind of like he was being squeezed out of his body. Like someone had a hold of him and was trying to crush him. Pete Kennedy made it inside the door of the chip shop before he crashed and fell, the hard linoleum floor feeling like a balm to his burning skin.

Reilly’s phone rang in what felt like the middle of the night. She sat bolt upright and found herself at the kitchen table, a document from the Gorman missing person file stuck to her face. She ripped it off and madly rummaged through the papers to find her phone. A glance at the clock told her it was just after midnight.

‘Hello?’

‘Reilly. It’s Chris.’ Immediately she was flooded with discomfort, embarrassment … but then she heard something in his voice. This was nothing to do with … ‘Something’s happened,’ he continued. ‘It’s Pete, he’s had a heart attack or something.’

‘Oh my God. Oh no - ’

‘He’s all right. The hospital won’t let anyone but Josie in now but I’m going to see him first thing tomorrow.’

‘I’ll meet you there,’ she said, automatically.

‘Are you sure? You don’t have to, I just wanted to let you know.’

‘Of course, I want to.’ Kennedy was her colleague, her friend, the guy she’d been sharing pastries with the day before. She thought then about his terrible eating habits. Had his love of all things fried finally caught up with him?

A black fear gripped her heart. Chris had implied he was out of danger but what if he was wrong? If Kennedy died, it would be like losing … a good friend, she realized.

When Chris and Reilly met at the hospital the next morning, it was like they had run into mirrors of their own tiredness. It was also the first time they’d come face to face since the episode on Friday.

She’d finally opened his email after crying off on the restaurant visit. And when she did, she felt even worse for doing so.

Reilly, whatever happens, we are friends first and foremost. Don’t shut me out. Out and about this morning but see you at the restaurant at one. It’ll be a relief to escape from Kennedy for a bit. He gnawing my ear off about this McMurty guy and you know what he’s like. Dog with a bone …

She’d felt a flush of shame when she read it. He was so good. Here she was, trying to avoid him, and he was just trying to make her feel better. Thank goodness he’d been able to just laugh the whole thing off. Now maybe she should do the same.

‘Rough night, huh?’ she commented, trying to make her voice sound casual, easy the way it used to be between them.

‘I honestly thought the morning would never come. I can’t believe it. Kennedy of all people. We both know what he’s like but honestly I thought he was so bloody stubborn he’d end up outlasting the lot of us. Josie said he collapsed in a chipper. Obviously his bad habits caught up with him.’

It was exactly what Reilly had been thinking.

They quickly waylaid a nearby nurse to find out the location of Kennedy’s room and both swept through the doors.

‘Bloody hell,’ he admonished. ‘A man might need a private moment or something. Fat chance of that with you two around.’

Reilly could have cried to hear him speak like that. He was still the same. A little gray, maybe, but sitting up in bed like a king entertaining his subjects, Josie by his side.

‘Yes,’ his wife admonished. ‘We’ve all been worried. You gave us a terrible fright. Now it’s time for you to listen to me and give up that rubbish you insist on eating. I told you didn’t?’ She turned to Reilly and Chris. ‘He was in the chipper when he collapsed. Imagine that?’

‘Now love,’ said Kennedy, rolling his eyes. ‘They still don’t know that it was a heart attack. They’re running tests.’

‘What else would it have been? No, from now on it’ll be steamed veg and skinless chicken for dinner.’

‘I might as well be dead, then,’ her husband moaned. ‘Would you be a pet and go and get these two a cup of coffee? They look worse than I do.’

‘Secret police business, I presume,’ Josie said shaking her head indulgently. ‘Yes, I’ll leave you in peace for a bit. As long as you promise not to slip him any doughnuts or anything.’

They promised, and Reilly thought for a second that Josie might make them turn out their pockets. She would have made a good cop.

When she was gone, she turned to Kennedy. ‘We were so worried,’ she said. ‘Thank goodness you’re OK.’

‘You should never have gone out alone,’ said Chris. ‘I told you I’d come with you.’

‘Blah, blah, blah’ said Kennedy. ‘Save it for my funeral, kids. I need you to do something.’

‘Of course,’ said Reilly. ‘But you shouldn’t be thinking about work right now.’

‘This was no accident — seriously’ said Kennedy. ‘My car’s still on Sheriff Street with any luck. Here’s my keys. I want you to get the remains of the burger and have Julius run his fancy tests on it. Mark my words, something will come back funny.’

Chapter 19

‘What do you reckon?’ said Chris, as he drove them both to collect Kennedy’s car.

‘Seems a bit far-fetched,’ said Reilly. ‘But we have to check. Maybe he’s just embarrassed. It’s a big thing for a guy like Kennedy to feel vulnerable. He probably just wants there to be another reason for this, other than his health and age.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Chris. ‘I’d probably feel the same. He seemed pretty certain it wasn’t a heart attack, but then again he’s got nothing to compare it to, has he?’

By some kind of miracle, Kennedy’s car was still where he left it. Not exactly
as
he left it though. It was up on bricks, the four tires removed.

‘No surprise there,’ said Chris. ‘You can’t drop your trousers in this part of town without them getting stolen.’

Reilly bit back a smile. ‘Speaking from personal experience then?’

He chuckled, realizing how it must have sounded. Then he unlocked Kennedy’s door, and sure enough, there was the burger, with a single neat bite taken out of it.

Reilly put it into a specimen bag, ready to go to the lab.

‘Better get someone to come and get the car before it gets impounded,’ Chris said. ‘But right now, we’re both late for work.’

In the car, they fell into the uneasy silence Reilly had been dreading. She bit her lip, and took a deep breath, deciding she might as well attack it head on. They were stuck in traffic. Neither of them could run away.

‘I’m really sorry about … the other day, Chris. I was upset. I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean…anything,’ she finished lamely.

He took a long time to reply and when he did he wouldn’t meet her eyes; he kept looking straight ahead at the line of cars at the traffic lights in front of them.

‘Just a mistake - of course.’

‘Yes.’ A huge weight was suddenly taken from her shoulders. He got it, he knew it was something crazy, a huge spur of the moment thing. It didn't mean anything to either of them. ‘A huge mistake. A major mistake,’ she mumbled, laughing nervously. ‘So don’t worry, we can just be normal with each other again. The usual, OK?’

‘The usual,’ Chris repeated, his tone giving nothing away. ‘Of course. No worries.’

‘Great,’ said Reilly, feeling better than she had in days. ‘Sounds perfect.’

Julius was running analysis on a burger that Reilly had practically shoved in his face first thing and told him to put before everything else. Not that he didn’t have a million other things to do, but when the boss said jump…

He pulled apart the separate pieces of the burger, and extracted a small piece of the beef. It smelt rank. He didn’t know how people ate this stuff. Julius had recently converted to vegetarianism and had never looked back.

He ran the morsel of beef through a simple solution that tested for poisons. It only picked up common substances, so if he didn’t find anything, he would have to do more intensive analysis. He did the same with the cheese and the bread. Then he turned to the mushroom, and took a closer look at that. Holy hell, he thought immediately taken aback. This was no run of the mill Portobello. Where exactly had this burger come from?

All the tell-tale signs were there. The flesh of the cap was pink not white, and the cap itself was not curved and smooth, but bulbous and blemished. He was about to put a call through to Reilly when Gary came in.

‘Man, did you hear the news about Pete Kennedy? Guy almost died yesterday. Heart attack while he was eating a cheeseburger apparently. Not so much Batman but Elvis.’ He chuckled at his own joke.

‘Well, if happened to be this burger,’ Julius replied, his tone grave, ‘it was no heart attack.’

Poor little fat man. He took it so trustingly, like a child. Only thinking of his own pleasure.

It was so easy. All I did was walk into the place, and tell them I was picking up my uncle’s order, and they just handed it over. Such sloppiness. I slipped in the prize ingredient, wrapped the thing back up and knocked at the guy’s window. It was such a temptation to wait around and watch him gasp for air, stuck in his car like a thrashing fish. But I couldn't do that.

Such a pleasure to know that the cops are running around, dealing with my chaos, while I calmly prepare for tonight. Chopping, slicing, marinading.

Just because it will be her last meal doesn’t mean that I can afford to be lax. It should be perfect. She should die in a paroxysm of pleasure, only realizing at the last moment that the air is receding, that the edges of her vision are going black.

Tonight will be perfect. No distractions, everything perfectly prepared. I have become good at this and I can only get better.

Good isn’t good enough
, she used to say to me.
You have to do better
.

If only she could see me now, top of my game in all respects. I wonder does she think of me? Wonder what happened to the weakling she used to know. I think of her. I’m closing in on her.

Soon I’ll know what became of her repulsive life after I left it.