The Dry (Aaron Falk #1)(16)

Raco shook his head. “Sent to Melbourne. It’ll be cleaned up by now for sale or scrap, I reckon.”

Falk looked through the photos, hoping for a better view, but was disappointed. He read over the rest of the notes. Everything appeared fairly standard. Other than the hole in the front of his head, Luke Hadler was a healthy male. A couple of kilos over his ideal weight, slightly high cholesterol. No drugs or alcohol in his system.

Falk said, “What about the shotgun?”

“Definitely Luke’s gun used on all three of them. Registered, licensed. His fingerprints were the only ones on it.”

“Where did he keep it normally?”

“Secured lockbox in the barn out the back,” Raco said. “The ammo—at least the Winchester stuff I’ve found—was locked away separately. He was pretty big on safety by the look of things.”

Falk nodded, only half listening. He was looking at the fingerprint report from the shotgun. Six crisp ovals embroidered with tight whorls and lines. Two less clear, slight slippage, but still confirmed as belonging to the left thumb and right little finger of Luke Hadler.

“The fingerprints are good,” Falk said.

Raco caught his tone. Looked up from his notes.

“Yeah, really solid. People didn’t take too much convincing after seeing them.”

“Very solid,” Falk said, sliding the report over the table to Raco. “Maybe too solid? The guy’s supposed to have just killed his family. He would’ve been sweating and shaking like an addict. I’ve seen worse than these taken under evidence conditions.”

“Shit.” Raco frowned at the prints. “Yeah, maybe.”

Falk turned the page.

“What did forensics find in the house?”

“They found everything. Seems like half the community had traipsed through there at one time or another. About twenty different fingerprints, not including partials, fibers everywhere. I’m not saying Karen didn’t keep the place clean, but it was a farm with kids.”

“Witnesses?”

“The last person to see Luke alive was this mate of his, Jamie Sullivan. Has a farm to the east of town. Luke had been helping him shoot rabbits. Arrived in the afternoon about three, left about four thirty, Sullivan reckons. Other than that, around the Hadlers’ house there’s really only one neighbor who could have seen something. He was on his own property at the time.”

Raco reached for the report. Falk felt a heavy weight in his stomach.

“Neighbor’s a strange bloke, though.” Raco went on. “Aggressive old bastard. No love lost for Luke, whatever that’s worth. Not at all keen to assist the police with their inquiries.”

“Mal Deacon,” Falk said. He made a point of keeping his voice even.

Raco looked up in surprise. “That’s right. You know him?”

“Yeah.”

Raco waited, but Falk said nothing more. The silence stretched on.

“Well, anyway,” Raco said. “He lives up there with his nephew—bloke called Grant Dow—who wasn’t home at the time. Deacon reckons he didn’t see anything. Might have heard the shots, but didn’t think anything of it. Thought it was farm stuff.”

Falk just raised his eyebrows.

“Thing is, what he did or didn’t see might not matter, anyway,” Raco said, taking out his tablet and tapping the screen. A low-res color image appeared. Everything was so still that it took Falk a minute to realize it was a video rather than a photograph.

Raco handed him the tablet.

“Security footage from the Hadlers’ farm.”




“You’re kidding.” Falk gaped at the screen.

“Nothing fancy. Barely a step up from a nanny cam really,” Raco said. “Luke installed it after a spate of equipment burglaries around here a year ago. A few of the farmers have them. Records for twenty-four hours, uploads the footage to the family computer, gets wiped after a week if no one actively saves it.”

The camera appeared to be positioned above the largest barn. It was directed toward the yard to capture anyone coming or going. One side of the house was in shot, and in the upper corner of the screen a slim slice of driveway was visible. Raco skipped through the recording until he found the spot he was looking for, and paused it.

“OK, this is the afternoon of the shootings. You can watch the whole day later if you want, but in a nutshell the family leaves the house in the morning separately. Luke drives off in his truck just after 5:00 A.M.—headed out to his own fields as far as I’ve been able to tell. Then shortly after eight, Karen, Billy, and Charlotte leave for school. She worked there part-time in an admin role, and Charlotte was in the on-site day care.”

Raco tapped the screen, starting the footage. He passed Falk a pair of earphones and plugged them into the tablet. The sound was poor and muffled, as wind buffeted the microphone.

“Nothing happens during the day,” Raco said. “Believe me, I’ve watched the entire thing in real time. No one comes and no one goes until 4:04 P.M., when Karen and the kids get home.”

In the corner of the screen, a blue hatchback trundled by and disappeared. It was on an angle, visible only from the hood down to the tires. Falk could just make out the front number plate.

“You can read that if you freeze it and blow it up,” Raco said. “It’s definitely Karen’s car.”