AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This is going to take us all day, he thought grimly. May as well make a start. He pointed his index finger at the top of the list and asked Claire to bring in the first three people.
A middle-aged man called Mike Baldwin was ushered to their table by Claire five minutes later. He was listed as a senior coach of the under fifteens on beam and floor. The man had neatly trimmed, dark hair, and was fit and trim—he clearly looked after himself—but he was barely taller than Claire. Nico hated to stereotype anybody, but he couldn’t help the wordssmall man syndromeflashing through his mind.
Nico shook his hand and then watched as Mike seemed to linger just a little too long as he reached over to shake Lacey’s as well.
“This is just terrible,” he said, pulling out a chair. “I can’t believe one of our own has been murdered. She was such a lovely girl. So pretty. And an amazing gymnast and coach,” he blustered, looking only at Lacey as he spoke.
“Yes, it’s always a tragedy when someone so young dies,” Lacey replied seriously. She threw Nico a sideways look, letting him know she wanted to take the lead on this one. Which was fine with him. Her interrogation technique was different to his, but over the past few days, it’d proven to be highly effective.
“We’re all devastated,” Mike continued, leaning over the desk toward Lacey. Was the guy actually flirting with her? Nico wanted to scoff and tell him not to be such a dirty lecher, but held his tongue. As he watched Lacey question the man and listened to his answers, he formed a snapshot of this guy’s personality. And he didn’t like it. Not one little bit. If he had the balls to flirt with a police constable—albeit a gorgeous one, by his own admission—then he’d probably also have the presumption to hit on the women he worked with.
At one stage, Lacey asked him outright, “You certainly seemed very fond of Zoya. Were you close? Did you two ever go out on a date?” They were pretty sure from their information gathered so far that Zoya hadn’t had a boyfriend or significant other. Her mother was adamant she would’ve known if Zoya was seeing anyone. She told them Zoya had broken up with her high school sweetheart nearly a year before and hadn’t found anyone else since. Nico pretended to look down at his notes, as if the answer didn’t interest him, but he listened intently.
“No, but I think she was interested in me,” he replied coyly. The man preened, running careful fingers through his hair until he was happy it was just right. “I was planning on asking her out to the fireman’s charity ball in a few weeks’ time. I was just biding my time until I could find the right moment, you know? But then, she…” He covered his mouth as if he couldn’t bring himself to say the word. Nico applauded his clever act, but one glance at Lacey told him she hadn’t been taken in by it either. Both of them knew this middle-aged little man wouldn’t have stood a chance with young, beautiful Zoya.
“What about this woman?” Nico asked, taking over the questioning as he slid a photo of Sukey Lui across the table. “She was a student here a few years ago.” He didn’t mention that Sukey was the second dead girl found in the reserve. That info would come out later today in a media conference. But for now, Nico was keeping the details to himself, so as to better gauge Mike’s reaction.
“She doesn’t look familiar.” Mike squinted at the photo.
“She would’ve attended around four years ago,” Lacey prompted. “She and Zoya supposedly trained together. Zoya stayed on here and became a coach, but this lady, Sukey, moved on.”
“Ah ha.” Mike’s face cleared a little. “I only started working here around that same time. I definitely remember Zoya, she was an outstanding gymnast even back then. And of course she went on to become one of our best coaches. But now you mention it, I vaguely remember this other girl.” He tapped his finger on the photo, thinking hard. “Yeah, those two hung around together, I think. They were good buddies for a while. Then Sukey left abruptly. Gave up gymnastics altogether, or so I heard. Which was a shame, but these young women often don’t have the stamina to stick it out. Not like Zoya.” He gave a triumphant smile as if he’d just given them the clue they needed to solve this whole mystery.
After half an hour Lacey closed the interview and they sent Mike on his way. Claire brought in the next candidate, Matilda Cassidy, a specialist aerial coach who helped the kids perfect their body lines in the air. Nico was amazed how much he was learning about gymnastics today. An aerial coach; who would’ve thought?
Over the next few hours, through a few carefully worded questions put to some of the other coaches, he managed to paint a better picture of Mike Baldwin. No one wanted to come out and say it explicitly, but they hinted that Mike definitely had a crush on Zoya. But then it seemed like he had a crush on half the female coaches in the club. Nico felt a little sickened by the man’s creepy vibes. But creepy didn’t equate to killer, he had to keep reminding himself.
Claire was a whiz at organizing the staff to come in one at a time, bringing in the next one on the list quickly and without fuss when Nico asked. She even organized sandwiches and coffee for them all at lunchtime without him having to ask, when it was obvious they were going to be here well in to the afternoon.
“Have you ever thought of working for the Tasmanian police?” he’d asked her. “We could do with such a highly dedicated person on our team. We have quite a few civilian jobs in admin and other areas,” he added. Claire had blushed and covered her face with her hair, but she walked a little straighter from then on.
The last person Claire brought in to be interviewed was Erica. The woman scowled at them as she sat down. “I want to voice my objection loudly and clearly again to this whole debacle,” she said before Nico could even phrase his first question. And he hadn’t been lying; Claire would make a great asset to the force, if only he could convince her to leave this unfriendly place.
Erica clearly had the past few hours to stew over the situation and work up a good head of steam. She took her seat slowly, readjusting her skirt until it was exactly to her liking, then looked up and pierced Nico with her chilliest gaze.
“Have you been having fun,Detective?” She spat out the last word as if it left a foul taste in her mouth. “With your little investigation? I’ve had all the parents asking me questions about what’s going on. Some have even taken their children home early. Do you know what you’ve just done to my reputation with this little stunt? You’ve ruined it, that’s what you’ve done. I’m going to put in a formal complaint to your superior officer. This is not good enough.” Erica sat back, her mouth in a thin, impervious line.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lacey stiffen in her chair.
“You do what you need to do,” Nico said, adopting his most chilly tone. This woman was unbelievable. “But we’re conducting a murder investigation here. And your lack of cooperation and outright hostility aren’t helping. It makes me wonder if you’re trying to obstruct that murder investigation? Because if you are… Well, we have laws against that. I could arrest you for obstruction of justice.”
“What? No, of course not.” She sat up a little straighter, her pout losing some of its malevolence.
Nico held back the little self-satisfied smile. Erica was a smart woman, she knew the last thing she needed was for the police to charge her with anything that might bring the spotlight down even more on her and her beloved club.
“Glad to hear it,” he replied, placing the plastic evidence bag on the table containing Zoya’s mobile phone. Happy that he’d shunted her off track slightly, he decided to go straight for the knockout punch. “We found some interesting texts between you and Zoya on her phone. Can you explain why she was blackmailing you?”
“What?” Erica said again, but this time, all the color drained from her face. “No. That’s impossible, she—” Erica shut her mouth with a snap.
“She deleted the texts?” Nico asked with a false sincerity that even he was proud of. “Oh, yes, we know. She tried to hide them. But you should never underestimate the power of our resources, Mrs. Nellenbach.”
Erica looked like she might be about to throw up.
“So, would you mind telling us what the text conversation was about?”
Erica shook her head. “No. That was private business, and it’s in the past. It had nothing to do with what’s going on now.”
“I think we should be the judge of that,” Lacey said quietly but firmly.
