Not Forgotten (17 page)

Chapter 22

No matter what she did throughout the day, Natalie couldn’t stop thinking about her late night visitor and the unknown man who came to her office the other morning. Was there a connection between the two? Were they the same person?

Matt had called the day before arranging a time she and a sketch artist could sit down and go through what she could remember of the face at her window. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to the task. Every time she closed her eyes she saw his. She couldn’t seem to remember much more about him except for those cold, dark eyes. Even though she had sketched a picture herself, Matt thought the artist could help her remember more details since they were trained to ask specific questions, and could even suggest some different types of looks. Matt even asked her not to review the Butcher files. He wanted a clean sketch, not wanting her to be influenced by any outside source.

She leaned back in her chair. Could they really find the man who killed Hallie’s parents? It had been five years after all, half a decade, and still no one had any clue who he was. No one had ever seen him, or at least as the Butcher except for Hallie. Then there was also the small possibility that she too had seen him. The police believed him to be still in the area, that he had unfinished business and that could only be Hallie. If that was true then, the Butcher could be keeping tabs on her, waiting for the opportune time to get to Hallie. And since she was her doctor it was entirely possible she had caught his eye, and she knew what happened to people who sparked interest in him.

She couldn’t stop the shiver that went through her. She would have to be careful and watch for anyone suspicious and never allow herself to be caught alone. One thing was for sure, she couldn’t allow him to win, for Hallie’s sake. Natalie didn’t want anything to happen to the girl she’d come to care so much about.

Why had the Butcher attacked the Walkers? It was a question that had nagged at her until she thought she would scream. But then, why had he killed all those other women as well? What made them special? Did they, in some way unbeknownst to her, resemble someone important to him? Did they remind him of someone he had loved or hated? Had he just seen them and desired them or was the whole thing completely random?

That last thought was what truly scared Natalie. Sometimes you just don’t know. She could deal with rhyme or reason but complete serendipity took too much control from her. She didn’t like to think of chance or luck. Life was what you made it and it just plain sucked when you didn’t get what you wanted out of it. For your life to be prematurely ended—well, that just bought the big one.

Natalie thought about Hallie and not for the first time wondered how different her life could’ve turned out under normal circumstances. She removed Hallie’s file from her drawer once more and opened it. Something ate away at her that she couldn’t put her finger on. Like so much of this case, it seemed to her that the answer was right in front of them if only they looked. But she along with the detectives of Harbour Bay had searched and hadn’t yet found it.

She flicked through the pages, skimming the words. She had read the file enough times to know what was on each page and knew what was useful and what wasn’t, which unfortunately for her, the latter outweighed the former. She reached the end and glanced at Hallie’s drawings. Sometimes she forgot that Hallie was still a child. She acted so grown up all the time it was a fact easy to overlook.

She moved the drawing to look at the picture of Helen Teller’s grave and frowned. Why did her brain always come back to Helen Teller? What was it trying to tell her? Of all the things that didn’t make sense the picture was right on top of the list. What had possessed Hallie to draw the grave? On her own admission, she herself didn’t know why. Where had she got the image? Was it locked up somewhere inside her brain, buried deep down? If so, why was it so important? What did the grave represent? Was it just Hallie’s way of dealing with her parents’ deaths? Of her own incarceration and fear? Questions whirled around inside her head, almost making her crack under the pressure.

Natalie sat up straighter. She could feel a headache coming on. She woke her computer up from its hibernation and waited impatiently for the webpage to load. Her fingers began skimming across the keyboard as she typed Helen Teller’s name into
Google
and was immediately rewarded with three thousand results. Natalie scrolled down through the list of websites containing the words ‘Helen Teller’ until she found the one she was looking for. It was the online edition of the
Harbour Bay Herald
, one of the local newspapers that had been in circulation since the beginning of the last century.

She moved her mouse and clicked on the webpage and found herself looking at the newspapers archives from 1992. Helen Teller had been the Business Woman of the Year, an annual competition held for Australia’s most respected and prominent business women.

“Holy hell, she does exist,” Natalie murmured as she scanned the article. Helen Teller had been thirty-three and an executive at a computer firm that had revolutionised the way offices around the country worked. She was described as being very intellectual and had a head for business which had earned her company three million dollars.
Quite the accomplishment for a woman in the nineties
, Natalie thought.
More power to you.

She reached the bottom of the article and noticed the link to another article within the newspapers archives. She clicked on the link and was brought to 1995 and the front page of the
Herald
. Helen Teller’s name was the headline.

Natalie quickly skimmed the article, her blood pumping faster in her body as her heart pounded in her chest. Her head practically screamed at her like some sort of radiation detecting device that beeped louder and faster as it got closer to the source. She knew she was on the right track.

Helen Teller had been murdered, her killer never found. She had been found by her teenage son at her home in Sydney’s Western Suburbs and stabbed repeatedly, her throat slit—the trademark of the Butcher. Her service had been a quiet affair closed to the public. Her son had been reported to have placed a white rose on her coffin before sobbing uncontrollably. She couldn’t help but feel the child’s pain and wondered what had happened to him. His name was not in the article, probably to protect his privacy, but Natalie doubted if he had grown up unscathed and felt the anger bubbling up inside her.

So many lives had been ruined by just one man. How had he managed for so long without detection? Right now she didn’t care who he was or what his reason for killing was, she just wanted to find him and put him in the ground herself. She could do it, too, without remorse. This monster certainly felt none, so why should she give it?

She clicked on the photo attachment at the bottom of the webpage and her breath caught in her throat. She sat there as the minutes clicked by staring at the photo of Helen Teller’s grave. She would recognise that unusual gravestone anywhere. She enlarged the photo to read the inscription:

Here lies the body of Helen Teller.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. She could feel the chill in the air and shivered. A thought popped into her mind and she shook her head at the irony. She felt like someone had just walked over her grave.

Chapter 23

Matt flipped through the photos on his desk, each one a shot of the victims. He had hit a brick wall and he knew it. He had Donovan going over any connections that the victims might have shared once more, combing through financial records, credit card receipts, and society columns. They’d been down this road before, but sometimes when cops got tired they overlooked things. Better to have fresh eyes and a new perspective. They had to know how the bastard chose his victims. It couldn’t merely be chance and Matt was tired of calling the bastard the Butcher. He wanted the man’s real name.

He heard muffled talking and looked across the
Pig Pen
—the nickname for Harbour Bay’s second floor work area which housed the Detective Unit. He spotted Amelia Donovan flanked by the two burly men in his team. At six-foot-four and six-foot-three, Dean and Nick both dwarfed her. Dean was wearing one of his trademark light coloured shirts. He favoured pastels after an old girlfriend had bought him a peach shirt as a gift, and to spare her feelings wore it to work one day, putting up with the constant jokes and ribbing he got from his fellow workmates and in particular, his partner, Nick. Ever since then, he had worn the light shirts to prove he was man enough to wear what was considered feminine attire and still get the job done. Dean had been on the force for ten years and his face showed the wear and tear of the job. His honey-blond hair looked like it hadn’t been combed for a while let alone cut, long enough to curl around his shirt collar. His chocolate coloured eyes were always serious.

Nick, on the other hand, was easy going, always one to joke in the face of a bad situation. It was how he dealt and he was so good-looking he was never without female company, though he never played the field and wasn’t one to favour one night stands or count the number of women he’d slept with. He was the second youngest member of the team and had a good mind for the job.

They were a tight group, a makeshift family. They all took care of each other and watched each other’s backs. None of them were in it for the glory. Only the knowledge of a case closed and a job well done was their reward. To get the bad guys and lock them away for the rest of their pitiful lives. Which was why they made such a good unit.

Dean leaned down towards Amelia and said something to her but Matt was too far away to hear. She smiled at him before slapping him with the file folder she held in her hand as they all headed towards Matt.

“So I hear you’ve taken me up on my suggestion in regards to the psychologist,” Nick Doyle said, his dark eyebrows wiggling suggestively.

He knew his and Natalie’s visit to Tanner’s
would eventually make it to his team but he hadn’t expected it to be so fast.
Must have been Glory
, he thought. She had a thing for Nick and was always trying to put the moves on him. Unfortunately for Glory, Nick considered her much too young for him.

“Yeah, I bet she can’t wait to examine your head.” Dean smirked.

Matt rolled his eyes. “Things must be slow for you to be coming up to the big boys’ area to bug me. We’re trying to stop a serial killer here if you haven’t noticed.”

“So…tell me,” Nick said as if Matt hadn’t spoken. “What exactly does she look like?”

“Oh, about five-foot-six. Brunette hair. Cobalt blue eyes. Killer body,” Amelia said, looking past them.

“Nice,” Nick added.

“I’d have to agree,” Dean said as his gaze followed Amelia’s.

Matt frowned at her. “How the hell do you know all that, Donovan?”

Dean cleared his throat and Amelia swung back around to face Matt.

“Lucky guess, Einstein,” she said, rolling her eyes as she moved away from his desk. The party quickly dispersed and Matt found himself looking at the gorgeous woman in stiletto heels fast approaching his desk. He gave her a once over—the first time with sexual interest, the second time as a police detective.

Natalie was pale and looked spooked. He stood as she reached his desk. She gave Dean and Nick a fleeting glance as they moved away.

“Did I interrupt something?”

Matt saw his colleagues puckering their lips and miming kissing in his peripheral vision. He was going to kill them. He really was. If Natalie hadn’t been there, he probably would’ve shot them.

“No. Have you come to meet the sketch artist?” She shook her head. He sighed heavily, realising his day just got longer. “Am I going to like this?”

Natalie frowned, her brow wrinkling. “Probably not,” she admitted.

Matt gave her a steady look. She certainly wasn’t one to tell a comforting lie, was she? He took her arm and led her to the small kitchen area. A tiny circular table and four chairs shoved into a corner took up most of the area. A large corkboard was attached to the wall and held flyers on upcoming conferences that may interest the officers. Beside the counter was an old fridge and next to the coffee pot sat a newly procured microwave—the last one having blown up a few months ago. It had been bound to happen. It had been taken off the ships with the convicts.

“Before we get into this, I’m going to need some more coffee. Want one?”

She nodded before replying. “Yes, please.”

He took a look at the sludge now congealed at the bottom of the carafe. His stomach revolted at the thought of the tar like substance and immediately emptied the contents down the sink and rinsed the pot thoroughly.

As he completed the task of setting up the coffee maker to create another batch he took another look at Natalie, his brain registering the strain around her mouth and the bloodshot eyes.

“You don’t look so good. Did you sleep?”

“Yes.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. She did not look well-rested. “Did you go home?”

She gave a long suffering sigh. Obviously whatever she had come to discuss was not her sleeping habits. “I’m too afraid to go home,” she admitted. “And yes, I know I said I wasn’t going to let the fear run my life but my body just isn’t listening. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.”

Matt listened patiently, waiting for her to get to the heart of the problem. “So why are you here, if not to see the sketch artist?”

“What do you know about Helen Teller?”

Matt ran through his brain, much like a computer program scanning its files as it searched for anything that contained the key words. He was satisfied when the information flowed to the forefront of his mind. “Helen Teller? She was the Butcher’s first victim…as far as we know.” He tacked on the last bit as he corrected himself.

She pinned him with a glare and he had to fight to stand still and not squirm. She would have made a very good interrogation officer. Pity the man who ever came home with lipstick on his collar. He wondered if she would take offence if he asked her what her secret was.

She crossed her arms under her breasts. “You failed to mention that fact when you handed me this case.”

Matt fought to keep up. “I didn’t see the relevance.”

Natalie’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Do you remember the picture of the grave Hallie drew?” When she saw him nod, she continued. “The grave was Helen Teller’s.”

Matt’s eyes widened. His stance became very still as he absorbed that fact. “What?”

She took a deep breath, obviously preparing herself for a reiteration of text book proportions. “I was going through Hallie’s file earlier, when I saw the drawing she’d done years ago. For some reason it pulled at me and I went on the Internet and looked Helen up. I wasn’t even expecting anything to pop up. Imagine my surprise when something did. The article was on her murder and along with it was this photo of her grave.”

Natalie handed him the printout. He glanced down at it, frowning. He looked back at Natalie who raised her hand, her index finger pointing up to the sky indicating that she wasn’t done. She then retrieved another piece of paper from her purse, smoothing it out before handing it to him. When he caught sight of Hallie’s drawing, he was sure his heart stopped beating. Excitement rushed through his veins. They were identical. A thought occurred to him. “Well, maybe Hallie was on the Inter—”

“No, I checked, Hallie is not allowed on the Internet.”

Which would probably kill a normal teenage girl. She was lucky she didn’t know what she was missing. No Internet ultimately meant no social networking, no chat rooms or shopping online. Hallie probably wasn’t even allowed phone privileges, not that the poor kid had anyone to call. They certainly kept things on a tight leash at Paradise Valley.

He shrugged, trying for nonchalance even when his body was now as tight as bow. “Maybe it is just a coincidence.”

“When does coincidence turn into something else? Hallie once knew Helen Teller. How, she doesn’t know or can’t remember. But there’s a link that you haven’t found. Something you’re missing.”

She stepped past him and pulled two mugs from the drainer by the sink and began finishing the coffees. He noted that she put sugar and milk in both and he felt pleased that she’d remembered the way he drank his.

“Tell me everything, and I mean everything you know about the case, Matt. Maybe I can help. I want to help. Remember I have a vested interest in the end result.”

Natalie handed him his coffee. He thanked her as he looked into her eyes. He could see she meant business and he would be stupid not to use her expertise. She saw deranged and sick minds every day. She knew what made them tick or at least had the training to understand the way they worked. He was right when he thought he needed new blood on the case and Natalie might just be the ticket.

He nodded slowly. “Okay.”