Crocodiles kill, p.1
Crocodile's Kill, page 1
The Crocodile’s Kill
East Timor Crime Series No1
Chris McGillion
Kenmore, WA
Coffeetown Press books published by Epicenter Press
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Kenmore, WA 98028
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
The Crocodile’s Kill
Copyright © 2022 by Chris McGillion
ISBN: 9781942078753 (trade paper)
ISBN: 9781942078760 (ebook)
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
To Spooks
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Michael Jackson (Emeritus Professor, University of Sydney) for igniting my passion for crime novels, Raymond Harding and Bill Blaikie for generous and excellent editorial advice, Spiro Zavos for teaching me how to write in order to be read, Rick Jacobsen as a sounding board for plot ideas, Damian Grace for unflinching if questionable confidence in my abilities, my Tetun language teacher and adviser on things Timorese Domingas Gama Soares, Kavita Bedford for travelling the same road in tandem and with encouragement, and last, but not least, my wife Cathryn for tolerating the self-absorption that engulfs me when I’m writing.
Prologue
The forest bordering the main plot where the young man grew food for his household was inhabited by the spirits of the dead. If anyone ventured into the forest without permission the spirits would be angered, and the trespasser could invite their revenge. But there was no way to eke out a living in this rugged and remote part of East Timor other than by subsistence farming and when the man was married and had another mouth to feed, he prepared a second plot inside the forest for there was no other land available for him to farm. The plot he chose was just inside the land reserved for the spirits and he convinced himself they wouldn’t mind. Besides, he wore a small stone talisman the sorcerer he’d bartered it from said would protect the wearer from harm.
He was weeding the new garden now with a hoe he had fashioned from scrap metal and a pole. It was hot and he was sweating. He stopped to stretch his back and wipe his brow and when he did the silence and the stillness distracted him. The wind had dropped, the trees hung limp in the afternoon heat, and there were no birds to be seen or heard. The dogs were asleep, and the piglet was lying in its enclosure. His wife had walked down the dusty track to the kiosk for cooking oil, hence there was no swoosh of her broom as she swept the yard or banging of pots as she prepared the evening meal. Everything was quiet, totally quiet, and for a moment he sensed that the world around him had sucked in all the sound, all the movement, all the air and was holding its breath before releasing it in a gale.
That’s when they jumped him. They came out of the trees and long grass in the further reaches of the forest. They punched him to the ground then kicked him and hit him with whatever they could lay their hands on—rocks, sticks, his own hoe—until he lay unconscious. They tied him to a makeshift cross made of freshly cut bamboo poles they had brought with them and dragged him to the front of his hut. Four of the men pitched him up against a large sandalwood tree in full view of the dirt road that fronted the hut. One used a sharp knife to inflict the stigmata into his hands, feet, and side. Those wounds would drain him of his supernatural powers and impose the white magic of Jesus over the black magic that had taken hold of his soul. Another man took a plastic lighter from his pocket and struck it against dried leaves on a branch he had found in the yard. He threw the branch onto the parched thatch of the hut and the roof burst into flames. He lit another branch and threw it through the open door to ensure the hut and all its contents would be razed to the ground. The last of the men cut the throat of the piglet that had started squealing at the mayhem and heaved the carcass into the pyre.
The first the young man’s wife knew something was wrong was when she heard the dogs barking, looked up and noticed smoke curling up above the trees as she walked back home. It was too much smoke, too thick, and too dark to come from anywhere but their hut. In her panic she thought it must have started from the stove in the lean-to she used for cooking but as she began to run, she thought again. Perhaps her husband had laid down on the mat on the dirt floor of their hut and fallen asleep with a cigarette in his fingers. She cursed him for that but as she drew nearer caught the smell of burning flesh and screamed. She dropped the cooking oil and ran toward the hut but when she reached the yard, she saw her husband hanging against the tree. She stopped, blessed herself, and collapsed in the dirt at his feet.
The dogs were barking furiously now as they ran back and forth in front of the burning hut. Neighbours further down the road had also seen the smoke and heard the dogs and some, though only a few, had come running. Two of them cut the young man down, his body naked and bloodied, while another watched the hut collapse as its wooden frame turned to black cinder and then to ash. Inside the doorway lay the piglet that its owner had been keeping to mark the anniversary of his wife’s mother’s death. Fat sizzled from the sides of its bloated body. None of the neighbours had a vehicle but one went for help. By the time the local priest had driven up and they’d taken the injured man to the clinic, he was dead.
In the sacred meeting house where the assailants had been given permission for the attack they now regrouped. They were sullen. They knew they would have to wash the blood off their hands and off the knife, but that could wait. One or two were shaking with remorse as the gravity of what they had done sunk in. They passed a container of palm wine around to settle themselves. None made eye contact with another.
“We should have cut off his head and put it on a pole as well,” said one of the harsher men after a while.
“We did enough,” grunted an elder and the group fell silent once more.
The marriage between the young man and his wife had been an arranged one, as many are in the rural districts of East Timor. He had been good to his wife but not in the way a husband should be. His sexual preference meant that his wife had borne no children even after three years of marriage and that seemed odd to the villagers. He had also aroused suspicion when he was spotted skulking through the village at night for what reason no one could tell. After a baby disappeared in the area and a rumour had developed that a demon must be involved, even more attention turned to him. He had been liked well enough, but he had also been a little odd and among people for whom conformity meant security that had been enough to seal his fate.
No one would be held accountable for the young man’s death. It would be seen as reasonable, even necessary under the circumstances. And because he was regarded as a demon he would be buried outside the village in an unmarked grave and his wife would have to move elsewhere with whatever possessions she could salvage. After all, anyone associated with a demon could themselves turn evil, threaten the village, and thus become a target for vigilantes. That is why one of the men involved in the attack had wielded a rock with particular ferocity. He wanted to be regarded as a zealous defender of his community rather than have anyone suspect he was cowardly or effete—much less the kind of man who would take another as a lover.
CHAPTER 1
The building was a disused mechanic’s workshop in an abandoned industrial block on the outskirts of Flagstaff. The door at the front was grated and hard to breach. The one at the back, set aside for entry to living quarters, was old and rotting around the frame and would yield to a solid blow. A grubby white van was parked in the yard behind the workshop by the back steps. He’d left the gate into the yard unlocked in a hurry to get inside and do whatever it was he was going to do to the girl.
The thought was torturing FBI Agent Sara Carter.
“What the fuck is keeping them?” she said and punched the steering wheel.
“It’s only been a few minutes, Sara. They’ll be here,” said her partner, Frank Rozzetti.
“I don’t like people calling me Sara,” she said. “I told you that.”
“Sorry, sorry, I know,” said Rozzetti trying to mollify her tetchiness. “I forgot.”
Flush against the workshop on its right was a two-storey brick warehouse. The only way in was by a front roller door which was padlocked. On the opposite side of the workshop was an alley across from a disused junkyard protected by a high mesh fence. He was theirs for the taking, she knew that, because even if he made a run for it, he’d remain in clear sight and they could take him easily.
“Come on,” she grumbled. “Come on!”
They were parked in an unmarked sedan on the corner where the far end of the alley met a road. An Arizona State police cruiser was concealed two blocks away and the two officers from it sat silent in the back of the FBI agents’ car. All that was missing was the other FBI unit to cover the front of the workshop.
“Come on, goddamit,” Carter hissed again.
“I know this means a lot to you but you’ll screw it up if you let the past get under your skin,” Rozzetti said. “You could put the girl at risk and—”
Just then Rozzetti’s radio earpiece came to life and he covered it with his hand to listen.
“Holy shit,” he said and turned to Carter. “They’ve collided with a garbage truck and Tanner’s knocked out cold. Rainey’s with him. He’s called in another unit. Five minutes, tops.”
Carter was thinking of the van, the unlocked gate, the likely horror unfolding inside.
“I’m not waiting,” she declared. She turned to the two uniformed police officers. “New plan. You two cover the front. We’ll go in the back. Leave the battering ram. Move!” She was out of the driver’s door as the troopers started up the alley. “Break down the door,” she barked at Rozzetti. “I’m in first.”
He grabbed the battering ram and zigzagged toward the rear door of the workshop using the van as a blind. Carter shadowed him, sidearm drawn.
“Now!” she cried.
Rozzetti mounted the few steps, swung the battering ram at the lock and the door flew open and bounced back off an inside wall.
“FBI!” Carter shouted.
Kitchen area: empty. Bathroom to the side: empty.
She slid through to the next room, her back hard against the wall. Rozzetti was close behind, scanning alcoves, cupboards, furniture.
The girl was on a mattress in the corner. Ajei Billy, from just south of Tuba City. Pretty Navajo girl. Twelve years old. Abducted from a bus stop on her way to school. Her hands were tied to a duct behind her head. She was naked, skirt, blouse and underwear scattered across the floor with her sneakers. Carter registered the welt developing under the girl’s left eye, the bruises on her arms and wrists, the blood on the inside of her thighs. Ajei was panting through her nose, tape covering her mouth.
The terror in the girl’s eyes ignited rage in Carter. “It’s okay. I’m a police officer,” she said trying to temper her voice. “Where is he?”
The girl gaped back at Carter through tears streaming down her cheeks.
Helpless.
Hurt.
Badly hurt.
Rozzetti slipped into the room to the right of Carter and lifted his sidearm toward the ceiling. A kitchen knife was lying near the mattress, used to cut away the girl’s clothing or force her compliance. He reached for the tape on Ajei’s mouth but she turned her head to one side.
A sound of glass breaking came from the workshop proper. Carter slipped to the adjoining door and tested the latch. It gave but something was wedged against the door and she couldn’t force it open with her shoulder. “He’s out a window. Stay with her,” she snapped to Rozzetti and sprang back through the kitchen to the rear door.
He was in the alley trying to hold up his pants as he lurched away from the troopers at the front of the workshop who were out of sight and unaware of what was happening.
“FBI!” Carter called. “Stop or I’ll fire!” But immediately she holstered her sidearm, leapt from the stairs, ricocheted off the van and took off after him.
She tackled him as he’d made it onto the roadway. He rolled over and covered his face with his hands, rough prison tats on his fingers and arms. “Please,” he cried. “Don’t hurt me! Please!”
Carter rose and stood over him. “Is that what the girl said, Preston?” she demanded. “‘Please don’t hurt me.’” She took deep breaths to calm herself. It wasn’t working. “Is it?”
“Please!” he whimpered. “Please!”
She kicked him in the face, knocking his head back violently. She thought she felt his nose break and saw his lip split and blood spray over his face and on to the asphalt. He let out a deep, wrenching groan. Footsteps were coming down the alley and she heard Rozzetti order the troopers to hold back, call an ambulance and stay with the girl. Carter was focused on Preston.
“Please!” he spluttered, coughing blood and spittle.
“Was that a turn-on for you?” she yelled at him. “Her pleading with you not to hurt her?” She kicked him a second time, even harder. “Get you hard, did it? You sick fuck!” And again she kicked, and again, working the ribcage until Rozzetti stepped in between them.
“Easy Carter,” Rozzetti said. “Let it go. We’ve got him.” He crouched down, examined Preston, winced at the sight of the man’s injured face and scanned the surrounds. Carter stepped away, brushed the dirt from her clothes and unclipped her handcuffs. “Wait a minute,” Rozzetti said holding up a hand. He scurried back across the road to the junkyard, checked to see if anyone was watching, and, on his second attempt, managed to scale the gate. A few moments later he clambered back, clasping a length of pipe in his kerchief. He took Preston’s right hand and wrapped it around one end of the pipe, then dropped it on the ground beside the man. “He came at you with the pipe and you had to disarm him,” Rozzetti said not bothering to look at Carter. Then he walked back toward the workshop without waiting for a reply.
• • •
“Thank you for coming in, Agent Carter. Would you like a coffee, a cool drink, water?”
They were in the FBI’s Flagstaff agency building and more precisely the office of Resident Agent in Charge Michael Slaton. Slaton was the closest thing in this part of Arizona to Carter’s boss and was asking the question. It was two days after she’d arrested Leroy Preston.
“No thanks,” she replied and noticed him look expectantly at her. “Sir,” she added.
She sat down across from his desk, legs crossed, arms folded tight across her chest. “Preston’s lawyer has filed a complaint alleging excessive force on your part, occasioning his client severe physical and mental trauma,” Slaton read from the contents of a red folder on his desk. He waited, awkward, gaze fixed on the file in front of him.
“He was raping the girl!” she said regretting the anger in her voice. “He took off down the alley,” she continued in a more moderate tone. “When I caught up with him he took a swing at me. I did what I had to do. It’s all in my report.”
“Ah yes. Your report,” said Slaton. He looked up. “And Rozzetti’s report backs up yours. Of course.”
Carter didn’t reply, just jiggled her leg. The Resident Agent pushed his chair back, rose from his desk and walked across to the window which overlooked the building’s car park. He stood silent for a moment, wiping his brow with a tissue from his pocket.
“Preston was left with a broken nose, fractured eye socket, several fewer teeth, and two fractured ribs,” Slaton said. He paused. “This isn’t the first time, is it Carter?”
She sat up in her chair. “First time for what? What are you implying…sir?”
This time Slaton didn’t answer. He threw the tissue into a waste basket and leaned on the windowsill staring into the car park, agitated by something that had caught his eye.
“What are those damned kids doing in the visitor’s car space?” He reached back over his desk and pressed the button on the intercom. “Margaret. Margaret! There are kids on skateboards clowning around in the visitor’s car park. Get security and clear them off right away, will you? It’s not a good look.”
He released the button. “Damned kids,” he said and slumped back into his chair. He closed the red folder and slid another, yellow this time, in front of him. Then he tried a smile which on him always resembled an affliction.
“How would you like a change of scenery?” he said leaning back casually in his chair. “Sort of, you know, a working holiday.”
“I don’t understand…sir,” Carter said.
“Sara. May I call you Sara?” Slaton asked and continued without an answer. “We’ve had a request, Sara, to send, that is, to lend an officer to an INTERPOL operation in er—” he sat up straight, opened the yellow folder, then closed it and lent back— “in Dili, Timor-Leste. Well, that’s what they call it there. Everybody else knows it as East Timor. Means the same thing but one’s the Portuguese name and one’s the English.” He stopped. “Where was I? Oh yes. Three months max. There’s a lot of stuff going on there that would interest you. Drug trafficking, people smuggling, and even a child abduction case I understand. Same as you’ve been doing here, Sara. You’d be perfect. Why—”
