by Ben Sanders
The street’s choked out with patrol cars, all of them parked crooked, doors wide, light bars flaring, dashboard radio units cranked to high volume so the cops on the footpath won’t miss an urgent callout.
O’Dwyer and another, younger, cop in a suit rendezvous by the letterbox. They’re relaxed. They’ve seen suicides before. O’Dwyer’s checking his watch, like he’s late for dinner. Sean scoots across the back seat and drops the window a crack so he can catch what’s said.
The younger cop says, ‘She’s got facial injuries that look ante-mortem.’
‘Okay.’
‘She bled out a long way, and the water makes it look even more than it is.’
‘Has the husband said anything?’
‘No.’
‘Be real fucking tiptoe if you question him. I don’t want him confessing something good, and then some shit-hot lawyer claiming he thought he was being questioned about an assault and not a homicide. You know?’
‘Yeah. I’m with you. Are you going to chat to the boy?’
‘Yeah. I’d better see the scene first.’
O’Dwyer goes to look in the house, and he’s gone about thirty minutes. When he reappears he walks back to the car, and climbs into the back seat next to Sean. He turns sideways on the seat and pulls one knee under him and props an arm up on his headrest. He wasn’t chewing gum earlier, but he is now. Sean thinks maybe he always has a piece before he checks a crime scene, to take the edge off the smell.
O’Dwyer says, ‘How are you doing?’
‘Good.’
‘Do Mum and Dad fight very often?’
‘They’re not my mum and dad.’
O’Dwyer says nothing. He chews slowly and waits for Sean to volunteer the details.
‘I got sent here to live with Derren,’ Sean says. ‘He looks after foster kids. I’m just staying with him while my real mum’s in hospital, but when she gets better I’m going back to live with her.’
‘Okay.’ O’Dwyer nods to himself. ‘I understand. So how long have you been staying with Derren?’
‘Six months. About.’
‘Okay.’ He dips a beak of thick fingers in the breast pocket of his shirt and finds his gum. He pops another piece in his mouth. ‘Sure you don’t want some?’ he says.
Sean shakes his head.
‘Is there anything that you want to tell me?’ O’Dwyer says.
Sean’s quiet a second. ‘About what?’
O’Dwyer shrugs. ‘About anything really. Maybe about what was happening this evening, if you happened to see anything.’
‘I don’t think I saw anything,’ Sean says.
‘You don’t think you saw anything?’ But he’s smiling, and there’s nothing aggressive in the question.
Sean doesn’t answer.
O’Dwyer says, ‘I saw that poster of R.E.M. on the wall in your room. You like R.E.M?’
‘Yeah. They’re cool.’
‘They are pretty cool. What’s your favourite song?’
Sean gives the question careful thought. ‘“It’s the End of the World As We Know It”,’ he says.
O’Dwyer nods slowly to himself, eyes narrowed, like that’s what he’d been expecting to hear. ‘That’s my favourite song, too,’ he says.
Sean says nothing.
O’Dwyer’s big arm is draped along the back of the seats, hand the size of a lampshade hanging next to Sean. O’Dwyer nudges him gently on the shoulder with his fingertips. ‘Do you reckon you might be able to tell me a bit about what happened tonight?’ he says.
Sean thinks about it a long time. Cops are milling about on the footpath, eyes downcast, swiping footpath grit with their soles. O’Dwyer has a friendly look on his face. He likes R.E.M. ‘I was downstairs watching TV,’ Sean says. ‘I turned it off when Goodnight Kiwi came on.’
‘Did you? Good man.’ O’Dwyer smiles. ‘My little boy’s meant to turn off the telly and go to bed when Goodnight Kiwi comes on, but sometimes he doesn’t.’ O’Dwyer shakes his head, and looks a little disappointed. ‘So what was going on when you were watching TV?’
‘They were upstairs fighting.’
‘Where were they upstairs? Do you know?’
‘In Derren’s bedroom.’
‘In Derren’s bedroom. Okay. So what did you do after you’d turned off the TV?’
‘I went upstairs, too.’
‘Where did you go upstairs?’
‘To my room.’
‘Okay,’ O’Dwyer says. ‘So you’re in your room. And the others are in Derren’s room, fighting.’
Sean nods.
‘What happened after that?’
‘She ran out of the bedroom,’ he says. He knows the wife’s proper name, but for some reason he can’t bring himself to use it. ‘She locked herself in the bathroom.’
He hasn’t told O’Dwyer about the sound of the mirror breaking, or the bath running, but that’s okay. He would have seen them and figured it out for himself.
‘What happened after that?’ O’Dwyer says.
‘Derren stood at the bathroom and told her to let him in. But she didn’t. He saw me standing at my bedroom door, and he pushed me over and slammed the door shut.’
‘Did he hurt you?’
‘A little bit. I hit my head on the floor.’
‘Is your head okay?’
‘Yes.’
O’Dwyer feigns concern: ‘Is the floor okay?’
Sean smiles shyly and nods. ‘The floor’s okay.’
‘All right. So then what happened?’
‘Derren broke down the bathroom door. Well, that’s what I heard.’
O’Dwyer waited for more.
‘After that, I went and looked in the bathroom. She was lying in the tub, all bleeding. Derren was crouching next to her, with his hands on his head.’
O’Dwyer sucks a tooth and patters his fingers against the seat. ‘Do you think you might have seen anything else after Derren broke down the door?’
Sean says nothing.
O’Dwyer looks at him. ‘Like maybe you saw Derren cut the lady’s arm,’ he says slowly.
Sean says nothing.
O’Dwyer shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Maybe you didn’t see anything like that. I just thought this chap Derren’s not a very nice guy, maybe you saw him hurting the lady in the bathroom.’
Sean doesn’t reply. O’Dwyer’s nailed it, though: Derren isn’t a nice guy. He remembers being grabbed from behind when he was looking through the cupboard. He remembers being dropped when he tried to use the phone. He doesn’t need to remember the belt; he can still feel the injuries. He thinks if he tells O’Dwyer he heard the mirror break and the tap running before Derren was even in the bathroom, then things might play out a little easier for Derren. Sean definitely didn’t see Derren cut the wife, and he gets the feeling O’Dwyer’s trying to put words in his mouth.
Not a very nice guy.
O’Dwyer leans across and claps him gently on the knee. ‘Have a careful think about it,’ he says. ‘We’ll get one of the ambulance people to check you out, and then we’ll have another little chat. Okay?’
Sean nods. The suspension wriggles as O’Dwyer climbs out, and the radio noise from outside spikes loud before he slams the door.
Afterwards they lay in bed and he told her about the morning: the post-shooting inquisition, his talk with The Don.
‘You’re scared of him,’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘McCarthy.’
He thought about it. Wind caught the drapes and threw fluid shadows on the roof. ‘Honestly, yeah, I think I am.’
‘Why?’
‘I interviewed two suspects last night, both had been assaulted.’
‘And it was McCarthy?’
‘No. But he keeps in the loop. He knows what’s going on.’
She didn’t reply. She had hold of his hand under the sheet.
‘We left the front door open,’ he said.
She didn’t reply, tented the sheet with a raised knee.
‘What did you think when you first met me?’ she said.
‘I can’t remember.’
She fell quiet, like she was waiting for him to add something.
She said, ‘I remember you struck me as a nice guy.’
‘So?’
She rolled over and looked at him in profile. ‘So someone else will have figured that out as well. They won’t get rid of you.’
‘I killed a man.’
‘You had to.’
He didn’t answer. The more he considered it, the more he doubted it. He took a shower in the bedroom en suite, dressed and sat on the end of the bed. He could see her body through the sheet, vague lines of a graceful design.
‘My parents are back tomorrow,’ she said. ‘They’re having evening drinks here.’
‘That’s nice for them.’
‘You’re coming, too.’ She nudged his thigh with her foot.
‘I don’t think they like me.’
‘All the more reason to try to create a better impression.’
He fell quiet. He’d wanted a reply that allayed suspicion.
‘They might not be too happy if they knew what we were up to in their bed,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘This isn’t their bed.’
He turned where he was seated and looked at the closed bathroom door. ‘I had a dream,’ he said.
Her forearm was across her face; she let it fall to the pillow above her head and looked at him. ‘About what?’
‘When I was a kid.’
She waited for more.
‘When I was about ten, I stayed with this ex-air force officer.’
‘The English guy?’
‘Yeah. He didn’t get on with his wife.’
‘You’ve told me this.’
‘Do you want the full version?’
She was silent a long moment. ‘Yeah, you can tell me.’
He leaned forward, elbows on knees. Hunched form headless from where she lay.
‘They had a fight one day; she ran into the bathroom and killed herself.’
‘You told me that bit.’
‘She used a mirror and a hot bath.’
Silence for a short spell. She said, ‘I guessed it was something like that.’
‘I saw it.’
‘You watched her actually do it?’
‘Well, I saw her afterwards. Dead, or heading that way.’ He adjusted his sleeves, pushed ragged blossoms of cuff to his elbow. ‘I saw her lying there, bleeding.’
She waited. The drape folds shuffled for position.
He ran his hands through his hair. ‘I think she’d just had enough. He’d abused her before. There were old ante-mortem injuries. Bruising and stuff. She’d called the police on him a couple of times.’
She drew her legs in and sat upright. ‘Did he ever abuse you?’
‘I got off pretty lightly. He beat me up, but not as bad as the wife. I hadn’t been with him very long when it happened. Few months. But they moved me to somewhere else.’ She sensed him smile. ‘And I never went back.’
‘I wouldn’t dwell on it.’ She nudged him again. ‘Although you look like you’ve done a fair bit already.’
He smiled. ‘I just think about all the time people have lost. All those years stacked up. It’s got to be attributable to someone.’
‘Not you.’
‘Maybe.’
‘What was the dream?’
‘That was the dream. I woke up one day thinking about that guy I used to live with, and all those people robbed of their lives. It was just there in my head when I came awake, and I figured it must have been on my mind in my sleep. But I didn’t remember it.’
‘You think about him often?’
‘Sometimes. I managed to block him out for a few years. They gave me therapy after it happened. I’d tried to call the police another time when they were fighting, but he’d stopped me. If I’d succeeded I could have saved her. She’d be a completely different person. She’d be alive. I’d have rewritten history, better or worse.’
She didn’t reply. They sat together on the bed for a long time. After a while he picked his jacket up off the floor and left without looking at her.
NINETEEN
TUESDAY, 14 FEBRUARY, 3.12 P.M.
Prison visits. Paperwork for major crimes riding on his passenger seat. It was like being back on the beat.
Hale drove south. The female ticket attendant during the January third fight club robbery was named Leanne Blair. Rowe’s file gave a South Auckland address. He got down there a little before four in the afternoon. It was grim viewing, even under summer sunshine. Low socioeconomics made for drab real estate. Grey weatherboard abounded. Youths draped on sofas and loaded on premixed drinks watched him flatly from an open garage. He’d encroached on Crips gang territory: a trio of teens in blue bandannas posed raised middle fingers and masturbatory gestures for his rear view. Overlapping blue and red fence graffiti implied a Crips/Bloods turf war.
Blair worked a day shift at a liquor store on Everitt Road. He figured it was worth a check on the way through. He parked in the bay out front and went in. Shop-front sandwich boards boasted bargain whisky. Left of the door, boxed grog was pillared floor to ceiling. A guy in his forties manned the register, folded forearms a thick black-haired stack across his stomach. A hockey stick stood propped against cupboards behind him, two kids about six or seven kicking a ball in a metal shelving aisle.
Hale found her stocking twelve-pack boxes of Bud in the walk-in cooler out the back. She was a medium-built woman in her late thirties. Her nose was kinked fractionally, ghost of a bruise hanging from one eye.
She shelved her last box and flicked her eyebrows at him. ‘Help you?’
‘Leanne Blair?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Wondering if you had a moment to speak with me about the incident back on third of January.’
‘Incident?’
He stood and waited for a firm reply. The chill had tensed him up, faint metallic odour to the air. She realised he wasn’t going to move until she answered.
‘You police or something?’ Rounded fricatives: something was ‘somefing’.
‘Private investigator.’
‘Got, like, a badge or something?’
He showed his ID.
‘What’s the time?’ she said.
‘Almost four.’
‘All right. Well, how’s this: give me a ride home, and along the way, you can ask me all the questions you like. How’s that?’
‘That sounds fine.’
‘Give us a couple of minutes, and I’ll see you out front. You got a car or something?’
‘Black Ford Escort.’
‘Shit. Don’t see many of them round nowadays.’
He left the store and waited for her in the car. A concrete-block wall had been freshly whited over: paled tags beneath like veins through pallid skin. She emerged a minute later, imitation white leather handbag over one shoulder. From a distance he could see she was pregnant: a slight bulge gapped a sliver of clothing along her waistline. She pulled the passenger door and sat down heavily, twisted and dumped her feet in the footwell. She closed the door.
‘I’m not too far from here,’ she said. ‘So if you like, you can run me home and just come in and talk or whatever.’
‘Okay. We’ll do that.’
They made a right out of Everitt, passed one of the Crips kids a moment later. He stopped on the footpath and jutted his pelvis and shot the finger, one thumb hooked through the front of his belt.
They reached her house a moment later. It was a single-level weatherboard box in lime green. The fence boasted newly minted blue graffiti.
‘Just leave the car here. Safe as.’
He parked at the kerb. They got out, and he followed her to the open front door. He could hear children’s voices, backed by a video game console cranked to high volume.
‘The fuck …’ she said.
The entry gave straight into the living room. Six boys, aged maybe
four to ten, were crowded around a television set.
‘Isaac,’ she screeched. ‘Fuck’s sake, turn it down.’ She paused in the middle of the room and looked around. ‘Actually, fuck off, all of you. Look at this mess. Shit.’
She kicked a grounded pillow and twirled to take in the mayhem. The kids scattered and disappeared. No doubt a well-rehearsed dispersal. The screen was paused on a still-frame: a digital cop’s head cross-haired by a sniper’s scope. She stepped to the television and killed the power, kicked a plastic controller aside. A sofa faced the television. She sank into it, head back and legs spread.
‘Long day. Shit.’ She looked up. ‘Right. You can just ask whatever.’
‘I appreciate you taking the time to do this. I realise it’s probably not that easy to talk about.’
‘Yeah, well.’ She clucked her tongue softly and checked the ceiling.
‘I understand you witnessed a robbery back on January third.’
‘Yeah, victim more than witness.’ She pointed with a hooked finger. Vague, like a deathbed directive. ‘Feel free to sit down or something, if you want.’
He claimed a plastic deck chair next to the television. Static crackle as his arm brushed the screen. ‘Can you describe what happened?’
‘When the robbery happened?’
‘Yes. When the robbery happened.’
She pulled her legs up on the sofa, squeak of squabs. ‘Yeah. We were selling tickets to the fight out of this caravan we had parked up there beside the front door. Have you had a look at the place?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Yeah, well, anyways it was a caravan. We pulled in two, maybe three grand, something like that.’
‘You were inside when the theft occurred?’
‘Uh-huh. Yeah, in the caravan.’
‘Cashing up?’
‘Yeah. Counting and bagging everything up, and I just glanced at the window, and saw this dude standing there pointing a shotgun at me.’
‘And you let him in?’