The Summertime Dead

by Robert Engwerda

  Finally, she turned the taps off. Don’t let this happen to you, she rebuked herself, everything about her brittle. You have to pull yourself together. Right now.

  She scrubbed herself dry with a towel and dressed and sat in the darkened lounge room, memory crawling all over her like sticky ants – what had happened by the river. The curtains were shut. The house was silent. She switched on the television, moving dully, slowly backing away from it to return to her chair. The people on the television screen were saying things she scarcely understood.

  When she went to the kitchen for a glass of water the ticking of the wall clock was an ominous, almost menacing sound as she tried to gather herself. She turned on the radio to tamp down that ticking, and heard The Seekers singing that song that had been playing incessantly for months now. Judith Durham’s sickly-sweet singing, Like a drum, my heart was beating. And your kiss was sweet as wine. She was tired of hearing it. The carnival was over – if it had ever begun – and she didn’t need any reminding of it. She turned the radio off.

  But the back yard was a place she could go, somewhere no one could see her, where she could be alone without interrogation or threats. And the gloominess inside was beginning to turn stifling when she didn’t dare open the curtains. She stumbled as she changed into the bikini. Was this something like blindness, she wondered? Where there was no seeing anymore, just aching feeling and despair?

  She lay on a towel in the yard, felt the sun burning right into her and prayed it was doing just that, and burning away every last hankering she had for Gene Fielder. As much as she tried to shut him out, like a furtive sprite he insinuated himself into her every thought. She thought of Cole’s party and the days afterward, right up until yesterday by the river when he’d become some kind of monster. Over the brief time she’d known him she’d felt exhilarated, joyous, loved, hated, abused and defiled, all those things and sometimes at the same time. She wondered whether it was not being able to charge Lee Furnell that had tipped him in the end, or whether it was something buried deeper in him that had made him react like that, that made him want to turn on someone who only wanted to love him, and be loved back in return.

  The phone had already rung out once this morning, as it had late yesterday too, and neither time had she answered it because she knew it would be him. But the second time it had rung this morning she had jumped up and caught it just in time to hear him on the other end of the line. She had enough presence of mind to tell him she wouldn’t be seeing him again, and that she had to rush now because she was going out for the day. She’d put the phone down before he had time to spin her another honeyed tale. But she pictured him in his motel room, the telephone still in his hand as he sat on the end of the bed smoking, a pervasive air of cigarette smoke and gloom filling the room.

  It was his doing, she told herself. He shouldn’t have made a pass at her in the first place, or then gone on with it in the way he had. And neither should she have yielded to him. They were both equally culpable, but she’d made a huge mistake and worried now that it might grow into a worse predicament for her when she had precious few reserves to deal with any of it. How could her life have ever become the mess it was, almost in the blink of an eye?

  There was regret, too, as she shut her eyes against the sun. Those silly dreams of Los Angeles and driving along the Californian coast. It was television wasn’t it, not real life? Gene had the gift of the gab and she’d been taken in by it, but that wasn’t all. Part of her knew full well what his game was but it hadn’t stopped her being seduced by his physicality, the way he took notice of her, and how at the start he’d lovingly caressed her like she was an angel.

  All gone, she told herself. She would be relieved when he finally left town, but she was going to hate it too, for missing that part of him that had taken her in, and for having to tread the rest of the journey on her own.

  The sun beating down on her, the replaying of all the scenes with Gene folding over in her head, she fell asleep and only stirred when a shadow passed and she became aware of someone standing over her.

  She rolled over, automatically covering her breasts with an arm even though she was still wearing her top. She’d lost all sense of time as she shielded her eyes with a hand to see who it was.

  ‘Terry? What are you doing home now?’

  She instantly thought the worst, her pulse racing. He looked haggard, looming over her unsteadily.

  ‘I’m not feeling well today, either,’ he said. ‘I would’ve stayed at work but Lloyd told me to go home.’

  She gathered herself.

  ‘You should be inside then. Out of this sun. Come on,’ she said, stirred into action, welcoming any distraction. ‘I’ll get you a cool drink and some ice.’

  ‘You don’t need to come in,’ he said. ‘I’ll manage something for myself.’

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the kind. Here, you look awful. What do you think it is?’

  He shrugged, ‘Maybe just that bug. I should’ve stayed at work and rode it out.’

  She felt unsteady, and slightly nauseous from being woken so abruptly, but she had him sit down in the kitchen while she made him a glass of lemon cordial with ice blocks, glancing at him now and then to gauge his mood. Did he know something? Had Gene said something or made a joke to embarrass him? She couldn’t tell. Terry was always so reserved, but when he looked at her and did his best to smile she knew she was in the clear, at least for now.

  She gave him the drink and stood beside him, feeling his forehead. ‘You’re hot. You must have picked up something.’

  ‘I wasn’t feeling so good when I got up this morning. I don’t know what it was. But you were under the shower.’

  ‘You should have told me then. I would have looked after you. Anyway, I will now,’ she said, fussing over him.

  ‘It’s just the station,’ he said. ‘It’s all different with those detectives there, breezing in and out when they want, saying what they want. It’s not like it was when it was just Lloyd running the show.’

  ‘Yes, it’s good to know Lloyd’s there. Anyway, let’s hope those men scarper back to Melbourne soon now that things seem to be over,’ she said.

  ‘You know that Fielder deliberately picks me out to make fun of me?’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ she asked, not able to help looking away.

  ‘He doesn’t like me. I don’t know why. I’ve never said anything to him.’

  ‘He’s too big for his boots. People like him always get their comeuppance.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘How is the Furnell family taking their son’s death?’

  ‘Not good, as you’d expect. They blame all of us now.’

  ‘Even you?’

  ‘Everyone.’

  ‘They’ll know it wasn’t your fault. What would you have had to do with it?’

  ‘Who knows?’ he waved his hand airily.

  ‘Anyway, let’s hope they get rid of those detectives quickly, let the station get back to normal.’

  She felt a phony even as she said it. What was normal now, she thought? What could ever be normal again, whether Terry found out what had happened to her or not?

  Chapter 32

  Cole was called into work early the following morning, the result of an attack on the police station overnight.

  He and Holloway stood outside the building surveying the damage. Virtually every window in the building had been smashed, glass shards glinting everywhere on the ground.

  ‘Bloody hell, what a mess.’

  ‘Watch your feet,’ Holloway warned.

  ‘Do we know what happened?’ Cole asked.

  ‘Milk bottles. Someone’s thrown milk bottles through the windows. We found some inside. See here…’ He bent down and picked out a bottle neck. ‘About six or eight in total by the look of it.’

  ‘What about inside? Is anything missing?’


  ‘Not that we can tell. Ben and Janice are cleaning up now.’

  ‘Someone had to have heard this. It would’ve made one hell of a racket.’

  ‘You’d think so. But I’ve been door-knocking the houses nearby and no one heard anything, or wants to admit they did. The lady at number twenty-seven heard a ruckus, but just thought it was a party.’

  ‘Right, a window-smashing party,’ Cole added.

  ‘It seems like it,’ Holloway answered, raising his shoulders.

  Cole wandered back and forth outside the station, taking it in.

  ‘You’d have to be angry to do something like this,’ he thought.

  ‘Or drunk.’

  ‘Or both. It’s odds on there’s someone feeling hard done by because of something we’ve done, or not done. Any ideas, besides the obvious one?’

  Holloway realised he still had the broken bottle in his hand and tossed it back amongst the glass.

  ‘No, it’d have to be Ray Furnell.’

  ‘He’d be a good place to start then. But let’s give the others a hand sorting out this mess first. We’ll need to get a glazier in, too.’

  ‘I’ve already called him.’

  Cole clapped him on the back. ‘I thought you might have.’

  It took almost an hour to clean up inside and out. The glazier arrived promptly, raising his eyebrows at the scene before him. As he set about tapping out the broken shards and fitting the new glass, Cole drove to the Golden Fleece garage to see if he could locate Ray Furnell.

  It didn’t take long. The garage doors were open and the mechanic was sitting in full view of the street on a fruit box by the grease pit.

  He didn’t even glance up as Cole came and stood several yards away from him.

  ‘Funeral is tomorrow,’ Furnell said vacantly. ‘The undertaker made him look pretty good in the end. Dressed him in a suit and closed his eyes, put a little pillow thing under his head. Looked real nice, like he was taking a nap before going to a wedding. Course Lois is upset, and his sisters. Only nineteen and he was our only son. I taught him all I know about the garage and he was learning quick, so don’t let anyone say he wasn’t.’ He looked up and registered whom he was talking to. ‘Everything else is small in the face of it. I don’t think it even sunk in yet. He was just lying there in that coffin, asleep, Lloyd.’

  Furnell looked greasy, shabby. The bristles on his face stood out. Cole thought he had probably been drinking all night.

  ‘Ray, someone threw bottles through the windows of the police station last night. You know anything about that?’

  ‘Course they did.’

  ‘I could see you’d be angry and wanting to take it out on something. I know you’re suffering over everything that’s happened, and I know you’d be right to have a bone to pick, but going about it in that way isn’t going to do any good.’

  Furnell nodded, but in a distant, vague way. He kept staring at the grease pit.

  ‘We got to get the funeral over first,’ he said, talking to the pit. ‘Get her out of the way and then do our best foot forward one at a time. I don’t know what Lois will do. She’s been crying nearly every minute of the day. The funeral, it might kill her. You don’t get over a thing like that, women especially. It’s a hard life for a woman when you lose your only boy.’

  ‘And for a father. You’ve got a lot of feeling on your side in this town, Ray.’

  The garageman looked askance at him.

  ‘Have I? Who? There’s hardly anyone been to pay their respects when Lee is laid out waiting for them. My neighbour, he’s been, but he’s nearly the only one. Even the family from out of town is staying away.’

  ‘People don’t know how to handle it, that’s all. It doesn’t mean they don’t care.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’

  ‘No. They’re just not used to it. It frightens them because they don’t want to think about what caused it, how the seed of it might lie in them, too.’

  ‘You lot caused it.’

  ‘The police had their hand in it, I won’t take a step back from that. And I’m sorry for it, Ray. But I want you to know, too, that I’m not going to let up, that I’ll keep looking for whoever killed Max and Rosaleen as long as I draw breath.’

  ‘Bit late for that, isn’t it?’

  ‘For Lee, yes. But maybe not for you and Lois and the girls. I know people are looking the other way right now, but it’s not always going to be like that.’ Cole kept a few yards between them, not wanting to provoke him. ‘I was hoping you might be alright with me and Nance going to the funeral. I wouldn’t be there as a policeman, just as someone from the town. What do you think?’

  ‘I can’t tell someone not to come to a funeral,’ he said as he raised himself slowly off the fruit case.

  He wandered away through the garage’s back door with the slouching habit of a man ten years older.

  The glazier was still busy when Cole returned to the station and he could smell linseed oil in the putty the glazier was using to fix the new glass in place. It made him think of cricket bats.

  It wasn’t until after lunch that the three detectives finally showed themselves at the station. They were boisterous and laughing loudly about something that probably came from Fielder and was directed at the other two detectives’ expense.

  ‘It looks like you boys had yourselves a party here last night, too,’ he quipped as he tossed his hat onto the counter.

  ‘Not quite a party,’ Cole said. ‘More a disgruntled comment from an unsatisfied customer.’

  ‘You know who did it?’

  ‘I’ve got a fair idea.’

  ‘So, charges?’

  ‘Maybe, or maybe we’ll just let it rest.’

  ‘Send me a telegram when they’re charged, then. I’m taking a keen interest,’ Fielder said facetiously. ‘And I need to talk to you about winding up the Furnell case in the meantime. Let’s say we put tomorrow morning aside for it, alright?’

  ‘I can do until eleven. The funeral’s on after that. The parents want him buried quickly.’

  ‘Who doesn’t? But you aren’t going to the kid’s funeral?’

  Cole returned his look.

  ‘As a matter of fact I am.’

  ‘You’re a sap Cole, you know that. You think his old man is going to thank you for it? And it was probably him that did the damage here last night, too, now I come to think of it.’ Fielder leant against the counter and casually drew a cigarette from his packet. He was about to offer Cole one before remembering he didn’t smoke, a gesture that was beginning to grate on Cole. ‘Why don’t you put the squeeze on good old Ray then? Breaking windows is obviously how you go about registering a protest around here. That is, when you’re too weak to do it to a man’s face. Why don’t you nail him?’

  Cole rifled through some papers on his desk.

  ‘Not enough evidence,’ he said.

  ‘Not enough evidence?’ Fielder laughed incredulously, looking to his subordinates. ‘What does it have to do before it is evidence? Jump up and bite you on the backside?’

  ‘This one is under my control,’ Cole said firmly. ‘My territory.’

  Fielder tapped the cigarette on the packet before putting it to his mouth.

  ‘Your business then, senior sergeant. But if I can give you a piece of advice, it’s that if you don’t nip this kind of thing in the bud it will grow and grow until it swallows you. Take my advice or leave it.’

  ‘I’ll leave it, thanks.’

  Fielder straightened up.

  ‘You know, you could have learned something from me. From us. But you’re stubborn. Pure, dumb, pig-headed stubborn.’

  ‘If it helps me to get to the bottom of who killed Quade and Faraday, then I’m happy being that way,’ he replied.

  As the detectives disappeared, Janice said to him on th
e quiet, ‘Hear, hear, Lloyd. But did you get the news that Horrie Ranson died last night? There was a nice old bloke. All the oldies are going now.’

  ‘Yes, I heard something. I reckon it was decimal currency that finished him off. He couldn’t make head nor tail of it,’ Cole joked. ‘When’s the funeral?’

  ‘The day after tomorrow, they say.’

  ‘I should go. Another one.’

  ‘Another one,’ Janice agreed. ‘But I forgot to tell you, too. The French Island prison people finally got off their fat backsides.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Ken Jarvis was let out two months ago. Early release.’

  Chapter 33

  Cole asked his colleagues whether they had seen or heard of Ken Jarvis, but no one had. On his release papers, the prisoner had indicated he would be returning to his family.

  ‘But, I’ve been out there myself since,’ Cole told Holloway. ‘There’s no sign of him, unless he’s in hiding.’

  ‘Or unless there was other family he went to, not his own,’ Holloway answered.

  ‘It’s possible. I’ll have to go out there again and ask Mrs Jarvis,’ Cole said.

  ‘Good luck with her.’

  ‘It’s odd though. If he’s home, and knowing what he got up to in the past, I’d be surprised if Ken Jarvis has suddenly become a pillar of society.’

  ‘People don’t change. By the way, do you want me to start asking round about that assault? I’ve spoken to the woman.’

  He was referring to the interview he’d just completed. A woman out walking the previous night had reported two men driving up alongside her, following her. When she noticed them she quickened her step, only to realise too late that she was headed for the primary school grounds, away from houses and safety.

  ‘Yes. Is she okay?’ Cole asked.