His voice continued, calm and professional. “It would be helpful if you could be certain. Would you be available to ID the body sometime tomorrow morning?”
“Sure…”
“I’d like to ask you a few questions now, if you don’t mind. Then Constable Mahoney will see you home.”
She answered each of his questions and he patiently took notes. Her mind wandered through a surreal landscape of fear and confusion, annoyed she was having such trouble making sense of things. Her answers came out muddled sometimes, but the detective just went on, gently probing.
“I’m Canadian. I arrived yesterday on a three-month work visa. I’m staying in a model’s flat in Bondi with Catherine. It’s my second time in Australia.”
“So you saw Catherine when you arrived?”
“Well, no. I went straight to the flat but she wasn’t there. I was hoping to hear from her yesterday or today.”
“And did that seem odd to you?”
“Very,” she replied with somewhat more clarity.
He nodded to himself. “When was the last time you saw her?”
Her mind drifted back to the day of her mother’s funeral. She was bidding her own mother farewell; how could she have known it would be the last time she would see her best friend alive?
“Last time I saw her was nearly six months ago in Canada. She came to my mother’s funeral service.”
“I’m very sorry.” He paused thoughtfully. “How well do you know Tony Thomas, the photographer from your photo shoot today?”
“I’ve only worked with him once before.”
“Did you notice anything unusual about the job today before you found the body? Any odd behaviour? Suggestions?”
“No, I didn’t notice anything odd.”
“Do you know who suggested the location for the photos?”
Mak thought for a moment. Some of his questions seemed strange to her.
“I think Tony would have suggested the location.”
“Did he know about your connection to Catherine? Aside from being in the same agency?”
“I don’t see how he could, unless someone else told him.”
“Thank you Miss Vanderwall. You’ve been very
helpful. Constable Mahoney will take a statement from you, and drive you home. I’ll be in touch tomorrow morning. Here’s my card. If you have any questions, or if anything comes to mind, even if it seems insignificant to you, please don’t hesitate to call.”
She held his card in her numb fingers and watched him walk back towards the lights, blending in with the white, expressionless faces of the men and women whose job it was to face violence every day.
The young policewoman drove Makedde to her Bondi Beach accommodation, and after giving the expected, “How are you feeling now? Is there anything else I can do?” she left Mak alone. It was odd to walk in, feeling Catherine’s presence everywhere, with the image of the mangled corpse flashing feverishly behind her eyes.
Makedde shivered.
She leant against the window, palms against the glass, and peered at the outside world; couples laughing, strolling down the beach, carefree and oblivious. It suddenly seemed so foreign. Exhausted, Makedde pulled the shade down, plunging the flat into darkness. She was emotionally drained and incapable of undressing or taking off the thick make-up Joseph had applied. When she collapsed on the bed, she felt the sensation of falling long after her body hit the mattress. The dark room spun in a haze above her.
It’s all a terrible dream.
I’ll talk to you tomorrow my friend.
It seemed like minutes later when the phone attacked her ears with a determined peal. By the third ring the receiver was at her ear, her mind still in deep sleep.
Finally…Catherine.
The voice on the other end was speaking to her. “What? Sorry…” she croaked, the words coming out like she was clearing her throat.
“This is Detective Flynn. Is this Makedde Vanderwall?”
“Yes.”
“We would appreciate if you could make an ID at the Glebe morgue this morning.”
The world came crashing into focus with horrifying clarity.
It was 9 a.m. already.
“Yes. I’ll come down.”
When she hung up the receiver, she found herself fully dressed, sitting up in bed, confronted by a harrowing image in the wall mirror across from her. During the night her dark make-up had streaked in dramatic lines down her cheeks. She tried to wipe it away with one kohl-smudged hand and succeeded in making it worse.
It just wouldn’t go away.
A taxi dropped Makedde off at a series of drab, brown doors marked “NSW INSTITUTE OF FORENSIC MEDICINE”. She wondered how many people regularly walked past the unassuming façade without realising it was the morgue.
Mak had fainted the day before, and had no intention of doing so again. It wasn’t that she had never seen a dead person before. She had accompanied her father to the morgue on many occasions when she was younger. As Vancouver Island’s most respected detective inspector he had free rein to take Makedde wherever she wanted to go; and even at an early age she’d shown an unusual appetite for the macabre. She begged for trips to the station and city morgue the way other kids begged for a Barbie doll or extra pocket money. But he had purposely steered her away from the more horrific scenes; instead she had witnessed fleshless skeletons found in the forest years after death, or the smooth, peaceful corpses of the naturally departed.
Makedde had never seen a dead person looking,
smelling
, so violently, horribly dead as the girl she had
discovered the day before. A beautiful girl, who had perhaps been Catherine, lay cold and lifeless in a freezer beyond the imposing brown doors in front of her. She had lost two of the most important people in her life in just six months. It hadn’t been trips to the morgue that acquainted Makedde with the impact of death. Unwittingly, her mother taught her that hard lesson, and now so had Catherine.
With sour dread in the pit of her stomach, Makedde mustered up her courage and stepped through the front doors.
I can do this.
A white-faced clock high on one wall told her it was 10.30 a.m. Detective Flynn had seen her enter and was walking towards her. “Miss Vanderwall, thank you for coming. This shouldn’t take too long. Please, come this way,” he said quietly.
She followed him through a single door marked “Relatives Waiting”, barely paying him any attention. She was entirely focused on the horrible sight waiting for her in the viewing room. Detective Flynn closed the door behind them and they sat down on the grey, cushioned seats. The waiting room was self-consciously pleasant, with warm, off-white walls, bland paintings, and a few plants. It reminded her of the counselling room in the Vancouver General Hospital, where some social worker had done his best to help Makedde and her family cope with Jane Vanderwall’s long and painful battle with cancer.
Another closed door stood before them, and she
could hear movement behind it. Makedde’s heart leapt into her throat at the sound of a metallic wheel squeaking beyond the door.
She’s lying on some cold, metal trolley; helpless.
Minutes later a small, ginger-haired man identified as Ed Brown by his name tag ambled in and told them that she was “ready”. He opened the viewing room door, and Makedde walked inside like a woman in a trance.
It was unlike anything she had expected. She was prepared for a glass window and a curtain and some guy in a gown who would pull back the sheet, but there was none of that, only a small wooden divider between Makedde and her dead friend.
The attendant spoke to her softly in a soothing, emasculated voice. “I’ve left one arm out for you, if you wish to touch it, A lock of hair is also available if you would like. Don’t be afraid to ask for it. You would be surprised how many people really do appreciate it.”
Touch it.
Makedde was silent, staring.
“I’ll leave you now. Take as much time as you need.”
With that, the uniformed attendant left, leaving Makedde and Detective Flynn alone in the room with a silent, cold china doll.
Makedde would be naïve not to admit that it was Catherine, with that once-vibrant face, inches away.
Catherine’s face was colourless, her body cloaked in a series of green and white patterned blankets, with a hood covering her skull like a chador. The stench of death that had lingered in the grass the evening before was slightly less powerful now, but the sharp tang of tea-tree oil could not mask it completely.
A hand hung limply off the metal tray, asking to be touched. There were deep red marks around the wrist.
Touch it.
Makedde looked away.
Detective Flynn placed his hand lightly on her shoulder. “Are you all right?” Makedde didn’t answer. “Is this the body of Catherine Gerber?”
“Can I see her hair? She had beautiful, long, dark hair. She looks different with the shroud.”
“Her head has been shaved, I’m afraid. All murder victims have their heads shaved. Her head wounds are quite extensive.” He sounded apologetic.
“Oh.”
“Can you positively confirm that this is the body of Catherine Gerber?”
Makedde paused, staring silently at the human-like form that lay before her. “Yes.” The tears began. She tried to contain them, but they welled up and rolled soundlessly down her cheeks.
“Thank you Miss Vanderwall. You can stay for a while, if you wish. There’s no rush. I’ll be waiting for you just outside the door when you’re ready.”
Makedde heard the door close behind her. She stood as far away from the corpse as she could. She backed right into a chair, and sat down. With blurry eyes she noticed a television screen in the upper right-hand corner of the viewing room. It seemed to be a strange place for a television. For a moment she imagined Catherine opening her eyes to watch a show, like a person waking from sedation in a hospital room. Makedde suspected the television was for viewings where the body was so badly decomposed or infected that it had to be in a separate room. With half her insides spread about in the grass, the insects and animals would have had Catherine fast. She could have been nearly gone by the time she was discovered.
Is that what her killer wanted? If he had, he would have chosen somewhere much more private. No, he wanted to shock. He wanted her found quickly.
She rose and moved towards the body of Catherine Gerber.
Towards
that hand
.
Grief-stricken, Makedde steeled herself, reached out, and touched the hand, holding it tenderly.
It was cold.
“Goodbye my dear friend,” she said quietly. Before letting go she whispered one last thing. “I promise you justice, Catherine. I
promise
.”
She left the room knowing that her friend was gone. She wasn’t on a tray in the viewing room in the
morgue. She wasn’t about to be zipped into a body bag and wheeled into a cold freezer.
She was somewhere else…somewhere better.
Makedde switched her brain to professional mode, distancing herself, as best she could, from the horrors of the present reality. The morgue had a sterile chill that seeped into her bones the longer she stood within its walls. She was dying to leave, but she had the P443 identification statement to fill out first, and she had questions to ask of Detective Andrew Flynn.
Her throat felt tight when she spoke. “When will her foster parents see her? She’s a long way from Canada.”
He replied with impersonal, well practised sensitivity. “Her body will be released to them at the earliest possible date.”
Mak knew Catherine’s foster parents. No one would be hurrying out to make sure that things were handled properly. Eventually Catherine’s body would fly across the continents in a cold, generic container for a funeral that would be small and economic.
Makedde read the form.
This statement made by me accurately sets out the evidence which I would be prepared, if necessary, to give in court as a witness.
“Will I have to stay for the trial?” she asked.
“You’ll have to be here for the trial, but you won’t have to be here
until
the trial. It may take some time to finish the investigation. We would arrange for your flight from Canada if necessary.”
“I’m not leaving just yet,” Makedde said firmly.
“Good.”
She continued through the form.
My relationship with the deceased is…
Friend. Best friend.
Her mind drifted back to that limp, cold hand. “I noticed she had ligature marks on her wrist.”
“Yes.”
Makedde gave him a look that clearly asked for more information. When he didn’t respond, she said, “He tied her up, didn’t he?”
“We suspect she was bound.”
Bound.
“With what? Didn’t look like rope or cord,” she probed.
The detective looked at her strangely, and she realised she could be sounding very odd, or even guilty to anyone who didn’t know that she was a student of forensic psychology raised in a household where crime was dinnertime conversation.
She changed the subject. “Will you need someone else to make an ID as well? I’m afraid I may be the nearest thing you’ll find to a relative. Her foster parents weren’t very—”
loving
. She searched for a
polite way to word it. “
Close
. They weren’t very close to her.”
“At this point, you’re all we have. We appreciate your cooperation.”
“This doesn’t seem like a run-of-the-mill murder to me,” she said, trying to get a reaction. “I’m guessing you don’t see that sort of…
damage
in your average Sydney murder.”
Detective Flynn turned to her, and with a grave face said, “There is nothing average about any murder, Miss Vanderwall. This investigation is my number one priority.”
Catherine’s life demanded it.
Hours later Makedde was back at the Bondi Beach flat, but she wasn’t alone.
“Again, I’m sorry to have to do this,” Detective Flynn said, as a small forensic team descended on Makedde’s accommodations. “I appreciate you giving us consent. It really is important to do this as soon as possible.”