The Summertime Dead

by Robert Engwerda

  ‘Conor?’

  ‘That’s right. I heard that before Rosy started going out with Lee, Conor would hang around her like a bad smell.’

  ‘Did she like him?’

  ‘I got no idea. But everyone said she was too young, and so Conor didn’t even ask her out. So he said, anyway.’

  ‘Did you believe that?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Then when Lee started taking her out he got really cut about it. There was a fight one night between Conor and his brother and it was a real ding-dong, people said. I don’t know what it was about.’

  ‘But it could have been about Rosy, you think?’

  ‘It could have been.’

  ‘Did you ever see any trouble between Lee and Conor, besides the fight at the milk bar recently? Did Lee ever say anything to you?’

  ‘No, but he knew there were leeches everywhere.’

  ‘At the dance that night. You were there waiting for Lee to turn up, too, weren’t you?’

  ‘I was. But he never showed up.’

  ‘Who else did you notice? What boys?’

  ‘It’s hard to remember,’ he said. ‘Probably just the usual people. Blokes from out of town would come, too. The cannery dropkicks and pickers making trouble. Some idiots would be so pissed they’d just listen to the music from outside the hall, screaming out and carrying on, or hang around the doors like Phil Jarvis, only he’d be in his car. The Quades went to everything. Blackie would go if I went. Jackson from our cricket team. He’d just go up to anyone, ask them straight out to dance. He was keen on Rosy, too. But not everyone asked to dance. Some just went to perv. Or maybe they were too scared about getting a knockback. Like from Ruby Bunn. You know Ruby?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, if she thinks you’re a joke she’ll just tell you right in front of everyone. So they’re all too frightened to ask her out,’ he laughed. ‘She’d be the one doing the asking. But Rosy wasn’t like that.’

  ‘What about you, Trev. Did you fancy Rosy as well?’

  Boland looked away.

  ‘Yeah, I did. Full stop.’

  ‘Did you ever ask her out, before she started going out with Lee, I mean?’

  ‘No, never. I should have, maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you know a bloke called Tom Tomasulo?’

  Boland scratched his head. ‘The name rings a bell, but I can’t say I know him,’ he answered. ‘It’s funny.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The detectives. They never asked me any of this.’

  ‘No, I guess they wouldn’t. Anyway, thanks for your time.’

  *

  At lunchtime Cole took a break from the station and was taking in the shade offered by the store awnings on Main Street when he watched Fielder’s car glide slowly by, the detectives in a loud, ebullient mood. They didn’t notice him.

  Cole stopped by the London Milk Bar.

  Four high-school kids at a table, pushing straws around their soft drinks, were made uneasy by his arrival.

  ‘It’s heating up again,’ Cole observed to Jack Bunn.

  ‘You can get it in March,’ Bunn said.

  ‘We’ve run out of milk at the station. Any chance of getting a bottle?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Bunn said, heading out the back.

  ‘I might have a Coke while I’m here too, please Jack,’ Cole said when the proprietor reappeared.

  The man sighed, as if customers were nothing more than a necessary imposition, while Cole sat down at one of the Laminex tables, idly trying to follow the marbled patterning of its surface, and vaguely listening to the teenagers before Bunn brought his drink to the table.

  The proprietor wiped his hands on his apron, glancing out the window to the street.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s getting hot again isn’t it? I thought we were all done with it.’

  But Cole saw he had something else on his mind, the way he lingered.

  ‘Everything going alright here, Jack?’

  The milk bar owner glanced out the window again. He lowered his voice.

  ‘I don’t know, Lloyd. It might be alright, or I might be making something out of nothing, but I don’t’ know.’

  ‘What is it?’

  He glanced toward the door this time, but no one was coming in.

  ‘Ruby,’ he answered. ‘Something happened to her, but I don’t know what. One day she was as good as gold and then …’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Maybe a week ago, Lloyd. Maybe a bit less. Right out of the blue she changed just like that.’

  He snapped his fingers.

  ‘And she hasn’t told you anything?’

  ‘She won’t. I saw a bruise on her face, but she said it was just an accident. And it could’ve been but …’

  ‘But you don’t think it was?’

  ‘No. If it was just a bruise it was just a bruise and it wouldn’t have changed anything for her. But she’s different now, not my Ruby. I can hardly get her to come into the shop to work, Lloyd. She won’t speak. Something bad happened to her. I just know it.’

  Cole remembered Ray Furnell speaking about his son before he took his life, and now Jack Bunn was telling him this story with the same feeling and conviction.

  ‘Do you want me to talk to her?’

  ‘I don’t think she’d talk to anyone at the moment. I could ask, but I don’t think she would. Not the way she is right now.’

  ‘Maybe we need to give her a few more days to settle down a bit then.’ He drank from his Coke. ‘Can you think of any reason why she might have changed in that way? Anything at all? A fight with a boyfriend or girlfriend? Kids can be cruel.’

  ‘She hasn’t got a boyfriend at the moment. Says she’s going to wait till she gets to Melbourne to find a decent one.’ He shook his head wryly. ‘But what can you believe about what kids tell you these days?’

  ‘Maybe more than you think. What about I drop by one evening soon? Maybe in a couple of days? Ruby might be ready to talk then.’

  Bunn stood as if weighing it up, his gaze turning to the street again and then back on Cole.

  ‘Alright. Thanks. I appreciate that, Lloyd.’

  Chapter 39

  Summer hung on in a final, desultory blast that had sparrows flitting for the shade of shop verandas, and every single plant wilting and ready to give up.

  At the station, too, they were prickly. Janice was fossicking about for something on the police station’s front counter, lifting and dumping a stack of files, and checking notes impaled on a metal spike.

  ‘How about you all put your stuff away as soon as you get it, rather then wait for me to do it?’ she called out crossly to anyone in earshot.

  ‘None of it’s mine,’ Cole told her.

  ‘Nor mine,’ Holloway muttered.

  ‘Ah, those constables!’ she exclaimed. ‘Young people always think someone else will clean up after them.’

  ‘And if you do it, they’ll keep on doing it, too,’ Cole said.

  ‘And that’s alright if you want to live in a pigsty in the meantime, mister,’ Janice said. ‘Which I don’t.’

  ‘Are you annoyed about something?’

  She turned on her heel. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I am. You know you asked me to look into Amy Bridges’ adoption? Well, have you ever tried spitting into the wind?’

  ‘Not lately.’

  ‘Neither have I. But that’s what it felt like trying to find out anything on that girl. The only place I got was pretty much nowhere.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘Just about. Her mother and father lived in Melbourne. I gather they were young and unmarried. When the baby was born it was given to a Catholic order, who looked after it for a few months before adopting the poor kid out.’
/>
  ‘To the Bridges.’

  ‘To the Bridges. So Mrs Bridges is right about that aspect. It was all above board. But the Micks wouldn’t tell me anything about Amy’s natural parents, no matter which way I went about it. The girl is dead, Lloyd. Wouldn’t you think her real mother should know?’

  ‘I suppose that’s what Coral Bridges thinks she is. You couldn’t grieve for a child any more than she has. Did they give you an adoption date? There wouldn’t have been any harm in doing that, surely?’

  ‘No. Yes. I’ve got it.’ She rummaged about for a piece of paper on her desk. ‘The first of May, 1947.’

  ‘Thanks. The new detectives will want all we can give them on Amy. You wouldn’t expect her family had anything to do it, but stranger things have happened. Not the mother, I’d never consider her. But who knows about her husband?’

  ‘Not I, said fly.’

  ‘Nor me. And that’s why I’m going to see him.’

  He was disappointed Janice hadn’t been able to uncover more, but understood secrecy born out of shame where adoptions were concerned. And his own investigation into the Mossberg .22 from the weapons cupboard had also produced indifferent results. According to the testing report, there was some evidence of the rifle being fired, probably within the last year or so, but no date could be attached to it with any certainty. There were no fingerprints except for very recent ones, all of a set, most likely his own. Nothing that matched anything on file.

  So another dead-end, he thought. He’d have to go through the station staff one-by-one and ask them if they’d used the rifle recently.

  He’d had a brief word with Winston Bridges over the telephone, but was keeping his powder dry until he’d see him in person, a get-together just around the corner.

  When Terry Holloway wandered into the station still looking out of sorts, Cole pulled him aside.

  ‘How are you feeling, Terry? Coming good?’ he asked.

  Holloway mopped his face with a handkerchief. ‘It’s just this weather. I can’t stand it.’

  ‘No one can. How’d you get on with Tomasulo?’

  Holloway perked up a little at the question. ‘Quite good,’ he said. ‘At first I couldn’t find him and thought he might have skipped town, but I finally tracked him down at Carling Orchards. He’s living in a fruit picker’s hut, and when I found him he and a mate there were well on their way to finishing a dozen bottles of beer. He denied any knowledge of the knife attack, said he didn’t own a car, and had never been in a car with anyone guilty of “stuff like that”’.

  ‘Then if it wasn’t stuff like that, it was probably something else,’ Cole said.

  ‘Agreed. But I had a walk around and couldn’t see a car or anything obviously stolen.’

  ‘Keep at him,’ Cole said. ‘Attacks on women like we’ve seen are pretty rare around here. I’ve got a feeling he was one of the two who bailed that woman up. And ask her if she’s up to doing an identification.’

  He was surprised toward lunchtime when all the station staff appeared behind Janice as she jinked toward him carrying a passionfruit-topped sponge cake.

  ‘I’m just following your lead, Lloyd. I thought we should have another morning tea,’ Janice said, setting the cake down on Cole’s desk and handing him a knife. ‘You do the honours.’

  They were still standing around wiping icing from their chins when Fielder, Quattrochi and Risdale appeared.

  ‘Why is it every time there’s a party I come in on the end of it?’ Fielder said, not entirely joking. ‘Is it deliberate?’

  ‘It was a surprise,’ Janice answered, quick to defend her men.

  ‘Then I’ve another surprise for you,’ Fielder announced and Cole raised an eyebrow at Holloway. ‘Seeing that everyone appears to be here, I can tell you that the detectives here and myself are heading back to Melbourne this afternoon. Headquarters is satisfied the Quade case has come to a conclusion.’

  There was a ripple of polite applause, someone slow hand-clapping ironically, Cole detected.

  ‘And I hope that applause is in appreciation of a job well done, and not because we’re going,’ Fielder attempted a lame joke. But his sly charm no longer made any impression on the station, and no one rushed to assure him that they considered he had done his job well. ‘I’d like to thank you all for your assistance over these last weeks. It’s been a trying time for everyone but we’ve really enjoyed our time in this station with some of Victoria’s finest.’

  Rubbish, Cole thought. Just the sight of Fielder was aggravating him now, and he saw everyone around him felt the same way, too.

  But as the senior officer he was obliged to say a word or two in return, and in doing so he kept his farewells as bland as possible, and avoided paying any direct compliments to the detectives. At the conclusion of his short speech he shook each of the detective’s hands in turn while the station put their hands together in subdued applause.

  ‘Thank God that’s over,’ Cole said to Holloway after the detectives had gone.

  ‘Good riddance,’ Holloway said, but Cole could tell his mind was elsewhere.

  Holloway looked preoccupied, ill.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Constable Whittaker asked.

  ‘About?’

  ‘About everything here. The murders.’

  Cole sat down, saw a long scratch on his arm he hadn’t noticed before.

  ‘We get back to normal,’ he answered. ‘To all intents and purposes the Quade and Faraday case is closed now the official chief suspect is dead.’ He gave Holloway a significant look. ‘But we keep going about things in our own quiet way until we find out who really killed those kids.’

  Those listening murmured their approval.

  Cole told Holloway, ‘I don’t know why you keep coming in when you’re under the weather, Terry. Head off home and put your feet up. You should’ve had yourself looked at after that scrap with Ray Furnell.’

  ‘It was nothing.’

  ‘Go home anyway. It’s all the work here, we’re buried in it. Which reminds me, you haven’t used the Mossberg from the gun cupboard any time recently have you?’

  ‘No. I didn’t even know there was one there. I only ever use my service revolver.’

  ‘No worries. If no one’s using these guns I might get rid of some of them. But you take off, you hear?’

  *

  The three Melbourne detectives, meanwhile, were already packing their cases in their respective rooms at the Casablanca, Tilly Beecroft hovering by each door to make sure nothing was misappropriated.

  Gene Fielder shooed her away as he slid the records one-by-one off his stack and placed them in his case. Lucky he wouldn’t have to lug it far, he thought. The damn thing weighed a tonne. He hadn’t listened to any music the last week or so, he realised. What had he been doing nights? Except for the girl from the milk bar there had been no one for over a week now. It was out of character for him. And Audrey Holloway, she was the reason. She wasn’t answering her phone again. Nor had she dropped by. He placed the record player carefully in its case and snapped the lock tight.

  He threw the last of his things into his suitcase and gave the unit a final looking over to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. The other two men were waiting for him at the motel’s reception counter.

  ‘I hope you gentlemen enjoyed your stay here,’ Tilly said brightly.

  ‘Exceptional,’ Fielder replied.

  ‘Some of us here liked it better than others,’ Quattrochi smirked.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Dancing girls in my room every night,’ Fielder explained.

  Tilly regarded them a second before giving a quick laugh.

  ‘I see. Yes, that would be funny.’

  ‘Funnier if you knew what he got up to,’ Quattrochi told her. ‘Or if Sergeant Holloway knew.’

  They threw their room ke
ys on the counter as Fielder settled the bill.

  Outside the footpath was hot enough to fry an egg on. Fielder put his sunglasses on and they carried their luggage to the car.

  ‘Do we need to say goodbye to anyone?’ Risdale asked as they squashed their suitcases into the car’s boot.

  Fielder glanced along the street, then up at the blinding sky.

  ‘Here? No. Let’s get the hell out of here. I’m done with this place.’

  He placed the record player box alongside Risdale in the back seat and drove off, the car windows all wound down.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Quattrochi asked when they turned off the main street almost immediately.

  ‘Just making a little detour,’ Fielder said from between his teeth.

  They passed the Churchill Street sign.

  ‘Look! It’s hang-dog,’ Quattrochi cried as they saw Terry Holloway shambling along the footpath ahead of them.

  The car slowed down.

  ‘Going home early for a quicky?’ Fielder called out to him. ‘Have you put it in the book?’

  Holloway registered them, but kept on walking.

  ‘Going home to check on the missus?’ Quattrochi provoked him from his window.

  Holloway’s face turned slightly, his eyes like stones.

  ‘This town’s lucky to have you as its guardian angel,’ Fielder continued. ‘Pity you can’t look after things closer to home as well. That your house up there? Of course it is. Number 18? Nice little red couch inside there, too.’

  They laughed pitilessly at the overweight copper and his plodding gait.

  Holloway threw an arm at them as if to shove them away.

  ‘See that boys? Little Terry Holloway doesn’t want to play any more. But I know someone who does!’ he sang out to further guffaws from the other two. He called out louder, ‘Hey Holloway, you want to make sure you take good care of Audrey! If you can’t look after her someone else will. What a woman wants she gets one way or the other!’

  He turned and winked at his companions before jamming his foot on the accelerator and speeding off.

  Terry Holloway stopped, lifted his head and watched the car turn the corner and disappear. He began walking again, and kept to a slow pace until he got to his front gate.