Death in the Sunshine (Retired Detectives Club, #1)(29)

‘I don’t believe in coincidence, but we know there must have been two people here, minimum.’

‘Indeed. So I think they arranged to meet here after the park was closed.’

Moira senses that’s not all. ‘But?’

Lizzie shakes her head. ‘Well, if they knew each other – say they were lovers rendezvousing here, for example – the gun seems out of place. Bringing a gun makes the murder feel premeditated, and crimes of passion are often more spur-of-the-moment, up close, and more personal – strangulation, stabbing, that sort of thing. This feels . . . different.’

Moira gets what Lizzie is saying. ‘Then maybe they weren’t lovers.’

‘Then why would they meet here after dark?’ says Lizzie, frowning.

‘That’s one big question,’ says Moira. Knowing why the victim was in the park late last night or in the early hours of this morning is a critical piece of the puzzle. She runs her hand through her hair. ‘The other is what the money was for.’

Lizzie nods. ‘We need an ID on our Jane Doe. That could help.’

‘For sure,’ says Moira. ‘And there’s something else bothering me about the gun. I know it’s secluded here, but we’re not that far from the houses on Coral View Boulevard. Surely someone would have heard the shot?’

‘Depends on the time. Mary and Archie had their golden wedding anniversary party last night. There was a firework display late in the evening. If the shot happened around that time it could have been camouflaged by the noise.’

‘Do you think they knew that?’

‘If they did, again, it points to premeditated,’ says Lizzie. ‘Shooting someone in time with the fireworks – that would take a bit of planning.’

‘And inside knowledge of when the firework display was taking place.’

They’re silent for a moment. Until this point they’d been working on the presumption that the killer was an outsider. But now, if their assumptions are true and the fireworks had been used to cover the sound of the gunshot, it means whoever did it had access to information about the social goings-on in The Homestead.

‘We need to know the victim’s time of death,’ Lizzie says. ‘I’ll message Rick and ask if he can find out from his police contacts.’

‘Good thinking.’ Moira smiles. Her and Lizzie make a good team, bouncing ideas between them, testing theories and hypotheses. It seems like they’ve moved on from the problems of earlier – the focus on the crime scene has helped remove the lingering tension she felt. It feels like they’re becoming more than acquaintances, as if they’re now becoming friends. Moira’s not sure whether it’s a good or a bad thing.

As Lizzie turns her attention to the pool, Moira moves across the patio and on to the lawn area. Lizzie’s earlier question has got her thinking. She doesn’t remember there being anything else here this morning, but then, as she told Lizzie, she was more focused on the young woman and what was in the pool – and taking the pictures before the cops arrived. Now she wonders if she missed something. She closes her eyes and thinks back to that morning. Scans the scene in her mind. She remembers the young woman, the money and the bag, but nothing more. The patio around the pool is clear aside from the blood splatter, and there’s nothing else on the lawn or on the two benches at the opposite end of the pool.

Suddenly, Moira has the feeling she’s being watched. Shivering, she opens her eyes. She expects to see Lizzie close beside her, but Lizzie’s further away than before, crouching down on the far side of the pool, an expression of deep concentration on her face. Despite the warmth of the day, Moira feels a cold chill creep along her spine. She shivers again, and turns around.

Her breath catches in her throat.

Way in the distance, up on the hillside, beneath a crop of tall trees, something glints in the sunlight. She puts her hand to her face, trying to shield out the sun from her eyes and get a better view. She can’t see clearly, but there’s definitely something there. She takes a few steps forward. Squints harder.

That’s when she sees it. Her heart rate accelerates.

Someone is watching them through binoculars.





16


RICK


Fetching the watch logs is taking longer than he’d reckoned on, so Rick’s glad he and Philip had decided to split the work and take half the patrol list each to make the collections. It seems every member of the community watch wants to talk today. They don’t get that he’s on a schedule here; that the first twenty-four hours in a homicide case are the most critical.

Rick sighs as he climbs back into the jeep. Philip should have gotten the patrollers to deliver their logs to his mailbox in the usual way; it would’ve saved them a whole lot of time. Humans are such damn curious creatures. And some people have a real morbid fascination for details when there’s been a death. Rick doesn’t get it. Details are necessary to get the job done, but not things to gossip over at the golf club.

Not that you’d think that the way some people are talking. He glances back at the house he’s just come from and his conversation with the owners, Melly and Rory. Shakes his head. Fresh from a round of golf and from spreading the word about the murder at the golf club, they’d tried their best to quiz him over any new developments or theories about the case. But he’d stayed like a vault. He saw through their fake angst and hand-wringing, and Rory’s ranting about outsiders over on the district eleven construction site, and remembered their reactions at the Roadhouse earlier – how they were more bothered about missing a round of golf than they were about a young woman losing her life. People like that, he never will understand them.