Beth figured it would be okay for her to be late for work tomorrow. David had done his best to lighten her load, so she didn’t have anything that needed her urgent attention.
“Nine will be fine, I’ll see you there.” She ended the call, but instead of joining the family back at the table she went to the kitchen and started making coffee. More to this than she realised, that’s what he’d said. What could that mean? What had Jill dug up in the Fisher’s past?
12
Cooper was in the office bright and early Tuesday morning, eager to get to work. Yesterday had been Jill Fisher’s funeral, so they hadn’t been able to interview Robert and David Fisher as planned. Instead, he and Quinn had spent most of the day researching the company, and with Zach Ryan’s help, investigating whether they’d been involved in any illegal dealings in the past. Nothing had come up about Fisher & Co, things were squeaky clean there. But what they’d uncovered about Robert Fisher was enough to put the spotlight firmly on the head of the family.
“Let’s get busy,” he said, as Quinn walked over and handed him a takeaway coffee cup. The kid refused to drink the station stuff, which was fair enough. Cooper didn’t mind it, but he also didn’t say no when Quinn did a coffee run and brought him back a flat white. He must have found a good local barista, the coffee was always nice and hot and strong.
“Anderson and Baxter are on their way, boss. Just saw them downstairs. There’s been a house fire overnight. One dead is the report.”
“Do you know who’s got it?” Cooper felt sorry for them, whoever it was. Fire deaths can be a nightmare to investigate.
“Davis and Saulwick, by the sounds of it. Do you think we could get out there, take a look?”
“Trust me, Joe, you don’t want to. You can wait to see your first fire death. We’ve got work to do here.”
Anderson and Baxter came into the room then, and they all took seats. Cooper was anxious to hear how they went at the funeral yesterday.
“Mostly family, a few people we didn’t recognise,” said Anderson. “There was a group who turned out to be university friends, none with any significant record. It was pretty standard, as funerals go. There’s a lot of money in that family; no expense was spared.”
“Well we knew that. Right, moving on. Quinn and I did some digging yesterday and found this.” He put a photograph of a middle-aged woman on the whiteboard, next to Jill Fisher, along with a copy of a newspaper article. “This is Annie Fisher, Robert Fisher’s wife. She went missing fifteen years ago. No trace was ever found.”
Anderson came in for a closer look at the photo. “I remember that case,” he said. “I was stationed out at Rose Bay, my first posting out of the academy. I remember because there was talk of her maybe going over the Gap, but there was no body.”
Cooper had been called out to the Gap himself a few times. He hated the notorious suicide location, despite the beauty of the rugged cliff-face and its spectacular ocean views. “I pulled the file,” he continued. “Ted Sinclair was the senior investigator on the case. He had his suspicions about the husband, but there wasn’t enough evidence to move on him.”
“Did the husband have an alibi?” asked Baxter.
“He was at work. He did go out for lunch that day, which was confirmed by the restaurant. David had not long started work for Fisher & Co, and they went out together. There were two opportunities through the day where he could have slipped out unnoticed, but it would have been difficult to get home, kill the wife, get rid of her body, and get back to work looking like nothing happened. In the end Sinclair had to leave it as an open missing person case.”
“What about the rest of the family?” asked Baxter.
“What about them?”
“Did they suspect him, or did they back him? What was their reaction?”
“There’s not a lot about that in the file. I’m going to see if I can locate Ted Sinclair today and see what he remembers.”
Anderson, who had been busy scrolling through what looked like a news page on his mobile phone, spoke up.
“That fire overnight. The victim was a researcher. Specialised in family history.”
“So?” asked Cooper.
“So Beth Fisher was talking about her sister’s ancestry project, how she wanted to finish it but didn’t want to do it herself. I told her to hire a professional researcher.”
Cooper’s coincidence radar lit up. “Do you know if she did?”
“I’ll find out.” Anderson lifted his mobile phone to his ear as he left the room. Minutes later he was back, confirming their suspicions. “Just spoke to Sammy Saulwick. He says the investigator’s name was Terry Dorman. They don’t have a formal ID yet, but it was his house and he was the only one living there. And Beth Fisher just turned up for a meeting with him.”
“Oh, shit. You’d better get down there. No, scratch that. We’ll all go. Tell Sammy to keep her away from it all ’til we get there. This thing might have just got a whole lot bigger than we realised.”
13
“Looks like you’ll get to see your first fire today after all, Joe.” Cooper parked as close as he could to the scene, a terrace house in Paddington. The lingering smoke hit his nostrils the moment he stepped out of the car. He hated that smell, hated investigating fire deaths. A lot of cops he knew were immune to it by now, taking burn victims in their stride. But Cooper never got used to death by fire.
“There’s Beth,” said Quinn, raising a hand in greeting and quickly pulling it back down. She saw them, but one of the scene officers was doing a good job of keeping her where she was. Cooper locked the squad car, and they went to her.
Tears were streaming down Beth’s cheeks. Cooper quickly identified himself to the scene officer, excusing him to go and help his colleagues, while Quinn handed Beth a handkerchief. She tried to clean herself up, but she was a mess. She needs to get out of here.
“Beth,” he said, as gently as he could manage. “Can you tell me why you’re here?”
“Mr Dorman…” she pointed towards the burnt out shell of a house. “He called yesterday, said he’d found something. I couldn’t come yesterday… Jill’s funeral… now it’s too late.” There were more tears.
“Did you hire Mr Dorman to finish Jill’s research?” asked Quinn.
“Yes. The librarian recommended him. I gave him the box of notes, and the memory stick. Now it will never be finished. Oh God, that’s a terrible thing to say, I’m so sorry. I just don’t understand…”
Beth broke down completely then, and Cooper could see they weren’t going to get much more out of her right now. Anderson and Baxter had arrived, so he called them over and instructed them to take her home. Hopefully they would be able to calm her down and get a more accurate statement. He watched as they helped her to the car, and the curiosity of the Fisher family grew in his mind. What the hell was going on here?
“We going in, boss?”
Cooper looked at his partner and nodded. “Stay close.”
They made their way to the house, stopping short of the front entrance. Two local detectives stood by the door, and Cooper held out a hand to shake with both of them.
“Davis and Saulwick inside?” he asked the more senior of the two.
“Yeah,” grunted the officer, a familiar look of disdain on his face. Senior Constable Davis had obviously not lost his ability to rub the local guys the wrong way.
“What about the fire investigator?”
“He’s in there too. Murphy’s his name. You can go in, but you have to wear these.” He handed them white overalls and booties to cover their clothes, which Quinn struggled to fit his bulk into.
“Thanks,” said Cooper, giving the officer a friendly pat on the back. Both officers nodded, and Cooper noticed them smiling at Quinn’s overalls bursting at the seams. He was about to say something, join them in a little joke, when the fire investigator emerged through the charred remains of the doorway. Cooper didn’t recognise the man, who introduced himself as Patrick Murphy.<
br />
“You’re right to go in,” he said. “The engineer has cleared it structurally, and we’ve finished for now. It was mostly contained to the front room, the boys from Darlinghurst got here pretty quick. Accelerant was used though, guy never stood a chance. Garrett and the SOCOs are already in there, along with those other two from Homicide. This guy someone important?”
“Davis and Saulwick caught this one, but it could be related to a separate case we’re working,” Cooper explained. “I know you’ve probably already done it once, but can you walk us through it?”
Murphy shrugged. “Sure, I’ve got a few minutes. This way.”
The detectives followed him into the front room of the terrace, and Cooper surveyed the scene. There was one body, a blackened skeleton, lying on the remains of a lounge. Cooper couldn’t tell if it was male or female, but from the size he thought it was probably an adult. A metal frame in the shape of a coffee table was overturned in front of the lounge, broken and melted glass scattered around. Cooper greeted Dr Garrett Byrnes with a nod. Garrett was examining the body, a stern look on his face. Fires were tricky: they had to be declared safe before the fireys would let anyone in. Evidence that hadn’t been destroyed by the fire itself was often rendered useless by water damage, not to mention the force of the water hoses themselves. Nevertheless, fire investigation was a field in itself, with guys like Murphy trained to figure out not only how the fire started, but to reconstruct every element of it. Cooper admired the work they did.
Their attention was drawn to a heated argument taking place in the corner of the room. In typical fashion, Davis was giving one of the crime scene officers a hard time, while his partner, Sammy Saulwick, was doing his best to look the other way. The SOCO was Zach Ryan, and the argument seemed to revolve around the remains of a desktop computer.
“I don’t want to hear it, Ryan. You’re supposed to be some kind of genius. Find me something.” Davis spun around and came face to face with Cooper.
“What’s going on?”
“He wants me to pull the hard drive, see if I can get anything out of this computer, Coop,” said Zach, while Davis stared at Cooper.
Cooper looked at the charred remains. “Is that possible?” he asked.
“I can pull it out, sure. But it’s been fucked by the fire. It’ll be a waste of time.”
“You’re a hundred percent sure about that?”
“Ninety-nine.” Zach’s face said he knew what was coming, and Cooper was stuck. He didn’t want to side with Davis, not in front of the others. The last thing he wanted was to encourage the man’s arrogant tactics, but in this case he had no choice.
“Do it, but don’t spend too much time on it,” he said. “I need your considerable talents elsewhere. Davis,” he saw the smug look on the detective’s face, “You interviewed the neighbours yet?”
Davis’s face dropped. “Uniforms are on their way to do that, Cooper. What are you two doing here? This is our case.”
“Maybe not. There’s a strong connection to one of our cases. Until I can either confirm or disprove the link, we’re taking the lead here.”
Saulwick, the nicer but more spineless of the pair, piped up. “Munro know about this?”
“He’s on his way to City Central,” answered Cooper. He had no idea if this was in fact true, but he wanted to end the conversation and get back to the case. The fire investigator had been standing here the whole time, witness to this insane petty rivalry between homicide teams, and that was not a good look. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to get started with the neighbours before they all find something better to do?” he added.
Davis and Saulwick exchanged glances, but thankfully they decided not to question any further. When they’d gone, he turned back to Patrick Murphy.
“Sorry about that.”
“No problem, we’ve got some dicks in our squad too. You want to keep going?”
“Yes, please.”
“The front door was closed when the first on scene arrived, and although I can’t be one hundred percent sure due to the extent of the damage, I don’t believe entry was forced. Accelerant, to be confirmed by the lab but my guess is petrol, was poured on the victim, the coffee table, and the computer desk. A short trail led to the door, which was closed before the fire was lit.”
Quinn looked up from his notebook. “So the perpetrator was inside the room when he lit the fire?”
“No,” said Murphy. “If he was, what was left of him would still be here. This guy had done his homework, knew enough about accelerant fires to close the door and light it from underneath.”
“What time was it?”
“Triple-0 call came in at one thirty-five am, the first crew got here six minutes later. They evacuated the neighbours, but managed to contain the fire to just this house. Actually the back of the place is pretty much intact, it’s just this room and the one above, the main bedroom, that copped it.”
“Alright, thanks. We’ll take it from here.” Cooper shook hands with the fire investigator, who promised to have a copy of his report to them as soon as possible.
“What are we going to do now, boss?” asked Quinn once they were alone again.
“We’re going to go through the rest of the house, see what we can learn about the victim. Then we’re off to the morgue.” Cooper had half a mind to let Davis and Saulwick attend the autopsy, but he decided it was time Quinn experienced a fire victim first hand. He had to get used to it if he was going to last in Homicide.
14
Beth had calmed down a little once they left Paddington. Detectives Anderson and Baxter were once again driving her home, an event that seemed to be occurring frequently these days. Her mind was racing — what the hell was going on? Meg opened the car door for her and she climbed out, steadying herself on the door frame.
“You okay?” asked the detective.
“No, not really,” she answered honestly. “I need to get inside.”
Louis met them at the door, and although Beth was grateful for his presence she didn’t feel capable of explaining. She folded herself into his arms, and could feel her body shake as he helped her in through the door and over to the lounge.
“There’s been a fire,” explained Anderson.
“The kids?” Louis shot up off the lounge, arms outstretched, as if pleading for them to confirm Emily and Jacob weren’t involved. “I just dropped them off not long ago. What’s happened?”
“No, your kids are fine. This involves the researcher Beth hired to continue your family tree. There’s been a fire at his house.”
Louis was visibly relieved, and Beth felt sorry that he’d even had to imagine that scenario. She tried to pull herself together.
“He called me yesterday, remember? Said there was something he needed to talk to me about. But when I got there this morning, there were police and firemen everywhere. Oh, Louis, it’s crazy. The front of his house was burnt out, it looked such a mess, but no-one would tell me anything.” Her voice trembled at the thought of what might be inside that house. She cleared her throat and continued.
“They made me stay there until Detectives Cooper and Quinn arrived, and they wouldn’t tell me anything either. They just asked questions and sent me home with these guys.” Beth looked up at the two detectives. “Can you tell us what’s going on?”
Meg and Flynn exchanged glances. Beth picked up a tiny shake of Flynn’s head, but it seemed that wasn’t going to make any difference to his partner.
Meg joined Beth on the lounge. “There was a body in the house. We have to follow procedure so it will be a little while before we get confirmation of the identity of the deceased, but we need to consider the likelihood that it is Mr Dorman. It was his house, and from what we can gather he lived alone. The fire started around one am. At this stage the evidence we have indicates it was him.”
“Oh, God,” said Beth. “I gave him the paperwork, and the USB stick. Was that burnt too? Have I just lost the last of Jill’s work?” As s
oon as she said it she immediately felt bad, caring more about her sister’s work than the life of a man. “I’m sorry, that was a terrible thing to say.”
“No, it’s okay. It’s a normal reaction. Why don’t we just take a step back, maybe get you a cup of tea?” Meg looked at Louis as she said this.
“I’ll put the coffee machine on,” said Louis, knowing his wife better than the detective.
Beth mustered a smile for Louis. Watching her husband just now reminded her of how normal Terry Dorman had seemed. She remembered his casual clothes, how she thought he looked like a suburban dad going off to a barbecue with friends. She remembered how nice he was when she told him Jill had been murdered, how kind and understanding he’d been. She couldn’t believe he might now be dead himself. She recalled him telling her about his interest in ancestry, and how he hoped to have a wife and children of his own soon. Beth didn’t know how to feel about that. Should she be happy that there wasn’t a fatherless family today, or sad that he never got the chance to be a family man?
“Do you know how the fire started?” asked Louis.
“We don’t know very much at this stage,” replied Meg. “Detectives Cooper and Quinn are at the scene, they will try to find out what they can. In the meantime, Beth, maybe you could answer some questions for me?”
Beth shook her head slightly, as if to clear the thoughts of Terry Dorman’s non-existent family from her mind, then turned to the detectives. “Of course. What do you want to know?”
“We could start with how you came to know Mr Dorman, and go from there.”
She explained her trip to the State Library, and how the librarian had recommended Terry to her. She described their conversation in as much detail as she could remember.
“Was this when you gave him the box of documents we brought you from Jill’s apartment?”
“No, not quite. I didn’t take the box to the library with me, I dropped that off to his house later in the day. I did give him the USB stick at the library, though.”
The Dark Series Page 43