56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard
Tonight
“We’re meeting the Super in twenty minutes,” Lee says. “So for the love of God, find me the crime.”
Karl shrugs. “I’m not sure we have one.”
They’re at the station, sitting opposite each other at one of the desks in the back. Lee is slumped in a swivel chair, absently swinging it a couple of inches from left to right and then back again, her eyes red from rubbing them in frustration a few moments ago. Karl is on a hard plastic chair that he’s pulled up to the end of the desk. He’s leaning an elbow on it and leaning his chin on his hand. The grease-stained, brown-bag remnants of a McDonald’s dinner lay strewn between them. Lee is still picking half-heartedly at a box of cold, limp McNuggets.
It’s approaching nine o’clock and almost completely dark outside, and they’re both absolutely exhausted. But at nine o’clock, they have to meet with their Superintendent to bring him up to speed, brief him on their investigation and give some indication of where they plan on taking things next.
And despite everything, they still don’t have a crime.
To Kenneth Balfe’s credit, after they’d suggested to him that the tenant in one of his apartments might have had a role to play in the death of the one in the other, he’d got both Laura Mannix and his wife Alison to come down to the station for voluntary chats.
Alison Balfe had quickly admitted that her husband wasn’t as discreet as he liked to think he was, and that she’d known full well who it was in apartment one and working in her husband’s office. She hated Oliver St Ledger, didn’t want anything to do with him, and thought he shouldn’t be anywhere near the family’s business, and she saw an opportunity to make the problem go away by whispering about it to her old college friend, Laura, who these days happened to be working for a radio shock-jock. But since the court order protecting Oliver’s identity only covered the reporting of it, there was nothing Lee or Karl could do to Alison Balfe. She hadn’t broken any laws.
Laura’s tales of Wayback Machines and ears not aging and fortuitously convenient corporate lets made a great story, but that’s all it was. She’d been trying to keep Alison out of it, she told them. Karl had told her she should write a crime novel.
But she had admitted entering apartment one, taking photos of Oliver’s body, and leaving again without alerting anyone to his death. She hadn’t even told Alison, which might have contributed to the current state of affairs: the two women were refusing to talk to each other. Laura insisted that she hadn’t touched anything while she was inside, and so had no reason to wipe anything down before she left again, but she did admit to deliberately setting off the fire alarm at the complex at least twice. These were attempts to flush the residents outside, including Oliver St Ledger and his mysterious girlfriend, to create opportunities for her to see and maybe even approach them.
The postmortem had concluded a couple of hours ago: Oliver St Ledger had officially died by drowning. Toxicology would take longer to come back, but the working theory was he’d taken a Rohypnol, which he had a prescription for, and fallen in the shower. Right about now, Kenneth Balfe was formally identifying the body.
Whoever had wiped down the surfaces in apartment one had done a bloody good job. Of the prints they did find, only two sets were not a match to the deceased, and they were in low-traffic areas: the back of the TV unit, the bottom of a wardrobe door. They could plausibly belong to previous occupants. They didn’t match anything on file.
The only item of interest recovered was Oliver’s phone, which showed text messages exchanged with a user he’d entered as “Ciara,” the last of which was from nearly three weeks before.
Twenty days ago, Oliver had sent a text to this woman saying:
I know it’s over but I don’t want it to end this way. Can we talk? We can meet somewhere public if you prefer.
Eighteen days ago, he’d received a response from her.
Maybe we can have a drink after lockdown ends. Stay safe x
The content of their historical messages suggested that Oliver and this Ciara woman had been seeing each other, but had evidently broken up before his death. No one was answering at the other number now; ringing it got you an automated message saying the user could not be reached at this time. The text messages contained no useful detail that might help identify the sender. They were awaiting registration information from the service provider, but in the meantime, they’d been informed that it was a pay-as-you-go number. The user could have potentially registered any name and address they liked because none of it was subject to verification.
Also on Oliver’s phone were a string of text messages and missed calls from his brother, Richard, wondering why he wasn’t answering. One of them apologized for an earlier conversation in which Richard had apparently told Oliver that he shouldn’t be staying in that apartment, that he knew Alison Balfe “hated his guts” and couldn’t be trusted, and that Oliver needed to get out of there for his own safety. The last one, sent last night Irish time, had said if Oliver didn’t check in within the next twenty-four hours, Richard was going to send Kenneth to his door.
When Lee spoke to Richard this afternoon, just before he boarded the first of three flights that would eventually land him back in Dublin—and facing a two-weekself-isolation—he’d explained that he was the only member of the family still in contact with Oliver. After a threat of exposure in London a couple of months earlier, Oliver had cut all contact with the friends and colleagues he’d had there. He’d had a therapist, Dan, but they were only speaking once a month at the moment.
Richard had asked that the court order continue to be observed and no information about his brother’s true identity be released to the press. Lee assured him that would be the case. The Garda Press Office, as a rule, released as little detail as possible, and the story that appeared on ThePaper.ie this afternoon had contained about as much information as the press were ever going to get.
Gardaí investigating after body of man (29)discovered in Dublin 6
Gardaí in Dublin are investigating the death of a 29-year-old man whose body was found at an apartment block in Harold’s Cross, Dublin 6, early this morning. The grim discovery was made following reports by neighbors of an odor. Gardaí are now probing the circumstances surrounding the man’s death, although sources say foul play is not suspected. The body has been removed to St. James’s Hospital, where a postmortem will be carried out. Anyone with information can contact the Garda Confidential Line at 1-800-666-111.
Thankfully today was Reopening Plan Day, and all available column inches and airtime were saturated with the government’s five-phase plan to slowly reopen the country beginning on May eighteenth, as well as the heady news that as of Tuesday, everyone could venture as far as five kilometers from their home after five weeks of being confined to just two.
No one cared about a nameless body being found in an apartment, especially when it wasn’t even because of a crime.
“Something’s not right about this,” Lee says, absently wiping drops of condensation off the side of her McDonald’s Coke with a forefinger.
“Unless I missed the news about the pathologist finding a seven-inch blade in the dude’s back,” Karl says, “it’s an accidental death. The end.”
“Let’s talk it through.”
“What have we been doing?”
“Okay. So.” Lee sits up. She takes a few sips of the Coke, even though she knows the sheer amount of ice in there will have diluted any caffeine benefit. “Okay. So. Okay.”
“Off to a great start there,” Karl mutters.
“How do you still have energy for sarcasm? You didn’t even sleep last night.”
“It’s because I am a—how do you say?—young person.”
“There’s seven years between us, Karl.”
“You tick a different box on the form, that’s what matters.”
“Who turned off the water?”
“He did,” Karl says. “Tom Searson said that was a possibility. St Ledger had enough left in him to reach up and slap the lever down, but not enough to not sink to the floor and drown in whatever water had already collected there.”
“What about the text messages? His says he doesn’t want it to end this way and offers to meet somewhere public if she prefers. That sounds like there was some big blow-up, that she might feel unsafe meeting him behind closed doors.”
“But it could also refer to lockdown,” Karl says. “They’re two households, they’re not supposed to be meeting behind closed doors. And her response doesn’t suggest anything is wrong. Lee, can I ask you a question? Do you not have enough work to do? Are you bored? Is that it?”
“Why isn’t she answering that number now?”
“She changed it.”
“Why?”
“Because people do. Sometimes, people change their phone numbers.”
“How long have you had yours? I think I’ve mine going on twenty years.”
“Lee, come on. We both know there’s always something that refuses to fit the jigsaw. That doesn’t mean we can’t still see what the picture is. And you have to admit, the only reason you’re still even looking at this jigsaw at all is because of who he is. Take away Mill River, take away Laura Mannix—what have you got? A guy who drugged himself and fell in the shower. The end.”
“You do know that you saying ‘the end’ doesn’t constitute a legal judgment?”
“It should,” Karl says. “It’s much more efficient.”
“We’ll have to look for this Ciara girl.”
“How do you suggest we do that? Unless something comes back on that phone registration—and I’m not holding my breath there—all we have to go on is a first name.”
“And a Cork accent. And Laura’s physical description.”
Karl rolls his eyes. “You’re right. I’m sure we’ll find her in no time.”
Lee drums her fingers on the desktop, thinking.
“Why are you so determined to find a crime here?” Karl asks. “We’re not going to get any blowback. There’s one relative who lives on the other side of the world and he wants all this kept hush-hush. Laura Mannix knows she’s dodged a bullet and will be on her best behavior from here on out with this—she’s not going to be a problem either. So let’s just tell the Super our thinking is that it was an accident but we’ll have a look for this Ciara woman, sure, and we’re waiting for toxicology to confirm, but beyond that . . .” He turns up his palms. “What else is there to do?”
“I just feel like we’re getting swindled somehow,” Lee says. “Like someone is offering us a brand-new car for a bargain price and assuring us everything is aboveboard. We know it can’t be true, but the car seems fine, so we can’t quite put our finger on where the lie is.” She sighs. “Let’s say he did turn off the water by himself. Fine. But why was his girlfriend using a pay-as-you-go phone? When did you last meet a twentysomething who wasn’t on bill-pay? They need unlimited data for all their, I don’t know, tick-tocking and stuff.”
Karl snorts at this.
“And isn’t it a bit convenient,” she continues, “that not only is the phone disconnected now, but that their communications stopped, what? At most three or four days before he died? And then you have the fact that the entire apartment was wiped clean, the door was unlocked and . . . What was that other thing? Oh yes, he was a convicted child killer whose identity was protected, with a journalist on his tail.”
“But he wasn’t murdered,” Karl says.
They both sit in silence for a moment.
Then Karl says, “Can I throw something crazy out there?”
“You’ve never asked my permission before.”
“What if there is no Keyser Söze?”
Lee looks at him blankly. “What’s that?”
“Seriously? Lee, your pop-culture references are all over the show. You give out to me for not knowing that Louise Lane woman—”
“Lois.”
“—but you don’t know Keyser Söze?”
“I know we’re meeting the Super in fifteen minutes, Karl. That’s what I know.”
“What if there is no Ciara?”
“But there was. He was texting her. And Laura met her.”
“He was texting someone and Laura says she met her. Look, I’m not saying there wasn’t a girlfriend. I’m not saying Oliver didn’t think her name was Ciara. But what if that was—drumroll please—actually our friend Ms. Laura Mannix?”
Lee tries to push aside her brain-melting exhaustion to consider this.
“It fits,” Karl continues. “And it would explain the convenient timing of the end of their relationship and why she’s not answering the phone now. Laura poses as Ciara to get close to St Ledger. St Ledger roofies himself and drowns in a puddle of shower water. Laura goes to the apartment, discovers this, freaks out because she thinks he did it on purpose because he found out who she really was or whatever, and she’ll get the blame, so instead of reporting it, she cleans the place down and leaves. Sends that text message to make the”—Karl makes air quotes—“girlfriend go away. Waits for him to get whiffy enough for someone else to call it in and then worms her way into our investigation because getting some juice on that is the next best thing. Tells us she didn’t speak to him—again, convenient—but that she did talk to his girlfriend. I mean, come on. You have to admit it all fits.”
“Maybe you should write a crime novel,” Lee says. She chews on her lip, thinking. “It’s not a completely crazy idea, but . . . she must be ten years older than him.”
“So? Guys in their twenties love that shit. And she’s hot.”
“Oh, she is, is she? Good to know your mind was on the case, Karly boy.”
Karl grins. “My mind was.”
“Why do I always feel like I need a shower after I talk to you? Can you stop sexualizing our witnesses, please?”
“I mean, she definitely has that I-might-wake-up-tomorrow-morning-to-find-her-standing-over-me-with-a-knife energy, but yeah. And, hey.” He holds up his hands. “Ciara. Laura. They both end in a.”
“I’m just going to forget you said that last bit.”
“I’d appreciate it.” Karl nods solemnly. “Not my best work.”
“Laura as Ciara. Ciara as Laura . . .” Lee leans back in her chair and resumes her absentminded swiveling. “It’s not the worst theory you’ve ever had, but that’s not saying much now, is it?”
“Think about it: none of the other residents reported seeing this Ciara woman.”
“They didn’t remember seeing Oliver either. Not since lockdown began.”
“There were no pictures of her on his phone.”
“There were no pictures of anybody on his phone.”
“And all the text messages conveniently contain no identifying information that might lead us to Miss Mysterious. I rest my case.” He winks. “The end.”
“We’ll have to get the cell-tower data for the Ciara phone. Track its location. Maybe that would lead us to CCTV or something. A traffic cam. Something on a city street. We might find her that way.”
“Or we might waste hours of manpower investigating a noncrime to get a grainy picture of Laura Mannix.”
“So what do you suggest we do, Karl?”
“I think if we’re going to do anything, it’s get Laura on obstruction of justice. She should’ve called us two weeks ago and she’s been fibbing to us today. She still is fibbing, if my theory is correct. Which, of course, I think it is.”
“Of course,” Lee says, rolling her eyes.
“I think there’s a far greater chance of that than there is of anything else going on here. I mean, consider the alternative. Someone force-fed this dude one of his own roofies and pushed him through the shower door, and left absolutely no definitive proof of their existence save for a phone that no doubt will be registered to some made-up name and useless address. Wiped the apartment clean. Managed to be going in and out of it for however long they were together without being seen except by one woman who can’t be trusted. Knew to leave before the seven-day CCTV loop kicked in. And made the whole thing look like it was just a tragic accident. We both know that master criminals are nowhere near as common as Netflix would have us believe.”
“Hmm,” is all Lee says to this. She looks at the clock on the wall. “Better make a move.” She gets up with a groan.
Karl gets up too, stretches. “So what are we saying here?”
“Let’s go with accidental death pending toxicology and further inquiries. Low chance of blowback. We’ll tell the Super we’re going to try to find this mysterious Ciara woman and bring Laura Mannix in for a more formal chat.” She sighs. “And here was I, thinking I’d have a nice quiet, relaxing weekend . . . I was even going to get my shit together, you know?”
“Do you ever think,” Karl says, “that maybe you have your shit together, it’s just that your shit doesn’t look like everybody else’s?”
“Did you just come up with that?”
“I’m not just a pretty face, you know,” he says with a wink.
“Right now, you’re not even that.”
“It’s hard to hear you through the glass house you’re standing in.”
“Oh—and after we do this, you’re going to give Eddie Moynihan his cuffs back.”
“What?” Karl makes a face. “Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
They start making their way around the desks, heading in the direction of the Superintendent’s office.
“Where am I going to say I got them?”
“I don’t know,” Lee says. “But whatever you do, don’t tell him where they’ve been.”