by J. M. Peace
She carefully made her way back to the stream, not worrying about broken branches and snapped twigs, but very careful to not leave any footprints facing back to the river. She wanted to walk backwards so her false trail would not betray her but the sound of the motorbike was steadily drawing nearer. If he did have any tracking skills, he would find this track out of the river, into the bush and think she was heading back towards the road. It wasn’t a very long false trail, but might be enough to throw him. If he was a skilful tracker – and wanted a real challenge – he wouldn’t have needed the GPS in the first place.
Sammi made it back to the river, and jumped from the edge of the riverbank into the centre of the stream. She waded upstream again, until she found a rock on the edge of the opposite side of the riverbank. She climbed up onto it. It was in the sun and she felt the warmth of it under her bare toes. She knew her wet footprints would dry quickly. She slowly made her way into the bush, trying very hard not to disturb any branches or undergrowth.
Sammi had decided she would stay by the river as far as possible. She had little hope of finding the road, but the river would lead somewhere. She would be close to water and could drink when she needed to. She had been ignoring her stomach pains and throbbing headache. Maybe rehydrating would help.
For her plan to work, she had to follow the creek downstream. Upstream would take her up into the hills and deeper into the bush. Downstream would lead somewhere – eventually. Creeks flowed into rivers and ended up at the coast, in the sea.
People and rescue were downstream. Right now, so was the barman. That is, only until he found her little boat. Then he would surely go upstream to start looking for her, or head back to his car. That was what Sammi was counting on.
It was a gutsy move that made her stomach flip-flop but now it was Sammi’s turn to stalk the barman. She would stay on her side of the creek and shadow him, gambling that when he found the boat, he wouldn’t start looking for her right there. And if he did have another plan, a different way of finding her, she wanted to know straight away. The exhaustion had taken its toll.
It was risky, but Sammi’s instinct told her that sticking close to him was the safest place to be. One way or another, Sammi wanted the chase to finish.
Saturday 1:28 pm
They had decided against SERT for the execution of the search warrant. Instead, they had eight officers plus the element of surprise.
‘He wouldn’t expect his door to be kicked in this soon,’ Bill said to Janine and she agreed. ‘How many missing persons reports are taken this seriously when the person has only been missing for nine hours? He’s counting on the fact that everyone will think she’s gone home with someone, or overslept. He probably wouldn’t think she would be working today and he might not even know she’s a cop.’
Janine nodded. ‘That all works in our favour. But if we’re right about him, he’s dangerous.’
So for the execution of the search warrant, Janine and Jake would be joined by Bill and another of the Op Echo staff, plus two uniform crews. Also in tow were a forensics Officer and Bernard Johnson. Bernard, a former prison screw, was their most reliable and cooperative Justice of the Peace. He was retired but still loved to be part of the action whenever he could. Bernard was coming along, because it looked very much like there was going to be no one home. The JP’s job was to protect the rights of the absent resident. With Bernard along to ensure the warrant was conducted legally, they could use reasonable force to gain entry and conduct the search without the occupier of the house being present.
There was still no word from Sammi. Her car remained at her friend’s house and she was now more than two hours late for her shift. Janine was relieved she had taken the first phone call from Angel’s Crossing seriously. They were so far ahead now, at the most critical time of an investigation, when the trail was still hot. The investigation into Tahlia’s disappearance had taken a while to kick into gear and continued to hit brick walls. Janine only hoped she had acted quickly enough for Sammi.
Janine had conducted the briefing before they left the office. She and Bill would knock on the front door. At the same time, the two generals crews would jump the fence, each going down one side of the house. Jake and the other detective would try to either get into, or at least see into, the garage. Bernard was to wait down the street. He would only be called in once the house was deemed safe.
They came up from both ends of the street, all parking at least a couple of houses away and walking up so they arrived together. The uniform crew jumped over the fence at the same time as Janine rapped three times on the front door. Although her gut told her there would be no one home, her heart beat double time and she clenched her fists to settle the shakes. She glanced at Bill but he was already at the front window, hands cupped around his eyes as he tried to make out movement or shapes through a crack in the drawn curtains.
There was a security screen door, and behind that, a front door with a dead bolt. It would be hard to break in. Janine gently tested the handle on the screen door. It was locked. She knocked again harder and Bill started knocking on the window. Janine looked over her shoulder and saw a figure peering out of the front window of the house over the road. You can’t have four police cars pull up in a street and not draw attention to yourselves.
A colleague’s face appeared over the fence.
‘The dog isn’t here. No one in the house,’ one of the uniforms reported.
‘Any way in?’ Bill called back.
‘Standby!’ and the face disappeared again.
Jake came over to the front door. ‘I could see through a window into the garage. The ute’s not there. No car, no dog. It’s a safe bet no one’s home.’
‘Do me a favour and go talk to the neighbour watching us from over the road. Find out if she saw him leave or anything,’ Janine said to Jake.
Most neighbourhoods had a couple of self-appointed Neighbourhood Watch representatives, people who were home a lot because they were retired or unemployed, and who knew exactly what was going on in the street. With any luck, the lady over the road had watched the barman leave just as she was now watching them.
One of the uniform boys clambered back over the fence and said to Bill, ‘Most of the curtains are open in the back. There are no signs of life in the house. There’s a couple of windows open in the back, it will just be a matter of popping out a flyscreen to get in. It looks like he’s not too concerned with security at the back with a dog in the backyard most of the time. Do you want us to break in and open up?’
‘Not yet. Can you go up the street first and get Bernard please?’ Bill said.
Jake returned from over the road. ‘Yep, that’s the neighbourhood busybody over there. According to her, the barman lives alone, with a large savage dog. Only works evenings and nights, and doesn’t have anything to do with any of the neighbours. She heard him come in just before five and then leave around six this morning. She called the ute a “noisy truck” and complained bitterly that she’s a light sleeper and it wakes her all the time. I reckon she’ll be worth talking to some more,’ Jake said.
‘So . . . he’s brought Sammi home and then left an hour later with the dog. Did he take her with him? Is she here? Burning questions,’ Bill said.
He watched Bernard walking towards the house with the constable.
‘I guess we’re about to find out.’
Bill gave the uniform bloke the nod. ‘Watch out. Two of you go in, but glove up first. Check the front door for a booby trap. The curtains are drawn. I can’t really see what’s in that front room.’
The uniform guy nodded enthusiastically. This sort of assignment was always more interesting than locking up drunks or chasing truants. He disappeared back over the fence.
‘I’ll go too,’ said Jake, and launched himself up and over the fence. The front door swung open a minute later. Jake looked a bit flushed as he leant against the
inside of the door jamb with his gloved hand.
‘There’s knives everywhere. Sheaths taped to walls, one on the kitchen table,’ he reported. ‘One right here,’ he said, tapping just inside the door jamb at chest height.
The three other detectives moved in, Bill motioning for Bernard to wait at the door. They had to be sure there were no nasty surprises before bringing a civilian in. They split into twos and did a slow, careful search, checking all rooms, all possible hiding places, even the ceiling cavity.
The forensics officer, a short wiry guy by the name of Geoff, trailed in behind the detectives. There was a bit of a conflict of interest for him. Having six officers tramping through the house would make a forensic examination so much more difficult if it turned out to be a major crime scene.
The house was sparsely furnished and largely uncluttered. There was a musty odour – a combination of body odour, fried food and cigarette smoke. Once they were certain that no one was there, Bill thanked and dismissed the general crews. The four detectives conducted the rest of the search, all focused on finding something that could be of value to the investigation. If they were lucky, perhaps obvious things like Sammi’s handbag or any items of her clothing.
And where the barman had taken her. They were looking for addresses, maps, a street directory with markings in it – every clue, no matter how small, would need to be followed up. Secret hiding spots, any item belonging to a woman, photo albums, cameras and address books were most critical to try to find.
Bernard stood in the front room as the search started around him. The detectives had already activated their digital recorders to document their actions. Under different circumstances, Janine would have tried to contact the resident to come home and be present during the search. But today was different. Once the barman realised they were onto him, he might panic. Right now, a neighbour friendly with the barman might be on the phone to him, telling him about the carloads of police at his house. There was nothing they could do about that – it was vital they cleared the house.
Janine and the three other detectives searched the front room systematically. Janine was itching to move into the master bedroom. She had a feeling that may hold more clues. She motioned for Bernard to follow her. Bill must have had the same idea, and quickly joined her. The other two detectives moved into a spare bedroom.
The first thing Janine noticed was a bong shaped like a skull on the bedside table. There was some residue in the cone piece and a small bowl with a few buds next to it. It was no surprise. There was almost always a bong in the houses they searched, but that was not why they were here today.
She opened the drawer on the bedside table while Bill opened the wardrobe.
‘Lots of khaki and camouflage gear in here,’ Bill remarked. ‘Do we know if he’s ex-army or army reserve?’
‘Could be. Intel only gave me the short version of his profile,’ Janine answered.
She pulled a box of ammunition out of the bedside drawer. ‘There’s a bad sign,’ she said.
‘Might be a good sign, if he’s left it here rather than taken it with him,’ Bill replied, but Janine sensed he didn’t believe his own optimism.
Janine removed the drawer she had finished searching and checked underneath and inside the cabinet. She could see Bill going through the pockets of jackets hanging in the wardrobe. There were thousands of excellent hiding spots in any house. What made it harder was they were unsure of exactly what they were looking for.
She checked under the bed, under the mattress, under the blankets and pillow, glad to have her latex gloves on. Hygiene was not high on his list of priorities. Janine moved to the dresser. At the back of the bottom drawer she found four pairs of ladies’ underwear, tucked under more camo pants. Definitely something of interest.
Janine called Geoff in. He first photographed them in situ. He barcoded them and swabbed each pair, before packaging them in paper bags to be sent to the lab for DNA profiling. It was unlikely that they had anything to do with Sammi but they could be valuable evidence for crimes against other women if their owners could be identified.
Geoff was inspecting the bed for stains, blood or otherwise. Janine was fairly certain he would find nothing. She had already decided that Sammi had not been brought into the house. This was not a crime scene. The barman had returned to the house to get something, possibly the dog, before heading off again. He would have left Sammi in the car while he did it. She might have been drugged or trussed up to keep her quiet and immobile while he completed his business. They would find no trace of Sammi here.
Bill pulled a shoe box out of the wardrobe and lifted the lid.
‘Photos here,’ he said. He put the box on top of the dresser and both of them started looking through the pictures. Photos used to be a great find in search warrants. Crooks today still took trophy photos, but rarely printed them, so the cops needed to find smartphones and digital cameras, SIM cards and memory sticks. Even as they flicked through the first of the photos, Janine could see they were taken years ago, on film cameras. There were lots of hunting photos. One with six dead kangaroos lined up on the ground, another of a young man with his foot on a dead boar. There was nothing to identify where they were taken or how long ago.
‘Nothing to help us right now,’ Janine said. ‘But he loves killing things, doesn’t he?’
Bill nodded his agreement, and returned the photos to the box. They completed the search, even checking the inside of the curtain rails and looking for loose carpet corners.
The spare bedroom was uninteresting. In the kitchen, another bong. And that was it – nothing else of interest.
‘We need to find his ute,’ Janine said, as they walked out of the bedroom.
Jake motioned for them to go out to the double garage, connected to the house by an internal door. There were tools and junk stacked around the sides, with room for one car in the middle.
‘There’s so much junk in here, but most of it has dust on it and looks like it hasn’t been disturbed for a while. The workbench looks well used. I found gun oil and a couple of rounds of ammo, .22s. There are more knives, and some sharpening tools. It also looks like he has a dirt bike. There’s an old helmet and tyre. No sign of the bike,’ Jake reported.
‘He has a homemade canopy on the back of his ute. Maybe he packs the bike under there. Would something like that fit in the back of a ute?’ Janine queried. She was thinking out loud more than anything else, but it seemed to make sense.
Jake nodded. ‘It’s possible. Neighbours might be able to help on that. If he was riding a bike around or revving it up in here, the old bird from over the road would probably know.’
‘Anything else of interest?’ Janine asked.
‘Yep. The other thing I found was some maps. Quite a lot of them, some of them Google Maps printouts. They seem to be of state forests and national parks through the southeast corner. There’s a stack of them from different locations. We’ll have to take a closer look, to see what matches or joins up. Also if there’s any specific circles or crosses.’
‘OK, great,’ Janine said. ‘Get Geoff to photograph them and we’ll seize all the maps and take a closer look back at the office.’
Janine and Bill, with Bernard in tow, went back through the house, talking to their colleagues, checking that nothing else had been found in any of the rooms or the backyard.
‘If there’s anything else of interest, it’s well hidden,’ Bill said. ‘I don’t think he brought Sammi into the house.’
‘I agree,’ said Janine. ‘We’re looking for a second location. The answer may be in those maps.’
Saturday 1:29 pm
Out of helplessness and guilt, and on the spur of the moment, Candy had driven to Angel’s Crossing. But now, sitting outside Sammi and Gavin’s house, she didn’t know why she had come or what she wanted to say. She had been thinking about the things that Sammi had said about G
avin – about how they fitted together, the trust between them. Assuming he felt the same way about her, he must be lost and distraught not knowing where she was or why she had disappeared. She had thought Gavin might appreciate her driving out. He would see that she cared about Sammi too and they might draw comfort from each other. Now that she was actually here, it didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.
She turned off the engine. Without the air-conditioning, the interior heated up quickly in the afternoon sun as she tried to work up the courage to leave the sanctuary of the vehicle. Sweat started to prickle under her arms and she could smell the pungent stench of stale alcohol as last night’s drinking session worked its way out of her pores. This had been a mistake. She shouldn’t have come. She was probably still drunk now. She was no help. Worse than no help – she was a contributing factor. She should have gone home with Sammi. None of this would have happened if she had just gone home with Sammi.
Candy didn’t notice when the front door opened. She only caught a movement out of the corner of her eye when Gavin was standing at her window. He was up so close, she couldn’t open her door without hitting him and she couldn’t wind down the electric window without the motor running. She looked up through the glass at him with apprehension.
Gavin grabbed the handle and wrenched open the door.
‘You!’ he yelled. Little flecks of spittle shot out with the word.
Candy looked down, unable to meet his blazing eyes.
‘You’ve got a nerve, showing up here,’ he blasted.
‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered. She really was, but the little words sounded hollow and pointless.
‘Sorry’s not going to fucking find Sammi, is it?’ Gavin yelled.