Days 185 and 186 – Writing exercise

…

Investigating death was a ‘thing” that some people took seriously, and others took as a challenge.

For them, it was about the numbers, the appearance of solving crimes, so the public could feel safe, to win that imaginary contest of who could solve the most crimes, and celebrate it on Friday night at the pub.

For others, like me, it was about justice.  It was about finding that person who committed the crime, not the most likely candidate buried under a trove of circumstantial evidence.

The pity of it was that our helicopter Detective Chief Superintendent was a numbers man, temporarily stopping in at our station on his way to bigger and better things.

He didn’t like to be thorough and methodical, and he definitely didn’t like me.  That’s why when he put his head out the door and saw that I was the only detective in the room, I could feel rather than see the sigh.

Or maybe that was because he should be down the pub with the rest of the team celebrating the extraordinary closure rate for this month.

“Burgess.”

I looked up.  “Sir.”

“Sending you a straightforward case.  The old man had apparently died in his sleep.  One of us to look in, dot the i’s.  I’ll send you the file.”

When the Chief Inspector says straightforward, there’s always an underlying suggestion not to make more out of it than there was.

The problem was that nothing in our line of work was straightforward.  Not if justice was to be served.

…

People die in their sleep all the time.  What’s unusual is that most of those who did were discovered in the morning, not at 5 pm.

I arrived at the house, one of twelve similar terrace houses, in a street of a hundred or so.  Most had been updated, and small manicured gardens.

Darkness had arrived on a cold, wet, wintry night where everyone would have preferred to be somewhere else, preferably warm.

The street seemed to be full of blue flashing lights and panda cars, but it was deceptive.  The house was cordoned off, and the crime scene crew were ready to go.

First responders had arrived at or near five, and checked the building, pulled the girl who discovered the body and the doctor she had called before she called the police.

Those were the people I would speak to first. 

The co-ordinator was at the door, an officer who had been doing the job for as long as I had been at the station, and was good at it.  He would have secured the scene and ensured that nothing had been touched since the first responder had arrived.

“Larry.”

He just finished the call and swivelled sideways.

“Detective Inspector Burgess.  If you’re here, your boss doesn’t think it’s open and shut.”

“The other detectives are busy, and I’m hoping it is.  Is it?”

“On appearances, yes, but we both know how it usually goes, winter, rain, freezing cold, and wanting to get out of it.”

“Privileges of rank, I’m afraid.  They’re off celebrating the crime numbers.”

Larry was as thrilled about it as I am.  “Hello, your assistant has arrived.”

I turned to look back the way I came.  It was not the Detective Sergeant I was expecting, but one of the Chief Superintendent’s ‘modern methods’ detectives, fast-tracking a new system.

It was the ‘achievement-based’ Superintendent’s way of keeping me on the straight and narrow.

“Buchanan.”

“Sir, Chief Super just gave me the highlights.  You’d think people would be more considerate.”

Yes, you would, but it was not something I would say within earshot of the girl who found him.  It was a typical Buchanan comment.

“I’m sure it wasn’t done to inconvenience you.”  I went back to Larry.  “What can you tell us?”

“The deceased is a man named Devlin McConnaughy, aged 75, living alone, and according to the doctor, was dead when the girl arrived.  The girl is Mr McConnaughy’s granddaughter.  She arrived about 5 pm, a routine stop by on her way out to meet her friends for dinner.  She had a key and visited three or four times a week.  When she found him and couldn’t rouse him, she called the doctor, then the police, when he said McConnaught was dead, about 5:15 pm.  The first responders got her about 5:29.   The teams have been notified and are standing by.”

“We can look at the scene?”

“Just about.  Just waiting on word that we won’t be trooping in like a herd of elephants.”

I’d heard about crime scenes being contaminated by people who were either not trained properly or didn’t care.  We still didn’t know if this was a crime scene.  The crime scene investigators’ preliminary run-through would determine that.  I’d seen a few getting dressed.  I’d be going in in one of those white suits myself.

Buchanan took that as a cue to get suits for us, and hopefully, there was a spot inside to put them on.  Outside was wet, and we didn’t need wet boots plodding through the house.”

“Your thoughts?  You’ve seen the body.”

“And the state of the house, but you’ll see what I mean soon enough.  It looks like he died in his sleep.  The girl had to move him slightly to check if he was still alive, but it looked to be a reasonable assumption based on appearances.  He’s very heavy, and she couldn’t move him far.  I’m hoping there’s nothing sinister otherwise; this is going to be a long night.”

A long night indeed.

….

We got the OK to go in, and the forensic teams followed us in.

This house was old, decrepit and overgrown.  The owner hadn’t bothered, or couldn’t maintain the place, and the outside gave an indication of the state of the inside.

A lifetime of hoarding.

It was difficult to get from the front door to the bedroom, trying not to knock over piles of books, boxes and newspapers.

The preliminary team had set a path to follow that would least impact on the scene.

Further into the house, at the end of the passage, was a kitchen and a rear exit.  On each side, there were rooms, a sitting room, bedrooms, a bathroom, and the old man’s room.

In the bedroom, equally piled up with books and boxes, there was a body on the bed and a paramedic standing to one side.

I looked at the body, scrunched up as though his last moments alive were very painful.  Death was never pretty. 

Larry nodded to the paramedics.

“Visually, there is no evidence of foul play.  There was a doctor in attendance when we arrived.  He advised us that the man was deceased, but did not have an explanation as to what killed him, other than it had been quick.  We sent him out after a short discussion about his actions on arrival.  The man’s granddaughter is with the doctor outside. She is the person who first discovered the body, called the doctor, then the emergency services.”

Larry looked at me.  “Any further questions?”

“No.  We’ll have to wait for the coroner and a post-mortem.”

“They should be here any moment.  It’s a busy night.”

“Good.  It’ll give me time to talk to the doctor and the granddaughter.”

I looked around the room, looking for obvious signs that someone else had been in the room, or that the killer, if there was one, had broken in to get to the man. 

It was beginning to look like a very big if.  The Superintendent might get his wish, that it was an open and shut case.

No obvious clues were lying around, and I was not seeing any obvious signs of murder, bruising, blunt force trauma or anything suspicious.  There were no bullet or knife wounds.

There was careless discarded pill sheets and a nasal spray on the bedside table, all of which forensics would sweep up and test.

Similarly, in the bathroom cabinet, there were more pills, about six different types, including one I knew to be heart medication.  He had high blood pressure.  A heart attack then might not be unexpected.  He also had other cold and influenza medications.  Perhaps he had recently been ill.  It was cold and miserable.

The coroner would have more to say on that.

I think I was disappointed.

There was just a contorted body with a lifeless expression and dead eyes.  It was rather creepy.

…

Dotting the i’s, Buchanan and I went outside and found the doctor and granddaughter waiting patiently. 

That was a first; most of the people detained by the first responders were very vocal about having to wait around, and in this weather, these two should have been more annoyed.

I know I would be.

Coming out the front door, I looked around at the few neighbours who had gathered to see what was happening.  The uniformed officers would have got statements from all of them.

Sometimes it is said that the killer would hang around after the murder as a bystander waiting for the police.  My assessment of everyone in the small groups was that none of them fitted the profile.

At the moment, it was a motiveless murder.  The only two with a possible opportunity were the granddaughter and the doctor.  An old man, living alone?  What did he have that others might covet?

The house.  Even in its current state in this neighbourhood, it had to be worth a lot.  Was there anything in the house?  If there was a will lying around, the forensic teams would find it.

But there was the granddaughter and the doctor. 

They were standing just up from the door, sheltering under a small verandah roof.  In that spot, there was protection from the elements, except the cold.

The rain had turned into a steady drizzle.

I shivered.  The ghost of the old man is finally leaving?

The two were expecting me.  I sent Buchanan off with the doctor.  I stayed with the girl.  The granddaughter was about 20ish and more conservative than a lot of 20-year-olds I’d seen, especially the daughters of my sister.

She had been crying, so it was safe to assume she had cared about the old man.

I introduced myself, “Detective Inspector Burgess.  You are?”

“Christine Davies, the man’s granddaughter.  I was looking in on my grandfather as I do most Fridays, and found him like that.  Dead.  It’s horrible.”

More tears flowed, and her grief was genuine.

It was horrible and for most a frightening experience.  I could imagine how she felt, and even having seen more than my share of dead people, it doesn’t make you immune to the horror of it.

“I’m sorry for your loss.  Just a couple of questions.  You have a key to the door?”

“Yes.  I come on average three times a week, sometimes more, to check on him.  No one else does, nor does it seem they care.  He was recently in the hospital for a few days, had his appendix removed.”

“The last time?”

“Two days ago.  He called and asked if I could drop in.  He said he misplaced a card and asked me to look for it.”

“A card?”

“Those cards the bank gives you to use rather than go to the branch.  He asked me to set up his internet banking account. He didn’t like the idea of a card replacing his money or the idea that he didn’t have to go to the bank, but I convinced him that the world was moving on and he had to catch up.  He reckoned it was the first step in them stealing your money.”

Or someone else, like a craft granddaughter. Ostensibly, she had access to his accounts if she set them up.  We had the computer and phone and would find out.

“Did you find the card?”

“No.  He got me to go back to the bank and sort them out.  He was feeling a little tired.  He didn’t look well, and I said I’d get the doctor to call.”

She gave me the details so I could check.

“Did you call the doctor?”

“Yes, but he was busy and couldn’t get here until today.  I called him first to make sure he was not still alive because I tried what they do on TV, you know, the pulse in the neck thing, but I got nothing.  He came quickly and confirmed he was dead.  That’s when I called the emergency services.”

“Did you check to see if anyone else had been there, or was there any sign of a break-in?”

“Everything looked the same, though, as you’ve no doubt seen, the place is a bit of a mess, but I’ve been trying to clean it up a bit.  I just went in the usual way, the front door, called out that it was me, and when he didn’t answer, went down the passage to his room.”

“Did anyone else have a key?”

“Just about everyone, I mean, his children.  There are five, including my mother.  Once my grandmother died, they all lost interest in visiting.  Or should I say when they realised there was no money in her will for any of them?  Not that there was much anyway.  He’s not rich.”

“He owns this house?”

“It’s a dump.  It can’t be worth that much.  I tried to convince him that he would be better off in an old folks home with other people and be cared for, but he said it would be like being in jail.”

“Did he tell you you might benefit from a will?”

She made a face when she realised the implications of that seemingly innocent question.

“Or did I coerce him into leaving me this place, and then kill him for it?  I mean, seriously.  I was the only one who cared what happened to him. You think I wanted it for the so-called pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?  I told him to leave whatever he had for cancer research.  A couple of years back, he was diagnosed with cancer, but they got it in time, and he has been free of it, although I feared it might have come back.  He said he was fine, but you can’t tell.”

I didn’t know much about it.  She seemed honest, but then, in my experience, some people have that knack of coming across exactly the opposite of what they are.  Perhaps the cancer had come back and killed him.

She gave her details on how to contact her for any follow-up questions and then let her go.

By that time, Buchanan had finished with the doctor and confirmed the recent cancer diagnosis, the coroner had arrived and could not shed any more light on the body until after the post-mortem, and I  left, leaving Buchanan to clean up.

At that point, it was the proverbial open and shut case.

…

The call from the Chief Superintendent was not unexpected because Buchanan would have reported to him the moment I left the scene.

He asked, and I told him that it seemed like a death by natural causes, because no one at the scene had made a different determination.

That would only come after a post-mortem and blood work. That would be available the next day.  He did question whether either was necessary in such circumstances, and I said we were dotting the i’s just as had requested.

It did not earn me any brownie points.

The fact that the granddaughter said that any of his family members might have killed him for his money was a very familiar story.  Sex and money were the two most popular reasons for killing someone, and neither seemed likely.

Unless the will and he’d been secreting millions away somewhere.  The granddaughter did think he had, but she would not be the first person, seemingly innocent, to lie to me

At the moment, it was sitting on the benefit of the doubt.  That might change in the next day or so.

Until then, rest was not going to come easily.  Something was nagging at the back of my neck.  A detail I should know and couldn’t remember. Perhaps I was making more of it than I should.

I went back to the office and did an internet dive into all things Devlin McConnaughy, and found very little.  It could wait until the next day.

….

Buchanan was in before I was, which to me was unusual.  I could smell the hand of the Superintendent’s in this new work ethic.

The other detectives followed me in slowly, some of them worse for wear.  None bothered to ask me why I hadn’t turned up; I had ceased talking to most of them over the last six months.

The feeling of hatred was mutual.

My desk had an analysis of Devlin’s phone and computer.  The sum total of nothing except a portal to the bank, and internet searches for holidays.

Given the nature of the holidays, it seemed they were more likely made by the granddaughter. 

We agreed to disagree

The interviews were typed up and put in a file sitting on mt desk.  Still no autopsy report or of the blood work, so we were still waiting for results.

…

Real policing was not a nine-to-five job, and there was no such thing as weekends.  Truth be told, you really couldn’t have a life, not in the early years of a detective’s career.

I had devoted early on that it wouldn’t be fair to subject someone else to the sacrifices that had to be made.  It was why my older comrades found it difficult to get a decent work-life balance, and the divorce rate was much higher than for any other occupation.

Or at least it seemed that way to me.

But, given my choices, it was not unusual to find me in at the office or volunteering on workdays when others wished to be at home with their families.

This day was no exception.

There was a report on the laptop? The phone, the neighbourhood interviews and I had the notes to write up the one I had conducted.

There was no post-mortem yet, which would arrive soon. 

Was I expecting anything?

There was very little evidence collected at the house.  They had found a copy of the will, and I was going to check with the solicitor.  It left a substantial amount to the granddaughter and reasonable amounts to the children.  A clause said that if any of them contested it, it would be held over until it was adjudicated by the courts.

The value of the house as an inheritance was a viable motive.  If it were a suspicious death. 

I had copies of his bank accounts, three, one a working account, one a savings account and one an investment account.  There was not enough in any of them to warrant killing the man for his money.

The house was owned by him, and we would have to talk to a real estate agent to get an approximate value.

I looked in my email and found a preliminary toxicology report with nothing unusual.  So, no drug overdosing, self-inflicted or otherwise.  Suicide was always on the list, and had to be ticked off.

An hour later, the post mortem came in, and it confirmed that Devlin had a heart attack and had been on painkiller medication for what looked to be a recent accident that scarred his leg.

It had nothing to do with his death.

The phone rang. 

Burgess.  “The body last night.  Verdict?”

There was only one verdict he wanted to hear.

“Nothing points to murder.  Heart attack and died.”

“Good.  Wrap it up.”

“Yes, sir.”

End of the discussion.  I put all the papers back in the file and left it in my in tray.  It could wait until Monday morning.  I would interview the solicitor, meet the granddaughter’s parents, and talk to the granddaughter again.

There was something not right.  Something about this case resonated with something I had read about, a few years ago, on the tail end of the COVID pandemic.

I was going for a walk in the park to clear my head.  I had a lot of searching and reading to do.

…

The trouble with quick clearance rates is that sometimes justice is not served.  The Devlin McCannaughy case was one.

But over the next few days, listening to all of the members of that family argue and squabble over the spoils, and furious that the granddaughter got nearly everything, the accusations were just that, accusations.

The lawyer knew all about the will and the reasons behind it.  So apparently did all those in line time inherit.  There was no motive for any of them other than the main beneficiary.

The trouble was, I could find no evidence to support my theory, and solid evidence was required before there would be any prosecution.

Did I think the granddaughter was guilty of murdering her grandfather for the money?  She didn’t steal from him, not like the children did; it was her mother who had stolen her father’s card and taken money out of the account.

We could prosecute her for theft, but the amount was almost irrelevant and not worth the court’s time.

How did the granddaughter do it?

By the nasal spray.  I had read about a case, one I had used in a paper I wrote about the perfect murder.  The thing is, she would need medical knowledge of what toxin to use and not leave a trace.  I had ordered another tox screen, but we didn’t know what we were looking for.

Motive and opportunity, but not the means.  Even though it was only her prints on the nasal spray beside the bed, one taken from the bathroom cabinet, there was a simple explanation, one given freely when I interviewed her.

She collected and gave him his medication. Yes, he had high blood pressure, and yes, he had minor heart problems, but nothing that would kill him.

When I gave the report to the Chief Superintendent, he just laughed and told me I was not working for MI5 and I should keep my conspiracy theories to myself.

Of course I did, but fate eventually intervened.  The Chief Superintendent was found dead in a sleazy motel, dead because of a heart attack.

Everyone drew the same conclusion.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026