by Zane Lovitt
This observation strikes a nerve. Between his teeth he says, ‘And sitting around and sitting around.’
He slams the bottle into a plastic garbage bin. The shatter distorts in my ears.
‘Even now,’ he stares down into that different kind of wreckage. ‘The way they look at me. Like at Harry’s retirement the other night.’
I remember Hugh Bretzanitz, the cop I interviewed. The one who said he didn’t think of Tyan as the laughing stock other cops did, but who smiled anyway when Tyan’s name came up.
He rouses himself, resumes his slumped position at the sink.
‘But this time. They won’t even think of Lung Yeung. This time they’ll be…They’ll ask themselves if they could even do what I did. They’ll say it was a mistake, me leaving the force. I’ll shove it right up them.’ His eyes come to me, drawn and sobering.
‘I’m tired,’ he says, and pushes himself from the sink, finds a fraught equilibrium, staggers in short steps towards the hall.
Rudy and Tyan. Both as fucked up as each other. Riddled with guilt and crazy enough to believe that killing someone will make it go away.
‘We’ve still got a problem,’ I say. My own voice is hoarse, dried up from listening. ‘We don’t know what Rudy is thinking. After last night, anything’s possible.’
And after tonight at Beth’s, anything else is, too.
‘You’ve got to find out.’
‘I can’t go and see him, if that’s what you think. He might flip out again. I suppose I could call him—’
His shuffling steps reach the hall, don’t slow down.
‘Give him a…a fucking…a peace offering. It’s hard to go off on someone who gives you a…gives you something.’
‘Okay. But even then—’
‘And listen…What you said this morning. You’re right. We need something on Rudy.’
‘What?’
But he’s left the room. I wait for him to come back. Give it about ten seconds. Then I ease out of my chair and follow.
The small hallway is properly lit. On the wall is a clock carved out of wood: two whittled topless Thai girls hold up the clock face, their skirts made of real straw that protrudes like the beard of a scarecrow. Three past midnight.
The bedroom screams Single Older Gentleman. Poking out of a drawer in the dresser is the corner of a magazine; I assume a dirty magazine, if they still make those. The bed is piled with old-fashioned blankets, no doona. Tyan’s carcass is sprawled across them, his eyes shut.
‘We need something…Something that proves what he’s planning.’ ‘What about when he comes here…’ I say this to a man who, to look at him, must be asleep. ‘Won’t that prove what he’s planning?’
‘Something more,’ he murmurs, perhaps already dreaming. ‘A fucking clincher.’
‘Like what?’
He says nothing. He is still. I raise my voice.
‘Like what, do you think?
Nothing. Then a breezy bagpipes snore ruffles his nose.
On the clothes horse by the dresser there’s a tattered quilt that I shake out, place over him. It won’t keep him warm for long but it’s the most I can do short of hiring a sumo wrestler to get him under the blankets.
One last look before I go home: Tyan a sleeping child, his hair flopped away like a tiny toupee for his pillow, his mouth relaxed agog and his whiskery eyebrows twitching gently. So fragile I almost can’t leave him like this.
But I do, switch off the bedroom light. Keep the hall light on. When I get home I find that someone has broken into my flat.
48
I pump the car heater too hard and with the help of my jacket I’m sweating by the time I pull into the driveway. Sweat is a pleasant change, but the moment I open the car door the moisture on my face turns to ice, freezes my brain. I climb the stairs hurriedly, stop when I see my front door is ajar, consider that for a moment, conclude that I’ve never left a front door ajar in my life. It’s difficult to believe that someone has burgled me just as I’ve been drawn into my first ever murder plot. My first two murder plots.
Also, I saw the green Volvo parked on the kerb.
Is it Beth, come to trash my home in turn? Or did Rudy steal her car again, drive here with the goal of bloody revenge and I’m walking into it?
‘Beth?’ I say to the door.
No answer.
I tap it open with a fingernail.
The heater blares and the light I let in from outside reveals a smirk, adorable and ruthless, the kind she practises on her reflection.
‘Parking your car outside kind of ruins the surprise.’
‘I wasn’t trying to surprise you.’
‘What were you trying to do?’
‘Find a comfy place to sit and wait. Obviously.’
When I trigger the light switch I find her reclined in my Herman Miller, her back to my displays, swivelling gently. Poised atop her lap is her laptop.
‘You going to throw more shit at me?’
‘No. I’d be too afraid to miss and accidentally improve your lounge room.’
No inkling of Scotland as she speaks.
‘I’d offer you haggis, or a pint of Guinness, but I’ve only got tea.’
With my coat off I flick the jug in the kitchen.
‘Guinness is from Ireland,’ I hear her say. When I return to the doorway I jut my chin at her computer.
‘How goes your little daylight robbery there?’
She frowns at the screen, chooses to take my question as an unsardonic one.
‘The Chesterfield will go for more than a thousand, the Zoblatini bar stools for five hundred apiece. No one’s bid on the Wakeley recliner yet which makes me think there’s a glut in the market.’
‘Don’t try and sound like a pro. Ken Penn had you pegged the moment you sat down.’
‘But you didn’t, did you.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I want to apologise.’ She closes the screen on her computer, sits straight. ‘For my outburst. It was aggressive and dangerous and I’m sorry.’
‘What about breaking in? You going to apologise for that?’
The kitchen whistles behind me. She smirks.
‘In the business we call that a victimless crime.’
‘And the money I gave you. For the dog shelter. You don’t even volunteer there, do you?’
‘I do. I like dogs. The closest thing I ever had to a family was a dog.’
‘But you keep the money you collect.’
‘A girl’s got to eat.’
‘Like I said, I’ve only got tea.’
She waits quietly until I present her with a mug: it’s the one I like least—the squat one with the flower on it. Then she says, ‘What I told you, about Rudy borrowing the car. What he did with it. It’s all true.’
At this moment I notice, for the very first time, that my flat has only one chair. Beth might be the first guest I’ve ever had in here. It’s certainly the first time I’ve spoken with someone as they’ve sat in my chair. Disconcerted, I slump to the floor by the window, cross-legged, balancing my tea.
‘You’re saying we ought to go through with it?’
‘I’m saying…’ She scowls. ‘I am saying we’re prolonging his suffering by not going through with it.’
I scan for a trace of deception, catch nothing.
‘There’s no equity left in the house. There’s nothing for you if you think he’s going to leave it to you.’
‘I don’t care about any of that. I know you don’t believe me but it’s true. Whether he does it himself or someone else…it’s the merciful thing to do.’
‘In anyone else’s book, it’s not merciful. It’s murder.’
We stare each other off. I lose, gaze at my mug. She’s come to tell me she’s on board with a killing, same as I did with Glen Tyan only an hour ago, so I shouldn’t be so sceptical. And what’s left for her to trick me into? Without the insurance money, there’s only some old furniture she’ll profit from whether R
udy lives or dies.
‘What happened this morning?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When you went over there. You took photos of the furniture. You saw the contract?’
‘Yeah. On a chair at the front of the house. He showed me.’
Classic Rudy. He hasn’t touched the thing since I left.
‘Was he acting different? Weird?’
‘Weirder than usual? He said he had a fight with you. I mean, with Anthony the insurance man.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
She drinks some tea.
‘No. He was really scattered. Biting his nails. I didn’t push it.’
‘Ken Penn said that Rudy killed Cheryl Alamein.’
She’s about to put her mug on my desk, stops still to mock me with her eyes.
‘That’s not possible.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not his style.’
‘I agree. I agree it’s not possible. I also think it’s exactly what happened.’
Beth puts the mug down, tugs her cardigan across her waist.
‘But there’s…there’s just no reason to think that.’
‘By my count there’s eleven reasons to think that.’ My head has been buzzing with them. They’re the reason I’m making tea at one in the morning. ‘Twelve if we include how Ken Penn is absolutely certain.’
49
‘One…’ I say, drive right past her parody of someone keenly interested. ‘Penn said that Rudy’s parents weren’t fighting over who got Rudy, they were fighting over who didn’t. Neither of them wanted him. That gives him a motive.’
‘That’s not proof of anything.’
‘None of this is proof of anything. I’ve only got a theory. Two. Wealthy, educated, middle-class parents who don’t want their own child? That’s rare. And what better reason could there be than that their kid is fucking batshit. I mean dangerous.’
She plants her chin on her fist, listens dolefully.
‘Three. Rudy and Cheryl fought, three days before she was killed. So bad that she fled the house. Penn said Rudy threatened her. And he’s brain-damaged in an old folks’ home in the middle of fucking nowhere. What reason has he got to lie?’
‘If you’re brain-damaged you don’t need a reason.’
‘Four. On the day his mother died, he left school at eleven-thirty, but he didn’t get home until one. Where was he all that time? If he’d gone directly home he’d have been there by about twelve-fifteen, which is Cheryl Alamein’s time of death.’
‘All right. But a thirteen-year-old killing someone? His mother?’
‘Not on purpose. He lashed out, but it was enough. According to the trial transcript, there’s no doubt it was a single blow to the head.’
She looks at me with the disgust of a teenager.
‘You read the transcript?’
‘Five. The night he stole your car he faked a robbery. Just like he did thirteen years ago. When it comes to committing crimes it’s the only trick he knows. Six. If Piers did it then why did he tell the police that the vase was missing? And if he didn’t do it, how did the vase end up in his workshop? The only other person who might have had access is Rudy.’
More disgusted scowling, this time because she’s not following. I try to slow down.
‘Seven. There was a hole dug in the backyard. Everyone thought that Piers was planning to bury the vase. But what if Rudy planned to put his mother in there? Bury her to hide what he’d done. No one in their right mind would have thought that would work. But a thirteen-year-old? A thirteen-year-old murderer? A thirteen-year-old Rudy?’
‘Wait, wait, wait…’ Beth holds up her palm, shakes her head, TMI. ‘If Rudy did it, why is he after Glen Tyan?’
‘Because at the end of the day, Glen Tyan really did jail the wrong man. By focusing on that, he blocks out his own culpability. ‘Eight. Why is he so compelled to get revenge for his father, but not for his mother? Only one of them was outright murdered. He says he knows it was Ken Penn. Why not go after him?’
She pulls a protective knee up to her face.
‘Because, like, boys and their fathers…’
‘Nine. Have you ever been upstairs in Rudy’s house?’
‘No.’
‘No one has. No one’s been upstairs in that house since it happened. Not even Rudy. He doesn’t want to confront it. What he did.’
She puts down her tea.
‘You know what you sound like? Like you’re trying to convince yourself. Like it isn’t enough for you to go through with it because it’s what Rudy wants. You need to convince yourself that he’s, like, evil.’
‘I’m not saying he’s evil—’
‘He didn’t kill his own mother, Jason.’
I sigh.
‘He did. He really did, Beth. It’s the only—’
She stands up, suddenly exasperated.
‘I need the bathroom.’
And she’s gone, into the bathroom. The door closes.
I get to my feet. It seems an age since I was last standing up. Like my legs are different now. The left is entirely numb and I lean on my right, limp to the kitchen and rinse my mug.
Ten. Rudy came after me when I told him Piers had confessed, because he knew that wasn’t true. If he killed Cheryl Alamein then I had to be lying. That’s why he was so upset.
And then there’s number eleven. He wants to die.
I hear the bathroom door creak open behind me and I dry my hands, turn to find Beth removing her glasses, wiping away tears.
‘I’m sorry…’ She sniffs back a sob. ‘It’s just…I’ve been alone with him, like, a thousand times.’
‘Yeah,’ I offer, useless. She comes to me and I put my arms around her. Everybody’s crying tonight.
‘You’re right. It’s the only way it makes sense. I feel so stupid,’ she says this into my shoulder. ‘Just...blind to the whole thing.’
A hard sniffle against my shirt.
She says: ‘Maybe he really believes it. That someone else did it. Maybe he, like, repressed it…’
‘I don’t know about repressed, but yeah. I think he believes it.’
It reminds me of Paul Heaney, the fictional character I invented in the conference room of Albert Kane and Roach. The man who so effectively convinced himself that what had happened had not happened.
‘Listen…I need you to go back and see Rudy.’
She pulls away from me.
‘What?’
‘I need to get back in with him.’
‘I can’t.’
She’s terrified.
‘He won’t hurt you.’
‘You go see him.’
‘It has to be you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I need five minutes. In his kitchen. I need you to get him out of the house.’
50
She leaves with a long kiss goodbye. This morning has been almost enough to make you forget how she’s a con artist who yesterday showered you with glass projectiles.
Almost.
But it’s at least plausible that she’s sticking this out because she believes it’s the right thing to do. Last night, as we sank into sleep, I even found myself foreseeing the day I introduce her to Tyan. It was Christmas or a birthday and she’d gotten over the fact that I’d kept my blood relationship with him a secret. For his part, Tyan had undergone a paternity test and subsequently fully embraced his new identity as my biological father. Beth found his gruff charm bearable and he dazzled her with war stories, PG-rated ones. We thrived, bonded by our secret…
But there’s Friday to come before all that.
While I made coffee this morning I deflected further demands that I explain exactly what I needed to do in Rudy’s kitchen, said only that Glen Tyan and I agreed we needed evidence of what Rudy is planning, something cut and dried for anyone who might wonder how Rudy wound up dead on Tyan’s carpet—a clincher, as Tyan called it. To Beth I’d say no more than that. For her own good.
The less she knew, the easier it would be for her to manage the police if they came knocking.
She twitched her mouth at this.
‘I’m not worried. I’ll act dumb. I’m good at it.’
‘You’ve got experience lying to the police?’
She stretched her nude body on my bedclothes, pale and electrified.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Back in the old country?’
‘Yep. Ask me what it says on my criminal record.’
I look at her blankly. ‘W—’
‘Nothing. I don’t have one. Despite being questioned about a thousand times. I’ll smash it.’
‘Hubris,’ I said. ‘You’re overconfident.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘What were you questioned about?’
‘Petty theft.’
‘What else?’
‘Nothing else.’
‘Bullshit. A liar like you? What about fraud?’
She picked at the sleep in her eye.
‘Just a gifted amateur, I suppose.’
‘What’s it like?’ I asked. ‘Living a lie like this? Changing your name, your voice…Denying who you really are.’
‘You think where I’m from is who I really am?’
I felt a distant chill and gently said, ‘Okay.’ I had enough to think about without mounting this baggage on top.
I said, ‘The cops will come to you. They’ll get Rudy’s phone records.’
‘What about you? You’ve never had to lie to the police. It’s not easy.’
‘My phone is registered to a different name. They wouldn’t know how to track me down.’
‘Hubris,’ she smirked, pushed herself off the bed and skipped past me to the bathroom. ‘You’re overconfident.’
Now, as I listen to her scamper down the stairs and into the cold, setting out on her mission, all my confidence evaporates and I stumble to the window. It’s as if I know what will happen.
Marnie comes up the driveway. She and Beth pass within a foot of each other and it’s Marnie who turns and gives her a second look, watches her too-tight jeans waggle down to the street, open the door of the green Volvo, ease themselves inside. Marnie comes up the steps, oblivious to how those jeans emerged from my flat, and I launch myself into that conversation while the Volvo motors away.
