Blood Ties (6 page)

I was in training for an eight kilometre fun run that would be held in the city in less than a month’s time. I was part of a four-person team, composed of all the female cops in the vicinity I was able to round up and force to participate. There was me, self-appointed team captain; Fiona, a veteran detective of thirty years who smoked two packets a day and had a huskier voice than a phone-sex operator; Jenny, a probationary constable uniform who was over-keen to do anything to lift her profile with her colleagues; and Eliza, a senior constable uniform, who was battling a weight problem after having her third baby and thought doing a fun run would be the motivation she needed to finally start shifting those unwanted twenty kilos. The three of them worked together in Big Town, a ninety minute drive away from me, so we hadn’t had the chance to train as a team yet, and to be honest, I wasn’t convinced that any of them were doing any training at all.

We’d agreed to call our team ‘Babes in Blue’ and planned on wearing dark blue shorts, light blue t-shirts and a dark blue cap as a homage to our police uniform. Jenny had wanted to call us ‘The Fast Fuzz’, but Fiona immediately vetoed that idea, complaining that it made us sound like twenty-dollar hookers offering quickies in a dirty alley. She was pretty big on girl power herself.

I didn’t hold any hopes for us setting a record time in the run, or even finishing as a team, but it was a fun run I participated in every year in memory of Marcelle, and I was hoping to do a personal best. Romi was going to run with us as well, but as an individual junior competitor, not as part of our team. She often joined me for my early morning jog, but had obviously decided to have a sleep-in this morning after her late night working in the pub for Abe.

Back home, I climbed the front stairs, face flushed, sweating up a storm, legs burning with effort, only to meet the Sarge at the top. He was dressed with casual style in designer jeans and an expensive t-shirt, and didn’t appear pleased to see me at all, judging by his unhappy expression. I moved past him, giving him a quick nod in greeting and did a few stretches on the veranda to warm down and relieve the tightness of my muscles.

“You left the patrol car unlocked and its windows down all night,” he accused.

Good morning to you too
, I thought, but said calmly, “I know. But there’s a reason for that. I wouldn’t do it normally.”

“It could have been stolen. It could have been taken on a joyride.”

I stopped in the middle of a calf stretch and looked at him. “Sarge, I know every young person in this town. If the car had gone missing, it would have taken less than an hour to find out who was responsible,” I argued reasonably. “Someone would ring me the second they saw them driving the car.”

It reality it would probably take even less than five minutes, my thoughts straight away honing in on Chad Bycraft, a notorious joyrider. You never left your car unlocked when you visited the Bycraft family. To do so only resulted in an inconvenient trip out to the mountain lake, Lake Big, to retrieve your vehicle from its public carpark where it had been abandoned. Not to mention the bill for removing the stains left behind on the seats from the marathon drinking and sex sessions Chad had held in it while he had the chance. I’d learned all that from bitter personal experience in my first week back in town. When I’d left town to go to university, Chad hadn’t been old enough to drive. He still wasn’t when I returned, but had obviously picked up some skills during those years.

The whole Bycraft family were bad news – in jail, on parole or heading towards jail at a fast clip, like Chad. There was only one Bycraft I had any time for and that was Jake, older cousin to Chad, younger brother to Red. He worked as a prison officer at the nearby low security prison and was a real honey of a man – good-looking, easy-going, loving, kind and respectable, with a great body. He was also my boyfriend, much to the horrified disbelief of everybody I knew. I teased him endlessly that he must have been switched at birth because he was so different to all of his numerous brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles. What the Bycrafts lost by being disreputable, they made up for by being ridiculously fertile. The town was overrun with Bycrafts. We had a plague of Bycrafts in Little Town.

Needless to say, because of my career choice, I wasn’t welcome in the Bycraft family as Jake’s girlfriend. That didn’t stop me from flaunting my relationship with him in front of them now and then though, because I got perverse enjoyment out of making them all uncomfortable. And God only knows that they’d made my life a nightmare over the years.

“Fuller, it’s not about
if
the car went missing,” the Sarge argued, snapping me out of my reverie. “It’s about preventing the car going missing in the first place. You’ve been careless with government property.”

I wanted to bite back at him, but restrained myself. “Sorry Sarge,” I said mildly, not meaning it at all. I decided then that I liked him better when he wasn’t talking. I zoned out his further ranting, bending down to unstrap from my thigh the leather holster which sheathed the knife that Dad had had made especially for me. I had three holsters – two for wrapping around my thigh, my favourite and a spare, and one for slinging around my hips. Which one I put on depended on what I was wearing that day. A girl needs to have a choice in her self-defence fashion.

He stopped lecturing and watched me in surprise. “Do you keep that knife with you all the time?”

“Yes, except when I’m in uniform.”

“Is the town that dangerous?” he asked, scepticism mixed with curiosity.

“For some people it is,” I replied curtly and headed towards the door.

His expression reflected his concern that he’d been landed with a partner who was paranoid, maybe even crazy. And last night’s escapade wouldn’t be dissuading him of either, I figured with resignation. I’ve grown used to people judging me without knowing anything about my circumstances though, so I didn’t dwell on it for too long. And I really couldn’t blame him for thinking that way, because on first appearances Little Town did seem to be a peaceful bucolic ideal where children frolicked in the street and people left their doors unlocked. And it would have been as well, if it wasn’t for the Bycraft family.

He stopped me at the door as I was heading for the shower, my knife dangling from my hand. “After breakfast, I want you to take me for a reconnaissance of the town and give me a tour of the station,” he ordered.

I was about to object because I’d been on duty for over thirty days straight and I needed a day off, but my complaint died a quick death when I saw his face. I swallowed my annoyance and nodded in agreement. I would probably be back home in half an hour, I reasoned to myself, trying to see the bright side. A tour of the station would take five minutes, tops. It only had two rooms. The town would probably take ten minutes, all up. We locals didn’t call this place ‘Little Town’ for nothing.

I squeezed past him and entered the bathroom to shower, dressing casually myself afterwards in denim shorts and a sky-blue t-shirt, leaving my hair out long and loose. I slipped my knife holster back around my thigh, regardless of what the Sarge thought. Dad was awake by then and I introduced him to my new boss and left the two men to get to know each other while I cooked a hot breakfast for us all. Dad offered to clean up afterwards, so I let him. He liked to help out around the house as much as possible, but was growing increasingly incapable of doing certain things. Washing up was still doable for him since we’d had the dishwasher installed last year. It had cleaned out our bank account, but I thought it was worth it. Whatever Dad wanted, I was determined that Dad would have.

“Let’s head off now, Fuller,” the Sarge demanded when I finished.

“Why don’t you call me Tess?” I suggested, looking up at him. “We’re going to be working closely together after all.” Des had always called me Tess and I’d always called him Des. Little Town was that kind of place. I was starting to miss Des and his relaxed ways already, which surprised me.

He blinked down at me for a moment, not encouraging my attempts at friendliness one little bit. “Can we head off now?”

Thinking of the smelly stain on the back seat, I tried to delay. “Can you give me thirty minutes? I have to –”

“I want to go now,” he insisted.

“But first I just need to –”

“I said now, Fuller.” He glared at me.

I snatched up the keys to the patrol car and stormed out the front door. I’d learned a few things about my new boss this morning – he didn’t like to listen and he wanted things done his way. Well, he needed to learn that I liked things done
my
way, the right way, just as much.

I threw myself into the driver’s seat and started the patrol car. He sat in the passenger seat and did up his seatbelt. With an evil gleam in my heart, I wound up all the windows. I reversed speedily and spun the car around to head out of the gates onto the highway. We drove twenty metres down the road when he spoke up, his nose scrunched in disgust.

“What the fuck is that smell?”

“Someone had an accident in the back seat last night. I was going to clean it up this morning, but I didn’t get the chance,” I explained, regarding him with innocent eyes.

“Turn around now,” he demanded, winding down his window. Smothering my smile, I performed a speedy three-point turn and drove back up to the house, screeching to a stop next to his sports car. He jumped out before I’d even stopped properly.

“Let me know when you’re finished,” he said, slamming the door and stalking off back to the house. Pounding up the stairs, he startled Dad who’d wheeled himself out to the veranda to see who had arrived. And I know it’s petty and wrong, but I hummed happily to myself the whole time I cleaned that revolting stain off the seat.

Twenty minutes later, we sped off again, windows down, the unpleasant odour replaced by the slightly less unpleasant odour of disinfectant and fabric deodoriser. The Sarge seemed to be in a bad mood so I didn’t bother chatting to him as we drove. I was out of the habit of talking much while I worked anyway, either being by myself or not able to compete against Des’ endless stream of chatter on the rare occasions we had worked together.

We drove the five kilometres north on the Coastal Range Highway into town without exchanging a word. I turned off the highway into the police station’s small gravel carpark. The station was an old rectangular timber building painted an institutional puke-green colour, with a rusting tin roof. It was set on low timber stumps with a veranda running along each of the short sides of the rectangle, accessed by a small set of stairs. As a tiny nod to modern times, a slippery metal ramp had been installed at the end of the front veranda for wheelchairs and prams, which on a wet day proved impassable for both.

The front door of the station led to a small reception area, painted a peeling dull cream colour with a sash window at either end. A corkboard on the wall held a faded recruitment poster and old flyers about Crime Stoppers. An uncomfortable hardwood bench seat and small matching timber table slotted into the corner, both bolted to the floor. A display rack sat on the table, crammed full of unpopular and dusty pamphlets on Neighbourhood Watch, personal safety for women and securing your home against burglary. To my knowledge, nobody had ever taken one to read. The townsfolk had no interest in being told how to keep safe – they’d been looking after themselves for generations.

A battered and scarred hardwood timber counter ran the length of the tiny room, effectively cutting it in two. I unlocked and lifted up its hatch and ushered the Sarge behind the counter.

“This is the front counter and waiting area,” I explained, rather unnecessarily.

“There’s no safety screen installed?”

I glanced at him in surprise. “No.”

“What do you do if someone threatens you with a weapon?”

“Duck?” I suggested, shrugging my shoulders.

He cut me a hard look and said flatly, “I’m being serious, Fuller.”

I was beginning to think he’d have trouble being anything but serious. Hurriedly, I pressed on with the tour.

“Underneath the counter here are all our forms,” I pointed out and also brought the counter bell to his notice. “The counter is never staffed because when I’m here, I’m usually out the back, so we need the bell to let us know when we have a customer.”

That’s all there was to see in the front room, so I took him through the doorway to the back room, which was painted the same faded cream colour.

“That’s my desk.” I waved my hand in the general direction of my workstation, engulfed in a sea of paperwork that was spilling over onto the floor. “And that one will be yours,” I added, pointing to the pristinely clean desk situated next to it.

Both desks were covered in the graffiti of generations of bored officers, some of the drawings X-rated, all carved into the varnished timber. I was the first female officer to serve in Little Town and one long hot summer afternoon last year, I’d added my own initials, a cheesy loveheart and the date, using my manicure scissors. It tickled me being part of that kind of history. I glanced at the Sarge before deciding that he definitely wasn’t the graffiti kind of guy. I doubt he’d leave his mark behind.

The desks had a light and airy position with a nice view out the back of the station of the rising mountain range. Each was situated underneath a sash window, neither of which I could get to open despite all my efforts. An ancient computer sat on top of each desk and an equally antiquated telephone and printer/fax rested between them. A row of rusty and decrepit filing cabinets filled the opposite wall between the windows, some of the more elderly ones leaning alarmingly to the side. A tiny kitchenette was at the far end of the room. I showed him where the tea, coffee, sugar and milk were kept. Then I unlocked the back door and led him out to the back veranda where the bathroom took up one end.