Blood Sisters

by Caroline de Costa

  ***

  Detectives Cass Diamond and Drew Borgese were nearing the end of their shift when the call came through. They were needed immediately, said Di from switch. At the Palmlands Motel on the highway at Earlville.

  ‘The generals say the paramedics are there. A woman’s been stabbed, I think. Anyway, there’s a lot of blood. They’re taking the woman to ED ASAP. Circumstances very suspicious, by the sound of it.’

  ‘Looks like we’re doing overtime,’ Drew said to Cass. ‘Let’s go. I’ll drive.’

  It was a seven-minute trip to Earlville. A small crowd was gathered outside the motel when they got there. It never took long for bad news to travel, Cass thought. Inside Reception, a young woman, sitting with a baby and a toddler, hastily pointed them upstairs. An ambulance stood in the motel’s courtyard, lights flashing and rear door open. One paramedic was about to close that door; through it Cass and Drew could see the second paramedic bending over a woman on a stretcher, a woman with long black hair, her face covered with an oxygen mask.

  ‘She’s going fast,’ said the first paramedic, slamming the door. ‘We’re heading straight to ED. Your lot are upstairs.’ He leapt into the driver’s seat and the ambulance swept out of the yard as the crowd silently parted.

  Cass and Drew followed the trail of bloodied footprints left by the paramedics, across the yard and up the concrete stairs, then along a tiled corridor to Room 19, where they stopped. A young man with close-cropped dark hair, who Cass immediately marked as an ex-soldier, was doing a good job of keeping spectators at bay. Inside the room uniformed generals were securing the scene for the forensics team.

  ‘Never,’ Drew would say later that night to Cass, ‘have I seen so much blood come from one person. And quite a small person, at that.’

  On the bed, the sheets, pillows and quilt were covered with blood and more blood had pooled on the floor beside the bed. Small bloody footprints led from the bed into the bathroom. Blood was all over the toilet and basin, and one long stream had flowed from the toilet out across the floor of the bedroom and under the door.

  ‘What’s happened here?’ Cass asked.

  ‘We don’t really know, Detective,’ replied a young constable named Swift, whom Cass hadn’t met before. ‘At first the paramedics thought she’d been stabbed. But there was no obvious wound. And there’s no sign of any weapon. She looked just about dead as they took her away; seems like she was still bleeding.’

  ‘She was alone here? Nobody with her? No one from another room?’

  ‘Yeah, no, no one, it seems. The manager—Jan—is just down the corridor calming people down. She thinks the woman’s a sex worker; she’s been here before. Gave the name of Maria—Maria Ramos.’

  Cass looked at Drew. ‘Shall I go to ED?’ she asked. ‘Sounds like we may have a body on our hands.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, handing her the car keys. ‘I’ll get a lift back with one of these guys. Let me know what’s happening. We’ll meet back at the office. Hopefully before midnight.’

  ***

  Dr Susie Ortega led Detective Cass Diamond into a small windowless interview room in the Emergency Department of the hospital, closing the door behind them. To Cass, the doctor appeared on the verge of tears.

  ‘Who is she, do you know?’ Susie asked immediately.

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Cass replied. ‘All we know about her so far is that she’s a young Asian woman. Who might be a sex worker. I’ve just been talking to my colleague, Drew Borgese. He’s over at the motel now with our tech and forensic people. He said he’d never seen so much blood spilled from one person in twelve years with the Force.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Susie, ‘she simply bled to death. When the para-medics first saw her they thought she must have been stabbed. Understandably. But then, they couldn’t see a wound. They managed to get an IV in and bring her here. But she just bled out and her heart stopped in the ambulance just after they left the motel. They couldn’t get her going again, sadly. So, she was dead on arrival.’

  ‘Can you explain to me what you think happened?’ asked Cass.

  ‘Well, she’ll have to go for autopsy,’ said Susie, ‘being DOA, but it looks as if she was bleeding from the vagina or rectum—the paramedics weren’t sure when they called ED from the ambulance. I was called down because I’m a gynaecologist, but she was dead by the time I arrived. I haven’t examined her, since she’ll be having the autopsy anyway, but there was no obvious external injury, although the pathologist may find some object pushed into the vagina or rectum. A knife or a broken bottle.’

  Cass shivered. ‘Urrgh,’ she said.

  Susie looked sympathetic.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘it sounds horrible. But if she was a sex worker and died at the hands of a client, that’s what I’d be thinking. Ask your officers over at the motel to look out for something sharp.’

  ‘The manager said she’d taken a room there a few times before,’ Cass said, ‘and checked in under the name Maria Ramos. Which is possibly not her real name. We haven’t yet established if she met anyone there this evening.’

  ‘From the look of her,’ Susie said, ‘I’d say she’s from the Philippines. And well, she might be 18. Just.’

  ‘The autopsy, will that be soon?’ Cass asked.

  ‘Yes, though if we don’t know who she is and have difficulty getting consent it may be delayed.’

  ‘Drew’s working on identifying her right now’ Cass said. ‘and talking to witnesses. I understand that the people who found her were a schoolgirl who works evenings at Reception and a family who’d just arrived from interstate. So, they may not know much or be available until tomorrow. We’d also like a statement from you, maybe tomorrow?’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Susie. ‘I’ll give you my mobile number so you can call me direct. And if you find any relatives or friends who want to talk to me, you can give it to them too.’

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ said Cass. ‘I’ll be in touch, and it’ll be me who comes back for the autopsy.’

  She took out her phone and rapidly texted Drew: on my way back—look for something sharp maybe knife that might have caused vaginal injuries. Tucking her phone and notebook into her jacket pocket, she made her way across the courtyard of the Emergency Department, a trim, dark-skinned woman in her mid-thirties, conservatively dressed as her job demanded, in a white shirt, black skirt and pumps.

  Driving back to CIB headquarters in Sheridan Street, Cass began going through the case in her mind. A woman from the Philippines, on her own in a motel. Bleeding to death. No friends with her. A sad and lonely death. Prostitution was legal in Queensland, for women working singly and not soliciting in public. So it was perfectly legal for sex workers to take clients to motels. The local papers were full of advertisements for their services. A lot more than in the big cities where Cass had worked. She’d been surprised by this. Did this woman work on her own, if she was in fact a sex worker? Had she come to Australia on her own? Did she have a valid visa? Did she know enough English to place her own advertisements, or had someone been doing that for her? Both pimping and syndicates were illegal, and the state’s Prostitution Enforcement Taskforce took a keen interest in such activities.

  Until she knew the answers to all these questions Cass would keep an open mind on how this woman had died.

  As she parked the car her phone pinged. She looked down. A message from Drew:

  No knife but a pair of kitchen scissors covered in blood in the bed, with forensics now.

  2

  Cairns

  Wednesday 22nd August 2013

  It was well past midnight by the time Drew joined Cass back at police headquarters in Sheridan Street.

  ‘I never thought I’d say you look pale,’ she said. ‘But you do.’

  Drew’s normally toffee-coloured skin, inherited from his Fijian grandmother, was a faint shade of lemon in the neon office lighting.

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of bad things in my time, Cass. St
abbings, MVAs, you name it. But never a young girl like that lose so much blood. It was like a bad horror movie.’

  ‘So you think the scissors caused the injuries, whatever they are?’ Cass asked. Drew nodded his head. ‘They’re certainly covered in blood,’ he said. ‘Like everything else.’

  ‘We won’t really know where she was bleeding from until the autopsy’s done,’ said Cass. ‘According to the doc I met, Susie Ortega.’

  ‘As far as I can make out,’ Drew said, ‘she arrived at the motel about three yesterday afternoon, alone. The manager didn’t see anyone come tojoin her between the time she arrived and about five-thirty, when Jan handed over to the schoolgirl. Scarlett’s her name. Scarlett was pretty shaken up. She didn’t see anyone go up to the room, either. But both of them made the point that they’re in and out of the office and on the phone, so it’s possible someone did go up and wasn’t noticed. The thing is though, they would also have had to go back out again, since they weren’t there when Jan opened the door just before the paramedics arrived. And since there’s no rear entrance, getting both in and out without being seen is less likely.

  ‘Jan said that she thought the woman would leave after a while, having hooked up with a client or two. When that hadn’t happened by five-thirty she was a bit surprised, but the woman had paid for the room—cash—and had the right to stay until checkout time tomorrow. So Jan just told Scarlett the room was occupied and went off to make dinner.’

  Drew shook his head sadly then placed two large plastic bags on the desk in front of him. One contained bloodstained clothing and the other held the woman’s handbag and a green shopping bag containing a packet of sanitary pads. Pulling on blue latex gloves, he carefully spread out all these items prior to bagging and labelling them.

  ‘In her handbag,’ he said, ‘some makeup and a hairbrush, condoms and a dildo. House or flat keys, no identifying features. No car keys. Plastic purse with a picture of a kitten on it, containing some cash, about ten dollars. No driving licence or other photo ID. A few dockets from a convenience store in Mooroobool. Some Valium and some paracetamol, with instructions in a language... um, I think it’s Tagalog. A drycleaning receipt in the name of Maria Ramos. And two Western Union receipts for money sent to someone in the Philippines, name of—’ he held the paper up to the light, ‘—Maria Angela Mendoza. The sender’s... um... hard to read... Dorentina, I think, Dorentina Lavides.

  ‘Oh,’ he added, ‘some photos.’ He took these from the bag and passed them to Cass. Two small snapshots. One showed an older woman with two girls in their early teens sitting at a family table. The second showed an older teenager, possibly one of the girls in the first photo, with a small child, perhaps a year old. Drew indicated the first photo.

  ‘Constable Swift, who got there first, thinks it’s the girl on the left who died. Taken a few years ago. Probably with her mum and sister. Somewhere tropical, I’d say; you can see a palm tree outside that room. And that seems to be her again with the kid. Probably her kid.’

  ‘No mobile phone?’ asked Cass.

  ‘No,’ answered Drew. ‘No sign of one. Which leads me to think that maybe someone did go to meet her there, and then took the phone because his number was in it. And I can just imagine how many different prints and traces the tech people are going to find in a motel room, even if it’s cleaned regularly.’

  Cass nodded.

  Drew rummaged in the bottom of the shopping bag and pulled out some crumpled tinfoil.

  ‘Looks like this might have contained tablets,’ he said, ‘And there’s some writing on it, but it’s all in Chinese.’

  ‘We’ll send it all for analysis,’ Cass said. ‘And tell Leah Rookwood, who’ll be doing the autopsy.’

  ‘The scene’s sealed off for the moment,’ Drew said. ‘Management found another motel for the people who were going to take the room next door. I’ve got contact details for them for tomorrow and also for Scarlett...’ he consulted his notebook, ‘... Scarlett Smith. We should talk to her tomorrow too. After school.

  ‘We’ve taken photos of the room, everything. The manage-ment will be wanting to clean it up as soon as possible. They’re going to find guests checking out sooner rather than later, I’d say. Blood flowing down the corridors; it’s not a good look.

  ‘And,’ he added, ’something else came into my head when we were driving back.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Cass answered. The main thought in her own head right now was getting into her bed as soon as she could.

  ‘Rita Gonzalo.’

  ‘Rita? The boss’s favourite unsolved case? Before my time.’

  ‘Yep,’ Drew said. ‘It was Troy’s at first. Then Brisbane stepped in. Not that they did any good with it.’

  ‘Ah yes, she was a sex worker and from the Philippines,’ Cass said, nodding. ‘I know that much. The doc at Emergency certainly thought our victim’s Filipina.’

  Drew agreed. ‘From the little I saw of her I think that’s right. And all these items here confirm it.’ He picked up the kitten purse, now in a labelled plastic bag, and looked at it, shaking his head. ‘She was just a kid.’

  ‘Rita was stabbed, wasn’t she?’ Cass asked.

  ‘Yeah, multiple times in the body and neck. Plus smothered with a pillow and burnt with cigarettes. She was working on her own, too, like our victim, when she was attacked. Presumably by a client. Four years ago. Lots of blood about then too.’

  ‘So maybe,’ Cass said slowly, ‘we’re looking for a guy who hates sex workers? Even maybe hates Asian sex workers? Or gets his thrills from killing them?’

  ‘Leslie’s always been intrigued by that case,’ said Drew, ‘because it looked like Rita had been killed in a frenzy. There were so many wounds, so many burns. Yet whoever did it left not a single trace, so it seemed he was pretty clever about it. No DNA left anywhere that could be matched to any suspect. This case now, it’s different of course, but in some respects it’s similar. We’ll need everything we can get from forensics and the autopsy, but I reckon the boss will be wanting us to revisit Rita.’

  ***

  Just six hours later, Cass walked down the Esplanade towards her breakfast date with her old friend Lyndall Symonds. Cass’s son Jordon, now twenty and a student at the uni at Smithfield, had not come home the previous night. She turned on her phone and there was a message from him sent at 3am. hi mum staying at buzz’s place all ok cu tomorrow J. She tapped out ok probably pasta for dinner tonite what a surprise will you bring in bins and walk Denzel luv mum, then slipped the phone into her pocket. It would definitely be pasta for dinner. At any one time her freezer held at least five kinds.

  It was a beautiful morning with a fresh breeze whipping up wavelets on the sea and a fine mist hanging over the mountains south towards Yarrabah. It beats life in Sydney alright, thought Cass. Walk to breakfast, decent coffee with a sea view, then walk to work, with more sea view. But as she walked there was a nagging worry about Jordon. They’d had all the big conversations. Smack. Eckie. E. MD. Molly. Crystal. Ice. Whatever names you wanted to use. And weed. There must never be weed in her house, ever. She passed on information from the various bulletins they got at work, the latest being on the increased toxicity and dangers of the ice now available in Far North Queensland. But there’d been a lot of nights away from home recently. She had no problem with girls staying over at her place, and some had done so. Most of them had met with Cass’s approval—if she met them at all. None so far of a more permanent nature though, she reflected, as she made her way along the sea shore. Well, he was an adult now, he would do his own thing.

  As she reached the café, Lyndall waved. The psychiatrist was sitting outside in the morning sunshine and already had a large coffee and buttered toast in front of her. A flock of ibis waited expectantly on the grass nearby.

  ‘Excuse me ordering before you,’ Lyndall said, getting up to hug her.

  ‘No problem,’ Cass said. ‘I fully understand the need for caffeination. I’m getting a double-shot latte
straight away.’ She turned to the waiter beside them. ‘And then the full breakfast, please. The working day stretches ahead.’ She turned back to Lyndall.

  ‘Anything in particular?’ Lyndall asked.

  ‘Actually, yes,’ answered Cass. ‘It’ll be in the media soon if it’s not already, so I can tell you. A medical case, though not of your sort. That’s why I’m a bit late—it kept me up, and then I slept in.’

  ‘Wow! You need that coffee. So, do tell.’

  ‘Very sad, really. A young girl. Probably from the Philippines; anyway, Asian. A sex worker, we think. Died in a motel out in Earlville last night. Massive bleeding, possibly from the vagina, possibly from the rectum, is what they said at the hospital. We don’t know any more than that.’

  Lyndall looked concerned. ‘She was assaulted by a client?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re trying to determine whether she met anyone at the motel. There’s some evidence to suggest she did. So yes, it’s a possibility that she has been attacked. Maybe more than a possibility.

  ‘I met up with a doctor last night in the ED. Dr Ortega. She thought the girl might have been assaulted using something forced into her vagina. Which is utterly horrible. But they have to wait for the autopsy.’

  She wouldn’t mention the scissors. Not yet. Or Rita.

  Lyndall nodded. ‘Susie Ortega,’ she said. ‘Yes, I know her. A lovely woman. She’s a gynaecologist. Married to Henry Jolley.’

  ‘Oh, of course, I know him. He’s helped on a couple of cases. And he told me he was married. He calls her Susanna.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lyndall, ‘it seems to have worked out well. You might remember—she lost her only child a few years ago?’

  Cass shook her head. ‘No, maybe it was before I came up here. That’s awful.’

  ‘Yes, it was. I can’t imagine, though, that she’d have any more children at this point in her life.’ She stopped for a moment and looked at Cass thoughtfully.