Heiress On Fire

by Kellie McCourt

  So the Mutants did own Magic Models illegally! Wait, I had gone off track. ‘Are you sure Richard ordered those bombs?’

  He nodded his meaty head. ‘And B I wouldn’t have had them delivered to his fucking office if I didn’t think he’d ordered them, now would I?’

  ‘No,’ I said processing. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Like, Crystal’s innocent?’ Esmerelda queried.

  ‘Yeah. She loved Debbie. She only went to Bombberg’s to get the name of Deb’s surgeon so she could kick his ass.’

  ‘That’s why she was confronting Richard? She wanted the name of the other surgeon?’ I asked.

  He nodded with the same pace, but his eyes began to redden.

  ‘But she went back and forth from the bathroom all night. And she had something in her hand, a box, she kept showing it to Richard. What was it?’

  ‘Yeah well she was a cokehead so that’s why she was in the toilet all night. She’d had thirty days up, she must’ve busted. The box, it was ashes. She kept Deb’s ashes with her in a little wood box.’

  That was just so sad.

  ‘How’d Crystal get invited to the Sydney Plastics cocktail party at her place that night?’ Esmerelda wanted to know, pointing to me. ‘Like, did Crystal even know Dr Sam?’

  ‘Nah, Crystal didn’t know shit. That was me,’ he said and forked in some tomatoes. I guess even rabid bikers need fruits and vegetables.

  ‘Abby from Magic Models told me that one of the doctors going to the party at Bombberg’s penthouse was single and going stag. Dr Sam Bruce. Abby suggested sending Crystal as a free escort for him. A little promo gift for Sydney Plastics. We spend a shitload of money with them, maybe we get a discount next time,’ he wiggled his eyebrows up and down conspiratorially, they were the only part of him not covered in food, ‘and Crystal gets an in to talk to Bombberg. You know two birds with one stone. Crystal was thirty days sober, it seemed like a good idea.’

  ‘Dr Sam is a woman,’ I told him flatly.

  ‘Fuck, really?’ he said, genuinely surprised. ‘Oops.’

  Tomato innards ran down his face.

  I shook my head. ‘Hang on, you sent Crystal in there even though you had delivered explosives to Richard’s office?’

  He shrugged. ‘I though he wanted to blow some shit up on his farm or something. Maybe scam some insurance or something. Fuck, I didn’t think he was gonna go postal on his own penthouse! I had no idea he was so unhinged.’

  We sat in silence for a few moments as we all digested this information.

  Finally Esmerelda said, with almost no trace of disgust, ‘Dude, what’s with all the eating? I mean, dude.’

  It was fairly horrific.

  ‘It’s all the food,’ he said sniffing back a tear. ‘I’m all alone with all this food, all day, every day. And the cooking smells every night. It’s torture.’

  I looked around. ‘You live in the fridge? How does that work? Where do you sleep?’

  He stood up and a landslide of edible debris slid off him. He walked to the back of the fridge and slid a metal shelf containing a variety of fresh vegetables and cartons of milk and cream to one side. There was a door hidden behind it. He cracked the handle and opened the door. The artificial light from the walk-in fridge cast a long shadow into the dark room beyond. It was the gelato shop. There was enough dim light to see white tiles stacked in one corner and a variety of buckets, rags and tools lying on the ground behind the counter.

  ‘It’s closed for renovations. And there’s an apartment above the shop,’ he said, pointing to some sharp stairs at the back of the store. ‘It’s okay, but there’s no cable up there. Just commercial channels. Fucking feds are so fucking inconsiderate. They only come by a couple times a day. They know I’m dead if I go anywhere, if I’m seen. I’m fucking trapped! And they left all the fucking gelato in the display freezers didn’t they! I’ve eaten 20 litres of rum and raisin, 20 litres of pistachio, 20 litres of choc mint, 20 litres of banana and I’ve just about finished the chocolate chip cookie dough. That’s 100 litres of ice cream. I’m fucking fat!’ he began to sob.

  ‘It’s not the fucking eighties man, it’s not cool to be a fat fuck biker. Everyone’s at the gym at 2 o’clock in the morning getting buff, pumping roids, snorting coke to keep the body fat off. It’s a lot of pressure. I blame those TV shows. Fuckin’ Sons of Anarchy! My ass. I mean who fucking looks like that?’

  He was silent for a moment. I felt his pain. Being the daughter of a supermodel takes the problem of unreasonable comparisons by association to a whole new level.

  ‘And …’ he said getting really wobbly, ‘I miss Debs. I miss her a lot. And now Crystal’s gone too, I can’t even replace her! I’m shut in all alone, all day, isolated, with all this food and ice cream. I’m so fucking depressed! I’ve put on 10 fucking kilos! Nothing fits. I got this out of the fucking lost and found.’ He grabbed at the white fur jacket.

  He cried hard for twenty minutes, muttering, ‘I’m fat! I’m alone! I’m so fucking fat!’

  I wondered if the police were secretly feeding him hormones of some kind. He was a mess. Then again 100 litres of gelato ice cream, isolation, a dead girlfriend and a dead almost-sister-in-law can really change a person.

  Esmerelda reluctantly went and found him some napkins. I drank the rest of the bottle of sauvignon blanc and tried to process the information I had just received.

  Bob was like a heaving, sobbing garbage disposal. I had zero desire to eat anything ever again. I may have just discovered a whole new diet. Disgust.

  CHAPTER 31

  THE CAT JONES ‘C’ DIET

  I left Bob the Yeti Builder with strict instructions on the enforcement of the Cat Jones lose much weight by eating nothing fun beginning with the letter ‘C’ diet. No cake. No croissants. No camembert. No cookies. No cashews. No chocolate. No point.

  And he thought he was in pain now. He had no idea.

  I cheated a tiny bit and tacked ‘No gelato’ onto the No list under ‘No (ice) cream’ just to be safe. I felt comfortable that gelato basically fell under the jurisdiction of ice cream and besides, if he ate any more gelato he might have a massive coronary. What if Searing and Burns needed him as a witness or something later on? Plus, Bob was in a very fragile place and I did not want to confuse or antagonise him.

  Esmerelda organised Netflix and Stan on the TV in the upstairs apartment and Googled the number of a phone psychotherapist.

  By the time we made it back to the stretch SUV it was dark and the car was empty.

  ‘Where did they go?’ I asked Grandmother’s driver Mr David.

  ‘I dropped Ms Jones off to the Buddhist centre in Newtown,’ he said.

  Newtown was another former hippy, now hipster inner city suburb five minutes away. It was populated by artists, overpriced barristers, stylish lesbians, bookstores, sushi places, university students and Buddhists. They all lived, worked and worshipped in semis.

  ‘And Grandmother?’

  ‘Mrs Royce-Hasluck had a board meeting with Steve Jobs and Steve Irwin,’ he said.

  ‘Mr David, both of those men are dead,’ I said to him.

  He looked a little flummoxed.

  ‘Neither of them went to the funeral home for the cremation?’ I said changing the subject.

  ‘Ms Jones said she’d go after some meditation. Mrs Hasluck-Royce said she’d go after some mediation.’ He paused, looked at me little confused and added quietly, ‘I thought they were the same thing?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘they are both spiritual.’

  He nodded cautiously. Esmerelda gave him an encouraging pat on the back and shepherded him into the driver’s seat.

  I slipped into the back seat and pondered my choices. A few minutes later Esmerelda slid in beside me and ten seconds after that Mr David started up the car. He powered down the security divide and we continued our stymied conversation.

  ‘Would you like to go to the funeral home for the cremation?’ he asked me.

&nb
sp; Maybe avoiding things that began with the letter ‘C’ was not such a bad thing after all. Cream. Cake. Calories. Cremation. Crypt. Crematorium.

  But then I really hated to disappoint Mr David. And surely someone should be driven to attend Richard’s cremation?

  It was just that, well, there was no way in hell it was going to be me. I was not going to be in a room with the police, Richard’s mother, every gossip on the east coast, the Sydney Plastics staff, Richard’s possible mistress Sandy Banks and other close friends and family.

  Plus, I had just set another large historical building on fire. I did not think I should be anywhere near a crematorium.

  ‘Dude,’ said Esmerelda. ‘You’ve been quiet for a really long time.’

  ‘I am thinking,’ I said, because I was thinking.

  ‘You can call him Dave you know,’ said Esmerelda breaking another long thinking silence, nodding towards the glass divide.

  ‘Who?’ I asked startled out of my thoughts.

  ‘Dave.’

  Really, she was so helpful.

  ‘Dave who?’

  She looked nowhere near as frustrated with me as I felt with her.

  ‘Dave,’ she said, pointing to the divide and into the driver’s seat. ‘Mr David.’

  ‘Mr David? Grandmother’s driver?’

  ‘He’s my third cousin you know,’ she said smiling at him.

  ‘His name is David David?’ I said in astonishment. I had to skip past the cousin part until I checked the David David part.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Esmerelda. I did not believe her.

  Sensing his assistance was required Mr David powered down the divide.

  ‘Is your name David David?’ I asked him.

  He nodded slowly, somewhat caught off-guard at being randomly outed as a double David.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said before I could stop myself.

  He shrugged. ‘It’s okay. It’s good when you’re filling out forms and you accidentally write your first name in the last-name box.’

  This was a glass half full kind of man.

  ‘Esmerelda’s my cousin’s cousin,’ he said, by way of relation justification. He paused and looked at Esmerelda. ‘By marriage.’

  The relationship explained the ease with which Esmerelda had had the car redirected from the cathedral to the Crown Street Diner.

  Mr David slid the divide back up and drove around the block another couple of times.

  After ten minutes of limbo limo holding pattern, Mr David, possibly trying to make up for being related to Esmerelda, offered a further suggestion: ‘Would you like to go to the airport? Esmerelda had me get your bags. They’re in the trunk.’

  I desperately wanted to go to the airport. And kudos to Esmerelda and Mr David for their luggage transfer and coordination skills, but I felt like I was missing something. Wait … ‘The Mediterranean Men’s Club!’ I said, thumping myself on the forehead. ‘I forgot to follow up about the Mediterranean Men’s Club! Bob the Yeti Fix-It Builder mentioned it, so he must know something about it.’

  ‘You wanna go back inside?’ Mr David wanted to know.

  I looked back down the street at the Crown Street Diner and the Gelato Heaven store next door. I was not going back in there. That yeti was a one-man emotional blackhole. And a culinary war zone. A war zone in a blackhole. I felt the remaining joy I had for life being sucked out of me just thinking about him and all that sorrowful gelato.

  I involuntarily shuddered and shook my head. I forgot a question. Big deal.

  I realised now that I had more important questions I wanted answered. And I was 90 per cent sure that the answers to those questions sat in Richard’s work computer at Sydney Plastics. If I could sic Esmerelda onto that computer for ten minutes, with a USB, I thought I could wrap the whole thing up and go to Phi Phi relatively guilt- and arrest warrant-free. And what better time? All of Sydney Plastics’ employees including possible mistress Sandy Banks and gatekeeper Michelle Little would be at the wake. The office would be empty.

  It is possible that the bottle of Champagne drunk in the alley outside the Crown Street Diner, followed by the bottle of wine drunk inside the walk-in fridge freezer of the Crown Street Diner and the complete lack of food consumed during that time made breaking into the Sydney Plastics office seem like a much better and easier idea than it quite possibly was. But it seemed solid at the time.

  I peered over at Esmerelda. She was opening a bag of Cheezels.

  ‘Where on earth did you get those from?’ I wanted to know.

  She shrugged at me. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Do you think you could hack into Richard’s computer?’ I asked her.

  ‘Totally willing to give it a bash,’ she said crunching an orange ring. ‘What’re you thinking?’

  ‘I am thinking that I would like to read his email.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ she crunched.

  ‘Could you drive to Sydney Plastics please Mr David,’ I asked, settling back into my seat.

  He nodded, slid the glass divide up and the car began to move.

  ‘Dude! You totally forgot to ask Bob why he was there,’ said Esmerelda, simultaneously having an epiphany and sucking what I assume was stuck Cheezels from her back left molar.

  ‘In the gelato shop?’

  ‘No, like why the feds had him in protective custody.’

  That felt like the same thing. But absolutely not worth the dialogue with her.

  The truth was I did not care what Bob was in protective custody for, because it had nothing to do with me or my case. I assumed it had nothing to do with my case because the information was not fed to Searing or Burns and did not help me.

  ‘He was probably turning on his biker mates for roughing up shopkeepers or something,’ I said.

  ‘Roughing up shopkeepers?’ she said between deep-fried orange handfuls. ‘Dude, it’s not 1985.’

  ‘Fine,’ I relented. ‘Drugs. Gambling. Illegal brothel-owning. People smuggling. I don’t care.’

  Okay fine, if it was people smuggling I did care. That was awful. And the whole illegal brothel-owning Abby-is-a-front thing bothered me too. It was an affront to my somewhat feminist leanings. In summary: illegal brothel-owning very offensive. Human trafficking very, very offensive.

  ‘What do you think it was about?’ I vaguely wanted to know.

  By now Esmerelda’s mouth was so stuffed with Cheezels she could not speak with any sensibility. ‘Mmm Mph,’ she said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  She made a motion with her finger. In the air she traced the letter ‘M’ several times over.

  ‘M?’ I said to her.

  She nodded her head. Something beginning with ‘M’.

  ‘McDonalds? Grand theft burger?’ I giggled, chuckling at my own wit. ‘Marshmallows? Marshmallow murder! Macarons? Meat money laundering? Marshmallow Mardi Gras M&M macaron murder?’

  She shot me an unfriendly look. The disgusting Bob-effect was wearing off. I was getting hungry. I get eccentric when hungry. She made more ‘M’ shapes in the air.

  ‘Magic Models? You think the federal police found out Magic Models is actually owned by the Mutant bikers?’ I conjectured excitedly. ‘After Debbie and Crystal died Bob had a crisis of conscience and told the AFP as some kind of loving homage to them?’

  She gave me an ‘as if’ look and shook her head. ‘Phh-M M.’ She tried to swallow but inhaled Cheezel dust instead and began choking.

  ‘MM? Mutant Motorcycle Club?’ I asked, trying to guess before she choked to death. ‘No, obviously it is related to the Mutant Motorcycle Club.

  ‘Marc Jacobs? Michael Kors?’ I said. No. The US fashionistas were probably not tangled up in the illicit activities of a federally protected Australian outlaw motorcycle gang member.

  She kept choking and making ‘M’s.

  ‘MM. MM. Mediterranean Men’s … Mediterranean Men’s Club?’ It was close. If you did not count the ‘Club’ part.

  She touched her nose and nodded.

&nb
sp; ‘Well,’ I said dissatisfied. ‘I just said I forgot to ask him about that.’

  Honestly. All that trouble for nothing.

  I retrieved a bottle of water from the minibar under the shiny black tray table that separated the chairs and gave it to Esmerelda. Just then a thought struck me. All of the groups linked to Richard’s death had the initials MM: Magic Models. Mutant Motorcycles. Mediterranean Men’s (Club).

  ‘Do you think the federal police are interested in the Mediterranean Men’s Club?’

  She chugged the spring water, thumped her chest, coughed again and then nodded her head. I powered the window down.

  ‘Totally, definitely possible. Maybe,’ she said in a half-choked voice.

  God. All of that for a maybe.

  ‘But,’ she said on further reflection, swallowing the last few drops from the water bottle, ‘it’s probably just drugs.’

  Drugs. It was always drugs. I was willing to bet that was an activity that had not fallen off in popularity since 1985.

  Fed and watered, Esmerelda now eyed me carefully. ‘Dude. You totally forgot to like throw up and pass out back there. Are you like, growing?’

  ‘No,’ I said flatly, ‘I am not. The family reflex occurs only under great duress.’

  ‘Dude. There was a yeti in that freezer. It attacked us. That was totally duress,’ she said wiping Cheezel crumbs off her hands onto her jeans.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I mean duress as in stress, embarrassment, mortification. The family reflex is not triggered by terror.’

  I ticked off the items on my fingers: ‘It can also be activated by extreme humiliation and being drop-down drunk, which I believe was its original incarnation. It does not occur when terrorised with life-threatening happenings. Fear does not activate the family reflex.’

  Although, that could have been helpful in generations past. I knew that some animals in the wild played dead to outsmart predators. That seemed safe.

  She was right about one thing. I was outgrowing the whole ‘heaving before passing out when you are mortified’ thing. It had outlived its usefulness. I was sick of being sick.

  I sniffed the air. ‘Have you been smoking?’ I asked her.