‘She just emptied her entire arsenal like she was trying to get rid of old stock.’ He took the coffee I’d made for him at the houseboat with caution, sipped it like he assumed it was filled with arsenic.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Chloe’s accounts have come in. There’s news.’
I pulled out onto the road and explained what I’d found on Chloe’s hard drive. When I pointed, he took up my laptop from the back seat and started fishing around himself where I directed him to, looking at the emails I’d flagged and the calls I’d highlighted. I drove impatiently, glancing over for a reaction. His mouth hardened and he shook his head. ‘Awful cases. Special and Richley. The juvenile, too. I know her name from the files but it’s escaping me now.’
‘Did you know about those cases?’
‘Oh, I mean, I looked,’ he said. ‘Just out of pure curiosity. I grew up past Womerah, so the story of the rape was a thing we all knew about. It seems Chloe thought that might have been connected to these two murders.’
‘I can see how cops at the time might not have connected the two,’ I said, slowing as I approached a kangaroo and her joey eating grass at the side of the road. We passed without them leaping out. ‘Linda and Marian were in their twenties. They were at home alone at night. The coppers were thinking he’s come and knocked on the door and talked his way into the houses.’
‘Why did they think that?’ Dodge clicked around the screen, squinting.
‘There was a smashed cup on the floor at Linda’s place. Phone off the hook in Marian’s kitchen. The thinking was he’s knocked and asked for a glass of water. Or to use the phone. They’ve let him in and he’s attacked them. There was no forced entry, and police found every door and window in both houses was shut and locked except for the front one.’
‘This article is saying the girl, the minor, was attacked in her bed after she went to sleep.’ Dodge’s head was down, his nose inches from the screen. ‘That’s a different MO entirely.’
‘Probably why nobody bothered to connect it.’
‘Why did Chloe connect it?’
I shook my head. ‘I haven’t been through all the emails. And there’s no notebook. But maybe she was just … I don’t know. Shewas winging it. Thinking creatively. Wanting to have some red herrings for her podcast.’
‘She was going to do a podcast?’
‘There’s an email there to a guy named Herman Grey.’ I pointed vaguely, my eyes on the road. ‘Early on. One of the first emails in her account that mentions the case.’
‘Oh, yep. I see it.’
‘Grey was an old copper from Wisemans. In the email she says she’s thinking about doing a podcast.’
Dodge read. I drove. The valley hugged us as we crossed the bridge and wound up through Redbelly. There were press vans parked by the river. I caught a glimpse of Gail Caplan at the marquee in the pub beer garden. Fry and Knowles in plain clothes, listening to Caplan talk. She had her hands on her hips, and they had the relaxed shoulders and unfurrowed brows of guys who had been stood down from duty.
‘Uhhhhh …’ Dodge scratched his temple.
‘What?’
‘There’s an “Arthur Powder” here.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I saw. That’s my father.’
‘What’d she want to talk to him for?’
‘She’s emailed all the old coppers from the whole region,’ I said. ‘A copy-and-paste email explaining briefly what she was interested in and asking if they wanted to talk. When one didn’t answer, she moved on to the next.’
‘He didn’t answer.’
‘I’m surprised he even has an email address. Or that she found it. She was going to be a good journalist, Chloe Lutz.’
‘Should we go speak to him? Your dad? Is he still out here?’
‘I want to go to my father’s place about as much as I want a battery acid poured on my testicles, Dodge,’ I said. ‘I’m taking us out to speak to John Special.’
‘So you’re not on friendly terms with your father?’
‘No.’
‘Why’s that?’
