The Long Game

by Simon Rowell

  ‘Bobo, that’s enough,’ snapped Donna. The fluffy dog lay down and stared at them with contempt.

  ‘He sells drugs too, right?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘Drugs? Nah, doubt it.’

  Zoe’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the number. It wasn’t familiar, but she saw the location was Rosebud.

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ she said to Donna, before answering the call. ‘Mayer.’

  ‘Detective, it’s Terry Gunny from Rosebud. The guy who was doing a runner on you just before. We’ve got him in custody. Wrapped the car around a light pole. He’s on his way to Frankston Hospital as we speak.’

  ‘What’s his condition?’

  ‘Sounds like a fractured leg and collarbone. A slight concussion, but he’ll live. We’ll charge him with dangerous driving and evading the police, at the very least. Is he in the frame for the murder you are working?’

  ‘Maybe. We’ll interview him when he’s recovered enough. Can you make sure he’s kept under guard until then?’

  ‘No worries.’

  ‘Appreciate it, Terry.’ Zoe ended the call and looked up at Donna. ‘Your friend Joshua’s in the hospital with some broken bones. Smashed his car, I’m afraid. Fortunately no one else was hurt. Anything else you want to tell us before we go visit him?’

  Donna looked Zoe defiantly in the eye. ‘No.’

  A door opened behind them. A slim, tanned woman in her early twenties walked into the dining room, dressed only in a bath towel. She had high cheekbones, with blue eyes and full lips. Zoe immediately thought that she could be a model for a surf wear company. Her long blonde hair was only partially dry and she was carrying a hair brush. Behind her, Zoe could see that she had come out from a bedroom. She stopped, surprised, when she saw the two detectives staring at her.

  ‘Hello,’ said Zoe, ‘who are you?’

  ‘This is Yvette,’ said Donna, before the woman could speak. ‘She’s a friend of mine who is staying here.’

  Zoe noticed Yvette’s eyes narrow.

  ‘Yvette, we’re homicide detectives. We will need to speak with you in a few minutes. Can you leave us for the moment, though?’

  ‘Oui…Okay,’ said Yvette, blushing. She went back into the bedroom, and shut the door quietly behind her.

  ‘How long’s your friend been staying with you?’

  ‘A few weeks.’

  ‘Right,’ said Zoe. ‘We spoke to your sister this morning.’

  ‘Okay. And?’

  ‘What time did you say you got home on the morning that Ray was killed?’

  ‘Can’t really remember. About eleven-thirty, I think. I wasn’t really paying attention.’

  ‘And how long do you reckon it takes to get from Rosebud back to here?’

  ‘About twenty minutes or so. Why?’

  ‘Because Brenda said you dropped her off at home at twenty past ten.’

  ‘Who would know exactly what time it was? We didn’t expect to be quizzed about it by the police, did we?’

  ‘Your sister was sure. You see, after you dropped her off, she rang your mum. She showed us the log on her phone. The call started at 10.22 am and lasted thirty-eight minutes.’

  ‘Earlier than I thought. So what?’

  ‘After dropping Brenda off, where did you go?’

  ‘Back here.’

  ‘Anywhere else on the way?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you would’ve been back here by 10.40, 10.45 am?’

  ‘Suppose so, in that case.’

  ‘Did you go out again after that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see Joshua Priest yesterday?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was Yvette here when you got back?’

  ‘No.’

  Outside the window, Yvette walked into view, now wearing a high-cut pink bikini. She spread a towel out on a lounge and lay down on her front. She reached back and untied her bikini top, letting it fall loose at her sides. From across the table, Zoe heard Donna exhale sharply in displeasure.

  ‘She’ll want to put on sunscreen in this weather,’ said Charlie, watching her.

  ‘Perhaps you should offer your services,’ said Donna, her tone flat. ‘You seem to be enjoying the view.’

  Zoe and Charlie shared a glance. Zoe flicked her eyes towards the pool.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Charlie, standing up. He took his folder and walked over to the sliding door.

  Donna watched him as he slid the door across, before closing it and walking over to Yvette.

  ‘I don’t want him harassing her,’ said Donna.

  ‘Don’t worry. He’s not that sort of guy. Plus, I think he took French at school. They’ll be fine.’

  Donna’s eyes remained fixed on Charlie and Yvette, who were now chatting.

  Zoe decided to change tack. ‘Donna, did you suspect your husband of being unfaithful?’

  ‘Ex-husband. I don’t think so, but who would really know? He’d go off surfing or fishing a lot. It’s not like I had him followed.’

  ‘What about drugs? Did Ray have a drug habit?’

  ‘No. Not while we were together, at least. I would have known.’

  ‘Any abuse in the marriage?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Donna shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘Was Ray ever violent with you? Push you? Hit you?’

  ‘No. We argued, like clockwork, but he was never physical with me.’

  ‘Are you sure? We have spent the morning speaking to people who are close to you and Ray. All day we’ve been hearing rumours that Ray had affairs when you were married, that he had a drug habit and that he was an abusive husband.’

  ‘People will say things once a person’s dead. It’s just gossip.’

  ‘Everyone says it was you who told them,’ Zoe said.

  Donna looked up at her, and out towards Charlie and Yvette.

  ‘What’s the truth, Donna?’

  Donna glanced down at the table, as if searching for answers. ‘Look, people must have misunderstood. I might’ve been talking about things I believed could have been true when we split…the drugs or cheating…As for the abuse, I might have said we’d been fighting. They might have taken it as a physical fight and not just arguing.’

  Five cakes sat cooling on the kitchen bench. Behind them were about twenty plastic containers, all lined up, waiting to be filled. ‘Are you doing meals-on-wheels?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘What?’ Donna said absently, before looking over her shoulder. ‘Oh, no. It’s just a hobby. I like to bake, that’s all. I drop them off around the place. To friends. Especially the ones with kids. They love my cakes.’

  ‘Must make you popular.’

  ‘I don’t do it to be popular,’ snapped Donna, reddening in the face.

  ‘Right,’ said Zoe, knowing she’d struck a nerve. ‘Who’s organising the funeral?’

  ‘I am. There’s no one else. His parents are next to useless. I was on the phone with the funeral home this morning. The morgue said that Ray’s body will be released tomorrow and they can do the funeral on Thursday.’

  Zoe got the feeling that Donna was happy to be burying Ray in such a hurry.

  ‘Are you his next of kin?’

  ‘Yeah, and as you would have found out by now, he hadn’t got around to writing me out of his will or anything.’

  Zoe saw Donna give the slightest quiver of a grin, a glimpse of something dark. ‘Did Ray have any life insurance?’

  ‘Yeah, we both had policies. Two million each.’ She tilted her head back, looking Zoe right in the eyes.

  ‘And you are each other’s beneficiaries?’

  ‘That’s right, but if you’re saying that I had anything to do with Ray getting killed, you are way off track.’

  ‘You’re divorcing. You get everything now, not just half. Plus, a two-million-dollar insurance pay-out. That sounds like a motive to me.’

  ‘I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Ray. I may not have been the greatest wife, but I’m no killer
.’

  ‘Was Ray still supporting you financially?’ asked Zoe.

  Donna glanced through the glass at Charlie, who was rubbing sunscreen lotion on Yvette’s back, before turning back to Zoe. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much per month?’

  ‘I don’t know. It varied.’

  ‘Rough guess?’

  ‘Maybe ten or twelve.’

  Zoe’s eyes opened wide. ‘Thousand?’

  ‘Yes, so?’

  ‘Seems like a lot.’

  ‘Does it? Things cost more down this way.’

  ‘Seems so,’ said Zoe. ‘Donna, where’d he get that sort of money every month?’

  ‘No idea. He had a job. Plus, he had money invested in shares I think. Or cryptocurrencies. Not sure. He never filled me in on the details.’

  ‘You never asked what happened.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘To Ray. You never asked how he was killed.’

  Donna let out an exasperated sound. ‘I was in shock when you told me yesterday. I found out last night that he’d been stabbed. The papers called wanting a comment. They told me.’ She shook her head indignantly.

  Zoe knew she was getting nowhere. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Thanks for your help. We may need to get back in touch.’

  ‘Glad to help,’ Donna said with a thin smile. She pushed herself up from the table.

  Zoe walked over to the window and knocked twice on the glass. Charlie turned, smiling, and nodded. Yvette pushed herself up onto one elbow, grinning up at Charlie, and shook his hand. Zoe heard Donna inhale at the sight of Yvette’s breasts.

  Charlie walked to the door and slid it across. ‘It’s a hot one out there,’ he said.

  ‘Apparently,’ said Donna. ‘I’ll see you out.’

  Once they were in the car, with the aircon running, and Harry in his harness, Zoe looked back at the house, where Donna stared at them stony-faced from the red door. Zoe could see through the house to the bay, shimmering in a brilliant sapphire blue.

  ‘You think she’s a candidate?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Not sure,’ said Zoe. ‘She’s tall and strong enough. She’s got motive, and we now know she had time to go there. He would probably have let her in. Could she have done it? Absolutely. She’s obviously a natural manipulator, but she didn’t cry over Ray or care too much about us going through her phone. And she’s not trying to make us like her. She didn’t fuss over Harry to get on my good side. Nothing.’

  ‘She could be in cahoots with Joshua Priest,’ said Charlie. ‘He could have done it for her.’

  ‘Yes, I agree. We’ll know more after we speak to him. What’d you get from Yvette?’

  ‘Nothing. She said she’d never met Ray Carlson and that Donna never mentioned him before last night. She was sightseeing in Melbourne yesterday when Ray was killed. She pulled out her phone and showed me selfies taken with her friends at the Arts Centre.’

  ‘She shed any light on her and Donna’s status?’

  ‘Yes, they met online when she was still in France. They’re a couple, although I reckon Yvette is just in it for the travel and the sunshine. Donna paid for her flights and is giving her spending money.’

  ‘A sugar mummy,’ Zoe said, giving Donna a last glance as she pulled away from the kerb.

  6.30 PM, MONDAY 3 FEBRUARY

  Zoe squirmed on the hard couch in the waiting room. She had grown to hate this office. She eyed the indoor plant in the corner. The whole time she had been coming here, the plant had always seemed to be struggling. It seemed to have just enough attention to keep it alive, but not enough to let it thrive.

  At first, it was comforting to talk things over, but now the sessions just served as a reminder, stoking up memories. Harry laid his chin on her knee, his brown eyes staring up at her. She gave him a small smile and stroked his head, relaxing a little.

  On a table in the corner, along with the usual magazines, was a new framed photograph of a child playing with a labrador on the beach. Alicia Kennedy’s assistant, Georgia, sat at her desk, her dark hair pulled back tight, an earpiece in one ear, typing fast. Zoe guessed she was transcribing Alicia’s notes from her conversations with her patients. She watched as Georgia’s eyes widened every now and again in response to what she was hearing. Zoe would have loved to see the notes Alicia took during her own sessions.

  Georgia looked up from her keyboard. ‘I thought you’d finished all of your appointments.’

  ‘Final one,’ said Zoe.

  ‘That’s good. Hey, there’s something I’ve been thinking about and…can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Zoe.

  ‘How’d you deal with the fear that day? I mean, why didn’t you just run?’

  Zoe had asked herself this question over and over. ‘There wasn’t time to think about fear. You can’t do your job if you’re blocked by fear. I saw an opportunity and I reacted. That’s all.’

  Georgia blinked. ‘My brother…was there that day… thank you.’ She coughed, trying to recover herself.

  The door to Alicia’s office opened. ‘Hi Zoe, sorry to keep you waiting,’ she said. Alicia’s smile was disarming and she exuded a kind of effortless confidence that Zoe always found genuine. Alicia was about forty-five and Zoe thought she carried her age well. She wore a blouse with a subtle monochromatic pattern of blue birds on branches and her shoulder-length straight brown hair was pushed back by reading glasses, perched on her forehead. Zoe often had to remind herself that they weren’t actually friends, that Alicia was the police psychologist.

  ‘No worries. Is that your dog?’ asked Zoe, pointing at the frame.

  ‘Yes, he’s a rescue. Was on death row at the shelter. His name’s Freddie. Tabitha loves him more than anything. Come on in.’

  Zoe stood up and followed Alicia into her office, giving Georgia a reassuring glance as she went. Zoe shut the door behind her.

  ‘So, how’s it been?’ asked Alicia, picking up her notepad.

  ‘It’s just the end of day two, but it’s fine.’

  ‘Any anxiety?’ Alicia was already writing, her notepad propped against her crossed leg.

  ‘No, not really. We responded to a new job yesterday. They’re never a trip to the carnival, but it was okay.’

  ‘When you say “not really”, what does that mean?’

  ‘Just the usual stuff. I’ve always felt a little anxious walking into a murder scene. Most of us do, I’d say. Some things you can’t unsee, you know?’

  ‘Nothing debilitating, though?’

  ‘No, felt like a normal job.’

  ‘Apart from that, have you had any panic attacks in the last week? Or blackouts?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ Zoe could feel the heat rising in her face. Alicia could place her on restricted duties with a stroke of her pen.

  ‘Your work partner, is he acting normally with you?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie’s okay. But the boss has got me on a light case load. I’d prefer to get back at full speed. Charlie’s working with a different DS on other cases.’

  ‘I understand but why is that a problem? Why the rush?’

  ‘I guess I want to be part of the team again. This feels weird. The quicker I’m back in the thick of things, the quicker everyone will forget about what happened.’

  Alicia’s pen was skating above her pad. She was making more notes than seemed necessary. ‘What you went through was extreme,’ she said. ‘I’m guessing your DI wants to play it safe.’

  Dropping her shoulders, Zoe looked up at the ceiling. ‘It was my job. It could’ve been any of us.’

  Her irritation must’ve been clear to Alicia, who changed tack. ‘Everything okay with Harry? Not hindering you at work in any way?’

  ‘No, he’s a natural. Up for anything.’ Zoe smiled down at Harry.

  ‘What about the rest of the team? They okay with Harry being in the office?’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve thought too much about it.’ Zoe pursed her lips. ‘Harry sits under my desk. I’ll make
sure he gets out a few times a day for a decent walk. The fresh air will do us both good.’

  ‘And the nightmares?’

  Zoe regretted letting Alicia know about her troubled dreams, the ones where she didn’t make it in time. The ones that still violently jolted her awake in the middle of the night.

  ‘No, they’ve stopped. Ever since Harry came along a month ago.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said Alicia, taking notes and watching her at the same time.

  You’d make a decent detective, thought Zoe.

  Half an hour later Zoe and Harry arrived home in Yarraville, in the inner western suburbs of Melbourne. She had bought the double-fronted Federation-style house cheaply and renovated it over a decade, watching the suburb go through rapid gentrification along the way. It had doubled in value in that time, but she had no plans to cash in. The weatherboard house was painted robin’s egg blue, with white trim. It had a small yard in the front, bordered by standard rose bushes, and a good sized backyard for Harry to relax in on their days off. As she pulled into the driveway, she saw Tom sitting on a bench on the front veranda. His suit jacket lay across his knee, and his blue striped tie hung loose around his neck. Tom gave a broad smile as she got out of the car.

  ‘Hey, Mr Hayes, I didn’t think we were catching up tonight,’ Zoe said, smiling back.

  ‘We weren’t. I just wanted to see you, that’s all.’

  Zoe opened the back of the car and Harry jumped out, his tail whooshing. Tom walked over, leaning in to kiss her softly, before giving her a hug. Harry then pushed his way in between their legs.

  ‘Hey there, Buddy,’ said Tom, moving back, brushing the dog hair from his suit.

  ‘Sorry, part of the deal nowadays,’ said Zoe, as she unlocked the front door and deactivated the alarm. Harry ran inside, over to his water bowl, as Zoe used the remote to turn on the air conditioner.

  ‘You want a beer?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘Sure. Okay being back at work?’

  Zoe opened the fridge and pulled out two Peronis. Opening them, she handed one to Tom, and they sat down on the couch. They’d been dating for about six months, but had actually met twenty years earlier at university when Zoe was studying commerce and Tom was in law school. He moved to Sydney after graduation and had only come back to Melbourne after a messy divorce, when he connected with Zoe again on Facebook. For the past four months, Tom had been a rock for her, riding out the highs and lows as she made her way back, holding her in the night.