Death in the Sunshine (Retired Detectives Club, #1)(71)
‘It’s Hawk.’
‘Hey buddy. What’ve you got for me?’
‘A bunch of stuff as it goes, it’s like your Christmas came early.’
Rick smiles. He knows Hawk will try and squeeze him for another game ticket, but if the intel’s good that’s fine with him. ‘So tell me about it.’
‘ID first – your Jane Doe is officially confirmed as Kristen Altman. Twenty-three years of age. Her most recent address is an apartment in The Homestead staffers’ building – Golden Springs. She has a driver’s licence but no vehicle registered with the DMV. Her birth certificate has her as a native of Pennsylvania.’
‘Twenty-three.’ Rick lets out a long whistle. Shakes his head. Twenty-three years old – the woman was barely more than a child.
‘Yeah. Bad business for sure,’ says Hawk, chewing on gum as he speaks. ‘Listen, I got the read-out from the autopsy. She was shot with a .22 calibre. The wound was in her chest but up towards her shoulder and it missed her vital organs. It wasn’t fatal, not immediately.’
‘But?’
‘But she was in the pool. She would have lost a hell of a lot of blood and gotten real weak. The medical examiner said the cause of death was drowning, but from the wound and the blood ratio in her body, she was shot before she hit the drink.’
‘Damn.’ Rick shakes his head, distracted. He makes a left and turns into Philip and Lizzie’s street.
‘Yeah. And here’s where it gets messed up. The gun that shot the vic – they think it was most likely her own. She had a .22 calibre registered, an old-school purse-sized thing with a pearl handle. When they searched her apartment they found a half-used box of ammunition but the gun wasn’t in her metal gunsafe.’
Rick frowns. ‘And they didn’t find the gun at the crime scene?’
‘Nope. It hasn’t turned up yet.’
‘Let me know if it does.’
‘Will do. One other thing, the young punk who owns the station wagon, well, word is that Detective Golding has a real hard-on for him. He’s likely going to be charged with the murder today.’
‘On what evidence?’ Rick pulls the jeep over to the kerb outside Lizzie and Philip’s house and puts it into park.
On the other end of the call, Hawk works his gum. ‘Circumstantial from what I’ve heard. But there’s pressure to close the case and move on. And Golding’s a player, you know, he does what’s wanted.’
Rick blows out hard. He hates it when detectives let their career become more important than the truth. ‘The kid’s innocent.’
‘Then you better prove it,’ says Hawk.
Yeah, thinks Rick as he ends the call. He’d better. And fast.
Time is running out.
39
MOIRA
She’s up at seven thirty. The sun is already warm; the dew long burned off from the grass. She takes the dogs for a run out on the grassland behind her house for forty minutes, then feeds them and grabs herself some watermelon for breakfast. She aches everywhere, worse in her bad ankle and her head. That won’t do, she needs to do things today, can’t sit about. She takes the highest-strength painkillers she has with two mugs of strong coffee drunk one after the other. Within twenty minutes the throbbing in her head has subsided enough for her to contemplate driving. Which is good, because she’s got a plan.
First stop is The Homestead office. It’s over in district one – Homestead Hills – the first section of The Homestead community that was built. It’ll take almost fifteen minutes to drive to it from home and they’ll be opening at nine. Moira’s aiming to be first in line.
The journey’s uneventful, but she’s glad to have an automatic car – with her ankle, driving a manual gearbox would be impossible; she’d never manage to press down the clutch. As it is the automatic does its thing, and there’s minimal traffic. She cruises under the ‘WELCOME TO HOMESTEAD HILLS – THE HAPPIEST RETIREMENT COMMUNITY IN FLORIDA’ sign that stretches over the highway like a bridge and clenches her teeth. Checking her watch she sees that she’s several minutes earlier than planned.
She parks out front. Like all the official buildings on The Homestead the office is a single-storey cream stucco, although this one’s bigger than the security hut and the CCTV office combined. There are lights on inside, and she can see people moving about through the windows. On the side of the office between the windows and door there are two full-height billboards. One features a grey-haired couple with the wording ‘THE HOMESTEAD – BECAUSE YOU DESERVE YOUR HAPPY EVER AFTER’ and the second has a picture of three grey-haired ladies laughing in the swimming pool with the words ‘THE HOMESTEAD – A PLACE TO MAKE AND SHARE HAPPY MEMORIES’. Moira remembers her last memory of the pool at Manatee Park and shakes her head.
At nine o’clock she gets out of her car and walks to the office. The sun is hot on her skin and she starts to sweat. Her limp is still pronounced as she tries to keep the pressure off her bad ankle. Even with the painkillers it feels like fire every time she puts her weight on it.
The automatic door slides open as she approaches. Inside the air conditioning is already turned up high. There’s a long curved counter with three people – two women and a guy – wearing bright turquoise polo shirts with The Homestead logo across the pocket seated behind it. The women are closest to the door and they smile in unison as she enters. The third – sitting furthest from the door – remains focused on his screen. Moira heads towards him.