"Yeah, fair enough," said Cooper. "We'll head over there and see them shortly."
"Anything I can do for you?" asked Adams.
Cooper pointed to the sealed evidence bags. "Can you get those on the next plane back to the mainland? They need processing, and Zach says he doesn't have the right equipment here. The lab's expecting them."
"Sure, no problem. Anything else?"
"No, we're good for now." Cooper looked out the front window and saw a gathering crowd. "Looks like the plane has arrived," he said, spotting a few familiar media faces in the group. "Maybe you'd better get over to the house, that's where most of them will be. Set up a perimeter, see if we can give the contestants at least some privacy. These next couple of days will be hard enough for them. I'll give a no comment statement here."
"Sure," said Garry. "You still need the Land Rover?"
"No, you take it. Quinn has the keys. We'll be all right on foot."
As Sergeant Adams exited via the back door, Cooper went out the front. He gave a short 'no comment on an ongoing investigation' statement, but added that anyone with any information should contact the Lord Howe Island police station. He retreated inside, where Quinn was waiting.
"Ah, should we lock up, boss?"
Cooper hadn't thought of that when he'd sent Adams off to the house. He'd never been last to leave a police station before. Back home in Sydney there was always someone there. "I guess so. Was it locked when you got here this morning?"
"Yeah." Quinn pulled a piece of paper off the printer, then they went out the front door, locking it behind them.
"That the warrant?"
Quinn answered with a nod and handed the paper to his partner. Cooper scanned it; the warrant requested details from the local chemist of anyone who'd filled a prescription for Donnatal in the last ninety days.
"Where's the chemist?"
Quinn pointed across the road.
14
A bell rang when Cooper opened the door to the chemist, and he was pleased to step into the air-conditioned space. The afternoon heat had turned him into one sweaty detective.
The chemist was small, but from what Cooper could see it was well-stocked. Shelves were packed tight together and brimmed with all manner of medicines. A raised platform in the back was signposted as the prescriptions area, and was occupied by a young man in a white lab coat. He finished what he was doing and stepped down to greet them.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"Detectives Cooper and Quinn. We're investigating a death here on the island. Are you the chemist in charge?"
"I am. Rick Larsen." The man extended a hand, and Cooper shook it. "What can I do for you?"
Cooper pulled the warrant out of his pocket and handed it over. "We need to know if any of your customers filled a prescription for this drug in the last ninety days."
Rick took his time reading the warrant. "This makes it legal for me to give you that information?" he finally asked.
"That's what it's for, yes."
"Sorry, I've never seen a warrant before. We don't get much trouble out here. I'll just check the computer for you. Won't be long." Rick went back into the prescription dispensary area, and Cooper motioned for Quinn to follow. Not that he didn't trust the guy, it was just that everything seemed so insular in this community. Everyone knew everyone. Cooper couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
It might make his job harder, but Cooper enjoyed the relative anonymity of the city back home. He lived in a neighbourhood where people knew each other and were friendly, but didn't know too much about each other's business. And you could drive for fifteen minutes and be in the heart of the city where you were completely anonymous. If you wanted to be, that was.
Cooper looked out the window and across to the town square about a hundred metres away. Families were congregating in shady spots, kids playing, adults enjoying a coffee or cold drink. Island paradise it might be, but Cooper found himself longing for the familiarity of home. If he was feeling this way after only a day, how must the contestants be handling it after nine weeks? He understood their desire to get home a lot clearer all of a sudden.
This case was a strange one. Nine weeks together filming a reality show, by all accounts the most popular show in the country. Nine weeks in the same house, with the same people, in an isolated part of the world. Personalities had clashed, as the show's producers had no doubt hoped they would. But murder? Out here? It didn't make any sense.
Cooper wanted to solve this case as fast as possible, for the sake of the contestants who just wanted to go home. But he owed it to the victim to find out the truth, and bring her killer to justice. It was looking more and more difficult, though. He couldn't help but feel this island, this community, was hiding something. Was the television show responsible for Zara's death? Or the island?
His thoughts were interrupted by Quinn, printout in hand.
"You got a list?" Cooper asked expectantly. Maybe this would be the break they so desperately needed.
"It's not so much a list, as one name," Quinn replied. "There's only one person on the island using Donnatal."
"Who?"
"Sergeant Garry Adams."
15
They found Zach and Nora back at the resort in a dark room overflowing with monitors and keyboards. Zach looked right at home, mouse in one hand, the other flicking across a keyboard, eyes darting from screen to screen. Nora was doing much the same at a workstation by his side, and Cooper found himself briefly wondering whether theirs was more than just a working relationship. He put it out of his mind, none of his business.
"How are you going here?" he asked. They both stopped what they were doing and turned around, and as they did Cooper noticed a third person in the room. He'd been bending down adjusting some power cables, and stood straight when Cooper spoke. "Sorry, didn't see you there. You must be Brandon." Cooper held out a hand, and it was received by a small, slender, slightly clammy one that completely matched its small, slender owner. Brandon would not be winning weight-lifting contests any time soon.
"Good to meet you." The voice was deeper than Cooper expected.
"You too. Thanks for looking after our team here."
"No problem. You really think Zara was murdered?" Brandon didn't waste any time.
"It's been confirmed. You know anything about it?" Quinn and Adams had already interviewed Brandon this morning, another who claimed to have been tucked up in bed at the time of the murder, but Cooper liked to throw questions at people when they weren't expecting it.
Brandon took a step backward and nearly tripped on the cable he'd just been fiddling with. "Me? No. What would I know? I've spent every waking hour in this room for the past two months. I've never even been out to the house, except when we first arrived. We got an orientation tour of the island, and checked out the house before the contestants moved in. But since then I've been in here, watching them on screen."
Cooper caught a glance from Nora, and he knew what she was thinking. It would be creepy if it wasn't his job. Brandon was being paid to stalk the contestants in the name of reality television. Cooper noticed the images up on the screens for the first time, contestants going about their day, their routines, their lives. Thinking of Brandon and his colleagues in here day after day, watching, deciding what to share with the nation, made him feel slightly unclean. He could tell Nora felt it as well.
"Brandon, do you know where to get good coffee around here?" Cooper asked.
"There's a machine in the hall, but it's pretty ordinary. The best is the cafe down the street, Ocean View."
Cooper pulled a twenty out of his pocket, gave it some thought, and added another ten. He handed the notes to Brandon. "Would you mind going over there and getting us a round? One for yourself, as well."
Brandon shrugged. "Sure. What does everyone want?"
They all put in their coffee orders, and Brandon shoved the notes in his pocket and left. He seemed keen to get out of the makeshift editin
g room.
Cooper found a light switch and flicked it on. "That's better," he said. He and Quinn pulled a couple of chairs over to Zach and Nora, and the four of them formed an informal circle. "What's his story?" Cooper asked, nodding towards the door.
"Brandon?" said Zach. "He seems okay. Assistant Editor on a popular TV show sounds like a good gig, but according to him it's not all it's cracked up to be. You heard him, he spends all day every day in here watching people on these screens. It'd drive you crazy after a while."
"Crazy enough to kill someone?" Cooper asked.
"Nah," said Zach. "Brandon just wants to go home, I reckon. He seems okay to me."
Cooper looked at Nora, who nodded. "Yeah, he's okay," she said. "His job's creepy, but I don't think he is."
"Fair enough. Right, let's see if we can do a recap of what we know so far before Brandon comes back. Let's start with an overview of the situation. Joe?"
"The victim is Zara King, twenty-eight years old, lives in Surry Hills, Sydney. She'd been a contestant on the reality television show Transformation in Paradise for nine weeks before her murder in the early hours of yesterday morning."
"Garrett put time of death between midnight and four am," Cooper clarified.
"Yes. The autopsy revealed she was suffocated, with no sign of a struggle," Quinn continued. "Nor was there any indication of sexual assault, or any kind of sexual activity prior to death. Deadly nightshade drugs have been found in her system, not enough to kill, according to Garrett, but enough to subdue her."
"So we're concluding that whoever did this drugged her first, then suffocated her?" asked Nora. "Why the need for the drugs?"
"So she wouldn't fight back?" Cooper speculated.
"Maybe we're looking at someone who didn't have the confidence in his or her own strength to get the job done," said Quinn.
"Either way, this was a planned kill," said Cooper. "Whoever gave her the drug would have had to wait until it had taken effect before finishing the job." He paused as a thought occurred to him. "Do we know for sure she didn't take the drug herself?"
"We didn't find any prescription medications in her room," said Nora.
"I asked Maeve Singer if Zara was on any medications," said Quinn. "She said she didn't know. That information was between the contestants and the doctor."
"There's a doctor as well?" asked Cooper.
"All the contestants were thoroughly checked over by the production company's appointed team of doctors before they were accepted for the show," Quinn said. "Due to the isolated nature of the production, they didn't bring any of their own doctors out here full-time. They had one of them come over for the first few days, and he briefed a local doctor who's been providing continual care for the contestants. The show's psychologists were also providing care, of course, but they all went home on Saturday."
Cooper sighed. "We're going to need to speak to that local doctor."
"I've got his details," said Quinn.
"All right. Let's look at opportunity. Zara was murdered in her room. There are no cameras upstairs, and no locks on the bedroom doors, so any one of the other five contestants could have accessed her room at the time of the murder."
"They could also have slipped the drug into her food or drink," added Nora.
"Right. So those five are top of our list. Who else had opportunity?"
"Every other person on the island at the time, boss," said Quinn. "We can't be sure whether the back door on the balcony was locked on Saturday night. There's that back staircase leading up to the balcony, and the cameras don't adequately cover the route. Anyone could have slipped in there unnoticed, especially if they knew where the only camera on the balcony was. It's easy enough to avoid."
That was something that hadn't made any sense to Cooper. Why have a house with cameras all over the place if you're not going to cover one of the entrances? He said as much to the team.
"Because the cameras aren't there for security," said Zach. "They're there to capture the interactions between the contestants. They focus on the common areas, and out on that balcony the common area is the huge table. It's at the other end to the doors."
It made sense, but it certainly didn't help their case. "Okay, so our suspect pool is every bloody person on the bloody island. We're going to have to focus on motive. Let's look at the five contestants first."
16
"Who do you want to start with?" asked Quinn. There was no whiteboard in the room, but he'd found a couple of large sheets of paper and taped them together as a makeshift board.
"Let's look at Lucas Chan first," said Cooper. "He's the one who was romantically scorned by Zara. He says it wasn't a big deal, he was only playing to the cameras, but I got the impression he was after more than that. I think his feelings were hurt."
"He's the one with the temper, right?" asked Zach.
"Yes," said Cooper. "Plus he's quite a big guy, even with all the weight he's supposedly lost. He could easily have subdued Zara and suffocated her."
"Then why drug her?" asked Nora. "He sounds like the kind of guy who would act on impulse, rather than planning."
"Nora's right," said Cooper. "Lucas Chan doesn't fit with the planned aspect of this murder."
Quinn made a note under Lucas's name on the paper, and they moved on.
"Ivy Lennox," said Cooper. "She never liked Zara, by her own account. Plus, there's the compulsive lying Martha told us about." Cooper turned to Nora. "See if you can spot any of that when you view the recordings of the show."
Nora nodded and made a note for herself. "Not liking someone isn't much of a motive for murder, Coop. Do we have anything more specific on Ivy?"
Cooper shook his head. "Not really. I get the feeling she's someone you don't want to get on the wrong side of, though. And she's desperate to win the money. A million dollars is a pretty decent motive."
"You think she may have killed Zara to get her out of the way? One less person to compete with?" asked Quinn.
"It's not impossible," Cooper replied.
"But how could she even be assured the program would go ahead?" said Nora. "I mean, the death of one of the six remaining contestants is surely grounds for them calling the whole thing off, isn't it?"
"Not so far," Cooper answered. "They're still filming. Obviously word has got out about her death, the journos arrived this morning. What's being said back home?" Cooper looked to Quinn, who he figured would be across it all.
Quinn shrugged. "My phone's as useless as yours out here, boss."
Zach scooted his chair back to one of the screens he'd been glued to when they came in. "Got a landline connection in here. Hold on a sec." He pulled up a news website and scanned the stories. "Here we go. Yep, looks like the show must go on. There's a bit of backlash from people who don't watch it, but it seems most of the people who do watch want it to continue. It's what Zara would have wanted, they're saying."
"Funny, that's what Ivy said, too." Cooper took a quick look at the article over Zach's shoulder. "I guess there's money in murder."
"Do they know it's murder yet?" asked Quinn.
"Yes, according to this story," said Zach. "'An undisclosed source close to the show has revealed the police are treating Zara's death as suspicious,'" he read. "Any idea who their undisclosed source might be, Coop?"
"My guess would be Maeve Singer. As much as she pretends to care about the contestants, she's all about the show. It wouldn't surprise me if it was her. Or someone else on the crew. Hell, it doesn't really matter. Twenty-eight year old with no apparent health problems drops dead on the set, of course we're going to investigate. It doesn't take a genius to make the leap to suspicious. They may be sorry she's dead, but I think they're capitalising as much as they can."
"No such thing as bad publicity," said Zach.
"Correct. Let's get back to our suspects. Ivy was jealous of Zara's contacts in the music industry, and it seemed Zara had no intention of helping Ivy out with introductions once they were back home. So
maybe Ivy decided to take the matter into her own hands. She would have known Zara's death would mean higher ratings for the show, and more exposure for her, not to mention shortening the odds for her chance of winning the million dollars. I don't think we can discount Ivy Lennox from the suspect pool based on motive."
Quinn made a note to that effect under Ivy's name on his makeshift whiteboard, then added Dax Collins to the list.
"You can't say the same for Dax," said Quinn. "He's sorry he ever came on the show, isn't he?"
"Yeah," said Cooper. "He just wants to go home. But Zara teased him quite a lot. Maybe she pushed him over the edge one day?"
Nora shook her head. "I can't see it, Coop. Not from what I've seen of him in these recordings so far. He's scared of his own shadow. I don't think he's capable of even planning a murder, much less carrying it out."
"I think you're right," said Cooper. Let's pencil a line through Dax. He's not our guy."
Quinn did as instructed and added the next name to the list. "Jerome Kokinos," he said. "You didn't tell me much from his interview. What's his story?"
"Jerome. Now there's a mystery. Like Dax, I don't think Jerome is the murdering type. But I do think he knows something. Maybe he heard something that night, and is scared to speak up. I don't know, but there was something off about him when I interviewed him this morning. He was nervous as hell."
"Did he give you a reason for the nerves?" asked Nora.
"He said he was still feeling unwell. He said he'd gone to bed early on the Saturday night, as he wasn't feeling well, and that has apparently continued through to today. He says it's nerves about going home, but I'm not so sure."
"I thought they all wanted to go home?" said Zach.
"All except Jerome. He's come out on the show, and he's nervous about confronting his family back home. I get the feeling he'd stay here if he could."
"What's his motive for killing Zara?" asked Quinn.
C&Q04,5 - Dark Paradise Page 7