Death in the Sunshine (Retired Detectives Club, #1)(27)

The woman’s obviously shaken. Moira knows the truth won’t help. ‘Whatever happened, I’m sure the police have it under control.’

‘Do you think? I sure hope so. I just don’t know how I’ll sleep tonight.’ The woman picks up Teddy the dog and hugs him to her. ‘I’m a light sleeper usually and every noise makes me wake up, and now this . . .’ She grimaces, hugging Teddy closer. ‘How do we know any of us are safe? If it wasn’t an accident, for all we know the murderer could be watching us. What do I do if . . .’

‘Just make sure you double-lock your doors tonight,’ says Lizzie. ‘And have your cell phone next to your bed. If you’re worried about anything, call security or alert the community-watch patrol.’

The lady’s eyes widen. ‘So you do think it was murder and not an accident?’

Lizzie glances at Moira.

‘We don’t know,’ says Moira. ‘But if we let the police do their job, I’m sure they’ll find the answer.’

The woman shakes her head. ‘It just doesn’t seem right something like that happening here. This is a safe place – a happy place. Someone dying in the park – it’s not right at all.’

Moira says nothing. The woman really seems to believe the hype of The Homestead marketing – that it’s a perfect neighbourhood and that somehow it’s immune to crime. It’s a naive view, but then maybe it’s not an uncommon belief here. After all, earlier Lizzie had said something fairly similar – as if saying bad things never happen could somehow make it true. Moira knows better though. Bad things happen everywhere. Everywhere there are people, anyway.

Putting Teddy back on the ground, the woman gathers up the frozen-yoghurt carton and puts it in the trash. She turns back to Moira and Lizzie and gives them a little wave, then glances towards the park. ‘Stay safe.’

‘You too,’ says Moira.

They’re alone on the benches now. Moira watches as the server inside Karlie’s yoghurt hut rolls down the serving hatch. Afternoon is giving way to evening. She looks over at Lizzie. Raises an eyebrow.

‘Let’s give it ten more minutes,’ says Lizzie.

‘Okay.’

Finally, just before the ten minutes is up, as the sun is starting to sink lower in the sky and Moira’s beginning to think that they won’t get the chance to get into the park today, the cops and CSIs start to pack up. Moira and Lizzie stay seated as the CSIs load their gear into the van. Only when they’ve fired up the engine and headed out do they start to move.

Lizzie knocks back the last of her drink. They’ve been nursing takeaway cups of fresh lemonade for well over an hour and the dregs must be warm because she grimaces when she swallows. Moira decides to give hers a miss. Taking Lizzie’s cup, she fits it inside hers and puts them both in the bin.

She glances back towards the park. A single strand of yellow police tape remains across the entrance, but there’s no one standing sentry. She looks at Lizzie. ‘Looks like they’re all gone. You want to risk it?’

Lizzie gets to her feet. ‘Let’s do it.’

They cross the street, duck under the loose yellow tape and walk casually through the white wooden archway at the entrance to the park. It seems a lifetime ago that she was last here, but it was only this morning. Less than twelve hours have passed, and yet everything has changed. This morning she was struggling with how to assimilate into her new life and occupy herself meaningfully in retirement. Now she’s working on an off-book investigation with a bunch of people she’d be wiser to steer clear of.

They follow the path along past the bocce area and towards the pickleball courts. The birds are singing in the tree canopy above them, and for a moment it seems unreal that something so awful as a murder has happened in this place. Moira shakes her head and tells herself she knows better. Bad things happen everywhere, and the prettiness of nature is not a shield from the dreadful things humans do to each other.

‘It’s strange here when it’s so quiet,’ says Lizzie, looking at the empty pickleball courts. ‘I’ve only ever been here in the middle of the day when everything’s in use.’

‘It’s quiet in the mornings. I like it, it’s like the calm before the storm.’ Moira thinks about what she found that morning. Frowning, she glances around, checking they’re alone and the blond guy isn’t lurking somewhere. She looks back at Lizzie. ‘Maybe the silence feels eerier now.’

They come to an intersection in the path and take a right towards the pool area along the tree-lined walkway. There’s some shade beneath the trees, but although the heat of the sun is fading, the humidity seems just as strong. Moira wipes the sweat from her forehead and thinks maybe Philip and Rick got the better job – visiting the community-watch members to collect their patrol logs. At least they’ll be in their air-conditioned cars for most of the time.

They come to the white gate that leads to the pool. Moira slows her pace, noting the two lines of yellow crime-scene tape fixed in a cross from gatepost to gatepost. She looks over the gate and knows that around the corner, currently hidden from view by the hedge, is the pool.

Lizzie catches up with her. ‘Oh, it’s still sealed.’

Moira nods but she can’t speak. Her breath has caught in her throat. She stops walking. The image of crime-scene tape crossed over another door flits across her mind’s eye. That tape was blue and white with the words ‘POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS’ printed along it, and it was blocking off the entrance of a high-end penthouse apartment. It was two days after the raid, and Moira returning there was a last-ditch attempt to make sense of what had happened; to try and fathom how everything went to shit. She remembers unpinning the tape and entering the apartment; coughing as the smell, sour and rotten as death, hit the back of her throat as she stepped across the threshold; the bloodstains on the blond wood floor – two stains in the open living space, the larger splattered across the marble kitchen countertop and pooled on the floor beneath; the shards of glass from the shattered safety screen littering the balcony.