The Simple Death (28 page)

Fifty-one

B
urns was at home, and said he could be at Marrickville Police Station in an hour. On the way over, Troy called Professor Fundis at the morgue and asked about sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, which according to the autopsy report had killed Julie Cornish.

‘What it means, Detective,' Fundis said, ‘is that we don't have a fucking clue.'

‘Okay.'

Troy had dealt with Fundis before, but he seemed more grumpy lately. Lots of people were.

‘And that offends our sense of professionalism,' said the doctor, ‘so we put a fancy name on it to make us feel better.'

‘What if she'd been gassed with nitrogen?'

Pause. ‘It's one way to die. But that would give you suicide: hard to commit murder that way and not leave traces.'

‘What's the most common cause of SADS?'

‘We think it's an abnormality in the heart's electrical system. The heartbeat's a bit out, and for some reason one day it just goes on strike, often when the owner is exercising.'

‘Well, she—'

‘Often, but not always. It's genetic. Find out if any other members of the family have died of no apparent cause. If they have, I'd say it's SADS for sure.'

At Marrickville they took Burns into an ERISP room and turned on the camera. He was wearing a green-striped shirt and baggy jeans and said he didn't want a lawyer. Once the preliminaries were over, Conti played the DVD from West Pennant Hills post office. When it was finished she asked Burns if he was the person in the bulky jacket, and he denied it. She went over the facts of his meeting with Leila Scott at the house, and Troy said nothing, just watched Burns' face and his body language. There wasn't much to see. The nurse was calmer than yesterday, more normal in his responses. The desire to jump on certain facts, impose himself on the interview, had disappeared. Troy wondered if it could be brought to life again, and what it meant anyway.

Conti had got Burns to bring his address book to the interview, and he put it on the table, asked what this was about. As he spoke he glared at Troy: he was looking at him more often today.

Troy said, ‘We're wondering if you might have mailed Julie's diary to yourself, or to someone you know.'

Burns jerked back in his seat. ‘But the intruder took it.'

‘There's a time gap between when Leila Scott says you arrived at the house and when you called triple-oh. We can't explain that, and it makes us wonder what you might have been doing during that time.'

‘Leila just got the time wrong.'

‘We don't think so,' Troy said. ‘We checked with her PA about when she took the car out from the work garage. That gives us a good idea of when she would have reached Beecroft.' He repeated: ‘It makes us wonder what you were doing during the missing half-hour.'

Burns wasn't giving anything away. With a blank face he said, ‘There's no missing half-hour. She must have got the time wrong, the trip took her longer than she remembers. She's confused, still grieving for her mother.'

‘Like you're still grieving for Julie?'

‘Look, I haven't got anything. You can check with my post office.'

‘We have.' Troy looked at Conti. ‘Why don't we photocopy Mr Burns's address book?' He turned back to Burns. ‘You have no objection?'

Burns leaned forwards. ‘My girlfriend's been dead just a couple of days, and I find this very distressing. But I've got nothing to hide. You believe that bitch because she's rich. Ah . . .' He stopped talking. Troy stared at him and Burns leaned back in his chair, folded his arms.

They broke for refreshments and for Conti to use the photocopier. When the interview recommenced, Troy said, ‘SADS is an unusual way to die. Apparently it's genetic. Has anyone in Julie's family died unexpectedly?'

Burns screwed up his face in concentration. ‘I think so,' he said. ‘An aunt or someone.'

Troy nodded, took out some clear plastic envelopes containing Burns's receipts from the Fine Thai restaurant over the past six months, including the one from the night Mark Pearson had died.

‘You like your Thai food,' he said.

‘Julie did. Personally, I prefer KFC.'

He looked like it, not exactly fat, but there was a layer of padding over his heavy frame.

Conti said, ‘If you'd look at the signatures on these receipts you'll see the one for the fourth of February, when Mark Pearson died, plus these other three, have a different signature to the others.'

Burns produced a pair of reading glasses and placed them delicately on his big nose. He bent over the pieces of paper.

‘They're all my signature,' he said. ‘It varies depending on the position of my arm. When you go to pick food up there on a busy night it's a madhouse, you have to sort of stretch down over the counter and sign it real quick. So yeah, sometimes it's just a scrawl.' He pointed to the 4 February receipt, where the signature was a large C followed by a line that ran off the edge of the piece of paper. ‘They know me so well, it's not an issue.'

‘We'll be getting copies of some of your other card receipts from the bank,' Conti said, ‘to see just how consistent your signature is. Are you sure you signed all of these?'

‘Yes.'

Troy looked at his notes. ‘You might have heard,' he said, ‘we're conducting an investigation into allegations patients are being killed at St Thomas', in Oncology.' Burns looked at both of them and nodded fiercely.

‘Would you know anything of this?'

‘No. It doesn't seem likely. They're a good team.'

‘We've had some suggestions Julie acted suspiciously around the time several patients died.'

‘Who?'

‘I don't have the names with me. After what you told us yesterday, that time you stopped her killing someone, I thought you could have something to tell us.'

‘I said she
might
have killed someone if I hadn't been there. Might. Other people . . .' He paused, stopped.

‘Got our interest, Carl.'

Burns started to breathe heavily, and slumped in his chair. Conti stood up anxiously, but he waved her back into her seat and sat up straight again, still panting. After a minute it subsided.

‘This is bad stuff,' he said, and there were tears, which he made no attempt to mop up. ‘You're saying you think Julie might have killed some patients?'

‘It might come to that.'

‘Yeah. Okay. I became suspicious last year, July or August. There was a Mrs Collor and an old man, Elingsen. We were on night shift, short-staffed, just the two of us. She told me to go away when she was with the old guy, just before he died.' He was speaking quickly, stopped for a bit then rushed on: ‘It was the way she, ah, she'd want to have sex those nights, know what I mean?' He looked at Troy keenly. ‘So I asked her one day and she just freaked, I knew something bad had happened.'

He went for his handkerchief and blew his nose.

‘And Collor too, it was the same then?'

Burns nodded.

‘You mean you had sex at work?'

‘Are you going to tell them?'

‘Not if there's no reason to. Where did—'

‘Empty room. Early morning, it can be quiet.'

‘How could she have killed them?' said Conti.

‘I think she smothered Collor, Elingsen was a morphine overdose. I saw an ampoule in her bag a few days earlier, asked about it and she laughed, said she'd brought it home by mistake.'

‘That's likely?'

‘Sure, you sign it out, the patient dies before you administer it, things get hectic. But I checked, I'd become—Julie had signed it out, it was in the S8. But she didn't sign it back in.'

‘Did you say anything to anyone?'

‘I didn't want to believe at first. Later I asked her again.' Big sigh. ‘She was my girlfriend, we were going to get married.'

‘So, how did she respond?'

Burns stared at the table, lifted his head a fraction, tears all over his cheeks. ‘We had the conversation early last week.'

‘About your suspicions?'

‘Yeah. I asked if she'd done that before—got more morphine. She denied everything. Then she killed herself.'

Silence.

‘How was that?'

‘Nitrogen canister, tube, big oven bag around her head. I'd told her we had to talk about it again.' He was speaking slowly. ‘Agreed to talk that night, and when I got to her house there she was. Dead.'

Troy waited, but Burns had run out of strength.

‘Did you ever suspect she'd killed a patient before, in Queensland?'

Burns shook his head slowly. ‘No way.'

‘What did you do when you found her body?'

He spoke softly. ‘Put the gear in a black garbage bag from under her sink, drove off and threw it into a bin in a park. I just . . . it was over, you know. I didn't want the families of all those people to find out their loved ones had been murdered. I loved her.' He was weeping steadily.

‘How many people are we talking about?'

Burns's gaze was fixed firmly on the table once more. He whispered, ‘No idea.'

Fifty-two

T
hey took a break while Troy called McIver. Conti stood next to him in the detectives' office, twisting the ends of her hair, looking happy. Wide-eyed.

‘Yes!' she said when he'd finished.

She was exultant. Some of the locals had sensed her mood, were edging towards her. Troy ignored them.

‘She was big enough.' He'd been thinking of Pearson on the ferry. ‘Could have hoisted him over. Peters and Mac are on their way, but they want us to keep on. Keep it coming.'

‘What do we want now?'

‘We want a number.'

When they went back into the room, Burns was white-faced and teary. They went over it all again, spent another two hours putting some flesh on the bones. He told them about his relationship with Julie, what a strange person she'd been, her deep insecurities and moments of cruelty. How they'd been right for each other despite this; he'd had a breakdown in Brisbane after his mother died, and Julie had nursed him through it, sat by him for weeks on end, seen him back into the world. It was something he felt he owed her forever, and so they'd embarked on their strange relationship, never living together but in touch several times a day, spending long periods at each other's houses.

‘I always figured I was the one in charge,' he said. ‘I know she didn't see it like that all the time, but it was what she wanted. Sometimes she'd remind me of what I'd been through, how she'd helped me . . . There were a lot of good times too. It was just, things sometimes develop in unexpected directions you know?'

They'd had a normal sexual relationship, although there were times when Julie had sworn off for weeks, saying it was wrong and they ought to get married. She was religious, went to mass.

‘I never thought it was really that,' he said, smiling at Troy. ‘It was just, you know, the way they can be.' He looked at Conti, said, ‘Sorry.'

‘When did you first suspect Julie was killing people?' she said.

‘It wasn't like that, “killing people”. One night about ten months ago, three in the morning, we were on a shift together and I was doing some paperwork. I went for a walk around the ward and found Mrs Collor dead. She had lung cancer, been in agony, and I said something to Jules like, “Probably just as well,” and she gave me a look, said, “She's with the angels now”. Then she took me into this empty room and we did it.'

‘Had you had sex in a public place before?'

‘It was hardly—'

‘At work?'

‘No. To be honest, we hadn't had sex for a while. So I wasn't complaining. But then a month later it happened again, with Mr Elingsen.'

‘Did you have any other reason to be suspicious?'

‘Her expression was different, the look in her eyes. I thought the deaths were turning her on, that worried me. That was what was in my mind. I never thought for a moment she was killing them.'

‘So why the change? Why did you decide to talk to her a few days ago, so long after the deaths?'

‘It was the way she'd been talking about her patients lately. After she moved to Charity she was fine, but lately there'd been a change. One woman who used to moan at night, kept people awake, Julie said something would have to be done about her. The tone in her voice, it reminded me of those times before. As if she'd lost her compassion. That's a danger in nursing. We talked about that a lot.'

Troy said, ‘Did you speak to anyone about your concerns?'

‘There was nothing to say, nothing you could put your finger on. What I did was, I raised it with Julie. She'd been acting strangely this last month, getting depressed and not speaking to me for days. I mean, I was the one supposed to have the depression. I reckon now she must have guessed I was on to her, but at the time I had no idea.' He stopped, then: ‘I've been thinking about Brisbane, since you asked me. I hadn't thought about it before. This is terrible.'

‘What is?'

He rubbed his face. ‘I think we did have sex there once. At work.'

‘Once?'

‘I think—I was on medication after my mother died, my memory's not great for that period. There was something about her mood then, Julie's, that reminds me of the way she was at St Thomas' . . . Jeez, I'd never put it together before.'

‘You're saying Julie might have killed patients in Brisbane?'

Burns put his hands up. ‘This is very hard for me.'

‘We need to know.'

‘It's like you're telling me the world I've been living in was false, I was really living in another world. It's a hard thing to get my head around. I need a bit of space.'

‘How did Julie feel about mercy killing?'

‘You're not listening to me, are you?'

Troy said again, ‘We need to know.'

Burns was looking distraught, as if another wave of emotion had just hit him. His face glistened with sweat. ‘She believed it was okay for people in a lot of pain to kill themselves. She had some books and pamphlets at her place. It's not that unusual among nurses. Patients ask you all the time. It goes on.'

‘We didn't find any pamphlets in her house. Did you remove them?'

‘What?' Burns looked confused. ‘They were in the back room.'

Troy wondered why he'd lie about this.

‘Are you aware of any nurse who's helped a patient to die?'

‘Of course not. But you hear stories.'

‘What do you mean, “Of course not”?'

Burns had turned pink. ‘Gee, do you think I need a lawyer here?'

‘What about Leila Scott and her mother? Julie helped nurse her just before she died.'

‘Yeah, I spent a few days up at their place. But we left before she went.' The red had left his cheeks, and he rubbed his eyes. ‘I think I might get a lawyer now.'

‘Yes?'

‘It's just, on the TV, people who don't get a lawyer are always losers, aren't they?'

‘The interview's almost over.'

‘Yeah. I'd still like a lawyer.'

He looked as though he'd just woken up, didn't like what he was seeing.

While Burns made his call, Troy talked with McIver and Peters, who'd arrived and were in the next room, where they'd been listening to the interview on a speaker. He went over the earlier part of the conversation with them, enjoying the excitement coming off both men. This was what you lived for, what the job was about.

Peters said, ‘How's this fit with what you've been finding in Oncology?'

‘Fits,' McIver said. ‘Colleagues say Julie and Carl were close, he was a little odd but made an effort with other people, he was social. She was odder, bit needy, bit teary at times. No one's saying she was a serial killer, and opinion's divided whether anyone could have actually got away with what we're talking about here. Lot of people swear it couldn't have happened.'

‘But?'

‘From what we've learned, it's possible. Just.'

There was a moment's silence.

‘Bloody hell,' said Peters. ‘My mother died of cancer.'

‘St Thomas'?'

‘No. Thank God. You hear about mercy killing by nurses and doctors, no one coming out with it publicly. Everyone's pretty happy with the way things are. Don't make waves.'

‘You can see the opportunities it might create, for someone who went off the rails.'

Peters nodded, his mind elsewhere, perhaps thinking about his mother. A lot of people would be thinking like that, Troy thought, when this got out.

‘One thing,' he said. ‘They didn't find any material about euthanasia in Cornish's house.'

‘He must have dumped it,' said McIver. Are we going to charge him?'

‘What with?' said Peters. ‘Not realising he was in a relationship with a killer? Being an idiot?'

‘If he is.'

‘He concealed the fact a crime had been committed,' said Conti, who'd just joined them. ‘We've got him on Julie, at least.'

Peters said, ‘As I suspect Burns's lawyer is going to tell us, suicide is not a crime in the state of New South Wales.'

‘Helping is.'

‘Yeah, but that's not what he says he did.' He rubbed a hand down his face, shook his head. ‘Jesus.'

Two hours later, after Burns got his lawyer and there was another interview that added nothing, it was Troy who escorted him out of the station.

At the door Burns smiled. ‘It was a bit of a thing between us, Leila going to Mexico just then. To get the Nembutal.'

Troy stopped in surprise, holding the door. This hadn't come up in the interview, and there was something odd in the expression in Burns's eyes. ‘Did you see the bottle?'

‘No. I know, this is just hearsay.'

Not a lot of people knew what hearsay was. Burns must have done some research. ‘You know she went to Mexico?'

‘Julie told me. It was supposed to be a secret, but you know. I'm trying to be honest here.'

‘You didn't tell us this before.'

‘I'm very confused. There's so much, isn't there?'

Then the lawyer got him away.