journalists. Jesus Christ.’
Frank stared at the page. ‘Oh. They were sniffing around. They must have been watching the station when the Lucchesis came in. I couldn’t risk…I don’t know, I—’
‘Ah yes, the I-don’t-knows,’ said O’Connor. He grabbed a highlighter from the desk and in light strokes went through the text. There were eight sentences highlighted when he was finished. All of them said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s a turn of phrase,’ said Frank, taking off his glasses and looking up at O’Connor.
‘Well, it’s a stupid one when you’re being interviewed on a murder case,’ said O’Connor. ‘We look like gobshites. “I don’t know”. What were you thinking?’
‘I don’t know. He seemed like a nice enough chap, I thought it wouldn’t do any harm. He said he’d tidy up what I said.’
‘We’re doing a good job here, we don’t need this shit,’ said O’Connor. ‘We’re getting a bollocking for our perceived lack of progress in the investigation—’
‘Well, where is the progress? We don’t know a thing,’ said Frank. ‘We’ve got a couple of suspects and not a shred of evidence to tie them to anything. All we have is a few people helping us with our enquiries. Or
‘Look, journalists have been ringing here and getting no answer or being diverted to Waterford and they’re saying it’s no wonder people are getting murdered if there are no guards in the village.’
‘But it’s the same—’
‘Ah for God’s sake, I know – it’s the usual rubbish they come out with to sell papers.’
He fumed silently for a few seconds then snapped, ‘Someone did this.’ He hammered on the photo of Katie. ‘And I’ll be fucked if I’m letting them away with it.’
Anna was parking the Jeep outside the supermarket when Shaun tapped her on the arm.
‘Mom, it’s Mrs Shanley, I’m just going to ask her about work.’
‘Follow me into Tynan’s,’ she said.
Betty Shanley stood by her car outside the bakery, struggling to balance cake boxes and shopping bags. Shaun was at the other side of the street when he saw her. He jogged over to help.
‘Hi, Mrs Shanley,’ he said. ‘Let me take that.’ He reached out for the box. She held it tight.
‘It’s all right. I can manage it,’ she said. He looked at her. Something shifted in her eyes. He blushed.
‘Uh, I was wondering when you need me to come in…or is it quiet?’
‘It’s busy enough,’ she said, looking past him. ‘But I’m sorry. I won’t be needing you any more. My sister’s young lad is saving for a new car, a little Renault he’s getting. So I said I’d give him the work. Barry.’
Joe’s stomach was churning, waiting through the painful silence as Henson thumbed through pages of documents at the other end of the phone. Joe heard him swallow a mouthful of something before he spoke.
‘Yeah, I got it here. Rawlins, William. Died in prison. Your dates were wrong too – he died in 1992, so he couldn’t have gone to prison in ’97. He was in for the murder of a Rachel Wade, 1988. Around the time of the Crosscut Killer, but they couldn’t pin any of the rest of them on him. It was vicious what happened to all those women. In broad daylight.’
‘It’s Duke I was asking about. Duke Rawlins.’
‘Duke’s this guy’s middle name.’
‘How old was he when he died?’
‘He would have been, let me see, fifty-four years old.’
‘That’s the wrong guy. This guy would be younger. Do you have any other Rawlins on file?’
‘Don’t think so. Let me go check. Can you hold the line?’
Joe thought his chest would explode waiting for Henson to organise himself.
‘Oh, here we are,’ he said, coming back. ‘Rawlins, Duke, DOB 12/2/1970, knifed a trucker in a parking lot, 1997, sent to Ely, Nevada. You were right. My apologies. It’s my filing system.’
‘Is that it?’ said Joe. ‘Nothing else? No kidnap, nothing more violent?’
‘Nope,’ said Henson. ‘What d’you think the guy’s done?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Joe. ‘But thanks for your help. Hey, could you fax me through his mug shot?’
‘Sure thing.’
John Miller was stooped in the corner of Tynan’s flicking through a car magazine.
‘Not that I’ve got a licence or anything,’ he said to Anna as she tried to slip past him. He leered at her and raised an eyebrow.
‘Make up your mind, John. One minute you apologise, the next minute you’re behaving like this…and what have you been saying to Joe?’
He looked like he was trying to remember.
Anna glared at him. ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ she said, jabbing a finger towards him.
‘Ah, come on,’ he said, reaching his arms out to her. His breath was ethanol. She jerked her hands away.
‘Don’t touch me!’ she said.
‘That’s not what you used to say.’
‘Jesus, John. Can you not get over it?’ She was furious. ‘I don’t get it. What went wrong? I can’t understand how you changed from a nice, normal guy into a drunken wife-beater!’ She stopped as the full weight of what she had said hit them both. It was too late. She lowered her voice.
‘Your mother,’ she said. ‘She told someone.’
A glimpse of clarity flashed across his eyes. He struggled to find a sober voice and steady his gaze. ‘I never beat my wife,’ he said, sadly. ‘My mother was talking about herself. My father. She slips back and forth into the past. She’s not well. Alzheimer’s. It’s not common knowledge.’ Then, ‘He used to kick the shit out of her.’
Joe went to the kitchen and made the call he’d put off the day before. Danny picked up straightaway.
‘…whole tip went green and fell off. Hello?’
‘One of these days, your mother’s gonna call and you’ll do that.’
‘She already has. Told her it was a nasty case I was working on.’
‘Danny, the police called Shaun in for an informal chat the other day that’s got me worried. They say he was cautioned, he says he wasn’t. Turns out he’d been lying to us anyway, so what’s another lie? But I think I believe him about this. He’s also admitted to having a fight with Katie the night she went missing. They know everything now, even that he and Katie were having sex before she disappeared and that they had an argument about it.’
‘Poor kid. Jesus.’
‘You know, I agree with you, but I really wanted to punch his lights out. It was the worst day of my life, watching him get grilled like that. You know, there I am, trying to help with the investigation—’
‘—be one of those people we hate…’
‘Pretty much. And my own son is lying his butt off.’
‘He’s young and scared. Makes people do shit they wouldn’t normally do.’
‘I know that, but now I’m worried a big huge finger is pointing in his direction and there’s no reason for it to swing anywhere else. They don’t seem to have anything and he’s their number one suspect.’
‘So am I just a therapy line or is there anything else I can do here?’
‘Thought you’d never ask.’
‘Do you want me to come over? Kick ass? Chat up a few colleens?’
‘I couldn’t put them through that. But, there is a helpful warden in Nevada who might let you talk to a certain cell mate.’
‘Rawlins’ cell mate.’
‘You know, see what it throws up.’
