'You know you've got good mates in Harty and Sprague, don't you? Pretty much whatever you tell them, they treat like gospel. True? If you say jump, they say "How high, mate?" You ask them to keep something mum, they'd do it. Hell, even if you don't tell them to keep quiet, if they gather that's what you want, they respect it. Unless one of them, usually Sprague, accidentally opens his big mouth. Right?'
Franklin shifted. He shrugged.
'Sprague let slip about this van Hoeckel case out on West Street. He mentioned, "the sneaky bugger's running his own book" and then clammed up. I presume he's referring to you, Franklin, and that means you're keeping back from this investigation.'
Lunny drilled him with a livid stare. Franklin chewed the inside of his cheek and shook his head.
'Wasn't it less than a week ago that Wells made identical allegations? And I warned you that you're required to be a team player. We have to work together, Franklin. There's no room for egotism or machismo in this station.'
'Understood, boss.'
'Is it? I wonder.' Lunny viewed him shrewdly.
'We're following all leads in the van Hoeckel matter. If I knew who the crook was, I'd have him in here straight away.' That much held true.
'You're not running your own crusade?'
'No.' Franklin maintained eye contact but squirmed inside.
'Why aren't you resting anyway?' Lunny asked unexpectedly. 'You look like shit. This can wait. You're on at six, go get some shut-eye.'
Weariness swamped Franklin anew. He found himself nodding and promised to rest before shift start. Back home, he pushed the Solomon paperwork into the sideboard, away from stickybeak Kat.
He dialled a number.
'Bloody hell.'
The mobile was out of range or switched off.
'So, what's the goss on Jenny McGuire?' Georgie asked between mouthfuls of vegetarian ravioli. She chased the flavours of olive oil, mushrooms, green olives and semi-sundried tomatoes with a draught of Corona.
Matt Gunnerson swallowed. 'Hold your horses, Gee. Let me eat first.'
'Oh, come on, bro,' AJ demanded.
'Yeah, I told you everything. It's your turn.' Georgie gave Matty's arm a light punch.
'OK, OK. Apparently, she showed great aptitude at uni. But despite her tutors' high expectations, they didn't think she was "as good as she was capable of being" when she graduated. Her stint at the Advocate was supposed to give her practical experience in a rural environment, to give her writing extra insight and edge.'
Matty paused to slug bourbon and coke. 'What's really strange is that she's content to stay a hack reporter in the sticks. One of her previous colleagues - a journo I work with - reckons that McGuire's pathetic. She's too scared to push people's buttons, to work the boundaries, let alone cross them.' The crime reporter sniffed.
'So, was she paid off or frightened off?' Georgie mused.
'She would have panicked once she connected Roly's disappearance with Joey Bigagli's death. Sorry, Bigagli's murder,' AJ commented.
'And back then it would have been easy enough to link Bigagli and Schlicht -'
'When you asked me to check into Bigagli's hit and run the other day, Gee,' Matty interrupted, 'I didn't click until later in the day. I planned to fill you in on that, plus the goss on McGuire, except you went incommunicado.'
She joined the dots. 'So it's on good odds that McGuire dumped her local hero piece on Roly because she was scared? Worried Schlicht might take out more "insurance" - just in case Roly passed on something incriminating to McGuire during her interview.'
'Complicated,' AJ remarked.
'That's an understatement. This whole thing is more than complicated. It's outrageous that Roly died for no reason. And Susan…'
Georgie's unfinished thought led to an uneasy silence, thankfully broken by a text beep. She checked her mobile.
'Ring me pls. Franklin.'
She hit delete and shouted another round of drinks.
'Too many people love the sound of their own voices at these gigs,' AJ muttered.
They scanned the foyer filled with conservative art patrons, along with a handful of eccentric artists and 'normal' people.
'Yeah, your mum would fit in -'
'George, I realise you're completely different. Can't you try to get along though?'
'Hmm.'
'So, lunch at my parents' tomorrow?'
'Can't make it.' She grinned. 'I've got a lead to check out.'
'Jesus. Why can't you leave it to the police?'
Georgie bristled. She bit back a retort and instead walked away. AJ tagged along.
'You don't know where Bron's masterpiece is?' he queried, although the question had been asked and answered.
'Nuh. We'll find it, don't worry - it'll stand out. Most of this stuff is… Hang on, this one's pretty good.'
'You reckon?'
'Karma,' Georgie read the title. 'Suits it.'
The woman next to her pulled her lips into a tight line as the Bumblebee tune erupted in Georgie's handbag.
'Where are you?' demanded Jo Holt, Bron's partner.
'We're checking out the paintings in the foyer.'
'Well, get here quickly.' Jo gave directions and rang off.
Georgie grabbed AJ's hand.
'You never answered me, George,' he said, as she elbowed through the throng, pulling him along.
'What?' she snapped.
'My parents. Lunch. Your plans. Why you can't leave it to the cops,' he spelled out.
'Why?' She stopped.
AJ crashed into her.
A list of reasons hovered on her lips. Blunt was best, so she said, 'For Ruby, mainly. C'mon, I won't do anything heroic or stupid. OK? Trust me.'
Georgie took off.
AJ caught her hand, halting her. 'I'm not a doormat, George. You can't wipe your feet on me every so often to keep me happy.'
She gazed at him, troubled by his intensity. 'AJ, you know how much this means to me.'
He puffed out his cheeks.
She continued, 'Our visit to Ruby just before…There she is, lying in her hospital bed, so frail and opposite to her normal self. Then she grabs my hand and squashes it. Why? Because she's worried sick for her friend Susan. Literally worried sick. What happens to Ruby matters to me, AJ, and the solitary way I can help her is to find Susan. And you know what else? I care what happens to Susan too. She's out there' - she waved - 'and I'm scared for her.'
'Yeah but that's all the more reason -'
'If I promise to be careful, can't we leave it at that? I've got to check out the few points that're bugging me. OK?'
He wavered.
'OK, AJ? Are we OK?' What a weird turnaround to be the one asking that question.
Before he responded, Georgie saw Jo on the stage with Bron behind her. She pulled him up the stairs.
Bron's green eyes shone. Excitement bubbled from her pores. Jo danced a jig and blocked their view until they were front and centre.
'Adam and Georgina,' Jo said with faux formality. 'I present to you the work of eminent artist, Bron-wen Sil-vers.'
'Wow.' AJ gave a low wolf-whistle.
Georgie spotted the red sticker. 'You've sold it on opening day!' She smacked a kiss on Bron's cheek.
They sobered, mesmerised by their friend's monochrome oil-on-wood. Its style more artistic and sinuous than realism, it whispered emotion.
She'd captured late-night Melbourne in shades of grey. The famous frontage of Flinders Street station, the streets of the cross-intersection greasy, cars and pedestrians united in a quest to escape sheets of rain. Despite the deluge, a few youths hunched on the station steps, with plastic bags over their heads or blowing on frozen fingers. In the background, yet focal to the painting, a girl - tiny, fragile, malnourished - huddled against a pillar of the arching station mouth. Juxtaposed were her prematurely world-weary expression and her childish thumb-sucking while she clutched the paw of a battered teddy in the other hand. In this portion of the painting, Bron in
troduced a smudge of rust-red. The girl's t-shirt, the teddy's breast, both bloodstained. Instead of being safe and warm with family, the youth epitomised the heart-rending poverty, aloneness and despair of kids living rough on the streets. Too easy to ignore; too important not to.
Georgie saw parallels with many things, such as whether Susan Pentecoste was alive and well.
She forced down a lump in her throat. To allay the atmosphere, she squeezed AJ's hand, whacked Bron's back and aped an art critic. 'The artist impresses upon us the importance of art in educating society, not merely in producing fluff to adorn our walls. In Caught in the Crossfire, she superbly expresses her anger at the victim's pain -'
She broke off to answer her mobile.
'Franklin here.'
Georgie's mood soured.
'You get home OK?'
'Well, obviously,' she replied sarcastically, perplexed by his tone.
A brief pause, then Franklin reverted to his customary cocksure self. 'Bill Noonan filled me in on the information he'd given you about Schlicht's wife. Are you thinking of paying her a visit?'
Georgie played innocent. 'What?'
'I figured you'd be planning to continue your gung-ho amateur sleuth tactics, instead of leaving it to the experts.'
'What's it to you?'
'Well, if you must stay involved, I could take you along when I visit Helena Watkowska. It'd have to be my next rest day.'
She pretended to consider his suggestion. 'Oh, when would that be?'
'At some point this week but I need to check the new roster.'
'Sure, get back to me,' Georgie said ambiguously. She disconnected and smirked. She hadn't agreed to wait.
Beware any person - particularly a man - who tells me what to do!
Even before yesterday, sleep had been elusive and its cost high.
It had nothing to do with the joys of shiftwork.
Since the car and minibus accident earlier in the week, with slumber came nightmares. In a cyclic re-enactment of the horror smash, Franklin moved towards the teenaged body pierced to the fence post. As he lifted the victim's head, the short-cropped blonde hair transformed. It became long, crimped tresses, framing Kat's ashen, lifeless face. He screamed in the dream and jolted awake. Then lay stiff, deafened by his heartbeat. He was torn between a desperate need for sleep and dread of it.
Now, despite Lunny's reprimand, the imminence of a break in the Solomon case and thoughts filled with Harvey, fatigue prevailed.
He slept deeply and dreamlessly for the remaining afternoon.
His intention to call McGuire was forgotten.
CHAPTER 10
Sunday 21 March
Until this point, the hunt for Helena Watkowska had been a challenge; fun use of Georgie's old law office skills, although also frustrating. Bill Noonan had mentioned that Watkowska lived outside of a town called Trafalgar but an electronic White Pages search came up blank for a phone listing. Georgie had widened it to the Gippsland area and still hit a wall. Ditto for Schlicht. She'd then tried a Google search for the woman under her maiden name but that'd bombed too. A land title search for both surnames in Trafalgar had similar bad luck. But she wasn't surprised. Discretion would rate highly for the estranged wife of the Iceman; she wouldn't make it too easy by listing her phone number publicly or purchasing property - assuming she had some - in her own name. Georgie supposed she'd hide behind a company or trust in Watkowska's shoes and wouldn't waste more time on that avenue to her target.
So she'd considered other means of finding Schlicht's ex, growing increasingly anxious. The Warragul Citizen seemed to cover the Trafalgar area. Georgie wasn't hopeful that a newspaper based that far away would have the local knowledge needed to track Watkowska. And an answering machine picked up when she tried the reception number, then the direct line for the reporters rang out, so she'd scratched that idea.
By now, she was itching for action and figured trying the personal approach couldn't be less successful than the hour she'd just wasted in her office. So she jumped in the Spider and aimed its nose away from the city, in the opposite direction to Daylesford.
Despite shit-all sleep after being on the job until nearly 3.30am, Franklin was sharper than possum teeth by 8.00am. Ready to tear apart Solomon's sordid hobby, tame Georgie Harvey and her wild ideas, and rip into the Pentecoste case.
He grabbed the phone. She owes me; it's time to settle up.
He second-guessed his hunch and hung up. So far, the link to the Advocate entailed someone with enough gumption to obtain addresses from the phone directory after picking out victims through the new bubs column.
Franklin didn't know its circulation figures but the free paper served Daylesford, Creswick, Clunes, Trentham and surrounds. That meant it was easily available to a hefty catchment. Broaden that further if they put the announcements online these days too.
He scratched his chin, shoulders slumped.
'Come on. Think! Is it just a psycho reader? Or is this cockhead connected to the paper?'
The pendulum of confidence returned. The breakthrough was there. On the Christmas wrap. The level of obsession; wacked-out conviction; information tainted by assumptions. It all made for a gut feeling that Solomon had personal access to his victims. They'd met but superficially.
A sleepy female answered his call. 'Hello?'
'Jennifer? John Franklin. I've a few questions.'
That got her attention. 'What about?'
'I'm working a case and can't elaborate at this point. But it could involve an employee of the Advocate -'
'Who, me?'
He eye-rolled. 'No, I'm not implying you. The party I'm interested in could be on the fringe of the paper. In the classifieds, photography or printing side of things, maybe. Can you help me out?'
The journalist reluctantly agreed to meet at the newspaper office within the hour. Franklin disconnected and immediately dialled the number of another woman with attitude.
'John Franklin here,' he said into the receiver.
At her frosty response, his pulse bounded.
'You didn't give me a chance to finish last night. I heard you visited the Hommie Squad yesterday.'
'Yep, you heard right.'
'Did it go OK?' He wondered why he cared.
'Sure, bloody fantastic. The best day of my life.' Georgie burst into laughter. It rang true, not bitter.
'Have you run into any more trouble?'
She retorted, 'Run into?'
He sighed softly. Conversation with Georgie Harvey was not a tiptoe through the tulips affair. It was like navigating a mine field.
'No more threats, break-ins…?'
'Course not,' she shot back but then conceded, 'Nope, but to tell you the truth, I was with other people all of yesterday after seeing the Homicide detectives.'
He sighed again but with relief rather than frustration.
'Have you decided to leave it up to us now?' he ventured.
'Hmm,' she said vaguely. 'Have we finished our little chat?'
He hesitated, torn. His cop instincts told him not to go there, not to ask her along and encourage her meddling. On the other hand, he knew she'd butt in regardless, so he may as well keep tabs on her. Besides, company on the long drive to Trafalgar could be good.
Even while he debated the sanity of including her, he heard himself say, 'I'm getting back to you on Helena Watkowska. I expect to see her Tuesday. You want to come along?'
'Hmm.'
Suspicious, he said, 'I don't want you going without me.'
Georgie's reply could have been a snigger or a snort.
'Look, you've no idea where this Watkowska woman fits in or how to handle the inquiry.'
'Oh, puh-lease,' she said sarcastically. 'Talking to someone isn't rocket science.'
Franklin stiffened. He controlled his comeback. 'It might be dangerous. Consider who we're dealing with here.'
A marginal pause was followed by Georgie's deliberate words, 'I appreciate your concern but I'll be fin
e.'
Fucking bull-headed females. Who needs them?
Aloud Franklin said, 'Oh, man! I should've known you wouldn't listen to reason -'
'Reason -'
'Just call me later then.'
He hung up and glared at the receiver. Obviously Harvey planned to see Watkowska. She could be on the road right now. His conscience hoped Harvey was right and there'd be no harm in her visit to John Schlicht's ex-missus. Yet, his darker side suggested a hostile reception may be what she needed. It might force respect for him and his uniform.
Hah! So much for taming Harvey and her wild ideas.
As the Spider coasted towards Trafalgar, Georgie shrugged off the call from John Franklin and his suggestion they visit Watkowska on Tuesday. And she tried not to overthink her so far wasted morning and what that might mean for Susan's safety.
Still shaking his head over Georgie Harvey, Franklin picked up the phone again.
'Hey, Heddo. Franklin here.'
'Hey, long time, no hear!' his mate replied facetiously. They'd last spoken on Friday, when the CIU bloke tipped him off that Georgie Harvey was at Ballarat station.
The detective yelled something incomprehensible to someone at his end.
Once Franklin held Heddo's attention, he asked, 'What've you got on the Margaret Pentecoste murder?'
'Mate, can't talk. We've got the Hommies crawling up our arses here. I'll give you a buzz later today, providing things've quietened down. Okey-dokey?'
'Sure, no probs.'
Franklin realised Heddo had replaced the receiver. He drummed his fingers and jumped when the telephone rang.
'We've had a possible sighting of Susan Pentecoste's Landcruiser.' It was Mick Sprague. No overtures.
'What? Fantastic. Where?'
'On the Ballan road. Saw her there three-quarts of an hour ago.'
'Who? And why the delay?'
'There's the thing. It was an anonymous report. A male caller rang from a public phone in town.'
'Crank?'
'Possibly. Anyhow, you wanna take a ride out to Susan's place and check if she's there, while we do a whiz around and try to pick up her trail?'
Tell Me Why Page 23