Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 01 - Cocoa and Chanel (10 page)

‘I was… ummm…just interested.’ Christ when he gazed at me like that I felt like a space ship caught in a tractor beam.

‘Why don’t you check out the case board?’ he said.

‘Pardon?’

‘The case board for the Cross serial killer – it’s out the back.’

‘Right,’ I said, ‘case board.’

At the end of my shift I went out to the back office to get my handbag and found the case board. It was behind Roger’s desk, so I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it before. I had spent an inordinate amount of time staring at his desk when I had been out the back. But then I had been staring at him, not his surroundings.

There was a map of King’s Cross with pins marking the sites the bodies had been found. I jotted them down into my notebook while also looking nervously over my shoulder, and then I bolted out into the night.

***

The next morning I packed some ziplock plastic bags in my handbag and headed down the apartment building stairs going over my plan in my head. I was going to go to the lane in which we found Leticia first. Her name had been listed on the case board and it was nice to finally have a name for her. I had felt disrespectful thinking of her as ‘that woman’ or ‘the body’.

I had just reached the ground floor when I remembered I had forgotten to pack rubber gloves. Sighing, I turned to start the trek back upstairs and ran into a tall man wearing a brown suit.

‘Sorry,’ I said. What sort of policewoman was I? I hadn’t even heard anyone behind me.

‘That’s okay Chanel,’ he said in a monotone voice.

I peered up at him. ‘Do I know you?’ I asked. He looked vaguely familiar.

‘Yes,’ he said in that same dead tone.

I stared at him for a while, trying to work out where I’d met him.

He sighed and then gestured at himself. ‘I’m Marty,’ he said. When I didn’t say anything he sighed again and in a very familiar voice said, ‘Chanel, it’s Martine.’

‘Jesus,’ I said, jumping backwards. The face was the same, but that is where the similarities ended. Where Martine was vital and alive, Marty seemed dead. He appeared miserable in his boring suit and plain shoes.

‘You’re bald?’ I said.

‘I shave. It’s easier with the wigs.’

‘So you’re a …..’ I was going to say man, but that was obvious and didn’t really sum it up.

‘An accountant.’

‘Not quite what I meant,’ I said.

‘Oh… I’m a drag queen.’

I stared at him for a while, trying to correlate this person with my Martine. I couldn’t do it. ‘So Ronnie?’

‘Yes he is too.’

‘And Bernadette?’

‘We all are. I’m surprised you didn’t work it out before.’

‘I’m from Hickery,’ I said, as if that could explain how naïve I was.

We stood and stared at each other for a few more seconds and then I said, ‘I’ve got to get some rubber gloves.’

‘Oh looking for evidence?’ It was hard to tell if he was interested when he said it in that dull voice.

‘Ahuh. Maybe I’ll come by and see you after work tonight?’

‘That would be nice,’ he said.

I moved to the side so he could get past me and watched him shuffle up the street. It was unbelievable to think that that sad man, who appeared barely able to put one foot in front of the other, could dance the Cancan in five inch heels.

***

The lane had been scary when I had followed Roger that day; by myself it was terrifying. My mind played tricks on me, visualising shapes in the shadows, imagining the killer stalking behind me. By the time I got to the end I was exhausted with fear. I took a few moments to steady myself, deep breathing as I fought the urge to run back down the alley. But then I remembered Leticia, and I started to search.

I had no idea what I was looking for. I was just hoping the investigators had missed something that I wouldn’t. I mean it really was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had.

Her blood was still visible in the dirt of the alley; a blackened stain of pain and misery. I stared at it and tried to imagine what it would have felt like to have my life leaking out of me, to know I was going to die.

And that was when I saw it. A cigarette butt ground into the dirt so it was barely visible.

I put on a rubber glove and picked up the butt, holding it up for inspection. It didn’t look like a normal cigarette butt: the colour was almost black. I placed it in a plastic bag and tucked it into my pocket. Another few minutes revealed nothing else unusual. There was some rubbish lying around, a few cans and an old newspaper, but I doubted very much that he had stopped to eat a can of spaghetti or read the newspaper after he had killed her. But have a cigarette? Well that I could imagine.

I debated showing it to Roger, but decided against it. Firstly, I had no proof it was the killer’s; I needed to look at the other sites first, and secondly I had already had a formal warning. If word got back to Ramy that I had become a solo investigator I would probably spend the rest of my life manning the front desk – that was if I didn’t get kicked off the Force first.

The second site wasn’t as creepy. The alley was shorter and not so dark, but it was in a more secluded area of the Cross. I scoured the area, but found nothing. By the time I had found nothing at the next three locations I was starting to feel pretty stupid.

I mean what did I think I was doing? It wasn’t like I had known the women who had been killed.

But then Leticia’s bloody face flashed into my mind.

That could have been my Mum. Hell, it could have been me. It was only luck that separated that woman’s fate from all the other women living in this area. While the killer walked free we were playing Russian roulette every time we left home. And I didn’t want to live in a world where our hold on life was so tentative and do nothing about it.

I spent more time at the last site, not wanting to give up without finding my matching clue. I was pretty certain I was in the right spot; the case board had had photos of the bodies and the surrounding area. But even after I had moved all the rubbish out of the way, bits of paper that might have blown in over the site, I didn’t find it.

I was feeling pretty despondent having just wasted my morning off on an ego-fuelled goose chase. Pulling the plastic bag out of my pocket I walked over to a dumpster and started to lift the lid. I froze. Resting on the very edge of the lid was a perfectly matched butt.

My excitement threatening to overflow, I placed it carefully in a second bag and marked the location on the plastic, and then I went back to the other sites. Before I had been looking at the ground, now I was looking everywhere. And I found them. Strategically placed behind a down pipe, under a bin, on top of an awning; there was a butt at each of the locations a body had been found.

Perhaps it was a common brand of cigarette, but if that was the case why was there only one at each site? There was a good chance there was some saliva on them, which meant DNA. But what if it was somebody without a prior conviction?

I thought about it all that night at work, while also wrangling with the desire to share my find with Roger. But the fear of getting dragged into Ramy’s office won over that desire to share and I decided to keep it to myself until I had some more concrete proof.

***

I knocked off work at three in the morning and decided to drop into Dazzle. I still hadn’t recovered from my shock of meeting Marty and had decided the best way to deal with it was to imagine that Martine and Marty were two different people.

Martine sat with Bruce and Ronnie and a couple of the other girls around a table. Bruce had some paper and a pen and was taking notes.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

‘We’re planning a new routine.’

Martine waved at me from the other side of the table. She looked nervous and I felt bad for making her feel that way.

‘Why don’t you have a seat at the bar? We’re finished for tonight,’ Bruce said. ‘We’ve just been arguing about whether or not to hire a choreographer, but we can’t afford it.’

‘Why do you need one? Your other routines look great,’ I said, pulling out a barstool.

‘Yes, but we stole them from movies,’ Martine said. She pulled a chair out next to me. ‘So how did you go today?’

I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was listening. ‘Good,’ I said once I’d made sure no-one could overhear us.

I told her of my find and my indecision over what to do with it.

‘Why don’t you take them to the tobacconist on Fleming St and see what brand they are?’ she suggested. ‘If they are as unusual as you think, there might be a limited number of users in the area.’

I could have leapt out of my chair and kissed her, and I was considering doing it when I heard a familiar voice. ‘Hey super girl, you didn’t tell me you knew Martine.’

Bianca was wearing a bright orange, lycra dress, which stretched heroically over her curves and revealed an ample amount of cleavage.

‘She’s my best friend in Sydney,’ I said.

‘What about me?’ Bruce said as he wiggled out from under the bar.

‘You’re my best dog walking friend,’ I said.

He laughed and then air kissed Bianca. ‘What brings you here gorgeous?’

‘I’m looking for Rosie and Lizette. Have you seen them?’

‘Not for a few days,’ he said.

Bianca sighed and frowned; the expression didn’t look right on her.

‘I wouldn’t worry honey,’ Martine said, ‘you know they’ll show up eventually.’

‘Yeah you’re right,’ Bianca said. ‘But I worry about them when they go on a drug binge.’

‘Do you think that’s what they’re doing?’ I asked.

‘Not seeing as how you’re a big tough policewoman,’ she said. ‘Those girls are as clean as fresh snow. No drugs have ever entered their pure little bodies.’

I laughed and held my hands out. ‘I’m off duty,’ I said. Besides, it wasn’t the users I was interested in, it was the dealers.

‘They’ll probably be back tomorrow,’ Bruce said.

She blew out a big puff of air, still looking worried. ‘Oh well, I better go earn the rent,’ she finally said. She blew us all kisses before leaving the bar.

I had wanted to talk to her about the killings, but it was apparent from her body language that whatever it was that had Lizette and Rosie scared stupid, she didn’t know about it.

Martine gave me directions to the tobacconist, which was just up the road from work, and I left soon after, keen to get home to Cocoa and my bed.

The red light on my answering machine was flashing when I got in. It was a message from Mum telling me she was coming to visit and giving me the details of the train she would be on in a couple of days’ time. I wasn’t sure I wanted her to come while the killer was still on the loose, but then I didn’t want to tell her that because then she’d be worried about me. In the end I figured she wouldn’t be going out after dark unless she was with me anyway so I needn’t worry.

I entered the details of her train in my phone and then I crawled into bed.

***

I was waiting impatiently outside the tobacconist when he opened at nine-thirty the next morning. I had arrived there fifteen minutes earlier and spent the wait fretting over what to say. I didn’t want news of what I was doing to get around, certainly not back to the police station or, even worse, the killer.

‘Hello love,’ he said as he pushed up the shutters. His forehead was already covered in a fine mist of perspiration. It was going to be a hot day.

I followed him into the shop and looked around. All of the cigarettes were behind the counter, in line with government regulations. The rest of the shop was filled with Darrel Lea chocolates. I amused myself by picking out some rocky road; putting off the awkward conversation for as long as possible.

‘I was wondering if you could help me,’ I finally said, pulling out a plastic bag with a butt in it. I handed him the bag and said, ‘Could you tell me what type of cigarette this is from?’

‘That’s not a cigarette,’ he said, ‘it’s a cigar.’

‘But it’s so thin.’

‘Not all cigars are the big thick type.’ He opened a cupboard under the counter and pulled out a box of thin dark brown cigars. There was a picture of a woman in a grass skirt and bikini on the front.

‘Hula girl?’ I said.

He placed a few more packets on the counter, each slightly different from the last.

‘Vanilla, mango, chocolate, coconut,’ I said, reading the packets.

I looked at the cigars through the cellophane wrapping on the box. The end was identical to the ones I had found. A surge of triumph burnt through my chest.

‘Do many people smoke these?’ I said.

‘Flavoured cigars?’ He scratched the tuft of hair on his chin and cocked his head to the side. ‘They’re a bit of an acquired taste. The coconut ones seem to be the most popular.’

‘Could you tell which flavour this one is?’ I asked.

‘I’d have to light it.’

I thought about it for a second, quickly discarding the idea. Lighting it would potentially destroy any DNA and probably wouldn’t give me any useful information. For all I knew every butt was a different flavour.