Murder with the Lot (6 page)

‘Ah, no. Around here, actually.'

When exactly was that Men of the Trees thing he did in WA? ‘And you met Brad…recently?'

‘Jesus, Mum. Let Claire eat before you launch into the full interrogation,' said Brad. ‘Got any bacon? And what are you doing with a pinch-bar?'

‘Long story,' I said. ‘I'll tell you inside.'

Over dinner, eggs, tomatoes and bacon, I filled in Brad. Selectively. I told him about Clarence, Noel the birdwatcher without binoculars and the cops at Ernie's place. Claire listened quietly.

‘Noel?' said Brad, looking thoughtful. ‘There's a bloke called Noel emailed my blog last week. He was after regent parrot spots.'

‘You, ah, related to any police, Claire?' I said, putting down my fork. Might not be a good idea to go into the bit about Mona being dead, not if Claire had big-wig police connections. I didn't want Dean in trouble.

She glanced at Brad.

‘Why do you ask, Mum?'

‘Well, Dean doesn't need any more hiccups in his career.'

Brad stared at me. ‘What have you done this time?'

Now or never. I explained about Mona's body and her disappearance.

Brad put his hand over mine. ‘Mum. Look. Are you really sure she was dead? I mean
really
really? You remember, um, Ernie…'

‘There's no need to go over all that again. Can't anyone around here ever make one tiny error?'

‘OK, OK,' he said, taking back his hand.

‘Anyway, long story short, I need to get this briefcase open.' I shoved the pinch-bar into the case and heaved a bit.

‘If Clarence is under police investigation, the case could be important evidence,' said Claire.

‘Yeah,' said Brad. ‘You should take it in to Dean. Could be anything in there. A gun. A bomb. Anything.'

I stopped. ‘Nah. Clarence didn't look the bombing type.'

‘What's the bombing type?' said Brad.

Good question. Bearded, maybe? Although I'm not against a bearded person. Those Hells Angels, for instance, they make big orders when they drop by. A rare event, unfortunately for my profit margins. Noel had a beard though.

I held the case to my ear. It wasn't ticking. I fiddled again with the pinch-bar. No go.

‘Dean's not exactly talking to me at the moment,' I said. ‘Best if I leave him alone while he gets over things. I'll take this up to Ernie tomorrow. He's always been good with locks.'

On Mondays I close the shop. I drive up to Hustle and visit Ernie in the home. We sit ourselves down in front of the midday movie, him with a rustling bag of mini Cherry Ripes, me with a strong cuppa and some Panadol. You need an adequate supply of Panadol to get through an afternoon with Ernie. Even on a normal Monday.

Today, Ernie didn't look pleased to see me. I'd slept in after the weekend's excitement and then got stuck forever behind a road train. The movie had already started when I hurried into his room, puffing.

‘Shh,' said Ernie, as I took a seat. ‘There's your cuppa. Probably cold now.' He pointed at the table beside the Christmas tree, then turned back to stare at the TV. He rustled through a bag of Cherry Ripes with his brown-splodged hands.

We watch the movie in his room, since he doesn't like the communal lounge. ‘Full of people who've lost their marbles,' he says. He spends a lot of time in his room, when he isn't lurking on his walker by the roses. He goes out there to smoke. The staff discourage smoking, but he's eighty-seven, there's no point him giving it up now.

I sat clutching Clarence's briefcase in my lap.

It looked like today was one of Ernie's good days. He lets his marbles come and go, sometimes I think it's intentional. On his good days he acts as if he's the one doing the favour when I come to visit, as though he's humouring a lonely woman with no friends. In fact, there's a lot of places I could go on Mondays if I had the time.

I sipped my tea. The movie today was
The Lady in the Lake
, oddly enough. Wait until Ernie heard about the lady in Perry Lake. I fidgeted, looking around at his posters. I'd helped him put them up when he moved in. Battered-looking pictures of pin-up girls from World War Two. ‘Didn't see all the bosoms in those days. Left a lot to the imagination,' he'd snickered.

I didn't want to know about Ernie's imagination but I guess those posters help distract him from the decor in the home. The lighting throughout is yellow, like the decorator thought people in the twilight of their lives wouldn't be able to cope with the brightness of white light. The walls are lined with pastel paintings of flowers. It can't be easy finding a style that keeps everyone's minds off funerals, and within a reasonable budget.

At the first ad break, Ernie looked at me sternly, his yellowed moustache quivering, the light reflected in his glasses. ‘What time you call this, hey? And why have you got a briefcase?'

‘Bit of a rigmarole, Ernie. Can you get it open?'

‘Give it here.' He looked it over. ‘Simple enough mechanism, two levers. I'll need a paperclip.' He snapped his old-bone fingers.

While the movie started again and Ernie settled back into it, I searched his room for a paperclip. Nothing. I headed out to Reception where Taylah was busy on the phone, winding a strand of long dark hair around a pen. I stood at the desk and waited. It's not easy for Taylah to manage all her work when so much of her time is occupied with phone calls to her friends.

Behind her a TV screen flickered Jerry Springer.

‘Nooo,' Taylah's voice was low and breathy. ‘I don't
believe
it.' Some moist clicking while she worked her Spearmint Extra.

‘Taylah?' I said.

She held up a hand. The phone system shrieked as a call came in. ‘Hold a tick, Moisy.' Taylah pressed a button. ‘Hello, Garden of the Gods Extended Care, can you hold a moment?'

She looked at me. ‘Can you believe it, Cass? Everyone's going. Almost everyone. To Muddy Soak. To the inaugural Muddy Soak Christmas Fringe Festival.'

Muddy Soak is a swish type of place despite the name, casually bestowed by an explorer, who may not have fully grasped the marketing potential to be squeezed from a town's name. It used to have an Aboriginal name but no one remembers it.

Two hours south, it's a place unfairly endowed with the world's largest mallee stump and permanent above-ground water. The water, Brad tells me, is visited by an unusual number of rare migratory birds. Birds that are followed by people keen on watching them and keen on comfort food when they've finished watching for the day. Exactly the type of person we could do with attracting to Rusty Bore. And now they have a bloody Christmas fringe festival as well.

‘Terrific,' I said. ‘What's a Christmas fringe festival?' A CWA event, a charming share-fest of home-crafted fringes?

‘Plays,' she said. ‘Installations, street theatre, performance art. All that. You want Moisy to get you tickets? You should go. You being such an old acting buff and everything.'

‘I watch the midday movie, Taylah. I wouldn't call myself an acting buff.' Although…Muddy Soak. Maybe it was worth a thought. I might run into that nice fella from the blindfold speed dating. Although, really, I had Buckley's of finding him since I didn't know his name or even what he looked like.

‘You could like take Mr Jefferson,' said Taylah. ‘He'd love it. It's being hosted by that drama group, you know the one. The one where the fella handcuffed himself to the rail. You know. That grain train smash. Fella in the fabulous dress, um, Pearson. No.'

‘I'm just after a paperclip, Taylah.'

‘Not Pearson. Phillips. No, that's not it either.' She ferreted around her desk, then held out a handful of paperclips. ‘Pittering. That's it. Someone Pittering.'

Paperclips in a frozen hand, I stood, gaping. ‘Oh?'

But the phone was going off. Taylah waved me away.

I headed back to Ernie's room. He was staring at the movie, briefcase open in his lap.

‘Got her unlocked, no thanks to you,' he held up a piece of wire. ‘Pulled it out the back of the TV. Lot of irrelevant wires in there. Now shut up and shoosh.'

The TV was still working and Ernie didn't appear to be electrocuted, although after the last time I wasn't sure I'd be able to tell. He held onto the case and said he wouldn't let me take it until the movie finished. I fidgeted and worried about Pittering and his son, grain trains, men in dresses and their connection, if any, to Mona's death.

Ernie tsked. ‘Will you flamin' well concentrate.'

It's times like these I realise I'm too good to Ernie. But he looked out for me when I was young. Looked after me and Helen after Mum died. He helped me set up the shop as well. Even made sure Piero stuck by me through my pregnancy with Dean. There were a lot of extraneous women interested in Piero, not to mention his fertility. I huffed a bit to myself and tried my best to sit still.

As the credits rolled, Ernie finally relented. ‘Here you go.' He smirked as he handed it over. I grabbed it and looked inside. Nothing. What? It couldn't be empty; I scrabbled through the pockets. Nothing.

‘I think you'd better tell me what's going on,' said Ernie.

After I'd explained, he gave me an intent look. ‘Course, there was that time when you thought
I
was dead, so I can understand Dean's point of view.' He looked out the window for a moment, blinking.

In the pause, I stared at the crocheted cover on his teapot that Mrs Watkins had made for him. She makes him little gifts, saying someone as brave as our Napoleon deserves his comforts at his time of life. It's unclear how she formed the view that Ernie's a dead French general.

‘Found this key near her body,' I said.

‘I don't hold it against you, not really,' he said, still staring out the window.

‘I'm sorry, Ernie, I didn't mean it. Anyway, the key.' I grabbed it from my handbag, using my hanky, held it out.

He looked at it, turned back to the window. ‘And I've told you a thousand times to put a padlock on that flamin' gate.'

‘You ever heard of a Pittering or a son?' I said.

‘He one of the Pitterlines, the harness makers?' said Ernie, finally looking at me.

‘Pitter
ing
, Ernie. And I meant this century.'

He glared. ‘Fella by the name of Albert. His son ran off to the Northern Territory with the Hustle grocer. Owed me sixty dollars, the bastard.'

Before Ernie could slide full-tilt into a past-injustice rant, I said, ‘He have any relatives? Fellas keen on dresses? Anyone that killed themselves?'

He grunted. ‘His cousin Andy was the undertaker. Depressing job, but he never killed himself. Not that I recall.'

Maybe we were still talking about the Pitterlines or the 1950s, or both. ‘And more recently? Any Pitterings involved in drama groups?' Would being in a drama group get you down?

‘Drama group? Not the Pitterlines I knew.'

‘Any connection with Muddy Soak?'

‘The Soak? That bastard was the last criminal in Muddy Soak. The very last.'

‘Who?'

He glared at me. ‘You're not listening, are you? Hugo Pitterline, who took off with my money. In 1988. No crime in Muddy Soak since then.'

‘None at all?'

‘Nup. Crime free for over twenty years. Probably should have a festival.'

‘Not one single crime?'

‘Nope.'

‘How's that possible?'

He heaved himself to his feet. ‘Look, I don't have time to sit here all day explaining local history to you. I've got things to do. Off you go now, run along.'

I headed home, fairly demoralised with the key-slash-briefcase situation. I parked the car, unstuck my thighs from the driver's seat, squeezed out over the handbrake through the passenger side and walked into my kitchen. I made myself a cuppa. Sitting at the table, I sipped, staring at the briefcase. I opened it and rootled around the pockets one more time. Nothing. Closing it, I held it up. It felt too heavy to be empty. I shook it from side to side. Something moved around inside. I opened it again.

There was a long slit in the inside fabric. I reached inside the slit. Books.
The Art of Writing Memoir
. Then,
The Big Sleep
. One more,
Death of a Lake
, by Arthur Upfield.

I phoned Taylah. ‘I'll take that ticket for the Christmas Fringe Festival.'

‘And one for Mr Jefferson?'

‘Yep. Thanks. You know,' I tried to sound casual, ‘that drama fella who died, whatsisname…Pittering. Did he have a son? Or a father, maybe?'

There were some moist breathing sounds while she adjusted her chewing gum. ‘Well, everyone has a father, don't they? It's just, like, biology. I mean maybe those sperm donor children, you could
argue
that they don't, but in reality…'

‘I meant as in Pittering and Son.'

‘Oh. You mean the accounting firm in Muddy Soak.'

Dean turned up as I put down the phone. He usually comes by on a Monday, for some fruitcake and a cuppa. On a normal Monday. Today he knocked on the shop door instead of coming around to the house. So not a tea and fruitcake visit. I shoved the briefcase into the kitchen cupboard and headed into the shop.

Sure enough, Dean didn't want a cuppa. No fruitcake either. ‘Where have you been? I tried to call. There's been a couple of break-ins,' he said.

He didn't think I'd done them, surely? Stop, I told myself, this is just paranoia. It was that hidden briefcase weighing on my mind. ‘I was visiting Ernie, of course.'

‘Two house robberies. People around here really need to learn to lock their doors.' He flicked through his notebook. ‘Cash and jewellery taken. I thought I'd better warn you, in case you're next. They seem to be targeting old ladies.'

Old? ‘I'm in my prime.'

A moody look from those brown–black eyes.