Red Dirt Road

by S. R. White

Genres: Small Town & Rural

Synopsis

One outback town. Two puzzling murders. Fifty suspects.

In Unamurra, a drought-scarred, one-pub town deep in the outback, two men are savagely murdered a month apart - their bodies elaborately arranged like angels.

With no witnesses, no obvious motives and no apparent connections between the killings, how can lone police officer Detective Dana Russo - flown in from hundreds of kilometres away - possibly solve such a baffling, brutal case?

Met with silence and suspicion from locals who live by their own set of rules, Dana must take over a stalled investigation with only a week to make progress.

But with a murderer hiding in plain sight, and the parched days rapidly passing, Dana is determined to uncover the shocking secrets of this forgotten town - a place where anyone could be a killer.

A gripping and vividly atmospheric story from the international bestseller, this is a searing story perfect for fans of Jane Harper, Chris Hammer and Garry Disher.

Praise for S. R. White:

'A rising star of Australian crime fiction ' SUNDAY TIMES
'A taut, beautifully observed slow-burner with an explosive finish' Peter May
'Original, compelling and highly recommended' Chris Hammer
'It draws you in - and rewards with a truly powerful ending' HEAT
'This slow-burn novel catches light' THE SUN
'The story takes place over less than 48 hours but the pace is slow-burn, relying on considerable psychological depth...the denouement hits like a knockout punch WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
'A dark and compulsive read' WOMAN & HOME

(P) 2023 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Release date: January 5, 2023

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 480

Sample

‘Russo.’

The instruction to come in was, as usual, a clipped bark.

Dana entered the office of Anton McCullough, her boss and district commander, as infrequently as she could manage. This suited them both. At no point did McCullough ever walk to the detectives’ offices and he handled almost everything with an avalanche of curt emails. Her admin officer, Lucy, received no direct communication whatsoever from McCullough: any orders were passed through a channel of go-betweens, as if they all worked in 1960s East Berlin. Lucy had predicted that soon she would get instructions hidden inside a fake rock by a park bench. Dana’s colleague Mike was better served, being compelled on a weekly basis to provide a departmental update. He’d offered to let someone else do it, but they’d all declared themselves too busy for the next seventy years.

Priorities were set by one man’s whim. The district’s management board was now moribund: McCullough wasn’t interested in collegiate decision-making and simply gave out personal instructions without consultation or discussion. Any meetings were one to one, in his office. There was little doubt that he viewed this as decisive leadership, taking command of what he saw as a loose ship. He expected backing from a workforce that understood the necessary command structure of policing, but his lack of consultation meant that he had no idea how it was viewed. Someone had labelled him the edict eejit. It might have been Lucy.

McCullough’s office, his for the next year or so before retirement, was devoid of anything personal or softening. Apparently, he had a wife and three adult children, but there were no photos. Apparently, he’d led mutual aid and partnerships in Thailand, Indonesia and Brunei, but there were no plaques or certificates. Foliage stopped outside his office window and, beyond one in-tray, there was no sign that any work was conducted in the room.

The man himself sat reading while Dana stood silently. The protocol now was to wait until McCullough decided to look up from whatever and address her. Others faced a similar process, but seemingly delivered with more professional courtesy. McCullough didn’t like Dana’s approach, personality or methods: he made that perfectly clear on every occasion. He let out a soft whistle as he turned the final page, as though a finance report held a twist he hadn’t seen coming.

‘The Lou Cassavette case,’ he said, without looking up from the report. The one thing Dana liked about McCullough was that he always named a case by honouring the victim, not the perpetrator.

‘Sir?’

‘The accused in court yet?’

‘Still on remand, sir. Psychiatric reports.’ Dana slid into the same terse style as McCullough.

‘Hmm. Shouldn’t take long, but I don’t like it. Confession, supporting evidence – it all stacks up. It’s cut and dried. They knew exactly what they were doing, and people like that need banging up. I don’t like ’em sliding.’

‘No, sir. I believe it was the judge that ordered the psych evaluation.’

‘Still on suicide watch?’

‘Level five, sir, yes.’

McCullough’s long-held view was that too many offenders ‘walked’ by faking symptoms. Dana felt that McCullough hadn’t been directly investigating for years and had lost sight of the burgeoning mental health crisis. Every day, officers saw people who should be receiving health care and support but were on a waiting list that stretched a year or more. Life often intervened before then.

‘The Monroe murder?’

‘The trial starts next month, sir. On the fifteenth.’

The Monroe trial had been brought forward rapidly, after the golf-course intervention of a state minister. McCullough viewed it simply as paperwork to be processed – a rapist killed in cold blood. Dana saw a human tragedy, regardless of the victim’s history. She was working twelve-hour days trying to comply with deadlines for evidence logs, audit trails and submissions.

McCullough threw the report into the in-tray and sat up straighter. His vague attempt at a smile was disconcertingly reptilian. A question slid out from the corner of his mouth. ‘Ever been to Dutton, Russo?’

Dutton was one of the force’s most isolated districts, a world of flat horizons and dust, rumoured to be riddled with corruption.

‘Never, sir.’

‘Well, you are now. This afternoon. Miriam’s booked you a flight at two. Be on it. Here.’

He flicked a solitary piece of A4 at the edge of the desk. Dana came forward and caught it as it threated to flop to the carpet.

‘Dutton’s a bloody mess, we all know that. Trent’s good police, but he’s surrounded by idiots out there. Ten weeks ago, they had a murder. Local farmer. Crazy MO and aftermath, so they hushed it up. Four weeks later, another one. Husband of the pub owner. Same MO. This all happened in a town called Unamurra. So maybe eighty people, two murders: they couldn’t find a thing. Not one suspect. One of the detectives . . . well, you can dig out the reports to read on the plane. Solve their murders for them, Russo, so we can all get on with our lives without Central crying like babies.’

Dana scanned the sheet, which contained less detail than she’d just been told. At the bottom was a link to the files in the computer system. She must have frowned, because McCullough chuckled softly.

‘You’re probably asking yourself . . . why me? Have a think about that, too. I expect you to solve that question, as well as the murders. A couple of days should do it. And I mean a couple of days, Russo. Not every performance review takes place in this building. Understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Hmm. Mike Francis’s time is increasingly occupied with the Alvarez operation. So I can’t have a detective who should be here going walkabout like a headless chook. A couple of days, max. Get it done. Heads up for you, Russo: Unamurra has no internet. So think logistics.’

They both stared at each other for a second.

‘Well, go on, then. Get packing.’

Some people weren’t made for flying, just like some were completely unsuited for ballet, brain surgery or basketball. Each dip or lurch from an air pocket, every variation in the drone of the engine, made Dana’s heart flip. She stared at the propeller on the wing, trying to discern a tiny shift in the strobing that would herald imminent disaster: just one errant bird would do it, she thought. Frequent checks of her safety belt – she was the only passenger who hadn’t released it as soon as they levelled out – didn’t help. Breathing slowly and closing her eyes merely let her imagination wander. The insouciant chatter of other passengers frustrated her. She tried to bury herself in the information on her laptop, but it wasn’t gelling.

McCullough had been matter-of-fact. He’d said Dana’s flight to Dutton was already booked. Her return flight, she’d noted, was not.

Five months of McCullough had barely made a dent in her view of him. The initial impression – that he was a selfish, politicized ego who would drop his people from a great height whenever it suited him – hadn’t changed. Her previous commander, Bill Meeks, was still suspended and, it seemed, beginning to accept that he’d never return. Collateral damage from a desperate fight to become the new Alpha dog at Central, Bill had been sidelined without a chance to challenge the allegations. Central was apparently muttering about a dignified withdrawal from his career. It had occurred to Dana in the three-hour drive to the airport that twenty-eight years of loyalty seemingly counted for nothing if your face no longer fitted: their treatment of Bill remained tatty, tawdry and unjust. Lucy had worked on with the stigma of implication at her shoulder – she’d been a sacrificial pawn in the same sleazy game. She was outwardly back to her best but, Dana knew from their nightly phone chats, still gnawing on the unfairness.

Dana had packed what she’d hoped would be needed for up to a week. McCullough’s sneering suggestion of a day or two seemed unforgiving, designed to fail. The two previous murder inquiries had been perfunctory and lacking, but there was over a month of investigation in them: simply covering that work again would take the entire week. It had occurred to her that re-treading old ground might, therefore, be a poor use of her limited time. If nothing else, the distances were vast and she could eat up large chunks of a day simply getting from place to place.

If her attempted investigation went on any longer than two or three days, she’d probably have drawn a giant blank anyway. Then she’d have to slope back to Carlton and watch McCullough’s face as he pointed out her inability to operate beyond your comfort zone. An extrovert detective with a burgeoning contacts list, a flair for people, open-natured bonhomie – a people person, in fact – would have done better: this would be the implication. It wouldn’t be just a botched investigation on her record, either. McCullough was looking to restructure and Dana was, she was certain, top of the list to be moved elsewhere. She wasn’t sure she could manage the rupture to her life, or the distance from Lucy.

The plane hit a patch of quiet air and Dana managed to skim the gist of the case again, memorizing markers and noting some startling unanswered questions. The two detectives had covered most of the basics in a mechanistic way – items tallied and ticked, processes completed and simply filed. There appeared little thought other than what came next, or what might prompt a bollocking if it was forgotten. There was no analysis, no appraisal, no notes on likely suspects or motives. It filled paperwork but did little else.

Larry Muir had been the first victim, strung up in open country on a metal frame. His exact time of death was unknown, the body having been there seemingly for days before discovery. A local farmer, Muir had no obvious problems that would lead to this. Forensics were sketchy, with only one set of fingerprints and no witnesses. Everyone seemed to treat it as a bizarre one-off; the community wasn’t ready for another when it came a month later. Tim Ogden was displayed in the same way, but with a location at the back of the town pub. Everyone lacked an alibi for each murder, because the first had a wide-open timing and the second had a twelve-hour potential window. Again, there was no clear motive for anyone around Tim’s death. Background work had revealed no gambling debts, affairs or possibilities of blackmail for either victim. In such a small town each investigation had quickly run out of questions to ask, and people to respond.

The first hour in the air had yielded views of a tawny landscape still marked by greenery around the watercourses. Rivers seeped along the arcs and oxbows created when they ran in joyous, exuberant flood; dams held defiantly to the last dregs while surrendering long-drowned trees and crushed fencing. But not long after they’d crossed the solitary rail track that formed the border into Dutton District, she saw a huge mass of dusky nothing: no hills, no mountains, no trees. From this height the mottled surface resembled a dehydrated leather hide; the Dry was into its fourth year. Dutton itself was isolated but Dana’s ultimate destination was the murder site, the town of Unamurra, a further two hundred kilometres along the only road. A settlement that was created because horse-drawn wagons had needed supplies to cross day after day of emptiness, Unamurra’s relevance had faded once people no longer required blacksmiths. No modern necessity had replaced it.

The cab-driver was blessedly quiet, a middle-aged Indian man in a perfectly ironed white shirt, who drove with delicate sweeps of a hand and impeccable manners. The upholstery was immaculate, so much so that it felt vaguely plasticized. A prominent sign reminded passengers that animals spit, humans don’t, but a second reassured that people are joy. Dana needed to re-gather. Her pulse was still skittish from the flight and, in particular, the landing. She knew the odds of having an accident and basically understood the rudiments of man-made flight. She comprehended it was fundamentally safe in the way she understood that venomous snakes sought to avoid conflict, huntsman spiders were God’s creatures too, and lightning strikes were rare. None of this knowledge placated her. When the wheels had touched down and the plane failed to somersault, she’d finally breathed out.

Cricket commentary from overseas mumbled quietly on the radio: genial conversation drifting amid broiling Sri Lankan heat. The car, operating on its hybrid motor at these speeds, glided like a padding cat. Dutton didn’t show its best face on the route from the tiny airport to the town. The abattoir was a rudimentary fabrication to the north side of the road, a web of cattle fences and two-storey steel sheds, sun-blasted but dormant. On the south side a collection of stores offered chainsaws, shade awnings, caravan repairs and welding services. An attempted Eat Street near the Federation-era post office had enticed only golden arches, several lofty silhouettes of chickens and a bottle shop.

The main street was, mid-afternoon, in drowsy repose. Many shops were closed – assuming they were ever open – and the only bank shut its oak doors as she passed. Verandas extended all the way from shopfront to street gutter: shade was cherished and the sun was an eight-month enemy. What struck Dana about the shop windows wasn’t the old-fashioned presentation. What occurred instead, as a red light drew them to a halt, was that they didn’t have many goods: shoe stores offered up three or four pairs, a cake shop presented two eclairs and a gateau. The displays were almost a facade of what every town had, but with a subtle indication that behind this was very little.

For four hundred metres through the centre of town, she saw no trees and no grass. Some country towns had enjoyed a golden era – literally an era of gold, in some cases – and reflected that temporary boom in the architecture of public gardens, town hall, banks or an incongruously large and ornate theatre. These statements were often overblown and vaguely pretentious with their wedding-cake aesthetic, but they also gifted those towns an air of civility and dignity. Dutton, however, had never had such a moment. Instead, it was a facsimile of urban life grafted on to an ungrateful land which tried to shuck it off at regular intervals. Nature’s weapon of choice varied: nutrient-free soil, obliterating dust storms, life-changing but rare floods, blinding summer heat or – as now – years of drought. The land and the town fought an uneasy, desperate and silent struggle, each licking wounds periodically but refusing to buckle. The region suited empty landscapes and hardy, well-adapted fauna; the town was an interloper, its population aiding and abetting the trespass.

The taxi-driver broke his languid style when they stopped, scuttling to get her suitcase from the boot. He set it upright and extended the handle before asking for the fare. He seemed surprised when, after paying and tipping, Dana shook his hand and said thank you.

After the piercing glare of the street, the foyer of Dutton’s police station was dusty, muggy, like the inside of a museum. Muted light slanted in through four clerestory windows, high set and cowering under the veranda outside. Dust motes sparkled and weaved in the diagonal beams. A bench had been bolted to one wall against tongue-and-groove panelling. Black and white floor tiles were scored by the tram tracks of recalcitrant furniture being dragged.

The reception was the standard mix of high-waisted bench – complete with scuff marks from a thousand boot caps – and Perspex sliding screens, set open a few centimetres for conversation to creep through. The space was designed to elicit basic details from the visitor while remaining essentially mute itself. In station foyers Dana could usually hear scraps of conversation beyond, muffled trills from telephones, a sense of half-hidden industry. Here, no sound but the rasp of a P-plater’s exhaust from the street.

‘Yeah, mate?’

The officer didn’t look up from the journal he was perusing, flicking back and forth as though the contents made no sense. The pages were yellowed and the writing an elegant copperplate. Dana assumed it was an old ledger of some kind. His name badge read Constable O’Brien. He had sharp, matted hair like a pan scourer and breathed noisily, as if fuming at someone.

‘Hello. I’m here to meet Constable Able Barella.’

O’Brien looked up at the voice, the manners, the invoked name. Presumably, those usually asking for Barella were different – or at least looked different. There was a short pause while O’Brien collected himself. Outside, the exhaust blared a second time and tyres squealed briefly.

‘Really? Abe? Sorry, he’s up at Unamurra.’ O’Brien jerked his thumb over his left shoulder. ‘About two hours thataway.’

‘Yes, I know. He’s meeting me here. My name is Dana Russo.’

The name should, she thought, have rung a bell. It wasn’t every day someone traipsed across a chunk of continent to meet someone at O’Brien’s station. A good cop, she felt, would have worked it out just from the suitcase. She spotted a printed email to his right and noted the double-strip of yellow highlighter that indicated it was high priority. She could read her name on the second line, in bold.

‘Okay,’ muttered O’Brien, seemingly unconvinced. ‘Well, I can try getting hold of him, but, y’know . . .’

‘Yes, I can imagine. He texted me before I got on the plane. He said he would meet me here at three o’clock.’

This time a smirk, as though Dana should have known better. O’Brien relaxed slightly and dropped his pen. ‘Well, there you go, that’s your problem. You’re way early.’ He pointed to the clock on the wall opposite: two minutes to three. It was above a poster of a haunted-looking teenager with sunken, surrendering eyes who was apparently missing. The teenager would be forty now, if she was still alive. ‘Three means four, with old Able. His name’s uh . . . what’s the word? Ironic.’

Dana’s observations continued to pile up in her mind: dissing a colleague to a complete stranger.

‘Do you mind if I wait here, please?’ She indicated the suitcase she’d left by the bench, which now loomed as a fait accompli for O’Brien.

He puffed his cheeks as though he couldn’t care less, and flung a hand at the bench. ‘Knock yourself out. I’d offer you some tea, but the water heater’s just crapped out.’

‘That’s fine. Thank you.’

Thirty minutes later the main door opened slightly and a man stood at the threshold, looking back out at the town. His hand lingered on the door, holding it ajar. Dana saw short, stubby fingers, worried nails and the glint of a silver watchstrap below a denim cuff. After several seconds the man backed in, still staring down the street, and the door swung fully open. Dana recognized him from the e-pack Lucy had sent.

‘Hey, Mal,’ he called to the desk. ‘That step’s bloody lethal, mate. Someone’s going to sue you one day.’ Able Barella slapped some dust from one shoulder.

O’Brien shrugged. ‘Well, I hope it’s you, Abe. Because one, that means you’ve hurt yourself. And two, I know you can’t afford a lawyer.’ His pen veered away from Able, towards Dana. ‘Visitor for you – been waitin’.’

Able turned and looked surprised, sheepish and open, all in the same expression. He had crow’s feet around the eyes and scraggily coiled hair. He might have been thirty, or fifty. His wide mouth fell into a brilliant, reflexive smile.

‘Hi, hi, Detective. Sorry I’m late. Local hit a cow.’

Dana shook hands and raised an eyebrow. ‘With their car, or a lucky punch?’

Able stopped for a second with his hand still in mid-air, then laughed. ‘Ha! Well, he swears with the car.’ His hand reached to his chin, thoughtfully. ‘But he could’ve punched the car as well, just to make his story stand up.’ He nodded, eyes narrowed in mock-consideration. ‘Yeah, hadn’t thought of it that way. Good thinking. That’s the kind of out-there approach you’ll need, Detective.’

‘I look forward to it. Please, just Dana.’ She gathered her laptop bag and slung it onto one shoulder. ‘Should I call you Constable . . .’

‘Ah, crap no. Able. Abe. Whatever.’

‘Okay, Able. Well, much as I want to get to Unamurra, I suggest we bottom out what we can with Forensics here. I don’t imagine you have a big lab where we’re headed.’

Able smiled. ‘In Unamurra? Not big, no. Not at all, in fact. Not even a kid’s chemistry set. Yeah, good idea. I’ll take you through to Doc Mangold. He can, uh, give you some basics at least.’ Able spotted Dana reaching for the suitcase. ‘Oh, here, let me drive that. Comin’ through, Mal.’

O’Brien buzzed them through, and Able parked the suitcase under the desk. After hearing Detective, O’Brien seemed contrite. ‘Sorry about that. Didn’t realise you were family.’

Dana deadpanned it. ‘No. Forensics are this way?’

‘Yeah, down the long corridor, turn left.’

They went through two fire doors to emerge into a long passageway that was half outside, half indoors. Dana guessed it had once been an alleyway that they’d semi-enclosed, a weatherproof cheat-route from the front office to Forensics and, she could hear, the motor pool. The air was saturated with the stringent smell of chemicals, recently sprayed along the base of the wall to stem inexorable pulses of bugs. She could see the smears from the sloppy application.

‘You and Mal O’Brien are friends?’

Able replied back over his shoulder. ‘Yeah, you could say that.’

He carried on walking for a moment, then half turned and addressed her a second time. ‘Well, actually, friends is pushing it. Mal’s a decent bloke when you get to know him. You need to take a blowtorch to his front panel first, mind. I’ve been working on him for about five years and I reckon we’re just short of actual mates. But if I was ever in trouble in Dutton, I’d call for Mal.’

Dutton’s station was about one third the size of Carlton’s, Dana estimated, so she expected all the support resources to be proportionate. But the Forensics unit was surprisingly well served for a smaller regional station, with more equipment and space than Dana would have guessed. There was a main lab maybe ten metres across, with an examination table and a decent array of centrifuges and other paraphernalia. Beyond that, what looked like storage for exhibits and material, including the large silver door she’d hoped for.

Doc Mangold was sitting on a high swivel stool, clicking through an online form with an air of tedium. There was something of the crow on a fencepost about him. He’d carefully tended the hair above his ears because of its rarity value. Able made the introductions, then leaned back against a bench to signal this was Dana’s run.

‘I know you’ve spoken to Able about both deaths, Doctor, and I’ve read your reports, thank you,’ began Dana. Mangold took off his glasses and regarded her with wariness. ‘So I’ll try not to trouble you with repetition. But I have a few questions.’

Mangold held up a palm and Dana surprised herself by stopping: it was a tactic she used in interviews, but unnerving when it was turned on her.

‘Before you do, I think you should see the bodies. In full flight, so to speak. Might answer a few things for you. They’re quite something.’

Dana glanced at the silver door and nodded, relieved. ‘Yes, thank you. I wasn’t sure if you still had them or if Central had picked them up by now.’

Mangold chucked his glasses on to the bench and shook his head. ‘Those geniuses? Well, kiss goodbye to any more forensics when they show up next week. I have a very big freezer here, Detective. We, uh, acquired it when the butcher went belly-up in Unamurra. I can keep the corpses exactly as they were, hooked up and everything.’

He half jumped off the stool and began strolling towards the massive silver door jammed between two cupboards – practically a new room off the main lab.

‘We’ve taken photos and video, of course. But when Central transport them they’ll dismantle everything, throw bits away and pack the rest, and jam two bodies into one box for transportation. Prioritize, they call it. I mean you lose the uh, cinematic effect, when you squash them tight. We preserved them in here, exactly as. Have at ’em.’

He pulled back the door, which made a soft thump as the seal released, and Dana waited patiently for the mist to evaporate. It did so slowly, from the top down, giving the impression that each corpse was appearing to her from the gloom, moving forward for their moment. Despite viewing photos on the flight, at first she couldn’t quite comprehend what she was seeing. Gradually, she put the puzzle together.

Angels. They were both angels. Dark, malevolent, but angels. Each corpse was staged in the same way – arms splayed in a curved lunge forward, tipped towards the observer like a giant raptor beginning its descent. They were falling yet floating upwards at the same time. The ‘wings’ of black leather, battered by dust, wind and sun, arched from the wrist to the spine. Thin cords tethered each corpse to the metal frame.

The images she’d previously viewed hadn’t shown this level of detail. Two dimensions hadn’t done it justice: the sense swept through her that a dead body was also at a moment of launching.

One expression came to Dana. ‘Jesus.’

‘I know, right?’ muttered Able. ‘Freaky as.’

She needed to be sure. ‘Are they just–’

‘Yeah, they are,’ confirmed Mangold. ‘Exactly like the Angels of Unamurra. Same posts, same binding, same wings, same posture. Everything. The real angels don’t have faces, so that’s different. But otherwise? Someone replaced an angel with a corpse. Twice.’

The Angels of Unamurra were an ongoing art project foisted on the town by a state government eager to pay lip service to helping remote communities through the drought. They’d been created and curated by Axel DuBois, a Québécois artist of questionable background who still lived in Unamurra although currently his whereabouts were unknown. The art moved irregularly about town, showing up where and when least expected. The angels were supposed to spark curious tourists, caravan-toting silver nomads and others. Many country towns in regional Australia got through hardscrabbles with a side-hustle of some public art – grain silo portraits or warehouse-sized murals. Just enough enticement to get fresh money into the town. Unamurra’s angels were supposed to generate tourist dollars and go viral. The whole project was widely regarded as a failure.

The corpses here left more questions than she’d had at home. Were they homage, or accusing pointer? Inescapable pathology, or misdirection? Why not hide the bodies in the vast desert? Why kill these two people, at these two moments?

Dana turned back to the corpses and looked more closel. . .