by C. A. Larmer
He looked at her surprised. ‘Oh he never married, no. Bit of a loner old Frankie. Mad as a hatter, they say. Actually it’s a good thing you happened by. He might have turned to dust before anyone noticed he was gone.’ He said it so matter-of-factly, as though that was just the way things were, and Roxy looked away sadly. ‘I won’t be back for a little while but just drop by the station before 5pm.’ He slammed her car door behind her. ‘We’ll get the details down and then you can go and enjoy the night.’
I’m not here to have fun, Roxy wanted to tell him, but nudged her lips into a small smile and drove slowly away. When she reached the main road she hesitated, checked her rear vision mirror making sure she was out of sight of the police chief, and then turned left, back in the direction of Wilo.
She had a house to check out.
At the Wilo exit she turned off and, as Bluey had instructed, located the dirt road to Frank’s house and headed north. As she drove along she checked the empty postal barrels that teetered on the edge of the road from time to time with their hand-painted lot numbers and flowery property names. But nowhere did she see the words ‘Frank O’Brien’. She was beginning to wonder if she was chasing ghosts again. At one point she spotted a beat-up four-wheel drive plowing towards her in the opposite direction. She considered stopping the man behind the wheel to ask for help but couldn’t risk drawing attention to herself and whizzed past him waving one hand in front of her face concealing it from view. After several more kilometres she spotted an unpainted barrel brimming over with mail. The number ‘64’ had been painted across it in a shaky hand and she was about to look away when the penny dropped. The other mailboxes were all empty. Roxy pulled over to the side and, placing the car in park, jumped out to check the letters— mostly bills and junkmail—that were poking out from within. Just as she suspected, they were addressed to Frank P. O’Brien.
Roxy reversed her car and then turned up his dirt road checking her rear-vision mirror constantly. Chief Butler would still be busy with the coroner at the crime scene and she estimated that she had at least half an hour up her sleeve, but she wasn’t taking chances. When she reached what looked like the main house, she pulled up at the front door, switched off the engine and jumped out. She needed to hurry.
Like the mail barrel, the farmhouse was old and falling down in parts, but it looked like it had been freshly painted and several empty paint cans piled under the house confirmed this. What looked like a new set of steps lead up to the main verandah and a brand-new welcome mat sat below the door as clean as a whistle. Pulling the edge of her sleeve up over her hand, Roxy banged on the door several times but it was clear the place was empty, she could hear her knocks echo across the wooden floorboards inside. Keeping the sleeve in place, she tried the handle and smiled. Thank Goodness for country living; it was unlocked. She pushed it open and entered.
Just like the exterior, the interior had been freshly painted but the job had not been finished and several cans and brushes sat just outside one of the bedrooms. She glanced inside and noticed how shabby it was. It looked like it had not been cleaned, let alone painted, for over a decade.
‘Why the sudden reno’?’ Roxy whispered aloud, making her way down the hallway to the living room. It sat across from the main bedroom and a quick glance in both revealed that Frank O’Brien had had another uninvited guest recently. The two rooms were a mess. Clothes and personal affects were strewn around the room and every drawer had been tipped over, the contents clearly searched. Someone had been here looking for something, and it was most likely the same person who’d slit the poor man’s throat. She wondered if they had found what they were looking for. And if they were still around.
Roxy hesitated briefly before shrugging off her fear. There wasn’t time for trepidation. She swiftly scrutinized each room, trying to get a picture of how the old man had lived and what, if anything, was missing. If there had been any incriminating material, love letters from old Beattie, perhaps, she realized with a sigh that the murderer had no doubt taken them or destroyed them somehow. She stepped towards the main fireplace hoping to find the evidence half burned inside and scowled at its emptiness. It was worth a try. Then she noticed the mantelpiece. It was covered in dust except where several thin, rectangular items had once stood. A quick look at the floor revealed two photo frames, both smashed where the burglar had dropped them. She glanced back at the mantelpiece. There were five dust-free marks. Where were the other three frames? Carefully she checked the contents on the floor, but the pictures were nowhere to be found. They had probably been taken.
Roxy glanced at her watch and then returned to the hall, following it down to an old kitchen at the back. It was surprisingly tidy with a small wooden table in the middle and an old fridge and cooker leaning against each other on one side. Nothing seemed amiss and she was about to turn back when she had an idea. She crossed to the fridge, which, predictably, had an assortment of pamphlets, bills and a postcard dangling precariously beneath old magnets. She scooped the lot up and scurried back down the hall and out of the house, careful to cover her hand up before closing the door.
Back in her car, Roxy roared the engine to life and swung it around and away. Within minutes she was back on the old highway and heading towards town.
Chapter 17: Good Cop/Bad Cop
‘What can I get for you, love?’ The waitress looked like someone straight out of a B-grade American flick, peroxide blonde hair piled high above an overly made-up face, enormous hoop ear-rings and a tiny pink uniform barely covering her dimpled thighs. She was 40 going on 20, mutton dressed up as lamb, and she was the perfect bit player in the drama Roxy had stumbled into. Concealed in a back booth with her spoils spread out on the table before her, Roxy ordered a toasted cheese sandwich and a coffee, and then turned her attention to the table. She shrugged off a feeling of guilt, knowing only too well she should never have taken the items, and tried to justify it by assuring herself it was all for Beattie’s sake.
There were seven items in all and she studied each one carefully, starting with the bills. Frank O’Brien couldn’t have been that much of an ‘old timer’. He had a Visa card and had purchased several lavish meals with it. She checked the locations: they were all fashionable Sydney restaurants, and they had all been eaten in the space of one week. Roxy checked her diary. That was the week before Roxy had been employed by Beatrice to write the biography, a week before the whole mess started. There was also a rather modest bill for a week’s accommodation at a Sydney hotel, and a bill from a jewelry store for a ‘personal item’ worth $260. Roxy wondered if this had been a gift for Beatrice Musgrave. She had no proof of it, of course, but she was getting good at making hunches. She put the bill aside and consulted the next one, from the electricity company. The amount owing was small, too small for anyone but a bachelor. She put that aside, as well.
There were a few pamphlets, one about pesticide, the other advertising a Chinese restaurant in town, as well as a postcard and Roxy picked it up hopefully. It wasn’t from Beattie and her heart dropped. No-one said it was going to be easy. It featured a picture of the Sydney Opera House on the front, was dated about a month back and had been sent by a chirpy sounding ‘Sally Duffy’. ‘Having a ball!’ it read, then went on to mention a few tourist haunts she’d just checked out before finishing with the line, ‘Missing you, xoxo.’
Perhaps the old man was not as lonely as everyone assumed. Roxy made a note of the name and then turned to the final items. One was a clumsily drawn newspaper cartoon about a National Party politician that she guessed farmers might find amusing and, concluding that it could be of no consequence, put it aside. The final item, however, got Roxy’s heart racing: it was titled, ‘Society Queen’s Tragic End’.
‘Here you go then,’ came a loud voice to Roxy’s left and she sat back with a start. ‘Aw, sorry dear, didn’t mean to scare ya!’
‘Oh, God, no, sorry. I was miles away.’ Roxy gathered the items together hastily as the waitress placed the fo
od down before her.
‘Lucky bugger,’ the waitress said with a dramatic sigh, ‘wish I was miles away.’ She wandered off, wiggling her bum behind her.
Roxy added sufficient sugar to disguise the bitterness of her so-called ‘latte’, and then devoured the sandwich as she read the news article through. It was about Beatrice Musgrave’s ‘suicide’ but provided no more information than Roxy had already learnt and certainly made no mention of Beattie’s relationship with Frank. It was from a local newspaper and, if she was correct, it at least proved one thing: whatever Beattie and Frank’s relationship, it was obviously not public knowledge in these parts.
She finished her lunch, placed the items back in her bag and paid the bill.
‘Do you have some local phone books I can take a look at?’ she asked the waitress as she handed over the change.
‘Sure thing, love.’ She produced one very thin, very ratty phone book from beneath the counter. ‘Small town,’ she said and winked again.
Roxy thanked her and looked up the name Duffy. There were half a dozen names listed but only one with the first initial S. Bingo. She made a note of the address and phone number and then placed the book back on the counter, waving to the waitress as she left the cafe. It was now close to 4pm and, with directions in hand, Roxy made her way to the local police station. There she was ushered straight to the police chief’s office, a pokey room with a cluttered desk facing two gray plastic chairs. Chief Butler motioned Roxy into a chair and sent his deputy, a man called Dougie who looked barely out of his teens, to fetch the coffees.
‘I’m gonna be taping this conversation,’ he told her, when the deputy had returned, ‘and we’ll type it up later for you to sign.’
‘Fine,’ Roxy replied feeling suddenly nervous. Did they consider her a suspect? Chief Butler smiled reassuringly and pressed the record button. ‘Roxy Parker interview, Macksland station’ he muttered, adding the time and date and the names of himself and his deputy, who was perched in the other chair staring intently at Roxy.
‘Okay then,’ Butler said, ‘Let’s start from the beginning. What are you doing in Macksland Miss Parker, and how did you happen upon the deceased, Mr Frank O’Brien?’
As Roxy told her story both men watched her closely, firing questions from time to time, and it occurred to Roxy that they were playing the oldest game in the book: Good Cop/Bad Cop. The police chief was on her side, he wanted her to understand that. But his deputy, the pimply faced kid beside her, was less amiable. He would need convincing.
‘You’re trying to tell us you just rocked on up and found him lying there dead. Is that correct?’ he said, sneering a little.
‘Not quite,’ Roxy replied coolly. ‘He wasn’t lying anywhere, he was propped up against the pew. I thought at first he was praying.’
‘As you would,’ Chief Butler soothed. ‘And you’d never met the deceased before?’
‘Never. But I had heard him mentioned by a client of mine, Mrs Beatrice Musgrave.’
‘Yesssss,’ the younger officer hissed, leaning towards her, his small eyes constricted suspiciously. ‘And what happened to that client of yours, Mrs Musgrave?’
‘She killed herself two weeks ago.’
‘She killed herself.’
‘Well, that’s what the police say. Except I found that a little strange—it seemed out of character—so I’ve been doing a little checking of my own. That’s how I came to be here. I believe that Frank and Beatrice were once good friends. I was hoping he could shed some light on her death.’
‘Is that right?’ It was the young policeman again, his voice stained with disbelief. Roxy was growing quickly impatient.
‘Yes it is,’ she turned back to the police chief. ‘Look, I don’t like his tone. I came here in good faith to explain myself and suddenly I feel like a suspect. If I am one, I’d like to know about it and I’ll end the conversation here and get myself a lawyer.’
‘What you got to hide, Miss Parker?’ It was the deputy again and Roxy sighed loudly before the police chief butted in.
‘Okay, easy does it, Dougie, why don’t you step out for a bit.
‘Oh, boss!’
‘Doug, just flamin’ do it!’
The young cop blushed crimson red and loped out of the office glumly, closing the door behind him.
‘I’m sorry about that, Miss Parker,’ Chief Butler said. ‘Dougie gets a little too enthusiastic. Watches too much Law & Order. As far as I’m concerned, you’re not a suspect but, well, look at it from our point of view. You rock up out of nowhere, suddenly there’s a dead body.’
‘But I arrived this morning, as far as I could tell the body had been dead for well over a day.’
‘Yes well I’ve got Shirley checking the plane records and, as soon as we get confirmation on that, you’re off the hook. That’s not to say, of course that you couldn’ta snuck in earlier, killed him, flown out and back again.’ Chief Butler was stroking his nose gently and staring at her.
Roxy was stunned. ‘What on earth for? I didn’t even know the guy, why would I want to kill him?’
Butler held a rough hand up. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay, I don’t reckon ya did do it and I’m usually a pretty good judge of character.’
‘That’s a relief! Look, I understand your suspicions but I can prove my exact whereabouts over the past week if need be.’
‘No need for that. Not yet at least. For now I just have to get some basic details down, I hope you don’t mind.’
Roxy nodded her consent, trying to seem detached, but she was starting to regret poking around the dead man and his house. She may have contaminated both crime scenes and it looked like a stray black hair hanging over the corpse was all Dougie needed to lock her up and throw away the key. Chief Butler continued the questioning.
‘Had you met, seen or spoken to the deceased before you found him in the chapel?’
‘Never. Well, maybe, I mean...’
‘You either have, or you haven’t. Not a trick question Miss Parker.’
‘Sorry, it’s just that I had seen him, sort of. I have this photo.’ She produced the now crumpled print from her bag. ‘My friend, Max Farrell, was official photographer at Beattie’s funeral. He mentioned Frank first and, when I suspected that this was the same Frank that Mrs Musgrave said was her first love, I decided to come and find out for myself.’
Chief Butler stared at the shot for some time. ‘So Frankie showed up at the Musgrave funeral, eh?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘Mind if I keep this?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Also, if I could have a transcript of exactly what it was your client had said about Frank, that would help.’
‘No problem, I have my laptop with me at the hotel. I can print you out a copy of the relevant quotes when I get back.’
‘No rush, tomorrow will do.’ Glancing at the clock on the wall he said loudly, ‘Interview aborted, 4.55 pm.’ Then he switched off the recorder and sat back in his seat with a sigh. ‘Ugly, ugly business. So you’re a biographer you say?’
‘Well, more a ghostwriter actually.’
‘You write spooky stuff?’ He looked confused and she had to laugh.
‘Sometimes, yes. But no, I help people write their life stories and then they put their name to it and get all the credit, and I get a decent sized check in the mail. That’s how I met Beatrice, and why I’m here at all. I also write for magazines and newspapers, interviews, features that kind of stuff.’
‘So you usually play Sherlock Holmes on the side?’
‘In my line of work, Chief Butler, we call it investigative reporting. If, like Frank O’Brien, Beatrice Musgrave was murdered, then I think the public have a right to know.’
‘Yes, yes, I agree with you.’ This surprised the writer and now it was his turn to laugh. ‘You can pick your jaw up off the floor, Miss Parker. My wife’s the editor of the local rag. I get her “right to know” rant about 10 flamin’ times a week!’
‘Well that’s lucky for me,’ she quipped. ‘You won’t think I’m so strange.’
‘Oh I didn’t say that!’ He boomed with laughter again and pushed his chair out behind him. ‘Okay, you can run away now and enjoy the great Macksland hospitality.’
‘Thank you, but can I just ask: Did you know that Frank and Beatrice were once lovers?’
He looked surprised ‘You sure about that?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘Now that’s one for the cards. Who’da thought? Old Frankie and the rich bird! Hell, my wife’ll be steaming when she finds out she missed that little scoop!’
Roxy opened the office door. ‘So, can you recommend anywhere special for dinner?’
‘Lucy’s at the Royal Hotel. Can’t beat it for taste and price. Tell ’em I sent you, you’ll get looked after.’
‘And some suspicious stares, no doubt.’
‘Oh you’ll get those anyway, Miss Parker, this is a country town, remember? Everyone’s a stranger until they’ve lived here a lifetime, and not even then half the time.’ And with that the interrogation was over.
As Roxy changed her clothes for dinner back at her hotel, it occurred to her that, in fact, the ordeal was only just beginning. Frank’s murder clearly opened a whole new chapter. Later, as she sliced into her minted rack of lamb, with the patrons of Lucy’s restaurant stealing glances at her from time to time, she lapped up the anonymity almost as much as the warming glass of Merlot she’d ordered. Here no-one expected anything of her and she did not have to try to please. She did not have to explain herself to her mother or fend off Oliver’s questions or feel yet again that she was disappointing her best friend who, in his loneliness had mistaken affection for love. Why couldn’t Max see that? He craved love so badly, he was willing to destroy their friendship in pursuit of it.