The Popeye Murder

by Sandra Winter-Dewhirst

  ‘Sounds great,’ said Jonathan.

  Rebecca then opened up the wine list. The only Australian wine on the menu was, understandably, from d’Arenberg’s own winery. They offered two sparkling wines, seven whites, eighteen reds, and six fortified and sticky wines. The restaurant also had a reasonable selection of imported French champagnes and offered wines from France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.

  ‘Given you have to drive and I have to work this afternoon, are you okay to drink by the glass today?’ asked Rebecca.

  ‘Sure, you choose.’

  ‘In that case, why don’t we start off with some bubbles as a celebration of life?’

  ‘Sure,’ replied Jonathan, not in an enthusiastic way.

  The waiter came up and took their food order, and Rebecca ordered two glasses of Dadd NV sparkling, with its blend of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier grapes. She would have preferred the straw taste of real champagne, but given that she was footing the bill, she thought better of it. The Dadd, as opposed to the Mumm, should last them until their main course, when they would each have a glass of 2009 The Coppermine Road cabernet sauvignon to go with their hearty main courses. Rebecca loved a rich berry-flavoured cabernet sauvignon. She had just tasted the Coppermine in the tasting room, and it had been velvety.

  Over a superb lunch, Rebecca and Jonathan shared a conversation about food and the upcoming olive harvest—and for a brief moment, they forgot about death.

  When it came to desserts, they both plumbed for the honey-and-orange-blossom miroir with cinnamon tuile and salty-toffee popcorn, and two glasses of 2011 The Noble Botryotinia Fuckeliana sauvignon blanc.

  After polishing off dessert, they slumped back into their chairs, and Rebecca thought that if she wasn’t so terrified of Jonathan’s driving, she would be looking forward to a nap on the way back to town. Fat chance.

  In an effort to jolt themselves awake before heading back, they both ordered espressos.

  Rebecca walked behind Jonathan on the way to the car and noticed some blotches on the sleeve of his jumper. She looked closer. The blotches were red. Could they be blood? Her mind began to race again, just like it did when she found the holly in Jonathan’s garage, before, that is, she gave herself a good talking to and told herself to stop jumping to wild conclusions. But now she had seen what could be bloodstains. She knew she needed to see Gary sooner rather than later. This wasn’t looking good for Jonathan.

  The Holly

  The drive back to town was just as crazy as the drive there, except this time Rebecca had a full stomach. She didn’t feel at all well. The fact that, despite her best efforts, she was now beginning to doubt Jonathan, didn’t make her feel any better. By the time Jonathan pulled into his North Adelaide driveway, Rebecca had turned green. She leapt out of the car, crunched over the gravel driveway to the hydrangea bed bordering the house, and vomited violently.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Jonathan with a worried look on his face. ‘It must have been something you ate. I hope it wasn’t the dessert. Dessert was the only course we had that was the same.’

  Rebecca rolled her bloodshot eyes and grabbed a tissue in her pocket to wipe the edges of her mouth.

  ‘I need a glass of water,’ she growled.

  ‘Sure, come inside,’ said Jonathan.

  Rebecca drank her water and tidied herself up. She said her goodbyes and drove her car into the city and into a car park around the corner from the police headquarters in Angas Street.

  She went up to the heavily fortified counter and crouched down to yell through the small holes in the bullet-proof glass between herself and the policewoman sitting behind the counter. ‘I’m here to see Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jarvie.’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’ muffled the policewoman.

  ‘No,’ Rebecca yelled back. ‘It’s about a murder case.’

  The policewoman looked up from her papers and for the first time looked Rebecca in the eye. ‘Name?’

  Rebecca momentarily thought the policewoman might be asking for the name of the murder victim but decided to go with her own. ‘Rebecca Keith!’

  ‘Take a seat.’

  Rebecca looked around. There weren’t too many seats free. There was an assortment of types in the waiting room: men in business suits, presumably on business, and a couple of women with young children. Rebecca wondered if the women were wives of policemen, visiting their husbands, or if they were suspects in some crime. There were a few men with tattoos, looking unkempt and threatening, at least through Rebecca’s prism. She decided to take a seat by the businessmen, pondering if her stereotyping had gotten it all wrong and the businessmen were the more dangerous villains out of the lot of them.

  She hardly had a chance to cross her legs when the police­woman bellowed on the public-address system, ‘Ms Keith, please proceed to the counter.’

  Rebecca was startled into jumping up from her seat and ungainly leaping across to the counter. The policewoman slid a visitor name badge and a visitors’ book under the glass partition. ‘Put your details here, sign there, and wear this. Take the lift to the tenth floor. Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jarvie will meet you at the reception area there.’

  ‘Right,’ said Rebecca, finding it difficult to write on the book perched halfway on and halfway off the narrow counter on her side of the glass. Rebecca pinned her visitor’s pass to her top and took the lift to the tenth floor as instructed.

  Travelling up in the lift, Rebecca once again began to get nervous at the thought of seeing Gary. This guy was really getting to her.

  The doors opened, and there he stood. He was wearing a black suit that complemented his dark-brown hair.

  ‘Good afternoon, Ms Keith. To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  ‘I think I have a couple of leads for you,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Follow me,’ said Gary, and he led her to an interview room, picking up Detective Alice White along the way.

  ‘Please be seated,’ said Gary, politely pulling out a chair for her. He and Detective White sat opposite. Detective White opened her notebook.

  ‘What is it, Ms Keith?’

  ‘Well, I was at Jonathan Riddle’s house today.’

  Gary raised his eyebrows. ‘One murder suspect visiting another?’

  ‘Jonathan hadn’t been out of his house since last Friday, and I thought he needed jollying up. I decided to visit him and then take him out to lunch with me. I had to go to McLaren Vale on work, so I thought I could also fit in lunch with Jonathan.’

  Rebecca noticed Gary’s beautiful brown eyes and long eyelashes.

  ‘And?’ prompted Gary after a long pause.

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, he needed to have a shower, so I decided to go out to his old stables, which is now a garage with a storage attic upstairs. I needed to find all the olive gear and bring it down ready for Saturday’s annual harvest.’

  Gary looked curious, but he didn’t ask about the harvest, so Rebecca moved on.

  ‘I was rummaging around and found the olive gear in an old chest, but I also found a range of dried herbs hanging on the rafters. One bunch of drying leaves was holly. Some people use holly for medicinal purposes. Anyway, the holly had a variegated red edge to the leaves, just like the ones around Leong Chew’s ears.’

  Rebecca pulled out the sample she had in her pocket.

  ‘Bag it,’ said Gary to Detective White. To Rebecca, he said, ‘We have already made a search of Jonathan’s house, but no one picked this up.’ To Detective White he said, ‘Get a squad around there to search again. Bag a sample of that holly, and make sure no one’s fingerprints or DNA contaminates it. Ask forensics to see if there is an exact match with the holly we found on Leong Chew. And I want a thorough search of that garage. Top to bottom. It was missed, and I’m not happy about it!’

  Gary turned back to Rebecca. ‘Thank you, Ms Keith. Did you tell Jonathan Riddle you found this holly?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t want to upset him. I was there to cheer him up, no
t to throw him into another round of anxiety. However, there is something else.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Gary.

  Rebecca cleared her throat. She was finding it hard to say, knowing it was looking bad for Jonathan. When she did speak, it came out in a rush. ‘I think Jonathan has blood on his jumper!’

  ‘What jumper, Rebecca, and how do you know it is blood?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know it is blood for sure, but it looks like it. It was the jumper he was wearing on the day we discovered Leong Chew’s head on Popeye. He was wearing it today at lunch, except this time he wasn’t wearing the blazer, and I saw red blotches on the back of his sleeve.’

  Gary smiled.

  ‘What are you smiling at? This isn’t funny,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘It’s blackberry jam,’ said Gary. ‘We took swabs of everyone’s clothes, including yours, if you remember. Jonathan was asked to take off his blazer, and the stains on the back of his jumper’s sleeve were noticed. I’ve read the forensic notes, and no traces of blood were found on Jonathan’s jumper. What they found was blackberry jam and a range of other foodstuffs, but no blood.’

  Rebecca looked visibly relieved. Her instinct about Jonathan had been right, and she was again sure that the holly matter would be cleared up in Jonathan’s favour.

  ‘I knew it. My instinct told me Jonathan was innocent,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘But instinct can be wrong, Ms Keith. If the police relied on instinct, we wouldn’t get very far. You were wrong about the blood, but as for this holly, if there is a direct match, it does mean we will have a lot of questions for Jonathan, whether he’s directly implicated or not. The holly has been found on his property, and that raises serious suspicions, assuming there is a match. Is there anything else?’

  ‘No,’ said Rebecca. ‘That’s it from me. I think I’ve passed on enough for one day. How about you? Have you got any other leads you are following?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but at the moment, the information between us can only go one way. I cannot let you know any details of the investigation unless I need your assistance on a matter.’

  The Head Case

  Rebecca left the station and drove to her office car park. She had a pile of work to write up. As she came into the office, Reg called her over.

  She knew Reg was still coming to terms with the open-plan layout—and not having an office where he could close the door. He would tell anyone who would listen that he thought the open plan was stupid. Reg had worked long and hard to be deputy editor, and as he’d complained to Rebecca before, he had thought the job would come with an office. The new trendy ’Tiser building, designed by bright young architects, had put an end to that. Every time Reg wanted to have a private conversation, he had to find a designated quiet room. The trouble was that the quiet rooms were always occupied and never quiet.

  Reg went over to one of the quiet rooms, where a couple of young reporters were working on a story, brainstorming the various angles. ‘Oi, out.’

  Rebecca smiled to herself. Reg was a man of few words. He was an old-time journo, having started his career as a copyboy at the now defunct News. Rebecca knew that Reg thought journalism degrees were nonsense. He believed tertiary education just gave young aspiring journalists tickets on themselves and often would say, both to their faces and behind their backs, ‘Haven’t got a clue.’

  ‘So,’ said Reg. ‘The cops haven’t gotten too far.’

  ‘No,’ said Rebecca. ‘Although I might have just given them a lead.’

  ‘What sort of lead?’

  Rebecca explained the holly she had found in the rafters of Jonathan’s shed and the fact that she thought it matched the holly found on Leong Chew’s severed head.

  ‘Look, Rebecca. This is a cracker of a story, but it has gone absolutely dead. Pardon the pun. Peanut-brain Dave Mendelson, our so-called crime reporter, has done nothing. Zilch. The nobby-know-all thinks he has great contacts, but everyone just avoids him. Dave’s a pillock. We should have had a story a day on this bizarre head murder, but it’s been two days and nothing in the paper at all. The readers are crying out for it. And we give them nothing. It’s a disgrace.’

  Rebecca looked at Reg curiously. He was a little guy full of fight, and he had the respect of every journalist in Adelaide. In his day, Reg had been a top crime reporter, and it was obvious he missed the cut and thrust of hunting down a story. But he loved the power of being deputy editor, and crafting the paper. Reg was renowned for his coverage of the Snowtown ‘Bodies in a Barrel’ case and his exclusives in the Azaria Chamberlain ‘A Dingo Took My Baby’ case from 1980. He was frightened of no one and had a great nose for news.

  ‘I know Cool Dave is a pillock. And I know he hasn’t delivered. But why tell me? I’m not going to help him. Besides, I’m a food writer,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘You’re a bloody journalist, Rebecca. And a good one! You’re not just a la-di-da food writer.’

  ‘Hey, come on. Don’t criticise one of your most-read sections. Anyway, what are you saying, that I should be giving Dave leads and helping him get exclusives? He hates me, and I don’t much like him either.’

  ‘The best thing this paper has put out on the Head Case’—as he now referred to the murder—‘was your story last Saturday. Bloody brilliant. Do you know how many internet hits we’ve got on your story? It’s gone viral, right around the world. We’re up over twenty million hits worldwide. Bloody amazing stuff. But now Cool Dave has done nothing. Apart from a couple of dull-as-dishwater pieces parroting police speak.’

  ‘Twenty million?’ Rebecca repeated incredulously. ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’

  ‘So, here’s what you are going to do: you are going to go undercover and find out what you can about this crime. Anything you have, I will publish without a byline, just to keep the mystery up. That will give you cover from the cops, from the murderer, and from stupid Cool Dave, who will be on the warpath thinking someone is cutting his lunch. But leave Cool Dave to me. I can keep him confused for years. Once the murderer has been charged and convicted, you can write the best feature piece of your life and unveil yourself as the writer of the murder stories. You’ll get a Walkley Award for this. Nothing more certain.’

  Rebecca was having a hard time processing so much information. ‘But what about the editor? Terry’ll want to know who is writing this stuff. You really think I could get a Walkley?’

  ‘Don’t worry about Tessa. I’ll tell him I have a deep throat that talks only to me, and I have to protect my sources. And I’m not even lying. You are my deep throat. Tessa won’t care when I double the readership.’

  ‘But what about my Taste supplements?’ asked Rebecca.

  ‘For God’s sake, Rebecca. Stop thinking so small. You can do both. Just delegate more to your reporters—it’s time they pulled their fingers out. None of the readers will know the difference.’

  Rebecca bristled, and Reg, seeing her about to have a go, added, ‘The reader won’t notice anything different because you are a professional, and you will keep a strict eye on the direction and editing of Taste. You just won’t go to as many lunches. Think about it as staff development and a diet.’

  Rebecca decided not to fight the point. She was secretly excited about the chance to do some serious investigative work. Her mind was already racing ahead to whom she would interview first. She would have to keep it very casual. Technically, she was a suspect herself. Who would blame her for asking questions? This was getting very messy, but she was sure there was a way to steer through the legal and ethical technicalities. The job of a journalist was a constant juggle of ethical and legal considerations. But this one would take some thinking.

  ‘Okay, I’ll do it. But I will need to rely on you to be a sounding board. I don’t think I can do this alone.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Reg, almost unable to keep his excitement concealed. ‘More than happy to confer. And I’ll do all your editing. This will just be a secret between you and me.’

  The Central Market
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  The Adelaide Central Market was busy at nine o’clock on the following cold, drizzling Thursday morning. Large throngs of people—pulling their wobbly and soiled vinyl trolleys, pushing their collapsible wire baskets on wheels, or carrying their cane baskets—were milling around the food stalls or stopping at one of the many cafés for coffee and breakfast.

  The stall owners were still unpacking crates of seasonal fruit and vegetables, arranging them according to their shapes in raised shelves or in an array of containers, including old wine barrels.

  It was a feast for the senses. At the Smelly Cheese Shop, pungent cheeses were being unwrapped to top up the refrigerated glass cabinets. Rebecca stared at the array of cheeses, contemplating one of her favourites—Dauphin goat cheese. Forklifts were still whirring up and down the narrow aisles, dropping off packing cases overflowing with produce.

  Rebecca loved shopping at the market on Thursdays. She knew the produce, at more than sixty stalls, was at its freshest.

  The smell of freshly roasted coffee beans and baking bread reminded Rebecca that she hadn’t eaten breakfast. This morning, she was breakfasting at Zumas with an old school friend, Lisa Harrup. As Rebecca entered the café, she saw Lisa sitting at a corner table. Lisa looked up and smiled.

  ‘Hello, Lisa,’ said Rebecca, pleased to see her dear friend, with whom she didn’t have to be anyone but herself.

  ‘I’ve already ordered you a skinny latte, Bec. But given your week, I should have asked for a shot of brandy.’

  Rebecca smiled, relieved to be in Lisa’s company.

  Rebecca and Lisa had grown up together. They’d met on the first day at the Windsor Gardens primary school. The day stood out in Rebecca’s memory. The rather dim reception teacher, Miss Bogarth, had organised Rebecca and the other forty-odd nervous newbies into a line in the corridor outside their classroom. Miss Bogarth had then called out the children’s names, and as each name was ticked off the roster on her clipboard, the child had filed into the classroom and chosen a seat. The incident that still haunted Rebecca was that Miss Bogarth hadn’t read her name out. The silly woman didn’t even notice Rebecca standing alone and closed the door, leaving Rebecca standing in the corridor. Trying to hold back tears, Rebecca had eventually summoned the courage to knock on the door. There had only been one seat remaining in a sea of forty-six children, and that had been next to Lisa Harrup, whose smiling face was a beacon to a distressed Rebecca.