The Killer in Me Read online

I reach up, pin copies of the photos to the corkboard above my desk. “There’s always a trace; give it an hour, will ye.”

  “There was a fair pong beginning to rise off the male victim by the time I got there.”

  “So we know we’re looking for someone who can store a body for days. A fridge or freezer large enough. Storage unit, warehouses, basements.”

  “If the perp’s local, that might narrow it down.”

  “I’m thinking we start with sheds, outbuildings. Somewhere the killer would have felt safe in storing a body. Not his house. Too risky.”

  “You think this guy’s a loner?”

  “Not necessarily. He’s extra careful, maybe even a little nervous. He wanted this to work out, needed it to. This may have been his first kill, so he’s made it good. Thought it through well. He feels he’s had to do this to make us see.” I look back down at the crime scene photos. “We must see.”

  Baz gets up, goes to the watercooler in my office, fills a plastic cup, sits again, and takes a drink.

  “Ger and Alan Shine. Husband and wife,” Baz says. “Do we have a motive?”

  “Nothing apparent yet. We’re still gathering family info.” I take up my pen, make a note to contact the family liaison officer. “The priest’s uniform, what do you think that means?”

  “I think they’re called vestments,” Baz corrects.

  “Right. I forgot about your altar boy days. Any idea?”

  He spins the photo of Alan Shine round, considers the image for a while. “A satirical attack, maybe? Do they kill for that kind of thing?”

  “Any theme is game.” I’ve seen cases where killers have murdered partners then in some strange remorseful or controlling act have eaten with, slept with, even watched TV with the body for days before the smell alerted neighbors that something was wrong. It’s all there, a kaleidoscope of possibility. If you can imagine it, a killer can too.

  “Could be just the killer got creative or maybe it’s simpler: a jealous lover? Money trouble?” he suggests.

  “Money? I’d be surprised but we can’t rule it out.” I reach out, pass him a close-up of the knife, point to the word WEAPON etched along the blade. “These murders are fulfilling a deep psychological need in our killer. He wants us to hear him. He’s left us a message.”

  Baz holds up the photo, turns it about. “Not much of a message.” He lets out a long breath. “Christ. Whatever happened to just killing your enemies? Fuck, my life, your life hasn’t been a bed of roses at the best of times. But you say, life dumps its load, sometimes right down the back of your neck, that doesn’t mean you wake one morning, slit someone’s throat open, and stick a man’s body in your freezer along with the fish fingers.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” I wait for his shoulders to unwind from his neck then drop the photos into the file, hand it to him. A day’s work, threading through the lattice of these murders. “Let’s get to debrief.”

  * * *

  —

  DETECTIVE STEVE GARVIN has gathered the room around. Steve doesn’t walk a crime scene the way the rest of us do, preferring a desk and the blue glare of his computer. He’s our very own fifth dimension, traversing the virtual worlds of our victims and suspects, an eye on both planes. Technology, infrared analysis, the little life contained in a mobile phone, all never fail to bring color to his narrow face. Two rows of chairs are positioned in a semicircle under the bright lights of the office.

  He sits at the front. Ginger hair a shock against his skin, a thick silver chain visible at the base of his neck, his angular body over itself like an awkward teen, his feet hooked behind the metal legs of the chair. He’s wearing a thin white shirt but beneath it a black T-shirt, the Metallica logo standing out in sharp letters across his chest. I notice he’s shaved his goatee but he’s acquired a new quirk: a black disk of plastic in his right ear. His long fingers rattle a pen against his notebook as if he doesn’t know quite what to do with his hands without a keyboard in front of him.

  The rest of the team are slopped into their seats, but their eyes are sharp and eager. Behind them, Detective Inspector Paul Collins is still at his desk, finishing up a call. Paul is in his mid-forties or maybe younger, chubby or fat, whichever way your sensitivities might allow you to describe him. He long ago shrank away from the notion of fieldwork, preferring to fill out his role on the other side of a desk. He’s a quiet man. However, put a phone line between him and whoever he’s talking to and he’s full of banter. Or at least more than he throws out to the office. He lives alone as far as I can tell, still prefers to make his lunch at home, unpacking his sandwiches and biscuits from a Tupperware box at the allotted time. The only suggestion of a significant other in his life, a framed picture of a tabby cat looking out from behind his computer. His size or maybe his social awkwardness wins him a certain kind of patronizing affection from the rest of the team. Plenty of shoulder digs and back pats accompanied by indulgent smiles.

  He is bent over his wide middle, shirt straining, dark patches leaking out from beneath his arms. He hangs up the phone, throwing me a worried glance as he does so; then, wiping his forehead, he joins the rest of the room in front of the incident board.

  I check my watch. It’s coming up on one A.M. but our work is only starting. We’ve got a tight window now to get things right. Fuckups in the first twenty-four hours after a crime scene won’t be forgiven down the line.

  I throw out an encouraging smile. “I hope you’ve all had your coffee. It’s going to be a long one.” A few of the team return my smile, others sag a little, reach for phones, maybe to send a text to a partner or spouse, let them know they won’t be having sight nor sound from them until we have this killer on our radar. I wait for all eyes to return to me, until the room quiets, stills with hungry concentration.

  The victims’ photos, smiling profile pictures, grin out over my shoulder. A snap of before. I feel that pressure, the weight of life across my back, valid, asking questions: Why? Who? The heat in the office breathes over my skin, settles damp and sticky around my neck.

  “Right,” I say. “Let’s get started. The victims.” I clear my throat, step aside, introduce them. “Geraldine and Alan Shine. Wife and husband. No children. Geraldine worked from home, selling makeup samples online. Alan was an electrician. Money was tight, but they met their bills, no debt that we can find presently. Have family been notified?”

  Helen, Detective Flood, stands up, clears her throat. Helen wears her stripes proudly. Her preferred work uniform: blouse done up to the neck; practical, well-wearing trousers with those Velcro-topped pockets sewed on the leg; and hair pulled back into a bun, as tight as her hair follicles and scalp allow. She’s a persistent detective, insightful and dogged. A little on the overeager side, which can veer into neediness at times.

  She tugs at the knees of her trousers as she stands. “Yes. Alan Shine’s siblings, five older brothers, immigrated to Australia some years ago. His mother’s deceased.” She nods as if to say, small mercy. “His father lives in Cork. Geraldine’s parents, Aileen and Ken Garry, are both alive and living in Louth, Drogheda. Geraldine had one sister, Fiona. Older by two years, unmarried and living with her parents. According to Fiona, Geraldine hadn’t been in touch in any regular sense for about two years. Though they met up last Christmas for a family meal.”

  “Any reason for not being in touch?”

  “She said they had their differences. But I suspect some conflict on the side of the Shine marriage. Door-to-door are picking up a lot of reports that the marriage was an abusive one. Lots of shouts heard through the walls. Screams. Crying.”

  “Any callouts? Did anyone visit, check that Mrs. Shine was okay?”

  Helen presses her lips together, a look of guilt on her face as if she was responsible. “I’ll check.”

  I sigh. “Okay. What else?”

  “That’s it so far. The family liaison
officer has just gone out to Geraldine’s parents and sister.”

  “We’ll get to them as soon as we can. Find out what those differences between Geraldine and her family were.”

  I turn. Point to a picture of the church, the inside, the crime scene laid out. I’d taken the photo standing on one of the pews.

  “Initial assessments tell us that Alan Shine was strangled. From the front. By hand. The rate of decomposition strongly suggests he was stored in some kind of refrigeration unit. Possibly for days. So he must have been gone during this time. Did anyone miss him? If not, why not? There’s not been a missing person’s report and Geraldine Shine was active online, selling products up until the day she was murdered. Any concern she had for her husband’s disappearance did not extend to contacting the gardaí.

  “Geraldine Shine had her throat cut at the scene, from behind. Cast-off blood spatter from the weapon was found here.” I indicate slightly to the right of the bodies. “A line of blood spatter that reaches beyond Alan Shine’s body, although none over Mr. Shine himself. This indicates she was killed and posed first. The killer then positioned Mr. Shine’s body after.”

  I give the team a moment, wait for questions, frowns, hesitations, additions.

  “For those of you unfamiliar with the area, the church is situated at the far west of Clontarf. Congregation dwindling, on a Sunday the housekeeper says the average number of attendees might be as low as twenty. The last service was at midday; the church was cleared by one P.M. The parochial house, in which both the priest and the housekeeper reside, is situated to the left of the building, not more than fifty yards away.”

  Helen raises a hand. “Is there a back or side entrance to the church?”

  “There’s one entrance on each side of the church. The front is routinely locked when not in use, but for ease of movement between the parochial house and the church the closest entrance is kept unlocked except for at night.”

  Baz leans against the wall on the other side of the case board. “The killer will have had, at a stretch, six hours to murder Geraldine Shine and then lay out her husband’s body,” he says. “We’re assuming he or she used a vehicle of sorts to transport Alan Shine’s body. There are two points of vehicle access to the church grounds, the public access at the front, which would allow a car to draw up close. This access is very open. There’s a bus stop almost directly outside and it’s in full view of the parochial house.

  “The second access point is at the rear of the church, a low metal fence and a narrow pathway that slopes down toward a wooded area. To the further west of this there is a car park, which is in use most of the week. This would have been a considerable challenge to our killer but we think it’s most likely the route he took.”

  Helen’s hand flicks in the air. “So Geraldine Shine was already in the church when she was attacked? She was brought there by her killer?”

  I glance back at a satellite photo of the area. The Shine house is circled in red, the church in yellow. Neither can be more than a quarter mile from the other. “She’d been known to visit the church often and sometimes spoke with the priest there, Father Healy. He said she often slipped in the side door to reflect or pray in quiet. So, I suspect she was already at the church. And if that’s the case, it means the killer likely knew her movements.”

  Baz takes over. “This guy’s done his research. Probably stalked his victims for days, if not longer. Knew that Geraldine Shine wouldn’t report her husband missing.”

  Ryan Toomey sits front and center. Ryan, thirties, gym built, and well-sculpted. He wears his pressed suit as if he runs the Bureau and I know he thinks there’ll come a day he will. He works hard when he’s here but he’s not one for pushing himself beyond the demands of his wage. And that won’t get you far in this job. Still, there’s never a more useful detective than one who’s always on the lookout for a promotion. He’s had it easy over the last few months and I can see he’s almost salivating at the chance to prove himself on this case. He taps his pen on his notebook; his foot waggles over and back. Patent leather shoes have an irritating gleam under the white office lights. “So we’re not thinking the priest is a suspect?”

  “We’ve not named any suspects yet,” Baz says. He spreads his hands. “The priest says he was out in the hours that led up to the discovery of the bodies but so far he’s no alibi.”

  “My money’s on the priest, then,” Ryan replies. He clicks the top of his pen, closes his notebook.

  “We’re keeping an eye on Healy,” I say. “We certainly want to close down on his activities over the past twelve hours. Ryan, you’re on Cell Site Analysis, track his phone, see if you can get a list of the visitations Healy was due to make yesterday.”

  He nods, happy.

  I point up at the images on the case board, a close-up of the pews. “There was a void located in the projection spatter from the injury sustained to Geraldine Shine’s neck. An unknown item was removed from the scene. CSI at the Shine house have yet to locate Geraldine Shine’s or Alan Shine’s phones, a wallet, credit cards, money. So we’re going on the assumption the void in blood spatter was caused by Geraldine’s handbag or wallet. Either she set it down on the pew when she arrived, before she was attacked, or dropped it there.”

  I pull the blouse away from my back, feel a welcome stir of air over my skin, stand and look out at our team.

  “Our killer,” I say, “will be male. Most likely early to mid-thirties. He’s intelligent but may not be educated. He’s had an abusive past, not necessarily sexual. He may have spent time inside, for petty crime, possibly assault. He’s probably well-spoken. He’s organized. He likes routine. He’s probably unmarried. No children. He could have a girlfriend. He feels society has never given him a break, his childhood: failed by social services, by his parents, by school, so he invents his own rules”—I look to Baz—“his own morality.”

  “The arrangement of the stab wounds on Geraldine Shine’s body are significant. They are well thought out. Inflicted postmortem. Do they stand for something? Betrayal? A person stabbed in the back?”

  Baz speaks out again. “It may be Geraldine knew her attacker. We need to look into anyone who’s done work on the house, new and old friends that the Shines might have met up with recently. Keep in touch with door-to-door about her neighbors.” He passes round the photograph of Geraldine Shine in a clear folder. I recognize the image from her Facebook page. A mirror selfie, her phone held up over half her face. A glittering cover over the back, adhesive diamanté. “This is her phone,” Baz says. “We’ve uniforms on the embankment at the back of the church but need a search team to go wider. The sea might be an obvious dumping point. Ryan, can you add that to your list?”

  “Spot on, Detective,” he answers, as if Baz was one of the lads down at the pub on a Friday night. I see Helen slide a glance of reprimand at him but it’s lost on Ryan.

  I tap my pen over Geraldine Shine’s face. “The female victim was naked to the waist and footwear had been removed. These items could have been dumped along with the bag, or the killer might have kept them as a trophy.”

  “Whoever it is must’ve been pretty sizable, yeah?” Helen says, pen to her lips. The comment wins a short snicker from Ryan but she ignores him. “I mean, Alan was not a small man, was he?” She looks pointedly at Ryan when she says this and the grin on his face turns to confusion.

  “No, he wasn’t,” Baz says, looking at the wounds on Alan Shine’s neck. Deep purple finger marks, most likely from the assailant’s thumbs, sit on either side of the throat, dark scratches and deep nail impressions penetrating the skin. “It would have taken some strength to squeeze the life out of Alan Shine.”

  “That’s true but the right amount of anger can make a beast out of anyone,” I say, then I turn to Steve. “Geraldine Shine worked from home as a beauty rep. She had an online business. When Tech delivers her computer, make a list of her customers.
What kind of sites had she been visiting, chat rooms, articles she was reading, her most recent social media posts.”

  “Actually”—Steve holds up his phone—“I might have something on that.”

  I wait and he moves toward me, shows me his phone. “This is a photo she posted yesterday morning on her beauty blog.”

  His screen is filled with Geraldine Shine’s face. A neat pout at the camera, her face angled to show a light glimmer of makeup along her cheekbone. Dark hair, poker straight, is swept over her left shoulder.

  New product, ladies. Come and get it, is written below the image. The edge of a white blouse begins at the tops of her arms.

  “Is there any way to get that on the screen?” I indicate a projector screen to the side of the case board.

  “Sure.” He goes to his desk, retrieves a long black cord, connects the phone, and in moments the image looks down on us.

  Yesterday morning’s date appears in light gray letters below the image.

  Steve taps the phone and the image widens, sets itself on a black background. Geraldine has taken the photograph near the window in her kitchen. Behind her, an orchid rains pink blossoms over the tiles. And tucked in the far right, a digital calendar, yesterday’s date in stark white on the small black cube.

  Helen points at the screen. “It’s called a Bardot top,” Helen says. “My nieces, they’re into fashion,” she adds quickly. She glances round at her colleagues, redness creeping over her face to her hairline.

  “Okay, so we know what she was wearing. Let’s find it. Good work, Steve, Helen.” I pause, look out at the room. Take a deep breath. “Any questions?”

  Blank.

  “Find the phones, update me on the CCTV, any dashcams in the area.”

  “Yes, Chief,” a few voices sound out from the seats. The others are silent but focused on the case board, making notes or taking in the faces of our victims.

  “Keep in mind,” I add, “a killer has always, always got more work to do than us. A killer must carry out his crime undetected, unwitnessed. He must then leave his crime scene and the run-up to it without a fragment of himself behind, something we know, in this life, history never allows. There is always a footprint. Always. Find it.”