Dirty Work

By Brett Sody

DIRTY WORK

Detective Pete Young - at twenty-two the youngest detective in South Australian police history. He's lifting the lid on all sorts of DIRTY WORK going on, right under his nose. Headline City. Priest Under Pump - Rock Band on Make - Family Business Hard Hit - Celebrity Chefs on Outer - Writer Grinds Axe - Builders Stir Pot - Pastor's New Take on Old Theme - Murders To Go. A couple of miracles tossed into the mix, then stirred. And that's just the humans. DIRTY WORK: Hard-boiled detective parody, dishing out the facts of life, shithouse though most of them are. Like it or lump it. Whatever you happen to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098398705

Book preview

PART ONE

ONE

There she is, over there, see? Sitting down on the plain, squatting in the dust, having a little rest. She’s picked a good spot too, hills to the east, coast to the west, vales down south and outback up north. Goes by the name Adelaide.

Of the 1.3 million people in it, only one is currently behind the wheel of what constitutes the official unmarked police car in these parts, a white Ford Falcon, and driving it up Torrens road, west bound, even though it’s a Sunday morning, and the last day of summer. 

The one in 1.3 million is Detective Pete Young. At twenty-two, he’s the youngest detective in S.A. police history. People are always wanting to know how he did it, and he’s held the same steady line of reply since induction.

Brought up properly.

  What’s in the trees is in the branches, as his mother is fond of saying, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as far as his father’s concerned. Check the stats.

1-2-1999: Born. Crowton, Victoria, Dandenong Ranges.

1-2-2017: Turns eighteen. Applies to join Victoria Police.

2-2-2017: Vic-Pol decline, citing not enough life experience.

2-2-2017: Stuff that, young Pete had said.

3-2-2017: Instead, applies to join S.A. Police, Adelaide. It’s the city of churches, psycho killers, kiddie fiddlers. More cops always wanted. A lot of backyards need looking into.

24-2-2017: He gets the nod from over the border, so Pete’s popped into S.A. Police Academy, Fort Largs, for one-year of basic training. Dad reckons he’ll piss it in.

24-2-2018: Dad’s prediction proves spot on. Pete tops the class. Gets on the job, the beat, the street. Spends the next eighteen months in uniform, garners a perfect record, as his elder sister Karen knew he would.

25-8-2020: Takes the two mandatory detective courses over a five week period. As forecast by mum, he passes with flying colours.

  I2-11-2020: BANG. Pete Young gets to be what he always wanted to be. Detective. His younger brother Todd was never in any doubt whatsoever that Pete would pull it off. Head down, tail up, that’s the way to get anywhere in this world.

1-2-2021: The youngest detective in S.A. police history turns twenty-two. Just goes to show what you can do if you pull your finger out.

28-2-2021: Today. Det. Pete, en route, is checking his look in the rear-view mirror, just to be sure. He’s wearing what he always wears, having adopted the Einstein approach. Nc = O x Tw. One outfit means no choice hence no valuable time wasted on deciding. Det. Pete has better things to do with his time and brain. A lifetime’s worth of pointless pondering saved right there, pal. BANG BANG. It’s precise. He’s brought back the sports coat. Havana brown plaid. Shark-grey slacks, cocoa coloured shoes, egg-shell white shirt, charcoal tie, tan belt. Other combos had been tried but none combined as well so that’s the end of that. He never worries about what to wear, he won’t sweat on what to get on, he already knows. He’s way ahead of the pack. The lad’s got more interesting stuff to do than muck about with endless variations of possible attire. He wants to crack on. Bigger fish to catch. This is what he does.

So, what’s gone down?

  Some concerned neighbours have called the cops, that’s what. They haven’t seen the old couple across the road for a while. Their mail’s been piling up, the grass is knee-high and weeds are taking over. The no-show needs to be checked out, so checking it out is what Det. Pete’s doing, pulling the white Falcon up outside the dwelling in question; 16 Portsmouth Street, West Croydon, six kilometres north-west of the G.P.O.

The house is 1950’s austerity-style. A rock-rimmed fish pond sits in the middle of the overgrown front lawn. Rusty chook-wire has the slimy tarn well-covered. A yellow stripe of kikuyu runs right through the middle of the cracked concrete driveway that’s heading up the left. A beat-up besser block garage is dead in it’s sights, can’t miss; straight ahead. A big green frangipani leans in and observes from the right.

Det. Pete sits a bit before getting out of the Falcon. Winds its window down. Takes a good long look at the house, feels the sun on his elbow. In through the open window, carried on the warm air; dust from up north, spores from down south, pollens in from the east, death in the west.

Listen. What’s that buzzing?

It’s a big fat blowfly that’s just flown in.

Det. Pete’s got bad news for it.

  He pulls out his Smith & Wesson M&P. Waits. Sit’s it out

while the irritating little buzzer carries on a bit more. After a good thirty seconds the blowie has a rest on the dashboard. Bad move. The M & P butt hits home and the show’s over. Trash on the dash; it’ll have to be scraped up. Later. Det. Pete feels that there’s something wrong at number sixteen.

Inside the Besser block garage, catching breath on the cool paint-spattered concrete floor: Killer. With tongue hanging out, saliva dripping, adrenaline still racing, heart beating too fast……will the cop hear it? Feeling the dull thud of feet approaching, sneaking behind the creaking tool bench……how does he know? Blood’s trickled into the crud infested cracks in the concrete floor. Wino-face glaze. The killer wonders if the cop’ll notice……how can he not? There are three corpses strewn across the floor. Head-less, limbless, lifeless.

  The cop creaks opens the door. A blade of sunshine nicks in through the crack and stabs the back wall. Behind the tool-bench the killer freezes. The shaft of light widens as the cop opens up and walks right in. The killer curls into a ball. The hot slice of sun misses the murderer by a whisker. The blood in the cracks starts to congeal. Eyes, narrowed to a slit, open. The light spreads. Carnage is revealed…….run. Now? No. Wait it out. Sit tight. Chill. Be cool.

Inside the garage now, touching nothing, the cop walks straight over to the tool bench. Behind it, a breath is caught……did he hear? Eyes adjusted, narrowing to a more familiar slit. The killer’s ears strain back, each squeak of the detective’s shoe raising a hackle or two. The cop squats, opens the tool bench door, takes a look…..if I wanted to I could reach out and slice your ankle through to the bone. Right now.

The cop stands up and heads out of the garage. After the dank and dim, he’s back into the sun and glare. Beware. It must be time to look around inside the house. In the cool and dark garage, the killer can’t believe the stroke of luck……got to move fast, he’ll be back. Of that there is no doubt. The assassin slips out from behind the tool bench and all evidence, quick as a wink, is gobbled down. Zb = Nc.

Zero bodies equal no case…… prove it, pal.

TWO

Seventy-four clicks to the southwest, in one of those vales in fact, Father Ray Pritchard looks up from his pulpit and does a quick head count.

  Six.

  That’s one down from this time last year. And four down from the year before that. The numbers are heading one way. Fr. Ray asks the six to rise. Up in the organ loft, his deacon, Dean Williams, staying seated, launches into hymn nine. Dean’s main instrument is the guitar but he’s not too bad on keys, if he’s had a chance to run through the piece a few times.

A piddling turnout of souls at St. Luke’s, Third Valley?

Not on your Nelly. There’s got to be at least a million-plus termites tucking in to a late breakfast directly under the father. Tasty timber, wood-aged, top shelf. They’re too busy stuffing their faces to pay any attention to him up above. Heard all this Jesus jive a million times. Anyway, they’re only there for the tucker.

  Fr. Ray wouldn’t have a clue. Hasn’t heard, no idea. No one’s told him so how in heaven’s name is he supposed to know?

Can’t know everything.

As hymn nine powers up, Fr. Ray looks down at his diminishing flock. A congregation of six is better than none.

He knows his Matthew 18:20.

  ‘For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them’.

He’s doubled that, so there.

Fr. Ray turned sixty last year and has never been seen on the job in anything other than the classic dark suit, black shirt, white collar. The hair’s too long, mostly grey, but hey, he’s still got most of it. It’s the old folkie in him. He feels like he owes it to someone.

Parish numbers, other than the termite’s, are surely dwindling. That can’t be denied, but consider the positives. The deacon up back is on song and the priest on the chancel’s good to go so let’s get on with it.

The mob chowing down below the boards getting bored shitless with the drone going on above know the layout of St. Luke’s like the back of their claws. Nave seats ninety. Nine pews per side, five to a pew. There you go - Nine-O, athough it’s been a long time since all those pews have been sat on simultaneously. Still, that’s the seating……maple. Hard as a rock. Can’t even get your teeth in. Don’t bother.

  Up on the chancel, over to the left, you’ve got your pulpit ……probably jarrah, stained, wouldn’t touch it. That creep with his collar on back-to-front’s behind it.

On the right you’ve got your presidential chair…..oak, bit chewy but it’d do if it had to.

Dead centre, life sized, eye-level, spot-lit, been there since 1885: statue of Jesus on his cross……plaster. Rubbish. You tried it? Tastes like chalk. Rather eat a dried-up twig any old day.

Hymn done, Fr. Ray steps up. He digs deep and launches into it. This is what he does. Mass. Next up; liturgy.

St. Peter one, chapter four, verse twelve.

  ‘Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange……’

  The roar of a bob-cat rips through the air, a jack-hammer jolt joins in……strange what? Fat bull-dozer growl adds to the mix……sounds like it’s coming from across the road. Tip-truck rev, scream-of-chainsaw, whine-of-backhoe; the combined din coming in means you can’t hear a god-damn thing……what the hell’s happening?

Deacon Dean hops down from the organ loft and checks out the source. It’s across the road all right, directly opposite. The old CWA hall with its SOLD sign plastered across its FOR SALE one and a Site of the New Pennsylvanian Brethren Meeting Hall banner stuck over both is being taken apart, piece by piece, chopped into chunks, fed into tip trucks. Demolition time. Had to start sooner or later, but Sunday?

Not that Dean would know, but below deck, the general feeling seems to be that breakfast is now completely ruined……that monumental racket from across the road’s enough to put anybody off their tucker. All that noise is no good for your digestion, everybody knows that. 

Fr. Ray, meantime, continues with the verse, drowned-out yet undaunted.

  ‘But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s suffering that when his glory is revealed ye shall be glad also with exceeding joy’.

  Fr. Ray and Co. aren’t the only ones being put out by the PB show. Holed up in their nest in St. Luke’s bell tower, an in-house family of wasps are copping a double dose of distress. They’d initially loved the bell tower position: great views, top vantage point, but right now, as if that dastardly demolition disturbance weren’t enough, visibility’s down the drain. They’re having to contend with a great wave of dust, dirt, grit and grime, stirred up across the road and heading on over, looking to cause trouble. By the time mass is done they’re bound to be covered in it.

Back up in the organ loft, perched on his stool, Deacon Dean nods with admiration for the man down below. Poor crowd, appalling conditions; Fr. Ray still goes for broke. To six or sixty, in heavenly quiet or devilish din; the deacon knows the father will always be giving it his best shot. Seven years old was all that little Dean was when his own father, Dean Williams Senior, was laid off from work after years of hard slog. Bit badly by the black dog, he hit the grog, went to pack, and after a bit topped himself with a shotgun blast to the head, out in the barn. Little Dean, growing up fatherless in Third Valley, has come to think of Fr. Ray as a bit of a father figure. 

A black Jaguar pulls up outside St. Luke’s. Its engine is cut, its door opened. A man with a big silver cross hanging around his neck gets out. His black boots crunch the grey gravel. Inside, Fr. Ray’s trying to tune out that over-whelmingly distracting demolition commotion and press on……‘on their part he is evil spoken of but on your part he is glorified’.

The man-in-the-black-Jag shuffles in and takes a pew in the back row. Fr. Ray, behind the pulpit, looks up over his glasses. He can’t see from there but a wasp, and a filthy one at that, covered from head to toe in dust in fact, has hitched a ride from bell tower to pew on the back of the incoming late-comer’s wonderfully white collar.

Crikey, it’s the bishop.

THREE

Sixteen Portsmouth Street, West Croydon. Det. Pete’s on the right path. The one leading up to the front door, and wouldn’t you know it?

  Crunch time.

It’s shoe landing on snail, that’s what; instant mash. Write-off. Hardly Det. Pete’s fault, what the fuck is the slimy schmuck doing in the middle of the path anyway? And how is Det. Pete to know that the crushed path-crosser had chosen today, of all days, to leave home? Bloody Sunday.

What makes it worse is that the pulped one’s mum and dad saw the whole thing. They’d just been waving junior off, funnily enough, when splat, shat on from above. Their pride and joy reduced to slop just seconds after flying the coop. Fruit of their loins now lumpy stew.

Mum just knew. Junior should’ve stayed at home.

Kids. Think they know it all.

And now look at him. Just some crap on the sole of a shoe of a dick on the move. A man doing his job who can’t be expected to have noticed the home-leaving slime-bag slam bang in the middle of the path.

  Whose fault is it then? Should’ve listened to his mum.

None of this would’ve happened if he had. Same old. What had she said? Too young to leave home. Would the dipshit listen? No. Had to make his own way.

Well, he’s made his own way now, hasn’t he?

Det. Pete makes his. Wipes his shoes on the front door- mat, effectively removing all traces of anything that could link him to the scene. He enters the house.

As soon as he’s in a few firebrats show up and start tucking in to what’s left of junior-on-the-path. Admittedly, not much, as most went off on the sole’s of Det. Pete’s shoes and ended up on the front doormat. The leftovers are ground into the grout, hard to get out, but the freeloaders are giving it their best shot. They’re finding it a bit gritty, but beggars can’t be choosers. The brats pick over junior’s remains in full sight of Mum and Dad, still pretty cut up. Jesus, he’s only been gone a few seconds! Takes all kinds. Shameless scavengers. Go on, bog in.

  Having found nothing of interest inside the house during the ten minutes he was in there, Det. Pete is back on the path and steps right on the firebrat freeloaders and whatever’s left of junior. In juniors or whatever’s-left-of-hims case, it will be his second going over, for the brats first time, but one’ll do it.

Can’t blame the cop, really. Det. Pete doesn’t walk around staring at the ground does he? Just so he won’t unwittingly waste a low-life? Come on. Not the lad’s fault. It’s the fault of an out-of-luck slimy shmuck who thought he knew better than his mum. And a few greedy creepy crawlies now down and out stuck in the grout. Let that be a lesson. Their poor mothers wouldn’t even be able to recognize them now.

Positive ID practically impossible.

Det. Pete carries on. There’s the backyard to check out.

Det. Pete knows there are possibilities a-plenty in a back yard, favourite burial spot of your average suburban psycho killer. For starters, the backyard’s handy to keep an eye on. From the sink, out through the kitchen window into the backyard, washing on the line flapping in the breeze, kids playing in the dirt and crows coming around to peck the apricots and later in the afternoon maybe some rain. The backyard keeps it close to home; no one’s really going to accidently stumble onto your unmarked grave when it’s tucked in under the tomatoes down behind the shed next to the compost bin. Not going to be washed up on the beach or stumbled on and disturbed by some weekend bushwalkers or found floating in a lake or at the bottom of a cliff.

Backyard’s ideal. Number one spot.

Det. Pete’s right at home in a backyard.

He’s heading there right now, as a matter of fact, and so he’s showing his disappearing heels to whoever’s behind, which in this case are the shell-shocked parents. They can just make out tiny fragments of junior, bits only a mother might notice, teeny blobs stuck deep in the tread of Det. Pete’s shoe heading out of view.

Be hard to get out. Usually have to scrub. Bit’s of those foul firebrats in there as well. How awful. Junior’s parents are panic stricken……god, the other kids are around the back. Oh no! What are we going to do? It’ll take until after lunch to get back there and warn them. They’re doomed. Surely that squisher can’t be a detective! Too young!

  No idea, these slime-bags. Haven’t got a clue who they’re dealing with. Best pray that the rest of their brood keep the hell away from the young man wearing a Havana brown plaid sportscoat with a slight bulge under its left arm, a police badge hanging off his tan belt and a white Falcon parked out front. Watch out. Get in his way, well, naturally, you’re going to cop it, yes? ‘Course you are. So, clear off. You get trodden on, only got yourself to blame. Don’t go crying after the event.

  Anyway, Det. Pete’s obviously well aware that collateral damage of some sort is fairly common in this type of case. Someone or another usually ends up getting whacked and so it proves to be yet again. The backyard, as it so often does, comes up a winner. Det. Pete locates the missing male resident of 16 Portsmouth Street, West Croydon.

The wally’s in the woodshed, axe embedded in his head, dead as a dodo, blood soaked from cleavened head to black-ened toe. Initially thought missing, now proven not to be so. Some relatives of the bits that are still stuck in the tread on the sole of a shoe of the cop at the scene have already tracked the dead man down, beaten Det. Pete to the punch.

That hurts.

His phone goes off. Take a guess.

  It’s the DS.

Message is? When you’re done at sixteen, come in, got something. Big.

FOUR

‘Nice sermon, Ray’ says the bishop, ‘from what I could make out’

  ‘Thank you, your Grace’ says Fr. Ray, pouring the tea. ‘Sugar?’

  ‘Never touch it’ 

The bishop’s a year younger than Fr. Ray, but ten k’s heavier. His hair’s just as grey but shorter, close cropped.  Pale skin on smooth-shaved face stretched tight. A few faint spidery blue lines on the schnozz like cracks in the Pieta.

  ‘Milk, then?’ asks Fr. Ray.

  ‘Just a little’

  ‘Biscuit?’

  ‘What sort have you got?’

  ‘Ginger nut snaps’

  ‘Mmmm, no, allergic to ginger. No yo-yo’s?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, your Grace. Just the ginger nut snaps’

The bishop shifts his butt on the rectory lounge-room settee. Fabric: suede. Colour: mustard. Circa: 1963. He has a sip of tea.

  ‘Making a hell of a racket across the road, Ray, aren’t they?’

  ‘Certainly are’ says Fr. Ray.

  ‘Bit rich starting on a Sunday’

  ‘Not the ideal time, no’

  ‘Must feel strange for you, Ray. Ironic, to say the least, that lot putting up a place right across the road’

  ‘You mean me being raised as one? A Pennsylvanian Brethren?’

‘Yes, rather unusual upbringing for a catholic priest, you’d have to say, wouldn’t you, Ray? PB to RC? Haven’t heard of many others’

  ‘Yes’ says Fr. Ray. ‘It is unusual. No doubt about that’

  ‘Both your parents PB weren’t they, Ray?’

  ‘I was born into it’

  ‘Sister too?’

  ‘Sister too’ 

Unfortunate, thinks the bishop.

Wish I’d gotten some decent biscuits, thinks Fr. Ray.

  ‘You’re doing it tough just at the minute, R….’

  ‘Hang on’ says Fr. Ray, ‘I might have a packet of sao’s’

  ‘Look, Ray, forget the