Murder with the Lot (7 page)

I considered telling him about the briefcase. Maybe I'd be in trouble for tampering with important evidence. Although, technically, it wasn't me who'd opened the case. That part was Ernie, and his fingerprints would be all over it. I opened my mouth to tell him, but Dean spoke before I had the chance.

‘Mum. About all that silly business yesterday.' He took off his hat, put it on the table.

I gave him a relieved smile, Dean's not a bad lad, he'd thought it over and he was ready to apologise. Maybe Sergeant Monaghan had been up to see him and set him straight on a few facts.

‘We all know you've got an active imagination.' He took my hand. His was dry and warm. ‘Nothing wrong with an imagination.' He smiled as if I was six years old. ‘And around here, it's important to be able to keep yourself entertained. Especially now so many people have moved away. I'd worry less about you if you had more social life. You could always join the Hustle CWA. Or get involved in that new historical society.'

I tried a casual laugh. ‘Don't you worry, Dean. I've got plenty to keep me busy. There's Brad. And Ernie. And the shop, of course.'

He continued. ‘And I know business is slow. It can't be easy managing. If you need my help, you'll ask, won't you? Financial, anything.' He paused. ‘The thing is…' He took his hand away and wiped some sweat from his forehead, put his hand back on mine, a little stickier this time. ‘It's…'

‘Yes?' I smiled encouragingly. It's never been easy for Dean to dismount and apologise.

‘Well, I have to warn you. If you do anything like that again…' He let go of my hand.

I suddenly didn't like where we were headed. ‘Well, what?'

‘I'll have to arrest you for wasting police time.'

‘Dean. Son.' I held up my hand to stop him interrupting. ‘Listen. You're missing important data. That poor dead Mona is out there somewhere, and, more importantly, so's her killer.'

‘Mum!' He spat out the word, as though he didn't like how it felt against his tongue. ‘I'm not taking any more of your bullshit.' He stood up and stamped over to the doorway. ‘I bloody will, I'm telling you. Next time I'll arrest you.' And he left, slamming the door.

Brad met me at the kitchen door. ‘I'm off to Madison's. She needs emergency dim sims for the ferrets. Thérèse has been unwell.'

‘The ferrets? But I thought you said those animals are a menace?' Irreconcilable differences is what split up Brad and Madison. He's into banners, native wildlife, birds; she's into introduced predators.

‘I haven't actually declared a formal policy position on ferrets, Mum.'

‘So…you and Madison?'

He shrugged.

‘But what about Claire?'

‘Claire's resting in the spare room. In case you hadn't noticed, she's pregnant.' He slammed the door.

Jesus, Brad. What did he think he was doing with all these poor girls? Should I warn Madison? And Claire? Should a person be expected to warn girls off her own son? I really needed to give Brad that parental pep-talk. I'd have to galvanise myself. I'd do it soon. I would. And then he'd be moving out, far away, in search of a proper job.

I sighed, staring out the window, at my dried-up backyard, at the struggling pepper tree friendless and alone, its red-fading-to-pink berries carpeting the dust. Piero and I were proud of this place way back when we'd set up. He planted General MacArthur roses around the fence. Piero loved those roses. I scattered his ashes under them, he would have wanted that. But these days the place just looked parched and tired.

I got up, had a quick, unsatisfying rootle through the briefcase, in case I'd missed something the first forty times I'd looked. No go. I put it back.

A car pulled up on my gravel driveway. Brad must have forgotten something. I heard a car door open then close. Footsteps crunched over the gravel and a face appeared at the window. It wasn't Brad. It was yet another visitor, in a week full of them: the tousled-looking fella. The assistant cop who'd pulled me up yesterday, who'd stood behind Sergeant Monaghan. He was on his own, no Monaghan in sight. He seemed a bit old to be the assistant.

I opened the door.

‘Afternoon.' He smiled.

He wore a leather jacket over a creased white shirt. His jeans were dusty. His front teeth overlapped a bit, an endearing kind of overlap.

‘Sorry to bother you. I didn't realise you'd be closed. I was hoping for a feed of fish and chips.' He eyed me hungrily. ‘And maybe a couple of Chiko Rolls?'

There was definitely something about that voice. Where had I heard it? I never like to turn away a customer, so I led him into the shop. He sat and I started up the burner. ‘It'll take a tick for things to heat up.'

He had wide blue eyes, like a baby's. Wide eyes, but somehow disappointed, like the baby's figured out way too early that life's not all it's cracked up to be.

I scooped up some chips and put them in the basket. ‘I didn't catch your name yesterday.'

‘Terry.' He stifled a yawn.

Maybe he'd spent the night in the car, with Monaghan beside him, snoring, taking up all the space. Maybe Monaghan was a brutal boss. That weepy eye might make him ratty.

‘Sergeant Terry, is it?' I put his fish and Chiko Rolls into another basket and set it in the sizzling oil.

‘Just call me Terry.' He twisted a ring around his little finger. No wedding band, although that never tells you. ‘Nice place you've got here, Mrs Tuplin.'

I smiled. Terry's a name I've always liked. ‘Call me Cass.'

‘Um…' he said, ‘probably sounds stupid, but there's something about your voice, it sounds familiar.' He gave me the endearing overlap-tooth smile.

Muddy Soak, Terry was from Muddy Soak.

‘Blindfold speed dating!' We both said it at the same time.

‘Yeah, I was sorry I lost you after that fire alarm went off,' he said. ‘I waited around outside for ages. Trouble was…'

‘You didn't know what I looked like. Yep, me too.'

We had a silent little moment while his order hissed in the oil.

‘Look.' He leaned forward in his chair. ‘You weren't, ah, holding back on anything yesterday, were you? You look like a smart sort of woman, Cass. A woman who notices things.'

A smart sort of woman
. I didn't mind that. I slipped an extra Chiko Roll in his order, courtesy of the management.

I'd bet Terry wouldn't mind hearing about a briefcase. He wouldn't go on about arresting helpful people. And he didn't have Dean's glued-on glare. Terry had quite nice eyes. I snuck another look as I shook his basket. Those eyes were a faded, comfortable kind of blue. He had a thickish lower lip, tender looking, like it could be nice to kiss.

Pull your-bloody-self together, Cass.

Trouble was, how could I tell him about the briefcase without going into the finer points about Mona's body? I didn't want Dean in trouble for botching up the job.

‘If I knew anything, I'd tell you.' I smiled as I fibbed. ‘What I do know is that Clarence paid a suspiciously large sum of rent.'

I served Terry's order on a plate at the table. The poor fella deserved to sit and eat properly, instead of filling up his car with the smell of fish. And he looked like he could do with some company.

‘Yeah. He's one of the Muddy Soak Hocking-Lees,' said Terry. ‘No shortage of cash in that family.'

‘So Brown isn't his real name?'

‘Told you that, did he? Nope, he's a Hocking-Lee. And Clarence is his grandma's grandson, all right. Although he's not up to the atonement stage just yet,' he said.

‘Oh? Mona got something to atone for?'

‘You haven't heard of her? Heard of Kota though, I bet.'

‘Um. Course.' Who the hell was Coata?

‘Mona was never prosecuted for that.'

‘Uh-huh. Why was that exactly?' I carried on with my auto-wiping of the counter.

Terry was a bloke who ate with sincerity. I've always liked a fella who knows how to appreciate a plate of chips.

‘Well, the CEO was convicted, finally, last year. He got two years. Mona was the major shareholder, said she didn't know about the safety standards. Or lack of.' He ate another chip. ‘The company paid out compensation. Didn't bring anyone back, of course. Or their farmland. Soon after, Mona set up all her environmental charities.'

He must have seen the confusion on my face. ‘Kota,' he said. ‘You know, that gas leak in India. Killed thousands of people.'

Ah,
Kota
. ‘Yep, yep,' I said. ‘So what's Clarence got to atone for?'

But Terry was eating with some concentration. Polishing off his chips, he leaned back in the chair and put his hands behind his head. ‘You're lucky, you know, running your own show. I've always fancied a little takeaway shop.' He had that dreamy I've-just-eaten look. ‘By the sea, somewhere I could fish. In the evenings, I'd do a bit of wood-carving, listen to the waves hissing up the shore.' He sighed. ‘You can tire of big-town life. Especially in a life like mine. Especially at the moment.'

I nodded. Let Terry keep his dream. No need to give him any depressing little communiqués on how those wood-carving evenings would be spent standing over a trough of boiling oil six nights a week. ‘Yep, she's a dream life. Couldn't ask for more.'

A pause.

‘Terry, why are you looking for Clarence? What's he done? Did he do something to that Pittering fella?'

He looked at his watch. ‘Listen, I've got to go. But…' he paused.

He ripped off a piece of chip paper and wrote something down. ‘My mobile number. Call me if you remember anything. Anything at all. Any time.' His warm hand brushed mine as I took the paper. He hurried over to the door.

‘Did Clarence…kill him?'

Terry turned and stared at me. It was hard to work out his expression. Scared, maybe? He moved suddenly, as if trying to jolt himself awake.

‘No, no. There's been no crime in Muddy Soak for more than twenty years.' He laughed, a forced kind of laugh, then shot out the door.

I guess for cops, a crime-free town would have to get pretty tedious.

Googling
Mona Hocking-Lee, Muddy Soak
, I found her house. Hocking Hall. A huge tycoon-style house with an excess of turrets and iron lacework verandahs. Sculptures in the garden, fountains spouting out of lions' mouths. Built with gold-rush money, I'd guess. Acres of green lawns, lawns that would suck up a heap of Muddy Soak's copious supplies of water. It was certainly a step up from Ernie's shack.

Brad arrived back from Madison's, his hair more ruffled than usual.

‘Windy out there?' I asked. It didn't look windy. A raven sat in the pepper tree, cawing its long drawn-out call.

‘No.'

‘Listen, Brad. You know anything about Kota?'

‘You mean the Kota gas leak? In India?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Killed thirty thousand and poisoned a hundred thousand hectares of farmland. Still poisoned now, after nearly thirty years. Maybe it will be forever. Bastards,' he summed up.

‘That Mona Hocking-Lee was connected to it. You know that?'

His eyes widened. ‘Connected how?'

‘Major shareholder.'

‘In Argon Chemical?'

‘You reckon anyone would want to kill her because of that?' I said.

‘Kill her? Like who? Half of India, you mean?'

‘Well, maybe one of your environmental whatsit friends.'

He swung away. ‘Jesus, Mum. What sort of people do you think I hang around with? Murderers? I've never heard anything so offensive.'

‘I'm not saying
you'd
do it, son. But maybe someone with…strong feelings?'

‘Mum. Listen to yourself. Anyway, how's Claire?'

I'd forgotten Claire.

He sighed. ‘I bet you haven't even offered her a cuppa. I'll go see how she's doing,' he started off down the hallway.

‘Brad?'

He turned and looked at me.

‘You've got to do the right thing by Claire. It's not on, you know…to…'

‘What?'

‘Uh, you know. The baby.'

He looked puzzled. ‘Listen, the baby's not mine. No way.'

‘Well, how can you be sure?'

‘Mum.' He put his hands on my shoulders, gazed into my eyes. ‘There's certain things you have to do to make a baby. You know, the birds and the bees?' He waltzed off down the hall.

Just after tea the phone rang. ‘Look here.' It was Ernie. ‘What's this about you renting my place out to Mafia types? And then embezzling the filthy money? I've a mind to phone Dean and get him to lock you up.'

Oh shit. With everything that had happened, I'd forgotten to give Ernie his five grand.

‘Ronnie told me what you've been up to. He was having a smoke with me, no harm in that, out by the roses. It was while that Madison Watkins was in visiting her grandmother, she's had all the fluid drained off her lungs, and she brought in those bloody awful ferrets. Now.' He paused. ‘You listening?'

‘Yep,' I said, busy searching for Ernie's point.

‘I don't know why the home lets them in. They tell me not to smoke, but they'll let in a horde of vicious, sharp-teethed animals. I could hear them screeching from my room. Had to turn off my hearing aid. I couldn't listen to the wireless. I've got no flamin' idea whether Kippy Tiani won at Horsham.' He paused. ‘Anyway. Where was I?'

‘Search me, Ernie.'

‘Christ, can't you keep track of anything? Boot him out.'

‘Boot who out?'

‘The Mafioso bloke.'

‘Well, I tried. I'm sorry, but…'

‘And after all I've bloody done for you, Cassandra Ariadne.'

Ernie's the only person that uses the catastrophe of my full name. And my sister Helen when I've pissed her off. Yep, I got saddled with Cassandra Ariadne and she scored Helen. Dad and his great ideas. He'd raced out and got the christening cup engraved before Mum had a chance to stop him. Or so she always said.