Dark Country (Dungirri)

by Parry, Bronwyn

  Kris dragged herself out of the car and into her house, avoiding the station. For now, she was off-duty. At least officially. Steve would follow up the mystery driver and other issues during the weekend, but the Local Area Commander had taken one look at her overtime claim for the past couple of weeks and ordered her home.

  It didn’t mean she’d stop thinking and asking questions, but there wasn’t much more she could do, formally, until the forensic, arson and autopsy reports came through. And even then Steve was in charge of the local enquiries, and Petric had control of the investigation into Marci’s murder, so her role was technically only support and local liaison.

  In her bedroom, she stripped off her uniform and pulled on jeans and a cotton shirt. The temperature had climbed today towards summer levels, with blue skies and no sign of rain, a precursor for a clear, warm night. That was one thing going right for the ball, at any rate.

  At the hall next door, half the town seemed to be involved in final preparations for the evening. She walked in the other direction, down the road to the pub, the street pretty much deserted.

  The bar was closed, a sign stuck to the door saying it would be open at one o’clock. Voices from the courtyard led her through the gate.

  At one of the wooden tables, shaded by a large patio umbrella, Gil stood, making sandwiches with Megan, while she chatted away. Gil didn’t appear to be contributing much to the conversation, but seemed almost relaxed, prompting Megan with a question when she paused.

  So, the rapid shuttering of his face when he saw Kris had to be all due to her, and his sudden concentration on cutting cheese. Her own smile took some effort to maintain in response to that closure, and so she directed it at the young woman.

  Megan cheerfully waved her knife in greeting. ‘Hi, Kris. Do you want some lunch? Eleni had some basics in the shop, so you’ve got a choice of cheese and tomato, or cheese and ham, or ham and cheese and tomato. With options on mustard.’

  ‘Ham and cheese, please,’ she requested. It wasn’t much of a choice, but it would keep her going until supper tonight. Tomorrow, she’d have to see what else the Pappases had in stock, because she hadn’t had time this morning in Birraga to get groceries.

  The long-term repercussions of the fire started to hit home. The pub no longer made food, and now with Jeanie’s café gone, the Pappas’s little corner store would be the only place in town to buy food. But the small store had struggled financially for years, and George was winding it down in preparation for retirement. Most people did their main grocery shopping in Birraga, at the independent supermarket where the range was better and the prices lower. But she wasn’t the only one who relied on Jeanie’s or the corner store when she ran out of essentials like milk and bread.

  It would be another challenge for the Progress Association, after the ball. They’d have to find some way to keep the corner store business viable, to keep Dungirri feasible as a place to live. There she went, worrying about the town again.

  Gil sliced through a couple of layers of sandwiches as though he’d done it many times before, and slid them on to plates. Megan picked up her plate and thanked Gil, leaving to go and finish off cleaning in the kitchen.

  ‘Busy morning?’ Kris asked, watching his hands as he reached for more bread, laid it out on the plastic board, and spread margarine over it. Watching strong hands deftly at work was easier than trying to read his face. Less confronting. Although, as her eyes drifted to his wrists and arms, and she saw muscles and tendons flexing as he sliced more cheese from the block, maybe not.

  Sheesh, if men realised just how sensual a naked forearm could be, they’d never wear long sleeves. She dragged her gaze away, and pretended an interest in the gazania flowers in a nearby overgrown garden bed, trying to focus her mind on anything other than the attractiveness of his body. Like murder. Arson. Conspiracy. Threatened violence.

  ‘The kitchen’s ready to use,’ he briefly answered the question she’d almost forgotten asking, a whole ten seconds ago. ‘The others are on their way back from Birraga.’

  ‘Good. You’ve got time for a chat over lunch before they get here, then.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  She took that as agreement, and while he finished making the sandwiches, she went in the back way to fetch a couple of glasses of lemon squash from the bar, leaving some coins on the till to cover the cost. When she returned, he was sitting at the table, his food untouched in front of him, and hers on a plate opposite.

  Someday she’d have to shout him a meal, instead of being on the receiving end of his culinary skills. If he stayed in town long enough.

  She passed his drink over to him as she sat.

  ‘None of the official reports are written up yet, but I’ve got some unofficial information you might like to know.’

  Normally, she took great caution sharing information with a civilian, but in this circumstance, she made the judgment call, for Gil’s knowledge might be central to them solving the crimes, and he’d demonstrated his willingness to cooperate, despite his reservations about police.

  ‘The arson investigators believe the gas tanks were tampered with, set to explode. However, they think the fire began in the office. There’s not much left of the computer, but what there is – well, what appears to be the lid of the CPU is separate from the rest, and there’s a small pile of melted screws.’

  ‘They took it apart.’

  ‘Yes. And there’s evidence of accelerant on the remains.’

  His eyes narrowed, and he dropped his voice. ‘How many people know you’ve got a copy of the images, Blue?’

  She didn’t answer his question directly. ‘The USB drive Adam copied them onto has been logged as evidence and locked up in the Inverell forensics unit.’

  ‘But you’ve still got a copy.’

  ‘Yes. And so, now, do a few others.’ She understood, appreciated his concern, and sought to reassure him. ‘I won’t be a target for that reason, Gil. If anyone wants to get rid of the evidence, they’re going to have to destroy a few computers and servers, here and in Sydney, to do so.’

  They might not stand up in court – the images were pretty blurry, anyway – but something on them might provide a lead.

  ‘Steve and Joe both have copies,’ she told Gil. ‘They’ll look over them, see if they can recognise anything.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘Are you asking if I trust them?’ she challenged him bluntly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve worked with Steve a couple of times in the last few years. Look, he can be a bit of an arsehole sometimes,’ she said with brutal honesty, ‘but I think that’s mostly an act, playing along with the macho culture the police force still has, as well as something of a rebellion against his Assistant Commissioner father, who is renowned for having absolutely no sense of humour. But Steve put himself in the direct line of fire several times last summer; I don’t doubt his courage or commitment.’

  ‘What about Petric?’

  ‘Petric, I only met yesterday. But he worked with Alec Goddard for a long time. I know Alec, and he doesn’t suffer fools or liars.’ She looked straight at him. ‘I spoke with Alec this morning, briefed him on what’s happened. He’s a commander now, up on the north coast, but he was a senior detective in Sydney, and knows a lot about organised crime there. And I’m guessing he’s the one you told about the corrupt officers, because he arrested Kevin Jones and his colleagues earlier this year.’

  His gaze dropped to the table, and he pushed his uneaten sandwich away, brushing at some breadcrumbs before he looked up again and answered.

  ‘Yes. I’d met Goddard a few times, over the years. He was about the only one I thought I could trust.’

  She confirmed his assessment without hesitation. ‘I’d trust Alec with my life. I have trusted him with my life. He’s one of the most honest, principled police officers I’ve ever met. Integrity could be his middle name.’

  And he’d proved it again, in their phone conversation, protectin
g the identity of his informant even to her.

  ‘He didn’t give you away, Gil, even when I asked, straight out,’ she assured him. ‘He insisted it was an anonymous tip.’

  ‘It was.’ Gil shrugged. ‘But I figured he guessed, anyway.’

  ‘So, you informed on Kevin Jones,’ she said quietly, ‘one of the most notorious criminals in the country, and you’re still breathing, with limbs intact.’

  Gil acknowledged the fact with a tilt of his head. ‘For now.’

  She knew the reality as well as he did. Kevin Jones was locked up in the Super-Max facility in Goulburn, but even from there his orders carried weight. If he ever found out Gil was responsible for his arrest, Gil’s life expectancy would be cut dramatically short. It was a threat that haunted Alec and Bella, too, and one of the reasons they’d moved north, away from Sydney.

  Despite the sunshine, a chill settled on Kris. She didn’t ever, ever, want to see Gil’s body, dead. She’d seen too many dead people, and even the thought of his possible murder distressed her in ways she didn’t have time to contemplate right now.

  Waving a fly away from her half-eaten sandwich, she forced her thoughts back to the practicalities. ‘How many people know it was you?’

  He was quiet, matter-of-fact, about it. ‘None, other than Goddard. Marci might have told what she suspected; but if so, I don’t know to who – her boyfriend, who used to work for Jones’s mob, or Tony Russo, or someone else.’ He hesitated for a long moment, searching for words. ‘Was there anything on Marci? Any clues in how she … died?’

  Despite his uneasy relationship with Marci, his question still held concern for her as a person.

  ‘I spoke with the Deputy Coroner after the autopsy this morning. Toxicology and samples will take some days at least to process, so there won’t be a formal report for a while. But he confirmed that the estimated time of death was three on Thursday afternoon, give or take an hour or two.’ She paused, reluctant to relay the gruesome details. ‘You said she was involved in the BDSM scene?’

  ‘Her boyfriend pushed her into jobs in it. She pretended she liked it, but she did it for money, not because she got a kick out of it.’

  Sympathy for the woman, and pity, made it harder to deal with the facts, yet they had to be told to find justice for her.

  ‘There were extensive injuries, and multiple sexual assaults. That might have been a client, but … well, there’s usually boundaries, safe words, role-playing the dominant and submissive, discipline rather than violence. The injuries inflicted on Marci … they’re more consistent with torture than discipline.’

  ‘She suffered?’

  She wished she had a different answer. ‘Yes. The Deputy Coroner is going to call in a psychologist. There’s a possibility that there’s two types of injuries; one set suggesting precision and control, the other … not.’

  ‘Maybe two frigging bastards, then.’ He twisted off the seat, threw the remains of his sandwich with some force into a rubbish bin, and strode to the fence, his tense back to her.

  She gave him time, gave herself time to regain some equilibrium. A magpie hopped up hopefully onto the table, and she pushed the plate with her uneaten food towards it, her stomach too disturbed for her to finish it. The magpie greedily poked into the bread, then dragged the ham from inside and proceeded to tear it into bite-sized pieces.

  When Kris looked over at Gil again, he seemed to be watching the bird, but she’d bet he wasn’t really seeing it.

  ‘I should have made sure she left.’ Cold, hard anger echoed in every word. ‘I should have taken her to the airport myself, put her on the damned plane. If I hadn’t been so bloody impatient with her, she’d still be alive.’

  ‘You can’t take responsibility for her life and her choices, Gil. She was an adult, making her own decisions.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. She wasn’t capable of making good decisions. Between her upbringing and the booze, she was so fucking screwed up … Her mother ran a brothel, auctioned off Marci’s virginity when she was just twelve years old, had her working from then on. What kind of bitch does that to her own daughter?’

  Kris’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. She didn’t have an answer for him. She didn’t have answers for far too much she’d seen – like how a mob of otherwise normal, ordinary people could bash to death an old, defenceless man, or how someone could hold a gun to a small girl’s head and pull the trigger. And she wasn’t sure that answers would make any of it easier to deal with.

  ‘It was Vince who took her out of there,’ Gil continued. ‘Married her off to Digger, so she’d have a home and someone decent to look after her. Except Digger eventually fell to the booze, too, and wasn’t much bloody use to her, even before he died.’

  ‘Vince married her off?’ The archaic notion caught her attention, and heightened her curiosity about the connection between the dead woman and the dead man. Two murders, so close together, made any connections important. Petric might know more than she did, but he hadn’t shared his knowledge. ‘You mentioned last night they knew each other. Was she his mistress?’

  ‘No. He had mistresses. He had a wife, too. Marci and him … it was weird. He kept in touch with her all those years. She flirted with him – she flirted with every man she knew – but he treated her like a little girl, not a lover. I sometimes thought …’ He dragged a hand through his hair. ‘I mean, her mother told Marci her father was just a punter, and Vince just laughed the one time I asked him, but … is it possible to get a DNA comparison on them?’

  ‘You think Vince was her father?’ Kris’s thoughts ticked over rapidly. A rich, powerful man, taking a long-term interest in a woman he treated like a child. It made sense, in a sick, twisted kind of way. But the pathologist might need something more solid than a guess before authorising a test. ‘How old were they?’

  ‘Vince, mid-sixties, pushing seventy maybe. Marci a couple of years older than me. Vince would have already been married when she was born. Marci – she didn’t actually look like him, but if she was his daughter, it would explain some things.’

  ‘Like?’ she prompted.

  He came and sat down again, opposite her. ‘When I made the deal with Vince, I remember he said as I left, casually, that he’d appreciate it if I kept an eye out for her. It wasn’t part of the deal, not even a threat, just a comment. But when I saw him about her, the other day, he was grateful – he even said it – that I hadn’t “let her down”. I thought it was a bit odd, coming from a guy whose son hated her guts, was actively trying to destroy her life. If Tony suspected, too … well, that would be more than enough reason for his hatred.’

  ‘I’ll request the DNA tests. But they take some time,’ she warned. ‘There won’t be a quick answer.’

  He drew a piece of paper out of his jeans pocket – the one he’d hidden earlier – and flicked it open. After a quick review of it, he passed it across to her.

  ‘That’s the list you asked for. The possibilities. People with motives … the ones I’m aware of, anyway.’

  She scanned the columns, concerned by the number of ‘possibilities’, and was startled to see a column for Jeanie, with a couple of names listed underneath it.

  She trusted Gil’s judgment, but they didn’t make sense. Not for the Jeanie she’d known and become close friends with over the past five years.

  ‘Why on earth are Dan and Brian Flanagan on Jeanie’s list?’

  He expected the question and answered it steadily, as though he knew she’d have trouble believing it. ‘She and Aldo paid protection money for years. Brian was the one who delivered the “invoices”.’

  She shook her head. Protection money. Invoices. Shit, that belonged elsewhere, not here.

  ‘How do you know this?’ she asked, with a vain, wild hope that he couldn’t prove it.

  ‘Back when I worked for Jeanie for a while, I helped her put together enough information to hold over the Flanagans and get them off her case. I went with her when she confronted Dan.’
/>
  Her mind struggled to grapple with the ideas – of Flanagan running protection rackets here in Dungirri; of Jeanie knowing about it, dealing with him, and yet never breathing a word of it; of her own ignorance of Flanagan’s activities and influence. Yes, it might have been years ago, long before her arrival in the area, but it seemed things were still going on. There’d been a few rumours, but as far as she knew, every time she or her colleagues had had cause to contact Dan, he’d been the model citizen, squeaky clean.

  She focused on one aspect, sought to make sense of it. ‘You did the same thing with Vince – found information to hold over him. So it was your idea to best Flanagan that way?’

  ‘No. It was Jeanie who showed me how powerful information can be.’

  ‘Jeanie taught you how to handle the mafia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She screwed her eyes closed, wondering if the sun was addling her brain, but when she opened them again he was still there, looking at her, unsmiling.

  ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’

  ‘Sorry, Blue.’

  She hauled in a long breath, huffed it out. When Jeanie was fit enough, she’d send someone to interview her. Probably even go herself. But in the meantime …

  In the meantime, she believed Gil. Despite the shock of it, what he’d told her was entirely plausible. Jeanie wasn’t the kind of woman to succumb to bullying, and the old sergeant who’d been here then had not, from all reports, been a sterling example of a police officer. Jeanie hadn’t liked him – she’d told Kris that, a while back – so it made sense that she’d have dealt with Flanagan herself. It made her wonder what else had gone on in the town’s past.

  The sunshine hadn’t changed, the pub’s courtyard was the same as ever, only Kris’s perceptions had shifted, the shadows more stark. And she just had to deal with it, piece by piece, fact by fact.

  ‘The information on Flanagan. What was it?’

  ‘A package of information. Some Polaroid photos. A cassette recording of threats. Lists of dates, times, places. And maps and photos of a couple of hydroponic marijuana production areas.’