This is the 48th Instalment in the Series detailing the life and career of Murder Squad Detective Joseph Lind and his young partner Shelley Anne Shields.
The two are split as a team to become Mentors to two young Dees who are failing as a team themselves. Clive Butler, the Boss of the Murder Squad attempts to save the two from certain dismissal by splitting them and having each placed in the care and tutelage of our two favourite Detectives.
Is this sufficient to save the two?
A typical Australian ‘Big City’ suburban neighbourhood where very little ever occurs to break the peacefulness of the area. A mixture of Home-owners, Renters and a few Housing Commission dwellings where even if persons knew their close neighbour, it usually is a wave, a smile or a nod of the head the only gesture of friendliness and personal attachment.
Very little is known of the life, feelings or thoughts of those living in close proximity.
Is there a convicted felon amongst them? A Drug Addict or Alcoholic? Perhaps a Paedophile? A murderer perhaps…or a vicious and cruel Ex-cop. No-one really knows…or even suspects.
Into this idyllic neighbourhood, a pair of innocent young Missionaries begin knocking on doors to hopefully save a few souls…
They are viciously killed, each with a single shot to the head while they sit in their vehicle possibly praying for the ‘lost soul’ they had just tried to save.
‘lost soul’ or a brutal killer?
The weapon used also has a history…from long ago.
Lind and Shields once again are called upon to locate the killer of the two innocent Missionaries, and in doing so, unlock the underside…the undercurrent of this supposedly peaceful neighbourhood. Their temporary "charges" offering little in the way of help or investigative time.
Excerpt:
There was a brisk northeaster coming straight off the ocean, blowing out any decent surf that may be formed from the sou-easterly swell.
The waves a blown-out mess!
Thankfully, the stiff wind had arrived early afternoon to cool the place down. It may not have enough strength to blow too far inland, which would be annoying to those poor sods who were still experiencing above forty-degree heat. For us living near the coast, it was a Godsend.
Typical mid-summer temperatures in Australia’s largest City.
It was unusual not to have a strong southerly buster with vicious wind and rain accompanied by wild lightning, thunder, and hail after such temperatures for the past three or four days.
That weather phenomenon seemed to occur every time we used to head for the Beach in my youth.
I can remember the scurrying crowds desperately running from the sand as the wall of black clouds, even deep khaki green menacing low cloud banks scudded quickly up the coast. The ferocious winds seemed to hit suddenly, a real force sending anything that wasn’t tied down, blowing across the sand. The sand granules off the Beach picked up and carried quickly and effortlessly that really hurt your lower legs! The torrential rain seeming to blow in sideways, often accompanied by large hail stones with brilliant stabs of lightning and thunder that rattled teeth and every window in the house.
People would be screaming, kids crying, mothers screeching out instructions as everyone made a dash for the car…or safety in the Life Savers and Amenities building…but those memories are of a little tyke many years ago, so I guess everything is relative.
These fantastic shows of Nature’s fury do not seem to occur as much as when I was a young bloke, so I thought.
I looked out towards the horizon, the surf a choppy mess with white caps abounding. The surf having no shape or tempo, though that didn’t stop a few hardy souls from being out on their boards. I smoothed a section of sand out with my shoe. By the time I walked off the beach, both shoes would be full of sand, I lamented angrily to myself.
I’ve got to invest in a pair of ‘slip-ons’ I thought angrily, instead of these lace-ups!
Silly thoughts really, when you are standing looking down at a corpse…