by J. M. Peace
Eli had a digital recorder and made audio notes as he went along. ‘The animal is a large brown dog, some sort of cross I guess. Bull mastiff features, I think. Two bullet wounds, front of the snout and between the forelegs. No visible exit points.’
He turned to Steven. ‘Let’s just open him up from the base of the throat to the penis. We’ll stick with what we know and try to do it as we would a human. It’s just the stomach we’re after. It shouldn’t be too hard to find once we’ve got him open.’
Using a scalpel, Steven slit the dog open, then used shears to snip each rib bone and pried open the chest cavity. Steven was surprised at how much he recognised. He had been a mortuary technician for three years but this was the first time he had ever seen the inside of an animal. He followed the large intestines back up to the stomach, clamped the inlet and outlet shut and cut the stomach out with two sharp strokes of the scalpel. The bullets had done some damage to the internal organs, but the stomach itself was intact. He handed it to Eli, then turned and readied some vials for samples.
Eli slit open the stomach and the sour smell of acid rushed up towards him. He had been doing this for over twenty years and there was no smell or sound a dead body, human or animal, could produce that would bother him.
There was a gagging noise from the doorway as the smell reached the police officer.
‘Just breathe through your mouth,’ Steven called over helpfully.
The contents were a gluggy paste. Eli separated the lumps with his scalpel, inspecting them.
‘The dog has eaten fairly recently before it died. And didn’t get much water with its dinner. There are pieces of flesh in its stomach contents, but some have fur on them. The flesh is uniform in colour and texture so I would say the dog has only eaten one type of meat.’
He used his gloved finger to scrape muck off one of the bigger pieces of undigested flesh and peered at the fur.
‘Kangaroo would be my best guess,’ he said. ‘But I’ll take some specimens for analysis.’
He deftly scooped some samples into the vials Steven handed him. They were sealed with barcodes for identification and Steven packed them for delivery to the laboratory.
Eli looked towards the doorway. ‘That’s what you needed?’ he asked the detective. The man nodded and squeezed out a quick ‘thanks’. He just about ran for the door and the fresh air outside.
Steven laughed after they heard the door slam. ‘You’d think cops would have stronger stomachs,’ he said.
Sunday 3:29 pm
Janine was online, trying to book a flight back to Brisbane. It was getting late and she needed to start thinking what she would do if she was stuck in Emerald for the night. She didn’t regret coming out here but she needed to be back in Brisbane where the action was. There was still so much to do.
A job like this was the reason Janine had become a police officer in the first place. This was a complex investigation with life or death consequences. If she could catch this psycho and put him away for good, that was the ultimate conclusion both professionally and personally.
A phone call from Bevan at forensics was put through to Janine. She’d already received the news about the fingerprints and wondered if there was something he had not included in his report. He sounded tense and started without preamble.
‘I found a SIM card in the ute,’ he said. ‘It was hidden in with the fuses. We’d found his camera earlier and I guessed he’d removed the SIM card for a reason. So I just kept looking till I found it. I’m going to email you through the photos. They are gruesome, so make sure you have some privacy when you look at them. But they are going to crack your case wide open,’ Bevan said.
‘Pictures of Sammi?’ Janine queried.
‘Yes and no,’ Bevan said without further explanation. ‘Just prepare yourself for some sick stuff.’
Janine felt a shiver of anticipation. She called out for Sean. He appeared next to her computer as she was opening Bevan’s email.
‘The forensics guy found a SIM card hidden in the ute. He’s just sent through the photos.’
Hearing the anxiety in her voice, Sean wordlessly pulled up a seat next to Janine. She reached for the mouse and started clicking through the pictures, quickly once she saw the content. She did not want to dwell on them. Not now. There would be time for that later.
The first three photos were of the missing prostitute the barman had been questioned about. Janine felt bad that she couldn’t even remember her name. She recognised the clothing though. The shots showed her dead on the ground in the bush. Her throat had been slit, her head bent back at an unnatural angle. The photos looked as if they had been taken at night.
Next came another woman. Janine thought she recognised the face from the Missing Persons files she had looked through. These photos were taken during the day and set up the pattern to come – first there was a full-length shot, then one from the side and finally a close-up of her face. The woman’s head was tilted slightly away from the camera, her eyes looking at the ground, fear on her face. She was dead in the next picture. On her back on the ground, in the bush. Again a close-up of her face, her unseeing eyes staring blankly, her fear drained along with her blood.
Another click of the mouse, a new victim. The same series of photos: before death, and after. A trophy of the barman’s power and cruelty over the victims.
Tahlia Corbett was the next face. Her face was ashen and Janine could almost hear her whimpering. She had been shot and probably savaged by the dog by the look of her injuries in the postmortem photos. She had been so young.
‘That’s four now,’ Sean said in a low voice.
‘He’s a serial killer. Bill was right. They’re all linked,’ Janine said.
Her hand was shaking slightly as she reached for the mouse. She paused before clicking, afraid of what she might see next. Another shot of Tahlia with her abdominal cavity cut open, followed by one of the barman’s dog chewing a dismembered arm. His methods were getting more gruesome.
Another click of the mouse and there she was. Janine recognised her instantly. Even though she had been anticipating it, she was still shocked to see Sammi. She was looking straight at the camera. She was staring defiantly, her teeth slightly clenched. A full-length shot, one from the side, then a close-up of her face, the fear in her eyes now visible beneath the bravado. The same pattern. Three shots while they were still alive. Janine knew what was to come next. She froze, too scared to click the mouse again. Sean reached past her and hit the mouse button. The first woman popped up again.
‘That’s back to the beginning. That was the last photo,’ he said.
‘There are no dead shots of Sammi,’ Janine said. Sean nodded.
‘He didn’t kill her,’ Janine whispered. ‘We have to find her.’
Sunday 3:36 pm
Pieces of information dribbled through to Gavin, but nothing conclusive. Yes, they had the guy. Yes, Sammi had been tied up in the back of his ute. All bad news. Despite this, the police had been unable to extract any useful information from the barman and were no closer to finding Sammi.
Gavin thought of jumping in his car and driving out to Emerald. If he had ten minutes alone with a cricket bat and that bastard, he was sure he’d get some answers. He knew he wouldn’t be allowed to even see the man, but there were often unofficial ways around these things. He’d hung out a lot with coppers and heard all the stories, which may or may not have been true. The story that kept coming to mind was about an officer who dressed up in scuba gear and beat a confession out of a suspect using a dead fish. When the baddie had tried to explain the event to both the legal-aid solicitor as well as the magistrate, no one believed him because it was so outrageous. Gavin didn’t know if the story was true or not, but he would have given anything a go at that point.
Tom was being a great friend and checked in constantly.
‘I will tell you every
thing I find out,’ Tom had said, looking him in the eye. ‘Everything.’
Despite this, Gavin’s frustration was building to breaking point. He felt worse than useless, as if his inaction was slowing down the investigation, slowing down time itself. He wanted to punch the barman’s face in, kick him in the stomach until he was spewing blood. He had never felt hatred, in its most pure and unyielding form, before now. It was gnawing his insides with poisonous thoughts.
He glanced out the front window, the louvres open just a crack. Worse still, an audience for his misery was also starting to form on the front lawn. A TV cameraman and reporter were loitering on the nature strip.
He was trapped in his house, trapped in this situation.
There was nothing he could do but wait.
Sunday 3:38 pm
Sammi opened her eyes. Was she dead? She should be dead.
She tilted her head and trees came into focus. She was certain her version of the afterlife would not feature the bush. And surely wouldn’t involve sticks and rocks jabbing her in the back.
It wasn’t finished yet. She felt her angels very close by, waiting to take her by the hand when it was time to go. But there was still something for her to do here.
She closed her eyes and thought of the people she loved. Gavin. Her parents. Deep sorrow washed over her, making her head spin. Then she thought about the other girls. They had people who loved them too. Sammi saw them – faceless people crying endless tears. They had not even been given the chance to bury their children. There was no grave to grieve at, no conclusion reached. She must do one more thing. For her family. For all the families.
She must be found. To be precise, her remains must be found. They would never be seen tucked in under anonymous trees in the endless bush.
By strength of will alone, she rolled onto her side and pushed herself into a sitting position. She focused, listening. She could hear the flowing water. It was not so far away. She heaved herself to her feet and willed them to move her forward. Just this one thing. One last effort.
She didn’t know how long it took her to get to the creek. She felt detached from her body and it no longer told her how much it hurt. Her concept of time was broken.
The angels led her to the spot. There was a large flat rock in the middle of the water. She waded out and crawled onto it.
It was done.
She felt calm. There were no trees above her now. Only sky. Clear blue endless sky. She could see heaven from here.
Sunday 3:49 pm
Janine was getting agitated – not usual for her. Snippets of the interview with Black kept playing over in her head; she continued to look for further clues. There was no doubt in her mind that Sammi had been taken to Captain’s Creek and she felt overwhelmingly that not enough was being done. She rang Bill again and did not hold back.
‘We’ve got to get a fucking helicopter up,’ she said after the briefest of greetings.
‘We’re doing what we can, Janine,’ Bill answered calmly.
‘Well, it’s not enough. She’s not at Yonga. He’s amended his MO. The hooker they found at Yonga was the first. It was night-time. We saw that in the photo. It probably wasn’t even planned. He nearly got caught. So he changed location, started planning it, waiting till daytime and taking souvenir photos of each of his victims,’ Janine said.
‘I think you’re right. She’s probably at Captain’s Creek. But it’s going to take a while to coordinate a search,’ Bill said.
‘Yep. It’s a huge parcel of land. It will take days to complete a thorough ground search. That’s exactly why we need to get into the air,’ Janine said.
‘It’s just not that easy. We don’t have our own helicopter and there have to be extreme circumstances for the bosses to go begging to Energex to borrow their chopper,’ Bill said.
‘So we’ll owe them a favour. Big deal,’ she said, a little too loudly. ‘Sammi’s alive and she’s in Captain’s Creek. Tell me that’s not a freaking extreme circumstance! We’ve got to get a helicopter up, give her a chance at least.’
‘It’s been a cold night, it probably dropped to single figures in the bush last night,’ Bill said, the voice of rationality. ‘Even if she managed to get away from Black, she would have been lucky to survive the night. She’s probably there. But is a helicopter going to do us any good? It will be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, and that’s if she’s alive and can signal the helicopter. It will be dark in a couple of hours. We’ll get an organised search with the SES and sniffer dog all ready to head out at first light tomorrow.’
‘What if you’re wrong and she’s lost in the bush, watching dusk creep in, praying we’re looking for her? We’ve got to give her a chance. We need a helicopter, even for an hour. If she’s alive, she’ll find a way to signal it. Give her that one chance. Please,’ Janine said. ‘Which boss decides these things? Let me talk to him, I’ll convince him. It shouldn’t come down to the cost of the helicopter if someone’s life is in the balance. Anyone’s. Doesn’t matter if she’s a copper.’
Janine rested her forehead on the palm of her hand, frustrated by Bill’s reticence and unable to go over his head.
‘What if it was me? I’d hope someone was doing everything they could if it was me out there,’ Janine said. She paused, considering how to influence Bill. ‘What if it was your daughter?’ she asked.
Bill paused, then Janine heard a sigh down the receiver. ‘It will be better coming from me. I’ll get back to you,’ he said.
Janine hung up. She leant back in the office chair but found she could not sit still. She started pacing through the unfamiliar station, phone in hand, waiting for Bill’s next call.
When her phone rang, she answered, ‘Bill?’
‘We got it,’ Bill answered. ‘Thought I’d let you know quickly. The sooner we get this helicopter up in the air, the more time till dusk.’
Ideas tumbled through Janine’s head.
‘Tell them they should start in the middle and work outwards. He’s going to have taken her deep into the bush. We have a fair idea where that bloke saw him on his trail bike, they need to cover around that area too. I don’t know what it’s worth, but Crime Stoppers reckon almost every psychic who has rung in thinks she’s near water. It’s as good as anything we’ve got to go on,’ Janine said.
‘Fair enough. I’ll pass it on,’ said Bill.
All Janine could do now was sit and wait.
Sunday 4:50 pm
Des Petersen was just going through the motions. He was up in the helicopter, acting as the spotter in what he saw as a pointless search. They had only made it to the search area about twenty minutes ago and the sun was already low in the sky. They wanted 450 square kilometres of scrub passed over before the sun went down. Looking for a single woman on foot.
Ridiculous, he thought to himself.
He loved his job, but there was little chance of a successful search with these sorts of limits placed on them. This was what annoyed him most. It was a half-baked job, one where they were doomed to fail. They should leave it until morning, section off the bushland and search it thoroughly and systematically. Then even if they didn’t find anything, at least they had done it properly.
Instead, they were instructed to follow a waterway up through the bush, criss-cross until it was too dark to continue. Shoddy. The police chief clearly had no idea. He stifled a yawn as he watched the rippled surface of the creek, dotted with rocks, winding through scrubby eucalypt forest.
Something caught his eye up ahead, too far in front to make out clearly. He could see a colour, one that didn’t belong in the bush.
‘What the hell’s that?’ he said over the headset to the pilot, pointing to direct his attention. It was an unnatural red colour. By then they were over the top of it. An astonished look passed between them and the pilot immediately swung the chopper into a tight turn to dou
ble back.
Sunday 4:58 pm
The operation room was abuzz. There were so many leads to follow up and each of the six officers in the room had a different task. There was a map of Queensland with pins marking where Sammi was last seen, where she lived, the barman’s house, where he was arrested. The latest was a large red circle around Captain’s Creek State Forest, 450 square kilometres of scrubby bush and not much else.
The phone would ring sporadically. The officer who grabbed this call didn’t expect it to change her day completely. She listened intently, then asked, ‘Are you sure?’
She jumped to her feet, receiver still in hand.
‘HEY!’ she shouted. All heads in the room swivelled to look at her.
‘They’ve found her. Sammi’s alive!’
Sunday 5:00 pm
Janine was a tiger in a cage. There was so much she wanted to do, but she didn’t have the means to do it. She was watching the DVD recording of her interview with Black but she jiggled and twitched, unable to keep still or concentrate. She was also uncomfortable because she was not at her own station. She hadn’t found a flight back to Brisbane and didn’t know anyone here to vent to. And she was drinking out of someone else’s coffee cup. Sean had kindly made her a strong black coffee but she was unreasonably irritated by the fact the cup proclaimed her ‘World’s Greatest Dad’.
Her thoughts were with Sammi. What had she endured? Was there anything else Janine could do?
Her mobile phone rang. Bill’s name flashed up on the screen.
‘Tell me you’ve got news,’ she begged.
‘The best!’ It was the first time since she met him that Janine had heard him excited. ‘Sammi’s alive! She’s just been picked up by the helicopter,’ Bill said. A pause while Janine’s brain processed this information, hardly daring to believe what she heard.
‘Sammi’s . . . alive?’ she asked, hesitantly.
‘Yes. You were right. She was at Captain’s Creek. Alongside the creek. One pass over in the helicopter and they found her,’ Bill said.