by Tony Black
A long moment passed. ‘And what about my hired goons?’ said Clay.
‘I pulled some footage off the Hotel Warrnambool’s CCTV system. They’ve got cameras pointed all around the bar.’ Eddie fished his phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen a couple of times. ‘Are these the guys that prettied up your face for ya?’
Clay leant forward and squinted at the screen. Despite the pixelation and distortion of the image, he recognised the bald-headed man and his accomplice with the slicked-back hair. ‘That’s them.’
Eddie nodded. ‘I thought as much. I’ve already run them through our system, sent it up to the Melbourne stations. No bites so far. But something will land.’
There was another moment of quiet. Finally, Bec piped up. ‘So we’ve got a dead escort nobody cares about, a dead teenager the police are sweeping under the rug, and a couple of thugs roaming around bashing journalists. This must be a veritable crimewave for Warrnambool.’
‘Sad but true,’ said Clay.
Chapter 24
A week passed. January had given way to February. The weather turned sour. The bruising on Clay’s face disappeared with the sunshine and he slipped into a kind of holding pattern. There was no news on his three big stories. His hopes of finding out what Lachlan Fullerton was blackmailing Wayne Swanson over vanished like his black eye. Kerry Collins was still listed as an accidental drowning; a death at the hands of ‘misadventure’. And the matter of the incinerated prostitute had run only briefly, grabbing everyone’s interest instantly, and then disappearing just as quickly.
All three stories were yesterday’s news, and Clay found his days filling up with the same petty rubbish they had consisted of at the start of the summer. Inconsequential stories about car parks. Back to school stories. Previews of fundraising events. In between he read the real estate section of the paper, searching for a new apartment. Nothing promising was available. The university students had begun rolling back into town before Australia Day, sucking up every available flat, apartment, unit, spare room, share house, bungalow, and affordably priced home for rent. Warrnambool was full, and it had no space left for Clayton Moloney.
In the wake of Jacinta Porter’s death at Thunder Point, Clay kept in touch with Gabby. He called her every couple of days just to say hi, waiting for her to let him know when Jacinta’s preliminary autopsy report came in, having dropped a hint about it early on. They caught up over the weekend. Clay stayed at her house – his apartment had become infested with a growing pile of brown cardboard boxes.
Finally, ten days after Jacinta’s death, Clay received a text from Gabby: I’ve got something for you. It’s going to cost you dinner and a box of cookies.
Clay almost jogged from his desk to the photographers’ department, where Bec was processing photos from what looked like a school swimming sports day. ‘You busy?’ he asked.
Bec looked up from her screen, eyes wide and hopeful. ‘Are you kidding? I’m so bored I could watch cricket.’
‘Wanna come and read an autopsy report?’
Bec tipped back her head, laughed a little. ‘Is it worrying that I really, truly do?’
Clay grabbed a set of car keys and told the deputy editor he needed Bec to come with him to follow up a lead. Clay didn’t specify what the story was and didn’t give Terry Kenna’s usually slow-responding brain time to kick in – he and Bec were already out the door and on their way to the police prosecutor’s office, by way of the bakery.
As they had before they took the report to Cannon Hill, where the beauty of the view, even in the inclement weather, was in direct opposition to the gruesomeness contained in the photocopied words and pictures in their hands. Sitting in the work car, with a light drizzle falling on the windscreen, Clay read each page and passed it to Bec, who devoured it just as quickly. He waited in silence as she finished with the last page, watching her read and willing her to hurry up.
‘Holy crap,’ said Bec finally. ‘The fire didn’t kill her.’
‘Nope,’ said Clay. ‘The .38 calibre bullet in her head did.’
‘What the hell is going on here?’ She turned in her seat to face Clay.
‘I have no idea.’
‘What do we do with this information?’
‘We print it.’
Bec frowned, forcing down the corners of her mouth. ‘Can we do that? Won’t the police come looking for you and ask how you got hold of an autopsy report? They’re going to want to know who leaked it to you.’
‘So? A journalist doesn’t have to give up his sources. There are laws about that. And besides, you heard what Eddie said the other week, the cops aren’t looking real hard at this case. What if it’s another Kerry Collins? What if they’re deliberately not looking? If we go to print with this, it makes it a lot harder for the cops to do nothing.’
Bec broke off from his gaze and Clay watched her as she stared out the window. ‘Why didn’t you do the same for Kerry Collins?’ she said eventually.
‘I wanted to,’ he said. ‘I thought about it. I could have run a story about the mysterious man in the suit seen talking to Kerry, offering her a job just prior to her disappearance. But it all feels so much like gossip, like Chinese whispers. And I couldn’t do that to her family. But this,’ Clay pointed at the autopsy report, ‘this is official. This is documented. We can run this and the cops have nowhere to hide.’
‘The cops were probably waiting for this report before they did anything, Clay. No offence, but you’re starting to sound a bit paranoid.’
‘Can you blame me?’ he said, his voice getting elevated in tone and volume. ‘I got beat up a couple of weeks ago. I’ve got a cop telling me his colleagues are covering up a case. Every big story I touch hits a brick wall. And I’ve just been evicted. Who’s to say that’s not wrapped up in all this? Who’s to say all of this isn’t linked together?’
‘Whoa, I think you’re drawing a longbow on that one.’
‘Says who? If someone had told me last year about all this crap happening, I wouldn’t have believed them. This is Warrnambool, the nice, quiet, peaceful city by the sea. The tourist hotspot. Sure, it has its occasional slips, but all this stuff: cover-ups, murders, beatings… I don’t know what to think any more, Bec. This is all just nuts, y’know, but I sometimes get this feeling like I’m being watched. Like someone’s going to jump out of an alleyway and beat the crap out of me. Now, you may say that sounds far-fetched, but did I mention it has already happened once before?’
Clay was looking out to sea; he could feel Bec staring at him. She didn’t say anything, though, and that only made him wonder what was going on inside her head. Waves crashed on the coast, white rollers followed further out, threatening and menacing and never-ending, like the thoughts in Clay’s mind. All of a sudden he felt drained, like he needed to sleep, probably for an entire day.
‘This is a personal question, I know,’ said Bec. Her voice was pitched low, laced with concern. ‘But how much marijuana are you smoking these days?’
‘It’s got nothing to do with it,’ said Clay, unable to stop himself snapping. ‘I’m just not sleeping very well and it helps me sleep. And I think I have every right to be paranoid. It’s got nothing to do with smoking weed and everything to do with being set upon by a couple of no-neck thugs, just because I’m trying to do my goddamn job!’
Clay slammed his fist on the dashboard to emphasise his sentence. It caused the glovebox to spring open. Clay stared at the emptiness of the drawer for a moment before closing it again. It had completely derailed his train of thought. Unable to help himself, he burst into laughter. He heard Bec start giggling beside him.
‘Well, that ruined your big dramatic moment,’ she said, laughing.
‘Sorry, I got carried away there.’
‘But seriously, lay off the weed.’
‘OK. I hear you. But if I can’t sleep, I’m calling you at stupid o’clock in the morning to let you know.’
‘Fine.’ Bec handed the autopsy report back to
Clay, who stared at it for a few seconds, focusing on the words .38 calibre bullet. Shootings in Warrnambool were a rarity. It almost seems surreal, he thought. ‘Who would want to shoot an escort?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. You could make a list: angry wife, disgruntled boyfriend, ripped-off customer? But, hypothetically speaking, how would you find out the answer to that question?’
Clay’s brain ticked over and a thin smile arose on his face. He felt more awake all of a sudden. He turned away from the crashing waves. ‘I might have a couple of ideas,’ he said.
Chapter 25
The hotel room was small and in dire need of a makeover. It was clean, Bec decided, or at least as clean as it was going to get, but there was something in the air… not so much a smell, but more of a taste somehow, that explained why this was the kind of room you rented by the hour, not by the day.
A small fridge stammered mechanically in the corner. It sat below a bench that ran the length of one wall. Bec had chosen to sit on the bench rather than the bed. While its floral bedspread had the smell of fresh laundry, she had visions of a UV light revealing something akin to a Jackson Pollock painting. The more she thought about it she realised the bench probably looked like a painter’s drop sheet under a UV light as well, but she convinced herself it was the lesser of two evils.
Bec leaned back against the wall and could hear the murmur of the TV in the next room. Aside from the fridge, it was the only sound. Clay sat in a chair in another corner, silently smoking his foul-smelling cigarettes in direct contravention of the no smoking sign plastered above Bec’s head. He had cracked open a window in deference to Bec’s protestations, but all that had done was let in a cool sou’wester to blow the smoke further into the room.
Bec watched Clay as he smoked and stared out the window into the hotel car park. She hated to admit it, but she was becoming increasingly worried about him. His moods wavered between paranoia and apathy, between bubbling anger and childlike over-enthusiasm. She wasn’t sure if it was the lack of sleep, or his reliance on booze and weed, or a lingering aftereffect of his beating. Either way, he was not quite the same charming rogue she’d met over a month ago.
‘Show time,’ he said in a low voice, stubbing out his cigarette on the windowsill and dropping the butt into a nearby bucket that had been pressed into service as a bin.
Thirty seconds later, the door opened and a woman entered wearing a dress that Bec reckoned was at least two sizes too small. It barely covered her underwear or her bulging breasts, and combined with her black high heels, peroxide-blonde hair, and dangerously long fingernails, Bec was in no doubt this was the woman who advertised in the paper as Candy. Candy, which Bec figured was undoubtedly not her real name, appeared to be roughly Bec’s age, but Bec noticed with a pang of guilt that time had been less kind to Candy. She’s a damn sight better at applying make-up than I am though, Bec thought.
‘Hello, darl, I wasn’t expecting a sheila,’ said Candy, through chews of her gum. At that moment she spotted Clay sitting in the corner. ‘Ah, right, a couple is it? Just so’s ya knows, that’s gonna cost a bit extra.’
Candy closed the door and crossed to the bed, where she began pulling an array of objects out of her bag, the kind Bec had euphemistically heard described as ‘marital aids’. Bec watched in a kind of perverse awe at Candy’s arsenal before suddenly realising she was gaping, mouth open, at what Candy was producing, and that Clay was staring at her and trying to keep a smirk under wraps.
‘So, how you wanna do this?’ said Candy. ‘Do one of yas wanna go first and the other watch, or do we all just go at it and see what happens?’
As Candy said this, she held up a large black phallus and Bec could feel herself blush, much to her own annoyance. She’d been around the world a couple of times, including prolonged stints in Amsterdam and some less savoury parts of Bangkok, but for some reason Candy’s paraphernalia, coupled with Clay smirking in the corner of the room, was making her cheeks heat up to a deep shade of red.
To her relief, Clay finally broke the awkward silence. ‘It’s OK, ma’am, we just want to talk. And no, we’re not cops. We’re journalists.’
Candy looked from Clay, to Bec, and back to Clay, and then to Bec again. ‘That’s a shame,’ she said, and began packing her tools away.
‘We’ll still pay you for the hour, so as not to waste your time,’ said Clay. ‘I’m sure you’re a very busy woman.’ There was not a single hint of sarcasm or irony that Bec could detect in his voice.
‘Good,’ said Candy. ‘So, what is this? Some big exposé on being a prossie? You wanna know what it’s like suckin’ dick for a living?’
The accent is so ocker, so twangy, so Strine that Clay almost sounds British by comparison, thought Bec.
‘No, Candy, we want to talk to you about Jacinta Porter,’ said Clay.
Candy had finished repacking her bag and at the sound of Jacinta’s name, she froze for a moment. Her expression glazed and her jaw stopped its constant work on the chewing gum in her mouth. Candy turned and sat on the bed, her movements almost mechanical.
‘The poor darl,’ she said. Her oversized handbag was now on her lap and she held it like she was cuddling a small child. ‘The poor little darlin’.’
‘How well did you know her?’ asked Clay.
‘Well enough. Her and me are some of the only girls based in town. Most of the ones doing this area come down from Ballarat or Geelong, maybe Melbourne, but you get to know the local girls real well. So’s ya don’t cut each other’s lunch, ya know? And ya kinda keep an eye out for each other a bit. Plus, we share a booker.’
‘A booker?’
‘The guy that books the work. He’s like a pimp. He’s waiting out in the car.’
Clay nodded. ‘You obviously heard about what happened to Jacinta.’
‘Yeah. Burned alive. What a way to go.’
Bec watched as Clay’s gaze flicked from Candy to her, and she found herself watching in eager anticipation to see how the next few moments would play out.
‘Candy, the fire didn’t kill Jacinta,’ said Clay in a soothing low tone. ‘She was shot.’
Candy’s hand went up to her mouth and her eyes grew wide and watery. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said. ‘Oh, my God.’
Bec could see the tears welling up in the escort’s eyes. Clay stood and took the couple of steps between them. At first Bec thought he was going to sit next to Candy and console her, but instead he offered her a tissue, which Candy accepted. Clay then offered Candy a cigarette, which she waved off before pulling her own pack out of her bag and lighting one.
Clay sat back down and lit up as well. The room slowly filled with smoke again as Bec looked on, not daring to say anything.
‘Candy—’
‘Please, it’s June. Don’t call me by my work name. Not now. Not while we’re talking about all this horrible stuff.’
‘Sorry. June. Have the cops spoken to you about Jacinta?’
‘Nuh. That was weeks ago and I haven’t had a single bit of nothin’ from ’em. Not that I really wanna talk to the pigs, though.’
Bec frowned. Jacinta died three weeks ago and it had taken Clay a week to arrange this meeting. She was puzzled – if a journalist could talk to people like June, why couldn’t the police?
‘Did they talk to your booker?’
‘Yeah, but I don’t think he would have said much. He keeps us all at arm’s length, ya know what I’m sayin’?’
Clay nodded. ‘June, this might be a tricky question, but do you know anyone who would have wanted to harm Jacinta? Or could have shot Jacinta?’
June nodded straight away. ‘Lerner.’
‘Who’s Lerner?’
‘That’s her ex. He’s dodgy as. Real aggro, real loose. She ditched him a year ago, but he’s the jealous type. Which isn’t ideal for someone dating an escort, ha.’ Her laugh was nervous and she was puffing on her cigarette almost between every sentence. ‘She had to go get an intervention order and all that, for
what it’s worth. Yeah, Lerner’s dodgy as, all right, probably got guns and that. He’s on the ice, too, so ya never know what he’s gonna do. He’s sketchy. She said he’d been hasslin’ her a bit lately, too.’
‘What do you mean?’
June took a long drag and exhaled a large drift of smoke, causing Bec to stifle a cough. ‘Jacinta’s been doin’ real good of late, like work-wise. About a month ago, she fell in with a client, a regular one, who was loaded. She’d see him a couple of times a week. Paid her real well, she said. Like, real well. She cleared her debts and started splashing a bit around. Bought a few new dresses. Stopped buyin’ cheap pingas and started buyin’ good MDMA. Even bought some coke one night. Man, that was a helluva night. But I think word got back to Lerner, probably through her dealer, I reckon. He’s a real stooge.’
‘Does Lerner have a first name?’
‘Nuh, never bothered to know it. He’s not worth learnin’ his first name, ha!’
‘What’s her dealer’s name?’
June looked at Clay like she was sizing him up and Bec wondered if Clay had pushed her trust too far. ‘I dunno his real name,’ said June eventually. ‘He’s got a nickname, but I can’t remember what it is. Something flashy.’
Clay smiled. ‘Vegas?’
June’s face lit up. ‘Yeah, that’s it.’
Clay nodded. ‘I know Vegas.’ He dragged on his smoke and leant forward as he reached into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet. ‘You’ve been very helpful, June. How much do we owe you for the hour?’
Bec half expected June to dismiss Clay’s offer, but the escort stuck out her hand and took the cash. Clay thanked June again and then the woman was gone, tugging her dress down over her butt with one hand as she tottered out the door.
Bec watched Clay as he finished his cigarette. ‘Now what?’ she said.
Clay offered a look she was beginning to associate with one of his cheekier moods. ‘We’re goin’ to Vegas, baby,’ he said, in a bad American accent.
Chapter 26