“Barnes is on temporary transfer from Melbourne,” Raco said as Falk followed him under the hatch to the office. Behind them, the station door slammed shut, and they were alone.
“Really?” Falk was surprised. Barnes had the wholesome milk-fed look of a homegrown country boy.
“Yeah, his parents are in farming, though. Not here; somewhere out west. I think that made him the obvious choice for the placement. I feel for the guy really; his backside barely touched the ground in the city before they sent him up here. Having said that—” Raco glanced toward the closed station door, then reconsidered. “Never mind.”
Falk could guess. It was a rare day when a city force sent its best officer on a country temporary transfer, especially to a place like Kiewarra. Barnes was unlikely to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. Raco may have been too tactful to say it, but the message was clear. In this station, he was pretty much on his own.
They put the box of Karen’s and Billy’s belongings on a spare desk and opened it. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. At the window, a fly bashed itself repeatedly against the glass.
Aaron sat on a wooden chair, his bladder nervous and aching, and stuck to the plan. I was with Luke Hadler. Shooting rabbits. Two; we got two. Yes, Ellie is—was, I mean—my friend. Yes, I saw her at school that day. No! We didn’t fight. I didn’t even see her later. I didn’t attack her. I was with Luke Hadler. I was with Luke Hadler. We were shooting rabbits. I was with Luke Hadler.
They had to let him go.
Some of the whispers took on a new shape then. Not murder, perhaps, but suicide. A vulnerable girl led up the path by the Falk boy was a popular version. Pursued and used by his slightly odd father was another. Who was to say? Either way, between them they as good as killed her. The rumors were fed well by Ellie’s father, Mal Deacon, and grew fat and solid. They sprouted legs and heads, and they never died.
One night a brick was thrown through the Falks’ front window. Two days later, Aaron’s father was turned away from the corner shop. Forced to walk out empty-handed with burning eyes and his groceries piled on the counter. The following afternoon, Aaron was followed home from school by three men in a truck. They crept behind him as he pedaled his bike faster and faster, wobbling every time he dared look over his shoulder, his breath loud in his ears.
Raco reached into the box and laid out the contents in a line on the desk.
There was a coffee mug, a stapler with “Karen” written on in Wite-Out, a heavy-knit cardigan, a small bottle of perfume called Spring Fling, and a framed picture of Billy and Charlotte. It was a meager offering.
Falk opened up the frame and looked behind the photo. Nothing. He put it back together. Across the desk, Raco took the cap off the perfume and sprayed it. A light citrusy scent floated into the air. Falk liked it.
They moved on to Billy’s belongings: three paintings of cars, a small pair of gym shoes, a beginner’s reading book, and a pack of coloring pencils. Falk turned over the pages of the book, not at all sure what he was looking for.
It was around that time he realized his father was watching him. From across the room, through a window, over his newspaper. Aaron would get the feathery sense across the back of his neck and would look up. Sometimes Erik’s gaze would flick away. Sometimes it wouldn’t. Contemplative and silent. Aaron waited for the question, but it didn’t come.
A dead calf was left on their doorstep, its throat cut so deep that the head was almost severed. The next morning, father and son bundled what they could into their truck. Aaron said a hasty good-bye to Gretchen and a longer good-bye to Luke. None of them mentioned why he was leaving. As they drove out of Kiewarra, Mal Deacon’s white truck followed them for a hundred kilometers past the town limits.
They’d never gone back.
“Karen made Billy come home that afternoon,” Falk said. He’d been thinking it over since leaving the school. “He was supposed to be out playing with his friend, and she kept him home on the day he was killed. How do you feel about chalking that up to coincidence?”
“Not good.” Raco shook his head.
“Me neither.”
“But if she’d had any idea what was going to happen, surely she’d have got both kids as far away as possible.”
“Maybe she suspected something was up but didn’t know what,” Falk said.
“Or how bad it was going to be.”
Falk picked up Karen’s coffee mug and put it down again. He checked the box, felt around the edges. It was empty.
“I was hoping for something more,” Raco said.
“Me too.”
They stared at the items for a long time, then one by one, put them back.
13
The cockatoos were shrieking in the trees when Falk left the station. They called each other home to roost in a deafening chorus as the early evening shadows grew. The air felt clammy, and a line of sweat ran down Falk’s back.
He wandered along the main street, in no rush to reach the pub waiting at the other end. It wasn’t late, but few people were about. Falk peered into the windows of the abandoned shops, pressing his forehead against the glass. He could still remember what most of them used to be. The bakery. A bookshop. Many had been completely stripped out. It was impossible to tell how long they’d stood bare.
He paused as he came to a hardware store displaying a line of cotton work shirts in the window. A gray-haired man, wearing one of the very same shirts under an apron with a name badge, had his hand on the Open sign hanging on the door. He paused mid-flip as he noticed Falk assessing the merchandise.
Falk plucked at his own shirt. It was the same one he’d worn to the funeral, and it was stiff from being rinsed out in the bathroom sink. It stuck under his arms. He went inside.
Under the harsh shop lights, the man’s warm smile froze mid-grin as recognition kicked in a moment later. His eyes darted around the deserted shop, which Falk suspected had been as empty for most of the day. A moment’s hesitation, then the smile continued. Easier to have principles when you’ve got dollars in the register, Falk thought. The shopkeeper guided him through the store’s limited apparel selection with the thoroughness of a gentleman’s tailor. Falk bought three shirts, because the man seemed so grateful that he was prepared to buy one.
Back on the street, Falk tucked the purchases under his arm and continued on. It wasn’t much of a walk. He passed a takeout that seemed to offer cuisine from any corner of the world as long as it was fried or could be displayed in a pie warmer. A doctors’ office, a pharmacy, a tiny library. A one-stop store that appeared to sell everything from animal feed to gift cards, several boarded-up shopfronts, and he was back at the Fleece. That was it. Kiewarra’s main hub. He looked back, toying with the idea of giving it another pass, but couldn’t work up the enthusiasm.
Through the window of the pub he could see a handful of men staring indifferently at the TV. His bare room was all that was waiting for him upstairs. He put his hand in his pocket and felt his car keys. He was halfway to Luke Hadler’s place before he knew it.