Cold Deception

by D. B. Tait

  “Fuck,” he said, more to himself as he stood and glanced around, looking for somewhere private to talk to her. He knew they were about to call him into the armed robbery case to give evidence. The only place was a corner near the entrance.

  “That’s it? They think she did it because of the earring? That’s crazy. Hang on. You said she has no alibi between three and five yesterday. Is that what this hangs on?”

  “Yes,” said Dee. “Palmer reckons she would have had ample time to find this John character and kill him.”

  Dylan closed his eyes with mingled sense of dread and relief churning his guts. “That’s good Dee. That’s excellent. I know exactly where she was.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “She was with me. I’ll call Pringle and her solicitor and tell them. Don’t worry. Look, I have to go. They’re calling me.”

  It took forever. Question after question, the evidence pawed over and gone through in minute detail. Everyone knew she was guilty, but her barrister wanted to spin it out as long as possible. Finally, after three interminable hours, they broke for lunch.

  Dylan pushed his way out of the court, his finger on speed dial back to Pringle.

  “What’ve you got for me?”

  Dylan heard his commander and breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he was in time. Maybe the charges could be dropped.

  “Chief. It’s Julia Taylor.”

  “What, again? She’s just been put on the transport to Silverwater.”

  “Has it left?”

  “Yeah. About half an hour ago. Why, what’s the problem?”

  “She was with me. The time she was supposed to be killing John Melville. She was with me.”

  He heard Pringle take in a deep breath. “So why didn’t she tell us that? What’s the big secret?”

  “She’s trying to protect me. That’s what she does. She can’t seem to help herself.”

  “Why would she need to protect you?”

  “Because I’m having an affair with a parolee who’s in the frame for a murder.”

  Pringle grunted. “Fuck me dead. What did I tell you? Leave damsels in distress alone.” He sighed and Dylan could visualize the look of weariness on his face.

  “Have you finished down there?”

  “No. The barrister wants to go over everything with a fine tooth comb. I should be out by three. Depending on the traffic I should be up there by five.”

  “Right. We’ll see what we can do then. Her solicitor will apply for bail tomorrow. I’ll talk to Palmer who will no doubt want to talk to you. He may either drop the charges or not oppose bail.” He paused and took in another deep breath. “This doesn’t look good, you know. For you. But we’ll talk about that when you get back.”

  “She didn’t do it, Bill. She didn’t kill the priest.”

  “What? Aw, come on Dylan. Don’t go there. You can’t be serious?”

  “I am. Look, I’ll tell you everything. But our friend O’Reardon is involved.”

  “Then you better get back up here as soon as possible. If what you say is true, not only is the wrong person in that truck heading for Silverwater, but someone else who’s got a thing for knives and killing is on the loose.”

  *

  Dylan waited on the doorstep of the Taylor house, a sense of unreality making him almost lightheaded. For the first time in a long time, his need for a drink was a living, breathing scream in his head. When Dee opened the door, he almost grabbed her as the lifeline she’d been in the past.

  “Dylan. Thank God you’re finally here. Come in, we’re just trying to work out what to do.”

  Campbell Walton sat at Eleanor and Dee’s kitchen table and laid it all out for them.

  “She has an excellent chance of getting bail. I won’t be able to make the application until tomorrow so she’ll have to spend at least a night at Silverwater.” He frowned when he was introduced to Dylan. “I’m not sure this is altogether appropriate. Is there a reason you’re here, Detective Inspector Andrews?”

  “Yeah. I’m the evidence you need to get her out.”

  He told them where she was and winced at the shock on Eleanor and Dee’s faces. “I’m sorry,” he said to them both.

  “It’s okay,” Eleanor said slowly. “In fact, it’s great.” Dylan watched as hope dawned on both women’s faces. Eleanor turned to Campbell. “They can’t go ahead with the charges, can they?”

  “They could try, but this puts a big dent in their case.”

  “They won’t,” Dylan said. “I’ve just spoken to Palmer and they’re going to drop the charges.”

  Dee and Eleanor grabbed each other and burst into tears.

  “Well, this is excellent news, excellent news.” He scooped up his papers. “I’ll make my way home now Eleanor, and see you at the Parramatta bail court tomorrow first thing. Julia should be home by lunch time. A very unpleasant experience for her, but she’s a strong woman and will get through it. Now.” His gaze rested on Dylan and he smiled grimly. “Not a good career move for you, I suppose.”

  Dylan shook his head. “I haven’t been suspended but there’ll be a disciplinary hearing. I could be then. Honestly, the only reason they haven’t suspended me is because they need all hands on deck to find the real killer. And I’ve got a pretty good idea where to look.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  Dee showed him out leaving Dylan alone with Eleanor. He found he couldn’t look at her.

  “You know, I’m not surprised,” she said softly. “Dee thought there was something going on between the two of you. I scoffed at her, but then I started to see what she saw.”

  “Are you appalled?”

  She laughed. “Why would I be appalled? You’re a good man and she needs some happiness.” She hesitated. “Is it an affair, a relationship, what? Not that it’s any of my business.”

  “Are you asking me what my intentions are?”

  She patted his hand and said nothing, just waited.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. All I know is that I can’t stay away from her.”

  She nodded. “Then it’s something. You’ll work it out.”

  Chapter 27

  They put her two out with the dark-haired woman from the holding cell. Karen, although she called herself Jax. Julia wondered what was so wrong with her that she ended up in the MPU. She’d looked okay in reception. After an hour or so she found out. Jax was mad. She’d learnt to cover it well but, as the night wore on, she became more and more agitated.

  Since she knew she wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night anyway, mad cellmate or not, Julia threw back the thin blanket she was expected to keep warm with on this winter night, swung her legs down from the thin mattress covering a concrete block she was supposed to sleep on, slipped her feet into the Dunlop volleys they gave her at reception, and sat on her bed.

  She still had on every stitch of the prison greens they’d given her at reception. Tatty trackpants and cotton top, thinning sweatshirt. She wrapped the blanket around her and called softly to the woman opposite.

  “Jax. You awake?”

  Jax had been muttering through her tossing and turning, talking to the voices that occupied her head. She stilled when she heard Julia’s voice, then turned over to face her.

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  “Can’t sleep. Sounds like you can’t either.”

  “Why? Why do you say that?” she said sullenly. “I wasn’t bothering you.”

  “No, no,” Julia said quickly, knowing she had to placate her. “You weren’t doing anything. I never sleep in here. Especially on the first night. I can’t believe how cold it is. Guess I got used to it the last time I was inside.”

  A loud wail pierced the night.

  “That’s Lizzie,” Jax said. “She came in with me. Coming off the stuff. Didn’t get dosed before they locked her up.” They sat and listened to the shuffle of feet and the jingle of keys as an officer went to see what was going on.

  “Stop it, Lizz
ie,” he said. “You’re not dying.”

  “But I need something. I wasn’t dosed. I haven’t had anything for nearly a day.”

  “Well, I can’t do anything about it now.”

  Lizzie wailed again.

  “He better do something about it,” Jax muttered. “This could go on all night.”

  “Look,” the PO said, “I’ll call the clinic and see if they could send someone down. No guarantees they’ll be able to do anything. Just quieten down.”

  Lizzie subsided into sobbing while the PO got on the phone.

  “I’d forgotten,” Julia murmured, more to herself. “I’d forgotten what it was like.”

  Jax grunted. “You’ve only been through this once before. I’m used to it.”

  Julia stared at the other woman. “I’ve never met you before. Thought I knew most people coming in and out of here.”

  Jax shrugged. “You were mostly out at Dillwynia and Emu Plains. They keep me here.”

  I’ll bet they do, Julia thought. Jax was better when she was talking, less twitchy, but she was hearing voices, Julia was certain of that. She’d seen it too often in other women. That distracted look, the half turn of the head, listening to what only she could hear. Occasionally, she’d swat her hand past her head as if shooing away flies.

  “Where do they put you normally?”

  Jax shrugged again. “I stay here for a while but then they usually put me in the mental health unit with all the mad girls.” She laughed and started rolling a ciggie. “Mad Jax, they say. Mad, bad Jax.” She laughed out loud, a raucous, wild sound. She started jiggling her legs then stood and started pacing.

  She was bad all right. Sick and not getting any treatment. She started muttering again.

  “Talk to me, Jax. Sit down and talk to me. What’s going on?”

  “Nuthin’, nuthin,” she said, but sat down. She lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply, then blew out. She scrapped her face with her free hand and stared at the bars of cell door. “I was born here you know.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded. “Me ma was in on shoplifting. They called the ambulance but she was too quick. Had me on the floor of the clinic. I met her for the first time when I got locked up as an adult.” She laughed again. “When she found out who I was, she marched up to me and whacked me across the chops. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ she said. Like mother, like daughter I said. She didn’t like that. Necked herself that night.”

  She stood again and started pacing. Cold dread started to slide up Julia’s spine. She’d come across plenty of women with mental illness throughout her time in jail, but Jax was in a bad way. God knows when she’d last had any medication.

  “Lizzie Curtis, will you shut the fuck up!” she roared. There was a sound of shuffling from the officer’s post, but no one appeared to quieten Jax down. Strange. She started pacing again.

  Soon Julia heard the sound of a door being unlocked and realized a nurse was being let in to the unit. There was a low murmuring between the officer and the nurse, then a raised female voice telling Lizzie she could give her something to help the cramps.

  “But I need more,” Lizzie wailed. “Why can’t I have my dose?”

  “Because we don’t have a script for you. They haven’t sent it through.”

  “But you know me. I only got released last week. You know I’m on the ’done.”

  “I can’t give you any methadone without a script, Lizzie. Here, take this.”

  Julia closed her eyes and wished herself away. It would be so easy just to fall into that black hole again, that land where medication was handed out to numb and sedate the despair and rage.

  She couldn’t afford to drift away. Opening her eyes, she saw Jax standing still, staring at her.

  “Who do you think you are?” she muttered. “It’s your fault I’m back here, locked up again. You did this.”

  Julia braced herself and screamed just as Jax leapt for her, catching her around the throat, pulling her up only to slam her against the wall. She grabbed at the hand around her throat, desperately trying to pull her away. Then Jax punched her in the stomach. What little oxygen she had whooshed out. She started to lose consciousness as Jax squeezed her tighter and tighter.

  Then she distantly heard shouting, the jangle of keys, and the pressure on her throat suddenly gone. She collapsed on the dirty floor curled into a fetal position, coughing and weeping.

  “Come on now, Jax. Come on. None of that.” Two voices and a struggle with the now yelling woman.

  “You bitch! It was her I tell ya! She set me up! She’s the reason I’m back here! I’ll kill you! Let me go!”

  Julia sensed rather than saw the prison officers drag Jax out of the cell. An alarm sounded throughout the unit and after a few seconds another officer and the nurse crouched down beside her.

  “Come on, honey,” the nurse said. “Come on, roll over let me see the damage.”

  Julia still couldn’t speak as she tried to get oxygen into her lungs. Her stomach was on fire.

  “You’ll need to call an ambulance now,” the nurse said to the PO. “She could have internal injuries.”

  “Fuck,” the PO said, then stood with his hands on his hips.

  “Now,” the nurse said more insistently.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said and stepped out of the cell.

  Julia concentrated on breathing. In and out, in and out.

  “Can you sit up for me?” the nurse asked.

  Julia nodded and, with her help, sat against the wall.

  “You should never have been in here with Jax,” she muttered. “What were they thinking? There’s a standing order she’s never to share a cell with anyone else.”

  A coil of curiosity inched its way into her brain along with the terror and pain. “Is that so?” she said in a raspy voice.

  “Yeah,” the nurse said, frowning. “How are you feeling? Can you sit up on the bed?”

  Julia nodded. The nurse held onto her arm as she gingerly stood, then flopped onto the bed. More officers were pouring into the unit. A two pipper came into the cell.

  “How is she? The ambulance is on its way.”

  “She’s been assaulted by Jax Kelly. How do you think she’d be?” the nurse said in a fury.

  “Outside,” the prison officer said.

  They stepped out of the cell but not so far away that Julia couldn’t hear some of what they said. She closed her eyes and leant back, trying to hear.

  “The unit’s not that crowded tonight. How the hell did they let Jax in with another woman? She should’ve been transferred to the mental health unit as soon as she got through reception. What the hell’s going on?”

  She heard the low rumble of the officer’s voice.

  “That’s not good enough and you know it. I have to report this, and if I were you, I would too. Someone’s stuffed up and the way this place works, they’ll try and dump it on you.”

  Another rumble from the officer, then more voices as the ambulance arrived. Julia could breathe now, but every breath in and out was like a knife slicing into her chest.

  Two ambos came into her cell and crouched down beside her.

  “Hey Julia. I’m Rob and this is Dave. Looks like you’ve been through the wars.”

  Julia smiled, then winced as the pain just above her abdomen pierced her again.

  “Let’s have a look. Where does it hurt?”

  “Just under my ribs.”

  “Mm. That voice doesn’t sound good,” Dave said, peering at her throat, while Rob gently pulled up her clothes. “The bruising’s coming out already.”

  “Yeah,” Rob said. “Think you might have a busted rib or two. Let’s get you on the trolley and out of here,” he said.

  Julia nodded. O’Reardon’s reach hopefully stopped at the jail’s gates.

  Chapter 28

  Nessa lay on the long wide couch in O’Reardon’s office wrapped in a bathrobe, listening to him tap on his computer and trying to calm the rising pani
c in her chest.

  She had to get out of there.

  Julia was right; staying anywhere near O’Reardon was madness. Not imagined madness, not now. The sharp claws of need pursued her every minute, battering her defences and her hard won resolve.

  She’d successfully avoided the pills, the heroin, even the alcohol, but couldn’t find any way to avoid taking the cocaine. Not much, just a line or two, enough to not raise any suspicion, but she knew it was only a matter of time before she was right back into everything.

  She had to get away as soon as possible.

  Despair as well as need swirled in her head, a lethal combination for any junkie. She’d thought she was so clever, putting on an act, being the same old out-of-it Nessa. Although, she had to admit, even in the few short days she’d been staying with Angus she’d heard and seen a lot about what he was up to. Deals everywhere. Pushing out west, trying to be the sole supplier to the furthest towns in country New South Wales.

  Well, he could have it. She wanted to destroy him, but if she didn’t leave soon, he’d destroy her. She’d looked in all the obvious places for the DVD and couldn’t find it, so assumed it was in the one place she couldn’t access. The safe under the floorboards in this office.

  She’d tell Julia where it was. That’s all she could do.

  Stretching, she yawned and swung her legs onto the floor.

  “Good sleep?” he said, still tapping on his computer.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “You were pretty wired last night.”

  She controlled a shudder, conscious of what they’d done, what she was like when she had cocaine in her system. Her body ached from drugs and sex: sex that was rougher and more desperate. That’s what Angus liked. That’s what he’d always liked from his girls.

  “First time I’ve had coke for a long time.” She scrubbed her face with her hands and pushed back her hair. Smiling at him, she stood and made herself wobble. “I need a shower.”

  He grunted and focused on his computer. Excellent. She could get herself together and get out.

  She shuffled out of his office, then all but ran to her room. Gathering all her stuff together, including a substantial amount of the money he’d given her, she hesitated. She really did need a shower. The stink of him was still on her, a stink she had to get out of her life.