Aftermath (16 page)

L
ater that day
she had another appointment, one that she’d have completely forgotten were it not for a cheerful iPhone diary alert that popped up earlier this morning.

She paced in the obstetrician’s waiting room, willing her to hurry the hell up so she could get back to work.

"Reilly Steel?" a nurse called.

Relieved, she rushed in. The nurse took her temperature and blood pressure. Then retook the blood pressure. Then said, "Mrs. Steel, take a breath and calm down please. Your pressure is far too high."

She swallowed took a breath, remembering her yoga. The nurse shook her head. "Well I suppose that will have to do."

Dr. Friedman came into the exam room after a few minutes, set down the chart and greeted her warmly.

"How are you doing, Reilly?"

"Okay, I guess. My work-assigned shrink thinks I have blood pressure issues."

She smiled. "Indeed you do. It's not abnormal as you come to the end of the first trimester, but you'll have to start watching your sodium intake soon or it will get worse."

"How bad is it?"

"Bad enough. Stressful time at work?"

Reilly nodded.

“Try some acupuncture. Do yoga. Don't eat processed foods, you'll be fine.” Then she looked up with a smile, “So are you ready to see the baby?"

Reilly flinched, not expecting this. "I guess."

"Okay, hop up there and lie back."

Friedman fired up the ultrasound and applied jelly on her bare but still flat, stomach.

Then, after a long moment of moving it around, suddenly Reilly saw on the screen above the bed, clear as day, a human being in her uterus. It looked like the baby from
2001 A Space Odyssey
.

Blob
.

Then an unexpected sensation happened. Something like a boulder falling onto her head from a great height. But instead of smashing her skull, it pounded her mind to oblivion.

There was a
baby
inside of her. An actual human being. Growing. Inside of her.

The uneasy knot of tension that had been harbored deep in her gut over the last few weeks, giving her insomnia, stress, anxiety and probably high blood pressure, suddenly erupted, sending a volcanic blast of heat through her body.

Without warning she began crying. Not just tears she couldn't hold back, but a rolling-shoulder weep. It poured out as that energy spread through, and it wouldn't stop.

Dr. Friedman waited patiently and at last she stopped, feeling raw and strangely satisfied. Calm, in fact.

But
very
embarrassed.

"Sorry," she said, sniffing, and Friedman handed her a tissue. "I never cry. Ever."

"There's a lot happening with your body now. You'll find yourself doing all sorts of things you never do.” The doctor smiled, a little conspiratorially, and that made her feel better.

Reilly looked again at the ultrasound machine. The fetus was a pixelated squirmy thing, but to her it looked incredible.

She wondered about the gender and was about to ask, but then realized it was too early to tell.

Maybe next time…

Friedman cleaned off the goo. "Might be a good idea to take some time off soon, if you can. Try to get that stress under control.”

“Not an option at the moment, but thanks.”

Reilly went back outside. Something had changed inside of her and she couldn't easily identify what.

But the world looked a little larger now.

A little scarier. A little more mysterious and unknown.

Her senses were heightened. People talked louder, walked louder, smelled stronger. Their faces appeared exaggerated and distant, obscured by some sort of cloudy membrane.

I'm losing my mind, she thought. It was difficult to orient and ground herself again. Taking her time in the car to practice her breathing, the feeling finally abated. But there was no doubt things felt differently now.

Embarrassingly enough, it had taken almost ten weeks for her to realize that this pregnancy was
real.
Her whole life was about to change and, not only that, the very definition of what she thought was important was going to change. Now she had something beyond herself.

Above herself.

She left, feeling quite a bit better than she arrived.

Maybe that shrink Corcoran was right about things. In the movies, investigators were supposed to take threats from serial killers in their stride.

Even Jodie Foster didn't seem that worried when she was in a dark basement with Buffalo Bill.

And Detective Benson on SVU never displayed an emotion other than sympathetic loathing.

She was supposed to be tougher than this. Smarter.

She should be making Chris see her point of view about Annabel Morrison through clever witty banter, not pissing him off to the point that he refused to take her seriously.

But, Reilly thought, heading back to the GFU, just in case the whole witty banter thing didn't work, she should work on finding some compelling evidence.

L
ater
, the team assembled in a meeting room, after another heavy day’s work in the lab.

It had been a long week, and everyone had bags under their eyes, were likely unwashed and on the edge of delirium.

Danishes, bagels and pastries were pouring out of a greasy white box, and coffee and tea was being thrown back like whiskey on a Saturday night.

"Okay guys, listen up,” Reilly began. “I wanted to talk about a new direction in our investigation."

"What's wrong with the old direction?" Gary groaned, and Lucy smacked him on the arm.

"I've gone over some of the witness transcripts, and looks like certain things are not adding up."

“Like what?” Lucy asked.

"I think the Morrisons are hiding something. For starters, we've heard from every one of their friends and colleagues about what a perfect couple they are. That they never fight, not ever. Not in two decades of marriage. Whereas, I just learned this morning that they were in the middle of working out a separation agreement."

"What does prove?” said Lucy. "I mean, they wouldn't want that made public. They don't want their perfect image tarnished."

"Or, they don't want to incriminate Annabel. A complicated divorce with lots of money at stake. Their solicitor told me about specific clauses they were hashing out. This process was not pretty. What if Annabel wasn't getting her way?"

"Come on, Reilly," said Gary. "Even if that's true we’ve already established that the wife couldn't realistically have done it."

“True. But maybe somebody did it for her.”

Julius shook his head, “Too risky for someone like her. In the public eye. She wouldn't be able to trust anyone for something like that."

"Unless she was seeing someone on the side," suggested Rory.

"That thought crossed my mind, too.”

She went on to tell them about the Jack Daniels bottle and how Josh was apparently teetotal. “Hospital confirmed that he hadn’t been drinking it that night. So who was?”

“Reilly, that glass … it’s a mess. If you’re thinking prints or saliva …there’s just no way we could isolate anything from that. That whole area was completely contaminated. The bourbon mixed in with the blood and all that glass…

“I know but we have to try.”

Julius sighed “Just as long as you know it’s a seriously long shot.”

“I do. But I trust you.”

He looked dubious.

“In the meantime,” she added, addressing the others, “that’s why we need to hit the crime scene one last time, before it’s released. Except this time, we're not looking for evidence on the crime, we're looking for what the Morrisons might be hiding. The separation, affairs, whatever might give the wife motive to do this.”

"
A
candlelight vigil
in honor of former Irish rugby captain, Josh Morrison, is taking place at eight pm tonight at the O2 stadium.

Organized by the IRFU, but open to the public, fans and supporters from all over the nation will be pouring out their support for Josh tonight.

The website TryForJosh.org will be taking donations to benefit Josh Morrison's favorite charity
Try
, which offers free after-school sport programs for primary and secondary schools.

Josh’s wife, Annabel Morrison has refused a contribution to the family, and urged supporters to donate to
Try
instead.

The event is attracting quite a crowd of celebrities from the Irish entertainment and sports world. Josh’s former Ireland and Leinster teammates will all be there, as well as other heroes from the sport’s past and present, including Brian O’Driscoll, Jordan Murphy and Peter Stringer.

We also have word that Josh’s nearby neighbor and close friend Bono, will be performing at tonight’s venue with U2. Interesting to see what faves the lads will go for on this somber occasion.

Our own TVSport correspondent, Lisa Carey will be there too of course, with full coverage of the event. We’re told there will be entertainment and food. Mrs. Morrison will make an appearance and speak to the crowd.

Lisa, you’ll keep us up to date with what’s happening down in Lansdowne Road tonight, won't you?"

"I'll be there John, looking forward to it. Though of course, this is not exactly a party. I think people just want to send their best wishes for Josh's recovery, and a tasteful vigil with a little music and some entertainment - all in the name of charity - is the perfect way to do that.

“Should be great. We're looking forward to your report."

L
ater that afternoon
, Reilly drove back out to Killiney Hill to join the crew, and was surprised to see the media completely packed up and gone from outside the Morrison place.

Amazing how fickle they were. Bring a few celebs to a stadium for a party, and suddenly everyone forgets there's an attempted murder.

She came in to find Gary already upstairs in the spare bedroom. He was looking through the closets, and he stopped suddenly, startled at the sound of her voice.

"What did you find?"

“Suitcase.”

"Maybe she was planning to move out.”

He opened it. "Nope, unless she’s started wearing boxers."

She looked over his shoulder at what was obviously a man's luggage.

"Anything identifiable in there?"

Gary rummaged carefully with his latex-gloved hands. “Not really, but we'll take his undies in and hope for the best. Gotta love our job."

She smiled at this, and made her way back down the stairs to the minimally decorated home office adjacent to the living room. A PC lay open on the desk, and Reilly began rifling through the desk drawers underneath.

Just like she thought, she very quickly found the separation documents. Josh had them stored in his inbox tray, complete with colorful sticky notes to mark where he was supposed to sign.

She sat in his office chair and began scanning through it. It was the huge complicated mess one would expect from a celebrity parting. The legalese that went into it should have been award-winning. The basic terms all seemed standard; most of it was about which assets were going to whom.

All in all, over twenty-five million euro of assets, including holiday homes in Marbella and Kerry, and cash in the hundreds of thousands.

Tough life.

They seemed to be relatively straightforward about the division though. Whomever earned the money kept the money, or as close to that formula as they could make it. Custody was even worked out with no dispute. Lottie would stay with her mother, and Josh would get weekly visitation. Dylan was a grown up, so nothing to sort out there.

Then she got to the provisions, and that's when things got a little strange. The disclosure clause Flanagan talked about was in there. They were not allowed to speak about their personal relationship or any known discretions, or they would forfeit their combined assets.

Another interesting note--if it was discovered that either one of them were unfaithful, that would also result in a forfeit.

Why would someone put that in there? If someone suspected infidelity and intended to prove it, then it would show their hand. Conversely, if someone was sleeping around, why in the hell would they sign this?

What a bizarre provision.

And it was possibly one of the reasons Josh hadn't signed it yet. Annabel was asking for a lot there. A thought jumped out at her.

“Rory," she called out, and he duly scurried down the stairs.

"Yeah?"

“Can you sync to Josh's emails from here?"

He nodded. "Yeah, the files are on the database. What do you need?"

"I want to see if he had a solicitor, other than Flanagan.”

He fired up the iPad and scrolled through the database.

"Well he has one in his contacts, hold on..." he said and thumbed some more. "Yeah, recent correspondence too. I'll forward it to you."

"Thanks."

Reilly pulled it up on her phone and read. It was actually dated a week previous.

W
ell
, he missed that appointment.

Reilly called the number in the email.

"Hi, I'm looking for Cynthia Robertson."

"May I ask who's calling?"

"Reilly Steel, with the GFU. It is regarding an investigation concerning one of her clients."

"Please hold."

Elton John started playing, and Reilly paced around the room, as she waited for the solicitor to pick up.

"This is Cynthia, I'm glad someone from the gardai called actually. I wasn't sure if I should get in touch."

Reilly’s heart sped up. “Well, you’re talking to us now. We've just discovered you were working for Josh Morrison, can we assume it was about his impending separation?"

"Yes, and while I’m happy to talk in broad terms to assist your investigation, you do know I am still bound by client confidentiality unless directed otherwise."

"I understand, but any information you can share would be helpful.”

“Well, and again speaking in broad terms, there is something a little concerning about all of this. Like I said, I was in two minds, whether I should talk to the detectives …”

“What concerns you Ms Robertson?”

"Mr. Morrison was unhappy with the separation documentation his solicitor drew up, and so turned to me. They have a family solicitor whom they've used for decades."

"Cormac Flanagan," said Reilly.

"That's the one. Anyway, the direction Flanagan was advising made him quite uncomfortable. He suggested unusual provisions in the contract that would be, to the objective eye, excessive."

“We’ve seen those documents Ms Robertson; that's why we were looking to find if he had representation apart from Flanagan."

She cleared her throat. "Mr. Morrison believed that Mr. Flanagan was setting him up for a contract breach. That Mr. Flanagan was siding with his wife, and planning to take advantage of such a breach when it occurred."

"Strong accusations for a family friend," said Reilly.

"I can't say that he was paranoid, because the terms looked quite odd to me too. The infidelity one, in particular. Mr. Morrison assured me that he never went outside his marriage, however whether or not he did was besides the point. Any indiscretion could point to that, and he'd be on tough legal grounding to protect himself."

"What about this disclosure provision?"

"Yes, I was rather concerned about that too, because it not spell out what specifically should not be disclosed. Mr. Morrison would not confide with me on the matter and insisted that he wanted that provision untouched."

"What did you advise?"

Cynthia cleared her throat again, "I advised that he insist the infidelity clause be omitted, and that both clients should come together and find a way to further specify the disclosure provision. That was the last time I spoke with him.”

“This was last week?”

“Yes. And now I can't help thinking that maybe they got into an argument over this. He met with me the day he was attacked.”

Bingo.

"You've been very helpful, thank you solicitor."

“I hope so.” she said, and then added softly. "How is poor Josh? Is he going to recover?"

"The doctors think so. It would help us all tremendously if he did."

Reilly thanked her again, and rejoined her colleagues.

Finally, she thought. Someone else that's suspicious.

Though she didn't want to look for a subpoena to disclose the separation documentation at this point. They needed to come up with some more convincing evidence first.

Lucy was waiting for her at the door. “I think you’d better come take a look at this.”

Following her upstairs to the master bedroom, Reilly recoiled a little when she saw what was lying on the bed. A twelve gauge shot gun.

“Where’d you find this?” she asked her.

“Top shelf in the wardrobe. Chances are he has a permit for it - maybe game hunting or something - but …”

“Maybe, we’ll check it out. In the meantime, probably best to put it back. We’re not on authority to seize anything just yet.”

“There’s something else. I came across a box of newspaper clippings in there too, mostly just mementos and media articles from Josh’s playing days. But I thought this one seemed strange - out of place a bit.”

She handed Reilly a newspaper clipping.

It was of the car accident from the 1990’s she’d found in the archives. The same article in fact. Faded, torn on the edges, but preserved.

Reilly stared at it, the one dark period in by all accounts a very charmed career.

Why on earth would Josh want to hold onto this?