Part 2
Alex invited himself into the CI office, earning himself two dirty looks from Amy and PJ. "I think you guys need to hear this."
PJ leant forward on his desk while Amy turned in her chair, resting her right arm against her side of the crowded desk.
"Hear what, exactly?" Amy asked, staring at him keenly. PJ fixed Alex with a similar expression.
Alex shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "I've got a man in the interview room who's claiming that the Boss shot his daughter to death with his police revolver thirty years ago."
PJ looked from Amy to Alex, shaking his head with a bemused expression on his face. "No," he mumbled, more to himself than anyone else, "the Boss wouldn't do a thing like that. No way."
Amy picked herself up reluctantly, grabbing her clipboard from the far corner of the desk as she did so. PJ just looked at her pleadingly.
"You can't believe that," PJ told her, causing Amy to shake her head.
"Of course not," she replied with a glum expression, "but if we don't investigate, then we're going to be accused of covering up. That'd be even worse for the Boss' reputation. We're going to find that this is a whole lot of rubbish by midday, trust me."
PJ sighed with frustration and followed Amy and Alex out into the interview room, knowing that this bad day was going to get even worse.
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Alex ushered Amy and PJ into the interview room, motioning across to the man sitting opposite. "These are Senior Detectives Hasham and Fox," he introduced, "Amy, PJ – this is Peter Campbell, he's claiming that Senior Sergeant Croydon killed his daughter with his police revolver in 1977…"
"The fifteenth of August, 1977," Peter interrupted, his eyes attaining a wild, angry glint, "that bastard killed my little girl…"
"Can we please refrain from using that sort of language, thanks," PJ said as he sat down opposite and Amy took up her seat beside him. He opened his clipboard and poised his pen at the top of the page. "So, would you mind telling us what exactly happened the day that Senior Sergeant Croydon allegedly killed your daughter…"
Peter gave a bitter laugh at this, leaning across to PJ so that their noses were just centimetres apart and PJ was sure he could smell the Vegemite toast he'd had for breakfast.
"There was nothing allegedly about it," Peter spat bitterly, "that bastard gunned my baby girl down…she'd be thirty-nine this year, you know."
PJ gave a weak roll of his eyes, turning back to Amy with an impatient look in his eyes. "What exactly happened, Mr. Campbell?"
Peter sat back, using his right index finger to draw on the desk as his mind drifted back. "It was late afternoon. Georgie – my daughter – had gone over to a friend's place for the night. She and her friends had this old warehouse that they'd play in, it had been closed for years and nothing worked anymore, but it was built solid, so we decided it was safe."
Amy gave an understanding nod for effect and turned to look at PJ, only to notice that he was looking away in resentment. She kicked him under the table, and he just shrugged.
"Anyway," Peter continued, startling Amy back to attention, "next thing I know, I'm getting some call from the police saying that there's been an accident and Georgie's dead. I thought maybe she'd been hit by a car or something…then I found out that he killed her. They said that they'd received information about a drug shipments or something and that some Senior Constable had fired on Georgie in the dark. I didn't have the money or I would've sued."
PJ leant across the desk, trying to curb the temptation to simply jump up and thump the man opposite who was trying to drag Tom's reputation through the mud. "Don't you think it's even slightly possible that perhaps it was a legitimate mistake? That maybe Senior Sergeant Croydon may have made an error and shot at the wrong person?"
"Nah," Peter said gruffly, "he shot my girl in cold blood and now I want him to pay."
Amy lowered her gaze sadly. "I'm afraid that Senior Sergeant Croydon was killed several days ago by an intruder in his home," she paused, letting both PJ and Alex reflect on this and waiting to see Peter's reaction. It didn't come. "By right, you could still file a complaint, but I don't see how it would possibly help now. Finding evidence is going to be near impossible and even if we can prove anything, then all you'd be doing is damaging the reputation of a dead man."
Peter finally seemed to have taken this all in as he fixed PJ, Amy and Alex with a steely cool stare. "Looks like he got his own in the end," he reflected coldly, "I want to go ahead with the complaint, everyone has to know that he was a cold blooded killer."
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Mark swore softly as he sat back in Tom's old chair, immediately making a mental note to swap it for his own as soon as possible. He surveyed Amy and PJ over the top of his reading glasses with disbelief shining in his eyes.
"I don't believe this…do you know how difficult it's going to be to find anyone who can back up Tom's story?" Mark asked them, his gaze torn between the two detectives standing before him. Both tried to keep their expressions cool and calm, but it was obvious that neither of them wanted this to be standing in the way of their chance to say goodbye to Tom. "I suppose you could trawl back through the records and see what you can find from the coroner and Internal Affairs."
PJ just shook his head and heaved a great sigh. "This is all crap, Mark. Tom would never murder a little girl in cold blood." He turned to Amy for confirmation of this, only to be met with sad green eyes that seemed to plead with him. "While Peter Campbell is spreading these lies, there'll be no police funeral. You know that."
Amy closed her eyes gently as PJ brushed past on his way out of the office and back across the muster room to their own. Mark turned sympathetic eyes to Amy sighed glumly.
"I can't wait until all of this is over with," Mark lamented as Amy shrugged weakly in response. She forced a sad smile and left him alone in his office to stew over everything while she and PJ tried to beat the clock and save the reputation of a dead man.
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Kelly held the phone to her ear, her eyes closed tightly in prayer that the person on the other end would pick up soon. So far she'd tried calling Susan and Anna several times, but they would never answer the phone. She had gotten through to Susan once, only for her to slam down the phone hard at the mention of her father's name. After all, they hadn't spoken since he'd called her a week out from Christmas in 2004. It had been nearly three years; she couldn't blame her for not wanting to know.
As she gave up once again and slammed the phone down in frustration, Kelly began to massage her temples. She didn't know what she had expected from Anna and Susan. Some sympathy? Some distress at the death of their father? Some sign that they even cared anymore?
Joss came over to her and gently squeezed her shoulder, placing a coffee in front of her. Kelly looked up to him with a puzzled expression on her face which slowly faded into a faint smile. She held it to her lips, her eyes blank, letting the steam slowly waft up over her face. Joss pulled his chair over to sit beside her, his gaze fixed on her desk.
"No luck with Susan or Anna?" he asked quietly, causing Kelly to shake her head sadly.
"It's like they don't even care anymore." Kelly whispered, the words catching in her throat slightly. "Their dad is dead and it's like they couldn't care less."
Joss rubbed her shoulder gently, Kelly's grief-stricken expression brightening slightly. "Hey, Kel," he soothed, "they'll come. Don't worry."
She shrugged him off, turning to face him with shining eyes. "I don't know what I'd do without you right now," she told him softly, "when everything else is going mad, you're staying sane."
He smiled slightly, cocking an eyebrow at this. "Yes, because I'm a very sane guy," he joked, making Kelly chuckle silently. It was a nice feeling, making Kelly smile.
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"Here we go!" Amy declared as she returned to the CI office from the fax machine, holding several pieces of paper above her head, causing PJ to look up from his hands. She flipped through the coroner's report quickly, before having it snatched from her hands roughly by PJ. "Tom was cleared of any wrong-doing."
"It says here that it was a high-risk job and that the kids were lucky not to have been killed by the drug traffickers themselves long before the coppers ever moved in." PJ read, "So why is he still intent on destroying Tom?"
Amy sat down opposite PJ and surveyed him sympathetically. She reached over and gently gave him arm a rub as he looked up and their eyes connected, sending a bolt through Amy's body.
"People deal with grief in different ways," she explained gently, "just look outside to the muster room. Just look at us."
PJ nodded thoughtfully, still not breaking the connection between their eyes. Amy opened her mouth to say something, maybe to right whatever had been wronged those last days she had spent in Mt. Thomas two and a half years ago, but seemed to change her mind and looked away, picking herself up and grabbing the coroner's report.
"I think we need to track down those other kids who were in the building at the time," Amy suggested, nervously brushing her dark hair from her eyes as she did so, "it says here that Claire Matthews gave evidence at the coroner's inquest, maybe she might be able to give us something more that we could use to clear Tom again and end this once and for all."
