by Dave Warner
‘How many do you think? One, you greedy bastard.’
Earle was the only one at work who was game enough to talk that way to him. Clement chewed into his bun. His appetite hadn’t been affected. Earle grabbed one for himself.
‘What’d he hit you with?’
‘Long handled shovel I think.’
The men chewed in silence.
‘You need to see a doctor?’
‘Think I’m okay.’
‘That nurse at the hospital will make you feel better.’
Clement suppressed a smile. ‘You call Lisa?’
‘On her way. She’s rapt with you. She’d had about ten minutes sleep she said by the time she got in from Jasper’s. You didn’t get a look?’
‘I heard a motorcycle. In the distance. I’d probably been out a few moments. How was the fishing?’
‘Three nice barra. Then I got home and heard about this shit. One or more?’
‘Just one I think.’
‘You think this is related to Jasper’s?’
Clement savoured the fresh bun. ‘We need to run Schaffer’s phone, see what might turn up.’
The sound of a vehicle arriving swung them back to the driveway. It was Lisa Keeble. Earle took a very big bite. ‘She must have had her foot to the floor the whole way.’
She pulled up hard and dust swirled. Earle watched her climb out.
‘You two should get together.’
Clement’s face was kind of numb which aided his deadpan. ‘First the nurse, now Lisa?’
‘The nurse is just a bit of divorce therapy.’ Earle’s eyes tracked Lisa as she approached. ‘You’d be good for one another. She needs to dump that no-hoper muso bloke.’
Clement didn’t mind Lisa’s boyfriend. Everybody called him Osama because of the dark beard he wore. He was a bit alternative but he had a tuneful voice. Neither man spoke as Lisa joined them. She was detachment itself as she studied him up close.
‘You should get to hospital.’
‘I’ll be fine. I want you to dust for prints inside, especially a set of drawers. There’s a long-handled shovel, DNA it, print it. The can of beer on the back veranda was me. Same for the blood on the pillow, don’t get excited, it’s mine. ’ He looked at Earle. ‘Mate, go through the place, see if there’s anything I missed. Bag all the documents in the drawers, bring them back to the station, I’m going home to change. Stay in touch.’
He turned back to Keeble. ‘Sorry to dump you in it again.’
‘It’s my job. You didn’t see your attacker?’
‘Just a blur.’
‘He heard a motorcycle leaving.’
Earle offered her the last of the buns. Lisa shook her head, Clement shook his. Earle took another large bite. Clement asked if Lisa had found anything interesting at the creek since they’d spoken.
‘Yeah, a shirt underneath the overturned dinghy. And guess what? At a rough estimate, the marks on it matched the bruising on Dieter’s body.’
‘He was wearing that when he was beaten?’
‘He was wearing that when somebody took an axe to his head. A lot of blood had washed into the creek but you could see the stains.’
Clement pondered. ‘How could he change shirts if his head was caved in?’
‘Maybe he didn’t.’
Earle spoke through masticated bun. ‘Somebody else put a different shirt on him?’
‘I think so.’
‘And then dumped him?’ He looked over at Clement. ‘Did they feel guilty? Somebody who knows him?’
Clement, thinking along the same lines, gave a thoughtful nod. ‘What else?’
‘Lots of litter, might be useful but who knows. Right out at the edge of the search area I found a space that looked like it had a car recently, empty beer cans.’
‘How recent?’
‘There was still a tiny bit of beer in the can. I’m guessing forty-eight hours. No useful tyre tracks.’
Clement asked if she had printed the cans. Naturally she had. She also thought they might be good for DNA.
‘That’s not the area I found?’
‘No. There was nothing there except the depression in the ground that indicated some sort of vehicle.’
Two cars, he thought, but no way of telling when exactly they were there. Clement asked her opinion on what might have happened, now she’d had time to sleep on it.
‘Sleep?’ she joked. Then more seriously, ‘I think he was killed with an axe or machete while he was standing near the tent. He was there for some time, bleeding into the ground. He was beaten while he was dying. When he was dead somebody changed his shirt and dragged him to the water in a tarp or something, pulled it up into the boat, drove to the middle and dumped him.’
‘You don’t think he might have changed himself like you said before?’
‘With the beating he took I doubt he could have got it off, and it would have been almost impossible to get that t-shirt on by himself. And there’s very little sign of blood on that t-shirt so the axe blow must have come first.’
‘So the killer or somebody else re-dressed Schaffer?’ Clement was trying to bend the scenario to make sense.
‘It fits.’
Clement was now thinking through the rest of the action, how the body came to be in the creek. ‘The tourists didn’t mention hearing an outboard.’
Earle said. ‘They could have been asleep.’
‘Or there was no outboard in the first place,’ suggested Keeble.
Earle didn’t buy that. ‘An experienced fisherman wouldn’t come to croc territory without one.’
Clement said, ‘Well it’s not here. So I think either it’s in the creek or somebody took it.’ He asked Keeble, ‘One or more perps?’
‘No idea. One person could have got him into the dinghy.’
Clement’s brain was fuzz. ‘Was Shep a problem?’
‘I told you, I can handle Shep. And Briony, one of the techs from Perth, is blonde and kind of cute so that got me off the hook.’
‘Where is The Walking Complaint?’ asked Earle.
Clement wished he’d taken him up on the last bun.
‘Out at the creek. I called him right after I called you. The Fisheries blokes are there too, searching the creek.’
‘Rather them than me.’ Lisa Keeble gave a little shudder at the thought.
‘Oh well, you better get on with it.’ Clement headed to his car. ‘Call if you find anything important.’
It was the sight of the chopping block and axe that stopped Clement in his tracks and had him cursing his own stupidity. It was located at the right-hand end of the veranda, with a small wood stack beneath the veranda for cover, a blue plastic tarp draped over the top as insurance against rain. Clement had missed it last night and the angle had been wrong to spy it from the veranda this morning. He advanced and checked it over. Nothing to indicate this was the murder weapon but he wasn’t thinking about this particular axe. The day before yesterday Mal Gross had been taking notes with that couple who claimed an axe had been stolen from their property. Of course it could be a coincidence but even so, Clement knew he should have thought of it way back at the creek. What the hell was happening to him?
9
It took Clement a bit over an hour to drive to his flat down at the wharf. On the way he called Mal Gross, told him what had happened and took the details of the Kellys, the couple who’d had their axe stolen. He also fed him the details on the witnesses and asked Gross to check with Victoria if they’d been in any trouble before. Any hope he would enjoy a weekend with Phoebe was fading fast. The case was too ugly and there was no clear suspect yet. As he turned his car towards the wharf, Clement called Shepherd again even though he assumed he would have phoned if there were anything to report. Shepherd told him the croc guys and techs had dragged the bottom of the creek and got nothing but crap. They had assured them there was no croc around. A couple of the guys were suiting up ready to dive. He’d call if there was anything good. He also mentioned that
he thought one of the techs fancied him.
‘Briony?’
‘How did you know?’
‘Wild guess.’
‘Did Lisa say something?’
‘Stop thinking with your prick, goodbye.’
A ute was in the space where Clement normally parked alongside the chandler’s four-wheel drive. There were no other vacant spaces so he parked in behind both cars, scrawled a note saying he would be back down in ten but was upstairs if it was urgent. He left the note on the windscreen.
Usually he bounced up the steps two at a time but not today. He showered quickly and checked the scalp laceration in the mirror as best he could. He didn’t think he needed stitches. He grabbed a clean shirt, changed jocks, climbed into his alternate suit, found a tie from the back of his chair and dashed back out to find the ute owner, a tattooed bloke with a thick neck, scowling.
‘Sorry,’ said Clement, though he wasn’t sorry at all. He’d left a note. If the bloke wanted to get out he could have climbed the stairs and asked. For an instant it looked like the bloke might make an issue of it but he held his tongue. At least I must still look like a cop, thought Clement, still pissed off at taking so long to follow up on the Kellys.
It was only a ten-minute drive to their house, an old-style fibro with tin roof surrounded by overgrown straggly garden that could almost be described as bush. Nobody was about, not only here but in the whole street. Clement made his way up the little track between almost dead grass and the more adventurous stretches of bush. He heard a radio on inside the house and knocked on a door that could have done with a lick of paint. The door swung open pretty quickly. Mrs Kelly was in a dress but wore no makeup and her hair was straggly with grey streaks, the real kind, not the whimsy of a hairdresser.
‘Mrs Kelly, I’m Detective Clement. I was at the station the other day. I believe you reported an axe stolen?’
‘Finally.’ Her hands formed a circle then dropped by her side. She called off to her left to somebody out of Clement’s line of sight. ‘The coppers have finally come about the axe.’
Her husband shuffled into view, probably not as tall as her, it was hard to tell because he was bent as if it took an hour or two in the morning before his spine warmed and unwound. He had a large forehead and was bare-chested, wearing short pyjama bottoms and slippers.
‘You find it?’
‘Not yet.’
They edged back allowing him to enter.
‘You run into a door, mate?’ asked Mr Kelly with an impish smile.
Clement didn’t bite. He scanned the small room, neat, modest, and followed the Kellys down a narrow passageway to the kitchen where the radio played. Mrs Kelly made no move to turn it down. The floor was chipped lino and it sloped.
‘Wanna cuppa?’ Mr Kelly offered. Mrs Kelly shot her husband a look that suggested he’d be making it.
‘No thanks. I wonder if you could just take me through again exactly what happened. And show me where the axe was taken from?’
‘Out the back here.’ Kelly played guide. The back door opened onto some sunken paving bordered on all sides by a jungle of a garden. Mrs Kelly took up the tale. She’d heard, or thought she heard something Sunday night along the side of the house. A sound, that was all, like somebody brushing past and the bush slapping the pipe or something. They were in bed, her husband fast asleep, but she’d woken up.
‘He’s too deaf anyway’.
‘I’m not deaf. I heard that.’
She’d sat up and listened but heard nothing more and eventually went back to sleep. She wasn’t sure of the time except that it was after midnight, which meant technically they were talking early Monday morning. It was Wednesday before they realised the axe was missing.
A small woodpile directly in front about five metres from the back door indicated where the axe had been taken from. Clement looked it over carefully trying to keep his distance.
‘Has anybody been up around here since?’
Mrs Kelly shrugged. ‘Not really. But we need the axe for the hot-water heater.’
There were marks in the dirt, no proper images of shoes or anything but Keeble might find something useful. The thief could simply have walked up the side of the house or come through the back way. Clement decided to have a look up there.
He made his way through thick undergrowth expecting to find a back fence but there was none. The boundary to the property behind was marked by a couple of small brick pillars at the extremities, beyond which the jungle-like garden stopped abruptly. The property at the back had stubble for a rear lawn and then a tumbledown fibro cottage facing the opposite direction. He fought his way back and asked the Kellys who lived there.
‘An old lady. She wouldn’t take the axe, she’s not strong enough to swing it,’ said Kelly.
‘It was normal size?’
The Kellys confirmed it was. They couldn’t recall the make or where they’d got it from but decided they’d had it longer than five years and less than ten.
‘Who would know it was here?’
‘Anybody who’s been here,’ offered Mrs Kelly.
‘Don’t have to have been here. You can hear me chopping the wood out front.’
Kelly was right, thought Clement, feeling a step behind. ‘Anybody you think might have taken it?’
Kelly put forward his wife’s cousin as a logical suspect. She thought his cousin much more likely. Clement took down their names just in case. He asked the Kellys to stay away from the back yard for now, explaining he needed to send somebody down to test for things.
‘What about our axe?’ asked Mrs Kelly.
Clement could understand her exasperation, he felt it too. ‘We’ll do our best to locate it, believe me.
Clement made it into the office to find Meg, the civilian secretary, making herself tea. She didn’t notice his battered face. Maybe she didn’t even notice him. There was no sign of any uniforms. He walked straight to Risely’s door and knocked.
‘Yeah,’ came from inside.
Clement turned the knob. Risely, close-cropped hair, still more or less brown, a bull of a man who looked your archetypal tough cop, was sitting back reading reports. So far Clement had found him calm, measured, the kind of bloke who’d long ago learned it was preferable to go around doors than kick them in.
‘Christ, what happened to you?’
Clement told him as succinctly as possible.
‘I’m the last to know, eh?’
‘It was late. I didn’t see much point.’ He explained where he’d just been and the potential lead on the axe.
‘You call Keeble?’
‘Yes, she’s getting somebody onto it. Of course it could be a coincidence.’
‘Tomlinson got wind of Jasper’s Creek and rang me last night. A possible murder is a huge story for him. I told him we weren’t sure what we were dealing with yet. He couldn’t get it in this morning’s edition. I said he could send in a photographer as soon as the area was cleared, and promised him up-to-date reports. Don’t worry, I’ll handle that. So where are we at?’
Clement listed Schaffer’s injuries. He mentioned the likelihood Schaffer had been re-dressed.
‘No sign of a wallet, a rifle or an outboard motor. Confirmation he had an outboard but they haven’t found it in the creek so far and it’s not at his house. I’d like to try and find out where he was from the time he left the Cleopatra Tuesday night till Wednesday night at Jasper’s Creek.’
‘I’ll get onto all roadhouses. He might have got petrol and they have CCTV.’
It was a good idea.
‘You’re thinking robbery?’ asked Risely.
‘Not sure. I don’t get why you shove a clean t-shirt on him and then put him in the creek.’
Risely raised his eyebrows like he couldn’t explain that either. ‘He had dope plants there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘A plantation or what?’
‘No. Not a plantation, not that big but more than what he needed for himself. It
could be a drug thing.’
‘You need to get stitches?’
‘I’m okay.’
‘You’ve got full resource, whoever you want. You think it’s related? Dope dealer is murdered; you get attacked.’
‘Somebody could have found out Schaffer was dead and gone to get themselves free pot. We can’t assume it was the killer.’
‘Can’t assume it wasn’t.’ Risely pushed back in his chair, considered. ‘Do we need help on this case?’
‘Not yet. Lisa and the Perth techs are processing the site. We might get lucky at the Kelly’s, pick up a print or something.’
Risely’s mobile buzzed. The ID read ‘Tomlinson’.
‘You going to mention this?’ Clement pointed at his wound.
‘Any reason I should?’
Clement shook his head. The last thing he needed was to become part of the story himself.
The phone finally stopped ringing. Risely said, ‘I’ll tell him we’re treating it as a homicide.’ His desk phone rang. It would be Tomlinson. ‘This is your chance, Dan.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I know you only came here for personal reasons. I know you’ve probably been bored out of your skull and think the guys here don’t quite cut it but they’re good guys, they just need a leader. This is a great opportunity for all of you. Get on with it.’
Clement closed the door and cast around. The IT guy, Manners, was at his computer. He was an unusual confluence of physical attributes: a solid build with broad shoulders but a weak chin and a mouth that turned down as if he were always on edge with how the world judged him. Clement handed him the phone card.
‘This is from the phone of the Jasper Creek victim. Download everything you can, contacts, text messages, the works. And it’s probably very unlikely, but see if Dieter Schaffer had a Facebook page, Twitter, any of that crap.’
Jo di Rivi and Nat Restoff were just entering via the back door with coffee cups. Once again Clement had to go through the ritual of why he looked the way he did. He deflected more questions and got on with it.
‘I want you to see if anybody is trying to flog an outboard motor for a dinghy, or a rifle, Ruger twenty-two,’ he said. ‘You never know, we might get lucky. Check online, at the wharf, and ring around all the other stations and ask them to keep an ear out. Then I want you up and around McDougall Street. See if anybody saw or heard anything unusual from midnight Sunday to early hours Monday.’ He explained about the Kellys and the missing axe.