Too Close to Breathe Read online

  “Amy?” he whispers. Tears coat his face, shine wetly in the darkness.

  Along the boundary of Garda tape, residents hover, watching, stricken at the hand of evil that’s swiped at their neighborhood. I have a sense that the killer could be among them. I can feel the movement of their eyes as sure as if they were my own. The ambulance, light blinking silently, trundles across the bank and heads slowly southwest toward Drumcondra.

  I rest my hand on Eamon’s shoulder, feel the throb of grief quake under my palm. Amy. Amy Keegan. His daughter. I resurrect her from my memories. Round-faced, pale, a generous helping of freckles across her nose and forehead. Dark hair, the color and sheen of tempered chocolate. Later, older, I recall meeting her at the local one Christmas. I was on leave, visiting the folks. Almost thirty and a seasoned detective, by all accounts. I was skinny, casually dressed in a sloppy sweater and baggy jeans. But when Amy walked in, I recall feeling a flood of heat in my cheeks. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but she glowed with sophistication. Gone was the round-faced girl in wellies that I remembered. In her place was a petite, narrow-faced young woman, with stylish short hair and long smiling dimples.

  My mouth is dry. It’s all so close to the bone. Scraping, shuddering terror. I tip my head back. Just for a second. Inhale. My lungs, throat, seek air that is not tainted with the smell of burning flesh, but I can’t rid the stain of death from my tongue. Amy. I try to think of what it was she did for a living. Something corporate. I recall my mother telling me on the phone that she’d had to move back in with her folks. An early casualty of the recession. Obviously, she’d not managed to move out since then. Or maybe she had and she’d been visiting.

  Why would anyone want to harm her? And why subject her remains to this? Defilement. Eleanor Costello smiles at me. She is turning; the breeze blows her white-gold hair into her eyes. Laughter, then nothing. Amy. Peter Costello’s lover. Mistress. Victim. Affair. Amy. Amy Keegan.

  I lead Mr. Keegan’s shaking form to the row of neighbors.

  Tom stumbles behind. “Oh God. Oh God,” he murmurs. “Moira. Oh God.”

  As I get closer, Moira Keegan’s face emerges from the crowd, white and tight with fear. Terror rattles in her voice.

  “Eamon? What is it?” she whispers. She swallows. “Eamon?”

  The young officer is at my side. Face solemn. I am grateful. He breaks the news. Low-voiced and sad. A beat of silence and then a long trembling howl rips free from Moira Keegan’s throat. She falls, like her husband did, crumples like a paper house.

  I turn, move away, and the officer’s voice trails after me. “Mr. Keegan, I’m sorry, but when you’re ready, we’ll need you both to answer some questions.”

  I walk from the scene toward my car. I shut the door, rest my arms, head, on the steering wheel. It’s dark, a starless night; sharp eastern winds rock against the car, whip a light sheen of rain across the windscreen. The smell of burned flesh clings to my nose, my hair. I wipe a shaking hand over my face, open the window a crack, and breathe in the cold air that cuts into the car. My phone lights up, casts a white glow across the dashboard.

  “Sheehan,” I say, hand over the ignition.

  No one replies.

  “Hello?”

  I wait for the answer—Baz, Clancy, checking in—but nothing comes down the line. I close the window, press the phone more firmly against my ear. Peering out into the blackness, I look beyond the hedgerow to the crime scene. Study the rows of people still gathered on the promenade, stupidly look for a light, a phone to an ear.

  “Hello?”

  In the vacuum of silence, a breath, a scratch of air.

  “Hello? Who’s—”

  The call finishes. The number is blocked. I note the time, the duration, then pull onto the road slowly and head in the direction of the Keegan house. Once there, I park in a spot down a side street, lower the window, and light up a cigarette. It doesn’t take long for Baz to find me. He parks, gets out of his car, and slips into the passenger seat.

  “That was grisly,” he says.

  “Yep.”

  “Your hometown, huh?”

  “Cozy, isn’t it?”

  “The mother. She’s taken ill. Hospitalized.” He turns in the seat.

  I squint against the smoke rising from my fag and look out the driver’s side window.

  “I’m thinking she may be the Amy your Mrs. Fagan was on about,” I reply.

  “The affair?”

  “Yes. Although we’ve shag all to connect the two. Here’s hoping that Amy’s mobile hasn’t dropped off the planet too.”

  “I wouldn’t be holding my breath,” he says.

  “I know.”

  In the rearview mirror, I see Eamon’s broad figure coming up the road, head bent, shoulders rounded and low. Tom Quinn holds up one side of him, the young officer the other.

  I go to step out of the car, but Baz holds me back.

  “Frankie, maybe we should leave it? Until tomorrow morning maybe? You’re not getting much out of them tonight. That scene was enough to break a man.”

  I pause, stare out at Mr. Keegan. A man I once thought a giant now looks like a child’s breath could knock him down.

  I nod at Baz. “I know. You’re right. They’re my neighbors, for Christ’s sake. But the first twenty-four hours after a victim’s body is found is crucial to a case. Our ears and our mouths work for one person and that is the victim. Nothing can get in the way of that. Not manners, not sympathy, not neighbors.”

  I wait for him to join me on the pavement, then walk toward the house.

  Eamon stands at the door. The keys are in his hand, but for a moment it looks like he’s forgotten how to be, how to move. He looks at once numb and wild. His eyes stare unblinkingly forward; his mouth hangs at the corners, his face pale, taut with sorrow. Every now and then, a tiny muscle jumps in his jaw and I hear the dragging sound of his breath.

  “Eamon. I’m so sorry,” I say.

  I don’t mean to, but my voice catches, and I have to mind myself, stamp down on a wave of emotion. I swallow. Heat prickles along my hairline. Then I say the words I hate, but I have to; memory is a slippery thing with little immunity against time. We need the answers as soon as we can get them.

  “Eamon, do you mind if we come in? We need to ask you some questions.”

  Tom moves closer, puts a protective hand in front of his boss. “Frankie? Can’t it wait, love?”

  A bloom of shame heats my face. I’m disgusted with my own need for control, the desperate pull for answers, but I think of what’s waiting for Abigail in Whitehall. Amy, or what’s left of her.

  I look at Eamon, then to Tom. “No,” I say. “I’m sorry, but it can’t.”

  Tom shakes his head. “Unbelievable,” he mutters. He takes the keys from Eamon’s slack fingers and opens the door.

  CHAPTER 7

  BAZ IS FROWNING. He’s feeling the frustration of the case. A desperate part of me feels a certain happiness at his misery. His sense of impotence at being one step behind. Of what I felt when I saw Tracy Ward’s murder. Watching a person die because you answered the clues a moment too late. I wince. It’s wrong.

  He drops back against the headrest. Sighs.

  “She could be totally unrelated to the Costello murder. How are we going to connect the two?” he asks.

  “Cell Site. Steve is following up with the phone companies. We have Peter’s and Amy’s numbers. We get a mast that both phones pinged from simultaneously and we have a link. Whether that makes her his lover is less concrete.”

  Amy Keegan was only twenty-nine. Eamon had last spoken to her on 10 October. She was studying medicine and working part-time in the city. She was busy. He tried to answer more of our questions, but shock slowly took over his speech, and eventually he sat in his living room numb and still. His regret at not checking up on her was
all he could focus on.

  Her phone was not found at her family home or her flat. In the few hours since discovering her body, we’ve been unable to locate it. Her wallet, her bag, and her phone charger are also missing. Her laptop was lying on her bed at her flat and had last been used three days previous. Despite the late hour, uniforms are already knocking on doors in Dublin; pulling statements from Amy’s friends, classmates; catching any crumb that may lead us through her last movements.

  “Maybe it’s a coincidence that she has the same name Mrs. Fagan mentioned,” Baz says.

  “Nothing’s a coincidence at this stage.”

  “We’re dealing with a serial killer then,” he states.

  “Maybe,” I reply. “If they kill again.”

  In my mind’s eye, I see him in action. Delivering pain. He smashes down on Eleanor Costello’s wrist. Her fingers are trapped beneath his palm, white with effort. The hammer bounces from the bones, recoils—the force is so strong. She screams, a hollow, ripping sound that’s torn from the ends of her being. Neighbors will hear, but she will stay quiet about it. An accident.

  When she passes out, he sits on the kitchen floor, her head cradled in his lap. His fingers mend, bind up her painful hand. He flinches as he touches the puffy flesh. It looks raw, sore. When she stirs, he offers her whiskey. She sips, groans, then passes out again. He carries her to their bedroom, lays her down, brushes her soft blond hair away from her sticky brow. He feels like a hero.

  Could Peter Costello have done all this, to his wife, his lover?

  I share a pained look with Baz. “It doesn’t look good,” I answer. “Sorry.”

  I know he doesn’t want it to be true. He liked the sister.

  “How we gonna find him?”

  “He can’t leave the country without his passport. I’ve had Steve notify all ports, airports, et cetera. At the very least we can probably say that he was around up until yesterday evening, when Amy’s body would have been hidden in the bonfire.”

  “If he killed her,” Baz replies.

  “Anyway.” I lighten my tone. “It’s no longer our only lead.”

  “Oh?”

  “We have Amy’s computer.” I put the key in the ignition.

  He rolls his eyes. “Let’s hope it gives us more than the Costello computer then.”

  Nerves are worming away in my chest, closing up my breath. It has to be enough.

  * * *

  —

  IT’S WELL AFTER midnight by the time we get back to the city, but it could be trading hours in the case room. All hands are on the rolling deck, holding any scrap of a lead down until we can find a way out of the storm.

  “Hey!” I call out. “Amy Keegan’s body is with the pathologist and we should receive initial reports on the autopsy any moment. I want to get this out quickly, really get the public on our side, put pressure on our suspect, Peter Costello. Helen, you’re on press, get on social media, keep updates light and frequent—every hour. Mention age, that she was a medical student, and we have the family’s permission to use her name, so use it. Appeal for any witnesses to come forward.”

  Helen gives a sharp nod. There’s not a bit of fatigue about her. The rest of the team have their top buttons open, ties loose, sleeves rolled up, and then there’s Helen, shirt bolted up to the neck against the heat of the office.

  I find Steve; despite the red-rimmed tiredness circling his eyes, he’s in a more-than-usual smug mood. He’s obviously had some good luck with Cell Site and Amy’s phone and thinks I’m the kind to allow myself to relax in light of success. I’m not. But I humor him. He reaches over my head. From his fingers he dangles a note, torn from the yellow pad on his desk.

  “You’re so gonna owe me, Chief.”

  I walk by him, add new words to the case board.

  Victim: Amy Keegan. Remains found in bonfire in Clontarf. Possible connection to Costello murder. Student at UCD, medicine. Last seen by classmates 23 October.

  Suspect: Peter Costello. Forty-four-year-old Irish-Italian, approximately six foot three and of slim build. Missing but likely nearby.

  I give him a half-smile. “I doubt I’ll owe you anything, Detective. You’re on the payroll. For the moment anyway.”

  He flaps the note around. “Cell Site came through. We’ve both Amy Keegan’s and Peter Costello’s phones pinging off masts all round Dublin city in the last four months.”

  He stoops over his computer.

  “I’ve overlaid the hits on the map here. The last hit together was O’Connell Street six weeks ago. Nothing after that. We’ve got more than enough hits to connect them, though.”

  I peer into the screen. A break in a case is a gift. “Six weeks ago. So long?”

  “It doesn’t mean they weren’t meeting in the last six weeks. He could have got wise. Changed his number. Changed his contract and no one knew about it.”

  I lean over, switch his screen back to the Cell Site lists. I shake my head. Peter Costello’s phone stops hitting masts almost within a few days of the six-week period, but Amy Keegan’s phone continues to be picked up at masts in Clontarf and UCD over and again up until she disappeared on 23 October.

  Steve continues: “When Eleanor’s death was proclaimed a murder, I ran Cell Site on Peter’s phone almost immediately, and not a blip in the twenty-four hours prior to Eleanor’s death. I hadn’t reason to run them over a longer period up until now.”

  I’m nodding. “Right.” Tight-lipped.

  There’s no denying the evidence is mounting, and there’s nothing more damning than a suspect who’s hiding, but I’m making mistakes somewhere. Wrongs are slicing across this case and I can’t see the cuts.

  “Don’t look so dejected, Chief. We’ll get him. On the Amy Keegan computer, I’ve managed to scoop out a treasure too.”

  I meet Steve’s eyes, can’t help the half-smile that’s creeping over my face. “The Tor bundle?”

  “Better. Her history was pretty clear, which got me suspicious, but a quick search gave me a hidden file with bookmarks and links to a number of chat rooms that she was pretty active on.”

  He opens up a minimized tab on his screen.

  “This is one. Don’t have her username, but I can trace the IP address of her computer to this site to the night before she went missing. The twenty-second. In short, the chat room shares concerns about suicide and death fantasies, and there was mention of the Dark Web, in particular a site called Black Widow.”

  I give Steve a wide smile. “You’re worth your payroll after all.”

  He grins back at me. “Told ya.”

  “Get the Tor bundle set up on my laptop, please. Check out the Black Widow site and send me a summary as soon as you can.”

  “On it.”

  I hesitate over his desk a moment, remove my phone. “Steve?”

  “You want the summary by this evening, right?”

  “When it’s ready.” I tap the top of my phone. “Could you get in touch with my service provider? I’ve had a couple of calls through. One heavy breather. Blocked numbers. The provider might need a warrant to release the number. Let me know and I’ll get the paperwork.”

  “Will do.” He jots down my mobile number, tacks it to the bottom of his screen.

  There’s a soft knock on the door that somehow, even in the bustle of the room, silences the lot of us. When I turn, I see why. We have an unusual visitor. Dr. James stands in the doorway.

  Briefcase in hand, she crosses the room with quick “don’t mess with me” steps. The heads in the office follow her progress, but she doesn’t blink an eye at any of them.

  She places the case down on a free desk, clicks it open, and produces an envelope.

  “Detective Sheehan,” she says, “I thought you should see these right away, so I brought them round on my way back from Whitehall.”

  Baz
is now at my side. I take the envelope, tear it open. Inside are numerous photos of Amy Keegan’s body during autopsy.

  She tilts her head, looks down at the first photo. “The lungs were clean. As was the larynx. No soot,” she offers.

  I lift my eyes from the photograph. “She was dead before the fire?”

  “I still need to run CO hemoglobin levels to be certain, but yes, it appears that way.”

  “Cause of death?”

  Abigail reaches out a pale hand, lifts another photo from the stack. “Here.” She points to a wound on Amy’s burned skin. “She had numerous injuries, cutting marks, knife wounds throughout her body. I would be tempted to say she bled to death.”

  I study her face. Brows drawn down over the bridge of her nose. Eyes flicking over the image still searching for answers, for clues.

  “You don’t sound very confident about that,” I say.

  A small purse of lips, then: “In a fire, the skin can split.” She moves her finger down Amy’s torso. “But here, there was some indication of vital reaction around the edges of the wound.” She glances up to see if I follow. “The early stages of healing. These are recent stab wounds or deliberate cuts.” She pulls back from the photo, meets my gaze full on. “There were forty-seven injuries of this nature. That I can find. All antemortem. Before death. There could be more, but some areas of the limbs were too badly burned to examine fully. I need to put some samples under the scope to be sure.”

  “Okay,” I say. I glance over her shoulder at Baz. He shrugs.

  “Anyway,” she continues, “this caught my eye.” She pulls a photo from the bottom of the stack, holds it out, finger and thumb pinching at the corner. She gives it a little shake, indicating that I should take it.

  Holding the picture in my hand, I look down at the image. It shows Amy Keegan’s open mouth, lips blackened and thin.

  Abigail points to the teeth. “Here. I ran a swab. Tests show hydrogen cyanide, but there’s the remains of a paint along the gum line. Prussian blue. Heat would create a chemical reaction, reacting with the substance and converting it to hydrogen cyanide. Highly toxic, but a side effect of the fire; the paint was most likely applied postmortem. There’s no trace of either compound in her blood or organs.”