Note Before Dying (Ghostwriter Mystery 6)

by Larmer, C. A.

  “She’s a he, actually.”

  “Whatever.” Gilda stared at the dog suspiciously. She had never been much of a pet person and didn’t intend to start now. She lifted her eyes to the living room and began to look around, first poking her head in the bedroom, then the kitchen, and finally, with a crinkled brow she peered into the tiny bathroom.

  “There’s no one else here,” Roxy told her, but Gilda needed to see it for herself.

  Finally, she relaxed a little and said, “What are you doing out here, shacking up in the sticks?”

  Roxy turned to the woodburner and bent down to stoke the fire. “I’m not shacking up; you sound like Oliver. I’m just looking after a man’s dog.”

  “A man you barely know, who’s held you hostage all morning, and is currently being questioned over Jed Moody’s murder.”

  Roxy swung back. “They don’t really think he did it, surely?”

  “Yes, I think they do. They’ve cautioned him, he’s asked for a lawyer.”

  “But he didn’t do it, Gilda. He’s not the type.”

  Gilda pulled off her coat and collapsed on the sofa with an exaggerated sigh. “Here we go again.”

  “What?”

  “You, trying to save somebody from themselves. How well do you know this guy?”

  Roxy turned back to the fire, deciding not to answer that. She secured the glass door and then stood up, hands on her hips. “Why are you even here, Gilda? How did you find me?”

  “Your new boyfriend gave me directions.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Yeah, well, lucky for you I just ran into him at the Tweed Heads station—while he was being read his rights. Did I mention that?” She rubbed a hand through her tousled blonde hair then cocked her head to one side. “Are you going to offer me a drink or do I have to fend for myself?”

  Roxy smiled at last. “Come on, I spotted a bottle of Merlot in the back of the pantry, was wondering whether to open it.”

  “The only good Merlot’s an open Merlot.” Gilda followed her through and then watched as Roxy dragged the bottle from a top shelf. “So he’s got your crap taste in wine, has he? No wonder you’ve moved in. And the same slit-your-wrist taste in music, I hear.”

  Roxy realised the Nick Drake album must have been on repeat the whole time; she had been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t even noticed.

  “Why don’t you find something more cheerful then, and I’ll find some glasses. Are you hungry? There’s some pasta left.”

  “No, I had a Byron Bay Cookie and gin and tonic on the plane. So all the important food groups have been covered.”

  Gilda returned to the living room and began studying the small selection of CDs that were scattered around the stereo, some in their cases, most out. She settled on a Motown compilation CD while Roxy gave up on wine glasses and, struggling to find a water glass that wasn’t badly cracked, settled on two coffee cups that looked new and clean. She gave them a rinse anyway then filled them up.

  As she handed one over, Gilda frowned at the cup but stayed silent, then they both took a seat on the couch as the detective told Roxy how worried she had been after their phone conversation that morning.

  “I knew something was up. You were not yourself at all, but you didn’t seem to want to admit it, you cheeky bugger.”

  “Because I knew you’d do exactly what you’ve just done and try and rescue me!”

  “Well, someone’s got to look out for you. Besides, your mother would never forgive me if I didn’t.”

  “She doesn’t know, does she?”

  “God no, I’m no masochist! My mate Johnno tried to track down an address for that mobile number but failed miserably, so I rang the Tweed/Byron area command. That’s when I got put through to that idiot, Quick.” She took a good gulp of her wine. “Your boyfriend’s right about him, total knob.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you already said that. Anyway, Quick refused to listen to my concerns, said your whereabouts were the ‘least of his worries’, quote unquote, so I decided to get on the first plane up and find you for myself. The last time we let you loose in these parts you were locked in a haunted house, left to starve. Remember that?”

  Roxy did remember that, it was yet one more case where murder seemed to land in her lap. “This is very different, Gilda, I’m not being held against my will. At least, not anymore.”

  “A-ha! So you admit you were kidnapped!”

  “Sam just needed my help, that’s all.”

  “Don’t they always?”

  “So, what, you went straight to the police station from the airport?”

  “Yep, headed to the copshop and found Quick in the middle of questioning your boyfr—I mean mate.”

  “Is Sam okay?”

  She shrugged. “Is anyone when they’re being accused of murder? He kept saying he had nothing to do with it, that all we needed to do was look into his sister’s death to get the real story. Blah, blah, blah... I just wanted to know where you were and, luckily, Sam was happy to oblige. That made me think you might just be fine, but until I saw it for myself, I wasn’t taking any chances.” She swatted Roxy across one arm, almost spilling her wine in the process. “You gave me such a bloody scare! He could have been a homicidal maniac, what were you thinking?”

  “Hey, he kidnapped me, remember? I didn’t have any choice at the time.”

  “Yeah, then he took you back and you returned. Willingly! Like a boomerang... What is that about?”

  “That’s about me believing him. I just don’t think he killed Jed. He just doesn’t seem the type.”

  Gilda eyeballed her friend, went to rebuke her, and then thought better of it. She leaned back and watched the fire for a moment. Eventually she said, “Okay, Roxy, history tells me you’ve got good instincts, so I will believe you. At least until my better judgment kicks in. But you have to accept that you really don’t know this guy and have no idea what he is capable of. Can you at least accept that?”

  Roxy shrugged. “Fine.”

  “Good. So try and keep an open mind, no matter what your instincts tell you. Now, you’d better tell me exactly what’s happened, and let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Don’t leave anything out. Oh, but before you do.” She placed her cup down, then jumped up and disappeared outside, returning a minute later with a large bag of chocolate-coated peanuts and a family block of Rocky Road. “Let’s get sugared up!”

  Over the next hour, as they devoured chocolate and cheap red wine, Lunar snoring at Roxy’s feet just near the fire, she told her good friend all about the past forty-eight hours which sounded increasingly like a B-grade movie plot. When Roxy had finished, she stood up, stretched like a cat then poured the remainder of the wine into their cups while Gilda digested everything.

  Eventually Gilda said, “So you think this is all connected to the first death, to Sunny’s supposed drowning?”

  “I don’t think anything. That’s what Sam thinks, and he seems convinced of it. You said yourself it wasn’t investigated properly.”

  “And it wasn’t. That doesn’t automatically make it murder, could just be sloppy police work. And it certainly doesn’t mean it’s connected to Jed’s murder.”

  “You keep calling it a murder. So that’s official then?”

  She nodded. “The fuse box had been tampered with and so had his equipment, or at least that’s what I could glean from the very brief chat I had with Quick. He was being a bit cagey, but I can read between the lines. Looks to me like somebody wanted Jed Moody dead and they made doubly sure it happened.”

  “Pretty lucky they didn’t kill someone else in the process. What if someone else had picked up that guitar? Or touched Jed before the power went out.” Roxy shivered. “Who would do such a thing? It’s so theatrical.”

  “And so technical. Not your run of the mill murder. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing. And they had to have been there on the night of the murder becau
se the wiring was perfectly fine during the tune-up, which was about an hour before the gig.” Gilda hesitated before asking, “Did your friend Sam happen to mention he’s a sparkie?”

  “Um no ... he didn’t ”

  “He’s got his electrician’s license. That’s how he makes his money around these parts.”

  Roxy shifted in her seat and wondered why Sam hadn’t mentioned it. Of course, it did explain why he had acted so quickly when Jed was electrocuted, how he knew not to touch anything and to switch off the fuse box. But why hadn’t he told her that? She wondered. Had he deliberately misled her?

  “Still,” Roxy said, feeling some strange compulsion to defend the man, “there must have been other people who knew their way around a fuse box. There was quite a crowd there, plus the guys in the band must have an idea about how it all works.”

  “Do any of them have it in for Jed Moody?”

  “Yes, at least one. The bass player wasn’t exactly his biggest fan. And we don’t know who it was Annika was flirting with that night. Maybe that man’s a sparkie too?”

  “Quick says Sam was the only sparkie at the gig and is determined to lay the blame firmly at his feet. I got that much out of him before he turned all tight-lipped. Seems quite annoyed by my presence.” She chuckled again. “I love stirring up the local lads.”

  “Are you allowed to look into it? Surely they have to send in some big guns.”

  “I don’t want to look into it, Roxy. I’m not here to investigate. I’m here to bring you home.”

  “I don’t need a chaperone, Gilda. I’m not twelve.”

  “And you’re also not a detective, although you seem to think you’ve morphed into one.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is, you don’t need to be sticking your nose into this case. It has nothing to do with you.” When Roxy looked away from her then, her jaw clenched shut, she added, “I’m right, you know.”

  Roxy walked into the kitchen and dumped her cup in the sink, causing Lunar to leap to his feet, alert now, and looking a little alarmed. Roxy stared out of the kitchen window to the dark night sky. She could just make out the silhouette of the chicken shed beneath the gum trees. Something swooped down low. Was it an owl? A flying fox? “I never said I was going to stick my nose in. I never said that.”

  Gilda followed her in. “That’s the impression I got. I’m sorry, Roxy, but I know what you’re like, trying to fight other people’s battles.” She reached out and touched Roxy’s back. “This is one fight that you need to leave well alone. I know you pity Sam Forrest and I get that. He’s kind of like a big puppy dog. Cute, if you like them rough around the edges, but this has nothing to do with you and it’s time you came home.”

  Roxy’s back stiffened. “I might not have much choice. Jed’s publicist has asked me to hang around in case they still go ahead with the book, and quite frankly, Gilda, I need the money.”

  Gilda dropped her hand. “Fine, do the book. But just keep out of the investigation, okay?”

  “Okay.” Gilda took Roxy by the arms and turned her around so they were eyeballing each other. Roxy smiled then and repeated herself: “Okay, okay, I promise!”

  “Good! Then get your things, let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere with internal heating and a functioning bar would be a good start.”

  Roxy pushed past her friend and returned to the sofa. “No can do. I’m staying put. Besides, I like this place.”

  “But it’s so...” Gilda looked around as she followed her back to the fire, “primitive. It’s like we’ve time traveled to the Little House on the Prairie.”

  Roxy laughed. “I think it’s more Midsomer Murders, myself.”

  “Well, you got the murder part right.”

  Roxy grabbed a cushion and hugged it tight. “You’re welcome to go, Gilda, but I promised Sam I’d watch his dog tonight and I intend to keep that promise.”

  Gilda’s eyes dropped to the dog, who had also returned to the sofa and was now settling onto the rug, close to Roxy’s feet again.

  She sighed. “A handsome rogue and his cute dog. How am I supposed to compete with that?”

  Chapter 19

  A melodic kookaburra laughed Roxy’s sleep away and she sat up with a start. She looked across to the other side of the bed where Lunar was lying huddled in a ball, his tail now thumping; one eye open.

  Roxy smiled and dropped back onto the pillow, turning onto her side to face Lunar and reaching a hand out to pat him. The warm sunshine was streaming in through the bedroom window and there was a distinctive smell of freshly ground coffee in the air. She could get used to this. She thought then of Sam and sat back up.

  Had he returned overnight?

  Roxy leapt out of bed, Lunar following suit, then grabbed a baggy cardigan from her bag and covered herself up. They both wandered out to the kitchen where they found Gilda leaning against the old cooker, watching the coffee maker splutter to life.

  She had slept on the sofa the night before, but you would never have known it, the sheets and blanket were already packed away and she looked as fresh as the hinterland air. At some stage she had changed into a different silk blouse and her wispy blonde hair had been tousled back to life. She even had a lick of lip-gloss and eyeliner in place.

  “Don’t look so disappointed, guys,” Gilda said, grinning at them both. “Sam will be back before you know it.”

  Roxy stepped towards Gilda and gave her a hug. “Sorry I was so stroppy last night.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it. You just watched a man get electrocuted, then you got kidnapped, then lumbered with the kidnapper’s dog!” She laughed. “You’ve had a lot on your plate. Speaking of which, I couldn’t find much in the way of cereal in that dusty cupboard of his.”

  “There’s a chook shed outside. I’ll go and see if I can rustle up something for breakfast.”

  Half an hour later they were seated out in the dappled sunshine on the wicker chairs in front of the cottage, nursing plates of fresh scrambled eggs with parsley and tomatoes, mugs of warm coffee at their feet.

  “I could get used to these fresh organic ingredients,” Roxy said, and Gilda shrugged.

  “I dunno. It’s missing Peep’s smoky oil flavour with the carburetor aftertaste.” She looked around, waving her fork as she said, “You’re really digging this rural life, aren’t you? I would never have picked you for a country girl.”

  Roxy laughed. “Me neither. I’m as surprised with myself as you are.” She gave it some thought. “Maybe, after the year I’ve had—breaking up with Max, then thinking he’d been kidnapped, traipsing across Europe trying to find him—maybe this is just what I needed.”

  “You mean another murder or another man?”

  Roxy looked at her sideways. “There is no other man, Gilda.”

  “So Sam Forrest, who’s he again?”

  “He’s just a guy who needed my help.” She was beginning to get annoyed by this broken record of a conversation.

  “Okay, so it’s another murder that’s brought this glow to your cheeks then?”

  Roxy swept a hand to her face. “Of course not. Although dead people do have a habit of cropping up around me, don’t they?”

  “It’s business as usual for you these days, that’s true. We’ll have to start calling you Jessica Fletcher, or Miss Marple. Which one would you prefer?”

  “Can’t I be Hercule Poirot? He’s so much more interesting.”

  “Ah, but he’s a professional detective. You, my dear, are just a lowly ghostwriter.”

  “A Ghostie. That’s what Jed called me.” She sighed wistfully thinking of the few exchanges they’d had, of the missed opportunity.

  Gilda took a sip of her coffee. “What was he like, Juicy Jed? Sexy as ever?”

  “Sexier. But not without fault, clearly had a mega ego, although he was very polite to me. Definitely a lot of tension between him and his wife, and he had a mean streak in him, too. W
as even a little nasty to his bass player and his publicist now I think about it.”

  “Plenty of suspects for his murder then?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “So why are they keeping Sam so long? Do you think they have something on him?”

  “Nothing that Quick was willing to reveal to me, apart from Sam’s electrical credentials, of course. He seemed to think that made it an open and shut case, but of course it proves nothing.” Gilda chewed quietly on her breakfast for a while. Eventually she placed her half-eaten egg aside and said, “So what are your plans, then, Missy? Are you really going to hang around here, playing dutiful dogsitter? I mean, I like him, he’s super cool, but I’m not sure I’d desert my fab city life for him.”

  Roxy wondered if they were still talking about the dog. “I’m not deserting anything. I’m just doing a guy a favour. Besides, I may still have to hang around to write Jed’s biography, remember? Oliver’s sorting that out with the publicist today.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  She shrugged, not knowing the answer to that question.

  Gilda edged a foot towards hers and gave her toe a nudge. “I know I’m going to live to regret this, but I was thinking I might try to take a sneaky peek at Sunny Forrest’s file while I’m here. See what Quick’s got to say about that.”

  Roxy was mid-mouthful of coffee when she said it and nearly spluttered it everywhere. “Really?! I thought you didn’t want to know about it. What happened to chaperoning me home?”

  “Well, if you’re staying to write this bloody book, I might as well hang around, too. And quite frankly, bushwalking and dogminding ain’t my thing. Would rather get productive.”

  “Will they let you investigate?”

  “Not sure yet. As I said before, Wiles is usually the man for the job, but I know from our chat yesterday that he’s snowed under and if he gets appointed to the Moody investigation he’s definitely not going to have time to look into a cold case as well. Whereas I have very little on my plate right now, unless you count that extraordinarily orange egg! What is it with the colour? Is that even healthy?”