by C T Mitchell
Logan grudgingly obliged. “You're not going to find anything in there.”
“We'll be the judge of that, Mr. Logan,” Jack said.
The mail truck was heaped with empty mail bins and packaging supplies. Nothing looked suspicious or out of the ordinary at all.
“Another dead end,” Jo complained. “What other bright ideas do you have, Creed?”
“No, wait, give me a second. I know I'm right.” Jack pushed aside some of the mail bins to reveal a dirty blanket. “That doesn't belong here.”
“No wait!” Logan called when Jack reached for the blanket. “I–I can explain.”
Jack's hand hovered over the dirty blanket before he flipped it over. A shovel with rusty-colored dried blood rested underneath. “Yes, Mr. Logan, you definitely have some explaining to do.”
*****
“Everyone is going to say I did it for the wine or I was obsessed with the wine,” Logan said as he sat in the interrogation room across from Jack. “But they don't understand what the wine really was. It was more than just wine. It was liquid gold.
“Stanley Pleasance was a strange duck, stranger than Abernathy by far. He worried about his wealth. Instead of investing, he took everything out in gold bars, melted it down, and poured it into the wine bottles. There was a fortune down there, but it wasn't in wine – it was in gold.”
“But why kill Pleasance and not make off with this golden wine?” Jack asked.
Logan shrugged. “He was going to ruin my career.”
“How so?” Jack queried.
“Mrs. Pleasance, Constance, was, how shall we say, a neglected wife. She was a good looking woman and liked the company of other men. Most Saturday afternoons while Stanley Pleasance was playing golf, Constance would ‘entertain’ some of the local gentlemen at the manor.”
“You mean with sex,” Jack remarked.
“Exactly. They were wild parties. They were referred to as the Saturday Matinee Club.”
“And you were involved in these orgies, Logan?”
“Yes, Detective. Mrs. Pleasance might have been 20 years my senior at the time, but she performed in bed like an eighteen-year-old. Unfortunately, Mr. Pleasance found out, confronted me, and threatened to expose me and ruin my career. I couldn’t let him do that.”
“And the wine?”
“I needed to get it out, but there was no time. I didn't want to be obvious. That's the first rule you learn in the academy. Suspect the expected. I planned to take the bottles one at a time. Then Jan came snooping around claiming the manor was hers. She had no way to prove it, but she did know about the secret passage. I had to be careful. It turns out I was too careful. I wanted to wait days, but I ended up waiting months. By the time I was ready to remove the wine bottles, Abernathy bought the manor and started renovations. It was only a matter of time before Pleasance's body would be discovered. I did the best thing I could think of.”
“And that was?” Jack prompted when Logan trailed off and started picking at his fingernails instead of continuing with his confession.
“I had a friend of mine send Abernathy a series of letters from the UK. I meant to scare him. I meant for him to pack up and move. I didn't mean for him to throw a silly party even though I suggested the scavenger hunt. What recluse would do that? With all those witnesses about, I couldn't take the bottles. Jan, unfortunately, was a necessary casualty of her birth. She had a DNA test done recently that proved she was Pleasance's daughter. I read the results when the letter came through the post office and then sealed it back up again before anyone noticed. By birthright, those bottles should be hers. I couldn't let her take what I had waited so patiently to steal so, she had to go. It's unfortunate, really. I liked Jan.”
“But not enough to not hit her over the head with a shovel and leave her in a cold, dark wine cellar.”
Logan spread his hands wide. “We all do what we have to do.”
“We certainly do.” Jack sat up straighter. “Albert Logan, you are under arrest for the murders of Stanley Pleasance and Jan Dupree.”
EPILOGUE
“Another case closed. We're getting to be quite the team, Creed.” Jo stretched her arms over her head. She was happy to be back in Cabarita Beach. The country was all well and good, but she left there for a reason.
“Don't flatter yourself.” Jack sipped his black coffee and flipped through the case files on his desk. “We all know I'm the brains of this operation.” Jack said with a wry smile.
“Oh, what am I then?” Jo perked up at his teasing tone. “The beauty?”
“More like the beast.”
She threw the first thing she could grab – a pad of post-it notes – at Jack's head. “Very funny. Just admit you need me on your team already and be done with it.”
Instead of answering, Jack tossed a case file onto Jo's desk. “Read up, Jo, we have another case to solve.”
DEAD BOSS
By
C T Mitchell
CHAPTER 1
Detective Jack Creed leaned against the kitchen cupboards looking across his lounge through the beach gums to the ocean. His hands rested on the granite bench top, his fingers pursed as if he were beginning the Olympic 100 meter dash. Something niggled at the back of his mind, something he felt he should remember but it forever ran just out of reach. Why was he so tense? There had to be a reason, even if he didn't quite know it yet. Cases were fine, so no worries there. Was it family? He closed his eyes and called up a memory of his wife and daughter. It seemed forever since he saw them. Maybe that was it. Maybe he just needed a holiday.
It was an autumn Sunday morning, one of Jack’s favourite times of the year. The air was crisp and the crystal clear ocean waves pounded onto the beach. It had been three years since he moved from Brisbane and taken up residency at the Seaview Motel at Cabarita Beach. The double standards of the Brisbane C I D did not sit well with Jack’s morals. Jack didn’t have any time for Chief Constable O’Halloran and his Fortitude Valley ‘dining mates’ of Italian extraction, and O’Halloran didn’t like Jack’s unorthodox ways. They agreed to disagree, which suited both just fine, especially Jack. The less O'Halloran got in his way, the better.
Robin and William liked having Jack around the Motel. He gave the place a sense of security. Although the town was a fairly quiet place, occasionally a bit of riffraff from Brisbane would venture down and cause a little bit of mayhem after a few sherbets. Nothing serious and definitely nothing Jack couldn't handle, but Robin and William liked having him around all the same. The motel was a favourite for wedding guests, often hosting ceremonies in the gardens or on the front grassy path with stunning ocean vistas. It made for a perfect backdrop in a couple’s life-long memories of their splendid day. Once, Jack had to step in between a father and his new son-in-law after both had too much jungle juice on the wedding night, but that was as rowdy as it got.
Jack sipped his black coffee. Today it was instant, but normally he would walk up to the corner and grab a coffee from Jake at Kartel Espresso. Jake stood out in Cabarita. His full arm tattoos momentarily distracted your eyes from his nose and ear rings, but he made excellent coffee; a real saving grace for Jack and ‘the Melbourne coffee connoisseurs’ who breezed through on their way to trendy Byron Bay where the lattes and macchiatos flowed more readily. Up until Jake and his crew arrived, the town had been subjected to some substance that resembled and tasted like dishwater dealt out by Donny at the local Black & Gold supermarket. No wonder everybody was leaving and the in crowd kept on driving past. Donny was secretly murdering the place.
A cool sea breeze passed through Jack’s two-bedroom suite and he thought about how he would spend the rest of the day with his family in Brisbane. He smiled. Had it really been six weeks since he visited Melissa at the New Farm Clinic? Since today was Sunday, there should be no reason why he couldn’t venture an hour north to catch up with his family for the day. In fact, he looked forward to it.
Jack’s mobile phone rang out. The apartment ec
hoed with the theme song to Mission Impossible, a ringtone that annoyed many of Jack’s peers. He looked down at the caller ID screen. Jo Boston-Wright was calling. Jack heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. So much for a quiet day with his family. If Jo was calling, it could only mean one thing – another case.
“Morning, Jo. How are you this fine Sunday?” Jack asked. “I take it you’re not calling to ask about my health or offering to buy breakfast?”
“You’re right on both accounts, Jack.” Wind whistled around Jo's mobile phone, making her voice sound crackly and far away. “We’ve got a body down here amongst the rocks not far from your place. I think you had better pop down.”
“Why the bloody hell do dead bodies turn up on a person’s day of rest, Jo?” Jack's annoyance headache was turning into a full blown I-have-no-life-when-a-case-is-on migraine. “Can’t people do the right thing and die Monday to Friday? I was planning to head up to Brisbane to see Melissa today. Looks like that’s on hold or at least delayed...again.”
“So can I count on having you down here or not?” Jo asked.
“I'll be there in twenty.”
CHAPTER 2
Jack jumped into his ‘67 navy blue Mustang and idled out the driveway of the Seaview Motel, giving a smile and wave to Robin as he ventured off down the main street of Cabarita Beach toward Cabarita Hill.
Jack loved to idle and cruise in his Mustang. It’d been his dream car since he was a boy and there was no way he would accept a standard issue Ford from the NSW Police Department, no matter how many air bags they had. Jack loved the look of chrome bumpers, not some Japanese plastic ones. The smell of lead wafting in through the driver’s window made Jack feel like he was driving a real car, not being confined in the cabin of a Ford, subjected to the scent of potpourri. That’s what latte-drinking BMW drivers on their way to Byron experience, and that definitely wasn’t Jack.
The sound of the V8 throttled under his seat as he passed Donny’s supermarket. He tooted the horn and gave a wave to the miserable old bastard before heading up the slight incline of Cabarita Hill. As Jack entered the car park of the Hill, he marveled at the spectacular view across the bay to the Pacific Ocean. The waves were dotted with a few surfers enjoying an early morning beach break, something Jack wished he could do better but never had the time or patience to learn.
Jack ambled down the wooden staircase that traversed the hill, his knee joints cracking all the way down to the beach almost as loudly as the rickety structure under foot. He stopped when he got to the huddled clump of police looking at their latest crime victim. “What have we got, Jo?”
“One white male, late 50s. Head bashed in with what we presume a golf club, which was found lying next to him,” Jo rambled off the facts.
“Hmm. That’s no ordinary golf club, Jo. That’s a Honma golf club. It's the Rolls Royce of golf clubs. They cost around $10,000 a set. Either the victim or murderer has expensive tastes. Who found the body?”
“A couple of grommets out for an early morning surf,” Jo said. “Constable Munro is taking their statements now.”
“Any idea of the time of death?” Jack asked.
“At a guess I would say somewhere between 10pm and midnight last night, but I’ll know more when I’ve done the autopsy,” Dr. Russell said. “And it’s pretty safe to say that this is the murder weapon considering the amount of brain matter on the club head. The poor guy has been hit with a great deal of force.”
“Thanks, darl,” Jack replied while looking around the scene.
“Detective, I’d appreciate you not calling me darl,” Janette Russell snapped. Jo looked up with a raised eyebrow, acknowledging her fellow sister, pleased she had put Jack on notice.
“And what does one call a female pathologist this time of the morning?” Jack replied in a somewhat pissed off tone.
“Doctor is fine at any time of the day,” Janette Russell replied in an authoritative tone, pleased with herself for standing up to the chauvinistic Jack Creed.
Jo showed Jack the victim’s business card. Nick Turner, CEO of Sovran Financial Services. “They are pretty big. My sister used them to purchase her home in Bangalow last year.”
“The question now is who murdered their CEO?” Jack asked.
*****
Pulling up at the Blue Rose café, Jack asked Joe to order him some bacon and eggs while he headed to the pharmacist to grab some sinus tablets. He was having a real bout of sinus today and he needed to get rid of the attack before it ruined the rest of his day.
“I hear a bloke’s been killed down on the rocks, Jack.” Mick, the blue Rose cafe owner, said.
“Yes, mate. A tourist, it looks like,” Jack replied, fumbling with his pockets looking for his wallet to pay for breakfast, hoping Jo was going to offer to buy. No such luck, as she had conveniently once again left her purse behind.
“You look terrible, Jack. Had a big night?” Mike said in a cheeky voice.
“No, my sinuses are playing up again. Barry gave me these Sudafed. Supposed to fix the problem.”
Returning to the outside table at Mick’s Cafe, Jack and Jo sat down to discuss the case – or what they could out in the open without giving away secrets. Before the powwow, Jack dialed Melissa.
“Hi, darling. There’s been a murder at the beach and I need to delay my trip up to see you today. Are you traveling okay? That’s good, sweetheart. I’m proud of you. You’re making real progress. I should be able get up in the next few days, but we’ll chat in between. Love you, darling. Take care.” Jo gave Jack an 'I feel your pain' smile without touching him – Jack hated sympathetic pats on the back and barely tolerated sympathetic I feel your pain smiles.
Mick approached the table with breakfast. “I take the bacon and eggs are for you, Jack,” he said as he gave Jack’s tummy a gleaming stare then looked up with a wiry smile.
“You’re a cheeky prick, Mick,” Jack retaliated. “It’s a wonder you have any customers at all.” He poked at the meat on his plate. “This better be Bangalow bacon, my friend.”
“Only the best for you, Jack, but I will let you in on a little secret. The Bangalow bacon now comes from a piggery in Tenterfield. The old Bangalow one closed down years ago. Being a local girl you’d know that, Jo, wouldn’t you? Your mum and dad certainly would, being farmers.” Jo shrugged her shoulders.
“That’s bloody false advertising, Mick. You’re charging ridiculous prices for bacon that comes from bloody Tenterfield.” Jack chuckled as he and Mick engaged in a bit of male banter. Jo just rolled her eyes.
“At least it looks better than what my friend is having. Smashed avocado on multi grain with feta,” Jack said in a false posh accent. “The things you Barrington-Jones types eat,” Jack slid out to Jo with a smile.
“Bring us some water, will you, Mick? Jack here needs to pop some of those sinus tablets. The treacle running from his nose is nothing compared to the verbal diarrhea flowing from Jack’s mouth this morning,” Jo hit back. Being brought up in a family of boys is good training for the real world and taught Jo she can give as good as she got.
“So, Jo, so far we’ve got Nick Turner CEO of Sovran Financial Services with his head caved in with a golf club. Do we know what he was doing in Cabarita Beach?”
“We found his room key inside his trousers and he’s been staying at Peppers Salt Resort just up there at Casuarina,” Jo said. “I’ve been able to get hold of his PA, a Barbara Johnson, and she is expecting us to drop by for an interview.”
“That's a nice way to say interrogation.”
Jo shrugged. “Interview makes them trust us; interrogation makes them shut down.” She looked down at her case notes. “He was wearing as a Zenga suit, which is a strange thing to wear to the beach, don’t you think, Jack?”
“Maybe he wasn’t going to the beach. Nothing says he was actually killed at the beach. I think he was killed elsewhere and dumped at Cabarita Beach.”
“What's our first step?
”
“Talk to his personal assistant and see what she knows about her swanky dead boss,” Jack said.
CHAPTER 3
Arriving at Peppers Resort and Spa, Jack and Jo entered the 5-star hotel, the venue for Sovran’s Conference. Everything stated luxury, from the all glass front of the building to the polished wood interior to the sandy lagoon style pool. It was easy to see why Nick Turner would choose such a place. It had a bit of ‘look at me, look at me’ about it.
“Maybe he pissed off his golf partner and got a club to the head in return,” Jo whispered.
“I wouldn't doubt it based on this showy place,” Jack said.
Barbara Johnson seemed to know why they were here. She stepped forward and motioned for them to follow her into a hotel meeting room. Her face was deeply lined, sun beaten and wrinkled beyond her 60 years, but there was a fierceness about her, a loyalty to her boss, that Jack knew would be hard to crack.
“Please, have a seat.” Barbara Johnson motioned at the two plush leather chairs across from the room’s leather bound desk. She sat down in the vacant seat, folded her hands in front of her, and waited for the questions to start flying.
“Ms. Johnson, can you tell me a little bit about Sovran Financial Services?” Jack began. “How long has Mr. Turner been the CEO? Have you been involved in the company the entire time?”
“Sovran is an Australia -wide financial services company,” Barbara said. “We have offices in each state around the country with some 2000 finance brokers working through our network. Nick and I came over together to Sovran from the Royal Bank of Scotland in the UK about ten years ago. We’ve been here for about eight years.”
“So is there anybody you can think of that would want to harm Mr. Turner?”
Barbara shrugged and kept her eyes firmly focused on her folded hands. “Companies go up and they go down. We’ve had some difficult times ourselves, but are working our way out of them. That’s one of the main reasons as to why the executive management team is here a few days early before we begin our annual conference. We were strategizing about next year’s direction and planning what actions we should take.” Barbara looked around the office as if she couldn't believe Turner wouldn't be sitting with her ever again. Jack noticed the sparkle of tears in her eyes. “There are always people who love you, then some just like you, and you have those who absolutely hate you. I can’t think of anybody who would want to kill Nick. He was an extremely generous man. Perhaps a little too generous at times. Here’s a list of staff attending the executive meeting your colleague Detective Boston-Wright requested for you.”
