Black Teeth (11 page)

For all my research this morning, I never determined what Elizabeth does that she can afford to live here, though according to
land.vic.gov
she doesn't own the place so she must be renting. When I pass her mailbox I give a tug but it's locked, then I glance up hoping no one saw that. Above the drive a half-dozen east-facing balconies poke out like ashtrays, tiny and useless to the residents unless their hobby is standing still while outdoors. They are unpopulated, probably always are this time of year. At the security door I press the buzzer for flat three as rain starts to fall.

No voice comes to the intercom. I feel these raindrops wash away the confidence that brought me here. The bird life of Brunswick calls to itself, piercing chirrups like the motion detector in
Aliens
. I'm the bad joke the cockatoos are laughing at.

With my finger poised over the button again, I notice the security door isn't shut. Looking closer, it has a spring action that's supposed to close it and lock it but which has failed to do so: it rests gently
against its frame, waiting for some conscientious resident to finish the job.

So I forgo the buzzer-pushing and instead enter the small stairwell, return the door to its previous position and climb.

Level one has its predictable unit numbers: one and two. No doormats or decoration, just sad brickwork and the powerful scent of burnt toast. I rise another flight, talking down the butterflies, and here's a white timber door, a number three screwed into it. With a last shake of my hands I knock, gentle.

What I expect is a posse of animals to bark and claw in response. But there's no sound.

‘
Miz Cannon?
' I shout this at the door. ‘
My name is Timothy Wentworth. I'm here about your car.
'

Perhaps a sound now, can't be sure over the patter of rain against the landing windows.

‘
I'm slipping my card under your door.
'

The card says very little: Timothy Wentworth, Investigator, my mobile number. Standing at the print-out station in the Officeworks, I weighed up whether it should be ‘Investigator' or ‘Private Investigator'. ‘Private Investigator' made me feel like a TV show.

Another possible sound. Possibly a hand picking up the card. If so then she's looking out at me now through the peephole and I realise my face is anguished with my effort to listen. So I relax, try to look the way professional people look.

A metal click. The door opens enough to reveal that generous face, more oval than her licence picture, brandishing squarish eyeglasses in sepia frames. Through them she squints at me, blind with curiosity.

My lips dry up and I lick them.

‘Elizabeth Cannon?'

‘Yes?'

‘I've been engaged by the City of Moreland to investigate the incident involving your car last Monday night. May I speak with you?'

‘Yeah. Yes.' Her face decompresses, like she's relieved that this is what I've come to talk about. Flattened hair hangs ragged down to
her chest, drops of water on her brow and her plump cheeks: she was in the shower. The collar of a fluffy white robe is just visible in the door gap she's allowed. Heat rushes out, flavoursome. Tropical.

‘Um, but I already spoke to the police about it, like, a bunch of times.'

Her Aussie inflection makes it sound like a question.
A bunch of times?

‘That's why I'm here. I'm looking into how effectively the police service has done its job. We've had a number of disgruntled car owners claiming that thefts in the Brunswick area are not investigated as thoroughly as they should be.'

Now she shakes her head in an exaggerated denial.

‘Okay, but like…
I
never made a complaint like that.'

‘Yes, but if you don't mind answering a couple of questions…'

Maybe she thinks I'm too young and scrawny to be an investigator, but she doesn't say it, settles into having this conversation on a freezing concrete landing, hugs her robe, rubs a bare foot against the warmth of her calf and nods with a deeply felt eagerness to help.

‘You made an online report to say the vehicle was missing. That was lodged just after eight pm on Monday night, is that correct?'

‘Yes,' she says. ‘It was just, like, gone.'

‘What about the next morning?'

‘It was
back
.' She is thrilled with this turn in her story.

‘Where were you headed?'

‘Ummm…The dog shelter. Where I work sometimes?'

More inflections. So Australian it's almost embarrassing.

‘Is that your primary place of employment?'

‘Oh, I don't work there. I'm a volunteer.'

‘If I may ask you, Miz Cannon, where do you work?'

‘Call me Beth. I'm…I suppose I'm between jobs.'

The sides of her mouth pull into her cheeks, reveal a remarkable set of dimples. Then she giggles at herself.

‘Listen, I collect donations for the shelter? The Northern Lost Dogs' Home…'

She pushes the door fully open, jams it in place with her foot and
has to stretch to reach a cabinet by the door. I appraise the flat. Just two small bedrooms leading off the small living room, brightly lit and unashamedly girly: soft toys line the mantel and a movie poster of smiling happy people is framed on the wall above. To my right there's a kitchenette and a pile of dishes in the sink.

Beth straightens, holding a plastic cash box. At the top is a coin slot and on the side there's an official-looking sticker and a picture of a sad puppy.

‘You wouldn't be willing to make a small donation?' She smiles with a gruesome amount of hope.

I dig in my pocket for change, but she says, ‘The average contribution is around ten dollars.'

So I draw out my wallet, slip ten dollars into the box. ‘No problem. And there was damage to the car when you found it?'

‘Actually…' She grimaces, already apologising with her big eyes like adjacent blue planets. ‘Winter is the hardest time of year for our puppers. Their numbers increase but there's less reclaims and less adoptions. I wouldn't usually ask but…'

She must have seen the second ten-dollar bill in my wallet. I slide it into the box and she melts with appreciation.

‘Thank you
so
much. You should come by the shelter. The pups would like you.'

‘The damage to your car…'

‘Yeah, no,' she places the box back on the cabinet. ‘With the window broken and everything. It was really weird. Like…' She shakes her head, bugs out her eyes, lets her failure to finish her sentence indicate how creepy the events had been.

‘Were the police able to give you an explanation?'

‘No.' Full of empathy.

‘Does the car still run?'

‘Oh yeah.'

‘Which window was broken?'

‘The driver's side.'

‘Was there broken glass inside?'

‘Yes, all on the seat.'

‘So you think the window was smashed to gain access to the
vehicle, whereupon the thief drove the car while sitting in a puddle of broken glass?'

‘Um…I didn't…I don't know what I think.'

She cringes and I silently hate myself for my scepticism. It's obvious this girl wouldn't lodge a fraudulent report with Santa Claus let alone the police.

‘I'm just saying, it implies that the car was taken, returned, and
then
the damage was done to the window and the ignition.'

‘Why would anyone do that?'

‘To make it look like it was taken by force.'

‘But…why would anyone do
that
?'

‘Insurance, usually.'

‘I don't have insurance.'

‘I know. Which is why I thought I'd visit. It's an unusual case.'

‘Are you saying I stole my own car?'

‘
No
,' I laugh at the horror in her face. The neck of her robe tugs back to reveal an additional inch of shower-ravaged flesh. I try not to let her see me notice it. ‘Do you share this flat with anyone?'

‘No.'

‘Do you share the car?'

‘No.'

‘What about a boyfriend or girlfriend.'

She giggles. ‘Not at all.'

‘Does anyone else have a key to the vehicle?'

‘No, but…the man who used to own it…he might still have a key.'

‘What's his name?'

‘I mean, it's possible. But, like, why would he drive it and then smash it up?'

‘Maybe he wanted it to look like a real car theft.'

‘But I'm the one who has to pay for it.'

‘What's his name?'

‘I mean, why would he do that?'

‘So you wouldn't think of him as the one who took it. What's his name?'

‘Rudy. Rudy Alamein.'

I write this into my phone.

‘Rudy short for Rudolph?'

‘Rudyard, I think.'

‘Rudyard?' My incredulity has no effect on her. ‘How did you first make contact with him?'

‘He comes to the shelter sometimes. His cocker spaniel ran away, like, years ago. Maybe ten years ago? And he still goes around to all the shelters asking for him.'

‘Do you have an address?'

‘Not exactly, but he lives on Grand Street in Albert Park. By himself. In, like, the spookiest house you've ever seen.'

‘So he's a friend?'

‘Yeah.' She says it softly, as if distracted by fond memories of the arsehole who no doubt ripped her off. I've seen that Volvo.

‘You should keep your distance for the next few days.'

‘Oh.'

‘If he stole your car, there's every chance he'll try to get in touch. Don't take his calls, don't agree to meet. Believe me, in my work I've had experience with this. The worst thing a young woman in your situation can do is assume to know what he's capable of.'

It's bullshit—a measure to prevent her from tipping him off. But based on the evidence at hand, it's also not bullshit.

Unconsciously I take a step back. Doing that, I realise I'm leaving. There's nothing left for me here. After speaking with her for two minutes I'm confident she hasn't been tailing people or trashing her own property. But I have to concede, as I take one last breath of the sweet air emanating from within, that she is no longer the most boring query I've ever researched.

A big smile from her. Wholesome. Not remotely flirtatious.

‘I'm sorry. I wish I could have been more help.'

‘Just keep clear of this Rudy guy, all right?'

‘All right.'

‘Call me if you remember anything else.'

She picks up my pretend business card from the dining table, holds it up to show that she has it. My voicemail greeting doesn't include my real name. Or any name.

18

Cheryl Watersloe married Piers Alamein in 1984. Their wedding photo has them gawkish and washed-out but grinning in that lipsticked way. On the night of the ceremony they caught a plane to Vanuatu and honeymooned for a week, spent most of it indoors at the whim of Cyclone Hayley. They must have found something NSFW to do in there because nine months later Rudyard Christopher Alamein was born.

The totality of information I return on Rudy Alamein, after hours of searching, using every google dork I know, relates without exception to a killing that took place thirteen years ago. Also during a storm.

With the usual blast of heat in my face and a left hand funnelling fried goods into my mouth, I launched into a brick wall: Rudy Alamein had no online presence. Not any. It took hours to determine this. There was no social media profile linked back to him, no registration of a name change, not even an email address. The chips were finished, the tea brewed and drunk and dry at the bottom of my mug before I found this exchange on Facebook from seven years ago.

On
Ancestry.com
I picked up the names Piers and Cheryl Alamein, didn't need google dorks to search
them
. There was so much commentary on what happened that I resolved to read none of it, flipped off the banshee news sites and made for the eternal mother-lode of crimes and criminals, the all-singing all-dancing electronic database starring every Victorian who ever went to prison: the Adult Parole Board. It stores the sentencing remarks, the court transcript, the prosecution opening at plea, all the written submissions and all the statements-to-police, wrapped up in a bow and left somewhere vulnerable to a cross-site attack. Chalk it up as one more mark against my name when the party van knocks on the door.

The sentencing remarks are the wikiest.

The Alamein family was cashed up in the 1990s. Piers was a jeweller and he rented a workshop opposite the Galleria and the family moved into an Edwardian terrace in Albert Park. No more children popped out but they bought a puppy and Rudy attended a wealthy private school and the three of them returned to Vanuatu more than once to escape the Melbourne winter. It might sound like Disney-tier good times, but within this house of bliss was a fissure. The centre had collapsed.

The murder of Cheryl Alamein by her husband was the climax of animosity and reproach that had bottlenecked since the end of the marriage in 1997. He'd moved out, rented an apartment in South Yarra, saw his family often enough and no one could say that he and Cheryl weren't getting along. Nor could the Crown say that, prior to this separation, Cheryl had suffered so much as a Chinese burn at the hands of her husband.

Piers waived professional privilege and his lawyer gave evidence. She said the process was amicable, mercifully straightforward, that Cheryl and Piers seemed close. They suffered not from irreconcilable differences but a kind of holistic FOMO, had grown cross-eyed with boredom and pictured for themselves the life of singlehood and liberty wagged in their faces by television and billboards. Over the next two years the divorce was finalised and the parties began to work towards a property settlement; in the interim it was agreed that Piers would contribute a thousand dollars a week in child
maintenance and Rudy would spend every second weekend with him in South Yarra.