my briefcase. All eyes in the squad room were on me. I’d disrupted their routine, and although many of them would be silently agreeing with me, any overt signs of support would almost certainly see the offending member on the boss’s shit list.
In the end only Cassie had the front to approach me. ‘Took a message for you, from Dr Julie Wong at the morgue,’ she said, handing over a Post-it note. ‘She’ll be ready to see you in about an hour. Got women all over town, haven’t we?’
I managed a smile as Cassie checked over her shoulder, concern and intrigue meshed across her face.
‘So what’s going on? You and Freckles sounded worse than the two Paddy and Zoff copped last night.’
Paddy and Zoff were the night detectives who’d been called out to the domestic dispute.
‘Why, what happened?’ I asked.
‘Guy comes home pissed from the pokies, hears girl on the phone. He unplugs the phone. Girl hits guy, guy hits back. Girl hits head on coffee table. Kaput.’
‘Dead?’
‘Not yet. Popped her head right open. They’ve got her on a brain bleeder at the Alfred. Homicide are on standby.’
‘Shit. Speaking of hospitals, how’s your dad?’
‘Not so bad, for the moment,’ she said, lowering her voice again. ‘He’s still in remission but they’re keeping him in for a few more days.’
The strain was etched into her skin, like a pigment. It was the waiting that did it more than anything. Waiting for results, news, miracles. Long, incessant waiting.
‘So why are you here then?’
‘I can’t go again, Rubes. I heard what was said in the mess room. Freckles is a first-class prick.’
‘Hear, hear,’ I muttered.
‘How was I to know we’d land a dead kid after I left?’
‘You weren’t, so don’t worry. It was my call to send you off and I stand by it.’
She nodded uneasily. ‘I know, but I don’t want everyone thinking my head’s not in the right place. I like this job and I want to keep it.’
We were silent then. I wanted to tell her to take my advice, not to put the job first. That family was more important, you could always get another job. Learn from me, my mistakes. That’s what I should have told her. But there were some things even friends didn’t want to hear. Who was I to give advice anyway?
‘Thanks for what you said to him,’ she said finally. ‘I’ve been putting in for permanent day shift since we got the news on Dad.’
I shrugged. At least I was good for something.
‘No, I really appreciate you forcing his hand like that. Just tell me what’s going on here, will ya? Last I heard it was a clean-cut OD. Now you’re in there sounding like Tina and Ike.’ She nudged me playfully with her hip. ‘You wanna fill me in before your date this morning?’
‘It’s not a date.’
‘The morgue, huh? Classy stuff, Rubes. All that cold stainless steel. You bring sexiness back into the office. I like it.’
I knew she was trying to cheer me up, so I tried to satisfy her with a smile. Behind her, Eckles had the phone cradled between his ear and shoulder, scribbling on a pad.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said. ‘I feel about as welcome as a fart in a phone box.’
We headed down the St Kilda Esplanade and followed it towards the city. I used the time to tell Cassie everything I knew so far. By the time I’d finished we were outside the coronial complex in Southbank. I leant over and rummaged through the glove box for a packet of antihistamine.
‘Headache?’ she asked.
‘Nah, hayfever. Bloody bushfires,’ I said, popping out a tablet and washing it down with the water I’d bought earlier. ‘Now, if you don’t want to come in, that’s fine. This could be a bad one. Everything up until now suggests the kid was abused. I’m not expecting to hear any different once I go inside.’
‘Hey, I worked a six-month secondment in the Rape Squad before I landed this gig, remember?’
I was about to ask what she was worried about, when I realised. ‘It’s Eckles, isn’t it? You’re worried if you help me, you’ll be tarred with my brush.’
Cassie looked embarrassed.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t let that happen. I made the mistake, not you. If the shit rolls downhill, it’ll stop at my desk. It won’t go any further.’
After a long moment, she got out of the car, defiant. ‘Eckles can go to hell. Let’s do this.’