Do Not Go Alone (A Posthumous Mystery)

by C. A. Larmer

  “Call the police,” says someone else. Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome from earlier tonight. He’s pushed past Roco and is now leaning over Tessa, one hand on her shoulder, another reaching down to feel my pulse.

  I knew he had his shit together. I knew he’d be a good one to have about, although he better be careful or he’ll get blood on that fancy waistcoat, which is now unbuttoned, one corner dipping precariously close to my wound.

  “Why do we need the police?” demands Roco, who is sounding more suspicious by the second.

  Tall, Dark and Handsome ignores him, reaches for his own phone and stabs in three zeros.

  “Leave that!” he yells when someone goes to pick up the gun. “Don’t touch anything. Everyone. Get back.”

  I don’t know who died and made him boss, well, apart from me of course, but they do as instructed, the entire party of horrified revellers squeezing back out into the hallway, some still clutching champagne flutes, most soggy from their swim. Mum would have a fit if she saw them dripping on the carpet.

  I spot the two children amongst the throng, and now I’m horrified.

  What are they doing here? Get them out!

  Their mother must finally work it out because she suddenly yanks them by the arms and drags them down the hallway, their expressions startled, their little brains traumatised.

  Good one, Mum. Great work, woman! That shit can’t be unseen.

  I am furious at that. I am suddenly furious with everyone—the gawkers who can’t seem to tear their eyes away, and Una and Roco who look about as useful as a condom at a convent. And that slimy stranger in the shiny vest who is now perched on the edge of Dad’s desk, one hand spread out casually behind him, messing up all the papers, the other holding the phone to his ear, having a good ole chinwag to the emergency services department, like he’s chewing the fat.

  But most of all I am furious with Tessa, who keeps trying to straighten my hair down and readjust that stupid, gaudy tiara she insisted I don last night. If she didn’t kill me, she’s sure acting like a suspect.

  The police arrive extraordinarily fast. It feels like a matter of minutes, but maybe I’m getting confused. Is time different when you’re dead?

  There are no paramedics. Tall, Dark and Handsome must have told them it was pointless, and I am glad of that. Two less people to be traumatised by the spectacle. Just because they’ve seen it all before doesn’t make them immune, or at least that’s what I’ve read.

  Two uniformed officers quickly take over. Tessa has been dragged to her feet and away from my corpse where she should have been all along. She now stands huddled in Roco’s arms, bloodied and wide-eyed, splattering me all over Roco’s bare chest, and there’s a delicious irony in that but we haven’t got time to be clever, I need to keep reporting.

  I see Una moping behind them, hand now at her mouth. I’m not sure she’s said a word in ten minutes.

  “I’m so sorry,” I hear Tessa say. No, think. Her lips haven’t moved. It’s coming from inside her brain.

  Well, what do you know? I can read minds! I like the sound of that.

  Tessa continues, thinking, I’m sorry this had to happen, Maisie, honey. I’m so, so sorry I didn’t protect you.

  She’s clearly talking to me, but what does she mean by that? Why did it have to happen and whom did I need protecting from?

  What the hell have you been up to, Tessa? I think, for the second time tonight.

  Chapter 5

  After such a delayed discovery, I am startled by the rapid response. The two officers have morphed into four, no, make that six. One of them, a burly bloke with a buzz haircut, has corralled the guests into the living room and is now giving them a lecture. Something about providing statements, contact details, that kind of thing.

  The young mum steps forward and barely says a word before she and her boys are ushered to the side and then very quickly out the door, past the pool and through the back garden gate. She can give her statement tomorrow, and thank goodness for that. Her kids should be tucked up safely in bed, not witnesses to a homicide. The youngest kid’s four, maybe five. The oldest looks barely six and particularly stunned, like he’s just seen a ghost. But really all he’s seen is an empty carcass. He’d be more freaked out if he realised the ghost hovers above his head, scolding his mother for keeping him out so late.

  As they take off, the other guests start giving their statements, and I try to listen in, but there’s lots of hand wringing and head shaking and “sorry but I never heard a thing.” I guess we can blame Justin Bieber for that.

  I notice one uniformed officer interrogating Una and Jonas, who are providing my details rather than their own. He’s scribbling it all down in a spiral notepad, his sticky-outy ears bobbing up and down as he writes. Jonas’s hands are now fists at his side; Una’s arms wrapped tight around her torso. Unlike many others, she’s fully dressed, yet she looks colder than all of them. She’s shivering beneath her cream linen jacket.

  There are now four squad cars out the front, and another two officers, these ones in baggy blue overalls and chunky black boots, are hovering over me, swallowing back their smiles, like I’ve made their night. I’m almost expecting them to turn and high-five each other.

  “Mickey’s on the way,” says the man, young, pretty, with wiry blond curls and thick blond eyelashes. He looks like he’s just dropped off a wave and has left his board out the back.

  “Thanks, Kelly,” the woman says. She’s shorter, stockier, and looks more suited to a footy field. She has an air of authority about her and is obviously the one in charge. Or at least I hope she is. I’d put money on her over the surfer dude any day.

  “Pretty, wasn’t she?” the woman says, casting her eyes from my face to the diamanté tiara and back, and I can almost feel myself blush.

  “Looks high maintenance to me,” comes the dude’s response. Ouch.

  The woman smirks. “Sorry, I forgot. You prefer them to sit quietly on the beach, holding your towel, right?”

  He doesn’t get a chance to respond. A uniformed officer is now standing at the study door. “Suspicious circumstances?” he asks.

  It’s the policeman with the Prince Charles ears, and Kelly snorts at him, then darts his eyes towards the gun and then back at the gaping hole in my head.

  “What? I’m allowed to ask,” comes the officer’s sulky retort.

  “You’re supposed to ask,” says the woman, shooting Kelly a frown. “That’s your job, mate. Never make assumptions. Never take anything for granted. So, yes, I’ve declared this a crime scene; let’s get on with it.” She turns to look at him. “You’re one of the first responders?”

  He steps forward. “Yes, ma’am. Constable Craig DeWill from North Sydney Police St—”

  She cuts him short. “You’re with my team now. I want you reporting directly to me, got it?” His beam intensifies. “So, talk me through it; what have you learned?”

  Big-eared Craig produces his notepad and clears his throat. “Right, so… the er, victim’s name is Maisie May, aged twenty-seven. Currently resides at this address, which also happens to be her parents’ house.”

  “Bit old for that, isn’t she?” says Kelly. I’m hating him more by the second.

  Craig ignores this. “Discovered about twenty minutes ago by a man named—” He refers to his notepad, looks lost for a moment, which earns him a snigger from Kelly. Finally he stabs at the page and says, “Jonas! Jonas Holder… no, Hodder. Aged thirty-one. Says he was on his way out.”

  “Out of the party?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “So, what? He mistook the office for the driveway?”

  Good point, I think, but Craig is shrugging like it’s a moot point. “He appears to be quite intoxicated, ma’am, as do most of the witnesses. And I’m not just talking alcohol. The first responders located some cannabis in a bowl in the kitchen, and on the living room coffee table what appears to be MDM—”

  “I really couldn’t care less what
party treats these people were into, Craig,” the boss says.

  She is still staring at me intensely, and I wish I could open my eyes and smile back at her. It’s so good to see she has her priorities straight, although that’s certainly not a word I’d use for my friends. They really were reenacting The Hangover tonight.

  “The vic was pretty sloshed too, or so a few of the guests say. She was falling about a bit, slurring her words.”

  Goodness, how embarrassing. I know the cocktails were delicious, but I can’t remember drinking that much.

  “Any word on the parents?”

  Craig clears his throat again. Is he nervous? Is this his first corpse, or is it the fact that he’s just been recruited to the homicide squad that’s making him rattle? He glances back at his trusty pad.

  “David and Mandy May. Visiting relatives in Dubbo, I’m told, but the vic’s best friends don’t seem to have a working contact number for them. One of them’s tried a few times, and there’s no response. No one has any idea where they might be staying.”

  “Bugger,” she says.

  He nods. “There’s two siblings, as well, two older brothers apparently.”

  “Apparently or is that a fact? Seems like a pretty easy one to substantiate.”

  He blanches, looks a little flummoxed again. “Er, yes, she definitely has two older brothers, but again, no one knows where they are or has a contact number for them either. One lives locally; one’s out from the UK.”

  “Any of them here tonight?”

  “Affirmative. One brother was here earlier apparent—” He catches himself. “He was at the party, but he must have left.” He coughs, blushes. “He did leave. Sergeant Tanner—that’s my boss, ma’am.” He hesitates. “I mean, my normal boss. You probably need to talk to him about me working for—”

  “Get on with it, Craig.”

  He clears his throat. “So, yes, Tanner has already had the premises searched, and there’s no sign of the siblings. No next of kin anywhere, just friends.”

  The lead detective sighs heavily. “Dammit. Where is her family when you need them? Has anyone thought to check local hotels? Didn’t you say one brother is visiting from overseas?”

  “Yep, and the other one lives locally.”

  “So look him up. His details must be on file.”

  Craig grabs a pen from a pocket and makes a note. “I’m onto it.”

  “Good. What else have you got?”

  Another glance at the pad. “Right, so, the party’s been going since about six this evening, give or take. Peaked around eleven and most of the guests cleared out by the time the vic was discovered—”

  “Can we call her by her name, please?” The woman interrupts. “She was a person, yes? A human being?”

  Kelly snorts, Craig blushes, and I become even fonder of the lead detective. I think she’s a keeper.

  “Sorry, ma’am. Yes, Ms May—”

  “Maisie. Let’s stick to that, shall we?” She glances down at me. “I reckon she’d be cool with us using her given name.” Oh how I really wish I could smile.

  “Of course, yes, um, so the party for Maisie was put on by some of her friends to ‘cheer her up.’ That’s a direct quote.”

  “And why would Maisie need cheering up?” the boss asks just as an elegantly dressed woman steps into the house.

  It’s like a soap star has strayed onto the wrong set. With her flowing silk dress, undulating auburn locks, and a face so meticulously made up she could do a Revlon commercial, the woman doesn’t look anything like a detective, but she earns the reverence of one, and I watch as she sweeps straight past the uniformed officers and down the hallway. She has a large black carryall in her hand and turquoise plastic gloves already in place. At least she got the props right. Must be the forensic pathologist I decide, watching as she slips off her kitten heels and pulls two matching plastic slippers over her feet before she enters the study. Oddly, the booties complete the look.

  “Michaelia!” the boss says, helpfully. “Hello.”

  “Hey, Ruth, thanks for dragging me away. I didn’t really want to finish that mascarpone trifle anyway.”

  The detective—Ruth, it seems—chuckles. “Sorry about that. Hot date?”

  “Didn’t even get past simmering stage. But the food was to die for.” She doesn’t stop to apologise for that woeful pun, just looks down at me through false eyelashes and says, “So what grief has come of this fair night?”

  Ruth gives Craig the nod, and he begins repeating everything he’s just said, so I take a moment to focus on the living room—or the living, to be precise.

  Tessa is now being questioned by the officer with the buzz cut, and she still looks stunned and distraught. She can’t be acting, surely? She never majored in Drama.

  “I should have hung out with her more tonight. I could have been with her. I might have stopped…” She glances around the room, then holds a fist to her mouth.

  Like she could stand between me and a killer with a loaded gun.

  “And where exactly were you when your friend was shot?”

  “In the pool,” she says, talking through her fist as though hoping to muffle the truth. “I was in the pool, can you believe it? I was swimming and having fun. How could I do that to her? How could I let her down, how could I…”

  And then she breaks into sobs again, her fleshy shoulders shaking so much it causes the towel to unravel as she falls back into Roco’s arms. He glares at the officer like he wants to thump him.

  “And you, sir?” the officer says. “Where were you when the shot rang out?”

  “I… I didn’t hear the shot. Did anyone?” He makes a show of looking around. “First I knew of this was when Jonas starting screaming like a baby.”

  “He’d just found poor Maisie!” Tessa gasps, shaking herself free of him and reaching for her towel.

  I can’t help but smile. Maybe my death will be the unmaking of them.

  “I’m just saying,” Roco continues, “if I had heard the shot, I would’ve tried to help, tried to save her.”

  “And what’s your relationship to the deceased?” the cop asks, and Roco hesitates.

  “We’re just friends,” he says stiffly, before turning his gaze back to Tessa.

  I’m sorry, but what? Just friends? Is he for real?

  He might have been playing tonsil hockey with my bestie, but we hadn’t officially broken up. Or had we?

  The way Tessa is struggling to meet his eyes now makes me wonder.

  Chapter 6

  Roco and I had a pretty solid relationship. Or at least I thought we had.

  We met at a glittering charity event about eighteen months ago. I was there to raise awareness for some bleeding-heart cause. He was there to pick up, or so he liked to joke whenever anyone asked.

  The truth is he’s got a bigger heart than he cares to admit. If a mangy dog strayed across his path, he’d scoop it up and take it home before I even got a chance, and that was my forte, that was my domain.

  I wonder now if I was the mangy dog. Is that why he took me in? Or was I the one doing the rescuing? It all feels so muddy now.

  He is a bit like a meaty bulldog my Roco (or at least he was my Roco once). He’s well under six foot, with a mop of dirty-brown hair and dark stubble on his beefy cheeks. I know he hits the gym and does weights, and I guess it keeps the fat at bay, but fully clothed he looks more Arnott’s Biscuits than Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he’ll have to keep up the exercise if he wants to avoid the fate of his forefathers (his dad’s the size of a garden shed). There’s a lot of Greek in him, I believe, and that includes regular helpings of his mother’s mouthwatering moussaka.

  There was a lot of love in him too. He ran a bubble bath fit for a queen, gave the best massage this side of Kamalaya—complete with scented candles and classical music—and we never left the house without him checking I had my phone and my jacket. He would make a terrific dad, I think now, and now my heart flags.

  It’s only just
occurred to me: I’ll never get to be a mum. I’ll never get to nag someone to remember to take their jacket…

  Sorry.

  Give me a moment.

  Okay. I know you want to get back to my murder. I realise you’re probably bored senseless with all this. But I wonder if it has any bearing. I wonder if it can shed some light. Did I stumble in on Roco and Tessa together? Did a fight ensue? Did things get out of hand, somehow out of control?

  The police officer clearly doesn’t think so because he’s moved away from Roco and is now talking to Constable Craig. They are flipping through matching notepads and shaking their heads like something doesn’t add up. Then the former calls the crowd to attention, clapping his hands loudly, and I soon realise what it is that’s troubling them.

  “Ladies and gentleman!” he yells out. “People! Attention please! This is very important. If anyone has any information regarding the May family and their whereabouts, I need you to step forward immediately. We need more information on the next of kin, particularly the two brothers.”

  They still haven’t tracked down my family. I almost feel relieved. My folks are still snoring somewhere, blissfully ignorant of the hell that is about to unfold. It gives me some solace, although I know they’ll have to wake up eventually.

  “As for the rest of you”—the officer is still speaking—“we need to get all your details before the SOCOs get here, so please bear with us and we’ll have you out of here as fast as we can.”

  “SOCOs?” someone asks. Leslie, I think.

  “Scenes of Crime Officers,” whispers Tall, Dark and Handsome, like he’s an expert.

  “I can’t believe they haven’t found her parents yet,” says Arabella, and there are sombre nods all round.

  Tessa says, “I can’t believe I don’t know her brother’s home address. Paul only lives about five minutes’ drive away. To think she’s lying there while he…”

  She trails off, and Roco scoffs. “Cops are bloody useless. Why don’t they just look him up? They have all our data on file now. Big Brother knows everything, so why can’t they find him? I could do it for them in five seconds! And I told them where they could find the older brother Peter. What’s taking them so long?”