‘Just the person I need. A professional in the midst of rank amateurs.’
Erin, whose nerves had been shredded by the evening’s events, felt her heart leap in her chest. She’d been sitting in the empty facility, worrying about Carla, who wasn’t answering her phone. Baros’s sarcasm might have been true to type, but his appearance wasn’t. His usual suit was replaced by a high-vis jacket and jeans, and he needed a shave. A wound across his temple had been patched with tape and gauze. It had been a long day for everyone and investigations were likely to go on into the night.
‘Are you trying to give me a stroke? Who let you in at this time of night?’
‘Showed my badge to security. It’s not exactly the first time I’ve been here.’
Erin sank into her chair. She was on edge and asking stupid questions. Of course, Baros would have been allowed to enter.
‘How’s Viv?’
Baros’s face set. ‘In surgery. She took a knife wound to the stomach.’
‘Christ.’ It had been a fraught evening after she’d dropped Ethan off at his father’s, interrupting an intimate evening between her ex and his new girlfriend. She must have looked like a ghost as she threw Ethan out of the car without explanation and sped off to find Carla. She’d have to make it up to her ex when she next saw him, although maybe not. His girlfriend had looked disappointingly young.
They’d not allowed her through the police tape at the cemetery. There were no bodies, so she had no jurisdiction and police were combing the area for evidence. She managed to find a friendly cop, who’d told her the essence of what had happened and Viv Kantz’s deception ten years earlier in a car accident that had left a member of the public dead. Stunned, Erin had got back into the car and driven to the only place where she’d get some peace. Her office had been deadly quiet, only the night security guard reading a newspaper.
‘Why’ve you come here?’
‘You’re going to be needed. Max Hazen died of his injuries this evening.’
‘Shit. Are you OK?’
Baros shrugged, tapping the filing cabinet with his fingertips. ‘There’ll be an inquiry. I’ve made a few enemies inside the station, so I’m not counting on coming out smelling of roses.’
‘They’d be fools to let you go.’
They regarded each other for a moment without speaking.
‘So,’ said Erin, finally. ‘I know what I’m doing for the rest of the evening. Prepping for tomorrow’s autopsy. You can trust me on this one.’
‘Thanks, doc.’ He looked round. ‘Doesn’t look like there’s much work to do here. How about you come with me and I’ll show you something you might want to bear in mind when you’re writing up your report?’
‘Look, Baros. If there’s going to be an inquiry, I need to do this by the book. Believe me, it’ll be in your interest to let me get on with things.’
‘It’s work and not just to do with Max’s shooting. I don’t want to show Carla this. I’ve got Doctor Caron to take her home.’
‘What the hell was he doing there?’
‘Albert called him. Don’t give me that look. He slipped through the police tape before we could stop him. It’s a benefit of privilege; you just go ahead and do what you please. So, you coming?’
‘OK, but can you give me a clue where we’re going?’
‘Nope.’
His Mustang smelled of coffee; he must drink endless cups of the stuff. The drive took them past Lawrence Hill where patrol car lights continued to flash, catching outlines of stone angels and lopsided crosses. He turned off the highway towards one of the more affluent parts of town, pulling into the driveway of a house set back from the road.
‘Is this where Max lived?’
‘Sure is.’
Erin looked at the immaculate lawn without a single fallen leaf. ‘Looks well kept. The gardener must come every day.’
‘Wait until you see inside.’
He pushed past a couple of cops, one of whom patted him on the back. He might have his detractors at the station, but Max had tried to kill a serving cop. Erin had a good idea how an inquiry into Baros’s shooting might end. She passed a living room which had an unlived in feel. The furnishings were a little old fashioned, probably purchased by Linda over a decade earlier. Powder-blue velvet drapes hung at the windows, blocking out the night.
‘We’ll start in the library.’ He took Erin into a room where books lined all four walls. Some, she saw, were stacked two deep. ‘We’ve only just made a start, but we’ve got access to his laptop already. Take a look at this.’
In his email browser, a technician had called up the history of messages between Iris Chan and Max.
‘He didn’t even use an alias,’ said Erin.
‘They must have met while Iris was still a student. We knew Iris had a boyfriend after her relationship with Michael Lines fell apart, but we never got into her emails to discover who that might be.’
‘Looks like Michael Lines is going to walk free sometime soon.’
‘You can bet Larry Foster is working on it as we speak. We’re looking for a link with Tiffany Stoker, but that might be harder to pin on him. We’re talking super casual about that relationship.’
He took her up the stairs into a front bedroom, passing a technician on the stairs who was examining the carpet. The room smelt of a spicy soap and Erin wondered if this was the smell Carla had recognised when he’d attacked her. The sparsely furnished room was dominated by an old wood-framed bed with a thick mattress, but it was the headboard which drew Erin’s gaze. Into the cherry-red wood were carved fifteen or twenty daisy wheels.
‘Jesus. He slept on that every night.’
‘Weird, isn’t it? The thing is, he didn’t carve them himself. They’re not fresh marks. He must have purchased the bed at auction. Sleeping here must have started the process that led to the idea of the killings forming the hexafoil.’
Erin reached out to trace the pattern with her fingertips. An unbroken line, Carla had said. To her, it felt nothing more sinister than putting a horseshoe over your door.
‘I thought he and Lauren were lovers, even if it didn’t last long. These markings wouldn’t have passed her by.’
‘Maybe he never brought her home. Max Hazen was a man who valued his privacy.’
‘You know…’ Erin had to say what had been gnawing away at her. ‘What Viv did was unforgivable. Her partner might have swapped places with her for the best intentions, but she lied from the start of her career. Law enforcement has to uphold the highest standards of integrity. Viv failed to do that.’
Baros turned his face away from her. ‘She paid a high price,’ he said, finally.