Foley & Rose Mysteries Collection - Books 1-4

Chapter 7-1

Sam could no longer avoid what he had been purposely avoiding for a year. He had to see Russell Foley. Given their history, in particular, the way they parted company back then, he expected very little in the way of information from Foley, but he had to try. He didn’t look forward to the liaison, and wished he could avoid a face-to-face meeting, but knew he couldn’t.

It would happen one day; Darwin was not a big city where they could both live and never run into each other, either by design or by coincidence. It might just as well be today as any other day, and it might just as well be by design rather than embarrassing coincidence.

He never bothered to make an appointment; he knew to do so would only illicit Foley’s refusal to see him. Apart from an occasional beer with one or two of his former colleagues, Sam had seen few of them since he left the force, and a part of him fondly anticipated seeing more of his old friends again.

Entering the foyer of the Criminal Investigation Branch in the headquarters building, he heard the old familiar sounds that were an integral part of his daily work life over so many years. Sounds that were once so omnipresent he hardly noticed them, now seemed louder than he recalled. Office sounds. The muffled tapping of clumsy fingers on computer keyboards churning out yet another report destined for confinement into already bulging filing cabinets. The low, distant hum of the building’s air conditioning system rumbled quietly from cavities hidden from view behind walls and in ceilings discoloured with age, and screaming for a fresh coat of paint. Voices, faint but audible, drifted to him from the main squad room just beyond where he stood. They were the voices of detectives going about the business of trying to salvage some sanity from the madness that was the juggernaut of a soaring crime rate. Some of those new to the squad would never make it, Sam knew. They would fold under the relentless pressure of a ridiculous workload, or succumb to ultimatums delivered by spouses insisting families must take priority over police work. Others would ride it out. These were the ones who would ultimately become the backbone of the branch. The ones who would be, and could be, relied upon to deliver results regardless of how disproportionate the balance between hours spent at home with the family and those spent at work may sometimes be. These cops long ago stopped losing sleep over the inadequacies and inconsistencies of the judicial system. They chose instead, to simply get on with the job and let those supposedly more qualified and better paid deal with what they saw as blatantly obvious flaws in the system.

Sam approached the reception counter where a uniformed policewoman sat, engrossed in a glossy magazine. She quickly shoved it out of sight in a desk drawer as she looked up and saw him.

Sam offered her a smile and a knowing wink. “Not the Police Gazette I gather,” he said, referring to the discarded magazine.

The woman gave him a look that said, “Don’t wink at me, you sexist prick, or I’ll tear your face off!” She said instead, “How can I help you?”

“Don’t wink at me, you sexist prick, or I’ll tear your face off!” “I’d like to see Russell Foley if that’s possible,” Sam said, this time offering only a half-smile, without the accompanying wink.

“Do you have an appointment?”

Sounds like Ann Curtis’s minder Margaret, Sam thought. “No, I don’t,” he confirmed. “I was hoping I wouldn’t need an appointment. We’re… um… old friends.”

“I’m sorry, but Inspector Foley is very busy. You need to make an appointment. If you’d like to leave a message, I’ll see he gets it.”

“Is your mother’s name Margaret?” Sam asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing, forget it,” Sam said. “I appreciate he’s a busy man, so am I, but I would still like to talk to him. I’ll be just a few minutes. It is important.”

“I’m very sorry, Sir, but I’m afraid it’s impossible without an appointment.”

Sam leaned across the counter separating him from the constable.

“I’m sorry too, young lady, but I must insist.” He held her gaze and saw a hint of hesitation in her eyes. He leaned a little closer and went in for the kill.

“If you’ll just buzz him on that phone there, and tell him Sam Rose is here, I’m sure he’ll see me.” He jerked a thumb at a door behind him, across the foyer. “Now, I know that’s his office behind me. Do I have to barge in there unannounced, so it looks like you haven’t done your job?” He threw her another wink, an exaggerated one this time, and a smile way wider than the first.

A faint, pink flush rose to the policewoman’s cheeks. It might have been mild embarrassment, or it might have been the prelude to an outburst of rage and she really would tear his face off. For a moment, she held his gaze in a fruitless gesture of defiance. Sam was smiling so hard it was beginning to hurt. Finally, Constable pink cheeks lowered her eyes and reached for the telephone.

“Thank you,” Sam whispered, just loud enough for her to hear. He stepped away from the counter, and moved across the foyer to stand in the open doorway he knew led to the C.I.B. squad room.

There were at least a dozen plain-clothes officers inside, some with heads down deeply engrossed in files, some with their eyes glued to computer screens, and others talked among themselves, or spoke on telephones. Most of them drank terrible police station coffee. It was as Sam would have expected. Nothing had changed.

Lost in the importance or otherwise of their own particular devices, no one noticed him standing there, leaning casually against the doorjamb. Sam found the sounds, and the faint, stale odour of the air emanating from the squad room oddly nostalgic. Then, someone looked up and saw him. The sounds of the room faded quickly. Brief, intermittent moments of silence followed as faces turned his way in recognition.

“Hey, Sam,” a voice called from the back of the room.

“Look, it’s Rosebud,” another said.

“Long time no see,” a female voice greeted from somewhere else in the room.

“Yeah, she’s missed you, Sam,” a boisterous male voice chirped.

“Jesus, all that mess and nothing to wipe it up with,” another joked. Everyone in the room laughed.

Sam was quickly surrounded by former colleagues, jostling to shake his hand and slap him on the back. For the briefest of moments, he regretted leaving all this behind. He wasn’t permitted to luxuriate in the feeling for long.

As quickly as the welcoming din engulfed him, it descended into an awkward silence. All eyes in the room swung from him, to a point somewhere behind him.

Sam turned slowly and stood face-to-face with Russell Foley. The expression on Foley’s face left no doubt in Sam’s mind his former partner did not share the same enthusiasm as his subordinates to see Sam.

The two men stood looking at each other, both painfully aware they were standing in the very same spot where the fateful confrontation occurred a year earlier. It was the first time they had come face-to-face since that day. Sam offered his hand.

“Hello, Russ. It’s been a long time.”

Foley ignored the extended hand. “Not long enough,” he said quietly. Then, he looked beyond Sam, into the squad room. “This is not a reunion party, people!” he barked. “Let’s get back to work.” He watched and waited until his charges shuffled back to their respective desks, and the sounds of productivity began once again to fill the room. Finally, his eyes swung back to Sam. When he spoke, his tone conveyed his obvious displeasure at seeing Sam.

“My office, now!” Foley demanded. He turned away and walked back across the foyer to his office. Having left her desk, the uniformed constable from reception hovered nearby, wearing a smirk that suggested she had just single-handedly captured Australia’s most wanted.

Sam turned to her and flashed another of his killer smiles. “See, I told you we were old friends.”

Russell Foley’s office was conspicuous in its typical government blandness. One well aged, grey metal filing cabinet and an “L” shaped, green vinyl topped desk. The last time Sam was in this office was to present his resignation to Foley’s predecessor. Back then, there were more plaques and certificates on the walls; even a couple of moderately expensive prints portraying examples of the Territories finest attractions hung on the wall behind the desk. Now, as Sam glanced around the room, he decided it was an office reflecting the practical simplicity, no frills approach of its current occupant. Sam closed the door behind him and moved to one of the two chairs on the visitor’s side of the desk.

“Don’t bother sitting,” Foley said. “You won’t be here long enough to warm the seat.”

“Would I be right in assuming you’re still angry?”

“You’re not in the job anymore Rose. Those people in there have a lot of work to do," he waved a finger in the general direction of the squad room "You spent enough years here bitching about the excessive work load to know that better than most. It hasn’t gotten any easier. If you want to catch up with old friends, do it in their off-duty hours. The squad room is off limits to non-police personnel, or have you forgotten that as well?”

“Jesus, lighten up Russ, I was just saying hello to the troops.”

“In the future,” Foley said, “do it somewhere else. Now, if that’s all you came for, I’m busy too. You"ll excuse me if I don"t show you out."

“That’s not why I’m here, Russell. I came to talk to you.”

“We have nothing to say to each other!” Foley said dismissively.”

“Come on, Russell,” Sam coaxed. “It’s been twelve months. Can’t we move on from this? We were a bloody good team once, not to mention best friends, for Christ’s sake.”

“That was before you broke the police force golden rule and screwed another copper’s wife… mine!”

“Jesus mate, we’ve been through this a hundred times! You knew she was playing around. How many night shifts did we spend together with me listening to you complaining about her hour after hour? How many times did we cruise past your house in the early hours of the morning looking for cars that didn’t belong there?”

“That’s right,” Foley fumed, “and all the time you were back-dooring me.”

“I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again. It happened once, and I never went after her. She came on to me.”

“And I’m getting sick of you offering me that crap as lame justification for your actions.”

“It happens to be the truth. That doesn’t make it right, I know. What I did was wrong, and I know what I lost because of it. If I could undo it, I would, but I can’t. No one can. It’s done. Jenny betrayed you many times, with many others, before I did that one time. We both know that. And, we both know her infidelity was mostly with other coppers. She told you herself. My problem is I’m the only one she ever named, and she only did that because she knew how it would damage our friendship. We’ve both had to live with the fallout, mate. I don’t expect your understanding or forgiveness. We both know a standing prick has no conscience. s**t, I know you were never the shining example of fidelity.”