‘Oi, will he be back to fix that leak?’ the woman asked as Dow was dragged to his feet.
‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Raco said.
The woman’s children watched in wide-eyed glee as Dow was led out to the marked police car. Their expressions mirrored Raco’s just a few hours earlier when Falk had producedthe receipt. Raco had paced around the station, bouncing on theballs of his feet, the adrenaline pumping.
‘Yournumber?’ he said over and over again. ‘Why did Karen Hadler want to talk to you? About Grant?’
Falk, who had been awake most of the night asking himself the very same thing, could only shake his head.
‘I don’t know. If she tried, she definitely didn’t leave a message. I’ve gone through my missed calls history. No match for Karen’s home, work or mobile number. And I know I never spoke to her. Not just recently. Ever. Not once in her whole life.’
‘She would’ve known who you were, though, right? Luke still spoke about you. Barb and Gerry Hadler saw you on TV the other month. But why you?’
Raco picked up the office phone and dialled the ten digits. He looked at Falk as he held the receiver to his ear. Falk’s mobile trilled loudly in his hand. He couldn’t hear the message as his answering machine clicked in, but he knew what it said. He’d listened to his own voice speak enough times overnight as he’d dialled the number from his room phone in disbelief.
‘You’ve reached Federal Agent Aaron Falk. Please leave a message,’ the recording said. Short and sweet.
Raco hung up and stared at him.
‘Think.’
‘I have.’
‘Think harder. Grant Dow and Luke didn’t get along, we know that. But if Karen was having problems with him, why didn’t she call the station here?’
‘Are you sure she didn’t try?’
‘No calls made to police or emergency services from any phone owned by any of the Hadlers in the week before their deaths,’ Raco recited. ‘We pulled the phone records the day the bodies were found.’
He picked up the novel and turned it over in his hands, examining the cover. He thumbed through the pages yet again. There was nothing else caught between them.
‘What’s the book about?’
‘It’s a female detective investigating a string of student deaths at a college in the US,’ said Falk, who had stayed up most of the night speed-reading to the end. ‘She thinks it’s a disgruntled bloke from town targeting rich kids.’
‘Sounds crap. Did he do it?’
‘Oh, er, no. It’s not what it seems. Turns out it was the mother of one of the girls in the sorority house.’
‘The mother of –? Christ, give me strength.’ Raco pinched the bridge of his nose. He shut the novel with a loud slap. ‘So what do we reckon? Is this bloody book supposed to mean something, or what?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think Karen got to the end, for whatever that’s worth. And I checked with the library as soon as it opened. They say she borrowed a lot of this type of thing.’
Raco sat down, stared blankly at the receipt for a moment, then stood straight back up again.
‘You’re sure she never called you?’
‘Hundred per cent.’
‘Right. Come on, then.’ He grabbed his car keys from the desk. ‘You can’t tell us, Karen can’t tell us, Luke can’t tell us. So let’s haul in the only person left who might be able to explain why his bloody name’s written on a piece of paper in a dead woman’s bedroom.’
They left Dow to stew in the interview room for over an hour.
‘I called Clyde,’ Raco said, calmer now. ‘Told them some arsehole finance investigator from Melbourne had shown up to sort out the Hadlers’ paperwork. Said you had a couple of questions about a document found at the property, did they want to come and babysit you while you asked them? They’ve declined, unsurprisingly. We’re right to go ahead.’
‘Oh. Nice work,’ Falk said, surprised. It occurred to him that he hadn’t even thought to call Clyde this time. ‘So what do we know?’
‘Dow’s fingerprints weren’t found anywhere at the property.’
