Game Changer

by J K Nen

  Evelyn wasted no time in getting to Vegas. She disrupted his meeting with his American staff and ordered everyone out. When she slapped the pictures down in front of him, his lackadaisical “So what?” drove her into a rage. She destroyed the office. Through the glass, Ted’s employees witnessed his humiliation. The confrontation sparked a downward spiral for the marriage.

  Months later, a private investigator Evelyn hired followed Ted and another woman to Sydney’s Shangri-La Hotel. She checked into an adjacent room, installed a spy cam and waited. When they came out, she forced them both back inside. Evelyn beat the woman senseless. Ted escaped, unscathed. He paid for the young woman’s medical bills and gave her a generous settlement. Soon Evelyn had a team of private detectives on retainer. She thrashed any woman she caught with Ted. He bought their silence each time.

  “So she was violent?” Steele suggested.

  “Towards his whores,” she retorted. “But honestly, when word got out that his wife was psycho, those bitches gave him a wide berth. The sensible ones did, anyway.”

  “Why were they living apart?” Steele pressed.

  “Incredibly, Eve initiated the separation,” she recalled. “After she pummelled yet another floozy’s face to pulp, she was afraid of the damage she was capable of inflicting. That bitch required reconstructive surgery to her face. Evelyn had to get herself away from him, to start over.”

  “And did that work?” Logan asked.

  “Not really. She still loved Ted but she needed to be free of the emotional prison she was in.”

  “Emotional prison?” Logan echoed.

  “She hated him so much yet loved him with such intensity, it frightened her. Everything in her life was about him. His womanising just triggered the green-eyed monster in her. So she left.”

  “Did it work?”

  “The opposite happened, actually,” Amaka explained. “When she stopped being psycho stalker, Ted got all precious about her ignoring him.”

  He called Evelyn at all hours, to check where she was and what she doing.

  “When she started dating Jayden, he went ballistic,” Amaka continued. “For once, the tables were turned. As much as she ached to get back with him, her friends- myself included- stopped her. We’re just as much to blame as Ted is. She loved her husband. He was all she ever wanted. What the hell were we trying to prove? She deserved to be happy, even if it was with someone as pathetic as Ted Winters.”

  This was the worst kind of guilt because there was no way one could make it right, Logan thought as she held the sobbing woman.

  Amaka gave them Evelyn’s boyfriend’s name - Jayden Amos - world surfing champion. As they leaving, they checked in with Ahmed.

  “Hopefully, Amaka gave you some idea of what made Adeena tick,” he said. “She loved her husband. She was an excellent mother too.”

  “Mr Farris, do you know if she flogged any one of Mr Winters’ mistresses recently?” Steele ventured.

  “If she did, she didn’t tell me. We’re Maldivian Australians, but above all, educated Muslims. Adeena really should have been more empowered. She gave that geek of a husband too much of herself and he made sure he fucked her up real good. I was in my final year at university when they were both in first year and started dating. I thought it was just a harmless fling. She surprised me by marrying him and having children with him. But when she started acting up, she pissed me right off.”

  “Do you think any of Ted’s mistresses would get back at her?” Logan wanted to know.

  “I doubt they’d be that smart. The last time she smacked another one of his floozies, I thumped that dickhead and dared him to get me arrested. The wimp couldn’t do it. Hell, my niece and nephew are more Maldivian than they are British-Australian or wherever the fuck that convict descendant came from. I warned Adeena that every time she smacked another one of his girlfriends, I’d pulverise him. She left him because she wanted to protect me,” his voice broke. “She didn’t want me going to jail, getting arrested, disbarred.”

  Logan sighed. Evelyn Winters was a woman caught in between many worlds: love for her husband, love for her family, her faith and culture, and her friends.

  “Did Evelyn tell you she was moving out because of what you did?” Steele enquired.

  “She didn’t need to,” he muttered, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “I knew, just like everyone else. She was my baby sister, my only sister in fact, and I wanted to protect her.”

  His pain was palpable.

  “The lot of the Australian Muslim woman of Middle Eastern descent is tough,” he continued in a strained voice, eyes damp with tears. “Her duty to her family, her husband, her faith and her adopted country. Yet my sister married into an Australian dynasty and made it work. It was a tough act to follow but I was so fucking proud of her for it.”

  Steele asked him about Jayden Amos.

  “Jayden who?” Ahmed appeared genuinely mystified.

  “Jayden Amos,” Logan rejoined. “Evelyn’s new boyfriend.”

  “What the fuck? You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, she was dating him,” Logan told him. “You didn’t know?”

  He spun on his heel and made a beeline for Amaka Ndobo. The detectives watched a heated exchange of words. Amaka stomped out. She was gone by the time they reached the driveway.

  “What do you think Ahmed said to Amaka?” Logan wondered as they drove out.

  “They’re Muslims. They do honour killings and shit. He probably thought she disgraced the family while married to Australian royalty.”

  “Royalty?” she teased.

  “We have the class system no matter how republican we try to sound,” he shrugged.

  “Hey, isn’t that Amaka Ndobo? Car must have broken down,” Steele said as they took the M1.

  Amaka sat on the pavement, talking on the phone as the emergency lights of her car flashed. Steele pulled up behind her.

  “I ran out of fuel,” she smiled wryly, ending her call. “I used to talk to her on the phone every day.”

  Logan stepped out to wait with her for the tow truck while Steele waited in the car.

  “Sorry I ran off,” Amaka apologised. “Ahmed can be pretty uptight. That’s why Evelyn didn’t want him or any of her family knowing about Jayden.”

  “That’s understandable. By the way, did Evelyn ever complain about anything unusual, like strangers hanging around?”

  “Nothing huge. Just phone calls from numbers with their caller ID hidden, and if she answered, the creep just breathed. She felt like she was being watched and blamed Ted.”

  “”Why?” Logan prompted.

  “The creep was spying on her. When she moved out, she refused his offer of bodyguards. She didn’t want them reporting back to him what she was up to.”

  On the surface, Evelyn Winters was a confident socialite. She chaired powerful boards of charities, using the Winters’ name and connections to make raise millions. She even supported Muslim charities, which upset the Winters establishment.

  “But she held Ted to ransom” Amaka continued. “She threatened to run off the road once with him and the children in the car.”

  “Did he report it?”

  “This is the Winters family, old money. They don’t hang their dirty laundry out there for the whole world to see. Eve had that man by the balls.”

  “Why do you think she refused Ted’s offer of security guards, besides spying on her?” Logan asked.

  “To spite him,” Amaka replied easily. “She could be very vindictive. She could not lash out directly at Ted so she went for the whores and found other ways to humiliate him.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Z first appeared on the radar when lawyer, environmental activist and single mother of two, Janine Maher, went missing. The CEO of GreenTalk, an environmental non-profit, last seen leaving her office at 7pm, was discovered in a boatshed two weeks later. CCTV footage revealed nothing amiss. Police found her abandoned car at a defunct skating rink. Her daughter reported her mis
sing.

  When police interviewed her ex-husband Cody Maher, X-Box gym chain owner, he claimed they had not spoken in months. As an aside, he mentioned they had divorced because her feminist views offended his traditional Catholic family.

  Z positioned her body in a standing position in a glass display case, with poles erected behind her neck to hold her up. Her feet, encased in ancient Greek-style boot-sandals, were nailed to the floor. She was dressed in a short tunic belted with gold braided fabric, a quiver slung across her back and a bow taped to her hands. A cubic zirconium lioness hung from a gold chain around her neck. In the quiver, the ME found a toy deer and a note.

  Mama hunted by His side in the Moonlight mild;

  Fierce as the lioness, destructive like the wild boar

  As her hounds bayed for the blood of the wild

  Firing her arrows at the beloved Sun so true

  With little to go on, the case grew cold.

  Naidu and Davidson visited Janine Maher’s double storey Ryde home. The entrance featured a Japanese-rock garden with white and black pebbles arranged in ying-yang art, manicured plants and a bamboo windmill fountain.

  A dark-complexioned Asian woman in a kimono answered the door. With gold-speckled hazel eyes accentuated by sleek brows and a delicate nose, dark locks caught up in a messy up-do, it took all of Davidson’s willpower to tear his eyes away. Naidu quickly introduced herself and Davidson, then explained the reason for their visit.

  “I’m Ebony Perez,” she replied and invited them in.

  While they waited in the open plan living room, kitchen and dining room, Ebony hurried upstairs to change. The furnishings were minimalist. Black curtains with white tribal prints, white cushions with black tribal prints, and the bookshelves held volumes of feminist literature. A large black and white photograph of Janine and her children took up a quarter of the wall space. Janine wore simple diamond stud earrings and a white shirt. Her children wore black outfits. All three stared, unsmiling into the camera. Only their eyes seemed full of life. A ying/yang painting hung on the dining room wall

  “Male and female, good and evil,” Ebony explained. “Janine’s favourite subject.”

  Even in jeans and T-shirt, she was gorgeous. Davidson seemed to agree. Naidu wondered about the relationship between Ebony and Janine, given the age difference.

  “Was she bisexual? “ Naidu asked.

  “Hell no,” Ebony laughed. “She was curious about androgyny, the idea that we all have a male and female within us.”

  “Did her husband agree? “

  “Nope,” she chuckled. “The poor sod went into the marriage with a typical macho attitude and found an unbending little spitfire.”

  “You sound like you feel sorry for the guy,” Naidu observed.

  “Not really,” she shrugged. “He’s such a presumptuous bastard, but it’s a two way street. He changed for her; she wouldn’t change for him.”

  Janine and Cody were an unlikely pair. She loved with her head more than her heart, sensible and practical. Cody was emotionally immature.

  “So how come she married him?” Naidu wanted to know.

  “To spite her dad,” Ebony replied simply. “That’s my take on it, anyway. He thought Cody was a loser and she wanted to prove him wrong.”

  “What was the nature of your relationship?” Davidson voiced the obvious.

  “We became best friends when Jan dated my big brother in high school, although they’re six years older.”

  Ebony explained that the relationship ended when Janine caught her brother cheating, but the women maintained their friendship.

  Ebony only stayed over when the realtor needed to bring in clients. She lived in Bondi, close to her club, Pasadena. Now Davidson knew why she looked familiar. Pasadena, Sydney’s party capital, was Stella’s regular haunt.

  Ebony told them the Maher’s marital woes began after Cody had several affairs, eventually ending in divorce. Janine was the oldest of three sisters and a brother in a biracial family. With an Aboriginal father and a strong Irish mother, Janine latched onto feminist theories in university. Cody was a nightclub bouncer and a personal trainer at the university gym. She helped him buy his first gym, and later worked with him to open two more. They packaged innovative programs to attract high-end clientele, and soon had a chain of gyms across Australia.

  Soon the traits he had found endearing in Janine annoyed him. Her independent decisions now challenged his authority. When she spoke her mind, he accused her of being tactless. He found a mistress and moved out of home soon after.

  “And she agreed?” Naidu pressed, curious. “I mean, she made him a success and didn’t contest anything?”

  “That’s just the way she was,” Ebony intimated. “She knew she could start over.”

  Her consulting company brought her grants worth millions. When Cody’s business started to fail, he sought a reconciliation. He also wanted to renew a joint life insurance policy the couple had on each other. She refused. The detectives were surprised. This was new information.

  The X-Box gym at Surrey Hills was an entry-by-card establishment. A cleaner opened the door when Davidson rang the bell, inspected their credentials, then showed them the stairs to Cody Maher’s office. Through the slightly ajar office door, loud music assaulted their eardrums. Maher and a half-dressed blonde girl made out on his desk, oblivious to their entrance. Naidu unplugged the speakers, plunging the room into total silence. As the startled couple looked up, Naidu took a photo of the pair on her phone. The girl fled.

  Maher quickly pulled up his gym shorts. The detectives sized Maher up. He was ruggedly handsome and barrel-chested. Thinning dark hair caught in a ponytail, entire right arm and chest tattooed, and a gold-toothed smile.

  “Cody, you’ve been a very busy boy,” a devilish smile accompanied Naidu’s knowing wink.

  “What can I do for you officers?” Maher tried his all-effacing smile.

  “How did you know who we are?” Naidu played along. “We didn’t even introduce ourselves.”

  “You got that look about you,” he answered.

  “Good deduction,” Davidson noted.

  “So I’ve been told,” Cody blustered, uncertainty flickered in his eyes for a second. “How can I help you?”

  “You can start by telling us why you lied to our officers,” Naidu snapped. “Why didn’t you tell us you begged Janine to take you back but she told you to take a hike?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” he protested weakly. “We were working on it.”

  “That’s not what you told our guys,” Naidu rebutted.

  “Well, I wasn’t asked,” he muttered.

  “Great, so now it’s our fault,” Naidu’s biting sarcasm induced a wince from Maher. “It’s our fault too that we didn’t ask about the life insurance policy you wanted to renew.”

  “It was an old policy we took out while we were still married,” he pleaded. “She took out one hundred thousand dollars in my name and I took the same in her name.”

  “Let me guess, you didn’t tell us about renewal because you forgot about it,” Naidu huffed.

  “I did forget,” he whined.

  “Interesting,” Davidson observed. “The policy renewal somehow slipped your mind despite your money problems.”

  “Exactly!” he cried. “Look, I still loved my wife. It wasn’t about money.”

  It took all of Naidu’s willpower not to smack him. Instead, she pressed him for the girl’s name.

  Janine’s childhood home had an English garden out front. A tall, heavyset Aboriginal man in an Akubra weeded the flowerbeds in the mid-afternoon sun. At their approach, he rose gingerly to his feet.

  “Good afternoon,” Mr Drake spoke with a crisp English upper-class accent. “You must be Officers Naidu and Davidson.”

  Naidu remembered that Edward Drake was one of the stolen generation whose white family sent him to be educated in England. He was a retired barrister. His wife Mary had asked them to come by that afternoo
n.

  He led them inside. Mary served pumpkin scones she had just baked with tea. The couple’s grief was palpable. Framed pictures of their children and grandchildren lined the shelves.

  “I take it there are no new leads,” Drake began.

  “None at all,” Naidu decided honesty would be best. “We’re revisiting the case in case we missed anything.”

  He nodded. Naidu filled him on aspects of the case since Janine’s demise. He confirmed that Janine had been ambitious and driven. That she had married Cody to spite him.

  “She climbed Kilimanjaro, trekked the Kokoda and rafted the Zambesi, “her mother added. “She lived to travel and we were supportive of her. The problems started when she met Cody.”

  First Janine worked on transforming Cody into a successful businessman. Two children and three gyms later, they married.

  “I don’t believe she actually loved Cody,” Mrs Drake stated. “He was her Eliza Doolittle project.”

  “Why do you say that?” Davidson asked.

  “Because when he moved out and asked for a divorce, she just handed it to him. She only sent the kids across sometimes when she wanted to have a night out. Never even cried once.”