Flashpoint

by Felicity Young

  ‘There’s something else here for you, Sergeant, another puzzle for you to solve. I found traces of sheep’s wool between several of the toes of the right foot. Now how do you think that would have got there?’

  ‘Shoes?’

  ‘No evidence of footwear.’

  Cam rubbed his chin. ‘Could the body have been wrapped in a wool blanket?’ he asked.

  ‘To the naked eye, the wool looked untreated, but it will have to go to the city lab for further analysis. That could take a few days, I’m afraid.’

  ‘There were sheep at the crime site. They’d recently been shorn but there were clumps of wool lying around and clinging to the bushes.’

  ‘I suggest you go back and get some then. You might want to send it to the lab so they can compare it to the fibres I found.’

  Cam agreed, but he knew what was coming next and felt his body tense. He took a deep breath as McManus walked over to the body. Cam expected him to jerk back the cover like an artist revealing a prize-winning sculpture, and was surprised at the reverential way the pathologist folded back the sheet. He realised then it was only ever he who’d been the butt of the pathologist’s jokes.

  But McManus’s respectful manner did little to soften the blow of the body’s revelation. Cam suppressed a gasp. It was so much more horrible out of context. The blackened figure looked like a mummy in its sarcophagus. No longer pugilistic, the arms lay at its side, meaning that someone had had to cut the contracting tendons or break the arms for the X-rays. Cam offered a prayer of thanks that he’d not had to assist in that procedure.

  The bony, eyeless dome rested on an unforgiving pillow of steel positioned over an in-built trough at the head of the table. There was a hose to wash away the waste, and near this, still at the head end, a set of scales, very like the ones used by greengrocers. On another table, the tools of the trade were laid out in orderly rows, an incongruous mixture of carpentry and surgeon’s instruments.

  And the smell.

  Cam took a deep breath of Vicks from his mask, seeing for a moment the head of his wife, then that of his son, lying over the trough. He flashed to a plastic box full of ash. The crematorium had only finished what the murderer had started.

  He closed his eyes, trying to shut away the image. You’re weak; you’re failing, a voice inside him cried as the hammer of defeat pounded at his temples. Don’t give in, another voice chided. His hand moved up his neck to his ear.

  ‘Sergeant, are you OK? You’re looking a bit peaky.’ Cam drew in a ragged breath and nodded. ‘Go ahead, let’s get this over with.’

  Despite the coolness of the room he could feel the sweat trickling down his back and under his arms. Mustering all his willpower he forced himself to concentrate on what was going on in front of him.

  McManus adjusted a mike, talking in a smooth bass as he worked.

  First the Y incision, across the chest from shoulder to shoulder, then down the abdomen to the pubic bone. The scalpel crackled through the outer crust of burned flesh; the incision turned quite pink as it penetrated the inner depths.

  ‘A pretty pathetic attempt at cremation, eh, Sergeant?’ the pathologist said.

  ‘Yeah, I think the bushfire brigade was more efficient than our guy had hoped.’

  McManus reached into the chest cavity, cut through the connecting tissue and removed the heart.

  ‘The heart has retained its shape. It is a deep red colour, on the way to dehydration.’ McManus spoke into the mike. Then as an aside to Cam he said, ‘I’m not sure if I can get any blood samples from this but I’ll give it a go.’ He weighed the heart before placing it on the dissecting table and managed to aspirate a small amount of fluid for the lab.

  ‘Does the heart look normal to you, Doc?’ asked Cam. McManus sliced it into a cross section. ‘Taking dehydration into account, the size and weight appear about normal. Possibly slightly overdeveloped cardiac muscle that could indicate an early congestive cardiac condition, but early days. His arteries are within the range of normal for a man of his age.’

  ‘So we can rule out heart attack?’

  ‘Unless histology shows otherwise, it’s unlikely to have been the cause of death.’

  McManus removed the liver, weighed it and put it on the dissecting table. He muttered something unintelligible into his tape recorder. The caterpillars wriggled with interest.

  Cam asked him to translate.

  ‘I said, scar tissue indicative of cirrhosis of the liver.’

  ‘Would that have killed him?’

  ‘Not yet, but would have if it remained untreated. Coupled with the weakened heart, he would have been dead within a few years. It’s well on the way to being nicely pickled though.’

  He carved off a piece of liver and placed it into a specimen jar.

  Next came the lungs. McManus sliced through the connecting tissues, vessels and nerves. As the lungs were extracted from the pleural cavity, they squelched like gumboots being pulled from a mud hole. Cam felt the room began to spin. He grabbed the side of the autopsy table and had to fight the urge to run from the room. He tried to concentrate on his breathing. Get a grip, Fraser, do your job. He was behaving like a rookie. He knew it, and he hated it.

  McManus balanced the lungs in both hands and frowned. ‘These seem unusually heavy.’

  His words cut into Cam’s thoughts like a life-saving foghorn. He watched the pathologist place the lungs on the scales then followed the beckoning finger to the recorded weight.

  ‘I’m sure you are familiar with a normal set of lungs, Sergeant.’

  Cam grunted an affirmative.

  ‘Now, these are interesting. They are considerably heavier than normal. Proportionally they have a higher fluid content than the other organs, despite being exposed to the same heat intensity. See the lobes?’ He pointed with the tip of his scalpel. ‘These are more dilated than I would expect. Quite swollen, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘So what does that mean?’

  ‘Pulmonary oedema – swelling caused by water retention.’ The pathologist moved the lungs to the dissecting table. He carefully sliced through one of the lobes then aspirated some fluid.

  ‘Of course there are several physical maladies that could cause a lung reaction such as this, congestive cardiac failure for one; though I suspect it would be too early for symptoms such as this to show. But look here – look at the colour of this fluid.’

  He held up the specimen vial.

  ‘It’s a lot lighter than the other aspirations,’ Cam observed.

  ‘It’s been diluted, that’s why. This man breathed in a lungful of water.’

  Cam felt his pulse rate quicken. ‘He drowned then?’

  ‘Certainly looks like it.’ The pathologist shook his head from side to side. ‘A horrible way to go.’ He probed the other lung. ‘No evidence of smoke or ash. You are correct in your assumption that this man was burned post-mortem. Hang on now, what’s this?’ He bent closer to inspect the mass of spongy tissue, startling Cam with a sudden yell of, ‘Eureka!’

  Cam looked at the thing dangling from McManus’s forceps and drew in a sharp breath of recognition.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘it’s a piece of weed.’

  ‘Caught in the right descending bronchus, a common area of entrapment. But is it weed or grass?’

  ‘No, the leaf is too broad for grass. May I?’ Cam relieved McManus of the forceps and examined the ribbon of green under a magnifying glass. After a moment’s study he said, ‘It’s dam weed, Doc, I’d know it anywhere.’

  They both looked up and exchanged expressions of triumph.

  ‘There’s your cause of death then, Sergeant: fresh water drowning. I’ll send it and the other samples off to the lab, but I’d bet my last dollar, that’s it. I’d better continue with the rest for the sake of routine. I suppose you want the stomach contents analysed too?’

  ‘His last meal might tell us something.’

  ‘Yes. I imagine it’ll look a bit like an underdone haggis.’ He
gave Cam a wink, and the caterpillars wriggled.

  15

  Her hands were shaking so much she was having difficulty doing up the buckles of her overalls. They weren’t real overalls as in work clobber of course; her Gramma had bought them for her in Sydney from a trendy little boutique on The Rocks. She’d never worn them before; they made her look too young. Now Ruby was glad she hadn’t chucked them out, as they were perfect house-cleaning clothes. She giggled aloud. Jesus, who’d have thought Ruby Fraser would go voluntarily to some nut-ball teacher’s house to clean?

  She wasn’t sure if she was shaking from nerves or excitement and concluded it must be a mixture of both. She liked the weirdo teacher and she was sorry for what she had done. But it wasn’t as if she’d gone to the school intending to commit a crime in the first place. She’d only ridden to the school to get away from the dotty old biddy at the stock feeder’s, and see what kind of prison her dad was going to lock her in next. Angelo had told her about the hippy English teacher and when she saw the car she couldn’t resist the chance to see if there was mull stashed in the glove box. She’d wanted it for Angelo – she didn’t even like the stuff much. The only time she’d ever smoked it she’d coughed herself silly and made like an idiot in front of her friends.

  She’d only done it to get back at her dad.

  Shit, but she hated this waiting; Jo had said she’d be coming at nine and it was already ten past.

  Ruby sat on her bed to tie her sneakers, then moved to the window in the lounge to gaze down the street and listen for Jo’s car. Her nerves were stretched taut; she had to do something to pass the time or she’d snap. There was a mountain of washing up at the sink and she made a move towards it, but stopped just in time.

  She poured herself some milk from the fridge, drank it then left the scummy glass on top of the pile.

  At last she heard the car chugging outside. She opened the front door to give Jo a cautious wave. The woman beckoned her over and indicated for her to climb in.

  ‘Is your dad at work, Ruby?’ Jo asked as they took off from the curb with a screech. Ruby nodded, suddenly feeling shy and nervous. She began to play with the buckles of her overalls; it seemed no amount of fiddling would get them untwisted.

  She wasn’t ready for Jo’s next question. ‘What does he do?’

  Ruby’s head snapped up from her task.

  ‘Your dad,’ Jo qualified.

  Ruby ran her tongue around her lower lip, knowing that whatever lie she told would be as transparent as water to this woman.

  Jo took her eyes off the road for a moment and smiled. ‘It’s none of my business, I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK. I don’t mind.’ Ruby took a deep breath. It felt funny to have an adult apologise, especially as she was the one supposed to be doing all the grovelling.

  ‘He works for the government.’

  She’d have to tell Jo sooner or later. She was, after all, enrolled at the school where Jo worked. She’d tell her when she’d done the cleaning, when she wasn’t feeling so nervous. It was awful to have a cop as a dad. Even before the fire it had been hard. Friends never wanted to stay for dinner despite the fact he was rarely home. And she’d often noticed how they’d hesitate before telling her things, worried that she’d squeal to him.

  But she never squealed.

  Sometimes she thought her secrets were the only things she had left.

  ‘The government?’ Jo repeated with raised eyebrows, probably realising he could be anything from a postman to a bus driver. ‘Did you tell him anything at all about yesterday?’

  ‘I told him I’d fallen off my bike and a lady took me home.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  Ruby bent her elbow and regarded the surgical dressing her father had so carefully applied to it. ‘I don’t think he heard me. He was in a hurry to get to the pub.’

  ***

  Jo Bowman lived in an old single-storey cottage. Hammered into the ground by time, the house stood firm and squat as if weighed down by its expansive umbrella of corrugated tin roof. Colourful hanging baskets dangled on chains from the eaves and swayed in the breeze like rainbow pendulums. Jo and Ruby parked in the driveway. A neighbour weeding her front garden looked up and gave them both a wave. Ruby waved back, forgetting for a moment she didn’t belong here.

  Jo’s bloodhound, Prudence, sat waiting for her mistress beside a blood red standard rose. Her tail flicked when she saw Jo and she bounded towards them as they passed through the gate of the small, fenced garden, almost knocking her mistress over with her enthusiasm. The dog accepted Ruby after a cautious sniff, leaving a thick string of drool on her overalls. But Ruby’s squeal of revulsion soon became a laugh when she saw the warmth of Jo’s smile and the humour in her eyes.

  The dog followed them into the cool of the old house. Jo told her what needed doing, showed her the cleaning equipment, then disappeared into her study to sew. She was making pouches out of blue and pink baby flannel for the orphan joeys at the wildlife sanctuary, she’d explained. Soon the whirr of the sewing machine was the only indication that Ruby was not alone in the house.

  Ruby enjoyed the cleaning more than she thought. It was as if she’d been given a licence to snoop: to find out everything she could about this woman. She started in the kitchen, wiping the surfaces and cleaning the sink.

  Bunches of dried herbs dangled from the ceiling and left a fragrant dust of seeds and crushed leaves on the bench tops. She wiped them away first, noticing how they filled the kitchen with their scent, evoking images of delicious foods like roast turkey with stuffing, pizza, pasta and fresh garden salads. One set of shelves was stacked high with recipe books, and on the other neat rows of sparkling jars contained ingredients with unpronounceable names.

  The fridge was covered in pieces of paper curling over a colourful assortment of fridge magnets. She removed them so she could give the fridge surface a good wipe. Most were photocopies of children’s poems: Jane Davis year 8c, Claire McDonald 8a, Jackie Godet 8c: all written in loopy childish writing. One of them was dedicated to ‘Miss Bowman, best English teacher ever’. There was also a hand-drawn picture of the slobbering bloodhound, Prudence, sitting next to the standard rose. This must mean that some other girl or girls had been to Jo’s house and met her dog. Small greasy fingerprints dotted the fridge door, adding further evidence to her theory.

  Ruby wiped them away as quickly as she wiped away the fleeting notion that she was somehow special to Jo.

  Prudence followed her wherever she went, her toenails clicking on the polished wood floors. The dog’s sad expression never changed, even when Ruby fed her a homemade biscuit from a tin she’d found in the kitchen cupboard. Ruby laughed aloud when the dog wagged the tip of her tail but continued to look miserable. She bent down and pulled at the dog’s jowls.

  ‘Come on, rubber face, things can’t be that bad. You just have to make the best of it.’

  Shit: ‘You have to make the best of it.’ Wasn’t that what her dad was always saying? Shaking her head in disgust, she went to clean the other rooms.

  Framed photos covered almost every spare inch of wall space in the hall. Ruby took each one off the wall to give it a thorough clean, spending the longest time on the wild animal photos. She liked the echidna the best. The photo had been taken in the early evening and it was standing on its shadow, looking as if it couldn’t decide between worms or ants for dinner. She smiled and carefully put the photo back on the wall. She wanted to spend longer looking at the other animal photos, but time was running out and she still had the vacuuming to do.

  ***

  On the way home they called in at Flo’s for a milkshake. Flo’s was an old-fashioned diner and the only good thing Glenroyd had going for it. It was cool in a retro way, with vinyl records hanging on strings from the ceiling, pictures of old rock ’n roll stars on the walls and a jukebox in the corner that could have been a Star Trek prop. The owner, whose name really was Flo, had hair as tall as a chimney and always sme
lt of smoke. Ruby could imagine her stooped over the pots in the kitchen, the cigarette in her mouth sprinkling the secret ingredient that people always said was the je ne sais quoi of her cooking. She made good milkshakes though, and Jo ordered them both a chocolate.

  The diner was deserted except for a figure at the corner table. Ruby saw it was Leanne before she could think up an excuse to duck back to the car.

  Crap crappity crap. This was not what she needed right now. She’d wanted to tell Jo about her father in her own time, one on one, but now she was sprung. Jo would think she was hiding things from her; any remaining hope she’d had of this woman liking her was lost.

  Leanne gave her away, just as she’d feared.

  ‘Hey, Jo,’ the policewoman called out. ‘Come and have a bite of this mud cake; it’s nearly as good as yours.’ She saw Ruby and did a double take. ‘Well, hello, Ruby. Come and sit down.’ She patted the plastic chair next to hers.

  Ruby hadn’t known Leanne long, but liked her despite the fact that she worked for the enemy. She forced out a smile and drew up the chair.

  Jo waved a hand between the two of them in surprise. ‘So how do you two know each other?’

  She probably now thinks I know Leanne professionally, Ruby thought. Caught me in the middle of some kind of heinous crime like tying a firecracker to the tail of a cat. Ruby rested her chin on her hand and sighed. She was beginning to know what it felt like to be a hardened criminal.

  Leanne said, ‘Boss’s daughter – you know, Sergeant Fraser. You met him when you found the body.’

  Jo raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to speak. Ruby jumped in first. ‘I was going to tell you, Jo.’

  ‘I reckon she’s embarrassed her dad’s a cop,’ Leanne said with an understanding that surprised Ruby.

  Jo laughed. ‘Really, Ruby, it’s no big deal.’ She turned to Leanne. ‘I came across Ruby after she fell off her bike, took her home. We’ve been friends since.’ She waved a finger at Ruby. ‘Of course, the eyes. You have eyes just like him. I thought they looked familiar.’