“Are you doing all right there, lad?”
“Sean, tell the officer what you know, what you did.”
“Well, see, we were all over at the park there, having another picnic, and the dogs ran off in here. They wouldn’t come back and were barking like the mad. So I asked my lieutenant cousin to come find them with me. We all came in the wood, and I went on ahead to where the dogs were barking. And I saw her there, the dead girl, and I ran back and brought our cop to see.”
“That’s a good lad.” Leary looked appealingly at Eve.
“We’ve remained here since the discovery. Roarke and Sean walked to the road and back. The dogs have been all over the scene, as you can see from their prints in the softer ground. You can also observe shoe prints, which would most likely belong to whoever put her here, as none of us have gone closer than we are now.”
“Shoe prints. Aye, I see. All right. I can’t say I recognize her.”
“She’s not from around here.” Eve dug for patience. “She’s city. Multiple tats and piercings, neon polish, fingers and toes. Look at the shoe. She didn’t walk in here wearing those. This is a dump site.”
“You’re meaning she wasn’t killed here, but put here, as you said before.”
“There’s no sign of struggle here. No bruising on her wrists or ankles, so she wasn’t restrained. Somebody punches you in the face a few times, chokes you to death, you generally put up a fight. You need to record her, call in your ME, forensics. You need to ID her and determine time of death. The animals haven’t been at her, so she can’t have been here very long.”
He nodded, kept nodding, then pulled an ID pad out of his pocket. “I’ve got this, but I’ve never used it.”
Eve walked him through it.
“She’s Holly Curlow. Lives in—lived in—Limerick.”
Eve tipped her head to read the data. Twenty-two, single, bar waitress, a couple of illegals pops. Next of kin, mother from someplace called Newmarket-on-Fergus.
Where did they get these names?
“I’ll, ah, need to get the other equipment—and I’ll contact the sergeant. Would you mind staying, to secure the scene? To keep it that way, I’m meaning. This is a bleeding mess, and I want to do right by her.”
“I’ll wait. You’re doing okay.”
“Thanks for that. I’ll be back quick as I can.”
She turned to Sean. “We’ve got her now, okay? I’ll stay with her, but you need to go back. You and Brian need to go back, take the dogs. Leave this to me now.”
“She has a name. She’s Holly. I’ll remember it.”
“You stood up, Sean. You stood up for her. That’s the first thing a cop has to do.”
With a ghost of a smile, he turned to the dogs. “Let’s go, lads.”
“I’ll look after him.” Brian laid a hand on Sean’s shoulder and walked with him.
Eve turned, looked at Roarke. “There are always bad guys.”
“It’s a hard lesson to learn that young.”
“It’s hard anytime.”
She took Roarke’s hand and stood over the dead, as she had countless times before.
3
A GREEN COP, A DEAD BODY, AND NO LEGITIMATE authority added up to frustration. Leary tried, she gave him that, but he was struggling to navigate through what was for him completely uncharted territory.
When he confided to Eve that the only dead person he’d ever seen was his granny at her wake, she couldn’t decide whether to pat his head or boot his ass.
“They’ll send down a team from Limerick,” he told her, shifting from foot to foot as the doctor who served as the ME examined the body. “And my sergeant will come back if he’s needed, but for now I’m supposed to . . . proceed.”