Strike Me Dead

by Bob Goodwin

  ‘You are being a bit noisy,’ said Morgan.

  ‘Please sir, I’d like to leave now,’ pleaded the man.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am a solicitor. My name is Keith Fitzgerald. Please let me go now.’

  ‘I know your name or at least the name you go by. But who are you really?’

  ‘That is my name. I have no reason to lie,’ his voice trembled. ‘Listen, I have money. I can pay you whatever you want.’

  ‘I believe you. And you will pay me what I need and indeed what you need soon enough.’

  ‘I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you.’ He averted his slowing adjusting eyes so as not to see the face of his captor. ‘I don’t know where we are. Just blindfold me and drop me off somewhere and this shall never be spoken of again.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ asked Morgan. His voice was clear, calm and controlled.

  ‘Because you drugged me and brought me here.’

  ‘But why did I do that?’

  ‘I honestly have no fucking idea. If you want sex, just get it over with and let me go.’

  Morgan propped the shovel against the wall and moved closer to Keith who was on his knees in the middle of the floor. The naked man half glanced up at the figure looming over him. ‘Look, I’m prepared to give you a head job then. If that’s what it takes.’ With his head lowered, the man reached up and began fiddling with Morgan’s belt buckle. A moment later, he was knocked sideways with a massive slap across the side of his head.

  Morgan turned and began to walk away.

  ‘No!’ screamed Keith as he jumped to his feet and charged forward, just managing to tackle Morgan around the legs before he ran out of chain. ‘God damn it, you fucking lunatic! You are going to let me go!’ Morgan had heard the chain dragging well before the nice rugby tackle and had already grabbed the shovel. He was on the ground with Fitzgerald around his legs pulling him back. He turned partly onto his back and swung the shovel, belting him hard across his head. The grip on his legs instantly released and the man lay still.

  ‘Hmm ... you are not a very nice man, Mr Fitzgerald.’ Morgan stood and dusted himself off. ‘You have very bad manners. Worst of all for you though, is you have a very blasphemous tongue. And that is unforgivable.’

  Morgan took a key from the pocket of his jeans, unlocked the chain then dragged the unconscious man by his leg out the door and onto the sleepers. He rolled him onto his stomach then lifted him by the shoulders and dropped him facedown across the bevelled chopping block such that his chin just sat neatly over the semi-circular edge.

  Back inside the first container, he slowly undressed, placing his clothes neatly across one of the stools. For Morgan, this was not a necessary part of the ritual but rather a practical one. He unfolded the purple velvet. The blade of the axe shone like silver and the handle was a highly polished dark timber. With axe in hand, the naked Morgan knelt once again in front of the crucifix and quietly prayed for a minute. He propped the axe against his chest, picked up the plastic water bottle and poured some over his head. Then spoke aloud as he stood and took up his tool of redemption. ‘For what has a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’

  Keith Fitzgerald’s head was removed with only two strikes of the axe. Morgan Finn watched and listened as air and blood hissed and gurgled from the headless body. He closed his eyes and nodded contentedly to himself then set to work on the clean-up.

  Chapter 28

  Death in Paradise

  For the fourth time, James checked his email and this time the inbox said receiving. There were lots of emails, all from his friend Carl, and all with attachments. James could barely contain himself. He felt the urge to tell someone, but Carmel had not spoken a word since the incident yesterday with Walt. He jumped up from the desk in his bedroom and paced around in circles before he decided to call Raelene. As expected, she was at the gym but had time to talk.

  Firstly, he informed her about the arrival of the weather maps and how he planned to prepare them onto transparent pages and lay them over a map of the Sunshine Coast. Then he organised to go over to her place for dinner in the evening, and finally he briefly went over his visit to the police station and told Raelene about the drama at the Freemason’s home.

  ‘I’m not quite sure when it was that I worked it out,’ he told her. ‘It would be years back now. To me, it was really no big deal, but when he was being so rude, I decided payback was in order and calling him Walt really did the trick, as I expected it would. It was all a bit like fishing, and I’m not so bad at casting a lure.’

  ‘And how did your mother take to that?’ asked Rae.

  ‘Hmm ... she seems less than impressed. Hasn’t spoken to me since. I’ll tell you all about it tonight.’

  As soon as he was off the phone, James opened all the attachments and dropped them into a new folder that he labelled “Death in Paradise”. First, he needed to check the dates of the storms against the missing persons’ list. As it turned out, many people had gone missing without any association with storm activity. For James, this was fine and completely expected, but as he checked and double-checked, he was astounded to find he had eighteen matches. One at a time, he opened each of the matching weather images in his photo-editing program. He deleted everything but the lines that encircled the areas affected by the storms then he filled in the areas with the faintest hint of blue colour and printed them out onto A4 sheets of transparency film. He placed the transparencies in chronological order in a ring binder. Next, he prepared a list of the names of missing persons, dates they were last seen and dates of the storms.

  It was 2.30 pm when he realised he had missed lunch. He gathered up his four empty coffee cups and went to the kitchen. Carmel was making herself a cup of tea. James bit the bullet and decided he should try to clear the air.

  ‘I’m truly sorry about yesterday. Not so much about Walt ending up on the floor but about upsetting you. I don’t know why but I do know you still care for him, and I failed to respect that. So, once again I apologise.’

  Carmel stirred her cup of tea and glanced towards her son. She lifted her cup and headed for the verandah.

  ‘The father-thing is no big deal for me,’ he continued as she moved away. ‘I suppose it should be, but I suspect it’s a bigger issue for you.’

  She stopped walking and turned around. She sipped her tea. ‘I was not a promiscuous woman. You should know that.’

  ‘Okay, I know it. I believe it.’

  ‘Walt was a good husband. With Huntington’s disease, often the first thing that changes is the personality. A nice man becomes a nasty man. He soon loses all his friends. His family wants nothing more to do with him. And after all this happens, the physical symptoms finally develop and there is no one left who could give a damn. I will keep seeing him, right through to the end.’

  ‘You are one-of-a-kind and good for you, but I don’t think I’ll be heading down there anytime soon.’

  ‘Maybe that is just as well for now.’ Carmel paused and looked at the floor thinking then raised her head. ‘I suppose there is something else you want to ask me?’

  ‘No. I honestly have not the slightest need, or desire, to know any more than you wish to tell me. My life with you, what I do, who I see is all perfectly fine with me, and other than my episodic craziness, there is nothing I wish to change. I honestly have no need to know anything more about my biological father than I already know.’

  ‘So, you already know something about him?’ said Carmel, slightly puzzled.

  ‘Well, obviously, he was a very good-looking and intelligent man with brown eyes,’ quipped James as he waved his hand in front of himself.

  ‘You got that right,’ she smiled. ‘Grab a coffee and come and sit with me awhile.’

  ‘I’ve had enough coffee.’ He moved to the verandah. ‘More than happy to sit with you. I do have some news of my own.’

  Chapter 29

&
nbsp; Mushroom Risotto

  It was 6.45 pm when James pulled his white minivan into the curb near the school at the Brightwater estate. The sun was just dropping away on the horizon, and pink and orange hues were gathering in a few scattered clouds. It was still a further 500 metres to Raelene’s house.

  James checked his rear-vision mirror and both side mirrors. He had seen a dark grey Honda Accord parked near his unit and he remembered seeing one in the car park of the Freemasons home just before they departed. Now, once again this evening, one had been behind him for a minute or two before turning off. It may be nothing, he thought, there are plenty of them on the road. What if it’s the Charlie Chan guy? I just need to be careful. He flicked open the glove box and pulled out a hand-held scanner. It looked a little like a bulky mobile phone. He switched it on and pressed the scan button. The display flicked through a few signals, stopping briefly on a couple that crackled and hissed, then moving on to the next. After a few seconds, it locked onto a strong transmission. Rossini’s overture The Barber of Seville played through the speaker. James smiled, ‘Very nice, Rae. Good choice.’ He listened to the music for a few more minutes, all the time keeping a check on any local traffic. Three cars had passed him and he had seen three more in the rear-view mirror but there were no Hondas among them. The music suddenly went quiet and was replaced by the Mission Impossible movie theme, which was Rae’s ringtone for Carmel. James turned up the volume.

  ‘Hello, this is Rae...’

  ‘Yes Carmel, he is definitely coming here tonight for dinner. We have made arrangements...’

  ‘Well then I can expect him at any minute then...’

  ‘Mushroom risotto followed by some apple crumble...’

  ‘I’m sure everything will be fine...’

  ‘I’d rather not do that. You should just call him yourself. But I expect he’ll be here for two or three hours...’

  ‘Okay, bye for now.’

  James was sure he heard a “Good grief. You stupid bitch” just before Rossini started back up. He switched off the scanner and locked it safely away before driving slowly away and around the corner to Raelene’s house.

  He pulled up in the driveway, grabbed a shopping bag with drinks, a backpack from the passenger seat and made for the front door. The dogs were already barking.

  * * *

  James topped up Rae’s Pepper Tree shiraz and then his tomato juice. ‘That was the best risotto of my life.’ He swallowed his last mouthful. ‘Just a touch of chilli. Splendid.’

  ‘Thank you, James,’ said Rae warmly. ‘There is plenty more. And we have apple crumble for later.’

  ‘Oh no.’ He raised his hands then patted his tummy. I’m all done, thanks. The crumble can wait a while I think.’

  ‘This is a nice red.’ She took a slow mouthful.

  ‘I thought you’d like it. I did my research.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ smiled Rae. ‘Your mother rang me before you arrived.’

  James was pleased to hear those words. His closest friend was not keeping things from him. ‘Checking up on me, no doubt?’

  ‘She wanted me to ring or text her when you leave, but I said no.’

  ‘Good for you. Thanks.’

  ‘How about we go and spread out on the lounge floor. You can show me what you’ve put together.’ She stood up. ‘The cleaning up can wait, and we can think about dessert a bit later.’

  James needed no encouragement and was in the lounge with his backpack unzipped in a moment. They sat next to each other cross-legged on the carpet. Rae placed her wine on the coffee table.

  ‘The barometer looks nice up there, Rae. Right next to Timmy,’ James looked up on the wall above the hi-fi.

  ‘I think it’s a lovely addition. You know, it’s nearly two years now that he’s been gone.’

  ‘I know you were very close,’ nodded James. ‘There’s really no getting over something like that. I met Timmy a few times and I thought we hit it off pretty well.’

  ‘I thought I knew him so well; but on that day, I had no idea he was about to take his own life. I usually knew when he stopped his meds because he would get so paranoid. It was the shark nets, you know. He believed they were some sort of submerged secret radar for ASIO.’ A solitary tear ran down her cheek.

  ‘Yes, he was off his medication. We have talked about this, and you know it was not your fault. You’re not psychic and he was becoming very secretive.’

  ‘Yes, I know all that. I just wish they had found him. Whenever I go to the beach, I imagine him coming back to me, bodysurfing right up to my feet. It’s a bit silly, I know, but that’s what I think.’

  ‘No. Not silly at all. It just shows what a loving person you are.’

  ‘You are so nice. Thank you so much.’ She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘You’re a fine man, James Champion.’ He turned his head towards her and their faces were only a few centimetres apart. He let himself lean closer and kissed her on the lips. She reciprocated for a couple of seconds then pulled back. ‘Sorry, James.’ She touched her mouth.

  ‘No, it was my fault. Forgive me,’ he replied.

  ‘I like you a lot. I care for you so much.’ Rae placed a hand against his cheek.

  ‘Yeah, I know. It’s just that sometimes I get a bit carried away and mixed up with my feelings.’

  ‘That’s completely understandable. You’ve been through so much lately.’

  ‘To be honest, there are times when I think I need a bit more than just being liked and cared for, but I know I need to control those feelings. So once again I apologise.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Raelene unsurely. ‘Maybe we can chat about this at another time. At a time when I have not been drinking and when you are feeling a little less vulnerable.’

  ‘No worries, Rae. Sorry for this.’

  ‘No dramas at all. So, what have you got to show me then?’ she said not wanting to dwell on the topic any further. James was looking at her, still processing what had just happened.

  ‘We are good, right?’ he asked.

  ‘We are always good. Please, show me what you’ve got. I am very intrigued to say the least.’

  ‘Okay, prepare to be blown away.’

  James removed a ring binder from his backpack and opened it on the carpet. He flicked back all the transparencies, leaving a map of the Sunshine Coast. The map covered from Pomona in the north to Beerwah in the south and west to just beyond Kenilworth.

  ‘Now, each transparency has some lightly shaded sections representing the areas that were the worst affected by severe storms,’ explained James. ‘These transparencies are on the correct scale with the map, and each transparency is from a storm that occurred seven days prior to a missing-person episode. Are you with me?’

  ‘I think I’ve got it, yes,’ nodded Rae. He flicked over the first transparency.

  ‘You can see, these are very light blue shapes.’ He pointed to three areas. ‘Kenilworth, the north part of Maleny, and Landsborough.’

  ‘They copped the worst of this storm on...’ She pointed to the bottom right corner. ‘The 8th of November 1973.’

  ‘Correct!’

  ‘You’ve gone back a long way.’

  ‘I guess. Not even that sure I’ve gone back far enough but just had to start somewhere. Now, this is the fun part. Watch what happens as I add more transparencies.’

  One at a time, he slowly flicked over more pages stating the year each time. ‘1977 ... 1978 ... 1984 ... 1987,’ he paused. ‘Now we have five transparencies on top of one another. Do you notice anything?

  ‘Some areas seem to get more than their fair share of bad weather. You can see areas that are now a darker blue colour than others.’ Rae pointed out a couple of areas. ‘Particularly around Kenilworth and near Nambour.’

  ‘Very good, let’s keep going.’ He continued adding more transparencies and announcing the remaining years from 1988 through to the last three pages, all from 2012. He the
n sat back and looked at the map. ‘There it is. That’s all I have, but I think it’s enough. What do you reckon about that?’ Rae was stunned.

  ‘Oh, my God! Look here!’ She pointed to an area near Kenilworth. ‘This spot is dark blue. How big an area is that?’

  ‘That place is Kings Wood and it’s about thirty square kilometres. And somewhere in that area lives a serial killer. There are eighteen precise matches. It is impossible for this to be a coincidence.’ He reached into his bag again and pulled out an A4 sheet. ‘Here are the names; the ages; the dates of the storms; the dates they went missing; and where they were from. You can hang on to this; I have several copies.’ He handed the page to Raelene. She took it rather tentatively as though it may have been contaminated then began studying the details. Twice she looked quickly up at James with her mouth open. He nodded slowly back at her.

  ‘This is quite disturbing.’ She kept reading the list. ‘Mostly from the Gold and Sunshine Coasts.’

  ‘Yes, all locations are relatively near the coast. And, for those few that are a little further away, the missing persons’ reports indicate a recent visit to a beachside area. So maybe he’s a fisherman, surfer or has a boat of some sort.’

  ‘A real mixture of men and women of various ages.’

  ‘They all have something in common. I just don’t know what it is yet.’

  ‘There are a couple of gaps. Nothing between 1973 and 1977.’

  ‘No severe storms in that time that’s why,’ replied James. ‘That just makes the case stronger.’

  ‘What about between 2005 and 2012?’

  ‘That puzzles me a little. Was he sick? In hospital? In jail? Maybe interstate or overseas?’

  ‘And, you could also say this makes the case weaker, could you not?’ added Rae politely with raised eyebrows.

  ‘I guess, but we will find a reason for that. The case is solid. Jessica Chang could still be alive you know.’