by Dave Warner
‘You can put stuff on the cloud now, pull it down when you need,’ said Clement.
‘You even know what that means?’ I was suspicious of a guy like Clement talking technical jargon.
‘Nah, I have a tech guy,’ he admitted.
My method of a previous computer (there’s no point backing up because you have to check the USB anyway to see what’s on there, and by the time you have a dozen that’s as big a time waste as gardening) plus calling on Dylan might have been outmoded but it was reliable and simultaneously allowed me to feel as if I was a patron to higher education. Clement wasn’t fazed by the delay.
‘I’ll find out where Grunder and Henderson are. I can interview them as follow up to the robbery without blowing it. Meanwhile we’ll keep looking for Sidney Turner.’
‘Grunder and Henderson could still be at the motel,’ I hinted.
Clement began to search for the number on his phone but cut that short. ‘Bugger it. Just as quick to drive.’
‘You need to use the loo?’
He shook his head. Two beers at my age was equivalent to a case at his. I had my slash, locked up and found him at his car on the phone. I gathered it was his DS on the other end. The temperature had cooled considerably. Above me unseen branches were shaking tambourines.
‘Great stuff. Call it a night, see if you can pick up where he went after.’ He ended the call and turned to me. ‘That was Earle. They picked up CCTV of Cole’s Subaru heading to the airport around one-forty this arvo. Tomorrow they’ll go through all the CCTV they can find out there.’
The interior of Clement’s car was sparser than mine: no old sneakers or beach towels. CDs were scattered in the door pockets. A song came on midstream as he fired up the car and swung out of the Mimosa carpark. I couldn’t believe it.
‘Babylon?’
Clement looked at me, curious. He picked up a CD cover, Dr John.
‘You know him?’ he asked.
‘I had my best sex ever to Dr John.’ And before you point out that I said not so long ago that men don’t talk sex, let me be clear there was no elucidation. ‘It’s more surprising that you know him. I thought REM would have been more your speed.’ I hadn’t meant it as a putdown but realised when it was out of my mouth it might have seemed that way. Clement was impervious.
‘I like REM too.’
‘Yeah, they’re okay but …. how come Dr John?’
‘I was on a case. I listened to the victim’s record collection while I sat in his house trying to suss it out.’
My first judgement on Clement was sounding accurate: a driven guy, internal, a thinker. Him being a Dr John fan was a big positive.
‘You think Grunder would keep that pendant with his wife and daughter around?’ he asked.
‘The sick fucks that abduct women and murder them, anything’s possible. If it was him, he might have even given it to one of them as a gift.’ I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t explain the twisted individuals who got excited at their so-called trophies being displayed. We’d already reached the motel. Clement parked right out the front in a set-down area.
Green lights shone on shrubs in a small corner garden of bark chips and native plants. The doors slid open easily. It must have been near 9.30 but the desk was actually manned, if that’s the right word, by a young woman who was so plain that ‘generic’ is the only adjective that comes to mind. She was watching something on her computer. She looked up with an effort at perkiness.
‘I’m sorry, we’re full up tonight.’
Clement explained who he was and showed her ID. ‘I’m wondering if the Grunders are staying here? Also a Mr Bruce Henderson.’
The young woman checked the desk computer. Without taking her eyes from it she said, ‘No.’
I could see Clement was about to ask if she meant both but she jumped in. ‘But the Grunders are booked back in tomorrow. I think they went up to Beagle Bay.’
Clement left his card with a message for them to call him when they returned. In case I hadn’t thought of it, which I hadn’t, he explained to me that he wasn’t sure if they’d have their phones back on yet.
‘The phones all had their sim cards removed,’ he elaborated. ‘Presumably by Turner to stop us tracking him.’
Then he turned back to the girl and asked for a printout of all the guests who had been staying there on the night of the robbery. It was like the pilot had collapsed at the control and she’d been asked to land the Dreamliner. She made a phone call to somebody who knew the finer points of the reservation system, ended the call and asked if it would be okay for her boss to send the names through tomorrow.
‘I don’t know how to work this computer. I’m just the night clerk.’
Her addendum was redundant. Clement told her that would be fine. We stepped back out into the cool night air and Clement asked if I fancied a drink.
There is something about the thrill of the hunt that works up a man’s thirst. He drove to the Roebuck Bay Hotel and we found ourselves in the Thursday night throng, guys and girls hoping to ride each other’s bones. There were more accents than an AC/DC song, a lot of blond hair, a new-wave Viking invasion. We took our beers outside where marijuana and cigarette smoke hung like faded bunting.
‘It wasn’t like this when I grew up.’ Clement gestured with his beer and gave me a run-down on the Broome of his youth. I mentioned my previous experiences up here. We lasted a good twelve minutes before drifting back to the case. Both of us were hyped on Grunder, not altogether forgetting Henderson.
‘I shouldn’t have let Sidney Turner walk out like that. I should have known about the bail.’
I found myself turning one-eighty. ‘You didn’t know the significance at the time,’ I said. ‘It might not have made any difference. Cole could have just waited till the coast was clear anyway.’
‘That’s very fucking insincere, Snowy,’ he said and we shared a bitter laugh. Thing is, investigative work is probably no different to running a stock portfolio or a fruit shop. You make calls all the time on what your focus will be, what’s going to pay off, what it’s going to cost you. Sometimes you make the wrong call. He told me he had a good mind to go to Mongoose Cole’s now and roust him till he spilled his guts on Turner but we both knew it was just a wish, like winning lotto. Back in my day though, Dave Holland, Tash’s old man, might have done just that.
‘You want another?’ he asked dangling his empty. But we’d both had enough and the grouse were safe for another day. Tomorrow was shaping as big.
As we were leaving Clement said, ‘I suppose it’s occurred to you that we might have a serial killer up here, and Ingrid Feister has disappeared?’
I am ashamed to say that it had not. I simply hadn’t put the two together. By the time I was back at the Mimosa the thought had seeped into me like a creeping infection heading to the lungs and I found myself sharing my bed with the cold corpse of past failure. Under the regular thunk of the ceiling-fan blades, excitement gave way to fear.
CHAPTER 21
Clement scrutinised David Grunder’s face for any tell as, along with his wife and daughter, he peered at the pendant inside the plastic evidence bag. With her usual efficiency Lisa Keeble had been through the Autostrada files and confirmed that identification markings listed by the Piccadilly jeweller on Jessica Scanlan’s original piece were indeed present. It was not a copy. Grunder, fried egg perched on his fork, looked towards his wife, Yvonne, as if for guidance. She was shaking her head.
‘No. It’s very stylish but not mine and too old for Keira. And it was stolen too?’
‘Yes, but we can’t be sure it was from the motel.’
Despite what Clement told himself about being impartial, he was deflated. While Grunder, if he was indeed Jess Scanlan’s killer, would have had plenty of time to prepare for this confrontation, his reaction seemed entirely natural: a husband who wasn’t sure exactly what jewellery his wife and daughter might possess. Clement had received the call from them just before 10.00 am an
d had arranged to see them while they had breakfast. He wanted Yvonne Grunder and the girl there when he produced the pendant so that if they had ever seen it they might drop Grunder in it. Grunder seemed the kind of gormless, well-fed, soft type who littered the offices of multinational financial giants, did the winter sleep-out at the behest of his boss, occasionally made it to the corporate box when the home side was playing a less popular team, Melbourne or the Bulldogs say, travelled business class, and had a salary twice that of Clement’s. Not that this ruled him out of being a killer. Clement agreed with what Lane had said, if the killer – and of course this assumed Bontillo was innocent or not alone – was an obvious type, he probably would have been found already. Of fair complexion, Grunder’s skin was pink from unaccustomed sun, and his hair, still quite blond, receding but relatively thick. Clement had ordered himself a coffee to give him an excuse to linger. He pretended he was interested in their Beagle Bay trip, and in truth when he looked at Keira, the Grunder daughter, he recalled fond days with Phoebe at that age. But any emotion piggybacked on his pragmatic intention. A small child at a nearby table was emptying salt all over it. The parents ignored it while they checked different phones. What was happening to the world?
‘So is this your first time to Western Australia?’ he asked. Yvonne Grunder explained that her husband was from here. She had grown up in Newcastle and Keira had been born in Sydney.
Clement smile pleasantly at David Grunder. ‘You didn’t grow up here, did you?’
‘Perth.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Willagee.’
A southern suburb that had been housing commission in the old days and was now quite gentrified.
‘So you went to uni?’
He had done a commerce course at UWA. Fortunately he was almost the same age as Clement, who was able to draw on shared experiences of bands.
‘Every Friday I’d be at The Sheaf in Claremont,’ he lied.
Grunder acknowledged he’d gone there more than a few times. If he was the man who had killed Scanlan he must surely get the hint that he was suspected. However he showed no anxiety, no change in manner.
‘And when did you go to Sydney?’
‘Just before Nine Eleven,’ he said. ‘Awful, but it’s something you don’t forget.’
Later Clement sat in his office trying to lay out the threads of the pendant discovery, making sure he had the possibilities covered. The pendant was that which had belonged to Jessica Scanlan. It was ninety-nine point five percent certain it had been stolen by Sidney Turner. It was eighty percent certain it had come from the motel where the two main persons of interest were Bruce Henderson and David Grunder. Both had been in Perth in 2000 at the time of Jessica’s disappearance. Neither had suspicious criminal records. Mal Gross had located Henderson working at the desert goldmine Telfer. Clement had interviewed Grunder and could not establish anything astray. He was waiting on Lane’s files to see if either was interviewed back at the time of the original investigation. He bore in on Turner. He may simply have run, not caring about his aunt. Ice quickly weeded out any decency in its addicts. Alternatively, he could have been silenced, either by Mongoose Cole, or by Scanlan’s killer who, having realised what had been taken, found it imperative to silence Turner. How would that person have known, though, that Turner was the thief? His arrest had come pretty quickly from the time they learned his identity. Nonetheless Clement had to concede, people talked – and here he immediately thought of Josh Shepherd shooting off his mouth – although it could have easily been word spreading from the hockey club. It could even be somebody present in the court. Shit, thought Clement, I still haven’t followed up on Louise. It had all been so promising with her in what seemed an age ago.
He struggled to get back to the case. His life was a mess, so be it, but it must not interfere, not with this, the only thing he’d ever been really good at. Suspects … When Turner disappeared, Henderson was already back at Telfer and Grunder was in Beagle Bay. Clement still favoured Cole as the solution to Turner’s disappearance. Cole admitted having been at the house. He could have had a second vehicle standing by. It would be worth going back over the CCTV, see if any cameras picked up Cole’s Subaru before he arrived at Olive Pickering’s house, see if he was accompanied by such a vehicle. He made a note for follow-up then checked his email and saw that while he had been breakfasting, the Pearl Motel had sent over the names of all guests on the night of the robbery. He printed two copies. At a glance there were seven rooms and ten names. Damon Kelly and Shane Shields were in the right age group. He would need to look over all the other burglary victims before the motel job too. He couldn’t assume the pendant came from the latest robbery. Turner may have been delayed in selling it for some reason. His phone rang. It was Snowy Lane. He now had the original task force files.
‘Come into the station,’ Clement said without elaboration, and then called Mal Gross into his office and handed him one of the printed lists. ‘I need background checks on these people. I also need checks on the other victims of Turner’s burglaries.’
‘Got it.’
Scott Risely squeezed in as Gross exited. Before he could speak Clement updated him.
‘A couple of promising leads from the motel but they haven’t paid off yet.’ He elaborated on Grunder.
‘If there’s any suggestion this is too big for us, I’ll have to inform Perth.’
‘At the moment there’s nothing they could have done that we haven’t. We’ve established the veracity of the jewellery, we’ve got people looking for Turner, Graeme is checking Cole, and I will shortly have a copy of the original task force files … You don’t want to know,’ he warned before his boss could ask him how he obtained them. Risely was no fool, he’d guess Lane was the conduit.
‘Don’t let it come back to bite us; glory is one thing …’
‘It’s not glory. Can you imagine if the media got hold of this? And if it goes to Perth it will. Someone will talk. Believe me, I know, I worked there twenty years. Once it’s out of the bag, our killer is going to be very careful.’
‘You’ve got my support,’ Risely said. ‘Do you need any more bods on the ground?’
‘Stay on Parks and Wildlife re Turner. He’s still the key.’
‘Done.’
Risely left. Clement needed a coffee but it would be cutting it fine to make a café before Lane arrived so he headed to the kitchenette. Jo di Rivi and Nat Restoff, recently promoted to senior constable, were chatting. All of a sudden Clement remembered the pooch.
‘How was she? Did you get the biopsy back?’ He carefully measured the instant powder.
‘The vet rang this morning. It’s cancerous. He says it will kill her eventually.’
Clement felt confused, duped. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. It was supposed to be one of those things where the vet goes, ‘It’s benign.’ He felt hollow, like the world had let him down. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Di Rivi was handling it calmly. ‘We think she’s about nine. She’s probably got another three years.’
‘Can he operate?’
‘It’s expensive.’
‘We could all chip in,’ offered Restoff.
Di Rivi seemed to have made up her mind. ‘She’s going to be thoroughly spoilt for the rest of her life. I’d rather we put the money to finding homes for some of those other abandoned dogs out there, give them a few years of quality life.’
Clement admired that matter-of-factness. He was too sentimental: an observation that threw back to Marilyn. He was due to have Phoebe Saturday. The pick-up might present a chance to talk to Marilyn? But maybe that would be a mistake. He’d enjoyed his time with Louise. If he left it too long …
He pulled himself out of the deep ditch of his navel back to the present. The kitchenette now had the vibe of a de facto morning-tea break. Manners, the IT guy, had wandered out of his area holding his giant-sized mug. To Clement the size of the mug was inverse to the personality of its owner. Manners was
somebody you didn’t dislike but had to force yourself to be interested in. His mug read MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU and was decorated in the motif of check crime tape: a pun no less. Clement suspected Manners was one of those who dressed up in Star Wars or Doctor Who costumes and went to conventions to mingle with mirror images of themselves. He remembered his mental note to himself.
‘I want you to try and find Cole’s vehicle on CCTV preceding Turner’s disappearance, see if it was travelling in company with any other vehicle.’
‘Any one in particular?’ Manners slurped more than sipped.
‘No.’ Another thought jumped into Clement’s head. ‘Those phones that were stolen from the Pearl. There were no sim cards were there?’
‘No. He stripped them all out.’
‘There are a couple I want you to run the records for me. Grunder and Henderson.’
‘Sure,’ Manners helped himself to a soggy biscuit and kept looking at Clement, expecting to be briefed on why. Clement, who had no intention of informing him, saw Lane being shown through into the squad room by Meg and went to meet him. He was about to offer him a coffee but saw Lane had supplied his own.
‘Wise man,’ he said and beckoned Lane follow him, wishing now he had taken the time to head outside for a shop espresso. For years he’d been more than happy with instant but lately the unthinkable had happened and he’d decided he preferred the other. Maybe it wasn’t too late? Maybe he could change big things in his life as well? Images of Marilyn and Louise flashed up side by side as if it were some TV reality show. He banished them. Lane placed his laptop on the desk. They waited while it fired up.
‘Slower than a bishop’s apology,’ Lane cautioned.
‘How did you sleep?’ Clement asked out of politeness, his whole focus now on the computer.
‘Not well. Your parting shot worried the shit out of me.’
Clement struggled to recall exactly what his parting shot had been, caught it, wriggling away. ‘Oh, about Ingrid Feister.’
