Murder and Mayhem

by Hamilton, B L

  Rosie gave a dismissive wave and took another bite.

  “Mmm… no, keep reading. It sounds like you might be coming to another interesting bit.”

  I took a bite of my sandwich, washed it down with Milo and wiped the lace-edged napkin across my mouth, leaving a streaky chocolate smudge.

  “Ross is going to have to give that a good soak,” Rosie said.

  *****

  Danny woke with the jumbled fragments of a dream cobwebbing his head. He looked at Nicola asleep on his chest, her coppery hair fanned across his body. She had a look of contentment on her face. He gently extracted his arm from beneath her and sat on the edge of the bed rubbing his face.

  Nicola stirred. “Where are you going?” she asked as she peered out through sleep-laden lids.

  “I’m not going far, only to the bathroom.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Danny leaned down and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’m just going to have a shower. Go back to sleep,” he whispered and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

  As he crossed the room, moonlight shone in through the window and caressed his legs and broad shoulders. The muscles of his body rippled. When he turned on the bathroom light a golden halo formed around his head.

  Nicola slipped out of bed and followed him.

  Danny turned on the shower and as he stepped under the pounding jets he reached out and took her in his arms and they made love as tears ran down her cheeks.

  * * *

  As they lay curled up in bed, their arms wrapped around each other, Danny asked, “Did you meet anyone after Steven left?”

  “No. Not for a long time. When I moved to San Francisco I found employed with a law firm in the city. At around the same time, a new associate joined the firm, and a couple of weeks later we started dating. But, after a couple of months, James started to become really possessive and I didn’t want to get into another relationship like that so I broke it off. It was hard because we often had to work together. He’d send me flowers and leave notes on my desk and messages on my phone and emails. He even called by the house and dropped notes in my mailbox.

  “I told him several times it was over and asked him to stop bothering me, but he persisted. When I told him that no matter what he did it wasn’t going to change how I felt, he became really unpleasant and the phone calls became abusive.”

  “So, what did you do?” Danny asked.

  “I thought about reporting him to my superiors for sexual harassment but knew if I did that, it might make things awkward with the other people in the office. So, I decided to move house and find somewhere else to work. I moved to Mill Valley and got the job in Terra Linda, near the Northgate Mall…, and changed my name back to Madison.”

  “It must have been really hard for you to start over, again?”

  “It was. The worst part was being away from my family. But after a while I settled in to the new job. And I love living in Mill Valley. Now I work long hours and pretty much keep to myself. What about you, Danny? Did you find someone?”

  Danny ran his fingers through her hair and thought about it for a while. Finally he took a deep breath and allowed all the painful memories he’d fought so hard to forget, to surface again.

  Maybe it was time.

  “Yes, I did. Or thought I did, at least for a while anyway.” He stopped, the words binding in his throat.

  Nicola felt his heart pounding against her. In the distance she could hear planes circling overhead–and the faint rumble of traffic on the freeway. Voices drifted up from the street. Pale moonlight crept in through the window and washed over their faces and along the back wall creating dancing shadows from the trees outside shifting in the wind.

  As the memories surfaced somewhere deep inside, they rolled hesitantly off his tongue.

  “I usually surf with the same bunch of guys every morning but we don’t engage in conversation except to discuss surfing conditions, or the weather.

  “We’re out there at daybreak as the sun comes up over the horizon reflecting on the surface of the ocean in a fiery glow. There aren’t many people around at that hour so we tend to notice strangers.” He looked down as though studying his hands and didn’t look up when he said, “One morning I came off the waves and saw this woman sitting on the beach watching us. I just walked past not paying her much attention but the next day she was back, and the day after. She was tall, taller than you, with short cropped blond hair and looked a little like Elle McPherson–with a smile and body to match. She had deep blue eyes, the color of the ocean, with gold flecks in the iris. She was a body surfer and wore this stunning crimson red one-piece swimsuit that showed off every inch, every curve of her bronzed body–and sometimes she’d wear a red two piece. Any wonder the all guys noticed her. With that swimsuit and that body you’d have to be blind not to. I found out later that she loved to wear red–it looked great with her blond hair and tan.”

  “Pretty soon a couple of the guys started chatting to her and when we were sitting on our surfboards waiting for a wave they’d talk about her. But I didn’t take much notice. I wasn’t interested in what they had to say. I was there to surf–not to gossip.

  “One morning I came down to the beach and she was there, earlier than usual. She called out ‘Hi’ as I headed for the water, so I smiled and returned the greeting. The next morning she was back and as I walked past she spoke to me again. Just, hi, how you doing–nothing earth shattering or profound. I said it looked like another sweltering hot day and she agreed. When I came off the waves I dropped down on the sand beside her and we sat for a while looking out at the ocean neither of us saying much. We didn’t even exchange names.

  “A couple of days later we started chatting. She told me her name was Sara Summers and said she had moved from up north somewhere and didn’t know anyone. She said she loved to surf. Pretty soon we started meeting every morning, and then we had coffee. Then we started to meet up for lunch at weekends, and finally I asked her out to dinner. After about six months we started dating regularly.” Danny walked over to the bar fridge and grabbed a couple of bottles of water. He handed one to Nicola, adjusted the pillows, leaned back against the headboard and took a long drink.

  “Later that year I planned a trip to the U.S and when I asked Sara if she wanted to come with me she jumped at the chance. We traveled through the mid-west, and had a ball. When we got home I asked Sara to marry me but she said things were pretty good the way they were so why change. Not long after that we moved in together, and life was good.

  “Neither of us wanted children at that stage, we were both happy to be free to do whatever we wanted. To come and go as we pleased. The I.T. Company I worked for had the Government contract so I was sent all over the country setting up special software for their hardware. Sara never went with me but every year we’d travel to a different part of the U.S. and we’d have a great time. I was happy and I was in love for the first time since Emma. Sara was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and Sara said she felt the same about me.” Danny stopped and gulped down half the water and sat with a faraway look in his eyes.

  Even though Nicola could see the pain in his eyes she had to know what happened between him and Sara so they could move on with their lives and make a fresh start with no secrets between them. She didn’t want any ghosts from the past to come back and haunt them.

  Danny wrapped his arms around Nicola and gathered her to him she could feel the tension in his body and sensed a change in his mood.

  In a voice little more than a whisper, he continued, “One Friday in October, two years ago, I returned home after spending two weeks in Canberra working on a new program for the Department of Defense, and found the house empty. It was only three in the afternoon so I figured Sara would still be at work. I raced upstairs and had a shower and when I was finished I went down stairs to the kitchen to get something to eat. Suddenly it dawned on me that something was not right. So I raced upstairs and opened the bathroom c
abinet and noticed all Sara’s things were missing; her shampoo, her toothbrush, all her makeup, everything was gone. I went into the bedroom to check her closet. It was empty except for a couple of hangers, and part of a broken shoelace from one of her old sneakers on the floor. When I looked through her drawers I saw all her clothes were missing.

  “At first I couldn’t figure out what was going on so I went through the house going from room to room checking every cupboard, every drawer. I pulled the cushions off the sofas, looked under the bed, behind the doors. I went through everything in the house and when I was finished I went through the garage, but, there was nothing there. Everything was gone. There wasn’t a trace of Sara anywhere. Not a CD or a bottle of nail polish, nothing. Not even a scrap of paper that was remotely connected to her. There was nothing that had her name on it. Everything was gone. Even the trash bins were empty. It was as though she had never existed.”

  “Oh, Danny, that’s terrible…”Danny raised his hand to stop her. Now that he’d started–he just wanted to get it over and done with. He wanted the pain to go away.

  “I was shocked, completely shattered. I had no idea where she could have gone–or why she left. When I called her cell phone and was told the number was disconnected that really threw me for a loop. I couldn’t understand why she would do that. When I called her office they said she resigned a week ago. Her boss said she rang and told him she wouldn’t be back. She gave no explanation. Said she’d be in touch. He asked me where to send her check. I told them I had no idea.

  “I figured there must be something wrong. How could she have disappeared so completely like that? So I decided to check everything again, thinking I must have missed something. But there was nothing. All she’d left behind was the faint smell of her perfume that seemed to cling to everything, and the sound of emptiness that resonated through the cold, dark house.

  “I wandered from room to room in a daze, trying to go over everything in my head, looking for some sign to tell me she was unhappy. But, there was none that I could remember. But there must have been something that I hadn’t picked up on, otherwise why would this have happened. Everything had been fine between us when I left–or so I thought. But obviously it wasn’t.” He stopped and shook his head.

  “We hadn’t had an argument and I’d called nearly every night. She never said anything about being unhappy, or worried. She was her usual self, so I couldn’t understand what had happened. When I finally realized she was not coming back, I sat on the floor staring at the bed for I don’t know how long, feeling completely devastated. Then I did something I have never done before, or since–I got drunk. I don’t mean a few drinks, I mean I was paralytic. Completely off my head.

  “For three days and nights I didn’t come out of the haze. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep. All I did was drink. I tried to find my way through the jungle of emotions I felt, but didn’t know how to get through to the other side. I didn’t know the answers to the questions. Hell, I didn’t even know what the questions were anymore. I didn’t know what else to do, so I drank. And when there was no more alcohol in the house I just sat on the floor, in a drunken stupor. I couldn’t even walk–I had to crawl to the bathroom. Finally I realized alcohol was not going to solve anything. It wasn’t going to bring Sara back.” The air was filled with brittle silence.

  “So what did you do?” Nicola asked.

  “What could I do? I pulled myself together and went back to work and tried to put it all behind me.” Danny shrugged. “Life goes on regardless, doesn’t it?”

  Danny closed his eyes and listened to the rustling of leaves outside the window as a breeze came up–the slamming of a door−and Nicola’s slow steady breathing.

  “I never heard from Sara again.”

  THIRTY

  We walked into the room and looked around. We were not expecting to see Chartreuse and Louanna because Chartreuse had rung early that morning to tell us they had something they had to do but assured us they’d be here tomorrow. We saw Linda and Grace sitting at the back of the room and, after stopping to have a brief word with Mr. Takamura, headed in their direction.

  “How are you doing today, Linda?” I asked.

  “Okay, I guess,” she said.

  “How about you, Grace, are you all right?” Rosie asked.

  “Oh, full of beans, never better, Hon,” Grace answered jovially as she moved down a seat and patted the one she’d just vacated–beside Linda. “Here, Bee, why don’t you sit between us?”

  Linda did a quick sideways shuffle leaving two vacant chairs in the middle. When I sat next to Grace, Rosie sat beside me, next to Linda.

  “Well, here we are all nice and cozy like a couple of bugs in a rug,” I said, smiling.

  Linda jumped up and looked around. “Bugs, what bugs? There aren’t any bugs around here, are there?” She bent over and looked under the chair

  “No, Linda,” I said. “It’s just an old Australian expression.”

  “Don’t worry, Linda I’m sure they check regularly for vermin,” Rosie assured her.

  I noticed a spider in the corner not far from Linda’s head. Knowing her propensity to bolt I decided it best not to draw her attention to it.

  “So,” Rosie said when she noticed the spider and decided a change of subject might be for the best. “So, what happened to Sara? Did she leave Danny for another man?”

  I screwed my mouth into a tight little moue while I considered the answer, and tossed out my musings. “I thought so, at first, but….” I shrugged.

  “But what?”

  I scrunched up my face and imparted the bad news. “It turns out Sara was already married.”

  “Married? You never told me Sara was married. Did Danny know?”

  “No. I knew of course, but decided not to say anything.”

  “Oh, poor Danny,” Rosie said forgetting it was only a story. “What happened? Did she go back to her husband?”

  “No… Not exactly…”

  “What then?”

  “A shark ate her.”

  Linda nearly choked on the bottled water she was drinking.

  “What do you mean, a shark ate her?” Rosie asked as she patted Linda’s back in a déjà vu moment. “You okay, Linda?”

  Linda wiped her hand across her mouth and nodded. Unlike us Aussie who grew up on the beach, I figured Linda had probably never seen a shark except for maybe the fake one Universal Studios uses to scare the bejezus out of unsuspecting tourists.

  “Holy mother of God!” Grace uttered and crossed herself not once, but twice. As I suspected–a nun. Can I pick ‘em or what?

  “A shark ate her! Oh, Dear Lord, how awful.” Grace crossed herself again, then kissed her thumbnail. “Was she a friend of yours, Bee?” she asked and gave me a sympathetic pat on the knee.

  I shook my head, and shrugged. “Nope.”

  Grace leaned forward and looked across at Rosie, sympathy etched in every line on her face. “Oh, Hon, she was a friend of yours. I’m so sorry.” Then she reached over and patted her on the arm.

  “Oh no, Grace. She wasn’t a friend of mine. I didn’t even know her!”

  “Oh, then who was she?” she asked, obviously confused.

  “Danny’s ex-girlfriend,” I said without fanfare.

  “Oh, I see. She was Danny’s ex-girlfriend,” she said but it was clear that she didn’t.

  “So, Danny is a friend of…” she looked pointedly at me hoping she chose the right sister, “…yours?”

  I raised an eyebrow in a golden arches moment and peered at her over the top of my glasses. “You might say that…”

  We contemplated our navel for a while.

  “I heard there was a lot of that in Australia this summer,” Rosie said as she picked at a loose thread on the hospital gown and watched the seam unravel.

  “What’s that, Hon?” Grace asked.

  “Sharks… eating people.”

  “Oh…!”

  “There’s a particularly scary one at Universa
l Studios.” Linda tossed out a glance from under her brow and picked at the skin round her left thumbnail. “Down in L.A. I saw it once.”

  Snap!!

  “Take a spear gun with you next time you go,” I offered.

  “You think I should?”

  “Works every time. And, a pair of flippers wouldn’t go astray either,” I said knowing with Linda it’s best to prepare for all contingencies.

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  *****

  Nicola could feel his heart hammering and see the pulse throbbing in his neck. She felt a shiver pass through his body and knew the worst was to come.

  “.... About a week later the partially decomposed body of a woman was washed up on a beach,” Danny said, “somewhere south of the city. The television and newspaper reports said it had been ravaged by sharks. When they gave a general description of the body, including details of an unusual tattoo, I knew it was Sara.”

  “Oh, Danny, I’m so sorry.”

  Branches on the tree outside the window brushed against the glass. The elevator pinged; a door down the hallway slammed; someone laughed. In the distance they could hear traffic on the freeway, the wail of a siren, a barking dog.

  “I contacted the local police and was able to identify the body from the unusual tattoo on her right buttock. It looked a little like Sara, what was left of her, but as Sara had taken everything with her when she left there was no DNA to use for comparison, so the police were happy to accept my word that it was probably her. They had no one else in their missing persons’ files that matched the description.

  Three weeks later the Federal Police came to see me. They told me the woman I had identified as Sara Summers was in fact someone called Jessica Meadows.

  “So it wasn’t Sara, after all,” Nicola said, relieved.

  Danny took a deep breath and let it out, slowly.

  “Yes, it was, at least the Federal Police seemed to think so. They told me Jessica had been placed in the witness protection program some years ago. She’d had plastic surgery and was given a new identity. They said, Sara… Jessica, was the wife of one of the biggest importers of cocaine into Australia and had testified against him during the trial in Darwin, and was about to testify at another trial for two murders she had seen him commit.