CHAPTER 43
ELIZA
The taxi pulled up at the bottom of her drive and Eliza climbed out. Once the taxi pulled away, she put her arms around herself and walked up the drive towards her little crooked cottage.
The front door slammed open and Butch appeared in her doorway, wearing only a singlet and shorts. He had a bottle of her wine in his hand and was swaying slightly. ‘Eliza,’ he called, voice slurred.
She saw now his black Toyota Hilux parked behind an apple tree.
‘Butch?’ said Eliza. ‘What are you . . .? How did you get inside?’
‘I nee’ your help.’ He teetered on the sill, then grabbed the doorframe.
‘Butch . . .’ Eliza felt panicky. ‘Murphy saw . . . He knows you’re Jasmine’s biological father.’
‘I know. Heard through his bedroom door – Madison gave him videos . . . Can you still help me? You said you would help me.’
Eliza stepped closer. ‘What do you need, Butch?’
CHAPTER 44
MURPHY
Gabriella pulled up outside Butch’s house. There was still no sign of his Hilux.
Murphy pushed through the front door, Gabriella close behind.
‘Butch!’ called Murphy.
Gabriella wandered down the hall, looking around, and a moment later, she shouted, ‘Murphy!’
He sprinted down the hall and found her in Jasmine’s room.
Hanging by baling twine from Jasmine’s light globe was a wooden statue, bone fragments hammered into its eyes.
He felt sick.
‘When was the last time you were in this room?’ said Gabriella.
‘A couple days ago? I don’t know.’
‘We need to check the rest of the house,’ she said, running out of the room.
Murphy didn’t move. He couldn’t take his eyes off the statue.
‘Murphy!’ shouted Gabriella. ‘In here.’
He followed her voice, into Butch’s room.
On Butch’s bed were clothes – jeans and tights and crop tops and bras – torn apart and covered in blood. Sitting in the middle of it all was another wooden sculpture with a noose and bones in its eyes.
Written on the wall in blood were the words:
3 down
1 to go
‘I have to call Con,’ said Gabriella, voice shaking.
Murphy backed against the wall, looking between the clothes and the writing.
He’d been angry, so angry, but he still couldn’t . . . it couldn’t be Butch . . .
Part of him had wanted it to be Butch, part of him hadn’t. It couldn’t be . . .
‘Commander Normandy? Why do you have Con’s phone? What’s happened to him?’ said Gabriella. She stepped out of the room.
Murphy’s own phone buzzed. It was Eliza calling.
‘Murphy, are you alone?’ she said.
‘Eliza —’ began Murphy.
‘I need you to promise me something,’ she interrupted. ‘Meet me at my house. Tell no one.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Butch is here . . . Can you talk to him and —’
‘Eliza, listen to me.’ He looked up at the words on the wall. ‘Butch is not safe. You need to get out of the house, get away from him.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘You need to leave right now.’
‘Should I call the cops? What’s going on?’
‘No,’ he said. He touched the gun in his belt. ‘Don’t tell a soul.’
‘Alright. I’ll just . . . go over to Monica’s?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ll see to Butch.’
He walked out to the kitchen. Gabriella was pacing the hallway, talking to the commander, demanding she send someone over.
Her car keys were on the bench. Murphy took them and walked out the door.
CHAPTER 45
CON
Con stood in his hotel room shower, eyes shut, letting the water roll over his back.
Breathe in . . . and out.
Madison was the one who had started all this, and she knew Bree was hanging there, somehow. The Hanging Tree . . .
He opened his eyes.
Marcus Wilkins, Bree’s father, had said that he’d seen mourners at the Hanging Tree. Had they missed Bree’s body, standing that close? It seemed unlikely.
He left the shower, drying himself. He wanted to call Marcus Wilkins, then remembered the commander had his phone.
He checked the drawer beneath the hotel room’s phone and found a phone directory. MN & IC WILKINS, ‘OAKDALE’.
He called them. A young voice answered.
‘Hi, this is Detective Badenhorst. I need to speak with Marcus.’
‘Give me a sec . . .’
A moment later, Marcus was on the other end. ‘Detective? Is everything okay?’
‘You said you saw mourners by the Hanging Tree,’ said Con without preamble. ‘Did you see who they were?’
‘Well, there was only one person, and I didn’t want to pry while they were paying their respects.’
‘But who was it?’
‘Well, I can’t be sure, I only saw the back of her head, but I think it was Eliza Ellis?’
CHAPTER 46
MURPHY
Murphy screeched to a halt outside Eliza’s house. He left Gabriella’s car running and ran towards the front door.
He could hear Eliza’s screams for help from deep in the house.
He threw the door open. ‘Eliza! Where are you?’
He followed her screams and burst into a bedroom, taking in everything at once.
Butch lay naked on the bed, handcuffed to the headboard and his ankles tied to the end with baling twine. He was gagged by a sock in his mouth and a tea towel tied around his face, his chest and face bruised in mottled angry purple, blood pouring from a smashed nose and a cut above his eye.
When Butch saw Murphy he strained against the cuffs, trying to lift himself off the bed.
Eliza didn’t look much better: her clothes were ripped, exposing her underwear, her face was bruised, her head scarf gone and the wound on her forehead revealed. She held high a cricket bat and almost collected Murphy with it as she turned. ‘Murphy!’ She dropped the bat and she threw herself into his arms. ‘He tried to handcuff me to the bed, but I knocked him out —’
Butch pulled against the cuffs, his shouting muffled by the gag.
‘He confessed everything!’ said Eliza. ‘He took the girls – he’s killed Cierra and Jasmine! He confessed!’
Heat flooded Murphy.
He pulled the gun from his belt.
‘Kill him, Murphy,’ screamed Eliza, pulling on his arm.
Murphy looked into his brother’s eyes. His vision blurred at the edges. He felt Eliza’s hands on his, dragging his arms up, aiming the gun at Butch’s chest.
Butch looked deep into his brother’s eyes, full of tears and terror, deep piercing blue eyes . . . the same shade of cut-glass that Jasmine had inherited.
Jasmine had Butch’s eyes, not Murphy’s. Because Butch was her father.
Memories, emotions, images of Butch with Jasmine. Hugging her, caring for her, supporting her through her grief, supporting Murphy in his fatherhood.