by J. M. Peace
He made a move on just about anyone at every opportunity he got. Janine once observed him successfully picking up a woman during a search warrant they had conducted, chatting her up while he was raiding her house. She was a druggie and Jake charged her with possessing some pot and amphetamines. But she had an impressive rack and was used to men and their intentions. She led Jake on, thinking it might get her out of the charges. She got 200 hours’ community service and a $1000 fine; he got crabs and a starring role in one of those office stories that would be told long after he had moved on.
That aside, Jake was a good plainclothes officer. His innate arrogance and lack of shame meant he would continue asking questions after more moderate officers had stopped. And the thing about asking questions is that sometimes you got worthwhile answers.
The detective sergeant of the CIB at Inala recognised the potential, ignored the gossip and paid attention to the way Jake operated. The DS sponsored him the next time a spot came open in the office. It wasn’t a promotion as such, more a specialisation of skills. All detectives start out in general duties, get a plainclothes position on merit and complete their studies for the right to put Detective in front of their rank. The position required a sharpened intuition, the ability to elicit information and an attention to detail. Jake ticked all the boxes and was quickly accepted into the small crew.
Janine enjoyed working with Jake, once she clarified where they stood with each other. He had made a half-hearted attempt to chat her up initially, almost out of habit. She had shot him down immediately and given him the standard warning – ‘don’t screw the crew’. Janine had seen too many office romances end badly. She had a personal rule not to date any other police officers. Once it was crystal clear to him that she was not a possible sex partner, he treated her as a friend. The more they worked together, the easier it became to complement each other’s strengths. Janine tried to lead by example, operating professionally and thoroughly. She expected nothing less from Jake, and he wasn’t too arrogant to realise how important this was.
After Tom’s call, Jake went straight to Janine. ‘Hey Neeny, I just got a call from an old academy buddy out at Angel’s Crossing. One of the girls from his station has gone AWOL. Last seen at the Lion’s Head at about four this morning,’ Jake said.
The Lion’s Head was a bit of a dive, known locally as the Lion’s Den as there was usually someone on the prowl there.
‘Do we have time to make some enquiries?’ he asked.
‘Of course we do,’ she said, quickly. How could he think that they would blow off something like that? She gave him a hard look, but softened her tone. ‘First of all, she’s in The Job; second, if we don’t follow up and she turns out to actually be missing, we’re going to get our arses kicked. It will take three minutes to make a couple of calls and see if it goes anywhere.’
‘I’m not sure how seriously to take it. My mate always seems to be trying to please someone, so he might be making something out of nothing,’ Jake said.
‘You know what it’s like with missing people. She’ll probably turn up as soon as we start making calls,’ Janine replied.
Jake nodded, still unsure.
‘She single? You may get a date out of it,’ Janine teased.
Jake smiled broadly. It was his real smile rather than the dimply one he saved for the girls. Janine could tell the difference by now.
‘Is that what you think of me?’ he asked. ‘That I’d want to find a missing person just so I can date her?’
‘I didn’t say anything about dating her,’ Janine shot back.
‘Well, she’s got a boyfriend. But she might trade up once she’s met me. What do you reckon we do first?’ he asked.
‘What do we know?’ Janine queried.
‘The girl, name’s Sammi by the way, has a fight with her bloke. She comes down to Brisbane and goes out with a girlfriend, Candy. She heads home before Candy and that’s the last thing anyone knows. She’s nowhere to be found, her phone’s turned off and she should be halfway to Angel’s Crossing by now to make it for the start of her shift. Her car is at Candy’s house and it looks like she never even made it back there last night.’
‘Might have picked up some guy?’ Janine queried.
‘Maybe, but I wasn’t out last night,’ Jake quipped.
‘So, it’s out of character and the boyfriend is panicking because he’s getting the silent treatment?’ Janine asked.
‘Yeah, something like that,’ Jake replied.
‘OK,’ Janine said. ‘Easy. You ring the friend, get some more info. And no flirting with potential witnesses, you hear? I’ll ring the pub, see if I can raise anyone there, see if anyone remembers her.’
They both reached for their phones.
Janine cleared her throat as the phone rang at the other end. An answering machine told her the pub was closed, but directed all enquiries to the head office. Janine scribbled down the number and tried it. To her surprise, despite it being Saturday morning, someone answered.
She quickly introduced herself, ‘We’re investigating a missing person and we believe she may have been at one of your clubs last night . . . The Lion’s Head at Inala . . . I was wondering if you could give us the names of the bar staff or security, or anyone who might have been working after 3 am last night?’
She wrote down a list of seven names and contact numbers and hung up.
Janine thought for a minute, then pulled out her private phone, scrolled through her lengthy contact list and made another call.
She finished her call shortly after Jake finished talking to Candy.
‘How did you go?’ she asked him.
‘Candy’s an airhead. And hungover. She said Sammi left the pub by herself sometime between 3 am and 4 am. She couldn’t narrow it down any further. She said Sammi wasn’t trying to pick up and she had stopped drinking earlier on in the night. Then she let slip that the guy who was trying to pick up Sammi ended up coming home with her. Along with another guy,’ Jake grinned. ‘I’m beginning to think I might have to pay her a personal visit to see if she has any more details.’
Janine smiled back. Jake was so predictable. ‘So she didn’t see Sammi after that?’
‘No. Sammi was meant to be staying the night. She knew where the spare key was so she could let herself in. When the threesome got home, Candy said she just assumed Sammi was in bed. Didn’t notice she wasn’t there until the boyfriend rang this morning. What about you – what did you find?’ Jake asked.
‘Well, you’re not the only one with a friend in Angel’s Crossing. I used to work with one of the sergeants, back when we were Connies. I just gave him a call to get some background info. Sammi’s apparently well-liked, a good worker. And everyone likes her boyfriend too. Apparently it’s not out of the ordinary for them to have a bit of a barney. But they’ve been together for years. As far as we can tell, he was at home all night, about three hours away from where she went missing. So there’s the chief suspect ruled out,’ Janine said.
Kidnappings and murders were very rarely random. The first suspect was always the husband or wife, or whoever reported the missing person. Officers would take down the missing persons’ report, and the first thing they would check was the partner’s domestic violence history, weapons licences and previous crimes. Sometimes it was immediately obvious which way the investigation would head. Other times, all they had was speculation and pleas for public information. These sorts of crimes were not common and usually a number of officers were put to work on them.
Take the Tahlia Corbett case. Four months later, and there was still an operation room, with officers investigating each and every lead that came in. When an eighteen-year-old out on the town in the city gets separated from her friends and disappears into the night never to be seen again, the investigation escalates quickly.
All of Tahlia’s family members had given statements about wha
t they knew and where they were that night. Each person had been subjected to just enough questioning to turn a statement into a potential interrogation, but nothing had turned up.
It looked like Corbett was a genuine missing person. It was a media nightmare for the police service – everybody wanted to know what happened to the pretty teenager who loved horses, and whose only mistake was to get left behind when her friends moved from one nightclub to the next. The only answer the police had for the parents and the media was ‘we are following numerous leads’. PR speak for ‘we’ve got nothing solid’.
The similarity in both cases was not lost on Janine. A young woman disappears while partying in Brisbane. But it was much too early for speculation. Missing people usually turned up, shame-faced and sorry to have caused trouble. Sometimes people might choose to be missing. If this copper had been fighting with her boyfriend – if it had gone too far, or she’d had enough of him – she might decide to go missing, either for some time out from him, or to break up with him. There were any number of reasons, all of them more likely than an abduction, and most of them not a police matter.
Contrary to popular belief, a person did not have to be missing for a certain period of time before a report could be made. An eight-year-old not seen for fifteen minutes was cause for alarm, whereas it might take a month or two for someone to notice one of the local vagrants wasn’t around and try to track him down. It depended on the circumstances, the contributing factors.
Janine handed Jake the list of names. ‘OK. Can you have a look at these names and see what comes up? These are the staff members. Run them through the computer and choose one who can be most helpful in remembering last night.’
A few minutes later, he plopped into the chair opposite Janine’s desk.
‘The bouncers and door staff are pretty clean,’ Jake said. ‘But the bar staff are a different story. There were only two working past 3 am. First was a thirty-five-year-old woman. When I put her name into the system, I got a stack of hits. But they’re all as an associate. She’s got very little form but her son is a repeat armed robber. He’s twenty years old, so you can do the math and draw some conclusions.
‘Next is a barman, a forty-two-year-old bloke. Two domestic violence orders against him, one from a girlfriend, one from his mum. Had a weapons licence but lost his guns when the first DV order was taken out and he never got them back.
‘But the really interesting thing is that he was linked to a missing person nearly four years ago. She was a hooker. He was listed as the last to see her. She used to send a text to a friend with the rego number before she got into anyone’s car. He was her last client before she disappeared. He was interviewed, but said he had dropped her back at the street corner he found her after doing the deed. Nothing to prove otherwise. She’s still missing.’
Jake swung around on the chair so he could lean right across Janine’s desk.
‘If this job goes bad, you know I’m blaming you, Neeny. You’re a fucken shit magnet,’ he said.
‘I’m not the shit magnet, Jakey. Who am I always working with every time the big jobs come up? Answer that one?’ she countered.
‘You’ve been a shit magnet for eighteen years. I’ve only been here for one of those. So don’t blame me, I just end up coming along for the ride,’ Jake replied.
Janine didn’t reply because she feared he was right. She had learnt some of her lessons and gained her experiences the hard way. Janine could feel her pulse quicken slightly as she considered the possibilities surrounding their first suspect.
‘Where does the woman live, the mum?’ she asked.
‘She’s local,’ Jake replied.
‘Let’s go talk to her first, see what happens. She may give us a bit of background on the dodgy barman before we go and see him. We’ll just tread carefully in case they are friends. I’m sure this barmaid is anti-police with her son’s police history.’
Janine turned and grinned at Jake. ‘Might be time to use your legendary charm.’
Saturday 9:55 am
The beer hardly helped. Gavin’s nerves were stretched tight and he couldn’t sit still. Once again, he walked to the edge of the barracks and looked around the corner into the carpark, willing Sammi to drive in at any minute. He knew without being told that the longer she remained absent, the less likely it was that she would just appear.
Patience wasn’t one of Gavin’s strong points. If there was a problem, he would get in and try to fix it. It was one of the things that had attracted him to Sammi. They were always ready for an adventure – to experience, to live and to do. Now there was nothing he could do.
Part of him toyed with the idea of driving to Brisbane himself to start a one-man search party. But three hours in the car was a waste of time at the moment. It was better that he had come to Tom, and to let the police network kick into gear. This didn’t make the waiting any easier though.
He paced back to his seat again. He sat down, drained the last sip out of his can. He crushed it in his hand, letting the sharp corners of the aluminium bite into his skin. He wanted to feel the pain to take his mind off the waiting. The last thing he wanted to do was get drunk at ten in the morning when his girlfriend was missing, but this was driving him crazy. He would be more use if he was calmer and more relaxed, he deliberated. He got up and hit the Sherbet button again, and cracked his second beer.
Shortly after the can clinked into the outlet, Tom reappeared. He came out of the kitchen and sat next to Gavin, a piece of toast in his hand.
‘Her car’s probably broken down. Out on a back road where she doesn’t have any phone reception.’
Tom was trying to sound rational and convincing. Gavin wondered if he believed what he was saying himself. He nodded, to acknowledge that Tom had spoken rather than in agreement.
‘I don’t know how long it will take for my mate to get to it,’ Tom said apologetically. ‘It might be a bit of a wait.’
‘I’m staying till I hear something,’ Gavin said.
Tom nodded. ‘Just don’t get yourself wasted,’ he said. ‘Sammi will probably get in a bit of trouble when she does turn up. The last thing she needs is for you to be sitting here pissed.’
‘I’m just not good at waiting,’ Gavin said. ‘I need to take the edge off so I don’t go nuts.’
‘It’ll be alright. She’ll turn up.’ Tom sounded less convincing this time.
They sat in silence, each staring at different spots on the ground, the unspoken fear sucking the oxygen from the air, making it heavy and hard to breathe. It was a couple of minutes before either of them spoke again.
‘So did you see the game on the weekend?’ Tom asked.
Saturday 10:01 am
Janine and Jake pulled up outside Michelle Lewis’s home. It was small and scruffy, the requisite unregistered car with a wheel missing parked on the front lawn. They’d already decided that Jake would lead off and do the talking.
Michelle was home, and clearly unhappy about having to get out of bed to answer the door. She eyed them, in their business clothes, waiting for the worst. As soon as they identified themselves with a flip of their badges, she groaned and rolled her eyes.
‘Is Teddy in trouble again?’ she asked, pulling her dressing gown tighter.
‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ said Jake, and flashed a friendly smile. ‘We’re hoping you might be able to help us. It’s to do with a woman who was at the pub last night. May we come in and have a chat please?’
Michelle’s expression didn’t change. ‘So you reckon you’re not here for Teddy?’ she asked.
‘No, we –’
‘Just a minute then,’ Michelle cut Jake off before he could further clarify.
She didn’t wait for a reply. She simply shut the door in their faces. Seconds later a motorbike sped out from the backyard, under full acceleration. A young man wearing a tank top, shorts an
d thongs in a helmet was riding it. He zoomed down the driveway, straight across the road and between two houses, quickly disappearing from view.
Janine gave an exaggerated wave in the direction of the disappearing motorbike. ‘See ya, Teddy!’
‘Do you know him?’ asked Jake.
‘No,’ she said, ‘but who else is it going to be?’
The front door swung open and Michelle had a smug look on her face. ‘If you want to see Teddy, it’s a shame, he’s not home. You’ve just missed him.’
Jake gave her a half-smile, just enough to activate his dimples. He tilted his head a little. ‘We’re really not here about Teddy. We want to find out if you saw a woman at the pub. You might have served her. Your boss said you were working till close this morning.’
‘Yeah. OK,’ she said. She stepped aside abruptly, gesturing them in. ‘Come in then. I’m sure it will get the neighbours talking again.’
She ushered them into the kitchen and they all took a seat around the table. Housework clearly wasn’t high on Michelle’s list of priorities. There were sticky jam clumps and coffee rings staining the grey laminex.
Jake explained what Sammi and her friend looked like and then gave a brief version of Candy’s story about when she had last seen Sammi.
Michelle shook her head slightly. ‘I don’t pay too much attention to them unless I’m serving them. If I wasn’t pouring them drinks, I wouldn’t have noticed them. I couldn’t say for sure I had seen those girls exactly. I’ve been working in dark smoky bars for too long. Unless they’re ripping their tops off and giving blow-jobs on the dance floor, I don’t give them a second thought. Sorry.’
‘What about the other barman, Don Black? That’s his name, right? Might he have been serving them?’
Janine saw Michelle’s expression visibly alter at the mention of Don’s name.
‘Actually, now that you mention it, that was a bit strange last night. Don left early,’ she began, and Janine could almost see her brain working as the thought processes started.
‘I should first say that I don’t like the bloke. He gives me the creeps. He’s got a way of looking at you that just makes the hair rise on the back of your neck. Anyway, it would have been about 4:15 this morning, he comes up to me and tells me he needs to leave straightaway. He said there was a family emergency of some sort. Now, he’s no family man, but that’s probably beside the point. And he must have got the information telepathically because I didn’t see him take any phone calls.’