Sun, Sand and Slaughter by Emerald Finn

Author:Emerald Finn [Finn, Emerald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-03-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

I let myself in and shrugged the jacket off, throwing it over the back of one of the lounge room chairs. In the kitchen, I put the kettle on and stood staring, unseeing, out the window while I listened to the merry burble of the water boiling.

So, now I had seen a real murder, and it looked nothing like Aunt Evie’s silly fancies. Constable Kane could refuse to speculate all he liked, but that didn’t stop me. I was having a hard time believing Joe could have come by that injury accidentally. Someone had hit him with enough force to knock him unconscious, or possibly even to kill him outright, then tossed him into the ocean like a piece of garbage, to be carried away on the tide.

Only the tide hadn’t cooperated and now the evidence of the crime was lying on the beach in full view. But what could anyone have to gain from his death? He had no job, no friends, no place in the world. Could another homeless person have attacked him? Or was he the victim of a mugging gone wrong? I supposed anything was possible, but those kinds of things happened more often on the streets of New York than in sleepy Sunrise Bay.

The kettle boiled and clicked off, so I filled my mug, inhaling the fragrant steam. I’d chosen chamomile for its soothing properties, though I had the feeling that all the tea in the world wouldn’t be enough to soothe me right now.

Senior Constable Backhouse had suggested I talk to a friend, but I needed to be alone for a while to calm down first. It was hard to believe that somewhere out there, a murderer was walking around in broad daylight.

I took my tea to the dining room table and flipped open my laptop. Perhaps some work on my website would be a good distraction. I went through the photos from Heidi’s photo shoot and picked out half a dozen of the best to add to my online portfolio. Then I tried to make a banner for the website, but I couldn’t concentrate.

The image of Joe’s wet, grey skin kept replaying in my head. That horrible deep gash showing through his hair. The waves lapping at the hem of his board shorts, trying to drag him back into the ocean’s depths.

I jumped up from the table and strode around the room. Maybe I should get a dog. I craved company and some noise in the house, so that I wasn’t constantly reminded of how alone I was. Rufus was lovely, but he belonged to someone else, and he couldn’t always be with me. A little dog—and it would have to be little, considering the size of my courtyard—could be just the thing. I hadn’t had one in Sydney because I worked such long hours and it seemed cruel to have a pet alone at home all day while I was at the office. And there’d been Will’s allergies to consider.

But with

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