Forgotten (7 page)

Reardon was happy to give him several.

“The Bellante fiasco,” Ethan said.

Reardon ran
his hand across his face, felt the day’s growth lightly prickle his
skin and thought of
Thomas
Bellante
. A prominent Melbourne
solicitor. Also reputed to be an unscrupulous trader of people. And
as much as Reardon detested Bellante’s alleged
sidelines
,
he had needed him.

Bellante had
become Reardon’s
new
lead.

“
Wasn’t she
the one in Bellante’s last e-mail right before Bellante went
bush?”

Oh, she
certainly was that.
Reardon sighed,
recalling his frustration at Bellante’s unexpected
disappearance.

“
The one
with the carked fiancé? Simon… something?”

Reardon nodded but flinched at the
adjective.

“
Well, I’ll
be damned.” Ethan scratched his head and half-laughed. “I remember
us spending bloody ages studying her profile, see if there was any
connection between her, Bellante, his disappearance and those
psychotic deadheads you’re trying to track down. But we found
nothing, not one fricking link.”

Precisely why Reardon had so easily
dismissed Cabriati in the first place.

“
And now a
woman gets shot at her home and she wants your help.” Ethan scoffed
out aloud. “Shit, man, got to be a coincidence, surely.”

“
Don’t
believe in coincidences.” Reardon stood, made his way to the bar
and poured another bourbon. He could sense Ethan’s gaze burn an
imaginary hole in the back of his shirt.

“
Bit early
in the day for you,” Ethan said. “
And
with no ice. Hmmm, we are in a troubled form.”

“You talk such crap, Ethan.”

Ethan chuckled and returned his attention to
the handouts.

Reardon
leaned against the bar, felt its solidity press into his lower back
and took a sip of his drink. It helped smooth away some of the
barbed sensations in his dry throat. He couldn’t deny that Ethan
was right. He was in troubled form and it was very unlike
him.

The crinkly
sounds of paper directed him back to Ethan. His head was
downturned, still engrossed in reading. “I’m guessing this is why
you’ve decided to help Cabriati? Because she might have some
answers for your own cause?”

Reardon said nothing.

“
Not like
you, mate. You don’t use other people’s misfortunes for
yourself.”

This was different.

“
You can
just ask her some questions… then let her go. You don’t need to
take on her case to do that.”

And make a
possible mistake by dismissing her again? Reardon didn’t need that
either.

Ethan threw
his arm across the top of the sofa and leaned back. “Judging by
that totally pensive look, I’m guessing you’re doing it
anyway.”

Reardon semi-smirked. “Guess I am.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Details,
buddy, we need to jot down the details.”

Ethan
immediately shot up and strode to the interactive whiteboard angled
not too far from Reardon’s desk. He picked up a marker, then
with a hooked thumb gestured Reardon to get back
to his laptop. “Bring up the e-mails,” he ordered.

This time, Reardon saluted and headed back
to his chair where he did exactly that. Within seconds, the e-mails
appeared on the board, glaring back at them in bright, oversized
print.

E-mails
dated November 23, 2009 from Thomas Bellante sent to a Charles
Smith – someone who was a regular on Bellante’s list of
correspondents.

Bellante:
In
reference to Claudia Cabriati, he has accepted the
request.

Smith:
Good. What
about the other matter.

Bellante:
It’ll work
out.

Smith:
It better… or
else….

“Or else what,” Ethan parroted their exact
reactions when first reading the e-mails.

To Reardon, a vast number of possibilities
could have answered that question. The fact that Bellante
disappeared mere hours later narrowed those possibilities quite
significantly.

“There were no other e-mails about Cabriati
other than this one,” Ethan said it more as a question.

Reardon
shrugged. “That’s not to say they didn’t exist before we began
intercepting Bellante’s messages.”

“
Or the fact
that Bellante and Smith could’ve been communicating on something
other than what we bugged.” Ethan uncapped the marker. “When did we
first bug Bellante’s office and computer?”

“Well over a year ago.”

“Exact dates, man, not bullshit
approximations.”

“Wednesday, August 19,” Reardon answered,
grinning. He closed down the e-mails, rocked back in his chair and
watched Ethan scribble the date and the corresponding action on the
board.

Ethan stepped back, placed his hands on his
hips and stared at his writing.

“What?” Reardon asked. Ethan was being
uncharacteristically quiet.

“How many leads, Saul,” he whispered,
turning to face him.

Reardon felt his chest squeeze. He knew what
was coming next and he rigidly clenched his jaw.

“Six fricking years of leads, man, and every
single one of them….”

Ethan didn’t
need to say anymore. Reardon knew the rest. Every single one of
them had been dead-ends.

Just as Bellante had been.

“
Aren’t you
getting a little suspicious of it all?”

Of course he was.

“It’s like someone’s always one step
ahead.”

Reardon had
already considered that, particularly when bearing in mind the high
caliber of people involved. But what else could he do? He took a
long slug of his drink and shook off the bristly sensations. “Move
on,” he said in a low, cool voice.

Ethan frowned and stared hard at him.
Reardon looked away.

“
Move on it
is.” Ethan returned to the whiteboard. “Monday, November 23,
2009
– Smith and Bellante communicate in
regards to Cabriati.” He drawled out each word as he printed them.
“Approximately four hours later, whoosh… Bellante vanishes like a
polar bear in an end-of-the-world snowstorm.”

Reardon
winced, was glad to see Ethan’s notes excluded his over-dramatized
simile.

“
When did
our eagle-eye canoeists happen?”

Nine days
had passed before a group of teens discovered Bellante’s
animal-scavenged remains along the marshy fringes of the Mitchell
River, northeast of Melbourne. He passed this on to
Ethan.

“
Got it,”
Ethan said, scribbling furiously. “Wednesday, December
2.”

“
Then
December 15 - Patrick Hollinger.”

“
The drug
addict arrested for Bellante’s murder?”

Reardon
nodded. The evidence had
been solid. Hollinger’s confession and his subsequent fatal
overdose days later, secured it.

“
And still
nothing more on the mysterious Charles Smith?”

“
Not a damn
thing.”
As frequent as Charles Smith had
been on Bellante’s e-mail, the man appeared not to exist. His
e-mail account, obviously created under an alias, was as worthless
as Smith had now become. And no amount of searching conducted by
Reardon could trace his identity.

“
Nothing
more than what we already gathered from the content of the
Smith/Bellante e-mails,” Reardon said, “that Smith and Bellante
worked for several racketeering
organizations.”

Ethan didn’t
appear surprised. “So next came the victim at Cabriati’s
home.”

“
Yep, a year
later; Friday
, December 3 - Alice
Polinski. Age forty-nine. Formerly of Summit Road, a small acreage
on the nearby outskirts of Nambour.”

Ethan
sketched out Polinski’s details onto his timeline. “And what did
our Alice do there?”

Reardon shifted his weight forward and
collected his glass. It felt too warm and he now regretted not
adding the ice. “Our Alice didn’t do much of anything. Spent some
time in Sydney, then sixteen months ago moved back to Summit Road
where she lived in total isolation.”

“
Seems a
radical change of scenery. You said
back
.”

Reardon discovered Polinski had lived in
Summit Road for many years, rented the Sydney place during her
short stint there. “Summit seems to have been her principal
residence.”

“Do we know why she went to Sydney?”

Reardon shook his head.

“Relatives?”

“None so far.”

“And no obvious connection with either
Bellante or Smith.”

“
Not yet.”
Even though Reardon’s gut stressed there was a connection, a bloody
strong one.

There was a brief moment of silence. “So
what was Alice doing in the Zephyr complex?” Ethan asked.
“Holidaying?”

Reardon
flicked his head to one side. “Maybe. However, you don’t normally
get shot while holidaying.”

“
You think?”
Ethan returned the marker, grabbed his beer and fell back into the
sofa. “So what’s
your take on
this?”

“Why does Cabriati want our help? She
continues to claim she doesn’t know Alice Polinski. If that’s the
case, wouldn’t she just spend a few shell-shocked days milking
sympathy from her friends and then get on with her life?”

“True. So she’s lying?”

“The thought has apparently crossed the
minds of some of our smarter little friends in blue. But if
Cabriati did have anything to do with Alice’s death, the last thing
she would want is our help.”

“All very interesting, buddy. But it’s
nothing the police can’t handle.”

This
instantly brought images to Reardon, of specific members of one
particular workforce. He cocked a crooked eyebrow at Ethan. Ethan’s
automatic grin revealed their heads were in the same space. “Okay,
well some of the police. But still a possible pushover to
solve.”

So why did
Reardon’s instincts keep telling him otherwise? Reardon stared at
his drink, was mesmerized by its rhythmically circling
fluid.

And he wondered.

He wondered
what a seemingly innocent twenty-eight-year-old schoolteacher would
have to do with an unscrupulous man like Thomas Bellante and the
brutal murder of a middle-aged woman.

Whatever the answer, Reardon knew one
thing.

He had to find out.

December 13, 2010

3:25 pm

WITHOUT
INDICATING, I
abruptly wrenched my car
onto the gravelly roadside and hit the brakes, slamming the car
still. It instantly sparked off a cacophony of angry horns.
Combined with the unbroken rumble of committed motorists, it only
worsened the already dull thudding in my temple.

I rested my head on the steering wheel, took
comfort in its soft, thick casing and breathed deeply. But it did
little to lessen the pain or the increasing uncertainty bubbling in
my stomach.

I couldn’t
believe what I was about to do, seek the help of a complete
stranger. Had I really become that desperate?

I could
picture Mel’s head nodding furiously, her eyes rolling several
times and I grunted. Mel had been the one who originally set up the
meeting. At first, I had complained about it to her. But, in the
end, who was I to disagree, particularly when the alternative was
the very cold, very intimidating Detective Inspector
Weatherly.

The mere thought of the man was enough to
send me back to that awful night nearly two weeks ago.

The night has changed, mutated into
something wild and ugly.

I am crouched on a plastic chair hugging my knees, rocking.
Sticky, red fluid has thickened on my cool skin and feels odd,
unreal, its unfriendly odor far too familiar. A female police
officer is sitting nearby. She is asking more questions. But this
time, I don’t answer. My head is too crowded with my own
questions.

Bright, painful lights conceal the nearby
darkness. Orders are loud, impatient, and the tireless drone of
inquisitive bystanders drowns out the once soothing hums of the
sea. Orange tape flaps intermittingly, enclosing the horrifying
scene, imprisoning me.

I sneak a morbid glance at Alice’s crumpled body. People
swarm her, buzz around her as if she’s some sort of scientific
display. I turn my head in disgust.

Slow, even footsteps become louder, then stop. I look up to
see a man. He immediately reminds me of a feral fox with his sharp,
narrow, facial features and his shrewd, murky grey eyes, vigilantly
studying, waiting. His silvery hair is slicked back, not a single
strand out of place, as perfect as his dark, creaseless
suit.

He introduces himself as Detective Inspector Weatherly. His
voice is oily, arrogant. “We need you to answer all the questions,
Miss Cabriati, not just the ones you want to.”

He is glaring at me. I attempt to glare back
but eventually my eyes drop to my tangled fingers.

“
Claudia!” It is Mel and my shoulders
immediately slump with relief.

She crouches in front of me. I notice her
clothing first, faded blue gym pants and an over-sized T-shirt.
“You have no bra on,” I whisper, suppressing a roguish giggle. But
I fail and laughter invades the dismal atmosphere like a poisonous
intruder.