Only the Dead

by Ben Sanders

  The Don looked out across the street. ‘Put it this way: before you say anything to anybody, just ask yourself, what would my friend Don think, if he knew what I was up to? Okay?’

  He dipped a hand in a jacket pocket. ‘That was good coffee. Have a business card.’ He flipped it off his thumb like a coin, dropped it fluttering in Duvall’s lap.

  ‘I appreciate it.’

  McCarthy didn’t answer.

  Duvall said, ‘Can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Go.’

  ‘I was told you’ve got bullet fragments in you.’

  The Don said nothing. He walked away down Vulcan Lane, swallowed whole by traffic.

  FOUR

  MONDAY, 13 FEBRUARY, 6.00 P.M.

  They drove him to Manukau Police HQ up on Wiri Station Road. A uniform served as chauffeur. He had more sense than to try to chat. Devereaux made calls on the way. He dialled John Hale and left a message, dialled his girlfriend but hung up when her voicemail kicked in. There was no way to sugar-coat ‘I shot a guy’.

  He called a Police Association representative and explained the situation. He was told someone would be there to meet him when he reached the station. He arrived at six-ten. He was feeling better. The drive time had let his nerves cool. Rationale and self-confidence were curing the initial fear.

  The uniform found a park in the on-site lot and escorted him through to the Criminal Investigation Branch. A desk sergeant misread nicotine deprivation as anxiety: don’t worry/everything’s fine/sit down and make yourself comfortable.

  They led him through to an interview room. Two chairs and a table, walls within spitting distance. A female uniformed sergeant occupied one of the chairs, a binder and a sheaf of paper in front of her. She looked up and smiled. His Police Association rep.

  ‘That was quick. I only called twenty minutes ago.’

  She smiled. ‘I was in the building.’

  They shook hands and swapped intro lines. Her name was Charlotte Greer. She said she’d been a barrister with Crown Law. She was older than him, maybe forty. She looked nervous. Not a good look for a lawyer, flustered and laden with documents. He preferred calm with minimal paperwork, salient details memorised.

  He pulled out the second chair and sat down across from her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I haven’t done this before. Well, post-shooting stuff.’

  Hence the baggage.

  ‘Don’t worry. I have.’

  Her eyebrows rose. ‘You’ve had a firearms incident before?’

  ‘I shot a guy a couple of years back. Not this bad, though.’

  ‘Did he make it?’

  ‘Yeah. I think he wished he hadn’t.’

  She didn’t know what to say to that. She glanced down at her notes. ‘Run me through what happened.’

  He gave her a ten-minute rehash of the afternoon. She jotted in pencil.

  ‘Did you give verbal warning?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Before you opened fire. Did you give verbal warning?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘It might be a problem. If you’ve got a history of this sort of thing, they might try to argue it was premeditated.’

  ‘It can’t be premeditated. I had two seconds’ notice.’

  ‘I mean they might argue you approached the situation with an intention to shoot.’

  He didn’t answer. The desk sergeant rapped on the door and asked Devereaux to step outside. He stood up. Greer gathered notes.

  ‘I don’t want you in the interview,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You said you haven’t done this before. It’s a shooting. No offence, I don’t want to be your guinea pig.’

  ‘You don’t want help?’

  ‘Not right now. Don’t worry. Like I said, I’ve done this before.’

  The interview room was a dour-looking set-up. Men in dark suits, three-across behind a boardroom table. Ties and top buttons, present and correct. Pens poised over blank pads. Devereaux took a seat opposite and eyed the panel. Left to right: Detective Inspector Lloyd Bowen, the new Auckland Central Serious Crimes Squad boss and Devereaux’s immediate superior; Detective Inspector Don ‘The Don’ McCarthy, Manukau CIB; one of The Don’s lackeys, Detective Sergeant Frank Briar, a longtime staunch proponent of McCarthyism.

  The Don looked pissed off. He said, ‘You stuffed that up pretty neatly.’

  ‘Are we on record?’

  ‘Yes, we are.’

  ‘With all due respect, I don’t feel it’s appropriate that this investigation should be conducted by officers I’ve had regular contact with.’

  Bowen said, ‘Sergeant, this isn’t an investigation. We’re merely trying to establish the details of what occurred this afternoon.’

  The guy had a faint Afrikaans inflection, a soft rolling of the r’s. He was early forties, younger than McCarthy, probably five years shy of Briar. Clipped and square: a real hard edge of a man.

  ‘It just concerns me that Inspector McCarthy would offer such a prejudicial remark.’

  Glances bounced back and forth. Bowen said, ‘Inspector McCarthy will endeavour not to interject in such a fashion.’

  Devereaux didn’t answer. The room was windowless. A whiteboard occupied the wall behind them, ceiling lights watery inside the gloss.

  Bowen said, ‘Tell us what happened.’

  He did. He laid out the key events: 4.29 in the afternoon until whatever time the constable had taken his gun off him on the stairs. They listened silently, gazes shifting to track scribbled notes.

  Bowen said, ‘What was the purpose of the operation?’

  ‘I thought you’d been kept in the loop?’

  ‘Just for the record.’

  ‘I thought this was off the record?’

  ‘Sergeant, humour me.’

  ‘We were providing backup for a surveillance team.’

  ‘Who was the target?’

  ‘Someone wanted in relation to the armoured van robbery back in November.’

  He recited the file number for Bowen’s reference.

  ‘Why was this operation being conducted at four in the afternoon and not four in the morning?’

  ‘Because I wasn’t the officer in charge.’

  ‘Alan Nielsen was coordinating. Is that correct?’

  ‘In theory.’

  Bowen glanced across at The Don. McCarthy said, ‘You had a specialist Armed Offenders Squad team providing additional support. Why were they not first on scene?’

  ‘Because I beat them there.’

  ‘You didn’t wait for them to clear the house first?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I felt it imprudent to dilly-dally.’

  Nobody replied.

  Bowen paused and skimmed his notes. ‘So your understanding of the situation is that while installing a GPS unit on the suspect’s vehicle, your surveillance team was confronted by the suspect, who then assaulted them with a machete?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But you felt you were capable of handling the situation better than your specialist armed backup.’

  ‘Given my position I felt I could do it quicker. Not necessarily to a higher standard.’

  Bowen looked at him. Devereaux sensed a set-piece being schemed. ‘Okay,’ Bowen said, ‘Run us through it again. When you entered the house, you followed the stairs up to the second level, entered the bathroom, and discharged your weapon three times, blind, through a partially open door.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘And as a result the suspect was struck twice in the torso?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Do you believe that in this situation you acted in an appropriate manner, with regard to the guidelines stipulated by Police Standard Operating Procedure?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  Bowen flicked through some papers, looked up like something had just occurred to him. ‘Sergeant, just a side note: am I correct in saying you’re
currently considering leaving the police?’

  ‘Where did you hear that from?’

  ‘I don’t recall. But is that the case?’

  Don’t recall. He’d voiced it calmly, but there wasn’t a flake of truth to it. Devereaux said, ‘No, that’s not correct.’

  ‘You have no intention of ending your employment?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  Bowen showed no reaction. A brief quiet settled gently as he reviewed his notes. He looked up and said, ‘Can you outline the basis of your reasoning in choosing to discharge a firearm with neither verbal warning nor a visual fix?’

  ‘My reasoning was that if I didn’t shoot, someone could end up dead.’

  Frank Briar said, ‘That might still be the case.’

  Devereaux didn’t answer. He knew a bit about the man: the divorces, the four excessive force accusations, the liquor issues, the cardiac trouble. Whether by design or intention, his job had walled out every other element of his life. Twenty years of drugs and homicide didn’t leave room for much else. He was bloodshot and unshaven, curled hair mussed. He looked worse than his own back story.

  Briar said, ‘There a problem?’

  Devereaux let the question hang a second. He said, ‘I was just trying to think why you might be in here. But I can’t think of a single reason.’

  Briar smiled. ‘How about the fact I’ve never fucked anything up as badly as you just did?’

  Devereaux didn’t answer. Bowen and McCarthy pretended they hadn’t heard, wrote in silence. Devereaux stood up. He dropped his hands in his pockets, trying to look unfazed.

  ‘I didn’t realise we were done,’ Bowen said.

  Devereaux tucked his chair in. ‘If I don’t have a cigarette I’m going to shoot someone else,’ he said.

  None of them smiled. The Don’s stare burrowed straight to the marrow. Bowen clicked his pen closed and gave him the magic words: ‘Don’t leave town, sergeant. And answer your phone. We’ll pick this up later.’

  FIVE

  MONDAY, 13 FEBRUARY, 6.58 P.M.

  Smokeless for nearly three hours. Devereaux lit a cigarette on the way out the front door. He drew some glances, sensed people wanting to stop and chat. A look of stern preoccupation let him pass unhindered.

  Charlotte Greer had gone by the time the meeting finished, probably put out by his decision to decline assistance. He checked his messages when he reached his car: one missed call, courtesy of John Hale. He dialled the number as he turned out onto Wiri Station Road.

  ‘I got your message,’ Hale said. ‘You didn’t answer my call-back.’

  ‘I was in debriefing.’

  ‘How was it?’

  ‘Nobody told me I did the right thing.’

  ‘What did you expect?’

  Devereaux didn’t answer.

  ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘Not really. I shot him twice.’

  ‘Do you want a beer?’

  ‘Yeah. Where are you?’

  ‘The office.’

  ‘Put a couple in the fridge for me.’

  Hale rented office space in a unit on High Street, central city. Devereaux found a kerb slot and took the stairs up. The door was unlocked. He went in and found Hale feet up behind his desk, stereo on soft.

  The fridge sat below the deep, west-facing window, the day in vast orange exodus beyond, the street below quiet and blue-shadowed.

  Bottles chimed gently as he opened the door. He took two beers and de-capped them with an opener waiting on the sill. The motion in silhouette against the patch of late sun on the floor behind.

  Hale said, ‘I like it that you greet the fridge first.’

  ‘It never gives me any lip.’

  He placed a bottle on the desk for Hale and pulled up a chair. Hale took the beer and dropped his feet off the desk. He stretched forward and palmed the moisture ring.

  Devereaux said, ‘What are we listening to?’

  ‘A nice nocturnal nocturne.’

  ‘Hah.’

  ‘Bob Dylan, “Love Sick”.’ He had some beer. ‘I shouldn’t have to tell you these things.’

  ‘I knew it was Bob.’

  ‘But forgot it was his romance malady melody.’

  ‘Very clever.’

  Devereaux sat down.

  Hale said, ‘What happened?’

  Devereaux gave him the full story. Hale watched the window as he listened. He said, ‘What are his chances?’

  ‘Of living?’

  ‘Or dying. Whichever way you want to look at it.’

  ‘I don’t know. He wasn’t in good shape.’

  Quiet between them. Hale’s desk phone rang. He ignored it.

  ‘Prognosis?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably not brilliant.’

  A nod, a small sip. ‘Did he deserve it?’

  ‘Depends whether or not he makes it.’

  Hale’s feet reclaimed desk space. They touched down in neat tandem, beside the phone. A small shelf held The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, and an anthology of Kipling’s poetry. ‘Hindsight’s irrelevant. You either deserve it at the time, or you don’t.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  Hale ceiling-gazed for a spell. Down the corridor, the elevator chimed politely. He said, ‘Forthcoming luck shouldn’t sway whether you’re deserving of something in the here and now.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, whichever way it turns out doesn’t change the fact he needed to be shot when he was.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t need shooting.’

  Hale had another sip. He said, ‘If he had a machete, I’d say he probably needed shooting.’

  Devereaux didn’t respond.

  ‘Who was he?’ Hale said.

  ‘Is. He’s still alive. In theory.’

  ‘Who is he then?’

  ‘Just a suspect. I never met him.’

  ‘Robbery-related stuff?’

  Devereaux nodded.

  ‘You feel bad, even though you know nothing about him?’

  He nodded again. ‘I’d say that’s the normal response.’

  Hale nestled the beer in his lap and tilted it so he could look straight down its throat. ‘I only feel guilty about the people I know.’

  ‘Is that good or bad?’

  ‘I don’t know. Other way around, I’d be feeling pretty guilty.’

  Devereaux didn’t answer.

  Hale said, ‘How was debriefing?’

  ‘I don’t think they’re too impressed.’

  ‘Did you follow standard procedure?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Who questioned you?’

  ‘Guy called Lloyd Bowen. You ever meet him?’

  Hale nodded. He thought for a moment. ‘Sharp as a paper cut,’ he said. ‘And just as unpleasant.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s Lloyd. Frank Briar was there too.’

  ‘Frankie. Everyone’s most reviled human.’

  Devereaux said, ‘Bowen asked if I was planning on quitting.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I said I wasn’t.’

  ‘But you are.’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t want them to try to nudge me out the door, though.’

  ‘That old “depart on your own terms” lark.’

  ‘Yeah. That.’

  ‘So who told him you’re thinking of packing it in?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s the other thing. I need to be around long enough to find out who leaked, so I can kick their arse.’

  Hale smiled, looked at the window. ‘I wouldn’t worry about anything just yet.’

  ‘Yet.’

  ‘He’s still alive. Wait until he clocks out before you panic.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  They sipped in silence. Devereaux scored a crucifix through his beer label.

  Hale said, ‘Would you quit something, even if it was the one thing you were good at?’

  ‘I’m good at more than one thing.’

  ‘I know. But would you?�
�

  ‘You mean, would I rather be unhappy doing something I’m good at, or happy doing something I’m shit at?’

  He shook his head. ‘That wasn’t really my question, but it would certainly merit some pondering.’

  ‘It would.’

  Hale said, ‘I turned down some work today.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Check-up duty on your robbery job.’ He toed the Kipling so its spine sat flush with the Rushdie. ‘This ex-lawyer wanted me to find who did the bank and armoured van thing.’

  ‘Why’d you turn it down?’

  ‘He couldn’t really give a decent reason why I shouldn’t.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Alan Rowe. He did criminal defence.’

  ‘Why didn’t you take it?’

  He flicked the neck of his bottle with a fingernail. ‘You know how sometimes you get that feeling that something’s a little off kilter.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Yeah, I got that feeling.’ He sipped. ‘Pity, though. He looked full of loot.’

  Devereaux reached across and cycled the stereo back to ‘Love Sick’. ‘The shooting on January thirty is tied in with the heist stuff,’ he said.

  ‘That a guess, or did someone tell you?’

  ‘It’s a guess. Nobody’s telling me anything.’

  Hale closed his eyes and nodded the opening bars. ‘They’ve kept it pretty quiet,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I think someone in the know on the robberies went into witness protection, and his friends got wind of it.’

  Hale’s eyes opened. ‘And shot everyone.’

  ‘Yeah — and shot everyone.’

  ‘Who’s running the enquiry?’

  ‘Not me. Lloyd Bowen, and McCarthy. You remember Don McCarthy?’

  Hale nodded. ‘He’s not the sort of character one forgets in a hurry.’

  ‘He’d probably say the same about you.’

  Hale nodded. He had another sip. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘he probably would. How is old Don these days?’

  ‘Driven and grey-tinted. He’s based out of Auckland Central at the moment.’

  ‘So you get the pleasure of seeing him on a daily basis.’

  ‘I do.’

  Quiet for a moment. Hale said, ‘Are you going to tell Ellen?’