by Graham Smith
‘It’s got to be. What else could it be?’
‘I don’t know, but the fact is I have a bad feeling about this and I’m afraid my bad feelings aren’t often wrong.’
I cast around my mind then come up with the quote I am looking for. ‘Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence and a third time is enemy action.’
‘Huh?’
Alfonse looks blank but Chief Watson gets my reference. ‘He’s quoting from one of the James Bond books. Goldfinger, I believe. What he’s saying is that Mrs Halliburton’s run of bad luck can’t be attributed to anything other than coincidence until a third event happens to her.’
I nod. ‘You’re right, Chief, but let’s just hope your bad feeling is wrong and we don’t have any more bodies connected to Mrs Halliburton.’
24
Leaving the police station, Alfonse gives me the rundown on what little he’s learned from the journal Kira kept in her secret folder. It isn’t much use to me but I’m sure Dr Edwards would have found it fascinating.
The introspection and self-justification passages he tells me about are bland. Some may even go so far as to say they are banal. As far as I’m concerned, they sketch a broad outline of her psyche at best. Even then, the sketch is drawn by an amateurish hand.
What amuses me is the way technology has been used to store her secrets. Where once a diary or journal would have been buried at the back of an underwear drawer, nowadays it becomes another file on an electronic device.
Fair enough, she’d tried to hide the folder and had passworded it, but what she’d failed to realise was, by doing so, she’d highlighted the folder’s importance.
The best hiding places are always in plain sight. Nobody bothers looking at a folder with a boring title like ‘utilities’ or ‘household accounts’.
A secret folder protected by a password will pique the interest of anyone who learns of its existence. The fact it has been found by a professional means it will be scrutinised from every angle.
I can tell by his behaviour that Alfonse has found something in the folder. Something he’s chosen not to share in front of Chief Watson.
‘So. What else did you find in Kira’s journal?’
His reply is hesitant. ‘A few bits and pieces but there’s a recurring theme.’
‘Which is?’ Even to my ears, my sigh is filled with impatience.
‘You’re not going to like it.’
‘Grow up. I’m a big boy. I can take it.’
Silence fills the car. I guess he’s trying to find the right words.
‘Spill it, Alfonse.’
‘She was in love with you.’
‘What?’ I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. ‘There’s no way she was in love with me. You’re jerking me around.’
‘You can read it for yourself. But trust me, she was deeply in love with you.’ There is no deception in his voice. We know each other well enough to spot misdirection, lies and pranks. None of his usual tells are vocal. Each one remains mute.
Now it is me who falls into silence. Alfonse’s statement has knocked me sideways. I’m glad we are only a minute or two away from his place. I need to verify his claim with my own eyes.
Try as I might, I can’t recall Kira displaying anything more than a passing attraction to me. I was a toy to be picked up and put down at will. The booty call arrangement suited us both. Or at least I thought it had. If she had been in love with me, she’d kept her feelings not just hidden, but buried.
The next thing I start to consider is what bearing this news may or may not have on the case.
Her wounds suggested a frenzied attacker. Hers was the kind of assault which is driven by fury or insanity. If that’s the case, jealousy could have powered the arm holding the knife.
Yet Kira hadn’t told me how she felt. Therefore, it is a stretch to assume she’d told someone else. Her pouring her heart out to someone who also harboured feelings for me pushed the bounds of probability.
Besides, I’m not the settling down type and I’m not conceited enough to believe women are prepared to kill over me.
Reasoning it out doesn’t stop me wondering though.
As I pull up to the kerb and switch off the engine, my memory is doing a roll call of the girls I’ve dated over the last year or two.
There is only one who had been upset about me not wanting to continue the relationship. Six weeks after I’d broken it off she’d come into the Tree with one of the roughnecks from the oilfields on her arm. From what I’ve heard, the two of them are now a solid item, looking to set up house together.
I want to share my thoughts with Alfonse but I can tell he is struggling with the news. He is too respectful a person to mock the dead or speak ill of them, but I have no doubt that in any circumstances other than a murder investigation, I’d have been slaughtered with one-liners and half-assed witticisms.
He’d always liked Kira and while he’d never been intimate with her to my knowledge, I’ve long suspected he carried a torch for her.
I wait until we are in his kitchen with coffee brewing before I seek his opinion. ‘You’ve had longer to think about it than I have. What do you make of it?’
‘Without blowing smoke up your ass, my first thought was that it was a jealous rival who wanted you for herself. Then I remembered what Emily said about the manner of her death. While there were a lot of wounds to make it look like a frenzied attack, the cut that killed her was delivered with precision. That suggests a deliberate attack by someone who knows how to use a knife. My next thought was that it might be a boyfriend who’d flipped after being compared to you. Following this line of reasoning, I went through her journal looking for the names of anyone local she’d dated.’
‘And?’ The sooner Alfonse arrives at the point the better, I’m tired after a long day, and the added mental strain from learning the victim was supposed to have been in love with me has done little to improve my temper.
‘I found she’d only dated three locals in the last eighteen months. Checking the dates against my memory, I figure she only dated when you saw someone more than a couple of times.’
If what Alfonse says is correct – and I have no reason to doubt him – it appears Kira was hedging her bets whenever she thought I might be in a relationship. When my brief sojourns ran their course, she would find a reason to dump the guy.
While Alfonse’s logic may well be sound, I don’t like it. I’m not egotistical enough to think anyone would behave that way over me. I’m nothing special, just a guy who likes hanging out with his friends, reading and earning an honest buck. On the flip side I also like getting into fights and once in a while drinking until I lose days.
Not enjoying this subject, I decide to move on from it. ‘So who’d she date?’
‘Pete Lester, Terrel Upson and George Chalmers.’
I know two of the names. Pete Lester is a builder who runs a small business, Terrel Upson works in a butcher’s shop on Main.
‘Do you know anything about this Chalmers guy?’
Alfonse passes me a sheet of paper across. ‘He’s an accountant. Works by himself and looks after local businesses. Small time and seems to be happy with it from what I’ve learned.’
The paper has a few details on Chalmers and a picture that looks like it has been lifted from a social media site.
While not great leads, they are the best we’ve got. We agree I’m to speak with them in the morning while Alfonse continues his digital excavations of their lives.
25
He waits until the sliver of moon is hidden behind a cloud and moves from his hiding place in the manicured hedge.
Each step is hurried but silent as he crosses the garden and approaches the house’s back door. Using a set of picks, he is through the door and inside the house in less than a minute.
He knows which room she’ll be in. He’s watched the house for hours, observing her movements. A trail of lights being switched off identified her bedroom at the rear
of the house.
He is striking when the night is darkest. When the target is deepest in sleep.
She fits the pattern. She will die tonight. Her death will be a quick one. Painful for a brief spell, but quick compared to the Niemeyer slut.
As he moves towards the stairs he’s startled by the angry hiss of a cat. Inside the lounge a mangy tabby with fierce eyes arches its back.
Taking two steps forward, he reaches the lounge door and closes it while the cat is still deciding whether or not to attack.
Step by step he tiptoes up the stairs, keeping his feet against the left wall to minimise the risk of a creak betraying his presence.
The strong aroma of muscle liniment fills his nose, telling him the old girl has overdone it at the gym.
Reaching the top of the stairs he identifies the correct bedroom from the gentle snores.
His gloved hand clasps the door handle and he slips into the bedroom, taking care not to make even the tiniest sound.
Three brisk steps have him towering over her bed, the scalpel in his hand poised ready to strike.
26
I swing the Mustang into a parking bay and step onto the street. Four paces later, I feel the first prickles of sweat begin to encase my body. It isn’t usually this hot at this time of year, but it’s not unknown.
The growing heat causes me to be uneasy for another reason altogether. A friend has decided to take advantage of the good weather. He’s called with an invitation to an impromptu barbecue and pool party.
Claude is a lousy cook at the best of times. As a rule, his barbecuing produces more charcoal than a forest fire. Add to that a thirty by twelve hole filled with water and drunk people and you have a recipe for disaster.
I’d made vague promises, saying how busy I am, but I’ll try to get there if at all possible.
Before entering George Chalmers’s office, I take a moment to assess what I can see through the window.
Chalmers is seated at his desk with a vast ledger in front of him. To his left, nearer the door is the cleanest cut young man I’ve ever seen. He’s staring into a computer screen with serious intent when I hear the muted tones of a telephone.
Clean Cut lifts the telephone on his desk and speaks for a moment before transferring the call to Chalmers. Figuring Clean Cut is some kind of intern or trainee, I wait until the phone call ends then enter the small office. It’s the tidiest office I’ve ever stepped into. Nothing seems to be out of place. Even the papers on the desks are ordered and straight. A hint of cologne hangs in the air rather than the dusty smell of old files.
Before I can say a word, Clean Cut is out of his chair. ‘Good morning, sir. Welcome to Chalmers Accountants. How may I help you?’
Not only is he too polite for words, he is even more clean-cut when close up. I reckon he’s never yet used a razor and won’t need to for at least ten years.
‘I’m here to have a word with Mr Chalmers.’
‘Do you have an appointment, Mr…?’
‘Boulder. No, I don’t.’ I look across the room to where Chalmers is pretending to look at the ledger while earwigging our conversation. ‘It’s to do with a case I’m working on for Devereaux Investigations.’
Give Chalmers his due, he doesn’t flinch at my words.
A shot of excitement fills Clean Cut’s face before professionalism and breeding remove it. He turns to his boss. ‘Mr Chalmers, do you have a moment to speak to a Mr Boulder about a case he’s investigating?’
Chalmers looks up from the ledger on his desk. ‘I have five minutes, Mr Boulder. I am afraid we are rather busy just now.’
‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’ I give a sideways nod at Clean Cut. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk in private?’
He frowns then pulls a dead president from his billfold. ‘Michael, would you be so kind as to walk down to Sherri’s and get me my usual? I will take lunch at my desk today.’
Listening to Chalmers’s educated voice and his mannered speech pattern, the presence of Clean Cut begins to make sense to me. The younger man will be either a relative or a carefully vetted protégé.
As soon as the door closes, I pull up a chair ready to pepper Chalmers with questions about his relationship with Kira.
His nose wrinkles in distaste at my sitting without being invited, but I’m not too worried about his sensibilities. What I have come to discuss is far worse than bad manners.
‘Have you heard Kira Niemeyer was murdered?’
He nods. ‘A terrible business. Whoever could do such a thing?’
Not bothering to answer his question, I lock eyes with him. My intention is to go straight for the jugular with a candid account of Kira’s death. Get him on the back foot by offending his genteel nature. Perhaps I’ll get a flash of a darker persona lurking underneath. ‘Did you also hear how she was slashed seventy-two times before her heart was pierced? That her body was dumped half under a bush on a popular walking trail where it was sure to be found?’
The blanching of his already pale skin is the only answer I’m given. His eyes cloud with sadness as he considers my words.
‘Every cut was on her chest and stomach. Can you imagine what a mess that many wounds would do in such a concentrated area?’
He shoots from his seat and darts towards a door at the back of the room. I am three paces behind him when I recognise the room he’s entered is a bathroom. Chalmers isn’t trying to escape. He’s more concerned with hitting the toilet bowl with the streams of vomit pulsing from his mouth.
I step back into the office and return to my seat. There is nothing to be gained from standing over him, he’ll be out when he’s finished. Having witnessed his upright-citizen behaviour, I guess he’ll be shamefaced about his less than stoic reaction.
When he does emerge from the bathroom, his pallor has dropped a couple of shades to a hue interior decorators call apple white.
‘I am sorry. That was rather embarrassing.’
I wave away his apologies. ‘Don’t worry about it, you’re not the first person I’ve known to be sick after being told something horrible.’
He gives a small nod of thanks as he pulls a bottle of sparkling water from a desk drawer. ‘All the same, it is not very gentlemanly.’
There’s a danger we’ll keep going round in circles if I don’t change the subject, so I get to the real point for my visit.
‘Kira mentioned in her journal you and she dated. How long were you together, and when was it?’
‘We dated for around two months. It would be the middle of last summer.’
I cast my memory back and remember dating a dental nurse who’d wanted to teach me how to swim. Her increasing insistence had brought a swift end to our relationship.
‘Why did you split?’
He shrugs. ‘Why does any couple separate? I guess we were not terribly well suited.’
‘In what way didn’t you suit each other?’
He delays his answer by emptying the bottle of water into a glass. ‘Did you know Kira before she died?’
I nod and wait for him to continue.
‘You are a private detective. I am sure you have assessed me as a person, looked into my background?’
It’s my turn to shrug. ‘A little.’
‘Tell me, Mr Boulder, why do you think Kira and I parted company?’
It’s a good question. One whose answer makes sense.
Chalmers is a prig at best. At worst he’s a prissy little mummy’s boy who’ll expect his wife to conform to the Stepford model.
Kira and he wouldn’t be suited to each other in any way. While opposites are meant to attract, she was an untamed spirit who lived life at a pace that suited the rhythms of mood and moment.
Chalmers, on the other hand, is the type of person for whom routine is everything. A real ‘fish on a Friday’ kind of guy. He’d worship and provide a decent life for her and any kids they produced while suffocating her free-spirited nature.
Sure, physical attraction may carry them
so far together, but his sort are planners by nature and Chalmers is at that age where the getting of a wife has been moved from the ‘one day’ to the ‘imperative’ column in his life ledger.
This line of thought almost leads me to discount him as a suspect until I have a second thought.
What if he’d fallen for her and had his marital offer discarded? I’ve learned from many a fight, the quiet ones often prove the most dangerous.
Perhaps her rejection had been the straw that broke the dromedary’s spine, flipping him from prissy clerk into a crazed killer, intent on making sure that if he couldn’t have Kira, no one else could.
As plausible as this sounds at first, the theory doesn’t bear much scrutiny. They’d been together last year. Suppressed personalities can be very unpredictable, but there had been no current trigger. If she’d been listed in the Casperton Gazette’s weekly round-up of engagements, there would be more cause to consider him as a suspect.
It wasn’t outwith the realms of possibility he’d found out Kira was hooking, but I doubt he has. While his office and clothes speak of a decent business, I can’t see an accountant being able to justify spending money on a hooker. Certainly not ones charging ten grand a time. While there is no particular kind or type of person who’d hire a hooker, I just can’t picture him booking one.
Still, I’m not ready to strike a line through his name just yet.
‘Okay, so you were different people who hooked up for a while. Tell me what you two did have in common. Where you hung out together.’
‘We did not exactly have a lot in common. We would perhaps watch a movie or go for dinner and then go back to my place.’ He blushes as his eyes look at anything in the room except me. ‘Our relationship was more physical than cerebral.’
‘I get it. When you first got together who instigated it?’
‘Kira did. I was quite taken aback at her forwardness.’
I have a struggle to keep my reply to that statement unspoken.
Kira would have eaten Chalmers up and spat out a chewed skeleton without her extra-curricular activities. With them it was a complete mismatch, which made David versus Goliath seem like a fair fight.
