If a psychopath had killed Merv and the other victims in the church, who would they kill next?
Chapter 11
Drive-in Driving Off
It’s the end of an error. Gibber’s drive-through will soon go the way of the pounds and the pence and become a thing of the past. Instead of loading up the kids or your favourite sheila into the Cortina, coloured TV means that you can have a dulux cinematic experience in your lounge room. While their is something undeniably attractive about watching the latest blockbusters on the sofa with the missus, we will all fondly remember not watching the latest films because we were too busy in the backseat.
The last viewing will be in a few months’ time, and will be showing local movie Mod Max starring Mel Gibson.
THE KILLER
Not one person in that café knew how easy it was to kill.
The killer sat in the Blue Belle, inhaling the scent of baking apple cake and plum strudel, waiting for the mug of coffee on the table to cool. Outside, Gibber’s Creek’s post-school rush headed down to get last-minute groceries or a fortifying slice of carrot cake. And none of them . . . not a single one . . . had any idea how simple it was to kill someone.
Suddenly the longing to go back to the place where that first blow had been struck was too great to ignore. The track to the billabong, below the slope that led to Dribble.
Time to relive that moment when the man who had seemed so powerful seconds before crumpled on the ground, like an old newspaper thrown away among the tussocks.
The killer looked at the faces in the café again, a mother wiping chocolate icing from a small grubby mouth, another over at the counter buying quiche and a container of salad from Halfway to Eternity to give her family for dinner. Would their lives change if they knew how ridiculously easy it was for someone to come up quietly behind them and to strike a blow like that? Would they always be glancing behind, jumping at shadows?
Perhaps ignorance was good.
Chapter 12
Ties and Tresses: The Gibber’s Creek Businessmen’s Association to Admit Women
Burn your business bras, ladies! The Gibber’s Creek Businessmen’s Monthly Luncheon is going the way of women’s lib and has decided to admit women.
The Committee met today and after pressure ‘from certain local groups’ voted on the motion. But not everyone is thrilled about it.
According to newcomer to Gibber’s Creek, Stan Proudfoot, travel agent and proprietor of Proudfoot’s Travels: ‘I’m not saying I don’t love women, but I think that business decisions are best made by those with a cool head, preferably over a cold beer. Plus some of the blokes might get distracted by a good-looking bird. Women should leave serious topics to the big guns.’
However, many in the community dismiss Mr Proudfoot’s claims as chauvanistic nonsense, including the Editor of this paper, as well as Ms Fiona Lee, manager of Lee’s Emporium, Mrs Blue McAlpine and Mrs Mah McAlpine, former proprietors of the Empire Buscuit Factory until its takeover by US interests.
JED
Jed lowered herself into the old cane banana lounge on the veranda and let the dusk breeze wash over her. Six years ago her face would already have been covered in bushflies — but then Sam had brought dung beetles to Gibber’s Creek, wonderful dung-rolling beetles that made it impossible for the bushflies to breed. And life had changed, not just for her but for everyone, and the sheep too . . .
Beside her, Mattie stood in her playpen, holding on to its walls as she cautiously edged along them. She’d be toddling unaided soon, getting into everything.
How long had it been since she had just sat here, watching the sun sink behind the river, turning it flaming red, fading to rust then silver?
She knew exactly how long it had been. Five months, two weeks and five days.
Thank goodness no one today had said, ‘Sam wouldn’t want you to hide yourself away in grief like this.’
She hadn’t been hiding in grief. Yes, grief was there, tearing, gut-aching grief, and sadness too, which was not the same as grief, and sorrow for Sam, who might never see his daughter grow or hold his grandchildren or see every house in Australia wearing solar panels.
But the last five months she had been . . . she hesitated over the exact word. Incapable? She had not known how to cope with other people’s grief, had not had the energy to even try. So she had shut herself away from life, exactly as she had as a girl till old Fred and Sam made her live again. And it had taken Fish to make her see it.
The phone rang as she was putting Mattie to bed in her cot. She dropped a brief kiss onto the curly hair — just like Sam’s but finer, softer — and hurried out to answer it.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, it’s me.’ The voice was uncharacteristically muted.
‘Scarlett? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ said Scarlett, her voice slightly nervous. ‘Just letting you know that I’m coming down for a few days. I will be quiet and not interrupt your writing, but I am coming down. I know you’re not my real sister. I know it’s not really my home, but —’
‘What?’ She collapsed onto the hall chair. Maxi immediately put her head on Jed’s foot. ‘Of course this is your real home!’
What had she done to make Scarlett — indomitable Scarlett — feel like this? Memory swept in: the too-many times she had told her sister she didn’t feel like company because she was writing, the dinners where she had sat, silent and refusing to communicate. ‘Scarlett, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I . . . I haven’t been writing. I just didn’t want anyone to know. I’ve seemed to have got lost and can’t find my way back. I haven’t been able to cope with anything or anyone.’
‘Not even me?’
‘I didn’t want to sweep you into my sadness. You have Alex and university and so much happening for you. I just wanted you to be happy! But this is your home forever. I’m your sister forever, no matter how dumb I act.’
‘Yeah, you’ve been pretty dumb,’ said Scarlett. She sounded more like herself now.
‘Okay, brat, you don’t have to rub it in.’
‘Then it’s okay if I come down Thursday?’
‘Yes. A million times yes. And I won’t pretend I’m writing instead of hiding in my room crying or looking at the wall, and if I do, then you can yell at me.’
‘Excellent,’ said Scarlett. ‘I’ll be down in time for dinner.’
‘But don’t you need to read up before lectures begin again?’
‘I will do brilliantly. I always do. How are things? I mean really, how are things?’
‘Tidier, better fed and less depressed than when Blue arrived. She called you, didn’t she?’
A silence. Then, ‘Yes. Jed, I’m so sorry. I thought that with all your other problems, you just couldn’t cope with a crippled sister . . .’
‘I’ve never thought of you as crippled, or not for more than thirty seconds when I first met you,’ said Jed gently. ‘It’ll be good to see you, brat.’
Scarlett laughed at the old name. ‘See you Thursday night.’
‘Will Alex be with you?’
A hesitation. ‘I don’t think so. See you then.’
Jed had just put the receiver down when the bell rang again.
‘Jed, my sweet, it’s me, your oldest friend and newest editor. I thought I might pop down the week after next, have a chat about your book.’
‘I’m sorry I . . . I still haven’t done any more work on it. Is that going to get you into trouble?’
‘No,’ said Julieanne gently. ‘I’ve warned everyone the publication date might have to be put back. But maybe chatting about it will help you get started again.’
‘Did Blue call you, or Scarlett?’ demanded Jed.
‘Scarlett. She said you need to see people.’
‘I’m better than I was, will be even better in a fortnight, and would love to see you.’
‘Thank goodness,’ said Julieanne, just as someone knocked at the door.
‘Sorry, I have to go.’
‘Okay, my sweet. Talk later.’ They hung up.
The door opened. ‘Cooee? Only me,’ said Carol. She wore the tattered overalls she wore at the commune, not the black pantsuit she donned these days to practise law in Gibber’s Creek.
‘Scarlett or Blue?’ asked Jed patiently.
Carol grinned. ‘Nancy. Blue rang her. Nancy can’t come over herself tonight because they’re getting the sheep ready to sell and they’re checking them for strike, so she rang me. I think she’s pretty cut up about selling them. She’s sure this dry spell is the beginning of a long drought.’
‘I bet she’s right,’ said Jed.
‘Probably.’ Carol looked at her quizzically. ‘Going to tell me again that you’re working and need to get back to your book?’
‘No.’
‘Good. You know, that was the first time I have ever heard you lie.’
‘It wasn’t a lie. I did need to get back to writing. I do need to get back to writing. I just didn’t . . . do it.’
‘Okay. Do you want me to stay for dinner, or would you rather I buzzed off?’
‘I would love you to stay. I may burst into tears, but I suddenly want to eat vast amounts of extremely delicious things.’
Carol held up a Tupperware container. ‘Good thing I brought dinner then. Cheese and spinach triangles.’
Sam had been going to bring back cheese and spinach triangles for dinner, the day of his accident. Jed had not eaten them since. But Carol could not know that. ‘Blue and Mah left a whole fridge full of stuff,’ she equivocated.
‘You can eat the fridgeful tomorrow. Also there’s a music evening at the commune next week, and you need to go to it.’
Jed hesitated. ‘Julieanne might be here then . . .’
‘Bring her.’
Jed tried to imagine elegant Julieanne sitting on stumps of wood among the guitars, accordion and fiddles of Halfway to Eternity’s music evenings. The images fitted surprisingly well. But . . .
She shook her head. ‘Maybe.’ Everything around her spoke of Sam McAlpine. It was time she ate cheese and spinach triangles again too. But it would hurt too much to see the commune where she first met Sam.
‘You have to face it sometime,’ said Carol softly.
Jed stared at her. Halfway to Eternity was where she had first swum with Sam in the river and admired his hydraulic ram. Every fruit tree or adobe wall would sing of him.
Which was why, she realised, she needed to take his daughter there. Because Sam was not gone, not yet, and maybe not ever. And if being at the commune made memory brighter, then that was good.
Jed opened the door fully, allowing Maxi’s nose close enough to sniff the cheese and spinach triangles, which from long experience she knew might leave delicious flakes on the kitchen floor. ‘Come on in.’
Carol put the package on the table. ‘I cry for Sam,’ she said suddenly. ‘I love him too. I don’t mean the way I did when I had a crush on him. Sam is just plain lovable.’
‘He is, isn’t he? I saw you once, coming out of his hospital room. I ducked into the toilets so you wouldn’t see me.’
‘Why on earth?’
‘I don’t like being with him when other people are there. Except Mattie, of course.’ She managed a smile. ‘Maybe we’ll cry a bit together sometime. And thank you for dinner.’
The triangles were perfect, naturally, having been made by Leafsong of the Blue Belle Café, possibly the world’s most expert cook. The salad was also perfect, as was the chocolate cheesecake that someone had left in the fridge, with more of Blue’s vanilla-bean ice cream, as Jed tried to explain to Carol the trigger for her transformation.
‘She’s a funny little thing,’ said Jed. ‘Spiky pink hair, fish hand-painted on her bell-bottoms. Quite beautiful too, but I don’t think she knows it. Blue says her father is Vietnamese.’
‘Boat person?’
‘No idea. She wouldn’t even say why she’s here and not in school. And what a name — Fish!’
‘That’s not a Vietnamese name, is it?’
Jed helped herself to more ice cream as Maxi hoovered up the filo pastry crumbs under the table, then positioned herself into the pose of faithful dog who deserves to lick out the ice-cream container. ‘Not that I know of. My bet is she chose it herself.’
‘Do you really agree with her that there’s a psychopath on the loose?’
‘Of course not. If I did, I’d have warned her to keep out of it. And called the police. I bet the bodies are old as the hills. Maybe the church was built on an old graveyard or something. But Fish needs to think she’s needed.’
Carol gave her an odd look. ‘Then why are the police keeping quiet about the other bodies?’
‘They probably aren’t,’ said Jed practically. ‘Just waiting for the results of proper forensic examinations to establish causes of death. And maybe till they’ve carbon-dated them or something, so they can make a formal statement without people yelling that there’s a serial killer on the loose. They might be a hundred years old or more for all we know.’
‘Okay, maybe. But that still leaves horrible Merv.’ Carol hesitated, then added, ‘The police questioned me too this afternoon. But there wasn’t much I could tell them — just that I didn’t see any sign of Merv or his car when we got here that day, or any strangers lurking about. Who do you think killed him?’
‘You know it wasn’t me, or Sam or any of the crew.’
‘Actually, I don’t,’ said Carol quietly.
‘What?’ Jed stared at her.
Carol met her eyes. ‘I think you didn’t do it. In fact, yes, I know you didn’t do it, because you are my friend and I am good at judging people. But I’m a lawyer. I also know what is considered admissible evidence in court, and in court my feelings wouldn’t count. You or Sam could have killed Merv days before the fire.’
Jed looked at her ice cream. Should she confess she had seen Merv that day, so there was no way he could have been killed before the fire?
No. Carol would expect her to tell the police. Nor could she quite face going through the events of that day again . . . not yet.
Carol was still looking at her. Was that a lawyer’s evaluation?
‘If I didn’t do it, and Sam didn’t do it, are we left with a mass murderer?’
Carol shook her head. ‘No, I agree with you on that one. You know what I think? Merv was a bastard, right? How many people do you think he hurt, apart from you? Fifty? A hundred? He might even have made enemies while he was here. Probably did.’
‘And they followed him out here?’
‘Can you think of a better idea?’
‘No. It . . . it even makes sense.’ It made a lot of sense. Merv had been an expert at nastiness. Jed suspected she hadn’t been the first girl he’d raped either.
‘Should I be worried about the police suspecting me?’ she asked bluntly.
‘Speaking as your lawyer? Let’s just say concerned.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Very seriously. You and Sam are the obvious suspects. You might even have colluded, luring Merv out here into a trap so Sam could kill him.’
‘But we didn’t!’
‘I know, honey,’ said Carol softly. ‘But the police don’t. It’s probably better that . . .’ She stopped and flushed.
‘You were going to say that it’s better they think Sam did it instead of me,’ said Jed bitterly. ‘Because they probably can’t charge Sam unless he’s conscious. And they can never charge him if he dies.’
‘I was going to say that, but I didn’t. I know Sam too.’
‘He is good, isn’t he?’ said Jed.
‘Just plain nice. Everything he did . . . Damn, you’ve got me crying now . . .’ Carol fumbled as she angrily pulled a hanky out of her overalls.
‘Here.’ Jed passed her the tissues, took one herself and blew her nose. ‘And I know tissues are a waste of a tree.’
‘Not if we’re crying for Sam, they’re not,’ said Carol. She reached for Jed’s hand. �
��I’m sorry. I should have been here the last five months.’
‘And I shouldn’t have shut everyone away. More cheesecake or another tissue?’
‘Both,’ said Carol.
Chapter 13
The Bears Win Again!
The Gibber’s Creek Beans Rugby Team won a thrilling victory over the Goobillup Gorillas last Saturday. The Gorillas were leading 5–2 when Bears team Captain Jason Sampson scored the decisive try, which revitalised the Beans to sweep to victory . . .
JED
She slept. The last time she had lain down and simply slept was the night before Sam’s accident. Each night since then had been a small private mourning at the absence of his warmth from the sheets, the comfort of his breathing, being able to mumble, ‘You get her,’ and have the baby brought to her, warm and freshly changed, to feed in the security of bedclothes tangled about her and Sam, the scent of a baby and of two people who loved each other and their child.
Love had its own fragrance. Maybe every marriage had its own perfume.
And hers was gone.
But tonight, at last, sleep was a blessing: easy, gentle sleep. She woke only when a wet nose poked her elbow. Maxi, telling her Mattie was awake a few seconds before the ‘I am here; oh, those must be my toes!’ gurgle became a hungry roar.
If eating was ever an Olympic sport, her daughter was going to win gold.
She padded along the corridor. She no longer fed Mattie in their bed . . . her bed. It made the absence of Sam more than she could bear. Instead she sat in the rocking chair in Mattie’s room and gazed at her daughter.
‘Book?’ said Mattie.
‘I survived this because of you,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think I’d have bothered to go on each day if it hadn’t been for you.’ Mattie gently grabbed a hunk of hair in a chubby paw and pulled. Jed smiled and unwound the fist, then replaced the hair with her finger. Mattie had a grip of steel too. Just like her father . . .
‘Book book urgle urgle gah,’ said Mattie firmly, grabbing at Jed’s shirtfront.
The Last Dingo Summer Page 8
