Getting Warmer

by Alan Carter

  ‘Vincent?’ she said. Jimmy Tran’s kid brother: quiet, brooding, second-fiddle type and, according to Cato’s new bikie friends from Myaree, handy with a nail gun.

  ‘Yep,’ said Cato.

  ‘Not Mickey Nguyen.’

  ‘No,’ said Cato.

  ‘Does this Goatee bloke have a proper name?’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be in the system somewhere and I’ll recognise him. But he’s an old-school outlaw, not the cooperative testifying type. We’ll need other proof.’

  DI Hutchens glanced at Lara. ‘Revisit the case notes for Papadakis and the pig for a start. See if the trace evidence matches anything we have on Vincent. Bring him in to get more samples if needed.’ Hutchens tapped his chin in thought. ‘Any other agenda going on here, Cato?’

  ‘I assume they’re trading off Vincent for us revisiting the Wellard case,’ Cato said.

  ‘Could be that simple, they’re not well-known for doing complex.’

  ‘It’s interesting that they knew Vincent was a tradeable commodity right now.’

  ‘What way?’

  ‘Well the nature of Papadakis’s death and the link to the pig, neither are public knowledge. They had an inside line.’

  ‘Colin Graham?’ said Lara.

  Cato nodded. ‘Most likely. The Apaches grabbed me within a few hours of my beer with Col. He’d have tipped them off that I was the one they needed to talk to and told them what to offer in return.’

  ‘Any news on Graham, sir?’ said Lara.

  ‘Nada,’ said Hutchens. ‘You?’

  This was the moment to let them know about the weekend message: to be a team player, to take them into her confidence. She shook her head. ‘No, nothing.’

  Cato flicked through Professor Mackenzie’s pathology notes on Wellard: the catalogue of kicking and stomping injuries, the toothbrush. DI Hutchens’ recollection of the notes was right. While there was trace evidence between attackers and victim; no DNA, fingerprints, or anything else connected Danny or Kenny to the toothbrush itself. But neither had anybody looked at the possibility of matching it to the witness first on the scene, Stephen Mazza. In an ideal world that might automatically have been done, but the compelling CCTV coverage of the bikie attack on Wellard had closed investigative minds to other scenarios. As Colin Graham had reminded him, there’s nothing like an open-and-shut case when you’re flat chat. And the victim happens to be someone like Wellard.

  The more Cato thought about it, the more it fitted Mazza. Creative, resourceful and classy, the pathologist had said. All relative, but Mazza had to be a better contender for the description than the hapless boot boys, Kenny and Danny. Still, without any actual evidence it counted for nothing. A jury was far more likely to convict the bikies based on the CCTV of the attack, their lack of cooperation, and a history of poor bikie PR. Unless Stephen Mazza put his hand up for it, Kenny and Danny would probably do the extra time for Wellard’s murder. Cato wasn’t going to lose any sleep over that. Kenny and Danny were bad bastards and keeping them locked up for one reason or another was in the public interest. Either way, all suspects for the murder of the understandably maligned Wellard were already in jail; that had to be some kind of justice.

  As for where Shellie Petkovic fitted into all of this, that was anybody’s guess. Cato’s brain had hit overload. He needed more coffee.

  Suitably recharged, he took the opportunity to tie up one of the many loose ends. He slotted the first of several disks of external CCTV footage from Casuarina for the days leading up to Wellard’s death. There were cameras placed strategically around the perimeter of the prison pointing both inwards and outwards. Cato was interested in the ones that covered the car park and the entrance to reception. Superintendent Scott had helpfully included log sheets identifying each camera location, dates and times, and which disk to find it on. Nothing jumped out at him either on the day of Wellard’s murder or the day before. He was working his way back to the day of Shellie’s visit to Mazza, the preceding Friday. If nothing else it would tick some procedural boxes in the event of a prosecution move on Shellie. Sometimes this job really sucks, thought Cato.

  Friday, visiting time. This disk showed the angle of a camera placed near the connecting road into the car park and looking back towards the jail. Cato was looking for Shellie’s dark blue Hyundai Excel. There were intermittent comings and goings, delivery vans, prison transport vehicles, cops – marked and unmarked. In the twenty minutes leading up to visiting time the pace picked up and more cars arrived. An hour or so later they all left again. So where was Shellie?

  Cato switched to the camera placed near the entrance to reception and fast-forwarded to visiting time. Yes, there she was, walking into reception, and an hour later leaving again. But the car she arrived in was out of frame: obviously not her own. Maybe it was broken down and she had borrowed one or somebody had given her a lift. She hadn’t mentioned it but then again she hadn’t actually been asked. Cato plugged in another disk: this one for a camera covering both the car park and reception entrance: lots of cars arriving, lots of people walking in. When Cato finally picked out Shellie he rewound slowly to find which car she came in. It was a black 4WD, a tad upmarket for her budget. Shellie got out of the passenger side and the chauffeur accompanied her inside. The images were too blurry and distant and the angles wrong. Cato didn’t recognise the driver, a large male with head bowed wearing sunnies and a baseball cap, so he tried to zoom in and at least get a read on the numberplate. He wrote it down and ran a check. Five seconds later the owner details flashed up on the screen. The name was flagged as an ongoing person of interest. Cato clicked the flashing icon.

  ‘Bloody hell, Shellie,’ said Cato softly, ‘what have you done?’

  As far as Lara was concerned, Vincent Tran could wait. Going after him wasn’t going to bring Christos Papadakis back to life or undo the pain in the old Greek’s family. The priority was Colin Graham. The DI’s chat with Dieudonne over the weekend had delivered nothing. The smiling assassin had appeared briefly at a weekend sitting in the Magistrates Court and been remanded in custody to Hakea.

  Colin Graham was out there somewhere and he had made contact with her over the weekend. It was the only lead she had. The search team, coordinated by a bloke called John (from some special UC squad according to Hutchens) had hit a brick wall. John had taken up residence at a spare desk, the one Colin Graham had commandeered while he was around. He was talking quietly on his mobile and his eyes scanned the room, resting briefly on Lara before moving on. Lara’s choice was whether or not to involve Hutchens or the UCs in her next move. Logic said yes: Graham was dangerous and he wanted her dead. But he also had nowhere to run. She was his last hope or last loose end, and he was her unfinished business. It felt personal.

  ‘How you feeling?’ John pulled up a chair beside her desk. It squeaked under his rugby player’s bulk. He held out a hand. ‘I’m John.’

  Lara shook it. ‘Hi. A lot better thanks.’

  ‘You’ve been through the mill lately.’

  ‘Yeah, a bit.’

  He looked around and leaned in closer. ‘It doesn’t need to be this way, you know.’

  ‘What way?’ Her defences were up.

  ‘Guts and glory. We’re here to help.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘You’re not alone, Lara. Just know that. If you need backup just ask for it. We’re listening in and we know you’re in contact with him. Use us. We can be your safety net.’

  She said it again. ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Not Kwong or Hutchens if that’s any comfort. Look, in our section we tend to make it up as we go along. Ends and means, all that stuff. I can see you’re like that too. I can work around that.’ He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Here’s my mobile number, plug it in and save it.’

  Her mobile buzzed. John had sent her a text while they were talking.

  use us – or go down with him

  She flushed. ‘Are you threatening me?’

  ‘Fri
endly advice, take it.’

  A short time later Lara’s mobile buzzed again. A thumb on the button and the words came up on the screen.

  2nite @ 9 @ end of capo dorlando – come alone

  35

  ‘Been in the wars, Stephen?’

  DI Hutchens put on his concerned expression as he gestured towards Mazza’s bandaged and splinted right hand and a blistering scald on his neck and face.

  ‘Accident in the kitchen.’

  Cato could picture it, boiling water laced with sugar or flour to help it stick. Moonshine napalm.

  ‘Nasty,’ said Hutchens with no great feeling. He tapped his teeth with a biro a few times. ‘We’re all getting a bit sick of this, Stevie.’

  Cato nodded in agreement. It wasn’t just a puppet nod like all those backbenchers behind their political leaders at Question Time; it was heartfelt. Cato really was getting sick of it all. He hadn’t yet told his boss about Shellie’s Casuarina chauffeur. Or about the two emails that came through just before they set out on the freeway: one from the lab with the results on Shellie’s envelopes, another on Cato’s private hotmail address from Colin Graham’s dodgy IT mate.

  A mild frown from the strayed tradie. ‘Sick of what?’

  ‘Driving backwards and forwards between here and the office through all that traffic and those ugly suburbs,’ said Hutchens. ‘And all just to try and get a bit of sense out of you lot.’

  ‘Who lot?’

  ‘You, Kenny, Danny.’

  ‘Still not with you. Kenny and Danny are nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Wellard. The toothbrush. It was you, wasn’t it?’

  An eye flicker; the game had changed. ‘That’s a new one.’

  ‘Answer the question. Did you stab Wellard with the toothbrush?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  Cato cleared his throat: a signal that it was his turn. ‘Bree and Shellie deserve better than this, mate.’

  A half-smile from Mazza. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Kenny and Danny stepped up and did the right thing. They kicked the bejesus out of Wellard. They made no attempt to hide or deny what they’d done. They were proud of it. It was a matter of honour. If they’d done the toothbrush they would have admitted it, but they didn’t. Where’s your honour, Steve? If you did Shellie a favour and you think Wellard got what he deserved, then man up and admit it.’

  ‘Admit what?’

  Cato waved his fingers at the injuries Mazza was carrying. ‘The Apaches are going to keep coming after you, maybe after Shellie.’ Cato recalled the tap on the knee with the nail gun. ‘After anybody they think can help them get what they want. I don’t think Shellie should be caught up in this crap given everything else on her plate.’ Cato sat back and folded his arms. ‘And I think Bree deserves a more honest championing of her cause.’

  Mazza’s face darkened. ‘That right?’

  ‘You know it is.’

  Lara hadn’t been for a run for a few days. What with being bashed and abducted and staring death in the eye a bit lately, her heart hadn’t really been in it. She was also still living at the hotel and theoretically under police guard from the desperate fugitive, Colin Graham. But she needed to get her body moving. She’d left work promptly at five, driven straight into the secure undergound car park at the hotel and five minutes later was pounding away on the gym treadmill. Around her a motley collection of toned, semitoned, and seriously flabby conference delegates and travelling salesmen shadow-boxed with mortality. Some gave her strange looks and, when she caught her reflection in one of the full-length mirrors, she realised why. Boxer’s nose, panda eyes; she’d forgotten that she was no longer a serious contender for Australia’s Next Top Model. In some ways she relished her difference, her immersion in this mad, bad dangerous world. So much for her death’s-door promise to herself to settle down and be a nice girl. Her mobile throbbed, a familiar number. She stopped the treadmill.

  ‘Did you get my message?’ Colin Graham.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll be alone?’

  ‘Sure. You have my word.’

  ‘You’re being sarcastic aren’t you?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think I’ll be watching and if I don’t like what I see it’s all off.’

  ‘What’s all off?’

  ‘I’m doing this for you, Lara. I’ll surrender to you, just you.’

  The phone died.

  Would he really surrender or was it a trap? Graham’s life and career were wrecked and he faced a solid twenty years inside. Not a nice prospect for a cop: they’d be queuing up for a pop at him in Casuarina. His options were limited. He could kill her and go out in a blaze of glory like a Ned Kelly wannabe. No, that wasn’t his style. Or he could surrender and try offering a bigger prize than himself to negotiate a spot in witness protection. That was more like the Graham she’d come to know. Mr Plan B.

  Lara restarted the treadmill and pressed the buttons for an uphill run. Why had she allowed herself to be consumed by such a nasty piece of work? Surely by now her judgement was based on something more sophisticated than pure fuckability. Apparently not. All along she’d thought she could match him but she’d been way out of her league. That settled it. Colin Graham was her mistake and she wanted to rectify it. He might think he had a number of options as to how all this might end but Lara intended to present him with just one.

  By the end of the interview, Mazza still hadn’t fessed up and it remained a stalemate. But they had obtained fresh blood, skin, hair and saliva samples from him to crosscheck in the Wellard murder case. Mazza could explain the presence of his DNA on the victim as resulting from his close proximity as he knelt down to check for signs of life before calling for assistance. It would depend on the amount, type, concentration and precise location of any such traces as to whether it could be explained away in that fashion. They were back on the freeway, heading north. The sun dropping, shadows lengthening. Hutchens finished off a call to Lara.

  ‘Yeah, we’ll leave Dieudonne until tomorrow now. I’ve had enough of dickheads for one day. What you up to?’ Some measured husky tones from the other end. ‘Right. Take it easy. See you then.’ This less strident, more concerned Hutchens was on display a lot lately. Was he mellowing? Maybe this was a good time to bring up the subject of Star Swamp. Cato gave it a go. Hutchens nodded and ummed.

  ‘So you reckon that because Wellard knew where the car parks were when he dumped Caroline Penny, he must have been there before and so that’s probably where Shellie’s kid is? That right?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Bit thin maybe? Couldn’t he have just been there on a picnic and remembered where the car parks were?’

  ‘Wellard? Picnic?’

  Hutchens ignored that. ‘And on the strength of this you want earthmovers, cadaver dogs, ground radar, and maybe a couple dozen uniforms and SES volunteers?’

  The traffic was banking up at the Leach Highway turn-off: road works and rush hour. Lots of drivers with that resigned look of not going anywhere soon.

  ‘Keep that beautiful mind of yours ticking over, old son. Meantime let’s see if we can get Mazza wrapped up.’ Hutchens stabbed the radio button and Drivetime came on.

  Cato decided it was time to come clean on the Shellie thing.

  Capo D’Orlando Drive is about halfway between South Beach and Fremantle city centre and heads west off Marine Terrace to bisect the marinas of Fremantle Sailing Club and Fishing Boat Harbour. Further out along the drive, nearer to the harbour gateway to the Indian Ocean, the pleasure craft of the moneyed give way to rows of rusted and paint-chipped deep-sea trawlers and cray boats. A large car park patterned with burnout rings marks the boundary of where pleasure ends and industry begins. Finally, right at the tip of the drive: a rocky man-made promontory for anglers or those who simply want to gaze at the horizon.

  At just before nine o’clock on a Monday night there was no one about. Ten minutes earlier the last dog walker had ambled home wi
th her fat old kelpie. Half an hour ago the last tinkering boatie realised he could delay no further his return to the bosom of his family. A black Falcon ute had roared up the drive at full doof, done a couple of burning spins, chucked a stubby out the window and departed. The sun was long gone and a stiff breeze snapped at the masts on the sailing boats. Streetlights cast pockets of sickly yellow on the nearly empty car park. Colin Graham opened a window and sniffed the salt, oil and fish in the breeze. He reclined his seat a notch and re-checked his police-issue Glock.

  Lara had decided to walk. She’d given her minder the slip: yawning and feigning an early night, she’d then used her mobile to phone hotel reception to get them to page him, using the distraction to slip out a side exit via the hotel bar. She’d left her TV murmuring in her room as continuing evidence of occupation and slipped the Do Not Disturb sign on the outside handle. Lara shivered as a breeze swept through. She wavered now between High Noon determination and a nauseous feeling of peering over a crumbling cliff.

  She knew Colin Graham would have got there early to try to seize the advantage and she could see him now, sitting in the Ford Laser, staring at the road and waiting. The car park gave him a clear view of anybody approaching down Capo D’Orlando Drive. That’s why she’d come even earlier and on foot. She was already behind him. In choosing this spot for a rendezvous Graham had already limited his options. It would be relatively easy for the police to seal off the promontory once he was on it and pick him up in their own time. Graham must have known this; maybe surrender to Lara really was his sole intention: or maybe he had an ace up his sleeve. As insurance, Lara had notified John, designated coordinator of the Graham search team, to be on standby. His ‘arms-length’ status made him seem a better bet than Hutchens or Cato in the event of a false alarm. Of course she might be wrong about that. There was also his implied threat: use us – or go down with him.