Live and Let Bondi

by Clare Kauter

  “I want to see the crime scene in person.”

  “For this McDonald kid, you mean?”

  She shook her head, standing and gathering up all the pictures. “Nope. For Rogers.”

  I frowned. “You want to go back to Bondi? But we were just there.”

  “I want to look at the exact place where he was killed. Maybe it will tell us something we can’t see from these pictures. Like whether he was likely to have seen his killer coming or if he was ambushed, that kind of thing. And I’d like to try and put together a timeline of the day he was killed.”

  “OK. Back to Bondi it is.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be too disappointed.”

  When we headed back to the beach in the middle of the morning, there were a lot more people lounging on the sand than there had been earlier. I mean, sure, it was the height of winter, but as long as the sun was out there were people at Bondi catching rays and surfing. Yes. Surfing. I shoved my hands in my armpits to try and warm them, experiencing sympathy chills just looking at the people in the water.

  There were also a few people in a sectioned off part of the beach flying huge ornate kites shaped like whales and goldfish and birds and dragons and more. I watched them as we walked down the ramp to the sand. I noticed Nat eyeing them too.

  “Pretty, aren’t they?”

  “I hope our crime scene isn’t in the part of the beach they’ve fenced off.”

  “Ah, of course. I forgot you like to suck the joy out of every situation.”

  “You’re one to talk,” she said. “You’re so hot and cold it’s like you’re two different people. Wait, I’ve figured it out. You are two different people, aren’t you? Twins pretending to be one investigator when in fact you’re a crime-fighting duo.”

  “You got me,” I said. “Well, us.”

  She smirked and kept walking. We searched up and down the beach, looking for the specific place where the murder had happened by comparing details in the background of the crime scene pictures to the scene around us. I half expected Nat to just waltz up to the people hanging around the beach and show them the dead body pics, demanding to know if they could tell where the photographs had been taken. Luckily she had more tact than that. Apparently she only like to jump-scare me with surprise murder photos. Yay for me.

  Eventually we found the area and saw that two people were already there. They had set up their towels and were having a picnic (with a side of canoodling). I eyed their thermos with jealousy. Mmm, I could really go another coffee. I’d packed my new dinosaur-print travel mug in the car and I fully planned to head to I Bean Everywhere again once we were done down here.

  “You two need to move,” said Nat.

  I sighed internally. She couldn’t have taken the smooth talking approach just this once?

  Canoodler 1 glared at her. “Oh, really? Because I think you’ll find we were here first.”

  “There’s plenty of beach,” said Canoodler 2. “Why don’t you two go find somewhere else to sit down?”

  “This place is special to us,” said Nat.

  I groaned. This was not going to end well.

  “It’s special to us too,” said Canoodler 1. “Because it’s the place we’re going to have our picnic today.”

  “You know that guy who got stabbed here a month ago?” Nat said.

  The canoodlers’ eyes widened. I didn’t blame them. That was an abrupt change of subject in their eyes – one that did sound kind of like a threat.

  “We’re not going to stab you,” I hurried to assure them.

  “No, we’re not,” said Nat. “But we are investigating that murder, and I thought you two might like to know that you’re making out on top of the sand that soaked up the dead guy juices.”

  Canoodler 1 grew pale. “What?”

  “The stabbing,” said Nat, looking way too satisfied to be telling them this. “It happened right where you’re sitting. Hope you don’t catch any diseases. This area hasn’t exactly been sanitised since the death. His blood’s just sitting in the sand under you, rotting.”

  Wait, so did that mean Nat knew how they went about cleaning up the sand post-murder? I hoped she was making it up, because I didn’t want to believe her. They just left the blood behind? They didn’t even, like, pour bleach over it or anything?

  The canoodlers leapt to their feet and hurriedly packed up their things, glaring at us before scurrying off.

  “Make sure you soap up twice in the shower tonight,” Nat called after them. “You want to make sure you get the smell out.”

  When she turned back to me, I raised my eyebrows. “Was that really necessary?”

  “It got rid of them, didn’t it?”

  “There were easier ways.”

  She shrugged. “You have your method, I have mine.”

  Ignoring the fact that she was clearly still angry at me, though I wasn’t entirely sure for what, I put my hands on my hips and stared down at the ground. “So, what’s the plan now that we’re here?”

  “Reconstruct the crime scene,” she said. “Lie down.”

  My jaw dropped. “Seriously? After what you just said to –”

  She waved her hand in the air. “I was lying. You’re not going to catch anything. Probably. Now do what I tell you.”

  “There is no way I’m –”

  I stopped talking when an object whizzed by my head and stuck in the ground nearby with a soft fft noise. Nat frowned, following my gaze as we both studied the sand, trying to see what the object had been.

  “What was that?” Nat asked me.

  “No idea,” I said. “But it came really close to hitting –”

  I was cut off again when another of the objects flew by, closer to Nat than me this time.

  “What –” she began, but I cut her off. This time I’d seen what it was and when it stuck in the ground nearby, my heart began thumping in my chest.

  I grabbed Nat’s hand and pulled her away from where we’d been standing, trying to find some cover. What the hell was going on? A third object whizzed past us and this time I could tell by the sharp intake of breath that Nat had finally seen what it was too.

  “Someone’s shooting at us,” she said in disbelief. “With a fucking bow and arrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Natalia

  “What is this, the fucking middle ages?” I bitched as Billy and I ran for cover. Of course, in this situation ‘running for cover’ meant ‘running in the direction the arrows were coming from’ but it wasn’t like we had any choice. While we were out on the sand, we were completely exposed. We needed to get further up the beach, where the concrete walls and ramps down to the sand would offer some protection from whatever fucking psycho was coming after us.

  Luckily for us, our assailant didn’t seem to be using a machine-bow so reloading took a little time. Billy and I ran in zig-zags up to the ramps, sinking into squats when we got there, breathing hard more from the panic than the run. We rested for a moment, waiting to see if any more arrows came. That was when there was a scream from the car park above us and then a cacophony of voices shouting.

  “He’s got a bow!” came one voice. “He’s trying to shoot people on the beach!”

  [More screaming.]

  “What the fuck is your problem, mate?” came another voice. “Put your bloody quiver down!”

  [Yet more screaming, now slightly hysterical.]

  “I don’t want to waste this ice cream, but I’ll smash your fucking face in if you try anything, Legolas,” came voice three. “Yeah, you better run! Bloody idiot. Doesn’t he know he could have hurt someone? Friggin’ drongo.”

  There were hurried footsteps crunching sand into the concrete as the archer, whoever it was, ran for their car. The car door slammed in the distance and the engine roared. Billy and I made eye contact and both ran up the ramp at the same time.

  “Where did he go?” I demanded of the guy holding an ice cream cone, figuring he was the one I’d heard speaking last.<
br />
  He pointed down to the other end of the car park. “That red car that’s leaving now. Christ, he’s exiting out the entry point. This guy’s got no idea.”

  Billy was already off running after the car, so I let him take care of that while I asked the bystanders questions.

  “What did he look like? Did you see his face?”

  The guy shook his head. “Nah, he was wearing a beard beanie.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “You know those beanies that have knitted beards attached? One of those. I could only see his eyes.”

  Great. He might as well have been wearing a balaclava.

  “What kind of build did he have?” I asked, trying again. Maybe that would help us out.

  “I don’t know. Tall enough. Six foot or so. Not sure about the build, though. He was rugged up in a big puffy jacket. Plus I was more focused on the fact that he had a fucking bow and arrow.”

  I nodded. “OK.” I turned to the crowd that had gathered. “Any of you see anything?” Everyone shook their heads and mumbled that they’d seen the same as the first guy. I turned as Billy jogged back over. “Anything?”

  “Red Audi,” he said. “I got the numberplate.”

  Something about what he said tickled my memory. “A red Audi?”

  He nodded, frowning. “What? Do you know who owns it?”

  I shook my head slowly. “No, I can’t remember… I’m sure it sounds familiar, though.”

  Twenty minutes later, when Detective Bobby arrived on the scene, it became clear why.

  “That’s Jake Rogers’s car,” he said.

  Billy’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”

  I clicked my fingers. “Of course. I should have remembered that. It went missing when he was murdered, didn’t it?”

  Bobby frowned, shrugging slightly. “Not exactly. We figured he’d just parked it somewhere we couldn’t find it.”

  “It didn’t occur to you that the murderer might have taken it?”

  “Well, according to our timeline he jogged here to the beach after work. Security camera footage confirmed as much. He didn’t drive here, so we didn’t think the murderer would have taken it.”

  “But if you didn’t find his car keys, that kind of suggests –”

  “We did find his car keys,” said Bobby. “In his desk at work. That’s why we thought he’d left the car in some parking lot in the city, even though we weren’t able to track it down. I guess the murderer has his spare keys.”

  I frowned. Who would have spare keys to our victim’s car? I sighed. “Well, at least we have some physical evidence of the murderer now. Maybe there’ll be fingerprints on the arrows.”

  “Doubt it,” called ice cream guy, who was giving his statement to a uniformed officer a couple of metres away. “He was wearing gloves.”

  I groaned. “Of course he was.”

  When Billy and I had finished giving our statements, we headed back to Bazza and climbed in.

  “Maybe we should have listened to what your ex told us after all,” I said. “About that archery case where the guy got shot in the leg.”

  Billy snorted. “I’d sooner believe Eric was the one shooting us than that he was actually telling me the truth.”

  “I hear you,” I said, “but right now I’m thinking that archery range might have to be our next port of call.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He shook his head. “I can’t fucking believe this. Who tries to gun someone down with, well, not a gun?”

  I shrugged. “Easier to get your hands on a bow and arrow than a gun around here. What I really want to know is why the hell anyone shot at us in the first place.”

  “Do you think they were following us?” Billy asked, starting up the creep-mobile. “I didn’t notice them in my rear vision mirror, but that seems to make sense.”

  “But why shoot us as soon as we arrived at the crime scene?” I said. “You don’t think there’s something buried in the sand that might give us a clue who did it, do you?”

  Billy shook his head. “No,” he said.

  “You just don’t want me to make you dig through that sand.”

  He smiled. “Partly. But the police would have already combed through the sand. It’s also more likely he was just waiting for a time when he’d have a clean shot at us. Here he had the high ground. Perfect opportunity to take us down.”

  “But we didn’t get hit.”

  “It’s pretty windy out there,” he pointed out. “The kind of day you’re having a kite festival is probably not the kind of day that’s ideal for shooting arrows.”

  “True,” I said slowly. “Either that or they were just trying to scare us off.”

  “Or they’re a really bad shot.”

  “Or that.” I thought for a moment. “OK, operating on the assumption that they chose to shoot at us here not because we were about to find a clue but because it was an easier shot, why are they shooting at us at all? Is this Spencer’s crew?”

  Billy shook his head, pulling out onto the road. “No, they like to do things up close and personal. With knives.”

  “Tricky to take off a nipple from a distance.”

  “Exactly.” He shook his head again. “It could be them, but I don’t know why. Why wouldn’t they have attacked us in that bar? It doesn’t make any sense. Plus the archery connection seems like too much of a coincidence.”

  “I agree. I think we should head to the range and speak to the guy Rogers was defending before we talk to the guy who got shot. Just so we know what we’re dealing with.”

  Billy nodded. “As long as we never tell Eric that I’m actually acting on one of his leads.”

  “If I ever have the misfortune to see his smarmy face again,” I said, “I’ll be too busy punching it to let him in on this little secret.”

  Billy kept his eyes on the road, but he couldn’t hold back his grin.

  Chapter Thirty

  Billy

  I guess the near-death experience had made Nat forget that she’d been annoyed at me for running off on her earlier that morning. Good to know for future arguments. Not that I particularly wanted to go through further arrow assaults just to get her back onside after annoying her. Although the way she glared at you when she was angry, an arrow was probably less likely to kill you.

  It took us about an hour to reach the old warehouse that now housed the archery centre. I was starting to get hungry, but I didn’t want to ruin Nat’s good mood (well, her less shit mood) by whining about the fact that we hadn’t actually gone to the cafe before leaving the beach like I’d wanted. Instead I just cast a wistful glance at my empty dinosaur-print keep cup (why had Adam given me that?) and stepped out of the car.

  When we entered the warehouse, there was a school group inside and I immediately feared for my safety. For the moment, the instructor and teachers seemed to be keeping them all pointed in the right direction, but I was a little on edge after my experience at the beach. Nat seemed to be keeping a wary eye on the tiny humans holding the dangerous weapons as well.

  We were only a few steps inside when a short portly man approached us. He had a huge moustache that he seemed to have moulded into the shape of a bow. (Like, the archery kind – he hadn’t tied his face up like a present. Trust me, his face was no gift.)

  “Can I help you?” he asked, smiling pleasantly.

  “Richard Reid?”

  He nodded. “You two looking for lessons? We’ve got the kids in at the moment, but we have adult classes at night if –”

  “We’re here about Jake Rogers,” Nat said, cutting him off.

  The smile immediately fell from his face. Even his moustache seemed to droop. “Ah,” he said. “You’d better come through to my office, then.”

  We followed him into a room off to the side of the warehouse. Once upon a time I would have thought of this as a small room, but considering the office Nat and I were forced to work in, this looked positively palatial. He took a seat and we sat down on the
chairs opposite him, both of which were far too low to be anything but awkward. I got the impression that maybe Richard was a little insecure about his height, since he seemed to have his own seat jacked up to maximum elevation while our chairs might as well have been cushions on the floor. I looked over at Nat, who seemed to be equally perturbed by the chairs we’d been assigned.

  “How can I help you?” Richard called down to us from his perch atop his mountain.

  “How’s the air up there?” Nat asked.

  “What?”

  “We want to ask you about your lawsuit,” I said before Nat could repeat herself. “And specifically about the man who got shot here. We heard he threatened Rogers before he died. Did he ever threaten you?” Eric had said he did, but I knew better than to take his word for it.

  Richard waved his hand. “Oh, that business has all been settled now. I don’t want to paint the poor man in a bad light.”

  The poor man? “The guy who got shot by his daughter?”

  Richard nodded, twirling his moustache with his finger. “That whole situation… It’s all been dealt with. I have nothing bad to say about the man.”

  “Dealt with?” I asked. “I thought it was scheduled for later in the month?”

  “It won’t be going ahead.”

  Interesting. From what Eric had told me, it hadn’t seemed like settling out of court was on the cards. Although given Eric had been the one to tell me, it was surprising the lawsuit actually existed in the first place.

  “We think he killed your lawyer,” said Nat, coming in like a sledgehammer as per usual.

  Reid’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, he would never do anything like that.” He shook his head emphatically. “I’m absolutely sure of it. He’s not that kind of man.”

  “He already attacked him once.”

  “I assure you –”

  “Tell us what’s going on,” Nat ordered. “Why are you sticking up for the man who is suing you?”

  “He’s not suing me,” said Richard. “Not anymore, at least.”

  “What happened?”

  He seemed to get a little flustered. “I – I –”