by Gary Gregor
The man, still smiling, stood over Susan’s body for a moment, and then turned his back and walked away.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Russell Foley said into his phone. “Please tell me this is some kind of weird joke!”
“It’s no joke, Russell,” Cameron Yap Yap Barker, the Officer in Charge of Major Crime in Alice Springs confirmed. “A local aboriginal park ranger from Finke found the body. Young woman, apparently on her own, shot once in the throat. He called Moose McKenzie at Kulgera and spoke to Moose’s wife. She told him Moose was out there with you and he should call me. You need to get out there and secure the scene.”
“Shit!” Foley cursed.
“Where are you up to out there?” Barker asked.
“We’re just finishing up,” Foley answered. “John Singh and his off-sider have removed the bodies from the vehicle and loaded them into the ambulance for transport back to Alice Springs. Their vehicle is being loaded onto the flat-bed tow truck as we speak. The ambulance and the tow truck will leave here together. The roads are a bitch, so they probably won’t get back there until very late this afternoon.”
“Okay. You and Sam take Singho with you to Chambers Pillar. Tell Singho’s off-sider to convey the bodies back here. I’ll get another ambulance on the way to collect the body.”
“What about Moose?” Foley asked.
“Moose and his 2IC are to follow you,” Barker explained. “There are no police out there. The ranger is on his own. The scene is unsecured and, apparently, there’s a few rubbernecking tourists out there who have probably tramped all over the scene by now. You need to get out there, close the area down and get back to me if you need more troops.”
“Okay, boss,” Foley nodded. “I’ll call you when we get there.” He closed his phone and crossed to where Sam, Moose McKenzie, Forensics Sergeant John Singh and his partner, Reece Stevens, stood watching the final loading of the Watsons’ vehicle onto the tow truck.
“Everything okay?” Sam asked.
“No,” Foley answered grimly. “Everything’s fucked up.”
“Fucked up how?”
“We’ve got another one,” Foley said with a creased brow.
“Another one?”
“Yeah. A young female tourist, out at Chambers Pillar.”
“Shot?”
“Apparently,” Foley replied. “Ranger from Finke found her early this morning. On the viewing platform at the pillar. We gotta go out there.”
Sam turned to Moose McKenzie. “How far is that from here, Moose?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t been out there for a couple of months, but I do know the road is better than the road from Kulgera. Should take about an hour-and-a-half.”
Sam looked at his watch. “Gonna be a long day.”
Foley addressed Moose McKenzie and Colin Palmer. “Moose, you and Colin need to come with us. You know the road better than we do, so we will follow you out there. Better contact your wives and let them know you will be late home for dinner.”
“Dinner?” Moose snorted. “If we are lucky, we might make it back for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
Foley turned to John Singh. “Singho, you will ride with me and Sam.” He looked at Reece Stevens, Singh’s partner. “Reece, Yap Yap wants you to take the bodies back to Alice Springs. You can follow along with the tow truck. Make sure the truck takes the vehicle to our police compound, and you take the bodies directly to the hospital morgue when you arrive. Yap Yap will forewarn the hospital people that you are on your way.”
Because of its isolated, remote location, together with the rough corrugated access roads and the basic facilities on offer at the nearby camping ground, Chambers Pillar was not the magnet for tourists that so many other, more easily accessible Northern Territory iconic landmarks were. Those who did dare to venture out this deep into the Aussie Outback did so specifically to see Chambers Pillar and Castle Rock, the two main attractions in the Chambers Pillar Historical Reserve. Both features were renowned for their particular beauty when the sun rose at dawn and set in the late afternoon.
Very few of those who travelled to the Reserve stayed longer than a day or two; the place was just too remote, and the camping facilities were basic at best. There was no power for lighting or heating at night, and the long-drop toilets, housed in a small rustic, corrugated-iron structure, smelled disgusting after standing all day, every day, under the oppressive Territory sun. It was important to them that they view the attractions on offer. After all, Chambers Pillar and Castle Rock was the very reason they travelled there at all.
Colin Palmer was positioned approximately 100 metres from the viewing platform at Chambers Pillar. His task, assisted by the aboriginal tracker who’d found the body, was to keep the tourists from approaching any closer to the pillar and the gruesome sight that lay on the platform.
Palmer glanced at his watch and looked to the sky. The sun was sinking lower in the west and the air was becoming rapidly cooler, warning of the approach of yet another freezing cold desert night. The small handful of tourists were becoming restless. They wanted to be up close to the pillar when the sun set. Most of them, those who’d arrived the day before, missed the dawn viewing because of the body on the viewing platform, and now it looked like they were also going to miss the sunset viewing. Those who had forward travelling plans and were unfortunate to miss both viewings, would leave disappointed. Some simply fled the area as quickly as they could, lest there be a killer lurking among them.
There was sympathy, of course. A young woman was dead, brutally murdered, and that was sad. But the body had lain on the viewing platform all day, and the police had only just arrived. It was, understandably, disappointing for them and a small number of them were starting to get a little worked up over the enforced restriction placed upon admission to the viewing platform.
“I’m sorry,” Palmer announced to the small gathering. “Unfortunately, we cannot allow access to the viewing platform at this time. You may take photos from here, and you may walk around the base of the pillar if you wish, but please don’t approach the platform … and when taking photographs, please respect the situation we have here. A young woman has lost her life up there and there is an official investigation in process. I ask that you refrain from photographing the deceased.”
“When will we be able to access the viewing platform?” one man asked.
“A vehicle is on the way here to collect the deceased,” Palmer explained. “When that is done, the platform will be re-opened.”
“It will be too dark by then,” the same man complained.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” Palmer apologised. “I have been out here a few times, and I can assure you that the sunset viewing is as good, if not better, from ground level than it is up close on the platform. I can only ask that you try to understand our position here and not go onto the platform until it has been cleared for you to do so.”
Police Forensics Sergeant John Singh pushed himself up from his knees, removed his rubber surgical-type gloves and shoved them into his pocket. “Pretty girl,” he said as he looked back down at the body of Susan Chambers.
“Time of death?” Sam Rose asked.
Singh shrugged. “I’m no doctor, Sam. I’m guessing she was killed somewhere between five and six o’clock this morning. An autopsy should give us a more accurate time of death. We know the ranger found her just before dawn. As he said when we arrived, he likes to be at the pillar when the tourists arrive for the dawn viewing to answer any questions they may have regarding the attractions in the Reserve. There have been instances in the past where dick-head tourists think its good sport to carve their names into the base of the pillar, so he likes to be there to discourage that sort thing.”
“Motive?” Sam inquired.
“Not robbery,” Singh answered. “Her purse is still in her shoulder bag. It has about one-hundred-and-thirty dollars in it. Looks like it hasn’t been touched.”
“Name?”
Singh handed Sam
a driver’s license he took from Susan’s purse. “Susan Chambers. Twenty-five-years-old, from Adelaide.”
“Chambers?”
“Yeah, Chambers,” Singh confirmed. “Some coincidence.”
Russell Foley walked back from the far end of the platform where he had been on his phone, speaking to Cameron Yap Yap Barker in Alice Springs.
“Was that the boss again?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, it was,” Foley answered and looked at John Singh. “You almost done here, Singho?”
“All done,” Singh confirmed.
“There’s a part-time medical clinic at Finke,” Foley said. “A doctor from Alice Springs visits once a month, unless there is an emergency. There’s an aboriginal nursing aid living there who takes care of the place and attends to minor medical complaints as they arise. She has a key to the clinic. Yap Yap is sending the Flying Doctor to Finke first thing in the morning to pick up the body. We have to load the girl into the ranger’s vehicle, and he will take her back to Finke and secure her in the clinic until the doctor arrives tomorrow.”
“I’ll go and talk to him and get him to bring his vehicle closer,” Moose McKenzie said. “We don’t want to be carrying the body through that little group of tourists down there.” He indicated the gathered onlookers a short distance from the viewing platform.
“Good idea, Moose,” Foley said. “The sooner we get her off this platform and away from here, the sooner those folks can do what they came all the way out here to do. Maybe you and Colin should go back to Finke with the ranger. I hate to do this, but you better camp there overnight and keep an eye on things. We don’t want to break the chain of evidence.”
“We can do that,” Moose agreed. “I’ll get right on it.” He turned to leave.
“Thanks, Moose. I appreciate all you and Colin have done.”
Moose McKenzie gave a thumbs-up above his head as he headed down the viewing platform.
Foley turned back to John Singh. “What have we got, Singho?”
“Her driver’s license puts her at twenty-five-years old,” Singh said. “Address is Adelaide, South Australia.”
Sam handed the license to Foley.
“Chambers?” Foley asked, reading the license. “Miss Chambers is a long way from home.”
“Doesn’t look like a robbery,” Singh added. “She still has her money intact,”
Foley handed the license back to Singh and turned to Sam. “Okay, let’s get her loaded up and out of here. Then, you and I can go down under this platform and search for spent cartridges.”
“You think we are looking at the same perp?” Sam asked.
“It’s gotta be,” Foley answered. “Two murder scenes reasonably close together—one shot to the head of each victim—and no immediately apparent motive. And, if we don’t find a spent cartridge down below, it looks very much like the same shooter.”
“Let’s hope he is not gonna make a habit of this,” Sam said with a loud sigh.
“We need to find the prick before he does.” Foley looked down at the prone body of Susan Chambers. “How did she get here?”
Sam shrugged. “There are a number of options. She came in her own vehicle, she came with someone else, a boyfriend perhaps, or she came as part of a tourist group.”
“Let’s have a chat with those people down there.” He gestured the small group of onlookers waiting to get onto the viewing platform. “Someone has to recognise her. Then, we should go to the campsite and see if we can find out if she has her own vehicle parked there. If she has, we need to arrange to have it taken back for examination.”
Sam looked at the late afternoon sky. “Gonna be a long drive back to the Alice.”
“I know the folks at Maryvale Station,” Foley said. “It’s only about fifty k’s from here. I’ll phone them and see if they can put us up for the night. We’ll head back to Alice Springs in the morning.”
“If we’re staying overnight, I’ll need clean underwear,” Sam said with a wry smile.
“Do what you are always telling me to do,” Foley offered with a chuckle. “Turn them inside out.”
“Oooh! That’s disgusting, Russell!”
5
Susan Chambers drove from Adelaide to Chambers Pillar in a 1967 Volkswagen camper van. For its age, it was in remarkably good condition, and having travelled across some of the roughest roads in the Northern Territory, it seemed to have survived the journey unscathed, apart from a dense film of ochre-coloured road dust clinging to the exterior burnt-orange duco.
“Holy crap!” Sam exclaimed. “Have a look at that! Now, that is a classic car!”
“It looks to be in pretty good nick,” Foley commented with considerably less enthusiasm than his partner.
“It’s been looked after,” Sam agreed. “She must have loved this vehicle. Look at that pop-top: bloody beautiful!”
“It only pops up at the front,” Foley pointed out and suggested, “Broken rear stays, maybe.”
“That’s how they are, Russell,” Sam said.
“They come like that?”
“Yeah, great isn’t it?”
“Looks bloody silly,” Foley chuffed. “Walk down the back and you’re gonna crack your head every time.”
“The bed’s down that end, you moron,” Sam chided. “You don’t need to stand up in bed. It’s a fuckin’ classic, Russell!”
Foley fumbled through a small bunch of keys he’d retrieved from Susan’s shoulder bag, found the one he wanted, and opened the driver’s door. He passed the keys to Sam and climbed in behind the wheel.
Sam walked around the front of the van, smiled at Foley through the unique, Kombi front split-windscreen, and continued around to the sliding door on the passenger side. He unlocked the door and slid it open. Amazed at how easily and relatively quietly the door slid open, he stood for a moment looking down at the clean, smooth door track. “Bloody brilliant!” he murmured. Then, he looked up and gazed through the open door into the interior of the immaculately maintained vehicle.
In the rear-vision mirror, Foley noticed Sam peering into the rear of the Kombi. “What?” he asked, curiously.
“I want this car, Russell,” Sam answered.
Foley turned in his seat and looked at Sam standing in the open doorway. “What’s wrong with you? The poor girl has only been dead a few hours and already you want her car?”
“Look at it, Russell. It’s bloody spotless! You don’t see classic old vehicles as well kept as this anymore.”
“What would you do with it even if you had it?” Foley asked.
Sam climbed into the “living” area of the camper van. “I would drive out to Uluru, pick up Sarah, and drive off into the sunset.”
“And leave me without a partner?” Foley asked. “Bloody inconsiderate, if you ask me.”
“You’ll get another partner, Russ.”
“I’m too fuckin’ old to train another one,” Foley said. “Maybe I’ll come with you and Sarah.”
“That’s not even a little bit funny, Russell.”
While Sam searched among the drawers and cupboards in the rear of the camper, Foley rifled through the contents of the small glove compartment in the dash in front of the passenger seat.
“Find anything?” Foley called back to Sam.
“She travelled alone,” Sam answered. “Only one set of crockery and eating utensils and only lady’s clothes in the cupboards.”
“That confirms what her fellow campers told us,” Foley said.
“What do you want to do?”
“Hopefully, Moose hasn’t travelled too far down the track. I’ll ring him and get him to return with Palmer and one of them can drive the camper back to Finke. Ultimately, it will have to be conveyed to Alice Springs for closer examination. Let’s lock it up and head off to Maryvale Station.”
“Hope they got plenty of tucker there,” Sam said. “I’m so bloody hungry, I could eat the crotch out of a low flying duck.”
“It’s a cattle station, Sam. They will
have beef steaks the size of dinner plates. If they have a small billabong there, they might be able to catch you a duck, if that is more to your taste than prime rib-eye fillet.”
“What about the dude traveling on his own?” Sam asked Foley. “There’s not that many people at the campground, and it seems he was on his own.”
“I’ve been thinking about him. The campers, those who are still here, described him as an ordinary looking dude. Nothing unusual about him except that he arrived late last night and left before dawn this morning. If he is our perp, I don’t suppose he walked among them, bragging about his exploits.”
“It’s bugging me,” Sam frowned.
“Why?”
“Well, apparently, he never went to the Pillar. He arrived after dark, spoke to no one, camped on the ground in a swag, and left when it was still dark. Chambers Pillar is why people come all the way out here. They come to view the bloody thing. It’s off the beaten track. The road is as rough as it gets and there is nothing else out here to see but the Pillar and nearby Castle Rock. Why was he out here if it wasn’t for sightseeing?”
“Scouting for his next victim?” Foley suggested.
“We need Yap Yap to put out a BOLO,” Sam stated.
“What for?” Foley asked. “It was dark. We have only a vague, sketchy description of the dude and the vehicle he was driving. We know it was a four-wheel-drive with a soft canvas canopy on the back, but we don’t have a make or a model, or even a colour. Dudes in four-wheel-drives are a dime-a-dozen in this country. They’re part of the landscape. There’s so many of them, no one takes any notice. You saw the handful of vehicles at the campground; there wasn’t a conventional vehicle among them, except for the victim’s Kombi. It’s almost fuckin’ mandatory that you have a four-wheel-drive if you live in, or visit, the Northern Territory.”
