Blood Feud (21 page)

He stumbled out of the bedroom as I stepped out of the bathroom, as bleary-eyed as I’d been. By the time he joined me in the kitchen for a quick breakfast, he was marginally more alert. I examined his nose while he munched on toast, relieved to hear there hadn’t been any further bleeding during the night. He had some good bruising developing, but as he insisted that he was fine, I dropped it.

We arrived at the station a minute before an armada of vehicles from Big Town poured through the gates, filling the station’s entire carpark.

“Tessie, make me a coffee,” the Super ordered as she stomped up the couple of stairs to the station, Bum right behind her. She’d brought with her the two dog handlers I’d met a few months ago and their German Shepherds, as well as a team of six male uniforms, headed by a very capable but virtually silent, senior sergeant, Bill Wynne. I didn’t think I’d heard him ever utter more than one sentence at a time.

Everyone piled into our back room, despite inadequate space and seating for so many big men.

The Super looked up and noticed the Sarge’s bruising. “Holy hairy nutsack! What the fuck happened to you? Bit of rough sex with an unwilling goat last night?”

“Of course not, ma’am,” he replied with irritated embarrassment, glaring at the others as snickers rippled around the room. “As I previously explained to you, we had an encounter with the man who’s possibly our murderer.”

Those sharp blue eyes shifted from him over to me as I bustled at the kitchenette dutifully piling spoonful after spoonful of instant coffee into a mug. “Who you let escape.” She paused a beat. “Again.”

Neither of us responded, sure she wouldn’t be sympathetic to any defence we mounted for ourselves.

“We got fuck all out of Greg Bycraft. He kept his mouth shut tighter than a clam’s clacker – the first time he’s ever shown any spark of power in that lump of gray jelly he calls a brain. Fucking lawyers and their
my client has nothing to say
bullshit! We should be allowed to shoot the lot of them. And now Pinky doesn’t think we have enough evidence to make a case against Bycraft, even if forensics come back confirming his fingerprints are everywhere.” She stared at us unblinkingly. “But I’m still not convinced that this . . . wild man, hobo, Yeti, whatever it is you keep letting escape, is our man.”

“But what about that graffiti, ma’am?” I asked, carefully carrying the steaming overfull mug to her. “He must have written it.”

She eyed me coldly. “Must he have? You’ll never make detective if you jump to conclusions like that.”

I couldn’t escape the feeling that she was finding my recent work performance somewhat less than stellar. I blushed as she took the mug from me.

“It’s a reasonable conclusion to come to, ma’am,” defended the Sarge. I shot him a grateful glance. “He was spotted running from the scene and the graffiti certainly hadn’t been there earlier in the day – which you know, because you were in that bedroom too.”

“Did I ask for your opinion, Maguire? I’m fully aware of how to come to a reasonable conclusion and it’s not by listening to you,” she snapped, blowing on the top of her coffee. She took a tiny sip and immediately pulled a face. “Jesus, how much coffee did you put in here?”

“Five tablespoons, ma’am. Just the way you like it.”

She set it down on my desk, slopping some darkest brown liquid over the side. It stained the glossy annual report from the Police Minister which had arrived in the mail the other week. Only the Sarge had bothered reading it.

“You know I like it strong, Tessie. Make me another and this time put some coffee in it. This tastes like I’m drinking angel’s piss. Make sure the spoonfuls are exactly that – full.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I murmured, even though the coffee was already almost sludgy enough to freely support a standing spoon. I quickly made her a fresh brew – strong enough to knock over a horse or two – and set out the coffee, tea, milk and sugar for everyone else to help themselves. I wasn’t offering to play tea lady, particularly as I was the only female uniform in the room and acutely attuned to the sexist views that lingered in certain pockets of the police force. But I did concede by making the Sarge a cup of tea, as it was something we often did for each other anyway.

After the general clamour for caffeine subsided, we settled down to a strategy discussion while we drank.

“Heads or tails? Red Bycraft or the Yeti first?” asked the Super, shuddering with disgusted enjoyment as she imbibed her foul brew. I could almost see the caffeine coursing through her body and she closed her eyes in intense pleasure, reaching for her handbag. She pulled out her cigarettes and lit one, inhaling with every bit as much enjoyment.

“Ma’am,” I protested, waving my arm around melodramatically to disperse the so-far non-existent smoke. Disapproval radiated from the Sarge as he abruptly stood and stalked to the nearest window to fling it, and its neighbours, wide open.

“Get over yourselves,” she offered mildly, blowing smoke upwards to the ceiling in that way that smokers think is being considerate.

“I thought you’d given up,” I said without thinking.

Those sharp blue eyes landed on me. “And why would you think that?”

Oh dear, what had I done
now?
“Um . . . because, you know . . . you’ve been so . . . lately you’ve been a little . . . you know,” I faltered to a stop before I sounded even more like Kevin.

“No,” she said in a dangerously quiet voice. “I don’t know. But do tell me. I’m all ears.”

My eyes darted back and forth, seeking some support from my colleagues, but they all studiously found other, obviously more pressing matters to which to give their attention, like their watches, their boots and their phones.

The Sarge jumped in, directing her attention from me to him. “I think we should search for the intruder first, ma’am. We know Bycraft is in town, but we don’t know anything about this other man. He should be our priority.”

She flicked ash on the floor as she considered him. She puffed hard for a quiet minute, stood up and crushed out her cigarette on that now-stained report from the Minister. Draining her mug of its soupy contents, she slammed it down onto my desk. “Okay. Get your arses moving off to Tessie’s place. That’s the freshest scent for this Yeti. Let’s go find ourselves a whacko, people. Tessie, you can come with Bum and me.”

Sitting in the back seat of her unmarked, and although she wasn’t especially approachable this morning, my curiosity got the best of me. “What’s with all the blokes this morning, ma’am?”

“The pampered princesses at my station don’t like getting up so fucking early,” she replied. Predictably, I immediately opened my mouth to protest. “Aw, don’t go all women’s lib on my arse, Tessie. Lighten up. It was a joke.” We drove out the gates. “It’s just how the rosters fell. You know I have three times as many men as women working in Wattling Bay. Just can’t seem to attract the female cops. Don’t know why, but they seem to want to stay in the city for some reason that eludes me.”

“Who can imagine why?” I pondered sarcastically, thinking about the excitement, the variety, the shopping, the cafes, the cinemas, the theatres, the nightclubs, the men. If it hadn’t been for Dad, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near a rural placement. I’d grown up in the country and frankly, I’d had enough of it.

We regrouped at the back of my place, the sun only starting to show signs of returning to the sky, red-tinged fingers reaching out from the horizon. The dogs had little trouble picking up the man’s scent as he’d been wearing no shoes and didn’t appear to have bathed for a good while (though strangely caring about his dental hygiene judging by his interest in toothpaste). Things seemed promising as the dogs headed off strongly into the rolling foothills of the mountain range. But as soon as we hit the edge of the densely foliaged bushland, the dogs both halted at the base of a smallish paperbark tree.

We all stood around it peering upwards to where surrounding paperbarks interlaced in a web of branches and leaves, vying for sunlight.

“Give them a chance to pick up the scent on the ground again,” the Super ordered.

The handlers led the dogs to areas past the tree, but to no avail. They continued to return to the base of that particular tree.

“What the fuck?” muttered the Super. “Now we have fucking Tarzan on our hands? Am I supposed to believe he’s scarpered up the tree and then swung on vines from tree to tree to evade detection?”

“He wouldn’t have to use vines, ma’am. He could just climb from branch to branch and from tree to tree,” noted Senior Sergeant Wynne. “The cover here is thick enough to allow him to travel some distance with a bit of luck and agility.”

“Just fucking brilliant,” she said, rubbing her temples and grimacing as if her head was pounding.

After a request from the handlers, she allowed the dogs to unsuccessfully sniff around the general vicinity for another fifteen minutes before giving up hope of finding the scent again and calling off the search. Our mystery man had seemingly disappeared up a tree into thin air. I wondered if we’d ever find him. I wondered again who on earth he was.

We conferred, standing in the brightening sunlight while we swatted away midges and mosquitos. The native grasses made one of the uniforms sneeze uncontrollably until he caught the Super’s baleful eye. After that he nearly gave himself an aneurysm trying to suppress his further sneezes.

“Right, I’m giving up on Tarzan. Fucking waste of our time. It’s probably one of the innumerable whackos that live around here. One who just happens to like climbing trees because there’s nothing else to do,” said the Super with contempt. “What we’re going to do now is split into two teams, each taking a dog. We’ll hit Lola Bycraft and Sharnee Lebutt at the same time. Tessie, you can come with me. We’ll do Lola. I know how much you love her. Maguire, you and Bum can go with Wynne and take the other team to Sharnee’s house.” The Sarge and Bum looked at each other with little enthusiasm. The Super glanced around at the fidgetting group. “Any questions? No, good. Let’s get moving and take those Bycraft fuckers by surprise. And if Red Bycraft isn’t being escorted back to Wattling Bay by lunchtime, I’m going to de-knob every one of you, including the dogs.”

No skin off my nose
, I thought cheerfully, checking my utility belt. I was a knob-free zone. The Sarge winked at me as I left and I gave him a wry smile in return. He was going to have a painfully excruciating time dealing with the fathomless depths of Bum’s idiocy. Still, better him than me.

We performed a quick car shuffle and the Super drove me to Lola’s house in her unmarked, followed by a patrol car with three uniforms in it and one of the dog vans. It was now six-thirty and the beautiful colours of the dawn had faded, replaced with sunlight that promised another warmish day. Inside Lola’s house all was quiet. It was a standard timber home with only three bedrooms and one bathroom, but sometimes there would be up to sixteen people temporarily living there.

We silently disembarked from the vehicles and wasted no time springing into action. The uniform with the battering ram headed the party and we jogged across the bare earth of Lola’s front yard, up the dilapidated timber steps. Huge peeling strips of ancient green paint hung from the front door.

The Super partnered me with Lok Wong, a gaunt young constable I didn’t know well and who didn’t look old enough to drive, let alone be entrusted with a gun. She sent us around to the rear of the house to guard the back door against any retreat. In doing this, she chose to keep the other two burly male uniforms with her, an act designed to immediately get up my nose. Lok seemed pretty ticked off about the snub as well.

So we cooled our heels out the back, resentfully missing out on the fun. The Super knew there was nothing I loved more than annoying Lola and from what we could hear inside, that was happening in bucketloads. All we heard were shouts, screams, random barking and boots thumping around on the timber floors louder than the entire Roman army mobilising. A crash of something fragile breaking caused us to tense, followed by angry, foul-mouthed yelling, most of it from the Super. Lok and I exchanged frustrated glances.

“No one’s coming out the back,” I decided. “If Red Bycraft was inside, he would have made a run for it by now. Let’s go in.”

“The Super said to stay here,” he squeaked, wide-eyed with terror at even the thought of disobeying her.

“You stay here. I’m going in.” And I didn’t give him a chance to argue, but held my Glock up in front of me and opened the back door, cautiously stepping inside.

The dog handler was arguing with the Super, their raised voices the first thing I heard. It didn’t take me long to locate them, standing eyeball to eyeball, watched silently by the two uniforms and also with sullen amusement by the ten or so Bycraft clan members present. The loathsome Lola was front and centre, a ciggie dangling from her bottom lip as usual.

“The dog’s rarely wrong, ma’am,” he said between gritted teeth.

“So
another
arsewipe, made of flesh and blood like the rest of us, has just disappeared into fucking thin air? Is that what you’re trying to sell me, Senior Sergeant? Because I’m not fucking buying it. One disappearing man I can scarcely swallow, but two? Is this town in the Bermuda Triangle or something?”

“I’m telling you, ma’am, the trail ends right here near the bathroom,” he insisted, digging his heels in stubbornly.

“This is bullshit,” she said to herself, turning away in disgust.

“Did you check the ceiling?” I suggested, waiting to be yelled at by both of them for stating the obvious.