Mele Kalikimaka Mr Walker

by Robert G. Barrett

  ‘Sorry, but Miss Hazlewood is out. No leave message and she no say when she be back.’

  ‘Well, could you tell her, if you see her, I’m flying out tonight at eleven-thirty.’

  ‘You driving out tonight at seven-thirty.’

  ‘No. Flying out tonight at eleven-thirty.’

  ‘Okay, Mr Norman. I give her message.’

  ‘Thank you. You’ve been a wonderful help.’

  Oh well, thought Les, hanging up the phone. If she gets the message she gets the message. I’ll probably ring her back anyway. He resumed packing the last of his things, changing into his denim shorts and leaving out a pair of jeans and a dark blue cotton jacket to wear on the plane. When he’d finished Les was still at a bit of a loose end as to what to do; he had time to kill, but not enough to do anything worthwhile. A final cruise around Honolulu in the convertible would have been okay, but it was raining on and off. He wasn’t hungry and he didn’t feel like getting drunk, and walking up and down Kalakau amongst about a million Japanese joggers and the same number of fat-arsed American tourists wasn’t that much of a turn-on either. Norton turned to the radio as ‘Come Softly To Me’ by the Fleetwoods began seeping through the speakers. It was enough to drive anyone out of the room. I know what I’ll do. I’ll go back to that Ala Moana shopping centre. Get a cup of coffee and see if there’s anything worth perving on and buy a whole heap of stuff I don’t need.

  Les got the Mustang from downstairs, and this time left the hood up. He just about knew the way, so the cruise over to the shopping centre was no problem — he even fanged it through the traffic and spun the wheels on the wet road seeing it was his last day in town. There was a parking spot almost where he’d parked before facing the park. Les locked the car, went upstairs and mingled with the swarms of other shoppers. Unfortunately there wasn’t a great deal to perv on — ninety per cent of the punters could have done with a twelvemonth course at Jenny Craig’s. But all the stores were open for business and just loved Norton’s VISA card. In no time he was loaded up with a stack of junk, including two pairs of plastic, gel-filled innersoles and a dollar bill with Elvis Presley on it instead of George Washington. At least he’d got some good T-shirts and caps at Warner Bros World for Murray’s kids and the rest of the family. After stuffing it all into the boot of the car, Les decided it was time to go in search of a nice cup of coffee.

  One flight up the escalators and just back from Warner Bros World was a long balcony that backed onto the park where a nice young couple were selling coffee and cakes from a small, open-air stand with a slightly larger awning above. There were plastic chairs and tables with umbrellas and the Kona coffee in large steaming mugs appeared to be very good indeed. It was. Les found a seat overlooking the park and sipped his coffee while he checked out the view and the nearby punters and tried to relax while he killed some time before he left. Yet Norton couldn’t fully relax. Although he didn’t want to admit it, this Mr Walker thing had got right under his skin. Buzzing around inside his head like an annoying mosquito buzzing around in your bedroom and you can’t get to sleep until you either swat it or hit it with a burst of Mortein.

  Les finished his first coffee and got another one, then continued to stare out over Ala Moana Park and the little bridges and lagoons he’d seen earlier and the yachts and cruisers bobbing around in the stormy breeze out near the breakwater. The main clues were in those photocopies he’d got from the HPD. But the key to the puzzle had something to do with that fight he’d had in the lift with Mitzi and the four marines. It reminded Les of something he’d done somewhere and some story someone had told him. It wasn’t getting any earlier and Les was on a third cup of coffee when it dawned on him. It was a silly bloody movie and an even sillier bloody drinking session. Les snapped his fingers and looked at his watch. What time would it be in Sydney right now? There’s almost a day’s difference. Late Thursday afternoon? If I get my finger out I might catch him working back. If not, I might get him at home. Norton left the rest of his coffee, hurried down to his car and drove back to the hotel.

  Norton’s mind was buzzing as he flogged the Mustang through the afternoon traffic. Other things were starting to fall into place as well and if he didn’t get hold of this bloke in Sydney and get in touch with Mick and it turned out he was right, there was a chance Andrea could get murdered tonight. He dropped the car off in the driveway, got all the stuff he’d bought from the boot and got the lift straight back to his room. As he switched the lights on he noticed the message button glowing on the phone again. He picked up the receiver and it was a message from Mick.

  ‘Mate, I only just got up. What’s going on? You said you’re going back tonight. This is a bit unexpected. I’m running late for work, but I’ll be there till about seven. I’ll try and see you before you go, but I’m flat out. Ring me at work. You got the number. See you.’

  That was the only message. Les looked at the phone, then looked at his watch. There were two cans of beer left in the fridge. He opened one and took a mouthful then got his book of phone numbers plus a biro from his bag and picked up the phone again.

  ‘Hello, reception. Nerine speaking.’

  ‘Yes, it’s Mr Norton in room 1512. I’d like to place a call to Sydney, Australia.’

  ‘Just one moment. I’ll put you through to the operator.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Hello, operator.’

  ‘Yes. It’s Mr Norton in room 1512. I’d like to ring Sydney, Australia. Here’s the name and the number.’ Norton started to give the girl the details.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. Could you repeat that please and talk a little slower.’

  ‘Ohh, yeah. I forgot.’ Norton slowed down into second gear so the operator could understand Australian.

  ‘Thank you. Please hang up and I’ll call you back.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Les sipped his beer and placed a hotel notepad next to the phone. He had time for another mouthful of beer and a doodle when the phone rang.

  ‘Mr Norton? Here’s your call to Australia.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Les took a breath and smiled at the familiar double ring of the phone back in Australia. It gave him a tinge of homesickness.

  ‘Hello, Police Headquarters. Taskforce Pinewood.’

  ‘Yes. Could I speak to Detective Gary Stanton please? Extension 3437. I’m ringing from overseas.’

  ‘Just one moment. I’m putting you through.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Norton wriggled the biro between his fingers as he waited on the line.

  Detective Gary Stanton was seated in an open office about ten times as big as Mick Reinhardt’s with about twenty times the number of detectives and about the same number of uniformed police. Phones were ringing constantly, people were running everywhere, computer screens blinked from every table, there were graphs, maps and charts on every wall, along with newspaper clippings and photos, ordinary photos, identikit photos; there were even computer printouts from NASA satellites spinning around hundreds of kilometres above the earth. Detective Stanton leaned his long frame back in his swivel seat, ran both hands over his lean face, then through his spiky brown hair, looked at the madness going on around him and thought how wonderful it was being a cop. Especially in Forensic. According to the latest headlines in this morning’s papers, they were all corrupt, had false bank accounts all over the place, filed in and out of the ICAC hearings, alongside high-profile lawyers and well-known Sydney racing identities, and just sat around on their arses getting fat like the different detectives seen on TV every night. If only it was true.

  Normally Detective Stanton spent his time firing guns into water tanks then retrieving the bullets and casings to peer at them for hours through a comparison microscope looking for lands and grooves or blown up on a video monitor and scaler trying to find individual characteristics. If that got a bit boring, there were always women’s heads hacked off and left in ovens to look at, or bodies in the front seats of cars with a shotgun muzzle under their chin and their t
oe on the trigger and not much head left at all to look at. Or heavy stroppers hanging from doorjambs who had got their rocks off for the last time with a bit of home fun, autoeroticism. All the niceties in life. The niceties and pleasantries of life that are swept up by people like Detective Stanton so the general public never have to see or deal with them. The ‘easy’ part of the job.

  For the last six months, Detective Stanton had been working eight days a week and thirty-four hours a day trying to find some sadistic ratbag who’d been murdering hitchhikers and leaving their bodies half buried in nearly every National Park between Newcastle and Coffs Harbour. When he wasn’t home with his wife and two kids at Bronte, Detective Stanton was roaming up and down the Pacific Highway digging up decomposing bodies or skeletons in rags. When he wasn’t doing that, he was attending post-mortem examinations of skulls riddled with bullet holes and backbones full of knife wounds. Then going over more photos of skulls and backbones, maps and charts and staring at computer screens till almost hypnotised. Then the wife wonders why, when she serves oxtail stew for tea, you get this weird laugh and she has to hide all the knives in the kitchen and the kids have to run into their room and lock the door. But the job did have its moments, especially when you finally cracked that break you were looking for, got the murderer in the dock and proved this is how, where and why he or she did it. It was a buzz. But this case wasn’t a buzz. So far it was nothing but a complete bummer. Nine bodies scattered up and down the Pacific Highway, all killed the same way and practically nothing to go on. And just when you think you’ve got a lead, some bushwalker or jogger finds another body rotting away out in the middle of nowhere. So it’s back out with the camera and notebook, swatting flies and wiping away perspiration in the great Australian outdoors. Yes, the job did have its moments, Detective Stanton smiled mirthlessly as he stared back at his computer screen while the cop two desks away let go with a torrent of bad language as he knocked a cup of hot coffee over his lap. The phone ringing seemed to momentarily cut through the blasphemies.

  ‘Yeah, hello. Detective Stanton.’

  ‘Hello, Shifty. How’s things? It’s Les Norton.’

  ‘Les. Hello, mate. How are you going?’

  ‘Pretty good. What about yourself?’

  ‘Oh, you know. The same as usual. Flat out like a dead wombat.’

  ‘Nose to the ground and arse in the air, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that. So what are you up to? Where are you ringing from anyway?’

  ‘You probably won’t believe it, Gazz. Hawaii.’

  ‘Hawaii? What are you doing over there?’

  ‘Having a holiday with Warren and today’s the last day. Actually, I was hoping I’d catch you at work. What are you doing?’

  ‘Still working on those hitchhiker murders. Task Force Pinewood.’

  ‘That? It’s been nearly six months. Haven’t you caught the cunt yet? What are youse all doing in there? Sitting around picking your arses?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, Les. Sitting around on our dates, playing cards, doing crossword puzzles. It’s great. So what are you ringing me for anyway, Knackers? Has somebody stolen your grass skirt?’

  ‘No, my grass handbag. Listen, remember that cop I had the barbecue for round my place? Mick, the bloke from Hawaii?’

  ‘Ohh, yeah. The real fit bloke. Didn’t drink much. Nice bloke.’

  ‘That’s him. Well, I caught up with him over here — in fact, he gave me a cap to give to you.’

  ‘Oh beauty.’

  ‘Anyway, Mick’s up to his neck with a serial killer.’

  ‘Oh terrific, Les. That’s all I bloody need at the moment. What’s his one doing?’

  ‘Killing hookers.’

  ‘Yeah. What with? Kindness?’

  ‘Not really. A bayonet. Anyway, I’m sure I know something that can help Mick and I want to ask you something, Gary.’

  ‘Yeah, go on.’

  ‘Remember we were all pissed down the Diggers one Friday afternoon, about a year ago? We won all those jackpots.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember all right. It nearly cost me my marriage.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Well, there was a cop there from up the North Coast, and he told us that story about something he called the “Rhonda Colby” or the “Raisa Klaus murder”, or something. I was that pissed I can only remember bits of it.’

  ‘Rhonda Colby?’ Gary had to think for a moment. ‘Oh, I remember. The Rosa Klebb killing. The bloke got stabbed in a caravan park in Forster. I remember it because the bloke’s name was Foster.’ Detective Stanton chuckled into the phone. ‘Yeah, I remember it all right.’

  ‘Well, can you zap that up on a computer and fill me in a bit on the story?’

  Ohh yeah, thought Detective Stanton. Anything to break the monotony of what he was doing for a short while. ‘I don’t see why not. Hang on a minute.’

  Les thought about the drink at the Diggers again and smiled to himself. He took another mouthful of beer and tapped his biro eagerly against the hotel memo pad as he waited for Gary to come back.

  ‘Yeah, I got it, Les,’ he said, staring at the computer screen in front of him. ‘The bloke’s name was Albert Arthur Foster. Aged fifty-eight, unemployed, blah blah blah. Yeah, accidental death. He fell on his sword, so to speak. Or in this case a fishing knife.’

  ‘That’s it!’ enthused Les. ‘But what’s the story behind it again?’

  ‘The accidental death?’ replied Detective Stanton, a little cagily. ‘Well, as you know, Les, I can’t say a great deal over the phone.’

  ‘I realise that, Gary. But can you just… you know?’

  Gary thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, all right.’

  Les listened intently as Detective Stanton ducked and dived, and weaved and wound his way around the story the North Coast detective had told them down the Diggers that afternoon. Les just nodded his head as he held the phone to his ear but it was hard to hide his enthusiasm.

  ‘So that’s about the size of it, Les. Poor bludger, what a way to go. And let’s just say, Les, it doesn’t pay to fool around with wives… I mean knives… when you’re drunk.’

  ‘My sentiments exactly, Detective Stanton,’ Les smiled over the phone.

  Detective Stanton looked across the room and caught the eye of a detective waving at him and pointing to a graph he and some other detectives were staring at. ‘Les, I have to go, mate. I’m being called.’

  ‘Okey-doke, Gary. Well, thanks a lot for that. I owe you one. How about I catch up with you for a beer and a pie when I get back? I’ll give you a ring Friday.’ ‘Do that, Les. See you, mate.’

  ‘See you, Gary.’

  Well, there you go, thought Norton, smiling down at the phone. I knew there was something. He took his beer over to the window, sipped it as he stared at the darkened ocean for a few moments, then went over to the photocopies he’d left out on the table along with his radio. That made sense all right. It didn’t say who the killer was and it didn’t necessarily narrow down the field, but it did point out what could possibly be Mr Walker’s ‘modus operandi’ as they say in the wallopers. Les chuckled softly and shook his head. And all because of a silly bloody fight in a lift and an even sillier bloody drinking session.

  Norton opened the last can of beer in the fridge, turned on the TV, leaving the volume down, and watched it from the table with the radio playing. The first channel he got had film of the volcano erupting and it was quite spectacular, both the day-and night-time shots. People running everywhere, houses and buildings being engulfed slowly by this advancing wall of molten rock. Clouds of steam billowing into the air as the lava flowed into the ocean. Geysers of red-hot molten rock exploding into the sky from a mountain that looked like nothing more than some monstrous, grey ash-covered slag heap. By contrast, the night shots showed the volcano turning the evening sky into an intensely beautiful, iridescent purplish orange colour, lighting up the sea and the surrounding area for kilometres around. It was nature at its worst yet at its most sp
ectacular. Christ, thought Les, that’s unbelievable. And to think that running around somewhere in the middle of all that is Warren. No wonder he sounded like he was shitting himself. I reckon I would be too. The camera zoomed back to the people coming and going, planes landing and more camera crews arriving for the big event. Norton screwed his face up, edging a little closer to the TV set. Hello, there’s a familiar face. And looking all concerned and dramatic. But that’s only natural. Then Les started to chuckle before finally laughing out loud. Shit! I might not have solved one mystery here just yet, but I think I’ve solved another. The camera then switched to a helicopter flying over the volcano’s crater, through the clouds of gas and smoke tumbling into the sky above a lake of glowing, molten red lava. Les shuddered as he recollected reading how the ancient Hawaiians used to throw virgins into the volcano to appease the Gods. Yuk! What an awful fate. If I was a young Hawaiian tart years ago, I wouldn’t be saving my cherry up for the honeymoon. I’d be getting out and having a root as soon as I left kindergarten. And plenty of ’em. They could say what they liked about me. Anything’d be better than that. Norton sipped his last beer and stared absently at the TV as his mind switched back to Mr Walker. Suddenly his thoughts seemed to be in as much turmoil as the glowing lava boiling away in Kilauea. One thought was what was going to happen to poor blasé bloody Andrea. Another had him hoping above all that he wasn’t right. Anything but that. But it looked bad. Awful bad. Les turned away from the TV and gazed out the window. It was now pitch black. Shit! Where did the day go? Norton suddenly snapped his fingers. Bloody hell! I got to ring Mick. He rose to walk over to the phone when it rang. It was Mick.