by Garry Disher
Right now Guthrie, leaning back in one of the armchairs, was frowning at a caricature behind Ellen’s head. Her face cleared. ‘Jack Kerouac.’
Jack Kerouac depicted in bare feet with his belongings hanging from a pole on his shoulder. ‘Yes.’
‘Tried to read On the Road,’ Guthrie said, ‘and didn’t get very far. All that spontaneous prose, drove me mental.’
Ellen glanced at her notes, compiled by Ian Judd. Guthrie was thirty-five, owned a new house on a street back from the beach between Mornington and Mt Martha, and ran an IT consultancy in Waterloo. Computer science and business studies degrees. Divorced, no children.
Now she glanced at the woman in the chair. A nervy thinness, a bony face, hair cropped more for convenience than fashion, dangly amethyst earrings, a slim, black-faced watch. Bright lipstick, a bruising eye shadow, slacks, sleeveless cotton top, expensive strappy sandals.
‘Finished?’ Guthrie said, amused.
Ellen grinned. ‘You got me.’
‘So let’s get started.’
Ellen realised that Guthrie was unlikely to become emotional or evasive. She’d be matter-of-fact; she might even enjoy the puzzle-solving aspects. She might be a godsend, but Ellen couldn’t ever be entirely sure. She’d known women who showered away the evidence and failed or delayed reporting to police, women who burned their clothing, bedding and towels afterwards, women who sold up and moved far away, women who were too frightened to close their eyes at night.
‘He was waiting—’
Ellen held up her hand. ‘Ms Guthrie, I’ll come to the details in a minute. First, we think this man has struck several times. We need to work out how he selects his victims.’
Guthrie cocked her head and thought. ‘Are they like me?’
‘Let me throw that back at you,’ Ellen said. ‘How would you describe yourself?’
‘Live alone, youngish, reasonably well off.’
‘The others are not entirely like you, in that case,’ Ellen said. ‘They live alone, more or less, they are youngish, but one of our other victims works from home, another is a shop assistant.’
‘Houses or flats?’
‘Flats, but why do you ask?’
Guthrie stared into space. ‘There are small blocks of flats all around where I live, and according to the local grapevine a few were broken into in the lead-up to my attack. What if he was in the area again, scouting around, and took a chance on my place, even though it’s a house?’
‘The investigating officers didn’t connect your case to the break-ins at the time?’
‘No. I thought I was the intended target, not my belongings. So did Judd.’
Because the other break-ins had been simple burglaries, thought Ellen. But if the householder had been a young woman, home alone at the time…
‘Were you able to compile that list I asked for?’
‘Sure,’ Guthrie said, taking a sheet of A4 typing paper from her bag.
Ellen scanned it: shops, gym, pubs, cafes and restaurants that Guthrie frequented; her medical clinic, dentist, chiropractor, physiotherapist; sporting clubs…
‘You didn’t have a sensation of being watched or followed before the attack?’
‘Not that I recall, but we’re talking six months ago. Now I feel it all the time.’
Ellen winced.
‘No approaches by strangers? Strange phone calls? Men recently met who came on too strongly or wouldn’t take no for an answer?’
‘No.’
‘Had you called in a tradie to fix your wiring or paint a room or cut down a tree?’
‘Nothing like that.’
Ellen said, ‘If you’re able, may we move on to the assault itself?’
‘You mean the rape? Sure.’
‘It was mid-afternoon, and you were at home…’
‘Normally I’d be at work, but I was home asleep after a marathon session at the dentist.’
‘And?’
‘I heard a noise. I’d taken strong painkillers and I didn’t really register the noise at first. Turns out what I heard was probably him prising open the glass sliding door that leads from my sunroom to the deck at the back of the house.’
‘You investigated.’
‘Not immediately. I was woozy. Then I wandered through from my bedroom and he grabbed me.’
‘From behind?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you ever see his face?’
‘He wore a bandana.’
‘Not a balaclava?’
‘No.’
‘So he grabbed you from behind…’
‘A strong guy, solid, taller than me. Is this what you’re after?’
Ellen, scribbling, said, ‘Go on.’
‘He had a knife.’
‘A kitchen knife? A knife belonging to you?’
‘No. A Swiss Army knife, but I wasn’t going to argue with it.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘Not at the time.’
‘We’ll come to that. He grabbed you. Then what did he do?’
‘Took me to the bedroom and threw me down on the bed.’
‘On your back? Face?’
‘On my face, and then he pulled my hands behind my back and taped them together.’
‘Where did the tape come from?’
‘It wasn’t mine. It was a broad, silvery kind of tape. I have some of that thin electrical tape, but this was different.’
It was all telling Ellen that the rapist used items he’d carried with him. If the same man had later raped Wreidt and Sligo, he’d evolved, he’d learned to use materials at hand.
‘Did you struggle?’
‘Was I supposed to?’
Ellen shook her head. ‘I was wondering about the possibility of evidence transfer or cuts and bruises.’
Guthrie laughed. ‘No such luck. I froze.’
Back in her CIU days, Ellen had interviewed a woman who’d been digitally raped on the beach at Balnarring. Summer, crowds of swimmers and sunbathers, and the woman had frozen. ‘I couldn’t move!’ she said anxiously, as if she thought she should have shouted, screamed, kicked and punched like a normal person.
‘He raped you from behind?’
‘Tried to, but then he turned me over.’
‘Tried to.’
‘I’d been in bed, wearing knickers and a T-shirt. He pulled off my knickers and tried to rape me and when that didn’t work he turned me over.’
‘That’s when you saw him.’
‘Solid, taller than me, in a black T-shirt, blue jeans and a bandana. Well, a rag of some kind. And he had a bag.’
‘What kind of bag? Tradesman’s?’
‘Adidas gym bag.’
‘Anything else about him?’
‘White, brownish hair, average length, knocked-about hands, like he did manual labour, no tatts or birthmarks that I could see.’
‘You saw his hands?’
‘He wore gloves to break in, took them off to handle me.’
‘A particular kind of shampoo or shaving lotion or—’
‘He stank a bit. His clothes. BO.’
‘And the rape?’
Guthrie curled her lip. ‘A complete fiasco, if you can call it that. He couldn’t get an erection, so he forced me to…fellate him, I believe that’s the polite term. When that didn’t work, he got riled and I thought he was going to stab me. Instead, he got the knife and started slicing off my T-shirt and then he stood back and kind of stared and tugged on himself, like he needed the visual stimulation. Then he tried again and was partly successful.’
‘He ejaculated?’
‘Yes.’
Ellen knew he had. She’d read the report: DNA had been extracted from the bedclothes. No match in the system, though.
‘After the rape, what did he do?’
‘He made me take a shower. He even reached in and washed me, which was somehow creepier than anything else he did.’
‘And then?’
Guthrie scowled a little, glancing
at Ellen’s notebook and folders. ‘You know all this, right?’
Ellen shrugged. ‘True. Sometimes people recall new details.’
‘Suit yourself. So he took me to the kitchen, all chatty, and made me a cup of tea.’
‘Still wearing his bandana?’
‘And his gloves.’
‘What did you chat about?’
‘He lectured me. How I needed to be more careful, a woman living alone. How I needed to be more security conscious, how this wouldn’t have happened if I’d been more alert.’ Guthrie paused. ‘He thinks about security matters because he’s a burglar.’
Burglar who has grafted rape onto his MO, Ellen thought.
Guthrie stared miserably at the floor. She raised damp eyes to Ellen. ‘The next day I got a text from him: We should do it again.’
‘How did he get your number?’
‘When I was trying to drink my tea he looked through my bag.’
‘Did you keep the text?’
‘This was six months ago, Sergeant Destry. I was appalled. I felt dirty. So I changed my number, changed the locks, put in a top-of-the-line alarm system. My house…sometimes it’s just that—a house, not a home.’
13
CHALLIS AND MURPHY HAD started the day with a tense exchange.
Pam, pleased with her arrest of Christine Penford, went on to tell Challis about her interview with Michael Traill, expecting him to share her outrage. But it was as if he didn’t hear what there was to be outraged about. All he said was, ‘Okay, rule him out.’
‘But he killed a man.’
‘And the courts let him go. Was there any indication he knew Hauser? Any reason he’d go back there if he did kill the man?’
‘No, but I think he’s a danger. I think—’
His voice steely, Challis said, ‘Michael Traill was found guilty by the media and a small section of the general public. The outrage went on for weeks, months. The Pope could die and receive less attention. It was unseemly. Every time I opened a daily newspaper there was another few pages and photographs devoted to the story. What story? Booker was an obnoxious drunk who did nothing for the nation but hit a ball around, and then died a stupid death. And I’m sorry to tell you this, but I’d never even heard of David Booker. Most of the population would never have heard of him. The level of media and public handwringing was disgusting.’
‘But—’
‘If you have reason to believe Mr Traill is guilty of something, follow it up. If not, leave him alone.’
THE STIFFNESS DIDN’T EASE until they’d thrown themselves into the life and times of Colin Hauser.
Hauser had a record for minor white-collar offences and an ex-wife living in Cranbourne. The ex-wife had been questioned by two detectives on Challis’s team, who reported that she had a compelling and easily verified alibi: she’d been in hospital when her ex-husband was murdered. But she might have commissioned the murder. Or, given that her ex-husband’s dishonesty seemed to be an ongoing thing, she might have had a role in it, or something more to tell them about it.
But the farm first. Murphy, driving them across country, said tersely, ‘Do you think we’ll find anything we didn’t find yesterday?’
She’s still disgruntled, Challis thought. ‘There’s always inspiration.’
She snorted.
Challis sighed, tuned her out, pondered the nature and extent of Colin Hauser’s operation. A check of serial numbers against theft reports had established that most of the vehicles and farm machinery stored in the man’s sheds had been stolen from various properties over the past six months. But Hauser was an ex-accountant jailed for dishonesty offences. How would such a man know that a particular item of farm or winery equipment was worth stealing, let alone know where it was located, and how it might be spirited away and who might want to buy it?
‘Could you start a diesel tractor, Murph?’
‘Nope.’
‘Could you fit a weed sprayer to a towbar?’
‘Maybe with some help.’
‘Could you drive a heavy transport truck?’
‘I could steer it, but that’s about all,’ Murphy said.
‘Exactly.’
Reaching the farm, they parked at the rotting house fence and got out.
‘The dogs aren’t here.’
‘RSPCA,’ Challis said.
He watched Pam swivel in the dirt, taking in the whole property. ‘Miserable place.’
‘That it is.’
She was less frosty now. ‘What if it’s simply a staging post for a larger operation? Hauser supplied the location, the sheds, but didn’t do any of the stealing.’
‘I knew there was a reason I asked you to drive me around today.’
She snorted. ‘You asked me to drive you around so you wouldn’t have to.’
‘No, it’s your brain I want,’ Challis said, striding towards the nearest shed.
The yard was still a dust bowl; today it looked churned up. Challis put that fact together with a mental note he’d made to get the stolen goods moved to the impound yard and said, ‘Oh shit.’
Murphy, too, was examining the dirt. ‘Great minds think alike, boss.’
TOO LATE.
Each shed had been broken into. Standing in the talc-like dust at the entrance to the first one, Challis took out his phone, called up the stored photos and scrolled through them. He pointed. ‘There was a Kubota tractor in that corner, a couple of mowers over in that corner.’
Leaving a rusted-out trailer and bare dirt spotted with oil.
The story was repeated at the other sheds: a second tractor missing, a Bobcat, a road grader, each of the motorboats and the Isuzu truck.
‘Clearly they came back last night, but…how did they know? The murder wasn’t on the news till this morning.’
‘Watching us?’ Pam Murphy guessed. ‘Or they saw it on-line.’
‘How did they know to look for it? Either way it’s a headache: questions to be asked, et cetera.’
‘Where did they take it all?’
‘And how, whoever they are?’ Challis said. ‘We need to hit wrecking yards, used-car yards…’
‘Gumtree and eBay and used-vehicle websites…’
‘Christ,’ Challis muttered. He glanced back at the crouching house uneasily.
Murphy followed his glance. ‘Anything wrong? You think we’ve got company?’
‘No, but if they were here at the sheds, they would have been at the house, too.’
WHICH HAD BEEN TRASHED inside. In addition to the earlier underlay of dishevelment and violation, more drawers had been upended, mattresses and cushions slit open, tins and boxes of biscuits, rice, pasta and laundry powder tipped onto the floors.
Murphy got out her phone and compared the latest damage with the previous morning’s.
‘Boss, yesterday they went through the motions. This time they were clearly looking for something. Files? Drugs? Cash?’
‘We have all Hauser’s paperwork at the station. Janine Quine logged it in.’
‘Janine,’ snorted Murphy. ‘There’s a sad case.’
Challis shrugged, having no interest in Janine Quine. He gestured at the mess. ‘The question is, a few days ago someone shot Hauser and rummaged around in his drawers and cupboards, then last night someone did all this. The same person or people? Why not search thoroughly in the first place?’
The question was partly answered when he called the crime-scene office. ‘Scobie, I need you back at the Hauser farm. We had visitors last night.’
‘I was going to call you about that, actually,’ Sutton said, and stopped.
Challis was accustomed to Sutton. Information had to be dragged from the man. ‘Oh?’
‘I’ve heard back from the lab.’
‘Scobie, I’m not getting any younger.’
‘The rifle found in that burnt Mercedes…It could be the Hauser murder weapon.’
TRAILED BY MURPHY, CHALLIS stepped out into the early summer heat, escaping the stale air and
disorder of the Hauser farmhouse.
‘Boss?’
‘Scobie thinks Hauser was shot with the rifle found in that burnt-out car last Friday.’
Murphy gazed with him into the distance. ‘They murdered Hauser for some reason, drove off and took a wrong turning. Or felt guilt-stricken and committed suicide.’
‘Both of them? In such an awful way? No. We need to know their relationship with Hauser, and with whoever was here last night.’
‘So, a large outfit.’
‘Possibly.’
‘Someone came back last night to finish off what the two fire victims failed to finish.’
‘But why leave it so long?’
Challis sighed. Just then the wind rose around them, another hot northerly, the treetops swinging violently, colliding and scraping, sounds of acute stress along with the mournful wind-rush of the tossing pines. He looked up, expecting to see limbs fall. Looked away.
‘Let’s visit the ex-wife,’ he said.
LOUISE HAUSER HAD FLED the marriage but hadn’t fled far. Cranbourne was about forty minutes’ drive from the murder scene.
In other respects, she’d moved a long way from the miserable house with its collection of sheds behind a windbreak of untidy pines. Her new place was less than a year old, in a housing tract on the western edge of the town. Clean, pale brick, tiles and glass, a cropped lawn, modest back and side fences but no front fence, a spotless car in the driveway, and the pattern was repeated from house to house, street to street. And not easy to find, every street curving, doubling back or dead-ending without logic. Even with GPS Pam Murphy swore in frustration.
The woman who answered their knock scowled, as if another disappointment had been delivered to her doorstep. ‘Whatever it is, I’m not interested.’
‘We’re the police,’ Challis said, showing his ID. ‘Are you Mrs Hauser, Louise Hauser?’
‘Not anymore. I reverted to Wignall.’
She was aged in her mid-forties, a solid woman with widely set eyes under one eyebrow, dark hair and a thrusting jaw. She wore faded yellow shorts, pale blue Crocs and a loose white T-shirt. She was leaning on a hospital crutch.