Hindsight (37 page)

Emerging from the shop after half an hour, Mira was smiling, but the detectives weren’t.

‘Every aisle in the shop and storerooms,’ Moser complained, ‘and not a whisper from your precious Miss X. She just stood about twiddling with her sunglasses.’

‘Total waste of time,’ Symes agreed. ‘We’re no better off than we were yesterday.’

‘You think so?’ Mira asked, breaking her silence. ‘The robbers were Dean Grey and Josh Markovic. They’re also the alleged “counterfeiters” you’re after.’

‘We suspected that much,’ Moser said. ‘But there’s no printing press, no supplies. Only an undisclosed income that isn’t nearly as large as it should be. You probably read that much from our summary report.’

‘I doubt that,’ Symes said. ‘I suspect she’s blind.’

Mira turned and moved nearer to where she expected Lockman to be, in case either of the detectives tried to take a closer look.

‘Lieutenant,’ she whispered. ‘Do you remember your little misunderstanding about my poet trees?’

‘Sure, but what does that have to do with it?’

‘Same crap, different toilet, as Ben would say.’ She turned and spoke loud enough for the detectives to hear. ‘They’re not counterfeiters. They’re counter fitters. They did the shop fit-out for renovations for Theo Greppia. Except Theo had two extra lanes of cash registers installed on the sly — that’s without telling his cousin Hector, who owns the whole chain. Then Theo operated the two extra lanes on his own set of secret “cash books”. Any cash that went through them went straight into his pocket. And any goods that went through those lanes were either written off as stolen or spoiled, or sometimes recorded as stocktaking errors or computer glitches, and sometimes they were even stolen goods in the first place. That’s why those two lanes are the only ones for cash sales and cigarettes. It was mostly fenced cigarettes that he dealt in — as a side business to Gregan’s laundering.’

‘That’s a mighty game,’ Moser said. ‘Laundering is one thing — plenty of ways to do that through a legitimate-looking store-front but it’s near impossible to keep legitimate books looking legit if the stock on the shelves never tallies because of leakage out through the extra lanes.’

‘Not if you’re the one who’s receiving the stolen goods, running both sets of books and handling the stocktakes. Theo was making about half a million per month out of each extra register — two each per lane. That’s two million per month. Dean was the carpenter and Josh set up the electronics and software, and between them they figured out what Theo was doing, so they figured they must deserve a bonus every month from him for keeping their mouths shut.’

‘Hold up.
Blackmail
?’ Symes whistled, impressed. ‘Those little punks attempted to blackmail Theo Greppia?’

‘That was their plan, but Theo brought a shotgun to their party — a Winchester according to its label. Normally, Theo stored it in a hidden floor safe under the rug in his office. Access code is 17-1-18-99, Al Capone’s birthday, but your forensics team missed it so far, because you have to shift the desk to get to it.’

‘That much is checkable.’ Symes clicked his fingers and Mira heard Moser move.

‘Don’t bother. Not much in it now,’ Mira said. ‘Nobody else knew about it.’

‘Yeah, we’ll see about that.’

‘Don’t you want to hear the rest first? On the night Theo was killed, he angled all the security cameras to see only what he wanted the cops to see, and trying to make it look like a robbery gone bad, where the robbers broke into an argument and killed themselves. Except in the struggle, Theo was the one who died, and Dean was left holding the smoking barrel. Dean panicked, and wanted to kill Greggie as a scapegoat — make it look like two managers killed themselves.’

‘Now Greggie’s the assistant floor manager,’ Moser said, ‘while his father stepped up as store manager, and now also as district overseer. How did that happen?’

‘Greggie cut a deal with Josh and Dean. He offered to pay the “counterfitters” a ten per cent share of everything from the dirty lanes. That’s only five per cent each for Josh and Dean, but adds up to the generous side of a few hundred thousand per year. Too big to handle on his own, though. The Big G soon suspected Greggie was up to something when he started showing up to work in a fancy car and paying expensive hookers to play with him in the back room, among other places, and so Gregan cut in on him, and once Gregan learned how to play the scam, he arranged for more “cash registers” with all the other stores in his district.’

‘With Hector at the top?’ asked Symes. ‘If this all checks out, I’ll have to kick myself. Hector’s always struck me as a good man.’

‘You may be right,’ Mira said. ‘His daughter, Chloe, was convinced his cousins were skimming him — and Greg and Gregan took a lot of care in making sure Hector left before they discussed anything. Oh, and Gregan is planning a business trip to expand into franchises that can deal in foreign currencies, like bank branches, post offices and currency exchange agencies. I suppose that also explains Kitching’s growing interest in him. The bigger they are, the more cash they can launder.’

‘You said they used Chloe’s XKR,’ Lockman said. ‘Were they blackmailing her, too?’

Mira shrugged. ‘Not as far as I could tell. Gregan did mention something about how Chloe found the rappelling gear in her car, and I heard Josh needed to stash it all while they framed Ben by using the party as a cover. They’d already borrowed her Jag while she was partying, so her trunk served the purpose. But since Chloe had no idea who used her car, she’d been trying to figure out what happened. She kept all that stuff for years in her trunk waiting for someone to come back for it. Like Ben, she didn’t trust police, so she tried to talk her dad into letting her be manager here, so she could be closer to the mystery, all the while hoping to help Ben clear his name once she had enough evidence. But Hector didn’t want her to waste all the years she’d spent at uni. He bought her a practice as a social therapist and promoted Gregan and Greggie instead.’

‘She didn’t confide in her own father?’ Symes asked. ‘Or to us, when she eventually met us here?’

‘She did try to tell you but you didn’t get the message. Neither did I at first. But on the day she died, Gregan waited until you left, then took her into Greggie’s office and had it out with her. Apparently, she’d been getting closer to figuring out their scam, and since she’d stayed friends with Jake, Josh and Shelley, more or less, when Ben got out of gaol, the subject came up during one of their drunken end-of-week parties. I can’t be sure about that part unless I can go to that other location. I can only be sure of the insights I get here, but apparently Jake and Josh must have clammed up, because I saw them complaining to Greggie that Chloe took Shelley to bed after the party and wormed the whole thing out of her. As much as Shelley knew anyway. Then Shelley and Josh killed each other during an argument over who loved Ben, which for Chloe brought the whole thing to a head.’

‘That doesn’t explain why Chloe didn’t go to her own father,’ Moser said. ‘I hate all this ESP shit. It’s little more than guesses and conjecture. We never would have come if —’

‘You need motives as well as clues, don’t you? Chloe didn’t go to Hector, because she loved him so much, she wanted to keep him out of it to make sure he couldn’t be incriminated as easily as Ben had been. That’s why she’d been hinting so loudly about the counter-fitting that Gregan must have known about, by showing you a blueprint of the store, with the new registers circled. After you left, Gregan tried to blackmail her into keeping her mouth shut. He threatened to kill her father — his own cousin — and he was trying to use the evidence she’d kept in her trunk against her. He told her he could even work it so Shelley and Josh’s deaths could be pinned on her. But that only made Chloe madder. She threatened to call you again with everything. That’s why Gregan and Greggie arranged for her accident over the cliff.’

Silence answered her for a long moment.

‘Go and check everything, if you don’t believe me. Check the safe and the cash registers; they have wiring that’s completely separate to the others, and not too hard to see once you know what to look for. And the harnesses were still in Chloe’s trunk. Oh, and she broke three nails and cracked her forehead on the filing cabinet in Greggie’s office while she was fighting for her life, but you know
that
much already, thanks to Rosie in your forensics team, who found a hundred dollar note in the top drawer and kept it, when you had your back turned.’

‘I’m dumbfounded,’ Symes said. ‘We never released any details of Chloe’s death. Her car was never mentioned in relation to the cliff. Instead, the media release had her body on a beach.’

‘You found it at the bottom, though, right?’ Mira went to the fence to check. ‘Her car landed nose-up, trunk-down and four wheels in the air against that tree.’

‘Freaky,’ Moser said suspiciously. ‘Unless you were in on it?’

‘Me?’ Mira laughed. ‘I was …’

‘Classified,’ Lockman cut in. ‘She doesn’t exist, remember? And even if she did, she’d have an air-tight alibi. General Garland would see to it,
personally
.’

‘You do realise,’ Symes argued, ‘that I have the highest security clearance on this case?’

‘Sorry,’ Lockman replied. ‘You’ll need to take that up with General Garland. I’m just security.’

‘I might just do that, Lieutenant. If all this checks, I’ve got a desk full of cases that could use your Miss X.’

‘Forget it! I’m busy.’

‘I’m sure you are,’ Symes said, sounding far more respectful, ‘but if I can’t use you in court and can’t find sufficient evidence to back up your story, I’ll have no choice but to speak to you again.’

Mira glanced over the cliff, wondering what more she could possibly tell them. Then she recognised a cop arriving down there at the crash site. First on the scene, he cleaned under Chloe’s fingernails, then commenced to wipe the trunk clean of fingerprints. Not Pete Innes-Grady; another face she’d seen recently at the beach. He’d also appeared plenty of times inside the shop — and one time in particular, at the front door.

‘You should try investigating closer to home,’ she suggested. ‘Detective Innes-Grady isn’t the only traffic cop that Greppia uses to clean up his messes. The cleaner they used down there is the same cop who broke the front door lock as part of their ploy to frame Ben for armed robbery.’

‘Ben?’ asked Symes.

‘Don’t play dumb. Bennet Chiron. If you know enough about that store you must know about him.’

‘Oh. And the other dirty cop?’

‘You know him already, too; late twenties, thick-set, shaved head and this tall,’ she said, raising her hand while also edging closer to Lockman for safety. ‘His name’s Douggie Moser.’

‘Douglas?’ Clyde sounded rocked enough to drop dead from shock. ‘My brother?’

Mira shouldered a little further behind Lockman so they’d have to get through him first to get her. ‘Small world, isn’t it?’ she goaded. ‘He was engaged to Chloe — and Ben’s friend initially — and the reason why neither of them trust cops any more. Me either, now, actually.’

‘All in the family,’ Lockman said, sounding convinced.

‘No way!’ Moser shouted. ‘Douglas cleaned up his act years ago!’

‘Before or after he gave evidence to put Chiron in gaol?’ Symes asked. ‘He was an officer of the law, Clyde. He was there the whole time in the background, beyond suspicion. Barely even a shadow.’

‘If he’s lied to me, I’ll tear out his heart!’ Moser swore.

‘Oh, no, I didn’t mean it like that,’ Mira said, fearing a share in his wrath. ‘I despise him too, Detective. He’s a thug and a liar and a sneaky, mean piece of work, but it wouldn’t be right for me not to warn you — not if you’re as clean as you’re making out to be. After all the lies and half-truths that put Ben behind bars, it would only be adding to the injustice not to tell you …’ Mira gulped, unsure if revealing
everything
she’d seen inside Greppia’s store over the last seven years would make things better or worse for everybody.

Ben had served six years already, and suffered six months either side for sentencing and getting back in the workforce, but that hadn’t stopped the others from becoming more ruthless and dangerous.

‘Tell me what?’ Moser asked when she hesitated.

‘He only lied about cutting ties with the underworld because Greppia got his hooks into him; brought him here and threatened you and your career as a detective. So your brother went from one kingpin to another.’

‘He did
what
?’ Moser demanded. ‘How exactly? By what threat, specifically?’

‘Assuming it’s true,’ Symes reminded him. ‘Remember, mate, she’s only here to suggest leads that might still send us up a blind alley.’

‘Hey, do you think I came here to help one of Ben’s abductors off the hook? I’m just telling you the bare facts. All the hard work of verification is up to you, and how you handle it will reveal
your
true colours too!’

‘So what was the threat?’ Moser asked more respectfully.

‘Specifically, you obtained evidence from an allegedly reliable source that was fed to you for another case — the one who killed Kitching’s predecessor and handled all the gun-running before Colonel Kitching took over and expanded that side of things. Gregan learned about it during a call — Mr Mystery I think — and told Douggie that if he didn’t agree to play ball for their new team, they’d see to it that you’d be implicated as his accomplice, giving false evidence, and so on.’

Moser swore under his breath, then apologised to her for his language, and from his tone, she could tell that he was genuine, but that his whole world had just been shaken.

‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ she said, quoting Matron Sanchez. ‘Now you can do something about it — if you’re genuine.’

He walked closer but Lockman blocked his path. ‘If you’re right, lady … you’re dangerous.’

‘Too dangerous,’ Greggie said from the loading bay, causing an applause of hands clapping against weapons in every direction. ‘Toys down, soldier boys, or your precious Miss X will die for real this time.’