River of Salt

by Warner, Dave;

  ‘Hello. Looking for a room?’ The man’s voice was flat and high at the same time. Blake put him in his late thirties.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  The man waited for more.

  Blake said, ‘I want to take a look at room ten.’

  ‘You from a paper?’

  ‘Yeah. The police finished with it?’

  ‘As of yesterday. It hasn’t been cleaned yet.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Ten quid.’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Okay. But no pictures. I got to rent that room sometime, you know what I mean?’

  ‘Deal.’ Blake pulled out five pounds, asked if he owned the place.

  ‘My in-laws.’ He had picked up keys and was heading towards the door. Blake followed in behind him.

  ‘Did you meet the girl?’

  ‘I checked her in. She gave a false name. A lot of them do.’

  They were back outside now, walking diagonally towards the unit.

  ‘She was alone?’

  ‘She checked in alone. I never saw the car.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Ten-thirty or thereabouts.’

  Blake said he guessed the police gave him a going over.

  ‘Oh yeah. I was lucky my wife and mother-in-law were with me.’

  ‘You never heard anything?’

  ‘Like screams or something? No.’

  They had paused at the door. The motel guy pointed around the step.

  ‘There was spew all over here. I had to hose it down.’

  This was something Blake had not heard before. ‘The cops think it was the killer?’

  ‘That’s what I heard them say. They were whispering but I’ve got good hearing.’

  So whoever did it couldn’t handle his own handiwork. Or maybe there had been more than one person here?

  ‘Were you busy that night? Many rooms taken?’

  ‘Four, counting her. We had a travelling salesman and two couples. The police got all their details.’

  ‘What rooms were they in?’

  ‘The couples were in one and three, the salesman in six.’

  ‘Did she ask for the furthest room?’

  ‘Yes. She said she wanted the far room, that’s number ten.’

  ‘She make any impression on you?’

  ‘She seemed … I don’t want to speak ill of the dead … but like, not the kind of girl you want to marry but you’d love to take her to the drives.’ He opened the door, and said he wasn’t coming in. ‘Once was enough. Don’t take anything.’

  Blake gave him a scout’s sign. Doreen had taught him that. He stepped inside the room.

  With the curtains closed, it was black as the inside of a stove. He clicked on the central light. Like a giant’s ulcer had burst: blood trails, rusted, crusting. It was a good thing the body had been found early. In this humidity the stench would never have cleared. Even with the front window left open, a sickening odour lingered. Immediately to his right was a narrow door smeared with blood, the knob still dusty with print powder. He was guessing bathroom. With a handkerchief, he pushed open the door. Small bathroom as expected: sink, open glass shelves above it, a toilet and a shower stall. Whatever belongings had been left here had presumably been taken by the police. The floor was of small hexagonal tiles, the walls plaster. It was clear of blood, at least anything obvious. Blake pulled the bathroom door to and settled his stomach for the hard part. It was a slaughterhouse. The gold-brown nylon carpet was disfigured by what resembled a large burn mark not three feet from the door: caked blood. Good luck cleaning that off. There was a small writing desk to his left, two cane chairs with curved arms on the left-hand side of the room. The material back and cushions on one were clear but on the other were streaked with dark brown, more blood. The double bed occupied most of the room, its bedhead resting against the right-hand side wall, closest to the road. Directly in front of him, at right angles to the bed, a window looked out over the ocean but there were only glimpses. A lot of vegetation was growing out there. The sheets had been stripped but the bare mattress was splotched dark brown. Streaks of blood were all over the wall to the bed side of the room and there were more patches on the carpet. Blake imagined it going down. The photos showed Stokes naked. If she answers the door like that, she’s expecting someone. But then again it could have happened later. The killer was with her. Perhaps they had sex. She got up to go to the bathroom or grab a drink. Or they argued, she got up angry and the killer nailed her. From the photos he couldn’t say whether she’d been stabbed from in front or behind. And where had the knife come from? Had the killer brought it with him? Was it hers? What Blake did know was that this was done in an angry frenzy. He remembered what it looked like when Tino Sanchez stabbed Charlie Regan at the Miracle Pool Hall. It was a thin blood trail, width of a wasp, that was all, because Tino was a master knifeman and didn’t even get blood on himself. Whoever did this must have been covered in blood.

  Blake opened the bathroom door again and checked inside, this time as close as he could around the drain and near the hot and cold faucets. He still couldn’t see any blood but the cops had special instruments that could pick up what you don’t see with the naked eye, microscopes and things like that. So, according to them, Crane either showered, then got back into his old clothes with no blood traces or what, discarded his clothes? How did he get back to his shack? Had anybody found the clothes he’d supposedly got rid of?

  Blake had seen all he needed. He had to find where Stokes had been Monday night to Thursday evening. Solve that, there was a good chance he’d be able to find the killer.

  There was one more thing he needed to do.

  After thanking the motel guy and taking his phone number, Blake climbed back into his car and took the inland route south on Dayman Road. About eight miles before Coral Shoals, the road split. You could take Belvedere, which took you through the hinterland past farms, eventually to the Heights, or you could continue on Dayman. About two miles on from the Belvedere turnoff was the turnoff to Salisbury Road. It ran back down Coral Shoals joining the coast road about a mile south of his house. Crane had mentioned a logging track and Blake thought he knew the one, just a mile or so on from the Dayman turnoff. He found the track leading off into thick bush, parked and climbed out. It was damn hot now and the air smelt of future rain. The track curled along the ridge line in a semicircle. A lot of timber had been stripped from here to build sailing ships, or so he had been told. Many of the tall trees had gone but there was an abundance of ferns and bracken. About twenty minutes into his walk, he found a cabin. He was pretty sure this was the one Crane had talked about. It was made of rough wood, probably seventy or eighty years old but still provided shelter. Compared to Crane’s beach abode, it was a palace. Just like Crane had said, on its south side, the level ground on which the cabin had been built fell sharply away but you couldn’t see the drop unless you pushed aside the topmost ferns of the dense regrowth. When he did this, he could clearly see a drop of around twelve feet to the next plateau preceded by a trail of small broken branches and flattened fronds, just as if somebody had fallen. Of course it could have happened some other time. Crane could have made up this elaborate lie.

  Blake did not believe so.

  Just because Crane was weird didn’t mean Doreen thought he could be responsible but she didn’t want Blake getting involved. Yes it was selfish but she had found a tiny corner of paradise here, and now everybody wanted to tear it down. Those men who had beaten up Andy, what was going to happen to them? Were they going to come back and beat her up next? Or Blake? She had enjoyed their time this morning, Blake in her kitchen drinking a juice she’d just made. What if it really could be like that between them? He hadn’t gone to anybody else, not that little number from the golf club. Her phone rang. She answered it quickly, expecting Blake with news.

  ‘Doreen? It’s me, Kitty. Can I see you?’

  They met at the Heights tennis club. Kitty had ridden her bicycle and was
wearing tennis whites.

  ‘Mum’s at home and this is good cover,’ she explained as they took a seat on the quiet side of the terrace, the gentle rhythm of an unseen game somehow comforting like an aunt’s lullaby.

  ‘I just needed to see somebody.’ This was not the bubbly, confident Kitty of a week ago. Doreen tried to angle her body to offer intimacy but was hampered by the furniture. The tables and chairs were of heavy iron frames and legs, the tops and seats made of wood slats painted different prime colours. It made her think of those iron flamingos in her uncle’s garden, of family friends who had returned from the war and spent weekends with bags of concrete, wheelbarrows and welding torches. She would practise her steps and dream of being a ballerina while the men churned cement with thick shovels.

  ‘It’s horrible what happened but you’re going to be fine.’

  ‘I feel so stupid.’

  ‘Innocent is not stupid.’

  Kitty picked at her dress. ‘Even if a boy asked me out … I don’t know …’ she fought tears.

  Doreen reached over and took her hand. ‘What I like about you, you’re a really gutsy kid. This is not going to stop you. That creep is not going to fuck up your life. I won’t let him, and neither will you, right?’

  The tears squeezed out but there was a smile too. Kitty managed to nod. Doreen found a handkerchief and passed it across. Kitty blew her nose, composed herself.

  ‘Did anything like that ever happen to you?’

  ‘Maybe not that bad. But one boy, my brother’s friend, he asked if he could feel my bosoms. This was up in our back shed. I was about thirteen, I really didn’t have any bust anyway so I was almost flattered but it was wrong, so I said no. He grinned and tried again. I grabbed Dad’s hammer off the bench and slammed it down on his other hand.’

  Kitty was laughing. ‘He stopped?’

  ‘He started crying. I felt a bit bad actually. For years he avoided me but we ended up kind of friends. I mean it’s not the same at all …’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Somewhere glassware rattled, a rally ended. Doreen was filled with a sense of inadequacy: she’d be a terrible mother. She tried, ‘Not all boys are like Todd.’

  Kitty deadpanned. ‘Not all boys are like Blake.’

  At least Kitty’s humour hadn’t been extinguished.

  ‘No, they certainly are not.’

  Kitty seemed to have climbed out of the depths. ‘You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do. But I work for him.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It messes it all up.’

  ‘Does he like you?’

  A question she asked herself regularly.

  ‘He likes me but I don’t know if it’s romantic.’

  Kitty dwelt on that, said, ‘Perhaps you don’t want it all tarnished, like me with Todd.’

  Maybe Kitty was more perceptive than Doreen was. There was a part of Blake like the other side of the moon. He wasn’t evasive exactly about his background but Doreen could read people. There were things Blake didn’t reveal, not even to her. Kitty jumped across to another line though.

  ‘I hear they arrested the Beach Bum for killing that girl.’

  ‘Apparently. That doesn’t mean he did it.’

  ‘They must have some evidence though.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s just because he doesn’t fit.’ Doreen was aware she was turning one-eighty degrees.

  Kitty sighed, squinted up at the sun. ‘Well, anyway. I hope it’s him. Otherwise the killer is still out there.’

  8. A Trip South

  The solicitor, Harvey, finally rang him at home. It was late in the afternoon, the sea breeze waving a steamy towel over Coral Shoals, the excited squeals of young children on a day at the beach giving way to stifled yawns and the dull throb of departing vehicles.

  ‘Is there any chance I can see him?’ Blake had been noodling on his guitar the last two hours, waiting for this.

  ‘No chance. I’m the only one the police will let within a bull’s roar and believe me, they wish they could keep me away too. He’s been charged with wilful murder. Tomorrow they are going to move him out of remand.’

  ‘What’s he say about talking to Stokes?’

  Now that Crane had seen a photo of her, he was able to vaguely recall chatting to a young woman who may have been her, out the back of the club after his set. She seemed to be looking for somebody. He asked if he could help and she looked horrified. Crane couldn’t give an exact time but thought it might have been after one of the dance heats. He seemed to think there were people coming and going. One of these, Harvey believed, must be the witness. Crane confirmed too that at any time on his way to or from his gig he might have put his hand on any number of the cars in the carpark. When Harvey had shown him the vehicle Stokes had been driving, he took a long time thinking about it. Eventually he had said he was pretty sure intercourse had been taking place in the car.

  ‘He saw shapes in a car like that and then a French letter tossed from the window.’

  That rang a bell, cleaning up the next day.

  ‘You asked him if he recognised anybody?’

  ‘Of course. All he saw were outlines. But it’s good. He swears there is no way his prints can be inside the car. We can establish that even if his fingerprint is on the outside of the car, there are other, I assume, unidentified prints inside the car. I asked him if there was anybody else around at this time. He couldn’t recall but he did say your yardman was going to and fro at various times of the night. Can we speak to him?’

  Blake explained the situation.

  ‘That’s too bad. Obviously, if he regains consciousness …’

  Blake assured Harvey he would be right onto it. He ran through what he’d found out.

  ‘You’re good at this, Saunders. Did you get pictures of the hut and the bush?’

  Not that good. He admitted he had not.

  ‘Probably doesn’t matter. They’ll just say it happened some other time.’

  Harvey was able to clarify a few other things. The police had found traces of blood, the type matching Stokes’, in the shower fittings and drain and a towel. This led them to believe the killer had showered after the murder. They had also found a knife at the scene but, he was guessing, no fingerprints.

  ‘If they had prints they’d be laughing at me. You ever known Crane to carry a knife?’

  Reluctantly he had to say yes.

  ‘Couple of months ago some hoons were giving him a hard time. He was looking out for himself.’

  ‘Crane told me about that. Unfortunately he waved the knife at the little wankers and when they found out he’d been arrested, they contacted the cops.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean it’s the same knife.’

  ‘Of course not, but by the time the cops finish with them, the kids will have remembered it as being just like the one that killed Stokes.’

  It was as if a concrete block had been dropped from a great height onto what had been a little bud of hope, squashing it flat. Blake scraped together what he could, tried to shape something from what he’d heard and seen. After all, he had more experience of violent death than likely anybody involved in the case, the cops included.

  He said, ‘You know there was vomit out front?’

  Harvey was aware of this but hadn’t seen any significance.

  ‘I guess they killed in a frenzy, saw what they’d done.’

  Blake explained what jarred. ‘Well, the killer slashes her, showers and redresses, then goes outside and vomits? That doesn’t sound like the right order. Or why not vomit in the bathroom? Maybe there was somebody else there.’

  ‘And they were the one who vomited?’ Harvey conceded it made sense but wasn’t sure how that advanced them. ‘What we need is an alibi for Crane or somebody else in the frame. Crane doesn’t recall seeing anybody or anybody seeing him after he left the Surf Shack and headed inland, so that’s not a lot of help.’

  ‘What about the truck driver he says gave him a lift?’
/>
  ‘Even if we find him — and that’s a big if — it’s too late in the timeline to help. Although, if we could establish that Crane was wearing the same clothes with no blood on them, that might assist us. On the other hand, after his tumble, if he was bleeding a little, the Crown will make a couple of spots of blood sound like a giant pool. It could backfire. We have to tread carefully. If the police found fingerprints in that car other than those of Stokes or her boyfriend, that’s a positive.’

  Blake said, ‘I aim to find out where Stokes was from Monday evening till Thursday.’

  Harvey agreed that would be extremely helpful. Blake ran his theory about some former client of Stokes paying her to spend some time with him.

  Harvey was sceptical. ‘It’s a long shot but you never know. You’d have to go to Sydney, try and find somebody who knew her back then.’

  As if he hadn’t already figured that.

  Harvey wished him luck, asked to be kept informed.

  ‘So what are his chances you think?’

  ‘Better than they were. Just because he was talking to the girl means nothing. Especially if his prints aren’t inside the car and others are. But don’t get your hopes up. A case like this, the public wants to believe the killer has been caught and the police want to believe it too. Vernon is no dummy, he’ll be looking into Crane’s background. Any little slip-up, like the knife, will be magnified. I’ll send you a copy of my file with the police reports and photos. You never know, something might click.’

  He wasn’t long off the phone to Harvey when it rang again. It was Doreen and she was excited.

  ‘Andy’s conscious.’

  By the time he got to the hospital, Andy had drifted off to sleep again but he wasn’t covered in tubes or anything except a bandage around his head. He looked like normal Andy, sleeping. Doreen was lit up like the big Christmas tree in New York he and Jimmy had once seen. She was truly beautiful. He wished he could have taken her on his arm for a stroll down South Street. Jimmy would have been impressed.