Wyatt - 04 - Cross Kill (22 page)

Towns put his cheek back down on the
carpet. Not her style.

Her gun failed her the first time,
Wyatt persisted, and she came after us again. Id like to know how she knew
where wed be both times.

I tell you we didnt know about
your Northcote place. As for being at Ounsteds, about an hour ago we got a
tip-off. What have you done to her?

Wyatt said levelly, What do you
think? Then, Was it Keplers idea to send Rose in to knock us off?

Towns craned his head around again.
He was clearly frustrated. I keep telling you, we havent got your money, and
Rose wasnt acting alone. Youve got a fucking nerve, sending us into a trap,
then accusing us of taking your lousy money.

Wyatt frowned. What do you mean, a
trap?

Towns said heavily, Aah, knock it
off, Wyatt. You killed the Mesic brothers and tried to set us up for it.

I dont know what youre talking
about.

Luckily we were still outside the
compound when the cops showed. We came back here, got the tip-off youd be at
Ounsteds, and I sent Rose to knock both of you. She hasnt come back, she hasnt
contacted us, meaning you got her first, so were heading back to Sydney.
Fucking end of story.

Wyatt sat on the end of the bed. He
kept clear of Towns and Drew, but he wasnt being so zealous with the .38 in
his hand. Somethings going on. The Mesics were alive when we left the
compound. Tell me what you saw.

After you gave the signal, we
waited while you got clear. No one was tailing you, so we got ready to move in.
Then this cop car shows up.

How do you know the brothers are
dead?

Its on the news already. Towns
looked at his watch. Five to twelve. Check for yourself if you dont believe
me.

Wyatt took them into the main room.
At midnight he turned on the television set and channel hunted with the remote
control. The Mesic raid headed the bulletin on Nine. He saw a pool of darkness,
the compound lights weak in it, police cars, their flashing red and blue lights
spelling alarm and disaster. Then a policeman waved back the cameras and a
reporter filled the screen, a microphone at her throat: An armed robbery went
terribly wrong in this house in Templestowe earlier this evening, leaving two
brothers dead, shot in cold blood as they lay handcuffed on the floor, unable
to defend themselves. A third occupant, a woman claimed to be the wife of one
of the brothers, is unharmed and said to be staying with friends. Police are
searching for two men, believed to be driving a white Toyota van and a Saab.
They are armed and dangerous and should not be approached. Back to the studio.

Towns said, See it from our point
of view, Wyatt. You got your money, killed the Mesics, set us up for it.

Then why would I have left the
woman alive? Why would I have come here looking for my money? I made a deal and
I kept it.

Wyatt watched the screen as he
spoke. There was more about the Mesic raid on another channel. The victims were
named, and police and neighbours talked to the camera. Earlier footage was
repeated: ambulances, Stella Mesic being driven away, torches and dogs roaming
the grounds.

Then, if it were possible to
freeze-frame the picture, Wyatt would have done it: among the men grouped on
the house steps, barely touched by camera lights, was the stranger hed seen on
the first day of his operation against the Mesics. The man was a cop and
suddenly a lot of things made sense to Wyatt.

He pressed a button and the picture
gulped and died. He said to Towns, I can still give you the Mesics.

* * * *

Thirty-eight

Those
early days, when shed first started seeing Bax, had been great. Theyd watch
each others striving bodies in the ceiling and wall mirrors of her bedroom,
their skin gleaming in the curtained afternoon light while Leo was out
somewhere. Once shed even tried a champagne bath; Bax liked to watch oysters
slide down her throat; sometimes she splashed brandy around his groin. Shed
laugh deep in her throat at times like that and Bax would grow hot-eyed,
claiming it turned him on. Thered been no guilt or regret, only appetite. Bax
would go home and she would shower and dress, feeling pleasantly battered, glad
to be by herself for a few hours, disappointed if Leo came home.

But then it began to lose its spark.
She watched the old man die, watched Victor come on the scene and work a hold
over Leo, saw that she might lose everything. Also, where Bax had once seemed
appealingly dangeroussomething to do with his job, his corruption by the
family, his wolfish looksin the end he was just weak. She liked him enough
when he was in a sharp frame of mind, working out the angles, but somehow,
after the old mans death and Victors appearance on the scene, Bax seemed to
become less capable of following through with anything.

Hed seen easily enough how the raid
by the man called Wyatt could be used to their advantage, but then at the last
minute he had lost his nerve. He said Wyatt was too dangerousWyatt would want
to shoot it out and everyone could get hurt. He said that if he shot or
arrested Wyatt, there was no guarantee that Victor would be impressed. If
anything, Bax said, Victor would argue that a raid on the compound showed up
the familys vulnerability and hed be in a position to talk Leo around to his
way of thinking, leaving Stella and Bax out in the cold. And there was still
Coulthart breathing down Baxs neck.

Thats how Bax saw it. As Stella saw
it, the entire Mesic operation was up for grabs and just two things stood in
her wayVictor Mesic on the inside, cops eager to break up the Mesics on the
outside. The raid by Wyatt and Jardine could still be used. The firm could
withstand the loss of two hundred thousand dollars. If Wyatt and Jardine were
as good as Bax said they were, theyd never be found, never come forward, never
say what state the household was really in when they left it.

The gun was a .22 target pistol. Bax
had confiscated it when hed worked with the Drug Squad, thinking hed need it
as a throwdown one day, something to cover himself with if he ever happened to
shoot an unarmed man.

Wyatt and Jardine had come in,
stripped the place, left again, and it had gone as Napper said it would go.
Stella was alone with Leo and Victor for about two minutes, Victor spitting
chips, Leo silent, then through the glass of the front door she had seen
headlights. It was Bax. He came in through the front door, leaving his police
car in the drive. He had a cover story ready to explain his presence in the
house. Hed been following up a stolen car lead, had seen that something was
wrong, had let himself into the house to investigate.

Bax had come in and Victor had said
instantly, sharply, Look whos here. Stella knew from his voice that he was
beginning to put it all together.

Bax crouched with keys and released
her wrists. She stood, rubbing them. The strain showed in Baxs face. She
thought he might lose his nerve again, or change plans on her, so shed put her
hand on his wrist. Her grip was warm and strong, and for Bax everything in the
world was reduced to a manageable size. She saw him begin to relax. The gun,
she said quietly.

His lean, handsome face wrestled
with the notion of what she was about to do. He didnt say anything, just
reached inside the coat of his costly suit and drew out the pistol. He wore
gloves. He gave her a large thick handkerchief to wrap around the gun. She
jacked a round into the firing chamber. Hed already explained how the gun
worked.

Leo hadnt wanted to believe it was
happening. He jerked the cuffs against the radiator and tried to stand. Come
on, Bax, Stel, undo the cuffs, will ya.

Save your breath, Victor said.

You need me, Stel, Leo said.

Moron, Victor said, cant you
see?

Bax had turned away for the next
stage. She shot each brother twice in the head and centrally in the chest, then
dropped the gun on the floor and gave Bax his handkerchief back. Its done,
she said, touching his arm. Then shed sat on the floor and Bax, avoiding the
bodies, the tremors passing through them, had cuffed her to the radiator again.

Bax, she said quietly, holding his
eyes, its working, all right? All you have to do now is call it in and have
your story ready.

A divisional van had arrived first,
followed by an ambulance, a second ambulance, several police cars. A policeman
removed her cuffs, poured her a brandy. She was numb and grieving and robotic.
Crime scene officers photographed the bodies, the safe, the open drawers. They
dusted for prints. The ambulance officers got restless, said in future call the
pathologist before you call us. The pathologist when he got there was
irritable, methodical, a white coat over his dinner jacket. Homicide detectives
took her to the kitchen, a policewoman made a pot of coffee, they said, A few
questions, if you dont mind. They questioned her, questioned her again. Armed
robbery detectives questioned her. Homicide again, the same questions worded
differently. Finally she said, This is intolerable. Ive told you all I know,
and put her head in her hands. She didnt see Bax again.

It was ten oclock before they let
her go. They wanted to know where shed be staying, a number where she could be
contacted. She gave them the South Yarra apartment, let a woman detective take
her there. It was curious: she was scum in their eyes, the family was scum and
the world a better place now, but once or twice the police seemed to remind
themselves that her husband and her brother-in-law had been executed before her
eyes and that she must have looked death in the face, for they showed her
little kindnesses, which she gravely accepted.

She fitted the role to herself like
a cloak and it stayed with her even when the detective was gone and she was
alone in the apartment. She felt sombre, reflective and tragic. She poured Scotch
over ice in a glass, put Marianne Faithfull on the stereo and pictured all the
lonely women driving through Paris in sports cars.

Bax dissipated all that soon enough.
He showed up just before midnight, standing white and agitated outside her
door. She took him into the main room and pushed him down onto the sofa. He was
like a clockspring ready to break and there it was again, questions, questions.

I told you not to come here, she
said. Its too risky.

No one followed me, Stel. He
leaned his face toward her imploringly. I had to find out what they said to
you, what they wanted to know.

What do you think? They wanted to
know did I get a look at the two men? Could I describe them? Did I have any
idea who they were? Did I think robbery was the motive here, or was it murder
made to look like a robbery gone wrong? What enemies did the family have? She
laughed. I told them yeah, sure, only the entire police force. They wanted to
know how much was in the safe. Did the two men say anything? Etcetera,
etcetera. She stopped. What about you? Did they swallow your story?

A stolen car inquiry. They bought
it.

They werent curious as to your
timing on the scene?

Bax rubbed his face with his hands. They
were, but I told them the evenings were the only time Id find the Mesics at
home, I gave them Coultharts name, told them Id been working your case for a
couple of years. He stopped dry-washing his face and said, God, I cant
believe it, you were so cool.

Stella looked at him, wishing he
would go away.

The investigation will drag on for
a while, he said. It will be a few weeks before they stop sniffing around.
Meanwhile weve scared off the opposition and we can quietly put the firm back
together again.

The apartment lighting was turned
low. Beyond the thick curtains the night was black. Bax, sitting stiffly at the
far end of the sofa, edged imperceptibly along it. Stella backed away until her
spine was against the arm rest. She tucked her legs under her and clamped a
cushion to her chest, body language aimed at telling him to keep his distance.
There was a vast gulf between them and it wasnt only the empty space on the
sofa. I dont know, Bax, she said finally.

He pricked up at that. What do you
mean?

She shrugged. I dont know, I just
feel different, things have changed. I feel I could pack it all in, sell up and
go overseas or something.

He looked away and there was a catch
in his voice. Where does that leave me?

The Mesics are finished now. That
should get your boss off your back.

I dont mean that. I mean me and
you, Bax said.

Somehow she didnt have the energy
for this. There was silence and she let it lengthen, waiting for him to find
the answer in it.

Id better go, he said at last.

She nodded.

He got up, seemed to wrestle with
the idea of kissing her, and said, I could call in tomorrow afternoon.

I might not be here.

Ill give you a ring, he said.

She nodded.

At the door he said, Ill let
myself out.

When he was gone she realised that
she should have asked him to return her key. She unplugged the telephone, got
ready for bed. She didnt want hassles with him, she didnt want to see his
pained face or see him maudlin or violent or however it would affect him, so
when she heard his key in the lock a short time later, real anger flared in
her. She marched out to confront him.