Bitter Wash Road (22 page)

‘Next right,’ Latimer said.

Hirsch made the turn onto Bitter Wash Road, watched by a cow. Almost noon and he was starving. No rain for the past week and so for the next several kilometres, dust poured behind him and the steering wheel transmitted the surface corrugations to his hands. Then they were in the shadow of the wind turbines again, and shortly after that Latimer was pointing to his driveway entrance.

‘Coming home to an empty house,’ he said, drawing his palms down his stubbled cheeks, a picture of desolation.

‘Your father and the boys at the Jamestown air show?’

‘They headed over there yesterday, after the game,’ Latimer said. ‘I’ve got an aunt lives there.’

The old man’s complicit in the son’s philandering, thought Hirsch. The gravel complained under the tyres as Hirsch followed the track between the lawn beds, shrubs and silvery gums. He pulled in opposite the flagstones leading to the veranda steps and the front door, and saw that the door was ajar. He touched the man’s forearm, registering briefly strength and warmth through the creased cotton. ‘Did you leave your place open yesterday?’

‘What?’

Latimer glanced wildly at the door and was out and powering towards the house before Hirsch could stop him. Up the steps and through the door. Oh, fuck, thought Hirsch, following him, but also thinking there’d be a vehicle if burglars were still on the premises. He paused on the veranda, hearing Latimer stomping around inside, and glanced across to the sheds, the yards, the paddocks.

And there was a glint, sunlight flashing on a windscreen, down along the creek. Hirsch shaded his eyes. How would you get a vehicle down there? Was there an access gate, a farm track?

He stuck his head in, called to Latimer: ‘Anything? Damage, things missing?’

‘Gun case is open. The twenty-two’s missing.’

Hirsch recalled that there were two .22 rifles: the Ruger used by the kids and the Brno in the gun case. So the Ruger was still floating around somewhere, still stowed on the window shelf of the ute, probably. That’s what Hirsch was thinking as he trotted across the yard and slid between the wires of the fence. He spotted fresh tyre impressions in the grass, and realised there was a farm track concealed under the spring growth. The track ran beside the fence and then down an incline to the creek, and now Hirsch had a clearer view: the Tin Hut, some ancient quince, apricot and mulberry trees. The small clearing where Alison Latimer had parked her Subaru.

He side-slipped down the bank to the edge of the creek. Reaching the car, he looked in: empty, a suitcase in the back, keys in the ignition. He straightened and ran his gaze in among the fruit trees, down into the reeds and pools of the creek, and finally over the rusted hut. He felt spooked, a shiver rippling over him as he approached the hut and came around the end wall.

He found Alison Latimer slumped against the rusted tin, half-toppled with a rifle butt between her thighs, her thumb caught in the trigger guard. The barrel tip had been in her mouth, he guessed, but she’d jerked as she died. It was not the Ruger but the Brno. No exit wound; blood over her chin and inside her shirt front. The ultimate stillness of death.

Hirsch had seen it before. But he advanced cautiously, keeping close to the undisturbed grass scratching the wall, and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Some residual warmth, so death had been no more than a few hours ago. He reversed his steps and took a series of photographs with his phone, keeping wide of the body. He had maybe a minute before Latimer arrived. Half an hour before Kropp and the doctor and everyone else arrived.

He started with a series of establishing shots of the hut, the grove of trees, the car and the creek. Then, closing in on the body, he photographed the dirt and the grass around it, the feet and legs, the rifle, the ring-less hands holding it, the bloodied chest, and Alison Latimer’s head. Then the same sequence but side-on, first the left flank, then the right, as Latimer came pounding down from the track above.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

Said a moment before the penny dropped. He skidded to a stop. ‘What the hell?’

Hirsch put a hand to the farmer’s chest. ‘Mr Latimer, you can’t—’

Latimer was full of trembling potency. ‘She might still be alive.’

‘I’m afraid she’s not, Mr Latimer,’ Hirsch said, maintaining the pressure, waiting him out.

Slowly the quivering chest relaxed. Latimer stepped back, mouth open in shock. ‘What am I going to do?’ He took a ragged breath and said, ‘How do I tell the boys?’

Hirsch turned him away. ‘First I need to call it in, and then I’ll help you phone your friends and neighbours.’

‘How do I tell the boys?’

‘What time do you expect your father home?’

Latimer was slow, dull, staring at the ground. ‘Late afternoon,’ he said, rallying. ‘He’ll have his phone with him.’

They returned to the house, slipping and sliding on the grassy bank, Latimer babbling about his life now, the boys, emptiness and what might have been. ‘She was going to come home, I know she was.’

Hirsch tuned him out. He trudged across the yard, a hand on Latimer’s elbow. He felt mud paste to the sole of his shoes; there was a smear of it on one toe cap and his trouser cuffs.

And Alison Latimer’s white runners had been pristine.

And the beautiful diamond ring: had she taken it off? A tidying act, or a gesture of meaning from a woman about to kill herself?

~ * ~

19

KROPP ARRIVED FIRST, asked for a rundown and elbowed Hirsch aside, then Dr McAskill appeared and pronounced death, and Andrewartha and Nicholson showed up with crime-scene tape and hangovers. Meaning Jennifer Dee was holding the fort in Redruth, Hirsch thought. All he could do was stand back and watch his crime scene—incident scene—be trampled over.

Then Kropp, still in management mode, began stalking up and down the creek bank, muttering into his mobile phone. Forty minutes later a hearse arrived, ready to cart the body away, followed by a flat-bed truck,
Redruth Automotive
scrolled across each door. Hirsch watched it back up to the Subaru, two men hopping out, drawing on heavy gloves.

‘Sarge, what are you doing?’

‘What do you mean, what am I doing?’

‘We need to preserve everything. We need crime-scene people here.’

‘What does this look like to you? Suicide. A tragedy. No one needs to see it. I know the protocol, mister, I’ve called in Port Pirie CIB, they’ll be here within the hour, and meanwhile that bloody car’s in the way.’

‘But Sarge.’

Kropp cocked his head. Hirsch heard it, too, a background rumble of vehicles.

‘Get up there and make yourself useful,’ Kropp said. ‘Make sure no one wanders down here for a look see.’

Clambering up to the fence above the Tin Hut, Hirsch saw that a dozen cars, station wagons, utilities and four-wheel-drives had poured in off Bitter Wash Road to jostle for room around the house and sheds. Jesus Christ. He began to run. Clearly some kind of phone tree had been set in motion this past hour, neighbour phoning neighbour phoning football club member, churchgoer and Country Women’s Association crony, and here they were, bringing cakes and casseroles and hugs and tears and nosiness.

And—if Alison Latimer had been killed at the house— trampling over a crime scene.

More cars arrived. Hirsch barged through the front door. But it was useless. At least thirty people were crowding the hallway, kitchen and sitting room, with more on the veranda or climbing out of their cars. ‘Excuse me,’ he said futilely.

He went in search of Raymond Latimer, finding him in a huddle with a dozen other people, enduring their embraces but aware of Hirsch, watching warily. Hirsch couldn’t get through. He gestured; Latimer ignored him. And then the crowd moved and reformed and wouldn’t budge, Latimer disappeared and Kropp was there, panting with effort, grabbing Hirsch by the arm. “The fuck are you doing?’

‘We’re losing evidence, Sarge.’

Kropp dragged him through the room and out onto the lawn. ‘What evidence? You’re upsetting people. Get your arse back down to the creek.’

‘Sarge,’ Hirsch said, and backed away, watching Kropp apologise and shake hands.

~ * ~

When the sergeant had
merged fully with the crush of people, Hirsch made as if to head for the creek. Walking until he was screened by a clump of oleanders, he doubled back and entered the house by the laundry door. Another door led to the kitchen, where half a dozen women were getting in each other’s way. ‘Need a quick word with Sergeant Kropp,’ said Hirsch amiably, not stopping to gauge their reactions but bustling by them to the hallway.

The door to the main bedroom was slightly ajar. He slipped through the gap and paused and scanned the room. Latimer hadn’t made the bed; dirty clothes lay heaped on the floor and a chair; the wardrobe doors were open, drawers spilling socks and T-shirts. Only a few traces of Alison Latimer remained. Hirsch crossed to the left-hand bedside table. Nestled in a dusty patterned dish were Alison Latimer’s rings: wedding ring and the engagement ring he’d noticed the day he met her.

Hirsch returned to the hallway. He left via the kitchen. He wasn’t challenged.

~ * ~

He was halfway across
the yard when he saw the Subaru. It had been dumped beside a haystack beyond the sheds. Hirsch was fed up with it all. He stumped out of the yard and was almost to the creek when he changed his mind and returned. This time he lifted the Subaru’s tailgate and unzipped the lid of the case. Women’s clothing. Badly folded, which meant a lot or nothing at all. There was no reason to suppose Alison Latimer had been a neat person. No twelve-year-old boy’s clothing. Hirsch closed everything and headed for the creek.

~ * ~

The hearse drivers sat
in the sun, smoking. McAskill was still bent over the body, and when he finally eased her away from the wall for the hearse drivers, she moved like a sack of disobliging logs.

Feeling Andrewartha and Nicholson give him the evil eye from the edge of the tape, Hirsch wandered down along the creek. It was a pretty spot for a house and orchard, except that it gave him the creeps. And he supposed it was prone to flooding, that’s why the Latimer ancestors had moved to higher ground. Why had Alison Latimer come down here to die? Was it special to her? He gazed at the lichen, the fruit trees choking themselves to death, the choked rushes and hoof-trampled muddy verges. A good place to die.

He took out his phone, found a number in the contacts list, and dialled.

A voice lashed at his back: ‘Who are you calling?’

Hirsch whirled around. Kropp, slithering down the grassy slope. ‘Sarge, we need to take Mrs Latimer’s car to the lab.’

‘Do we?’

‘I think so, Sarge.’

‘The poor cow shot herself. I’m sick of this,’ Kropp said. ‘I want you to piss off back to Tiverton in case someone reports a stolen lawnmower.’

‘Sarge.’

‘Dog,’ murmured Andrewartha and Nicholson. ‘Maggot.’

~ * ~

Alison’s parents, thought Hirsch
when he reached the top. Everyone’s wringing their hands over the husband and the boys, but what about her parents, her friends?

The yard being choked with mourners’ vehicles, Hirsch was forced to steer a slow weave out of the yard, dodging a bulk fuel tank, heaped pine posts, haphazardly parked cars and utes. He was halted by a blue heeler, prone in a dusty pool of sunlight. He stopped; looked at the dog; willed it to move. Then he brapped the horn, and when that didn’t work, got out, grabbed the dog by its collar and walked it to another patch of dirt.

Climbed back into the HiLux and bumped along the driveway and immediately onto the lawn as a black Explorer shot in, followed by an unmarked Falcon, on a mission. He didn’t recognise the suits in the Falcon but guessed they were the Port Pirie detectives, big men filling their seats and staring at him with the flat odium of policemen. But he did recognise the man at the wheel of the Explorer: the area commander, Superintendent Spurling. As he waited for the dust to settle, Hirsch thought his irrelevance was pretty much fully underscored now. He steered back onto the driveway, out through the gate and onto Bitter Wash Road.

It gave him a curious jolt to see Wendy Street standing beside her car in the driveway of the house with the faded red roof. The boot was open, stacked with bags of mulch, one bag out and in a wheelbarrow beside a narrow strip of unforgiving soil. She stopped what she was doing and gazed at him, and even at some distance he felt the force of her frankness, as if she’d caught him acting discreditably.

So he steered into her driveway, lifting his hand in greeting. ‘Lot of cars,’ she said when he got out, showing a little tension.

She doesn’t know, Hirsch realised. No one has phoned her. He removed his cap and turned it absently in his hands. ‘Afraid I’ve got some bad news.’

One hand went to her throat and she said, instantly, ‘Allie? He’s killed her, hasn’t he?’

Interesting. Hirsch agreed that Alison Latimer was dead, but wrapped it up in some mealy-mouthed cop talk, finishing with, ‘There’s no reason to suppose it was anything other than self-inflicted.’

‘Fuck off,’ Street spat, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Beside the Tin Hut? No. She hated it there.’