Bones of Contention

by Jeanne Matthews

  “Fine.” Having committed herself to the trip, she could only hope an opportunity for conversation would present itself as the day progressed.

  She looked over the map Mack had sketched for her, adjusted the seat and the mirrors, and set off. The drive, much of it on dirt roads, was longer than she’d expected and her optimism flagged. Rocks pelted against the undercarriage of the Charade and she couldn’t get anything on the radio but static and soccer. At one point, she had to stop for a half dozen wild donkeys which stood brazenly in the middle of the road, unfazed by her honks and shouts. Lucien offered no help, not even an encouraging word, and she began to resent his aloofness, to feel that he was deliberately ducking her. Why would anyone need that much background on this godforsaken place unless he was planning to join the tribe?

  At last she saw a big green gate with Welcome to Manyallaluk on one side and The Dreaming Place on the other. She pulled in and parked and, to her considerable irritation, Lucien hopped out, grabbed his crutches, and vaulted off to the reception building. She trailed along behind him, chafing inwardly. They were greeted by a smiling Aboriginal man in a broad-brimmed hat and khaki shirt. The name on his pocket was Peter. Lucien immediately dropped the name Ian Mackenzie and, sure enough, the royal treatment commenced.

  The entrance fee was waived and Peter, a mustachioed man with laughing eyes and irresistible dimples, took Lucien under his wing and led him off to the art center. Dinah couldn’t face another dissertation on art and asked a pretty young woman with a pixie hair cut and a professional smile if she could just wander around the grounds.

  “Yes, of course. But please stay within the grassed tourism area.” She handed her an information sheet and wished her a pleasant afternoon.

  Dinah began her tour, reading as she walked. Manyallaluk, she learned, means the Frog Dreaming because it occupies a site along the song line, or creative journey, of the frog ancestor. The people of the Frog Dreaming passed through the area as part of their pilgrimage to places sacred to their “moiety” or clan. Mines and cattle stations established by “white fellas” once predominated, but the land was eventually returned to its traditional Jawoyn owners and Manyallaluk is now an Aboriginal owned and operated tourism venture.

  A list of cultural guidelines advised visitors how to comport themselves.

  Aboriginal people dress conservatively, please respect their culture by avoiding flamboyant or revealing clothing.

  She was wearing long pants, but she had rolled her sleeves up above the elbow. She rolled them down to her wrists and turned up her collar.

  Our guides are used to “Western” ways, but do not take it as impoliteness if other residents of the community do not make eye contact or accept your offer of a handshake. If an individual appears uncomfortable with eye contact, avert your eyes.

  She repositioned her Wayfarers more firmly on her nose and focused on the didgeridoos rather than the elderly men who were blowing them, and on the pandanus baskets rather than the elderly ladies who were weaving them.

  Cultural information is provided to a certain “public knowledge” level, but more information may be forbidden to be told by traditional law. If you are given an answer that doesn’t make sense, the guide is trying to avoid the question for cultural reasons.

  These people were as stingy with the truth as her family. As she was accustomed to people avoiding her questions, she moved on to the next rule.

  Please avoid asking questions about “Sorry Business” (death, funerals, etc.), “Secret Men’s/Women’s Business,” and cultural stories.

  That puts a lot of business off limits, she thought. How did Jacko go about investigating the Melville Island murder if it was culturally verboten to mention death? She remembered the story she’d read about the woman found dead under suspicious circumstances, but the newspaper hadn’t printed her name or her community for cultural reasons.

  A trio of Aboriginal women sat under a large mango tree tending a cookpot suspended over a campfire. They were encircled by a group of onlookers. Dinah stopped for a while to watch and listen. One of the women explained that the red meat they were chopping was kangaroo tail. It would be stewed with some bush herbs and eaten with damper bread, a hard-crusted bread baked in the ashes of the open fire. The strong, gamy smell of the meat didn’t entice Dinah to wait around for a sample.

  She was growing bored and impatient. Somehow the day had gotten away from her without talking to Lucien or Jacko and she felt stymied and increasingly antsy.

  Against a backdrop of bright green trees, a black man with a painted face and chest was demonstrating the art of spear throwing. The target was at least 120 feet distant and he hit the bullseye with a powerful thud. Dinah took off her sunglasses and stared at him. How strong, how deadly accurate, how motivated did a man have to be to ram a spear through another man’s body? As murder goes, it was the very antithesis of poisoning, which required no physical strength. Maybe she’d been overthinking things. Surely there could be no connection between two murders so disparate in method and location as the Melville and the Fisher cases except for the fact that Jacko was investigating both at the same time.

  She spent another sweaty hour sitting on the steps of the reception building shooing flies and ruminating on the myriad ways in which she wasn’t having fun. When Lucien finally reappeared, she was in a waspish mood.

  “Your leg looks fine to me. I’d like the pleasure of your company in the passenger seat. Or else.”

  He grinned. “Or else what?”

  “You don’t want to find out.”

  He climbed into the front seat, she tossed his crutches into the back and before they had cleared the gate, she hit him with the Secret Man/Woman Business that had been burning inside of her all day. “Wendell and Neesha are lovers. They plan to marry as soon as Cleon’s dead.”

  “That’s pretty far-fetched, baby sis. You’ve been sitting in the sun too long.”

  “I’ve definitely been sitting in the sun too long, but I know what I know. And Wendell’s a beneficiary under Fisher’s will.”

  “That’s no surprise. The doc set Wen up as a junior partner in his business.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what? You want me to think that Wen killed Fisher for his money?”

  “Why not? It’s thinkable.”

  “No, it’s not. Wendell’s a big wuss.”

  She maneuvered the car around a couple of immovable donkeys and almost offered an unflattering comparison to present company. “It doesn’t take a he-man to poison somebody, Lucien. And unless Seth Farraday had some beef with Fisher that we don’t know about, Wen’s the only one with a motive to kill him.”

  “Why not Dad? He and the doc mixed it up pretty good once or twice.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. Who listens to a pair of old roosters ripping each other? Politics maybe. Cleon called Fisher a goddamn bloviating gasbag. Fisher called Cleon a sodding bloody autocrat. You couldn’t say either of them got it wrong.”

  She dismissed Cleon as a suspect. “Cleon needed Fisher to assist his suicide. And anyway, creepiness by itself isn’t a motive for murder. Not like money or sex.” She thought about Wendell and Neesha necking outside that armoire and Neesha’s little sob of revulsion that Cleon might go on for weeks.

  “Lucien, Cleon’s life may be in danger.”

  He laughed. “You’re a regular stitch, you know that?”

  “Okay, he has terminal cancer and he wants to commit suicide. But he doesn’t want to be murdered.”

  “Maybe he does want to be murdered. Maybe that’s why he’s been needling us.”

  “Why are you being such a dick? And why does he think you haven’t played straight with him?”

  “Who knows? Some youthful peccadillo.”

  “What peccadillo would he hold over your head to his dying day? Stolen hubcaps? A shot-up mailbox? Erotic graffiti on the Welcome to Georgia sign?”

&n
bsp; “He’s a spiteful old man, Dinah. I know him better than you do. There’s plenty you don’t know.”

  “Yeah, well, you could remedy that problem. What don’t I know?”

  “Look, Dinah, I’ve seen Dad’s dark side. He’s a user. He’s using Farraday, he’s using that clown Newby, and he’ll use you.”

  “Use me how?”

  “To get at me.”

  “Lucien, I would never take sides against you. You’re my big brother. In my book, you hung the moon and stars.”

  “Don’t turn me into a paragon of virtue, little sister. The last star I hung was the tinsel doodad on last year’s Christmas tree. And I thought you’d learned your lesson about men with feet of clay.”

  “Thanks for the reminder. I just hope Jacko doesn’t misinterpret your secret peccadillo as a motive for murder.”

  “Jesus! You know what your problem is, Dinah? You turn everything into a crisis, like it was fucking nine-one-one. I don’t know what lies your dad told to cover up his illegal sideline or what lies Nick told to cover up his redhead, but I’m not your lab frog and if you want to dissect something, go and dissect your own fuck-ups.”

  She drove the rest of the way to Crow Hill with her throat choked from road dust and what felt like the smoke from burning bridges.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Dinah hid out in her room during dinner and when K.D. returned at ten with a moony look in her eyes and began rhapsodizing about Seth, she closed her book, sprayed her neck and arms with DEET, and hoofed it downstairs to hide out on the veranda.

  The great room was quiet as a morgue. Apparently, everyone had turned in early for a change. She stopped by the bar, poured herself a snifter of brandy, and went to the back door and looked out. The coast was clear. There was a small, battery-powered lantern next to the door. She turned it on and went outside.

  The cool night air was like a tonic. She lit citronella torches and walked gingerly around the perimeter holding the lantern. Seeing no snakes, she set the light on a makeshift wine-box table, brushed off a deck chair, and lay down to unwind.

  She sipped her brandy and reflected on the day’s developments. If she were Cleon, she’d want to know if her spouse was cheating on her. Would he? What was it he’d said? When you’re near the end, it may be better to shade the truth for your own peace of mind or somebody else’s. Maybe it was better to let him die with his illusions intact. But were they? She thought back to his toasts, to Neesha for keeping her chin up, to Wendell for being loyal to a fault. Was he being ironic? And there was that business of the spoon pointing and his comment about everybody getting their just deserts. Was he warning the lovebirds that they’d pay a price for their infidelity?

  She spotted a pack of cigarettes on the floor next the table. Winfields. She picked it up and held it under the lantern. The package showed a hideous gangrenous foot with putrefied black toes under the caveat Smoking Causes Peripheral Vascular Disease. The Aussies didn’t mince words. I’ll quit tomorrow, she thought, and leaned over to a citronella torch to catch a light.

  It was a beautiful, star-studded night. Cicadas chirred and fireflies flickered. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a firefly. It seemed years. She and Lucien used to capture them in Mason jars when they were kids. They’d had a lot of fun together. Now they were virtual strangers.

  She blew smoke rings like little white lassos around the stars and watched the smoke evanesce. Like all her human bonds. She couldn’t hold onto the people she loved anymore than she could hold onto a star.

  Well, so be it. She could be philosophical. What was one more disconnect? She wasn’t going to cry about it. The brandy and the vessel-destroying cigarette had cauterized her throat.

  “That’s the Southern Cross up there.”

  Jerusalem. Seth Farraday was quiet as snow.

  He appeared out of the shadows at the edge of the veranda and pointed upward. “It looks more like a kite than a cross. The Aborigines here in the Top End say it’s a stingray being chased by a shark.”

  “Sailor, photographer, astronomer. You’re like that old nursery rhyme, Tinker, Tailor.”

  “I couldn’t tailor a suit, but I’m a pretty fair hand with a yurt.”

  His exaggerated opinion of himself was becoming irksome. “It must be heady to excel at so many things.”

  “I’m just a dilettante. Like you.”

  The back door opened and a bright light strafed the darkness like a heat-seeking missile.

  “Well, looky who else can’t sleep.” Cleon stepped outside and shone a flashlight in their faces. “I’ve been exiled from the conjugal bed, y’all. Neesha’s up walkin’ the floor and boohooin’ to beat the band. Wants to send the children home to her mama. Thinks their little lives are gonna be permanently blighted by poor ol’ Desmond’s murder.” He shined his light on a chair at the far end of the veranda. “Drag that chair over here for me, Seth.”

  Seth brought the chair over and set it down next to Dinah.

  “Thank you, son.” Cleon turned off his light and lowered himself into the chair. “Well, what do y’all think? The young’uns seemed sprightly enough dealin’ with my death.”

  “Children are a lot more resilient than their mothers given them credit for,” said Seth. “I know I was.”

  If there was an implied criticism, Cleon ignored it. “My opinion exactly. Kids got their own agenda in this life and their own modus operandi for gettin’ what they want. They ain’t apt to fall apart because a couple of old farts cash in their chips.”

  Seth shook a Winfield out of the package, caught a light off one of the candles, and sat down across from Cleon. “Aren’t you going to ask me what my agenda is?”

  “I reckon you’re about to tell me.”

  “It’s to take you for a shitload of money and forget you ever existed.”

  Dinah became acutely aware of a chorus of frogs. She listened to them for what seemed an eternity before Cleon spoke.

  “At least you’re honest,” he said.

  She tried to see his face, but it was in shadow. She felt a swell of sympathy for him. He had done so many good things for her over the years. He hadn’t been a faithful husband or a model father to Wendell or Lucien, but he hadn’t molested anybody or let them go hungry and there was such a thing as forgiveness. With so little time left to him, it seemed ineffably sad that he would reap nothing but resentment and enmity from his sons. He was lucky to have K.D., who would never forget that he existed or let anyone else forget.

  “Yes, four strange children already and now I got me a fifth. Interestin’ all the odd things you’ve done. Tell us what you did at that monastery. Did y’all distill spirits and herbs like some of ’em do, or make cheese, or bake little loaves of nut bread?”

  “We got by mostly on alms.”

  “You were a beggar?” Cleon was shocked into subject-verb agreement.

  “A monk’s needs are simple—a bowl of rice, a straw mat to sleep on.”

  “Lord love a duck.” Cleon laughed so loud it must have woken the house. “It goes to show, don’t it? Enough temptation and a man’s agenda can turn on a dime.” He pushed himself out of his chair, still laughing. “I’m gonna go and have me a nightcap. Gotta gentle my nerves for the big meetin’ in town tomorrow.”

  “What big meeting?” asked Dinah.

  “I’ve arranged a consultation with a young estates and trust attorney who used to do some work for me down in Sydney before he moved north and hung up his shingle in Katherine. I recommended him to Dez and evidently they got on like a bush fire. Not only did Dez have the boy prepare his will, he chose him to be the executor. It’ll be a good while before any of the assets are released, but at least we’ll get a general idea what Dez had in mind. Me and him bein’ old cronies, he’ll have left somethin’ to me.”

  “Too bad you won’t have time to spend it,” said Seth.

  Cleon had no comeback.

  Dinah wa
tched him disappear inside the house and got up to go in, herself. At the door, she turned around. “You don’t know anything about him, Seth.”

  “I know he walked out on my mother.”

  “Then you should ask him why while you have the chance. Maybe his reasons are forgivable. Understandable, anyway. Take it from one who knows, it’s a terrible thing to go through life hating your father.”

  He didn’t answer and she went inside and climbed the dark stairs to her room.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “There you are! I been lookin’ high and low.” Cleon found Dinah in the great room playing solitaire. “You look tight as a string on a fiddle. Something worryin’ you?”

  “Oh, no.” Since absurdity knew no bounds.

  “Your motor’s been idlin’ too long, child. Ride into town with me for the readin’ of Fisher’s will. Neesha’s gone on ahead to do her shoppin’ and I could use some female companionship.”

  The day had unfolded on a geologic timescale. Breakfast was epochs ago, in the Precambrian period. While the earth’s crust slowly solidified, she’d read one of Mack’s mythology books and struggled with the concept of song lines. At ten, she phoned the number Jacko had given her, but he wasn’t in. Sometime during the Paleozoic period, she decided to accost Lucien and tell him just what she thought of his hurtful outburst yesterday, but she chickened out at the door to his room and took a jog instead. At two o’clock, she’d tried Jacko again. The woman she spoke to said he’d be in the Katherine office around four. The world seemed determined to make her wait.

  “Cat got your tongue? What d’ya say?”

  She wasn’t sure if he was inviting her to the reading or just for the drive, but either way she had no desire to sit around here waiting for the dinosaurs to come and go. And if she did attend the reading, she’d have even more information to pass on to Jacko. “A drive into town would be lovely.”

  “Then let’s roll.”

  In no time at all they were on the road, tooling down the rutted dirt track in Cleon’s plush, black Mercedes with Dinah rethinking Lucien’s advice to hold onto the paintings until the market improved. Why should she follow his advice? So what if she didn’t wring every last cent out of the sale? If she didn’t net the max, it would be, as Lucien so churlishly put it, her fuck-up.