The Family Cleaner, page 6
Think carefully
I will
All I can ask!
Followed by three happy emojis.
Chapter 6
Chisholm Farm, Bendigo, Victoria, 15th January 2018
Graham and Mary Chisholm and their eldest son, Kevin, ate dinner in silence. They rarely had much to say to each other, and when they did, it was usually unpleasant.
The Chisholm family owned a run-down farm near Bendigo. They had four adult children and only Kevin was still on the farm. He was, as his mother constantly reminded him, useless as a farmer. What she didn’t appreciate until recently, was that he was also useless as a small-time drug dealer.
The inside of the farmhouse was like the farm: unkempt, disorganised and in a poor state of repair.
“Why don’t you try cleaning this place once in a while? It’s filthy,” Kevin said.
“You do bugger all around the farm, why don’t you clean the joint if it’s that important to you,” Mary spat back.
Mary was tall and skinny, exaggerated by how her skin stretched over her cheekbones. At some point in her life, she was considered attractive, but forty years married to Graham and working on the farm had wiped any trace away. What hair she had was pulled back in a tight bun, wayward strands sticking out from around her ears. She had a fierce temperament and a razor-like tongue; there were no smile lines in the corners of her eyes.
Kevin had a roundtrip to Melbourne planned for the following day, so he headed for his room. Mary clattered the dirty plates into the sink, then joined Graham to watch TV.
She picked up the remote and changed the channel.
“What ya doin’? I was watchin’ the news,” Graham said.
“Well, now you’re not. Tough.”
He lunged at the remote but missed.
A dog barked outside, yelped, and then stopped.
“Why don’t you make yourself useful and go check what that dog is barking at,” Mary said.
Graham struggled up from the couch.
Ten years older than Mary, Graham was overweight and had emphysema, just walking outside to check on a wayward dog was an effort.
He reached for the flyscreen door which was hanging on by one hinge. It burst open as he started to drag it open.
Stumbling backwards, he tripped over and crashed to the floor then pushed himself back up to sit.
“What do you want?” he said, then realised who it was. “What’s he done now?”
“Now there, Graham, is that any way to greet a guest?”
“You ain’t welcome, so shove off,” he wheezed.
“Do you need a hand to get up or do you want to stay down there?”
Graham knew Kevin had fucked up again because Vlad Maric only came once before when Kevin had not paid him. Maric stepped fully into the room and poked Graham in the stomach with a cattle prod.
Graham shrieked in pain, and his body shook. He crumpled onto the floor and struggled to breathe.
“What are you doing here? Leave me dad alone,” Kevin shouted from the stairs. He came down them two at a time and rushed at Maric, but was cracked across the head with the prod.
“Behave yourself, Kevin, or you’ll end up like your old man.”
Mary stood in the doorway and snarled, “What do you want? I thought we’d seen the last of you.”
“Well, Kevin’s Mum, I guess we don’t always get what we want. So, let’s all go into the lounge. Kevin, help your father up. He seems to have had the shock of his life.”
It took all of Kevin’s strength to get Graham standing. Graham moved haltingly into the lounge room, looking over his shoulder at Maric as he went, then collapsed onto the couch and groaned. He wheezed, coughed and swallowed a glob of phlegm, then started patting his pockets looking for his cigarettes.
“Someone, get Graham something. A beer or a shot,” Maric said.
“Don’t you tell us what to do. He’s tough, he’ll be okay. What do you want?” Mary snarled.
“Well, your boy has forgotten, once again, that he needs to pay for the things he buys. I thought he might have learned his lesson last year. But no, suddenly he’s poncing around town in a brand new set of wheels. Here’s the thing, he owes us a hundred grand. Again.”
Kevin’s parents glared at him.
“What have you done, boy?” Graham yelled as he tried to get to his feet, then sagged back into the lounge suite. He looked at Kevin and flicked his head towards the visitor.
Kevin lunged at Maric but mistimed his attack. Maric swung the cattle prod at Kevin’s head and he fell to the floor.
“Look, we can do this a couple of ways. You keep doing that stuff and end up in tears or give me the keys to that fancy new four-wheel drive out there and sign the transfer form and I am away. At least till the next time this idiot decides to put his mitts in my back pocket, again. So how do you want this to go?”
There was a shriek behind him. He turned as Mary slashed at him with a huge kitchen knife, slicing his right bicep.
“You fuckin’ bitch!”
He grabbed her by the neck and threw her on top of Kevin, then grabbed a towel from the kitchen sink to staunch the blood and kicked the knife to the corner of the room.
He raced to the door and yelled out, “Nico, get in here.”
Nico lumbered through the doorway, after yanking the broken door completely off. “What happened? I thought you had this,” he said.
“I did till this bitch sliced me. Tie them up, line them up against the wall, on the floor.”
Nico struggled with Graeme and Mary, slipping plastic ties on their wrists and shoving them against the wall.
Kevin squirmed and resisted.
“Listen fuck head, stop moving,” Nico yelled and slapped Kevin across the head. Then zipped-tied him.
“Now, you three maniacs are you going to behave? Kevin, where’s the rego form?”
“In the top draw,” he replied sullenly. “I’ve only just picked it up.”
“So fucking what. You paid for it with my money.”
With the form in hand, he cut the plastic ties on Kevin’s hands and handed him a pen. “Sign.”
Maric turned to Nico. “You go meet the other buyer. I said we’d be there fifteen minutes ago. I’ll be along later. But first—” he glared at the family “—I have to explain to these three what happens to people that stick knives in me.”
Tuesday, January 24th, 2018
The Bendigo Advertiser:
CONCERN FOR MISSING LOCAL FAMILY
Police advise that Mr Graham, Mrs Mary, and Kevin Chisholm are missing. They have not been seen for over a week. The alarm was raised when the owner of the adjacent property went to tell them that some of their stock had broken through an adjoining fence. Unable to contact them, the neighbour called the Bendigo police.
Detective Aaron Johnson is currently trying to establish the whereabouts of other family members who previously lived on the property. Anybody who knows of their whereabouts should call Crime Stoppers or Bendigo Police.
Detective Sergeant Jim Brownsill took a deep breath and rubbed his face with his hands, bracing himself for the new day. He looked across the detectives’ room at the recently completed Bendigo Police Station. Aaron Johnson, one of his detectives, leaned back in his chair, feet on the desk, and studied the laptop perched on his knees. He held a cup of something steaming in one hand.
Brownsill, a thirty-year veteran in the force, had a reputation for being a stickler for detail and had no tolerance for sloppy work. He wasn’t yet convinced about the dapper detective who had transferred in from Melbourne six months previously. He looked more like a car salesman than a cop.
Unlike Johnson, dapper was not a word that would find its way into any sentence describing Brownsill. More “unmade bed,” with a well-padded paunch hanging over a belt that struggled to keep his baggy pants up. He was an old-school cop. From the permanently done-up tie that he slipped over his head rather than retie, to the permanently grumpy disposition he wore.
“Get your feet off the furniture!” Brownsill barked across the room, just as Johnson took a sip from his cup.
Johnson jumped in shock, spitting out a mouthful of coffee, “Bloody hell, Jim, you scared the hell out of me.” He clutched at the laptop to stop it crashing to the floor and spilled the rest of the contents of the cup down the front of his crisp blue shirt.
“The state government didn’t just spend twenty-five million dollars on a new station so you can trash it,” Brownsill said.
The station was like a new pin, everything shiny and everything worked. Such a change from the old one. Brownsill had worked in the old station for a large part of his career and was still coming to grips with a coffee machine that made real coffee and working heating. He wasn’t about to let anyone trash the place.
Aaron regained his composure, placed his laptop back on his desk, and went searching for paper towels to mop up his shirt.
“This was brand new today,” he said, patting and dabbing away at the coffee stain.
“Serves you right for treating the place like your home.”
“Sorry, boss. For the record, there’s no way Siobhan would let me put my feet on the furniture either.”
“Fair enough, too. What are you doing?”
“I’m checking social media for anything that might give us a clue. You never know, a random picture or post that might suggest something.”
“And?”
“Kevin has a Facebook page. He mostly posts about cars and bikes: he seems to have just acquired a new four-wheel drive.”
“I thought they were dirt poor. Where would he get the money for that?”
“Exactly.”
“Did you see it up there?” Brownsill said.
“No just some old bangers and a ute.”
“Anything come in from the newspaper appeal?”
“Nothing much. We’ve had contact from one of the sons in Queensland and the other in Canberra, but nothing from the daughter. Also, there’s a rumour around town that Kevin was into some heavy-hitters from Melbourne for a bit of drug money.”
“Didn’t we have him in the frame for that meth pick-up last year?”
“Yes, his old man sent him off to Queensland for a while and things settled down. He’s back now.”
“So, what’s your plan?”
“I’m looking at two angles ... well, three now. First, Graham told the neighbour that vandals recently damaged some farm equipment. Second, I want to find out more about what went down last year. And now I’ve seen the post about the four-wheel drive, I might just sniff around the Toyota dealership and see how he paid for it.”
“So, your angle is that the disappearance could be connected to Kevin and his dabbling in drugs?”
“I think he’s doing a bit more than dabble.”
“Well, get a wriggle on, Aaron. It’s been a week and we haven’t got anything.”
The upside of being a cop in a regional city was that the locals still mostly respected the role. This meant Aaron could walk into local businesses and expect a high degree of cooperation. Even if it was just in the hope of an easier life when trouble came their way.
It didn’t take long to establish that Kevin’s new four-wheel drive was paid for with cash and a cheque from his father’s account.
“It was odd,” the dealership finance officer said. “Because looking at him, you wouldn’t have thought he had a dollar to his name.”
“I’m heading round the corner for a coffee at that new joint. Coming?” Brownsill said.
“My shout again?” Johnson answered.
“Of course. And don’t be a smart-arse.”
The coffee shop was trying for an old, cosy feel. It wasn’t working because ‘old cosy’ wouldn’t have had staff with tatts, nose rings and rows of studs down the ears.
“I don’t know why they do that,” Brownsill said, flicking his head in the direction of the young barista who managed to combine all three forms of body decoration.
“She’s probably got a tongue ring as well,” Aaron replied.
“Seriously that must hurt like hell when they put it in.”
As they waited, Brownsill said, “So this guy pays a 100K for a new car, mostly in cash. I bet I know what’s happened. Kevin stiffed a drug supplier and his mum and dad are now paying the price.”
“You might be right.”
“Well, while you’ve been swanning about, I had a little catch-up with an old mate who happens to be familiar with the family finances. It turns out that when the trouble happened last year, the old man cashed in a deposit of over 150K. Only about fifty of that came into the farm accounts. So where did the rest go, do you reckon?”
“Paying off some debt of Kevin’s?”
“Exactly. What if this time the old man told the collector to bugger off, and wouldn’t, or couldn’t, pay?”
“So, Kevin spends the drug supplier’s money on a new car, and they pay a visit.”
“We need to find out who the supplier is, and quickly.”
“I don’t suppose your finance friend knows why Kevin’s father keeps bailing him out?”
“Not exactly, but he said when he tried to talk him out of cashing the deposit, he got very ticked off and said, ‘It was a matter of life and death.’”
Chapter 7
Bendigo Police Station, 27th January 2018
Two days later Johnson dashed into Brownsill’s office as he had his morning shave, which for some reason best known to him, he always did at work.
“We found the four-wheel drive,” Johnson said, over the buzz of the razor.
“Where?”
“Upside down in a culvert off a backroad near Mandurang.”
“Right, let’s walk and talk. You drive,” Brownsill said. He rubbed his hand over his chin. “Good enough,” he said and scooped up his jacket.
Johnson jumped into the police unit and waited.
“What?” Brownsill said.
“Seat belt, boss.”
“Okay, okay, get on with it.”
He raced out of the carpark, lights and sirens on.
“What’s the hurry? It’s not going anywhere,” Brownsill said.
“Uniforms were chasing it. They said the driver and passenger are in a bad way.”
“Jesus, Aaron, you didn’t mention that. Put your foot down.”
The dust took no time to clear after they arrived at the scene moments after the ambulance, blown away by a stiff breeze.
“Feels like it’s going to be a stinker today, that wind feels like it’s blowing straight off the centre.
Johnson lifted the tape already stretched around the scene, so Brownsill only had to bend slightly to access the area.
The two detectives looked over the edge of the culvert. The vehicle was upside down, two front doors splayed open.
They looked around as they heard a fire truck arrive, lumbering over the ruts in the dirt track.
“Late as usual,” Brownsill yelled out to the blue-uniformed paramedic who was kneeling next to a motionless body and gestured towards the fire truck.
The detectives slid down the culvert wall and stood over the spreadeagled body several metres from the passenger side of the vehicle. Around his head, a brown stain in the soil. The paramedic cut the centre of the victim’s T-shirt to reveal a heavily tattooed body.
“Gym or steroids,” Johnson said.
“Or both, he’s a big bastard,” Brownsill replied.
“I’m guessing he didn’t have his belt on,” Johnson said.
“People don’t learn, do they,” Brownsill muttered.
The paramedic moved his stethoscope around the chest several times and then said. “This one’s dead. Looks like a broken neck judging from the angle. Must have been a decent impact. I would have thought with that neck—” he pointed at the massive neck and shoulders “—he might have survived. Anyway, he’s deceased. Well and truly.”
“Shit!” Brownsill exclaimed. “We won’t get anything out of him, then.”
“Boss, the guy’s dead for god’s sake,” Johnson said.
“Yeah, right. What about the other one?”
They watched as the paramedics, aided by one of the uniformed officers, gingerly eased the upside-down driver out of his seat belt.
“Get me the fuck outta here,” he yelled.
“Evidently alive,” Johnson said and raised an eyebrow. “And not happy.”
The driver was strapped onto a stretcher for the precarious walk up the culvert wall to the ambulance.
“I think he’s worse than he looks,” the paramedic said. “He’s just passed out. We better get going.”
““Where are you taking him?” Brownsill said.
“Bendigo Health,” the paramedic replied.
“I’ll hang onto this,” he said and slipped the wallet into an evidence bag.
“Sir, have a look at this,” one of the uniformed officers called out.
Brownsill slid back down the culvert and cursed as he stepped into a patch of oil then headed to the rear of the upturned vehicle.
“This might be why they did a runner when we flashed the blueys,” the young senior constable said, holding up a large plastic bag of blue tablets. “There’s a few more in the back.”
Brownsill snatched the bag.
“Why did you latch onto them?” Johnson asked.
“We had a note to watch out for a white four-wheel drive. I guess that was you guys. Jesse here noticed the plate on the back had slipped and saw the other plate underneath. We followed them for a bit then when they clocked us they took off. City boys don’t know how to drive on dirt roads. They came round that corner and just kept on going.”
“Well done, guys. We’ve been looking for a break in this, and you might have just given us one.”
“Sir, we’ve seen these guys around town before,” Jesse said. “My mate’s in the drug squad, he asked us to keep an eye out a while ago. This isn’t their first time in Benders, although they were on Hogs the last time I saw them. They’re patched, up from Melbourne.”
I will
All I can ask!
Followed by three happy emojis.
Chapter 6
Chisholm Farm, Bendigo, Victoria, 15th January 2018
Graham and Mary Chisholm and their eldest son, Kevin, ate dinner in silence. They rarely had much to say to each other, and when they did, it was usually unpleasant.
The Chisholm family owned a run-down farm near Bendigo. They had four adult children and only Kevin was still on the farm. He was, as his mother constantly reminded him, useless as a farmer. What she didn’t appreciate until recently, was that he was also useless as a small-time drug dealer.
The inside of the farmhouse was like the farm: unkempt, disorganised and in a poor state of repair.
“Why don’t you try cleaning this place once in a while? It’s filthy,” Kevin said.
“You do bugger all around the farm, why don’t you clean the joint if it’s that important to you,” Mary spat back.
Mary was tall and skinny, exaggerated by how her skin stretched over her cheekbones. At some point in her life, she was considered attractive, but forty years married to Graham and working on the farm had wiped any trace away. What hair she had was pulled back in a tight bun, wayward strands sticking out from around her ears. She had a fierce temperament and a razor-like tongue; there were no smile lines in the corners of her eyes.
Kevin had a roundtrip to Melbourne planned for the following day, so he headed for his room. Mary clattered the dirty plates into the sink, then joined Graham to watch TV.
She picked up the remote and changed the channel.
“What ya doin’? I was watchin’ the news,” Graham said.
“Well, now you’re not. Tough.”
He lunged at the remote but missed.
A dog barked outside, yelped, and then stopped.
“Why don’t you make yourself useful and go check what that dog is barking at,” Mary said.
Graham struggled up from the couch.
Ten years older than Mary, Graham was overweight and had emphysema, just walking outside to check on a wayward dog was an effort.
He reached for the flyscreen door which was hanging on by one hinge. It burst open as he started to drag it open.
Stumbling backwards, he tripped over and crashed to the floor then pushed himself back up to sit.
“What do you want?” he said, then realised who it was. “What’s he done now?”
“Now there, Graham, is that any way to greet a guest?”
“You ain’t welcome, so shove off,” he wheezed.
“Do you need a hand to get up or do you want to stay down there?”
Graham knew Kevin had fucked up again because Vlad Maric only came once before when Kevin had not paid him. Maric stepped fully into the room and poked Graham in the stomach with a cattle prod.
Graham shrieked in pain, and his body shook. He crumpled onto the floor and struggled to breathe.
“What are you doing here? Leave me dad alone,” Kevin shouted from the stairs. He came down them two at a time and rushed at Maric, but was cracked across the head with the prod.
“Behave yourself, Kevin, or you’ll end up like your old man.”
Mary stood in the doorway and snarled, “What do you want? I thought we’d seen the last of you.”
“Well, Kevin’s Mum, I guess we don’t always get what we want. So, let’s all go into the lounge. Kevin, help your father up. He seems to have had the shock of his life.”
It took all of Kevin’s strength to get Graham standing. Graham moved haltingly into the lounge room, looking over his shoulder at Maric as he went, then collapsed onto the couch and groaned. He wheezed, coughed and swallowed a glob of phlegm, then started patting his pockets looking for his cigarettes.
“Someone, get Graham something. A beer or a shot,” Maric said.
“Don’t you tell us what to do. He’s tough, he’ll be okay. What do you want?” Mary snarled.
“Well, your boy has forgotten, once again, that he needs to pay for the things he buys. I thought he might have learned his lesson last year. But no, suddenly he’s poncing around town in a brand new set of wheels. Here’s the thing, he owes us a hundred grand. Again.”
Kevin’s parents glared at him.
“What have you done, boy?” Graham yelled as he tried to get to his feet, then sagged back into the lounge suite. He looked at Kevin and flicked his head towards the visitor.
Kevin lunged at Maric but mistimed his attack. Maric swung the cattle prod at Kevin’s head and he fell to the floor.
“Look, we can do this a couple of ways. You keep doing that stuff and end up in tears or give me the keys to that fancy new four-wheel drive out there and sign the transfer form and I am away. At least till the next time this idiot decides to put his mitts in my back pocket, again. So how do you want this to go?”
There was a shriek behind him. He turned as Mary slashed at him with a huge kitchen knife, slicing his right bicep.
“You fuckin’ bitch!”
He grabbed her by the neck and threw her on top of Kevin, then grabbed a towel from the kitchen sink to staunch the blood and kicked the knife to the corner of the room.
He raced to the door and yelled out, “Nico, get in here.”
Nico lumbered through the doorway, after yanking the broken door completely off. “What happened? I thought you had this,” he said.
“I did till this bitch sliced me. Tie them up, line them up against the wall, on the floor.”
Nico struggled with Graeme and Mary, slipping plastic ties on their wrists and shoving them against the wall.
Kevin squirmed and resisted.
“Listen fuck head, stop moving,” Nico yelled and slapped Kevin across the head. Then zipped-tied him.
“Now, you three maniacs are you going to behave? Kevin, where’s the rego form?”
“In the top draw,” he replied sullenly. “I’ve only just picked it up.”
“So fucking what. You paid for it with my money.”
With the form in hand, he cut the plastic ties on Kevin’s hands and handed him a pen. “Sign.”
Maric turned to Nico. “You go meet the other buyer. I said we’d be there fifteen minutes ago. I’ll be along later. But first—” he glared at the family “—I have to explain to these three what happens to people that stick knives in me.”
Tuesday, January 24th, 2018
The Bendigo Advertiser:
CONCERN FOR MISSING LOCAL FAMILY
Police advise that Mr Graham, Mrs Mary, and Kevin Chisholm are missing. They have not been seen for over a week. The alarm was raised when the owner of the adjacent property went to tell them that some of their stock had broken through an adjoining fence. Unable to contact them, the neighbour called the Bendigo police.
Detective Aaron Johnson is currently trying to establish the whereabouts of other family members who previously lived on the property. Anybody who knows of their whereabouts should call Crime Stoppers or Bendigo Police.
Detective Sergeant Jim Brownsill took a deep breath and rubbed his face with his hands, bracing himself for the new day. He looked across the detectives’ room at the recently completed Bendigo Police Station. Aaron Johnson, one of his detectives, leaned back in his chair, feet on the desk, and studied the laptop perched on his knees. He held a cup of something steaming in one hand.
Brownsill, a thirty-year veteran in the force, had a reputation for being a stickler for detail and had no tolerance for sloppy work. He wasn’t yet convinced about the dapper detective who had transferred in from Melbourne six months previously. He looked more like a car salesman than a cop.
Unlike Johnson, dapper was not a word that would find its way into any sentence describing Brownsill. More “unmade bed,” with a well-padded paunch hanging over a belt that struggled to keep his baggy pants up. He was an old-school cop. From the permanently done-up tie that he slipped over his head rather than retie, to the permanently grumpy disposition he wore.
“Get your feet off the furniture!” Brownsill barked across the room, just as Johnson took a sip from his cup.
Johnson jumped in shock, spitting out a mouthful of coffee, “Bloody hell, Jim, you scared the hell out of me.” He clutched at the laptop to stop it crashing to the floor and spilled the rest of the contents of the cup down the front of his crisp blue shirt.
“The state government didn’t just spend twenty-five million dollars on a new station so you can trash it,” Brownsill said.
The station was like a new pin, everything shiny and everything worked. Such a change from the old one. Brownsill had worked in the old station for a large part of his career and was still coming to grips with a coffee machine that made real coffee and working heating. He wasn’t about to let anyone trash the place.
Aaron regained his composure, placed his laptop back on his desk, and went searching for paper towels to mop up his shirt.
“This was brand new today,” he said, patting and dabbing away at the coffee stain.
“Serves you right for treating the place like your home.”
“Sorry, boss. For the record, there’s no way Siobhan would let me put my feet on the furniture either.”
“Fair enough, too. What are you doing?”
“I’m checking social media for anything that might give us a clue. You never know, a random picture or post that might suggest something.”
“And?”
“Kevin has a Facebook page. He mostly posts about cars and bikes: he seems to have just acquired a new four-wheel drive.”
“I thought they were dirt poor. Where would he get the money for that?”
“Exactly.”
“Did you see it up there?” Brownsill said.
“No just some old bangers and a ute.”
“Anything come in from the newspaper appeal?”
“Nothing much. We’ve had contact from one of the sons in Queensland and the other in Canberra, but nothing from the daughter. Also, there’s a rumour around town that Kevin was into some heavy-hitters from Melbourne for a bit of drug money.”
“Didn’t we have him in the frame for that meth pick-up last year?”
“Yes, his old man sent him off to Queensland for a while and things settled down. He’s back now.”
“So, what’s your plan?”
“I’m looking at two angles ... well, three now. First, Graham told the neighbour that vandals recently damaged some farm equipment. Second, I want to find out more about what went down last year. And now I’ve seen the post about the four-wheel drive, I might just sniff around the Toyota dealership and see how he paid for it.”
“So, your angle is that the disappearance could be connected to Kevin and his dabbling in drugs?”
“I think he’s doing a bit more than dabble.”
“Well, get a wriggle on, Aaron. It’s been a week and we haven’t got anything.”
The upside of being a cop in a regional city was that the locals still mostly respected the role. This meant Aaron could walk into local businesses and expect a high degree of cooperation. Even if it was just in the hope of an easier life when trouble came their way.
It didn’t take long to establish that Kevin’s new four-wheel drive was paid for with cash and a cheque from his father’s account.
“It was odd,” the dealership finance officer said. “Because looking at him, you wouldn’t have thought he had a dollar to his name.”
“I’m heading round the corner for a coffee at that new joint. Coming?” Brownsill said.
“My shout again?” Johnson answered.
“Of course. And don’t be a smart-arse.”
The coffee shop was trying for an old, cosy feel. It wasn’t working because ‘old cosy’ wouldn’t have had staff with tatts, nose rings and rows of studs down the ears.
“I don’t know why they do that,” Brownsill said, flicking his head in the direction of the young barista who managed to combine all three forms of body decoration.
“She’s probably got a tongue ring as well,” Aaron replied.
“Seriously that must hurt like hell when they put it in.”
As they waited, Brownsill said, “So this guy pays a 100K for a new car, mostly in cash. I bet I know what’s happened. Kevin stiffed a drug supplier and his mum and dad are now paying the price.”
“You might be right.”
“Well, while you’ve been swanning about, I had a little catch-up with an old mate who happens to be familiar with the family finances. It turns out that when the trouble happened last year, the old man cashed in a deposit of over 150K. Only about fifty of that came into the farm accounts. So where did the rest go, do you reckon?”
“Paying off some debt of Kevin’s?”
“Exactly. What if this time the old man told the collector to bugger off, and wouldn’t, or couldn’t, pay?”
“So, Kevin spends the drug supplier’s money on a new car, and they pay a visit.”
“We need to find out who the supplier is, and quickly.”
“I don’t suppose your finance friend knows why Kevin’s father keeps bailing him out?”
“Not exactly, but he said when he tried to talk him out of cashing the deposit, he got very ticked off and said, ‘It was a matter of life and death.’”
Chapter 7
Bendigo Police Station, 27th January 2018
Two days later Johnson dashed into Brownsill’s office as he had his morning shave, which for some reason best known to him, he always did at work.
“We found the four-wheel drive,” Johnson said, over the buzz of the razor.
“Where?”
“Upside down in a culvert off a backroad near Mandurang.”
“Right, let’s walk and talk. You drive,” Brownsill said. He rubbed his hand over his chin. “Good enough,” he said and scooped up his jacket.
Johnson jumped into the police unit and waited.
“What?” Brownsill said.
“Seat belt, boss.”
“Okay, okay, get on with it.”
He raced out of the carpark, lights and sirens on.
“What’s the hurry? It’s not going anywhere,” Brownsill said.
“Uniforms were chasing it. They said the driver and passenger are in a bad way.”
“Jesus, Aaron, you didn’t mention that. Put your foot down.”
The dust took no time to clear after they arrived at the scene moments after the ambulance, blown away by a stiff breeze.
“Feels like it’s going to be a stinker today, that wind feels like it’s blowing straight off the centre.
Johnson lifted the tape already stretched around the scene, so Brownsill only had to bend slightly to access the area.
The two detectives looked over the edge of the culvert. The vehicle was upside down, two front doors splayed open.
They looked around as they heard a fire truck arrive, lumbering over the ruts in the dirt track.
“Late as usual,” Brownsill yelled out to the blue-uniformed paramedic who was kneeling next to a motionless body and gestured towards the fire truck.
The detectives slid down the culvert wall and stood over the spreadeagled body several metres from the passenger side of the vehicle. Around his head, a brown stain in the soil. The paramedic cut the centre of the victim’s T-shirt to reveal a heavily tattooed body.
“Gym or steroids,” Johnson said.
“Or both, he’s a big bastard,” Brownsill replied.
“I’m guessing he didn’t have his belt on,” Johnson said.
“People don’t learn, do they,” Brownsill muttered.
The paramedic moved his stethoscope around the chest several times and then said. “This one’s dead. Looks like a broken neck judging from the angle. Must have been a decent impact. I would have thought with that neck—” he pointed at the massive neck and shoulders “—he might have survived. Anyway, he’s deceased. Well and truly.”
“Shit!” Brownsill exclaimed. “We won’t get anything out of him, then.”
“Boss, the guy’s dead for god’s sake,” Johnson said.
“Yeah, right. What about the other one?”
They watched as the paramedics, aided by one of the uniformed officers, gingerly eased the upside-down driver out of his seat belt.
“Get me the fuck outta here,” he yelled.
“Evidently alive,” Johnson said and raised an eyebrow. “And not happy.”
The driver was strapped onto a stretcher for the precarious walk up the culvert wall to the ambulance.
“I think he’s worse than he looks,” the paramedic said. “He’s just passed out. We better get going.”
““Where are you taking him?” Brownsill said.
“Bendigo Health,” the paramedic replied.
“I’ll hang onto this,” he said and slipped the wallet into an evidence bag.
“Sir, have a look at this,” one of the uniformed officers called out.
Brownsill slid back down the culvert and cursed as he stepped into a patch of oil then headed to the rear of the upturned vehicle.
“This might be why they did a runner when we flashed the blueys,” the young senior constable said, holding up a large plastic bag of blue tablets. “There’s a few more in the back.”
Brownsill snatched the bag.
“Why did you latch onto them?” Johnson asked.
“We had a note to watch out for a white four-wheel drive. I guess that was you guys. Jesse here noticed the plate on the back had slipped and saw the other plate underneath. We followed them for a bit then when they clocked us they took off. City boys don’t know how to drive on dirt roads. They came round that corner and just kept on going.”
“Well done, guys. We’ve been looking for a break in this, and you might have just given us one.”
“Sir, we’ve seen these guys around town before,” Jesse said. “My mate’s in the drug squad, he asked us to keep an eye out a while ago. This isn’t their first time in Benders, although they were on Hogs the last time I saw them. They’re patched, up from Melbourne.”
