The Summertime Dead

by Robert Engwerda

  He eased the key into the same wardrobe’s lock and turned it.

  Besides new clothes that looked as if they’d never been worn, the first thing he noticed was the stack of newspapers at the bottom of the robe, the pair of scissors on top. He rifled through the papers, spied dates new and old. In places he found a hole in the newsprint where something had been cut out and it didn’t take long to locate the school project books in a drawer in the other side of the robe.

  There were newspaper clippings of the Quade-Faraday disappearances and murders. Cuttings precisely snipped from the local and Melbourne newspapers and pasted in perfect alignment into a project book. A newspaper photograph of Rosaleen Faraday with her tennis team. Another of her cut out of the Mitchell High School’s annual magazine. More snippets of her from the local paper. Photographs from the paper of other girls, pages of them, neatly cut and pasted into the book. More photographs, but real ones, including faces he recognised. Photographs that could only have come from inside people’s houses.

  ‘Let’s see what’s in this robe, too,’ Cole said as he found the other key.

  There wasn’t a peep from the mother now, but Phillip Jarvis was visibly shaking as he watched Cole open the door.

  Even after all his years in the force, life still threw him surprises, Cole thought as he opened the wardrobe door. For the robe was packed with items of perfectly hung girls and women’s clothing: skirts, dresses, tops, bottoms. In the robe’s top drawer he found undies, and bras in the one beneath it. There were stockings and white socks in the next, all neatly arranged.

  ‘Whose are these then, just an item of clothing or a keepsake of something?’ Cole asked to blank faces as he held a pair of badly stretched stockings in his hand.

  The collection of clothing also partly explained the spate of thefts from clotheslines over the last years. And also the unexplained break-ins where nothing was immediately noticed as being stolen. Then he noticed the school jumper with the sewed-in tag bearing Amy Bridges’ name. And the Glomesh silver purse tucked away under it.

  ‘I don’t know how they all got there. Some of them is mine,’ the mother said.

  ‘I bet,’ Cole said, calling Hartley back in.

  He and Hartley then went through the rest of the room together, noting but not touching other items of interest.

  ‘Make sure nothing gets moved an inch, and that these two stay here,’ Cole instructed his colleagues. ‘I’ll be back at the station for a spell, and there’s someone else we have to round up, too. When I get back we’ll take our pictures and bag up the evidence.’

  Cole walked from the house and it was only when he was back at his car that he allowed himself to breathe out properly, to absorb what he’d just discovered. There were still the murder weapons to be found, the rifle and whatever had been used to club the girls, if that weapon or weapons still existed. But what he did have was clear proof of the breaking and entering and the theft of clothing. Tellingly, he had items that had been Amy Bridges, and crucially, the silver purse she’d been carrying the day she disappeared. That in itself wouldn’t make a conviction, but it was a good start.

  He’d get Forrest to haul Tomasulo out of Carling Orchards and drop him in a cell at the station. He’d then play the fruit picker and Jarvis off against each other until whichever one took fright first. He’d press Phillip Jarvis, too, and then work on the mother. He’d have to bring the Melbourne team into the questioning, too, very soon, but before he did he wanted to go as far down the road with this as he could.

  Mitchell was beginning to stir as he drove into town. Shops were opening. Jack Bunn had his head down sweeping the footpath outside the London Milk Bar. An armoured van was collecting money from the State Bank as a gleaming new Falcon rolled along the street, the driver’s elbow jutting out the window and catching the early morning sun.

  As Cole steered his car into the station he knew he was going to have one hell of a time untangling it all, but at least he had Jarvis pinned into a corner now.

  After sending Forrest out on his errand, Cole walked by Gifford Jarvis in his cell, letting him know he was about, until after ten minutes or so he let himself into the cell.

  Jarvis was still holding his wrist and grimacing. ‘I gotta see a bloody doctor,’ he complained.

  ‘What for?’ Cole asked.

  ‘What do you fuckin’ think?’

  ‘In good time, Giff. I’ve just got a few questions to ask you first, so try to be nice.’

  ‘I’m not answerin’ nothin’.’

  ‘Number one. While you were waiting here for me to come back and see you, I made a thorough search of your bedroom.’ He watched Jarvis’s eyes widen. ‘That’s quite a collection of girls’ clothes you’ve got there, Giff. Thinking of opening a shop were you?’ Jarvis sneered. ‘Tom Tomasulo was in this with you, too, was he? You and him both in cahoots together, I suppose?’

  ‘Bullshit. I need to see the doctor.’

  ‘Where’d you get the clothes?’

  ‘Bought ‘em.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘All over. The op-shop.’

  ‘What about Amy’s clothes? You couldn’t have got them from a store. You knew her didn’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘A bit. So?’

  ‘You had her purse, too, Giff. The silver one she was carrying the day she went missing. The one Amy’s mother told me about. It’ll take her a second to identify it, so do you want to tell me how you got a hold of it?’

  He shrugged again. ‘Found it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the footpath near the footy oval.’

  ‘And her school jumper?’

  ‘The op-shop.’

  ‘And the ladies there could identify you, I suppose?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I told you I’ve been through your room. There was a lot of incriminating evidence there. Soon we’ll start pulling the whole farm apart and see what else we can find. Or would you like to tell me now where that rifle is and save everyone the trouble?’

  ‘What rifle?’

  ‘The one you shot Rosaleen Faraday and Max Quade with.’ Jarvis sniggered, as if to taunt Cole, who continued, ‘And you can help us out or not. The more you make it hard for us the harder it’ll be for you in the long run.’

  ‘I want to see the doctor,’ Jarvis said.

  ‘Soon. What about your dad, Giff? Where is he? He was let out of French Island months ago so he should be around, but it looks like he’s vanished into thin air. Hiding somewhere is he?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘Did he have anything to do with these murdered kids? If he did, it lets you off the hook doesn’t it? Unless you and him were both mixed up in it. Where is he, Giff?’

  ‘No fuckin’ idea. Probably still in gaol.’

  ‘Did you kill Max Quade and Rosaleen Faraday, Giff?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Did you kill Amy Bridges?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Cole stood with hands on hips.

  ‘I think yep, you did. I think you killed all three of them. But if you want to deny it it’s your lookout. I’d think about it though. I’d think about you trying to get yourself the fewest amount of years in gaol as possible. But I’ll find a doctor to see you here. And in the meantime I’ll bang your brother’s and Tomasulo’s heads together and see what comes out. Have a think about what I told you.’

  Cole locked the cell behind him went outside for some air.

  He didn’t immediately notice Gene Fielder leaning against a car bonnet in the morning sunshine, Fielder smoking a cigarette, a broad grin across his face.

  ‘It’s your lucky day, Cole,’ the detective said. ‘They want me to help out in the Bridges case, seeing I’m already so familiar with the town and all that goes with it. Not so great for me when I hardly got to spend a night a
t home in my own bed.’

  ‘Talk to someone who’s interested,’ Cole told him, his mood sinking at the detective’s unexpected appearance.

  ‘It’s probably opportune I’m back here, too,’ Fielder said. ‘A little birdie told me that you’re going to charge me, Cole? And for what? The wild fantasies of a teenage girl?’

  ‘What I’m going to charge you with is rape,’ Cole said, flint in his voice. ‘And with whatever else I can.’

  Fielder blew out smoke.

  ‘So, it’s personal now, you and me. Is that it? Because I ran the Furnell case to ground and you couldn’t?’

  ‘You ran nothing to ground, and before the day’s out it’ll be clear that you made a total botch of your so-called investigation,’ Cole said. ‘In the meantime, all I care is that Ruby Bunn gets looked after, by her family and by everyone else.’

  ‘No one will ever believe her, you know. Not when it’s her word against mine. A senior detective against some kid. If I were you, I’d just drop it right now and not make a bigger fool of yourself than you already are.’

  ‘You’re not me, though. And I’m pretty confident I’m not going to make a fool of myself.’ Cole pushed by him and onto the footpath, pausing at the station step. ‘You’ll see,’ he added, knowing that he had Tracey Piper’s testimony up his sleeve, not to mention the doctor’s notes and observations.

  Chapter 47

  During that day and the ones following it, Gifford Jarvis began muttering a handful of sentences after he understood his brother had let more than one cat out of the bag. It felt immensely satisfying to Cole, too, that it would be him taking Gifford Jarvis’s official statement. When Sergeant Forrest had gone to collect Tomasulo he found the fruit picker had made a break for it, Tomasulo instead being picked up by the New South Wales police while hitchhiking near Yass. When he was brought back to Mitchell he couldn’t begin talking quickly enough, especially when he was introduced to the Homicide Squad detectives, whose leader, Barrow, had liaised with his superiors in Melbourne for Fielder to be returned home.

  Cole and Barrow led the subsequent questioning and learnt Jarvis had been stealing for a long time, Tomasulo joining him during the last two summers, the pair of isolates meeting when Jarvis had been doing a day’s work on an orchard where Tomasulo worked. The latter had also admitted responsibility for the attack on the woman near her home, but claimed he thought they were only out for a scare. Jarvis’s attempt to abduct the woman had genuinely frightened him, he said, causing him to eventually take flight.

  Jarvis’s producing a knife at that scene was entirely consistent with his other behaviours, Cole realised, as Phillip Jarvis cracked under questioning and the record of his brother’s crimes unfolded. The history of Gifford’s criminality went back five years, his dark intent probably longer than that.

  Cole had been able to piece together his story bit by bit. From the time Gifford had left high school early he’d been a loner, stuck on the farm or working dead-end orchard jobs, and at the mercy of his increasingly violent father. And from there, one thing had led to another as the father had systematically brutalised the family, the only reprieve for them when he was periodically sent to prison.

  From what Cole saw inside the Jarvis house, he guessed how it had gone. Gifford saw photographs of girls in newspapers, clipped them out and made books of them. When he was driving around in town he’d see girls he thought he liked. Maybe he called out to them, or asked them if they wanted a ride in his car, his brother’s car. He probably found Amy Bridges that way and somehow got talking to her, Amy probably that naïve she couldn’t see what Jarvis was. And then as his first contact with girls tamed he needed more of a thrill, the excitement of prowling about at night and stealing clothes from washing lines. As he became more brazen he broke into homes and stole photographs, growing obsessed with them. He gathered and expanded his collection, hung the stolen clothes in his room and lived and breathed them until it wasn’t enough. Until he needed to possess those girls. He might have tried the normal way of going about things, smartening himself up and asking someone out, or going to the pictures, until those girls saw what he was and pushed him away. It would have built up in him then, leaving him stalking girls and couples like he had with Max Quade and Rosaleen Faraday, after he had been to Rosaleen’s house more than once, seeing what he could see, Jarvis jumping over back fences and lurking about the town’s fringes, the lake, until that blackness inside him, the rejections, and his father’s beatings, hauled him right over the edge.

  Despite his success in pinning Jarvis down, the pall of Terry Holloway’s tragedy weighed on him and Cole got into his car and drove to the railway station. He was the only person standing on the platform when the train pulled in.

  ‘Let me take your case, Audrey,’ he said to her as she stepped onto the platform. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘And you, Lloyd. It’s been such a shock. I don’t understand. I didn’t know he would do anything like that. You understand too, don’t you, why I couldn’t say anything to you about leaving Mitchell?’

  ‘If you’re talking about how you and Terry were in your marriage, I understand that. But maybe we should talk first, before we start running into people,’ he said.

  They sat in Cole’s car, as he recounted his trip to Euroa, Terry’s killing of the priest as he understood it, the charges laid against him, Terry’s abuse by the priest.

  ‘And you didn’t know anything about him going to Euroa and what he was planning to do?’ Cole asked.

  ‘No, nothing. I thought he was going to work. And when he left I took my chance to leave, too. Is there any chance at all he’ll get off those charges?’ she asked.

  ‘Unfortunately, no. Whatever had been done to him and others by that man.’ He regarded her sympathetically. ‘Sometimes there isn’t any justice.’

  ‘I tried to talk to him, I really did. But he’d never tell me what was wrong, ever. He never said anything. He’d put up a wall between us long ago. I knew there was something the matter with him, but I didn’t know what. And now I feel terrible about it, that I should have tried harder. Was I wrong, Lloyd? Should I have kept on trying?’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame yourself, Audrey. It was what happened to him before you even met him. You can’t punish yourself for that. And you gave him the chance to talk, even if he didn’t take it. I tried myself over the years, you know, those times when he seemed to be falling over. But some people won’t let others help them. And sometimes they don’t want to be helped. It’s not our fault, but neither was it his.’

  ‘I know whose fault it was.’

  ‘We all do now. But we couldn’t have been expected to know without him saying anything. Was he taking it out on you?’

  ‘In part he was, I suppose. But there were other things getting to him as well. The Melbourne detectives in the station.’

  ‘Is that the reason you left, because he was boiling over?’

  ‘Only in part, Lloyd. We’d had no marriage for a long, long time, and all I could see ahead of me was more of the same. I felt trapped in this town, but at the same time I was frightened we were going to move on again.’ She cut a forlorn figure, staring through the windscreen at the railway station bathed in sunshine. ‘I have no friends. I barely have any contact with people in town. I have virtually no interests or hobbies. Sometimes … sometimes I just felt like I’m shrivelling inside. I know that doesn’t count for anything in the light of what Terry’s just done, but I’ve felt miserable all the time.’

  ‘So you didn’t leave because of Gene Fielder?’

  She immediately coloured.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That was a terrible mistake. I was very stupid.’

  Cole watched her tightly gripped hands. ‘What will you do now?’

  She thought. ‘I’ll see Terry. And I’ll come back and see him wherever they’re going to put him. But I won’t come
back here to live. I guess we’ll sell this house. I’ll take the things I need back to Melbourne.’

  ‘Do you have somewhere to stay there?’

  ‘Not yet, but I’ve seen a flat advertised in Barker’s Road, Hawthorn. It’s right near the tram. I think I’ve found a job, too, or I hope I have. I’ve an interview with this firm next week. They want an office all-rounder, what you and I would call a general dogsbody. But I don’t care. I’d be happy doing anything.’

  Cole smiled. ‘That’s good to hear. Whatever happens to Terry, you deserve a fair go, too. I hope you’ll stay in touch with Nance and I, though. And stay sometimes.’

  ‘I promise I will. I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done for Terry, Lloyd. I can’t say how much. And I know it can’t have been easy for you, either. But I would like to see Terry now, I really would.’

  ‘Alright. Let’s do that now.’

  Terry Holloway was still detained at Euroa and they drove there, the Holloways spending the better part of an hour together. On the drive back to Mitchell Audrey was pensive, quiet and sorrowful. Cole noticed her eyes brimming as he left her at her house.

  ‘You’ve got to have dinner with us tonight, agreed?’ Cole said as he parked outside her house. ‘I’ll pick you up at, say, six?’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ she answered, trying to blink away tears. ‘And thank you, Lloyd. For everything.’

  ‘And if you want a hand in the house, cleaning or packing, or anything else, Nance and I are ready to help.’

  He watched her walk to the front door and let herself in, before he drove away.

  At the police station, Janice whisked up to Cole as soon as he’d sat down.

  ‘The congratulations are racking up, Lloyd. Melbourne’s been on the phone again.’

  ‘Let’s not count our chickens just yet,’ he cautioned.

  ‘So you really think that Jarvis boy is going to confess to everything?’

  ‘He will. It’s already started. I’ll get his brother in again, too. And the mother. We’ve already got enough from Phillip, and he’s busting to tell me more.’