Only the Dead
Dedicated to my grandmother,
Ray McKitterick —
one of Sean’s first and finest friends
.
M
ONDAY
, 30 J
ANUARY
, 6.00
A.M.
S
unrise and a nil body count: maybe they’d dodged a bad ending.
The officer leaned the rifle against the doorframe and stepped outside to the porch. A seam of orange traced the eastern horizon; the west in stark two-tone where a jigsaw edge of rooflines met pale sky. He pulled the door behind him and squeaked across tired boards to the front yard. Summer, but firearm concealment necessitated heavy clothing. A sweater hid a Glock 17 and a full backup clip.
West Auckland, a cul-de-sac south of Swanson Road. Single-level weatherboard shoulder to shoulder behind gap-toothed timber fencing. A light breeze, a chittered birdsong overture.
He moved out to the kerb and checked the road. A Toyota crewcab pickup sat a hundred and fifty metres west, a gold Nissan Maxima one-fifty east. A scatter of lit windows in an otherwise dark backdrop.
He walked east, towards the Nissan. He was fresh to this line of work. His first protection detail, his first shot at clearing a street. He was the subordinate half of a two-man team: guard duty for some shitbag armed robber turned police informant. This morning’s briefing: keep the casualty tally at zero, and don’t attract attention.
Fifty metres out from the Nissan. The sunrise backlit the interior: he could see a shape at the wheel, immobile, shawled by dark. He made an idle survey. All alone in those young hours. A ragged queue of wheelie bins clogged the kerb. He fingered the Glock. Thirty metres out. No mistaking it: there was a guy in the driver’s seat of the Maxima. Potential threat, or dawn commuter? Maybe nothing at all. Maybe paranoia had a lot to answer for. He kept going. Turning back would be a giveaway. All he could do was continue past and loop back later.
Twenty metres from the Nissan, and he heard the Toyota’s engine start, two hundred and eighty metres away, back along the street. He turned and saw the waft of exhaust, a faint stain high on that pale morning. The truck paused there at the kerb, then crawled towards him, eastbound, smoke at its heels.
He watched it for a second. It moved slowly, lights off. That alone felt wrong. Realisation hit with a dose of gut-chill: he hadn’t heard the driver get in.
Don’t attract attention
.
Panic quashed the order. He drew the gun. A backwards glance at the Nissan, and then he was at full sprint towards the house, head pounding with the rush.
The truck didn’t hurry. The officer made it to the porch by the time the Toyota swung in off the street and mounted the kerb into the yard. He snatched a glimpse across his shoulder — two guys hunched side by side, open windows, a shotgun peeping above the passenger wing mirror.
He took brief aim and fired. The Glock’s mechanism jammed. He tripped and scrambled for the door, hands and knees, heard the roar as the passenger’s first round hit him: the shotgun, one barrel, a half-load of buckshot to the shoulder blade. The impact tossed him prone and sent the gun skittering.
He gasped and made a one-arm stretch for safety. The truck
lurched short against its brake. Doors slamming as the two guys jumped clear, the noise amplified and terrifying. The door of the house opened before he reached it, the second officer framed in the open space. A pause, and then the passenger triggered his second round. Woodwork exploded, mute beneath the blast. Blood spray fanned wide. The second officer collapsed back inside, over the threshold. The first officer made a lunge for the entry and got an arm around the rifle propped against the frame. An awkward one-hand grip, a desperate twist, a squeeze of the trigger.
The round went high and left. It hit the windscreen of the Toyota. Crack scribbles splayed wide. The guys from the truck were metres away: he saw dark denim, balaclavas, a shotgun apiece. The driver’s weapon butt to shoulder: a second’s glimpse of those twin black barrels, and then the flash.
One hundred and fifty metres east, the man in the Nissan started his engine and began a slow approach. An Ithaca 10-gauge shotgun stood propped in the passenger footwell, a fresh box of shells agape and aromatic on the seat beside him.
Birdsong silent now, sparrows long since flown. Cordite stench, random flits of yellow as windows lit in random sequence. Gunshots keeping the curious indoors. The Nissan driver watched the men from the Toyota enter the house, the dead policemen in crimson repose on the threshold. More gunshots: assault rifle chatter, a deadened crash of another shotgun round.
The Nissan reached the house. The driver ripped the brake and climbed out, gun in hand. He wore a tan leather jacket zipped chin-high, ski goggles over a black balaclava. He entered the yard: tidy frontage turned scarlet homicide tableau. Spent shells here and there: bright twisted husks of plastic smoking faintly. He stooped and gathered them, collected the dropped
Glock and freed the jammed round. He checked his watch. Time elapsed: two minutes since first shot fired. The Toyota’s rough diesel idle lonely in the brutal quiet.
He jogged back to the Nissan and slid in, cut a hard U-turn to get the car facing back east. People were watching now. Curtains twitching, panicked calls being placed. He dropped his window to pick up siren noise, reached across and popped the rear door. The shotgun was across his knees, the dead cop’s Glock on the seat adjacent.
Another minute. He kept his eyes with his watch, split seconds accruing at breakneck pace. The two guys exited the house: full sprint, it’s all go, police response imminent. They jumped in, shaky and breathless with the post-murder rush. A light blood mist flecked their jackets. Across the street, a woman risked a glance above a kitchen windowsill. The driver saw her. He made a gun from a gloved hand and finger-shot her as they pulled away.
M
ONDAY
, 13 F
EBRUARY
, 11.58
A.M.
T
ennis and iced water. He could think of worse ways to start the week.
John Hale sat in a deckchair beneath an umbrella and watched a heated backyard match unfold: prospective client Alan Rowe versus a woman Hale thought might be a girlfriend. The girlfriend could play. Rowe couldn’t. He wasn’t happy about it — hence the ‘heated’.
The water was purportedly Evian, but he didn’t know about the ice. Hale took a sip and watched another point. Rowe countered crisp groundstrokes with awkward lobs. He scrambled for a shot down the left tramline and swiped desperately. A big slow return peaked enticingly over centre court. The woman scuttled in under it and arched back. She threw up an index finger to track the drop and cracked a massive forehand smash. The ball skipped off the backline and lodged in the mesh of the rear fence with a chime like dropped keys.
Rowe swore on expelled breath. He wasn’t a tennis build. He wasn’t a tennis age, either. Five-six and stocky, pushing sixty. Midday heat and a sound thrashing had soaked his shirt see-through.
Rowe looked at her and hooked a grin. ‘Jesus, love.’
He got a teasing giggle back. ‘Don’t be such a fart.’
Hale said, ‘I hope you didn’t get me out here just to watch you get thumped.’
The jibe stung: Rowe dropped his racquet and kicked it tumbling. He walked over and plucked the trapped ball free. The fence clicked him with a jolt of static when he touched it. ‘You can toddle off home if you want,’ he said. ‘Otherwise suck it up and I might have some work for you.’
A retort formed, but Hale kept it tethered. It was a Remuera address, money and big trees aplenty. The fenced-off court paralleled a breeze-dimpled lap pool. A two-metre stone wall marked the boundary. The house was white, ’fifties vintage and two-storey, one corner overshadowed by a thick elm. A heavy suit-clad minder lurked hands in pockets behind French doors. Behind him, a massive flat screen TV reeled sports highlights. Remuera: old money, modern comforts.
The Evian was in a sweating pitcher on a low table beside Hale’s chair. The sun umbrella cast a big oval of shade. Rowe pocketed the freed ball and scuffed his way over. He levelled up a wide tumbler, killed three quarters of it in one hit, flicked the dregs in a deft slash across the court.
He said, ‘I know a couple of guys like you.’
‘Like me how?’
He put the glass down. His opponent was nailing fake serves to stay warm. He admired a few before replying. ‘Cops and ex-cops. I was told you were a good sort of guy to talk to.’
Hale smiled. ‘I feel like we’re kind of dodging the point here.’
Rowe thumbed a streak in the pitcher sweat. ‘She’s just about closed the set. Why don’t you give it a couple more minutes, then we can take this indoors maybe.’
‘Sooner rather than later would be great.’
‘You have another appointment?’
‘Not to hurry you along.’
Rowe shrugged. He looked across the court towards the pool. ‘There’re some people I’d like you to find.’
Progress. ‘What sort of people?’
‘You keep up with the news?’
Hale didn’t answer.
‘It’s tied up with this heist shit,’ Rowe said.
Heist shit: an ongoing armed robbery spate, dating back to October. The scorecard thus far: a bank hold-up that had left a teller dead and netted forty thousand dollars; an armoured van takedown that had profited another fifteen or twenty grand; a robbery of an amateur fight club premises — tiny takings, but seven people assaulted.
‘The police are still involved,’ Hale said. ‘You need to talk to them.’
‘That’s why I got in touch with you.’
‘I quit, though, so I’m not that useful.’
Rowe didn’t answer. He walked away and picked up his spurned racquet. He raised it face level and spread his hand across the strings, clicked them back into alignment with clawed fingertips. The woman swung through on another serve. A gleaming sweat sheen shook free in sprinkle form.
‘What’s your interest in it?’ Hale said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why do you want to find who’s responsible?’
‘Someone’s dead. Do you need a better excuse?’
‘This is an active police investigation. As much as they like me, they won’t want me treading on their toes.’
‘Can’t you work
with
them?’
‘That’s not really their policy.’
‘They can make exceptions.’
‘Not really. We play on different sides of the court, if you will.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Some of my practices are unique.’
‘I can live with that.’
‘The police can’t. And that’s speaking from experience.’
Rowe didn’t answer. He turned away and loaded a serve of his own. The build-up looked good. He hunched into a strangle on the racquet and rocked back and forth a couple of times, prepping the release. He tossed up the ball and swung through and skied it off the frame. The racquet hummed with the reverb: he raised it up and slammed it against the ground. The bounce carried it head-high.
‘Sweetie, you’ve got to toss it forward more.’
Rowe shushed her with a hand-flap. He looked at Hale.
‘I didn’t say you had to piggyback on their work. Either you’re interested, or you’re not.’
Hale smiled. He felt the carefully researched Alan Rowe back story becoming increasingly pertinent.
Hale said, ‘You’re a criminal defence lawyer.’
‘Was. Not for a while, though.’
‘Head Hunters gang had you on retainer for eight years.’
Rowe said nothing.
‘That was the rumour, anyway,’ Hale said.
‘Who’d you get that from?’
Hale shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. They’re not the sort of clients that endear you to law enforcement.’
‘I don’t think my past associations should be any of your business,’ Rowe said. ‘Alleged or otherwise.’
Hale reached over and topped up his water. Nice and slow, to keep the ice in the jug. ‘I’d just like to know why you want to find these people.’
‘Think of it as my gift to society.’
‘Gang lawyer turned Good Samaritan doesn’t really ring true.’
Rowe laughed. He folded his arms and propped his hip against the net post. He pulled one foot to tiptoe and crossed his legs. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I had you checked out, you seem okay.’
‘Well, good.’
‘But maybe you should just tell me exactly what it is you’re uncomfortable about, before we take this any further.’
‘All due respect, I don’t think we’re going to take this any further.’
‘Humour me.’
Hale downed his drink, cradled the empty glass in his lap. He said, ‘There’s good money out and about and unaccounted for. Either you’re after it because you’re dead keen to get it back to where it came from, or you’ve got some other angle going.’
‘Like Good Samaritan turned plain arsehole.’
‘I was thinking more criminal defence lawyer turned criminal.’
A heavy stare. Hale held it for a solid four-count. Rowe broke it first. ‘Maybe watch your mouth next time you go visiting,’ he said. He let a smile flicker. ‘You see the guy in there?’
Hale glanced towards the French doors. The man in the suit was still lurking.
‘Used to be a boxer. He fought pro for a while. Got invited to go up against Sugar Ray Leonard.’
‘What does he fight now? Other than prostate trouble?’
Rowe didn’t answer. He pushed off the post and walked away. The woman was spot-jogging near the far fence. Hale stood up and brushed creases out of his shirtfront.
‘Thank you for the offer, Mr Rowe, but I think I’m going to have to decline. If you’ve got any further details you’d like to give me, you’ve got my number.’
He let himself out via a gate in the fence. The French doors opened, and the minder stepped aside to let him pass.
