Fatal Impact (30 page)

53

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nya curled her fingers around the empty capsule. Jocelyn placed her hand on her chest and protested.

‘Do you seriously think we stole something? Here, go crazy.’ She raised her arms to shoulder level. ‘It’ll be the first time I’ve been touched by a man in years.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Frisk away.’ A female security guard joined them.

The male guard appeared embarrassed. ‘Just doing our jobs, ma’am. No offence intended. It’s standard procedure.’

‘I bet you don’t body-search Christian Moss when he comes to visit,’ Jocelyn complained as her bra line, waist, legs and trousers were patted.

‘Mum, please.’ Anya coughed and covered her mouth. ‘They’re following procedure.’

‘Your bag, ma’am?’ the male guard said. Her mother offered him a used tissue and a piece of chewing gum that might have been a few months old before handing over the bags. The female guard moved to Anya.

Heart pounding, she held up her arms, fists closed. She had no idea what the penalty would be for theft of a top-secret capsule. The doors were metres away.

‘Can you show me your hands, ma’am?’

Anya’s heart sank. Someone had seen her take the capsule. She slowly opened her fingers.

‘Thanks, have a good day.’

They collected their bags and headed outside.

When they were at the car, Jocelyn asked. ‘What did you do? You looked guilty from the moment we got in the lift.’

Anya pulled the capsule out from under her tongue.

‘Was it that obvious?’

‘To me.’ Jocelyn grinned widely. ‘Why else do you think I performed like a crazy woman?’ She peeled open a piece of chewing gum, popped it in her own mouth and held out its wrapper. Anya placed the empty evidence inside.

On the drive back home, she explained about the chromatograph and what she and Oliver had discovered.

‘I thought poor Len was in denial when he defended Millard. Even I thought Patsy could have .
. .’
She rubbed her eye. ‘Why didn’t he tell me what the books contained?’

‘He has to have believed he was protecting you. You were the person he cared for most and trusted, enough to make you his beneficiary.’

The drive to her mother’s house took less than fifteen minutes.

Once in the driveway, they saw a white Land Cruiser parked outside the house.

‘That’s Craig Dengate’s car.’ Jocelyn fiddled with the top button of her shirt. ‘I guess the lawyer already sent a copy of Len’s will to his family.’

Anya stopped about thirty metres back and Craig climbed out of the vehicle. He was smaller in build than his brother but still imposing as he stormed towards them.

‘Mum, lock your door and don’t get out.’

Craig yanked at the car handle. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ He thumped on the window with a closed fist.

Jocelyn flinched.

‘You crazy bitch!’ He punched at the glass again. ‘Do you know what you’ve done?’

Anya restarted the engine, placed the gearshift into reverse and swung the car around. Dengate was kicking the car with his leather boots as she accelerated forward.

‘He’s taken the news pretty well, don’t you think?’ Jocelyn tried to joke, but she was clearly shaken.

Anya headed straight for the Longford police station. Dengate was quickly in her wake. The Land Cruiser pulled alongside them.

‘I think he’s going to ram us,’ Jocelyn warned.

Anya saw his left hand go to the top of the steering wheel. She took her foot off the accelerator and slammed the brake. The Land Cruiser swung in front of them, up onto the shoulder of the road, barely missing a fencepost. Anya managed to avoid a collision and pressed back on the accelerator. They were minutes from the police station.

Dengate manoeuvred away from the fence and continued to chase them.

‘Mum, call the police, now. Tell them he’s after us.’

She dialled as Anya kept watch in the rear-vision and side mirrors. They were fast approaching a semi-trailer up ahead. Dengate was gaining. She had seconds to make a decision. A van came into view heading towards them from the opposite direction.

Anya held her breath and blasted her horn, in the hope the semi-trailer would decelerate so she could overtake and warn the van.

‘Don’t!’ her mother shouted.

The truck hit its brakes and Anya saw their only chance. She pulled around it and pushed on the pedal with all her strength, still pressing on the horn.

The oncoming van had slowed enough for her to fishtail through the narrow opening, back onto her side of the road.

Dengate hadn’t been able to follow her. A stream of cars followed the van she had narrowly avoided. Dengate was suddenly blocked from overtaking.

It gave her a moment to breathe. Even so, she sped to Longford police station, cutting corners until the hire car slammed to a halt outside, in front of a patrol car.

McGinley lumbered out of the driver’s side, followed by Simon Hammond. ‘What the–’

Jocelyn and Anya sprinted towards the police.

‘Craig Dengate’s trying to kill us.’

McGinley sighed. ‘Now I’m sure–’

Dengate’s car almost slid around the corner and mounted the kerb, barely missing a telegraph pole. The driver appeared, a rifle in his hands.

‘Boys, I don’t have a problem with you.’ Craig Dengate’s chest heaved. He spoke with an eerie calm. ‘This is between me and the doctor.’

‘Mother of God,’ McGinley appealed. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

Anya saw Simon Hammond motion with his head to get Jocelyn inside. She grabbed her mother’s shoulders and took a slow step towards the building.

‘Stop! I swear to God I’ll shoot you bitches.’

Kerbside, Hammond lowered to his haunches, gun drawn. From there, he moved around the back of the car, to get a clear shot at Craig.

Out of the corner of her eye, Anya saw Rhonda, the female constable, come around the side of the building. So did Craig. He fired into the ground. ‘Nobody move.’

‘Okay.’ McGinley’s shirt was saturated with perspiration across the neck and underarms. ‘We don’t want anyone to get hurt. So far, no one’s in any trouble. Let’s keep it that way.’

‘Declares you, the moron puppet! Do you think anyone takes you seriously? You’re the town bloody joke.’ Craig began to sniff and wiped his nose on the crook of his left elbow, eyes still darting around the scene.

One hand next to his holster, the other outstretched, McGinley eased forward.

Craig raised the weapon in his direction. ‘You still don’t get it. It’s already too late. Len pissed off some very powerful people.’

The sergeant took another step.

‘Stay back or I swear .
. .’

Jocelyn broke free of Anya, making herself the prime target. ‘Wait. Len loved you. He knew you were a good man.’

It caught Craig’s attention. ‘You. You tricked the stupid bastard into leaving you the farm.’

‘That’s not true.’ Jocelyn’s arms were in front of her, palms outwards. She spoke gently but firmly. ‘I didn’t know until the will was found.’

‘That’s bullshit. You should have just stayed out of it. Because of you .
. .’
He almost spat the words. ‘I’m a dead man.’

McGinley said, ‘Craig. Nothing can’t be fixed. Just put down the gun and we can talk. You’ve got us all twitching here with trigger fingers. For God’s sake, put the rifle down.’

A woman with a wheeled shopping bag crossed the road. Simon waved her back from behind the car. She saw the rifle and hurried away.

‘I didn’t even know about the will. I promise you,’ Jocelyn pleaded.

‘Len was so damn stubborn.’ Craig began to cry. ‘He didn’t get that he had to sell. His business was over anyway. I tried to talk sense into him.’

‘Did you see him that night?’ Jocelyn’s voice rasped. ‘To make him see sense.’

‘He kept mocking me. Saying I didn’t have the guts . . . I never meant it to go off. It happened so fast–’

The realisation hit like a blow to the chest. Craig had killed his own brother. By admitting it, Craig had nothing left to lose. Jocelyn moved to lunge forward and Anya grabbed her.

Simon was in place, poised to shoot.

‘Think of your wife, your kids,’ McGinley tried. ‘They’ll understand it was an accident. Just put the gun down.’ He reached his arm forward again.

‘Stop there,’ Craig yelled. ‘Everyone get back.’

For a tense few moments no one moved.

Craig let go with his left hand and lowered the shoulder of the gun.

Simon held his position.

McGinley took his hand off his holster and walked slowly towards Dengate.

Suddenly, Craig hoisted the barrel with his left hand.

Jocelyn pushed Anya aside and ran towards him.

Anya gave chase. She was almost in reach of her mother when Jocelyn screamed.

‘NO!’

Two shots fired, in quick succession.

54

J
ocelyn dropped to her knees, hands holding her chest. Craig Dengate lay on his back, right leg bleeding.

Simon Hammond took a look at the head wound and turned away for an instant.

There was no sign of life. Anya reached down and felt for a carotid pulse. Jocelyn shoved her aside and began cardiac massage. ‘Get an ambulance,’ she shouted.

Anya could see the efforts were futile. The head shot would have killed him instantly. Her mother was in denial.

Simon’s face pleaded with Anya, who shook her head. There was nothing anyone could do to save Craig. He had made sure of that when he pulled the trigger on himself. Whoever shot him in the leg had caused peripheral damage, not hit a major vessel. Good luck or precision aim – it could have been either.

McGinley leant over Craig’s car door, face buried. A woman screamed, and a crowd began to gather. Oliver’s voice was in the background. ‘Get back!’

McGinley composed himself. ‘Get something to cordon off the street,’ he ordered.

Rhonda quickly returned with a woollen blanket and two emergency space blankets. Hammond drove the patrol car backwards to block the entrance to the street.

‘All weapons down,’ Oliver commanded. McGinley reholstered his, still in a daze. Oliver took a blanket and held it up, blocking the view from the other end. No one had dared breach the perimeter from the station side of the road. Oliver handed Rhonda his car keys and asked her to block the road at the other end, but leave enough room for the ambulance to get through. ‘I need the weapons of whoever discharged one.’

Jocelyn was panting, continuing the cardiac massage.

‘Someone stop the prick mongrels taking pictures! This guy has a family, for God’s sake!’ McGinley yelled, pulses in his temples and neck throbbing.

‘What the hell happened? Who was he?’ Oliver demanded.

Simon returned and took the holster off his back containing the weapon he had fired. ‘Craig Dengate. He came after the women. We tried to get him to put the gun down. Then he turned it on himself. I shot him in the leg. Guess I wasn’t quick enough to save him.’

Oliver took the gun.

‘For what it’s worth,’ Anya said, ‘the police did everything they could. I thought he was going to kill Mum.’

Jocelyn was vigorously pumping on the chest. ‘Come on, Craig. Stay with me.’

Anya knelt down next to her mother. ‘It’s too late, Mum. He’s gone. We have to declare the time of death.’

The ambulance arrived and the officers stared silently. Jocelyn sat back on her haunches and rocked, staring at the blood on her hands.

The forensic team would be hours at the scene. McGinley took on the responsibility of informing Craig’s wife, preferably before she could hear the news from any other source. The senior sergeant also had the unpleasant task of asking Craig’s widow if they could search the house for evidence that he had been involved in Len’s death. Anya was relieved that Oliver Parke volunteered to accompany him. It was the best chance they had of finding out why Craig had done what he had.

They had to wait for a team to arrive from Hobart for the internal investigation. For now, Rhonda manned the phones and repeated the order, ‘No comment,’ before hanging up.

Oliver would take statements from McGinley first, followed by Simon Hammond. It was the second time in days he had shot a civilian while on duty. Craig Dengate had threatened to shoot Anya and her mother. As far as she was concerned, Simon Hammond could have just saved her mother’s life as well as hers. Craig had killed himself or had intended to commit suicide by getting the police to shoot him.

Anya phoned the registrar at the hospital, who recommended
increasing Jocelyn’s cortisone dose under the circumstances. Her mother refused to go home and let it take effect. Instead, she asked Anya to help her in the bathroom. Once the door had closed behind them, Jocelyn pulled her daughter close.

‘There’s something I have to confess .
. .
I took something. From Len. I thought that’s why he was killed but the murderer didn’t find it. So I took it before the police and ambulance came.’

Anya tried to process what her mother was saying. ‘You took evidence from a homicide victim that could explain why he was killed? Do you hear what you’re saying?’

‘Yes. And I’m not proud, but it’s what Len wanted. It’s why he told me where it was. In case anything happened. No wonder Craig missed it. He hated Roswell.’

‘Mum. Stop. You’re not making sense. You took something to do with Len’s dog?’

‘No. What I took was a small USB device. It was inside Roswell’s collar.’

‘Where is it now?’

‘In my bag, inside a tampon box. I figured no one would look there.’

As crazy at that sounded, it was as reasonable a hiding place as any. ‘You have to hand it in. You can give it to Oliver and explain you weren’t well. You were hallucinating with the low cortisol and blood sugars, and you were in shock.’

She raised a hand. ‘I knew what I was doing when I took it. Before you hand it over, I want to know what’s on it.’

‘We can take you home and look, but then we have to hand it in.’

‘No.’ Jocelyn flat-out refused. ‘We can’t use your computer or mine. They could be monitored.’

Anya was not about to start an argument about whether or not they were being watched. After being followed from the prison, she had to admit it was a possibility. ‘Fine, then, but where can we check it?’

‘Where better than a safe place?’ Jocelyn said.

Anya realised her mother meant here. On one of the police computers. ‘You can’t be serious.’ She couldn’t believe her mother was even suggesting it.

‘Think about it. They’re all busy with the crime scene, the databases are firewalled, so they are less likely to be hacked. It’s the perfect place. No one would expect us to use them, even if they are watching us from outside.’

Perversely, her mother’s logic was convincing. ‘All right. But first, you’d better wash your hands.’

For the second time in days, Jocelyn’s hands were covered in Dengate blood. She began to scrub while Anya went to retrieve the USB without arousing suspicion.