The Triumph of Katie Byrne (4 page)

Katie screeched to a standstill, pulled on the brake and jumped out of the pickup truck. Sprinting to the pay phone in the rest area, she grabbed the receiver off the hook and dialled 911.

Immediately, the emergency operator came onto the line and Katie asked for the ambulance service. Before she could even blink she was talking to the Litchfield County Dispatcher for Fire and Ambulance in the Litchfield area.

‘I need an ambulance! My friend’s injured! It’s a matter of life and death!’ Katie exclaimed, her voice echoing with urgency and anxiety. ‘She’s been beaten over the head. She’s bleeding. But she’s still alive.
Just.
Please send an ambulance. As quickly as possible.’

‘Where are you calling from?’

‘I’m at a pay phone on Route 7. Up above Malvern, between New Milford and South Kent,’ she swiftly answered, and then gave her the exact details of where she was.

‘What’s your name?’ the female dispatcher asked.

‘Katie Byrne. From Malvern.’

The dispatcher asked a few more questions, which Katie answered as precisely as she could, and then, voice trembling, she told the dispatcher, ‘My other friend, Denise…well, she’s dead.’ Her sentence finished in sobs.

‘Hang in there, Katie,’ the dispatcher said in a kindly tone. ‘And hold on. I’m putting you through to the state police. Give them all the details, tell them everything you know. The ambulance is being dispatched now.’

Katie stood clutching the phone, and a minute later a man’s voice announced, ‘State Police Dispatcher, Troop L, Litchfield. Tell me exactly what happened, Katie.’

‘One of my friends has been badly injured. The other one is…dead,’ she responded quietly, trying to be as calm and concise as possible. ‘My brother and I found them a while ago. About fifteen minutes ago. But we don’t know what happened. Or how it happened. We need an ambulance for Carly.’

‘It’s already on its way. Give me your exact location, Katie.’

Katie did so, shivering in the cold wind, thinking that she was living a nightmare. She couldn’t believe she was on this phone talking to the Connecticut State Police about Carly and Denise. Only a few hours ago, at four o’clock, the three of them had been laughing together in the barn, and planning their future in New York.

The state police dispatcher said, ‘Please wait there,
Katie. Stay where you are. Don’t leave. Responding state troopers will arrive as soon as they can. There are several patrolling in the area. It won’t be long before one of them gets to you.’

‘I’ll wait on the highway. At the entrance to the road leading down to the barn,’ Katie told him, and replaced the receiver. She leaned forward, rested her forehead against the phone, and closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself to be strong. And willing Carly to live. Please God, don’t let her die, she whispered silently. Let her live. Fight, Carly, fight.

Still shivering and turning up the collar of her jacket, she ran over to the truck and climbed in. Instantly, she jumped out and raced back to the pay phone, remembering that Niall had told her to call their mother.

Dropping the quarter in, she dialled her home. ‘It’s me, Mom,’ Katie said when Maureen answered.

‘Where are you both?’ Maureen asked, sounding put out, even cross. ‘Your father’ll be home any minute now, and I’ll be wanting to serve supper. Finian’s starving.’

‘Mom, something’s happened,’ Katie began, and her voice faltered. She was unable to go on.

‘What is it, Katie? What’s wrong?’ Maureen demanded, at once alerted to a serious problem, since Katie wasn’t one to exaggerate.

‘It’s something…
terrible
, Momma. Carly’s been badly injured, and Denise…’ Katie stopped. She swallowed hard, but her voice choked up as she whispered,
‘Mom, Denise is dead. Somebody raped her, and they killed her…and he really hurt Carly. It was after I left the barn this afternoon.’

‘Oh my God! Oh my God! No, Katie! Those poor girls. Oh Lord, where are you? Are you all right? Where’s Niall? Let me speak to him!’ Maureen cried, her voice rising shrilly, sudden panic and shock now getting the better of her.

‘He’s not here, Mom. He stayed with Carly in the wood. That’s where it happened…the attacks on…the girls.’ Katie put a hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs, but she didn’t succeed very well.

‘Listen to me, Katie,’ Maureen whispered, but it was a harsh whisper. ‘Get Niall on the phone.’

‘I
can’t
, Mom! He’s looking after Carly. He stayed with her just in case the attacker came back. He sent me to the pay phone on the highway to call for an ambulance. They put me through to the police and now they’re all coming, bringing help.’

‘Katie, Katie,
listen
to me. I want you to come home.
And immediately.
I don’t want you there. Maybe it’s not safe. We don’t know who did this…the person could still be around, couldn’t he? Maybe even looking for you. It was always the three of you, everyone knows that. And perhaps
he
does. Come home at once. Your father will be here in a moment or so, and he’ll drive down and pick Niall up. Go and get into the pickup, and get yourself home at once. Do you hear me, Katie Byrne?’

‘Yes, Mom, I do. But I can’t. I’d like to, but I have to stay here. The barn can’t be seen from the road, you know that, and so I have to wait for the ambulance and the police. I’ll come home once Carly is in the ambulance and going to the hospital.’

‘Please come home,’ Maureen begged.

‘I’m okay, Mom. Honest. I’ll be home soon,’ she promised and hung up.

Katie drove down the hill, parked in front of the barn and hurried towards the wood, clutching her flashlight. She walked a few feet down the narrow path and took a deep breath. ‘Niall! Niall! I’m back!’ she shouted at the top of her lungs, pitching her voice as far as she could, as she had trained herself to do for the stage.

In the distance, faintly, she heard his response. ‘Okay, Katie. It’s okay, I hear you.’

Swinging around, she returned to the truck and once again drove up the hill to wait for the ambulance and the police. Her head had begun to pound, and she felt sick again, as though she were going to throw up. She took a number of deep breaths, as she so often did when she stood in the wings, willing her stage fright to go away. This nauseous feeling wasn’t caused by stage fright, though, but by genuine fear. What if the killer was looking for her, as her mother had suggested he could be?

She sat waiting on the highway, but she didn’t have
long to wait. Within the space of five minutes she heard a siren, and a moment later a state trooper’s car came into view. It raced along the highway at breakneck speed.

Since the state trooper was coming up Route 7, from the direction of Gaylordsville, he had to park on the opposite side of the road; he got out and hurried over to the pickup truck.

Katie rolled down her window and peered out at him, her face strained, her eyes bleak with pain.

‘Are you Katie Byrne?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I am. Is the ambulance coming?’

‘It should be here real fast. I was in the immediate vicinity, and answered the radio call at once. Where’s the crime scene located
exactly
?’

‘I’ll show you.’ Katie opened the door, jumped down and led the trooper across the short stretch of barren land. Pointing down the hill, she said, ‘It’s in the wood immediately opposite that old barn down there. My brother Niall’s waiting in the wood. He thought he’d better stay with Carly, to protect her. Just in case the attacker was still around here –’ Katie stopped. Her voice was wobbling and tears had welled in her eyes.

‘Take it easy, Katie,’ the trooper said.

Gulping, she nodded, and endeavoured to get control of herself. ‘Shall I wait for the ambulance while you go down the hill? To show them the way?’

‘You won’t have to do that. It’s about to arrive,’ the state trooper answered, cocking his head at the sound of
screaming sirens. The highway was filled with whirling red lights as the ambulance shot along the road, coming to a halt behind the state trooper’s car.

Katie made for Niall’s truck and got inside. She was chilled to the bone and unexpectedly exhausted. She watched as the trooper sprinted over to the ambulance and spoke to the driver, pointed down the hill and then went and got into his own car. The ambulance began to move.

Katie followed the ambulance.

The state trooper was immediately behind her in his police car, his red light turned on, his siren shrilling loud and clear.

After pointing the way through the wood, Katie stood to one side and watched as the medics raced down the narrow path, carrying a stretcher.

Within minutes they were returning with Carly, and she was still alive. It’s a miracle, Katie thought. She had been teetering on the edge of despair, certain her friend could not last. But Carly had hung in there. She made it. Oh God, thank you, thank you.

The medics were huddled around Carly, checking her vital signs before putting her in the ambulance.

Katie clung to Niall; the two of them were standing together near the barn, just a few feet away from Carly. How pale she was, Katie thought. White as bleached bone, and so still. Still as death. But the medics had
given the thumbs up sign a moment ago, and one of them had said, ‘She’s breathing.’

‘She
is
going to live, isn’t she?’ Katie asked the medic who had just helped to lift the stretcher into the ambulance.

He glanced over his shoulder at Katie and nodded. ‘I think so. I hope so.’

The ambulance left with Carly, and Katie took hold of Niall’s hand, held it tightly in hers. He looked at her quickly, and asked, ‘Did you call Mom?’

‘Yes. I told her what’s happened. She was distraught. I think I’d better go home now, Niall. I told her I would, once Carly was on the way to the hospital.’

‘You’ll have to stay here with me, Katie. The state trooper needs to talk to us when he gets back from looking at Denise’s body –’ Niall paused, listened. ‘Sounds like sirens again. More state troopers arriving, I guess.’

Katie seemed uncomprehending for a moment.

Niall stared back at her, his eyes narrowing. ‘Denise has been murdered,’ he said, sorrow echoing in his voice. ‘This place is going to be teeming with police in the next half hour.’

This was the type of crime he detested. Defenceless young girls mercilessly beaten and murdered. Easy prey, innocent prey, Mac MacDonald thought bleakly as he sidestepped the yellow police tape two state troopers were placing around the wood, to cordon off the crime scene and safeguard it.

John ‘Mac’ MacDonald, commander of the Major Crime Squad of the Connecticut State Police out of Litchfield, had long ago discovered that crimes of this nature inevitably turned him into a raging bull inside. But he knew better than to unleash his fury. He had schooled himself for years to exercise total self-control and discipline. But that didn’t mean he held the rage in check all the time. Most weekends found him hitting a punching bag in his basement exercise room, imagining who the recipients of his intense pummelling might possibly be. It was a release of a kind for him, yet he was aware it did nothing to stop the senseless murder and rape of young women. He had two teenage daughters himself, and he worried about them constantly, drilled
them relentlessly about being street-smart and careful. Images of their lovely young faces leapt into his head, but he pushed them away. He could not afford to be distracted. He needed total concentration. He must think about one thing only:
solving this case quickly.

Mac paused to speak to one of the state troopers handling the yellow tape. ‘You were the first here, weren’t you,’ he stated, his manner chatty, friendly.

The state trooper nodded. ‘Yeah, I was, Lieutenant. I made certain the crime scene wasn’t contaminated in any way, and the medics were careful, they didn’t destroy its integrity either. They went straight in, got the injured girl and came straight out. One, two, three, just like that.’

‘And the other girl was dead when you arrived.’ This was again a statement, not a question.

‘Yeah. Poor kid.’ The trooper shook his head and his eyes were suddenly sad. ‘What a lousy thing!’ he muttered and half grimaced, turned away.

Mac sighed under his breath as he moved on towards the wood. He knew how the trooper felt. He also knew that as long as he lived he would always react strongly to violence against women. It made him want to teach the cowards who perpetrated these outrages a lesson they would never forget. Some son of a bitch had done a really foul job on two young women earlier, and the fury Mac felt brought a hard glint to his grey eyes, and his expression was grim and as cold as steel. He
never let any other emotion show on his narrow, craggy face; that’s why they called him Mac the Knife behind his back.

Adopting a brisker pace, Mac walked down the narrow path that led to the middle of the wood where he knew a seventeen-year-old girl lay dead.

He was also well aware that Doctor Allegra Marsh, the Medical Examiner, was already on the scene. She had arrived a short while before he had, according to two of his detectives who were in the barn. Also, her dark-green Cherokee jeep was parked next to the black van he knew came from her office.

Mac liked Allegra Marsh, admired her. For one thing, there was no bullshit about her. She always called it the way she saw it at a crime scene, and she was very forthright in every other way. They had worked on countless cases together, and she had gone the distance for him, gone beyond the call of duty, in a sense.

All of this aside, she was the most brilliant forensic scientist and pathologist he had ever known and worked with. In her own way, she was also a detective, just as he was; they simply used different methods. They were good friends, but it stopped there, even though he was long widowed and she was single. With Allegra there were certain boundaries, ones which he knew not to cross, although sometimes…Well, that was another story.

Even if he hadn’t been told she was here, the intense
beams of light from her battery-operated spotlights announced her formidable presence in the wood.

When he was about five feet away, Mac came to a standstill, and said, ‘Not a happy night, Allegra.’

The Medical Examiner was kneeling on the ground with one of the forensic team, and she glanced up at him and shook her blonde head. ‘Hi, Mac. And you’re right, not happy at all.’ She sighed and added, ‘It was some angry man who paid a visit here earlier tonight, no doubt about that.’

‘What’ve you found?’

‘Death by strangulation. Manual strangulation. Her larynx is crushed. Very intense bruising around the neck area. A violent attack. And she was raped, but you most likely know that from your team.’

‘Yeah, I do.’ He was staring down at the body, and he muttered, ‘Oh God, she was so young…’

‘And a virgin,’ Allegra said.

‘She was?’

‘Yes, I believe so. Obviously, I’ll know for certain once I do the autopsy. But there was blood mixed in with the seminal fluid. I have a number of DNA samples from her body. Semen, blood, which I believe to be hers, hair follicles. Skin and flesh from underneath her fingernails. More hair. Different hair. And this.’

Allegra showed him the large tweezers in her right hand, which she generally used to lift off DNA samples from a body. They now held a cigarette stub. ‘We just
found this beauty partially hidden under her body.’ She placed it carefully in the glassine envelope her assistant was now holding, and went on, ‘I’m certain the girl was not sitting around here smoking, Mac. She was running for her life. This was an oversight on the assailant’s part. He tossed it away and forgot it.’ She sat back on her heels. ‘Saliva, Mac, the perp’s saliva. I hope.’ Her dark eyes sparkled at this thought.

He nodded. ‘Any idea yet of what time she died?’

‘In the vicinity of six, six-fifteen. I’ll be able to place the time more accurately, pinpoint it, after the post-mortem. But it wasn’t much later than six-twenty, I’m fairly sure.’ As she was speaking, Allegra was putting items away in one of the two metal medical cases she favoured. Then turning to her assistant, she said, ‘Let’s get her into the body bag, Ken.’

‘Right away,’ he responded and reached for the bag nearby. He knelt closer to Allegra and they lifted and manipulated the body until it was inside the bag, and then Ken zipped it. They both rose at the same time; together they picked up the bag and put it on the stretcher.

Allegra said, ‘Thanks, Ken, I’ll send Cody to help you bring the body out. Afterwards you can dismantle the lights.’

‘I will,’ he said, and began to pack his own medical bag.

Allegra rolled off her latex gloves, balled them and put them in one of her metal cases, which she then picked up. Mac grabbed the other one, and the two of them walked away from the crime scene, hurrying down the path in single file.

Mac said, ‘Not a very good crime scene for us…’

‘I’ve seen better, Mac, but it’s not
that
bad. The medics didn’t disturb anything, and we’ve been scrupulous.’

‘I know you have. Let’s face it, though, a wood is not the easiest place to find clues to a brutal murder.’

‘True. And the ground is very hard at the moment. There’ll be no footprints. Have you spoken to the brother and sister in the barn?’

‘Yeah, I did, but only briefly. I got here after you did, Allegra. The girl is shell-shocked, yet despite that she’s very precise, clear about things. There’s not much she or her brother can tell us about the attack, since they arrived here after it happened.’

They did not speak for a few seconds, just ploughed on through the wood until they came to the area in front of the barn. It was crowded with cars and police, and they dodged around them, walked over to Allegra’s jeep at a brisk pace.

Mac suddenly said, ‘Katie told me that she caught a flash of something dark when she was leaving this afternoon. It was about ten to five and already dusk.
She was going up that hill over there, thought she saw something and stopped, looked over at the clump of rhododendron bushes. She says she wondered what she had
almost
seen. Then she decided it had to be an animal, a deer most likely, and she didn’t bother to investigate further. But I’ve got one of my men and a state trooper up there now, looking around.’

Allegra stopped, turned to Mac, and frowned as she exclaimed, ‘It’s just as well she didn’t go over to the bushes, because it could have been the perp loitering. And he might well have beaten her up also.’

‘Yes, you’re right about that. I’m hoping that when Carly Smith recovers consciousness she’ll be able to tell us what happened here today, and who it was. She’s an eye witness, our only eye witness, and we’re obviously banking on her.’

Allegra stared at him.

Noticing at once the concern spreading across her face, he asked quickly, ‘What’s wrong?’

The Medical Examiner was silent, then finally she said in a low voice, ‘From what I understand, that poor girl took some terrible blows to the head. I’m praying for her recovery, but those head injuries could prove to be extremely serious.’

‘What are you getting at, Allegra? Are you saying she might die?’ Mac asked, his voice rising.

Allegra hesitated fractionally, then said, ‘No, not that necessarily. But she could be left in a coma.’

‘Oh shit!’

‘Let’s hope for the best, especially for the girl’s sake,’ Allegra murmured, and put her metal case in the back of the jeep.