Getting Warmer (7 page)

‘His name’s Dieudonne,’ said Hutchens, beaming.

‘Dieudonne What?’ said DS Graham, sulking.

‘Just that. One word. Pronounced “Dee-ur-donnay”, according to the lady at Freo Migrant Resource Centre. It means given by God, or God’s gift, something like that. Very popular name in certain parts of Africa, she says.’

‘Hmmm,’ came the reply. Graham checked his watch like he had an urgent appointment elsewhere.

‘Age nineteen, arrived as a refugee from the Congo about four years ago.’ Lara was reading from the computer screen. Fingerprints on the knife, and Dieudonne’s blood on Cato’s face after the headbutt had been matched and pinged in the system. He had previous records for low-level, gang-related violence. ‘Last known address Mirrabooka but our colleagues north of the river reckon he hasn’t been there in at least six months.’

‘Child soldier apparently,’ said Hutchens. ‘No family, all slaughtered in the jungle somewhere. Save the Children saved him and now he’s ours.’

‘Thanks a bunch,’ said Colin.

Lara scrolled her screen. ‘According to his juvey report, the social worker reckons he’s bright as. Missed out on his schooling back home, so since he got here he’s been making up for lost time. Until late last year he was studying WACE-level Literature and History at Tuart Community College.’

‘Fucking hell, a poet warrior,’ said Hutchens. ‘Is this a dagger I see before me?’

‘He could have found the knife after Jimmy Tran finished killing Santo with it.’ Colin Graham said.

‘Good thinking, Col, we shouldn’t jump to any hasty conclusions
should we?’ Hutchens was enjoying himself. ‘Either way, introduces a bit of reasonable doubt, do you reckon?’

Lara kept her eyes on the computer. ‘Assaults, criminal damage, affray, possession of weapons, gang fights.’ And slicing my arm open, she might have added. She would also need to get some blood tests done.

Graham was peering at the photo on the screen and nodding now. ‘He looks familiar. The street gang he ran with was on our radar for a while last year. We’d heard they were thinking of stepping up to the big time.’

‘And?’ said Hutchens.

‘Turned out to be bullshit: a Facebook rumour. They’re wannabes but don’t have the nous or the discipline.’

‘So did your radar pick up anything about him, specifically?’ said Lara.

‘Nothing. A dumb thug like the rest of them.’

Hutchens tutted. ‘Another one of your troublesome ethnics, Col. By the way, did you formally charge Jimmy Tran yet?’

‘Last night.’

‘Oops,’ said Hutchens. ‘Better go and untangle that little mess, eh? Don’t need a lawsuit at this stage in your career.’ A tap on the shoulder. ‘Lara, could you put an alert out for God’s gift please, love?’

The days passed into the weekend. Under orders from Hutchens, Jimmy Tran was released with a stern warning from DS Colin Graham.

‘We’re watching you.’

Tran twisted his lips. ‘It’s mutual, mate.’

Dieudonne had gone to ground. A number of young African men received some unwelcome attention from the police but none of them were him.

Cato’s strength slowly returned. He was visited twice by Jane and Jake: the former harbouring a grudge about him abandoning their son to give chase, the latter eager for details on what had happened.

‘Why didn’t you just shoot him?’ said Jake.

‘Forgot my gun.’

By Sunday the hospital was ready to send Cato home with some industrial-strength painkillers, spare dressings and instructions on how to change them, and strict orders to rest for the coming week. Fine by him, he’d been going stir-crazy: he’d read every page of every available newspaper or magazine and completed all the crosswords and other brainteasers. He was even getting the hang of Sudoku, his father’s metier, and gaining an understanding of what the old man had meant by the patient elimination of the impossible. Cato looked out of his fifth floor window at the port city spread below him: the sandstone buildings, the Norfolk pines, the ocean beyond. Sunday, the town would be throbbing with tourists: most blissfully ignorant of any bloody undercurrents as they strolled in the sunshine. According to that morning’s
Sunday Times,
a random traffic stop in Rivervale had netted just over half a kilo of ice, and a couple in Willagee had been hospitalised after a violent home invasion related to a drug debt. Oh, and there’d been another weekend party riot.

At least the hospital was air-conditioned. The heatwave was still in full swing and breaking all sorts of records. Maybe he should have gone home to his sister’s place but she had their father living with them now along with his Parkinson’s disease. One cranky invalid was enough.

It was early afternoon by the time the hospital paperwork was completed and the taxi dropped Cato home. The heat and the pain from his wound made him dizzy. He took an age getting out of the cab and the driver tutted and wanted to take him straight back to the hospital. Inside the house it was cooler, just. Next door, Madge barked and Cato recalled something useful he’d read during his idle hours on the ward. He chucked five days worth of junk mail onto the kitchen table, shuffled through to the bedroom and passed out.

Madge barked. It was night, a full moon visible through the open curtains. Cato reached for his mobile and inhaled sharply as the movement reminded him of the stab wound. According to his phone, it was just after nine and he’d missed two calls from numbers he didn’t recognise.

Madge barked again. There was a scraping noise down the side path outside the bedroom window. Somebody had just gone through the gate.

Madge growled. The lights were off in Cato’s house, yet someone had seen that as an invitation to venture further onto his property. The footsteps were moving again, heading towards his backyard. The grapevine spanning the fence between the two properties rustled. Cato pictured the route from his bed through the kitchen to the laundry door that led out back. He tried to picture weapons along the way. His gun was in a locker at work. He didn’t keep any personal spares at home like some of his colleagues did. Kitchen knives? His stomach clenched at the thought. A cricket or baseball bat? No joy, Jake was into soccer and basketball. And as for tools, they were outside in the shed.

A footscrape on the back path leading to the laundry door. Cato still hadn’t moved from the bed. His pulse raced, his mouth was dry. He realised he was afraid. A rattle: the flywire on the laundry door. A creak: they were trying the handle. He couldn’t remember if he’d bolted it when he left the house all those days ago: he often forgot.

A step on the tiles inside the laundry: no, he hadn’t bolted it.

A click and a shaft of light in the hallway. More confident footsteps now, illuminated, purposeful. Cato lay paralysed on the bed: breath shuddering. A shadow fanned across his bedroom door.

‘Who is it, who’s there?’ His voice came out at too high a pitch; the faltering tone of somebody who has already lost.

‘Philip?’

And there now in the doorway stood Shellie Petkovic.

‘You’re bleeding,’ she said.

‘Why didn’t you knock?’

Cato popped a couple of painkillers while Shellie Petkovic finished changing his dressing.

‘I did but nobody answered. The neighbour said you were home. I thought you might not be able to get up. Thought you might need help.’

‘Fair enough but it’s kind of late, Shellie.’ Stabbing pains aside,
the feel of her fingertips on his skin was not unpleasant. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘Tending to you.’ She scrunched up the dressing wrappers and placed them on the bedside table.

‘How did you know where I live?’

‘You’re famous. You were in the community newspaper – “Freo Hero Cop Stabbed”.’ Shellie placed her small warm hand over his. ‘There were a couple of old dears in the IGA talking about you, Noelle and Norma, they were very proud because you live in their street. I accompanied them home, helped them with their shopping bags, and we got talking. I asked them to point your place out.’

‘You’d either make a great cop or a very scary stalker.’ Cato’s smile slipped away. ‘So why are you really here?’

Her eyes dropped. ‘I got another package. It came on Friday in the mail. I wanted to show you.’ She dug around in her canvas shoulder bag and produced an A5 jiffy bag. She emptied the contents onto the bed, a folded sheet of paper and a black plastic bangle with a silver star pattern. ‘Bree’s,’ she said.

The paper had two words written in block capitals:
LOSERS WEEPERS.

‘How would someone else have access to her possessions? You really can’t think who this might be?’

‘Gordon’s behind it, he has to be.’ Her eyes brimmed. ‘It’s got to stop.’

‘Why didn’t you take it to the police station?’ said Cato.

‘I don’t trust anyone there anymore.’ Her eyes crept back to his. ‘Only you.’

This was getting weird. ‘It couldn’t wait until daylight?’

‘Sorry. I just needed to talk to someone.’ A sigh and a trembling lower lip. ‘I’ve been climbing the walls.’ Shellie was absent-mindedly stroking his stomach even though the dressing was already stuck down. It wasn’t easy to concentrate.

The envelope was postmarked Perth, three days ago. It could be tested for the usual traces. ‘You definitely have no idea who’s doing this?’

‘No.’

‘The timing is interesting.’

‘What do you mean?’ Her voice had risen, a defensive edge, the stomach-stroking had stopped. Pity.

‘Nobody’s been paying any attention to Wellard for over a week now.’

‘And?’

The stomach-stroking resumed and his concentration evaporated. ‘I don’t know, he likes the limelight, doesn’t he?’

At that point Shellie leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.

Lara Sumich had reviewed the nightclub CCTV footage and the mobile phones confiscated from the patrons and could still find no trace of the African, Dieudonne. Did he kill Santo Rosetti or had he just picked up the murder weapon after it was discarded and used it on Cato? She remained convinced that Jimmy Tran was still their man and that this was a red herring. DI Hutchens’ insistence on releasing Tran could be a recognition of the weakness of their case, or maybe just a way of protecting his turf and striking back at Colin Graham. But surely even Hutchens wouldn’t let a murderer go free just to score a point?

Graham sat a few desks away, leaning back, right foot resting on left knee, talking quietly into his mobile. His head and shoulders were silhouetted in the glare from the window: a blurry shadow and a low insistent voice. He seemed like a stranger today. He’d spent the weekend playing Floreat family man so she hadn’t seen him since Friday.

He ended his call. ‘How was your weekend?’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Yours?’

‘Good.’

She tapped the disks in front of her. ‘No sign of Dieudonne at the club.’

Graham strolled over and sat on the edge of her desk. She caught his smell of soap and deodorant.

‘Jimmy’s our man. We need to focus on him. The African is a sideshow and I don’t know why the DI’s got such a hard-on for him.’

‘Don’t you?’

‘No. Jimmy has form, he had means, motive and opportunity, and it was his semen in Santo’s mouth. Good enough for a jury under most circumstances.’

‘But Dieudonne’s the one linked to the murder weapon.’

‘He’s a street thug, no way could he pull this off. He’ll have found the knife in a gutter and claimed it. Look, the Trans have been doing bad things for too long with nobody laying a finger on them. They kill, they maim, they extort, they sell drugs to our children. I’ve come close before but they always skate. I’m not going to let that happen this time.’

Lara had received an email that morning from Samuel Ho’s family lawyer. Her client now believed he may have been mistaken in his identification of Jimmy Tran as the man who twisted a bottle in his face. Ho wished to drop the matter and get on with his life. No witnesses, Jimmy Tran walks again. Lara could see Graham’s point.

‘And proving the DI wrong would just be a bonus?’ she said.

‘Got it in one.’

‘So what next?’

‘Let’s go and find some proof to lock Jimmy up with.’

‘Starting with?’

He mimicked DI Hutchens’ low rumble. ‘Facts and evidence, Lara, facts and evidence.’

When Cato woke, Shellie was gone. Had he dreamed it all? The kiss seemed real enough. He hadn’t recoiled or protested that it was wrong; though he knew it was. He had received her mouth, hungrily. Only then, after the fact, did he remember to do the right thing.

‘I can’t do this, Shellie. Much as I might want to.’

Her eyes searching his face, ‘What?’

He held her gently away from him. ‘This.’

‘Why not?’

Cato knew that what he was about to say sounded silly, wooden, old-fashioned even. ‘Regulations. You’re a victim of crime and I’m a cop.’

She looked puzzled. ‘You gay or something?’

‘No, but I have had a bad week.’ The attempt at levity didn’t translate. Cato saw the hurt and rejection in her eyes. ‘The way we’ve got to know each other, it’s not normal. If it wasn’t for Bree and Wellard we wouldn’t be here. This – us – it isn’t real.’

Shellie nodded and rose to leave. He’d tried to think of something good and meaningful to say. ‘Sorry.’

‘Yeah.’ Shellie closed the door behind her.

Why had Shellie brought the second package to him and not taken it directly to the police station? Was it really about who she could and couldn’t trust? Cato recalled the night before, her hands on his stomach, the kiss. He’d led a lonely monastic life the past year or so and the attention was flattering for all that it was wrong. There was a pang of sadness and regret; he still wasn’t sure whether doing the right thing was really the right thing to do.

Cato rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He stood naked before the mirror, a patch of white gauze just above and to the left of his pubis. He had at least a week before there was even the thought of returning to work and that would be dependent on a medical check-up on Friday. It was time he could use to recuperate, to straighten out his thoughts. Without Hutchens looking over his shoulder, Cato could investigate the matter that seemed to have troubled his boss and triggered the diversion off to bullshit tasks like Safer Streets: the backstory on Wellard. And if unlocking some of Wellard’s and Hutchens’ past brought him a step closer to finding Shellie’s daughter then that had to be a good thing. Cato would certainly feel better anyway. He stepped under the shower, keeping it cold and at half power.

Lara watched Colin Graham do what he did best: well, second best. They were doing the rounds of the cafes, bars, and pool halls of Northbridge: shaking hands, shooting the breeze, whispering in ears, slapping shoulders. She could picture him at the top end of town, working a room and doing the big deals. He was a natural, everybody’s friend. Lara felt a twinge of jealousy: she knew that she would never be able to do exactly what he did, that male cop– crook brotherhood thing. She was the wrong class and the wrong sex. And he could turn his performance on and off like a tap.

The Trans might have based themselves in Baldivis but they were a statewide enterprise with national and international
connections. For all that, Northbridge remained a favourite haunt of many of their ‘franchisees’.

Graham caught her eye. ‘Got another whisper on Jimmy Tran. Let’s go.’ He took her elbow and guided her to the door.

She shook him free, surprised by her own ferocity. ‘Where?’

‘Fancy Greek for lunch?’

Zorba’s was Greek on a stick: the Parthenon painted on the walls along with lots of blue sky, sea, and little white churches. Platesmashing music piped out of the ceiling. A Greek
yia yia
ran the till and an old man in a fishing sweater and cap stood around waiting for somebody to hand him an octopus to slap. Lara and Colin took their table and ordered metzes and souvlaki. Colin checked his watch as the doorbell chimed.

‘Right on time,’ he grinned.

A Vietnamese youth in his late teens, swathed in Adidas gear, marched up to the till and started issuing orders to the Greek nanna. Whatever she was thinking, she kept her face neutral as she handed him an envelope. By the look on the old man’s face, he was ready to start the slapping now – octopus or no. The youth stood directly in front of him and stared him out. The old man was meant to fold but he didn’t. The boy had had enough fun; he left with his envelope and a smirk.

‘Jimmy Tran’s mob runs a Greek restaurant?’ said Lara.

‘Let’s say he’s a silent partner.’ Graham lifted his chin towards the old man and invited him over for a retsina. He joined them, still glowering. ‘Christos, how’s business?’ said Graham.

‘Shit.’

Graham looked around the room, three-quarters full. ‘Not bad for a weekday lunch, though.’

Christos thumbed over his shoulder. ‘That greedy little prick just took thirty percent.’

Graham shook his head in sympathy. ‘You should report him, mate, get them off your back.’

‘Sure and this place gets burned down, my wife, my children, my
grandchildren get threatened, I get a knife in the gut. You lot going to help me then? Too late.’ He cleared his throat in disgust, looking for a non-existent spittoon.

Graham took a sip of retsina and grimaced. ‘How do you lot drink this stuff? Fucking Pine O Cleen.’ Christos didn’t bite. ‘I think I can see a way out of your problem, mate.’

The old man took his cap off and slapped it on the table. ‘I’m listening.’

Cato had retreated to the lounge room, the coolest in the house, and was surfing the internet reports on the arrest and trial of Gordon Francis Wellard for the murder of his de facto, Caroline Penny. She was fifteen years younger than him. The photos showed a youthful blonde with a happy, pretty face. Caroline was a Welsh backpacker who’d stayed on and fallen in love with Perth and, it seemed, Gordon Wellard.

Wellard had met Caroline Penny approximately fourteen months after Shellie’s daughter was reported missing. As with his relationship with Shellie, here too there had been a number of domestic violence callouts but no charges were ever pursued. Wellard had a patchy work history and was known to use mull and crystal meth, probably paid for by Caroline’s wages from the local TAB. At some point Caroline’s mother, who lived in Aberystwyth, had raised the alarm about lack of contact from her daughter. Wellard had taken to answering Caroline’s mobile and either denying all knowledge of her whereabouts or making cryptic teasing references to her fate. Wellard really was a twisted piece of work, thought Cato. He stood and tried to stretch the kinks out of his back but his stitches complained loudly.

Caroline Penny was found in a grave in Star Swamp just north of Scarborough. She’d been beaten to death. Gordon Wellard was picked up at a caravan park in Dongara a few hundred kilometres up the coast. At trial he denied everything but he’d left his DNA all over the body, stomp marks matched his boots and a ring imprint on her cheek matched the one on his right pinkie. Forensic awareness clearly hadn’t been his strong point back then. Wellard had been
led away from the dock with the victim’s mother screaming, ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish.’ Quite.

Cato needed to be online at the cop shop to dig deeper but he was officially on sick leave. Any attempts to access such information by remote or by proxy would trigger alarms in the system and maybe some probing questions from DI Hutchens. Through the window Cato could see the kalamata tree moving in the breeze. He popped some painkillers and went round the house opening windows and doors to let the Doctor sweep through. His mobile sounded, he checked the screen; the number was vaguely familiar.

‘That you, Kwong?’

It took a moment to place the voice. ‘Karina?’

‘Did you set those animals on us?’

Karina Ford’s Willagee home hadn’t been particularly inviting last time Cato visited. Now it was utterly trashed with crime-scene tape still fluttering on the perimeter. The security door hung on one hinge, the wire mesh buckled and split. The flat screen TV that once graced her lounge with adventures in Springer-land lay smashed on the floor. There was glass everywhere. And splashes of blood. Cato found a seat and lowered himself into it with a grimace. He’d taken a taxi, not yet ready to drive or even move, but Karina’s pleas couldn’t be ignored. It was hers and Shellie’s that had been the missed calls on his mobile over the weekend.

‘You left me your card, you gonna help us or what?’

‘The police who attended, what did they say?’

‘Two smart-arses from Murdoch. Pommie blow-ins. Looked at me like I was the shit on their shoes. They said they’d get back to me. Keep me informed.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Friday night. I was out at a mate’s, getting pissed. Crystal and Tyson were home with little Brandon.’ The teenage parents and the toddler. Cato measured his breathing as a spasm passed through his gut. ‘What’s up with you?’ she said.

‘Been stabbed.’

‘Sorry to hear it. Appreciate you coming out, mate.’ It seemed
genuine. Cato nodded for her to go on. ‘I got the story from Tyson before they took him away. Three big blokes with balaclavas, baseball bats and hammers. They took to Tyson first. Smashed his hands, ankles and knees. Busted his teeth. He doesn’t talk real good at the best of times.’

The throwaway story in yesterday’s paper: a couple assaulted in a home invasion. ‘The report mentioned a drug debt?’

Karina dragged on her ciggie. ‘Tyson’s a dealer and a dickhead but he’s not suicidal. He should know better than to owe money to those bastards.’

‘Which bastards? Do you know who he was working for?’

‘Some pricks up in Northbridge. If they’d left it at just him I probably would have thanked them. Never liked the little tosser anyway.’ Her face crumpled and her eyes filled. ‘They started on Crystal next. Hitting her on her pregnant belly over and over and making him watch.’

‘Christ.’ Then Cato remembered the toddler in the stroller. ‘Brandon, is he...?’

She nodded down the hall. ‘Asleep. They didn’t touch him but he saw it all.’

‘Did the attackers say anything, talk to each other?’

‘Dunno, I wasn’t there was I? Tyson’s jaw’s strapped up now but he never mentioned anything to me. Crystal’s in intensive. They reckon she might lose the baby.’ Karina stubbed the cigarette out and fumbled in her packet for a replacement. ‘Cryssie loves being a mum; she’s trying to do the right thing. It’s just that dickhead bloke of hers.’

Cato looked around the desolated room. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘Here. The mates I had faded away when they heard about this. Don’t want any of this shit round their doors as well. Who would?’

Cato summoned a taxi on his mobile. It was late afternoon and still hot, the street was empty. Karina escorted him to the door.

‘We don’t deserve this you know. Just because we live in state housing doesn’t mean we don’t have the right to feel safe. Those Murdoch pommie cops aren’t gonna do anything are they?’

The taxi pulled up, the driver peering warily at the smashed
house, the limping Chinaman, and the hard-faced woman sucking on her cigarette.

‘I’ll look into it,’ said Cato.

‘Yeah, thanks.’

As the sun sank into the Indian Ocean, Lara Sumich sat on her balcony eating a tuna salad and swigging a stubby of Rogers. Down below, a mob of teenagers screeched and jostled in the Round House car park. A bottle smashed, followed by whoops and laughter. She thought about the student Samuel Ho, scarred for life and scared to seek redress. Lara went back inside, closed the French windows and flicked on the air conditioning. Colin Graham was playing family man again tonight but that was fine, she didn’t need him. The little plot he had concocted over lunch at Zorba’s may or may not work but it would almost certainly put the old man and his brood in harm’s way. She’d pointed this out to Graham on the drive back to Fremantle but he’d just smiled and reminded her that you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs.