Who Killed Jimbo Jameson? (21 page)

Quentin Armstrong had been the first to die. He had been the real target. Jimbo was a freebie and Chelsea had got in the way of a couple of bullets meant for him. But her lunch had already killed him.

The real question was who killed Quentin Armstrong, the homosexual bookkeeper who had made a brave but ultimately fatal decision to testify in a Sydney trial. He thought he could hide in Melbourne, but he'd been eliminated to send a message to the other two witnesses for the prosecution.

And I should have listened when Dominique had said that she hated her father. She said that she hated him because of what he had done to her mother, but she really hated him because he hadn't done anything to her. He hadn't loved her. She just didn't register on his radar. And she knew it.

Dominique had been sent away by her mother, which no doubt added to her rejection issues. And at boarding school she had teamed up with Maria, who was probably there for her own protection. They were opposites, but I could see how they complemented each other. Maria had a sister and a share of French haute-couture respectability, and Dominique had a family. A mafia family.

Marco had told me that Dominique and Maria were partners in crime, but I'd assumed he
meant teenage girl-type crime. And when I'd interviewed them, I had seen them as two spoiled bratty airheads. Which was true. They were spoiled. They were brats. They were rich. And rich spoiled brats can be dangerous, especially if one is a mafia princess and the other is a resentful brat.

I could remember my teenage fantasies of dissolving my mother in an acid bath because she'd forgotten to pick me up from a birthday party. So what hell had Dominique dreamed up for a father who had forgotten that she existed?

Dominique had the means, the motive and the opportunity to have her bestie's brother bump him off. What if Maria's brother had flown into Melbourne, popped Quentin and then hopped up to Sydney to shoot Jimbo on the way back to Rome? After all, he was already in the neighbourhood on “business”.

When Dominique kissed Paolo Napoli she was thanking him for killing her father.

How had he known where Jimbo would be? And then I remembered that Suzie had told me that he and Chelsea were regulars at the hotel. When you have a routine you're easy to find and Blind Freddy could have found Jimbo. At the hotel. Where airline pilots stay, wheeling their bags and impressing everyone with all that gold braid and their sexy hats, but no-one notices them because there are so many of them. And we'd been too interested in ticking off the pilots' names against the reservations. Paolo didn't have a reservation. He had a uniform and a hat and a pilot's bag. He just walked in and out, and no-one had noticed him.

I had forgotten how mean girls can be. Dominique had Paolo kill her father just because she could. If they had left immediately with Paolo, or even flown commercial, it would have been the perfect crime.

However, for reasons known only to a couple of spoilt rich airheads they had stuck around for the funeral. Just as arsonists stick around to see the drama they've created, Dominique couldn't resist the opportunity to see the results of her plot. That was her mistake. And now all I had to do was prove it.

Paolo had come back to Sydney to pick them up, and now they were….where?

Bugger it. When had they said they were checking out of the hotel? I reached for my phone.

chapter thirty six.

MISSED THEM

We missed them. Dominique, Maria and her brother were out of Australian air space.

It was almost fun phoning the boss at 5.30 in the morning, but at least he agreed that my suspicions were worth looking into. By 9.30 in the morning, the Task Force was actually listening to me and I had staked my claim to the case.

By 10 am, the Australian Federal Police were called in and I was fighting to keep my case. This was going to be big. We'd have to go through the AFP, because they were the ones to liaise with Interpol and Europol and I was starting to realize what a huge exercise in logistics I'd initiated.

I also realized that Constable Jack was missing.

“Has anyone seen Reynolds?” I asked no-one in particular.

“What's up, Maddie.æ Can't remember where you left him?” quipped some smartarse.

Very funny yet again, fellers.

“He called in sick this morning. Said something about dislocating his shoulder over the weekend.”

Again? My bloody sister had broken him. She always broke my toys.

“Yeah. He said that he'd been trying to phone you, but the calls were going straight to Messagebank.”

I checked my phone, but the five missed calls were from Boo and I had been too angry with her to answer her calls or listen to her messages.

Saturday. 8.45pm. “Hi Maddie. It's me. Can you give me a call?”

Sunday. 9.04am. “Hi Maddie. It's Jack. I'm calling from your sister's phone. Can you call me back on this number?”

Sunday. 2.28pm. “Maddie. Where are you? Is everything all right? I've had a bit of an accident and probably won't be able to get in tomorrow. Can you call me?”

Sunday. 3.17pm. “Maddie. When you get this, can you please phone me on my home number. I can't drive, and Boo has my phone and I've got hers so she's coming to my place tonight to swap back, and I was hoping that you could come too. I'll get the pizza. You bring
the beers. Just don't leave me alone with her.”

What!

I'd left him injured. Alone and defenceless against the evil forces of my sister. He was hurt and I'd ignored his cries for help. He was probably tied to the bed, in pain and dehydrated and scarred for life.

He answered my call on the second ring. “I was just beginning to worry about you, Maddie. Where've you been?”

“Don't worry about me. Just tell me what happened.”

“I ran into Boo in Avalon and she took my phone by accident and I didn't realize it until I was in the ambulance and you didn't return my calls…”

“I phoned you on Saturday night and Boo answered. I thought you were with her. And I didn't listen to your messages because I thought they were from her and I didn't want to talk to her and then I drank too much and then I worked out the Jameson case and this morning has been crazy and…and how are you? What happened? Are you all right?”

“Take a breath, Maddie. I'm OK. I dislocated my shoulder and spent a few hours in Manly Hospital and I can absolutely recommend their generous approach to pain management. Matt and Wombat drove me home and left this morning.”

“And you've got your phone back?”

“Yep. Boo came over last night. Sorry about the dramatic message. I was a bit out of it.”

I laughed. “I had visions of Boo chasing you around the bed with a pizza.”

“Why do you think I asked Matt and Wombat to stay?”

“Good thinking. So did Matt and Wombat manage to escape her evil clutches?”

“Let's say that Matt was smiling when they left this morning. Dragging his knuckles even more than usual, but smiling.”

Poor Matt. But at least he'd saved his mate from a horrible fate. “So how long will you be off work?” I asked.

“My shoulder is still sore and I've been told not to drive for a couple of days, so I was sorta hoping that you could come over and we could play hospitals. You can be the doctor, and I can be your bed-ridden patient. I seem to remember that it's your turn to look after me.”

“Let me see what happens later today. I could be here forever.”

“What's happening?”

“The same person who murdered our witness in Melbourne came up to Sydney to hit Jimbo Jameson and Chelsea Nevine got in the way of the bullets meant for him. We got to compare the bullets from both jobs today, and they match.”

“So what's the connection?”

“Dominique. And Maria Napoli. And her brother, Paolo. Mafia. Remember how jumpy she got when I started to ask questions about what they were doing and how long they had been in Australia? Well, they flew out on Friday night,” I said. “I've been talking all morning to the boss and the AFP and they're contacting Interpol and their liaison officers will talk to the Italian police. This is going to take time, but at least it's started.”

“Sheeyit, Maddie. That's great. You're not just a pretty face. So when will you be over?” My heart should have gone boinngg, but it didn't. Dammit, pretty boy. I've studied hard and worked harder to get to where I am and all you can say is “not just a pretty face” and “when are you coming over to see me so we can play doctors and nurses”.

“Like I said, let's see what happens this afternoon. I've gotta go. The boss wants to talk to me.”

I placed the phone back on my desk and sat back. In the last five minutes I'd gone from wanting to slit my sister's throat and castrate Jack to relief to feeling terrible that I'd misjudged them both to…. nothing. All I wanted to do was have lunch. Preferably with Dr Chris. Italian would be nice, with some chianti and gelati and gossip and scandal and some laughs. But Chris had his hands in someone's chest cavity and wasn't available for lunch, so I had no alternative but buy a sandwich and get down to some serious paperwork.

Hunger pangs finally got to me and it was dark outside and I'd completely forgotten about Jack. He was lying on his lonely bed of pain, waiting for me. I'd spent Friday night screwing someone else, the weekend misjudging him, and now I'd forgotten about him just when he needed me. My brother was right. I was a promiscuous hypocritical selfish workaholic. And when he said it, it was a diagnosis, not an opinion.

I hailed a cruising taxi and beat myself up mentally all the way to Bondi Beach, stopping only to pick up a six pack of beer and some chocolate, making me a promiscuous hypocritical selfish workaholic chocoholic alcoholic. The cabbie must have had a conscientious objection to
driving a woman balancing a six-pack on her knees while applying mascara, because he turned up the radio and glared at me through the mirror until he turned into St Neots Avenue and pulled up opposite Jack's apartment. As I reached forward to pay the fare I glanced up, and there was Boo, dressed in not very much, leaning back on the verandah railing as she looked up at Jack. Who was standing just a bit too close. I didn't like the way his head was angled towards her, and I really didn't like the way his face reacted when he looked down at the taxi and saw me. Sprung.

Self-knowledge beats self-control any day. For everyone's safety it was best for me to remove myself from a dangerous situation.

“I've changed my mind, driver. Take me to Paddington, please.”

First I ate cold baked beans straight out of the tin while I loaded up the washing machine and the dishwasher. Then I plugged into my iPod and started on the beers while I vacuumed and dusted and polished my little house into submission. Four cans later, I was still angry, but my surroundings were under control and I'd found the source of that funky smell under the sink.

Bloody men. Useless creatures. And my sister! I should have known better. I should have known that she wouldn't be satisfied with Matt. She'd used him up and come back for Jack. I hate her.

As I pulled the tab on the fifth beer, my iPod began to play an old track that took me back to happier days. When had I become such a miserable failure? The beers were getting to me, so I broke open a block of Cadbury's to lighten my mood. I deserved some chocolate, and it didn't disappoint.

That was it. I was disappointed. I was disappointed that my life wasn't sunshine and lollipops and I was disappointed that Jack had taken Boo's bait and I was disappointed that my holiday hadn't happened. The iPod moved on to another track, this one even more emotionally significant, and I burst into tears.

I cracked the last can of beer and shuffled to the laundry to load the dryer. There had to be more to life than this. I had to get out of town on so many levels. There was absolutely no reason for me to stick around and plenty of excuses for me to get out of the city or at least stay away from my sister and my service revolver. And when Marco got back I wouldn't have to
work with Jack again. Which meant that I wouldn't get to play with him anymore, but I didn't want him if Boo's fingerprints were on him. I supposed that I could still have Jace when he was in town. But he wasn't in town. He was in Hong Kong playing international big shot and had probably forgotten all about me.

Feeling thoroughly sorry for myself, I padded into the kitchen and the refrigerator, looking for a therapeutic dose of chocolate ice cream with Milo sprinkles. Nope. All gone. Instant coffee was the best I could do, so I gave it a slug of brandy from my Christmas stash and told myself this was how they do it in Paris. And then, I had another epiphany.

I couldn't be in Paris, but I could be in Broome. I deserved to be in Broome.

I reached for my laptop and logged onto qantas.com.au.

It's amazing how quickly my plans came together. For the price of a new carburettor and half of my Frequent Flyer points, I was able to salvage my aborted holiday. The Pinctada was all booked out, but the Cable Beach Club had a great deal and it was on the beach. All I had to do was throw some things into a suitcase and ask the gay couple next door to collect my mail. It was all relatively simple.