Blood Sport (37 page)

“And I’m figuring that you’ll spend the rest of your life suffering if I shoot your nads off right now, Rick Bycraft.” I moved the gun down to aim at that part of his anatomy.

He remained stubborn. I glanced from one to the other, then smiled to myself. There were other ways to deal the Bycrafts besides brute force.

“Have you told him yet, Mark?” I asked, changing my tone to sweet innocence.

“What?” Mark grunted. He wasn’t the brightest Bycraft in town, which was saying a lot about his mental capacity.

“About you and Dorrie?”

Rick’s flung his head sideways to stare at his cousin. “What about you and Dorrie, Marky?”

“Nothing. She’s just tricking you, Ricky,” Mark stammered. “Don’t pay any attention to the moll.”

“What did you mean by that?” Rick asked me.

I shrugged casually. “Nothing. It was probably nothing. It’s just . . .” I sighed, as if I was unwillingly squeezing the information from myself. “I saw Mark and Dorrie together in Big Town, that’s all. About four months ago.” Rick received a blast of my most angelic smile. I cocked my head as if I was thinking. “Wasn’t that about when Dorrie became pregnant?”

Although an intellectual giant compared to his cousin, Rick wasn’t too quick on the uptake himself. In fact, he was about as sharp as a beach ball. It took a while for my insinuation to seep into his brain. But when it finally leached into his neurones and settled unhappily in that low-powered environment, he was instantly defensive and hostile.

“What are you saying? Are you saying that there’s something going on between Marky and Dorrie?”

I shrugged again. “How the hell would I know? I’m a cop, not a peeping tom.”

“See, I told you, Ricky. She’s just shit-stirring. She doesn’t know anything,” Mark told his cousin, relieved. I considered him with a half-smile. I wouldn’t be the black-hearted bitch that I knew I was if I allowed that level of confidence to continue though, would I?

“But . . .” I said, with mock-reluctance.

“What?” asked Rick sharply.

“No, I don’t want to say. It will only cause a ruction.”

“
What?
” He was becoming agitated.

“We-eee-eee-lll.” I tortured the word into four syllables. “I have to admit that they
did
look awfully chummy.”

“Why don’t you just shut your fucking mouth?” suggested Mark.

“What do you mean by that, piglet?” Rick demanded.

Over the thunderous pounding of the rain on the tin roof, I heard the faint but urgent crunch of gravel from the carpark, and pretending to think again about what I was going to say next, I glanced out the window. The patrol car had pulled up abruptly and the Sarge was leaping from the car, running into the station, his gun out, Melissa shouting something angrily to his disappearing back.

“It could all be innocent, but they
were
kissing and Dorrie had her hand down his jeans,” I confessed and smiling secretly to myself, stood back to watch the fireworks.

“What the
fuck
? Did you fuck my girlfriend?” Rick turned on his cousin.

“She wasn’t your girlfriend then,” said Mark stupidly, backing away, his hands up defensively. “You were still living with Stacey Felhorn.”

“They were
both
my fucking girlfriends!” Rick paced around Mark angrily, his voice cracking with emotion. “Is it your fucking kid, Marky?” I almost felt sorry for him for a second for his betrayal, until he spoke again. “Because I’ve been paying for her to buy all that baby shit. You can fucking well pay me back if it’s yours.”

The Sarge burst into the room, gun out, aggression turned up to eleven, his voice loud and commanding. “Don’t move, either of you! Put those weapons down and get up against the wall, hands up.”

“Do what he says. He has an itchy trigger finger,” I warned, moving to open the hatch in the counter to get closer to the pair. “He’s from the city and he’s used to shooting first, taking statements second and justifying himself to the coroner third.”

Mark threw his bat to the ground and put his arms in the air. He’d always been easily led.

“Up against the wall!” the Sarge shouted at him. He did what he was told, pressing himself against the wall, his back to me. I moved over to him, kicked the bat away from anyone’s reach, my gun trained on him the whole time. I tucked it away to pat him down thoroughly.

“Having a good feel, piglet?” Mark sneered, and shifted his hips suddenly so that my hand accidently grazed his crotch. “Oh yeah,” he moaned. “I’ll be telling my cousin Red about that when I see him next. He’ll be jealous.”

My knee moved up swiftly between his legs to connect cruelly with his gonads. He screamed in pain.

“Oops, sorry Mark. Guess my knee slipped. Make sure you tell Red about
that
too,” I said sweetly. “How you going, Sarge?”

“This dickhead isn’t doing what he’s told, Tessie. I’m becoming angry. What do you suggest?”

“Shoot him,” I said straight away. “I’ll swear in court that he pulled a weapon on you.”

“You bitch!” Rick screamed. “I’ve got kids!”

“Have you, Rick? Are you sure they’re really yours?” I taunted. “Put the bullet right through his brain, Sarge. If you can find it, that is.” And I laughed.

He threw the bat to the floor and put his hands up. “You’re nothing but crazy. I
hate
you, piglet. I wish Red
had
killed you. You deserve it.”

The Sarge was shooting me a ‘don’t touch it’ glare, but I could feel my blood pressure rising at that awful comment. How had I done anything in life to deserve being killed by Red Bycraft, except for being born in the first place? No, not even that. Being born female into the Fuller family in this town. I couldn’t win Gold Lotto with that kind of luck, but I’d hit the jackpot with the Bycrafts though.

The Sarge moved quickly to kick away the bat and held Rick with his face to the wall, his baton across the back of his neck. “What were you doing here?”

“Nothing,” croaked Rick. “We just wanted to visit our good friend, Officer Tess.”

“If you come anywhere near her again, or if any of her property is damaged again, this is going to end much more sadly.” He crunched Rick’s neck with the baton. “There
will
be body bags involved. Get my point?”

“Sure I do, copper,” he said sullenly. “You’re the man with the gun, after all.”

“And don’t you forget that, Bycraft,” he said, pushing him towards the door. “Get lost.”

Rick reached down towards the baseball bat, but the Sarge stepped on his wrist with his boot, crunching it to the floor. Rick cried out in pain.

“That’s mine now. You bring me a present, I don’t give it back. Now, you heard me.” He bellowed in his incredibly loud voice, making us all jump. “
Fuck off!
”

Rick scrambled out the door, quickly followed by Mark. We had nothing to hold them on because they hadn’t done anything and apparently, exceptional stupidity was
not
yet a crime in this state. I could hear them bickering the second they were on the veranda, probably about the paternity of Dorrie’s latest brat, and I felt some comfort in that. Divide and conquer was some famous general’s slogan. In the case of the Bycrafts, anything that ripped their tribal loyalty apart was good news for the police. I’d done my bit for society today.

“Thanks for that, Sarge. I was afraid I was going to have to shoot them both.”

He eyed me carefully, not doubting for a second that I would have, if that’s what it took to stay safe. “What were they planning?”

“I’m not sure if they were going to target the station windows or me. They would have made a right mess of me with two baseball bats.” I leaned down to pick them up off the floor, hiding them behind the counter and pulling my sling back on. My heartbeat slowly returned to normal. “But how did you know I needed help?”

“I’d shown Melissa around the town and decided to take her to the beach. We drove past the station as we did and I noticed Rick Bycraft’s car in the carpark. And seeing that we can barely even get him here to report in on Mondays like he’s supposed to, I knew it wasn’t a friendly visit.”

I smiled at him. “You can recognise Bycraft cars by sight now? Aw Sarge, I’m so proud of you.”

“No need to be a smartarse, Fuller,” he said, unimpressed with my levity. “Will you be okay here without me? I don’t want to leave you alone again.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine,” I assured breezily. “You don’t want to keep Melissa waiting.”

“I would like to finish showing her around town. I’m hoping to find
something
that impresses her about the place.”

“Nothing so far?”

His mouth twisted in a resigned half-smile. “Nothing so far.” He regarded me seriously. “Lock the doors, Tess. Any customers can knock first. Okay?” I nodded obediently. “Well, if you’re sure you’ll be all right . . .” I nodded again and nudged him towards the door, wanting to get back to my search for Kylie. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“No, you won’t. I almost forgot that I’m having dinner at Abe’s place tonight. He invited me around.”

He stopped at the door. “Oh, did he now?”

“Yep, he did.”

“How convenient.”

“Isn’t it just?” My eyes were a study in innocence. “You and Melissa can spend the evening alone now.”

“I was really hoping that you and Melissa could get to know each other better over dinner. It would make me so happy if you two became friends.”

I couldn’t stop myself needling him. “Just like you and Jake?”

We eyed each other steadily. “That’s different. I could never be friends with him.” I opened my mouth to argue about that, but he’d already turned on his heel. “I’ll see you later tonight then.”

Not if I can help it
, I thought and headed back to my desk. It took me a while to settle back down to work, particularly with the two wrong numbers I had to field in the meantime. Feeling peckish, I gave into temptation and nibbled on a rocky-road flavoured Tim Tam while I ran my eyes over the four Kylie-possibles.

Number One was a fifteen-year-old runaway from one of the more disadvantaged suburbs in the city. There was not a lot of information about her on the printout. I tried to log into the database again to check out her photo, but it was still loading with frustrating slowness.

Kylie 2 was a sixteen-year-old who’d absconded from her foster family a year ago. She seemed the right height and size, but was described as having black hair not blonde, though that was nothing that a bottle of bleach couldn’t fix.

Kylie 3 was fourteen and had disappeared one day travelling to the local shopping centre to meet a friend. Although she also matched Kylie’s description, this one seemed wrong. She came from a loving family, was an A-grade student and a district-level netballer. She had texted her friend not long before she was due at the shopping centre to confirm their meeting point and her phone hadn’t been used again since. Her devastated family had made several weepy media appearances begging for their daughter’s safe return. This one smelt like foul play to me, not a runaway. I sadly crossed her off the list.

The fourth girl was my favourite pick of the bunch. She had been only thirteen when she’d disappeared from what was clearly an abusive home environment. Her mother hadn’t even reported that she was missing for over a month after she was last seen. The police report I dredged up hinted that Kylie and her mother had fought frequently. Her mother admitted that they’d had a violent physical altercation the night Kylie was last seen. She’d struck her daughter across the face several times with her hand and kicked her as well as she laid on the floor crying. The mother’s excuse was that her young daughter had come home drunk at two in the morning, refusing to say where she’d been and what she’d been doing. Everything I read about the girl depressed me. Despite what had happened to me in my life, I’d always known the fierce love and support of adult family members and friends as I’d grown up. I felt desperately sorry for kids who didn’t have good adult role models. And that even meant the Bycrafts.

When I looked up I was surprised to see that it had grown dark outside.
That was enough work for today
, I decided. I’d try to ring Kylie 4’s mother tomorrow morning. Maybe she could email me the most recent photo she had of her daughter. I shut my computer down and locked the station up, sprinting up to the Sarge’s place through the endless rain.

I poked my head around the lounge room doorway. The Sarge and Melissa were sitting close together on the lounge, chatting, enjoying a pre-dinner wine and listening to some music. It was all very charmingly domestic. A tantalising smell wafted from the kitchen. I lifted my head up and sniffed appreciatively.

“Oh yum! Can I change my mind about dinner?” I joked.

“Too late,” said the Sarge, smiling. “You snooze, you lose, Fuller. This is strictly a dinner for two now.”

“Never mind,” I grinned back. “I’ll have a meal prepared by a professional chef tonight, not some tasteless slop from an amateur.”

“Jealous much?” he teased.

“Hardly!” And on that note I left them to jump in the shower, dressing afterwards in jeans, high-heeled boots, a long-sleeved shirt and a hoodie. I didn’t need to dress up for Abe and the girls – they loved me the way I was. I did spray myself with some of my favourite, expensive and carefully rationed perfume though, dabbed on some mascara, blusher and lip gloss and brushed my hair out from its normal bun until it was soft and shiny around my shoulders.