Diamond Sky (Diamond Sky Trilogy Book 1) (22 page)

‘Is this window normally open?’ asked Bradley, from just
behind the grieving scientists.

‘Huh?’ replied
Emmy
, still
struggling to comprehend what had happened.

‘The window,’ said Bradley. ‘If somebody was in here they
may have used it to get out.
Would the professor normally leave
it open?’

‘Never,’ replied
Emmy
. ‘Even when
the heat gets stifling in summer, he always prefers to use the air-con.’

As the realisation that she had used the wrong tense to
describe her grandfather set in,
Emmy
finally gave in
and allowed the tears to flow. Charlie squeezed her more tightly, but the
soldier remained cold and detached.

‘In that case, we must assume that the perpetrator used it
to escape. I need the pair of you to stick with me. Until we know that the
danger has passed, we cannot take any chances.’

Bradley closed the window and locked it securely. He then
gestured for the scientists to get to their feet and to follow him. As they did
so, a loud bang echoed from outside.
Emmy
thought it
was the sound of a car backfiring. It was the first time she had ever heard a
gunshot and therefore had no frame of reference to gauge it by.

Chapter 24

Lucas received the call shortly after midday. It was by
far the most important job of his career; not one, but two homicides. The
bodies were found by a neighbour who heard the gunshots. They found not only
the victims; Sheila Coppersmith and Tom Fisher, but also the corpse of the
killer; Walter Coppersmith, who turned the gun on himself after murdering his
wife and her lover. It could not have appeared more clear-cut. Lucas, however,
was not so easily convinced.

It would be unprofessional of him to attend the crime scene
on foot, so he took the pick-up truck. He could have borrowed Val’s car, but
the former seemed to convey a greater air of authority. The doctor arrived at
the Coppersmith house at the same time as Lucas and judging by the descriptions
the policeman was given over the telephone, pronouncing the victims dead would
be a mere formality. Libby Valentine, the neighbour who found the bodies, was
waiting outside of the house.

‘You go on inside,’ Lucas told the doctor. ‘I want to have a
word with Mrs Valentine first.’

The sun was yet to reach its highest point and Libby was sat
with her arms wrapped around herself as she suffered the chills brought about
by shock. Lucas took a blanket from the truck and placed it over the woman’s
shoulders before taking a seat next to her on the porch.

‘Have you called Bill?’ he asked.

‘He doesn’t like it when I call him at work. He usually goes
for a drink with Wally after he finishes. I guess he won’t be doing that
anymore.’

Her voice was detached and emotionless. Lucas had been
called upon to deliver bad news in his time, but he had never had to deal with
anything like this before. Grief affects the heart and with time it can heal.
This was an entirely different type of trauma. It penetrated much deeper than
flesh or even emotion. There were some experiences that scarred the soul.

‘You shouldn’t be on your own right now. If there is nobody
else you can call on, I will get the doctor to take you up to the station. Val
will keep you company until Bill gets home.’

She nodded, absentmindedly.

‘Don’t you want to question me; isn’t that how this works?’

‘All in good time.
You’ve been
through a traumatic experience. I will do everything in my power to help you
get through this. Do you understand?’

This time she nodded with more conviction.

Lucas waited for the doctor to come back out before going
inside of the house. As part of his training he had been required to attend an
autopsy examination to see how he would react around a dead body. Back then the
hardest part of the task was coping with the smell. He expected it to be the
same inside of the house, but the bodies were still fresh and the air
conditioning kept the interior cool. There was a slight odour, but it was of
the lingering discharge of the shotgun blasts rather than from the ruptured
flesh of the newly deceased.

The victims were in the bedroom. Sheila was clothed in only
a dressing gown and Tom was wearing pants, but no shirt or shoes. His watch was
on a bedside cabinet. Lucas could not tell if the pair of them
were
caught before or after committing an adulterous act,
but it made little difference to his investigation either way. Six months
earlier he had caught the lovers in the middle of a sexual act in a lay-by on
the public highway. He gave the pair an unofficial caution, but refrained from
bringing charges as he hoped that the experience of being caught would be
deterrent enough to them continuing with the illicit relationship. Obviously,
it had not. Needless to say, this was not an isolated incident.

Blood stained the back wall of the bedroom right up to the
ceiling. Some had run down onto the carpet, but most of the liquid was soaked
up by the mattress, which now looked full and bloated like a sponge. There was
a photo frame laying picture side down at the foot of the bed. Lucas took out
his handkerchief and turned the frame over, careful to touch no more than the
tiniest corner. The glass front was not cracked, but it had thumbprints
embedded at either side in congealed blood. Inside was a portrait of Walter and
Sheila on their wedding day.

There were other trinkets and mementos scattered throughout
the room, which hinted at happier times in days gone by. Sheila possessed a
large collection of jewellery, bought by her husband to mark various occasions
and events. Her tastes were expensive and Walter spent a large portion of his
wages on keeping her happy. They were married for nine years and with a close
to twenty year age gap, she had been just nineteen when the union was made.

Apart from Sheila, Walter’s other passion in life was Elvis.
He had a collection of original vinyl, some of it more valuable than his wife’s
jewellery, which he kept stored safely away in his shed. A framed picture of
‘the King’ from his ’69 Comeback Special stood in the centre of a bookcase.
Clad entirely in black, the great man was dressed appropriately as he watched
over the devastation from afar. Beside the bookcase was the door to the
en-suite bathroom. It had been left ajar and beyond it was a sight that Lucas
feared the most. By entering, he would see not only the body of a killer, but
of a neighbour too.

Walter’s life ended on a toilet. Perhaps this was simply a
matter of convenience or maybe it was a final homage to his hero. The shotgun
rested between his legs and his thumb still touched the trigger. He was dressed
in his overalls, an outfit that Lucas had seen the man wear many times as
Walter often went to the pub straight from work. The wedding band and a tattoo
of a hawk on his wrist were also uniquely Walter’s. These were the only means
of identifying the body. The corpse’s head had been blown clean away.

After cordoning off the house with police tape, Lucas’s next
port of call was the Sly Fox. Walter did not possess a firearms licence. There
were only two people in town that did. One was Ned and the other was the
rightful owner of the weapon that was used to commit the heinous crimes.

‘Oh God,’ was all that Mindy could say upon hearing the
devastating news.

Her knees became weak and she had to sit down behind the bar
to steady
herself
. The pub was empty of customers and
Lucas displayed the ‘closed’ sign in the window immediately after entering.

‘I realise this is tough for you to hear right now, but
there are some things I have to know. Wally has been here today, hasn’t he?’

‘Well, yes, but how did you..?’

Lucas realised just how difficult for Mindy this was going to
be. He removed his hat and pulled up a stool opposite her.

‘Wally did not own a gun. I believe that the murder weapon
was stolen.’

‘Yes, but...’

As her voice trailed away, she leant down and checked under
the counter.

‘My shotgun; it’s gone. Oh my God, this is
all my
fault.’

‘It’s not your fault. Did Wally buy a drink when he was in
here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was he calm?’

‘Yes.’

‘If he was calm and he stopped to buy a drink, it means that
the crime was pre-meditated. He would have found a means to do what he did no
matter what. I assure you that you are completely free of any blame. Whatever
reasons were behind this, those reasons were between Walter and his wife.’

He carefully studied her reaction. She winced as if tortured
by the knowledge inside her head.

‘How long have you
known
?’

‘Since last Christmas.
The pair got
a little merry and couldn’t resist hooking up outside for a quick fondle. They
didn’t see me down in the cellar, but I could see them. At first, I thought it
was just the drink, but when I heard him bragging about bedding a married woman
to his mates a few weeks
later,
I knew it was
something more.’

Lucas carried a notepad, but he did not use it. Nor did he
tape the conversation. He trusted Mindy and he knew she would not change her
story once she had told it.

‘Did you tell anyone?’

‘My job is to listen to my customers. I do not spread
gossip.’

If the circumstances had been different, Lucas may have
smiled at such an obvious lie. This was the first non-truth she had told, so he
decided to let it slide. He believed she had kept her secret in this instance.

‘What about Wally: how did he seem to you when he was in
here earlier?’

‘He seemed a little odd. When a man wants whisky at ten
o’clock in the morning, something has driven him to it. I suspected it might
have something to do with Sheila, but I did not think that he knew of the
affair. Frank had called him up earlier and told him not to go to work. Do you
think he saw Tom going into his house?’

‘I don’t know. Was he in here last night?’

Mindy rolled her eyes.

‘No, but last night is a different story entirely. I almost
called you up at one point. For a moment it was very close to kicking off.’

‘What happened?’

She got up and walked to the fridge behind the bar. It was
lined with bottled beers and ciders. Most of the locals preferred their drinks
on draught, so it was not fully stocked. After picking up a bottle, she offered
another to Lucas.

‘Not when I’m on duty, but thanks.’

She removed the screw-top and sat back down before taking a
much needed gulp of alcohol to calm her nerves.

‘Last night was the poker final. As with last Thursday;
Jimmy managed to make himself the centre of attention.’

‘He was playing?’

‘How could I refuse him? After you barred the Carlton boys, somebody
had to take their place and Jimmy was the next in line.’

Lucas cursed his stupidity for not foreseeing this. He
should have been watching out for Jimmy, not letting the boy get pulled into a
life of gambling.

‘How much did he lose this time?’

‘Lose?’ replied Mindy, with notable surprise in her voice.
‘Jimmy didn’t lose. In fact, he won every hand. I have seen nothing like it.
That boy could beat a leprechaun in a coin toss. I have never seen anybody so
lucky.’

‘Are you sure it was luck?’

‘That’s what people started to ask last night. The poor kid
was accused of card counting. Is that even possible in poker? Anyway, it
doesn’t matter, because I know Jimmy and if anything, he is honest.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Well, that’s the thing. The losers were all angry at having
their money taken, but Jack
Fareshot
wouldn’t let it
go. He squared up to Jimmy and I thought he was going to give the kid a
beating. That was when I was going to call you.’

‘But he didn’t...’

‘That’s right. Jimmy actually called him out. It was the
most incredible thing I have ever seen. In front of everyone, Jimmy calmly told
Jack that he was not going to hit him. Then it got really weird. Jimmy told
Jack that what he was in fact going to do was to back away, pick up his coat
and leave. He then added that in the morning, Jack was going to knock on Mick
Hennessey’s door and apologise for spilling beer over his wife’s new shoes.’

Lucas scratched his head.

‘That last part makes no sense.’

‘Actually, it made the most sense. As Jack struggled to put
his coat on, he bumped into the back of Mick, who in turn, spilled his beer all
over his wife’s new shoes. Like I told you; it was weird. It’s like the boy
knew what was going to happen before it did. Maybe that’s how he won the poker;
he knew what the cards would be before they were even dealt.’

Lucas did not see the funny side.

‘I have to go,’ he said, picking up his hat and standing to
leave.

‘What about the...murder?’ The word felt uncomfortable. Even
saying it aloud did not make it seem real.

‘You’ve been very helpful, but there are other lines of
enquiry that I need to look into. I’ll let you know if I have any more
questions.’

He got into the pick-up truck and rode it back to the
station. As he drove, he went over Mindy’s story in his head. It was finally
becoming clear to him. Somehow, Jimmy could see the future, but he was not the
only one. Wally had acquired the ability too. That is how he knew about the
affair. Perhaps he saw the shootings in his mind and felt compelled to make the
vision a reality. Whatever was causing this phenomenon was not isolated to
these two cases either. It had started elsewhere, inside the mind of a much
simpler creature.

‘Val, can you get me the report on the snake attack from
last week?’ he asked, as he entered the station.

His secretary was in her office with Libby and a local boy
who had not yet reached his teens. The two guests were laughing with each other
despite the ordeal the former had gone through earlier in the day. Val came out
to meet Lucas and carefully closed her door behind her.

‘I’ve been waiting for you to come back,’ she said. ‘I have
something to show you that you are simply not going to believe.’

‘Can it wait? I am still attending to the double murder
investigation.’

‘No, it can’t. You have to see this.’

She pushed her door open and invited the boy out to join
them. He was carrying something in his hands. It was a smart phone. Lucas did
not like them. He thought that technology often proved to be a barrier to
communication rather than an aid.

‘Okay, but this had better be quick.’

‘Go on; show him,’ Val urged the boy.

The boy swept his finger over the screen of his device and
then handed it to Lucas. It was set to video playback mode. At first, Lucas
thought it may have something to do with the shootings, but the footage was
older. It was from the previous day. Lucas watched on with limited patience as
the display showed a surprisingly clear image of him getting out of his car and
chasing a chicken along the street. Even he had to admit that it was mildly
comical and he wondered if it had already been posted on YouTube. A small timer
at the bottom of the screen indicated that only seconds remained and he was
about to hand it back to the boy when he witnessed the impossible, although not
for the first time.