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

‘So, in other words, someone really knew how to use that expensive knife,’ Reilly mused.

‘Exactly. I’m not sure how much it helps, but the evidence seems to be building up to someone who likes to cook and has at least some expertise in that area.’

‘What’s the other thing?’

‘I managed to get into the victim’s phone. Not too much of interest, but she did have six missed calls from a friend on the night she was killed. A person called Helena Burke.’

‘The detectives are talking to her, actually’ said Reilly, remembering Chris mentioning that name. ‘What time were the calls?’

‘Around 9:30pm.’

‘Perhaps the perp was interrupted or spooked somehow?’ she mumbled, almost to herself. ‘That’s good work. Thanks, guys.’

‘One more thing: the place had been wiped clean,’ Julius said. ‘He might have left some things undone, but surprisingly there are no prints, not even a partial. Even the phone was wiped clean, which indicates the unsub may have picked it up to see who was calling. He did leave behind that imprint on the bed Gary spotted though, and we’re analyzing trace on the bedclothes now.’

‘We don’t know that
he
left that shape, though,’ Lucy pointed out.

Reilly nodded. ‘At this stage, everything is up for speculation.’

Chapter 6

Like everything in life, preparation for this kind of thing amounts to a recipe.

First step: Find the main ingredient. If you wish to continue the recipe analogy, you could liken this to harvesting, or selecting the right product.

It can’t be just any ingredient. When you pick fruit, you pick that which has ripened perfectly, that will bear up to the treatment required. You pick something firm, but not too hard. You pick something with the exact right color, the right smell.

The right subject must be one who is supremely confident. You must trawl through hundreds of these infernal profiles, looking for someone who is so confidant they don’t believe that anything bad could happen to them. She must look straight at you. She must be beautiful. She must not be so young that she hasn’t had a chance to make choices. She mustn’t be so old that she has had a chance to regret them.

It’s a fine line, you see. The wrong ingredient can strike a sour note through your whole meal.

Even after you select the subject, you might chat with her for a while and find that she is not the right one after all. You have to start all over again.

I will not waste my talents on just anyone. Not any more. My days of apprenticeship are over.

For now, I think I have another in my sights. She seems perfect, but of course more work must be done. Now I begin the slow process of getting to know her. She must invite me into her home for the first date. There can be no prior meetings, this just increases the probability that she will talk to a friend about me.

You might think that I don’t enjoy talking to my subjects, that, since I am planning to kill them, I must not want to waste time talking to them. On the contrary, I find it enlightening. I want to know what made them the way they are. I want to have no reason at all to feel bad for them.

I think of the things I will say to her to make her trust me. I think of these things as I run. I run so fast people might think I am running from something. I run until my lungs are burning like coals in my chest. I run until I can feel my blood pulsing in my fingertips. I run to take the edge of my needs, to train myself in patience and discipline.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. Sometimes the old adages are the truest.

Chris and Kennedy sat in Helena Burke’s perfect living room. It was almost comical, how uncomfortable Kennedy looked, sitting on a pristine cream couch. He was perched as though to move would be to smear grease all over it. The whole place startlingly clean, which was strange, as Helena and her husband had two children. They must be angels, thought Chris. Or else their mother must keep them in a cupboard somewhere.

He was trying to appear more relaxed than Kennedy, but they were just the wrong size for a room like this. Helena Burke had gone to fetch them coffee, despite them saying that they didn’t need anything. Chris got the feeling that Helena was the kind of woman who couldn’t let you leave her home without having been offered something.

‘Mate,’ he whispered, ‘You look like you’re about to snap.’

‘This chair is not made for sitting,’ Kennedy grumbled. ‘It’s an instrument of torture.’

Helena breezed back in with coffee and biscuits laid out on a tray. They went through the milk and sugar preferences and then it was time to ask some questions.

‘Did you know Jennifer well?’ Chris began.

‘Well, yes,’ said Helena. ‘She did some work for my husband and we became quite close. It’s a terrible shock to me.’ While she spoke, the woman showed some textbook signs of emotion. She dabbed at the corner of her dry eyes, looked down at the floor and then made eye contact with each of them in turn. Chris guessed that she didn’t really feel strong emotions: she may have been shocked at first, but now she was excited to be part of an investigation. They saw it often. People getting a kick when their lives were touched by a tragedy that wasn’t too close.

‘And you continued to see each other after she stopped working for your husband?’

‘Yes, we went out for dinner a lot. We both enjoy fine wines and food. Jennifer was quite confused and looking for love. I was able to guide her a little.’

‘Guide her?’

‘Yes, well, I have a successful marriage, children. Jennifer was looking for that kind of happiness.’

‘Everything we know about her indicates that she was dedicated to her career,’ said Kennedy. He took a bite of the dry biscuit that Helena had served him and froze in the action as crumbs scattered all over the floor. Chris bit back a smile.

‘Yes,’ said Helena, coldly, eyeing the crumbs, ‘she had been. But lately she had been talking about settling down. She had been going out on these ridiculous dates. With complete strangers.’

‘Did you meet any of the men she was dating?’ Chris asked. Kennedy was surreptitiously trying to pick up each individual crumb.

‘No, she was quite secretive. I get the feeling that they didn’t work out well, or mostly amounted to flings.’ She said the last word distastefully, as though she couldn’t bear to think of anyone enjoying sexual congress. Chris studied her. Helena was a beautiful woman, no mistake. Her amber colored hair sat in a lustrous bun on top of her head and her skin glowed. But she seemed cold. He couldn’t imagine wanting to touch her. It seemed like a cold blast of air was waiting inside her, to flow out on any offending parties.

‘Our records show that you called Jennifer six times on the night she was killed. Can you tell us why you were so urgently trying to contact her?’

Helena turned her head in Kennedy’s direction. ‘You can leave that,’ she said, referring to the crumbs. ‘The cleaner will handle it.’ She turned back to Chris. ‘I called her because I was worried. I had received a voice message from her saying that she had a date that night. Someone she hadn’t met before was coming to her house to cook her dinner. It seemed like a preposterous idea to me. Sadly, it seems that I was right.’

‘Why do you say that?’

Helena looked at him as though he was mad. ‘Well, obviously. The details might not be in the paper yet but it’s clear she was murdered.’

Chris noted a tiny hint of triumph in Helena’s voice. Maybe she did have some emotion after all, but she certainly wasn’t grieving for her “friend”.

‘Can we hear the message?’

Helena flicked her hand dismissively. ‘I deleted it.’

They would have to check with the GFU to see if it could be tracked. It seemed like there was nothing else for them here, in this strangely unfriendly pastel tinted room. But he felt something else was going unsaid. The house itself smacked of discord. There was no comfort to be found here, and Helena herself was stretched tight as wire.

‘Did your husband have a close relationship with Jennifer?’ he asked suddenly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kennedy thump back down on the couch with a look of resignation.

‘A working relationship,’ said Helena a little haltingly. ‘Yes.’

‘Did they remain close after she stopped doing work for him?’

‘I suppose so. He saw her when I did. I don’t see what this has to do with anything…’

‘Everything at this stage of the investigation is important to us,’ said Kennedy but Chris knew his partner wasn't sure where he was going with this line of questioning.

‘How long did Jennifer do PR for your husband?’

‘It was a short contract,’ said Helena. ‘Three months.’

‘Are you happy in your marriage?’ Chris asked then and Kennedy’s head snapped up.

‘I don’t see what that has to do with it,’ said Helena, again. Her neck and chest were becoming a mottled red. ‘Not particularly. My husband is a bit of a prick. Happy?’

Chris didn’t enjoy upsetting her, but he needed to know what was happening. This could be a breakthrough.

‘Did your husband and Jennifer Armstrong have an affair Mrs Burke?’

‘Yes,’ said Helena, through clenched teeth.

‘Was it ongoing at the time of her death?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Helena. ‘Perhaps, but I got the feeling that they had cooled off.’

‘Were they aware that you knew?’

‘No,’ said Helena. ‘In any case, Jennifer may have felt bad but my husband wouldn’t have cared.’

‘Ok. I think that’s all we need from you,’ Chris said, making a move to leave.

‘You won’t get much out of Blair,’ said Helena. ‘He’s a snake. He won’t want to be involved in a murder investigation.’

‘I’m afraid he doesn’t have a choice,’ said Kennedy, standing up. The crumbs in his lap fell to the floor.

‘She was a stupid girl,’ said Helena savagely. ‘She thought she could have anything she wanted and look where she ended up.’

‘One more thing,’ said Chris, unimpressed by the theatrics. ‘What does your husband do for a living?’

‘He owns a bloody, stinking restaurant.’ Helen Burke told them.

Chris’s blood was pumping with the kind of exhilaration he got after a decent workout. This was the first major lead. All it took in a case like this was one thing to crack the whole investigation wide open. Jennifer Armstrong and Blair Burke had been lovers. Blair Burke owned a high end restaurant, which indicated some kind of knowledge of fine food, even if he himself wasn’t a chef.

‘Why did she become friends with the wife, do you think?’ said Kennedy, clearly befuddled. ‘Why would any woman befriend the girl who’s having her husband on the side?’

‘I think it was perhaps a case of keeping your enemies closer. In any case,’ said Chris. ‘We’ve finally got a lead.’

They soon arrived at La Boca, Blair Burke’s restaurant in the centre of the city. It served Mexican fusion, made from locally sourced ingredients. Word had it that the food here was truly good, truly authentic. Under other circumstances, Chris would have liked to eat there.

‘We’re closed,’ said a young waiter who was setting up chairs on the terrace outside.

‘We don’t need you to be open,’ said Kennedy, flashing his badge. Of either of them, Kennedy was the one who occasionally enjoyed coming off like your typical TV cop, mainly to scare young people like this one.

It worked. The boy snapped up straight and looked at them with a kind of terror. Chris guessed he was wondering if it was wise to bolt for the street.

‘We’re not interested in you and whatever you’re putting up your nose, kid,’ said Kennedy. ‘Is your boss here? Burke?’

‘He’s always here,’ said the boy, relieved but still slightly shaken. ‘Come in.’

Blair Burke was noticeably drunk. The detectives could tell this even as they walked across the room. He was slouched at the bar, a bottle of red wine beside him, and his voice was booming throughout the cavernous restaurant. He appeared to be shouting at no one on particular. At least, no one that Chris could see. She heard Kennedy sigh beside him. He agreed. It was going to be a long afternoon.

Once they had made themselves known to Blair Burke, it was clear that he was not going to cooperate. ‘I don’t have to talk to you,’ he said again and again. ‘I want my lawyer.’

Eventually they took him in for questioning. He could have his lawyer, but he was going to have to dry out first. He stunk of booze and Kennedy sat with him in the back of the car to make sure that he didn’t cause any trouble, but he appeared to have passed out. As they left the restaurant, the waiter had told them: ‘This happens every day.’

They needed to send someone to examine the kitchen, but would need a warrant. They could get on that back at the station. Burke was going to need a few hours at least to sober up before he could be questioned.

Still, Chris felt optimistic that they may well have found their man.

Reilly was on the way back from the lab towards her office when Jack Gorman, her elder GFU counterpart waylaid her in the hallway. She’d seen very little of Lucy’s father since her return and as far as Gorman was concerned that was exactly how she liked it.

‘A word, Steel,’ he commanded, in his typically gruff manner.

Suppressing a sigh she followed him into his office. He was a good man, she knew, and was still grieving for his daughter. He would probably be grieving for the rest of his life. But he was a pain in the neck sometimes. He had only recently been accepting of her as an asset to the GFU. Previously, he thought that her and her “American notions” simply complicated things and had rejected her right from the outset.

Today he didn’t beat around the bush. ‘I hear you’re checking up on the task force. There’s a competent team already in place Steel; it’s not necessary.’

She exhaled. ‘Jack, having spoken to the detectives, my worry is that they’re not really looking at the case in its entirety, and simply following up the new lead with the necklace. The key to Grace’s disappearance lies at the beginning of the investigation, I’m sure of it.’

‘I’ve been over those files myself, a thousand times. If I thought there was anything of use there, anything at all, then I would break the rules, even risk my own career to follow it up. But there’s not.’

‘I still think it’s worth going over. Perhaps if we re-interview, follow up with some of the witnesses, someone might remember something.’

‘I don’t want it all stirred up again. It would kill my wife - she’s still trying to come to terms with the latest find. We need something definite, not the probing of old wounds. Bloody hell, Steel, don’t you have enough to do anyway?’

‘I promised Lucy,’ she said stubbornly.

Jack Gorman sighed. If he had an Achilles heel, it was Lucy. He wanted his remaining daughter to be happy, so much so that he had indulged her most dangerous wish: to work in law enforcement.

‘If you must,’ he said, and she couldn't contain her surprise. Obviously the new find had affected him as much as it had his wife and Lucy. ‘But try not to step on toes. And I don’t want you speaking to my wife either.’

‘I just want to help Jack, not interfere,’ she told him softly. ‘You never know there might be something, something small that might help…’

‘I know that,’ he mumbled, refusing to meet her gaze. ‘My worry is that all of this is sending us back to square one, back to that terrible place. Just when we thought we were moving on.’