Tallowwood

by N. R. Walker

  She clicked a few more times and entered in dates and times and let it play. She stood up and frowned. “I’ll leave you guys to it, and hopefully you find what you’re looking for.”

  “Thanks, Mum. Oh, and this saves to the cloud, doesn’t it? No old-fashioned tapes anymore, right?”

  “Yes, love. Autosaves to the cloud and backs up to our personal computer at home. You know how your father is . . .” She spared an apologetic look to Deans and left them to it, closing the door behind her.

  “What did she mean by that?” Deans asked.

  Jake sat at the screen. “Dad doesn’t trust white-man’s law.” Jake shrugged. “If someone breaks in here and hurts himself, even though Mum and Dad have been here for years, upstanding citizens and all that, some lawyer could still make them look bad. You know, us blackfellas have always had to have twice the physical proof against a white man’s word. Even today.”

  Deans frowned, opened her mouth like she was about to object, but decided against it. “That fucking sucks,” she whispered.

  “It does,” Jake agreed.

  “But it explains a lot about you,” she said with a smile. “Always photographing crime scenes, documenting every single thing, following every rule to the letter.”

  Jake grinned at her. “I am my father’s son.”

  “Can you cook like him? Because that’s where it’s at. Not gonna lie.”

  Jake laughed at that. “I’ve learned a few tricks.”

  She nudged him. “Cook up anything for that sexy Sydney detective?”

  Jake wasn’t going to answer that, but apparently he didn’t have to. Because she took one look at him and gave him a shove. “Oh my God, you did! What was he like? As sultry and mysterious as he looks?”

  “Sultry and mysterious? August isn’t sultry. Maybe a little mysterious.”

  “You’re on a first-name basis? August,” she said with a sigh. “It is a dreamy name.”

  Jake shot her a look and he only had his eyes off the screen for a moment, when Deans put her hand out toward the monitor. “Freeze it there.” Jake paused the screen but the vehicle she was looking for was out of view. “No back it up a bit.”

  Jake had to find the right button but rewound the recording a few seconds. And there on screen was an easily distinguishable vehicle. Even though the quality of footage was grainy, it was unmistakable, because on the side of the white sedan was the word POLICE in big blue writing.

  “Could be Hirsch heading back to the station,” Jake offered. “He’d been called to Coffs with Kenny, I remember because McNeill told us that. Said he had to lock up after we left, and we left as soon as that storm hit.”

  “What time is it?” Deans asked, looking at the corner of the screen.

  “Three oh eight?”

  Deans shook her head. “Hirsch didn’t come back that day until four-thirty. I spoke to you on the phone, remember? I log everyone in and out, every time they leave, every time they get in.”

  “We certainly didn’t pass a police vehicle,” Jake said. “We left the park and went straight to my place to change. We were soaked. August stayed at home, but I went back to the station and you left for a late lunch.”

  “Yep. Came here to the pub for your dad’s nacho salad. Went back and Hirsch got in at 4:33. I remember. I wrote it in.”

  “So who the hell is driving this patrol car?” Jake asked, nodding toward the screen. “Or, if it is Hirsh, where was he going?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied, frowning at the image on the monitor. “It’s definitely a sedan, but I can’t see the vehicle bonnet code. So, God, how many marked patrol cars are there between here and the coast? Twenty? They’re all coded and chipped for GPS tracking. That was how they found McNeill. He still had the vehicle. They found it via tracking and it showed it up the fire trail road past the dam. We could request a vehicle log.”

  Jake stared at the screen but couldn’t make any other details out. “Mmm, we might have to. Though I’m sure a techie could clear up this image.”

  She nodded, then looked at Jake and sighed. “It’s a cop, Jake. It’s one of us. Another cop killed one of us!”

  Jake took a screenshot of the image and emailed it to himself. “If it is the same killer, he’s killed ten of my kind. No one gave a shit when it was just gay men, but one straight cop . . .”

  Deans frowned. “I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry.”

  He stood up. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t. But yes, he killed a cop. And at the end of the day, I don’t care what it is that makes people stop and notice. As long as they do. August has been trying to tell people for almost a decade and no one believed him.”

  “Jesus. Well, surely they will now. I mean, what else does he have to do?”

  They walked back out to the bar area to find everyone turned to the large TV screen above the bar. And Deans’ question was being answered on live TV by that reporter with the striking green eyes.

  August had said Jake would know what he’d done when he saw it. And now he knew . . .

  Jake’s mum shot him a wide-eyed stare. “It’s on every channel.”

  “Exclusive Breaking News report: In what could be Australia’s worst serial killing spree spanning almost twenty years and with a death toll of eleven confirmed killings, police are now asking for public assistance. Every victim has been found with two specific items at their time of death. These two items are a handwritten note with one line of a famous poem, and a silver cross on a silver necklace. Something that might seem insignificant to you or me but is very significant to the killer.

  “Police are reluctant to give the details of the poem or its author at this time, though we can confirm the cross is plain silver, no inscription, no gemstone or other distinguishing factors. These two items are always together, and police believe the poem and the cross and the significance of these two items could hold the key to unlocking the killer’s identity.

  “There could even be more than one killer. Police aren’t ruling this possibility out, but they do believe someone in the wider community understands the reference to and the significance of the poem and the cross. If you have any information, please call CrimeStoppers on the number on your screen now.

  “I will have the exclusive report and full details at the top of the hour, and I’ll be seeking answers to questions such as why are we just hearing about this now? If this has been going on for almost two decades, just what are the police hiding? And how does the discovery of a police officer’s body found on the Mid North Coast today fit into this puzzle? Who else has been the target of Australia’s worst ever serial killer? And who has been covering it up?”

  The reporter’s serious expression stared unblinkingly at the camera. “I’m Phillip Linden for Channel 4, Sydney.”

  The screen cut to a news anchor in a studio somewhere. “Just to recap, police are seeking public assistance in what could be Australia’s most prolific serial killer case . . .”

  Fucking hell. August wasn’t kidding.

  Jake’s mum was still wide-eyed. “Is that who died? Was it a copper?”

  “Mum, I can’t say—”

  “Christ, Jake. Who was it?”

  Jake put his hand up as every set of eyes in the pub focused on him. “We can’t make any official statement at this time. When we can, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Jake walked to the door and held it open for Deans. His mum yelled, “Jacob Porter, you be careful. You hear me?”

  “Yes, Mum,” he said as he walked out, and Deans was smirking as she did up her seatbelt. Jake rolled his eyes at her. “Don’t you start.”

  “It’s cute,” she replied. Then she let out a long breath. “Well, your Sydney boyfriend just took your cases public. In a real big way.”

  Jake ignored the boyfriend part of her statement. He couldn’t even be mad at August. Maybe going public was all he could do. Keeping it quiet and expecting the system to work had gotten him nowhere. Jake started the Patrol, buckled his seat
belt, and pulled out onto the quiet street. “It’s not the first time he’s done that, you know,” Jake admitted. “He was getting nowhere on some cases before, being told to sit down and shut up basically, so he went public. Same reporter, from memory. They’ll know who leaked it without even trying.”

  “Does he care that he just put a target on his back?” Deans asked.

  Jake shrugged. “Nope. You know what he’d say? He’s not a cop to earn boy scout badges. He’s a cop to put the bad guys away. Or something like that.”

  Deans laughed. “Well, he’s braver than me.”

  “He was pushed to do it,” Jake said. “Every other cop above him has shut him down. And if other cops won’t help him, maybe the public will.”

  Deans breathed in real deep and shook her head. “And then we saw that cop car in the security footage . . .”

  Jake nodded. “We need to figure out who the hell was driving that car.”

  “Yeah.”

  Jake pulled up at the station. “Do you think Hirsch has seen the news?”

  “I reckon every cop in the state has seen the news.”

  Jacob sighed and peered at the station. He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Do you think he’s gone full-nuclear? Or maybe just half?”

  She didn’t answer his question, but she met his gaze. “I don’t like this one bit, Jake.”

  “Me either.”

  “Who do you reckon it is?”

  Jake swallowed hard and thought how best to answer. “I don’t know,” he said eventually. “I can’t even guess. There’s been murders in both Sydney and Tallowwood, and that’s not a coincidence. There has to be a reason these locations were chosen. And the Sydney bodies were left on display to be found by loved ones. The Tallowwood bodies were hidden in the forest.”

  “Except for McNeill,” Deans said. “Well, he was hidden, but we found him because of the police car.”

  Jake shook his head. “No, he was found because the killer wanted him found.” He phoned the Coffs Harbour station traffic department and a woman answered. “Yeah, hi. It’s Senior Constable Jacob Porter from Tallowwood. I need a log report on all marked sedan patrol vehicles for a specific date and time. Is that possible?”

  “All vehicles?” she replied.

  “All marked sedans. Is that possible?”

  “Well, it’s possible, but it just—”

  “As soon as you can, thank you.” Jake gave her his email and mobile phone number, told her it was urgent, and thanked her again. He clicked off the call and sighed. “Well, I guess we can’t put this off forever.”

  And with that, they went inside the station. The two young constables smiled, clearly oblivious to the news report. It made Jake wonder if maybe Hirsch hadn’t seen it. The two constables had nothing exciting to report, and when they’d gone, Jake stuck his head in Hirsch’s office. He could see his computer screen had the news segment playing, volume low, and Hirsch had his phone pressed to his ear, his face ashen, as though he’d aged a decade in the last half hour. He almost looked like a different man. Jake gave him a wave to let him know they were back, and Hirsch barely gave a nod without looking in his direction.

  Yep. He’d seen the news all right. And Jake wondered how long it would take every news outlet on the east coast of the country to arrive in Tallowwood. If things were crazy now and Hirsch was in a foul mood, they were going to get a whole lot worse.

  There’d be press releases, formal statements, photographers, news crews, journalists, interviews. Christ. No wonder Hirsch looked a little green around the gills. His precious town was about to be known all around the world as a murder town. Hirsch would no doubt blame August and probably Jake by association.

  And yet, Jake still couldn’t find it in himself to be mad at August.

  Because like August had said, something was fucking rotten in the foundations of this building, and blowing it wide open was looking more and more like the right thing to do.

  When Jake went back to the front desk, Deans had her time log book out. “See?” she whispered, pointing to the open page. She shot a glance over her shoulder toward Hirsch’s door and spoke real low. “He didn’t get back here until four thirty-three. He didn’t go home either, because I can hear every time he opens and closes his front door.” That was true, Jake thought. The downside of living at the station residence. “So where the hell was he for ninety minutes?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake murmured, as he took his phone out and took a quick photo of the page. He hated feeling so suspicious and not trusting anyone, but there was no way he wasn’t covering his own arse. And August’s.

  While he had his phone out, he scrolled for August’s number and hit Call. It went straight to voicemail, which wasn’t exactly surprising, but still disappointing. “Hey, it’s me. Just saw the news report. You don’t do things by halves, do you?” Jake said. “But uh, yeah, you know how you were talking about issues with those building foundations, well, it looks like we might have the same problem up here. I think. Still not sure. Waiting on confirmation. Anyway, call me as soon as you can. And be careful. Watch your back down there. I can only assume you won’t be on a lot of Christmas card lists this year. Well, except mine. So please be careful and call me.”

  Just then, Hirsch walked out of his office and came to the front desk. He just stood there, his uniform was kind of crumpled, like he’d worn it for too long, and he looked exhausted. Utterly exhausted. He had puffy, darkened bags under his eyes, his complexion looked waxy, his mouth pulled down to a frown, and he slow blinked.

  Jake was just about to ask if he was okay when Deans nodded to the patrol car pulling up and said, “We’ve got company.”

  Local Area Commander Allan Kenny got out of the car, wearing his official blazer and police hat. Hirsch closed his eyes and sighed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  August had never seen Reinhart so mad. A vein protruded down his neck and on one side of his head, just above his temple. His face was cartoon-red, and he had a white ring around his lips, which would have been funny if his ire wasn’t aimed directly at August. Even his eyeballs were strained and bulging, and August might have voiced his concern about the man’s blood pressure, except telling him to calm down before he had a stroke would probably induce the very thing August was trying to avoid.

  He ranted about Phillip fucking Linden and how every news channel in the country would be all over this, and it was probably already trending on Twitter, and that CrimeStoppers has probably had ten thousand unvetted false leads already. Did August have any idea of the damage he’d done, how many man hours this would cost? Then he ranted about budget cuts and mayoral elections, all of which August couldn’t give a shit about. Not that August said that, because Reinhart wasn’t calming down any.

  August understood the guy had stresses from all angles, but if he couldn’t handle the job, maybe he shouldn’t be in it. August didn’t voice that opinion, either. He wanted to but knew when to keep his mouth shut.

  He’d let Reinhart run out of steam and hopefully have a more civil conversation. And sure enough, it wasn’t long before Reinhart stopped pacing and fell into his chair. “What the fuck, Shaw? You think it’s funny to go to the media?”

  “Funny? No,” August replied. “Necessary. I’ve been telling you for eight years there is a serial killer, and you think I’m crazy. You thought shoving me in some shoebox office with incomplete files would keep me busy.”

  “Incomplete files?”

  “Missing witness reports, inconclusive findings, missing evidence.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Damn right it’s bullshit. I’ve been saying it’s bullshit for the better part of a decade.”

  Reinhart slammed his palm on his desk. “You know what I mean, Shaw. Then this morning I get a phone call from McCulloch on the South Coast, telling me one of my detectives phoned him enquiring about missing evidence. Something I knew absolutely nothing about!” He tapped his desk with his pointe
r finger. “And then I get notified by evidence stores that you requested information without the proper authority or my approval!”

  “I was doing my job! I only asked the stores clerk how many items were receipted on one particular case. I didn’t ask to see anything, just asked him to read the paperwork. I never asked him to do anything outside the parameter of his job,” August argued. “And, I might add, that evidence is now missing, not destroyed. I mean unaccounted for. Which means someone, somewhere, took it and forged police records to make it look as though it never existed.”

  Reinhart seethed. “That’s one helluva claim, Shaw.”

  “That’s why I called McCulloch. He was lead detective when the bust went down. The evidence was most definitely there, and now it’s not.”

  “And you filed the appropriate paperwork for that information, didn’t you?” he asked, knowing damn well August hadn’t.

  “Of course I didn’t!” August leaned in and whispered. “When I have no way to know which of my colleagues has stolen evidence, evidence that’s a class nine chem-warfare agent, and killed eleven people, that we know of. So if you want to talk about which information was selectively given to the media, be fucking grateful it wasn’t that.”

  His face reddened and that vein above his temple visibly throbbed. “You crossed a line today, Shaw.”

  “Damn right I did, and I shouldn’t have had to,” August bit back at him. “I shouldn’t have to fight anyone on this. You should be doing everything possible to help me catch this sonuvabitch, and all I get is hurdle after hurdle. So if you’d have helped me, or even listened just once in the last eight years, I wouldn’t have had to ask the public for help.”

  “Oh, that’s such bullshit, and you know it. And implying the police are involved—”

  “The police are involved!” August shot back at him. “I’m starting to think you don’t want this person caught. Any particular reason for that? What exactly don’t you want me to find?”

  He seethed. “Be very careful, Shaw.”