Body on the Stage

by Bev Robitai

  “Yeah, but how easy is it to get one?” asked Gazza. “They’ve tightened up all the loopholes now so you can’t just write away and get one in the name of some dead person. Unless,” he mused, “he had gang connections or knew some really good forgers. Did he seem the sort of guy who had friends like that?”

  “Actually no, he didn’t, he was pretty clean-cut. Small and lightweight, the sort of guy a gang member would snap in half to pick his teeth with. Maybe you’re right, maybe he really is hiding out somewhere around Whetford. It’s the sort of sneaky thing I could imagine him doing.”

  “What say we go look for him this weekend? We’re up to speed here and could spare a couple of hours to check out the likely places. I reckon the Hook Valley campground would be a possible, with all those little huts and cabins for rent. A guy could lie low there and stay unnoticed for weeks if he had plenty of supplies with him.”

  “Yeah,” said Tony, “we can form a posse! We’ll go find this guy and bring him in. We’ll track down - what’s his name?”

  “Vincenzo.”

  “Vincenzo? Foreigner, is he? All the better, he’ll be easier to spot. Right then, meet here on Saturday afternoon at one o’clock and we’ll ride out for justice. Yippee-ki-yay!”

  Gazza rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever.”

  “In the meantime,” Tony continued, undeterred, “I’m going to make some calls. Who do we know that could help, Gaz? The concierge at the Rutherton Hotel owes us a favour, after we supplied crew for that fashion thing they did. Dennis, give me Vincenzo’s full name and description, anything you know about him, even his favourite food – he might have ordered room service and that would give him away.”

  “Hell, I don’t know that much about the guy! He just told me what to do at the gym – we didn’t hang out together. I’ll ask Cathy, she worked with him. She should know more about his personal habits. Can I get back to you with all this? She’ll need a bit of time to think about it.”

  “Sure, no problem. So how are you and the pretty trainer lady getting on, Doc? You looked very friendly in the Green Room the other day.”

  Dennis felt a blush heating his cheeks. “We’re friends, yes. She seems to think there’s something under all this fat that’s worth working on, and who am I to argue? She’s helping me get fit and it seems only fair I help her with this in return.”

  “Good for you, Doc, you’re a man of honour. And the frontier towns of the west need more like you, riding out for truth and justice and…”

  “Tony, you want to give us a hand with this bar before you get too carried away? It’s not going to build itself you know.” Gazza dumped a pile of wood into his arms.

  “Yeah, all right. Hey, do you think we could put a real pair of swing doors on it, like in the westerns?”

  They wandered off towards the foyer, still bickering amicably. Dennis followed with a bag of tools.

  At one o’clock on Saturday Dennis stood outside the theatre, feeling faintly foolish. Perhaps Tony and Gazza had been joking about looking for Vincenzo. It did seem a bit far-fetched, now he thought about it. They’d probably been pulling his leg and he just hadn’t spotted it. He decided to wait for a few more minutes then disappear quietly and forget about the whole thing.

  Moments later a battered white van did a fast u-turn in the street and pulled in to the kerb beside him. Tony leaned out of the passenger window. “Hop in, Dennis! We’re all set to hunt down your fugitive!”

  Dennis pulled open the sliding door and stepped inside, looking for a seat among the boxes of electrical cables and equipment. Gazza leaned over the back of the driver’s seat to greet him.

  “Gidday, Doc, just grab a box to sit on, you’ll be OK. I won’t drive like a maniac.”

  Dennis lowered himself onto the sturdiest-looking container and perched there uncomfortably, anxious his weight might cause the lid to collapse.

  “Good of you guys to turn up,” he said. “Where do you think we should start?”

  “We don’t need to check out the Rutherton Hotel,” said Tony. “I called the guy there with all the details you gave me about this Vincenzo character and he was sure there’d been nobody like that staying for the last two or three weeks, so we can cross that off the list. There are a couple of smaller hotels we can call in and look at, show them the photos and ask around. So is the posse ready to ride out?” Tony was almost bouncing in his seat with excitement.

  “Sure. Let’s do this!” Dennis felt a surge of optimism. With these guys helping out, it felt like the problem was as good as solved.

  Gazza revved the van’s engine and they roared off in a light cloud of smoke.

  An hour later they had called on all the inner-city hotels, shown Vincenzo’s photo around widely, and drawn a blank everywhere. They called in to a bar to plan their next move over a beer. Dennis bought the first round and set them down on the table.

  ‘What the hell are you drinkin’?” Gazza looked askance at the bottle in front of Dennis.

  “It’s a low-cal beer. Probably still outside my daily allowance but I figured we might get some exercise later if we’re doing a search up the valley, so I can work it off then.”

  “Bloody hell. It’s a poor show when a bloke can’t even have a decent beer when he needs one.” Gazza shook his head. “Still, I admire your dedication, Doc.”

  Tony set his bottle back on the table. “Right, we can either go check the ritzier hotels further out of town, or we can keep on searching the more isolated areas up the Hook Valley. Gazza’s idea of Vincenzo hiding out at the Hook Valley Camp might not fit the luxury lifestyle you said he wants, Dennis, but I think it’s still a possible option. And it won’t take long to do a quick walk around the area. Like you said, it’s good exercise.” He took another swig of beer. “Not that I condone that sort of thing, of course.”

  The van ground slowly along the narrow road up the Hook Valley, passing willow trees trailing idle branches in the swift-flowing stream. At one point a side road branched off with a ford across the river, and Gazza paused to check the water level.

  “Looks like there’s been a bit of rain in the headwaters. There’s a fair amount coming through here.” The causeway was almost submerged in the middle with foam at the downstream edge where the brown water eddied strongly. “Good thing we’re not here for a swim. I bet it’s freezing.”

  They moved on up the valley towards the camp area, pulling in between its concrete gate pillars and parking across from the office.

  “I’ll go see if they recognise the photo,” said Dennis. “Tell them we’d like to look around.”

  Minutes later he returned to Tony and Gazza. “She didn’t remember anyone like him but said we can look around as much as we want. The place is pretty quiet at the moment.”

  “Right then, let’s walk right up to the top end and work our way back.”

  Gazza led them up a gravel path among tall dark pine trees, walking for almost ten minutes until they reached the furthest cabin tucked away behind a screen of ferns beside the river.

  “I bet the mosquitoes eat you alive up here,” he muttered. “Damn silly place to come for a holiday, I reckon.”

  They peered into the windows of the cabin but it was clearly unoccupied.

  “Check the riverbank,” said Tony, “there might be footprints in the damp mud.”

  “Who are you being now, the cop hunting The Fugitive? You watch way too much TV, mate.” Gazza shook his head but led them down to the river where they fanned out and did a quick search along the waterline. Dennis stepped carefully on the faint pathway formed between scrubby low bushes, making sure he wasn’t obliterating any footprints. The ground was mostly rocky but there were one or two pockets of silt trapped where puddles had drained away. Following the swift stream, he saw no sign of other foot traffic. The dark brown water gurgled and splashed beside him. He was about to turn back and join the others when a patch of bright green just under the water caught his eye. It wasn’t a natural colour and he as
sumed it was a piece of litter washed down by the rain, but just to be thorough he went closer to check. It was a piece of material, sticking out from under a branch, with a light covering of silt trapped in the folds. Further under the semi-opaque brown water there were lighter patches of something showing. Something about the lime green material made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. A closer look revealed what looked like a Nike logo at the bottom edge.

  “Guys,” he called, staring fixedly at the object. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey, guys? Come here a minute, will you?”

  Belatedly he looked down to see if there were any footprints beside his own, but the stream had washed the pebbles clean and his damp marks were the only prints to be seen. Tony and Gazza stepped onto the shingle beside him. He pointed.

  “What have you got here, Doc?” Gazza bent over to get a closer look.

  “I saw the green in the water. It’s material of some sort, like a shirt I’ve seen Vincenzo wearing around the gym. Can you see what it’s stuck on?”

  Tony passed Gazza a willow stick and he poked gingerly at the green material. It seemed to be stretched over a solid shape. He probed further, feeling the outline of the pale patches. He pulled back and shuddered involuntarily.

  “I could be wrong, but I think we might have found our fugitive.” He pulled out his cellphone. “Best we call the cops, I think.”

  He looked to the others for their agreement and punched in the number. Dennis was secretly pleased to see the tremble in Gazza’s fingers, figuring that if even he was shaken, it was okay to feel like a wet lettuce leaf himself. Gazza gave the police accurate directions to reach their location and nodded at the instructions he received in return. “Yep, got that. Will do. Yep. OK, see you shortly.” He pocketed his phone and looked at the others. “They want us to keep back but stay within view of the area to guard the spot. Leave as little trace as possible, so step back in the same footprints you made to get over here. We can wait by the back of the cabin.”

  They made their way to the cabin and stood awkwardly, waiting for the authorities to arrive and take responsibility. Dennis would have loved to pull out a piece of firewood to sit on and rest his shaky legs, but knew he shouldn’t touch anything.

  “Good call, Gaz,” said Tony. “You were right on the money, saying he’d be up here.”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t expecting him in that state. I thought we’d find him lurking inside a cabin somewhere and we’d haul his sorry ass out to drag him down to the cop shop, maybe beat some sense into him on the way there.”

  “Jeez mate, don’t start saying things like that! If this turns out to be a murder enquiry the last thing we need is you saying you wanted to beat up the victim. The cops would be real happy with that.”

  “I’m not that stupid. And you can’t say we’ve got any compelling motive from their point of view – we didn’t even know the guy. Never met him, why would we want to do him any harm?”

  “Why would we be up here looking for him then?”

  Gazza fell silent.

  “I’m so sorry to get you mixed up in this,” said Dennis. “Like you said, Gazza, I thought we’d find him hiding out and would be able to put things to rights, make him pay back Cathy and then have the satisfaction of running him out of town. If that is his corpse over there then he’s just created a whole lot more problems for us.”

  A white police vehicle nosed between the trees and pulled to a stop nearby. A tall, lean figure emerged and busied himself with protective shoe covers and latex gloves. He came over with easy strides.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen. What have you turned up for us then? Something of interest in the river, I hear.”

  “Hello Jack, glad it’s you,” said Gazza. “Always good to see a familiar face in these circumstances. We didn’t have a real good look, but we think it might be a body caught under a branch in there, and chances are it’s that some dude called Vincenzo that Dennis here knows.”

  “Ah, so our missing Italian may have surfaced at last, eh Dennis?” Jack Matherson raised an eyebrow and looked interested. “We’d better check it out.”

  They followed him back towards the river, walking in single file along the same path.

  “I had a poke about with this stick,” said Gazza, handing it to Jack, who put it to the same use, feeling along the sides of the dim shape in the water and pushing here and there.

  “I agree with your findings, Gazza, it definitely feels like a body I’m afraid. Scoot back to my car chaps, we’ll talk there once I’ve called in the crime scene techs.”

  They walked over to Jack’s vehicle and climbed in. Dennis was glad to sit down. He tried to ignore the creepy feeling in his stomach but it doubled when the white police van came into view some time later.

  “I don’t envy them,” said Gazza. “How long has he been missing, Dennis?”

  “About a week, I think.”

  “If he’s been under water all that time it’ll be pretty unpleasant.” He nudged Tony sitting beside him in the back seat. “Bet the eels have been having a good feed, eh?”

  Dennis felt his stomach lurch. “Jeez, Gazza! Could you be a bit less ghoulish? It would be really embarrassing to throw up in Jack’s car.”

  “Yeah, fair enough, sorry Doc.” Gazza sounded genuinely contrite, and Dennis realised he was probably covering his own distress with an attempt at humour.

  Jack Matherson opened the driver’s door and joined them.

  “Right, suppose you tell me what made you come looking up the Hook Valley for our missing Italian. Did you have any information leading you here?”

  “No, it was a wild hunch of Gazza’s,” said Tony. “We’re just helping out Dennis and Cathy by hunting down this Vincenzo dude ‘cos it sounds like he did a runner with cash from the gym, and we don’t approve of that sort of thing happening to our friends. We checked at the flasher hotels in town but Gazza reckoned there would be quiet places to hide up here so that was our next bet.”

  “Good call,” said Jack, nodding to Gazza. “Now we just have to figure out how and when he got here.”

  “I asked at the office,” volunteered Dennis. “Showed them a picture but the woman there today didn’t recognise him. That’s all we know. I just wish it was more.” He slumped down in the passenger seat.

  “Good man, that’s one thing I won’t have to do. I’ll interview the other staff members later, find out who might have seen him, and check their register to see if he was staying here. Not that he’ll have used his real name, of course, but you’d be surprised how many criminals use their own initials or a recognisable pseudonym.”

  “Will you need Cathy to identify him?” asked Dennis. “She knew him best, but if the body is really unpleasant I could have a look instead – I should be able to tell if it’s him or not.”

  “OK, you can have a first look, and we’ll only call Cathy in if you’re unsure. That’s very gentlemanly of you, Dennis.”

  He blushed. “Just trying to do the right thing.” Inside he screamed at himself. ‘Are you insane? That’s a rotting corpse out there and you just volunteered to go into an enclosed room with it. What if you faint? Or throw up?’ He ignored the thoughts and turned to Jack. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Excellent. Good to see the age of chivalry isn’t dead.”

  “Rather you than me, Doc,” said Gazza, with a quiet admiration in his tone that made Dennis sit up taller.

  Chapter Eight

  Dennis met up with Jack later to view the body.

  He steeled himself as the pale green sheet was pulled back to reveal the head and upper chest. He was already feeling queasy from the smell of disinfectant and chemicals. The waft of putrid gases coming from the corpse was almost enough to make him gag, but he fought down the nausea and focussed on the remains in front of him. The skin looked too pale for Vincenzo’s olive colouring but he assumed that was the result of blood-loss and immersion. His glance roved across the face but skittered away as he saw a sh
arp dent in the front of the skull. The hair, plastered close to the scalp by water and silt, was the right colour, and the body shape in general was slim and lean. He leaned forward to check a mark on the upper arm, cautiously pulling the sheet away to reveal a tattoo.

  “That’s Vincenzo. He has… had a tattoo of a falcon on his left arm. I’m pretty sure that’s it. If Cathy has photos of him I expect the tattoo would show up and you could compare it to this one.”

  He stepped away from the body with relief. “Is that all you need? I think I should get some fresh air…” He started to look around with increasing desperation and Jack quickly steered him to the nearest men’s room. Dennis splashed cold water on his face and tried to keep his stomach from hurling its contents into the basin. Jack handed him a paper towel.

  “You did really well in there. I’ve seen bigger men than you measure their length on the floor when faced with even a normal dead body, let alone one that’s been underwater for some time.” He stopped at Dennis’s pleading look. “Not helping? Sorry! Look, take your time, come out when you’re ready and I’ll run you home again.”

  “I’m OK. I’m fine.” Dennis threw the damp paper towel in the bin and squared his shoulders. “Quite happy to get out of here as soon as possible though.”

  He followed Jack back to the car. “Will you be seeing Cathy about this or should I tell her tonight when I go to the gym?”

  “I’m going round there now, once I’ve dropped you off. I need to talk to her in person first, but after that you can discuss anything you like.”

  Dennis picked up a hint of professional discretion in Jack’s normally casual tone.

  “I guess you have a procedure to follow in these cases,” he said. “She’s not a suspect though, is she?”

  “Just standard procedure, that’s right,” said Jack neutrally. “Crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s, making sure we do everything properly. You can’t imagine how annoying it can be when some villain walks free because we screwed up with our investigation. It doesn’t happen often, of course. And it’s not going to happen this time either.” He smiled at Dennis, his eyes clear. “Thanks to you and your merry sidekicks, we can close the missing person enquiry, and we’ve made good progress on a homicide as well. It’s always a big advantage to have a body to work on. You can probably leave the rest to us now. Just relax and get on with your own life – I’m sure things are getting pretty hectic with workouts and rehearsals, aren’t they?”