The Broken Ones (3 page)

Oscar said, “And why did you wait until your husband had both hands occupied holding dog bowls?”

Silence settled heavily over the room. Neve glanced at Oscar. Her expression betrayed nothing, but a small gleam of triumph lit her eyes. Oscar knew that Neve held little love for people who murdered their spouses.

“Mrs. Tambassis,” Oscar continued. “What do you know about Clause Seventeen of the Personal Sightings Act, also known as the Nine-Ten Act or the September Ten Act?”

The woman licked her lips again. A sheen of tight panic closed over her face. “I know what everyone knows. If you, if you kill someone and
you say you were told to do it by”—she nodded harder, as if to say,
You know what I mean
—“by the dead, you won’t go to jail.”

“Which is just what you say, isn’t it, Mrs. Tambassis?” Oscar asked. “You say a ghost made you kill your husband.”

Her hands twisted like fighting insects.

“Do you know, Mrs. Tambassis,” Oscar continued, “how many homicides we attend where the suspect invokes Clause Seventeen? It’s become very popular. There are even people—some of them are street lawyers, some of them are just off the street—who for a few dollars will tell a person exactly what to say to the police about Clause Seventeen, should they happen to commit a serious crime. Like arson or homicide. Did you know that?”

The woman kept staring at the floor and shook her head. “I don’t have a few dollars,” she whispered.

That I believe, Oscar thought.

The woman’s narrow lips worked as her mind tried to concoct a way out. But it wasn’t coming, and fresh tears of fear and frustration welled in her overbright eyes.

“I don’t …”

“If there is a problem with your story, Mrs. Tambassis, it’s not too late to change it.”

The woman looked at him. Her cheeks trembled, and her whole body had started to shake.

Beside him, Neve radiated energy. Oscar nodded to her.

Neve spoke clearly. “If you were attacking the ghost of your uncle, Mrs. Tambassis, why didn’t you stop when you realized it was your husband? Why did you continue to stab him more than thirty times?”

The woman’s eyes were wide and glossed with tears. Her face worked like the front of a building whose foundations had just been detonated. She glanced over at the empty patch of wall.

“Fuck you!” She spat not at Oscar or Neve but at the empty wall. “Fuck
you
!”

The dogs barked louder. The handle of the second door rattled softly, and the door opened a crack.

“Mummy?”

In the open doorway Oscar glimpsed the pale curve of a little girl’s face. Haig had made no mention of a child.

The thin woman’s breath seemed to catch in her throat. With great
effort, she wiped her cheeks and forced lightness into her voice and said, “Go back to your room, Button. Mummy’s nearly done.”

The door began to close.

“Wait,” Oscar said. The door stopped moving. The pale hint of face hovered in the shadows behind it. Oscar turned to the woman. “Your daughter?”

Tears finally broke from the woman’s eyes and rolled down her ashen cheeks. “You don’t need to see her.” She looked at Neve, pleading. “Don’t.”

Neve stared back evenly.

“Come in please, honey,” Oscar said to the girl behind the door. “It’s okay.”

The door creaked wider, and a small girl stepped sheepishly into the dimly lit room. She was barely taller than a toddler, but her face could have been a five- or an eight-year-old’s. It was hard to tell, because huge scars distorted one entire side of her small face, pinching in one eye and lifting one side of her mouth into an ugly sneer. One nostril was far too large where part of her nose had been torn away. The disfiguring scars, still fresh, crawled down her neck like pink lizards. Oscar felt his stomach tighten. The girl had been savaged, and it wasn’t hard to guess how. The dogs were still barking.

Oscar looked again at Neve. She was watching him, and he knew what she was thinking.
And now we have motive
. Oscar knew he should have been thrilled. Instead, he felt hollow and tired.

“Mummy shouted,” the little girl said quietly. Her “sh” sound came out like a whispered hush. “I want to see Mummy.”

“Of course you do, sweetheart,” said Oscar, and he smiled. He was out of practice and hoped the expression didn’t look as beastly as it felt.

The girl moved quickly across the room and slid like a shadow behind her mother. The woman didn’t know where to look—she chose to stare at the digital recorder on the tabletop. The main door opened, and Bazley looked in. “One minute.”

“Then get out,” Oscar said.

Bazley slammed the door shut.

Oscar looked at the woman. Her daughter’s hand had crept around her waist and was clutching it tightly.

“Mrs. Tambassis?” The woman’s wet eyes slowly met Oscar’s. “Did your husband’s dogs do that to your daughter?” The woman’s brow
became a mire of furrows, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Why didn’t you press charges?”

The woman lifted her chin. Her soft voice was full of contempt. “I did,” she said. “They didn’t stick.”

Oscar switched off the digital recorder.

“Oscar,” Neve said. “What are you doing?”

Oscar ignored her and instead leaned toward the woman, speaking low and quickly. “You hold to your story. You went for your uncle. I’ll sign off on that, and under—”

“Oh, Oscar!” snapped Neve. “What the hell!”

“—Clause Seventeen you should only be charged with involuntary manslaughter and get home detention and court-appointed counseling. Okay?”

The woman stared at him for a long moment, then nodded.

“Oscar!” hissed Neve.

Oscar dropped the recorder into one of his many pockets. He opened the nearest door and called for Bazley. He arrived, carrying a red folder. “Well?”

Oscar said, “We’re done.”

“We’re not!” Neve said.

“We’re signing her Seventeen,” he finished.

“Oscar!”

Bazley held out the folder, amused. “Jesus, Mariani, why not get a rubber stamp—”

Suddenly, there was a meaty slap, and Bazley’s eyes widened. Oscar was surprised at how whip-fast his own hands had moved, one slapping and grabbing a handful of stomach skin and twisting hard, the other restraining the young man’s wrist. He was surprised, too, at how angry the comment had made him. Something to think about.

His voice was mild, though. “Detective
Sergeant
Mariani. Not Jesus. Maybe the facial hair threw you.”

Bazley was pale. “You’re a crazy f—”

Oscar squeezed tighter, pain cutting off the detective constable’s words.

“I’m going,” Neve said, fed up.

Oscar released his grip and Bazley skittered backward, clutching his belly. He kicked halfheartedly at Oscar. “Loser,” he hissed.

Although it was whispered, the word smarted. Oscar signed the form, threw the folder down beside the young detective, and went after Neve.

He edged past the dogs to the gate and down into the lane. The rain was heavier, and the sky was dark gray. Night was settling fast and the surrounding buildings were black cliffs. A shining hearse was now parked outside the fence and two undertakers in suits were lifting the murdered man’s covered body into its back. Half of the police officers had left; only two squad cars remained. Neve hadn’t waited—she was already stumping up the alley. Oscar sighed. He’d let her cool down; in ten minutes, she’d be fine again

“A shame.” The voice was edged brightly with good humor.

Oscar looked around. Haig idled out of the metal gate, hands in pockets. Very few inspectors left their offices for the shitty streets. Haig seemed to relish it. He was also the only inspector Oscar knew who preferred a uniform to a suit.

“How’s that?” Oscar said.

“Well, I thought you had one there.” Haig reached into his jacket for a small tin box of cigarillos. “Clear motive. No lawyer. A story that was, let’s face it, uninventive at best.”

Haig shielded the cigarillo from the rain with his cap brim as he lit it, then, almost as an afterthought, held the tin out. The smell of good tobacco made Oscar’s mouth water. He shook his head. Haig was not a man to be indebted to.

“Why wasn’t Tambassis prosecuted when his dogs ripped that little girl’s face off?” Oscar asked.

Haig returned the cigarillo tin to his pocket and exhaled blue smoke. “Who knows? Record keeping has gone to hell in the last few years. He must have slipped through the cracks.”

Oscar knew how those cracks were greased. Another reason Haig liked to arrive in person.

“You gave Bazley pause for thought,” Haig said.

“No respect for rank.”

Haig looked Oscar up and down. “Coming from you, that’s quite
rich.” He took one more puff, then threw the hardly smoked cigarillo into the fast-flowing gutter water. Oscar couldn’t help but watch longingly as the precious cylinder fizzed and floated away.

“Bazley is young,” Haig continued. “He doesn’t understand why an officer would poison his own career to save a criminal.”

Oscar met Haig’s stare. “But I’m sure he’s learning how to fast-track his career by becoming one.”

Haig’s eyes were chips of blue ice. The soles of Oscar’s feet prickled, like he’d just stepped to the edge of a chasm. Then Haig turned, unlocked his cruiser, and slid into the driver’s seat. He took off his spotless cap, revealing a healthy pink scalp under closely cropped slate-gray hair. “Poor Mariani. Trying to lead the lost to safety with his little broken compass.” Haig’s car started with a purr, nothing like the asthmatic wheeze of Oscar’s sedan. He looked again at Oscar and smiled. “Touch one of my officers again, you might just disappear.”

Haig closed his door. A moment later, the white cruiser slipped like a pale shark up the narrow street. Oscar felt eyes watching him and turned. The female detective with the scarred chin stood beside the metal gate. Kace was her name, Oscar remembered. She watched him with mild curiosity. He wasn’t flattered; she’d regarded the stabbed corpse of Darryl Tambassis wearing the same expression.

“I hear they’re shutting you down,” she said.

“I heard that, too,” he replied. He’d been hearing it for two years. He nodded at the graffitied fence. “What about the dogs?”

“We’ll find someone to take care of them.”

As if her curiosity were now satisfied, Kace looked away. Oscar noticed a graffito on the fence. It had been spray-painted through a stencil: it showed a cartoon ghost wearing a crown at a jaunty angle. Its grin was friendly, but instead of eyes it had dark, empty sockets. The jolly spirit was in intimate congress between the legs of a buxom woman whose own eyes were wide either in heavenly ecstasy or abject terror. The caption read, “Ghosts Fucking Rule.”

Suddenly, from behind the fence came four cracker snaps of gunshots. Oscar jumped. Kace watched him, smiling coolly. The dogs had finally stopped barking.

Neve was waiting near his car, her arms shoved deep into her pockets. Rain slicked her hair down onto the shoulders of her jacket. She was trying not to shiver.

“We need to buy you an umbrella,” Oscar said.

“I have an umbrella.” Her jaw was tight. “What we need is a prosecution.”

Oscar unlocked the passenger door, then his own. The air inside the car was cold now, and their breaths condensed into fragile drifts of fog.

“We had her, Oscar. Neatly painted into a corner.” He’d expected Neve to have calmed; instead, her words were clipped razor sharp. “She couldn’t afford a lawyer. Ten more seconds, she’d have cracked. We had her.”

Oscar looked down the alley. The last police cruiser’s red taillights came on, and they disappeared down the narrow thoroughfare. He threw his hat on the backseat. “What good would it have done? We prosecute her for murder, she ends up in a cell with six other women, and that little girl loses her mother.”

Neve nodded impatiently, as if she’d heard it all before. “Yeah, yeah. One less victim clogging up an overloaded system. But she stabbed him in the eye. She
did
murder him.”

“I thought you Catholics didn’t believe in divorce.”

It was a bad joke, and badly timed. Neve stared out the windshield, almost vibrating with tension. Oscar couldn’t recall ever seeing her quite so wound up. In the street, shadows were detaching from shadows. More rough trade coming out now: hookers and rent boys, black marketeers and thieves. Oscar put the key in the ignition; the starter motor ground dismally before the engine coughed and caught. “We’re fine. When did they convict Dixon? Week and a half back?”