The Dark Series

by Catherine Lee

  “Thanks.” Cooper continued. “Rebecca Gilmore’s car was still at home this morning, but her purse and phone are missing. The husband is adamant she wouldn’t have gone out without telling him, so we’re working on the assumption she left sometime during the evening before he got home from the pub.”

  “He didn’t notice her missing last night, then?” asked Sammy Saulwick.

  “No.” Cooper explained Royce’s habit of sleeping on the lounge, the kids’ movements last night, and how no-one saw or heard from Rebecca after they left to go have their respective fun yesterday evening.

  “Maybe she decided everyone else was out, why couldn’t she go out too?” asked one of the uniformed officers Munro had seconded.

  “Yes, maybe. But she didn’t take her car, so we need to check public transport. You up for that?” Cooper squinted to read the name tag on the woman’s shirt, but couldn’t make it out.

  “Constable Salerno,” the officer helped him out.

  “Right. Thanks, Constable Salerno. Start with the taxi companies, I didn’t see any train or bus stops close to the house.”

  Salerno nodded and Cooper watched her make a note as he tried to remember what he was going to say next. He drew a blank, and was quite pleased to see Stocky enter from the back of the room.

  “Sergeant Stockton, do you want to take over?”

  Stocky strode to the front of the room, a piece of paper in his hand. “I think I’d better. There’s been a development. We’ve got a body.”

  6

  “Where?” asked a number of people in the room after hearing the word ‘body’.

  Stocky made his way to the front of the room, and Cooper stepped aside for his partner. He was as eager to find out about the body as everyone else.

  “Beside Devlin’s Creek, in the Lane Cove National Park. Apparently a homeless guy was out there with his dog sling-shotting birds when the dog ran off. He found it by the creek, pawing at what looked like a freshly dug grave. His words, not mine. He dug around with a stick and found her.”

  “Is it Rebecca Gilmore?” asked Cooper.

  “Don’t know yet. It’s fresh, it’s a woman, and it’s not too far from the Gilmore house, but we’ll need to wait for a positive ID, of course.”

  “How far is it, exactly?” asked Baker.

  “Roughly twelve to thirteen kilometres, depending on which way you go,” Stocky replied. “We’ll get a map up on the board here as soon as we confirm it’s her.” He turned to Cooper. “What are your assignments so far?”

  Cooper recapped the assignments he’d handed out, and Stocky added a few more to them. Now that they had a body, things would move faster.

  “I’ll get on the phones, get some more guys in,” said Munro, as if he was reading Cooper’s mind.

  Stocky finished up the briefing, making sure that everyone who was going to the crime scene knew the exact location. It was accessible only by foot for the last half a kilometre, so they were going to have to carry a lot of equipment in.

  “Someone from the coroner’s office meeting us there?” Cooper asked.

  “Garrett’s on his way.”

  Garrett Byrnes was one of the senior forensic pathologists attached to the coroner’s office in Glebe, and one of Cooper’s favourite people to work with. He was thoroughly professional, which was a bonus because not all of them were.

  “Right. We heading out there, then?”

  “My office first, you two,” interrupted Munro. Cooper and Stocky exchanged glances, then the two of them followed the Sergeant into his office and closed the door.

  “What’s up, Sarge?” Cooper asked.

  “It’s about Professional Standards, isn’t it?” said Stocky. He moved a stack of paperwork from a chair in front of the desk and sat down. Munro made his way around to his own seat, and Cooper remained standing.

  “It is,” Munro confirmed. “Look, this thing with the Cadogan case is getting bigger than it ever should. I’ve been hearing whispers, Stock. I don’t know whether you two should be lead on the Rebecca Gilmore case, not until all this blows over.”

  Stocky leaned back in the chair and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Fuck, Sarge. This is bullshit. They haven’t charged me with anything, and they won’t because I haven’t done anything wrong. That case was as clean as they get. No-one’s even bothered to tell me what this is all about. What am I being accused of?”

  “I don’t know, mate.” Munro leaned across the desk, shaking his head and spreading his arms in a placatory gesture. “You know as much as I do.”

  “You haven’t heard anything at all?” Cooper asked. “What about these so-called ‘whispers’?” Munro was usually across everything that went on in Homicide, and Cooper found it hard to believe he didn’t know at least something of what was going on with Stocky.

  “Nothing concrete. Sorry, Coop, but my usual sources aren’t working on this one. All I’ve heard is that it’s a big deal. I’m guessing that means there’s been a complaint of some sort from the family. We just have to hope if that’s the case that the media don’t get a hold of it. Anyway, we’ll know more once you’ve been interviewed on Monday,” he said to Stocky. “In the meantime, like I said, I’m not sure it’s a good idea for the two of you to be lead on the Rebecca Gilmore case. Stocky could be pulled out after Monday, and you’ll be left with the lion’s share of the workload, Coop. With the Adultery Killer looming, I’m not sure I want to put all that on you.”

  They both looked at Cooper, and he suddenly felt like all the pressure in the room was on his shoulders. He wasn’t the one about to be investigated for goodness knows what. But he knew what the sarge was getting at. If this body was Rebecca Gilmore, then it probably wasn’t the Adultery Killer, which meant he was still gearing up for his next kill. It was going to be a busy time.

  “What’s the alternative?” he asked.

  “Well I can’t give it to Davis and Saulwick, ‘cause Davis is in the same boat. So it’d go to one of the junior teams. Which is not ideal, I realise, on a case like this.”

  Cooper thought of Liz, already pissed at him because of his workload. This was going to make things worse immediately, not to mention when the AK made his next move. This job was killing his marriage. But the victims deserved justice, their families deserved some sort of closure, and putting a junior team in charge jeopardised that. He couldn’t let it happen.

  “We can handle it, Sarge. We’ve already interviewed family and friends. Let us continue as the lead team on this.”

  Munro’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he considered it, his gaze alternating between the two of them. “All right,” he finally said.

  Cooper nodded. “We won’t fuck up, Sarge.”

  Munro smiled. “What was your take on the husband?” he asked.

  “Got my eye on him,” said Stocky. “Never mentioned anything to us about an affair, but the wife’s friend says she told him about it yesterday. Then the wife ends up dead the same night? I don’t buy that kind of coincidence.”

  “We haven’t confirmed the body is her, yet,” said Cooper. He was keen to not jump to conclusions.

  “Fair point. Let’s get ourselves out there then shall we?” Stocky looked to Munro for final confirmation.

  “Yeah, go on,” said the sergeant. “I’m done with you. But make sure you show up for Professional Standards on Monday, Stocky. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”

  7

  “Well, it’s isolated enough,” said Cooper as he drove down the dirt road towards one of the many entrances to Lane Cove National Park, Stocky giving directions according to the map on the monitor in front of him.

  “Sure is. Not a bad place for a body dump.”

  “Not that great, though. She was found in less than twenty-four hours.”

  “If it is her. But yeah, they said the body was fresh, whoever it is. So I guess the offender didn’t know about the old guy who lives out here with his dog.”

  “He lives out here?�
�� asked Cooper, negotiating a bend in the dirt.

  “According to the first responders who interviewed him.” Stocky pulled out his notebook and flicked through the pages. “His name is Ben, wouldn’t give a last name. Officer… Keynes told me after a fair bit of questioning and reassurance that they weren’t going to evict him, Ben finally admitted to living in a tent about a kilometre west of the crime scene.”

  “So what was he doing when he found her? Or, sorry, when the dog found her? You said something about a slingshot?”

  “He uses it on birds. Says he mostly takes the Myna birds, a few others that are considered pests. He leaves the good ones alone, or so he says.”

  “He eats them?” Cooper asked, trying to understand how this man might be living.

  “Yeah. They ‘cook up real good’, apparently. Anyway, he and the dog were hunting, as they call it, when the dog got really interested in this patch of dirt by the river. Pull up here, we need to walk the rest of the way.”

  Cooper parked the car and they both got out. There was a cool breeze but the sun was unusually warm for this time of year so they both left their coats in the car.

  “How far?”

  “About half a k. This way.” Stocky set off, and Cooper tucked his notebook into his pocket, rearranged his shoulder holster and his Glock, then set off after his partner.

  “So how much of the crime scene did this Ben and his dog disturb?” Cooper asked once he’d caught up.

  Stocky shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

  They walked the rest of the way in silence, and Cooper noted the abundance of footprints on the track. Forensic Services must already be here, and it looked like they’d already made their first mistake. If this was the way the killer or killers entered the area, they’d just obliterated any footprint evidence. He hoped they hadn’t sent complete idiots out to process this scene.

  Cooper had seen more than enough evidence destroyed by the very people who were supposed to collect and process it. Contrary to how it looked on TV, crime scene analysis was a difficult process and one that was often fucked up. Unintentionally, of course, but fucked up it was, nonetheless. There were some good crime scene techs in Forensic Services, but unfortunately they were few and far between. And from what he’d seen on the walk in, they didn’t get a good one.

  As they entered the site, Cooper’s worst fears were confirmed. The lead forensic technician was walking around with a clipboard, and what suspiciously resembled a checklist. Cooper looked at Stocky, who just shook his head. The best investigators knew what they were doing, knew what was evidence and what wasn’t, and knew how to process a crime scene intuitively. If they needed a checklist, they weren’t very good at their job.

  Stocky went over to the shallow grave, where forensic pathologist Dr Garrett Byrnes was supervising the exhumation of the body. At least Garrett was here, thought Cooper. Hopefully that meant the body would be processed properly. Cooper let Stocky check that out while he sought out the lead forensic technician. The guy with the clipboard.

  “O’Hara,” said Cooper, reading from the man’s name tag. He held out a hand instinctively, then turned it into an awkward wave when he saw the technician was wearing gloves. “I’m Cooper, that’s my partner, Stockton. We’re Homicide, taking the lead on this one. What have you got?”

  “White female, looks to be late forties or early fifties. Buried in a shallow grave, not sure what whoever did this thought they were hiding. She would have surfaced in a heavy rain if the dog hadn’t found her first. Looks like she’s been stabbed.”

  “I’ll get all that from the coroner. What can you tell me about the scene?”

  O’Hara took a few steps to his left and pointed to a patch of dirt that someone had segregated with tent pegs and crime scene tape. “We’ve got a significant pool of blood over here, most likely this is where she was stabbed. They’ve tried to cover it up by raking dirt over the top, but, again, it wasn’t a very thorough job. We found it straight away.”

  Cooper took a good look at the blood-soaked area. “So she was killed here, and, what, dragged over to the grave?”

  “Looks like it. I’m guessing they killed her, then dug the hole and dragged her over to it. Put her in, filled it back up, as much as they did, and left.”

  “You’re guessing? Not really your job to guess, is it?”

  O’Hara looked sheepish. “No, Sergeant. But I’ve been studying criminology, and we’ve just been working on crime reconstruction. I thought I’d give it a go here. Sorry.”

  Cooper raised his eyebrows. “Criminology, eh? All right then, what else did your crime reconstruction tell you?”

  O’Hara’s face lit up. “I think it happened at night, and I think there was more than one offender.”

  “And why do you think that?”

  “Well, the attempt to cover up the blood was clumsy. Not all of it was covered. I think this indicates that it was dark, and the offender couldn’t see very well.”

  “It could also mean they were in a hurry. But go on.”

  “Right, yes.” O’Hara consulted his clipboard. “The first responders have obliterated most of the tracks coming into this area, but they stayed clear of this section between the blood and the body.” He pointed to the two metre stretch he was talking about. “We’ve eliminated the old man’s footprints, and there are still three sets left. One of them matches the shoes of the victim. The other two must be the offenders’.”

  This was interesting. “So you’ve got shoe prints for two people who are unaccounted for. You’re absolutely sure they don’t belong to anyone here now?”

  “We got the area secured pretty quickly. When I got here there were only the two officers on the scene, the ones who responded to the initial call out. I checked both their shoes, they don’t match either of the prints. I think it’s safe to say these belong to the offenders.”

  “Safe enough for you to stand up in court and say so? You might have to, you know.”

  “I’m aware of that, Sergeant.” O’Hara was starting to get testy now, and Cooper thought he’d better lay off the guy.

  “Okay, we’ve got two sets of foreign footprints at the scene, which points to two offenders. I’m assuming you’ve taken casts of the prints?”

  “My colleague is working on that now.”

  “Right. Good. So you’re thinking two offenders brought Mrs Gilmore — if it is Mrs Gilmore, but let’s just say for now that it is — two offenders brought Mrs Gilmore into the national park here at night in order to kill her. There are houses around here, O’Hara. How did they get her to go quietly? What must have been going through her mind?”

  “Maybe they threatened her somehow?” O’Hara suggested.

  “Yes, I expect they probably did. I would imagine she felt threatened, being out here in the dark like that. But how did they get her here? We’ll have to check with Garrett whether she had any defensive wounds.” Cooper was thinking out loud now. “If she didn’t then the only thing that makes sense is that she knew her attackers and came here willingly with them.” He turned back to O’Hara. “Anything else your crime reconstruction can tell me?”

  “Not yet, Sergeant. I’m still working on it.”

  Cooper nodded. Perhaps he’d been too quick to judge the guy. “Good work, then. Keep going, and let me know if you find anything else.” He joined Stocky next to the grave, hovering over Garrett who was carefully removing dirt from the lower extremities of the body.

  “What have you found out?” Stocky asked, and Cooper filled him in on O’Hara’s crime reconstruction theories. “Sounds plausible.” He pointed to the body, and handed Cooper the photo of Rebecca Gilmore they’d taken from the house earlier in the day. “It’s her.”

  Cooper studied the photo, then knelt as close to the body as he could get without disturbing anything. Her eyes were closed, and there was still a lot of dirt covering her face, but the body in the shallow grave was definitely that of Rebecca Gilmore.


  “She’s been stabbed multiple times,” said Garrett, turning to face Cooper as if he’d just noticed him arrive. Cooper stood, and Garrett lifted himself up out of the dirt as well. The three men made a small circle next to Rebecca’s body, and Cooper felt slightly disrespectful with his back to her.

  “Are there any defensive wounds?” he asked.

  “Nothing obvious, but I can’t properly tell until I get her back and cleaned up. All this dirt could be obscuring any number of wounds, defensive or otherwise.”

  “What does your gut say, Garrett?” asked Stocky.

  “My gut rarely comments at crime scenes, Detective. You know that.”

  “Come, on, Doc. You won’t autopsy her until tomorrow. Can’t you give us anything to go on with?”

  Garrett sighed. “There are some abrasions on her wrists that could indicate restraint.”

  “She was tied up?”

  “More like she was held. I think you might be looking for two offenders.”

  8

  Cooper took note of the roads on the way from the crime scene to the Gilmore house. Somehow Rebecca Gilmore travelled these roads last night to her death. Did she go willingly?

  “What do you think?” Stocky’s question broke into Cooper’s head. “Did the husband do it?”

  “Geez, I don’t know, Stock. That thing about there being two killers has thrown me, as far as the husband theory is concerned. It means he would have had to find someone willing to help him kill his wife.”

  “Plus get his mates at the pub to lie for him.”

  “Maybe. We’ll see what Garrett comes up with regarding time of death. He still could have gone to the pub, come home with a mate, and taken her out there later. The kids didn’t get home until, what, after midnight? Plenty of time.”

  “Still, I agree with you, it’s hard to believe he asked someone to help him.” Stocky paused as he changed lanes to get around a slow driver. “Besides, most domestic homicides happen in a moment of rage, usually at home. They kill the wife and then dump the body somewhere. The blood at the scene indicates Rebecca was killed at that location.”