Covet

by Tara Moss

  Ed Brown and his mother made up one hell of a family unit. Ed had been living at home when he was arrested, and his mum hadn’t moved house since, despite the violent Polaroids, fetish magazines, severed toes and scraps of human flesh that had been found in her son’s bedroom. Any normal parent would not be able to live in a home where her son had kept victims’ body parts and souvenirs of murder and mutilation, let alone sleep at night in close proximity. But Mrs Brown was evidently a unique woman. She seemed unfazed by the nature of her son’s crimes and the evidence against him. That would set off alarm bells for any detective. Her apartment was under surveillance twenty-four hours a day now.

  Unfortunately, Ed had not yet gone home to his mother.

  Andy turned to say something to his partner.

  ‘What was that…?’ He stopped. His throat tightened. It was so damned automatic to expect Jimmy to be there. It was like trying to reach for something and remembering that you didn’t have any arms. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  ‘Hey, Andy.’

  Startled, Andy opened his eyes and found Karen Mahoney standing over him.

  ‘You okay?’

  He nodded.

  ‘How was the shrink?’ she asked.

  ‘Dr Fox gave me the all clear.’

  ‘I figured as much.’

  ‘And how was Long Bay?’ he asked. ‘Yeah, good,’ she said. ‘We reinterviewed all the staff who had contact with Ed. They are adamant that he didn’t have any connections with any of the other prisoners. He had been isolated for his own protection from the start. As we thought.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Linking Ed to a cellmate who had recently been released was the kind of brilliant lead they had hoped for, but they had already known that the possibility was beyond remote. ‘And visits?’

  ‘Records say his mum visited once a fortnight religiously.’

  ‘What about the nose man, uh…George Fowler, the building superintendent?’

  Andy had sensed from the first time he met George Fowler that he was not simply the superintendent of the apartment block where the Browns lived; he was intimately involved with Ed’s mother and was very protective of her. Their body language spoke of an illicit affair, despite Fowler’s ongoing marriage. That made him a suspect in aiding Ed’s escape. How much would he do for Mrs Brown and her son? Fowler had been endowed with an unusually large nose, which had reddened and swelled with drink and age. It now resembled a rotting tomato. Hence his nickname within the task force: Nose Man.

  ‘He usually came with her. Other than them, it was strictly lawyers and shrinks.’

  ‘Popular guy.’

  ‘Tell me about it. We’ve scrutinised all the prison officers, the records, visits, times, dates…His mum still seems the best suspect. And this Fowler guy.’ Mahoney put her hands on her hips and flicked her head to the side to get a red curl out of her eyes. ‘Anything juicy in the transcripts?’

  ‘So far, nothing I didn’t pick up originally,’ Andy said, disappointed.

  ‘What are you looking for again? How does that work?’

  ‘Statement analysis is fairly simple. You’re already familiar with body language and interviewing techniques, Mahoney. Statement analysis with transcripts like these allows you to remove the words themselves from all of the other influences in the interview to see if they reveal more than the interviewee intended. In this case, we already know that Mrs Brown is hostile and uncooperative from her previous actions.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s a bee-atch,’ Mahoney said.

  He laughed.

  ‘Looking at this statement, I have no doubt that she would not be bothered by guilt if she helped Ed escape custody. She would happily lie if she felt like it. What I’m trying to discover through statement analysis is whether or not that is the case, or if she knows more about his escape than she has told us.’

  Mahoney pulled up a chair. ‘I know you’ve told me this stuff before but can you give me an example? What’s the pronoun thing again?’

  Andy flipped through the statement on his desk. ‘So far I have less than I was hoping for. But here’s an interesting answer.’ He pointed to one of the early pages of the transcript. ‘She is asked here whether she would phone the police if her son contacted her, and she says, “We’d do the right thing.”’

  Mahoney nodded vaguely, unsure of the significance.

  Andy explained. ‘There are two main things going on here. The first is the use of the pronoun “we”. She is not personalising her answer. She says “we” and yet the question was asked of her, and she was not accompanied by anyone else during the interview. She should have said “I”. People use “we” when they are trying to distance themselves from what they are saying. The other time people use “we” is when they are feeling kinship with someone, consciously or subconsciously. In cases of false rape allegations, for instance, investigators may become suspicious if the alleged victim refers to herself and the alleged rapist as “we”. An actual victim would not refer to her attacker using such an intimate pronoun.’

  Mahoney nodded, impressed.

  ‘In this case,’ he pointed to the page, ‘it indicates that Mrs Brown probably thinks of George Fowler as a partner of sorts, and she is trying to fob her answer off on him by saying “we” even when he isn’t there. The other important thing here is that she did not in fact answer the question. She says, “We’d do the right thing,” but what is the right thing in her mind? For us to be confident that she would call us if her son contacted her, she would have to have answered either with a simple “yes”, or said something like, “I will tell you if I hear anything from him.”’

  Karen ventured an opinion. ‘Her saying “we” could mean that she and Nose Man have somehow collaborated with respect to Ed already? That when it comes to her son, she and Nose Man stand together?’

  ‘You’re on the right track, Mahoney. I can give you another classic example that you’ve probably heard before. When pressed in an interview, someone might say, “I am trying to be as honest as possible.” That sounds like they are cooperating, doesn’t it?’ Andy waited for Karen to jump in with reasons of why it didn’t. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘What do I think about that statement? Well, um…’

  ‘Well, for starters,’ Andy explained, ‘the person who says that is not saying that they are being honest. They are saying that they are “trying” to be honest. The “trying” implies failure. The “as possible” implies a limitation to the amount of honesty they are willing to give.’

  Karen nodded.

  ‘And that, Mahoney, is the end of today’s lesson. Now tell me something. There’s got to be some new lead that you picked up at Long Bay while I was busy having my head shrunk. Come on, what were your impressions?’ he pressed.

  She bit her lip and rolled her eyes skywards as she tried to recall the details. ‘No one had anything much new to say. They all seem pretty relieved that the responsibility of the escape doesn’t lie on their own shoulders, frankly. I can’t say as I blame them.’

  ‘What about the ones who had the most contact with him? They had to have opinions. Did they see anything coming? Were they suspicious that his mother was up to something? Was he up at odd hours planning?’

  They’d found very little in his cell, which was a disappointment. No bomb-making plans, no nothing. Ed had been careful. Too damned careful.

  Mahoney did some mugging again. She chewed the inside of her lip. ‘Well, actually, something that one of the guards said sort of surprised me,’ she finally offered.

  Andy’s ears pricked up. ‘That’s what I want to hear. What was it?’

  ‘One of the guards said that Ed slept really weird hours, like five to midnight or something. So yeah, he actually was up at odd times during the night.’ She flipped open her notepad and flicked through the pages.

  ‘Five in the afternoon till midnight?’

  Ed had worked the night shift at the Glebe morgue before he was fired for stealing auto
psy tools. Perhaps he was accustomed to being a night dweller? Nevertheless, they were odd hours to keep. Andy couldn’t rule out that it could be significant.

  ‘That’s what this guy said,’ Karen explained. ‘Pete Stevens works the shift from noon to midnight. Ed would go off to sleep right after his meal. Stevens didn’t mind; it made his job easier,’ he said.

  Andy could imagine.

  ‘He said Suzie Harpin was around for most of Ed’s waking hours. He said they seemed to get on.’

  ‘Get on?’ Andy asked. ‘They’re the words he used, “seemed to get on”?’

  ‘Uh, I think so.’ She checked her notes. ‘Yeah.’

  Andy sifted through his file of interview transcripts. ‘What was the name? Harpin?’

  ‘Ms Suzie Harpin.’

  ‘Here she is.’ Andy pulled her information and statement from his file. ‘Thirty-nine years old, single, never married, no children. Been working in corrections for most of her adult life…’

  He silently skimmed through her statement.

  ‘What about his old work? Did he have friends at Glebe morgue?’ Mahoney asked.

  ‘Wait a sec,’ Andy said, raising a hand. He ignored her question and reread a section of the interview:

  DET. HUNT: Did you notice anything suspicious?

  HARPIN: Not really, no.

  DET. HUNT: Not really?

  HARPIN: I mean no.

  DET. HUNT: I understand you had some conversations with Ed Brown during some of your shifts?

  HARPIN: Oh. We kept odd hours.

  DET. HUNT: How do you mean?

  HARPIN: I mean to say, I worked the night shift. Everyone else was asleep.

  Andy stood up and pushed the transcript away. ‘Come on, we’re going back to Long Bay.’

  Mahoney looked surprised. ‘What is it?’

  ‘We’ve got a “we”.’

  He had a familiar feeling of excitement, like he did when he was on to something. When he got that feeling, he was like a dog on a scent. He didn’t know what the scent was exactly, but he wasn’t going to let it go. What if Ed’s odd hours had something to do with this woman? This woman who used ‘we’ when referring to a dangerous inmate? Not ‘I spoke to the prisoner a few times,’ or ‘I spoke to him,’ but ‘We kept odd hours.’

  At this point, a simple pronoun was the most promising thing he had to go on.

  CHAPTER 42

  Irving Milgrom closed his shop at 5.34 in the evening. He flipped the sign over on the door and walked back towards his cash register to balance the till. It had been a slow day, mostly bird feed, a few goldfish and a cat scratching post. The music was still playing in the shop, and as he walked past the portable CD player he turned the volume a touch higher. It was a bit of Vivaldi that he liked, and he hummed along to the music. Congo Congo, his best talking parrot, hummed back at him.

  ‘Shhh, Congo! You’re ruining it! This is the best part.’

  ‘Congo, Congo!’ it squawked back.

  Congo Congo, Irving’s Congo African Grey, had a habit of repeating himself. He was a prized bird with a good vocabulary, and yet no one wanted to buy him. It seemed that customers couldn’t look past the $1950 price tag. They didn’t know value when they saw it. Exotic birds were Irving’s specialty and he was practically an expert, but everyone these days wanted a ‘cute bird’, something low maintenance and predictable that their kids could point at over Christmas and then shove in a cage somewhere.

  A knock came on the door.

  What, a customer now?

  Irving went to shoo them away, but recognised the visitor as one of his regular clients. He walked to the door, unlocked it and opened it a fraction.

  ‘Suzie, how are you?’

  ‘Oh, are you closed?’ she said.

  Obviously I’m closed.

  Suzie Harpin was a good client, but she had always made Irving uneasy. It was the eyes, perhaps. They were round and impossibly dark, and she seemed to hold them open a touch too wide so you could see the whites all the way around. Crazy-person eyes, some would say. He’d heard that she worked in some kind of institution. Perhaps it was a mental ward and some of it had rubbed off.

  She had the shoebox with her that she had left the shop with a few days earlier. Don’t tell me she’s done something to it?

  ‘What’s this? Is there a problem with the peachface?’

  ‘No, well…yes. I am not satisfied,’ she said.

  He opened the door reluctantly, wanting nothing more than to tell her to come back the next day. But he couldn’t do that. She bought her lovebirds from him year after year, sometimes as often as a few months apart. And the ones she liked were not inexpensive. He needed her business.

  ‘Please come in. You’ll excuse the music.’

  Suzie and her shoebox came in, and Irving closed the door behind her.

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’

  ‘I’m just not satisfied,’ she said again.

  That was a first. Suzie had purchased the red and green peachface lovebird just a few days before. It had been in perfectly good health when she had bought it.

  ‘Does it not get on with the others?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’ She seemed confused. ‘What others?’

  ‘With your other lovebirds?’ She must have a fair few by now.

  ‘Oh, no. Well, yes. That’s the problem. She doesn’t fit in.’

  Irving frowned. She was a strange woman.

  ‘So you would like to exchange it for another? I have a lovely Dutch Blue coming in that I think you might like.’

  ‘No, I just want to return it.’ She handed him the receipt and the box. He felt movement inside. There was a flutter as it changed hands.

  ‘I see,’ he said.

  I should have just closed the shop.

  Irving opened the till and returned her money to her.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said distractedly as she left.

  The door rattled as it shut. He locked it behind her and watched through the glass as the strange woman went to her car.

  There goes the day’s profits, he thought bitterly.

  ‘Squawk! What? What others? Squawk!’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Congo.’

  ‘Shut up Congo, shut up,’ the bird replied.

  CHAPTER 43

  The model agency, Wang Models Hong Kong, had placed Makedde in a sparsely furnished three-bedroom apartment in a towering high rise that looked out over the city through huge panes of glass. It was built in the sixties, Mak guessed. Some of the fixtures were worse for wear, and the once-groovy elevator was tiny. A frail Cantonese-speaking concierge who sat behind a metal desk at the entrance had given her the keys and pointed the way up.

  Two other girls from the same agency were already sharing the same place: a sweet-looking American girl named Jen and an English model named Gabrielle whom Mak had not yet met. Mak had not had the chance to speak with the American model for more than a few minutes, but she seemed nice, and very young with incredibly pale porcelain skin, as if she never left the house without a parasol to shield her face from the sun. Jen had directed Mak to put her things in the far bedroom, and when Mak dragged her suitcases inside she found a small space with a low window that came right to the head of a short, unmade bed. On the floor and inside the closet were dozens of mangled wire hangers, but there were no bed sheets. The lights worked, however. And the room was spotlessly clean. A relief. On her first trip to New York she had arrived alone off her flight at midnight to a room with no sheets, no light bulbs and a box of maggot-infested Chinese food under the bed. By comparison, this was luxury.

  Mak wandered around the apartment in her stockinged feet, taking in her new surroundings. One near-empty fridge housing some organic low-fat yoghurt, a carton of low-fat soymilk, a peach, two oranges and two bottles of champagne. Clean cupboards with a few mismatched dishes. A Post-it Note on the countertop saying that the cleaners would be coming the next day. There was a faint smell of cigarette smoke, not quite disguised by
spearmint freshener. A small bathroom crowded with cosmetics. Hmmm, three women in one bathroom—never really a good thing. A Pokémon shower curtain. Loofah sponges. Nail polish remover. Fake tan. Clearly Jen wasn’t the one using it. The living room looked comfortable, with a couple of sprawling couches with embroidered silk scatter cushions and a big coffee table covered in fashion magazines. By the door there was row upon row of shoes, most of which looked to be designer labels. A logo-covered Gucci hat sat on the arm of a chair. A logo-printed Bottega Veneta bag. Someone here was making good money.

  The place was neat and clean, the view spectacular, and she didn’t have a couple of police officers hanging around in the background every time she moved. This would be Makedde’s life for the next several days, and that was just fine by her.

  She got dressed and went in search of some full-fat groceries.

  Andy arrived with Senior Constable Karen Mahoney at Long Bay only hours after Karen had left there with the other officers. Despite the added disruption, the warden made an effort to accommodate their needs. Andy was keen to interview Pete Stevens as soon as possible. Waiting until he was free from his shift at midnight was not an option. Ed could be anywhere, doing anything. If there was even a remote possibility that Stevens knew something valuable it might be a turning point for the investigation. At this rate, it might be the only fresh information they had.

  Suzie Harpin could not be reached since she had finished her shift on Sunday. Monday was her day off. She was not answering her phone, and when Andy sent Hunt around to her apartment she was not home.

  The warden explained the layout to Andy while they waited. It was nothing he hadn’t heard and seen before. This and the high-tech Supermax facility at Goulburn were where the most serious, violent offenders came to stay. There were more than a few men at Long Bay who would not soon forget the detective who had put them there.

  Stevens didn’t keep them waiting long.

  One look at him, and it was clear why he was a prison guard. For someone like Pete Stevens, life as a guard, soldier, firefighter or bouncer was perhaps inevitable. He was almost two metres tall, and at least fifty kilos heavier than Andy, with thick, hairy arms and a shaved head. He wouldn’t have to do much to scare the crap out of someone, no doubt a useful attribute in his chosen occupation.