Aftermath (7 page)

H
anging up on the psychologist
, she checked the phone’s home screen and saw that she had a ton of messages and missed calls while she’d been on the line. Though a quick glance through the subject matter of most of them would be enough to make anyone think she did need therapy.

It was amazing the kind of impression - erroneous or otherwise - you could build up from someone’s….

A thought struck her. Putting down the handset, she picked up the internal phone and quickly buzzed the lab.

“Where’s the victim’s phone?” she asked Lucy, who’d answered.

"Josh's? Not at the scene I don’t think. I don’t remember seeing it. I’ll ask Rory.”

But no, there had been no mention of the phone when they were itemizing the evidence, and discussing the Morrisons' tech hardware. A PC, iPad perhaps, but nothing at all about a phone. It must have been on Josh’s person during the attack and stored at the hospital with his personal effects.

She texted Chris.
You and Kennedy pick up Morrison’s phone at the hospital earlier?

A minute or two passed before dancing ellipsis appeared on the screen, signifying Chris was replying.

Sorry forget to mention earlier but yes. Nothing there though, looks as though messages have been wiped. Will get into evidence asap. Maybe Rory can revive.

Reilly frowned. Who would delete the message data on Morrison’s phone? His wife might, she thought automatically. If there was something to hide, that was.

In any case, she was sure Rory could get something from it. The guy could pull data from a dead turnip.

Reilly went down the hall into the computer lab, where Rory was dissecting the Morrison family computer, and was working meticulously on hooking up the motherboard to another unit.

“Victim's personal phone is on the way," she told him. “Seems the message data has been wiped, though.”

"Let's hope it's not an iPhone, then,” he muttered and circled the table, working on the connections.

“Find anything?"

He shrugged. "Emails, browsing data and docs are on that flash drive there, if you want to take a look. I'm only getting into the good stuff now. Or let's hope there’s good stuff," he added wryly.

“Great,” Reilly took the flash drive and began the arduous task of going through the information, email by email, in the hope of figuring out if golden boy Josh Morrison had any enemies.

S
he was
about an hour into it when she was interrupted by a soft knock on the door.

It was Chris.

“Just dropped off the phone to Rory.”

"Thanks," she said, without looking up.

"Reilly?"

“Hmm…?”

“Are you okay?"

"Why do you ask?" she said, still not looking up.

Chris stuttered a bit, trying to find the words. ”You've been acting … odd today."

She sat back in her chair. “I’ve been acting odd? You’re the detective with years of experience thrown off his game by the sight of a famous face.”

He sat down in frustration. "I was keeping Annabel calm. Besides, jealousy doesn't suit you."

Reilly snorted. “Don't flatter yourself …”

He leaned in, urging her to face him instead of the screen.

"Look, I know things are still a bit … up in the air for you at the moment. I just wanted to remind you that I'm a friend. I'm on your side, remember?"

The gentleness of his words hit her harder than expected, and she felt an unwelcome surge of emotion rise up, then very quickly suppressed it.

“You’re right - I do have a lot on my mind," she replied sharply. “Namely trying to get a grip on this investigation, while - thanks to celeb star-power - a million other
actual life and death
case files lie unattended in the meantime.”

Chris leaned back, shaking his head with frustration.

Then he stood up and left without another word. She only turned to look after he was gone, watching the open doorway.

It felt cold in his absence and she knew she was wrong for treating him like this.

Yet she couldn't help it. She needed to push him away, once and for all.

It could never work between them. The prospect would have been hard enough before, but now with the baby… She needed to keep him at a healthy distance. Professional only.

It would hurt, but it was necessary.

Finally she decided to stop scanning email. She had made a thorough list of the people Josh Morrison seemed to correspond with the most. Generally associates involved in his coffee empire. There were some college friends and old rugby buddies on his Facebook page that she was able to match up through his email contacts.

It was a burgeoning list with lots of phone numbers.

She would begin the calls in the morning. But for now, Reilly was ready for some much needed insomnia.

"
A
nd meanwhile as
we enter the next twenty-four hours of the Morrison investigation, what's going on with Store Street’s finest?

So far we only know two things: Josh got stabbed during a break-in at his house in Killiney on Friday night, and is still fighting for his life the ICU.

What's wrong with our police force? Still no suspects? No leads? And, perhaps most unforgivably, not a single statement to the press. With me on Dublin FM this morning to discuss the force’s inability to zero in on a culprit in this captivating crime story, we have on the line forensic scientist Phil Palette from New York City's CSI. Hello there Phil. How's Gary Sinise?"

"Thanks for having me on the show, Martin."

"Well, you know the background on this one, I’m sure. Our former rugby captain brought to his knees by some vicious thug, and twenty-four hours later, still not a suspect to be found. Sounds like our lads could use your help!"

“Well, Martin, as you know, this is a critical period in any investigation..."

"That's right; all bets are off once the first forty-eight hours are up, isn’t it? See listeners, I’ve watched the shows, I know my stuff!”

"In truth, that's a bit of a myth, Martin, but yes, the sooner the investigators get to grips with the physical evidence, the better. Especially when there’s a perpetrator out there on the loose."

"So why don't they have anyone yet?"

"My understanding of the situation is that the investigative team will want to play their cards close to their chest. Especially as this is such a high-profile case which, given the parties involved, has an unprecedented amount of public interest. They may well have sensitive information that they don't want made public - or anything that could spook the suspect or tarnish their investigation."

“So tell us what usually happens in a situation like this, from a CSI point of view. Actually, Phil did you know our GFU here is fronted by glamor-puss Reilly Steel, actually one of your own?”

“I did know that, and you’re in good hands, though I’m not sure she’d appreciate that description, Martin. Well, as per protocol the team would by now have collected forensic evidence from the Morrison house, and started to process it in the lab. In the case of a robbery gone wrong like this there will be any number of items to analyze, footprints, finger prints, blood spatter patterns as well as a multitude of trace evidence. The forensics team will be reviewing information about Mr Morrison’s injuries from the hospital, all the while working alongside the homicide detectives, throwing out possibilities and directing interviews with potential suspects based on the evidence found.”

"So when Gary Sinise goes to these crime scenes he's always pulling out his fancy equipment, looking at things under fluorescent light? Does Reilly Steel do that too?"

"I imagine your GFU is equipped with all of the standard investigating equipment, Martin. And I'm sure the team are working round the clock to assist the detectives in finding the weapon and the perpetrator.”

"With your trained eye, Phil, can you tell us who you think might have dunnit?"

“Impossible for me to say without direct involvement in the investigation though, initial reports suggest that the attack was prompted by the interruption of a burglary in progress. But if Mr. Morrison was stabbed in the way the press report … well, I must admit it sounds personal to me. Stabbings are a very personal crime, and to my mind, a spooked burglar is more likely to make a few quick slashes and then run off, than remain at the scene to inflict a sharp force wound in such a location. A miracle the victim survived, actually."

“Well, in this country we all know what a colossus our Josh is. You can’t keep a man like that down. So you think it might be someone with a grudge? Someone jealous of his stellar career, fame and millions, not to mention gorgeous wife?”

“That’s what the detectives will be trying to figure out, Martin. Let's all just hope that the man himself wakes up and can tell us exactly what happened."

U
sually home was a haven
. Reilly loved her Ranelagh flat. It was on a quiet street of beautiful red-brick Victorian conversions, and walking distance to almost anything she needed.

For the last few years, coming home was like a big warm hug.

Except these days, it wasn't the bastion of comfort that it had been since she’d first moved in. Now, it had become the place where she’d first found out her life was about to change forever, and where lately she just couldn't manage to sleep.

Maybe it was the pregnancy--or, specifically, the fact she hadn't exactly come to terms with the reality of a new life growing inside her.

Or that, despite a few failed attempts, she hadn't yet plucked up the courage to tell Todd about it.

She told herself she kept putting it off because the first trimester was so tricky. So many things could go wrong, and it didn't make sense getting everyone worked up about it until the baby was further along.

But now the baby was further along, so there was little excuse.

She knew she was also still dealing with the after-effects of that previous investigation, still plagued by thoughts of what Tony Ellis might have done if Chris hadn’t saved her. While she’d been in such situations before, the fact that her baby’s life had also been in danger was sobering.

Perhaps even more sobering was her life in general, and how it was supposed to work when the baby arrived.

What kind of future could she offer the kid when from day to day its mother was repeatedly embroiled in murdered faces and sadistic criminals?

It takes a certain someone to get into crime investigation, she knew, and it takes another type of person to stay with it.

The best ones are, in their hearts, scientists. They want to apply a scientific method to catching bad guys. To doing good work. Regular science isn't enough for them. They are not the teaching or "conducting a study" types. They are genuinely altruistic and want to do some good with their skills, something beyond the prison of academia.

Others are, in their hearts, detectives in the true sense of the word.

This breed of crime scene investigator wants to move the needle beyond reasonable doubt to catch bad guys. Not an altruistic position per se, but rather, a way of stemming the bleeding tide of the horror of what humans do to other humans.

This breed of crime scene investigator is not in it for the science, but rather uses science to be more precise than the police can be.

It is more than a hunch. It is that sound of a jail cell closing for good. It is the feeling of ‘we got the bad guy’ and we
know
we got the bad guy. Not only did we catch him but justice was served. She knew Chris had always struggled with that, the idea of justice. It was one of the things that actually made him a great detective.

But for Reilly, the case ended with catching the bad guys. As far as she was concerned, a trial was only a formality, because the evidence doesn't lie.

For her, the science was a means to the end, not the focus.

Julius — he was all about the science. If he had his way he would never leave the lab, and rarely went out in the field to visit a crime scene, unless absolutely necessary.

He would just happily take whatever was found directly to the lab and unleash his arsenal of test tubes, computer analyses and mathematical equations. Whereas Gary and Lucy were in Reilly's camp.

They wanted the bad guy — with or without science. It seemed the team was lopsided in that direction, which meant they always worked well with detectives, but it also meant they used hunches, personal experience and worse, often their own opinions to guide investigations.

That was what Reilly was doing now in the Morrison case and she needed to knock it off. Not only for this thing, but forever.

She'd seen what happened to forensics people that were secretly detectives. They burned out--each and everyone one of them.

It was the scientists who got gray-haired and retired. The rest of them--the Reillys, Garys and Lucys of the world can't break science to meet their ends, and so break themselves trying.

Reilly had a long history of frustration, false leads, and a roller coaster ride of emotions while on a case, and knew there would be lots more of the same in her future.

Was this what all her life was about?

Was she really going to introduce this child into a world full of violence and hatred? A world where its mom had a front-row seat, and sometimes - like in the Chef investigation - even a starring role.

If Reilly could default just to the science, she could better distance herself from atrocity and stay on the straight-and-narrow.

Like Julius, she would not internalize these cases. She'd have a healthy disconnection with the victims, and a marriage only to the evidence.

In that paradigm, her child would be fine. Motherhood would be fine.

But how would things fare if she continued to take on the weight, guilt and anger of every case she worked on?

She needed to talk to Todd about all of this, she knew. First and foremost he had the right to know. And being in the same line of work himself, would understand better than anyone her thoughts and fears.

Better than Chris?
her subconscious taunted, and she tried to brush the thought away.

There was no point in discussing any of this with Chris.

They’d already decided that ship had sailed, to say nothing of the fact that it wouldn't be fair to burden him with any more of her personal problems.

But what did she truly know about Todd? How could she anticipate how he would react to the news? She was confident that despite being on the other side of the Atlantic, he would want to be involved somehow. It was the kind of guy he was.

What she was doing wasn't fair, Reilly realized now. Todd had the right to know. It would be unconscionable to not tell him.

But it would be so much easier not to…

She knew that many women in her position would have considered alternatives. For her, there was no alternative. This baby was her responsibility, and she would see it all the way.

Maybe it was the universe's way of humbling her--or grounding her even.

No matter what, it was an earth-shattering event for which she would have to realign her worldview in order to accommodate.

Whatever the case, Reilly would not look at it as a mistake, and she would not allow her obligations--work or otherwise--to interfere with her baby's life.

Thinking all of this through did little to help her state though.

She paced, drank herbal tea. Paced some more and at some point in the early hours, fell asleep on the living room sofa.