Page 41 of Hard Heart

“Sykes definitely didn’t have any teardrops.”

Not unless you counted the way his eyes had glistened when he was talking about the discovery of Ruby’s body. If he’d been faking those emotions, the man deserved an Oscar.

“So what now? Are you going to take the case?”

“If by ‘you’ you mean the Justice Project, that isn’t up to me. And I wouldn’t have a clue where to start. Levi himself is convinced he’s never getting out of prison, and even if I can pass the next bar exam, I’m just a lawyer, not a private investigator. I review documents and draft motions. This situation needs so much more.” It needed a freaking miracle. “But I said I’d at least go back to hear the rest of the story. I think he wants to get it off his chest.”

“I knew it!”

“Knew what?”

“You’re invested now.”

I kind of was. But being invested and being successful were two totally different things. I needed to research…what was it called? Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another. I needed to ascertain whether Levi’s claim that it was his mother who suffered from mental illness rather than him might be true. I should have asked if he was still taking any medication. A question for next week.

And if the claim was plausible, and if Raelene agreed we could take the case at some point in the future, we’d need an expert willing to testify that the original expert witnesses were wrong, a task made all the more difficult because Mary Sykes was dead. What about Linus Sykes? Where was he? Levi didn’t seem to care for him, that was for sure.

Then there was the forensics, the most damning evidence of the trial, but also the most easily explainable. Apart from the bruises. Levi said Ruby would have fought back, but I couldn’t recall seeing any mention of fingernail scrapings, or scratches, or blood smears. Did they find any of that stuff? Test it? I wanted to speak with the lead detective, but I had no idea whether he’d be willing to talk with me. And what about the hotshot lawyers Levi’s parents had hired? They’d been mentioned in a news article—a reporter had interviewed Mary Sykes after the trial, and she’d been scathing when asked about the police. They’d bungled the investigation, she said. The defence team was confident of uncovering the truth.

Levi had mentioned Ruby going into the bathroom to flush a condom after they had sex. What else had she done in there? Had she taken a shower? Because if so, then anything left on her body must have come from her killer. Unless she’d picked up trace evidence left on the sheets, but what was the likelihood of that? I wasn’t a forensics expert. I desperately needed help with that part.

And then there was the pentagram. Articles referred to it as a satanic symbol, but what did it mean exactly?

“I said I’d go back next weekend,” I confessed to Heidi, and she grinned like an idiot.

“This is awesome! I mean, we’re getting secret information right from the source.”

“I’m not sure ‘awesome’ is the best word to describe this.”

Unjust. Terrifying. Overwhelming. Frustrating. Depressing. Those were all good words.

“I just meant that it’s cool to be right in the middle of the whole investigation. Like, I love dance, but sometimes it gets a little samey.”

“Could you do something for me?”

“Sure.”

“Could you very discreetly try to find more information on Braxton Vale? I’m going to need to do a deep dive into all the other housemates, and you’re in a better position to get that information than I am.”

She threw me a mock salute. “On it, boss.”

How I wished I shared her enthusiasm. “Thanks.”

“What’s happening with the Big Oil stuff? I think one of my biggest tippers does something with oil. You want me to ask him?”

“Ask him what? ‘Do you happen to know if one of your peers paid a man to murder an environmental engineer?’”

“Okay, that does sound weird.”

“I’m going to try getting in touch with the Save Our Planet group. They’ve been blogging about this theory for years, so it stands to reason that they’ll know more than I do.”

And I’d tread very, very carefully. If a bunch of wealthy fossil fuel enthusiasts had arranged one death, they could easily arrange another, and their pockets were deeper than the wells they drilled.

“Why didn’t they just have Levi killed too? Why cook up some elaborate scheme to frame him for a different murder?”

“If I knew the answer to that, we’d be halfway to solving this thing. At best guess, they figured simply bumping off two men on the same project would be a bigger red flag than sending one of them to prison.”

My phone interrupted, buzzing its way across the kitchen counter. Great. My mum was calling. Once again, I blocked out the noise until voicemail kicked in. I had a nice collection of messages now, progressively more emphatic requests-slash-orders to, “Call me now, darling.”