Black Teeth (18 page)

‘Well that's the Bayside for you.'

Whaley pushes open the red door, enters a perfect white den. A couch, bookshelves, a wide desk with no computer, a lamp that belongs to someone wealthy, vases with fresh flowers, granite bookends, a heater raging in the corner, a charcoal rubbing framed on one wall, a small window overlooking trees on the next. Further back stands a door to what must surely be a hopelessly tasteful ensuite.

‘Have a seat.' Whaley points to the polished leather couch, studded on its seams like a child's pyjamas and just as comfortable. It creaks lovingly as I relax into it. We community lawyers don't see a lot of elegant leather couches.

A beige photocopier rests upon a black filing cabinet and Whaley opens the top drawer, looks in for just a moment, closes it again.

‘No no.' He sits now behind the hardwood desk. ‘My former associate always destroyed our files after the seven years had lapsed. She would have destroyed what I had on the Alamein matter.'

‘They must have lapsed recently. The records were dated 2005.'

‘It was earlier this year,' Whaley says with a note of condescension. His demeanour bears the lack of haste, the general lack of interest, that I've known more than one elderly lawyer to lack when addressing me. So I attempt to generate some interest.

‘Rudy says you told him that Piers Alamein didn't kill his wife.'

His head jerks back like a chicken put off by unappealing feed.

‘Lord above, that's not quite what happened.'

‘Can I ask what did happen?'

He seems deeply put out at having to remember.

‘I informed him of the possibility that his father didn't know what he was doing at the time of the crime. It's possible he was mentally dissociated and, in that sense, not morally culpable. It's a phenomenon I've come across more than once in my career. Under different circumstances it might have been grounds for an acquittal.'

‘So why does he think you told him his father was flat-out innocent?'

Whaley shrugs.

‘A misunderstanding, I suppose. I fail to see what relevance this has…'

‘Wait a minute…' I drift gently sideways. ‘I work for Rudy Alamein.
I'm
trying to understand what relevance any of this had to
you
. You rang his doorbell more or less out of the blue, from what I understand.'

‘Yes, perhaps I did. But I had the courtesy to do it on a weekday.'

He smiles to disarm the comment.

‘What I put to Rudy was based entirely upon a visit I'd made to
Piers Alamein at the Severington Correctional Facility.'

I tip forward; the leather couch moans: ‘Oooooooh?'

‘You met with Piers Alamein?'

‘Yes…' He says it nonchalantly, looking to the ceiling. ‘Just the once. I had a client serving quite a lengthy sentence at Severington. He told me that Alamein…Obviously I recognised the name from the media attention the case had garnered. He told me that Piers Alamein had been drafting a new will, with the aid of some contemptible prison jackleg. The rumour being that Piers had a heart condition, wasn't long for this world. He'd been abused at the hands of some of the inmates there and they had him rearranging his estate to their benefit.'

He lets that sit for a moment, then says:

‘My client found it amusing. But of course I knew the real victim would be Piers's son, Rudyard. Disenfranchised as a result of this new document.'

‘So you visited Piers.'

‘It seemed to me the only real hope for setting aside the new will would be to prove Piers had been subject to duress at the time of execution. I didn't expect that to be difficult, provided Piers co-operated, so I arranged to see him in an interview room at Severington.'

‘When did this happen?'

Whaley leans his right elbow on the arm of his chair and his right hand gently caresses his right ear and his head is angled to favour the hand's access: he speaks while looking at me sideways.

‘Late oh-four, if I recall.'

‘Did you speak for long?'

‘It was a brief interview. Fifteen minutes or so.'

‘What did you learn?'

He considers this for just a moment, then says calmly:

‘I learned that Piers Alamein was utterly insane.'

29

‘He had a tattoo on the webbing of his right hand.'

Whaley points to the familiar place. A rush of fear, but then I recall I wiped away the tattoo last night. And again for good measure this morning. Also, I'm wearing gloves.

Whaley says, ‘Are you familiar with the black teeth?'

‘Yes. Broadly.'

‘It indicated to me that he wasn't having a good time of it inside. So I expected him to behave a little strangely. Even so, he was…'

He fixes me with eyes designed to communicate the sobriety of a situation.

‘I've never seen anything like it.'

And I'm like: ‘Okay.'

‘I drew the conclusion that Piers hadn't changed his will under duress, but that rather he'd gone beyond the reach of common sense and had been subject to manipulation.'

‘So you thought he was…mentally deficient…before he killed Cheryl Alamein? And that's why he did it?'

‘No, I only said that that was a possibility. What's also possible is that prison life had done that to him.'

‘So why did they keep him there? If he was crazy…'

‘I'm sure they supplied him with a smorgasbord of anti-psychotics. But if every prisoner with severe mental health issues were transferred to a more appropriate facility, our jails would be next to empty.'

‘During this interview, did you take notes?'

‘No. I recorded it. But the tape would have been destroyed with
the file.' He looks back over the top of his glasses. ‘And I don't imagine it would have been of much use to
you
.'

‘It's a complicated situation,' I flub. ‘I want to get my hands on as much primary documentation as possible.'

‘Well I'm sure all our documentation is gone.'

‘Did Piers mention his family at all?'

Whaley puts both elbows on the desk, clasps his hands together. His forefingers make a steeple to his nose.

‘I asked him if the new will would provide for his son. He replied that he'd left Rudy something very special. Something incredible. And I asked him what it was, and he said…'

He raises his eyebrows and holds them there, like he's holding his breath, then:

‘The blessing of a short life.'

Whaley remembers this well, for all his coyness at the door. It's a story he's meditated on.

‘Do you know what he meant by that?'

‘I didn't know at the time. But the cognitive evaluation showed that Piers suffered from a form of cardiomyopathy called AVRC, a disease affecting the heart. And it's hereditary, from what I understand. If Rudy were a sufferer, then Piers might, in his demented way, have considered that a more generous legacy than money or property. I tried to ask about it, but our conversation drifted into the absurd.'

Rudy's face when I told him he'd go to jail. His plan to wait the thirteen months. It's not a terrible idea if he thinks he's dying anyway. But why didn't he mention it when we ran through his medical history? Does he really think there'll be a pay-out if he's kept a secret like that?

‘Do you know for sure that Rudy has it? AC…'

‘AVRC. No, no. That was beyond my focus.'

‘But Piers definitely did.'

‘According to his medical records. His was moderate to severe, which meant he could theoretically experience an attack at any time and die. But of course, that's not what did for him in the end.'

‘So you know he's dead?'

‘It was in the news,' he waves dismissively. ‘Suffice it to say, the only actual information I gleaned from Alamein was that he lacked testamentary capacity.'

‘So then you called on Rudy?'

‘That's correct. My plan was to give him the lay of the land regarding his father's mental state, his position vis-à-vis a new will, and to refer him to the administration list at VCAT. But my assessment at the time—'

He cocks his head, unsure.

‘You have met with Rudyard Alamein, have you not?'

‘Yes, I have done so.'

‘My assessment at the time was that Rudy lacked the wherewithal to follow through on my advice. And if his application were denied, if he were required to attend a hearing at the tribunal, I simply didn't believe he had the capability to put his case. So I filed the documents myself, arranged for the cognitive capacity assessment and petitioned for a statutory power of attorney.'

‘Sounds complicated.'

He shrugs.

‘Not really. The common law test for a lack of testamentary capacity literally includes the phrase “insane delusions”, so I didn't have much difficulty there. Moreover, there wasn't exactly a glut of assets. Aside from the house, most of them had been sold off to pay his legal fees, including his apartment in…Toorak, I think it was. There was no hard-nosed opposition to our psychiatric report or our application. That's the totality of my involvement with the case.'

‘You don't still have a copy of that report?'

‘I'm afraid not. As I said…' He points to his filing cabinet. ‘I don't even have my file notes.'

‘Nothing kept electronically?'

‘No,' Whaley smiles. ‘I'm afraid I'm a philistine in that regard.'

Which would explain the want of a computer in here. I prepare for the golden question.

‘Did Piers tell you that he murdered his wife?'

Whaley's neck straightens again. Another subtle recoil.

‘No. Absolutely not. We never broached that topic. You seem to
be going well and truly beyond the call of duty, Mister Sherez.'

‘Why did you work for Rudy free of charge?'

I didn't mean for it to be a sucker punch, but I can tell that it is. Something flashes in Whaley's eyes and for the first time he doesn't have an immediate answer. Into the silence, I say:

‘Rudy told me you did it pro bono. Which is strange, given that he had money. He wasn't a charity. Why not send him a bill?'

‘
You're
obviously a clever young lawyer, Mister Sherez. Why not find a job that pays more than a CLC? Sometimes it's about more than money. Sometimes it's a matter of principle.'

‘What's the principle that says you should work for free for rich people?'

‘That's one way of looking at it.'

‘Well how do you look at it? Who paid for the psychiatrist's report?'

A pause, then: ‘I did.'

‘Why?'

‘It's difficult to explain. I felt sorry for him.'

And he hopes that will do the trick.

‘But you saved the day. Piers lacked capacity, Rudy got the house. Why feel sorry for him?'

‘You mean, aside from the fact that his mother was murdered?'

I don't answer. Whaley brings a hand to his mouth, breathes in like it's an oxygen mask, stares past me at nothing.

‘All right,' he says. ‘I'll show you.'

He gets up from his big leather chair but goes nowhere. Hovers, awkward, his hands fists, still thinking, staring into the floor.

‘I'm going to ask you to stay put in this room and not come out for a few minutes. Until I return. Can I trust you to do that?'

‘Sure.'

‘It's just…personal considerations. I need you to wait here.'

‘Okay.'

Whaley lingers on me to see if I mean it, doesn't seem to be satisfied, nonetheless opens the red door and shuts it again.

His feet stomp down the stairs.

30

Gravity pulls me towards the filing cabinet, but Whaley wouldn't have left me alone in here if there was anything to find. Still, I'm contemplating a quick look when my phone buzzes.

An appointment? I hadn't realised I'd seemed so professional as to seem professional.

The first spats of rain strike the window, translucent exclamation points gathering like predators. I flick myself in the temple, hate myself for inviting her like that. How sleazy does it look, inviting her to the place where your bed is? When my phone rings I'm breathless at the chance to walk it back. But the caller ID says:
Glen Tyan
.

I turn off my phone.

Whaley returns with booming feet up the stairs, sheets of newspaper in hand. He moves to the photocopier above the cabinet. Almost invisible in the shine of his grey hair I can see cobweb entrails, sticky and fine and holding at least one tiny tiny spider-meal spun into a brown ball.

The photocopier whirrs and quacks and poops out two A4 pages.
He holds them up, examining. Through one of the sheets I see the
Daily Sun
masthead.

‘I cut these pages out the day they went to print. As if I knew one day I'd be drawn into the Alamein affair.'

He offers them and I take them and he removes the originals from the photocopier, sits at his desk. We both read.

The publication date is Friday, January 23rd, 2001. The front page headline reads:

Most of the page is a photograph of young Rudy, moonfaced as ever, posing for the camera, sulky. The photographer surely told him, ‘Look sad!' and that's exactly what he did, sitting on a couch I remember from the front room in Albert Park, the same place Rudy sat to sign my fake contract. Rudy holds up a framed photograph of Cheryl Alamein.

Whaley has reduced the full newspaper page to A4, meaning he knows how to operate a photocopier even if he hates computers. His generation, I suppose. The print is fine, difficult to read. I pull it close.