Black Teeth (10 page)

‘Did they see you looking out the window?'

‘Nup. It's one-way glass.'

‘So he doesn't know you saw him.'

‘That's right. But I didn't say it was a
he
. Let me finish.'

Whoever it was, they stayed only a minute, motored slowly around the corner and moved off at speed. They mustn't have realised it was a dead-end because they came back, faster this time, barrelling on towards Maroondah Highway.

‘They drove off?'

‘Yep.'

‘Why would someone follow you home then drive away?'

‘That's obvious.' Tyan doesn't hide his disdain for my question. ‘To find out where I live.'

He takes another survey of the nearby tables: mostly empty. Way off to the right the chairs are getting stacked, bain-maries wiped, floors mopped, while to our left these high schoolers maintain their petty warfare, far enough away to give us a sense of privacy. He pulls out the hipflask again.

‘Something you learn in the police force…' He sips a sip. ‘The wackos that send you dead rabbits in the post aren't the wackos you got to worry about. It's the ones trying to sneak up on you that mean business.'

‘So do you have any, like, I suppose…enemies?'

‘There are a few names that come to mind. A few crims.'

‘Did you get the licence plate?'

‘Course I did. Mate in the traffic unit traced it for me. Registered to Elizabeth Cannon. An address in Brunswick. Young bird about your age.'

‘Does her name mean anything to you?'

‘Not fucking remotely.'

‘Maybe it wasn't her. Maybe she wasn't driving.'

‘I think she was.'

‘Why?'

‘She gave herself away.'

Tyan lets that hang, so I have to say, ‘How?'

But instead of answering he arches back in his seat, distracts himself with the worrisome school teacher who moves slowly past our table. She watches her students the way he watches her—brimming with distrust. As she nears a furtive group of boys, all of them chewing too much food for their tiny mouths, Tyan's glare fades and, after lingering on her a moment longer, his eyes come back to me.

‘She reported the car stolen. About six o'clock, earlier that same night. She did that on the
internet
.'

This last point he makes as if we should be surprised.

‘But then, the next morning, yesterday morning, she calls up her local copshop and tells them the car's back, right back in her parking space, where it was nicked from. A constable went over and did a report, said the driver's window was smashed and the honey pot was chewed to shit.'

‘The honey pot?'

‘The key ignition. Someone tore it up with a sharp tool, they said.'

‘So it wasn't her. Someone nicked her car and followed you around.'

‘But here's the thing…' He puffs his cheeks into a ball and slowly exhales. ‘And I swear this on my life. There was no smashed window when I saw that vehicle.'

This puzzles me, but I'm reluctant to reveal that, so I nod gravely.

He says, ‘I guarantee it. She drove past my house. I saw
all
the windows. None of them were broken.'

‘So…the damage happened after you saw the car?'

‘That's right.'

‘So she followed you home and the car was nicked
after
that?'

‘Maaaaate…' A chuckled slur, like he's amused by how ashamed he is of my stupidity. ‘The vehicle wasn't stolen. This Elizabeth character wants to shift focus, in case I clocked the car, which I did, so she gets in first and says it was boosted. Plus, if there's a police report, she can claim the damage on her insurance. Oldest trick in the fucking book.'

‘But if it's a ruse, why park it back in her own space? Why not leave it blocks away? Or suburbs away?'

Tyan's amusement evaporates. He fidgets with the lid of his flask.

‘Don't know. To make sure it didn't get nicked again. Or pissed on by a dero.'

‘So, are they, like, going to arrest her?'

‘
Christ
, no.'

‘I just thought, you've got friends in the police—'

‘This isn't their problem. I just asked someone to trace the plate and even that was pushing it. I didn't tell him what
happened
. Cops have got more important things to worry about than my bullshit.'

The high schoolers are leaving. Their plates and leftovers have magically vanished and they're ambling to the escalators, leaving only Tyan and me and the cleaners to close out the place.

‘So what about tonight?

Tyan shrugs, looks away again.

‘I don't know. I thought I heard someone in the backyard.'

‘No sign of the Volvo?'

‘No Volvo. No people. Just me standing out there like a prick in the wind. That's the real problem. I'm not sleeping. I'm seeing shadows. Like with you last night. I need to find out who Elizabeth Cannon is. Can you do that?'

Those big watery eyes look out with something like helplessness.

‘How do you spell her name?'

‘Normal Elizabeth. Cannon like a ship's cannon.'

I write this into my phone.

‘What's the plate number?'

Tyan recalls it without having to think. ‘E-L-O, three seven one.'

‘And what's your budget?'

More vulnerability. Eyes like teardrops.

‘What's your quote?'

I pause, but this isn't shrewd negotiation; Tyan just doesn't know how long it takes to google someone.

‘I'll cap it at two-fifty. Call it family rates or whatever. And it gives us a reason to see each other again.'

Tyan seems pleased.

‘That's what
I
was thinking. And if I am…the bloke you think, it'd be good to spend more time together, right?'

Then he says, rubbing his satisfied palms down his breasts and without a trace of irony, ‘Well, I best be heading home.'

16

It's the next morning and I should be working. I intend to be: my candidate files are out on my desk, mellowing beside my two-day-old, freshly microwaved coffee. I've turned my heater down to keep a crispness in the air, keep me alert. This is how a day starts that usually ends with some light Call of Duty and a fully-compiled dossier; doubly necessary now that Albert Kane and Roach wants to announce its harvest next week.

The thesis here is that Tyan can wait a few days. I don't take well to being pushed into toilets and he has to get the message, at least implicitly, that he has lost his priority status. But of course, there is exactly one problem with that message…

I sip my coffee and tip back in my chair. It's American-style filtered coffee, the kind you can drink all day. Marnie would probably say that this is why I get panic attacks. If she knew how much of it I drank. And if she were still talking to me after last night.

I know why I get the attacks. It's right there in the depths of my

brain if I want to go look, but I won't go looking. These candidate files have to get sorted and the first step is to pick one up and open it.

The thesis here is that Tyan can wait a few days, but who am I kidding? Even if I weren't seeking a distraction from the Albert Kane and Roach job, even if I weren't curious about what happened to Tyan on Monday night, and even if I weren't eternally up for a challenge, there would still be exactly one problem with the notion that Tyan is not a priority for me.

It's like I can feel his blood in my veins. I've felt it all my life. Growing up was like losing an arm and feeling an itch in that arm. And then losing the other arm. And then passing out from panic attacks.

The scrap of card is old, like it's been carried around for years…

But I won't think about that now.

These memories of my mother, these metaphysical phone calls from the past, like Albert Kane and Roach, they can remain on hold for the time being.

I drink more coffee and get started.

She's not listed as married or having kids or changing her name. And no one named Elizabeth Cannon, Lizzy Cannon, Lizzie Cannon, Beth Cannon or Libby Cannon was ever arrested or imprisoned by way of Detective Glen Tyan. The Elizabeth Cannon born in 1987 and living in Brunswick had never been in contact with police until she reported her car stolen last Monday night.

That report includes a scan of her licence. They tell you not to smile in these pictures but she has a beguiling smirk underlining her nose, like she can't help an innate positivity breaking through. Her hair is dark, black or brown, framing the largest blue eyes I've ever seen, like anime come to life. Her cheeks puff with what my mum used to call baby fat. Or maybe she's a woman who eats macaroons just whenever she likes.

My avowal to Tyan's face that I would not break the law was heartfelt at the time, so it's ironic that hacking the VicPol intranet is about as illegal as anything I could do short of spear phishing the attorney-general. Then again, this isn't the first time: I cracked it last year in a drunken attempt to learn something about Glen Tyan. I
failed, but not because the app wasn't vulnerable, it just doesn't keep up details on former officers. After fingerprinting this morning I'm pleased to find it's still php script. Even the parameters for the SQL injection are the same. After that, I can't really talk myself out of it. Chalk it up as one more mark against my name when the party van knocks on the door.

The desultory notes of the officer, the stooge dispatched to Elizabeth's flat, are no more detailed than what Tyan told to me. The only surprising aspect is that it notes the ‘pistachio green' Volvo is uninsured. Which means Elizabeth will pay for the repairs herself. Which makes Tyan's theory that she false-flagged the car theft gapingly less likely.

All else I find on Elizabeth Cannon is a Twitter account that's protected so only confirmed followers can read her posts. I'm reluctant to crack a Twitter account with Thruware so I set to task a script from
chokechan.com
that only works on SHA and MD5, and even if that's the encryption, it still could take the rest of the morning.

There's a link in her profile, beneath an equally winsome photograph, to the adoption page of the Northern Lost Dogs' Home, just around the corner from her home address. Pics of dogs who'll be put to sleep if they don't find an owner, looking out at you with those eyes. Also, there are captions:

Minnie is house-broken and loves a cuddle!

Is there a poodle-shaped hole in your life?

Bandit is the PAWfect candidate for obedience training!

It's hard to find a sentence that doesn't end with an exclamation point.

Suddenly the chokechan script throws up her Twitter password: 63m570n3. Leetspeak for
gemstone
. With a password like that it's not surprising a dictionary attack took all of three minutes.

But whatever thrill I get from my high-speed break-in dissolves when I sort through her history. No one tweets at her and the DM file is empty. She follows a handful of news sites, has only twelve followers of her own, all of whom are total randoms waiting for her to follow back. She rarely posts and when she does it's mostly pics taken from her couch of the TV and they have captions like:

Anyone else watching
Gilmore Girls
?

No one has ever replied. You might as well post in all-caps:
I AM SO LONELY.
The vibe is asinine enough to remind me of the sockpuppet accounts I use to troll SJWs, MRAs, assorted wankers.

After three serves of toast and four hours of digging, I call Tyan to tell him who Elizabeth Cannon is, the answer being: the most boring person I've ever researched. But Tyan doesn't answer, wasn't sitting by the phone, isn't expecting me to call so soon. Throughout our interaction it never occurred to me he doesn't have a mobile. As I listen to the phone ring out, I remember he doesn't have a message bank either. So his position re technology is well and truly established.

My next potential move is to call Elizabeth, put the metaphorical screws on her from the comfort of my flat. But I'd be at the mercy of her mood: her willingness to talk, to be honest. She's not far away, I tell myself. And face-to-face it will be easier to read what's under the surface.

But that's bullshit. In the past I've driven miles out of my way to
avoid
meeting people. What really gets me out the door is a new sense of confidence, my interest in testing it out. Tyan's request for help, his
need
for me, is a rush. Why not ride the wave?

Also, there's the flipside to that confidence: the fear of its evaporation. Disappointing Tyan by finding nothing useful on Elizabeth Cannon would be like a hair dryer on a solitary drop of rain.

On my way to Brunswick I stop at the Smith Street Officeworks. When I return to my car I get my first sense that it is indeed about to rain.

17

Elizabeth Cannon lives in a block of flats in Brunswick, which is like saying she lives in a grain of sand on the beach. A shitty grain of sand, overpriced for its proximity to Sydney Road, built on great brick stilts over its car spaces, all of them oil stained and half of them empty. But the green Volvo is here, its window already repaired, the glass spanking new. I push hand and face against the glass to get a look in the driver's side: the ‘honeypot' is scratched and part of it appears cracked and the backseat is a wasteland of water bottles and receipts and strewn clothes: nothing helpful.