by Clare Kauter
“Same,” I said. Well, that explanation seemed like the simplest, even if it wasn’t the whole story.
“Right,” said Billy, but an expression passed over his face just for a moment that made me think he didn’t quite believe what I’d said. Then his walls came back up and I questioned whether I’d actually seen what I thought I had.
“You can start with today’s footage now and see if that throws anything up,” I said. “That’ll probably take up most of the morning. Maybe you’ll get lucky there and you won’t need to get Ella to help you.”
He nodded. “Right. I’ll get on that.” He turned back to his computer and typed something in, presumably looking for the footage.
I frowned. “You OK, Billy?”
He glanced up at me and for a moment I thought he was going to lie and say he was fine, but apparently he decided that there wasn’t any point.
“Not really.”
“Want to talk about it?”
He sighed. “Got a call from my ex this morning.”
“Oh?”
“I’m meeting him for lunch.”
I frowned. “Really? Why?”
He leaned back in his chair and tilted his head back, stretching as he looked up at the ceiling. “He said he had information about the case.”
My eyes widened. “Were you planning on telling me this?”
“I was going to see if he actually had anything first.”
“You think he was lying?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“To get information from me.”
“Surely he doesn’t think you’re that idiotic.”
“Well, I did date him,” he replied. “I can’t be too smart.”
Chapter Twenty
Billy
The footage I spent the morning sifting through was completely useless. I watched it all multiple times, but the ghost didn’t make an appearance once. OK, maybe tracking down the person Martha and I had seen was going to be trickier than I’d hoped. I didn’t really have any clues beyond the fact that he’d been seen at Bondi. Yep. All persons bulletin on a guy who’d been seen at Bondi Beach. Brilliant. Basically solved. It looked like I was going to have to get Ella to dig up that archival footage for me after all.
As boring as checking the footage was, I was still a little annoyed when I was done with it because that meant it was lunch time. I groaned. I really didn’t want to see Eric.
“No luck?” Nat asked, glancing over at me from her desk. She was leaning back in her chair, feet on the table with her ankles crossed, while she flipped through pages and pages of information about Spencer and his crew, familiarising herself with his history of being an utter psychopath for the past few decades.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“I’ll let Ella know that we need her to look through the archives, then,” she said. I half-expected some jibe about Ella, but she didn’t make one.
I nodded. “I’d better get to my lunch appointment, anyway.”
“You sound thrilled about that.”
I sighed. “I think I’d rather let Spencer cut off my nipples.”
“Well, at least you’ve got that to look forward to after your lunch.”
I snorted, half-laughing. “I guess.”
“You want me to come along for moral support?” she asked. I raised my eyebrows at her. “To your lunch, I mean. I’ll wait off to the side and you can signal me to bail you out if it gets too unbearable.”
“You’d do that?”
She shrugged. “Surely your ex-boyfriend isn’t scarier than me.”
“He’d give you a run for your money.”
She tutted. “He wishes.”
I grinned.
Nat and I walked to the park together. I was grateful for the company since it kept my mind off the fact that I was going to have to see Eric. We discussed Spencer on the way there and I told her about my last encounter with him. I’d proven he’d been the guy to hold up a corner store with a meat cleaver. We hadn’t actually spoken at all while I was working the case, but he’d somehow found out I was involved and showed up at my house while he was out on bail with a different meat cleaver (I guess he had a collection), ranting and raving about all the things he was going to do to me. I’d called the cops and they’d put him back in the lock-up. I hadn’t seen him since.
“So all in all, a pretty stand-up guy,” said Nat.
“Pillar of the community.”
I’d organised to meet Eric by the Pool of Reflection in Hyde Park. Who knew, maybe the pool would prompt some introspection from him. Unlikely, but a guy could dream. As Nat and I approached, I could see Eric was already there waiting. My stomach twisted. He was holding a brown paper bag and I recognised the logo as the same cafe he’d always eaten at. I wondered what he’d ordered me. Probably something shit. In his other hand he carried a cardboard tray with two disposable coffee cups on it. Finally he saw me approaching and smiled, waving with the hand holding the bag. Damn it. No way I could run now.
“Urgh,” said Nat when she saw who I was looking at. “Really, Billy? You could definitely do better.”
I laughed quietly, feeling a little better. I was glad she’d volunteered to come along. “Alright,” I said, psyching myself up. “I can do this.”
“Of course you can,” said Nat. “And if I see tears, I’ll intervene.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that.”
“That’s the spirit,” she said. “Now, pretend you’re not ridiculously hungover and –”
My eyes widened in panic. “Do I look hungover?”
“Only moderately.”
I groaned. “You had to tell me that now?”
“Who cares? He’ll just think that you were out having a great time without him last night.”
“Or that I drank an entire bottle of red at home alone.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t, did you?”
“No, of course not.” Only most of a bottle.
She seemed unconvinced, but didn’t ask any further questions. “You can do it, Billy Boy. Go forth and interrogate.”
I nodded once, took a deep breath and walked stiffly in Eric’s direction. My stomach clenched and my palms grew sweaty as I approached him. I tried surreptitiously to wipe them on my pants, but it didn’t really seem to help. When I got up close, Eric was still smiling at me. Well, I say he was smiling. On him it looked more like he was just baring his teeth, getting ready to sink them into my heart and tear it apart all over again.
“Billy!” said Eric, coming in for an awkward hug. His hands were full and I didn’t really want to touch him, so on a scale of uncomfortable hugs it rivalled the Voldemort-Draco fiasco. I pulled back as fast as I could and we took a seat on the steps nearby. I glanced across the pool and saw Nat waiting over the other side, legs firmly planted and arms crossed like she was my bodyguard watching to make sure Eric didn’t try anything. That made me smile.
Eric handed me a coffee and then reached into the paper bag. “I didn’t remember what you liked, so I got you a garden salad,” he said, handing me a cardboard container and a bamboo fork.
I stared at him for a beat. What I wanted to do was point out that we’d been together for two years and in that time most people would have memorised their partner’s favourite meal from a cafe they ate at twice a week. Linguini arrabbiata. Same thing I ordered every time I saw it on a menu. The second thing I wanted to point out was that no one in the history of the world liked a garden salad. What the hell, Eric. A couple of limp lettuce leaves and two cherry tomatoes. Yeah, sure, that was going to carry me through an afternoon of questioning a violent prison inmate who wanted to add my nipples to his weird body parts collection. In his stomach.
Instead of saying anything, I just sat the salad on the step next to me without opening it and took a sip of the coffee. That part, at least, he got right.
“So, what’s this information you have for me?” I asked, cutting right to the chase
.
He raised his eyebrows. “You’re not even going to ask how I am? What I’ve been up to since last time we saw each other?”
“Nope. Don’t care.”
“That’s a little hurtful.”
I gave him a look of disbelief. “Hurtful?” I nearly exploded and fired a hundred examples of when he’d hurt me back at him, but then I saw Nat watching from across the pool. Stay cool, Billy. Get the information and then leave. “Don’t pretend you have feelings, Eric. Now tell me why you made me come here or I’m going to leave.”
“After I bought you lunch?”
“You didn’t buy me lunch. You bought me a fucking garden salad, Eric. Tell me what you know or I’ll leave right now.”
“You really are assertive these days, Billy,” he said. I made to stand up and he placed his hand on my arm to stop me. “OK, OK. I’ll cut to the chase.”
“Fine. Hurry up.”
He took a deep breath and sighed. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Why do it, then?”
He pressed his hand to his chest as if hurt. “Billy, I –”
I groaned. Loudly. “Eric, I know you. You aren’t here to help me. You’re here to help yourself. Now tell me whatever bullshit you’re planning to so I can leave and never see your face again.”
“I am trying to help you, Billy, whether you believe it or not,” he said. “I want Jake’s murder solved.”
“Why?”
“Well, I’ve taken on some of his clients, and –”
“Ah,” I said, everything finally clicking. “You want to make sure he wasn’t murdered by one of his clients in case they come after you next. That’s a much more Eric reason for showing up here than you doing me a favour.”
His brow furrowed slightly. He was annoyed with me. Good. “Do you want to hear about his clients or not?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Kind of tempted to let you get murdered now that option’s on the table.”
He narrowed his eyes at me but continued speaking nonetheless. “I’ve looked through all of Jake’s cases that were passed on to me. Most are pretty innocuous, but there was one that I thought could be motive.”
“Spencer?”
“What? No.” He frowned. “You mean the guy who showed up at our house with a meat cleaver that time?”
I nodded. “Jake was defending him on a murder charge.”
“Oh. I didn’t hear about that.”
“Jake was murdered in a similar manner to the way Spencer killed his victim.”
He frowned. “Right. But someone could easily have found out that Jake worked for Spencer and set up the crime scene to try and frame him.”
“Badly,” I said. “Spencer’s alibi is pretty solid. He’s in Long Bay.”
Eric shrugged. “Right. So clearly he didn’t do it. Which makes my suspect that much more likely.”
“Jake was defending some other psycho you think might have snapped and killed him?”
Eric shook his head. “Not exactly. Jake was working on a case to do with an archery club. He was defending the guy who ran the place.”
I frowned. “What happened?”
“Someone was suing him for negligence. A man got shot in the leg by his daughter.”
I snorted. That sounded more like a joke than an actual case. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “Ridiculous, I know. No one died or anything. But the father showed up at our office one day really irate, yelling at Jake that he was evil for defending the club owner. He even took a swing at him with one of his crutches.”
I frowned. “You really think this guy would have killed the lawyer?”
“You didn’t see how angry he was.”
“You don’t think he’d be more likely to go after the guy he was suing?”
Eric nodded. “Oh, he did that too,” he said. “That guy kept getting death threats in the mail.”
OK, now this was getting more interesting. “And has anything happened to him? He didn’t fall victim to a fatal stabbing as well, did he?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. You should look into it, though.”
“And this case is ongoing?”
He nodded. “Scheduled for a hearing next month.”
“Alright,” I said after thinking for a moment. “I’ll look into it.”
“Great,” he said. We were silent for a while as he dug into his lasagne and I ignored my garden salad. A garden fucking salad. Unbelievable. I sipped my coffee, thinking over what Eric had said.
“I missed you,” Eric lied.
“No you didn’t.”
“I was seeing someone for a while,” he said. “But it wasn’t like it was with you. Just a casual thing, you know.”
“I wish I knew less,” I muttered.
“We should get dinner sometime,” he said. “My treat.”
“Oh, great. Maybe you can order me another unsatisfying side dish as if it’s a meal.”
He frowned at me. “I mean it, Billy. I’m ready to give it another chance.”
“Get fucked,” I said, standing. “By someone else.”
I began to walk away, leaving my salad abandoned, but Eric hurried after me and grabbed my arm.
“Wait,” he said. “Not yet.”
I sighed, annoyedly. “What?”
“There’s more.”
I frowned. “With the archery dude?”
He shook his head. “No. Audrey told me – she told me what you came to the office to speak to her about.”
“Right.”
“The key.”
“Yep.”
“I can help you.”
“No you can’t.”
“I can,” he insisted. “I know what it opens. If you give it to me, I can –”
Anger blossomed in my chest, like a fiery red bath bomb fizzing away between my ribs. (That’s a totally normal metaphor. You’re the weird one.) “You really think I’m that dumb, Eric?” I said through gritted teeth. “You thought some stupid ploy about wanting to get back together would blind me to the fact that the entire point of meeting me today was so you could get that key back?”
“Billy…” he said, obviously about to deny it.
“Don’t even bother. Audrey put you up to this, right? Well don’t worry, you don’t have to suffer through a date with me. I can tell you right now, you’re never getting your hands on that key. I will get into that safe deposit box and if it has something inside that will ruin your law firm, I will take great pleasure in releasing it to the public. Now please fuck off, you slimy bag of dog shit.”
“Nice one,” came a voice to my left. Nat had rounded the pool, clearly deciding to come to my assistance when Eric had tried to stop me walking away from him. “Very fitting.”
“Who are you?” Eric demanded, glaring at her.
“Natalia. You worked with Jake Rogers, right? Mind if I ask you some questions?”
“I’ve already spoken to –”
She cut him off. “Why did you kill him?”
“Excuse me?”
“Simple question.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I can’t believe he’s struggling so much with this,” she said to me. She turned back to Eric. “You hated him, right?”
“No, I didn’t hate him.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You were dating him, though, weren’t you?”
That stopped him. “I – I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
My jaw dropped. “Seriously? You were dating a guy who got murdered a couple of weeks ago and you’re already trying to slime your way on a date with me?”
“Wow, Eric. You seem pretty cut up about Jake’s death,” said Nat flatly. “Can I get you a tissue?”
“It’s been a month,” he snapped.
“And we all know grief expires after a twenty-eight day mourning period.”
Eric crossed his arms. “Did you just come here to judge me?
”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Yeah. I did,” she said. “Sorry, I thought you understood how this worked. I talk to you, I judge whether you’re guilty or not and then depending on my answer you go to jail.”
“I’m a lawyer,” he said in a condescending tone. “I’m not going to jail.”
“Sure you aren’t,” she said. “Well, you’ve been very helpful. Unfortunately for you. By the way, that whole thing about you dating the victim? Just a guess. You need to work on your poker face or you’ll never make it as a murderer.”
“I’m not a murderer!” he yelled, so loudly that a couple of people nearby turned to look in our direction and then hurried away.
“Very convincing,” Nat said. She looked at me. “Really, Billy, you could do so much better. By dating literally anyone else on the planet. Shall we?”
“Let’s,” I said.
And with that we left.
“Thanks for the backup,” I said as we walked. “And well done on spotting the fact that he’d been seeing Jake.”
She shrugged. “There were two toothbrushes at Jake’s house. I was just planning to try that on everyone until someone cracked.”
“I can’t believe him,” I said. “I mean, I know he’s heartless but that was next level. The guy died and he’s still trying to cover up what’s in that safe deposit box for the good of his company.” I shook my head in disbelief. “That’s cold, even for him.”
“What else did he say?” I filled her in on the entire conversation. “Huh,” she said when I finished. “The archery case was in Bob’s notes, but he didn’t mention anything about the guy showing up at Parker & Yates.”
“I wouldn’t put too much stock in what Eric said. I’m pretty sure he only met up to try and get the key from me.”
She nodded. “Well, at least it’s something to look into if things don’t pan out with Spencer. Speaking of which, we should probably hop in Bazza as soon as we get back to the office or we’re going to be late.”
I sighed. “My nipples are tingling in anticipation.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Natalia
The drive to Long Bay Correctional took about thirty minutes, during which time Billy and I chatted about the case and didn’t come up with anything. At least we were over our initial morning weirdness. He didn’t seem to have noticed that I’d gone through his desk, and since he wasn’t suddenly treating me vastly differently from how he had yesterday, I figured the guys hadn’t said anything to him last night when they all went out for drinks. Usually whenever someone new came to the office, the Dick Brigade would take them out drinking and turn them against me. Not so with Billy, it seemed. Well, there’s a first time for everything.
