Felicity Young - An Easeful Death

Two other people had come forward, co-workers of Kitty Bonilla. The women said they had seen Bonilla arguing with a man on a Northbridge street corner on the night of her death and that he’d driven off angrily in an old VW beetle.

Monty paused and rubbed his chin. Easing out of his sofa, he went over to his bookshelf and removed a copy of one of De Vakey’s paperbacks. It didn’t take long to find the index entry he was after and soon his eyes were scanning the print until they locked onto the letters VW.

He read aloud. ‘Statistics recorded in the seventies and eighties show the VW to be the preferred vehicle of the serial killer.’ I’ll bet Volkswagen weren’t too pleased with that news , he thought. He shook his head at the absurdity and settled back onto his sofa to continue his reading.

The girls had wondered why their friend would turn down a customer and when they’d asked, Kitty told them that the man had a badly managed colostomy bag. She’d serviced him before and found him repulsive, didn’t think she could cope again.

Monty wrinkled his nose. Poor guy.

The man was identified as Reece Harper, owner of a VW beetle, later the prime suspect in both murders.

Wondering about Harper’s alibi, Monty turned to the section where it should have been and found two pages missing. Must have been put in the wrong place , he thought, working his way from one file to the other.

The search proved fruitless. He became aware of a cold feeling in his chest. Contaminated evidence was bad enough, but deliberately removed documents? That was something else. Michelle’s allegations of a cover-up were looking more likely by the minute. All he could do now was hope to find the relevant information on the computer database. Once information had been transferred from hard copy to the computer it was almost impossible to erase. The only way it wouldn’t be there was if it had never been entered in the first place.

He pushed aside his glasses for a moment and rubbed his eyes, aware of how tired he’d become. He resolved to go back to the Bonilla file in the morning with fresh eyes.

Unable to call it a night though, he turned to the file of the second victim, twenty-one year old prostitute Lorna Dunn. She was found near the Pioneer Women’s memorial by an old man out for an early morning stroll. She’d been stripped naked and posed provocatively under a tree. She too had been violated post mortem by a bottle and had a large amount of Rohypnol in her system. Her hair had also been hacked. Some hair was found at the site, but no fibres, no prints and no foreign DNA. There was no documented evidence of anything written on her body and no jewellery listed among her personal effects.

Her estranged father was serving ten years in prison for armed robbery and had not been interviewed by police at all. Her alcoholic mother had known very little about her daughter’s lifestyle, but an unnamed streetwalker friend had told police that Lorna Dunn had turned a client down earlier that evening.

Monty paused and sucked his pen. Why wasn’t the friend named? Was this another blunder or a deliberate omission?

He shook his head in exasperation when he saw that the nameless woman had identified Lorna’s rejected client as Reece Harper.

Not having enough evidence to charge Harper, police had instigated round-the-clock surveillance. Reece Harper died in a car accident three months later and the case was officially closed.

The ringing phone broke into his reading and he hauled himself to his feet, swaying with exhaustion. He really should be calling it a night.

‘Monty.’ It was Wayne. ‘Sorry to call so late, but I thought you’d want to know the latest.’

‘Go for it.’

‘I ran a background check on the hobby shop guy, Thompson, like you said. I also spoke to his boss and it looks like we can rely on him.’ Wayne’s voice on the end of the phone was obscured by background noise.

‘Wayne, I can hardly hear you,’ Monty said. ‘Where are you and what the hell’s that racket?’

‘I’m back at Central, sorry, the cleaner’s vacuuming the incident room. Wait a minute, he’s in your office now.’ Monty heard a bang as the door was kicked closed. ‘Is that better?’

‘Much. So I suppose it’s too much to hope that the man paid for the paint with his credit card.’

‘Jeez, aren’t you the optimist.’

‘The guy’s smart, but even the smart ones slip up sometimes,’ Monty said.

‘True. The hobby shop man, Thompson, ended up being very helpful, we went through it again with him, but he hasn’t remembered anything new. I organised a session with the artist and we now have a composite sketch. Problem is, the guy was wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses. Thompson said it was the glasses that made him memorable—it wasn’t exactly sunglass weather.’

‘What about the paint?’

‘He gave me a sample of bronze from the batch he sold to our mystery man. I’ve dropped it to the lab but it’ll be a few days before they can tell us if it’s the same stuff on Linda Royce.’

‘I’ve a hunch it’ll match. I’ve been looking at the KP files; I’m convinced we’re looking at the same perpetrator.’

There was a beat of silence from the other end of the phone. ‘We’ve been told to drop that—you after an early retirement?’

‘If that’s what it takes.’ Monty decided to keep his discovery of the missing documents from Wayne for the moment. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions until he’d checked the computer records for himself.

Wayne’s sigh came through the line as a hiss. ‘I don’t understand Baggly’s attitude at all. If it’s the press he’s worried about, he’s just going to get himself into deeper shit.’

‘I’m hoping De Vakey will help me show Baggly the light. If not I’ll have to go higher up the food chain. There are just too many similarities between the Royce murder and the KP killings to ignore a connection.’

‘I’m glad to be able to leave the politics to you.’

‘Thanks.’ Monty sighed and rubbed his forehead. ‘How about Angus and the taxis?’

‘Nothing yet. No trace on the roofies and no chloroform listed as stolen.’

‘I want someone on the police personnel records. De Vakey seems to think a disgruntled ex-cop might be behind this. Check out all the dismissals over, say, the last five years.’

‘Well, I suppose there’s no harm giving it a go. See you in the morning, yeah?’ But Wayne didn’t put the phone down; there was something else on his mind. ‘Umm, Mont.’

‘Mm?’

A beat. ‘Did you know Tye Davis is in town?’

Monty said nothing. A pulse began to throb in his temple. He put his fingers to it and tried to soothe it away. So what if Tye Davis was back in town? There was no reason why he wouldn’t return to the city. But it was strange how Tye’s name had sprung to mind when he was reading about the KP murders, and stranger still how Wayne should bring him up at this stage in their conversation.

‘I think he might be out to make trouble for Stevie. He mentioned something about the kid. After custody, I reckon,’ Wayne said.

Monty felt the blood drain from his face. Almost overwhelmed with dizziness he slumped against the wall. ‘That can’t happen,’ he said to himself. Or thought he had.

‘What was that? Are you okay?’ Wayne asked.

‘Yeah, I’m just tired.’ Monty rubbed his face. ‘I want Tye on top of your list of disgruntled cops. Check him out, find out where he was when Linda Royce was murdered.’

‘Surely you don’t think—’

‘Just do it.’

When Monty replaced the receiver his head was swimming.

Back on the sofa he took a large slug of juice. He had to put his feelings aside, be objective about this, look at nothing but the facts of the case and not let his judgement be tainted with the odour of Tye Davis.