My Brother’s Keeper (9 page)

M
ONDAY
26 N
OVEMBER
2012

I
faltered at marital status. Exactly how long are you divorced before you’re single again? Or is being single like being a virgin — there ain’t no going back, sister. Detective Sergeant Coleman waited patiently while I stared at the freckle on his lip and went through these mental gymnastics. He’d explained he was the OC Witnesses and that he’d be the one taking my formal statement. Detective Sergeant Coleman didn’t offer me his first name but I noticed he was happy to chuck mine around freely enough. He led me into an interview room and asked if I minded if he taped our conversation. He said he hadn’t quite mastered his Pitman’s yet. I was fine with that, though the formality of a recorded interview made me a little uneasy about repeating the details of my illegal entry to Karen’s house. What the hell,
I thought. It wasn’t as if I broke in. The previous night, I’d tried to phone Aaron Fanshaw to tell him about Karen’s letter but I hadn’t been able to track him down and decided against babbling a message onto his voicemail. Better just to bring it up at the interview today, I thought. Coleman told me to make myself comfortable while he went to get us some water. It was a bit of a challenge to make myself comfortable on a hard-backed school chair in a barren grey police interview room. I was still squirming when he returned like a retriever with Detective Inspector Aaron Fanshaw in tow.

‘G’day, Diane, good to see you again,’ Aaron said, pulling up a chair across the desk from me.

His sudden appearance threw me. He and Coleman were now seated on the exit side of the desk while I was cramped against the wall. The wooden table was between me and the only way out. This positioning definitely put the interviewee — i.e. me — at a disadvantage. I reminded myself I was a witness, that was all. One of the good guys, here to help out the police with their enquiries. It occurred to me that there were probably a fair number of schmucks presently serving life sentences who’d thought the very same thing.

‘Brett said you were trying to get hold of me,’ he said.

Presumably Brett was Coleman’s first name. I looked forward to using it the very first opportunity I got. Brett smiled wolfishly as he placed a single paper cup of water in front of me. For a big guy he looked remarkably comfortable on his baby bear-sized chair.

‘I got a note from Karen,’ I said, taking the envelope out of my shoulder bag and laying it on the desk between us. ‘She must
have delivered it before she was killed.’ I realised the stupidness of my comment too late. ‘Obviously.’ I pulled a face and both cops smiled silently in response. I looked from one to the other. Okay, now I was really worried.

Aaron reached an arm towards the record button on the deck ‘You sure you don’t mind if we record this?’

I felt suddenly self-conscious. ‘Sure. Yeah, sure.’

I reminded myself again that I had nothing to hide. Well, not much to hide. The little matter of the photographs I’d taken of the crime scene might be best left unmentioned. A red blinking light flashed above the deck’s depressed record button. Only then did I notice the video camera clamped high on the wall above it. It was aimed in my direction. Both cops were looking at me expectantly. My mouth was dry but I wasn’t going to pick up the paper cup. At least not until one of them had picked up the envelope.

‘You were saying Karen sent this to you before she was killed,’ Aaron prompted. Despite their casual demeanour I could feel the tension in the air, could see it in the way they sat with their shoulders hunched forward.

‘Well, there’s no stamp,’ I said, sliding the envelope across the desk closer to them. ‘So she must have put it in my letter box.’ They looked at me. Waiting. ‘Rather than sent it.’ Still they looked at me.

‘Before she was killed,’ Aaron repeated.

‘Well, yeah. I mean, obviously she put it there when she was alive.’ What was this? Why was he giving me a hard time for a stupid slip of the tongue? I forged on.

‘It’s a cheque written out to me for two thousand dollars
and a note saying how much she’s looking forward to seeing Sunny.’ I pushed the envelope even closer to them but still neither of them picked it up. They were both working hard to appear relaxed as they nodded and smiled at me to continue. ‘And what’s interesting,’ I said, nudging it a bit closer to them, ‘is that she specifically says she’s excited about being able to see what Sunny looks like now. And yet there’s a recent photo of Sunny on her mantelpiece.’ This was risky. I was pretty sure I could have seen the photo on the mantelpiece from where I stood next to the body, but the fact was, I’d only confirmed the girl in the photo was Sunny with the help of Photoshop. ‘So,’ I said, spelling it out for them, ‘Karen must have got hold of that photo of Sunny after she dropped this note into my letter box.’ Still they nodded and smiled benignly. They were really starting to piss me off now. ‘Which must have been shortly before she died,’ I added, just in case they hadn’t got there yet.

‘How do you know Karen was killed?’ Aaron asked.

‘What?’

‘You said Karen delivered the note before she was killed. How do you know that?’ Aaron’s smile had gone but he kept the question sounding casual.

‘Did I say killed? Killed … dead … I don’t know why I said killed.’ Why had I said killed? In the face of their suspicion I went with honesty. Sometimes it’s worth a go. ‘I guess it’s because I think she was.’ They looked at me. ‘Killed, I mean.’ Fuck, I thought. I sound as guilty as shit. Worse still, I felt guilty. ‘Don’t you?’ My voice sounded squeaky. ‘Think she was killed?’ I managed to look Fanshaw in the eye but it wasn’t easy. There was a creeping sensation on my scalp as the sweat cooled.
‘Or are you telling me her death was an accident?’

Aaron looked at me for a long time before answering. ‘We don’t know yet,’ he said, doing that neck-muscle-stretch thing I’d seen Olympic weightlifters do.

I saw his eyes drop to my neck and then back to my face. I resisted the urge to touch the bruise, but I was sure that’s what he’d noted.

‘Karen does have a history, of course,’ Aaron said, stretching his legs out under the desk. ‘She was a junkie when she killed her son and then she took up with a pretty heavy bunch in prison. She made a few enemies.’ He paused long enough to rein in those legs under his chair. ‘I believe you know Karen’s cellmate?’ He slid it in real casual and made a point of looking away as he dropped the bombshell. No need for him to study me now when he had the tape rolling for perusal later. There was no doubt about it, Case Officer Detective Inspector Aaron Fanshaw had me down as a possible suspect for Karen’s murder. No wonder he’d made inspector at a young age. Though on this, our second meeting, I ramped him up to late- rather than mid-thirties. Then again, it was Monday morning and no doubt he’d had little sleep since landing the case on Saturday afternoon.

‘If you mean Vex, yes, I do know her.’ I could really have done with that water. ‘And I’m sure you know exactly how and why I know her.’

Aaron smiled. ‘I’m surprised you took on a job for Vex.’

‘I didn’t take on anything for Vex,’ I said. ‘Karen was Vex’s ex-cellmate, that’s all. According to Karen they were never friends.’ It sounded like a weak argument, even to me.

‘Where were you on Friday night?’

I laughed. It sounded like such a classic cop TV show question. Neither Aaron nor Coleman joined in the laughter. Shit! They were serious. My brain scrambled for an answer. I had a flash of Ned’s eye patch.

‘I was in Auckland. At a place called Prego. A restaurant. We left there about eleven, I think. Maybe midnight by the time I got back to where I was staying.’ Neither cop responded. ‘In Ponsonby,’ I added, helpfully. Suddenly, I remembered. ‘Karen phoned me while I was there!’ This was vital information; it could help establish time of death. I’d forgotten it until now. I looked at them expectantly. Either this wasn’t as interesting to them as I thought it would be, or they were playing it very cool.

Coleman doodled with his pen. ‘What time was that?’

‘Um …’ I racked my brain. Was Karen’s the first call that night? Before or after Sean’s call? Or was it Robbie’s? Both. Both had called. But Karen had called first. I had arrived at Prego not long after eight. ‘Eight-thirty’ I concluded. ‘She called me about eight-thirty.’

Coleman made a note on his pad. His Pitman’s looked fine to me.

‘You were with someone?’ Aaron’s tone was flat. Unreadable.

‘Yes.’ He waited for me to elaborate. ‘His name is Ned. I’m not sure he told me his last name.’ I knew how bad that sounded but forced myself not to make it worse by blabbering on. I thought I detected a faint sarcastic twitch of Coleman’s freckled lip.

‘And Ned will be able to verify this?’

‘Yes. I’m sure he will.’ Shit! Can. I should have said he can verify it.

‘You’re going out with Robbie Lather, aren’t you?’

I felt my face flush. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ It sounded defensive. I felt defensive.

Aaron shrugged. ‘Robbie and I play footy together. That’s all. He’s a great guy.’

It felt like a slap, a rebuke, but that might have been my own guilt. I hadn’t told Robbie about the dinner with Ned.

‘Yeah, he is a great guy.’ As a riposte, pathetic, but it was all I could manage.

Aaron picked up the paper cup of water and knocked it back in one motion. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Then he scrunched up the cup and dropped it into the wastepaper bin. I fantasised about un-scrunching the cup and licking the dribbles in the bottom. Now there was just the untouched letter on the desk between us. Coleman stared at a stick figure he’d drawn on his notepad, his pen poised. I was guessing that the stick figure was me. I expected him to draw a hangman’s noose around its neck any minute.

‘And you didn’t return to Wellington until the following day. Saturday?’ It was the first real question Coleman had asked.

‘That’s right. I waited for Karen to turn up for the meeting with her daughter at one o’clock. When she didn’t show, I flew straight back to Wellington, picked up my car from the long term and drove directly to her house. That’s when I found her.’ We all stared at the untouched envelope. I was determined not to be the one to speak next.

‘Karen had a visitor Friday night,’ Aaron said. So that’s why my phone call information hadn’t impressed. They had already known she was still alive then.

‘Well, it wasn’t me,’ I said, keeping it simple.

They waited, hoping for more, I think. I considered telling them about Karen’s friend Manny who was due Friday night for a prayer session, but decided against it. Normally, I would have volunteered this information. Normally, I have a cordial relationship with the police; after all, it’s from the police that I get most of my jobs. Used to, anyway. But right now, in this not-so-cordial environment, I wasn’t going to risk saying anything more than I absolutely had to.

Aaron nodded. ‘Mind if we keep this?’ he said brightly, indicating the envelope.

‘Sure.’

We all stared at the envelope. Still neither of them touched it.

Aaron shook hands with me and then Coleman led me out of the room, his palm poised centimetres over the small of my back. We waited in silence for the elevator. When it arrived he ushered me forward then leaned in and pushed the G button. He walked back along the corridor without saying a word. There is no elevator in the country that plummets at the rate of the Wellington Central Police Station’s. As my stomach lurched I pictured them back in the interview room excitedly unzipping sterile glove and evidence bags. I knew there was no point asking if I could have the two thousand dollar cheque back. Not that it would be any more use to me than the unbanked down payment cheque still in the top drawer of my desk at home; Karen’s bank account would be well and truly frozen solid.

Thinking the interview would take half an hour, I’d left Wolf in the back seat to gnaw on the prize stick he’d claimed at Lyall Bay. Instead I’d been trapped in a claustrophobic interview
room for well over an hour. What I’d expected to be a friendly chat, with maybe a tolerant wrist slap for the uninvited house entry, had instead been an ambush with a double whammy interrogation. The bad cop-bad cop routine had totally unnerved me. Coleman’s silence had been just as intimidating as the CO’s pointed questions. The urge for alcohol was strong, but I fought it. No matter how rattled I felt, it was only ten-thirty in the morning.

As I approached the car, I spotted someone leaning towards the rear window. Sean. He was holding the baby in both hands so that he could see Wolf inside. Actually, it wasn’t a baby so much as a little kid. I did the sum on my fingers. Sean and the pixie’s son must be nearly eighteen months old. Patrick, they’d called him. That was Sean’s dad’s name. I’d loved Patrick. We probably would have named our first child after him. Though I’m not all that familiar with kids, I reckoned at eighteen months old, Patrick was a real person. As opposed to a baby, I mean. He waved a chubby little hand at Wolf. Luckily, I’m not the sort of person who would consider instructing Wolf to bite that little hand off. But I am the sort of person who doesn’t want to play coochie-coo with my ex-husband’s baby son. Fine. Shoot me.

I did a U-turn and sat on the bottom step of a nearby building, fighting off my urge for alcohol and cigarettes and turned my phone back on. First to appear was a three-page text from Jason, telling me the open home had gone really well and that there were two genuine buyers coming for another look at the house tomorrow. He finished with
I’m confident your house will be sold within days
. Well, yippee.

When I looked up, Sean had gone. He’s really good at that.
In the time it took Wolf to stretch his legs and water the parched tree in the corner of the grassy knoll, I had arranged for Robbie to pick him up at the end of his shift and had booked myself a flight back to Auckland. Buying a ticket at such short notice meant paying through the nose, but, hey, what are credit cards for? I hadn’t told the cops Karen had hired me to check on Sunny’s safety; only that she’d hired me to find her. Foolishly, I’d dismissed Karen’s concerns about Sunny, convincing myself she had only wanted me to smooth the way for them to meet. But it was obvious from the way the cops treated me that Karen’s death was no accident. It was a homicide if ever I’d seen one. What if there was a connection between Karen’s murder and her fears for Sunny? What if Sunny was still in danger? I would see the job through, remuneration or no remuneration. I owed it to Karen to finish what she had hired me to do. I owed it to Sunny to make sure she wasn’t in danger. From who or what, I didn’t know, but I was determined to find out.