Out of the Blue Read online

  ABOUT OUT OF THE BLUE

  The shockingly violent death of his wife was no accident. And Dennis Gatz knows it.

  But the cops aren’t interested. Gatz is a loose cannon who couldn’t handle the force. No longer one of them. No longer worth the trouble.

  But trouble’s on the way. Someone’s out to get Dennis Gatz and he can’t wait to meet them. Head on.

  This time it’s personal. This time he’ll do anything for revenge. And the best revenge comes out of the blue.

  CONTENTS

  ABOUT OUT OF THE BLUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ABOUT JR CARROLL

  ALSO BY JR CARROLL

  COPYRIGHT

  ONE

  It’s a warm October night, late, the dry air’s alive and crackling with bugs that zero in and mash themselves on the dirt-crusted windscreen and in the radiator grille. The sky’s cloudless, there’s no wind and the moon is low. It’s been like this lately, unseasonably so, and the long-range forecast is for more of the same. The farmers aren’t pleased, coming off a dry winter, but Karen Parr doesn’t mind it at all. Hot weather makes dry throats, and dry throats make the world go round when you’re in the hotel business.

  She turns on the washers and wipers, but that just spreads the mess. ‘Bugger,’ she says, and strains to see through the ragged sweep of blades. Vision gradually improves, then a big-bellied locust spatters right in her line of sight. The car, a yellow 1982 Mazda 323, has no air-conditioning, so she drives with the window down. On the radio a female announcer says, ‘Good evening, it’s eleven pm. Here is today’s news in brief …’ It’s a reassuring voice, hushed and sincere—pure ABC. Just right for her mood and the time of night. She’s on the Sunraysia Highway, Avoca bound, with Ballarat six kilometres behind her. Half an hour and she’s home.

  With her elbow out the window Karen taps long fingernails on the car’s exterior, not listening to the bulletin but instead mentally recycling an old song she’d heard earlier that day, ‘Hotel California’. She’s too young for the ’70s, but had always felt connected to the music of that decade, to The Eagles and Jackson Browne, ‘Take it Easy’, Linda Ronstadt, all that. Sometimes she could believe that she really was a part of it, though in truth Karen had been just sixteen when the decade ended.

  She smiles and stares ahead at the empty road and the broken white line that comes at her, at her, at her, watchful for ’roos, seeing insects hit with soft splats and thinking disconnected, dream-like thoughts that occur in brief, bright flashes. She used to be a dope fiend, so figures it’s burned into her memory banks, the old brain doing it on automatic now. There was a period of three years when she regularly dreamed in virtual reality, taking that reefer-and-mushroom road to forgotten days, whole weeks even, waking in a sweat on some hard floor, not knowing in the dark whose place it was or whose jism she could still taste in her cotton-dry mouth. This was when she was in her mid-twenties and routinely screwing nineteen-year-old guitarists, tattooed roadies with dirt under their fingernails and other wild-eyed desperates with names she may or may not have known. At the time, her big sister Judi had been lead singer with a successful all-girl country band called The Show Ponies, and Karen had been only too happy to get in on the act with her. Life was one big party then. They shared everything, even a boyfriend at one time, comparing notes afterwards and joking about how the guy liked to fuck funny, move it around in circles. Shame floods her face at the memory. How free-spirited a creature she considered herself then, downing Southern Comfort Joplin-style and walking into walls. She touches her cheek—it’s burning.

  On the radio she hears, ‘The current temperature is a warm 28, tomorrow’s forecast is for another warm to hot day with …’ But the voice fades away, dissolved by memory. How many places did she leave the next day without finding her panties, just pulling the jeans on with the snoring bodies around her and stumbling out to her car, still ripped, needing to consult a street directory to find her way home? She winces, recalling too well. Never busted once, never pranged her car either. Sometimes late at night she’d stop at lights and not have any idea in the world where she was or which way to go. She shakes her head. Christ, how lucky was she? Her own place, that was something special too. Sleeping Bag City, they called it. No one could say with any certainty how many people actually lived in that establishment at any one time, which always made rent days interesting.

  But all that was a long time ago, when Judi was alive, before Dennis Gatz came along one morning and rang her chimes in more ways than one. And if someone had told her back then that she’d finish up in a Western District town she’d never heard of happily running this pub with an ex-cop, for Christ’s sake, fucking homicide detective, she’d have laughed. Even after two years here she wonders how it happened.

  There is no other traffic. On high beam her headlights illuminate reflector posts and ghost gums by the road as well as the insect swarms rushing to their deaths. She sits on a steady hundred. A sign says Avoca 50. On the radio now there’s a jazz program, which she turns up. In doing so she notices headlights in the rear-view mirror. They’re not that far back and seem to have come out of nowhere, but then Karen hasn’t really been paying attention. The lights, on high beam, rush up fast, dazzling her. ‘Shit,’ she says. Seems to be a truck of some kind. She squints at the mirror, turns it to one side and pulls over a bit for him so there’s lots of room to get past. But he doesn’t overtake, just sits right there with his lights on full beam, tailgating her. He’s too fucking close for comfort. Karen hears the roar of a V8 and the whine of thick winter treads. ‘Fuck!’ she shouts, and speeds up. She’s doing 120, then 130. He’s still there. The bastard won’t go past, just sits on her hammer, one, two metres back. She can hear him changing gears back and forth, gunning it. Her arms and legs are shaking and she doesn’t know what to do. What does this fuckwit want, for Christ’s sake?

  She hits 145 and the car vibrates. She’s never driven it this fast before. There’s a curve in the road but she can’t slow down, not with this maniac right on top of her. No matter how fast she goes, he stays right with her, dropping back a bit then roaring up again. Now he blows his horn. ‘Well, get past then, fuck you!’ she yells, but he won’t. Coming out of the curve, she fishtails and almost loses it in loose gravel. Karen’s deeply scared now. This is a lonely road, she knows that. Twice a week she travels it at this time and there are never many cars. Who is this arsehole?

  Then he bumps her. Not hard, just a nudge. He bumps her again and blows the horn continuously. She’s still on 145, flat out. I’m going to fuck the motor, she thinks dimly. The truck has no trouble keeping up. He bumps her a third time, harder now. She strangles the wheel, crying, helpless. Can’t stop, can’t go, can’t do any damn thing. Bang, he goes, hard. She jolts forward and slams her chest on the wheel. Bang … bang … BANG! She’s completely hysterical now. ‘Stop it!’ she screams. ‘Please stop it!!’ She’s convulsing, out of control, wetting her pants. She can feel it spreading warmly under her. Another bang, and this time her head hits the windscreen. By now she can’t see the road for her tears.

  The truck accelerates and suddenly she sees it alongside her. Not going past, just travelling
abreast. It’s white or yellow with a big bull-bar, bunches of spotlights and CB aerials sprouting out of it—a cowboy kind of truck. A blast of his horn and she hears, ‘Get over, you stupid fuckin’ bitch!’ through his open window. But she can’t get over any further, she’s practically off the road now. She’s half in gravel, having real trouble controlling the car. There’s another downhill curve coming and she grasps the wheel, bracing herself. I’ll stop now, she thinks, soon as he’s clear. Then the truck swings hard against the little Mazda, she screams once more, he whacks her again, harder still, and she clips a white post, veers off the road, screaming, screaming, screaming …

  There’s long grass, a ditch—CRUNCH! Bits fly out, she hits her head, a rabbit darts. For a brief moment the car’s airborne. She lets go of the wheel, both hands, and grasps her head. Her eyes are wide, the screams soundless now. The white trunk of a ghost gum rears out of the ground at her. This is the last thing she sees. At a speed of 130-plus her car meets the tree dead centre. Glass explodes, metal shrieks and rends into the air. Body parts tear free, cartwheel, gouge ground. Around her everything disintegrates in slow time, spinning in space, returning to earth somewhere beyond, then finally silence and a perfect peace come down with the dust.

  Dennis came out of the cellar and heard a tapping on the glass door. It was twelve-thirty—he’d been shut for an hour. Lowering the cellar door he went out to the little foyer and saw the dark shape of a man standing on the footpath outside. The figure tapped again. By the time Dennis reached the door he could see who it was—Frank Stannard, the local police sergeant. He opened the door, which was not locked.

  ‘G’day, Frank,’ he said.

  ‘G’day, mate.’

  Dennis gave the other man a good, long look in the gloom. Having been one himself for a long time, he knew how to read cops. Frank was a bit older than Dennis, late forties perhaps, tall and imposing. He had been a country cop all his life and had passed up an Inspectorship that was his for the taking because he liked living here in Avoca, population 1,345—so much so that he’d recently bought into a property out at a place called Pomonal. Dennis he regarded with mixed feelings. Experience with the firm gave them that in common, and Frank knew enough about Dennis’s history to understand that he’d been no run-of-the-mill flatfoot, but he was unimpressed by big-city homicide dicks more or less on principle, and the fact that Dennis had pulled the pin counted seriously against him in Frank’s view. Frank was a stayer and expected everyone else to be the same. Failing to go the distance revealed weakness in a man’s character—it was as simple and as irrevocable as that.

  He held identical views on the subject of marriage, too, and what little he’d heard about Dennis on that subject merely confirmed his first impressions. Dennis Gatz was obviously someone for whom a pledge carried no meaning beyond the time he actually made it. However, despite all these unspoken reservations, he quite liked the man on a personal level. He drank Dennis’s beer when off-duty, wisecracked with him and at the same time kept a bit of an eye out for Karen. It just wasn’t fair for one woman to have all that going for her. She was one of a kind and Dennis didn’t deserve her. Frank had undressed her many times in his mind, but then so had every other swinging dick in the place. You’d have to be inhuman not to. Back at the station Frank often gave himself a hard-on thinking about what he’d like to do with her. What a drawcard she was, a fact not appreciated by the town’s other publican. Frank Stannard’s heart always beat a little faster when in her presence, and in conversations he found it hard to keep his attention at eye-level and his mind on the subject at hand.

  For his part Dennis didn’t mind Frank at all. They were mates in a shallow and perfectly uncomplicated way. Frank had helped him through the early days, though Dennis had asked no favours. Frank realised that publicans had to make a living in these hard times and did not insist on the letter of the law as long as its spirit was adhered to. That was his way of saying that after-hours trading was not out of order if kept within reason. At that time of night he usually made himself scarce.

  So what was he doing here now? Dennis wondered. Nothing on Frank’s face betrayed his purpose.

  ‘Come in,’ Dennis said, holding the door open. Frank seemed to hesitate on the step. ‘Karen’s late getting back, so I haven’t locked up yet. You’re not going to bust me, are you?’

  Frank came inside, not smiling. ‘No, Dennis,’ he said. ‘There’s some bad news, mate.’

  Everything went to water. ‘What?’

  Frank stood with his hands by his sides. Dennis looked at him, his heart fluttering.

  ‘There’s been a bad accident,’ he heard Frank say as if through smoke. ‘Karen’s been killed, Dennis. I’m sorry. She went off the road and hit a tree. They say she died instantly.’

  Dennis felt Frank’s hand grip his arm and lead him to the front bar. He supported himself on it and tried to assimilate. It wouldn’t take. He began to hyperventilate.

  ‘I didn’t hear you, Frank,’ he said.

  Frank got behind the bar, found two shot glasses and filled them with Johnnie Walker. When he looked up, Dennis had his face in his hands. He was shaking violently.

  ‘No,’ Dennis said. He sat on a stool.

  ‘Here, drink,’ Frank said, and held the glass out. Dennis uncovered his face and looked at Frank, not the glass. He could not speak at all and tears streamed down his face.

  ‘Twenty k this side of Ballarat,’ said Frank. ‘There’s a bend in the road.’ He put the glass under Dennis’s nose and Dennis seemed to see it for the first time.

  ‘You’re sure—sure it’s her?’

  ‘It’s Karen, mate. Her car, the little Mazda. ID in her handbag. I’m sorry. There’s no mistake. It was a very bad accident. She must’ve gone to sleep or something.’

  ‘Sleep? Jesus, Frank!’ He took a pull of the Johnnie Walker, grimaced, then finished it. It had been all of a triple.

  ‘I don’t know how else it could’ve happened. She knew that road well.’

  Dennis put the glass down and leaned over with his elbows on the bar, eyes shut. He stayed like that a long time. Frank finished his drink and came around the other side. Dennis had his hands clasped behind his neck. He was heaving hard. Frank didn’t know what to do. He lay an arm across Dennis’s shoulder and felt the shudders going through him. When Dennis looked up the snot was running from his nose.

  ‘Gone to sleep?’ he croaked. ‘Why would she do that, Frank? She’d only just left Ballarat.’

  ‘I don’t know, mate. Maybe she didn’t go to sleep. Maybe there’s another explanation. She might have swerved to miss a kangaroo or a wombat. At this stage we can only speculate.’

  Dennis stood up straight and blew his nose. ‘Speculate?’ He looked hard at Frank. ‘What do you mean, speculate? When—when did it happen?’

  ‘About an hour ago. Ballarat Accident Appreciation are there now. Apparently there are bits of the car everywhere. She wouldn’t have felt a thing.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she?’ Dennis said. ‘How do you know that? I would say that’s certainly speculation.’ He unbuttoned his shirt and massaged his chest and stomach. He seemed to be looking for a way to express himself. He patted down the bar with the palms of both hands, gasped, rubbed his hair, walked away, then back. For a minute Frank thought Dennis was going to head-butt the bar and bash his own brains out. When he faced Frank with his shirt undone and his face raw, twisted, eyes red and unrecognisable, limbs trembling, Frank didn’t know what to expect, and braced himself. He had never been strong on this face-to-face stuff with desolated men.

  ‘I want—I have to see her, Frank,’ Dennis said brokenly. ‘I want to go there now. Will you take me?’

  If I don’t, he’ll go anyway, Frank thought. Probably wipe himself out, the state he’s in. ‘I’ll take you,’ he said.

  TWO

  Frank pulled the blue and white Falcon onto the shoulder and the two men stared ahead. Lights, red and blue, flashed everywhere. Iridescent pi
nk cones sealed off half the road. Police cars, ambulances, fire and tow trucks littered the scene. Men in uniform and white overalls swarmed about. Arc lights illuminated the countryside. It was as if a plane had come down.

  Dennis saw wreckage and a tree which had been split in half, with men gathered around it. He stared dumbly. He did not think he could get out of the car and stand on his feet. He did not feel capable of facing this. It had been a mistake to come. It was simply too much. He opened the door, felt Frank’s hand on his wrist and looked at the other man strangely.

  ‘Steady,’ Frank said.

  Dennis got out. His limbs felt weightless and heavy at the same time. He stumbled forward, dimly aware of Frank’s presence beside him. Two cops half-heartedly tried to block him and he brushed past them as if they weren’t there. He could hear Frank speaking to the constables while he pushed on through a ditch, falling to his knees and getting up again. In the grass his foot hit metal, a piece of car. He stood looking down at it, bathed in white light. It was a section of tailpipe. The main wreckage was just ahead. Cops and tow truck drivers were examining it and talking among themselves. They were holding jaws of life gear. No one paid any attention to Dennis. He had no idea if Karen was still in the car or what was happening. He could not see how anyone could be removed from that. There was no actual car shape, no cabin at all, just smashed panelling and scattered debris. He picked through it. The arc lights showed everything up perfectly. He stepped over a door that looked as if it had been sliced with a can opener, crunched some glass and said to a cop with his back to him, ‘Is she still there?’

  The cop turned, studied Dennis in the light. He could see what he had on his hands here. ‘Are you her husband?’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yeah. Is she?’

  ‘No, mate. She’s in the ambulance.’

  Dennis looked back at the whirling sea of lights and activity.