by Zane Lovitt
The thesis here is that Tyan can wait a few days. I don’t take well to being pushed into toilets and he has to get the message, at least implicitly, that he has lost his priority status. But of course, there is exactly one problem with that message…
I sip my coffee and tip back in my chair. It’s American-style filtered coffee, the kind you can drink all day. Marnie would probably say that this is why I get panic attacks. If she knew how much of it I drank. And if she were still talking to me after last night.
I know why I get the attacks. It’s right there in the depths of my
A doctor beckoned me from the hall. He wasn’t dressed like a doctor but he was the most senior stooge I’d met and so I left Mum with her glowing white face and sleeping eyes and stepped into the corridor. He told me she’d gone into fibrillation last night, got rushed to the surgery and zapped with a machine and her pulse came back. They put her on an IV and the doc himself found something on the floor of the surgery. Could it be hers? He gave it to me now; a tiny, crumpled piece of card.
brain if I want to go look, but I won’t go looking. These candidate files have to get sorted and the first step is to pick one up and open it.
The thesis here is that Tyan can wait a few days, but who am I kidding? Even if I weren’t seeking a distraction from the Albert Kane and Roach job, even if I weren’t curious about what happened to Tyan on Monday night, and even if I weren’t eternally up for a challenge, there would still be exactly one problem with the notion that Tyan is not a priority for me.
It’s like I can feel his blood in my veins. I’ve felt it all my life. Growing up was like losing an arm and feeling an itch in that arm. And then losing the other arm. And then passing out from panic attacks.
The scrap of card is old, like it’s been carried around for years…
But I won’t think about that now.
These memories of my mother, these metaphysical phone calls from the past, like Albert Kane and Roach, they can remain on hold for the time being.
I drink more coffee and get started.
She’s not listed as married or having kids or changing her name. And no one named Elizabeth Cannon, Lizzy Cannon, Lizzie Cannon, Beth Cannon or Libby Cannon was ever arrested or imprisoned by way of Detective Glen Tyan. The Elizabeth Cannon born in 1987 and living in Brunswick had never been in contact with police until she reported her car stolen last Monday night.
That report includes a scan of her licence. They tell you not to smile in these pictures but she has a beguiling smirk underlining her nose, like she can’t help an innate positivity breaking through. Her hair is dark, black or brown, framing the largest blue eyes I’ve ever seen, like anime come to life. Her cheeks puff with what my mum used to call baby fat. Or maybe she’s a woman who eats macaroons just whenever she likes.
My avowal to Tyan’s face that I would not break the law was heartfelt at the time, so it’s ironic that hacking the VicPol intranet is about as illegal as anything I could do short of spear phishing the attorney-general. Then again, this isn’t the first time: I cracked it last year in a drunken attempt to learn something about Glen Tyan. I failed, but not because the app wasn’t vulnerable, it just doesn’t keep up details on former officers. After fingerprinting this morning I’m pleased to find it’s still php script. Even the parameters for the SQL injection are the same. After that, I can’t really talk myself out of it. Chalk it up as one more mark against my name when the party van knocks on the door.
The desultory notes of the officer, the stooge dispatched to Elizabeth’s flat, are no more detailed than what Tyan told to me. The only surprising aspect is that it notes the ‘pistachio green’ Volvo is uninsured. Which means Elizabeth will pay for the repairs herself. Which makes Tyan’s theory that she false-flagged the car theft gapingly less likely.
All else I find on Elizabeth Cannon is a Twitter account that’s protected so only confirmed followers can read her posts. I’m reluctant to crack a Twitter account with Thruware so I set to task a script from chokechan.com that only works on SHA and MD5, and even if that’s the encryption, it still could take the rest of the morning.
There’s a link in her profile, beneath an equally winsome photograph, to the adoption page of the Northern Lost Dogs’ Home, just around the corner from her home address. Pics of dogs who’ll be put to sleep if they don’t find an owner, looking out at you with those eyes. Also, there are captions:
Minnie is house-broken and loves a cuddle!
Is there a poodle-shaped hole in your life?
Bandit is the PAWfect candidate for obedience training!
It’s hard to find a sentence that doesn’t end with an exclamation point.
Suddenly the chokechan script throws up her Twitter password: 63m570n3. Leetspeak for gemstone. With a password like that it’s not surprising a dictionary attack took all of three minutes.
But whatever thrill I get from my high-speed break-in dissolves when I sort through her history. No one tweets at her and the DM file is empty. She follows a handful of news sites, has only twelve followers of her own, all of whom are total randoms waiting for her to follow back. She rarely posts and when she does it’s mostly pics taken from her couch of the TV and they have captions like:
Anyone else watching Gilmore Girls?
No one has ever replied. You might as well post in all-caps: I AM SO LONELY. The vibe is asinine enough to remind me of the sockpuppet accounts I use to troll SJWs, MRAs, assorted wankers.
After three serves of toast and four hours of digging, I call Tyan to tell him who Elizabeth Cannon is, the answer being: the most boring person I’ve ever researched. But Tyan doesn’t answer, wasn’t sitting by the phone, isn’t expecting me to call so soon. Throughout our interaction it never occurred to me he doesn’t have a mobile. As I listen to the phone ring out, I remember he doesn’t have a message bank either. So his position re technology is well and truly established.
My next potential move is to call Elizabeth, put the metaphorical screws on her from the comfort of my flat. But I’d be at the mercy of her mood: her willingness to talk, to be honest. She’s not far away, I tell myself. And face-to-face it will be easier to read what’s under the surface.
But that’s bullshit. In the past I’ve driven miles out of my way to avoid meeting people. What really gets me out the door is a new sense of confidence, my interest in testing it out. Tyan’s request for help, his need for me, is a rush. Why not ride the wave?
Also, there’s the flipside to that confidence: the fear of its evaporation. Disappointing Tyan by finding nothing useful on Elizabeth Cannon would be like a hair dryer on a solitary drop of rain.
On my way to Brunswick I stop at the Smith Street Officeworks. When I return to my car I get my first sense that it is indeed about to rain.
17
Elizabeth Cannon lives in a block of flats in Brunswick, which is like saying she lives in a grain of sand on the beach. A shitty grain of sand, overpriced for its proximity to Sydney Road, built on great brick stilts over its car spaces, all of them oil stained and half of them empty. But the green Volvo is here, its window already repaired, the glass spanking new. I push hand and face against the glass to get a look in the driver’s side: the ‘honeypot’ is scratched and part of it appears cracked and the backseat is a wasteland of water bottles and receipts and strewn clothes: nothing helpful.
For all my research this morning, I never determined what Elizabeth does that she can afford to live here, though according to land.vic.gov she doesn’t own the place so she must be renting. When I pass her mailbox I give a tug but it’s locked, then I glance up hoping no one saw that. Above the drive a half-dozen east-facing balconies poke out like ashtrays, tiny and useless to the residents unless their hobby is standing still while outdoors. They are unpopulated, probably always are this time of year. At the security door I press the buzzer for flat three as rain starts to fall.
No voice comes to the intercom. I feel these raindrops wash away the confidence t
hat brought me here. The bird life of Brunswick calls to itself, piercing chirrups like the motion detector in Aliens. I’m the bad joke the cockatoos are laughing at.
With my finger poised over the button again, I notice the security door isn’t shut. Looking closer, it has a spring action that’s supposed to close it and lock it but which has failed to do so: it rests gently against its frame, waiting for some conscientious resident to finish the job.
So I forgo the buzzer-pushing and instead enter the small stairwell, return the door to its previous position and climb.
Level one has its predictable unit numbers: one and two. No doormats or decoration, just sad brickwork and the powerful scent of burnt toast. I rise another flight, talking down the butterflies, and here’s a white timber door, a number three screwed into it. With a last shake of my hands I knock, gentle.
What I expect is a posse of animals to bark and claw in response. But there’s no sound.
‘Miz Cannon?’ I shout this at the door. ‘My name is Timothy Wentworth. I’m here about your car.’
Perhaps a sound now, can’t be sure over the patter of rain against the landing windows.
‘I’m slipping my card under your door.’
The card says very little: Timothy Wentworth, Investigator, my mobile number. Standing at the print-out station in the Officeworks, I weighed up whether it should be ‘Investigator’ or ‘Private Investigator’. ‘Private Investigator’ made me feel like a TV show.
Another possible sound. Possibly a hand picking up the card. If so then she’s looking out at me now through the peephole and I realise my face is anguished with my effort to listen. So I relax, try to look the way professional people look.
A metal click. The door opens enough to reveal that generous face, more oval than her licence picture, brandishing squarish eyeglasses in sepia frames. Through them she squints at me, blind with curiosity.
My lips dry up and I lick them.
‘Elizabeth Cannon?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve been engaged by the City of Moreland to investigate the incident involving your car last Monday night. May I speak with you?’
‘Yeah. Yes.’ Her face decompresses, like she’s relieved that this is what I’ve come to talk about. Flattened hair hangs ragged down to her chest, drops of water on her brow and her plump cheeks: she was in the shower. The collar of a fluffy white robe is just visible in the door gap she’s allowed. Heat rushes out, flavoursome. Tropical.
‘Um, but I already spoke to the police about it, like, a bunch of times.’
Her Aussie inflection makes it sound like a question. A bunch of times?
‘That’s why I’m here. I’m looking into how effectively the police service has done its job. We’ve had a number of disgruntled car owners claiming that thefts in the Brunswick area are not investigated as thoroughly as they should be.’
Now she shakes her head in an exaggerated denial.
‘Okay, but like…I never made a complaint like that.’
‘Yes, but if you don’t mind answering a couple of questions…’
Maybe she thinks I’m too young and scrawny to be an investigator, but she doesn’t say it, settles into having this conversation on a freezing concrete landing, hugs her robe, rubs a bare foot against the warmth of her calf and nods with a deeply felt eagerness to help.
‘You made an online report to say the vehicle was missing. That was lodged just after eight pm on Monday night, is that correct?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It was just, like, gone.’
‘What about the next morning?’
‘It was back.’ She is thrilled with this turn in her story.
‘Where were you headed?’
‘Ummm…The dog shelter. Where I work sometimes?’
More inflections. So Australian it’s almost embarrassing.
‘Is that your primary place of employment?’
‘Oh, I don’t work there. I’m a volunteer.’
‘If I may ask you, Miz Cannon, where do you work?’
‘Call me Beth. I’m…I suppose I’m between jobs.’
The sides of her mouth pull into her cheeks, reveal a remarkable set of dimples. Then she giggles at herself.
‘Listen, I collect donations for the shelter? The Northern Lost Dogs’ Home…’
She pushes the door fully open, jams it in place with her foot and has to stretch to reach a cabinet by the door. I appraise the flat. Just two small bedrooms leading off the small living room, brightly lit and unashamedly girly: soft toys line the mantel and a movie poster of smiling happy people is framed on the wall above. To my right there’s a kitchenette and a pile of dishes in the sink.
Beth straightens, holding a plastic cash box. At the top is a coin slot and on the side there’s an official-looking sticker and a picture of a sad puppy.
‘You wouldn’t be willing to make a small donation?’ She smiles with a gruesome amount of hope.
I dig in my pocket for change, but she says, ‘The average contribution is around ten dollars.’
So I draw out my wallet, slip ten dollars into the box. ‘No problem. And there was damage to the car when you found it?’
‘Actually…’ She grimaces, already apologising with her big eyes like adjacent blue planets. ‘Winter is the hardest time of year for our puppers. Their numbers increase but there’s less reclaims and less adoptions. I wouldn’t usually ask but…’
She must have seen the second ten-dollar bill in my wallet. I slide it into the box and she melts with appreciation.
‘Thank you so much. You should come by the shelter. The pups would like you.’
‘The damage to your car…’
‘Yeah, no,’ she places the box back on the cabinet. ‘With the window broken and everything. It was really weird. Like…’ She shakes her head, bugs out her eyes, lets her failure to finish her sentence indicate how creepy the events had been.
‘Were the police able to give you an explanation?’
‘No.’ Full of empathy.
‘Does the car still run?’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Which window was broken?’
‘The driver’s side.’
‘Was there broken glass inside?’
‘Yes, all on the seat.’
‘So you think the window was smashed to gain access to the vehicle, whereupon the thief drove the car while sitting in a puddle of broken glass?’
‘Um…I didn’t…I don’t know what I think.’
She cringes and I silently hate myself for my scepticism. It’s obvious this girl wouldn’t lodge a fraudulent report with Santa Claus let alone the police.
‘I’m just saying, it implies that the car was taken, returned, and then the damage was done to the window and the ignition.’
‘Why would anyone do that?’
‘To make it look like it was taken by force.’
‘But…why would anyone do that?’
‘Insurance, usually.’
‘I don’t have insurance.’
‘I know. Which is why I thought I’d visit. It’s an unusual case.’
‘Are you saying I stole my own car?’
‘No,’ I laugh at the horror in her face. The neck of her robe tugs back to reveal an additional inch of shower-ravaged flesh. I try not to let her see me notice it. ‘Do you share this flat with anyone?’
‘No.’
‘Do you share the car?’
‘No.’
‘What about a boyfriend or girlfriend.’
She giggles. ‘Not at all.’
‘Does anyone else have a key to the vehicle?’
‘No, but…the man who used to own it…he might still have a key.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘I mean, it’s possible. But, like, why would he drive it and then smash it up?’
‘Maybe he wanted it to look like a real car theft.’
‘But I’m the one who has to pay for it.’
‘What’s his name?’
>
‘I mean, why would he do that?’
‘So you wouldn’t think of him as the one who took it. What’s his name?’
‘Rudy. Rudy Alamein.’
I write this into my phone.
‘Rudy short for Rudolph?’
‘Rudyard, I think.’
‘Rudyard?’ My incredulity has no effect on her. ‘How did you first make contact with him?’
‘He comes to the shelter sometimes. His cocker spaniel ran away, like, years ago. Maybe ten years ago? And he still goes around to all the shelters asking for him.’
‘Do you have an address?’
‘Not exactly, but he lives on Grand Street in Albert Park. By himself. In, like, the spookiest house you’ve ever seen.’
‘So he’s a friend?’
‘Yeah.’ She says it softly, as if distracted by fond memories of the arsehole who no doubt ripped her off. I’ve seen that Volvo.
‘You should keep your distance for the next few days.’
‘Oh.’
‘If he stole your car, there’s every chance he’ll try to get in touch. Don’t take his calls, don’t agree to meet. Believe me, in my work I’ve had experience with this. The worst thing a young woman in your situation can do is assume to know what he’s capable of.’
It’s bullshit—a measure to prevent her from tipping him off. But based on the evidence at hand, it’s also not bullshit.
Unconsciously I take a step back. Doing that, I realise I’m leaving. There’s nothing left for me here. After speaking with her for two minutes I’m confident she hasn’t been tailing people or trashing her own property. But I have to concede, as I take one last breath of the sweet air emanating from within, that she is no longer the most boring query I’ve ever researched.
A big smile from her. Wholesome. Not remotely flirtatious.
‘I’m sorry. I wish I could have been more help.’
‘Just keep clear of this Rudy guy, all right?’
‘All right.’
‘Call me if you remember anything else.’
She picks up my pretend business card from the dining table, holds it up to show that she has it. My voicemail greeting doesn’t include my real name. Or any name.
