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‘Telling people to come here, to cause a nuisance, to get in the way. I’ve followed his links and he’s a member of lots of neighbourhood groups. He’s built a bit of a following by commenting on local crime and slamming the police, but he’s gone up a few gears in the last couple of hours.’
Kim scrolled through the Twitter feed as officers worked through the crowd, advising people to go home.
But why? Kim wondered. Why was this person encouraging mayhem, and why was he getting so much attention?
She finally found the first tweet of the day, posted around the time she’d arrived at the crime scene.
Homer Hill Park. Dead man found. Bad man. Waste of life. Coward. Violent. Deserved to be punished. Deserved slow death 1/6.
Following the tweet were tags to the Twitter accounts of local groups and communities. Every tweet after that was written in the same jarring manner, inciting chaos and disruption. More than two hundred people had replied, and the tweet had been shared by double that.
She scrolled down. ‘Where are the rest?’
‘The rest of what?’ Frost asked.
‘Tweets. He’s indicated there are more tweets to come. Look, it says one of six.’
‘Maybe later, like a running commentary,’ Bryant offered.
‘Jesus, Stone, you really dropped the ball on this one,’ the reporter said.
Unable to argue with the facts, Kim thrust the phone back into Frost’s hand and headed back towards the car with two questions in her mind:
What was this idiot’s game; and why the hell did she have to find out about it from Frost?
She had her phone in her hand before she was in the car but waited until Bryant slid in beside her to make the call.
Stacey answered on the second ring. ‘Hey, boss.’
‘The Sentinel, Stace?’ she barked.
‘The wh-what?’
‘Twitter account inciting chaos at the crime scene,’ she said, trying to keep the rage out of her voice and failing miserably, judging by her partner’s face palm.
Kim could hear the constable tapping furiously in the background.
‘Oh Jesus, oh my God. Is this our guy?’
‘Same question I was just asked by Frost, the reporter, who enjoyed every minute of being the one to inform me what was going on.’
‘Boss, I’m sorry. I was—’
‘Finding out how Teresa Fox got that whopping bruise on her face? I’m guessing you missed that too,’ Kim said. She realised how snarky she sounded, but they were only hours into a major investigation, and her colleague had already dropped the ball twice.
‘What bruise?’
‘The one that wasn’t hard to find on her Facebook page. Does Eric have form for this behaviour? Is he known to us? All relevant questions, don’t you think?’
‘Boss, I was busy checking—’
‘Stace, there is nothing you can tell me that’s going to excuse this lapse. Whatever it is that’s distracting you from your work, I suggest you get it sorted before you and I have a very different kind of conversation.’
She ended the call abruptly and hoped she’d made her point.
This had gone on for long enough.
ELEVEN
