Blood Sunset

by Unknown

  I wasn’t sure whether Sparks was the person yelling back at me, or if he was even inside, but whoever it was, I knew the offer of money would bring them out. I took out the capsicum spray and shook it, ready to dose the dog or any other feral that came for me. I heard the sliding of timber and a lean figure slid out of a lower window. It wasn’t Sparks, but I recognised the stringy hair and rat-like face from the wall of pictures in the watch-house mess room. I hid behind a rotten fence and steadied myself with the pepper can as he shuffled down the drive.

  ‘Boo,’ I said, stepping out with my badge case open. ‘Where’s Sparks?’

  His hooded eyes were heavily glazed but he quickly took in the badge and the spray in my other hand.

  ‘Ah, ya prick. Tricked me.’

  ‘Fell for the oldest one in the book, old son. No money today, I’m afraid, but there’s a few smokes in it for you.’ I put the badge away and opened my cigarette pack. ‘Real smokes too. None of this roll-your-own shit.’

  He made a grab for the pack but I pulled back. ‘Where is he first? Inside?’

  ‘Nup.’

  ‘Then where?’ I said, shaking the pack in front of him. ‘No one else has to know.’

  ‘At the beach,’ he said curtly. ‘Foreshore.’

  I quickly computed this. Half a million people in St Kilda. Thirty-five degrees. Half of them at the beach. A needle in a haystack.

  ‘Where at the beach? Does he have a mobile?’

  The man shrugged, eyes still on the smokes. I gave him a handful and walked off. There was no way I could do this alone. I rang Cassie and arranged to meet her at the foreshore playground.

  ‘I’ll be with Mark,’ she said. ‘That okay with you?’

  ‘Finetti? What’s he still hanging around for?’

  ‘He’s on foot patrol, looking for someone. Apparently you guys cut a deal.’

  I cursed under my breath. I’d asked Finetti to find Sparks for me and keep him under wraps so I could question him without anyone knowing. Naturally, part of the deal was that he didn’t talk about it.

  ‘You want to fill me in now?’ she said.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Then I’m not meeting you. Whoever it is you want to find, you can do it yourself.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said, catching her before she ended the call. ‘We did have a deal. I just wanted Finetti to find this kid for me but he obviously hasn’t kept his end of the bargain.’

  ‘Ruby, you know how many people are down here today?’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what – keeping secrets or being unreasonable?’

  ‘Look, just meet me and I’ll explain. Ten minutes.’

  ‘Fine.’

  I ended the call, knowing I’d messed up. Once again I’d broken the cardinal rule between partners. I was rehearsing my explanation to Cassie when I noticed an overweight transvestite in a red dress watching me. Another newcomer. Sometimes it seemed there was one every week. I walked past him and headed back into the crowd, where it took over five minutes just to pass Luna Park. At the entrance, high-pitched laughter from a thousand children screamed out at me, as if the park itself were alive. It reminded me of the first time I’d ever been there as a child, when my family came to Melbourne and stayed with relatives. I remembered the ghost train and dodgem cars, how a girl threw up inside the spinning gravitron. I remembered my mother buying us fairy floss and ice cream. The only other time I’d visited Luna Park was with Dad, years later, when we travelled to Melbourne to look for Jacko.

  As I waited at the traffic lights, I looked back at the O’Donnell Gardens and the rear of Café Vit where Dallas Boyd had been dumped. For the first time I considered the paedophile angle as a possibility. Tammy York had said Dallas was involved with a paedophile crew, helping them find kids for porn movies and selling copies on the side. It made sense on one level but not on another. Sure, he needed money and selling porn was one way to get it. The way he probably saw it, if he didn’t make money out of it, then somebody else would. So why not?

  Rachel was why not. Why would he get so involved with rock spiders when his own sister, someone he loved, had been molested? Maybe he didn’t see the connection; or maybe he did and that was why he’d wanted to get her out of the commission flats. Then there was another possibility, one I didn’t want to consider but had to. Maybe Dallas Boyd wanted to get custody of his little sister so he could put her to work and collect another finder’s fee.

  Whichever way I looked at it, I was completely at a loss with establishing a motive. Being part of a spider web would’ve left Boyd wide open to any number of people wanting him dead. A victim after revenge? An angry parent? A rival hustler? Aggrieved customer? I also considered the location. Did it mean something? Was it chosen for reasons other than the pragmatic? A warning to others? I let some ideas roll around but nothing surfaced. It was too hot, too crowded, and I needed more information.

  At the foreshore, an outdoor stage rose into the air. A DJ stood above the crowd bent over a set of turntables. Electro music vibrated around me like an underground heartbeat. Doof-doof, doof-doof. Everywhere I looked, people were dancing – on the grass, on picnic tables, across the sand, on each other’s shoulders, even in the water.

  I spotted Cassie at the edge of the bike track. She was in a tank top and cargo shorts, a hand shielding her eyes from the sun.

  She started when I tapped her on the shoulder, then spoke into a mike. ‘He’s here. Give us five.’

  She turned to me. ‘Are you going to keep doing this?’ she said, unsmiling.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know exactly what. You’re running your own show and shutting me out. You need to start trusting me. I can’t be your partner if you don’t trust me.’

  I looked away, embarrassed. We sounded like lovers having a fight.

  ‘I do trust you.’

  ‘Bollocks! First off, you lied to me yesterday when you told me you were going home after the morgue. You never went home. You went and roughed up Boyd’s stepfather.’

  ‘How did you –’ I stopped when I realised. ‘Eckles knows, doesn’t he?’

  ‘You bet he does. The hommies arrested Vincent Rowe and kept him in the box all night. Finally kicked him loose about four hours ago, but not before he’d told them all about your little visit, know what I mean?’

  I laced my hands behind my head, pissed off they’d found out so quickly.

  ‘Come six o’clock this morning, Eckles is hopping mad,’ Cassie continued. ‘Dragged me into his office, threatened me with suspension till he realised I wasn’t there with you. Seems you made quite an impression. Good enough for this shithead to file a nine-eighteen on you.’

  I looked up at the sky, let the sun sting my eyes. A nine-eighteen was the numerical code for an ESD complaint form.

  ‘Why are you being so stupid?’ she said. ‘Next time you get backed into a corner, let me know about it. We’re supposed to be a team. A partnership.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What, that’s it? You’re sorry?’

  ‘It won’t happen again, Cass. I haven’t included you because I don’t want you in the shit with me. Finetti’s fair game – he asked for this when he sold me out – but you’re different. You’ve got a clean sheet and I’m not about to spoil that.’

  ‘Screw that, McCauley. We’re partners and that means more than just working together. It means we trust each other, rely on each other. So don’t tell me to just sit back and watch you do all this on your own.’

  ‘Okay, okay!’ I said. ‘Where the hell is Finetti?’

  She pointed towards the marina. ‘On foot, with Kim, heading that-a-way. We got a few calls from the car park. Thieves everywhere.’

  I followed her line of sight and realised what she meant. All of St Kilda had been blockaded due to the festival and the closest car park was beyond the marina, a good kilometre away. It wouldn’t take long for the local shitheads to work it out.r />
  ‘Let’s do it,’ I said.

  We headed off past the marina where the millionaires kept their Bertram Sunseekers and Moonrakers, one of which I was sure had never been out to sea.

  ‘You guys out there?’ chirped the radio. I recognised Finetti’s voice.

  ‘Two up,’ Cassie said. ‘The marina. What’s up?’

  ‘We got your man.’

  I felt a charge of adrenaline.

  ‘You got him?’ Cassie repeated. ‘Where?’

  ‘Car park, like we figured. Coming equipped. Dickhead even had a jemmy on him.’

  ‘Nice one! See you soon.’

  We clattered down the stairs to the parking lot. Under a palm tree about thirty metres away, Kim Pendlebury held Stuart Parks with his hands cuffed in front of him. Built like a battleaxe, Kim had arms and hands that could crush the average man, let alone a skinny runt like Sparks.

  ‘Wagging school today, Ruby?’ Mark Finetti said, clearly nervous since our last encounter.

  ‘Got a day pass from the couch,’ I said. ‘Dr Eckles can get rooted. So what’s the go?’

  ‘You tell me. We put the bracelets on this kid and he starts saying he’s got something for you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah, says he’ll only talk to you.’

  Why would Sparks want to talk to me? In fact, how did he even know my name?

  ‘Anyway, you’ve got about five minutes before the van arrives,’ Finetti went on.

  ‘Five minutes?’ I edged closer to him and kept my voice low. ‘We had a deal, mate. I needed him on ice. He’s no good to me in the van or back at the station.’

  ‘Hey, we’re not babysitting the kid any longer than we have to. Not unless you cut us in.’

  Cassie pushed between us. ‘That’s fair enough, Ruby. You can’t keep us in the dark with this. What’s going on?’

  ‘He was mates with Dallas Boyd,’ I said.

  ‘No shit,’ Finetti said. ‘We saw that on LEAP. What I don’t get is how you two know each other. I mean, you ask me to keep a lookout for this kid, and all the while he’s looking for you too.’

  ‘I don’t know what he wants with me, but it shouldn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I asked you to find him and keep him on ice. How am I supposed to talk to him back at the station?’

  Cassie waved a radio in front of me. ‘You want me to cancel the van, then let us ride the wave with you?’

  ‘No way. I’m in enough shit over this already.’

  She held up the radio again. ‘Now you’ve got about three minutes.’

  ‘I don’t want you to go down for working out of school.’

  ‘Oh, come off it. All we’re doing is talking to a local scrote. We’re not stepping on anyone’s toes.’

  A helicopter flew over and Cassie waited for the sound to clear before she asked Finetti to leave us alone. He screwed up his face but gave in and walked over to join Kim and Sparks beneath the tree.

  ‘The stepfather was a no-go zone,’ she said curtly. ‘Even you should’ve known that, but this is different. As far as they’re concerned, this kid doesn’t even exist.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. Everything is different now. There are things even the hommies don’t know. Things I haven’t told you.’

  ‘So tell me.’ Cassie shook the radio. ‘Two minutes. Make a choice.’

  I felt anger and annoyance in equal measure. I was painted into a corner. She held the mike to her mouth. ‘St Kilda 507 to VKC.’

  ‘Go ahead 507,’ said the dispatcher.

  Cassie raised an eyebrow. One last chance. I reached out, grabbed her wrist. ‘Okay. You win.’

  She told the dispatcher the kid was clean and to cancel the van.

  ‘Now you tell me everything,’ she said to me. ‘That’s the deal.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Leave nothing out. I mean it.’

  So I told her how I’d confirmed that Boyd had purchased the phone recharge card at around 10 p.m. in the company of his girlfriend. They’d walked down to McDonald’s where they’d parted company and Boyd had met with somebody to exchange kiddie porn. Whoever this person was, they were critical to the case. If not the killer, at the very least they were the last person to have seen Boyd alive. I finished by explaining my visit to Tammy York and how Will Novak had helped out.

  Cassie stared across to Sparks. ‘Rock spiders, huh?’

  ‘That’s how it looks, but it doesn’t sit well. Everything I’ve found so far suggests Boyd wanted to help his sister, who was being molested by the stepfather. Why would he get involved with rock spiders when she was a victim?’

  ‘Maybe he just became part of the machine,’ she said, shrugging. ‘Prey becomes predator. We see it all the time, Rubes.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’ I still wasn’t sure but let it go.

  ‘And you reckon this Sparks kid knows what Dallas was up to before he died?’ Cassie said.

  ‘They were supposed to meet up that night,’ I said. ‘Sparks left a message on Boyd’s voicemail saying he was hanging on to something for him. He sounded pretty freaked out, so he obviously knows something.’

  Cassie slid the mike back on her kit belt. ‘Well then, I guess we’d better see what the kid has to say.’

  23

  STUART PARKS WAS NO OIL PAINTING. He looked pale and unwell, his shoulders arched over a lean frame. The grubby singlet he was wearing did him no justice either, revealing bony arms, cheap tattoos and a series of abscesses on his wrists. Teenage stubble sprouted on a gaunt face dotted with acne.

  ‘So what gives?’ I said. ‘My partner says you wanted to talk.’

  ‘Not ’ere. Somewhere else.’

  Looking back towards the crowded Esplanade, I didn’t think it was a good idea to walk Sparks back to where my car was, so I waved Cassie over, handed her my keys and asked her to fetch the Falcon from the hostel and meet us at the marina.

  ‘Take Barkly Street. You should get through the traffic.’

  ‘What about them?’ she said quietly, nodding towards Finetti and Pendlebury.

  ‘They’ve done all they need to do.’

  She headed over to tell them they could go, leaving me with Sparks, who fidgeted with the handcuffs.

  ‘Bit tight?’ I asked.

  ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Well, don’t worry too much. It’s because they’re new. They’ll stretch out a bit after a while.’

  He gave me a death stare. I couldn’t help but smile. ‘Relax,’ I said, checking the cuffs and ratcheting them down a notch. ‘It’s an old joke. Surprised you haven’t heard it before.’

  ‘I have and it’s still not funny. Never has been.’

  ‘Yeah, okay. What are you so edgy about?’

  ‘Got me smokes in me pocket,’ he said, ignoring my question. ‘Reckon ya could get one for me?’

  ‘How do I know you don’t have a syringe in there?’

  ‘How do I know you’re not gonna do me for the jemmy bar?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Because you want what I’ve got. Bigger than any go-equipped bullshit.’

  I nodded. The kid knew the rules. I carefully removed a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one for him.

  ‘Let’s take a walk.’

  We headed back through the car park towards the marina. Sparks was moving too quickly. I put a hand on his shoulder to slow him down.

  ‘So, Sparks – that’s what they call you, isn’t it? Can I call you that?’

  ‘Call me whatever ya like when we get to the car.’ He held up his hands to take a drag on the smoke. ‘Not sayin’ nothin’ till ya take these off. Make me feel like a leper. Everyone’s starin’ at me.’

  ‘There’s no one around, mate.’

  ‘Yeah, what d’ya call that?’ he said, nodding to the left where a family had just arrived back at their car. He was right; they were staring. I stepped in beside him to block their view and guided him up the stairs. We didn’t speak again until we reac
hed the marina where Cassie waited in the Falcon. She stayed in the driver seat while I sat Sparks in the back, removed the handcuffs and engaged the child lock. I got in the front and looked at him through the mirror on the sun visor. He seemed small and vulnerable now, arms wrapped around his bony frame, glancing back and forth like a cornered rat.

  ‘You hungry?’ I asked him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Could murder a burger right now. Are you hungry, Cass?’

  Cassie shrugged. ‘Sure, but not one of those Macca’s burgers. I want a real burger.’

  ‘Exactly. What about a big fat burger with the lot from Smithy’s?’

  Smithy’s was a fish and chip shop on Beach Road in Brighton. There were hundreds like it across the city, but it was my favourite spot for a burger. I often went there after swimming at the baths when the exercise left me famished and craving fast food.

  I used my mobile to call ahead and soon we were in the car park facing the water, munching our burgers and slurping Cokes.

  ‘So what did you want to tell me?’ I asked after a few bites.

  ‘First off, ya gotta know I ain’t no dog, so I’m not gonna lag on no one.’

  ‘No one’s asking you to,’ I said.

  ‘Right, well, I’m just sayin’ I’m no dog, that’s all.’

  This was normal. Nobody wanted to admit they were an informant. I took another bite of my burger and waited.

  ‘Everyone’s sayin’ Dall knocked himself or that it was an accident,’ Sparks said after a moment. ‘But that’s bullshit, isn’t it?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Cassie asked.

  ‘Mate, soon as I saw ya at the hostel I knew it was bullshit,’ he said, looking at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘When I asked Will what ya were doin’ sniffin’ around about Dall, he said ya was looking into it.’

  I figured that was how the kid knew my name. I asked if Will had told him anything else.

  ‘Didn’t have to,’ Sparks said. ‘Jacks don’t go sniffin’ around for no suicide. Dall didn’t knock himself, did he?’

  ‘No, and it wasn’t an accident either.’

  Sparks rested the burger in his lap and let out a low sigh. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I knew it.’