Shattered

by Gabrielle Lord

  In the shocked silence, Gemma tried to think of something to say that might comfort Jaki, but no words came to her.

  ‘Did you call Natalie Finn anonymously and tell her that her husband was involved in an affair?’ Gemma asked.

  Jaki looked stunned. ‘Of course I didn’t! We were trying to keep it all secret!’

  ‘Did you ever call the Bryson Finn household?’

  ‘No. Like I said, we were both desperate to keep our relationship completely secret.’

  ‘We can check your phone records,’ said Angie.

  ‘Please do!’ said Jaki. ‘And you’ll see I never called the Finn household.’

  ‘Not from your own phone perhaps,’ said Angie. ‘Come on. Do you want to take a bag with some toiletries? It could be a while before you’re home again.’

  •

  Outside her apartment, Gemma watched as Angie’s car pulled away, with Jaki Hunter’s hunched figure in the back. She’d asked Angie to drop her home, unable to bear the prospect of helping deliver Jaki to the interrogation of homicide detectives. Jaki couldn’t be the killer, Gemma thought. Her distress was so real, her pain so genuine, that it was impossible to believe. Then again, if she was the murderer, she wouldn’t be the first killer who’d later regretted her actions, who’d wished she could turn back the clock. Jaki’s obvious suffering could just as easily come from deep shock and remorse.

  As she walked down the steps to her home, she thought about the ugly doll with the sliver of glass through its body.

  Then she clenched her hands into fists. Who was ‘the bitch’ – the anonymous woman caller Bryson had mentioned who’d rung his wife to dob on the philandering super? Where was she? And who was she?

  Twenty

  Gemma remembered to call Mike. He wasn’t available so she left a message, then went into her office, determined to find out more about the doll, track down the person who’d dressed it. Whoever had done so might remember the special order of dark blonde hair and a mole near the mouth. If someone had it in for Jaki, it might open up another line of inquiry and get her girlfriend off the hook somehow. Gemma found the Police Association website, then the accessories hyperlink and shot off an email.

  She walked into the kitchen and made a decaffeinated coffee, having it with one of Mike’s bikkies. Again, the awful scene at Bryson Finn’s funeral replayed itself. Julie Cooper’s glossy curls and diamond solitaire, Steve’s shambling attempts to apologise, to explain the inexplicable. In that interaction, her dream of their little family had finally crashed, burned and died. She hadn’t realised how much her decision to have the baby, inspired by the soaring white pigeon, had been based on a barely conscious dream that somewhere, sometime, she and Steve would be a loving couple. This illusion now was over and the harsh reality of raising a baby, a toddler, a kid, an adolescent into adulthood over the next twenty years was just too much to do by herself.

  Her thoughts turned to Jaki once more. She picked up the phone and called Angie.

  ‘What’s happening with Jaki?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s being interviewed downstairs. I’ve been checking round. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. She used to go out with someone from Maroubra last year, but that all fell through, and the last six months she’s been single – according to workmates and family.’

  ‘Angie, Jaki is our friend. She couldn’t have murdered Bettina and Bryson.’

  ‘Well, she never let on about her affair did she? She is obviously good at keeping secrets.’

  ‘But there are other people who also had motive. Findlay, Natalie, the anonymous woman caller,’ said Gemma.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Angie. ‘You always do consider all the angles. Give me a nice straightforward domestic any day. Like the guy at Lindfield. Yes, Officer, I just lost it. Yes, Officer, I did it. I don’t know why. I don’t know how it happened. Admissions made, down to the bail sergeant, everything hunky-dory and I get to go home by a reasonable hour.’

  ‘I’ve thought about the anonymous woman caller,’ Gemma went on. ‘See, it could be a neighbour who’s seen them meeting, or someone in the job. Someone who’s found out about two of their workmates’ clandestine liaison. Jaki thinks that no one knew anything about the affair, but it only takes one person to spot a couple somewhere they shouldn’t be, doing something they shouldn’t.’

  ‘We checked all the neighbours,’ said Angie. ‘Both at the flat the super moved into and those next door to the marital home. Nothing. The people at the flats hadn’t noticed anyone except Bryson going in and out of his place. And he’d hardly be bringing his lady love back to the marital home.’

  ‘Doesn’t stop a lot of them,’ said Gemma, remembering some of the covert cameras she’d installed. ‘You should see some of the footage I’ve taken from various marital beds.

  ‘And the neighbours at Bettina and Findlay’s house would have seen Bryson coming and going over the years,’ she continued. ‘Nothing remarkable in that. And if he arrived with another police officer, it wouldn’t be remarkable to them either.’

  ‘That’s right. But what if it was Jaki herself who made the phone calls to Natalie?’ suggested Angie. ‘I’ve known cases where the girlfriend does that, just to blow up the status quo. Once the wife knows, things can often move fairly quickly. And in this case, it did work, Gems. Bryson moved out. Ninety per cent of them stay with their wives. In this case, the gamble worked and the wife tossed him out into the waiting arms of the other woman.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Gemma said, ‘Natalie said Bryson left. Then she corrected it to her chucking him out. That was a telling slip. You said so yourself. Ange, it’s not in Jaki’s interest to kill him – especially if he’s prepared to leave his wife. This is what she’s waited for, surely. There’s simply no motive for Jaki to murder Bryson Finn.’ She frowned. ‘I’m trying to put myself into the frame of mind of that anonymous woman who rang Natalie –’

  ‘So she told us,’ Angie reminded her. ‘Gemma, you can’t overlook the physical evidence. Of course, you’re unwilling to believe that someone you know is capable of murder. But what if Bryson had just told Jaki he’d decided to go back to Natalie? A lot of them do that. They move out in a flurry of emotional mess and muddle, and then when everything’s calmed down, they realise they’re stuck with this strange woman who doesn’t know anything about them and who does things differently to what they’re used to. All the hot sex in the world isn’t a substitute for comfortable, familiar companionship.’

  ‘How come you know all this?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘Hell, girl, I’ve worked in this bloody system for twenty years. You can’t help noticing the patterns. This place is like some freaky experiment in human relationships organised by a sadistic psychiatrist. Don’t you remember?’

  Gemma thought of her years in the job. Angie had a point. And had first-hand experience with Trevor.

  ‘What if Bryson Finn’s over at his sister-in-law’s place,’ Angie continued, ‘discussing this decision with someone he’s known and trusted for years?’

  ‘What about the You bastard B note?’

  ‘It might well have come from the jealous girlfriend,’ said Angie. ‘And he’s had a gutful of her.’

  ‘This is Jaki you’re talking about,’ Gemma reminded her. ‘Can you imagine her writing that sort of threat?’

  ‘Who knows what people are capable of when they’re thwarted?’ Angie replied. ‘She’s already admitted she was head over heels with the guy. We’re waiting for any traces left on the paper by the writer. So Bryson tells Jaki that he’s going back to Natalie, Jaki grabs a rifle, follows him to Bettina’s place, shoots both of them, young Donovan gets mixed up in it, Jaki races away from the scene, failing to pick up the cartridges because of the dreadful thing she’s just done, dumps the rifle somewhere – there are heaps of places between Killara and Coogee – drives home, gets in t
he bath and –’

  ‘Hang on, Ange. That just doesn’t sound right.’

  ‘She’s not thinking straight,’ said Angie. ‘She’s panicking. She’s just shot three people – one of them a little kid. Look at the state she’s in now. You said yourself you think she’s cracking up.’

  ‘I don’t buy it,’ said Gemma. ‘Why wouldn’t she dump the overalls too? Somewhere in the Lane Cove River on her way back home. Why take them back to work?’

  ‘Maybe all she was thinking of was getting rid of the murder weapon,’ said Angie. ‘Then she goes home, forgets all about the overalls, and has a bath. No wonder she didn’t remember our celebration dinner. She’s a murderer now. Her guilt and grief and pain start to kick in. In all of this, the last thing she’s thinking about is her celebration dinner. She wasn’t having a bath because she felt wretched with work issues and a fluey cold. She was having a bath to try and wash the blood off her hands!’

  ‘Angie, you know that isn’t right. The evidence is wrong – or at least pointing us in the wrong direction! This is Jaki we are talking about.’

  ‘I know, Gemma,’ Angie said sadly.

  •

  Next morning, Gemma woke early, turning the facts of the case over and over, still shocked by the previous day’s developments, trying to make sense of them. But wherever she started and however much she swapped and changed the facts around, they all seemed to point to Jaki Hunter. This couldn’t be, but if it wasn’t Jaki, she thought, who could it be? She tried – and failed – to recall something Angie had said the night of the failed celebration dinner, something that might suggest another line of inquiry, but right now she couldn’t remember. An unknown woman had written a note to Bryson Finn about trying to meet up at the Police Association dinner to discuss ‘damage control’. I think he knows, the woman had written. But there was no he in Jaki Hunter’s life. She was a single woman, living alone. Could the other woman be Galleone’s wife? The families had been friends once and there were plenty of incidents concerning cops ‘comforting’ another cop’s wife. Maybe Natalie had been playing out of school. She called Natalie’s mobile but it went to voice mail. Perhaps she was at the hospital. Gemma thought of the little boy, of how he’d screamed at the sight of his mother, and shivered.

  She got up, restless and unhappy. She needed to stay focused on work, to keep her imagination and memory from drawing her back into the place of grief about Steve, about the baby. Her baby. Their baby.

  After her shower, she noticed the lump under the blankets on the lounge.

  ‘Hugo?’

  ‘Yo,’ he called back sleepily.

  ‘You awake? We’ve got a job to do.’

  After breakfast, Hugo helped her drag out the big old Malibu board she hadn’t used in years from its hiding place under the timber deck. A bad ding on one side had worsened with neglect and the fibreglass weave was frayed around the edges of the damage.

  ‘Are you going to surf using that thing?’ he asked as she stood it on end against the wall. ‘It should be in a surfing museum.’

  ‘I’m thinking of having it repaired,’ she said.

  When she pulled up across the road from Martin Trimble’s house, she called his landline. No one answered.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ Hugo said, looking at her as if she’d lost it.

  ‘It’s a calling card,’ Gemma answered. ‘If we’re challenged, it gives us some cred.’

  ‘Hey,’ he grinned, ‘I get it. It’s cover. We’re on the job?’

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

  They crossed the road, Hugo carrying the Malibu. Gemma checked the house, knocking on the door, walking round the back, calling out. Martin Trimble wasn’t there. The place was empty.

  Gemma hurried to the garage, pushing past branches of overgrown murraya bush until she reached the side window. She tried to peer past the collection of tins and bottles stacked inside against the dirty glass.

  ‘You want to get in there?’ Hugo asked, making his way past the bushes and propping the surfboard against the wall. Gemma glanced towards the street. From here, she could see the occasional car but was shielded from view by the murraya that formed the boundary between Trimble’s house and the property next door.

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘Not quite sure how, though.’ She hurried back to the front of the garage, to make sure that Trimble wasn’t returning. The sound of smashing glass made her spin around.

  ‘Hugo! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  Already, he was balancing on the sloping, paint-peeling ledge outside the window, his hand wrapped in his black top, grunting and wrestling with the window lock.

  ‘You said you wanted to get in here,’ he said, frowning.

  ‘Hell, Hugo. I’ll lose my licence if this gets reported. I can’t go round breaking into people’s properties.’

  ‘You didn’t do it,’ he said, grimacing and twisting with all his might. ‘It’s cool.’

  ‘It is not cool!’

  ‘It is now,’ he said, with a huge grin. ‘I’ve unlocked it.’ He bashed at the frame, then slowly, unevenly, he was able to open the bottom half. Several tins and containers fell onto the straggling grass under the window.

  Gemma watched while he bent double and squeezed through. She shook her head in disbelief. She knew she should get him out of there and get away as quickly as possible, but the temptation to take advantage of the Ratbag’s ad hoc break and enter was too strong. Every instinct in her body told her that Martin Trimble was lying, that he knew exactly what had happened to Steffi. She thought again of the stain under the exercise trapeze in the corner of the living room. Anything might be in that garage.

  Pulling on some thin rubber gloves and hauling herself heavily onto the sill, she clawed wildly at the window frame, grunting and pushing until she too was halfway through. With one leg still slung over the sill, she reached with the other until she found a benchtop underfoot.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Hugo, turning from his investigation of a large carton. ‘You can put your weight on that. It held me and I jumped on it.’

  Cautiously, bent double, Gemma shifted her weight and drew her other leg through until she was crouched on the dirty benchtop. It was littered with mouse and rat droppings, the occasional rusty car part and more bottles and containers. Piled around the sides of the garage, away from the empty centre where presumably Trimble’s car would be parked, were numerous large cartons.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ Hugo asked.

  ‘Not sure,’ she said. ‘Look, I’d be much happier if you went outside and kept cocky. If the owner comes back while we’re in here, I’ll be in big trouble.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll be the lookout. But we’ll have to get away through the back if anyone arrives.’

  Gemma was impressed at the Ratbag’s capacity to forestall trouble. ‘You’ll make a great operative,’ she said. ‘Or a commando. That’s if you stay out of gaol long enough.’ She gave him a gentle shove.

  Hugo flashed one of his rare smiles, then vanished through the window while Gemma turned her attention to the cartons. She opened the first two. They were both crammed with baubles, glittering ropes of tinsel, Christmas lights and golden reindeer – clearly the remnants of some department store’s Christmas past. Maybe Trimble the entrepreneur had operated as a contract decorator. She moved to the next box. It contained densely packed fake Christmas trees, trimmed with white frost. We get a lot of that in Australia in December, she couldn’t help thinking, closing the lid again.

  She was opening another carton when she heard Hugo’s voice. She drew nearer the window. ‘What is it?’ she called. There was no response so she returned to the half-open carton, carefully lifting the top layers of garments – theatrical costumes as far as she could tell: an embroidered cloak and filmy, layered eveni
ng gowns. She dug deeper, peering right down to the bottom of the carton. It was filled with folded clothes. Gemma straightened up, about to close the lid and turn to the next one, when she saw a section of white fabric with tiny multicoloured spots on it, peeping out from under yellow Thai silk. Suddenly, she was very interested. Toby Boyd had described the spots as being like confetti, though not as large. Carefully, she lifted the yellow Thai silk sheath dress to reveal a folded white dress. Beneath the dress was something else, the crush of layers of tulle. The veil. Gemma caught her breath. Even without touching the white, spotted dress or unfolding it, the ominous marks on the fabric were clear to see.

  A sound at the window and Hugo had his arm through, waving and beckoning wildly. ‘Why didn’t you hear me? We’ve gotta get out of here! Some dude’s pulled up and is getting gear out of his car at the front of the house.’

  Gemma cursed. She should have brought her video camera. She couldn’t leave this vital evidence. By the time the police came back with a search warrant, Martin Trimble could have destroyed it. She made a split-second decision and, making sure she didn’t touch the bridal gown, she rolled it up in the yellow evening dress under which it had lain.

  ‘Hurry!’ said Hugo. ‘Any minute, he’s going to come inside.’

  She passed him the rolled-up bundle and scrambled through the gaping window frame.

  ‘We can get out over the back fence,’ he said as she hit the ground. ‘Otherwise we’ll run straight into the guy we’re knocking off!’

  Gemma took the bundled clothes from him and together they raced off, passing the roll of clothes to each other as they clambered over the fence at the back of Martin Trimble’s yard, falling heavily onto some shrubs on the other side, dusting themselves down.