The Murder Club (A Miller Hatcher Novel Book 2)

by Nikki Crutchley

  Miller nodded.

  Kahu put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’ll get Mark to take down the tape so you can back out. Have you got the letter?’

  They walked over to Miller’s car where she took the letter out of her satchel. The paper shook as she handed it over. ‘I didn’t wear gloves, sorry.’

  Kahu took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Are you okay to drive?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She clasped her hands tightly together to stop them shaking.

  ‘See you this afternoon?’

  ‘Okay.’ Her voice was barely a whisper. It felt strange to leave, knowing Madi was still inside. She knew there was nothing she could do – never had been. ‘He played me, Kahu. Tricked me, like it was a bit of fun, a practical joke.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Kahu asked.

  ‘In the letter. He said I should go to her. That maybe it wasn’t too late. That I could save her. But she would’ve been dead already, right?’

  ‘If it’s anything like the other two – which I’m sure it’s going to be – there’s nothing you could’ve done, Miller.’ He squeezed her arm. ‘Maybe take the day off, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ Miller said, unsure of what she was supposed to do for the rest of the day if she wasn’t working.

  She watched Kahu suit up and disappear into the house. Mark waved her out of the driveway and before she drove off, she watched him shoo away the eager spectators like annoying gnats and place the cordon back up.

  Chapter 27

  Cassie struggled in the front door, laden down with shopping bags. ‘There’s been another one,’ she called out to Tiff. ‘Madi Nilson.’ She couldn’t believe a third woman had been murdered. Her heart broke for all the families involved. She knew exactly what they were going through. Did they realise that the pain, the memory of how they’d died, would never go away? Cassie was sure she wasn’t alone. She was positive family members and friends of murdered loved ones carried that pain around their necks, shackled to their hearts for the rest of their lives. Many people, different people, teachers, friends, strangers, had all told her it would get easier. Like she was learning to ride a bike or figuring out geometry. Like with a bit of practice, after a bit of time, the fact that her mother was murdered would become just another event in her life, something she’d drag up from the depths of her memory and relive once in a while. How wrong they were.

  ‘Tiff?’ Cassie needed her. She needed to feel Tiff’s arms around her, telling her everything was going to be okay – even if it wasn’t. The town of Lentford was losing its appeal. And then she wondered if it really had any appeal to start with.

  Cassie started putting the groceries away. She’d done a half shift for Tane. She wasn’t supposed to work tonight, but Johnno hadn’t shown – again. He’d rocked up half an hour ago, full of excuses for Tane, and wide smiles and winks for her, telling them he’d finish up like he was doing them a favour. It was almost 8 p.m. and she was starving. She filled a saucepan with water and turned on the stove.

  Tiff walked into the lounge, the look on her face darkening the whole room. Cassie braced herself.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Tiff asked, not looking at her.

  ‘I’ve been at work. Tane called. I had to go in. Johnno was a no-show again.’

  ‘We were supposed to be going out for dinner, Cassie. We organised it last week.’ Tiff turned to her, eyes unblinking.

  Cassie looked away first. ‘We were? I don’t remember setting anything up. I’m sorry, Tiff.’ She turned to the chopping board and started cutting up the chicken. She didn’t want to fight.

  ‘You could’ve told me you were going out. I got home ready for our big night and you weren’t even here. I was worried.’ Tiff walked into the kitchen, which suddenly felt too small with both of them in it.

  Cassie leaned against the bench, wanting to get some distance from Tiff. ‘I left you a note, on the coffee table,’ she said.

  Tiff raised her eyebrows.

  She doesn’t believe me, Cassie thought.

  Tiff walked over to the coffee table and started throwing the magazines off the table.

  ‘Tiff!’ Cassie said, rushing into the lounge, bending down to pick up the magazines and newspapers that had slid into corners and under the couch.

  ‘Well, I’m looking Cass, and I can’t see any note. Can you?’ she said. Her face had turned red and she was breathing heavily. A raging bull.

  Cassie stepped back, magazines and newspapers in her hand. She was sure she’d left a note. Positive. She’d used a bit of the mint-green notepaper they kept by the phone.

  ‘I left it right there,’ Cassie said, pointing at the table. She began to chew the inside of her mouth.

  ‘It’s not there, Cassie,’ Tiff said. ‘Look, you’ve been preoccupied with this article coming out. Maybe you just forgot.’

  Tiff was giving her an out. This was good. She didn’t want to fight. She had been preoccupied, pinning all her hopes on Miller’s article getting more exposure for her mother’s case. She probably had forgotten.

  ‘Tiff, I’m so sorry,’ Cassie said, walking towards her.

  Tiff took her in her arms. ‘It’s okay. But you owe me dinner,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘How about pasta? I’m cooking it now,’ Cassie said. ‘You sit, relax. Beer?’ She walked to the fridge and took two out. She handed one to Tiff who sat on the couch while Cassie returned to the kitchen to finish cutting up the chicken.

  ‘Speaking of leaving messages, your dad rang today,’ Tiff said.

  ‘Oh, great. That’s the first time you’ve spoken to him, right?’ Cassie said, happy the two got to have a chat.

  ‘He was actually really rude. How does he feel about you being gay?’

  Cassie frowned, confused. ‘Fine. Always has been.’

  Tiff shrugged, putting her bare feet on the coffee table. ‘Well, he didn’t sound like it to me.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Cassie asked, refusing to believe her dad was anything but his usual polite self.

  ‘It wasn’t so much what he said, just the way he said it. Very stand-offish, you know? I tried to make conversation. I told him about where you were working, about Lentford, the house. But I didn’t really get much back from him.’ Tiff drained her beer, walked back into the kitchen and put it on the bench.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Tiff. That really doesn’t sound like Dad.’ Cassie stood with her back to Tiff, stirring the pasta sauce.

  ‘Are you saying I’m lying?’ Tiff’s voice was low, barely a whisper.

  Cassie swung around, ready to defuse the situation. ‘No! God no. Look, I’m sorry he was rude to you. I’ll have to have a word to him next time we speak.’ She reached forward, grasping for Tiff’s hand, begging not to be shut down. ‘You two should really meet. I know you’d get along.’

  Tiff took Cassie’s hand. ‘He actually mentioned coming for a visit.’ Tiff kissed Cassie’s knuckles. ‘But I don’t know, Cass. I don’t need his negativity. I escaped my homophobic family and don’t really want to be entering another one. Do you get me?’

  Cassie nodded. She didn’t know much about Tiff’s family in Hamilton, but she did know they hadn’t treated her well.

  ‘Could we maybe hold off on the visit for a while? Just till me and you get a bit more settled.’ Tiff leaned in for a kiss, waiting for an answer.

  Cassie nodded, flushing hot as Tiff’s lips grazed hers.

  ‘Thanks, Cass. I’m going to have a shower before dinner.’

  Tiff left the room and Cassie exhaled. She picked up the empty chicken tray and put it in the bin. Just as she was closing the lid, she saw the very edge of a mint-green piece of paper. She didn’t need to pick it up. She knew exactly what it said.

  Chapter 28

  Miller sat at her mum’s dining room table that stood in the centre of the small kitchen. It would forever be ‘Mum
’s table’ just like it was ‘Mum’s house’. They’d had the table at their old house when her dad had still been around. A photo of her mum sat in the middle of the table. Miller spooned muesli into her mouth while she chatted.

  ‘One hundred and eighty-one days, Mum,’ Miller said proudly.

  She loved this photo of her mum. It was older, taken almost fifteen years ago, long before the cancer had taken over her body so abruptly and completely. She was walking along the beach, fit, tanned, healthy, her husband was dead – a good thing. She was happy. Miller could tell from the photo. She’d known her mum well enough to know when she wasn’t happy, even if she was smiling. Her mum could always do the same with her.

  ‘There’s been another one. I feel responsible. And I know you’d tell me that it isn’t anything to do with me, but it’s me he’s contacting. He thinks we’re a team. He thinks I’m going to make him famous. I don’t want to. I feel sick at the thought of it, and Kahu... He hates what I do, at least this part of it. He thinks these people should be locked up and never heard from again. But I’ve tried to tell him, the public deserves to know – don’t they?’

  Her teeth grazed her lip and she clenched her jaw. She took another spoonful of muesli to counter the headache that would develop if she didn’t relax.

  It was 7.30 a.m. and the fact she was one hundred and eighty-one days sober didn’t stop the thoughts of having a drink. She felt it more now, more so than she had in a long time. It was like a wild animal trying to get free, the craving, clawing at her insides. But other times, weeks at a time, sometimes when all was going well, it lay dormant. At the moment it was like a physical pain. She knew it was the stress. She knew there was no way she could control what was going on, and she hated that. They were at the mercy of the Scarf Killer. And she hated that even more.

  She took her empty bowl to the sink, rinsed it out and laid it to dry on the stainless-steel benchtop. Her mum had a dishwasher, but she hadn’t used it since she’d moved in. It would take her over a week to fill it.

  Would it just go on? No, she knew it wouldn’t. He had a need to be known. Surely it would get too much for him. Would he give himself up? All to put his face to the Scarf Killer name? Was that what he was going to do? At the moment he was the most hated person in Lentford; hell, in New Zealand. Tamara and Emmeline’s stories had been covered in one way or another in the Leader as well as the national papers – soon to be joined by Madi. She and the rest of the country had seen photos of fresh-faced young women, posing at the beach or on bush walks. Family and friends had been cut from the photos so the public could look into the eyes of the women who had lost their lives so violently.

  Her phone rang, snapping her out of her thoughts. She grabbed it when she saw the name on the screen. ‘Hi, Ash,’ she said, hopeful and nervous at the same time.

  ‘Hi.’ There was a pause and Miller waited. ‘I was talking to Detective Parata yesterday. He said... he said you were the one who found Madison Nilson.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Miller squeezed her eyes shut tight.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I know how horrific that is. Look, I want to apologise about the other day. You’re my friend and I treated you badly. All you were doing was your job.’

  Miller wondered how much Kahu had told Ash – not the whole story by the sounds of it.

  ‘It’s okay, Ash. I’m glad you rang – I’ve missed you.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Miller waited for more questions about Madi, but they never came.

  ‘Look, I’m on duty now so I’d better go. I just wanted to touch base. Make sure we’re all good.’

  ‘Yep,’ Miller said, relieved. That was one less thing she had to worry about. She needed Ash in her life and the last couple of days without her had been harder than she’d have thought.

  That afternoon Miller finished her article on Cassie and her mother. Kahu, despite working on the Scarf Killer case, had given her a bit more of the back story on Margaret’s murder, since Hamilton CIB had the case. All of it matched up with what Cassie had told her. He’d given her a copy of the identikit that had done the rounds last year.

  ‘Was there anything else about him?’ Miller had asked. ‘No tattoos, scars?’

  ‘Not that anyone can remember. It was a long time ago.’

  Miller realised then how impossible it was. She could only hope this article would jog someone’s memory. There was talk that this Karl Taylor had mentioned he was from the Waikato – was it a slip of the tongue or was he already, before Margaret’s murder, trying to mislead? If the Leader could get his name and picture out there again, maybe someone would recognise him, even if he had been using an alias.

  She emailed her piece off to Ngaire for approval and headed to the supermarket. When she got home, Li was returning from walking Patsy. Miller hadn’t seen her since Logan’s tour a few days before. She parked the car, grabbed her shopping and met Li at the end of the driveway. The small dog danced around Miller’s ankles, and she leaned down to scratch her behind the ears.

  ‘We didn’t get round to talking about Logan’s tour,’ Miller said. ‘Do you feel uneasy about all this? Giving him this kind of attention?’

  Li shrugged, but Miller could tell it didn’t sit right with her. ‘You’re doing the same, aren’t you? Doing an article on him?’

  She has a point.

  ‘He really is interesting to talk to though,’ Li said, scooping Patsy up into her arms and allowing her face to be licked.

  ‘If by “interesting” you mean crazy.’

  ‘You must admit, he has a lot of knowledge. He’s going to come in really handy for my research – especially all the local stuff.’ Li put a squirming Patsy back down on the ground.

  ‘Yeah, but he’s only some, I don’t know... amateur,’ Miller said, struggling to find the right word.

  ‘I know. And I’m going to talk to a lot of experts – psychologists and police detectives. But this just gives me another angle,’ Li said, determined not to be put off. ‘I guess you heard there was another one on Thursday night. Madi Nilson.’

  ‘I heard,’ Miller said, biting her tongue. Li would want all the details, and it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about at the moment, if ever.

  ‘You’re friends with the lead detective right?’ Li said. ‘Parata?’

  Miller could see where this was going and didn’t answer.

  ‘He used to work in Castle Bay, didn’t he?’ Li was looking at Miller closely, her head tilted to one side.

  Miller nodded. Without waiting for the question, she said, ‘He may speak to you. But not any time soon. Not while the Scarf Killer’s still out there.’

  Li nodded and rocked on her heels, excited.

  Miller moved her shopping bag from one hand to the other. ‘Li, do you think Logan...’ She wasn’t sure how to pose the question.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind.’ The guy was a bit odd, but she wasn’t going to make the mistake of branding him a murderer. ‘I’d better go in. When are you off to Shanghai again?’

  ‘Wednesday morning, four more days.’ She made an exaggerated sad face, her bottom lip protruding. She picked up Patsy, who was yapping for attention. ‘I just want to get stuck into my thesis – there’s so much work to be done.’

  ‘What are you doing with Patsy while you’re away?’ Miller wondered if she should have offered to look after her. But she was out so much the poor thing wouldn’t get enough attention.

  ‘She’s in the kennels for a few weeks. I’ll be back on the fifteenth of January. Hopefully by then all this craziness has died down.’ She winced. ‘Excuse the pun. And our nice little town will be back to normal. I’m really hoping the news of the Scarf Killer hasn’t got to Shanghai – Mum and Dad would have me out of Lentford in a shot and then who knows where I’d end up!’ She walked back to her house, Patsy in her arms.

  Ka
hu pulled into the driveway just as Miller reached her door.

  ‘C’mon in.’ She ushered him inside. ‘Shit day?’ she asked, taking in his creased shirt, half untucked, sleeves rolled up. He’d already replaced his shoes with jandals.

  ‘Shit day,’ Kahu nodded as they walked into the kitchen.

  Miller opened the doors out onto the deck. ‘Drink? Sorry, I don’t have any beer,’ Miller said, unable to meet his eye.

  ‘We’ve talked about this,’ Kahu admonished her as he sat down in the chair facing the back yard, exhaling. ‘Water would be great.’

  Miller got them both an iced water and they sat side by side looking over the garden.

  ‘I’ve never been a big drinker, you know,’ Kahu said, long legs stretched in front of him.

  ‘I’d noticed,’ Miller said. They’d been out a few times, in Lentford and Castle Bay. The most she’d ever seen him drink was a couple of beers.

  ‘Is it because of the job?’ Miller was careful not to pry too much. It had been a while since Kahu had opened up about anything other than work.

  ‘Nah, even before then. Dad was an alcoholic.’

  Miller felt her face flush. She saw Kahu glance at her and he carried on. ‘I remember when I was in my teens one of my aunties telling me it was hereditary. I remember her words, after one of Dad’s benders. “You ain’t got a hope, boy.” I don’t think she was being mean. Just stating the truth. Anyway, true or not, it scared the shit out of me. I decided early on I didn’t want to be like him. Sure, I drank a bit in the last couple of years of high school. Mostly because, I hate to admit it, I couldn’t stand the way my mates looked at those who abstained. Back then a seventeen-year-old on the first fifteen rugby team was expected to sink half a dozen beers after the game. But I got good at hiding it. Seems silly now but back then my mates, my peers were everything to me. I cared what they thought about me. Still, I never really got a taste for it. Sure, a cold beer on hot summer’s day is great, but I never felt the need for more.’