The Dry (28 page)

“I didn't talk your missus into anything,” Erik said, shoving his hand away. “I'd say you did a good enough job of that yourself with your boozing and your fists, mate. Only surprise is she stayed as long as she did.”

“Oh yeah, real knight in shining armor, you are. Always here for a shoulder to cry on, dripping poison in her ear. Talk her into leaving and talk her into bed while you're at it, eh?”

Erik Falk's eyebrows shot up. He laughed, a pure genuine burst of amusement.

“Mal, I didn't shag your missus, if that's what you're worried about.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, mate, it's not bullshit at all. It's the truth. OK, so she'd pop round for a cup of tea and a bit of a cry when she'd had enough. Needed a bit of time away from you. But that's it. She was nice enough, don't get me wrong, but she was nearly as mad on the booze as you. Maybe if you took better care of things—your sheep, your own wife—they wouldn't bloody wander off on you.” Erik Falk shook his head. “Honestly, I've no time for you or your missus. It's your daughter I feel sorry for.”

Mal Deacon's punch came like a dog out of a kennel but caught Erik in a lucky blow above his left eye. He staggered and fell backward, his skull landing with a sharp crack against the ground.

Aaron ran outside with a shout and bent over his father, who was staring at the sky with a dazed expression. Blood was trickling from a cut in his hairline. Aaron heard Deacon laughing, and he sprang toward the older man, ramming his chest. Deacon was forced to take a step backward, but his large frame kept him grounded and steady on his feet. In an instant, Deacon reached out and grabbed Aaron's upper arm in an iron grip, pinching the skin as he twisted it, and dragged Aaron's face close to his own.

“Listen here. When your old man gets up from the dirt, you tell him that'll seem like a pat on the head compared with what's coming if I find him—find either of you—messing around with what's mine.”

He shoved Aaron to the ground, then turned and strode across the yard, whistling through his teeth.

“He begged me, you know?” Deacon said. “Your dad. After you did what you did to my Ellie. He came to me. Wasn't trying to tell me you didn't do it. That you couldn't have done it. Nothin' like that. He wanted me to tell everyone else in the town to back off until the police made up their minds. As if I'd give him the steam off my piss.”

Falk took a deep breath and made himself turn and start walking away.

“You knew that, did you?” Deacon's words came floating behind him. “That he thought you might have done it? Your own dad. Course you knew. Must be a God-awful thing, to have your old man think that little of you.”

Falk stopped. He was almost out of earshot.
Keep walking,
he told himself. Instead he looked back. Deacon's mouth curled up at each side.

“What?” Deacon called. “You can't tell me he bought that bullshit story you and the Hadler kid cooked up. Your dad may have been a fool and a coward, but he wasn't stupid. You ever manage to make things right with him? Or did he suspect it until the day he died?”

Falk didn't answer.

“Thought so.” Deacon grinned.

No, Falk wanted to shout at him, they had never made things right. He took a long look at the old man, then, with a physical effort, forced himself to turn and walk away. Step by step, weaving through the long-forgotten headstones. At his back, he could hear Mal Deacon laughing as he stood with his feet firmly planted on his own daughter's grave.

29

The shot bellowed across the distant field, the echo rippling through the hot air. Before silence could settle, another crashed out. Falk froze in the driveway of Gretchen's farm, one hand stilled mid-motion as he went to slam his car door.

His thoughts fled to the Hadlers' raw scrubbed hallway, the stained carpet. He imagined a blond woman lying bleeding on the ground, only this time not Karen but Gretchen.

Another blast rang out, and Falk was off, running across the fields toward the noise. He tried to follow the sound, but it bounced and echoed off the hard ground, leaving him disoriented. He scanned the horizon frantically, eyes watering against the blinding sun, looking everywhere, seeing nothing.

At last he spotted her, her khaki shorts and yellow shirt almost invisible against the bleached fields. He stopped dead, feeling a rush of relief followed by a wave of embarrassment. Gretchen turned her head and stared at him for a moment, then propped the shotgun on her shoulder and raised her hand in a wave. He hoped she hadn't seen him running. She started over the field toward him.

“Hey, you got here fast,” she called out. Pink ear guards hung around her neck.

“I hope that's OK.” He'd phoned from outside the cemetery. “I felt like I needed to see a friendly face.”

“It's fine. It's good to see you. I've got an hour before I need to pick up Lachie from school.”

Falk looked around, buying a moment while his breathing steadied. “Nice place you've got here.”

“Thanks. The rabbits seem to think so too.” She nodded over her shoulder. “I need to get a few more before I call it a day. Come on, you can be my spotter.”

He followed her across the field to where she'd left her kit bag. She rummaged in it and pulled out another pair of ear guards. She reached in again and pulled out a box of ammunition. Winchesters. Not the Remingtons found in the Hadlers' bodies, Falk thought automatically. He felt relieved, then immediately guilty for noticing. Gretchen opened the barrel of the shotgun and loaded a round.

“The warren's over there.” She pointed, squinting in the sun. “Point when you see one.”

Falk put his ear guards on, and everything was muffled, like being underwater. He could see the gum trees moving silently in the wind. The sounds in his head became amplified; the blood pumping through, the slight click of his teeth.

He stared at the area around the warren. Nothing moved for a long while, then there was a twitch on the landscape. He was about to gesture to Gretchen when she steadied the gun against her shoulder, one eye squeezed shut. She centered the gun, tracking the rabbit with a smooth arc. There was a muffled boom, and a flock of galahs rose in unison from a nearby tree.

“Good. I think we got him,” she said, pulling of her ear guards. She strode across the field and bent down, khaki shorts stretching tight for a moment. She stood triumphantly, dangling a limp rabbit carcass.

“Nice shot,” he said.

“You want a go?”

Falk didn't particularly. He hadn't shot rabbits since he was a teenager. But she was already holding out the gun, so he shrugged.

“All right.”

The weapon was warm as he took it from her.

“You know the drill,” Gretchen said. Then she reached up and replaced his ear guards for him. Falk's neck tingled where her fingers brushed it. He squinted down the sights toward the warren. There was blood soaked into the ground. It reminded him of the mark left by Billy Hadler, and the memory made his spine go cold. Suddenly he didn't want to be doing this. Up ahead, there was a movement.

Gretchen tapped his shoulder and pointed. He didn't react. She tapped his arm again. “What's wrong?” he saw rather than heard her say. “It's right there.”

He lowered the shotgun and pulled off his ear guards.

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess it's been too long.”

She stared at him for a moment, then nodded.

“Fair enough.” She patted him on the arm as she took the gun off him. “You know I'm going to have to shoot it, anyway, don't you? I can't have them on the land.”

She raised the gun, steadied for a brief moment, then fired.

Falk knew before they even walked over that it was a hit.

 

 

Back at the house, Gretchen gathered up papers that had been neatly laid out across the kitchen table.

“Make yourself at home. Try to ignore the mess,” she said, putting a jug of ice water in a clear space. “I've been filling out applications for the school board to get some more funding. Charities and things. I was thinking about trying the Crossley Trust again, even though Scott reckons they're a waste of time. See if we get further than the short list this year. The problem is, before anyone'll give you any cash they want to know everything.”

“Looks like a lot of paperwork.”

“It's a nightmare, and not my forte, I'm happy to admit. It's not something the board members have had to do ourselves before.” She paused. “That's why I shouldn't complain. It used to be Karen's job, actually. So, you know…” She didn't complete the thought.

Falk glanced around Gretchen's kitchen as he helped her stack the papers on the sideboard. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it was a little more down at heel than he'd imagined. The kitchen was clean, but the units and appliances had clearly seen better days.

A framed photo of Gretchen's son, Lachie, stood in pride of place among the ornaments. He picked it up and ran a thumb over the kid's toothy smile. He thought of Billy, ambling through the parking lot behind Karen on the CCTV footage. Just eighty minutes left in his short life. He put the frame down.

“Strange question, but did Karen ever mention me?” he said, and Gretchen looked up in surprise.

“You? I don't think so. We didn't really talk, though. Why? Did she even know you?”

Falk shrugged. Wondered for the thousandth time about the phone number in her handwriting.

“No, I don't think so. I was just wondering if my name had ever come up.”

Gretchen watched him closely, her bright eyes unblinking.

“Not that I know of. But like I said, I didn't know Karen that well.” She gave a small shrug. A punctuation mark to indicate the end of topic. There was a slightly awkward pause, broken only by the clink of ice as she poured glasses of water.

“Cheers,” she said, raising hers. “Not often, but sometimes, this is better than wine.”

Falk watched the tiny muscles in her throat as she took a long gulp.

“How's the investigation going, anyway?” Gretchen said when she resurfaced.

“Looks like Jamie Sullivan's in the clear.”

“Really? That's good, isn't it?”

“Good for him. I'm not sure it puts us a whole lot further forward.”

Gretchen cocked her head to one side like a bird.

“But you'll stay until it's resolved?”

Falk shrugged. “At this rate, I doubt it. I've got to get back to work next week.” He paused. “I ran into Mal Deacon before.” He told her about the encounter in the cemetery.

“Don't let him get to you. That man is off his head.” Gretchen reached over the table, her fingertips brushing against his left hand. “Twenty years on and he's still trying to blame you for what happened to Ellie. He's never been able to accept that you and Luke were together.”

“Gretchen, listen—”

“If anyone's to blame, it's Deacon himself,” she plowed on. “It's his fault his daughter was unhappy enough to drown herself. He's been looking for years for someone else to point the finger at.”

“You've really never doubted it was suicide?”

“No.” She looked surprised. “Of course not. Why would I?”

“Just asking. I know Ellie was acting a bit odd toward the end, keeping to herself a lot of the time. And there's no question, living with Deacon must have been a nightmare. But I never realized she felt that hopeless. Certainly not enough to kill herself.”

Gretchen's laugh was dry.

“God, you boys were blind. Ellie Deacon was miserable.”

Ellie threw her math book in her bag at the end of class. She'd started automatically copying down the homework from the board but stopped, her pen frozen. What was the point? She'd considered skipping school altogether today but in the end had reluctantly decided against it. It would only draw attention to her. And she didn't need any of that. It was better to do what she always did. Keep her head down and hope for—well, if not the best, then not the worst either.

Out in the crowded corridor a group of boys jostled around a portable radio, listening to the cricket. Australia versus South Africa. A six prompted a cheer. Friday afternoon and all was well. They had that weekend glow already.

How long, Ellie wondered, had it been since she'd felt like that? She honestly couldn't remember. If weekdays were bad enough, the weekends were even worse. They stretched out interminably, the end seeming like it was always just over the horizon.

Not this weekend, though. She cradled the thought in her chest as she pushed her way down the corridor. After this weekend, everything would be different. This weekend had an end firmly in sight.

Still clouded in thought, Ellie jumped as someone grabbed her arm. It caught a small bruise, and she winced at the pressure.

“Hey. Where's the fire?” Luke Hadler looked down at her.

“What do you mean?” Falk stared at Gretchen.

“You know what I mean, Aaron,” she said. “You were there. You saw exactly the same things I did. How weird she was in those last few weeks. When she actually spent any time with us, that is. She was hardly around. She was always working at that crappy job, or—well, I don't know what. Not hanging around with us, anyway. And she'd completely stopped drinking, do you remember? She said it was to lose weight, but with the benefit of hindsight that sounds like bullshit.”

Falk nodded slowly. He did remember that. He'd been surprised because she'd probably been fonder of the booze than the rest of them. Not entirely surprising given her family line.

“Why do you think she'd stopped?”