Liz shrugged and went around to the passenger side of the car. She didn't have a purse or anything with her, and she was dressed in jeans and an oversized knitted jumper. It was one of her favourite jumpers, but Cooper figured she wouldn't be very happy when he pulled up in front of the pub. He was right.
"What are we doing here? Oh, God, Coop, you could have at least given me the chance to change. I'm not going in there looking like this."
"You look fine. We'll have one drink, and sit in a corner booth if you're that worried about it. But relax, babe. It's Sunday afternoon. No-one cares what we look like."
Liz shrugged. "I guess you're buying."
They settled into a quiet booth with a couple of beers.
"So what's this all about? Why have you dragged me away from our children this afternoon? I should be spending time with them. Hell, I should be at work."
"How is the head?"
"Much better. It's just the exhaustion that floors me the day after, you know. But I'm feeling pretty good now."
"That's good." All of a sudden he was nervous. How should he do this? Just confront her straight out? Or talk around the subject for a while, hope she'll open up? Interrogating criminals was one thing, but trying to find out what was going on with his wife was suddenly very difficult.
"Come on, out with it," Liz prompted.
"Well… your mum and I… we're a bit concerned, Liz. You seem to be taking a lot of pain killers lately."
"I have a lot of pain."
"I know, and that sucks, babe. I hate seeing you in pain, it kills me. I wish I could take it from you, suffer it instead of you."
"But you can't, Coop. It's my thing. I've had to deal with this all my adult life. Migraines are a bitch, but I've learnt how to cope. I can handle it."
"It's not really the migraines I'm worried about. I know you can handle those. God, take whatever you need to get through one of those. It's the other days I'm worried about."
Liz drew lines with her finger in the condensation around her beer glass. "What do you mean?"
"The days when you don't have a migraine, but you tell me you've got a headache, and you take pain killers for those. You seem to take a lot, more than it says on the packet. Is that safe?"
Charlie, I'm a doctor. I know what I can handle, and I know what I need to manage my pain."
"Yes, but—"
"But what? You really think you're in a better position to decide how I should be medicating myself?"
"No, but maybe another doctor should be advising you. Maybe you shouldn't be self-medicating."
"They're over-the-counter pain killers, Coop. We're not talking addictive narcotics here." She picked up her glass and took a drink. "Look, I appreciate your concern, but I'm fine."
"Really? Because I read on the Internet that doctors can be more susceptible to prescription drug addiction."
"You read on the Internet? Are you serious? Is that how you spend your time, reading rubbish on the Internet when you should be home with me? With our children?"
"Geez, calm down, Liz. I'm just worried about you."
She stood, pulling her jumper down so it almost stretched to her knees. "There's nothing to worry about, Charlie. Can you just take me home, please?"
30
"Would you like red or white?" asked Simon, holding one bottle of wine in his hand while he fished in the fridge for the other.
"I shouldn't be having either," Jackie replied, feeling guilty but also defiant at the same time. She'd been talking to Simon on the phone all afternoon, a conversation that started with questions about custody battles and ended with him inviting her over. "My ear's getting sore," he'd said, "and my hand hurts from holding the phone up. Just come over, will you?" She'd agreed, and now here she was, deciding again whether it was a good idea to have a drink. She remembered Marcus's scolding look earlier this morning, and resented the fact that it was his actions that were driving her to drink as much as she was lately.
Simon was standing in the kitchen, fridge door still open, a bottle of wine now in each hand.
Fuck it. "Red, please," she said, without a trace of guilt. She was still on her time, the kids weren't due back for hours. One glass wasn't going to hurt.
Simon filled two glasses and placed them on coasters on the coffee table, before taking a seat in the armchair opposite her. He was turning out to be a nice guy, Simon. He seemed to care about her, but he didn't crowd her the way Marcus used to. She wondered if he'd been like that with his wife.
"Can I ask about your family, Simon? Do you mind talking about them, or would you prefer not to?"
He took a sip of wine, before carefully placing the glass back on the coaster. "I haven't really talked about them much, but then, I haven't really had anyone to talk about them to. Except the group, of course. That's helped."
"So do you want to talk about them now? With me?"
He didn't say anything, rather he got up from the armchair and went into another room. For a moment Jackie thought she must have said the wrong thing, pushed too far. But he came back with a photo album, and this time he took a seat on the lounge next to her.
"I find it easier to talk with props," he explained, opening the album and flicking through the pages. It looked like the photos had been taken on a family holiday, and Jackie struggled to contain her emotion as Simon turned the pages and revealed photo after photo of a smiling, happy family. "These were taken three years ago. Sia was twelve, I think, and Ruth was healthy. She was diagnosed not long after this trip. It was the last time I can remember us being truly happy."
"It looks like you were having a great time," Jackie managed to say, brushing away a single tear that had escaped and rolled down her cheek. Simon was engrossed in the photos, and she was thankful he hadn't noticed.
"I remember spending the whole week, just the three of us, and thinking how fast Sia had grown up. I wasn't a very hands-on dad, I'm afraid."
"You have a busy job, I'm sure your family understood."
"Yes, I know. I had work, Sia had school and sports, and whatever else she did after school. And then Ruth was in a drama club, which complicated things even more. We all had our own activities, our own priorities, I suppose. It was tough getting time to spend together. But that week, that holiday to the Gold Coast, I remember it was the first time in ages I'd really spent significant time with Sia. She wasn't my little girl anymore, she was practically a teenager." Simon turned the page to a couple of photographs of Sia using a big foam hammer to smash some weird looking little stuffed animals back into their holes. The smile on her face was electric.
"You must have been very proud of her."
"I was. We both were." Simon closed the album, took a sip of wine, and rested the glass on his knee. "You've told me a fair bit about Ethan and Emma, while we've been working out your custody strategy. Why don't you tell me about Lachlan?"
"Well, he was my eldest. Obviously." All of a sudden Jackie felt awkward. But Simon just gave her an encouraging smile, so she pressed on. "He was fantastic when Marcus and I separated. I was devastated at first, when Marcus left. But right from the start Lachlan told me it was the best thing that could have happened to me. And he was right, cheeky bastard."
"In what way was he right?"
Jackie emptied her wine glass, and Simon reached for the bottle to refill it. She didn't try and stop him.
"Marcus was very controlling. I didn't realise it when I was married to him, but Lachlan did. He didn't say anything, he told me later all he wanted was for me to be happy, and I'd seemed happy with Marcus. But Marcus liked things done a certain way, and he was very difficult to live with if you didn't comply. It was little things, you know, the everyday stuff that most people don't give a crap about. Whether the glasses are stored upside down or right way up in the cupboard, that sort of thing. I don't care, so we ended up defaulting to Marcus's way of doing most things."
"And Lachlan saw that as controlling?"
"Yes. Sometimes he'd 'for
get', and do things which upset Marcus. Marcus said he did it deliberately, would fly into mini-rages, but Lachlan just told him to chill out. He had a tendency to over-react, and Lachlan was good at getting a rise out of him."
"Do you think he did it on purpose? Lachlan?"
Jackie smiled. "Looking back I suppose he did sometimes. But he was also a teenage boy, and they do forget."
Jackie found herself telling Simon things about her family that she hadn't felt able to tell anyone before. Maybe it was because up until recently he'd been a stranger, maybe it was because he'd shared a similar loss. Or maybe it was because he was a man: her female friends, as caring and compassionate as they were, tended to be quite gossipy. The way they spoke to her about their other friends always made her wonder what they said about her when she wasn't there. She didn't get that vibe from Simon. Plus, he seemed genuinely interested in her and her troubles.
When she came to the end of her second glass of wine, Jackie asked for a glass of water. She had to drive home, so two wines was her limit. She followed Simon to the kitchen, where he retrieved a tumbler from the cupboard and poured water from a cold bottle in the fridge.
"Thanks," she said, as he handed it to her. "And thanks again for this. For some reason I find it quite therapeutic talking to you."
"You've been through a lot, Jackie. You're still going through it. I'm only too happy to help. But you have to look after yourself, too. Speaking of which, it's getting late. Do you want to stay for dinner? I'm afraid I haven't done any shopping, so it'll have to be takeaway."
Jackie looked at the clock on the wall in the kitchen. It was almost eight o'clock. "Shit!" she said, putting the water glass down on the counter so hard she thought she'd broken it. "Oh, crap, sorry. I'm late, Marcus is going to kill me. He's due at my house with the kids at seven. Shit!" She went back to the lounge and fished her phone out of her bag. Sure enough, there were three missed calls from Marcus, and one from Ethan. How had she missed them? Her bag was right there beside where she'd been sitting. She checked the button on the side of the phone and was horrified to find it was on silent. How had that happened?
"Damn. I don't remember putting my phone on silent."
"You had it out earlier when you were putting those notes in it, remember? Did you flick it onto silent accidentally?"
"Maybe." It sounded possible, but Jackie didn't have time to dwell on that right now. She quickly sent Marcus a text to say she was on her way, then shoved the phone back into her bag. "I'm really sorry to run off like this," she said to Simon on her way out the door.
"No, don't be sorry. I'm sorry we chatted so long and put you over your deadline. Maybe next time tell me you have to leave by a certain time, and then we can both try and remember."
"Good idea," said Jackie, before realising what he'd said. Next time. Yes, she'd like that. She could see Simon becoming a good friend. She hurried out to the car, mostly panicking because of the scene that awaited her at home, but also just a little bit satisfied with herself.
The look on Marcus's face when she pulled into the driveway said it all. Jackie felt guilty, and then pissed off that Marcus always managed to make her feel guilty. Yes, she was almost an hour late. Yes, she hadn't answered her phone. But she hadn't heard it. It wasn't all her fault, was it? The more she tried to justify it in her head, the more Jackie realised that it was her fault this time. She should have kept a better eye on the time. She knew they were due home at seven, and she knew Marcus was always punctual. Well, at least he was when it suited him.
"Where have you been?" he demanded as she got out of the car and Emily ran over to embrace her.
"Mummy! It's really dark. Dad made us wait in his car."
Jackie gave her a hug and then looked up at Marcus. "Why didn't you go inside?"
"You seemed pissed off that I'd let myself in this morning. But I was just about to. She needs to get to bed."
"I'll take it from here." She hesitated, then added "Sorry I'm late."
"What was so important—"
"Please, Marcus. Don't start. It's been a difficult weekend, and I don't want to argue with you. I'm sorry, okay. It won't happen again. Can we just leave it at that?" She turned her back to him, and started walking towards the house with one arm wrapped around Emma. Ethan had already used his own key to open the front door and was nowhere to be seen. Once Emma was inside the house she turned back to face Marcus, who'd followed her up the driveway. "Please," she repeated.
A flash of anger in his eyes, then Marcus nodded, and retreated to his car, but not before delivering the final blow. "I'm accepting the transfer, Jackie. I've discussed it with the kids. They want to come with me."
31
"So what do you know about performance enhancing drugs?" Cooper asked. There was nothing like getting straight to the point. He and Quinn were sitting in the office of Rod Kelsey, an office that Cooper thought was a little too nicely decked out for an assistant coach. This guy was definitely hiding something.
"Look, those charges were dropped. Nothing was proven."
"Where there's smoke, there's usually at least some kind of fire," said Cooper. "I bet if we had a good dig around, spoke to some of the team members, peripheral players, we'd come up with something."
Kelsey looked Cooper in the eye, but his fidgeting and inability to sit still gave him away and he knew it. "What do you want from me?"
"We just want to know everything you know about Jamie Brennan, Lachlan Rose, and Michelle Medler. I'll remind you, you're the only adult we've come across with connections to all three."
Kelsey leant across his desk. "That don't mean I had anything to do with them dying. Jesus, man. I care about these kids. I give them a start, give them a chance at a real career. I look after them. I don't want to hurt them."
Cooper considered bringing up the long-term effects of the steroids Kelsey was probably pushing to help 'give them a chance at a real career', but thought better of it. He'd made his point.
"Forget about the football for a moment, Mr Kelsey," said Quinn. "What can you tell us about Michelle? Did you ever meet her?"
"I saw her a few times at the house, said hello, but that's really all. She was studying with my daughter, so I didn't want to interrupt. I can tell you something, though."
"What's that?" asked Cooper.
"According to my daughter, Michelle Medler was a first class bully. A number of Rachel's other students complained about Michelle when they found out she was tutoring her. Rachel tried to stay out of it, but they told her some of the things she did and Rachel was pretty horrified. She didn't want to keep tutoring Michelle, but I told her that business was business. You can't get ahead in this life if you want to pick and choose the people you do business with."
Cooper was liking this guy less and less. "So Michelle was a bully. What about the boys? Jamie and Lachlan."
"I quite often saw Jamie Brennan giving some of the younger kids some stick. He always had a crowd around him, liked to play up to them. I called him on it once, he said he was just pranking these young kids. Didn't look like that to me, and I told him to knock it off."
"Did he?" asked Quinn. "Knock it off, I mean?"
"For that day, yeah. But he was back at it the next time I saw him. Boys will be boys, Detective."
"What about Lachlan Rose?" asked Cooper.
"Nah. Never saw anything like that from him. But then I only came across him a handful of times. Is that all? I've got work to do."
Cooper's gut was satisfied that Rod Kelsey wasn't involved in the deaths of the three teenagers. But he was still a drug-pushing arsehole who needed to be put in his place.
"That's all for now. But you should know, I've got two sons. I'd hate to think that anyone was ever encouraging them to take drugs that could cause long-term damage, just because it might make them run a bit faster on a football field. You should also know I have some pretty close mates in the drug squad. So if I were you, I'd keep my nose very clean."
Kels
ey did his best to look unperturbed by Cooper's warning, but the widening of his eyes gave him away. Cooper held his gaze for a moment longer than necessary, then he and Quinn thanked the coach for his time and left.
"Nice psych out," said Quinn, once they were back in the car.
"Who said it was a psych out? If that guy or anyone else ever pushes drugs to my children, I'll rip his throat out."
"Your sons are two and four years old, Coop."
"They'll be grown up soon enough." Cooper pulled the car out into the Monday-morning traffic. "You'll understand one day," he added.
Quinn nodded. "Fair enough. Where to now then?"
"I'd like to go back to the bullying angle we were looking at before Jensen Morris's murder threw us off course. Let's head to the office and see if we can line up those interviews with Ethan Rose and Oscar White for this afternoon. In the meantime, we can see whether Max or Zach has anything more for us."
Neither Max nor Zach had anything more than they'd already offered, and Cooper was getting frustrated. His working theory at the moment was that Michelle, Jamie, and Lachlan had been killed by a bullying victim who'd had enough. The theory worked when it came to Michelle and Jamie, both were known bullies. But it fell over in the case of Lachlan Rose. They couldn't find any evidence that Lachlan had bullied other kids at all. He'd asked Zach to go through Lachlan's social media pages again, see if there was anything they'd missed. In the meantime, maybe his younger brother would be able to shed some light.
Cooper opened the door to the waiting room and found Jackie Rose sitting between her son, Ethan, and his friend, Oscar White. There was no-one else around, and Cooper asked where Oscar's parents were.
"Neither could get away from work, Charlie," answered Jackie. "They asked if I could sit in with Oscar on their behalf. Is that okay?" Jackie's face told him she thought it was anything but okay. And he agreed. Leaving your teenage son on his own or with a family friend all the time was one thing, but not bothering to show up when he was being interviewed by police was just bad parenting. Unfortunately, though, he'd seen it too many times. He returned Jackie's look, but they kept it between themselves. No need for the boy to recognise their disdain for his parents.
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