Nefarious Doings

by Evans, Ilsa

  ‘Shut up, shortie. Mum? Did you know about this?’

  ‘Not a clue.’ I took a deep breath, let it out. ‘Well, well, well.’

  ‘I’m confused.’ Lucy leant forward. ‘Does that mean Grandma did kill him? How?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Ruby. ‘It’s impossible. I know she can be, well, a bit of a bitch, but she just doesn’t have the physical strength to kill a grown man … does she?’

  ‘It was the wife,’ said Quinn emphatically. ‘Not that I blame her. But then … how did she get the body over the fence? She’s not very big.’

  ‘Unless she had outside help.’ I recalled the earlier conversations at the house. ‘They had an argument last night. Dustin and his wife. Apparently he had a fight with your grandmother too. The police even came and spoke to them.’

  Scarlet nodded. ‘Aha! That also means there was no-one else there, not then. So unless someone else came along later, to give the wife a hand, then one of the neighbours must have helped. Or she wasn’t involved and the neighbour did it all. Get it?’

  ‘Wait … what?’

  ‘Otherwise it makes no sense,’ continued Scarlet. ‘I mean, some random wouldn’t kill a bloke and then cart his body into his neighbour’s garage and set it alight. For starters they wouldn’t even know the area, or that only an old woman lived there, or that the garage had a back door which was open.’

  Ruby asked the question for us all. ‘But then, which neighbour?’

  ‘That I don’t know. Perhaps one who also had a grudge against Grandma. But …’ Scarlet scrambled to her feet, pushing the pizza box aside. ‘We can narrow it down. Back in a sec.’

  On the television the newsreader was now flirting with the weather girl. I wondered if he had a middle-aged wife at home, watching this. I reached for the remote control and turned the TV off just as Scarlet returned, along with the large whiteboard from the wall of her room and a handful of markers. She propped the board in front of the television and then drew what looked like two large penises.

  ‘Vomit,’ said Quinn succinctly.

  ‘Is that one on the left circumcised?’ asked Ruby, leaning closer. ‘It’s got a helluva –’

  ‘Shut up, you idiots.’ Scarlet drew a connecting line between the two penises. ‘This is McIvor Highway and these two are Lincoln Court and Small Dairy Lane. And now we’re going to fill in the houses with occupants and motives. We’ll have this solved in no time.’

  I sat forward. ‘Good idea. Let’s start with Lincoln Court, because it’s least likely.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ Scarlet swapped the black marker for a green one and then drew the plant nursery on the corner of Lincoln Court and the highway, which went almost all the way up the left-hand side of the court. ‘Okay, next?’

  ‘Next is a vacant block, I think it belongs to the nursery, and then at the top of the court is the Russo place. Michael and Lyn. Do you remember the eldest, Jackson, went out with Red a few times?’

  ‘And Griffin’s in my year,’ put in Quinn.

  ‘Okay, so that’s Quinn’s boyfriend’s place then.’ Scarlet filled in the outline of the house with tiny writing. ‘Next!’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend!’

  ‘Next door is Kat Caldwell and she has kids as well. I think the eldest is a friend of Quinn.’

  ‘No he’s not! And Griffin Russo isn’t my boyfriend!’

  ‘So far we can mark these houses by their relationship to Quinn,’ said Ruby. ‘A boyfriend here, a boyfriend there. Which means Quinn is moving up the list of suspects. What’s next?’

  ‘Mum! Make her stop!’

  ‘Enough.’ I spoke without taking my eyes off the board. ‘Now here’s where it gets interesting, because these next three all back on to houses on Small Dairy Lane. First is Berry Pembroke. She lives alone, bit older than me. Remember the lady we bought guinea pigs off when you were little? Her house backs on to Jim and Rita Hurley. Then there’s Leon Chaucer, who owns Majic Art Gallery in town.’

  ‘Yum,’ said Scarlet.

  ‘Gay,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Could be. Besides, I'd prefer you both stick to guys on your side of thirty. Now back to the task in hand.’ I pointed to the outline that Scarlet was now drawing. ‘His house backs on to Grandma’s. And then last of all, on the corner opposite the nursery, is the double block owned by the Nightingales, but they’re ancient.’

  Scarlet made a few notations. ‘Okay, now to Small Dairy Lane. We have old Mrs Fletcher on the corner, next to the Nightingales. Or is she dead?’

  ‘Not quite. But she’s in a retirement home now so I think that house is empty.’

  ‘Then next door to her are the Craigs,’ put in Quinn. ‘But because of the Nightingales’ double block, they don’t have a house behind them.’

  ‘Which is a shame,’ said Ruby. ‘Because someone might have heard something.’

  ‘Can’t be helped.’ Scarlet drew a neat tennis court on the end of the Nightingale land, behind the Craig house. ‘So then we have Grandma, and the Hurleys and that’s it.’

  ‘For that side, anyway,’ I said. ‘We have three houses opposite. I’m not sure who lives in the end house now, but next door are this young couple I met today. Mark and Trudy Tapscott. He seems very pleasant but she’s a fool. Of course at the corner we have Edward Given.’

  ‘Somehow I doubt he did the deed,’ commented Lucy, grinning. ‘You know, I can’t quite see him scaling fences and whatnot.’

  ‘If he did, he’d blab real quick. And that woman’s name is stupid. Trudy Tapscott. She sounds like a cartoon character, one of those damsel-in-distress types with massive boobs.’ Quinn picked up a red marker. ‘Can I write in the alibis, Scar?’

  I tried to recall the size of Trudy’s chest but it hadn’t made much of an impression, even with her advanced pregnancy, which suggested it was nothing to get excited about. Figuratively speaking. The doorbell sounded, then repeated with an insistency that suggested it was my sister, Petra, who had spent the afternoon with our mother at the hospital. I glanced around the room, settling on Ruby.

  ‘Okay, okay.’ She bounced to her feet, smoothed down her jeans, and went to answer the door. Moments later I could hear her voice, rising, falling. I got up to put the kettle on.

  ‘I heard that Tapscott guy say he was out last night,’ said Quinn, kneeling down so that she could write neatly.

  ‘His wife too?’ asked Scarlett.

  I shook my head. ‘She’s about seven months pregnant. Your grandmother would be more capable of doing away with Dustin than she would.’

  ‘Well, thanks for the vote of confidence,’ said my mother from the doorway.

  I whipped my head around to stare at her, and then narrowed my eyes at the person who stood behind. In all fairness my sister did look apologetic, but also a little amused. She was dressed beautifully, as usual, with a pair of dove-grey slacks and a cream cowl-necked top. People always commented on how alike we were, but I knew that Petra was actually always a little more, a little less. A little taller, a little slimmer, a little more chest. Her hair a little tamer, her eyes a little wider, her life a little easier.

  ‘Grandma!’ Scarlet came across the room to embrace her grandmother, a trifle awkwardly because we were not a particularly tactile family. Especially with the matriarch.

  ‘But what are you –’ I spared a moment for another glare towards my sister. ‘That is, Yen, I thought you were staying in overnight?’

  ‘You could at least pretend you’re pleased to see me.’

  ‘I’m just concerned, about your health.’

  ‘If you were that concerned you’d be insisting I sit down, offering me a sherry. Did you get those names for me? From the society meeting?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Yes, and I’ve emailed it. So sit down, relax. I’ll get you a drink.’

  As our mother made her way across the living room, Petra came over to the island bench, propped herself on a stool. ‘Sorry about this, Nell. She insisted on being discharged. The
re was nothing I could do.’

  ‘What about bloody ringing?’

  ‘Well, yes, maybe that,’ she conceded, then gave me a wide smile. ‘But I was just so looking forward to getting here that –’

  ‘Oh, put a sock in it.’

  ‘Good lord, Nell, are you still working on that doll’s house? I wouldn’t have thought you had so much spare time. And what’s this chart then?’ Yen was now staring at the whiteboard. ‘That’s my neighbourhood. Why have you written “too old” on my house?’

  Scarlet frowned at the chart, and then flung her little sister to the wolves. ‘Quinn did it.’

  ‘It wasn’t personal!’

  ‘It doesn’t get more personal,’ commented her grandmother. She turned to Lucy. ‘How are you? Diagnosed any malignancies lately?’

  ‘Any what?’

  ‘Yen, Quinn only wrote “too old” because we were trying to work out who would be most likely …’ I suddenly realised that she wouldn’t have heard the latest. ‘Oh, the news! It seems Dustin Craig didn’t die in the fire at all!’

  ‘Well, that should surprise the coroner. I do hope they realise before they start the autopsy. Could be awkward.’

  ‘No, no.’ I waved my hand impatiently. ‘I mean he was already dead. The police have confirmed it – they’re treating it as a homicide.’

  Now it was Petra’s turn to look stunned. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. And the fire was deliberately lit, they used an accelerant.’

  ‘I see.’ Yen hesitated, glanced over at the whiteboard. ‘Yes, I see.’

  The kettle started to whistle shrilly. I turned it off and poured a small glass of sherry, taking it over to my mother on the couch. She took her eyes from the chart to stare at it suspiciously, then up at me. ‘Sherry?’

  ‘You said sherry!’

  ‘No, I said I’d appreciate being offered a sherry, not that I’d accept. I’d prefer scotch. Neat, on the rocks.’

  I took a deep breath. She’s old, I thought, and sick. In shock. ‘Coming right up.’ I carried the sherry back over to the kitchen where I drained it in one gulp.

  ‘Don’t let it get to you,’ murmured Petra, settling herself on the stool. ‘You should have seen her at the hospital. I think that’s why they agreed so readily to her being discharged.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘But if you’re getting drinks anyway, could I have a wine? Red if you’ve got it.’

  I opened the fridge and removed a bottle of chardonnay, held it up. ‘This, or nothing.’

  ‘This then.’ Petra looked towards the whiteboard. ‘So he was murdered? Hell, even the word sounds extreme. Murder.’

  ‘Sally Roddom and her husband are away,’ Yen was saying, staring at the diagram again. ‘Visiting one of their daughters interstate. They live in that house you’ve got blank, beside Mark and Trudy Tapscott.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Come on, who’s marking this in?’

  Quinn scrambled up, probably eager to compensate for her ‘too old’ notation.

  ‘You can also write that Edward Given’s too useless, and the Tapscotts are too boring, and the Nightingales are too decrepit. That’s what happens when you play tennis – it’s the court surface. Quinn!’ she suddenly shouted, causing everybody to jump. ‘For god’s sake, you don’t need to write that down. It’s just extra information. Now, hmm, it might be that Chaucer fellow who lives behind me; he’s a slimy piece of work. Or Berry Pembroke, she’s neurotic. All those damn rodents. Or one of those teenagers from up Lincoln Court. If you heard the music they listen to, you’d know they’re capable of anything.’

  ‘What music?’ asked Lucy with interest.

  ‘All tits and arse,’ Yen replied promptly. ‘Fuck this, fuck that.’

  It was a measure of how well we all knew her, and the occasional shock tactics she used to retain attention, that nobody batted an eye. I finished the drinks and started putting together a platter of savouries.

  ‘And here, write this in: Maud Fletcher from the corner’s been institutionalised.’

  I paused from cubing cheese. ‘Yen, she has not. She’s moved into a lovely retirement home, and by all accounts is very happy there.’

  ‘Same thing.’ She was frowning at the whiteboard. ‘Of course the most logical … Oh, this is stupid. Nell, why do you have a nude Christmas tree? It looks ridiculous. And where’s my damn scotch?’

  Rather than answer I sent another glare in Petra’s direction and then resumed working on the platter. Woman uses food as therapy. Becomes two-hundred-kilogram blimp.

  My mother started lecturing Quinn, who had just used the red marker to draw a smiley face on her arm, about carcinogenesis. Scarlet and Ruby were watching silently, no doubt reluctant to draw attention to themselves. Lucy was keeping quiet also, probably for the same reason, but there was no avoiding the confrontation she would be having with me, sooner or later. Fruit picking, my arse. I thought about the column, due tomorrow, and a full day of work at the bookshop, also due tomorrow. I thought about finding space for all these extra people, and bedding, and breakfast. And I thought about the fact that Petra would be escaping, as would both Scarlet and Ruby, but my mother would be staying on. Then I poured myself an extra dollop of scotch, because I was going to need it.

  Chapter Five

  I just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed your column ‘Why middle-aged women shouldn’t use trampolines’ so much that I now have a suggestion for a new column – ‘Why middle-aged women shouldn’t laugh too hard’. Keep it up!

  I spent every Monday at Renaissance, serving customers mostly, but also facilitating a small reading group that concentrated on Australian women writers. Literary authors like Hooper and Tranter, but also lighter reads like Blacklock, Heidke and Evans. I had been working at my mother’s bookshop for as long as I could remember, in exchange for pocket money as a child, for pin money as a young mother, and for social contact as a writer. It was especially valuable nowadays, because otherwise I spent a large part of my entire working life on my own, at home, staring at a computer screen, talking to myself. Often answering as well. And while I loved my job, some diversion was necessary – plus the occasional requirement to get dressed.

  This morning, however, I didn’t approach the shop with quite my usual bounce. It had been a late, noisy night, with – despite Scarlet’s promise to ‘have this solved in no time’ – no real progress having been made. Except that we now had a dot-pointed list of reasons why each of my mother’s neighbours were annoying. All of which provided motive for her to perform mass murder, not highlight a culprit for the deed already committed.

  One bright spot was that, aided by a few glasses of chardonnay, I managed to convince my sister to accompany Yen for the day. First she would be acting as secretary for a list of phone calls, such as insurance, newspaper delivery and police, and after that they were off to outpatients for a quick check-up, then to the house to survey the damage, and then to arrange a hire car, and finally to the bookshop to ascertain all was running smoothly. A communal lunch was scheduled for one pm, when we could exchange information.

  Mondays were traditionally a quiet day at Renaissance. Tourists to the area had either departed on Sunday or, newly arrived, were heading for the bigger attractions like the museums in Bendigo, the spa treatments in Daylesford, or the water sports at Lake Eppalock. Most of the locals, despite having had six-day-a-week trading for many years, still treated Thursday and Friday as shopping days and kept away during the early part of the week. But today was different. From the moment I unlocked the double doors at the front of the bookshop, there were customers aplenty. Each of them had watched the news the night before, or heard it from a neighbour/relative/friend, and each had a vital piece of hearsay to slip into the conversation. All of which concerned the victim, and the varying ways in which he got exactly what was coming to him.

  Mrs Emerson, who was an academic before she retired to concentrate on Richard III and the merits of cheese puffs, popped in to announce th
at it was almost certain Dustin Craig suffered from a personality disorder. No, said Caitlin’s mother Jill, selfishness was not a disorder. Roz Gupta, dropping by on her way to get supplies for the primary school canteen, had heard that there’d been moves to get counselling for the older girl, but the parents had been resistant. Fred and Elsa Poxleitner had it on good authority (aka Fred and Elsa Poxleitner) that parents who acted that way should be charged with criminal negligence. Mrs Emerson agreed, however she felt Beth Craig should shoulder responsibility for having stayed in the relationship. And Lyn Russo, the centre of attention for the twenty minutes she was there, thought she might have heard raised voices on the night of The Murder, but there was a possibility that could have been her own kids.

  At eleven am, always late on Mondays, the cafe opened its doors and immediately drew some of the heat. My mother’s offsider began work also; this was Sharon, a buxom redhead whose favourite colours were purple and orange and who felt compelled to wear a portion of each every single day. Strangely, it worked. She took one look at the milling customers and cancelled plans to begin inventory, thus allowing me to escape for some much-needed coffee.

  One Christmas about five years ago, after noticing that the main street was looking a little bedraggled in the festive department, the town council had launched a Best-Decorated Shop competition and then, soaked in the spirit, expended a great deal of money on new street decorations. Regrettably, their choice had not been as inspired as their intention. The local teenagers soon detected the possibilities inherent within the cluster of oversized ornaments, and trimmed them back so that each now contained just one elongated pinecone and two Noddy-type bells. The result was that every lamppost up and down the main street, and a little way out from either end, was decorated with what looked like festive genitalia. Nevertheless, each year the council optimistically erected them again, usually with the addition of a newly purchased candy-cane or holly sprig that was removed the very first night, leaving just the basics behind. It had become a town tradition.