Sitting at the table, I had begun searching google while the guys and Mae were in the garage for any information that I could find around Mickey's death. There were some articles about the incident and notices in the obituaries but nothing that really stood out.
I felt like a bit of a bad friend as I had never really looked much into it all back when he had died. Dad had just kept me up to date on what was happening and how the family was going but I never pressed for any information.
Seeing those boards made me realise just how much Mickey's death had affected him. Mickey was Dad's best mate. They had grown up together with Dad & Mae spending a better part of their life in the Tanner household.
The only part that had me confused was why he kept them hidden. Even Mae had no idea they were there as she admitted she avoided the garage as much as possible due to the amount of boxes Dad had stored in there.
Looking up from my phone, I see Roo coming back in from the garage. He is looking at his phone but smiles as he looks up at me and goes to pull a chair out from across the table from me.
"Want a cuppa Roo?" Mae asks as she comes in from the garage with Jo following and heads to the kettle.
"Yes thanks Mae." He answers as he pulls out a file from his satchel that he had placed next to the table and places it on the table.
"Now Amelia, before we go into anything. I need to know, how much do you want to know about this?"
I find it strange that he is asking me this question. But I can understand why he would have those thoughts as I am assuming that there is probably a lot going on that I don't know about.
"I want to know what my Dad was getting into. I want to know, what happened to Mickey." I respond as Roo nods and opens up a folder to the middle and points towards the police report. I lean over and see that it is a copy of the official report which explains what was found at the scene.
Roo settles back and says "Mickey's death had really shook your father. He was on the on call Doc at the time and had no idea what he was walking into that night when he was called to the scene."
I flicked the report over to see a set of hand written notes that I immediately recognised as my fathers handwriting. Looking over his words, I see that he had marked things that were outside the normal on scene doctors scope.
As I read on, I noticed a few sections that Dad had written that had me going back to the offical report to double check. One part that really stood out to me was where Dad had mentioned that there was multiple tyre marks near where Mickey was found but when I referenced the report, there was only the mention of a single tyre mark heading away from the scene.
I turned the pages over until I got it the back page to see who was the producer of this report. I gasped when I realise that it was signed by a Constable Tex Bryson. The same police officer that I met the night of the incident at the Ferry Terminal.
I hadn't noticed that Jo had taken the seat next to me when he spoke "Yes, the now Senior Sergeant Tex Bryson.". He pulls out a file that he has and hands it to me.
"It seems that our Senior Sergeant has been involved in quite a few cases that revolve around The Bandits. I've been looking into his history but there seems to not be much about the man until he began his career at the academy." Jo pulls out two more files and spread them over the table.
Mae puts the mugs on the table for us all then moves to the cupboard to pull out the tin of biscuits. We had to put the tin up high as the boys kept helping themselves to them all the time.
"Wait a minute guys" Mae says as she places the tin on the table and takes a seat on the other side of me. "What are you trying to say?"
Roo lifts up his mug and lightly blows on the top of the liquid before he takes a sip. From the look on his face, I can tell that he is thinking about his words.
He takes a sip and then places the mug back in front of him. Swallowing his drink he begins:
"As you know, we used to run a protection service for a variety of companies that Mickey has set up as a way of the club making an income. I won't lie, we weren't a hundred percent legal but we kept it clean and we made sure that there was no issues that would follow us home."
"We started working with an out of town pub who were having issues getting their alcohol supply after a new competitor moved into their town. They had no proof but they knew pretty well that this group was messing with their drivers to the point that literally no one would pick up their orders. Mickey and I were on the run, disguised as just normal truckies when we had our first run in with the guys who has been messing with loads. They were a rough group of guys who went about trying to scare us into turning around and taking the load back but what they hadn't banked on was coming toe to toe with a set of bikers."
"The guys literally shit themselves when we both hopped out of the cab and they realised that we weren't just some truckies. Mickey laid down the law and even broke one of the guys arms as he explained to them how we were now protecting the runs and if they persisted in messing with them, they would have to deal with us."
"Those guys took off faster then a bottle rocket and we continued on our way. The owner of the pub was ecstatic that we were able to send a message and the club contributed to do the runs. All was going well until we had a call about a month later, totally out of the blue, the pub had been broken into and was burnt to the ground. The worst of it was that the bodies of the publican and his family had been found inside the mess, bound and gagged. It broke Mickey, he had established a good friendship with the man and he didn't take it too well."
"At the same time we had started to have some issues of drug dealers trying to move into town and that night your dad had been called to the local BnB where a couple had been found dead of a possible drug overdose. Mickey had caught wind of this from your Dad and decided to go and find out who has been selling on his turf."
"He took a few guys and it didn't take long until the found the guy hanging out down at the ferry terminal. Micky literally beat the shit out of the guy and then dragged the bloke out the board of town and dumped him there to make a point that we don't want that shit in our town."
"This was the first time we had a run in with the then Constable Tex Bryson. He was, still, a weasel of a man. You could just tell that he was not right in the head and seemed to have it out for us from the get go. As much as we denied any involvement, he was determined to try and shake us up."
"After that introduction he began to then start randomly pulling us over for apparent vehicle defects or would turn up at the club to do random searches. At the time Mickey lodged complaints with the station and eventually the Senior Sergeant got involved and Bryson backed down."
I lean back in my seat as I take in what Roo has said. In my mind I can feel that I am forming an opinion of Tex Bryson that makes me wonder what else this man could have done.
Roo takes another sip of his drink which leads to Jo beginning to pipe up. " At the time, drugs were starting to trickle still into town and the mayor had asked for an investigation to begin to look into where they were coming from. Straight away Bryson had blamed the Wanderers but the Mayor knew better, she knows what the Wanderers are all about and brushed off his response, telling him that he needed to actually gain some proof."
"She also spoke Mickey on the side and let him know what was going on. We all had issues with Bryson, he was a little 'slack' when it came to getting results about some local vandalism or a few petty break-ins that had been happening around the place. His solution was that it was the youth of the town, but we all know that the youth here are a great bunch of kids."
"The day of Mickey's death, I had been at the club that afternoon helping Bernice to plan for a BBQ she wanted to have when Mickey got a call that had him swearing like a sailor. He didn't say much, just that Bryson had been messing around at the garage and had ordered it to be closed. He said something about 'illegal parts' but we all know that that place was the most legit business that the club owned."
"He took off out of the clubhouse on his bike and that was the last that we saw him alive. Your Dad got the call to come down to the terminal as the on call Doc and he rang Roo and I the minute he realised what was going on. We couldn't get close enough to to the scene but decided to split up and find different vantage points. While this was going on, your Dad took some thorough notes while we kept tabs."
"It was a long night but we were determined to try and work out what the heck was going on. My heard absolutely broke when Bernice and the boys turned up. In all that was going on, it has slipped my mind about who was going to have that task about calling them."
"Slater had to hold his mother up as she literally passed out on the spot. I broke us to watch as they realised that their world was shattering. Mickey had been removed but it was still obvious where he had been and the damage that had happened."
"I remember your Dad running up to Xavier and practically engulfing him in a hug to stop him from tearing the place apart. It was torture and I think that day was when Xavier truely changed as he seemed to develop this anger towards everything around him."
"The notes there that your Dad took cover off on all that he was able to find but as you will see, his notes seem to provide more information then what was submitted in the police report."
Roo shuffles in his chair and I can tell that this is heading in a way that I am not going to like. He takes back the folder and pulls out an array of pictures.
"These are the shots that your Dad took on his phone. I had to get a mate I knew try and image them better cause you know your Dad and technology, I had them cleaned up and you can see what he saw that day"
He hands me a bundle of shots and I spread them across the table so that I can have a better look. It was awful, I could see the old ferry terminal in the background of a few of them, recognising exactly where he was found. The bike was laid on the ground and covered in blood along with the surrounding concrete. Looking at the amount of blood that was there, it was obvious that the chances were slim that he would had survived. I ponder the shots as Roo begins to speak again.
"We came together afterwards and put together our thoughts. Your Dad kept tabs on the investigation and when the police report was finally produced, he challenged the validity of it as he knew that there was more to the scene then what Bryson had reported but thats where things took a turn. The Senior Sergeant at the time had been accused of evidence tampering and was stood aside pending an investigation. This led to Bryson suddenly moving up into his place."
"When your Dad threatened to go higher, Bryson started to cause him a world of trouble and sadly after the possible scandal of the current Senior Sergeant, the Mayor backed Bryson and put your Dad on notice. Bryson even had the audacity to search the clinic on some tip off that your Dad was performing under the counter deals for medications."
"When he was tossing the place, he found your dads notes on the case and tried to get him charged for interfering in an ongoing investigation. The Judge threw out the case which did not sit well I guess with Bryson as he started to ask for an out of town on call Doc, but he has been quiet with regards to getting any results about Mickey's murder. He keeps just telling everyone that its a 'gang dispute' and has been hanging it on that."
I sit back on my chair and rubs my temples as I take in all that the guys are saying. I know that there is heaps more to this story but from what they have told me so far, this opens up so much more to this situation.
I begin to understand now why Dad hid this all in the garage. I had this off feeling about Tex Bryson when I met him but now I find that I internally hate the man and really want to look into the situation more.
I start to read some more of Dad's notes as Roo pulls out a few more notebooks and hands them to me.
"This is everything I have Amelia, read over it all. I tried to write down everything I saw and what I heard. Plus I have this, your Dad note pad from the night. He wanted it kept somewhere safe and gave it to me right after Bryson went through this place the first time."
Roo hands me a battered spiral note pad and I run my fingers over the frayed edges, remembering how my Dad used to use these for practically everything. Even in some of the files here I've found pages that were pulled from the notepads. I realise that there is definitely more to this and I am going to try my best to work out what my Dad was onto.