by Dave Warner
‘I’ll shoot her.’
‘Fucking try it.’ She leapt towards him, blocking their lines of fire and tried to beat him with her fists. He shoved her backwards towards them and was gone into the trees in a flash.
Clement hollered, ‘Shep, stay with her!’
With the girl’s expletives ringing in their ears, Clement and the others broke into the bush which was surprisingly thick. Clement pointed right.
‘You guys that way; don’t fire unless you have to.’
He and Earle started left but quickly slowed. There was no sign of the boy in the surrounding bush which varied from sparse tall grass to squat thick clumps.
Clement called hopelessly, ‘Sebastian this is pointless. We just need to talk to you. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Put the gun down and come out.’
Nothing.
It was hot and uncomfortable in the vest under the baking sky. This was the boy’s territory but Clement had to pursue. He and Earle edged carefully forward listening. Not even a rustle of leaves. If Sebastian had been running, Dan figured there would have been some sound so he reasoned if the boy came this way he was lying somewhere, motionless. Catching Earle’s eye, he signalled they split again and circle in opposite directions. Crouching low, he pushed along the rough, hot ground through tall grass, wary of the weapon in his hand. He had never fired at anybody. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally shoot a fellow cop. He fixed on a clump of trees fifteen metres ahead as a likely hiding spot. Slowly he began to flank it. Whenever he paused longer than a few seconds ants crawled all over him. He flashed back: schooldays, Bill Seratono, him, a couple of others playing sniper, honky nuts as ammunition …
There, from the thicket, a sound like somebody edging backwards. He stood and advanced.
‘Sebastian, we need to talk. I’m not holding a weapon.’
Too late he heard the sound behind him and swung round. Sebastian pointed the rifle, a smile spreading over his crusted upper lip.
11
This was Clement’s nightmare made real: a desperate young man probably off his face, a deadly weapon in hands. And that weapon pointed right at him. It was impossible to tell if Sebastian was sneering or amused.
‘Gotcha a good one.’
‘Yeah, you did. Now Sebastian, please.’
‘I’m not going to jail. They’ll take her back.’
‘Who?’
‘Princess’s family.’
‘We can talk about that, just put down the gun.’
Sebastian’s aim shifted from Clement’s chest to his head.
‘That jacket not gonna stop a bullet in your head.’
Behind Sebastian, Earle appeared, his Glock 9 pointing, ready. Clement tried not to make eye contact. He spoke more firmly.
‘Sebastian, put the gun down.’
The boy’s focus phased in and out. Then he sighed and let the weapon drop. Earle launched at him from behind, drove him down into the ground and pinned him as he wriggled and swore.
‘So Princess, how did you get that outboard motor?’
The girl looked sullenly over at Clement. They were seated in the small interview room at the Derby station. Clement had decided to start with her first. Sebastian was still high on something.
‘Princess, you answer him.’
Earle stood behind Princess, playing bad cop. When they had checked the back of the station wagon, there was the outboard motor.
‘You want some more Pepsi?’ Clement offered the squat fat bottle.
Princess nodded. Clement poured it slowly into a plastic cup so it plopped and fizzed and was impossible to refuse. He held up the cup, tempting.
Princess snatched it and gulped. ‘Found it.’
‘You found the outboard motor?’
‘That’s right.’
Another gulp and the Pepsi was gone. The claustrophobic bare brick room smelled of disinfectant. Clement had the air-con on as low as he could stand it.
‘At Jasper’s Creek?’
‘Yeah. That one she pointed at the wall to indicate her beau whom she assumed was beyond it somewhere, he’s an idiot. I told him leave the fucking thing. We got no need of that. We can’t sell it. He don’t listen.’
She shoved the cup out and Clement obliged with more Pepsi.
‘You took a rifle too,’ said Earle. She answered without turning to him.
‘Well that’s useful, you can shoot some parrots or roos to eat, except he wastes all the bullets firing at nothing.’
‘And a wallet too, right, you took that?’ Clement, smooth, casual.
‘Nope. No wallet.’
Her eyes dove down. She was lying about that. He moved on though.
‘So, what did you find exactly at the creek?’
‘We were parked, right? We were going to camp.’
According to Princess they heard music nearby and snuck a look. They eased towards the sound and came upon the clearing. The car door was open, the headlights on, nobody around. They figured somebody might have got drunk and gone to sleep in the tent, so they called out and when nobody answered they checked. The tent was empty except for some chicken. Flies were already helping themselves. Around then, the car battery must have died because the music stopped and the light went out. They were trying to work out what to do when Sebastian saw the empty boat floating just off the bank. The motor smelled like it had been used. He remembered there was supposed to be a croc in that creek.
‘We figure the croc got him.’
‘Him?’
‘Don’t know any women go camping out there.’
‘So you figured whoever this car belongs to, he’s dead, we might as well take his wallet, gun and outboard.’
‘That wasn’t my stupid idea.’
Clement pretty much had confirmation on the wallet now but chose not to go there yet.
‘What time did you get there?’
She cast for the memory, lost focus.
‘Eight? Nine? Midnight?’
‘I dunno. After nine.’
‘You saying you didn’t see anybody at the camp.’
‘That’s right. Hey, if a croc got him we’re not going in there to look.’
Earle looked over at him, wondering what he thought about this.
‘So how did you get the boat?’
‘It was close. Dickhead got a branch and kind of pulled it in.’
‘What about the blood?’
‘What blood? I didn’t see no blood.’
‘It was all over the tent.’
‘I didn’t see it. It was dark.’
‘You said you checked the tent then the car lights went out.’
She shrugged. ‘I didn’t see any blood.’ Then she understood. ‘Hey, you saying we hurt somebody?’
‘Does Sebastian own an axe or machete?’ Earle walked around so he was in front of her, a looming threatening presence.
‘We didn’t do anything. We found that stuff.’ She was growing strident.
Clement pulled her attention back to him. ‘You didn’t find any clothes, say?’
‘I told you. Seb took the motor off the boat and we left.’
‘And the gun?’
‘The gun was under the car seat.’
‘Did a man find you stealing his things come back and fire at you?’
‘No. We didn’t see no bloke. I told you. We found the gun, we got the boat and the motor then Sebastian fired the gun for a while and then we drove off.’
‘What did he fire at?’
‘Nothing. The moon. He’s fucking stupid, I told you.’
Later, as sun reflecting off the paving smacked his face, Clement stood in the rear courtyard with Earle and Shepherd, sipping tea too weak for his taste. Shepherd had made it and he didn’t want to criticise. Earle enjoyed a cigarette. They still hadn’t interviewed Sebastian. Shepherd stretched and batted away Earle’s smoke.
‘So what do you guys reckon?’
The sergeant deferred to his senior to answer.
‘I’
m more inclined to believe her than not.’
Earle finished his smoke and ground it into the paving. ‘Why?’
‘Her story is consistent with what we found. Somebody kills Schaffer, dumps him in the creek and leaves everything just as it was. If the tourists had found that scene and not Princess and Sebastian, what would they have thought?’
Shepherd practised a torpedo punt with an invisible ball. ‘Crocodile.’
‘That’s right. Same as she claims.’
‘Or that was what they tried to make it look like. Lot of blood.’ Earle squinted at the harsh sun.
But Clement reckoned she was telling the truth and she just hadn’t seen it in the dark. He’d interviewed enough callous teens who didn’t care about taking a human life. Princess didn’t strike him that way; she was cocky, sure, but from ignorance.
‘Most likely she doesn’t want to tell us she saw it because she thinks we’ll fit them up. If they killed him why not take the phone too? And changing the shirt, I just don’t get it. That feels odd, doesn’t it?’
Clement flipped through the time line. ‘Tourists arrive around sunset. They hear music, so maybe Schaffer has the car CD running. They go to bed. Somebody cleaves in Schaffer’s head then kicks the shit out of him. They rip off his shirt and replace it, put him in the boat, head to the middle of the creek, dump him, come back, leave the boat like he’s maybe fallen in, and go. Princess and Sebastian rock up around one a.m., hear music, investigate, battery dies, they make their score. Sebastian fires off some shots and wakes the tourists. They leave.’
‘Or they rock up and kill him and dump the body.’
Clement was beginning to understand Earle was one for simple explanations.
He persisted. ‘I just get a gut feeling the kid is a dumb Romeo. I could see him accidentally pulling the trigger but an axe? And where is it?’
‘Let’s ask him,’ said Earle who was about to start another cigarette but then tucked it back in its pack. Before they could head inside Clement’s phone rang. It was Risely.
‘I called Tomlinson and told him we had located persons of interest.’
This irritated Clement. ‘That’s premature. I’m not sure they did it. The girl says they found the camp deserted.’
‘You believe her?’
‘More than not. We’re going to talk to the boy now.’
Risely was pragmatic. ‘They’re still persons of interest, so no drama. The city TV stations are onto it.’
The shorthand being he could expect a call from Police HQ and wanted to be able to tell them something satisfying.
‘We’re pushing about as fast as we can.’
‘Understand, Dan, just don’t want them all in Perth to think we’re hicks.’
Sebastian Kilmorley’s eyes were a lot brighter than an hour or so before. Perspiration beaded his forehead.
‘Where’s Princess?’
Clement felt an affinity with the boy. There’d been a time, if situations were reversed, he’d be asking ‘Where’s Marilyn?’ and she’d most likely be slagging him off too. But when you love somebody, what can you do about that except banish love to a very distant room.
‘She’s fine, don’t worry. She’s not pleased with you though.’
The boy’s eyes moved uneasily.
‘She blames you, says she told you not to steal that outboard.’
He was watching them carefully, trying not to implicate himself. Earle leaned back against the wall. ‘Things could be a lot easier if you told us where you left the axe.’
Sebastian looked from one to the other, a tennis fan. ‘I didn’t take no axe.’
Clement liked his partner’s move and went with it. ‘Machete, whatever.’
‘I didn’t take anything like that. The motor, the rifle …’
‘The wallet …’ Clement as if it were a given. Sebastian shrank into himself, guilty. His silence condemned him.
‘How much money was in it?’
Sebastian shrugged.
‘We can find out. Easier if you tell us. A hundred dollars?’
‘About that.’ Sebastian stretched his legs nervously.
‘Where is it now?’
He repeated his trademark shrug. ‘Tossed it out in the bush somewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘I dunno, okay?’
‘What time did you get to the creek?’
He couldn’t tell them for sure but working through his movements he came up with around eleven. Clement asked what happened then. Sebastian recounted pretty much the same as Princess. They heard music. They went to take a look. They couldn’t see anybody. The dinghy was just out of the water close to the shore. They called out. Right away Sebastian was thinking crocodile. Then the car lights and music stopped. Then Princess saw the tent. Graham and Clement made eye contact. It could explain how they missed the blood.
‘You checked the tent?’
He poked his head in, nobody in there. Just some cooked chicken but he wasn’t touching that, might have been in there for hours with flies and ants.
‘So then you took what you could find?’
‘You got the outboard and the gun back. It’s only a hundred bucks. Come on, please. Her old man’s a prick. He’ll kill me.’
‘You’re sure?’ Risely leaned elbows on his desk and rubbed his face. A smell of cologne emanated from him, which seemed at odds with his tough look. A Christmas present from the missus, thought Clement, remembering those days.
‘They didn’t do it. Derby charged them with theft.’
As soon as they’d finished interviewing the boy Clement had warned his boss. Then he’d driven back here fast, which was still around two hours’ worth of hot rubber on hot bitumen.
‘So what do we have?’
‘Not much. The stuff from the sites is being processed. Shep is doorknocking to see if anybody saw anything the night the axe was stolen from the Kellys. The witnesses are cleanskins, Vic police have nothing on them. Earle is trying to locate Schaffer’s sister via Immigration and sorting all the documents from the shack. We can rule out robbery, I think. Whoever killed Schaffer took nothing obviously valuable from the scene, not even the wallet.’
‘Why go to the trouble of dumping him in the creek?’
‘Maybe to destroy DNA. Maybe the perp hated him so much they wanted him eaten by a croc.’
‘He was an ex-cop. You think it’s possible he came across somebody he banged up?’
Clement had asked himself the same question. ‘It seems remote. I mean he’s mid-sixties.’
Before letting him go, Risely warned him he’d need to front the press sometime before the day was out. Clement made himself a coffee and was on his way to his office when Manners the IT guy appeared. ‘I’ve got the contacts from the phone and the text messages; also, a list of all the calls to and from the phone in the last fortnight. I’ve printed them out. And I’ve put the photos and movies onto a DVD and thumb-drive for you. There’s hardly anything. No sign of him on Facebook.’
Clement returned to his office with a bounce in his step. He put on the DVD and called in Earle who was at his desk sifting computer printouts found at Schaffer’s house. Manners was not exaggerating. Dieter Schaffer clearly did not see himself as a photographer. There were thirty-six photos going back six months. More than half came from some fishing trip with members of the Anglers Club. The last photo was dated the night before he died and was in the Cleopatra Tavern. It looked like Schaffer had snapped it himself at arm’s length and showed him smiling between the two young women from the Mimosa. They looked a little out of it, a typical pub photo.
There were only six videos. Three of them were under one minute’s duration and comprised a dog in the main street rifling a bin, a sunset shot of birds leaving a lake, and a barbecue with a few of the Anglers people including Bill Seratono and his mate Mitch. Cinéma-vérité style, the photographer, one assumed Schaffer, wandered through the gathering with the camera. As it reached them, the happy anglers raised
cold stubbies, shot the finger or pulled a stupid face. The other three videos were of struggling fish being hauled out of the water. Clement and Earle sifted through text messages. There weren’t many and nothing stood out. They progressed to the ‘contacts’ list. Everybody was listed by their first name only. Hadn’t Manners noticed this?
He walked out and found Manners hunched over his computer.
‘The contacts are all just Christian names.’
Manners stared at him blankly.
Clement explained, ‘We need full names. In case any of these people have a record for example.’
Obviously the idea simply hadn’t occurred to Manners.
‘You want to me to ID the people from the numbers?’
Clement fought the urge to de-scrote Manners in a painful and public manner. ‘That would be good. How long will that take?’
‘There’s not many. Not long.’
It was four-thirty now. Graeme Earle had moseyed on out of Clement’s office. Clement’s head began to ache again, just a little. Clement looked at Earle.
‘Can you get everybody together for a meeting in half an hour? We need to run through what we have.’
‘Lisa too?’
‘Yeah, everybody.’
Clement retreated to his office and sat back down to think. Somebody viciously chopped through Schaffer’s skull, then dumped his body in the creek. Then last night somebody had bashed Clement at Schaffer’s with a shovel before fleeing. Were the two incidents related? Was it the same person? Dieter Schaffer grew marijuana. Maybe he was dealing. It had been a violent killing. It seemed the killer had not been satisfied to put an axe into his skull but had proceeded to beat him as he lay dying. Leaving aside the possibility that Schaffer just happened across a homicidal psychopath in the middle of nowhere, a possibility that actually had more credence up here than people might think, what other clues were there in the personality of Dieter Schaffer to explain the brutality of his murder? He had no de facto that they knew of. Nor had they found any sign of any such person in his shack. Could he be gay? A paedophile even? Somebody living alone like that had privacy. Clement suspected his old case of the music teacher was playing on his mind but the mood of that murder was a fit. A spurned lover or a victim could have killed him with that ferocity, Clement believed. Bill Seratano and his mate Mitch had said Dieter Schaffer was a bad gambler. Maybe that was the genesis of this, a bad debt? If you owed money to the wrong people for too long they could become impatient. But would they go so far as to kill someone? Clement trawled through his experience in Homicide. He could recall only one instance where this had happened. A businessman had been stiffed by his ex-business partner. There had been months of discussions and promises about repayment. The debtor kept finding a way not to pay and eventually the businessman snapped and shoved a bread knife through his partner’s ribs. On the other hand, Clement could think of a number of murders which had been brought about because the killer did not want to pay the victim back. Mostly it was over drug dealing but sometimes it was just a money loan. Clement had dealt with sons who blew parents’ money on coke and wild business schemes and then killed the parents to avoid the repayment. Could Schaffer have actually been owed money by somebody? That was possible. It could have been a drug debt, or a bet. Experience had taught Clement that the amount was immaterial. People could kill for ten dollars or ten thousand.