Dirty Weekend

by Gabrielle Lord

‘I heard you dug up the animal pit,’ she said, anxious concern in her eyes.

  ‘And found dead animals only,’ I said. ‘But it’s these I want to know about. Have you seen them before?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, picking them up and frowning. ‘They’re Peter’s keys. I remember that red and white plastic.’

  ‘Do you know what they’re for?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ Pauline said, putting them down. ‘I just remember seeing him fiddling with them once or twice.’

  ‘Recently?’ I asked, thinking of my discarded girlfriend theory.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Just last week. That’s why I remember.’

  I gathered up the mystery keys, said goodbye and stepped outside, pleased to be out of there.

  Twenty

  Once at Forensic Services, with the bag from the animal pit duly logged, and Peter Yu’s keys on my desk, I realised I was very keen to get to work on examining the contents of the bag. Close attention to this new development in the Claire Dimitriou/Peter Yu puzzle was just what I needed to keep my mind focused. I placed the bag on the clean white paper under the bright lights and could see vague outlines of what looked like lab glassware and plastic containers. I rolled the bag over and looked closer at what the other side revealed. Pressed close to the misty plastic inside was matted fur. There was no way I was going to open this bag without full protection; I needed to head out and get the appropriate gear before I could continue further.

  Turning to leave the examination room, I saw Florence looking at me through the glass window in the door and I beckoned her in.

  ‘I was hoping you’d be in today,’ she said, as she bustled over, pushing thick hair back from where it had slipped from its tortoiseshell comb. ‘There’re a few things I need to discuss with you.’ She paused, her mouth assuming an expression of distaste. ‘I’ll get my least favourite person out of the way first,’ she said.

  I again fought the memory of the Brazilian, unsuccessfully.

  ‘Sofia Verstoek,’ she said, then, looking up at me, added, ‘What’s that strange look on your face all about?’

  I rearranged my features to business-like.

  ‘No, I’m not going to complain. I know that’s useless.’ She gave me another look. ‘Actually, it’s because I’m concerned about her. It’s true that I don’t like her, but there’s something going on. Either she’s giving money to the poor, which I very much doubt,’ said Florence with a dismissive snort, ‘or she’s paying someone off. Something’s going on with her that’s not right. I thought I’d better tell you.’

  I signalled for her to go on, genuinely curious now, not to mention concerned.

  ‘Yesterday, when I looked out and saw her, she was arguing with a man in a car and then she got in with him.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I actually thought she was going to have sex with him but she didn’t. I was working back later than usual and it must have been about dusk. I could see them quite well and they seemed to be talking and then the body language got a bit brisk. Then I saw her get out of the car, go back inside and come out again a few minutes later, and then I saw her giving money to him!’

  ‘And?’ I asked, very curious.

  ‘Nothing. He drove away. But I bumped into her in the tea room later and I could tell she was very upset about something.’

  ‘There’s no law against giving money to people,’ I said. ‘He might have been a relative. A friend with a problem.’

  Knowing, as I did, that Sofia was Blue, I was hoping this incident was connected to the share-mate group. Otherwise, there could be a very ominous reason.

  ‘It wasn’t the first time I’d seen that fellow around the place either. He’d been parked outside the wire, on the road before. Wouldn’t a friend visit you properly, at home? Not park on the roadside like some sort of mendicant?’

  It was a good point. It was essential that I discover why one of my junior analysts was giving money to a stranger and I resolved to clear it up swiftly. But right now, I could use Florence’s shrewdness in the matter of the case to hand.

  ‘Florence, you were a friend of Claire Dimitriou’s. What were your observations about her marriage?’

  Florence looked away then back at me, uneasy. ‘I feel bad talking like this, with him lying in Woden Hospital with possible brain damage. But I have to admit I’ve never liked Anthony. There’s something sleazy about him. I’ve never felt comfortable around him. Claire adored him. But once or twice she hinted to me that he wanted—you know—kinky things,’ said Florence, looking extremely uncomfortable.

  ‘Like what?’

  Florence’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘She was terrified of losing him. But he wanted to experiment—sexually.’

  It still didn’t sound to me like reason enough for murder—most men who had affairs didn’t kill their wives. Unless there was another woman involved and I made another mental note to check on this. The desire to be free of the spouse could become a folie à deux, and God knows there’d been plenty of such murders over the years—an illicit couple removing the unwanted spouse. Anthony Dimitriou had been at a conference, which could be cover for a clandestine affair. But if he’d bullied Claire into taking part as an unwilling member of the share-mates, this might go some way to explain her out-of-character blow-up with Jerri Quill. I sighed. In the murders of Claire Dimitriou and Tianna Richardson, there were just too many possibilities.

  ‘What you got there?’ Florence asked, interrupting my thoughts and indicating the plastic bag lying on the examination table.

  ‘Don’t know,’ I replied. ‘It’s something from the Ag Station that needs examining. And I’m not going any further till I’m suitably attired.’

  She picked up the mystery keys on the red and white thong. ‘I haven’t seen an old key like that for a while,’ she said. ‘What does it open?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ I said. ‘It belongs to a missing man and I don’t know what the keys are for.’

  ‘That red and white plaited thing,’ she said, putting the keys down again, ‘I’m pretty sure that’s from one of the real estate firms in town. All their keys have those tags.’

  I slipped the keys back into my pocket, grateful to Florence for this tip. It shouldn’t take me too long to find out which firm the keys belonged to and then I’d be on the way to finding the property that went with them. ‘Thanks, Florence,’ I said.

  ‘What for?’ she said.

  ‘Are you managing to get through your casework?’ I asked as we headed towards the area where the protective gear was stored.

  ‘Just. I’ve got a positive for semen from Tianna Richardson’s panties and also from the vaginal swabs,’ said Florence. ‘I’ve got them up on my screens. It’s easier if you come and see for yourself. Got a minute?’

  I nodded and followed her down to her laboratory and over to her workbench.

  ‘I’m not having a great deal of luck with this,’ she said. ‘I’ve been able to pull out one male. Whoever picked up Tianna Richardson at the nightclub had sex with her. But so did at least one other man in the last twenty-four hours before she died.’

  Tianna, you are a complicated woman, I thought. Now we had multiple contributors.

  ‘I can see spermatozoan all over the place,’ said Florence, ‘but so far, I’ve only been able to profile one individual.’

  I felt for her. It was the sort of complication that made life difficult for us. CSI never had multiple contributors to sort out. Just a nice clean, clear profile. Wham! And there was the offender.

  ‘I ran what I could isolate through Profiler Plus,’ she continued. ‘Take a look at this.’

  She touched her keyboard and a coloured DNA graph flashed onto her screen, the printer started humming and a copy of the shimmering graph spat out from the high-speed printer. I took it from her.

  ‘And this is
from the sample sent up from the Sydney Forensic Unit,’ she said, clicking her mouse and changing screens. The case number on the top of the paper—the sample from Earl Richardson, whose identity I wasn’t supposed to know—now shimmered on the screen. I peered closer at the profiled peaks and valleys of the embattled widower and convert.

  ‘And?’ I asked, picking up the print-out of the DNA taken from Tianna Richardson’s murdered body. Immediately I could see the difference.

  ‘No match,’ Florence was saying as she printed out the second profile. Except for the twin peaks at the first locus, the sex marker, there were no similarities. I wasn’t surprised. I’d hardly imagined that Tianna had set out all dressed up to make love with her estranged husband. Earl Richardson was out of the picture as far as sex with his wife was concerned. Maybe this was the genetic ID of the mystery man who used to visit Tianna and whose discreet parking hadn’t fooled the watchful Mrs Vera Hastings.

  ‘Vic’s been helping me with the tape lifts and vacuumed material from the inside of Tianna Richardson’s car. He found a quantity of fabric fibres,’ said Florence, handing me a manila folder with some photographic print-outs while she scanned the report. ‘Under magnification, these fibres have the lobed cross-section that is typical of carpet or furnishing fibres. Except they don’t match anything at Tianna’s place. Nor her car.’

  Even if the killer had used her car, I thought, it would only be after we had found him that we could check out his environment and find the incriminating object from whence the fibres had originated.

  ‘They didn’t match any of the clothing she’d been wearing either,’ Florence said, skimming Vic’s results.

  I recalled Tianna’s black and silver outfit, the old-fashioned earrings that matched the necklace we’d found in her stepson’s car and the heavy, unglamorous woollen skirt that didn’t match anything else.

  Florence hurriedly read on, turning a page over. ‘Vic goes on to say that there are indications that the fibres could have come from a tartan or chequered fabric—red and green.’ She folded the pages back down. It was a thorough report, although of little use to us just now.

  ‘Foreign fibres could have been brought in by anyone. Including her Aunt Mary,’ I said.

  ‘Or the killer,’ countered Florence.

  ‘If there’s any way of tracking him down, I’m confident you can do it, Florence. You and Vic. If the killer used her car, he’ll have left something behind.’

  ‘That’s another “if”,’ said Florence. ‘In a case full of ifs.’

  ‘I’m still hoping we get a trace of him and that he’s on record somewhere,’ I said, though I wasn’t feeling too hopeful. CrimTrak hadn’t been able to find a match on its database. The killer did not have a record. Yet.

  ‘If he’s a shedder and if he used the car, and if it’s not hopelessly swamped by everything else I’m going to find from that sample,’ said Florence, jabbing a finger at the container. ‘Tianna’s DNA is all over everything. You know how it is. If I can’t get anything clear this run, I’m going to have to send it over to New Zealand and get them to do Y-STRS. Pull out the male fraction that way.’

  Y-STRs, male short tandem repeats similar to those we already used when extracting nuclear DNA, only occured on the male chromosome. An automated system with this capacity could greatly help sorting male from female genetic material. Unfortunately, ours was still at the ordering stage.

  ‘If he’s left his mark I know you’ll find it,’ I said, moving to leave.

  Florence made a dismissive gesture with her hand but I could see she was pleased. And it wasn’t flattery. Florence was probably the best in the country.

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said, reaching over and trying to tidy up a pile of physical evidence packages. On the top, I noticed an empty package, with the serrated security seals cut through, about to fall and I scooped it back up. I read the case details upside down and the name and wished I’d been more delicate with my earlier questions.

  ‘I am sorry about Claire,’ I said, patting her shoulder.

  ‘Stop patting me!’ she said. ‘Why do men always pat people? As if they’re dogs, or horses?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, whipping my hand away.

  ‘I’m processing Claire’s samples this minute,’ she said, as the automated system hummed through its cycles, extracting genetic material from the late Dr Claire Dimitriou’s person and clothing. I wasn’t that confident we’d be able to find anything helpful. Claire’s killer had been very thorough.

  I went to leave the laboratory again but turned at the door.

  ‘Florence,’ I said. ‘Thanks—and I really am sorry about Claire.’

  She twisted around on her wheelie chair to face me. ‘So am I. She was a great researcher. That project she was developing will stall now. It could have saved billions of dollars in lost primary produce. God knows, the poor farmers round here have had it tough the last few years.’ She pulled out a man’s handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘Three weeks ago we were all dancing at the golf club celebrating Claire’s fortieth,’ Florence continued. ‘Now she’s dead and her husband is fighting for his life.’

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Florence sighed. ‘And the rabbit populations are building up again all over Australia after the calicivirus.’

  The eternal fight between virus and host, I thought, and science’s endless work to stay one jump ahead of nature herself. ‘Someone else will pick it up. Her work will go on,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe, Jack. But Claire won’t.’

  ‘If you find any semen from her case, let me know,’ I said.

  ‘Semen? But Anthony was away on the ANZFSS conference,’ she said, frowning, her face a study in concerned bewilderment.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  I watched her face as she got it and glanced over at her humming hardware. When she spoke, her voice was small and sad. ‘I’ll let you know what I find.’

  Back in number three examination room, fully suited up, I got focused on gently removing the sealing tape on the plastic bag with its murky contents. I wanted to do a good visual examination before applying anything more detailed, so I carefully opened the neck of the bag and started removing the first of the white squares I’d been able to discern through the misted plastic. Even before getting the contents all the way out, I could see straightaway that these were the first of several 96-welled plates, the sort that Dr Dimitriou’s ELISA machine used in her laboratory. In some of the wells, I could see remnants of whatever material she’d been testing. But already we had a serious problem. The plastic was buckled and distorted, as if it had come into contact with high temperatures. Even so, I hoped to be able to discover what tests Claire Dimitriou had been running through ELISA. I recalled her kind words to Kevin Waites, ‘My work is to stop them breeding, not breathing,’ as I pulled out another of the distorted ELISA plates. By rights, there shouldn’t be any pathogens involved, apart from harmless rabbit pox virus to carry the sterilising payload into the rabbits’ systems.

  I was interrupted by a loud knock on the examination room door; it proved to be Vic Agnew beckoning furiously through the window. Because he couldn’t come into the lab and I didn’t want to have to change everything to go outside and talk to him, I held up my mobile and, seconds later, it rang.

  ‘We’re hopeful of a match,’ he said, turning away from the glass window, although I could still see him talking to me. This conversation was reminding me of Jacinta and Greg when they’d first bought their own mobiles, and how they used to ring each other up from inside and outside the house. Until their first phone bills arrived.

  ‘Match with what?’ I asked.

  ‘Jane found epithelial cells. In the saliva on that half-smoked joint you picked up under Tianna Richardson’s body. It’s been amped and it’s running through Mulder and
Scully,’ he added, referring to the nickname given to the CE machine.

  If the DNA on the profile matched Damien Henshaw, I doubted if he could extricate himself. We had his bootprint at the scene and, if his DNA turned up on the half-smoked joint and his semen in the scrambled sample Florence was trying to unpick, he might even decide to plead guilty and save everyone a hell of a lot of trouble. Brian would have what he wanted. Damien might even be able to tell us something about the death of Albert Vaughan, I thought.

  I was impatient to get on with my examination. Surely Vic could have told me this later.

  ‘Gotta go now, Vic, I’m keen to get on with this,’ I said, pointing to the bag. ‘We dug it up from the animal pit out at the Ag Station.’

  The door to the examination room opened and Vic walked in.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I said, angry about the intrusion. ‘What about my sterile zone?’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about that,’ he said, pointing to the black and white striped tape that had been sealing the neck of the heavy-duty plastic bag. ‘That’s the tie from this bag, right? Jack, you’re never going to get evidence from anything in that bag. Not when it’s tied like that.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, feeling things were becoming surreal.

  ‘That tape. That black stripe on it means the bag’s been autoclaved. The tape changes colour and turns black during the process.’

  Shit! I wouldn’t be getting any information from residues in the ELISA plate wells. I’d been wasting my time.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Vic, departing.

  Nevertheless, I rolled the bag right over, tipped it gently and there they were, Claire Dimitriou’s faithful bunnies, very dead and very flattened by the pressure of their burial. For a moment all I could do was stare at the rabbits. If someone had killed them, thrown their bodies into the bag along with the laboratory glassware and ELISA plates, and then placed the whole lot in a bag to be autoclaved, the steaming heat and pressure would have sterilised everything.