by C. A. Larmer
‘Never mind,’ he said and placed the picture back down. He took a deep breath. ‘Roxy, you know how I’ve been a bit weird lately?’
‘Yeees,’ she said cautiously.
‘I need to know if you have any idea why.’
‘Are you depressed? Do you have a drinking problem?’
Max’s eyebrows shot up with surprise and he laughed a little too loudly. He shook his head slowly as he slipped down into the sofa. She sat down, too, confused. When he spoke again his voice was softer, more controlled. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’
Roxy blinked and could feel her own defenses rising. ‘I know that you’ve been preoccupied with something, and defensive...all the time. And I know that I can’t do a single thing right and I don’t understand why. You won’t tell me what the problem is, you just shut yourself off.’ Then she had a thought. ‘Is it that woman, Sandra? Were you in love with her?’
He laughed again but there was a real bitterness in the tone, and she folded her arms around her, unsure what was happening. When he had finished he rested his head on the back of the sofa, closed his eyes and said in a voice so quiet it was barely audible, ‘No, Parker, I’m in love with you.’
Roxy’s heart seemed to stop and she remembered forcing herself to breathe. She was speechless and then suddenly very angry. Was he making fun of her? Or was he just plain drunk?
‘I think I need to go,’ she said suddenly, certainly, and stood up trying not to catch his eye. He leapt up then and blocked her path.
‘So that’s it? I say I love you and you do the bolt?’
‘I’m tired, Max, I need to go home.’ When she dared to meet his eyes she saw misery. He looked like a wounded animal, his fringe hanging down across one eye, his hands thrust defensively into his pockets. Shaking his head sadly, he stepped to one side.
‘Run Parker, run. It’s what you do best.’
But she was out the front door before she even heard him.
Chapter 16: The First Love
The alarm bell pierced through Roxy’s sleep like a butcher knife through silk and she sat up with a start, feeling anxious and unrested. She had hardly slept a wink, Max’s words circling manically through her brain, and as she peeled the sheets away and slipped under the shower, she could not thrust his face, his sad, defeated face from her mind. ‘Damn you, Max!’ she hissed into the water as it sprayed down upon her.
She switched herself on autopilot, thrusting a spare set of clothes and some toiletries into an overnight bag before catching a cab to the domestic terminal of Sydney airport. She had lucked upon an early morning seat to Macksland and didn’t want to miss it. In the cab she sent a text message to her mother letting her know she’d be out of town for a while and promising to call when she got back. ‘Just work stuff, nothing to worry about!’ she lied. She also checked her inbox and couldn’t help feeling a wave of relief. There were no new threatening emails. It looked like Fabian Musgrave had called off his gorilla of a brother-in-law.
The plane was on time and as soon as it departed, she dropped her seat back and fell instantly asleep. An hour later the captain woke her with the announcement that they were fast approaching Macksland. ‘We’ll soon be starting our descent,’ the flight attendant proclaimed afterwards. ‘Please ensure your seat is in the upright position and that your seat belts are securely fastened.’
Roxy did as instructed then peeped out the cabin window to see the wheat fields turn to roads and then into a small tar airstrip onto which they landed. Once they had made their way inside the tiny terminal, Roxy continued straight towards the exit sign, her bag already in hand, and towards a waiting bus.
‘You going into town?’ she asked the large, rosy cheeked woman behind the wheel and then clambered aboard. The airport was just five kilometres from the heart of town and, within ten minutes, Roxy found herself wandering its wide, ute-filled streets in search of the Information Office.
‘Lovely weather we’re havin’, eh?’ the small man behind the counter enthused when she strolled in.
‘Yes, beautiful,’ Roxy replied. ‘I’m wondering if you can help me, I’m looking for some accommodation.’
‘Not a problem. What kinda digs you lookin’ for?’
‘Oh, pretty basic, just pub accommodation will do. Got any recommendations?’
‘Damn straight I do.’ He produced a tatty map from below the desk and, spreading it before her, circled one street corner with a capital H printed on it. ‘The Shearer’s Hotel is a beauty. Thirty-five bucks for a room and breaky in the mornin’, can’t do much better than that.’
‘Sounds great.’
‘You might have to share a bathroom but the rooms are clean and, well me missus says they look like something out of a Laura Ashley catalogue book. I think that means they’re pretty as a postcard.’
‘Great,’ Roxy repeated, ‘point me in the right direction.’
The Information Officer’s wife was spot on and Roxy cheered up enormously as she entered her spacious room above the old pub. A giant four-poster bed dominated the room and, beside it, sat an antique dresser with a china water basin on top and, beside that, an old milk jug filled with wild flowers. The walls were plastered with dainty floral wallpaper and two French doors opened out to a wide wooden veranda which, Roxy noticed as she stepped out to take in the view, encircled the whole hotel. There wasn’t a soul about and she guessed the unseasonably warm weather had lured everyone elsewhere.
She decided to put all thought of Max aside and get on with the job at hand. It was not yet 10am and she had a full day ahead of her. After freshening up in the communal bathroom down the end of the hall, Roxy gave her glasses a good scrub, applied a little lipstick and brushed her black hair down. Then, swapping her bulky jacket for a light red cotton cardigan, made her way back to the reception desk in the pub below. The woman who had signed her in was nowhere to be found so she wandered into the main bar, which was already occupied by a motley group of men, despite just opening. She spotted a young man working at the bar and marched up.
‘G’day,’ he said, clearly surprised to see a woman in the pub so early. ‘Did ya want a drink?’
‘Yeah, give me an orange juice, thanks.’
As he poured the juice, the bartender kept one eye on the young woman, as though sure she were a mirage about to vanish before his eyes. When he placed the glass down, he offered a sheepish grin and it was obvious he liked what he saw. Roxy grabbed the opportunity and pulled the picture of the old country guy from her handbag.
‘I’m hoping you can help me.’
‘Sure,’ he said, widening his smile.
‘I’m trying to locate this man. He’s from here and I think his first name’s Frank, but that’s all I’ve got to go on. You don’t happen to know him do you?’
As the barman examined the picture, Roxy crossed her fingers. If she could locate him by lunchtime, she could be out of there in time to catch the 6pm flight back to Sydney.
‘Yeah I know him,’ the barman said and Roxy looked at him, excited. ‘He looks like every second guy who comes in ’ere.’ He liked the look of the woman but she wasn’t real bright. It was now Roxy’s turn to smile. The guy was right. According to her own research, there were over 10,000 people in the Macksland region and a good number of them no doubt wore beat-up Akubras and answered to the name Frank.
‘Okay, smart-ass,’ she retorted. ‘I thought I’d try my luck. How much do I owe you for the OJ?’
‘Buck, twenty.’ He offered her another smile, his white teeth flashing brightly in his tanned face. He could have passed for the Marlboro Man, she thought and paid him in change. As he spilled it into the till, he drawled, ‘Why don’t you ask old Bluey over there. If anyone knows him, he will.’
Roxy nodded her head appreciatively and made her way over to a side table where a group of men were perched on stools staring out at the street beyond.
‘Bluey?’ she asked, her eyes wandering over the four weatherbeaten men, almost ide
ntical but for the size of their beer guts and the color of their shirts. The oldest and smallest of the group tipped his head at her and grunted. She placed her things on the table and produced a free hand to shake his.
‘Hi, I’m Roxy Parker. I’m looking for someone and the barman suggested you might know him—’
‘Awww, you lookin’ for a man are ya love?’ bellowed another man, younger, flabbier with a wicked smirk across his face. ‘Bluey gets that all the time! Don’t ya Bluey?!’
The men erupted into peals of laughter and Roxy smiled patiently. Ah, country blokes, she thought. What a riot. She thrust the photo in front of him. ‘All I know is he’s from Macksland and his name’s Frank.’
Several of the men continued to chortle but Bluey took the picture and stared at it hard. ‘It’s old Frankie O’Brien,’ he said matter-of-factly and then handed it to the man next to him, the one with the faded flannelette, for verification.
‘Yeah, could be,’ the man said, ‘but then again. What ya want him for?’
‘Just looking him up on behalf of an old friend,’ Roxy said.
‘Who’s Frankie O’Brien?’ came the young, flabby guy and for a few seconds nobody answered. Roxy noticed that Bluey and his flannelette-clad friend exchanged cautious glances before the former said simply, ‘An old timer is all.’ Nobody uttered a word.
‘Do you know where he lives? Where I might find him?’ asked Roxy.
‘Two different questions,’ Bluey said, before dragging on a rollie cigarette as though he had all the time in the world. Out here, she thought, glancing about her doubtfully, he probably did. ‘He lives way past the Wilo turn-off. Get on the old highway and head north, take the Wilo exit and keep goin’ until you see a dirt road called Possum Shoot Road. Lives down there yonder, don’t know the property name, don’t know the number. But that’s Frankie’s place.’
Roxy scrawled this all down on the back of a beer coaster, not wanting to fluff about with the memo page on her smartphone, not in front of these potential Luddites.
‘But you won’t find him there now,’ Bluey continued and Roxy glanced up.
‘Oh?’
‘They tell me he spends his life in church, prayin’ for God knows what. I don’t want to know. The nearest church to his place is the old Anglican just south of the turn-off. I’d bet me hat that’s where you’ll find him.’
The two younger men guffawed again but Bluey was not laughing. As she walked away Roxy thought she heard him say, ‘Poor bastard. Been off his rocker for 50 fuckin’ years.’
Within the hour Roxy had hired a rental car and, with the help of the GPS inside, found her way on to the old highway on the road to Wilo. Bluey’s directions seemed simple enough but no church was indicated on the map and the man at the rental yard had laughed at her suggestion. ‘There’s no church out there,’ he said, looking at her as if she were half-mad, ‘nothing but cows and dust.’
She set out anyway, what did she have to lose? Besides it was a beautiful day for a drive. The journey seemed to take forever and, as the rental man had warned, the road stretched for miles in a colorless collusion of dusty hills and lethargic cows that barely bat an eyelid as the weird white woman sped by. She passed few cars on this road and wondered, as she usually did, whether she had been sent on a wild goose chase, whether the blokes back at the pub were pissing themselves laughing at the stupid city chick chasing after ghosts.
‘Why do I do that?’ she suddenly cried aloud, smacking the steering wheel with both hands. ‘Why do I instantly mistrust people?’ Did she get that from her mother, too, she wondered? Or had she developed it, like her ironclad independence, so that she could never be let down. If you expect the worst from people, you were never disappointed.
When Roxy reached the Wilo turn off she felt her heart sink. It was just as she’d been warned, not a church for miles. She turned the car around and slowly retraced her drive, scanning the road for any signs of life. About ten kilometres back, she spotted a thin dirt road leading towards a clump of trees, and brightened up. She had noticed the trees on her way through but the dirt road was so overgrown it was almost obscured from view. She signaled right, despite the empty road around her, and turned slowly up the track.
As she neared the forest of gum trees, she spotted a splash of white and what looked like a steeple, and then she saw it, a small wooden church, almost consumed by the trees around it. She maneuvered her car carefully across a thin wooden bridge towards a dirt clearing in front of the church. Once it must have once been brimming with cars, today it was empty, except for a dusty ute which she knew just had to belong to old Frankie. Her heart leapt. Luck was finally going her way. She parked her car beside it and, switching the engine off, sat for several seconds transfixed by the quiet and the peeling dereliction of the unused church before her. How perfect a place, she thought, to hide away and pray.
She stepped out of the car and closed the door quietly behind her, almost tiptoeing up to the entrance. It wasn’t secrecy she was after—Frank had no doubt heard her pull up—but there was a serenity about this place that she was reluctant to disturb. Roxy straightened her hair and pulled her cardigan sleeves down. The surrounding trees had starved the area of sun and it was suddenly very cold.
She strode up to the old wooden doors and creaked one carefully open, then, hugging her cardigan closer, stepped inside. The church, which was deathly quiet, was as ice-cold as a butcher’s freezer, and just as dark. A sudden chill ran down her spine, but it wasn’t from the cold. She knew, almost immediately, what she would find, even before the rotting stench hit her nostrils, even before her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she spotted him kneeling there, all alone.
Roxy wanted to turn away, then, to run like a mad woman out the front doors and away. But she found her feet moving despite herself, striding calmly down the aisle, as though to take communion from some imaginary priest waiting up the front. But there would be no priest today, just an old man and his hat. She focused on the beat-up Akubra as she walked, one hand covering her nose and mouth, the other clenched in a tiny fist to her side.
When at last she reached him, she willed herself to look, to face what she feared she could not face. He was slouching a little to one side, his hands still clasped in front of him, his head resting silently on top. She whispered, ‘Frank?’ knowing it was too late, and then a blur of blood, a neck slit from ear to ear and fleeing frantically back down the aisle and out, where the birds chirped carelessly in the branches above. And the horrible knowledge that she was just days too late as a stream of yellow vomit hit the side of the old ute.
The Macksland police chief was not surprised to hear that Frank O’Brien was dead, simply asked Roxy to stay put, he’d be there ‘in a sec’. Twenty minutes later, Chief Butler arrived in a cloud of dust and informed the young woman that his deputy and the county coroner were on their way. ‘Just finishin’ their lunch,’ he remarked as he shook her hand, ‘Now let’s see the old bloke.’
Roxy lead the way inside but stopped before the pews and, as he went to inspect the corpse, returned outside to the fresh air. What she didn’t tell him was that she had already returned inside, despite her stomach’s objections. She wanted to study the crime scene before the cops came and whisked it all away.
‘They can’t put this one down to suicide,’ she told herself as she stared at his gaping wound, the flesh curling up at the corners where it had resisted the murderer’s knife. She could not see the murder weapon anywhere and doubted that she would. It had probably been thrown into a lake by now, or was lost in the fields beyond. It struck her that this was the perfect place for a murder and felt a pang of sadness for the old man still praying in death before her. Whatever he had known, whatever his secrets, they were not worth this. Surely they were not worth dying for.
Ignoring the stench of his decaying corpse, she had taken a pen from her handbag and used it to inspect his hands, making sure she did not leave her mark. She could not see any fresh skin u
nder his nails or any scratching to indicate a struggle. There were no cuts under his knuckles or across his inner palm, which you would expect if he had tried to fend off a knife. In fact, he looked like he had been taken by surprise. Roxy stepped around his body to the most likely vantage point for the kill and noticed the old floorboards creak loudly beneath her feet. How had he not heard his assailant approach? Was he in such a deep trance, praying for whatever it was he needed to pray for, that he did not notice another person sneak up inside an empty, unused church? Or had he just let it happen, like a penance from God?
‘Now that’s a nasty bit of work,’ the police chief was saying as he stepped out into the sunlight again. He was a large man with a stocky build and a face that was scarred from skin cancer. A small round indent on the side of his nose showed where a deadly chunk had once been removed and he had the habit of stroking this while he talked, as though playing with a war wound. ‘He’s just as you found him?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you’d never met the man, you say?’
‘No, he was a friend of my client’s, Beatrice Musgrave—of the Musgrave department stores? You see, I’m a writer and I was writing Beattie’s biography. That is until she, um, died two weeks ago.’
‘And what were you doing here, why did you come?’
‘Well, Beattie had spoken about Frank fondly, they’d been friends since way back, and I was hoping, foolishly perhaps, that he could shed some light on the whole subject. Could help me understand her death.’ The policeman seemed content with this and pulled out his notepad to take down her details. She gave him her home address and the name of her hotel.
‘I’m gonna need to get an official statement from you back at the station.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘And I’m afraid, for now, we’d really appreciate it if you could hang around, probably just for a day or so, until we, ahhh, clear a few things up.’
‘That’s fine,’ she repeated unperturbed. She had not yet obtained the answers she was after and this new death only made things murkier. ‘You don’t happen to have an address for Frank’s wife or any kids I can send a sympathy card to...later, of course, once you’ve spoken to them?’