Bitter Wash Road (26 page)

‘Correct.’

‘Not on the barrel?’

‘Correct.’

‘Wouldn’t you expect her to grasp the barrel so she could place the end of it in her mouth? Wouldn’t you expect to find prints there?’

‘That’s your concern, bud. I’ve known people to do all kinds of things when they shoot themselves. Me, I run tests.
Science.
Motives, impulsive behaviour, they don’t concern me.’

Hirsch heard a young voice and pictured the guy: about thirty, breezy, loved his job, loved the science and the technology. Quite possibly crap at relationships. ‘Okay, but scientists speculate, right?’

‘What’s on your mind?’

‘You’ve seen the photos?’

‘I have.’

‘The victim’s thumb is still inside the trigger guard, hooked around the trigger.’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘How often would you expect to see that?’

‘As against what?’

‘As against the body going into spasm, jerking, arms flinging out.’

‘I see what you mean. But, a first time for everything. No two shootings are alike.’

Hirsch moved on, rocking back in his chair and glancing out across the front desk to the community notices. ‘You found tiny amounts of gunshot residue on her hand and sleeve.’

‘Correct.’

‘
Tiny
amounts.’

‘What about it?’

‘And none in her lap or on her thighs?’

‘No.’

‘Wouldn’t you expect to, if she sat on the ground with the gun between her legs?’

‘Mate, I’ve seen everything.’

‘And that’s your scientific conclusion,’ Hirsch said.

‘I wouldn’t want to get vague on you,’ the tech said.

Next, Hirsch phoned the forensic pathologist. She was slicing and dicing, the morgue assistant said; she’d call back. Hirsch waited. He should step outside and wash the HiLux before the area commander saw it again, but he waited.

She called an hour later. Thanking her, Hirsch said, ‘I understand you’ve released the body for burial.’

‘Correct.’

The voice of a busy, short-shrift woman. Hirsch wasted no time: ‘Under cause of death you put gunshot wound to the head.’

‘Yes.’

‘You go on to say that foul play, accident, and suicide are, quote, “unascertainable”.’

‘Correct.’

‘May I ask what you mean by that?’

‘It means exactly what it says. I do not know if another party was present, I do not know the state of the victim’s mind at the time of death, I do not know the choreography, for want of a better word, of her last few moments of life. She might have been enjoying the sunshine, idly playing with the rifle until a bunny rabbit came hopping into range and, in manoeuvring the rifle, she accidentally shot herself. Or she committed suicide. Or someone staged it. Did she leave a note?’

‘No.’

‘Like I said, “unascertainable”.’

‘But suggestive?’

‘You know I won’t speculate.’

Please speculate, Hirsch thought.

Instead, the pathologist said, ‘I can’t rule anything absolutely in or absolutely out. “Unascertainable” does not mean the death wasn’t suspicious or wasn’t accidental. A gunshot to the head was the cause of death but an autopsy cannot ascertain the circumstances surrounding it.’

‘You’ve informed the Port Pirie CIB?’

‘I have.’

‘And?’

‘I have no idea what they’ll do with it. I merely passed on my report.’

‘Okay, what about the marks on the body?’

‘I found a subcutaneous bruise just above the collar bone when I peeled back the skin on the right side of her neck, and—’

‘Suggestive of someone trying to throttling her?’

‘You’re jumping the gun. I can’t ascertain what happened. And if you will let me continue, I also found a couple of tiny abrasions on her abdomen, a small bruise on one breast, a cut on the back of her left wrist, all trivial.’

‘Suggestive of...?’

‘A word you seem to like, Constable Hirschhausen. Suggestive of ordinary wear and tear from housework or gardening, for all I know, and so, again, “unascertainable”.’

I hope someone, somewhere, is ascertaining something, Hirsch thought. Before he could speak, the pathologist added, ‘On the other hand, when people die violently—when they shoot themselves, for example—or are in a heightened mental state, they mark or injure themselves. I’ve seen it in cases of anxiety and panic attacks, a need to wrench at upper body clothing, for example.’

‘But you’ve also seen women who have been forcibly manhandled.’

‘Yes.’

‘You can’t ascertain that that happened in this case?’

‘No.’

Anything under her nails?’

‘No.’

‘Recent sexual activity?’

‘No.’

‘What about
old
injuries?’

‘She’d fractured her wrist at some point in the past.’

‘How? Could someone have bent it back, twisted it?’

‘That I can’t ascertain,’ the pathologist said.

‘Toxicology?’

‘Negative.’

‘Underlying medical conditions?’

‘None.’

‘You’ve been a great help,’ lied Hirsch.

~ * ~

Next he called Port Pirie,
the lead detective reciting him the highlights of his report: “‘...death consistent with a self-administered gunshot wound with further investigations pending”—meaning that’s as far as we’ll take it. Meaning you’re preparing the brief, so it’s your job to tell the coroner she was nuts. Sorry, balance of whatever...’

‘But,’ said Hirsch, outlining his buts, concluding with the pathologist’s claim of unascertainable.

‘Exactly. It means foul play can be ruled out.’

‘No,’ said Hirsch, ‘it means that foul play
can’t
be ruled out. In other words, foul play might be ruled in, if other evidence is found.’

‘Semantics,’ the voice from Port Pirie said. ‘And there is no other evidence.’

~ * ~

Three hours later, Superintendent
Spurling entered the police station, propping his hands on the front counter.

‘You rocking the boat, Constable?’

You came all the way down here to ask me that? ‘Sir?’

Spurling calmed himself visibly. He released the counter. ‘Look, Paul, I’ve had a word with my detectives, and they can’t see that any further action is needed on Latimer.’

‘So they told me, sir. I’m just trying to be thorough.’

‘Yes. Any evidence of foul play?’

‘No, sir. Not yet.’

‘If you find anything I want to hear about it.’

‘Sir.’

Spurling stepped back as if to go, then cocked his head at Hirsch. ‘Do you know a Wendy Street?’

‘I have met her,’ Hirsch said carefully.

‘And?’

‘Schoolteacher, nice woman, widow, I think.’

‘Not the troublemaking sort?’

‘I wouldn’t say so. I don’t really know. Why?’

‘She’s called for a public protest meeting, police bullying in Redruth.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes. You know the drill: keep your eyes and ears open.’

‘Sir.’

‘I need to know,’ Spurling levelled his gaze at Hirsch, ‘everything.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And get that bloody windscreen fixed.’

~ * ~

22

FRIDAY MORNING, HIRSCH parked outside Redruth Automotive.

It was a sprawling place a couple of blocks from the motel, and ‘Automotive’ was a catch-all term: you could buy a used car from the dozen tired vehicles in the side yard, fill your tank from one of three bowsers, get your oil changed or engine repaired in the workshop, and, in a vast, silvery shed out the back, have your scratches, dents and crumples smoothed over.

That’s where Hirsch found the boss. ‘Sergeant Kropp said you’re the man to see about a cracked windscreen,’ he said, blinking as he stepped from drenching sunlight into shadows, air laced with chemicals and the stutter and clang of machinery.

Bernie Judd grunted, muscling past Hirsch to stare at the damage. Then he shook his head as if confirming worst fears. ‘She’s stuffed, mate. Can’t be repaired. I can replace it for you.’

He was shorter than Hirsch, older, full of twitches and fury like a man who’s giving up cigarettes. He glanced again at the windscreen, critically along each flank of the vehicle, then at his watch, Hirsch’s uniform and finally somewhere past Hirsch’s right ear. Stubby ginger hair on a bumpy scalp, fine gingery hair on his forearms and wrists, gingery freckles, grimy nails.

‘Take long to get one in?’ Hirsch asked.

Judd jerked his head. ‘Got a good one out the back. Off a wreck, but there’s nothing wrong with it.’

‘Done,’ Hirsch said. ‘When?’

‘Got things to do in town? Be ready in a couple of hours.’

Hirsch handed over the keys. ‘We’ve been investigating that hit-and-run up at Muncowie. I guess the others have already asked if any vehicle has come in with—’

‘Told Nicholson, nothing’s come in.’

Hirsch nodded philosophically. ‘Has he been working here for long?’

‘Wouldn’t call it working here. Him and his mate give me a hand now and then.’ He glared at Hirsch. ‘There a law against it?’

Hirsch shook his head. Plenty of police regulations, though. He peered into the dimness again, the hoists, paint bays, drums, workbenches. Two young and three slightly older men in overalls. The only vehicles in there were a farm ute patched with pink primer, a station wagon with a crumpled tailgate and a Honda he recognised as belonging to Finola Armstrong. ‘You do small jobs? My own car’s got a couple of dents.’

‘We do everything. Give you a good price,’ Judd said, staring at the silver watch nestled in the ginger furze of his wrist. ‘Would this be an insurance job?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Not exactly,’ Judd said. ‘Well, bring her in and I’ll see what I can do.’

As Hirsch turned to go he said, ‘That hit-and-run: they reckon Melia Donovan was in an accident two or three weeks prior, older boyfriend. Know anything about that?’

‘Nup. See you in a couple of hours.’

‘Wasn’t Nicholson, was it? We were having a laugh the other day how his girlfriend crashed his car...’

A kind of stillness settled in Judd. As if Hirsch hadn’t changed the subject he said, ‘Give me your mobile number. As soon as we’ve fitted the glass, I’ll give you a bell.’

~ * ~

Hirsch walked.

First to a café, where the coffee was weak, the vanilla slice gluey and the conversation limited to the weather. Hirsch thought it was going to be a long, hot summer; not that anyone asked for his opinion. Customers and staff looked away from him, the uniform. As he sipped and chewed, he tried to imagine how Wendy Street’s protest meeting might play out. He saw a big room, perhaps the town hall, with Superintendent Spurling, a public relations inspector, a deputy commissioner and maybe Kropp himself seated at a large table at the head of the room, trying for smiles and patience and genial common sense. But the crowd would not have logic or patience on its side. One by one they would stand, awkward men and women who’d felt the flare of anger moments before but now, in the spotlight, tripped over their words and lost the thread of their argument. A disordered atmosphere, the crowd blurting accusations that trailed into nothing or were overheated or roamed off the point, while Spurling and the others tried to smile and reassure and give everyone a fair go and water it all down with platitudes fed them by the public relations unit.

Hirsch pushed his plate away. He left the café, strolled around the little square, bought
the Advertiser,
read it in the rotunda. Barely forty minutes had elapsed. He strolled into an op shop and immediately out again. Why did all op shops have a poorly tuned radio playing in the background? His fingers had itched to adjust the dial.

The little hillsides above the square beckoned and he found himself climbing narrow streets between stone walls dating from the 1850s. Jasmine scented the air, dense on back fences, and fake diamonds glinted where the sun struck the adzed stone.

Then down to Redruth Creek. According to a pamphlet in a plastic stand beside a plaque, huts had appeared along the creek in 1843, when Colonel Frome was surveying the northern reaches of the colony, but there was no town until 1850, when a shepherd, Alfred Tiver, spotted traces of copper oxide in the local stone. South Australia might have foundered if not for the mine. Twenty years later, the shafts were depthless blue pools of water that defeated the pumps. The Cornish Jacks had migrated to other towns and mines, but not before the hillsides and flatlands had been denuded of trees, the timber consumed by the boilers or staked deep underground against the pressing earth.

He crossed an iron bridge, guided by a map on the back fold of the pamphlet, and climbed to a museum halfway up-hill from the town. It was a converted boiler shed, shadowed by a great excavation in the hillside, remnant stone walls and chimneys, and deeply rusted iron frames and gantries. Hirsch stopped to get his breath. Below him the town threaded through the valley folds, a scattering of peaceful red roofs. There was no wind. A hawk floated.