Getting Warmer (22 page)

Shellie Petkovic was back in the interview room at Freo cop shop accompanied by Rebecca, the tired legal aid lawyer. Cato had laid it all out for Hutchens during the remainder of the journey back from seeing Mazza. The numberplate on Shellie’s mystery chauffeur to Casuarina had thrown up a red flag, person-of-interest. Bryn Irskine, AKA Eyebrow Stud, Sergeant-at-Arms with the Apaches.

‘Dearie me,’ said DI Hutchens.

That alone was enough to bring Shellie straight in for more questions. When she found Hutchens and Cato on her doorstep it was like she’d been expecting them.

Hutchens led the interview, Cato in attendance and plugging any gaps he spotted. In contrast to the previous occasion, Shellie made a point of focusing on Hutchens and tried not to meet Cato’s gaze. It turned out that she and Eyebrow Stud had both gone to school together. He and Shellie’s little brother, half-brother to be precise, had both joined the Apaches when they left Collie High. Shellie’s kid brother, Gary, had since died in a motorbike accident. Eight years ago on a wet day in August, he’d come off and rolled into the path of a truck on Stock Road. As far as Eyebrow Stud was concerned, Gary was a fallen comrade, and if Gary’s sister needed help they were obliged to give it. In short, he was happy to organise for the boys inside to give Wellard a kicking.

Cato had crosschecked against the visitors log and it all added up. With her Hyundai in for a service, Shellie and Irskine had carpooled on that prison-visiting day: he to have a chat with Danny Mercurio, she to pour her heart out to Stephen Mazza. Call it a veterans and families welfare service, explained Cato to his boss. Nice, kind of like the RSL, Hutchens had postulated.

‘So did you specifically say you wanted Wellard dead or just that you wanted him hurt?’ Hutchens had on his gentle, understanding voice again.

‘I didn’t care.’ Shellie was by now no doubt wondering how much trouble she was causing Irskine. ‘I told Bryn what Wellard had done. Said I was sick of it all. He said he’d take care of it. Maybe they were just going to bash him but it all went too far?’

Hutchens tapped the file. ‘Might buy that if it wasn’t for the toothbrush, Shell.’ Shellie shrugged her reply. ‘So what precisely was Mazza’s role in this?’

‘Nothing. The bikies did it.’

‘But he found the body, Shellie. It’s all a bit cosy isn’t it?’

It got worse. There was the question of the mystery
FINDERS KEEPERS
packages. The lab results had shown that traces of Shellie’s DNA and some fibres linked her to the envelopes, not surprisingly, as she had handled them. But more importantly significant traces showed on the sheet of paper in the first package that she claimed to have been too upset to look at or touch. Shellie’s DNA was already in the system for elimination purposes as part of the ongoing investigation into her daughter’s disappearance. If they were to take a full finger and hand print sample from her now it would confirm everything. But perhaps it was just the look in Shellie’s eyes that said it all.

Shellie confessed to making up the
FINDERS KEEPERS
letters. She had resolved after that day out at Beeliar Park that she wanted Wellard to pay. The letters were a half-arsed diversionary tactic: the genuine ones from Wellard’s mate, Weird Billy, a year earlier had given her the idea and helped provide a bit of credence. The idea was to keep the police focus on Wellard and obscure her true intentions – revenge.

‘Did you really think you could get away with it, Shellie?’ Hutchens seemed disappointed with her naivety.

She glanced Cato’s way. ‘It worked for a while.’

Cato flinched at the confirmation that he’d been dudded like a lovelorn probationary: the tremulous phone call, the sobbing into his chest – all worthy of an Oscar. DI Hutchens, to his credit, managed to keep a straight face throughout. Maybe Hutchens just had a more realistic approach to human nature: sometimes good people do bad
things for good reasons. And vice versa.

Under whispered guidance from the lawyer, Shellie’s answers grew muddier. Fair enough. With the bikies still in the frame, on CCTV at least, the police would have to do a lot more yet to prove a direct link between her wishes and Wellard’s demise. But Cato hoped he’d get at least one more straight answer.

‘What made you think of those words, “finders keepers”? Was that something Wellard said?’

A smile through brimming eyes. ‘No. It was something Bree used to like saying, a game we had. I’d hide lollies around the house and pretend to be annoyed when she found them all before me.’

That last night before the murder, Shellie on his doorstep with a bottle of wine, she’d bared her soul.

Wellard’s telling me it’s ‘finders keepers’, he’s saying Bree belongs to him and he won’t give her back. What would you do?

Or was it a coded confession of her intentions?

Shellie was charged with a range of procurement and conspiracy offences in relation to Wellard’s bashing, along with wasting police time and perverting the course of justice. She was processed and locked up to face a court appearance the following morning. If they managed to join the evidentiary dots between her and the bikies and Mazza, the charges could be upgraded. Meanwhile the TRG would be sent in to pick up Eyebrow Stud from bikie HQ.

Hutchens straightened out his files and papers. ‘Good work, Cato.’

‘Thanks.’

‘The simple answers are usually the best, mate. All your conspiracy theories about accomplices and collusion, all bullshit in the end, eh?’

Cato wasn’t proud of himself and didn’t appreciate his boss’s gloating. ‘Fair enough, Kevin Wellard wasn’t the mysterious accomplice. But it still doesn’t explain how he was providing tip-offs to you, via Gordy, long after he supposedly died.’

‘Ancient history, mate, and not relevant to the matter at hand.’

‘Really?’

Hutchens opened a door for Cato to walk through, ‘Something on your mind? Spit it out.’

‘Gordon Wellard acted like he had something on you. I think it was to do with his brother. I think Kevin is still alive.’

‘I think you need to take a couple of Bex and have a good rest. Like I said, Kevin Wellard is ancient history and you need to let sleeping dogs lie, mate.’

Cato outlined the results of the search he’d asked Col’s IT mate to do based on the coded informant reference. ‘Gordon Wellard was given false papers and sent off to Thailand. The word was out that he was a snitch and there was a price on his head. He came back eight years later, just a few months before he met Shellie. Maybe he was homesick, maybe he got word that the coast was clear. God knows what he got up to in Thailand but that’s why he dropped off the system here.’

Hutchens’ eyes narrowed. ‘How do you know this shit?’

Cato ignored the question and the menace. ‘Kevin joined him in Thailand not long after. As extra insurance, Kev’s death was faked: mock funeral, notice in the paper, et cetera. Gordy was in on the act. I still don’t know what happened to Kev yet or where he is now. Watch this space.’

‘You’re on very thin ice here, mate. I’m warning you.’

‘If you want me to stop digging tell me what happened to him. I know he didn’t die in November 1996, he was talking to you beyond the grave and there was no body found.’

Halfway along the corridor Hutchens ushered Cato into an unused room and closed the door. ‘Believe me, once and for all, Kevin Wellard
is
dead.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I saw what they did to him.’

Hutchens came clean. Kevin had returned to Australia early, a few months before brother Gordon. The people who’d put out the original contract were now either dead or locked up for life. The game had changed and a new generation ran things: young guys who didn’t know or care about Kevin Wellard. Or so he believed.

‘A fortnight after he got back we found his head in one of the canals in Mandurah,’ Hutchens said. ‘The rest of him was in plastic bags buried on a farm near Toodyay. Anonymous tip-off. We kept it quiet. He couldn’t be seen to die twice could he?’

‘The scores were settled: Kev was the one they wanted, the real traitor. Gordy was nothing to them. The coast was clear for his return. Am I right?’

‘Good as,’ said Hutchens.

‘You didn’t tell Gordy? He suspected you over Kev’s disappearance.’

‘Mate, by then even I knew how much of a nasty prick Gordy was. I’ve invested too much in him and ignored all the warning signs. Sure, I let the bastard stew. Good riddance to both of them.’

‘You wanted to talk.’

‘Lara, so good to see you.’ Graham’s hand drifted down to his side.

She dug her pistol in behind his ear. ‘Keep your hands on the wheel where I can see them.’ She snapped one cuff around his right wrist and the other to the steering wheel.

‘You’re very good at this.’

‘Thanks.’ She patted him down, found his gun, chucked it into Fishing Boat Harbour and pocketed the car key. So far things were going very smoothly. It didn’t feel right.

‘I’m sorry about how everything turned out, Lara.’

‘Not sure how to read that, Colin. Sorry, as in remorseful for doing bad things, or sorry it all went wrong for you?’

A self-deprecating chuckle, ‘Both, I suppose.’

Lara scuffed a heel on the oily bitumen. ‘So how does it all end?’

‘Is that what this is? An ending?’

A car rumbled up Capo D’Orlando. Lara didn’t turn to look but it sounded like the souped-up ute from earlier.

‘Surely you were never expecting to walk away from this were you? What makes you think I haven’t got a van of TRG waiting for you up the road?’

‘Ah, but you haven’t, have you Lara? I’ve come to know you.
You’re just like me, you want it all.’

‘Meaning?’ she bristled.

‘You’ve got a best and worst case scenario. Best: I surrender and you take me in alone and get all the applause. Worst: the cavalry are on standby if things go wrong.’

‘You’re very sure of yourself.’ And that was truly beginning to worry her. Colin seemed to be reading from UC John’s script. Were they in cahoots? She steadied her nerves. ‘So what are
your
scenarios?’

‘Worst? You succeed in arresting me, with or without help. I end up in protective custody for a few months while my lawyer pleabargains me into the witness program for the price of a few names. I then live out my life in Beavertown, Ontario, with a couple of Mounties in the spare room.’

‘Best?’

‘The key witnesses against me disappear, leaving a very thin case and an embarrassed WA Police Service. I help them out, take early retirement and put all my super into a B&B in Tassie.’

‘Key witnesses being me and Dieudonne?’

‘That’s right.’ Graham raised his eyes to the rear-view mirror. ‘Ah, prompt as ever.’

Figures materialised in a pool of light at the far end of the car park. There were four of them: Lara recognised two who’d been identified by Cato from file mugshots as the ones who’d abducted him. She didn’t know the others but she was guessing that they too were Apaches. Colin’s little insurance policy: Plan B. The one who Cato had called Goatee, for obvious reasons, walked stiffly ahead and the others followed a pace behind. The other familiar face, Cato had called him Eyebrow Stud, carried a large can of something. Lara suspected it was petrol – was that intended for her? The remaining two had sawn-off shotguns.

Lara zapped her pre-arranged alarm text to UC John then pointed her Glock at Goatee. He smiled and put his hands up, taking in the scene: Lara with a gun and Colin Graham handcuffed to his steering wheel.

‘Nice touch. Maybe we weren’t needed after all,’ said Goatee.

‘What?’

‘Looks like you and me have got what’s called a confluence of interests.’

‘This is official police business. This man is under arrest. You guys should turn around and go home. Now.’

‘Got any ID?’

No, she hadn’t.

‘Thought not.’ Goatee puffed out his chest and went mock theatrical. ‘So we, as upright concerned citizens have noticed what seems to be a crime in progress and we’ve come to the rescue.’ He thumbed over his shoulder at Graham. ‘This poor bloke clearly needs our help.’

Graham rattled his handcuff merrily for attention. ‘The key’s in her pocket, guys. Let’s take her and get out of here.’

One of the shotguns was edging to her left; she waved him back in with her pistol. On the other side, his compadre edged to her right. She repeated the action. Eyebrow Stud had set his can on the ground and sat on it, looking bored. Then he seemed to make a decision, stood up, walked over to Graham and began dousing him with fuel.

‘Oh, Jesus no.’ Graham jerked his handcuffed hand uselessly. ‘What the fuck is this? We had a deal.’

Eyebrow Stud ignored him and continued pouring.

‘Stop now,’ yelled Lara.

‘Nearly finished,’ said Eyebrow Stud, tapping the bottom of the container. The two shotguns were levelled at Lara.

‘Final warning,’ said Lara.

Eyebrow Stud smirked. ‘That’s what my mum used to say to me. All the time.’

Petrol fumes filled her nostrils. Colin Graham’s eyes beseeched her. A sudden gust clinked metal against mast on a nearby catamaran. The shotgun barrels twitched. Lara’s knuckles whitened on the trigger.

Lara had intended to arrest Graham and bring him in. She’d miscalculated, badly. Both of them had. Their so-called best and
worst case scenarios counted for nothing. Was she prepared to die to save Colin Graham’s life?

Goatee dropped his hands and turned them palm upwards in a gesture of conciliation. ‘Love, I don’t think you’re going to use that thing.’ He took a step forward. ‘Even if you did you’d probably do me a favour. I’ve got constant chronic back pain and I’m jack of it. These guys?’ He waved in their general direction. ‘They’re live fast, die young types. They’ve all got “Such is Life” tattooed on their dicks. Except for poor little Dennis there, he only had room for “Such is”.’

The shotgun to Lara’s right muttered, ‘Ha fucking ha.’

Eyebrow Stud had finally emptied the can. Colin Graham was whimpering. Goatee turned his back on Lara and walked over to Graham. ‘Sorry, Col mate, it’s nothing personal. It’s just that you’ve become a bit of a fucking liability.’ Then he lit a match.