Cemetery Lake (11 page)

I lie in the darkness, thinking about my dead family and the man who made them that way. I wish that in this average house in this average street nothing bad had ever happened, but it’s already too late.

I end up sleeping in, which isn’t a good start to the case. When I flip open my cellphone I find that it has given up. The trip into the lake was worse for it than I thought. I shake it a bit and flex the casing, and I slip the battery in and out and try plugging it into the mains, but nothing happens. I have no idea how many

calls I’ve missed.

I drive through the city thinking that Christchurch and

technology go together like drinking and driving: they don’t

mix well, but some still think it’s a good idea. Everything here looks old, and for the most part it is. People living in the past have set historical values on buildings dating back over a hundred years, and have had them protected from the future. Investors

can’t come along and replace them with high-rises and apartment complexes. It’s a cold-looking city made to look even colder in the dreary weather. Everything looks so damn archaic. Even the hookers look fifty years old. A glue sniffer on a mountain bike has a cardboard tube running from his mouth down to the plastic bag by the handlebars. He’s multi-tasking. He’s sniffing glue and riding on the footpath, and he can keep doing both without the distraction of lifting the bag to his face.

It’s only eleven in the morning, yet I struggle to find a park at the shopping mall. I squeeze in next to a boy-racer Skyline that looks expensive and suggests the guy driving it has a job, though if he’s here at the same time as me on a weekday then he probably doesn’t, unless he’s a private investigator. I head into a Telecom store and deal with a guy who seems more interested in staring across the mall at the hairdresser’s than he does at the phone I’m showing him. I look over at the hairdresser’s and can’t blame

him.

‘It’s cheaper to upgrade,’ he says, ‘than get this thing fixed. Plus it’ll be away for a few weeks. What did you do to it, anyway?’

‘It fell in the bath.’

‘Yeah — that’ll do it. Anyway, this thing is obsolete.’

“I bought it eighteen months ago.’

‘Yeah, like I said, it’s obsolete.’

He shows me a range of cellphones and I pick out one that

looks like it shouldn’t confuse me too much. He sets it up so my old number will work on it, and warns me it could take between one and two hours to become active.

‘Where do I recognise you from?’ he asks, handing back my

credit card.

I shrug. ‘Beats me.’

He slowly shakes his head. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you,’ he says.

I’m sure he has too — probably on TV yesterday when I was

sitting in the back of an ambulance. We finish up and I let him get back to watching the hairdresser’s.

The police station is ten storeys of concrete block and glass

that was out of date around the same time it was built. I park out on the street and feed the meter before walking up the steps to the foyer. There isn’t much going on at ground-floor level, just a few people waiting in a queue to make complaints. I sign in at a desk; the process is simple enough since I’m expected upstairs.

I press the up button and a moment later the elevator arrives. I hit the button for the fourth floor, and the elevator comes to a stop on the first floor and I have company. A guy in overalls, thirtyish, carrying a bucket and mop.

‘I’m the cleaner,’ he says, and he grins at me, showing me all his teeth. I smile back at him, and the elevator hits the fourth floor and the doors open. I step out, and the janitor follows. We walk a few paces before Carl Schroder sees us and comes over.

‘Can I get you a coffee, Detective Schroder?’ the janitor asks him.

‘I’m fine, Joe. Thanks, though.’

The cleaner walks away and I watch him go before turning

back to Schroder. I’ve known Carl for many years. In another

lifetime we worked the same cases, dealt with the same problems.

We used to be pretty good friends, but it’s obvious he doesn’t really want me here. He leads me over to a table to a bunch of forms and asks me to sign them. He tells me the crime scene has been released, and I ask him how the investigation is going, and he says it’s going okay. He doesn’t elaborate on that. Just says it’s okay and nothing else, which means he either doesn’t want to tell me or things are going badly.

‘Sorry, Tate, I just don’t have the time to give you any

information. Finding those bodies, Jesus, you couldn’t have

picked a worse time.’

‘Who for? Them or you?’

He exhales heavily. ‘It’s this fucking Carver case. Man, it’s like every step we take this guy is taking two steps. I don’t know what the hell it is, but we’re struggling. Christ, we’re so understaffed, I don’t know, we just need more manpower. It’s that simple.’

‘You offering me a job?’

‘Good one, Tate. You’re even funnier than I remember.

Especially after last night’s performance.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re slipping. It looked bad, man, really bad. Friends in the department? Jesus, why’d you say that?’

‘What are you …’ But then it comes to me. I run my hand

over my face and pinch my chin. ‘Jesus.’

‘Yeah. You got that right.’

‘She stitched me up, huh?’

‘There’s a copy if you wanna take a look. Media room’s free.’

The media room is big enough to hold four people if none of

them is overweight, and its walls are lined with computers and monitors. News reports are kept as part of the database involved in ongoing cases; those that go to air are stored on hard drives.

Schroder cues it up.

‘It was on this morning,’ he says. ‘They played it at seven

o’clock, eight and nine. They’re probably waiting till twelve to play it again if they don’t have anything more.’

I’m standing next to my car, coming forward to meet the

reporters. From their perspective, they couldn’t have picked a better time to film me. From mine, they couldn’t have picked

a worse one. There is blood on my shirt and on my face, and

pieces of what I guess might be bone or brain matter in my hair.

My skin is pale and sallow and there are dark smudges beneath my eyes. I look like I might have been one of the finds in the coffins, and now I know where the Telecom guy recognised me from.

The reporter is talking to me, and I’m talking back, but you

can’t hear any of what I’m saying because the conversation has been muted. All you can hear is Casey Horwell’s voiceover as

they move from a shot of me outside my house to scenes of the

graveyard. The shots go back and forth as she talks.

… used to be a detective for the Christchurch police, but for the last two years has been struggling as a private investigator. He offered to speak to us outside his house where he filled us in on some aspects to the case, but when we asked him why he was coming home and not being held in custody until the killing of Bruce Alderman was further investigated, he was unsure how to answer.

The interview is still showing me talking. But there are no

words. Just the chitchat of me asking them to move their van,

telling them I have no comments, and whatever else I said to get rid of them, but it looks like we’re sharing an in-depth discussion.

Then I disappear from the frame, and Casey Horwell is standing there, the only background is her van, and I bet they pulled over the moment they got around the next corner to film her.

Two years ago the man linked to killing Theodore Tate’s

daughter disappeared and has never been seen again, and though the investigation is still open it appears nobody is making any effort to learn what really happened. The man’s disappearance led to Detective Tate being dismissed from the police. Last night Bruce Alderman was violently killed inside Theodore Tate’s office and again it looks like he is being dismissed. One can’t help but wonder what forces are in place to allow a man like this to still be out on the streets instead of being held accountable for his actions…

The segment cuts back to me, still standing in front of my car.

I know what’s coming up before I hear it. It’s the line. My line.

And she has placed it perfectly.

I still have friends in the department, they do what they can.

The segment stops and Schroder turns off the monitor.

‘That was bullshit, Carl.’

‘You don’t think I know that? Horwell’s a classic case of

somebody who fucked a promising career and is grabbing at

straws trying to get it back. But you’re slipping, Tate. Two years ago you’d never have made that mistake. And it doesn’t matter

what you said, she made you look guilty, man, just getting out of your car with all that blood on you — you looked like a monster.

Can you imagine the shit that’d be raining down right now if you were still a cop?’

I can feel the anger building up inside. “I know, I know,’ I say, and Carl is the wrong person to be angry at. I’m the one who

messed up. ‘But what was I to do? Just drive past and not even go home?’

He walks me back to the elevator. ‘That’s exactly what you

could have done. Did you even think of that?’

‘You still on the case?’ I ask.

‘Landry’s taking over. I’m still on the Carver.’

‘Has he identified the woman who was in the water?’

‘Yeah. An elderly woman who died and was buried last week.’

‘And the coffin? When you identified her, you pulled up the

corresponding coffin, right? What was inside?’

‘Why do I think you already know the answer to this?’

‘Something Bruce Alderman said.’

‘Yeah. We got a girl who went missing six days ago.’

‘Who was she?’

‘Oh, well, her name was … oh, wait, hang on a second. You

don’t work here any more, do you?’

‘And there was a girl in Henry Martins’ coffin too, wasn’t

there?’

He nods. ‘You know all this, Tate. Stop pretending you’re only just figuring it out.’

‘You identify her yet?’

‘Almost. We’re taking what we know about the girl from last

week and making the same assumption. We’re figuring the girl in Henry Martins’ coffin went missing around the same time he was buried.’

‘Seems like a safe assumption.’

‘Safe, but not confirmed.’

‘And the other two?’

“The other two are going to be damn difficult to identify, and it’s not like we can just start digging up coffins for the hell of it.’

The elevator arrives and the doors open. I don’t move.

‘We could have made a difference,’ I tell him.

‘What?’

‘Two years ago. Remember?’

He stares at me for a few seconds, no expression at all, no

movement of his head, then slowly he starts to nod. “I know,’ he says.

‘You’re going to find more girls.’

He says nothing. He already knows.

‘We could have made a difference,’ I repeat.

As the doors of the elevator close, Schroder keeps standing

where he is, staring at me.

Instead of driving to my office, I take a detour to the morgue.

I figure if Tracey had noticed I’d stolen the ring she’d have called by now.

She’s a little rushed off her feet and doesn’t seem real glad

to see me. Nor does Sheldon West, the ME I spoke to at the

cemetery. But Tracey decides to accommodate me after I tell her things will be quicker for her if she helps me out rather than having me hanging around for the next two hours asking her the same questions over and over.

‘You’re a real pain in the arse,’ she tells me.

‘You just need to spend more time with me, that’s all. Get to

know me a little better.’

‘Less time, Theo. That’s why I’m agreeing to show you. Oh,

and by the way, that was a nice job you did last night. You should try to get a job on TV

‘That’s real funny’

She rolls Rachel Tyler out of a huge metal drawer and starts

pointing things out as if she were Death showing a prospective client a neat way to die.

‘It’s hard to pinpoint a time of death, but it’s around two

years ago,’ she says, ‘which falls in with when Henry Martins was buried. I would have guessed that she was buried in his place, but the shovel marks on the coffin suggest he was in the ground first.

However, I’d say she went into the coffin not long after he went into the ground. We’re close to ID-ing her. Landry has a name; we’re just waiting to confirm with dental records.’

There’s no point in telling Tracey I already know who it is.

It’ll only lead to awkward questions, and I’m going to be getting them as soon as Schroder makes a positive ID on the girl and

speaks to her family. Yesterday Rachel Tyler’s mother opened the door to hope. Today she’ll be closing it.

‘You know something, don’t you,’ she says, her lips forming a

thin scar as she stares at me.

‘How did she die?’

‘Who is she, Theo?’

‘Somebody who was too young to die.’

‘Aren’t they always?’

“I don’t know. Maybe.’ I glance over at another table where a

guy who looks as though he was around when those buildings

started getting built a hundred years ago is lying. I wonder if he thought he was too young to die, or if he couldn’t wait to get it over with. ‘But I’m going to help her. Can you tell me how she died?’

“‘Badly But I’m guessing you knew that from the moment

we opened up the coffin. Her hyoid bone was broken. She was

strangled.’

‘Sexual assault?’

‘Impossible to tell after this time.’

‘She was re-dressed after she died, right? What does that tell you?’

‘It doesn’t tell me anything. It only suggests.’

‘Dignity’

‘What?’

‘Something Bruce Alderman said to me last night. I’m still

trying to figure it out.’

Tracey shrugs. ‘That’s beyond my scope, Theo.’

I look down at Rachel Tyler with the huge Y incision cut across her mummified body. She hasn’t been stitched back together