Blood Feud (10 page)

Joanna pushed through the Bycrafts and hauled me upwards with a constrictive hand around my upper arm. I’d have a bruise there tonight.

“Get away from her,” she snarled, elbowing one of them in the face. “I’ve had a gutful of you bastards ruining this town for everyone.”

“Nobody cares what you think, you drag queen freak,” growled Mark Bycraft.

“Oh yeah? You know what? I’ve had a gutful of your smart mouths too.”

“So what?”

“So bring it on, shitheads,” she invited.

“You want a piece of me?”

“No, I don’t want a piece of just you. I want a piece of the whole fucking bunch of you.”

“Joanna,” I implored helplessly, my arm still uncomfortably clamped in her grip. “Stop egging them on. You’re not helping the situation at all. What’s the matter with you today?”

She stopped then and released her iron hold on my arm. Her manly face crumpled, her mascara running more, streaking her cheeks. “I should have checked on her, Tess. I saw the mail piling up, but I was too busy to take five minutes out of my day to stop and check. She’s probably been lying there for days, all by herself with nobody caring.”

I was about to tell her she shouldn’t blame herself for that when Garth ran forward and crashed his branch down on her head, buckling her knees. She immediately sprang back and launched into him with a fury that was terrifying to witness. She pummelled him with her fists, a thin trickle of blood wending its way down the side of her face.

And that attack unleashed chaos.

I was caught in the middle of the writhing crowd, whacking people with my baton, trying to defend myself from a fierce rain of fists and feet. I was shoved and bumped, squashed up against people and dodging punches, someone even biting me at one point. All the while, sneaky hands tried to grab hold of the weapons from my belt.

“Get out of it!” I grunted, bringing my baton down hard on Chad’s hand as he reached for my spray.

He squealed in pain, before giving up on the fight. “Screw this. I’m going in. Mikey! Sean! Let’s go in and get some photos. We’ll probably be able to sell them to the newspaper.”

And the three teens pushed through the crowd, ducked under the tape and ran towards the house.

Chapter 7

“Hey! That’s a crime scene, you idiots! Get out of there!” I yelled, aghast. If the Super found anyone tramping around the house, potentially compromising the integrity of any evidence, she would personally skin the Sarge and me and turn us into matching lampshades.

I desperately fought through the battling townsfolk, ramming a few of them to encourage them to move out of my way. But I had barely broken free by the time the teens reached the stairs, surprising Kevin who rushed from the house, the Sarge in tow.

“Get off this property now!” the Sarge bellowed, pushing Kevin aside and charging out to confront them. He had the advantage of bulk and height in addition to his loud voice and weapons. The Bycrafts, particularly the younger ones, were much more inclined to pay attention to him, where in the same situation they would simply scorn me. When he noticed the fracas at the front and my dishevelled, dusty appearance, my baton still dangling from my hand, I could almost hear the sound of impatience he made. “I’ve just about had it with this town.”

He strode down the stairs, glaring at the teens.

“I said to get off this property and you have five seconds to do it before I pull out my capsicum spray. And if I find that you’ve destroyed any evidence by trespassing in this crime scene, I’ll be handing you over to Superintendent Midden to deal with personally.” And he virtually bulldozed them backwards down the stairs. They turned tail and legged it. Any threat of personal involvement with the Super usually had that effect on most people.

But as the Sarge headed towards the brawling crowd with the clear and firm intent to impose some serious order, I noticed Greg Bycraft hurdling over the tape and sprinting up around the back of the house.

“I have him,” I assured the Sarge, taking off. I threw over my shoulder, “You sort that bunch out. They’re not listening to me.”

And to the sound of his voice barking out staccato instructions directing everyone to put their weapons down and move away from each other, I ran to the back of the house. I rounded the corner to spy Greg slipping inside the back door. Infuriated, I jumped up the back stairs and flung the door open, only to find him wild-eyed and moving swiftly around the house, pressing his fingertips on every surface he came across.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shouted, startling him, even though I knew immediately what he was up to. I could almost see the rusty cogs cranking in his overheating brain. My earlier instinct was correct – he’d been inside this house since Miss G was murdered, probably breaking in under the cover of darkness. And he obviously hadn’t been as careful as he should have. The Sarge’s comment about evidence must have flicked some switch in his head. He was suddenly afraid he’d left fingerprints behind.

He panicked at my voice and ran down the hall, touching the walls, light switches, door jambs and handles. I chased after him to Miss G’s bedroom, where I found him handling her jewellery case. I pulled out my spray.

“Don’t move one muscle, Greg Bycraft. You are in so much trouble right now.”

His eyes shifted left and right, seeking an escape. Abruptly, he bolted towards me, attempting to reach the door.

So I sprayed him.

He instantly dropped to the ground, howling in agony and rubbing his eyes. I flipped him over and knelt on his back while I cuffed him.

“Get up!” I demanded, hauling him upwards. “Congratulations champ, you are now a prime suspect.”

He stumbled to his feet and I propelled him out of the room and into the bathroom, splashing water into eyes, a surprised Dr Fenn stepping in to assist. When the pain had abated slightly for him, I pushed him out to the front and released one of his handcuffs to cuff him to the veranda railing. He could sit on the steps and wait to answer some very interesting questions from the dees when they arrived.

After double-checking that his cuffs were secure, I ran down the stairs to help the Sarge who wasn’t having much more luck than me in quelling the rabble. Tempers were flying too high and resentments running too deep for anyone to let it go easily.

“What kind of example are you setting your children?” he growled in exasperation, pulling Mark Bycraft off one of the farmers. But no sooner had he separated them, they threw themselves on each other again, snarling enough to show teeth.

It seemed hopeless – two cops against fifty-something feuding townsfolk. And as I fended off Garth Bycraft’s branch again, I wondered how this was ever going to end. An image flashed through my mind of the Sarge and me still here at midnight trying to stop the madness.

And that was how the Super found us.

The first hint of her arrival was a loud burst of wailing from her car’s siren as it skidded to a halt, mere centimetres from the mob. Considering her driver was Bum Bunion (or Burn Grunion as his parents named him), a detective constable with less smarts than a clod of grass, I was pretty sure that was merely a lucky coincidence rather than any type of precision driving.

The Super leapt out of the car and stood with her hands on her hips surveying the melee with contemptuous disbelief. She didn’t hold much of an opinion of the town or its occupants. I wasn’t surprised that she came in person. A suspicious death in her district always attracted her personal attention. That’s what made her such a good commander.

“Fuck me dead,” she trumpeted. “What a sight! Looks as if someone put moonshine in the water supply again.”

Fortunately for us, she’d brought a couple of uniforms along and they soon pulled up in their patrol car, wasting no time in coming to our assistance. Bum also waded into the middle. He clutched the collars of one of the townsfolk and one of the Bycrafts in a choking hold in each hand, driving them to the edge of the crowd, where he thrust them away, sending them tumbling with no dignity into the dirt. Then he moved back in and did it again with another couple.

Between the five of us, we eventually managed to separate everyone, barely a person, including us, left unbruised and unbloodied. It was not one of Little Town’s proudest moments.

The Super watched on with scornful interest, but didn’t intervene. Neither did the pair of Big Town detectives she’d assigned to the case who stood next to her with crossed arms, shouting out annoying instructions. I’d been hoping it would be Mr X and his partner Zelda who’d be given the case, but it was one of the old-hands, Gil, a dark-skinned, liquid-eyed man. He was joined by a dee I’d never met before, Nathan, a giant, sandy-haired man with an unsmiling countenance so craggy you could abseil down it.

When the dust settled, the Super regarded everyone coldly, her blue eyes sharply frosty, her blonde hair as soft and neat as a tangle of barbed wire. Judging from her curled lip and rumpled brow, she was clearly in a foul mood, not an uncommon state for her. I had my fingers crossed that she hadn’t given up smoking again – if she had, she would make sure
everyone
suffered along with her.

She first addressed the townsfolk, her face creased with disgust. “What the fuck is the matter with you people? Is it a full moon or something? God knows my esteem for this shithole of a town was already smaller than an ant’s arsehole, but this,” and she waved her hand around at the panting mob, “is just breathtaking dumbfuckery at its worst. So unless you people want to be obediently bending over for a hairy stranger in the Wattling Bay watch house tonight, I suggest you quickly make yourselves scarce.”

They slinked away individually and in pairs, increasingly embarrassed and ashamed by their actions. There would be a lot of regrets in town tomorrow. I only hoped they didn’t come with any retaliation.

She next turned her attention to the Bycrafts. “And you pieces of arse-scum can just fuck off back to your troll caves before I remember all the hundreds of reasons you should be rotting in jail.” Despite their half-hearted attempts at defiant backchat that earned a few of them another scruff-choking from Bum, they too decided that their wisest choice was to slither away.

Then it was our turn for a blistering. I didn’t know how the Sarge was feeling, but when those blue eyes landed on me, I swallowed nervously. She contemplated us for a few long minutes, her eyes shifting between the Sarge and me. But instead of saying anything, she strode away, under the crime tape, towards the house. And somehow that seemed even worse than being yelled at.

“You two,” she shouted over her shoulder, indicating the uniforms she’d brought with her. “Guard the perimeter.” They took up post each side of the driveway. “The rest of you get your arses up here now. Forensics will arrive any second.”

She stopped at the stairs, staring at Greg Bycraft. “What’s this dickhead doing here?”

“Um,” I spoke up, desperately marshalling my thoughts, trying to think of a good way to break the news to her. “He entered the house, ma’am, so I detained him for questioning.”

She spun around, fixing steely eyes on me. “What did you say?”

I swallowed and I’m positive everyone must have heard it. “He . . . he entered the house, ma’am.”

She swore under her breath. “Did he touch anything?”

My cheeks began to burn, and I suddenly wished I was anywhere else except here. “Yes, ma’am. He touched . . . um, everything. He touched everything.”

“He
what
?”

A heavy dread settled on me. “He touched everything, ma’am.”

She crossed her arms and glared at me. “Let me get this straight. You allowed an unauthorised person to enter a crime scene where you then proceeded to let him touch ‘everything’.”

“I didn’t –”

“
You weren’t asked to speak, Senior Constable!
” she roared. Nobody opened their mouth or moved. I completely stopped breathing for a few ticks of the clock. “Do you have any comprehension of how many ways you have probably fucked up this crime scene?”

I didn’t dare respond, not sure if she expected an answer from me or not, but not willing to risk it.

“Ma’am, we had –” started the Sarge.

“
I don’t remember asking you for your opinion, Sergeant!
” she shouted at him. “I don’t have a flea’s balls worth of interest in listening to what either of you have to say for yourself. All I’m interested in is that two of my so-called experienced officers, who obviously don’t know shit about policing, have probably fucked up a murder investigation before it even started.”

After a further few minutes of scalding from her white-hot anger, she spun on her heel and stalked to the front door. “Save me from fucking amateur hour.”

At the door, she stopped and turned to face us again. None of us had moved. “I need someone competent to come in to show me the crime scene, but I guess you’ll have to do instead, Maguire.” His mouth tightened at the insult. “And you,” she nodded her head towards me, “can go buy us some coffees. I presume you’re capable of doing that without fucking it up.”

The Sarge threw me a sympathetic glance as I sidled quietly down the stairs, my cheeks blazing with shame. Kevin fell into step next to me without a word. In the patrol car I sat for a few moments, clutching the steering wheel, my eyes squeezed tight. That reprimand had been my most painful professional experience, made a hundred times worse by the fact that it had been Fiona who’d ripped me a new one. Normally so supportive of me, her anger stung like salt on a wound. And on top of the shock of discovering Miss G, it all just felt a little too much to bear.