though.’
The cleaner walks away and I watch him go before turning
back to Schroder. I’ve known Carl for many years. In another
lifetime we worked the same cases, dealt with the same problems.
We used to be pretty good friends, but it’s obvious he doesn’t really want me here. He leads me over to a table to a bunch of forms and asks me to sign them. He tells me the crime scene has been released, and I ask him how the investigation is going, and he says it’s going okay. He doesn’t elaborate on that. Just says it’s okay and nothing else, which means he either doesn’t want to tell me or things are going badly.
‘Sorry, Tate, I just don’t have the time to give you any
information. Finding those bodies, Jesus, you couldn’t have
picked a worse time.’
‘Who for? Them or you?’
He exhales heavily. ‘It’s this fucking Carver case. Man, it’s like every step we take this guy is taking two steps. I don’t know what the hell it is, but we’re struggling. Christ, we’re so understaffed, I don’t know, we just need more manpower. It’s that simple.’
‘You offering me a job?’
‘Good one, Tate. You’re even funnier than I remember.
Especially after last night’s performance.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re slipping. It looked bad, man, really bad. Friends in the department? Jesus, why’d you say that?’
‘What are you …’ But then it comes to me. I run my hand
over my face and pinch my chin. ‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah. You got that right.’
‘She stitched me up, huh?’
‘There’s a copy if you wanna take a look. Media room’s free.’
The media room is big enough to hold four people if none of
them is overweight, and its walls are lined with computers and monitors. News reports are kept as part of the database involved in ongoing cases; those that go to air are stored on hard drives.
Schroder cues it up.
‘It was on this morning,’ he says. ‘They played it at seven
o’clock, eight and nine. They’re probably waiting till twelve to play it again if they don’t have anything more.’
I’m standing next to my car, coming forward to meet the
reporters. From their perspective, they couldn’t have picked a better time to film me. From mine, they couldn’t have picked
a worse one. There is blood on my shirt and on my face, and
pieces of what I guess might be bone or brain matter in my hair.
My skin is pale and sallow and there are dark smudges beneath my eyes. I look like I might have been one of the finds in the coffins, and now I know where the Telecom guy recognised me from.
The reporter is talking to me, and I’m talking back, but you
can’t hear any of what I’m saying because the conversation has been muted. All you can hear is Casey Horwell’s voiceover as
they move from a shot of me outside my house to scenes of the
graveyard. The shots go back and forth as she talks.
… used to be a detective for the Christchurch police, but for the last two years has been struggling as a private investigator. He offered to speak to us outside his house where he filled us in on some aspects to the case, but when we asked him why he was coming home and not being held in custody until the killing of Bruce Alderman was further investigated, he was unsure how to answer.
The interview is still showing me talking. But there are no
words. Just the chitchat of me asking them to move their van,
telling them I have no comments, and whatever else I said to get rid of them, but it looks like we’re sharing an in-depth discussion.
Then I disappear from the frame, and Casey Horwell is standing there, the only background is her van, and I bet they pulled over the moment they got around the next corner to film her.
Two years ago the man linked to killing Theodore Tate’s
daughter disappeared and has never been seen again, and though the investigation is still open it appears nobody is making any effort to learn what really happened. The man’s disappearance led to
The cleaner walks away and I watch him go before turning
back to Schroder. I’ve known Carl for many years. In another
lifetime we worked the same cases, dealt with the same problems.
We used to be pretty good friends, but it’s obvious he doesn’t really want me here. He leads me over to a table to a bunch of forms and asks me to sign them. He tells me the crime scene has been released, and I ask him how the investigation is going, and he says it’s going okay. He doesn’t elaborate on that. Just says it’s okay and nothing else, which means he either doesn’t want to tell me or things are going badly.
‘Sorry, Tate, I just don’t have the time to give you any
information. Finding those bodies, Jesus, you couldn’t have
picked a worse time.’
‘Who for? Them or you?’
He exhales heavily. ‘It’s this fucking Carver case. Man, it’s like every step we take this guy is taking two steps. I don’t know what the hell it is, but we’re struggling. Christ, we’re so understaffed, I don’t know, we just need more manpower. It’s that simple.’
‘You offering me a job?’
‘Good one, Tate. You’re even funnier than I remember.
Especially after last night’s performance.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re slipping. It looked bad, man, really bad. Friends in the department? Jesus, why’d you say that?’
‘What are you …’ But then it comes to me. I run my hand
over my face and pinch my chin. ‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah. You got that right.’
‘She stitched me up, huh?’
‘There’s a copy if you wanna take a look. Media room’s free.’
The media room is big enough to hold four people if none of
them is overweight, and its walls are lined with computers and monitors. News reports are kept as part of the database involved in ongoing cases; those that go to air are stored on hard drives.
Schroder cues it up.
‘It was on this morning,’ he says. ‘They played it at seven
o’clock, eight and nine. They’re probably waiting till twelve to play it again if they don’t have anything more.’
I’m standing next to my car, coming forward to meet the
reporters. From their perspective, they couldn’t have picked a better time to film me. From mine, they couldn’t have picked
a worse one. There is blood on my shirt and on my face, and
pieces of what I guess might be bone or brain matter in my hair.
My skin is pale and sallow and there are dark smudges beneath my eyes. I look like I might have been one of the finds in the coffins, and now I know where the Telecom guy recognised me from.
The reporter is talking to me, and I’m talking back, but you
can’t hear any of what I’m saying because the conversation has been muted. All you can hear is Casey Horwell’s voiceover as
they move from a shot of me outside my house to scenes of the
graveyard. The shots go back and forth as she talks.
… used to be a detective for the Christchurch police, but for the last two years has been struggling as a private investigator. He offered to speak to us outside his house where he filled us in on some aspects to the case, but when we asked him why he was coming home and not being held in custody until the killing of Bruce Alderman was further investigated, he was unsure how to answer.
The interview is still showing me talking. But there are no
words. Just the chitchat of me asking them to move their van,
telling them I have no comments, and whatever else I said to get rid of them, but it looks like we’re sharing an in-depth discussion.
Then I disappear from the frame, and Casey Horwell is standing there, the only background is her van, and I bet they pulled over the moment they got around the next corner to film her.
Two years ago the man linked to killing Theodore Tate’s
daughter disappeared and has never been seen again, and though the investigation is still open it appears nobody is making any effort to learn what really happened. The man’s disappearance led to
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