“SO WHAT the fuck happened?”
McDowell’s crudity was matched by his
anger as he speared the question at the hapless Heckle, one of the quartet
around his desk. Collinson and I were
the other two players.
I grinned at Heckle. For a bloke who’d bled all over my upholstery
while I drove him to hospital the previous night, he was being singularly
ungrateful. Not one word of thanks. On the other hand, I’d picked him up this
morning to deliver him to McDowell’s tender mercies, and that may have cancelled out my previous
kindness. In any case, he refused to
meet my gaze, probably through embarrassment or maybe because the stitches in
his scalp were paining him. I hoped
both. He fidgeted with the bandage
encircling his head like a slipped halo and started his version of events.
He confirmed that
McDowell had rumbled Sandra by finding out who I’d been talking to on my
mobile. On McDowell’s instructions,
he’d driven to Sandra’s to retrieve the tape.
“With a warrant?” I couldn’t resist putting the boot in. The trouble with search warrants is that
you have to tell the issuing magistrate what you expect to find, and I couldn’t
imagine McDowell wanting that. Heckle’s
flush and quick glance to his boss confirmed that my boot had struck arse.
McDowell waved me off. “We had reasonable suspicion of possession
and the likelihood the evidence would be moved.”
The bastard was quick on
his feet, I’ll give him that, but I wasn’t buying. Evidence, however obtained, has to be
recorded, and I couldn’t imagine him wanting that, either. He motioned Heckle to go on.
He’d arrived at Sandra’s
to find me already there, and he waited to see if I emerged with the tape. When I drove off empty-handed, he demanded
it, telling her it was evidence relevant to a serious crime and it would be the
better for her if she handed it over.
She’d told him to go and get carnally known. Then he began a search while Sandra got on
the phone to her solicitor – he thought.
The next thing he knew, he was clobbered from behind and the lights went
out.
Some of his story I could
believe. Most of it - big doubts.
“Did she admit having it?” I queried.
“No. But didn’t say she didn’t have it
either.”
“Did she ask how come you
were knocking on her door?”
Mr Imagination again
looked to his boss for help.
McDowell came charging
in. “The question is, Mason, how did you
get on to her?”
Good question.
It meant that he didn’t know I’d used the same technique he had. It certainly meant he didn’t know I’d broken
into Sandra’s answering machine. Or did
he? Was he laying a trap - getting me
to admit I’d stretched the law?
“Memory,” I replied. “I recalled Connie mentioning - dunno when
it was - that one of her best friends was Sandra Pastor. Thought at the time it was a bit
unusual.” There was doubt in McDowell’s
expression, but that was his problem.
“So I gave her a call and…bingo!”
“So where’s the tape?”
“Search me. She didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask.”
“But she has got it?”
“Got it and seen it.”
“Was it in the house?”
“Dunno. Not if she was smart.”
McDowell swore. “Why didn’t you get it off her?”
“Me?
I’m suspended, remember?” I held
up an imaginary newspaper. “I can see
the headlines now…’Suspended cop, without warrant, leans on TV reporter for
return of explosive videotape. Tape
holds clue to murders of two policewomen’.
And that’s before they get stuck into the Minister and the
Romanos.” I glared at McDowell. “Sandra wasn’t necessarily going to put the
bloody thing to air. She was going to
wait a day or two to see if certain people did the right thing.” I gave Heckle a brief portion of the glare. “Now, thanks to Mr Subtle here, she’ll have
the bit between her teeth.”
Both McDowell and Collinson were
giving me one of those odd looks – half-surprised, half-quizzical. I didn’t twig for a second, then my
stupidity hit home – I had said “Sandra”.
So much for my objectivity. I
kept a straight face and resolved to speak only when spoken to.
“She hasn’t used it so far,” Heckle
lamely put in.
True. We were monitoring Channel Nine like hawks
and not a word about the tape had come over the airwaves. If the channel had it, we would have heard
by now. They’d at least be advertising
that it would be leading the six p.m. news.
Ergo, Sandra had not made it to the studio.
Why not? Panic was my guess. She was a tough girl, but you don’t
half-kill a copper and maintain your equanimity. For all she knew, she just might have
killed him. Once she recovered her cool, she might make a
try for the studio, but I thought not – she would know we’d be watching and
monitoring the phone. By we, I meant
McDowell’s minions, who had orders to arrest her on sight and do what Heckle
had failed to do – confiscate the tape so that McDowell could later
conveniently ‘lose’ it. She could
always post it in, of course, but no journalist I ever knew would even
contemplate relinquishing the story of the year. No way.
Sooner or later, she’d make a try for the studio. I found myself hoping she’d succeed.
“Do you have any idea where
she might be?” McDowell was sneering
at me. “Seeing you’re on first name
terms.”
I shook the head. “Haven’t a clue.”
He scowled. “OK.”
He nodded Collinson and me to the door.
“That’s all - for now.” To me,
he added, “You’re supposed to be the
whiz in Missing Persons. Put your mind
to it. Any leads – I want to be the
first person to know.”
I nodded, but I was thinking ‘You’ll
be lucky’.
When we got back to Homicide, Elliott
was wearing a track in front of my desk.
He thrust a single page into my face.
“Have a look at that,” he demanded.
I looked at a row of vehicle
registration numbers, perhaps fifty in all.
About half way down, one of them was ringed in red.
“From our patriotic friend in
Neighbourhood Watch?”
“The ringed one is an unmarked police
car - an unmarked police car belonging to the Commissioner’s office. Guess who was driving it the night Jodie
Aston was killed? Your friend and
mine…”
“McDowell?”
“McDowell. The bastard.”
Elliott looked ready to tear our
common friend to shreds, and I didn’t blame him, except…
“The car was booked out in his name?”
“No.
The logbook’s blank but one of the guys on duty in the car park
remembers him taking it out.”
“What time?”
“Nine twenty-two.”
Elliott’s accuracy could not be
doubted. Ever since a disgruntled
ex-Drug Bureau cop had turned crim and burgled his former colleagues by simply
driving into HQ, all HQ cars had been fitted with transponders. Now, whenever a car entered or left, a
computer logged it.
“When did he get back?”
Elliott flushed as he realised he’d
fallen short in his info gathering.
“Sorry.”
I wasn’t about to kick arse. In his place, I would’ve jumped the gun,
too.
“Better find out. Then have another yarn with this
Neighbourhood Watch bloke. See if he
can remember when he saw this car. And
don’t forget, Jodie Aston was killed around 11 p.m.” While I was thinking that the odds of the bloke
recalling exactly when he saw one car out of fifty were pretty remote, a
thought struck me. “While you’re at it,
see if you can find out where it was last night, too.”
I had no right to be giving Elliott
orders, but, for once, we were in perfect accord. He even grinned.
“Good thinking.” And he hurried off
in pursuit of bad blokes.
I hung around for the rest of the
day, doing whatever Collinson could dream up in the way of admin duties. For the most part, this consisted of helping
the public service staff draw up a new duty roster. It wasn’t the most pleasant of tasks,
inasmuch as Connie’s death was the reason a new roster was required. As a matter of fact, it was a cow of a job.
I kept an ear on the radio news and
an hourly eye on the TV in the staff room.
Nada. Not even the scintilla of
a hint that something dramatic was in the offing. I hung around for the six p.m. news, but all
it told me was that Sandra was still incommunicado. I told myself that I might as well go home.
Which I did, stopping off at the
local supermarket for a lean T-bone and vegetables. Some of us cops, the smarter ones, learn
quickly that the combination of shift work and fast food produces fat guts and
high cholesterol. Although, when I got
home and reached into the boot to retrieve the stuff, I realised I was so
hungry that I was going to resent the time it would take to prepare.
I needn’t have worried. I no sooner straightened up than everything
went black. Simultaneously, I heard the
boot slam and then powerful arms bent me over it. A sudden, concentrated pressure was applied
to the side of my skull and a gruff voice made a suggestion.
“Freeze, dickhead.”
My appetite disappeared, along with
any thought of resistance as a pair of cuffs locked my wrists together. Next thing, I was being shoved into the rear
of my own car and pushed face down.
The gun returned to my head.
“Move!” its owner snapped, obviously
not to me.
The rocking of the car told me two
men got into the front. The slamming of
two doors confirmed it. Then we were
backing out of my carport and driving sedately away.
It was a classic bag-over-the-head
police-style snatch. The only thing
missing were the words of arrest and the obligatory caution.
My guts dissolved. I hadn’t the slightest doubt that McDowell’s yes-men had got me. I hadn’t the slightest doubt what they intended.