Limbo (6 page)

Joy shook her head. ‘No.’

He gave her a look that left Joy in no doubt she should consider it. ‘And what about non-prescription drugs?’

The loud thunk as Dash’s chair legs hit the floor was a perfect accompaniment to the sudden spike of rage that punctured Joy’s civility. ‘I
don’t
do drugs,’ she hissed.

Dash leaned forward. ‘That’s
enough,
Barry.’

Barry looked from Joy to Dash then back to Joy as if he was weighing up his options. ‘You have any idea how many whack jobs walk through the front door here every day confessing to doing stuff and seeing stuff that,’ he lowered his voice, ‘isn’t actually real?’ He glanced at Dash. ‘I’m not asking any questions that you wouldn’t have asked if this fantastical ghost story had crossed your desk.’

Dash leaned in closer. ‘Do you think I would waste your time by bringing you some smacked-out junkie with questionable mental health?’

‘Well I don’t know, Dash. I gave up wondering what you were thinking quite a few years ago.’

Dash leaned all the way forward. ‘
I’m
telling you, she’s legit.’

Joy figured there was a lot more going on in here than her ghost story, as the atmosphere bristled with unfinished business. Clearly their affectionate greeting of each other only went skin deep. But whether Dash was vouching for her or not she needed
Baz
to know one thing.

‘I
don’t
do drugs,’ she repeated.

That shit just fucked up people’s lives — Joy had seen that first hand.

Barry put up his hands in a placatory manner and Dash sat back. He looked at Joy. ‘So you didn’t just…make this up for the money?’

Joy frowned. ‘What money?’

‘The two hundred and fifty thousand dollar reward.’

Holy fuck!
Joy blanched. She looked at Dash then back at her interrogator. ‘There’s a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar reward?’

‘You didn’t know about that?’ Baz asked, with just the right inflection in his voice that left her in no doubt he didn’t believe her.

She shook her head.
Jesus Christ
. ‘No.’

‘You need the money, Joy? Are you in some kind of…’ he looked at her hot pink fringe as if it was beaded with swastikas, ‘…trouble?’

‘I swear to God, Baz,’ Dash growled, ‘you’re pushing —’

‘I don’t care about the money,’ Joy said, cutting Dash off, pissed off at the assumptions being made in this shitty, boxy little room. ‘I don’t want the damn money. Hailey asked for my help. That’s the
only
reason I’m here.’

‘Oh?’ he said with faux innocence that set Joy’s teeth on edge. ‘So…you don’t need the money?’

Joy glared at him. She owed money to friends in the US left, right and centre. She’d borrowed money from her parents and from Pete and all her credit cards were maxed. She was living in a shitty bedsit in a shitty part of the Basin.

She needed money in the worst kind of way.

But not like this.

Joy held his gaze. ‘I don’t need
that
kind of money.’

Barry gave a casual shrug. One that told her he wasn’t buying her story but he was prepared to let it go because they were all friends here.

‘Okay, fine,’ he smiled. ‘So…you saw Hailey Richardson last night…let’s just go with that for a moment.’

‘Gee thanks,’ she muttered. ‘Your belief in me makes me dizzy,
Baz
.’

He placed his hands on the table. ‘Why’d you wait until today to come to us?’

‘Well, it was kinda late and Hailey said her daughter wasn’t in any danger and…I wanted to get some…’ she glanced at Dash, ‘…legal advice first.’

Barry looked at Dash and laughed. ‘
He’s
your legal advice? Oh honey, next time use the Yellow Pages.’ He laughed again, obviously thinking it was hysterically funny. Joy and Dash waited in stony silence for him to stop.

‘Okay,’ Barry said when he’d pulled himself together. ‘So what else did
Hailey
have to say? Did she say where she’d been for the last six months? Did she tell you
who
abducted her?
Why
they abducted her?
How
they abducted her?
How
she ended up hundreds of kilometres away? Who
killed
her?’

Joy looked down at her hands. ‘No. It wasn’t about that. It was about Isabella. She was…frantic…worried…’

‘But you just said that Hailey said her daughter wasn’t in any danger.’

Joy shrugged. ‘She did say that. But she still wanted Isabella back with her father.’

‘Okay, Joy,’ Barry grudgingly opened his notebook again. ‘Why don’t you take me through the whole…incident.’

For a moment Joy thought Barry was going to say
psychotic episode
but he didn’t so she obliged him, wondering if Baz suddenly taking notes again was a positive thing. It didn’t take her very long to get through the events of the previous night and Barry raised an eyebrow as she fell silent.

‘That’s it? No clues as to where
they
were keeping her?’

Joy shrugged. ‘Just the sign with the grapes of wrath. She didn’t seem to know much. I think I probably could have found out some more but somebody came in the room and —’

‘Whoa,’ Barry interrupted. ‘Who came in?’

‘Gary. He’s the new janitor.’

‘And did
he
see Hailey?’

Joy shook her head. ‘No, she was gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Vanished. When he came into the room she disappeared.’

‘And she didn’t come back again after?’

‘No.’

Barry tapped his pen on the table. ‘Well that sounds like a pretty useless ghost sighting, don’t you think? If she was that worried about her daughter you’d think she’d have given you more information, more clues. Come back after Gary had left and filled you in some more.’

‘I guess,’ Joy murmured. ‘I really don’t know how this works. Maybe they only get one shot?’

‘I thought ghosts are supposed to be all seeing and all knowing?’

‘I think that’s just in books,’ Joy shrugged.

‘Do you know Hailey Richardson?’

Joy frowned. ‘No.’

‘What about Martin? Her husband?’

‘No.’

‘And where were you on the day Hailey disappeared?’

Joy had steeled herself for this question, the one Dash had warned her about. But it was still shocking when it came. As far as she knew she’d never been a suspect in any crime.

A miracle considering the shit that her ex had pulled.

Joy glanced at Dash. ‘I was in the US on tour with a band I was playing with at the time.’

Barry made a note. ‘We’ll check out your passport.’

‘Sure. Or you can just check out the gig videos on YouTube. They’re all electronically dated.’

‘Does this band have a name?’

‘Fire In The Hole.’

He made a note as he said the name out loud in an American accent. ‘Would I know any of their stuff?’

Joy gave his middle-class ass a quick once over. ‘Are you into hillbilly country punk rock?’

‘Nope.’

‘Well in that case I doubt it.’

He laughed. Actually, guffawed was probably a better description. Barry laughed like a cartoon character. ‘So,’ he said after he’d stopped laughing, ‘do you think you could get her back?’

Joy frowned. ‘What do you mean, get her back?’

‘Do you think you can get
Hailey
…’ he made quotation marks in the air, ‘….to come back?’

Joy quirked an eyebrow. ‘Ah…I see. You need me to prove it to you?’

He shrugged. ‘Worth a shot, don’t you think?’

‘What? You want me to go back to the funeral home and just kind of wait around near her body and see if she comes back to me again?’

‘That’s one option. Or I could go and get some of her clothing from the evidence locker and you can see if you get some kind of a vibe off that?’

Dash stood this time, the metal legs of the chair scraping harshly across the hard flooring. ‘Oh for
fuck’s
sake, Baz. She’s not a bloodhound.’

Barry didn’t seem too perturbed by Dash’s outburst. He just sat there looking at Joy. ‘What do you reckon?’

Joy shook her head, conscious of Dash pacing the length and breadth of the small room in her peripheral vision, his face full of thunder. ‘That’s not the way it works.’

‘So…you
do
know how it works?’

‘No. I told you, I’m not
psychic
,’ she said, not even bothering to hide her exasperation. ‘I sometimes see ghosts —
one
of them has talked to me, that’s
it
. I don’t get
vibes
off things.’

‘Is Rasmussen watching this?’

Joy looked over to where Dash was standing with his back to them, his hands on his hips, staring into the two-way window. Baz stared at Dash’s back for long moments without answer.

Joy took that as a yes.

Dash spun around then and glared at his old partner. ‘If you’ve finished questioning slash insulting Joy’s intelligence, I think we’ll be on our way.’

The two men locked gazes and the room crackled. The silence built to a point where Joy just wished they’d pull out their dicks and get it over with.

Barry broke eye contact first, returning his attention to Joy. He stood and held out his hand, smiling. ‘Thank you for coming down to the station to help us with our enquiries. Do let us know if you have any more of these…visions…’

Joy’s eye roll was so pronounced it practically called the senior police officer a tosser out loud. ‘They’re not
visions,
’ she murmured, standing and shaking his hand.

‘Yes, well…’ he nodded. ‘We will of course, investigate this information you’ve given to us today and throw it into the mix with everything else.’

Somehow Joy doubted it.

Barry dropped her hand. ‘Just don’t leave town, huh? We might need to get you to come in for a follow-up interview as the investigation progresses.’

Joy nodded. She was done with travelling anyway, plus she was completely skint. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Good. This way,’ he said, indicating the door.

Joy was grateful to be out of the room as she exited with Dash hot on her heels. He hadn’t exactly been a ray of sunshine in there but she was glad to have had him as a buffer. She had the feeling too long in that room by herself and she’d have confessed to being the Unabomber, Jack the Ripper and the dingo that took Azaria Chamberlain.

It was just that kind of room.

Like a confessional. Without any absolution.

A uniformed police officer accompanied them through the building. In case they decided to steal the china on the way out, Joy supposed.

‘He doesn’t believe me, does he?’ she murmured as they headed for the lift.

‘Nope,’ Dash said, nodding to several of the cops at their desks as he had on the way in.

‘And they’re not going to follow this up, are they?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘But they will be investigating me.’

‘Count on it.’

Excellent. The next time a dead woman asked for help she was going to politely decline. Or get a script for lithium.

Maybe even a new job.

The thought was depressing. Joy
liked
what she did. It gave her a certain satisfaction to send the deceased off looking their best and there was nothing more rewarding then receiving a card thanking her for making a loved one look peaceful and just as they’d been in life. Maybe it was a morbid outlook that came from growing up in a funeral home, but she felt that rituals surrounding the dead and death were just as important as those indulged in during life.

Her parents had taught her to respect that.

It was certainly preferable to doing make-up at some salon or shopping-centre counter on very much alive women busting her ass trying to sell crap they didn’t need while politely discussing their first world problems.

The best part about her job was the
lack
of inane conversation. Dead people didn’t talk.

Well, until yesterday anyway.

‘You’re going to break that thing,’ she said to Dash, who was repeatedly stabbing his finger at the lift’s down button. It was getting on her last nerve. He couldn’t be as desperate as she was to get the hell out of here.

Thankfully the lift chose that moment to ding and the doors opened. Joy stepped in. The uniformed police officer followed, as did Dash, but a booming voice yelling, ‘Dent!’ across the open-plan setting stopped him in his tracks.

Joy blinked as the voice cracked like a whip through the confines of the lift. Dash’s arm shot out, preventing the doors from closing on his ribs.

A large man approached — although lumbered was a better description. He was well over six foot high with a gut fast approaching the same in girth. He had pronounced eyebrows, squinty eyes, a face like a smashed plate and very large hands.

Fighter’s hands.

‘Who’s that?’ she whispered.

‘Detective Inspector Rasmussen,’ he grimaced. ‘Go on ahead,’ he added as he stepped out of the lift. ‘Wait for me outside.’

Joy wasn’t sure it was safe to leave Dash — or anyone for that matter — with this man. Sure, Dash could look after himself but Rasmussen looked plain mean. She didn’t argue though, and she was pleased when the doors closed and shut out Rasmussen’s ever-nearing face. As the lift descended her relief knew no bounds that Rasmussen hadn’t shown his face earlier. She had the feeling if he’d interrogated her she’d have probably confessed to every unsolved crime they had on their books.

***

Dash waited for his old boss to haul his significant ass over to the lifts — fucked if he’d meet him half way. Rasmussen thought he was bulletproof but Dash knew he’d screw up one day and that he’d be there when it happened.

‘You P.I. to the dead now, Dent?’ he taunted moments later. ‘How the mighty have fallen.’

‘Now, now Bill. You know what they say about people in glass houses.’

Rasmussen grinned the way a menacing dog bared his teeth. ‘Nice piece of ass. Divorced life’s treating you well, I see, although she’s a little young for you, isn’t she? You fucking her?’

Dash ignored the deliberate attempt to needle him, preferring to take the high ground. The high ground had always confused Bill Rasmussen, who was a scrapper from way back — there was only the low ground for him. Unfortunately he was a very powerful, well-connected scrapper.