Live and Let Bondi

by Clare Kauter

  “Because they covered their tracks,” I explained. “They didn’t leave behind any evidence of setting up the meeting with Rogers.”

  Bob’s eye’s widened in realisation. “Right, of course. Yeah, I suppose it was a bit of a stretch to hope for them to leave behind evidence like that, but you know. Sometimes you get lucky. You have to look anyway.”

  I nodded, smiling reassuringly at Bob so he didn’t feel like an idiot. He smiled back. Like an idiot. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer (or in the murder victim) but there was no point in trying to make him feel bad about it. He was doing his best, and he was here to help us. Thing was, he was right. In most cases, something as simple as that would give you your murderer. Usually criminals weren’t all that conniving. They left stupid clues and got caught in about three seconds. Then they’d try to go on the run and you’d find them at their mum’s house. At least seventy percent of my cases ended that way, and probably a higher percentage of the cops’. Still, the fact that the police hadn’t been able to find the person responsible via the usual methods didn’t mean much. OK, our killer wasn’t a total moron. That didn’t mean they were a criminal genius by any stretch of the imagination. They had left evidence. We just needed to find it, examine it and piece everything together.

  I noticed Nat staring at me, eyebrows raised. I’d noticed her watching me while I was questioning Roy as well. She was observing, studying my technique. She had a very different method of investigating cases to the way I did it. I tried to befriend people and find out what they knew that way. I tried to make people feel like I wanted to help them, even if what I really wanted to do was strangle them. Nat’s style was more to make people feel like they’d better tell her what they knew or else. Well, it seemed to work for her.

  “Did you have any suspects, Bob?” I asked. “Anyone you could find who had motive? We were thinking that it could have been related to one of the cases he was working on. Defence lawyers tend to hang out with some pretty dodgy types.”

  Bob snorted. “That’s a bit of an understatement.” He shook his head. “He hung out with a bunch of scumbags, but he was good at what he did. He didn’t make any of them angry. We spoke to all his clients with a history of violence, but they all seemed to like the guy. Said he helped them out. No one with a grudge. We spoke to the other lawyers and they confirmed it. None of the criminals seemed to have any issue with Rogers, and none of the other lawyers could think of any reason why anyone would want him dead. Despite the fact that he made his living trying to get murderers off.”

  “That makes it sound like he was a prostitute,” said Nat.

  Bob grunted. “You know what I mean.”

  “Sounds to me like you aren’t too big a fan of the guy,” said Nat.

  “I don’t like people trying to keep criminals out of jail. You can’t tell me you like that idea either.”

  “You sure your cop friends did their due diligence looking into the case?” Nat asked.

  Only years of practice at schooling my expression to remain neutral kept the look of shock off my face. Was she seriously accusing Bob’s men of not working as hard on the case because they didn’t like the guy who’d been killed? I wouldn’t dare imply that without some kind of evidence, even if I had been thinking the same thing. She really didn’t care who she pissed off. The only other person I’d ever met who approached her level of not giving a fuck who they angered was Adam Baxter himself, whose father owned the company. When I’d met him I’d thought he was blunt. Now that I’d met Nat, though, I thought she might have him beat.

  Bob’s face had gone bright red with anger. He didn’t like what she was implying. Or, really, outright accusing him of doing.

  “Are you accusing me of something, Natalia?” he spat through gritted teeth.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Should I be?” The waitress arrived, placing our drinks on the table. We sat in silence while she did so, the tension mounting. When the woman was gone, Nat reached out and picked up her glass of sparkling water with a slice of lemon. “I was just asking a question, Bob. You going to answer it?”

  Still looking furious, he shook his head. “It’s lucky you’re good at your job, Natalia, or no one would put up with your shit.”

  “Well, fortunately I am good at my job, Bob,” she said. “What about your officers? Are you sure they’re performing theirs?”

  “Yes. My men are good men. And women.”

  “Your men are good women?”

  “That’s not what I – I don’t –”

  “You’re sure they performed their jobs to the best of their capabilities in investigating this case?” she pressed.

  “Yes,” he hissed.

  She relaxed back in her seat. “Fine. Your men who are good women did their jobs. That’s all you needed to say.”

  Bob seemed to relax a little now that she was no longer talking. He picked up his coke and took a sip, some of the red leaving his face.

  “Unless one of your officers turns out to be the murderer, of course.”

  Bob’s face turned the colour of the can his coke had originally come in and I decided to jump in before things devolved any further. “We don’t really think that, of course, Bob,” I said. “Nat’s just joking with you.”

  “I’m not.”

  “She is,” I said forcefully. More forcefully than I intended. Nat raised an eyebrow at me, looking amused. Had she tried to annoy me on purpose? To what end? I didn’t have time to worry about that now, though. “What we really want to know, Bob, is whether you looked into the victims of the criminals Rogers defended. Do you think any of them might have been pissed off that he managed to get a criminal freed?”

  Bob gave Nat the evil eye but answered my question. “We did look into it, but we didn’t find anything. We figured that if it was someone annoyed that he’d defended a criminal, the criminal would have been attacked too. I mean, it doesn’t make sense to attack the lawyer and not the person who actually did the crime.”

  “True,” I said.

  “I’m impressed, Bob,” said Nat. “That’s some good deduction. You really do have good men who are women working for you.”

  Bob glared, taking the bait without even realising that Nat was goading him intentionally. “How do you know I didn’t come up with that theory myself?”

  “Come now, Bob,” said Nat. “Do you really need to ask that?”

  Bob narrowed his eyes and I spoke, trying to distract him. “And there haven’t been any attacks of that kind? No one has attempted to kill or assault any of Rogers’s clients? No one’s received any threatening mail?”

  Bob shook his head. “None that we found, but you’re welcome to look into it yourself. We didn’t spend that much time on it. It wasn’t our main focus.”

  “And what was the main focus?”

  “Solving the murder.”

  Nat’s brow furrowed. “Obviously. You didn’t think the victims or their families were worth that much attention?”

  “None of them had criminal records. It seemed like a better bet to focus on the people he’d defended rather than the families of the victims. We were stretched thin and we had to put resources into what we deemed the most likely place to find the culprit.”

  “That makes perfect sense, Bob,” I said. I glanced at Nat. “Doesn’t it?”

  She raised her eyebrows at me, not saying anything. When I continued to stare at her, my eyes urging her to respond, finally she spoke. She smiled fakely and said in her best children’s TV presenter voice, “Yes, Billy. That’s a perfectly sensible thing to do. Well done, Bobby. You did your job of thirty years properly. Gold star for you.”

  Bob opened his mouth, then frowned, looking confused. He wasn’t quite sure if he’d been insulted. I decided to take advantage of that confusion. “See, Bob? Even Nat’s impressed.”

  Bob smiled hesitantly, still looking uncertain. “Uh, right.”

  Our food arrived at the table then, though we continued to talk through
the case while we ate.

  “Did any of the criminals he’d defended stand out to you?” Nat asked. “Anyone in particular you thought might have done it but you didn’t have enough evidence to go after?”

  Bob sighed, forking up a couple of chips and dipping them in gravy. “There was one guy, but…” He shook his head and put the chips in his mouth, leaving a little gravy on the corner of his lips. I tried not to stare at it, but it was hard. Should I say something? As he chewed, it somehow seemed like the mound of gravy grew, like his spit was collecting in the corner of his mouth and turning the gravy mound into a mountain with a mote of saliva forming at the bottom.

  “You’re drooling, Bobby,” said Nat. “Might want to mop that up.”

  “Hmm?” said Bob, frowning.

  Nat pointed at the corner of her mouth and Bob wiped his own face with the back of his hand, mostly just smearing the gravy rather than actually getting rid of it.

  “Better?”

  “Perfect,” Nat replied. Emphasis on the ‘lied’. “Now, about that guy you thought might be involved.”

  “Right, yeah. Troy Spencer.”

  I’d been lost in staring at the brown sludge wiped across Bob’s cheek, but that name caught my attention. “Troy Spencer?”

  Bob nodded. “You know him?”

  I grimaced. “Yeah. I got him put away a couple of years back. Armed robbery. Held up a convenience store with a knife.”

  Bob nodded slowly. “Right. I’d forgotten you were involved in that one.”

  “He’s still up to the same tricks, then?”

  Bob raised his eyebrows, stuffing another couple of chips into his mouth, gravy spilling out the corners again. I did my best to just ignore it this time and focus on what he was saying. “Same vein, but new tricks,” Bob said around the soggy, partially-chewed potato. “He doesn’t just threaten to stab people anymore. He actually does it.”

  “Oh good,” I said, trying not to think too much about what that might mean for me.

  “What did he do?” Nat asked Bob. “So that he had to hire Rogers to defend him, I mean.”

  Bob forked up some salad next. I was hoping the lettuce leaf might act as a serviette and wipe away the residue on his face but it just deposited a chunk of grated carrot on the cheek opposite the gravy skid mark. Oddly, that kind of made me feel better. At least it was balanced now, right?

  Once Bobby swallowed his salad (well, most of it), he said, “Stabbed a guy. A teenager. Killed him.”

  “Stabbed?” I repeated. “Like our victim?”

  He nodded. “Just like our victim. Looks like our poor attorney got himself involved with the wrong crowd.”

  “You don’t seem too sad about it,” Nat commented.

  “Hey, you swim with sharks, you can’t be surprised when one of them bites you.”

  Nat took a sip of her water, saying nothing.

  “How sure are you that Spencer was involved?”

  Bob shrugged. “I would stake my reputation on it.”

  “That’s not much of an assurance coming from you, Bobby,” said Nat.

  Bob’s cheeks began to glow red again and I decided I’d better intervene. Was that the real reason I’d been placed with her? So that there was someone around to placate all the people she pissed off on a daily basis?

  “Then why didn’t you arrest him?” I asked, shooting Nat a ‘shut up’ look which she caught but ignored. Not that I really expected different. Technically she was my boss, even if she didn’t act like it. “If you’re that sure he did it, how did he get away with it?”

  Bob sighed, exhaling a small piece of lettuce which fluttered down and stuck to his chin. “He had an alibi.”

  “Good one?” I guessed.

  Bob shrugged, looking down at his plate. “You could say that.”

  “He’s in prison, isn’t he?”

  Bob nodded. “Yep. We figured he got one of his cronies to do it, but without any other leads we didn’t really have all that much to go on.”

  “Your main suspect was already incarcerated at the time of the murder?” said Nat. “This is going to be a hard act to follow.”

  “Can you not even pretend to be pleasant?” Bob said. “Just for one goddamn meal?”

  Nat appeared to consider it for a moment. “No,” she replied finally. “I don’t think I can.”

  Bob muttered something under his breath. I didn’t hear the words, but I was pretty sure I caught the sentiment.

  “So we should try looking into Spencer’s contacts,” I said. “Something might click there.”

  “You know this guy,” Nat said, turning to me. I nodded. “What’s he like?”

  “Psycho,” I replied. “If he wanted to get revenge on Rogers for not keeping him out of prison I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Not a nice guy, I’m guessing.”

  I grimaced. “Not particularly.”

  “He ever threaten to stab you to death and dump you at Bondi Beach?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. He did say that the next time he saw me he would cut off my nipples and eat them, but nothing about stabbing or murdering me.”

  Nat raised her eyebrows, looking at most mildly surprised. I had the feeling it would take a lot to shock her. “That’s colourful.”

  “Fucking creepy,” Bob muttered.

  “Well, that sounds like a good lead to me,” said Nat. “Well done, Bobby. You are good for something after all.”

  Bob went over more details of the case as we ate, but as I stared out at the cityscape my mind began to wander. Gazing at the Harbour Bridge, it finally started to sink in. I was back. Exactly where I wanted to be. And yet…

  I forked up a mouthful of linguine, trying to figure out why I felt the way I did. I’d been fighting to get back here for a year. Yeah, the ghost hunting was a bit of a ridiculous job to be welcomed back with, but the murder case at the heart of it was exactly the kind of thing I excelled at. Nat wasn’t so bad as babysitters went. Sure, she was abrasive, but at least she knew what she was doing. They could have stuck me with someone talentless and power-hungry instead. Someone like Bruno.

  Things were good. Once this case was solved I’d be reinstated to the role of Real Private Investigator Without Training Wheels. It was all perfectly on track. The food was delicious, the view was good. We had some good leads.

  So why did I feel sick to my stomach?

  Chapter Seven

  Natalia

  Bobby and I spent the rest of the meal discussing the criminals he’d questioned. He gave us a list of the people Jake Rogers had defended and told me about their many and varied crimes. He also gave us a very colourful description of what each of them had done and just how guilty they definitely were, even if they’d been acquitted. It seemed to me that Jake Rogers had been a decent attorney. Judging by what Bob was saying, some of the people who’d escaped convictions were criminal geniuses. Of course, most people probably seemed like geniuses to old Bobby.

  Billy seemed distracted throughout the meal, staring out the window while he picked at his lunch. Although he was looking at his beloved bridge, he didn’t appear to be all that happy. I didn’t think he was really taking in the sight. He was deep in thought about something, and I doubted it was what Bobby was telling us. It was hard to be deep in thought about anything Bobby said. Bobby didn’t really inspire depth. It looked to me like Billy was worried about something, although I wasn’t sure what. Was he freaked out that this case was related to Troy Spencer? Had Spencer’s weird nipple threat been the reason Billy had left? No, from what he’d said he’d dealt with Spencer a couple of years ago, well before he’d left Sydney.

  I still didn’t know why Billy had moved to Queensland, but I’d figured that he’d regretted the decision judging by how happy he’d seemed to be back in Sydney earlier in the day. The way he gazed at Bondi Beach was downright lustful. Looking at him now, though, it didn’t appear he was all that enthused to be here, even as he stared out at one of the best views in the
city.

  We finished up the food and said goodbye to Bobby, me paying for everyone’s lunch. I took the receipt and slipped it into my bag, in the little side pocket where I kept receipts for expenses. Thanks for lunch, Martha. I didn’t feel bad about adding it to her bill – after all, we’d gotten some pretty impressive information out of Bobby. A list of suspects a mile long. I didn’t really care about most of the people on the list, but that Troy Spencer… He seemed like a good place to start. Bobby had said that he didn’t like taking visitors so we might have trouble getting in to see him. Luckily we had a secret weapon on our side – Billy’s delectable nipples.

  Billy was quiet as we headed back to Bazza, only seeming to snap out of his thoughts once we climbed in the car.

  “Where now?” he asked.

  “I thought we could go question those lawyers. Maybe one of them knows something. They might be a little more willing to talk to us than they would have been talking to the cops. I figure we’ll probably be able to find out more than Bobby’s good women.”

  He nodded absently. “Sure. What law firm was it, again?”

  That seemed like kind of a weird question to me. Was Billy that familiar with law firms? Maybe he’d done some work for them before. That wasn’t unheard of, although I usually didn’t end up with that sort of job. They generally sent the more diplomatic PIs out on jobs like that. I wasn’t oleaginous enough for the law firm types, but Billy was exactly the kind of smooth talker the lawyers would love.

  I took the file from my bag and checked the name of the law firm. “It’s a place called Parker & Yates,” I replied.