The drive to Kellyanne’s only took nine minutes. Her station wagon was parked in her driveway and I quietly opened her boot, putting the items in their paper bag safely inside. She had a lot of gear stacked neatly in the boot: heavy-duty exhibit bags, reels of security tape to seal these with and sign, and several large cases with cameras and other equipment. I closed the boot and looked around. There was no one about and my daughter’s driveway is shaded by interlocking trees. I drove home and washed up.
The story broke on the evening news. A man had been found murdered in a house in Clovelly. Channel 9 cameras showed a neat little 1920s bungalow with crime scene tape sealing off the area around it and several uniforms and a detective standing nearby. Police had cordoned off the area, the newsreader said, and were talking to local residents. Little detail was released. Police were “continuing with their inquiries.”
I couldn’t sleep that night. I wondered about the victim, who’d killed him and why, though that was no longer my job anymore. I lay awake, hoping that everything was working out as we’d planned. That Kellyanne had been able to do her sleight of forensic hand and that she’d come away from the crime scene with two separate exhibit bags, one containing what she’d found at the scene of the crime, the other containing the material I’d given her. I felt I’d lit the wick and now I just had to wait.
The following morning, Kerryanne came over for breakfast. Claire had cooked grilled tomatoes and sausages and I poured tomato sauce all over mine.
My daughter grimaced. “That reminds me of yesterday’s crime scene.”
“So what was it? What happened?”
“A guy with his head bashed in, in his kitchen. The back of his head completely stove in, like he’d been hit with a sledgehammer from behind and a little to one side. Most of his brains were on the floor.” Then she smiled at me and added, “Curiously, there was an old chisel with a rag around it, which wasn’t the murder weapon from the look of the injuries to the skull. But Jeff down at the morgue will no doubt let us know more about what kind of weapon was used. And it’s possible that the chisel could have been used to break in.”
“It’ll have to be accounted for,” I said, grinning back, spearing a sausage, while Claire looked first at me and then at her daughter.
“So it appears to be two offenders,” Kerryanne said.
“What do we know about the deceased?”
“Name is Dudley Russell O’Dea. Released from the Bay about a month ago after doing time for GBH. He was living with his elderly sister on Vale Street.”
“And the sister?” I asked.
“She didn’t hear a thing — she’s deaf and she’d gone to bed early. Poor old thing, she’s very shaken up. The kitchen was accessed through the back door. There’s some indication of a forced entry. Could’ve been that chisel,” Kerryanne said, glancing over at me as I stabbed the last bit of sausage. “Two killers, eh? Could be something to do with payback for a jail altercation.”
“Nasty,” I said, getting up and clearing my plate away.
Claire looked at me and asked, “So it’s in the bag?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Kerryanne responded, “but it’s in the trap, Mum. There’s a ways to go yet. Once the DNA analyses are processed, things will be clearer. Whoever did this will almost certainly have form and they’ll be in the database.”
I kissed my daughter on the cheek as I removed her empty plate and stacked it in the sink with mine. “See,” I said, turning around and leaning back against the sink, “my fishing companion has kept out of trouble for the last few years, but he’s got previous violent form. And he got away with murder nineteen years ago.”
“And he’ll never plead guilty to this crime,” said Kerryanne. “He’ll be screaming blue murder how he didn’t do it! The judge won’t like that at all.”
“And he didn’t do it,” I said. “Not this one, anyway.” I was smiling as I washed the dishes. I was determined to be there when the warrant was served. I wanted to see this for myself. And then I wanted to go to the trial and hear the sentence. I hoped it would be long. I wanted that man in prison, somewhere tough, where he could stew about the terrible miscarriage of justice that had sent him there. But it wasn’t a miscarriage of justice. It was the rectification of justice delayed. He’d pay a debt that he owed the state and the society he lived in. Not to mention his debt to us, murdering our eldest son. That dreadful night is burned into my memory, the cops coming to the door. From their faces, I knew it was death. I’d delivered those death notices myself years ago, and it was the most difficult part of the job. I knew before they spoke that it would be Anthony because the other kids were safely here with their mother and me. I remember my legs buckling and how I had to lean against the wall before I could let them in. Then Claire’s terrible screams.
“Better get to work, Dad, Mum,” Kerryanne was saying, kissing us both. “I’ll let you know what’s happening.”
A week later, the story was all over the evening news again, with more detail. Police were now searching for two men whom they hoped would, help them with their inquiries. I wondered if an anonymous tip-off might be in order concerning the whereabouts of my fishing companion, but I decided against any further involvement. The plans that I’d been making for almost two decades now were coming to fruition and I whistled as I tended the veggie garden, pinching out the laterals on my young tomato plants and staking them to keep them upright and healthy. I felt that I could enjoy my retirement more now that justice was about to be done. My whistling stopped as I approached the Banksia serrata we’d planted in memory of Anthony, a huge gnarled tree now where lorikeets and honeyeaters feasted when the banksia cones were fresh and green. “We’re getting justice for you, son,” I whispered to the tree. I stood a moment in the garden, watching a lone bee zigzag around the basil plants, then went back inside.
Kerryanne dropped by briefly on her way to her boyfriend’s place and I made her a cup of tea. “Twigg’s DNA and his fingerprints were found at the O’Dea crime scene, Dad. The other accused has latched onto the notion that someone else was involved, and he’s screaming that he’s innocent of the murder, that it was the other guy who swung the murder weapon. Which hasn’t been found yet. Probably chucked into the ocean the same night.”
“Couldn’t have wished for a better outcome, darlin’,” I said as I poured her tea into her old bunny mug that she still liked to use.
“Me neither. It’s very satisfying.”
“Any regrets?” I asked.
My daughter shook her head. “Not one. It’s like a transferable ticket. He skipped out of one murder but he’s going to be in the frame for another one. You do the crime, you do the time. Even if it’s been billed to another account.”
A week later, my insider from the homicide squad tipped me off: “They’ll be serving the warrants for the arrest of the two men wanted for the murder of O’Dea. Later on today. Can’t give you an exact time.”
Later on today was good enough for me. I wanted to be there; I wanted to witness the beginning of the end of the slow burn; and I wanted to somehow convey to him — while remaining unidentifiable — that this wasn’t a random mix-up, this wrongful arrest. I wanted to link it back to what happened to our son, so that Twigg understood that the lady with the blindfold and the scales had finally caught up with him.
I hurried to the vacant house on foot and turned onto the lane behind it to check the shed. I didn’t want Twigg going out somewhere because that way I’d miss seeing the third last chapter of the retributive justice plan enacted, the second last chapter being his trial, and the final chapter being his incarceration for a very long time.