She shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ she said. ‘The minute the fists fly, love flies out the window. But whether I change the locks while he’s gone or let him come back, this is never happening again.’ She pointed to her cheek once more.

Wozza wiped his eyes with his hanky. ‘Bug must’ve flown into my eye,’ he muttered.

Taking a sip of tea, I told Marina about the people who used to live in her house.

‘Have you replaced the wire in the screen door since you’ve lived here?’ I asked.

Marina shook her head. ‘We haven’t done much here. My husband’—she rolled her eyes—‘is only handy with his fists.’ She grimaced. ‘But perhaps for no longer.’

‘May we take a look?’ I asked.

‘Of course,’ Marina said magnanimously.

The back door was closed against the spring chill. I opened it and searched the screen door for signs of a bullet hole. And there it was.

Dead centre.

A perfect round hole in the wire.

Brett Millard had been shot by someone standing outside the screen door. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and took pictures of the screen from different angles.

This changed everything.

CHAPTER 30: THE TOWN MEETING

CHAPTER 30

THE TOWN MEETING

The minute we got back to the office, we were bombarded. First email. Chloral hydrate. The drug that rendered Meg senseless. The lab results had been hurried through, and the report made it clear.

Second email. A notification announced the file was available. The preliminary autopsy findings on Mervin Geoffrey Evans. I felt a jolt go through me when I saw the file had already been accessed by Senior Sergeant Bill Wheeler. What was Wheels doing looking at our files?

‘Looks like Wheels beat us to the file,’ I told Wozza as I clicked on the document and scrolled through the opening pages.

‘What the hell?’ said Wozza, shaking his head. ‘I’d love to know what’s going on with him. What’s his interest in this?’

I murmured my agreement while scanning the document. At the end of the report was the summary. I read it then looked up at Wozza. ‘Guess what? He had chloral hydrate in his system too. Not enough to kill him, by the looks of it, but it also says he was taking medication for epilepsy which has reacted with the chloral hydrate. It’s just like Doc Caldicott said.’

‘I reckon he’s come along and picked up that beer Meg didn’t drink,’ said Wozza from his desk.

‘Either that, or the victim preference of the offender has suddenly changed from young women to old men.’

Wozza shuddered. ‘I like my theory better.’

‘We have to take a step back from this and see where we go next,’ I said, ‘because when we catch these guys, we are going to charge them with murder—or manslaughter at the very least.’

‘Eggshell skull and all that,’ said Wozza.