THE EASTER MAKE BELIEVERS

by Finn Bell

  “Have to. We’re going to need to look busy. This is going to be a media shit storm by morning. If we found them dead in the bush somewhere I’d be handing out beers, but this happened in a nice middle-class neighbourhood in quaint-as-pie Lawrence. These people own tea cosies for fuck’s sake. This is the kind of place we are supposed to keep safe from all this shit. You know – people who actually pay tax and vote,” Martin says, shaking his head.

  “Ok, so five dead gang members. Aside from Brian here, how high up in Manga Kahu are we talking?” Martin asks.

  “It’s pretty much gang royalty. Kepu, Maihi, Black – these are big surnames. Most of them are patched lifers or the sons of lifers or both. What I don’t get is why they’re all here dead in small-town Lawrence this morning. And what exactly happened in this house?” I say.

  “Maud,” Martin yells over his shoulder. “How’s it coming?”

  “It’s coming Cap,” we hear Maud say from the other room, then he enters, still typing away at the laptop with one hand whilst holding it up to his chest with the other.

  Maud takes a minute to look around the scene again then nods to himself. “There’s going to be more but for now here we go: Mum, dad and the kids have dinner around 7:00 p.m. Spaghetti with enough for a left-over meal tomorrow, then brownies. The kids help bake the brownies, although they argue about who got to lick the spoon. Then they settle down in front of the TV. Mum knits while the kids do homework. Idyllic, right? Somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. all these dead guys arrive, forced entry through the front door. Guns and masks all round. They search the place first thing. Don’t know what for yet but it was something small and thin, small enough to hold in your hand, and they don’t find it. They have an argument among themselves then, which dead guy number one—.”

  “Brian Kepu,” Tobe interjects.

  “Thanks, which Brian Kepu here wins. Then they tie up the family, dumping them on the couch. Did a good job too, hands, feet, eyes and even mouth and ears, so I’d guess by that alone they weren’t just intending a quick in and out,” Maud says, pointing to the blood-splattered couch. It’s no use trying to figure out how Maud can look at the same messy crime scene we do and see the things he sees. And asking him if he’s sure just means wasting time as he explains the steps and proof he has for what he’s saying. Which usually concludes with you wondering why you’re not more like him. So you learn to stick to the questions that actually need asking and read the rest in the report. It saves time. And ego.

  “They searched the place first then tied them up? Not the other way around?” Tobe asks.

  “Yup. Used a cut-up extension cord and some old towels they found in a box on the top shelf of the closet in the back bedroom. They had to shift a bunch of other boxes first and they searched these by throwing the contents right there on the floor. Dust outline on the shelf matches the box marked ‘extension cords’ and the dirty foot prints are only on top of the contents of the boxes lying on the floor but not below,” Maud says by way of explanation.

  “Here’s where it gets interesting. As far as I can see all the breaking in and arguing and searching and tying people up takes about 40 minutes or so. Then nothing. They just sit around like they are waiting for something. At about 2:00 a.m. the next-door neighbour comes home and spots one of our dead guys standing in the hallway holding a gun. So we’ve got several hours of these guys just sitting here. Then friendly neighbour calls the cops and we all come running. So far so good.

  “Between Uniforms and Tactical we’ve got 22 staff on location in about 25 minutes, which is outstanding. Full perimeter, cams and scopes, everything. Occasionally Brian here does the rounds and fires off a few shots but no casualties or damage. We even got all the neighbours evacuated without a hitch. Yay for us. The stand-off lasts until they start playing that song. That’s when things change. Look I’ll show you,” Maud says and turns the laptop screen towards us.

  “Ok, here’s the important bit,” Maud continues as he points to the screen, which is displaying the FLIR cam recording.

  “This white blob here is Brian Kepu standing in the hallway. See what he does,” Maud says.

  On the recording we see Brian move back through the house to stand over the family grouped on the couch. Then he bends over and hauls one of the figures up to stand. This seems to turn into a struggle between the two, which is punctuated by the sudden, unmistakable flash of a gunshot and the smaller figure is flung back down. Maud pauses the recording.

  “This is mum getting shot. As you can see she takes it in the chest, point blank range,” Maud says. He restarts the recording. “That’s when Tactical makes the breach call.”

  On the screen we now see the four other gunmen simultaneously spasm, and as some are falling down and others slump the entire screen whites out and the recording ends.

  “And that’s where we lose the feed. The first explosion knocked out the light settings on the FLIR cam. By the time we got it reset it was all over,” Maud concludes.

  “Run the last part of the recording again,” I say.

  For the second time we see Brian pull the mother up from the couch, but this time I keep my focus on him. First she falls back down and then the snipers shoot the other men, but Brian falls down at exactly the same time.

  “Did we target Brian as well?” Tobe asks, having spotted the same thing.

  “No, too close to the friendlies. Looks like he took a round in the back, which had to have been from inside the house. Most likely a spasm fire from one of the others as they got hit. We’ll know for sure once the autopsies and ballistics matches are done,” Maud answers.

  “So why can’t we find the dad?” Tobe asks, looking around again.

  “Don’t know yet. We thought he was part of the group tied up on the couch. And he may have been. Maybe he moved just after the first explosion. We’ve got a gap of about thirty seconds there. That first explosion knocked out the FLIR cam, which means we went blind to what was happening in here. Then the second explosion stopped the breach team in its tracks. All up it’s only seconds but there’s theoretically enough time for him to have made a run for the back door. It’s only a few steps. If he did then the second explosion could have killed him, but we haven’t found any remains yet. Fire crew says if he got close enough he’d be in pieces so maybe we haven’t found the pieces, but it seems unlikely to me,” Maud concludes, looking back at Martin.

  “It’s also possible that dad wasn’t here at all. Maybe these five were here holding the family hostage as an insurance policy while some of their associates took the dad off to go do some law breaking and what not. It would help explain why it looks like they were just sitting around here waiting,” Martin says. He turns back to us before he continues. “And if that’s the case, and they find out we killed everyone here, then dad’s dead too.”

  Martin looks around the destroyed room again, his gaze settling on the stack of board games next to the couch before he continues in a softer tone. “Poor kids. This kind of stuff can mess you up for life, and if we find their dad… Gangsters killing gangsters is one thing, but these bastards crossed a line here. We’re going to break this one open and if anyone behind it is still alive we’re going to hurt them back.” His voice turns from empathy to anger as he speaks.

  Sometimes I think Martin’s only way of actually caring about people is to redirect his being constantly angry at someone new.

  “Anyway, get back to the station, get cleaned up and start thinking of big words we can use to sound like we’ve actually served and protected here because the media conference starts at 9:00 a.m. and GIC is going to be standing there looking incompetent right next to me. I’ll do the overview, Tom will talk them through Tactical’s decision making and then it’s on to you for organised crime links, ongoing investigation and so on.”

  “Journalists. On our day off. I have this warm feeling inside,” I say, but it’s purely for the record. There’ll be no talking Martin out of his mind now.

&nb
sp; “Hey, we were all going to be heroes until those gas tanks went up,” Maud says in commiseration.

  “Yeah, that was special,” I say, still feeling the all-over ache of that second blast. “And how exactly did we manage that?”

  “No way was that us,” says Maud. “All our snipers were using armour piercing rounds to get through the windows and walls first. I’m telling you Nick, at this range with boat-tail bullets, it was surgical. At 3000 feet per second they would go through anything they hit like butter. There’s nothing in this house that could have made them shatter or ricochet before or after they hit bodies, not even if these guys were wearing bullet proof vests. Which they weren’t. No, our bullets went exactly where we shot them. How all this blowing stuff up happened I don’t know,” Maud says.

  * * *

  THE TWO MEN IN THE DARK

  “You won’t get away with this,” I say, but quietly, carefully, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice. He hasn’t hurt me or even threatened to. Doesn’t have to after what happened in the house. My family. He already knows I’ll do anything for them. He even took the gag off when we left the tunnel. Knows I won’t scream. But I’m still blindfolded. He keeps talking to me, asking questions I have to answer.

  “Do you know what Lex Taliones means?” he asks.

  “No,” I answer, trying to concentrate on walking blindfolded with him pulling at the rope around my neck. Every time I stumble or fall he simply drags me. Choking me so that I’m forced to scramble back up from my knees, which is hard when my hands are tied behind my back. What’s scary is how unaffected he seems by it all. Just calm. Almost polite. Like this is simply a task that needs doing. Part of me wishes he was furious or raging or felt anything strongly, even if it was bad and directed at me, because that way at least I would have the hope of things getting better when he finally calms down. A person who can keep hurting you without it ever actually making them feel better is truly terrifying.

  “That’s the Latin. Perhaps you know it in English? The expression goes, ‘An eye for an eye’” he says.

  “No,” I repeat, but I know the expression. My grandfather told us about it when we were kids.

  “It comes from the Bible, Old Testament. An ancient law. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It’s a way to balance a punishment with a crime. So that the severity and nature of the punishment matches with the severity and nature of the crime. A way to make things right again. You take my eye and then I have the right to take your eye and then we’re even,” he says.

  He’s quiet for so long after saying this that I think this is the end of it. My thoughts return to keeping my balance and slowly testing the tension of the rope around my wrists when he suddenly continues.

  “It can sound almost too cruel for modern times. Taking from someone exactly what they have taken from you. That’s not how most people view justice today. If someone steals your car it doesn’t mean you have the right to steal theirs, instead they go to jail. Today you don’t have the right to steal theirs, but for more than a thousand years Lex Taliones worked. And what’s interesting is that while it sounds cruel to us it was intended as a way to limit vengeance, not encourage it.

  “You see, in the original Hebrew texts, the actual rule was stated as ‘Only an eye for an eye’. That ‘only’ makes a big difference. It meant that you were only allowed to take what someone had taken from you and not anything more. So you couldn’t, for instance, kill someone if they only took your eye. I’ve read about an ancient case in Jerusalem where the judges ruled that a man was allowed to cut off another man’s foot after losing his own when the first man drove over it with his ox cart. He did it right there in the court room. It is a strange thing to picture. All those people standing by, calmly watching something like that happen. But you know, I think I can understand it. I think they did it because it felt right. It felt fair.

  “I don’t think we have that anymore. We don’t feel justice anymore. These days you see the end of a court case on the news and hear whether someone is found guilty or not, whether they get prison or a fine or whatever. I don’t think the victim feels that things are even now. I think about that often. You see, justice is just an idea. We need to think about it carefully, properly. But fairness, things being made right again, that’s simple. A child can sense when things are fair or not. It’s not something we need to think about because we can sense it. Feel it down in our bones.”

  * * *

  THE STORM

  Snow seems a pure, perfect thing. Every silver-white flake intricate and unique. Forming so high above us in that cold, far sky. Clean, closer to sacred than profane. Untouched by what happens down here. When it finally does fall it does so with uncommon grace. Floating down gently, in eerie silence, landing delicately without impact. Alone in the stillness of its fall a single snowflake is an incredibly fragile thing, holding itself together in a tenuous balance. A single touch, a hint of breath enough to destroy it.

  But like so many things that can seem magical, it’s not. Because snow hides its own secrets. The first is that despite appearance, at its heart, when a snowflake is born its centre is a speck of dirt. The second is that while a single flake is weak and fleeting, enough of them together can change the world.

  * * *

  TOBE AND NICK

  “See, people will carelessly say things like ‘Keep your cell phone charged’ without thinking where it could end,” I say to Tobe as we get back into the car. I hate media conferences.

  “This was a strange way to start the day,” Tobe says in an estimating tone that I’ve learned to recognise. Tobe gets bored, and when he gets bored he gets sad. I think he uses this job’s puzzles and questions as a kind of cure for himself. By that measure he’s probably one of the very few people here who’s had a good day so far.

  “Do you think it was Manga Kahu playing The Rolling Stones? Because, yeah, as unfolding crimes go this one didn’t have too bad a soundtrack,” I say. “That and, of course, half of the gang leaders in the south suddenly deciding to get killed at the Chen family’s house.”

  “I have no idea what happened here or why,” Tobe says, as if his own lack of understanding interests him.

  “Same here, but the difference between us is that you seem to like this experience,” I say. “If this was about drugs or guns or money we would have heard something. How come we’ve never heard anything from anyone about Lawrence? All these high-up gangsters can’t just make moves out here without anyone knowing or seeing something.”

  “Someone knows. We’ll start asking harder,” Tobe says.

  “Prison?” I ask. Funerals and prisons. If you work organised crime, they are the best places to go if you want to figure out what’s happening. In both cases the gangs can’t hide who their friends are. Once you know that, you know who to talk to. Because the one, universal truth of organised crime anywhere in the world is that there is always someone ready to betray their closest friends.

  “After the media conference we—” Tobe says before we’re interrupted by a knock on my window. I look over into the hard, hungry stare of Becca Patrick from Channel 3 News.

  “Must have smelled the blood,” I say to Tobe before winding down the window.

  “Nick, Tobe. Been a while. What are you doing here?” Becca says with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

  “Morning Becca. Hey it’s almost dawn, shouldn’t you be heading for safety?” I ask.

  “Ha and ha,” Becca answers. “Now come on. Spill. You know you owe me for that drug boat tip off.” Which is unfortunately true. The problem with Becca is that she’s good at what she does. And what she does is investigative journalism. People think this is a good thing. It’s not. If a criminal can watch the 6:00 p.m. news to learn what crimes are being investigated, what the cops know and who the suspects are, it gives them an even greater advantage than they already have.

  “You know I’m going to figure most of it out before the bulletin anyway. Whatever this is it will be
massive after last year. Give a girl a break, unofficial,” Becca pushes.

  “What do you mean, last year?” Tobe asks.

  “Nah, you first old man. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Becca responds.

  “Becca, you’re a reporter. Five minutes on Google and I can know every story you’ve done,” I counter.

  “Brave words Nick. But I’ve seen the morgue truck pull up and I’ve chatted to the neighbours. I know you lot were here before it all went down. Dead bodies on the morning news, maybe a screen cap of that picket fence over there full of bullet holes? An earnest news reporter asking what went wrong? Who was in charge? It’s not going to be a friendly media conference. You really want to risk Martin not knowing everything before he fronts up?”

  Tobe and I share a sigh.

  “What do you want?” Tobe asks.

  “I want you to source me plus an exclusive from GIC, first thing, and a full day’s lead time when it’s issued, with camera time,” Becca answers immediately.

  “Well ha and ha back. You know there won’t be camera time,” I say, looking over at Tobe.

  “I think we’ll have to. If there’s another twist here Martin needs to know about it before the media conference, and if she picks up any leads we don’t we’ll need them,” Tobe states.

  Dealing with the media is an unfortunate necessity in our field and it’s an unhappy mix. We’re trying to solve crimes, they’re trying to sell commercials more expensively. We’re funded by the tax payer while they’re paid by big brands. Which means they have more money. Which means often they can find things out we can’t. Which means we need them. Like so many other bad ideas it comes down to not enough money.