‘Geez, I wish he wouldn’t do that!’ Spencer said, frowning.
‘Only been doing it for the past twenty years. Old habits are hard to break, you know.’ Dee looked steadily at him. ‘I’ll tell you something interesting though. I’ve heard four-wheel drives coming past the pub in the early hours of the morning for the last couple of weeks and that’s pretty unusual. Even with the mine shift changes, when they’re running twenty-four hours a day, I don’t hear cars after three in the morning. There were two cars last night. One at three-thirty and the other at four.’
‘You’re very precise with your times,’ Dave said.
‘Sweetheart, when you’re my age, you don’t sleep so good. Anyway, Mary’s been waking me up a lot more recently. She’s pretty bloody noisy with that mop and bucket of hers.’
‘Mary?’
‘Our resident ghost.’
Dave managed not react. ‘I see.’
Spencer opened his mouth to say something, but Dave beat him to it. ‘And how does, uh, Mary wake you up?’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ she said with a grin. ‘I know people think I’m mad, but I don’t care. I haven’t been out in the sun and had me brain fried. I’ve heard her. Even seen her once. One night in the hallway. I was getting up to my sick grandkid, but she’d already beaten me to it.’
Dave felt goosebumps spread across his skin and looked around as if Mary might be standing behind him.
‘Mary lives here and has done for the whole time I’ve owned the place,’ Dee continued. ‘I’ve done research on her and everything. She’s a chambermaid from the late 1800s and she used to rattle her mop and bucket when it was time for everyone to leave.’ She leaned closer to Dave. ‘That’s what I hear. The rattling of the mop and bucket,’ she whispered.
Spencer cleared his throat. ‘You’ll have to work harder if you want to frighten Dave. He used to be a farmer and now he’s a cop, so he doesn’t frighten that easy.’
Dave nodded in agreement, pretending her story hadn’t affected him.
‘I’m just telling it how it is,’ Dee said. She gently thumped Spencer on the arm. ‘You know about Mary, dontcha?’
‘I do and I’ve heard her,’ Spencer said quite seriously.
‘Hey, I didn’t say I didn’t believe!’ Dave put in.
Dee burst out laughing. ‘No need to sound so defensive, love! Gotta tell you my stories while you’re here. Now, back to poor Timmy Tucker.’
‘Yeah, let’s focus on the work,’ Spencer said. ‘You heard one vehicle at three-thirty and one at four?’
‘Yep, sure did.’
‘Both coming from the same direction?’
‘Nope. One came in from west of town and the other came in from the main road to Barrabine.’
Dave wrote down the information in his notebook. ‘Was it strange enough for you get up and have a look?’ he asked.
‘Only because I had to get up and go to the loo. It was a red wagon of some sort. Not a mining vehicle.’
Dave looked at her quizzically and Spencer explained quickly, ‘There’s a difference between leases, tenements and mines. When people talk about the mines it’s the big company-owned mines, like the ones I showed you on the first day. They have shift changes every twelve hours and mostly the blokes drive around in white single- or dual-cabs with orange flags on them. Sometimes they have an orange flashing light on the roof. Not all, admittedly, but ninety percent of them. When Dee says it wasn’t a mine vehicle, she’s saying it didn’t look like a vehicle which would be carting mine employees around.’
Dave nodded. ‘Okay, so red? Nothing to do with mining. Privately owned then?’
‘I couldn’t say that, but certainly not a mine one. And it’s not local ’cause I would’ve recognised it otherwise.’ She took the tea towel from her shoulder and started to wipe the bar.
‘How can you be sure it was red? It would have been dark.’
‘There was enough moon to see. I couldn’t say it was fire-engine red, but red, burgundy,’ she shrugged. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘China or Killjoy been in recently?’ Spencer asked, switching subjects.
‘Nope. Not for about a week. Killjoy said he was heading north to work his lease up outta Karralie.’ She mentioned a town about two hundred kilometres away. ‘He’ll probably only be gone a couple of weeks though. And I don’t reckon he’ll be leaving until after the social club catch-up on Saturday night.’
‘Social club?’
‘All the locals come in once a month and have a catch-up. It’s this Saturday night, so he won’t be going until after.’
That tied in with what Tim had told them about meeting his friends this weekend. Dave ran through what he knew and at this point it wasn’t much.
‘Do you think it could have been the same car?’ he asked.
‘What, going to somewhere and back again?’ Her smoky voice held a ring of disbelief. ‘Can’t get anywhere out here in half an hour, love.’
‘What if they were going somewhere and had forgotten something, so turned around to go back and get it?’ he asked.
‘If you live out here and are driving around at that time of the day, I’d think you’re going to be a lot more organised than that. Who’d want to start off at three-thirty and have to turn around?’ she said in a scornful tone.
‘Point there,’ Spencer said.
Dave jotted down: Camped one side of town, killed on the other, back again? He’d talk more to Spencer about it when they were in the car.
‘Oh, bugger me,’ Dee said and put down her tea towel, wide-eyed. ‘I’ll tell you what I just remembered. Couple of nights ago there was a bloke in here who had a huge nugget, and I mean huge.’ She held her fingers about an inch apart and Spencer whistled. ‘He was bragging about it and no one does that. Not much anyway. I did hear him say he’d heard a dog barking in the distance that had put the wind up him, so he hightailed out of wherever he was.’ She turned excitedly to Spencer. ‘Timmy’s not the only bloke who’s got a dog, but he’s probably the most ferocious one I know of out here. He brought Chief in with him last time he came and he put up a bit of a woofing when my new barmaid walked in. Scared the pants off her, poor love. So they might have been talking about Tim’s place!’
Chapter 7
‘Okay, one body only,’ said Shannon Wood. The forensic pathologist had come straight from the plane to the scene, then on to the hospital. It had taken nearly twenty-four hours from the first phone call to the mine, fire and rescue team to bring the body to the surface. Shannon had arrived just as the all clear had been given for her to descend into the mine and look for evidence. Two days later and Dave was keen for news on what she knew. ‘Male. That’s nearly all I know right now.’
The photos both Shannon and Dave were staring at were graphic against the glare of the whiteboard in the detectives’ office at Barrabine Police Station.
Dave recalled how a man from the mine, fire and rescue team suited up and was winched down the hole. It had been his job to get the remains into a body bag, secure it and get it to the surface. Once the body was retrieved, Shannon had been given the all clear to be lowered down to examine the site, complete with high-powered torches and camera. The inspection had been time-consuming and tedious work under trying conditions.
To Dave, who wasn’t an expert like Shannon was, it didn’t look like they would be able to get any information from the body. The decomposition was advanced, despite the coolness of the underground grave. The facial features were unrecognisable from bloat and skin slip, and the body was coloured a bruised red and green. Of course, even though it looked unidentifiable, with modern methods he knew Shannon would be able to get a lot of info from the body.
‘I’ll take the body back to Perth and finish the rest of the examination there. I just don’t have the facilities here to run the types of tests I need and do a full exam. He’s possibly between the ages of thirty and sixty,’ Shannon said, breaking into Dave’s thoughts.
> ‘Male, then. Anything worth mentioning with the body? I guess you’ve gone through his pockets? Or did you pick up anything down the mine shaft?’ Dave asked. The office was stifling, with the afternoon sun on the west-facing windows, and the air-conditioner wasn’t keeping up. He could feel the sweat running down his spine and he wanted to wipe it away, but he focused on the details Shannon was giving him.
‘Over here.’ She indicated for him to follow her. ‘There are a few things—watch, pen, set of keys, they look like house keys or something similar.’ She poked at them through the bag.
‘We should be able to work out when we’ve got the right person, then,’ Dave joked. ‘We’ll be able to get into his house.’
‘But look at this.’ Shannon took out another bag from underneath the top one. It held three small pieces of gold.
Dave gave a low whistle. ‘Would you look at that,’ he said softly, leaning closer to inspect the nuggets.
‘Pity we don’t know where he got them from,’ she said.
‘Yeah. Spencer said to me once that gold doesn’t come with an address or GPS coordinates. Would make life a lot easier if it did!’ He continued to look at them for a few moments longer before turning back to the keys. ‘I’ll talk to Spencer but I think we can analyse gold and find out what general area it came from. Whether or not it can be narrowed down to sections of the goldfields, I don’t know, but if we can, I’ll get it done. Where did you find them?’
‘Left-hand pocket. Strange really. They were loose in there. I would have thought someone in possession of gold would have had it in a plastic bag, or wrapped up somehow. Loose in a pocket, anything could happen to them—fall out, get lost right in the corner, you know what pockets can be like.’
‘That is weird. Spencer has said a lot of the prospectors carry film canisters—you know, the sort that hold camera film?’
‘Yeah, I know the ones you mean.’ Shannon bent over and put her face close to the plastic bag. ‘It’s a lot darker than I thought gold would be, dull is a better word.’
‘The jewellers haven’t got hold of it and given it a good polish yet.’ He leaned forward too. ‘And it’s still got dirt ingrained in it. See here?’ He pointed with the end of a pen.
Her hair brushed against his arm and he moved a little to the side.
‘Yeah, yeah. Interesting thing, with all the holes and gouges. Some of it looks like there’ve been bubbles inside and burst!’ She straightened. ‘Anyway, how are you liking it out in the sticks?’ she asked.
‘I’m loving it,’ Dave said honestly. ‘Don’t miss the city one bit.’
‘The morgue is so much quieter without you around,’ she elbowed him gently. ‘Always knew when you were coming because your boots clicked loudly on the floor and your laugh was really loud. You’ve got a lovely laugh.’
Dave straightened up and grinned. ‘Don’t mind being known by my laugh. Laughing is much better than frowning.’ As he said it a flash of Melinda’s face from the night before hit him. She’d been standing at the window in the lounge, scowling as some kids walked up and down the street. They didn’t have shoes and were yelling loudly, one was bouncing a football. Two of them had come to the front gate and tried to open it until Ernie had called out over the fence and scared them off. When he’d turned back her face had been contorted into an ugly grimace.
Shannon stood up too and patted his arm. ‘Anyway, we miss you.’
‘You know I have to ask,’ Dave said, changing the subject.
‘Ask what?’
‘Is there a cause of death?’
‘Nothing obvious,’ she said, moving away. ‘No gunshot wound, stab marks, ligature marks. I’ll need to run toxicology and do a proper autopsy. Should have the prelim results to you in two days. Depending, of course, what’s backed up when I get there. I had a phone call yesterday saying we had twelve on the waitlist.’
‘Twelve?’
‘Suicides, unexplained deaths. No murder. Your John Doe should get priority. We’re booked on the flight back tonight.’
‘We’ meant Shannon and the body. One of the frustrating things about policing so far from the city was the lack of resources and the delays this caused. Lengthy time delays meant more decomposition, and the killer, if there was one, would be getting further and further from their grasp, as evidence disappeared, swallowed up by the bloat and active decay of the body.
‘You’ve never told me why you became a forensic pathologist,’ he asked. ‘I mean, how long have we known each other? Two years?’
Shannon thought before nodding. ‘Something like that.’
‘And this scene, it’s not your average one—pretty scary going down into the shaft with the smell and flies. Not knowing what you were going to find. Being so dark. Why’d you sign up for that sort of thing?’ He remembered some of the younger officers ogling the pretty pathologist when she’d first arrived. Betting each other who was going to get her out on a date first; admiring her curves and long hair. He might have been interested himself if he hadn’t been seeing Melinda by then.
Shannon pulled her hair back and curled it into a bun at the back of her head before securing it with a hair band she had on her wrist. ‘My grandmother,’ she said. ‘She was found in the state forest three months after she’d gone missing. She had dementia and had wandered off. The police and SES spent days looking for her but it wasn’t until a couple of hikers came through that she was found. And then it took a little while for her to be identified.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I just wanted to make sure people were looked after when they were brought into the morgue and identified as quickly as possible. It’s awful not knowing what’s happened to your loved one, and I can say that from experience. When Nana wasn’t found, it was like a big question mark hanging over our heads, and the fewer people who have to go through that the better.’
They left the office and walked out into the hallway. The sun didn’t penetrate into the middle of the building and it was much cooler. Shannon walked to an air-conditioning vent and stood underneath it, her head tilted backwards to catch the cool air.
‘That’s much better! What about you?’ she asked. ‘I always knew you were a country boy, so I guess I’m not surprised to see you out here.’
‘How’d you know that? I didn’t tell too many people.’ He’d still been smarting from the injustice of his father’s dismissal when he’d arrived in Perth and had kept his past to himself.
‘The way you dressed. Your boots! And your casual demeanour. I had cousins who were from a farm and you all act the same.’
Leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, Dave answered, ‘I always thought I was going to be a farmer. That’s what I wanted to be. Dad has five thousand acres at Northam. He does a bit of cropping but the main business is merinos. Wool and wethers.’ He paused and scratched his head. ‘Got two older brothers, one who’s married, and they got the berth, not me. Not enough land for four families to make a living.’
‘Tough,’ she said.
‘Yeah. I worked around for a bit—you know, working on other people’s farms. Even toyed with the idea of trying to buy a bit of land myself, but I couldn’t make it work. So I had to think of another way to be involved in agriculture and live in the country.’
Shannon looked up at him. ‘How does being in the police force keep you involved in farming?’
‘The stock squad,’ he answered simply.
Realisation dawned on her face. ‘Oh, I get it.’ She nodded. ‘Yeah, I really do.’
He started to walk off down the hallway and Shannon followed.
‘How’d you go down the shaft?’ Dave asked.
‘Just got to focus on what needs to be done. Interesting though, one thing I can tell you—and the guys have photos of this—there aren’t any scratch marks at the bottom of the mine, but there are on the way down. I can see where he’s reached out and tried to stop himself from falling—you know what I mean?’
Dave nodded.
‘T
he pools of blood I found down there were small. His heart wasn’t beating or didn’t beat for long when he hit the ground. There were splatters of blood and scratch marks on the upper part of the mine walls. Even with the decomposition, I can tell his fingertips are very badly grazed, but I’m really hoping I’ll be able to get partial prints at least. Anyway, what I’m saying is he hadn’t tried to get out of the mine once he’d fallen in, so he wasn’t unconscious or dead when he first fell but he was by the time he got to the bottom.’
‘Do you have a time frame?’
‘Hard to tell with the differences in temps but I’d guess maybe five days. Possibly six.’ She shrugged and gave him a half-smile. ‘Dave, you understand that I’ll know more when I get back to Perth.’
‘I know, I know, just thought I’d push it as far as I could.’
‘You detectives are all the same!’ She glanced at her watch. ‘You’ve got to wait for the science. Anyway, I’ve got two hours before my flight leaves. Do you want to have a drink before I go?’
Dave realised the day had flown and it was now past six o’clock. ‘I’d love to, but I’d better go and catch up with Spencer, then get home. Melinda will be wondering where I am.’
Shannon’s face flamed red. ‘Shit! I’d forgotten you’d got married. Sorry! Well, I’d better get organised. I’ll send through the results as soon as I have them.’
Dave opened his mouth to ask why she was apologising but Shannon turned quickly and disappeared into the ladies’ toilet.
He frowned. She’d always been shy around him, but completely professional. Never once indicated she’d been interested in him. Dave admitted to himself that if he hadn’t been with Melinda he would have asked Shannon out on a date. It had been her eyes which had caught his attention first—vivid pale blue but always sparkling, no matter how awful the case was. It had taken Dave nearly eight months to realise she had long black hair under the medical cap she always wore, and was slim and pretty beneath the gown and mask. She also understood his work. To someone who worked strange hours and seemed to be on call twenty-four hours a day, that was attractive.
Fool's Gold Page 7
