The Defendant (2 page)

Fury raged through him, consuming him in its white-hot heat. A red haze clouded his eyes. The weight of the gun was heavy in his hands, but he lifted it and looked through the scope, aiming the crosshairs at the back of the man’s head.

Time stood still. All noise receded—his mother’s harsh cries, the man’s guttural grunts—all of it melted away. Nothing existed but the gun and its target. He increased the pressure on the trigger. Slowly, slowly he pulled it toward him.

He barely heard the sound of the gunfire. It was the slightest little
pop
. The target dissolved into a mass of blood and brain matter. He lowered the gun slowly, numb, his body limp and exhausted. A second later, he was overcome by his mother’s relentless, bloodcurdling screams.

CHAPTER TWO

The strident ringtone of his cell woke Detective Sergeant Chase Barrington from a dead sleep. The ringing cycled three more times before he managed to locate the phone amongst the clutter on his nightstand.

“Barrington,” he muttered, still half asleep.

“Detective Barrington, it’s Sergeant Haynes from the Watervale Police Station. We’ve received an emergency call from a farmhouse out on Bruxner Road. There’s been a shooting. The boss is already on his way. He needs you out there.”

Chase cursed under his breath. He should have known better than to indulge in alcohol while he was on call. A few drinks after work with his boss and friend, the Local Area Commander, Riley Munro and Riley’s wife and kids, had put him in a melancholy mood. He’d come home later than he’d planned and then spent a few more hours polishing off the bottle of Jack Daniels he had on the shelf of his liquor cabinet.

He was twenty-nine years old and had no family to speak of. As an only child with both of his parents deceased, lately he’d found himself yearning for something more permanent than the occasional fling with a girl he met on a Friday night at Watervale’s popular drinking establishment. The night out with Riley and his family only served to underscore his loneliness.

He sighed quietly. It wasn’t like he was playing hard to get. He was a regular at The Bullet and quite often went there in the hope of finding someone special. The problem was none of the girls he got friendly with were Josie Munro. It was a problem he had no idea how to solve.

He grimaced and pushed the thought of her out of his mind. After getting directions to the crime scene and reassuring his colleague that he was on his way, Chase ended the call. Hoisting himself out of bed, he padded naked to the bathroom, flicking on the light as he entered. He stared at himself in the mirror and winced at what he saw.

His eyes were bloodshot. His hair was askew. He looked like he’d been on a bender. He shook his head in disgust.
He was getting too old for this shit.

Leaning over the sink, he splashed cold water over his face and scrubbed at the whiskers on his chin. He shaved before he’d left for Riley’s house, but the stubble never remained hidden for long—a result of his Italian heritage. His surname, ‘Barrington,’ sounded like it had come from a long line of British descendants, and it did, but his mother had been born in Florence.

He reached for the towel that hung on the bath rail and swiped it across his face. Running his hands through his unruly hair, he did his best to return order to the thick tangle of curls. It was too early in the morning to worry about a hairbrush. Besides, he’d had way too little sleep to care.

Returning to the bedroom, he glanced at the clock on his nightstand.
Three forty-six.
He threw a wistful glance toward his rumpled king-sized bed and then resolutely headed for his closet and began to dress.

* * *

Chase spied the small, non-descript mailbox on the side of Bruxner Road and turned his unmarked police vehicle into the dirt driveway. A few minutes later, a tired weatherboard farmhouse, in dire need of a coat of paint, came into view. A tidy yard and garden in stark contrast to the dilapidated state of the house, was visible through the criss-crossing red, blue and white light beams of the emergency vehicles at the scene.

He came to a halt next to an ambulance which was parked right outside the front door. At least three other squad cars crammed into the front yard. As if they’d watched for his arrival, two of his colleagues appeared from inside the house and met him on the porch.

“What have we got?” he said by way of greeting.

Sergeant Ian Crowne shook his head. “It’s not good.”

Probationary Constable Luke Dawson looked chalky, his lips matching the pallor of his skin. A second later, he pushed past Chase and vomited all over the lawn. Chase grimaced. It didn’t bode well for what he was about to find. Shouldering his way through the front doorway, he made his way down a hall of bare floorboards polished to a dull gleam and headed in the direction of the low murmur of voices.

A row of family photos on the wall in the corridor caught his eye. Pictures of two smiling young boys were proudly displayed in heavy wooden frames. A wedding photo of a youthful couple gazing at each other with love hung on the opposite wall. The innocence of the photographs was in stark contrast to the violence that had recently occurred in the home. Swallowing a sigh, Chase continued down the hall and came to a halt outside the bedroom at the very end.

The male victim lay face down on the unmade bed, a bullet hole in the back of his head. Blood and brain matter seeped onto the pale bedspread in an elongated stain beneath his head. His pants and underwear were around his knees, but he was otherwise clothed. His boots had left dirty marks on the pale pink-and-white bedspread.

Chase shifted his gaze to the woman who stood crying quietly in the far corner of the room. Blood and body tissue were splattered over the front of her white cotton nightgown. More blood was smeared across her face. A blanket was draped around her shoulders and a paramedic talked to her in tones too low for Chase to hear.

A flash of light snagged Chase’s attention. He glanced around and caught sight of the police photographer. The man snapped off another shot of the crime scene and then changed his position. Chase’s boss stood behind the photographer. Chase sidled up to him.

“What happened, Riley?”

Riley turned away from the scene of carnage and acknowledged him. “Chase, thanks for coming. It’s a messy one. There’s a young kid involved. I’ve called in Forensics. They’re on their way over from Grafton. They’ll be here in a couple of hours. We’re going to need all the help we can get.” He offered a half-hearted smile. “Lucky we didn’t have a late one last night or we’d both be in a world of pain.”

Chase pressed his lips together and nodded. No need to tell his boss he’d been awake for most of the night—not when the woman who’d kept him sleepless was his boss’s sister. Forcing his thoughts away from Josie Munro, Chase focused on the scene before him. “So, what do we have? A domestic?”

Riley grimaced. “I wish.”

“Who is he, then?”

“The driver’s license we recovered from the wallet in the victim’s back pocket says it’s Neil Whitcomb. We ran him through the database. He got out of Long Bay late yesterday afternoon. He must have hightailed it straight out of Sydney and headed north.”

Chase’s gaze shifted to the woman who still huddled in the corner, her blue eyes wide with shock. Her hair was a soft brown color that now lay tangled around her face. She looked like she was in her late thirties. Shivering and dazed, she barely resembled the pretty, young woman he’d seen in the wedding photo down the hall. His gaze returned to his boss and he pitched his voice low. “Who is she?”

“Kelly Logan. Thirty-seven years old. Moved north from Melbourne a few months ago.”

“Is she the shooter?”

Riley’s lips tightened and his expression turned grim. “No, that would be Daniel Logan, her twelve-year-old son.”

Chase reared back in surprise. “Fuck.”

“Yep.”

The tragedy that had unfolded in the house became more and more apparent. Chase ran a hand through his hair. Cold dread weighed heavily in his gut. What had started out bad had just become a whole lot worse. Nothing about this night was going to end well.

“Where’s the boy?” he asked.

“I told Jake to take him out of here. I think they’re waiting in the kitchen.”

CHAPTER THREE

The boy’s tousled head glinted like gold under the soft lighting in the kitchen. The resemblance to his mother was plain to see. Dark shadows haunted his eyes, but Chase guessed sleep was the last thing on the boy’s mind. He sat in a worn pine chair near the kitchen table and stared at the cracked linoleum floor, his body as still as if he’d been nailed to the spot.

Chase approached him quietly, his heart heavy. He caught the eye of Jake Simons, the constable who had removed the boy from the scene and gave the officer a brief nod of acknowledgement. Hunkering low, he brought himself down to eye level with the boy.

“Hey, buddy. I’m Chase, one of the detectives from Watervale. What’s your name?” The boy continued to stare at the floor. Chase tried again.

“I’ve just come from your mom’s bedroom. Something happened here tonight, buddy. I really need you to tell me about it.”

Still, the boy remained silent and immobile. Chase glanced up at Jake, who shrugged. He swallowed a sigh. He hated to manipulate the boy’s emotions, but he was left with no choice.

“Listen, buddy, if you don’t talk to me, I’m going to have to go back in and question your mom. She’s pretty upset in there. You don’t want me to upset her any further, do you?”

The needling had its desired effect. The boy’s head snapped up, his eyes fierce. “
No!
” Just as quickly, his head dropped back down until his chin almost touched his chest. He rocked back and forth on his chair. Fat tears slid down his cheeks.

Chase felt like a prick. He was harassing a child, a boy who had suffered through the worst kind of horror and torment way too early in his life. If it wasn’t so necessary to know what had happened, Chase would have offered comfort, like he wanted to, rather than threats. He stood and met Jake’s gaze. The constable’s expression was also tortured.

“I’m going to confer with the boss,” Chase murmured. Jake merely nodded.

Retracing his footsteps, Chase returned to the bedroom. Riley now stood near Daniel’s mother, talking quietly to her. She responded through gasps and sobs, her words disjointed.

Chase cleared his throat to gain Riley’s attention.

Riley glanced up at him and then eased himself away from the woman. “What is it?” he asked when he reached Chase, his voice pitched low.

“It’s the boy. He’s in a bad way. Shocked almost to the point of muteness. Can barely spit out a syllable. We’re not going to get anything out of him while he’s in that state. What did you get out of the mother?”

Riley’s lips compressed into a thin line. “A little, but she’s still in shock. She lives here with her husband, Trevor Logan and their two sons. Trevor’s a truck driver for New England Transport. Right now, he’s out on the road. We’ve tried to contact him, but he hasn’t answered his phone. Probably asleep.”

Chase closed his eyes and shook his head. “Poor bastard.”

“Yeah. Anyway, Kelly said she was in bed asleep when she was woken by a noise. The next thing she knew, Whitcomb was standing over her, threatening her with a knife. She didn’t want him to discover her sons, so she did her best to stay quiet. Unfortunately, Daniel woke and came upon them.

“Hell.”

Riley drew in a deep breath and released it on a heavy sigh. “Yeah. By that time, Whitcomb had his pants down. Daniel saw everything. She tried to warn him away. He left, but a few minutes later he returned, this time with a gun. He put a bullet through the back of Whitcomb’s head.”

“Did you find the knife?”

“Yeah, a four-and-a-half-inch Bowie. It had fallen down the side of the bed. Whitcomb’s got a scabbard on his belt.”

Dread cemented in Chase’s gut. Knowing he would have done the same thing if he’d been in Daniel’s position didn’t make it any easier.

“Christ,” he breathed, shaking his head slowly. “No wonder the poor kid isn’t talking.”

“Yeah. No wonder.” Riley sighed again. “What do you want to do?”

“I’m not going to hound him any further. He’ll talk when he’s ready. We need to get someone in to see him, a professional trained to deal with children and trauma.”

Riley nodded. “My sister Josie’s just returned home. She took up a private position through Rural and Regional Health in Watervale about a month ago. She’s a child psychologist. I could call her and see if she can meet us at the station.”

Chase stared at Riley in surprise and his heart pumped double time.
Josie.
The sweet sound of her name rolled silently off his tongue. He didn’t realize she’d left Brisbane and was so close by.

Nervousness surged through him, coupled with an underlying feeling of anticipation. He’d been in love with Josie Munro all of his life. The last time he’d seen her was the night of her high school graduation. It had been the most beautiful night of his life.

Then the memories of what happened afterwards crashed in on him and he had to turn away. The pain of it, as raw and fresh as if it had happened yesterday, battered him from all sides.
 

He’d promised her a future and he’d reneged. He hadn’t even told her why. She’d loved him; she’d trusted him, she’d believed in him…and he’d let her down. The hurt he’d caused was ingrained in his memory. It would be naïve for him to think she could ever recover from it, let alone forgive him, no matter how much he yearned that things could be different.