RILEY WOKE TO the sound of smashing glass as the recycling truck did its rounds. She reached for her phone and noted the date. Wednesday, January fourth. A grim milestone. Marguerite Dunlop had been dead a week.
The mobile buzzed as she looked at it. ‘Yeah.’
‘We got a nibble,’ O’Neil said. ‘Preston’s phone.’
She sat up. ‘That was quick.’
‘Mm. Panic might be setting in.’
‘Always useful.’ She kicked off the sheet and went through to the kitchen. ‘What’d he say?’
‘I’ll tell you when you get here. I gotta make some calls. Twenty minutes.’
He hung up and Riley gulped at a bottle of iced coffee from the fridge on her way to the shower.
Thirty minutes later, she was sitting at the long conference table with Tran and Patel.
O’Neil was across from them. ‘This was 6.03 this morning. Preston makes the call from home on his mobile to a mobile in Orange.’ He turned his laptop around and clicked.
A man’s voice, blurry. ‘Doctor Phil. So early. Everything’s alright?’
‘No.’ Preston’s voice.
‘I know, I know. I saw the news.’
‘Well, what do we do? They’ll keep going, you realise.’
‘We stay calm. You say nothing, it blows over.’
‘Someone will know. They’re looking—and the journalist’s got contacts.’
‘You’ve told no one, right?’
Preston was silent.
‘Look,’ the man said, ‘I have to go. Say nothing. I’ll call you.’
The call ended.
‘That was a Joseph Zabatino,’ O’Neil said, ‘also known as Joey Vino. He’s been off the radar five years. Upper-level Griffith mafia, top-level douchebag.’
‘How’s he know Preston?’ Riley said.
‘I had a chat with organised crime just now,’ O’Neil said. ‘Zabatino nearly went down for murder six years ago. Tow-truck war got ugly. Jury let him off, judge was filthy with the DPP and the cops. Zabatino pulled his head in, has been growing grapes and trying to keep it clean. Sends his kids to private school, thinks he’s a pillar of the community.’
‘He’s got a kid at Prince Albert?’ Riley said.
‘Young Tony, Year 12.’ O’Neil looked at Tran. ‘See what you can find out about him. We’re on a plane to Orange in forty-five minutes.’
Tran went to her desk and O’Neil turned to Patel. ‘What are we risking?’
‘The phone tap,’ Patel said.
‘Correct. We speak to Zabatino, he knows we’re listening to the headmaster. He gets a message to Preston, phone tap’s shot. What do we do?’
Patel rubbed an eyebrow. ‘Marguerite Dunlop doesn’t feel like a mob job. If Zabatino had her killed, either for his own reasons or as a contract for Preston, it wouldn’t look like this. She’d be at the bottom of a dam somewhere, not lying in state in the middle of the school.’
‘Agreed,’ O’Neil said.
‘But Zabatino and Preston are involved in something,’ Patel said. ‘From the call it sounds like it’s linked to the murder.’
O’Neil looked to Riley. ‘I’ve got some leverage.’
She gave a nod. They had to risk it—sweat Zabatino and then come down hard to make sure he didn’t blab.
O’Neil reached for the conference phone on the desk. He put it on speaker and punched a number. An operator answered. ‘I need Superintendent Paul Madden at Orange,’ O’Neil said. ‘On his mobile.’
They stared at the speaker in the silence.
‘Madden,’ a voice said.
‘Paul. Steve O’Neil, Homicide.’
‘Steve, been a while.’
‘Yeah, look, I’m on the move, ’bout to head your way out of Bankstown. One of your regulars that got flushed from Griffith—I need to have a chat.’
‘Let me guess, name ends in a vowel?’
‘Bingo,’ O’Neil said.
Madden gave a grunt. ‘Which one?’
‘Joseph Zabatino.’
‘Joey Vino. Thought he was being a good boy?’
‘Not sure. We’ve heard something. But I want to keep it real quiet.’
‘This Gladesville?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay. How do you want to do it?’
Riley listened as they thrashed it out. O’Neil wanted it off the books, not at the station. Madden agreed to find Zabatino himself and keep him under surveillance until the Satyr team landed.
The call ended. O’Neil drummed his fingers on the table. Tran was on the phone and scrolling at her laptop. There were around two hundred staff at Prince Albert, on holidays up and down the coast, interstate, at home, overseas. Tran had supervised the work to track them all down and speak to them. She looked across now and gave a thumbs up.
Riley pushed out her chair with a glance at Patel. ‘Let’s go.’ Tran would brief them on the plane.
Patel sat in the back of the Calais with O’Neil. Riley drove south through Olympic Park, listening to Tran beside her speaking to a teacher. At the airport at Bankstown she parked at the PolAir base and they headed to a police Cessna on the apron. Orange was an hour’s flight west.
‘What have we got?’ O’Neil said as the plane levelled off.
Tran had her notebook open in her lap. ‘I spoke with Tony Zabatino’s boarding housemaster, on holiday in Terrigal,’ she said. ‘The kid’s thick as shit and there was some trouble towards the end of the school year. A boy got expelled from one of the eastern suburbs colleges for dealing and lobbed up at Prince Albert in May. These schools swap kids like the Catholics shunt the peds around. This new boy starts teeing off on Zabatino, constant abuse, calling him a wog. Zabatino snaps, beats the crap out of him. Black eyes, broken nose. New kid’s parents go ape-shit from Vaucluse—lawyers, want to call the cops, the media. Preston works his magic, smooths it all over. The word from the staff room is Joe Zabatino’s got Preston in his pocket and hush money was channelled to Vaucluse. No one knows what the price was.’
‘Alright, good work.’ O’Neil looked at his watch, put his shoulder to the bulkhead and his head against the wall and closed his eyes. He seemed to go straight off. Riley frowned in awe: everyone was good at something. She tried to rest. Fragments of a dream came back, she’d incorporated the breaking glass from the recycling truck. There was more, further down, deep in sleep … she’d met Marguerite Dunlop walking a dog on a beach in Fiji.
O’Neil woke before they landed. Riley watched the pilot bring it in. Ground crew opened the cabin door to the dry air of the tablelands.
In the terminal, they were met by one of Madden’s men, who led them to an unmarked Sprinter in the carpark. ‘Engine’s running, aircon’s on.’ He walked away across the bitumen.
The van was fitted with two front seats open to a loadspace with benches running down either side. No windows. Tran drove with Riley in the passenger seat.
O’Neil connected to the Bluetooth and called Madden. Zabatino was at a restaurant on Sale Street in the middle of the town.
‘Shouldn’t be long,’ the Superintendent said. ‘He lives north-east. Grass castle out towards Molong. His office is on the property. I reckon he’ll be heading there.’
‘We’re leaving the airport,’ O’Neil said.
‘Alright, head through town and then out on the Mitchell Highway. There’s a yuppie coffee place on Murphy Lane, duck in there and wait.’
‘Got it. Listen, we’ll pump Zabatino for an alibi. I’ll need you to check it out.’
‘No worries. I’ll let you know when we’re moving.’
The airport was in farming land to the south. Winter rains had broken the drought and the country still looked good, strong greens in the hard yellows. The sky was cloudless and pale, Mount Canobolas a bump on the range to the left. This was the bush in Riley’s bones. She’d been twelve when they sold the farm and bought the servo at Campbelltown.
They came into town, wide avenues and parks, grand squat buildings with balconies and verandahs. Every second vehicle was a Hilux with roo-bars and spotlights and dust. Tran drove down the main street and right at a roundabout, past a high school and then a golf course and country club. Riley knew the formula. Agriculture, mining, services, government jobs, and then the trifecta—cheese, wine and tourists. In the Hunter, they’d lived on the edge of such prosperity.
The cafe was on the northern outskirts. O’Neil bought three coffees. Riley got a pineapple doughnut and a can of Passiona.
‘Get out of town,’ Tran said. ‘Do you eat anything that isn’t yellow?’
‘She’d like my mum’s dhal,’ Patel said.
They waited in the van. O’Neil’s phone rang.
‘With you in five.’ Madden’s voice came over the Bluetooth. ‘I’ll stay on the line.’
Tran put her coffee in the cup holder, backed up and indicated to rejoin the highway.
‘Go now,’ Madden said. ‘Keep at forty.’
A Maserati came up fast behind them, followed by an unmarked Falcon. ‘There’s a rest area coming up on the left,’ Madden said. ‘I’ll send him in there.’
There was half a revolution of a police siren. Tran slowed further and indicated left. Riley watched in her side mirror as the Maserati looked to overtake. Madden hit the siren again and the Maserati braked and followed the Sprinter into the bay.
‘I’ll bring him over,’ Madden said and hung up.
Tran left the motor running and moved onto the bench with Patel and her coffee. Riley followed. They could hear car doors slamming, then voices.
‘They got you working the long paddock now, Paul?’ a man said. ‘Highway Patrol.’
‘Someone wants to have a chat, Joe,’ Madden said.
There was a gust of warm air as Madden pulled open the back doors of the van. ‘Get in,’ he said.
Zabatino was plethoric, short, thick-set, balding. He looked at Riley, Patel and Tran on one bench and across to O’Neil on the other, then at the coffee cups on the floor. ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘Lesbian tea party?’
‘I said get in,’ Madden said.
Zabatino hauled himself up and bent to sit beside O’Neil. Raw sausage hands.
Madden climbed in after him, shut the doors and sat next to Riley.
Zabatino shifted on the bench. ‘Who the fuck are you lot?’
‘Homicide,’ O’Neil said.
Zabatino scoffed. ‘Get fucked.’
‘Listen, Joe,’ O’Neil said. ‘Let’s bring you up to speed. First thing you should know is that I had a chat with a supreme court judge this morning, name of John Cullen. You remember Justice Cullen?’
Zabatino shook his head.
‘Well,’ O’Neil said, ‘Justice Cullen remembers you. All that tow-truck bullshit with the Lebs?’
‘It went to trial, I was innocent.’ Zabatino smiled. ‘Did he remember that bit?’
Riley watched him. Amoral, wound tight.
‘Just to fast-forward a sec—we’re investigating a murder up in Sydney.’ O’Neil gestured at his colleagues. ‘Funny thing is, your name’s come up.’
Still smiling, Zabatino stared at his hands.
‘With that in mind,’ O’Neil said, ‘I rang Justice Cullen this morning and gave him some details about my case, sounded him out. Know what he said?’
Zabatino waited.
‘Without a word of a lie, he said, If you want a search warrant for Joseph Zabatino I’ll sign it right now.’
‘I got no idea what you’re talking about.’ Zabatino’s face creased in disgust. ‘I’m growing grapes. Making table wine.’
‘That might be so,’ O’Neil said. ‘But I’ve got enough to bring you in. We could take our time getting to the station, go the scenic route. Might take what, eight hours? That’s eight extra hours we’ve got at your property, looking for wall cavities, while you’re in the copshop. The media would love it.’
‘I know a bloke at The Mirror,’ Riley said.
Zabatino eyed her then looked away, dead eyes dead ahead.
‘What were you doing last Wednesday?’ O’Neil said. ‘Three days after Christmas.’
Zabatino blinked. ‘I was at Echuca, water skiing with the family. Boxing Day to New Year’s.’
Madden opened his notebook. ‘Who else was there?’
‘’Bout thirty-five people. Big fucking family.’
‘I want their names,’ Madden said. ‘Where you stayed, where you went, what you did. Shops, pubs, restaurants.’
Madden scrawled notes as Zabatino spat out the information. The Superintendent let himself out of the van, waving his notebook at O’Neil as he climbed down. ‘I’ll have it all checked out,’ he said.
‘Specially the Tuesday night and Wednesday,’ O’Neil said. ‘Want to be sure there’s no chance of a surprise trip to Parramatta.’
‘Parramatta?’ Zabatino said. ‘What, you think I’m BMK?’
‘Joey Vino, catching on fast,’ O’Neil said.
Zabatino shook his head. ‘You got to be kidding me.’
‘What’s your relationship with Philip Preston?’ Riley said.
She saw him tighten. O’Neil had felt it beside him. ‘I’ll say this one time, Joe,’ O’Neil said. ‘You tell us everything and you get to slide out of here. Otherwise, we haul you into it and it gets real ugly. The search warrant will be just the start.’
Zabatino looked along the line, from Patel to Tran to Riley.
‘How much did you pay to make your kid’s bashing incident go away?’ Tran said.
‘It was his idea.’ Zabatino’s voice was flat. ‘Doctor Phil’s.’
‘What did he want in return for clearing up the problem?’ Riley said.
He shrugged. ‘Usual things.’
‘Such as?’ Riley said.
Zabatino looked at the roof and blew air. ‘I gave him a case of Scotch when my boy first started at the school. He invited me in, we had a few drinks. It went from there.’
‘Went where?’ O’Neil said.
‘Cases of wine. It doesn’t cost me nothing …’
‘What else?’ O’Neil said.
Zabatino swallowed. ‘He wanted more. To fix the boy. He’s always talking hookers … He likes them young.’
Silence in the van. ‘How young?’ Riley said.
‘Not kiddy stuff.’ Zabatino looked affronted. ‘Legal. I put him up here for a weekend, a place out of town, very private.’
‘This is what you gave to fix things for your son?’ O’Neil said.
‘Yep, no cash.’
‘Why no cash?’ Tran said.
‘Plausible deniability—he always goes on about it. Says he can swear he never took a buck if the shit hits the fan.’
‘You do anything else for him?’ Riley said.
Zabatino considered, weighing odds. ‘He in a lot of shit?’
They didn’t answer.
‘You reckon Doctor Phil did the girl?’ Zabatino said.
O’Neil’s head inched sideways: Don’t answer.
‘I’ve seen what he does with girls,’ Zabatino said. ‘His soul, it’s fucking black.’ He looked at his hands in his lap. ‘This didn’t come from me, right?’
O’Neil stared ahead. Zabatino was on a roll, negotiating with himself.
‘After this, I’m gone,’ Zabatino said. ‘Drive away, no more to pay. Deal?’ He gave a hopeful nod. ‘I know nothing about the girl at the school, I never met her, never heard of her till I saw it on the news. That’s the honest truth. All I done is grease the wheels with my son’s boss.’
Riley knew O’Neil would make a deal—but only if he had to.
‘The manure you’re asking about on the TV,’ Zabatino said. ‘Doctor Phil’s sweating on it. It comes from me. I got some sheep. I get it bagged and take some for the Doctor whenever I drive up. He puts it on his rose garden. He’s obsessed with his roses.’ Zabatino shook his head. ‘Like the fucking Godfather.’
It was quiet, just the whir of the air-conditioning.
‘Right,’ Zabatino said and made to stand. Riley put her hand up to sit him down.
‘Anyone else know about the manure?’ O’Neil said.
‘Nah. I back the car up to the garage and we unload. Manure, Scotch, wine.’
‘When was the last drop?’ O’Neil said.
‘A month ago’—Zabatino frowned—‘first week of December.’
‘You know where he stores the manure?’ O’Neil said.
Zabatino shook his head. ‘I know he composts it. You gotta age it.’
‘Okay,’ O’Neil said. ‘Two more things.’
Zabatino crossed his arms.
‘One, if Preston calls you—don’t answer. Ever. Let it go straight to voicemail. If he texts, you text back once and tell him you’re dealing with some heavy shit and will be off the air for a while. There’s to be no other contact. Capiche?’
Zabatino nodded.
‘I get any sense you or anyone you know is in touch with Preston, I’m down here waving Justice Cullen’s warrant.’
‘Yeah,’ Zabatino said. ‘I get it.’
‘Good. Second thing. We need to get Crime Scene to your place now. They’ll be discreet. We need samples of your sheep manure. Do you bag it in a single place?’
Zabatino winced. ‘Yeah.’
‘Good. You go straight home now. Detective Sergeant Tran here will be along with Crime Scene.’
Zabatino climbed down from the van. Riley got into the driver’s seat. O’Neil called Madden and requested the forensic investigators and a pick-up for Tran. ‘We’re going to head off,’ O’Neil said. ‘Annie can fly back commercial.’
‘Zabatino’s alibi is checking out,’ Madden said.
‘I expect it will,’ O’Neil said. ‘You might have a mob brothel operating here. You know that?’
‘No.’
‘Keep a lid on it, we’ll talk later.’
‘Thanks. Tell me, you really have a promise of a warrant from this judge?’
‘Justice Cullen?’ O’Neil said. ‘Never spoken to him in my life.’