Thin Blood

by Vicki Tyley

  “Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it?”

  “What are friends for?”

  “You’re telling the story.”

  Jacinta flinched, taken aback by Narelle’s abrasive tone. “Why did you come here, then?”

  Narelle shrugged, looked at Jacinta and promptly burst into tears. Sitting on her hands, Jacinta refrained from reaching out to her. The next move had to come from Narelle.

  “I’m sorry,” Narelle blubbered. “I shouldn’t be taking my moods out on you.”

  Jacinta said nothing.

  “I’m not making excuses, but with everything that’s been happening, I’m all over the place.” Shifting to the edge of the daybed, she dropped her feet to the floor and stood up. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come.”

  “You have to stop running sometime.”

  “I’m not running.”

  “No? What are you doing now, then? What was your little disappearing act earlier all about? What have you been doing for the last ten years?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Obviously not.”

  Tears streamed down Narelle’s face. “I want to be normal. I want to live a normal life with my husband and,” she paused, her hand straying to her abdomen, “our child. I want to put the past behind us. I wish it was that easy…” Her voice trailed off.

  Feeling her façade cracking, Jacinta swallowed hard, resisting the urge to reach out and comfort the teary woman. For things to change, Narelle couldn’t be allowed to retreat back inside her shell. To date, compassion hadn’t worked; perhaps confrontation would. “Forget being honest with me, you have to be honest with yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Jacinta took a punt. “You know what I mean,” she said, her tone all-knowing, although she had no idea what she meant herself.

  Narelle dropped her gaze, her bottom lip quivering as she slumped back down onto the daybed. “But that’s it; I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t any more. My sister and two other women are dead, shot through the head. That’s real. That Craig’s father’s gun, the murder weapon and the one used to shoot him could be one and the same? How could that possibly be?” She paused, her long fingernails clawing the backs of her hands. “Craig didn’t tell me about the gun,” she said, her voice soft and sad. “I found it by accident when I was cleaning up some broken glass and took off the dishwasher kickboard to check if any had slid underneath.”

  Jacinta opened her mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again.

  “Do I wonder why he didn’t tell me about the gun?” Narelle continued. “Yes. Do I want to believe the man I love is capable of murder? No.” She stopped scratching her hands and glanced at Jacinta. “But him being shot proves it couldn’t have been him, doesn’t it?”

  She had a point, but Jacinta’s what-if brain had already kicked into gear. What if, in a misguided attempt to divert suspicion from Craig, Narelle had shot him? Could love, or whatever it was, really be that blind? What if he was innocent after all? What if the gun had been planted? Who hated him enough to want to destroy his life? “It certainly helps his case,” she said, not quite giving Narelle the answer she was looking for, “but there are still too many unanswered questions. Who,” she said, knowing before Narelle opened her mouth what the answer would be, “do you think would want to kill, or at least maim Craig?”

  Straightening her back, Narelle met Jacinta’s gaze. “Grace Kevron.”

  “I know that’s what you think, but unfortunately she has a rock-solid alibi for the time of the shooting.”

  Narelle’s lip curled. “She probably hired someone to do it. I wouldn’t put anything past that bitch.”

  That was one possibility Jacinta hadn’t contemplated. An accomplice, perhaps, but not a hit man. “You of all people know what it feels like to be unjustly accused. Do you have anything, besides a feeling, to support that suggestion?”

  Narelle sighed, her sagging shoulders answering the question.

  “When Craig was shot, where were you?”

  “Just what are you implying?”

  Oversensitive or a guilty conscience? “Nothing. What I meant was, were you in a position to see the car? Did you see anything? Did you hear the shot? That’s all.”

  Looking sideways at Jacinta, Narelle said, “I’m surprised your policeman stepbrother hasn’t told you everything. Aren’t you two like,” she raised a hand, crossing two fingers, “that?”

  Jacinta closed her eyes, inwardly screaming as she took a deep breath. “Do you want my help or not?” she snapped, Narelle’s mood swings more than testing her patience.

  CHAPTER 48

  Fortunately for DI Lassiter, the same charge nurse was on duty. “How’s our patient today?”

  “Resting comfortably and doing remarkably well. We’re watching him carefully, but except for a slight fever, his obs are all within the normal range. He’s one lucky man. If that bullet had been any lower, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Any chance I could talk to him for a few minutes?”

  She frowned, her mouth pursing.

  “Nothing heavy, I promise,” he said, holding up his hands. “I just want to see what he does and doesn’t remember. The longer we leave it, the less he’s going to recall.” He held her gaze, using his eyes to draw her in. “Five minutes; ten at the most. You can supervise, if you like,” he added, his last comment swinging it for him.

  Escorted by the charge nurse, Daniel entered the small hospital room. Propped on a mound of white pillows, the head of the bed raised slightly, lay Craig Edmonds, one shoulder bare, the other heavily bandaged. The tubes, catheters and wires connecting him to monitors and other equipment reinforced the seriousness of his injury.

  The patient’s eyelids fluttered, then opened, his dark eyes accentuating the paleness of his face. Whether it was a side effect of the drugs or not, he struggled to focus on his visitors, his pupils remaining dilated, his face impassive. Recognition dawned slowly, his bottom lip drooping as the DI advanced.

  Daniel pulled the plastic, padded visitor chair in close to the bed and sat down. The less intimidated Craig felt in his presence, the better.

  Craig’s voice crackled as he tried to speak, his chapped lips stretching thin over his teeth. He motioned toward a disposable cup on the bedside unit next to him. The nurse nodded as Daniel, glancing her way, picked up the cup of half-melted ice cubes, holding it still while Craig hooked one of the slippery fragments with his fingers. Sucking greedily on it, he dipped his fingers back in the cup and smeared icy water around his mouth and stubbly chin.

  “Mr Edmonds,” Daniel said, replacing the cup and sitting back in the chair, “we need to find whoever did this to you, and fast.” Craig turned his head away, looking to the nurse. “Don’t you care,” continued Daniel, “that while you’re safe here under police guard, your pregnant wife is out there, fending for herself? Think about it. Someone out there is desperate enough to want you or her or both of you dead.”

  His face contorting, Craig made a valiant attempt to sit up. “You have to protect her,” he said, his voice a husky whisper.

  “But that’s it, Craig,” Daniel said, switching to Craig’s first name in an attempt to convince him he was on his side. “She refused our help point-blank. Your wife is one headstrong woman, but the longer your assailant is at large,” he paused, adding emphasis to his next words, “the longer her life is in peril. We need your help.”

  Craig’s voice filled with despair as he gazed down at his inert body. “But what can I do?”

  “Lead me through everything that happened that day. Start from when you were discharged from the hospital.”

  Craig’s mouth twisted. “I don’t remember much. It’s all so patchy. Please,” he said, tears welling, “whatever it takes, you have to protect Narelle.”

  The nurse stepped in, stretching a protective arm across her patient. “That’s enough.”

  Craig moved his head fro
m side to side. “No, not yet.” He gave a low sigh, sinking back against the pillows, his eyes closing as if the effort of shaking his head had been too much. “What do you want to know?”

  “What time did you leave the hospital?”

  “I’m not sure. Sometime around four, I think. The taxi driver will have a better idea.”

  “Why didn’t Narelle collect you from the hospital?”

  “I wanted to surprise her.”

  “You bought flowers,” prompted Daniel, recalling the bouquet of six pink roses found in the gutter.

  Craig opened his eyes, nodding. “That’s right, I did.”

  “Okay, you’re in the back of the taxi, holding a bunch of flowers and looking forward to surprising your wife. The taxi turns into your street and pulls up where? In the driveway? At the kerb?”

  “At the kerb.”

  “How did you pay the driver?” An inconsequential detail, but Daniel hoped it would help stimulate his memory.

  “Credit card. I had no cash.”

  “You get out of the taxi and look up and down the street. What do you see?”

  Craig closed his eyes again. “Only what you would expect to see. Cars parked on the street and in driveways. A kid on a bike. A pregnant woman pushing a pram…” He screwed up his eyes. “A white courier van with orange writing. Not a company I recognised. I only noticed it because it slowed, like the driver was looking for an address or something, but I really didn’t think that much of it. It drove past.”

  “The driver, was it a man or a woman?” Daniel leaned forward, keen to catch every word. For a moment, he thought Craig had drifted off.

  “I think it was a woman, but I can’t be sure.” Craig paused. “Or it could have been a small man with long black hair. The driver was wearing sunglasses…” His voice trailed off mid-sentence and then started again. “…and I only saw her or him for an instant. Sorry…”

  Ignoring the daggered look the nurse threw his way, Daniel leaned in even closer to Craig. “You’re doing great. We’re nearly there…”

  Narelle burst into the room, the pitch of her voice escalating as she stormed Daniel. “I don’t believe you people. This is police harassment. Get out! Get out now!”

  Daniel jumped up, grappling with her flailing arms as she came at him, her cheeks blazing like beacons.

  “Can’t you see he’s ill? He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Leave him alone.” Her nails gouged the skin on his wrist, drawing a beaded line of blood.

  “Calm down. You have it all wrong.” His hand pushed down hard on her shoulder. “Sit!” And like an obedient dog, she did.

  Breathing hard, she gulped air, tears streaming down her face. “It’s not fair,” she sobbed, plucking handfuls of tissues from the box the nurse held out. “Craig’s the victim here.”

  “Narelle.” Craig waggled his fingers in his wife’s direction, his voice rasping as he tried to attract her attention. “Darling.”

  “Oh, Craig, I’m here now,” Narelle whispered, standing up and wiping her eyes. Squeezing his fingers, she brushed her lips over his closed eyelids. “Rest now. I’ll still be here when you wake up.” The tension ebbed from her husband’s face, his eyelids twitching but not opening.

  Leaving Narelle fussing over her husband, Daniel went to check who had been on duty the previous night. Jacinta had been adamant that someone or something had been outside her house. He had a possum or a cat tagged as the prime suspect, but still needed to confirm that Narelle had been at the hospital all night, as she claimed. At least Jacinta would know then he had taken her concerns seriously.

  Waiting at the nurses’ station for someone to turn up, he wondered how much more Craig knew but didn’t realise he knew. If only there had been more time. His wife’s dramatic entrance had put a stop to that. She obviously didn’t want her husband talking to the police, but what had she meant when she said Craig didn’t know what he was saying? What had she thought he had been saying? Or about to say?

  Daniel strode back to the room and peered through the small, rectangular window in the closed door. Craig appeared to be sleeping, the rise and fall of his chest almost imperceptible. Narelle perched on the front edge of the chair, her forearms and head resting on the white-sheeted bed next to Craig’s thighs, her face obscured by a mass of brunette curls.

  “Aaron,” he said, turning to the bored-looking police officer stationed outside the room, “there’s been a change of plans. I need you inside the room. Under no circumstances is the patient to be left alone with anyone except a police officer or a doctor. Make sure you verify everyone’s identity. I’ll arrange for someone to relieve you shortly. Do you understand?”

  Nodding, Constable Aaron Grant picked up his chair and shouldered the door.

  “And Aaron, I want to know every word that is spoken by or to Craig Edmonds.” Daniel hoped the constable’s presence in the room would be enough to deter the Edmondses from concocting some story to suit themselves. Distrustful of the police and dependent on one another, Daniel knew they would do whatever it took to shield each other. But why couldn’t they see they were sabotaging themselves? Hiding from the truth wouldn’t make it any less real.

  CHAPTER 49

  Margaret Kevron fought to keep the quaver from her voice. “Grace?” She stood in the lounge doorway and waited for her daughter to look up from the magazine in her lap.

  Grace scrambled to her feet, the blood draining from her face. “Oh my God, Mum, what are you doing with that?”

  “I thought you could tell me.” Margaret held the revolver away from her body, her arms trembling so hard the gun jiggled in her palms. “Oh, Gracie,” she said, resorting to her daughter’s childhood name, “don’t you know how dangerous guns are?”

  “Of course I bloody do. Put it down, Mum.”

  As Grace advanced toward her, Margaret angled her body away. “I don’t understand. After what happened to your father, I thought you hated guns.”

  Pain flared in Grace’s eyes, the rawness of her father’s suicide still evident. “I do! What are you on about?” Then she gasped. “Oh, no, I hope you don’t think it’s mine.”

  “It was with your things.”

  “What things?” demanded Grace, her voice escalating to a screech. “What are you talking about? Where did you find it?”

  “Please, Gracie, let’s try and discuss this calmly.”

  “It’s not mine.”

  Margaret wasn’t about to contradict her daughter. “I believe you.”

  “Do you?” Grace gave her a baleful glare. “You never have in the past, why start now?”

  Margaret’s stomach churned. Had Grace come off her schizophrenia medication again? She had only her daughter’s word that she had been taking the prescribed dose. On the two occasions Margaret had managed to check the Zyprexa pack without Grace seeing, the right number of tablets had been missing. But why hadn’t Margaret been more forceful and insisted on watching her swallow them? “Of course I believe you. Who it belongs to isn’t important.”

  Grace’s gaze fixed on the gun in her mother’s hands. “It’s not mine,” she repeated, her voice surprisingly calm, “and I don’t know anything about it. Where did you find it?”

  Biting her lip, Margaret racked her brain for the best way to tell her daughter she had been poking through some of her personal belongings. “I know how much you like everything to be neat, and when I was in the garage, I saw the corner of a newspaper sticking out of that old wooden trunk of your father’s. I wasn’t prying, Gracie, honest.”

  Grace scowled, holding her hand out, palm up. “Whatever.” Scepticism ran in the family. “Give it to me.”

  As heavy as the gun felt in her hands, Margaret wasn’t about to relinquish it to Grace. Losing a husband to suicide had been devastating enough; allowing it to happen again would destroy her. Whatever Grace’s problems, they could work through them together. “It’s not the answer.”

  “The answer to what…?” Grace stared at her, burstin
g into laughter as she read Margaret’s face. “Oh, Mum, you didn’t really think I would use a gun to top myself, did you?” She laughed again.

  “I guess not,” murmured Margaret, looking around the all-white room. “Too messy.”

  Grace howled, her hysterical laughter loud but unconvincing. “Sometimes you’re too much, Mum.”

  Margaret didn’t think she was too much. What mother wouldn’t be concerned to find a gun hidden amongst her child’s things? Even more so when her child’s father had selfishly ended his own life with a firearm, no matter that it had been a rifle and not a revolver? And Grace had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, the same mental illness suffered by her father. No, she wasn’t too much.

  Grace’s laughter died. “Sorry, Mum. I know you worry, but there’s no need to. I’m in no hurry to join Dad. That,” she pointed at the gun, “isn’t mine, and I had…” she corrected herself, “have no intention of using it. You can think what you like, but I swear I don’t know how it got inside the trunk.”

  “In that case, you’ll have no objection to me surrendering it to the police.”

  Grace baulked, her fingers splaying to cover her gaping mouth.

  “It’s the only sensible thing to do,” continued Margaret.

  “Forget sensible,” Grace said, recovering her composure. “Have you stopped to think of the trouble you could get me into?”

  “What trouble? I don’t understand.” Margaret understood her daughter less and less with each passing minute.

  Exhaling loudly, Grace clapped her hands together on top of her head, as if her mother was beyond comprehending. “Let’s start by you showing me exactly where you found the gun in the first place. And for God’s sake, put the bloody thing down somewhere. I’ve already promised you I’m not going to take it.”

  A tug of war started in Margaret’s head. If she put down the gun, Grace could take it. If she didn’t, her daughter would know she didn’t trust her. She had no choice. Carefully, as though it were made of fine crystal, she laid the gun on the white shelf to her right, nudging it behind one of the stereo’s speakers.