Reaper, page 8
It wasn’t her ideal scenario, but it made sense. Of course there was the possibility that none of the deaths had an unnatural cause, and she’d look like she was making a fuss for nothing, but her gut told her otherwise.
‘There are a lot of CCTV and security cameras in the area. Can I have people to talk to retailers in the vicinity, collect footage and go through it?’
‘I take it from that you’d like to head this investigation?’
She hadn’t thought about that specifically, but it made sense, and she felt she owed it to Max to be front footing it. ‘Yes, please.’
‘Okay, but if this does turn out to be something more sinister than a few people dying of the cold, then be aware that it may have to be transferred to someone more senior.’
As much as that sucked, she knew that optics were important, and if it was a major case and gained a media profile then others higher up the food chain would be thrown the bone.
‘Understood,’ she said.
‘Is there anything else at this stage?’ Williamson asked.
‘K-Road is a busy thoroughfare – with its proximity to the central city, the university and the hospital. There will have been a lot of folk who walked past the victims and may have seen something. I’d like to set up a Crime Stoppers hotline campaign for the case, see what it brings out.’ The anonymous and independent phone line was an invaluable tool in getting information about cases. Guaranteed anonymity gave people the confidence to report things they might not otherwise. Of course, with that anonymity came the crank callers, time wasters and weirdos, not to mention the occasional vindictive dob-in, but it still had value.
‘That’s a good idea, but not yet. We’ll get the autopsy reports done first, see what they reveal before putting any of our suspicions out into the public domain. I don’t want to cause panic for no reason. Because if what you are suggesting turns out to be true, it would mean we have a serial killer on the streets of Auckland, and that does not bear thinking about.’
He was right: the thought of someone out there ruthlessly hunting down and killing people on the streets of her city gave Meredith the chills. But if there was a killer on the prowl, a Reaper, they were bound to strike again, and if that happened, no amount of assumptions and stereotyping would stop people putting two and two together. There would be all-out pandemonium.
25: Max
The vibration of the phone in his pocket wrenched Max out of the trance he had lapsed into while watching people walk through Albert Park. He pulled out his phone and squinted to see the notification on the screen in the glare of a brief moment of wintery sun.
‘Fuck.’
His heart thudded hard in his chest. He hadn’t been expecting a reply quite so soon. He hadn’t been expecting a reply at all.
He opened the message. It was as brief as his own had been. Place. Date. Time. Description.
He exhaled, puffing out his cheeks.
Shit.
This meant he had to follow through.
26: Max
He was beginning to recognise the footfalls now, their weight, the cadence of the walk, the slight hesitation as they neared. And once again their approach triggered a knot of something in his stomach. Was it anxiety? Dread? Resignation? Max swivelled in his chair before they had even stopped, faced the source of intrusion.
‘Shane.’
‘Max.’
He was starting to feel a little disconcerted that McFarlane always seemed to locate him whenever he wanted. Was he following him? Was he that easy to track? Staying under the radar had been his forte for the last few years. It was part and parcel with his survival during the dark times when he was lost and did not want to be found. Nowadays he didn’t think he was as lost, but he still certainly didn’t want to be found. He would need to change his patterns, become less predictable. He didn’t want Shane McFarlane to feel he could have access to him whenever he pleased.
‘What can I help you with?’ The words sounded a little friendlier than Why the hell are you here and what do you want? – the questions he really wanted to ask. But his tone conveyed the sentiment.
‘Well, I was just passing by and thought I’d see if you’d made any progress on our, ah, project.’ McFarlane didn’t make much attempt to moderate the volume of his voice, even though this was a conversation that did not need to be held in front of witnesses. There were several other people using the computer stations around Max, not to mention the look he was getting from the middle-aged woman working at the table opposite. It would not have surprised him in the least if she shushed them.
‘Let’s take this outside,’ Max said. He stood up, dropped the 1B4 note book he’d been jotting things down in into his well-worn and grubby green backpack, zipped it up and slung it on his back. McFarlane followed him in silence as he made his way down the escalators and out of the library’s front door. For once it wasn’t raining and the sun had made an attempt to dry things off, so he sat down on one of the bench seats in the plaza. McFarlane did likewise.
‘Well … what do you know?’ McFarlane asked. ‘What can you tell me?’
Max didn’t like the eagerness in his voice, the neediness. These last few days had taken their toll. Death took its toll. When he was on the job as a cop, it didn’t matter how many times you saw a dead body, how professionally detached you tried to make yourself, it still hit home. It was even worse when it was people you knew, cared about, even. This week had left him with a bone-deep and existential weariness, so he didn’t have the energy to deal with Shane McFarlane’s need for closure, or for his need for vengeance.
‘Look, sorry, I don’t have anything for you at this stage. It’s not like I can rock up to the local drug dealer and ask, hey, remember that kid who slit the throat of that pretty girl and then his own a few years back? Yeah? Fun times, eh? Well I’m looking for the dealer who supplied him so the boy’s daddy can go and smack the living hell out of him. That is not how it works. It’s going to take time, if it happens at all. No one is going to tell me jack shit straight away; it will be following small lead after small lead, and they might go absolutely nowhere. So I’d appreciate it if you’d stop following me around and back the fuck off.’
McFarlane threw his hands up against the hurt and anger in Max’s voice. ‘Whoa, you don’t need to take it like that. I’m not pushing you, and I’m sure as hell not following you around. I just happened to be in the area and thought I’d pop into the library on the off-chance you were there.’ He dropped his hands again. ‘Look, I know you’ve got my number and that you’d call me if anything came up. But I was just around, that’s all. Nothing more than that. No need to get your knickers in a twist.’
Max let out the big breath he’d been holding, allowed some of the tension to seep away.
‘It’s been a shit week. I’m a bit touchy.’ It was nearest to an apology he was going to give.
‘Sounds like it. Did you know some of those people?’ McFarlane asked. ‘The ones who died here in the city?’
Max rubbed his hands together, then clasped them, aware the action gave away his anxiety. He didn’t want to give anything away to this man.
‘Knew all of them one way or another,’ he said.
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘Yeah. It sucks.’
They paused as a young couple walked past the bench, waited until they were out of earshot. Not that it probably mattered, both were intent upon their phones, not each other.
‘It seems a lot of people are being hit by this shitty winter.’
‘It’s been harsh.’
McFarlane paused before posing his next question. ‘Do you think they’re related? The deaths. Like, what are the odds?’
‘Don’t know for sure,’ Max said. He was starting to feel uncomfortable with this whole situation, and his inner voice told him to use caution in what he said next. ‘Could be coincidence. Who knows. No doubt we’ll hear about it if it’s not.’
‘I guess. It will turn up in the news.’
Max decided to redirect the conversation back to their original topic.
‘Look, there is one thing I can tell you. I did get a name of a dealer who was around at the time everything happened. I doubt it would have been the dealer. I’m not that lucky. But I’ve made contact and have got a meet time. He thinks I’m a new customer, so I’ll go along and take it from there.’
‘When’s this happening?’
‘Later tonight.’
‘Can I come along?’ McFarlane asked.
Max looked at him, incredulous. ‘Of course you can’t fucking come along. Are you insane? It’s going to be dangerous enough as it is. I don’t need you there as a spare wheel. Anyway, if two of us turned up he’d probably do a runner and that would blow the opportunity.’
‘But you will let me know right away how it goes?’ McFarlane said, the needy edge creeping back into his voice.
‘Yes, of course I’ll let you know. But don’t count on anything coming out of it. It’s just a lead. It will probably go nowhere.’
Shane McFarlane stood up, extended his hand, ready to shake. Max took it.
‘Well you take care tonight,’ he said. ‘You and I both know what kind of people these fuckers are.’
‘Yeah, we do,’ Max said. ‘We sure fucking do.’
27: Meredith
What the hell? Meredith reread the words on the toxicology report to make sure she’d seen correctly. Lighter fluid? The blood of Edward Arthur Eustace James, AKA The Ferret, had contained high levels of alcohol – not unexpected given the man was known to be an alcoholic. But it also contained high levels of petroleum distillates and naphtha. Definitely not expected. And according to the report that particular chemical cocktail was what you would find in lighter fluid. Meredith was pretty certain lighter fluid was not the first choice of beverage for drunks. Firstly, on a bang-for-your-buck basis, it was too expensive. Secondly, even the wildest of drunks knew that stuff would kill you. And in this case, it did. Not only was it in his blood stream, but The Ferret had vomited and aspirated it into his lungs. It was a double whammy. Given his poor health, slight build and circumstances, he didn’t stand a chance. She flicked further on through the file to the analysis from ESR on the contents of the hip flask of whiskey that had been found on him. The scene of his death hadn’t been given a full forensic examination – it hadn’t been deemed a necessity at the time – but fortunately what scant belongings he owned had been collected and stored, and that included the almost empty flask he was found clutching in his hands.
She scanned through the list of chemical compounds detected in the dregs of that ill-fated bottle. Ethanol, esters, aldehydes, ketones, phenols, all the elements that added up to a good whiskey. Petrol distillates and naphtha. Definitely not Kentucky straight.
Someone had spiked his Jim Beam. But surely he would have noticed that something wasn’t right – the smell, the taste? Or did desperation override reason? But then, why would The Ferret suspect that someone would want to do him harm? Most normal humans wouldn’t go out of their way to poison some stranger. Unless it wasn’t a stranger?
Meredith could just imagine the scene. That lonely alleyway on a freezing-cold winter night. Someone coming along and offering The Ferret a hip flask of something that would warm him up, something they knew he craved and would not refuse, something they knew damned well he would drain, and quickly. The Ferret wouldn’t have been able to believe his luck. So the killer knew enough about him to know the booze was his weakness.
It was deliberate, cynical, fatal.
He was victim number one. Well, that they knew of. You couldn’t make assumptions.
She stood up from her desk and paced slowly around the room, rubbing at her temples. It was part of her job to deal with the nasty and fucked-up end of humanity. To deal with the aftermath of violence – planned, spontaneous, survived and fatal. But there were always areas where she struggled to comprehend the mindset of people. That there were individuals out there who could even conceive of harming children, or the elderly, or the most vulnerable in society. This definitely came into that category. And not just one vulnerable person, probably more. She almost didn’t want to know if this was the first of many.
She moved back to her desk and picked up the report for Karina Rawhiti. Meredith knew full well the statistics when it came to homeless people, and the awful fact that four out of five homeless women in Auckland were Māori. This was a supposed first-world country, yet people lived in poverty, people lived on the streets. People like Karina. What was her story? All Meredith knew was how it ended. That poor woman alone and dead on a footpath in the middle of what, according to popular media, was supposed to be one of the best cities in the world to live in. All hail the City of Sails. Yet, oh how it had failed so many.
Meredith’s eyes scrolled down until they landed on the cause of death. Respiratory failure due to organophosphate poisoning. That was the type of chemical used in pesticides. In the past careless people would have unfortunate accidents around the home with them. She also recalled that organophosphates had been used by the more devious to poison human pests. Too many deaths, accidental and purposeful, had meant availability had been limited years ago and far safer alternatives found. Her eyes scanned down further – the route of administration was listed as ingested. The organophosphate had been present in her stomach contents and in her blood stream. Ingested? Once again, she was puzzled. Wouldn’t something like that have a strong chemical smell or taste? From the reports of those who knew her, Karina wasn’t as dependent on alcohol as the likes of The Ferret. There had been no alcohol recorded in her blood on this night. And as in the case of The Ferret, because there had been no signs of violence or any reason to suspect foul play, a full forensic scene examination hadn’t been undertaken. Fuck it. Hindsight was a great thing. There had been no tainted food or drink items collected with her belongings and by the time officers went back to the site to check, well after the fact, rubbish collection and street cleaners had already gone through, so any hope of evidence had been obliterated.
Fuck. Max was right, and so was that little voice in her head that had started niggling her the moment he had suggested the connection. Oh, how she wished it wasn’t.
Where on earth would someone get hold of organophosphates? She added the name to the list of things to research further. She knew they were a component in pesticides, but she was fairly confident the truly toxic ones wouldn’t be the kind of thing you could pop into the trolley from the hardware aisle at the supermarket.
According to the report Karina had a history of hypertension, asthma and acute respiratory conditions. Prescription records showed she hadn’t picked up any medications in recent times. Hardly surprising considering prescriptions cost money, and when you were already on the bones of your arse and living on the streets, any cash tended to go on food, or the vices that kept your will to live going. The autopsy report showed the presence of infected mucus in her lungs – an untreated chest infection. The upshot of all this was that Karina Rawhiti was already ill, in the middle of a shit winter, so would have been extremely susceptible to the effects of the organophosphate poisoning.
Meredith’s shoulders sagged as she released a heavy sigh. Once again, the sheer enormity of someone sick enough to prey on the vulnerable made her heart-sick.
There was still one more file to go.
Finally, she picked up the report for Alan Arthur Goodman, AKA Skeet. It felt heavy in her hands. She paused before opening it – the magnitude of what it might confirm was almost overwhelming.
Her eyes scanned down the page, seeking out the cause of death. She frowned at the absurdity of the words that floated up to her. Cyanide? Skeet had died of cyanide poisoning.
What was even more absurd was the proposed route of administration.
Access to cyanide was tightly restricted, and for good reason. Like all highly controlled substances, someone could find instructions on how to manufacture it on the world’s biggest cook book, the internet, but that wouldn’t be at all practical and would require a set of skills and resources few possessed. Which meant the killer must have got hold of the stuff another way.
Meredith thought back to the days when she was a rookie police officer in the backwater town that was Thames. It was sometimes called it the gateway to the Coromandel, usually by people with money and flash holiday homes. In truth it was a gateway to the world of drugs and marijuana crops. Part of her job had been finding the plots the growers use, either by overhead spotting via helicopter, or from the ground, the hard and often booby-trapped way. A number of times they’d been pointed in the right direction by pest-controllers tasked with protecting the native birds and bush. One of the tools they used against the scourge of the possum had been cyanide. She’d had the misfortune of briefly dating a trapper, and he’d showed off the tubes of cyanide paste to her, as well as the ampoules of amyl nitrate he carried as an antidote, just in case. He’d joked about how easy it would be to have a little ‘accident’ and take care of a person. She’d joked back about how easy it would be to get his licence revoked. They didn’t date again after that.
The report on Skeet suggested the proposed route of administration was oral. That was unsurprising – possums ate the bait that would kill them, and everyone had heard of the cyanide pills that agents used to carry in the wars in case they were captured and tortured. But what was astounding in this case was the proposed mechanism and delivery. The theory was that he had been poisoned by smoking cyanide-spiked cigarettes. This was still being tested with a number of cigarette butts found on the ground by his body and on his person off for analysis – very, very careful analysis. Meredith wondered which investigator came up with that possibility in the first place. That would require a bit of imagination. She also wondered about the wellbeing of the SOCOs who didn’t know what they were handling. Had one of them come up with the outlandish notion? Or was it the pathologist, on finding a cigarette in his pocket when they prepared him for autopsy?
