The kookaburras, lost in the spring fog, laughed at one another across the water, as if in some maniacal game of hide and seek. With red gums crowding against the banks, the Murray River arced around on itself at this spot just out of Echuca, nature having changed her mind. Zoe Mayer, standing on the outside of the bend, could look both upstream and downstream with a tilt of her head. Her boss, Rob Loretti, had woken her at some ungodly hour. It had taken Zoe and her partner, Charlie Shaw, the best part of three hours to make the drive north from Melbourne, speeding through towns whose streets were deserted at that early hour.
Zoe had been working with Charlie for about a year and a half. He was a tall man, with close-cropped blond hair and a piercing gaze that commanded people’s attention. She knew that the confidence Charlie projected was mainly bluff, but he was Zoe’s pet project, and she was determined to raise his skills day by day.
The famous river separating Victoria and New South Wales was about sixty metres wide here and the silt made the water appear soupy. A family of ducks glided by, as a double-storeyed houseboat made its way towards her like a ghost ship, heading upstream, motoring slowly through the gloom, all its lights on. This would be Zoe’s last moment of peace for a while. She lifted her arms above her head, before stretching from one side to the other, preparing for the challenge she knew was coming. The start was always the worst part. Too many questions and rarely an obvious answer.
A man was awkwardly sprawled on the ground behind her, wearing a blackened t-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. His arms and neck were covered in a carnival of tattoos. Zoe had already noted his burnt hair, the charred ground he lay on, the two bullet wounds in his head. There was a scorched phone on the ground beside the body, glass cracked. The melted remains of a red plastic fuel container lay nearby, and the bark of the nearby gum trees was charred. A pistol lay beside the red plastic mess. A burnt-out black SUV sat beyond the body, still smoking.
Police tape, guarded by a constable carrying a clipboard, framed the scene. A golden retriever lay beside him, intently staring across at Zoe. The dog wore a vest with blue and white checks that read Victoria Police Service Dog.
‘I do not like the smell of this place one bit,’ said Charlie through his mask as he walked up to her, scrunching the ground in his blue plastic booties. His brow creased as he glanced sideways towards the victim. Zoe knew her partner hated the sight of the dead—a problem when you were a Homicide detective…
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