Casey paused for a minute and met Lexie’s eyes.
‘After the autopsy, Brad and Lexie will be speaking to this Zack Rogers. We’ll reassess our next course of action after that. Now, does everyone know what they have to do?’
The detectives nodded.
‘Well, let’s get to work. We will meet back here at 5.00 pm for another update.’
CHAPTER 14
Rex Donaldson sat at one of the four dining tables at Mazies Café, waiting for two things: the coffee he’d just ordered and the right time to deliver the envelope. From his position next to the window, he looked across the steady flow of traffic making its way along Bronte Road, and watched the entrance of Bondi Junction police station.
He was wearing the same outfit he had worn yesterday when following Sandy – black beanie, dark glasses and dark clothing that covered most of his tattooed skin, including gloves. He considered this the best way to ensure Lexie received the evidence without him being identified. He didn’t want her knowing where the photographs had come from. Not yet, anyway.
Rex had thought about posting the envelope, but that meant it wouldn’t get to her until tomorrow and he didn’t want it to wait that long. No, he would have his coffee, then walk into the station, place the envelope on the counter and get out of there, he had decided.
Having done his homework, Rex had found out the guy dealing to Sandy was a paramedic by the name of Zack Rogers.
Fucking arsehole.
Anger simmered just beneath the surface of his weather-beaten skin. He had the greatest respect for the emergency services. They had saved his daughter’s life and saved Lexie’s life, so to think this piece of low-life scum was using his position to distribute drugs to vulnerable women made Rex’s blood boil.
He could not get involved. He had his hands full with the job he was working on at the moment. The only thing he could do was pass the photographs on to Lexie to investigate. Because he knew she would. She was a good cop; a worker, smart, intuitive and enthusiastic, a breed that unfortunately was becoming almost extinct in this day and age. Rex hoped that no matter where Lexie’s career took her, she never changed.
Knowing too much about the hierarchy of the police department had left Rex more than a little cynical. Like many organisations it had its share of politics and bullshit. In his experience it seemed the higher some officers got, the more their memories failed. Those who had climbed the academic ladder, having hardly seen an angry man throughout their careers, often became obsessed with their own self-importance. Yet they were clueless about running an investigation. The amount of deadwood walking the corridors was shocking. The only top brass Rex respected were the guys who’d got promoted through dedication, experience and hard work. Lexie was diligent, ethical, and would go a long way, if the system let her.
She was also one of the only New South Wales cops who knew his secret.
A waitress placed a steaming mug of coffee on the table in front of him.
‘There you go.’
‘Thanks, luv,’ Rex replied, snapped from his thoughts.
Rex was about to take his first sip when he saw Lexie walk out through the glass doors of the station. He noted she looked good; fit and lean, possibly too lean. She was a striking figure, professional but elegant in her black pin-striped suit and heels. Her long blonde hair that was pulled into a low ponytail at the base of her neck twisted and twirled wildly in the wind. Detective Sergeant Brad Sommers, a big bloke who had been around forever, came out behind her and appeared to be struggling to keep up with her brisk pace.
Good, he thought. If she was on her way out to a job, there was no chance he would run into her inside the station.
Just then Lexie stopped. Turning her head to the right, she stared at the café, seemingly straight at him, even though he knew there was no way she could see him through the tinted glass. Still, it was unnerving. It was like someone had called her name and she had turned in response.
A moment later Rex watched her move off, walking along the pavement towards an unmarked police car. His heart rate settled momentarily until he saw her glance over her shoulder in his direction again.
What the fuck?
Was he just being paranoid? Going mad? Maybe she was looking at someone on the street outside, or something out of his line of vision. No, there was no doubt about it. Lexie had looked straight at the café, as if she knew he was in there. It didn’t make sense. Then again, there were lots of things about Lexie Rogers that didn’t make sense.
*
As soon as Lexie walked out through the station’s doors and into the street, she had the sensation of being watched. Taking a cursory glance around her surroundings, she noted nothing appeared amiss. There was the familiar sound of traffic and the buzz of people as everyone rushed along the footpath eager to get to their destination to escape the cold. It was just another ordinary winter’s day in Sydney’s beautiful Eastern Suburbs. So why, then, did she have that uneasy prickle at the back of her neck?
She dismissed the feeling as apprehension at the thought of the autopsy.
‘What are you looking at?’ asked Brad, startling her.
Without realising it, Lexie had stopped and was staring straight at Mazies Café across the road. Snapped out of her trance, she turned towards Brad, threw him the car keys, and then jumped into the passenger seat of their unmarked Commodore.
‘Nothing.’
Brad got behind the wheel. He gave her a questioning glance.
‘I’m driving, am I?’
Lexie nodded. Normally, being the junior officer, she drove.
‘I’m practising good time management,’ she explained. ‘I’ll ring Zack and set up a time for an interview while you drive.’
Brad was still staring at her.
‘What? I think the power of being in charge is going to someone’s head . . .’
Lexie laughed.
‘I don’t think so, sergeant. Maybe someone just can’t handle being told what to do, especially by a woman.’
‘Now don’t go all feminist on me,’ Brad retorted, starting the car and easing out into the traffic.
Lexie glanced out the window in the direction of Mazie’s Café again, still unable to shake the feeling she was being observed.
‘Why do you keep looking at Mazies? Are you hungry or something?’
Lexie was surprised at the question because Brad didn’t appear to be paying her any attention. She reminded herself that he missed nothing. That was one of the reasons she loved working with him. His radar was on constant alert.
‘No, unlike you, I am not continuously hungry. I got a tingle down my spine as if someone was watching me. You know how it is − that feeling as if someone has just walked over your grave.’
Brad shook his head.
‘No, I don’t. You are a freak. Besides, I’ve never understood that saying. How can someone walk over your grave if you’re not dead?’
He shrugged his large shoulders. Pulling up at a red light, he gave her a fleeting glance.
‘I think you’re just paranoid.’
Lexie hit the side of his thigh with the back of her hand.
‘I’m not paranoid,’ she protested.
If anyone else had made that comment, joking or not, Lexie would have been offended. After all that had happened to her, she was more than a bit touchy about being labelled paranoid; or worse, a liability.
Brad shrewdly changed the subject.
‘I noticed you didn’t mention anything about Dani’s place being broken into, or the red rose that was left on her pillow, during the briefing.’
Lexie shrugged.
‘I don’t want anyone to think I’m reading too much into a flower. Besides you are probably right. Just because our deceased was found clutching a red rose and Dani’s burglar left one on her pillow – not to mention cutting the heads off eleven others – doesn’t mean there is any link. It’s probably just a coincidence.’
The sarcasm dripped off her tongu
e.
Brad didn’t reply and Lexie busied herself punching Zack’s mobile number into her phone. They were travelling along Darley Road, past one of her favourite places and one of Sydney’s best known and loved landmarks, Centennial Park, a natural oasis within an otherwise densely populated and bustling city.
As she listened to the phone ringing, she glanced through the iron fencing surrounding the parkland. Lexie took in the greenery, the assortment of people pounding the walking track, the pushbike riders flashing past. She could see a group of people on horseback in the distance and longed to be one of them. Everything about the place reminded her of the many family picnics she had enjoyed there as a child.
Zack’s phone rang out and she tried again. This time on the third ring he answered. He didn’t seem surprised to hear her voice.
‘It’s Lexie, Zack.’
‘I know.’
That stumped her for a moment.
‘What do you mean, you know?’
‘You gave me your card the other day when we spoke. I put your number in my phone so your name came up on my screen.’
Lexie groaned inwardly. She didn’t mean for him to put her number on bloody speed dial.
‘Okay, well we need to ask you some more questions in regard to this . . .’
Lexie hesitated. She had been about to say murder investigation, which sounded a bit cold to someone who had known the deceased . . . intimately.
‘We need to ask you some more questions regarding Melissa’s death.’
‘You need to ask me more questions? I thought I answered everything the other day.’
He sounded put out.
‘Sorry,’ Lexie apologised, hating having to do so. ‘Something new has come up that we need to speak to you about.’
Zack sighed loudly.
‘I’m on a day off so I can come in now, I suppose. Only because you are asking me to.’
Lexie shook her head as she answered.
‘No, we’re on our way to the . . .’
Holy crap, she was about to say morgue. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t get her words right today.
‘Uh . . . We’re on our way out at the moment . . . to follow up some . . . inquiries. Can you come into the station later, this afternoon sometime?’
‘Okay. When?’
Lexie glanced at her watch and tried to gauge a time frame.
‘Come in around 2.00 pm if you can.’
‘All right. I hope this is the last time I’ll be needed.’
Lexie didn’t respond to his comment.
‘Thanks, Zack, I’ll see you then.’
She hung up quickly, feeling slightly unsettled.
Brad gave her a sideways glance.
In a monotone voice, he said, ‘Well, you handled that beautifully.’
Drilling a glare into the side of his head, Lexie couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Shut up, Brad. Just drive.’
CHAPTER 15
Brad could not stop laughing, much to Lexie’s annoyance.
They were standing in the police room at the city morgue waiting to be summoned for the autopsy on Melissa McDermott. In an attempt to dull the unpleasant aroma of the morgue, Lexie had taken a jar of Vicks VapoRub from the medicine cabinet at the station and dabbed an ample amount of the jelly under her nostrils. The strong eucalyptus fumes – usually used to clear the nose – were supposed to diffuse the smell of exposed organs and decaying flesh. It was an old trick, one that, unfortunately, she had never tried before. All it had managed to do was burn the skin on top of her lip and lubricate her sinuses to the extent that her nose was now running like a leaky tap.
Groaning, Lexie held a tissue under her dripping nose and glared at Brad, who laughed each time he glanced at her.
‘You look like Rudolph.’
‘Shut up, Brad,’ Lexie snapped through the Kleenex.
A man in scrubs appeared at the door. He gave Lexie a strange look.
‘We are ready to start,’ he told them.
Lexie and Brad followed him into the autopsy suite.
The formaldehyde smell of the place instantly hit Lexie in the face. With her totally clear sinuses it was worse than usual. Powerful disinfectant may be used to sterilise and mask unpleasant odours, but there was no disguising the smell of death that seemed to permeate the room. It was potent, all-consuming, almost like a presence from beyond, left to linger and inflicting vengeance on the living. You could taste it in the air; it infused the pores of your skin, your hair, took up residence in your clothing.
Just deal with it!
The forensic pathologist, a woman Lexie had not met before, was standing beside Melissa McDermott’s naked body. She walked over to them and introduced herself as Doctor Cindy Bradley.
‘Not Brady, it’s Cindy Bradley,’ she said with a surly pout.
Brad raised an eyebrow at Lexie.
It occurred to Lexie that although people might get this woman’s name mixed up with the youngest one in curls from the seventies TV show The Brady Bunch, there could be no confusion in terms of their appearance. Doctor Bradley was a matronly woman with straight dark hair pulled severely off her long face and secured at the back of her head in a bun. She wore no makeup to enhance her ordinary features. She was tall, moderately overweight, with a no-nonsense manner and stern expression. And right now, the way Doctor Bradley’s tiny eyes were assessing Lexie made her more than a little uncomfortable.
‘Are you okay?’ the doctor asked, though her words sounded more like an accusation than a question.
For a moment Lexie was confused. Then she realised the forensic pathologist was staring at her hand cupped under her nose.
‘Um, yes I’m fine. Just have a bit of a . . . cold.’
Brad sniggered. The doctor shot him a look that had her partner almost standing to attention.
Doctor Bradley disappeared to confer with a colleague on the other side of the room. Brad took the opportunity to bend sideways and whispered in Lexie’s ear, ‘Happy soul, this one. I’ll see if I can get her to smile.’
Purely for the sake of amusement, Brad liked to give himself little challenges. Lexie gave him a warning look and then moved to grab a set of scrubs from the far bench. She handed a pair to Brad before getting suited up herself. Her hands fumbled with the ties on the back of the gown as they walked towards the autopsy table.
Doctor Bradley was ready to get started.
Lexie looked down at the body of Melissa McDermott, laid out for dissection, and thought it strange that she seemed smaller in death than she remembered her to be in life. Her head was propped upon a black rubber block. Her skin looked waxy and slightly purple in places where blood had settled under the skin. Lexie might not know all the medical terms, but she had seen enough dead bodies to be familiar with the process of death.
She tried not to think of her handsome brother’s lifeless body in this position but the thought kept running around in her mind. Lincoln had lain here. Then she remembered her own brush with death. It could have been me lying here.
The doctor flicked a switch on a recorder and began talking aloud while her eyes did a thorough examination of the deceased’s skin.
‘Earlier X-rays show she has a dislocated shoulder and broken humerus, both on the left side. There are a few scratches and lacerations to her face and neck area but besides that there is no other obvious trauma to the body. Near her right shoulder area, at the base of the neck, there is a fresh injection site.’
The doctor motioned with her hand for Lexie and Brad to come closer and examine it.
The area was tiny. There was a slight discolouration, like the beginning of bruising, on the skin.
‘Strange,’ said Doctor Bradley, pausing for a moment. ‘I had a case similar to this a while ago but that was a suicide.’
Brad whispered something in Lexie’s ear. She didn’t catch his words but Doctor Bradley glanced up and gave them a look that would scare even the dead.
‘Sorry,’ Brad w
hispered, taking a step to the side, away from Lexie.
‘As I was saying . . . I thought it was a strange place to self-administer an injection, that’s why I remember it. That girl was left-handed, so it was feasible she could have done it herself. It was still strange, but she was mentally unstable so . . .’
The doctor’s voice trailed off.
It seemed you could dismiss any kind of behaviour or actions if the person was mentally ill.
‘Could the victim have been given a hot shot?’ Lexie asked. It seemed like the most reasonable explanation.
‘It’s possible. Judging from the more defined muscles in her right arm, I would say she was right-handed. It seems unlikely she would jab herself in that area. You try it. It’s awkward.’
Lexie did try it. Making a mental note to find out for certain if Melissa McDermott had been left- or right-handed, she used her own right hand to simulate jabbing herself in the right side of the base of her neck.
Brad watched her with amusement.
‘Playing devil’s advocate, it is possible, albeit difficult and improbable,’ Lexie said.
Doctor Bradley continued. ‘I would say someone has injected her, perhaps to knock her out – such as in a date rape situation – but has perhaps accidentally administered too much. Or, as you suggest, it was a hot-shot, an intentional overdose.’
Just then, Mark Byrne, the senior crime scene officer, came hurrying into the room with his camera in hand. Puffing and panting, he stuttered an apology.
‘Sorry I’m late; I was held up at a crime scene,’ he said, before quietly taking a position at the end of the table.
Doctor Bradley was not impressed.
‘Don’t let it happen again. You have caused a disruption’, she scolded, reaching for the Stryker saw.
Mark pulled a grim face at Lexie and Brad.
Lexie felt sorry for him and could feel his frustration. At her first autopsy, a very arrogant forensic pathologist had told her that his job was that of an academic detective. He presented objective evidence from his witnesses – who just happened to be dead. Therefore, it was highly unlikely that Cindy Bradley, or any doctor for that matter, would walk out in the middle of an autopsy, while building their brief of evidence. So why, then, did Doctor Bradley expect a forensic police officer to desert a crime scene in the middle of an examination? It seemed that even though different professions worked together for a common purpose, they would never fully understand each other.
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