Dying Words (A Ghostwriter Mystery)

by C. A. Larmer

  “Yeah, if I was Berny’s daughter, I’d want a signed deed. Especially after all this time, anything less wouldn’t stand up in a court of law.”

  Roxy considered this. “Betty said something about a deed but she’s not sure how legit it was. I’ve left a message for Sondra to see if she knows anything about all of this, but from what Gilda told me, there wasn’t much of an inheritance, so I have a hunch she knows nothing about it and is going to be pleasantly surprised.”

  “She’ll be over the bloody moon,” Caroline said, blowing a blonde lock from her face. “Call her now, tell her!”

  Roxy glanced around to see Max by the counter talking through his order with the waitress. She bit her lower lip and pulled out her smartphone, noticing two missed calls from Sondra.

  “Her ears must be burning, excuse me a second, Caroline.”

  Roxy made her way out to a side balcony, which she knew would be quieter, and returned the call.

  “I got your message,” Sondra said, sounding a little breathless. “It didn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “Sorry, Sondra. It’s hard to explain everything in a text. I’ve now located everyone from that photo but there’s some bad news.”

  “Oh?”

  “Gordon Reilly—the man with the pork chop sideburns—”

  “Yes?!”

  “He was found dead this morning, I’m not sure if you heard.”

  There was a long pause. “My God. Do you think it’s related to my father? To that photo?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but yes I do. Listen, that’s what I need to talk to you about. I think I know why your father wanted that picture so badly.”

  “Really? What did you find?”

  A burst of laughter came from an outdoor table and Roxy placed a finger in her other ear, trying to diffuse the sound. “Listen, I can hardly hear you, it’s really noisy here. Can we meet in the morning? For brunch? I’ll tell you everything then.”

  “Can’t we meet now?”

  Roxy glanced back into the restaurant and spotted Max who had returned to the table and was now looking around trying to find her. It was the last thing their relationship needed. “No, I’m really sorry, I can’t get away. Can we meet around 10:00 a.m. tomorrow?”

  “That’s too late for me, it’s going to be another manic one. How about earlier? Say, seven-ish?” Roxy grimaced at the thought but agreed. “Where do you want to meet?” Sondra asked.

  “Where did your dad keep all his old files and papers, legal documents, that sort of thing?”

  There was a hesitation on the other end. “At home. Why?”

  “Can we meet there then?”

  “Oh ... Um ...”

  The table laughed loudly again and Roxy had to yell to hear herself. “I think it will be really helpful!”

  “Fine. I’m actually here now, so I’ll just stay over and put some breakfast on for us. You’re sounding very cryptic, Roxy. Can’t you tell me more now? What’s this about?”

  “Do you know if your father has a deed or any papers regarding an old mine up in Indonesia?”

  “Mine? What kind of mine?”

  “A copper mine originally, but it may also have gold.”

  There was another pause. “Well, no. No, not at all. My father was a surveyor, Roxy, not a prospector, why?”

  “Just do me a favour and take a look through your father’s things tonight if you can. Maybe ask his wife. See if you can find anything with the words Byou on it.”

  “What did you say?”

  “By-you!”

  “Hmm, that sounds familiar.”

  “It should.”

  “What’s going on, Roxy?”

  Max had now spotted her and was holding an open palm in the air as if to say, “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Listen, I’ll explain everything tomorrow, I promise. Just text me the address and I’ll see you at seven.”

  They hung up and Roxy returned to the table and to a relieved-looking Max.

  “We really have to talk,” he said, and when Caroline went to open her mouth, he held a hand up. “Caro, shut it.”

  Caroline looked offended and scrunched her glossy lips together sulkily. “Fine! I’m going for a smoke.”

  She pulled out a packet of cigarettes with a gruesome looking foot deformity on the front, and made her way to the balcony from where Roxy had just come.

  “When is she going to give up those cancer sticks?” Roxy said, but Max ignored this.

  “I’ve been offered a job with Mercedes.”

  Roxy’s eyes widened. “Oh, right. Great. Another lucrative ad, eh?”

  “No, you don’t get it. Not for Mercedes, with Mercedes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Caroline reappeared. “Bloody fascists. I’ve just been told I can’t even smoke out on the balcony. I mean, really?! It blows away , people!”

  “There are diners out there, Caro,” Max growled.

  “So why should they get to rule the world?!” She flung herself back into her chair and rolled her eyes.

  “Anyway,” Max continued, looking back at Roxy, “Mercedes loved my work on the advertorial so much, they want me in-house for a twelve-month contract, working in their marketing department.”

  “Oh,” said Roxy.

  “Wicked!” said Caroline.

  Max shifted in his seat and his sister eyed him suspiciously just as a plate of curried vegie samosas arrived. The waitress placed the dish down, handed over three plates and forks, and then left them to it.

  “So why do you look so miserable?” Caroline asked and Roxy wondered that herself. She had a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach again. She knew Max. He loved his freedom as much as she did, why would he take a full-time job, especially one with such a commercial brand?

  “It’s in Berlin,” he blurted, and sat back, broad shoulders hunched as if waiting for the fallout. His floppy fringe fell into his brown eyes and he could barely look at Roxy.

  “Berlin? As in Germany?” asked Caroline, and when he nodded she squealed, catching the attention of everyone in the room. “Oh that really is wicked!” She jumped up and gave her brother a long hug. “I can not wait to visit you! When are you going? How much are they paying you?”

  As Caroline continued to fire questions at her brother, Roxy’s heart sank. What did this mean for her? For them?

  “Berlin?” she managed.

  “It’s just one year,” he said quickly, sitting forward and taking her hand. “It’s huge money, I can pay half my mortgage off in one hit and—”

  “And what about me?”

  “Well, it’s just a year, Roxy. I thought—”

  “No, you didn’t think at all,” she said, dropping his hand. “You saw the big dollar sign and you didn’t give me a single bloody thought!”

  “That’s not true. I ... didn’t think you’d care.”

  She gaped at him. “Why wouldn’t I care? We’re supposed to be going out, Max.”

  “Really? ’Cause I haven’t been getting that vibe lately.”

  She gaped wider. “You’re the one who choofed off to Melbourne and—”

  “And you didn’t seem to care. You didn’t even remember I was going. You probably wouldn’t have noticed I was gone if Caroline hadn’t mentioned it.”

  “That’s not true! But so what? My memory’s crap. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, about us.”

  He stared at her. “Look at you. We’ve been separated all week and all you care about is some bloody dead guy and his gold mine.”

  “It’s work, Max.”

  “It’s always work with you.” He sighed. “I just wish I could get a tenth of the passion you show your ‘work’—”

  He did the finger squiggle and she wanted to rip those fingers from their sockets, except the waitress had reappeared with a steaming bowl of rice and a spicy beef dish.

  “Oh yummy!” Caroline said, glancing uneasily between Max and Roxy, a forced smile on her lips.


  Max took a deep breath and spoke a little more calmly now. “You don’t want to move in together.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Exactly my point. There’s nothing there from you, Parker. It’s like you’re treading water, like you don’t really want to be in this relationship but you don’t want to be out of it either. You’re in a kind of limbo. I’m the one who’s always calling you. Always suggesting you come over. You never want to stay at my place but you never invite me to stay at yours—”

  “I like my space, you know that.”

  He sighed again. “It’s just one year, Roxy. You can always come out and visit.”

  “I’ll be there!” Caroline chimed in again and when they both glared at her, she quickly turned back to the food, helping herself to the curry.

  Now Roxy tried to calm herself down. She took a good sip of her wine and some deep breaths, too. “Just tell me this, Max, are you taking the Berlin job because you want to take the job, or because you want to have a break from me?”

  He shook his head. “Jesus, Parker, you think the whole world revolves around you, don’t you?”

  She grabbed her bag and stood up. He stood up, too.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean that,” he said. “Come on, don’t be like this.”

  She held a hand up. “Look, you’re right. It’s not about me. It’s about you and your career, and I’m happy for you. It’s a great opportunity. Besides, as you so eloquently put it, it’s not like we’re living together or even married, so why shouldn’t you go.”

  “Married? I didn’t think you wanted to get—”

  “You’ll love Berlin. You really will.”

  She then turned on her heel and left them there, Max shaking his head angrily while Caroline pretended to be deeply interested in her creamy Tika Masala.

  Chapter 26

  All Roxy wanted to do was stay in bed and mope. She knew she was being childish. She knew she was being ridiculous. But she was furious with Max and she wasn’t about to admit why. It wasn’t that he had sold out and taken a full-time job, or that he was travelling halfway across the world to some glamorous European city without her. It was the fact that he’d beaten her to it. She had always assumed he’d needed her more than she needed him, but here was the proof that she was wrong. He didn’t need her at all.

  And Berlin? Why couldn’t they post him to Baghdad or out the back of Bourke? She flashed a glance at the clock. It was 6:30 a.m. The alarm clock had been screaming at her for fifteen minutes and she needed to stop wallowing in self-pity and get going. She had to be at Sondra’s place in half an hour; there was a murder mystery to solve. For Roxy Parker, it would be the perfect distraction.

  She found her way to the shower, then into a pair of dark, skinny jeans, high-heeled brown suede boots and baggy cream jumper. She flung some jangly beads around her neck and smudged some rosy lip gloss on her lips. If she was going to be miserable, she might as well look good while she was at it.

  She stared at her reflection, at her tussle of black locks and her oversized Rayban glasses and she scowled. “You are such a fool,” she told herself before scooping up her handbag and heading for the door.

  Bernard Tiles’s house was a modest two-storey brick number, just one street down from busy Military Road, Cremorne on Sydney’s lower North Shore. There was a tiny, neglected garden at the front with little more than a few nondescript hedges and an old deck chair that had seen better days. Roxy assumed from this, and her conversation with Gilda, that the Tiles weren’t exactly loaded, so when the Bergman housekeeper opened the front door with her bashful, brown eyes and meek smile, Roxy was taken by surprise. So Ginny wasn’t lying after all.

  Today, though, the housekeeper didn’t have her usual white slip dress and apron on. Instead, she was wearing high-waisted denim jeans and a baggy sweater with the number 49 on the front. Her ponytail was out and she had small gold rings in her ears, and a diamante stub on her nose. She was a plain looking woman but there was beauty there, too, in the creamy brown skin and the wide, dark eyes.

  “Oh ... hello! Do you work here now?”

  The woman’s smile deflated. “I no work here,” she said, her tiny shoulders rising considerably. “This my home.”

  “Oh, God, sorry ... I was looking for Sondra.”

  Roxy took another peek at the address in her hand, wondering how she could have got it so wrong when Sondra appeared.

  “Thanks, Renata,” she said briskly. “I’ve got it.”

  Renata slunk backwards, disappearing into what looked like a lounge room at one side, while Sondra led the way past the lounge room, down a dark hallway and through into a pokey looking kitchen.

  “My new stepmum,” she explained as she went.

  “I know her. Wasn’t she—”

  Sondra stopped; her back appeared to stiffen a little. “The Bergman’s housekeeper, yes. They met at one of Wolfgang’s soirees, I believe. Dad couldn’t seem to shake her after that and ... well ...” She shuddered as though the rest were too horrible to contemplate, then continued to lead Roxy through to a small, bright sunroom at the back of the house. This, in turn, opened out to a patio overflowing with potplants. The interior of the house was also modest for the upmarket North Shore with fraying beige carpet and ’70s style furnishings that looked like they had been recently prettied up with bright cushions and assorted knickknacks.

  “Are you living here, too?”

  “Good God, no. I’ve just been here on and off, sorting through Dad’s things and ... well, I feel closer to him here.”

  “Of course you do.”

  They had reached a round wooden table where a platter of pastries and jams had been placed. “Please, take a seat and help yourself. Would you like a tea or coffee? There’s no juice here, I’m afraid.”

  “A coffee with milk and two would be perfect, thank you.”

  Sondra nodded and returned to the kitchen while Roxy placed a flaky, piping hot croissant on a bread plate. As she broke it open and began slathering on jam, she wondered about Renata and Berny and what an odd couple they made. Renata had to be at least thirty-five years his junior, and from quite a different world, although, glancing around the room now, Roxy could see what their connection was. This room was totally devoted to all things Indonesian. There was a large Ikat cloth hanging on one wall and a grotesque mask with enormous eyes and protruding tongue on another. Several Balinese-style statues decorated a mantelpiece, and all around that, a dozen variously framed photographs, each one featuring images that looked like they’d been taken in Indonesia.

  They were all happy snaps, mostly of Berny and a pretty young woman in a short, ’60s-style dress who must have been his wife, Deandra. In one they were standing in front of an ornate building, in another a rice paddy, and a third picture showed Deandra holding a baby with several local women looking on. There was a very blurry shot of Berny on a boat with Deandra and a young girl who must have been Sondra, aged about five and dwarfed by an oversized life jacket. Roxy wondered how secure Renata felt and if she had ever wanted to remove these reminders of the first wife. Then she spotted a few blank spaces on the wall where pictures had clearly once hung, and guessed she already had. They were probably the wedding photos, Roxy thought just as Sondra reappeared with a plunger of coffee in one hand and a chipped white mug and small milk jug in the other.

  Taking the cup and jug from her, Roxy asked, “So what’s going to happen with the house? Will Renata stay on?”

  “Not if I can help it. We really need to sell the place, we need the capital, but well, Wolfgang’s been in her ear and—”

  “Wolfgang? What’s he got to do with it?”

  “Exactly! It’s none of his ruddy business but he obviously feels responsible for the woman and I guess you would if you’d palmed her off to someone who then goes and dies on you.” She paused, sniffed a little. “He’s been advising Renata and has told her the house should be hers.”

  “That doe
sn’t seem very fair for you.”

  “It’s an absolute joke, is what it is! She’s a Johnny come lately and she can jolly well—” She caught herself and blushed. “I’m sorry, I keep dragging us off the track. It’s really not pertinent to this and I shouldn’t waste any more of your time than I need to, plus,” she glanced at her wristwatch, “I haven’t got long.”

  Sondra pushed the plunger down and poured Roxy’s cup before helping herself to a pastry.

  “You’re not having a coffee?” Roxy asked, looking around for the sugar and not seeing any.

  “I’ve already had plenty. I’ve been up for hours wondering what you could possibly have discovered.”

  “Then I’ll get straight to it, shall I?”

  Roxy took a good sip of her beverage then proceeded to tell Sondra all about her meeting with Wolfgang, and how she had suspected Gordon of running down Berny, until he, too, had shown up dead. She told her about the “Beautiful Bet!” which she had assumed referred to Betty Reilly but which most likely referred to a game of poker and a bet on an old mine that had only recently proved valuable.

  “Do you remember him ever mentioning the bet or a mine called Byou?”

  “No, never,” Sondra said, shaking her head slowly.

  “Well, I think that’s why your father wanted that picture back. It was a link to that bet, and maybe he was trying to point you in that direction, let you know you have a right to claim it. The problem is, I’m not sure it’s enough. It’s just a photograph with a few words on the back. Maybe he was telling you to track down the witnesses to the bet.”

  “But they’re all dead!”

  “Yes, except for Betty and she’s not really a witness, never saw any deed and has no idea if one exists. Did you find anything here?”

  Sondra shook her head, emphatically this time. “I’ve looked everywhere. Turned Dad’s place upside down and it hasn’t been easy with what’s her name and her son watching on all the time, wondering what I’m doing.” She nodded her head towards the inner sanctum where a booming television revealed Renata’s whereabouts.