Noelene Harbourn opened the door in a pink chenille gown and knotted the tie at her waist.
“What the hell do you bastards want now?”
The verandah light was still shining. “Do you know what fucking time it is? This is more bloody harassment.”
She turned to go back inside.
“If you’re not off this property in one minute, I’m calling my lawyer and letting the dogs out.”
Kate assumed they were the same thing. The big-mouthed matriarch was the reason they were here and they had family DNA to prove it. Today she bore no resemblance to the suburban mother who flirted with media while handing out homemade favors.
Liz Gould stood her ground. “You might want to see this first. It’s perfectly legal. A search warrant for this house and surrounding property.”
The gray-haired mother flattened her unruly hair with her hands and turned around.
“You’ve got nothing on me or my boys. Why don’t you just piss off and catch a real criminal.”
Kate turned to the uniformed police in the marked car and waved them to come in. The older woman snatched the warrant and studied it.
“This is bullshit,” she snarled. “My boys have been with me since they got out of jail.”
“Is that so?” Liz pushed past and led the search party inside. “We have reason to suggest they can assist us in our inquiries.”
“Whatever this is, it’s a set-up. Don’t any of you move. I’m getting my lawyer.”
One of the uniforms began videoing the scene. “Ma’am, I’ll be taping the search and you’re welcome to observe, but you are not permitted to interfere or remove any items from the house.”
She pushed past to the corridor off the main room. “Gary! Kids, get up! The pigs have a search warrant.”
A slow stream of bleary-eyed faces appeared. The youngest two looked like they’d slept in their clothes. Of the nine offspring, supposedly seven lived at home now in between sojourns in prison.
Kate counted heads. So far four males stood in the hallway along with two young girls, aged about ten and twelve.
“We’ve got a runner. He’s jumping the back fence,” Liz called from further inside the house.
Gary, the one with the mole on his chin, was missing.
A uniformed officer raced out the back door and easily vaulted the paling fence in chase.
“Why did Gary bolt?” Kate demanded.
Noelene Harbourn puffed on a cigarette. “Got me stumped. You people have harassed him enough, probably thought you’d plant something on him if he hung around long enough.”
She took a slow, deep inhalation, then blew smoke in Kate’s direction.
“Maybe he had an appointment to get to. I’ve got my hands full with this lot. I can’t be expected to keep track of every child every minute.”
Good to know, Kate thought. If the matriarch admitted that in court, it could blow holes in any alibi that claimed she knew where the boys were at all times.
The team searched under beds, between sheets, anywhere that Rachel’s missing underwear could be hidden as a trophy of the kill. Kate checked inside the washing machine before pulling out the cord and moving it half a meter forward. Nothing had been hidden underneath either.
She moved to the bathroom and ran an angled dental mirror in the narrow space between the toilet cistern and the wall. Next step was removing its lid and making sure nothing was hidden in the water reservoir. Rust stains marked the bowl.
Liz Gould moved around the walls with a stud finder, looking for signs of metal behind the plasterboard. It wouldn’t be the first time criminals had stashed weapons and evidence in the space between walls. The uniformed officers examined the rubbish bins while another checked the outside garage.
The family milled in the lounge room, remarkably unperturbed by the intrusion. Kate assumed the house had been searched numerous times over the years, which meant the chances of finding anything to connect them to Rachel’s murder were pretty remote. The Harbourn brothers would have to be unbelievably stupid to bring evidence back to the house.
Then again, she thought, they were serial criminals who’d been caught too many times to remember.
Kate learned a lot about the house inhabitants from a search, but mostly she saw squalor and complete apathy to house cleaning. From the state of the kitchen, with dirty plates piled high on the benches, grease stains behind the stove, it was a surprise that Noelene Harbourn’s biscuits hadn’t poisoned the journalists.
She checked inside and behind the stand-alone stove and oven, the fridge and freezer and inside every cupboard and drawer. She collected two carving knives for examination. The officer filmed the find.
John Zimmer arrived with his latest sidekick, Milo, carrying the crime scene equipment behind him.
“We’re here with the luminol.” He squinted through puffy eyes. The early hour wasn’t affecting only the Harbourns.
“Going to clear out the cockroaches while you’re here?” Noelene hovered behind them. “I’ll sue if you damage my expensive china,” she announced, then cackled.
Nothing in the house looked cared for, or worth much.
“Love what you’ve done with the place,” Zimmer replied. “The peeling wallpaper is all the rage again. Remind me to get the name of your decorator.”
“Fucking smart-arse,” she muttered.
Seemingly oblivious to the banter, Milo indicated that they would begin.
“Ma’am, we’re going to ask your family to step back into the corridor while we spray parts of this room with luminol. We’re looking for traces of blood and need to darken the room.”
“No one moves. My lawyer’s on his way. He’ll be here any minute.”
“I’m afraid he’ll have to wait outside as well, ma’am, civilians in darkened rooms is against occupational health and safety regulations.”
Noelene Harbourn stared at the CSO. “Health regulations? Now that’s priceless. Where the hell did you beam down from?”
“Sorry to cut short this little chitchat, but we’ve got work to do,” Zimmer said, and headed for the first bedroom. Liz Gould joined them. The family moved into the corridor while Milo examined the lounge room.
After about ten minutes, Zimmer emerged with a bag containing something. “Two shirts and a singlet in the wardrobe had a hit.”
Maybe the Harbourns were more stupid than they had thought.
As they moved on to the next room, the uniformed officer returned through the front door, accompanying Gary Harbourn, who was dressed only in red underpants.
Kate folded her arms. “Why did you run?”
“It’s a nice morning. Felt like a jog.”
If he did kill Rachel, he wasn’t remotely fazed about being caught.
“In your underwear, without shoes, over the back fence?”
“I’m a spontaneous kind of guy,” he grinned.
“Good to know,” Kate said and stepped closer, as if confiding in him. “Cause impulsive people tend to leave evidence at crime scenes. Where were you the night of the fifteenth?”
Gary didn’t react. The arrogance and smugness was unbelievable. If he was at the Goodwin house that night, he was facing a murder charge and knew it.
Noelene Harbourn moved forward. “All the children were home with me. That was the night they got out of prison.”
The same day Giverny Hart died. Kate tightened the grip on her own arms. “I thought you had a street party? You mean to say that none of you left the house that night?” She had seen the news footage of them in the street celebrating Giverny’s death. So would a jury.
“No, but they stayed on the street, and I can produce at least ten people who can say exactly the same thing.”
“I’ll be needing their names,” she said and pulled out her notebook.
Noelene rattled off the names of her other children, who moved silently back into the lounge room. Including her, that made seven family members who would give Gary an alibi.
Kate knew that’s why prosecuting them had been so difficult. So far, the family bond had been unbreakable, even if it meant serving time in prison for a crime a sibling committed-a perverse honor system for the utterly dishonorable.
Two hours later they had just about finished the search without finding anything else. Frustrated, Kate took one last look, in case they’d missed something-anything-that could incriminate the killers. The place was deteriorating, but Gary’s room was worse than the others. Dirty fingermarks covered and surrounded every light switch, but in his room, the power points at floor level had scratches in the paint around them. She called Liz, who ran her stud finder around it.
It buzzed, as if metal was behind.
Kate pulled out her pocketknife, knelt down and levered off the cover. In the recess behind, she carefully reached in, and felt the plastic bag. She slowly pulled it out and held it up in almost disbelief. Inside were a knife and a pair of women’s underpants.
Liz Gould used the dental mirror and shone a torch inside. There’s another bag. Inside were two hand guns and boxes of ammunition, all stuffed into the secret hideaway.
Rechecking the other power points revealed various quantities of hash and tablets in sealed plastic bags.
Kate held up the stash and stared at the faces of the males in the lounge room. Gary was definitely at the Goodwin house, Sophie had confirmed it. But which other family members took part in the rapes and killing?
They all stood defiant. Despite the evidence, the Harbourns were sticking together.