Inferno (CSI Reilly Steel #2) (6 page)

Kennedy waved a hand. ‘OK, I get it – but stop saying it.  It’s making my breakfast rise up in rebellion.’

Chris smiled at their banter, but remained focused on the details. ‘All of this suggests a high degree of planning and premeditation. This was very definitely no accident. We’re interviewing Coffey’s secretary this morning to see if she can shed any light on why the poor guy ended up like that.  Anything else to go on before we talk to her?’ He looked hopefully at Reilly. ‘Did your guys turn up much since?’

‘Well, we’ve really only just gotten started but ...’ She went on to tell them about that morning’s sauce discovery. ‘Going by his stomach contents at autopsy, apparently Coffey was like Kennedy, a meat-and-potatoes man, so it’s unlikely the sample came from him.’

‘What about the plumber?’ Chris asked.

‘He was wearing boots, and this was definitely a shoeprint. Size ten, which suggests our killer would be of average height and build.’

‘Aren’t they always?’ Kennedy grumbled. ‘What I wouldn’t give for a shoeprint that, for once, gives us a guy that’s eight foot tall and twenty stone. Would be easy to pick him out in a crowd.’

‘Like I said, we’ve just gotten started, and there’s quite a bit of isolation to do first. I may have picked up some potentially interesting trace from the limestone inside the tank opening – lab’s working on that as we speak – but the sewage would have obliterated any trace around the body.’

Chris nodded as if expecting as much.

‘So all we know for the moment is that someone average, who may or may not enjoy a spot of Chinese food, wanted Coffey dead,’ Kennedy said, sighing.

‘I never said anything about Chinese—’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know,
some
kind of sticky sauce. Doesn’t much matter either way, does it?’

‘Actually—’

‘OK, I get it, it’s a start. But until you can tell us what this stuff is, it’s no good in helping us catch our killer.’

‘It may be no good anyway, but we still have to check it out.’ Despite the huge strides in forensic science and its application to police work, Kennedy was dubious, and much more of a fan of the old-fashioned methods.

‘I’ve sent the manhole cover to the specialized tool marks lab in Edinburgh,’ Reilly continued. ‘Results will take some time, but this might help us identify how the culprit got it off, and that in turn may yield something helpful in itself.’ She picked up a sheaf of papers from her desk. ‘I was also interested in the construction history of the tank – you saw yourselves how old it looks – so I called the plumber and asked him about it.’

Paddy Murphy had still been pretty shaken up by his unexpected discovery, but when Reilly asked him about the specifics of the tank, he’d quickly perked up.

‘It’s a completely natural system,’ he’d told her. ‘And when I say it’s old, I mean ancient. I always figured it operated so well because it was fed from an underground spring of some sort. Maybe it was a kind of sacred cave before the monks claimed it for the friary sewer. Regardless, it doesn’t need any chemical assistance and is by any standard a remarkable feat of septic engineering,’ he’d added with an enthusiasm that only a specialist in waste management could muster. ‘It quickly digests any organic material it’s fed, and distributes the resulting nutrients out under the orchard and into the garden.’

‘So what’s a history lesson on the tank going to tell you?’ Kennedy sounded skeptical.

‘Well, I wondered if there was anything significant in the tank itself as the manner of death.’ 

‘Ah, I was thinking you’d start soon on that ... erm ... shite,’ he muttered irritably. Reilly’s tendency to look at not only the physical elements of a murder scene, but also any potentially metaphorical significance in how it was executed got on his nerves.  It was difficult not to, when one of their previous investigations had been determinedly metaphorical in tone. It also stemmed from Reilly’s behavioral psychology training at the FBI Academy.

‘Well, I suppose a lot of journalists are considered to be full of shit,’ Chris said, nodding in agreement. ‘And someone certainly wanted to deliver a strong message, killing Coffey the way they did. Maybe that’s what he’s hoping to get across.’

‘That’s pretty much what I was thinking,’ Reilly said. ‘Might be worth going through Coffey’s most recent articles, see if he’s annoyed anyone badly enough to do something like this. No harm in cross-referencing the cause of death with other cases either.’

Kennedy stood up, headed for the door. ‘Cheers, we’ll be sure to let you know when we graduate from homicide high school too,’ he said sardonically, but Reilly knew him well enough by now to realize it was merely banter. ‘God knows what we’d do without the FBI’s finest to show us how to run a case, eh? Speaking of which, how’s our old buddy Agent Forrest?’

‘Retiring, actually,’ Reilly replied, referring to her friend and former mentor Daniel Forrest, with whom the detectives had consulted on a previous case involving Reilly’s sister.

It had been a surprise to her to hear that he was hanging up his boots. Reilly had expected the man to be buried clutching a half-completed profile in his hands, so dedicated was he to unravelling the most twisted of human minds.

‘He’s continuing his lectures at Quantico but staying out of the field, apparently.’

‘I reckon he has the right idea,’ Kennedy said, and both Reilly and Chris looked at him in surprise. If anything Reilly had expected the older cop to greet the news with derision.

‘Workload getting you down, Detective?’ she queried, arching an eyebrow.

Kennedy shook his head, looking uncharacteristically defeated. ‘Last week, one of our boys is turned into a human Popsicle,’ he said, referring to the murder of a former colleague. ‘This week, guy drowns in his own shite, and in both cases we’ve got no clues, suspects, or motive  not to mention having the press all over it.’ He shrugged. ‘What’s not to love?’

T
here were secretaries and there were secretaries, Chris thought, and he’d make  an educated guess that shorthand wasn’t among Kirsty Malone’s key skills.

Tony Coffey’s assistant was the type of woman the most trusting of wives would worry about spending time with her husband. Chris guessed she was in her mid- to late thirties, but today she was dressed far younger, in a short denim skirt and tight-fitting red sweater, with highlighted blond hair and too much make-up. Not his type, but nice to look at, all the same.

Kirsty had agreed to meet them at the journalist’s office, where she had some corrections to make to Coffey’s final piece before sending it through for tomorrow’s edition. The decision to run the column on the week of the journalist’s untimely dead was bound to be controversial, but from what Chris had already learned about Coffey he figured that the man wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. 

The office was situated in an extension of the main Coffey residence, and was a large airy room, the walls lined with books, files, and stacks of magazines. There was an oak desk on the far side, in front of a bay window, a couch, and two comfortable chairs arranged beside the fireplace. A fire crackled in the grate, flooding the room with a faint orange glow. 

Kirsty was perched on a chair, displaying entirely too much perma-tanned thigh. She dabbed at her eyes, which were red-rimmed apparently from crying. When the detectives entered the room she stood up and offered them a gentle handshake.

‘Miss Malone,’ Chris asked, ‘we need to ask you a few questions about Mr Coffey. Do you think you’re up to it?’

Kennedy always let him take the lead in interviewing women.  Chris had a way about him, particularly with attractive ones, seeming at first to be besotted, taken in by their charms, while in reality he was very much in control, using flattery to disarm.

Kirsty nodded.  ‘Of course.’

He waved her back into her chair, and she obligingly sat down once more, crossed her legs, and gripped her notepad like a security blanket. He gazed out of a nearby window to avoid staring at her.

‘Where was Mr Coffey supposed to be this week?’

Kirsty sniffed.  ‘At a conference in Limerick.  He left on Monday ... Monday morning, early.’

‘And you hadn’t spoken to him since?’

She shook her head.

‘Was that unusual?’

Kirsty looked up at Kennedy – he was standing much closer to her than Chris was – invading her space almost, forcing her to look upwards. ‘A little, but he’d just got a new mobile – one of those iPhones – and he was really struggling to figure it out. Technology wasn’t his thing.’

Chris smiled sympathetically. ‘I know what you mean.  Sometimes it’s hard to learn how to make a simple phone call on these newfangled machines. So did you try to get in touch with him while he was away?’

‘Several times – and I sent him a couple of texts.  But he didn’t reply.’

‘Weren’t you concerned?  I’d imagine you two were quite close.’

Kirsty gave him a sideways glance, unsure what he was implying, but Chris’s open face was the picture of innocence.

‘I was a bit bothered,’ she admitted. ‘We usually talked most days when he was away, but you know what a journalist’s life is like. I just thought he was busy, had a few late nights boozing, or he’d let the phone run out of battery or something. He never kept up with things like that.’

Chris continued to nod sympathetically. ‘Did you talk to Mrs Coffey about your concerns?’

Kirsty shot him another look, peering up through her thick black eyelashes.  ‘Me and Mrs Coffey, we don’t exactly ... see eye to eye on everything.’

‘Like her husband?’ As usual, there was no treading softly where Kennedy was concerned.

Kirsty averted her gaze and fiddled nervously with the notepad in her lap, rolling the corners of the pages up and down, up and down.  Suddenly she looked up.  ‘Mind if I smoke?’

Chris nodded.  ‘Go ahead.’

She stood quickly, and picked up a small gold purse from the desk, before taking out a packet of Malboro and a lighter. Her hands shook as she lit the cigarette, and it took her three attempts to get it alight.

‘Got one to spare?’

She looked up and met Chris’s smile. ‘You too, huh?’  She strode across the thick carpet and offered him the packet, while Chris prepared to use a well-worn feint, employed to put witnesses like her at ease. 

That Kennedy was a smoker was obvious from the broken veins on his face and the giveaway persistent cough, but most people found it unexpected in the clean-shaven picture of health that was Chris Delaney, and he figured it was a decent leveler of sorts.

Kirsty stood and inhaled deeply from the cigarette, visibly unwinding. ‘Tony loved to smoke too, but had to keep it from the missus. Old witch doesn’t like smoking in the house,’ she continued.

Chris immediately picked up on the reference to Sandra Coffey. Definitely no love lost between those two.

He lit up, and nodded sympathetically, his eyes never leaving hers, but he said nothing.

Kennedy was on the far side of the room checking out a wall of photos.  Tony Coffey featured in most of them, along with a selection of local celebrities and politicians. He had obviously enjoyed mixing with the rich and infamous, and had an oily smile on his face whenever he was up close with a well-known personality. Chris looked at the pictures then back at Kirsty, wondering what on earth someone like her saw in the squat and decidedly unattractive man.

‘What was he like?’ Kennedy asked suddenly. He was still gazing at the photos, and had picked up one of Tony pictured at some bash with a woman who was neither Sandra Coffey nor Kirsty Malone. His companion was in a glamorous black dress that barely contained her ample cleavage, and Tony had his arm around her waist as he beamed at the camera.

Kirsty turned to look at him. ‘Tony?’ A little smile played across her face. ‘He was funny. Could always make me laugh.’

Chris’s tone was level. ‘Mrs Coffey doesn’t look like she laughs much.’

Kirsty gave a snort of derision. ‘You got that right – oul wagon’s face might crack if she smiled.’ She inhaled deeply, and breathed the smoke out hard; it formed a shroud around her face. ‘Don’t miss much, do you?’ she added, meeting his gaze square on.

He shrugged. ‘It’s my job.’

Kirsty walked over to Kennedy, and looked at the photo he was holding. ‘Journalists’Association dinner last year,’ she informed him. ‘That’s Tony and our features editor. Bit of a drunken bash, but we had a laugh.’

‘Tony didn’t take his wife to events like that?’

Kirsty raised her eyebrows. ‘Given the choice, would you? No, Sandra prefers not to get down and dirty with the gutter press,’ she said. ‘Too high and mighty for us, although that didn’t stop her from marrying Tony. Could never quite understand what he saw in her.’

Chris looked around the large room and outside to the neat little country estate, and reckoned he could figure out exactly what.

‘Doesn’t seem like the happiest of marriages,’ Kennedy commented.

Kirsty looked at another photo of Tony and gazed at it wistfully. She shrugged. ‘I guess she learned not to ask too many questions. For the most part Tony kept this life ...’ she paused slightly, as if talking about something other than his work, ‘... completely separate from his home life with her and the country crowd.’

‘I’m guessing they didn’t mix all that well?’ Chris ventured.

Kirsty gave a bitter laugh.  ‘Tony was an out-and-out socialist.  He was forever banging on about how his dad had worked on the railways for forty years, salt of the earth, real working man, all that stuff.’  She followed Chris’s gaze, and settled on a portrait of Tony and his wife behind his desk. ‘The whole country set thing?  He hated it, hated the dinner parties, the crusty formality of it all.  Bunch of old fakes in tweed and twinsets, he called them.’

Kennedy had been listening carefully, waiting for his opportunity. Having worked so long together both he and Chris knew instinctively when to press, when to pull back, when each had set the other up with an opening.  Now was the time.

‘So what was the attraction, Kirsty?’ he said, deciding not to tiptoe around the obvious reality. ‘You’re an intelligent, attractive woman. He was married and must have been, what, twenty years older than you?’