Vodka Doesn't Freeze

by Leah Giarratano

  No-one was anywhere near her towel.

  She bent and picked the towel up, leaving the envelope there. She hugged the towel to her body, drying her face, starting to shiver. What the hell was in there?

  She wanted to delay the moment when she looked inside. She absolutely hated surprises. She scooped up the folder, flicking it to remove the sand that had settled on top. She walked back towards her unit.

  The folder had broken her routine. She didn't stop for the paper, and as she ran up the stairs her nerves jagged. She pulled her key from the small pocket in her shorts, and let herself into her apartment.

  She threw the folder onto her breakfast bar and stared at it balefully. She wanted to open it now, but felt she needed her routines more than ever at the moment. It was a shower first, coffee, the newspaper on the balcony. The folder would be her paper this morning. She stripped, and walked naked into her black granite bathroom.

  Twenty minutes later, coffee in hand, and dressed in black combat pants and a fitted navy shirt, her blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail, Jill was ready to check out the folder, and she carried it out to the balcony. Suddenly in a hurry, she didn't bother to sit. She dropped the folder onto her outdoor table and flipped open the cover. A photograph, blown up to A4 size, lay before her, but it took a while to understand what it depicted, her brain not at first recognising the tangle of colours and shapes.

  When she realised what she was looking at, Jill's coffee cup slipped from her fingers and crashed to the terracotta tiles of her balcony.

  The photo showed, close-up, a face so pulverised that its features were almost unrecognisable. One half of the head was caved in completely, so that most of the mouth was lost in a black, red and white gaping hole. One of the eyes was missing; the other was just visible through the blood. It looked like there was a tooth or bone fragment stuck in the blood above the eye. The blood looked wet. Whoever had taken this photo had been there when this violence was inflicted. Jill knew it.

  She dropped into a chair and put her head between her knees. The action caused her to notice the spilled coffee seeping into the porous terracotta, and this revived her a little. She went inside to her kitchen and grabbed a sponge and cold water, and came back outside to clean up the mess.

  The photo image had seared into her retinas, though, and as she cleaned, she scanned it mentally. Even with that much damage, she knew it was a male. She wondered when it had been taken. And why it was given to her? Was this a warning or a clue? Was it a sick joke? She thought of the crude penis inked onto her locker and knew it could be a prank by another cop – a photo of an accident victim maybe. It could be Elvis-style humour.

  Regardless, she had things to do today. She couldn't let this rattle her. She closed the cover of the folder and walked back inside her unit, sliding shut both glass doors as she did so. The sun struggled through the mist outside now, and light washed into the orderliness of her living space, which was in sharp contrast to the mess that still floated in her field of vision. She blinked it away and clicked her TV on, listening to the morning news program as she made herself some toast and Vegemite. She fixed a fresh cup of coffee and took it, black, into her living room, curling up on one of her sofas to eat her breakfast.

  The giggling of the announcers on the morning program always annoyed her. She didn't mind the human interest stories and sports reviews that filled the spaces between the half-hourly news broadcasts, but she had no patience for the self-indulgent prattle of the presenters, giving their opinion on every topic. She was relieved to see the 7 a.m. broadcast was about to start.

  'Police are today considering the establishment of a special taskforce to investigate a series of brutal deaths that have taken place in Sydney, following the discovery of the fatal stabbing of a man in Leichhardt. The victim has been identified as Wayne Crabbe, a 43-year-old single man, whose body was discovered by neighbours late yesterday afternoon. Mr Horace Green and his wife, Ida, made the gruesome discovery when they went to investigate a terrible smell in the unit next door.'

  Jill watched, transfixed, as an elderly man spoke directly at the camera, his arm around his pale and teary wife.

  'Haven't seen anything like that since Vietnam. This country is going to hell. If it's not the Triads, it's the Middle Eastern gangs. We're not safe here any more, I tell you. My wife and I have lived on this road for thirty-seven years, but we won't be staying. Australians are going to have to bear arms in their own houses if police don't take back the streets.'

  The attractive female broadcaster, serious now, nodding her head to punctuate her remarks, went on to say that the victim's face was so badly beaten that he was unrecognisable and he had been identified by his fingerprints.

  For once Jill didn't heed the toast crumbs falling from her shirt when she stood. Another victim, bashed beyond recognition, most likely with a criminal sheet, given that he'd been identified by fingerprint analysis. Jill was ready to bet she knew what this man had been arrested for in the past, and she figured she also knew what had so shaken the elderly couple who'd discovered him.

  She grabbed her keys, bag and the folder, and headed out the door.

  36

  'SO WHAT'D YOU GET?'

  Jill and Scotty sat at their desks, murder book out. Scotty wiped egg from a breakfast McMuffin from the side of his mouth.

  'You first,' Jill replied.

  'The Range Rover at The Wall belongs to Graham Rivers, a fifty-eight-year-old architect from Lane Cove. Divorced. Lives alone. Was picked up at The Wall a year ago by the guys at the Cross. He had a boy in the car, but they both claimed he was getting directions. They charged him anyway, but his barrister got it thrown out of court. No conviction recorded. I'm going to his workplace after lunch to ruin his day. He works at Milsons Point, on the harbour. It's nice out; wanna come?'

  'Pass. What'd you get on Sebastian?'

  'Well, he inherited his wealth. His father grew a huge transport firm from nothing, and his mother's parents made millions in retail. He lives in a penthouse in the Rocks, but he's got residential property in Auburn, Parramatta and Westmead. The family mansion overlooks the harbour in Hunters Hill, and he owns eight shopping centres in the Western Suburbs and Queensland. Far as I can tell, he has someone manage his transport company, although he's scaled it down a lot since his father died in the early nineties. His mother's in a nursing home on the North Shore. He's never married, no kids that we know about.'

  'Thank God.'

  'Mmm. Hasn't stopped him helping himself to other people's, though, has it?'

  'Has he got a sheet?'

  'Juvenile only. Must've been a real blessing to his parents. Their only child. At age twelve, he got done for cruelty to animals. Tortured six swans to death in Centennial Park. There was evidence they'd been sexually assaulted. Sick fuck. It was in the papers for a week. Locals wanted the offender gaoled, but his parents got it all covered up and sent him to a boarding school in Bowral. After that, there were other charges, but his parents stopped every conviction. Unlimited money for lawyers. They couldn't keep him in schools though. The parents of the other kids united to have him kicked out of three schools. There was a big lawsuit settled following the sexual torture of two juniors at a school in Bathurst.'

  'That kind of violence from someone so young . . . No adult relationships . . . A paedophile . . .' Jill stared down at Scotty's notes. 'We've gotta take this guy off the streets, Scott.

  His pattern fits that of a true psychopath. Not the impulsive, antisocial dickheads we deal with every day in here, but a calculating sadist. He's got to be regularly finding a way to meet the urges he's had since he was a kid.'

  'Well, put me in, coach. You know I'm ready to go see this guy whenever you are.'

  'I know, Scott, but first it's my turn to tell you what I've been doing.' Jill rubbed at the aching muscles in her neck. 'I've been out to the drop-in centre in Wooloomooloo. Don't worry, he wasn't there,' she said when she noticed the look on Scotty's face. 'I kne
w he wouldn't be. Just wanted to check it out. Turns out Jamaal Mahmoud's been a visitor.'

  'He's linked to Sebastian a lot, huh? We should find him this afternoon.'

  'But you've got to see this too.' She reached down into her bag and pulled out the manila folder she'd found under her towel.

  'Shit, Jackson, do you know what this is?' Scotty stared down at the mess in the photo.

  'Yep. Been into Andreessen's office already. I haven't shown him the photo yet though. I just wanted to see if this was the same guy they found in Leichhardt yesterday.'

  'Well it is, and they're talking about setting up a taskforce, Jill. We gotta go in with what we know about these deaths. Harris and Jardine look like they're going to head up a squad to investigate all three murders.'

  'Four. And Andreessen told me this morning. I was just waiting till you got in before we went in there and told him together.'

  'Chickenshit,' said Scotty, but Jill knew he'd have been pissed if she'd made the move without him.

  They gathered up their paperwork and walked over to their boss's office. His door was open and he was sitting down with someone.

  Great, thought Jill, peering in around Scotty. Elvis.

  Scotty turned to talk to her, intending to wait until Andreessen was free, but the inspector saw them waiting and motioned them in.

  'Hutchinson, Jackson. You're needed at a sit-down at Central at 1 p.m. Your case – Carter – is being wrapped up in a taskforce with some other cases. The civilians are shitting about these recent bashings.'

  'Yeah, well, we wanted to see you about that, sir,' Jill said, looking pointedly at Elvis and then back at Andreessen.

  'Well, fire away. Calabrese here is going with you to the lunch meeting. Looks like he'll being taking the Carter case off your hands and working on it with two boys from Central.'

  Jill moaned, barely audibly. Scotty shot her a warning look.

  'The thing is, boss,' he began, 'we've been working on a suspected connection between the three deaths for a few days now.'

  'And we've evidence in the death of the fourth man, the one found yesterday,' said Jill.

  'And you were going to tell me about this when?' A blotchy red flush suffused Andreessen's neck. Jill flinched.

  'It's really only just come together this morning, boss. That's what we're doing here,' said Scotty.

  'Well get your arses to Central at lunchtime. I'll talk to Beaumont over there and get you on this taskforce.'

  'Great,' said Scotty, not even trying to sound like he meant it. He and Jill left the room.

  I wonder if they actually tried to make this place look depressing, thought Jill as she looked around the private conference room at Central police station. She tried to get comfortable in the fabric-covered chair, but when she touched the seat, her hand came up slightly wet and sticky.

  She and Scotty were on one side of a pockmarked boardroom table. Elvis, Richard Harris and John Jardine were on the other. A couple of soggy sandwiches slowly curled in the centre of the table. Only Scotty was eating, but he still managed to scowl at the men they would have to work with for at least the next few weeks.

  Inspector Beaumont had just left the room, leaving them now the official team investigating these cases. He'd told them they had access to uniformeds when they needed them, and he was also arranging to hook them up with some detectives from Adelaide who had experience in mass homicide.

  Jardine got up and went to the electronic whiteboard that had been wheeled into the room when they arrived. He wrote the names of the deceased across the top of the board.

  'Might as well get on with this, then,' he said, turning back to the group. 'Jackson, Hutchinson, could you tell us what you've got on each of these guys? I know you gave us a run-down on your connection theory last time you came out to see us, but we should hear everything you've got and collate it.'

  'Why don't you tell us what you've found out about Rocla and Manzi first,' Scotty suggested. 'That way, Jill and I will have a complete picture and can tell you more about all of them.'

  'Because he's the taskforce leader, fuck-stick,' interrupted Elvis, smiling coldly.

  'How did you get your fat arse onto this case anyway, Calabrese?' Scotty's fists clenched under the table. 'There're no drugs to rip off. What do you want to work it for?'

  'You think I want you on this squad, Hutchinson? At least I didn't have to suck the boss's dick to get myself over here.'

  Jill could see Scotty poised to launch himself across the table. She spoke loudly.

  'We're ready to go with what we've got, Jardine, if you want to start writing. I know none of us wants a pissing contest keeping us here any longer than we have to be.'

  Over the next couple of hours, the small group put together all the information they had about the cases. They started with the body found in Leichhardt. When Jill brought the photo out of the folder, she felt the tension in the room ratchet up a notch.

  'Where'd you get this, Jackson?' asked Harris.

  She explained her run on the beach that morning – was it really only that morning? The group agreed that the photo was far fresher than the crime scene shots they had pinned to a murder wall next to the whiteboard, and Jardine asked whether Jill thought the killer had left her the photo, and if so, why.

  'I've got no idea. None,' she said thoughtfully. 'It's not necessarily the killer who took the photo, though.' Jill didn't want to believe that the hooded figure on the beach with her had been responsible for the carnage in the photographs around her. 'We could have a witness out there.'

  'If it was a witness, they must have shut the door and left Crabbe's body there to sweat, because he couldn't be seen from the street, and this photo wasn't taken through a window,' said Harris, looking with Scotty down at the mess in the photograph.

  'One of the neighbours? Maybe the bloke who called it in?' Scotty took a bite of an egg-salad sandwich. The filling looked grey.

  Jardine wrote this possibility up under Crabbe's name on the board.

  'But why you, Jackson? How'd someone know to deliver this to you?' asked Jardine, turning around with the pen in his hand.

  'Maybe it's someone we've talked to about Carter's case – maybe they know the deaths are connected, and wanted me to know too,' said Jill.

  'So we should go through the people you've interviewed about Carter,' said Harris. 'Look at each one for possible links to the victims.'

  Jardine listed this on the board.

  'You can put Alejandro Sebastian up there as first port of call,' said Scotty.

  'While we're on that, can you take us through everything you've got on him?' said Jardine.

  Scotty filled the group in on what they knew, with Jill contributing a few key points. They outlined Sebastian's background, his demographics, and their belief that he ran a paedophile ring, with the hypothesis that each of the dead men was a former member.

  'Why is he a suspect in the killings?' Harris asked. 'Why would this Sebastian want to kill his own group members?'

  Jill frowned. She'd wondered the same thing. 'Could be that these guys weren't careful enough? Maybe they talked too much, were attracting too much attention? Maybe they owed him money?'

  The group continued to pore through the evidence related to each death and when Jardine's tightly written script had used all the space, he pressed the print button on the white-board, wiped it clean and started again. A PA would type the notes up properly later. As they collated the evidence, Jill learned that a men's size-eight footprint had been found at the homicide sites of both Carter and Crabbe. One salvageable footprint was in the sand next to Carter's body, and in the blood just inside the doorway of Crabbe's house, a similar-sized footprint was clearly visible. There were no unidentified fingerprints at the first three murder sites. Smooth, uniform smears in the blood indicated that the killer had worn gloves, most likely disposable latex.