The Popeye Murder

by Sandra Winter-Dewhirst

  Rebecca thought she had all the information possible from Anne at this point and thanked her for her assistance. As she left, Rebecca gave Anne her business card, asking her to call if she thought of anything else that might be important in capturing Will’s killer or killers.

  Rebecca then knocked on the doors of the neighbours, but of those who were home, none knew anything of Will Oliver except that he was the man with the dogs who kept to himself.

  No Stone Left Unturned

  Gary

  Detective Chief Inspector Gary Jarvie was seated in Superintendent Bill McKie’s office when Bill McKie’s personal assistant, Anita Lung, barged into the office and spoke over Bill to say she was taking an early lunch.

  Exasperated, Bill said, ‘Actually, Anita, before you go, how about organising a couple of coffees for Gary and me?’

  ‘The number for the café is extension 4206,’ responded Anita as she turned and walked out of the office.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Bill behind gritted teeth. ‘That woman will be the death of me.’ He picked up a notepad to scribble down another performance issue he would need to raise with Anita at tomorrow’s performance meeting.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Gary. ‘I’ve had my quota of coffees for the day.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Bill. He rubbed his face with his hands and moved on. ‘So, what’s the latest in this Head Case? I understand you now have two heads—three, if you count the dog.’

  ‘Yes. The cases may be related.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean, they may be related? It seems to be more than a coincidence, don’t you think? How many heads without bodies have we come across in murder cases before this spate? That number would be zero.’

  ‘It could be a copycat murder,’ replied Gary. ‘This Will Oliver appears to have gotten himself caught up in uncovering some greyhound-racing racket with bikie involvement. I’m focusing part of my investigation on the bikie angle at this point. I’m not discounting the possibility that whoever killed Leong Chew might have killed Will Oliver, but I have to take this other angle into account.’

  ‘Of course you do. Bikies, hey? What a business. Classy combo. And what about this Rebecca Keith? She is a suspect and keeps writing these stories on these murder cases she’s enmeshed in. Bit unconventional, isn’t it?’

  ‘Highly unconventional. I don’t like it. She’s publishing details about the cases that may be hampering our investigations. It’s not right. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve spoken with the lawyers, and she isn’t breaking any laws. Until we charge someone, the information isn’t sub judice, and while it’s highly irregular for a suspect to be the journalist writing on the case, it’s not illegal. It is more of an ethical question. But, to be honest, my main concern at this point is that she may be putting herself in danger.’

  ‘Be careful, Gary. I know you have feelings for this woman. Make sure it doesn’t cloud your judgment. She is a suspect as well. And now she has direct connections to both murders. What have you done about investigating her?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, sir. I’m very conscious of the fact that I have to make sure Rebecca is thoroughly checked out. I’ve had Detectives Lee and White do an extensive background check on her. So far, she’s clean. We can’t find anything to link Rebecca Keith to the Leong Chew murder, and we are currently looking for anything that may link her to the Will Oliver murder. But Will was dead for some hours before Penny Tavanagh and Rebecca found his head. I have nothing to link either of these women to Will Oliver’s murder. However, Detectives Lee and White are not leaving any stone unturned in relation to Ms Keith.’

  ‘Good, glad to hear it.’

  The Dogs

  Rebecca

  It was three in the afternoon before Rebecca pulled in to her driveway. It had been a big day, but she knew it was going to get even bigger. She had to go to the dogs that night. The special Friday-night carnival was too good an opportunity to miss.

  As Rebecca closed her front door, she leaned against it, bracing herself for the work that still lay ahead. Rebecca decided she would invite Penny and Lisa. One thing was for sure: she didn’t want to go to the dogs alone. She needed her friends for support. There was also an inkling that this may be a bit of fun.

  Rebecca rang Penny, knowing Penny would be reluctant to go to the dogs—or anywhere—after this morning’s harrowing events, but Rebecca thought if she had to push on, then so did Penny. Rebecca found Penny still a bit precious with her private schooling and privileged life and liked to push her.

  It took some doing, but Penny relented and agreed to let Rebecca pick her up at seven that night. In ending the call, Rebecca emphasised that Penny needed to dress down for the evening and suggested jeans, a basic jumper, and a farm coat.

  Rebecca then called Lisa Harrup. Lisa didn’t need any persuasion. Rebecca knew Lisa’s brother, Rosco, raced dogs, but Lisa had never before been able to convince Rebecca to go for a night out at the dogs. Until now, Rebecca had never had the slightest desire to go.

  ‘Abso-bloody-lutely,’ enthused Lisa. ‘But I’m gobsmacked. Why do you want to go to the dogs? Why have you waited until you are nearly forty? Is it on your bucket list?’

  ‘Hang on a minute, Lisa—steady on.’ Preferring to not take the bait re her age, Rebecca explained the murders, with the latest one happening this morning and possibly implicating bikies and greyhound racing.

  ‘Bloody hell. I heard it on the radio, but I didn’t know you were the one to discover him. This sounds dangerous. Rosco is always talking about the corruption in the dogs. He’s one of the clean trainers, but as a result, he rarely wins. He’s a softie who does it because he loves the dogs and the atmosphere.’

  Rebecca listened to Lisa, fondly aware that around Lisa there was never silence.

  Lisa continued, ‘You know what? Rosco is racing Leah Tard tonight, so we can catch up with him and use him as cover. He can give us some inside gossip.’

  ‘Great idea,’ said Rebecca. ‘Let’s do that. I’ll pick you up just after six thirty.’ Rebecca didn’t have to tell Lisa what to wear; she knew Lisa would be perfectly attired for the occasion.

  Rebecca made a hot chocolate while drawing a bath. She flung her clothes onto a cane chair in her bathroom and sank into the hot bath, placing her hot chocolate on a gum-tree stump next to the bath that she used as a table. Then she closed her eyes.

  When she woke, the water was cold. Looking out her bathroom window, she could see that the day was ending. She knew that in late winter it was normally dark by about six. Judging from the dimness of the light and the shadows on the trees outside the window, it wasn’t far off. She had never fallen asleep in the bath before. She must have been tired.

  Rebecca pulled the plug to her bath and reached for a towel. She was cold. After drying herself, she took her large blue bathrobe off the hook of the bathroom door and wrapped herself in it, slipping on her red fluffy slippers.

  She then plodded down to the kitchen, where she picked up the phone off the charger, checked her messages, and answered a few texts. Rebecca also checked her e-mails, deleting most of them as she went. There was an e-mail from Gary’s office, notifying her that her car would be impounded for at least the next few days and probably would not be returned until the following Friday. That didn’t overly concern Rebecca, as Reg said she could have the office car for as long as she needed it.

  But before she did anything else, she decided to call Reg to catch up.

  ‘Hi, Reg. It’s me, Rebecca.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  Rebecca went through what she had found out about the bikie and greyhound-racing angles and that she was off to the dogs that night with her friends to do some sleuthing.

  ‘Be careful, Rebecca. These bikie gangs are bad news.’ Reg’s voice betrayed his level of excitement. ‘So how are you going to handle this? Who are you going to talk to?’

  ‘Oh, I’m going to be really low key tonight. I’m treating it as a
night out with Penny and Lisa, but I’ll be on the lookout.’

  ‘Great night out,’ replied Reg sarcastically.

  ‘Just think of it as background and colour for my next piece. But I may find someone who’s interesting. This is a fishing expedition, Reg. I don’t have any concrete leads or people of interest to interview. I just want to know a bit about what makes greyhound racing tick.’

  ‘Okay. Put a tenner on some loser for me. Pick the most outrageous name. It’s worked for me in the past. Remind me to tell you about the time I went to the dogs on my bucks night and won a packet on a dog called Teri Aki.’

  ‘Righto, I’ll make sure I follow that one up with you at some point,’ Rebecca responded, making a mental note to never follow it up.

  She went on to check some aspects of the Taste supplement, making sure that it was ordered in the way she had instructed and that Reg had her corrections for the copy. That morning she had already looked at a mock-up of the pages and changed a few of the photos, so she knew it was on track.

  After hanging up, she pulled on an old pair of blue jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt under a bottle-green jumper her grandma had knitted for her over twenty years ago. Grandma had made the jumper large enough to fit two of Rebecca, and while Rebecca had filled out since those years, thankfully she hadn’t filled out enough to outgrow the jumper.

  At six thirty, Rebecca pulled up in front of Lisa Harrup’s modest weatherboard home at Klemzig. She didn’t even have to get out of the car. Lisa was eagerly waiting on her verandah and jogged down to meet her. Lisa was wearing the same gear she’d worn as a teenager: blue jeans, Adidas runners, blue windcheater, and a black duffle coat.

  ‘You look comfy,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘You knows me,’ she said. ‘No freaking bullshit. You gets what you sees. Jeez, we’re going to the dogs. Beaudy?’

  Lisa was overdoing the bad grammar for Rebecca’s benefit. Lisa was capable of speaking very well and in fact could sound quite cultured when she tried. But she loved trying to get a rise out of Rebecca. Unlike Penny, Rebecca didn’t usually bite.

  ‘So, we’re going to pick up snooty Penny, are we?’ said Lisa.

  ‘Yes. And be nice. You two can get on well when you try.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I don’t mind her. It’s just sometimes she is oblivious to the fact that some people don’t have much money. She talks about her real estate and her horses and her overseas trips like everyone is doing it. She’s in another world.’ Lisa was silent for a couple of minutes and then added, ‘You both would have got a fright this morning. How’s Penny holding up? I’m surprised she agreed to go with us.’

  ‘Yes. She has had a major shock. You get used to bizarre happenings and horror stories working in the media, even the food media, but Penny is used to working in real estate.’

  At that moment, Lisa and Rebecca looked across at each other and both burst into laughter.

  ‘Real estate!’ shrieked Lisa. ‘You can’t get more shonky and bizarre than in real estate. What the hell are you talking about?’

  Laughing, Rebecca said, ‘God, what was I thinking?’

  They pulled into the driveway of Penny’s federation villa in the leafy suburb of St Peter’s. Both Lisa and Rebecca hopped out of the car and walked past the manicured box hedges framing the immaculate lawn and up to the front door. Penny’s husband, Peter, answered the door. Peter was wearing an apron and was wiping his hands on a tea towel.

  ‘Hi, Rebecca, Lisa, come in,’ he said in an easy manner. Both Rebecca and Lisa gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Just making the kids their dinner. I’d love to come to the dogs with you all tonight, but I have to babysit, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Maybe another time.’ Rebecca grinned.

  In a more serious tone, Peter said, ‘I’m very concerned about what happened this morning, Rebecca. It sounds pretty nasty. And to be honest, I’m a little bit concerned about your adventure tonight. Penny’s only just told me about the possible bikie connection.’

  Peter was a lawyer and only too aware of the entangled web that bikie gangs wove through the threads of respectable and not-so-respectable Adelaide society. The dogs were firmly in the not-so-respectable camp.

  Rebecca assured Peter that it was just a girls’ night out to get some background colour for her next article and that she wouldn’t be putting herself or her friends in any danger.

  Peter didn’t sound overly convinced, but he wasn’t about to ground Penny or stop Rebecca and Lisa doing what they wanted. He was a man who was proud to call himself a feminist.

  ‘It’ll be fine, Pete,’ said Lisa. ‘My brother, Rosco, is a dog trainer, and he’s racing Leah Tard tonight. We’ll be hanging out with him. Everyone will know we are with him, and there won’t be anything suspicious. I won’t let Rebecca speak to any lowlifes.’

  ‘Right,’ said Peter. ‘My mind is at ease.’ He rolled his eyes skyward and turned toward the kitchen. ‘You must excuse me—my risotto needs stirring.’ He left them in the family room with his and Penny’s two kids, Angus and Victoria, glued to their iPads while the TV blared in the background. Lisa and Rebecca tried to engage the kids in a conversation, with little success.

  Penny came out of the bedroom and down the corridor to the family room. She was wearing the blue jeans and jumper Rebecca had stipulated. However, the jeans were freshly laundered and pressed with a seam down the front, the jumper was Country Road, and Penny was wearing matching pearl necklace and earrings. Penny warmly hugged and kissed both Rebecca and Lisa before saying, ‘I didn’t know you were coming along, Lis. What fun.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were going to dress like you were going to Burnside Village.’

  ‘What?’ Penny sounded offended. ‘I’m wearing jeans and a jumper like Rebecca told me to.’

  ‘I think it’s the pearls,’ Rebecca said with a serious nod of the head. ‘Better take them off. And while you are at it, can you take that blue ribbon out of your hair? Just wear your hair down. And, Pete?’ She raised her voice so Peter could hear her from the next room over the TV. ‘Do you have an old coat Penny could borrow?’

  ‘What’s wrong with my cashmere coat?’ protested Penny.

  ‘Trust me, Penny,’ said Rebecca. ‘You don’t want to stick out tonight. Let’s go with an old coat of Pete’s.’

  ‘Yeah!’ yelled Peter. ‘Use my old corduroy jacket. You’ll find it on one of the hooks in the shed. I use it for gardening now, but at law school I used to think it made me look like a professor.’ After a short pause, he added, ‘It actually made me look like a tosser. I’m sure it will be more flattering on you, Penny.’

  ‘That old moth-eaten jacket? Why the hell do I have to wear that? I’ll look like a bag lady,’ protested Penny.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Lisa. ‘Let’s go. We’ll miss Leah Tard’s race if we aren’t snappy.’

  ‘Leah Tard?’ questioned Penny. ‘Who in their right mind would name a dog Leah Tard?’

  ‘Well, it’s better than the bitch’s name that bore him. She’s called Re Tard,’ said Lisa as she walked out the front door, yelling out ‘Goodbye!’ to Peter and the kids.

  The drive to Angle Park took about thirty minutes, passing through working-class suburbs and industrial estates. Corrug­ated iron fencing that had seen better days bound the park. While the word park normally conjured up images of green expanses dotted with trees, this wasn’t that sort of park. A myriad of signs in various faded states were plastered over the battered and crooked fences. Rebecca drove into the muddy car park, stopping to pay an attendant wearing an orange hi-vis vest over a checked flannel shirt. Hoping not to get bogged, Rebecca managed to find a patch of dead grass on which to park the car.

  The spotlights around the track were on, and distorted announcements screeched from the poor-quality sound system.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Penny as she picked her way through the ruts of mud, looking for firmer ground. ‘This looks interesting.’

  ‘Come on, girls. I’ll take you to t
he trainers’ area, and we can meet up with Rosco,’ ensthused Lisa.

  ‘Righto, we’ll follow you,’ said Rebecca.

  They walked past Hare, the restaurant and function area.

  ‘Are they serious? Are they calling the restaurant Hare as in “The Tortoise and the Hare”? Isn’t that what the dogs are suppose to chase, hares?’ said Penny.

  ‘Mechanical hares, Penny. Get it right,’ said Lisa.

  Rebecca smiled.

  There were already a couple of hundred people milling around on the terraces in front of Hare, and Rebecca and her friends had to weave through them. Lisa took them around the back to an alley of corrugated iron sheds that looked like mini horse stalls. She stopped when they reached stall seventy-one and she popped her head over the half door.

  ‘Hi, Rosco. How’s it going?’ said Lisa to her brother.

  ‘Gidday, Lisa,’ said a deep voice from behind the door.

  ‘I’ve brought Rebecca and Penny with me,’ said Lisa just as the two women leaned over the door next to her. Rosco was putting the racing bib onto Leah Tard. He was a tall, slim man with receding auburn hair, in his early forties. Rebecca knew him quite well, given that she’d gone to school with his sister, but as far as she knew, he’d never met Penny.

  He repeated his ‘gidday’, not appearing to address either Rebecca or Penny directly, continuing to adjust the bib to sit right on Leah Tard.

  ‘So what’s brought you to the dogs?’ said Rosco. ‘Looking to make some quick cash?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rebecca. ‘Here to make our fortune.’

  Penny said nothing. She looked rather uncomfortable.