Sold to the Devil

by Blair Denholm

‘You’ll keep, you little smartarse.’ Fraser yanked open cupboard doors and flung their contents left and right. Cups and crockery landed on the table; some pieces bounced or smashed on the tiles. Shaw headed for the end of the short hallway without saying a word. Tracey emerged from the end bedroom, raised a lazy eyebrow in acknowledgment.

  ‘You’ve got a choice,’ said Fraser. ‘You can either hang about while we work, or if you don’t like the disruption you can make yourself scarce.’

  ‘What, leave you here unsupervised?’ said Gary. ‘You could plant anything.’

  ‘We don’t work like that in Tasmania. Unthinkable. In fact, Shaw and I are wearing body-cams. Insurance for all parties.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’d rather not take the chance. You can edit that footage later, delete, whatever. I’m sure you had it switched off while you were destroying our dishes,’ said Tracey. ‘I’m going to keep an eye on your colleague. She looks honest, but I don’t trust the police, full stop. Dylan, watch this man like a hawk.’

  ‘Gotcha.’

  A dog barked outside.

  ‘Hey, what’s that?’ said Gary, a fluttering Tally Ho stuck to his top lip.

  ‘K-9 team’s arrived.’

  ‘Nothing to see back here, sarge,’ called Shaw as she returned from the rear of the house. ‘All clear.’ She smiled in Tracey’s direction, shared the warmth with Gary. This cop was okay. Not a dick like Fraser, whose expression reminded Gary of a camel with an overbite chewing wasps.

  ‘That wasn’t a proper search, constable. I’ll go over those rooms myself in a minute.’ Shaw frowned. Gary stuck to Fraser like a rover tagging an opponent. Make the cop’s experience as unpleasant as possible.

  ‘You’re invading my personal space, move away,’ Fraser commanded.

  Gary took half a step backwards. ‘That better?’

  ‘You’re one annoying little shit, you know that?’

  ‘Listen, officer.’ Gary fought the temptation to poke Fraser in the chest. ‘You’re the one invading MY personal space.’

  Tracey nodded. ‘He’s giving you plenty of room, sergeant. Get on with it, then we can all go outside and play with the nice puppy.’ She pulled out a mobile and started filming. ‘And no more unnecessary roughness with our belongings.’

  ‘Put the phone away.’

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘I said put the phone away.’

  Tracey sidled up to Gary, squeezed tight against him. She angled the mobile to take the classic selfie with snarling Fraser as the backdrop. She turned the phone around to show the cop. ‘I’ll stop taking pictures if you promise not to smash our belongings and start treating the place with some respect. Okay? Otherwise you’re gonna be an Instagram star before the day’s over.’

  A frisson of pride zipped down Gary’s spine. His woman, handing the cop his arse. But the bluff worked. Fraser stopped breaking things, even placed items down gently on the kitchen bench. Maybe a lawyer wouldn’t be needed after all. Tracey’s vigilance was enough.

  ‘How long is this bullshit exercise gonna take? I’ve gotta drive to work in an hour,’ said Gary.

  ‘As long as we need.’

  For another ten minutes Fraser fussed around in the kitchen and lounge, pulled out every drawer, looked under the chairs, lounge, cabinets. Poked about behind the TV. He dropped a few fibres in a Ziplock bag, labelled it. Picked up a random cigarette butt and popped it into another bag.

  ‘This is a complete waste of everyone’s time, sergeant,’ said Gary.

  ‘We’ll see about that when the lab results are in. Isn’t that right, Constable Shaw?’

  ‘Yes, sarge.’ Her reply was hollow.

  The cops searched the front section of the house, then swept through the bathroom, toilet, laundry and the back bedroom Shaw had previously checked.

  ‘Okay, we’re done inside. Let’s see what the dog can find, hey?’

  A sleek German shepherd tugged hard on its lead. The handler’s cheeks puffed and his face reddened as he tried to control the excited animal. The dog pressed its nose hard to the ground as it frantically tried to lock onto a scent. Gary’s heart pounded like a pile-driver. What the hell the dog was sniffing? Its hackles suddenly rose into a canine mohawk. It’s found something! The handler unclipped the lead and the shepherd dashed into the garage. Gary’ stomach cartwheeled. Had Jordie or Shifty been careless, left behind something they shouldn’t have?

  ‘What is it, Dave?’ Fraser asked the dog handler.

  ‘Not sure. There’s some kind of white residue here.’

  The dog yelped incessantly. Gary fought for breath, thought he might faint. Dogs were much better at finding stuff than humans. This could be the end of everything. The beast tapped a massive paw on metal shelving. Fraser dabbed the spot with a cotton swab, placed it in yet another plastic bag. Shit, three plastic bags. Quite a collection forming. Whatever the stuff was, it couldn’t be drugs. Unless it was left by previous tenants, which the cops would never believe. Think of a story, quick.

  ‘If that’s drugs, it could be from a couple of weeks ago. We had a party. Some guests wandered away, came back to the house off their tits. Maybe they took something out here. Speed or whatever druggies use.’

  ‘Forensics’ll figure it out. Science doesn’t lie, unlike some people.’ Fraser scribbled in a spiral notepad, tapped it with a biro. ‘Right, a quick look around the yard and we’ll be out of your hair. Be back soon to fingerprint the joint from top to bottom. Things don’t add up with you, mate.’

  ‘You don’t scare me, Sergeant,’ said Gary. ‘Done nothing wrong, so nothing to worry about.’

  Fraser chuckled. ‘You’re one of the worst liars I’ve ever met, Wagner.’

  At just after 8 o’clock, Fraser declared the search over.

  ‘Thank God for that.’ Gary shielded his eyes as the morning sun broke through a bank of fluffy white clouds. ‘Now I’ve gotta race to work. If I get docked pay, I’ll be contacting your superiors.’

  ‘You’ve clearly got me mixed up with someone else.’ Fraser tapped in a number on his phone, pressed the device to his temple.

  ‘Oh yeah? Who?’

  ‘Someone who gives a fuck.’

  Gary gave himself a mental face-palm. Falling for that old one was embarrassing. Fraser beamed like sunshine before squawking into his mobile. He turned his back, and paced back and forth along the wire fence. ‘C’mon, Shaw. Let’s get a move on. Brandt wants us over at Acton Park.’

  Tracey tapped a fingernail on the window of the police car. Shaw wound the window down. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m curious about something. I know Tassie’s small, but after the two detectives’ visit yesterday, I would’ve expected more than three cops and Scooby-Doo landing on our doorstep.’

  ‘There’s been another murder. Bloke on a big farming property down the road. Most of our resources are attending.’

  ‘Shit. Got a name?’

  ‘Can’t say, sorry.’

  The window slid up and the police car sped down the driveway, sirens shrill enough to wake the sleeping residents of Wattle Hill.

  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ said Tracey.

  Gary nodded. ‘They’ve killed Nugget.’

  Chapter 45

  ‘Your boys did well last night.’ Brandt spoke in the pseudo-analytical tone of a commentator giving a post-match summary. ‘Playing in a semi-final for the first time in fifteen years. You must be stoked.’

  Turrell shrugged. He regarded himself a half-hearted Melbourne Demons supporter at best. A familial loyalty inherited from his father, a tyro who played three games for the seniors in the 1950s before being delisted and returning to Hobart and a boring life at the Blundstone boot factory. Turrell wanted Melbourne to win, of course, but if the team lost it was no big deal. ‘Yeah, they were on fire. Can’t wait for the semi.’ He nudged a spoon around a coffee cup.

  ‘Sydney Swans are specials this year,’ said Brandt, whose own mug bore the avian symbol of his beloved
club. ‘No one will stop ‘em.’

  ‘Love your optimism.’

  ‘Speaking of which, how optimistic are you about tracking down our killer?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The Ed Hurst case. I’m one-hundred percent certain we’ll catch the bastards who topped that bloke yesterday. We’ve got high-res images. CCTV of two guys entering the shed where the victim was shot, then running out shortly after. They look a lot like a couple of dickheads we know very well.’

  ‘Dunn and Kemp?’

  ‘Yep. Grieves won’t be getting those grubs off this time. We’ve also got a witness.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A young prospect from the Quolls bikie gang. He was having a quiet drink and overheard Dunn and Kemp plotting the deed. The two of them aren’t popular with the main gangs, running maverick drug operations in a small market. Getting those fellas banged up will see the prospect’s reputation soar with the Quolls’ senior blokes.’

  ‘Bikies aren’t the most credible witnesses with juries, but it’s something I guess. You got a copy of the video?’

  The two cops hunched around Brandt’s monitor. The footage showed two heavily built men. ‘They’re wearing balaclavas.’ Turrell clicked the mouse to stop the clip. ‘And they’re dressed like ninjas. Might be them, might not.’

  ‘Yeah. But look. See that gun? AK-47 assault rifle.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that.’

  Brandt restarted the clip. The two dark figures disappeared from view. ‘Dunn was busted for owning one of those bad boys five years ago.’

  ‘Wasn’t it seized and destroyed?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Shows he has a taste for that type of weapon. Anyway, that and the witness statements might be enough to charge the pricks. If ballistics and final forensics tick the right boxes we can start to assemble the charge sheet. But the Hurst murder, that’s gonna be harder to crack. Like to show me that report?’

  ‘Just a sec.’ Turrell pulled a briefcase from under his chair and undid the clasp. Groaning for effect, he dropped on the desk a report thick enough to frighten the life out of his paperwork-phobic partner. About a third way down the stack, a page was flagged with a yellow sticker. ‘Right, here it is.’

  ‘Fantastic.’ Brandt rubbed his palms together. ‘What exactly?’

  ‘Internet records for the last year. Pages and pages of them. All the websites he’s visited. Wanna go through it?’

  ‘Sure.’ Brandt’s glazed over. ‘But only show me what’s relevant, hey?’

  Turrell ran his forefinger down the left hand side, told Brandt what the highlighted items were. ‘As you can see, Hurst visited lots of hardcore porn sites.’

  ‘Anything that would sound alarm bells?’

  ‘Nothing illegal, but pushing the boundaries.’

  Brandt nodded. ‘What else?’

  ‘Webpages you’d expect for banking and paying bills. Googled stuff about body building, energy drinks, local politics. No suspicions search terms. Facebook and Instagram. No Twitter or other social media accounts. Mundane as mud.’

  Turrell quickly flipped through each page, which he’d marked with a range of vivid highlighter pens. Randyrooters URLs were peppered on each page of the report, but Turrell had neglected to mark the corresponding entries. If Brandt looked with even a modicum of interest at the evidence before him, he would have noticed the proliferation of lines for Randies. Turrell felt droplets of sweat running down his neck as he guided his partner through the minefield.

  ‘He seems to be a normal, red-blooded bloke who does normal stuff online. A bit of porn, but who doesn’t look at that now and again?’

  ‘Uh-huh. My missus likes looking at sex videos online, can you believe it? More than me.’

  Turrell gulped. ‘So, as you can see, there are no leads in this report.’

  Brandt folded sinewy arms across his chest. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Positive. I spent hours trawling this list last night. No patterns of odd behaviour that justify further investigation.’

  ‘What about emails?’

  Luckily, there was no connection between emails and Randies. ‘Not much. Ninety percent business related.’

  ‘And Facebook? Have you checked his profile?’

  ‘Sure have. He wasn’t a big poster. For the last year or so, once a month on average. Sometimes months between posts. He preferred Instagram, liked to follow beautiful bodies. Women with fake tans and tits, and buff blokes with bulging biceps.’

  ‘You reckon he swung both ways?’

  Turrell immediately wished he’d kept his mouth shut. ‘Don’t think so, boss. Guys like him look at other men for, ah, inspiration. They see muscly guys and try to emulate them.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Brandt didn’t sound convinced. ‘I’m going to get one of the young uniforms to look into the Instagram thing. Fitch. He’s savvy about all that shit.’

  Shit, Turrell hoped it wouldn’t go anywhere. As long as forensics kept away from Randyrooters, he’d be okay.

  ‘If this path goes nowhere, as I imagine it will,’ said Turrell, ‘what’s our next move?’

  ‘Glad you asked. Grab your jacket. We’re going to interview Selina Jarosky again.’

  ‘We know you’re hurting,’ said Brandt.

  Afternoon sunlight flooded the sitting room. It spotlit myriad dust particles suspended in the air and illuminated the tiny capillaries in Brandt’s ears. For the first time, Turrell noticed stray black hairs sprouting from his partner’s thin lobes. How had he missed that? Maybe Brandt plucked them but hadn’t done it for a while.

  ‘It must seem like we’re harassing you. But believe me, we want to find Ed’s killer as much as you do. It’s vital we catch whoever killed and…dismembered him. We can’t have evil people like that wandering the peaceful streets of Hobart. Is there anything you can think of, no matter how small, that might assist us?’

  The woman rubbed her eyes, the sclera pink. How many tears had she shed since Ed’s death? ‘I’ve told you everything I know.’

  ‘Are you sure, Selina? Sometimes seemingly insignificant details lead us to the perpetrators.’

  ‘Sorry, detective. This is, what, the third time the police have interviewed me? There’s nothing more I can add. Ed was a private person.’

  Turrell walked to the window, looked onto the street to mask his mounting anxiety. How long could she keep her mouth shut?

  ‘There’s only one problem I have, Ms Jarosky.’

  Oh-oh. Micky just swapped her first name for formal address. Not good.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t believe a fucking word!’ Brandt snatched at a magazine from the coffee table, slammed it down on an unfortunate fly. ‘Your boyfriend was having an affair with a rich old woman. Surely you knew? Must have been a slap in the face. Motive enough to have him killed.’

  Selina reached for a Kleenex, dabbed a tear from her cheek. Turrell’s Adam’s apple bobbled. Please, Selina. Stay strong.

  ‘He was Beverley Cooke’s personal trainer. I knew about the arrangement. He would’ve been mad to turn down that gig. Great for the CV. But it was purely professional. All above board.’

  ‘Bullshit. He was banging her on a regular basis. She as much as told us so herself.’

  ‘You’re the one talking bullshit, detective.’ Selina’s voice was flat as a millpond. ‘Ed had some…unusual…sexual habits that I won’t go into with you, ever, but fucking women older than his grandmother wasn’t one of them.’

  ‘If she has to testify in court, you know Bev Cooke’s going to tell the truth. I know it, you know it, Detective Turrell knows it. Right, Josh?’

  A quick glance at Selina and the tiniest head shake to assure her Brandt was playing games. No, Selina. ‘Sure.’ Time to play good cop to Brandt’s bad. ‘There’s a chance she would, yeah. But we need more than jealousy as a motive for Selina here to be a serious suspect. What about opportunity, means?’

  ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’

  �
��I’m just trying to make sure we have our bases covered. Bullying Selina’s not going to get us anywhere.’

  Brandt stood. ‘A word, detective.’ He stomped to the kitchen; Turrell followed.

  ‘What the hell were you doing back there?’

  ‘Like I said, trying to cover all bases.’

  ‘I had her on the hop, damn you,’ Brandt huffed. ‘As far as opportunity and means go, there are plenty of guns for hire in Tassie. A couple of ‘em you know well enough to send Christmas cards to.’ He paused, regained his breath. ‘Selina could have easily put out a contract on Ed.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mickey. You saw how she reacted to your tough-guy approach. Completely unruffled. I watched her face when you made the accusations. Not a blink.’

  ‘Okay, I’m going to ask her a couple more questions and we’re done. But I’m not happy about you undermining me in there. It’s not like you, mate.’

  Turrell frowned. ‘Sorry. I’ve been copping grief from Erin. You know how it is.’ Turrell knew Brandt had no idea how it was, being blissfully content in a perfect long-term marriage that defied the statistics. Perhaps that’s why he’d sympathised with Turrell over the years.

  ‘Just don’t do it again.’

  The cops returned to the lounge room, resumed their seats.

  ‘Are you going to be much longer?’ said Selina. ‘I have to get to the hospital to start my shift.’

  ‘No, just a few minutes. Does the name Dylan Wagner mean anything to you?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  Turrell detected a momentary flicker in Selina’s eyes. An almost imperceptible raising of the brows.

  ‘Come off it, Selina,’ Brandt pressed on. ‘Wagner told us he met you and Ed at a pub a few months ago.’

  ‘You must be kidding. We meet lots of people in pubs. You expect me to remember them all?’

  ‘You said Ed was a private person. Doesn’t sound like it.’

  ‘Meeting people on a superficial level in bars isn’t the same as becoming their friends. Ed was one of those guys who likes to talk to everyone.’

  ‘But there was phone communication between them.’

  Silence.

  ‘Can you explain that?’