Hush Page 21

  A fish tank stood in the corner on a cabinet. Some big, spiky, probably rare fish eyed him from behind the glass. Tox opened the cabinet beneath the tank and raked the contents out. There was a big cardboard box at the back of the shelf that purported to hold fish food. He heard it thump as it hit the carpet.

  That was some heavy fish food.

  He shifted back on his haunches and ripped the box open. Twelve phones of various shapes and sizes tumbled onto the carpet.

  Of course there was more than one. Mallally was a defense lawyer. He needed to be in contact with secret witnesses, private investigators, dirty cops whose communications might damage a defense case if Mallally’s phone records were ever brought into evidence.

  Tox started shoving the phones into the many pockets of his paramedic’s uniform. Downstairs, the noise was carrying on. He could hear Mallally’s voice.

  “—come blathering in here like a bunch of morons, terrorizing my family, damaging my property—”

  “Sir, we’ve got to respond to critical incidents when we’re given them, and this address was listed as—”

  “I don’t want to hear your excuses! Get out! Take your things and get—”

  Tox walked into the hall and nearly ran into two little girls, who must have just come out of their bedrooms. They stopped and stared at him, shuddering with frightened sobs. He was reminded suddenly of what Sticks had said in the ambulance, that cops hated cases with babies. Hated learning what had happened to them, those dark fears realized, when the case found a resolution. He knew from experience it was almost never a good outcome. That it was unlikely, with her mother dead, that Rebel Woods would ever reach the age of the little girls before him.

  He patted their heads as he passed, slipping quietly down the stairs and out the front door.

  Chapter 92

  DETECTIVE NIGEL SPADER listened to Whitt’s story in an empty conference room on the second floor of the Sydney Police Centre in Surry Hills. He then called in five of his special operations men, and they sat on tables and in chairs around him and listened to Whitt explain his theory again. There was a long stretch of silence, before Nigel folded his arms and sat back in his chair and laughed. It was a low, mean sound.

  “So let me just try to get my head around this,” he said, working his brow with his stubby fingers. “I’ve got half the New South Wales Police force out looking for Jax Gotten in every corner of the country, and you think you know where he is because you saw a tattoo on one of his guys.”

  “I don’t know where Gotten is, but I think I know how we can get to him,” Whitt said. He picked up the Wanted flyer he’d taken from a stack in the station staff room, crowded with the faces of the Silver Aces crew. He pointed to the blond, bearded man in the bottom right-hand corner. “Edgar Romtus isn’t just one of Jax’s everyday guys. He’s a lieutenant at least.”

  “Uh-huh,” Nigel sighed.

  “Romtus isn’t just a bikie,” Whitt said. “He has exquisite taste in music. The tattoo that I saw on his arm was a portrait of Mitsuko Uchida, a very famous Japanese pianist.”

  “You sure it was this Uchida dude and not some other guy?” one of the special ops guys asked.

  “I’m certain,” Whitt said. “It was Uchida. And she’s a woman, actually. She was nestled in there among the skulls and spiders and naked girls you’d usually expect to find tattooed on an outlaw biker. Romtus probably hasn’t told his fellow gang members what the tattoo means, who she is. I don’t think they’d really respect it.”

  “Tell me again what this tattoo has to do with where Jax Gotten is?” Nigel snapped.

  Whitt leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, his hands out, appealing. “I looked into Romtus. I was intrigued. A bikie and a classical music fan? That’s weird, right? Well, it turns out Romtus isn’t just a fan. He’s a musician. His parents put him into music school when he was four. He studied in Vienna as a teenager. He composes. He has quite a following on YouTube, under an alias, of course. I guess he couldn’t have his criminal and creative lives clashing.”

  “Are we trying to find a serial-killing bikie and possible baby murderer or are we trying to write a biography on this piece of shit?” someone asked.

  “A couple of years ago,” Whitt said, his jaw tightening as he tried to remain patient, “Romtus purchased a 1984 Bösendorfer Baroque semi-concert grand piano. One owner, matching bench. High-gloss walnut finish. The piano was in showroom condition. He had to have it shipped from Amarillo, Texas. It cost him about $320,000,” Whitt said.

  “Three hundred grand? For a fucking piano?”

  “Before shipping,” Whitt added.

  “Get to the part where we find Jax Gotten,” Nigel said.

  “Romtus wouldn’t leave his piano,” Whitt said.

  There was silence again. The men around Whitt stared at him, unblinking.

  “I know your theory is that Jax Gotten and his whole crew are scattered to the wind because of the mass grave we found out in Panuara, and our suspicions about Tonya and Rebel Woods,” Whitt said. “Your guys are looking for them in every hiding place they know of, and they’re right to. Most of Gotten’s guys are probably on their way north, to Cairns, to hide out in the wetlands or to try to hitch rides to Thailand. It would be madness to stay here in Sydney, right? But I think Edgar Romtus has stayed. I think he’ll be near his house somewhere, waiting for all this to die down. He has an apartment in Erskineville where he stays when he’s not out in Panuara.”

  “That’s where the expensive piano is,” Nigel said. “The piano he’s risking life in jail to stick by?”

  “The piano was the heart of the Jewish household in pre-war Germany,” Whitt said. “Many victims of the Holocaust were taken from their homes because they left their escape too late. While some fled, others stayed behind trying to find transportation solutions for their pianos. It wasn’t just an instrument or a…a piece of furniture. It was a family member. Romtus won’t want us coming around and trashing the piano looking for signs of where he is in his apartment. He’ll be trying to organize the piano’s safe removal.”

  The men around Whitt looked at each other.

  “If we find Edgar Romtus, put the heat on him, we can find Jax Gotten,” Whitt said.

  The men got up from their seats and started heading toward the door.

  “I can’t go after Romtus myself,” Whitt called after them. “I’ll need backup.”

  “How about this,” Nigel said as he stood to leave. “You find Edgar Romtus, one of the country’s most wanted men, sitting in his house playing his piano. You do that and I’ll not only give you as much backup as you want on any case you ever have from this day forth, but I’ll also give you my badge.”

  Chapter 93

  THE MEN STORMED into Crazy Connelly’s Phones and Accessories in Bondi Junction shopping center, a fast-moving mass in navy-blue paramedic uniforms. Their stride was so determined that the elderly couple perusing iPhone cases on the wall left the store immediately. The clerk, a thin teenage boy with a fluffy mustache, straightened his lime-green shirt and met them at a display cabinet full of Samsungs.

  “Welcome to Crazy Connelly’s, where telecommunications excellence is our—”

  “Chargers,” Tox said, cutting off the kid. He started heaping phones on top of the cabinet. The men around him watched as twelve phones emerged from various pockets: Samsungs, cheap, battered Nokias, some brands Tox had never heard of. The store clerk picked up the nearest phone and looked at the men.

  “What is all this?”

  “They’re phones, kid.” Tommy Mercer put his big arms on the display case, making the glass creak in its frame. “You look new on the job, but not that new. We want chargers to fit all these phones, and we want to plug them in here and now. Most of the phones are out of battery, and those that aren’t have passwords. You’re going to find a way around the passwords and get us into the phones one by one as they charge up.”

  The young store clerk looked up as he hea
rd the metal shutters at the front of the store sliding down. Jelly was pulling them into place, blocking the view of confused patrons sitting in the food court, their forks hovering over their buffet Chinese food.

  “Uh, I have chargers for some of these models,” the clerk said. “But…but I can’t bypass a phone’s security, not without identification from the handset purchaser. And, sir, I have to ask you to open the doors. My manager—”

  “Kid,” Tox said. “Take a deep breath.”

  The clerk did as he was told. He held a lungful of air until Tox nodded for him to let it out. Ryan went around the counter to unplug the store cameras.

  “I’m your manager now,” Tox said. “There will be no identification from handset purchasers. Unless you want a bunch of real paramedics racing in here in fifteen minutes to try to reassemble your body parts, you’re going to get the chargers. All of them. Even if you have to call other stores. You’re going to bypass the security on these phones and hand them over. That’s the reality of the situation. It might go against the employee handbook, but it’s happening and there’s not a lot you can do about it.”

  The store was suddenly very bright and very quiet. The store clerk listened to the buzzing of the fluorescent bulbs above him, looked at the faces of the men in paramedic uniforms.

  He picked up the nearest handset and examined its charging port, then went to a cupboard at the side of the room.

  Chapter 94

  POPS AND I sat at the kitchen table together, the phone between us, the screen lit. I could hear familiar sounds coming through the speaker. Doors buzzing and shutting, clanging noises bouncing down hallways. Women having shouted conversations between cells. Footsteps. The sounds were making my stomach twist, and Pops knew it. He picked up one of the fluffy dogs from the floor and handed it to me. I stroked the warm, panting creature as we listened some more.

  “Where are you?” I said finally, when I could stand the silence no longer.

  “I’m heading up the fire stairs in C Block,” Terry Lancer said. Doctor Goldman’s lover sounded nervous, his voice muffled, probably as he tried to hide the earpiece running from his ear down his collar and into his shirt, connected to the phone in his pocket. “This is insane, you know that? What am I going to say if one of the supervisors comes along and I’m rifling through an armory in the female section. How do I explain this?”

  “Don’t get caught,” I said, “and you won’t have to explain it.”

  “What’s the theory here?” Pops asked me. “An inmate was trying to break into the armory and steal a gun to make their escape, and Doctor Goldman interrupted them?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  “How were they hoping to get into the armory?” Pops asked. “Surely it’s locked up tight. Seems like a failed mission even before Doctor Goldman’s appearance put a stop to it.”

  “Maybe the inmate had keys,” I said.

  “Highly unlikely,” Pops said. “If they had a set of keys, wouldn’t they have just let themselves out of the prison?”

  “Maybe they didn’t have keys, but they were hoping Goldman would go for her weapon after the second lockdown. They figured Goldman would unlock the armory. They met her there and stabbed her.”

  “And then didn’t take anything?”

  “I don’t know, Pops,” I said. “I’m clutching at straws here.”

  “I’m at the armory,” Lancer said on the phone. “Shit. Shit. There’s another officer coming. I’m going to keep walking, circle back.”

  I realized I was holding my breath. If Terry Lancer got caught helping me investigate Doctor Goldman’s murder inside the prison, he’d be fired. I’d have burned my only source of access to the murder scene, to the armory, to anything I might need inside the walls of the institution to prove Dolly’s innocence. I listened to his footsteps, pictured him turning the corner on C Block’s second floor, pacing in front of a row of cells before he turned back. Pops lifted his head as we heard the footsteps stop and a buzzer sounding.

  “OK, I’m going in,” Lancer breathed. I heard the armory door closing. “I don’t have a lot of time. I’m not going to get caught here, OK? I’m looking at the rows of guns. They’re all here. Twelve pistols, twelve rifles, twelve bean-bag guns, twelve tasers.”

  “Count them,” I said.

  “I don’t need to count them. They’re sitting in racks with padlocks on them. There are only forty-eight slots. They’re all full.”

  “Count them anyway, Lancer,” I snapped.

  Pops and I listened to the young guard counting under his breath.

  “They’re all here. I told you, this armory has been checked a dozen times since…since the murder. They’d have noticed a missing gun, Harry,” Lancer pleaded. “Now I gotta go.”

  “What else is in there?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “You said it yourself. They’d have noticed a missing gun. What would they not have noticed? What else is in there?”

  I heard items shifting on shelves. Boxes sliding. “Uh. I don’t know. Jesus. There are handcuffs. There’s a rack on the wall with batons. Cords. Papers. Gun cleaning stuff. Documents.”

  “What papers?” Pops squinted.

  “Mostly records of who’s done the armory checks. Weapons cleaning schedules and instructions.” Lancer sighed hard. “There are two fire extinguishers and a rack of mace.”

  “Mace?” I sat up in my seat, thinking fast.

  “Twelve mace guns. They’re all here.”

  Pops was watching me. Lancer’s breathing was rattling the microphone attached to his phone.

  “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Wait,” I said. “The mace guns. They’re the small ones the guards attach to their belts, right? Black tube, about six inches long. They’re the same as the police riot squad gets. Finger ring and trigger lever at the top.”

  “So?”

  “So those mace guns need ammunition,” I said. “There’s the gun itself and then there’s the canister that goes inside. They’re refillable.”

  “OK.” Lancer’s tone made it clear he wasn’t following.

  “So the small aerosol canister that goes inside the gun,” I said. “Are they all there?”

  Pops and I waited. I heard metal tubes clanging between Lancer’s breaths.

  “All the guns have canisters,” he said. “And there’s a box of refills. They’re all here, too.”

  “Goddamn it.” Pops put his face in his hands. “I thought you had it.”

  “Lancer,” I said. “Scratch the canisters.”

  “What?”

  “Scratch them with your fingernail or your keys or something.”

  “Why the hell would I do that?”

  “Because it’s possible one of them has been painted.”

  “Painted?” Pops and Lancer spoke the word at the same time.

  “Those aerosol canisters of mace,” I said. “They’re about the same size as the can of aerosol deodorant you get when you arrive at Johnsonborough. Wait here.”

  I ran to the garage and retrieved the deodorant I’d brought home from prison.

  “Remember this?” I asked Pops as he took it from me. “The deodorant is aerosol because it can’t be tampered with. If you mess with the canister at all the spray won’t work. All a guard has to do in a shakedown is press the plunger, see if it sprays. The roll-on style deodorant, you just take the ball out and fill it with—”

  “This is insane,” Lancer snapped. “Someone is going to find me here!”

  “Someone might have swapped out a can of deodorant with a can of mace,” I shouted over him. “The mace cans are plain black, aren’t they? It would be an easy paint job. There were women working on wrought-iron chairs in the workshop at the prison. Painting them black.”

  “This is a hell of a long shot, Harry.” Pops put the can down. “How the hell is an inmate going to get access to a can of black paint without anyone noticing?”

  “They go
t access to a kitchen knife,” I said. “They might have had access to the armory. Just scratch the cans, Lancer. Do it now before I jump down the phone and throttle you.”

  I gripped the dog in my lap too hard. It wriggled out of my hands and jumped to the floor. Pops and I watched each other’s faces as the sound of Lancer shuffling around in the armory came through the line. Agonizing seconds ticked by. Sweat was rolling down my sides beneath my shirt.

  “Oh my God,” Lancer said finally. “Oh my God.”

  “It’s there?”

  “It’s here.” I could hear the sound of metal on metal as Lancer scratched at the can. “It’s fucking here. It’s blue underneath. I can see writing.”

  “OK,” Pops said. “Someone stole a canister of mace. Why do that? Why kill the doctor just to do that? You’re never going to escape the prison armed with just a canister of mace.”

  “Lancer,” I said, “I want you to leave the armory. Go to the front office. Find the transport roster.”

  “What do I do with it?” he asked.

  “Tell me who’s leaving the prison today.”

  Chapter 95

  WHITT STRUMMED HIS fingers on the steering wheel, watching Edgar Romtus’s apartment block while he listened to the tactical channel Nigel had taken command of for the day. Hour by hour, the strike teams looking for Jax Gotten all over the state checked in and gave their reports as they smashed their way through known bikie safe houses, checking locations off an exhaustive list. The teams hit Jax’s mother’s house, and the houses of family members and ex-wives of all the Silver Aces members. Whitt knew that in Queensland, similar raids were being conducted. The airports were being watched, especially the small rural ones. There was no one looking for Jax’s men here, at the apartment of one of his right-hand men. For any member of the crew to stay in their own home would be ludicrous.