Helen Teller had been murdered, her killer never found. She had been found by her teenage son at her home in Sydney’s Western Suburbs and stabbed repeatedly, her throat slit—the trademark of the Butcher. Her service had been a quiet affair closed to the public. Her son had been reported to have placed a white rose on her coffin before sobbing uncontrollably. She couldn’t help but feel the child’s pain and wondered what had happened to him. His name was not in the article, probably to protect his privacy, but Natalie doubted if he had grown up unscathed and felt the anger bubbling up inside her.
So many lives had been ruined by just one man. How had he managed for so long without detection? Right now she didn’t care who he was or what his reason for killing was, she just wanted to find him and put him in the ground herself. She could do it, too, without remorse. This monster certainly felt none, so why should she give it?
She clicked on the photo attachment at the bottom of the webpage and her breath caught in her throat. She sat there as the minutes clicked by staring at the photo of Helen Teller’s grave. She would recognise that unusual gravestone anywhere. She enlarged the photo to read the inscription:
Here lies the body of Helen Teller.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. She could feel the chill in the air and shivered. A thought popped into her mind and she shook her head at the irony. She felt like someone had just walked over her grave.
Chapter 23
Matt flipped through the photos on his desk, each one a shot of the victims. He had hit a brick wall and he knew it. He had Donovan going over any connections that the victims might have shared once more, combing through financial records, credit card receipts, and society columns. They’d been down this road before, but sometimes when cops got tired they overlooked things. Better to have fresh eyes and a new perspective. They had to know how the bastard chose his victims. It couldn’t merely be chance and Matt was tired of calling the bastard the Butcher. He wanted the man’s real name.
He heard muffled talking and looked across the Pig Pen—the nickname for Harbour Bay’s second floor work area which housed the Detective Unit. He spotted Amelia Donovan flanked by the two burly men in his team. At six-foot-four and six-foot-three, Dean and Nick both dwarfed her. Dean was wearing one of his trademark light coloured shirts. He favoured pastels after an old girlfriend had bought him a peach shirt as a gift, and to spare her feelings wore it to work one day, putting up with the constant jokes and ribbing he got from his fellow workmates and in particular, his partner, Nick. Ever since then, he had worn the light shirts to prove he was man enough to wear what was considered feminine attire and still get the job done. Dean had been on the force for ten years and his face showed the wear and tear of the job. His honey-blond hair looked like it hadn’t been combed for a while let alone cut, long enough to curl around his shirt collar. His chocolate coloured eyes were always serious.
Nick, on the other hand, was easy going, always one to joke in the face of a bad situation. It was how he dealt and he was so good-looking he was never without female company, though he never played the field and wasn’t one to favour one night stands or count the number of women he’d slept with. He was the second youngest member of the team and had a good mind for the job.
They were a tight group, a makeshift family. They all took care of each other and watched each other’s backs. None of them were in it for the glory. Only the knowledge of a case closed and a job well done was their reward. To get the bad guys and lock them away for the rest of their pitiful lives. Which was why they made such a good unit.
Dean leaned down towards Amelia and said something to her but Matt was too far away to hear. She smiled at him before slapping him with the file folder she held in her hand as they all headed towards Matt.
“So I hear you’ve taken me up on my suggestion in regards to the psychologist,” Nick Doyle said, his dark eyebrows wiggling suggestively.
He knew his and Natalie’s visit to Tanner’s would eventually make it to his team but he hadn’t expected it to be so fast. Must have been Glory, he thought. She had a thing for Nick and was always trying to put the moves on him. Unfortunately for Glory, Nick considered her much too young for him.
“Yeah, I bet she can’t wait to examine your head.” Dean smirked.
Matt rolled his eyes. “Things must be slow for you to be coming up to the big boys’ area to bug me. We’re trying to stop a serial killer here if you haven’t noticed.”
“So…tell me,” Nick said as if Matt hadn’t spoken. “What exactly does she look like?”
“Oh, about five-foot-six. Brunette hair. Cobalt blue eyes. Killer body,” Amelia said, looking past them.
“Nice,” Nick added.
“I’d have to agree,” Dean said as his gaze followed Amelia’s.
Matt frowned at her. “How the hell do you know all that, Donovan?”
Dean cleared his throat and Amelia swung back around to face Matt.
“Lucky guess, Einstein,” she said, rolling her eyes as she moved away from his desk. The party quickly dispersed and Matt found himself looking at the gorgeous woman in stiletto heels fast approaching his desk. He gave her a once over—the first time with sexual interest, the second time as a police detective.
Natalie was pale and looked spooked. He stood as she reached his desk. She gave Dean and Nick a fleeting glance as they moved away.
“Did I interrupt something?”
Matt saw his colleagues puckering their lips and miming kissing in his peripheral vision. He was going to kill them. He really was. If Natalie hadn’t been there, he probably would’ve shot them.
“No. Have you come to meet the sketch artist?” She shook her head. He sighed heavily, realising his day just got longer. “Am I going to like this?”
Natalie frowned, her brow wrinkling. “Probably not,” she admitted.
Matt gave her a steady look. She certainly wasn’t one to tell a comforting lie, was she? He took her arm and led her to the small kitchen area. A tiny circular table and four chairs shoved into a corner took up most of the area. A large corkboard was attached to the wall and held flyers on upcoming conferences that may interest the officers. Beside the counter was an old fridge and next to the coffee pot sat a newly procured microwave—the last one having blown up a few months ago. It had been bound to happen. It had been taken off the ships with the convicts.
“Before we get into this, I’m going to need some more coffee. Want one?”
She nodded before replying. “Yes, please.”
He took a look at the sludge now congealed at the bottom of the carafe. His stomach revolted at the thought of the tar like substance and immediately emptied the contents down the sink and rinsed the pot thoroughly.
As he completed the task of setting up the coffee maker to create another batch he took another look at Natalie, his brain registering the strain around her mouth and the bloodshot eyes.
“You don’t look so good. Did you sleep?”
“Yes.”
He raised a dark eyebrow. She did not look well-rested. “Did you go home?”
She gave a long suffering sigh. Obviously whatever she had come to discuss was not her sleeping habits. “I’m too afraid to go home,” she admitted. “And yes, I know I said I wasn’t going to let the fear run my life but my body just isn’t listening. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.”
Matt listened patiently, waiting for her to get to the heart of the problem. “So why are you here, if not to see the sketch artist?”
“What do you know about Helen Teller?”
Matt ran through his brain, much like a computer program scanning its files as it searched for anything that contained the key words. He was satisfied when the information flowed to the forefront of his mind. “Helen Teller? She was the Butcher’s first victim…as far as we know.” He tacked on the last bit as he corrected himself.
She pinned him with a glare and he had to fight to stand still and not squirm. She would have made a very good interrog
ation officer. Pity the man who ever came home with lipstick on his collar. He wondered if she would take offence if he asked her what her secret was.
She crossed her arms under her breasts. “You failed to mention that fact when you handed me this case.”
Matt fought to keep up. “I didn’t see the relevance.”
Natalie’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Do you remember the picture of the grave Hallie drew?” When she saw him nod, she continued. “The grave was Helen Teller’s.”
Matt’s eyes widened. His stance became very still as he absorbed that fact. “What?”
She took a deep breath, obviously preparing herself for a reiteration of text book proportions. “I was going through Hallie’s file earlier, when I saw the drawing she’d done years ago. For some reason it pulled at me and I went on the Internet and looked Helen up. I wasn’t even expecting anything to pop up. Imagine my surprise when something did. The article was on her murder and along with it was this photo of her grave.”
Natalie handed him the printout. He glanced down at it, frowning. He looked back at Natalie who raised her hand, her index finger pointing up to the sky indicating that she wasn’t done. She then retrieved another piece of paper from her purse, smoothing it out before handing it to him. When he caught sight of Hallie’s drawing, he was sure his heart stopped beating. Excitement rushed through his veins. They were identical. A thought occurred to him. “Well, maybe Hallie was on the Inter—”
“No, I checked, Hallie is not allowed on the Internet.”
Which would probably kill a normal teenage girl. She was lucky she didn’t know what she was missing. No Internet ultimately meant no social networking, no chat rooms or shopping online. Hallie probably wasn’t even allowed phone privileges, not that the poor kid had anyone to call. They certainly kept things on a tight leash at Paradise Valley.
He shrugged, trying for nonchalance even when his body was now as tight as bow. “Maybe it is just a coincidence.”
“When does coincidence turn into something else? Hallie once knew Helen Teller. How, she doesn’t know or can’t remember. But there’s a link that you haven’t found. Something you’re missing.”
She stepped past him and pulled two mugs from the drainer by the sink and began finishing the coffees. He noted that she put sugar and milk in both and he felt pleased that she’d remembered the way he drank his.
“Tell me everything, and I mean everything you know about the case, Matt. Maybe I can help. I want to help. Remember I have a vested interest in the end result.”
Natalie handed him his coffee. He thanked her as he looked into her eyes. He could see she meant business and he would be stupid not to use her expertise. She saw deranged and sick minds every day. She knew what made them tick or at least had the training to understand the way they worked. He was right when he thought he needed new blood on the case and Natalie might just be the ticket.
He nodded slowly. “Okay.”
Chapter 24
Matt’s house was only a couple years old. The dark red brick one-storey was in an old well-established neighbourhood. The previous owner had knocked down and rebuilt the two bedroom, two bath house with double garage, adding the modern amenities that people nowadays couldn’t do without and a low maintenance garden which with Matt’s job appealed to him the most. The interior was open-planned; his kitchen, dining, and lounge were all one large room. His bedrooms, laundry, and bathrooms were down the hall towards the enclosed backyard. The walls were painted vivid red-orange, a stark contrast to his deep steel-blue carpet. His furniture was durable rather than fancy and only matched since he’d purchased a set. His philosophy was as long as it was comfortable it was fine. He wasn’t about to spend his life savings on something frivolous and honestly didn’t give a stuff about décor.
As a man who was used to living alone, his house wasn’t up for inspection and Matt was thankful he’d run out of clean clothes that morning and had been required to pick up his discarded clothes from the floor and run them through the wash. Now, only a few empty beer cans sat on his kitchen counter, a stack of unopened mail beside them.
He wasn’t a messy person nor was he a clean and obsessive person. His house was for living in and usually he didn’t care about a light coating of dust or a few plates in the sink but Matt didn’t want Natalie to think he was a slob. He’d seen more than one delicate nose get out of joint at his lack of housekeeping skills but for the first time he wanted to make a good impression.
Matt gave his house a cursory look, making sure he hadn’t missed a sock or brief anywhere. He tried to keep things neat but sometimes the cleaning got away from him on cases such as this when he only ever came home to crash or when he ran out of clean shirts at the office. Now he was practically holding his breath waiting for her approval—or disapproval, whichever the case may be.
The smell of Chinese food wafted up from the plastic bag in his hand and made his stomach growl. After deciding that maybe Natalie could help with the case, Matt had dropped into the Shanghai Garden, his favourite takeaway, and picked up his usual order of beef and black beans with mixed rice and honey chicken and prawn crackers for Natalie.
He grabbed a couple of clean plates from the cupboard and showed her to the sofa. After sitting down on his living room floor, Natalie had taken charge of dishing out dinner and Matt had never felt better. There was something about Natalie that made him think about rainy days and cuddling up in front of a fire. Matt felt he could be himself around her and began to relax. He didn’t think that she would mind his many little quirks. He liked the fact that Natalie didn’t appear to be concerned when he made a fool of himself, which around her was a common occurrence.
He knew his boss would chew his arse out if he knew Matt was sharing pertinent case information with Natalie, but he was past caring. All he was interested in was solving the case. He didn’t care if he had to cut deals with half the criminals in the city to do it. It was past time that the Butcher was put away.
Hours later, the empty Chinese takeaway containers littered the floor of Matt’s lounge room. The sun had gone down and they were no closer to finding the Butcher than when they had first started. Both Matt and Natalie had decided to start from the beginning—to look at each case individually and from a fresh perspective.
So far, he had reviewed the same information he already knew, nothing new jumped out at him and he felt frustrated and useless. Of all his training and experience he simply couldn’t find what wasn’t there. He couldn’t see whatever linked the victims, and the bodies were stacking up. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked over at Natalie.
She sat with her back up against his black leather sofa, opting to remain on the floor to make it easier to review the mass quantity of files. Her knees were up, providing a stand for the folder open in front of her, resting on her thighs as her eyes remained glued to the paper. She had already reviewed several files and they were neatly stacked to one side of her. The ones she hadn’t perused were on the other. That was one of the many things he had discovered about Natalie that he admired. She was dedicated and he knew she would see this thing through until the bitter end, which he had no doubt it would be.
Matt watched as her lips moved but he couldn’t hear anything. Her concentration was entirely on the case in front of her and he wondered if she even realised she was doing it. He doubted she was even aware he was in the room with her let alone anything else.
He caught the frown that creased her brow as her finger glided over the paper. Her head shook from side to side as she evidently tried to make sense of something. She opened one of the files she had already read and shuffled through the pages until she found the one she wanted and her finger slid down the page.
His entire body tensed as he felt something in the air. Her excitement was almost palpable. His gaze locked on Natalie and once again he saw her lips move only this time he heard her mumble.
“Promising law student.” The frown deepened and she looked at the
other file open in front of her. “Awarded biologist.” Her voice was louder this time and she looked up at him, surprise on her face when she found him watching her intently. “Maybe these women have more in common than you think.”
Matt raised an eyebrow at her statement and patiently waited for her to explain. If she had discovered something he had missed, he was more than eager to be enlightened. He watched as Natalie’s head bowed and her attention drifted back to the file, her entire being absorbed into it. When she didn’t look like she was going to elaborate, he spoke.
“How?” Matt asked.
Her head jerked up and she gave him a sheepish smile.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to leave you in the dark. I believe their connection is their jobs,” she said, as she tapped one of the folders.
“I don’t see it. None of them were in the same field,” he stated.
Natalie leaned forward. “True, but what I mean is that they each had a successful job—a career,” she explained as her face turned thoughtful.
Matt could practically hear the gears turning in her head. She was on to something, he could feel it. She was radiating so much excitement he thought she could power a small country. He knew she didn’t quite know just what yet, but it was there at the forefront of her brain and was pushing itself into the light.
He didn’t know why he felt so confident about Natalie’s ability but he knew he hadn’t lied the other day when he’d told her he had the upmost respect for her ability as a psychologist. She had a talent and it was going to work for them.
“What’re you thinking?” he asked after a long silence.
Her eyes had narrowed as she thought and her head tilted to one side. Deep blue eyes met his. “I’m thinking he’s after career driven women. Look at each of the files. Marie Stanton was a medical graduate. Karen Filcher a biologist. Laurel Millard a lawyer and Helen Teller received ‘Woman of the Year’ because of her computer programming. There’s not one menial job holder in the bunch.”
Not Forgotten Page 16
