He gave Falk his change and picked up the newspaper. He appeared to be doing the cryptic crossword. ‘Take it as a friendly warning, though, they can be a funny lot around here. You find yourself in hot water, there’s not always a lot of help at hand.’ He eyeballed Falk. ‘Although from what I hear, you don’t need telling about that.’
Falk took both glasses back to the table. Raco was staring moodily at a soggy beer mat.
‘You can lose the look,’ Falk said. ‘You’d better fill me in on the rest.’
Raco slid the folder across the table.
‘I’ve pulled this together from all the stuff I’ve got access to,’ he said.
Falk glanced around the pub. It was still half-empty. No-one nearby. He flipped it open. The first page had a photo of Luke’s ute taken from a distance. A pool of blood had collected by the back wheels. He closed the file.
‘Just give me the highlights for now. What do we know about the courier who found them?’
‘He’s looking as clean as you’d want to be. Works for an established delivery firm. Has done for two years. He was delivering recipe books Karen had ordered online – that checks out. He was running late, last delivery of the day. First time he’d made a delivery to Kiewarra. Says he rocked up, saw Karen lying in the doorway, chucked up his lunch into the flowerbed and jumped back in his van. Made the emergency call from the main road.’
‘He left Charlotte in the house?’
‘Reckons he didn’t hear her.’ Raco shrugged. ‘Maybe he didn’t. She’d been alone for a while. Might have cried herself out by then.’
Falk turned to the first page of the file. Kept it open this time. He’d always assumed Luke had been found in the ute’s driver’s seat, but the images showed his body flat on its back in the cargo tray. The lip of the tray was open and Luke’s legs dangled over as though he’d been sitting on the edge. A shotgun by his side pointed towards the mess where his head would have been. His face was completely missing.
‘You right?’ Raco was watching him closely.
‘Yeah.’ Falk took a long drink from his beer. The blood had spread across the bottom of the cargo tray, settling in the metal ridges.
‘Forensics find anything useful in the tray?’ Falk asked.
Raco checked his notes.
‘Other than lots of blood – all Luke’s – nothing particular noted,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how well they looked, though. They had the weapon. It was a working vehicle. He had all sorts of stuff in the back.’
Falk looked again at the photo, concentrating on the area around the body. Barely visible along the left interior side of the tray were four faint horizontal streaks. They looked fresh. Light brown against the dusty white paintwork, the longest was maybe thirty centimetres, the shortest about half that. They were in pairs of two, each pair about a metre apart. The placement wasn’t particularly uniform. The right-hand streaks were horizontal; those on the left had a slight tilt.
‘What are these?’ Falk pointed and Raco leaned in.
‘I’m not sure. Like I said, ute would’ve carried all sorts.’
‘The ute still here?’
Raco shook his head. ‘Sent to Melbourne. It’ll be cleaned up by now for sale or scrap, I reckon.’
Falk looked through the photos, hoping for a better view, but was disappointed. He read over the rest of the notes. Everything appeared fairly standard. Other than the hole in the front of his head, Luke Hadler was a healthy male. A couple of kilos over his ideal weight, slightly high cholesterol. No drugs or alcohol in his system.
Falk said, ‘What about the shotgun?’
‘Definitely Luke’s gun used on all three of them. Registered, licensed. His fingerprints were the only ones on it.’
‘Where did he keep it normally?’
‘Secured lock box in the barn out the back,’ Raco said. ‘The ammo – at least the Winchester stuff I’ve found – was locked away separately. He was pretty big on safety by the look of things.’
Falk nodded, only half-listening. He was looking at the fingerprint report from the shotgun. Six crisp ovals embroidered with tight whorls and lines. Two less clear, slight slippage, but still confirmed as belonging to the left thumb and right little finger of Luke Hadler.
‘The fingerprints are good,’ Falk said.
Raco caught his tone. Looked up from his notes.
‘Yeah, really solid. People didn’t take too much convincing after seeing them.’
