Dusty didn’t seem to notice the interruption. “When I interviewed Abbie, I sensed she was holding something back. I was determined to find out what it was. I listened to the recording of the interview several times and noticed Abbie seemed ambivalent about her abuser. Sometimes she spoke of him almost with affection while at other times with the tone of abhorrence you would expect. Eventually, I worked it out. That’s when I knew Abbie had no reason to murder Paul Walker.”
Abbie jerked her head up quickly, a startled expression on her face, alarm in her eyes.
“No reason!” snapped Kimberley, her chin jutting out. “After what that man did to her, did to all of us.”
“That low life deserved to be topped.” Moose snarled.
“Damn right!” David placed a comforting arm around his sister’s shoulders.
Dusty ignored the protests. “Abbie had no reason to kill Paul Walker because he did not assault her.”
Abbie lowered her eyes and stared at the floor.
“Are you calling Abbie a liar?” demanded Kimberley.
“What are you talking about?” David glared at Dusty. “If you’d seen the state she was in during the court case…”
“I have no doubt Abbie’s distress was genuine. She had suffered terribly as a young girl when she’d been abused. Like Kimberley and Lena, she had to relive that ordeal in a court of law in order to make her abuser accountable for his actions.”
David frowned in confusion. Kimberley opened her mouth to speak. Dusty stopped her with a raised hand.
“I’m not suggesting Abbie hadn’t been assaulted. However, Paul Walker was not her abuser.”
Silence. Saya was nodding his head. David was looking at his sister. Abbie’s eyes remained averted.
“Eventually I realised Abbie knew something which I found out only recently.” Dusty turned to Abbie, addressing her in a tone that brooked no argument. “Abbie. The time has come for you to tell the truth.”
Tears rolled down Abbie’s cheeks. She looked apologetically at her brother and Kimberly in turn.
“Abbs?” David looked bewildered.
Abbie’s voice was almost a whisper. “It wasn’t Mr Walker.”
Once again Dusty held up her hand for silence. Abbie took a few moments to compose herself before continuing.
“I didn’t know until later. A few years after the court case.” Her pleading eyes met Kimberly’s. “It wasn’t Mr Walker, Kim. It was his brother.”
“His brother?” From the astonishment in Kimberly’s voice it was clear she didn’t know Paul Walker had a brother.
Dusty interrupted to recount her meeting with Joyce Walker before turning back to Abbie. “How did you find out about Ram’s brother?”
“I met him one day at a school where I was working as an after care co-ordinator. I’d been sent there by an agency, because the regular co-ordinator was ill. I didn’t see him at first cos I had my back to him when I heard him speaking to another staff member.” Abbie shook her head and covered her ears.
“It was Mr Walker’s voice. My heart started pumping. When I spun around to face him, he was looking straight at me. At first I thought it was Mr Walker. During the seconds I was staring at him, I realised it wasn’t. He looked like Mr Walker but different somehow and his eyes were different. I was confused and just stood frozen to the spot. He was leering at me. The other staff had left the room by this time. It was just the two of us. He said: You thought it was my brother that night, didn’t you? Your precious teacher. That horrible man stood there watching me as I struggled to realise what he meant. When he saw from my expression that I understood, he just gloated at me. I swear if I’d had a gun in my hand at that moment I would’ve killed him.”
“It wasn’t Mr Walker?” Kimberley was struggling to accept what her friend was saying.
“Bloody hell!” said David, horror etched in his expression.
It occurred to me that if David had killed Ram he must be in a storm of guilt right now.
David looked accusingly at his sister. “You didn’t tell me!”
Abbie stared at the floor. “I’m sorry. I just felt so bad about accusing Mr Walker. I was so sure it was him that night. Then to find out I was wrong…” She shook her head helplessly. “After meeting Colin Walker, I was in a terrible state for a long time. I didn’t know what to do. In the end I just sort of locked it all away in my mind.”
“You didn’t tell the truth to me,” said Dusty, “because you felt guilty about not speaking out to clear Paul Walker’s name.”
Abbie nodded. “I should have told you. I just didn’t want to go through it all again. I’d managed to come to terms with what had happened and get on with my life.”
Dusty reassured her. “Don’t beat yourself up too much, Abbie. Most of us in your position would have done the same.”
Dusty turned her attention to David. “Although Abbie knew Paul Walker was not her abuser, her brother did not. He remained on my list of suspects. David was also in Port that morning, although he claims he didn’t get there until after the time of the murder. Did David kill Ram in revenge for what had happened to his sister?”
“No!” An anguished protest from Abbie. She touched her brother’s arm affectionately. “I was with him that morning.”
Stony-faced, David stared silently at Dusty.
Chapter 43
Dusty continued. “Then yet another suspect emerged. I discovered one of the other sexual abuse victims had the opportunity to commit the murder. Kimberley Grey lived in Sydney but the day Ram was killed, she was not at work. She lied to me about that. So my suspicions deepened.”
Kimberley shook her head. “I didn’t lie. I completely forgot. It wasn’t until after I spoke to you that I remembered. I didn’t fly to Port Douglas and murder anybody on my day off. I had a really bad migraine. I get them a lot. I usually dose myself up to make sure I can still go to work. I hate taking time off. But this one hit me hard. The painkillers I took on Tuesday evening knocked me out and I overslept on Wednesday. When I did wake up, I was still groggy. I knew I wasn’t going to get to work on time so I decided it would be better to take a sick day. That’s all there was to it.”
“Unfortunately, I only have your word for that.”
Kimberley threw her arms in the air. “Oh! Come on!”
Somehow, her protest did not seem strong enough. What was preventing her from expressing a more forceful denial?
Unperturbed, Dusty continued. “In my quest for a selection of suspects, I also considered the other young girl who’d been abused, Lena Patterson. She was apparently living overseas and had been doing so since she was nineteen. But…” Dusty paused for dramatic effect. Kimberley and Abbie looked at each other then turned to Dusty expectantly. “I had a suspicion Lena had come back to Australia. Although my techie maze master hadn’t been able to find any record of Lena returning to the country, I couldn’t shake the feeling she was actually here in Port Douglas.”
Abbie looked around as though searching for her school friend. Her eyes rested for a moment on Beth.
“I wondered if Lena had changed her name and her appearance. She could have done that for the perfectly understandable reason of leaving her past behind. When Abbie showed me a photo of Lena as a teenager, I was immediately reminded of someone but couldn’t put my finger on who it was. Later, I imagined her as she might be now only with dark hair. Then I added a pair of gold hoop earrings.” Louisa Penrose fingered one of her earrings and glanced nervously at Jake. “The image I conjured up reminded me of a woman who’d been following me around, whose name I subsequently discovered was Louisa Penrose. Surely, her initials being the same as Lena Patterson’s couldn’t be a coincidence. Had Lena returned to Australia under the name of Louisa Penrose? Had she found out Walker was living here in Port Douglas and decided to get her revenge for what he’d done to her?”
Louisa gaped at Dusty in astonished disbelief. Kimberley and Abbie were both staring at Louisa. Jake tried to get Dusty’s a
ttention with a wave of his hand. She appeared not to notice.
“I was attracted to this theory…”
“I’m not Lena Patterson,” cried Louisa.
“Then one day in Macrossan Street I saw something that confirmed my theory…”
“Dus,” called Jake, starting to walk towards Dusty. She stopped him with a look. Dusty’s green eyes are very expressive. She often uses them to issue commands. In this instance they commanded Jake to be quiet and let her finish what she wanted to say.
Dusty continued, barely missing a beat. “Confirmed my theory Lena was in Port Douglas.”
“You mean this lady really is Lena?” said Abbie.
Dusty shook her head. Jake relaxed and stepped back.
“Where is Lee?” Abbie looked over at Beth again.
“Let’s ask someone who’s close to her.” Dusty looked across the room to where Jake, Rocky and Louisa were standing. “Rocky, you’re close to Lena, aren’t you?” Rocky’s face drained of colour. “You wanted to avenge Lena, didn’t you? You wanted Paul Walker to pay for what he’d done, what everyone thought he’d done.”
Nathan was looking at Rocky with a puzzled expression on his face.
“It wasn’t me,” protested Rocky.
“It wasn’t Rocky,” agreed Nathan.
“I know,” said Dusty. “I know it wasn’t you, Rocky. I know it was Lena. You both knew Paul Walker well, didn’t you? You recognised him the day you rescued him from Moose. Isn’t that right?”
Rocky shook his head. His eyes seemed to be glistening.
“The other day,” said Dusty, “you mentioned Jake had told you the police were going to search Moose’s house looking for a shoe that would match the print of a shoe left at the murder scene.”
“Holy crap!” Moose glared at Jake.
A hint of a smile played around Dusty’s lips when she heard Moose’s reaction but she quickly became serious again. “During that phone call Jake also revealed the police planned to search the premises of everyone the monk had contact with in the twenty four hours before he died, which included your place. Jake said he wanted to re-assure you he didn’t consider you a suspect. He explained I had suggested the extra search warrants in the interests of being thorough for the readers of my book.”
Rocky looked across at Jake who was staring steadfastly at Carmen’s shiny floorboards.
The expression on Dusty’s face as she continued was one of sadness. “That wasn’t strictly true, Rocky. You see, the police didn’t issue any search warrants at all. Jake got a warrant to place hidden cameras in a residence. In one residence only. Yours, Rocky.” Dusty paused. I had the impression of a cat reluctant to pounce on a mouse it had grown to like. “Those cameras, which had already been installed before Jake called you, recorded what you did a short time after he told you the police were going to search your premises.”
Rocky looked like a young boy who had cheated in an exam only to be caught out by the school principal.
“You took a particular pair of shoes from your wardrobe. Later that day, under the cover of darkness, you took that pair of shoes and put them in a plastic bag. You then drove to the golf course just out of town and threw them into one of the lakes on the course.”
Dusty moved closer to where I was sitting.
“What you didn’t know was that one of Jake’s officers followed you that night.” Dusty reached for the evidence bag Nathan had placed on my table and opened it. “And retrieved these shoes.” Dusty took a grubby pair of men’s sneakers from the evidence bag and held them up.
Chapter 44
Rocky’s face could not hide the emotions seething under the surface. Dusty reached into the bag again and took out the mould police had made from a shoe print. She placed one of the shoes on the mould and moved closer to Rocky.
“It’s a perfect fit, Rocky.”
Rocky shook his head vigorously. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“I know.” Dusty’s voice revealed her sorrow at what she needed to do. “But you must take responsibility for what you and Lena did.”
“You mean Lena and Rocky murdered the monk?” said Kimberley. “What’s going on? Where is Lena?”
Dusty held up her hand for silence. “When it occurred to me Rocky might have been involved in Ram’s murder I went to see Carmen. I asked her to tell me anything she could remember about the morning of the murder. Carmen said that at around four-thirty she heard Rocky’s bicycle – one of its wheels has a slight squeak when it first starts to turn. She thought someone might have stolen the bicycle. Later, when she was dressed for the day, she saw Rocky’s bicycle in its usual place at the front of the cafe and concluded she must have been mistaken. I knew she was not. Using his bicycle, Rocky would have got up to the monastery quickly, quietly and without being seen then back in time to do the morning preparations and open the cafe at seven o’clock.”
“All right, I was there,” admitted Rocky. “I’m sorry I lied.” By way of apology, he flashed his winning smile although I fancied it was not as natural as it usually was. “I just went for an early morning bike ride and ended up on the hill. That’s all.”
“You don’t know how much I’d like to believe that, Rocky. But if your shoe print was next to Ram’s meditation platform, it means you were right next to him. Of course, it is possible you went to speak with him. The problem is, shoe prints can also be taken from fabric. What if I told you forensic evidence proves this is the same shoe that was used to kick Ram in the groin.”
Rocky’s face blanched.
“So let me put it to you again. You recognised Paul Walker when you spoke with him the day he had the run-in with Moose, didn’t you?”
Rocky lowered himself slowly into a chair.
Jake ran a hand through his hair, looking at his friend as though trying to unravel a complex puzzle. He spoke to Rocky in a tone that was firm but tinged with regret. “It’s over, mate. Just tell us what happened.”
Rocky buried his head in his hands then looked up and stared at the television screen as he spoke. “I recognised him straight away. Recognised his voice first. Then his eyes; one blue, one green. Who else has eyes like that? I said to him. ‘You’re Paul Walker, aren’t you?’”
“What did he say?” asked Dusty.
“I was once. That’s what he said.” Rocky bit his lower lip. “He was so calm. That made me angry. How could he sit there and calmly admit to being the monster who abused his students? I asked him if he remembered Lena Patterson. He just hung his head. So I said: ‘Do you remember what you did to her?’”
Kimberley gasped.
“What did he say?” asked Abbie, leaning forward in anticipation.
“He just said: I am Ram. But the look on his face was pure guilt. Then he got up and left. I was flabbergasted. He didn’t even try to apologise. I was so angry I was shaking. How could he be so arrogant? What a bloody hypocrite; living up there in the monastery like some holier-than-thou pillar of the community.”
Dusty went over to Rocky and put a comforting hand on his arm. “I understand your anger, Rocky. I’m very, very sorry about what happened to Lena. No one could blame her for wanting her abuser dead. I don’t think Lena ever planned to harm Walker. She’d buried the trauma of what happened to her and got on with her life until a chance meeting with a monk. When she met Ram here in Port Douglas and heard her teacher’s voice again, the trauma of the experience and deep sense of guilt at having let down her friends when she found she didn’t have the courage to give evidence in court came rushing to the surface. She was gripped by a kind of madness which triggered her decision to kill.”
“Where is Lena?” Kimberley sounded frustrated.
“Has she already gone back to America?” said Abbie.
“I will tell you exactly where Lena is in just a moment. You see,” continued Dusty, “before Lena went to the United States, she spent a short time living on the streets in Melbourne. She was close to a young man who died of a drug overdose and was bu
ried in a pauper’s grave. He was living under an assumed name because he didn’t want his family to find him and discover what he’d become. No one knew who he was except Lena but he’d sworn her to secrecy. Even after he died, she kept his secret. Later, she took his name, his real name, probably as a way of honouring him.”
“She took his name? How does that work?” Kimberley was not the only one in the room who was confused.
Chapter 45
“When she had a sex change operation,” said Dusty, “Lena became Angelo Rocco Tibaldi. Better known as Rocky.”
“Bugger me dead!” Moose expressed his surprise in typical style.
Abbie and Kimberley were staring at Rocky open-mouthed. I knew they were looking for any traces of the girl they once knew. Just as I had done. But Rocky’s masculinity was dominant and the manliness of his facial features disguised the resemblance to the girl he’d once been. It was a stroke of luck that Dusty had picked up on it.
Dusty glanced over at Beth who seemed to be in a state of shock. “Beth thought Rocky avoided Arabella when she came to Port Douglas because he couldn’t handle ‘gender stuff’. Actually, Rocky was afraid Arabella would somehow be able to tell that he too had undergone sex re-assignment.”
“I didn’t know it was his brother.” Rocky looked up at Dusty, despair in his face, regret in his voice. “Why didn’t he tell me it wasn’t him?”
Dusty sighed. “Because he knew you wouldn’t believe him. Since the court case, he’d gone through life with people not believing him until he finally relinquished his claim on the truth.”
Jake, his face impassive in the way of trained police officers, led Rocky to the door where two constables were waiting to take him into custody. Standing in the doorway watching them leave, Jake’s shoulders slumped. When Rocky had arrived in Port Douglas using his old school friend’s name, Jake had had no reason to doubt him. Lena had known the real Rocky well enough to be able to minimise any differences when she took over his name and his persona after her operation. If Jake had noticed any difference between this Rocky and the real Rocky he would have put it down to the changes brought about by maturity.
Disguising Demons Page 20