Vengeance List

by Gary Gregor

  “If Stringer is the killer,” Foley advised, “finding out won’t get him off the street. We still have to find him.”

  Finally, Sam spoke. “Yes, but that shouldn’t be too difficult if you know who you are looking for, it’s just a matter of time.”

  “What do you say, Inspector?” Hackett asked.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Well, yes. Of course, you have a choice, there are always choices. You can forget we ever had this conversation. You can continue your investigation in the same manner you have up to now. Or, you can work with us on this thing and possibly enjoy the benefits I’ve already outlined.”

  “I have just one question,” Foley said.

  “Please,” Hackett invited.

  “Am I right in assuming, if I walk away you will exhume the body anyway?”

  “Yes. It’s not particularly important who requests an order, it just makes it easier, less complicated, if you do, in your capacity as the officer in charge of the investigation.”

  “So despite your insistence to the contrary, I don’t have a choice at all,” Foley observed.

  “I think that’s a rather negative way of looking at it Russell but, if that’s your perception, so be it.”

  Foley looked at both men. He found himself caught between a rock and a hard place, and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. His mind raced, searching for an alternative. He found none. Hackett glanced at his watch, his impatience blatantly obvious.

  “I have to be in court in a few minutes, Inspector,” Hackett prompted.

  Foley glanced again quickly at Sam and then turned to face the judge. “Okay,” he sighed, “I’ll go along with you, for the moment.”

  Judge Hackett picked a pen from a stand at the front of his desk and, with a flourish, he signed a document that had, until now, lain face down in front of him. He pushed the document towards Foley, who picked up the duly completed exhumation order. He noticed his name in the appropriate places as requesting officer. It required only both their signatures. He handed the pen to Foley.

  “A little presumptuous isn’t it?” Foley suggested.

  “I trusted your good judgement,” Hackett smiled and he turned to face Sam. “Would you stay for just a moment?”

  “Of course,” Sam answered.

  Russell Foley scanned the order, and then quickly signed it. He folded it and placed it in his shirt pocket as he rose from his chair. Without a glance at either Hackett or Rose, he walked from the room.

  “You must be happy,” Hackett said to Sam when they were alone.

  “It’s a strong feeling. I just know I’m right.”

  “I hope for all our sakes you are,” Hackett mused. He opened a drawer beneath his desk, produced a long, brown envelope, and offered it to Sam, “as agreed, the balance of your fee.”

  “It’s not over yet,” Sam said, reaching for the envelope.

  “It is for me, whatever the outcome,” Hackett said. “This is to be the last contact we will have in regards to this business. Since our talk last night, I’ve had plenty of time to think things through and in hindsight, I’m not sure hiring you was the wisest thing to do under the circumstances. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, it’s not your ability, it’s the risk of someone finding out about our arrangement that concerns me. You, Paddy O’Reily, and I were to be the only ones directly involved. Now the inspector in charge of the investigation is involved. It’s getting out of hand. If your theory proves right, you will have earned your money and that will be the end of our involvement.”

  “And if not?”

  “Then, you will have been more than adequately compensated for your efforts.” Hackett got up and crossed to a coat rack in the corner where his robe of office hung. “I hope you two can work together on this,” he added, shrugging into the black robe. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m due in court.”

  18

  Russell Foley stood a few steps back from the edge of the gradually deepening, rectangular hole in the ground. On the opposite side of the excavation, two cemetery employees waited patiently for the excavator operator to finish the bulk of the digging. When there remained just a few inches of earth on top of the coffin, they would clamber down into the grave and remove the last of the damp soil with shovels.

  On any given day, these men dug holes to accommodate the mortal remains of some unfortunate sole. Today, both looked decidedly uncomfortable at this, their first experience at digging a hole to remove a body. Foley glanced across at the men and wondered which of the two would be the first to jump down into the open grave.

  A short distance away, a hearse commissioned to carry the exhumed coffin complete with its grizzly contents to the morgue, also waited. The driver, casual and disinterested, stood at the rear of the vehicle, smoking and humming tunelessly to a country music tune playing disrespectfully from the vehicle’s radio.

  A gathering of people, each of whom if asked, would claim to have a legitimate reason for being there. Two detectives were present, both members of Foley’s squad, as well as a Constable from the Coroner’s Office who was there to take charge of the body from the moment it was loaded into the waiting hearse, to maintain the chain of evidence until subsequent examination was completed, and the body was ultimately returned to its resting place. The excavator operator, looking resplendent in a dark blue work singlet and weathered baseball cap that proudly announced the wearer was an ‘Old Fart,’ stood nearby.

  A temporary, blue screen of heavy-duty tarpaulin surrounded the scene, effectively hiding it from the curious eyes of those who might be visiting the cemetery to pay respects to a departed loved one. Watching pensively, Russell Foley stood in the midst of the odd assortment of characters and equipment. As he watched and waited, he was reminded of an obscure, best-forgotten movie from his childhood; something to do with vampires, mad scientists, vulnerable virgins, and macabre graveyard rituals.

  Most members of his team suggested it was more appropriate to perform the exhumation at night. Nothing in the court order indicated the exhumation should take place at any specific time of the day, only that it should take place. Given his opposition to the exhumation, Foley was not prepared to consider standing around in the heart of a dark cemetery in the dead of night, listening to the thunder and the wind rumbling and howling out of the blackness above him. Nonetheless, there he was; watching a weird looking stranger wearing a hat that said “Old Fart” digging up a body from the bowels of the earth.

  Foley shook his head, and cast a concerned eye towards the north. He frowned at the menacing sky growing darker as he watched. The storm was going to break soon, and when it did, it would be a good one. He hoped it would hold off until they had the coffin out of the ground and safely in the back of the hearse.

  The annual “build up”, that period when the humidity became almost unbearable leading up to the arrival of the serious rains of the wet season, was about to reach its tempestuous end. Soon the thunderous storms, the monsoonal rains, and the constant threat of cyclones would be a daily expectation for those who chose to live in the Top End.

  As he watched the heavy, swollen, black clouds gathering above the Arafura Sea, he saw the first long, jagged flashes of lightning split the dark horizon. A distant, deep growl of thunder signalled the imminent arrival of a tropical storm. If it struck before they got the coffin out of the ground, there was going to be a hell of a mess. Even if it held off, the workers wouldn’t be able to keep the water out of the hole when it finally did arrive. Sooner or later, when the necessary post-mortem examinations were completed, the body would need to go back into the ground. Foley found himself silently thankful he was a cop and not a gravedigger. He smiled to himself at the analogy.

  He looked back at the hole in the ground as the bucket of the excavator disappeared once again below the lip of the grave. A thick, pungent cloud of diesel fumes belched skywards from the machine’s exhaust as the “Old Fart” wrestled with the levers, and the mouth of the bucket took anot
her deep bite of soft earth.

  Suddenly, one of the workers opposite whistled loudly to the excavator operator. The bucket emerged from the hole, swivelled to one side, and deposited a load of soil on top of a growing heap just a few metres from where Foley stood. The loud grumble of the diesel engine fell quiet, and only the relatively gentle burble of the machine running in idle pulsed in the stillness of the thick afternoon air.

  With the assistance of his offsider, the man who whistled slipped and scrambled down into the open grave. Foley watched as his head disappeared below the lip of the hole, and then he heard a dull thud as the man’s heavy work boots came into contact with the lid of John Stringer’s coffin. Soon, a hand reached up, above the lip of the grave, and the second worker placed a long-handled shovel into the reaching fingers.

  Sam Rose ducked under the protective canopy hanging over the vehicular entrance to the morgue, situated in the grounds of the Darwin Hospital. The rain fell steadily, unabated for a couple of hours. Although he was grateful for the respite it offered from the oppressive humidity, and despite his good fortune at finding a park nearby, he still managed to become soaked to the skin before he could reach the protection of the overhang.

  The morgue was a plain, unobtrusive building with a driveway sloping down to a single roller-door. The door stood closed now, but could be opened electronically from within to admit a hearse or an ambulance bearing its regrettable cargo.

  Adjacent to the roller door, was a small service doorway that admitted staff and other authorised personnel to the inner sanctum of the mortuary premises. An intercom was wired to an office inside the building where a white-coated lab technician monitored the approach of vehicles and pedestrians on a closed circuit television screen.

  Sam pressed the button on the intercom, and when asked to do so by an anonymous voice, introduced himself, and announced he was there to see Inspector Russell Foley. He waited, watching the torrent of water rushing unimpeded down the sloping driveway to disappear beneath a heavy iron grate covering a deep storm drain running the width of the roller-door.

  Above the noise of the rain, he heard the “click” of the service door lock disengage. No handle existed on the outside of the door, so he pushed against it, and it swung easily inwards.

  As a police officer, he had been inside this building on more occasions than he cared to remember. It had never been then, any more than it was now, a place he felt comfortable. The very nature of its purpose made it a place that never failed to evoke strong feelings of finality. He knew his way around, and made his way along a familiar, short but wide corridor he knew would lead him to the autopsy room.

  Just as he reached the door behind which the pathologists carried out their thankless tasks, Russell Foley stepped into the corridor, and the two men found themselves facing each other; like opponents in an impending contest.

  “Hello, Russell,” Sam greeted.

  “I expected you long before this,” Foley growled.

  “I didn’t see the need for me to be present at the cemetery,” Sam explained. “Besides, I figured you would have had me removed if I did show up.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “Have they finished?” Sam looked beyond Foley in the direction of the autopsy room.

  “Just,” Foley answered.

  “And?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Talk or argue?” Sam asked, “I’m getting tired of arguing with you.”

  “Talk,” Foley confirmed. “Let’s go in here,” he indicated a small viewing room where relatives of deceased persons attended to identify the remains of their loved ones.

  Sam followed Foley into a small, plain and sparsely furnished room. Aside from four chairs strategically placed against the back wall, the room was empty. It was devoid of pictures on the walls and even carpet, having instead, an insipid, grey linoleum covering the floor.

  The four chairs faced a long, narrow window that looked upon a small alcove attached to the autopsy room. It was to this alcove a gurney carrying the deceased could be wheeled. A curtain, operated from inside the alcove, covered the window. The curtain was open, exposing the empty alcove beyond.

  Russell Foley sat in one of the chairs. He leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees, interlocked his fingers, and for a moment, as though searching for the right words, stared at the floor. Sam stood and waited.

  Finally, Sam asked. “Well?”

  “They x-rayed the body,” Foley said raising his eyes to meet Sam.

  “And?”

  “There was no pin in the leg.”

  “Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” Sam paced the tiny floor.

  “What’s the matter?” Foley asked. “It’s what you expected, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Sam confirmed. “It is… but secretly I hoped I was wrong. Are they certain?”

  “There’s no pin,” Foley reaffirmed.

  “So, it was Bert Ulstrom in the coffin?”

  “It’s too early to be sure of that,” Foley cautioned. “They still have a lot more tests to do. But, in light of what you found out about him, and his relationship with Stringer, and the fact he hasn't been seen since he left the hostel with Stringer, I am satisfied the body in there is Bert Ulstrom.”

  “So, what are you going to do now?”

  Foley stepped closer to Sam. “I owe you an apology,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Sam was embarrassed and shuffled uncomfortably.

  “I’ve had a lot of shit going on up here lately,” Foley tapped the side of his head. “Shit about you, shit about Jennifer and the kids, shit about the whole fucking business…”

  “You’ve been under a lot of pressure,” Sam interrupted.

  “Perhaps,” Foley shrugged. “But I let it affect my job, and that’s inexcusable.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up over this, Russell.”

  “I’ve been so damn pre-occupied with my marital problems, that now I’m beginning to wonder if my lack of concentration may have cost someone their life.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Sam scoffed.

  “Judge Hackett doesn’t agree with you.”

  “Hackett knows you’ve been having problems, but I don’t believe for one minute he thinks anything you did, or didn’t do, resulted in murder.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think Stringer, and Stringer alone, is out there somewhere, preying on all those he holds responsible for the time he spent in prison. With or without your problems, he would still have killed those people.”

  “If I hadn’t been so pre-occupied with other things, the bastard might be back inside by now.”

  “I don’t think so. Stringer is good. He's had plenty of time to plan his revenge. You were never going to catch him quickly. Jesus, this identity-switching thing is brilliant. Hell, he very nearly got away with it.”

  “Until we stop him, he has gotten away with it.”

  “We’ll get him,” Sam said.

  “I mean we, as in the police,” Foley cautioned.

  “I’m a potential victim, Russell. I arrested the prick, me and Carl Richter. I’m on his list, so I’m in this to the end, like it or not.”

  “Thanks to you, we now know who we are looking for. You’ve done your bit. Now it’s time for me to do my job. Of course, if you want protection, you’ve got it.”

  “Protection! Shit! I don’t want protection. I want to be there when you get the bastard; that’s what I want.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Yes you can, if you want to,” Sam said, “who the fuck would know?”

  “I would know.”

  “This is your old partner you’re talking to, mate. Are you telling me you’ve never bent the rules from time to time? I know you, remember?”

  “It took a lot for me to swallow my pride and apologise to you, Sam, and there’s still a lot of fences to mend between us. Let’s n
ot fuck it up before we get started. You can help me by telling me everything you remember about Stringer. Who else involved with his case might be a target, that sort of thing. But, that’s where your involvement ends. You’re not a cop anymore. I remember when you were. If our situations were reversed, you would take the same hard line with me.”

  Foley was right, and Sam knew it. Yes, he would have taken the same line back when he was in the job. But, he wasn’t in the job anymore. Now he was a victim, albeit intended. He was happy there appeared to be a subtle shift for the better in his relationship with Foley. As much as he hoped things would continue to improve between them, he was going to be there when they caught up with John Stringer, and his old partner could take that to the bank.

  Sam shrugged in mock surrender. “Okay, you win.” He reached into his pocket and extracted a piece of paper. “This might be a good time to show you this,” he offered the scrap to Foley.

  “What is it?” Foley asked, taking the paper.

  “It was slipped under my office door… by Stringer I suspect. It’s a list.”

  Foley looked at the list of names. “When did you get this?”

  “Shit, Russell, last bloody August, what difference does it make?” he paused. “A couple of days ago,” he shrugged.

  “And you were going to give it to me when?” he asked incredulously.

  “Eventually,” Sam answered.

  “Jesus, Sam, this is evidence! You of all people know better than to withhold evidence. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “You’ve got it now,” Sam offered as if it was the only explanation required.

  “What does it mean?” Foley pondered aloud.

  “It’s a list of the victims so far, in order of their deaths, and there are two names missing. I suspect I’m one of the missing names.”

  “And the other name?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said.

  “My offer still stands, if you want protection, I will set it up.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” Sam replied.

  “Okay, have it your way” Foley surrendered. “Just remember, this is where the withholding evidence stops. Right here, right now! If we are going to do this, there needs to be no secrets between us, is that clear?”