My Island Homicide

by Catherine Titasey

  ‘What did Flora do?’

  ‘She got work in accounts at See Hops, then got pregnant. Mum and Dad nearly died until she married her boyfriend. They only left TI a few years back.’

  ‘Then Robby came back to work here?’

  ‘Yeah and I remember him being on a committee for something like education and employment. I can’t forget. I mean, can’t remember. And he was friends with Dave Garland, who’d come up here to teach, as a first year, I think. Most teachers were pretty green in those days, first years. Then I left for the Sunshine Coast.’

  He stopped abruptly, his fork suspended in front of him. Then he started eating. I wondered if he was thinking of Kuriz. I was sure she went missing around this time.

  Finally Jonah looked back up at me. ‘Yeah. Robby was unusual for an Islander, all right. He came back from the mainland as a teacher, with education, more qualified than them kole people. They would have been, wanem that word, not scared?’

  ‘Threatened? Intimidated?’

  ‘Them ones. Then money was stolen from that organisation, but people talked about him being blamed by the white men on the committee with him. But, he’s turned real bitter since then. When people like Arthur Garipati write to the Torres News, complaining about the government not giving money to Islanders, you seen them letters?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, people say Robby writes to Arthur and says white people wouldn’t need to be here if Islanders went to school and took up opportunities like school and uni and then got jobs. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Well, lots of Islanders see that as bad pasin, you know, bad fashion, bad manners, to criticise his own people. I think, good job.’ He paused, as if thinking about what to say. ‘You got to understand that some people here want to blame the government for all the problems in health and the way island people are out of work. They also wanna blame white people for taking jobs. I’ve heard Robby doesn’t agree with this. He says people gotta clean up their own backyard first. Those island people who claim to be speaking for all Islanders, like Arthur Garipati, they talk government talk and confuse the shit out of people like me, so we can’t argue. I no sabe government talk. Well, Robby, em got the words and education to fight back. They don’t like that either so chuckaway em, chuck him away.’

  ‘So I am guessing it wasn’t a surprise that he married a white woman?’

  ‘No, not at all. He spoke English more better than white people. He only ever went out with white women. He wasn’t put off by Europeans. Islanders have mocked him for being a coconut, you know, brown on the outside, white on the inside?’

  ‘Yes, I do know that one.’ I remembered at high school one day I had been called a coconut by a group of Aboriginal girls when I’d got an award in English. I remember thinking, Who cares what colour I am?

  ‘I think Robby is a good person. I just don’t have anything to do with him. We aren’t related and don’t work together. He reads and I go fishing. Anyway, I always been keep to myself since I been down south.’

  I couldn’t help but lean forward and run my fingers through his ringlets, feeling the hair spring back into tight spirals.

  ‘I’m so glad I found you,’ he whispered, kissing my hand. ‘I be like bethe.’

  ‘I’m so glad you found me. I was like driftwood, too.’ I hope I got that word right otherwise it would have spoilt a beautiful moment.

  Jonah pulled me to him. ‘Floating around till we one time got pulled into the same current.’ I did get it right. And it hit me: I meant a lot more to Jonah than any other woman, except Kuriz. And that was fine.

  Chapter 30

  At seven the following morning, Jack and I alighted from the car at the base of a concrete staircase of about a thousand steps to Dave’s unit. It was part of a duplex owned by Education Queensland, on the side of Millman Hill. Interestingly, it was just around the corner from Robby’s house, on the same block. Melissa did not have far to walk for her extra-marital dalliances, especially if she cut through the scrub.

  ‘I hope he’s showered and reading the morning paper,’ I said, huffing my way to the top.

  ‘Definitely don’t get the morning papers here. The morning papers arrive on the afternoon flight,’ said Jack, ‘but sometimes you don’t get them till the next day.’

  ‘So they’d be yesterday morning’s afternoon papers?’ Jack was thinking about that so I paused to catch my breath and admire the panorama: a rich green expanse dotted with scarlet flowers and white rooftops, criss-crossed with grey roads, with the gleaming blue sea beyond.

  ‘Now I get it. Yesterday morning’s afternoon papers.’

  Dave answered the door quickly, dressed for work and holding a piece of toast. The familiar woody aroma of brewed coffee made my tastebuds smart. I hadn’t had time for a coffee this morning.

  ‘We are executing a search warrant for evidence in relation to the murder of Melissa Margaret Ramu. The search will be recorded on this device here.’ Jack held up the field recorder and outlined Dave’s rights. He handed him the search warrant, which Dave took but didn’t read. He heaved a deep guttural umph. It was the same sound a corpse can make when it is moved for the first time and the stale, settled air is suddenly forced from the lungs.

  ‘What is this, David?’ A dark-skinned, thickset woman walked from the hallway, also dressed for work.

  ‘Leave it, Leilani.’ He said it meekly, as if he didn’t expect her to listen.

  Leilani turned to me. ‘You’re the boss, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, and we have a warrant to search your house.’

  Dave held out the search warrant and she snatched it from him. After a moment’s reading, she looked back at me. ‘You got this all wrong, sister.’ Her lips curled and she thrust her finger at me like I was a naughty child. ‘Come on, girls. We’re leaving.’ She grabbed a bag hanging from a chair and pushed past me. Two peanut-brown girls scurried around collecting schoolbags and lunchboxes and followed after her, heads down.

  We waited till the car started up downstairs and Dave called us in. Jack explained that Dave would have to accompany him to each room as the search was conducted and repeated the warning that anything he said could be used in court. I went around photographing each room as it was searched. The house was tidy, beds made, dishes washed and draining, no mess on the bench or anywhere, it seemed.

  ‘What’s in this room?’ asked Jack.

  ‘My office.’

  ‘Who uses it?’

  ‘Me, mostly. The girls get half an hour a day on the computer to check their Facebook, more if they have assignments.’ Dave was standing in the doorway. ‘Oh, no. I’ve just remembered something. Melissa left her purse and phone here on the last night.’

  I was at the doorway in a flash. He opened the bottom drawer of the desk and dug under some papers. ‘Obviously, I didn’t want Leilani to see them.’

  I took the soft leather wallet with the word ‘Goddess’ in a flowery silver scrawl and a basic model Next G Telstra phone.

  ‘I left early the next morning for the principals’ conference.’ He held out his hands in defeat. ‘I know this doesn’t look good but I want to explain about the scratches. It was quite innocent.’

  ‘You might want to get legal advice first,’ I said.

  ‘Listen, it was nothing. Melissa became hysterical after we . . . we were still in bed. She was hyped and racy. She said Robby suspected something between us and she wanted to end things. I begged her to wait and she lost it and scratched at me. It was out of character.’

  ‘Please, Dave,’ I said.

  ‘No, you don’t understand. She hadn’t been herself. In the last month or two, she had moments of being . . . I don’t know how you’d describe it, kind of like a kid who’d had too much red cordial.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  We went dow
nstairs and searched a large steel cupboard as well as the dinghy. The last thing was a shed on the rear boundary of the property. The yard, like Robby’s, was devoid of trees, plants or a vegetable garden, and the grass had gone to seed. It seemed a shame that so many public servants on TI, often on temporary contracts, neglected their yards, as if they didn’t want to invest their time and energy in a property that they would ultimately leave. Beyond the wasteland of a back garden and low cyclone wire fence I could see the wild green scrub of Millman Hill.

  ‘You use this shed?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Only to store the whipper snipper, which hasn’t worked for over a year. I use the school one occasionally.’

  Jack spoke into the recorder. ‘Aluminium shed, three by three metres, no lock on the door, broken hinge, door ajar. Not much inside.’

  Dave and I waited outside the tiny shed while Jack searched inside. He was listing his observations into the recorder: jerry can, whipper snipper, toolbox, spare cord, broken child’s bike. My ears pricked when he mentioned a lady’s shoulder bag hanging from a hook. I stuck my head in and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Like all sheds, there was the omnipresent smell of petrol, stale air and rotting grass.

  ‘What’s this, Dave?’ Jack asked as I photographed the dirt-smeared bag.

  Dave stepped in. ‘Oh, it probably belongs to one of my daughters. I hope there are no cigarettes in there. The oldest, she’s twelve, we’ve caught her sneaking out to smoke with her friends.’

  Jack had lifted the bag to the floor using a screwdriver; the dark brown stains on the bag looked suspiciously like blood. I put on some gloves, lifted the flap of the cloth bag and pulled out a large black-handled knife, crusted in a film of dark brown. The remaining contents – a plastic wristwatch, a pair of brown thongs, a small hair brush full of blonde hair and a broken gold neck chain – were covered in the same dried substance.

  Dave umphed again. ‘I don’t know anything about this stuff.’

  ‘David Garland,’ I said, ‘I am arresting you for the murder of Melissa Margaret Ramu. You don’t need to say anything, but anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of law.’ Dave umphed once more. ‘Please hand me your mobile phone. I’ll accompany you upstairs so you can get a toothbrush and change of clothes before we return to the station.’

  ‘This is all a mistake. A terrible mistake. You can’t possibly—’

  ‘Come on, Dave,’ said Jack. ‘You’ll need to spend a night or two in the watch house, so let’s go get your things.’

  Back at the station, Dave called his lawyer and I left the room so they could talk privately. Jack and I then recorded Dave’s refusal to participate in a record of interview, charged him with murder and fingerprinted him. He waited the next few hours in the interview room and at 2.30pm was escorted by Shay on the water taxi to Horn Island, where he’d catch the afternoon flight to mainland. He’d spend a night or two in the watch house and then be brought before a Supreme Court judge in Cairns. The judge would hear a bail application and determine whether he should be released pending a trial in the Supreme Court.

  To reward myself for this breakthrough in Melissa’s case, I hoped to flex off at four. But Jack rushed in, saying there was a woman in reception who was being harassed by her neighbour, Enid Bucket. I looked through the one-way glass. It was Liz Gardner, the woman with the striped hair who had demanded Jenny do something about her neighbour making faces at her.

  ‘Enid Bucket left feathers at the base of Mrs Gardner’s stairs,’ said Jack.

  ‘What sort of feathers?’ I asked, thinking if they were the soft, fluffy kind, no one would worry about them.

  ‘Bird feathers, obviously.’ Jack was frowning.

  ‘Okay, you got me there. Whiz over and check it out? It’ll take you 15 minutes.’

  He was back half an hour later. ‘It’s not good, Thea. The feathers had been placed in a circle. The wind had blown them by the time I got there, but I could see they had been put there on purpose. That means only one thing. Maydh.’

  I held up my finger. ‘Go back, please, and tell Ms Bucket that if she sets foot on Mrs Gardner’s property, she’ll be charged with trespass. And possibly animal cruelty if she got those feathers by foul means.’ I laughed at my unintended pun.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘By fowl means. Get it?’

  ‘You don’t get it, Thea.’ He walked off.

  The next morning, Jenny, long-faced, came in while I was waiting for a call from Prosecutions in Cairns. She was holding a container of sushi.

  ‘It’s a treat,’ she said. ‘I’ve lost another three kilos. I’ll share it with you because I am not hungry.’

  ‘What’s wrong? You’ve lost weight, you look fantastic and you’re running like you were born to. I’ve seen you with your running buddy. She looks like a Scandinavian goddess.’

  ‘That’s why I’m sad. Read this. It’s Astrid. She’s not Scandinavian. She’s Austrian.’ She handed me a complaint form.

  The manager of the Railway Hotel was accusing an Austrian bar attendant of stealing 2,000 dollars from her employer. She claimed the manager had been ‘touching me up’, and that the money had been subsequently stolen from her by persons unknown. Of course, she had done nothing to stop herself being caught on the security camera stuffing the cream-coloured cloth money bag up her shirt. Stupidity has no limits.

  ‘She’s so lovely and she was hoping to get residency through work, so she can stay in Australia.’ Jenny was shaking her head as Lency called out that the Cairns police station was on the phone. I motioned to Jenny to wait, while I grabbed the handset.

  Dave was granted bail subject to the usual bail conditions. He was also required to pay a 500,000 dollar surety, reside in Cairns and attend daily at the Cairns police station.

  I related the terms to Jenny.

  ‘I still can’t believe he did it,’ she said. ‘He’s facing a life sentence.’

  Chapter 31

  On Friday afternoon Jonah and I carried Phoebe in her box to Yenah’s house, with kitten formula in UHT containers and fresh mince. Yenah took hold of Phoebe and kissed her before placing her on the floor. She rushed towards two identical striped ginger fluffballs.

  ‘Are these Phoebe’s brothers?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ asked Jonah.

  ‘Yenah, did Jack get you to look after these two?’

  ‘It’s only for a while, not forever.’

  The three striped ginger fluffballs tore around the house, under the lounge and into the rooms, miaowing playfully. Each time there was a squeaky whine, Gapu, who was now an inside dog, opened one eye, listened, then went back to sleep.

  We spent another weekend at Friday Island with Buzarr and Sissy. There was something wholesome about eating straight from the garden and pulling fish from the sea, walking along the beach, swimming naked and making fires from driftwood or fallen branches. There was no rush except to fish on the tide before it turned or to shower before the sun set otherwise we’d freeze in the strong south-easterly, which Jonah insisted I call sager.

  ‘Lego Broken English. Sa, only way for learn.’

  ‘But I feel stupid when I make mistakes.’

  ‘No worry. Only me for mock you.’

  As usual, we arrived back on TI early Monday and collected Phoebe from Yenah’s place. At work, while I was wading through Melissa’s file and thinking about her pregnancy, I had a sudden and unusual thought – a pregnancy of my own. If I died, no-one would remember me or the work I did, solving, no, merely processing endless offending. I wouldn’t have solved the crime of the century nor rescued a child abducted from its bed. I’d be a name on a wooden cross until my parents erected a tombstone and then I’d be forgotten . . . unless I had children. If only I could have babies, I’d go and live on Friday Island with Jonah forever. I imagined myself holding a brown
cherub, walking beside Jonah as he collected firewood. I was pointing out the names of the trees and birds to the baby. What was I thinking? Weren’t fantasies supposed to involve numerous muscled men, clad in nothing more than black leather chaps and studded collars? But I couldn’t have babies. I had to get a grip.

  Thankfully Karen Jane Wakeham rang. ‘It was Melissa’s blood. Sorry, no fingerprints on the knife or any of that stuff, except a few of Melissa’s on the brush. The links of the gold chain were torn apart, say, in a struggle. And the knife was sharp, a Victorinox.’

  ‘A Victorinox?’

  ‘It’s the company that makes Swiss Army knives,’ she said with the enthusiasm of a salesman. ‘Popular with butchers. I know because I had a deceased, a butcher, whose femoral artery was severed by a Victorinox. His boss did it. The deceased had been knocking off the boss’s wife.’

  ‘You’re a well of information, Karen Jane Wakeham.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  All right, give me drunken fights, street riots and allegations of sorcery any day.

  Later that afternoon Robby called in with Alby.

  ‘I need to know the facts, not the fiction flying around the island. Has he done a runner?’ Alby clambered onto Robby’s lap. ‘Look what that man’s done to him.’ He motioned to Alby. ‘Constantly c-l-i-n-g-i-n-g.’

  ‘Dave’s in Cairns on bail and cannot return to TI.’

  ‘He might disappear.’

  I reached over to the printer and took some blank paper from the tray. I slid it across to Alby with some red and blue pens. He moved into the chair beside Robby.

  ‘No judge would have refused Dave bail. Our case is not water-tight, he’s not a flight risk, and it’s unlikely he’ll commit another offence. And he’s paid a 500,000 dollar surety.’

  Robby’s breathing was laboured. Alby was scribbling away, his tongue moving back and forth along his lower lip. Robby had wrapped his arms around himself, holding himself together. ‘He should not have the luxury of freedom. He has denied that freedom to my wife.’ He pointed to Alby. ‘He has denied him a mother.’