One of the officers offered to drive her home, but she refused, as I knew she would. She wanted to catch this arsehole as badly as I did and there was no way she would sit this one out. Once she had herself under control again, we both went to see Richards. He was trying to coordinate some road blocks around town to try and catch anyone attempting to flee the area by car. A number of officers from Ballarat arrived and were given the assignment.
“You two have any ideas who could’ve done this?” he asked, but we shook our heads. I couldn’t think of anyone that would want to hurt this family. “No one?”
“There’s no one that stands out, Chief,” Steph said.
“It’s going to be a long night so try and get yourselves sorted. Put your heads together and come up with names. Any names. The Commissioner is already on his way and he’s going to want some answers.” He didn’t wait for our reply, turning toward another group of officers that had arrived. Steph grabbed my arm and pulled me away, leading me back to my car. It was boxed in and I could see it was going nowhere fast.
“Wait here a sec,” she said and went off somewhere, back toward the group of officers. She returned a few minutes later, shaking a car key in front of her. I followed her to one of the patrol cars and she climbed in. As we drove back out onto the road, she lit a cigarette, then wound down the window.
“Who the hell did that, Jim?” she asked. I didn’t know. But there was something that struck me as odd about the whole thing.
“Don’t you think it’s a strange time to go and commit such a planned execution?” I said. She looked at me.
“What do you mean?”
“If you were going to kill a man and his wife in such a horrendous manner, would you do it in the early evening or wait until later in the night? You know, when there were less people around, less chance of getting caught.”
“Not if it was a spur of the moment killing.”
“Steph, you think that was a spur of the moment?”
“No.” She puffed on her cigarette.
“That was planned. Whoever did that, knew that they would be home, knew that they would be alone. And whoever did that to them had a major fucken issue with them.” I looked at the passing houses, their lights burning behind closed curtains; lives shielded from the outside world by thin sheets of cotton.
“Do you think they knew?” I suddenly said.
“Knew?”
“Knew we were coming.”
“Why do you think that?” she said, crushing her cigarette in the ashtray.
“Don’t you think it’s a little too brazen for it to be some random killing? I mean, whoever did that wanted to do what they did, yet managed to finish just in the nick of time, right before another police officer knocked on the door.” I was running it through my own head more than telling Steph. It was like I was following my own trail in my mind.
“How would they know? Think the Chief told someone we were dropping by for dinner? Wouldn’t have thought it was that important.” But I had another thought entirely.
“Can you swing past the cop shop?”
“Sure. You got an idea?” She sounded hopeful but I didn’t want to raise her hopes too much.
“More of a hunch. Curiosity. I just want to check something out.”
10.
Steph pulled the patrol car into the station car park and I climbed out. She jumped out and began to run toward the front door. I didn’t follow her, instead walking around the side of the building, looking for something.
“Jim?” She called out, but I rounded the corner. “Where are you going?” I heard her call out. As I rounded the next corner, she came up behind me.
“This is what I’m looking for,” I said, pointing at the gum tree that grew behind the station. It was quite tall, one branch growing out over the roof of the building. I shone a torch up into its branches, then at the building. I turned to look behind us and saw a vacant block, itself flanked by one abandoned building and another vacant block. Behind those was a paddock which I knew had several cows living in it.
I shone the torch up at the branches again then handed the torch to Steph.
“Here,” I said, holding it out to her,” hold it for me?” She grabbed it and watched as I grabbed the lowest branch and swung myself up.
“You looking for possums?” she asked.
“I don’t think it was a possum at all. I think someone was listening.” Realization dawned on her face as I continued to climb. When I pulled myself onto the roof, I motioned for her to throw the torch up to me. She did and I caught it easily, shining it from one side of the roof to the other. There was nothing out of the ordinary, just a standard tin roof. I was about to climb to the other side when I saw what I was hoping for.
It would be almost impossible to be aware of it during the day, given the similar colour of the two. But light from the torch focusing on specific points of the roof made the roofing nail stick out like the proverbial. About a quarter of the way up one roofing incline, the four roofing nails that held that particular sheet down, were missing. I could see slight indents in the waves of the tin about half way up the sheets as if they had been slightly bent. Lying on the roof, beneath that sheet, lay a single nail. I walked gingerly toward the holes, carefully following the nail line with my feet to save myself a nasty fall.
“What did you find?” Steph called out from below.
“One sec,” I called back
