Do Not Go Alone (A Posthumous Mystery)

by C. A. Larmer

  Do Not Go Alone

  C. A. Larmer

  Copyright © 2018 Larmer Media

  calarmer.com

  Discover other titles by C.A. Larmer:

  Do Not Go Gentle

  The Agatha Christie Book Club

  Murder on the Orient (SS): The Agatha Christie Book Club 2

  Evil Under The Stars: The Agatha Christie Book Club 3

  Killer Twist

  A Plot to Die For

  Last Writes

  Dying Words

  Words Can Kill

  A Note Before Dying

  An Island Lost

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  License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be resold or given away to other people. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Larmer Media, Goonengerry,

  NSW 2482, Australia

  E-book ISBN: 978-0-9924743-3-1

  Cover design by Stuart Eadie

  Edited by The Editing Pen

  & Elaine Rivers (with heartfelt thanks)

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author/Connect online

  This one’s for Charlie.

  It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to

  Cry if I want to, cry if I want to

  You would cry too if it happened to you

  Walter Gold, John Gluck Jr., Herb Weiner, Seymour Gottlieb

  Prologue

  There’s a bullet in my head, and it’s really messing with my hairstyle. Blood is trickling through my ash-blond highlights, and there’s a smattering of something egg-like caught up in my diamanté tiara, which doesn’t bear thinking about.

  It’s a tedious thing, but I’m guessing I’m dead, and that’s not even the tedious part. I’ve quite clearly been murdered, executed gangland style—one bullet to the noggin and a smoking gun lying on the rug beside me. Seriously. The gun still has the whiff of smoke about it.

  How ridiculously cliché.

  Except this shouldn’t be happening to me. My name is Maisie May. I’m twenty-seven. I work for a Sydney law firm, drive a Mini Cooper, and live in the ’burbs. A different sort of cliché, I suppose.

  In any case, I shouldn’t be dead. I should be dusting off my midnight-blue jumpsuit, reapplying the lip gloss and heading back towards the pool, where there’s a party going on. My party, in fact, and it’s still going on, despite all this. Nobody’s cottoned on yet. Which is a worry, right? The longer it takes, the less chance they have of kissing me back to life.

  Oh who am I kidding? That bullet wound looks particularly nasty, and the way the blood is coagulating while I float above speaks volumes. The very fact that I’m floating at all is a dead giveaway, if you’ll excuse the pun.

  I’m here but not here, a ghost of myself, a carbon copy minus the carbon. Get it?

  I feel no physical pain, in case you’re wondering, and who would blame you if you were. You’ll be dead eventually too. But my emotions are a little wrought, and I can still imagine my limbs and my stomach and the weight of my heavy heart, and the truth is it’s getting heavier by the second. I’m starting to feel a little disappointed, a little, well, ripped off, to be frank. I don’t want to be dead. I didn’t ask for this, and I certainly didn’t ask for those creepy strangers who are waving enthusiastically from the sidelines, like I’ve just popped out for their lunch orders.

  Because yes, to add insult to injury, I can now see dead people. Terrific. This night just goes from bad to worse.

  Can you see them, just over yonder, near that blinding light? They don’t look real good from this angle. Hasn’t anyone ever told them how unflattering fluorescent light can be? Perhaps if they installed a warm, diffusing lampshade they wouldn’t look so garish and I might be enticed across.

  Beyond the glare, there’s a dark tunnel and I’m no fool. I know exactly where that leads. A feeling of dread creeps down my nonexistent spine. If my life is over—and I’m not sure I’m quite ready to accept that yet—there is no way I’m going down any dark tunnels with that mob. I don’t know those people! Have never seen them before in my life.

  Where’s my lovely grandma? She died yonks ago. Where’s Uncle Bob? Why aren’t they here to beckon me across? I thought your deceased rellies held your hand when you croaked it, not a cast of strangers with creepy smiles. Besides, I’m not ready to say goodbye to the living just yet. The party’s still pumping, and I intend to enjoy it.

  Will you keep me company?

  Will you hang out with me for a bit?

  I know we’ve only just met, but I promise to make it worth your while. There’s frothy cocktails down there and gallons of champagne and a table laden with party nibbles, courtesy of my guests. Granted, most of it has been demolished, but there are still some miniquiches, a few luridly decorated cupcakes (purple icing? Really?), and a whopping great bucket of hummus—if you can ignore the corn chips floating about like shark fins inside. And in the midst of it all, the remains of a rather gooey sponge cake that’s dripping strawberry jam onto Mum’s best tablecloth. A little like my blood has dripped onto the creamy carpet where I lie prostrate, a bullet wedged in my otherwise perfect head.

  A sudden, piercing scream gives me false hope.

  I glance back towards my messy self, but no, I’m still sprawled there utterly forgotten. It’s just my buddy Tessa in the pool, screaming and splashing about. She was always such a screamer. And that’s Roco, my boyfriend, laughing by her side. He sounds sinister. Do you think he sounds sinister?

  I can’t believe they’re still swimming like they’ve got all night. Tessa is wearing a bikini two sizes too small, Roco in boardies so bright they could win a spelling bee. And around them, dozens of revellers laughing and splashing and having far too much fun, considering the circumstances. They have absolutely no clue I have just been murdered. Or at least they’re pretending they don’t, because if you think about it logically, at least one of them must have killed me, right?

  How’s that for a brain spaz?

  One of my “friends” must have done me in. Notice those quotation marks? Notice the earlier puns? I was always very good at English. Better than Tessa, who used to cheat off me. Kind of like she’s cheating on me now with Roco. And they think I don’t k
now. Ha. Ha. Ha.

  But let’s not get distracted.

  You must be wondering why I can’t recall who killed me. It’s a very good question. Why, indeed? When it comes to my murder I have a big black nothing. I recall getting a text on my mobile phone, I recall stumbling away from the pool deck and heading inside, and then I recall floating above my body having a very bad hair day.

  Of course the killer could very well be a stranger, a psycho who just happened by. And now that I think about it, I do have a vague recollection of a shadowy figure, a man, yes. Something in his hands… Something strange by his side but…

  Nope, sorry, it’s gone.

  Bit like my memory, which is shot to pieces (lol).

  Why have I forgotten that last bit, the most important bit? The whodunit bit? Did the bullet wipe out the hippocampus? That’s the memory part of the brain in case you can’t remember. (Okay, now I’m just showing off.)

  Or does it go deeper than that?

  Is it too traumatic? Do I have amnesia, perhaps? I’ve heard of people who don’t recall some horrific event like, say, a car accident. They’re just merrily zooming down the highway and then Bam! They’re waking up in hospital saying, “WTF?” Some don’t even recall the last week of their life. Some the last year! I’ve heard of people who wake and don’t even recognise their husband and kids. Or was that just in a movie I saw once?

  Anyway, the point is, I’m luckier than some. I may be cactus, but I do recall the time leading up to my murder; it’s just those crucial final minutes that are blah. Maybe that’s why I’m still lingering here, annoying you while ignoring those weirdos at the light (because, yes, they’re still there, in case you thought they’d shuffled off).

  Perhaps it’s not the party I crave so much as the truth. Perhaps if my memory kicks back in, I’ll have a little closure and be closer to “moving on.”

  Will you help me do that?

  Please, I implore you. Will you help me solve the mystery of my murder before I vanish forever wondering why someone I loved so much hated me just enough to put a gun to my head, pull the trigger and leave me lying all alone while they went back to their Fluffy Ducks and their sickly cupcakes, and that stupid, bloody sponge cake?

  Chapter 1

  It’s not my birthday, interestingly, and the party wasn’t even my idea. It was Una’s. Another stupid Una idea; she’s the queen of them. Una Conway is an old friend from work, and by “old” I mean she’s actually a year or so younger than me but we’ve been friends for five years and remain friends even though I’ve now left the job and moved back home and live on government handouts.

  Una thought I needed cheering up.

  “It’ll be fun,” she said. “Everyone’ll come,” she said.

  And she was right about the latter, at least. Everyone did come. Everyone and their dog. Seriously, there was a dog out there, an Australian cattle dog I believe, and at least two kids last time I looked. I spotted them clambering over the pool fence earlier tonight. The little blighters. I had to screech for their mother to rescue them.

  Who would bring animals and kids to a grown-up pool party? What kind of idiots did Una invite? My parents would have a fit.

  They’re away at the moment, in case you’re wondering (Mum would have heard the gunshot; she would have come running). They’re currently out the back of whoop-whoop, tending to Gramps. That’s Aussie slang for “in the middle of the countryside looking after my grandfather.” He’s the one who’s supposed to be dead, not me. He’s just gone into palliative care, is a million years old. Well, ninety-five to be precise. It’s his turn, dammit. It’s been his turn for some time. In fact, it’s almost my father’s turn. He’s a late bloomer, just turned seventy-four, although you wouldn’t know it. The fact that Gramps isn’t standing near that tunnel, below that horrifying light, makes me think he must still be clinging on for dear life. The lucky bastard.

  Anyway, I digress.

  So Una says, “Let’s put the party on Facebook,” like no one’s ever lived to regret that idea. Next minute there’s a hundred people here and they’re wrecking the house even though we’re all too old for that kind of nonsense. Most of us are in our late twenties, for goodness’ sake. Mum was bogged down with two kids by that age. I was the afterthought that came much later, the “mistake,” but there’s no point dwelling on that now.

  Back to the revellers.

  We’re not keen on growing up these days, have you noticed that? I blame The Hangover, an inexplicably popular movie series about grown men behaving badly, over and over again. It set off a chain reaction. Now no film is complete without the “drunken mayhem” scene where perfectly reasonable adults/FBI agents/beauty queens ingest enough tequila to keep the Mexican army legless, dance about like deranged idiots, destroy/shag/snort everything in sight, then dust themselves off and head back to the office/altar/beauty pageant looking sparkly and fresh, like they were sipping mineral water all night.

  No wonder we have a drinking problem in the West, let alone no energy to grow up. I glance outside. That lot will be lucky to make it to the nearest toilet bowl to throw up. For now though, they’re on speed dial. Someone is simulating sex with a plastic blow-up flamingo, someone else is standing on the brick barbecue, pouring shots down someone’s throat. And what the hell is Mattie Constance doing with my mother’s tennis racquet?

  The stereo is blaring. It’s been hooked up to someone’s iPhone, and I’m pretty sure it’s on repeat because what idiot in their right mind would play that Justin Bieber track three times?

  This party has been heading south for hours, and it’s almost hit the Antarctic. I did try to stop it at one point. Maybe that’s how I ended up in this predicament. It’s worth contemplating, I guess. I recall getting quite tetchy, I recall telling Una to clear the party out, and then I recall fighting with Roco, who told me to “just chillax, babe, you really need this” and Leslie who told me to “stop being a drama queen” and Tessa who said “She always gets like this.”

  Like what, exactly? What do I always get like? I’m not yet thirty for goodness’ sake. I haven’t had a chance to develop lifelong habits—I’ve barely had a bloody life. And now it’s over because one of them decided to rob me of it so they could keep the music blaring.

  Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch. I don’t really believe that, but I’m still a tad cranky that they’re all out there whooping it up while I lie inside, hole to the head, bleeding into the rug.

  Okay, deep breaths, Maisie. Get your shit together, says a voice inside my head.

  A voice I haven’t heard in a while.

  Perhaps I should take this opportunity to set the scene. I know how these things work. It wasn’t so long ago that I was writing creative essays in Advanced English class.

  So here goes…

  My full name is Maisie Leanne Theresa May. I live in a modestly sized McMansion on the upper north shore of Sydney. That’s a pretty posh part in case you don’t know, but not as posh as some. This house was once a gaudy monstrosity, complete with Fanta-coloured bricks and imposing Roman columns, but my folks bought it, rendered it, and camouflaged the cheesy columns with creeping vines.

  Now it looks pleasant enough. Now it blends in nicely with almost every other house in the street. That’s what we like to do here. We like to blend in. It’s easier that way.

  My bedroom is on the second floor. It doesn’t blend in. I recently painted the walls lime green and added silk magenta curtains, knowing they clashed and not caring one bit. I have a small single bed that’s swamped with throw cushions—no, really, there’s so many cushions you can barely see the bed—and there’s a tacky dream catcher hanging overhead, which is so not me. I got it on a recent trip to Byron Bay. That’s a hippie enclave to the far north of Sydney that’s actually full of hipsters and tourists pretending to be spiritual. The hippies left a decade ago. They could no longer afford the skyrocketing rents, and their hovels have since been turned into “rustic getaways” on Airbnb. I guess
it’s hard to afford anything when your main source of income hasn’t yet been legalised.

  So I bought the dream catcher. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought it’d provide some answers. It certainly failed to do that.

  You might be wondering why a twentysomething is still perched in the family nest, but it’s not that unusual, not in modern Australia at least. Almost half of us now live at home well into our twenties, either because we have it too good and can’t imagine ourselves in a rat-infested share house, or we have it too bad and can’t afford a share house, even the rat-infested ones, especially if we’re also hoping to save enough to put a deposit on that overpriced rat’s nest.

  I fall into neither of those categories, however. I’m a returnee, what they call a “boomerang kid.” I did move out at the first chance I got, but then I lost my job, and well, what choice did I have? I’ve only been back six months, but it feels like six years. My mother clearly has dementia because she’s completely forgotten my age and is treating me like a ten-year-old. Insists on doing my washing. Cooks me mushy meals. Looks alarmed every time I leave the house.

  My father just stares at me glumly. I think he’s disappointed. He’s always been a man of few words, but since I moved home he’s become positively mute. Although he can get chatty when my girlfriends are over. He’s such an insatiable flirt. They find it amusing. Me, not so much.

  And as for my two brothers, Peter and Paul (yes, Peter, Paul and Maisie, and yet my parents never clicked), they just roll their eyes and can’t believe I’m back.

  “I’d rather kill myself,” says Paul, who lives just a suburb away so really can’t talk.