Authors: Vicki Tyley
Greg Jenkins felt
numb. His worst nightmare had become reality and all he could think about was
how he was going to break the news to his mother.
Operating on automatic pilot, he let himself into his sister’s home.
His nose twitched as he inhaled the cold, dusty air. Heading down the hall, he
paused in the doorway to Sam’s bedroom. The room’s lived-in look – the thrown
together bedding, the open book facedown on the bedside table, the black
handbag on the floor – painted a mirage of normality. He closed his eyes,
hearing Sam’s contagious giggle in his mind.
With his head hung low, he turned away and continued down the hall
to the bathroom. He’d insisted on being the one to fetch the toothbrush and
hairbrush the pathologist had requested. This was one last thing he could do
for her. The police would trample all over Sam’s home and personal belongings
soon enough.
Careful not to touch any surfaces, he used one of the plastic bags
he had brought with him to collect Sam’s orange and white-handled toothbrush.
The hairbrush, however, was proving elusive. He wasn’t exactly thinking
straight, so it wasn’t until he came across the wide-toothed comb in the vanity
drawer that he realized Sam might not own a hairbrush. The curly locks they
both had inherited from their father didn’t respond well to brushing unless, of
course, the look you were after was a frizzy afro. Although he didn’t see the
point, he bagged the comb anyway, adding a couple of strands of curly black
hair he’d found loose in the drawer.
He didn’t need DNA to confirm that the decomposing corpse that the
amateur photographer had uncovered in the Yarra Ranges National Park was his
sister. The police’s description of the body’s height and hair had been more
than enough. But the clincher had been the sterling silver MedicAlert bracelet
around her wrist with “ALLERGIC TO PENICILLIN” engraved on the reverse.
The authorities had been strongly against Greg viewing Sam’s body.
He felt cheated, but at the same time relieved. He didn’t want his last image
of his sister being like the grotesque purple and green bloated and
maggot-infested carcass of a sheep that had broken its neck tumbling into a
ravine on his parents’ farm.
He’d pressed the police and the pathologist for details of Sam’s
death, but had only received vague answers. In frustration, he’d enlisted
Neville Crooke’s help. That was over an hour ago and he’d yet to hear from the
private investigator. Every few minutes, he checked his BlackBerry on the off
chance he might have missed the call.
The sight of Sam’s yellow rubber ducky perched on the side of the
white enamel bath next to a bottle of honey-colored bubble bath and a trio of
partially melted pink candles winded him. He couldn’t breathe. To him, those
few personal items embodied the essence of his sister. Sam was a sensuous
woman, whose childlike exuberance never failed to captivate. Greg wasted no
more time loitering in the tiny louvre-windowed bathroom and headed for the
front door, the two plastic bags containing the toothbrush and comb clutched
firmly in his right hand.
Halfway down the front steps, his BlackBerry rang. In his haste to
extract the vibrating smartphone from his pocket, he dropped it on the
concrete. It bounced twice before coming to rest in the unmown grass next to
the path. Amazingly, it continued to ring.
He lunged for the phone, the ringing stopping the instant his hand
closed around it. Not bothering to confirm the caller had actually been Neville
Crooke, he hit the redial button.
Neville answered immediately.
“Afraid I didn’t have much more luck than you did prying information
out of our esteemed pathologist. He’s never been one for speculation and so
far, they’ve only done a preliminary examination. That’s scientists for you –
they only deal in facts. Which is probably a good thing. Anyway, what I can
tell you…” Neville coughed.
Greg’s grip tightened on the phone, his knuckles turning white.
Neville started again. “What I can tell you is that at this stage
they don’t suspect a sexual assault. It seems her underwear and, in fact, all
her clothes were relatively intact. Of course, they’d deteriorated being out in
the elements like that, but…” He paused, his voice dropping as he continued.
“I’m sorry, Greg, but there’s something else you ought to know.”
Greg clamped his eyes shut, not knowing if he really wanted to hear
what was coming next.
Neville coughed again. “The cause of death has yet to be confirmed,
but a plastic cable tie was found around her neck.”
His legs began to wobble. “Like the other woman?” Greg croaked, his
voice barely above a whisper.
“Afraid so. Nothing definitive yet, but it’s certainly looking like
we might have a serial killer on our hands.”
Somehow in the time they were talking, Greg had managed to make his
way over to his BMW and open the door. Slumping into the driver’s seat, he
opened his mouth to speak, but was lost for words. There were none to describe
what he was feeling.
Knowing that Sam might not have been sexually defiled was small
consolation. Nothing could bring his sister back. Some murdering bastard had
stolen part of him. And if it was the last thing he did, Greg was going to make
sure the son of a bitch paid for it.
But first, he had to see his mother.
“Brenda, sweetie,
wake up.”
Her father’s voice reached through the fog. She felt his strong
reassuring hands on her shoulders, gently shaking her.
Her savior.
She tried to speak, but her parched mouth was incapable of forming
the words. Her eyelids fluttered, but remained closed. She groaned, shivering
violently as cold and pain enveloped her.
Brenda’s grasp on reality was slipping. Her father had been dead for
more than ten years.
Though the
television was on, Megan wasn’t paying much attention to it. At least not until
she heard the words “grisly remains,” “murder,” and “Jenkins” in the same
sentence. Her head snapped up and she grabbed the remote control from the side
table, stabbing at the volume control button with her finger. The image of the
dark-haired woman on the screen vanished, but not before she recognized it as
the same one posted on the missing persons’ website.
That’d been days ago. Hearing the news from the media and not
directly from Greg had taken Megan aback. How many times since then had she
picked up the phone to call him but never carried through? She knew from
experience how the death of a loved one left you reeling. But what if that
loved one had been murdered? It was too distressing to begin to imagine. There
was no doubt in her mind that the anguish and grief Greg and his mother must be
suffering would be all encompassing, leaving no room for outsiders.
The morning newspaper lay unopened on the table. Turning it over,
she flicked through the back pages until she found the funeral notices. Halfway
down the page, she spotted it. The funeral for Samantha Rose Jenkins was to be
held at 10 a.m. that coming Wednesday. Her body had finally been released to the
family. That was something at least. Would it provide some sort of closure for
them? God, she hoped so.
A swell of emotion surged in her chest. There was nothing she could
do to stop it. She sank onto a dining chair as loud gut-wrenching sobs racked
her body. Her tears weren’t for the Jenkins’ family, but for herself.
The discovery of Sam Jenkins’ body had shocked Megan. Not because of
what it meant to Greg, but because of what it augured for Brenda.
Dead.
One killer.
Two murders.
Or was it three?
The not knowing was the hardest part. If Brenda was alive, where was
she? And if she was dead, God forbid, where was her body? At least Greg had
closure. She had nothing. The funeral notice had just brought it all flooding
back. It was as if the last small screw holding her body and soul together had
fallen out.
Brenda had been missing for fifteen days and the police were no
closer to finding her than they had been on day one. How was that possible? The
detectives continued to utter false reassurances about following leads, none of
which actually led to anything. To them Brenda was just another case; to Megan
she was her dearest friend. She’d never felt so alone.
In her distress, she’d reached out to Joe Renmark. It only happened
the once. She’d called him, wanting someone to talk to you, looking for a soft
shoulder. When he’d suggested meeting for a drink, she’d resisted.
“It’s just two people in a bar having a drink,” he countered. “It’s
not like I’m asking you to sleep with me or anything.”
“No, but—”
“No buts about it. You need to get out of the house and where better
than over a couple of drinks at The Elephant and Wheelbarrow. They do a great
nachos. No pressure. What do you say?”
Maybe he was right. Another evening at home alone with her thoughts
was the last thing she needed. “Give me an hour to shower and change.”
By the time she realized her mistake it was too late. Once again, he
began to inundate her with flowers, cards and SMS messages. He means well, she
told herself repeatedly. Regardless, she found herself constantly checking over
her shoulder
The torrent of tears gradually abated. Still sniveling, she pushed
back her chair and shuffled to the bathroom. The cold water she splashed on her
face failed to revive her. Confined in her small en suite, she suddenly felt
claustrophobic. The room closed in on her. She needed air, but her feet
remained rooted to the tiled floor.
Light-headed and panting, she gripped the sink edge with both hands.
What was happening to her? With her breathing still labored, Megan somehow
found the inner strength to fight whatever it was that had hold of her.
Back out in her bedroom, she felt like a captive animal that’d been
released, but then once out of the cage, freezes in fright. She stood in the
centre of the room trembling. Now what? Her body craved fresh air and exercise.
But it was more than that. The fine line between sanity and madness was
becoming terrifyingly blurred. She had to get out of the apartment before she
lost the plot completely.
Goaded into action by her own fears, she scrabbled about in the
bottom of her wardrobe searching for a pair of sneakers, before grabbing a
lightweight tan jacket and a canvas rucksack from the hall closet. Midway
through a circuit of the apartment collecting wallet, tissues, mobile phone,
keys and anything else she came across that she thought she might need, she was
confronted with the newspaper lying open on the table.
She faltered, took a breath, stepped forward and tore out the
funeral notice for Greg’s sister, leaving a ragged hole in the newspaper. She
pressed the scrap of paper against her chest, her need to talk to Greg
intensifying. He was the only one who could really understand what she was
going through. Sure, everyone else pretended they knew how it felt, but how
could they? Only someone who had suffered through it could possibly understand.
Dark clouds
gathered, threatening rain. A chill wind whipped at his exposed face and hands.
Standing head bowed, his arm around his mother’s shoulders, Greg listened to
the priest’s low voice as he intoned a blessing. It seemed all too familiar.
Under his arm, he felt his mother hiccup. Instinctively, his arm
tightened around her, drawing her in close to his body. Even through the
thickness of their coats, he could feel her trembling. Greg didn’t know if his
mother was strong enough to cope with the loss of her only daughter. Not on top
of the death of her husband and youngest son. He squeezed her shoulder,
resolving to be there for her every step of the way. They could only survive
this tragedy together.
The priest concluded his prayers and stepped back. As the highly
polished coffin was lowered into the cold, hard earth, Greg and his mother
edged closer to the grave. Hunched forward, Mrs Jenkins scattered handfuls of
red and white rose petals over her daughter’s final resting place. She made no
sound. But Greg knew that deep inside her, she was wailing like a banshee.
“Good night, sis. Sleep tight,” he whispered, blowing one final
kiss. “Tim and Dad will be waiting for you.”
Friends and well-wishers stood in small huddles back from the
gravesite, waiting to offer their condolences. Some of the faces he didn’t recognize.
Some he did. Murmuring reassurances, he guided his mother over to the nearest
cluster. His great-aunt, his father’s Aunt Merle, doddered forward on her cane
to meet them, her papery face wet with tears. Following close behind, hobbling
at the same speed, was her husband, Albert. Their offspring, more reticent,
hung back waiting their turn.
Greg released his mother into their midst, taking comfort from their
genuine and heartfelt compassion. Maybe they weren’t as alone as he’d thought.
He rolled his shoulders back and then forward. Turning his head from
side to side helped ease the crick in his neck. A flash of movement in the
shadows of one of the cemetery’s gum trees caught his attention. He squinted
into the distance, trying to make out more detail. As the silhouette under the
tree came into focus, he gasped, then rubbed at his eyes, convinced they were
deceiving him.