Blood Tears (58 page)

I had a wonderful and
relaxing week with Marianne, her husband, and children in the city.
I especially enjoyed driving the Sarge’s little car around, feeling
like a millionaire. It was a chance to put all the horribleness of
the past month behind me, and to start looking forward to the
future. Whatever that would turn out to be.

But when that break was
over, as I drove closer to Little Town, I grew increasingly nervous
about seeing the Sarge again after what had happened between us on
New Year’s Eve.

I needn’t have worried
though, because he was as friendly and casual as usual, though
evidently pleased to see me. However, he did give the Beemer a
careful ten-minute check over before giving it the all-clear.

“
Lucky for you,” he said, smiling.

“
I’m
really sorry I stole your car. Will you let me drive it again?
Soon?”

“
Maybe. We’ll see,” was all he’d say. “Give me the keys.” I
reluctantly dropped them in his open palm.

“
Come
with me,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

I grabbed my bag from
the car and followed him inside the house. I threw my bag in my
room on the way to his office. He pulled out a sack and handed it
to me.

“
What’s this?” I asked, puzzled.

“
Open
it,” he smiled.

I opened it to see a
stack of mail inside. “I don’t understand.”

“
It’s
people writing to you.”

“
Writing to
me
? What on earth for?”

“
That
article in the paper after your father died reported you’d lost
everything in that fire. It was repeated in a few national papers.
I think people were touched by that.”

“
Oh,
man. This is really unexpected.”

I took the sack into
his lounge room and pulled out a letter at random. I opened the
envelope and unfolded the piece of paper. A twenty-dollar note
floated out to the floor. I quickly scanned the accompanying
letter.

“
This
is insane. This lovely person, who I don’t even know, has sent me a
donation,” I said in amazement, handing the letter over to him to
read. I picked up the money and looked at it. “I can’t take
this.”

“
You’ve read what they said – they appreciate the job that
police do. They want to do their part to thank you, and they want
to help you.”

I spent the rest of the
day reading every single letter, opening every single parcel. Yeah,
there were some unpleasant troll letters, but after the first one I
read, the Sarge insisted on scanning all of the mail first. Any
other troll ones he came across, he screwed them up and threw them
away, not letting me read them.

At one point, he
laughed. “This one wants you to marry him.”

“
What?” I snatched the letter out of his hand and read. “Oh .
. . Did he send a photo?”

“
You’re not marrying him,” he smiled, whacking the back of my
head with the envelope.

“
Not
straight away,” I smiled. “Obviously, we’ll date for a while
first.”

He slowly shook his
head. “Just keep reading, Fuller, or we’ll be here all night.”

By the end of the sack,
there was a tidy pile of cash and another of cheques.

“
I
really don’t feel comfortable about this,” I said, contemplating
them. “Should I donate the money? Maybe to a police
charity.”

“
Best
to check with the Super,” he advised.

“
It’s
yours,” she told me by phone.

“
But
ma’am, I can’t take people’s money. It’s not right. It’s not like
I’m starving or anything.”

“
That’s because I feed you ten times a day,” interjected the
Sarge.

“
Shut
up,” I told him, then a hasty, “No, not you, ma’am. I was talking
to the Sarge.” She spoke for a moment and I looked at the Sarge.
“She tells you to shut up too.”

“
I
suppose I better shut up then,” he muttered.

The Super said,
“Tessie, it’s not like you were begging people for money, or even
gave permission for that photo and article to be printed. And you
did genuinely lose everything you owned, so I don’t have a problem
with you keeping the money. I’ll send you an email to confirm that.
But you should write some nice thank you notes to those who
provided return addresses.”

“
Even
to the guy who wanted me to marry him?”

“
Forget him. Although . . . did he send a photo?”

“
Unfortunately not.”

“
Never mind. Enjoy your windfall.”

I felt almost rich, but
decided I’d only use the money to buy furniture and other things I
needed to set up a new house. It wouldn’t be fair to the people who
sent it to me to do otherwise.

Later that night, we
were enjoying an after-dinner glass of wine, and I mused over the
letters.

“
I
can’t believe people would be so nice to me, a complete stranger to
them. Some of them even said they didn’t have much money
themselves, but still wanted to help me.” I swallowed hard, feeling
a little emotional. “I’m so touched by that.”

“
Not
everyone in the world is a Bycraft, Tessie. There are lots of
decent people out there.”

“
I
know. I’m sitting right next to one.”

“
Yeah, yeah. I know. Mr Nice Guy.”

“
Nothing wrong with that.”

“
Tessie, something I wanted to ask, but didn’t want to bring
it up too early. I’m really hoping you sold that painting that Len
Whittaker gave you.”

The expression on my
face must have told him everything. It had still been stored at the
back of my cupboard where I’d hidden it out of embarrassment.

“
What
a shame,” he said. “That would have been worth good money for
you.”

“
I
couldn’t have sold it anyway. I wouldn’t want someone looking at me
half-naked.”

He smiled. “It wasn’t
really
you
half-naked. It was just his impression of you
half-naked.”

“
That
was bad enough. It was accurate enough.”

“
I
would have bought it from you.”

I frowned at him.
“Why?”

“
For
its future value, of course. Why else?” he said
innocently.

“
Sure.” I stood, ready for bed. “And here I was thinking you
were a nice guy.”

*****

Despite seemingly being
back the way we were, the memory of us kissing kept popping into my
head occasionally, making me feel awkward around him at times. I
decided the best thing to do was to move out. So one weekend, when
he was on-call and I was free, I walked around to Miss G’s old
house, and with a heavy heart started cleaning it up.

I regretted that most
of the furniture had been sold, because I had none. I didn’t have
very much money to buy any, and now had an entire house to
furnish.

“
What
were you up to today?” the Sarge asked when I returned at night. He
was in the kitchen preparing dinner.

I sat at the kitchen
table and he poured me a glass of wine. “Cleaning up Miss G’s place
so I can move in.”

He turned so I couldn’t
see his face. “You don’t like living here?” he asked in a neutral
voice.

“
Sarge, um, Finn, I can’t sponge off you forever. I have to
move on in my life, and as I have a house sitting there, I suppose
I should make use of it.”

“
There’s no furniture there though, is there?”

“
Not
much. Just a few bits and pieces left behind that I suppose nobody
wanted.”

“
What
are you going to do?”

“
I
don’t know. Dad’s funeral costs wiped me out completely. I have the
money people sent me, but that won’t furnish the whole house. I
guess next payday, I’ll catch the bus to Big Town and get Ronnie to
help me visit the charity stores to see what cheap furniture I can
find. It doesn’t have to be fancy – I’m not fussy.”

“
You
know what you should do?”

“
No.”

“
You
should do that house up. It’s a nice old house, a real diamond in
the rough. It looks as though it has a sound structure. Houses used
to be very well built then. You could have somewhere beautiful to
live.”

I laughed. “Do it up
with what? I barely have enough to pay the rates on it.”

“
Did
you father leave you the land your house was on?”

“
I
don’t know. I suppose so. I haven’t looked into it yet. I haven’t
been able to face it.”

“
You
could sell that land, and use the money to set yourself up in your
new house.”

His words struck me. “I
didn’t really think of that before, but I own a house,” I said in
wonder.

“
There’s a lot you can do yourself in renovations to save
money. I’ll be glad to help you as well.”

“
Thanks, Finn. That’s so nice of you.”

“
I
need a hobby anyway. I have way too much spare time on my hands
these days and not much to do with it. This will be a great
challenge.” His blue eyes were filled with sincerity. “It might
take a while, but until it’s ready, I hope you’ll still consider
this to be your home.”

And I wondered afresh
about how I got so lucky to have someone like him in my life.

Epilogue

The sight of the burnt
out shell of the police station and lockup were a daily reminder to
us of what had happened that awful night. One day, I went down to
the ruins of the station and poked around in the ashes. Triumphant,
I returned to the police house where the Sarge was on his
computer.

I held out my hands,
excited. “Look what I found.”

He picked up one of the
pieces. “I sent you that. I remember it.”

“
I
know. Some of the crystal ones survived. I can’t believe it. Isn’t
it amazing how something so beautiful can survive an ordeal like
that?”

His eyes rested on me.
“It’s quite amazing.” He stood. “Let’s give them a wash.” He wiped
a smudge of ash from my cheek, looked at my dirty hands, and
smiled. “We better give you a wash too.”

*****

It’s difficult
conducting our policing activities from the Sarge’s lounge room.
We’d been promised a demountable building as an interim station,
and had resigned ourselves to wait forever for it to arrive. That
was if it was even possible for the semi required to carry it to
negotiate the steep incline of the Coastal Range. So we slummed it
in his house for now.

But then the Super rang
one day to tell us that the construction of a new police station
for us had now become a high priority and would be fast tracked. I
was going to ask her why, but then decided I didn’t care, I was
just glad we would eventually have a sparkling new station.

The schoolhouse and
teachers’ residence are being reconstructed, and are expected to be
ready in time for the start of the school year at the end of
January. If not, Abe’s offered his function room as an interim
classroom.

The shopping district
is slowly being rebuilt as the insurance money trickles in to the
shopkeepers. The local Council is offering some small grants to
help the shopkeepers get back on their feet again.

My house remains as it
was the night it burnt down. I can’t bring myself to go visit it
again, even though there may be personal items I can salvage from
the ashes. Maybe one day soon.

*****

Early in the New Year,
Jake rang me from up north to let me know he’d been successful in
procuring a job at the new jail, even earning himself a small
promotion in the process.

I was genuinely pleased
for him, hoping that he could find a happy and fulfilling life away
up there from his family – maybe even find someone who would make
divorcing Chantelle enticing for him. From what he hinted, I
gathered that his family was less happy about his move, a major
source of income moving out of their reach. That made me even
happier.

We promised to keep in
touch, and we both meant it.

*****

I lost contact with
Annabel as she was swallowed up by the system. Every attempt I made
at tracking her down was stonewalled with claims that providing any
information about her would be breaching her privacy. I think about
her now and then, and hope that she’s been able to forge a
successful life for her and Jamie.

*****

Dave’s heroics and hard
work on the Night of the Fires, as it’s now being referred to
around town, has made more than a few people regret their previous
unkind behaviour towards him. Nobody’s exactly asking him to dinner
yet, but people now say hello to him in the street, and Gretel told
me that she would put him back on the roster to speak to the school
kids about farming when the new school year starts.

It’s baby steps at this
stage, but it’s a beginning.

*****

Mr X and Zelda were
able to trace most of the distinctive items that Merrick had added
to his personal treasure collection to burglaries that had been
reported to police. Added to those charges were ones relating to
maintaining a sexual relationship with a minor, as it was
established that the photos of Annabel and the other teen were
taken when both were under sixteen. A stash of equally vulgar
photos was found during a search of his house, as well as a
treasure trove of stolen items.