Death in the Sunshine (Retired Detectives Club, #1)(26)

‘Sure, could be,’ says Rick. ‘But why didn’t the attacker stop her, and why didn’t they grab the cash?’

Lizzie nods. ‘Indeed.’

‘Which brings us back to the killer potentially not being able to swim,’ says Philip, underlining the words ‘non-swimmer’ that he’s already noted on the list of killer characteristics on the patio door. Taking a couple of steps back, he writes ‘Cause of death?’ on the glass beneath the heading ‘Jane Doe’ and then looks back at Lizzie. ‘If the bullet didn’t kill her, then what did?’

Lizzie holds Philip’s gaze for a moment, thinking. She sighs. ‘She probably passed out from the pain or the blood loss and drowned.’

Moira frowns. ‘But there wasn’t much blood on the patio . . .’

‘No, there wasn’t, but if she entered the water fast after getting shot, most of the blood would have drained out into the pool and been absorbed by the chemicals in there.’

The group is silent for a moment as they stare at the make-do murder board.

Lizzie takes a sip of her now-cold coffee. In the quiet she hears the birds singing and the whine of a distant lawnmower. The sun is at full rise now, the heat is pushing an unseasonal 30°C, but none of that is in the front of her mind. She looks down at the iPad and the close-up of the dead woman on-screen. If you’d asked her half an hour ago how she felt about conducting an off-the-books murder investigation she’d have said she wanted to do anything but, and that she desperately wanted to stop Philip getting involved. But she had tried to stop it. Tried to reason and warn Philip not to do this, as best she could with the others here anyway, and it had made no difference. It’s like he doesn’t remember what happened; how he was made to retire. It’s like he’s forgotten why it was that he couldn’t be a DCI any more.

She doesn’t want them to do this investigation, but if Philip’s doing it she needs to be with him, watching him; making sure nothing goes bad. She knows that Detective Golding’s indifference and disrespect mean that Philip won’t let this go now. And what’s that saying? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

And now she’s got involved, the anomalies in the crime scene, and the way they contradict the police’s assumptions, have drawn her in. She wants to know the truth of what happened to this woman. Needs to crack the case. She thinks about what she told Moira earlier – about how she’d been ready to leave her job as a CSI and retire with Philip. About how she’d had enough of death. It was true, in part at least; she had been impacted by death. But it was one death in particular that made her want to leave – a death, a wrong, that can’t ever be righted.

She looks at the crime-scene picture: the young woman, floating among thousands of dollar bills. Years have passed since Philip retired. Maybe she hasn’t fully forgiven him, but she’s learned to live with that. And things are different now; better, good even. Maybe it’s time for her to use her skills again.

‘So what’s our next move?’ asks Moira.

Lizzie looks up from the iPad and meets her gaze. ‘I need to visit the crime scene.’





15


MOIRA


They watch the entrance to Manatee Recreation Park. Their vantage point is one of the benches outside Karlie’s – a lemonade and frozen yoghurt hut a little way down the street from the park. They’ve been here for ages and Moira’s starting to wonder if they’ll get to see the crime scene today. She looks at her watch, then catches Lizzie’s eye. ‘It’s gone half five.’

Lizzie glances along the street to the police cordon. There are still people milling around in the park. None are showing any sign of leaving. ‘We’ve got an hour or so before the sun goes down. Let’s give it a little longer.’

‘Okay,’ says Moira.

It’s still hot out, and humid. Moira scans the area around them again, looking for the athletic blond man. There’s no sign of him. Instead she watches as the older woman on the bench opposite feeds her little dog frozen yoghurt. He’s a cute, fluffy kind of dog. Moira smiles as she watches him chasing the now-empty paper cup around, trying to get every last taste from it. She wishes she had some frozen yoghurt.

The dog’s owner – a round-faced seventy-something lady with a mane of grey-flecked brown curls – looks up and notices her watching. She smiles back at Moira. ‘He just loves the yoghurt here.’

‘I can see that,’ says Moira. ‘Lucky pup.’

‘He’s worth it.’ The woman ruffles the fur on her little dog’s head, then glances towards the park entrance and police cordon. Her smile drops. ‘Jeez it’s just awful isn’t it? I come here every day so that Teddy here can have his yoghurt and to think that someone died just inside the park there, I . . .’ She clutches her hand to her chest. ‘It just doesn’t bear thinking about.’

Moira nods. Philip said earlier that word travels fast in a community like this. It’d be useful to know what’s being said. ‘Do you know what happened?’

‘I heard it was some kind of accident. My friend, Imani, told me that’s what they’d said when she’d called the security hut around lunchtime to ask why the police were cordoning off the park.’ She leans closer towards Moira, and lowers her voice. ‘But then this afternoon, Donna, who lives a little ways along my street, said she’d heard from someone at the golf club that it was a murder, that the victim was all cut up and . . . and I just . . .’ The woman blinks rapidly. Dabs at her eyes with a tissue. ‘It’s all so terrible. Things like that, they just don’t happen here.’