Only the Dead (18 page)

‘The driver and passenger doors were both open.’

He clucked his tongue and nodded. ‘That’s what I said.’

‘Okay. So after the car drove away what happened?’

‘All quiet for a couple of minutes. I was still sort of peeping
through my curtains, and I could see up and down the street, every man and his dog doing the exact same thing. I tell you, every place you looked, someone looking through a wrinkled curtain. Like some sort of dead man’s peep show. I dunno. But I got hold of the phone and gave the police a ring, and nobody’s going outside to check if these poor guys on the porch are actually okay because the guy on the phone at the police is telling people to stay inside and keep back from the windows. So I guess I scored fifty per cent on that.’

‘How long did it take the police to arrive?’

‘Not long. They did a pretty cautious job of it. There were a couple of cars parked way off down the street, blocking it off I s’pose. You could just kind of see the red-blue-red-blue of the lights going back and forth. Then some chaps in fatigues scooted over fences and started drawing in closer. Had one of them in here, aiming a gun out the window. Had it propped up against the back of the chair. Asked the fella if he wanted a cup of tea or something, and he said to me, fairly sharp too, “If I need anything, I’ll let you know.” Like it was a hotel or something. Tickled me pink. Susan wouldn’t have had any of that lip, if she was still around, I tell you. Jesus.’ He took a gentle hit off his pipe. ‘Anyway, I found myself another window and laid up there. Big guy in a suit turned up maybe fifteen minutes later, I guess. Pulled up at the kerb and just walked into the yard, wary, but kind of nonplussed at the same time, you know? Checked the pulse of the guys sprawled out there, one then the other, and then he went into the house for a moment, but he came back out fairly smartly and stood out there on the kerb with his hands on his hips. And, damn me, if he wasn’t thinking this was one hell of a mess. Damned if he wasn’t right too.’

‘What did he look like?’ Duvall said.

The guy moved his tongue round his cheek, like searching
for taste more than memory. ‘I ain’t much good on the details from this range. But I’d say he’d be around your age. Great big guy, ramrod-straight.’

Don McCarthy, no question. Duvall ran some closing questions: Had the address seen any prior trouble? Did he know the owner of the house? Did he witness any arrivals at the house the day before the shooting occurred? He got three unhesitant No’s.

Duvall smiled. ‘Police ask you anything that I haven’t?’

The guy chuckled. ‘Maybe. But blow me if I can remember.’

‘Thanks for your time.’

‘Pleasure. Most horrific thing I ever seen while eating toast and marmalade, I tell you.’

He took another puff off his pipe, and Duvall let himself out.

He needed food, and thinking space.

He headed south and east and stopped at a Denny’s in New Lynn. It was busy with the breakfast rush, but he claimed a table for four and fanned his file contents. The booth offered nominal privacy. With a bit of luck, paperwork would deter company. He found a pen and outlined the morning’s progress:
six a.m. shots fired/truck in yard (panic skid?)/house owner unknown/gold car getaway post-shooting
.

He flagged a passing waitress and ordered coffee and a toasted sandwich. A mental red light told him his savings might not appreciate the hit, so he cancelled the sandwich. Caffeine would have to do.

He flipped through his file and appended another note:
Both doors on truck left open
. So what? He couldn’t see the relevance at this stage. He re-read his news clippings. It had reached the point where he almost had them memorised verbatim.

He tried for a chronology. The lawn tread marks indicated
the truck had pulled in off the road and skidded to a stop. Both doors open, implying a driver and at least one other passenger. So did they come in off the street and just start shooting? The bullet damage to the front of the house seemed to indicate they did. But why fire before they were inside? It didn’t make a lot of sense to shoot before they were through the door. Unless there was some body standing outside on the porch.

Too many unknowns. He closed the file as the waitress brought his coffee. It had slopped over the rim and left a thin tan film in the saucer.

Gold car getaway post-shooting
.

There was nothing definite linking the gold car to the mass homicide further up the street. Could have been an idle commuter’s poor timing. But the guys from the truck had to have left somehow: it reeked of a last-minute exit.

He drank some coffee and thought about it. On Monday his theory to Don McCarthy had been the house was used for witness protection. Meaning the occupants of the address would have been maybe one witness, plus a team of either two or three cops. McCarthy hadn’t denied it. He’d more or less told him to keep it to himself.

So what happened?

Say it’s six a.m. The house is being staked out by the two guys in the truck. They see someone at the target address step outside, they decide to move in. They skid into the front yard and shoot whoever’s standing out front on the porch. They gain entry through the front and take down whoever’s inside. They spend a moment or two indoors, then leave the scene.

He sipped more coffee.

The truck wouldn’t make a good getaway vehicle. So they’d ditched it, and presumably been picked up. Which was potentially where the gold car came into it.

He drained the cup and placed it on the seat beside him to free up space.

So it’s a dual stakeout: the guys in the truck are watching from one angle, the guy in the gold car’s got everything pinned down from another. The guys in the truck move in. The gold car driver holds his ground, collects the guys from the truck a moment later. Cue a clean getaway.

Duvall jotted
gold car driver
and boxed it in with a fierce border of ballpoint. It felt like progress. He gathered the file and paid for his coffee. He asked the girl at the counter for directions to the nearest payphone. He got a shy smile and a shrug. Public phones were nearing extinction.

He wandered the shopping centre. A shower had passed through during breakfast. The pavement radiated hot bitumen aroma. He found a booth one block over on Memorial Square. It had a copy of the Auckland residential White Pages, burn marks on one corner the only sign of abuse. Still serviceable. He propped his folder above the console and made a quick flip-through.

Constable Ian Riley, dead by gunshot, Monday January thirtieth.

His old journo contact Robert Davis had given him the name the night before. He hoped Riley wasn’t too common a name. Ring-and-hope approaches were effective provided they didn’t take all week. He flipped through to R. Auckland boasted a one-page column of Rileys. This could take a while.

He fed the phone his credit card and worked down the list. He had a concise greeting mentally rehearsed: introduce himself as a private investigator and ask if he was speaking to a relative of the late Ian Riley.

He got five ‘No’s’ in a row. Monosyllabic answers made for quick phone work. He tried the next Riley on the list.
No answer. He got three more no-pickups. Admittedly, mid-morning on a weekday wasn’t an ideal time to catch people at home. He persevered and got an alternating sequence of no’s and no answers. The thought of the phone patiently nibbling his credit card balance kept things snappy. He tried the next Riley on the list. An elderly woman answered.

‘Madam, I’m a licensed private investigator named Mitchell Duvall. I wonder whether I’m speaking with a relative of the late Constable Ian Riley?’

He got a long stretch of quiet on the line. It felt like progress. ‘What is this about?’ the woman said.

Duvall laid on the manners: ‘Madam, I’m currently investigating a shooting that occurred back on the thirtieth of January, and I understand Constable Riley was a victim.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘I’m sorry; you say you’re a relative?’

‘I’m his mother.’

‘I see. Would you be available at all today to meet with me and perhaps answer some questions?’

‘Yes, I think I would.’

‘What time would suit you?’

‘Well, I’m here all day, so whatever time suits you will suit me, I suppose.’

She put down the phone.

W
EDNESDAY
, 15 F
EBRUARY
, 9.28
A.M
.

D
evereaux rang in and had his regular duties reassigned. He didn’t cite a reason for absence. Nobody queried him. Maybe nobody cared. Or maybe news had already broken of his dust-up with Don McCarthy.

He dialled John Hale’s office. Hale caught it on the first ring.

‘That was quick.’

Hale said, ‘I don’t like to leave paying clients waiting.’

‘You going to be in the office this morning?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I’m coming for a visit.’

‘Good.’

It was a slow drive into town. February heat left traffic sluggish. Every passing car brought a windscreen flash of high sun. To his right a flat ocean nudged gently on the high-tide mark. Above it the inert bronzed forms of UV revellers, prone and gleaming in the heat.

He found a park on High Street and fed the parking meter, walked up to Hale’s office. He had his stolen file with him. The door was unlocked, and he let himself in. The business had downsized. Three years back Hale had had an assistant and one junior investigator. Then the recession hit and left him with neither. The reception area boasted carpet and paint and little
else. Hale was at his window, palms propped on the sill. Neck lost inside a deep hunch.

‘You bring me breakfast?’ he said.

‘Maybe next time.’

‘Jug’s there if you’re under-caffeinated.’

‘You always use such good vocab.’

Hale nodded and looked at his view. ‘It enlivens the quotidian drudgery,’ he said.

The window was close to where Vulcan Lane ran between High Street and Queen. He stepped away from the view and moved behind his desk and sat down. The window was open a crack. Devereaux laid the file on the desk and leaned on the sill. He lit a cigarette and vented fumes outside.

‘Don’t get ash on my carpet.’

‘It’s grey anyway.’

Hale nodded at the file. ‘What’s this?’

‘January thirty shooting.’ He stood the lighter and the cigarette pack side by side on the sill.

‘From who?’

‘Don McCarthy.’

‘The whole file?’

‘Part of it.’

‘How’d you get it?’

‘I picked the lock on his office door. Then I picked the lock on his filing cabinet.’

Hale slid the file towards him but didn’t open it. ‘That’s not a good way to keep your job.’

Devereaux looked out the window. Vulcan Lane traffic had peaked: wall to wall pedestrians, cutting across from Queen. He folded his arms and crossed his legs. ‘I had a run-in with McCarthy yesterday,’ he said.

‘Verbal or physical?’

‘I pulled a gun on him.’

Hale leaned forward on knitted fingers. ‘That’s not a good way to keep your job either.’

Devereaux didn’t answer. Bright window light drew him in brooding silhouette.

Hale said, ‘What happened?’

‘He and I went out yesterday evening to interview some contact of his. McCarthy thinks the guy’s holding back on him, and starts roughing him up.’

‘So you pulled a gun on him?’

Devereaux didn’t move. The cigarette wavered with the reply: ‘It was McCarthy’s gun. But, yeah, essentially.’

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘Probably.’

‘Have you heard anything?’

‘No.’

Hale leaned back and folded his arms. The movement strained his shirtsleeves. He put his feet up on the corner of his desk. ‘You could lose your job.’

‘Or he could.’

‘I don’t think the odds are quite even.’

Devereaux tapped ash out the window. ‘Depends how he decides to play it. He might not want to run the risk of me telling my side of the story, in which case he might keep quiet.’

‘And what are the chances of that?’

‘I don’t know. But I haven’t heard anything yet.’

‘Yet. That magic word.’

Devereaux didn’t answer. He held the cigarette vertical in two fingers in front of his face. He looked at it a long time.

‘You can come work for me,’ Hale said.

‘You told me that.’

‘I’m reiterating the offer.’

Devereaux glanced at him. ‘For or with?’

‘We can work out the nitty-gritty later.’

‘Do you even have the work?’

Hale creaked back gently in his chair. He looked at the ceiling. ‘No, probably not.’

Devereaux looked down at the street. The cigarette leaned out one corner of his mouth. ‘Were we ever that bad?’ he said.

‘In what way?’

‘Did we ever lean on people too hard?’

Hale thought about it. ‘I never lost sleep over anything,’ he said.

‘Neither does Don McCarthy.’

Hale was quiet. He opened the file cover, closed it again. He said, ‘I think me and you and old Don are probably sewn from the same stuff. Difference is we know where the line is.’

‘And he doesn’t.’

‘No. I think he just has a different line than you.’

‘Just a question of which line’s right.’

Hale shrugged. ‘All the time I’ve known you, your line’s held up pretty well.’

Devereaux nodded slowly. The movement caused a shiver in the thin rising smoke. He said, ‘I think I’m going to quit.’

‘Is that a definitely or a maybe?’

‘I don’t know. I think the only way I can stay is if a number of people end up dead.’

‘Could be a big ask.’

‘I just don’t like the way things are heading.’

Hale said nothing.

Devereaux said, ‘I just don’t know whether I want to be a part of this side of things any more.’

‘Too Orwellian?’

Devereaux didn’t answer.

Hale said, ‘So ride out the next couple of days and just see what happens.’

Devereaux nodded. He looked down and watched the street. The countless throng; no one with fears that matched his own. He said, ‘If I don’t make it, will you speak at my funeral?’

Hale said, ‘Only if I’m not busy.’

Devereaux laughed. ‘I have to go to a thing with Ellen tonight,’ he said.

‘What is it?’

‘Her parents are back from overseas. It’s some kind of party for them, I think.’

‘What are they like?’

‘I think I liked them best when they were overseas.’

‘Would they like you best if you were overseas?’

‘Probably.’

‘Have you told her about all this?’

‘What?’

‘The Don business.’

‘No. She’d just worry.’

‘All that worrying you do by yourself, maybe it would be worth spreading it around.’

Devereaux didn’t answer. Hale opened the file again and skimmed. He flicked through and selected a random page: ‘“Witness heard what she thought were shotgun rounds, soon after six a.m. Witness said a brief pause then preceded more shots. Witness looked through front — street-facing — window and observed two men prone in yard of target address.”’ He fanned pages and found another statement. ‘“Witness observed bullet damage to front of target address. Witness observed at least one man lying bleeding in front entry of target address.” Jesus. It’s a mess.’

Devereaux reached out through the open window. He
tapped ash and watched the breeze catch it. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It is.’

He hadn’t caught an address. Duvall almost called the woman back, before he realised it was in the phone book, right in front of him.

It took him forty minutes to find the place. It was a Sunnynook location, across the Harbour Bridge on the North Shore. It was a small unit down a right of way, backing onto the motorway. He parked at the kerb and walked down. A German shepherd chained to a steel stake watched him from the lawn of the front house. Ears and tail perked, slow eyes and a slow licking of lips.

Another dog started barking when he knocked at the rear unit. The door was frosted glass. A woman appeared behind it, smudged and ghostlike. She pulled the door back against a chain. A wet canine nose claimed the gap.

‘You the investigator I spoke to earlier?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You give me just a tick and I’ll do away with these darn animals.’

‘Sure.’

He stood and waited. Beside him a single chicken toddled and flapped inside a wood and wire hutch. A three-wheeled Daihatsu hatchback nested in a thatch of long grass.

‘Now, Henry, you sit and behave and let the man through. Goodness sake.’

The dog nose disappeared. He heard the chain squeal off the catch. The door opened. A short elderly woman with crutches stood in its absence. She offered her hand. The proffered forearm dangled the crutch and a thick sheaf of loose skin. They shook.

‘Mr Duvall. Susan Riley. Come on in and we’ll have a sit-down.
Just ignore Henry. He needs to learn he’s not the centre of attention.’

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. A Dalmatian stared up at him, tail wagging stiffly, eager for an introduction. A cat brushed past one leg, fluid and eel-like. The entry was yellow linoleum, overlaid with a dog-hair patchwork. The air carried the stink of it. To the right, an internal door led to the garage. He saw a wall of mesh-fronted animal hutches, a camp stretcher on the floor below.

He followed the woman through to a living area at the rear of the house. A ranch slider framed a vista of tufted lawn edged with metal fencing. Through a door to the kitchen, he could see maybe ten or a dozen saucers heaped with jellymeat. Above them the sleek and hunched forms of as many cats, heads bent, tails upright and swaying.

In the corner, a boxy television set topped with rabbit ears sat mute. The woman wedged herself down in an armchair adjacent. She sighed and raised her feet a fraction, easing pressure on thickened ankles. She wore a salmon-coloured cotton jumper above a long lime-green skirt, slack and formless as a shower curtain. She leaned her crutches against an armrest. Duvall claimed a couch opposite her. The Dalmatian followed him in and took up post beside the armrest, tail working at mid-revs.

‘Long as you don’t pat him he’ll leave you be,’ she said.

The dog looked disappointed.

The woman said, ‘So you’re some sort of PI?’

‘That’s right. I used to be a police detective.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘Fifteen years or so.’

She looked at the floor, trawling some mental back catalogue. ‘Did you work with my Ian, back in the day?’

‘No, ma’am. I didn’t.’

She looked up. ‘You can quit the ma’am business. Your ears won’t fall off if you call me Susan.’

‘Right. Susan.’

‘And you’ve gone private now?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So who are you detecting for?’ A smile fought heavy cheeks. ‘Or is that where the private part comes in?’

‘Behalf of myself, I guess.’

‘Yourself.’ She nodded slowly. ‘Hell of a pastime you got yourself.’

Duvall fell quiet. The ceiling was low. A wide lid of plaster trapping that stagnant feline odour.

He said, ‘I just want to talk with you about the shooting on January thirtieth.’

She looked at him blankly a moment, jowly and bespectacled. ‘When Ian was killed.’

‘Yes.’

The meal in the kitchen concluded. Cats moved about the empty saucers like whorls in river water. A grey tabby slinked into the room, wide eyes on Duvall. It traced a path along the baseboard to the woman’s chair, jumped atop her lap and balled itself tightly. The Dalmatian tired of sitting and sank to all fours, ears still attentive.

He said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sure it must be difficult to try to think about.’

‘No, it’s okay. Best approach with most things is to take a deep breath and look them in the eye.’

Duvall didn’t answer.

Susan Riley said, ‘What have they told you?’ She was frowning. Maybe myopia, maybe a desire to catch and archive every word.

‘Nothing. I’ve got news clippings, and that’s it.’

‘Well. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to enlighten you much beyond that.’

‘Do you know why your son was even involved?’

The frown softened. She shook her head. ‘I know he got a call late in the evening, January twenty-ninth. This is the day before it all happened. He got a call, and said he had to head out somewhere for work. I asked him where he was off to, of course, and he said it was some place out West Auckland way. And that was the last thing he said to me.’ She looked down and stroked the cat. ‘In this life anyway.’

‘I take it he called you before he left?’

She looked confused. ‘No, he spoke to me in person. He lived here. He lived with me.’

‘Oh, okay. I wasn’t aware of that.’

‘It was just temporary. I had him on the little stretcher in the garage. I don’t think he liked staying with all the cats, but it was better than nothing, I suppose. Ian’s luck’s been a bit crooked the last few years, I think it’s fair to say.’

Duvall said nothing, waited for her to continue. The TV showed a glossy infomercial.

She said, ‘His marriage broke up about five years ago now, I think. His wife ended up with everything; got the house and the kids. Obviously, every story you hear’s got a second or a third side to it, but how he tells it his wife just sort of woke up one morning and said, “It’s over, Ian, get out, I don’t love you any more.” He was devastated, I tell you. It’s a miserable thing to have someone just stop feeling for you. But I suppose love’s doled out at random and I guess something similar happens when you’re talking about the reverse. But he struggled to get another place, and he’s always had a problem with gambling, and, truth be told, drinking hasn’t been on his side either, and
all of that rolled in with the pressure he was under at work, he ended up just coming to live with me. He used to joke and say it was a disgrace, him being forty-eight and all and still living at home, and I used to just say, “Oh, Ian, it’s not like you’ve been at home this whole time.” You know. I liked having him at home. All that bad luck stacked on his ticket didn’t stop him being a good man. I loved him so much. His father would have been so proud of him. You can do all kinds of things with your life, but it’s being a decent person that counts for the most.’

‘I’m sorry, I know nothing about him.’

‘That’s okay. Nobody does. Police clung on to all the information like it’s going out of fashion.’

‘I got his name from a journalist.’