The Investigator (26 page)

Daisy swiped at her tears with a trembling hand and continued. “B-Barry was here when I arrived home. He asked me where I’d been and why I’d been crying. I-I told him what had happened.”

Dread settled heavily in Kate’s stomach. She glanced at Riley. His face was dark and sober as he watched Daisy fall apart.

“What did Barry say, Daisy?” he asked slowly.

She seemed to take courage from his implacable attitude and drew in a deep breath. She looked him squarely in the eyes when she replied, “He told me I was being silly. That I’d watched too many episodes of CSI. He told me Darryl would never do anything so stupid.”

“And you believed him,” Kate murmured, her fingers tightening on Daisy’s.

Daisy nodded. “Yes, I believed him. I guess I wanted to believe him. The alternative was too awful to contemplate. Besides, he knows Darryl a lot better than I do.”

“Yes, he does,” Riley agreed, his face grim.

Kate gently disentangled her hand and found Riley’s gaze. “What do we do now?”

“I’ll check the cab company and see if they had a booking for Rosemary on the day she was supposed to meet Daisy. That will at least tell us if she was still alive and committed to leaving at that time. We’ll also find out if she ever took the taxi ride. Who knows? Something may have happened between her house and the meeting point. Or she could have given the cab driver different directions. Either way, it’s worth looking into. I’m also going to check with her doctor about her medications.” His gaze swung to Daisy’s. “You said she was taking a number of prescription drugs. You don’t happen to know her doctor, do you?”

Daisy nodded. “Yes, it’s Dr Ben Shepherd. He has rooms at the medical center on Booth Street. It was where we were supposed to meet.”

“I want to check if she had those prescriptions renewed, after all. If she was flying to the UK as you say, it would have been logical for her to renew them. Right now, we need to know exactly when Rosemary was last seen alive.”

Tendrils of ice encircled Kate’s heart although the announcement didn’t come as any real surprise. She stared at Riley with foreboding.

“You think she’s dead, don’t you?”

He stared back at her for what seemed like a lifetime. Then his eyelids lowered and blanketed his eyes from her gaze. He nodded, once.

The breath whooshed out of her. She fell forward and brought her hands up to her face. Emotion welled in her throat and burned behind her eyes, but she bit her lip and dug her fists into her eye sockets, forcing it back.

Now wasn’t the time to fall apart, not here, with Daisy and Riley looking on. She’d already leaned on him more times than was wise. She needed to channel her anger and grief where it mattered most—finding her mother, dead or alive.

* * *

The lunch hour rush had thinned to a trickle when Riley pulled into the drive-through of Watervale’s only fast food outlet. He’d offered to get Kate something, but she’d told him she didn’t feel like eating. At her request, he’d left her outside her motel room, promising to contact her with any new information.

His mind couldn’t let go of the near-certainty Darryl was involved in Rosemary’s disappearance. She’d been set to leave him, had put everything in place. Then something had happened, and Rosemary hadn’t left—at least, not the way she’d planned.

At his request, Daisy had given him the plane ticket she’d purchased in Rosemary’s name and he’d called the airline. They’d confirmed Rosemary hadn’t boarded the flight, lending further credence to Daisy’s story.

Darryl had explained Rosemary’s absence with a holiday, but she hadn’t left that way, either. Riley had called the only cab company in town with a disabled taxi and had been told that Rosemary Watson had made a booking for a cab on the morning of July tenth but had failed to show.

Another call, this time to Rosemary’s doctor, confirmed she’d phoned more than six weeks ago to cancel her scheduled appointment. She’d left a message with his receptionist saying she had run out of time.

Dr Shepherd hadn’t heard from her since. He expressed concern that if she didn’t get her prescriptions renewed, her medical condition would worsen, including the problems with her vision.

When Riley quizzed him on whether it would be possible for Rosemary to obtain her prescriptions elsewhere, even in London, he agreed it was, but if she’d attended a doctor in Australia, it would be normal for that doctor to call him as a matter of courtesy and check her medical history. He’d received no such call.

Another check on her bank records indicated nothing had changed since Riley had first investigated: There had been no activity, apart from the fortnightly direct deposits of her disability pension.

Daisy had confirmed she’d withdrawn two thousand dollars from her own account to give to Rosemary, but the money had been with the other things Daisy had purchased that Rosemary had never collected.

Riley sighed as he waited for his order. Rosemary Watson had no money and no medications, both vital to her wellbeing. The only person who claimed to have seen her on the date that she’d planned to leave was Darryl—a man Riley now knew was up to his neck in corruption. A man who just happened to be friendly with the husband of his wife’s best friend, who had learned about her plans.

A fresh-faced young girl appeared in the drive-through window and handed him his lunch in a brown paper bag. Riley gave her the money and nodded his thanks. Her cheery farewell irritated him more than it should have. It wasn’t her fault that no matter how he looked at it, the rest of his day would be anything but great.

With the bag on his lap, he headed for the station. Tugging out the hamburger, he unwrapped it and took a grateful bite. He had a feeling in his gut that his investigation was about to get messy. It was time he took a closer look at Darryl.

* * *

With his three iron, Darryl lined up the hole which stood at least four hundred yards away. He was already well over par and they still had another three holes to go. His game had been off ever since his stepdaughter arrived back in town.

Even now, the thought of the smart-mouthed bitch had his gut churning. He pulled the roll of Tums out of his pocket and tapped a couple of them into his mouth. His indigestion was still giving him hell.

With another glance at the hole he was aiming for, he pulled his iron backward and struck it hard and clean. His satisfaction was short lived. The ball dropped well short and landed in the sand.

“Bad luck, boss,” Hannaford sympathized.

Darryl grimaced and didn’t bother to reply. Hannaford took his shot and landed on the green. Darryl’s bad mood rose another notch.

“How’s that stepdaughter of yours?” Hannaford asked, seemingly oblivious to Darryl’s dark thoughts. “I hope Munro isn’t still giving you trouble?”

“Nope, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since I sent him packing more than a week ago. I take it you reminded him of the importance of sticking together?”

Hannaford smiled. “Oh, yes. We had that little conversation.”

“Did you mention you’d been in contact with his former commander? I bet he nearly shit himself when he heard you’d spoken to Shattler.”

Hannaford lowered his gaze. “I-I didn’t see the need to mention it at this stage. No need in threatening him with that before we have to. Next time, he might find the balls to go to IA. We can all do without that.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It just shits me this holier-than-thou attitude coming through from some of the younger coppers. Anyone would think the Wood Royal Commission was still running, the way they want to play by the rules all the time.”

Darryl shook his head in disgust and continued his tirade. “It’s fucked. No one can do what we do and play by the rules. Look at the crime statistics in Sydney. They’ve skyrocketed since fucking Commissioner Wood took away our advantage. It was the only thing we had over the fucking criminals. Now look where we are!”

Hannaford nodded his head in silent commiseration. “Who knows where it’s all going to end up?”

Hannaford’s comment triggered thoughts of Rosemary. Darryl grinned to himself. She’d had no idea how she was going to end up. The shock on her face when she’d realized he was onto her had been priceless.

When Barry Bloomfield had called him on that Tuesday night, he’d been surprised to be informed his wife was planning to leave. Barry had overheard his wife talking to Darryl’s and had been only too happy to pass on the information. Barry knew all about the ties that bound them.

At first, Darryl had been ambivalent. He’d lost interest in Rosemary years ago. If she wanted to leave, he’d help her pack. The only reason he hadn’t kicked her out was the damage it would do to his reputation. Throwing his handicapped wife out on the streets wasn’t a good look for a man who aspired to be the next mayor of Watervale.

But later that night, he’d got to thinking and the more he thought about it, the more it seemed strange that after putting up with their marriage for more than two decades, his wife had decided to call it quits. What was more, she wasn’t even planning to let him know.

That was definitely odd.

With another three scotches under his belt, his thoughts turned darker. Could there be more to her sudden departure than he thought? With a moment of clarity, he’d hauled himself off the couch and had gone to the cupboard where he stored his things. Fishing out the key from its hiding spot, he’d unlocked the door and stared in disbelief at what he found.

Where once there had been a neat collection of photos and DVDs, there was nothing but bare shelves. He bent lower and pulled out the box containing the videos. They too, were gone.

Realization had hit him hard. She’d found them. Not only had she found them, she’d
taken
them. He’d shaken his head in shock and disbelief.

Twenty years of marriage and she’d never once appeared curious about the things he kept in his cupboard. He’d kept them downstairs so that he could watch them on his big screen whenever he wanted.

Rosemary retired early most nights and left him to his own devices. Installing another expensive television in a room upstairs would have roused suspicion. Whilst they were no longer intimate, they continued to share a bed. There was no reason for him not to watch them on the one downstairs once she’d gone to sleep.

So he’d kept his collection handy and for more than a decade, they’d remained undetected.

But she’d not only found them but had removed them.

His first thought had been panicked. He didn’t have the hold over Rosemary that he had on the others, no matter what he told himself and it would take more than a smile and a logical explanation to appease her.

If she hadn’t found the videos of Kathryn, perhaps he could have bluffed his way through it—denied any knowledge of the girls in the photos and on the DVDs and blamed it on one of his colleagues—but bluffing was no longer an option. No matter which way he looked at it, there was no explanation for her daughter’s images being among the collection.

It had taken him awhile and most of another bottle of scotch, but he’d eventually realized what he had to do. There was nothing for it: He had to get rid of her.

Once the decision had been made, the rest was easy. He’d gone to the travel agency the very next day and had enquired about holidays—something long and isolated from easy communication. It was a stroke of luck that a four-month round-the-world cruise was due to depart Sydney within a few days.

He hadn’t killed her right away, of course. That would have been foolhardy. He knew about her friendship with Daisy and assumed his wife would be in contact with the woman prior to her departure. He couldn’t afford to raise either woman’s suspicions. Barry had told him Rosie was planning to leave on July tenth. It gave him plenty of time to put his plan into action.

He was careful to go through the motions, purchasing a ticket and even going so far as to drive all the way to Sydney and back. It had been another stroke of luck that he’d thought to purchase the building supplies and hardware he’d required to bury her while on that trip to Sydney.

In the end, he’d done it quickly, with the minimum of fuss. A knife across her throat while she’d been fast asleep and it was all over for Rosemary. It had taken him most of the night to clean up the blood.

It had now been more than six weeks. Until the arrival of his stepdaughter, he’d been feeling quietly confident his plan would hold up. He’d already started comprising suitably sad responses when people sympathized with the fact that his wife would be placed in a nursing home when she arrived back from her cruise.

But now her bitch of a daughter had turned up and was threatening to derail everything. Throw in the dogmatic detective and Darryl’s stress levels had reached fever pitch.

He yearned to do away with the slut, just like he had her mother, but he hadn’t gotten to where he was in life by being stupid. He knew having another member of his family suddenly disappear wouldn’t go unnoticed—especially now that prick of a detective was involved.

No, he wouldn’t be able to kill her, as much as he might want to. But he could put the fear of God into her, threaten her, like he used to. It had worked in the past; there was a good chance it would work again.

He frowned when he thought of the defiance in her eyes the last time they’d met. She wasn’t the terrified teenager anymore, that was for sure. But what else could he do to get her to drop this? It was definitely worth a try. In the meantime, he’d put more thought into discovering the whereabouts of his collection—the one stolen by his wife.

After he’d buried the bitch, he’d turned the house upside down looking for them, but had come up empty. The only person who could tell him where they were was dead. He’d had a moment of regret when he’d realized his predicament, but by then, it was far too late to do anything about it.

Not knowing the whereabouts of the thousands of photos, videos and DVDs that made up his collection was the one thing that kept him awake at night. He was determined to find them, if it was the last thing he did.

“It’s your shot, boss.”

Darryl shook his head to clear it of his thoughts and spied his ball buried in the sand. He was filled with another surge of disgust. He’d had enough of everything going to hell. It was time to set things right again.