He shakes his head. ‘No, it was misinformed. Yes, there was an accident in the pool at Manatee, a tragedy, but not a—’
‘That’s bullshit, Brad, and we both know it.’
Frowning, he turns to the computer on the desk and clicks through a few screens. Reads something and then turns back to Moira. Gives her a fake-looking smile. ‘With all due respect, I think you’re mistaken, ma’am. I’ve got the incident report right here and it’s telling me there was a tragic accident when a swimmer—’
‘Just stop.’ Moira holds up her hands. ‘Your incident report is wrong. As you know, I found the woman’s body in the pool and called the cops. She was murdered. I saw the blood from the gunshot wound myself.’
Brad gulps at the air like a landed fish and fans his hands at his face, which is getting redder by the second. His smile is non-existent. ‘But I . . . I wasn’t told . . .’
‘Who filled out the incident report?’ asks Moira.
His gaze flits to the screen, then back to her. ‘That’s above my pay grade. I’m afraid I can’t . . .’
‘I didn’t think so.’ The two other assistants behind the counter are watching her and obviously listening in. And Brad’s looking increasingly uncomfortable, shifting his weight from side to side and glancing towards his colleagues. Moira senses she’s got as much information from him as she’s going to get, for now at least. ‘But thanks, you’ve been helpful.’ She leans in closer. Lowers her voice. ‘And don’t even think about spying on me again.’
Brad tries to give a Disney-prince smile. It doesn’t work and the result is a flaccid half-grimace. ‘No problem. Have a great day.’
Moira turns and walks towards the exit. A few strides before the door she stops and looks back at Brad. He flinches as their eyes meet. ‘By the way, what’s rule eight?’
Brad hesitates, and then answers in a tone full of fake enthusiasm. ‘All posts must be positive in spirit.’
She’d figured that much, but it’s useful to have it confirmed. They’re controlling the message, and keeping the only good things happen here narrative alive, even though it’s fake news.
Saying nothing, she turns and walks away.
As she steps out of the building into the heat and bright sunlight she thinks about what she’s discovered. Faked incident reports, especially when the police are involved, are a serious business. How can The Homestead get away with it? It makes no sense, just like the lack of media attention and Detective Golding’s extreme reaction to them trying to help. It’s all connected, it has to be; it can’t be a coincidence. She just needs to figure out how.
40
PHILIP
He hates tension. Tries to ignore it. But Lizzie isn’t making it easy with her long accusing looks and over-loud sighs. That’s why he’s brought his coffee into the study and shut the door. This way he doesn’t have to see the disappointment on her face every time she looks at him, and he can avoid answering her questions. He really doesn’t want to have to answer her questions. If enough time passes maybe she’ll stop asking and things can go back to the way they were. He liked the way they were.
Right now he needs to focus on the case, and the patrol logs. He’s looking for something that could have been missed, or didn’t seem important, first time around. If the Graften boy didn’t do it – and Rick’s pretty sure that he didn’t – they need a new lead. Philip is good at this sort of thing, he always has been. He knows he can find them a lead. He just needs to put his mind to it.
Sorting through the log reports, he picks out the ones done by patrollers who were in the areas, or bordered the areas, where the burglaries and the murder took place. There are four patrollers in that group – Clint, Pamela, Clayton and Donald. Once he’s separated their reports from the main pile he settles back in his chair and starts reading. There’s a month’s worth of logs from each patroller – around fifty pages each in total – so it’s going to take a while.