Blood Feud (13 page)

“Don’t move. Police,” I reminded, in case they’d forgotten in the last ten seconds since I’d first said it. I’d never wanted the Sarge by my side more than I did right then. My heart pounded. “Stay back, Kevin.”

But now having tasted the Tess Fuller style of policing, of course he ignored me. As I neared the porch, my flashlight picked up the twin dish-sized eyes of a terrified animal. I laughed in relief. A possum! It was nothing but a possum.

I took the stairs to the porch. “Go on. Off with you, little fella,” I shooed softly, ushering the possum away. It didn’t need a second warning, but turned tail and fled, not realising how close it had come to being target practice.

I twisted back to joke with Kevin about brave cops and frightened possums, or maybe even
vice versa,
when the back door crashed open and someone barged through the doorway, elbowing me roughly in the chest and knocking me off balance. The figure ran down the stairs bowling Kevin flat onto his back and tearing off towards the fence.

“Hey!” I shouted, struggling to my feet. My gun had flown out of my hands to land on the ground somewhere. I thumped down the stairs, leaping over Kevin, following the shadow that disappeared over the fence into the night.

I hoisted myself up on the fence, sweeping the useless beam of my flashlight over the tangle of trees beyond, trying to pinpoint the precise direction of the person I could hear crashing through the encroaching bushland. But it was hopeless. At night, sounds deceived the senses. I couldn’t tell where the intruder had gone. I’d lost them.

“No,” I moaned to myself, sinking to the ground in a crouch, leaning up against the rotting fence and covering my face with my hands.

“Tess?” asked a hesitant voice. “Are you all right?”

I looked up at Kevin. “No, I’m not all right. I’ve screwed up again. The Super’s going to kill me. Or fire me. Or maybe something even worse.”

“But it wasn’t your fault. Who could predict that was going to happen?”

“Kevin, what did I say before about the Super? She really doesn’t care what excuse we give for a screw up. An unauthorised person has been inside this crime scene for the second time in twenty-four hours.” I peered up at him. “Don’t you get it? That could have been the murderer. And I let him escape. Of course the Super’s going to rip me an even newer one.”

I pulled out my phone and punched in the Sarge’s number. Straight to voicemail again. Fed up by his lack of response, I jumped to my feet. I didn’t care about his personal problems – he was a sworn officer and had a duty to serve, no matter how inconvenient it was for his love life.

“Come on, Kevin. We’re going to the Sarge’s place. I’m not entering that house without him here too. If I’m going to get another bollocking, then so is he.”

I marched to the Land Rover, barely allowing Kevin time to join me before I sped off, my mood every bit as gloomy as the darkness surrounding us.

Chapter 9

There were no lights on at the police house when we arrived. I ran up the stairs and banged on the door, pricked by a momentary stab of guilt. The Sarge had few booty calls from Melissa as it was, so for me to potentially be interrupting one was an act of sheer cruelty. But I couldn’t help it – that was life as a small town cop. And he was supposedly on-call, after all.

A couple of minutes passed before the Sarge answered the door, blinking with tiredness, his hair a curling mess. He was shirtless and barefoot, wearing only long cotton pyjama pants, which he’d probably hurriedly just pulled on. He became more alert when he saw it was me.

“Tessie. What’s the matter?”

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” I demanded hotly. “People have been ringing you all night.”

“Sorry. I had things to sort out with Melissa and I guess I forgot to turn it back on again. What’s going on?”

“There was someone inside Miss G’s house tonight. I think it was a man. Kevin, do you agree?” Kevin nodded. “He ran out of the house, knocking us both over, before climbing over the back fence and disappearing into the bushland.”

The Sarge ran his hands through his hair, the movement clenching his stomach muscles into tense relief. He swore under his breath. “The Super’s going to kill you.”

“No,” I corrected tartly. “She’s going to kill
us
. You’re the one on-call this weekend. You should have caught the call-out, not me.”

A sheepish expression crossed his face. “Sorry.” Then, as if he’d just properly noticed the young man with me, “You didn’t take Kevin with you on a night call-out, did you?”

“I didn’t exactly ‘take’ him. He just sort of tagged along. And besides, you’re the one who told me not to do night call-outs on my own,” I reminded him, and then to rub it in some more, “And
you
weren’t answering your phone, so Kevin volunteered to come with me instead.”

He didn’t apologise again. I guess I’d made my point.

“What was this man doing inside? Interfering with the crime scene?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t go inside. I wanted you to come with me before I went in.”

He sighed. “Okay, give me a few minutes to get dressed.”

We waited in the hallway while he went back inside his bedroom, not quite fully closing the door behind him. Melissa’s voice, querulous and raised, instantly floated through the gap, met with the Sarge’s quiet but firm voice. Kevin and I exchanged a quick glance before looking away, both of us embarrassed to be witness to further domestic trouble between the engaged couple.

When he exited the room, he was dressed in jeans, runners and a hoodie too, his utility belt around his hips, his face grim and unsmiling. Melissa, one of the bed sheets wrapped around her, poked her head around the doorway. Her long dark brown hair was tangled with sleep and her large brown eyes flashing with anger.

“I mean it, Finn,” she snapped. “If you leave me alone, I’m driving back to the city first thing tomorrow morning.”

He didn’t turn back to her. “Come on. Let’s go,” he instructed us, striding to the door.

“Finn! Don’t you
dare
leave me alone!” she shrieked. “I did not come all this way to be ignored!”

He opened the door and stepped outside, Kevin following close behind.

Melissa fixed her furious eyes on me. “What the hell is your problem anyway? Every time I come here you turn up in the middle of the night and drag Finn away from me. Can’t you leave us alone for five minutes? I’m starting to think you’re doing it on purpose because you’re jealous of our relationship.”

Biting back a sharp retort to that absurd comment, I silently slipped out the front door after the Sarge. I closed the door, cutting off her continuing invective, leaving her to rant loudly to herself.

We piled into the patrol car, the Sarge spinning the tyres in the gravel, he took off so fast. It was a quiet drive back to Miss G’s place, the Sarge fuming and uncommunicative, Kevin horribly embarrassed and probably wishing he was in his car speeding back to the city himself. I was angry, not just at Melissa’s jibe about being jealous, but at her lack of support and understanding for the Sarge. Didn’t she realise that it was not just his job to respond to call-outs, it was his sworn duty? And didn’t she also realise that he was a man who took his duties in life seriously?

I wasn’t sure whether to say anything or not, so tried to break the silence with a hesitant, “I’m sorry for causing any trouble, Sarge. Maybe I should have just dealt with it myself.”

His eyes flicked my way and returned to the road. “No, you did the right thing. I meant it when I said I don’t want you doing night call-outs by yourself.” Kevin coughed discreetly. “Or accompanied by inexperienced recruits who seem to be picking up bad policing habits from you already.”

He pulled into Miss G’s driveway and once again we ducked under the tape and headed up around the back of the house, our path now lit by the powerful beams of our police torches. At the back steps, he stopped and handed me a pair of thin police issue disposable gloves, slipping a pair on his own hands.

“Kevin, you stay here outside. The less people trampling around the house, the better.”

The nervous expression that flitted across the young man’s face at that command made me speak up. “Sarge, we can’t leave Kevin outside. There might be a murderer on the loose out here. Give him a pair of gloves and let him come inside too. He knows not to interfere with anything.”

He fastened his eyes on mine. “Tessie . . .”

“Please, Sarge?”

“It’s not a good idea.”

“We can’t leave him outside,” I wheedled. “What if something happens to him?”

“I promise I won’t touch anything, Sergeant Maguire.”

“Please, Sarge?”

He sighed again in resignation and knuckled me gently on the chin. “Why do I let you talk me into things that are only going to get me in trouble later?”

I smiled up at him. “Because it makes life more exciting?”

He rolled his eyes and tossed Kevin a pair of gloves. When he switched on the kitchen light, it became immediately apparent what our intruder had been up to – helping himself to Miss G’s fridge and pantry. Added to the detritus we’d discovered yesterday was now an empty tin of tomato soup, four discarded paper cupcake cases and a mostly eaten packet of sour cream and chives flavoured chips. Two drained and crushed cans of cola had been thrown on the floor.

“Someone with the midnight munchies?” I wondered aloud, carefully stepping over the cans.

The Sarge squatted down next to one and examined it closely. “I can see greasy fingerprints all over it. This guy doesn’t care about being identified.”

“So weird. I mean,
everyone
knows not to leave fingerprints behind. This guy must be confident his aren’t on file.”

“Or he just doesn’t care,” repeated the Sarge, standing up again. “Let’s do a quick reccy on the rest of the house.”

We moved down the hallway, flicking on lights as we went.

“Can you smell that?” he asked.

“Cigarette smoke?”

“Yep. It seems he had time enough to smoke a couple of cigarettes.”

At the threshold of the bathroom, I called out to him. “Our Goldilocks looks as though he’s been in here too. Oh yuck! I think he used Miss G’s toothbrush.”

I screwed up my nose and pointed to where it lay untidily on the bench top, the lid not replaced on its neighbouring tube of toothpaste. It certainly hadn’t been like that yesterday.

“Our Goldilocks obviously isn’t as fussy as the one in the fairytale,” he noted dryly, heading towards the front of the house. “The dees should be happy about the amount of DNA he’s left behind. This crime’s going to solve itself.”

“Good,” I said abruptly, knowing I’d never erase that vision of Miss G in her bed from my mind. It was bound to bubble away in my subconscious, surfacing in the form of regular nightmares.
One more to add to my selection
, I thought wearily.

“Tessie, you have to see this,” the Sarge said from the door to Miss G’s bedroom.

I squeezed into the doorway with him, a bit of a tight fit considering how tall and big he was. Kevin peered curiously over my shoulder.

“Oh boy, that’s so creepy,” I said softly.

“Holy guacamole!” goggled Kevin.

Written in dripping red foot-high letters across an entire wall were three sentences.

THE DEMON IS REDEEMED.

THE ANGEL IS SERVED.

PEACE WILL BE MY REWARD.

“Is that written in blood?” asked Kevin, and I didn’t think his eyes could grow any bigger without exploding altogether.

The Sarge stepped into the bedroom and approached the graffiti. He leaned in close and scrutinised it, before sniffing at it. “It’s paint. Acrylic paint, by the smell of it.” He searched around the room, bending to pick up a discarded empty tube of paint and a dirty paintbrush.

“What do you think it means?” I queried.

He shrugged, leaning back with his hands on his hips, inspecting the whole wall. “Who knows? Maybe it’s some kind of joke. Did your man look like a Bycraft?”

“Definitely not.”

He twisted his upper body to make eye contact with me. “Tessie, you can’t be that positive. It’s quite dark tonight and he rushed at you.”

I lifted my chin. “It wasn’t a Bycraft. And anyway, none of them can spell that well.”

“True,” he conceded, turning back to face the wall. “Well, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m stumped. Let’s hope the dees can work it out. I’ll ring them first thing in the morning. I doubt if I could muster enough interest from them to convince anyone to return here tonight.”

“You’re not going to ring the Super?”

“No way! I’m not putting myself in her line of fire. Let her find out from the dees. They’re the ones tasked with the investigation, not us.”

We made a cursory search of the rest of the house, but there were no further signs of disturbances. It appeared as though Goldilocks had broken in, shared a few reflective but enigmatic thoughts with us all in paint, brushed his teeth and stuffed his face with food. None of us would ever now know what else he might have done if I hadn’t interrupted him.

I knew every person in this town and I couldn’t fathom the identity of our mysterious intruder. With the house secured again and back in the patrol car, Kevin and I tried to describe him as accurately as possible, considering our brief acquaintance with him.