Only the Dead

by Ben Sanders

  ‘You going to be in the office this morning?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I’m coming for a visit.’

  ‘Good.’

  It was a slow drive into town. February heat left traffic sluggish. Every passing car brought a windscreen flash of high sun. To his right a flat ocean nudged gently on the high-tide mark. Above it the inert bronzed forms of UV revellers, prone and gleaming in the heat.

  He found a park on High Street and fed the parking meter, walked up to Hale’s office. He had his stolen file with him. The door was unlocked, and he let himself in. The business had downsized. Three years back Hale had had an assistant and one junior investigator. Then the recession hit and left him with neither. The reception area boasted carpet and paint and little else. Hale was at his window, palms propped on the sill. Neck lost inside a deep hunch.

  ‘You bring me breakfast?’ he said.

  ‘Maybe next time.’

  ‘Jug’s there if you’re under-caffeinated.’

  ‘You always use such good vocab.’

  Hale nodded and looked at his view. ‘It enlivens the quotidian drudgery,’ he said.

  The window was close to where Vulcan Lane ran between High Street and Queen. He stepped away from the view and moved behind his desk and sat down. The window was open a crack. Devereaux laid the file on the desk and leaned on the sill. He lit a cigarette and vented fumes outside.

  ‘Don’t get ash on my carpet.’

  ‘It’s grey anyway.’

  Hale nodded at the file. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘January thirty shooting.’ He stood the lighter and the cigarette pack side by side on the sill.

  ‘From who?’

  ‘Don McCarthy.’

  ‘The whole file?’

  ‘Part of it.’

  ‘How’d you get it?’

  ‘I picked the lock on his office door. Then I picked the lock on his filing cabinet.’

  Hale slid the file towards him but didn’t open it. ‘That’s not a good way to keep your job.’

  Devereaux looked out the window. Vulcan Lane traffic had peaked: wall to wall pedestrians, cutting across from Queen. He folded his arms and crossed his legs. ‘I had a run-in with McCarthy yesterday,’ he said.

  ‘Verbal or physical?’

  ‘I pulled a gun on him.’

  Hale leaned forward on knitted fingers. ‘That’s not a good way to keep your job either.’

  Devereaux didn’t answer. Bright window light drew him in brooding silhouette.

  Hale said, ‘What happened?’

  ‘He and I went out yesterday evening to interview some contact of his. McCarthy thinks the guy’s holding back on him, and starts roughing him up.’

  ‘So you pulled a gun on him?’

  Devereaux didn’t move. The cigarette wavered with the reply: ‘It was McCarthy’s gun. But, yeah, essentially.’

  ‘Are you in trouble?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Have you heard anything?’

  ‘No.’

  Hale leaned back and folded his arms. The movement strained his shirtsleeves. He put his feet up on the corner of his desk. ‘You could lose your job.’

  ‘Or he could.’

  ‘I don’t think the odds are quite even.’

  Devereaux tapped ash out the window. ‘Depends how he decides to play it. He might not want to run the risk of me telling my side of the story, in which case he might keep quiet.’

  ‘And what are the chances of that?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I haven’t heard anything yet.’

  ‘Yet. That magic word.’

  Devereaux didn’t answer. He held the cigarette vertical in two fingers in front of his face. He looked at it a long time.

  ‘You can come work for me,’ Hale said.

  ‘You told me that.’

  ‘I’m reiterating the offer.’

  Devereaux glanced at him. ‘For or with?’

  ‘We can work out the nitty-gritty later.’

  ‘Do you even have the work?’

  Hale creaked back gently in his chair. He looked at the ceiling. ‘No, probably not.’

  Devereaux looked down at the street. The cigarette leaned out one corner of his mouth. ‘Were we ever that bad?’ he said.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Did we ever lean on people too hard?’

  Hale thought about it. ‘I never lost sleep over anything,’ he said.

  ‘Neither does Don McCarthy.’

  Hale was quiet. He opened the file cover, closed it again. He said, ‘I think me and you and old Don are probably sewn from the same stuff. Difference is we know where the line is.’

  ‘And he doesn’t.’

  ‘No. I think he just has a different line than you.’

  ‘Just a question of which line’s right.’

  Hale shrugged. ‘All the time I’ve known you, your line’s held up pretty well.’

  Devereaux nodded slowly. The movement caused a shiver in the thin rising smoke. He said, ‘I think I’m going to quit.’

  ‘Is that a definitely or a maybe?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think the only way I can stay is if a number of people end up dead.’

  ‘Could be a big ask.’

  ‘I just don’t like the way things are heading.’

  Hale said nothing.

  Devereaux said, ‘I just don’t know whether I want to be a part of this side of things any more.’

  ‘Too Orwellian?’

  Devereaux didn’t answer.

  Hale said, ‘So ride out the next couple of days and just see what happens.’

  Devereaux nodded. He looked down and watched the street. The countless throng; no one with fears that matched his own. He said, ‘If I don’t make it, will you speak at my funeral?’

  Hale said, ‘Only if I’m not busy.’

  Devereaux laughed. ‘I have to go to a thing with Ellen tonight,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Her parents are back from overseas. It’s some kind of party for them, I think.’

  ‘What are they like?’

  ‘I think I liked them best when they were overseas.’

  ‘Would they like you best if you were overseas?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Have you told her about all this?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Don business.’

  ‘No. She’d just worry.’

  ‘All that worrying you do by yourself, maybe it would be worth spreading it around.’

  Devereaux didn’t answer. Hale opened the file again and skimmed. He flicked through and selected a random page: ‘“Witness heard what she thought were shotgun rounds, soon after six a.m. Witness said a brief pause then preceded more shots. Witness looked through front — street-facing — window and observed two men prone in yard of target address.”’ He fanned pages and found another statement. ‘“Witness observed bullet damage to front of target address. Witness observed at least one man lying bleeding in front entry of target address.” Jesus. It’s a mess.’

  Devereaux reached out through the open window. He tapped ash and watched the breeze catch it. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It is.’

  He hadn’t caught an address. Duvall almost called the woman back, before he realised it was in the phone book, right in front of him.

  It took him forty minutes to find the place. It was a Sunnynook location, across the Harbour Bridge on the North Shore. It was a small unit down a right of way, backing onto the motorway. He parked at the kerb and walked down. A German shepherd chained to a steel stake watched him from the lawn of the front house. Ears and tail perked, slow eyes and a slow licking of lips.

  Another dog started barking when he knocked at the rear unit. The door was frosted glass. A woman appeared behind it, smudged and ghostlike. She pulled the door back against a chain. A wet canine nose claimed the gap.

  ‘You the investigator I spoke to earlier?’

  ‘That’s right.’

&
nbsp; ‘You give me just a tick and I’ll do away with these darn animals.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He stood and waited. Beside him a single chicken toddled and flapped inside a wood and wire hutch. A three-wheeled Daihatsu hatchback nested in a thatch of long grass.

  ‘Now, Henry, you sit and behave and let the man through. Goodness sake.’

  The dog nose disappeared. He heard the chain squeal off the catch. The door opened. A short elderly woman with crutches stood in its absence. She offered her hand. The proffered forearm dangled the crutch and a thick sheaf of loose skin. They shook.

  ‘Mr Duvall. Susan Riley. Come on in and we’ll have a sit-down. Just ignore Henry. He needs to learn he’s not the centre of attention.’

  He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. A Dalmatian stared up at him, tail wagging stiffly, eager for an introduction. A cat brushed past one leg, fluid and eel-like. The entry was yellow linoleum, overlaid with a dog-hair patchwork. The air carried the stink of it. To the right, an internal door led to the garage. He saw a wall of mesh-fronted animal hutches, a camp stretcher on the floor below.

  He followed the woman through to a living area at the rear of the house. A ranch slider framed a vista of tufted lawn edged with metal fencing. Through a door to the kitchen, he could see maybe ten or a dozen saucers heaped with jellymeat. Above them the sleek and hunched forms of as many cats, heads bent, tails upright and swaying.

  In the corner, a boxy television set topped with rabbit ears sat mute. The woman wedged herself down in an armchair adjacent. She sighed and raised her feet a fraction, easing pressure on thickened ankles. She wore a salmon-coloured cotton jumper above a long lime-green skirt, slack and formless as a shower curtain. She leaned her crutches against an armrest. Duvall claimed a couch opposite her. The Dalmatian followed him in and took up post beside the armrest, tail working at mid-revs.

  ‘Long as you don’t pat him he’ll leave you be,’ she said.

  The dog looked disappointed.

  The woman said, ‘So you’re some sort of PI?’

  ‘That’s right. I used to be a police detective.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Fifteen years or so.’

  She looked at the floor, trawling some mental back catalogue. ‘Did you work with my Ian, back in the day?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I didn’t.’

  She looked up. ‘You can quit the ma’am business. Your ears won’t fall off if you call me Susan.’

  ‘Right. Susan.’

  ‘And you’ve gone private now?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So who are you detecting for?’ A smile fought heavy cheeks. ‘Or is that where the private part comes in?’

  ‘Behalf of myself, I guess.’

  ‘Yourself.’ She nodded slowly. ‘Hell of a pastime you got yourself.’

  Duvall fell quiet. The ceiling was low. A wide lid of plaster trapping that stagnant feline odour.

  He said, ‘I just want to talk with you about the shooting on January thirtieth.’

  She looked at him blankly a moment, jowly and bespectacled. ‘When Ian was killed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The meal in the kitchen concluded. Cats moved about the empty saucers like whorls in river water. A grey tabby slinked into the room, wide eyes on Duvall. It traced a path along the baseboard to the woman’s chair, jumped atop her lap and balled itself tightly. The Dalmatian tired of sitting and sank to all fours, ears still attentive.

  He said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sure it must be difficult to try to think about.’

  ‘No, it’s okay. Best approach with most things is to take a deep breath and look them in the eye.’

  Duvall didn’t answer.

  Susan Riley said, ‘What have they told you?’ She was frowning. Maybe myopia, maybe a desire to catch and archive every word.

  ‘Nothing. I’ve got news clippings, and that’s it.’

  ‘Well. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to enlighten you much beyond that.’

  ‘Do you know why your son was even involved?’

  The frown softened. She shook her head. ‘I know he got a call late in the evening, January twenty-ninth. This is the day before it all happened. He got a call, and said he had to head out somewhere for work. I asked him where he was off to, of course, and he said it was some place out West Auckland way. And that was the last thing he said to me.’ She looked down and stroked the cat. ‘In this life anyway.’

  ‘I take it he called you before he left?’

  She looked confused. ‘No, he spoke to me in person. He lived here. He lived with me.’

  ‘Oh, okay. I wasn’t aware of that.’

  ‘It was just temporary. I had him on the little stretcher in the garage. I don’t think he liked staying with all the cats, but it was better than nothing, I suppose. Ian’s luck’s been a bit crooked the last few years, I think it’s fair to say.’

  Duvall said nothing, waited for her to continue. The TV showed a glossy infomercial.

  She said, ‘His marriage broke up about five years ago now, I think. His wife ended up with everything; got the house and the kids. Obviously, every story you hear’s got a second or a third side to it, but how he tells it his wife just sort of woke up one morning and said, “It’s over, Ian, get out, I don’t love you any more.” He was devastated, I tell you. It’s a miserable thing to have someone just stop feeling for you. But I suppose love’s doled out at random and I guess something similar happens when you’re talking about the reverse. But he struggled to get another place, and he’s always had a problem with gambling, and, truth be told, drinking hasn’t been on his side either, and all of that rolled in with the pressure he was under at work, he ended up just coming to live with me. He used to joke and say it was a disgrace, him being forty-eight and all and still living at home, and I used to just say, “Oh, Ian, it’s not like you’ve been at home this whole time.” You know. I liked having him at home. All that bad luck stacked on his ticket didn’t stop him being a good man. I loved him so much. His father would have been so proud of him. You can do all kinds of things with your life, but it’s being a decent person that counts for the most.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I know nothing about him.’

  ‘That’s okay. Nobody does. Police clung on to all the information like it’s going out of fashion.’

  ‘I got his name from a journalist.’

  ‘Journalist have anything else to say for himself?’

  ‘No. He just gave me the name.’

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘I looked up Riley in the phone book and just started ringing.’

  She made a little shape with her mouth like it struck her as sensible. ‘Well. I don’t know what to tell you other than he was forty-eight and he was a policeman, and there were fewer people than I’d have hoped for at his funeral.’

  ‘Did they tell you how he died?’

  She looked up. ‘Quickly.’

  Duvall didn’t answer.

  She glanced down and pinched something from the cat’s fur. ‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get sharp with you. They said he was shot.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She said, ‘I’m not so sure on how quick that would actually be. Got a feeling you’d have time enough to suffer.’

  Duvall left a pause to let that settle. He said, ‘Do you know what division he was with?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘With the police. Did he do patrol, or investigations?’

  ‘Patrol. He wore a uniform and drove a car. He was based in the central city awhile, then, heaven knows why, he volunteered to do a bit of a stint down Manukau way. Why he wanted to drive all the way down there, I’ll never know.’

  ‘He was still based down there early last month?’

  ‘Yes. He got seconded to a big investigation down there. Those bank robberies that started up back in November. You know the ones?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘H
e was assigned to do work on that.’

  ‘What sort of work?’

  ‘I don’t really know. Talking to people, I think. Way I understand it is they had a whole list of people who could have done it, or might have done it, or might know something about it. And then they went out and talked to them, and people they knew, tried to squeeze out some gossip. Apparently, they reckoned if you stole as much money as these fellas did, you’d be driven to gloat about it at some stage. And so I think they spent a fair bit of time eavesdropping underworld tittle-tattle.’ A soggy cough flared. She doused it on a sleeve.

  ‘Did you see much of him, day to day?’

  ‘Towards the end I didn’t. He did a lot of night work. I think they liked to knock on people’s doors after the sun’s gone down. But I’m a day creature, so I suppose we lived in a different pattern. Often I’d be getting up just as he got in, and he’d bring me a cup of tea. Which was nice.’

  The couch was too low. Duvall stretched his legs to ease a calf cramp. ‘How did he seem during the last few weeks?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him the last few weeks. He’s been dead.’

  ‘I mean the weeks before he passed away.’

  ‘I don’t think he was all that good, to be honest.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Don’t know, really. Although there wasn’t much else in his life beyond work, so I’d say at a bit of a guess that something with his job was eating at him.’

  ‘Was he okay, financially?’

  ‘Casino ate his savings. But I’d say his income was probably okay.’

  ‘Did he talk to you about why he might have been upset?’

  ‘No. I just deduced it, I suppose.’

  ‘Based on what?’

  ‘The happy pills he kept in the bathroom. Prozac or what’s it called.’

  ‘Had he been on antidepressants before?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. Can’t hardly blame him for taking them when he did. Wife had gone, money had gone, and he was sharing his bedroom with a dozen cats. Lucky he wasn’t allergic, or life really would have been a shambles.’

  ‘Do you know of anyone else I can speak to who might be able to help me?’

  The infomercial ended. The woman watched the transition to an Oprah re-run and then looked back at him.