Chapter 8
Sydney - Thursday: September 24
When we arrived, the scene was already cordoned off with Police tape. We ducked under and entered the victim's house and were directed by an officer to his bedroom, the scene of the crime. The body was half-lying on his bed, still wearing the top half of his gaily-coloured pyjamas. He had his knees on the floor and the rest of his body on the bed, both hands stretched above him on the bed, his back was toward us, as we entered.
When we walked around, I noticed the two neat, almost invisible .22 entrance wounds just above his right ear. There had not been much bleeding as the bullets never exited. They had, no doubt, bounced around inside his skull, scrambling his brains in the process. Death would have been practically instantaneous.
The room was filled with crime scene experts, cops and paramedics. I stayed in the background having no official standing any longer. Even though some of the techies recognised me and signed hellos, it was hard not to feel left out. It felt like I was an intruder. I decided to shrug off the feeling by ignoring my lack of official sanction and spend the time really looking at the crime scene. Steve was busy discussing stuff with Mike and other cops, getting all the facts down in his little police journal, as he always did. After about an hour he came over and said, "Not much new in this one, basically the same as all the others," he finished, pocketing his little book after carefully inserting his pencil spiral binding. By then I had some ideas of my own.
"By the looks of the house and contents, he must have been well off, just like the rest," I said
"Yeah, his name was Vincent Boots, it would be interesting to know if he was known to your client as well," he commented.
"Yes it would," I said, "Did you notice the spider in his hand?"
Steve turned around and checked. "It's a small jumping spider," he confirmed. "It's dead."
"Did the other vics have anything like that, as well?" I asked.
"Spiders?" he asked.
"Yes, were there any spiders, anywhere near the other bodies," I repeated.
"Let me see," he said. He made a big production of extracting his little book and flicking through his notes, reading quickly.
"Mmm it does not say so here? well I'm not sure," he said, with a little embarrassment. Steve hated missing out in writing down every detail of a crime scene, "is it important?" He asked
"I don't know. It may be." I answered but my gut feeling was that if there were more spiders at the other crime scenes, it might be crucial, "Where are the crime scene photos from the others?" I asked.
"Back at the station on the murder wall, set up by the task force," he said.
"Let's go and take a look, mate,"
"What now?"
"Yeah right now"
"Okay then," Steve knew better than to argue with me regarding crime scenes. They had always been my specialty. "Just let me tell Mike and we'll go,"
"Right," I answered distractedly, but my mind was on the possible implications of the spiders, if indeed they were there.
As we drove toward Steve's office, he tried to get me to open up about the significance of the spider a number of times
"Let's just see if they are a common factor first, I don't want to end up with egg on my face," I said diverting any further probing from him. He drove the rest of the way in a sullen silence. When we finally got there, we sat down at his desk brought up the digital images of each of the crime scenes starting with the first murder - Harrison's.
The beauty of digital images is that they can be magnified easily and quickly. I saw the possible image of our quarry on the second crime photo that Steve loaded.
"Look there on his back, it looks like a mole. Zoom in a bit, will ya?" I said.
"I'll be fucked!" He exclaimed as the mole resolved itself into a small jumping spider, identical with the one we had found earlier, "man oh man, you are the Crime Scene Master," he added.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet, mate, let's look at the others first," I said, but I knew then that it was a given: they were an important message from the killer. And in each case we did find identical little spider which had gone unnoticed. Some were harder to find than others were, but they were there.
"So that confirms it, mate? so care to tell me your theory of why they are relevant?" He asked, pulling away from the desk and picking up the 8 x 10 prints of each spider he had sent to the printer.
"One more thing first?well actually two," I said
"Right and they are?"
"We need to find out whether any of them were bagged and tagged by the CS team and then get one of them to the entomologist. Who worked the Crime Scenes?"
"Raj Patel" Steve said, smiling. I knew why he was smiling too. Dr. Raj Patel was the best CS scientist in the force.
"Beauty! Raj never misses anything. I'll eat your hat if he doesn't have them bagged, tagged and identified already" I said, enthusiastically.
"I don't wear a hat," Steve said, as we made our way toward the CS labs.
"I was speaking metaphorically" I explained.
"Metawhat?" he said, playing the dumb country boy, which he wasn't.
"You know," I said.
"Yeah, I know," Steve said.
"Louie!" Raj shouted across his domain of microscopes and beakers. "It's so good to see you. It's been too long" he added shaking my hand with pleasure and clapping me on the shoulder with undisguised enthusiasm. Raj is normally a very serious scientist, at a crime scene he will hardly respond to questions, let alone act emotionally. His reaction upon seeing me after so many years was startling and made me feel good. Hey, I'm human; I like being liked just like you do.
Raj is a tall skinny man in his late fifties. His jet-black hair is now streaked with some grey and he stoops a little more than what I remembered. His absolute neatness and grooming is still the same. A handsome man, who could have chosen to be some sort of model, if his passion for forensic work had not been so embracing.
"How are you going, Raj? You look good, mate and it's really good to see you too," I responded with similar enthusiasm.
"You look good too, Louie," he said and then he stepped back a little and examined me thoughtfully. He seemed to ponder what he was about to say for a few moments and then he startled both Steve and I.
"I bet you two are here about the little spiders!" he said, and his serious expression slowly morphed into one of absolute pleasure and satisfaction as he saw the startled looks on our faces.
"But?how?" Steve started to say.
"Well I just got the report back from Bill a few minutes ago," he turned to me, "Bill is our resident entomologist, Louie" he explained.
"Still?" Steve started.
"It wasn't very difficult to guess, Steve," he explained smiling in my direction, "as soon as I saw Mr. Crime Scene here I knew that you were here about what I was just in the process of calling you about."
"So, what's the story, Raj?" I asked.
"Do you want to see the report?" he asked
"The report can wait. I know you have read it, so your summary will probably be better than the report itself," Steve said.
"Such confidence! I thank you, Steve. Okay it seems that all the spiders were killed intentionally and set in a proper entomological manner, much like you might set butterflies for a butterfly collection." Raj said. His voice now was completely professional in tone and delivery.
"Do you think they were left by the killer?" I asked.
"No doubt about it. They are all the same and our Bill reckons they were killed and set some time ago. If you look close enough, you can even see the tiny hole left by the pin that was pushed through their thorax," he said nodding.
"What kind of spiders were they," Steve asked.
"All of the ones found so far seem to belong to the Family Salticidae or "Jumping spiders". Salticidae derives from the Latin word salto meaning 'to dance with hand gestures'. They were different species, however."
"Are the found in particular areas?" I asked.
"There are over 5000 species of Salticidae in Australia. Jumping spiders can be found everywhere if the sun is shining, on trees, grass and rocks. At night or during rainfall the spiders hide in a dry spot. Some even mimic ants so they won't be attacked as they hunt. You see they do not have webs, but stalk their victims, much like tigers do. They are all predators." Raj said and amplified his description with hand movements mimicking a tiger pouncing.
"You said that they are predators and can be found on rocks? Right?" I asked. I was getting that funny, slightly nauseous, feeling I knew so well. "Now I am pretty sure where this is going" I said and my expression must have looked like I had a real bad taste in my mouth
"I have no idea where it's going or even where it's been," Steve admitted.
"When I first became a detective, I spent three memorable years, that I wish I could forget, with the Vice Squad," I reminded him.
"Yeah I knew that. But you never talk about it. I figured you did not enjoy it much," he said.
"I hated every second of it, mate. Every fucking second!" I said, unpleasant memories flooding back without invitation.
"What's that got to do with this case?" He asked.
"A spider, specifically a rock-spider is a term that refers to child molesters," I stated in a dull tone.
He looked at me with surprise and disgust in his face. Raj moved back as if he might become contaminated by the word alone.
"What's that got to do with this case? My case?" Steve repeated, his face strained, his words sharp like blades.
"Now you know why I hated that job. I am not sure, but I could guess," I said, looking at him, taking the full force of those laser eyes.
"Guess then," he said, coldly.
"Maybe all of these guys were somehow involved with children. Someone found out, probably a parent. Maybe he or she decided that the police were going to do sweet fuck all about it. Maybe he or she decided to administer their own brand of justice, maybe," I said.
"You get all that from a few little spiders?" He asked, not really surprised but hoping I was way off base.
"I did say I was guessing," I admitted.
"Yes you did," he said, his tone still dull.
"I guess we should start looking at all the known paedophiles," he said.
"You reckon?" I asked.
"What are you saying?" He asked
"Me? I'm not saying nothin'. But how worse can the world be with less child molesters in it?" I pondered.
"Are you saying that I should just sit back and wait for this killer to finish his revenge or whatever the fuck he is doing?" he asked, getting angry.
"Me, I would give the killer a medal, but that's me." I said.
"Well I don't fuckin' like it!" he said, angrily.
"Me neither," I agreed.
"I don't care for it much myself," Raj added, breaking into a fake Indian accent. Normally, he spoke English perfectly, better than either one of us.
"I need a drink" I said.
"Ditto," Steve agreed, now depressed.
"Ditto comes from the Latin word dictus, "having been said," the past participle of the verb dicere, "to say." In Italian dicere became dire and dictus became detto, or in the Tuscan dialect ditto," Raj informed us inconsequentially.
Steve left for his office, soon after. He was going to bring the task force and his partner Mike up to date. I thanked Raj, we promised to catch up more often, and then I made my way home. I parked Doris in her usual under-cover spot. I had a shower, ignored the two croissants and short blacks that were waiting for me when I came out. I got a cool beer and sat on my balcony watching the splendid harbour lights.
I thought about the killer. What would I do if my son or daughter had been molested? Would my reaction be any different? Would Steve's? I had shown in the past that I was not likely to take any attack on my family with easy tolerance and forgiveness. I had gone after Mr. Sin and his gang with exactly the same determination and ruthlessness as this killer. Was I any better? Was Steve? After all, he had helped me cover my tracks, without even being asked.
I have no tolerance for criminals and killers that do so because of greed, lust or outright meanness and worse, cruelty. But I cannot allow those I care for, to be hurt without my stepping up to their defence or to issue punishment. I guessed that I had never been really cut out to be a lawman. To follow the exact letter of the law, to allow the State to look after me and those I cared for.
Being a cop had taught me one thing - it's not how bad you are that counts but how good your lawyer is. The law is like anything that is manmade: faulty. Just like any man made lock can be broken open by another man, any law can be bypassed by anyone smart enough or rich enough.
All the victims in this case had been super rich, super powerful. Even with all the evidence in the world, most if not all would have skated right past the courts of the land and the next week it would have been business as usual. I guessed that the parent, probably a father had said. "No fucking way!" And had followed through ? In all honesty I could not blame him.
All this thinking was giving me a headache, so I got myself another drink. We had pulled an all-nighter and I was feeling beat. On the stereo, Elton John was telling me that he was still standing.
"Good on ya, mate," I said to him and soon I was in bed and no longer standing.