“Try to make them see sense?” I suggested. “After all, she’d hardly support them considering how much it would hurt Fergus.”
Dusty nodded. “And bearing in mind what happened when Marcia intervened in Brad’s romance with Grace all those years ago, how do you think Brad might have reacted?”
Now I understood why she had been brooding. The idea that Brad had murdered his mother would have troubled her.
“Right. I see what you mean. And Brad has just admitted to being on the track the morning Marcia was killed.”
“Exactly. If you take away the charm and his apparent frankness, you end up with means, motive and opportunity and an episode of violence against his mother. Plus the fact that he’s been carrying on a secret affair with his brother’s wife means he’s capable of duplicity. Maybe Brad is a better actor than his brother.”
“But why would he incriminate himself by admitting to being on the track now? There was no need for him to do so.”
“It could be a clever strategy. If he thought I or the police might get at the truth sooner or later, it would be to his advantage to get in early. He might not have seen Monique at the track at all. The fact that Monique was there that morning has been in the news. Brad might have seized on that as the perfect reason why he’s been hiding the fact that he was near the murder scene. He portrays himself as the gallant protector of his sister when all the while he’s the murderer.”
“Jaysis! That’s what I call devious.”
Dusty scrunched her fingers through her hair. “This has turned everything upside down, Sean. I just don’t know what to think.”
After that, she sat down at the table and began to make notes. Her absorption in her task was so great that she didn’t hear me when I asked her a question. I decided to leave her to it and wandered out for a walk. My walk took me along the esplanade and around the back streets. On one of those streets I came across young Coco carrying her iPad in a bright pink tablet sleeve. I was surprised to see her walking alone and asked where her mother was. She pointed to the end of the street where Lucy sat in her parked car.
“I’m training her to be more independent of me,” said Coco. Lucy and I exchanged waves from a distance. “Whenever I have a lesson or an activity outside the home, I make her drop me off at the corner. She’s going to have to let go earlier than most mothers. I’ll reach childhood milestones before other kids – going to secondary school and probably going to university early. The sooner Mum gets used to it, the easier it will be for her later.”
“Very wise of you,” I said, leaning against a fence and slouching to bring my height down a little. As I did so, I noticed that Coco’s shoes didn’t match. Although they were both trainers, one was teal blue with pink detail and a round toe while the other was purple with blue detail and a toe that was more pointed than round. “And where are you off to at the moment?”
She pointed to the cottage she was now abreast of. “I’m having a physics lesson with Mrs Whyte. I usually visit her on Mondays.”
“Right.” The idiosyncrasy of the odd shoes intrigued me and I couldn’t resist commenting. “You’re wearing odd shoes.”
She looked up at me and giggled. “Yes, I am,” she said and opened the gate of the cottage.
I watched her walk along the path to the front door. She turned to wave to me when a stooped grey-haired lady, whom I assumed was Mrs Whyte, opened the door.
When I returned to Ardem, the apartment was silent. I settled down at my laptop to do some cyber detective work to try to pick up the trail of Brad’s fiancé. At one point I heard a movement upstairs and realised Dusty must be in her room. She came down about an hour after I returned. I could see she’d been crying and decided not to risk embarrassing her by commenting on it.
She sat down in the lounge area but got up almost immediately and went outside. From where I sat at the table I could see her standing in the courtyard apparently staring at the tree that grew by the gate. She wandered back inside and stood in the kitchen, listless and despondent. Then I remembered that today was the day Ken Nagle was to meet his informant. Should I ask her what happened? I reasoned that if she didn’t want to talk, she’d probably have stayed upstairs or gone for a walk, so I took the plunge.
“Have you heard from Ken today?” I said.
Her nostrils flared. “What do you care?”
Jaysis! Where did that come from? I met her eyes but kept my mouth firmly shut; opening it at this juncture could be dangerous.
“I thought we were friends, Sean.”
Her angry eyes demanded a response but I was afraid of incriminating myself in some way. Unfortunately, Dusty interpreted my silence as guilt.
“I hate it when people are hypocritical!” she snarled. “Especially friends. So-called friends!”
Me? Hypocritical? My brain was whirring in an attempt to recall what I had done to deserve that label. Dusty’s face was flushed with anger and her green eyes blazed at me.
“Have you heard from Ken today?” She mimicked my question and my accent. Then she shot a command at me in an angry hiss. “Don’t ask if you don’t care.”
“But I do care!” The words leapt out of my mouth.
Dusty received my denial with a scornful toss of her head.
“The other day, like an idiot, I got myself all excited and wanted to share the good news with you. But when I told you Ken had managed to convince the informant to meet, you couldn’t have cared less. So don’t go putting on some sort of polite front now, pretending you’re interested.” She crossed her arms over her chest and brought her lips tightly together.
I’m sure my mouth dropped open. There wasn’t much I could say. I at least had the sense to recognise what my mother used to call a dynamite moment. When one of my sisters was in full swing during an emotional outburst, Mum would caution me to be careful. “Imagine your sister is a stick of dynamite,” she once told me. “Anything you say could ignite the wick and… Boom!”
If I told Dusty that Ken had asked me to try to keep her grounded, I would surely be putting a match to the wick. She’d probably erupt into some kind of tirade about being treated like a child, or being talked about behind her back.
“I… I’m sorry,” I said, eventually. That was another thing my mother had taught me; sorry is often the only word you need.
Dusty’s features relaxed slightly. Her eyes challenged me for an explanation. I ventured forth but not without trepidation.
“I thought it might be a mistake to encourage your excitement. I was afraid it would make your disappointment worse if anything went wrong.”
“Well, you were right! Something did go wrong. I am disappointed. So aren’t you a clever dick?”
She whipped around to turn her back to me and started fiddling with the espresso machine. There was no point trying to justify myself. I recognised that she was hurting and needed to let off steam. After years of waiting and hoping, she had been within grasp of getting information that could help her learn what had happened to her mother. To have that snatched away must have broken her heart. Clearly, she needed a friend.
I left my computer and went to the bar area in the kitchen. Dusty was still at the espresso machine but, rather than a serious attempt at making coffee, I thought she probably just needed to hide her face. Perhaps there were tears. I mixed us both a gin and tonic. Mixing drinks and knowing when to listen were two skills I’d learned while working as a bartender. I left Dusty’s drink on the bar, took mine around to the other side and sat on the stool.
“There’s a gin and tonic here for you,” I said, keeping my voice calm and quiet. “When you’re ready, come and tell me what happened.”
Her hands stopped fidgeting. She turned around and released a long sigh before coming to stand opposite me. I didn’t look directly at her but focused on my drink. Dusty sipped her gin and tonic. The stringent tang of the lemon I had cut and sliced lingered between us.
“Ken’s informant didn’t show up,” she said qu
ietly. I listened as she told me of the deep disappointment she’d felt when Ken had passed on the news. He’d reassured her that it was possible the informant would call and arrange another time, that he might have simply been testing Ken’s sincerity. He might have even been there, hidden from view, watching to make sure Ken kept his promise to come alone.
“Ken did warn me not to get my hopes too high,” she said. “But… but…”
“I know,” I said. “It’s only natural. You’ve waited so long for some clue about what happened to your mother. How could you not get your hopes up?”
She looked at me. “Sean,” she said. “I had no right to snap at you like that.”
I thought snap was an understatement, but I waved away her apology.
Raising her gin and tonic, she smiled through her sadness and emptied the glass in one gulp. “You are a good friend. I didn’t mean what I said.”
Although I hadn’t taken her angry outburst personally, knowing she had needed someone or something to lash out at, I was nonetheless gratified to hear her say those words.
“Actually, Sean, you’re good for me,” she said, sliding her glass across for a refill. “In my heart I know; I know I might still have a long time to wait to find out what happened to my mother. I want it to be different for the Nixon family. I don’t want Marcia’s sons and daughters to endure years and years of not knowing, and of living under the shadow of suspicion like my father did. I don’t want her grandchildren to live with the uncertainty; to spend their lives wondering if someone close to them murdered their grandmother.”
Prompted by her comments, I told Dusty about my encounter with Coco. Thankfully, it had the effect of distracting her from her personal troubles. Her interest was obviously piqued and she quizzed me about the address of Coco’s physics teacher.
Chapter 37
The following Saturday, Dusty arranged a meeting with Fergus to deliver her initial report. All the family except Monique were there. Coco was in the roof room; the place where she always went to avoid mundane adult discussion. We gathered in the spacious sunken lounge which easily accommodated all of us. Penelope and Summer sat on one of the settees, Chris and Lucy were on a sofa on the other side of the lounge, Toby relaxed in the recliner chair while Fergus and Brad were sitting in armchairs in opposite corners. The two brothers seemed to be reconciled, but Fergus must still be in the process of coming to terms with his wife’s new liaison. On the other hand, he might have realised that it was in his interests to maintain amicable relations with Brad and Penelope lest a rift eventually led to separation from his children.
I chose one of the corner armchairs near the steps that led into the sunken area. Dusty stood on the steps commanding the full attention of those present.
“I thought it only fair to share my findings with you before I go to the police. The first thing you should know is that what I’ve discovered will help Monique.”
This announcement was met with a positive reaction from everyone and Dusty received a round of applause.
“That is good news,” said Fergus. “I’m sure the whole family will want to hear what you’ve found out.”
There were murmurs of assent from around the room.
“Recent developments changed the way I looked at this case. For instance, where were you, Lucy, on the morning your mother died?”
Lucy’s eyes widened in surprise. “Me? I was at home with Coco. You know that.”
“Yes. Coco confirmed that when I asked her the other day. She told me you were both in her bed talking and playing games from six o’clock until after seven.”
Lucy expressed her frustration with a shake of her head. “What’s your problem then? Why did you just ask me where I was?”
“Because I believe you went out that morning.”
An angry flush spread across Lucy’s cheeks. “Are you suggesting my daughter is a liar?”
Dusty shook her head. “Just the opposite. I believe she told me the truth, what she believed to be the truth. She believes she woke up at six o’clock because that was what you told her. But what time was it really, Lucy?”
Dusty had that ‘cat at the mouse-hole’ look I’d seen before. It’s a look she gets when she’s set a trap for someone she thinks is lying or is about to lie to her.
“It was six o’clock,” said Lucy, folding her arms across her chest and looking at the others in the room.
Dusty pounced. “No, it wasn’t, Lucy. Tell me the truth.”
Lucy’s mouth pursed in a childlike pout and she stared defiantly at Dusty. Finally, she lowered her eyes.
“Fine!” she said. “I’ll tell you the truth. It was about a quarter to seven when Coco woke up.”
“You left the house that morning, didn’t you, Lucy?”
“Yes. But it has nothing to do with what happened to Mum. I had trouble sleeping that night and woke up at around four in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I pulled on a sarong and went into Palm Valley.”
“That’s the National Park that backs onto your property?”
“Yes. There’s a favourite place in there where I go sometimes. I always feel peaceful there. It wasn’t until I got back and saw the clock that I realised how long I’d been out of the house. I would never leave Coco alone in the house for more than ten minutes normally.”
“Feeling guilty about leaving Coco alone is hardly reason enough to lie to the police,” said Dusty.
“It probably was a bit silly, but I thought people would think I did that sort of thing all the time, that I wasn’t a good mother. I didn’t think there’d be any harm in letting the police believe I’d been in the house all morning.”
I wondered if Dusty thought Lucy had lied because she actually knew something about the murder. Lucy and Brad were close. Had Lucy answered an urgent call from her brother that morning and become involved in the murder in some way?
“I’m always suspicious of people who lie to me, Lucy,” said Dusty, raising her hand in a sharp movement to quell Lucy’s protest.
Some of the others in the room had started talking amongst themselves. Dusty clapped her hands for silence.
“Several things about Marcia’s death intrigued me,” she said. “Her missing notebook, for instance. Where was it? Maybe a trophy kept by the killer. But that was less likely if the killer was a member of her own family. Then there were her shoes. Why did she wear ballet flats on her walk and leave her sports shoes in her wardrobe? Then there’s this…”
Dusty paused and held up a key.
“This is Marcia’s spare door key. Because her usual bunch of keys was bulky, she preferred to take this single key with her on her walks. I retrieved it from your mother’s house the other day, thanks to Coco who knew Marcia kept it on top of a small painting hanging near the back door. It was conveniently placed where she could retrieve it easily on her way out. When I found this key inside the house, I knew Marcia had not gone for her morning walk that day. She was murdered before she went on her walk and her body taken to the track to make it look like she was murdered there. That brought me right back to the obvious suspect. You, Fergus. Of all the people who had means, motive and opportunity, you stood out as the most likely person to have committed this abhorrent crime.”
Dusty had not shared her final thoughts about the case with me, insisting it would be more interesting for me to experience ‘a few surprises’. I thought she was still considering Brad as the murderer. Now it looked like she had circled back to Fergus.
“But Fergus was the one who insisted on getting you to work on the case,” said Chris.
“That had me stumped at first too, but then I realised this killer was likely to be the sort of person who would take pleasure in trying to outsmart Dusty Kent – the famous solver of cold cases. What a feather in his cap that would be. When I showed Fergus pictures of Marcia’s house, he gave himself away. There was something in those pictures that alarmed him; something incriminating. The more I thought about that, the more I thoug
ht about the murder from another angle.
“So, I thought to myself, what if Fergus followed his mother to the lookout that Friday evening? He claims to have fallen asleep but is that what really happened? While Summer was in her room and Toby was watching the whale rescue, Fergus could have driven to the lookout, perhaps on the pretext of returning his mother’s mobile phone, then somehow convinced her to go onto the bush track, murdered her and then driven her car back to her house and parked it in the garage. He could have then gone upstairs to rumple the bedclothes to make it look like she had slept in her bed and placed her Madame Butterfly shawl, which he grabbed from her shoulders before she fell into the gully, in the laundry basket. But he didn’t realise he’d dropped something at the bottom of the stairs, not until I showed him the photos taken by the police.”
“But Monique would have seen him drive by,” said Chris. “He would have passed our place not long after Marcia did that night.”
“You’re forgetting there’s a short cut to the lookout area. It’s not much more than a track and not well lit so Marcia didn’t use it. But Fergus could have. Once I considered the possibility of Marcia being murdered at the lookout on the Friday evening, I had another likely suspect.”
Dusty looked at Chris.
“Oh, no,” he groaned.
“Immediately after seeing Marcia pass by his house on the Friday evening, Chris had to rush out. That seemed like an unlikely coincidence to me. It was more likely a planned ruse to give him an excuse to leave the house suddenly. When he left, Chris might have actually driven to the lookout, knowing that Marcia liked to go there on the way home.
“So I had two suspects. On the face of it, Chris looked to be the more likely one. He didn’t get back home until around forty-five minutes after he went out that night. He had time to commit the murder, do what he had to do at the house, go back for his car on foot and drive home. Fergus might not have had time, especially with a sprained ankle, to do all he had to do and get back home. On the other hand, Chris and Fergus could have been working together. After the murder, Chris might have gone back to Marcia’s house to do what had to be done there while Fergus went back home and pretended to be asleep. Perhaps it was Chris who dropped something that would incriminate them both and Fergus saw it in the photo.”
A Devious Mind Page 23
