Blood Sunset

10



OUTSIDE THE WATCH-HOUSE, I left the car in gear while I waited for Cassie to get out.
‘You’re not coming in?’ she asked.
‘Nope. Eckles made his thoughts clear enough.’
‘So did you.’
I wasn’t going to argue. ‘Look, I’m going home to read through the LEAP reports on the stepfather. Can you get a status on my CCR request on Boyd’s mobile phone and see if the mug shots on Parks and Jardine have come through?’
‘They the mates you mentioned?’
‘Yeah, I need to talk to them, especially Parks. He left a message on Boyd’s answering machine, said they were supposed to meet up the night he was killed. Sounded like he was hanging on to something for him. We need to know what that was all about.’
‘You don’t think the stepfather’s good for it?’ she said.
I was silent a moment, pondering if I was dismissing him too quickly. If I hadn’t heard the message from Sparks, and if Boyd’s beer hadn’t been laced with GHB, I probably would’ve thought the same thing.
‘Like the doc just said, this guy beat the crap out of the kid for years,’ Cassie prompted. ‘The kid finally gets on his own two feet, then goes about trying to get his little sister removed from the family home. Sounds good to me.’
‘You’re probably right,’ I said, just to keep her happy. ‘But check on the mugs and the CCR anyway, will you?’
Heat flooded the interior as Cassie got out, then leant in through the door.
‘No offence, Rubes, but what are you doing with this? Whether it turns out to be a domestic shitfight or something else, this is officially a Homicide job now. All we have to do is type up a handover brief. That’s it, we’re done.’
‘I’m not ready to put this to bed yet, Cass.’ I hoped that would do it but she didn’t move. ‘Don’t worry about me. Just tell Freckles I’m typing up my job application for the primary school liaison team.’
As she disappeared inside, I sped away with no intention of going home. There was something I needed to do, something somebody should have done many years ago.
I drove on autopilot, the Saturday morning congestion on Punt Road passing in a blur as I crossed the Yarra River and headed north towards Collingwood. When the square blocks of commission flats appeared on the horizon, my heart rate quickened. I wondered which unit the man I wanted to see lived in. Up high in the building a woman stepped through a sliding door and I watched her drape towels over the walkway rail. Distracted, I almost ran into a car in front. I hit the brakes and skidded to a halt centimetres from the rear of an Audi. A horn sounded from behind and the driver of the Audi shook his head in the rear-view mirror. I let out my breath, loosened my tie and reminded myself to stay focused. An older colleague had once told me to always play the ball, not the man. It was a rule I tried to follow in life and work. I repeated it to myself until I was calm and back on track.
The traffic moved forward and soon I pulled into the car park at the front of the towers, parking in one of the allocated police bays. From under the seat I retrieved a can of capsicum spray I’d stolen from the academy and always kept in the car, just in case. After sliding the can into my hip pocket, I walked to the entrance. An overweight man with a ruddy complexion sat behind the security counter. A bottle of Coke and a half-eaten sausage roll covered his copy of the day’s Herald Sun, which was open at the sports section. Funny how unfit people always loved sports. A name tag on his white shirt read ‘George Pappa’.
‘Morning, George,’ I said, sliding my ID under the security grille. ‘Police.’
‘Guessed that,’ he said. ‘What can I do you for?’
‘I need to talk to a resident here, Vincent Rowe. I think he lives up on –’
‘Level ten, apartment four,’ Pappa said. ‘Don’t think he’ll be awake now though. Prick doesn’t usually get up till two or three.’
As he passed the ID back, I detected a familiar smell. A closer look at his eyes confirmed my suspicions. Seemed hayfever was doing the rounds.
‘What’s he like, this bloke?’ I asked.
‘Typical shithead who likes to beat up on the missus. Cute little girl though. Rachel, I think her name is.’
‘Does he smack the girl around?’
‘Wouldn’t surprise me. Tell you what does surprise me: we don’t have a car space out there especially for his visitors.’
‘Is he a dealer?’
‘You should know more than me.’ Pappa shrugged. ‘Cops are always here to see him. Speaking of which, where’s your partner? You blokes normally come in pairs.’
‘Only on TV.’
Pappa stuffed the last of the sausage roll in his mouth. ‘Not just on TV. Been here ten years, never seen a copper go up there alone.’
I looked up at the enormous tower and realised he was right. You could probably die in there and they’d only call for someone to collect your body when it started to stink.
‘That’s why you’re going to come with me, George.’
‘Huh? Not me, boss. I don’t go up there. Just stay here and patrol the grounds. I don’t visit the tenants.’
‘You do today. Come on, up you get.’
Pappa crossed his meaty arms and leant back in his chair. ‘Tell you what, I can call him up and tell him to come down or you can go up there on your own. Either way, I’m not going up.’
‘Not good enough, George. I need your help.’
‘Hey, you get to go home after this. I have to work with these people.’
‘Is that marijuana I smell on you, George?’
‘Huh? Not me, boss.’
I pressed my face close to the glass.
‘Sure? What about those bloodshot eyes? Maybe you want some chips with your munchies.’
‘Eyes aren’t bloodshot. Just hayfever.’
‘What about that car out there, the old Mazda I saw in the security bay? Looks like a blind man tried to park it.’ I held up my mobile phone. ‘Might get the boys from the station to come down, run a drug test on you. Sure your supervisor would be happy to know you’re stoned on the job?’
‘All I have to do is come up, right?’ he said.
‘And stay with me while I talk to this guy,’ I replied, holding his stare.
A heavy sheen of sweat lacquered the fat man’s forehead and he gulped. ‘Okay.’

We rode a lift scarred with cigarette burns and graffiti to the tenth floor. Somebody had altered a ‘No Smoking’ sign to read ‘No Smacking’. I wondered if it referred to heroin or the discipline of children. The elevator crawled up slowly and groaned to a stop. When we stepped out, the acrid smell of curry and spices stung my sinuses but Pappa didn’t seem to notice. Maybe it was one of those things you got used to. Overhead a fluorescent light flickered as Pappa led me towards the end of the hall. Along the way he picked up a syringe with his bare hands and dropped it in a yellow canister he carried in his pocket. Another thing you probably got used to in the commission flats.
‘Filthy things are everywhere,’ he said. ‘Reckon I collect two hundred of them every week.’
I said nothing, thinking of Dallas Boyd’s apartment in St Kilda and how luxurious it must have seemed in comparison to this shithole. At the end of the hall we stopped at an orange door covered by a mesh security grille.
‘This is it,’ Pappa said. ‘Do your thing, boss.’
I knocked on the grille and the twang of metal echoed down the hall. No answer. I leant closer to the door, heard a TV inside, knocked again. This time there were footsteps and a little girl’s voice called, ‘Who is it?’
I nudged Pappa. ‘You work here. She’ll know you. Tell her to open the door.’
‘Ah, hi Rachel,’ he said. ‘It’s George from downstairs. Is your daddy home?’
‘He’s asleep.’
I nudged him again.
‘Can I talk to you for a second, please?’
There was silence and I thought she might’ve been scared off. I was about to ask Pappa to try again when the door opened and the girl stood on the threshold, security mesh shading her in darkness. The sound of cartoons and the blue glow of a television came from behind her.
‘Hi, George,’ she said. ‘Are you here to watch The Lion King?’
‘No, sweetie. We’re here to see your daddy.’
‘Okay. Who’s that with you?’
The kid was smart, I quickly realised. And cautious. A natural survival instinct in the flats. I squatted and talked to her at eye level.
‘Hello, Rachel, my name’s Rubens. Can I speak to you for a second?’
‘Mummy says I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.’
‘That’s right, you’re not.’
The capsicum spray dug into my thigh as I crouched. I contemplated telling her I was a cop but figured that would only backfire. To these kids, cops were the enemy. They arrested your parents and older siblings. They crashed through your front door and took you away from your family.
‘Tell you what, Rachel,’ I said, hiding my daybook behind my back and putting on a smile in case she could see through the grille. ‘Why don’t you wake Daddy up, tell him a friend wants to talk to him. Do you think you could do that?’
Rachel’s face changed to a mask of fear as an adult shadow appeared behind her. ‘I’m awake,’ said a nasal voice. ‘What do ya’s want?’
Standing up, I realised I was significantly taller than the man on the other side of the door, but I wasn’t sure whether this would play in my favour or not.
‘Vincent Rowe?’ I asked.
‘Who wants to know?’
I pressed my badge against the grille. ‘I’m here with some more information on your stepson, Dallas Boyd. Can I come in?’
Rowe turned back to check the lounge, hesitation in his voice. ‘I’m not really dressed properly.’
‘I don’t care if you’ve got a syringe on the coffee table, Mr Rowe. I just need to clarify who should receive your stepson’s possessions.’
‘Possessions?’
That was the hook. Greed. It got them every time.
‘Dallas had a number of items in his apartment and we need to finalise where it will all go. It’ll only take a minute. Then you can go back to bed.’
‘All right.’
The door clicked open and we stepped into a dimly lit room, sunlight framing the curtains. The smell of cigarettes and stale beer hung thick in the warm apartment, turning it into a putrid incubator. Rowe was a thin man, face gaunt and unshaven. Bare-chested, tracksuit pants hanging loose off his bony hips, wiry arms covered in tattoos and pus-infected abscesses.
‘Don’t mind the mess,’ he drawled. ‘Bit of a rough time, ya know?’
I held my breath as I followed him through a lounge crowded with empty beer bottles, overflowing ashtrays, dirty dishes and piles of soiled laundry. No Amstel anywhere. My eyes were drawn to the television and the sofa, where the little girl had curled up against a pillow and teddy bear. She looked cleaner than anything else in the room.
To the left was the kitchen.
‘Come in ’ere,’ Rowe said, taking a cigarette from a pack on the cluttered bench. He lit the smoke using the gas stove, making no attempt to open a window.
Pappa hung back, leaning against the doorway, as I followed Rowe into the kitchen. In the sink I noticed an orange syringe cap.
‘So what’s the go with Dall’s possessions?’ Rowe asked, blowing smoke towards a ceiling stained yellow in the corners. ‘Probably best it all comes here, yeah?’
Watching for needles, I pushed aside several beer bottles on the bench to make room for my daybook. I had no intention of filling in any reports. It was all for show.
‘Probably,’ I said. ‘When did Dallas move out of home?’
‘Shit, years ago, mate. He was a survivor, ya know? Didn’t matter what happened, he always bounced back.’
Did he bounce back from all those broken ribs? I thought. What about the shattered arm, you bastard?
‘He was only sixteen, Mr Rowe. Most kids these days stay at home well into their twenties. Why’d he move out so young?’
Rowe took a deep drag and tapped ash in the sink. ‘S’pose I best be honest, hey?’
‘Appreciate that,’ I said.
‘Me and Dall didn’t always get along so well. He’s not me kid, so he was always against the discipline, me bein’ the stepfather and all.’
‘When was the last time you saw him, sir?’
‘Christmas Day, mate. Came over to give Rachel her pressie. Didn’t stay long though. What kind of possessions are we talkin’ about? Last I heard he was living in some hostel in St Kilda.’
‘We’ll get to that. He had a mate named Sparks. Know him?’
Rowe twisted his lips, blew smoke out his nostrils. ‘Nup. What kinda name is that anyway, Sparks? Did Dall have a stereo or one of them iPods? What about a plasma telly? Always wanted one of them.’
I guessed Rowe had handled a few plasma televisions in his time; just never kept any. They’d all gone up his arm.
‘What d’ya reckon, Rach?’ he called into the lounge. ‘Maybe we could get a new telly and DVD player. That’d be all right, hey?’
The girl didn’t respond and I looked back at Rowe and waited.
‘What?’
‘Mr Rowe, just for our records, where were you at midnight last Thursday?’
He took another long drag on his cigarette, then threw the butt in the sink.
‘There aren’t any possessions, are there?’ he said. ‘Ya just here to size me up.’
‘Just answer the question and we can move on, please.’
‘Nup. This is my house, and it’s me son who’s dead, even if he was only me stepson. F*ckin’ pigs all full of shit. Let ya in on good faith and all the while ya lookin’ to work me over. When am I supposed to get me time to grief?’
‘Grieve,’ I spat. ‘And you never treated Dallas like a son.’
‘F*ck off, copper. I know me rights. Ya wanna stay here then let me see ya warrant.’
‘I don’t need one. We were invited in, weren’t we, George?’
I turned to Pappa, whose face had paled.
‘Leave me out of this, boss,’ he said, raising his hands submissively to Rowe. ‘I just walked him up, that’s all.’
‘Yeah, we’ll see about that,’ Rowe snarled. ‘Slimy fat f*ck, sell me out to the jacks. Fix you.’
He launched across the room but I pushed him back against the sink and held him there, then brought my hands up to his throat, pushing his face against a cupboard.
‘I know about you, Vincent,’ I said, the muscles under my shirt flexing tight as I whispered in his ear. ‘I know you beat the shit out of Dallas every chance you got. I know about all the broken bones you covered up, and I know he was working with Child Protection to have Rachel taken out of here. Dallas didn’t leave out of choice. He left for a better life. That’s what he wanted for Rachel.’
‘Better life?’ Rowe grunted. ‘Look what happened to him.’
I pressed my fingers into his neck, releasing pressure only when he moaned.
‘This place is no better. Look around you. The joint’s a pigsty, syringes and shit in the sink. Tell me something, how many times has Rachel watched you shoot up?’
‘Piss off.’
‘How do you discipline her? Do you put smack in her Coco Pops to make her go to sleep? I bet you sneak into her bedroom late at night too.’
He snorted and thrashed under my grip, saliva spilling from his mouth as he fought to wriggle free. ‘You’re a low dog,’ he snarled. ‘She’s me little angel and I’d never f*ckin’ touch her.’
‘Sure.’
He hawked a mouthful and spat at me, but I dodged it and hit him hard across the face. I wanted to lay into him about the chlamydia and the sexual abuse, but I couldn’t risk it for Rachel’s sake.
‘You’re finished, copper,’ Rowe drawled. ‘Be on the phone to the ESD the minute ya gone.’
I registered the threat and it occurred to me that I’d lost the plot. If this went through to the Ethical Standards Department there would be no escaping. Having the security guard to witness it all only made it worse. Not only that, I could already see Rowe was not capable of planning and executing a murder as slick as Dallas Boyd’s. Even if he was, Boyd would never have trusted him, so there was no way he could’ve spiked his drink. I released my grip as a woman in a soiled nightgown appeared at the kitchen door.
‘What the f*ck’s goin’ on?’ she said.
I recognised the familiar-shaped jawline, thin brown hair and slanted eyes. Dallas Boyd’s mother. Once upon a time she might have been attractive. Now her hair was dishevelled, her wrists covered in track marks. A heavily rounded stomach was visible beneath the nightgown. She was pregnant.
‘Oh, this just gets better,’ I spat, pushing Rowe to the floor. ‘You’ve got another one on the way. I’m going to finish what Dall started. DHS will be paying you both a visit soon. Might wanna clean up this shithole, cover up those track marks.’
I glanced at the girl on the sofa; her eyes were wide and unreadable. She clutched the teddy tight to her chest, trying to protect it. Or was it to protect her?
‘Let’s go, boss,’ Pappa said. ‘This isn’t right.’
I looked back at the girl just before the door slammed behind us, echoing in the hall like a prison gate.
In the lift, I felt empty of emotion, as if it had all been used up. Ignoring the ‘No Smacking’ sign, I lit a cigarette though I really needed a drink. For a moment I thought about spending the day at one of my locals, but decided it was still too early. Instead I drove back down Punt Road and over the river, finding a park near the Fawkner Gardens where I waited for my anger to subside.