Limbo (40 page)

‘Holy shit,’ Joy muttered.

Baz nodded in agreement. ‘His daughter, Callie, had been suffering from severe depression after the death of Keisha. According to Ronald, when he got out she was practically catatonic. When things didn’t improve with time they decided to move, get away from the memories, but apparently Callie told him the only thing that would make her better was to have her baby back and that’s when they hatched the plan to do the stick-up jobs to get the money together to buy a baby.’

Joy shook her head. ‘Why didn’t they just get her psychiatric help?
Clearly
she needed it.’

Baz glanced at Dash. ‘Guys like Ronald, career criminals, don’t trust doctors,’ Dash said. ‘They don’t trust a
nybody
in authority. They
certainly
don’t trust psychiatrists.’

‘So…’ Baz continued. ‘That night, they were heading to stick up the liquor store next to the Night Owl where Hailey had pulled in. They spied Isabella in the back seat before they even got to the shop and they thought — why the fuck not? They were brand new to the McAlester area so nobody would be suspicious over the sudden arrival of a baby, and her mother had abandoned her, so clearly
she
didn’t deserve her and therefore in their fucked-up minds, Isabella was better off with them. And Callie would be better off with Isabella.’

‘So it was completely random? Completely opportunistic?’ Joy asked.

‘Completely,’ Baz agreed. ‘But then Hailey saw them in the car and came running back and they knew she’d scream and they couldn’t kill her in the car park without drawing rather a lot of attention their way so they made her get in and drive. According to Ronald they were really just making it up on the fly at that point in time.’

Dash nodded. He could imagine what the panic must have been like then. ‘What happened next?’

‘Isabella woke up shortly after and started to scream, which put them all on edge. Hailey said she needed a feed so they made her get out and sit in the back and feed her. Apparently Hailey protested that it was dangerous to drive with Isabella unrestrained but with a shotgun shoved in her face she really didn’t have much choice.’

‘God,’ Joy shook her head. ‘Hailey must have been frantic.’

Baz nodded. ‘They rang Ronald’s wife who, by the way, is also being charged as an accomplice to the kidnapping and the murder, and told her the story and she drove to meet them at the place where Hailey’s vehicle was found. He said at that point they didn’t know what they were doing. They just knew they needed to get the baby home and Hailey was just an inconvenience they didn’t know what to do with at that point.’

‘But they kept her…so they must have figured it out?’ Dash said.

‘Yes. During the drive to McAlester they’d planned on getting rid of Hailey pretty quick but Isabella was really unsettled and of course her mother was the only one who
could
settle her and then when they got back home it was apparently Callie who insisted they keep Hailey for her breast milk. Apparently she’d been told by some very
helpful
people that if she’d only breastfed Keisha she wouldn’t have died from SIDS so she was paranoid and adamant that they needed Hailey. That
Keisha
needed to be breast fed for twelve months because that’s what all the research said.’

‘Jesus,’ Dash muttered. ‘What a clusterfuck.’

‘Yes. The plan was to have Hailey express and Callie would bottle-feed her the milk but Isabella wouldn’t take a bottle and her reflux played up really badly so they let Hailey breast-feed her. They kept Hailey locked in a room at the back of the shed that apparently used to be a storeroom cum office with an attached ensuite. They bought Isabella to her for her feeds. Hailey’s fingerprint are pretty much all over the room. There’s been an attempt to wipe them clean but…a room is a much bigger area than the inside of a car.’

‘So you have that physical evidence?’ Dash asked.

‘Hell yeah. We have a shit load of it.’

‘Was there a Grapes of Wrath poster on the bathroom window?’

Baz nodded. ‘Yep. It was an old placard that had been used at the local bookshop years before — the couple who ran it used to own the Hutchins Road property. Ronald said they just grabbed whatever was handy that night to make the bathroom window reasonably soundproof and they just left it there after they’d secured it better from the outside the next day.’

‘So what happened?’ Dash asked. ‘Why’d they suddenly kill Hailey?’

‘Ronald reckons that Hailey knew her usefulness was running out the older Isabella became, and just shy of her first birthday she actually attempted an escape when the door was accidentally left unlocked. She was found before she even stepped foot out of the shed but he said he knew then that she had to die. That she knew all their faces and if she ever got away it’d be all over red rover. So that night he bundled her in the boot of their car, shot her in the head, drove four hundred odd kilometres north and dumped her body on the side of the road.’

‘Which car?’ Dash asked, his policeman brain working overtime.

‘A blue Ford Falcon.’

‘That’s his car.’ Dash looked at Joy. ‘We saw him driving it.’

‘Yep. It’s been forensically tested — her blood’s all over the boot. Again, attempts to clean and mask the blood had been taken but…not good enough.’

‘Jesus. Why didn’t he just burn it?’ Dash asked.

Baz shrugged. ‘He couldn’t afford another one, I guess.’

‘He had forty thousand bucks,’ Joy said.

‘He was paranoid that the notes could be traced. He knew they’d be okay to use in an overseas black-market operation but domestically? He was too careful for that. And also, I honestly think, he thought they were never going to be found out. That the story was
so
far-fetched that nobody would believe it.’

Dash nodded. Amen to that. It
was
far-fetched.

‘And that’s it,’ Baz said, standing up as he drained the rest of his beer. Clearly, with all the big questions answered, he was done.

Dash stood too and extended his hand. There were things as a cop he yearned to know more about. The nitty gritty. But he guessed, one way or another over the following months with a pending trial and immense media interest, they’d all come to light.

‘Thanks for coming. We really appreciate it.’

Baz hesitated momentarily then slid his hand into Dash’s and they shook. He looked at Joy and nodded his head. ‘Thanks for your assistance,’ he said.

Dash gave Joy marks for not pointing out Baz’s complete hypocrisy and they both watched him leave.

‘Well,’ Joy said pushing off the desk and flopping down in the chair. ‘We weren’t that far off, were we?’

He laughed and shook his head. ‘No. We weren’t.’

‘And yet, it’s
soooo
bat-shit crazy.’

‘Yes.’

They smiled at each other and it took all of his willpower not to tell her he missed her. But he didn’t. They’d drawn a line and he understood it was his job to stay on his side of it.

For the next twenty minutes they talked over the case and what had been reported in the media and a bunch of other things like Katie and Eve and Joy’s job.

‘How’s Ralph and Simone?’ she asked, tipping her chin in the direction of the fish bowl, balancing her beer bottle in her lap.

Dash looked at his fish, who were suddenly separate entities after so long. ‘I think they’re taking a break from each other.’

Joy looked at him and there was something in her bottomless brown eyes that made him want to throw caution to the wind. He sat forward to say something. He didn’t know what. Just…anything.

But then the door opened again and he glared at the intruder impatiently. A man with a sleeping toddler in his arms stood in the doorway and it took a few seconds for Dash to realise it was Martin Richardson.

‘Oh, hi, sorry,’ Martin said, clearly concerned by the
fuck off
look on Dash’s face. ‘I can come back.’

Dash stood quickly. ‘No, come in,’ he said. ‘Martin, right? Have a seat.’

Joy almost choked on her beer as she looked over her shoulder.

‘Thank you, no, I won’t.’ He moved inside a little more. ‘She’s had a big day and is exhausted,’ he said, looking at a sound-asleep Isabella. ‘Are you Dashiell Dent?’

Dash nodded, his gaze going to the healthy-looking toddler he’d watched through a camera lens only a few days ago. ‘Yep.’

‘I was told by a Detective Sargent Barry Norman that you were responsible for the information that led to Isabella being found. I just wanted to…’ He paused, his voice cracking. ‘I just wanted to come by and thank you.’

Dash glanced at Joy. She shook her head at him almost imperceptibly. ‘Actually it was Joy,’ he said gesturing to her. ‘She came to me with some information and we went from there.’

Joy glared but stood anyway and faced Martin, her ass rubbing against the edge of his desk. ‘Hi,’ she said.

Martin frowned, obviously recognising her. ‘You’re the…woman from the funeral home.’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t understand…how did you know something about Hailey’s disappearance?’

‘I —’ She broke off and looked at Dash for help.

Obviously the cops hadn’t been forthcoming about a psychic being involved in the case and Dash knew Joy wasn’t comfortable with the term anyway. How did you explain what had happened to her?

‘Hailey’s ghost appeared to Joy at the funeral home, gave her some clues as to what had happened and where she’d been held. Then she bought them to me.’

Martin looked stunned. ‘You’re a…psychic?’ he asked Joy.

Dash saw Joy’s affront at the question in the rigid line of her body but she didn’t take it out on Martin. She just shook her head. ‘Not really. Occasionally…I guess.’

Martin looked at her for long moments then nodded. ‘I’m not here to judge you,’ he said. ‘I don’t care how it happened, I just care that you helped. In whatever way you could. You’ll
never
know —’ he stopped and rubbed his daughter’s back, ‘— how much that means to me.’

‘I promised Hailey,’ Joy said, her voice husky. ‘I couldn’t not.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Just…thank you.’

Isabella stirred then, lifting her head, frowning and grizzling in her half-awake state before settling again. ‘I’m sorry,’ Martin said. ‘She’s been through so much the last few days. I really should get her home to bed.’

Dash nodded. ‘Of course.’ He understood that imperative better than anyone.

‘Thank you again,’ Martin said, looking from one to the other. ‘To both of you.’

And then he turned and walked out the door and it was just them. Neither of them said anything for a long time.

‘I bet that gives you a good feeling,’ Dash murmured.

Joy nodded as she parked her butt on the desk and drained the rest of her drink in one long swallow, causing a hot leap somewhere in the vicinity of his groin.

‘It does,’ she said, plonking her bottle on the table. ‘It really does.’

‘Another?’

She eyed him for a few seconds and he felt like something important hung in the balance. ‘I think it’s safer to go home,’ she said eventually, pushing off the desk and heading for the door.

Dash nodded. He did too.

They’d made some good memories. But that’s all they’d ever be. A couple of memorable nights.

‘Don’t be a stranger, Joy Valentine,’ he said as she put her hand on the doorknob.

She looked over her shoulder at him and grinned. ‘Next time I have a ghostly mystery to solve you’ll be my first port of call.’

He grinned back. ‘I look forward to it.’

‘Which just makes you crazy.’

He laughed as she disappeared out the door.

She was his kind of crazy.

Two months later.

‘Joy!’ Stan exclaimed as he looked up from his two-finger keyboard typing over the top of black framed bifocals. It was as cosy as usual inside his crammed office. ‘Practise is still half an hour away, isn’t it?’

Joy smiled and nodded. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’m early. I wanted to…give you something.’

‘Oh now,’ he grinned, taking off his glasses and standing. ‘That sounds ominous.’

Joy laughed. ‘I don’t think you’ll think that,’ she said as she handed him the offering.

He took it off her, plonking his glasses back on and inspected it. ‘Joy?’ He peered over the top of his glasses again. ‘This is a quarter of a million dollars.’

She nodded. ‘It’s all yours.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘And how, pray tell, did you come across this much money?’

‘It’s a
looong
story,’ she dismissed with a wave of her hand.

Stan folded his arms. ‘I’ve got time.’

Joy sighed. She should have known Stan wouldn’t just blindly accept a massive donation from someone who looked like she shopped in the heavy metal section of St Vinnies.

‘You know Isabella Richardson?’

‘Yes.’

‘I was the information from the public,’ she said, making quote marks in the air.

‘Ah.’ He regarded her seriously for a moment. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

Joy shook her head. She didn’t. She wanted to chalk it up as one of life’s weird events and just get on with it. She thought she had. But then the cheque arriving in the mail had seen to that. She’d almost ripped it up and then she thought about Stan and all the good he was trying to do in the community.

The sign outside the Good Shepherd tonight said
Lost and found inside.
And she couldn’t think of anything more fitting to honour Hailey’s memory.

‘No. I want you to take it and do good things with it. And fix the damn pipe organ.’

‘Don’t you think you could do with this money?’

Joy shook her head. ‘It feels like…blood money. I gave my information freely because to not do so would have made me
less
somehow. I didn’t do it for a reward. So it’s yours and if you won’t take it then you can find someone else for your damn choir.’

He grinned at her. ‘Ooh, blackmailing a priest. You know you go to hell for that, right?’

‘Well I’m going there anyway, I might as well go down kicking.’

Stan sobered then. ‘No Joy Valentine, you’re not.’

And for the first time in a long time, Joy thought maybe she wasn’t either.