Chapter 21
The car was on Eight Mile Trail at eleven o’clock on a Friday night.
Footy night. I sucked air between my teeth when I saw it rumbling through the trees ahead of me, because I knew even before I noticed the wheels kissing the rocky edges of the trail as it drove along that the driver had to be drunk.
Circumstances just guaranteed it. Stupid move by me to take the shortcut between Redbelly and Mangrove Mountain, known almost exclusively by locals.
Because, although I had officially finished my shift for the night, I was still in the patrol car, having just delivered some files to Dodge and his guys in Wisemans.
Policy dictated that when I was in the car and I saw a crime, it was mine to deal with.
I watched the big black Jeep Wrangler drift over and narrowly miss clipping a huge lump of sandstone in the bush, and cursed my life.
I hit the lights. I’d been on the cusp of five days off after twelve days on, was already emotionally and physically checked out, needing only to return the squad car and sign the station register before entering full-blown holiday mode.
Now the finish line had been yanked away just as I put on a last burst of speed.
This was going to delay me getting home for dinner, and Delle had texted to say she had homemade pizza in the oven.
Something big crashed through the bush as I exited the squad car.
The telltale thumping of kangaroo. With lush bushland hugging us all around, lit blue and red and yellow like an enchanted fairy garden, I approached the driver’s side of the Jeep with dread in my heart.
Watched the window roll down. A thick forearm lolled out onto the sill.
There was a passenger in the front seat, looking over at me, white eyes glittering in the dark.
When I recognised the ruddy, sunburnt face of the driver my breath hitched in my chest. This was both good and bad.
‘Oh, hey, look who it is,’ I said, putting a hand on the top of the car. ‘G’day, Blake.’
‘Heeeeey.’ Blake Sanderson leant back, his mouth shifting awkwardly as his bloodshot eyes wandered across my face. ‘There you are.’
‘Evan Powder. Chris’s dad.’
‘Of course!’ Blake grinned, putting a hand out.
Shaking mine too hard, so that both our hands knocked on the windowsill.
‘Of course! I know who you are. Good to see ya, mate! Good to see ya! This is Constable Powder.’ Blake turned to his passenger, a similarly built sun-baked brick of a male in a singlet and ball cap.
I let the misidentification of my rank slide by as he went on. ‘His son goes to school with Jacky.’
‘Oh, right. How ya goin’?’ The passenger flashed me an open palm, fingers spread wide, the awkward wave of someone caught red-handed.
‘Yeah, I’m good. Just noticed you were wobbling a bit.’
‘Oh, this bloody thing’s acting up.’ Blake slapped the steering wheel. ‘Just had the alignment done on it the other day and it’s still pulling to the left.’
‘Are you heading back from footy night at Wisemans?’
‘Ah, we stopped in at the RSL for a biiiit …? But we weren’t there for long, were we, Trev?’
‘Nah. Middy of mid-strength. That was about it.’
‘That was about it,’ Blake confirmed, turned and grinned at me.
His red eyes were full of tense hope. Because, surely he knew how badly he stunk of bourbon.
Knew it was permeating the air around us, completely overpowering the acidy, minty taste of the eucalypts.
Blake could see that I was struggling with the next few steps.
He reached out and touched my arm with his meaty fingers to help me along.
‘Your Chris, he’s the one with the long hair, yeah? ’
‘That’s him.’
‘I’ve seen him and his mates getting around town, in their hoodies.’ Blake smiled. ‘With the make-up. Heavy metal kids, are they?’
‘Ah, well …’
‘There were heavy metal kids at my school,’ Trev offered. ‘I was one of them. And look how I turned out.’
‘They’re a good lot, though, Evan’s son and his crew.’ Blake shot his friend a warning look. ‘Not like this degenerate here and his band of wannabe satanists.’
‘He’s a good kid,’ I confirmed. ‘Going through a phase, that’s all. We’ve all been there.’
‘How’s he going at school?’
‘He’s all right,’ I lied.
‘Listen, when he’s done with his heavy metal phase, why don’t you see if he wants to come over our place sometime and hang with Jacky and his mates? Jacky could use a couple of friends who aren’t such boofheads. A thoughtful little bloke like your Chris might do Jacky good.’
‘Maybe.’ I felt the devil whispering in my ear. Looked at Blake’s big hand on the steering wheel. ‘Maybe. Listen, Blake—’
‘Sometimes I let the boys take the ute and go off down the paddocks,’ Blake cut in. ‘You ought to see them when they get back. It’s like they’re a bunch of five-year-olds again. Grass in their hair and sparkles in their eyes.’
Trevor laughed. I ignored the uncomfortable stirring in my stomach, trying to think of the last time Chrissy had romped back into the house after a day in the wild, grass in his hair and sparkles in his eyes.
The last time he’d been outside by choice at all.
‘You know, that sounds pretty good, actually.’
‘You can sit up on the verandah with me and Melissa and have a barbie, ay? Bring your missus. They can fret about where the kids are and we can sink some schooies.’
‘Am I invited?’ Trev asked.
‘You? Mate, I couldn’t be clearer: I’m trying to cut down on the number of boofheads coming in and out of my house.’
I laughed now. Feeling a part of something. Feeling the enveloping arms and golden gaze of the in-crowd. Like I was in fucking high school again. Blake rolled his eyes, jerked a thumb towards Trev, conspiratorial. ‘This guy, eh?’
‘I appreciate the invitation,’ I said. ‘I’ll give it some thought.’
‘We’re just down here.’ Blake pointed at the windshield. ‘The one with the red mailbox. Five minutes, tops.’
‘Is that all?’ I chewed my bottom lip. Teetered on the jagged edge of destiny for a few precious seconds without knowing I was doing it. ‘Ah, well. Fine.’
‘Good.’ Blake smiled.
‘I’ll let you blokes go,’ I said, tapping the car roof. ‘Maybe get that wheel alignment done again, huh?’
I got back into the cruiser and followed the Jeep at a respectable distance, leaving that life-changing moment deep in the wilderness behind me.
We got to the main road leading back to the Mountain.
When Blake Sanderson pulled to the roadside by a big red mailbox, he stuck his huge arm out the window in a wave, and I waved back, feeling worthy.
The call came four hours later. I was deep under the doona, with a belly drum-tight full of the world’s best meatlover’s pizza and half a bottle of wine.
Climbing up through the layers of consciousness took deliberate effort, akin to pulling myself, hand over hand, up the rugged face of a cliff.
Delle sat bolt upright in bed, saw it was my phone and not hers, and slammed back down again like a cartoon vampire.
I took three or four tries to slide the electronic button on the screen in the dark.
‘Yeah?’
‘I need you to listen to me very carefully,’ Hayley Twitcher said, in a voice that made my skin grow cold in a sudden, sickening rush. ‘And don’t say anything until you’ve heard all of the information I’m about to give you.’
‘O … kay …?’ I shot out of the bed, went to Chris’s room, threw the door open. His figure was there in the sheets, twisting, reacting to the light like a bat, all scrambling limbs and squinting eyes.
‘What is it?’ I said into the phone. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Blake Sanderson just wrapped his car around a fucking tree.’
‘What?’
‘He had a passenger with him. Trevor Willis. Willis is dead, and they’ve just taken Sanderson in for surgery. It’s not looking good, Evan.’
‘What the fuuuu—’ I forgot how to breathe, to swallow; coughed and went into the kitchen. I was starting to shake now. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes, I’m serious, Evan. And I’m getting more and more serious by the second, because I’m here at the hospital, and I’m seeing it and hearing it.
Sanderson just told an emergency room nurse that a local cop pulled him and Trevor over not ten minutes before they crashed and that cop cut them loose again. ’
The words wouldn’t come. They dissolved before they were half-formed. There was screaming in my head. A long, loud, animalistic wail.
‘Was that cop you, Evan?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure? Because Acosta was here all night, and Jenny says it wasn’t her. Is she lying?’
‘No, no, no, no.’ I shuddered. Delle was behind me, eyes full of fear. ‘No, I mean, I didn’t … I was there but I didn’t … pull them over.’
‘You just drove by them?’
‘No, I mean—’
‘Jesus, Evan.’ Hayley’s voice was shaking. ‘Trevor Willis has got two kids. Blake was saying he couldn’t feel his legs. This is not good.’
‘I’m coming there.’
‘You better.’ She hung up.
Delle grabbed my arm. ‘What happened?’
I just shook my head, went to the bedroom. Dragged a T-shirt out of the wardrobe with fingers that were numb and tingling. With my other hand, I dialled my father.