by T. J. Beach
“No. The manager wouldn’t let me past the boom gate.”
That made Hollins laugh. “Tommy?”
“No, the lady. His wife, I suppose.”
“Sylvie.”
“She’s anti-police?” Stu asked.
“Tommy and Sylvie tell me centuries of racial oppression by the forces of the crown have framed their attitudes, but I think Sylvie’s just anti-Stu Reilly after last winter.”
The detective grunted.
Hollins slipped an icy-cold bottle of lager into a neoprene stubby holder sleeve, the way Australians preferred their booze. He wasn’t sure if it was supposed to insulate the beer or save delicate palms from chilly condensation, but when in Rome …
Stu took it and helped himself to the sofa.
Hollins pulled out a kitchen chair, horribly conscious he hadn’t done it since Sophia Pendlebury draped herself on his sofa.
Stu Reilly did not look as good.
The cop tipped his beer at the screen. “Is that Charlton Athletic?”
“In the Europa League? In my dreams. Harry Vickers, eh?”
“Yeah.” Stu pulled out his notebook. “Tell me again what you said on the phone, every tiny detail.”
He took careful notes as Hollins went through the story again.
“Did Gould indicate he knew about a ‘deal’ concerning Keith Tupaea?”
“No. He said he didn’t really hear what Harry said because Harry was so angry.”
Stu made a note. “What do you think? Was it a deal with Sophia or a deal with Gould?”
“How would I know?”
“What was your impression, your immediate reaction?”
“Harry thought he had a deal with Austin, but maybe he got that idea from Sophia and Austin knew nothing about it.”
“Like he didn’t know about the fake graffiti. Convenient.”
Hollins couldn’t decide whether Stu’s similar reservations when it came to Austin’s innocence unnerved or reassured him — confused loyalties again. “What did Harry say?”
“It would be a significant breach of regulations to reveal the confidential contents of a police interview.” Stu offered his Swan bottle, already empty. “That went down without touching the sides. I might be tempted to indiscrete leaks of police evidence if I got another.”
Hollins took the dead soldier.
“Every man has his price,” he said as he handed over a replacement.
“Mine is staggeringly low.” Stu contemplated his refreshment in its stubby holder. “This stuff isn’t bad when you’re desperate.”
“That should be their sales slogan.”
Stu took a swig. “Harry says they agreed to blank Keith. Everyone would give him the cold shoulder, so Keith went away with nothing and left them alone.”
“What does Austin say?”
Stu grinned. “We did ask. It’s the main reason why I’m here. The great man says he never knew anything about any such arrangement, and he would have opposed it fiercely. He wanted to meet his son. He seems to have decided he was the dad.”
“And he seems to like the idea, even though Debbie Haring thinks he’s a racist.”
“Yeah? How come?”
Hollins told him about Austin’s reaction to Jennifer’s Noongar practice.
Stu gave it a ‘maybe, maybe not’ rock of his shoulders but took down the details.
“You don’t believe Harry?” Hollins asked.
“Why do you say that?”
“You’ve charged him with murder. That would be a bit of a clue.”
Stu raised his eyebrows. “Did we charge someone with murder?”
“A seventy-two-year-old Bell’s Landing man, about Harry’s height, who, when he did his perp walk, wore the same suit Harry had on this morning, was charged this afternoon.”
“It’s Harry,” Stu admitted. “What the hell. Everyone in town will know by tomorrow morning. The charge is having sex with a minor. Wendy was only fifteen. We haven’t charged him with murder yet.”
“Yet?”
Stu didn’t take the bait, so Hollins pressed on. “What did you find at his house? The items connected to the murder that he can’t explain satisfactorily?”
“A belt.”
“Shit. The murder weapon?”
“Hidden in the logs under his pizza oven. Thank God for a fire ban, eh? Forensics have got it.”
“But you’re confident?”
“It’s the right width.”
Hollins sipped his beer. “He stashed it in the firewood when he could have buried it with the body or tossed it off the end of the jetty.”
Stu shrugged. “I’ve seen crims do things that were more stupid.”
“Does he own a rifle?”
“No, and his car’s a black Mercedes.”
Which threw a spanner in the works of any theory that Harry Vickers killed Sophia to shut the lid on their deal. The arrangement which, by the way, he’d shouted out in Bell’s Landing high street. “He’s a car yard owner. He could get hold of a white SUV.”
“Agreed. When we find it, we’ll know. There are more possibles to test, but it’s not going anywhere.”
“How about the sniper’s rifle?”
“You think the two murders are connected?”
“Don’t you?” Hollins asked.
Stu flashed a humourless grin.
“The rifle?” Hollins asked again. “It’s an expensive bit of kit. There wouldn’t be many in WA.”
“Only a couple are registered in this state. Forty-odd in the whole of Australia. They’re all accounted for.”
“The killer imported the murder weapon illegally. There must be a way to trace rifles shipped to Australia through the manufacturer.”
Stu raised a finger. “Great idea. We’ve been working with our partners in the states. The manufacturer was quite cooperative, but they sell through a wholesaler based in Texas.”
“The most gun-crazy state in the union.”
“We’ve applied for a search warrant to get distribution records, but the wholesaler is in the most pro-gun county in Texas, and the judge is up for re-election.”
“You’re not holding your breath, then?”
“Nope. Thanks for that call today. It helped. Are you still working for the campaign?”
Hollins nodded.
“I thought, after M&M the chocolate men came on board, they might save their money.”
“I’m Austin’s new best friend.”
“Wow. What’s it like being best mates with a star?”
“Confusing.”
“Call me if you hear anything else interesting.”
Hollins headed to campaign headquarters bright and early, determined to probe Austin with incredibly subtle questions — as soon as he thought of some. In the meantime, he was a coiled spring primed to explode into action at the first opportunity.
He ran into Glenn who had a task for him.
“Gary, excellent. Can you fill the car up?” He offered keys. “We’re heading down to Margaret River today. Leaving in half an hour.”
The APP had an account at the Puma on the highway, so the schedule was tight when Hollins steered the Prado into the alley behind the shops to pick up the travelling party.
Austin waited for him at the back door, arms crossed, brow furrowed, nodding to something coming from a burly guy in a plaid lumberjack shirt who leaned on Glenn’s hire car. Austin looked up at the sound of Hollins’ vehicle, waved distractedly and clapped his companion on the shoulder.
The other guy turned with Austin, smirked when he recognised Hollins, then sauntered away with his hands in his jeans pockets.
A penny the size of a boulder dropped in Hollins’ stomach.
Austin had been deep in conversation with Chopper Wollinski right outside APP headquarters.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
HOLLINS HAD THINGS to check — urgently — but he couldn’t do it from the Prado. His first thought was to stop Chopper Wollinski and put him through the
wringer.
He let off the brakes and eased a few feet after the redneck tosser before he remembered he was driving the APP vehicle.
Austin opened a rear door as the Prado rolled by. “Hold up there, Gary. Just a minute.” He climbed in as soon as the car came to rest. “Glenn and Josh are coming. How are you?”
Spinning like a top with his head about to explode. “Good. Do I know that guy you spoke to? I think he recognised me.” He patted himself on the back for switching gear so quickly.
“That’s Ed. His friends call him ‘Chopper’, if you can believe it.”
“He looks like a ‘Chopper’.” Hollins kept it deliberately light though his heart was thumping.
“He’s mates with Bozza from the Goon Squad.” Austin opened a folder, put on his glasses and sifted through papers.
“A mate of yours?” Hollins asked.
“Mmm.” Austin frowned at a letter he’d found in the file.
“Because Chopper Wollinski is the gobshite Glenn persuaded to paint false graffiti on the office window.”
Austin took off his glasses. “Gary—”
Both passenger side doors opened. Josh climbed into the front seat. Glenn slid in beside Austin and opened a briefcase. “Let’s go. We don’t want to be late. Austin, did you find the invitation?”
Roadworks in Cowaramup added ten minutes to the journey.
As a result, Austin and Glenn couldn’t wait to get their seat belts off when they arrived in Margaret River. They hurried into the council offices for a meeting with the Shire President.
Josh followed them in.
The M&M chase car parked next to Hollins. Freddo, the backup chocolate man, disembarked and took up position in the foyer glaring at ratepayers conducting their business as if everyone had a loaded weapon and evil intent.
Hollins stayed in the car. He phoned Debbie to burn off some pent-up energy. “When can we do the Dodgy Utility Girl thing on Chopper Wollinski?”
“Not today. Jane Doe is otherwise engaged. I’m in Bunbury at—”
“We need to do it soon.”
“Okay. Good morning, by the way.”
“Chopper and Austin are pals.”
“Oh.”
“And I need to look at that tape again, where Sophia goes into the office.”
“Okay. I’ll be back in Bell’s mid-afternoon.”
“I’m in Margaret River. I’ll get to the Ridenour Investigations office as soon as I can.”
Austin, Glen and Josh hurried out of the shire offices a few minutes later.
As Hollins released the door locks a flash of grey caught his eye. A thin, straight-backed gentleman dressed like a retired colonel turned golf club secretary. Jordan Verdicatti, coming out right behind the APP team.
“Hey,” Hollins pointed to Western Australia’s most notorious organised crime boss taking his seat in a brand-new Bentley. “What’s Jordan—”
“We’re late at the community hall.” Glenn shoved a slip of paper with the address under his nose.
“But—” Hollins tracked Verdicatti’s progress out of the car park.
“Austin, have you got the talking points? This next one … Gary, is there a problem?”
Yes, a massive problem.
He started the car and Glenn went back to Austin’s appearance preparation.
Austin and Glenn exited the vehicle in a hurry again and took to the hall stage for questions from an audience of retired folks and stay-at-home mothers. The women were too busy herding unruly infants to ask much about APP policy. Glenn grumbled under his breath but let them pour out their sympathy and ogle Austin for the full scheduled two hours.
Hollins looked up Wollinski on his phone and found two addresses in Bell’s Landing, then stood at the back with Josh and checked his watch every thirty seconds.
He was back in the Prado, champing at the bit, tapping the steering wheel with the engine running when the rest of the Gould team emerged from the building.
“Back to Bell’s Landing,” Glenn ordered. “Austin, we need to go over the education policy before we go to the high school.”
“Okay.” Austin slammed home his seat belt. “Are you sure about this one? It seems, I don’t know, inappropriate to campaign at a school.”
“You’ll talk to the Year Twelves. You’re encouraging them to vote when they can. A few are over eighteen already. The Education Department approved it.”
“Guys—” Hollins began.
“Drive, please. We’re late.” Glenn turned back to the candidate. “That went well.”
“There weren’t many policy questions. I wonder if they take me seriously.”
Hollins gave up. Jordan Verdicatti at the reception in Austin’s house, at the Rotary dinner, feeding Hollins into the campaign, turning up again when his suspicions were coming together on an unpleasant conclusion.
It could not be a coincidence.
Between the back of the car and the passenger seat, party business continued.
“They got what they wanted,” Glenn said. “Every one of them will vote for you, and that’s what it’s all about.”
“And no questions about Harry Vickers, thank goodness. Are you okay, Gary?”
The question took Hollins completely by surprise.
“You’re very quiet. You look a bit pale.”
“Yeah, I’m not feeling the best. I think I’m coming down with something. I might take the afternoon if that’s okay. Josh can drive.”
“He can,” Glenn said. “You should ride with Freddo if you’re not feeling well. We can’t afford for Austin to get sick.”
Freddo dropped Hollins by his rusty Commodore at Austin’s house and took off in a cloud of dust.
Hollins drove straight to the first address on his Wollinski list, a single-storey brick and tile with a neat front yard and a one-car garage just like all the others in a middle class, late 90s development out near the bypass.
He drove past, did a three-point turn and parked under a tree fifty metres up the road with a view of the driveway, satisfied he’d found Chopper’s home.
A pimped-up late model Holden Commodore gave it away. The hoon mobile yelled redneck.
Redneck at home, because a bogan asshole like Chopper Wollinski would not nip off on his pushbike, borrow his mum’s runabout or walk to the bus.
As soon as Chopper left, Hollins would do the Dodgy Utility Girl thing. No need to wait for Debbie and her fancy dress boiler suit. He’d seen her do her thing. He knew how to play it. Wander up to the front door and knock. If someone answered, roll out the innocent cover story, which he’d need to work up. If no one responded, walk around the house acting like an official with an excuse to examine every window.
Perhaps the utility girl uniform did have its place.
Never mind. Hollins didn’t care if he got busted by a neighbour. Chopper had something to hide, and he’d find it, as soon as the coast was clear.
So, Hollins waited.
He’d done surveillance before.
Once or twice.
On this occasion, he had a hundred times more motivation. He could do it again.
He shifted his bum and crossed his legs. Next time, he’d remember to bring an empty bottle and some reading material, and maybe a camera better than the one in his phone.
After half an hour, Hollins was thanking his aching bladder as the only thing keeping him awake.
Austin and Chopper.
The film star must know about the graffiti. It made no sense that he didn’t. If Austin lied about that, why wouldn’t he hide the truth about meeting Keith Tupaea and wanting to make a life with his son? A racist, Debbie said, and she was nobody’s fool. What if he was so disgusted at the thought of a brown, gay son that he lured Keith to his death?
No, it didn’t sit right. Everyone had it in them to kill in a fit of rage or desperation. Few could kill someone in cold blood. Hollins knew a few things about that. Austin wasn’t the type. A charismatic arch manipulator would have no problem
persuading someone else to do the dirty work. Someone like Jordan Verdicatti, except that Italian-Australian villain didn’t soil his own hands either. He’d send one of his minders or delegate the work to a dumb fall guy — Chopper.
A pale blur flashed past, resolved into the shape of a Toyota Hilux twin cab utility with a tradesman’s cabinets fitted in the bed, swung for the Wollinski driveway and braked abruptly when the driver realised the bogan mobile had blocked him out. He backed up, revved hard and pulled onto the verge beside the letterbox. The driver, a balding, overweight Chopper-sized numpty in coveralls and a hi-viz vest, jumped out, slammed his door, yelled, ”Ed!” and stormed into the house.
Hollins phoned Stu Reilly.
He got voicemail, but the detective sergeant rang back within five minutes. “Got something for me?”
“You need to search Chopper Wollinski’s house.”
“Any particular reason?”
“His dad drives a white tradesman’s ute that could easily be mistaken for an SUV by a half-blind pensioner looking into the sun.”
“Interesting. You’re back on your theory that Chopper shot Sophia Pendlebury?”
“I am. Austin claims to know nothing about the graffiti, but I caught him having a heart-to-heart with Chopper today.”
“Austin Gould?”
“None other.”
“What are you saying?”
“The shooter wasn’t a political assassin trying to kill Austin. It wasn’t Keith Tupaea taking revenge on his father. He wasn’t meant to miss either. It wasn’t an accident. He meant to shoot Sophia.”
“And Chopper had a motive to kill Sophia Pendlebury?”
“Austin Gould told him to.”
Stu sucked in a breath. “Why?”
“Because Sophia killed Keith Tupaea to shut him up.”
“Bloody hell!”
“She’d already met Keith. She lures him somewhere out of the way. I don’t know, maybe tells him Austin will meet him, but only if it’s discreet. Then she whacks him.”
“And strangles a man about a foot taller and ten years younger than her.”
“She could do it with a belt. Sophia was fit and strong — a professional dancer.”
“The belt that turned up under Harry’s pizza oven.”
