The Broken Ones

by Stephen M Irwin

  “Inspector Haig has a different view,” Moechtar continued. “He thinks Naville may have had a phone, but it was stolen while you were out on the street instead of keeping the crime scene secure.”

  Oscar smiled. That was tidy: Bazley with one approach, his boss with another. Homicide’s own double-barreled Twinny, a bob each way.

  “Me, though”—Moechtar unzipped the leather binder—“I was quite impressed. You identified Penny Roth’s body and you found her killer. The coroner is prepared to accept your photographs of her body and the evidence found on Naville’s ceiling with a view to declaring her legally dead and Naville as her killer.”

  “And Leslie Chalk’s death?” Oscar asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Suicide.”

  Oscar nodded, unsurprised.

  Moechtar handed Oscar a sheet of paper. He tried to focus on the words printed there but was simply too tired.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your resignation,” Moechtar replied. “I did the math. By resigning now, your payout will, in fact, exceed your earnings should you continue in another department at a considerably lower pay scale.”

  Oscar stared at the paper.

  “Where would that other department be?”

  Moechtar thought about that, then spoke in a tone reserved for far-fetched theorems: “Well, in light of the performance record of the Nine-Ten Unit and the fact that you recklessly abandoned a crime scene, your demotion would be significant, and any reposting would be a long way from here.”

  An orderly wheeled past a cart of soiled laundry, dragging sad and unpleasant smells.

  “Naville’s place was searched,” Oscar said. “Did anyone find the altar I described in my report?”

  Moechtar sighed. “No.”

  “And the images of Naville leaving the building that burned down?”

  “There is no clear connection between those and Penelope Roth.” Moechtar’s voice was growing tighter, as if wound by invisible ratchets. “If you found something on-site there, you should have formally logged it. Honestly, Oscar, how did you expect me to help you when you do everything outside the system? What did you think would happen?”

  “I thought that whoever got Penny Roth’s body to the crematory and Naville out of jail would get rid of my evidence, too.”

  “I’ve requested permission from the commissioner to investigate those anomalies and I’m pleased to say he’s agreed.”

  “And Taryn Lymbery? And Frances White?”

  Oscar noticed that Moechtar was watching him with an expression that took a moment to identify. It was pity.

  “They’re missing, Oscar, and Albert Naville is dead.” He reached into his pocket for a pen and slid the folder and paper onto Oscar’s lap. “Here.”

  Oscar heard light footsteps, and one of the swinging doors behind him opened.

  “Mr. Mariani?”

  It was one of the cardiac nurses. Oscar stood and handed the folder and the unsigned letter back to Moechtar.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Moechtar nodded. “I’ll need your identification,” he said. “The suspension’s temporary.”

  Oscar reached into his wallet and slipped the badge out.

  “And you’ll have to surrender your service weapon.”

  “It’s at home,” Oscar said.

  “Bring it in later.” Moechtar stood and offered his hand. Oscar looked at it, then shook it. “I’ll push to find you something decent in a town as close as possible.”

  Moechtar left, and Oscar followed the nurse into the ward.

  Sandro Mariani was as pale as paper. Tubes and wires seemed to have him suspended in an electric spider’s web. He looked worn and diminished, attrited by the years; the stubble on his chin and cheeks was no longer gray but the dead yellow of old grass. The clear plastic mask over his nose and mouth clouded as he muttered in his sleep.

  “I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “He was awake. A bit disoriented, but he asked for you.”

  Oscar nodded and pulled a chair beside the bed to sit. Nurses moved as silently as ghosts. Sandro’s sleeping hands searched for a small bundle to hold. Oscar reached and gently took hold of the arthritic fingers. They closed around his hand.

  He was five, and nervous. He couldn’t stop thinking about his pants. He didn’t want to wet them. Mrs. Waislitz had helped him pack the night before, and her daughter Bethy—who was older than Oscar and liked to give Indian burns—had cried a lot, even though he’d been with the Waislitzes only a month or so. “How long will I be with these ones?” Oscar had asked.

  “Always,” Mrs. Waislitz had replied.

  It didn’t make sense.

  And now a policeman. He was quiet, but he looked scary and angry. He gave Oscar strange little looks as he drove. Up through the windscreen, Oscar could see clouds of brilliant purple pass overhead.

  “Jacaranda,” the policeman said. “From South America.”

  Oscar crossed his legs and said nothing.

  “Here.” The policeman turned the wheel and nodded to himself. “We’re home.”

  The car stopped, and the policeman got out. There were voices, the policeman’s and a woman’s. Oscar looked at the window; the sun was shining on its dust and making it almost too bright to look at. He didn’t know if he should get out or wait. His bladder felt ready to burst and he wanted to cry.

  Then the door opened and warm air rolled in.

  The sun was behind her, and it lit her brown hair gold. He had to squint to make out her face. She was pretty and smiling. Then she laughed. “Oscar,” she said. “Welcome, Oscar.” And she laughed some more. It was such a pretty sound, and from then on he heard it whenever he saw the lavender bells of jacaranda flowers.

  The woman helped him out of the car, and the world became a swirl of sunlight and purple and green grass. It didn’t make sense.

  “Big boy,” she said, although Oscar knew he was little. “Such a big boy.”

  Her hands were warm and dry. And as she turned him—sun to shadow, sun to shadow—he saw the policeman looking at his wife and smiling at her delight.

  He was woken by a coded alarm and the padding of soft-soled shoes. Sandro’s eyes were open and sightless, and his grip was soft. His vitals monitor flashed panicked red rectangles.

  “You’ll have to go,” said one nurse, and another began to whip a curtain closed around Sandro’s bed. A doctor rushed in.

  Oscar nodded as gentle hands urged him out, and the curtain swished shut behind him.

  It was afternoon when the undertakers came for the body. “You don’t have to wait for them,” the nurse told him, but Oscar said he would stay, and she offered him sandwiches.

  The doctor had come and explained about how Sandro’s reaction to antibiotics had weakened an already weak system, and how he had not been a candidate for further surgery while the infection remained so severe. Oscar tried to think of questions to ask, but he couldn’t come up with any. The doctor smiled kindly, squeezed his shoulder, and left. A nurse had come, patted his hand, checked her watch, and was gone. Then another nurse arrived with more sandwiches and ersatz tea. A wardsman asked if it was okay to take the body now, and Oscar watched as they rolled Sandro away under a sheet, down the corridor, toward the service lift.

  He followed it, and was allowed to wait in the small visitor section of the hospital morgue. When the funeral director arrived, Oscar saw that it was the same bald man from whom he’d taken Penny Roth’s body. Oscar barked a laugh, signed several forms, and then went home.

  Chapter 33

  He tried to sleep but couldn’t. The sunlight was hatefully bright. When he got home from the hospital, Zoe was gone. He washed, called for Sisyphus, waited, then crawled into bed.

  He lay awake, wondering what he should be thinking about. His father. His career. The missing idol. Taryn Lymbery. Megan McAuliffe. How much a funeral cost. Who would perform the eulogy. His brain shucked off every suggestion, refusing to engage.

  He rose
and pulled on work clothes.

  The backyard had the sweet, pleasant smell of rotting fruit. A possum-ravaged pawpaw sat beneath the tree, and around a few tomatoes buzzed fruit flies. The basil had gone to seed, and the grass had grown almost to his knees. The only sign of neatness was the patch of vegetable garden Haig had weeded. There was irony in that, somewhere, Oscar thought.

  Near the fence stood the dead boy. Oscar forced himself to look at him. He was small. Maybe fifteen. His skin was pale. Sheaves of grass protruded through his legs. His eye sockets, even in the sunlight, were as black as Whitby jet.

  “How is my father?” Oscar asked.

  The boy bit a thin, pale lip. He shrugged.

  Oscar nodded. “Useless,” he said, and looked away.

  He bent to work, pulling weeds and tossing them, as Haig had done, into neat piles.

  His phone rang. It was Jon. He offered condolences. Oscar realized how pointless they were, but thanked him nevertheless.

  “Sandro was one of the old guard,” Jon said. “One of the good ones.”

  “Yes.”

  A silence. Jon cleared his throat. “And I heard about your suspension. Bullshit, utter bullshit.”

  While Jon railed, Oscar muddled about pulling clumps of wiry asparagus fern from the spinach patch and snaking Madeira vine from the trellis. Maybe he should resign. Take the money. Garden.

  He realized that Jon had asked a question and was waiting for a reply.

  “Sorry?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Oscar stared at the overgrown garden. “I don’t know.”

  “Have you got a copy of his will?”

  Oscar had no idea.

  They made loose arrangements to catch up for a drink.

  Oscar fetched the push mower. As the sun warmed his back, the mower clattered and sprayed showers of green. He had to run over each patch of ground twice to clear the stubble. He assumed there was a will. Vedetta had a sister somewhere in Melbourne. He supposed the house could go to her. But if the house went to him, he could sell it. Or he could move there, sell this house, and pay for a live-in caregiver for Megan. Maybe Zoe would agree to move in.

  The mower wheel caught.

  Oscar stopped. He knelt and parted the tall fronds.

  It was roughly cylindrical, about as long as a large eggplant; a twisted mass of gray fur and white bone. It smelled leathery and faintly acidic. Oscar tilted the huge pellet with his shoe, and little white grubs crawled away from the light. At one end, he could just make out a blank white eye socket, and a jawbone with sharp, feline teeth.

  Sissy.

  A wild panic overtook him, and he checked the sky. He suddenly wanted to be indoors. He quickly buried the wadded remains, and hurried into the house.

  The afternoon brought clouds, and rain. The bedroom became dark, and Oscar curled naked in bed, half listening as the drops hit the roof and rattled down the pipes. He felt light, so light that he might rise through the sheets, through the ceiling, and drift away, so he gripped the sheets and listened. The room was silent. He kept thinking of wings and claws.

  I’m going mad, he thought.

  In the house, he heard something shift. A tiny, careful rustle. He felt under the pillow for the service pistol that wasn’t there; Zoe still had it. Another rustle. A click of something hard bumping the tabletop.

  He had the sudden, childlike desire to pull the sheets over his head and curl tighter. Instead, he quietly stepped out of bed. His foot touched cold steel, and he was surprised to see McAuliffe’s shotgun on the floor. He quietly picked it up and stepped on bare feet into the hall.

  Rustle. Click. Something was just around the corner.

  He stepped in, raised the shotgun to his shoulder.

  Zoe flinched at the sight of the weapon, then frowned at Oscar’s nakedness. On the table, she’d placed plastic bags containing her belongings from the house she’d fled: shampoos, clothes, a few books. He could see that the skin around her neck had darkened in a bruised band.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He nodded, lowered the gun, and padded back to the bedroom to dress.

  It was dark, and they drank tea, dressed warmly against the cold. Rain drummed overhead and dribbled down the window glass. She said that after she’d gone home to get her things she’d gone to Elverly.

  “They’re going to shut it down,” she said. “Distribute the kids around the city.”

  He nodded slowly. “When?”

  “No one knows.”

  The silences between words were strange and delicate. He wanted to stand and light a lantern, but he was afraid that if he moved she would, too. She might go and not come back.

  “Maybe I could bring Megan back here,” he said quietly.

  She watched him.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Yeah.”

  “You don’t think it’s a good idea?” he asked.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” she replied. “It’s just weird hearing it come from you.”

  He stood, finally, and lit a candle. As the yellow flame squirmed alive, something pale shifted at the side of the room. The dead boy stood beside the curtains. He gave Oscar a small smile.

  Oscar turned back and saw that Zoe was watching him.

  “Who is it?” she asked quietly. “Your ghost?”

  Oscar hesitated.

  “A boy,” he said. “I don’t know who he is.”

  “You don’t know him?” She frowned a little. “Have you never tried to find out?”

  Oscar returned to the table and sat opposite her. He felt the dead boy’s stare on his back and was sure he was listening. “I did. I checked the deaths registry, and Missing Persons. I didn’t find him.”

  “You’re a detective,” she said. There was admonishment in her voice.

  Oscar spoke carefully. “When he appeared, the first time, he was in the middle of the road. I was driving. I swerved to miss him. I hit Megan.”

  Zoe said nothing for a long time. “And you think that was his fault?” Oscar opened his mouth to protest, but there was no energy in him for it.

  “No,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  She watched him for a long moment, then stood and walked around to him. Her frown deepened and her lips parted, but she didn’t speak. She reached down and took the hem of his sweater and lifted it off him. Cold air pressed against his arms. He watched her. She lifted his T-shirt. He braced for more cold, but heat came from inside him. Her green eyes followed her fingers as they swept back his coppery hair, stroked down his neck, to a dusting of russet hairs across his sternum. She placed one palm across his chest and felt his heart. It beat quickly.

  As he reached up, she took his hands, curling his fingers in hers.

  “Cold,” she whispered, and lifted his hands under her own jumper onto the skin of her belly and slowly up to her breasts. Her nipples hardened when his cold fingers touched them. He saw her mouth open just a little wider.

  He slid one hand around her back and pulled her closer. Her pupils were large, her lips were warm, her breath was hot and clean. Her tongue found his, and then he was on his feet. His hands moved down and unbuttoned her jeans; they pooled around her ankles, and he placed her on the table. He went to his knees, and she pulled his face in toward her. She was wet skin, warm silk. She took a handful of his hair and raised his head, lifting him with one hand, unzipping his pants with the other. He pulled her to the edge of the table and entered her. She watched his eyes and nodded.

  “Good,” she whispered, and wrapped herself tightly around him.

  In bed, she nestled behind him. He felt her breasts beneath his shoulder blades. Her hands on his ribs felt as delicate as small birds, ready to fly. There was no light in the room.

  He thought she was asleep until she said softly, “I’m sorry about your father.”

  Outside, the rain was easing. They listened to the drops slowing. “Who is yours?” he asked.

  He felt her narrow chin lift agains
t the flesh of his shoulder. “Mine?”

  “Your ghost.”

  “Oh,” she said. “A boy, too.” She fell quiet for so long that he thought she’d drifted off to sleep. But then she spoke again. “I was sixteen. And he was five weeks old. I hadn’t hardly slept since he was born, not more than two hours at a stretch. Mum had married a—” She went silent again for a moment. “Home was no good, so I lived underneath a friend’s house, with Will. Little Will.”

  Raindrops rolled off the awning and dripped softly on the grass below.

  “I was so tired,” she continued. “He rolled. Or I rolled, I don’t know. I must have rolled in my sleep, and I woke up and he was all still.” Her hand on his ribs had gone hard. Angry. “They kept asking if I resented him. If I missed my old life. Saying I was only sixteen and I must have missed being single and carefree. Police.”

  Oscar said nothing. He hardly breathed.

  She seemed poised like a tightrope walker.

  “He was little,” she said. “And I was young. But I loved him.”

  Oscar heard her roll away.

  She whispered, “But why did he have to come back?”

  He woke. The rain had stopped. Water dripped in the downpipe outside, a slow and mournful tocking like a distant, broken bell. Deeper in the house something moved.

  Zoe was not in bed. He rose. The air was cold.

  She sat at the kitchen table, her pale face painted orange by a single candle’s light. The cotton bag Gelareh had given him was folded on the kitchen table, and Zoe was staring at the reconstructed altar. She didn’t look up as he approached. The idol seemed to watch her with those wide-set, strangely sentient eyes and to reach for her breasts with its ugly, doubly split beak. He had the sudden urge to shout a warning, smash the thing again, and wrench her away. But her stillness stopped him.

  “What’s this?” she asked, not looking up.

  He told her. He told her about the dog’s head in his garage and the creature that had crushed the idol there, Sisyphus dead in the backyard. He told her about Albert Naville, his arrest by Sandro thirty years ago for defiling and murdering a girl; his escape by fire, and his destruction by flames of the occultist he employed to make this profane idol and its twin. He told her about the writing on the totem, its ancient symbols and its sister glyphs carved into Penny Roth’s abdomen before her uterus was cut out and fed into the obscene, flaming brazier.