DINING WITH DEVILS -- A Tasmanian Thriller

by GORDON AALBORG

  “We still don’t know what’s going on,” he’d cautioned. That was hours ago, eons ago, in Kendall’s stressed-out condition, and still they knew nothing.

  “I need it all straight in my head,” Kendall had replied. “Don’t jerk me around on this; it’s how I work . . . how I think.”

  As if thinking, alone, was going to help anyone. They’d all been thinking. And getting nowhere fast. Or slow.

  So they watched the tape. Then they watched it again. Slowly, quickly, fast-forward, fast-back. Over and over and over. And learned, Kendall was positive, not one damned thing!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Kirsten managed to get two more turns on the eyebolt before the mad woman returned again, looking even more disheveled, more frustrated and breathless. And decidedly more angry.

  “The rotten bugger,” she cursed, meanwhile glaring at Kirsten as if all this, somehow, was Kirsten’s fault, her personal responsibility.

  “I offered to help you look,” Kirsten replied, fighting to hold down her own anger, but using that anger to ride down her panic. To keep her sane. None of this was making any sense. This strange woman, apparently, had nothing to do with Kirsten’s abduction, so why wouldn’t she help her get free? Why, for that matter, wasn’t she more intent upon getting herself free, the thrown-away car keys notwithstanding?

  “I should get the hell out of here,” the woman said, in an eerie parallel to Kirsten’s thoughts. But she made no move to do so, instead began rummaging through the assorted foodstuffs and gear in the small shack.

  Kirsten again asked for help in getting herself out of there, again was rebuffed.

  “Not until I know what’s going on,” the woman said. Then added insult to injury by rummaging through Kirsten’s fanny pack, carelessly dumping everything out, then pawing through it. She rifled Kirsten’s wallet, checked through every pocket and slot, eventually came to, and opened, the folder with Kirsten’s passport and travel documents.

  It was . . . weird, having to sit and watch this performance, unable to stop the violations of privacy, unable to do anything. Except watch. Kirsten wanted to scream out her objections, but knew it would serve no purpose. This strange woman clearly had her own agenda, and without being able to comprehend it, there seemed nothing Kirsten, herself, could do.

  Nothing except listen. Almost at once, her strange companion launched into a diatribe that fascinated Kirsten as much as it frightened her. The very first thing out of the woman’s mouth was that she was Kendall’s former wife!

  ~~~

  Ian didn’t make it to the first decent bit of track before temptation claimed him and he stopped to sample the goodies in the plastic baggie he’d filched from Rose’s handbag.

  He was actually in better shape than he’d been in weeks, so he was able to carefully select the pills he wanted most. Then he reached down to find there were indeed three tinnies remaining beneath his truck seat. He stopped, snapped open one of the cans, used the warm beer to wash down his chosen pills. Then he lit a smoke, leaned against the vehicle’s door, one freckled arm out in the warmth of the afternoon sun as he waited for the rush.

  After that, it was all just as he wanted it to be, expected it to be. Except for niggling suspicion and curiosity. That wouldn’t go away. By the time he’d reached the main road, it had actually become obsessive; he couldn’t get it out of his mind regardless of the drugs.

  He finished off the second beer, threw the can out the window and into the ditch, then muttered to himself, added a string of obscenities, and turned the old truck around. But he didn’t return to the shack – not directly. Instead, he drove further up the tier, past the turnoff, and took an even less-used track that he knew would bring him onto a ridge from which he could easily hike down and observe the shack from a safe distance.

  Which he did, the Vaime sniper rifle in one hand, the remaining can of beer in the other, and the all-important collection of pills tucked safely into his shirt pocket.

  It took him no time at all, really, to make the drive and hike to where he could snuggle down into a comfortable, sunny spot. Not a perfect viewpoint . . . he couldn’t see as much of the track leading to the shack as he would have liked . . . but it would do. He carefully selected a few more pills, tried to focus on making the remaining beer last longer than usual, but the tinnie was well and truly empty when he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching on the road below.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Stafford, on his best day ever, wasn’t a tenth the bushman that Ian Boyd was on his worst, so he, too, failed to notice on his return the evidence of increased travel on the trail to the shack.

  Also, Stafford was on a high. He’d actually found a knowledgeable publican . . . a publican with vision enough to have put aside half a dozen bottles of the finest Piper’s Brook wine. Probably for his own use, Stafford thought, but it had been a joy to spend a few minutes’ discussion with the man, a greater joy to be able to purchase the wine at something less than highway robbery prices.

  He’d also found a new, to him, fruit and veggie mart, stacked high with fresh local produce. No fresh meat to be had, of course. Not on a Sunday. But meat wasn’t that important, for the moment.

  The only minus was his disappointment at not having been able to find Ian Boyd, but that had been a long shot anyway, and he accepted that. Maybe best that he hadn’t, although it might have been good to know where Boyd was and what mischief he was getting up to. The last thing Stafford wanted was to have authorities chasing Boyd for something and investigating his own hideout in the process. Bad enough the unexplained case of the gundog judge who’d been killed, but although that had been all over the radio, he couldn’t see it drawing attention to the east coast, where he was.

  The shopping experience added to his anticipation during the trip back to the shack. He drove carefully, with fine chamber music oozing from the speakers, paying attention to his driving, but not to the condition of the track he followed.

  It didn’t take a bushman to see the gleaming shape of Rose’s SUV parked outside the shack, although it did, in Stafford’s twisted mind, take his own definition of fate to let him see the SUV while he was still some distance away.

  And Stafford, on any day at all, was significantly smarter than Ian. Certainly smart enough to find a place to get his own 4WD off the track and turned around to facilitate a speedy escape, if needed.

  Who, I wonder? Not Ian . . . not with a vehicle like that. Not the police, either.

  He turned off his engine, then sat there, warm enough in the afternoon sunshine, hidden by the scrub, reasonably certain that if there was danger here, he’d have seen evidence of it already.

  He closed the door carefully, quietly, took a tire iron from behind the driver’s seat, and began a long, cautious stalk, paralleling the muddy track, moving as silently as he could through the underbrush as he approached the silent cabin.

  You shouldn’t be doing this. You should be running. Now, while you can.

  Without Kirsten? No – I was meant to have Kirsten. Why else would I have found all that splendid wine?

  It could be a trap. Kirsten trapped you before.

  In a cave. (Stafford visibly shuddered . . . couldn’t help himself.) This is my territory, now. My terms.

  He moved in on the fern-shrouded cabin with mincing, feather-light steps, once again the fearless pioneer scout. Flitting from one patch of cover to the next, he carried the tire iron like a tomahawk, entertained mental visions of himself as Daniel Day-Lewis in Last of the Mohicans.

  Stepping high, treading lightly, he was halfway around the main clearing that held the shack, peering from behind a tall, towering eucalypt, his ears already straining, searching for sounds from within, when Stafford felt a hard, solid something poking him in the back.

  “Drop it, little mate.” The voice was a whisper as quiet as his own footsteps. A voice he knew?

  The pressure at his back held, and Stafford opened his fingers, let the tire iron fall with
a muted thud.

  Yes, I know that voice.

  “Now turn around . . . slow.”

  Which Stafford did, making no effort to hide the huge grin on his face.

  “Ian!” he said, his voice soft, but positively vibrant with delight. “How wonderful to see you again. I looked for you in town this morning and couldn’t find you, but here you are and isn’t that wonderful?”

  Stafford ignored the look of confusion on Ian Boyd’s face. He dropped his voice another octave, added a conspiratorial wink to his next words.

  “And you’re just in time for dinner! How splendid is that?”

  ~~~

  Ian was totally flummoxed. All he could do was stand there, slack-jawed, and stare at the familiar/unfamiliar figure before him. Reflective sunglasses hid the man’s eyes, nothing about his face looked familiar . . . but that voice!

  Ian knew the voice, had heard the dulcet, rich, chocolate syrup tones often enough that even half stoned he couldn’t mistake it. Except that it was impossible for him to be hearing it now, here.

  The muzzle of the rifle wavered, then began to quiver just as Ian’s hands quivered. His mind quivered even worse. He wanted to run, didn’t dare, was half-inclined to shoot but didn’t dare do that, either. No sense in that!

  “We need to talk,” the voice said, whisper soft. And Ian was beckoned away from the shack by a confident wave and a, “Come, Ian,” as the dead man, ignoring the rifle entirely now, turned away and marched to the relative privacy behind Rose’s SUV. Ian, his mind blasted by the thought of having just tried to bail up a dead man, followed him, having little choice in the matter.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Rose stopped in mid-rant, her gaze flitting from Kirsten to the shack’s door.

  “What was that?” she whispered.

  “What was what? I didn’t hear anything.” Kirsten hadn’t heard anything but Rose’s ongoing tirade, but the other woman’s attitude prompted her, also, to whisper.

  “Voices. I thought I heard voices.”

  They stared at each other then in silence, both listening, both hearing nothing. Kirsten was half tempted to scream out, to call for help. Surely she wouldn’t be any worse off than she was now, faced with Kendall’s intransigent ex-wife who might turn out to be more dangerous than any kidnapper.

  Kirsten had nearly laughed outright when Rose’s diatribe got into high gear. Either she, herself, was the world’s worst judge of character, or this exotic, undeniably beautiful but so-strange woman knew next to nothing about the man touched by both their lives.

  Or did she? As Kirsten had listened, Rose’s ranting highlighted the best things Kirsten herself knew about Kendall. He was kind, gentle, never had a bad word to say about anyone, was aggressive only in his writing. . . . The list went on, and on, and on . . . and Rose managed to twist and turn every pleasant aspect of Kendall’s personality and character into something negative and carping.

  In all their time together – Does it count as together, I wonder, when it never gets together in bed? – Kendall had only mentioned Rose once that Kirsten could remember, had never shown her a picture of his ex-wife or even indicated he had one. He’d merely explained that the marriage had “fallen apart in a screaming heap,” said that Rose was a psych nurse, “and they’re all crazier than their patients,” but made the comment, she had thought at the time, so lightly as to make it seem a joke.

  Some joke! You always were a master of understatement, my love.

  Rose, once begun, had seemed to forget entirely about the potential perils of their situation. She seemed intent on discrediting Kendall in every way possible, seemed oblivious to her surroundings and situation in her need to vent. It was nothing short of incredible, bordering on being terrifying. Kirsten didn’t – couldn’t – forget about the immediate issues, but neither could she find space in the diatribe to insert her concerns and beg yet again for them to somehow get out of here, wherever they were.

  I wish you’d just shut up about Kendall and think about US. Here, now! Damn it – I don’t know what the hell’s going on and you don’t seem to either. Can’t you forget about Kendall and think about getting us the hell out of here?

  Until it was too late. Much, much too late. The words were there in her mouth, but were never uttered, choked into silence by the opening of the cabin door to admit Ian Boyd and another man, equally tall but younger, a man who glided into the gloomy interior with the grace of a dancer. Ian’s rifle was in his hands, and he seemed vaguely familiar, although she couldn’t figure out why.

  A stranger.

  Until he spoke.

  His first words were to Rose Chapman. He greeted her like an old friend, honeyed words flowing through his smile. “Rose! How utterly delightful to have you here. And a surprise, of course.”

  He paused briefly, only long enough, Kirsten thought, to savor Rose’s bewilderment, taste the pleasure of seeing it change shape to become astonishment, then continued, handing the rifle back to Ian as he swooped forward to take both of Rose’s hands in his own.

  “And you’ve met our other guest, I see,” he said, suave and casual as if they were all at a dinner party somewhere instead of crowded into this hovel in the Tasmanian wilderness. “Have you been telling Kirsten how you arranged to have her boyfriend Kendall shot?”

  Rose’s vocal, “But you’re dead!” was echoed by Kirsten’s silent, equally incredulous thought. But it was as nothing, compared to the cloud of horror that surged upward from Kirsten’s gut, that took over her mind, her body, her very existence. She was only vaguely conscious of the No . . . No . . . NO! that thundered in her mind and ears just before her legs lost their strength and she sagged into a swoon. The steel rod she’d been holding became too heavy for nerveless fingers, fell, landed at her feet with a dull thunk.

  It lasted only a second, long enough for the horror to smack her again as Stafford released Rose’s hands and caught Kirsten on her way to the shack’s dirt floor.

  “Dear, dear, Kirsten. That was a trifle abrupt. How insensitive of me; I do apologize . . . honestly I do. And Kendall’s just fine, I assure you. The bullet missed him, you see.” He lifted her by her bound wrists, steadied her until she somehow – miraculously – got her feet under her and found a semblance of balance, then he released her and stepped back as if to admire his handiwork.

  His gaze swept the cabin’s small interior, pausing at the dismantled camp cot, swiftly cutting to the table, the tools, Kirsten’s emptied fanny pack. “Aah . . . I see you’ve been a busy girl, too,” he said, the words emerging in that too-familiar voice with the flavor and texture of rich chocolate fudge, emerging through a smile of what appeared to Kirsten to be huge satisfaction, genuine pleasure. A stranger’s smile on a stranger’s face.

  She couldn’t recognize the face, but could never forget the voice. It floated through her nightmares, occasionally brought her bolt upright in bed, shaking, bathed in an icy sweat, eyes wide with a terror she could taste, feel, fear! The devil’s voice . . . rich as chocolate, smooth as butterscotch, deadly as the grave.

  Kirsten couldn’t look at him, couldn’t not look at him. The pleasure in his voice both terrified her and clamped her attention. Her tummy writhed and squirmed at the delicately sounded words, and she swallowed convulsively, praying she could keep from being sick. There, then, now.

  “Ian! A chair for the lady,” he demanded abruptly. And when the folding chair was brought, he directed Ian precisely where it should be placed, then gently but firmly moved Kirsten into it. She had a flicker of relief that the chair now partially disguised the point where the eyebolt was installed, but only a tiny relief compared to the terror that flooded her, the horror that Stafford’s very touch created.

  She could only sit there, shaking and shaken, her gaze flashing from one person to another, following the voices as Stafford directed Ian to reassemble the camp cot, drew Rose aside and began – could this really be happening? – chatting about the Birch clinic, about employees from
Stafford’s tenure there, about who’d quit, who’d stayed, about Dave Birch’s reaction to everything as Stafford’s infamy had unfolded. A strangely grotesque old home week reunion, made even weirder by the fact that both Ian and Rose fell right into Stafford’s spell.

  She could only sit there as Stafford sent Ian to fetch his vehicle, bring in the wine, meanwhile focusing his attention on Rose, enveloping Rose with his presence, his aura. Seducing Rose, not sexually but intellectually, taking control by the sheer dominance of his personality as thoroughly as if he’d chained Rose to the wall, as if he’d bound Rose’s wrists.

  She listened, when Ian returned, as Stafford made apologies for having only two real wine goblets, as he insisted that Rose should have one goblet, Kirsten the other, as he opened a bottle with the flourish of a trained wine waiter, poured, offered it to Rose to taste, smiled hugely at her nod of acceptance.

  She could only sit there, having been transferred from folding chair to camp cot so that Rose had somewhere to sit, as Stafford regaled Rose and Ian with details of his escape from Kirsten’s cave, of his cosmetic, reconstructive surgery in Mexico, of his eventual return to Australia and, finally, Tasmania. Here. Now. Could only sit there, sipping at the wine because her befuddled mind couldn’t think of what else to do with it. Throw it at him? To what purpose? Not drink it? Again . . . to what purpose?

  So she sipped, and watched, and listened, feeling more and more like Alice in Wonderland as the surreal conversations ebbed and flowed around her. It was an amazing performance . . .

  It is a performance. That’s exactly what it is. He’s performing! Yes, he is. The bastard’s got an audience and he’s loving it. That’s what’s happening, sure as shit.

  Those were the first thoughts that made sense to Kirsten, the first signs in her own addled mind that she wasn’t dreaming, that whatever was happening actually was happening. She hunched forward, elbows on her thighs, eyes closed, and clung to those thoughts, nurtured them, tried to use them to shut out the insanity of her surroundings, the peril of her situation. And Kendall’s! Had his totally weird ex-wife really conspired to have him shot?