Mavis Levack, PI

by Marele Day

  Mrs Levack gave an embarrassed little laugh. ‘Silly me.’ Then louder, ‘Anybody there?’ she repeated. She made her way into the lounge room where a mid-afternoon talk show played on the television. She hardly gave Oprah Winfrey a second glance as she walked through to the dining room. The tables were neatly set with crisp white tablecloths, blue and white plates, cutlery, glasses and a tiny vase of flowers on each one.

  The TV was on, the tables were set but there was no-one here. It was just like that ship where they found the table set for dinner but not a soul on board. ‘Was that the Lusitania or the Hesperus?’ Mrs Levack asked her husband, who went to the library every Wednesday and read a lot.

  ‘The Marie-Celeste.’

  ‘Bit like Alice in Wonderland, isn’t it? Curiouser and curiouser,’ commented Mrs Levack.

  Mr Levack rolled his eyes. He could see what was brewing. ‘Sit down for a minute, will you? Mr Spackman’s probably just popped down to the shop for some eggs or something.’

  Reluctantly Mrs Levack sat down on the lounge beside her husband, who was leafing through a handsome volume entitled In the Wild—Tasmanian Flora and Fauna. She stared at the television screen but found it very hard to concentrate on the show. There was definitely something amiss. You wouldn’t leave your guesthouse completely unattended, would you? What if someone wanted something? She felt a little uneasy. She and Eddy were a long way from home. Tasmania was rather isolated, even if they did get Oprah on TV. It was impossible for Mrs Levack to sit still and relax. ‘I’m just going to get a drink of water,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be too long, we don’t want you disappearing as well,’ joked her husband.

  Mrs Levack had a good look around the lounge and dining room, then went to the kitchen. There was plenty of food in the fridge—including eggs, so obviously that eliminated the possibility of Mr Spackman being down at the shops. There was a big toaster on the bench and a dishwasher full of clean crockery waiting to be put away. But not a sign of life. As if whoever lived here had suddenly up and left. Or been forced to leave.

  Off the kitchen Mrs Levack found the office. The computer was on, bits of paper all over the place. A rather untidy desk, thought Mrs Levack. ‘What’s taking so long?’ Mrs Levack heard Eddy call out.

  ‘Just coming, dear.’

  But Mrs Levack wasn’t just coming. There was definitely something strange about all this. The office might yield up some clues. In the mess of the desk she espied a foolscap-size book. ‘Reservations’ it said on the blue cover.

  She was up to August when the phone rang. Mrs Levack jumped and promptly lost her place in the book. Her hand went out to answer the phone but she stopped herself just in time. She let it ring on, her heart pounding. Surely Mr Spackman would come and answer it if he was within hearing distance. It rang on but no-one came. Perhaps she should answer it—she certainly wanted to. Perhaps it was Mr Spackman himself ringing home to explain the situation. She picked the phone up with the sleeve of her cardigan pulled down like a mitten, so as not to leave any fingerprints should it come to that. ‘Hello? Hello?’ Damn, they’d hung up.

  Then she saw it, as she was putting the phone down. The note. She stopped dead in her tracks, staring at it. She read it and reread it several times. There was no mistaking it. ‘Eddy, can you come in here a minute?’ she called in a falsely bright voice. ‘And bring your reading glasses with you.’

  I can’t take any more. Bob. Eddy took off his glasses. He looked at the computer screen, looked around the office. ‘There’s probably a perfectly logical explanation for this,’ he said finally.

  ‘There is,’ said Mrs Levack with absolute certainty. ‘He committed suicide and that’s the note. Signed Bob. What’s Mr Spackman’s first name?’ she challenged her husband.

  ‘Bob.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Mrs Levack was positively beaming.

  ‘I suppose we’d better call the police, then,’ sighed Eddy, reaching for the phone.

  ‘Don’t touch that phone,’ said Mrs Levack. ‘Fingerprints,’ she explained in case her tone had been too hasty. She was awfully sorry about Mr Spackman, but what a perfect bonus to the holiday. A real case for a sleuth. And Mavis Levack was first on the scene. She didn’t want the police poking around till she’d had a good poke around herself.

  Besides, Mrs Levack’s brain was ticking like a time bomb. Now that the idea of suicide had been absorbed, her mind was rushing on to bigger and better things. Anything was possible. Perhaps it was supposed to look like suicide. Perhaps it was the big one—perhaps Mr Spackman had been murdered. After all, where was the body?

  All Mrs Levack wanted was a little time to look for clues, for skeletons in the closet or elsewhere. Let’s face it, what Mrs Levack really wanted was to solve the case, wrap it up in a pretty bow and present it to the police as a fait accompli. She could see her name in the headlines, the interviews on TV. Maybe there’d be a miniseries! Wouldn’t that give them something to talk about down at the bowling club!

  ‘Let’s wait a little while before we call the police, shall we?’ she cajoled her husband. ‘Just to make sure. Wouldn’t want to make fools of ourselves, would we?’

  ‘No, we wouldn’t. It’ll probably all become clear in the end. Meanwhile, it’d be nice to get to our room and settle in.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ agreed Mrs Levack. She pulled her sleeve down over her hand and opened the reservations book to October to find out which room they were in. All the rooms except one were taken up with a Japanese cosmetics tour, probably the same one the cab driver had mentioned. ‘Here we are,’ announced Mrs Levack. ‘Room eight.’

  What with one thing and the other, Mrs Levack already had quite a solid picture of the downstairs section of the house. There were no bedrooms, so they must all be upstairs.

  ‘Gawd, these stairs are a killer,’ said Eddy when, loaded down with luggage, he finally got to the top of them. Perhaps Mr Spackman had been pushed down the stairs. When Mrs Levack got the chance she’d be on the lookout for clues—hairs, blood, the nap of the carpet going the wrong way, scratches in the paintwork. Already in her mind she could see poor Mr Spackman hanging onto the balustrade for dear life.

  They got to their room. ‘Not too bad if you’re a dwarf, is it?’ commented Eddy. It was an attic room. It didn’t bother Mrs Levack but Eddy could only stand upright in the middle of the room. Still, there was a very nice view looking over the garden, down to the port. God, thought Mrs Levack, they hadn’t tossed the body into the harbour, had they?

  Eddy took off his shoes. ‘Bed’s nice and comfy,’ he said, trying it out. ‘No lumps or anything.’

  Under the bed, in the mattress. Had they hidden the body in one of the wardrobes? Mr Spackman could be anywhere. And no-one would discover the body till it started to smell.

  ‘C’mon, Mavis, have a lie down.’

  ‘No thank you, Eddy, I’m not tired at the moment.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ said Eddy suggestively. ‘C’mon, Mavis.’ He started stroking her arm.

  What a time for Eddy to get frisky. It must be the change in the climate. He wasn’t normally frisky in the afternoon. He wasn’t normally frisky full-stop. Mrs Levack wouldn’t have minded, she was by far the friskier of the two, but experience had taught her what it would be like. A lot of huffing and puffing, a lot of grunting then, at the vital moment, Eddy would drift off to sleep and Mrs Levack would be left to her own devices. Besides, all Mrs Levack’s thoughts were focused on the one thing—the mysterious disappearance/murder of Mr Spackman.

  ‘Goodness me, Eddy. The holidays have barely begun. Why don’t you rest up for the casino tonight?’ But Eddy had already lost interest. His eyelids were getting heavy and Mrs Levack could detect the first flutters of a snore. ‘Nought out of ten for enthusiasm,’ muttered Mrs Levack under her breath as she tiptoed out of the room.

  There were five rooms upstairs. Mrs Levack idly wondered why their room was number eight but she didn’t give it too much thought. It
probably wasn’t relevant to the investigation and she decided to keep her mental faculties for the important task—the murder.

  The first room she examined had twin beds with a suitcase neatly set against the bottom of each bed. There were some very neat dresses and slacks hanging in the wardrobe. On the dressing table there was a travel guide, in Japanese she assumed, and two neat red carry bags. Careful not to leave any fingerprints, Mrs Levack unzipped one to find cosmetics of every sort. She opened up lipsticks and eyeliners, discovered lash curlers and other items she couldn’t even begin to identify. The inside of the bag was full of handy little compartments to keep the cosmetics neat and tidy. She told herself she wasn’t being a busybody, any one of these could be the murder weapon. There were nail files, clippers, all sorts of things.

  Mrs Levack moved on to the next room, then the next. Although the clothes hanging in the wardrobe were different, each of the rooms contained the same pair of make-up bags. By the third room Mrs Levack hadn’t found anything worth reporting. Besides, what possible reason would any of the Japanese cosmetics ladies have for killing Mr Spackman?

  She was just trying out the face powder when she heard a gaggle of voices in a language she couldn’t understand. They were back! In her haste to get the make-up back into the bag she spilt the white powder all over the dressing table. Clouds of it, everywhere. In walked the two occupants of the room. The talking stopped as soon as they saw Mrs Levack. She didn’t know if they could speak English but it wasn’t necessary. ‘What are you doing here?’ was written all over their faces.

  ‘Just dusting,’ said Mrs Levack, hastily mopping up the powder. She pointed to the ceiling as if it were the source of the dust, then waved her hand in front of her face. ‘Very dusty,’ she grimaced.

  The two ladies said something to each other, then came over to the dressing table. One of them pointed to the powder puff Mrs Levack was doing her best to conceal and said something. It was probably, ‘Why are you using my powder puff as a duster?’ but Mrs Levack chose not to understand. She shrugged her shoulders, smiled and proceeded to back out of the room.

  She hadn’t got very far when another woman entered the room. ‘Good afternoon. Can I help you?’ This was a different kettle of fish altogether. This one could speak English and didn’t look like she could be put off with shrugs and smiles.

  ‘I’m just doing a spot of cleaning.’

  ‘Ah, you are the maid!’ She said something to the other two women. ‘Ah!’ they nodded to Mrs Levack in recognition.

  In no time at all they were handing Mrs Levack items of clothing. The English speaker hurried down the corridor and soon the whole fleet of cosmetics ladies was piling Mrs Levack high with dresses, slacks and undies. She could barely see over the top of it all.

  ‘Very good. You will do the washing, please.’

  The maid indeed! The last thing Mrs Levack wanted to do on her holidays was washing and cleaning. She was about to drop the lot on the floor when it occurred to her that this would give her the perfect excuse to snoop around Mr Spackman’s private quarters. ‘Of course,’ agreed Mrs Levack.

  ‘Gentle cycle. Not too much soap.’

  ‘Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs,’ Mrs Levack murmured, smiling all the while.

  The laundry wasn’t hard to find. It wasn’t actually a full-scale laundry, just a washing machine, dryer and sink in an alcove outside near the back door. Beyond it was the garage. Mrs Levack would investigate the garage later, once she’d got a load of washing underway.

  She dumped the bundle of clothes in the sink. The sink was as dry as a bone and even a little dusty. Well at least that possibility was eliminated. No-one had recently rinsed any bloodstained weapons under this tap. The dust wouldn’t do the Japanese clothes any harm, they were going to get washed anyway. This machine was a bit different to the one they had at home, but Mrs Levack soon got it going. It was a top-loading model with a cycle for delicates. All she really had to do was set the indicator to the appropriate cycle and the machine would do the rest. She figured on a good twenty minutes before the noise of the machine stopped.

  She picked up and examined each item carefully before dropping it into the machine. She really didn’t see the need for it, the clothes looked perfectly clean to Mrs Levack, except for the ones on the bottom that had collected the dust from the sink. With her eye for detail, Mrs Levack couldn’t help noticing how well-tailored the clothes were. ‘Made in Japan’ certainly had come a long way in the last few decades. Mrs Levack closed the lid of the machine and the wash cycle commenced.

  Hardly was the lid down when the phone rang. It sounded inordinately loud in Mrs Levack’s ears and she gave a little start. She looked from the washing machine to the doorway leading into the house. It didn’t take her long to decide. She didn’t want anyone else coming down and answering the phone, did she? Besides, she was beginning to feel quite at home here, as if it were her right and duty to attend to the call.

  ‘Spackman’s Guesthouse,’ she said with authority.

  ‘Pardon?’ said a young voice on the other end.

  ‘It’s . . .’ Mrs Levack faltered as her eyes strayed to The Note. I can’t take any more. ‘It’s Bob Spackman’s place,’ she said this time. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘It’s Maureen. Is Bob there?’

  ‘Ah no, not at the moment. Can I help you, Maureen?’

  ‘I was wondering whether to come around. Bob said he’d be busy and might need a hand.’

  Mrs Levack thought fast. Maureen sounded harmless enough, but did she want her coming round? No, thought Mrs Levack. The fewer people involved in this the better. ‘It’s all right, dear,’ she said in a friendly manner. ‘We can manage.’

  ‘We? Who am I speaking to?’ said Maureen suspiciously. It was a bit late in the conversation for her to be asking that. Mrs Levack took a deep breath.

  ‘I’m Bob’s . . . aunt.’

  ‘Oh?’

  In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Mrs Levack. ‘Yes. Aunt Mavis from Sydney.’

  ‘I didn’t know he had anyone on the mainland. I thought all his relatives came from Launceston.’

  ‘I’m the black sheep of the family,’ said Mrs Levack, feeling blacker and blacker by the minute. The lie was liberating, she felt giddy with power. Maybe this girl could tell her something. ‘Yes, there are all sorts of skeletons in Bob’s closets,’ she hinted, trying to draw the girl out.

  ‘Pardon?’

  Mrs Levack couldn’t help herself. The words stared back at her from beside the phone, begging to be said out loud. ‘I can’t take any more,’ said Mrs Levack in a slow, measured voice. All very well to sound innocent and naive, but what if Maureen knew more than she was letting on? Was this phone call her way of revisiting the scene of the crime at a safe distance? To find out who knew what? Perhaps it was Maureen who’d written the note.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Yes, I bet you are.’

  ‘Ah, I think I’d better go, I’ve some study to do. Bob can call if he needs me.’

  The washing machine was up to the spin cycle now. Apart from that, the house was quiet. The cosmetics ladies, like Eddy, must be having an afternoon nap. The thought made Mrs Levack feel suddenly tired. She would dearly love to have had a nap herself. She wondered how all those private investigators in books got by without taking naps. But then, they usually weren’t as advanced in years as Mrs Levack. Not that age was any drawback. Mrs Levack felt as fit as a fiddle. She wasn’t going to go gentle into that dark night when her time came. They were going to have to drag her into it.

  She found herself in front of the washing machine just as it shuddered to a halt on the final rinse cycle. She lifted the lid, took the clothes out and transferred them to the dryer. She pressed a button and the steady warm hum began. Out she went to the garage. The window was covered over. Perhaps Mr Spackman had been using it as a darkroom. Or perhaps . . . She went around and tried the door but it was locked. Very peculiar. Anyone could walk in
to the house but the garage was locked.

  She was down on her hands and knees trying to look through the gap between the door and floor when she heard, ‘For Gawd’s sake, Mavis, what are you doing?’

  Mrs Levack froze in her tracks. It was Eddy. ‘I think I dropped an earring.’

  ‘But you don’t wear earrings.’

  A pause. ‘That’s right, I don’t. Silly me. Give me a hand up, will you, Eddy?’

  Eddy gave her a hand up. ‘I think he must be back, the dryer’s on. Did you see him?’

  ‘Well actually, no. I put it on.’

  ‘But we haven’t even unpacked our bags yet.’

  ‘Ah . . . as a matter of fact, I offered to do the Japanese ladies’ washing. Show them what Australian hospitality’s like,’ Mrs Levack said gaily.

  ‘You’re acting a bit strangely, Mavis. You haven’t got jet lag, have you?’

  ‘The flight from Sydney to Hobart is less than two hours. I’d hardly have jet lag, Eddy.’

  ‘Anyway, come up and have a lie down, I’m concerned about you. Or better yet,’ he said as if he’d just had a bright idea, ‘what about a spa? That’ll freshen you up. There’s one in the bathroom.’

  It did sound like a nice idea and Mrs Levack had just about done all the investigating she could do at the moment. A couple of gin and tonics, Eddy’s belly rising above the water-line like a desert island. A spa would be just the thing. ‘OK, Eddy.’

  ‘Doesn’t get any easier, does it?’ commented Eddy when they reached the top of the stairs. At that very moment a phone started to ring. It wasn’t the downstairs phone, it was coming from the room at the end of the corridor, the one room Mrs Levack hadn’t yet examined. She heard ‘Hello?’ then the door shut abruptly.

  Very suspicious. Mrs Levack crept along the corridor to the room and put her ear to the door. Eddy was following, giving her looks of disapproval, but Mavis just waved him away with her hand.

  ‘It is unfortunate but we must proceed as planned. It would not be good if they die.’ It was the voice of the English-speaking cosmetics lady. ‘No-one. Just the cleaner.’ Pause. ‘Yes. Very well.’ End of conversation.