I headed back to the lab to check on Darlene’s progress. She was in the middle of attempting to highlight a fingerprint on the aglet from the blood-stained hoodie.
‘I tried cyanoacrylate in the fume cupboard,’ she said. ‘It didn’t pick anything up. Now I’m adding a fluorescing agent.’
The fume cupboard was a way of highlighting latent fingerprints. The work was tedious and fiddly. It took someone with Darlene’s patience and experience to develop new ways to improve the technique.
‘If there’s a partial, you’re hoping ultraviolet light will show the definition?’
Darlene smiled, the full-dimpled version that was reserved for someone appreciating her ingenuity. ‘You so get me.’ Her attention quickly turned to the remaining specimens. ‘I’ll let you know the second I find something.’
Next stop was Mary and Johnny. They hadn’t made much progress on the IP address. I suggested they go home, get a few hours’ sleep and come back early.
Mary stood up and stretched her back, cracking the joints in her spine and neck. ‘You should grab some kip too,’ she said.
‘I’ll stay here on my office couch.’ It wouldn’t be the first time. Anyway, after the door being smashed last night, I’d be more comfortable if Darlene had someone with her in the office.
Johnny offered to stay but there was little point. He agreed to keep working a couple more hours, though. There was something important I needed to do.
I headed out to confront Eliza Moss.
Chapter 34
I PARKED BY The Rocks at Circular Quay and walked along the promenade. The night was clear with a slight hint of a breeze. Summer crowds were out enjoying the best of the harbour. It still amazed me how stunning the city could look, particularly at night with the iconic Bridge and Opera House lit up.
I’d lived in a few great cities but this one always felt like home.
It was almost ten. Eliza’s function would be in full swing. I was now calm enough to challenge her without emotion.
I breathed in the sea air and entered the Park Hyatt through the bar.
The noisy ballroom was decked out in full Mardi Gras splendour. Colourful streamers, ornate masks, beads and brightly coloured candles adorned the banquet tables. The residual aroma of spicy Cajun wafted from the ‘Spice Palace’ buffet as a jazz band played to a full dance floor. On the perimeter of the room, people jostled around carnival stalls offering temporary tattoos, fortune tellers and voodoo instruction. The atmosphere was electric, not the usual dull, charity event.
I spied Eliza at a table near the centre of the ballroom and wove my way through overly merry revellers. A street magician I passed seemed affronted that I wasn’t interested in his card tricks.
My client sat amid a sea of wealth, at a table with a couple of recognisable faces, and some barely identifiable ones thanks to overzealous cosmetic work.
She saw me approach and interrupted her conversation, without getting up.
‘You have news?’ Her piercing green eyes looked up at me.
‘We need to speak in private.’
A minion delivered her a glass of wine. ‘Things wrap up in about half an hour. Can this wait till then?’
I wondered what the hell this woman was playing at. She seemed more interested in holding court than finding her missing father. I didn’t like being used or made a fool of. She’d contacted Jack Morgan and misled both of us. Given she was going to profit in the event of her father’s death, she could leave her workers to ‘wrap up’ for her.
‘I need to see you in private. Now.’ I was sharp, exactly as I’d intended.
She suddenly seemed rattled. ‘OK. There’s a staff room we can use.’
As I waited, she pushed back from the table and led the way out of the ballroom – in a wheelchair.
Chapter 35
ELIZA TOOK US to a room provided for her event staff. A four-seater table and a television mounted on the wall were all it could accommodate. The TV was on with the sound muted.
Inside the room, she moved straight for a bar fridge and pulled out two small bottles of beer.
She manoeuvred to the table and offered me one. I declined and sat opposite, regretting judging her for ‘holding court’ when she was wheelchair-bound. Still, I was reeling from the day’s events with the non-existent Finches, and now the phantom Eric Moss. My pulse raced with anger at having been conned – again.
She twisted the cap of her beer and drank from the bottle before ripping open a bag of corn chips on the table. ‘Help yourself.’ She took a couple of chips and waited for me to speak.
‘There’s no word on your father.’ I placed both elbows on the table. ‘But you probably already knew that.’
She swallowed hard. ‘You must have something by now.’
‘I get the feeling I wasn’t expected to, given the “facts” you provided. About yourself and the man you call your father.’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘Are you serious? What’s got into you?’ She slammed the bottle on the table. ‘Is this about my chair?’
‘I don’t appreciate being lied to.’
She threw her head back and laughed. ‘That’s pretty rich, calling me a liar because I don’t wear my disability like some neon sign. Shock, horror. I acted normal and you treated me like I was. Now you sit there, all sanctimonious, accusing me of being dishonest.’ She looked me up and down, exaggerating every movement of her upper body. ‘We’re all disabled. You hide your emotional scars with swagger and self-importance. Let me guess. Your parents divorced, leaving you with commitment issues –’
My anger seethed. She had no right to lecture me on family. Attacking me just proved her dishonesty. I’d wasted enough time on Eric Moss, whoever he was. I stood to leave.
‘Lies have a way of unravelling.’ I didn’t bother to hide my irritation. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t find out the truth?’
‘You assumed I was like you. I just didn’t assault you with my differences.’ She took a few more, slow sips. ‘People treat me differently once they know. Case in point, you.’
‘This has nothing to do with your wheelchair.’
‘Now who’s the liar? Why is it an issue then?’
‘Because you and your father both seem good at covering up who you really are.’
‘If you want to know, I act that way so people will take me seriously. I wanted to prove to my father I was independent. It’s why I started my own business, to show everyone I could be a success.’ She gulped what was left of the beer and wiped her mouth with a serviette. ‘Well, actually, that part’s not entirely true.’
The comment took me by surprise. Judging by tonight, she excelled at what she did.
‘I have a Master’s in business studies and my resume landed me countless interviews. Only the moment a prospective employer saw the chair, they’d start mentioning someone they knew who had cancer, or a footballer who’d become a quadriplegic in an accident.’ She picked at the label on the bottle. ‘I could see them suddenly panic about insurance, workers’ comp, and whether the toilet in their inner-city terrace office would have to be refitted.
‘Now, I ditch the chair for meetings with clients so they treat me like an AB person.’
‘AB?’
‘Able-bodied.’ She made a point of enunciating the phrase.
‘Which is why your staff keep coming to you for signatures and advice.’ I felt foolish for misreading her manner. Even so, I still had to confront her about the lack of documentation for her and Eric Moss.
‘There’s something we need to get clear. Your father isn’t who you claim he is. He doesn’t exist in terms of Medicare, the electoral roll, or any other usual records.’ I ticked them off on my hands. ‘No passport, no bank account, nada, nothing. I couldn’t find a single identifying document.’
‘Really?’ She landed the empty bottle in the rubbish bin by the wall. ‘Tell me. How can someone as brilliant as Jack Morgan be so wrong about you?’
Chapter 36<
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ELIZA MOSS PULLED no punches in what she thought of my incompetence. I let her vent. In my experience, anger usually stemmed from fear or guilt.
‘Jack is not going to be happy,’ she said, scrolling down her phone contacts. ‘I need professionals to find him, not some two-bit amateur. He could have been in the fire for all you know.’
‘What fire?’
She looked exasperated. ‘You really have no idea?’
I’d been so caught up in the events of the day, I hadn’t seen any other news. ‘I’ve been working with the police on another urgent case.’
She pulled up a photo and held the phone so I could see. ‘It’s off Evans Road, between Katoomba and Blackheath. It made the news because firefighters were concerned it might take Jemby Rinjah with it. Luckily, it didn’t.’
I knew of the award-winning ecolodge that backed on to the national park. I took the phone. The cabin was a burnt-out shell.
‘They think it was arson.’
I scrolled through a series of photos. Surrounding bushland had been incinerated as well.
‘Who owns it?’
‘A friend of my father. Dad would go up there sometimes for the weekend, or take the occasional overseas visitor there. He loves all that area.’
‘Was anyone hurt?’ What I was really asking was if any bodies were found.
She shook her head. ‘Reports said no. I just don’t think it’s a coincidence. It’s as if everything he values is being destroyed. His job, his friend’s cabin.’
‘I’ll look into it.’
‘Don’t bother,’ she said. ‘I’m getting someone else.’
A TV news update caught my attention with the photo of a baby in pink. The commentary wasn’t necessary, given the Crimestoppers number scrolled on a loop across the screen.
Eliza looked up at the TV. ‘That poor baby and mother.’ She glanced back at me, and must have read the pain on my face. ‘How long’s she been missing?’
‘Eight hours,’ I answered, without looking at my watch.
Her tone was subdued. ‘That’s the other case you’re working on, isn’t it?’
I rubbed my neck again. ‘Let’s just say it’s been a full day and I can’t afford to be messed around. There’s no one with the name Eric Moss born anywhere near where you said, or when.’
She leant forward. ‘I don’t understand. That is Dad’s full name, date of birth. I even gave you his parents’ names, everything I knew.’
I watched her carefully for any hint of lies. ‘There’s no birth registered for Eliza Moss either.’
She threw her head back again. ‘You’ve investigated me? If you’d told me earlier, I could have saved you the trouble.’
Chapter 37
ELIZA MOSS TOOK a swig from the second bottle of beer before explaining that she was born to a teenage girl who worked in the canteen at Contigo’s rural base. The girl had no money or support and no skills to look after a child, let alone one that was – she used her fingers as quotation marks– ‘abnormal’.
‘In what way?’
‘I was born with an unusual neurological condition. My mother was pressured to put me in an institution. Eric didn’t want that to happen. He offered to pay for all my medical care, physiotherapy and even new trial therapies. Not long after, he adopted me and my mother left town. No one’s heard from her since, not that you can blame her. Unmarried mothers in rural areas were social outcasts back then.’
One of the women I’d seen earlier in Eliza’s office popped her head through the doorway.
‘Sorry, but I thought you’d want to know. After costs, the night raised …’
Eliza’s eyes widened. ‘Give it to me straight.’
‘A hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars!’
Eliza smiled broadly. ‘That’s brilliant. As usual, a great job done by all. And thanks for your help, Jules. You are a wonder.’
The colleague blushed, looked at me, then back at Eliza. ‘You may as well head off. I’ll finish up here.’
‘Appreciate it.’ Eliza slumped after the assistant left. ‘Where were we?’
‘You were telling me why I couldn’t find your birth certificate.’
‘The certificate had my mother’s name on it; the father’s name was left blank.’
As far as she was concerned, Eric Moss was her father. There was little doubt she also saw him as her saviour. Without him she may well have been left to rot in an institution.
I began to believe she had no idea her ‘father’ didn’t officially exist.
Chapter 38
ELIZA MOSS SEEMED blindsided by what I had to say. She explained that Eric avoided overseas trips. Even so, she’d assumed he had a passport. Her father had always been private about his own family and childhood but once talked about the accident in Echuca and his mother’s grief. He’d never mentioned it again.
Eric and Eliza had each other and didn’t seem to need anyone else.
In one of their holidays together, Moss hired a boat and crew. They sailed the Whitsundays for a couple of weeks and talked about politics, history and everything else but his past.
‘The few times I asked about his childhood, or even my mother, he’d fob me off by saying, “It’s not where you’re from that counts. Where you’re going and how you get there is all that matters.”’
Apart from a handful of trips and cabin visits, people usually travelled to see Moss in Contigo Valley. There they could see the facilities and equipment in action. Canberra was a favourite for the pair during school holidays. The museums, galleries and exhibitions were an easy drawcard.
It made sense that Moss didn’t have a passport. Even so, it was unusual for a CEO to negotiate major international deals without venturing outside the country.
A text interrupted. I excused myself to check. It was from Johnny.
Gone over Ruffalo’s and Simpson’s bank/phone statements. No leads so far.
I needed to relieve Johnny so he could go home. Darlene would be working for a lot longer. The broken door still unnerved me. I didn’t want my staff put at any risk.
I stood and pushed the chair towards the table. ‘I’m sorry but I have to go. Can we talk more tomorrow?’
She placed the second beer bottle on the table and nudged aside the half-eaten chips. ‘Of course. I hope it’s good news about the baby.’
‘How are you getting home?’
Those green eyes challenged me. ‘Would you ask an AB woman that?’
I had to concede, ‘Probably not. I just know how difficult taxis can be at this time of night.’
‘I have a room upstairs as part of the hotel package.’ She reached out her hand and we shook again. ‘Thanks for the thought, though.’
I felt like we needed to tread carefully finding Moss.
Eric wasn’t who he claimed to be and I had a bad feeling his daughter was going to be hurt when we unravelled whatever secrets he was keeping so well hidden.
I texted Johnny to go home and get some sleep. I’d be back in ten.
Chapter 39
JOHNNY HANDED OVER the Simpson file first. Thanks to Darlene, we had the data from Louise’s mobile phone and computer. There was no landline in the house.
Some days she made few calls, others were spent in a series of long conversations. Johnny had written ‘day care’ beside the dates they tended to occur. Louise’s brother, the compensation lawyer and her mother were frequent numbers on those days.
There were only occasional calls made to or from the phone after eight-thirty at night. All online activity usually ceased by ten.
Supermarket groceries were home-delivered every Wednesday. A single mother, she kept a routine. Good for the kids, but it made her predictable. And as a result, an easier target for a killer.
The husband, Vincent, had fallen from scaffolding on a construction site and died from a brain haemorrhage two days later. The insurance company alleged that a pre-existing medical condition contributed to his death. Vincent Simpson ha
d contracted hepatitis A while on holiday in New Guinea years before. His liver function was slightly raised at the time of admission. It sounded like a stretch to me, but insurance companies paid doctors big dollars to mitigate payments on medical grounds.
However, their strategy was more likely to be to wear down a widow pursuing a claim. Not torture and murder her.
Still, the payout could exceed three million. Johnny had included a printout of a newspaper article that mentioned the potential amount. That could have made Louise a target for extortion. What if the killer thought the baby was really Louise’s and the plan changed when she revealed Zoe wasn’t her child?
Possibilities raced through my mind.
Her internet settings were private, and she had less than a hundred ‘friends’ on social media.
I logged in with the password Johnny had guessed. The kids’ names and years of birth.
Photos of two smiling kids filled the posts, taken at parties, swimming and day care. In every one, she held the children close.
One image stood out. Her husband kissing her expanded belly. The comment beneath read ‘Missing Vince so much. Happiest time of our lives’.
I went straight in to Darlene to see if she had any results.
She was magnifying images on an electron microscope.
‘This hair sample is different from Louise’s. They’re both brown.’ She enlarged the slide further so I could compare them. ‘The longer one was broken off. No root. We could only get mitochondrial DNA from it. I took the other from Louise’s head. It will take a couple of days to extract.’
I studied the hairs. The broken one was more coarse, and thicker in diameter.
At this stage any DNA was better than none. If we could narrow it down to members of the one family, we’d exclude about four million people in the city.
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