“I know it was,” Monique retorted. “And that means the murderer has to be an outsider. No-one in the family would do that. Even if one of us had gotten into a rage with Mum and… and hurt her, they wouldn’t be so cold and calculating as to deliberately set me up. We’re family. We just wouldn’t do that.”
I could see that Dusty wanted to tell Monique how wrong she was, but she graciously refrained.
“Let’s leave that for a moment. I wanted to talk to you about why you were on the track that morning.”
“I know it was stupid of me not to tell the police at the time,” said Monique with a heavy sigh. “I just wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“We all do stupid things,” said Dusty. “Especially when we’re caught up in exceptional circumstances. What I want you to do, Monique, is tell me when, why and how you went to the walking track that morning.”
“I’m sure you’ve already read my statement to the police.”
“I have. I just need to hear it from you. Please.”
I noticed that Dusty studied Monique closely as she went through the story of how she’d made a sudden decision to go for a jog. When Monique had finished, Dusty sat back in her chair.
After a few moments silence, she said, “Monique, do you wish to prove to the world that you did not kill your mother?”
“Of course I do. I didn’t kill her. How could I? How could any daughter do that?”
“In that case,” Dusty slapped her hand on the table causing both me and Monique to jump. “In that case,” she repeated, “tell me the truth.”
“I have told you the truth,” protested Monique. “It happened exactly as I’ve just described to you. I swear it.”
Dusty, her hand resting on the table with fingers spread, stared at Monique in silence. Monique was the first to avert her gaze. Her shoulders sagged and she sank back in her chair.
“It’s all true,” she said in a subdued voice. She raised her hand to head off the imminent protest from Dusty and continued. “Except the reason why I went for a jog.”
“At last we’re finally getting somewhere,” said Dusty, withdrawing her hand and sitting back. “What’s the real reason you jogged down to the track that morning?”
When Monique didn’t answer, Dusty persisted.
“You went to talk to your mother, didn’t you?”
Monique nodded.
“What happened, Monique?”
“I need to talk to Chris.”
“You must do this properly, Monique. You’ll have to give the police another statement and tell the whole truth this time.”
“But it is all true. Everything happened exactly as I said. The only thing that isn’t true is the reason I went there.”
There was something in her tone of voice and the expression on her face that convinced me Monique was telling the truth. But what was the real reason she was on the walking track that morning?
“Nevertheless,” said Dusty, “you must tell the police the truth. It’s a sure bet they already know you haven’t been completely honest with them and that’s making you look guilty.”
“I have to talk to Chris first. As soon as I’ve spoken to him, I’ll give the police another statement.”
I wondered why she was so insistent on talking to Chris first. Could Chris have something to hide? No, I was allowing Dusty’s suspicions about Chris to influence me.
“Fair enough,” said Dusty. “For the record, let me just check some of the other details of what you and Chris did that morning. When did you decide to go for your run?”
“I looked at the clock on my computer and saw that it was almost six-thirty. That’s when I realised Mum would be on her morning walk.”
“You left to go to the walking track at…”
“A few minutes before six-thirty.”
“And you arrived home at…”
“Six-fifty five.”
“How can you be precise about the time you got back?”
“When I open my computer, the time comes up on the screen in big numbers; you can’t miss it.”
“You went straight to your computer when you arrived home?”
Monique’s eyes rolled up to the right with her effort to recall her movements that morning.
“I poured myself a glass of water first but sat down at the table and opened my laptop straight after that.”
“And then?”
“And then it was exactly as I said before.”
When Monique had repeated what she’d previously said about how she and Chris had spent the morning her mother was murdered, Dusty looked at her thoughtfully for a few moments. Then she nodded as if satisfied Monique had not withheld vital information.
“One more thing,” she said. “When Marcia didn’t return from the retreat as planned on the Tuesday evening, you went over to her house the next day. Is that right?”
“Yes. I didn’t know she hadn’t returned. It’s just that she hadn’t phoned or texted to say she was back. She always did that. I called the landline a couple of times during the day on Wednesday and left messages. By late afternoon when Mum hadn’t got back to me, I went over to make sure everything was all right.”
A twist of her mouth marked the irony of the occasion. She had gone over to Marcia’s home on the assumption that the reason for her mother’s lack of communication would have an innocent explanation, as any one of us might have done in a similar situation. She told us how she’d used her spare key to let herself in after receiving no answer to her knock.
“What did you do when you went inside?” said Dusty.
“I called out a few times, but I could tell the house was empty. It just had that feel, you know?”
Dusty nodded.
“I opened the door that leads into the garage and saw Mum’s car there.”
“And you assumed she’d arrived home safely from her weekend away and gone out on foot somewhere?”
“That’s right. But when I checked the phone and saw the message light was flashing, I started to get a feeling something was wrong. It looked like she hadn’t checked her messages. I wasn’t sure what to do. I sat out on the balcony for a while to wait for Mum.”
“How long did you wait?”
“Over an hour. By that time I was getting worried so I called the meditation centre. They told me Mum hadn’t been there. Then I called Fergus.” She shook her head at the memory, or perhaps at the memory of the horrible turn of events that followed her phone call to her brother. “As soon as Fergus arrived, I took one look at him and burst into tears. Something inside me knew. I just knew something bad had happened to Mum. It was a weird kind of certainty.”
Dusty nodded her understanding. Monique took a deep breath and shook herself to ward off the tears that were welling again.
“Monique,” said Dusty. “Can you remember seeing anything unusual in your mother’s home that morning, anything out of the ordinary?”
“No. Nothing at all.”
“This is important, Monique. You might have seen something without consciously registering it. After all, you would have been preoccupied wondering where your mother was. I want you to close your eyes, relax and visualise yourself going into Marcia’s house that morning.”
Monique did as instructed. Dusty’s voice was soft and soothing as she prompted Monique in an effort to stir her memory.
“You let yourself in the back door. You called out to your mother.”
Monique, her eyes still closed, nodded.
“You waited for a response but there was none. You walked over to the door leading to the garage.”
Monique held up her hand. Dusty stopped speaking.
“I picked something up from the floor,” said Monique. “Before I opened the garage door.”
“Keep your eyes closed. Try to remember everything. What did you pick up?”
It was a few moments before Monique spoke again. “Something that shouldn’t have been on the floor or maybe something that shouldn’t have even been in the hous
e. It was at the bottom of the stairs. I can’t quite see what it is.”
Fearful of interrupting Monique’s train of thought, Dusty and I remained quiet. I even held my breath.
“I think it was a business card.”
“Before you open your eyes, Monique, I want you to see if you can remember what you did with that business card.”
“I put it on the side table.”
“The one opposite the garage door?”
“That’s right. Can I open my eyes now?”
“Yes, Monique. You did very well.”
“I felt like I was under hypnosis,” said Monique with a smile.
As we got up to leave, Dusty paused to ask Monique one last question.
“On the evening Marcia drove past your house, Chris went out, didn’t he?”
Monique frowned and shook her head.
“He told me that he had to go out unexpectedly because just at the moment that he saw Marcia’s car approaching, he remembered he had to go to the office.”
“Oh! I’d totally forgotten about that,” said Monique, her eyes shining as the memory came back to her. “Yes, that’s right. He had to go and set the alarm at his office.”
“How long was he gone?”
Wariness clouded Monique’s face. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m just curious. It’s probably not relevant.” Dusty gave an offhand shrug. “Was he gone long?”
“He stayed to tidy up the office. He just can’t help himself when he sees a mess.” Monique smiled.
“Half an hour? Forty-five minutes?” prompted Dusty.
“Probably around forty-five minutes. Something like that. I really can’t remember.”
Dusty gave the impression of being satisfied but I knew better. I could almost hear her thoughts. A strange coincidence that he had to go out as soon as he saw Marcia’s car on the road that Friday evening, the evening before Marcia died. Did he plan for Marcia to have some sort of car accident that evening? When that didn’t work for some reason, did he go to Plan B and bump her off the next morning?
If those were her thoughts, they didn’t show on Dusty’s face as she leaned across to give Monique’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Don’t lose hope,” she said.
There was something prescient in those words for later that day the same advice could have been offered to Dusty. Ken Nagle rang to tell her that the informant had postponed the planned meeting until the following Monday. She retired to her room after receiving Ken’s call and stayed there for a couple of hours. When she reappeared, I wanted to give her hand a squeeze and urge her not to lose hope, as she had done for Monique. But I didn’t. Instead, I applied my bar skills, the skills I had practised during a stint working in hospitality when I first arrived in Australia, and mixed her a gin and tonic. She nodded approvingly and offered me a wan smile.
“Just what I need, Sean,” she said, raising the glass to her lips. “Thank you.”
Monique’s remark about hypnosis had given me an idea. I thought this might be the time to mention it.
“Have you ever tried hypnosis?”
Dusty tilted her head to one side and raised her eyebrows quizzically.
“Your mother walked you to school just before she disappeared,” I explained. “Under hypnosis you might remember more about your walk to school. You might have seen something important without realising it.”
Dusty stared at me and slowly lowered her glass.
“I don’t remember anything about the walk to school with my mother that day. You’re a genius, Sean. I don’t know why I’ve never considered hypnosis.”
“You might remember seeing a car following you, or something like that.”
Dusty nodded gravely. “It’s possible. Any tiny little thing might help to find out what happened that day.” She offered me a brilliant smile. We raised our glasses in salute. “As soon as this case is over, I’ll make arrangements to see someone.”
In the days that followed, Dusty contacted the police and learned there was no forensic evidence on Marcia’s jewellery; no fingerprints other than Marcia’s and no foreign DNA. The Nixon family, although strongly denying it in the press, seemed resigned to Monique’s guilt.
When Brad failed to contact her, Dusty suggested that Fergus should report him as missing. Fergus still thought there was a strong possibility Brad was in an artists’ colony somewhere but conceded that he should be told about Monique’s situation and, much to Summer’s relief, filed a missing person’s report.
Dusty and I were following several lines of enquiry, one of which was to try to track down Penelope Nixon.
Chapter 30
To find out more about Penelope, we drove to Bangalow where Summer, along with several musicians who sometimes played together in a band, were preparing for an evening gig at the hotel. The entrance off the street took us into the outdoor section of the hotel restaurant where lunchtime diners lingered over coffee and drinks. The cheery waitress directed us ‘through the bar to the lounge out the back’ when we enquired after the musicians. Following her directions, we entered the indoor section of the restaurant, continued through to the long bar where drinkers were lined up on stools and eventually found our way to the lounge.
Although the hotel was obviously doing a good lunchtime trade, the lounge was empty. I guessed it was probably well patronised in the evenings when live entertainment was on offer. This evening that live entertainment would be Summer and her friends. The band consisted of a drummer, a guitarist and Daniel Green. Summer, sitting on the piano stool next to Daniel, exchanged smiles with him as they played on the keys at opposite ends of the keyboard. The heightened colour in Summer’s cheeks, the light in her eyes and the smile on her face gave her a radiance I hadn’t seen before.
Dusty and I sat down at one of the empty tables. The buzz of conversations from the nearby bar mingled with sporadic bursts of music from the stage. It was a few minutes before Dusty caught Summer’s eye. She gave the piano keys one last playful tinkle and came over to sit with us. Daniel stayed at the piano, returning my nod of acknowledgement while his sure fingers continued over the ivories.
As soon as she joined us, Summer asked Dusty if she had news of Brad and looked crestfallen when Dusty answered in the negative.
“As I said in my text, I want to talk about your mother,” Dusty said after doing her best to reassure Summer about her uncle. “You must miss her.”
“I miss her a lot. I wish she was here with us. Toby misses her heaps.”
“What was she like? I mean, was she a strict mother or more easy going?”
“She wasn’t strict. Dad was the strict one. Mum was gentle. Even when she punished us as kids she was gentle and loving.”
“Did she have to punish you a lot?”
“Not much. She had to discipline Toby more than me.”
“Was Toby a difficult child?”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. He was just… adventurous, I suppose. He sometimes did things he’d been told not to and put himself in danger. That’s when Mum would put her foot down. I remember one time when he was about seven she caught him riding his bike on the road; the road out the front of our place. He was allowed to ride his bike along our driveway but he’d been told not to go out of the grounds unless an adult was with him. But Toby liked to ride his bike as fast as he could down the middle of the road.”
“Not a good idea,” I said. “But not too dangerous; the road dead-ends into bushland so no through traffic and most cars entering the street would be people who live here.”
“But Toby didn’t ride to the dead-end. He would ride as fast as he could to the T-intersection where the cars enter. Then he’d swerve out onto the main road; sometimes without looking.”
I had a mental image of a car hurtling down that hill just as seven-year-old Toby veered out in front of it. “That was dangerous – reckless in fact. He could have got himself killed.”
“Exactly. One day Mum saw him from an upstairs window. She was livid. Fri
ghtened, really. She was so scared for him that she was angry. She raced downstairs and out to the road. Toby was on his way back by this time. Mum stood out the front and waited for him. Then, when he reached her, she told him very quietly to get off his bike. He knew not to argue with her from the tone of her voice. He got off and tried to look as innocent as possible. He didn’t know she’d seen him through the window upstairs.”
The memory of her recalcitrant young brother trying to look innocent when already proven guilty brought a smile to her lips.
“Anyway, Mum took the bicycle from him, chained it to a ramp in the garage and padlocked it. Then she gave him a hug, told him she loved him but said the bike would have to stay chained up and he couldn’t use it until he was a little more mature. He didn’t know what mature meant so he asked me later.”
“How long did the bike stay chained up?” asked Dusty.
“I think it was about two or three weeks, something like that. Each day, Mum would take Toby by the hand and walk out to the shed with him, stand by the bike and ask him why it was chained up. Toby would say, ‘I don’t know, Mum’. It took him a while to catch on that Mum wanted him to admit to his ‘crime’, which he did eventually.”
“Did he get his bike back after that?”
“No.” Summer laughed. Her laugh held a touch of the throatiness of her singing voice. “After he confessed and apologised he thought that would be it. But Mum wanted him to understand the consequences of his actions. She wanted him to tell her what might happen to him if a car came along just as he was careering onto the main road. At first he said his bike might get broken but Mum asked him again. So he said he might get hurt but Mum was waiting for more. Finally, he said he might get killed. That’s when tears came into her eyes. This time he was the one to hug her.”
“Did he stop doing dangerous things on his bicycle?” I asked, thinking what lucky children Summer and Toby were to have a mother like Penelope. The picture I had formed of her while listening to Summer made her disappearance even more puzzling.
A Devious Mind Page 19
