by Amos, Gina
‘So the old girl didn’t suspect the innuendos she painted for Freddie had something to do with Chisca?’ Morrissey asked.
‘She thought he’d moved on to bigger and better things. Calida had no idea Freddie was involved with him.’
Morrissey shook his head.
‘Listen, I need to talk to you, Col. People are beginning to notice.’
‘Notice what?’
‘Your attitude.’ Rimis gave him a frosty look.
‘It’s Chapman isn’t it? He’s a fucking girl. I just had a bit of a joke with him.’
‘It’s not only Chapman.’ Rimis sat back in his chair. ‘Everyone’s sick of your outbursts, and your crude jokes. And you stink of ciggies and booze.’
‘Jesus Christ, Nick, nag, nag, nag. You sound like Sophie when I’ve forgotten to take out the wheelie bin.’
Rimis leaned forward over his desk. ‘I don’t know what your problem is but you better pull yourself together or the complaints are going to become official.’
Morrissey stared angrily at Rimis. ‘And I suppose you agree with them?’ Morrissey stood up to leave.
‘I’m just warning you, that’s all. As your boss and as a friend.’
Morrissey’s phone rang. He stood up and took it from his hip pocket and looked at the screen. He was about to answer it, when he saw the look on Rimis’s face.
‘There’s something else I want to talk to you about. Sit down.’
‘Well what is it?’
‘Mickey Brennan,’ Rimis said. ‘You were with him the night he got shot. I’ve been looking through the case notes and there are a few things that don’t add up about that night. I thought you might be able to shed some light.’
‘It was four years ago Nick, the memory’s not what it was. Look I have to take this call.’
‘Try,’ Rimis insisted.
Morrissey pressed the decline button on his phone and put it back in his pocket. He sat down.
‘Look, the scum who went down for Brennan’s murder were all Romanian,’ Rimis said. ‘The guy who pulled the trigger had an IQ with a minus sign in front of it, so I can’t see him being the guy in charge. There were mumblings at the time that there was someone in the background, pulling the strings. Dorin Chisca’s name popped up. What do you remember about that night? It would mean a lot to Brennan if we could lay some ghosts to rest.’
Morrissey shifted in his chair, stood up and closed the door. He walked back to Rimis's desk. His face was flushed. ‘All I can tell you is, at the time, there was a spate of home invasions in Lakemba. There was talk Romanian drug dealers from Melbourne had come into the area and were trying to muscle in on the local Middle Eastern gangs. They were linked to all sorts of things, not just drugs but social security fraud and extortion. Brennan, Carver, Peruzzi and I were assigned to the case. We had an anonymous tip off, something was going down that night.’
‘Go on,’ Rimis said.
‘We turned up at this address in Wattle Street. It was late, almost midnight. The street was quiet, no traffic, not even a barking dog. Carver and Peruzzi parked fifty metres down the street and stayed in the car while Brennan and I parked around the corner and went to take a look. We jumped two youths after they came out from the house. One of them was carrying two pouches of heroin. We took them back to Carver and Peruzzi. Carver stayed in the car with them, Peruzzi came with Brennan and me.’ Morrissey rubbed the back of his neck.
‘Go on,’ Rimis said.
‘We were going to call in for back-up, but for some crazy reason, Brennan decided to make a fake drug buy so he could get the door open. We watched him walk up the front steps from the bushes by the front fence. Still to this day, I don’t know what got into him. Everyone who knew Mickey knew he had a temper on him and took risks. He pushed against the door like a madman and the chain must have snapped because he managed to wedge part of his body in. There was a scuffle. Peruzzi and I ran up to the house, but it was too late by the time we got there; Brennan was lying on the verandah with a bullet to the head.’
‘So, what did you do then?’
‘We called for an ambulance and back up, like we should have done in the first place. Too late for an ambulance. We dragged his body out onto the street.’
‘Did you see Chisca?’
‘No, I didn’t see him. He could have been there. I heard his name used a couple of times, but mostly they were talking gibberish. I couldn’t make out a word they were saying. There was plenty of confusion, screaming and yelling going on. Most of them managed to scamper off out the back door. We nabbed the scum who shot Brennan, but he never told us who else was there that night. I wasn’t even sure he was the one who pulled the trigger, even though his prints were all over the gun.’
‘Why did Brennan go in alone?’
‘I can’t give you an answer to that. He was the senior officer. We were waiting for instructions. It all happened so fast. Look, Nick, this is fucking upsetting, dragging all of this up now. It’s history. Mickey Brennan’s history. Leave it alone. If you want to pin something on Chisca, maybe you can do a deal with him or something, get him to fess up to being there that night.’
‘I’ve already given him a drilling but he’s keeping his mouth shut.’
Morrissey stood up. ‘Well, that’s the end of it then. If Chisca doesn’t spill his guts, there’s nothing we can do.’
‘Yeah, nothing we can do.’ Rimis put the file away in his top drawer. He looked at Morrissey and wondered about him. Was the stress of the job getting to him? He seemed preoccupied lately. Rimis knew the combination of the job and personal life was a fine balance. Or was there something else bothering him? Gambling debts? Alcohol problems? A woman on the side causing him grief? ‘You going to Otto’s Bar tonight? I’ve got a meeting, so I won’t be there till late.’
‘No. I'll have to give it a miss. Sophie wants me home, you know what women are like.’
Rimis nodded, but he didn’t have the faintest idea what women were like. He had never taken the time to understand them, and until recently, he had never felt the need to.
The first thing Morrissey did when he arrived home was turn on the air con. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen dressed only in a pair of blue and white striped boxer shorts. He snapped the lid off a bottle of a cold beer and took a deep gulp.
It was just after seven and there was no sign of Sophie. She had been working late all week, pulling lots of overtime at the accountant’s office where she worked in the city.
He walked over to the fridge and opened it. Left-over roasted chicken, a paper bag of mushrooms, a plastic container of low-fat cream. He didn’t usually do the cooking, but tonight he decided he would surprise her. He checked the recipe on the back of a pasta pack then pulled out a saucepan. Spaghetti Carbonara. How hard could it be?
He chopped mushrooms and onions, added a little oil to the frypan. He checked the recipe again, stirred in the cream and went to the fridge and opened another beer.
He leaned back against the bench and watched the sauce simmer. Bloody Rimis. He swallowed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He had a hide, lecturing him about his attitude and his drinking. He should talk. How many times had Nick Rimis turned up at the station hung-over from a night on the piss?
Hypocrite.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jill stood up, pushed the chair away, and walked down a long corridor towards the interview room at North West Metropolitan Region HQ in Parramatta. She wiped the perspiration from her top lip, stepped into the room, shook hands and took a seat across from the three Detective Inspectors. Introductions were made.
‘You're aware of the procedure for this interview, Senior Constable?’
Jill looked at the name badge of the less intimidating of the three, committing his name to memory in case she was called upon to use it. She flashed a disarming smile. ‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Well, let's begin then.’
There were four questions on the sheet in front of her. S
he placed her hands on her shaking knees to steady them. The first question was so easy she thought she would laugh from the relief. She was being asked to outline the circumstances of aggravation under Section 105A of the Crimes Act.
‘Your answer to the first question Senior. When you’re ready.’
Jill made a few notes on the paper she had been given. She sat upright and took a deep breath. She answered in a strong and steady voice. ‘The circumstances of aggravation means the alleged offender is armed with an offensive weapon or instrument, the offender is in the company of another person, the alleged uses corporal violence on another person, the alleged offender inflicts bodily harm…’ And so she continued, answering every question without hesitation.
Thirty minutes later, Jill walked out of the interview room. She grinned into the mirror in the women’s toilet. The interview couldn’t have gone better. The panel had nodded and smiled their approval. She punched the air with her fist and smiled at her reflection. She walked out of the building. Rimis had already told her to take the rest of the day off, which suited her; there was someone she had to visit.
She wasn’t sure what sort of reception she would receive at Silverwater Correctional Centre, Australia’s largest gaol complex. She hated gaols. They were sordid, aggressive places where bad things happened.
‘Mr Chisca.’ Jill nodded to him before she sat down at the table in front of him in the concrete visits room.
Chisca didn’t stand. ‘Senior Constable Brennan, or should I call you Jill? I was surprised when I was told I had a visitor today. A friend, I think you said.’
‘I don’t care what you call me, to be honest; you know this isn’t a social visit. I’m here for some answers.’ She looked at him and wondered how he felt having to wear the white back-zipped jumpsuit with VISITS in black letters stamped on the back. Whenever she had met him, he had always been impeccably dressed.
‘First you must ask the questions.’
Jill squirmed in her seat.
‘If you are here about Freddie or that girl, Paloma Browne, let me tell you now, I am an opportunist, I am not a murderer.’
‘I’m not here in any official capacity, I’m here to talk to you about my father.’ She studied his face for the first time. A thin white scar, which she hadn’t noticed before, ran from the corner of his mouth down the length of his chin.
‘Yes, your father. You are very much like him. When I first met you, I saw the family resemblance immediately. And you have his temper, I can see.’
‘So, you did know him?’
‘Yes, I knew Mickey well.’ Chisca sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.
‘Were you in Lakemba the night he was shot?’
‘What sort of question is that?’ His face was blank, his eyes cold.
‘Try this one then,’ Jill frowned. ‘Did my father borrow money from you?’
‘Are you sure you want to know?’ He smiled and Jill could see from the look on his face, he was playing with her. Where was all this going? She looked up at the clock on the wall above Chisca’s head and watched the second hand tick by.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want to know.’ This was the only chance she would have to find out about her father. If she didn’t, she knew it would haunt her for the rest of her life.
‘Sometimes, I believe ignorance is a better alternative.’ Chisca leaned forward. She could smell his stale breath. ‘After I arrived in Sydney from Melbourne, your father arrested me on a minor charge. We struck a deal. The charge, it was dropped after I provided useful information. We had working relationship which benefitted us both. Not long after, he came to me, asked if I knew anyone who would lend him money. He had gone to banks, but they had all refused him.’
‘Did he say why he needed the money?’ Jill felt her heart pumping.
‘It was to send you to your private school and university.’
Jill stared at him in disbelief. She’d never questioned how her father could afford her expensive education on a detective sergeant’s salary.
‘Did anyone know about this? I mean, any of his colleagues?’
‘I do not know.’
‘So where did he get the money from?’
‘I gave him names, some associates.’ He leant forward and placed his elbows on the table. ‘Now it is my turn,’ Chisca said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I have helped you with your information, now I need you to help me.’
‘Well, I don’t think there is —’
‘That is where you are wrong.’
Jill couldn’t believe what was happening here, the tables had turned. How had she been so naive to think he would give her something for nothing?
‘I think I should leave now,’ she said. It had been a mistake coming here. Jill stood up and pushed the chair back from the table.
‘I want you to tell Detective Morrissey something for me.’
‘What do you mean? Why Morrissey?’
‘Tell him to watch his back.’
Visiting time was over and when Chisca was led away with the other remand prisoners, he called out to her, ‘Tell Morrissey, tell him what I said.’
Jill walked out of the room and slumped against the wall in the corridor. She thought of Morrissey and wondered what part he had really played in her father’s death.
It was seven o’clock. Jill walked into Otto’s Bar and found Col Morrissey where she expected him to be, sitting up at the bar with a schooner in his hand, watching the day’s cricket highlights on the big screen. The place was noisy enough for her to know their conversation wouldn’t be overheard.
‘Hello Brennan. I’m surprised you wanted to meet here. I didn’t think this place was classy enough for you.’
Jill wasn’t here for small talk and got right to the point. ‘I went to see Dorin Chisca this afternoon.’
Morrissey shifted his gaze from the plasma screen and stared at her. ‘You did what?’
‘I spoke to Chisca, asked him a few questions about my father.’
Morrissey swore. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Maybe I am,’ she said. Her mouth curved in a humourless smile. Her heart was racing. She was trying not to show how much Morrissey pissed her off. ‘He asked me to give you a message.’
The bar was getting busy; students from the university were gathering at the low tables. ‘Well, what’s the message?’
‘He told me to tell you to watch your back.’
‘Fuck,’ Morrissey finished the last of his beer in one gulp. ‘We’re in deep shit here, Brennan.’
Jill pulled up a bar stool beside him and put her bag on the counter. ‘What do you mean, we?’
‘I wasn’t there that night in Lakemba. It was a Friday night and I had somewhere else I had to be.’
‘None of this makes sense. That’s not what you told me the other day. That’s not what your statement said.’
‘Well, I lied.’ Morrissey looked down at his beer. He went to take another mouthful, but realised his glass was empty. ‘Chisca told me to meet him at the Lakemba house. Another one, thanks Jimmy,’ he called out.
‘Why did Chisca want to see you?’
Morrissey looked down at his empty glass. The frown lines on his forehead deepened.
‘Come on Sarge, after what I’ve heard today, whatever you tell me won’t come as any surprise to me.’
‘I don’t want you blabbing what I’m about to tell you to anyone. Do I have your word on that?’
‘Depends what it is,’ she said.
Morrissey spread his hands out in front of him and tipped over the glass. It rolled towards the edge of the bar but he grabbed it in time before it fell to the floor. ‘I was on his payroll and so was Mickey. Chisca was getting nervous, people were threatening him.’
‘Was Mickey threatening him? Is that why they shot him?’
‘I don’t know what went wrong that night, maybe it was an accident. Mickey was hot-headed and had a reputation for taking risks. Maybe, they thought
Mickey was me.’
‘Why would they think that?’
‘Because they were dumb arses, that’s why. A month before the stake-out, Blinky came up with this idea to break into Chisca’s house in Marrickville and do it over.’
Jimmy placed another beer in front of Morrissey, who took a deep gulp. ‘We had a tip-off and knew the house would be empty. Blinky covered for me and I found bundles of money all over the house – in the roof, in cupboards, in panels in the walls. It was the perfect crime. Chisca was never going to report the theft. How could he? And as far as I know, he never suspected me, at least not until now.’
‘What happened to the money?’
‘Some of it went to Blinky, I took my cut, and the rest of it, Mickey banked into his account.’
‘So you’re telling me I’ve been living off ill-gotten gains.’
‘Yeah, I guess you have.’
‘Does anyone else know about this?’ Jill looked at him.
‘Scotty knows.’
‘Scott Carver? For God’s sake, this keeps getting worse.’
‘Come on Brennan, you’re the lawyer, you’ve got brains. What are we going to do?’
‘Why should I do anything?’
‘Because your reputation and Mickey’s are at stake.’
‘Surprised to see you here Brennan.’
They both turned and looked over their shoulders. It was Rimis. Jill pulled back on her pony-tail.
‘How about a drink, Jimmy,’ Rimis said.
‘Thought you had a meeting? Jill asked.
‘Cancelled.’
Jill checked the time on her watch. ‘Didn’t realise it was so late.’ The bar was hot and stuffy and she needed some fresh air. She picked up her shoulder bag and got down from her stool. ‘I’ll see you two later then. Have a good night.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Rimis arrived in the office the next morning later than usual. He had spent a quiet evening at home after he left Otto’s Bar, drinking a bottle of Hunter Shiraz on his own and watching re-runs of Inspector Morse. He had asked Brennan to come and see him after he had run into her on his way back from the canteen. Five minutes later, she walked into his office carrying a cup of coffee.
