An Easeful Death (28 page)

She scrubbed the bath and the toilet, changed the sheets and even made cupcakes for next week’s play lunches. She snapped the radio off when Jim Morrison began to sing about killers on the road with brains squirming like toads. The silence almost swallowed her.

***

She’d still not heard from Monty when she arrived that evening at the ops van with only just enough time to scramble into her Linda Royce outfit. The denim miniskirt was tight and restricting, the shoes cut into her feet and forced her to walk with a painful wobble. After loosening her hair to let it flare around her shoulders, she trowelled on the make-up, coating her lips with layer after layer of lipstick and gloss.

A technician wired her with the mike and they did a test run. Satisfied that she had effective communication, she buttoned up the figure-hugging cardigan and stepped out from the van into the street.

Someone whistled. Startled, she turned to see Barry giving her the thumbs up. When he approached, he was all business.

‘Now don’t worry about a thing Stevie, everything’s under control. We have cameras on the crowd and armed cops out of sight watching your every move.’

She’d never realised how reassuring Barry’s voice could sound.

‘You do just what Royce did. Step out from the photographer’s place and start heading to the bus stop. See that old guy standing with Wayne?’

Stevie squinted into the floodlit crowd of onlookers lining the temporary barricades. Wayne was standing with a dishevelled old man with a long white beard and a tasselled red hat that gave him the look of a malnourished Father Christmas.

‘That’s Joshua Cuthbert, the dero whose prints were on the bottle. Wayne’s about to move him into position. We think he saw something that night but his mind’s so pickled it’s going to need a good jolt.’

‘What happens when I reach the bus stop?’

‘Pause for a moment or two, relax, then start walking again; be yourself, as if the re-enactment is over and you just want to stretch your legs. Keep walking till you get to the alleyway about thirty metres down the street then duck into it. If De Vakey’s right, our guy will be watching. If he is, and he sees you disappear like that, he won’t be able to help himself. Don’t worry, we’ve installed surveillance cameras and the TRG are close by. Oh, and before I forget, here, take this.’ The dead weight of the Glock dropped into her open bag.

‘Ready then?’ Angus moved over to them.

Barry nodded. ‘Yep. Good luck, Stevie,’ he called as Angus took her by the arm to the door of the photographic studio.

‘When the guy with the clapperboard says action, step out of the door and begin your walk.’ Angus stood in the doorway with her. ‘Don’t look at the camera or any of the onlookers, okay? They want this edited and ready for tomorrow’s early news, so try not to stuff up.’

She was still focusing her glare on Angus’s retreating back when another figure sidled up next to her. ‘Hello, I just wanted to wish you good luck.’

Stevie raised her chin, folded her arms and fixed her eyes on the man with the clapperboard.

‘Don’t I even get an acknowledgement?’ De Vakey said.

‘Unfaithful bastard,’ she said through the corner of her mouth. ‘Did Wayne give you Vivienne’s message?’

‘He did.’ He hesitated. ‘You don’t need a wedding ring to be unfaithful, Stevie. My wife and I—’

‘I know, I know, she never understood you.’ She allowed a bitter pause. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence, De Vakey.’

‘Lights, camera, talent, action!’ The man with the clapperboard shouted.

Through sheer strength of will, Stevie put De Vakey to the back of her mind and stepped into the street as Linda Royce.

How had the murdered girl seen it? An eighteen-year-old would surely feel wary about being alone in the dark at this time, or was she now complacent? She might not have been jumping at shadows as she walked, or hugging the brick wall to keep out of the wind and the roar of traffic as Stevie was now. Her thoughts were probably miles away from danger, thinking about the shoot. Had the photographer been pleased with her, had her make-up been okay? Maybe she’d been preoccupied with thoughts of her boyfriend, their skiing holiday and the money they’d saved.

Wispy fingers of fog tickled at Stevie’s face as she walked. Last Sunday had been clear, but now it was like seeing everything through gauze. Even the orange of the streetlights seemed muffled. Linda wouldn’t have had to take such careful footsteps. The lumps and bumps of the footpath would have been more obvious, the city buildings more defined, the lights of the passing traffic not so blurred.

God but her shoes were killing her. She stooped to loosen one of the faux leopard-skin straps. As she straightened, she shivered and pulled her cardigan closer to her body. Was he watching her now?

She smelled Joshua Cuthbert before she saw him. He was leaning into the arch in the wall where De Vakey had discovered the discarded bottle. After a moment she heard his footsteps shuffling behind her and risked a glance back. He stopped walking when he came to a rubbish skip, squatted on his haunches and began to roll a cigarette. This must have been his vantage point the previous Sunday: the killer would never have known he was there.

Stevie reached the bus stop without incident and lingered there for some minutes as per instructions. Then, exchanging thumbs up with the film crew as if it was a wrap, she took off her shoes and replaced them with the trainers she’d left on the bus stop bench.

It was comforting to be herself again; the re-enactment stage was over, let the games begin. She held her breath and walked to the mouth of the alleyway. Was he here? Had he already separated himself from the crowd to wait for her here in the shadows? De Vakey’s voice echoed unwelcome in her head.
A female police officer, this could be just the challenge he’s after.
She remembered the flush of animation as he spoke and then Tye’s words, worse because they were the verbalisation of her own irrational suspicions.
Maybe it takes one to know one, have you thought about that?
A shiver scampered up her backbone.

She turned into the alley. It was long, narrow and dark, with little illumination filtering in from the main street. With visibility so poor her ears strained for any incongruous sound. Even her muted footsteps sounded loud as they bounced back at her from the walls. The putrid smell of garbage mingled with the fog and the smoke of her breath. Her pace slowed as she tried to see past the shadows of empty crates and garbage bins.

A noise, the clanking of tin.

A rat scampered for safety into the shadows. ‘Shit,’ she exhaled into her collar mike.

She skirted an overflowing drain, only to slap into another puddle; oily water sloshed around her feet and splashed a riffling newspaper. The end of the alley was in sight now. The lights were getting brighter and she could see the street ahead clearly now.

Almost safe.

She wasn’t sure what came first, the hand on her arm or the click of the spotlight. Whatever, she reacted on sheer instinct, slamming her elbow into her assailant’s side then pivoting around to smack him on the side of his face with her weighted handbag. At the same time something resembling a dead animal was loosed from his head and sent flying across the breadth of the alleyway.

In the blur of confusion and bright lights, police in tactical response gear stepped out from the shadows. Angus appeared, talking on a radio, calling an end to the procedure.

Stevie’s cry of surprise rapidly turned into a night-shattering cackle, part relief and part sheer delight. She doubled over, consumed by howling gulps of laughter, not even trying to stifle what everyone would think was an overreaction to the stress of the re-enactment. Then Barry saw it and joined her with his own guffaws. Even Angus couldn’t suppress a smile as he scooped the dislodged toupee from a puddle of water.

Stevie’s gaze turned to her ‘assailant’. James De Vakey was rubbing his jaw. He gingerly reached for his head, his expression of shock turning into one of embarrassed horror.

She was gripped by another fit of laughter. Even with her eyes closed, she could still see printed in her mind the meagre fringe of hair and the gleam of the spotlight on the extensive bald patch.

‘That was a foolish thing to do,’ Angus said, hauling him to his feet and handing him his dripping accessory. De Vakey snatched the hairpiece from his hand and quickly pocketed it. ‘You of all people should have known how tense she would be in this situation.’

De Vakey rubbed the side of his head, keeping his eyes focused on the ground. ‘I thought it was over. I wanted to make sure she was okay.’

Stevie had never expected to hear De Vakey so rebuked or sound so embarrassed. She turned on her heel. They might not have caught the killer tonight but at least she’d accomplished something. The thought filled her with a satisfying warmth. Who was it that said that revenge was best served cold?

As she made her way back up Wellington Street with Angus, De Vakey called out, ‘Be careful, Stevie, he could still try, and it’ll be when you least expect it.’

Stevie made no reply. Only when she was sure she’d left her laughing fit in the alley did she trust herself to ask Angus how it all went.

‘The ABC director thinks the footage will be good. They’ll start showing it on TV tomorrow. Cuthbert doesn’t seem to have remembered anything, but someone else might. And as for the stake-out in the alley, well, it was worth a try, wasn’t it?’

Angus’s professional demeanour and his refrain from comment about the toupee almost started her off again. She grinned and nudged him in the ribs. ‘In more ways than one, eh?’

They’d just reached the tramp’s position by the skip when a blue Commodore pulled up alongside them. Baggly’s beady gaze slid down Stevie’s body in sync with his electronic side window.

‘Any luck?’ he asked.

Angus repeated what he’d told Stevie.

‘Good, it sounds as if the footage has come out well. We’ll need to scan the crowd shots carefully. Well done, Hooper.’ With an easy acceleration, his top-of-the-range Commodore purred away up the street.

At the same moment a mittened paw clawed at Angus’s coat sleeve. Angus looked at the derelict with uncharacteristic impatience; so far all he’d given them was a fast food bill.

‘That car, that car,’ Joshua Cuthbert said, pointing to Baggly’s disappearing taillights.

‘Well, what about it?’ Angus said.

‘Same car, different driver.’

Angus folded his arms and sighed.

The old man ignored Angus and said to Stevie, ‘I don’t know much love, but I know me cars.’

The investigator must examine the killer’s life within the context of cause and effect. Psychologists call this ‘Psychological determinism’.

De Vakey,
The Pursuit of Evil

The van headlights swept across Baggly’s driveway through a mist of rain. Monty shrank behind the hibiscus bush to avoid the sliding beams, grateful for the camouflage his army jacket provided. After his altercation with Keyes and Thrummel, he’d spent the night under the freeway bridge near the river, barefoot and semiconscious. The first thing he’d done on waking was to find a public phone and ring Stevie. Then he’d called Wayne, who told him about the APB. He’d hung up immediately, realising that for the moment he’d have to give his friends, including Stevie, a wide berth. Until he could prove his suspicions correct, anyone found helping him would be putting their careers on the line.

Next he’d made his way to Dot’s where he explained only enough to convince her to tell no one of his visit. She let him use her shower and gave him a set of her husband’s clothes.

The borrowed boots pinched and Monty was stiff and sore from waiting for Baggly to come home. His muscles screamed in protest as he struggled to maintain his crouch, anxious to discover the identity of the van’s driver.

At last the lights clicked off, the van door opened, and Justin stepped into the carport. Monty unfolded his stiffening limbs and stood up as Justin was putting his key to the front door. Then the crunch of gravel in the driveway alerted him to the arrival of another car. He ducked back behind the bush and watched as Justin tentatively approached the visitor. Despite the uncharacteristically dishevelled hairstyle, there was no mistaking the angles of the face and the long, lean figure of James De Vakey illuminated by the front porch light.

Monty heard Justin say, ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr De Vakey. I’m afraid Dad’s not home yet, he’s still busy with the reenactment.’ ‘It’s all right, Justin, it’s you I wanted to see.’ De Vakey’s shadow loomed over the younger man.

‘Me?’ Justin’s voice cracked.

De Vakey patted him on the shoulder. ‘I got the impression from you the other day that there was something you wanted to discuss with me, something more important than just signing your books.’

‘Oh, that, yes, maybe. But now isn’t really a good time. Dad could be home any minute.’

‘Well, I think this problem you wanted to discuss might involve him anyway, am I right? Let’s go inside, out of the rain. We need to talk.’

Monty decided to hover in the darkness a while longer. De Vakey’s psychic antennae must have picked up on a problem with Justin that might provide Monty with some of the answers he needed. And Justin would probably find De Vakey easier to spill to than himself. The man was a pro, after all.

He waited for the front door to close before extracting himself once more. A light came on in the front room and he glimpsed them behind the net curtains before Justin drew the heavier drapes. Moving towards the window Monty pressed his ear against the glass, but could hear only the occasional word. This was getting him nowhere. He had to find a way to get in.

Baggly’s security system proved to be almost non-existent. Within seconds Monty had crept around the house, tripped the back door lock with his credit card and tiptoed through the kitchen to the front hallway.

He’d never been in the superintendent’s home before and was surprised at the contrast between this and his office. Here were no cabinets of fine china, leather Chesterfields and antique furniture. The furnishings were old and faded, a collection of odds and ends that could have come from an op-shop. The house had an unlived-in feel, the slight chemical tang in the air reminiscent more of an institution than a home. He’d suspected earlier that the fruits of Baggly’s corruption were not those of material gain and now he saw it for himself.