The Wrong Kind of Blood (Ed Loy PI) Read online

  “So what is all this?” I said. “Do you really think I killed Peter Dawson?”

  Dave stood up and knocked his chair to the ground, rolling his huge shoulders as he moved.

  “Your prints are all over the Glock, you were placed at the crime scene before the discovery of the body, what are we going to do? Tell Superintendent Casey not to worry, we were at school together? How did your prints come to be on the gun?”

  “I really couldn’t say.”

  Dave crashed his huge fists down on the table and began to shout into my face. “Don’t give me any rigmarole here, Ed, just answer the questions I ask like a good man. Or we’re gonna have some trouble, you and me.”

  Dave sat down and flashed me a quick grin. Some of that had been for Reed’s benefit, but by no means all. I tried to figure out just how much I could tell them without landing Tommy Owens in it. I didn’t think Tommy was capable of murder, but I wouldn’t have thought he was drug dealer material either. I realized I didn’t really know anything for sure about Tommy anymore, but that didn’t mean I was going to offer him up to the cops on a plate.

  “I think the gun came from Podge Halligan,” I began.

  There was a knock on the interview-room door. Reed raised the finger she was fond of pointing and flicked it toward Dave. “Don’t go away now,” Dave said, and went out.

  “Interview suspended while D.S. Donnelly leaves the room, 10:07 a.m.,” Reed said, hitting the pause button on the tape player.

  It was stuffy and warm in the airless room, and I could smell my own scent rising, a toxic cloud of booze and sweat and smoke. My skin was crawling, and I wanted to scrub it with a can of bleach and a wire brush. I tried to focus on the danger I was in, but all I could do was wonder whether Linda would be upset or relieved to hear of her husband’s death. And whether it would come as a surprise to her. And whether all that would mean I wouldn’t get to sleep with her again. Fiona Reed was gazing at me like I was something that had crawled up out of a drain. I was wondering how I had managed to excite quite so much of her hostility on such a short acquaintance when Dave came back into the room with two sheets of paper, one of which he passed to his boss.

  “D.S. Donnelly returns to the room, distributes copies of preliminary postmortem report, interview resumes, 10:11 a.m.,” said Reed, after releasing the pause button.

  “Peter Dawson’s body had already passed through rigor and begun to decompose. Which sets the estimated time of death at least five days ago, if not more,” said Dave.

  “He was last seen on Friday at about six in the evening,” I said.

  “And this is Thursday morning,” said Reed. “What time did you get in from L.A.?”

  “Sunday afternoon, about five-thirty. So not only did I not do it, it looks like I couldn’t have done it.”

  “Just about,” snapped D.I. Reed.

  A silence followed this outburst. I smiled. Reed nodded at Donnelly.

  “All right. The two bullets retrieved from his body are nine-millimeter Parabellum. The Glock 17 is chambered for the Parabellum nine-millimeter round. It has a 10-round magazine with two bullets missing. We don’t have ballistics confirmation yet, but I think it’s safe to assume the bullets came from this gun. So—Mr. Loy—once again—how did your prints get to be on the murder weapon?”

  D.I. Reed came crashing in.

  “Because it’s not just the finger on the trigger, Mr. Loy, as I’m sure you know. You think the gun came from Podge Halligan. What’s that you’re telling us, in the time you could take from your mother’s funeral you were handling weapons for the Halligan gang?”

  “All right. Who else’s prints are on the gun?” I said.

  “Who else’s prints? You tell us,” Reed said.

  “Because this is what I’m trying to say, it’s a setup by the Halligans, they’re trying to frame this guy, just like they’ve tried to frame me.”

  “What guy, Ed? We need you to say the name,” Dave said.

  They were pissed off with me, and I didn’t blame them, but Dave was as straight as they came or no one was. Tommy would get a fair shake from Dave—and if he had killed Peter Dawson, there was nothing I could do to protect him, and nothing I wanted to do either. I wasn’t as optimistic about Reed, but Dave was going to be compromised through his relationship with me if I didn’t give them something. So I told them about Tommy’s unexpected arrival at the house on Tuesday night, about how he claimed to have come by the Glock and all the rest, leading up to the gun being stolen with the rental car last night, when I was on alcoholic maneuvers.

  “So let’s get this straight: Podge Halligan or one of his boys shot Peter Dawson, then gave the murder weapon to Tommy Owens and he brought it to you? Why?” said Reed.

  “Why bring it to me? He feared he was being set up for a murder. And now it looks like he was.”

  “Alternatively, Tommy killed Dawson himself, then brought you the gun—”

  “Why would he do that? Why didn’t he just dump the weapon, if it had his prints on it? Or wipe it clean before he gave it to me?”

  “Maybe the gun itself is significant—whoever owned it—” Dave began.

  “I doubt very much this gun is legally registered to anyone,” said Reed. “It’s probably a reconditioned piece.”

  “The third possibility is, that Tommy took the gun without Podge Halligan knowing about it,” I said. “I went in and pretty much told Podge I was holding it for Tommy. They have Peter Dawson’s body since Friday, trying to work out when and where to dump it. While I’m in Hennessy’s with George, they go to Quarry Fields, trash the place, find the Glock in the boot of the rental car.”

  “And then Podge took it and placed it with Dawson’s body in the boat? How would they get access to the Royal Seafield? I don’t think they’re members, Ed,” said Dave.

  I shrugged. I wanted to take a crack at Colm the boatman myself.

  “All I know is, there was no gun and no dead body when I looked the boat over at lunchtime. It had been scrubbed clean.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  Just a photograph of my father and John Dawson.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Any idea where your pal Tommy Owens might be now?” asked Reed.

  “You’ve tried his mother?”

  “He didn’t come home last night.”

  “He’s not a killer, Inspector Reed.”

  “We’ve evidence that says he did it, and nothing to link the Halligans to it.”

  “That’s how a good frame works.”

  “Why should we suspect a frame?”

  “I’ll find him. And I’ll prove he didn’t do it,” I said.

  Reed exhaled quickly, a silent, mirthless laugh. She waved that finger at Dave again.

  “Interview ends, ten thirty-five,” said Dave. He leaned across and switched the tape off.

  “Don’t forget, we have you here on a number of charges, Mr. Loy. You may not be in a position to be finding anybody,” said D.I. Reed.

  “Shouldn’t I be appearing before a judge this morning, to answer for my sins?”

  “You certainly should.”

  Reed stared at me for a moment, then pursed her lips and headed for the door.

  “Unfortunately, the charges won’t stand,” Dave said, shaking his head sadly.

  “What?”

  “Procedure wasn’t followed correctly.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Garda Nolan put the wrong date on the arrest form,” Dave said. “A caution and you’re free to go.”

  “What about Garda Nolan?”

  “Garda Nolan will have to learn how to do his job properly. Just get the car taxed and insured, Ed. And don’t be drinking like a girl, and if you do, don’t be driving like a cunt.”

  “Is that my official caution?”

  Reed turned back to me.

  “No, this is,” she said. “Peter Dawson is now a Garda inquiry. We’ll look after all aspects of it, and that includes tracki
ng Tommy Owens down. You keep out of it, Mr. Loy. No ifs or buts, no outside assistance invited or appreciated: just stay away. Do you understand?”

  I looked from her to Dave. No ifs or buts, no nods or winks there; they were warning me off for real.

  “I understand,” I said.

  I had always been a convincing liar.

  Ten

  I GOT A TAKEOUT CUP OF COFFEE AND SAT ON A BENCH on Seafield Pier watching seagulls swoop and shriek, and boats fill their sails and gust in and out of the harbor. The mackerel were running, and two men in a small green fishing boat out in the bay looked like they were pulling them out of the sea with their hands. The Garda Crime Scene teams had left the promenade, but the Royal Seafield Yacht Club was still swarming with police.

  I called Linda, but she wasn’t answering; I left messages of sympathy on her home and mobile phones, and asked her to call me when she felt up to it. I tried to make my voice sound crisp and businesslike, but it didn’t fool me; I hoped it wouldn’t fool her either.

  I called Tommy Owens’s mother, who said she hadn’t seen Tommy for two days, and didn’t sound particularly bothered about it. Then I called his ex-wife, Paula, who said she hadn’t seen Tommy for two weeks, that he owed her money and that he was a malingerer and a useless waste of space. She sounded extremely pissed off about it, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. The only other place I could imagine Tommy being was Hennessy’s; when I called there, however, the barman told me Tommy had been barred. I said I found that astonishing, and asked had anyone ever been barred before. He said he didn’t think so, he had worked there twelve years and he didn’t know what you had to do to get barred, but whatever it was, Tommy must have done it: the word had come down from Noel Senior, and Noel Senior hadn’t kept Hennessy’s open for fifty years by telling anyone his reasons.

  I walked around Seafield until I found a menswear shop. I bought another black suit, five more white shirts and a supply of socks and underwear. In the supermarket I got new potatoes, peas in the pod, lemons, oatmeal, flat-leaf parsley, and a roll of black garbage bags. I went down the pier and bought two mackerel at a stall that guaranteed all the fish it sold had been caught fresh that morning. I bought half a dozen newspapers in a newsagent’s. Then I walked back to Quarry Fields.

  In the house, I began to fill the garbage bags with the debris from the break-in. As I filled each bag, I took it out and threw it in the garage. The furniture downstairs hadn’t been in great shape to begin with; now it was well beyond repair. I tossed broken chair frames and table legs in on top of the garbage bags. I would have to rent a Dumpster to get rid of it all, but I didn’t feel up to it today. The writing desk in the back room had been smashed to pieces too, and it was only after I had cleared it away that I remembered it was where the family photographs were kept. All the snaps it had contained were gone. The fragment I had found on Peter Dawson’s boat was the only shot I had of my father. Someone was trying to remove all trace of my past, just as they had removed all trace of his.

  I sat on the living room floor and looked through the newspapers. They were having a field day, and who could blame them? deadly triangle blared the Daily Star, with reports on “much-loved councillor” Seosamh MacLiam, Dawson, and the concrete corpse found in the town hall. I suspected he would drop right down the priority list now. If he’d been dead (and buried) that long, he could wait a little longer for justice. trouble in paradise announced the Irish Independent, with many sidebar features on the upscale Bayview-Castlehill “Top People’s Seaside Suburb,” where the luxury homes of top Irish rock stars, film directors, barristers, and CEOs formed the exclusive enclave the reporter claimed was nicknamed “Bel Eire.” The Irish Sun took up this theme: black day in bel eire, it screamed, claiming “sources close to the Garda investigation” said that Seosamh MacLiam had been dead before he went in the water, and detailing the rise of John Dawson’s construction business. The Irish Times, the national “newspaper of record,” confined itself to a brief report on page four which was so circumspectly written, presumably to spare the feelings of the families, or possibly the paper’s readers, and so apparently anxious not to prejudice any criminal prosecution that might ensue, that it was hard, having read it, to be sure if anyone had been killed, or had died, or indeed, if anything had happened at all. The Times did however mention that John Dawson had been one of a group of businessmen who in the seventies and eighties had clustered around the figure of Jack Parland, Seosamh MacLiam’s father-in-law.

  Most of the papers speculated that the simultaneous murder inquiries would prove too much for Seafield Garda, and that while the investigation would remain based at Seafield Station, the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation would almost certainly be drafted in to assist. I wondered if Dave would appreciate the help. I wouldn’t in his shoes; I’d see it as them muscling in and stealing my case. But it was his case now, nothing to do with me anymore.

  It was uncomfortable sitting on the floor, so I thought I’d see if lying on it was any better. That’s where I awoke, to the sound of the doorbell. One side of my body was numb, and when I finally managed to haul myself to my feet, the blood rushed from my head and set me reeling. The sun had set, but it wasn’t dark yet; the dusty house was thick with blurred shadows. The doorbell rang again, continuously this time. I ran a hand through my hair, rubbed my eyes in an attempt to persuade them to stay open and opened the front door to Peter Dawson’s mother, Barbara.

  Someone had once told Barbara Dawson she looked like Elizabeth Taylor, and she had taken it to heart. Her hair was golden brown now, and cascaded in lush folds over the top of a loosely tied aubergine scarf. Her eyes were large and brown, her aubergine lips wide and full; her skin was pale bronze and firm around eyes and chin, and it shone with a pearly glow. She wore a black linen trouser suit over a black top that revealed a hint of black lace cleavage, stood about five six in heels and exuded a sexuality that would have been potent in a woman thirty years her junior. Barbara Dawson, with a matching aubergine scarf around her neck, was sixty-four, a year older than my mother had been; there were tears in her eyes as she embraced me.

  “I’m so sorry about Peter, Barbara,” I said, aware that I still stank of booze and smoke and sweat.

  “It’s a terrible tragedy,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a small silk handkerchief that matched her scarf. “My family thanks you for all you did, Edward.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t do very much,” I said.

  “You did what you could, child. I believe we all did. I’m afraid there was a limit to what could be done.”

  She smiled brightly, pressing her lips together with her teeth and nodding, as if to say how brave we must all be. I nodded my head, but I didn’t understand. Barbara spoke as if Peter had finally succumbed to a slow-working disease, as if his death had been expected for months.

  She held the handkerchief to her nose and looked around her, batting her heavily mascaraed eyelids. I was about to apologize for the state of the place when Barbara, in a terribly grawnd Dublin-on-its-best-behavior accent, said, “Daphne certainly kept the house looking lovely and tidy.” I looked at her to see if she was mixing it deliberately, but we were still standing in the hall and her gaze was fixed on the chipped wooden banisters, so I decided she was trying to be polite without having much practice at it.

  “Actually, we’ve just had a break-in, Barbara,” I said, walking her into the kitchen. She stood in silence just inside the door. I asked if she wanted some tea, or a drink, but she shook her head. I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I took the mackerel out of the fridge, unwrapped them and laid them on the draining board.

  “They destroyed all the furniture, so I can’t offer you a chair,” I said, trying to fill the silence. “But the only thing they took was the family photograph albums. Every single photograph of my mother and father. Right the way back to their wedding and before. Don’t you think that’s weird, Barbara?”

  Barbara Dawson was clutching a small black lea
ther purse in her immaculately manicured, aubergine-nailed hands. One hand shot to her mouth in an expression of distress, then clutched at her tiny chin.

  “It’s barbaric, Edward,” she said. “That you don’t have so much as a memento of your mother. Barbaric, that’s what it is.”

  Her eyes kept flickering uneasily toward the mackerel, as if they were still alive and could at any moment make a jump for her.

  “Fresh today,” I said. “Leaping into the boats, they were.”

  Barbara Dawson shuddered. “Your mother, God rest her, her father and mine were both fishermen. I grew up with the house stinking of fried fish: herrings, mackerel, ray, God help us, the reek’d be in your hair and beneath your nails, and never enough hot water to scrub it away. I swore when I had a house of me own, I’d never fry another fish, nor ea’ any neither. Eat any either,” she quickly corrected herself. Her accent had slipped back briefly to Fagan’s Villas, where she and my mother had been next-door neighbors. She shuddered again, a more elaborate, full-body spasm this time, with one hand on her breastbone and one to her nose to fan away the imaginary odor of fish straight from the sea. I remembered my mother saying of her, tartly, “She should’ve gone on the stage, that one. Only in a big theater, mind, and you’d have to sit at the back.”

  “All I have is this,” I said, showing her the torn photograph I had found on Peter’s boat. Look, my father, Eamonn Loy, and John Dawson.”

  The blood seemed literally to drain from Barbara’s face. She looked as if she had seen a ghost.

  “Are you all right?” I said. “I didn’t mean to give you a fright.”

  “It’s all right, child,” she said, her voice suddenly very low and deliberate. “It’s just such a land, seeing your poor father like that, after all these years.”

  “I guess it must be thirty-five, forty years ago,” I said. “Somebody’s wedding, maybe?”

  But Barbara had looked away, and was staring out the window. The male and female apple trees stood in the center of the unkempt back garden, their hard green fruit showing no sign of ripeness.