Shattered

by Gabrielle Lord

  •

  When Angie, with Gemma close behind her, knocked on the door of the beachside flat and Jaki opened it, the ballistics officer’s sad expression brightened momentarily.

  ‘This is a nice surprise,’ she said, stepping back to allow them to come in, pulling her dressing-gown closer around herself.

  ‘It is a surprise, I guess,’ Angie said, moving into the room as Jaki closed the door. ‘But I’m sorry to say there’s nothing nice about it.’

  Gemma’s forced smile died on her lips as she saw Jaki’s expression change to bewilderment, then fear.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘If it’s about that stupid police doll,’ Jaki began, ‘I didn’t even want to report it. I should have thrown it in the bin. I don’t want any more trouble.’

  ‘Get dressed, please, Jaki,’ said Angie. ‘I need you to come with me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jaki, this is an official visit.’

  Jaki’s eyes darted from Angie to Gemma. ‘Official? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Jaki,’ Gemma said, ‘Angie wants to talk to you – about crime scene contamination.’

  ‘I want you to come with me to the Police Centre for an official interview, Jaki,’ said Angie. ‘I can’t conduct it myself because of our friendship. But I’ll sit in.’

  ‘What official interview? What are you talking about?’

  ‘The murders of Superintendent Bryson Finn and Bettina Finn. Have you anything to say about that?’

  ‘Anything to say? You bet I have!’ said Jaki. ‘This is crazy! I’m at home sick as a dog and you come here asking me about a double murder! I thought we were friends, Angie. Is there some problem with my evidence? It’s true I haven’t been working at my best. But surely this could have waited a couple of days till I’m back at work rather than you coming to my home and playing this heavy-duty cop routine. And Gemma too. I’m really hurt by this.’

  Jaki clutched the dressing-gown tighter, knuckles white. ‘And now I’d like you both to go. I can’t deal with this just now!’

  ‘You’re not getting it, Jaki,’ said Angie quietly. ‘You have to deal with it. Right now. This is not about a problem with your ballistics evidence. This is about murder.’

  Jaki blanched, and even seemed to wobble a little, unbalanced by the word.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘On the night of the murders, you were allegedly at home having a bath?’

  ‘There’s no allegedly about it! That’s exactly what I was doing. Why are you asking me all this?’

  ‘Can anyone verify that?’

  There was a silence.

  ‘I’m starting to feel really frightened,’ said Jaki. ‘What is going on?’

  ‘And as for friendship,’ Angie continued, ‘the only reason I’m here with Gemma now is because of our friendship. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been us two knocking on your door, but a couple of strangers from homicide.’

  Jaki seemed to have shrunk inside the loose gown, her dark eyes huge in the pallor of her face.

  ‘Maybe you can explain to me,’ Angie went on, ‘how your DNA came to be on the cartridge shells collected at Killara? Maybe for some crazy reason you opened the exhibit bags before they went off to DAL and handled them without proper precautions? Did you do something like that?’

  Angie’s giving her an out, Gemma thought. Although it would only serve to take the heat off for a little while. Everything Jaki said about those shells would be checked and double-checked, and breaking seals was a serious matter.

  ‘Of course I didn’t unseal the exhibit containers!’ said Jaki. ‘I had nothing to do with them! I wasn’t even there that night! What are you saying?’

  ‘Then I have to ask you again, how did your DNA get onto the cartridge shells?’

  Jaki shook her head slowly. ‘No. It can’t have. It’s not possible. It can’t be.’

  ‘Let me assure you that it most definitely is,’ said Angie, her face severe.

  Jaki backed away like a hunted creature, until she stumbled into one of her dining chairs and slowly sat on it. ‘I don’t know how that could have happened,’ she said. ‘I have no explanation. I’m completely . . . I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Angie. ‘Maybe you’ll be able to help me with another matter.’

  She whipped the copy of Police Service Weekly out of her briefcase and thrust it at Jaki. ‘Tell me about this photograph, please.’

  Jaki stared at the photograph, then pressed her lips together in a white line.

  She’s scared she’s about to cry, thought Gemma, knowing the gesture too well.

  ‘It’s just a conference photo,’ she said. ‘Someone from the magazine was taking photographs around the place. Superintendent Finn was standing with that girl from Northern Beaches and he asked me to join them.’ She passed the magazine back to Angie.

  ‘Tell me what you’re wearing around your neck in the photograph,’ said Angie, thrusting it back to Jaki again.

  ‘It’s a piece of jewellery,’ said Jaki.

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  Jaki looked from Angie to Gemma and back again. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Where did you get it?’ Angie repeated.

  ‘A friend gave it to me,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ said Jaki.

  ‘Okay. I might be able to remind you.’ Angie paused for deadly effect. ‘It was given to you by Superintendent Bryson Finn, wasn’t it?’

  Jaki looked away, stricken.

  ‘And furthermore, a similar heart was found in the picnic grounds at the end of a bush trail that leads to the house where Bryson Finn and Bettina Finn were murdered. Damaged, but again with your DNA all over it.’

  Jaki’s face drained of blood and her eyes seemed darker and larger, staring at them like those of a terrified nocturnal animal caught in the hunter’s spotlight.

  ‘You’d better get dressed,’ Angie continued. ‘We’ll wait here.’

  As Jaki shuffled out of the living room, Gemma’s head seethed with possibilities. She recalled Jaki’s tears and distress, her sickness, the fact that she was teetering on the edge of burnout. The gift of the heart of glass. Her weight loss.

  When Jaki re-entered the room a few moments later, now wearing a grey sweater and jeans, hair brushed back, no lipstick, a dark green corduroy coat over her shoulders, Gemma asked her straight out. ‘Jaki, are you pregnant?’

  ‘What sort of a question is that?’ cried Jaki, halting mid-stride.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Of course I’m not!’

  ‘Jaki,’ Gemma continued, throwing a quick glance in Angie’s direction, ‘have you ever been to the Finn house at Killara – before the murders?’

  Jaki looked away and pulled out a handkerchief, covering half her face with it, hiding. She finally put the handkerchief away and slowly faced them again.

  Angie’s mobile rang and she turned to take the call. Gemma watched as Angie rehoused her phone before turning to Jaki again.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down and tell us the whole story?’ Angie said, pulling out a chair.

  ‘There is no story!’

  Angie regarded her steadily. ‘Jaki, it’s going to be very difficult for you from now on. That was Sean. DAL just rang him to say that your work overalls have blood spray all over them. And fragments of glass consistent with the Venetian glass beads Bettina Finn was wearing embedded in the fabric by high velocity impact.’

  ‘My work overalls? What’s that got to do with anything? I haven’t worn them for ages. And when I did, I had a disposable paper suit over them.’

  After a moment, Jaki’s face crumpled. She collapsed back onto the chair Angie had placed behind her. �
�I don’t believe this is happening!’

  Angie let her sob for a few moments, then pulled her notebook out while Jaki fought for control, finally blowing her nose and sitting up straight.

  ‘Can you explain how material from the murder scene was found on your overalls?’ Angie asked.

  ‘No! I can’t!’

  ‘Have you ever been on the Killara premises – the scene of the murders?’

  There was a long silence and Gemma heard a car outside cruise past accompanied by the sound of loud bass drums. From a long way away came the calls of squabbling seagulls.

  ‘I’ve been there on a couple of occasions,’ Jaki said finally. ‘Three times before, to be precise.’

  ‘In what capacity?’ Angie pressed.

  ‘As a visitor.’

  ‘And Superintendent Finn gave you that glass heart as a gift.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  A long pause, then Jaki said, ‘I can’t find it. It’s somewhere at work, I think.’

  She saw the looks on their faces.

  ‘You must believe me! I took it off when I was called on a job and then I couldn’t find it! I’ve never been to the picnic grounds you’re talking about. It can’t be my heart there!’

  ‘You were saying,’ Angie said, ‘that you’d visited this house three times. Were they social visits?’

  Jaki shook her head.

  ‘So who did you meet there?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘You were completely alone?’

  No response from Jaki.

  ‘Were you accompanied by Superintendent Finn?’

  Still no answer.

  ‘Why would Superintendent Finn give you a gift of Venetian glass? We were told he bought several items like that for family and friends. You’re not family – so you must be friends. Friends who meet in someone else’s house when there’s nobody home? That’s not “friends” either.’

  A long pause broken by a huge sigh and Jaki’s words tumbled out as tears spilled from her eyes. ‘It’s been hell hiding it from everyone! It’s such a relief to talk about it. Bryson and me, I mean. Pretending those crime scene photographs were just another job.’ Her voice trembled and faded. ‘Those photographs tore me to pieces.’

  ‘What was the nature of your relationship with Superintendent Finn?’ Angie asked.

  Instead of answering, Jaki, hands grasped tightly together, bowed her head.

  ‘You were lovers?’ Angie asked.

  It was a few moments before Jaki could answer. ‘It started about six months ago, when I went to the pub with him and some of the others after Skylark had pulled in a couple of drug squad detectives who’d agreed to roll over. We were celebrating. I’d never really had anything much to do with him until that day. We started talking and found we had a lot in common. He’d spent a lot of time around the Muswellbrook and Newcastle area, not far from where my grandparents had a property. We just hit it off. Then over the next few weeks, I’d find reasons to go to his office and we’d talk. I gave him a present.’

  ‘What?’ Angie’s voice was hard.

  ‘It was an enlargement of a photo taken of the group who’d met at the pub that day. One of the guys had taken some snaps and one of them was particularly good of me, and of Bryson too. I made a special frame for it. Fabric-covered. Sort of a velvety print of horses and whips and old-fashioned muzzle-loading pistols.’

  ‘You make picture frames? You sew?’ Angie looked amazed.

  ‘I’ve always loved craft. I make lots of things.’

  ‘Okay. After you gave him the present?’

  ‘He took me to lunch as a thank you, and we drank too much and ended up back at his brother’s place. He knew his brother was away and his sister-in-law was at a work conference.’

  ‘And you made love there?’ Angie asked, flinching at the question. This was about as bad as it could be, Gemma thought.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  Jaki looked away, embarrassed. ‘The first time, everywhere. We started pulling our clothes off the moment we were through the door. We ended halfway up the staircase, rolling around on that place where . . .’ Jaki’s voice broke.

  ‘You stupid, stupid girl!’ said Angie. ‘Weren’t you aware of his reputation? How could you let that happen? How could you do this? Do realise what you’ve done?’

  Gemma, surprised by Angie’s outburst, suddenly understood. Angie believed that with this new information, the career of her friend Jaki Hunter was doomed. Gemma – and Angie too, she surmised – couldn’t bear to think beyond that, to something worse – to the possibility their friend was somehow involved in the murders.

  ‘It just happened, Angie,’ Jaki whispered, her mouth trembling. ‘I fell in love with him. I couldn’t help it.’

  Gemma wriggled uncomfortably on her chair at Angie’s snort of angry derision. It was painful hearing these intimacies about Jaki and the dead man who’d been her lover.

  ‘And he loved me too!’ Jaki cried. ‘We’d meet whenever we could.’

  ‘What about your job? Don’t you know what happens to junior officers who have affairs with married superintendents? Didn’t you think about that? Have you thought about what the prosecution will say about a crime scene examiner who not only contaminated the physical evidence but was sleeping with the murder victim as well?’ Angie’s finely plucked brows were pulled together in a tight, angry line as she yelled, ‘That’s the sort of fuck-up that lets murderers walk free!’

  Jaki pressed her lips together, trying not to cry.

  ‘And you’re trying to tell me you were discreet!’ Angie continued.

  ‘But we were!’ said Jaki plaintively. ‘We swore each other to secrecy. Neither of us wanted our relationship to be discovered. And I swear absolutely no one else knew. At least, that’s what we both thought.’

  ‘Someone knew,’ said Gemma.

  ‘But I don’t know how they could! A woman rang the Finn household and spoke to Natalie. Bryson told me they had a blazing row about it and she threw him out of the house. Bryson said some bitch – that’s how he phrased it – had told Natalie about us.’

  Natalie’s version of this story may well have been correct, Gemma thought. If the anonymous caller had merely said that Superintendent Finn was involved in an affair. If Natalie had known the identity of the other woman, she’d betrayed no sign of this.

  Recalling the meeting in Angie’s office, when Natalie, Angie, Jaki and herself had pored over the crime scene photographs, Gemma asked, ‘Did you have the sense that Natalie knew you were the woman involved with her husband?’

  Jaki shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Surely she would have said something, reacted in some way when you were in Angie’s office,’ Gemma said. ‘If she knew you were her late husband’s girlfriend, don’t you think she’d say something?’

  ‘I’d say she didn’t know,’ said Angie. ‘Unless she’s the most brilliant poker player in town.’

  ‘She is,’ said Jaki, unexpectedly.

  ‘She’s what?’

  ‘A brilliant poker player. Bryson told me.’

  Angie put her notebook down and stood up, going to the window. ‘So here you are, screwing a senior officer. Did you think about what was going to happen when it all fell to pieces?’

  ‘I love him! I loved him!’

  ‘Oh please, spare me,’ said Angie, pushing herself away from the window ledge.

  Gemma thought of Angie last year, silly as a cricket, mooning over Trevor Dawson. This was a very different woman.

  ‘So you think that’s how your DNA came to be on nine cartridge shells?’ said Angie, frowning. ‘That it was transferred from the floor near the entrance ar
ea of the crime scene onto the shells that rolled there?’

  ‘That’s got to be the explanation,’ said Jaki.

  It had to be, thought Gemma. It wasn’t possible her friend could be a savage killer.

  ‘And the damaged glass heart – with your DNA showing up on it? Did you roll around in the picnic grounds too?’

  Jaki slowly shook her head. She had no answer.

  ‘What about the shell they found under the sideboard against the wall? Did the earth move when you made love? The furniture too? Because that’s the only way your genetic material could have got onto the cartridge shell under the sideboard.’ Angie was relentless.

  Jaki twisted in her seat, her arms crossed tightly, hands gripping each opposite shoulder. ‘I can’t explain. I must have touched it on the way in or out sometime.’

  ‘And the blood on your overalls? Whose blood do you think they’ll find on them?’ Angie asked.

  ‘I don’t know! I washed them at work after attending a motor vehicle accident. They should be clean.’

  Gemma’s heart sank. Jaki was in all sorts of trouble.

  ‘The prosecution will have breakfast, lunch and dinner if you give that answer, don’t you think?’

  ‘I can’t explain it! I can’t even think straight!’

  ‘Then you’d bloody better start to, girl. Look at it from my perspective,’ said Angie. ‘Or indeed the perspective of anyone investigating this case. You’ve been drifting around the place like a sick dog since the night of the murders. Once this gets out, everyone will remember how your behaviour’s changed. Your DNA is all over cartridges that were used in a double murder and the critical injuring of a little boy. There are traces of your genetic material on the doorframe near the entrance to the house. There are glass fragments embedded in your work overall. A damaged glass heart, similar to the one you say you can’t find, was found close to the crime scene and with your genetic material on it.’

  ‘It’s not mine! Mine’s somewhere at work. Just give me a chance to find it!’

  ‘You’ve got absolutely no alibi for the night of the murders,’ Angie continued. ‘I’m going to have to give evidence that you failed to show up at the restaurant where we were waiting for you. You have a prior, intimate association with the dead man. You’ve trained with weapons. You admit you’ve been to the house on several occasions before the shooting. How does it look so far?’