Over My Dead Body

by Dave Warner

  OVER MY DEAD BODY

  Praise for Dave Warner’s previous novels

  Australian crime writing at its apex – a seemingly simple case that becomes ever more convoluted, widening to encompass protection rackets, early pornographic films, racism, and country-club politics. That it takes place against the backdrop of a burgeoning 1960s counterculture is refreshing as a sea breeze. Australian Book Review Captures the heyday and spirit of the surf music scene perfectly … a pitch-perfect crime thriller of epic twists and turns. Jim Skiathitis, The Atlantics Part Goodfellas, part love letter to Australian coastal towns, this wonderfully imagined crime novel is like riding the perfect wave. Michael Robotham A densely written book, redolent with sun, sand and surf, informed about music and full of engaging, well-drawn characters and local activities that form a disarming background to a classically convoluted murder investigation. Adelaide Advertiser Warner builds the suspense with an even hand, his stock in trade a deft turn of phrase that would do Chandler or Hammett proud … his ear for dialogue and the period is faultless, his characters well-drawn and entirely believable. Courier Mail Warner keeps things moving at a lickety-split, while allowing the likeable female characters … room to negotiate their own trajectory through the reprehensible gender politics of the era. Sydney Morning Herald As Australian as a Tim Tam, this is fine descriptive writing that conveys both the searing heat and vast distances of the Outback. Adelaide Advertiser Laid-back and laconic, but with sentences as snappy as a nutcracker. Books+Publishing Gripping. Herald Sun An extremely likeable main character, a fast-paced plot and writing that is dense with colourful vernacular and Aussie humour. Sun-Herald Sophisticated crime fiction with a WA flavour. Sunday Times Lively, funny, with enough plot for three novels. Sun-Herald Consistently hits the target, skilfully creating a parallel world where crooks, their victims and pursuers breathe a different fetid air … full of surprises and contradictions, wit and suspense. The Weekend Australian Alive with the flavours, rhythms, cadences, corporate buccaneering and political adventurism of that era … so good one wonder[s] what Warner could possibly do for an encore. Australian Book Review The plot is impressively complex, with clues scattered like land mines, and the suspense enough to keep you riveted to this thriller. Courier Times

  Dave Warner is an author, musician and screenwriter. His first novel, City of Light, won the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award for Fiction, and Before it Breaks (2015) the Ned Kelly Award for best Australian crime fiction. Clear to the Horizon features the lead characters from both these books, and his most recent crime novel is River of Salt. He first came to national prominence in 1978 with his gold album Mug’s Game and his band, Dave Warner’s from the Suburbs. In 2017 he released his tenth album, When. He has been named a Western Australian State Living Treasure and has been inducted into the WAMi Rock’n’Roll of Renown.

  www.davewarner.com.au

  @suburbanwarner

  Every writer needs a partner in crime.

  Thank you Tony Durant, for adventures past and to come.

  SWITZERLAND 1891

  He had begun to accept the background noise of the falls was no natural phenomenon but rather the thundering tears of gods. His own tears he had stalled, as ridiculous hope sprang in his breast that survival was not impossible, even from that terrific height. Long after the sun had collapsed he had insisted they continue the search downstream by lantern-light. It was too dark for a boat to be used with safety, though he would have risked it if his eyesight had been keen enough. They confined themselves to the banks but were not rewarded with anything but chilled bones. When the others had finally left for the comfort of the inn, he had refused their entreaties to join them, paying the boy to stay with him just in case, for if he was able to manage some rescue, the boy would have to ride for help. Around midnight, the innkeeper returned on horseback with some bread, cheese and a small flask of brandy. This sustained him for a few more hours but he had less glow about him than the lanterns, no appetite, his eating purely mechanical. He’d allowed the lad an hour of rest and, finally alone, had sobbed with a volume of tears he would not have thought his body capable of producing. As soon as light had peeped above the mountains he roused the lad again.

  The boy pulled evenly on the oars in a slow circle as instructed. They were able to use the rowboat for this more passive part of the gorge. His jacket felt damp, whether because of the giant shroud of mist or his own lacrimation he could not have said. The sun was too thin yet for warmth. At one point he fancied he heard the strains of a violin from somewhere beyond the towering cliffs, and again he fell prey to that lascivious strumpet, hope. Stupid dumb hope that it was his dear friend playing a trick, pipe in mouth, testing him for the sake of it, another one of his endless experiments on the human personality.

  And of course, I’d forgive him, he thought. So long as he were alive. But the scientist in him told him this was not possible. He plunged his hand into the water, freezing. A heart would stop beating instantly even if the impact –

  ‘Over there!’ he heard himself shout, and pointed so that the boy, who had little English, was given the direction. The boy guided the boat quickly. There was definitely something, a small dark shape in the water.

  ‘To the left!’ he yelled louder, gesticulating. He reached over the side of the boat and snared it, though his fingers felt petrified from the contact with the chill lake.

  Now as he held the soggy item in his trembling hands he was at once weighed down with an iron melancholy.

  There was no mistaking that deerstalker.

  1. CATSKILLS NEW YORK 2000

  WATSON

  Icing on a giant wedding cake. White. As far as the eye could see. On the edge of the frozen lake, trees, their branches frosted, huddled like guests outside the church waiting to congratulate the bride and groom.

  ‘It’s absolutely beautiful.’ Her mom squeezed her dad’s arm. This was the highlight of her mom’s year, out of Flushing and traffic and away from a flightpath for two glorious weeks. Her dad switched off the engine and the heater died with it. You could feel the cold outside beating on the glass to get in.

  ‘Are we here?’ Earphones in, Simone yelled. She had been bopping away the whole trip. There was nothing more annoying than a twelve year old little sister, unless it was a twelve year old little sister singing Destiny’s Child songs out of tune. Georgette pulled out Simone’s earphones.

  ‘Stop shouting.’

  Her mom chimed in. ‘I’ve told you, Simone. Don’t have the music up so loud. You’ll go deaf.’

  ‘It’s nowhere near as loud as a gun. Is it, Dad?’

  ‘Simone …’

  Their dad’s tone was a warning to desist but the cat was out of the bag. Their mom didn’t think guns had any place near families. She tolerated a gun in the hand of a sensible cop like their father but that was it.

  ‘You took her to the range?’

  Simone had been pestering him relentlessly.

  ‘Only so she knew how a gun worked.’

  Georgette found her sister’s gaze and shook her head: Did you have to? It was the only time of the year her parents got a break together. Teachers and cops in New York City had no downtime on the job.

  ‘How many times?’ Her mom knew how to wind up the pressure.

  ‘Just the once.’

  Which Georgette knew was a lie.

  ‘And you?’

  Georgette found herself suddenly in her Mom’s crosshairs.

  ‘Of course not.’ Georgette preferred to read, science biographies especially. Madame Curie was her hero.

  ‘You made her wear earmuffs, right? At the range.’

  ‘Of course, sweetheart.’ Her dad said, ‘We can have lunch here.’

  Simone t
hrust open the car door. The cold rushed in, smash-and-grab style.

  ‘Hey, girls, careful on that ice,’ her father cautioned. Simone was already ripping her skates from her bag and lashing them on.

  Her mother opened her door and went to swing out. ‘Darn.’

  Georgette saw the bright red spot of blood on the snow. Her father handed his wife a tissue to dab her nose.

  ‘When we get back, you see Bernie.’

  ‘It’s just the sudden cold. Georgette, where’s your sister?’

  Like that idiot was her responsibility. Simone had vanished around a big heap of snow. But she didn’t want her mother to worry, so Georgette ran out, her father’s words at her heel.

  ‘Tell her to be careful.’

  Georgette trudged around the big white hill. Simone was already below, a dark raisin rolling in a big circle.

  ‘Simone!’ Georgette shouted but her sister didn’t even look up. ‘Screw this,’ she muttered and slid on her backside down the icy slope to the edge of the frozen lake. She started across it angrily.

  ‘Didn’t you hear Dad?’

  Now Simone seemed to notice her. She pulled out her earphones.

  ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘Dad said to wait. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘You’re only two years older than me, stop acting like you’re the principal.’

  Georgette strode towards her. ‘It would serve you right if you –’

  There was no warning. Just a soft snap. Simone screamed.

  But it wasn’t her that plunged through the ice.

  Georgette understood, in that fraction of a second, the icy grasping arms of the lake dragging her warm blood to its bosom, that before she could even finish this thought she would be d–

  When he heard the scream, Harry Watson grabbed the rusted gaff hook from the roof of the car, the hook he had never used but kept just in case, and began running. He had chased car thieves down back alleys, he had raced for help when two of his colleagues had been shot in a bungled bodega robbery, but he had never run this fast. Simone was standing on the ice, wailing. He could see the tear in its surface from here. And no Georgette. Simone took a step towards the dark hole.

  ‘Stay there!’ He skidded down the slope. He knew he shouldn’t run, did anyway. He reached the spot and looked down. Nothing. He jammed the pole down. Nothing. As far as it could go. Nothing.

  He got down on his knees and used it like a giant swizzle stick and felt it snag. He pulled it with all his strength, across and up. The blue Gore-Tex jacket became visible.

  Below he saw fanning hair. He hauled higher, got an arm across Georgette’s chest and yanked her out, her body leaving the water’s gullet with an audible suck. He began dragging her backwards across the ice, turned and saw Helen on the bank.

  ‘The foil blanket, hurry!’

  A quick glance. Simone sobbing but for once doing as she was told, staying put. Georgette’s face as blue as her jacket. Memory flash: as a young patrolman a few years back, boat smash in the East River. He’d dived in, pulled out two teenage girls, the second one, a child Georgette’s age, blue. Too late.

  He’d learned CPR as a result. Drummed it in: unresponsive, check airways, clear mouth, feel abdomen for rise and fall. Did it now. Like touching a marble slab. Nothing. No more time, ripped open the jacket, two breaths, thirty compressions. Helen slid down with the foil blanket. Must be four minutes gone easy.

  Nothing. Breathe, compress. Nothing. Breathe, compress …

  Nothing.

  2. NEW YORK 2020

  ‘So, you were dead for probably twelve minutes?’

  ‘At least. More like fifteen.’

  Georgette had been through this kind of interview many times. It was second nature to her but even so, here, in front of peers and students in the setting of the lecture hall, she felt unusually nervous.

  ‘Do you remember anything?’

  ‘The cold as I hit the water. My heart must have stopped instantly. Next thing I remember was my father’s face, surrounded by bright blue sky.’

  Professor Anita Mirabella might have been a world-renowned neurologist but she was also a very skilled interviewer. She angled herself on her scalloped chair.

  ‘And tell us, what we all want to know …’ A very deliberate pause. ‘… do you still talk to your sister?’

  This brought hearty laughter from the audience. Two hundred and eighty was the capacity and through the curtain of lights, Georgette could see hardly a spare seat.

  ‘We are still friends.’

  ‘Did she feel guilty?’

  ‘My sister never feels guilty for anything but she did make a small concession: no more Destiny’s Child.’

  This, Georgette was pleased to hear, brought a chuckle.

  ‘So she didn’t go into medicine or nursing then?’

  ‘No; something the world needs far more of … acting.’

  This time there was a communal guffaw. That would serve Simone right for not coming.

  ‘Some of our audience may have seen the article on you in the Times a couple of weeks ago. You sometimes consult for the NYPD?’

  Georgette was sure she blushed. She’d hoped the article, prompted by Mirabella working her media contacts, would have focused on her research but it wound up being nothing more than a human-interest story about a girl who once died, coming back to life and ultimately working alongside her cop father. It made her sound like one of those TV pathologists who solved crime.

  ‘Occasionally. If they need help on time of death or if there is some element of a body having been frozen. My dad has been a cop for thirty-eight years; it’s not as weird as it sounds.’

  ‘You work cases together?’

  ‘They tend to use me for Homicide and he’s not Homicide. He’s a lieutenant at the one-fourteen in Queens, so not so far.’

  ‘Is he here tonight?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Could Georgette’s father please stand?’

  Harry would be lapping this up. The lights found him. There he was, off to the left about six rows up in his favorite blazer. The crowd applauded and Harry politely waved. Highly embarrassing but sweet too.

  ‘Thanks, Harry,’ said Mirabella and the lights swung back to the stage and her father was once more swallowed by black.

  ‘So the course of your life continues to be intimately related to death, your own included.’

  ‘Absolutely. I became fascinated with cryogenics and the possibility of life after what we tend to think of as death.’

  ‘Resurrection.’

  More appreciative laughter for Mirabella, the in-house kind.

  ‘You could call it that.’

  ‘Okay, so this is the fun part of the evening. You guys …’ the audience she was meaning, keeping it casual, ‘… have seen, on stage here when we started this event, and in videos shot earlier, where Doctor Watson snap-froze her hamsters. You don’t like people saying you “killed” them, right?’

  Georgette agreed she did not. That was the way media liked to represent it.

  ‘They aren’t any more dead than I was; just inert, showing no vital signs.’

  Professor Mirabella gestured to the wings, and three honor students who had been designated as stagehands for the night strode onto the stage wheeling what looked like three incubators with various gas cylinders attached. Inside each was a recumbent hamster.

  ‘Okay, Georgette, talk us through this.’

  Georgette stood now, her lapel mike crackling slightly.

  ‘Here we have Amelia. You all saw her placed into limbo – that’s my term, not a scientific one – twenty-one minutes ago, by a mixture of extremely low temperature gases. These students have been monitoring to make sure there has been no replacement, right?’

  The students, two young women and a young man, nodded.

  ‘Next to Amelia is Benjy. He has been under for …’ she checked her watch, ‘ … exactly one week. And this here is Columbus, boldly going where no
hamster has ever gone before. He has been clinically “dead” for four weeks and three days. This is the longest I have ever had a subject in limbo.’

  And now she was nervous, because what if it didn’t work this time? Georgette moved to the incubators and placed her hands on a switch.

  ‘As you can see on these monitors, there is absolutely no sign of life at present.’

  Here goes. She flicked the switch. There was a low hiss as the neutralizing gas was pumped into the cages.

  ‘I have flicked the switch.’

  Bing. Right on cue Amelia’s monitor panel lit up. Interest from the audience but restrained – Hey, you could hear them thinking, it’s only twenty-two minutes.

  Bing. Benjy’s monitors started beeping and blinking. There was audible movement in the audience now, people craning to get a view and a few gasps from those close enough to see Benjy stir.

  ‘Seven days dead and brought back to life,’ Mirabella was a ringmaster, and genuine applause followed. But that sputtered to a halt because as yet there was nothing happening with Columbus. Georgette tried to reassure herself. Some of the others had been sluggish, no cause for real concern.

  The monitors remained blank. Amelia was already up sniffing around her incubator but nobody was paying the slightest attention.

  ‘Is this concerning?’ asked Mirabella finally.

  ‘It is.’ Georgette could hear the tension in her own voice.

  ‘Can you “up the dose” as it were?’

  ‘No. It’s a very precise formula. Either it works or …’

  ‘Or you kill a helpless animal,’ someone shouted from the audience.

  Tonight was always going to offer potential for disaster but if she were to convince the doubters to give further funding, she needed a home run. Georgette felt she had to respond to the heckler.

  ‘I love my research animals but the implications for treatment of humans is …’

  She didn’t know how to finish. It all sounded like self-serving crap. I’ve been arrogant, too arrogant. I should have tried this in private first, she thought.