Crime Scenes Read online

  Stan never hit. Too cunning for that. Bruises could convict. Same as he never yelled, no reports for the neighbours to make, no profile to build up. Instead he raged quietly. Not even directing it at her, but about her, in front of her. He abused and insulted, spat out his hate for her, for other people, for his workmates, his job, his life. The menace of violence that never came, a storm that would not break though the barometer sank lower. He would drop into a deeper intensity, massive fists like a pair of ripped-out hearts, clenching and unclenching over the arms of his chair.

  She was proud that her rage was not hidden. She cursed and cried out, let the neighbours think what they like. She pushed and provoked and she punched. Stan was bigger, stronger, angrier; she could be meaner, nastier, drunker.

  Win favoured a sweet yellow Fruity Lexia, iced in a long glass, applied in generous quantities between the hours of waking and passing out. She topped up now as she watched him watching TV.

  ‘Stupid, pissed and angry.’

  These were Jackie’s last words before she slammed the door and moved to Sydney.

  Their son had gone a year later. Not too far, just to the mango tree in the backyard. He’d strung himself up with his father’s police belt, a thick black leather basketweave that made a collar for his neck. The holster was empty; the gun spilt onto the grass below. He’d hung in the fat, humid night beneath sharp stars while inside they’d drunk themselves to sleep, booze pouring down their throats and vitriol out their mouths. Another night at home.

  A neighbour spotted him at daybreak, dropped the kettle in the sink when the twisting figure took shape in the morning mist. Like a rotten pear, bloated on the branch but unable to drop. It took twenty minutes of pounding on the back door to wake Stan. By the time Win came to, they’d cut the boy down and borne him away.

  Admin supplied Stan with a new belt, but it still creaked as it strained around his guts.

  Though she’d missed it all that morning, she saw Paulie’s face, blue above the black, every time the basketweave groaned. The clang of a kettle rang through her head whenever she thought of the boy; he hung before her eyes whenever she heard one whistling on the stove.

  Win wanted to blame the young mother, new to Murra, to their street. She never understood Paulie. How he played with all the local kids.

  Always had.

  Never grown out of it.

  Never had to.

  Not until this young mother began to forbid her six-year-old to play with Paulie. Never said anything concrete. Not in so many words. Just made it obvious when she called her boy in from Paulie’s game of street cricket, or made a scene if they thought to go bushwalking. The bitch made sure everyone knew. The whispers started then – and spread. They reached Win, not Stan. No-one would dare say it to Stan.

  Win could admit that her boy had been slow. Like a more stupid version of his father, bereft of the anger. Paulie’s had been a gentle slowness.

  The memory spilt the wetness from her eyes. It hadn’t been the boy’s fault. There wasn’t the information in my day, she comforted herself. Nobody had warned her. The bloody doctor had drank with her. Drank with her and Stan all through that stinking summer while she ballooned into a wet, white mass.

  Her pregnancy with Paulie passed in a boozy haze, stranded in some remote dot in the far west of the state, a black and white town in a sea of red dust. The blacks drank what they could, where they could and it was called a bloody disgrace. The whites drank what they could in each other’s homes and it was called socialising.

  A town awash in alcohol. The old missions were models of alcohol and abuse. The whites tut-tutted when the ‘mish’ came through and trashed the pub or broke into the bottle’o before passing out on the riverbank. White society trashed themselves like civilised people – behind closed doors. And no one acknowledged the black eye, the split lip, the broken arm as parties rolled from house to house. An entire town content to drink as it cooked slowly under the sun.

  Stan sat like a rock, massive hands curled around the arms of his chair, unmoving as the TV crowd roared.

  ‘We live like coons,’ she snarled at the back of his head, voice climbing, combing her mind for the worst insult. ‘Like fucking coons.’

  *

  She was white noise: sometimes louder, sometimes softer, never tuning in, never making sense. Sober or drunk, she was static. His team scored but he felt no delight, it was a ritual to watch but the pleasure had dwindled long ago. If he didn’t watch, what else would he do? Talk to her? Watch her melt into tears and mucus?

  In all his additions and subtractions he’d never factored her in. She was there, like the hair that grew from his ears, repulsive but inevitable. Kindling for his anger. Ridding himself of her required action but he had replaced action with routine for so long now that he was incapable.

  Half-time came: his cue to put on the blue shirt and make another lap through town, then out to the highway. By then it would be time to call in a vehicle-check, before announcing he was heading out to Mount Purgatory, report of cattle on the road. He was an automaton. No thought required. He felt something swipe his thigh as he passed through the kitchen. It didn’t break his stride.

  *

  She heard the car roar out of the backyard. Her emptying glass lay on its side, where it had fallen when he’d clipped the table on his way through, blind to whatever pain he might have inflicted.

  The wine flowed off the table, a thin yellow stream joining another pool of liquid on the lino. She stared at it. She felt a warm moist burning in her crotch. She’d wet herself. A blowfly bumbled about, alternately beating its head against the seat of the chair before diving into the puddle with an angry sodden buzz.

  Win rose with a wet slap, her skirt clinging her legs. The chair toppled backwards onto the kitchen floor, its crash lost in the screech of the screen door as she pushed through and out into the backyard.

  The skirt climbed her legs as she staggered over the driveway; her bare feet left a ragged trail of prints on the concrete. The grass felt clean as she walked to the mango tree, a black umbrella that blotted out stars. She grasped the trunk, her forehead resting there, her fingernails raking at the uneven bark. Her noises were less than words and more than sobs, raw communication with the plant that had helped to murder her child. It stood mute and huge, ignoring her attempts to hurt it.

  Not until her fingertips were torn open, the bark embedded deep inside, did she push away. Mosquitoes, thriving in the damp and the dark of the canopy, clouded her legs but were driven back by the stink. She stepped away, stumbled over her own feet, fell flat on her back, stared into the thick weave of branches. Unmoved, it rose above her, while she lay like a beetle at its feet. It had grown taller and widened by three since it had killed Paulie. Rage at its abundant life straightened her limp limbs. Rolling to her knees she heaved up, purpose guiding her back towards the house. On her way, she noticed.

  He’d left the garage door open.

  *

  The radio squawked for his attention as he backed the Police Truck out. ‘Whale in the bay.’ A long time since he’d heard that call sign, but the meaning hadn’t changed. Top brass, driving north up to Coffs, passing through his town for an unannounced drop-in. Crotty roared out of the yard and planned his intercept on the turn-off from the highway – he was up high in the truck so they’d never see his shorts. He grasped the handset and prepared a pretext. Somewhere out of town, an excuse to nod at the brass, then drive on and out and watch their tail lights disappear before he returned home.

  *

  It was unfamiliar territory. She knocked her knees and shins against the boat trailer before her eyes grew wide enough to navigate. No light. She couldn’t risk a light. The boat, a pathetic tin can with a lawnmower engine stapled to its arse, seemed bigger in here, propped up on its dented trailer, all sharp edges and bruising corners. She rubbed at her injured legs and
glared at it.

  She forgot the mango tree.

  The boat was his typical escape. He’d had others. Lawn bowls had folded after she’d gatecrashed the socials. With that she’d guaranteed he couldn’t hide in plain sight. More private gatherings had shrivelled and died. Murra was a small town; she could always find him. Clandestine poker games hadn’t lasted. He was too stupid, too poor and too mean. She considered this latest bolthole. Circled it like a cat preparing to mark its territory.

  As she passed along the back wall she ran her bleeding fingers over the necks of glass bottles. Pyramids of undrunk bottles collected for no apparent purpose. Her hand closed on one.

  ‘I launch the SS Shit for Brains.’

  The bottle smashed over the engine, showering her with the malty liquid, leaving her grasping the jagged neck like this was a bar brawl and she was preparing to attack. The next five she pelted like rocks at the side of the boat until the glass drove her naked feet back. The ten after that she hurled like grenades into the belly of the boat. She panted and her arm ached and tiny needles of pain peppered her feet. Despite her flagging strength the pyramid was noticeably smaller. She pressed the sole of her foot against the sloping side of the pile and the glass cooled her fiery skin.

  With a final heave she sent the pyramid tumbling, a cascade of foam shattered around the tyres of the trailer.

  Stopping to catch her breath, she squatted on a canvas-covered lump. A round metal lid bit into her thighs. Win flipped the canvas back and saw the twenty-gallon drum beneath her. Standing, she dragged the canvas off – drum after drum revealed itself.

  The first drum she dragged outside. This was bounty to be shared; there was enough to go round. She screwed the lid off and rolled it on its side, all the way to the mango tree. Her feet tingled as the fuel found the wounds in her feet. She danced a drunken jig across the winding river she made and by the time she got the drum to the tree it was all but empty. Resolute now, she doubled back, rolled a second drum to join the first, not taking off the lid until it was safely wedged against the trunk.

  It was right that they should be joined: the two murderers of Paulie.

  Not one tear. He’d shed not one tear for the boy. She’d make him cry now.

  Drum after drum she opened and tipped over, only vaguely directing the stream of fuel: this one towards the trailer, this towards his home-brewing station. The floor grew slick, the air chromed her throat and delighted her brain. She giggled.

  Cigarette lighter in hand she stepped back. The mango tree shone silver under the rising moon. She trailed the fumes of fuel with her, oiling the air, took off her shirt and stuffed it into the open drum, leant forward and her breasts swung heavy, nipples shrinking from the night air.

  The flame leapt from her fingers.

  *

  He saw the light from the fork in the road. The dirt track ran down to the oyster leases where the moon shone hard on the river. The bitumen turned away and climbed the hill to town. The glow was yellow.

  The siren summoned the bush fire brigade to action. By the time they’d heard it, it would all be over.

  His siren was silent. He swung into the backyard. The tree was ablaze. A white furnace of flame ran from the tree to the garage where the roof was buckling, sucking down.

  Between them both danced a figure, a pagan goddess, a human wick. Whirling, streaming with fire, it ran to him. He doused the headlights and ground the gears, but with a thump the flame launched onto the hood of the truck. Crotty had a glimpse of a skull, white light glowing in its eyes, its mouth, then it slid from view. He found reverse and roared backwards.

  *

  The note on the front door of Murra Police Station seemed to have been typed hastily. It was laminated though, and that gave it the look of something permanent.

  Murra Police Station is unmanned until further notice. Please use the speakerphone to your right and you will be connected to the closest operational Police Station.

  Inside, Stan Crotty sat in the charge room, feet on the counter. He studied the departmental policies on compassionate leave with a frown. But then, every bit counted. He made some notes. When he turned to the section on stress leave a slow smile spread across his face. He would need the calculator for this one.

  PM Newton

  Thirteen Miles

  He pulled over and looked left to the lake. The air was heavy with the morning’s mist and he breathed heavily and rubbed his head with the palm of his hand. The humidity made everything damp to the touch.

  He had seen her truck twice in three days. Early Sunday morning when he drove to Watson’s café for breakfast, her black pickup truck was parked out front and he blinked as if waking from a dream and then drove all the way around Ten Mile Lake.

  Monday and Tuesday he drove past the landing at the lake several times and in the evenings he drove past the Windy Water Motel hoping to see her. He got lucky Tuesday night. He saw her truck on the highway and followed from a ways back until she turned into the motel. By the time he caught up she was at the door to her room, a long black shadow going through the door.

  The blanketed lake looked peaceful, quiet, maybe a little smothered. It was still early. The fog would not lift for a few hours, if at all. This time of year it was hard to tell. He got out of the car and went to the lake’s edge, knelt down and splashed the cold water on his face and smiled.

  It would be best to see her soon, get it over with. His throat became dry and his skin warm. He shook his head and went back to his car. He sucked on his lower lip and stared at the lake and thought about her. She would be out there all day, on the lake, looking.

  *

  He watched Thompson’s boat come in. Her pickup was next to Thompson’s in the dirt parking lot. She had used him last year as well. The boat drew a small, clean wake behind it and he squinted but could not see her. He slapped slowly at a mosquito on his arm, missed it and slid off the hood of his car and walked down to the dock. He stood on the wood planks, but did not go out over the water. Down the shore a tourist winched a beat-up tin can of a powerboat onto the back of a new truck. They started coming to the lake about the same time as the mosquitoes.

  Thompson’s boat came to the end of the dock and he watched Thompson jump out and secure it, tying it fore and aft. Thompson held up a hand to help her out and she took it roughly and jumped onto the dock. The two spoke.

  She looked up and saw him. He thought she would have made a hell of a poker player. She walked along the dock, her steps sure, quiet and catlike. He tried to decide if he should smile at her. It didn’t seem right.

  She stopped and looked up at him. She had aged a lot in the year. The lines on her forehead looked like they had been carved with a thin chisel and she had cut her grey hair very short. But mostly it was around her mouth that her age showed. He wondered what she’d looked like when she was twenty. Pretty damn good.

  ‘Deputy Marlin,’ she said. ‘It’s been a while.’ She kept her hands in the pockets of her yellow slicker.

  He tried to smile kindly. ‘How’ve you been, Mrs Lange?’

  ‘You’re from these parts, right?’ she asked.

  ‘Born and raised.’

  ‘Then answer me this. The lake is four miles wide and thirteen miles long. Why is it called Ten Mile Lake?’

  He watched her face. When he was a kid he’d wondered the same thing and always got a lot of silly answers. He didn’t think he should give one to her.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She nodded. ‘That seems to be the general state of mind around this fucking place.’

  He looked to the lake as though it would clear the air.

  ‘Will you be staying a while?’ Marlin asked.

  ‘As long as it takes.’

  ‘What’s he getting out of this?’ He nodded towards Thompson, back on his boat, turning it around, going over to the
other side of the lake.

  ‘Seventy bucks a day and a sense of civic duty.’

  ‘You still think I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘Not enough. Not for me.’

  ‘You looked the whole lake twice over last year. So did we. There’s nothing out there.’ He looked out at the lake and it disappeared into itself.

  ‘You think I’m wasting my time?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs Lange.’ He moved his feet along the wood of the dock. He felt like he might fall in the lake and checked to make sure he was still over the land. ‘I really don’t know. I just worry.’

  ‘Well, don’t.’ she said. ‘You’ve gotten old this year.’

  He smiled and she walked past him. She was much smaller than him but she seemed tall and he watched her walk. When he was a teenager he would have killed for a swagger as hard as hers.

  She drove away and Marlin stood on the dock alone. He looked at the water and stepped off the dock, back onto the solid ground. His skin was clammy. She was right. He had gotten old this year.

  *

  It still got dark early. He drove home and took the long way, past the motel. Her pickup sat outside her room and through the curtains he saw the lights of the television. He guessed she was not paying it too much attention.

  He turned onto the lake drive and started for home. He drove slowly. He stopped in front of his house and from the road he saw Carol inside, moving through the kitchen. Flashes of her black hair as she passed by the window. She stopped at the sink and Marlin saw her lips move. She was singing. He hadn’t heard her sing in over a year. Hadn’t seen her smile much either. He thought about Mrs Lange and chewed at his bottom lip. He bit away dried flesh and tasted the blood and when Carol looked up and out the window, he froze.