by S. R. White
Jeb sighed theatrically and swamped the chair.
‘I was here before and your boss steamed me off. Not falling for that again. I’ve been here this time for’ – he checked his watch ostentatiously; she saw the pearl glint – ‘twenty-eight minutes. I want to see my brother. Right now.’ He pressed his palms flat on the table, as though he could squash it by flexing a wrist.
Dana sat and waited a beat before replying. ‘Hmm. Mike Francis is my colleague, not my boss. I’m sorry you’ve had to wait for’ – she looked at her own watch – ‘twenty-one minutes, Mr Whittler. We have several other things to do this afternoon.’
Jeb scowled. ‘So do I, missy. I haven’t seen my brother in fifteen years. I’ve been interstate all week: I have work to do. Where’s Nate?’ His neck muscles flexed against a white collar. The shirt looked creamily expensive. He had a boxer’s neck; thick and strong.
‘He’s having a cup of tea, Mr Whittler. He’s comfortable. We’ve asked you in to—’
‘Nate. I want to speak to my brother.’ Jeb slapped the table. ‘He needs family.’
When she didn’t jump to attention he recalibrated and flashed a charmless, rapacious grin. Looking her up and down as though everything about her was wanting, he waved a giant paw dismissively. ‘If you can’t authorise it, find someone who will.’
Jeb’s glowering face wore deep, noirish shadows whenever he leaned in. Below the desk, Dana carefully slid her pen between her fingers as a potential weapon and surreptitiously checked the holstered spray canister on her right side. Her voice was calm and tempered.
‘To explain, Mr Whittler. When the police require you to come to the station, it’s because we have some questions for you. It’s not so that you can demand things of us. The way’ – her raised hand stopped his sentence mid-breath – ‘this works – in fact, the only way it can work – is for you to answer those questions honestly and fully. There is, Mr Whittler, no other game in town.’
He sat back and smiled to himself. It was ugly. He glanced at the mirror and ran his hand over his polished scalp.
‘Who’s your superior officer?’
Dana held her nerve. ‘I don’t have a superior officer, Mr Whittler. I have a senior officer who’ll be happy to speak to you when we’re ready. And not before.’
Jeb’s full-on grin had manic, icy zeal. ‘Fine. Ask your questions.’
He folded his arms so that she’d see the bicep swell, the slap-you-into-next-week forearms. She could picture him swiping someone into a wall, watching them crumble to the floor. Someone he’d claim to love.
Jeb leaned in, tapping a car key on the table.
‘Do you have a first name, Detective?’
She recognised the technique. Own the room, control the tempo.
‘Everyone has a first name, Mr Whittler.’ She looked straight at him. ‘Even dogs.’
He chuckled; gravel through a cement mixer. ‘What should I call you, then? Rover?’
‘You can call me Detective.’
He pocketed the keys and shook his head. ‘Ah, you should call me Jeb.’
‘I’ll stick with Mr Whittler, thank you.’
He snorted. ‘Yeah, I bet little Nate insisted on being called Mr Whittler, right? Am I right? Thought so.’ He withdrew a cocktail stick from an inside pocket and began to clean his nails with it. ‘Still a self-important little prick, then. Always was. Always Mr Serious.’ He arched an eyebrow. ‘Needed a car jack up him since he was a snotty little brat.’
‘The closeness of your relationship is deeply heart-warming. You suggested earlier that I should ask my questions. Shall we proceed with that?’
Jeb yawned and shrugged at the same time.
‘I’ll be needing your full, non-grooming attention for those questions, Mr Whittler.’
He sighed, flicked the cocktail stick into a shadowy corner. He folded his arms and puffed his cheeks.
‘I’m at your command. Detective.’
Dana opened her file, even though she knew exactly what she was going to ask, and the sequence. Jeb made out that he relished confrontation, but she could see he wasn’t used to being challenged.
‘You mentioned to my . . . colleague . . . that you own a construction company. Steel frames, is that right?’
Jeb looked away dismissively. ‘You know there’s such a thing as the internet, right? You can look up my business any old time you like. This is bullshit. Let me see Nate.’
‘Is that your only business, or do you have fingers in any other pies?’
He could see she was delving but wasn’t sure where it was leading. He chewed his cheek.
‘One or two. I co-own a gym in Earlville. Always looking for the right kind of opportunity. That’s business. I don’t get a guaranteed pay cheque each month, unlike some . . . I have to earn my money.’
‘Do you know, or have you ever met, Lou Cassavette?’
‘Lou? What’s he got to do with this?’
It was a vague hunch; a detail she’d seen in the transcript of Mike’s interview with Megan Cassavette. It was something that had nagged at her when she read it. Rainer’s work had established the two had met, but she was taking a punt on a closer connection between them.
‘Answer the question, please.’
‘What’s . . . ? He doesn’t know Nate. Why are you asking about him?’
Dana gave him an implacable stare that showed she could wait all day.
‘Urgh, this is bullshit. I met Lou a couple of times this year. We talked vaguely about me investing in his piss-ant little shop.’
Jeb had to know it was Lou who’d been murdered, she felt: it had been on the news all day, even if no names had been released. There was enough detail for someone who knew Lou to work out it was him and it was the only murder in the state this week.
‘The fool,’ Jeb continued with a sneer, ‘bought the place freehold and tied up most of his cash when he did it. Meant he had a failure of a shop but a possible asset. When I went there I could see potential for tearing the dump down and building housing: it comes with its own forest. But the local planning geniuses soon banjaxed that. End of sports. I’ve met Lou for maybe an hour in my entire life. Why?’
Dana wrote slowly, to the background of his belligerent, fuming indignation. She wanted him off balance like this; as they’d suspected, Jeb would play fast and loose when he wasn’t in control. She felt it was significant that he hadn’t acknowledged he knew Lou was dead. There was an obvious reason why he might hide it: and he had been at the crime scene just two weeks earlier. Dana chose to keep her powder dry. Time to switch.
‘Your brother went missing in 2004, is that correct?’
Jeb shrugged.
‘Sounds about right, yeah.’
It wasn’t something he’d forget. Dana didn’t like the fake insouciance.
‘About right, or absolutely accurate? You were there, Mr Whittler.’
‘He’d have been around . . . twenty-one, twenty-two; so yeah.’
‘Again: you were there at the time, Mr Whittler. May 3, 2004.’ She glanced down at the notes before confirming the date.
The subtle implication of evidential weight made Jeb glance at the paperwork and pause before answering. He swallowed and shuffled his weight.
‘Whatever. Around then. It’s a long time ago. Why would I remember a specific date?’
‘Because it’s the specific date when your only sibling vanished, not to be seen again for fifteen years. Did you report him missing to the authorities?’
Jeb leaned forward and swept the table in front of him with the palm of his hand. Ostensibly cleaning it; actually marking out an arc of territory. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence. You’ve checked, so you know I didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I, uh, don’t believe in wasting the taxpayer’s money, Detective.’ He smirked to himself. ‘Nate chose to go; no need to have the police running around. Besides, my family are very private people. We don’t like opening our lives up to all-
comers.’
‘Did you look for him?’
Jeb shot his cuffs. ‘Yeah, I tried his usual haunts. Both of ’em. Turns out he wasn’t in the library or the park. He had no friends to ask.’
‘And then you stopped looking?’
He leaned forward, sensing an advantage. ‘Au contraire, Detective. I hired a private investigator.’
‘And what did the PI find?’
‘That he could charge a thousand and locate nothing. And then he found he wanted to give half of it back. We came to an arrangement.’ He let the insinuation hang in the air and absent-mindedly clasped a knuckle with the other hand. It looked natural, subconscious. Habitual.
‘Look, Detective, Nate took off for his own reasons and didn’t want to be found. So in the end I left him to it. He knew where we were. We didn’t move house or anything. He could have picked up the phone, or walked through the door, any time he liked. Why don’t you ask him why he left and where he went?’
‘I have, Mr Whittler. He has an interesting story. Perhaps you could help to verify some of the details?’
Jeb sat back, understanding that this was the crux of the conversation. ‘Well, we’ve established what a helpful person I am.’
‘We certainly have.’
Dana glanced towards her notes.
‘How had you and your brother been getting along in the lead-up to his disappearance?’
He was, she guessed, wondering how much she knew; exactly what Nathan might have spilled and whether Jeb could be digging a hole for himself. If she knew all of it, maybe he needed legal advice. On the other hand, she was asking perfectly reasonable and neutral questions. If she knew little or nothing, he’d only open up her suspicions by suddenly reaching for a lawyer.
‘Okay. As brothers go. You’ve met him. We’re different people, Nate and I; different eras. He needed, uh, steering. They all did. My parents wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Nothing got done unless I made it happen.’
‘I see. So you’re very much the driver of the family’s life, is that so?’
‘I was. My parents died after Nate left; car accident. But until those things, yeah. I was the one with the energy, ambition.’ When he wasn’t speaking his clenched jaw betrayed the tension.
‘I understand. So it’s true to say that nothing significant went on in the family without your say-so, or your own action?’
Jeb’s eyes narrowed. He could see he was being pulled down an alleyway.
‘What’s Nate said? He’s a bullshitter. You know that, right?’
She ignored him. ‘You controlled the family finances in 2004?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, I did. So what? My parents were hopeless with money. Nate was a low-achiever, contributed next to nothing. Someone had to make sure the bills were paid on time.’
‘Quite so. Especially when you’d had full power of attorney granted in 1990. Your brother was only ten then?’
‘It was a sensible, lawful arrangement. Tax efficient, too. Business people have to think of those things, Detective, unlike public servants. I assume you’ve got a copy of the agreement. You’ll have seen it was witnessed by the bank manager himself.’
‘Oh yes, it’s a legal document. No question.’
‘And? There is an “and”, isn’t there, Detective?’
She took a slow breath. Time to launch.
‘Your brother alleges that, on a number of occasions, you injected your parents with insulin. To induce either coma or paralysis.’
She looked straight at him, wondering what Mike was making of this from the viewing room. Such an accusation should have brought incredulity from Jeb; shocked denial. Instead, it brought a felinisation of his features. He seemed to be calculating how much she understood. Or, more importantly, could prove.
Dana continued. ‘He alleges that you embezzled your parents’ money. He alleges that you bullied and controlled them, and him, over many years. He alleges that you broke his arm and threatened to kill him if he ever spoke about your insulin habits.’
She could see Jeb struggling to retain control. He focused on a corner of the room and dropped the volume.
‘He says a lot of things, Detective. No doubt he’s given you the concrete evidence to back it all up.’
She finished the accusations. ‘He says that’s why he ran in 2004: because you were going to end up killing him.’
Again, the casual stroke of the knuckle. Jeb simmered for a second, maybe considering whether he could get to her before anyone could burst in and stop him. She looked at him evenly. She could fall backwards and hit the panic button in half a second. But he might need only one punch to deform her face for ever. She made that exact calculation.
‘That’s some story, Detective.’ His voice was quiet now, unnerving.
‘We’re looking into the evidence, Mr Whittler. What do you say to those statements?’
He separated his hands, clasped one knee as he crossed his legs.
‘Hah, look. Nate always had an imagination. Apparently, he still does. That’s, uh, fanciful. Ludicrous. Insulin? I don’t even know if that’s physically possible. Neither do you.’ Jeb leaned forward and half his face disappeared in shadow. ‘Nate always had thought bubbles coming out of his head. Never speech bubbles. If you catch my drift.’
‘That sounds like contempt.’
‘He’s my little brother, Detective. We’re linked in blood. But yeah, he was never going to amount to much until he learned to talk to people.’ He raised a finger, as though this were simply a point of order. ‘I mean, you’re in a people business, aren’t you? Wouldn’t get far without those skills.’
Dana collected herself, aware of the station gossip from Nathan’s arrival this morning: some felt her lack of informants, ‘street smarts’ and intel were apparently proof that she didn’t have those skills and thus wouldn’t get far.
‘I meet people in particular circumstances. Maybe your brother would have, or develop, the skills for a particular job. They seemed to like him at Pringle’s Furniture, wouldn’t you say?’
Jeb leaned his forearms on the table and scoffed. ‘Pringle’s? Wow, that place. Oh, I’m sure. Twenty-three years old and still on minimum wage? Yeah, I bet he was employee of the month. He took two weeks to make a chest of drawers, for God’s sake. Big whoop. Old man Pringle sold those for a fortune – saw the gullible hordes coming all the way up the highway.’ He squeezed his hands together. ‘Ooh, handmade, crafted, built to last: bullshit. What a huckster, and what a con.’
Dana noticed that Jeb remembered Nathan’s exact age when it suited him. She wrote something he couldn’t comprehend, in Pitman, then ticked it off, as if it were something he was bound to say. ‘That sounds more like admiration, Mr Whittler.’
‘Well, now, I admire the business model in some ways. Big profit margin, that’s true. But he was using Nate, ripping him off.’
‘And big brother was out to protect him, right?’
Jeb sat back suddenly. A sneering grin came across his face. ‘You don’t have any siblings, do you, Detective? Yeah? No? Thought not. I can tell. You don’t get the connection – you don’t comprehend it. You think brothers are school buddies that live in the same house. You don’t get it. Brothers is different. Brothers is special.’ He put his palms flat on the table again and his eyes fell into shadow. ‘I want to see little Nate now, Detective.’
His counter was predictable: try to strike a personal nerve. She’d seen it coming. ‘Are you denying the allegations I’ve just put to you?’
‘Allegations? They’re a bunch of laughable dreams. Nate probably read a book or ate some funny mushrooms. Overactive imagination. I don’t know, you tell me.’
He tried a hollow laugh but it came out like a cough. He was rattled, she thought. Rattled, because he did all those things. She wasn’t one for making rapid assumptions of guilt but her gut instinct had never been stronger.
Jeb felt compelled to continue. ‘What would make a grown man come up with childish crap like that? Y
es, Detective, I categorically deny every idiotic claim you’ve just made. Clear enough for you?’
‘Crystal, thank you.’
Dana could hear him attempt to control his breathing. While she was convinced Nathan’s accusations were true, there seemed scant chance of proving it unless Jeb was going to crumble. The parents’ bodies would be decomposed; there would be no witnesses except Nathan. Forensics were a long shot.
‘I’ll see my brother now, then.’
She put her hand on her belt, lightly touching the spray canister. ‘That isn’t possible at the moment, Mr Whittler. If I get an opportunity, I’ll mention that you’re here.’
‘You’ll mention? What the hell does that mean?’
‘Exactly what it says, Mr Whittler. I’m very precise with my language: it’s a blessing and a curse.’ She paused. ‘As you pointed out earlier, your brother is an adult and can make his own decisions. I’ve had to tell him that his parents are dead; he’d been unaware of that fact. I think he has quite enough to deal with at present.’
It got to him. She could see it. Jeb ran his hand across his scalp and looked away to the mirror.
‘You had to . . . what? He didn’t know?’ Jeb shook his head. ‘Where the hell’s he been? It was in the city newspapers, not just local. He must’ve been a long way away when it happened.’
Dana didn’t answer. Yes, she thought, he kinda was.
Jeb spluttered on. ‘Well, that’s . . . that’s exactly why he needs his brother. Time like this. News like this.’
‘What he needs is medical attention, which he’s receiving for some minor cuts. He needs some time alone to think, and then he needs to speak to me again.’
She stood up and gathered her files. ‘When I think he’s up to dealing with you, and if he agrees, you’ll be able to see him. You’re welcome to wait in the reception area if you wish.’
Jeb sat back again and extended his legs under the table. He was now off balance: all the aggression and bluster had won him nothing. ‘I bet you love this, huh? Love acting like you own people.’
She walked to the door, watching his shadow rather than him, and took hold of the handle.
‘Hmmm. As your brother has stated himself, I have his best interests at heart.’