Violent Exposure (3 page)

Oxygen whooshed as Aidan managed to turn the cylinder on.

Mick counted to ten while Aidan fumbled to turn it off again but the cylinder continued to hiss. ‘Seal’s not seated properly.’

‘Oh.’ The hissing stopped. Aidan piled the gear back into the Viva and zipped it up. ‘This is crap.’

Mick ignored him and got behind
the wheel.

Aidan stowed the Viva and slammed the door. ‘Last night among other jobs Carly and I did a man with a cold, a boy who vomited once and was frightened because he doesn’t usually vomit, and an idiot with an ingrown hair.’ Mick started the engine.

Aidan flung himself into the passenger seat. ‘People are so stupid.’

Mick said, ‘Some are so stupid they even snoop in other people’s bags.’

Aidan turned the mirror and checked his hair. Mick turned it back without a word.

They did small cases until close to midnight and Mick was glad. He didn’t have to think too much, didn’t need to watch Aidan too closely as he examined the patient on scene, didn’t need to drive with one eye on the rear-view when he was in the back of the ambulance with them. With some trainees you could relax.
With Aidan you couldn’t, but at least on these cases the fool wouldn’t kill anyone.

The drawback of not being on high alert was having time to think about telling Jo.

They got into the ambulance at St Vincent’s after delivering an elderly man with a blocked catheter and Mick waited for Aidan to pick up the microphone and tell Control they were clear.

Instead Aidan tossed the folder on the dash
and stretched, pressing his hands against the cabin roof. ‘Didn’t sleep much today.’

Mick pointed at the mike.

‘Did something much more fun.’ Aidan linked his fingers behind his head.

‘If he doesn’t have a case for us, I want to get an Icy Pole.’

Aidan picked up the mike but didn’t press the transmit button. ‘Got myself laid.’

Mick rolled his eyes. ‘Just call him.’

‘Thirty-seven’s clear
St Vincent’s,’ Aidan said into the mike.

‘Stand by,’ Control replied.

‘It was hot stuff,’ Aidan said to Mick. ‘Why are you here?’ Mick said.

Aidan glanced around as if not sure what he was referring to.

‘In this job,’ Mick said.

‘To look after people.’

It rang as true as a user on the nod swearing he’d taken nothin, man, nothin.

‘No, really: why?’

‘Thirty-seven,’ Control said. ‘Call to
woman collapsed, query stabbed, 11 Iredale Road, Potts Point. Police are on the way.’

Mick started the engine and accelerated away from the hospital.

‘Thirty-seven, you copy?’

Mick flipped on the lights and siren, then glanced over to see Aidan wide-eyed in the glare of the oncoming headlights, the mike still in his hand.

‘You going to answer him?’ he said.

But Aidan was frozen.

Mick grabbed
the mike and pressed the transmit button. ‘Thirty-seven’s on the case.’ He rehooked the mike. ‘You’ve done a stabbing before. You’ll be fine.’

Aidan didn’t answer and Mick focused on the road ahead. The night was moonless and the orange streetlights made everything look cold and tired. He swung the ambulance around slowing cars then saw police cars tear across the intersection ahead. He followed
them to the address and pulled up outside. Cops talked at the front of the townhouse and a group of neighbours stood bunched together in the street.

Aidan stumbled out of the truck without calling Control, then towards the house without getting any gear. Mick swore then radioed on scene. He grabbed the Oxy-Viva, first-aid kit and drug box himself, and lugged them across the footpath to where
Aidan had stopped at the steps leading up to a small porch.

He dropped the Viva on Aidan’s foot. ‘Forget something?’

Aidan looked like he was in a daze, but he picked it up.

The copper at the door pointed out dry blood smears on the doorstep and a couple dotted up the hall. ‘Make sure you step over those.’

Aidan didn’t move. Mick pushed past him. The lights were on in the hallway and he followed
the cop past the bloodstains to the kitchen at the end. The back door stood wide open.

‘If you could just confirm it,’ the cop said.

A woman wearing only a pair of blue silk boxers was slumped against a stainless-steel fridge. Three stab wounds were visible in her left breast. Blood had poured from them in great red rivers, coating her chest and stomach and now lying in a dark pool around her.
There were fingermarks in the smears and streams as if she or somebody else had tried to stop the flow. Her hands lay limp and bloodied in the pool by her sides and her light brown hair hung over her face. Mick averted his eyes from her bloodstained feet and the kick marks at the pool’s dark edge.

Aidan edged into the room. He was the treating officer for the shift, therefore it was his job to
check the body, but he simply stood and stared, not moving even when Mick nudged him.

The polished timber floor was spotted and smeared with blood, and Mick was careful to step around the marks as he moved close and crouched in a token feel for a carotid pulse. He touched the back of his wrist to the woman’s cool shoulder. The blood on her skin was dry and the pool had clotted. Looking up under
her wall of hair he saw that her brown, half-open eyes were dull. He shook his head at the cop.

The cop nodded. ‘I’ll get you to go back outside.’

Mick picked up his gear and bumped Aidan in the leg with the first-aid kit. ‘Come on.’

They went back out to the small porch. More neighbours had gathered and were kept back behind a police tape. Mick looked at Aidan and even in the poor light could
see he was pale.

‘First murder’s always the worst,’ he said. It wasn’t true. They were all bad. You had to not think about the person’s last moments.

Aidan still held the Oxy-Viva. Mick tugged it free from his grip and put it down. ‘You can take your gloves off,’ he said. It was almost touching to see him so shaken up. Maybe he wasn’t completely heartless and stupid after all. ‘You okay?’

Aidan said weakly, ‘Carly and I were here last night for a domestic.’

Ah.
Mick stripped off his gloves and put his hand on Aidan’s shoulder. ‘It’s easier when you haven’t met them.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ Aidan said.

It wasn’t a particularly gruesome scene compared with some Mick had faced. Yet Aidan was hot and sweaty to touch, even through his shirt.

‘You feel faint?’ he asked.

Aidan shook
his head but he looked dazed. Mick pushed him into a cane chair in the corner of the porch and made him put his head on his knees. ‘If that doesn’t help you’d better lie down.’

Aidan folded his arms around his legs. Mick felt a little sorry for him. A cop walked up the steps and glanced over. Mick shrugged at her and she smiled.

He crouched beside Aidan. ‘Everyone feels faint at some time. Did
you eat dinner tonight?’

Aidan sat up. There were tears in his eyes. ‘I think it’s my fault.’

‘What?’

‘Remember I said I got laid today.’

Mick nodded.

‘Well . . .’

Mick stared at him. ‘No.’

Aidan put his head in his hands.

‘You’re serious? You slept with her?’

‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘What, she just fell into your lap when you were naked? Jesus, Aidan.’ Mick stood up.

‘What if her husband
found out?’ Aidan hugged his knees. ‘What if he killed her because of me?’

D
etective Ella Marconi parked behind Detective Dennis Orchard’s car and got out into the cool midnight air. The ambulance, oddly, was still on scene, a uniformed constable leaning against the bonnet while one paramedic sat inside the cabin and the other stood by the closed door with his arms folded and his gaze fixed on the ground. Ella recognised him as Mick Schultz, former colleague of Sophie
Phillips who was currently on trial for manslaughter. That had all started, what, sixteen months ago now? when Sophie’s cop husband Chris was shot and their baby Lachlan kidnapped. Ella and Dennis had been leads on the case and worked it bloody hard, but Sophie had pretty much lost it and ended up involved in the kidnapping then death of the man she thought responsible. They’d got Lachlan back
soon after, and Chris had recovered fine, so that was good. Sophie had made a full confession and been charged, and lost her job, and now sat in a packed courtroom day after day while the jury watched her every move and people streamed in and out of the witness box. Ella knew she’d need a miracle to be found not guilty, and had little doubt that Mick knew it too. She hadn’t been in court for his
testimony – having given hers, she’d had to get back to work – but had heard he’d almost broken down in tears. Now here he was, the presence of the constable indicating that somehow he and the other paramedic were more than ordinary first-on-scene witnesses.

And here was Dennis. ‘Hey,’ he said with a grin.

Ella smiled at him as she crossed the footpath, a news cameraman on the street following
her with his light. ‘Hey, yourself.’

It was their first homicide together since she’d left the Unsolved unit three months earlier. They’d been busy on different cases, finding time to talk only while waiting to be called into court, and it felt good to be standing next to him here in the night, a brand new case on their hands, the duty officer lowering his voice to give them a summary neither
the gawkers nor the news crews could hear.

‘Victim is thirty-one-year-old Suzanne Crawford,’ the duty officer said. ‘Found tonight at 2345 by a friend who was driving past and says he noticed the front door was open. He knocked and called out and when he got no reply he went inside. Said the place was in darkness but something felt funny, says he was worried they’d been burgled, so he turned
on lights and found her on the kitchen floor. He called triple 0 on his mobile and first officers arrived four minutes later, the paramedics four minutes after that. They confirmed she was beyond help.

‘The husband, Connor Crawford, hasn’t been located,’ he went on. ‘There’s nothing on him in the system, no criminal record, not even a driver’s licence actually. They have a car registered in her
name. It’s not here.’

Ella heard a woman crying and looked out at the street where neighbours huddled.

‘The friend who found her is in the car there.’ The officer nodded at the closest marked car where a man sat slumped in the back seat. ‘Name of Stewart Bridges, no criminal record. Dry blood on his shoes. I’ve bagged them already. I breathalysed him too, but he was under.’

‘Thanks,’ Ella said.

‘Ambulance and general duties police were here last night for a domestic violence call. Both Suzanne and Connor said they were okay and didn’t need any assistance nor did they want to press charges.’

Dennis nodded.

‘Big fat fly in the ointment,’ the officer said. ‘One of those paramedics was here then, and says he met the victim for lunch today and they had sex.’

Ella raised her eyebrows, thinking,
Surely not Mick
. ‘That’s some patient care.’

‘He’s the one sitting in the ambulance,’ the officer said. ‘His trainer –’

‘He’s just a trainee?’ Dennis said. ‘Jesus.’

‘He’s called their boss,’ the officer said. ‘And they’ve been kept apart.’

Ella nodded. At the ambulance, Mick glanced over his shoulder into the cabin then shook his head. Yeah. If he was her trainee she’d be pissed off too.

‘Ready?’ Dennis said.

They pulled on latex gloves, drew booties over their shoes, then stepped over the dry bloodstains on the doorstep and inside the house. Crime scene officers weren’t here yet but Ella knew they wouldn’t be long. This was just a preliminary look for her and Dennis, to get a feel for it and start their inquiries.

‘No sign of struggle anywhere else in the house,’ the officer
said over his shoulder as they walked down the hall, past the small smears, the paper booties making whispery sounds on the floor. ‘No sign of forced entry.’

In the kitchen Suzanne Crawford’s body was slumped against the fridge, naked except for a pair of royal blue silk boxer shorts. Her head was tilted forward. Blood lay in a pool around her, smeared under her feet and soaked into the boxers.
She’d been stabbed three times in the left chest. Her hands lay open at her sides.

Blood was spattered and smeared across the light timber flooring. Ella looked at it with a critical eye. The distinct round drops meant the person had been standing still when bleeding. Stabbers commonly cut themselves in the frenzy of the act. This could be their guy’s blood, his DNA. His conviction.

‘There’s
a knife missing from the block. A big one.’ The officer nodded at the bench by the sink. ‘Not in the dishwasher or anywhere else we checked.’

Dennis looked closely at the block and got out his notebook.

Ella crouched. Suzanne’s fingernails looked intact and she couldn’t see any cuts on her hands or arms. ‘No defence wounds visible from here.’ Only a proper examination in good light would find
out for certain.

‘Any facial injuries?’ Dennis said. Wounds to the face were not uncommon in domestic assaults and murders.

‘Nope.’ The woman’s face was pale and relaxed in death. Regardless of the trauma of a person’s last moments, they all went slack-jawed in the end. Ella looked at the duty officer. ‘Does the friend have any idea where the husband could be?’

‘Says not, though he gave me
the names and address of two other friends.’ He opened his notebook. ‘Peta Davies and Katie Notts. They live in Bondi. I’ve got officers going there to check, and I’ve put out an alert for Crawford and the car.’ He went to the open back door. ‘There’s also this.’

Ella and Dennis followed. The officer waved his hand outside and a security light clicked on over the paved courtyard. He pointed at
two small terracotta pots that lay broken on their sides, spilling fresh soil and basil plants onto the pavers. ‘And that.’ Ivy covered the wall beside the door and he pointed to newly broken stalks.

There were more smears and drops of blood on the pavers.

‘A few drops in the garage, none on the driveway,’ the officer said. The broken ivy was low on the wall. ‘Somebody stumbled and fell,’ Ella
said.