Bones of Contention

by Jeanne Matthews

  Em brought Fred’s sanger, which looked like an ordinary sandwich, and a plate of French fries—a/k/a chips. Easy-peasy. Dinah congratulated herself on adding several words to her Strine vocabulary.

  A shaven-headed man in dark glasses walked in and took a seat toward the back. He had a gaunt build and frowned as if he had a mouth full of vinegar. Fred and Em said “arvo” and smiled. He didn’t return their smiles or arvo back. Em showed him the blackboard specials, but he hardly looked. He ordered a green salad and an omelette in a nasal, American twang. Dinah pegged him for a bloke who couldn’t adapt.

  She finished her spag and Em brought her a gargantuan wedge of sponge cake dipped in chocolate and coconut. The lamington. Bloody good munga. Life was looking up. She cleaned her plate, tucked Fisher’s obituary into her tote, and left an Australian ten spot with a picture of Banjo Paterson and a fistful of shrapnel on the table.

  On her way out the door, she turned and said, “Bonzer lamington.”

  “Ta,” said Em, beaming. “You have a nice day now, dearie. Oo-roo.”

  “Oo-roo.” Dinah smiled at everyone and, high on sugar and renewed self-confidence, hit the road toward Black Point.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  She wended her way northeast along the Kakadu Highway at a calm and moderate speed. Her plan was to spend the night in Jabiru on the eastern edge of Kakadu National Park, obtain a permit from the Northern Land Council to cross the border into the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve, and start asking questions. If she couldn’t nose out anyone who’d seen Hambrick or Fisher or Wendell in Jabiru, she would press on to Oenpelli tomorrow and camp in the Rav. Depending on how fast she could get a permit, going on to Black Point from there would take half a day and she’d have to turn around almost as soon as she arrived as it wasn’t permissible to overnight on Aboriginal land.

  She wondered if she’d have a problem getting the permit. Surely if you were there already, a smile and friendly how-are-ya would suffice. If not, she could bluff her way in. She’d claim she was a World Heritage anthropologist, there to evaluate some newly discovered cave art or invasive species. Hadn’t they received the letter? There must’ve been a mix-up at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters.

  At the entry gate, she remitted the fifteen dollar fee and an Aborigine gentleman gave her a park map and a brochure. From this, she learned that the park boasted 280 bird species and 4,500 varieties of insect. She’d already met quite a few of the latter, kamikazes whose parti-colored remains slimed her windshield. The brochure further informed her that there were 128 species of reptiles in the park and three rivers named Alligator: the East Alligator, the West Alligator, and the South Alligator. Apparently, Alligator was a misnomer as there were no alligators in Australia, only crocodiles of which there were two kinds—salties and freshies. It seemed excessive. Were they that thick on the ground?

  The map showed a uranium mine near Jabiru, probably salting the entire region with polonium-210, turning the flora into flesh-eating mutants and the crocodiles into Godzillas. She pictured the inscription on her headstone.

  Dinah Pelerin, beloved daughter and sister,

  she lit up our lives.

  She sighed. In light of recent revelations, “bamboozled” was closer to the truth than “beloved.”

  Traffic was heavy. There were tour buses and campers, mud-caked bangers hot to pass, and lallygagging SUVs that pulled off the road at every turnout. There were groups of bicyclists and at one point, a wild boar trotted across the road. Black cockatoos with fantastic yellow tail feathers flashed through the trees like escapees from a Disney cartoon. Sundry other tufts of red and blue flickered in the treetops. Were the colors really that brilliant or did her Wayfarers distort them?

  She’d expected a mist-shrouded, primeval rain forest, but the road undulated gently across open savannah woodland with a thick undergrowth of grayish grass. In spots, the grass had been burned, probably to prevent the spread of wildfires. The eucalyptus trees, recognizable by their waxy green leaves, weren’t as tall here as the ones around Crow Hill. Some had dark, stringy-bark on the trunks with smooth white bark on the upper branches. Probably what the brochure called woollybutts. Some had a pinkish bark. Some were thorny and gnarled. The eucalypts were interspersed with low shrubs and wispy bushes, lesser cousins perhaps of the multifarious eucalyptus family.

  Side roads led to waterfalls, billabongs, wetlands, walking trails, and boat excursions. She wondered if the Suwannee, Cleon’s big honking boat, had been chocked full of drugs for Wendell to take back to the States. She willed herself to by-pass that mental side road. Later, she told herself.

  Sections of the highway had been washed out in the not too distant past leaving mounds of mud and debris, but erosion couldn’t explain a twenty-foot dirt minaret girded with elaborate turrets. She pulled over for a closer look. A sign at its base identified it as a Cathedral Termite Mound. The Land of Oz got weirder and weirder.

  In the late afternoon, she reached the intersection of the Arnhem Highway. Left led to Darwin, right to the Ranger Uranium Mine and Jabiru. The thought of driving through a fug of deadly polonium didn’t bolster her confidence. She waited at the stop longer than she had to. Maybe it wasn’t too late to turn back.

  Don’t wimp out now, she told herself. If the townspeople glowed in the dark, the guidebook would have mentioned it under Points of Interest. She turned right and after a short distance, Jabiru Drive branched off from the main highway and she followed it into town.

  Jabiru was a neat, orderly little town with what seemed like about three times as many gawping tourists as residents. She drove around and located the Northern Land Council, but it had already closed for the day. She parked and idled through the village shopping center. At the supermarket, she purchased a couple of Cadbury bars, a bottle of water, and a bottle of Schweppes tonic. She’d been looking forward to a gin and tonic for the last hour. She cursed herself for not buying the gin in Pine Creek. Alcohol was an intractable problem with many native peoples and she hoped Jabiru wasn’t a dry zone.

  “Is there a liquor store in town?” she asked the man at the checkout counter.

  “Hotels and restaurants serve alcohol, but the only place to buy takeaway is the golf course. You can buy a membership in cash at the bar.”

  “Thanks.” She hadn’t planned on joining any clubs while she was here, but why not. She’d seen the Jabiru Golf Club sign on the way into town and decided to go back for a bottle and assess its potential as a place to pick up information.

  When she returned to the car, it felt like an oven. She threaded her way through the traffic and back onto Jabiru Drive. When she turned into the club entrance, she was struck by the lushness of the greens. She knew nothing about golf, but the course looked beautiful. She proceeded directly to reception and applied for membership. The woman at the desk asked to see her driver’s license and she was forced to join under her own name. It didn’t matter. No one would think to look for her at the golf club.

  In the bar, she purchased a fifth of Tanqueray from a busy, cheerful man who, according to a rather prominent sign, had passed the Responsible Service of Alcohol course. There were a lot of people in the bar, laughing and gassing about their eagles and their bogeys. They all looked like tourists and she decided to find a place to spend the night and an eatery where the locals hung out.

  The dorm-like facilities at the Kakadu Frontier Lodge were okay, but the place was overrun by friendly Australian tourists and her purpose was to hobnob with locals. The Gagudju Holiday Inn on Flinders Street was her next stop. It was obviously a tourist Mecca, but who could resist a building laid out in the shape of a crocodile? She entered its open jaws into an airy lobby with crocodile-green floors and crocodile green chairs. It came as no surprise that a standard room cost an arm and a leg, but she was hot and road weary and it offered air-conditioning and a bed that didn’t require a ladder.

  She filled out a registration card and the white-bearded,
turbaned gentleman at the front desk asked for a credit card.

  “Silly me,” she said. “I wrote down the wrong license plate number. Could I have another registration form please?” The Mallory Hayes nom de guerre wouldn’t work if she had to use her credit card. She handed over her Visa and hoped the bank hadn’t revoked it because of one missed payment.

  The man looked at her askance, but gave her another form.

  “What’s a good place to meet the local people?” she asked as she filled in the form.

  “The Jabiru Sports and Social Club down by the lake is very nice.”

  “There’s a lake?” Suddenly, a cool dip sounded heavenly. The motel had a pool, but it was small and when she’d passed by, it was occupied by two clucking mothers and four infants in water wings. “Is swimming allowed in the lake?”

  “It’s not advisable. Inspectors pulled a nine-foot croc out of the lake yesterday.”

  “Is there a public pool?”

  “Our guests have the privilege of swimming in the town pool. It’s Olympic size and has eight lanes. Everything is clearly marked on the town plan.” He pulled out a map of the town and pushed it across the counter.

  “Thanks.” She picked up the map and her key card. “By the way, did a British journalist named Bryce Hambrick register at the hotel recently?”

  He shrank away from her. “The Englishman who was murdered?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you a police officer?”

  “I’m a reporter. For the London Times.”

  He became cagey. “You don’t have an English accent.”

  “It’s not a condition of employment.” She tried a big, Pine Creek kind of smile. “Have there been any rumors about Mr. Hambrick being sighted in the Kakadu area?”

  “I am no conduit of rumors, Miss…” he looked rather pointedly at her registration form, “Pelerin.”

  Not a conduit of charm either, thought Dinah. But maybe she’d give a little extra thought to her cover story.

  She carried her suitcase and tote bag up the stairs, which were the croc’s left front leg, and down the long, vertebral corridor to her room in one of the lower ribs on the second floor. The room was quite modern with a bright blue carpet and bedspread and a little balcony. The croc’s middle had been bifurcated into two long spines of rooms, separated by a courtyard and a small, fern-fringed pond. Her balcony faced the balconies on the other side of the beast.

  She took all of the pilfered items out of her tote except for the Glock and the flash drive and set them on the desk. Tonight she would nerve herself and read her mother’s letter. What seamy revelations could it hold that would make her feel any worse?

  It was already six o’clock, but a cool dip before dinner would refresh her spirits. With unaccustomed foresight, she’d packed her bathing suit. She put it on under her street clothes and looked at the town map. The Olympic pool was within easy walking distance. She grabbed a bath towel and retraced her route through the croc’s anatomy and out into the tropical sunshine.

  After the air-conditioned interior, the muggy heat hit her like a blast furnace. She could feel her pores begin to drip. She cut across the parking lot and started down Leichhardt Street. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a tan car pull out of its parking space in front of the hotel and creep to the exit. She crossed the street and, for no particular reason, glanced back over her shoulder. The driver sat at the exit, apparently waiting to enter the street, but there were no cars to wait for.

  She walked on for half a block and, on the spur of the moment, turned down a side street behind a large blue house. She stopped and futzed with her map as if she were lost and waited. In a matter of seconds, the tan car turned in after her and glided past.

  She recognized the driver right away. It was the American from the Leaping Flea Café in Pine Creek. The man who didn’t smile.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Keeping her eyes peeled for the tan car, she doubled back to the hotel. She crossed the hotel parking lot on hyper alert and hurried into the Crocodile’s open jaws. Who was following her? Was he a hit man for Wendell, a private eye for Cleon, a spy for Jacko? No, he wasn’t one of Jacko’s men. She’d heard the guy order lunch and he was definitely an American.

  Safely back in her room, she fastened the door chain and placed a chair under the knob. No one from the lodge could know where she was and she hadn’t noticed anyone on her tail when she left Katherine. Was she overreacting?

  She mixed a gin and tonic and reconsidered her decision to play detective, acknowledging that if she gave proper thought to these crazy impulses in the first place she’d have a lot less reconsidering to do. In light of the stalker, she was feeling less sanguine about going all the way to Black Point. If Hambrick had gone there by land, he would have had to come through Jabiru. If she couldn’t turn up a sharp-eyed witness who’d seen him here, she needn’t press her luck any farther. Tonight, she would go around to a few local hangouts, show the photos she’d brought, and hope for the best. So long as she kept her eyes open and did her detecting in public places, she’d be fine.

  The Manila envelope with her mother’s letter lay on the desk, mocking her. If she had the least iota of courage, she’d open it and read it right now. It was probably the farewell letter Lucien said Swan had written to Cleon. Her swan song to a dying man. No doubt it would be edifying. The dead had no use for postscripts.

  She left the letter where it lay, lit a cigarette and went out onto the balcony. She didn’t go back inside until dark.

  ***

  She found the Jabiru Sports and Social Club behind a gas station next to the lake. The club was well lit, but the closest parking space seemed a very long, dark way from the front door. A trace of fear skittered along her nerve endings. She opened the Rav’s window a crack. The shrilling of a thousand frogs pervaded the night and the acrid smell of wood smoke leached in through the vents. There was nobody in sight.

  A bleary crescent moon loitered over the lake. She scanned the shoreline. A dead log floated in the shadows not four feet from her front bumper. A dead log or a croc disguised as a dead log? She shivered.

  “Don’t think about it,” she said out loud. She closed the window, shut off the engine and scuttled toward the door.

  Once inside the restaurant, her fears dissipated. There was a mixed crowd, black and white, and a general hail-fellow ambience. She took a small table close to the kitchen, quickly ordered the pork almond ding and the squid in black bean sauce, and settled down to people-watch. She had her newspaper photos of Fisher and Hambrick at the ready, but looking around at all the good cheer and normalcy, she began to get cold feet. How could she just barge up to a stranger and start quizzing him or her about a grotesque murder?

  “This is your first day in Jabiru or I would have noticed you,” said a sonorous male voice behind her. He was tall for an Aborigine with inky black skin, a masonry of large, square teeth, and rows of raised, bead-like scars across his forehead.

  “I just arrived this afternoon,” she said, feeling lucky. Was it possible that the nosiest man in town had found her first? “My name is Mallory Hayes.”

  “Please call me Bill. My last name is formidable, an encumbrance needed only when filling out forms.” His accent wasn’t Australian, but Mack had expanded her ideas of what sounded and looked Aboriginal. Maybe Bill was another member of the Lost Generation, raised in New Guinea or someplace where scars were fashionable.

  “May I join you, Ms. Hayes?”

  “Certainly.”

  He sat down, sipping some sort of liqueur.

  “Do you live here in Jabiru, Bill?”

  “Yes, Jabiru has been my home for the last five years. I find life here more spiritually fulfilling. In the age of electronic communication, one can arbitrage from the back of beyond.”

  Bill was larding it on pretty thick, making sure she understood that he was a cut above the ordinary denizens of Jabir
u. He was obviously in love with the sound of his own voice, but she was willing to chum the waters for a few minutes in hopes of catching a useful lead.

  She said, “How fascinating. What sorts of commodities do you deal in?”

  “Wheat, ethanol, financial instruments. One must be flexible.”

  She said, “I was thinking exactly the same thing earlier today.”

  “Are you here with a tour?” he asked.

  “No. I’m an investigative reporter with the London Times.”

  “I knew it! You have the perceptive eyes of a journalist. What is it that you’re investigating?”

  “The murder of another journalist. Bryce Hambrick.”

  “A terrible thing. It was in all the papers. Was he a colleague?” His voice was tumescent with concern.

  “No. But my paper is giving the story a lot of coverage.”

  He nodded. “What do you journalists say? If it bleeds, it leads? Well-known journalist brutally murdered in an exotic location, no suspects. The public is voracious and must be fed. But what brings you to Jabiru? Mr. Hambrick was murdered on an island belonging to the Tiwi people.”

  She said, “The Cobourg Peninsula isn’t all that far from Melville by water. I’m looking into the possibility that Mr. Hambrick passed through Arnhem Land on his way to Melville. I know you must have seen his picture on the news.” She brought out the newspaper with Hambrick’s picture and showed it to him. “Did you by any chance see him come through Jabiru?”

  He scrutinized it for a hundred years, give or take. “No. I don’t think so. I’m probably just remembering the photograph.”

  Her food came. She picked at it and looked around the room for another interview prospect. “Do many people go overland to Black Point?”

  “Not many,” said Bill. “One must have a permit, of course, to go on to Oenpelli. It’s nearly three hundred kilometers from there and the track is quite arduous, often impassable.”

  “I assume there’s no record of Hambrick applying for a permit to travel overland through Arnhem Land, but is it possible he could have been a passenger in someone else’s vehicle? A local? Or somebody who did apply for a permit?”