by C. A. Larmer
‘Well, I don’t really know what I’m looking for—’
‘Family shot, two kids, one in a wheelchair. Can’t miss it.’
‘Wheelchair?’ Roxy’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Yeah, the oldest daughter was a cripple. You didn’t know that?’
Roxy shook her head, opened the album and began scanning the pages. Midway through the second album she spotted the shot he had mentioned and felt a pang of excitement. She held it up to the light. It was in black and white, badly exposed and tattered around the corners where time had played its hand. The snapshot had been taken on a stretch of lawn in front of an old wooden house and, judging from the small camphor laurel on one side, Roxy guessed it had been taken right next door before the house had been torn down. There were four people in the photo including a middle-aged couple who must have been Marian’s adoptive parents, Joyce and Angus Johnson. They were both smiling meekly into the camera, dressed in what looked like their Sunday-best: he in long socks, shorts and a short-sleeved business shirt, she in a formless spotted frock with a small hat over curly short hair. Beside them, a young girl of perhaps 15 or 16, was hunched over in a wheelchair. She had straight lightly colored hair and was not looking at the camera, but towards her parents with what seemed like a smile of delight. Behind her stood another girl. She looked about the same age as the disabled girl but she was standing with her hands on her hips, half concealed by the wheelchair, and she wasn’t smiling so much as scowling towards the camera, mocking the photographer. Her hair was darker than her sibling and curly and she had thick, bushy eyebrows across a plane, angular shaped face. Roxy had seen that face before but it was the girl in the wheelchair who sparked her attention.
‘What’s her name?’ Roxy asked the old man and he thought for a few minutes. ‘Can’t quite remember, love. It was a long time ago. Sounded like a flower, I think. Suited her, I thought. She was a sweetie.’
‘Lotus?’
‘Nah, that’s not it...’
‘Lilly?’
‘Lilly! That’s right. Lillian!’
Roxy beamed. The jigsaw was starting to come together. ‘If I promise to return this photo to you in one piece, can I borrow it for a bit?’
He shrugged. ‘Can’t see why not. Ya gonna put it in ya story?’
‘Most likely, yes.’
‘Gonna mention me?’
Roxy laughed. ‘I’ll see what I can do!’
He was already jotting down his name and details for her. ‘It’d be good to see my name in print. I’ve never made it in print before. Once I got interviewed by the RSL Club’s newsletter but they never used it. Would love to see me name in print.’
Roxy took the paper he was handing her and, along with the photo, slipped it into her handbag. ‘Well I’ll try my best,’ she told him, shaking his hand warmly. ‘You’ve been an enormous help.’
‘Ya welcome, love.’
‘Just one thing?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Was it definitely Marian, the abled one who was adopted?’ He looked at her strangely so she added, ‘It couldn’t have been Lillian, could it?’
‘God no. Who’d wanta adopt a retarded kid?’
Roxy cringed at his insensitivity. Small towns often bred small minds and she wasn’t about to change that. When she got back to her car she took the picture out again and stared at it for some time in the broad daylight. She trusted her memory implicitly and knew she had seen the face of the disabled girl before.
She had a fairly good idea who the other girl was, too.
Back at the hotel Roxy made three final calls. The first was to book a flight back to Sydney on the last plane out that afternoon, and the second went through to Agnetha Frickensburg’s daughter, Lana.
‘I forgot to ask you something when I stopped over,’ she said when Lana answered. ‘And this may sound strange, but it’s very important. Did your mum happen to be missing any fingers?’
Lana seemed unconcerned by the question. ‘Oh yes. That was the whole problem. She lost three of the fingers from her right hand in a car accident a few years before she disappeared. She could still work okay—she was left-handed—but it seemed to scare a lot of young mothers away. They didn’t want her bad luck to rub off on to them, I suppose.’
Roxy felt a brief moment of triumph before her heart dropped. Lana deserved to know what had happened to her mother, but she wasn’t the right person to tell her. After she hung up she dialed Police Chief Butler.
‘You still around?’ he asked jovially enough.
‘Hey, I’m on the 6 o’clock flight,’ she promised. ‘But I think I might know what happened to Lana Miles’ mum, Agnetha Frickensburg.’
Chief Butler paused trying to connect the names for some seconds. ‘Oh, the missing midwife?’ he said at last. ‘I remember now. She took off a long time ago. Had her daughter worried sick. Still drops in here every now and then, asks us if we’ve heard anything.’
‘Well I think she went to Sydney. If you call the police chief at Rushcutters Bay, I think you’ll find they have a Jane Doe who fits her description.’
The lights of Sydney’s CBD sparkled on the horizon as the plane began its descent and Roxy let out a long sigh of relief. The country might be slower and cleaner, she thought as she fastened her seatbelt happily, but Sydney was the place where she felt most at home. She could get lost in Sydney, that’s why she loved it.
When she got home, she checked all her messages and was surprised to find there wasn’t one from Max. ‘Fine,’ she said aloud. ‘We both need some distance.’ Yet she couldn’t help feeling a stab of disappointment. It was Thursday night after all. Roxy replayed her messages. Maria had called with an update on some work she had on offer and there were two rather panicked messages from her agent, Oliver. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he demanded. ‘I’m worried sick! Call me!’
She stepped out of her clothes and slipped into her bathroom for a long soak in some bath salts. She was exhilarated now, feeling closer than ever to solving Beattie’s baffling murder, but she needed to get her head together first, and a long, hot bath just might help. As the tap gently streamed with warm water and the salts worked their magic on her weary limbs, Roxy slipped into a sense of calm. She felt her mind go blank and went with it, not trying to steer her thoughts in any specific direction.
It was only later, once she had eaten something and poured herself a generous glass of Merlot, that she allowed herself to return to the case. With the file of Heather Jackson in hand, she sat on the sofa and began flicking through for recent pictures of the famous artist. Once located, she couldn’t help smiling. Heather Jackson was now older, blonder and definitely more sculptured, but there was no mistaking those ice-cold eyes. They were the same eyes that scowled out at her from a tattered family snapshot taken on Limrock Lane all those years ago. They were the eyes of Marian Johnson.
Chapter 23: Meeting Gilda Maltin
The Mosman Police Department was bustling with life when Roxy strolled in and it took some time for an attendant to see to her. But no sooner had she mentioned her name, she was being ushered through to a back office with the words Detective Superintendent Maltin inscribed in silver lettering on the front.
‘Come in! Come in!’ came a woman’s voice and Roxy opened the door to reveal a very pretty, petite blonde beaming back at her behind a cluttered desk. She leapt up and stretched one hand out to shake Roxy’s hand while motioning her to a seat with the other. Her hair was cut in a shaggy pixie style and she was wearing a long string of beads over a black bodysuit that accentuated a small cleavage. ‘Brave woman,’ Roxy thought, glancing back out the office window to the station bustling with men.
‘Thanks for coming in,’ Gilda Maltin said. ‘Did you bring the transcript?’
Roxy produced a disc from her bag labeled ‘Beatrice Musgrave Interviews’ and handed it across the desk. ‘No luck getting the tapes from Ronald Featherby?’
‘Oh I thought I’d give him a miss for now,’ Gilda r
eplied with a wink. ‘Everyone’s a suspect, you know how it is?’
Roxy nodded, wondering if that included her.
‘I’m just glad you kept a copy,’ Gilda was saying as she popped the disc into her computer and waited for it to whir into action. ‘For a journalist, you’re quite cluey!’
‘Oh I do try,’ Roxy said with a smile. ‘To be honest, I thought you were going to reprimand me for getting involved, like Chief Butler did in Macksland.’
Gilda laughed. ‘Old Butler’s okay. I’ve had to deal with him before, a couple of years ago. Just old-fashioned that’s all. No, I’m happy for all the help I can get.’ She turned her attention to her screen. ‘Okay...yep, it all appears to be here. Now,’ she turned back. ‘I’d like hear what you’ve found, if that’s okay.’
Roxy hesitated. It was not that she didn’t trust the well-spoken detective sitting smiling so sweetly before her. She just didn’t like handing over all her hard-found research. As if reading her mind, Gilda said quickly, ‘Hey, I’m not out to kill your story. I’d just like to put poor Beatrice Musgrave’s soul to rest.’
‘So you definitely suspect foul play?’
Gilda snorted. ‘If Beatrice Musgrave killed herself, I’m a 16-year-old virgin! Absolutely I suspect foul play! I just can’t seem to make anything stick. Everyone here’s got a different idea about whodunit, so to speak. The boss thinks it was the son or the grandson.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m not convinced.’ She reached for a large jar of moisturizer underneath some papers on her desk and scooped a generous amount out with two fingers. ‘I don’t think either men have it in them, to be honest.’ She began rubbing the cream thickly into her hands watching as the liquid soaked in, and then held it towards Roxy, who quickly shook her head no. ‘Actually, I think Willie and Fabs would have a hard enough time tackling a spider in the bathroom. No, I definitely think it was an outsider of some sort. Probably this missing daughter. I finally got Fabian to spill the beans on that one, not that he had much to tell. Would you like a cup of tea? A softdrink? Water?’
Roxy shook her head no and then proceeded to tell the policewoman everything she knew, from Fabian’s drug addiction and the threatening emails, to Beattie’s final phone call and her experiences in Macksland. As Gilda listened, she scribbled the occasional note, her blond eyebrows knotted together intently. Roxy decided she liked her. There was an easy sense of self-confidence about her. She was the sort of person you could imagine enjoying a girlie gossip with over coffee and cake. Perhaps that’s why she was so good at her job: she charmed confessions—or in this case, hard-fought, minute details—right out of you. Roxy guessed Gilda was close to 40 but couldn’t really tell, she had a youthful energy about her. When she had finished speaking, Gilda sat back in her chair and began knuckling the edge of the desk with one hand.
‘Velly, velly interesting. You ought to consider signing up for the force. You’re quite a detective.’
Roxy laughed. ‘Oh I don’t think you guys could afford me.’
‘So you’ve seen my pay packet, then? Pitiful! Tell me, who do you think done it?’
Roxy scrunched her lips together thoughtfully and pushed her glasses into place on her nose. ‘I’m not quite sure yet but I’m determined to find out.’ She caught herself then and shut her mouth firmly, but the policewoman seemed unperturbed.
‘Just be careful, right?’ Roxy couldn’t hide her surprise and, noticing it, Gilda sat upright and clasped her fingers before her. ‘Look, I probably should be telling you to lay off. I know that’s what the boss would say. But I like you. You do good work and, as far as I can tell, you aren’t hindering anything or writing salacious stories. Yet. I’m happy for you to continue with your inquiries if you like. Just keep everything confidential. And report back to me the second you find anything new. And whatever you bloody do, don’t print a word of any of this until you’ve checked it all with me. Sound fair?’
‘As fair as Snow White,’ Roxy said. ‘Is that it?’
‘Absolutely. Have a good one!’
As Roxy strolled out of the police station she felt a flicker of guilt. She had not been completely honest with the personable detective. She had made no mention of that final interview with the Johnson neighbor and the photo that had, she now knew, revealed the real identity of Beatrice Musgrave’s daughter. She told herself it was because she needed to check her facts first before pointing the finger. But the truth was probably baser than that. Deep down, she relished the idea of confronting snotty Heather Jackson all by herself.
As Roxy steered her car towards home, her phone rang. ‘Roxy speaking.’
‘Roxy? It’s Loghlen here, how are ya?’
‘Lockie! Fine, fine. You?’
‘Good, yeah,’ he said, his Scottish accent even stronger over the phone. ‘You been away? I’ve bin trying to get you for days.’
‘Yeah, Lockie, I’ve been out of town.’
‘And yer not in the middle o’ sometin’ now?’
‘No, no. I’ve just been rubbing shoulder pads with the Mosman Police department but I’m free now. What’s up?’
‘Well I thought I should let you know that I finally thought of that name.’
‘Name? What name?’
‘The maid. You know, Heather Jackson’s lackey. The one who was gonna write the tell-all.’
Roxy slowed her car down and pulled it to a stop by the side of the road, then leant across to retrieve the Filofax and pen from her handbag. ‘Okay, Lockie, go ahead.’
‘Look, I’m no’ sure about the spellin’ but it’s somethin’ like Margarita Mosalas. I found it in one of me note books from Art school days,’ and then as though embarrassed quickly added, ‘Don’t ask!’
‘I won’t even go there,’ Roxy said with a laugh. ‘She sounds Spanish.’
‘Aye, very Californian of Heather to have Latino help. Quite pretty I believe, was pursuing a modeling career after she got the boot from Heather’s. But then she just disappeared, or so they say.’
‘What do you think happened?’
‘Ah, look, she could be just livin’ the quiet life in the sticks somewhere or gone back to Mexico or wherever she’s from. I really wouldn’t know. Why don’t ya call your new police friends, get them to look her up?’
‘Yeah, I could,’ Roxy agreed, ‘but I want to keep them out of it for now.’
‘Well, good luck with it all, eh?’
‘Thanks Lockie, you’re a dream!’
Roxy pressed the ‘end’ button on her phone and then pressed the speed dial for Oliver Horowitz.
‘She lives!’ he said. ‘Where the hell have you been? Don’t you answer text messages anymore?’
‘Sorry, I’ve been “out the back of Bourke” so to speak; crap reception.’
‘What on earth were you doing out there?’
‘Just chasing some leads. Sorry, I should’ve let you know.’
‘Duh! After our last conversation you had me terrified! Jesus, Roxy, you’re a handful. Where were you, exactly? What were you doing?’
‘I’ll explain it all later, I promise. For now I need a favor.’
There was a brief pause and when Oliver spoke again he sounded resigned to his ghostwriter’s antics. ‘What is it?’
‘I need to find out about an unauthorized biography on Heather Jackson that was set to be published about 15 years ago. The author was her ex-maid, Margarita Mosalis or Moralis, something like that, but I don’t have the name of the publishing house.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘I could probably look it up myself, Olie, but I know you have links in that area and it’d take you about a minute. Come on, you know you still owe me…’
Another pause and then the agent relented. ‘Okay, I’ll ask around. Be in my office by midday tomorrow, I should have the answers by then. I need to see you anyway.’
‘Oh?’
‘Check you don’t have anymore suspicious scratches across your face.’
‘H
i Shazza,’ Roxy chirped as she pushed the door open to Oliver Horowitz’s office just after 12 o’clock the next day. ‘His Highness got you working on a Saturday, eh? That’s a bit rich.’
Sharon looked up from behind her computer and smiled broadly, her cigarette managing to stay firmly in place between her lips as she did so. ‘Blood oath. He gets rich, I get to do all the work. Slave driver.’ She shrugged her head towards Oliver’s office. ‘He’s in a foul one, darl’, so take care.’
‘He doesn’t scare me,’ Roxy laughed and tapped lightly on his closed office door before entering.
Oliver was staring at some sheets in front of him as she entered and simply waved her to a seat before returning to his work. Roxy sat down and waited, noting as she glanced around the room, that her agent had some new toys. There was a miniature basketball hoop with the Nike logo slashed across it and a giant teddy bear with a pink ribbon for breast cancer.
‘Getting a conscience in your old age,’ Roxy said but the agent ignored her and kept right on reading. So she waited some more.
‘Oi!’ hissed Sharon behind her. ‘You want some coffee?’
‘You read my mind, yes, thanks. Milk, two sugars.’
‘Me too,’ Oliver muttered.
‘Good Lord! He speaks!’ Sharon said, winking at Roxy before disappearing again.
‘You okay?’ Roxy asked Oliver as soon as she caught his eye.
‘Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah...just a bit of grief from our mutual mate Miss Passion.’
‘Oh? Anything to do with her ex-thug boyfriend Angelo?’
He glanced up and then away again. ‘No, nothing at all. That’s ancient history.’ He shuffled the papers on his desk and then dropped them into a drawer to his right. ‘Okay, forget about that. How the hell are you?’
‘Good.’
‘Jesus, Roxy, you gave me an almighty scare.’ He squinted his eyes and scanned her face. ‘No little pushes lately?’
