I drop Ben back at home with Scott and then call Felix on my way to the shopping centre. He’s with the forensic finance guys, following up several RYAN employees and associates to see how deep the anger goes and whether any threats have been made against the company or George himself.
‘We haven’t turned up much,’ Felix tells me. ‘There’ve never been any serious threats made against the company. A bomb threat was made to George’s house years ago but it went nowhere; it was probably just kids.’
The sun skewers my eyes. I focus on the line on the road. ‘Okay, well, I guess I’ll speak to you later.’
‘Wait, wait,’ says Felix. ‘I’m warming up to my big discovery.’
‘What is it?’
‘You know how we were waiting on her bank accounts?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Well, aside from the standard stuff you’d expect, she has a term deposit account with a credit union and it has over one hundred thousand dollars in it.’
I think about my own measly savings account, which constantly hovers at around two thousand dollars. ‘Wow. What for?’
‘No idea. She puts about half her pay in every month, and has been doing that since she started working. It just stacks up, I guess. She’s never touched it. Not one withdrawal. She must have been saving up for something.’
‘Maybe,’ I say, thinking. ‘Or maybe she just doesn’t know what to do with it. I mean, she owns that place and her expenses must be pretty basic.’
‘Apart from the wine,’ Felix reminds me. ‘And the make-up.’
‘Yeah,’ I sigh. ‘Well, like we said, maybe they were her splurge things.’
‘Who knows. I think she was just really weird. But we’re going to dig further and see what else we can find. Maybe she was planning to leave?’
‘An escape fund,’ I wonder, trying to make sense of it.
‘Are you still going to speak to Maggie today?’ asks Felix.
‘Yep, I’m heading to the shopping centre now.’ We agreed that I will try to speak to Maggie outside of an arranged interview this time. I’m convinced she knows more than she is telling us and I want to catch her by surprise.
‘Great, I’ll be with these guys all day, I suspect, so I guess I’ll chat to you later.’ I think he’s already hung up when he says quietly, ‘Love you.’
‘Same,’ I say, my body stirring as I pull into the pre-Christmas chaos of the Ronson Shopping Centre car park.
‘Hi, Maggie.’
Maggie Archer blinks large mascara-coated eyes at me. Her smile is practised polite. ‘Oh yes. Hello.’ She is placing fresh packets of earrings onto little silver display hooks. Loud music pulses in my ears. Her nametag reads Emily.
‘Detective Woodstock,’ I say firmly.
Her face shows a flutter of frustration as she hangs the last few sets of jewellery. She pulls herself up tall. ‘What do you want to talk to me about?’ she says prissily.
Up close her hair is almost white. Two sections are pulled back from either side of her face and the rest spills down either side of her chest. She’s like a breath of summer. She looks just like Rosalind did in school, except that her eyes are a glass blue rather than velvet brown.
I dive straight in, ignoring her tone. ‘It’s nice of you guys to continue with the play. I’m sure Ms Ryan would have wanted that.’
She taps her foot lightly on the floor. Her eyes dart around the shop as if she is expecting someone to approach at any moment. Her toenails are painted neon pink and keep catching my attention out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t get my first pedicure until I was in my twenties, but these kids grew up on Sex and the City. I’m endlessly surprised at how early beauty routines start these days. An abuse victim I interviewed last month had some minor burns on her legs from waxing. She was nine.
Maggie keeps her eyes on the ground.
She’s working at a clothing store, which is in the middle of the shopping centre. Her sister works in the complex too. Half the kids from Smithson do, just like when I was at school. I did my fair share of burger flipping here and can still summon up the dank, greasy smell that lingered on me for years, no matter how hard I scrubbed with Mango Tingle body wash.
A chattering pack of girls enters the store and Maggie looks at me pointedly.
‘Excuse me,’ she mutters and walks over to greet them.
I sweep my eyes across the clothes on offer. Piles of pale denim shorts with threads deliberately loose remind me of plants that have had their roots tickled just before being placed into the ground. Maggie sells one of the girls a belt and shows another one into the change rooms.
‘So, look …’ She struts back to me with new-found confidence. ‘I’m working. Can we talk another time?’
‘No, not really.’
Her stare wavers slightly, and she juts her tiny hip and gives me a slightly exasperated stare, as if our roles are reversed.
‘I’m working too, and finding out who killed your teacher is obviously a priority.’
‘O-kay. Well, what do you want to know?’
‘Let’s start with going over some of the basics again. No rehearsing this time. You were Juliet in the play, correct?’
‘Yeah, but it doesn’t strictly follow the original. There’s a fair bit of creative licence. I play the Juliet character but she’s called Jasmine.’
‘Did you audition?’
‘Of course. We all did.’
‘Rodney Mason auditioned?’
A cloud flashes over her face. ‘Yes. Like I said, we all did.’
‘So you must have been very happy to get the lead?’
‘Of course. But I worked very hard. Drama is my favourite subject. I’m hoping to get into NIDA next year. I have a small part in a play in Sydney in February and I was in a few commercials as a child.’ She shrugs. ‘It’s my thing.’
‘Congratulations.’
She scowls at me and gestures to a girl who is waiting at the till to purchase a skirt. ‘Hang on a tick.’
She slinks off and I watch her, all honey and light as she jokes with the customer, placing a free lipstick sample in the bag and commenting on her rings.
She saunters back. ‘Right, sorry, you were getting to a point?’
Before I can speak her phone beeps and she pulls it out of her pocket, smiling slowly as she flicks her finger over the screen.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Just a sec,’ she says.
My teeth grind against each other as I look at her perfect face. This girl is something else. ‘Was Kai Bracks in love with Ms Ryan?’
Maggie snorts. ‘I dunno. He probably wanted to screw her; I don’t think it was love.’
‘What about Rodney? Did he love her?’
‘Same as above.’
‘Are you seeing Rodney? You two seemed close at the memorial.’
‘Seeing him? No. We went out last summer. Very briefly. He’s good-looking but actually pretty boring.’
‘So you’re not a couple?’
‘Noooo.’ Slowly. ‘That would be why I said we weren’t seeing each other.’
‘Are you friends? Playing the leads like that must be strange if you used to be together.’
She stretches her neck from side to side like a cat. Her eyes remain fixed on mine. ‘We’re friends, sure. And professionals. But that’s it. I like girls now anyway.’
‘You’re a lesbian?’
Her phone buzzes again and she glances down at the screen. She yawns sweetly. ‘Sure. You can call it that if you want. I prefer not to get specific. I’m so young, anything might happen.’