Hidden ( CSI Reilly Steel #3) (8 page)

‘The wings design has cropped up before?’ Reilly scanned through the cold case file Rory had just handed her.

Right off the bat there were a few similarities between their case and this older one – both girls had been redheads, both were unidentified, and most strikingly, both had remarkably similar tattoos on their backs.

She then compared the photographs of the tattoo from the cold case to the ones they’d taken of the hit-and-run victim.

‘I’m no expert,’ Rory said, looking at both sets of photos, ‘but the tattoos look very similar to me.’

Reilly exhaled. ‘Well, they’re similar but not identical, though we’re not comparing like with like either,’ she pointed out.

‘What do you mean?’

‘According to the autopsy report, the girl in this older case died of exposure; she’d been out in the open for at least four days before she was discovered. That’s clear from the photos, and while the tattoo looks the same from the outset, I can see some differences in the detail.’

She arranged the photos side by side. ‘This tattoo is missing some of the finer detail of our more recent one.’ Using a pen, she circled an area near the shoulder blade of the hit-and-run victim’s photo. There did indeed seem more detail in the individual feather renderings of the latter tattoo.

‘There are plenty of things that could cause that,’ Rory offered. ‘The age of the tattoos for one, not to mention the age of the girls themselves when they were inked.’

She shook her head. ‘Neither tattoo looks that fresh though. They both look faded on the skin, so could have been done a while ago, leading to a loss of definition.’

She placed the photos back on the desk. ‘Let’s not over-analyze the obvious here. Anything else stand out about this cold case?’

Rory picked another file out of the box. ‘No dental work for this girl either. I don’t know about you, but pretty much everyone in Ireland these days has at least a filling.’

‘Well, not to brag, but where I come from fillings aren’t so common.’ Reilly grimaced, revealing her perfectly maintained orthodontics.

‘Fair enough, but these two Celtic redheads were a million miles from Californian girls,’ he replied archly.

Notwithstanding the tattoos and both girls’ appearance, the similarities were starting to become uncomfortable and she knew she needed to advise the detectives about this new slant to the investigation.

But this second unidentified girl had been found nine years before. What possible connection could she have to their ‘Angel’?

‘Can’t deny the similarites, that’s for sure,’ said Kennedy when they called in to the GFU on their return from the auto-repair shop.

‘I don’t think we should rule out the fact that these two girls may have originated if not from the same place then certainly from a similar background,’ Reilly said.

Chris frowned. ‘I don’t follow …’

She tried to explain her train of thought. ‘I can’t quite put my finger on it yet, call it instinct if you like, but it certainly feels like each of these girls were somewhat  at odds with the real world. My guess is that wherever they came from they were cut off from reality, and never had to face any dangers, anything that might hurt them.’

‘Overprotective parents?’ Chris suggested with obvious scepticism. ‘Then why have both remained unidentifed for so long, the cold case especially?’

‘No. I don’t think it’s overprotective parents. Problem is I’m not sure what I think. It’s just a feeling.’

‘Ah, here we go …’ Kennedy said, and while usually Reilly never minded him teasing her about her famed ‘instincts’, for some reason she felt embarrassed in the face of Chris’s blatant cynicism. The last thing she needed was for him to stop trusting her judgement. It made her question herself. The tattoo aside, was she reaching for related similarities in these two cases, grasping at straws?

‘Look, it might well be nothing, but in any case, I thought I’d go and take a closer look around the discovery site. I know it’s been nine years since she was found but—’

‘Well, if there is anything there, no doubt that magic nose of yours will sniff it out,’ Kennedy chuckled. ‘No harm in our getting the lowdown from this … MacDonald,’ he said, reading the name of the cold-case investigating officer from the file. He stretched and groaned. ‘I thought we’d caught a break with finding the driver. So much for wrapping this one up quickly. Now, it looks like we’ve got not just one fallen angel, but two.’

Chapter 10

The following morning, Gary hurried into the lab with his sample bag over his shoulder and kit under his arm.

‘What are you doing in on a Sunday – hungry for overtime?’ Lucy teased as she turned away from the microscope.

‘I could say the same for you, thought you were away with the girls this weekend?’

‘Nah, cancelled due to terminal old age; Debs has no babysitter and Nic would rather stay in with her new man,’ she said.

In truth Lucy hadn’t been too bothered. Lately it always seemed that when she met up with her friends, she had less and less in common with them. Conversation usually turned to something funny someone had said or done years ago, and she was starting to feel jaded by the endless reminiscing. Spending hours alone in a cold, lonely lab didn’t faze her. This was what she’d wanted from the beginning, after all – a chance to make a difference, and get closer to finding answers.

‘What about you?’ she asked Gary. ‘No plans at all for the weekend?’

‘Nah. Since I started working here I’ve lost touch with about half my old mates, they move in different circles. It’s funny though, I always thought it would really bother me … you know, being like Reilly,’ he added, taking off his jacket. ‘But the longer I work here the more I appreciate it for what it is.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘The perfect job. We don’t have to clock in, we don’t have some troll of a boss breathing down our necks, our “clients” don’t – or can’t – answer back and most of the time, as long as we get results we get to do things our way.’

Lucy smiled. ‘Which is why you’re in here bright and early on a Sunday morning instead of sleeping off a Saturday night …’

‘Yep. I’ve just been down to the compound at the Phoenix Park to give that van a proper comb-over. I might be getting old and boring, but nailing the evidence on this guy is a much better use of a day than fighting off a hangover,’ Gary said as he placed the two bags on top of his workstation.

‘Find anything interesting?’

‘A couple of samples for DNA to see if I can get a match on that coffee cup from the ditch. There were two other older cups in the door pocket, same MegaCoffee branding on the side, so I bagged those too.’

‘Should stand up well in the prosecution – the detectives will be happy.’

‘Yep, we caught a break, getting a hit on the vehicle like that. Lots to compare with what we found at the scene.’ He indicated the full sample bag on his desk. ‘At this stage it’s looking like this courier guy is toast – I just need to make sure I cover all the angles so that the evidence is water tight.’

‘Or “Walter tight” as Reilly would say,’ Lucy said with a grin, referring to Reilly’s motto about well-known Dublin defense solicitor Jeffery Walters. He had got a particularly nasty individual off on a forensic technicality once, a loophole that Reilly had not foreseen and which had caused a massive storm in the GFU. Since then, none of them took any chances.

‘Yep, so that’s about the sum of it. What are you cooking in Pegasus?’ Gary nodded towards an elaborate unit that looked part-microwave, part life-support
machine. On the left of the device was a large keypad and digital readout that displayed various alpha-numerical keys as well as the periodic symbols. Attached to the top of the unit was a standard LCD computer screen that sat beside a tall attachment with pressure dials and gas hoses coming out of either side. This was one of the GFU’s greatest weapons, the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry station. Affectionately nicknamed Pegasus, Gary had once joked that if there was ever a fire in the GFU, the first thing Reilly would do was unplug the machine and drag it out the door.

‘Just running the tox from the post mortem on the same case. I’m nearly finished if you need to get in here,’ Lucy said as she straightened up a bottle in a sample holder sitting on top of the machine. Several bottles were labeled:
Femoral Blood (s1), Heart Blood (s1), Vitreous Humor Fluid (s1), Liver (s1), Brain (s1),
as well as other pathological trace contained in small bottles relating to their hit-and-run victim.

‘Find anything interesting?’

‘Nope, I swear I’ve never seen such a clean set of results. Not that I was expecting to find anything hardcore like drugs or even alcohol. Even the hair analysis shows up negative for pretty much everything you’d expect – no heavy metals or other airborne pollutants. It’s like a corpse from the seventeenth century.’

‘What about that stuff in the lungs?’

‘There’s only trace amounts of silica, and I’m guessing she must have been living or working in a dusty environment.’

‘Or in a museum,’ Gary said dryly.

Lucy tapped some keys on Pegasus and a humming sound kicked in.

‘I don’t know,’ she sighed, ‘usually the more analysis we do the closer we get to an answer, but seems to me that we’re getting further away.’

‘Patience, Luce, one step at a time. Something is sure to turn up that will flick a switch on this. Like this maybe…’  He took out a sealed container from his sample bag and held it up for her to see.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Killer snot.’ When she gave him a baffled look, he smiled and continued. ‘Seems our courier likes nothing better that a good nasal rummage when he’s out on the road,’ he said gleefully. ‘Followed by wiping his mucus-adorned finger on the edge of his seat – remember that the next time you get a delivery from Amazon.’ Gary waved the sample close to her face making her reel back.

‘Ewww …’ Lucy exclaimed, enjoying the banter. While she enjoyed and embraced the solitude of the job, it was nice to have a little company on a weekend morning when most of her peers were enjoying time off.

Gary walked back to his desk like a triumphant eight-year-old who’d just dangled a worm in front of  his little sister. ‘No shortage of DNA in the cab of that van either. Like I said, it will be interesting to hear from Batman and Robin about the owner and what his excuse is.’

Lucy giggled at his description of the detectives but a noise from nearby caused them both to turn around.

‘Ah isn’t this sweet.’ Kennedy stood in the doorway with a cup of coffee in his hand.

Lucy laughed at Gary’s reddening facial features.

‘Well, Einstein, what have you got for me?’ he said to Gary. ‘Do we have a definite match with that van yet?’

Gary nodded. ‘Looks like it. The damaged areas on the front are consistent with the injuries the victim sustained. I’m just about to run a test on the glass fragments from the van with the ones we found on the road and the body.’

‘Can we place the courier at the scene though?’

‘I think so. I’m also going to do a particle analysis on the paintwork and match them with what we’ve already found.  While I’m a hundred percent sure we can put the van at the scene, putting the guy behind the wheel is a tricker one, but I’m putting my faith in the coffee cup to give us a break on that.’

‘Nice one.’ Kennedy smiled as he took a sip of his own coffee. ‘We have our guy in for questioning this morning. Hopefully we’ll have him singing like a lark once we put those photos of the dead girl under his nose. Speaking of which …’

Lucy duly got up and walked to the far end of the lab to retrieve an envelope.

‘Here you go,’ she said, handing it to him. ‘You can hold onto them – they’re copies.’

‘Good stuff.  As you were, kiddies, and let me know if anything turns up in the meantime.’ Kennedy turned to walk out, but then paused in the doorframe. ‘Oh, and by the way, Gary,’ he added with a wink, ‘I’ll say nothing to Chris about you calling him Robin.’

A little while later, Kennedy strode up to where Chris was standing outside a room in Harcourt Street station marked ‘Interview Room No. 4’.

‘Where the hell were you? I thought you said you were only five minutes away,’ grumbled Chris, glancing at his watch.

‘Bloody hell, I didn’t think it was me up for a grilling this morning,’ Kennedy replied. ‘If you must know I went to pick up these,’ he said, waving the envelope he’d just collected from the GFU. ‘So who moved your cheese?’ he added.

Chris stared at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Well for one thing, you and Reilly seem a little … off.’

‘Well, I’m certainly not “off”.’ Chris felt uncomfortable. He didn’t think the ‘atmosphere’ or whatever it was between him and Reilly was that obvious. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Look, all I’m saying is you do seem a little wound up. Just be careful, OK? Take it from an old man who knows, life is short, don’t let it pass you by,’ Kennedy said in a melancholy tone. ‘There has to be more to life than the job, you know. If  I didn’t have Josie to go home to at night …’ His voice cracked a little. ‘I’d find it a lot harder to stay balanced… on top of things.’