by JD Nixon
As with most stories where there was no fresh oxygen each night to keep public interest burning, it eventually died down, the media pack moving on to newer, juicier topics. So in that respect, I begrudgingly admitted that the plan to not feed the flames by forcing the Sarge to disappear had been a success.
*****
The day after the Sarge left town, a sheepish Mike Amour turned up at the station. I’d completely forgotten about the lost hikers after everything else that had happened. In the circumstances, I didn’t greet him with any signs of friendliness.
He apologised profusely and advised me that although they’d told Abe they were tackling the Summit, what in fact happened was they discovered a critical piece of walking equipment had broken. Instead of walking the track, they’d decided to drive to Big Town to see if they could find a replacement and had ended up staying there overnight. They’d neglected to ring Abe to let him know they hadn’t gone on the walk as planned.
The Sarge and I hadn’t found them because they hadn’t been on the track in the first place.
“I guess you’re pretty pissed off with us,” Mike said, trying out a charming smile.
I stared back at him, stony-faced. “You guess correctly.”
That wiped the smile off his face. “Are we in trouble?”
“I should charge you for the cost of the search.” And for the cost of me losing my partner, I thought bitterly. “But I’ll settle for a donation to the local SES unit. Start passing the hat around. You can give Abe the money on your way out of town.”
And with that hint hanging heavily in the air, I returned to the back room, leaving him standing at the counter gaping after me.
*****
About a week after the Sarge left, I drove to Mr Krysztofiak’s property to offer him my personal condolences for the tragic loss of Dylan. He seemed smaller, shrunken, as if his guilt over the death of his great-nephew had sucked the life from him.
He informed me that although the family wanted only a small, unobtrusive funeral for Dylan, somehow the media caught wind of the service. Journalists harassed and plagued them, spoiling what was meant to be a quiet and respectful remembrance of a poor tortured soul.
Not sure I wanted to know the answer, I hesitantly asked him if the family blamed the Sarge and me for Dylan’s death. It was a question weighing heavily on me for days. I would have understood if Dylan’s family bayed for our blood during the PIU investigation.
Mr Krysztofiak assured me that Dylan’s parents were sadly sympathetic, having their own experiences with him in a psychotic state. He told me the Sarge had rung both him and Dylan’s parents from the city, and although he was gagged from discussing what had happened on the mountain, he had taken the time to extend his condolences.
The elderly man clasped my hand before I left and apologised for the Sarge’s suspension, all which left me feeling even more depressed for the rest of the day.
*****
Even if he hadn’t strictly kept his promise to think of me every day, the Sarge sent me enough emails to make me think he had. At least five or six landed in my inbox each week as Melissa and he travelled through Europe and North America. I didn’t answer any of them, though I read them all more than once, savouring each morsel of news and photo of them in exotic locations. It was hard to tell from his emails how things were going with Melissa, but I guessed that extended periods of travel as a couple would either help them grow closer or divide them even further.
He sent me gifts from the different places they visited – small, beautiful and expensive souvenirs, carefully wrapped and complete with sweet hand-written notes from him explaining the provenance of each particular piece and why he’d chosen it for me. Receiving each new one was about the only thing that made me smile these days and Joanna became one of the few people I welcomed at the station. The collection brightened up my desk, reminding me of him every time I set eyes on it.
*****
Haunted by endless nightmares in which I was trapped and mutilated by various Bycrafts because my hair became tangled in bushes, I begged Gretel to cut it much shorter. She was quite skilled at the art, having tossed up between being a hairdresser or a teacher in her younger days. And although she did a good job and I loved my new soft bob, it turned out to be a miserable experience. She hadn’t stopped moping over the Sarge since he’d left, virtually on the point of tears during the whole haircut talking about him. It seemed I wasn’t the only one missing him. I decided there and then to avoid Romi as much as possible for a while.
*****
The Bycraft blowback from Denny’s death was fierce. I’d known that the Bycrafts, still reeling from the recapture of Red, would cast the blame for Denny on me, even though I wasn’t responsible. But I hadn’t been prepared for the level of vicious hatred directed at me. Windows were broken at our house, our letterbox was repeatedly ripped out of its mounting, notes threatening to torture and kill me were shoved under our front door, and human excrement smeared on our 4WD and flung at our house.
A red-eyed, drunken Lola Bycraft even flew at me when I shopped at the local grocery store one evening, trying to scratch my eyes out and screaming at me that I was a dirty murdering whore. She was only persuaded to go home and sleep it off after I roughly restrained her arms behind her and smooshed her face up hard against the frozen food fridge.
I took to locking the station doors again when I was at work and wearing both my gun and my knife wherever I went, even when off-duty. The attacks tapered off somewhat when I started retaliating, smashing out headlights and tail lights on various Bycraft rust-buckets with my baton, immediately following up by issuing vehicle safety infringement notices that involved hefty fines. Any Bycraft who complained about the injustice faced the muzzle of my Glock.
The worst thing of all for the Bycrafts – and I must admit to feeling a certain amount of sympathy for them about this – was the refusal of the coroner to hand over Denny’s body so the family could bury him. That seemed strange as they’d released Dylan’s body to his family, and I wondered if it may have been because the forensics officers were trying to confirm that the same knife killed Denny and Miss G.
*****
Things were frosty between Jake and me for weeks. I insisted on paying for the repairs to his ute, a four figure bill he stiffly handed me at the station one day and which effectively wiped out my savings account. At the same time, in direct interrogation from me, he defiantly confirmed he’d lied about visiting Red in jail, accusing me of not even being willing to understand how important his family was to him.
He was dead right about that.
Just when I began to sadly ask myself if Denny’s death was the wedge that split us, Jake turned up on my doorstep one night.
We lay apart on my bed, fully clothed, and talked about Denny. I told him everything that happened that awful afternoon and night and he cried, each tear carrying a world’s weight of grief and guilt for his younger brother. I shifted over and held him tightly, letting him cry out his pain.
“I used him, Tessie,” he snuffled, wiping his eyes. “I knew he kept tabs on you because he worried about you, and I made him tell me what you were doing. He didn’t want to, but I bullied him into it. I used him and I didn’t appreciate him, and now he’s gone forever.”
“I know, honey-boy. It’s hard to lose someone you love,” I soothed, stroking his hair, my own eyes filling with tears for him, for Denny, and for myself.
We ended up making slow, pensive love, the pleasure of the sex almost peripheral to our desperate need for emotional comfort from each other. And afterwards we slept soundly in each other’s arms, reunited.
*****
Red Bycraft was expedited through the court process and happily is resident again in the city’s maximum security prison, now marked as a high-security prisoner. Yet somehow he still manages on a regular basis to send me letters containing his usual threat that he’s coming for me. I add each new one to the pile.
*****
<
br /> After receiving Red’s latest, I took the letter from Tommy out of my drawer and read it again. Then I sat down to pen a reply.
Tommy
Thank you for your letter and your apology about Nana Fuller’s death. I want you to know that I accept your apology and respect you for having the courage to write to me and offer it.
I’m so sorry about the tragic death of Denny. I know it must be hard for you to be so far away from your family at a sad time like this. I was with Denny to the end, and all I can say is that he died a hero. You should be very proud of him.
I’m glad to hear you are hoping for a fresh start when you’re out of jail. I’m happy to help in any way I can to assist you get on your feet and away from Little Town.
Yours sincerely
Tess Fuller
And at that moment, it didn’t matter to me whether he read it or not. The important thing was that I’d written it and finally managed to find some forgiveness in my heart for a Bycraft. Just maybe that offered a tiny glimmer of hope of a healing between the Fuller and Bycraft families someday. And if that was to be Denny’s legacy to the world, then in my estimation it made his life entirely worthwhile.
*****
The Council elections were held without any further vandalism of campaign signs, only strengthening my argument it had been some of the bored Bycraft teens responsible. I cast my vote for Teddy, but smiled sweetly at Mrs Villiers as I left the polling booth set up at the local school. She haunted the place all day, almost trying to force people to vote for her by her mere presence.
It worked.
She won again, but with such a narrow lead she’ll surely see Teddy snapping at her heels for the next three years because he promised to run again next time too. If I’m still in Little Town then, I’ll vote for him again.
I can only hope her narrow win makes Mrs Villiers more sympathetic to the community, including the resourcing needs of her local police force. I live in hope for something better around the corner.
*****
Len Whittaker’s series of four exquisite paintings, collectively entitled Elemental Sprites, received unanimous international critical acclaim. The paintings sold instantly at auction to a private collector for an astonishing amount of money. Mr Whittaker would never need worry about his retirement again. After watching that on the news, I closed my bedroom door and took out his painting of me from its hiding place. Perhaps I might actually be glad of owning it one day?
*****
Liz and Brett were married in a simple and moving ceremony by a celebrant from Big Town. The reception in Abe’s bistro carried on until the small hours of the following day. Jake and I enjoyed ourselves, lovingly inseparable all evening. But I was careful to avoid any mention of his own marriage, divorce, or future intentions.
*****
Miss G’s funeral was well-attended. Everyone in town who was able to make it turned up at the Greville family plot in the old cemetery for a graveside service. As it was held on a weekday, I had no option but to be there in uniform. The minister, a shaky elderly man from Big Town, had known Miss G well and his sermon, spoken in a trembling soft voice, was a thoughtful and touching tribute to a kind-hearted person.
Joanna, resplendent in a dark grey sheath dress that really showcased her rippling biceps and muscular neck, hosted the after-funeral gathering at her house. She’d catered tea and coffee, small iced cakes, and delicate triangular sandwiches. Miss G would have approved, I thought, munching on a chicken and avocado sandwich.
Miss G’s lawyer, Stanley Murchison, another elderly man, approached me in his wheelchair, his cup of tea balanced dangerously on his lap.
“Senior Constable Fuller,” he said, offering his hand. We shook and he looked around him. “No Sergeant Maguire?”
“No Sergeant Maguire,” I confirmed with sad stoicism, reaching for another sandwich.
He looked around again. “Can we talk?”
“I thought we were,” I quipped, a rare smile making a ghost appearance on my lips.
“In private?”
“Okay,” I shrugged, leading him over to a more isolated corner of Joanna’s dining room. I wondered if he had some news about his nephew, Graham, who was currently in jail for fraud.
“Miss Greville appointed me as her executor.”
“Oh, right.”
“I’m afraid there’s no other way of putting this except rather bluntly, so I’ll just come right out and say it.” Please do, I thought, keeping on my interested face. “Senior Constable, Miss Greville left you her house in her will.”
I stared at him, not sure I’d heard correctly. “Sorry?”
“Miss Greville’s house will become yours once the estate is settled, which may take some time I should warn you.”
“She left me her house? Why?” I immediately worried that I sounded ungrateful. “That was very generous of her, but I’m having trouble understanding why she’d leave it to me.”
“She liked you. She could see you trying to do a good job in a difficult environment. Now, I’m afraid she hasn’t left any money with that bequest, just the house and the land it’s sitting on. All her money, a not inconsiderable amount I must say, has been bequeathed to her friends and various charities to which she subscribed.”
My head reeled from his news. “That’s quite the bombshell, Mr Murchison. Her house?”
“I did warn you it was difficult to not say bluntly.”
“You did indeed.”
The first thing I did as soon as I could escape the gathering was to drive to Miss G’s house and marvel at the thing that had been gifted so generously to me. The second thing I did was notice what poor repair the entire property was in, needing new fencing, a new roof, new decking, a thorough paint job, the yard cleared, and probably a myriad of other nasties hiding in surprise for me.
I walked around to the rear of the house and peered through the back door window. The kitchen remained in the state of dishevelment it had been in when Kevin and I were last inside. Nobody had cleaned up because that was something families normally organised and Miss G had no living family. That all probably meant that Dylan’s writing was still on the bedroom walls and Miss G’s blood-soaked sheets were still on her bed.
So the third thing I did was sit on the spongy stairs of the small back verandah and put my head in my hands. I felt like crying. I didn’t want this expensive ruin of a house. I had no money to fix it and couldn’t afford the annual Council rates to keep it. I wasn’t sure it was even sellable in its current state.
I also didn’t want the house because it was a house of death, and I’d had enough death in my life already. I didn’t want to own a house where someone had been brutally murdered. I sat there on that step cursing a world where even when something good happened to me, it turned out to be not so good after all.
*****
I finally heard back from the Deputy Commissioner about how he planned to discipline me for my outburst. I sat at my desk rereading the letter I’d received for the fifth time, unable to comprehend that the lengthy and wordy missive essentially said nothing.
There were platitudes galore about what the Police Service expected in its officers’ behaviour, but nothing that actually said your employment with the Police Service is being terminated for misconduct or you are being demoted back to constable or you are being transferred to a station run by the most sadistic megalomaniac we could find.
The Super emailed me later that it was only some interference from unknown quarters that stopped the Deputy Commissioner from recommending I be demoted. I couldn’t imagine who would care enough about my career to interfere with someone of such a high rank as the Deputy Commissioner.
But the main thing was that I wasn’t going to be punished.
Or so I naively thought reading that letter. Then something happened that made me realise the Super managed to punish me in the end.
I met my new relief sergeant – Barry Chives.
~~~~~~ ###### ~~~~~~
<
br /> About the author:
JD Nixon lives in Queensland, Australia, letting a wild imagination run free.
Discover other titles by JD Nixon available at many ebook retailers:
Heller series
Book 1: Heller (free ebook!)
Book 2: Heller’s Revenge
Book 3: Heller’s Girlfriend
Book 4: Heller’s Punishment
Book 5: Heller’s Decision
Book 6: Heller’s Regret
Book 7: Heller’s Family (to be published)
Little Town series
Book 1: Blood Ties (free ebook!)
Book 2: Blood Sport
Book 3: Blood Feud
Book 4: Blood Tears (to be published)
Book 5: as yet unnamed (to be published)
Want to contact me? I’d love to hear from you:
