| |
The owner of the Larry and Joanne profile responded to Lexi’s message request as she pushed the remains of a sandwich into her mouth. Her fingers froze at the sight of the red number one over her Messenger icon.
A scroll and a click took her to the private conversation, and she swallowed the bread too fast. Particles bunged up her throat and forced her to slurp her water. Larry or Joanne had an abrupt manner.
‘All the information is with the photograph. Check the comments.’
Lexi groaned. She sensed the interaction would resemble pulling out teeth. ‘Can we talk?’ she replied. And added her phone number.
It took an hour for Larry or Joanne to pluck up the courage to call her. In an age of phishing and complicated phone scams, Lexi marvelled they called at all. But curiosity won over sense. For a family who left every photograph open for public consumption, they showed some healthy regard for privacy. The number flashed on Lexi’s screen as private.
“Hi, how can I help you?” She responded without offering her name. It seemed sensible to drip feed information as circumstance forced her to.
“You gave me your number.” Suspicion dripped from the female voice. “Why are you interested in that photo?” She continued before Lexi could explain. “I wish I’d never posted it. My husband wants me to delete it. He hates social media.”
Lexi cleared her throat. “We should start from the beginning,” she offered. She recognised only honesty would work against the woman’s instant distress. It piqued her interest that posting the photograph on the community page had caused such veiled fury. “My name is Lexi. I work as an inquiry agent. We have a gentleman who’s looking for an old friend. He sent us the link to your photograph.” Lexi sighed. “I’m floundering,” she admitted. “The only people not named are the photographer and two of the children. Four died, and the community tagged six.”
“Didn’t he give you the name of his friend?” The woman sounded disbelieving. Lexi closed her eyes and gave a silent inhale. After a decade in business, Tarant still sucked at taking cases with the correct information. Perhaps Alex Battersea’s behaviour might force him to take stock.
“Unfortunately, no.” Lexi added a false brightness to her voice. “He paid in advance but hasn’t communicated since booking our service.” As an afterthought, she added, “Am I speaking with Joanne?”
“Yeah.” The suspicion returned to overshadow the craving for intrigue.
Lexi pushed on. “I appreciate your help, Joanne. Are you able to name the other two children in the picture? Or the photographer. He’s a priest, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.” Her tone softened. “Really nice man. The other kids bullied me because I had bad skin. He made them stop. And he went kayaking in his priest’s robes. But that’s a good thing because he pulled out Michael Anderson when he fell in. Stupid kid didn’t tell anyone he couldn’t swim.”
“Wow,” Lexi breathed. “A bit of a hero, then.”
“Yeah.” Joanne took a moment to sift through her memories. A baby cried in the background, a shrill, aggressive sound. Lexi sensed the pull of motherhood robbing her of Joanne’s attention.
“Can you remember his name?” she pressed.
“The priest?” Joanne raised her voice over the din. “The other two kids only visited for the day. We’d never met them before. It’s why no one remembers them.” She answered the question oddly, missing out knowledge of the priest. Lexi winced.
She examined her note pad and the short hand scrawled across it. “Does the name Barnard mean anything to you?” She tapped a family tree with her fingernail. She’d already reasoned Samuel Barnard wasn’t in the photo. Unless he’d taken the picture. She wrinkled her nose. His profile picture showed a man over six feet tall. The priest only just cleared the heads of the tallest child. And he appeared heavier, with a rotund dumpiness beneath his vestments. Tarant had warned her not to betray their client’s identity. But she needed a starting point.
Joanne surprised her. “Barnard,” she breathed. “I haven’t heard that name for a while.
Lexi’s internal antennae rose. Her hunter’s spirit roused. “Can you explain?” she asked. Her heart sank as the baby cranked up the anti in the background. A man’s voice called for assistance with something like panic.
“I can’t right now,” Joanne barked. “Unless you know a man who can change a nappy.”
Lexi snuffed out a laugh. “My brother, actually. He has no gag reflex and no ego.”
“Send him over.” Joanne sounded tired and fed up.
“You sort out your baby,” Lexi conceded. “But can we talk again later?”
“Maybe.” The line went dead.
Joanne did better than call. She sent a link by text, which also provided her cell phone number. Lexi followed the trail to a news article from 2006. The result left her cursing Tarant even more. When she clicked on the document and zoomed in to read the headline, her body stilled.
‘Justice for Liza Barnard.’
“Oh, no,” Lexi breathed. Her misgivings about the client’s scant detail and Tarant’s negligence merged into a sick feeling low in her stomach. “Did Samuel Barnard lose a daughter?”
Reading through the article added clarity to the sorry tale.
‘The family of Liza Barnard (formerly Schmidt) received justice today in Auckland Crown Court. Judge Lance Morton sentenced Trent Barnard to life imprisonment with a minimum parole period of ten years. Barnard pleaded guilty to strangling his wife of two years following an argument at the Christian Youth Camp north of Rangiriri. Her body remained missing for a decade until flooding caused a washout of the popular ridge just south of the Te Araroa walking trail. Dental records identified 32-year-old Liza’s remains hidden beneath the slip. The judge acknowledged Trent’s guilty plea in his sentencing. His family attended court, including his father, Samuel Barnard. He remains unavailable for comment.’
Lexi dialled Tarant’s number. She didn’t wait for him to speak. “You need to contact the client,” she demanded. “You’ve dealt me a dirty hand!”
“What?” His speech slurred as though he’d turned to the bottle for comfort. “Hang on. Just let me wake up properly.”
“No!” Lexi ploughed on, relentless in her fury. “Samuel Barnard’s son killed his wife around the time of this photo. He isn’t looking for a friend he’s lost touch with. He’s fishing for clues. Use your resources to run a search on Trent Barnard. If he served his full ten years, he left prison seven years ago.”
Tarant gave a dramatic sigh. Lexi waited as a door slammed and he settled himself into his squeaky office chair. “Where did you get this information from?” A yawn obscured the end of his sentence.
“Public record!” Lexi snarled. “You should know this stuff, Tarant! I can’t trust you anymore. You’re handing over cases after doing no homework. Samuel Barnard paid us to find someone for him. What if it’s the murderer? You don’t know what he’s dragged us into.”
“His son pleaded guilty.” Tarant yawned again, sending Lexi’s fury up another notch. “He’s the murderer.”
Lexi swore under her breath and killed the call. “He’s drunk and talking utter nonsense,” she complained to Nahla. The cat stole under her chair and cleaned her front paws with horrible wet licking sounds.
Lexi focussed on the photograph. She zoomed in further and took snapshots of individual grid squares. Joanne’s posting of the image on the social media page had sparked Samuel Barnard’s interest. But why?
Keith Barnard celebrated his fifty-second birthday the month before. That made him too old for either of the nameless children in the camp photograph. His wife looked in her mid-twenties. A sloppy birthday post on Keith’s Facebook page carried childish regards ‘for Daddy’ from the children she’d seen on Danni’s page. Lexi dug deeper, but found no mention of Trent at all. Perhaps the family cut him off after his release from prison.
The gate buzzer sounded in the hall. Lexi jumped and swore as coffee poured over her sweat pants. She slid into the lounge and peered through the front window without disturbing the blinds. Her shoulders sagged as she recognised her guest.
“Why are you here?” she snarled. Grit dug into her bare feet as she stepped from the porch. She didn’t venture any nearer the gate.
“Just let me in.” Tarant dug his hands into his jeans pocket. He’d parked the dilapidated office car in line with the curb. It looked straight, but Lexi frowned.
“You drove drunk?”
“On water! Or coffee?” He bristled and thrust his shoulders back. His indignation caused a bubble of laughter to block Lexi’s chest.
“Sorry. You seemed wrecked when I called you.”
“That’s what tired sounds like, Lexi. My wife just moved out and took our daughter. The house is empty and I can’t sleep.”
Lexi closed her eyes against the veiled plea for sympathy. She didn’t have any to give him. “I guess you want to come inside, then?” she bit.
Tarant rapped his index finger against the metal rail and raised a dark eyebrow. For once, he avoided his trademark sarcasm as Lexi activated the remote.
