Chapter 11
Sapphire
Kayden and I raced around the back of William’s house and up the steps. The back door was old hardwood, heavy and solid, and Bob had thrown the deadbolt.
I pressed my shoulder against the wood and shoved. Nothing. I tried again, driving off my back foot.
Kayden grabbed my arm. “Step aside.”
“I can do it.”
“Sapphire,” he growled.
I stepped aside and drew my weapon.
He squared up and drove his boot into the door just below the bolt. The frame cracked. He kicked again, the bolt gave, and the door swung hard into the wall.
“Stay here.” I raced inside, weapon up, moving fast through the rooms. “Clear,” I called from the back bedroom. I holstered my weapon and headed back to the kitchen.
“Holy fuck. That’s the Henderson brothers,” Kayden called ahead of me.
He must not have seen their faces when I’d identified them earlier. “Yeah.”
The kitchen smelled of blood and bowel, and a faint tangy scent I couldn’t place.
Both bodies were exactly where they’d been when I’d watched through the screen door earlier. Bob hadn’t moved them.
So, what was he doing in here after he shot at us?
“Bloody hell. I can’t believe Bruce and Wayne are dead,” Kayden said. “I hated these guys, but …” Kayden drove his hand through his wild hair.
I crouched beside Bruce and pressed two fingers to the side of his throat.
No pulse. Not that I’d expected one. His skin was cool and waxy, his lips dry and cracked.
His pupils were fixed and clouded behind half-open lids.
The underside of his arm, where it lay against the linoleum, had gone the deep purplish red of settled lividity.
He’d been on his side for hours. The muscles were stiff, close to fully set.
Had Bob been here all this time?
The kitchen knife was still buried to the wooden handle in Bruce’s side. It had taken some serious force to do that.
I stood, stepped carefully around the blood pool, and crouched beside Wayne.
No pulse. Same lividity. Same rigor. The dishcloth jammed in his mouth was crusted and dark. The rope around his neck had bitten deep into the skin, the flesh swollen and discolored around it. The veins in both eyes had burst red.
He’d strangled himself fighting the rope. Or Bob had pulled it tight.
I shuddered, staying crouched for a moment, looking at them.
Two big, stupid, brutal men who’d spent their lives throwing their weight around this district. If Lyle was right, they’d come here to get Frank. They’d known what they were walking into, and yet they hadn’t walked out.
I sat back on my heels and looked around the kitchen. A length of chain was on the floor in the corner. Glass everywhere from a smashed rum bottle. One cupboard door was half hanging from its hinge.
A fight had occurred in this kitchen.
Three kitchen knives were lined up on the floor beside the back door like someone had planned to use them. The knife block on the bench was missing five. One was in Bruce. I couldn’t see the other one.
Blood was on the fridge. Up the base of the cupboards. Splattered across the floor.
“Whoever killed these men had blood all over them,” I said.
“You mean Bob, right?” Kayden’s voice was flat. “Bob killed these guys?”
“I don’t think so.” I stood. “If Bob did this, he’d have had blood on his clothes, his face, and his arms. He didn’t have any.”
“He could’ve washed it off. Changed his clothes.”
I shook my head. “Look at this scene, Kayden. The smashed bottle. The broken cupboards. Someone fought hard in here, and blood went everywhere. A fight like this leaves marks. Scratches. Bruises. Blood. Bob didn’t have a mark on him.”
Kayden looked around the kitchen. “So, if not Bob, then who …” He stopped. Swallowed. “Frank.”
“Bob said Frank had been hiding here for weeks. The Hendersons came looking for Frank last night. They didn’t make it back out.” I pulled out my phone and photographed the knife block, then the knife handle protruding from Bruce’s torso.
Kayden let out a long breath. “Son of a bitch.”
“It’s still a big ask, though,” I said. “These were big men. And the last time I saw Frank, he didn’t look like someone who could take down one Henderson, let alone two of them.”
Kayden looked at me sharply. “When did you see Frank?”
“A couple of months ago.” I straightened and looked up at the ceiling. The bullet hole I’d put there stared back at me. I photographed it. “He came out of Bob’s office at the station.”
“Frank would never go to a police station.”
“Well, he did. Do you think he’s capable of murder?” I asked.
Kayden puffed out his cheeks. “Frank hated these bastards.” His jaw tightened. “And they came after him. Frank wouldn’t go down without a fight, that’s for sure. Maybe he just got lucky.”
I pointed at the knives lined up on the floor. “That’s my guess, too. He knew they were coming and got ready.” I stepped back and photographed the knives in context with the door behind them. “That’s not panic. That’s preparation.”
Kayden’s jaw was tight, working against the pain he wouldn’t admit to. “Come on.” I touched his good arm. “Let’s see if there’s a bandage somewhere.”
I steered him down the hall to the bathroom.
“Oh shit,” he said as we stepped in.
The bathroom told its own story. Blood smeared across the sink’s lip and down the cabinet door below.
Bloody fingerprints were on the tap and the white sink.
The medicine cabinet hung open, and everything was dragged out and dumped on the counter.
A tube of antiseptic cream was squeezed flat.
Band-Aid wrappers littered the floor. A roll of medical tape sat open on the edge of the sink, the end pulled out and torn off.
“Jesus, someone patched themselves up in a hurry.” I pulled out my phone and photographed the sink, cabinet, and fingerprints. “It wasn’t Bob,” I said. “He didn’t have a mark on him.”
“Could’ve been Bruce or Wayne.”
I looked at the blood on the sink, the empty wrappers on the floor, and thought it through.
“Wayne was hog-tied, and Bruce was knifed. My guess is that whatever happened to them, happened really quickly. They didn’t have time to patch themselves up.
” I crouched and photographed the wrappers.
“Whoever killed them got injured in the fight and came in here after to treat themselves.”
“There’s a lot of blood here,” Kayden said, nudging a roll of medical tape with his finger.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t look like enough to be life-threatening.”
“Really? You can tell that?”
I nodded.
“So, the killer takes time to patch themselves up after killing two men?” Kayden said. “That’s risky.”
“Yes, and this is evidence.” I looked at Kayden. “Sorry, we can’t touch anything in here now.” I pressed my hand to his chest. “How bad is it really?”
“I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He met my eyes. “It hurts. But I can move. So, let’s go.” He turned and walked back down the hallway.
As I followed, I asked, “Where would Frank go, Kayden? If he killed those men last night, he’s been on the run ever since.”
Kayden stopped near the dining table and turned to face me. “Frank doesn’t go anywhere. I didn’t even know he’d come here, or the police station, like you said. I didn’t even realize he’d left Koolaroo.” He shook his head. “Clearly, I was wrong.”
I photographed the bodies from a distance, getting perspective of their positioning in the kitchen.
“What about friends? Was there someone Frank would trust enough to hide with?”
He made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Frank’s only friend just tried to have him killed. So that’s a dead end. Literally.”
“Any other family he could go to?”
“Nobody. We didn’t even know he had a brother until an hour ago, and he’s been dead for seven years.”
I moved into the sparsely furnished front room. Nothing looked disturbed, and I saw nothing useful. “What about somewhere Frank has worked before?”
Kayden leaned against the doorframe and watched me work. “Sapphire, you can ask me every version of that question there is, and the answer isn’t going to change. Frank had no life outside of Koolaroo.”
I walked back into the kitchen and saw the blue-ruled foolscap notepad and a biro sitting beside it. The top page had been torn off, leaving a small, ragged piece caught on the right-hand corner.
Had someone written a note?
I crouched and studied the pad at an angle under the kitchen light. No writing on the surface, but when the light caught it right, I could see indentations of writing from the page that had been torn out.
Kayden leaned in with me. “What do you see?”
“Whatever was written on the page above left indents through to this one.” I tilted it again, trying to read the ghost lines.
“Maybe Frank left a clue to where he was going. If I can shade over these grooves with a soft pencil, the writing should come up.” I eased back.
“We need a pencil. You check in the kitchen. Be careful of that blood.”
“Got it.” He dashed into the kitchen.
As he rummaged through the kitchen, I hit the living room, both of us pulling open and shoving shut drawers. I raced to the sideboard with an empty pottery bowl on top. Inside the cupboard were dozens of old farming magazines as if someone had been collecting them. But no pencil.
An old Chivas Regal wooden box sat on top of the sideboard. I lifted the lid.
Inside was a stack of folded foolscap pages. The top one was covered in a note written in blue biro. I read the first lines.
Title: Every problem has a price
Date: 3 years ago. Hottest summer ever, I remember that much.
The air went out of me. Was this Frank’s handwriting?
“Kayden.” My voice came out strange. “You need to see this.”
I carried the box to the table and turned it so he could see inside.
“That’s Dad’s handwriting.” He lifted out the top page. “What is this?” He unfolded the page.
I should have stopped him. That was evidence. But I, too, was intrigued. If Frank had written that note, we needed to read it.