A Stone's Throw Away, page 7
‘I’m Detective Jarrett,’ he said as he made his way across and stopped a short distance away from her. ‘Chris Jarrett,’ he said in a low, calm tone, offering a friendly smile. ‘Are you okay?’ ‘You just surprised me. I didn’t see you.’
‘I parked the car out on the road and walked in,’ he informed her, flipping through the notepad in his hand. ‘Are you Ms Davenport?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see that you gave a statement to the officers on the scene?’
‘There wasn’t much to tell. Have they dated the bones yet?’ she asked.
‘We’re still waiting on an official report,’ he hedged.
‘But you have a rough idea of how old they were?’ she prompted.
‘I was told you might show an interest in the case,’ Detective Jarrett said, shutting his notebook as he eyed her thoughtfully. ‘Quite the stroke of luck, an investigative journalist being on hand as a mystery unfolds.’
‘Trust me, this is a distraction I don’t need right now,’ she told him with a note of self-deprecating humour.
‘You were spot on about the make and model of the vehicle,’ he told her.
She bit back a smug grin at the news. ‘Were you able to trace it?’
‘We’ve yet to confirm but we believe the car belonged to Herbert Bigsby. The previous owner of this property. There was a report of it missing at the same time he reported his wife missing in nineteen forty-six.’
‘And the bones?’
‘As I said, we’re still waiting for an official report on those.’
Detective Jarrett was a hard one to read. Detectives with Aboriginal heritage weren’t a large demographic she’d encountered, especially here. On the outside he seemed easygoing enough, but he had a shrewdness about him that told Pip he wouldn’t miss much.
His dark hair, cut in a short, almost military style, matched the suit and tie, but the neatly trimmed stubble beard that went across his jawline and top lip gave him a slightly dangerous look. Although, instead of taking away from the professional clean-cut suit, it only seemed to enhance it. He seemed to take his personal appearance and his job extremely seriously, but they were at odds with his laidback personality and disarming grin.
‘If the bones come back as Molly Bigsby, are you going to open a new case?’
‘For someone who claims not to have any interest in it, you seem pretty interested,’ the detective said almost lazily.
‘I’m curious, not interested.’ Something about the way he held her gaze, probing hers gently, made her momentarily forget what she was about to say. She straightened her shoulders a little and swallowed nervously. He really was good looking.
‘Well, it’s an old case,’ he said eventually. ‘There’s only one individual still alive who was of any interest to the police at the time—and he had an alibi,’ he said, leaning his back against a nearby tree.
She followed the movement, noticing his solid build beneath the suit, and moved on quickly. ‘Bert Bigsby,’ she said, nodding. ‘Maybe you should release a statement saying that, to put an end to all the gossip going about in town.’
‘Most people around here seem to have their minds made up about the whole thing,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t think a statement will change that.’
‘No, but it might finally, officially, clear a man of any wrongdoing.’
‘From what I hear it won’t make any difference—the old guy can’t talk and is pretty much on his last legs, and there’s no known relatives,’ he said simply. ‘But we’re still investigating it until we can work out the most logical way it all played out.’
‘So you’d be basing it on circumstantial evidence, then?’
‘That’s pretty much all we have to go on after all this time.’
‘Any idea which way you think it will pan out?’
‘Are you on the record with this?’ he asked, cocking an eyebrow. She made the mistake of holding his sleepy-eyed look, his brown eyes seemingly tugging her towards him, and felt a shot of red hot desire slice through her unexpectedly. What was wrong with her? It was like her libido was suddenly homing in on every eligible male within a hundred kilometre radius.
‘Of course not,’ she said briskly. ‘I’m just curious.’
‘Well, between you and me,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘it’s a pretty interesting case. You’ve got an eyewitness placing the husband’s vehicle at the scene of a murder that happened on a road leading to this property only a few kilometres away, but the husband had an alibi, which after reviewing the initial statement taken, actually has a few gaps in it. Then there’s the husband’s mental state to take into account—after the war, there were statements given from locals who had run-ins with him when he came back. And of course, the infamous affair between his wife and Vernon Clements and that man’s subsequent murder. And now the remains of a woman found on Herbert Bigsby’s property in his vehicle.’
‘You said his alibi had holes?’ she prodded, searching his dark gaze warily. She knew he probably wouldn’t elaborate, but it was worth a try.
His eyes lowered slightly, the action setting off another weird tsunami inside her. ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ she muttered, then froze, realising she’d said it out loud.
‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing,’ she dismissed abruptly. ‘The gaps in the alibi?’ she prodded, now impatient as she fought off the heat she felt rising up her neck.
‘I can’t go into too much detail at the moment, but there’s a possibility the husband may have had time to get back here at the time of the murder. We have to follow up a few details—made more difficult than usual due to it being over eighty years ago when roads and travel times were a lot different,’ he added.
‘It sounds to me like you’re leaning towards the general consensus in town that suggests Bert was involved in his wife’s murder?’ She wasn’t sure why she was feeling suddenly defensive on Bert’s behalf. She’d started out playing devil’s advocate, but after talking with Pete and Anne the other day, suddenly Bert had become a person—not just a name.
‘I didn’t say that,’ he said calmly, tilting his head a fraction as he took in her defensive stance. ‘But clearly you don’t agree?’
She wasn’t even supposed to have an opinion—she’d just accidentally got caught up in the whole story. ‘I was just—’
‘Curious,’ he supplied for her, with a small grin.
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, I’ll admit I’ve got a case load that’s getting out of control back on my desk in Coopers Creek, so an almost eighty-year-old cold case isn’t something I really have a great deal of time to prioritise.’
‘That’s comforting,’ she muttered, her hands going to her hips as she eyed him with a frown.
‘However,’ he went on pointedly, and with maybe even a little amusement behind his dark eyes, ‘I will be going over all the evidence we’ve located on scene and considering all possible leads.’
‘Including linking the unsolved murder of Vernon Clements?’ she asked.
‘Now you sound like a journalist,’ he nodded knowingly.
Her eyes narrowed a little as she held his gaze determinedly, refusing to let him off the hook by avoiding her question. There was something incredibly sexy about this exchange they’d become embroiled in. As annoyed as she was by his lurking amusement beneath some of his answers, she also found it a little refreshing.
Her exchanges with Erik had had that teasing kind of feel at times too, but looking back, there was always the realisation that she was talking to a cop, first and foremost.
She didn’t get that with the detective.
‘Yes, I’ll be also looking into the unsolved murder of Vernon Clements,’ he said and gave an amused groan. ‘I wasn’t expecting to have to handle the media out here this morning.’
‘You’re not. I’m simply …’ She paused as he waited for her usual comment and replaced it with a slightly haughty, ‘looking out for the public’s interest. I think locals have waited too long to get to the bottom of all this. Now it’s the police department’s opportunity to show taxpayers how clever you all are and solve it. Once and for all.’
‘I can see why grown men shake in their boots when you ask for a one-on-one interview,’ he said, pushing away from the tree.
‘Only if they have something to hide, detective,’ she said, turning away from him to retrace her steps back home.
She heard his soft chuckle as she left and wondered at the small bubble of interest inside her at the deep timbre of his voice. What was happening to her? She’d been in the back of beyond a handful of days and she’d had more chance encounters with men here than she’d had in the city in the better part of the past decade.
Maybe she should try looking up a few of her possible contenders for a date when she got back to the city—the ones she’d previously knocked back because she was too focused on her career to bother shaving her legs and getting dressed up to go out with.
‘You’re not getting any younger,’ she heard her mother’s voice echoing.
Whenever she was stupid enough to dwell too long on things like her age, she’d usually feel the beginnings of heart palpations and do what every sensible, well-adjusted person did—completely erase the thought from her mind and bury her head back in the sand. But perhaps it was time to consider her mother’s advice, that she should think about making time in her schedule to find someone she might consider worthwhile enough to try having a relationship with.
She flinched slightly at the word relationship. It sounded so … permanent. Actually, it wasn’t even the permanent thing she had an issue with—it was more the whole rearranging-her-entire-life-to-fit-someone-else-into-it thing.
She liked not having anyone to answer to. It took an incredible amount of discipline not to let out a snort or roll her eyes when her friends talked about ‘when my husband finds out how much I spent on that pair of shoes’, or before they could commit to a catch-up, they’d ‘just have to check with the hubby that they didn’t have plans for that day first’.
Seriously? If that was what marriage ultimately came to—checking in to get permission to do something for yourself or feeling guilty about buying a pair of bloody shoes—then they could keep all the other good stuff they raved about. The babies and the company and the partnership, oh, and the soul-mate thing …
How ridiculous. With a gazillion people on the planet, to believe you have one person you were destined to be with forever seemed a little limiting. Not to mention how convenient it was that most people claimed to have found them without having to leave the state to bump into them. If you only had one soul mate, how come they were always so close by? You rarely heard of anyone travelling to Kenya to find them, or Greenland—oh no, they bumped into their soul mate at a hen’s night in a pub in Surry Hills.
Pip sighed as she reached the house. She didn’t know the exact moment she’d became so jaded about love. It seemed to have happened gradually with each story she uncovered. There wasn’t a lot of romance attached to dealing with corruption and the underbelly of society. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in love—she’d just never experienced the Hollywood version of it, and she doubted it was as magical as filmmakers wanted everyone to believe it was.
The detective’s smile popped back into her mind and she instantly found herself comparing it with Erik’s. It was like comparing chalk and cheese—the laid-back, sleepy-eyed gaze and lingering amusement that seemed to hover just under the surface in contrast with Erik’s open, confident frankness. Two men so very different and yet both had managed to stir something inside her.
Pip gave a frustrated huff as she reached a decision. As soon as she got back from this writing retreat she would find someone suitable and arrange a date. Surely after spending a couple of hours in painful politeness she would return to her senses and remember why men were a distraction she could do without and go back to living for her work.
Nine
A few days later, Pip’s forced isolation came to an end when she realised she was running out of toilet paper and other vital supplies, and she headed back into town. Heaven forbid if toilet paper ever went out of stock—what would the world come to?
As the sliding door of the supermarket opened, the cold air from inside hit her in the face, momentarily catching her off guard. The small blissful sound that escaped made her pause to savour the sensation. She really needed to work on Uncle Nev about installing an air conditioner at the house.
As she perused the shelves, she overheard a number of conversations. At the end of the aisle a pair of older women were chatting about an upcoming flower show they were entering, and Pip gave a small smile as she stepped around them, only to have to squeeze past another two women blocking the aisle, this pair in their early thirties with children in their trolleys, discussing something juicy that had happened during playgroup last week.
Pip had never considered grocery shopping as a social event before. It was a chore—something you ran in to do on your way home from work, getting in and out as quickly as possible. Apparently that wasn’t the case here. In fact, no one appeared in any kind of hurry. Even the customers not talking to anyone were contentedly picking up items and strolling along, seemingly with no timetable or other place they needed to be.
Pushing her fuller-than-anticipated trolley to the checkout, she stood quietly behind the customer currently being served and tried not to listen to the conversation going on, which was difficult seeing as there was no way she couldn’t. She got a lot from the exchange, though—it was amazing what you could learn about a complete stranger.
For instance, she knew that Beryl was the customer’s name and that the cashier was married to Phil, who was the local electrician. Beryl was having trouble with a power point and the cashier was going to call her husband to drop around later today and take a look at it. At this, Pip felt her mouth drop open.
To get an electrician to come and install a security camera had taken about an hour of phone calls, and then she’d had to wait all day for him, only to have him not show up. In Midgiburra, all you had to do was complain about an issue to the local checkout operator and she’d organise the electrician with one phone call home.
‘I used to wear that look,’ a woman behind Pip said in lazy amusement.
Pip turned, feeling caught out, but managed a relieved smile when the woman only laughed.
‘I can spot a city slicker from a mile off—purely because that used to be me when I first moved here. I’m Rebecca Adams,’ she said, introducing herself.
‘Pip,’ she said, managing to mask her surprise at the unexpected exchange, ‘Davenport.’
‘Have you just moved here?’
‘Ah, no. Not really. I’m just housesitting at my uncle’s while he’s away.’
‘Oh, well that explains it, then.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The sideswiped look. It takes a bit of getting used to—small-town life.’
‘Oh. Yes, it seems to.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘Sydney,’ Pip said, finally able to start unloading her trolley as room appeared on the conveyor belt.
‘Me too—a long time ago.’
Pip eyed the woman. She didn’t look old enough to be able to say anything was ‘a long time ago’, but on closer inspection she wasn’t as young as Pip had first assumed, placing her in her thirties. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail that curled at the end, and she wore a brown and turquoise knee-length dress with short tan boots.
‘I grew up on the northern beaches, but my family moved to Brisbane when I started high school,’ she explained.
‘How did you end up here?’
‘Love,’ she sighed with a wistful shrug.
Oh no. One of them, Pip thought sadly. Just when she thought she’d met someone likeminded out here.
‘I met my husband out on a stag night in Brisbane in a bar I was working at.’
Of course she did. Soul mates.
‘We moved to Victoria and I started uni, then realised he was a tosser after he cheated on me barely six months into the marriage, by which time I’d decided I liked the idea of teaching more than I liked being married to a jerk. So, I divorced him and finished my degree, then eventually got transferred out here, where I’ve been for the last eight years.’
Maybe not so much one of them after all.
‘So what do you do with yourself all day out here, Pip? I’d imagine Midgiburra is a lot quieter than what you’re used to.’
‘I’m actually working while I’m here … well, supposed to be,’ she added.
‘Oh? What kind of work do you do?’
‘I’m a journalist … but I’m writing a book at the moment.’
Rebecca’s eyes lit up. ‘A journalist! How exciting.’
‘Sometimes,’ Pip agreed, ‘but usually it’s just a lot of waiting around and making phone calls,’ she said honestly.
‘The kids would love to meet you,’ Rebecca said, and Pip could see the woman’s mind racing as she clapped her hands together. ‘Oh my God, this is amazing timing. I teach high school, and at the moment the kids are doing a term on communication. Would you maybe consider coming in and giving them a talk about journalism?’
Pip blinked uncertainly.
‘I’m sorry. I know, I’m always rushing into stuff—this was probably the last thing you thought you’d be confronted with when you ducked into the store to buy groceries today.’
Pip managed a nervous laugh. This woman was like a small cyclone. ‘Kind of.’
‘Have you got time for a quick cuppa at the cafe next door? I’d really love to go over what I’m doing in class and give you a better idea of how a visit from you would help these kids enormously.’
‘Well, I do have a bit of work to get back to,’ Pip started, but she felt instantly bad when she saw the other woman’s face fall slightly. ‘But I guess I could spare a few minutes to have a coffee.’ It wasn’t like the book was actually flowing out of her right now, anyway.
