by A. Nybo
“It must be fifty degrees in here,” he said to Rodney, the young cop who had been sent to pick him up.
“The air-conditioning should kick in in a minute.”
“Can’t wait. So tell me a bit about these murders,” he said as Rodney pulled away from the airport.
“I’d better let the sarge tell you about them. I haven’t been on any of the scenes. I’ve only been here a few months.”
“Oh? Where were you before that?”
Rodney was still telling him about a suburban station near Adelaide when he pulled up around the back of the police station. Rodney killed the engine before the air-conditioning even had time to fully take effect, and already they had to get out into the heat again. Five days of this would kill Leon. It was one thing when the body slowly acclimatised, but coming straight from cool to hot weather was draining.
Blessed relief swamped him when he walked into the air-conditioned station, and he took off his uniform baseball cap and scrubbed at his cropped hair to allow the coolness to touch his scalp. Rodney ushered Leon through to an office where a big burly policeman in a khaki uniform sat tapping his keyboard.
The cop rose and offered a hand in welcome. “Federal Agent Armstrong, I’m Sergeant Charlie Gibson.”
“Leon, please.” They shook hands. “Nice to meet you, Sergeant Gibson.”
“You can call me Charlie or Sarge, whichever you feel most comfortable with. Take a seat.” He gestured to one of two chairs that sat on the opposite side of the desk. “Coffee, tea, water?”
“Water, thanks, Charlie.” Certain he’d sweated a few litres in fluids, he needed to rehydrate. “I only managed to scan the other case you sent through, and I haven’t had a chance to speak with the Europol contact either, but it certainly sounds like Pavel Bobrinsky. Has your witness been able to tell you anything more?”
Charlie cleared his throat. “Er, no. We haven’t actually visited him again since Friday night. I thought it better to speak with you first.”
“Oh?”
“We found some unusual things at the witness’s claim, and….” Charlie shook his head. “The whole damn thing is weird. From the statement the witness gave us and what we found out there, I would have to think the murderer was at the site at the same time the witness was.”
“Did the witness interrupt the killer?”
“Well, either that or he helped him.”
“How so?” asked Leon.
Rodney entered the office again and handed Leon a bottle of cooled water. Leon nodded his thanks and took a drink. Bugger ambrosia; water was what was going to give him longevity—he would leave the immortality for the gods.
“The only vehicle the witness stated was at the scene belonged to the victim, Miro Jovanovic,” said Charlie. “But the murderer had to get to the scene somehow.”
Leon shrugged. “So he hid his transport.”
“You saw the landscape from the plane, didn’t you?”
The treeless, flat landscape would offer few hiding places. “Some of those mounds of dirt looked pretty big, and there is the occasional hill.”
“Not at this particular site,” Charlie assured him. “Easy enough to hide a person—there are a few mineshafts within shooting distance—but not a vehicle.”
“How did he get in and out, then? Walk?”
“Doubtful. Not totally impossible, but doubtful. He would have had to traverse the field in the dark and hide out there half the night, or else he got a ride to the site and drove the victim’s vehicle out.”
“So the vehicle wasn’t at the site when you got there, but it ostensibly was when the witness left?” asked Leon.
“Yep. We located Miro’s vehicle at his house.”
“If it was the perpetrator, then he knew where the victim lived as well as worked? Although I suppose he could have gotten the address from the vehicle rego or a license,” said Leon, answering his own question. “Unless the victim was specifically chosen and the perpetrator already knew where he lived. Maybe he got a lift out there with the victim.”
“I hadn’t considered he might have arrived with the victim,” Charlie said.
“Have you searched the victim’s house?”
“Yes, but we found nothing of particular significance.”
“Of particular significance?” asked Leon.
“People in these parts tend to collect some pretty strange things. It’s a bit difficult to tell what’s significant and what isn’t.”
“Strange in what way?”
“In case you missed the spaceship in town, parts of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was filmed out this way, and almost everyone in town has a souvenir or ten. Plus, the miners have on occasion hit bones, some of which have been fossilised, but some are of no interest to archaeologists, so the miners might have them hanging around their house.” Charlie shrugged. “Out here, a scorpion mobile is considered a conversation starter.”
“A scorpion mobile?” Surely it wasn’t what it sounded like. “What is that?” Maybe it was something from the Mad Max shoot.
“You know what a scorpion is, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you know those toys they hang above a baby’s cot that turn around with little figures hanging off ’em?”
“Oh, so not real scorpions, then?”
Charlie chuckled. “Oh, they’re real all right.”
Leon was horrified. “They hang them above babies’ cots?”
One corner of Charlie’s mouth lifted into a derisive smirk. “Not that I know of. I just used that as an example. Anyway my point is, out here category normal is far broader than it is in most cities. The townspeople are generally your average Joe, but the miners? They can be a bit rough and ready on occasion. I think all the time they spend on their own causes them to become a little eccentric. They’re a good-natured lot, though.” Charlie grinned. “You’re in the outback now, son, make no mistake. And,” he added, “more than one occupant will play it up for all it’s worth.”
Leon thought Charlie wasn’t doing such a bad job of it himself.
“When would we be able to talk to this witness?” asked Leon.
“We can go whenever you want. He’ll be anxious to see you.”
“Oh?”
Charlie nodded. “We banned him from his claim until further notice, which was your arrival, in case you wanted to examine it. He was a little antsy about it, and he’ll be keen to get back there.”
“Do we have enough time to see the crime scene today?”
“Sure. We can go now.”
CLAUSTROPHOBIA THREATENED Leon despite his never having suffered it before. Although the shaft had been narrower than the drive they now stood in, the inadequate mine ventilators weren’t enough to dispel the lingering smell of five-day-old body fluids, which gave the air a solid quality. If there was one thing Leon didn’t want to feel against his skin, it was leaking intestines and blood.
Leon looked around for signs of a struggle, evidence, and potential clues as to what had happened. Besides the smell, there was little to suggest it was a crime scene, but then being a working mine, the walls were all gouges and scratches. “He was definitely killed down here?”
“Yeah. Those dark spots on the wall are blood splatter.” Charlie pointed to what amounted to nothing more than a variation in earth colour. Charlie walked over to a spot and scraped the ground with his boot. The dirt was far darker, and Leon immediately understood it to be the results of leeched body fluids. Charlie kept scraping to reveal an ever growing patch.
“There’s a bit of it,” said Charlie, “but the dust fall down here, in combination with the disturbance of us moving the body, has covered it. As you can see, there’s not a lot of space for several people, a body, and a body bag to manoeuvre in, especially when the body parts are strewn from arsehole to breakfast time.” Charlie cleared his throat. “Excuse me, when they are strewn everywhere.”
“No need to check yourself,” said Leon. Somehow manners didn’t seem t
o belong in a place like this.
Leon walked back to where the two drive shafts diverged and directed his torch down the darkened drive. “Were there string lights down here?” He pointed to the string lights the police had replaced so they could bag the evidence from which intestines had hung.
“No. If the witness isn’t part of this, then it’s highly possible that’s where the murderer was hiding.”
Leon followed the light of his torch. He shone it along the walls, on the ceiling, on the floor. At one to two metres wide, the drive was at least two metres tall. Even so, the moment he turned his torch off, there was the sensation that the walls were mere centimetres from his body. He turned his torch back on. “Did you find anything down this one?”
“There were several types of footprints, so one of them could have been the murderer’s. Other than that? Nothing.”
If there was no evidence down here, the only other place they were likely to find any was amongst the victim’s belongings. “Have you dusted the victim’s vehicle for fingerprints?”
“We’re yet to get to it, but the ute has been secured, so they’re not going anywhere.”
Eager to leave the underground, Leon gestured for them to head to the surface. They climbed over the metal structure near the top and headed towards the other claim.
“You said the witness’s description of the body differed from what you found,” said Leon.
Charlie rubbed his jaw. “Yeah. Menshikov said the victim’s arms and legs had been boned and the flesh was splayed open, but that’s not what we found.”
“Menshikov? What nationality is that?”
Charlie shrugged. “The man himself is Russian.”
“A Russian witness and a potentially Russian perpetrator both in Coober Pedy? A little coincidental, isn’t it?”
“Hard to know. Don’t know whether you’re aware of it, but Coober Pedy has a very high migrant population, and Russia is a big place.”
Leon acknowledged the point with a nod. “You said the victim’s limbs had been boned?”
“Yeah, he’d had the bones from his arms and legs removed, and that’s what Menshikov reported. But by the time we got there, they had been replaced with kangaroo bones.”
Leon stopped. “What? How is that possible?”
Charlie turned to look at him. “Well, they were just put in place with the flesh and muscle folded over the bones. The centre toe of the kangaroo’s back leg had been poked through the skin of the victim’s foot, and the tops had been jammed right up into the victim’s torso to make them fit. There was no surgical precision involved.”
Leon set off again. He was still working his way through the original crime scene, the one that had brought him to Coober Pedy in the first place. It seemed he had a lot of homework to do tonight.
Reaching the Russian’s claim, Charlie drew Leon’s attention to the ground beneath the genset. “We found a number of unusual objects buried here.”
“What sort of objects?”
“Coins, flowers, bones wrapped in lace, that sort of thing.”
Leon looked dubiously at the shaft. He’d prefer not to go down another mine if he didn’t have to. “Why hasn’t this one got one of those metal things around the mouth?”
“A collar?”
Leon nodded. He had no idea what it was called, but that sounded about right.
“Menshikov doesn’t use a winch. See the way he’s connected the air compressor hose and the genset cord to the ladder? That’s so they don’t rub around the neck there, degrading it to the point of collapse. A collar would shore it up more, though.”
“Right.” Great. So he was about to enter a mine in which the shaft could do with some “shoring” up.
“What was found here?” Hopefully this one wasn’t as claustrophobia inducing as the first one.
“Bones.”
“Well, we’d better go and have a look.”
Charlie checked the fuel level on the genset before starting it. Once the motor was purring along, they headed down the ladder, Charlie leading the way.
“There were several of the same type of hide strips tied to this ladder as there were in the other shaft, although the ones here had what appeared to be human fingers tied to them,” said Charlie. “It was a bit hard to tell as there was no skin left on the bones, and with the involvement of a kangaroo… we’ll leave it to forensics to determine what it was.”
Leon stepped off the last rung onto the dusty floor of the shaft. He followed after Charlie, who navigated the line of string lights.
“There wasn’t a whole lot in here, but what there was seemed pretty emphatic,” said Charlie.
That seemed a strange conclusion. “Emphatic?”
“There were bones leaning up against the drive’s end wall in a cross. I could be wrong, but it seemed a pretty clear message to stop mining along this drive.”
“Did they belong to the victim?”
“Don’t know yet. We’re waiting for the forensic reports.”
They examined where the bones had been, but now that they had been removed, there didn’t appear to be anything noteworthy. They walked back towards the shaft.
“Do you think that’s what this is about? A warning to stop them mining this area?”
“I don’t know what to think. If it was that simple, why would they go to all the trouble they clearly did? Wouldn’t it be easier to just shoot them or blackmail them, break their legs or something?”
And that wasn’t accounting for the guy on the golf course who still hadn’t been identified.
Leon followed Charlie up the ladder. “You know, the thing that strikes me most about this is the time factor.”
“Yeah, that’s one of the things that makes me think Menshikov is involved. In the time he walked back from the victim’s claim and drove to the police station, the perpetrator would have had to place the kangaroo bones in the corpse, come to this claim, tie those strips to the ladder, put the bones at the end of the drive, return to the victim’s claim, pack the winch up, and leave the site.”
Leon surfaced next to where Charlie waited. “If the perpetrator did get a lift out here with the victim, how did he explain bringing out defleshed kangaroo bones?”
“Probably not that hard to explain away. Could have said he used the roo as dog food but needed to toss the bones.”
Leon nodded. He shooed flies from his nose and mouth. “Did you come straight out here as soon as the murder was reported?”
Irritation flittered across the sergeant’s face.
“No accusation, Charlie, I’m just trying to get a time frame on this.”
“If what the witness says is true, the perpetrator would have had approximately sixty to ninety minutes before we arrived.”
Leon looked at the distance between the claims. “If he drove between the claims, he would have had plenty of time. It wouldn’t have taken more than ten to fifteen minutes to put the bones in the witness’s shaft and tie the hide strips to the ladder. The rest of the time he could have spent messing with the body. And five minutes to get the hell out of here.”
“It would be a push. I doubt it was an easy task getting those kangaroo bones into the legs—the arms, yeah, but not the legs.”
Leon didn’t have an answer. He tipped his head sideways and drew his mouth down at the corners, planning to give it some thought. “While the car is being checked for fingerprints, be on the lookout for evidence that the bones were transported in it.” They started back to Jovanovic’s claim. “Once I’ve managed to have a closer look at the case notes, we’ll go and see the witness.”
“He’s not going to be happy missing another day away from his claim,” said Charlie.
“I think there’s more important things—”
Charlie came to a stop. “Can I give you some advice, Federal Agent Armstrong?” Charlie’s evident attempt to be courteous despite his interruption was marred by a note of condescension.
Leon ignored it and turned to hear wha
t the sergeant had to say. He would be annoyed at having a city yobbo arrive to take charge of the case too. “Go ahead.”
“Don’t get the miners offside unnecessarily. Like I said, they’re generally a happy-go-lucky bunch, but piss them off and you’ll find yourself up against hell itself.”
“We’re only talking about a delay of a day for one miner.”
“At this point. I think it’s fair to say we have no idea what is going to happen. It has already been three days, and we have collected all the forensic evidence possible at these sites. Why not talk to Menshikov when we get back to town? If you miss anything, you can always talk to him again. That way he can get back to his mine, and there’ll be as little disruption as possible.”
Leon couldn’t see the harm in it. He’d seen the sites, and the crime-scene photos would’ve preserved visible evidence that would have been there. “Your call. You know these people better than I do.”
“Okay, good.”
THE DRIVE back to town took almost half an hour. Charlie wound his way around several back roads and came to a stop at a sheer-faced hillock with a tin roofed veranda tacked to the front of it. Sitting nearby was a 4WD ute that undoubtedly came from the factory with a white paint job but was now a dirty orange colour with a dull white patch where the dust had been swiped off when something had rubbed against it.
They exited the car and walked through the yard onto a layer of natural-earth bricks that made up the veranda. Two wide semicircular stairs led down to a wooden door situated in a hollow. Charlie knocked several times before a deep voice came from the depths of the house—the words were incomprehensible, but the inflexion suggested they should wait.
The door opened abruptly. Leon was surprised to find himself confronted by a man who looked like a cross between a Viking berserker and a Scottish highlander on a rampage.
Shoulder-length strawberry-blond hair swept straight back from his forehead as though it had been frozen when he’d been riding in a convertible with the top down. His lower face was covered with stark orange hair: a moustache and a beard that reached his chest. High, prominent cheekbones in conjunction with a bony nose, which reminded Leon more of a predatory bird’s beak than a normal facial characteristic, created a very angular look, and the deep-set hazel eyes housed a wildness that was equal parts frightening and attractive.