Hindsight (9781921997211) (16 page)

‘Great, sounds like I'm really going to have to eat humble pie.'

‘Several servings.'

‘I'll talk to Phil about it. She's working on our plan now.' Ed stood up to leave.

‘I want to be organised before the CS Detectives arrive tomorrow.'

‘Yes, ma'am,' Ed said and headed for the door.

‘Oh, one more thing.'

‘Yes?'

‘If you're going to go and see Cass, leave Phil behind, OK? I don't think she'll be much help to you.'

‘Yes, ma'am.'

Ed left her office for the squad room. He had plenty of thinking to do. Sorenson was right. If Cass was legit then she really might be able to identify Old Mick's killer and that meant finding Janet Hodgson's killer and the killer of four or five other women, including Susan. The thought gave him a rush of nervous energy.

Phil was hard at it when he got back to his desk. A classic two-fingered typist, she was pounding away at her keyboard. Ed decided to save the conversation about Cass until he'd done some searching for the missing victim. Convincing Phil that they needed Cass's help wasn't going to be an easy or quick conversation.

He logged on and started by double-checking missing persons from 2009. None were women with green eyes.

He turned to the homicides from that year. There weren't many still unsolved and only three were women. He skimmed the details about each. He didn't have to go very far before one leapt out at him: a woman found murdered on the Adelaide University campus. What got his attention was one crucial fact: her eyes were cut out. His gut clenched. This had to be it.

He opened the case file, searching for a photo of the victim or a description that would tell him what colour her eyes were. At last he found it, a thumbnail picture of her. He blew it up on his screen. The photo wasn't great but there was no mistaking it, her eyes were a vivid green, just like Susan's — just like all the other women.

‘Who's the chick?' Phil asked.

Ed nearly jumped out of his skin. He was so engrossed in what he was doing that he hadn't realised that Phil had stopped typing and was standing directly behind him.

‘I think she's the missing link,' Ed answered.

‘Two thousand and nine?' Phil asked.

‘Yep, she was murdered and her eyes were cut out — her green eyes.'

‘Oh God, I remember that one. It happened at the uni, right? CS worked it for ages but never got anywhere. There was no forensic evidence to speak of.'

‘Yeah, I remember it too. It made a lot of people very nervous. They were all wondering if it was the beginning of something. When no other vics with missing eyes turned up they heaved a sigh of relief. Looks like it was something more, it's just the killer changed his MO and went country.'

‘Yeah, right into our backyard, lucky us,' Phil said.

Ed stared at her. Phil realised it was a bad choice of words as soon as it was out of her mouth.

‘Jesus, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound flippant.'

‘Yeah I know, it's just — to think that if someone had been paying more attention they might have caught on sooner and Susan might still be here …'

‘I know,' Phil said.

They both sat there in silence, contemplating what might have been.

‘OK, I'll print this out. Let's go get a coffee. You can fill me in on what you've put together for Sorenson and I can run something by you as well.'

‘Something Sorenson said?' Phil asked.

‘Yeah.'

‘I'm not going to like it, am I?'

‘Nope.'

They headed to Enzo's. Ed waited until they were settled at their favourite table before he launched into it.

‘Sorenson wanted to talk to me about what happened with Cass yesterday.'

‘Oh yeah? Did she go running to Sorenson and tell her we didn't play nice?'

‘No, the opposite actually, she went home and decided we could pretty much go to hell and she didn't want to work with us.'

‘Suits me just fine,' Phil said.

They paused as their coffees arrived.

‘Yeah, I thought you'd say that,' Ed said.

‘But there's more to it?'

‘Cass's mother was the one who rang Sorenson to let her know what had happened. Sorenson actually wasn't that pissed about it. She seemed to understand why we had issues with it all.'

‘Issues? There's not an iceberg's hope in hell that I'll ever believe that she can do what she says she can do or want her help.'

‘Hmm, well, that's gonna be a problem,' Ed said with a sigh.

‘Oh shit, don't tell me Sorenson still wants us to work with her?'

‘Sorenson just thinks that she might be able to give us something on Old Mick's killer.'

‘And Old Mick's killer is the same person that killed Janet Hodgson and all the rest.'

‘Yep, although she doesn't know about the rest yet.'

‘Jesus, why doesn't she just issue us with a Ouija board and be done with it? I just don't understand where all this is coming from. I would never have picked Sorenson as someone who believes in all that mumbo jumbo, she's so freakin' down the line and letter of the law with everything else.'

‘Something must have happened that turned her into a believer,' Ed said, skating as close to the truth as he dared.

‘Yeah, I'd love to know what. It must have been something important. So, what are we supposed to do? It doesn't sound like Cass wants to work with us any more than we want to work with her after yesterday's little scene.'

‘Sorenson thought maybe I should go and talk to her and see if I could change her mind,' Ed said.

‘Let me guess, she told you to leave me behind.' Phil sounded annoyed but she had a wry smile on her face.

‘Yeah.'

‘I guess she knows me pretty well. So when are you going, and more importantly, when are you going to tell Sorenson about the others?'

‘The sooner, the better with Cass. If I have to go and apologise I would rather just get it out of the way. I don't know about telling Sorenson though. What do you reckon? Should I tell her now or after?'

‘Now. If Cass agrees to help then she can do her voodoo with both Old Mick and the girl from 2009,' Phil said.

‘I hadn't thought of that, of course, she could visit both places. We know where both of them died so it doubles the chance of our getting an ID on the killer. You're a fucking genius, Phil!'

‘I try. Besides, you can't ask Cass to work on a murder that Sorenson doesn't even know we're looking at, not with the mother having a hotline straight to her — she'd be bound to find out. Then there's the added bonus that if Sorenson thinks Cass'll only work with you then there's a better chance she'll leave you on the case.'

‘Yep, true, OK, I'd better go see Sorenson. This'll be interesting.'

‘I'll come too, we still need to fill her in on our plan for the case, although it's about to change anyway. Something tells me she'll be pissed off that you didn't go to her yesterday when you first started to suspect a serial,' Phil said.

‘Yeah, not to mention how she'll react when she finds out I've been quietly researching missing persons for the last eighteen months.'

‘Yep, you're gonna get you're arse kicked.'

‘Big time.'

They walked out into the southerly whipping off the sea, bringing fingers of ice from Antarctica. They hunched their shoulders against its bite and quickened their pace. Ed had a feeling the reception waiting for him inside wasn't going to be much warmer.

CHAPTER

18

Sorenson was on the phone when they got to her office. Ed took a seat and Phil paced around looking at the books and anything else in the room that caught her attention while they waited for the call to end. When it did, Phil took the seat next to Ed.

‘So, you have a plan for the McKenzie and Hodgson cases?' Sorenson asked, giving them her full attention.

‘Yes we do, but there's something we need to talk to you about first,' Ed said. He drummed his fingers on his knee.

‘Is it about the case?' she asked.

‘Yes it is.' He took a deep breath. ‘We think there is a good chance that Janet Hodgson and Old Mick were the latest victims of a serial killer who has been operating in the region for the last six years.'

She sat there in silence for a few seconds. Her face was impassive; she didn't look shocked or even startled.

‘You have some basis for thinking that?'

‘Yes.' He took another deep breath; this was the bit he'd been dreading. ‘I've been reviewing missing persons' cases for the last eighteen months for any possible patterns. When Cass came to see me yesterday she identified a link between four women who've gone missing in the last six years.'

‘Cass did?' This clearly surprised her.

‘Yes, she noticed that four of them had the same eye colour.'

‘Eye colour? So let me get this straight, you have sensitive case information about missing persons at home without authorisation and you showed it to Cass Lehman?'

‘Um, sort of, it was just pictures, but I didn't show her, she found them.'

‘So they were lying around?' She sounded both annoyed and incredulous.

‘I have a whiteboard with pictures of all the women who have gone missing and not been found in the last ten years. I've been reviewing the cases looking for links.' He sat back, feeling some kind of relief now that he'd come out with it.

Sorenson sat staring at him.

‘Did you know about this?' She looked at Phil, her eyes boring into the younger woman's.

‘Yes I did, I've been helping him. None of it has been done on work time.'

‘It's not the time I care about, although I am glad to hear it. It's the fact that the two of you have been looking into cases that we have no jurisdiction over for the last two years, and that sensitive information about those cases has just been casually lying around Detective Dyson's house where anyone can stumble across it. What the hell were you thinking?' she yelled.

‘I was just trying to make sense of Susan's disappearance,' Ed said quietly.

Sorenson sighed heavily. ‘You're lack of judgement is understandable, but Phil, I expected more from you.'

‘Yes, ma'am, I worked on it because I genuinely thought it was helping,' Phil said.

‘All right, forget all that for the moment and go back to the idea of a serial killer. You've got to be kidding, right? Don't you think the CS would have noticed a serial killer operating for the last six years?'

‘We think they missed it because the killer isn't after a particular type, he's after women with the same eye colour.'

‘You said four victims in six years? What makes you think that's a pattern? It could just be coincidence.'

‘I thought so at first too, but we think there's actually six,' Ed said in a rush, keen to convince her. ‘The pattern's definitely there. It started in 2008. Four of the vics are missing persons but two have turned up as DBs, one in 2009 and Janet Hodgson. This is the 2009 case.' He slid the case printout across her desk.

‘And the only thing connecting them is that they had the same eye colour? Lots of people have the same eye colour.'

‘Yes, that's true; this is a very unusual shade of green though. Not that many people have eyes that colour but that's not the only similarity. There's the fact that they all led pretty solitary lives and the timing of each disappearance,' Ed said.

‘Timing?'

‘Yes, each of them disappeared within a two-week window in either late June or early July. So we have one victim a year starting in 2008, all with the same unusual eye colour, all missing or dead at the same time of year.'

Sorenson processed this information for a few moments. ‘And this is the file for the 2009 case?'

‘Yep, and look at the autopsy report. The eyes were removed.'

Her eyebrows shot up. ‘And when did you work all this out?'

It was another question Ed had been dreading. He'd hoped that in the excitement of it all she might not ask. No such luck.

‘I started to wonder yesterday, but I hadn't found the 2009 case then. I only just found that.'

‘We weren't sure there was a pattern and we needed to be more certain before we came to you. As soon as Ed found the 2009 vic we came straight to you,' Phil said, trying to rescue Ed from the hole he was digging himself.

‘You should've come to me the minute you suspected you had a serial.'

‘Yes, ma'am,' Ed said. What else could he say?

‘And you think the Hodgson case is the latest?'

‘Yes, she had the right colour eyes and the time frame fits.'

‘But he didn't take the eyes.'

‘No, but when he put her in the crate he probably thought she was still alive and would be there when he came back,' Phil said.

‘So why did he leave the 2009 vic behind?'

‘I don't know, maybe he was interrupted?'

Sorenson sat there, thinking.

‘So if he's collecting eyes, doesn't that mean he doesn't have this year's to add to the set?' she finally asked.

‘Yep, that's what we're worried about. He might be out there right now looking for another vic,' Phil said.

‘The latest any of the vics has been taken or killed is the fifteenth of July. That was the 2009 case,' Ed said.

‘It's the tenth today,' she said.

‘Yes,' Ed said.

They sat there looking at each other.

‘Is there anything else I need to know?' Sorenson asked.

And there it was, the question he'd been dreading.

‘Susan was one of the vics,' Ed said.

Sorenson pushed her chair back and stared at him, then she stood up and walked over to the window that looked out over the street. It was a grey day and specks of sleet had started to hit the glass, leaving long exclamation marks of water in their wake. The weather was as grim as Sorenson's expression, reflected back at her in the glass.

She sighed. ‘I'm sorry to hear that, Ed.' She turned and looked at him.

He couldn't think of anything to say to her. For some reason her sympathy was the last thing he wanted. It made it more painful.

‘You realise that I have to tell CS? It'll be their case?'

‘Yeah, we know,' Phil said.

‘And Ed, you know I can't let you work the case if Susan was one of the vics? If we managed to catch the guy and you were one of the lead detectives a good defence lawyer would make mincemeat out of our case in five seconds flat.'

‘Yeah, I was hoping I could still participate in an unofficial way,' Ed said.

‘You really can't be anywhere near it. What did you have in mind?'

‘It's about the conversation we had earlier, about Cass.'

‘What about it?' Sorenson asked.

‘I still want to go and see her and ask her for her help. There are two vics she might be able to help with now, Mick and the victim from 2009. If she gets anything on the killer we might get the jump on the CS guys.'

Sorenson thought about this for a while before she answered. ‘I can't sanction it as part of the official investigation but I won't stop you from trying to talk Cass into helping. If she agrees and she gives you something we'll decide what to do then. I'll tell CS about the possible serial but not about Cass's involvement. The sooner you go and see her the better.'

‘I'll go now.'

When Ed and Phil walked out of Sorenson's office, he felt like he'd been in there for hours. Looking at his watch he was surprised to see that only half an hour had slipped by. It was lunchtime and the squad room was relatively empty. Phil looked at him, trying to read his expression.

‘You OK?'

‘Yeah, a bit wrung out.'

‘So, what now? Do you want to grab a bite?'

‘I just want to get on with it. I'll head straight over to the Lehman house and see if I can convince Cass to help us.'

‘Good luck,' Phil said then barked out a short laugh. ‘Shit! What am I saying? I can't believe I'm wishing you luck to go and talk that crazy woman into working a case with us.'

‘Yeah, who'd have thought it?'