Dark Country (Dungirri)

by Parry, Bronwyn

  The detectives’ vehicle was too close to his own, so Petric ordered him in to the back seat of Kris’s patrol car. Gil hauled in a breath, then another and another, the small space pressing in on him, and rage and frustration pounding in his head.

  The wheel has come full circle; I am here.

  Back in Dungirri. Back facing a jail sentence.

  Sweat beaded on his forehead, trickled down his temple, but with his hands cuffed behind him he could not wipe it away.

  The wheel has come full circle; I am here.

  No, damn it, not full circle. He straightened his spine, unclenched his fists and stopped pushing his wrists against the confines of the cuffs. It might be some damned loop, but he wasn’t back where he’d been. It was different now. He was different now. Not some wild, angry kid, powerless against a system he’d scarcely understood.

  He’d done more than enough years in prison for one lifetime, and there was no way he’d let anyone send him back there. He needed to work out who had set him up, and prove his innocence.

  Not far from the car, Petric and Macklin were talking in low tones, mostly inaudible. The few words he heard told him nothing. Kris was out of his sight, but he tuned in to her voice, in a one-sided phone conversation, arranging officers and forensic specialists.

  The dappled sunlight falling into the car dulled to shade as she finished her call and joined the detectives, stopping just outside the car window.

  ‘I don’t know what you think you’ve got on Gillespie, but you’re going to have to think again.’ Her voice wasn’t loud, but her icy tone carried every word to him, despite the closed door and window. ‘His car was empty at eight o’clock last night. I know that because he gave me a lift into town, and I put two computer boxes in there. No body, no blood, no weapons, nothing. From eight o’clock he was in his room at the pub, until a posse of locals decided he was their evening’s entertainment. From ten o’clock, he was down at the station with me and from midnight until six this morning he slept in my spare room, and I woke him every hour to make sure he wasn’t concussed. By seven this morning he was in the café, with one of the world’s most reliable witnesses, who will also testify that after he left there he was nowhere near his car until the moment he walked up to us.’

  Her back was to him, but he could see her in his imagination, defiant, eyes blazing, just as she’d been last night, facing down the crowd.

  ‘So …’ She paused for a fraction to take a breath, and continued clearly, as if she knew full well he could hear. ‘So, troublesome pain in the neck he may be, but I think you’ll agree that there’s not a whole lot of opportunity there for him to have found and murdered this woman and stuffed her in the back of his car, without anyone happening to notice.’

  Kris wasn’t feeling friendly towards anyone in the frigging universe just now, so there was a certain amount of snarkish satisfaction in seeing the two men exchange a quick glance, clearly taken aback by her revelations.

  Yep, definitely not what they’d wanted to hear.

  Petric recovered first. ‘Gillespie stayed with you last night?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Just what is your relationship with him, Sergeant?’

  Oh, she’d been pissed off before, but now she was furious.

  ‘There is no relationship, Petric. Just a purely professional concern for a possibly concussed citizen, when the nearest hospital is sixty kilometres away. Out here, the job doesn’t finish when the shift ends.’

  ‘I merely asked out of concern for your safety.’ Petric’s smoothness did nothing to ease her temper. ‘We have reason to believe that Gillespie was responsible for his ex’s murder.’

  His ex? Shit, just what she needed – a violent murder involving an ex. Gil Gillespie’s ex.

  She recalled his face in those moments after Petric had opened the car boot. No, he hadn’t reacted much, but the briefly closed eyes, the tightly controlled anger when he’d opened them again, suggested he’d had as much of a shock as the rest of them.

  Well, time and the investigative process would tell if she’d read that right, or if she was a damn fool, taken in by a definitely not-pretty face. But right now proper procedure was her responsibility.

  ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to cool your heels before you interview your suspect, boys. The Dungirri station doesn’t have the facilities to detain anyone, so we’ll have to take Gillespie into Birraga as soon as we can leave the scene here.’

  ‘But –’

  She held up a hand and didn’t let Macklin finish. ‘No buts. It may have escaped your notice, but this is the bush, not the city. And since I am currently acting Senior Sergeant for the Birraga command, I not only have overall responsibility for custody procedures, but I outrank the both of you.’

  She smiled sweetly, just to rub it in.

  Oh, yes, she was in one hell of a bitch mood today. But they would damned well follow the rules, dot every ‘i’ and cross every damned ‘t’, because whoever had murdered that woman was not going to get off due to some procedural stuff-up.

  ‘I’ve just called in extra officers from Birraga to guard the vehicle until Forensic Services get here from Inverell. My constable will be here in a few minutes, and I want him to look over those footprints and tyre marks in the dust near the vehicle. In the meantime, you might want to talk with some of this gathering crowd, and find out whether any of them saw someone dumping a body in a car in the small hours of the morning.’

  She hadn’t left them much to argue with, and they at least had sense enough not to try.

  She would have preferred to talk to the group gathering on the corner outside the pub herself, rather than have strangers do it, but she had other priorities, and the two detectives headed towards the group with the air of men in charge.

  A fly buzzed past her, and with the temperature starting to climb after the cool morning, she had to protect the body from both insects and prying eyes.

  The guys at the corner probably couldn’t see, but Jeanie stood on the other side of the road, Megan with her, and from the way Jeanie held her hand to her mouth, she could either see or guess what the open boot held.

  Carefully, stepping in Petric’s sharp-toed footprints in the dust beside the road, Kris returned to the rear of Gillespie’s car. The woman … God, Kris didn’t want to think about what she’d endured before she died. The rush of adrenaline-fuelled anger evaporated, and reaction slammed a nauseating punch to her chest at the sight of the battered body. Her knees threatened to buckle, and she had to struggle like a rookie cop not to throw up. She screwed her eyes shut for a moment to regain some control. She’d seen too many dead people these past two years. Too many that she should have been able to prevent. Too many people she’d known personally. At least this death was unconnected to those, unconnected to her, but the viciousness of it still rocked her.

  She muttered a few choice swear words under her breath and made herself focus on the task at hand. She had a job to do, and puking and snivelling wouldn’t get it done. She reached up with a handkerchief covering her fingers, and gently closed the boot, giving the woman the dignity of a little privacy, at least for the moment.

  Gillespie sat in the patrol car, head up, staring straight ahead. A man she’d talked with, eaten with, allowed to sleep in her home. Her certainty that he hadn’t put the body in his car didn’t make him innocent of involvement, and she could no longer trust her own instincts.

  She’d once thought she was a competent officer, until she’d discovered that she’d been face-to-face with a serial killer regularly over a period of years, seen him go about his daily business, spoken with him politely in passing, and never recognised his evil. Gil Gillespie could be anything – innocent, murderer, accomplice, instigator – and right now she just wished that he’d never come back to Dungirri.

  The drive to Birraga was long and mostly silent. From where Gil sat in the back seat of the patrol car, he could, if he wanted, see the sergeant at the wheel, her face set in hard lines. In the fro
nt passenger seat, Petric made a few attempts at polite conversation with her, but she kept her responses brief.

  His arms uncomfortably behind him, Gil mostly stared out the window, ignoring them all, especially Macklin. When he’d got in the car next to Gil, Macklin had given him the kind of grin that dared him to make trouble. Gil didn’t plan on giving the man the satisfaction. He wasn’t stupid, and he was in more than enough shit already.

  The sergeant might have spoken up to the dectectives about his whereabouts last night, but he didn’t expect to hear that again in court. Cops closed ranks and backed each other in public – if not willingly, then through pressure. If by chance she stuck to her guns, they’d crucify her. Gil hadn’t heard all the conversation back in Dungirri, but he’d heard her angry retort, denying any relationship between them. The insinuations so soon meant Petric and his offsider had already started waving the hammer and nails.

  When they finally arrived at the Birraga station – relatively new, and at least four times the size of the Dungirri police station – the sergeant waved Macklin and Petric through to the local detectives’ office, and escorted Gil to an interview room, picking up a manila folder from a desk as she passed.

  ‘The folder’s got a list of legal firms in the region,’ she told him as she steered him to a chair, all briskness and business, although, for an insane moment, the brief brush of her fingers against his wrist when she keyed the handcuffs open almost drove business from his mind.

  ‘The local Legal Aid duty solicitor is Kent Marshall,’ she continued, oblivious to his distraction. ‘His number is there, too.’

  The cuffs loosened, fell away, and he brought his arms forward and flexed his freed hands, as much to erase the lingering sensation of her touch as to relieve muscular stress. Disgust with his inappropriate lust loaded on top of his anger with the rest of the frigging world and gave the detached response he intended a bitter edge.

  ‘If I asked for a recommendation, would I get an honest one?’

  The flare in her eyes mightn’t have quite reached thermonuclear strength, but her voice was pure cold fusion. ‘I believe in the law, and justice, Gillespie. That includes due process and representation.’

  Oh, well done, Gillespie. Question her integrity and join the queue of bastards making life hell for her.

  With deliberate moves, she folded the handcuffs together, slid them into her trouser pocket, and tucked the key into its place on the belt at her waist. ‘Whether you need Legal Aid or not, I’d suggest Kent Marshall. He knows his stuff, is straight down the line, and won’t waste your time and money, or ours.’

  Cop or no cop, he trusted her recommendation, simple as that. She might crack under pressure later, but for now she was dealing straight and honest with him. Not on his side, but not against him, either, just focused on seeking justice.

  Surprise, gratitude, relief – he didn’t know what it was, but before he thought twice about it he opened his mouth and said, ‘Remind me later that I’m not supposed to like you, Blue.’

  Her huff of breath held as much amusement as her death-glare. ‘If it turns out that you had anything to do with that woman’s death, Gillespie, then you definitely won’t like me.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  He spoke quietly, held her gaze, and blue eyes drilled into his, undaunted.

  ‘I figured that, since I’m your damned alibi. But arranging someone’s death is as bad as doing the deed itself, in my book, and I’m not your alibi for that.’

  ‘I didn’t arrange her death, either.’

  She leaned against the wall, crossed her arms and studied him. ‘“I’ve already dealt with Marci.” That’s what you said on the phone last night, while we were in the car.’

  He grimaced, felt the small room closing in on him. Yeah, that would give any sane person more than enough reason for doubt. Throw in what little she knew about him and his past, and maybe he should be grateful she’d even taken off the cuffs.

  He slid back the chair and stood at the window. The view of the police yard was fractured through the pattern of the security grill, but he wasn’t looking for anything as stupid as an escape. Just the reminder, if not the reality, of space around him, beyond the crowding walls of the cell-sized room.

  With the window at his back, he faced her again, acknowledged her doubt. ‘Yeah, I did say something like that.’

  ‘So?’

  She shifted slightly against the wall, slid her hands into her pockets, the movement bombarding his senses with a rapid onslaught of contradictory impressions. The curve of hip, disguised by the masculine style of trousers. Slim waist, bulked by the uniform gun belt, loaded with the standard tools of the trade.

  He slammed the mental door shut against everything but that belt and what it meant. Police tools, police trade, and he shouldn’t for even a second let a misplaced, irrelevant and incredibly stupid lust make him forget it.

  ‘Is this a formal interview, Sergeant?’

  ‘No, the detectives will conduct the investigation. This is informal and off-the-record, because I’m a witness to your activities last night, and I’m trying to work out whether you’re an innocent man or a murderer.’ She tilted her head slightly to one side, and continued just as bluntly, ‘So, how did you “deal” with her, Gillespie?’

  He drew in a slow breath, debated silently for a moment the best strategy. Until he knew where he stood – who had set him up, and how – he didn’t plan on giving much away. Yet if he clammed up, avoided her questions, he’d give her even more reason to distrust him. Her alibi had to be putting her in a difficult position with her colleagues, but right now, that alibi was the nearest thing to a lifeline he had.

  ‘I paid six months’ rent on an apartment in Melbourne for her, and gave her a plane ticket to get there and some cash.’

  ‘Why?’

  The question caught him off-guard. Fucked if I know, he wanted to say. Yeah, like that would go down well. Possible explanations raced through his mind, but none of them worked. He owed Marci nothing. And any debt he might have had to Digger had been more than repaid, years ago.

  ‘Long story,’ he finally answered.

  ‘She was your ex- what? Wife? Lover?’

  ‘Hell, neither.’ At least that was easy to answer.

  ‘That isn’t what Petric thinks.’

  ‘It isn’t what a lot of people think,’ he conceded. Damn Marci and her delusional games – and himself, for not calling her out on them more publicly. But then, it hadn’t really mattered, until now. ‘We were co-owners of a hotel for a while. I bought her out years ago.’

  But even as he gave her the brief, bare-bones explanation, the full reality of the shit he was in started to hit him. His long history with Marci would provide more than enough circumstantial evidence of a motive for murder. She was the perfect target; the only thing most people would wonder about was why he’d taken so long to get rid of her.

  Gil jammed a hand through his hair, turned to stare out the window, away from the sergeant’s scrutiny. Christ, he needed to think, get his head around the possibilities, the timing. How had Marci’s body ended up here in Dungirri, almost seven hundred kilometres from Sydney, in such a short time, when no-one – no-one, not even Liam or Deb, and definitely not Marci – had known he was coming here?

  Tony Russo might have already been planning some move against him, but Tony couldn’t have laid a finger on Marci while Vince was still around, and he couldn’t have anticipated his father’s shooting, unless he’d arranged it, or pulled the trigger himself.

  But if this wasn’t Tony’s work, then it could be that Marci had tried to sell what she thought she knew. There were more than a couple of people she might have gone to, and if any of them had found out what Gil had done – if they ever found out what he’d done – then framing him for Marci’s murder was only the beginning.

  Whoever it was, they’d moved fast for everything to have happened within twenty-four hours. To a jury it would look quite p
lausible that Gil had come to Dungirri to dispose of the body somewhere out in the wilderness of the scrub, a wilderness he’d once known well.

  Unless he could find some other evidence, then the sergeant’s alibi was the only thing that stood between him and maximum security at Long Bay or Goulburn. Except … His hands curved into fists. What her colleagues could do to her was nothing compared to what Russo or others would do if she got in the way of their plans. None of them would blink at discrediting or eliminating a straight, honest female cop.

  Something more than claustrophobia tightened around his chest.

  That straight, honest cop was watching him, waiting for more of an explanation. But for all the gutsy attitude and the weapons on her uniform belt, she was just one woman. If they got to her, as they’d got to Marci …

  The image of Marci’s body flooded Gil’s vision again, and he swallowed hard. Even if it meant cutting the lifeline, he had to give the cop an ‘out’ and make her think twice about that alibi. Protect her from them. He didn’t consciously think the words, just acted on them and started talking, damning himself.

  ‘The truth is, Blue, that there’ll be hundreds of witnesses who can testify that Marci spoke frequently about our “relationship”. There’ll also be a pub full of people who can tell the court that we argued in my office a few nights back and that I carted her, kicking and screaming curses at me, out of the pub. There are probably witnesses who saw me go into her place yesterday morning, and come out half an hour later.’

  ‘But you didn’t kill her or set up her murder.’ He couldn’t read in the flatness of her voice whether she believed him or not.

  He wouldn’t go as far as confessing to murder to keep her out of their sights. He looked at her without moving. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  She pushed herself away from the wall. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of minutes to book you in.’ Nodding at the folder on the table, she continued, ‘Choose a lawyer, Gillespie. You’re going to need one.’