by Jennie Jones
She pushed out a grim laugh. ‘Not really.’ She nodded to a shed at the far end of the dog paddock, in its own fenced enclosure. ‘That’s where I keep them, separated and enclosed, until they’re healed. Then I have to release them.’ She looked at him, with an apology in her eyes. ‘I have no choice. It’s that or they’re euthanised. I get a vet to desex them, then they’re freed.’
‘It must cost you, bringing a vet up from Kalgirri.’
She looked away. ‘That’s not always the case.’
‘Who do you use?’
She paused, looking like she was considering her answer. ‘It takes a lot of effort to even attempt to control the wild dog population out here. The district’s too vast. We need someone out here permanently, desexing them.’
‘You’re telling me you’ve got someone like that? Is it Solomon?’ he asked, when she didn’t answer.
She shook her head. ‘Those two I’ve got now were brought in by one of your officers a couple of weeks ago. They were found tethered together and dumped in someone’s backyard in town. One has a broken leg, and the other looked like it had been bashed around the face. But they’re tough dogs. They need to be.’ She shrugged, in a cynical way, and Jack understood suddenly how much animal suffering she’d see in her role as a shelter volunteer. ‘I don’t always know what’s happened to them,’ she continued. ‘I just make sure they heal, if they’re not too badly damaged.’
‘Otherwise they’re euthanised.’
She took a moment then nodded.
He didn’t question her further. She obviously didn’t want to say too much about the vet she used.
‘And the good ones?’ he asked, indicating the paddock where Frances was still standing back from the fence, away from Rosie and Davidson. ‘Any of them yours?’
He gave her time to get herself together, keeping his focus on the dogs—and still wondering about Frances and what was bothering her, and where her father was.
‘Three of them are mine,’ she said behind him. ‘Although I can’t keep them in the house anymore.’
‘Why not?’ He still didn’t look at her when she wandered back to his side, keeping a decent space between them.
‘I don’t think Frances would like it. I think she’s probably a little frightened of them at the moment. I don’t think she’s ever had—’ She halted, as though she’d bitten herself.
Jack figured it was likely she’d been about to say she didn’t think Frances had ever had any animals in her life—which indicated, again, that mother and daughter didn’t know each other that well. If at all.
‘Is there some way you could use one or two of the dogs as guard dogs?’ he asked. If there was an issue—even if it was only joyriders on her property—and they discovered the house belonged to a woman and child, they might decide to do more damage or make more trouble.
‘I’ve got Winston, and Kirby, and little Bella,’ she said. ‘I want to keep those three.’
‘I’m hoping Winston is the big Rottweiler cross,’ Jack said.
‘Rottie Mastiff cross,’ she told him. ‘Five years old. Pretty soft but he looks the business.’
He certainly did. ‘And Kirby?’
She pointed. ‘The one running riot at the far end of the paddock. Giant Poodle-Schnauzer cross. She’d be a good guard dog. She’d hear things before Winston would.’
Hopefully, Winston would back up Kirby with sheer brawn. ‘I guess Bella is the Jack Russell?’
She turned her head and gave him a nod, with a small smile. ‘Cute, isn’t she?’
She certainly was and he didn’t mean the Jack Russell. He tried not to notice how her smile made her eyes shine and his brain go all mushy.
Since they were bordering on general, informal talk, maybe he could lead them into a bit of personal stuff after all.
‘You could keep the dogs inside at night after Frances has gone to bed,’ he said, as the kid jumped back from the fence when Bella shot into the air as fast as a bullet and almost made it over the fence and into Frances’s arms. ‘If she closes her bedroom door, they won’t worry her.’ How much further could he take this conversation? He’d vowed not to ask about Frances—unless Jax brought it up. Which she had, in a way. ‘Want to tell me about Frances?’ he asked softly. ‘She seems a bit at odds with the world.’
She coloured up so fast he was taken aback. He’d never seen her blush and she’d flushed at both meetings. The first time, when he’d walked up to her outside the café and she turned to him, he’d been pleased by the pinkened cheeks, hoping it meant attraction still bounced between them like it had the time they’d met nearly a year ago. But this was new.
‘And you called her Franca when I first met her,’ he persisted. She’d corrected herself quickly, but he hadn’t missed it. She’d called her daughter Franca.
‘Her name’s Frances.’
‘Was it Franca before?’
Her flush deepened.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
She was all business immediately. ‘I need to keep this conversation to the task at hand. And it’s Frances.’
She spun around and headed for the destroyed fence.
Was she covering up something, some truth about Frances?
He let it go.
‘When did you notice this?’ he asked as they came to a stop by the section of mowed down fence and ploughed-up dirt.
‘Early yesterday evening.’
After checking the various tyre imprints he determined Donna had been right about the vehicle reversing and hitting the fence four times. It had been one vehicle, a powerful four-wheel drive, which must have been damaged because the fence posts were like railway sleepers—thick, solid, heavy. He made a note to surreptitiously check the Baxter boys’ vehicles. And he remembered what the Agatha Girls had told him, about the Baxters getting friendly with Roper’s nephew. The Baxters couldn’t afford such a vehicle. Maybe the nephew could. He’d certainly be paying a visit.
‘What do you use this paddock for?’ he asked.
‘Nothing yet. It was fenced like this when I bought the property. It’s where the bull will go.’
‘I’ll put Will onto this issue,’ he told her. ‘Would that make you feel more at ease?’ He didn’t add ‘since you don’t want me around you’ because he knew she’d understand without him saying it.
She nodded.
‘I’ll still be looking into it myself,’ he advised her. ‘I need you to know that.’
She stilled, as though steeling herself. She probably knew all along that she wouldn’t get away with Jack not being involved on some level.
‘Now,’ he said, getting back to the task at hand and keeping his voice professional and official. ‘Is there anything else you’ve noticed around the place? Anything a bit odd? Or suspicious?’
She considered her response for so long that Jack knew there was more. ‘You can tell me,’ he said. ‘Just go ahead and say it.’
She looked away, squinting through the sunshine. ‘I employed the Baxter boys to maintain the property and to update the makeshift kennels,’ she said, looking behind Jack to where the others were, still by the dogs.
‘And?’ he prompted.
‘I had to fire them.’ She looked down and toed a piece of bark on the earth, kicking it around.
It hurt him that she couldn’t meet his eye, but maybe she was frightened of the Baxter boys. They were trouble, no doubt about that—constantly stealing from each other, arguing, and beating each other up.
‘I thought I’d give them a chance—with the job.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s hard to get labourers out here because everyone’s busy working on their own properties or farms.’
‘What was the main reason you sacked them?’
‘Nothing was getting done. But it was the dogs that decided it.’ She met his eye. ‘I came home from the café early one day and I found them provoking the dogs. They were dangling fresh meat over the fence but not letting the dogs get it. I panicked and thought they might be tr
ying to poison them, so I tore a strip off both of them and sent them on their way.’
‘They didn’t give you any lip about that?’
‘Plenty.’ She shifted her stance. ‘I know they’re trouble, but I let it go. I paid them cash for what they were owed and told them if I ever found them behaving badly with my animals again I’d skin them alive.’
‘It sounds to me like they were being aggressively confrontational. In which case, you might have wanted to let Luke know. Or Donna, even.’
She looked chagrined for a moment.
‘They’re your friends, Jax. Not just police officers. When did this happen?’
‘About six days ago.’
‘Do you think there’s any chance the Baxters could have set fire to Mrs Arnold’s shed?’
‘Why would they do that?’ she asked, surprise on her face.
‘Because Amelia told them off after you fired them. The next day, her shed’s ransacked and set alight.’
‘Surely they wouldn’t be so stupid? They’ve never done serious damage before, unless it’s on their own properties.’
Maybe not, but he’d keep in mind the possibility they’d been responsible. ‘What trouble have you had since you fired them?’
She chewed her lip and looked like she was deliberating with the truth.
‘Come on,’ Jack said. ‘You need to tell me.’
Again, she met his eye. It was as though she could only do it if he was pushing her, or if she was squaring herself up to be truthful. ‘I found the landline telephone cables dug up the other morning.’
Knowing someone was on her land at night kicked at Jack’s gut. ‘Go on.’
‘I’m pretty sure someone is on my property at night but I haven’t found anything solid to report—until yesterday, and now this.’ She spoke fast and indicated the broken fence and gate. ‘Also …’ she paused, eyes still on him. ‘The aviary door was open. No birds had got out but there were more feathers on the ground than usual, as though they’d been frightened. I found a broom handle on the ground too. I think perhaps whoever is sneaking around used the handle to poke at them or hurt them. Maybe just scare them.’
‘And the dogs?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘They haven’t been hurt. I’ve checked each of them thoroughly. Oh—there’s something else. Over here.’
Something else? He was going to throttle her …
She moved towards mulga bushland, which was probably the delineating line of her property. ‘It’s a drawing of some sort. Further down, on the fence.’
Jack came to a stop at a patch of dried earth on the edge of the thick mulga forest that led to many old mine tracks, one prominently in view, attempting to come to terms with what he wasn’t able to do—stay out here to keep watch 24/7. She’d pissed off the Baxters. They were out for revenge.
‘It’s pretty amateur, isn’t it?’ she said, but Jack’s mind was already joining dots.
The graffiti was naïve to say the least, paw prints mainly, set in a square picture frame, with a couple of sacks in the middle of the square. He hunched down and examined the drawing on the railing. After a few seconds, he got it. Not sacks in the square frame—boxing gloves.
‘Anything else?’
She chewed on some thought for a moment. ‘There’s a similar drawing where someone dug up the landline cables.’
‘Jax—’
‘I didn’t report it because—’
‘I don’t care about your reasons for not reporting it, only that you didn’t.’
‘I had to be sure! It could have been joyriders.’
He stood, tempering the desire to shake her. Graffiti at old Roper’s place after the goats had been stolen—he’d need to check what kind of drawings from the photos in the file he hadn’t had a chance to look at yet—and there had been drawings on the bull, and now graffiti on Jax’s property.
‘Sorry about this, Jax, I really am.’ He wasn’t the least bit sorry. ‘But I’m about to renege on my promise.’
‘How?’
‘I’ve just made myself first officer on the case.’
‘That’s not fair, Jack.’
‘That’s the way it is.’
‘You’re doing this on purpose. To get close to me or something. It’s not going to work.’
He pulled down the brim of his cap. ‘Sorry to correct you, but that’s not the reason. I’m doing my job. Like it or hate it, this is what it is. From now on, you report anything suspicious directly to me.’
Jax took a step back. Why the sudden cop demeanour? He’d changed, almost instantly. He was wearing a cop frown and a cop’s official expression. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. Already in protection mode, she shot a look at Rosita and Frances and back to Jack.
His eyes were still on her. ‘You’ve got trouble, Jax. What did you think I’d do? Leave you to it?’
‘Do whatever you have to do, but do it officially. Please,’ she added.
‘It’ll be official. But I’d also like to ask you to remember that we know each other personally. Everything I do from now on, regarding this—’ he flicked a thumb at the smashed fence and the artwork on the posts, ‘will be by the book. But I have another book, Jax. One for those I’m close to. One for those I care for.’
Without her realising, he’d moved forwards. If she made the mistake of breathing in too deeply, she’d inhale all the fragrances of him she remembered. They’d kissed before going in to the restaurant on that first and only date in Kalgirri; he’d leaned down and kissed her and she’d let him. The moment had been right. That zapping had been in the air. It had felt normal to tilt her head and meet his mouth.
‘Do you need help?’ he asked.
She shook herself out of the reverie. ‘With what? The fence? I’m calling someone in to fix it.’
‘Whatever you need, I’m here. I don’t mean only about the destruction to your property, or the bull. I mean with your daughter.’
Shame filled her in a flash of heat that overflowed. She didn’t want to tell Jack anything about Frances, yet stubbornly, her heart was bursting to accept his offer. He had broad shoulders, and she didn’t only mean the width of them; she meant his personality, the care and compassion she’d observed in him both in Kalgirri and when he was in town a few months back. But he wasn’t staying. Why hand out all her secrets? It wasn’t that she thought it had all been her fault, or that she’d done something to tempt Michael, and it wasn’t dignity—well, maybe a little. Maybe a lot. But it was definitely pride. She had a bucket load of pride and wasn’t about to let it go, because Frances needed her to get all this right. If she told Jack what had happened to her all those years ago, he’d look at her and pity her, or something equally useless. She’d got over it all now. She hardly remembered that night with Michael. She did, however, remember giving birth. Every second, every push, every exhale and the ultimate cries of joy when Franca had been born.
‘I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine,’ she reiterated. ‘Me and Franca—Frances.’
He stayed silent for only a moment. The look in his eyes told her he wasn’t even evaluating the situation. He’d already made up his mind to keep pushing.
‘You and Frances are not getting on,’ he said. ‘I get the impression it’s because you don’t know each other. Jax, I have to ask you.’
‘I won’t answer.’
‘Where’s her father?’
If she told him Frances’s father had been questioned about his sleazy approach to a naïve and innocent young woman, he’d have to know the whole truth about herself and how Frances came to be. If she refused to tell him, he’d check. If she lied, he’d guess.
‘You’re here officially,’ she reminded him. ‘Don’t pry into my personal life.’ What she had on her plate regarding Frances was overwhelming, but she had her daughter living with her and she was going to fight to keep her, and to help her find happiness and everything she deserved. Which meant saying nothing about her father.
‘I
don’t see it as prying,’ Jack said. ‘I see it as you not wanting to tell me.’
‘There’s nothing particular to tell. It’s my business.’ As she looked up and saw the watchfulness in Jack’s narrowed eyes, the searching and the thoughts running through his head, the possible truth about what Michael had done was suddenly a more painful burden than it had been thirteen years ago. It welled inside her until she thought she might choke.
‘Let’s close this conversation, Senior Sergeant Maxwell.’ She put emphasis on his title, reminding him of his position and maybe advising him that he’d never prise the truth from her.
Eight
Frances was standing outside the youth centre trying to look inconspicuous but probably failing. The mother had brought her into town because she was meeting some guy who was going to help move the bull.
A bull. She hadn’t seen one up close but had shown total disinterest in it and said she’d wait here. Same with the dogs yesterday when the grown-ups were talking about the broken fence. Although the little one, Bella, was funny. It had been hard not to smile.
They all thought she didn’t know what was going on. All the secret whispering when Rosita had asked the mother what the hell had happened to the fence in the back paddock. Someone had knocked the fence down on purpose. Did they all think she wouldn’t work it out?
The High Street was busier than she’d thought it would be and she didn’t feel comfortable but she’d said this is where she wanted to stay, so she had to get on with it. Nobody spoke to you when you kept your head down, so she’d done that and was scrolling through her iPhone, checking Facebook. She only checked it to see if someone was saying something about her. She’d Unfriended all her schoolmates before they did it to her after the Linda bitch had kicked her out of the house, but most of them had public profiles so she could keep a watch on them without them knowing.
The mother had let her stay here, outside the youth centre, while she talked to the bull-catcher because her friend, the cop woman, was not far down High Street, chatting with a bunch of young kids. Typical. She wasn’t even allowed to stand on a street on her own in broad daylight. What would happen in this crappy town anyway? Nothing more than broken fences as far as she could tell.