Note Before Dying (Ghostwriter Mystery 6)

by Larmer, C. A.

  Roxy recalled the old signage for “Trev’s Motor Mechanics”. “So what happened? To Trev?”

  “Cars got too fancy for the poor bugger. He used to do it all on his own. Govinda helped out occasionally where she could, but it got too tricky for them both. The newcomers take their shiny BMWs and Mercs to Lismore to be serviced these days. Not so many old bombs that need working on now. Trev up and left about two years ago, but Govinda keeps the store going. Even the rich folk round here need bread and milk, even if it is soy.”

  “What’s Govinda’s story? She has so many kids.”

  “Yeah, she’s got a stack of girls, that’s for sure. At least four, although I lost count a while back.”

  She whistled. “Bloody hell. She doesn’t know when to stop. Who’s the dad? Hans?”

  He sniggered. “What makes you think there’s just one?” There was a slight edge to Sam’s voice and then his eyes clouded over. “I don’t know Govinda’s whole story, but I do know there’s been a bunch of blokes over the years. She’s got an older daughter, I think, who’s living with her dad. For all I know, each kid could be from a different father.” He glanced up at her and then back away again. “Not that I can talk. Mum was just the same. The women around here aren’t exactly the faithful types.”

  “Or maybe it’s the men,” suggested Roxy.

  “You can’t blame ’em, just look at the name of Govinda’s café. That’s what some of them expect around here, certainly women like Govinda and Annika. They want to be treated like goddesses, put up on pedestals. I don’t know why. They’re no more special than anyone else.”

  The bitterness in his tone surprised Roxy and she wondered if a goddess had hurt him in the past. Govinda, perhaps? She vaguely recalled the first time she had met the woman, at her café, how she had mentioned “soothing” Sam over the death of his sister. Was that a euphemism for something more intimate? The very thought left her feeling prickly and somewhat irritated, and it wasn’t helped by Sam’s obvious hypocrisy. If anyone was thrusting anyone on a pedestal, it was Sam with his sister Sunny. Big brother seemed to act as though little sis could do no wrong, yet if she really was so pure, why was she sleeping with a married rock star in the first place? And why did she end up alone and dead in a creek on the Moody property?

  Was it karma as Govinda had suggested? Had she brought it upon herself?

  “What are you thinking about?” It was Sam, watching her silently, platter of food in his hands now. She shook the dark thoughts away.

  “Oh, nothing. Can I take that inside?”

  “Thanks. I’ll douse the flames and join you in a sec.”

  Roxy took the large, chipped platter and returned to the cottage to pop it on the table. She added her goodies to the mix, then replenished her cup and placed an empty mug at Sam’s plate, in case he wanted to join her in the wine. Lunar had followed her in, staring eagerly up at the meat platter and she laughed.

  “Not my job to feed you tonight. You’ll have to talk to Sam about that.”

  When Sam appeared, he whistled for Lunar and pointed to the door. The dog immediately backed away from the platter, giving it one final, woeful look before slipping outside again.

  “He’s already been fed,” Sam explained. “Just being greedy.”

  “Well, you can’t blame him, this smells delicious! You’re a whiz on the barbeque.”

  “Hey, can’t be an Aussie bloke and not know how to pull off a good barbie. They take your citizenship off you, you know.”

  Roxy laughed, relaxing a little now. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had cooked for her. Max wasn’t much of a foodie, preferring to dine out at his favourite Indian haunt, and both Oliver and Gilda probably hadn’t stepped inside their kitchens in years. Probably didn’t know where to find them. The only home chef she knew was her step-dad, Charlie, but even then, she’d been away so much she hadn’t eaten at her mum’s place in months.

  “Hook in,” Sam said as they picked up their cutlery.

  He had put on a jazz CD and lit the candles and for a moment Roxy forgot why she was there at all, but then Sam broke the magical spell.

  “So Gilda couldn’t make it tonight?”

  “Sends her apologies.”

  “Sure she does!” He laughed. “She doesn’t like me much, does she?”

  “Oh, she’s just being protective, that’s all.”

  “Do you need protecting?” The catch in his voice unsettled her and she pretended she didn’t hear it.

  “She is a detective. Can’t help herself.”

  He considered this for a few moments. “So how is she going on Sunny’s case?”

  “Slowly,” Roxy said. Truthfully, she was now more interested in Jed Moody’s death and there were still so many unanswered questions regarding that, especially concerning the man sitting across from her. She needed to sort a few facts out in her head, so she said, “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about the other night?”

  “Which night?”

  Which night?! “The night your nemesis got fried.”

  He placed his knife and fork down neatly on his plate, as though preparing himself for an onslaught. “What about it?”

  “Why did you never tell me you were an electrician?”

  He cast her a wary glance. “I didn’t deliberately hold that from you, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “I’m not getting at anything. I just want to know the truth.”

  “The truth is, I had motive enough as it was. I guess I was just worried that if I mentioned it, you wouldn’t have helped me. That’s true, isn’t it?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know. But you have to be honest with me, Sam, if I’m going to help. Full disclosure, okay?” He nodded. “Where did you go after we spoke?”

  “What?”

  “The cops keep asking me this. After we spoke on the steps outside the bar, after you told me Jed needed karma to come bite him on the bum, where did you go?”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “Not to the fuse box, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “You’ve got to stop second-guessing me, Sam.” She pushed her plate away, no longer as ravenous. “If I really thought you’d killed the guy, do you think I’d be out here, all alone with you?”

  He thought about this and then said, “You’re not alone; Lunar will protect you.” His lips broke into a smile but she didn’t smile back. “Okay, let me tell you what happened, and what I told Wiles and Quick. You and I spoke then I went inside, got a beer then came back out. I didn’t slip around to the fuse box, I didn’t tamper with Jed’s amp.”

  “Did you notice Annika when you went inside? Did you hear her?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Really?” She sat forward.

  “She was with that mad Greenie, they were just coming out of one of the rooms.”

  “Greenie?”

  “Yeah, you know, the councillor.”

  “You mean Mayor Kidlong?”

  “No, not him, his lackey. The one who’s always attached to his hip. Younger bloke, dodgy ponytail... Don’t know his name.”

  Roxy sat back in her chair with a thud. That’s not what she’d been expecting. She tried to think back to the night of Jed’s death, to picture the man who had walked in with the mayor and his daughter, but nothing had stuck.

  She said, “But it sounded to me like Annika was flirting with someone and I thought the Greens Party guys were against her and the whole idea of the music festivals.”

  “So? Annika flirts with anyone who’s got what she wants, and what she wants is permission to run a bunch of festivals at Moody Views.”

  “But it sounded really flirty, like they were having an affair.”

  He laughed. “That’s her M.O. You’ve seen her with Houghton, surely? The way she carries on with him you’d think they were lovers.”

  “Yeah, I had noticed that. Obviously they’re not?”

  “You serious? Houghton and Annika? She wouldn�
�t stoop so low, but she likes him to think she will. Keeps him hanging on, keeps Jed a little jealous, or as jealous as he could get with that giant ego. She works men, you must have realised that. Got no time for women because she can’t flirt with them, at least not all of them. But she sure knows how to twist a man around her little finger, gets them just where she wants them.”

  “Does she do that with Alistair and Doug?”

  “Probably.”

  “Could she have convinced someone to kill Jed for her?” Or even Sunny, she wondered to herself.

  He gave her question some thought. “Maybe, but then she’s ballsy, that one. If Annika wanted someone dead, I reckon she would’ve enjoyed doing it herself.”

  Roxy felt a small shiver race down her spine. She’d got that impression from Annika herself. “So she could simply have been flirting with the councillor that night, to help get the festival approved. Nothing more than that?”

  She recalled how the councillor had been worried they would get caught together in the house—“He’ll have my balls if he knows what we’re up to,” he’d said. Roxy had assumed he’d meant Jed Moody; now she realised he could easily be referring to his boss, Mayor Kidlong. There goes that theory, she thought glumly.

  Sam was pouring the wine now and watching her. “Why this fixation with Annika? Do you think she killed Jed?”

  Roxy told him she didn’t know, but explained that spouses were always prime suspects. “Who do you think did it?”

  “It’s more like who I don’t suspect.”

  “Really?” This made a nice change. Max would have dismissed that question and promptly changed the subject, never much of a fan of Roxy’s mind games. Sam seemed happy to play along and was already ticking names off with his fingers.

  “So, Annika, sure. She’s a likely suspect. Had the best access to his gear and the fuse box, of course. And plenty of reasons to want him dead.”

  “But could she have pulled it off?”

  He sat back. Shrugged. “Not sure she’s got the know-how, that’s true. She’s good at managing a band, but tampering with the electricity? I’ve thought about it, and it wasn’t just the gear that was messed with, the earth had to have been lifted somewhere in the circuit for it to work.” Roxy looked at him confused and he smiled. “Just take my word for it. Next, we’ve got any number of women he’s treated like crap over the past twenty years, but again, do any know their way around an electrical circuit?”

  “No idea,” replied Roxy.

  Sam continued reeling off his list of suspects. “Alistair Avery, now he could pull it off. Been around electrical instruments long enough to know how to mess with one.”

  “Surely Doug would be the same?”

  “Nah, Doug’s as thick as three planks. No way he could pull it off. Plus, he’s just the drummer, no electrical know-how required. But Houghton...”

  “Really?” Roxy’s eyes widened. “He has electrical knowledge?”

  “Maybe,” he replied. “Again, he’s been around it long enough, plus he did play lead guitar back in the late eighties. Maybe he was handy on the soldering iron.”

  “Soldering iron?” she asked.

  “Oh it’s just like a hand tool you use to melt metal, fix your electronic gear, that kind of thing. Jed probably has a few lying about.”

  Roxy vaguely recalled seeing something like that recently. “Okay,” she said, “and Houghton is a musician as well? I didn’t know that.” She took another good gulp of her wine. “He never mentioned that to me.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t, would he? It’s a sore subject.” He placed his wine down and explained. “His band had a minor hit, if you count a bit of airplay on public radio. But then the lead singer went and got married and it kinda tore the band up.”

  “Bit of a Yoko Ono, was she?”

  “Annika’s been called worse names than that.”

  “Annika? What are you talking about?” Suddenly the penny dropped. “Do you mean Jed’s first band, Horror Story? Was Houghton in that band?”

  “Yeah. It didn’t last long, but he had his fifteen minutes of fame. More like fifteen seconds, but you know...”

  “So why did the band break up?”

  “Apart from the fact they were crap?”

  “That never stopped anyone before.”

  He thought about this. “As I say, I think it had a lot to do with Annika and the other band members, there were something like six in all, they even had a saxophonist.” He laughed. “Gotta love the eighties. Anyway, I gather the rest of the band loathed Annika. She hadn’t learnt how to hone her charm at that stage, so they all pissed off and left Jed holding the mic. He didn’t waste time, set up the Moody Roos with a whole new lineup. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

  “How do you know all this?” Roxy asked, picking up her cob of corn and sprinkling a little salt onto it. Roxy was enjoying herself again. Pointing the finger at people was great fun.

  “Jed and I were mates for a long time, remember? I once asked him why Houghton worked so bloody hard. He doesn’t get paid that much, you know. Tiny percentage of sales, commissions when they score gigs, that’s about it. Sometimes I swear that guy was more desperate for the band to succeed than they were. Anyway, Jed said Houghton was just living through them vicariously now. Missed opportunity, that kinda stuff.”

  “Why didn’t he join the Moody Roos? Play guitar for them?”

  “Dunno. Maybe he wasn’t good enough. Or maybe he was too good—wouldn’t want to steal Jed’s thunder. Who knows? Perhaps he just wanted to be behind the scenes after that. You should ask him.” Sam glanced towards the door. “All right then, you can come in now.”

  Lunar appeared from behind the front door and trotted in, tail wagging, eyes sparkling, and made his way under the table, beside Roxy’s feet. Sam laughed.

  “You traitor. One night with Roxy and you’re hers forever.”

  Roxy laughed, too, felt a warm glow in her belly, then shook it off and focused on the conversation at hand. “But why would Houghton want to kill Jed? Sounds to me like he had a vested interest in keeping him alive.”

  “Not necessarily. I mean, there’s only so many reunion tours you can pull off, and I heard this was going to be their last. Maybe he’s hoping to cash in on the boost to sales now Jed’s dead. Their Best Of album is already racing up the charts; merchandise is probably selling through the roof. There’s nothing better than death to keep a band alive.” He paused. “Or it could be less mercenary than that. Maybe he’d just had enough of trying to keep the band together, of Jed always putting himself and his crotch first.” Again Sam’s face clouded over and it was clear his sister was back on his mind. He didn’t look keen to keep playing now, and Roxy decided to give him a break. She stood up and began clearing the plates.

  When he stood up to join her, she said, “Don’t even think about it. You cooked, I’ll clean up.” Then she nodded towards Lunar. “Besides, looks like you’ve got some making up to do.”

  Chapter 33

  The croissant crumbled into buttery flakes in Roxy’s hand and she slathered more homemade jam onto the final piece then popped it into her mouth. It was delicious, so, too, the fresh coffee and fruit platter that Bindi had placed on a sun-dappled table near the chirping frog pond.

  Roxy had been enjoying breakfast for half an hour before Gilda joined her, dark glasses on, a scowl denting her forehead.

  “Big night, eh?” Roxy asked as Gilda dropped into the seat opposite her and scowled even deeper. “When did you get back?”

  Roxy had knocked softly on Gilda’s door around 11:00 p.m. when she had returned to the B&B but got no response. She had assumed Gilda was fast asleep; her obvious hangover now suggested otherwise.

  “I don’t know,” Gilda croaked, wincing as though the simple act of talking hurt. “It was well after midnight, I know that.”

  “So Mr. Wiles can throw ’em back, eh?”

  She cringed. “Worse than that.”

  “Oh?�
�

  Gilda reached for the coffee plunger and began to pour herself a cup. “I made a bit of an error of judgment.”

  Roxy looked confused. “What happened?”

  Gilda added a little milk, a teaspoon of sugar and then took a tentative sip. “Might have … well,” she hunched over. “I might have ... accidentally, um, ended up ... in bed with him.”

  Roxy sat forward, surprised. “Really?! With Detective Wiles? Isn’t he married?”

  She hunched even further. “Yeeees.”

  “That’s not like you.”

  “I know, but he said he and his wife are kinda going through something at the moment.” When Roxy gave her a skeptical look, she quickly added, “I know, I know. I’m an idiot. You can blame the bloody restaurant. It was a really lovely Italian jobby with exquisite red wine, none of your cheap plonk. Then we moved on to dessert wine. It was all downhill after that.”

  “So the wine made you do it?”

  “More like those dreamy blue eyes.”

  “You wicked woman!”

  “I know, I know...” Gilda reached for a croissant, went to take a bite, then appeared to reconsider and dropped it onto her plate. “I’ve always had a secret soft spot for the guy. And then when he told me he’s not getting on with the wife at the moment, that they’re probably going to separate, well...”

  Roxy stared at her. “They always say that. Did he mention how she just doesn’t understand him anymore?”

  “Oh, don’t give me that, Roxy. I know it was evil of me. But it’s been bloody ages, I’m practically a born-again virgin, we don’t all have gorgeous hunks throwing themselves at us, you know.”

  Roxy tsked. Poppycock, she wanted to say. Gilda was a stunner, turned heads everywhere she went. Hell, just yesterday she’d had a photographer begging her to pose for him (albeit a sleazebag paparazzi, but that was beside the point). Gilda may be pushing forty-five, but she had the youthful good looks of a woman half her age, her blonde, wispy hair and petite, hourglass figure adding a kind of sexy pixie look that lured men in droves.