Out of the Blue

by JR Carroll

  The cop said, ‘You don’t want to go over there, mate. Believe me.’

  Dennis ignored him and turned to go. The cop grabbed him. ‘Hang on. Listen, mate, do yourself a favour.’ Dennis struggled. The cop let go and said, ‘Look. We had to cut her out. You saw the car.’

  Dennis lurched away. At the ambulance Frank Stannard waited for him, arms extended.

  ‘Get out of the way, Frank. Where is she?’

  ‘She’s here, Dennis. Stay out of it, come on.’ He tried to shepherd Dennis away. He was big and awkward to get past. Dennis swore at him but Frank held out. Dennis swore, then screamed insensibly. Frank pushed him backwards and Dennis threw a punch. Frank ignored it and held onto Dennis. Over his shoulder Dennis could see something being loaded into a bag. It was a bare leg, blood-smeared, no foot attached. He could not see if there was a torso or head. Several men were working it carefully into the bag. Dennis watched while they zipped up the bag and lifted it into the ambulance. There did not seem to be enough bulk in it for a whole corpse. They slammed the door shut and he screamed and fell against Frank. It was the sickening sound a dying dog might make. All the fight left him. He wandered away into the dark and Frank followed him, saying things Dennis couldn’t hear. Frank didn’t exist any more—no one did. He stared up at the sea of revolving stars. The noise and spectacle receded. Light dimmed and strength poured out of him like blood onto the ground. He could feel himself dissolving. His knees gave way and he lay down in the grass. This was where he would stay. His chest hurt unbearably, as if he had been hit with an axe. This was where he would curl up and die now. Then someone put a needle in his arm and after that he didn’t feel or see anything.

  He woke up in the back of an ambulance with Frank and a paramedic next to him. Frank smiled bleakly and Dennis said, ‘Where are we going, Frank?’ His speech was slurred, slow—a record running down. He felt just this side of conscious, adrift and barely there. But his heart beat fast and the pain had not gone.

  ‘Ballarat hospital, mate. They’re just going to watch you for a while. You’ve had a nasty shock.’

  ‘You mean, they think I might top myself.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ said Frank. ‘But you don’t want to be left alone tonight, do you.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘They gonna keep me there?’

  ‘Guess so. Until morning, anyway.’

  ‘They’re goin’ to pump me full of shit.’

  ‘Don’t let it worry you, mate. It’s just to slow things up a bit.’

  ‘I gave up all that a while back, Frank.’ His lips hardly moved, and he might have been dreaming. Again he said, ‘Gave that all up long time ago.’ His eyes closed, but mumbling still issued from his lips.

  Frank paid no attention. In a few minutes he said, ‘We’re here.’ The ambulance stopped and its back doors opened.

  Someone said, ‘How’s he going?’

  ‘Zonked,’ the para said. ‘He’ll be out for a while yet.’

  They removed the stretcher and took him in through the door marked EMERGENCY. The other ambulance had already made its delivery and departed.

  Dennis returned to his pub, the Pyrenees Hotel, at lunchtime the following day. He’d phoned Frank first thing and Frank had said that he’d spoken to Brett, Dennis’s main man, and apprised him of the situation. The hotel would not open that day and there was no hurry for Dennis to return. In fact Dennis could stay away for as long as he liked and Frank would see that the place was secured for the duration or give Brett the go-ahead if Dennis preferred. Dennis was anxious to leave the hospital immediately—would Frank come and get him or arrange transportation to Avoca with the Ballarat boys? Frank said that would be no problem, that he would make a call. A pursuit car collected Dennis at noon. He had to shut his eyes when they passed the place. The boy driving barely spoke throughout the journey, and turned the vehicle around without delay.

  He let himself into the locked building, feeling the eyes of citizens on him. If he was not already an object of pity and gossip he soon would be. No one had a private life in a town this size, and he would have to put up with that, the kindness, the sidelong stares in the street, the general awkwardness people would feel in his presence now. It didn’t matter anyway—he’d been there before.

  Inside the pub he was struck by emptiness and the stale reek of butts and booze. There was still cleaning up to be done. Meg, the part-time maid, could handle that later. There were glasses still with dregs in them and dirty ashtrays on most of the tables. He walked past all that and dragged himself upstairs to the sealed-off section along the hall marked PRIVATE. It was where they lived—where he lived.

  The living room was in its usual state of disarray with newspapers, magazines and other flotsam lying around. Cushions were on the floor where Karen had watched TV. They hadn’t been big on housekeeping and it showed. There was a half-full bottle of red wine with the cork pushed into it and two used glasses on the cabinet, empty Stuyvesant packs, a hairbrush, earrings on the coffee table.

  Dennis went through to the bedroom. The bed had not been made. There was a glass of water on Karen’s bedside table, and a couple of books she’d been reading. The one on top was Red Square, by Martin Cruz Smith. He didn’t know she’d been reading that. He picked it up, flicked through pages, found where she was up to, put it down again. He turned around and looked at her wardrobe, both its doors wide open. There were her clothes, all the blacks and purples and reds, strong colours to go with her dark hair and eyes. A pair of her jeans, Country Road, hung from a door. He remembered the first time he’d seen her in them, when he’d gone to her house, put her through the wringer and then bought her lunch at Mario’s in Brighton. She’d been wearing them when she opened the door that day. It had been the beginning of everything, when the thunderbolt had hit.

  The bathroom was tougher to take. There was her make-up, Pond’s cream, toothbrush, little things. A silk bandanna she’d worn yesterday, black pantyhose she would have put on today hanging on the shower rail, discarded knickers that had been carelessly kicked off for a quick shower before going out. The scent of her perfume still hung in the air. He shut the door, returned to the living room and sat down. He did not see how he could get through the next few hours and then somehow survive a whole night. He felt numb and unbearably tired. He leaned back in the chair, staring at nothing. How would he ever be able to get down those stairs again? In here, at least, he would be all right. No one would bother him if he stayed put. He blinked a couple of times and felt a tear break gently from his right eye. He knew she was gone for good. Dead. At least he had no illusions about that. He could not persuade himself that he had dreamt it all, that she was just out shopping and would soon appear in the doorway with a smile on her face, that they would resume their life together and make love that night as usual. She was absolutely gone. He had seen them putting her leg in the bodybag. I want to be where she is, Dennis thought. I need to go there. I’ll do it. It’s the simplest way out of this room. The only way. He realised with a shock that the decision was made. It had hit him in a moment of absolute clarity and brilliance. There was just no way he could endure, let alone arrange, her funeral. Nor could he live on now in any purposeful way. Why bother? It was beyond his capabilities even to think about it. Resolve and fear mingled in him; there was no way back from this point. He had the means at his disposal, and went to get it.

  The gun was a Walther P38, stashed in the linen press. It was a plant gun he’d decided on impulse to remove from a locker on the day he left City West. If a man was a prime suspect in a serious crime but there was insufficient evidence to bring charges, they would fit him up with the gun and get him for that instead, put him away for six months or a year. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing.

  He resumed his position in the seat, cocked the weapon and held the hammer back with his thumb. Then he put the barrel in his mouth, pointing upwards so that the bullet would smash straight through his brain. His mouth was bo
ne-dry but his hand was steady. He thought of her for the last time, then heard footfalls on the staircase followed by knocking on the door.

  ‘Dennis?’ he heard Brett say, ‘are you there?’

  Dennis made the gun safe and jammed it behind the cushion he was sitting on. Brett only had to open the door and walk in.

  ‘Come in, Brett,’ he said.

  Brett Jennings filled the doorway with his heavy frame and blond ringlets. He was twenty-six and his weight was mostly in his upper body and thighs. His eyes were a clear blue, his face soft, almost effeminate and made to look more so by the ringlets and the gold sleeper in his right ear. He played football in winter and cricket in summer, excelled at both and was fast for his size. He also worked out regularly at a dojo in Maryborough, his home town. Brett held a black belt in full contact karate and had recently competed in the national championships, reaching the third round before losing to the eventual winner in his division, heavyweight. Brett was placid by nature, good-hearted, but not a man to mess with, as fractious drinkers who didn’t know him sometimes found when Brett was in charge.

  ‘The front door wasn’t locked,’ Brett said. ‘I just thought I’d come in and see if there was anything you wanted me to do.’

  Dennis stood up and put his hand on Brett’s shoulder. ‘No, mate,’ he said. ‘You’ve already done it. Thanks.’

  Brett nodded grimly without understanding.

  THREE

  At the funeral Dennis met Karen’s parents for the first time. Sitting alone in the front row, her coffin immediately before him and close enough to touch, he found himself joined by a small, distraught woman of sixty-odd and her pale husband whose face seemed little more than a skull with skin stretched over it. Even so he could still see her features in both of them. They did not look at him or acknowledge his presence in any way throughout the half-hour ritual. Outside, Dennis said simply, ‘Hello. I’m Dennis Gatz.’

  Karen’s mother turned to him with accusing, tear-filled eyes and a lipless mouth that said, ‘I know that’, then walked away to join friends. The father ignored him completely.

  Smoking a cigarette, he felt Brett’s presence beside him. Brett had on a suit that looked borrowed and certainly wasn’t his size—only the bottom button of his jacket would do up. They didn’t speak for a while, just stood there together while Dennis nodded and shook the hands of those who came to him to express their condolences.

  When the crowd had dispersed and only the parents and their party remained, Dennis said, ‘They reckon it’s my fault. Maybe they’re right.’

  Brett shuffled. ‘Bullshit.’

  They walked down the street to Craig’s Hotel shortly afterwards and had a few quiet beers. Others drifted in too, people from Avoca who were mostly patrons of the Pyrenees.

  After a while Dennis said to Brett, ‘I don’t get it, mate. Why would she go off the road there? She couldn’t possibly have gone to sleep. She’d barely been on the road ten minutes. Conditions were perfect—no traffic, nothing. She hit that tree at full speed.’

  Brett didn’t say anything. He was thinking about it though. He thought, Almost as if she meant it.

  Brett ordered a fresh round and said, ‘Did they examine the car? There might have been something wrong with it.’

  ‘There’s not much left to examine.’

  ‘Where’s the wreck?’

  ‘Panel beater somewhere here. I forget the name. Got their card.’ He crushed out a smoke and said, ‘Maybe I ought to check it out anyhow. But I know fuck-all about cars.’

  ‘Ask the guy. That’s what they get paid for.’

  ‘I know. I will.’

  ‘It might help clear things up in your own mind at least.’

  ‘You’re a good man, Brett. Tell me this, though. What the fuck am I going to do now?’

  Brett didn’t need to look at Dennis to know that he’d broken down again. Three or four times during the day this had happened. He rode it out, then said, ‘Take it easy for a few days, Dennis. Let things take their course. Clear out if you like. I’ll look after things back there.’

  ‘That’s very decent of you, Brett. I mean it. I don’t want to go away, though. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to deal with people, and I don’t care much for my own fucking company either. Doesn’t leave much room, does it?’ He laughed, and Brett joined in.

  ‘Think about it tomorrow,’ Brett said. ‘The offer stays open.’

  Dennis got up early the next day, before eight, had his first meal for around thirty-six hours then got in his red Magna Executive and drove it to Ballarat. He’d already phoned Magnolia Smash Repairs about coming in, explaining his reasons. The man had said he would do what he could. There was also the matter of insurance to be dealt with. Dennis wasn’t even sure if Karen had any.

  He clocked the wreckage purely from its yellow duco. Nothing else was recognisable about it. It was behind the repair shop in a back lot along with other write-offs waiting to be disposed of for scrap. Dennis didn’t speak to anyone, just walked through the building that smelled of fresh paint and came out the other end into that sunny graveyard.

  The main body of the Mazda was less than a metre high and split into three main parts. Of course the front was completely gone. The wreckage that had been scraped up with it had been heaped into a pile. Dennis stood back. He didn’t want to get any closer. He didn’t know how much the thing had been cleaned up inside. He’d been fearful of this encounter, and that fear struck him now like a blow. He stood still. From this safe distance he could not see inside it, but there were dark stains visible around the window that made his stomach churn. He swallowed hard and walked right up. The marks were bloodstains and there were more smeared on the front seat and sprayed on the dash and other places. Someone had gone over it with a rag, but not thoroughly enough. Blood had soaked into the cloth seat and into the roof lining. The steering wheel had snapped off and lay on the floor; there was blood on the broken shaft. The keys were still in the ignition—her keys. The key ring with the dolphin on it that she’d bought at Noosa. He pulled his head out of the cabin and heard footsteps behind him.

  ‘Can I help you?’ said a man in workclothes and a baseball cap.

  ‘Maybe you can. I’m Dennis Gatz. I spoke to a guy called Phil this morning.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Hang on, I’ll get him.’

  While he waited, Dennis walked around the car. Virtually no part of it was intact. He completed a circuit, stopping where he’d begun. No sign of Phil yet. On the driver’s side he saw scrape marks of an off-white colour. He crouched, examining them with his fingers. There were other similar marks, off-white, on the rear door. Flakes of the paint came off with his fingernail, revealing the Mazda’s yellow beneath. Dennis frowned, played with the paint on his fingertip. It was fresh.

  ‘G’day. Phil Bartels,’ a man said, pulling off goggles. Dennis introduced himself and shook his hand.

  ‘Not a pretty sight,’ Phil said. ‘Was the lady a relative of yours?’

  ‘Yes,’ Dennis said. ‘She was my wife.’

  ‘I’m very sorry. No one could have survived that smash. It’s the worst I’ve seen in a long time.’

  ‘Did you get a chance to go over it?’

  ‘Apart from the fact that the steering wheel broke off on impact, the actual steering mechanism’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with the brake system, either. Master cylinder was full. Apart from that—’ He shrugged.

  ‘Okay,’ Dennis said. ‘Now I want you to look at this. You might have already noticed it.’ He showed him the scratch marks, peeling off some of the off-white paint. ‘This is not the car’s own paintwork, as you can see. It’s a different colour.’

  Phil got down alongside and picked some off for himself. ‘So it is. I hadn’t seen that.’

  ‘It’s on the back door, too.’

  Phil Bartels looked there as well and nodded.

  Dennis could see that he was turning it over in his mind, coming to the one logical conclu
sion.

  ‘So what does that mean to you, Phil?’ he said.

  ‘Could be something,’ Phil said. ‘On the other hand, could be nothing. Could of already been there.’

  ‘But it wasn’t already there. I know that for a fact. I know this car well.’

  ‘In that case, she must have hit something at the accident scene. I honestly dunno.’

  ‘Or something hit her.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. I couldn’t really say.’

  ‘But you can see how recent it is, can’t you?’

  ‘Oh, it’s recent, all right. Very recent.’ He scraped a bit more off and rubbed it from his finger as Dennis had done.

  It was apparent to Dennis that he was getting nowhere with Phil Bartels. He closely checked the rest of the car, but found no other off-white marks. The rear end, however, was pushed in, badly crumpled. He pointed to it. ‘How does that happen in a head-on smash?’ he asked Phil.

  Phil just shook his head. ‘As I said, it was a very bad prang and the car could have gone every which way once it hit that tree and got banged up all over.’

  ‘But this has been belted hard. Look. Look at the bumper bar. That’s been rammed, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘It might have been rammed at one time,’ Phil said.

  ‘That time was three days ago, Phil. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘May well have been. Course, it could’ve happened during the salvage. I just don’t know, mate.’

  ‘Don’t know and don’t care.’

  Phil didn’t say anything, just stood with his hands on his hips, wanting to be shot of this bereaved guy with the bad attitude. Dennis kicked through the pile of loose bits and pieces. Something in there caught his eye, and he picked it up. It was a wing mirror. A big one on an extension that had been snapped clean off.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said, showing it to Phil.

  ‘Wing mirror.’

  ‘You don’t say. What’s it doing here?’