'Right,' Kyriakos said, leaning back. 'You can expect to return to see the team handling the inquiry into Susan Pentecoste's potential disappearance. In the meantime, we have issues to iron out, haven't we?'
Georgie shifted.
'There is a fundamental discrepancy between your statement' - Kyriakos pointed to the copy before her - 'and that of Megan Frawley. Do you know what I'm referring to?'
With a shake of her head, Georgie sat on her hands so the detective wouldn't see them quiver and misinterpret nerves for guilt.
'Hmm. I wonder.'
The computer hummed while Kyriakos's words hung.
'Would you care to explain your interference with the crime scene?'
Georgie's mouth flopped. What interference?
'What did you remove from my scene?'
Bewildered by the detective's aggression and the question, Georgie spluttered, 'What?'
'Here's my predicament. Ms Frawley observed you remove an item from the deceased's residence after discovering the body. Care to enlighten me?'
Georgie's eyes bugged. She repeated, 'What?'
'An item from under the deceased's doormat. Does this jog your memory?'
Georgie's guts plummeted. She hastily explained the note she'd left for Margaret and her retraction of it and her card.
Kyriakos scrutinised and listened. She scratched an efficient record. 'I find it remarkable that you mentioned your purpose for being at Ms Pentecoste's home to the Ballarat detectives but not your note.'
'I honestly didn't think about it,' Georgie protested. 'I was standing there, looking at this mat inside the hallway and it occurred to me that my note might be caught underneath. Sure enough, it was. So I pocketed it. I didn't consider it important.'
'Ms Harvey. You understand that your actions and misleading statement have compromised your integrity as a witness? What else have you lied about?'
'Nothing. Nothing!'
Georgie muddled through another account of her actions before and after stepping into the cottage on Ascot Street South - minus all emotion and suppositions, as instructed. Kyriakos prepared a supplementary witness statement. She maintained her poker face.
'Am I a suspect?' Georgie asked, anxious.
Kyriakos hitched a caterpillar brow. 'No, it would have been all business in that case.'
If this is your nice side, I'd hate to meet your alter ego.
Just then, a tall, rugged bloke, ten or fifteen years Kyriakos's senior, tapped and entered the interview room.
'Inspector Brian Mitchell.' He extended his hand in a firm, dry handshake. 'This is my show.'
Huh! So much for Kyriakos calling it 'my scene'.
'Helen, you all done in here? We've got to get moving.'
Kyriakos nodded. 'I was explaining what'd differ if we considered Ms Harvey a suspect in Margaret Pentecoste's murder.'
Embarrassed, Georgie said, 'I'm a writer, what can I say? Inquisitive by nature.'
'See this room?' Mitchell fixed her with an amber stare. He cocked his head and said, 'This is a witness room. Compact, non-distracting, also considerably non-threatening. Agree? This is where members of the public are generally brought for discussions regarding a homicide. The victim's family, neighbours, witnesses and so on. Now, on our way out, I'll show you where you'd be interviewed if you were a suspect in one of our murders.'
He crooked his finger.
Intrigued, Georgie followed the inspector through more clusters of desks filled with coffee cups, files and notes. By whiteboards overlaid with masses of neat notations. Near cloak stands resembling phantom-people, sheathed in suit jackets, ties, spare pants - all pressed, impregnated with dry-cleaning fluid and ready to grab on the way to a crime scene, airport or court.
Kyriakos clip-clopped behind with a precise, determined stride. Despite his seniority and stature, Mitchell moved lithely in rubber-soled shoes. They filed into a chamber with an illuminable 'Interview in progress' panel above it. Kyriakos slammed the soundproof door.
'If you were a suspect, Georgie, this is what would have gone down.' Mitchell paused. 'I would have sent two armed officers to collect you from your home. The officers would have driven into the secure basement and escorted you directly into this interview room. We would have offered you the services of a duty solicitor or the opportunity to access your own legal advisor. By the time I finished, you would have been charged or arrested.'
Georgie blushed. Educated via TV crime and novels as per most of her generation, she ought to have realised Kyriakos took the soft road.
The tiny room had a suspended ceiling. Bare fluorescent tubes were hot and cruelly bright. A one-way window faced the door. Three basic chairs bordered the square table pushed to the side wall. No visible audio and video-recording gear and nothing to comfort, entertain, distract or use as a weapon.
Her visual tour stopped at the inspector's face. He hooted; Kyriakos joined in. Georgie relaxed and she laughed too.
The officers escorted her to the foyer. During the lift's descent, she quizzed them on the case.
Mitchell's ironic reply: 'No comment.'
They shook hands and Georgie unclipped her visitor's ID.
She suddenly remembered something the policewoman mentioned earlier. 'You said I'll have to come back in relation to Susan's potential disappearance. Surely now it's a missing person's case?'
The detectives exchanged a glance.
Mitchell answered cryptically, 'A different team is looking into Susan's whereabouts.'
'As a missing person or a dead person?' Georgie demanded.
Two inscrutable faces.
Georgie had been dragged into this mess, only to be excluded. That sucked and she wouldn't leave the building until she received assurances about Susan; until convinced the police were tracking her, urgently.
Mitchell sensed her anger and stubbornness. He said, 'Don't worry, Georgie. We're onto it. Let us do our jobs.'
'Do we have your undertaking to keep out of it?' his partner added. 'To stay in Melbourne until the matter's resolved?'
Fat chance. 'No comment.'
In contrast with the detectives' genuine mirth inside the interview room, this time their chuckles didn't reach their eyes. Georgie surrendered her ID and wondered if she'd see them again.
She also wondered why she felt so sad.
Mid-morning and the minutes whipped by. Franklin drummed a pen on the dining table. Strewn over the pine tabletop were Solomon's poison-pen letters, Franklin's daybook, Kat's Good News Bible (which he suspected she hadn't opened since her last religious education class in primary school) and a roll of Christmas wrapping paper. On the latter's plain side, he'd map out everything he knew about Solomon and note the gaps. Plot the links between the victims. Visualise the big picture.
He checked his watch. With a glance at the still-blank paper, he took a mouthful of strong coffee.
'C'mon. Wake up.'
After dinner with the Noonans, he'd picked up the remainder of the late shift, running through to after 2.00am and then 'on availability' until the day crew came on at morning tea. No complaints; Lunny did well to swing the switch with no notice. Franklin spent most of the slow night shift agonising over Susan Pentecoste's absence, her niece's murder and all the dire shit he and Georgie Harvey dredged up yesterday. His brain already in overdrive, the pre-dawn hours on alert to emergency calls further contributed to an exhausted insomnia. He eventually traded bed for the Solomon case.
Cotton wool brain meant it'd all too soon be 6.00pm and time to clock on, with nothing gained.
He drained his mug and slammed it down. He rubbed his chin. And reread Solomon's letters. Something bothered him. Franklin listened and realised it was so quiet he could hear the clock tick.
In a knee-jerk reaction to Kat's shoplifting escapade he'd grounded her indefinitely. Scarcely a few days later and he'd backflipped, after she volunteered to keep well clear of troublemaker Narelle King. Thus, with his daughter at Lisa Cantrell's, the house was fr
ee of distractions. No radio, nerve-stretching teenage girl talk on the phone or histrionics.
Yet the wrapping paper remained blank. And Franklin's mind drifted.
A piece of work, that Georgie Harvey. Admittedly, he admired her tenacity and commitment to a promise. But that promise had intersected with homicide and personal risk and she should back off. She'd achieved her aim in getting the MISPER file upgraded.
Yes but too late for Margaret. The nagging inner voice imitated Donna. He shut it down, reversed back to Harvey.
If she had more sense than mulish feminist guts, he wouldn't have to worry about hand-holding the unpredictable writer from Melbourne whenever she developed a harebrained theory. She was a liability.
In more ways than one. The blank sheet glared at him.
'OK, stop fucking around,' Franklin muttered after more time had sped away.
He picked up a black marker. Crude flowcharts and text soon covered the wrapping paper. He shook out writer's cramp and mulled over his handiwork.
'Better.'
He rose and stretched. Moved to the kitchen to boil the kettle and tapped his foot as he waited.
A watched kettle never boils. A watched-for woman stays missing. The mental jump to Susan Pentecoste surprised him. What was she up to? Was she safe?
He rubbed eyes gritty with exhaustion. His shoulders slumped. Susan was a sensible woman, a strong woman, but even now he was finding out how much she hid behind a brave face. To get inside her mind was akin to cracking the Rubik's Cube: lots of twists and immense frustration. Her continued absence, especially in light of her niece's murder, worried the heck out of him.
With a shot of steam and shrill whistle, the kettle interrupted. Franklin poured water over coffee granules and made another leap.
Cause: the anniversary of Roly's disappearance. His murder. Effect: Susan goes AWOL. There's a reason for everything and a trigger for all events.
Now he had to apply that logic to the Solomon case.
He sat down and reviewed his notes until they blurred. He squinted. What was the objective of Solomon's fanatical letters? No, not just his letters; Solomon had progressed to violence. So, what drove him?
Cause equals X. Effect, or Y, being the threats, stalking and assault.
Bloody algebra had never been Franklin's strong point and it failed to help here.
To maintain momentum, he recorded the dead ends next. Art Hammer: literally dead and had died prior to Solomon's attacks at Christina's home, so he couldn't be the crook. Earl Blue: alibi confirmed by reliable sources, he too couldn't be Franklin's man - unless Blue worked with an accomplice here in Daylesford. Franklin shook his head. Solomon's outrage at Christina's behaviour was first-hand and personal, not orchestrated from the other side of the world.
He pulled out a red marker. In thick chisel-point strokes, he made a new section entitled 'The six motives'. The key motives for murder had been drummed into his head during his rookie days. Franklin still remembered one of the instructors had barked, 'Memorise them because the reasons people kill translate to other crimes against persons too.'
'GAIN. ELIMINATION. LUST. REVENGE. CONVICTION. JEALOUSY.'
The first three he put in reserve. Although the case contained a sexual element, he didn't think Solomon lusted after his victims and he hadn't demanded money. Equally, revenge seemed remote with the range of targets involved.
A warped ethical and religious conviction motivated Solomon, which translated to a desire to punish. That in itself presented a wide field to analyse.
Franklin pondered the final motive. Did jealousy also drive him?
Click the Rubik's Cube, infiltrate the mind - Solomon's mind now, rather than Susan Pentecoste's. Franklin scrawled more notes.
'What's Solomon jealous of? The attention the mothers receive (from men and/or the community)? Can't he attract a partner?'
Makes sense. He's totally wacko.
Franklin rubbed his chin and wrote, 'Because they have a child and Solomon can't? Is he sterile? Or, single and therefore can't have kids. (NB See link to target: single mothers.)' Appended, 'Could be gay'.
Pause. He scratched the paper again with, 'Maybe he had a bad childhood. Only child of single parent and crap upbringing? Anti all single mums?'
Lots of maybes and not much headway.
'Cockhead. Don't forget Solomon could be female.' Franklin's voice jarred in the hushed house. 'Male/female doesn't change things though. The motive could be the same. She could be jealous on the same grounds. That's if jealousy has anything to do with it.'
Frustrated, he stabbed the marker into the paper. He snagged the word 'CONVICTION'. Apt.
Georgie Harvey leapt into his brain. 'Dammit, why hasn't she called?' Pissed off with her ignoring his earlier text message, he painstakingly keyed another.
He hit send and scowled at Solomon's letters.
'C'mon, tell me what's going on here!'
Franklin shoved everything aside except a clean segment of wrapping paper. In block letters, he wrote: 'HOW DOES SOLOMON KNOW ABOUT THE BIRTHS?'
'Ah, that's the key,' he breathed, then paced the floor awhile.
He lit a cigarette, took a pull and blew a string of smoke rings out the open window.
'If he doesn't work in the hospitals, how does he discover the pregnancies and/or births?'
Franklin thought back to Donna's pregnancy and groaned. She'd bought a pregnancy test and everyone knew within five minutes. Small town joys.
Break it down.
First to guess: the pharmacy assistant who'd sold Donna the test kit. First to be sure: doctor, medical receptionist. Next: her friends, him, (yes, in that order), their families and colleagues. No obstetrician for them, not on a copper's wage, just the GP all the way through, with the help of midwives. First to see the baby: hospital staff, him, family. Then Kat became hot town property and earned gooey 'oohs and ahs' wherever they went.
'Pharmacy staff' got noted under suspects but without gusto. These days you could buy pregnancy tests from supermarkets. Was he going to add check-out chicks to the list too?
Besides awareness of the births, Solomon also believed the mothers were unwed. What source would reveal both?
Franklin paced again. He reflected on the victims. Each one individual, of different strokes. He centred on Cathy and Tyson. Cute kid, nice mum. She was so proud of her brag book.
That's why they call 'em brag books.
Donna stuffed full an 'Our baby' album. Proof of how fucked up and selfish she was: she walked out on her kid when she walked out on their marriage and she left behind Kat's baby album.
He pulled it off the bookshelf and leafed through the pages. Blood test: positive for pregnancy. Photos of Donna and her ballooning belly and one with them cuddling, his hand on her bump, both tired and excited. The clipped birth notice from their local rag. A few special 'congratulations' cards immortalised behind plastic sleeves. Photocopy of Kat's birth certificate. Photos of every first event.
Franklin shut the album softly. He ran his hand over the cover, wistful.
Back in work mode, he mentally compared Kat's album to Tyson's. What did they have in common? Apart from the absence of a dad, Tyson's book mirrored his daughter's.
How did it help? Not a bloody lot.
Not everyone needed early blood tests but ultrasounds were the norm. He jotted 'ultrasound/radiology/pathology staff' under the suspect list. Photo shops or sending your film away for processing had been the way when Kat arrived but today people could print their own. So that angle wasn't much chop.
'What about…?'
Franklin snatched a copy of the Advocate and flicked through. He pumped a fist to the roof.
'Yes!'
'Let's see. "Porter-Walters. Colin and Arnica, of Daylesford, are pleased to announce the safe arrival of their new baby boy, Darren Oliver, born on 11 March. Brother to Jessica."
'Beau-ti-ful!'
As expected, the births column provided bub's particulars and
a photograph of mother and child, along with enough family information for Solomon to draw conclusions; rightly or wrongly.
He squeezed his eyes and imagined birth notices for the five young mothers Solomon targeted.
Five. Five that I know of.
His stomach clenched. With Daylesford's virtual population explosion of late, how many additional mothers were victims of the malicious writer? Were there other switches from threats and stalking to actual violence as yet unknown to him? If he flunked out again today, he'd need to analyse the hospital records and newspaper archives and personally interview all relevant mums. Too time-consuming and God knows what Solomon would do in the meantime. It was imperative he crack the case before Solomon snapped.
So assume five for now.
He fixed on the Porters' announcement and contemplated what Solomon would have learned of his five victims from the local paper.
Renee Archer's announcement of daughter Alex's birth would not have mentioned her political lobbyist husband, which led Solomon to conclude an unwed status.
Similarly, lapsed Catholic Lauren Morris probably succumbed to family pressure and avoided attention to her de facto relationship with the father of Millie and Aiden.
As Solomon would have, he'd spotted straight up that Cathy Jones hadn't mentioned Tyson's father in his birth notice. The last thing on earth she'd do was ID her rapist.
For little Tayla Birkley, unashamed of being a single parent and proud of son Callum, no interpretation would've been required.
Lastly, as gossip went, Christina van Hoeckel never clarified which of her numerous lovers fathered Bailey and naming a dad could have been libellous without a paternity test. She was a sure-fire 'tainted woman' for Solomon.
He seized his ringing mobile, anticipating Georgie Harvey. 'Franklin.'
Lunny. And he sounded pissed off.
'Yeah, boss?'
'Get your arse in here. Pronto.'
The sergeant wouldn't elaborate. Franklin sped to the station and within minutes stood before his angry friend and superior.
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