Pink Blooded: A Lana Pink Mystery

by Crystal Gallagher

  Great. Could this day get any better? Milk disappearing into the ether, the town in panic, and cut off from the teat of the Tree Valley government. And the mayor was coming to dinner. To eat vegemite toast, probably, the way my day was going.

  Looks like I'd have to head into town after all, whether May liked it or not.

  ***

  "Lana Pink?" A voice called out from somewhere amongst the flowers.

  Great, not another fan. I thought about ignoring the voice but my ego wanted a tiny boost after the day I was having.

  "Yes?" I said, taking off my shades.

  A tall, large, muscular man with a shaved head and a fedora smiled at me and held out his hand. "It's Gus? You don't remember me, Lana?"

  Oh. Not a fan then. Well, not in the traditional sense. I suddenly regreted my decision to stop as I shook his large muscular hands. "Hi...Gus..." I said a little unsurely, as I glanced around to try and look for an escape. We were in front of the Tree Valley botanical gardens, a block back from the beach, wattle bushes surrounding us and bees swarming. I batted one away. I'm allergic. "I'm late for an appointment."

  "Are you still singing, Lana?" Gus asked. He had a warm, sweet tone to his voice, similar to the honey that the bees were vomiting up near my head, but I could never fully trust Gus...his words were always too sweet. He was too smooth. The anti-Taj Robinson.

  That name again. Stop it Lana.

  For some reason, I lied. "Yes," I said. "Why do you ask?"

  My heart sang a little as I waited for his response...and it was the one that I had been stupidly hoping for. "We're re-opening the Pink Bird in a few weeks...I'd love it if you could perform sometime." Gus shrugged like it was the most casual thing in the world to mention the title of the jazz bar he'd named after me. I knew where this was going and I knew it was a mistake. And I knew I was going to make it. "Hell, I'd love it if you could sing on opening night."

  I gulped. "How many weeks, exactly? Er, just so I can check my diary."

  "Two weeks time," Gus answered breezily. "Only reason I didn't ask already is because I always assumed you'd moved away from this place."

  I grimaced a little. "Who moves away from a utopia?" I asked.

  Gus tilted his head and gave a tiny laugh. "I suppose so. I just never expected to run into you." He looked into my eyes in a way that made my stomach twinge a little uneasily. Why did I lie? Two weeks? That's not enough time for my throat to heal.

  Or was it? Miracles happen, right?

  I gulped again. "I need to get going. I'll see you in two weeks I guess, Gus."

  But just before I turned to leave, I stopped.

  "When did you get back to town, Gus?"

  He nodded in the direction of the beach. He towered over me so he could probably see right over the park and the gardens. "Couple of days ago. Look after yourself. I've heard rumors there's a maniac on the loose."

  ***

  Gun Employment was only ten feet away from me -- so close and so far. The helicopter overhead was buzzing like a chainsaw, chopping up the cloudless sky.

  I squinted and looked up at the sky so pure blue it would have been blinding on its own, even without the sun. The helicopter looked like it held two passengers along with the pilot. One of them was hanging out the side as the chopper circled the beach two blocks east.

  A news camera. Things were about to change in Tree Valley.

  But if Louis washed away the evidence of the blood, what was there left to film?

  I could see Rocco's piercing eyes staring at me through the glass from ten feet away. I pretended I didn't see him and turned my head. If I didn't see him they couldn't cut me off, right? A quick check of the time told me I had a minute to walk inside and get my name ticked off before a message would be sent to the main system that I'd missed the appointment.

  But I had to see what the helicopter was circling round, dipping so low for a moment that it went below my line of sight. The cameraman was hanging so far out the side he was almost falling out.

  Rocco stood up from his desk and walked to the door. Shoot. I pulled the collar of my leather jacket up over my face and turned away a little, trying to pretend that the jacket was a cloak that might make me invisible.

  "Lana?" he called out from the door. I suppose I should have been grateful he even cared enough to try and get me to attend my appointment. Like so many people in my life, he was trying to get me to do the right thing. The responsible thing. But all I wanted to do was run in the opposite direction.

  So I turned and ran to the beach.

  Unlike the railway reserve, the authorities had actually made an effort to close this toxic part of town off and made a valiant effort to scare people away as well. There was a barricade at the public entrance and a flashing electronic sign beside it that warned that the beach wasn't safe for humans on that day.

  Not Safe, Keep Out.

  But there was, surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, depending on your outlook) no police tape anywhere. No evidence that this was a crime scene aside from the helicopter floating overhead.

  The barricade was about two feet tall, blue and plastic, and there were grooves in it that I was able to get a foothold in while I clamoured over it, keeping one eye over my shoulder the whole time. I half expected Louis to be right behind me, dragging me down. But there was an eerie lack of any police presence.

  Were they even investigating this crime, or just covering it up?

  There was no one on the beach when I climbed over the other side of the barricade and landed on the soft sand. Like I always did when I saw the beach I shook my head in awe. I still couldn't believe we had something like this -- a tropical beach -- in the middle of Traralgon. Sorry. Tree Valley. I shouldn't even write the old name down, let alone speak it. But growing up in this town, when it was nothing but coal mines and power stations, and air so thick with pollution that people grew up not even knowing what fresh air smelt like, to see it like this now wasn't just like I was living in a new town...it was like I was living on a new planet.

  Even though it was artificial, the blue-green stained glass water and the sand so fine and white that it was as soft as cushion underneath, felt more natural and real to me -- more like home -- than anywhere else in town. Of everyone in Tree Valley, I was probably the one who loved the place the most.

  Maybe that's why I'd followed Louis that day. Maybe that's why I was so angry about what had happened, the pink stain that had tarnished the one place in Tree Valley that was still pure.

  The buzzing overhead grabbed my attention. The cameraman was waving wildly to me. "Hey!" I think he was mouthing, his words demolished by the blade over his head. He pointed wildly at a spot on the other side of the barricade and mouthed something else to me. I had to shield my eyes, squinting to try to make out what he was saying. "Meet us there"? I think he was saying. His words were drowned out by the almost demonic look in his eyes. They weren't from here. Was he trying to let me know that it was Not Safe, Keep Out?

  "I already know that mate," I shouted back. He kept jabbing his finger downwards, stabbing air, trying to get me to leave. Meet them there. I didn't want to meet them there. I didn't know who the heck they were. And I darn well wasn't about to speak to reporters. The might recognize me.

  Maybe they already had.

  Former X Factor Contestant Caught In the Midst Of Paranormal Murder Mystery.

  Geez. No thanks. I pulled my collar up and turned my back to the helicopter, walking along the fake-coast to the spot where the body had lain, only twenty-four hours before.

  I gasped. The washed away blood? Was back.

  I stepped backward and almost stumbled as I saw the sickly hot pink blood on the sand. It wasn't even dry, it was fresh, alive. The same cake batter smell as last time.

  But that wasn't the worst, nor the most shocking thing I saw on our previously picture-perfect fake beach that day.

  A sound so loud that I wasn't sure it even made a noise at all broke out like a thousand guns blazi
ng at once. I put my hands over my ears and fell to my knees, thinking the only thing that flashed through my head.

  I'm in a war zone.

  That was the only explanation I could think of for the deafening, explosive noise, and the shattering of fire, metal, and glass that broke out over the sky as the helicopter was hit, and in a flash of orange light and flames was wiped out of existence.

  May had told me to stay out of town that day.

  ***

  A heavy tapping of a heeled toe greeted me when I finally got home at 6.05 that evening.

  "Wasn't Grace home to let you in?" I asked May, trying to ignore the dirty look that Harris, her new boyfriend and Mayor of Tree Valley shot me as I ran down the pathway to my cottage.

  "There's no one home," May said wearily as she crossed her arms. She wasn't wearing a red suit this day, she was wearing funeral black. That usually meant she'd had a serious deal she'd had to close. Looks like she'd taken her bad mood home with her from the office from the thin line on her face that was passing for lips.

  She was probably angry that I'd embarrassed her in front of Harris.

  "I'm sorry," I said, fumbling with the keys while I tried to open the lock, my grocery bag splitting open like the skin on a bloated corpse and the milk falling to the floor.

  Harris caught it before it hit the ground. "I'm surprised you even bother to lock your door."

  I straightened up. "Because there's no crime in Tree Valley?" Boy, was he was wrong about that.

  "Because I doubt you have anything worth stealing."

  May shot him a look to say, be quiet, but I knew that Harris Whitemoore wasn't a man who could be told to be quiet. And he wasn't a man who could be told what to do by a woman. What was May thinking, hooking up with a guy like him? She was gorgeous, and the most successful woman in town. Okay, I have to admit that Harris was pretty good looking, for a fifty-year-old, and, yes, admittedly, being the mayor does qualify you as successful, I suppose. But I still thought that May could have done better.

  I finally got the door open and raced to get the fresh milk into the fridge before it slipped out of my hands again thanks to the ghostly leakage down the side.

  Just as I was about to place it on my shelf, I froze, milk carton in hand, white liquid slowly dripping down my arm like blood.

  My disappearing milk was back, returned from the ether like it had never been gone.

  "What the..." I said, staring blankly at the now-returned carton of milk. From the dining room on the other side of the wall, I could hear May and Harris settling in, and Harris complaining about the snail trails on the carpet. I'd forgotten to get salt during my rush trip to the supermarket.

  "I don't know how anyone can live like this," Harris muttered though I barely registered the snootiness in his voice as I leaned into the fridge, dropping my new milk and picking up the old.

  It was until I pulled it out and saw it in the light that I truly realised the significance of the milk being returned.

  The milk wasn't white. It was pink.

  Blood colored milk.

  I knew it was a message to me. To back off.

  But who was it a warning from?

  Chapter Five

  The Mayor Comes To Dinner

  I threw the steaks on the hot pan and the flesh sizzled behind me while I mopped up the spilled milk, the majority of the pink milk already down the sink, drained into the freshly laid pipes of Tree Valley, and the bottle thrown on the floor with the rest of the recycling.

  "Dinner is served," I said in my best cheery waitress voice when I finally brought the steaks into the dining room, a full hour after we were originally supposed to eat.

  I put the rarest steak down in front of a grimacing Harris. I figured he probably liked the taste of blood. I gave May the medium one, the nicest of the batch, and gave myself the burnt one that I'd forgotten to turn.

  Harris inspected the knife I handed him and shook his head before he sliced it into the steak. Blood spilled out onto the plate and mixed with the mashed potatoes, turning pink when it hit the white mountains.

  I stared at it. That was one way to turn blood pink, I supposed. I frowned and wondered if the woman at the beach had had some kind of medical issue that turned her blood pink.

  But the blood at the beach hadn't been a pale, anaemic colour like the shade of Harris's potatoes. It had been hot, dark pink. Unmistakably bright, not pale and thin.

  Harris dipped his fork into the potatoes and took a slow bite, staring at me the whole time.

  I stared right back at him.

  Just when had he arrived at my house, exactly?

  I cut into my tough steak and struggled through a mouthful. "So, were you waiting here long?" I asked Harris.

  He shook his head quickly and took a sip off water. "Not long at all..."

  May frowned and interrupted him. "You told me that you were waiting for ages," she said a little snappily, adding an awkward little laugh at the end to ease the tension while he stared icily at her. It seemed obvious that they'd had a little fight over the matter.

  "Just a few minutes," Harris said quickly before picking up his knife again.

  "That's not what you told me," May said with a little shake of her head. She wasn't drinking water, she was guzzling the red shiraz that she'd brought with her, and she took another giant swig from her glass.

  "How's the steak?" I asked her.

  May nodded. "Surprisingly almost edible."

  We both laughed a little but Harris didn't find it amusing. He shoved another piece of bloody meat into his mouth and stared at me. "Almost," he said once he had swallowed.

  "So no more food has fallen into a port hole in the back of your fridge?" May asked wryly, looking at me over her wine glass.

  "Portal," I corrected her. I was keen to get off that subject. I didn't want to tell her what I had really found in the fridge. It was far scarier than a portal to another world.

  Especially if her date had been the one to put it there.

  "Had a busy day at the mayor's office?" I asked Harris. He looked at me with surprise, probably because it was the most conversation I had ever made with him.

  "Always," he said flatly.

  "Hear anything unusual, late morning? In the sky?" I asked him casually as I swirled my fork around my own, still white, pile of potatoes.

  Harris shook his head, his lips pursed. "Nothing at all," he said, his lips turning just a little at the corners to reveal the faintest trace of a smug smile. "Should I have? You didn't hear -- or see -- anything, did you, Lana?"

  We locked eyes for a moment while May switched her gaze between the two of us. "Is there something I should know about?"

  I wondered how much May did actually know. She was the one who had told me not to go into town. Not Safe, Keep Out.

  You can't go suspecting your best friend, Lana. Your only human friend.

  My phone made a violent buzzing noise and jumped around the table. "Sorry," I said to May and Harris before I picked it up and checked it.

  "I need to speak to you. Emergency."

  It was from an unknown number.

  "I'm just turning it off," I said to a disapproving May, but instead I shot a quick text back. "Who is this?"

  The reply was almost immediate. We had a very good telephonic network in near-utopia Tree Valley. That was one of the benefits of being upgraded to a near-Utopia in future Australia. (Of course, we didn't get the lightning fast speeds of the actual utopias...but that's a whole other story.)

  The reply was just one word. Or, rather, name. "Taj."

  You have got to be kidding me.

  How did he even have my number?

  How did he even have a phone?

  He replied again before I even got a chance to ask him those questions. "I need to meet you right now."

  I quickly shot a text back under the table so that May wouldn't see. "Fine. But I'm not coming back to the clay pit. You'll have to come to town."

  "Fine. Do you
still live in the same house?"

  I was forced to admit that, yes, I did. "I'll be there in half an hour." So it was done. Taj Robinson was coming to my house. A visit from the Mayor, and a visit from Tree Valley's top hobo in one night. Lucky me.

  Now I just had to get May and the Mayor out of my house. Hey, I've never noticed they practically have the same name till right now.

  As it turned out, kicking them out was far easier than I'd expected it to be.

  Just as I'd been about to think up an excuse -- too tired, sick cat, a murderous maniac blew up a helicopter over my head and I'm still a little shaken up about it -- Harris started to make a gagging noise and leaned forward, spitting a chunk of steak out into his napkin.

  I just sat there staring at him, like, are you kidding me?

  "Sweetheart, are you okay?" May asked as she placed a hand on Harris' shoulder in concern.

  Harris glared at me. "Where did you get this steak from?" he asked.

  "The supermarket," I lied. There might have been slightly more to the story there. I might have gotten a good deal on some steaks that a restaurant beside the beach was about to throw out. Hey, I'm on a budget, remember? They smelt fine to me...

  "Who serves off steak?" Harris spat at me.

  "Who spits out their food at the table of their host?" I fired right back. "Not very good manners, Mr. Mayor."

  Harris shoved his plate violently aside. "I don't know why May even associates with a street rat like you." Nice Aladdin reference there, Harris.

  I stood up, throwing my knife and fork on the table with a giant clang. "I think you should get out of my house."

  "Fine by me!" Harris shouted, grabbing his coat from the back of his chair. "I never wanted to come to this dump anyway."

  My statement was purely intended for Harris, but I saw the look of dismay in May's eyes as she stood up and tried to put a hand on Harris's shoulder, which he shrugged off.