just after six and I figured I had about thirty minutes before he arrived. I dumped my briefcase at my desk and took my daybook to a computer by the window. Soon after his assignment as senior sergeant for the CIU, Eckles had rearranged the room so that all four computers were lined up facing the window. His official claim was that it enabled detectives to look out the window every so often, thus reducing eye strain, but everyone knew the real reason was so Eckles could see what was on each screen from his office, which we had nicknamed ‘the observation post’. In response, detectives who wanted a little privacy simply raised their chairs so their shoulders blocked the screen.
I did this now, even though Eckles wasn’t in, and logged onto the Law Enforcement Assistance Program. While the LEAP database booted, I opened my daybook to my notes from yesterday and started on the list of names I needed to check.
Sparks – nickname?
Derek Jardine – friend?
Vincent Rowe – stepfather
First I ran a check on Dallas Boyd. Skim reading, I learnt Boyd had an extensive criminal history that had culminated in an armed robbery two years before. There were no other offences since then. As Will Novak had said, Boyd had stayed clear of the police after his release from Malmsbury. I wasn’t sure what to make of this. I wasn’t a big believer in the virtues of criminal rehabilitation, in either kiddie or adult prisons.
Reading on, I answered my second question when I saw the name ‘Derek Jardine’ in the case narrative. Jardine and Boyd had been arrested for the robbery of a Chinese takeaway store. I used the incident number to bring up the relevant information on Jardine. A year older than Boyd, he had a similar story, with numerous petty offences prior to the armed robbery. Nothing since. No fixed place of abode. However, there was an extra paragraph that wasn’t in Boyd’s narrative.
Offender Derek JARDINE (DOB 10/10/1991) and co-offender Dallas BOYD (DOB 01/11/1992) are well known to each other through foster care and have committed numerous offences in tandem. Third offender Stuart PARKS (DOB 14/02/1993) is also well known to both males, both through the commission of crimes and the DHS Child Protection Unit. All three are accomplices in this matter, although it appears PARKS was unaware of the plans to carry out the robbery.
I wrote the name Stuart Parks next to the nickname ‘Sparks’ in my daybook, printed the entire file and returned to the main menu, then ran a name search on him. This was more like it. Parks had dozens of convictions, most recently for a residential burglary dated a week after Christmas. His address was registered as the Carlisle Accommodation & Recovery Service. I didn’t get excited about that: a lot of the street people in St Kilda used hostels for an address even if they didn’t actually live there. An address was necessary to receive welfare payments and these places were the closest they had to a home. Still, it meant Will Novak would probably know the kid.
I glanced at the clock on the wall: 6.30 a.m. Eckles would be in soon. I printed the page then opened my email inbox and typed a message to the Divisional Intelligence Unit requesting copies of both Stuart Parks’ and Derek Jardine’s mug shots. Using the number Novak had given me, I also filled out a request for a call charge record on Dallas Boyd’s mobile phone, hoping the calls coming to and from the phone in the hours before his death might help ID a suspect. Finally I switched back to LEAP and printed everything I could find on the stepfather, Vincent Rowe. Gathering the pages off the printer, I hid them in my daybook as the door opened at the end of the squad room and Ben Eckles walked in.
‘McCauley, you’re in early,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t sure if you were going to make it. I left a message on your machine but you never called.’
He walked through the room, suit faded and too big for his lean body. His red hair was slick and wet and combed back over a dome-shaped head. The haze of sunspots covering his face, responsible for his nickname, Freckles, had increased over summer.
‘You don’t need to remind me to show up for work,’ I said.
He grunted as he unlocked his office, hit the light and dumped his briefcase on the desk. Following him in, I told him