Bleak Spring (22 page)

Malone picked up the list. There were two 047 31 numbers, with the name
Dunne
scribbled beside them; and a 232 number, with
Bodalle
beside it. The first 047 31 call had been made last Thursday, two days before the murder; the second 047 31 call and the 232 call had been made yesterday. He looked across his desk at Clements. “It doesn't look good for Olive, does it?”

“I think we should pick up Kelpie first before we trouble her. Do I get a warrant to search his house out at Penrith for the gun?”

“Go ahead. But why did she go out of the house to call Angela Bodalle, the friend of the family, as she keeps telling us?”

“Maybe she's already confessed to Bodalle what she did and she wanted to tell her the pressure's on.”

“From us or Kelpie or Mr. Jones? It doesn't matter, anyway. Get the warrant, then go out and call on Kelpie. You'll need back-up, just in case. Call Penrith and tell 'em you'd like a coupla men.”

“You think Kelpie might start shooting?”

“I don't think so. Kelpie's a mongrel, but he's not a psycho. Until we get the gun, he's still in the clear.”

“You're not coming?”

Malone gestured at the files on his desk. “Everything's coming to a climax at once. I've got to get the papers on the Lazarus and Paluzzi cases ready for the DPP. Bring Kelpie in and we'll give him some coffee and biscuits.”

“What about Olive?”

“I think I might give her a call, tell her we're bringing in a man for questioning. No names, just a feller we think might give us some information. It might stir her up a bit.”

Clements
left and Malone got down to the paperwork on his desk. The big room outside emptied till there were only a couple of detectives at their desks. There was a hush in the high-ceilinged room; the investigation of murder is not all sound and fury. The Hat Factory was a backwater and at times it could have all the silence and tranquillity of a place where the currents were deep and did not cause waves; or so it appeared. Of course the currents
did
cause waves, but the effects were felt elsewhere: this morning, in places as far apart as Penrith and Coogee.

At ten o'clock he rang the Rockne number. Jason answered. “Hello, Mr. Malone. No, Mum's under the shower. The funeral's today, remember?”

“Of course.” He had forgotten; the days had slipped by. He hesitated, prompted for the moment by a reluctance to add to the burden of her day. But she had murdered the husband she was burying, or had had something to do with his killing, and compassion was something she did not deserve and he could not afford. “Tell her that we are bringing in a man for questioning, we think he can give us some information on your father's death.”

“Mr. Jones?”

“No, Jay, not Mr. Jones. Another man. Just pass it on to your mother.”

He hung up, then rang Ellsworth at Maroubra. “Are you fellers or someone from Randwick still with Mrs. Rockne?”

“Around the clock,” said Ellsworth. “She had only one visitor last night, Mrs. Bodalle, the QC. She's a family friend, I gather.”

“Any more calls on the car phone?”

“None. I'm going over to Coogee now, I'm joining my guys for the funeral, then I'll have to come back here. We've got some break-and-enters we've got to look into. We pick 'em up and four outa five of 'em are kids out of work looking for spending money. My guys are earning more overtime with this recession than they ever did in good times.”

“We're bringing in Kelpie Dunne this morning for questioning. I'll be in touch.”

Kelpie Dunne came in an hour later, making waves, hobbling between crutches, swearing at the
top
of his voice, dressed in shirt and shorts and a sweater and with his right leg encased in plaster. He was led into the interview room and Malone followed Clements and Kagal in behind the aggressive, abusive suspect.

“Quieten down, Kelpie. What happened to your leg? One of your mates try to kneecap you?”

“Fucking funny! Look, Malone, what is all this shit?”

The interview room had bare walls, a table and three chairs; it was not designed to make the interviewee comfortable. At one end of the table was a tape and video recorder; Clements pushed Dunne into a chair opposite it. The machine was a recent introduction, brought in to counteract charges against the police of “verballing,” the falsifying of written statements, a practice that older police had denied with their hands on their hearts and such looks of innocence that they had usually gone on sick leave a day or two later.

Malone laid the plastic envelope containing the silencer on the table in front of Dunne. “Seen that before, Kelpie?”

“What is it?” Dunne gazed at it blankly, like a New Guinea highlander presented with a piece of space equipment.

“It's a silencer, Kelpie, a home-made hush puppy. You put it on a gun and it silences the sound of the shot.”

“What'll they think of next!”

Malone had to grin. “The next bit's not so funny. They found it in your toolbox at Hamill's.”

Malone and Dunne were the only two sitting down; Dunne had commandeered the third chair to support his plastered leg. His sharp-featured face seemed to contract for a moment, everything becoming more pointed. Then he grinned at Malone, looked at Clements and Kagal leaning against the walls, then back to Malone.

“I ain't falling for that. If you found that in my toolbox, you mongrels planted it there.”

Malone's bluff hadn't worked; but he wasn't going to admit that the silencer had been found in another box, a junk box. He looked at Clements. “Did you find any gun out at Mr. Dunne's house?”

Clements
had been carrying a black plastic garbage bag. He took out a revolver and four boxes of ammunition. “This Smith and Wesson Thirty-eight and these three boxes of ammo to fit it. And there's these Twenty-twos, a box of fifty with six bullets missing.”

“Nothing else?”
Like a Ruger .22 with a ten-shot magazine?
Clements shook his head and Malone turned back to Dunne. “Why the gun, Kelpie? You've heard all the public outcry over the past couple of weeks against the use of guns. Or are you part of the gun lobby?”

“I was gunna hand it in,” said Dunne, piety as ugly as a sneer on his thin face, “but I clean forgot.”

“You have a licence for it?”

“It was a present from the wife. I guess she forgot the licence, you know what women are like.”

“What sort of woman is your wife, she gives you a gun for your birthday or whatever?”

“It was our wedding anniversary.”

“They're not married,” said Clements. “She's his
de facto,
a nice lady. Too good for him and not the sort to give guns as presents. She's outside with one of the Penrith policewomen.”

“Leave her outa this!” Dunne's plastered leg fell off the chair and he winced with pain and swore again.

“For the time being, we'll do that,” said Malone and pushed forward the box of .22 ammunition. “What's this ammo for, Kelpie?”

“Ah, that's old stuff. I used it in an old Twenty-two rifle. I used to go rabbit-shooting. The wife cooks it French style, lappin-de-something.”

“Kelpie, that's not old stuff, the box is brand-new. Come on, what did you use it for? Have you ever owned a Ruger hand-gun?”

“No.” Not a flicker of an eyelid.

“Where's your Twenty-two rifle now?”

“I traded it in on the Smith and Wesson.”

“I thought you said your wife gave that one to you as a present? I think you're getting a bit
flummoxed,
Kelpie. Where were you last Saturday night between eleven o'clock and twelve?”

“Last Sat'day night?” The face screwed up in an effort to remember; he could have been asked where he was on the night of 12 February, 1968. Then his face opened up: the acting was twice life-sized: “I was home! We didn't go out last Sat'day. We stayed home and watched TV.”

“What did you watch?”

“Oh, I dunno, they all look alike these days, don't they? Some fillum—no. No, it was that thing on Channel Two, the one about the British jacks,
The Bill.
Yeah, that was it.”

“That programme finishes just before nine thirty. We all watch it.”

“You learn anything from it?”

“Only that we're all much nicer fellers than they are. No one ever smiles, not their detectives . . . So where were you between eleven and midnight?”

“I went to bed.”

“Righto, stay there, Kelpie. We'll get you some coffee and biscuits. We won't be long, I just want a word with your wife.”

“Leave her outa this, I told you!” Had he had two good legs, Dunne would have leapt out of his chair at Malone; he was actually snarling like a savage dog. “I'll fucking have you, Malone!”

“What with, Kelpie? The Smith and Wesson or the Twenty-two? Sit back!” He stood over the smaller man, his own anger apparent but controlled. “If you've got nothing to worry about, then neither has she.”

Dunne matched Malone's stare; then he slowly sat back, lifted his leg on to the chair in front of him. “You got nothing on me, you know that. But go easy on her, she's a decent sort.”

“Where'd you meet her?”

“She's the sister of one of the guys I was in Bathurst with. She's decent, okay? Straight.”

Malone left the interview room and had Claudia Dunne brought into his office. With her was the policewoman from Penrith, a small blonde in her mid-twenties named Dickson. “Take a seat, Mrs. Dunne. You too, Constable—I want you here while I talk to Mrs. Dunne.”

Claudia
Dunne was tall and thin, with a tumble of thick dark hair, the sort of hairdo that always puzzled Malone as to how its undone look was achieved. Her features were too pointed to be beautiful or even pretty, but somehow she had managed to create the impression that she was good-looking. She was in a flower-patterned dress and had a red cardigan thrown over her narrow shoulders. She was frightened, but worse, she was disillusioned to the point of looking ill.

“He's in trouble again, isn't he? It was bound to happen. But I hoped—I kept telling myself that all he needed was someone like me to straighten him out. Jack, that's my brother, he was in jail with Garry, he was always telling me Garry would never change . . . What's he done?”

“That's what we're trying to find out, Mrs. Dunne—”

That was a mistake; she was sharp-witted enough to say, “Then why's he here? Why all those police searching our house, turning everything over—”

Malone looked at the policewoman. “Did they make a mess of the house?”

“No, sir. Everything was put back exactly as we found it. I can understand Mrs. Dunne's feelings, no woman likes her house invaded, but we did our best to leave it exactly as we found it. I think when she goes home she'll find that's true.”

She was brisk and efficient in a quiet way and she seemed to have established some sort of rapport with Claudia Dunne; she looked at the taller woman and after a moment the latter nodded. “Yeah, they did put things back. Still, it
was
an invasion, like she says . . . What did they find?”

“They didn't tell you? Garry didn't tell you? They found the gun you gave him as a present.”

“
I
gave him a gun? Did he say
that?”
Then abruptly she looked away, as if from now on she intended to ignore them and Malone's preposterous suggestions.

“What did you watch on television last Saturday night?”

“What?” She looked back at him as if he had asked an obscene question.

“I said, what did you watch on TV last Saturday night?”

She frowned. “I don't know. I—oh yes. We watched
That's Dancing.
I like it, but Garry thinks it's a comedy show, he says it's funnier than
Home Videos.”

“
That goes from seven thirty till eight thirty. What then?”

Shrewdness suddenly veiled her face. “I—we watched a movie.”

“What movie?”

“Is this supposed to trick us or something? I've seen the way they do it in the Columbo movies.”

“What movie did you watch, Mrs. Dunne?”

“I—I can't remember the title. It was one of those tele-movies, the ones with people you've never heard of in them.”

“Your husband watched it with you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“What time did it finish?”

“I dunno. About ten thirty, I suppose, they always do.”

“What did you do then?”

“Went to bed. Why are you asking these questions? What is Garry supposed to have done?”

“You're sure your husband was home, that he didn't go out and not come back till after midnight?”

“No,” she said, but she had never learned to lie with a straight face. She looked in pain, her large brown eyes suddenly glistened as if she were about to weep.

Malone felt sorry for her; he had seen her kind before. With a relative or friend in jail, they had somehow come to know the hardened criminals like Dunne and, for reasons that Malone could never comprehend, had fallen in love with them. Perhaps, with their own lives deadeningly dull, they had fallen in love with the excitement of knowing a criminal rather than with the man himself; then, to compound their naïveté, they had come to believe they could reform their men. Malone had the common policeman's cynicism, that the villains who saw no difference between right and wrong, who believed the world was theirs to take, were beyond reform.

“That'll be all for now, Mrs. Dunne.”

“Are you gunna let Garry go now?”

“
Not just yet. You can wait if you like, but he could be here the rest of the day.”

“I'll wait,” she said, setting her jaw. “You never stop persecuting them, do you?”