Blood Sisters

by Caroline de Costa

  The library chair was not a comfortable seat for someone his height. He wriggled his backside further into the space intended for it and tried to rest his shoulder blades over the chair back. ‘Giraffe’ was what he’d been called at school, at least at high school, once he’d started to grow. Tall and skinny and with frizzy orange hair. He’d been sixteen before he actually saw a real live giraffe, in the zoo in Sydney. It was his first trip to Sydney, playing interschool basketball. A big adventure. Sitting now, waiting for his papers to arrive, drinking his coffee, he thought about that time.

  When Drew was ten years old, he’d been the fastest runner in the whole primary school. He played footy too, Rugby league, and that year was the first in which there were school teams. He tried out and was immediately picked for the Under-11 squad. They practised three times a week after school and played matches on Saturday mornings against other schools on the Tableland. His dad always came along to watch those matches. They got as far as the quarter finals that year in a match where Drew scored three tries. Drew was thinking that when he grew up he’d like to play professional footy like Wally Lewis.

  The next year he thought he would be in the Under-12 A’s. But when the lists went up he found himself in the B’s. What’s more he wasn’t the captain, even though he thought he was the best player the team had. Sam Borgese picked him up from practice that day and had a look at the lists himself. Then he went and had a quiet word with Mr Baccaroli, their coach. Later Drew overheard him talking to his mother in the kitchen.

  ‘I told him Drew’s one of the best players he’s got. Tony says yeah, he knows that, but he’s just got so many kids whose fathers he depends on for his business, they all want their kid in the A team. Guess what, all those kids are white. Tony knew the real reason: no black kids in the A’s at all.’

  Drew was the star that season. Tries every match. Sam was sure they’d give him Player of the Year.

  But on the night of the sports awards, when Drew was sitting nervously expecting his name to be called, he heard instead ‘Daniel Curtiss’. Daniel was a pretty ordinary player, but his dad owned a big garage in town.

  The next year Drew was at high school. That was the year in which he grew a full twelve inches. He was now taller than anyone else in his year, but being lanky, with a long neck—hey, Giraffe!—he was more of a liability than an asset on the footy field now.

  That was also the year they started school basketball on the Tableland, and at the high school they weren’t so worried what colour you were. Drew was a natural. For a while he even thought about trying for pro basketball. But he was getting good marks at school and Sam wanted him to get an education...

  Drew’s reverie was interrupted by the arrival of Leanne with his requested papers on a trolley. He went to find a better chair before beginning his search, working backwards from today’s paper. And there, immediately, was ‘Maria’. He took out his notebook and checked the mobile number Marcie had given them for Dorrie. It was ‘Maria’s’ number. Maria was ‘a slim Asian beauty, very hot, new in town, 18 years old, student’ and she did both in and out calls. And toys.

  There was another slim Asian beauty listed—Angela, age not given. Drew looked at the mobile number he had for Marcie—yes, she was Angela.

  The competition was strong. More than sixty women advertised their services, and it was only Thursday. There would be more at the weekend. Drew studied the form. The fantasy of the average heterosexual Cairns male, it seemed, was a 19-year-old Asian (Japanese, Korean, Thai, Filipina—in that order), slender, with a tiny waist but, miraculously, natural double D-size breasts, new in town while somehow managing to be a university student. Oh, and her name often began with A—Alice, Amy, Annalise, Ashley... Could all these women be making a living from this?

  Looking back, Drew found that ‘Maria’ and ‘Angela’ had advertised in the same way almost every week for the past two months. There were also several other advertisements with exactly the same wording—for Alesa, Arianna and Anna.

  Going back more than four months, there was still Maria, and still Angela, but with different mobile numbers. This was before Dorentina and her cousin had arrived here. On impulse he called the number for Angela from five months previously. It was answered on the third ring.

  ‘Hello! This is Anna!’ She sounded as though she’d been expecting the call.

  ‘Um, no—I was looking for Angela.’

  ‘Angela? No, this is Anna. What you looking for? Nice time, relax? You in Weipa?’

  ‘No, Cairns.’

  ‘Ah, no, I’m working Weipa this week. You try another girl.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’

  Drew thought for a moment, then he called the numbers for Alesa and Arianna. Alesa answered to her name but told him she was working the mines this week. Arianna said he had the wrong number, she wasn’t Arianna, she was Felicia and she was working out of town.

  All three women, Drew thought, had accents he would describe as Filipino, judging by Marcie’s and those of the two women who made the delicious pastries he and Leila and the kids bought in the market on Sundays. That made at least five Filipina women who’d been sex workers in Cairns in the past few months, who also apparently travelled to mining towns. And who just happened to settle on the same phrases for their ads. Was this by chance? Probably not. But was it evidence of outside direction, or did they just simply talk to each other about their work—or copy each other’s ads?

  He needed to do this methodically. Taking out his laptop, he opened up a new Excel page and began to type in the names and numbers of all the women he thought could be Filipina, over the two years of papers.

  An hour later when the list was finished, he went to refill his coffee mug—deciding not to count this one—before sitting down again, and sorting the list: first by names, then by mobile numbers.

  And a pattern emerged.

  The mobile numbers of both Dorrie and Marcie had been in existence for sex workers for the entire two years, as had six others. But every few months a name changed. Dorrie’s phone number belonged to Maria now; but it had previously belonged to Felicia, Anna, Alice and Selena. Marcie’s had belonged to Annamarie, Alesa, Felicia—and also Maria.

  At any one time there was always a Maria, an Angela, a Felicia and a Selena working.

  So, it was time to find out who was actually paying for these phones.

  Drew replaced the papers on the trolley and headed back to his office for a conversation with Telstra.

  Dorrie’s phone was in the name of Maria Ramos, a citizen of the Philippines who had supplied her passport number to Telstra when she had first got the phone in 2010. Bills were paid every month. In cash. In Cairns post offices. Maria Ramos’s address was 1A Sheridan Street, Cairns.

  ‘Um,’ said the helpful man from Telstra. ‘It does appear that may not be her current address. Some bills have been returned by Australia Post. But since she’s been paying in cash, we wouldn’t have worried.’

  ‘No,’ said Drew, ‘I don’t think that’s her address at all.’ He was looking out the window of his office directly at the site that was 1A Sheridan Street.

  Marcie’s phone was in the name of Felicia Sanchez. Also a citizen of the Philippines. Also supposedly living at Sheridan Street when she had first got her phone, in November 2011, with someone also paying bills monthly in Cairns. Drew ran a check on Felicia. Yes, she had entered Australia in November 2011 on a one-year student visa.

  And had not yet exited the country.

  The other phone accounts had been set up in Sydney, but with the same story: women, Filipino citizens who paid monthly, in cash, in various post offices in Cairns. Two of these women, Alesa and Selena, had also overstayed their visas.

  He did a comprehensive search of missing persons across the country. None of the over-stayers had been reported as missing, either by friends or by family from the Philippines. And it seemed the Immigration Department had taken no great interest in these students of the Hawthorne School o
f English who had not returned to their home country to use their acquired English skills.

  Where were they?

  ***

  Cass arrived at the hospital mortuary at eleven on Thursday morning for the autopsy on Dorentina Lavides. After putting on a paper gown in the hallway, she stepped into the autopsy room to find Laurie and Leah Rookwood already there. This was a place that gave no hint of worldly comfort. Easy-to-hose-down white tiles covered the walls from floor to ceiling. The instruments Laurie was setting out were of cold steel, as was the dissection table on which lay Dorentina’s body. Life here was reduced to the absolute essentials of the human frame and its inevitable end.

  ‘Hi Cass,’ said Leah. ‘If I wasn’t dressed like this, I’d give you a hug.’

  Cass smiled and air-kissed her. Leah was wearing a blue paper surgical gown and bright blue rubber gloves. Topped off by a pointed blue paper hat that barely contained her grey curls, she looked like a cheerful witch.

  Leah was Zak’s mother, but she’d become a trusted friend of Cass’s well before Cass had ever met Zak. They’d worked together on several cases. And since she and Zak had become an item, there’d been numerous invitations to the flat Leah shared with her Iraqi husband Ali, as well as to the house on Rookwood Island that had been in her family for generations.

  ‘You’re seeing the boy again soon?’ Leah now asked. She was extremely fond of this smart young woman whom her son was smitten with. She very much hoped that the relationship would flourish once Zak came back to Cairns next year and that the two would move in together. She knew that’s what her son wanted. But Leah had long ago learnt to stay out of other people’s affairs of the heart.

  ‘Yes, going down on Friday next week. And I have four days off.’

  ‘Give him my love. But I’ll see you before then, anyway. Now I just need you to check this, please.’

  Cass checked Marcie’s signature on the consent form in Dorentina’s notes, where the ED physician had written: ‘Needs autopsy—unexpected death from haemorrhage, exact source and cause not known, death without medical assistance.’

  Cass was always surprised at how small people looked on that table. This was even more so in the case of Dorentina Lavides. She was a slight young woman with very long black hair pulled into a ponytail that fell over the end of the table almost to the floor. She wore a T-shirt that had once been white and a black lace bra. Laurie carefully cut away and removed these items. Her lower half was already completely naked, her pubic hair shaved off—no doubt essential for her clientele who demanded a pubescent appearance and willing manner. Blood was caked on her legs and lower abdomen. Laurie gently swabbed off some of this.

  Despite her naturally dark skin and, allowing for the fact of death and the artificial lighting, Cass could see that the dead woman was extraordinarily pale, almost greenish in the harsh light. Across her lower abdomen ran a thickened transverse scar. Leah was carefully studying this.

  ‘Her cousin said she’s had a child, by caesarean,’ Cass told Leah. ‘Is that a caesarean scar?’

  ‘More than likely,’ replied Leah. ‘Where’s that child now, do you know?’

  ‘In the Philippines,’ said Cass. ‘Her cousin told me yesterday. A boy. Aged three. Looked after by an older woman who was no doubt dependent on the money sent back by his mother. God knows what will happen to them now.’

  ‘What I’m interested in is underneath that scar,’ said Leah. She ran her hand over the woman’s lower abdomen and then Cass could see that there was a swelling underneath it.

  ‘I think we’ll find she was pregnant,’ Leah said slowly. ‘Which casts a very different light on the history of bleeding to death.’ She turned to Laurie. ‘Can you ask Dr Ortega to come down sooner rather than later, please?’

  She turned back to Cass. ‘Susie Ortega’s the doctor you met the other night. She’s a gynaecologist. She wanted to see the autopsy anyway, at least the relevant organs, to see how the woman died. She’ll be very interested if we find a pregnancy because there are all sorts of pregnancy complications—miscarriage and abortion for a start—that could have occurred, that may have led to her death.’

  Laurie had already weighed and measured the body. Leah turned on her voice recorder and began. ‘Body is that of a young woman of Asian appearance, 150 centimetres tall, weight 46.5 kilograms, slim but adequately nourished. Hair black, skin olive, eyes brown. Marked pallor of conjunctivae, lips, mouth, tongue, nail beds. Old blood covering lower limbs and vulva. Pfannenstiel scar on lower abdomen with some keloid formation. Visible central suprapubic swelling. Old healed displaced fracture of left radius and ulna. Photos taken.’

  With Laurie’s help, Leah lifted the body, inspecting for further scars or distinguishing marks. There was the tattoo along the inside of her left arm: Ronny.

  ‘That’s the name of her son,’ Cass said, remembering Jordon when he was three—how she would wrap him in a towel and tickle him when she took him out of the shower. She, too, had been a very young mother. But she had a family who had helped her enjoy nearly every minute of that time. Had Dorentina Lavides in her short life ever had time to enjoy her little boy? There would be no further chance of that.

  Laurie placed a wooden block under Dorentina’s shoulders so that her arms and hands fell sideways and her head flopped back, leaving her chest protruding forward. Her small breasts, mottled purple and white like marshmallow, fell to each side. The tiny dark nipples stood out like chocolate buds on cupcakes. This position would make Leah’s access to the chest and abdomen easier, Cass knew, but it made Dorentina seem even more waif-like.

  Cass had seen many autopsies. The smell of formalin and disinfectant, the clatter of steel on steel, instruments suddenly dropped or moved in the presence of death; none of these worried her in the way she knew they disturbed Leslie Fernando. But she always found the initial incision unnerving, and today was no exception. She couldn’t help flinching as Leah made a deep cut from the right shoulder across to the left, then extended the incision into a T shape with a second cut directly in the midline, between the woman’s breasts and down to just above the caesarean scar. Cass averted her eyes slightly as Laurie’s shears snipped each small rib at the sides of the breastbone. He then lifted this up in one piece, exposing the heart and lungs. Leah spread open the abdomen through the long cut she had already made, displaying all the abdominal organs. Again, Cass could see that these were unusually pale, the colour of ivory piano keys. Almost all of the blood of Dorentina Lavides had been emptied onto the floor of the Palmlands Motel.

  Expertly Leah and Laurie removed the heart and lungs in one block and the gut in another. While Laurie set these out on trays Leah turned her attention to the lower part of the abdomen.

  ‘Aha!’ she said. ‘Look here!’

  Cass peered in.

  ‘That’s her uterus,’ Leah explained, lifting up a pale pink globe the size of a rockmelon. ‘Enlarged by pregnancy. And see here,’ she pointed to bubbles of tissue on the lower part, ‘that stuff like tiny grapes, that’s placenta that has grown through the scar of her caesar. It’s called placenta percreta.’

  Leah made a long incision with her scalpel through the thick muscled wall of the uterus.

  ‘Let’s see if there’s a foetus,’ she said. Cass suddenly felt nauseous. She hadn’t expected anything like this. Then the door opened and in came Susie Ortega, already gowned and drawing on gloves. Cass was happy to move back towards the edge of the room so Susie could be at Leah’s side.

  ‘Ah!’ said Susie. ‘Pregnant.’ She peered into the uterus that Leah was opening.

  ‘No foetus,’ she said, ‘but there’s placenta and cord there.’

  ‘Yes,’ Leah agreed. ‘But the placenta’s torn near the insertion of the cord. And as you can see, the placental tissue’s growing right through the wall of the uterus. Percreta. Lots of haematoma around it. The cord’s right down into the vagina.’

  She passed a hand down inside the uterus and withdrew the cord.r />
  ‘The vagina feels intact,’ she said. ‘No obvious lacerations and certainly no foreign object in there. The cord was curled up in the vagina, so the paramedics obviously couldn’t see it. And they had no time anyway to realise she was pregnant.’

  ‘So,’ said Susie slowly, ‘I take it your people didn’t find a foetus at the motel, Detective?’

  Cass shook her head emphatically. ‘No, they did not.’

  ‘My guess would be an abortion then,’ said Susie. ‘Probably with medication. Misoprostol’s used a lot in the Philippines, I’ve heard. Illegal of course but it’s easily available. Did they find any tablets in her room?’

  ‘We found some silver foil that looked like it had contained tablets,’ said Cass. ‘We’ve sent it for analysis.’

  ‘That could be what she used,’ said Susie. ‘And I’d guess that she probably passed the foetus all right and put it down the toilet.’

  ‘And then began to bleed like stink,’ said Leah.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Susie. She turned to face Cass. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘there are some things here that are just immediately obvious to Leah and me that I must explain to you. The first is that she’s had at least one caesarean section, we can see the scar in the uterus. Then with this pregnancy, the placenta’s grown over that scar from inside the uterus and because the scar is thinner tissue than normal the placenta’s grown right through.