AC05 - Death Mask (25 page)

‘He wants to say hello. Here he is.’ As if as an afterthought, he added, ‘Bye Mum, love you.’ She heard him call out, ‘Dad, Mum wants to talk to you.’

He was definitely an old soul in a child’s body.

Martin came on the line. ‘Hey, Annie, how’s it going in the big bad apple?’

‘Well, since I’ve been here two footballers have died, so I’m obviously doing wonders for their health.’

‘I was joking when I told you to knock them dead,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean it literally.’

An awkward silence followed.

‘Want to talk about it?’

‘Not right now. How’s Ben going at school?’

‘He’s doing well, talks about you more at bedtime, wanting to know where you are on the map and when you’re coming back.’

‘Hopefully soon. I’ll be home as soon as I can.’

‘I did some checking on the Internet and the Australian dollar’s looking better. Ben and I could meet you in Los Angeles and maybe we could go to Disneyland or do a cruise. You and Ben could share rooms if you like, and I can be in a separate one. Kind of like a family holiday for our son.’

Anya sat up straighter, not knowing what to say. Ben would love having both his parents together, and a break was a great idea. She just wasn’t sure how Martin’s girlfriend would take to the concept.

‘What about Nita?’

‘She knows how important you are to Ben and wants what’s best for him.’

Anya wanted to buy time to think about it. She and Martin
had been getting along recently, but a holiday was something else. Ben could easily get the wrong idea about them.

‘Let’s see how the next few days go and I’ll let you know.’ She thought of the lost phone. She could be fired by the morning.

‘Fair enough … Oh hey, I’ve been offered a part-time job tutoring nurses at the local university campus. I can start next semester.’

‘Congratulations, that’s wonderful news.’ She meant it. ‘There’s one more thing, Annie, look after yourself. OK?’ He lowered his voice. ‘We both miss you.’

Her stomach clenched as she hung up the phone.

* * *

The knock on the door woke her at eight. Having fallen asleep in her clothes, she stumbled to the door, trying to recall if she had ordered breakfast.

‘Sorry.’ Ethan was showered and shaved. ‘I waited till I thought you’d be up.’

The phone. She had to tell him.

‘Ethan, there’s something you need to know.’

‘You lost your phone?’

She blinked slowly as he held it in his hand.

‘How did you —?’ She felt a sudden elation.

‘Got a call from reception last night. Someone handed it in and since mine was the number called most often, they phoned me on it.’

Anya let out a heavy sigh of relief. She could have hugged Ethan.

‘What about the photos?’

‘All there, intact. As far as I know, they’re not on the Internet and no papers have called for a comment.’

‘I can’t believe I lost it.’

‘Anyway, just wanted to get it back before you worried.’

Too late, she thought, having pulled apart her room searching. The relief at it being found by someone honest, and handed in to a smart receptionist, more than made up for it, though.

‘Hey, since you’re awake now, do you mind if I come in for a minute?’

Anya wanted a hot shower and something to eat. The inside of her mouth felt like she’d been chewing newspaper in her sleep.

‘It won’t take long.’ Ethan didn’t seem to notice her reluctance to invite him in, or didn’t care. He entered the room, laptop in hand.

‘We know Dorafino had the room next door to Janson, but it didn’t sound like his voice we heard last night.’

He downloaded a video clip from YouTube. ‘I found some interviews with the players and wanted to run them by you. I know these guys but they all sound alike to me. I’m better with faces.’

It seemed to Anya that the two men they had heard talking were not concerned with Janson’s death so much as what would happen to them after the night in the Rainier Hotel. Unless there had been another incident that required them to make police statements not long before Janson died. Based on the combined past history, that was not beyond all possibility.

Ethan turned to his laptop and checked the YouTube interviews, starting with McKenzie appearing on ESPN. He paused the clip, then replayed it. Anya leant over his shoulder to watch the screen.

‘That’s it. The dominant voice,’ Anya said.

Ethan agreed. McKenzie had told the other man to shut up and stick to the police statements. Once they confirmed the other player’s identity, they would access the actual statements and see how they compared.

Next clip was of Vince Dorafino claiming he was the world’s greatest tight end, while showing off his backside with a dance. His voice was more nasal and the cadence was more varied than the second voice in the room.

They agreed he was not the man.

A search for Lance Alldridge followed. Ethan had trouble locating a clip of the man described as a BFG, in reference to
Roald Dahl’s story of a big, friendly giant. But for someone so friendly, Alldridge had a distinct tendency to keep quiet in the presence of a microphone. Eventually, an interview was located. His deep, rich tones excluded him. He was the player in Anya’s first lecture who had tried to explain to Janson that HIV was not exclusive to gay men. He did not sit with the others, or dress like them, but he was still allegedly part of the rape that night.

That left Clark Garcia. During a statement from inside a locker room, the rookie struggled to sound articulate. He uttered phrases like ‘one hundred and ten percent’, ‘big effort’ and ‘hard hits’. Anya estimated his IQ as below average. He could have had trouble remembering plays, and what he was told to say in his police statement. That left a potential weak link in the four remaining suspects.

Comparing the size of the men on the videos to their interviewers, it was easy to see how any of them could have overpowered a woman like Kirsten Byrne.

‘What now?’ Anya asked Ethan, who tapped his pen on the desk.

He closed his laptop. ‘You’ve got two hours before you meet with the medical examiner.’

Anya stretched her back and glanced at the dishevelled state of her room. Ethan was polite enough not to comment.

‘What bothers me is that Kirsten’s injuries would have bled significantly, even in the room. But no blood was found on the sheets or towels.’

‘You’re right. It’s the part of the story that makes no sense. None of these guys knows how to clean shit from a shoe, let alone clean bloodstained bed linen.’

Blood was difficult to remove, especially from white hotel sheets.

It was possible Kirsten had the wrong room.

Or had she been raped somewhere else? But what reason would she have for lying? They needed to find out.

T
wenty minutes later they headed for the Rainier Hotel. Ethan had explained that, as was customary, the organisation that had hosted the event on the night of the rape had provided their celebrity guests with rooms to freshen up, rest in, or stay overnight if they preferred. They could entertain guests privately upstairs after being seen and photographed downstairs. Janson had no doubt told his wife he was at a work function. He may even have gone home to their apartment in the early hours of the morning, after the alleged rape, and woken up in his own bed.

‘Just follow my lead,’ Ethan instructed.

At reception, he put his arm around Anya’s waist.

‘My fiancée and I were huge fans of Pete Janson, and we never got to meet him in person.’ He pulled her closer. ‘It sure would mean a lot to us if we could maybe just see somewhere he’s been. Didn’t he stay here?’

The check-in staff member smiled showing perfect teeth. ‘We did have the pleasure of his company, and we’re all shocked by his passing.’

‘We can’t believe it. It’s just so tragic.’ He turned to Anya. ‘We might even have the wedding here, honey, what do you think? It’s where Pete came to a party.’

Anya felt strange that she was playing along, but she wanted to see the room, to make sure it was as Kirsten had described, and make sure there was nothing the police might have missed. ‘Could we?’ She rested her head on his shoulder.

‘It’s an unusual request,’ the woman behind the desk said, ‘but what happened to Mr Janson has touched us all. Let me see what I can do.’

Some fast clicking at her keyboard gave them an answer.

‘You’re in luck.’ She waved for a porter. ‘Could you please accompany this lovely couple to room 3210? They would like to see it before they book their wedding.’ She handed them a brochure about the hotel facilities and a card with the name of the hotel’s wedding planner.

Inside the room, the porter opened the curtains, showed them how the television worked, gave them a tour of the bathroom and then stood by the door. Ethan still had his arm around Anya, but let go to hand the man five dollars. ‘Do you mind if we have a moment to make our decision?’

The porter stepped outside. Ethan checked under the bed while Anya examined the wall behind the paintings.

‘If he was into auto-erotic asphyxia, he might have practised it here. No screw marks anywhere.’

Ethan lifted the sheets and checked the bed. ‘Nothing. I guess it was a long shot.’

The porter knocked on the door.

Anya straightened her skirt and Ethan moved to her side. He opened the door and replaced his arm around her waist.

‘We love it,’ the groom-to-be announced, and kissed Anya on the cheek.

When she stiffened, he just squeezed her tighter.

The porter seemed unimpressed. On the way back to the elevator, they passed a cleaning trolley, left idle while a maid was in a room with the door open and the television blaring. It would be easy to steal sheets from the trolley, although disposing of the bloodstained ones would be slightly more difficult.

Anya had a thought.

‘Can we check the mailroom? You know, to see if we can get wedding gifts delivered to the hotel.’

Ethan looked at her with eyebrows raised.

The porter pressed the button for the conference level and told them it was on their right. They exited, and he went back to the ground floor.

Anya had to admit the charade had been amusing, but Ethan had overplayed the affection part. She had always been a stickler for rules and doing the right thing. Whether it was a new place, the lack of constraints in her job description, or Ethan’s influence, it didn’t matter. He obviously knew how to lie his way into any place. Watching him in action was fascinating. But now she had him guessing.

She rang the bell to the mailroom and an elderly man opened the top of a stable door. Dressed in a brown short-sleeved shirt and trousers, he looked as if the effort of answering the bell had taken all his energy.

This time she did the talking. ‘My good friend says he posted a package to my sister from here the other day and she rang me to say it hadn’t arrived. I was wondering if you could check your records to make sure it was sent.’

The gentleman lifted a cardboard concertina file that looked like something from the 1960s. The cardboard dividers were browned, aged and flaking at the edges.

‘Do you know what date he says it was s’posed to go?’

‘Early on Friday the thirteenth, I think.’ It would be the earliest mail after the night’s assault. ‘McKenzie is the name.’

He grunted, closed the box and collected another, in even worse condition, from beneath the desk. Flicking through the files, he located a pink receipt.

‘Where does your friend live?’

Anya looked at Ethan, who obliged by reciting McKenzie’s home address. The man grunted again. ‘Nope. That ain’t where it got sent.’

‘Maybe you remember,’ the investigator tried. ‘It was for Liam McKenzie, you know, from the New Jersey Bombers. He
swears he sent it home – earlier – to my sister.’

The old man rubbed his chin and looked up to the right. ‘Now you mention it, I do recall something.’

Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty dollar bill.

The man looked around, snatched it and slipped it into his trouser pocket.

‘Got to work the next mornin’ and there was these plastic bags inside the door and an envelope with enough money to send the package and then some.’ He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘I boxed the bags up and sent them on their way.’

‘Are you sure they got sent?’

‘Yessir. Did it myself.’

Ethan swivelled the pink paper and saw the weight: 4.5 lbs. He wrote down the address.

‘Thanks for your help. I’ll tell Liam. He probably had a big night the night before, if you know what I mean.’

The old man chuckled. ‘Him and me both.’

As Ethan left, the stable door was closed again.

Less than half an hour later, they were inside Starbucks with a latte each and copies of the five police statements regarding Thursday 12 August that they’d already sourced. What struck them both was the similarity between sentences, down to use of the same words and phrases. Either each player had a savant’s memory, or they had written the equivalent of a playbook about what went on in the room that night with Kirsten.

They reeked of collusion, but defence lawyers could use them as five witnesses with the same true version.

Pete Janson described how a woman who gave her name as Kirsten flirted with him in the bar and they shared a few drinks. He then asked her to his hotel room to party with some friends. She eagerly agreed and at her request he even signed an autograph in a boy’s scrapbook, met the child in the lobby then got Liam McKenzie to sign his scrapbook later, before returning it to the boy after Kirsten had left it behind.

I do recall her mentioning that she worked for a fashion designer, but she seemed more interested in having sex with me. I am a Christian family man, but admit that I have human failings. I strive each day to be closer to Jesus. I fell prey to temptation that night in my room and at her insistence I had sexual intercourse with the woman I believe to be Kirsten Byrne. We had both been drinking earlier in the bar as many people will be able to confirm. I did not use a condom, and she did not ask me to. At no time did the woman tell me she did not want to have sex, or say that she was being hurt. In fact, she moaned with enjoyment while having sex with me. After that, Liam McKenzie entered the room followed by Lance Alldridge, Vince Dorafino and Clark Garcia.

Kirsten ran over to Liam McKenzie and embraced him. She was naked at the time. She then led Liam back to the bed, where they proceeded to have sexual relations. After that, I believe she asked to have sex with the other men in the room.

I cannot say what happened after that as I went into the shower in order to go home. When I came out, Kirsten had gone. I went home to my family.

The first I knew of her complaint was when the police asked me to come to the station. It was then that I discovered Kirsten Byrne claimed we had raped her. This was not the case, as my team mates can verify.

I believe the events to have occurred exactly as I have described. This is a true statement of what occurred on the night of August 12 of this year.