Ghostly Hitchhiker Box Set

by Rodney Strong

‘Definitely the second one,’ Oliver told her.

  (I’m fine.)

  ‘I’m not surprised. Possibly the only love she knew turned out not to feel the same. That’s the sort of thing that hurts in here.’ She pointed to her heart.

  (Yes! She gets it.)

  ‘If it helps, I think he was lying,’ Oliver lied. ‘I think he did care for Debbie, but losing someone you care about that much is always going to be painful, especially for a teenager, and even after all these years.’

  (Really?)

  Jennifer studied his face, then inclined her head just a fraction in acknowledgement to what he was doing.

  ‘Yes, absolutely,’ she said. ‘Makes perfect sense.’

  (Oh. I thought…Can I go watch TV now?)

  ‘We’re going to watch TV,’ Oliver told his wife.

  She followed him down the hallway. ‘I hope you remember these skills when it happens to Rose,’ she said with a pat on his bottom.

  ‘I’ll have forgotten by the time she’s twenty-five,’ he replied.

  ‘Oh you’re in so much trouble,’ Jennifer laughed.

  NINETEEN

  Completely unaware of the storm that was about to show up at his front door, Oliver spent the next morning going about his usual routine of corralling, cajoling, and bribing his children out the door on time. After that he stopped at the supermarket for one of the many visits each week to top up the fruit and cracker supply, the two things the children constantly motored through.

  Back at home he had his head in the walk-in pantry picking up bits of rubbish that had made it agonisingly close to the bin before failing at the last step, when the doorbell rang.

  Prior to the hitchhikers making their appearance, any unannounced visitor was usually trying to sell him something. Since then it was just as likely to be the police.

  At least he wasn’t investigating a current murder case, so it was probably someone telling him that he absolutely needed to switch power companies because theirs was way better. Approaching the front door his optimism wavered a little as he caught sight of a sliver of a man through the glass window that ran from floor to ceiling beside the solid door. Even though it was the merest of glimpses there was something familiar enough to make him wary as he turned the lock and pulled the door open.

  ‘Mr Atkinson. We have a problem,’ Detective Wilson said.

  ‘Oh? What’s that?’ Oliver replied, while thinking those six words spelt a lot of trouble for him.

  ‘May I come in?’

  ‘Is this an official visit?’

  Wilson smoothed his tie down and pulled his suit jacket straight. ‘I’m here indirectly, yet with a hint of officialdom. Does that answer your question?’

  (No.)

  Oliver stepped to one side and directed the detective into the lounge with a wave of his hand. Neither of them spoke again until they were sitting on opposite couches. Oliver surreptitiously nudged one of Reed’s socks under the seat with his foot.

  ‘Yesterday morning I procured for my uncle, and therefore for you, the location of Nick Rawlings. Someone who was involved, or at least questioned, in relation to the disappearance of Debbie Judkins.’

  Oliver felt that there was less a hint and more a headbutt of officialdom going on.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied.

  ‘Did you speak with Mr Rawlings?’ Wilson leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs.

  ‘I suspect you know that I did.’

  ‘I didn’t know actually, but thanks for confirming it.’

  ‘Has he filed some sort of complaint? We were only asking some questions.’

  ‘We?’ Wilson seized on the one word Oliver instantly regretted. ‘And who was the other part of the we? It wasn’t Violet Tumbleton by any chance?’

  ‘Not unless she aged sixty years,’ Oliver replied.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Nothing. No it wasn’t Violet. It was someone helping me do some research.’

  Wilson pursed his lips as if Oliver’s reply left a sour taste in his mouth.

  (Why don’t you tell him it was Alice?)

  I will, if I have to.

  ‘So has he filed a complaint?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t. Mr Rawlings was found dead at 1.33am this morning in his apartment. We are currently not treating his death as suspicious. Yet.’

  (No. That’s a lie, he’s not dead!)

  Oliver took a moment to sift through the words left unspoken. ‘If his death is not being treated as suspicious, then why are you here?’ he finally asked.

  Wilson unfolded his legs and leaned forward, placing his hands on his knees and fixing Oliver with an expression devoid of emotion. ‘Because, Mr Atkinson, I find it damn suspicious that less than twenty-four hours after I let you know where he is, the man ends up dead.’

  (Stop saying that.)

  ‘You can’t think I had anything to do with it,’ Oliver protested. ‘I needed to question him not kill him.’

  ‘Mr Atkinson, either you are the deadliest man in Wellington, or the unluckiest. Either way, I want you to tell me everything, every tiny little thing, that you and your research partner….’ His fingers twitched on his knees and for the briefest of moments Oliver expected him to conjure up air quotes, but they remained firmly in place. ‘…said to Nick Rawlings.’

  It took twice as long as the actual conversation to recount. It didn’t help that Debbie spent the entire time calling Wilson names, which was quite off-putting when she ran out of the standard ones that kids came up with and started getting creative.

  When Oliver finished, Wilson leaned back in his seat and took a deep breath.

  ‘That doesn’t sound like a man in the frame of mind to take his own life,’ he finally said.

  (He would never do that!)

  ‘But,’ Oliver began slowly, not sure he wanted to put the thought out into the world, ‘it does suggest a motive for murder.’

  The lack of reaction to this announcement confirmed his suspicion that the thought had already occurred to Wilson.

  ‘In what way?’

  Oliver refused to be drawn into the test and sat silently, first staring at Wilson, and then when that became uncomfortable, picking bits of food off the couch and thinking of banning the children from eating anywhere other than in the back yard where dropped crumbs became the birds problem.

  After about thirty seconds Wilson let out a soft sigh and readjusted his jacket, taking a moment to shuck his cuffs. ‘Like I said, there is nothing to indicate this is anything but a tragic end to a life. At 1.33am a neighbour heard an unfamiliar sound coming from Mr Rawlings’ apartment. The neighbour was up late studying. She was on friendly terms with Mr Rawlings, enough to be concerned for him.’

  ‘What was the noise?’ Oliver interrupted.

  ‘I’m disinclined to reveal that at this time, or the name of the neighbour,’ Wilson added, as if reading Oliver’s mind. ‘She called the police, who attended the scene, and using their judgement, they entered the premises and found Mr Rawlings…are you sure you want to hear this?’

  (No!)

  ‘Leave out the gory details,’ he said.

  A faint smile crossed the detective’s face. ‘I always do, except in this case there are no gory details. Mr Rawlings was lying on top of a broken coffee table. It appears that he may have fallen.’

  ‘Or was pushed.’

  ‘The empty bottle of wine and equally empty bottle of anti-anxiety medication would suggest otherwise.’

  Inside Oliver’s head came the sound of sobbing.

  ‘I think that’s enough details for now,’ he said quickly.

  Wilson’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Given what you’ve told me I think I’ll go back to the scene and see if I can find the journal he spoke of.’

  (We should go too.)

  Are you sure? That’s where Nick died.

  (I’m the only one who knows what the poem said. You’ll never find it without me there.)

  Oliver realised that Wilson had stood up. H
e got to his feet and led the way to the front door. ‘Of course, you might not know it when you find it,’ he said as they stood on the driveway.

  ‘I think I might know a poem when I see it,’ Wilson said with the faintest hint of a smile.

  ‘Yes,’ Oliver replied, his face warming. ‘But I understood that Nick was a prolific poet back then, there could be hundreds of poems to sift through.’

  ‘Half of police work is sifting through a haystack to find the needle. Besides, I’m guessing that not that many poems have a name scrawled over them.’

  He nodded firmly and strode back to his car.

  (You didn’t try hard enough.)

  He would have known something was up if I’d pushed any further.

  (Now we’ll never get to see the poems he wrote for me.)

  Oliver waited while the unmarked police car did a U-turn before heading towards the corner.

  You’ve already seen them.

  As the car disappeared he spotted his neighbour from across the road checking her mailbox, and turned his head to hide the smile that played across his face. It was far too early for the mail, but it wasn’t far too early for someone, dying of curiosity, to find an excuse to come outside. He turned back and waved to her, and she hesitantly waved in return, shuffling on the spot as if unsure whether to race across the road and see who the latest in a long line of strange visitors to the neighbourhood was.

  Oliver solved her dilemma by going inside and locking the door. Not that he thought she would come bursting through it wielding the morning paper like a sword and demanding to know. But it wasn’t worth the risk.

  To be fair to the woman, ever since he’d started picking up the ghostly hitchhikers there had been some interesting visitors, including police and murderers, although not typically at the same time. It was usually a quiet suburban street and Oliver had livened it up on several occasions, a fact not all of his neighbours were thrilled about.

  Once safely in his kitchen he dialled Alice and let her know the latest news. As he was speaking, he couldn’t help thinking that half his existence these days involved repeating conversations. It was lucky that he wasn’t currently working on a book, otherwise there was a danger that either real life would sneak into his manuscript, or elements of his fictional story would creep into his retelling. That had happened once before when he’d spent five minutes telling someone about a one-armed man, only to eventually realise he was quoting bits from a thriller he was working on.

  ‘So who killed him, and why now?’ Alice said. She coughed, a single hacking sound that rapidly duplicated itself again and again, going on so long that Oliver began to consider calling an ambulance.

  ‘Are you alright?’ he asked once she finally had control.

  ‘As a ninety-seven year old can be,’ she replied in a dismissive tone. ‘Anyway, like I was saying, why now?’

  ‘It could be a coincidence and have nothing to do with this.’

  ‘So on the same day that we talk to the man, and he offers to dig out an old journal with the name of someone who might be connected to a murder, a random stranger breaks into his home, kills him and makes it look like a suicide? Just how many enemies do you think a director of a gallery has?’

  ‘You sound like Detective Wilson.’

  ‘No need for insults, Oliver.’

  (I’m lost. Was Nick murdered or not?)

  ‘Sorry. I do agree with you. There’s no way this was a coincidence. So you’re right, the two big questions are, why now and how did the murderer know Nick was digging out his old poems? Except…’ A thought tugged at the edges of his brain.

  ‘Go on,’ Alice urged.

  ‘Except… they could be the same answer. The why and the how. Let’s assume that Nick did as he said he would, and went home last night to find his journal. And let’s say he found it and came across the name. Maybe it was a name he remembered, and maybe he knew how to get hold of that person, and thanks to us he put two and two together and decided this person was the murderer. This person ruined his life back then. Maybe he contacted the person and let him know that he knew, and was killed because of it. No, I’m sorry, I don’t think that makes a lot of sense.’

  (No, it doesn’t)

  ‘Yes, it does. At least as far as theories go. I only counted three maybes which puts it squarely in the possible camp. If we ran with that theory though, how would we find out who he called?’

  ‘If Amanda was here we could use her contact in the phone company,’ Oliver said.

  There was a long silence on the line and he wondered if he’d said something wrong.

  ‘Well she’s not here, so what’s our alternative?’

  ‘Have you still not heard from her?’

  ‘Does this sound like the voice of someone who’s overdue granddaughter has gotten in touch?’ Alice snapped.

  Oliver didn’t reply.

  (That’s the voice that Mum would use when she was super angry with Dad. I heard it a lot.)

  ‘We could ask Detective Wilson, but he’s not likely to give us the information. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t requested it for himself already.’

  ‘So we just sit back and let him catch the murderer then,’ said Alice. ‘We can work the Debbie angle.’

  (Oi, I’m not an angle.)

  ‘Debbie objects to your use of geometry similes, but it makes sense. Or.…’

  ‘Or we can do the very thing that has annoyed Detective Wilson for the last two years and investigate a current murder.’

  Oliver thought it was a stupid idea.

  (I thought you said stupid was a mean word.)

  For people, not ideas.

  (How am I supposed to learn stuff when you adults have different rules.)

  ‘I think that he and I have reached some level of understanding in our relationship, and it would be foolish to do anything to jeopardise that.’

  Alice didn’t answer straight away, as if waiting for him to finish his sentence.

  He sighed. ‘But, what the hell.’

  Alice’s cackling laugh made him wince. ‘Come and pick me up and we’ll visit the neighbour. She might know more than she realises.’

  ‘The police will still be at the apartment!’ he protested.

  ‘No, they won’t. Apart from Detective Wilson they all think he killed himself. I guarantee they won’t be there.’

  With another sigh he agreed to pick her up in thirty minutes, hung up, looked at the dirty dishes on the bench, sighed again, then grabbed his car keys and jumped into the car.

  (Are we going to see Nick?)

  ‘No, the body…I mean he will have already been moved. We’re just going to talk to his neighbour.’

  (Oh.)

  ‘Are you alright?’ He merged onto the motorway and noted the traffic control sign announcing hidden queues ahead due to roadworks. Given he saw it coming half a kilometre away he felt the sign was a little misleading, but ultimately he was stuck crawling for five minutes before suddenly everyone sped up and he zoomed past the block without seeing a single orange cone.

  (I guess so. I mean, everyone is dead already, right? Apart from Beth? So I guess one more doesn’t matter.)

  Oliver blinked at the bluntness, then realised that was just how kids saw the world. He hoped that if anything happened to him Reed and Rose would take longer than an hour to move on.

  Alice was wearing the same grandmother persona that she’d worn to interview Jasper. She grinned when she saw him examining it.

  ‘You said the neighbour was studying, which means they’re likely to be a young student. And what young student could resist the grandmother of Nick Rawlings appearing on their doorstep, because…’ she put on a croaky, slightly befuddled voice, ‘…he was supposed to pick me up from the bus station but he didn’t come and I had to take a taxi and now he’s not answering his door, and I have these delicious home cooked muffins for him.’ She patted the basket on her lap, currently covered with a small cloth and emitting saliva induci
ng wafts of chocolate and banana.

  ‘The basket is a little too fairy tale-ish, don’t you think?’ Oliver said as he turned down the driveway.

  ‘You think they’ll get suspicious that I’m… what? Going to rob them using the muffins as a distraction?’

  He glanced across in time to see her sly grin, and shook his head in resignation.

  (They smell good. Do you think she’d let us have one?)

  ‘You can’t even taste them.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Alice said.

  He tapped the side of his head.

  ‘Has Amanda checked in yet?’

  ‘No,’ Alice replied. ‘I’m sure she’s fine. From what I understand it wasn’t supposed to be a dangerous job.’

  ‘Do you know what she was doing?’

  ‘I don’t ask. And unless she needs my help, she doesn’t tell, you need to learn that lesson if you’re going to be her new Alice.’

  ‘Her new what?’ Oliver swerved in surprise.

  ‘Don’t sound so shocked. I told you before, she’s going to need someone to look out for her when I’m gone. Although, given your track record over the last two years, I think I’ll outlive you.’

  Oliver looked over to see if she was smiling, but there was a thoughtful look on her face. And she was probably right. He had thought this time was going to be different. No deaths, no murderers trying to add him to their tally. It seemed like a lifetime since he’d told Jennifer it was going to be a simple retrieval case.

  Nick Rawlings had lived in an old office block converted into apartments. Most of the city these days was either converted buildings or condemned buildings. Wellington was built on a major faultline and at risk of a catastrophic earthquake, and periodically some older buildings were shut down as a risk to public safety, which seemed ironic to Oliver as during the last big earthquake it was the newer buildings that suffered the most damage.

  The building sat on a corner, with the front facing a busy street, and smaller one way streets running either side of it. Oliver parked down one of the side streets.

  ‘Lots of exit options,’ he commented as they stood on the pavement.

  ‘Now you’re starting to think like a criminal,’ Alice said with approval.