the squad room watching her. A Salvation Army volunteer approached my window shaking a donation can but I let him walk by.
‘What’s up?’ Cassie asked.
‘I need a favour. Can you check who made the ID this morning on the overdose and let me know if we’ve got a current address? Kid’s name was Dallas Boyd. I also need a date of birth.’
‘Ah, okay. Why?’
‘Never mind, I’m just filling in the boxes.’
I heard keys tapping and figured she was checking the system. The light went green but the car in front didn’t move. I blew the horn until it did.
‘The kid was sixteen,’ she said. ‘Born 1 November 1992.’
I looked around for somewhere to write it down but my daybook was on the back seat, so instead I scribbled it on the back of my hand.
‘Still there?’ Cassie asked.
‘Yeah, sorry. The ID. Can you check the incident fact sheet and tell me who made the ID?’
‘I don’t need an IFS to tell you that. Eckles took someone down to make the ID after lunch. Let me check his name.’
I changed lanes at the St Kilda junction and headed south towards the beach. Two hookers stood on the corner of Alma Road, hands on hips, gaunt faces hidden behind oversized sunglasses. Recognising one of them, I flashed my headlights. She lifted her skirt and flashed her leg back in sarcasm as Cassie picked up the phone.
‘A social worker,’ she said. ‘Works at the crisis centre on Carlisle.’
‘Will Novak?’ I asked.
‘Good memory.’
‘I’m still a detective, Cass,’ I said, then wondered aloud why the kid’s parents hadn’t made the ID.
‘Nobody’s saying any different,’ she replied, adding, ‘The address I have for the parents is a commission flat in Collingwood. The high-rise complex on Hoddle Street.’
‘Yep, I know it.’
‘What are you playing at, Rubes?’ Cassie prodded. ‘We’re done on this. I’ve got your inquest brief in front me. Nil suspicious circs, it says, right here in your own handwriting. Why all the questions?’
‘I’m back on deck tomorrow morning. I’ll fill you in then. Thanks.’
I ended the call before she had a chance to ask anything else and an uneasy feeling settled on me. She was my partner and friend and I’d broken the pact: in us we trust. But then for all I knew, she probably didn’t think I was ready to be back at work either.
I parked outside a corner property bordered by a six-foot-high brick fence. A sign on a gate read ‘Carlisle Accommodation & Recovery Service’. CARS operated out of an old mansion donated by its late owner, an elderly woman whose children had drowned in a boating accident in the 1950s. Her bequest had caused a shitfight among the remaining family members when she passed away in 1982, but her wish held up and CARS had been providing support to the street people of St Kilda ever since. As far as I knew, Will Novak had worked there since the organisation first opened its doors.
I walked through the front gate with my daybook under my arm, up a gravel path to a front porch that stretched the entire length of the three-storey house. Beautiful bay windows with ornate leadlight lined either side of a double-fronted door wide enough to fit a car through. A teenager in a striped tracksuit sat on the steps leading to the porch, rolling a cigarette. He made me as a cop even before I walked past.
‘How are ya, sarge?’ he drawled.
‘Not bad,’ I replied, noting the deep shadows under the boy’s eyes and the shrunken cheekbones that were the telltale signs of addiction. His eyes were mere slits, he hadn’t shaved in a few days and his hair needed a wash. Probably only fifteen or sixteen, but he looked so much older. Heroin does that. It beats the kids down, steals their youth.
‘Will Novak in?’
‘Dunno. What’s it to you?’ he said, not even looking up from his cigarette.
‘Just want to talk to him.’
I opened the front door but stopped as the boy mumbled something.
‘What’s that?’
‘Said he’s out back,’ the kid said. ‘Last I seen he was pretty upset. We all are.’
‘Upset?’
‘About Dall. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
‘You knew Dallas Boyd?’
‘Yeah, course.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Right.’
‘May I help you?’ a voice said from the doorway.
The first thing I noticed about Will Novak was that he’d shaved his head and grown a neat goatee beard. Last time I’d seen him, more than a year ago, he’d had long hair and was dressed in a T-shirt and boardies, standard youth-worker attire.