Chapter Seventeen #2
The barman brought over their cocktails, served them with a flourish, and retreated, disappointed by their not-so-impressed reactions.
Judith considered telling Katy about Linda and the proposed anniversary mass for Gerry, but she decided against it.
She didn’t have the energy to turn the insanity into a funny story, and if she couldn’t make light of it, what was the point of getting into it at all?
Katy knew all about Linda and the fantasy land she lived in.
She’d heard a version of the story a hundred times.
‘Cheers.’ Katy raised her glass and clinked it off Judith’s. She took a sip of her cocktail. ‘Oh, that’s lovely.’
Judith took a sip of her Yuzu Mule. It was a little sharp.
‘So,’ Katy said. ‘About your favour. You know I’ll have to log the request under CISS. I’ll need to put in a LEAP case number at some point.’
‘That’s fine,’ Judith said. ‘No problem.’
‘If it’s no problem, then why are you bribing me with cocktails instead of sending the request in through usual channels?’
Judith raised an eyebrow. ‘If you think I’m paying for the next round, on my salary . . .’
Katy didn’t laugh. Her brown eyes were locked on Judith’s.
Katy was a case manager with the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, which was horribly underfunded, and had been horribly underfunded for her entire career.
CISS was the Child Information Sharing Scheme, a system that allowed authorised organisations to share information to support child wellbeing or safety.
By the usual channels, Katy was referring to the process Judith would usually have to follow if she wanted to get access to information about children in care—a formal written request with her police ID number, a LEAP case number, signed off by her superior officer and sent to join a queue of similar requests that would take a minimum of a few days to process, and sometimes as long as a few weeks.
‘I just don’t want to wait,’ Judith confessed. ‘The usual way takes too long. This feels more urgent than that. That’s all I can tell you.’
Katy nodded. She took out her phone and opened her notes app. She took another sip of her drink. ‘Okay, so you wanted to know about the Giffords.’
‘Anything you can tell me.’
‘I never worked with them myself,’ Katy said. ‘They were probably in their last few years of fostering when I was starting out. But there’s nothing on the file to suggest that they weren’t decent people. Do you know something different?’
‘This isn’t about them. It’s more about the kids they fostered.’
‘Someone in trouble?’ Katy’s eyes were serious. She cared deeply about the kids in the system. She saw the shitty time they had, the impossible odds stacked against them, and she saw the results of those obstacles every day.
‘Steven Gifford had handguns. He was a member of a local gun club. Had them for years. Two guns were stolen from his safe six months ago. Whoever stole them used a key that he’d kept in a locked drawer in his study. They knew exactly where to go, and they only took the guns. Nothing else.’
‘So you think it was one of the kids.’
Judith shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. There could be some other family member or friend close enough to them who knew about the key. But I figured I’d start with people who’d actually lived in the house.’
‘Okay. I get it. Well, I went through the file. The Giffords fostered thirty-six kids altogether.’
‘They told me that. Seems like a hell of a lot of kids.’
‘I knew a couple who took in eighty over the years. Most of those placements would be short-term emergency arrangements. You take a couple of kids for a weekend or a couple of weeks if something blows up. Or maybe you have a long-term arrangement to provide occasional respite care, if a family is coping with a chronic illness, or something like that.’
‘Is that what happened with the Giffords?’
Katy looked at her notes. ‘They had nine long-term fosters, and twenty-seven short-term over the years. Everyone’s aged out of the system now, of course, but according to the file, six of the long-term fosters were in uni by the time they aged out, and three of them were doing some kind of apprenticeship or trade.
All of them were doing well. Four of the short termers are dead.
Two from drug overdoses in their teens—they weren’t with the Giffords when they overdosed—one murder and one suicide. ’
‘Seems like a lot. Four dead out of thirty-six.’
Katy made a face. ‘It’s horrible, but you know these kids and their circumstances. You know what they’re coming from. We can’t save them all, or even most of them, it feels like.’
The mood darkened.
‘What else have you got?’ Judith asked.
‘Well, I can give you the names. For the kids who are still alive, at least. You can check, I suppose, for criminal records for all of them, but you’re going to find a fair amount, I’d expect.
From our files I can see that at least eight of the short termers had at least one encounter with the police.
Petty stuff, mostly. Drug possession or public disturbance.
Though one boy was charged with auto theft. ’
‘What was his name?’
‘Uh . . . Benjamin Bradly. Ben Bradly.’
‘Okay.’ The name meant nothing to Judith. Katy was probably right. These kids would have histories. She’d have to wade through a mountain of irrelevant detail.
The barman arrived with their food. He left it on the table and departed.
‘Jude, you’re not going to mess with these kids, right? I mean, you’re going to go easy.’
‘You know I will.’
‘Because they’ve had it tough. Most of them are probably just trying to get on with their lives. They don’t need to have police knocking on their doors, or coming to their jobs.’
‘You know I won’t do that, Katy. I just want to see if any of them have an active criminal record or connections.
I need to trace the gun used to kill Robert Walker.
If one of them took it, they probably sold it.
Rocky has a suspect. A guy called Jack Miller.
Maybe Rocky has it right, maybe this Jack guy bought the gun from one of the foster kids, or from someone else who knew where Gifford kept his guns.
’ Though the foster kids weren’t kids anymore, Judith thought.
She had to be careful. Not to let Katy’s empathy—and her own—lead her into making that kind of mistake.
A vulnerable fourteen-year-old could grow up to be a dangerous twenty-four-year-old.
‘But if he’s not right, if Jansen’s got the wrong guy, I want to know who took the gun, and where that gun ended up. ’
‘I’m trusting you with this.’ Katy said.
‘You know you can.’
Katy AirDropped her notes to Judith’s phone. A list of names and dates of birth. Katy grimaced as Judith opened the note and flicked through it.
‘What?’ Judith asked.
‘Nothing.’
Judith hesitated. ‘Do you want me to delete it? I can.’
Katy thought about it. She shook her head. ‘No. It’s okay. Like you said, you’ll get it either way in a couple of days. This is only a shortcut. Just send me the LEAP number tomorrow, and promise me you’ll go easy.’
* * *
Judith walked away from the bar feeling conflicted.
She didn’t feel bad about the fact that she was getting the list a little earlier than she might have otherwise, but she did feel bad that Katy was going home guilty.
They’d been friends since they were babies, through the darkest of times, and Katy was one of the best people she knew.
Maybe she shouldn’t call on her friend for the kind of help that would leave her feeling uncomfortable.
On the other hand, Katy had never hesitated to call on Judith when she’d needed a rule bent to help out a kid who deserved a second chance.
So . . . maybe their relationship worked exactly as it should.
They took risks for each other, because of their friendship, and because they knew that sometimes that’s what was needed, because without those shortcuts and minor cheats, the system just didn’t work.
Judith decided to go back to the station.
She stopped to buy a packet of mints and a bottle of water.
She’d had three cocktails with Katy—three Yuzu Mules—and they packed a punch.
Working after that much alcohol probably wasn’t a good idea, but she told herself that all she was going to do was sit at her desk and run the names that Katy had given her through the system.
She’d take a few notes, and then bring whatever she managed to gather home, where she could go through the material at her leisure.
And it was late. After eight o’clock. Most officers who were rostered on would be out on the streets, and the station would be quiet.
But when Judith reached the station, she saw Vanessa Walker standing outside. Vanessa was wearing a red pantsuit, red lipstick and her hair was perfectly groomed. She had a dog on the end of a lead. A little dachshund.