by JD Nixon
“Not always,” replied the Sarge cautiously and tactfully, implicitly chosen by the others to take the hit.
I glared at him for a long few beats and started the footage again, sulking. We watched as I herded the naked men to the wall, threatening to shoot their balls off if they didn’t move. I was out of camera range in the right screen at that point, before turning up again in the left one, leaning over Kylie taking her pulse and telling them all that they were sick and she was only fourteen.
The camera caught me hefting the naked, unconscious girl over my shoulder, then me turning around before Rusty whacked me on the back of the head with a crowbar, knocking me out. I slid to the floor and poor Kylie fell back on to the bed again.
“So it was him who did that! The bastard!” I said, heated. “That frigging hurt. He could have killed me.” I had been lucky my skull hadn’t been crushed.
Someone had forgotten to turn off that camera and it kept filming through me being trussed and pushed out of camera range. There was then a long period where nothing happened.
“I was knocked out for ages,” I told them and we sped up hours of footage, Kylie’s occasional stirrings on the bed the only action. On the right screen, the door opened and Rusty and the other man stepped into the room, the second man arguing against killing me because I was a cop.
“I kind of want to thank that man,” I said sincerely. “He probably saved my life.”
Those two men conducted their conversation and left the room on the right screen. The camera thankfully hadn’t captured me throwing up nor me cutting myself free. Not long afterwards, I could be seen hiding behind the door before the next three men turned up and I fought against them. The big guy told me to bring it on again on screen and then we watched my failed escape bid. The three of them took their revenge on me, and I winced watching that thug breaking my finger.
“Jesus!” said the Sarge and Mr X simultaneously.
“Fucking hell!” the Super said. Zelda flinched.
The men injected me and I slumped to the ground inelegantly. The last I saw of myself was me being thrown casually over the big man’s shoulder as one of the other men picked up Kylie. The big man slapped me hard on the butt and squeezed it, making some crude comment as we all left the room.
“He’s going to pay for that,” I vowed, black vengeance blooming in my heart. Nobody touched me without my permission.
The camera kept filming nothing until the explosion turned the screen black.
We all sat back in our seats and looked at each other. I was emotionally exhausted. It had been very confronting to watch myself go through all that again.
“Tessie,” said Mr X, shaking his head. “There were seven men in that room. What in God’s name made you think –”
“Teresa Fuller, if you ever pull a stunt that fucking stupid again, I’m going to bust your arse right back to probationary cop,” barked the Super, interrupting furiously. “You want to spend the rest of your life doing emu parades in the bush for forensics?”
“No, ma’am.” The silly smile from the weekend with Jake was wiped right off my face for good. The other three averted their eyes diplomatically.
She continued to blast me with her angry eyes. “The person who sent you this shit has done you a giant favour. I hope you realise that. It’s the evidence you needed. Consider me officially fucking interested. Open the next one.”
I hastily did as I was told and opened the next email. It read:
Senior Constable Tess Fuller
Someone needs to know what these local girls have been doing. You have to talk to their mothers. It’s disgusting. They were all given money and drugs to do this stuff.
I opened the attachment. Another movie. Four girls were in the room this time and my heart sank when I recognised Kylie, Jake’s sister, Larissa, and his cousins, Kristy and Jade. They did sexual things to each other for ten minutes before two men came into the room and they turned their attention on them. Sickened, I fast-forwarded through the footage, not wanting to watch. At least now I knew why I didn’t see Larissa or Kylie that night the Sarge and I had been creeping around the bikie retreat – they’d probably been making another movie.
I fast-forwarded to the end, but it was just straight porn, gross but not violent.
“Next one,” ordered the Super and I opened the third email. There was no message in the email. I opened the attachment. It was yet another movie, but this time it was grainier and full screen, with a different girl. It hadn’t been shot with the dual cameras and appeared as though it had been digitised from film.
“That’s Lucy,” I told them, stomach full of apprehension when I saw the girl.
It was an awful film, brutal and inhumane. When we reached the part that the Sarge and I had seen in the burnt film remnants, with Lucy hanging from the ceiling being violated from each side, I pushed my chair back and stood up. I walked to the window, unable to sit and watch any longer. I opened the blinds a little and gazed outside, only occasionally returning my eyes to the screen. But it was difficult to view any of it, Lucy’s endless screaming making me nauseous and edgy. I paced up and down as her screams grew weaker and fainter, then stopped all together. I looked away outside the window again, counting all the cars in the used car lot and adding up their entire cost, just to keep my mind from the screen.
I made the mistake of looking up, thinking that the movie was over. Instead the screen was filled with a silent and lingering close-up of Lucy’s dead face, followed by the camera panning slowly over her abused body, before returning to her face. She wasn’t acting – she wasn’t alive.
“That’s so sick,” I murmured in shock to myself, hardly believing what I’d just seen. I gratefully shifted my eyes back to that car yard and the array of old clunkers that hid their clapped out engines under shiny detailing.
The others watched for a few more minutes, before I heard the sound of the mouse clicking.
I turned around again. This time the screen was blank and so were the faces of all four cops. They weren’t prepared to share their feelings with me, each other, or maybe even themselves, about what they’d just witnessed.
“Snuff porn,” spat out the Super in grim disgust. “Made in my fucking backyard.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Her body’s out there, near where you were dumped, Tessie. I guarantee it. That skull you found is probably hers. Those fucking morons don’t even have enough sense to mix it up. They’re nothing but dumb animals, drawn to the same ground over and over again. I’m getting the cadaver dogs out there.” She snapped her head in my direction. “You better start fucking remembering exactly where you were dumped.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said flatly. Guilt over Lucy’s death overwhelmed me. I was perhaps the only person who’d spoken to her while she’d been in Little Town and I’d known something was off, but I hadn’t helped her.
“You can’t save everyone, Tess,” the Sarge said to me quietly, reading my face.
“But I didn’t even try with her.” My residual good mood from the weekend with Jake had well and truly evaporated.
“Did she ask you for help?” enquired Zelda in her calm, thoughtful manner.
I shook my head and replied softly. “No. I asked her if she was okay because she was obviously zonked out. I told her I could take her away from them to somewhere safe and she said the bikies would look after her.” I gave a short, sad laugh. “She thought I was an angel.”
Mr X slipped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “Don’t blame yourself for what happened to her.” But I refused to let myself be absolved from my self-flagellation though and brooded over it for the rest of the day.
Chapter 31
Back at the station in Little Town, I picked up the mug and plate that Young Kenny had left on the bench seat and took them inside. He’d eventually caved in and drank the tea and eaten the biscuits. Normally that would make me smile, but I didn’t feel like smiling much. I made both the Sarge and me a cup of tea and glumly threw my
self down in front of my computer to begin producing more of those endless reports we had to write on every incident in which we were involved.
“Stop beating yourself up about it. You saved Kylie’s life and you ought to be proud about that. You weren’t to know that Lucy was in danger.”
“Then why do I feel as though I should have known?”
“If you want to feel guilty about something, how about that huge pile of filing you haven’t found time for yet?”
“Sarge!” I grumbled. “Don’t be facetious. I’m not in the mood.”
He blinked at me sadly. “I don’t know what your big city words mean.”
That made me laugh. “I’m the country bumpkin in the partnership, remember?”
“Nah. You’re the big city superhero. I’m just happy to trail in your fabulous wake.”
“You’re Robin to my Batman?” I asked, smiling.
“Holy Bycraft, Batman!”
Unfortunately, I’d just taken a big sip of my tea when he said that and it exploded from my mouth all over my keyboard and monitor. I choked so badly that he had to come over and thump me on the back. I grabbed tissues, glowering at him with irritation as I mopped up the mess I’d made.
I didn’t have time to reproach him though because the bell rang and an angry voice screamed at the highest of the top octave. “Piglet, you fucking ugly bitch whore! Get out here now!”
The Sarge and I exchanged glances.
“I think this one’s for me,” I said dryly.
“I’ll go.”
“Nah, it’s okay. It’s just Dorrie Lebutt. I’d recognise that satanic screech anywhere.”
“I’m coming out with you. She might be armed.”
I didn’t move, but kept typing industriously.
“Tess Fuller, you stuck-up, fucking frigid bitch! Get your ugly, scrawny arse out here right now!”
“Tess?” queried the Sarge.
“She can wait,” I said calmly. “She hasn’t built up a proper head of steam yet.”
“Proper head of steam for what?”
“To go to jail, Sarge. What else? She’s on a good behaviour bond, remember?”
“Piglet whore!”
“I’m busy, Dorrie,” I yelled back at her. “Come back tomorrow when I have some spare time.” I winked at the Sarge. He wasn’t impressed with my little game, probably thinking that I was only courting more trouble for myself. He made me feel irresponsible, spoiling my fun. I sighed at his propriety – it was such a bore sometimes. “Sorry, Sarge. I’ll go and speak to her now.”
I reluctantly pushed back my chair and stood up, sauntering out to the counter, hitching up my pants. They were always in danger of riding low because of all the things we had to carry in our utility belt.
“Hello, Dorrie, how are you?” I asked cheerily, as if I was a good friend. I used to be once upon a time, when we were both young girls. Then she’d fallen in love with Rick (or was it Denny? or even Jake?) and almost overnight had turned against me. That betrayal had been difficult for me to get over, but sometimes life gives you no choice about your relationships.
I suffered a stream of invective in response to my polite question, which I waited through patiently.
“And how can I help you?” I asked, forever ready to serve the public.
“Why did you tell Rick that our baby could be Mark’s?”
“I never said anything of the sort,” I replied coldly.
“That’s what Rick’s saying,” she said defiantly.
“Rick’s wrong then. All I said was that I saw you with Mark about the time your baby was conceived. He put two and two together.” I giggled deliberately. “And got fifteen and a quarter.”
She was so angry at me that she couldn’t even speak, but turned around with impotent rage. She grabbed the small pamphlet holder that sat on the timber table and threw it through the front window.
Everything happened in slow motion. Glass sprayed everywhere and I held my arm up, elbow out in front to protect my face, turning my head. The Sarge raced to the front room, gun out, yelling something that I couldn’t remember afterwards. When he saw Dorrie, he vaulted over the counter, one arm on the bench and had her restrained in a headlock quickly.
She cried. Not the token tears she’d squeezed out after she’d hit me with her car a few months ago to win over the investigating detectives and the magistrate, but real, chest-heaving, eyes-flooding, nose-running tears. The kind where you can’t articulate coherently. I held my palm up to the Sarge, indicating that he should back off and not heavy her so much. She was pregnant, after all. The last thing we wanted was her popping her kid out prematurely because of a little rough justice applied by us.
“Dorrie,” I said more kindly, offering her some tissues from the box on the counter. She snatched them from me ungratefully and mopped her eyes and nose. She’d grown real hard since she’d joined the dark side. Out of nowhere a memory leapt into my mind. “Remember that day when Sharnee’s puppy went missing and we decided to solve the mystery between us?”
She looked at me with hostile tear-drenched eyes and nodded slightly. The Sarge stood to one side and watched carefully, trusting my instincts.
I laughed. “I insisted on being the boss cop, but you were happy to be my offsider.” She stilled and I knew I had her attention, but she didn’t make any eye contact with me. “I told you that you had to call me ‘Miss Sir’ when you spoke to me. Remember that?”
She half-smiled with painful unwillingness, and said, “We didn’t know that girls could be top cops then. They were all men on the TV.”
“I knew,” I said tactlessly, not thinking. “Because Fiona told me. She said she was going to be the boss of all the police in Wattling Bay one day. She told me that lots of times.”
“Well, she didn’t bother telling me. Nobody ever told me anything like that.”
There were years of resentment in her voice. I knew what her beef was; we were the same age, both born in the same town, both raised in loving and respectable single-parent families, neither of us a Bycraft nor troublesome in anyway as children. Her father, Ian Lebutt, had been killed in a terrible harvesting accident on one of the surrounding farms a long time ago when his daughters were very young. His widow, Cheryl, was a good woman at heart and had tried to keep her four girls on the straight and narrow after her husband’s death. But the ever-present press of poverty and her need to work long hours at menial jobs just to keep a roof over their heads and some food on the table, meant they weren’t well supervised as teenagers. And so they ran wild, all four of them hooking up with Bycrafts.
I had a sudden burst of memory of Dorrie having a sleepover at my place one night in fourth grade. We’d sat on my bed holding hands and wishing and hoping that her mother and my father would marry each other and we would become sisters. How different both our lives might have been if that had happened. A real sadness settled on me.
“Dorrie,” I said regretfully. She looked at me sharply. “You’re on a good behaviour bond, remember? You’ve just smashed a window in a police station. That’s not good for your next report.”
She stared at me, not understanding.
“You have your kids to think about. Especially your unborn bub,” I reminded her. “If you leave and go home right now, there will be no consequences, I promise. If you make one more move, the Sarge will arrest you for assault and breaching your bond. That means jail. Think about your babies. Please.”
No doubt she was angry and she looked at me as if she wanted to slit my throat there and then, but she wrapped her coat around her swollen stomach and made to leave peacefully. But then she turned and unleashed her vicious tongue.
“Rick was about to ask me to marry him before you opened your big fucking mouth. I would have said yes. I could love him.”
I made a sound of scepticism. “Bycrafts don’t get married.”
“Jakey did,” she spat back with venom. “But not to you. It’s no secret that’s why he’s still married to
Chantelle – so he never has to marry you!”
And on that cutting remark, she turned and flounced out.
She certainly jabbed one of my sore spots with that comment. It was something that had crossed my mind more a few times since I’d been going out with Jake. He’d never really provided me with a convincing reason for why he hadn’t yet divorced Chantelle.
“You shouldn’t have let her go,” the Sarge disapproved, his voice cutting through my musings. He moved over to examine the window.
I shrugged. “I’m not arresting a pregnant woman. They’d only release her in Big Town anyway. They wouldn’t want to look after a pregnant woman in the watch house either.”
I retrieved the old broom and swept up the glass, then rang Harry’s cousin’s boyfriend to arrange for him to come and fix the window. He brought up the delicate matter of the enormous amount of money that I owed him and I promised to start paying him off next payday. He agreed to let me pay in installments, but was wanting me to cough up a much bigger chunk of money each fortnight than I’d planned. I tried to negotiate him down to a more reasonable amount, but he hardened, insisting that had been the arrangement for the reduced cost. I flung the phone back into its cradle, briefly covering my face with my hand, worrying over how I was going to cope if something else came up in the meantime.
The Sarge had been listening in, as usual, but I didn’t want to talk to him about my financial position. He already knew much more than I’d ever wanted. I busied myself my computer.
“That reminds me,” he said and reached into the drawer of his desk, handing me a nicely gift-wrapped box.
“A present? For me? It’s not my birthday.”
“It’s not really a present. It’s more of a necessity. You need to have this and I need you to have it.”
Curious, I opened the wrapping. It was a brand new mobile phone – a top-of-the-range one. “Oh Sarge, that’s so sweet of you. But I couldn’t possibly accept it.” I held it back out to him.
