Chapter 29
Riddles . . . danger . . . children’s songs . . . She felt as if someone had whapped her on the side of her head. She sprung from her seat.
“What?” James pointed at her. “What did I say?”
“You’ve given me a thought. I need to follow up on something.” She texted the information to Macdara and then called Danny. She grabbed her handbag and her jacket.
“Can’t it wait until you’ve finished your tea?”
“Not with Jane in jail.”
James stood. “I’ll come with you.”
Siobhán hesitated. She loved the company of her older brother, and everyone needed to feel needed. But she was an official guard now, and didn’t like involving any of them when she didn’t have to. Besides, her entire brood was here and needed looking after. “I’d feel safer if you stayed here.”
James gave her a look. “I don’t like you out there by yourself. I get the feeling you’re going to confront the seanchaí.” That was the problem with family; they knew what you were thinking with just the twitch of an eyebrow.
“I’m still working through it. Please. You just said I’m good at my job. You have to let me do it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to confront him alone?”
“No. I promise. I called Danny.” James, along with the rest of her siblings, had met Danny MacGregor on several occasions.
“What does Macdara think about Danny?” James called as Siobhán headed for the door.
“I’m sure you can imagine,” she called back.
* * *
Siobhán was standing by the cottage when a number flashed across her mobile. Danny MacGregor. She’d left him a message, and she was relieved to see how quickly he was calling back. “Where are you?” he asked.
“In a field. Staring at cows.” Eddie Doolan hadn’t been in any of his usual locations, so she’d come here to ponder it all.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Give me the location, I’ll pick you up.”
“I’m at the cottage. What’s going on?”
“Someone reported an abandoned truck. I’m on me way to check it out. Thought you might like to join.”
“Is it red?”
“It is indeed.”
Ellen’s truck. “I’ll be waiting.”
* * *
In the far corner of the small parking lot at the bus station, a red pickup was parked diagonally across two spaces. Danny put on gloves and handed a pair to Siobhán. They approached the truck sideways. The back cab was empty and no one was visible in the seats. “Clear,” Danny said as he was upon it. He tried the passenger door. Locked. He quickly moved around to the driver’s side. It was also locked.
He peered in the window and glanced at Siobhán. “We’ve got a handbag and a mobile phone on the seat.”
“It’s Ellen’s truck,” Siobhán said. “It has to be.”
“I’d say it’s an emergency then,” Danny said, removing a slim file. “Have you learned this trick?”
“No. Did the station teach you?”
“YouTube,” Danny said with a grin. “C’m’ere, I’ll teach you.”
Siobhán joined Danny at the driver’s side and watched as he wedged the slim wire down by the window, and after moving it sideways and up and down and sideways again, the lock clicked. “Thankfully it’s an old truck. The fancy new ones aren’t as easy.”
The door opened with a squeak and for a moment they simply stared at the handbag and the phone.
“Why would someone lock the doors but leave the purse and mobile out in the open?” Siobhán mused.
“He or she wanted us to see it, but also wanted us to work for it?” Danny guessed.
“Maybe whoever moved the truck wasn’t the killer.”
Danny shrugged. “I prefer to deal with facts.” He shut the door to the truck. “As much as I’d love to paw through it, we’ll have to call the team out, and place the items in evidence bags first.”
Siobhán sighed. He was right. She was dying to have a look, but procedures must be followed. The phone would need to be combed through for recent calls. Did Ellen’s purse contain money, or receipts, or notes, or anything that would point to a killer?
“There’s something under the passenger seat.” He moved around to the other side of the truck. Siobhán followed. He handed her the metal wire. “Your turn.”
She slipped it down by the window and calmed her mind, trying to connect to the feel of the wire, and find the latch to trip. Seconds later she heard a pop. Danny whistled. “Besting me. Just like old times.”
She opened the door. Danny came around and began his investigation, opening the glove box, checking under the seats. He lifted a newspaper. “Nothing sinister.” Siobhán neared the truck again and leaned in. “What are you doing?” There was a distinct odor in the cab.
“What does it smell like to you?”
Danny returned and sniffed. “Cleaner?”
“Leather cleaner,” Siobhán said. “Shoe polish.”
Danny sniffed again. “You’re right.” He arched his eyebrow. “And?”
“Jane smelled leather in the cottage when she first found her mam.”
“I didn’t hear about this.”
“Maybe you were too busy booking her for murder.”
His face went still. “She lied about her alibi. She was in Ballysiogdun the entire weekend.”
“I know. But she certainly didn’t drive the truck here.”
“We can’t be sure of that.”
“What?”
“She has some sight, and look how it’s parked.”
She could hardly argue with him there. And it wasn’t going to help to get combative with the one guard here she trusted. “Did the results of the footprint come in?”
“I’ll have to check.”
“Maybe we can pull CCTV from the bus station?” If any of their suspects were the type to polish their shoes, it was Aiden Cunningham.
Danny looked at his watch. “The guards are going to take their sweet time. I’ll drive you back to town.”
She hesitated. It was now or never. “Who are you dating, Danny?”
He kicked a stone with the tip of his boot. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“No. But the killer might be.”
“Annabel.”
“Oh.” Her pixie-like face rose before her. “I can see that.”
He smiled. “She’s . . .” He shook his head. “Couldn’t imagine my life without her.”
“I get that.” She began to pace. “Someone is worried we’re getting too close. Creating a diversion.”
“And that someone might be sitting in a jail cell right now.”
“Or the wrong someone might be sitting in the jail cell.”
“We’re still following up on Eddie Doolan. But I won’t lie. The sergeant likes Jane for this.”
“What about Geraldine’s metal detector?”
“Did you confirm that or is it still just a theory?”
“All you have to do is go over to her house and find the one with a round base.”
He shook his head. “It’s going to take hard evidence.”
“The councilman and the notarized agreement?”
“He admitted to that. It’s not a crime.” He stepped closer. “What do you think Jane was up to that weekend? You said something about an affair?”
“I have no proof.”
“But you suspect?”
Siobhán hesitated. One of the reasons Jane was sitting in jail was that she had refused to give up the name of her lover. She wouldn’t want Siobhán betraying her. But Siobhán’s duty was to find a killer. And that meant the truth must come out. “Joe Madigan.”
Danny whistled. “You’re right. We have a lot of people to keep our eye on.”
There was something Siobhán was forgetting. What was it? “Dylan Kelly. Did you follow up on the photograph he told me he had?”
Danny nodded. “It shows a figure near the cottage. We believe it’s Eddie Doolan.”
Pinpricks of electricity shot up Siobhán’s spine. “Where near the cottage?”
Danny frowned. “Near the bedroom window.”
He saw the killer. “My God.”
“But it’s dark. We think it’s Eddie Doolan because the figure appears to be in a cloak.”
“Did you call Eddie in for questioning?”
“Of course.”
“And?” She hadn’t realized how much they’d been leaving her out of this investigation.
Danny sighed. “His solicitor wanted a mental health evaluation. All he did was speak in story, and riddle. We finally agreed to let the psychologists test him.”
That was to the benefit of Eddie Doolan. But the more time they wasted, the easier it was for a killer to get away.
Handbag, mobile phone, gold coins, shoe-polish-smell, abandoned truck. Siobhán often repeated facts in her head, like refrains of favorite songs, especially when something didn’t make sense to her. A riddle. Mixed messages. Find the truck. But don’t make it too easy or obvious. Find the handbag and mobile phone, but lock the doors so they have to work for it. Why?
Poison her, then point to the fact she was poisoned. Inept or cunning?
Someone digs. Someone lies in wait. Someone kills and severs the tail of a mouse and leaves it in the sink with cryptic words. Someone drives the truck to the train station, locks the door, but leaves the handbag and mobile phone out in the open. Someone dresses the victim. Someone leaves Dylan Kelly’s manuscript on the counter.
Who would Ellen call as her panic mounts?
Her lover. Who enters and is so startled to find her dead takes off forgetting the manuscript on the counter. Does he also grab her handbag and mobile phone so they wouldn’t see he was her last call? Does he drive it to the parking lot, hoping it’s enough to throw suspicion off him?
Next, her stalker. When does Eddie appear at the window? Before or after Aiden? Is he the killer? Or did he look through the bedroom window and witness the murder? The villagers were playing a very dangerous game, keeping their secrets. No more.
There was only one way out of this. Everyone who was not a killer was going to have to start telling the truth and nothing but. Stop this game of musical suspects until only one of them was left standing. The killer.