by PD Martin
A woman in her mid-thirties with dark red hair is curled up in one corner of the couch, a sleeping baby in her arms. She stares out the front window into the distance, chunks of hair falling haphazardly across her pale face.
‘Sarah?’ Bell’s voice is soft, tentative.
Her head makes the quarter turn directly to us, but the movement is sluggish, like she’s in slow motion.
‘This is Sophie Anderson. She’s been working on Ted Strawasky’s case.’
She gives a slow-motion nod.
I move in next to her. ‘Hi.’ I look at the baby in her arms, a tiny little girl. ‘She’s gorgeous,’ I say. ‘How old?’
‘Nine months.’ She looks down and strokes the baby’s hair. ‘Rachel.’
I nod. ‘She’s beautiful.’
After a little pause, Officer Bell asks if I’d like to speak to Don and Sarah together.
‘Yes, that’d be great.’
We often speak to the parents separately, particularly if we’re trying to rule them out as suspects, but in this case I need to be quick. I’ll leave it up to Faulkner and the rest of Homicide to officially rule out the parents. Generally speaking, the older children get the less likely it is that one of the parents was involved in their disappearance or death—especially when the parents are still together.
Bell heads for the kitchen, while I continue talking to Sarah Baker about her baby, focusing on what’s probably the only positive thing in her life at the moment. A couple of minutes later Bell returns carrying a stack of glasses and a large jug. Mr Baker is a tall, solid man with tanned, leathery skin and wispy blond hair. He’s in shorts and a T-shirt, and would easily fit into a commercial for Victoria’s well-known beer, VB. I still remember the ads from the seventies and eighties, with the punch line: A hard-earned thirst needs a big cold beer and the best cold beer is Vic…Victoria Bitter.
Bell places the jug on the table and starts unstacking the glasses. ‘Sarah makes the best real lemonade I’ve ever tasted. Thought we could use some in this heat.’ He pours a glass and walks over to Mrs Baker, bending down in front of her. ‘Here’s some lemonade for you, Sarah.’
She shakes her head.
Don Baker steps in. ‘Come on, love. You need to keep your strength up…for Rachel. She’ll need another feed when she wakes.’
This spurs Sarah into action, although while she does pick up the glass, she doesn’t actually take a sip.
‘I’ll hold Rachel for a bit. While you talk to Sophie.’ Bell holds his hands out, but Mrs Baker clutches at Rachel and even turns her shoulder slightly, blocking Bell.
Mr Baker tries. ‘You need to put her down some time, Sarah.’
‘She’s fine. She’s happy with me.’
He takes a breath, but then decides to leave it. If holding onto Rachel as tightly as she can is getting Mrs Baker through the day, so be it. At least she’s got something, someone, to focus her maternal instincts on. Maybe this is what Mum was like with me, even though I was much older.
Bell pours another three glasses of lemonade and hands them out. Once everyone’s settled, I start.
‘First off, I want to warn you that I’ll be asking you questions you’ve already answered, and the homicide detectives who will be here soon will be doing the same. I know it’s hard, but sometimes on the third or even tenth recounting, you’ll remember something new. And it could be something important. Often the most inconsequential things can hold clues for us.’
Don Baker winces and glances at his wife—it’s torture for parents to go over it again and again, but it’s essential for us. Plus, in this case I won’t be sharing information with Homicide and vice versa.
‘Tell me about Curtis. What’s he like, what does he like doing?’
Mr Baker does all the talking, while Mrs Baker sits almost perfectly still. After ten minutes I have a definite picture of Curtis—athletic, outgoing, popular, a bit of a prankster, independent, but also respectful to his parents, teachers and other elders. He preferred to be outdoors, but he also liked computer games, like lots of young kids. He was the full forward for the town’s Under 12s Aussie Rules team and was a known goal-scorer with lots of talk about his potential. And that was his dream, to become a professional football player. Of course, that’s lots of kids’ goal but it sounds like Curtis might have had a shot. Maybe he still does.
Photos around the room show a fun-loving kid, who loved Australia’s great outdoors. Most photographs were taken outside, either with his family or with friends. There are also some beautiful photos of him with his sister. Ten’s a little old to be welcoming a sibling into your life, but if the photos are any indication it looks like he thoroughly enjoyed the baby.
‘How did he get along with Rachel?’ It’s a question I need to ask. Although the smiles in the snaps seem genuine, it’s possible to look happy for a photo—after all, it only captures a split second of your life. We need to rule out the possibility that he ran away because he felt his sister was getting all the attention. Leaving your house in the middle of the night and staying away for forty-eight hours is a sure-fire way to get both mum and dad’s focus squarely on you. Not the wisest choice, but people do crazy things over jealousy.
‘He loves Rachel.’ Mrs Baker speaks for the first time. ‘He was so excited when we told him I was pregnant.’ She glances at her husband and manages a small smile. ‘Remember, darling?’
‘Of course.’
‘And when she came along…he just doted on her. When she started on solids at six months, Curtis wanted to feed her. He changes the nappies—’ she laughs, ‘—but only the wet ones. And he loves dressing her.’ She stares at the full glass of lemonade.
I smile. ‘Sounds like a great big brother.’
She nods, but in an instant her smile vanishes. I hate to think what’s running through her head now.
I look at Mr Baker. ‘So, yesterday morning? Tell me what happened.’
‘I went to wake up Curtis at six. He usually helps me in the paddocks before school, making sure there’s water and feed for the cattle.’ He takes a large gulp of lemonade. ‘But he wasn’t in bed.’ Baker rubs the back of his hand across his forehead, like he’s wiping sweat off. ‘I looked around the house, and then checked with Sarah. She had Rachel on the boob in here. But she hadn’t seen him, or heard him…’ He pauses.
‘Go on.’
‘I checked in the shed. Bluey, his horse, was still in there and so was the tractor.’ He shrugs. ‘There was nowhere for him to go. It was a mystery.’
‘Is that when you started getting worried?’
‘I guess.’ He studies his hands, which rest in his lap. ‘But I kept looking for the logical explanation. Only there wasn’t one. Curtis was never an early riser. I normally had to drag him out of bed.’
‘So part of you felt something was amiss from the moment you went into his room?’
He nods, his face scrunching. ‘I…I didn’t call the police for a while. First I jumped in the car and did the rounds of the farm. Then we rang up his best mate. No go. So then I rang Jamie. We know each other from the kids’ footy.’
‘Yeah, Officer Bell told me.’
Baker continues. ‘I could tell Jamie was worried too. And that’s when I remembered about that other kid. In Euroa.’
‘Ted Strawasky.’
‘I’d seen it on the news and…’ He shudders, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Mrs Baker starts rocking back and forth, almost spilling the lemonade. I’m not sure if the rocking is to comfort herself or the baby.
After nearly a minute Don Baker looks at me, intently. ‘Do you think…do you think that monster’s got our boy?’
‘I’m not sure. It’s possible.’ Human instinct makes me want to sugar coat the truth, say, No, it’s highly unlikely. I’m sure Curtis is just off with his mates. But I’d be lying…and in the long run it would do the Bakers, and the investigation, more harm than good.
Slow tears stream down Mrs Baker’s face. She’s
too numb for hysterical tears…they come later. Baker strides over to his wife and rubs her back, but he seems a little uncomfortable with it, like he’s not sure how to best comfort her. Then again, he’s an Aussie male, an Aussie farmer—a tough breed, not known for being in touch with their emotions.
‘Did you ever notice anyone looking at Curtis? Anyone strange hanging around?’ Our perp’s careful, but someone must have seen him somewhere along the way.
‘No. But I don’t…I don’t look for that sort of thing.’
‘What about you, Mrs Baker?’ I press.
She shakes her head. ‘But I’ve been distracted…with Rachel.’ The beginnings of self-imposed guilt.
‘Did Curtis mention anything unusual? Even something small like someone asking for directions?’
‘Not that I remember. You, honey?’ Mr Baker turns to his wife, but she shakes her head again.
‘But you wouldn’t think twice about that in these parts. We often get people lost down by the fork in the road, or people looking for the highway. You stop, tell ’em which way to go, and they head off.’
I nod. It would be easy to cruise country roads and towns unnoticed, particularly in this area, which is so close to the Hume and the Goulburn Valley Highway up to Shepparton. Even if people realised you weren’t a local, with so much traffic passing through they wouldn’t think twice about someone asking directions, or someone driving the same stretch of road repeatedly.
I move us back to the abduction. ‘Was there any sign of forced entry, Officer Bell?’
‘No. But like most people in these parts, Don and Sarah don’t always lock up.’
‘The front door?’ I try to keep the surprise out of my voice. It’s impossible for me to even think about going to sleep without the house fully secured. But that’s me, and that’s city living. Plus my day job tends to breed paranoia when it comes to personal safety.
Mr Baker shrugs. ‘Sometimes, we leave it unlocked. We’re so far out here. Middle of nowhere, really.’
And on this occasion that suited the perpetrator.
‘It’s a long way from the road to your house. Do you think you would have heard a car in the middle of the night?’
‘Hard to say. Reckon I’m more likely to have seen it, if its headlights were on. We’ve got the front room.’ He jerks his head towards the front of the house.
Our guy could have driven up slowly with his lights off. Walked in the front door, got Jamie, and then been on his way.
‘You don’t have dogs?’ Most farmers keep at least two working dogs.
‘We normally do. But one of our guys died last year, and with the baby coming we decided to hold off buying a new pup. And then our other fella died a couple of weeks ago.’
Mrs Baker leans forward to put her full glass of lemonade on the coffee table. ‘Curtis loved that dog and we didn’t want to replace him like we didn’t care.’
‘I understand.’
A dog barking would have woken them, and probably would have deterred the killer in the first place. But how were they to know their son was being stalked?
‘I’d like to have a look at Curtis’s room. Get a feel for him, if that’s okay?’
Don Baker jumps to his feet. ‘I’ll show you through.’
Curtis’s bedroom is a small room towards the back of the house. As soon as we’re inside Mr Baker turns to me.
‘What happened to Ted Strawasky? Exactly?’
‘I’m afraid we don’t know, Mr Baker.’ I clear my throat. ‘To be honest, his body was too badly decomposed to tell us much. At this stage we don’t even have a conclusive cause of death.’
He wipes his hand across his brow again. ‘Was he…had he been interfered with?’
‘It’s impossible to say. He died six months ago.’ I don’t go into detail, don’t tell him we couldn’t swab for semen, couldn’t check for sexual trauma—there were no organs to check.
A long pause. ‘But you have to assume he was, right?’
I take a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid it’s likely, yes. He was held for three months. We don’t know what happened during that time, although there were no broken bones and no evidence of trauma to the skull.’
‘So he wasn’t beaten, but other than that…’
‘I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got at the moment, Mr Baker.’ At least it’s all I know. Maybe Lily Murphy will have extra information for me tonight, but maybe not. A pang of guilt about misleading the Bakers, and the lovely Officer Jamie Bell, stabs at me. When Homicide arrives in ten or fifteen minutes, the Bakers and Bell will know I misled them. Know I’m not Victoria Police’s profiler.
Silence hangs in the air, tempting me to come clean, but I’m saved by Mr Baker.
‘I’m gonna check on Sarah. Make sure she drinks that lemonade. You’ll be okay here?’
‘Uh huh. I won’t be long.’
I pull on a pair of latex gloves I’d found buried in my old bedroom. When I was working in Australia, I hadn’t lived at home for years, but I always kept some gloves there in case I was called to a crime scene when I was visiting my parents. I thought I might need them at Ted Strawasky’s house and lucky for me I brought them. I certainly don’t want to feed Faulkner’s rage any more than necessary. He’s going to be furious I was here, but if I left prints to boot…
After a quick snoop around, I become increasingly aware that my time is running out. Sitting on the bed, I immediately start the relaxation techniques that make me more receptive to a waking vision. I stay sitting up, but let my body relax bit-by-bit before taking deep breaths. I feel more pressure than usual to see something, anything. But I’ve got a much higher emotional stake in this case, in this killer.
I walk down the hallway, anticipation building. Last door on the left. I creep into his room, my eyes adjusting to the light enough for me to easily make out his bedroom furniture, and his sleeping form on the small single bed. I move closer, leaning over him. So quiet, so peaceful. And they always look so much younger when they’re asleep...beautiful. Another few seconds and he’ll be mine forever. I move behind the bed and watch him for several minutes; listening to his breathing, watching the rise and fall of his chest.
Then, when it’s time, I move quickly, slamming my hand down across his face and nose. He wakes up, kicks, squirms. He’s strong for his age, but not strong enough for me. And his struggles quickly stop when I threaten his parents and baby sister. But I leave nothing to chance…I bring a rock down on the back of his head, knocking him out.
I carry him down the hall, out the front door and towards the shed. Once I’m closer, I can see my car. I’d made sure it wasn’t visible from the house, just in case someone woke up. Then again, I’d never let anything or anyone stand in the way of my boys. If the family woke up, they’d die.
I jolt out of it, almost losing the lemonade as my stomach churns. Sometimes my visions are from the victim’s point of view, sometimes I’m an observer, and sometimes they’re from the perpetrator’s point of view. The latter are the ones I particularly hate—feeling warped minds within mine. But I don’t have time to think about that now. A glance at my watch tells me I’ve got to move, fast. The vision’s told me a lot, including the fact that the perpetrator acted alone, or was at least alone in the Baker’s house.
I hurry back to the living room, where nothing seems to have changed since I left, except Mrs Baker’s glass is now half empty. Don Baker managed to get her to drink at least some of it. Rachel’s still fast asleep and Bell is silently watching his friends. One of the heartaches of country policing—if you have to arrest someone or do a death knock, chances are you know them.
I thank Mr and Mrs Baker but they’re both in a daze.
Mr Baker looks up at me. ‘Sarah’s Mum is flying across from Perth today. To help out.’ It’s an out-of-the-blue comment, and it’s like he’s trying to let me know that someone better able to comfort his wife is on the way. Someone better able to care for her than himself.
I give him
a nod. The reinforcements are coming. They’ll be needed.
Chapter 7
From the outside, Lily Murphy’s terrace house in Kay Street, Carlton looks run down and in need of some major renovations. The beige paint on the iron fence is peeling, and the second-floor balcony looks like it’s an accident waiting to happen. I even tilt my head to confirm that the top storey really has sunk a little to one side—and I think it’s worse than the last time I was here nearly three years ago.
Carlton is a prosperous inner-city suburb but it’s also one of Melbourne’s oldest neighbourhoods—and that means older houses that frequently need re-stumping, re-wiring…sometimes re-everything. And I’m guessing Lily Murphy’s government salary isn’t going to cover the costs of any major overhauls, not when demand is so high for skilled tradespeople. Nowadays most tradespeople make more than Lily and me, even with our college degrees and Lily’s doctorate.
Lily answers the door in loose khaki shorts and a tight singlet top. She’s braless, but then again it did hit 35C today. As the door opens, I get a whiff of garlic.
‘Hi.’ She looks wrecked, but who knows if it’s the heat, lack of sleep or stress. All three are good contenders. She steps back. ‘Come in.’
The inside is just how I remember it—polished boards, chandeliers in retro-chic, burgundy walls and cream curtains. Lily takes me into the first door on the right, a large double bedroom that she uses as a study. Down the hallway are the living room, kitchen, laundry and a toilet. Upstairs are the bathroom and two more bedrooms.
In the study, one wall is almost totally dedicated to whiteboards, and at the moment they’re plastered with crime-scene photos from this case, stuck up with magnets. A photo of John, smiling, catches my attention and I wince.
Lily follows my gaze and shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry. I should have taken it down.’
I take in a deep, long breath. ‘No. We need the complete picture, and he’s part of that.’
Lily’s eyes narrows. ‘You’re on dangerous ground here, Soph.’