‘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.
He flicks through their weekly log that he’s just collected. It’s scant on detail, just the absolute minimum noted against each time slot, even though the area they’ve patrolled this week includes a number of Ocean Mist’s premier restaurants and bars. Rick adds their weekly log to the stack of others inside the buff folder on the passenger seat. He knows Melly and Rory oftentimes patrol on foot, and has heard grumblings from some of the other patrollers that they’ve seen the pair enjoying a nice Merlot at one of the bars during their shift on more than one occasion. He frowns. It’s tough, what with the patrollers being volunteers and all, but he knows they need to tackle the pair’s behaviour. He makes a mental note to tell Philip his concerns when he’s back at the house.