Do Not Go Alone (A Posthumous Mystery)

by C. A. Larmer

  “I’d rather kill Mum and Dad,” says Peter, who lives on another continent altogether, which, given that sentiment, is probably just as well.

  So yes, we’re a delightful lot.

  Both my brothers were meant to be here tonight, but Paul couldn’t make the party. Something about a sick kid and a cranky wife, or was it the other way around? Don’t get me started on Jan. Peter, who’s back on holidays from his swanky London life, was here for a while, but I haven’t seen him since the cake came out. He’s probably snuck off to bed—and I’m not talking the lumpy mattress in the spare bedroom upstairs. Nor am I talking alone. Pete’s been staying at the ritzy InterContinental. Of course. He always stays somewhere posh. I’m not sure if he’s showing off to the chicks he drags back there or to us.

  So neither brother is here. That’s been substantiated. It’s just me and thirty or so remaining guests who are in better spirits than me. Still.

  How come no one’s found my body yet? Was I this invisible when I was alive?

  And how the hell did no one hear the gunshot?

  Chapter 2

  I told you how I carked it, right? A bullet to the head. How absolutely extraordinary! I mean, guns are a really big deal Down Under. Unlike some parts of the world, we don’t have a lethal weapon in every glove box, undies drawer and disgruntled student’s backpack. If that’s not a whopping clue, I don’t know what is. Although there’s something about that gun… Something I should mention…

  We’ll get back to that in a minute. I haven’t quite finished this scene-setting business, and I don’t want to get you muddled up. You see I’ve given you the macro setting, but let’s zoom right in. Let’s inspect the crime scene. Let’s check out the corpse!

  I’m lying facedown on the carpet in my dad’s study. That’s just what posh folk call an office. It’s a decent-sized room, with a large window that looks out to the front driveway, but the curtains are drawn and I have to wonder about that. Were they always like that, or did the murderer swish them shut? There’s two doors to this study, one that’s currently concealed behind the curtains and the one leading into the hallway of the house. Both appear to be closed, which helps explain why I haven’t been discovered yet, I suppose.

  I mean, apart from the odd stray—including Una, earlier tonight, now that I think about it—there’s really no reason for anyone to wander down to this wing of the house. The office sits to the right of the front door, down the hallway, past Mum’s sewing room and across from the guest toilet. But most people are probably using the facilities out the back or just urinating straight into the pool now I think of it, and I wish I hadn’t.

  So the study door is shut; the light is off. It’s actually quite dark inside. I can barely see myself let alone Dad’s desk. It’s little wonder I’m yet to be discovered. Then it occurs to me that perhaps I’ll lie there undiscovered for days. It’s Saturday night. My parents aren’t due back until Tuesday. It’s a possibility, right?

  I give my ghostly self a shake. No need to turn maudlin; I’m sure it won’t come to that. I just hope whoever finds me is up for the job. I read once how post-traumatic stress disorder can really affect first responders. Can haunt them for life. I’m hoping it’s the tall, dark, handsome stranger I was half flirting with earlier tonight. He doesn’t know me, not at all. And, outside of a missed opportunity for a quick party fumble, I don’t think he’d care. He certainly wouldn’t be traumatised. He looks far too composed for that, with his black topknot and steel-rimmed glasses and wanky velvet vest.

  For all their sins, I do hope Tessa and Roco and Una aren’t the first. I’m not sure how they’d cope. Tessa’s still living at home for pity’s sake. Okay, that sounds a bit harsh, considering my circumstances, but I am a little different. At least I moved out once. Back when I had a purpose.

  I tell people I work—worked—in a law firm, but the truth is I was just a lowly PA who happened to work in a law firm. It could just as easily have been a dog food factory or a bank. PA is short for personal assistant, in case you don’t know, and that’s a euphemism for personal slave. I located missing files and organised urgent meetings and switched schedules and fetched coffees and dashed to the nearest drycleaner when the boss’s blouse got sweaty under the armpits, which it did surprisingly often, although you didn’t hear that from me. I took calls and diverted calls and played pit bull at the front desk, and, well, you get the picture. I know the three partners liked to think they ran the show, but deep down we all knew—the partners, the clients, the accounts people, the guy who brought the muffins—that I kept the curtains open and the music playing. They may have been the balls, but I was the juggler, if you’ll excuse the sloppy metaphor.

  I loved my job. Really loved it. And I was bloody good at it. Before.

  I have a distant memory of a cup smashing on the polished concrete floor, of eyes wide and horrified, all gasping at me…

  I shake it off. That’s beside the point. We have a mystery to focus on.

  So, the doors and curtains are closed, that’s confirmed, but my dad’s office computer is switched on and is lending the room an ominous flickering glow. Now that’s intriguing. Dad’s retired and not one for the internet. His idea of a web search is to get out the insect spray. Did I switch the computer on? Did my killer?

  I sneak a peek at the screen. I see a Facebook page is open, but I can’t quite read the content. It’s as though it’s written in another language, completely illegible to me. Now that’s just annoying. And, again, kind of intriguing because there’s no way my dad left that page open (see aforementioned comments).

  There’s one more thing I’d like you to note. Dad’s chair, the office chair, is not by his desk where it should be. It has been wheeled across the carpet to the internal wall and sits just below two hooks.

  That makes me want to shudder. They’re the hooks that once held my dad’s pistol, the vintage single-shooter that now lies a metre or so from my head.

  And so the plot thickens.

  Chapter 3

  Perhaps it’s time to return to the murder weapon. Dad’s gun. I did mention it was his, didn’t I? It’s lying just out of reach of my body and looks almost theatrical. Like someone has carefully placed it there. Maybe it’s the mere presence of a gun that feels a little hammy. Like I said before, it’s unusual to own a firearm in this country, legally, at least. There’s generally two types of Aussies who possess guns—country folk and crooks. You can guess which camp my dad falls into, or I hope you can.

  He’s as straight as an arrow my dad. Never even smoked a joint. A country boy, originally from an outback property called Nevercloud, northwest of Dubbo (which is pretty much northwest of anywhere that matters). The property is aptly named. There are no clouds there, and I mean that quite literally. I don’t think it’s rained in a decade.

  Dad grew up on the dusty, ten-thousand-acre cattle farm with his slow-talking, no-nonsense parents and three older brothers who wore matching moleskins, riding boots and Akubra hats like a uniform. There’s just two of them left now. One brother, the aforementioned Uncle Bob, got killed in a quad-bike accident decades ago, the other scooted off to Western Australia and has never been heard from again. (I gather no one’s worried or surprised.) The third, Simon, still lives on the property, but he wants out, preferably before he gets his wish gift wrapped in a wooden box.

  He’s tired, Dad says, almost as tired as Gramps was eight years ago when they finally convinced him to hand the farm over to Simon. Gramps adored the property but was too old and too rickety to work it properly. Gee, what a nice problem to have! I recall feeling so sorry for him once. Old? Urgh! That’ll never happen to me! And I guess I was right.

  Grandpa May was installed in a stinky nursing home after that, and again, I recall smug sympathy when it happened. Now I’d settle for a urine-scented common room at Autumn Lodge any day.

  Along the way, for whatever reason, Dad took possession of one of Gramp’s guns. Not the old rifle he used to shoot
stray kangaroos and the odd cattle dog who took a fancy to the fowl. This was a rare vintage pistol, a collector’s item, more likely to have been pointed at someone’s head by a feisty bushranger than a farmer living in the bush. Or at least that’s what Dad told me when I stumbled upon it about six months ago. He was just standing there in his office, holding it in one palm as though weighing it up, considering his options. Freaked the fudge out of me.

  Was he going to kill himself?

  “No,” he said, chortling like the idea was hilarious. “Just reminiscing is all. My dad got it off his dad, and God knows where he got it from. It’s a beauty, hey?” He stroked the glossy wooden butt, fingered the silver inlay. “I think I might hang it up. This has good memories for me.”

  A gun has good memories? That’s like choking up at the sight of a dentist’s drill. That’s when Dad told me about his love for the bush and his desire to go back one day and blah de blah de snore. He’s leaving his run a bit late. He might be in terrific shape for his age, but he’s not that far off Autumn Lodge himself. Not that he’d ever agree to that dive. I think he’d take the pistol to his own head if we ever so much as glanced at an application form.

  But the point is, I knew about the gun, so who else did?

  My brothers, I guess. It’s the kind of thing men share with their sons, right? But I can’t really see them turning it on me. We had our issues but…

  As for my mates? Other than Una’s little visit tonight—I will get to that, it may have some bearing—I don’t recall any of them spending any time in my dad’s study, and I certainly never told them about the pistol, but I guess I must have. Or maybe—and here’s a whopping clue for you Miss Marples out there—maybe I took it to scare the guests into clearing out, and I don’t know, someone spotted me and scared the life out of me instead. Literally, right. You got that metaphor?

  I told you I was good at English. I might have written a book if I’d lived long enough. Of course no silly little murder mysteries for me. I would’ve written something more useful than that, a How-To book, perhaps, one bursting with handy information and facts. Or at least the old me would have done that. The new me would have struggled to get off the couch.

  But I wanted to be useful once. I wanted to do incredible things with my life other than endless admin and digital filing and fetching flat-whites for frantic clients. Now my only use will be as click bait for online news sites. The very thought makes me sad.

  Anyway, back to the gun. The more I think about it, the more it blows the case wide open (again with the puns!). The damn thing was hanging on the office wall, for goodness’ sake. Anyone could have stumbled into the study, plucked it from its perch and wreaked mayhem on my brain.

  Maybe I caught them by surprise and it went off by accident? Maybe they did it deliberately, luring me in with that text?

  You remember that text I got, right? If only my memory was as sharp, I’d recall exactly what it said. If only my limbs still worked, I could reach down and pluck my iPhone from the pocket of my jumpsuit and tap on the square marked Messages. Maybe the answer rests inside a cartoonish green speech bubble.

  I wonder if I can zoom in now and take a closer look. I’m still trying to determine how this whole death thing works. It’s all a little random, to be honest. I can see through gabled tiles and plasterboard, but for some exasperating reason I cannot see through a flimsy cotton jumpsuit. And it’s frustratingly inconsistent. I can’t see through every wall now that I think about it. The two ground-floor toilets are out of bounds to me—not such a bad thing, I suppose—and the spare bedroom upstairs is one big black splotch. I have no idea who’s in there or what’s going on. Maybe that’s where the killer is lurking.

  It makes you wonder, right?

  And if I stretch my neck, I can only see as far as the end of the street. I’m glancing outward now, and the farthest I can get is the T-intersection just past the McGee’s house. After that, it all starts to fade into oblivion. I wonder if someone’s smashed out the street lighting—

  “Pssst!”

  I glance up and back towards the tunnel.

  Oh dear, the creepy dead people are getting more persistent. One woman is waving at me like a windsock. She has something in her hands, but I can’t focus on that. All I can see are the purple shadows under her eyes, the blue tinge on her lips, and oh dear, is that drool trickling down her cheek?

  “Go away!” I say irritably. “Just leave me alone.”

  I’ve seen the movies. I know what they want, but it’s not my job to settle old scores or impart soppy messages to their freaked-out loved ones.

  “I’m busy!” I yell back, then glance downwards just as someone calls out “Hey, is it time for speeches?”

  Goodie, I think. Let’s see what the living have got to say for themselves.

  I notice that most of the remaining guests are now in the pool or straddled along the sides, and there are at least four or five people lolling on the Balinese-style daybed that sits under the nearby pergola, so entwined in each other it’s hard to count, and a little icky if I’m being honest. (What’s Helen Thing-a-me-bob doing with Kyle What’s-his-name’s foot?)

  “What do we want speeches for?” says someone else, Roco I realise, watching now as he downs the dregs of a South Pacific Ale.

  I am crestfallen. That was one of my favourite drops. I haven’t had it in ages.

  “It’s not Maisie’s birthday,” he adds matter-of-factly.

  “Then why the party?” asks Mattie, now air-guitaring the tennis racquet while standing in the shallow end. If Mum saw that, she’d be livid. Imagine what it’s doing to the precious wood.

  “Why not?” Roco replies, but Tessa has stopped smiling.

  She’s looking around and frowning. “Where is Maisie, by the way? Anyone seen her lately?”

  Well, stone the crow. Someone’s finally noticed.

  A few people follow her gaze while others shrug as if they couldn’t care less, like it’s not my house and it’s not my pool and my whereabouts are irrelevant. I can’t help feeling a flood of anger and despair.

  It’s been ten minutes, people! Maybe twenty. Wake up!

  And then as if on cue I get my wish.

  A cry so deafening it could wake the dead echoes through the house and out towards the pool. I glance back to my dad’s study. Hottie Hodder is standing at the doorway, not looking quite so hot. His face is ghostly white, his lips agape.

  I smile.

  Grab your trench coats and magnifying glasses, people. It’s game time.

  Chapter 4

  Fancy Jonas “Hottie” Hodder finding me. I could not have scripted it better. Jonas is a lovely guy, really, a friend of a friend. Well, maybe a little more than that. We do have some history, a certain “incident” two winters ago, so he kind of owes me one.

  Good. Plus he’s close but not so close he’ll be too traumatised. Or at least I hope not.

  Jonas (I don’t use the nickname; I don’t think he’s that hot) is still holding the light switch he’s just flicked on, the other hand spread weblike towards my body as though reaching out. I’m not sure if he’s trying to grasp me or just hide the sight of me behind his outstretched palm, but it’s a dramatic gesture. His voice is even more compelling, his cry now a raspy bellow.

  “Oh God! Oh God! Oh Goooooood!”

  It’s a little late for divine intervention I think snippily as the revellers look around startled. Some leap out of the pool in a fluster, others appear from various parts of the house, one woman pulling her shirt down over a twisted purple bra. Oh, it’s my acupuncturist friend Arabella. What’s she doing half-naked?

  “What’s going on?” calls the first person to make it down to Jonas. It’s Leslie, a work friend of Tessa’s. She has an open bag of chips in her hand and halts just behind him at the office door, letting out her own cry, chips spluttering everywhere before others crowd in behind her.

  And then “Jonas! Oh my God! What the hell have you done?”

>   This is Tessa, dripping wet in her bikini, one of my mum’s oversized beach towels wrapped tight around her squishy belly. She pushes past them and into the study. She dashes for my body and drops down to my side, screaming the words over and over and over again.

  “What have you done? What have you done? What the hell have you done?”

  Jonas has both hands up now, backing out in the opposite direction but butting into stunned partygoers instead.

  “I didn’t do it!” he cries. “It wasn’t me!”

  Tessa is not hearing it. She is now cradling me in her arms, sobbing tears into my face, and crying, “My God, my poor baby, poor, poor lamb…”

  As she brushes my bloodied hair back, she manages to smatter my own blood across my forehead, messing me up further. I really should be pleased by her outpouring of raw emotion, but all I can think is, Back off, Tessa, you’re messing with the evidence.

  Is she doing it deliberately, do you think? And why would she assume Jonas had a hand in my death? Is it purely because he was first on the scene, or does it have something to do with that aforementioned incident? I wouldn’t have thought that was of any consequence, but let’s add Hottie Hodder to the suspect list. (Have you officially started one yet? It would really help me out.)

  For now, let’s keep watching. It’s all rather entertaining, don’t you think?

  Una has appeared and looks like a stunned rabbit, eyes wide, mouth even wider. That’s also interesting because she’s usually quite good in a crisis.

  “Tessa! Leave her,” says someone else. Roco again. He’s also pushed through and is hovering over both of us, pulling at Tessa’s elbow, but she refuses to budge.

  “I’m calling the ambulance!” screams somebody.

  “Don’t bother,” Roco mutters. “It’s too bloody late.”

  How does he know that?