by JD Nixon
Dorrie struggled more fiercely and turned to bite me on my inner arm. It hurt.
“I’ve had enough of you today, bitch,” I hissed in her ear and pushed her forward towards the house, up against one of its external walls, flattening her to the wall with my body. I reached around and pulled out my cuffs and slapped them around one of her wrists and after an intense tussle, around the other.
Even then she tried to escape from me, but I had a good grip on the cuffs and she was only hurting herself by struggling against them so much. The Sarge took charge then, telling her why she was being arrested as he marched her towards the car, pushing her ungently into the back seat. She fought and resisted him all the way.
“Get in the back with her so she doesn’t hurt herself,” he ordered me.
“I’m not getting in the back with her,” I refused flatly. Was he out of his mind? Ninety minutes of Dorrie Lebutt trying to bite, punch, and scratch me? No thanks! “She tried to kill me today and she just bit me.” I showed him her teeth marks in my arm. “I’m not going anywhere near her.”
Sighing with impatience, he threw me the key and slid in the back with Dorrie. And it was an even longer drive to Big Town than usual, the poor Sarge trying to fend off a wildly angry Dorrie and her teeth, nails and fists.
“For God’s sake!” he shouted, his patience long gone, pushing her back into her place, doing up her seatbelt again. “I’m going to beat you unconscious in a minute if you don’t shut the fuck up and sit there quietly!”
“Police brutality!” she screeched immediately. “I’m going to report you!”
“I didn’t hear anything,” I said, slowing down and indicating right for the turn-off to Big Town. “That’s two against one, Dorrie.” And I smiled at her in the rearview mirror.
“Fuck you, Teresa Fuller! You’re nothing but a toffee-nosed bitch. Leaving us all behind, thinking you’re going to make something of yourself. But look at you. You’re back here in Little Town, living with your useless vegetable of a dad. You’re fucking a Bycraft, just like the rest of us and I bet you were still a virgin when poor Jakey had to break you in. You work in a crappy pointless underpaid job trying to tame a bunch of people who want to kill you. You’ve come so far, haven’t you, Teresa Fuller? You’re no better than the rest of us, but you think that you are,” she spat out.
She managed to push every button I had with that tirade and that was Dorrie’s special talent. She knew how to annoy everybody she ever came in contact with. She had been a disrespectful student, a bitchy friend, a purse-robbing daughter, a boyfriend-stealing sister, a neglectful mother, an unfaithful partner, but by God she was good at finding people’s soft spots. I shot her such a murderous glare in the mirror that the Sarge felt inclined to intervene.
“Keep driving, Senior Constable. Don’t worry about this piece of rubbish in the back,” he said, calmer. “I’m looking after it now.”
I flicked on the lights and siren, planted my foot on the accelerator and sped to Big Town, twenty kilometres over the speed limit, dangerously swerving around slower, more legal, vehicles. There was absolutely no reason on earth to have the lights and siren on; there was no emergency. But I was pissed off big time and it just made me feel better. I accidently met the Sarge’s eyes in the mirror once. I didn’t want to meet them again, his expression was so furious. I knew I was due for a reaming over this, but at least he didn’t reprimand me in front of Dorrie.
When I reached the police station at Big Town, driving around to the back entrance where the watch house was located, I screeched on the brakes, skidding slightly as I parked. I jumped out, slammed my door and opened the back door, roughly pulling Dorrie from the seat, making sure she banged her head hard on the door as she exited.
“Fuck!” she yelled loudly in pain. Two uniforms who were strolling out from the station to their own patrol car, laughing together, turned towards us in surprise. She appealed to them. “You saw that! This slut deliberately banged my head on the door.” They regarded her with disinterest before getting into their car and driving away.
With me clutching one of her arms and the Sarge the other, we frogmarched Dorrie into the booking room of the station’s watch house, where the holding cells were situated. She was processed and put into a cell to await interviewing, screaming all the while. I wouldn’t be conducting the investigation into the matter, having an obvious conflict of interest, but gave my statement to the veteran detective, Gil, who was assigned my case. The Sarge gave his statement and handed over the contact details of the two removalist men who had also witnessed the hit-and-run. I told him how to contact Stacey as well.
That took the remainder of the day and the sun was setting by the time we left the station.
“Don’t ever do that again, Fuller,” the Sarge warned me in a chilly, cutting tone once we were back in the car again. I knew what he was talking about straight away and I supposed I should be grateful that he’d waited until we were alone before tearing strips off me. Not all bosses would be so considerate. Problem was though that I wasn’t feeling particularly grateful at that moment. My hip was hurting and I needed more painkillers.
“She made me angry,” I responded sulkily as we drove out of the carpark. It wasn’t much of a defence – she’d made me angry a million times.
Apparently, he agreed. “That’s no excuse for driving so recklessly. You endangered not just us, but everyone else on the road,” he reprimanded harshly. “The patrol car is not your plaything and you can’t let your personal emotions interfere with your professionalism. That’s basic policing that you should have learnt at the academy. I’m beginning to wonder what else you’ve forgotten about being a good officer.”
Go screw yourself, I thought petulantly, staring out the window, even though deep down I knew that he was right and I deserved it. We didn’t speak for a long while and I took the time to think hard about what he’d just said. He was a sergeant after all, and had more experience than me, and I should respect that. The truth was that I had become renegade working by myself in Little Town for so long. He was probably a blessing in disguise for the sake of my future police career with his by-the-books philosophy. I made a superhuman effort to appreciate that fact.
“Sorry, Sarge,” I said eventually, but probably with less contrition than a genuine apology ought to have.
He cut me a quick glance and nodded silently a few times in acceptance, but I was pretty sure that he’d noticed my failure to promise not to do it again.
I offered even more of an olive branch. “Why don’t we drop in on Miss G to see if she’s had a chance to look at that list of properties,” I suggested, so we detoured over to Bessie Goodwill’s daughter’s place, only to find nobody home again.
“They might have gone to the city to visit Bessie’s other daughter,” I thought out loud as we climbed back into the patrol car.
“Doesn’t matter, that’s enough for today anyway,” he decided, recovering from his anger. “You need to rest.”
I appreciated his concern, considering his underwhelming opinion of me.
“I promised Mrs Villiers that we’d drop by her place today to investigate her peeper,” I told him regretfully. I wouldn’t mind going home and just forgetting all about today. “She’s not someone you want to upset by ignoring.”
“Okay, we’ll go to Mrs Villiers’ place and then we call it a day,” he sighed as we sped off back to Little Town.
There were two parts to Little Town. The nice part where the more respectable townsfolk lived was situated to the north of the town, around Pine, Ironbark, Silky Oak and Blackbutt Streets. The houses there were large, well-kept timber homes with wide surrounding verandahs, high ceilings, ornate ironwork and beautifully tended gardens. The not-so-nice part was where the Bycrafts and their offsiders clustered, around Cypress, Jarrah and Kwila Streets. The houses there were dilapidated and unkempt, the yards either wild with overgrowth or total dust bowls bereft of any vegetation at all, graveyards to rusting junk hea
ps and discarded, broken kids bikes and swings.
Mrs Villiers lived in a stately old home on Silky Oak Street. It was the grandest home in town, boasting five bedrooms and three bathrooms. She lived there with her meek little husband Vern, who had never uttered a word to my knowledge, and her four spoilt and obnoxious Persian cats – Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha.
I limped up the path behind the Sarge and we climbed the steps to the broad front verandah. Vern answered the door with a silent nod and shyly showed us into a spacious, well-appointed study where Mrs Villiers was frowning over some paperwork, her glasses firmly perched on her nose. Carrie and Charlotte (I think) laid indolently on her table, eyeing us malevolently, their tails waving lazily.
“Ah, officers,” she said, looking up. “You’ve caught me trying to make sense of the Council’s financial statements.”
I apologised for the interruption, which she brushed aside advising us she was more than glad to have a break because whoever had prepared the statements was an innumerate buffoon and she would be telling them so in no uncertain terms the following day. Feeling sorry for the poor Council accountant who would be copping that spray, I introduced her to the Sarge. She was instantly impressed with him, probably thinking that he looked much more like her ideal senior officer than Des ever had.
Des and Mrs Villiers had shared a mutual loathing. He thought she was sour and pretentious, and she thought he was lazy and incompetent, and they were both right. She had never missed an opportunity to opine that his slack policing was directly responsible for the ‘Bycraft problem’ that blighted Little Town, although she did condescendingly acknowledge my futile efforts to maintain some law and order. She was partially correct in that thought, but the complete lack of resources didn’t help either, and where she could have been a powerful advocate for getting better resourcing for the police station, her overwhelming hatred of Des stopped her from even trying. But perhaps now that the Sarge was in charge, she might become more interested in petitioning for better resources for the tiny Little Town police force. Or so I hoped.
She directed us to the window in her study where she had spotted the peeper, and explained that she had been working the previous evening when she’d heard a noise at the window and glanced up in surprise to see a man’s face peeking in. Not being one to shock easily, she hadn’t screamed but had instantly stood up and marched over to the window where she’d shouted at the man who had jumped down and beat a hasty retreat. Regretfully, she hadn’t caught a glimpse of his facial features.
We went around the side with our torches out and could see some footprints in the soft soil of the garden under the window.
“Look at these,” I commented. “Whole footprints. It’s very obvious that someone was standing here. It’s as though he wasn’t even trying to hide his presence this time.”
The Sarge mused, “Maybe he wants us to know that he’s doing it.”
I looked up at the window. “He’d have to climb on to the battening to be able to see into the window because the house is so far off the ground. He might have left some fingerprints on the windowsill.”
He looked up as well. “Good thinking. How long would it take to get some crime scene techs out here?”
I took out my phone and rang the head of the techs in Big Town, a no-nonsense veteran fortunately working late tonight, who informed me in her flat monotone voice that the earliest would be late tomorrow or early the following day. I gave her Mrs Villiers’ address and the address for Miss G’s ransacked place as well, and she logged both jobs for me.
We went back upstairs to tell Mrs Villiers that the techs would be coming out eventually to examine the windowsill and the garden bed and to keep away from both until they were able to complete their investigation. And with nothing more that we could do, we drove back to the station. Jake’s ute was in the parking lot.
Some fruity language was drifting to us from the back of the station. Giving each other a curious glance, the Sarge and I went around the back to find Jake swearing with irritation, trying to coerce Miss Chooky from the lockup into a big cage. Out of my five chickens, he had two in the cage and three still running loose in a panic.
“If you don’t come here right now, then I am going to break your scrawny neck and roast you up with some potatoes,” he threatened as he made another grab for her. She squawked in alarm and pecked him ferociously on the hand, making him shout out loud in pain.
“Hey, Jakey. How’s it going?” I asked and ruffled his hair. He spun in surprise and stood up, stretching, leaning down to kiss me.
“These birds will not obey me. All I want is for them to come out of the lockup and get in the bloody cage so I can transport them to their new home. Does that sound unreasonable to you?”
“No,” I laughed.
“Then why won’t they listen to me? That Miss Chooky has pecked me four times already. Doesn’t she realise I’m trying to help her?”
“No,” I laughed again, kissing his bleeding hand. “She’s just a chicken. They’re not the smartest creatures around.”
“She’s not a chicken, she’s a demon,” he insisted.
I pushed him to one side. “Let me have a go. They’re used to me.” Jake had unsettled them though, so it took a good fifteen minutes to get close enough to the remaining three to pounce on them and manhandle (henhandle?) them into the cage. The Sarge watched for a little while but was soon bored and abandoned us to go into the station.
Finally all the girls were safely secured in the cage. I picked a stray feather out of Jake’s hair and took the opportunity to smooch with him for a pleasant minute. That important task completed, I grabbed hold of one side of the cage while he grabbed the other and we hauled the cage out the front to the carpark to put on the back of his ute.
“I’ll be back home soon, honey-boy,” I promised as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “I can’t wait to see the new chook house. I bet you did a great job.”
“I did,” he admitted immodestly, a cute splash of paint on his nose. I rubbed at it without helping and leaned in the window to kiss him again. “Are you going to be long, Tessie? You need to take it easy after what happened to you today.”
“Won’t be too long. See you soon.”
He drove off, tooting his horn at me as he did. I waved and made my slow, painful progress up the stairs inside the station. The Sarge was sitting in front of the computer, jigging his leg up and down and tapping his fingers impatiently on the desk.
“I’ve been waiting over ten minutes for this stupid thing to start,” he complained, annoyance stamped onto his features. “How long does it normally take?”
“Fifteen minutes to get to the log in screen and then another five to actually log in,” I replied, pulling up my chair to join him.
He stared at me in disbelief. “You’re kidding me?” I shook my head. “What about the other computer?”
“I told you – it’s been broken for weeks. It doesn’t work at all anymore.”
He muttered to himself, “This place is unbelievable.” The phone rang and he picked it up. “Mount Big Town police station.” He listened for a moment, then exclaimed in a surprised voice. “No, it’s not the Saucy Sirens Gentlemen’s Club.” He listened again. “Well, it’s not. It’s the Mount Big Town police station.” He listened again. “Do I sound like a saucy siren to you? . . . No, I didn’t think so. You’ve got the wrong number, mate.” And he hung up.
The computer flashed briefly as if it was about to give him the log in screen, but then the screen went blue.
“Oh no! What did you do to it?” I groaned in dismay. “You’ve made it blue-screen!”
He was defensive. “I didn’t do anything. I just turned it on.”
“Shit! Now we haven’t got any computers. I’m going to have to go scrounging to see if someone in town has an old one they can give us.”
“This place is beyond a joke. It’s like the stone age here,” he said, banging his fist on the side of the moni
tor. It didn’t help – the screen was still blue. The phone rang again.
“Mount Big Town police station,” he said crankily. “No, it’s not the Saucy Sirens Gentlemen’s Club. It’s the police station at Mount Big Town. You’ve got the wrong number.” He slammed the phone back onto the cradle.
Before it could ring again, I picked up the phone and dialled Abe’s mobile.
“Hello, police station,” he answered.
“Hello, pub,” I responded.
“Everything okay, Tessie?”
“I was wondering if you still have Romi’s old computer that I borrowed last year?” Romi had replaced it with the flash new laptop Abe had bought her for her birthday.
“Sure. Do you need to borrow it again?”
“If you don’t mind, Abe. The Sarge has just broken our last working computer.”
“I didn’t break it,” the Sarge insisted in the background.
“He broke it when he turned it on,” I said to Abe.
“I didn’t break it!” the Sarge repeated.
“How about I drop it over tomorrow morning?” Abe suggested.
“Sounds great. You’re a lifesaver. Thanks, Abe. See you then.” I hung up. The phone rang immediately, so I picked it up.
“Mount Big Town police station.” I listened. “No, it’s not. You have the wrong number . . . No, I’m not. I’m a police officer . . . No, of course I don’t do strip shows in my uniform . . . That’s a disgusting suggestion. You should be ashamed of yourself. Does your mother know you talk like that? . . . If you don’t stop talking to me like that, I’m going to track you down and arrest you . . . Yes, I would have my handcuffs and baton with me. Why? . . . No! I wouldn’t be willing to do that with them, you sick pervert.” I hung up on him.
“Are these wrong numbers a regular thing?” he asked.
“I’m afraid so,” I said, and explained about the almost identical phone number to the brothel.
He exhaled noisily and looked up at the ceiling. “You know, if someone had told me about this town I wouldn’t have believed them for a second. I can scarcely even believe it being right here, living through it.”
