by Robert Blain
‘Anyone is capable of killing.’
‘I’m not,’ said Vicky.
The waiter arrived with two fresh drinks. Grabbed the empties and left.
‘What about if someone was threatening the lives of your children?’ asked Schlakier, once the waiter was out of earshot.
Vicky looked into the depths of her glass of white wine and said nothing. Schlakier felt he was getting into dangerous territory. it was the same vexed look he had seen on the face of his former girlfriend – the look he saw more and more just before Zoe left him – and he decided to back off.
Schlakier tried to steer the conversation back to safer topics but Vicky remained subdued. Her bubbly spirits suddenly evaporating. They got around to talking about her life at university and what she wanted to do with her commerce degree and she started to brighten up. But Schlakier’s little homely about killing seemed to hang over the conversation like a shadow.
After they’d eaten, he offered to drive her back to her family home in Coburg. Schlakier suddenly felt morose, exhausted even. Sensing his mood, Vicky did her best to keep things going with small talk.
But the blues had descended. Schlakier was spooling back to his dreadful final months with Zoe. How he had gradually changed during his time on the force. How he had become more callous and began drinking more heavily, egged on by the uncompromising work culture. Then the fateful night. The one he had played over and over in his mind. The time he had come home after a particularly tough day at work and had inexplicably slapped Zoe across the face with an open hand over some inconsequential remark. He later realised it was the beginning of the end of the relationship. The light had begun to leave her eyes from that moment on. Schlakier had no intention of mentioning the slap to Vicky. He still felt deeply ashamed of the act.
‘I hope I didn’t scare you about all that gloomy talk about life on the force,’ said Schlakier as he pulled up outside her house. A falling-down white-mesh fence fronted a dilapidated weatherboard house.
‘No it’s fine, really.’
She favoured him with a prim smile. ‘Well…
Schlakier wasn’t sure how to proceed. He sensed he should kiss her but couldn’t bring himself to do it. The ghost of Zoe still loomed large in his life. Perhaps Bill was wrong. Perhaps it was too soon to get back in the saddle.
She surprised him by leaning over and giving him a quick kiss on the lips.
‘Thanks for dinner. That was very kind. See ya.’
She gathered her handbag and got out of the car. As he watched walking up the path through the overgrown garden to her shambolic family house, her cute ass framed by her jeans, Schlakier wondered if he would ever see her again.
8
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THE TROUBLE WITH A VIOLENT PAST
Schlakier was yanked out of his grim research of violent crimes on the internet by the chiming of the front door on the Smith Street office.
He had not heeded Birtles’ warning. Despite being cautioned about becoming emotionally invested in the case of Christopher Hohl, he had frittered away the morning looking for a link between being exposed to violence as a child and committing homicide as an adult.
It had started for Schlakier the previous night when he was reading Truman Capote’s true crime novel In Cold Blood, which investigated the bloody massacre of an entire family on a farm in mid-west America in the 1950s. Turned out one of the killers had witnessed violent acts as a child, including seeing friends brutally kick a dog to death.
In the office next day, Schlakier had continued his grisly study, unearthing more such stories online. Much more recently, there was a case about an investment banker in Hong Kong who had, on separate occasions, taken home and had sex with girls he had picked up at a bar. He subsequently mutilated and murdered them. Both of the unfortunate women were Indonesian domestic helpers. Police subsequently found one of the women, in bits, in a trunk on the balcony of the investment banker’s apartment. When the man was on trial, court records revealed that as a fourteen-year-old boy he had been at home with his father, who committed suicide by hanging himself in the upstairs bathroom. The teenage son discovered his swinging body shortly after.
Schlakier drew parallels to Christopher Hohl and the witnessing of his own mother’s suicide. He had formed the view that Hohl was probably innocent of his wife’s disappearance – just another poor unfortunate, being hounded by the press. But even if Hohl had been somehow involved in her death, the horrific thing he had seen as a child would surely have been a factor. What sort of effect would something like that have on an eight year old? Could it have turned him into a murderer?
Schlakier had been pondering this when his concentration had been shattered by the chiming at the front door.
‘Anyone home?’ came a voice in the outer office.
‘Just coming,’ Schlakier called out. He was alone in the office and cursed inwardly that they had not yet employed a new receptionist. It meant he or Birtles had to deal with the various riff-raff and hawkers that came through the front door. As his partner was out for the day, Schlakier would have to deal with the Smith Street loonies. It was rarely a bona fide client. Although the man he met in the outer office looked the real deal. He was about sixty, slim build with a shock of white hair, red face. He wore a light grey suit, white shirt and a burnt orange tie. He carried a polished wooden cane.
‘Coleby Nicholson,’ he said, with an extended hand and a cold smile. Schlakier noticed a gold ring on his index finger with a clear stone that might have been a diamond. After the two men shook hands, Nicholson fussed about awkwardly with the cane before handing over a business card. Publisher, Gunnamatta Media, it read.
‘I run a little publication called Australian Jeweller. Have you heard of it?’
‘Afraid not,’ said Schlakier. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’m having a little trouble with one of my employees,’ said Nicholson, with an ironic lilt to his voice. ‘I’d like to check up on her. I was told your firm deals with this sort of thing.’
Schlakier responded in the affirmative and ushered the gent through to his office.
‘What’s the problem?’ said Schlakier, when they were both seated, notepad and pencil at the ready. It was easier and quicker to input details straight onto his computer but it seemed to distract the clients.
‘It’s about one of my journalists,’ said the publisher. ‘Nicole Ashley. She’s been with me about five years now. She’d been wonderful for the magazine, hard working, diligent. That is until recently…’
Schlakier scribbled away in his notepad. ‘Go on.’
‘I blame it on this new boyfriend of hers. About the time she starting seeing him, she started slacking off, ringing in sick, missing deadlines, talking back. Then about three months ago she turned up for work in a neck brace. Long and the short of it, she’s been off on workers’ compensation for over two months now. I run a small publishing house. I can’t afford this sort of skylarking.’
‘I see.’
Privately, it occurred to Schlakier that the elegant Coleby Nicholson was probably something of a slave driver.
‘Quite frankly, I think she’s bunging it on. I suspect there’s nothing wrong with the girl. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s sunbathing on the beach with her boyfriend at this very moment.’
‘It doesn’t pay to speculate Mister Nicholson,’ said Schlakier. ‘But we can certainly look into it.’
They went through the relevant details, agreed on a price and then Schlakier sent him on his way. He made a mental note to see if Birtles wanted the case – this sort of sordid little stake-out was more his scene.
Schlakier sighed. He was about to return to his gruesome research of violent murder but ultimately decided to follow Birtles’ advice about not getting too close to his target. He briefly considered opening Facebook and seeing what Zoe was up to, but he resisted that urge too. He shut off the computer, locked up, and headed out for his afternoon appointment.
9
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CHAT WITH AN OLD FRIEND
Schlakier pulled up outside Sarah Chisholm’s Cain Street Brighton house. One of the most affluent parts of one of Melbourne’s most affluent suburbs. He got out of his car and perused the street. Leafy, European trees lined the nature strip on either side of the road. The rear ends of shiny BMWs and Audis poked out from brick-paved driveways. Old money. Third-generation Australian money. No Chinese-owned mansions here.
Sarah Chisholm’s own driveway was also brick-paved but sported a bright red Honda Jazz. A girl’s car.
Schlakier was surprised when she had greeted him at the front door in a powder blue dressing gown. A privilege of the rich, he supposed. The garment was carelessly tied to reveal a little too much cleavage. She had long brown-blonde hair, a contrast to the prim brunette she was in the university photos he had seen in with Hohl. He estimated she was in her early forties. She had been a real looker in her student days and was still attractive, with a warmth to her intense brown eyes.
‘Come through to the balcony,’ she said, after they’d exchanged introductions. ‘It’s such a beautiful day.’
As they walked through the house to the balcony, they were accompanied by two yappy terriers, one black, one dirty brown. Schlakier had the urge to dropkick one of them down the hall – an urge that such jumped-up little mutts always seemed to incite in him. They walked through a house of richly lacquered mahogany and teak furniture that Schlakier guessed had been in the family for years. A grandfather clock ticked importantly in the corner. As always in these old-style dwellings, it seemed to be about five degrees colder than it was outside.
‘Don’t worry about Oscar and Leo,’ she said, as the two dogs fussed about under his feet as he walked. ‘There just getting to know you.’
‘Oscar and Leo?’
‘After the writers. Wilde and Tolstoy. Quite ironic really. Oscar does display homosexual tendencies. He’s tried to hump Leo quite a few times. The dogs I mean, not the writers.’
Schlakier laughed politely at the attempt at humour.
‘I’ve got some coffee brewing. Percolated of course. Would you like some?’
Schlakier answered in the affirmative and took a seat on the balcony – the warm sunshine welcome after the dank, musty house – while Sarah got the coffee. The two mutts jumped up into the chair opposite, slobbering and eyeing Schlakier suspiciously.
‘I understand that you’ve been friends with Christopher Hohl a long time,’ said Schlakier, after she had returned with the cups of coffee and they’d exchanged a few pleasantries.
‘You don’t mind if a take notes?’ he added, holding up a pen and a notebook.
‘That’s fine. I understand that this is official business, not a social call,’ she said gathering her dressing gown around her. ‘We’ve known each other since our undergrad days at Melbourne Uni.’
She took a sip of her coffee and fixed him again with her intense gaze. ‘It’s fair to say we’ve been through thick and thin together. What with all that awful business when Justina disappeared. And then I had all my problems during my time as a lawyer when I “got in bed with criminals”, as the media loved to say, and was forced to give up practice. The newspaper had a field day about that I can tell you.’
It had been an incredible fall from grace, Schlakier knew from her file. She had been a high-flying lawyer, a criminal defence attorney for one of Melbourne’s top law firms. Earmarked to be a partner by the time she was thirty-five. But after she had indeed got in bed – both literally and figuratively – with underworld property developer Fabrizio Ponzi, things had gone south very quickly.
‘Were you forced to resign from the law firm?’ said Schlakier, pen poised.
‘Not exactly. But it was made perfectly clear to me that I would never make partner. I was always just out of earshot at water cooler chats in the office but I could guess what was being said about me. My position became untenable, so I quit.
‘Why did you do it? Have an affair with your client, I mean. Especially one so… colourful.’
She stared out into the garden, where a number of bees were fussing over a cherry blossom tree in full bloom.
‘Love, Mister Schlakier. I became infatuated with him and everything about the world he lived in. There was something so intoxicating to be so close to all that power. To be so close to a man who played by his own rules. And who was so obscenely successful.’
‘Even if his success was built on criminality.’
‘That, Mister Schlakier, was part of the appeal.’
He was impressed with her candour. There was silence while this sank in. The only sounds the buzzing bees and panting dogs, now in repose at Sarah Chisholm’s feet.
Schlakier took a mouthful of the coffee – a deep, rich brew.
‘When was the last time you spoke to Christopher Hohl?’ he asked.
She turned to him and favoured him with her look. This one not so friendly. Schlakier held her gaze, determined not to be stared down.
‘So the conversation turns to criminals and you mention Christopher, is that it? Just for the record, Mister Schlakier, I don’t believe he was responsible for his wife’s disappearance.’
‘You would have to agree, that you are in the minority with that view.’
He was met with stony silence.
Schlakier tried a different tack. ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t think he’s guilty either.’
It was only as he spoke that realised he spoke from the heart.
‘He was treated very unfairly by the media. I know he had a rocky relationship with Justina but that doesn’t make him a monster. After what he saw happen to his mother as a child, it must have scarred him for life.’
Sarah Chisholm nodded slowly, this response seemed to satisfy her. Something caught the attention of the two terriers and they got up and trotted off into the garden.
‘He’s been my friend for a very long time,’ she said quietly. ‘A very long time. And not just financially. He’s always been there to support me when I needed it. We understand each other well. I too, know what it’s like to be hounded by the press.’
She took a final sip of her coffee and placed the cup on the table.
‘In answer to your earlier question, I haven’t seen him for several months. But we talked on the phone last week. He didn’t sound in a good state, I can tell you. He believes the case against him is being reopened. About Justina’s disappearance. I assume that’s why you’re here too. As if he hasn’t suffered enough.’
‘I’m not the bad guy Ms Chisholm. Maybe I can help him. Do you know where he is?’
Again she fixed him with her intense gaze. ‘He’s gone to ground. They’ll never find him. He’s too smart for that. I don’t think anyone’s going to see him for some time. Especially after I told him my news.’
‘What news was that?’ prompted Schlakier.
‘The police are coming to interview me next Monday. They didn’t reveal much. Just said that it had to do with Christopher. You know, they never interviewed me ten years ago when Justina disappeared. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’
‘That is surprising,’ admitted Schlakier.
The dogs returned from the exploration of the garden and resumed their post at Sarah Chisholm’s feet. She leant down and absently stroked the white one behind the ear, as if to signal the subject was closed.
Schlakier took the hint. ‘What did you do after you quit law?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been writing. I have a producer friend at the ABC who’s promised to use one of my scripts for a legal thriller they’ve got in the pipeline. It’s supposed to be quite lucrative too. I must as well put my legal experience to good use.’
Schlakier was not a fan of dramas by the nation’s public broadcaster. As a rule, he found them woeful affairs. Cack-handed direction, contrived plots and stilted dialogue. All financed by tax-payer dollars.
‘How’s that working out for you?’
Sarah Chish
olm let out an embarrassed laugh. ‘Production was supposed to begin at the start of the year but the government’s cut funding to the ABC again. So it’s been canned. At least for now.’
She looked back out at the cherry blossom again and then back at him.
‘I’m not as wealthy as you might think, Mister Schlakier. My father lost almost everything in the Global Financial Crisis. He was heavily invested in the property arm of the Royal Bank of Scotland. “He couldn’t lose”, his accountant said. Well guess what? Now my father’s dead and that accountant’s in jail.’
She gave him the look again. This time he saw the strain behind the eyes.
‘I’ve had to sell the family Jag to make ends meet. That’s why I’m driving that silly little car you can see out front. Like something my niece would drive.’
The Honda Jazz looked almost brand new to Schlakier but he held his tongue.
‘This house is practically all I’ve got left. I want to sell it but it’s not that easy. What with a brother interstate and a sister living in the States with her new husband. I don’t think they’re particularly keen on selling the family home. But then again, they’re not as hard up as me.’
‘I’m sorry to hear things aren’t working out for you,’ said Schlakier.
‘I’m the one who should be sorry. Burdening you with my problems. But not to worry. Something will turn up. It always does.’
Schlakier wondered if that “something” was Christopher Hohl.
They talked for a while longer – mostly about Sarah Chisholm’s fondly remembered university days. But it was clear that she wasn’t going to reveal anything further about Hohl’s past, save for stories from some wild student parties.
Schlakier decided it was time to leave but at the front door he made one final plea.
‘If you have anything on Christopher Hohl you can share with me – anything at all – just let me know. I’m on his side. I just want to help him.’
She hesitated for a moment at the entrance. ‘Hang on,’ she said, and disappeared back down the hall.