Blood Ties (30 page)

“Sarge?”

“You’re blocking the path,” he whispered fiercely. I turned to see Lavinia Knowles, the largest lady I’d ever met in my life, trying to squeeze past me on the footpath. Her flesh spilled over her giant-sized black muu muu printed with silver suns, stars and moons, showing an impolite amount of cleavage, and as usual, she’d applied her face with a makeup cannon. She claimed to be a psychic, running a small ‘conferral centre’ above the coffee shop for the last three years. Everybody I knew had consulted her at some point, even Jake, but I had always resisted. I sure as hell didn’t want to know my future, being rather nervous about it. But the meaningful glances she always affected to throw me whenever she saw me turned me off as well.

“Teresa Fuller. Such a fascinatingly tragic life,” she purred, running her long black fingernails up and down my arm caressingly. I flinched at her touch. She noticed, smiling with a hint of maliciousness. “Don’t you want to know what your future is? I could tell you
so
much that you need to know.”

“No thanks, Lavinia,” I said, forcing a smile on my face, making a great effort to maintain my politeness. “I’m struggling to cope with the present, to be honest.”

“
Some
Fuller women would have appreciated the opportunity to receive advanced warning of their futures, don’t you think?”

It was all I could do not to slog her one at that thoughtless comment. I battled to contain my temper. My mother and my grandmother had been two of those Fuller women. Oblivious to my anger though, she pressed on.

“And who is this?” she asked, her lascivious eyes landing on the poor Sarge.

“This is Sergeant Maguire, Des’ replacement,” I explained icily, glad to have her eyes away from me.

“Dearie me,” she said, eyes widening with interest, smiling. “
Mm mm!
Thank the Lord for Des’ retirement on behalf of all the single girls in town.” The Sarge shuffled his feet, clearly uncomfortable with her intense attention. “You
are
free, aren’t you, Sergeant Maguire?
Please
say yes. I’m not seeing a wedding ring.”

“No, I’m not free actually,” he shot back with indecent haste. “I’m engaged.”

That took all of us by surprise.

“Are you really?” I blurted out in astonishment. He hadn’t mentioned anything about it so far.

He glanced at me. “Yes, I am.”

“Will your fiancee be joining you here in Little Town soon?” asked Lavinia, covering up her disappointment at that unwelcome news.

“I hope so,” he replied, with an expression suggesting that he wasn’t prepared to discuss his personal life one second longer with anyone.

I shouldn’t have been so surprised – he was a man in his early thirties, a time when a lot of people start thinking of settling down. But I pondered over his odd response as we kept strolling. It sounded as though he didn’t know whether or not his fiancee was going to join him but hoped that she would, and that struck me as strange. If Jake and I had been engaged and he had moved town for work reasons, I’d want to be with him without a doubt. I was dying to ask the Sarge a million questions about his fiancee, but that formidable look on his face warned me not to even try.

Knowing that I wouldn’t have any joy probing into his personal life, I turned my thoughts to the Greville problem instead as we walked. Could the suitcase full of money have anything to do with Miss G’s peeper? But what about Mrs Villiers’ peeper? Were they connected or did we have two men who liked to peep on older women on our hands in this town? And why hadn’t anyone reported such a big stash of money being lost or stolen? And how did it get into that hut? What did the Sarge mean about getting some money spent around the station? How was he able to say that with such confidence? Why wasn’t his fiancee joining him the second she could? And then I realised that I was thinking about her again.
Damn!

While he was being earbashed by the owner of the craft store, Gwen Singh, I cast my eye over the streetscape. The hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood up and I knew there were Bycrafts in the near vicinity. The young ones. It was a Tuesday morning – they should be at high school in Big Town. But instead, there they were, strutting down the middle of Gum Street in their skinny jeans, their horrible music blaring from their stolen iPods. Knowing them as I did, they were planning on a shoplifting extravaganza that morning. The sight of the Sarge and me made them pull up sharply, unhappy expressions crowding out the usual cocky, bored looks they sported. They stopped and huddled together, having a quick discussion before continuing on their way towards us. They’d decided they could handle the two of us.

“Sarge,” I warned, discreetly but firmly butting into Gwen’s monologue, “trouble heading our way.”

He turned to see the Bycraft posse coming towards us.

“Don’t react to them, Tess,” he ordered. “No matter what they say or do to you.”

Easy for him to say
, I thought sourly. He wasn’t the target of their constant hatred.

There were seven of them – Chad, Timmy, Kristy, Jade and Sean (all Jake’s younger cousins) and Larissa and Mikey (Jake’s younger siblings). And I know it’s tragic, but I’m the world’s expert on Bycrafts. Jake himself could barely remember the names of his numerous cousins or tell them apart, but I could without fail. I virtually had a doctorate in Bycraftology.

The teenagers all had that unmistakable Bycraft look – honey-brown skin, hair ranging from blonde to dark golden brown, eyes ranging from light yellow to dark yellow-brown. They were tall, beautiful and arrogant. They believed that they ruled the town and they were right.

The shop owners withdrew their friendly faces back into their shops to protect their merchandise from the plundering that the Bycraft juniors were planning. Like me, they’d learned from bitter experience about the Bycrafts, and while they respected my dedication, they had acknowledged a long time ago that one cop was no match for the whole immense Bycraft clan. Nobody in Little Town relied on me to stop petty pilfering in their shop. That cut me to the core.

The posse drew level with us and threw us hostile glances, standing with what I thought was some unsteadiness.

“Why aren’t you kids at school?” demanded the Sarge.

“It’s a holiday,” drawled Chad.

Jade sniggered. “Yeah, a Bycraft holiday.”

“Have you kids been drinking?” I asked them.

“None of your fucking business, piglet,” sneered Larissa.

The Sarge shot her a steely stare and turned to me. “Senior Constable, can you please ring the parents of these kids and let them know that they are truant.”

I nodded, pulled out my mobile and rang Lola Bycraft, smiling sweetly at the complaining teenagers. As soon as she heard my voice though, she hung up on me. I redialled but didn’t even get two words into my explanation of why I was ringing when she let loose a stream of invectiveness so loud that I had to hold the phone from my ear. Then she hung up on me again.

“One Bycraft mother clearly doesn’t care what her offspring are doing. Maybe I should ring Jakey instead?” I threatened. Jake gave Larissa and Mikey some pocket money every week to stay at school and finish twelfth grade. It was a very generous thing for him to do because he wasn’t all that well paid as a prison officer and had a huge bank loan on his ute to pay off, not that his brother and sister ever showed any gratitude. They would miss his cash though if he withdrew his offer.

“Fucking bitch,” said Mikey viciously.

The Sarge stepped up close to him, towering over him and poked him in the chest, leaning down to speak right in his face. “I don’t want to hear any of you talking to Senior Constable Fuller like that again. You’ll call her Senior Constable or Officer Fuller and nothing else. You’re going to start treating the police officers in this town with some respect. Understand?”

“Or what?” Mikey asked insolently, but took a telling step backwards. The Sarge stepped forward again.

“Or you’ll spend some time in the lockup.”

“You can’t lock up kids,” Larissa spat out. “We’ve got fucking rights.”

“Who’s going to stop me, girlie?” asked the Sarge in a nasty voice. He turned to me. “Senior Constable?”

“Certainly not me,” I said mildly, shaking my head.

“Anyone else in town?”

“Doubt it,” I responded, smiling. They’d probably applaud him, given half the chance.

While they stared at him in silent, sullen rage, I took that time to ring Jake. He picked up straight away.

“Hey, Tessie darling. Ringing to thank me again for last night, are you, babe?” I could hear the conceited smile in his voice.

I laughed. “No, I think I thanked you enough already, Mr Ego. But now that you mention it, when will I see you again?”

“Not for a while, unfortunately. I’m rostered on for the next two weekends. And before you complain, that’s so I can have the weekend after that off to take you to the city for your fun run.”

“I know, Jakey. Thank you. Look, I’d love to chat all day, but I did ring you for a reason.” And I looked over to his rebellious siblings. “The Sarge and I have Larissa and Mikey with us as I speak and five of your cousins too. They came wandering down Gum Street a few minutes ago.”

He swore and demanded that I pass the phone to one of them. I chose Larissa, because she was more articulate and sensible than Mikey, which to be honest wasn’t too difficult. My chickens were more articulate and sensible than Mikey and had greater brainpower as well.

“Hello Jakey,” Larissa wheedled sweetly. I could hear his angry voice in response from where I was standing. She rolled her eyes derisively at whatever Jake was saying to her.

“It’s sports day. It doesn’t fucking matter if Mikey and I are there or not.” She sulkily listened to his angry voice again. “Fuck off, Jakey! Like you never wagged school. You’re such a fucking hypocrite,” she said angrily and we all heard his voice becoming louder in fury. “You’re such fucking self-righteous prick now. You’ve been hanging around that bitch piglet too long.” She hung up on him, slipping my phone in her pocket.

“Give me my phone back now,” I said impatiently, holding my hand out.

She snatched it from her pocket and almost threw it at me in disdain. “Like I want to keep that ancient piece of shit anyway.”

“Okay,” said the Sarge, getting out his notebook. “I want your names. You first.” He pointed to Larissa.

“Lady Gaga,” she said with a smirk. The others sniggered.

“Larissa Bycraft, seventeen-years-old. She’s Jake’s sister,” I told him, ignoring her glare. He wrote it down and then pointed to Mikey.

“Harry Potter,” he said. They sniggered again.

I sighed wearily. “That’s Michael Bycraft, known as Mikey. Jake’s brother, fifteen-years-old.” He pointed again.

Before any of the rest of them could get a smartarse response in, I named Timothy (Timmy, fifteen), Kristy (fourteen), Sean (fourteen) and Jade (thirteen). “And that,” I said, pointing to Chad, “is Chadwick Bycraft, Jake’s cousin, sixteen-years-old.”

“Chad,” he insisted sullenly. It was my turn to smirk because I knew how much he hated being called by his full name. He cut me a look bursting with hatred. I was almost positive that he was the one who had stolen my little car and driven it into the quarry lake. In the normal scheme of things, it should be me who hated him, not the reverse.

“Right,” said the Sarge, finishing writing. “I suggest you kids either get yourselves off to school or get home straight away. I’ll be ringing your principal to report your truancy and visiting your mothers to remind them of their legal responsibility to send you to school.” He regarded them all coolly, one by one. “What I don’t want to see is any of you on the street again today. Now scram.”

They all stared back at him, none of them moving.

“You heard me.
Move it!
” he bellowed suddenly, making them (and me) jump in fright. And with insolent slowness they eventually slouched away, back in the direction from which they came. We stood and watched the entire way. They turned around a few times, but kept going, and there was not even one flipped finger in response from any of them. Progress!

When they had disappeared from view, I turned to him and couldn’t hide my approval. “Very impressive, Sarge.”

He flashed me his here-and-gone smile. “Always pleased to impress a lady.”

“I’m incredibly glad to hear that, Sergeant,” purred Lavinia, silently sliding up to him, further into his personal zone than he preferred. “I, for one, am
always
ready to be impressed by a handsome man.”

He was uneasy at her interest and not sure how to respond, so I immediately stepped up for him. “Lavinia, back off. The Sarge doesn’t want to impress any of us ladies here in town. He’s engaged, remember?”

“Such a pity,” she said, but stepped out of his personal space. “But maybe the Sergeant would like to share a cup of coffee with me upstairs in my lair and I’ll fill him in on the
psychic
atmosphere in the town. It’s
incredibly
important to be aware of that in a town full of
so
much tragedy and emotion.” She paused for an impolitely long moment, before throwing out indifferently with a shrug, “Oh, and you too, Teresa.”

“That’s a kind offer,” I said insincerely. She made the worst coffee I’d ever tasted in my life. “But we have to go visiting some Bycraft mothers to advise them of their children’s absence from school. Let’s go, Sarge.” And he followed after me to the patrol car, leaning back on the driver’s seat with a big sigh.