Sharp Shooter

by Marianne Delacourt

  This was the part where I hung tough, even though my guts felt like they’d vaporised. ‘Quite,’ I said in a plummy voice. ‘And I’ve made arrangements for that information to go to the police should anything happen to Nick or me. So let’s just pretend we’ve never met.’

  Another pause. ‘I’ll convey your message to Mr Viaspa,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Good. I’ll return your retainer and hope I never see you again, Mr Delgado.’

  ‘Don’t be naive, Tara. Things don’t work –’ His call cut off abruptly, as if someone had grabbed his phone before he could finish the sentence.

  He didn’t call back. Hopefully he’d fallen down a hole, or driven into the back of a bus.

  Still trembling, I lay down along the bench seat. Had I really just played hard ball with the bad guys? I was nuts.

  Suddenly, I felt tired. I tried napping for a while, but the bench was too hard, and my nerves were jangling. Eventually, I gave up and checked my messages.

  There was a text from Bok wishing me luck and saying he’d see me later today wen we cn toast unemplymt & blisters.

  The blisters would be mine, the unemployment his. Poor Bok still hadn’t found his celebrity spread.

  There were also several missed calls from JoBob.

  I called back, preparing to hang up if Mum or Dad answered. Thankfully it went to message bank.

  ‘Just letting you know that I’m picking Brains up from the vet’s on Monday. She’s fine but none of us can visit her because she’s . . . in quarantine until then,’ I said.

  Lamest lie in the history of lame lies, but they could crossexamine me later.

  I thought about ringing Fiona Bligh and telling her everything, but I’d dug myself in too deep to do that.

  Instead, I stuck my phone in the strap of my crop top, climbed back down to the pen and began stretching out amid all the other competitors doing the same. I kept my cap pulled low and tried to distract myself with the chat around me.

  The tri had attracted over a hundred teams – not bad for a small city comp. Somewhere in the melee there was bound to be someone I knew. Yet, in Liv’s gold lamé running shorts with the black sequined love heart on the butt and velvet crop top, I could do without the recognition.

  ‘Tara Sharp! Which tranny did you mug?’

  Crap. I peeked up from under my cap. Worse than crap. Jenny Munro: bitch basketballer turned ironwoman. What was she doing slumming it in a team tri?

  ‘Hi Jenny. Got your braces off at last, I see.’

  OK. That was straight-up nasty, but you gotta understand, Munro broke my nose in the crossover semi-final of the state championships one year. It was a deliberate elbow to put me out of the game, without so much as an accompanying ‘oops!’. We beat them anyway.

  She’d quit playing after that and gone across to ironwoman events. Talent scouted by the Institute, apparently. She was tough as tits and could run like a devil.

  I hated her.

  She looked me up and down, baring her sizeable chompers in a fake grin. ‘Looking a bit out of condition, Sharp. Not to mention the fashion statement.’

  I eyed her ridiculously lean, fit frame. ‘Yeah, well, I have a life.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ she grasped one perfect ankle and stretched one perfect quad. ‘I hear you’re seeing Greg Whitehead – on the quiet of course.’

  ‘Wha-at!’ I spluttered. ‘Who told you that load of –’

  My expletive was drowned by the roar of the crowd as the first bikes entered the straight towards the transition area.

  The mood among the runners changed instantly. Everyone was on their toes, wired to take off when their team cyclist reached them. I began to run on the spot. I couldn’t possibly beat Jenny Munro but I’d give it a fucking good go.

  And my fucking good go was just about to begin because Craigo was bearing down on me, leading the bike leg by a couple of hundred metres.

  He wheeled into the T-area as if it was the start of a velodrome sprint, not the end of an endurance race, and tagged me.

  I was off at a cracking pace, putting as much distance between myself and Jenny, as possible. My only hope was to force her to chase me and keep her from setting her own pace.

  I hit the three-kilometre mark before the first rush of adrenaline and anger had waned. A quick glance behind told me I was only ahead by fifty now. Jenny was bearing down on me, cap low, arms pumping comfortably. Another hundred behind her was a group of about five, all pushing each other in spurts. The rest I couldn’t see. There was something to be said for being at the front of the pack. YAY, Craigo!

  I tried to concentrate on working through the growing fatigue, and the pain that was starting to stab just below my right knee. My running shoes weren’t exactly new, and the cushioning was struggling to compensate for the extra pounds I’d put on.

  I’d always managed the fatigue barrier pretty well when competing, but pain was a different thing. My mind began to wander and I caught myself gazing into the crowd instead of focusing ahead.

  As I grabbed a cup of water from the first line of volunteers, Jenny thundered past me. I coughed the drink water down and tried to put on a burst, but my lack of conditioning started to bite.

  Breath burning.

  Legs burning.

  Feet burning.

  Everything told me to stop, catch my breath. I tried to spurt again but my body just wouldn’t respond. Nothing left in the tank with just over four kilometres to go and the next group a few strides behind me.

  As I reached the last line of water volunteers, the group behind me converged. I caught an elbow in the ribs and someone kicked my ankle, taking me down.

  I rolled on the ground, grabbing at my leg. The volunteers called out to me but I waved them off. Interference would mean disqualification. I got up and stood, bent over, grabbing my knees, sucking it in.

  Then something made me turn my head; a distortion that didn’t seem to fit with the blur of auras that I accepted as a common background when there was a crowd. Behind the water volunteers, standing among a random group of spectators leaning on the barricade, was Sam Barbaro. And he was reaching inside his leather coat for something.

  I wasn’t going to wait to see what.

  An adrenaline rush sent me scooting after the group. Safety in numbers. Fear brought energy, and I caught up and hung with that group, keeping myself in the centre of them.

  Periodic glances into the crowd told me that someone was running behind the first line of spectators trying to keep pace with us. I didn’t know that it was Barbaro. I didn’t know that it wasn’t.

  A web of panic engulfed me. What if he was waiting for me at the end of the race? He couldn’t accost me in public. I should be able to just walk away. What if he pulled his gun on me? He wouldn’t do that. Would he?

  Shouts from the crowd drew me back to the present. One kilometre to go and I’d unwittingly pulled ahead of the group as I hit my second wind. Suddenly, I found myself strung out halfway between Jenny and the group.

  Jenny was entering the stadium straight.

  I glanced to the sideline crowd again. They’d thinned out; everyone was inside near the finish.

  I saw Barbaro. He waved and pointed to the opposite side of the track.

  Head swivel.

  Zach Lupi was on the other side running abreast with us.

  If I veered off now one of them would follow me. Finish the race. Escape them in the confusion, I told myself. Run!

  But brakes squealed and things went arse-shaped. I glanced back. The blue BMW had crashed the barricade a hundred metres behind me and was on the track. My running group scattered as it fishtailed straight through the centre of them.

  All I could see of the driver was a cap pulled low and a collar pulled high.

  This time my adrenaline spike was more like an overdose of crack. I bolted into the stadium, towards the finishing line and the safety of the stadium seating. A dozen terror-fuelled strides brought me abreast with Jenny.
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br />   She was losing speed, eyeballing behind, checking out the furore. ‘What the –’

  I didn’t waste a second of breath in explanation. But a blare of sirens told me that a cop car had careened onto the track after the BMW.

  I hung my tongue out the side of my mouth and forced my arms to pump faster. My peripheral vision told me too many things were happening.

  Craigo and the boys were shrieking on the sidelines, jumping up and down, hooting for me. Bok and Smitty as well. Edouardo would be there too but I couldn’t see him.

  Barbaro was ahead of me cutting towards the line, but the crowd had slowed him. Lupi was having the same problem on the other side.

  I heard a growling grunt in my ear, and Jenny surged again.

  ‘No way, Sharp,’ she spat.

  Literally.

  I copped a gob of her spittle, courtesy of the gusty wind.

  But Jenny didn’t have a car trying to run her down and two thugs chasing her. We pounded the last ten, neck and neck, and that’s where I got her. She was aiming for the line. I was aiming for the stadium seats twenty metres beyond it. She slowed in her last step and I ran straight on through.

  And kept going.

  The crowd scattered as the BMW and the cop car finished next, narrowly missing Jenny who was screaming at the top of her lungs.

  I crossed the grassed area and dived over the steel railing. Once I’d righted myself I took the stairs three at a time until I finally tripped and fell over near the top. I banged my knee hard and began to roll back down until I latched onto the pole base of a seat – and a wad of recently applied chewing gum – and hung on.

  Errk.

  I looked down at the oval.

  The BMW was spinning its wheels and blowing smoke in the long-jump sand trap. With any luck it would bog right in.

  A moment later, though, it burst free, heading straight for the stadium seats, and me. Out of control. The driver jumped out at the last second, leaving her car to nosedive into the railing.

  Her?

  Jeans, collared tight shirt, heels. Definitely female.

  Hot on its tail, the cop car cut a swathe into the stadium’s pristine grass running track and slid to a stop, door swinging open.

  Fiona Bligh flung off her seatbelt and left the car at a run. She tackled the woman as she climbed the fence and brought her down with a quality knee grab. Bligh had slapped the cuffs on her before I could stand up and shout hooray!

  Bill Barnes joined them and bundled the cuffed woman into the car.

  Bligh looked up and gave me a wave.

  I hobbled down the steps to meet her. My knee wasn’t bleeding but had started to swell.

  She helped me over the fence.

  ‘You OK, Sharp?’ Her uniform was covered in grass, buttons missing, and there were dirt smears on her face. ‘Jesus. Did you fall over?’

  ‘Cat scratches,’ I said automatically. ‘Who is it?’ I was suddenly thirsty as hell and feeling dizzy. ‘June Whitehead?’

  ‘No, it’s Carlotta Delgado, the dodgy lawyer’s wife. You know her?’

  Delgado! ‘Met her once, for like, an eye-blink.’

  Bligh nodded wearily. ‘Seems she got it into her head you were seeing her husband and started following you.’

  Tears sprang to my eyes. Relief or sentiment, I wasn’t sure. ‘You sound like you knew.’

  She nodded again. ‘She’s a hard case. Nearly had her once for assaulting her hired help. Never pulled a stunt like this before, though. Whitey recognised her when she tried to get you outside your house. We confirmed it with the plate number you left.’

  I remembered the panicked look on Whitey’s face.

  Bligh stared at the finish line. The crowd was being held at bay by Cravich and Blake, who were already interviewing spectators.

  I scanned the sea of faces for Lupi and Barbaro but the police presence would have sent them scuttling.

  I tried to refocus on Bligh, but I felt sick all of a sudden and for some reason she looked like a dot picture. ‘Think I need to . . .’

  Chapter 47

  I WOKE UP A short time later in the back of an ambulance, hooked up to a saline drip.

  Bligh was sitting next to the paramedic, writing in her notebook. I stared at her, trying to remember how I got there.

  ‘Just a bit of dehydration, Sharp. You should drink more water before an event.’

  I had to wet my parched lips to speak. ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’ I had a sudden thought that had me jerking upright, craning my neck to see the seat behind my stretcher. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Constable Barnes is with Mrs Delgado in the other ambulance,’ said Bligh.

  I settled back.

  ‘Now, there are a few things we need to talk about.’

  ‘Now?’ I croaked.

  She glanced at the paramedic, who was leafing through a copy of Sports Illustrated. ‘It can wait until we’re at the hospital,’ she said.

  That was it between us, until the ambulance had offloaded us into a poky ER room, the drip had done its thing, and the duty doctor prescribed a shower, rest and a good night’s sleep.

  Left alone, finally, Bligh pulled her chair up close to the bed. ‘I just had a call from Bill. Carlotta says her husband’s secretary, Francine, told her you were having an affair with Peter Delgado.’

  Giggler! I wanted to tell Bligh how I’d overheard Francine talking about her affair with Delgado, but that meant explaining other things. Like why I was at his office. So I kept quiet.

  ‘Carlotta searched your flat and found her husband’s private number on a card. She also says you live like a pig, and that she’d try to run you over again.’

  ‘Did she trash my car?’

  Bligh shrugged. ‘She hasn’t admitted to it so far, but I’ll check it out.’

  I felt sick. ‘Remember that day you called on me? Someone had been in there while I was out. Must have been her.’

  She wrote that in her notebook. ‘You should lock your door. What were you doing with Delgado’s card?’

  ‘My accountant gave it to me. He used to work in the same building as Positoni & Kizzick. He recommended them if I ever needed a lawyer. Never followed up on it, though.’

  Take that, Garth Wilmot!

  Bligh kept writing.

  I sighed. ‘Is that it, Fiona?’

  ‘Cravich and Blake have gone to pick up a guy named Zach Lupi.’

  ‘Oh?’ My heart fluttered.

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘No,’ I lied.

  ‘Nicholas Tozzi’s shown us evidence today that Lupi falsified a mineral assay report. Seems that Lupi is buddies with Sam Barbaro, who broke into Eireen Tozzi’s home.’

  ‘Evidence?’ I said, wide-eyed.

  ‘Mr Tozzi got an independent assay done in Sydney showing completely different results to the one the SUP labs supplied.

  Lupi signed off on the report. We’re getting a third assay done but Lupi’s butt is on the line. We know he and Barbaro are both working under direction from John Viaspa but there’s no direct connection, nothing to hang him on.’

  I gulped this time; really, truly gulped. ‘When did Nick call you?’

  ‘This morning, first thing. That’s the only reason we were close by when Carlotta popped her cork. We were coming to talk to you. Your dad said you were running in the triathlon.’

  ‘My dad?’ I squeaked. Bligh had been to JoBob’s.

  ‘A source saw your Monaro near Barbaro’s boarding house yesterday.’ Her eyes suddenly developed the intensity of a six-inch drill bit about to do its work. ‘If you’ve got anything that could connect Viaspa to Barbaro or Lupi, we need it.’

  I reached for a glass of water to give myself time to think. I couldn’t tell Bligh about the shooting; they could nab me for trespassing, not to mention aiding and abetting an armed crazy man. I couldn’t tell her about the warehouse either, because that’d be trespassing too, and there was Edouardo to consider.

  My phone began to vibra
te on the bedside cabinet. ‘Excuse me one minute,’ I said and grabbed it.

  ‘Missy?’

  ‘Hoshi?’

  ‘Mrs Hara has a message for you from her friend. Mr Viaspa says that all is good, as long as you don’t mention names. You understand?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. He says his dogs have been called off.’

  Dogs? He meant Barbaro and Lupi.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll collect the bird soon.’

  I hung up and smiled at Bligh. ‘My boss has our family bird. You remember Brains?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Sharp?’

  ‘Where’s Barbaro’s boarding house?’

  ‘Upper Perth,’ she said. ‘Near the corner of George Street.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, mustering a relieved expression. ‘Must be a coincidence. I was picking up my aunt’s boyfriend so he could move in with her. He can’t drive anymore. He has a medical condition. He lives on George Street.’

  ‘Can he verify that?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Wallace Grominsky.’

  ‘GROMINSKY!’ she snarled at me. ‘What little game are you playing at, Sharp?’

  I gave her my best innocent expression, which was a fucking genius effort, since every muscle in my body ached and I was busting to pee on account of the drip. ‘I introduced them. No accounting for love’s taste.’

  ‘Neighbours reported gunshots,’ said Bligh.

  ‘Really? I’m glad Wal’s moved out then. Bad area.’

  She grunted and scribbled in her book. ‘Where is he now?’

  I gave her Liv’s address.

  The nurse poked her head around the curtain. ‘Are you nearly finished, Constable? I’m having trouble holding back the hoards.’

  Bligh sighed and stood up. ‘We’ll be talking again soon, Sharp.’

  I sat up straighter. ‘Fiona?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thanks for today. I mean, you know I wasn’t seeing Peter behind her back. Carlotta really must be nuts.’

  ‘That,’ said Bligh, ‘I believe. His secretary owned up to being the other woman under a little bit of pressure from Cravich and Blake.’