The Dry (31 page)

Aaron had suggested they head to the main street, hang around for a while, but Luke had shaken his head. “Sorry, mate, got somewhere to be.”

Ellie had said she was busy too. Doing what? Aaron wondered. If she was working, she would have said, wouldn't she? He forced himself not to wonder too hard what both his friends were doing without him.

Instead, for something to do, he fetched his fishing poles. He'd head to the river. Upstream, where the fish had been biting. Or, he thought suddenly, he could go to the rock tree, just in case Ellie was there. He debated. If she'd wanted to see him, she would have said. But she was so difficult to read. Maybe if they spent a bit more time together one-on-one, she'd realize he would be good for her. If he couldn't even make her see that, something was seriously wrong.

“You think I killed your daughter that day?” Falk said, looking down at Deacon. “You think I held her body underwater until she drowned, then lied to everyone, to my own dad, all these years?”

“I don't know what happened that day.”

“I think you do.”

“I loved her.”

“Since when,” Falk said, “has that ever stopped anybody from hurting someone?”

 

 

“Give me a bloody clue, then. On a scale of one to jail, how much shit have you stirred up?”

Raco was shouting down the phone. Falk realized he'd never really heard him angry before.

“None. Look, it's fine. Leave it,” Falk said. He was sitting in the police car a kilometer down the road from Deacon's place. He'd had eight missed calls on his phone from Raco.

“None?” Raco said. “You think I came down in the last shower, mate? You got a complaint against you. You think I can't guess exactly where you are? I'm just some thick country cop who hasn't got a clue?”

“What?” Falk said. “No. Raco, mate, of course not.” He was shaken up by his own lack of control. It felt wrong, like he was wearing a costume.

“You bugger off the minute the interview's over—I know you listened in, by the way—and I can hear in your voice you've been up to something with Deacon.
In a police car.
So it's not fine, is it? I'm still in charge round here last I checked, and if you've been harassing someone who's already complained, for God's sake, then we've one serious problem, mate.”

There was a long silence. Falk could imagine Raco pacing around the station, with Deborah and Barnes listening in. Falk took a few deep breaths. His heart was still pounding, but common sense was starting to return.

“We haven't got a problem,” Falk said. “I'm sorry. I snapped for a minute. If there's any fallout, I'll cop it, not you. Promise.”

The line was silent for so long Falk wasn't sure if Raco was still there.

“Listen, mate.” Raco's voice was lower. “I think all this might be getting too much for you. With your background here.”

Falk shook his head even though there was no one to see it. “No. I told you. It was a moment of madness. No harm done.” No further harm, anyway.

“Look, you've done everything that could have been asked of you. More,” Raco was saying. “We've gotten further than I ever would have alone. I absolutely know that, mate. But maybe it's time we called it a day. Call in Clyde. I blame myself for that. I should have done it ages ago. This isn't your responsibility. It never was.”

“Raco, mate—”

“And you're obsessed with Deacon and Dow. You're obsessed with pointing the finger at them. It's as if you need to get them for the Hadlers to make up for whatever happened to Ellie—”

“It's not about that! Dow's name was in Karen's handwriting!”

“I know, but there's no other evidence! They've got an alibi. Both of them now.” Raco sighed down the phone. “Deacon's phone call at the time of the Hadler shootings looks like it's legit. Barnes is getting the phone records now, but the girl from the pharmacy has backed him up. She remembers it happening.”

“Shit.” Falk ran a hand over his head. “Why didn't she mention it before?”

“She was never asked.”

There was a pause.

“Deacon didn't do it,” Raco said. “He didn't kill the Hadlers. You need to open your eyes, and fast. You're staring so hard at the past that it's blinding you.”

32

Falk felt the tension in his shoulders finally start to lift around the time Gretchen poured the third glass of red. A weight that had pressed on his chest for so long that he'd almost stopped noticing at last began to ease. He could feel muscles in his neck loosen. He took a mouthful of wine and enjoyed the sensation as his cluttered head gave way to a more pleasant type of fog.

The kitchen was now dark, the remains of dinner cleared from the table. A lamb stew. Her own, she'd said. Animal, not recipe. They'd washed the dishes together, her hands deep in suds, his wrapped around a tea towel. Working together in tandem, and reveling self-consciously in the domesticity.

Eventually, they'd moved through to the living room where he'd sunk, satiated, into a deep old couch, glass in hand. He'd watched her move around the room slowly, turning on low lights on side tables, creating a deep golden glow. She hit an invisible switch, and discreet jazz filled the room. Something mellow and indistinct. The maroon curtains were open, flapping in the night breeze. Outside the windows the land was still.

Earlier, Gretchen had picked him up from the pub in her car.

“What happened to yours?” she'd asked.

He'd told her about the damage. She'd insisted on seeing it, and they'd walked to the parking lot where she'd gingerly lifted the tarpaulin. The car had been hosed down, but the inside was still destroyed. She'd been sympathetic, laughed gently as she rubbed his shoulder. She made it seem not as bad.

As they'd driven along the back roads, Gretchen told him Lachie was sleeping at the babysitter's overnight. No further explanation. In the moonlight her blond hair gleamed.

Now she joined him on the couch. Same couch, at the other end. A distance he would have to breach. He always found that bit difficult. Reading the signs. Judging it just right. Too early and it caused offense; too late, the same. She smiled. Maybe he wouldn't find it too difficult tonight, he thought.

“You're still managing to resist the call of Melbourne, then,” she said. She took a sip. The wine was the same color as her lips.

“Some days it's easier than others,” Falk said. He smiled back. He could feel a warmth bloom in his chest, his belly. Lower.

“Any sign of wrapping things up?”

“Honestly, it's hard to say,” he said, vague. He didn't want to talk about the case. She nodded, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence. The blue notes of the jazz were swallowed up by the heat.

“Hey,” she said. “I've got something to show you.”

She twisted around, reaching up to the bookshelves behind the couch. The movement brought her close, exposing a flash of smooth torso. Gretchen flopped back, holding two photo albums. Big books with thick covers. She opened the first page of one, then discarded it, putting it off to the side. She opened the other. Scooted closer to Falk.

The distance breached. Already. He hadn't even finished his glass.

“I found this the other day,” she said.

He glanced at it. He could feel her bare arm on his. It reminded him of the day he'd seen her again for the first time. Outside the funeral. No. He didn't want to think about that now. Not about the Hadlers. Not about Luke.

Falk looked down as she opened the album. It had three or four photos to a sticky page, covered with a plastic sheet. The first few pictures showed Gretchen as a small child, the images bright with the hallmark red and yellow tones of a chemist's developing room. She flipped through.

“Where is—ah. Here. See,” she said, tilting the page toward him and pointing. Falk leaned in. It was him. And her. A picture he'd never seen before. Thirty years ago, him bare-legged in gray shorts, her wearing a too-large school dress. They were side by side amid a small group of uniformed kids. The others were all smiling, but both he and Gretchen were squinting suspiciously at the camera. Childhood blonds—hers golden, his white. Posed under duress at the instruction of the person behind the camera, Falk guessed, judging by his mutinous expression.

“First day of school, I think.” Gretchen looked sideways and raised an eyebrow. “So. It would appear that, in fact, you and I were friends before anyone else.”

He laughed and leaned in a little as she ran a finger over the image from the past. She looked up at him, in the present, red lips parting in a smile over white teeth, and then they were kissing. His arm around her back pulled her in closer, and her mouth was hot on his, his nose against her cheek, his other hand in her hair. Her chest was soft on his, and he was keenly conscious of her denim skirt pressed against his thighs.

They broke away, an awkward laugh, a deep breath. Her eyes were almost navy in the low light. He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, then she was moving in again, closer, kissing him, the scent of her shampoo and the taste of red wine in every breath.

He didn't hear the cell phone ring. Only when she stopped moving did he register anything outside of the two of them. He tried to ignore it, but she held a finger to his lips. He kissed it.

“Shh.” She giggled. “Is that yours or—? No, it's mine. Sorry.”

“Leave it,” he said, but she was already moving, pushing herself up out of the couch, away from him.

“I can't, I'm sorry. It might be the babysitter.” She smiled, a little witchy smile that made his skin tingle where she'd been. He could still feel her. She looked at the screen. “It is. I'll be back. Make yourself comfortable.”

She actually winked. A playful, ironic nod to what was to come. He grinned as she left the room. “Hi, Andrea. Everything OK?” he heard her say.

He blew out his cheeks, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. Shook his head, took a slug of wine, sat up straighter on the couch. Waking up a little, but not too much, trying not to break the spell, anticipating her return.

Gretchen's voice was a low murmur in the other room. He leaned his head back on the couch, listening to the indistinct sounds. He could hear the cadence, up and down, soothing. Yes, the thought popped into his head unbidden. Maybe he could almost get used to this. Not in Kiewarra, but somewhere else. Somewhere grassy and open, where it rained. He knew how to handle the wide open spaces. Melbourne and his real life seemed five hours and a million miles away. The city might have got under his skin, but for the first time he wondered what was hidden in his core.

He shifted on the couch, and his hand brushed against the cool covers of the photo albums. In the other room, Gretchen's voice was a dull murmur. No urgency in her tone, she was patient, explaining something. Falk pulled the album into his lap, opening it halfheartedly, blinking away the heaviness from the wine.

He was looking for the photo of the two of them but realized immediately he'd picked up the wrong album. Instead of the early childhood snaps on the first page, Gretchen was older in this one, nineteen or twenty maybe. Falk started to close the cover, then stopped. He looked at the pictures with interest. He'd never really seen her at that age. He'd seen younger and now older. Nothing in between. Gretchen was still looking a little suspiciously at the camera, but the reluctance to pose was gone. The skirt was shorter and the expression less coy.

He turned the page and felt a jolt as he came face-to-face with Gretchen and Luke, frozen in time in a glossy color print. Both in their early twenties, intimate and laughing, heads close, smiles matching. What had she said?

We dated for a year or two. Nothing serious. It fell apart, of course.

A string of similar pictures spanned two double pages. Days out, holidays by the beach, a Christmas party. Then all of a sudden, they stopped. As Luke's face was changing from a twentysomething bloke to a man nearing thirty. About the age Luke had met Karen, he disappeared from Gretchen's album. That was OK, Falk told himself. That was fine. That made sense.

He flicked through the remaining pages as Gretchen's muffled voice floated through from the other room. He was about to close the book when his hand stilled.

On the very last page, under the yellowing plastic protector, was a photo of Luke Hadler. He was looking down, away from the camera, with a serene smile on his face. The picture was cropped close, but he appeared to be in a hospital room, perched on the edge of a bed. In his arms, he held a newborn baby.

The tiny pink face, dark hair, and chubby wrist peeked out from the folds of a blue blanket in his arms. Luke held the child comfortably, closely. Paternally.

Billy, Falk thought automatically. He'd seen a thousand similar photos at the Hadlers' place. The name hit a dud note the moment it landed. Falk leaned in, over Gretchen's photo album, rubbing his eyes, wide awake now. The picture was not a good one, taken in a dim room with a heavy flash. But the focus was sharp. Falk shoved the album under the tableside lamp, the mood lighting revealing the image more clearly. Nestled in the blue blanket, circling the baby's fat wrist was a white plastic bracelet. The child's name was written on it in neat capital letters.

Lachlan Schoner.

33

In the black windows, Falk could see his reflection warp and shift. Gretchen's voice drifted down the hall. It sounded suddenly different to his ears. He grabbed the other album and flicked through. Photos showed Gretchen alone, Gretchen with her mother, on a night out in Sydney with her older sister.

No Luke. Until—he nearly missed it. He turned back a page. It was another bad photo, hardly worth including in an album. Taken at some community event. Gretchen was in the background of the action. Standing next to her was Karen Hadler. And standing next to Karen was Luke.