The Murder Club (A Miller Hatcher Novel Book 2)

by Nikki Crutchley

  ‘Miller Hatcher,’ one of them said, standing in front of her. He was dressed in shorts, a T-shirt and heavy work boots. He bent over, panting. ‘We hear you’re doing some fucked-up article on Logan Dodds.’

  Miller cursed Aubrey yet again. She turned to walk away but collided with the other guy who had moved in behind her. She stepped to the side, both of them in her sights. ‘Look,’ Miller said, arms held out in front of her, stepping back. ‘I am not doing the article.’ She looked behind at a house, its windows black. If she shouted loud enough maybe someone would come.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ the other one said. His long hair fell into his eyes, his upper lip glistened with sweat. They’d probably come straight from the Royal. He held a Murder Club pamphlet in front of her. ‘What is this shit? A club about murders? Fucked up is what it is. And you fuckin’ journalists think you have a good story and go for it. Never think about anyone else involved. You need to go back to wherever you came from.’

  Miller walked backwards along the footpath and then turned and broke into a run again.

  ‘Shit!’ one of them yelled. ‘Get her!’ Again they were too fast and one of them ploughed into her, knocking Miller to the ground. Her face hit the footpath and she could taste blood. She turned onto her back as one of the men stepped towards her. She kicked out at his shins before he could get any closer.

  ‘Bitch!’ he yelled, clutching his shin.

  Miller got to her feet as the other one approached. She spat out a mouthful of blood and visualised her punching bag as he came at her. She lifted her left leg off the ground and bent her knee. Her foot connected with the guy’s midsection and brought him to his knees.

  ‘Hey!’ Miller turned and saw Logan lumbering towards her. His heaving mass reached her, out of breath and wheezing. ‘Miller, are you okay?’ he asked, surveying the scene in front of him.

  The two men were on their feet and advancing on Logan. Shit, Miller thought. This is not going to end well.

  ‘Just who we wanted to see. The town freak,’ one of them said, a wide grin on his face.

  Miller’s bag had landed a few metres away from her. She edged towards it, her shaking hands finding her phone, and she rang Kahu. By the time she ended the call Logan had been dealt a couple of blows to the face, his T-shirt was splattered in blood, and he was in the foetal position on the footpath. Both men aimed kicks at his back and stomach. Logan shouted in pain. Miller had never been more confused about what to do. She couldn’t leave him, but if she tried to fight the two men she knew she couldn’t win. She wiped her mouth, leaving her hand stained with blood, and approached the two men. ‘I’ve just rung the police,’ she said. ‘They’ll be here in minutes.’

  They stopped and looked at each other. One turned to Miller. ‘Hopefully you’ve learnt your lesson.’ A growling sound came from his throat and he spat on Logan. He pulled the pamphlet out of his pocket, screwed it up and threw it at Logan and then both turned and ran.

  Kahu arrived a minute later in a T-shirt and shorts, jandals on his feet. ‘Shit, are you all right?’ he asked, holding her face in his hands, squinting at her mouth. ‘I’ve rung the ambulance and Sergeant Wirihana. Here, sit.’ He led her to the grass verge and seated her before going to attend to Logan, who was moaning a few metres from her.

  ‘Why did they do this?’ Kahu asked.

  ‘The article,’ Miller said.

  ‘What? On the Scarf Killer?’

  ‘No. Kahu,’ she said, ‘meet Logan Dodds. President of the Murder Club.’ She lay back, feeling queasy. Closing her eyes, she listened to Logan correcting Miller and telling Kahu about the True Crime Enthusiasts Club.

  Chapter 34

  Miller’s alarm clock switched on and the radio host blared out, way too chirpily for 6.30 a.m., that it was ‘five sleeps till Santa and I hope all your Christmas shopping is done!’

  Miller groaned and kicked the covers off. She didn’t get to bed till after midnight and had slept fitfully, images of Santa and the Scarf Killer streaming through her subconscious.

  Her mouth ached. Hamish from St John’s had taken her and Logan back to their base. He cleaned Miller up and applied butterfly stitches to her cut lip. He said Logan had been lucky: a small cut above his eyebrow, bruising to his face and torso, and most likely a couple of cracked ribs.

  Beatrice arrived, eyes wide at the blood spatters on Logan’s T-shirt. She enveloped his large frame in a hug and whispered to him, ‘Oh, I’m glad you’re all right. My god, the fright you gave me.’ She looked up at Kahu. ‘Who was it. Who did this?’

  Logan had given Ash the details. He knew both men. She was already paying them a visit.

  ‘Why did they do this?’ Beatrice asked.

  ‘They were a bit upset about me writing the article on Logan,’ Miller said. ‘It’s probably not the best idea to publish.’ Miller knew it was a cop-out – she hadn’t yet told Logan she wasn’t doing the article, and this was a good reason, at least better than ‘You’re too creepy’.

  Beatrice nodded. She helped Logan up and thanked Hamish.

  ‘Miller, are you going to be okay?’ Logan asked.

  ‘Yes, Logan. Thank you for what you did.’

  Logan nodded, a thumb jammed in his mouth, chewing at the skin around his nail, and let himself be led out by his mother who was still whispering in his ear.

  ‘Do you still want me to look into him?’ Kahu asked. ‘Seems decent enough. Saved you from those two dickheads.’

  Miller thought ‘save’ wasn’t quite the word. But that was ungrateful. If Logan hadn’t appeared, who knew what would have happened.

  She lay in bed, vaguely remembering the excitement that Christmas used to evoke. Out of everything Christmassy she remembered the music, but only because her parents had rejected Christmas carols. Instead of ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, Miller’s Christmas soundtrack had been the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Elton John.

  She got out of bed and winced as she walked down the hallway. She’d pulled a muscle from the roundhouse kick she’d performed last night – connecting with a solid, six-foot man was quite different from her padded punching bag. As she made herself coffee, she thought of the candlelit vigil. People were getting sick of the police doing nothing. Miller knew they were doing everything they could, but to the people of a town where three women had been murdered in three weeks, it looked as if they were sitting on their hands. It was Wednesday today, and Miller wondered who was next, and where the next letter would turn up. Work? Her house? The idea that he’d slid the letter about Madi under her door while she was inside sleeping – that he knew her, knew where she lived – still sat heavy with her. Would he break into her house when he was ready to show himself? Would he turn up on her doorstep and ask to be let in? Or would Kahu and his team find him before all of that happened?

  Just before ten she checked in with Kahu. Last night he’d asked her to text him in the morning. ‘So I know you made it through the night,’ he said, half-joking.

  She didn’t hear back from him straightaway and so deposited her phone into her satchel and locked the front door. She stopped on the steps and looked up. The sky for the past month had been an unwavering deep blue without a single cloud marring its canvas. But today it was the colour of the river stones found on the bottom of the Piako River. She held her hands out as if expecting rain, but it was still the same dense heat.

  Maggie and Lou Muller’s house was red brick with a corrugated iron roof, nothing special, which made the garden and lawn look even more spectacular. Miller parked on the strip of concrete and admired the hedges and shrubs, all pruned to perfection. There wasn’t a single blade of grass out of place or a stray leaf to mar the mown lawn. But, like most sections in Lentford, the hue was brownish yellow rather than green, and crunchy underfoot.

  The glass-paned front door opened before Miller reached it, and Maggie
stood, coiffed and perfumed, to welcome her. She wore white linen pants, a pale-pink top with a patterned scarf across her shoulders tied in a loose knot at her chest. Miller wondered about the unnecessary second layer in this heat, but the first words out of Maggie’s mouth cleared up any confusion. ‘Is this okay for the photo? I had no idea what to wear.’

  ‘You look great,’ Miller said.

  ‘Oh, you poor thing. What on earth happened to your lip?’ Maggie asked as Miller followed her through the lounge and into the dining room, which still sported carpet from the Seventies, a swirling mix of browns, beiges and creams.

  ‘I had a wee stumble last night on the way home from the vigil. It’s fine.’ Miller touched her lip, instantly realising she should’ve known better than to lie. Word about what happened last night would already be making the rounds.

  Maggie pulled out a chair for Miller and began chatting about how excited she was to be in the Lentford Leader. ‘Ngaire’s done so well with the paper since she took over as editor. We used to go to school together. Did she tell you that?’

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ Miller said, tempted to pry into what the young Ngaire had been like. She envisioned an intelligent, articulate chain-smoking fifteen-year-old.

  ‘The paper’s so good for Lentford. Great content. She always includes everything going on in the community.’ Maggie poured tea into two bone china cups without asking Miller what she wanted and added in a heaped teaspoonful of sugar. ‘Now, how would you like to do this?’ she asked, patting her hair, making sure every strand was still in place.

  ‘We can just have a chat really,’ Miller said, taking out her iPhone. ‘You’re okay if I record the conversation?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Maggie said, sipping at her tea.

  ‘Great. So tell me a bit about the Lion’s Club in general, how you came to be involved with it and maybe a bit about your childhood and how you got to be where you are now.’

  ‘Certainly – oh! Biscuits.’ Maggie jumped up and went into the kitchen. Miller heard rifling around, tins being opened and biscuits being put onto a plate.

  ‘Here we go. Not homemade, unfortunately. I’m just too busy at the moment,’ she huffed, but Miller could tell ‘busy’ was exactly what Maggie wanted to be.

  ‘Now I made some notes. I hope that’s all right?’ She reached out for a few bits of paper on the sideboard behind her and carried on talking, something about always being prepared, and then making a joke about how that was the Scouts, not the Lions.

  Miller’s face automatically arranged itself into a frozen smile as she stared at the paper in front of Maggie. Thick. Almost like cardboard. Off-white. She found her hand crossing the table to feel the consistency of the paper. It was exactly the same. She would know it anywhere.

  Maggie stopped and looked at Miller. ‘Lovely, isn’t it? Although I shouldn’t be using it to jot notes down. It’s all I had to hand last night when I got home.’

  ‘It’s lovely. Where did you get it from?’ Miller asked, trying to remember what Kahu had told her about the paper. Stocked in only ten places in the whole of New Zealand. Was Maggie’s name on the shopkeeper’s list they gave the police?

  ‘I’m not sure. My good friend Alice Fenton, she lives in Hamilton, buys it for me every birthday and Christmas. I commented once how beautiful it was and now for the past five years I’ve been given it as a gift.’ Maggie stopped just short of rolling her eyes.

  ‘And what do you use it for? Is it just you who uses it? Or maybe Lou as well?’ Miller knew the questions were ridiculous, but this was the paper the Scarf Killer used.

  Maggie chuckled. ‘Lou wouldn’t use this, no. Not much of a letter writer.’

  ‘But he knows you have it?’ Miller asked.

  ‘Yes, of course he does. I’m sorry, Miller, but why all these questions?’ Miller could see Maggie was trying to be polite, but the questioning had thrown her.

  ‘Sorry, Maggie. It’s just really lovely paper. You don’t really see such beautiful stationery these days,’ Miller said, trying to cover up her shock. ‘Back to you.’

  Maggie spoke for the next half hour with very little prompting from Miller. On the sideboard was a large framed wedding portrait of Maggie and Lou on their wedding day, muted colours and smiling faces. On the wine rack were more photos, grouped tightly together, of vacations, young children, and those same children as adults. The carpet underfoot was comfortably worn. Miller could see into the lounge where two well-worn sofas sat side by side in front of a widescreen TV, thriving house plants on either side. A normal house for normal people, Miller thought. She needed to see Kahu.

  She noticed Maggie had stopped talking. ‘Thank you so much, Maggie. You’ve been great.’ The way Maggie had been talking Miller assumed she had everything she needed for the article.

  She grabbed the digital camera from her bag and took Maggie outside to stand by a camellia bush. ‘Perfect, Maggie,’ Miller said, hoping one of the half dozen photos she took would do.

  ‘When will the story run?’ Maggie asked as Miller packed up the camera.

  ‘Ngaire said probably the first issue next year.’ Miller thanked Maggie for her time and after calling Kahu to find out where he was, she headed straight to the Riverview Hotel.

  He was in the hotel bar when she arrived five minutes later. ‘Nice for some,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘It’s only lemonade. That bloody meeting room at the station gets a bit hectic. Can’t hear myself think.’

  ‘How’s the face?’ Miller asked, noticing the bruising that had come out on his cheekbone.

  ‘It’s fine. More to the point, how are you?’ He looked at her cut lip.

  ‘Fine.’ Neither wanted to talk about last night. ‘I have some information,’ Miller said, feeling herself getting excited.

  ‘Information?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Miller...’ he warned.

  ‘I wasn’t sticky-beaking. I swear. I was at Maggie Muller’s house—’

  ‘Lou’s wife.’ Kahu shook his head. ‘This isn’t about the fertiliser thing, is it?’

  ‘Hear me out. She has the paper. The paper that the killer uses.’ Miller waited for Kahu to react. She was disappointed.

  ‘Right. How can you be sure it’s the same paper?’

  ‘Kahu, I know that paper. She said she got it from a friend in Hamilton, as a gift.’

  ‘Okay.’ Kahu rearranged papers on the table.

  ‘So?’ Miller said, getting increasingly frustrated.

  Kahu made a note. ‘I’ll get someone around there this afternoon.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘What do you want me to do, Miller? Arrest Lou Muller? And Maggie too while I’m at it? Maybe they’re in on it together.’

  Miller shrugged.

  ‘One of my officers will go round and have a chat—’

  ‘To Lou?’

  ‘Yes, to Lou.’ Kahu’s words were slow, his tone patient. She knew he was getting sick of her. ‘This is good, Miller. It will be checked out. Just be patient. Let us do our job.’

  She nodded. ‘Today’s Wednesday.’

  Kahu was silent, closing up various manila folders on the table.

  ‘Tomorrow night, Kahu.’

  ‘I don’t need to be told, Miller.’

  Chapter 35

  Miller left Kahu, confident that he would do something about Lou Muller. She had to trust him.

  Lou had mown her lawns. She’d offered him a drink. He’d sat at her mother’s dining room table and they’d talked about Maggie and his grown children. If she saw him down the street or at the pub, she’d have a chat with him. He came across as a caring, community-minded guy, albeit a bit gruff, but what did she really know about him?

  Heading to Shady Oaks retirement village, the large drops, only a few at first, landed heavily, held their form and then slid down her windscreen. Then t
he downpour began. It was so sudden and so ferocious Miller had to pull over, her windscreen wipers unable to keep up with the torrent of water. She watched as people, caught unawares, ran for cover under trees or back into their homes. It was over as quickly as it had begun, as if a tap had been turned off. Miller wound down her window and breathed in the fresh scent of a world washed clean. The trees around her moved in a breeze that chased away the dirt-coloured clouds and by the time she got to Shady Oaks the blue sky was back; a clean palette. Miller stepped out of her car. In the carpark, the sun was already drying patches of concrete, other areas were puddles of warming water. She headed to reception to sign in.

  ‘We haven’t seen you for a while, Miller,’ said Joan, the nurse who had shown her around on her first day and introduced her to some of the people who didn’t get regular visitors.

  Miller smiled. ‘Been a bit hectic.’

  ‘Those murders,’ Joan said, dancing eyes turning worried. ‘Just horrific. I know Tamara’s mother. Went to school with her. Tragic.’ She shook her head. ‘Hello, Mr Appleby!’ she called out as a stoop-backed gentleman made his way down the hall. Despite Joan’s high-decibel greeting he didn’t seem to hear and continued on.

  ‘Anyway,’ Joan said, her voice lowering. ‘I was just saying to Stan, my husband, last night. When’s it going to end? Is he just going to keep killing?’ She shuddered.

  Miller made all the right noises, wishing she could tell Joan that he’d be caught soon, that it would all be over by Christmas.

  ‘Better be off, dear, got my rounds to do. Are you in to see Karl?’ Joan asked as they started walking down the corridor.

  ‘Yes, bought him in a copy of the paper,’ Miller said, holding up a copy of the Leader.