Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3

by Graham Wilson

  He said, “You were right about catching the fish and questioning the old timer who found this. You are obviously good at your business. But you need to be careful in a place like this. If it was a crocodile that did this to him, it could be sitting below here, just a metre down and the same back and you would never know. In less than a second, before you had a chance to move, it could come out of the water and drag you in. So, if you really need to get that close to the water, I need to be standing right alongside you, with a gun in my hand, and, if possible, you should keep at least a couple steps back and never turn your back to the edge when you are close.

  She looked at him and laughed. Her face was kind of nice when she laughed. She said. “That makes us one all, how about now we both work together, I will trust you for the bush sense and you will trust me for the pathology bit.”

  He laughed back. “Deal,” he said. So they worked side by side, using a grid pattern, along with a long stick to gently move aside leaves and debris without marking the ground. It was amazing how two sets of eyes at different levels and angles could together spot details that one alone might have missed.

  He pointed to some regular scrape marks in the dirt which had mostly been covered by leaves. “Unless I am mistaken someone has used a spade to scrape some dirt away from this place, like they wanted to take off the top half inch of soil. I don’t know how long ago it was done, not too recent with the leaves and dirt, but definitely since the rain last wet season. Out last rain around here was a late burst at the start of May.”

  She nodded. They followed what looked to be the line of the spade marks away from the water. Now she pointed to a place a few metres back. “It might just be a stain, but I am ninety percent sure that is a patch of dried blood, like someone had scraped up most but missed that bit,” she said. “Can you keep your eye on the place and we will photograph it and then I will collect some in a sample jar.”

  Alan called over his constable who carried a camera and had him take several photographs. Then Sandy returned with a jar and scalpel. She dug out a small piece of rust coloured soil and placed it in the jar, then labelled it. By the end of an hour of careful searching together they were almost sure they had worked out where the body originally lay and had also found a scraped away drag route to the edge of the water. They had also found two further small patches of blood like staining that they had also sampled.

  There was also something that looked like an old fireplace part way, off to one side away from the water. The soil was blackened, and there were sprinkles of ash and charcoal, but not the old fire debris which one would expect. And the centre was hollowed out and looked like it had been dug out with a spade not too long ago. Alan said. “It looks like there was a big fire here, maybe to burn stuff. Then when it was finished someone got a spade and dug out the ash and took it away. They may have dumped it somewhere else but my guess is it went into the water. In fact, if you look hard, I think you can see a few bits that have dropped off near the water. It will be something to look for when we go diving, a big pile of ash sitting on top of the mud.”

  Sandy raised her eyebrows and grinned at him. “Quite the bush detective, aren’t you? I could leave now and go away as I think you could have figured this all out without my help.”

  Then she screwed up her nose in mock disgust. “Well I have been avoiding that smelly head for an hour now, but I can’t really leave it cooking in the hot sun any longer. What do you think, time for a proper look?

  He grinned back. “I suppose you must and I will just have to hold my nose while I look on. Glad I don’t have to touch it.”

  Even though it was a baking hot and sweaty early afternoon as the sun streamed down, and lunch had been forgotten, they were totally absorbed in their investigation and barely noticed anything else. They both could feel that buzz of excitement as the shape of something that was not just a crocodile attack began to emerge.

  So Sandy returned her attention to the head. After carefully palpating it through her gloves, and advising him that the left side of the skull was definitely fractured she transferred it to a plastic bag, and placed it in an esky full of ice, to preserve it until it was at the laboratory for a post mortem, later that afternoon.

  Then she announced that she must be on her way, if she was to examine this today. So Alan escorted her back to where the track met the main road and arranged to call to the lab to see her and get some initial results in the morning. It was mid-afternoon before their initial work was done, and Alan and his team were ready to leave.

  A new team had arrived to continue the site investigation over the next two days, to search the billabong nearby for any more body parts or other things which may relate to the victim, and to finish searching the rest of the site. Alan briefed them on what he had found out and what he thought they should look for. He knew this part would be in good hands, it was led by an old techy, Ron. He had been doing this since before Alan was born, and was the best.

  He waved his two constables off and said he would follow behind in the second car. He said they should go straight home; their work for today was done. They said they may stop for a quickie at the pub, something to eat and drink. He nodded and watched them leave.

  Before he left he stood in the shade, just back from the edge of the billabong, for a few minutes. He had always found this last look was valuable, it grounded him in the scene and helped get perspective.

  He reviewed what he knew in his mind. Male adult victim, high likelihood of crocodile involvement, but getting a murder scene feel. Another person was here with the victim who had gone to considerable lengths to hide the evidence of the death. Maybe it was deliberate, maybe accidental; but if so why so much effort to cover up the signs?

  Plenty of questions to be answered: who owned this head, how did he get here, who else was here, how did this person leave, and most of all why, why the death, why the cover up?

  As he stood there contemplating, he saw two eyes watching him. They would have been easy to miss, over in the tree shade at the far side of the billabong. He had seen plenty of crocs in his years and was a fair judge of size.

  This one was a long way away, and the eyes were all that showed. But he knew this was big, bigger than anything he had seen before. It was watching him with intent, maybe as a food item, but the intent seemed more personal and focused; almost a sadness, as if it had lost something it cherished. Not just a meal but a companion lost.

  He shuddered as if the devil was walking over his grave. A picture came, unbidden, into his mind. A huge malevolent but grieving spirit, half man and half crocodile that belonged in this place and yet had a part taken from it and felt loss. It was claiming an ownership to what was taken. He shook his head to break the spell, then walked to his car and drove away.

  He caught up with his constables at the Bark Hut Inn for a five o’clock lunch, washed down with an icy VB. It tasted so good, after the hot sun. He would have loved a couple more but one was his limit when on the job. So he had a couple pint glasses of lemon squash to replace the lost fluids and then drove back to Darwin, following the red ball of a setting sun, falling towards a smoky horizon.

  He was heading back to the office to finish writing up his day’s notes when a thought crossed his mind. Rather than turning down McMillans Road and heading for the station he went on towards the town and then turned right towards Parap, where Charlie’s address was. Sure enough Charlie was sitting on his verandah, beer in hand.

  Charlie waved then covered his face with mock chagrin when he saw the serious look on Alan’s face. Alan walked over and sat in the chair next to Charlie, accepted the proffered beer and took a deep draught. “OK Charlie, I think you had better tell me about the other fish” he said. He could have sworn Charlie was laughing, behind his twinkling eyes.

  “Better still I show you,” said Charlie. He got up and went to the kitchen. He returned with a plate, covered with rice and steaming curry.

  He handed it to Alan and said. “More bette
r to taste than talk.”

  Charley continued. “Maybe you kill me little bit, for not giving you the fish. But if I let you take the fish and not bring them back, my Rosie, she kill me big time. So I have to decide, which trouble is biggest, and I know, better to go to jail than trouble with my Rosie.”

  They sat side by side, each eating a plate of fish curry in the dusk. Both agreed it was the best they had ever tasted. As they sipped their beers the story was told.

  A second beer was brought by a beautiful girl, with honey coloured skin, in her early twenties. She was introduced to Alan as Charlie’s daughter, Becky, who was having her engagement party tomorrow night. The fish curry would cement the bond between the two families. “Once we share this together we will be friends for life,” said Charlie.

  Alan knew the matter of two catfish was something that would stay out of his and the pathologist’s reports. But he had a little plastic box of catfish curry to give to Sandy tomorrow. He was sure she would enjoy both the story and its end result just as much as he had.

  As he was getting up to leave Charlie asked him, dead serious amongst the banter. “Did you feel that bad crocodile spirit ? It not want to let that body go. You tell youse men be real, real careful in that place. Very dangerous crocodile spirit that one. Maybe it is crocodile spirit body, body belong to crocodile and crocodile belong to body.”

  Chapter 4 – Results of a Murder

  Alan rang the laboratory about nine in the morning and got put through to Sandy. She confirmed she had done the post mortem and had some preliminary results for him, which she thought he should see. He said he also had something to give her. They agreed to meet in the cafeteria at ten then he would accompany her back to the lab after a coffee.

  Over coffee he told her about the fish and gave her the box of curry. She laughed and said. “Well I forgot lunch so it looks like this is to take its place. I am sure it is better than my cooking; lived with my folks in Sydney, until six months ago when I came here. Decided it was time to leave the nest, so to speak, one has to make one’s own way in the world eventually. Only trouble is my Mum is a great cook, and she loves to cook. I was lazy and busy with my studies, so somehow I never learned. Hence my cooking is terrible, so this is doubly welcome.”

  He had not mentioned her report and whether it would include the fish. However, it was like she was psychic, or maybe she was more attuned to the Territory than he realised. She said. “I imagine that this is one detail that will never make it into either your or my report. Unless you feel it must of course?” she added with a mocking look.

  He nodded. “No, not relevant, at least it will save me one pain in the butt. Charlie is OK and I would not mind mentioning it if it was only him, but God help me if Rosie and Becky get their noses out of joint. This way I know I am good for another plate of fish curry next time, otherwise I will never get to have that pleasure again.”

  Sandy nodded in return, sharing the joke. “I think two of us own a plate of that curry. Next chance I expect an invitation too.”

  Then the professional person returned. “OK, time to get on with work. Come and see what I have found and tell me what you think.”

  She led him along a series of passages that opened into a room with stainless steel benches and microscopes along one side.

  There was also a light box which had three X-Rays hanging from it. Sandy turned on the light, illuminating the large X-Ray films. He realised these were three shots of a skull, one from above, one from the side, and one from the back. Each showed several round holes punched through the skull bones on one side, which were partially matched by similar holes on the other side. Each hole was about half an inch across and circular.

  “Those look like crocodile teeth marks, not unexpected from what we saw out there,” she said. “The interesting thing, at least for these ones in the skull, is that there was no bleeding into the brain around them. So it looks like, when these happened, he was already dead.”

  Then she pointed to an area of about three inches by three inches on the left side, high up towards the back of the skull. Here a big round circular crack ran, and within it the bones were broken into several pieces and were pushed down towards the inside.

  “As I thought at the site, he has a fractured skull and it is not associated with any obvious crocodile tooth damage. In fact it looks like he was hit with something on that part of his head. That skull fracture almost certainly killed him. He was alive when it happened as there is bleeding inside the brain associated with it. Even if he did not die immediately he would have been unconscious after that blow.

  “It was done by striking his head with a large solid object with a contact point about three inches across, based on the size of the fracture. Without knowing for sure I think something like a club or a baseball bat could cause that sort of injury.”

  Then she led him over to a microscope and showed him some dark brown pieces of material in a sample jar sitting next to it. “What do you think that is?” she asked, handing the jar to him.

  He looked carefully. It looked like some broken splintered pieces of wood. There were five or six of them and the longest was almost an inch long. He shrugged. “Perhaps that is a trick question, but I would have said splinters of wood.”

  She continued, “That is what I found embedded in the skin and bone over the skull fracture. I agree, it looks like bits of wood to me too. I have looked under a microscope and am almost certain that is what we are looking at. Here have a look.”

  There were two microscopes sitting side by side. “Number One is samples I collected from a dead broken branch of an old tree outside this building, Number Two is what came out of his head,” she said.”

  He looked at both. They looked very alike, though he had to admit a microscope was something he knew little about.

  She pointed out the features such as the timber grain to compare, then said, “I will send the samples off for more advice or tests but I think it is highly likely that our man was hit hard by a broken branch or similar piece of wood to the side of the head. While it could have been due to a piece of dead wood falling from a tree, the angle at which the impact occurred makes it very likely that someone else was holding it and swung it sideways to hit him. So I think you have enough evidence to begin a murder investigation. That is my opinion.

  “I have sent off tissue samples from the head for DNA testing, and also tested the soil samples for blood. The initial test results suggest that is what it is, though it is yet to be verified. We will also do DNA analysis on this blood, to see if it matches the skull tissue.

  “I have also taken dental X Rays as these may assist in getting an identification. It will take a couple days for the DNA results to come through. However I can write you a preliminary report this afternoon if that helps.”

  Then she added with a mischievous smile. “If you like I will drop it to your office this afternoon on my way home, though of course I can email you a copy if you prefer.”

  So it was agreed, she would call with the report that afternoon about four thirty. In the meantime it was time for him to get the full murder investigation underway.

  Alan drove to Berrimah police station where his desk was. He arranged a meeting with his commanding officer. He thought, with regret, a senior detective would take over the case from here.

  Still, with a bit of luck, he would stay involved. Unless they had a lucky break there would be plenty of work to do. Identification of the body was the next stage, and, after that, they could begin to try and trace the person’s known associates and movements.

  Sandy had said she would email him high resolution images of the X-Rays, both of the teeth and the skull, as a first step.

  Back at the station, as expected, the case was handed over to a Senior Detective to run the murder investigation. He was made second in charge and given the job of focusing on the person’s identification. He would begin with the dental records then see if the DNA yielded anything to assist in determining who it
was. Another team would focus on the site and comprehensively search it over the next week to see if it gave more clues.

  There would be little he could do with the dentists until Monday, not many would work on the weekend. Perhaps tomorrow he would go back and have another look at the site, just in case they had turned up anything significant that would help with an ID. He could also ask at the roadhouses along that part of the Arnhem Highway in the event that anyone had noted anything of value, perhaps two men arguing in a Toyota going fishing, or descriptions of people not known to the locals that had been seen around a month ago. It was a long shot. But each little bit, the negative as well as the positive, built the picture.

  Alan then got to work on finishing his initial report, documenting all he had found, ensuring all the photographs and other evidence were catalogued. It was tedious yet exciting work.

  He knew if they could put it all together it would go a long way toward pushing his career to a new level. And, truth be told, he hoped it would give him an excuse for a few more meetings with Sandy. She was seriously cute and, like himself, seemed unattached. But he would park that for a few days as there was a mountain of work to be done first.

  So absorbed was he that he almost forgot her promise to bring the report. His phone rang; her arrival at the front desk was announced.

  He asked if she could be asked to wait for a minute, that he would be out directly. He only had two more lines to finish his report, and it was now late Friday afternoon. Perhaps they could have a drink together once he handed over his report. Then he thought that he should at least read what she had written and attach it.

  So he went out and invited her in. He had not seen her out of working clothes, but she had obviously changed before leaving work. He had to admit she really did look good; smiley eyes and mouth, light brown hair, curvy shape. He tried not to let it distract him.