Daughters of Eve, page 12
‘Trust your gut.’ It was piss weak, but it was all I could give him.
The vic was shot in the middle of a Docklands development, less than a hundred metres from his apartment building. He’d been jogging through the park, late afternoon. Matt drove straight from the morgue and the sun wasn’t far off where it would have been when the vic had fallen.
Crime scene tape was flapping in the wind as Melbourne delivered another of its classic four-seasons-in-one-day late winter afternoons. The air was arctic but a ray of sunshine could squeeze between two buildings so your face tingled with its warmth.
Matt flashed his warrant card to the uniform on scene and we ducked under the tape to stand where the victim, a Mark Reynolds, had fallen. It was marked with a series of little flags poked into the grass—nothing so obvious as a chalk outline to attract gawkers. Still, there were plenty of gawkers at the scene, whispering in hushed tones and pointing.
‘I don’t envy you, Hayes.’ I turned on the spot and took in almost three-hundred-and-sixty-degrees of glass, steel and cement towers that surrounded the park. No wonder they hadn’t found the shooter’s location yet.
I took out my phone and filmed the crime scene up close and then the buildings surrounding it. If Robbo or the DCI started paying out on Vic Homicide I’d show them what they were up against.
‘Do you want to meet the widow?’ Matt pointed to the closest building. Ten storeys of apartments with open balconies.
‘Are you sure you’re not going to get into trouble? Your DCI hasn’t approved my access.’ I worried my tab at the bar of Matt Hayes was starting to stretch beyond my ability to pay.
‘What he doesn’t know won’t hurt me.’ Matt smiled his easygoing smile and I wondered if it would work on the DCI the way it worked on me. Although we’d got past the stuttered sentences and awkward silences, there was still the sizzle of tension between us. I had to watch my body language and fight not to betray my attraction with accidental mirroring or casual contact.
That’s the problem with detectives: we’re trained to notice the small things, to read a person’s subconscious intent as well as listen to their words.
‘If you’re sure?’ I really did want a read on the widow. So far, we had three victims with what looked like a sordid sexual history. It wouldn’t be conclusive, but it would be a salient fact if this victim had the same.
It took less than two minutes to enter the building and ride the lift to the fourth floor. I kept thinking about a statistic I’d read in a psych study: that you are more likely to die within two minutes of your house. It was looking at MVAs, not homicides but the theory that you let your guard down and relaxed as you got closer to home could have broader application, I suspected.
I saw the widow’s pregnant belly before I saw her face, when she eased the door open. It would have been nice to have had a heads-up because I was still processing the inconceivable sadness when Matt introduced us.
‘Mrs Reynolds, I’m Detective Sergeant Hayes and this is my colleague Detective Sergeant Hart. Can we come in, please?’
Mrs Reynolds had the glazed look of the unexpectedly bereaved. Her eyes didn’t drop to Matt’s warrant card, so I didn’t bother to flash mine, preferring not to draw attention to the NSW badge.
I followed Matt in, smiled sympathetically and took a seat on the immaculate white leather lounge.
Mrs Reynolds perched on the edge of the ottoman and leaned forward to square three magazines which had been artfully arranged on the coffee table between us.
‘We have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.’ Matt opened his notebook and clicked his pen. ‘I know you may have answered some of these previously, but my partner and I are new to the case.’
Mrs Reynolds looked up from the coffee table and fixed her red-rimmed eyes on Matt. ‘Of course. Anything I can do to help.’
‘Your husband was a senior accountant with Abbot, Symes and Border. Is that correct?’
She nodded.
‘Did he talk much about his work?’
She shook her head.
‘Did he mention the names of any clients?’
She shook her head again.
‘Mrs Reynolds, did your husband seem uncomfortable about his work at all?’
Mrs Reynolds sat up a little straighter on the edge of the ottoman, her eyes opening a little wider. ‘Oh, no. Mark was very confident at work. Highly respected. They were going to promote him. The partners were very happy with his work.’
Matt caught my eye and looked down to the widow’s hands, supporting her bulging belly, before looking back to meet her eyes. I knew what he was showing me. I’d noticed the bruises on her wrist when she’d stretched to adjust the magazines.
I had seen those bruises too many times before, on bodies laid out in the morgue. I remember the first time Helen had curled her hand around a victim’s wrist, showing me how her fingers almost matched the shadow bruising.
These were bruises of restraint. Of violence. And they were dark and fresh. I looked at Mrs Reynolds’ swelling belly and wondered if the child within might be better off now it would never meet its father.
When the alarm went off, I leaped out of bed before I’d even opened my eyes.
The room was dark. Too dark, and I stubbed my toe on the side table as I groped through the blackness for a lamp.
‘Bloody hotel rooms,’ I snarled as I lurched back onto the bed and clutched my foot against the dull, throbbing pain.
‘I quite like them.’
I leaped up and spun around as the light clicked on.
Oh shit! Matt. What the hell did I do?
My brain clicked on like the light had. Memories flooded in and my cheeks flamed. That look he’d given me in the lobby. The lift doors shutting and our tangled bodies falling against the lift wall so hard that it lurched and I worried we might fall.
‘You look cute when you blush.’
‘Fuck off.’ I pulled the sheet around me and left him lying naked on the bed as I stalked to the bathroom.
Perching on the porcelain I felt the familiar sting of shame. I rarely engaged in physical intimacy, and when I did, I had three golden rules.
Sex is for strangers.
Don’t exchange details.
Never go back for seconds.
I’d broken all three rules with Matt and I was kicking myself.
‘Can I join you?’ His gravelly voice floated through the door and I jumped up and flushed the toilet as an answer.
‘Emilia?’
‘Go away.’
I reached into the shower and turned on the tap but didn’t step into it.
‘I just wanted to …’ The doorhandle rattled. ‘I think we should talk.’
The bathroom filled with steam, and I leaned on the basin and gave myself the sort of disparaging look I deserved.
My body wanted to let him in. My mind wanted him to leave.
‘Emilia, please.’
He was using that voice again, and I felt it tug in the place my mother had always told me wasn’t a plaything, but it turned out that it was.
‘Fuck off.’ Even I could hear the contradiction between my words and tone.
I went to the door and leaned against it, standing on the discarded sheet, my nipples so tight they ached.
‘I won’t leave until I’ve seen you, Emilia.’
Misty air swirled around me, and hot water dashed the tiles behind me. I ached in places you shouldn’t ache when you’re talking to a work colleague.
Undoing the lock, I stepped back and let the door swing open.
He was stark bollocks naked. My skin shivered as my eyes wandered over the athletic length and breadth of his body.
He crossed the threshold and I willed myself to step back but nothing happened.
I couldn’t do this again. I had to draw a line in the sand. Be professional.
But as his hands settled on my hips and he manoeuvred me gently back until I felt the chill of the basin and slid up onto it to wrap my legs around him, I couldn’t for the life of me remember why.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘So, do you think it’s our guy?’ I couldn’t tell if the DCI wanted the Melbourne case to be linked to ours or not. All I knew was that he’d definitely got out on the grumpy side of the bed that morning.
It probably didn’t help that I’d missed my flight. The team had expected me in a bit after nine-thirty. By the time I’d got to the airport and changed the flight—thankfully the attendant on the desk had a brother who was in law enforcement—and fought my way through Sydney traffic, it was closer to ten-thirty. In my defence, it hadn’t been all my fault but I wasn’t going into details. Great sex might be a defence for the lads, but the ladies are meant to be made of sterner stuff.
‘I can’t be sure. The shot isn’t as tight, but they haven’t found the shooter’s location yet.’ I looked over to Robbo and he nodded encouragement.
‘I’m not sure why we sent you down there, then.’ The DCI glared at me from under a thick thatch of eyebrow.
‘I’ve seen the body, scouted the crime scene and met the widow.’ I didn’t think I’d done badly, given the apparent hostility between DCIs Willoughby and Fitzhugh.
Willoughby snorted his dismissal and I followed Robbo out the door and into our conference room, which had an actual conference table and a proper sign on the door. It was good to be home.
Robbo and the team had been working on a timeline in my absence, with names and dates and photographs blu-tacked along it.
Beside the timeline was the beginning of a mud map, drawn on a whiteboard. A series of circles with the names and photos of the victims and their associates connected by lines with notes scribbled in various hands. Beside the mud map was the list of sharpshooters Peterson had come up with and another that Robbo had been working on, drawing on his contacts on the streets. My network of confidential informants had mostly gone cold, given I’d been working domestics and cold cases for so long.
‘Pretty thin.’ I pointed to the mud map.
A case with so many bodies, we’d usually have two or three suspects by now, but finding connections was getting harder, not easier, with each new body. Robbo had Patty in the middle, with a strong line to Prescott and dotted lines to Griffith-Jones and Sanderson. Sitting to the side was a recently added circle for Reynolds, currently unconnected.
‘Hayes is waiting on a warrant for Reynolds’ client list,’ I said. ‘He was a senior accountant.’
Robbo reached for a whiteboard marker. ‘What’s the company?’
I flicked through my notebook and read out the firm’s name while Robbo wrote it in a new bubble that he linked to Reynolds. At least the poor bloke didn’t look like an orphan child anymore. On the same page of my notebook was Mrs Juliet Reynolds’ name and that went up on the board too.
‘Reynolds’ widow …’ I started, intending to tell him about the bruises, but I stopped. Was I tilting at windmills, seeing domestic and sexual violence everywhere I looked? What if Phoebe was just a teenager with a strict father she’d been rebelling against? And maybe Mrs Reynolds’ husband had grabbed her wrist when she’d stumbled on a slippery step outside their apartment.
‘I think we need to look deeper into Griffith-Jones’s client list.’ I pointed at the list of crime gang connections. ‘Prescott could have been target practice for the shooter to sight their scope, and I don’t think we’ve looked deeply enough into the Sandersons yet.’
‘Sight their scope?’ Robbo smirked. ‘When did you start studying up on shooting lingo?’
I shook my head. Why did men baulk at women knowing about guns? ‘My grandfather was a hunter. He owned a property out west of Bathurst, shot wild boars, roos and anything else he felt was impinging on the profitability of his farm.’
The memory of being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by a drunken mob still made me shiver. Grandma had done her best to protest, but I’d always ended up on the back of the ute, handing out shotgun shells as the car bumped and bounced over rough terrain and spotlights slid over the dark ground.
I still had those guns in the laundry, in a gun safe I’d long ago lost the key for. It was on my to-do list to sell the lot for scrap but like anything to do with my grandfather, it was easier to ignore it than face it head on.
Robbo held me in his gaze, nodding as he adjusted his assessment of me to include this new information.
‘Organised Crime are looking over the client list to see if there’s any activity we should be aware of. You know, turf wars or personality disputes that might have seen one scumbag decide to warn another scumbag by knocking off his brief. But so far nothing.’
I leaned back against the table. ‘What about that new mob, Fabrig8? There was something shifty about your mate Mitchell when we asked about them.’
‘The DCI’s been warned off looking into them, so I’m treading lightly.’
‘What does that mean?’
Robbo smiled. ‘I got the uniforms to look into that mining supply company we found, Fabrigate. Nothing official, just a regular internet search. They chased up every lead they could think of and put together a profile on the company and every name on the website.’
Robbo pulled a blank manila folder from the bottom of the stack of folders that were the background material for everything up on the board. There were electronic copies on the intranet, but Robbo and I were old school. We liked to lay out the pages and move them around.
I pulled up a chair and started flicking through the folder. Something had jumped off the screen when we’d looked at the Fabrigate website.
That was it, David Alan Dawson. The name set bells ringing and he was listed as a director.
‘Robbo, look at this.’ I pointed to the name on the page.
Robbo leaned over my left shoulder. I felt him tense. ‘Maybe that’s why Mitchell got so nervy when I asked about Fabrig8.’
I nodded.
‘Do you think he sent us their active investigations instead of the cleared gangland list?’ Robbo asked.
I was starting to wonder if Fabrig8 was a code name assigned by Organised Crime while they dug into the outwardly respectable Fabrigate. Had the company perhaps developed some less legitimate connections or business practices?
‘But David Alan Dawson isn’t the dodgy brother, is he?’ I asked.
I knew him as a mid-level businessman, the squeaky-clean brother of Craig Alexander Dawson who was master-at-arms of one of Sydney’s notorious outlaw bikie gangs.
I’d crossed paths with Craig when I was a beat cop, before the bikie laws had stopped club members from wearing their colours in public. David had bailed his brother out once, making sure I noted on the file that he’d used his personal not business account to make the payment. David had gone to great pains to distance himself from his brother’s activities at the time, despite the obvious bond between them.
‘Maybe David Dawson isn’t the reason Fabrigate popped up on their radar, but his name and Craig’s were both connected to Fabrig8 on the list Mitchell sent.’
Robbo was right. We didn’t know anything about the investigation, but I could see now why they didn’t want the likes of us poking around.
Robbo checked the client list. ‘Dawson is a client of Griffith-Jones.’
‘Which Dawson?’
Robbo’s finger ran further down the list. ‘Both.’
We exchanged a wide-eyed look before I went back to the file, looking for any more mentions of David or Craig Dawson.
When I found the media release a couple more dominoes toppled over. Announcing the acquisition of the manufacturing arm of Dawson Enterprises, it contained a lot of slippery words about supporting Australian manufacturing and assuring quality equipment for industry before stating that David Dawson had taken a directorship at Fabrigate as part of the deal.
‘Dawson joined the company on the tenth of December last year.’ Robbo leaned over my shoulder and skimmed the document before going back to the client list.
‘David Dawson was signed as a client on the third of January this year.’
When he spoke again, he must have still been putting the pieces together, because he sounded far from confident.
‘So, David Dawson joins a company that imports mining equipment and almost immediately retains the lawyer that represents his gang-affiliated brother, after years of keeping his business and his brother’s world separate.’
I knew how carefully he’d kept those worlds apart. I’d looked into David Alan Dawson to prepare a brief of evidence for his brother’s trial. He’d come up clean.
Robbo sat next to me. He swivelled his chair from side to side and I swung around to face him.
‘So, the question is, did David talk Craig into going legit or did Craig turn his brother into a crook?’
Sick of pushing black marker over the whiteboard, Robbo had offered to take me out to meet the widow of the latest victim, Ken Jennings, headmaster of a North Shore boys’ school. It was good to be out of the squad room, and the view from the Harbour Bridge was spectacular, even if I wasn’t convinced that was the reason we were taking it.
Robbo swore blind it was quicker, despite Google Maps telling me the opposite. I’d seen the sheen of sweat on Robbo’s face when we’d taken one of Sydney’s tunnels a few months back. The cold-steel stare and white knuckles where they gripped the wheel were a dead giveaway. Robbo was claustrophobic.
When I’d asked him about it, he’d hesitated a fraction too long before answering me.
Don’t be ridiculous, he’d said, without taking his eyes off the fast-moving traffic in front of him. It’s just that people drive like lunatics in tunnels. It takes one idiot to hit another and there’s nowhere for you to go.
We were off the freeway and driving through leafy green suburbs with wide streets and big houses when the call came in from Willoughby. Another body in Melbourne, but this one had a name. Technically, Mark Reynolds was a name, but it wasn’t a name anyone knew. The new victim was an online influencer Johnee Martindale. Loved and loathed in equal measure, he’d run down anyone who crossed him. Politicians. Celebrities. People who cut him off in traffic.
