by Vicki Tyley
CHAPTER 44
Jacinta sat unnoticed in the middle of a row of vinyl-covered seats, that bowl of two-minute noodles in front of the television looking more inviting by the minute. Around her, the bustle of hospital activity continued unabated. A steady stream of medical staff, only distinguishable from the visitors by their identification tags and a general air of belonging or the stethoscope around their neck, passed by without a second glance in her direction.
A disposable coffee cup rested on the seat beside her, its contents gnawing a hole in her stomach. She stifled a yawn, collected the empty cup and, grateful for the excuse to stretch her legs, went in search of a rubbish bin.
She gave the stocky police officer on duty outside Craig Edmonds’ room a small smile, but he didn’t even acknowledge her presence, the corners of his mouth remaining down-turned. With Craig not long out of surgery, his visitors had been restricted to immediate family. She had hoped for a chance to talk with Narelle before the detectives did, but Narelle had yet to leave her husband’s side, and there was no way Constable Gloomy was going to let Jacinta past.
Down at the nurses’ station, she spotted Daniel deep in conversation with a tall, officious-looking woman. She nodded as he spoke, jotting something on the front of the file sitting on the counter. Tossing her empty cup into the nearest bin, Jacinta walked toward them, hoping to catch what was being said. Unfortunately, like a schoolteacher she’d once had, Daniel had eyes in the back of his head.
“If there’s any change,” he said, half-turning as Jacinta came up behind him, “please call me on my mobile.” Giving Jacinta a dismissive glance, the woman dropped the business card Daniel had handed her into her pocket and walked away, the file clutched to her chest.
“I just need a minute with Constable Grant, and then we’ll be away,” Daniel said, striding off in the direction from which she had just come.
Waiting for his return, Jacinta loitered around the nurses’ station, peeping over the countertop on the off-chance that information pertaining to the gunshot victim might have been left lying around. Over the years, she had become adept at reading upside down, but in this case, nothing viewable interested her.
Daniel was soon back, an edginess about him that told her he was keen to get home. Trotting alongside him, she wondered how Wendy coped with the unpredictable nature of her husband’s job, the long hours and call-outs seemingly so at odds with a stable family life.
Outside the hospital, streetlights and car headlights punched hazy patterns in the settling dusk. A light wind, carrying the last of the sun’s heat, tickled Jacinta’s skin. She breathed deeply, displacing the chilled antiseptic air of the hospital in her lungs.
They walked quickly, detouring around other pedestrians and sidestepping the occasional jogger or dog-walker coming their way, not speaking. Once at the car park, she followed him up the concrete ramp, the echoes of his heavy footsteps dominating her lighter clip-clop. Low light and looming shadows laced the car park, generating a flutter of irrational fear in her chest. She quickened her pace, intent on staying as close to her stepbrother as possible. Sixteen years earlier, it would have been the other way around, yet now here she was, looking to him as a protector, an irony not lost on her.
Rounding the corner, Daniel pressed the remote on his key ring, the resulting beep piercingly loud in the stillness. “We’ll call Wendy on the way,” he said, crossing to the car. “She wasn’t going to start dinner,” he glanced at his watch, “supper, until she heard from us. I can promise you it won’t be anything fancy,” he added, before Jacinta could protest. He laughed. “Don’t be surprised if it’s only baked beans on toast. Wendy gave up trying to cook meals for me a long time ago. If I’m there when she’s feeding the boys, all well and good, but if not, I usually fend for myself.”
Anything had to be better than eating on her own. Reassured that Wendy wouldn’t be going to any extra trouble on her account, Jacinta opened the car door and got in.
“Do you ever turn that thing off?” she asked as Daniel clipped his mobile phone into the cradle.
“Unfortunately, it’s part of the job. Fingers crossed it doesn’t ring again tonight.”
Jacinta waited until they had exited the car park and were heading down Commercial Road before she pounced. “Now, where were we? That’s right; you wanted my help and you were about to fill me in on the details of the investigation.”
For a few drawn-out seconds, Daniel said nothing. Then, clearing his throat, he began to speak. “Craig Edmonds, his wife, Narelle, and Grace Kevron are all people of interest to us. That’s not to say they’re all suspects, but we do need to eliminate them from our inquiry.” He took a breath. “That’s where you come in. The police can ask as many questions and use as many techniques as they like, but these people have all had years to bury their secrets. Your friendship with Narelle means you’re already a lot closer than we could ever expect to be. If you believe in her innocence, getting to the truth sooner rather than later can only be in her best interests.”
“Daniel, I understand that, but you haven’t told me anything I don’t already know. How am I supposed to know what to look for if you don’t tell me everything? I can’t work with only part of the information.”
Eventually he capitulated, addressing her as she imagined he would brief his colleagues. Starting with a background summary to the original Edmonds’ case, where Craig Edmonds had been charged with his wife’s murder – most of which she had already surmised from the trial transcript – he led her through the investigation up to Craig’s shooting.
If everything he said was true, the case was far from simple. And, whether he’d had time to rethink his position or he had decided he could trust his stepsister after all, he had probably just broken every police procedure in the book.
Her mind reeling, she leaned back in her seat. If she had known all the facts earlier, would she have been so keen to be involved? Up to the point when he told her the bullets recovered in the Toolangi State Forest and the one Craig Edmonds had been shot with more than likely came from the same weapon, she had been prepared, until it was proved otherwise, to write off everything else as a series of bizarre coincidences.
How she had possibly entertained that idea, she didn’t know. What were the odds on three women connected in some way to Craig Edmonds being murdered; a gold and sapphire cross owned by the last victim found in the vicinity of the remains of the other two?
After talking with their families, Daniel didn’t believe the women had been randomly targeted. Tamara Whitfield and Chandra Pinder had both been shot at close range. And, while both women had been extroverts, they had also been extremely security-conscious and would have been wary of any stranger. He felt certain they had known their killer.
“That may be so, but where’s the motive?” For Narelle’s sake, Jacinta prayed Daniel’s suspicions about Craig Edmonds were wrong. If Daniel was right, the cold-blooded murder of the two women cast the murder of Craig’s first wife in a completely different light. Had Craig, as argued by the prosecution, killed Kirsty in a drunken rage then, realising what he had done, disposed of the body? Or was it more sinister than that? Had it been premeditated?
“Sex. Lust.”
“What do you mean?”
“According to her sister, the first victim, Tamara Whitfield, had been besotted with some man. That’s all she could tell us, but because Tamara had refused to name names, her sister assumed he had to be a married man. At this stage, the rest is circumstantial, but I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. First, we know Craig Edmonds, a married man employed by the same firm, has shown he’s not averse to a bit of adultery. Second, he lied about how well he knew her. The Christmas party photo refutes his claim they were barely acquainted. Third, she wasn’t the only victim linked to him.”
“And I thought only journalists speculated,” Jacinta said, trying to follow Daniel’s chain of thought.
“As I said, it’s purely circumstantial, and o
nly one scenario. It doesn’t fit neatly into all the boxes, but nothing ever does. As police, we’re trained to look at everything, no matter how obscure or improbable, from every angle. From there, it’s a process of elimination.”
“What about the architect? How does she fit into this particular scenario? Another of Craig’s flings?”
“We don’t think so. Chandra Pinder was engaged to be married. I know that doesn’t preclude her from having an affair, but her mother and her fiancé both said she had been jittery in the months leading up to her disappearance. She thought someone was stalking her. Friends and family said she was flirty by nature, but perhaps that someone misread her signals. Is it possible Craig Edmonds became infatuated with his architect? Who knows?”
Closing her eyes, Jacinta kneaded her temples. “If that’s the case, who shot Craig?” She paused, dropping her hands. “Is it possible he shot himself to deflect suspicion away from himself?”
“Not unless he’s a contortionist with very long limbs. He was shot from the back, and the evidence is pointing to it being a drive-by shooting.”
“Grace Kevron has a car,” Jacinta said.
Daniel chuckled. “So do you. Don’t worry, we’ve already checked out that possibility. Grace is still tucked up safely in hospital, where she can’t hurt herself or anyone else. So unless she can be in two places at once, that rules her out. Any other suggestions?”
Jacinta clammed up, the lilt in Daniel’s voice making her think he might be winding her up. For now, she would keep her thoughts to herself.
CHAPTER 45
The taxi had left. Daniel and Wendy were probably already curled up together in bed, their sons sleeping soundly in the next room. Brett was hundreds of kilometres away in Canberra. She didn’t own a cat. Jacinta had nothing but her thoughts for company. And they weren’t much fun.
Light conversation over a delightfully simple but tasty supper of grilled open sandwiches of mozzarella, tomato and fresh basil had provided a welcome but brief respite from thinking about murder and guilt. Now, home alone with little to distract her, her earlier conversation with Daniel kept running around in her head, playing like an audiotape on loop. If only she could find the stop button.
Double-checking the front door lock, she headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. She drank half of it standing at the sink, refilling the glass before carrying it with her through to the bathroom. A few minutes later, she emerged fresh-faced and clean-teethed.
Intent on not being late two mornings in a row, she set the alarm clock for fifteen minutes earlier, telling herself the snooze button was out of bounds. Then, turning out the light, she scrambled under the covers, sighing as her weary head hit the pillow. She closed her eyes, expecting to fall asleep almost instantly. Instead she found herself staring at the insides of her eyelids, a black nothingness. She squeezed her eyes harder, hoping to convince her brain it was time to switch off. When that didn’t work, she tried counting imaginary white, fluffy, cartoon sheep. But as tired as she was, sleep evaded her.
With a resigned groan, she rolled onto her side and felt for the bedside lamp switch. Blinking against the light’s sudden glare, she retrieved her spiral-bound notebook and a ballpoint pen from the bedside table’s single shallow drawer and sat up. She knew the only way she was going to get any sleep was to clear her head. In the past, writing down her thoughts had helped.
For the next half-hour, she wrote furiously, dumping her thoughts on paper. When she read the jumble of words back, they made even less sense, but at least she had something to work with. She tore out the filled pages, laying the loose sheets on the bed in a semicircle around her, gazing at them as if expecting the answers to materialise.
In the middle of a fresh page, she wrote CRAIG EDMONDS in bold capitals and circled it. Then, in mind-map fashion, she added a series of boxes, connecting each to the circle with a solid line. She stared at the diagram for a while, and then began to add labels. She wrote ‘Kirsty Edmonds’ in the top box, inserting her sister’s name, ‘Narelle Croswell’, in the one at the bottom of the page. With the two wives taken care of, she then allocated a box to each of the first two murder victims, Tamara Whitfield and Chandra Pinder. Opposite them, on the right-hand side of the page, she added Grace Kevron’s name, leaving the box below hers blank. All these people were connected, but to what extent?
Using dotted lines and starting from the top, she added in the known links. Kirsty had been married to Craig, Narelle was her sister, Grace was supposedly her best friend, and she had been architect Chandra Pinder’s client. Because Jacinta wasn’t sure if Kirsty had known, or known of, securities clerk Tamara Whitfield, she inserted a question mark between the two names.
In fact, Tamara Whitfield’s only definite link to the group was she had worked for the same stockbroking firm Craig Edmonds had. Unless he had indeed been having some illicit affair with her, then it was highly unlikely Grace would even have known she existed, and the likelihood Chandra Pinder had known her would be even less. Narelle had told her that Tamara worked for the same stockbrokers as Craig, but claimed they hardly knew each other. Is that what Craig had told her? How long ago?
A possibility she hadn’t wanted to contemplate leapt out at her. She closed her eyes, thinking back to what Narelle had told her about the start of her affair with Craig. If she remembered correctly, the original affair between Craig and Narelle had lasted for about five or six months, breaking off about a year before Kirsty disappeared. That meant that for Daniel’s scenario to be right, Craig had to have been having an extramarital affair with not one woman, but two. Love square? Her mind boggled.
However, that didn’t explain how the next victim, Chandra Pinder, fitted in. True or not, affairs were consensual; stalking wasn’t. Narelle’s throwaway comment about Craig definitely remembering the architect because of her stunning looks needled Jacinta. Was it possible Craig had made a play for Chandra, not accepting no for an answer when she rebuffed him? Had he been such a philanderer that a wife and a mistress weren’t enough to satisfy him?
The diagram began to look like a warped spider web as, adding yet another dotted line, she joined Chandra’s and Narelle’s boxes. Like her husband and sister, Narelle had been acquainted with everyone on the page, with perhaps the exception of Tamara Whitfield.
Skipping the blank box, Jacinta moved on to the final one. With her pen poised, she studied the lines radiating from the box labelled Grace Kevron, connecting her to Kirsty, Craig and Narelle. Question marks hung over the remaining two. Because Chandra Pinder had been contracted by the Edmondses, it was possible but not certain that Grace, as Kirsty’s best friend, had met the architect. She made a mental note to ask Narelle.
That left Tamara Whitfield. Even if Craig had been involved with the securities clerk and Kirsty had found out, would she have told Grace about it? Jacinta had her doubts. As it was, Grace’s hurt at only finding out about the affair between Kirsty’s sister and husband at the murder trial, and not from her so-called best friend, was still evident years later.
Absent-mindedly clicking and unclicking her ballpoint pen, Jacinta stared unseeing at the end of the bed. Grace might have had it in for Craig and Narelle for what she perceived they had done to Kirsty, but what possible reason would she have had to want Tamara and Chandra dead? None that Jacinta could immediately see.
However, who was the mystery contact Grace kept alluding to? A journalist or someone with insider knowledge? News of Narelle and Craig’s marriage had only been published after Grace had found out about it. Moreover, how had Grace come to be at the Toolangi State Forest crime scene? Someone must have tipped her off.
Jacinta’s imagination ran rampant, conjuring up an endless list of possible, if not improbable, plots and motives. In her mind she could make anything fit, even briefly entertaining Grace’s notion that Narelle and Craig had been in it together, before dismissing the idea as ludicrous. Sisters didn’t kill each other. Besides, divorce would have been the simple opt
ion if the pair had wanted Kirsty out of the way.
More confused than ever, she gathered up the loose pages and jammed them together with the notebook and pen back into the drawer. Writing her thoughts down had had quite the opposite effect to the one she intended. Instead of clearing her mind, all she had done was shuffle everything around, making room for more sleep-robbing notions.
She glanced at the empty bed beside her, wishing Brett were there. Apart from missing him, sex never failed to put her to sleep. Hoping a warm cup of milky cocoa would go at least some of the way to having the same soporific effect, she padded down to the kitchen. Opening the fridge door, she half-expected to find Brett had drunk all the milk that morning, as he was inclined to do, but to her amazement, she found a new, unopened carton wedged in beside the one she had bought on the weekend and that was already virtually empty.
In the night stillness, the purr of the microwave as it warmed a mug of milk seemed magnified, the end ping ear-splitting. Even the clank of the teaspoon against the inside of the cup as she stirred in the cocoa sounded like she was bashing a toy xylophone. Tossing the dirty spoon into the sink, she lifted the mug to her mouth, inhaling the rich cocoa aroma.
She froze, a sense that something wasn’t quite right engulfing her. Then she heard what sounded like soft footsteps outside the kitchen window. Jacinta’s chest constricted. Her breathing tightened further. In slow motion, she set the warm mug on the kitchen bench and flicked the range hood’s light switch, plunging the room into darkness. For a few moments, she stood clutching the edge of the bench, the pounding of her own heart the only sound she could hear.