Digging Up Dirt

by Pamela Hart

  ‘Ropable enough to push her in a pit?’

  ‘Was she pushed?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Annie thought this over. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I don’t want Paul to be the killer. Who else?’

  ‘What about Gerry?’

  ‘Oh, I like that much better.’

  Gerry Collonucci was supposedly Julieanne’s boss, but she routinely ignored his directions and, worst of all, insisted on making press releases to the media instead of letting Gerry, as head of the department, get the glory. Annie hadn’t intervened because Gerry hadn’t complained and also because Julieanne was a much better front person for the museum than Gerry, who spoke with a distinct adenoidal twang of which he seemed to be unaware. Gerry was also renowned for using his power over student placements to get routine admin jobs done for nothing—and for taking credit for junior archaeologists’ work. So no one had worried too much that Julieanne stole some of his thunder. Annie had kept him on because he was a surprisingly good historian, but I knew that she’d put him on notice to improve his management or he’d be out. Gerry, it would be fair to say, seriously disliked Julieanne—and as her boss, he had a legitimate reason to be on site.

  ‘I know that look,’ Annie said. ‘What are you planning?’

  ‘A chat with Gerry?’

  ‘You be careful. You’re not Miss Marple, you know. Let the police do their job.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I said. ‘But what if they arrest me?’

  She was silent, then said doubtfully, ‘They’ve got no real evidence. The DPP would throw the case back at them.’

  The Director of Public Prosecutions has to approve any major prosecution—that is, the police could arrest me but they couldn’t take me to trial without DPP approval.

  ‘Great—and meanwhile I’m in jail, stripsearched, mug-shotted, locked in …’ I shuddered. ‘I’m going to talk to Gerry.’

  ‘You know he’s got a hell of a temper,’ Annie cautioned, seeing me to the door. ‘If he figures out you’re trying to investigate …’

  ‘Exactly why I’m calling in the heavy guns—NewsCaff.’

  I rang Tyler and asked if he’d like an interview with Julieanne’s boss. He jumped at it, so I went into Gerry’s office armed with that greatest of all powers: an invitation to fame.

  Curator’s offices come in two types: neat and messy. Gerry’s was the messy kind. Every surface was covered in objects, fragments of objects, papers, drawings, reference books and bricks. Yes, bricks. Gerry’s particular speciality was the manufacture of bricks in Australia up until the end of World War Two. He could look at a brick and tell you not just where it was made, but when, and who the foreman was, and where they got the clay from. And he would—at length—if you showed the slightest interest.

  Gerry was at his desk, meticulously checking a catalogue of finds. I could see the tiny drawings or photos and the descriptive text next to each, but I couldn’t tell which dig it was from. One bit of early colonial pottery looks like every other bit to me. But not to Gerry. He was frowning, and he shook his head at me as I came in.

  ‘I’m not at all happy about this classification,’ he said, tapping his hairy forefinger on the page. ‘Sandra’s got it down as 1860s, but the glaze looks a little deep to me for that. I suspect it’s no earlier than the eighties.’

  ‘Eighteen-eighties isn’t far off,’ I said, sitting in the guest chair.

  ‘Nineteen-eighties!’ he snapped. ‘The company reissued some of their classic designs then, and this was one of them. If it is, it compromises the entire stratification.’ He threw the folder on the desk and glared at me, eyes hostile. He never did like me. ‘And what do you want?’

  ‘I came to see if you’d do an interview for The Daily Report about Julieanne’s work and why she was interested in the bones in the pit.’

  He thought about it, weighing his dislike for me against his desire to be on national TV. Ego won. ‘All right,’ he said, as though he were granting me a big favour. He relaxed slightly and pulled at his shirt, which stretched tightly over his belly. What is it with fat men? When women put on weight, they go and buy new clothes that fit. Men just keep squeezing themselves into the old ones. Do they think no one will notice?

  What the hell, I thought. I could pussyfoot around and try to be subtle, but Gerry had no feelings to hurt, and we’d never been friends. ‘I also want to know if you killed Julieanne.’

  He went very still. ‘Wh—why would I have done that?’

  ‘Now that’s interesting,’ I said, getting more comfortable in my seat. ‘Most people would say, “No, of course not!” But not you. I wonder why.’

  ‘Because I know what you’re like, McGowan,’ he growled. ‘Always poking your nose in. Always getting people to tell you things you shouldn’t know.’

  Ah, yes. I remembered. One of his students, in the course of telling me the story of her life, had let slip that Gerry had put the hard word on her, and asked me what she should do. Have sex with him to save her position on the team or stand up for herself and get the boot? I’d sorted that one out simply: ‘Tape the next conversation and you’ll have enough on him to make sure of your place on the team until you graduate.’

  ‘I didn’t even tell Annie about that,’ I protested. Only because the girl had begged me not to. She hadn’t wanted to get a reputation as a troublemaker, and I understood that, since I had that reputation myself and found it tiresome. ‘I could have got you fired.’

  ‘I suppose you could have,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Do you know what the cops have got on me?’

  I shrugged. ‘They’re far too busy questioning me to tell me who else they’re talking to. But I do know you resented Julieanne.’

  ‘Hah! Everyone resented her. She invited it.’

  ‘No argument from me.’

  He mellowed a little more, and leant back in his seat. ‘Anyway, I’ve got an alibi.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. I was with Jake at the pub. I’ve told the cops.’

  The tall, acned student who had been at the dig at my house. My imagination boggled at the idea of him and Gerry at the pub, drinking amicably.

  ‘How convenient for both of you.’

  He smirked. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Chloe Prudhomme isn’t going to believe that.’

  ‘Let her try to prove differently,’ Gerry said, leaning forward with both hands on the desk. ‘We’ll swear it on a stack of Bibles.’

  I wondered why Jake was prepared to do that. Had he disliked Julieanne too? Or was there some other advantage to him in it? Like guaranteed access to the best digs? Or being given lead authorship on one of the papers that would come out of the research? I suggested as much to Gerry, but he just kept on smirking.

  ‘Try to prove it, McGowan,’ he said, and chuckled.

  I couldn’t let him get away with that. ‘Oh, I’m not going to prove it. I’ll leave that to the cops.’

  His smile disappeared.

  ‘I’ll get someone from News to ring you,’ I said, and got up. I turned back at the door, just like Columbo. ‘What about the next morning?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What were you doing the next morning?’

  He sat up straight and frowned, his fingers gripping the edge of the desk.

  ‘The cops didn’t ask me that.’

  ‘Didn’t they? Perhaps they already knew.’

  I had seriously disturbed him.

  ‘I thought she was killed the night before.’

  ‘Why did you think that? She was due at the house to open up—why assume she’d gone back late at night?’

  He sat there, his mouth open but no answers coming out.

  I smiled at him. ‘No alibi for the morning, Gerry? Shame. But never mind. There’s still time to manufacture one.’

  It was a good exit line, and I made use of it.

  It seemed to me that Gerry had been relieved that the police were only interested in him because of a known dislike, as though th
ere was something else they could have found out about. Worth considering. I called Tyler and gave him Gerry’s contact details and told him that someone else should do the interview because Gerry couldn’t stand me.

  He laughed. ‘Lots of people hate you, huh?’

  ‘Lots more love me. Do you want an interview with her ex-boyfriend, or not?’

  ‘Shit, yes,’ he said, sobering. Of course he did. Exboyfriends were always the top suspect. Next to current boyfriends, which I didn’t want to think about.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  I hung up and stood in the corridor, considering. Chloe had already spoken to Gerry, apparently. Had she talked to Paul too? Probably. But Paul wasn’t the easiest person in the world to converse with. I might get more out of him than she had.

  Should I go and talk to Paul, or should I find Tol and see how he was? I sighed. If I wanted to steer the police away from me, I had to have something more than Gerry’s undoubted sleaziness. Paul it was.

  Paul’s office was as neat as Gerry’s was messy: tidy to the point of weirdness. If it weren’t for the museum poster on the wall, it would have looked as though no one used it. Not a pen on the desk, not a paper in sight. The computer screen didn’t even have a Post-it note stuck to the edge. The only personal thing was a photo of his parents’ wedding, with his mother (who is Chinese) rocking a fabulous Audrey Hepburn look and his father (Anglo) seeming surprised he’d managed to catch someone so beautiful. I wondered if that was how Paul had felt about Julieanne.

  Paul, at first sight, looks like a typical museum guy, with the slightly too long, untidy straight hair, the glasses, the vague expression in the eyes that suggested the brain behind them was otherwise engaged, the faint frown indicating confusion with the world … then he stood up to greet me and it was like someone had transplanted his head onto GI Joe’s body.

  ‘Paul!’ I said in astonishment. ‘You’ve really been working out!’

  He’d always been fit, but now he looked like Schwarzenegger. Or at least Chris Hemsworth as Thor—the in-shape Thor, not the fat one. A couple of months had made a huge difference. I wondered if he was taking steroids.

  ‘Not much else to do these days,’ he said, embarrassed.

  ‘I didn’t realise you were such a gym bunny.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t go to the gym,’ he said, looking a little shocked. ‘It’s very unhygienic, you know. People sweat on those machines. I’ve set up a home gym.’

  Of course. I’d forgotten Paul’s thing about germs. I wondered how he’d brought himself to have actual sex with Julieanne. Assuming that they had.

  ‘You know they found Julieanne at my house,’ I said, plunging in.

  His eyes filled with tears, but he blinked them back. ‘Yes. I saw the news. In your living room … I suppose you’ll be selling, now?’

  I was dismayed by his air of distaste. Selling hadn’t occurred to me—it was still my house.

  ‘I’m not going to let some bastard push me out just because he had a problem with Julieanne,’ I said fiercely.

  ‘But … wouldn’t you always … remember?’ he asked, astonished. It was clear he couldn’t imagine living in a house where a dead body had lain, for however short a time.

  ‘She was on the ground, not the floor. I’m putting new floors in,’ I reassured him.

  ‘I don’t think I could ever visit you there, Poppy.’

  I chose to misunderstand him. ‘Of course, it would be too hard for you, Paul,’ I said earnestly. ‘You were so close to her, weren’t you?’

  He went very still. ‘For a while,’ he said softly. ‘But it didn’t last.’

  ‘You called it off?’

  ‘She called it off, two months ago. Didn’t you know that?’

  I shrugged. ‘Doesn’t sound like Julieanne to me. I’ve never known her to dump anyone until she had someone else lined up, and Tol didn’t arrive on the scene until last month. So I assumed you’d thought better of it. I didn’t blame you.’

  He was very quiet. I don’t think Paul had ever really thought about Julieanne’s motives before. He’d just taken it as natural that someone like her would get tired of him.

  ‘I never did understand what you two had in common,’ I prompted.

  ‘Sex,’ he said simply.

  ‘Really?’ I tried not to let my incredulity show, but it was tough.

  He nodded.

  ‘Sex is necessary to the proper, healthy functioning of the human body, you know, Poppy,’ he said. ‘Absolutely necessary.’

  I pushed away questions about what he usually did if it was so necessary, and focussed on Julieanne. ‘And she …?’

  ‘She had a very good, wholesome attitude to sex. She liked it simple. Frequent. No—no frills, so to speak. It was very refreshing.’

  I didn’t want to do it. It was like jabbing a kitten. But I had to know what he really thought of her now.

  ‘It wasn’t enough for her, though, in the end?’

  His face darkened. ‘She used me while I was convenient, I suppose. But she said I wasn’t presentable enough for her political ambitions. My social skills weren’t good enough! She wanted me to—to schmooze people. Go to parties.’ There was plenty of anger there, but then his voice dropped. ‘From what she said that last night, I think she even wanted to get married.’

  He was so appalled by the idea, I almost laughed. ‘I heard it was you who wanted to get married.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘So are you sure it was you she wanted to marry?’

  He hesitated. ‘Who else?’

  ‘Someone she’d been seeing secretly, maybe?’

  He turned positively puce. I wondered again about steroids and roid rage. I’d never known Paul to get angry before.

  ‘She lied as easily as she breathed,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Who knows?’

  I thought I could risk one more question before he got really aggro.

  ‘Did you love her, Paul?’

  His big, square hands splayed out over the desktop. I thought about how quickly he could have overpowered Julieanne. She was a tall woman, and pretty fit herself, but there was no way she could have resisted him.

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether I did or I didn’t,’ he said quietly, looking at his hands. ‘She didn’t love me, and she’s dead now.’

  There was something in that tone, something flat and absolute, that made me want to run away. I didn’t know why—was it a deep, deep grief, or something else?

  I wasn’t going to ask him for an interview, no matter what I’d promised Tyler. It would have felt too much like twisting the knife.

  ‘Stay in touch,’ I said gently and left, but I don’t think he realised I was gone. I glanced back as I went to the door and he was still staring at his hands, his eyes wide and dry.

  I wasn’t watching as I moved into the corridor, and I bumped right into someone. They reached out to steady me.

  Tol. Tol had been standing just outside the door. Listening? Waiting?

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I blurted out. His hands were still on the bare skin of my arms. Hot. Strong. Get a grip, McGowan, I told myself. But I couldn’t make myself take a step back.

  His eyes lit with amusement, and maybe something warmer. ‘I work here, remember?’

  ‘In the corridor?’ I asked, finally edging back just a little, so that he could let go if he wanted to. He did, leaving my arms feeling cold, but he didn’t move away. Instead, he leant against the wall, staring down at me intently.

  ‘I was waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. It was a startlingly intimate thing to do, but he didn’t seem aware of that. He kept studying my face.

  ‘You look tired. Are the police bothering you?’

  My lip trembled, which appalled me. But apart from Annie, he was the only person who seemed to be aware that this might be a diffic
ult experience for me: everyone else either thought it was exciting or useful.

  ‘They think I killed Julieanne.’

  ‘Really? I got the impression they think I killed her.’ He raised an eyebrow at me, just like Spock. I couldn’t help it—I smiled. I love it when men do that. It looks so intelligent.

  ‘Maybe they think we both did it.’

  ‘Did you?’

  The voice came from behind me. It was Chloe Prudhomme, looking grim. I realised that Tol and I must have looked like … conspirators, or even lovers, huddling in the corridor, our heads together. I blushed—furiously, which made me cross.

  ‘If I had killed Julieanne Weaver,’ I said, glowering, ‘I wouldn’t have done it in my house, and I would have had a much better alibi. And furthermore, you probably wouldn’t even have known it was murder!’

  Tol half-laughed. ‘And if I’d killed her, I would have got Poppy to supervise, so ditto for me!’

  I didn’t know whether to be angry with him or laugh, too, and by the look on her face, neither did Chloe.

  ‘Are you two lovers?’ she asked bluntly.

  Tol shook his head. ‘No such luck,’ he said with what sounded like genuine regret.

  I felt the blush start again, but for a vastly different reason.

  ‘But if you’d wanted to be, Julieanne was in the way,’ Chloe suggested.

  ‘We weren’t married,’ Tol said.

  ‘Like she could have stopped us,’ I said at the same time.

  We paused for a beat, to see if the other had anything else to say, but Tol was silent, so I added, ‘From where I stood, their relationship wasn’t going to last long anyway. All I had to do was wait a few weeks.’

  ‘Really?’ Tol said. ‘You thought of that?’

  He sounded hopeful and I got panicky, wondering if I’d given too much away. Stuart, I reminded myself.

  ‘Besides,’ I said, ‘I have a boyfriend.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Chloe didn’t sound too impressed by Stuart’s existence. ‘Didn’t look like that when I got here.’

  She turned and walked away while we were still trying to come up with a response. I expected her to throw a line over her shoulder or come back for a final question, but she just kept walking down to Annie’s office and went in, leaving Tol and me in a less-than-comfortable silence.