Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018
- Автор: Ловси Питер, Зельцерман Дэйв
- Год: 2018
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018». Краткое содержание книги:
“That’s exactly what I said,” Jolene said, nodding.
“That poor girl,” Patricia said, talking to herself more than to anyone else. “Seventeen years old.”
Ray sat down at the table again. He opened the can of beer and took a sip, then put it down and fiddled with the pull tab. Did he have reason to be worried? He wasn’t sure. Suddenly he became aware that his right leg was jiggling up and down. He put his hand on his knee to calm it.
He looked at his wife, who was becoming more and more animated as her wineglass emptied. He tried to imagine her reaction if he told her, the expression on her face. He cycled through the possibilities of shock, disbelief, and anger, but none of them seemed quite right. No, she would look at him with disappointment, he decided, and he didn’t think he could bear that.
“I just don’t understand the logistics of it, though,” Patricia said. “I mean, what if it was a tourist or someone just passing through town?”
“Well, now the police from Sydney have arrived, they might start making some progress,” Jolene said.
“I didn’t think Bob would be able to manage a case like this on his own, no offence or anything. I mean, he’s a nice copper and all, but a murder? Well, he can barely solve a break-in,” Patricia said.
“Oh, you leave poor old Bob alone,” Jolene said, giving Patricia a friendly slap on the shoulder. “He helped Customs bust that abalone racket last summer. But you’re right. Murder’s a different kettle of fish.”
“Abalone... kettle of fish! Oh, you’re too funny, Jolene.”
Jolene looked at Patricia blankly and then her eyes widened. “I didn’t even realise what I was saying!”
They both collapsed over the table laughing.
When Jolene finally stopped snorting, she turned to Ray. “You’re awfully quiet there. Feeling nervous about the screening, are we? Got a guilty conscience?”
“Oh, don’t joke about it, that’s bad taste,” Patricia said. “Besides, he wasn’t even in Eden that weekend, were you, love?”
“Hmmm? No, I was sailing,” Ray said. “Lake Wyndham. Bob was there too, actually.”
“See?” Patricia said. “The perfect alibi.”
It was true. He hadn’t been anywhere near Eden when the murder happened. And yet something had been bothering Ray ever since he’d read about the DNA screening in the news the previous day. He picked up a knife and sliced it through the Camembert, placing a generous chunk on a water cracker. He looked at it and turned it around in his hands, then put it back down on the plate.
“I might go for a walk,” he said, standing up.
“Oh, there’s no need to get huffy,” Jolene said. “I was just kidding.”
“You’re all right, Jolene. Just need to get my daily constitutional,” Ray said, patting his stomach.
Patricia leaned towards her friend and momentarily lowered her voice. “Doctor says he has to lose weight,” she said. “Anyway, you know Ray — he’s never been much of a conversationalist. But I wouldn’t change him for the world.”
Ray smiled and leaned down to kiss his wife. And when he felt the touch of her hand on his cheek he thought he might cry, something he hadn’t done in thirty-six years.
“I’ll be back before dinner.”
Ray walked down the steps that led to Cocora Beach. When he reached the bottom, he made his way through the small playground and past the car park and stopped at the place where the concrete met the sand. He closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath, the smell of sea salt and spinifex in the air.
Cocora Beach was mostly deserted during the week, except for the occasional sunbather or lone fisherman. Ray liked to go there in the afternoons to relax, although as a steady, phlegmatic sort of bloke, he wasn’t normally vulnerable to life’s pressures. Today was different, though.
Like everyone else in town, he had been shocked by the murder of Abby Wilson, who had been found dead on the rocks at Aslings Beach by a recreational fisherman twelve days earlier.
Ray didn’t know the Wilson family well, but he knew of them, of course. John Wilson was a tradesman, his wife Rhonda a nurse at Pambula Hospital. Abby had gone to school with Ray’s daughter Talia, but had been two or three years behind.
Official details of the girl’s death were being kept under wraps, but over the last few days rumours so awful had emerged that all people could do when they heard them was wince and shake their heads. Raped multiple times. Internal bleeding. Her head smashed against a rock.
A mood had come over the town that Ray had never witnessed before. Things like that didn’t happen in Eden, one of the sleepier towns on the Sapphire Coast. But Ray’s memory was long enough to know that they did.
He walked along the stretch of sand to the far end of the beach, where an outcrop of rocks formed a natural shelter. A small white sailboat was anchored in the water and bobbed congenially at Ray as he passed, but it did nothing to put him at ease.
He sat down on a rock and pulled out his wallet and removed a folded-up piece of paper that was tucked inside. It was the article from the front page of yesterday’s Magnet, which Patricia had left in the recycling bin. He didn’t have his reading glasses with him, so he held the article away from his face and squinted slightly.
Authorities will conduct a mass DNA screening of 1,476 Eden men in an effort to solve the murder of 17-year-old Abby Wilson, who was found dead at Aslings Beach on the morning of Saturday, 15 October.
A spokeswoman for NSW Police, Detective Leah Grutzner, said all local men over the age of sixteen would be required to attend Eden Police Station on Imlay Street for a mouth swab by 5:00 P.M.. on Wednesday, 9 November.
It is only the fourth time in Australian history that a mass DNA screening has been conducted.
Detective Grutzner acknowledged that the mass DNA screening was an unusual measure, but said the lack of eyewitnesses and other leads, coupled with the brutal nature of the crime, meant it was the most viable option moving forward with the case.
Detective Grutzner said that while people had the right to refuse to participate in the DNA screening, they would have to make their case before a local court, which would then make a final ruling.
She said the DNA samples would also be screened to solve other local crimes, including historical cold cases.
Ray paused at the end of the article and read the last sentence again. He folded up the piece of paper and put it back in his wallet.
Was Jeannie the cold case the article referred to? He had lived in Eden all his life and couldn’t think of any other crime it could be. There was the hit-and-run that killed the Jones boy a few years back, but they’d caught the man responsible for that — a drunk driver from Merimbula. Apart from that, what was there? Illegal fishing, abalone smuggling, and the occasional drug bust.
No, it was her all right, it had to be. It had finally caught up with him.
Ray looked out across the bay to Ben Boyd National Park, where they’d dumped her body all those years ago, and wondered how it could be that he hadn’t thought of her in so long. And suddenly he had a vision of her struggling under his brother Pete while Shane Hawkins and Darren Russell looked on, and he recalled how she’d turned her head to look at him and screamed at him to help.
For a long time afterwards, he had taken comfort in the image of him pulling Pete off her and telling Shane and Darren to go home, and holding her in his arms, whispering “I’m sorry” in her ears a hundred times. But today pretending was no use.
Why didn’t I do anything, Ray thought, back when I had the chance?