The Murder Coat - Chapter 9

Backshots & Backstories

The Murder Coat is a serialised mystery featuring Evie Harroway, a second-hand shop owner with a knack for finding trouble (and trouble finding her).

If you’re new here, head over to the Chapter Index and start at Chapter 1.

“…and that’s when Horatio hissed and I saw the car across the street. Lights off. Engine purring. Just watching.”

Bernadette salted the rim of her glass with one hand, topped up tequila with the other, and slid it across to me. “Please tell me it was a ghost car.”

“Worse,” I said. “It was Lila’s surveillance team.”

Kate blinked. “Wait – what?”

For someone who really hated drama, I did rather relish telling the odd dramatic tale. Plus, Bernie made a hell of a margarita and I’d had two — story mode, activated.

“I know.” I continued. “I thought it was someone there to kill me. Turned out it was just the cops watching for Thax. And possibly me. Lila claims it was ‘precautionary.’”

From somewhere down the hall came a thunderous:
“OH MY GOD, YOU STOLE MY ACE!”

Bernie didn’t flinch. “Three teenagers,” she said flatly. “Two consoles. Valorant Esports competition. One bathroom. Welcome to hell.”

Another shout followed, louder this time:
“WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?”
A beat.
“That was literally a backshot! STOP GIVING MY AGENT BACKSHOTS WHEN I’M DEAD!”

Bernie sighed. “Why do I even know what that means?”

We were curled up on Bernadette’s mismatched couches, the big bay windows looking out over Island Bay, a sliver of ocean glinting under the moonlight. The house smelled like lime juice, salt, and chaos. Somewhere in the kitchen, something was definitely burning.

Kate squinted into her margarita. “Back up. Are we just breezing past the fact that your ex-husband reappeared out of nowhere and helped you open a box full of crime scene nostalgia?”

“I wasn’t breezing past it,” I said. “I was saving it.”

Another shout from the hallway: “YOU ACTUALLY CAMPED, YOU RAT.”

Kate leaned in. “Should you… go check on them?”

“They’re not bleeding,” she said, swirling her drink. “They’re just emotionally fragile. It's fine.”

I turned back to my audience. “So Thax flips the box. There’s this jewellery box inside – false bottom, obviously – and bam. A roll of negatives. Two photos printed out from the same negatives. A notebook with creepy symbols. A cigarette case with Morgan’s initials engraved inside.”

They both stared back at me with awe. “And the photos… weren’t of just anyone. Of Delores. With someone who has to be her twin. At a club that burned down in the eighties. Frankie spotted that too when she snuck a look — said it had the classic ‘missing twin’ energy she’s always reading about online.”

Kate’s jaw dropped.

Bernadette slowly lowered her glass. “You’re lying.”

I took a big gulp. “I really, really wish I were.”

From the lounge:
“YOU WERE CAMPING, BRO.”
“IT’S NOT CAMPING, IT’S STRATEGIC DEFENCE, YOU ARSEHOLE.”
“MUM! LIAM’S USING SLURS AGAIN — TELL HIM OFF!”

Bernie didn’t even look up and bellowed back: “ONLY IF HE’S CONJUGATING THEM.”
Then, to us: “Grammar’s all I’ve got left.”

We all took a moment to drink.

“So, wait,” Kate said. “You said Thax took photos of the stuff?”

“Yes. He wanted 24 hours with it all, but I said no, photos was all he gets.”

Bernadette groaned. “So, you handed the actual evidence over to Lila without so much as snapping a single blurry pic for your nosy besties?”

“I was trying to do the right thing.”

“You’re no fun.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m alive and not arrested.”

“Meh, we all have our priorities,” Bernie said, slouching dramatically into the cushions. “God, I wish we had those photos. I’d make a murder board. With string.”

Kate smirked. “You’d absolutely make a murder board.” She took a sip of her drink. “And it would slay.”

She would too. Was probably already sizing up where to put the fucking thing.

“Frankie would probably out-slaughter you both,” I muttered. “She’s already got three corkboards on Reddit threads and one in my kitchen. It’s like living with a Gen Z Poirot.”

Bernadette snorted at that image, then sat up straighter, eyes narrowing. “Wait. He took them on his phone, right?”

I nodded, sinking deeper into the couch. “And if Lila finds out about it, she’ll be livid.”

A scream from down the hallway, something about someone stealing loot and being a trash goblin, was met with Kate’s eye twitch and Bernie’s glass being topped up without comment.

Bernie took another hefty gulp and sighed. “If only I could get my hands on those pics,”

Kate and I exchanged a glance.

Bernie refilled her glass. Then grinned.

I knew that grin. That grin had nearly got us both expelled in seventh form, landed me in a questionable marriage I later divorced, and left Bernie with a tattoo she still swore was “temporary.”

It was not.

Nothing good ever followed that grin.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“No reason,” she said, reaching casually for her laptop like she wasn’t clearly up to something. “Just thinking.”

“Bernadette-” I was starting to get a really bad feeling. Bernadette loved true crime, and I mean loved it. She not only listened to podcasts about it but was also part of one of those citizen, online detectives group. The kind that spent their weekends solving cold cases from their couches and occasionally mistook a grainy CCTV still of a of a recycling bin for the Golden State Killer’s long-lost cousin. When Bernie got that gleam in her eye, it usually ended with someone humiliated, detained, or — once — mysteriously banned from the Lower Hutt library.

She was already tapping. “And you two had that shared email account when you ran Harroway Vintage together. You said he used it to set up his phone.”

“Years ago. And he would’ve changed it. Wouldn’t he?” I added, weakly.

Kate was watching this unfold with the same energy people reserve for car crashes in slow motion. “Should we... stop her?” She glanced at me.

I shrugged helplessly. “At this point, it’s safer to let her get it out of her system.”

Bernie made a triumphant noise. “Auto-sync, baby.”

I sat bolt upright. “You did not just say that.”

“Oh, I did.” She spun the screen around, eyes glittering with mischief. “Auto-backup is the unsung hero of digital snooping. If there’s a photo backup folder, and he hasn’t unlinked the account, we might just have a front-row seat to the secrets of Templeton & Friends.”

I hesitated. The fuck had she learned on her citizen detective group? I’d come here for margaritas and a captive audience, not to accidentally launch a suburban cold-case task force. But that’s the thing with Bernie — one minute you’re swapping gossip, the next you’re in a moving car with a shovel and a very bad plan. I could already feel the night slipping out of my hands.

“Is this even legal?” My voice wobbled slightly.

Bernie shrugged. “We shared a Netflix account for six years. You want a moral audit now?”

More screaming erupted down the hallway.

“HEADSHOT! THAT WAS A HEADSHOT! YOU LAGGY DONKEY!”

Kate winced. “Is it always like this?”

Bernie didn’t look up from typing. “Unless someone’s actually on fire, we’re good.”

My whole body was tightening with that feeling of finding oneself at the top of rollercoaster, knowing that you can’t stop the terrifying drop.

“Bernie, we really shouldn’t…”

Bernie shrugged me off. “Lila’s not the only smart one, Evie.”

I snorted. “No, but she’s the only one who’s legally allowed to investigate a crime,” Kate and I exchanged another hopeless glance. “And she will definitely be the one to throw your amateur arse in jail for interfering with police business,”

Moments later, she let out a low whistle. “Evie,” she said, pivoting the laptop around with dramatic slowness. “You might want to see this.”

And there it was:
A row of crisp, hi-res thumbnails.
The jewellery box.
The cigarette case.
The photo of young Delores with that slick-haired woman.
And - most damning - the notebook, open to a page with names I recognised but didn’t want to.

“Shit,” I muttered. “Thax is going to kill me.”

Bernie beamed. “That’s future Evie’s problem.” She took a triumphant sip of her margarita.

Another scream from the hallway.

“YOU STOLE MY KILL YOU RAT BASTARD!”

Kate flinched. She wasn’t battle-hardened like me — years around Bernie’s brood had given me the ability to treat bloodcurdling screams as background noise.

Bernie didn’t even blink.

I stared at the images on her screen and felt the shape of my week unravelling like a cursed scarf.

I was in so much trouble; from Thax and from Lila. And I could already see the look on Frankie’s face if she got hold of these pictures — gleeful, laser —focused, already connecting dots I didn’t want connected.