Jack said nothing. He just sat there like an idiot, shaking his head, trying to deny the barrage coming at him.
‘You dropped out of college and while your friends were partying, you were stuck at home with a baby who didn’t sleep. And for all the years since, your life has been compromised. I can understand how that could build up inside you. It’s not like this is something you get to move past. It’s a life sentence, isn’t it?’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘You just can’t get ahead, can you, Jack? You can’t catch up. Your friends, they got their degrees. Their parents didn’t cut them off. They’re out there in the world, working good jobs, getting married, buying homes, having kids. But they’re doing it with help. And you’re still stuck in a shitty granny flat. Still raising your kid. Ten years in, and your sentence is still running. And Robert Walker, he’s just fine. He’s living in a mansion, right?’
‘Listen to me. Listen to me, all right? Ididn’tknowMiriam went to see Walker. She nevertoldme. We were barely talking by the end. But even if she had told me, I would never have blamed him for her death. That’s insane. You’re telling me that he saw her once, right? He saw heronce. And I’m supposed to blame him for the fact that she killed herself? It was my fault, don’t you get it? We lived together. She was my girlfriend. Cam was my baby. And I left it all to her. She was alone all the time.’
‘You’re going to try to tell me that all of this is a coincidence? That someone murdered Robert Walker, the psychologist who failed your suicidal girlfriend, and the gun just happened to end up in your house?’
‘Itoldyou about the gun! I told you it came by post just that day, all wrapped up with a red velvet bow and that weird bloody letter. Isn’t there some other test you do? Where you like, check for gunshot residue on my hands, or something? Why aren’t you doing your job? Why aren’t you trying to find out who the real killer is? I have a son, don’t you get that? He’s ten years old. For god’s sake.’
There was a moment of silence. Jack searched Jansen’s face for empathy, for understanding, and found that it was entirely wiped clean of both. The interview ended. Lucy brought Jack back to the holding cell and closed the door behind him. He sat on the bunk.
Time slipped by.
Chapter Sixteen
Judith watched the Jack Miller interview through two-way glass. When it was over, she went back to her desk without talking to Rocky. She needed a moment to think. About Miriam Hall, Jack’s dead girlfriend.
Judith had met Miriam Hall, had known her personally. Because Miriam was case zero.Miriamwas the girl who had first come to Judith to make a complaint about Robert Walker assaulting her, the girl Judith had not been able to help ten years earlier. Judith should tell Rocky what she knew about Miriam straight away. It was key information. Jack had a much stronger motive to kill Walker than Rocky knew.
Instead of waiting and talking to Rocky, Judith went to her desk. She checked the Robert Walker murder file and found what she’d suspected, given Rocky’s laser focus on Jack. Ballistics had already confirmed that the weapon found in Jack’s backpack was the gun that had killed Robert Walker.Judith sat back in her chair and thought hard. There was strong evidence pointing to Jack Miller. The gun. The motive. Jack as a suspect made sense.
But... that didn’t explain who Alexis Turner was, why she’d lied, or why she’d disappeared. It didn’t explain the anonymous call Judith had received, tipping her off about Walker’s death. It didn’t even explain the video that had been sent to Chloe the influencer, though if she raised all of that with Rocky, he would likely point out the obvious. That Jack could have sent the videos to try to destroy Robert Walker’s life, before deciding that only murder would do. That Alexis Turner was probably a real complainant who gave false details because she wanted the police to investigate Walker but didn’t want to have to give evidence in court. That the call tipping Judith off was probably a colleague who had heard about Lachlan’s report of his dad’s suicide and was genuinely concerned that Judith would be blamed for Walker’s death.
There was a reasonable explanation for all of it.
But the whole thing stunk to high heaven.
Judith went back into the murder file and read through the reports, looking for the trigger that had pointed her colleagues to investigate Jack in the first place. She swore quietly under her breath as she found exactly what she’d expected to find. An anonymous phone call to Melbourne West Police Station had informed police of Jack’s name and address, and had claimed that Jack had killed Walker, and that he was about to dispose of the gun. Rocky had been informed immediately and he and Phillips had made it to Jack’s apartment twelve minutes later.
Another anonymous phone call. There were mysteries here yet to be solved. Judith made her decision.
She would hold off on telling Rocky the whole truth about Miriam Hall for twenty-four hours, and she would use that time to dig deeper, to find enough evidence to convince Rocky that there was more going on here than a simple revenge murder, that someone was out there, pulling a lot of strings.
Judith decided to start with Jack Miller. She needed to know more about him, and anyone associated with him. She looked Jack up on LEAP and found very little. He had no criminal record, just a four-year-old speeding ticket. Judith turned to the wider internet. Miller had said in the interview that his parents were very religious—more than that, he’d said they were extremists. Judith searched for the nameMillercombined withVictoriaandMelbourneandreligion.She got a few hits for a café named The Jolly Miller, and some hits on individuals on a biographies website, but nothing that seemed relevant. She changed her search, substituting the wordcultfor the wordreligion,and focusing on news archives instead of a general search.
Bingo.
Judith found an article about a Nate Miller and his wife, Benedicta. The article was fifteen years old. It was an interview with Nate, who was starting up a new prayer group for ‘brethren who have found God and wish to commune with him in the company of clean-minded men,’ whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. The article mentioned that Nate and Benedicta had a fifteen-year-old son who would also be taking part in the prayer group.
‘Those who have strayed from the path may always seek absolution through sacrifice and penance,’ Nate Miller was quoted as saying. ‘If they come to the brethren with honest regret and open hearts, there may be a way back for even the blackest sinner. Though the path back is not easy, it is ultimately deeply rewarding.’
Nate sounded like he’d be a laugh at parties.
Judith searched deeper and wider and found nothing else that was terribly helpful. She turned back to the police system and searched for Nate and Benedicta Miller. The system told her that Nate had been arrested multiple times for harassment and public disorder. He’d spent a little time in prison, but most of his offences were minor, relatively speaking. Benedicta wasn’t on the system at all, not even for a driver’s licence. Judith wondered if she’d changed her name at some point.
Giving up on the Miller family for the time being, she ran a search for Steve Gifford instead. Rocky had said that the gun had been stolen from Gifford, and she wanted to look into that further. Sometimes gun thefts were by arrangement. A bikie gang or some organised criminal element would recruit a couple of people without criminal records, then pay them to go through the onerous licensing process necessary to buy a gun legally, with the understanding that the legal gun would eventually be ‘stolen’.
Getting a firearms licence for a shotgun was difficult in Australia; getting a licence for a handgun was more difficult by orders of magnitude. To legally own a handgun, Gifford would have had to pass a hundred point ID check, and a police check. He would have required a perfectly clean record, with no criminal activity or mental illness, and couldn’t have come to the attention of the police in a manner that made him an unsuitable person. Assuming he passed that level of checking, he would then have had to demonstrate that he had a genuine reason to own a handgun, which would usually mean that he would need to be a member of a gun club. If all of those requirements were satisfied, Gifford could start the application process.
He would be fingerprinted and go through a twenty-eight day waiting period, after which he would be granted a six-month provisional licence. During that six month period, Gifford would be required to take part in a minimum of five regulated shooting competitions, and he would be required to successfully complete a firearms safety course. After that, if he still wanted to own a gun, he could apply for a full licence, and then, all going well, afteranothertwenty-eight day waiting period, a licence would be granted.
It was a hell of a lot to go through if you were planning to let your local bikie gang take the gun off your hands the moment you got it, but it happened. According to the system, Steve Gifford had no known criminal associations, but again, that didn’t mean a hell of a lot. Obviously, Gifford would have been no use to a criminal element if he had that kind of history.
Judith decided that Steve Gifford would be worth speaking to. She’d like to speak to Jack Miller too, but as he was currently occupying a cell as chief suspect in the Walker murder, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. It wasn’t her case, and it was one thing to let her observe an interview. It would be something else entirely to let her interview the suspect. No. Whatever she was going to do, she’d have to do quietly and quickly.
