Game Changer

by J K Nen

  Joan was last seen getting into her car following a yoga session at Lady Bits, an exclusive inner city studio. CCTV footage revealed nothing sinister. She entered the gym and left one and a quarter hour later. A check of her private clientele revealed nothing promising.

  Her body was dressed post-mortem in a Vivienne Westwood vintage gown, Alexander McQueen cardigan and Louboutin pumps. The killer posed her by the fireplace with a battery operated fake fire alight in the hearth. A single strand of faux pearls accompanied matching earrings.

  Dinner was set for one with antique European silverware. A basket of fake breads, a plastic rack of roast lamb, vegetables and fruit accompaniments served on fine-bone china. A bottle of Pinot Noir in a beautiful crystal wine glass. A single red plastic rose took its place of pride at the centre of the table. Dozens of flameless candles burned in little glass holders on the side tables and the mantle, casting an eerie glow about the room. A rug of merino wool, an antique dining table and chair set and other expensive furnishings decorated the room.

  The homeowner did not recognise the furniture nor the dinnerware.

  “I couldn’t possibly afford all that,” she admitted.

  Z killed them elsewhere and staged their bodies in empty homes. Logan wondered if he enjoyed returning to the scene to look at his handiwork. He certainly preserved the bodies well enough to enjoy the privilege.

  Although the nearest house was two kilometres away, neighbours swore they had not seen or heard any car pass by. Z likely brought her over by boat under the cover of darkness. A check revealed the sand leading up to the backyard had been swept carefully to obliterate footprints.

  The coroner found a note from the killer in her shoe.

  Time spawned her to pay homage to the Father from the Hearth

  Looking within for the fire to keep the Sanctuary

  Craving solitude in the wilderness belly of Mother Earth

  Wholeness being the core of her intuition

  It was signed Z. The toxicology report revealed large traces of date rape drug Rophynol, and ketamine, like other two victims. All women had been under conscious sedation, aware of every terrifying thing being done to them but powerless to do anything.

  Joan’s put together appearance concealed the terrible truth. Like the other victims, she was raped and sodomised, then had her private parts badly mutilated with a sharp object. Cause of death was hemlock poisoning via injection. Z then staged their embalmed bodies in empty houses. He was like the proverbial wisp of smoke, appearing and disappearing at will.

  As leads into Joan’s murder investigation dried up, Evelyn Winters vanished. The past two weeks were hell. The Winters, one of Australia’s wealthiest families, with political connections stretching far back to colonial Australia, leaned on the hierarchy who pressed investigators for new leads. To make matters worse, the investigation team leader was an incompetent idiot.

  Logan sighed. It seemed she caught more brain freezes than brainwaves. Surveying the spotless bathroom with satisfaction, she then rolled up the clean towels to stack on the rack. Chuck’s sudden appearance in the doorway so startled her, she let loose a string of expletives. Amused despite his bleary-eyed morning face, he raised an eyebrow.

  “Get the worm yet, Miss Foul-mouthed Early Bird?” he teased.

  She managed a wan smile.

  As Logan entered the bedroom, her phone buzzed on the bedside table. Damn! The meeting mode was still on. If Steele was calling this early, it had to be urgent.

  “About time too heh?” he said by way of greeting.

  She had missed a few calls, judging from his surly tone. He did not waste time. Evelyn Winters’ body had just been found.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sydney’s northern beaches were delightful in summer. Miles of powdery white sand, reflecting the heat as golden bodies baked in the sun, stretched on mats and deck chairs for miles. This morning though, Mona Vale Beach looked positively dreary. A chilly gale tore at Logan’s hat and trench coat. It was past six in the morning, but the darkness refused to budge. No wonder rates of depression shot up during winter, she thought gloomily, as she dug her gloved hands deeper into her pockets.

  The dumping ground was a double-storey beachfront home. The kind featured in Home Beautiful. Journalists, appearing unaffected by the weather, camped outside. Most wore winter woollies, accessorised with takeaway coffee. Logan did not envy them their jobs. A mad scramble ensued when someone recognised her. She quickened her pace, but not fast enough to avoid the questions.

  “DSS Logan, is it true that Evelyn Winters’ body has been found in that house?”

  “Did the homeowner have anything to do with the death?”

  “Who discovered the body?”

  “What about Adele Rose and Janine Maher?”

  Logan slipped into rote: “No comment.”

  A young uniformed constable held the door open for her. Adam Steele waited in the foyer. Had this not been a murder investigation, Logan would have walked around the house in admiration. Its skylight, furnishings all minimalist and white with touches of grey, brown and black. Occasional splashes of colour like a red cushion here, yellow vases there and large colour photographs of tropical locations. High ceilings allowed for cool breeze in summer and warm air in winter. A large stone fireplace added to the East Hampton theme of the home.

  From the French windows in the kitchen, Logan viewed the pool and the backyard. The dining room extended to a large glassed-in deck overlooking the ocean. Expensive landscaping gave the pool the appearance of a forest waterhole. Tall palm trees strained against the push of the fierce winds. In summer, it would have been an idyllic tropical retreat. The ghastly season seemed to cast its pall over everything. Logan crossed the deck and headed for the little trellis gate. Gingerly unlatching the gate, she stepped down the stairs to the beach.

  The jetty appeared forlorn. The shifting sands would not reveal much. As ocean spray hit her face, she withdrew back into the house.

  “Where’s Jonno?” she asked after their team leader, aware that this was not looking good for them.

  Jonno, aka Chief Inspector Ewan Johnstone, her lone-wolf, ass-kissing boss was stubborn in his refusal to share information even as the body count rose.

  There would be hell to pay. The first three victims had been successful well-to-do women, productive members of society. Homicide had not even picked up a single scent of Z. Evelyn Winters was the estranged wife of Ted Winters, mining magnate and political royalty. Heads would roll. The heat had just turned up fifty notches to find Z and unmask him, an impossible feat for the floundering investigation team.

  The press accused the police department of being “blind mice with their tails chopped off by a laughing Z.” Cartoonists enthusiastically illustrated the metaphors, to the chagrin of the hierarchy. The public wanted to know why their precious tax dollars spent on police salaries could not yield a simple thing like finding Z. Politicians pressured the top brass, who leaned on their officers, who in turn, squeezed their teams. The officers worked themselves into the ground.

  As Steele opined weeks ago, “Life at the bottom of the food chain ain’t comfy. You’re right at the bottom of the heap, you’re squeezed till your eyeballs bulge and your intestines pop out of your arse.”

  “What do you mean there were no witnesses?” thundered the brass at the hapless Homicide team of the Forensic Services Group. “We are in the Sydney Metropolis- this city never sleeps. Did the bodies get there by themselves?”

  Logan hated to think of what might happen if they failed to generate leads within 24 hours. She would probably get packed off to the department’s version of Scobie Malone’s fictional town of Tibooburra.

  “Who found the body?” Logan asked, studying the elaborate set up Z had staged for his victim.

  “The home owner,” Steele informed Logan. “He had to be sedated.”

  “Where was he?”

  “South Africa, shooting a documentary from what I could gather. The g
uy was pretty incoherent. We’ll talk to him again when he recovers.”

  “Anyone else live in this house?”

  No, he’s lives alone,” Steele replied, casting a glance about the house. “Man, you gotta earn some serious moolah to afford digs like this.”

  The coroner examined the body as technicians processed the scene. They stepped aside to let Logan through. Dr Rashed Singh turned to her, his dark eyes bright with unshed tears. Logan understood why. Evelyn Winters could easily pass for Singh’s daughter, Rani. Normally Singh waited at the morgue. Nonetheless, the increasing public furore forced him to be at the scene to process the bodies as soon as possible.

  “Poor child, he was just so brutal,” he sighed. “What kind of animal does this to a young woman?”

  Logan squeezed his arm lightly and leaned over his shoulder to examine Evelyn Winters on the gaudy, gilded throne. As her body thawed, Logan noticed a slight trickle of watered-down blood trek its way down the side of her mouth onto her jaw, then stained the white lace of her wedding gown. Her sightless eyes starred ahead. Evelyn Winters had truly been a gorgeous woman.

  “Miss Lisa, he left this under the cow.”

  “Thanks Doc,” she took the note from him with gloved hands and read it.

  Father won her over with little truth;

  But she got him back through the Little and Big Dipper

  She breathed vindication with bears and madness

  For unlike the others, she remains a Keeper

  Logan handed him back the note. Like the others, it was too cryptic to decipher. There would be no prints. A technician bagged the note.

  Logan knelt on her haunches in front of the throne to take a closer look at Evelyn Winters. Death did little to alter her beauty save the ashy pall of her skin. From the Missing Person’s Report her husband Ted Winters filed, they had lived apart for the past six months. She moved with her children into a new house she bought at Palm Beach. When Logan Googled her, she discovered an interesting piece of gossip. Evelyn dated a younger man, named Tyrone Taylor, a professional surfer and part-time model. Her gut told her he would be innocent. The men in all the victims’ lives usually were. Still, this would need to be verified.

  Z had to be the most prolific serial killer ever encountered to date. The profile put him to be a white male in his mid-thirties to mid-forties, extremely athletic given his ability to carry dead weight over long distances, and an adrenaline junkie for the risks he took. His expertise in drugs and human anatomy pointed to a medical background. He would be wealthy, as he had the means to buy his props, check out empty real estate to stage his dumping grounds, and use different forms of transport unnoticed. He left no trace evidence. The ease with which he moved within the confines of empty buildings suggested careful planning. Thanks to the CSI effect, popular television crime shows with DNA collected from every crime scene and bad guys locked up within the hour, give or take commercial breaks, criminals were smarter. They left little, sometimes, no trace evidence.

  All Z’s victims were single mothers, bi-racial or of darker-complexioned ethnicity, each with two children, with the girl being the oldest. All of the victims had had a prominent male figure in their lives at the time of disappearance, such as a boyfriend or a close friend. The similarity ended there.

  The women were diverse in the suburbs they lived in, income brackets, and careers. With varied extracurricular interests, no common lifestyle denominator linked them.

  Uniformed officers had begun knocking on doors for potential witnesses. Frustration mounted. Johnstone’s instructions were specific. No one moved until he showed up. As precious minutes ticked by, he remained missing. Logan’s calls went straight to voicemail. She sighed and put the phone in her pocket only for it to ring.

  Superintendent Aaron Nades informed her that Johnstone had been rushed to emergency with a stroke.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll live,” his tone was gruff.

  “I’m not worried,” she replied.

  Dislike for Johnstone was mutual. As his deputy, Logan was now responsible for Homicide.

  “So where’s Jonno?” Steele asked.

  Logan deadpanned, “Jonno caught himself a stroke from burning the candle from both ends.”

  “Is he dead?” Steele asked hopefully, and then adopted a prayerful pose. “Oh, do say yes, Logan. Pretty please.”

  She shook her head with a half-smile.

  “So it’s lights out for Jonno, which makes you the kingpin around these here parts,” he teased as a cheeky smile lit up his handsome face.

  With Evelyn Winters remains despatched to the morgue, Logan braced herself for The Visit. She would have to break the news to Evelyn’s elderly parents. Ted Winters would need to identify the body first. Then she would prepare the paperwork for the identification before the dreaded visit. From the master bedroom upstairs, she opened the curtains. Through the windows, she inspected the backyard. The southern end had the pool and the beach. The northern end had a rocky cliff face and thick shrubbery. Carefully cultivated native plants gave an appearance of a natural bush trek. Leaving Steele to continue the inspection, she stepped outside.

  Logan could not shake Evelyn Winters from her mind. Since her disappearance two weeks ago, her family kept vigil at her parents’ house. They appeared to blame Ted Winters, flatly refusing to be part of his media statements. He seemed not to care. His children were dropped off at their grandparents’ house every afternoon, then collected in the evenings. The children had a calming effect on their grandparents. Even this respite was temporary, Logan knew.

  Winters had returned from Perth when Evelyn went missing. He immediately put up a reward of one million dollars for information leading to Z’s arrest. The lines rang hot with mostly useless tips and crank calls. Now that she was dead, it would be interesting to see if the offer still stood.

  Evelyn Winters’ parents evoked sadness. Her children were young and they had their father. Their mother’s loss would always affect them, but they would adjust as children do. Their immigrant grandparents tugged at the heartstrings. When Logan first visited them to inform them of Evelyn’s disappearance, the old woman fainted, liver-spotted hands clutching her prayer shawl. She wondered how Mrs Farris would fare upon receiving news of her daughter’s death.

  Logan shook her head. She had to be objective. From the backyard, as she surveyed the cliff face, a grassy knoll caught her eye. She went to check. Tucked away from view by shrubbery, stone steps cut into the cliff face led to the summit. Logan, slightly-winded, reached the top. The view was stunning. From this vantage point, the killer could easily look into the master bedroom upstairs and the living room, kitchen and the backyard. Logan saw the CS technicians at work. The house was last in cul-de-sac, after which reserve parkland stretched for miles. The jetty looked forlorn. Z had brought in the body by boat.

  Steele called her. The Commissioner was here.

  Commissioner Veronica Castle, engrossed in conversation on her phone, leaned on the bonnet of her Mercedes Benz in the driveway of the house. Logan always felt dowdy around Commissioner Castle. Castle brought elegance to even the most ordinary uniform. Even now, in this gloomy weather, her hair and make-up were impeccable. She wore a cream pantsuit and a string of pearls. Diamond encrusted pearl studs in her ears and a man’s silver watch completed her ensemble. Starch-crisp pale blue shirt tucked into slim fit trousers, porcelain skin almost translucent, blue-black hair pulled back into a bun, the woman positively glowed in the winter morning light. Logan wondered how someone who lived under the Australian sun escaped its tanning effect. Castle’s beautifully manicured nails beat a tattoo on the roof of her car as she explained calmly to whoever was at the other end that there would be a press conference later that morning.

  The beautifully polished veneer belied an ambitious, intelligent woman. Castle was a progressive commissioner who fought for and got better conditions for her officers, increased the budget for more resources and in turn, introduced a community-poli
cing concept that correlated with a marked drop in crime rates. Until Z appeared.

  “I needed to see this place for myself for reference at this afternoon’s press conference,” Castle told her as she ended her call.

  She handed Logan a cup of takeaway coffee and a muffin.

  “I want this sick fuck caught, bound, gagged and preferably alive,” she paused to take a bite out of her muffin. “To be honest with you, I don’t care if he’s dead or alive by the time we get him.”

  Logan was mesmerised by the staying power of her lipstick. Castle, voted Career Mum of the Year, three years running by Woman Today subscribers, had married her high school sweetheart. Her two sons and daughter were bright teenagers. She had appeared in Celebrity Chef to teach Australia how to make her specialty, vegan lasagne in fifteen minutes. In her youth, she played hockey and represented Australia in judo at the Commonwealth and Olympic Games. She claimed silver in the Commonwealth and a bronze medal at the Olympics. She even found time to complete her master’s degree in forensic science and had various stints at the FBI’s Behavioural Sciences Unit at Quantico in Virginia. With her steady rise in rank, she was a consummate diplomat and darling of the media.