surgery clinic.
Whitt took a file out of his bag and selected his manila folder on the Parish murders. There were crime-scene photographs of the once-immaculate surgery room, bloodstains and spatters found to be from Isobel and Samantha Parish. And some blood that matched the DNA profile of Regan Banks. The detectives had determined that Banks had abducted Doctor Parish and her daughter and forced the skilled plastic surgeon to attend to wounds Banks had acquired in a shootout with police.
Whitt had been there when Regan was shot by police, had heard Regan’s cry as the bullets tore through him. It didn’t escape Whitt that if he’d just been faster, smarter, more prepared, he might have been the one to take Regan down before he escaped. Before he killed the mother and child.
Whitt flipped quickly through the photographs of the bodies, the mother curled in a corner of the surgery, her throat cut. The little girl still in her dance leotard, her arms splayed and head twisted back at an unnatural angle. The killings had been swift but violent. Whitt wondered whether Doctor Parish had known when she was helping Banks with his wounds that he planned to kill her. There were indications the woman and the child had both put up a vigorous fight, completely trashing the surgery room. They’d died at opposite ends of the building, the child making it all the way down the hall to the front reception room and grabbing the phone off the hook. No call to emergency services had come through.
Whitt looked at the photographs of the mangled bullet Doctor Parish had removed from Regan’s body, the clippings of stitches that had fallen on the floor after the surgery table was upturned. Doctor Samantha Parish had got a broken killing machine up and running again and paid for it with her life. And her daughter’s life.
Whitt wondered how many more names he would have to write on identical folders before the killing machine was taken out of operation for good.
Chapter 8
WHEN THE BRIEFING was done, Whitt walked across the busy bullpen to his desk, coffee in hand. The desk was new, a delay in his official transfer from Perth, meaning he had spent his first couple of weeks at the department working out of his car or a briefing room. A group of detectives was gathered nearby, watching the large glass window of Chief Morris’s office with interest.
Whitt looked over to see what they were all focused on.
“It’s him,” a detective said, his arms folded, leaning on Whitt’s desk. “It’s Big Joe Woods.”
“That’s the guy who caught Elizabeth Crassbord’s killer?”
“And Reece Smart, the Farmhouse Killer,” another detective said, nodding. “Dude’s a big-case bandit. Swoops in after all the hard work is done, trying to get the press. He’s got a lot to prove. You hear about his daughter?”
Whitt scoured his desk for his folder. He thought he’d just put it down on the desk when he passed to get his coffee, but now it was gone. He straightened and turned to the group of men beside him still focused on the office across the room.
“Did someone take my…?”
The detectives turned toward him and smiled. Whitt sighed. One of the woes of being associated with Tox Barnes was that other detectives in the department were given license to harass, belittle, and prank any detective partnered with him. It was a tradition dating back to Tox’s entry into the force. Rumors spread, almost as soon as he was badged, about violent killings in his childhood. Tox had been responsible for the death of a mother and son, but it was a freak accident that got the pair killed. The police didn’t want a murderer in their midst and punished anyone who aligned themselves with Detective Barnes. Tox might have cleared up the rumors about his past, but he wasn’t the world’s most social guy. He liked to work alone, and his reputation, however false, kept people away.
Even with Tox holed up in hospital, out of sight and out of mind, Whitt was still being messed with for befriending the department’s most hated detective.
“Seriously? That’s my only copy of the Banks case file in its entirety,” he said.
“Well, then!” the nearest detective said cheerfully. “We know how you’ll be spending your morning.”
Whitt appreciated the prank for its subtlety and effectiveness. He would have to go down to “the dungeon,” the records department in the bowels of the building, and print himself a whole new file. He took