Sharp Turn (8 page)

‘Has my mother been in here?’ I asked suspiciously.

Wal went over and poured hot water into the mugs. ‘I tidied it. There was nowhere to sit.’

I couldn’t argue with that so I just took the Milo he offered.

Ed got up nervously as Wal settled himself back on the couch and promptly closed his eyes. I had an insane desire to giggle but swallowed it. We sipped our drinks in silence for a moment and listened to Wal’s tiny snores.

‘I guess Wal heard us and thought I was in trouble,’ I said.

Ed opened his mouth to say something, glanced at Cass, and didn’t.

Cass seemed a little uncomfortable now things had settled down. I got the feeling she wasn’t going to tell me why she was in my garden in the middle of the night in front of Ed, so I called him a taxi when we’d finished our drinks and walked him out to the kerb to wait for it.

‘Sorry about tonight,’ I ventured.

He didn’t laugh, or make a cheerful comment about not being bored. He just said goodbye, squeezed my arm and got in the taxi.
Damn!

He’s too young for me anyway, I reasoned as I walked back to my flat. But that didn’t stop me feeling suddenly really tired and pissed off.

Cass was rinsing the cups when I got inside. Wal had settled into louder snores but was still sitting upright on the couch.

‘Cass?’ I said.

She put the last cup down and came over to where I’d flopped on the bed. I tapped the end with my foot and she sat down. Her make-up had smudged halfway down her cheeks and one leg of her stockings had torn right through and was down around her ankle. She looked like a punk reject.

‘Mum and I had a fight. She chucked me out,’ she said, fiddling with the arsenal of jewellery along her cheek, nose and lip.

‘Why?’

‘Cos she’s a bitch,’ she said with a shrug.

Her pale face was made paler by the black shift she wore and I noticed some purple bruising on her neck that looked suspiciously like fingermarks.

‘How did you get those?’

‘She wanted to watch something else on television.’

‘Your mother tried to strangle you because you couldn’t agree on a TV station?’

A shrug. ‘Jus’ need a place to stay for a few days while I get some money from Centrelink. I had nowhere to go and you said you’d help me if I ever needed it.’

‘How on earth did you find me?’

‘Phone book.’

‘But there’s heaps of Sharps. And the phone’s not even under my initial.’

Another shrug. ‘Picked the one that lived in the poshest suburb, caught the train here. Walked down the street and waited. Saw your car pull up. Followed you down.’

I glanced at Wal. ‘Look, I haven’t got much room here, Cass. You got other family?’

‘Lilly’s in Bandyup prison and Danny-boy’s gone up north. We kinda split up.’

‘Lilly’s your sister, right?’

Nod.

I sighed. ‘It’s really late. Let’s get some sleep and talk about it in the morning.’

I got up and dragged the spare doona from the couch onto the floor then dropped one of my pillows on it.

She rubbed her eyes and nodded. ‘Thanks,’ she said, and without another word she collapsed onto the doona and curled up.

I turned the light out, remembering at the last minute to set the alarm for my early start as a sandwich maker at Wanneroo, hoping that this evening would fade from my memory soon.

Turned out it wasn’t quite over.

My phone started ringing just as I fell into a dream that involved butter icing and Edouardo. I ignored it, too comfortable and sleepy to wake up. On the third go around, I roused myself to answer. The caller ID wasn’t familiar.

‘’Lo,’ I croaked.

‘Ms Sharp?’ a distant voice whispered.

‘Hmmmm?’

‘Ms Sharp, it’s Lena Vine.’

I didn’t say anything for a moment while my brain fired the necessary neurons to register that a brothel madam was ringing me after 1 am.

‘I need your help, Ms Sharp. It’s Audrey.’ Her voice was so quiet I could hardly hear her.

‘What? How can I help you?’

‘It’s . . . I . . . Audrey’s dead. Can you come over straightaway?’

Chapter 7

B
Y THE TIME
I dressed and made it over to Leederville, it was nearly 2 am. I took Wal with me but left Cass deeply asleep on the floor.

Madame Vine’s front yard was crawling with police and plastered with crime-scene tape. Every nook and cranny of the garden was lit by portables. Whitey stood at the front door, dressed in civvies and talking to my other least favourite constables, Cravich and Blake. A partially covered body lay not far from their feet. Even from where I stood I recognised the to-die-for heels peeking out from the bottom of the sheet.
To-die-for
. Now I wished to hell I’d never had that thought.

One of Audrey’s arms was outflung and twisted and the dark shadow around her head had to be a pool of blood. I was glad I wasn’t any closer.

Whitey saw Wal and me and came straight over. ‘What are you doing here, Sharp? Showing up for work?’

‘Yes, but not the way you think. Madame Vine called me to help with the investigation.’

‘You got a PI’s licence?’

I shook my head.

‘Then I suggest you go home to bed.’

‘What happened?’

‘This is a police matter,’ said Whitey officiously. ‘I can’t discuss it.’

My hands went to my hips. ‘I’d like to see my client.’

‘Your client,’ he said, wiggling his fingers in the air to indicate inverted commas, ‘is busy talking to police. Now you and your boyfriend need to beat it.’ He scowled openly at Wal.

Wal made a noise in the back of his throat that could have been a cough. Or maybe a growl. He didn’t like being called my boyfriend. I felt the same way.

‘Boss?’ he said under his breath.

I shook my head the tiniest bit, meaning ‘let it go’, and turned back to Whitey. It was hard to believe this arrogant git was the same sleazeball who’d rung me out of the blue a month or so ago on the off-chance I might want to have an affair with him. Or maybe it wasn’t.

‘Please tell Madame Vine I’m here.’ My voice had risen an octave. It was two in the morning, I didn’t need this shit.

‘Problem, Detective Whitehead?’ called out Cravich.

Oh my God! Whitey had been promoted to detective, which meant he must have been undercover when I’d seen him here before – not a client!

Fortunately, before he could reply a white government truck pulled up in the street. Forensics, I guessed.

‘Don’t move,’ Whitey ordered. He ran over to the truck, leaving us by the gate.

I got out my phone and called Madame Vine’s number. She answered in a second.

‘I’m outside,’ I said. ‘The police won’t let me in.’

‘I’m coming.’

At first glance, she seemed composed: still in work attire and full make-up, which hid her extreme pallor and bloodshot eyes. Once she was closer, though, I could see her trembling.

‘Can you tell me what happened?’ I asked gently.

While she gathered her thoughts, I watched Constable Blake shepherd a half-dozen very embarrassed men onto the veranda for questioning. I wondered how many of them would be recognised by the curious neighbours peering out their windows at the disturbance.

I scanned the line. No one I knew except for a guy I recognised from my previous visit. Mr Zegna Suit looked like he’d cornered the market on shame.

A few moments later, the men were joined by a line of Madame Vine’s girls. The police made them sit a distance from the men.

Madame Vine cleared her throat and took a breath. ‘I was in my office. Audrey answered the door to a caller. From what the police have said, there was probably no one there so she stepped out on the veranda to look into the garden.’ She gave me an imploring look. ‘I’ve told her not to do that. We get a lot of pranksters. More of late since the threats started. I’ve told her to open the door on the chain then shut it if no one’s there.’

‘Do you have security?’

Madame Vine nodded. ‘Leonard had heard a noise in the back garden. He was out there looking into it because the security camera was down. Audrey answered the door instead, and when she stepped out someone . . . shot her . . . from the street.’

‘Were they in a car?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. No one saw it.’

She began to shiver in the way people did when suffering deep shock.

‘Madame Vine, you need to sit down. We can talk tomorrow.’

‘No. Now. While it’s fresh,’ she insisted. ‘Tomorrow . . .’

Tomorrow would be all police and newspapers.

Tomorrow she’d begin mourning her lover.

‘Okay.’ I opened the notes section on my phone.

‘What happened this evening? Anything unusual?’

‘No. It was quiet.’

‘No prank calls earlier?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have any idea why someone would . . . m-murder . . . Audrey?’ I’d never dealt with this kind of thing before and it was hard to say the word. ‘Do you think the killer was after her, or could it have been a random event?’

‘I really don’t know.’ Her voice began to sound faint again. ‘Tara, you can see things others can’t. Tell me, please, do you notice anything here amongst the clients? Or the girls?’

I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was hard to read paralanguage at night, so I made a show of scanning the customers, the girls and the police. From across the garden, I could only see a smudge of distortion around their bodies: their energy heat. The customers were giving up a lot of that, while the police were cooler and less disturbed. The girls were the most interesting: two of them had barely visible energy lines, almost as if the event hadn’t stirred any emotion in them at all.

‘Who are the two girls at the end?’ I asked.

She looked over. ‘Kate is the blonde, and Louise.’

‘What were they doing . . . err . . . at the time . . . of the . . . shooting?’

Madame Vine pressed her fingers to her forehead. ‘They were in the lounge, I believe. Neither of them had a customer.’

I thumbed their names into my phone. ‘I’d like to talk to them both. Could you arrange it?’

‘Of course. Do you sense something?’

‘I can’t say yet. I’ll know more when I’ve spoken to them. Is there anything else you can think of that might be a clue?’

Whitey came back before she could answer. ‘You’ll have to move, Sharp. We’re extending the crime scene to include the street. Miss Vine, would you please go inside? One of the detectives is waiting to speak to you.’

Another profound shiver shook the woman’s body. I reached out and patted her hand. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

She nodded and walked unsteadily back to the house.

‘She needs medical attention,’ I hissed at Whitey.

‘Don’t tell me my job,’ he snarled back, and began widening the taped-off area so that I had to move.

‘Freakin’ idiot,’ I muttered over my shoulder to Wal as I backed away.

But Wal didn’t reply. In fact, when I looked, he wasn’t even there.

I walked back to my car to wait for him, and watched the forensics guy donning his bootees and coat. Wouldn’t be much evidence left with all those cops stomping around!

Wal returned a few minutes later, sliding quietly into the passenger seat.

‘Where the hell did you go?’ I felt tired and shaken.

‘Bin talkin’ to Leonard Roc.’

‘The security guy?’

He nodded. ‘We used to work a band together.’

‘He tell you anything?’

‘Didn’t see nothin’ of the shooting. First he knew was one of the girls screaming.’

‘He didn’t hear the gunshot?’

Wal shook his head. ‘Must have used a silencer. Lennie was out back checking the security cameras. One had stopped working.’

‘So it was planned.’

Wal nodded. ‘I reckon.’

‘I wonder if it’s got anything to do with the problems she’s been having.’

‘Which are?’ asked Wal.

‘That’s why she originally called me. She thinks one of her employees is unhappy. Someone’s been leaving dead animals on the doorstep and sending nuisance texts.’

‘Sounds more like someone’s trying to scare her.’

‘Did your friend Leonard mention anything about it?’

‘Nah,’ said Wal. ‘Probably too freaked himself to be thinkin’ straight.’

‘I suppose.’ I wasn’t feeling too good. A murder investigation was way out of my league.

‘Have to say, it’s a big step up from shitty texts to a drive-by shooting,’ commented Wal.

As usual, he was right on the money.

Chapter 8

S
LEEP AMOUNTED TO THREE
hours. When the alarm went off, Cass was still snuggled into my spare doona and Wal was stretched out on the couch, fully clothed. Neither of them stirred.