Murderer's Thumb (2 page)

‘Divorced?' Loody asked.

‘In the process.'

Loody did the slow crooked nod again. ‘You after some part time work?'

‘Oh yeah, I'll be fifteen in a couple of months.'

‘Always need relief milkers. It's not hard work. I'll have a chat to Colin about it. He won't care how old you are.' Loody looked at Adam's denim shorts. ‘Have to cover up your fancy pants though. Cows will shit themselves. Got any overalls?'

‘Nuh.'

‘Take those ones under your arse home with you. They're Matt's. They'll probably fit. You look the same height.'

Adam glanced down at what he could see of the soft, worn material. ‘Right,' he said. Adam's mother had mentioned the landlord, Colin Thackeray, and pointed him out, stiff shouldered and red-faced, trudging past the house on his way to the milking shed. There was a son as well, tall and thin like a streak of pelican shit. From Loody's description, he had to be Matt. Adam kept seeing him wandering around in a grey boiler suit and green gumboots, unless he was off for a jog somewhere.

The thought of a job filled Adam's mind with possibilities. Some extra cash would be brilliant. He could get an iPod, or even save for a laptop. His mum, Rosemary, was always at him to get an after-school job. Bit hard when they were never anywhere for long enough. Adam supposed working on the farm would be one way to combat the boredom of living in the bush. As long as he could tolerate Loody, who thought Statkus was such a weird name. He could talk! His name was weird enough.

‘What's Loody mean? Is it short for something?' Adam blurted.

‘Yeah…Ludeman. It's my surname.'

‘Sounds German.'

‘Yeah, ancestors settled in South Australia. Grew grapes or some shit.'

‘How'd you lose your tooth?'

Loody gave him an odd look. ‘How'd you stuff up your eye?'

Adam smiled. Loody sure dressed like a wanker but he was quick with the comeback. ‘Got into a fight with a billiard cue,' Adam said.

‘That's about how I lost my tooth. Got into a fight.' He turned the wheel sharply to the left.

The lurch of the tractor tipped Adam forwards. He spread his arms wide against the windscreen and back window to brace himself.

‘There's a panic bar beside your head, so you don't fall out,' Loody offered.

By craning his neck Adam could see the metal bar. He gripped it with one hand, regaining his balance. Just like being on a tram holding the overhead bars.

Loody stopped the tractor in front of a wide wire gate.

Adam sat, waiting for Loody to get out, but he didn't move. Instead he turned to Adam and said, ‘Passengers open gates, you dumb city slicker.'

‘Shit, sorry!' Adam scrambled down from the machine and dropped to the dusty road. The gate was easy to unlatch and it swung out quickly before sticking in the dry ruts. He lifted it, pushing hard to ease it wide enough for the tractor. Dumb city slicker? What a bastard! As if Adam knew what to do when he'd only been on the farm five minutes. He'd think of some way to get back at Loody.

The tractor lumbered into the paddock and Adam shut the gate. When he climbed inside again they took off and drove uphill to the right where a tangle of trees stood beside a huge mound.

‘Well, here we are,' Loody said.

An old yellow tractor was parked in front of some shabby melaleucas. They drove round to the side and there it was, a hill of silage, olive green and smelling sweet. The smell reminded him of the sherry his mum put in the Christmas trifle—that revolting dessert of old cake and custard.

The pit was like an open-cut mine, about three metres high and ten wide. Trees lined both sides and there was a layer of earth on top.

‘You seen those hills of plastic around the district, with tyres on top?'

‘Look like giant blue pizzas with massive olives?'

‘That's them. They're short-term pits. No more than a year or two old. This one's an earth pit. Dirt does the same job as plastic and tyres. Weighs it down, keeps the air out, so it won't rot. Some farmers have silage buried for over ten years. Drought insurance.'

There were bush flies everywhere. They descended on Adam as he jumped from the tractor. They went for the nose and eyes, tickled and taunted him until he waved them away. But they settled on his face again in seconds. Loody cut the engine and joined him on the ground. They walked over to the open face. Some silage was spilt on the ground. It was soft underfoot, like walking on straw, except each shaft of grass had been finely cut, as if someone had been at it with a pair of scissors.

‘Only had this pit open a few days. Once the air gets in, it dries out. We just take a few metres off the face morning and night, so not much gets spoilt.' He plunged his hand inside the wall of dried grass and pulled out a handful of moist green clippings. He held it to his face and sniffed loudly. ‘Good shit…if you're a cow.'

‘Yeah sure,' Adam said.

‘Stand over by the trailer while I get it loaded,' Loody said. He hoisted himself into the metal seat of the old tractor and fired it up. At the front was a big set of steel prongs like fangs from a sabre-toothed tiger. Loody drove the tractor forward and opened the grab up wide. There was a puff of black exhaust and a laboured put-put as he plunged its jaws into the mound of silage, tightened the grip and pulled backwards. The newly exposed wall shone bottle-green and black.

Loody turned the tractor towards Adam, and headed for the cage on wheels. That's when Adam saw it. A dark object fell from the captured mass of silage and something else, narrow and pale, protruded from the right side of the steel jaws. A broom, a stick, a bone?

‘What's that?' Adam shouted, pointing at the grab.

Loody frowned, shifting in his seat to get a better view.

Adam's hands and neck were suddenly clammy. He stumbled closer, fighting back an urge to flee. But there was no mistaking what he saw. It was bone. He ran over to the black object, which lay on the soft bed of fallen silage. It was a boot. A black boot with a metal buckle. His eyes swung back to the silage in the grab. The idling tractor had shaken free more of the dead grass. Adam could make out the curving bones of a ribcage.

Loody threw the engine into neutral and jumped down to join him.

Adam tried to force back the bile surging up his throat, but he doubled over and vomited. As he coughed and spat, trying to clear the taste from his mouth, he turned to see Loody standing beside him, shaking.

‘Fuck, mate,' Loody whispered. ‘I think we've found a body.'

TWO

Loody fumbled the mobile from his belt like a drunken gangster. ‘Hope I get reception down here,' he muttered, punching in the numbers. ‘Come on, come on, you bastard! Answer the phone…hey, hi…Barry, you'd better come and see this. I think we've found a body…Yeah, sorry, it's Loody.' He was breathless as he gabbled. ‘Over at the waterhole paddock, first turn right after the Pattersons Creek bridge… yeah, mate, see you.' His hand shook as he put the phone away.

‘Who's Barry?' Adam asked.

‘Local copper,' he said.

They sat on the ground with their backs to the skeleton, as if ignoring it would somehow make it go away.

‘Who do you reckon it is?' Adam said.

‘No flesh on it,' Loody said, opening his cigarette packet. ‘S'pose they'll do forensic tests and everything. Don't they check their teeth for flllings or something? They'll find out sooner or later.' He lit a cigarette and offered Adam one.

‘No thanks,' he said, raising a hand. The cigarette fumes made Adam feel sicker. He squeezed his lips together and swallowed the growing bitterness. His throat was dry as if packed with sawdust. ‘Got any water?' he said.

‘What for?'

‘To drink.'

‘Nah, you'll keep till we get back,' Loody said, glancing around at the bone still trapped in the prongs of the tractor. He snorted in disbelief. ‘Amazing shit! I wonder how long it's been lying there?'

Adam shook his head, his brain struggling to function. Normally his curious nature would have kicked in immediately, making sense of things. Now he just felt dazed. He had to start asking questions to clear the fog.

‘Must've been here a while,' Loody went on. ‘The soil on top didn't look any different…not disturbed. Just looked like the rest of the ground.'

‘When was the silage made? Adam asked.

Loody sighed. ‘Six years ago…my first year.'

Adam thought out loud. ‘So it must have been buried no more than six years ago and not in the last few months…'

‘Yeah…those boots…like a girl's boots…oh shit, you don't think…'

‘Think what?'

Loody's face had drained of colour. ‘Well those girls, Em and her friend.'

‘What girls? What are you talking about?'

‘They disappeared…a few years back. Em was the boss's daughter. Emma Thackeray…the police said she was a missing person. Thought she'd run away from home. She was mates with the other girl, the one with black nail polish and blue hair. She went too.' He twisted around to look at the boot. Although the vinyl was caked in blackened silage, it was unmistakably a boot. ‘Those boots,' he whispered. ‘Jesus, it must be one of them.'

Adam picked at his sneakers where a thin strip of rubber was coming loose on the toe. ‘What time of year did you make the pit?'

Loody searched skyward for a memory. ‘Must'a been October, something like that.'

‘Did anyone know about the pit, apart from you and the Thackerays?'

Loody glared at him through a curtain of smoke. He took a deep breath, then exhaled with a long whoosh. ‘Christ, Adam, you sound like a copper! I don't know. That was a long time ago. Everyone makes silage in the spring. I suppose heaps of people knew we were making it. What I can't work out is why they'd bury someone in it. Cows won't eat it now. It's all black…all spoilt.'

They were silent for a few minutes until Adam spoke, ‘What were they like?'

‘The girls?'

Adam nodded.

‘Well, the other one was weird, city type…you know black clothes and black lipstick, really white face…that was Lina.'

‘A goth?'

‘What?' Loody frowned.

‘The gothic look.' Adam struggled to explain. ‘Kind of …as if…as if she dressed like a vampire.'

‘Oh yeah, eggsactly. Plus she was into reading palms. Bit cracked if you ask me. Bit of a bitch really. Liked to nick stuff, too, so they say.'

‘What about Emma?'

Loody cleared his throat before he answered. ‘Em was a country kid…bit of a tart I suppose…but good fun. Never hurt anyone. We were all shocked when she vanished, just went missing from the house. Never got on the bus into the city. They reckon she must have hitched a ride. Just pissed off. Apparently she'd threatened it enough…I dunno.'

‘Where was this Lina girl last seen?'

Loody swore and shook his head. ‘You sure you're not a cop?'

Adam forced a grin. ‘My grandfather was,' he said. ‘Even joined the army, Military Police,' he said.

‘Bullshit?'

‘Nah, serious. Died on duty and everything. Some crook shot him in the back. Guess I take after him. Mum reckons I do.'

‘Better watch your back then. Don't ask too many questions round here. People don't like talking.'

‘So what are you doing now?'

‘Fuck off, smart arse.'

‘Well someone's got to fill me in. I'm like my grandfather, remember, I need answers!'

Loody sighed. ‘Oh yeah, about who? What?'

‘About Lina. Who was she?'

‘Don't know her last name. She wasn't a local. Just another city slicker,' he sneered and ground his cigarette butt into the dirt. ‘Foster kid of Frank Pickett's, I think. Anyway she hardly ever went to school…she used to get on the bus, then nick off for the day. Didn't go to school the day she went missing. Everyone assumed she just shot through, back to the city. Who knows?'

At the sound of a car, they both looked towards the gate. It was a standard police car. A tall, uniformed, sandy-haired policeman with a small beer gut stepped out, opened the gate and then drove in, parking a few metres from them.

Adam and Loody stood up.

The policeman got out and hitched up his pants as if the belt he wore was useless. There was a gun, walnut-coloured and chunky on his right hip. Adam couldn't take his eyes off it.

‘How you going, Barry?' Loody said.

The policeman gave a slow nod. ‘Got some company, have you?'

Loody jerked his head towards the tractor. ‘Over there.'

‘I meant your mate here,' Barry said, eyeing Adam up and down. ‘You just moved in at Thackeray's old place?'

‘Yeah. I'm Adam Statkus.'

‘Barry Timothy. Play footy, Adam?' Barry asked.

‘Yeah. Haven't played for a couple of seasons now, though.' He loved football and wished he could get into it again. Kick to kick in the park with Brock was no substitute for the real game.

‘Pre-season training's started, Mondays and Wednesdays for now. You ought to drop in. We could do with some height.'

Adam frowned and motioned towards the silage pit. ‘Don't you want to check out—'

‘Good of you to shut the gate, Barry,' Loody interrupted.

‘Stiff isn't going anywhere, is it?' Barry said deadpan. ‘Been threatening to walk off, has it?'

Loody glared at the policeman.

Barry chuckled. ‘Just having a lend of you, mate. Found something suspicious, eh?'

‘Looks like a leg,' Loody said, taking a deep breath.

‘Does it now?' Barry said. He walked over to the tractor, peered at the bone and discarded boot. Then he took out a notebook and started scribbling.

Adam followed Barry over to the tractor and explained how they'd found the bones. He thought Loody was with him, but he hadn't moved. He stood clenching his fists, frowning at the silage.