Moira smiles to humour him, but wishes he’d get to the point.
‘I’d seen her recently, on another evening.’
Moira remembers what Rick had said about the young woman being spotted in a car with Mikey Graften. ‘Was she in a station wagon on Seahorse Drive?’
Hank frowns. ‘No, not there, it was a different part of the neighbourhood.’ He pauses, thinking, then nods. ‘It was over near Crystal Waters Boulevard. I remember because I saw her when I was watching the tapes live, eating a snack. Nutter Butters – really good – and I was on the night shift. Must have been around one in the morning. Pitch dark. Nothing much else going down on the screens. Then suddenly she was hustling along the sidewalk and I thought to myself, Where are you going so late, lady?’
Moira leans forward in the chair. ‘And where did she go?’
‘I don’t know.’ Hank shrugs. ‘I watched her to the end of the street, but then she took a turn into Stingray Drive, and the cameras are out along that stretch, so I lost her.’
Moira feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. Stingray Drive – she’s heard that road mentioned already today. Peggy Leggerhorne said she lived on Stingray Drive and that hers was the first house that was burgled. Moira knows the thefts have been going on for around a month. If the murder victim was in the same location as the burglary, there could be a connection between the crimes. ‘Can you remember exactly when that was?’
‘Let me think.’ He shuffles back against the pillow and closes his eyes.
Moira watches him. She stays silent, willing him to remember. The beep of the heart monitor seems to get louder. The click of the drip makes her flinch.
Hank opens his eyes. ‘It was a few weeks ago for sure. And I can remember I’d been pissed about having to work the night shift and having to miss the game – my team was playing and it was a critical time for them.’
Moira nods. Tries to keep her impatience from her expression.
‘The game was against the Dallas Cowboys, so that would have made it . . .’ He closes his eyes again as if looking at a fixture list in his mind. Grins. ‘It would have been the nineteenth of last month.’
The nineteenth. Moira makes a mental note. ‘That’s really helpful, thanks.’
‘No problem.’ Hank smiles. ‘Anything for my guardian angel.’
42
LIZZIE
She inhales slowly as the front door clicks shut behind Philip and Rick, glad to be alone in the house for a change. Clearing away the mugs, she loads the dishwasher, then goes back to the kitchen table and the mobile phone that Moira dug up on the peak of the Wild Ridge Trail. When she started working on it yesterday, first she’d cleaned the dirt off as best she could and fitted the snapped pieces back into the order they seemed to have started off in, but the screen had remained blank.
So then she took it apart again and thought about other things she could try. Damp from the earth had leached into the whole phone and she’d wondered if it’d affected it. She’d dismantled the phone and removed the SIM card, placing them into ziplock bags of rice. They’ve been in there long enough now. It’s time to put the whole thing back together.
Lizzie hopes it works. If the phone belonged to the victim it could give them a lot more leads. Removing the pieces and the SIM from the ziplock bags, she lays them out on a kitchen towel. Moving steadily, she snaps the pieces into place and adds the SIM, checking her work against the diagram she pulled from the internet of how it should look. When it’s done she presses the button to switch it on.
Nothing happens.
She tries again. Holds the button down for longer.
The screen remains blank.
Lizzie curses under her breath. Thinks. If it was the victim’s phone it wouldn’t have been in the ground that long, but there’s no telling how much charge it had at that time. Maybe it needs power. Maybe the damage has left it unable to hold a charge. Getting up, she carries the phone across the kitchen and plugs it into the charger next to the cooker. The phone’s casing is cracked, and it’s difficult to get the charger inserted, but after a bit of tilting and jiggling she manages it. She flips the power on and watches for the screen to register the power connection. Nothing happens. She presses the buttons to do a hard reset, and then watches the phone for a few minutes longer, but the screen remains black.