Dying Words (A Ghostwriter Mystery)

by C. A. Larmer

  “She has a son?”

  “Yes, Timothy is here so often he might as well just move in.”

  “How old is he?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Nineteen? Twenty?” She sighed. “He’s a nice enough kid, it’s not his fault his mother’s a—” She caught herself again. “Sorry.” She placed her hand on the table, her fingers wide. “Back to the subject. It seems to me that we need to find that deed, if there is one. But where on earth could it be? This is all so exasperating!”

  Roxy had to agree. “And potentially dangerous.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, the way I see it, both your father and Gordon could have been killed to shut them up about the mine, and the ‘beautiful bet’. Brownlow could have been a victim, too.”

  “I thought you said he was killed by an overly zealous mugger.”

  “That’s what the press says, but in the light of all this, you’ve got to wonder.”

  Sondra sat forward in her seat and said, “You don’t really think that Sir Wolfgang had something to do with these deaths? That he might have ...?”

  “It’s all I can think,” Roxy replied. “I mean, think about what Wolfgang stands to lose if the truth ever came out. Surely, a suddenly lucrative gold mine is a very good motive for murder?”

  Sondra’s eyes lit up. “Yes,” she said. “Yes it is!” She chewed on a fingernail for a few moments giving this considerable thought, then stopped chewing and asked, “What do we do now?”

  “We need to go to the police, obviously.”

  “The police?” She looked dubious.

  “Yes, this is getting very serious, Sondra. Most of the people who knew about the bet are now dead, most of them murdered, I suspect. That leaves you, me and Betty.”

  “You don’t honestly think we’re at risk?” Her eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t know, I doubt it. I mean, we didn’t witness the bet, nor did Betty. But still ...”

  Sondra was shaking her head. “I still think we need to find the deed first, prove our case.”

  Roxy agreed it would help. “But I thought you said you’d looked everywhere.”

  “I have, which is why I still need your help.”

  Roxy scrunched her lips to one side. “I’m not sure what more—”

  “My father said you had it. I thought he meant the photo, but maybe he meant the deed. Did he give you anything else?”

  “Sondra, we’ve been through all this. I promise you he didn’t. All I got was that old photograph which you now have. The answer must lie in those words on the back.”

  “But they don’t prove anything!” She stood up and began pacing the room. “It’s not a legal document. It’s useless to me. And, as you say, the people who can help prove it are now all gone. Probably thanks to Wolfgang.”

  There was bitterness again in her voice and Roxy had to agree, the mining magnate had plenty of questions to answer. “That’s why we need to hand this over to the police; let them deal with it.”

  Sondra glanced at her watch again and stopped. “I just can’t think about that now, I have to get going. I promised Tony I’d be at the stall by now. Damn it!” She turned imploring eyes back on Roxy. “Please, Roxy, all I ask is that you keep thinking about this. Try to remember if my father gave you any more clues, if he gave you anything else, anything at all.”

  Roxy pushed her unsweetened coffee aside and stood up, too. “I have been thinking constantly about this, but I’m sorry, I keep hitting a blank wall.”

  She gathered her cup and helped Sondra take the plates to the kitchen before returning to the sunroom to retrieve her handbag. As she did so, she glanced again at the photos on the wall and that’s when it hit her.

  “Speaking of blank walls,” she said aloud, then called out to Sondra who was still in the kitchen cleaning away the plates. “Can you come here for a second?” Sondra reappeared, her eyes wide. “What was in that spot, can you remember?”

  Sondra followed Roxy’s finger, which was pointed at an empty space where a nail sat idle, an A4-sized patch of wall below it, the paint brighter where it hadn’t had a chance to fade. She raised one shoulder.

  “I can’t remember. I haven’t spent a lot of time at this house in the past few years, to be honest. Do you think it might—”

  “Was it a wedding photo?”

  “Maybe.” She stepped closer. “No, no it wouldn’t have been. Dad called this room his “Indonesian haven”. He kept all his artefacts and photos here. Besides, Mum and Dad got married in Sydney.” She stopped. “You don’t think ...?”

  Roxy grabbed her handbag, her emerald eyes sparkling with anticipation. “I have to get to Oliver’s office. I have a hunch I know where that deed might be.”

  Chapter 27

  And so the wild goose chase continued. After being escorted out of the house to her car, Roxy put a call through to Oliver who was just waking up and not exactly chatty.

  “You need to meet me at your office in half an hour. Can you manage that?”

  There was a grunt on the other end and he hung up. She took that for a yes and opened her car door, explaining herself to Sondra as she took her seat.

  “I didn’t really think about it,” she said, “because I never actually got the photo. But what if it was sent in a frame? What if it had been hanging on the wall of your dad’s sunroom and he took it off and sent the whole shebang to my agent’s office, not just the print?”

  “Then where’s the frame?”

  “Probably still at the office. If I know Sharon—that’s my agent’s assistant—she would have taken the photo out of the frame before she sent it on to the publisher. I mean, it’d be cheaper postage that way and more practical, too.”

  “So the frame could be at your agent’s office? And the deed could be in there?!”

  “Yes ... but ...” She broke off. “I’m not quite sure how you hide a deed in a frame, but it’s worth checking out.”

  For her part, Sondra promised to keep looking through her father’s belongings when she finished work that day to see she if could find any papers or information relating to the old mine. “But you’re right, Roxy, it’s in that frame, I just know it!”

  “Yes, but where?” Roxy persisted, starting her engine. “How do you hide an entire deed in a skinny photo frame?”

  “I don’t know, maybe there’s a clue in there.”

  “This isn’t The Da Vinci Code, Sondra, people don’t just hide clues in clever spots.”

  Sondra wasn’t about to be deflated. She was soaring now and her lively eyes and blushing cheeks were proof of it. “It has to be the key, don’t you see? Please, Roxy, track it down and get back to me the second you do.”

  “And the police?”

  “Find the deed and we’ll get them up to speed then. I mean, you’re right to be sceptical, it may not be there and we’ll both look like a couple of fools, but it’s a start.”

  It better be the bloody end, Roxy thought as she drove back along the Harbour Bridge towards Oliver’s office. She didn’t normally like to park in the city, mainly because if it didn’t send her mad trying to find a spare spot, the exorbitant parking metres would do the trick, but she was in luck today and found a space fairly swiftly, and right outside his office block.

  Oliver was just moping towards the building as she got out, and she waved to grab his attention. He scowled as soon as he saw her.

  “I thought you promised to get your boxes yesterday. Shazza was not a happy woman when she left.”

  “Sorry, I have been pretty busy tracking down a killer, you know.” She slipped several gold coins in the parking metre.

  “Story of your life,” he said, keying a code into the security box at the front. It buzzed loudly and he pushed the door and led the way inside and up the stairs.

  Within minutes they were standing in the middle of Oliver’s office staring down at a pile of boxes clearly marked “Roxy Parker” with a few smiley faces added for effect.

  “
I had no idea I had this much crap here,” she said.

  “Now multiply that by fifteen clients and you can see why Shazza’s stressed out. Okay, you take that one and I’ll start with this. Tell me again what I’m looking for.”

  “Not sure exactly. I never saw the frame but my guess is Sharon took the photo out and placed the empty frame in one of these boxes, with all my other crap.”

  “Except you’re hoping it’s not an empty frame.”

  “I know it’s a stretch, but I’ve got to try.”

  Oliver picked up the phone on his desk. “Why don’t I try Shazza first and see if she has any idea. Might save us some time.”

  “Great idea, although if she tells you she threw it out I will leave these boxes here to torment her forever.”

  Roxy began looking through the first of the boxes while Oliver spoke to his assistant at her home. Sharon had no recall of the picture or the frame but insisted she would never have thrown it out, nor would she have sent the frame on to the publisher.

  “Says she’s being paid to save me money and why would she send a bulky frame when it’d cost twice the postage,” he told Roxy after he’d hung up.

  “And she can’t remember what it might have looked like?”

  He shook his head and then kneeled down as best he could next to another box, groaning as his legs buckled underneath him.

  As they slowly and methodically went through the inventory, Roxy got Oliver up to speed on the case so far. He agreed that Wolfgang Bergman had guilt written all over him.

  “He certainly has motive up to his eyeballs,” she explained, “but opportunity is a bit scarce. I just can’t see him getting out of the house these days, let alone ramming a car into someone or shoving them down some stairs. His heart would be in it, but not sure he’d have the grunt force.”

  “And the wife?”

  “Oh she has plenty of grunt, but ... I don’t know, not sure I can see either of them doing it, to be honest. No, my money’s on a hit and hire. If there’s one thing Wolfgang has, it’s means. He’s got the money and he probably has some dodgy contacts from his days in Indonesia. Everyone tells me the men were pretty rough in those days, maybe he called on one of these rough types to do him a favour.”

  Oliver nodded, conceding the potential in this theory.

  “So you reckon Wolfman learns that the old mine, the one he bet away, is now worth a motza, so he hires someone to take out Berny before Berny stakes his claim?”

  “Yep, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he also hired a hit on the only two witnesses to the bet—Browny and Gordo—to shut them up.”

  “That’s a lot of corpses for an old gold mine. Doesn’t this Wolfgang fellow have mines and money coming out his ears? Why would he kill for one little gold mine in Irian Jaya?”

  “Because he’s a greedy, arrogant bastard?”

  Oliver shrugged. “Yeah, works for me ... Oh, is this it?” He pulled out an empty black frame and Roxy glanced across eagerly then shook her head.

  “Too small. Remember the picture? It was A4-size, so the frame needs to be at least A4. Of course, it could have been larger.”

  They continued wading through old diaries, books and photos with little success. Oliver shoved his box to one side and turned towards another, and Roxy did the same, and for the next ten minutes they didn’t say a word, just methodically made their way through the contents.

  “I’m gonna need a coffee,” Roxy said just as her hand brought out an empty, peach-coloured frame. It could easily fit an A4 photo. “Ooh, this looks promising.”

  She brushed the dust off the front of the frame, which still had its glass casing and white cardboard backing, and took a deep, steadying breath. Despite what she said to Sondra, it really did feel like she was caught up in a scene from The Da Vinci Code as she carefully turned the frame over, unlatching the small hooks at the back that kept the glass in place.

  Oliver watched on, his own heart beating rapidly, as she slowly lifted out the glass and then the cardboard, and let out a small gasp.

  “Bingo,” she said, beaming.

  There, taped to the inside of the cardboard, was a thin slip of yellowing paper. She hesitated for a second before slowly working the tape off, careful not to rip the paper at the corners. It was facing towards the cardboard so she could not immediately see what it said, but she already knew this had to be it. This had to be the changed deed to the Byou mine.

  “Oh get a move on!” Oliver wailed, crouched beside her awkwardly, and she flicked him a scowl.

  “This could be a legal document, Olie. I have to be careful.”

  Soon she had the paper free, and she took another deep breath as she turned it over and began to read.

  In scrawly blue ink that was slightly smudged on one side, someone had handwritten the words: “August 25, 1975. In this Deed, I hereby transfer ownership and all mineral rights to the Byou Copper Mine, Irian Jaya, Indonesia, to Bernard John Tiles, formerly of Sydney, Australia.”

  It was then signed and dated in four different hands. She recognised Sir Wolfgang’s signature instantly, she had seen it before, and she could make out Berny’s name and Brownlow’s, under the word “Witness”. The fourth signature was impossible to decipher and she assumed it was Clive Holderson’s. It didn’t look anything like Gordon Reilly.

  They both stared at the page for many minutes, Roxy holding it by the tips of her fingers as though she were holding a winning lottery ticket, and she felt a similar kind of jubilation, too, even though the winnings had nothing to do with her.

  Eventually she said, “Sondra is going to love me.”

  “Bloody oath,” Oliver said, and then added, “You should have charged her more.”

  “Ever the agent.” Roxy giggled to let off the pent-up excitement. She was about to place the old scrap of paper back where she’d found it when she had a thought.

  “Can I use your photocopier?”

  “Sure, but I’ll need to warm it up. Just a sec.”

  He struggled to his feet, his belly bulging out of the Hawaiian shirt he had on, and then made his way out to the bulky contraption behind Sharon’s desk and switched it on. As it whirred to life, he also popped on the kettle and began to make them coffee.

  Roxy found her way to the new chair in front of his desk and sank into it, still holding the paper carefully, and still staring at it as though it might suddenly disappear. Her first instinct was to call Sondra, but before she could, her mobile announced an incoming call. It was Gilda.

  “Hi there, got a sec?”

  “Sure,” Roxy said, her voice breathless from all the excitement.

  “You won’t be surprised to hear this, but I’m now running the Bernard Tiles case.”

  “Fantastic! So they finally decided it was a serious crime, eh?”

  “Well, that and the fact that Leary’s been forced to take sick leave. Having trouble with blood pressure or something. Really, the man should be retired by now, he’s not in good shape. Anyway, Eddie Calhoun’s not up for it, way too green around the gills, so they’ve pushed it onto us. We’re putting together a task force to look into all three suspicious deaths, including reopening the Brownlow mugging case. Your photo has got everyone very excited. The chief agrees there could be a connection, but before I get started I’ve got some questions for you. Can you come in?”

  “Oh yes,” said Roxy. “Because I think I’ve just solved your case for you.”

  Gilda groaned. “Oh God, I only just got the bloody thing.”

  Twenty minutes later Roxy was sitting across from her friend in Sydney’s Crime Squad headquarters, watching as Gilda studied the handwritten deed very carefully, Eddie Calhoun leaning across her to have a look, his baby blue eyes batting wildly. She had already placed it in a plastic evidence bag and, after a few minutes, she handed it to Calhoun and asked him to make a copy.

  “You mean, like on the photocopier?” he said.

  Gilda stared at him. “Yeees, hence the word photocopier.”


  He blushed beetroot red and scurried away while Gilda shook her head behind him. “Nice enough kid,” she told Roxy, “but as thick as three bricks. Still, the chief wants to keep him on the case because he was there from the beginning so he’s been seconded to us for the interim. I’m mentoring him apparently.” Her twisted top lip told Roxy what she thought of that idea. “Anyway, tell me about this mysterious deed. Hidden inside an old photo frame, you say?” Roxy nodded. “How bizarre. Why hide it? And even more importantly, why send it off in the mail—the notoriously dodgy mail, I might add—to you? That’s a very valuable document.”

  “It wasn’t at the time, you have to remember. Until about three weeks ago, the gold find at Byou wasn’t public knowledge. Berny probably put that deed in the frame with the picture many, many years ago, thinking it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. It was probably just a keepsake to go with the photo. He probably forgot all about it. Then, a few months ago, I asked him to send me a picture of his days with Sir Wolfgang and he probably just saw this photo hanging on his wall and sent it. Didn’t give it much thought. He’d probably forgotten the deed was even there.”

  “But as he lay dying, it occurred to him?”

  Roxy nodded. “Maybe he saw the face of his killer and put two and two together, or maybe he saw a news item about the mine before he got struck by the car. Who knows, but he suddenly realises the old mine is viable, and remembers where he’s put the deed—that it’s in the frame he sent me.”

  “So he tells his family to find you, except he doesn’t live long enough to explain why.”

  Roxy nodded again. “It has to be Wolfgang who did this, or someone related to him.”

  “Doesn’t Wolfgang have some grown-up sons?”

  “Yes, now you mention it! He has two sons, although ...” She looked disappointed. “They’re in Indonesia. I had to interview them over the phone for the book.” She paused. “Maybe you should check that out. See if they’ve visited the country lately. I hadn’t thought about them, but it’s in their interests as much as Wolfman’s to shut this story up.”