NSW Media Team—Alison Black—[email protected]
Trove newspaper archives—possible old car ads, buying and selling in months before and after?
‘Before and after what?’ I asked aloud. I scrolled further through the photos of the notebook. At some point the dread and confusion peaked, and I put the phone down, held my face, took a breath. Only half my brain was focused on Chloe’s diary. And that wasn’t good. I needed to get it over with. Switching from the registry search to the section of the intranet related to traffic cams, I ran a search for monitoring cams around Redbelly. I selected a camera and set a time period for 3 p.m. the previous day to 9 a.m. this morning, a wide expanse of time with the murder of Chloe Lutz stationed smack-bang in the middle. The screen filled with a list of car registrations and times. I noted Chloe Lutz’s Toyota hatchback, recognising her registration number, travelling north into Redbelly at 3.51 p.m., not long before she arrived at the check-in counter at the pub.
I scrolled down the list, not sure exactly what I was looking for. Chris couldn’t drive, and the evening before had been like any other, the kid announcing, ‘I’m going out, back later!’ and neither Delle nor I being bothered to get up from our evening wine at the kitchen counter to look out the front windows of the house and see who he was getting into a car with. We’d done that very thing when he was younger, looked out, noted down numberplates, gone out a few times and spoken to cagey cars full of teens. But the pathetic feeling the surveillance gave us won out, in the end. The sense that we were being helicopter parents, curtain-twitchers and pearl-grabbers. By the time I was sixteen, Russell was out of the house in the police force, and I’d been living as an adult on the farm at Maroota while Dad disappeared for several days at a time without explanation. I drove myself to the shops. I paid the electricity bills. I mowed lawns and did odd jobs for the neighbours to keep myself going.
A thought occurred to me, and I took up my phone, opened Uber and set my location to my house in Mangrove Mountain. I ordered a ride to Redbelly, and waited while the map expanded and contracted and tiny cars puddled around the screen. I saw thatthere were two Uber drivers currently operating in the town. One of them accepted my job. I opened the notes app on my phone, copied down the numberplate, then cancelled the ride. Waiting a few minutes, I ordered the ride again, and the other Uber driver in Mangrove Mountain accepted it this time, now that I’d probably deeply annoyed the first one by dumping his job. I noted down this numberplate too, and went back to the list on my laptop, my heart in my throat.
There, at 7.54 p.m., was an Uber driver heading south into Redbelly on the night Chloe Lutz was murdered. I scrolled up and toggled the list so that the accompanying images taken by the camera would show the vehicle itself on the road beside the listing.
A silver Mazda. The occupants in the two front seats were clearly visible. The driver, a muscular, shaven-headed guy. And beside him, my son.
Every part of my brain was saying that I was looking at my child. The posture. The thin slice of jaw that I could see under the black ball cap. I was sure I could discern the shape of his hair against the blackness of the seat’s headrest. My jaw locked into place, and I slammed the laptop shut and tossed it aside.
‘Fuck this,’ I said, starting the car and heading out of the lot.
RUSSELL
Isat at the head of the plastic table in the second of two barbecue areas on Louis Dodge’s marooned houseboat. This area of the vessel was a lot less loved than the stern with its with fairy lights and potted geraniums. Up here the awning was partly deconstructed, sheets of corrugated iron stacked outside the wheel room through which the area was accessed. Dodge seemed to be in the process of cutting rotted parts out of the frame and replacing them. One by one, his crew of officers arrived; Fry and another man I’d seen smoking outside the pub when I came into town, and two women who nodded a wary hello then set to muttering in the shadows, their arms folded and heads together. Dodge didn’t seem to know whether I wanted everyone to sit at the table or not, and I didn’t issue any invitations, so he swept a hand over the team when they were all assembled but left them standing.
‘Detective Inspector Powder, you know Constable Fry, and this is his partner, Constable Knowles.’ Dodge indicated the two male officers, both in their thirties. Knowles was reedy thin and Fry was just a blob in the corner of my vision, because looking directly at him felt like putting a gun to my head.
‘And over there we have Constables Kalowski and Lee.’
I nodded. Didn’t smile. Beneath me I heard Bridie returning in the ’Stang.
‘Knowles and Fry have taken official statements from publican Rob Winter, the guests who were staying at the hotel last night, anda couple of the local tradies who were at the pub in the evening and saw Chloe having dinner,’ Dodge said. ‘Then I’ve had Kalowski and Lee hitting the door-knock trail.’
‘You two first.’ I pointed at Knowles. ‘Keep it short and sharp.’
Knowles’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he looked to his partner; then, seeing no sign Fry was going to take the hit, said, ‘We don’t have anything on Robbo.’
‘Onwho?’ I asked.
‘Mr Winter.’ Knowles reddened considerably. ‘We’ve run a check on the past female guests of the pub’s hotel going back six months, like you asked. A lot of them were international. We haven’t been able to come up with anyone who says Mr Winter was anything but polite. Maybe a bit aloof. Always busy. His staff, past and present, have all said nice things about him. He remembers birthdays and pays on time. He’s sacked a couple of people over the years but has never done it aggressively or without good reason. They saw it coming and felt they deserved it.’
‘Is he single?’ I asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
Everyone looked at each other. ‘We … We haven’t asked.’
‘It’s time to ask.’ I gave an impatient huff. ‘Don’t you think? Woman murdered in his pub? All-female staff? Constantly surrounded by intoxicated women? How is this man getting his rocks off? And if he’s not getting his rocks off, how does he feel about that?’
‘Maybe he’s gay.’ Lee gave a little smirk.
‘Robbo? Robbo’s not gay,’ Knowles scoffed. ‘He was with that woman from the Mountain for a while. The one with the dreadlocks. Plus, he’s Catholic.’
‘You can be Catholic and gay,’ Kalowski reasoned.
‘Can you?’
‘He usually has an all-female staff, yes,’ Dodge said. ‘But that’s just how it is out here. Young men mow lawns, lay concrete and haul junk. Women clean houses and work at the pub.’
I nodded, thinking.
