I LAUGHED, HARD, in the Chief’s face.
“Good work, Pops,” I said, standing up so that my chair scraped loudly on the tiles. “Look, I like a good prank as much as anyone but I’m busier than a one-armed bricklayer out there. I can’t believe they roped you into this one. Good work, mate. Now open this door.”
“This isn’t a joke, Harriet. Sit back down.”
I laughed again. That’s what I do when I’m nervous. I laugh, and I grin. “I’ve got cases.”
“Your apartment and car are being forensically examined in connection with the Georges River Three case,” the Chief said. He slapped a thick manila folder on the table between us. It was bursting with papers and photographs, yellow witness reports and pink forensics sheets.
I knew the folder well. I’d watched it as it was carried around by the Homicide guys, back and forth, hand to hand, a bible of horror. Three beautiful university students, all brunettes, all found along the same stretch of the muddy Georges River. Their deaths, exactly thirty days apart, had been violent, drawn-out horrors. The stuff of mothers’ nightmares. Of my nightmares. I’d wanted the Georges River Three case badly, at least to consult on it due to the sexual violence the women had endured. I’d hungered for that case. But it had been given to the parking-spot thief Detective Nigel Spader and his team of Homicide hounds. For weeks I’d sat at my desk seething at the closed door of their case room before the rage finally dissipated.
I sank back into my chair.
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“It’s routine, Blue,” the Chief said gently. He reached out and put his hand on mine. “They’re just making sure you didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“We found the Georges River Killer,” he said. He looked at my eyes. “It’s your brother, Blue. It’s Sam.”