Blood Feud (Little Town)

by JD Nixon

  He noticed my lingering envious glance as we climbed in. “Not going to happen, Fuller. Forget about it.”

  I huffed and crossed my arms, sinking lower in my seat as he drove off. “I bet you didn’t share your toys when you were a kid either,” I accused.

  He smiled faintly. “I would have, but I didn’t have anyone to share them with.”

  I threw him a sympathetic glance. “Me neither. One of the problems of being an only child, hey?”

  “I’m not an only child. In fact, I’m blessed with a multitude of brothers and sisters.” His tone was somewhat sardonic as if he hadn’t found it quite the blessing he claimed.

  I turned sharply to study him, frowning. That didn’t make any sense – if he had lots of brothers and sisters why didn’t he have anyone to share his toys with? And why hadn’t he mentioned any of his siblings in the nine months we’d been working together? That was unusual. But no matter how much my curiosity burned me, the set of his jaw meant he wasn’t going to answer any further questions on the topic. He was so infuriatingly taciturn about his life. Why?

  To show my disapproval of men who were deliberately mysterious, I kept my gaze confined to outside the passenger seat window and didn’t engage him in further conversation. I wasn’t sure he noticed though, engrossed in listening to a lengthy and serious radio report on some deathly dull state political development. I reached out to change the station to one playing music.

  “Leave it,” he ordered, forcing me to retract my hand. “I’m listening to that.”

  “Why? It’s so boring.”

  “It’s an important budgetary debate that might impact on a number of departments, including the Police Service.”

  “Yawno. As long as we keep getting paid, who cares?”

  “I do,” he insisted, wisely ignoring the histrionic sigh I heaved in response. And so we listened to the boring debate for the rest of the trip.

  At the police station in Big Town, he parked in one of the ‘police vehicles only’ bays and turned off the engine. We looked at each other.

  “Ready to throw yourself into the volcano again?” he asked.

  “I feel like a human sacrifice,” I said unhappily. Nobody enjoyed one of the Super’s bollockings.

  “We’ll get through it together and afterwards I’ll buy you dinner.”

  I brightened immediately. “Really?”

  “Yep,” he said, opening his door and preparing to step out. “Because you’re going to need it, kid.”

  Chapter 22

  She made us wait. We sat in a little reception room she’d recently converted for that purpose from an old work space that previously contained a photocopier and stationery stores. The fresh paint hadn’t quite dispelled the smell of toner in the air.

  It was a small room, barely space for two. The Sarge and I sat in opposite seats, our knees virtually knocking together. I found the waiting the hardest part. I just wanted the Super to tell me what I’d done in great and foul-mouthed detail. I’d make a half-hearted apology to her and promise to never do it again, and then I could escape to fill my tummy with some delicious food paid for by the Sarge. I jumped up and paced the tiny space, edging around the Sarge’s knees, sitting down for thirty seconds before springing to my feet again to resume my pacing.

  “Sit down and stay down,” the Sarge demanded, exasperated by my prowling. Obediently, I sank on to a rather uncomfortable chair, but immediately started wriggling my legs up and down.

  Every cop who walked by glanced inside at us, but kept hurrying past. That was never a good sign. Nobody else wanted to be tainted with the stench of a reprimanded cop, though most of the furtive glances were sympathetic in nature. Bum, large enough to block out the sun, but whose brain struggled to power a lightbulb, filled the doorway.

  “The Super’s not in a good mood today,” he warned, openly ogling my chest, forcing me to cross my arms.

  “Is she ever in a good mood?” muttered the Sarge.

  I groaned. “Why is she in a bad mood today of all days?”

  “You’ll see,” said Bum, trying for an enigmatic smile but only managing to look constipated.

  On his departure, light flooded back into the room. A couple of minutes later we heard the dreaded summons.

  “Tessie Fuller, get your arse in here now!”

  Some Big Town cops compared her voice to the hideous sound of Wolverine screeching his claws down a chalkboard; others to the bone-chilling shriek of the minions of Hell calling you to your eternal damnation. Whatever it sounded like, it brought on immediate medical symptoms like goosebumps, heart palpitations, sweaty palms, and a dry mouth.

  I took a deep breath and stepped into her office with a jaunty air. “Afternoon, ma’am. Is that a new . . .” My words died in my throat.

  With shameless sycophancy, I’d been about to compliment her on her hair. But it was beyond compliments. Since I’d last seen her, it appeared to have been hacked at by a vision-challenged gardener with a set of blunt secateurs and a burning desire to create something ‘interesting’. It jutted out all over her head in uneven clumps.

  “Anyone say one fucking word about my hair and you’ll find my foot so far wedged up your arse, you’ll be shitting shoes for weeks.”

  She pulled a cigarette pack out of her top drawer and lit up. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or not. She stared at us, not offering either of us a seat.

  “My mother decided to give me a trim last night,” she explained. I could see why she hated her mother so much.

  “It’s um . . .” I floundered to finish the sentence. “Um . . . very modern, ma’am.”

  “It’s fucked, that’s what it is, and I don’t have time to have it fixed today because I’m too busy dealing with problems like you, Tessie.”

  Here we go, I thought nervously.

  She leaned back in her executive chair and regarded us, blowing smoke out of the corner of her mouth.

  “What am I supposed to do about you two? You fucked up the forensics at a murder scene. You failed to capture Red Bycraft at a roadblock where there was only one fucking road to block. You wasted the time and resources of half my staff on some bullshit story about Red Bycraft on the hunt for prey here in Wattling Bay. I’ve had that banshee-on-legs, Villiers, still shitting me to tears with her tedious complaints about you. You spend more on petrol and car maintenance than any other two-cop town in not just my district, but the whole fucking state.” A pang of guilt twinged through me at that. “And now this.”

  I wasn’t quite brave enough to ask what ‘this’ was.

  “Tessie, please remind me again why you took a police recruit to a violent murder scene.”

  “Um . . . I didn’t exactly take him, ma’am. He was there with me when we went to the callout. And to be fair, I didn’t know it was going to be a murder scene.”

  “And did you take him back there in the middle of the night?”

  “Again, I didn’t exactly ‘take’ him. He kind of tagged along on another callout.”

  “And did you involve him in a high speed pursuit that was not fucking authorised?”

  I remained silent. Not even I could defend myself on that one.

  “Fuck. I just knew it,” she said quietly, pinching the bridge of her nose. “It might interest you to know that this particular recruit has an extremely influential, and possessive, mother. And by influential, I mean she donates shitloads of money to the government, so they listen to her. She’s not happy that her precious little darling was exposed to such things, particularly as he hasn’t yet done any formal fucking training in dealing with shit like that!”

  I flinched at her anger. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “His mother’s been up the Police Minister’s arse about it, so she’s been up the Police Commissioner’s arse about it, so he’s been up the Deputy Commissioner’s arse about it. And now guess whose arse has just been reamed?”

  “Yours, ma’am,” I said miserably.

  “And now guess who
se arse I’m just about to ream?”

  My misery level grew. “Mine, ma’am.”

  “Bingo! Someone give the woman some prize money.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry. That’s all I ever hear from you.” She took a final huge drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out on a thick report marked: URGENT. CONFIDENTIAL. New budgetary directives from the Hon Georgina Stretton, Minister for Police, Corrective and Court Services. “How about you do me a favour and stop doing things you need to say sorry about? You’re giving me wrinkles I really don’t need.”

  “She’s giving me grey hairs,” ventured the Sarge.

  “Shut up, Maguire,” she snapped. “Tessie, I want you to pay attention to what I say next. If you don’t pull your head in, I’m going to have to reassign you to a station where you’ll be supervised more closely. You don’t want that, do you?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said, my voice subdued.

  “You have a promising career in the police force ahead of you, and Christ knows we need more women at the top. I’m not having you fuck up your chances because of stupid stunts like this. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So start learning some self-control. And Maguire?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “You’re not impressing me with your supervisory skills. Don’t expect me to be complimenting you on them in any future reports I have to write about you. Just because you have a giant-sized boner for Tessie that’s a danger to every eye in the vicinity doesn’t mean you should allow her to do whatever she wants. You’re her supervisor, not her future fuck buddy. So start thinking more about pulling her into line and less about pulling off her panties.”

  The Sarge’s mouth tightened and I could feel my cheeks burning.

  “Are we all clear on my position?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” we said in unison in equally sullen tones.

  “Good. And if you think I’m ever allowing a recruit to do a placement in your shit-smear of a town again, you better think twice. Now, fuck off. I’m sick of the pair of you. I don’t want to hear from you or see you again for a very long time. And I especially don’t want to hear any more complaints about you.”

  And having said all that she wanted to say, she promptly ignored us, twisting in her seat to pick up her phone and make a call. Outside her office we looked at each other and sighed simultaneously.

  “Could have been worse,” I joked half-heartedly as we walked towards the lifts, noting his thunderous expression.

  “I’m sick of that woman impugning my professionalism all the time.”

  “Sorry, Sarge.” I harboured a secret fear that one day he would decide he’d had enough of Little Town, of the Bycrafts, and of me. “I guess I’m ruining your career.”

  He laughed with genuine amusement. “Nothing’s going to ruin my career, Tessie. Not even working with you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He chose not to answer. “Let’s go speak to the Greville case detectives about Young Kenny’s story.”

  But after a frustrating fifteen minutes trying to convince the two detectives to take us seriously, we gave up. Their dismissive comments about the questionable ‘ramblings’ of an elderly, homeless man set my hackles rising, particularly their insinuations that he was either probably a senile drunkard or an attention-seeking liar. What they were adamant about was that his story wasn’t to be given much credence.

  “Why can’t we get them interested in this man?” I fumed on our exit from the station.

  “We’ll just keep bringing it up and eventually they’ll have to pay some attention to us, particularly when they run into a dead end.”

  At his car, he leaned over to retrieve a scrap of paper from under the wiper. “You have to be kidding me!”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a ticket for parking in the ‘police vehicles only’ bay,” he spat. He screwed it up and threw it on the backseat. “I’m not paying it.”

  “You rebel,” I smiled.

  He checked his watch. “It’s too early for dinner, but it’s too late to return to Little Town to do any more work. Let’s take the rest of the day off.”

  I smiled up at him again. “No matter what the Super says, I think you’re a great supervisor.”

  He tweaked my nose. “And I think you’re a whole lot of trouble. What do you want to do?”

  “A movie?”

  “Nah. It’s a lovely afternoon. Let’s go for a walk along the harbour.”

  As it was a weekday, the path skirting the harbour wasn’t as busy as it became on the weekends.

  “Do you think the Super really would reassign me?” I asked as we strolled, enjoying breathing in the fresh salty air from the bay.

  “I don’t know. How would you feel if she did?”

  “If they made me leave town, I’d quit. I’m not abandoning Dad.”

  “He might leave with you.”

  “He shouldn’t have to. He’s . . .” I inhaled and exhaled strongly. “He’s dying.” It was the first time I’d admitted it out loud. “Having to move would be the last straw for him. I could never put him through that.”

  “But how would you survive without your police salary?”

  I stared out at the boats bobbing around on the sparkling water. “I don’t know.” I smiled tightly. “Guess I’ll just have to behave myself from now on.”

  “Now that’s something I want to see.”

  “I don’t really think I’m disobedient.”

  “Except when you are.”

  “Maybe I am now and then. But I always have a good reason.”

  “A red hot temper is not a good reason, Tessie. And it kills me to say this, but the Super is probably right. I do need to pull you into line more.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

  “It’s work. It’s not supposed to be fun.”

  “You could try to make it a little bit fun.”

  “What’s fun about murder? Or the Bycrafts?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “Exactly.”

  We walked for a while without speaking.

  “Do you have fun with Melissa?”

  “We seem to do nothing but fight these days, but we used to have fun together. She’s a very outgoing person with lots of friends and she loves socialising. Being with her has been a whirl of parties, weekends away, and dinners out.”

  I could see how a man would be attracted to such a woman – someone totally opposite to me. But I couldn’t imagine a life consisting of nothing but the carefree leisure he’d described.

  He continued, “Actually, to be honest, it’s kind of exhausting after a while. And she was never happy when my shift clashed with her plans or I had to get up early the next morning for work.”

  “I don’t have that problem with Jakey. We don’t really see each other that much and when we do, we usually spend our time together hanging around my house.” I was being polite then because the truth was that Jake and I usually spent the bulk of our time together in bed.

  “But you have fun with him.”

  I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. “I sure do. That’s one of the main things I love about Jakey. He helps me escape my life for a while. And he accepts me how I am . . . you know, with all my . . . problems.”

  “Problems caused by his family.”

  “But not by Jakey,” I said loyally.

  “Tess, you’re a smart woman, and I’m sure you realise that most reasonable people would think you should be staying the hell away from that family, Jake included.”

  I stared at the ground. “Jake doesn’t think I’m weird and you have no idea how important that is to me. There aren’t too many men in the world like him.”

  “I don’t think you’re weird.”

  “You did though when you first came to Little Town.”

  “I won’t deny that. I did worry about what I’d landed myself in. But it di
dn’t take long before the Bycrafts persuaded me that you have perfectly good reasons for being exactly the way you are.”

  “Thanks, Sarge. That’s so nice of you.”

  “Oh brother! If you call me nice one more time I’m going to start kicking your arse at work just so you can see how un-nice I can really be,” he threatened.

  “You talk tough, Maguire, but can you walk tough?”

  “Try me.”

  “Nah, not today.” I checked my watch. “Why don’t we have an early dinner? I’m hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  “I have a fast metabolism.”

  “I thought you were just greedy.”

  “You’re asking for another arm thumping.”

  “You’re asking for more arse kicking.”

  “Guess that makes us even.”

  “Guess it does. Now, I would offer to take you to a restaurant, but you’re hardly dressed for fine dining.”

  I glanced down at my jeans and runners, and sadly, could only agree with him.

  “How about an early dinner of fish and chips by the bay,” he suggested instead.

  I looked at him in surprise and smiled. “That’s a bit proletariat for you, isn’t it?”

  “I like to live my life by an ancient Little Town saying – when with Tess, do as Tess would do,” he smiled back.

  I pouted at him. “You don’t think I belong in the fancy restaurants.”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth. I happen to think that you don’t scrub up too badly for a yokel. You looked okay the other night.”

  I snorted. “High praise indeed.”

  “I would have given you a higher rating than okay, but I’ve seen better,” he smiled again.

  “What a confession from an engaged man.”

  “Hey, I’m engaged, not dead.”

  At The Salty Seagull, a busy, family-friendly bayside fish and chip shop, he ordered us both grilled barramundi and Greek salad. He didn’t order chips, despite my pleading and the bewilderment of the stressed and spotty young female cashier who had to be told three times that, yes really, he didn’t want any chips with his order, thanks anyway. She stared at him as if she’d never heard a customer say that before – and she probably hadn’t.