older one of the two couldn’t quite meet his gaze, the wrinkles in his brown skin deeper than the last time Will had spoken to him but his body in excellent shape. “I’m afraid we’ve been assigned the case.”
“Robert.” Will shook his hand. “Keep me in the loop, won’t you? I’ve picked up more than a bit of knowledge about this town that might be helpful.” He wasn’t used to justifying his need for information, but he needed his fellow detective’s cooperation if he was to have access to the reports.
Openly relieved at Will’s lack of rancor, Robert immediately agreed to copy him in on any results. “I hear you’ve got a second scene?” he said with a raised eyebrow.
Will nodded. “I’m heading out to keep it under surveillance until the second forensic team arrives.” He’d argued hard for the first team to go to Miriama’s body, aware it was decomposing quickly with every second that passed, but those in charge had overruled him. In their view, while she’d died more recently, the body of a drowning victim wasn’t going to hold anywhere near the forensic evidence that might be discovered on a skeleton that had been laid out for someone to find.
In their minds, it was tragic accident versus pathological murder.
“This Shane Hennessey fella.” Robert shot a look over at where Shane still sat on the crate, his head cradled in his hands. “He a likely?”
“My gut says no—he threw up halfway into the wait.” Shane had been desperate to get out, go home, but Will hadn’t been able to let him leave.
“Yeah,” Robert murmured, “whoever laid out these bones had to have ice for blood. Jesus, the bones are lined up as if he used a ruler.”
“Shane’s a novelist, says he walks this trail in the early morning when he wants to think.” Will wanted to pass on the information, then leave, get to Anahera. “No indications of any violent tendencies and no record in either New Zealand or Ireland.” That information Will had discovered during his initial run on all possible suspects in the Cove. “Shane’s mentored a number of young female writers, but they’re all accounted for.” He’d spent the wait making calls, confirming that. “My take—he’s just the unlucky bastard who found the bones.”
The two detectives exchanged a look, but Will didn’t much care what they thought of his instincts. They’d come to the same conclusion after a couple of minutes with Shane—the man remained green around the gills. “Look, unless you need something else right now, I have to get to the second site.”
“Yeah, we’d better go examine the skeleton. I’ll let you know what the bone specialists say.”
As Will drove away from the site, he saw curious locals beginning to slow down their battered trucks and rusty sedans as they passed the dump—they’d probably come to abandon rubbish, been startled by the forensic van and multiple police vehicles. Just wait until the second team arrived. Golden Cove was about to become a circus.
He shut his mind to all of it as he drove, thinking about what Shane had found, what Anahera had found. Coincidence? Yes. No one could manipulate the sea. But he’d have to look at the body first to confirm. It’d all depend on how long Miriama had been in the water. Because if you knew the sea really well—as so many of the men and women in this area did—it might be possible to drop a body in at a particular point with a fairly good expectation of it being washed up on the beach.
Will should’ve gone straight to the beach, straight to relieve Anahera’s lonely vigil, but he knew how fast information could travel in the Cove. And he knew Matilda would’ve heard about the sudden appearance of police vehicles at the dump site.
So he went to her home. She was waiting for him wrapped up in a faded gray polar fleece robe, her face strangely motionless. “Did you find her?” she demanded. “Did you find my baby?”
“We found her.”
She keened and collapsed onto the floor before he could tell her anything else.
Going down beside her, Will did what he could, but it wasn’t enough. He was grateful to see one of her neighbors—Raewyn Clark—running over, her blonde hair a mass of frizzy curls; Raewyn’s flinty expression told him she’d guessed exactly what terrible news he’d brought. “I’ll take care of her.” The heavily tattooed former gang member went down beside Matilda, put her arms around the broken woman.