If my hands weren’t on the steering wheel, they’d have shook. As it was, my stomach did its now-customary acrobatics while a voice inside my head kept repeating: "Why me? Oh, God, why me?"
I parked outside police headquarters, went inside and told the uniformed constable on duty I had an appointment to see Special Agent Gilroy. He picked up a phone and told the detective I’d arrived.
I paced around for five minutes, until the lift doors opened and Gilroy emerged, wearing a grim expression that would have shaken tougher men than me.
He ignored my outstretched paw and said crisply: "Thankyou for coming. Please follow me."
I desperately wanted to rebuild our rapport. But he pirouetted and headed back towards the lifts. I trotted after him.
A lift took us up to the second floor, where he guided me through a maze of corridors until we reached his small office overlooking the street. It was bare and functional as a prison cell, with grey-metal filing cabinets and a large white-Formica desk. In the middle of the desk sat a three-cassette tape machine, ready to multi-track my confession. My mood plunged through the ground floor and landed in the basement.
He pointed to a chair and asked me to sit. As I obeyed, he sat behind his desk and nodded towards the tape machine: "I hope you don’t mind me taping this conversation. I’m no good at making notes, and it may save a lot of confusion later."
You mean, at my trial? A big lump formed in my throat. Maybe I should demand to have a lawyer present. Or would that be an over-reaction?
"Sure," I croaked.
Gilroy turned on the machine and recited the date, time and place of the interview, as well as both our names. Then he looked up at me. "OK. Ready?"
Definitely not. "Yes," I squeaked.
"Good. First question: do you know a woman called Joanna Parker?"
Shit. I’d expected him to ask about Yvonne Clarke. My guts turned liquid and air burst from my lungs. Why was he asking about Joanna Parker? I knew the cops found her body that morning. Yet, surely they didn’t know I’d stumbled upon it the day before. Surely not. Christ.
So far, I hadn’t lied to him. Now, I had no choice. Trying to sound relaxed, I plunged into a dark world of falsehood.
"No," I said firmly - too firmly. "I don’t know her."
His cold, all-knowing eyes reminded me that he was no dummy. "You sure?"
"Umm, yes. I don’t know anyone called Joanna Parker. What’s she got to do with Yvonne’s death?"
Sweat soaked my undies. At least, I think it was sweat.
He said: "She was a good friend of Yvonne Clarke - and was found dead early this morning."
"My God. How did she die?"
"Someone stabbed her to death."
"Christ. And you think their deaths are related?"
"Of course. They were best friends and were both killed about the same time. What other conclusion should I draw?"
"I didn’t know her," I said determinedly.
"So you’ve never been to her apartment?"
It’s hard to talk when your jaw’s quivering. "Umm, ah, correct. D-d-don’t even know where she lives."
"Really," he said casually. "Then would you mind telling me if you recognise this item?"
He reached into his desk and took out a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside was an electronic diary which looked a lot like my diary - the one that went missing the day before.
Then, to my horror, I realised it was my diary. Bloody hell. Where did he find it? Something told me I wasn’t going to like the answer. Yet, there was no point denying it was mine.
I said: "It looks like my diary. I mean, if you turn it on, you can find out. My name will come up on the display."
"I know. I’ve already done that - and your name did come up."
"Then it must be mine. Umm, how did you get it?"
"We found it."
God, I was desperate to pee. "Ah, where?"
He leaned forward, eyes glinting. "At Joanna Parker’s apartment."
Fuck me dead. An adrenal power surge scrambled my brain and almost stopped my heart. My guts hit spin cycle.
"Shit," I blurted out.
"Yes. ‘Shit’ indeed. Can you explain how your electronic diary got there?"
"Umm, ah, umm, no. I’ve got no idea."
"Do you still claim you’ve never been to Joanna Parker’s apartment?"
"Yes," I squealed.
"Then how did your diary get there?"
Despite my terror, a small portion of my brain realised that someone stole the diary from my bureau and planted it in Joanna Parker’s apartment.
Inspector Javert here would never believe that. But I had no other excuse lined up. I tried to look incredibly sincere. "Can’t you see? I’m being framed. Whoever killed Yvonne saw, on TV, that I found her body. So before he killed Joanna Parker, he stole my electronic diary and planted it in her apartment, to make me the fall-guy."
He leaned back in his chair, looking amused: "Really? A fall-guy? How interesting. You know, I’ve been a Homicide detective for many years and I’ve never met a fall-guy - not a real one, anyway."
"It’s true - believe me."
"OK. Then how did the murderer manage to steal your diary?"
"I had it in my bureau yesterday. It was sitting on my desk. then it went missing."
"When?"
"Some time during the morning."
"So you’re saying that someone who works at Parliament House stole your diary and killed this woman?"
"Yes, I suppose."
I searched his face for some sign he believed me, and saw only unalloyed scepticism. Christ. Maybe he was about to arrest me. I looked at the tape machine, the spools turning remorselessly. Crap.
He said: "I find that very hard to believe. You want to know what I think?"
I didn’t want to know, because it would be bad news. Yet I was a moth to the flame. "What?"
"I think you killed both of those women."
For a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe, then squealed: "That’s ridiculous."
"It doesn’t sound ridiculous to me."
"Surely I wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave my electronic diary at a murder scene?"
His glinting eyes said man is a wolf to man. "Mr Ryder, I’ve been a Homicide detective for almost ten years and I never cease to be amazed at the stupidity of killers: they pawn their victims’ stuff; they boast about their crimes; they drop their wallets and business cards at murder scenes. So I have no trouble believing you dropped your diary in Joanna Parker’s apartment when you struggled with her."
I put my hands over my eyes. "God, this is a nightmare."
"I bet it is," he said unsympathetically.
"I’m telling the truth," I bleated. "Why would I want to kill those women?"
"It’s easy to understand why you killed Yvonne Clarke: you were sleeping with her and she threatened to tell your girlfriend. So you killed her. Then you claimed you found her body."
"I wasn’t sleeping with Yvonne and I didn’t kill her."
"So you say."
I saw a chink of light and rushed towards it. "Even if I killed Yvonne - which I didn’t - why would I kill Joanna Parker? What possible motive could I have?"
He shrugged. "I’m still working on that. Maybe you were sleeping with her as well - you were all involved in a kinky ménage a trois. I don’t know. I aim to find out."
"This is absurd," I wailed. "I can’t believe this is happening to me."
He stared hard. "You’d better start believing it, because I’m this close to charging you with murder."
He leaned forward and held two fingers so close together no light slipped through - zero.
I said, desperately: "But you’re not going to, right?"
"No. Not just yet. First, I’ll wait for all of the forensic and pathology reports. Then I’ll probably charge you with murder. So make sure you don’t leave town. No, on second thoughts, please do leave town. Running away is always a clear admission of guilt. It’ll ma
ke our case a lot stronger."
My tongue felt bloated and dry. I croaked, "Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere."
"Good. Now, give me all of your phone numbers - work and home - in case I want to contact you urgently."
"Urgently? Why?"
A lopsided grin. "For instance, if I decide to charge you with murder, I don’t want to muck about. I want to give you the news straight away. Remove any uncertainty in your mind, understand?"
His eyes gleamed fanatically. I tried to meet his stare, and was foiled by my fear and his stigmatism.
Numbly, I said: "Yes, of course."
With a shaking hand, I took my wallet from my jacket and promptly dropped it on the floor. I bent over to recover it and smacked my forehead on the desk, setting off fireworks in my brain. Though it was perfect slapstick, I was too terrified to laugh. "Shit," I yelled.
He looked contemptuous. "You alright?"
No, I wasn’t fucking alright - nowhere near it.
I used one hand to rub my forehead and the other to pick up my wallet. Slowly, I opened it and nervously fished out a business card, which I handed over.
He glanced at it and handed it back. "Write your home number on it."
My right hand shook so badly I wasn’t sure I could. I controlled it long enough to reach inside my jacket, take out my pen and scrawl my home number on the card. I handed it back to him.
"Thank you."
"Can I go?"
"Of course."
He escorted me out to the lifts and saw me get into one. Just before the doors closed, he stared at me. "Till we meet again."
Fuck you, I smiled.
"I will probably charge you with murder."
Those words thudded in my brain as I descended in the lift and walked out to my car. Until now, I’d never imagined I could end up in prison. After all, I was a white, middle-class professional; I had a university degree, a mortgage and a solid job. People like me didn’t get locked up. Prisons were for unlucky members of the underclass.
That glorious certainty had now disappeared, and I realised that gaol wouldn’t be some sort of monastic retreat where I could toil away on the prison memoirs of a sensitive man wrongly accused. A lascivious bikie would probably turn me into his bitch while loathing me for being so old and ugly. Kindness and respect? Forget it. Stimulating political discussions? Bend over.
When I reached my car, I crouched over the gutter and - once again - threw up. However, I’d lost my appetite several days ago and vomited many times since, so little emerged.
I staggered over to a vacant bus shelter and slumped onto the bench, wondering what to do next. I was strongly tempted to go home and guzzle another bottle of brandy. Instead, I reluctantly accepted the call of duty. If I left Michael at the helm much longer, a disaster was almost inevitable. I was also keen to find out who stole my electronic diary.
I piloted my car back towards Parliament House, wondering who swiped the diary. The perpetrator must have strolled past my bureau, seen the diary laying on my desk and stolen it. Then he took it over to Joanna Parker’s apartment and dropped it there.
However, the Press Gallery’s floor wasn’t open to the general public. Access was limited to journalists, politicians, political staffers and Parliament House employees. The killer must be one of them. So now I only had 5,000 suspects on my list, most of whom were quite capable of cold-blooded murder.
I remembered the tough looking bald guy I saw outside Joanna Parker’s apartment - the guy who avoided eye contact. Maybe he stole the diary and planted it in the apartment. Yet, I’d never seen him around Parliament House, or anywhere else.
I got back to my bureau just after lunch. Michael sat at his computer typing an e-mail, probably to his girlfriend in Tasmania. When I saw his bland countenance, I felt a surge of anger. If he’d locked the bureau’s door, like he was supposed to, the killer couldn’t have stolen my electronic diary and framed me for murder.
Why the fuck was I so nice to him? He didn’t even commend me to his dad. I constantly debased myself for no reason.
I sat at my desk. "Michael."
He glanced up, and kept typing. "Yeah?"
"Did you see anyone acting suspiciously around the bureau yesterday?"
He stopped typing and stared at me. "What do you mean, suspiciously?"
"Someone stole my electronic diary off my desk yesterday. Got any idea who might have done that?"
He shrugged complacently. "Nope."
"Did you see anyone enter the bureau who shouldn’t have?"
"No, though I was out for most of the day. Someone might have come in when I was gone."
"I know. But how could that person have got in?"
I’ll say for this for Michael: whenever he fucked up, he didn’t let it get him down. He just gave me a dopey grin: "Oh, I must have forgotten to lock the door. Umm, sorry about that."
Sorry? If I ended up spending the rest of my life in prison, it would be his fault. I wanted to reach over, grab the wispy tuft of hair that clung tenuously to his stupid fucking chin and tear it off. He was lucky I didn’t have a gun. I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself he was the boss’s son and I needed to keep working to pay for a criminal barrister. That did the trick. I frowned. "Well, don’t do it again."
"Sure thing."
Being, for the first time, the prime suspect in a murder investigation run by a rogue cop was a disorientating experience. For the rest of the day, I staggered around like a zombie. When people told me things, it was just white noise. I started doing tasks, then forgot what I set out to do. I just kept hearing a constant refrain in my head: "I will probably charge you with murder".
However, against the odds, I managed to write a story. The Bureau of Statistics released data showing another rise in unemployment. That would be big news at any time. Now, it was particularly damaging to the PM, because he was fighting for his political survival.
After the figures were released, I attended press conferences of the Treasurer and Shadow Treasurer. Not surprisingly, the Treasurer claimed a recovery was just around the corner, while the Shadow Treasurer was all gloom and doom. Afterwards, I returned to my bureau and started writing the story:
The Prime Minister’s grip on power weakened yesterday when the Bureau of Statistics released figures that showed another rise in unemployment…
I usually find it easy to write stories. I’ve even dictated some from noisy restaurants, half-drunk, under deadline pressure, without making a slip. But writing that story was a nightmare. I kept wondering if it would be the last one I ever wrote; whatever I typed turned into a meaningless porridge.
Eventually, I realised there was no point fiddling with the story any longer. Even if I got it right, the sub-editors would probably butcher it. I fired it down the wire to the Tasmanian newsroom and fled the bureau.
When I got home, I parked in the garage and turned off the engine. A huge wave of tiredness washed over me. I decided to sit in the car for a few minutes and rest. That was a big mistake, because I quickly nodded off to sleep.
I dreamt that I stood in a courtroom and Anne was the judge in a wig and gown. She scowled. "Mr Ryder, you’ve been convicted of being a cheating bastard. In view of your long history of prior offences, I sentence you to life in prison, without parole."
"I’m innocent," I wailed. "For once, I’m innocent."
She looked smug. "Keep your prison cell clean, and don’t just throw your clothes around like a slob." She turned to the Sheriff’s Officers. "Take him away."
"I’m innocent, innocent."
My head fell forward and smacked into the steering wheel. Pain lit up my nervous system. I leaned back and groggily rubbed my forehead. The pain subsided and my head cleared. My watch said I’d slept for almost half an hour. Hell. Anne would be waiting for me.
I got out of the car, still dizzy and almost fell flat on my face. I recovered my balance and walked unsteadily towards the front door.
Inside the townhous
e, Anne was chopping some beans on the kitchen bench. The nap in the car has refreshed me. Now I just felt awful.
She looked concerned. "Hello. You don’t look too good. How do you feel?"
"Shit on a stick."
"Did you see a doctor?"
I remembered I was supposed to have the flu. "No, didn’t have a chance. But I’ll survive."
She chopped a few more beans and tossed them into a pot. Casually, she said: "Have you heard anything more about that dead woman?"
I almost asked which dead woman - Yvonne Clarke or Joanna Parker? - and checked myself. "Umm, what do you mean?"
"Have the police been in touch with you again?"
"No," I lied.
She chopped a few more beans. "Oh, yeah, Rebecca called about ten minutes ago. Wants you to call her back."
As I’ve already mentioned, Rebecca was my daughter, now fourteen, the product of my one disastrous foray into matrimony.
I said: "What did she want?"
"Wants to know what time you’re going to pick her up tomorrow morning."
I usually looked forward to my fortnightly access visits to Rebecca, but had been so terrified during the last few days that I’d completely forgotten I had a daughter.
I didn’t really want to see Rebecca, or anyone else for that matter. I just wanted to sit in a dark room and feel sorry for myself. Yet, I had no choice. Even though I might be the prime suspect in a double-murder investigation, who could be arrested at any moment, I was still a dad.
Indeed, this might be my last chance to see her as a free man. A shiver ran down my spine. "OK. I’ll give her a call."
I picked up the phone and rang my ex-wife’s house. Rebecca answered.
"Hi Dad," she said, excitedly. "I saw you on TV the other night, at that woman’s house. God, how amazing, finding her body. I wanted to call you, but Mum said I couldn’t. What was it like?"
I hadn’t considered Rebecca might see me on TV. She was the last person I wanted to discuss the murders with.
Crooked House Page 8