The old man’s mouth dropped open, and he turned to Dodge for confirmation.
‘What?’
‘We understand you were due to meet with her yesterday,’ Dodge said. ‘About your wife’s murder.’
‘Yes.’ John took a tentative step forward. ‘It was mywifethat was murdered, not—’
‘Chloe, too.’ I nodded, straining my vision hard to see his eyes behind the darkened lenses. ‘She was stabbed to death at the pub down in Redbelly on Friday night. The night before she had arranged to come out here and see you. Are you telling us you’ve heard nothing about it?’
John’s mouth turned downward, hard. He looked all around, finally settling on the dog, which he scooped up into his arms. He went inside, saying nothing, just opening the screen door and going in. Dodge and I followed into the shady, cutely decorated little house. There was art hanging on the walls. Seascapes with rocky cliffs, apartment buildings. They reminded me of Maroubra, my usual jurisdiction. For a moment I had to remind myself where I was. ‘Surely you must have heard what happened,’ I pressed.
‘Nope,’ he said with obvious bitterness, putting the dog on a couch and shuffling to the kitchen. ‘I saw there was commotion down at the pub, yes. When I got back into town this morning. But I didn’t go snooping. I just supposed it was a robbery or something.’
He picked up a tea towel from the edge of the sink, threw it down again. I could see his mouth working, chewing on emotions. ‘What bloody well happened to her, then?’
‘She was stabbed.’
‘What for?’
‘We don’t know, as yet.’
He shook his head, gazed out the windows at the fields.
‘But what did you think when Chloe didn’t turn up for her meeting?’ Dodge asked. ‘Her phone records show you didn’t call her to check where she was.’
‘Oh, I didn’t think too much. I never do.’ The old man gave an angry, world weary laugh. He started taking down coffee cups from a row of hooks against the kitchen wall, seeming to want something to do with his hands. ‘I’ve been stood up by journalists plenty of times. They come out here about every five years or so. Someone decides they’re going to run a story or make a film or something. Then a more interesting or more recent case comes along and off they go after that. I don’t bother chasing them. I’ve made thatmistake. Waste of time. And she sounded young, on the phone. Chloe. I just assumed she got a better offer.’
‘So you didn’t call,’ I confirmed.
‘I didn’t want to hassle her.’ He shrugged. ‘I was grateful enough that she’d decided to fiddle around with the case. Nobody on the police side has touched it in a couple of decades. I didn’t want to rouse on her the moment she stood me up. I was hoping she’d pop up again in a few days and say—oh, sorry, I got called away. Or something.’
‘So, were you here that morning?’ I asked. ‘Sitting around, expecting her?’
‘I was. She was due at nine a.m. At about five o’clock that evening, I went to my daughter’s place.’ John flicked the switch on a kettle, put his fists either side of the sink and stared out at the tree line. The cockatoos were still screaming. ‘I’d been getting ready in my mind, since Chloe contacted me, to talk about Linda again. And everything that happened. When she didn’t show up, it was sort of … upsetting, I guess. I waited all day. So I went there, slept there that night. She’s not far away, my daughter. Monica. She’s in Colo.’
‘So you didn’t have to pass the pub,’ Dodge said, almost to himself. ‘Wouldn’t have seen the crime-scene tape.’
‘My daughter, she keeps a spare room for me,’ John said. ‘It was nice to be there, even if she’s not.’
Dodge and I were quiet. Thinking.
‘It’s hard to explain.’ John shrugged again. ‘But it’s full of life, Monny’s house. And I felt like being around some life.’
The old man made coffee, placing a safe bet that as cops we wanted some. Dodge and I threw meaningful glances at each other behind John Special’s back about the way he moved. Stiff and considered. Wondering to ourselves whether this could have been the man that pinned Chloe Lutz against a wall and stabbed her to death. I knew from experience that adrenaline did wonders for a person’s body, and psychopathic murderers made excellent actors.
‘You fellas got a suspect, then?’
‘We’re looking at several people.’
‘Do you think it’s him?’
John turned towards us. Dodge and I looked at each other, and I felt a coldness come into me as I remembered my beautiful daughter crouched in the morning light.
Do you think he’s still here?
‘That’s one of the theories we’re working with,’ I answered.
‘You coppers.’ John gave a gravelly laugh. ‘You all sound the same. Anybody ever tell you that? You’ve been giving me those lines for fifty years.We’re looking at several people. We’re working with several theories.I sure hope you come up with some new ones, so some bastard related to Chloe isn’t sitting around in half a century being fed those same lines.’
