Before It Breaks

by Dave Warner

  ‘You ever see him in any fights?’

  ‘Bit of a slanging match about the soccer once. Schultz and some Pommies were going on. His team was playing Man United or Liverpool or somebody. Otherwise he joked, kept to himself. He was liked, you know.’

  ‘He mention anything about money coming in?’

  Not to them he hadn’t. Justin couldn’t recall exactly what time Dieter Schaffer had left on the Tuesday night. Michaeley joined again and was more helpful.

  ‘Just before eleven. The girls started playing pool with a couple of locals and Schultz left.’ She hadn’t noticed anybody follow him out.

  ‘You have any CCTV?’

  ‘Not for the last month,’ offered Justin. ‘They were supposed to fix it.’

  Whoever ‘they’ were. Dieter hadn’t been killed for another twenty hours but Clement would like to have seen how he had interacted. It was annoying.

  The fish burger arrived and Clement tucked into it at a furious pace, improving his mood. It was well past five now which made it eight hours since he’d eaten. He asked Michaeley to let him know if anybody there now had been there Tuesday night. She pointed out a couple of possibles, bearded blokes in fluoro vests. Clement waited until after he had eaten before tackling them. Both said they’d been here on Tuesday but had left early for a feed in town. Neither knew Dieter Schaffer.

  Clement collected his plate and carried it back to Michaeley who was serving again. He thanked her and Justin and headed out just as a new bunch of clients arrived. These were younger, backpackers or workers at the resort. Michaeley read his mind and shook her head. They weren’t the ones from Tuesday.

  Ever since he’d left the creek Clement had been sounding his memory on old cases, looking for echoes. Now as he reached his car, something faint pinged. A sixty-three year old former music teacher who had been found strangled and mutilated in his apartment. It was violent but the scene was devoid of the presence of anybody other than the victim. The murderer turned out to be a former male student who’d been sexually abused by the teacher thirty years earlier. The killer had planned the deed in his head for many years and left not a scrap of DNA. Had his wife not realised there was something up and talked him into confessing, Clement probably would have never solved the case.

  Clement would be extremely grateful if Dieter Schaffer’s killer handed himself in but he doubted very much that would happen. If it was something personal that provoked this, it was likely the only way he would solve it was to know every dark secret of Dieter Schaffer.

  6

  It was out of peak season and the resort was sparsely populated so Clement had no trouble spotting the tourist witnesses on the patio area adjacent to the pool. None of the other guests looked like they’d venture much beyond the resort’s boundary, let alone take to the bush; for a start, they were too old. The men wore the too-neat shorts and crisp shirts of those whose idea of a holiday was a game of golf with an ocean backdrop, the women, colourful light dresses perfect for art galleries. Evan Doherty on the other hand was clothed in lived-in black t-shirt and shorts; tall, slim, studious looking, mid-thirties. The woman whom he introduced not as his wife but ‘partner’ was petite and dusky, maybe of Sri Lankan origin, guessed Clement. She was Marguerite Luskin and she also favoured shorts.

  The sun had finally had enough for the day and the heat from the paving had dulled. Clement led them to a table away from any other guests and explained succinctly that the matter was considered serious, possibly a homicide. He saw the fear in their eyes and reassured them they were not suspects, though of course he never ruled that out. Before he could get further into stride, the barista arrived, dropping a menu on the table.

  ‘Can I get you anything to drink?’

  A lilting Irish accent. By God they were everywhere now. Down in the city the gang resurfacing the road out front of his place had all been Irish, women and men. Normally Clement would forgo a coffee at these prices but he wanted to put the tourists at ease so he raised an eyebrow their way. They indicated they were fine. Clement handed the menu back and was about to say forget it but relented and ordered an orange juice. They did good fresh juice here.

  ‘Could you tell me what time you arrived at the waterhole?’

  Evan took the role of spokesman.

  ‘Just after the sun went down, six-thirty, maybe seven.’ He looked at Marguerite for support.

  ‘Around seven,’ she agreed.

  They had not seen anybody else in the vicinity though Marguerite thought she heard some faint music from a radio or iPod around the time they arrived. They had made some dinner from a small cooker they carried with them, chatted, taken a look at the waterhole but kept their distance having been warned of crocodiles. By this time it was pitch dark. They had been driving for quite a few hours and were tired so they climbed up on top of the van to sleep and had drifted off. The gunshots woke them. Evan wore a watch and was able to put the time at one-twenty. The gunshots echoed intermittently for what seemed like about ten minutes.

  ‘We’d had enough, we decided to go,’ said Evan.

  ‘I was scared,’ offered Marguerite.

  They had grabbed their sleeping bags, climbed into the van and driven off quickly. They drove all the way back to Broome and spent the night sleeping near the beach, or trying to. They’d come to the resort for breakfast and decided they should notify the police just in case.

  ‘It’s a good thing you did.’

  Clement was acutely aware of his own hypocrisy. Hours earlier he had been deriding them. Clement’s juice arrived. He gulped it and gave himself brain freeze which wasn’t helped by the bill. They were too polite to press for details on the homicide but he told them the basics, a man’s body had been found in the creek and thanks to them there’d been a relatively short time lapse before its discovery. Clement took them over it all a couple more times but without any change in their recollection. Once they were off the highway on the track heading to the waterhole they had seen no vehicles, nor did they hear any voices or splashing in the water when they were camped, just that faint sound of music. Clement scooped up the bill, thanked them for their time and took address details. They were from Melbourne, which might be tricky if they were needed for any inquest, but Clement urged them not to concern themselves with that for the time being and to try and enjoy the remainder of their holiday. What he didn’t mention was that he would check with Victorian police on their background but there was nothing about them that raised the slightest warning signal. Clement paid for the juice at the desk.

  ‘How’d you like it?’ asked the Irishman. Clement handed over a ten.

  ‘Excellent. Working holiday?’

  ‘Not much holiday.’

  The young Paddy shovelled a couple of coins back. Clement followed the path around to the front of the resort and the main reception area. Just a few hire cars and a couple of vehicles bearing Perth or interstate plates were in the neat carpark. There was little breeze but the smell of eucalypt and jasmine infused the air regardless. Clement entered through automatic doors. Large runners decorated in aboriginal motifs covered the floor of polished wood, possibly jarrah. A comfortable settee for the benefit of guests faced a coffee table. The usual tourist brochures were laid out evenly. This was the complete opposite of the Anglers. A well-groomed brunette clinging to her twenties manned the desk, her skin tanned a shade darker than her skirt and contrasting with a crisp white blouse. Her sleek neck was like the stem of a flower and was adorned by a scarf matching the skirt but highlighted by a blob of bright blue. She wore it with the aplomb of an air hostess from a different era. Clement imagined she’d keep an immaculate bathroom with an array of moisturisers and perfumes and was immediately embarrassed that if she looked at him she’d see the opposite. This was the sort of resort we should have stayed in, he thought. The only holidays he could remember were up to his cousin’s fishing shack in Lancelin, a spell at Rottnest when Phoebe was little and a small motel unit in Bunbury. The receptionist lo
oked up brightly to offer assistance. A nametag designated her as Kate. Clement announced who he was and Kate blanched through her tinted moisturiser. He reassured her he was only here for some routine questioning of her staff. He gave the names of the young women.

  ‘That would be Marie Kasprov and Rosa Figueroa. They’ll be finished for the day. We could try their bungalow. The quickest route is back through the front door.’

  She pronounced ‘route’ the American way so it rhymed with shout. She picked up the desk phone.

  ‘Shona, could you take over for a minute.’

  She led Clement back out the front door and along the paving path which curved behind the reception and office area. Evening had arrived and new fragrances were detectable even beyond Kate’s perfume. They crossed a courtyard then traversed a narrow path which bisected a screen of trees and gave onto a set of bungalows, styled as if weatherboard but actually made of some flimsier material. The washing hanging on lines and the pushbikes propped against the sides of the buildings betrayed them as staff quarters. Kate knocked on the screen door of bungalow 8. A girl with a sullen, haunted look and an unhealthy grey hue to her skin came to the door. She wore small pink shorts and a grubby t-shirt.

  ‘Hi Sherry. Are Rosa and Marie in?’

  ‘Over at Arnie’s.’

  The girl’s accent suggested somewhere like Wolverhampton. If she was curious what it was about, neither her voice nor eyes hinted at it. Kate led Clement around a corner to another set of bungalows.

  ‘We separate the single males from the single females but you know they’re going to mix.’

  The door to 12 stood open and music was playing, not overly loud. Shoes and thongs were lined up on the step. Kate rapped the door and poked her head around it.

  ‘Hi guys. Detective Clement is here to ask some questions.’

  Clement followed her inside. The living room was a reasonable size, better than what he had above the chandler. The faint odour of marijuana hung in the air with a variety of cooking smells, Clement guessing chilli con carne. It was definitely a bachelor pad. Sneakers lay scattered on the lino floor, a wetsuit was hung off a kitchen cupboard and game consoles and cigarette packets jostled each other for room on the top of a low coffee table placed before a bamboo sofa. A blonde, small and chunky without being fat, he estimated early twenties, was sitting on the floor. He guessed this was Marie Kasprov, the Pole. At one end of the small sofa was the girl he presumed was Rosa. Even younger than her friend she looked exactly how Clement imagined a young Guatemalan would, with curly dark hair and flashing brown eyes. At the other end of the sofa, a shirtless young guy with thick curly brown hair, sat with one foot on the floor and one curled up under him. Clement guessed this was Arnie. He addressed the girls who seemed too surprised to register an attitude yet.

  ‘I need to ask you some questions about Dieter Schaffer.’

  He saw confusion on the girls’ faces. He produced the photo from The Anglers.

  ‘This man. Tuesday night you were with him at the Cleopatra Tavern.’

  Now they looked really worried. He turned around to Kate, who was torn between dashing back to her post and listening to the detail.

  ‘It’s okay. I can take it from here.’

  ‘I’ll be at reception if you need me.’

  Kate vanished with the skill of somebody born to the service industry. Arnie was waiting to see if he was required or not. Clement decided to leave him there. The girls seemed very anxious but he didn’t want to reassure them yet.

  ‘You remember this man?’

  The girls nodded.

  ‘He was German,’ said the Polish girl.

  ‘Schultz they call him,’ offered her friend in less perfect English.

  Clement explained the man had been found dead the next day in suspicious circumstances. The girls appeared genuinely shocked. Arnie squeezed backwards into the sofa.

  ‘You hadn’t heard?’

  They shook their heads. They said they’d been out diving all day the previous day, a claim supported by sunburned faces.

  ‘We were with Arnie.’

  Arnie nodded. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You work here, Arnie?’

  ‘One of the gardeners.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Brazil.’

  ‘Were you at the Cleopatra, Tuesday?’

  ‘For a little while. I don’t know the guy.’

  Clement turned back to the girls. ‘Tell me how you met Schultz.’

  The girls said they had gone to the Cleopatra with Arnie and his roommate for the cheap drinks. The drinks here were too excessive for their wages. Schaffer, who they had never met before, started talking to them, seemed friendly and Marie could offer a little German to chat with him. They got to playing pool and having a few drinks. Schaffer spent most of the time asking whether they had seen kangaroos, snakes and so forth. At about ten-thirty they had said goodbye, gone and got some food from the town and then come back to their rooms around eleven-thirty. It was the one and only time they had met Dieter Schaffer.

  ‘Did you buy marijuana off him?’

  The girls denied it vociferously, Arnie squirmed.

  ‘But he offered and you smoked it with him, right? It’s best you tell me the truth. Don’t worry, I’m not interested in a few joints.’

  ‘A puff or two, that’s all.’ Living up to the stereotype, Rosa used her hands expressively.

  ‘How did he seem?’

  Happy, fun. He was quite old but he seemed in good spirits. He told them he was going fishing in crocodile territory the next day and asked if they wanted to accompany him. They politely declined but his mood didn’t change, he was still happy to talk with them.

  ‘Did he mention whether he was expecting any money?’

  Not that they could recall. He didn’t seem worried about anything and nobody else spent any time talking with him, although most people in the tavern seemed to know him.

  ‘Did any of you take photos that night?’

  Clement was aware that these days young people took photos of anything. They looked at one another trying to remember. Arnie and Marie shook their heads but Rosa wasn’t sure. She pulled out her phone and scanned through snaps. Her lips pushed out as if about to blow a raspberry.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Clement hadn’t been expecting much but wished he had been wrong. After warning he may need to speak to them again, he took his leave, picking his way back along the paths that led around the outdoor garden setting to the dining area. There he stopped cold. Marilyn was about to be seated. She was not alone. Brian was with her. He had some job that involved travelling overseas for plastics. Though he’d admit it to nobody but himself, Clement knew some vanity in him had hoped that Brian’s absence and his own presence up here might somehow tip the scales back in his favour, might awaken in Marilyn something she missed, might put them on collision course and let the Fates decide if anything came of it but since his arrival he’d rarely encountered Marilyn without her poisonous mother or Brian in tow.

  He saw Marilyn make him. She glared, whispered something to Brian, who looked over, and then she started towards him while Brian took his seat and perused the menu. He was older than Clement. Had it been cooler, Clement reckoned Brian would have had a pale-coloured knit sweater draped over his shoulders. He was that type. Marilyn glided down the terrace, a chiffon vision, all those years in private schools paying off in balance and poise. Her dress print was white with pink hibiscus. It carried echoes of early sixties but was somehow contemporary in the cut, clinging to her body just enough. Clothes liked Marilyn and vice-versa but she never ventured too far, never attempted a faux-celebrity look, she was pure style, putting the more conservatively dressed women with whom she would socialise in the shade, gliding above the nouveau riche with their gym-toned bodies the way only women born into money can.

  ‘This is getting ridiculous.’

  She wasn’t happy but neither was she as angry as she might hav
e been. Her years dealing with primary school children availed her of a number of tones to deal with him, the problem child, in any given situation. Today’s was forbearance slipped into a glove of future threat but whichever day it was, whichever particular technique employed, she never lost the ability to make him feel he’d disappointed her. He was thinking all this as he studied her hair, brown, lush, obedient, natural. She would rather have died than dyed but the cut was different to last time.

  ‘I’m working, had to interview some people.’

  The answer seemed to mollify her further. ‘What’s the case?’

  ‘Fisherman. Could be a homicide, can’t really talk about it. Shouldn’t Brian be choking on some Shanghai smog?’

  She deadpanned him. ‘He has some time off.’

  Clement hoped Brian might go swimming and be stung to death by box jellyfish. He said, ‘I like your hair. It suits you.’

  Later tonight Brian would be kissing, touching her, making love to her. He tried to bury the image. It shouldn’t affect him but it did.

  ‘Thank you.’

  He could tell she enjoyed the compliment. She offered no quid pro quo; instead she said, ‘You still picking Phoebe up Saturday morning?’

  She knew his policeman’s life well enough to understand how fluid things could be.

  ‘I’ll let you know as soon as. How did she do go on that assignment about frogs?’

  ‘Fine. She’ll tell you.’

  Code for this isn’t the time or place and stop delaying me. Brian had made up his mind, placed the menu down and stared over. She caught the look.

  ‘Take care.’

  And with that she slid back along the path to Brian and a different future. He watched her go for as long as was polite and once again wondered at the wisdom of uprooting himself for the constant reminder of what might have been. Phoebe would only spend a year or so here before being shipped off to the city for what Geraldine would consider real schooling. Then where would he be?

  He’d switched off his phone before talking with the tourists. When he switched it back on there were messages from Risely and each of his team filling him in on where they were at. Risely’s was simple: if there was any news, call him, they had to work out what to do once ‘Tomlinson and The Post came sniffing’. Tomlinson referred to Kevin Tomlinson, the editor and main reporter for the local newspaper. Graeme Earle’s message announced he was back from a successful fishing trip, had heard about the investigation and was ready if he needed him urgently. Otherwise he would be a work at seven a.m. He sounded like he’d had a few beers but was totally coherent. Clement tried to work out if he needed Earle for anything and concluded he’d be better fresh in the morning. Mal Gross called to say Jo di Rivi and Nat Restoff had found nobody at Schaffer’s shack and nothing untoward and he had directed them to head to Jasper’s Creek. The next message was from Shepherd. He and Lisa Keeble were still at the scene collecting anything and everything. Two of Lisa’s local techs had joined them. Inevitably Shepherd complained about how hungry he was. The croc guys said the creek would be ready in the morning. Beck Lalor and Daryl Hagan had arrived and would keep an eye on the scene overnight, although it was expected the Perth techs, Lisa and her team would be working it till the early hours. Clement called Shepherd back and got the latest.