by Kylie Kaden
The Gympie guy piped up. ‘What’s the dude allergic to? Decency?’
Laughter. But Blake wasn’t laughing.
‘Peanuts, as it turns out. Among other things.’ Miller told them. ‘Severe case, even touching them could cause his throat to swell.’ Miller turned to Blake and asked for a further document. ‘This is the forensic pathologist’s report, which basically states DNA in the bone fragment of the metatarsals found a couple of weeks after death was matched to the deceased.’
‘A peanut? You mean this prick was surrounded by enemies who knew his dirty secret, but was done over by a fucking Snickers bar? How do we know for sure it was a peanut?’
‘Other than Molly Worthington’s testimony, we don’t. There were trace elements of nut found on a trestle table in his shed, which is surprising given his allergy, but still doesn’t prove COD. Even if other remains turn up, the body would need to be pretty fresh to confirm anaphylaxis as the COD. But it’s the most likely scenario. People with pre-existing heart disease could have a heart attack precipitated by anaphylaxis. However, even microscopic evidence would only be evident if there is a period of several hours’ survival. With the decomp of the foot, that sample was impossible. So, even in light of the statements made by the local residents, the cause of death is still undetermined.’
Mason chimed in, arms folded. ‘I interviewed that doc; helped us with the foot. He’s a big unit. You don’t think he just whacked the piece of shit to death? I’ve only been a dad a few weeks but I’d be tempted.’
Blake felt this was his moment. ‘At first, but Molly saw him after the fact. His wife saw the victim alive at the scene when they left.’
The Homicide squad were silent, but Mason still looked unconvinced. ‘So, Newell, how’d his body get in the drink? The dead don’t swim, surely? Or you been watching too much Walking Dead on that iPad you take to the crapper every lunch hour?’
There were murmurings of uncommitted laughter, but not from Blake. He had this. He was in control. ‘Molly was a little hazy about that – she didn’t rule out that he might have stumbled outside the shed, trying to catch his breath. That was confirmed by another witness statement – victim last seen on his boat ramp, by his brother who happened to motor past in his tinnie. The river’s tidal, Detective. If you were a local, you’d know that. And there were about fifty boats on that stretch that night. Plenty of wash.’
Mason ignored him. ‘And the woman who saw him last called the ambos. Was she ever a suspect?’
Blake felt himself colour. ‘Molly’s seventeen, so you mean the scared, innocent kid who tried to help?’
Mason flicked over the document before him. ‘She’s seventeen – considered an adult, am I right?’
‘If you’d kept up to date on the legislation, you’d know that seventeen-year-olds are no longer tried as adults in Queensland.’ Blake took over. ‘Are you forgetting what we found on his computer? Those vile images? The statements we got under warrant from his psychiatrist of the man’s self-confessed paedophilia? There’s no doubt. She was abused by the bastard. For years. She didn’t even recognise it as abuse until recently, he’d manipulated her so systematically. And she now lives with the guilt of knowing if she’d spoken out sooner she might have prevented the abuse of another innocent girl.’
Mason pointed his index finger to the ceiling. ‘Exactly! It’d sure motivate me. Nice way to cover it up. Slip a few peanuts in his Crunchy Granola, and your little problem goes away.’ The other two detectives sniggered. It was what cops did to lessen the blow.
Blake remained firm. He was sure his case notes were rock solid, as truthful as possible, and provided a fair outcome. For everyone.
Mason wouldn’t let up. ‘And what’s this about this so-called kid being arrested for damaging property at this bloke’s place beforehand?’
Blake shrugged it off. ‘Few local kids hitting post boxes with cricket bats up and down the street. Hooliganism. Hardly murder. Look fellas, she’s a good kid who not only went to the deceased’s aid, but sought help from an adult she trusted and called an ambulance. Hardly something we can build a case on.’
‘And yet she kept quiet for months after the fact. It wasn’t till the old bird carked it and you got the phone data that she came clean. Why not come forward earlier?’
‘Ask the thousands of abuse victims who take their stories to the grave.’ Blake smacked his folder shut with a purposeful whack.
Miller looked at his watch. ‘Is there anything else? Or can we close this and get back to preventing real crimes where the grubs are still breathing?’
More murmurs. Blake breathed out.
‘Just wait.’ Mason flicked through hand-written notes. ‘We found EpiPens all over his premises. The guy was paranoid. He wore an alert bracelet. She would have known of his allergies, if she knew him as well as you say she did. You don’t think she simply failed to save his life?’
‘He has a point, Newell,’ The balding Homicide detective with the thick moustache said. ‘Lot of budget went on this bloke, to get an undetermined cause and no bastard in jail. Did you look at section 285 at all?’
‘Duty to provide necessities of life?’ Blake had looked. It was a complex case but he knew someone would bring it up, just to swing their dick around a bit. ‘Are you seriously suggesting you would consider a schoolgirl responsible for providing for the necessities of life to a grown man who had repeatedly raped her?’
Mason joined forces with the bald guy. ‘If he was incapacitated, it’s possible. If she was aware of the ramifications of her failing to provide him life-saving medical assistance.’
Blake sucked the emotion down. Shrugged like it was just another case. ‘There is no evidence of that – not enough to charge, let alone convict. And besides, it is hardly in the public interest to commit funding to go after a schoolgirl for what appears to be the accidental death of a paedophile. Even if we could convict, the lawyers would get her off and she’d be looking at a twelve-month suspended sentence. What good would that do anyone?’
Baldy nodded. He was in. He’d done this. ‘You’re probably right, mate.’
‘At the end of the day, do we want to waste any more time on a rock spider, you mean?’ Mason asked.
Blake thought of the lack of investigation into the suspicious death of his own mother – a lowlife druggo, and the care-factor the cops must have had back then. The same rationale was happening right before his eyes, but in his favour this time. Was that the justice in the system? They wanted a familiar narrative – a hero, a villain, someone to blame. When in this case, as in life, it was just a series of unfortunate accidents.
‘I mean, the paedo’s own mother topped herself. You don’t do that on a whim. Still looking into charging her other son with a Section 311.’ Blake felt for Catfish. If he had ‘assisted’ his mother’s death, it would have been out of empathy, nothing more.
Mason nodded. ‘Hard one to prove, mate.’
Baldy shrugged, ‘Not to mention it encroaching on your long-service leave.’ He started checking websites for lunch menus.
They had mentally closed this case. Blake was home.
But Mason kept talking. Kept pissing Blake off with every word. This was another reason he didn’t want to be a cop anymore; a lack of respect, and not just from outside the force. ‘Did I hear you were off on a road trip?’
‘Yep. Bought another bike. Short-wheelbase Yamaha. Going to Perth and back, a month each way oughta do it. Some space would be good.’ Blake was out of this place. Doing what he loved. Eadie had promised to take care of Newman.
‘What does your carrot-top teacher think of that? Is she up for it?’
Blake shrugged. ‘The beauty of bikes. Only room for one.’
Hannah was staying in Lago Point, where she should be.
It was the only way Molly would escape this town. This life.
Blake was glad. It was Molly’s time to get a life as much as it was his, and he’d heard through Betty Grambower that
she saw Hannah having coffee with a suave-looking, out-of-towner Blake could only guess was Molly’s real dad – the bloke who popped Hannah’s cherry. If he did see him around town, he’d buy the bloke a drink.
Baldy nodded. ‘Bachelor trip, hey? Find some Swedish backpackers on the way to stop you getting lonely?’
‘Think I’m off women for a while.’
There was a scraping of chairs and a thumping of stomachs as the men stood for lunch. Miller patted Blake on the back. ‘Righto. Where can we find a meatball sub around here?’
Chapter 39
90 DAYS AFTER THE MOON FESTIVAL
In true Worthington style, the three of them had barely mentioned what was revealed that heated afternoon weeks before. Molly still called her adoptive father ‘Dad’ (it was too early in their healing process to joke about calling him ‘Pop’), Hannah was still ‘Hannah’ – but Molly started to buckle on referring to her ‘sister’. Apart from the odd question Molly put to them, the occasional revisiting of old photographs, some passive–aggressive cold shoulders and fiery undercurrents of blame about anything other than the real issue, things had stayed much the same.
Hannah had informed Andy Gardener that he had a daughter, and despite being a complex mix of anger and shock as the details of the scandal became clearer to him, he was open to meeting Molly. By some strange twist, it turned out he’d started his own landscaping business, and had nurseries across the state.
Hannah seemed rather bouncy about the news that Andy was currently single (and by the outfit-swapping and hair-curling going on before she mysteriously ‘went out’ the night he was in town, Molly was sure her ‘parents’ were sneaking around behind her back).
Molly had tried not to get her hopes up before she met her biological father. She didn’t expect to like the guy, but when they met for coffee, she couldn’t help but feel a weird sense of connection to the complete stranger (and his succulent knowledge). In a way, they’d both been kept out of the same loop, so there was that.
Lorikeets chirped on branches in the flame tree shading the shed as the sun skulked behind the hills. Molly had coloured sticky-dots all over her arms and a line of dust striped her cheek like war paint. She flicked off a cobweb tangled in her hair when she heard a clop, clop, clop from the driveway.
Gwen was slowly making her way down the cracked path in the fading winter light. Molly felt overheated. Hot. Bothered. All of it. She hadn’t seen the old lady for weeks, not since Gwen had slipped in that little bombshell – that she had a fling with the man responsible for the death of the woman that raised her. That Gwen was with him the night of the accident, no doubt sharing the grog that contributed to the accident.
Molly hid behind the last of the boxes of Hannah’s random paraphernalia they had priced for the garage sale, but she needn’t have bothered, Gwen’s peripheral vision was so bad now she only saw what was right in front of her. While still rattled by the fact her whole world had been turned upside down since their argument, Molly’s anger had faded. Forgiveness got easier, the more she practised. And having a go-to sounding board outside her mixed-up gene pool was probably a good idea, in any case.
Hannah paused her sorting, looked over to Molly and whispered, ‘Is that her – the librarian?’
‘Yep.’
‘Thought you said she was old?’
‘She is. You all are,’ Molly said.
Gwen had on an eggshell blue coat that made her eyes look like the ocean, and brown, knee-high boots. The shade dappled on her sleek silver bob, her well-preserved skin.
She stumbled on the uneven path and Molly’s pride lost out to her concern for the old chook and she rushed up the drive. ‘Gwen?’
The visitor righted herself, and turned when she heard the girl’s voice.
Once Molly saw she was unharmed, the hurt resurfaced. She was unsure how to be now, with this woman who’d cavorted with her enemy.
Her dad appeared from the house, marching over to her and Gwen.
Molly was surprised. ‘You’re outside.’
‘Heard someone hollering at the door, earlier.’ He folded his arms and gestured to Gwen, but there was a lightness in his voice.
‘Need your vitamin D, Danny, and if you sleep all day you won’t sleep at night,’ Gwen ribbed.
Danny? Molly hadn’t been game to confront her dad about his lack of motivation. She didn’t know how far to push him, so she didn’t push at all. But he didn’t bristle when Gwen did.
Dan Worthington cleared his throat. ‘Mol, Gwen and I have been chatting and, well, if you’re serious about this study business, Gwen has offered a little cottage she rents out, down in Brissy, not far from the uni there, so it happens. The tenants are out at Christmas, just in time for next year. And I figure, since Hannah’s wound up in her old room again, two girls sharing one bathroom is going to get old, fast.’
Gwen chimed in, all business-like. ‘You’ll be doing me a favour. It’s hard to get good tenants, all that drinking they do these days. It’s not charity, though, Missy. I expect you to pay a hundred and fifty a week. Can’t leave you with all that Austudy to blow on books. And only on the condition that you let me come visit from time to time. If you’ll have me.’
Hannah’s eyes darted across to Molly’s. ‘Suits me. I’ll use your room for yoga. Unless Molly wants a roomie. Plenty of teaching positions down there.’
Molly’s heart raced. She wasn’t sure if it was exhilaration, anxiety, or both. ‘But I haven’t even thought about applying for courses.’ The possibilities made her dizzy; horticulture, veterinary science, librarianship. ‘Who says I’ll even get in?’
Gwen attempted her grumpy voice. ‘Well, you’d better, or that would leave me in the lurch. Be stuck with those scoundrels I have now, wrecking the garden.’
Molly kicked at the gravel between the driveway tracks and crossed her arms. ‘Garden?’
‘Was. Needs some fixing.’ Gwen eyes flicked over to Dan. There was interest in his eyes, and she didn’t think it was about gardening.
His brow lifted in response, and Molly saw a shine in his eyes she hadn’t seen since she’d turned her sandpit into a vegie patch in year five. It was always the way they’d relaxed together, but they hadn’t done it since.
‘I know a man who runs a nursery that might be able to help,’ Hannah added, chuckling to herself. Andy the-hot Gardener …
Gwen smiled at him, then turned to Molly. ‘We won’t fit much in that Beetle of yours, Mol. You’ll have to take my old Beamer.’
‘As in BMW?’ More secrets.
‘Thanks to my ex. Oliver was a much better writer than he was a husband. Besides, they don’t let me drive it anymore. Something about needing to see signs …’ Gwen shook her head.
Molly and Gwen stood alone – the long-limbed, glossy-haired teen and the book-hating librarian, and for the first time, they were speechless. Molly had a lot to process lately, so she’d been keeping a low profile. She’d preferred to stay home since everything came out with Blake and her history with Trevor Adler. Since the rumours about her family’s cover-up. People had looked at her strangely when she passed them their bread, but somehow one scandal had dampened the other.
Molly scuffed the driveway with her boots. ‘So, ah, how have you been?’
Gwen inspected her nails. ‘Busy. Reading mostly. You know they let you borrow twelve books at a time? And for a month! What trust the council has!’
Molly baulked. ‘You – reading?’
Gwen’s shoulders shook in a stifled laugh. ‘I’ve missed my butter chicken. The new delivery boy smells like pot, so I’ve been making soup,’ Gwen said, all serious. ‘But whatevs.’
Molly’s chin dipped. ‘My court order hours finished.’
‘You’re a seasoned, crim, I know. You never told me how.’
‘It was ages ago. Just after he retired. All the talk around town about what a great principal he was, it drove me crazy. I took it badly. Smashed in his car windows with a cricket bat.’<
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Gwen’s pale eyebrows rose to her fringe. ‘Well, I’m disappointed, young lady.’
Molly lowered her head, and Gwen tapped her arm in reassurance. ‘That you got caught.’
Molly’s shoulders relaxed and she looked up. ‘There’s a camera. Corner of Stewart and Irvine. Looks over the youth group car park. Just so you know.’
Gwen pointed to her temple. ‘I’ll keep that in mind. The way things have been ramping up lately, I might need to know the lay of the land.’ She gave a wry smile.
‘Why would you rent me a house for that cheap? You could get heaps more from a normal person.’
‘How do you know? You haven’t even seen it.’
Molly rolled her eyes.
‘That’s what friends do, isn’t it? Help when they can?’
‘But it isn’t only Dad who needs me. With your condition, how will you get around? I was, I mean, who will be your eyes?’
Molly heard a little sob coming from Gwen’s pursed lips. ‘Dr Adams has me on a trial. It looks promising. And I’ll have Penelope.’
‘Penelope?’
‘She’s six months. Beagle. They’re just training her for me now to assist around the house. She’s just adorable. You can come ’round, meet her when she arrives. I hear you might need a break from home, too.’ Gwen’s chin was high, her chest thrust out. ‘If you have time, I mean.’
She knows Hannah is my mother. She doesn’t care.
Sobs rolled out of Molly’s throat as she hugged Gwen, crushing the slight woman against her with the force of her forgiveness. The coloured dots Molly had used for pricing Hannah’s crap slipped off and stuck to Gwen’s face as if she had a polka-dot disease. After a long time, the two of them stood tall, adjusted their clothes and dried their eyes, embarrassed by the sentimentality of it all.