Carla Neggers, page 13
Julianne Maroney waved up at him. She was crouched, as if trying to maintain her balance on the wet rocks, against the wind.
He called down to her. “Are you hurt?”
“Not really. It’s Lindsey.” Julianne gulped in air, obviously trying to control her emotions. “She must have fallen and hit her head.”
“Where is she?”
Julianne pointed to boulders below her. “Down there.”
“Don’t move. I’ll come to you.”
Sean sprinted back to the trail and jumped down to the rocks. The sun was higher in the sky, promising a glorious day. He moved fast but not recklessly. This was familiar ground. He’d explored out here countless times, as far back as he could remember. He’d never thought twice about breaking his neck.
What the devil had happened? What had Lindsey been doing out here?
He dropped down to Julianne. She was sitting on a knee-high boulder now, a bloody tear in her hiking pants, a red, raw scrape on her wrist. “Are you all right?” he asked her.
She was ashen, shivering with cold and shock. “I fell but it’s nothing,” she said, visibly trying to steady herself. “Lindsey... I know first aid, but it’s too late. She’s been dead at least a day—”
“Easy now.”
“I texted Colin to call the police. I don’t know if the text went through. I’m sure he and Emma are still at the hotel.” Her voice was subdued, her eyes huge as she looked up at him. “You heard me yelling for help?”
“I was out to fix a fence. My uncle was with me. He’s gone for help.” Sean touched her shoulder. “Can you sit tight here? I want to have a look—”
She didn’t let him finish. “No problem.”
She was warm enough, Sean realized. Her shivering was primarily from the shock of discovering a body—a woman she knew. He trusted her assessment of the situation but needed to check for himself. He scanned the mass of rocks and spotted a bright bit of fabric, then a foot—a woman’s unmoving foot.
He hopped from boulder to boulder, and when he reached Lindsey, he understood Julianne’s certainty. The position of her neck, the color of her exposed skin—no question she was gone. He would do his best to limit any further contamination of the scene. There would be a proper investigation to ascertain the cause, manner and circumstances of Lindsey Hargreaves’ death.
All the gardai could do now was get her back to her family and provide them answers as to what had happened to her. From the condition of her body, Sean estimated she’d been out here, dead, for a time—more than twenty-four hours. The medical examiner would be more precise. He saw no visible sign she’d been shot, stabbed or bludgeoned, but he didn’t want to disturb the body.
Best to leave her for the gardai.
Sean stood, glancing around the area for signs of how Lindsey had ended up here. She hadn’t washed ashore. That much he knew. He saw the bright fabric again and realized it was a scarf, wedged among the rocks above her. Blown up there before, during or after her death? He looked for impact marks on the rocks, drag marks, mud, other clothing—hers, someone else’s—and anything else that might suggest what had happened, but nothing caught his eye.
At a guess, Lindsey had broken her neck in some kind of fall. A wrong step hopping from boulder to boulder? She’d have had to have been going at a fast clip and gone flying. More likely, she’d gone off the ledge.
How’d that happened? What’d she been doing up there?
Once airborne, she could have struck the flat-topped boulder three meters below the ledge and her momentum then propelled her down here. As boys, he and his friends had jumped off the ledge a time or two. Stupid and dangerous, maybe, but they’d had no problem at all. If Lindsey had lost her footing in the wet conditions on the ledge, if she’d had too much to drink, if she’d hit just right, he supposed it was possible to have ended up here, dead, as the result of an unfortunate, freak accident.
Had someone pushed her off the ledge? Had she jumped with the intention of killing herself?
Sean shook his head. “Not a suicide,” he said aloud. If she’d wanted to commit suicide, there were more certain methods to do the job than a free fall off this particular ledge. Why not off a sheer cliff straight into the ocean? If she’d been impaired by alcohol or drugs, she might have meant to make a straight, clean, drop into the water, but that seemed unlikely to him.
Not that it was his call to make.
Below him, high tide crashed onto boulders and cobbles, its rhythms untouched by the tragedy. A tragedy, he noted, that had occurred on the boundary of the Murphy farm. Garda though he was, he was nonetheless in the thick of a woman’s untimely death.
He climbed back up to Julianne, sitting on her boulder, squinting out at the glistening sea, teeth chattering. He got down to eye level with her. “I’m sorry you had to see this,” he said.
She gave a dull nod. “I’m sorry it happened.”
“Are you all right staying here until the gardai arrive? I’ll stay with you.”
“They’re the police, right? The gardai.”
“That’s right,” Sean said.
“I’m fine staying right here.” She seemed to make a physical effort to pull herself out of her thoughts. “Just trying to get my teeth to stop chattering. It’s nerves. I’m not cold.” She sniffled, licked her lips. “The view—it’s really an incredible spot. Is this where you saw your whale?”
“It is.” Sean stood straight and pointed at her injured wrist. “Is there a chance you broke a bone?”
She gave a tight shake of her head. “I just scraped it on a rock when I tried to catch my balance. If Colin got my message—would he and Emma have a role here, since Lindsey was American?”
“No, a death investigation is handled locally.”
Julianne raised her eyes to him, fear in them. “If it was murder?” She inhaled deeply. “Never mind. Sorry. You must be as out of your element as I am.”
Sean didn’t think this was the moment to explain his professional situation. “One thing at a time, okay?”
She shifted and again stared out at the sea. “Did she suffer, do you think?”
“I don’t think so,” he said truthfully. “I understand you didn’t know her well, but are you aware if she had any health problems?”
“Something that could have caused her to fall off a ledge, you mean? I’m not aware of anything wrong with her—emotionally, either, in case you’re thinking she might have committed suicide.”
Sean sat on a taller boulder across from Julianne, his back to the water, so that he could see anyone approaching. “I’m sorry about all this, Julianne,” he said with genuine sympathy. “You’re not having the best introduction to Ireland, are you?”
“This isn’t Ireland’s fault.”
No argument from him. He saw a movement up on the ledge and got to his feet. He recognized Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan.
Julianne’s two FBI agents.
Just what he needed.
12
EMMA HANDED A pair of black wool gloves to Julianne, who’d moved up from the rocks near Lindsey Hargreaves’ body and collapsed onto the stone wall by the lane. “Warm hands always help,” Emma said, sitting next to her.
“Thanks.” Julianne’s hands trembled visibly as she slipped them into the gloves. “I didn’t expect to be out here this long. I just meant to take a quick morning walk. You know. Wake up, get used to the time change. Look at sheep. Maybe see a dolphin or porpoise.”
“It’s spectacular scenery up here.”
“Yes. Yes, it is.” Julianne stared down at the muddy lane. “I couldn’t remember the Irish version of 911. That’s why I texted Colin. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You did exactly the right thing.” Emma kept her tone neutral, not wanting to say anything that would put Julianne on the defensive and shut her down. “It’s 999, by the way. Ireland’s emergency number. 112 also works—it’s good anywhere in the EU.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“I hope you never need it again.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” She ran her toe over a small, sharp stone embedded in the mud. “I wasn’t sure if I’d get in trouble if I left Lindsey, but I knew I had to get help. After I tripped...a million things went through my head. Probably not even half of them made any sense. I started yelling for help. I figured I’d give it a few minutes before I figured out a Plan B.”
Emma felt the cold of the stone wall through her jeans. She’d hoped to spend the morning at the spa. “Luckily, Sean Murphy and his uncle were within earshot,” she said.
Julianne nodded. “I haven’t met his uncle yet. Sean seemed to know just what to do. He’s solid. I’m glad he was here.”
He had stayed down on the rocks with Colin, who wanted to take a closer look at Lindsey, without intruding on the immediate scene. As a former Maine state marine patrol officer, he had dealt with more accidents, homicides and suicides than Emma had in her three years with the FBI, but this death investigation would be in the hands of the gardai.
Julianne raised her chin, focused on Emma. “I’m sorry this interrupted your romantic getaway. I know you and Colin are in Declan’s Cross because of me, but I’d hoped...” She glanced away. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“I’m sorry Lindsey’s dead, Julianne.”
She blinked back tears. “It’s not what I expected. From what everyone said about her, I really thought we just had our wires crossed and that’s why she didn’t pick me up and I couldn’t reach her. It never occurred to me she was dead.” Julianne looked at the ground again and started toeing her stone free. “I never imagined she was lying out here on the rocks.”
“No one did,” Emma said softly.
“What happens next?”
“Once the gardai get here, they’ll have a look at the scene and decide what to do.”
Julianne’s nose and cheeks were red from emotion and the cool wind. She seemed oblivious to the scrapes on her wrist and knee. “I’ve seen dead stranded whales and dolphins, which is hard, but never a dead person,” she said half to herself. “Except in a casket.”
“It’s not easy, I know.”
“Yeah. I’m glad you’re here, Emma. Thank you.”
Emma looked up when she heard Sean Murphy and Colin on the trail. Any evidence there had already been contaminated. They dropped onto the lane, Colin saying something about checking a nearby cove and beach for potential witnesses.
“Is the beach accessible only by boat?” he asked.
Sean shook his head. “There’s a road from the village. It doesn’t connect with the lane up here. The gardai will see to it.” He stopped in front of Julianne. “Your color’s better. That’s good.”
“Some of the shock is easing,” she said.
“Paddy and I didn’t see anything amiss from where we’ve been working in the fields. I wish we had. Then we’d have been the ones to find Lindsey instead of you.”
Julianne made no response, but Emma thought she appreciated the Irishman’s comment.
Colin glanced at the Mini, then up at the Celtic crosses on the grassy hill above them. “Declan’s Cross named for those crosses up there?”
Sean leveled his blue eyes on him. “No. They were erected long after Declan’s Cross was named.”
Colin pointed at the remains of a stone structure overgrown with mosses, trees and vines. Mostly a foundation, but a partial wall was visible. “Looks like an old church or something.”
“It is.”
“Saint Declan’s?”
“That’s right.” Sean’s tone was cool. “A church was first built on this site in the ninth century, they say. It was sacked by Nordic raiders. Another was built in its place.”
“And I thought my folks’ inn was old. It was built in the 1890s. Just yesterday around here. Do the ruins and crosses attract tourists?”
Colin’s irreverent tone, Emma knew, was deliberate, but it seemed to have no effect on Sean Murphy. He said, “Some, but not as many as the ruins in Ardmore. We do get walkers up here. The ground is wetter and rougher than they sometimes expect, but we’ve never had more than a twisted ankle and a few bruises and scrapes.”
“Did Lindsey express an interest in coming out here?” Emma asked. “The crosses are especially beautiful. The stone is decorated in a distinctive, intricate Celtic Christian motif. They’re works of art, really.”
“A Celtic motif,” Colin said, as if he were translating a foreign language.
“Knots, circles, spirals, sometimes animals and human figures. The center cross—the tallest one—has a figure of Saint Declan chiseled in the middle of its shaft.”
“Then you’ve been up here before,” Sean said.
“I have, yes.” She didn’t elaborate.
Colin’s gaze settled on her for an instant before he shifted back to the Irishman. “Do you let passersby onto your farm?”
“I don’t escort them if that’s what you mean. I don’t always see them. People walk up here from the cove as well as the village. I wouldn’t see them unless I was down here myself.”
Colin gave the smallest of grins. “Don’t sic the dogs on tourists, do you?”
“No. And it’s one dog. My uncle sees to him.” Sean’s voice was even, without anger or humor. “He does the work of ten men.”
“Your uncle or the dog?”
Sean cracked a smile. That was Colin, Emma thought. He could get to anyone.
He touched Julianne’s shoulder. “How you doing, kid?”
She jumped as if he’d startled her. “I’m fine. Don’t call me kid.”
He winked at her. “That’s the Julianne Maroney I know. Straight-A student and a sharp tongue.”
She sprang to her feet. “I didn’t mean to snap at you—”
“Easy. It’s okay. It’s been a rough morning. The police will need to talk to you.”
“I understand.” Her voice was a notch above a whisper. She glanced around her, as if reminding herself that she was in Ireland. “I hope Lindsey wasn’t lying out on the rocks, injured, unable to call for help.”
“I don’t think that’s the case,” Colin said quietly.
“You’d know, wouldn’t you? Because of your work.” She looked out the lane, in the direction of her cottage. “I heard a banshee this morning....”
“Lindsey was dead long before then, kid.”
She nodded, obviously appreciating his blunt response.
“The wind can shriek up here,” Sean added.
“Yeah. That’s probably what it was.” Julianne wobbled slightly but shrugged off any help from Colin as she steadied herself. “I ran into two divers last night. Brent Corwin and Eamon Carrick. They said Lindsey spent the weekend in Dublin with her father. He was there for a last-minute visit. She needn’t have worried about picking me up in Shannon, but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve been trying to figure out why she would have come out here. I wonder if she wanted to have a look at the cottage. Then she drove out the lane not realizing it dead-ended. That doesn’t explain why she got out of the car. Maybe something caught her eye. A rainbow, or she just wanted to look at the scenery.”
Emma wanted to go through Lindsey’s car and suspected Colin did, too—but that wasn’t their job.
She heard a vehicle out on the lane.
“The gardai,” Sean said. “Special Agent Donovan, Special Agent Sharpe, why don’t we let them to do their work? This isn’t an FBI investigation. I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”
“No problem,” Colin said, tilting his head back, eyeing the Irishman.
He had Emma’s attention, too. His manner had changed. He wasn’t as casual and convivial. There was no hint of defensiveness or irritation in his voice or manner, but still...something.
Then she knew. “Garda?”
He shrugged. “On leave.”
In another moment, a white garda car pulled in behind her and Colin’s rental and two uniformed gardai got out. The deceased might be American, but the gardai were in charge and would determine what happened next. Emma had confidence in them.
The two young gardai clearly knew Sean, even deferred to him. He briefly introduced Emma and Colin, then Julianne, who looked as if she wanted to be anywhere but on the south Irish coast. Emma touched her hand. “I’ll wait for you. I’ll be right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Julianne nodded. “Thanks.” She looked at Colin. “I was just trying to clear my head by coming to Ireland—”
“Don’t do that to yourself, kid.”
She fixed her hazel eyes on him. “You don’t think Lindsey’s death was an accident.”
“Just talk to the gardai, okay?”
“I know. I will. I don’t need you to—” She stopped herself. “Never mind. Just go back to your hotel and have a massage or something. I can take care of myself.”
Colin didn’t respond as the gardai led her away. Sean accompanied them. Emma knew the drill. They would take control of the scene, establish an entry point for arriving support personnel, limit further contamination and do all they could to figure out Lindsey’s movements from the moment she parked her car at the stone wall until her death—and, if warranted, prior to her arrival on Shepherd Head.
Her friends at the field station would have to be told of her death and likely interviewed, too. A cause of death would help decide the direction of the investigation but wouldn’t necessarily provide a clear-cut determination of whether Lindsey’s death was suspicious or non-suspicious. If she’d died of injuries sustained in a fall and there were no witnesses—the truth was they might never know exactly what happened.
Colin would understand that, too, Emma thought as she stood next to him in the dappled shade of what should have been a perfect morning. He said, “There’s nothing I could have said to Julianne that wouldn’t have gotten her back up, you know.”
“I know. Right now it’s easier for her to be defensive and irritable with you—someone she’s known forever—than to admit how afraid and uncertain she is.”
