Scarlet Stiletto - the Second Cut

by Phyllis King

  Mirabelle, resplendent in a purple flowing mu-mu, started the ceremony with the lighting of incense, some chanting and the tapping of bells. Shalini was then invited, on behalf of the children of the school, none of whom were in attendance, to place a flower on the spot where the body was found and engage in a spot of liturgical dancing with scarves and a tambourine. Shalini, who thoroughly enjoyed the attention of the crowd, decided to change it into a dance of the seven veils and started shedding her clothes during the performance. She also incorporated a few moves that made me think she had been avidly watching Saturday morning Video Hits even though I knew Mirabelle had previously claimed not to own a television.

  After several minutes we discovered even Mirabelle had her limits as she tried to bring the performance to a close. Shalini was eventually dragged away kicking and yelling about respecting artistic differences. It led to an awkward silence as everyone noticed the cracks in the ceiling or the scuff marks on the floor. Finally, Sue stepped forward and thanked everyone for coming, at which there was a charge for the exit from people desperate to leave before Mirabelle returned to continue the ceremony. Princess Anne left the room looking red-eyed. She was the only one looking upset, as opposed to the rest of us who were a mixture of annoyed at having to come and relieved about getting out of there far more quickly than we expected. I stayed behind to put away the chairs and tidy up. Rosa came over to help.

  ‘Anne looked a bit sad. Did she even know Zarko?’ I queried.

  ‘Yeah, he was her house cleaner.’ Rosa answered. ‘He used to clean for a few of the parents as well, like Mirabelle. All cash in hand kind of stuff. Nice if you’ve got the money.’

  We grabbed the pint sized chairs that everyone had been forced to sit on for the last twenty minutes as a kind of ritualistic torture and stacked them in the crafting corner.

  ‘The police are no closer to working out who did murder Zarko,’ I told Rosa. ‘Mick was in picking up George yesterday and said that they are still waiting on forensics but really had nothing to go on. Mick says all of the resources are tied up with those underworld killings so it’s going to be ages before they get any results.’

  ‘Any word when we’re getting our compass back?’ asked Rosa.

  ‘I don’t think we are,’ I replied.

  ‘Darn - that looked like a good compass.’ Rosa finished stacking her chairs and then started to move back some of the tables that had been shoved in the corner out of the way for the ceremony. She seemed to be a bit worried about something and finally blurted out: ‘Look there’s one thing that has been bothering me. It’s about the alarm.’

  The Centre, like every other these days, was well alarmed against the occasional opportunistic burglary, though to be honest you’d think they would explore more fruitful opportunities unless they specialised in the distribution of hot pots of Clag Glue.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked her.

  ‘When we came in on the day we found Zarko, you turned it off. That’s right isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well it should have been off already. Zarko would have turned it off when he came in to clean. He would only turn the alarm back on when he left.’

  I pondered this for a while. ‘So you are saying that the person who killed him turned on the alarm. Why?’

  ‘No idea. But it narrows down who the killer might be.’

  ‘Half the Kinder community has the alarm code,’ I answered.

  ‘Not any more they don’t. Remember the break-in last year when the door was forced? After that we changed the alarm codes, so the only people with the codes are employees and Sue as President.’

  I pondered this some more. Lindy walked over, having overheard the part of the discussion about the alarm.

  ‘And Mirabelle,’ she said.

  ‘How did Mirabelle get the code?’ asked Rosa in exasperation.

  ‘Remember when she wanted the Kinder to celebrate the pagan ritual of the Mother rather than Easter this year? She had to come in early to decorate and as none of us wanted to come in, I gave her the code.’

  Rosa looked at Lindy in a double shot espresso kind of way. ‘Well,’ she said heavily, ‘that leaves the employees, Sue and Mirabelle, unless everyone has given out the code willy nilly.’

  ‘I haven’t given the code to anyone,’ I answered ‘and Sue won’t have.’ Sue took official duties very seriously.

  ‘I haven’t either,’ Rosa stated firmly, ‘so that leaves a very small number of people who would have known what time Zarko actually cleaned and the alarm code to re-alarm the door.’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t know when Zarko cleaned, were surprised he was here and killed him?’ I pondered aloud.

  ‘Come on,’ said Rosa. ‘What else were they here to do - steal the precious artworks? Of course they must have been here to kill him.’

  ‘You think it was deliberate?’ asked Lindy a little shakily.

  ‘He is six foot four and was found with a giant compass in the back of his head. I don’t think he tripped.’ Rosa’s voice was dripping with sarcasm now.

  Clearly I was no Miss Marple, as it didn’t make much sense to me, but Lindy looked a bit dazed and sat down heavily on the last unstacked tiny chair.

  ‘I think I know who did it then,’ Lindy said.

  ‘Yeah right,’ said Rosa. ‘OK let me guess: Miss Scarlett in the home corner with the wooden compass.’

  ‘No I’m serious,’ answered Lindy. ‘I know who killed him, I just don’t have the foggiest idea why’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘If you don’t tell us then you are bound to get shot by the stranger on the grassy knoll,’ scoffed Rosa.

  Lindy stood up. ‘You wouldn’t believe it if I told you anyway.’ She quickly walked away, past Princess Anne who had just entered the room. She had reapplied her makeup and seemed to have pulled herself together.

  ‘I’m off,’ she said.

  ‘You should have heard what Lindy was saying.’ Rosa said. ‘She reckons she knows who killed Zarko.’

  Anne said nothing but began to look upset again.

  ‘Oh well - I’m heading home.’ I moved towards the hall. ‘See you Monday’

  ‘Wait up,’ said Rosa, ‘I’ll come with you.’

  We walked out to our cars together. ‘Let’s go for a coffee,’ suggested Rosa.

  ‘What was up with Lindy?’ I wondered. ‘And what’s up with you - you were a bit rough on her.’

  ‘I probably was a bit. The Union got back to me yesterday; no go from the Department about the danger money.’

  I laughed, ‘It’s only an extra thirteen cents an hour.’

  ‘It’s the principle,’ answered Rosa huffily.

  I could see she was pretty steamed. ‘Alright, coffee it is.’

  Half an hour later we came back to the cars again. Before I got into mine, I looked back towards the Kinder and noted that the lights were still on.

  ‘Hang on,’ I called to Rosa. ‘Lindy must have forgotten to turn off the lights.’

  Rosa looked back and then checked around the street ‘No look, there’s her car. She must still be in the Kinder.’

  Sure enough there was Lindy’s sporty little Holden Astra with the numberplates Lindy 666. We liked to joke it was because Lindy could be a beast but I think it was some poorly judged attempt by her parents to celebrate her eighteenth.

  ‘You should go in and say you’re sorry,’ I told Rosa.

  ‘Oh well I guess she needs to know the danger money is not going to come through,’ Rosa said, just a little sheepishly.

  We walked into the hall with its 30 little hooks, noticeboards welcoming new siblings for several of the pupils and other notes reminding parents to please pack a hat every day for Kinder, when we heard yelling. It sounded like Lindy.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Rosa, quietly for her.

  ‘Where’s it coming from?’ I whispered. All of a sudden it felt a little creepy. We tiptoed down the hall t
owards the play room. We slowly looked around the corner. There was Lindy, tied with a skipping rope to one of the tiny chairs in the reading area with Anne standing over her - her back to us. Lindy looked scared but noticed us coming in and motioned with her head for us to stay where we were, just out of Anne’s view.

  ‘But what I don’t understand is why you killed him Anne,’ she said in a clear voice. I noticed that Rosa suddenly grabbed her handbag and began to rummage around inside it.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand would you, carrying on with that Marxist crap but letting Mummy and Daddy pick up all the bills. You think being a nurse working for a Council pays enough? It barely even covers the dry cleaning bill,’ Anne ranted. She seemed demented.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand Lindy. You barely look after yourself, let alone have to provide for a family. I had finally worked out the perfect scam. All those new parents suddenly relying on one income, barely able to cover the costs of their disposable nappies and formula while driving their 4WDs and then suddenly realising that in three short years they will have to find the best Kinder and then school for their kids.’

  ‘Day after day I had to listen to the whingeing and the moaning until at last I couldn’t take it anymore. As long as their address is within the permitted zone they get into this excellent Council-funded Kinder and if they attend this Kinder then they are automatically entitled to apply for the excellent government primary school down the road. And I am the person who types the information into the computer when they make their first visit to me. So all I have to do is type the ‘right’ address and they are in.’

  ‘How much do you get out of it?’ asked Lindy.

  ‘Enough. I mean they are going to save tens of thousands if they don’t need to send their brats to all those high-falutin’ private schools. So if they choose to be generous who am I to knock it back?’ Anne snarled. ‘You should be applauding - I am doing my bit for the public school system. That should fit in with your pseudo-socialist ideals.’

  ‘You are taking kickbacks and rorting the system,’ said Lindy.

  ‘The system that you want to tear down,’ retorted Anne.

  She did have a point.

  ‘But what did Zarko have to do with it?’ Lindy asked.

  ‘I had deliberately chosen him as my cleaner at home. He can’t read English. I got over-confident, started to be sloppy. One day I accidentally left out my bank statements. How was I to know he had his nephew moonlighting for him here and at my house? A nephew studying to be a computer analyst what’s more. He noticed the large payments on my statements from names that corresponded with names he had seen in the appointment book at the Centre.

  ‘He told Zarko, who was no fool. He got his nephew to hack into the computer and realised that people he cleaned for had the wrong address on the system and that they were also the people who had paid me money. He worked it out and started blackmailing me. But then he started getting greedy wanting more. Pretty soon I’d have had to start shopping at Savers like Rosa. That wasn’t going to happen.’

  I could feel Rosa bristling next to me.

  ‘But how did you kill him? He’s twice your size.’

  ‘It was easy. I organised to make a payment to him that morning and while chatting to him pointed out some marks on the floor. He bent over to look and wham I smacked the compass into his head. He underestimated me Lindy; much like you’ve done.’

  ‘And the alarm?’ Lindy queried a little more nervously.

  ‘Who are you, James Bond? Don’t think you are getting out of this one. Alright, so I stuffed up there. Being a nurse you do everything by routine, so force of habit I suppose,’ Anne answered. ‘I was so used to putting it on every time I left here for the last five years I just did it.’

  ‘What happens now?’ asked Lindy ‘You can’t leave me tied up here with a skipping rope.’

  ‘I don’t intend to,’ Anne replied nastily. ‘You see Mirabelle prepared a whole feast for the cleansing ceremony that no one bothered to eat. It’s vegan, of course; but not nut free, I’m afraid.

  Typical Mirabelle, thinking that rules never apply to her. So it would be terrible if someone who suffered from anaphylaxis, someone like you Lindy, accidentally ate one of these very nutritious but absolutely inedible nut patties that she has left behind. I, of course, will do my best and try to resuscitate you but I have a feeling it will be too little too late. So sorry that your last meal is likely to be one of the most tasteless. ‘

  Anne started moving towards Lindy holding a nut patty in her hand.

  That was too much for Rosa who, in one sudden movement, ran into the room picked up one of the kids’ painting easels and ran at Anne with it, screaming for all she was worth.

  Anne turned around and copped the corner of the easel to the head. She fell to the floor out cold. ‘ Jesus!’ said Lindy. ‘You haven’t killed her have you Rosa?’

  Anne wasn’t looking too good, with a trail of red trickling down the side of her head.

  ‘Don’t worry, I think it’s paint,’ Rosa panted.

  ‘Untie me,’ said Lindy. ‘Did you hear what she said about killing Zarko?’

  ‘Not only that,’ boasted Rosa, looking very proud of herself, ‘I recorded it all on my mobile phone.’

  Mick Bakula was again the officer sent out to the Kinder. ‘Christ, to think we leave our kids with you,’ he said once he saw Anne hogtied with the same skipping rope.

  ‘What I don’t understand, Lindy,’ I said, ‘is how you knew it was Anne?’

  ‘Well,’ she explained, ‘Rosa working out the bit about the alarm code confirmed what I had already been thinking. When I bent down to feel if Zarko had a pulse that morning I noticed a torn piece of material just near the body. It was Scanlan & Theodore, last season. Now only one person in our Centre, apart from me, would buy that.’

  ‘True,’ said Rosa ‘and now we know how she afforded it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ asked Mick.

  ‘I wanted to talk to Anne first because I thought there must be some explanation but she stayed away from work until today when she returned for the cleansing ceremony,’ answered Lindy and then, with a bit of the radical zeal returning to her face. ‘Besides, I don’t work with the servants of oppressive regimes.’

  ‘But aren’t you a servant of the same regime?’ queried Mick, getting a little heated.

  ‘I’m destroying it from the inside,’ Lindy answered. Mick shook his head in disgust.

  ‘Is the Kinder going to be closed again?’ I asked Mick.

  ‘Yeah,’ he responded gloomily. ‘Just when I ran out of sick leave too.’

  ‘Why are you looking so happy?’ I asked Rosa, as she and I headed for the door. She was literally grinning from ear to ear. ‘Do you see a future for yourself as a freelance crime fighter?’

  ‘That’s not it,’ she answered triumphantly. ‘We’re bound to get that danger money now.’

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  Amanda

  Lois Murphy

  I should probably start by declaring that I have never been a glamorous woman; never a beauty. My personality is far too prominent in my features for me to have ever been considered as anything other than an aside.

  But women, particularly young women, rarely escape from the romantic dream (I’ll refrain from the word bullshit) of the chrysalis emerging from our earthy shells into a stunning butterfly; a sudden release of colour and vitality.

  The gasp of discovery: all plain women have those shameful memories of Cinderella hopes. We coiff ourselves into travesties thinking, this will be the night that we will be recognised; and enter scenes looking grotesque and garish, while elegant women smile effortlessly from the spotlight.

  It was on one of these nights - the last one for me in fact -that I allowed my employer to get me drunk and cajole me into bed. I will try to say I was young, but it was actually five years ago and I’m hardly a debutante, so I will also say, more honestly, that I was stupid.

&
nbsp; I cannot bear how stupid I was. I wear that stupidity every day, dripping down my face, as if I had been spat on.

  I started working for Lachlan James initially as a temp. His secretary had flounced out - inexplicably of course - and he was busy and exasperated.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ he’d told the agency, ‘send me a workhorse, not a show pony.’

  He told me this himself when I arrived, adding that he’d stipulated that he didn’t want a ‘spirited filly’. He was sick of working with women who expected to be admired and pursued. He thought I would do nicely. Within five minutes of meeting he had transformed me into a piece of his furniture.