After the Smoke Clears, page 15
Stuck-up Steph. I hadn’t forgotten, but didn’t show it.
‘You don’t forget a piece of arse like that. Yankee exchange student that apparently “left town” suddenly after the fire. Did little Stephanie not put out, mate? We know how she felt about my cousin, poor old Brookester – pretty sure he was one of her favourite targets to terrorise. You probably thought no one would miss her – turns out she was an orphan like you, the American thing all a big fat lie, or did you know that already? But someone missed her – she was declared a missing person the following week, never found. Sweet Fake-Yankee Steph.’
I hunched in the corner of the interview room, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing the rise he’d given me. The four walls closed in. A halo appeared around the fluro above our heads – or was that my eyes packing up?
Troy settled into what he did best: casual intimidation. Flicking imaginary lint off his blue uniform. Straightening papers in a line along the table’s edge. He wasn’t quite as good at it as his brother, but he was the youngest. Give him time. ‘Twenty years she’s been rotting in that bushland, poor thing. Never got to have a family. Tell me now, and I’ll go easy on you. Was Brookes your accomplice? Or was it an accident? Did one of his moronic pranks go wrong and you helped him hide the evidence? Or did you get her drunk and she did the rest, stumbling up the hill, forgetting you lit the fire with the distraction. Few days and we’ll have dental records, mate. DNA.’
Silence. Nothing I could say would help. I knew he had nothing on me, even with the evidence in the truck and whatever Brookes had in that tin from the treehouse. I was not under arrest. I knew they’d have to release me soon. That I just had to survive his goading a little longer and I’d be home. Home with Lotti and Otto, tuning engines and keeping my head down. But I couldn’t help myself. I wasn’t the type to sit by when dickheads had the floor.
‘I know nothing about any bones – lotta trouble over nothing if you ask me. Hell, do you even know they’re human? Not some cattle gone to pasture in the fucking war?’
‘Oh, they’re human, mate,’ Troy said.
‘Okay, well, maybe an old miner blew himself up in the sixties or … or a piss-wreck stumbled into an open mine? Who fucking knows? A lot of history in those hills.’
He turned when I said it and that pause gave me a leg in, so I went on.
‘Pretty sure you’re still working for the family business, am I right? Your unofficial pub trading stock? If I were you, and thank Christ I’m not, I’d be keeping this to yourselves – not a good look for your dad’s new project. Not exactly the ambience you want in a nice family estate, is it? Dead bodies turning up. Might be more the deeper you dig. Serial killer stuff. Might really slow down your plan – don’t want the family’s cashflow tied up for months while the archaeologists come out and make sure there’re no sacred burial sites. How old is your dad now? Getting on? It’ll be your inheritance soon, I’m guessing.’
This is why I didn’t talk much. All those words. It was exhausting.
His bottom jaw slid to the side as he pondered my point of view. Who was I kidding? He wasn’t deterred. Harrises never were. They had all bases covered – the publican licence, the copshop, half the commercial buildings in Main Street, and now the residential estate would be tagged to their brand like cattle. I wondered how embroiled Becca had become in her Uncle Graham’s underbelly schemes.
‘Let’s see how murder looks next to your other records, huh?’ said Troy.
I laughed. ‘That’s a bit of a reach – you don’t even know who is dead, when, how or why, but you’re talking charges.’ Spin. It had never been a skill I aspired to have, but I was doing it better than expected.
‘We’ll get the DNA back soon. We’ll get a witness. Don’t you worry.’
‘Witness. You don’t even know how long they’ve been buried. You gonna question anyone that’s been in that bushland the past fifty years?’
‘Ah, Gus. C’mon, Pyro. We both know when this all began. That night. The fire you started. Does it give you a hard-on just thinking about it? All that destruction, all because of you.’
It stirred something inside, but I exhaled, in and out, let it go. ‘You don’t know shit.’
‘How ’bout the medical records for Brookes’ burns? You didn’t know that, did ya? Doctor’s records are a bit of a chink in your armour. Blame the meat-head’s sister for that one – no surprise she’s so good with her kid, she’s an old hat at parenting after raising her brother half her life. How else did he get those scars all over his back?’
‘Brookes is a fucking klutz. Always burning himself lighting up his farts. You got nothing.’
‘All adds up to the Brightside fire. I don’t need to remind you of that night, do I, Gus? That stinking hot Australia Day in ’89 … Just after Queenslanders voted out Jo.’
Shame the Fitzgerald enquiry didn’t end the corruption in Eldham. ‘Course you don’t. The whole town came out to see the place burn. Smoke stung our eyes for days. You couldn’t live in Eldham back then and not know about it. It was a pile of old wood, left in the sun in the middle of summer, wires hanging from the walls, never maintained. Discarded cigarette butt. Burning off at a nearby farm. Wouldn’t have taken much to light that place up.’
‘And you know all about lighting places up, don’t you, Gus. Like that property you destroyed just after your mother fried, over on the Thomas farm.’
‘What?’ I scoffed. ‘A bonfire completely contained in a rusted old tractor no one had touched in forty years? You were fucking there, Troy, pissed as a fart from memory, you bloody hypocrite. I did that farm a favour – nest of rats got chargrilled instead of eating through crops. We even cleaned up the empties the next morning. That’s why he dropped the charges, as you well know. But that was before Brightside burned, and I have no clue why you’ve assumed some old bones have anything to do with me or Brookes, and I think it’s time you admit you’ve got nothin’.’
The detective lifted his legs onto a spare chair and thought for a second.
I exaggerated a yawn to show how unrattled I was by this bullshit. ‘It’s been a long fucking night – longer than the 8 hours you pricks can hold us without an arrest – or is that just due to your conversation skills?’ I frowned, leaned forward on the desk he’d righted earlier. ‘Have you asked your brother where he was that night?’
‘Which bloody brother?’ The first flare of emotion from Troy Harris.
‘The arsehole. Ah, yeah, I see your problem – doesn’t narrow it down. Joel Fucking Harris. Why don’t you ask him where he was?’
‘We fire up the barbie every Australia Day, even back then. His whole family can vouch for him. How would you know he was involved, unless you were?’
I shrugged. ‘Just a hunch.’
Detective Harris was silent for a moment. ‘What is it with you two? You were sling-shotting spit bombs at each other when you were six and still haven’t let up.’
‘Don’t start me,’ I said. ‘Or we’ll be here another ten hours.’
The lady cop came in, whispered something in Harris’ ear and he smiled. ‘Would you look at that? Magistrate’s just signed off on a warrant to search that retro shit-box of yours and whatever it was in that tray. Let’s see what’s in that chunk of metal you went to a lot of trouble to unearth.’
Chapter 15
LOTTI
‘Murder? Are you joking?’ I blurted to Becca as we perched on the ugly bedspread of my cheap pub room. I was still processing the story around Otto not being Augie’s real son, hadn’t even started on losing him at the drive-through – now this?
Becca wasn’t kidding. Her face wasn’t just sunken, her eyes not just mum-tired. She was scared. Scared for her brother, mostly, but also for August as it sounded as though they were both in as deep as each other.
I knew anyone was capable of killing, under the right (or wrong) conditions, but my mind reached back to quiet nights in the van with August, the compassion in his eyes when I’d share my schoolyard dramas, the way he listened to Otto’s needs – that man was incapable of killing. ‘That’s not possible,’ I said.
Small crow’s feet appeared as she squinted at me with a look that said I was as naïve as that comment sounded. ‘Ah, need I remind you, he did lie to you about other things hon, so, you know …’ Did she mean about being Otto’s dad, or something more?
It scared me when I realised I had no idea how well this woman knew him. Perhaps she was his ex-wife. He was the most closed-off person I’d ever met but maybe he was different with her. Maybe it was me he didn’t trust? And, in that case, what did she know that I didn’t?
August was a contradiction – he could fly off the handle, not hesitate to get physical with deadbeats at the pub that threatened those he cared for, but also the type of man who rescued a nest of abandoned baby birds found at the P&C working bee and fed them with an eyedrop just to show Otto that every life was precious. Even the ones no one seemed to care about.
‘How is he meant to have killed someone? You mean, like in a car crash, an accident?’ Something like that could happen to any of us.
Becca rubbed tired eyes. ‘I tried putting the heat back on my cousin to find out – I’ve got enough dirt on that family to put them away for a long time, but Troy wouldn’t say much. Uncle Graham – his dad – bought that land around the dam they’re developing, and I reckon he’s trying to keep it all under wraps, so it doesn’t slow them down if someone claims it’s an Aboriginal burial site. No one’s talking about it yet. But he said he wants to question me too, which makes this all about something from when we were kids, back when I … knew Gus. Troy wouldn’t let me speak to either of them so I’m trying to piece it together.’
‘Margo said something about a fire,’ I said.
Becca rolled her eyes, leaned on the door frame. ‘Which one?’
My brain spun. Otto was sound asleep beneath the fan. I wasn’t getting any rest tonight with all these questions in my mind demanding answers. ‘I think we both need a drink.’ I grabbed the bottle and two chipped mugs and slid into a chair. My legs barely fit beneath the tiny table. Becca hesitated. I could tell she was keen to get back to her daughter, to get away from me; that she’d reached her limit of being everything to everyone, like so many mothers, but she sat, regardless.
The fading sun filtered through the hotel curtains, and I was now close enough to see Brookes’ sister was striking, the kind of woman that was hard to forget. Instinct told me August had loved this woman. Maybe he did, still. Maybe she was at the core of all of it. A bar tussle over a girl that went too far. That, I could believe. Thoughts quickly diverted down a rabbit warren; that August had gone straight to this leggy redhead’s house before he was caught by the cops, that she was the thing I needed to be worried about, not this police drama.
We sipped warm wine as she filled in gaps about young Augie. ‘Brookes wouldn’t have survived high school without him. I was kind of glad when they sent Gus to Brightside too – more chance my brother would make it out. But he never forgave Margo for leaving him there. She was worried sick that she’d failed her sister in looking after him. She tried, she just couldn’t handle him – the pyro stuff was too much for her, still grieving Jude and she genuinely thought they’d help him – she’s never quite been the same since then.’
Pyro stuff? ‘Is that why he left town? Why he’s not in contact with Margo?’
Becca gulped more wine. ‘They were never the same after that place – it was a rough boys’ school. Freya’s death just divided them more. He had so much anger – it was just a freak accident up at her uni, but blaming Joel was the way Augie could live with losing her.’
I tried to make sense of it. ‘Because he was the reason she left town, to hide the baby from him?’
‘It was more direct than that. I got it – Freya was my best friend, I was lost too – but he was way off, blaming Joel for her death. Margo encouraged him to see reason but they had a big blow-up after the funeral – and have barely spoken since.’
‘So, Joel Harris is Otto’s dad, and August thinks he was involved in Freya’s death?’ It was as if I had to keep saying it to make it sink in. Otto was not August’s son. There was definitely a family resemblance with those dark, enquiring eyes, but I guessed uncles and nephews could look alike.
Becca nodded, eyes wide. ‘A real piece of work, that one. All my cousins are dipshits. My uncle owns the pub – I’ve been doing the books for them, just to keep on their good side, you know? Friends close, enemies closer. But Joel can be such a charmer and turned it on long enough for Freya to get sucked in a few years back. Not many choices in small towns, if you know what I mean. I don’t actually wish badly on Joel – treats women like toys and I’d never want Otto to be in his life – but he did, unknowingly, give Freya a piece of happiness before she died. That baby turned a light on inside her, you know? She was complete. But, yeah, Joel has no idea Freya had his child from their brief hook-up. She made sure of that, fled town as soon as she found out and Augie was always dead keen on keeping it that way for their safety.’
Otto. Joel. Safety. I swallowed hard. ‘Ah, Becca? I think I fucked up. Otto got stuck in a storage fridge over at the drive-through and a roo-shooting arse of a guy helped us get him out.’
‘God. Sounds awful, poor kid.’
‘Yeah, thing us, the guy who helped said his name was Joel.’
Becca’s eyes widened. ‘Jesus. Okay. I guess that was inevitable being in town. Did he guess who you were? Your connection with the family?’
I shook my head. ‘I didn’t give a name, said I was from the city, didn’t mention Otto’s name or August. But he’d remember us for sure.’
She nodded, concerned. ‘Just don’t leave Otto alone – Joel’s such an egotistical prick he’d want to piss all over anything he thought was rightfully his whether he wanted a child or not.’
I didn’t need to be told that Joey Killer was not father material. But were we talking Wolf Creek kind of bad, or just your average intolerant arsehole? Was August’s changing his name all in aid of keeping Otto clear of that man? Or was there more?
‘You know their mum died when their house burned down and his Aunty Margo took them in. That’s when he went off the rails – got obsessed with flames, got caught lighting up a wreck – another time Brookes lost half his thumb with him setting off fireworks down the dam.’
‘Yep. Margo said as much. It’s … a lot,’ I said, still not used to this version of the man I thought I was finally cracking open.
‘And I’m guessing you’ve seen Gus’s scars …they were from juvie.’
I didn’t answer. I was too busy processing the fact that she had (and they weren’t exactly on his face). I confirmed what I’d started to suspect. The ‘B’ on August’s forearm was for Becca. My instinct should have told me to run. To leave Otto with this woman, who seemed perfectly capable of caring for him, and return to my life. August had lied, or lied by omission, about everything important. His name. His son. His family. I had been under the illusion we had something good, that he’d begun to trust me. But he’d never shared any of this and these things were the major plot points in his story – they informed who he was. How important could I really be to him?
Becca continued with intimate details of the man I thought I knew – pub brawls, expulsions from school, homelessness – and I felt as if I’d been sleeping with a stranger. A decoy. A clone of the man she described. Her voice took an upward inflection as she drank more. ‘He came good, though – whether he wants to accept it or not Margo saved him from jail, most likely. He eventually found a healthy avenue for his obsession, enrolled in a welding course, found a mechanical apprenticeship.’
Young Augie. He lost everything, and carried on. He wasn’t a Rhodes scholar or a billionaire, but he’d made something of himself.
‘I thought I knew him,’ I said to this stranger, the tears pouring out. ‘I didn’t even know his real name.’
‘He’s still Gus, Lotti. Whatever last name you tack onto him. He’s still the same person – sure, maybe a damaged one, but most of that wasn’t his fault. Bad luck, that lot. His mum and dad, his sister – all dying on him in separate events. His grandparents never knew him – died before he was even born. Margo’s slowing down too, won’t tell me why she’s quit her volunteering but it’d have to be a good reason for her to stop helping people. She laughed at me when I asked if she had cancer or something, and she was adamant she didn’t.’
My head hurt. ‘Okay, getting back to the murder part – you’re saying he might have killed someone but he had a bad life so I should be fine with it?’
‘They were kids, hon.’
I let out a slow breath. I had to be smart about this. ‘You’re basing that on a hunch it’s about some fire when you were at school? You don’t know that. We don’t know who or how or why those remains are linked to him. I mean, when was the last time you saw him?’
‘Some people you can never un-know.’
I tried to mask an eye roll. Perhaps I should clear out. Leave them to their unforgettable bond. ‘What would you do if you were me? Hang around, find a lawyer, help him through this, or should I just get out of here?’
Becca leaned back, her gaze narrowing. ‘How long have you known Gus?’
Gus. I’d never known anyone to refer to him as that until this weekend. Was that intentional? ‘A few months.’
She hesitated, took another sip, then asked, ‘Was it love at first sight?’
I frowned. ‘There was definitely something … chemical. But, no, I thought he was rude and chauvinistic.’ But not a criminal arsonist like Grayson wanted me to think, or a thug like his reputation at the school staff room implied. And definitely not a murderer.
‘You’re not wrong,’ Becca said with a laugh.
We smiled. ‘He can be a little antiquated.’ I didn’t want to warm to memories of him – this stranger – but I found I was. He wasn’t exactly a smooth operator, but he was real, even if a little rough. ‘He checks rooms before I enter, walks on the roadside of a footpath in case a random car mounts the gutter … he’s like a security guard.’
