Scarlet Stiletto - the Second Cut

by Phyllis King

  ‘I know you think it’s asking a lot and it probably is,’ Anna’s words are scurrying now, rapid and firm. ‘But we need you, and you know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t a big deal.’

  My face is set, and I can feel the spot of red high on my cheeks. I hold my pottery cup tightly.

  ‘It’s always a big deal - it’s never not a big deal. That’s got nothing to do with it.’ I take a sip, reach for objectivity. ‘But I don’t do it anymore. Send my apologies to Jim, and I wish everyone the best. But no, I won’t consider. And please don’t pull out the photos. Jack and Brian will be home soon and I don’t want them to see that stuff.’

  She looks like she’s stuck in concrete, and I feel for her. But it wasn’t me that invited her; I’ve never sent out any feelers, never given even a hint that I might go back to work again. Have, in fact, actively rebutted all the attempts that Jim has made to drag me back in.

  I have a life now. A life within a life.

  ‘So you’re just going to be a stay-at-home mum? Play dough, and kinder groups, and messing about in the garden?’

  Anna’s voice is lemonish. She’s always been a bit of a bad loser, which suits her job but makes for poor acquaintance.

  Just a mum? My sensibilities are strident, but I’m the victor so I try not to sound too self-righteous. ‘I’m retired, Anna. You might retire one day and find that you like it.’

  ‘Not when I’m 38.’

  She’s given up now. In a split-second her whole manner goes into retreat. I relax.

  Then she says: ‘It’s kids, Arty.’

  My startle hums electric. I feel a jump inside.

  Oh no.

  It’s evening. Brian and Jack get back from their walk around our twelve acres, and I make pizza. Jack helps, his stubby fingers sprinkling flour onto the kitchen table, onto the floor. Flour looks like dusting chalk, for getting latents off dark surfaces.

  We eat pizza squares as the light fades, and Jack and Brian play hide and seek while I clean up. Then the mood is spoiled when Brian and I argue over the fact that I always forget to lock the gate to the chook pen, and why is it always my turn anyway.

  I feel guilty and soured, because it has nothing to do with the chooks.

  I’m doing the breakfast dishes, standing skewed to the sink and slopping the plates side-on - my tummy doesn’t fit forward any more - while Jack plays in the garden. I find washing dishes a meditative activity. It lets me think, while my hands move on automatic; dip, swipe, rinse, drain.

  Of course I’m thinking about it. I can’t help but think about it, as though Anna has planted a tiny seed, a piece of irritating grit inside the oyster that gets worked over, and tongued and smoothed. These oyster seeds form the nacre of pearls eventually, I remind myself.

  Well, this may end up a black pearl; beautiful but terrifying. I admit that the thought of re-entering Death World has me terrified. People like Jim, and Ruth from the M.E.’s office, used to say I had a gift - a ‘unique talent’, they called it. But all the bullshit blandishments in the world can’t make up for the fact that it’s a talent for understanding ugliness.

  Brian wanders in from the shed outside just as I realise that I’ve soaked my shirt-front again.

  ‘Oh, wonderful.’

  ‘Mm, wet T-shirt contest.’

  ‘This isn’t for your benefit,’ I say, eye-rolling, holding my shirt out with pinned fingers.

  ‘Pity,’ he grins, all waggling eyebrows. ‘Need any help with that?’

  ‘No, you,’ I give him a pretend punch on the shoulder, smiling now myself. Then I strip off my shirt and walk to the laundry basket on the sideboard, standing in my fisherman’s pants and black maternity bra while I hunt for a new top.

  Brian yanks the sink plug while I pull on one of his T-shirts, and something so lovely about him strikes me then, and I know I have to tell him.

  ‘Anna dropped in yesterday.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ He sounds casual, but I know that tone. I nod at him, as he wipes down the benchtop.

  ‘Well, you know - she never really drops in.’

  ‘She wanted to drop something on you, is that what you mean.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you’re thinking about it?’ He looks surprised, and he should be.

  What’s more surprising is that his question brings my answer to the surface immediately, when I’ve spent all this time considering the massive list of negatives.

  ‘Yeah, I am.’ I sigh heavily and smooth my hands over my bulging stomach. ‘It’s kids, Brian. And they need my help.’

  His eyes go down; he’s wiping the bench top over and over.

  ‘Well, you know what I think.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They never don’t need your help.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘And I would have thought... Well, wouldn’t that sort of case just make it worse?’

  I’m stuck then, because he’s right. I just shrug and sort of flail my hands a bit. He looks at me then with the same expression he reserves for the domestic animals flopping painfully on his vet’s examination table - compassionate but nonplussed. It’s a kind of ‘oh dear, what’ve you gone and done now?’ look.

  ‘Arty, I know you’re good at this,’ he grimaces and sighs. ‘Shit. Are you sure you want to take this on now?’

  I walk over and nudge him with my stomach, which is a bit underhanded; I slip my arms around his neck as he turns, tuck my face against his shoulder.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I say, muffled against his shirt. ‘I’m not sure at all, but I can’t stop thinking about it. And I really need a hug now, if that’s all right.’

  So he puts his arm around my ridiculous waist and hugs me, cradling me sideways, his cheek on my crown, and in my present state that’s as snugged-up close as we can get.

  Jim’s email is ecstatic, of course, but I’ve laid down strict rules in my terse reply, and pointed out that if the line gets crossed I’ll pull the plug tout-suite.

  ‘Toot-sweet!’ Jack says, clapping his hands and smiling as we play puzzle blocks on the floor, although it’s getting harder to get up off the floor these days. We have a nap together after lunch, then go out in the garden. Brian gets home about 5.30, and after the dinner and bedtime rituals are performed I take my peppermint tea into the tiny book-closet study, switching on the computer with slightly shaky fingers, opening my email with a deep breath.

  And there it is; my reply returned to me. Underneath my tightly-worded peremptories - no going in to Melbourne; no phone calls to the house during the day; no official visitors; no press; no passing-on-my-number; no... - is Jim’s blithe agreement. And a point up to all the file attachments; all the things I don’t really want to read or see, all the meticulous reports and glossy photo images.

  I sip my tea to steady myself, rub my hand over my belly.

  Everything’s there to start, just as I requested. So my first hesitant step back on the path that returns me to Death World is born from habits and routines so ingrained that they are automatic.

  First actions:

  1) Look at M.E.’s reports - nature and type of wounds, cause of death, evidence of sexual assault?/what kind.

  2) Read prelim, police reports. First visual impressions, poss. changes in crime scenes.

  3) Look at crime scene photos to get a mental picture. Also look at schematic drawings with all directions and footprints noted. Check for anything placed on/taken from bodies, anything added to/missing from the scenes.

  Remember that forensic analysis profiling is not deductive but inductive - observing the elements of the crime and drawing larger conclusions.

  Remember that behaviour reflects personality, and if you want to understand the artist, you must look at his work. In all attempts to profile serial criminal offenders.

  Brian comes in behind me, and I jump. The baby jumps inside me too, and I realise just how tightly I’ve been holding myself. ‘Sorry - you startled me.’ I stretch my back and accept the
mug he’s offering.

  ‘I won’t ask if it’s interesting reading.’

  ‘No, don’t.’ I sip gratefully; the minty hot water refreshes my throat, and my hands warm up on the mug. ‘I’m about to look at the M.E.’s autopsy photos though, so you might not want to stick around.’

  ‘Thanks, I won’t. But it’s getting late, you know.’

  I look at the time on the computer. It’s nearly midnight, I’m shocked to discover. ‘Oh, bloody hell’

  ‘Nearly bedtime, you reckon?’

  I blow out my lips and lean back, rubbing the ever-decreasing space between the bottom of my boobs and the top of my belly.

  ‘Yeah, I guess. But I might just glance at these photos first.’

  Brian’s eyebrows rise. He shrugs and backs out of the room.

  ‘I’ll see you in bed then.’

  ‘Okay, love.’ I can only hope he hears the ruefulness in my voice as he leaves.

  You’d think that after doing this, after seeing these things, sleep would be difficult. A blood-tattered nightmare where pre-adolescent boys and girls reach out with clammy blue-tinged fingertips, the rosy lips of their stab wounds livid and obscene, where the shadowed form of their murderer lurks in grey mental corridors and alleyways.

  Actually, I sleep like a log. I get up often in the night and stagger to the loo to pee, of course, but Brian has to prod me every morning just to get a response.

  ‘Hey, are you all right?’ he asks, too frequently for it to be quite normal. But I just groan and push him away, and he starts rising earlier to make the breakfast for himself and Jack, considering that I seem happy to neglect the necessities.

  The days become routinised. I mean, the days are always routinised, that’s the nature of being a stay-at-home mum. You maintain a kind of inhale-exhale rhythm; time spent inside in quiet absorption, followed by outside playfulness and exertion, around and around again.

  What I mean is that I develop a working pattern. Each night, after Jack’s gone to bed and Brian and I have spent some time together, I sit down in the cluttered book-closet with the reports, photos, clippings, case-files, checklists. I take in a thermos of herbal tea and a hot water bottle, and I have a cushion tucked in my chair, for the small of my back.

  I write emails:

  Jim: note that choice of small fragile vics (note: opportunism) killed in blitz-

  style attack, plus fetishistic rituals postmortem = dependent, insecure, sexually inadequate, immature perp.

  Prob not fully able to hide weirdness from peers, crap job, poor appearance,

  etc.

  Signature ritual actions in midst of disorganised M.O. = serious psychiatric

  probs (ie. professional referral, prev. suicide attempts - check institutional records? or probs with access?)

  Rem the Zolpidem - what time cycle? Is he killing them roughly every month,

  when his next prescription comes through?

  I take notes:

  Child - innocence/vulnerability/lost childhood. Perp is former victim of abuse

  (likely).

  Stab wounds - at least 3/anger, rage/penetrative/bloody, messy. Drugs –

  access? other medications? no struggle, post-mortem rituals + Zolpidem = doesn’t want them aware (remorse? inconsistent with method of disposal)

  Dumping (garbage) - convenient, calculating (diff locations each time) –

  disposing of rubbish?

  INCONSISTENT: child vics have emotional importance – dead kids lose importance/less real?

  And I think a lot, of course.

  A friend, Renee, once told me that when she was pregnant with her first child she started reading the book American Psycho. She related with horror how she was both revolted and sucked in by turns; loathe to continue, but somehow grossly compelled to find out what happened in the book’s finale.

  ‘Afterwards,’ she’d said, curling her lip at the memory, ‘I felt like I’d been soiled, and even worse, like I’d somehow infected the baby with all that horrible psychic energy.’

  She’d stopped, watching her son’s bright golden head as he dashed about the playground.

  ‘Does that sound stupid? Aamon’s fine, of course. I still feel weirdly guilty about it, though.’

  I think about that while I sit on the couch with Jack, while he dances his fingers up the hill of my belly. He rests them on the top there, and we wait. Then - boink, the kick inside answers, makes his little finger-soldier bend at the knees, and he laughs and I laugh, my belly wobbling further. I stroke his hair with my palm, rub noses with him.

  Something in my smile must belie contentment though, or Brian wouldn’t catch my eye.

  ‘How do you do it?’ he asks softly, and frowns in confusion. ‘All that stuff, about kids...’

  I understand - he means ‘detachment’. People used to ask this question, but I hadn’t realised that Brian was still under any illusions about it.

  ‘I don’t,’ I answer simply.

  ‘What stuff about kids?’ Jack pipes up, and Brian and I exchange glances while I kiss Jack’s cheek.

  ‘Nothing, sweetheart,’ I say. ‘Nothing at all.’

  It’s been three weeks, Jack’s rolling up and down the floorboards on his trike, and I’m chopping capsicums for a stir-fry, thinking about singularity.

  Modus operandi is dynamic, it is learned behaviour, what the perp does to

  commit the crime. The signature of the perp is the element-set that makes the crime stand out - the personal compulsion, which remains static, where the M.O. can change. Holmes is frequently quoted: ‘Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring home’.

  Thus cleaning and covering the victims is NOT remorse, but reflects the

  signature, which is inconsistent with the use of Zolpidem. Again with the inconsistent!

  My midwife is Jeanette. She’s no more thrilled about my return to Death World than Brian and I are.

  She wraps the blood-pressure cuff around my arm, uncoiling the tube. ‘Thought you’d said you weren’t gonna go there anymore?’

  Somehow Jeanette understands that Death World is a place of its own, with particular geography (streets, landmarks), with particular inhabitants. Maybe her job, as a guardian of life’s gateway, gives her some insight. I rub my bare feet on the floor rug, watch Jack watching the blood-pressure process.

  ‘They sort of twisted my arm,’ I say lamely.

  Jeanette glowers at ‘them’ and checks her readings. Then she looks up at me, ‘Tell them not to twist so hard. You need more rest. I can write it up, if you like.’

  ‘A get-out-of-jail-free card?’ I grin.

  ‘Not funny. And not so many late nights.’

  I open my mouth but she raises one flat palm.

  ‘Don’t start; I can tell.’ She lays her palm down on my rounded mountain-top. ‘I mean it, Arty. Five weeks isn’t far away -maybe sooner. You’ve got your own baby to think about. Prioritise that.’

  But after she’s gone I still worry about other people’s babies, walking ashy streets in that other country where time is immemorial and footprints vanish faster than you make them.

  In the aisle at the supermarket I’m trying to decide on which brand of tuna and when I turn back...

  Jack’s gone.

  I swing my head about - he’s not in the aisle at all - and then I push the trolley up to the next aisle. He’s not there either. Then I abandon the trolley, backtrack, searching, breathless, look — not there - next aisle - not there. I’m moving as fast as my bulk will allow, trying each aisle in turn. Feeling myself starting to hyperventilate as I search, my breaths piling up on each other, my face panicked. And I’m thinking: Oh my god child vics opportunism too easy in country towns Ivan Milat hiding out in a country town oh god trusting children so often it happens so often the statistics, Jesus, baby...

  Until the P.A. system calling my name finally gets through my mental shrieking, and I race to
the customer service desk where my son sits on the bench swinging his legs before a backdrop of cigarettes and shaving razors. I’m so relieved and upset I can hardly speak, and Rick the cashier asks me if I want to sit down or have a drink of water, but I’m too involved in squeezing Jack to even think about what he’s saying.

  Jim, there’s got to be two of them. Signature and M.O. are just too inconsistent,

  I’m getting all the elements of a disorganised opportunist with the clinical deliberate elements of high social function and intelligence - someone else is cleaning up for our perp. That might narrow your suspect list a bit.