Only the Dead (34 page)

Highway cops had taped off the street. A couple of patrol cars and an unmarked were queued up behind the cordon edge. Pine trees lined one side of the road: Devereaux parked in close to try to catch some shade. He got out and badged his way past the uniforms at the tape. Facial bruising drew some stares. He went and checked out the car.

It was missing both back windows. The rear windscreen had been blown out. Buckshot damage pockmarked the roof. Two bodies occupied the back seat. They’d been shotgunned, head and chest. The nearest passenger was missing the left half of its skull. The right half was still intact, edged roughly by torn flesh. The entire rear of the cabin had been spattered bloody. The whole thing rancid and heaving with flies.

He put a cigarette in his mouth, but didn’t light it. He walked
a wide loop of the car. No glass underfoot, no bloodstains extant. He checked the front of the car. The plates had been switched: the bumper tags didn’t match the registration sticker in the windscreen. Devereaux called Comms on his cell and requested a vehicle check: the bumper plates came back to one Avis Crocker, of Greenlane, Auckland. The registration sticker came back to a Glyn Giles. He recalled Don McCarthy’s questioning of Shane Stanton on Tuesday night:
Someone said the name Glyn Giles. That’s all I heard, I swear. Giles
.

Devereaux thanked the operator and ended the call. He ducked under the tape and walked back up the road. Frank Briar was seated in the driver’s seat of the unmarked, cell to his ear. Devereaux waited for the call to wrap up, then headed over. Briar buzzed his window down. His temper seemed to have downgraded since that morning: he looked pissed off rather than livid.

‘Don’t light that thing while you’re standing on a crime scene.’

Devereaux leaned on the roof. ‘He pulled over ten minutes north up the road and shot them.’

‘That’s very precise.’

‘He didn’t kill them here. And he wouldn’t have wanted to drive very far with the car in that state. Ten minutes, maximum.’

Briar said, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘You look a bit off. Do you miss Don?’

‘Fuck you.’

‘They uncovered a hundred and sixty-five grand in stolen cash from his home this morning.’

‘Great. What has that got to do with anything?’

Devereaux thrummed his fingers on the roof. ‘All told, there should be over two hundred. Either he spent some, or someone else has the rest.’

‘Good maths. Why the fuck are you telling me?’

‘You look mighty confused.’

Briar didn’t answer.

Devereaux said, ‘McCarthy found the money in the house after the January thirtieth shooting. More than two hundred grand, and he stole it. Except that that’s a lot of money to move off a crime scene unnoticed, unless you pay someone to turn a blind eye.’

‘You sound like you’re about to accuse me of something.’

Devereaux stepped away from the car. Briar looked like he might be about to climb out, but he stayed seated.

Devereaux said, ‘Someone else knew about the theft, and McCarthy paid them to keep quiet. I know you were on scene after the January thirtieth shootings, and I know you showed up not long after Don did.’

Briar didn’t answer.

Devereaux said, ‘Most of it was stolen drug money. It belonged to this guy Leonard I asked you about the other day. Apparently, he wants it back so if you’ve got it hidden somewhere, you might want to at least find out what he looks like.’

Briar said, ‘Take your bullshit elsewhere.’ The window went up.

Devereaux stepped in close. He said, ‘McCarthy paid someone off. Whoever it was, I’m going to find them, and take them down so hard they won’t feel themselves hit the ground.’

The glass made him shout. He drew some bemused looks from over by the tape. Devereaux walked away. He lit the cigarette and got back into his car, then drove back to the highway.

T
HURSDAY
, 23 F
EBRUARY
, 10.59
A.M
.

S
he had hints of old injuries: scarring around the mouth, around the brow where she’d been struck. Her nose hadn’t been set straight.

Hale stayed in the hallway as she opened the door. He kept his licence up and open. ‘Charlotte Rowe?’

She nodded. He knew she was twenty-three, but she could have passed for younger. ‘Can I help you?’

‘My name’s John Hale. I’m a private investigator.’

‘I see that.’

She hadn’t been joking, but he smiled. ‘You mind if I come inside a moment?’

‘What’s this about?’

‘I just wanted to talk to you about your father.’

‘What’s happened to him?’

‘Nothing. He’s fine.’ A white lie: Rowe was recovering well.

She moved away and didn’t reply. Disappointed maybe. He entered and closed the door behind him. The address was a two-room studio apartment on Albert Street. The building itself was just a bland matrix of tiny units, like a wall of post office boxes — pigeonhole accommodation. The living room had space for a table and two chairs and little else. The window overlooked a left-right flurry of traffic. Across the street an
alleyway stretched away, grey and derelict, walls scaled by paste-on bills like a pelt of wet feathers.

‘I’d offer you tea, but I’m fresh out.’ Polite. The antithesis of Rowe senior.

‘It’s fine. I won’t stay long.’

There were open textbooks and papers covering the table. She swept them together deftly in a neat stack and dropped them on the floor.

‘Don’t shift anything on my account.’

She shrugged, but didn’t reply.

He said, ‘What are you studying?’

She pretended she hadn’t heard. It was a pointless question anyway. He knew the answer, just like he knew everything else: he knew her mother had been dead twenty years, he knew she’d been in here three months, he knew her meagre bank balance was bolstered by regular payments courtesy of Rowe senior.

Most importantly:
he knew what had happened
.

He watched her eyes and spoke carefully, so there’d be no misunderstanding. That heavy little sentence: ‘I know what happened.’

She leaned against the window and folded her arms, the table between them. ‘Sorry?’

He read it as faked confusion: maybe some residual denial.

‘I know your father’s bodyguard hurt you.’

The ruse withdrew. She looked at him calmly. ‘Congratulations.’

‘I’m not trying to offend you.’

She shook her head, smiled slightly. She was tall and lean. Nothing like Rowe senior. ‘No, I’m sorry. I know you’re not.’

‘Your father hired me to investigate a series of robberies. A girl about your age was injured during a theft earlier this year. He told me it was you.’

‘God, what? No, it definitely wasn’t me.’

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘I can’t believe it. He pretended I’d been hurt in a robbery?’

‘Yes.’

She said, ‘What happened to the girl who was hurt?’

‘She was hit in the skull with a hammer. She’s severely brain-damaged.’

‘When was this?’

‘Earlier this year.’

‘Oh, God. Was this that thing back in January?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened?’

Hale gave a rundown of the fight club robbery. He gave what he hoped was a tamer version of events. He wasn’t sure how much she’d read or already knew.

‘Will she be okay?’

‘I don’t know. I think she’ll need a lot of help.’

She leaned against the window. Her reflection stood back to back. ‘And my father saw her as a great opportunity.’

Hale didn’t answer. She looked embarrassed, waved the comment off. ‘Sorry. That’s a horrible thing to say.’

‘Well, I think he did see her as an opportunity.’

She said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry he wasted your time.’

‘Don’t apologise. You had nothing to do with it.’

She kept her eyes on the street. ‘I haven’t spoken to him in three months.’

‘It’s probably a good thing.’

She didn’t answer. He kicked himself for being so offhand. He said, ‘There was reward money. He wanted it.’

‘How much?’

‘Six figures’ worth.’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing if not greedy.’

Hale waited for more. She asked him how he’d discovered what happened to her, and Hale told her. He omitted violent particulars: no mention of what he’d done to Beck, no mention of Mr Rowe’s flustered footpath confession.

She listened quietly to his distilled recountal, then said, ‘He’s a disgrace, I hate him.’ She turned from the window. ‘I’m sorry he wasted your time.’

I hate him
. It seemed considered. It seemed like the product of protracted musing. There was vehemence in it.

‘Don’t apologise. I’m glad he hired me.’

She didn’t answer.

Hale said, ‘You never told anyone.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You were assaulted, but the police have no record of it.’

She shrugged. ‘He gives me money. I need him for the money. I need him to pay for this place. There’s like an implicit agreement. I keep my mouth shut, my father coughs up for the rent.’

He reached forward and placed an envelope on the table. ‘Don’t open it now.’

She frowned, untrusting. She reached forward quickly and grabbed it off the table, removed the cheque from inside. A thumb in the fold made it yaw gently.

‘Holy shit. Nine hundred thousand dollars. Are you kidding? Shit. Is this a joke?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s good. I promise.’

‘I can’t accept this. God. I’ve only just met you.’

She was shaking. She pulled a chair back and sat down at the table.

Hale said, ‘It’s not my money.’

She looked up. ‘What, you stole it?’

‘No. I did a job and got paid on commission. But it’s too much. I don’t want it.’

‘What sort of job pays this kind of commission?’ She waved the cheque for emphasis. He glimpsed his signature. Point nine of a million, bequeathed with a Bic and a flourish.

‘I recovered ninety million dollars.’

‘And took one per cent?’

He nodded.

She said, ‘Not many people would have second thoughts about that sort of arrangement.’

‘I think you need it much more than I do.’

‘I don’t know whether to be grateful or offended.’

‘I don’t really give a shit. Please just take it.’

She looked shocked; he raised a placating hand. ‘I’m kidding. But please just take it.’

She held the cheque in two hands, folded it open and then closed. She smiled slightly. ‘You look like the sort of guy who’d say: “Hale, John Hale.”’

He laughed. ‘I save that for the evening appointments.’

‘Look, I don’t know what to say.’

‘Just say thanks and put it in your pocket.’

‘Wow. This is unbelievable. I didn’t think people did this in real life.’

He said, ‘I don’t make a habit of it. But I like the idea of good fortune trumping misfortune. It’s a better feeling than having nine hundred thousand dollars sitting in the bank.’

‘Really?’

‘For now at least.’

She slipped the cheque back in the envelope. ‘I’m studying biology. I’m in my final year.’

‘Do a PhD. You can afford it.’

He saw tears welling. ‘God. I don’t know what to say. I’m just … Thank you very, very much. I can’t believe this.’

He left her in a daze at the table.

T
HURSDAY
, 23 F
EBRUARY
, 11.41
A.M
.

H
e didn’t think he’d be so nervous: sweats and a thumping heart. Who knew going back would be so hard.

Devereaux stood on the porch and knocked on the door, knuckles versus cracked paint. A dreadful quiet before it opened. Derren stood there in its absence, blank-eyed and unsurprised. Two decades of non-contact, and the visit still seemed expected. He smiled and said, ‘Thank God you finally grew.’

The first words he’d heard from him in more than twenty years.

Devereaux shrugged. ‘A couple more inches wouldn’t have gone amiss.’

He thought of all the dark evenings spent drafting what he’d one day get to say. That long-rehearsed indictment, squandered. First words only come once.

Derren turned, tilted his head towards the house behind him. ‘You want a cup of tea?’

Devereaux nodded. ‘Yeah. Why not?’

They went in. He took a glance back outside as he crossed the threshold. He remembered himself as a ten-year-old, sitting in an unmarked at that very kerb. The back seat with O’Dwyer. The shy, dry crackle as he unwrapped his gum. Everything he’d told him and everything he hadn’t.

The kitchen had been modernised: lino for timber, stainless steel for granite. Derren flicked on the jug. Twenty years hadn’t served him too badly. He’d gained wrinkles and a paunch, but bench press time had kept him big through the shoulders. A body well cast for its role: military man, verging on retirement.

An awkward period of floor-gazing as they waited for the tea. Their last shared experience long ago and best forgotten.

They had the tea on the back deck. A veranda cast a wide band of shade. Side by side on plastic chairs, a wobbling metal table between them.

Derren took a cautious sip, made a cautious comment. ‘I heard you became a policeman.’

‘I did. I still am.’

‘I thought about it a while, but then it didn’t really take much thinking. Seemed like a natural choice. Person like you.’

Devereaux didn’t answer. He sampled the tea: too milky, too sweet.

Derren said, ‘So what’s on your mind?’

Devereaux set his mug on the table. He popped his cuff buttons and slid his sleeves to his elbows. He lit a cigarette. ‘What do you mean?’

Derren said, ‘First visit in twenty years; I thought you’d either tell me something or ask me something.’

Devereaux watched fumes unravel. He made a shape with his mouth, a sort of facial shrug. ‘I always thought I’d have some things to say if I saw you again. Now I’m here, I don’t.’

Derren nodded. He watched the rear fence. It had been reinstated in fresh timber. Devereaux remembered kicking a ball against its predecessor. He remembered dislodging a board and paying for it in fevered lashes. The bench press and shed were still present, all these years later, grass still tufted at their
feet. Derren said, ‘Always made me sad you never called or anything. I would have liked a visit.’

‘You could have called me. Or visited.’

‘Always figured if you wanted to see me, you’d come. Figured with you being a policeman you could find me right quick.’ He smiled. ‘Although I’m in the same house so it wouldn’t have been too hard.’

‘I used to be terrified of you. For a long time I was adamant I never wanted to see you again.’

‘But here you are. Maybe you’ve hardened up.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Are you married?’

‘No.’

‘So no kids?’

‘No kids.’

‘Girlfriend?’

‘Kind of.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means things could be better.’

‘You like her?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Does she like you?’

‘Most of me. But there’s a reasonable portion she doesn’t like.’

No answer.

Devereaux said, ‘So how have you been?’

‘Do you really care?’

Devereaux thought about it. ‘Yes, I really care.’

Derren cleared his throat. He swallowed. ‘I got cancer. I don’t have all that long.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Throat. Oesophagus.’

‘Well. I’m sorry about that.’

‘Look. I know I did some bad things a long time ago. I know I shouldn’t have treated you the way that I did. But it was a long time ago and I hope we’re not going to end up with bad blood between us while we’ve both got sun on our skin.’

Devereaux blew smoke into the yard. ‘How long have you got?’

‘Months. Maybe a year or so. They say throat cancer’s hard to catch. Normally, by the time they pick it up it’s spread, or, what’s the word?’

‘Metastasised.’

‘Yeah. Metastasised. Which is what mine’s done. It’s in my lymph nodes. Doctor could feel it.’

‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’

‘You’ll be next, if you don’t give them things up.’

‘It doesn’t really bother me.’

‘Why?’

‘I have very little to live for.’

‘It’s the things you don’t have that make life worthwhile.’

‘Because you’ve got something to work towards?’

Derren shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It was my father’s saying. But I guess that’s what he meant.’ He sucked a tooth gently. ‘It’s funny. Reminds me of being a kid and starting a new school. You think you’re going to cope with it. But then it’s the day and you turn up at the gates and suddenly it’s a whole different kettle of fish. You wonder how all the time you had leading up to that moment managed to slip past you.’

‘Apparently, we don’t fear death, we fear the transition.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Another cop. He shot himself in the head.’

‘Well, I guess that’s all well and good. With throat cancer there’s supposed to be a good chance of drowning in your own
chuck. Whether that’s fearing death or the transition, I don’t really care. But I’m mighty worried about it. It’s strange, though. I get tired, but I don’t feel that off-colour. Healthiest dead man I ever heard of.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Not old enough.’

Devereaux got up and tapped ash on the lawn, sat back down again. He said, ‘You remember the night it happened?’

It. The bathtub and the blood.

‘Like I’d forget or something?’

‘The police interviewed me. There was a guy called O’Dwyer.’

‘I remember.’

‘He asked me what happened, and I lied to him. I said I’d seen you use the mirror to cut her. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t seen any of it.’

Derren thought about that a long time. He sipped some tea. ‘There’s no point carrying guilt around for this long. It gets to the point where you’ve grown into a different person. And I can’t see the wisdom in carting round someone else’s regret. I did my time and got out. Even if I didn’t kill her, I deserved some sort of punishment.’

Devereaux finished his tea. He tapped ash in his mug. ‘I’ve lost sleep over it for a long time. And I didn’t want to die without confessing or apologising for it.’

‘Can’t see you’ve got anything to apologise for. But I guess that’s just a tick in your favour, if you can be that critical of yourself. I don’t know. Any case, I thought you were a good little kid, and I still do. A good person, I mean. I don’t hold anything against you.’

Devereaux looked away, working carefully on his cigarette. Small drag after small drag. The smoke in cyclic eddied plumes.

‘You want to stay for lunch?’

‘I can’t. I’m sorry.’

‘Work?’

Devereaux nodded. They sat there in almost comfortable quiet.

‘Will you come to my funeral?’

He turned to him and thought about it. This man he’d feared. This man he’d hated. The long years of wishing to face him eye to eye and speak his mind. He said, ‘Yes, of course.’

He drove up to Duvall’s place. A short trip beneath searing heat. The sad contrast of grim errands in balmy climes. He turned in off the street and rolled through the low-rise apartment complex towards Duvall’s unit. Two kids on bikes cut gentle swerves in his slow wake.

He stopped nose-in to the door and got out. The unit sheer and narrow before him, neighboured wall to wall on either side. He used the key and let himself in. The air all hot and languid as he entered. The barren living room, with its single lamp. No man is an island? Get a load of this.

He checked the spare bedroom. The file work was gone: it had arrived at CIB that Monday. Pages of witness testimony, reams of typed case research. Devereaux had spread it all on the floor in his cubicle. His desk couldn’t accommodate the spread. The collected paperwork exceeded his own case notes by a factor of two. It was extensive. It looked meticulous. It looked like unbridled obsession.

He’d run a background check. Duvall was ex-police. He’d signed up in ’eighty-one, resigned in ’ninety-seven. Unmarried, no dependants. His parents were dead. He had no criminal record. Ministry of Justice had him on file as a licensed private investigator. Devereaux checked out his finances. He’d had no
substantial income for the past eighteen months. He’d cashed a few lightweight cheques the previous year. He’d re-mortgaged a property in March. The loan seemed to have kept him above the breadline. But nobody had made any payments to him since October. Meaning he hadn’t been chasing robbery leads at the request of a client. He’d delved on his own volition. For some reason he’d felt he had to.

Devereaux toured the flat. Boxes of clothes still remained, cartons of canned food. The walls were bare. There were no shelves. There was no phone. It wasn’t home. It was man-sized storage at best. He tried to conceive of the focus it would take to live in such a manner. The devotion and the loneliness. It read like self-enforced penance. It had a vibe to it that seemed guilt-driven: maybe he’d wanted to negate shitty karma. He’d probably succeeded: getting killed had to count for something. Murder must have cleared his debt, wholesale.

He walked across the living room and opened the door to the small deck. The main road lay behind a shelter belt of trees. He stood there with his back to the rail and smoked a cigarette. The room looked back at him, expressionless. This strange and empty testament to a strange and failed aim. He hoped his own home would never trigger that same thought to somebody else.

Noise from adjoining units reached him weakly. He looked in at the barren room with its single lamp and thought: How does a man appoint the sole function of his life?

He called her that night.

She was in a good mood. She said she was glad he’d rung. He asked her if she’d like dinner. She declined, politely. She said maybe Saturday.

But he was happy. He still had her. She was not yet lost.

He called Carl Grayson and got no answer. He’d had no
answer from him for two weeks. He was less confident he could win him over.

He ate by himself in the living room. Plate on his knees, The Doors on the stereo. McCarthy’s funeral had been the previous week. Devereaux attended. He didn’t really have a choice: his absence would have been obvious. Non-attendance would have fuelled conspiracy. But it was a way overblown affair: friends, relatives, colleagues in full blue regalia, all in one overwhelming hit. Lloyd Bowen pulled him aside afterwards. Five words only: ‘You’re off the hook, sergeant.’ He’d gone home and found mail waiting patiently: written confirmation of Bowen’s curt message, beneath an official police letterhead. A second letter from Thomas Rhys, declaring that the Independent Police Conduct Authority would not be bringing charges. He’d returned the letters to their envelopes once he’d read them and put them on the kitchen table. They were still there: tangible evidence he was in the right. Certainly, the thought was worth keeping.

The CD finished, but he didn’t replace it. He sat there in the dark a long time. When he slept he dreamed he walked a moonlit street with a parade of innocent dead.