Only the Dead

by Ben Sanders

  Nobody answered at the first house. He tried next door. The peephole darkened for a long moment before the door opened, tethered by doubled security chains. A woman’s voice asked him if he was with the police. He told her he wasn’t, but his investigator’s licence was enough to make her open the door. She was young, dressed in hospital scrubs, looking exhausted. Probably fatigue from a regime of hyper-vigilance since the morning of January thirtieth.

  Her recountal was from a principally aural perspective: gunshots woke her around six a.m. She’d grown up rural; she knew the difference between car backfire and a shotgun discharge. She guessed three or four shots in quick succession, another few several seconds later. It was maybe another minute before she risked a look out a front window. She saw some sort of pickup truck in the front yard of the house across the street, people lying hurt.

  He pushed for details. She waved off the questions: he wasn’t probing fond memories. She licked her lips and swallowed. ‘Look, I only risked a glance, I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.’

  ‘No, it’s okay. I understand.’

  She said she was running short of time and started to close the door on him: apologetic smile, knees bent. He managed to get a business card through the gap before she shut him out.

  He lucked out on the next two houses: nobody home. A young guy at the next place he tried gave him a variation on the first woman’s story. Shots around six a.m., maybe four followed by a pause, then a volley of another ten or so a few seconds later. Duvall asked him if he knew who owned the house across the street. The guy said he didn’t. The previous owner had died six months back and the place had just come off the market. Best guess was that it had been sold.

  ‘You don’t know who the new owner is?’

  ‘Nuh-uh.’

  Duvall said, ‘Do you know how many people were in the house when the shooting happened?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘You see anyone coming or going on January twenty-ninth?’

  The guy thought about it. ‘That was the day before the shooting?’

  Duvall nodded.

  ‘Don’t think so. Not that I recall.’

  ‘Did you see anything during the shooting?’

  ‘Not during. I hit the deck. All I saw was carpet.’

  ‘You take a look outside afterwards?’

  ‘I had a little look through the curtains.’

  Duvall said nothing.

  The guy made a shape with his mouth as he remembered. ‘Crew cab truck in the front yard,’ he said. ‘All shot up. Two guys in the yard, on their backs, blood in the yard, you can imagine. This big cloud of gun smoke just sort of drifting.’

  ‘You sure about the number of shots?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘People sometimes overestimate things under stress.’

  The guy shrugged. He made to close the door. ‘Can’t see that it matters,’ he said. ‘People still got killed.’

  Duvall thanked him through the closed door and walked away. He got no answer with the next three places he visited. He jumped a couple of doors and tried the home of the guy in the dressing gown.

  ‘I saw you peepin’ round there across the road,’ the guy said when he answered. He had a glass mug of tea in one hand, tortoiseshell glasses anchored on a thick nose rife with capillaries. The dressing gown was knotted around a bulbous paunch.

  ‘I wasn’t peeping.’ Duvall showed his licence.

  ‘That print’s too small for me,’ the guy said. He frowned and took a cautious sip. Gentle, like he didn’t want to ripple the surface. ‘But it looks mighty official.’

  ‘Do you have a spare moment to answer a few questions?’

  ‘About that ruckus the other week?’

  ‘Yes. The ruckus.’

  The guy nodded slowly. He stepped back and let his gaze circuit the doorframe. ‘Yeah. I reckon we can slot you in. Better come indoors and sit down. The old knees don’t much fancy doorstep chats these days.’

  Duvall stepped in and closed the door. He followed the guy down a short corridor carpeted off-yellow, smell of tobacco smoke and buttered toast prevailing. They turned left into a small living room. Old furniture and packed bookshelves made for homely clutter. Faded novels stuffed floor to ceiling, thin yellowed ears of random papers peeping between. Everything warm and close and familiar. A wide armchair was set up in one corner beside a window. The open newspaper was draped on a footstool before it. A table adjacent held a magnifying glass and a pack of matches and a crinkled packet of tobacco trapped beneath a wooden pipe. High shelves displayed ancient trinkets: a globe on a rusted pedestal, a hand-painted Lancaster bomber, a line-up of brass ammunition shells.

  The old guy bent awkwardly and lifted the paper before sitting down. He set the mug on the table and crossed swollen ankles on the footrest and smoothed the paper over his lap.

  ‘I saw men shot,’ he said. ‘A long time ago.’ He looked out the window. ‘Never thought I’d see it again, in a suburban street, eating breakfast. Gordon Bennett.’

  He grimaced and claimed a fibrous pinch of tobacco from the pouch, thumbed it into the pipe. He lit up with a match and eased the stem in one corner of a shivering lip. ‘You can shift them things off the chair there if you want somewhere to sit.’

  ‘I won’t keep you long.’

  He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. Your knees’re probably better behaved than mine anyway.’

  ‘You saw the shooting back on January thirtieth.’

  ‘Bits and pieces. It ain’t the shooting that’s important; it’s what’s going on afterwards. And I tell you, it ain’t easy looking. Shit.’

  ‘You recall what time it all happened?’

  ‘Well, I think so. Police came by a few times, and I’ve been telling them it all went down just after six a.m., and I don’t know whether that was the actual time, or whether saying it enough has convinced me that’s the truth.’ He laughed softly, leaked a skein of smoke.

  ‘Did the shots wake you, or were you up already?’

  ‘I was up already. Fixing some tea.’

  ‘How many shots did you hear?’

  ‘What did the folks down the street say?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘How many shots did they think they heard?’

  Duvall looked at him. Detective Training 101: don’t let witnesses compare notes. Fuck it. He’d never been a detective. ‘Maybe four or five.’

  The guy was shaking his head. ‘People get stressed, things get overestimated.’

  ‘How many shots did you hear?’

  ‘No more than three to begin with.’

  ‘And then more later on?’

  The guy nodded. ‘Handful of shots, a few seconds later I couldn’t count. A big one over the top that sounded like a shotgun. But don’t bet your kids on it. The old ears aren’t what they used to be.’

  ‘Did you take a look outside?’ Duvall said.

  The guy crossed his legs, knees stacked neatly. He sipped at his tea. The steam misted his glasses. He used a dressing gown hem to de-fog the lenses.

  ‘Can’t say I rushed out,’ he said. ‘Gunfire in your street, it’s not quite the same as when you hear the ice-cream truck, is it?’ He chuckled to himself, rubbed a thumb over a tobacco burn on the armrest.

  ‘Did you see anything of the house while the shooting was happening?’

  ‘Not while it was happening. I got a look out the front window when it was all over.’

  ‘How soon after?’

  ‘Don’t know. ’Bout the time it takes an old fella to shuffle over to a window. Not too long.’

  ‘Can you describe what you saw?’ Duvall said.

  He made a face. ‘Pass me one of them coasters there, would you?’

  Duvall shifted a stack of auto magazines and passed the guy a cork beer mat. He set it beneath his mug. ‘Ta. No, I only had a quick peek. Just enough to get the gist of it without getting something I could do without. If you know what I mean.’ He cleared his throat gently. ‘T
here was a light sort of truck parked up at a funny angle on the front lawn.’ He took a long hit off the pipe and looked out the window. ‘Guy dead on the front step, sort of half on the lawn. Guy dead in the doorway.’ He shrugged. ‘Looked sideways along the street and there’s this car pulling away.’

  ‘You ever seen the car before?’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. Didn’t recognise the colour.’

  ‘What colour was it?’

  ‘Yellowish. Maybe gold or something. I dunno. Old eyes aren’t so good. Time was maybe I could have picked out some details. Nowadays I probably couldn’t even if it was parked in my lap.’

  ‘Was it moving fast?’

  ‘Not really. It’s wasn’t mucking about, but it didn’t look in too much of a hurry.’

  Duvall thought a moment. ‘What did the truck on the front lawn look like?’

  ‘It was white. Sort of old.’

  ‘Was there anyone in it?’

  ‘Not when I looked.’ He mulled it over. ‘Can’t be dead certain on it, but I had a view straight through the back, and I’m pretty sure it was just seats and no heads, if that makes sense. Engine was still running, too. I told that to the police. And the doors were open.’

  ‘The driver and passenger doors were both open.’

  He clucked his tongue and nodded. ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Okay. So after the car drove away what happened?’

  ‘All quiet for a couple of minutes. I was still sort of peeping through my curtains, and I could see up and down the street, every man and his dog doing the exact same thing. I tell you, every place you looked, someone looking through a wrinkled curtain. Like some sort of dead man’s peep show. I dunno. But I got hold of the phone and gave the police a ring, and nobody’s going outside to check if these poor guys on the porch are actually okay because the guy on the phone at the police is telling people to stay inside and keep back from the windows. So I guess I scored fifty per cent on that.’

  ‘How long did it take the police to arrive?’

  ‘Not long. They did a pretty cautious job of it. There were a couple of cars parked way off down the street, blocking it off I s’pose. You could just kind of see the red-blue-red-blue of the lights going back and forth. Then some chaps in fatigues scooted over fences and started drawing in closer. Had one of them in here, aiming a gun out the window. Had it propped up against the back of the chair. Asked the fella if he wanted a cup of tea or something, and he said to me, fairly sharp too, “If I need anything, I’ll let you know.” Like it was a hotel or something. Tickled me pink. Susan wouldn’t have had any of that lip, if she was still around, I tell you. Jesus.’ He took a gentle hit off his pipe. ‘Anyway, I found myself another window and laid up there. Big guy in a suit turned up maybe fifteen minutes later, I guess. Pulled up at the kerb and just walked into the yard, wary, but kind of nonplussed at the same time, you know? Checked the pulse of the guys sprawled out there, one then the other, and then he went into the house for a moment, but he came back out fairly smartly and stood out there on the kerb with his hands on his hips. And, damn me, if he wasn’t thinking this was one hell of a mess. Damned if he wasn’t right too.’

  ‘What did he look like?’ Duvall said.

  The guy moved his tongue round his cheek, like searching for taste more than memory. ‘I ain’t much good on the details from this range. But I’d say he’d be around your age. Great big guy, ramrod-straight.’

  Don McCarthy, no question. Duvall ran some closing questions: Had the address seen any prior trouble? Did he know the owner of the house? Did he witness any arrivals at the house the day before the shooting occurred? He got three unhesitant No’s.

  Duvall smiled. ‘Police ask you anything that I haven’t?’

  The guy chuckled. ‘Maybe. But blow me if I can remember.’

  ‘Thanks for your time.’

  ‘Pleasure. Most horrific thing I ever seen while eating toast and marmalade, I tell you.’

  He took another puff off his pipe, and Duvall let himself out.

  He needed food, and thinking space.

  He headed south and east and stopped at a Denny’s in New Lynn. It was busy with the breakfast rush, but he claimed a table for four and fanned his file contents. The booth offered nominal privacy. With a bit of luck, paperwork would deter company. He found a pen and outlined the morning’s progress: six a.m. shots fired/truck in yard (panic skid?)/house owner unknown/gold car getaway post-shooting.

  He flagged a passing waitress and ordered coffee and a toasted sandwich. A mental red light told him his savings might not appreciate the hit, so he cancelled the sandwich. Caffeine would have to do.

  He flipped through his file and appended another note: Both doors on truck left open. So what? He couldn’t see the relevance at this stage. He re-read his news clippings. It had reached the point where he almost had them memorised verbatim.

  He tried for a chronology. The lawn tread marks indicated the truck had pulled in off the road and skidded to a stop. Both doors open, implying a driver and at least one other passenger. So did they come in off the street and just start shooting? The bullet damage to the front of the house seemed to indicate they did. But why fire before they were inside? It didn’t make a lot of sense to shoot before they were through the door. Unless there was some body standing outside on the porch.

  Too many unknowns. He closed the file as the waitress brought his coffee. It had slopped over the rim and left a thin tan film in the saucer.

  Gold car getaway post-shooting.

  There was nothing definite linking the gold car to the mass homicide further up the street. Could have been an idle commuter’s poor timing. But the guys from the truck had to have left somehow: it reeked of a last-minute exit.

  He drank some coffee and thought about it. On Monday his theory to Don McCarthy had been the house was used for witness protection. Meaning the occupants of the address would have been maybe one witness, plus a team of either two or three cops. McCarthy hadn’t denied it. He’d more or less told him to keep it to himself.

  So what happened?

  Say it’s six a.m. The house is being staked out by the two guys in the truck. They see someone at the target address step outside, they decide to move in. They skid into the front yard and shoot whoever’s standing out front on the porch. They gain entry through the front and take down whoever’s inside. They spend a moment or two indoors, then leave the scene.

  He sipped more coffee.

  The truck wouldn’t make a good getaway vehicle. So they’d ditched it, and presumably been picked up. Which was potentially where the gold car came into it.

  He drained the cup and placed it on the seat beside him to free up space.

  So it’s a dual stakeout: the guys in the truck are watching from one angle, the guy in the gold car’s got everything pinned down from another. The guys in the truck move in. The gold car driver holds his ground, collects the guys from the truck a moment later. Cue a clean getaway.

  Duvall jotted gold car driver and boxed it in with a fierce border of ballpoint. It felt like progress. He gathered the file and paid for his coffee. He asked the girl at the counter for directions to the nearest payphone. He got a shy smile and a shrug. Public phones were nearing extinction.

  He wandered the shopping centre. A shower had passed through during breakfast. The pavement radiated hot bitumen aroma. He found a booth one block over on Memorial Square. It had a copy of the Auckland residential White Pages, burn marks on one corner the only sign of abuse. Still serviceable. He propped his folder above the console and made a quick flip-through.

  Constable Ian Riley, dead by gunshot, Monday January thirtieth.

  His old journo contact Robert Davis had given him the name the night before. He hoped Riley wasn’t too common a name. Ring-and-hope approaches were effective provided they didn’t take all week. He flipped through to R. Auckland boasted a one-page column of Rileys. This could take a while.

  He fed
the phone his credit card and worked down the list. He had a concise greeting mentally rehearsed: introduce himself as a private investigator and ask if he was speaking to a relative of the late Ian Riley.

  He got five ‘No’s’ in a row. Monosyllabic answers made for quick phone work. He tried the next Riley on the list. No answer. He got three more no-pickups. Admittedly, mid-morning on a weekday wasn’t an ideal time to catch people at home. He persevered and got an alternating sequence of no’s and no answers. The thought of the phone patiently nibbling his credit card balance kept things snappy. He tried the next Riley on the list. An elderly woman answered.

  ‘Madam, I’m a licensed private investigator named Mitchell Duvall. I wonder whether I’m speaking with a relative of the late Constable Ian Riley?’

  He got a long stretch of quiet on the line. It felt like progress. ‘What is this about?’ the woman said.

  Duvall laid on the manners: ‘Madam, I’m currently investigating a shooting that occurred back on the thirtieth of January, and I understand Constable Riley was a victim.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘I’m sorry; you say you’re a relative?’

  ‘I’m his mother.’

  ‘I see. Would you be available at all today to meet with me and perhaps answer some questions?’

  ‘Yes, I think I would.’

  ‘What time would suit you?’

  ‘Well, I’m here all day, so whatever time suits you will suit me, I suppose.’

  She put down the phone.

  TWENTY-SIX

  WEDNESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY, 9.28 A.M.

  Devereaux rang in and had his regular duties reassigned. He didn’t cite a reason for absence. Nobody queried him. Maybe nobody cared. Or maybe news had already broken of his dust-up with Don McCarthy.

  He dialled John Hale’s office. Hale caught it on the first ring.

  ‘That was quick.’

  Hale said, ‘I don’t like to leave paying clients waiting.’