Tropic of Death (7 page)

‘The town? Last time I looked, pre-murders, it was uncomplicated. And, on the whole, peaceful.’

‘Then look again. This place has the trappings of peace
and
war.

There’s more here than a beach, a port and a bunch of houses.’

‘You mean the military?’

‘They’ve got a big presence. I could see it from the air -

artillery range, research base, war games reserve. And up in the high country a satellite tracking facility. You’ve got it on all sides.

In the taxi from the airport I saw army trucks in convoy and GIs in the street. Right now, I’m looking at a massive warship.’

Jarrett followed her gaze to the US aircraft carrier, its deck bristling with jet fighters. The vessel rose above the ruffled blue of the channel like a floating metal fort, dwarfing the spread of yachts bobbing in the foreground.

‘I suppose we’ve got used to it. I don’t even notice it anymore.

What are you getting at?’ he asked.

‘The bad vibe you were going on about - you didn’t mention defence officials. And there’s no record of interviews with them.

Surely that’s an oversight.’

‘Funny you should bring that up,’ he grimaced. ‘I wanted to interview the military police about Rachel’s head on a pylon at their front gate, to find out if they’d noticed anything or had any relevant CCTV footage. So I called the security director, an aggressive bastard called Maddox. He told me no way. I said they might have witnessed something. He insisted they hadn’t. When I tried to push it he told me to get lost, in those exact words.’

‘Now
that
reaction
is
interesting,’ said Rita. ‘So far I haven’t heard a good thing about the Whitley Sands base. Did you take it further?’

‘I told my station commander, Inspector Derek Bryce. He went off, made a phone call, came back and told me to drop it. Bryce has clammed up on me ever since.’ Jarrett sagged back, watching a powerboat cut a line of foam through the water in the middle distance. ‘Ever get the feeling you’re out of the loop?’

‘Try being a woman detective. No matter what you do, no matter how tough you are, you’re never one of the boys.’

‘Bryce isn’t a fan of women cops or profilers. He’s a traditionalist. He thinks seconding you is a waste of money.

Luckily the super disagrees and has underwritten the cost.’

Jarrett gave a sly smile. ‘Bryce told me
forensic psychology
is an oxymoron, whatever that is.’

‘White woman’s magic,’ muttered Rita. ‘Anyway, so much for your town being peaceful. It’s also been a flashpoint for violence more than once.’

‘You’re right, of course. Pitched battles between protesters and the military. And now there’s a new headache. Land rights activists have joined in. There’s a long-running dispute about Whitley Sands and a chunk of the military reserve being tribal land. A native title claim is going through the courts but Rachel’s murder has heightened media coverage so the environmentalists and anti-war brigade have got the public backing of the Indigenous lobby. And I’m piggy in the middle. To the peaceniks and eco-warriors I’m an establishment lackey. As for the defence department, I might as well be a leper.’

‘The security director you mentioned,’ said Rita, ‘does he run the military police unit at the base?’

‘Yes. Captain Roy Maddox.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Smart, tough, hard as nails. Ex-commando. He was with Special Forces till his truck got blown out from under him in Afghanistan. No time for civilians, cops included.’

‘Who’s in overall charge at Whitley Sands?’

‘The director-general’s another piece of work - Lieutenant Colonel Willis Baxter,’ snorted Jarrett. ‘One of those formal army types programmed to see human beings as cannon fodder. No sense of humour. Just gives you a dead-fish stare.’

Rita went silent, sipping her lime and soda absent-mindedly and gazing towards the horizon.

‘What is it?’ asked Jarrett. ‘Does everything I’ve told you just sound paranoid?’

She finished her drink and put down the glass. ‘Sounding paranoid and
being
paranoid are two different things. What if your feelings are right?’ She turned to him. ‘The
bad vibe
you sense - what if there’s more to it than the murders? What if they’re having an impact in a broader scenario than a police investigation?

Which, of course, begs another question: what are we missing?’

‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘The only place we can at this stage: with the offender,’ said Rita.

‘But we know nothing about him.’

‘No, that’s not true. His identity’s unknown but the Homicide detectives have already started building a profile of him. According to them, he’s a serial killer with a personal agenda yet to be determined. They see him as a sociopath, a stalker who likes to get up close and personal for his kill. Hence the nail gun, which is an odd choice of weapon. It probably needs to be pressed against his victims’ skulls to be fired. The fact that he’s used it twice shows it’s not opportunistic. It’s part of his signature, along with dismemberment.’

‘But I need to know where he comes from, what he looks like.’

‘He’s a big, strong man - someone powerful enough to use an unwieldy weapon effectively and tall enough to fire it at a downward angle through Rachel’s body. He’s also organised. He plans his attack carefully, equipping himself with what’s necessary to carry it out and tidy up - nail gun, some sort of meat cleaver, a sack or bag for the severed head and hands. That shows he’s socially competent - an intelligent man who fits in with his surroundings. He also gets a buzz out of taunting the public - the way he displayed Rachel’s head. That makes him very manipulative and contemptuous of people in general. Homicide are convinced he’ll strike again, and when he does they’ll be back on your doorstep.’

‘So you agree with their analysis?’

‘Essentially, yes. But the context of the research base bothers me. It seems to me they’ve ignored it - possibly because, like you, they’ve been told to. And that’s not good police work. That’s political.’ She looked at him pensively. ‘By the way, do you know a research scientist called Dr Konrad Steinberg?’

‘No.’

‘What about Professor Audrey Zillman?’

Jarrett shook his head. ‘Never heard of her. Not surprising though. The only contact I’ve had with people from the base is official meetings on local security or civic receptions. And that’s more than enough. As for trying to question any of the civilian workers there, forget it. They’re included in the
get lost
advice.’

‘Well, that might have to change. But first things first. I need to start mapping out everything you’ve got so far.’

‘You can do that at the station. I’ll take you there now,’ said Jarrett. ‘There’s more in the files than I emailed. A lot of useless paperwork in my opinion, but you’re free to go through it. I’ve assigned you an office and a car, a Falcon. Steel blue. It’s got a couple of dents and a few k on the clock but a souped-up engine under the bonnet.’

‘Steel blue?’

‘Yeah, it’ll match your eyes.’ He grinned. ‘I’m told profilers need peace and quiet to concentrate so I’ve sorted out some office space where you won’t be disturbed. Part of the old watch-house.’

‘Not in the cells, I hope.’

‘Nah,’ chuckled Jarrett. ‘More like an antique bondage chamber.’

‘Rafferty’s.’ He gestured at an Irish theme bar. ‘Always good for a few arrests. The kids can’t cope with the Guinness.’

As the road curved down to the seafront they cruised past caravan parks and a marina. A couple of hundred yachts drifted at moorings that fanned out from boat ramps and a clubhouse with wooden decking.

‘The sailing club,’ said Jarrett. ‘Our social centre.’

‘You a member?’

‘Damn right. Perfect for catching boats, beers and blondes -

ah, if you know what I mean.’

‘I do.’

‘It’s also the place for live entertainment.’ He nodded at a marquee on the club’s lawns opposite an outdoor stage rigged with microphones and banks of speakers. ‘Great venue for rock concerts.’

‘Like who?’

‘The best was a Billy Thorpe gig, complete with thunder-storm.’

‘Sounds risky.’

‘It was. He broke off, saying he was in danger of having his arse nailed to the stage by lightning. But when it stopped he came back on and played till midnight.’

‘When was that?’

‘About a year before he died. What a voice - “Over the Rainbow” - blew the audience away.’

They passed a beachside development with a lagoon for toddlers then an open-air market on a grassy stretch of foreshore, customers ambling among stalls and hibiscus bushes. Beyond that the road branched towards the harbour alongside a row of burger and fried chicken outlets, an amusement park, a bowling alley, games arcades and cheap-looking bars. Among the potential customers, knots of US sailors strolled along under a range of neon signs. An ice-cream parlour was doing a busy trade with the Americans.

‘The rough side of town,’ muttered Jarrett. ‘Rachel Macarthur was murdered down one of the alleys.’

At a junction by the pier he turned away from the sea and headed into the shopping precinct, marked by a line of palm trees towering above shopfronts, coffee bars and pubs.

‘The main street,’ said Jarrett. ‘The council’s tarting it up with tiled pavements and outdoor cafes, but we still get the hoons at night.’

As the traffic slowed, Rita watched a lazy stream of pedestrians moving around food stalls and beer umbrellas. The universal dress code seemed to be T-shirts, shorts and sandals, with women in straw hats and boys in baseball caps. The avenue of palms ended where the street sloped up a hill through petrol stations, supermarkets and a clutch of backpacker hostels. The police station stood at a crossroads bordering the residential area. From there lines of houses stretched into the distance where steep wooded gullies and the peaks of the rainforest hemmed in the outlying neighbourhoods.

‘Here we are,’ said Jarrett, pulling over.

The original part of the building was a two-storey structure made of local stone.

‘The watch-house,’ said Jarrett with a smile as they got out.

‘Nineteenth century. Probably haunted.’

‘Too bad I’m just a profiler,’ said Rita. ‘And not an exorcist.’

The modern offices and cells were housed in a brick addition.

Jarrett took her through the main entrance, past rooms crowded with desks and filing cabinets, introducing her to uniformed officers as they went. In the office of his crime investigation branch she met two of his detective constables. They were young, tanned and impressed by both her appearance and what she represented.

‘I’ve always wanted to see profiling in action,’ said one of them as he shook her hand. ‘Assessing the criminal mind. All that weird insight stuff.’

‘I appreciate your enthusiasm,’ said Rita, ‘but it’s not voodoo.’

‘Will you give us some tips?’ asked the other. ‘Show us the basics?’

‘Shut up,’ Jarrett told them. ‘You’re like a pair of spaniels.’

As he ushered her out along a corridor to the room that would be her office, she couldn’t help laughing.

It didn’t take Rita long to settle into her new workplace, even though it felt more like a time-warped gallery than an office.

While day-to-day police work was conducted in the modern block, the old watch-house was used mostly for storage and administrative purposes. The sandstone building retained much of its nineteenth-century fabric along with a faint musty odour. With its high ceilings, plaster cornices and creaking wooden staircase, the structure evoked echoes of a bygone age. No wonder people felt it was haunted, thought Rita.

The ground floor housed a community relations bureau, an accounts unit and a records section extending to the Victorian cells at the rear, now crammed with filing cabinets. The first floor was used as a repository for spare equipment and a store for logbooks and registers from the distant past. There was also a colonial-era exhibit room, the area assigned to Rita for as long as she required it. Because of its heritage value the watch-house had been listed by the National Trust and the local historical society maintained the exhibit room as a small museum, library and occasional lecture venue. As well as attracting academic interest it was good PR for the police, although Jarrett had declared it off-limits to history buffs for the duration of Rita’s stay.

She approved of the choice. It suited her needs, providing both plenty of space to spread out case material and a quiet setting to think in. Even the antique fixtures, the source of Jarrett’s bondage chamber reference, were somehow conducive to a profiling mind-set. As she paced around the room, psyching herself up for the investigation, she observed her new surroundings with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.

The three internal walls were lined with glass cases displaying artefacts and documents preserved from the days of imperial rule. The items included batons, caps, holsters and pouches, together with reward posters for the capture of bushrangers and newspaper articles about the frontier war between white settlers and Aborigines. Wall mountings above the cases held rows of leg irons, chains and handcuffs alongside a collection of swords and pistols. A series of tinted lithographs hung from a picture rail, while a heavy oil painting was suspended from the chimney-breast in the corner. The gilt-framed canvas, dark with age and dated 1870
,
depicted a dozen men, white and black, armed with carbines. It was titled
The Hunting Party.
There was something intimidating about the group’s pose and as Rita peered at it she found the image distinctly sinister. Below it the fireplace was virtually in mint condition, with an iron filigree surround and glazed tiles. She wondered how much it had actually been used in the past hundred years.

The external wall was dominated by bookcases on either side of a double-sash window. The shelves were filled with leather-bound volumes. The view outside, which a century ago would have looked down the hill over the town to the sea, was completely obscured by a backpacker hostel, its peeling paintwork and rusting fire escapes looming over an alley. The laneway below was cluttered with rubbish bins and parked cars. A patchwork of graffiti and posters littered the hostel’s lower wall.