by T. J. Beach
“Harry Vickers. He’s an old rogue, and he lied to me. He played the innocent, appalled at his younger version for standing by while his salesman had their way with Wendy and all the other car wash girls, but according to Derek Loughnan, the financial planner, Harry had first dibs on all the girls. They had to put out to get the job. Derek is a disgusting sleaze bag, absolutely capable of murder, but I believed his story about Harry. I didn’t find any of the other salesmen. Loughnan admitted Keith had been to see him. In fact, he boasted about sending Keith off with a flea in his ear. Harry claimed he hadn’t seen Keith, but we know he’s a liar.”
“And we know Keith approached Austin Gould, a potential baby dad,” Hollins added.
“Which is, so far as we know, the last time Keith was seen alive,” Stu said.
“Not quite,” Hollins said. “He sent a text to his mum.”
“That’s right,” Debbie agreed. “She got an SMS message saying he loved her but telling her to go home.”
“When was that?” Stu asked.
“I’m not sure. Wendy showed me the message. I read it a couple of times, but I didn’t take much notice of the time stamp. It wasn’t important then.”
Stu nodded. “I get that, but why couldn’t you believe it? Was there something wrong with the message?”
“Not in itself. I guess I couldn’t imagine a son would be so cold.”
“Okay. It’s something to raise with his mum.”
“Will you bring her back to Bell’s Landing?” Debbie asked.
“Dunno. I’ve never had to inform next of kin in another country. I suppose I’ll have to get onto the Auckland police and have someone go around. It’s not the sort of thing to do on the phone.” Stu let out a long breath. “It depends a bit on what she wants to do. They’ll want to get the earthly remains home, and it’ll be a while before we can release the body.”
“At least now you can assure Wendy that her son did not kill Sophia Pendlebury,” Debbie said.
“Err, no, I can’t,” Stu said.
“Oh. Come on!”
“Sure, Keith might have upset someone enough to murder him by accusing them of being his father.” He jabbed his finger over his shoulder towards the body. “But he could still have taken the shot at Austin Gould. Perhaps Austin was his father. Perhaps he was going to shoot all of them for what they did to his mother.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Debbie said.
“Is it? Prove it. Don’t get me wrong. We’re still following up the political angle, but I’m not going to discount any possibility until we can positively identify who shot Sophia Pendlebury.”
Hollins broke a second’s stunned silence. “So, basically, you’ve got nothing on Sophia’s murder.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, seeing as you haven’t got any serious leads, I’ll give you a crazy one,” Hollins went on. “Chopper Wollinksi.”
“Oh, yeah? Where did that come from?” Stu crossed his arms.
Debbie groaned.
“I met Keith Tupaea at the Espy, remember? I was waiting for Debbie and the kids, but I went over to Keith because a group of pissed rednecks were threatening him.”
“Threatening him how?”
“Insults. Trying to suck Keith into a fight or egging themselves up for a gay-bashing. Chopper Wollinski was their ring leader.”
“No actual threats of violence?” Stu asked.
“Not that I remember.”
“Oh, Gary!”
Stu raised a hand to halt any protest. “It’s thin, but Gary’s right. Keith was making waves with his paternity thing, but we need to keep an open mind. His murder could have been gay hate.” The way Stu said it made it sound about as likely as life on other planets.
“That’s not what Gary means,” Debbie said.
Hollins nudged her with his elbow to shut her up. Big mistake.
“What?” She turned back to Stu. “Gary thinks Chopper shot Sophia Pendlebury.”
Stu snorted. “What? Any particular reason?”
Hollins huffed. It sounded stupid before he even said it. “He did the graffiti. Maybe Glenn asked him to shoot at the car, to get even more sympathy for the campaign.”
“I’m listening.” The way Reilly raised his eyes to the heavens suggested otherwise.
“When we spoke to Chopper at the motorbike club, he said something about ‘haven’t I done enough?’ which seemed way over the top for daubing some paint on a wall.”
“If you say so.” Stu shrugged. “You were there.”
“And he goes kangaroo shooting,” Debbie added.
“Oh well, if he shoots ’roos.” Stu threw his hands up. “That seals it for sure.”
Hollins glared at Debbie.
“I’ll take any excuse to pull Chopper in,” Stu said. “I still owe him for the fake vandalism.”
“And while we’re here, Debbie and I were just about to call you when you rang me.”
Debbie stepped in. “Yes. We have irrefutable evidence that Dave McManus is a pedophile.”
Stu’s jaw dropped.
A crime scene technician called out from the bushes. “Sergeant!”
Stu pivoted. “Not now.”
The man in the spacesuit waved for him to come. “You’ll want to see this.”
“In a minute,” Stu shouted. He took Debbie’s elbow and led her into the car park, not that any of his men could hear them where they were.
Hollins followed.
“Tell me you haven’t done something illegal or stupid or both.”
Debbie brushed his hand off and took a half step away from Stu’s snarl. “Gary met McManus and his pedo’ mates at The Fire Station.”
Stu’s glare flashed to Hollins.
“Whoa, don’t throw me under the bus. McManus invited me because I said I’d volunteer for his camps. I don’t think any of his mates are rock spiders, by the way.”
“I warned you to watch your step,” Stu said, but his indignation had arced down a few degrees.
“I thought it was okay for Gary to get involved in police matters now he’s undercover for you on the Gould campaign.” Debbie glared.
Stu’s eyebrows beetled dangerously.
“She’s exaggerating,” Hollins said quickly. “I never claimed that, but when I called you—”
“I said I had no problems with you working for Gould again — why would I, by the way? — and if you heard anything interesting, I wouldn’t spit in your eye if you let me know.”
“That’s how I remember it.”
“Anyway.” Debbie pushed herself back into the conversation. “Gary told them he likes to take photographs.”
“I didn’t know that,” Stu said.
“Because it’s bullshit. Gary barely knows which end of the camera to look in, but — whatever Gary said — Dave McManus went straight back home and looked at photos on his computer. Pictures of boys with their … trousers down.” She looked up into the trees.
“They’re not super clear because the camera’s above the screen.” Hollins demonstrated with his hands. “But it’s definitely—”
“Stop!” Stu put both hands on the back of his head and pulled it down. “Shit! You two will be the death of me. Stupid.” He looked at Hollins. “And illegal.” He lanced Debbie with a glare that would have burned paint off a car bonnet.
“It’s evidence.” Debbie had that scary, narrow-eyed red mist look. “Hard video evidence. We’ve got him on tape.”
“How did you get it?” Stu met her fury with cold logic.
“What does that matter?”
Hollins braced himself to hold them apart.
Stu stuck out his chin. “A little lesson in the law for you. Both of you! Evidence obtained illegally can be presented in an Australian court if the judge agrees, but they don’t like it. I seriously doubt I can get a search warrant based on breaking and entering and unlawful surveillance.”
Debbie’s mouth screwed into an angry pout. She held her tongue, but the effort required was o
bvious from her red cheeks and hunched shoulders.
“What happens if he finds the camera?” Stu asked.
“He won’t—”
“Crap. All he has to do is get out his duster—”
“As if he ever does housework.”
“You know his domestic habits how?” Stu hooked his thumb at Hollins. “And with Austin Powers super-spy here, dropping half-assed hints about incriminating child abuse material, what’re the chances of him destroying the evidence?”
Hollins grimaced at a mental instant replay of the teacher’s finger over the delete button. He shared a glance with Debbie, who looked as guilty as he felt.
Hollins coughed. “But can’t forensic IT people recover deleted files?”
“Not if he’s put a sledgehammer through the drive and dumped it in the ocean. I need you guys to back off.”
“But it’s evidence,” Debbie pleaded.
“Give me a copy of your video. I might be able to use it somehow, some time, but I need you guys to stand down.”
“How many more boys?” Debbie asked, anger rising anew.
“Like Lachlan?” Stu looked away. “I know. Did you see him …? Were there …?”
“No. Not that we could make out,” Hollins said.
“Anyone you recognised?”
Debbie shook her head.
“Thank God for that.” Stu ran fingers through his hair. “Shit knows it’s bad enough for the ones who are there and their parents, but it’ll be a blessing if he’s kept it out of Bell’s Landing.”
“So far—” Debbie began.
Stu cut her off. “I’ve got this covered.”
“Oh, sure—”
“Wander down to phys ed at the primary school if you get a chance. You might find that the headmistress has ordered the teachers to go with their students and observe sport for ‘health and safety’ reasons. She was horrified, couldn’t believe what I told her about McManus, but committed to cooperation because the allegation is too serious to ignore. She agreed to maintain secrecy in case I’ve got it wrong.”
“Oh.” Debbie folded her arms and bit her lip.
“Sergeant Reilly!”
He yelled over his shoulder. “I’m coming.” He gave Debbie and Hollins one last stony glare. “Stay out of it.”
Hollins raised a hand. “The camp helper meetings? Cricket training?”
“Don’t change anything you normally do. If he calls another meeting, go along or cry off sick if you think you can’t keep your mouth shut about kiddie porn. Keep your eyes peeled for anything I can use, both of you, but passive observation, nothing whatever proactive. Got it?”
They nodded.
“Fuck me dead. I do not need you two making my job harder when I’ve got two unsolved murders and a pedophile teacher.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE TRIP BACK to Bell’s Landing began in troubled silence. Debbie stared sullenly over the steering wheel. Hollins looked at news on his phone — police gathering in the Ludlow Tuart Forest following reports that a dog unearthed a body in a shallow grave.
All graves were ‘shallow’ to reporters. SWAT teams were always ‘heavily-armed’. Attacks were ‘brutal’. Sick kids were ‘brave’, and every murder victim ever was ‘popular’ and ‘much-loved’. Did sick kids never cry their eyes out because they were scared? No one murdered assholes?
Keith Tupaea was no dickhead. His mum loved him fit to bust.
Sophia Pendlebury spread sunshine everywhere she turned.
Perhaps the media hit on something with their clichés.
What in hell did ‘heavily-armed’ mean? Did SWAT teams use World War Two Lee Enfield’s? They were heavy. Modern weapons weighed next to nothing. Were special forces ‘lightly’ armed?
Which segued into the next story that caught his eye. The Sophia Pendlebury murder team calling for the public to report, no questions asked, anyone they knew to have a New Ultra Light Arms Model 40. Hollins took that to mean the cops had accounted for all registered rifles of the type Sophia’s killer used. He assumed a reference to the ongoing search for white SUVs meant that lead hadn’t gone anywhere either.
“You didn’t want me to tell Stu your Chopper-killed-Sophia theory,” Debbie said — a sniffy complaint.
“You picked that up.” Hollins gave it snark. If she wanted an argument, he was game.
“Why not?”
“You saw what happened. Stu ruled it out immediately, which means that admitting Chopper’s a suspect would make him wrong. Now he’ll look for ways to dismiss clues.”
“It’s an education to see the brilliant criminal mind of Gary Hollins at work.”
“He’ll take the same attitude to the possibility that Chopper killed Keith.”
“You are totally obsessed with Chopper.” She glared at the road for a few seconds. “Would a redneck strangle someone?”
“Keith was choked, garrotted. He had a dark red mark right around his neck.” Hollins rubbed the spot with his hands, although Debbie only glanced from her concentration on the road ahead.
“Like he’d been hanged?” she asked.
“Maybe. I hadn’t thought of that. Shit, they lynched him.” The image of the slim, diffident Maori kid he met at the pub swinging from a branch left him cold. Some ways to be killed were worse than others.
“Bloody hell. A lynching would be just the style for rednecks.”
“I would make a much better case for Chopper as Sophia’s murderer if we’d done the Dodgy Utility Girl thing.”
“If Jane Doe found anything. I can still do that.”
“No,” Hollins said.
“Why not?”
“Stu will do it. It’ll have a much lower priority, thanks to you, but he will look at Chopper.”
“No harm done then.”
Hollins snorted.
“Are you going to campaign headquarters?” she asked.
“You bet. The reaction will be interesting if nothing else, but I need to ride back to your office to get my car.”
“I know, but if you wait a second, I’ll give you a USB. Can you drop it off at the police station for Stu?”
A waste of time. Hollins doubted Detective Sergeant Reilly would do anything with the surveillance camera footage from Dave McManus’s bedroom. He wasn’t the sort to risk his promotion prospects by pushing the ethical envelope. Bugger him. The do nothing approach, waiting for Dave to give himself away, wasn’t good enough for Lachlan. “What are you going to do?”
“Is it a problem for you to drop the USB off?”
“No. I’ll deliver it for you.”
“I’m going to find out when Lachlan’s class has sport.”
“Errr …” Hollins might not agree with Stu’s by-the-book, over-cautious passivity, but there was a line.
“Don’t freak out. I’ll come up with an excuse to be there. I’ll ring the headmistress and tell her I’ve heard the teachers have to observe and volunteer to mind Lachlan or any other kids that can’t do games.”
“She’ll probably know why after Stu spoke to her.”
“Good. She won’t dare call me on it. I can work out where to put a camera.”
“Do you want Dave McManus to wriggle off the hook because he was harassed by vigilantes?”
“I want him to rot in a windowless cell, pissing his pants about what the lifers will do when they get their hands on a rock spider. Then I want him torn to pieces the first time he’s stupid enough to show his face in the yard. I want him to die horribly.”
“Deb—”
She waved him off. “I heard what Stu said, but if I can stop Dave abusing any more kids, I will. Whatever it takes. If that means the crap justice system can’t give him what he deserves, then I will. Cricket’s tonight.”
“I’ll be there.” If only to be ready if Debbie came with a knife.
An irritating wait in a queue at the police station’s public counter put Hollins in a thoroughly bad mood, only for a detective constable to wander out in his
own sweet time and argue the toss over whether he could accept the envelope marked ‘urgent’. The delay meant Hollins didn’t get to campaign headquarters until nearly lunchtime.
He made straight for Austin’s office.
Glenn excused himself from a discussion with Josh, the head chocolate man, to cut Hollins off. “You’re a bit late, aren’t you?”
Hollins looked at his watch.
Glenn sighed. “Look, we can’t pay a driver who’s not here to drive.”
So, he’d been demoted to driver. “I put in a timesheet. You only pay for the hours I work.”
“Where were you? We need to—”
“I called Austin.” To tell the candidate he might be late, but the campaign manager didn’t need to know that. “And I’m going to talk to him now.” He stepped around Glenn. Josh swayed into his path, reacting to the confrontation, so Hollins stepped around him as well.
He reached the office door with both men on his heels.
Austin was on the phone. He smiled and waved. “Good to hear … Yes, it’s hard. Thank you for your kind thoughts. Will I see you on Saturday? Okay then, bye.” He hung up. “Gary! You made it. What’s the matter?” He raised his eyebrows to Josh.
“Keith Tupaea is dead,” Hollins said.
Austin dropped his phone. “Oh, my God. No.”
Glenn slumped. “Jeezus. Josh, keep everyone out.” He pushed Hollins into the office and shut the door.
Austin rose out of his seat. “What happened?”
“He was murdered,” Hollins said.
Glenn inhaled sharply. “We need to manage the messages on this.”
“Manage it? Hell’s teeth. A man’s dead.” Austin sat down again, his head in his hands. “A man who might have been my son.”
“That’s why we need to make a statement. The right statement, or the papers will talk about nothing else. ‘Murdered boy is star’s illegitimate son’.”
Austin glared.
Glenn put an arm around his shoulders. “Come on, mate. I get it. It’s devastating, especially after Soph, but we need you to cope.”
“I have to grieve,” Austin said.
A commotion among the volunteers announced the arrival of DS Reilly and DC Connolly.
“Oh, dear,” Glenn said.