‘It’s all right.’
‘I know what you’re saying,’ Larry went on. ‘She’s gone out there, and someone’s killed her and taken the laptop. Maybe it’sbecauseshe went out there that she was killed. But she neversaidshe wanted to do any dangerous writing or … or researching. She was happy writing movie reviews and cooking blogs and stuff.’
I didn’t say what I was thinking, which was that if I’d learnt anything at all across my career covering the murders of young people, it was that it was almost impossible for a parent to tell whether their child was truly happy or just faking it. Children know their parents. They know what they want to see.
‘What kind of story could be out there that someone would murder her over?’
‘People murder each other over all kinds of things, Mr Lutz,’ I said. ‘She might have just had some information that someone never wanted the world to learn. The nature of that information could be absolutely anything. The possibilities are endless.’
‘The pub that she was staying at,’ Larry said. ‘Maybe she knew something about that pub. It’s the pub owner who found her, wasn’t it? Or says he was. Should you be looking at him?’
‘I’ll be looking at everybody, Mr Lutz.’
Silence fell between us. The wind moaned in the pines lining the river.
‘I’m gonna let you go,’ Larry said. ‘My wife is calling me from the other room.’
‘Call me, day or night,’ I said.
I walked over to Dodge, who was standing with his arms folded, staring at the pub. At those back windows to the hotel rooms, trying to assess the angle a person would have to stand at to see both them and the stairwell, it seemed. He was side-stepping towards me. I had to clear my throat so he wouldn’t run right into me.
‘Beds,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘We need to talk about them. The day is getting on. You and your daughter: you’ll need somewhere to stay while you’re on this case. And I suppose you’ll want the other three rooms here at the pub shut down for the foreseeable future?’
‘Until I can establish what, if any, involvement the other guests had in what’s happened here, I want it all closed off,’ I said. ‘The hallway, the rooms, the stairs. Everything.’
‘So would you be staying with your brother, then? In Mangrove Mo—’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Right.’ Dodge heaved another whole-body sigh; paused to think. ‘You guys don’t seem to be on the best of terms.’
‘You’re very observant, aren’t you, Dodge? You’re like one of those extreme empaths.’
‘The thing is, this is the only hotel for fifty k’s.’ Dodge gestured to the building before us. ‘The next one would be Wisemans Ferry. Forty-five minutes if the ferry’s running. So that’s an hour and a half of driving per day, you coming and going from Redbelly.’
‘We’ll get an Airbnb.’
‘They’re all full. I called and checked.’
It was my turn to sigh.
‘There is an option,’ Dodge said, chancing a sidelong look at me. ‘But it’s a little … eccentric.’
EVAN
My father called as I was steeped in dark considerations about Chris and the man who stood behind Chloe Lutz at the pub, the one who looked just like him. The man who had stabbed a woman to death a mere twelve hours or so before my son, on impulse, shot a female friend in the head with a paintball gun. I was so distracted I had to go around the big roundabout at Dural twice, trying to decide if I wanted to take New Line or Old Northern Road. A truck driver blasted his massive horn at me.
‘Yeah.’
‘What am I hearing about some big swinging dick from Sydney taking over the case and pushing you lot around?’
I had to laugh. ‘You’ll never believe who it is.’
‘Eh?’
