River of Salt

by Warner, Dave;

  Blake relaxed, sat back in the chair and listened to Andy’s ragged breathing. Only then did he remember Carol. Monday was her day off. He’d go and see her first thing. He closed his eyes. Sleep was welcome.

  7. Paradise Lost

  Both Carol’s front and back doors were still locked. A worm of concern was eating into him. There was no evidence Carol had been home since his last visit. He had no idea who she rented from so he decided to check the most obvious places a key might have been left — under the mat or in the meter box. Bingo: the front door key was in the box. He opened the door, caught that slightly stale smell of a house closed a short time.

  ‘Carol?’

  He had not expected an answer but called anyway. The lounge room revealed a rumpled sofa, a newspaper carelessly open. He checked it, Friday’s. He retraced his steps to the hall and advanced to the kitchen at the rear of the house: dishes had been washed and left to dry in a rack but it was perfunctory; the Trix not put away under the sink, the cutlery drawer not shut tight. It suggested haste but there was no sign of breakfasting today. Carol’s bedroom was the one at the back adjoining the kitchen, she always liked having that mess of plants and trees outside her window. He clicked on the light. The bed was stripped, the bedclothes on the floor in a heap. The old-fashioned wardrobe was open. The locusts had been through, coat hangers and nothing else. The bathroom was a similar story, a near-empty Pears shampoo in the bin, the cabinet cleaned out. The spare bedroom was, as always, untouched. He felt relief. No bloodied corpse, which, he could admit to himself now, had been his gravest fear. It looked like Carol had got up and left in a hurry. Not so extreme she had left dirty dishes around but she hadn’t tidied the lounge or cleaned the bathroom properly. Carol wasn’t what you’d call houseproud but she was neat and he would have figured considerate enough to leave the house spic and span if she decided to move on. He did a quick search but found nothing at all to suggest a forwarding address. She had never maintained a phone so he couldn’t call the golf club from here to see if somebody there knew anything. He locked the house back up and checked the trash can: old eggshells and vegetables but not paperwork.

  ‘If you see her, tell her not to bother turning up again because she has no job.’

  Blake knew Ray, the golf club bar manager, reasonably well. They weren’t really competitors. Each helped the other out if they were short of stock. Ray was stacking crates out the back of the building. ‘Never turned up Saturday, our busiest day, never called, nothing.’

  Blake helped him with a couple of crates, dug for more info.

  ‘She never showed Saturday?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘But she was fine Friday?’

  ‘Good as gold.’ Ray took a break from his labours and studied him. ‘Rooting her were you?’

  ‘We were acquainted.’

  Ray gave a knowing chuckle. ‘You might want to get your dick checked. You weren’t the only one.’

  Blake didn’t care, didn’t want to own anybody. He’d liked Carol, he got her, she got him.

  Ray embellished. ‘Couple of the members, older blokes.’

  It quickly ran through Blake’s head that perhaps there had been a problem in this regard: a wife finds out about her husband in a small place like this …

  ‘Do you know who she rented off?’

  Ray did not.

  ‘If you really need to find out why she split, try Gloria. She works at Gannons during the day and does the night shift here. She and Carol are thick.’

  Gloria was diminutive with a small unremarkable face, a clearing beneath thick, curly brown hair. Blake put her age at late thirties.

  ‘You’re the Yank she’s always going on about.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  They were at the back of Gannons, which purveyed everything from groceries to fishing gear. Gloria sucked on the very last of her cigarette, dropped it, ground it out, looked back up into Blake’s eyes searching for some indication of deception.

  Finally she said, ‘She didn’t tell me anything. She never told you she was heading off?’

  Blake told her no, she had not.

  ‘You didn’t do the dirty on her?’

  Blake decided to answer obliquely. ‘Everything was good. We were supposed to be going for a drive Sunday.’

  Gloria shrugged. ‘I dunno. I expected her Saturday. When she never showed, I thought she must be sick and too crook to call in. Then I thought we’d hear something yesterday. She’s not the kind of girl puts down roots, know what I mean, but I really thought she’d hang around. For you. She liked you. A lot.’

  ‘You know who she rented off?’

  ‘Try Gardiners.’

  Gardiners was the bigger of the two real estate agents in Coral Shoals and was only a block from Gannons. He thanked her.

  ‘You ever get shorthanded at your bar, you know where to find me. And if you hear from her, tell her to drop me a line.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘You heard any more about the woman was killed?’

  Blake said he hadn’t. He felt obliged to add, ‘I was worried … about Carol, you know? But all her things were gone. I don’t think anything bad happened.’

  Gloria gave a half-grunt. ‘Girls like Carol, something bad always happens.’

  George Gardiner wore a crisp white shirt, gold cufflinks and watch, striped tie. He had indeed rented the house on behalf of a client but had no idea the house had been vacated.

  ‘She’d paid to the end of the month, ten-pound bond. She’ll forfeit that.’

  ‘Did she leave a forwarding address?’

  Gardiner went to a filing cabinet and looked through, pulled out a form, scanned.

  ‘Post-office box in Toowoomba, Queensland. You want it?’

  Blake couldn’t see himself writing to her, he’d never written a letter in his life. He declined Gardiner’s offer and took his leave. That was it, a dead end. For some reason Carol had up and left. Maybe he was the cause, but then why agree to see him Sunday? If one of her family had fallen ill suddenly, wouldn’t she at least leave a message? Gloria was right. A girl like Carol always had some kind of trouble stalking her. He was kind of zoned out standing on the footpath — as they called it here — the air getting steamy again, when a shadow skidded through his vision like a dolphin through a wave and stopped in front of him. It was Nalder in his police van. The passenger window was half-down. He leaned over.

  ‘Come here.’ Nalder indicated something secretive. For the first time since last night, Blake thought about the bodies up there in the hinterland. They must have been found already. He lowered his head to the window. Nalder darted looks around, making sure he was secure.

  ‘Vernon and Apollonia just arrested the Beach Bum for the girl’s murder.’

  ‘You have to admit he is weird.’

  Doreen was squeezing oranges for a fresh juice. A Blake she had never had an inkling of had turned up at her place. Not the ice-cool, soft-spoken, logical Blake.

  ‘They’ve arrested Crane,’ he’d said, then run his mouth nonstop on how dumb and ignorant the police were. Five minutes on he continued to pace around the kitchen, still saying the same words. ‘Crane didn’t kill that girl.’

  She thought twice about saying anything but did anyway. ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just because he’s a friend …’

  ‘Forget that. How did he even get there?’

  She poured him a glass of juice and handed it to him, tried to be neutral. In honesty she could never say she liked Crane. He was smart, sure, he used words like a rich woman used her purse, as if knowing the contents would never run out. But he was a beach bum for a reason: he didn’t want to fit in with society.

  ‘What do the police say?’

  ‘According to Nalder, they say he was with the girl in her car. She gave him a lift to the motel. He killed her and walked back. It’s bullshit. He had scratches because he fell down Cockatoo Ridge. That’s what he told m
e and I believe him. They say it was her clawing at him.’ He looked at the juice, finally drank some.

  ‘They have any evidence: fingerprints at the motel, something like that?’

  ‘Nalder told me on the quiet that Crane’s fingerprints were on the outside of the car. So what? It was parked out the back of the Surf Shack. Some witness says they saw him talking to the dead girl.’

  ‘What witness?’

  ‘They wouldn’t reveal that to Nalder. It’s a fit up. They want to clear the case so they go for the easy target, Crane. I spoke to a solicitor in Sydney, David Harvey.’

  Alarm bells were ringing for Doreen. The business was doing well but Blake wasn’t shy to spend. Sydney solicitors didn’t come cheap. Blake was already into his story, how he had visited the local solicitor, Collopy, first.

  ‘The guy flapped about like a wounded seagull, saying the case was way out of his league. “If they’ve taken him to Sydney you need somebody there. At this stage you don’t need to engage a barrister.” At least Collopy explained the difference between the hot-shot who went to court in the wig and the guy who did the legwork. For now we need legwork.’

  ‘What did Harvey say?’

  ‘He was honest. He said if the cops had arrested and charged Crane, they wouldn’t be bothering about doing any other investigation, they would try and make everything point at Crane. He told me most Australian juries convict because they believe what the cops tell them. But for now, what he could do was visit Crane and tell him to clam up, say nothing.’

  That didn’t sound promising. She said as much.

  ‘It’s not. Harvey told me Crane’s best chance of getting off is if it’s some psycho who kills again. Great, huh?’

  She didn’t look him in the eye, just stirred the juice slow. ‘You can afford Harvey?’

  ‘Not for more than a couple of weeks. He advised me the most important thing was to get Crane good counsel now, in the early days, stop him from digging himself in a hole. But I have a plan.’

  She was worried he was going to go into debt over Crane. ‘You’re not going to get a second mortgage or anything?’

  ‘Money is not going to save Crane. I’m going to find out who did it.’ It made sense to Blake that if anybody could figure out the killer, it would be him. After all, the one thing he knew a lot about was killing people. He wasn’t proud of this but it was a fact that very few killers had his degree of professionalism: they got sloppy, they made mistakes. For a start, many knew the person they killed. They were married to them or related to them. They left a trail. It was of utmost importance therefore that he knew the identity of the young woman who had been murdered.

  ‘Valerie Stokes, twenty-four, convicted of prostitution three years ago in Kings Cross.’

  Nalder had agreed to meet him at Crane’s beach shack. The cops had been through it, trashed it. All that was left were books, tossed and left in the sand and scrub like scattered bones. The revelation about Valerie Stokes charged Blake.

  ‘It’s obvious. She met a john at the motel and he killed her.’

  ‘I don’t disagree but Vernon and Apollonia like the Beach Bum. He’s got no alibi, he was messed up, his fingerprint is on the car.’

  ‘In it or on it?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I heard on the outside, but they might have found something on the inside too. Why are you wasting your time with this no-hoper?’

  ‘I like him. He didn’t kill her. The real killer is wandering around free as a bird.’

  ‘According to Vernon, Stokes hasn’t been in the game for at least two years. She’s been working in a bar in Brisbane.’

  ‘Boyfriend, husband?’

  ‘Sort of boyfriend. He has an ironclad alibi. Says Valerie told him she was visiting a sister down this way. No sign of any relatives north of Sydney. She left Brisbane on the Sunday, the thirteenth. That night she stayed alone at the Heads in a motel. Left early next morning, also alone.’

  Monday the fourteenth, there had been sightings at Greycliff and Toorolong. Then on the Thursday her car had been out the back of the Surf Shack.

  ‘So where has she been in the meantime, Monday night through to Thursday?’

  ‘So far they haven’t been able to find out. That’s your mate’s best chance. Maybe she was turning tricks at motels.’

  ‘Or shacked up with whoever killed her.’

  Nalder conceded that would explain why the police could find no sign of her.

  ‘On the coast, she would have been seen but up in that hinterland … farms, shacks, no neighbours for miles …’ Nalder’s gesture intimated she might as well have been on the moon.

  ‘It’s not likely she just headed south on spec. She knew somebody. Does she actually have a sister?’

  ‘In Newcastle. That’s where she was from originally. The family haven’t heard from her in years. One day she piked school and never came home. They thought she was dead till a few years ago when a family friend said they’d seen her in Sydney. But she never got back to them. Wild girl, from what they said.’

  But if she had been heading back to Newcastle she would have kept driving south, not turned back up north to Brisbane via the Ocean View.

  ‘How much money did she have on her when she was found?’

  ‘Congratulations. I missed the part where you joined the police force and made detective.’

  ‘Somebody has to find the truth.’

  ‘If I were you I’d be concerning myself with those strongarm pricks that beat up your yardy.’

  Blake ignored him, old news. ‘How much money was she carrying?’ ‘Just under thirty-five pounds.’

  A lot for a barmaid to have. She had to have been back on the game. Already his brain was working on it: somebody who knew her from before when she was a hooker, who lived within about fifty miles. Maybe they weren’t the killer, maybe she’d left them, was heading back, decided to pick up a little more cash, picked the wrong john. He saw a weakness in the case against Crane.

  ‘If it was Crane, why do they figure he left so much money? He’s a bum. He’d take every cent he could get his hands on.’

  ‘They’ll say he’s a bloke who doesn’t care about money. Or he panicked.’

  In other words, they would say whatever fitted their theory. He’d wasted enough time.

  ‘Will you keep me posted?’

  Nalder sighed. ‘I feel bad about your yardy but it’s still not my job … but yeah, I’ll let you know what I know.’

  Though Blake had never stayed at the Ocean View Motel, he had driven by it a few times. If you were on the inland road that ran from out the back of Cockatoo Ridge, you took the turn-off to Billings on the coast. As he was already on the coast he just followed the road up to Billings and then took Banksia Drive, which ran about halfway up the low cliff that overlooked the small town. Banskia Drive was narrow and winding, with a half-dozen properties perched on the top level of the cliff accessed by driveways. He got caught behind the garbage truck and had to wait while they emptied the trash. It would have been a bitch hauling trash cans all the way down from the houses but the views more than compensated. One white-haired resident was waiting to collect his emptied trash can. It was banged up. He must have thought Blake a sympathetic soul. He started talking to him through his open window.

  ‘Buggers get a skinful and then overshoot the corner. They mangled my bin.’

  Blake wondered if he would ever get old and rich enough that his biggest concern was a dented trash can. He hoped so. A vision of Doreen came to him at her kitchen table, handing him the orange juice. If only it were possible …

  The rubbish truck jolted forward, the driver managing to get far enough to the edge of the cliff that Blake could squeeze past. He carried on about three hundred yards to the crest of the road where a tall sign ‘Motel’ ushered in the passing traveller. He turned into the short driveway past an entrance of stone and greenery. Reception was dead ahead but he kept going down the drive. The motel was single level and L-shaped but
unlike most motels, which were bare, this one had planter boxes filled with lush plants either side of each room door. These offered screening and privacy from each neighbour. You might see what car turned and parked in front of a unit but you wouldn’t see who got out. There was only one vehicle in front of any of the units, number two. It was hardly surprising, business was unlikely to be thriving given the circumstances. Number ten was the very last one on the short arm of the L, the furthest from reception, closest to the road. Blake made a three-point turn at the end of the strip and headed back to reception, parking in an empty bay beside an older model Holden. When he got out, he could see the ocean through a gap between the reception building and the accommodation area. Obviously the units offered views over the Pacific, as promised. He walked up a short, lopsided path. Birds were trilling, the humidity intensifying. Jasmine or some other sweet scent hung like incense. He entered the deserted reception area and saw, beyond the high desk, a small dining room and bar. He was about to hit the bell when a door at the back of reception opened and a gaunt man, straggly hair, wearing slacks and a sweater stepped through.