Bay of Martyrs

by Tony Black

  ‘Eddie put us in a bit of a predicament.’

  ‘I know, but I can’t blame Eddie for doing what he did. I think telling Anderson we’re on the brink of rolling him probably saved Eddie from getting kicked off the force. I’m just not sure what the next step is.’

  ‘What do you need to go to print?’

  ‘If I’m going to accuse Anderson of covering up an investigation I need something big.’

  ‘What about the autopsy report? Can’t you just run stuff from that?’

  Clay shook his head. ‘It’s not enough. Anderson will just say they’re still investigating. And then say our story has potentially disrupted his investigation.’

  ‘What about the Collins case? What if you got Kerry Collins’ workmates to go on the record about the guy in the suit hiring her?’

  ‘Not enough. It raises doubts about the investigation, but doesn’t nail Anderson to the wall.’

  They walked on in silence until they reached the end of the breakwater. Off in the distance, a skirt of high white clouds fringed the blue sky. Behind them, the sun was setting, casting long shadows out in front of them. Clay watched a pelican land on the water. ‘There’s only one thing I can think of that will bring Anderson down,’ he said, ‘but you’re not going to like it.’

  Clay felt Bec stiffen next to him. ‘What?’

  ‘We have to catch a killer.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? Just no?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Listen, it’s the only way. We go after Lerner. Get him to confess. That’s the only thing that is going to make Anderson look bad. That’s the only thing that’s going to hit him where he hurts. We catch Lerner, make Anderson look bad, and potentially we can cast doubt on his other cases, such as the Kerry Collins case. It throws things wide open.’

  ‘That’s mental. You can’t bring down a killer, especially one who’s apparently a psychotic meth-head. You’ll get yourself killed. There’s got to be another… I’ve got it. You need a whistleblower. A cop close to the case who will go on the record to say Anderson’s covering up the killings. And you already know the perfect cop for that.’

  Bec’s voice was creeping louder and Clay looked around. No one seemed to be paying attention to their conversation but he dropped the volume again, just to be sure. ‘I already thought of that. But I can’t ask Eddie to do that. For one, his career is more than likely hanging by a thread as it is. Secondly, they can make life really difficult for him. Cops don’t like whistleblowers. He would be numbering his days in the force. And thirdly, it wouldn’t take much to discredit him. He’s a known associate of mine and he’s been based at three stations in two months – that makes him sound like a bad apple already, and Anderson could make it sound as bad as possible. And even if I quoted Eddie anonymously, Anderson would know it was Eddie. Who else could it be, if not the cop who’s been seen talking to us regularly for the past month? Anderson would ruin him. For now, he’s just moving Eddie to try and cripple us, to take away what he thinks is our main source of information. Anderson figures he just has to do that and we’ll just go away. The story will get old and the whole thing will blow over.’

  Clay let a silence stand with them for a moment before turning around to walk back the way they had come along the sea wall.

  ‘We have to catch a killer,’ he said again.

  Chapter 34

  Gunshots rang out, but Vegas stayed cool. You’ve got this, he told himself. You know what to do. Just keep your head down and wait for your moment.

  More gunshots. Footsteps and the sound of people arguing. They’re close, thought Vegas. Where are they? He contemplated poking his head up to take a look, but decided against it. He could feel sweat starting to accumulate on his brow and his heart had gone up a few BPMs. Stay cool. Stay cool.

  A loud knock at the door caused him to jump. He swore. Unannounced visitors were the worst, especially when he was right in the middle of a battle.

  Vegas paused the video game and went to stand up. His muscles ached and resisted the movement. How long was I playing for? he thought. He could see daylight through the crack in the curtain. He looked at his watch – eight o’clock. ‘Really?’ said Vegas, to no one.

  He stumbled to the door, attempting to open his eyes wider and get his body working and moving again. There was another knock, louder, more insistent this time. ‘OK. OK. Hang on,’ called Vegas.

  He fumbled with the latch and as soon as he yanked open the heavy wooden door he regretted not peeking through the peephole. The security door beyond it wasn’t locked, and there stood Lerner, grinning. Manic. Tweaking. His eyes were wild and a tic in his right cheek was spasming.

  Vegas took it all in within a second, which was all it took for Lerner to push past him and into the house. Vegas tumbled to the floor, his small wiry frame easily jostled by the bigger ball of energy that was Lerner.

  ‘Hey, man, what’s up?’ said Vegas, pulling himself up off the floor with the assistance of the doorknob. ‘You need some weed?’

  Lerner was already sitting in one of the recliners and was packing the cone-piece of a bong with marijuana and tobacco from Vegas’ mixbowl.

  ‘Help yourself, bro,’ said Vegas, with more than a hint of reluctance. He watched as Lerner inhaled the bong’s contents in one go, exhaled slowly, and then immediately started packing another cone.

  Vegas didn’t know what to do. It was a replay from a month ago. Lerner was more than likely going to hang around for a couple of hours and Vegas didn’t relish the prospect. Just the sight of Lerner sitting there sent fear shooting inside him. He wanted him gone, but how? Lerner would stay as long as he liked and there was nothing Vegas could do about that.

  Lerner polished off another bong before setting it back on the table. Vegas forced out a laugh. ‘Hey, man, you feel better now?’ he said. ‘That take the edge off?’

  Lerner didn’t look at him. He was staring at the TV – no, through the TV, Vegas realised. He was looking very intently at something that wasn’t in the room.

  ‘So, you wanna buy some weed to take with you?’ said Vegas. It was a desperate ploy. The sweat on his brow from the video game was nothing – he could feel damp patches pooling under his arms and in the centre of his back.

  Lerner was still staring straight ahead. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days, but was quite obviously wide awake. He didn’t appear to have showered for a few days, either. Some of his black hair stood up in clumps, while thick patches were plastered to his head. The guy was a mess.

  Vegas felt straighter than he’d felt in a long time. He hungered to rip another bong himself, but he dared not reach in front of Lerner to grab the water pipe. This is worse than last time, Vegas thought. ‘You wanna play some Grand Theft Auto, man?’ he offered. ‘We can drive some fast cars and shoot some cops if you like?’

  ‘I don’t feel like playing some video game bullshit,’ said Lerner. His voice burst out in machine-gun rhythms – blazing and quiet, blazing and quiet. It was the most unnerving thing Vegas had heard in a long time. Why? Why was this happening under his roof?

  Suddenly, Lerner was alive with movement. There was a loud crack, the TV went dead, and a strange smell wafted through the lounge room. It was the smell of burning, but it was different to the scent of burnt tobacco and marijuana already in the air. This was an acrid, ugly aroma.

  It took a moment for Vegas to register what had happened. He took in the angry odour first, before his eyes started to make sense of the scene. The TV screen was shattered. Lerner was standing, his arm outstretched. He was holding a gun. He had fired it at the TV.

  Vegas felt a warm sensation in his pants and somewhere in the back of his mind, buried beneath the mental shouting and terror, he realised he had just released his bladder. He found it harder to breathe, but he managed to form some words, which limped out of his mouth. ‘What’s going on, Lerner?’ was all he could manage.

  Lerner finally turned to face Vegas, the twitch working o
vertime beneath his left eye. ‘I hear you’ve been talking about me,’ said Lerner, through thin lips stretched over tightly gritted teeth. His chest rose and fell, his breathing deep and heavy. His arm was still extended in the dead TV screen’s direction, but Vegas could see it shaking.

  ‘What? No. No.’ Vegas spat his words out; his voice sounded weak, shrill. ‘Never. I dunno what you’re talking about.’

  Lerner rose to his full height and loomed over Vegas. His feet were planted, sure and firm beneath him. He seemed to be readying himself for blows or a strain of some sort, neither of which seemed likely in the shabby lounge room. Only Vegas was there, piss-smelling and limp beneath the bigger man, and he offered no threat at all.

  ‘You’re a lying bastard,’ said Lerner. He took a step toward Vegas, whose gaze fell on the gun in the bigger man’s hand.

  ‘Just, take a minute… to think about this, man.’

  ‘I’ve done all my thinking.’

  ‘Then think again. You’re wrong. I haven’t done a bloody thing.’

  ‘No, Vegas. The time’s over for thinking. My thinking’s all done, and guess what? It always leads back to the same place: you.’

  The gun in Lerner’s hand moved in a slow arc to point at Vegas. ‘I’m only going to ask once, and if I don’t like what I hear…’ He pushed the gun in Vegas’ face.

  ‘Oh, please, dude, no, please,’ Vegas blubbered.

  ‘Who did you talk to, Vegas?’

  Chapter 35

  Clay felt exhausted already as he walked into the office on Wednesday morning. The list of reasons for his insomnia was growing. His well-founded paranoia, a restless plotting mind, the fact he was sleeping in a swag on the floor of his apartment because his bed was in storage, his aching ribs – these things conspired to keep sleep almost entirely out of reach. Only a few joints, more than he would usually smoke, were getting him to drift off, but it was becoming increasingly like passing out; it was not a restorative slumber. The weed erased most of his dreams, too, but the few he did have were the same recurring ones that flashed and crashed in his mind and often stung him awake, dripping with sweat.

  There was the one where Kerry Collins’ face from the portrait morphed into the face Clay had seen at the beach. That one had been getting a regular rerun in his head for well over a month now. But there were new ones, too. There was the one where Frank Anderson danced with glee around a flaming car at Thunder Point. Clay stood nearby with a fire extinguisher, but every time he got close to the car and tried to put out the blaze, Anderson jigged his way over and punched him in the face.

  It didn’t take a psychiatry degree to decipher that one, but what really unnerved Clay was the one he had about a woman standing on the cliffs at Thunder Point. It felt like it took place after the car had been extinguished, although he never saw that, and in his dream he didn’t understand how the two events were connected, but he just knew they were.

  He also knew the woman was his daughter. In his dream, he never saw her face – just her long hair, a long flowing dress, and bare feet. She faced the sea. He was running toward her. He was going to save her. But he never got there. She stepped off the cliff, and Clay woke up, sweating.

  Bec was waiting at his desk for him to arrive. Clay collapsed into his office chair and took another swig of his large double shot espresso.

  ‘You look like crap,’ said Bec. ‘Again.’

  ‘And good morning to you, too,’ he said, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which wasn’t much.

  ‘Did you stay up all night trying to figure out how to bring Anderson down? Or how to catch Lerner?’

  ‘Not intentionally. But it’s getting harder and harder to shut my brain off.’

  Terry Kenna shambled up to their side. ‘Would’ve thought it was harder to turn your brain on,’ said the deputy editor, beaming.

  ‘If you’re just here to insult me, you’ll have to take a number,’ said Clay. ‘I don’t think Ms. O’Connor is quite finished yet.’ He turned to look at Kenna and caught the dazzling smile. ‘Jeez, it’s a bit early for such unadulterated happiness, surely. Did someone spike your frappalatte or something?’

  ‘It’s always a good day when the front page is sorted by 9 a.m.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Clay. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Shooting. At least one dead. In Wanstead Street.’ Kenna’s smile bordered on the delirious.

  Clay scowled. He despised reporters taking delight in the misfortune and tragedy that befell others just because it was a good news story. He’d nearly come to blows with one journo who had started clapping after hearing about a fatal car accident. Gallows humour around the office was fine, he could handle that, it helped take the edge off the reality of the situation. But cheering and welcoming the horrific… that was ugly, disgusting, and all kinds of wrong in Clay’s book.

  ‘Wipe that goddamn smile off your face, you sadistic bastard,’ he hissed at Kenna. ‘Have you no self-respect?’

  ‘Oh, come on.’ Kenna waved a dismissive hand. ‘It’s Wanstead Street, it’s full of ice addicts, welfare cheats, and women with four kids to three different fathers.’

  ‘Last time I checked, they were still people.’

  Kenna took a step back, hands raised in mock surrender. ‘Alright, Mr Social Justice, take it easy. How about you and Bec and your bleeding heart get down to East Warrnambool and cover this story before you start taking a collection plate around for the family.’ Kenna walked off, ignorant of the intention of Clay’s remarks.

  Clay lobbed invisible missiles at Kenna’s back as the deputy editor walked away and into his office. ‘What an absolute arsehole.’

  ‘Easy, tiger,’ said Bec. ‘Come on, let’s get down to the crime scene.’

  Within minutes they were in the car, headed east on Raglan Parade. Clay stared out the windscreen with a glum expression, noting the brown grass beneath the huge Norfolk pines in the median strip. The summer had been longer and hotter than any he could remember. The front yards along the highway were a mix of the well-watered and those that had been left to wilt, and there were new cracks across the road caused by regular heat stress. The day outside the car was already in the low twenties. It had been that way for a couple of days, but Clay had heard the forecast – more heat was on its way.

  Bec turned the office Subaru into Wanstead Street and Clay eased forward in his seat, gripping the dashboard. He heard Bec mutter ‘oh, no’ below her usual volume, but Clay couldn’t even form an appropriate swear word, the speech function deserting him.

  The street was clogged with police cars and they were all gathered around Vegas’ house. Their lights flashed in warning, and the front yard was circled with crime scene tape that fluttered in the light morning breeze. Officers were everywhere. Some directed traffic away from the scene, others wandered the yard and surrounding area, looking for clues. The plain-clothes detectives gathered around Vegas’ front door, talking and jotting things on clipboards. It wasn’t the first time Clay had seen a crime scene like this, it just felt like it.

  Bec pulled over a few houses down from Vegas’ place and Clay got out of the car. He fingered the spiral of his notebook, but didn’t open it. What was happening? There were people talking, voices imparting information that he couldn’t process. He was in a trance, his mind racing in circles as he tried to comprehend what it all meant. Vegas shot and killed. We talked to Vegas. Vegas shot and killed. We talked to Vegas.

  Without meaning to, Clay had walked up to one of the cops. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the officers standing at the front door, which was wide open. He could almost see inside.

  ‘It’s a mess in there,’ said the cop, as if reading Clay’s mind.

  The comment snapped Clay back to reality and he looked at the cop next to him. It was Senior Constable Hawker. The breeze ruffled his white hair and he had a ponderous look on his heavily-lined face. Clay had seen the same disposition on the older copper at Thunder Point when Jacinta Porter had been murdered.
It was a rare policeman that could see so much over so many years and still keep his heart from hardening to the harshness of life.

  ‘What happened?’ said Clay.

  ‘Kid shot dead. Bullet right through the face, probably from close range. Didn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘Jesus. What…? Who…?’ Clay was struggling to control his thoughts. He was staring at the open door again. Christ, I was in that lounge room three days ago, he thought.

  ‘No idea, but whoever did it wrecked up the place, that’s for sure. Coffee table’s smashed, TV destroyed… they did a real number on the joint.’

  Clay heard the clicking of a digital camera nearby and turned to see Bec. She was right up at the police tape, snapping away, and it triggered something in Clay’s mind. He blinked away his daze and raised his notepad.

  Senior Constable Hawker shook his head. ‘Don’t quote me, Moloney,’ he said. ‘Everything goes through Detective Sergeant Anderson or the police media unit these days.’

  Clay withheld the involuntary grimace that now appeared with every mention of Anderson’s name. He offered Hawker the help me look he’d seen on beggars. ‘I’ll keep it anonymous, I’ll call you “a police spokesperson”. Come on, you know how useless the police media unit is…’ He left a comment about Anderson unsaid, but Hawker smiled and bobbed his head in assent.

  ‘We got the call shortly after 8 a.m.,’ said Hawker. ‘Neighbour called it in. Said she heard a gunshot, the sound of breaking glass and some banging, and then a car speeding off. She didn’t see the car, but we’ve got officers going door to door at the moment looking for witnesses.’

  Clay looked around the street. Pairs of blue uniforms were dotted among the front yards, on their way from one door to the next. Small crowds were gathering in pockets along the footpath as residents came together to ask questions of each other. Clay supposed they had a rough idea of what was going on. A gunshot at 8 a.m. around here would have gotten a bit of attention, but it was just as likely the locals had dismissed it as a car backfiring, he thought.