Blood Ties (23 page)

“I’m going to work now, guys. Have fun today,” I smiled, kissing Jake on the lips. “And don’t you work too hard, Dad.” I kissed him on the forehead and with a last wave, headed off to work.

Chapter 11

After parking the patrol car, I slipped around the back of the station to the lockup to feed and water my chooks. I had ten eggs, including the ones I’d set aside from the previous day and carried them carefully up to the police house. It was a relief to walk up the stairs without having to worry about Mr Sparkles’ lustful attention.

I knocked on the door and waited. The Sarge opened the door, surprised to see me again so soon, his hair still damp from his shower. He wasn’t in uniform, but wearing another expensive looking t-shirt and jeans.

“I brought you a house-warming present, Sarge,” I said, offering him the eggs. “Have you eaten many fresh-laid eggs?”

“Only the ones you’ve cooked for me,” he admitted.

“They’re so much tastier than the store-bought ones, aren’t they?”

He regarded me with his dark blue eyes. “Thanks Tess. That’s really nice of you, especially considering that I threatened to eat your chickens.”

“I knew you were just bluffing,” I lied.

“Was I? Are you sure? I do like chicken.”

“Yes,” I said, less certainly. “Anyway, I hope you enjoy them.”

“I’ll only take a couple. There’re too many for me. Take the rest of them home for your father.”

“Okay,” I agreed without arguing and pushed past him without being invited, leaving the five freshest eggs for him on the bench in the bare kitchen. With reprehensible nosiness, I looked in each room of the empty house as I departed, noting his sleeping bag on the floor of the main bedroom and his toiletries in the bathroom. “It’s so weird seeing the house without Des and Maureen’s furniture and all of her Jesus things everywhere. What time are the removalists coming?”

As I spoke we both heard the rumble of a big truck negotiating its way up the drive.

“Now?” he smiled briefly and headed out to supervise and direct.

I left him to it and went to open up the station. I usually tried to be in the office on Monday mornings to deal with things that had to be done in person, such as the few locals out on parole who had to report in on a weekly basis. Then there were people who needed various documents certified and the old-fashioned kind of folk who wanted to submit applications for things such as gun licences in person, either not trusting or not owning computers.

And then there was Young Kenny. I don’t know how old Young Kenny actually was, but his wrinkled face, almost toothless mouth and shock of white hair made him look positively prehistoric. His long-dead father had been known as Old Kenny so he had naturally been known as Young Kenny his entire life. He was the town’s only homeless person. He didn’t need to be homeless because his niece and her husband lived in a comfortable house on Pine Street, near Miss Greville, and were more than willing to accommodate him, but he chose to be homeless for whatever reason.

Every Monday he would come to the station and sit in the counter area for the morning until I closed up. I always made him a few cups of tea and gave him three plain sugared biscuits at morning tea time. I’d tried to give him different biscuits a few times, even some chocolate biscuits once, but he had left them on his plate untouched and shot me a reproachful glance when he shuffled away, making me feel bad for the rest of the week. So I always made sure I had his favourite kind on hand – Arnott’s Nice biscuits. I’d substituted home-brand sugared biscuits a few times when I was totally skint and he’d eaten them politely, but given me a sorrowful look as he left.

He never wanted anything and rarely spoke to me, but seemed content to sit on the bench for the morning, watching the comings and goings of the townsfolk. He never came any other day, but was there without fail every Monday. I didn’t mind and it was now at the point where I would have missed him and worried about him if he didn’t turn up one Monday morning. He was quiet and didn’t disturb anyone so there was no harm to him at all.

His only problem was that he was rather stinky. He didn’t seem to bathe much, being homeless, and was always wearing the same clothes – muddy brown pants shiny at the knees, a dirty green and white plaid shirt and a disreputable and filthy grey overcoat that he wore constantly, even during the worst heat of summer. I usually had to open all the doors and windows of the station to air it out after he’d been visiting for the morning. When I say that, I mean the windows that would actually open of course, which ruled out about half of them straight away.

I had barely opened the station door when Young Kenny came shuffling up the ramp, his odour preceding him.

“Morning, Young Kenny,” I said cheerfully. “It’s a lovely day today, isn’t it? Although I reckon it’s going to get real hot in an hour or so.”

He nodded at me, not making eye contact, and shuffled inside to settle himself comfortably on the wooden bench seat. I went behind the counter, locking the hatch behind me, and into the back room where I filled up the kettle and flicked it on. While the water was boiling I fired up the ancient computer sitting on the Sarge’s desk, knowing that it would take at least fifteen minutes to load. At least his still worked though – mine had given up the ghost a while ago. I didn’t know anyone who could fix it and we had no budget to buy a new one for me.

I’d have to do something humiliating like go to the primary school or the Council and ask if they had any old ones they were getting rid of that they could donate. The two computers we were currently blessed with had come from the prison, courtesy of Jake. They had been used by the prisoners for study and recreation but had been replaced with brand new shiny computers. Jake had saved them from the scrapheap for me to use, and no, the irony of that whole situation was not lost on me.

The kettle announced it was finished boiling the water with a loud ting so I made Young Kenny and me a cup of tea each and thought about what task I should start with this morning. The mountain of paperwork on my desk was an obvious choice, but I rejected it. That was a job that needed a good quiet day to sort through, and I’d never had such a day the whole time I’d been working in Little Town.

I splashed milk into the mugs, jiggled and discarded the tea bags and carried Young Kenny’s tea out for him. I had bought him his own mug after Des had refused to drink out of any of the mugs that Young Kenny had used, complaining that he could taste Young Kenny in his tea afterwards. So the next time I was in Big Town I managed to find a brown mug that had
Kenny
written on it in gold letters. The glorious toothless smile that Young Kenny had given me when he saw it made me glad that I’d gone to the trouble.

This was the first cup of tea that I made him, but I also made him another one around ten-thirty or so when I gave him the biscuits. I put the mug on the counter and left it there for him, returning back to the computer. Still loading. Sighing, I rifled through the papers and was about to make a reluctant start on at least sorting them into action piles, when the counter bell rang.

Saved by the bell
, I thought gratefully and went out to find one of my regular reportees patiently waiting.

“Morning, Dave,” I said.

“Morning, Officer Tess,” he said, as I reached under the counter to pull out the tattered ancient attendance book. I turned to the current page and wrote the date, time and Dave’s name down and turned it around for him to sign.

“Been behaving yourself since last week?”

“Yes, Officer Tess. I had a real quiet week. Mum’s been a bit crook.”

“Aw, that’s no good. What’s the matter with her?”

“Just her angina playing up on her again.”

I signed the book as well and jotted down a brief comment about his behaviour during the week. Of course I didn’t take his word for it that he’d been behaving, but I hadn’t heard anything to the contrary, and the townsfolk did tend to keep their eye on the parolees and the ones on probation like Dave. Someone would have told me if he’d done anything out of the ordinary. Not that Dave ever did.

He was a quiet strawberry farmer who lived with his elderly mother on a property down south near the mental health clinic. He’d been caught one afternoon by a parent with his pants down and his wanger out in the park next to the primary school. I’d immediately taken him into custody due to the seriousness of the situation and for his own safety, considering the mob of angry parents gathered who would have happily lynched him on the spot, given half the chance.

He was clearly drunk and in a tearful interview I had with him back at the station, told me that he’d been drinking in The Flying Pigs all afternoon because it was his birthday. He was walking across the park to go to his friend’s place where he was planning on crashing for the evening, when he’d been struck by a sudden need to pee. He had just finished his business behind a tree when he’d been tackled to the ground by the vigilant mother who’d spotted his wanger from one hundred metres away.

I believed him because you couldn’t fake the level of mortification he was showing at people thinking he was some kind of kiddie pervert. He’d been charged with indecent exposure and had gone to court in Big Town, dying a thousand deaths when the local news team showed up to film his poor elderly mother entering the courthouse on the day of his hearing. Obviously the judge had believed his story too, taking into account his guilty plea and his spotless record and the testimonials from some of the leading citizens in Little Town, including Abe. He’d slapped a twelve-month probation period on Dave, with the requirement that he report in to the local police every week. Dave hadn’t missed a week and would be finished his probation in a few months. Unfortunately though, his reputation might never recover.

“Okay then, Dave. We’re all done here today. Give your mother my best wishes and I hope she’s feeling better soon.”

“Thanks, Officer Tess. And give my regards to your dad. See you next week. Bye, Young Kenny.” Young Kenny nodded farewell.

I replaced the attendance book under the counter. People like Dave made my life easy. I wished there were more like him, but unfortunately the other three current reportees we had were all on parole and were all Bycrafts. They were much more casual about turning up, even though it had a detrimental effect on them if they didn’t. In fact, I was meant to go arrest them if they failed to show. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d had to ring them or go to their houses to remind them to attend. Of course none of them ever thanked me for my effort and I really don’t know why I bothered. It was probably some deep-seated need to somehow make them a better family for Jake’s sake.

I went back to the computer. It was still loading. Bloody hell! At this rate it would be midnight before I could start writing my reports on Martin and Miss G. The phone rang. It was a wrong number, the person on the other end hurriedly hanging up when I helpfully told them they’d reached the Mount Big Town police station. By some quirk of fate we had the same phone number, except for two transposed digits, as an illegal brothel in Big Town. We were forever receiving phone calls for them and it really freaked people out to ring a brothel and reach a police station instead. I guess the reverse applied as well and they probably received a few of our phone calls too.

I looked around me again and gave a huge sigh. There was nothing for it – I was going to have to tackle the paperwork. The bell went again, but just then the log in screen for the computer came up.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” I yelled out unprofessionally and took the time to log into the computer. That authentication process always took a good five minutes and I wanted to be ready to start working when I’d sorted out my new customer.

I went out to find Rick Bycraft and Dorrie Lebutt. She was sitting on the counter, legs spread wide; he was standing between them and she had her legs wrapped around him. They had their tongues down each other’s throats and he was dry-humping her, his hand up her top. They were oblivious to Young Kenny who was watching them with wide-eyed interest.

“Yuck! Save it for the bedroom, you two,” I said in disgust. “And get your butt off my counter, now.”

They reluctantly separated and Dorrie sullenly slid off the counter, regarding me with cold, hard eyes. We’d been good friends at school once but then she’d started sleeping with Denny Bycraft and had changed before my eyes, buying into the Bycraft hatred of me and shunning me. After a while, she became one of my biggest tormenters herself. Since then she’d hung around the fringes of the Bycraft clan, sleeping with all the Bycraft men she could, including my Jake and even Red, her own sister Sharnee’s boyfriend. She’d even had a kid with him a couple of years ago, which understandably had strained the relationship between the two sisters for a while.

Rick was one of my reportees, out on parole for armed robbery. He and his cousin Greg had held up a 7-Eleven in Big Town after a massive drinking session one afternoon, armed with a crowbar and a shifting spanner. They were arrested immediately, Rick stupidly and drunkenly crashing his car into a low brick fence a mere hundred metres away trying to escape. Their grand haul was five family-size fruit and nut chocolate bars, two packets of salt and vinegar chips and the princely sum of $146.75. It had cost Rick six times as much as that to repair his car. All of us cops had laughed our arses off about that for weeks afterwards.