Fatal Mistake

by Karen M. Davis

  ‘A bullshit artist,’ Brad said.

  Vanessa nodded. ‘We’ve heard them talking about prostitution at the club and listening to pornography. I was just in the process of drafting a report to the UC Branch.’ She jolted in her chair as if a thought had just struck her. ‘Langford, that recording of Kirk and TJ talking after the bombing – can you go and get it, please? I’ve just realised it may be relevant to Brad and Dani’s investigation.’

  Langford didn’t look happy to have been given such a task, but he didn’t argue.

  Vanessa let out a lengthy sigh once he was gone. ‘Sorry, Langford is trying at times.’

  ‘There’s one in every office or station,’ Brad replied. ‘Sometimes, more than one.’ He paused. ‘Our analyst is putting together a profile on TJ as we speak. Our information is that he works at Club Hellfire and that he has been in the army. We got his address from a waitress at the club and that’s how—’

  Vanessa shot forward in her seat. ‘You went to the club?’

  Brad nodded tentatively, instinctively knowing her reaction was not a good sign.

  ‘It’s okay, you weren’t to know.’ She shook her head, drummed long pink fingernails on her desk. ‘The UC Branch is doing an operation on the club . . . or the people running the club, I should say. I approached the Kings Cross commander when we knew Berni was frequenting Club Hellfire. The commander told me to be mindful of this other criminal investigation.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Brad muttered, running a hand through his short hair. ‘I hope we haven’t caused an issue. We said it was about lost property, so hopefully . . .’

  Dani wriggled uncomfortably in her seat. They shared a glance. Was Lexie involved, and had they inadvertently done something to stuff her operation, put her at risk in any way?

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Vanessa put her hands in the air. ‘It will be fine, just don’t go back there. I suggest you speak to the Undercover Branch. It appears our operations, or targets anyway, are intertwined.’

  Berni Kirk, a target of Professional Standard Command, linked to TJ, bombing suspect – TJ linked to Club Hellfire – Club Hellfire linked to an undercover operation.

  ‘So, Teddy Johnson – and Berni for that matter – could be into more badness than we realise,’ Brad said.

  Vanessa stared at Brad, a baffled expression on her face.

  Langford re-entered the office. ‘I’ve asked for the recordings from the listening device on Kirk’s flat. We’ll have them in about an hour.’

  Vanessa nodded, but her gaze remained upon Brad. ‘Who is Teddy Johnson?’

  Now it was Brad’s turn to be confused. ‘Teddy Johnson is our suspect – TJ.’

  Vanessa said, ‘TJ is short for Travis Joseph Cowell. I have never heard of Teddy Johnson.’

  ‘The woman at the club . . .’ Dani said. ‘She seemed confused when we asked about Teddy Johnson. Maybe she presumed TJ was short for Teddy Johnson – same initials. Or perhaps she gave us the bum steer.’

  Brad shook his head. ‘Hang on . . . It may be an alias. Perhaps TJ and Teddy Johnson work at the club. Since it seems they have both been in the army, we can compare their prints, see if it’s the same person.’

  ‘TJ doesn’t have a criminal record.’ Vanessa shuffled through a file on her desk, then pushed some photos across to Brad. ‘Here are some surveillance photos of him with Berni. Does that look like your man?’

  Brad studied the pictures one by one, then handed them to Dani. The man in the pictures had a strong lean build and blond hair. He could be the guy in Teddy Johnson’s mug shot, but it was hard to tell. These pictures were all at a distance and taken at varying angles.

  ‘It’s hard to say. All we have is a mug shot to compare with, though it could be the same person. Teddy Johnson has closed all his bank accounts and moved. Maybe he’s started a new life as TJ Cowell. Can you check if money has been deposited into his or Berni’s accounts? I’ll see how our analyst is going with the profile and speak to the UC Branch.’

  Vanessa nodded, scribbling on a notepad on her desk.

  ‘I’m hoping TJ is Teddy,’ Brad said. ‘If he’s not, I have no idea who the real Teddy Johnson is . . . or where to find him.’

  CHAPTER 45

  Teddy Johnson stared at the mobile phone ringing on his bed, trying to fight the rising tide of nausea clawing up his throat. He glanced down at his trembling hands. His chest was so tight he could hardly take a breath.

  Why? Why do I let him have this power over me? Even contained behind the walls of a maximum-security prison, just speaking to his father on the phone could reduce Teddy to a bumbling idiot, so frozen with fear and dread he could hardly function.

  Because you’re weak, that’s why. Weak and useless . . .

  God, he hated that pitiful voice of insecurity. Though when you’re told something repeatedly, you begin to believe it.

  The phone stopped ringing. Teddy let out a huge sigh of relief, but knew it was only a temporary reprieve. He could only put off the inevitable for so long. He would have to speak to the big man eventually.

  Teddy had only just turned fourteen when his mother had succumbed to emphysema, and he’d been sent to live with his father. There was no choice. He had nowhere else to go. His father’s first words to him were: ‘You are not at all what I expected.’ And their relationship went downhill from there. They were total strangers and polar opposites.

  Teddy was quiet, shy, gentle, a little effeminate and somewhat introverted. Of slight build, he had sandy hair and pale skin. His father, on the other hand, was loud, boisterous, overconfident, vulgar and big in every way. He stood six-foot-three and was built like a bodybuilder on steroids, which was exactly what he was. Teddy had been scared absolutely shitless of him – still was. He had moved out at sixteen, got a job and a flat of his own, hoping some space would help their relationship. It didn’t. But still Teddy desperately craved his approval, his love. After all, his father was the only family he had left.

  At first, his father had been distant but friendly. This friendliness slowly graduated to indifference. Then, after six months, the verbal abuse started. Teddy tried everything to win his father’s respect, or at least acknowledgement. He would wash, cook and clean the house, get himself to school, stay out of the way. The first time his father had come home to a spotless home and a cooked dinner he’d laughed and told Teddy he would make someone the perfect wife one day.

  How Teddy would love to tell his father about the bombing. He still wanted so very badly to impress him, prove to the big man he was worthy of his love, his respect, that he was doing what he’d been asked, and with pleasure. But his father would only criticise him and berate him for his failings. Or he would shout abuse; scold him for not adhering to bikie etiquette. It was apparently bad manners to blow up a bike meet. They could gun each other down in the streets, in pubs, outside their own homes, but not at their clubhouses. That was a breach of the bikie code of conduct. His father would not consider the expertise it took to make the bomb. He would not appreciate the sheer brilliance, the level of risk taken on his behalf. No, he would only acknowledge that it had been botched; that Teddy had failed to achieve the objective yet again. It would confirm his father’s theory that Teddy was useless.

  A shiver ran over Teddy’s body and he felt a headache coming on. It had been playing on his mind lately: how much things would change when his father got out of gaol. Teddy would be the subject of ridicule and judgement again, especially now that he was living his life the way he wanted to live it, without caring what others thought. A life his father would not approve of. He would also want to step back into his old shoes and take over the business, which Teddy knew was running just fine without him. There would be tension, conflict, aggression, and more abuse.

  Teddy was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t better for his father to stay inside. Life was good right now. Could he seriously live in the same world as that man again?

  The phone rang. He had to answer it. His father would
keep ringing until he did. He would become angrier and angrier each time he called. There was no avoiding him. Just as there was no evading what Teddy had promised to do. He had no choice.

  • • •

  Corrections officer Jessica Katsadis – whose nickname was Kit-Kat or just Kat – was sitting beside Charlie ‘Robbo’ Robson in the call monitoring room of Long Bay Gaol. It was standard procedure to randomly monitor prisoners’ calls for intelligence and risk assessment purposes. It was a job some of her colleagues disliked and considered boring. But Kat found getting a glimpse into the private lives of some of these hardened criminals fascinating, although some of the language she heard was not for the faint-hearted.

  Removing her headphones, Kat took a Tim Tam Robbo offered and stood up, walking around the small room to stretch her legs and unlock her dodgy back, then sat back down again. Robbo was good to work with. He was a nice guy and had a brain, knew how to deal with the inmates, could appease and defuse situations using communication skills instead of brute force. Being a woman in this job, Kat too relied on her intelligence and common sense to survive.

  Robbo started to laugh. He knocked his headphone off his ears so they hung around his neck. ‘It never ceases to amaze me what these twits talk about on the phones. They know they’re being monitored. This guy has asked his wife to smuggle in a mobile phone on her next visit and now they’re having phone sex.’ Checking the computer screen in front of him, Robbo made a note of the prisoner’s name and tagged an alert on the database to carry out a detailed search on the wife when she next visited. Laughing again, louder this time, he handed Kat his set of headphones. ‘Listen . . .’

  She shook her head. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard it all before.

  Robbo shrugged and put one side to his ear and gave her a running commentary. ‘Oh god, she’s telling him what she would like to do to him . . . Oh wow, I didn’t know that was possible.’ He was enjoying himself. ‘The poor bloke is moaning and groaning like he’s dying.’

  Kat couldn’t help but smile. ‘I suppose there’s only so much he can do, standing at a phone on a wall with other prisoners around.’

  Robbo scoffed. ‘I wouldn’t put it past some of these guys to pull their pants down anywhere and start going to town on themselves. Some of these sickos would get off on that.’

  Kat pulled a face – in her six years as a corrections officer, she’d been flashed more times than she could remember. The surprise and shock had worn off after the first few incidents. Now, if any of the inmates flashed their rude bits, she just laughed and wiggled her little finger as an implied insult to their manhood. They usually didn’t do it again.

  Placing the headphones back on, Kat wrestled with them until they sat comfortably on her head. ‘I think some of the inmates forget they are being listened to,’ she said to Robbo. ‘Like the show Big Brother – they forget after a while the cameras are there. Either that or they’re just plain stupid.’

  ‘I’d go with plain stupid.’ Robbo once again placed his headphones over his ears. ‘Oh Jesus.’ He coughed as though he was choking.

  Kat cut into a conversation that had just started.

  ‘You avoiding talking to me, ya big girl?’ the inmate growled. He sounded angry. ‘I’ve only got limited time to make calls, you know. It’s not a fuckin’ summer camp in here.’

  Glancing at the computer, Kat noted the prisoner’s name logged on the screen. He was a charmer.

  ‘No, no,’ the civilian on the other end of the line said. ‘I had my phone on silent . . . sorry.’

  ‘Not good enough,’ the inmate snapped. ‘Tell me what’s goin’ on! Is it taken care of?’

  Kat’s ears pricked up.

  ‘It’s under control. There’ve been some complications,’ the civilian said. ‘But don’t worry. I have a plan. It’s been hard to locate, but it will all be sorted before your c—’

  ‘Watch your fuckin’ mouth, dipshit,’ the inmate cut in. ‘The fuckin’ screws listen in to our calls sometimes.’

  We sure do. And you mentioning this has just set off alarm bells.

  Robbo grabbed Kat’s arm, pointing to his earphones and mouthed something. She waved him away. This call needed her attention.

  ‘What I meant was, it’s under control. I have a meeting with . . . uh . . . about the job soon and all will be dealt with then.’

  The inmate grunted. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve got someone else to do that job for me. I can’t mow my own grass and clean up the place while I’m in here and since you’re unreliable, I’ve arranged for someone else to fix it up for me. You are fuckin’ useless.’

  Kit gestured for Robbo to tune in. He did so instantly.

  ‘They’re talking in code,’ Kat told him quickly. ‘Although the civilian can hardly string a sentence together. It sounds to me like they’re talking about a hit.’

  Robbo raised his eyebrows and moved his chair closer to hers. Looking at the computer screen, he saw the inmate’s name.

  ‘He has a trial coming up soon. I heard him talking about it the other day with another inmate. He was very cocky about getting off on a murder and attempt murder charge,’ he said softly, then glanced at Kat. ‘Why am I whispering?’

  They shrugged, returned their attention to the conversation. The inmate was busy abusing the civilian.

  ‘You are truly a fuckwit, you know that? I shouldn’t have trusted you to do anything in the first place. A pansy and a fuckwit. I can’t believe we’re fuckin’ related. If I hadn’t got the DNA test when your stupid mother upped and died, I wouldn’t have believed it.’

  What an arsehole. Kat and Robbo exchanged a disgusted look. The guy on the other end of the phone line was the inmate’s son. Sadly, it seemed he was used to this abuse.

  ‘I’ll fix things, I promise. I won’t let you down. You’ll be walking free—’

  His sentence died as the inmate hung up and the sound of the dial tone echoed loudly through the earphones. Robbo and Kat stared at each other for a long moment.

  ‘Go and see our guys in the Intelligence Unit so they can contact the cops,’ Robbo told her. ‘Get the number the inmate called his son on and get the conversation transcribed. I think you’re right. That sounded like they were talking about a hit on a witness. Go now . . . Someone’s life is in danger.’

  CHAPTER 46

  Brad, Dani and analyst Marty Wells gathered in Detective Inspector Cook’s office for an update. Cook looked like a bubble about to burst.

  ‘I have good news. The wig and moustache found in the trash bin showed up DNA that matches Teddy Johnson’s.’ Cook rubbed his hands together. ‘So we’re on the right track. We have the right man.’

  ‘Wahoo!’ Dani yelped.

  Brad clapped his hands. ‘That’s great.’

  Marty nodded, kept his face deadpan and said, ‘I’m happy.’

  He looked anything but and they all laughed. It felt good.

  Cook looked at Brad expectantly. ‘Now tell us how your meeting with Professional Standards went.’

  Brad sat back in the leather chair and rested one ankle on his knee. ‘Well, my classmate from the academy – and I use the term “mate” very loosely – is an idiot. Luckily his boss has enough brains for the two of them. It appears our investigations cross over in that their person of interest is the girlfriend of our suspect – our now confirmed suspect, Teddy Johnson.’ Brad held a finger in the air. ‘That is, if their person of interest’s boyfriend, TJ, and Teddy Johnson are the same person.’

  Before the meeting, Brad had filled Cook in on all he had learnt about Berni. He explained that PSC had requested confidentiality, that only those required to know were informed that Berni Kirk was their POI. It only took one cop who knew her to find out she was under investigation and tip her off . . . Not that Brad expected she had many friends in the job – quite the opposite actually. But you couldn’t be too careful.

  ‘They have a listening device in their POI’s flat and have a recording of the PO
I’s boyfriend – our suspect – talking about the bombing, bragging about being an explosives expert and being in the army.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Marty said, and scribbled on his notepad.

  ‘When we went to the club, we were led to believe a barman who works there, TJ, is Teddy Johnson. We assumed it was a shortened version of his name, his initials, but Professional Standards have never heard of Teddy Johnson. They know TJ as Travis John Cowell. He has no criminal record.’ Brad scratched his nose. ‘What all that means is we need to establish if Teddy Johnson and TJ – Travis John Cowell – are the same person.’

  Dani handed them the mug shot they had of Teddy and the surveillance photographs of TJ. Marty and then Cook inspected them.

  ‘Since TJ doesn’t have a criminal history, we can’t compare their prints,’ Cook said.

  ‘But if this TJ was in the army, they would have taken his prints when he was recruited,’ Marty offered.

  ‘Good point.’ Cook was still studying the pictures. ‘It’s hard to tell. The mug shot of Johnson is a shocker. They both have similar features and builds but . . .’

  Brad decided to clarify what they knew and what they didn’t. ‘We know that, working at Club Hellfire, our suspect would be mixing with some shady characters who might have been willing to pay a price, recruit someone to settle a grievance, send a warning over drug turf. The other thing we now know is the UC Branch is conducting an operation on Club Hellfire and its owners, workers—’

  ‘This is getting more convoluted,’ Cook said, frowning. ‘And complicated.’

  Brad nodded. ‘That’s right. But it makes sense. Rats stick together.’

  ‘Until it’s necessary to squeal on their mates to save their own skin, that is,’ Marty said dryly.