by T M Heron
I think back to the manky dump Belinda called home. There’s plenty of time to do this because my mind isn’t working in real-people time. And there it is. No need for crafting much at all. The story is already there in my head. Has been since before she was even dead. Unbeknown to my conscious mind it was formulating while I was right there talking with her. And after, looking around that torrid little tip. The little notes on the fridge reminding her to keep taking her medication. The bottles of lithium and Seroquel on her bedside table. The little foil of Ecstasy tabs I left behind — such a bad combination with anti-psychotics. Plus the state of carnage in the house. When the police found all of that, she can hardly have looked stable.
I clear my voice, half-close my eyes, as if I’m concentrating. Wait until they’re both unconsciously leaning forward awaiting me.
“I met Belinda, who was calling herself Diana at the time, at a French Sector party.”
“How long ago?” says Pacitto.
“Eighteen months.”
I’m sure this is highly inconvenient. Eighteen months is a difficult period of time to go back to. What normal person remembers useful details as to what happened eighteen months ago?
“What’s a French Sector party?” says Grayson.
“Not anything you’ll ever attend,” I reply snidely.
Grayson glances pointedly at Pacitto and Pacitto glares at me.
“It’s like, ah, an elite sex club,” Pacitto finally says to Grayson. He gives me a look of disgust. “Which club was it?”
“It was on Green Street.” I say. “The whole building’s empty now. They’re redeveloping it into apartments.”
“Were you with anyone?”
“I was with several people. That’s the nature of these things. Please don’t expect me to remember names.”
“You remembered Diana’s,” bursts out Grayson triumphantly.
I smirk. “You mean Belinda?”
Grayson colors slightly while Pacitto looks cross. Whether it’s with me or Grayson I’m not sure.
“She came in about midway through the evening as I was leaving. I have no idea how she made it in. I mean, she was hardly up to spec.”
“Who else saw her?” says Grayson.
“I don’t know.” I’m pointedly ignoring Grayson now and speaking directly to Pacitto. “Anyone who was there, potentially. I was leaving. I barely gave her a passing glance.”
Both men sit further back in their seats again like synchronized puppets. “And?” says Pacitto.
“She followed me home.” I eat another sliver of cake. Wipe my hands on a napkin. “She came in. We had sex.”
“Just like that?”
“I guess I wasn’t as finished for the evening as I thought,” I say.
A silence hangs over the office. This is a technique I often invoke myself which results in people talking to reduce their discomfort. I’m not uncomfortable but happy to provide some more irrelevant details. “She was high, but not uncontrollably so. Not much talking went on. It wasn’t one of my finer moments.”
“So you had a sexual one-night stand?” prompts Grayson.
“To the best of my knowledge there’s no other kind.”
Grayson pushes his glasses up his nose and colors rewardingly. Even his pale bald head colors.
“Somewhere at the end of our, of that, when I asked her to leave, Diana became agitated and erratic.”
“In what way?”
“She stopped acting crazy sexy and became crazy paranoid.”
Outside the wind picks up and literally screams. We’re on the 28th floor and the building shifts slightly. Grayson looks uneasy. Part of me wants to invite him up to the rooftop conservatory which is all glass and partially juts out over the street. It’s like standing on nothing and would be a riot to take Grayson there in this weather. Sadly there’s no justification for doing that.
“She told me she didn’t remember how she got to my house,” I sigh. “Then she started accusing me of videoing us. She became extremely agitated I was going to put our ‘sex tape’ on the net and sabotage her acting career.”
“She’s a teacher aide,” says Grayson. The building moves again, and he grabs the desk. When he sits back in his chair there are hand-shaped condensation marks on my desk.
“Yes, as of this morning’s paper I’m aware of that,” I say neutrally. “As of this morning’s paper I’m perfectly aware Diana, the psycho actress, was actually Belinda, the psycho teacher aide.”
The building sways again in the wind, and rain slams at my window. I’ve got my back to it but I still feel the impact. Grayson winces. It’s as if someone is out there with a monsoon bucket. My mobile phone vibrates on the desk, but I ignore it. “She wasn’t easy to get rid of. She refused to leave without this sex tape she’d dreamed up. Eventually I got her in a taxi. And thought that was the end of it.”
“Do you remember the taxi company?”
“No, I just flagged one that was passing.”
“Can’t remember a thing about it?”
“It had a ‘Taxi’ sign on top.”
Grayson glowers.
“Did she accuse you of rape at the time?” says Pacitto.
“No. And if she really thought she’d been raped she’d hardly have been worried about me putting it up there on the net for public consumption, would she? She knew what I did for a living. A live rape tape on the net would have been the end for me. As if anyone would be stupid enough to publicize footage of themselves raping someone.”
“It’s amazing what some people will do,” says Grayson.
I roll my eyes. “Anyway, she returned the following night and I wouldn’t let her in. She stayed at the door for about an hour screaming obscenities at me. And that was the start of it all.”
Pacitto pricks up his ears. “Did any of your neighbors complain?”
“None of them would have heard. It’s a large property. And the front wall would block-“
“You don’t need to worry about explaining that. We have a pretty good idea what your house is like. There’s a team searching it now,” says Pacitto. He puts a copy of what is undoubtedly a search warrant on my desk.
I glance at it. “You searching Jo’s house as well?”
“She wasn’t the one accused of rape.”
“I don’t believe it,” I say. “This woman is still fucking me over from the grave.”
“You think she’s ‘fucked you over’?”
There’s a lull in the rain but I barely notice it as I’ve already raised my voice. “When you’ve heard the rest of my story, much of which is verifiable, and your team searches my house and finds absolutely nothing, and when you actually catch the person who did this — assuming you do — you might glean some small sense of understanding as to why I feel fucked over.”
I glance in disgust at Grayson’s plain doughy face and rub my eyes. “My entire firm knows I’ve been accused of rape, I had a bucket of paint thrown over me, and the police are here interviewing me because this freak has now got herself murdered. So yeah, strangely enough, and it could just be me, I am feeling just a little fucked over.”
“You seem unnerved your house is being searched.”
“Not at all. Last time I saw a shooting star I said to myself, ‘I’d like a team of clumsy, indifferent strangers to invade my privacy.’”
Grayson’s head swivels to Pacitto to see if he’s going to do anything about my attitude and Pacitto ignores him. “Is there anything you want to talk about that they’re likely to find?”
“No.” I glare at them, even though in reality I’m quite excited. “Is either of you actually interested in hearing the whole story?”
Outside there is a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder, and the rain starts slamming at the window again. Grayson tenses, Pacitto pours another coffee. Inside, my office is a sanctuary of warmth and comfort.
A sense of smugness washes over me. I have taken many precautions over the last few years in the event my house was
ever searched. As with my work computer not one dodgy site has ever been visited from my home computer. No news sites visited. No criminal investigations followed or victim’s name’s googled. My stash of recreational drugs, along with all my illegally purchased pharmaceutical drugs, are in an old case in the locked and alarmed garden shed of Mrs. Katherine Adams, a wealthy reclusive eighty-something widow who lives fifteen houses down the road.
The interview continues, Pacitto leading with Grayson taking notes and chipping in from time to time. “So Belinda returned to your house, wanting more of the same, you didn’t let her in, she went away again. Why didn’t you report it?”
“I didn’t feel under any real threat. Giving her attention might have encouraged her. I never dreamed it would escalate into being accused of raping her and people taking it seriously.”
They both nod. Jacqueline arrives with refreshments, of a late-lunch variety. Then I eat sashimi and spin my story of how Belinda continued to harass me, sometimes wanting sex, sometimes being in personality number two and wanting the sex tape that would ruin her acting career. I move on to describing how her behavior started escalating, borrowing from annoying random things that actually have happened to me over the last year, keeping it real, like the repeated incidents of my fence being defaced, and the three times someone keyed my Bentley.
I’m about to tie all this in to how she keyed my car in the associate’s car park when a revelatory bomb explodes inside my mind, and I realize that Belinda, being the vigilante she was, probably was behind all the fence defacing and car wrecking.
She was building up.
It makes sense.
And while at the time those individual events infuriated me beyond belief, the wonderful thing is now I have about twelve months’ worth of Wood’s Panel Repairs receipts and Khandallah Paint Shop receipts for fixing all this damage. I have, as it happens, evidence!
I offer to get the surveillance tapes. Which it turns out they already have.
“And still you didn’t report it?”
“As I said, I was going to take out a protection order if anything else happened.”
“How much worse did things have to get? Did you ever contact her about it? As things progressed?”
“I had no idea how to contact her. I didn’t even know her real name.”
“Why do you think she accused you of rape, then, that day in your office?”
“She was out to ruin me. Her actions were becoming more and more vindictive. She jammed a screwdriver into my leg, for God’s sake, and stabbed me with a knife. A rape accusation’s as good a way as any to knock the wind out of a guy’s reputation.”
“That’s still very intense behavior,” says Grayson. “All over a one-night stand.”
“Are you honestly asking me to make sense of her behavior?” I say. “Because she was clearly unhinged. To say she wasn’t right in the head is an understatement.”
“It just seems strange you wouldn’t have made a complaint somewhere along the way,” says Pacitto thoughtfully.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” I tell him. “Anyway, I have a very jealous girlfriend. I didn’t tell her about Diana, and I don’t intend to.”
Pacitto ticks something off in his notebook and Grayson looks as animated as it’s possible for a painfully plain man of medium build to look.
“Your girlfriend’s being interviewed at the moment,” says Pacitto
◆◆◆
Ava is furious. That she allows herself to throw a full-scale tantrum demonstrates her completely ill-founded, increasing confidence that she is of emotional significance to me. A few months ago this fury would have been well-tempered, and her grievances raised tentatively in the most rational of manners.
Even if I liked Ava I still wouldn’t care she was furious. It’s not in me. But legally I need her on board more than ever.
“What the hell is going on, Jackson?” She takes a semi-hysterical breath then carries on without giving me a chance to answer. “I don’t know where to start.” But clearly she does. “I spent two hours today being interviewed by the police about my boyfriend, the raping murderer.” An even more hysterical breath. “And I didn’t know what the hell they were even talking about.”
I look contrite. Go to take her hand, so she can have the satisfaction of hurling my arm away. Look even more contrite, and slightly emotionally wounded.
I try to work out in my head whether I can give her a condensed version of what I gave the cops within the next twenty minutes. It’s 6.30 p.m. Michelia’s parents finally pulled their fingers out of their asses and her rape made breaking news today. (When it doesn’t rain it pours.) And even more exciting, there is a televised interview scheduled tonight with the OIC for the Park Rape Team.
Unbeknown to anyone but me it’s the last of the Park Rape Team escapades. So I’m gearing up to savor the last ever infectious wave of inevitable public panic, media sensationalism, political finger-pointing and controversy that’s bound to accompany the announcement. It starts at 9 p.m., and I’d hate to miss it.
The other option is to let Ava storm out of the room and sulk for a couple of hours, watch the program over a relaxing glass of wine, then sort things out with her after.
Ultimately, I decide, the condensed version will suffice. I’ve done enough explaining myself today. I think I’d like to have Ava watching the Park Rape Team program with me. She’s better than no one. Ideally, I prefer to be at work when Park Rape Team news breaks, observing the reactions of as many people as possible. Watch fear creep over the faces of the younger women and a generalized sense of sanctimonious antagonism stir up among the men.
Still, I’ll be curious to see Ava’s reactions to it. As ever, I remain titillated at her complete ignorance of the unique situation she occupies.
14
Aubrey Pacitto visits me at my office the following morning. “Pathologist says Belinda was killed on the Wednesday night. She was last seen by a neighbor at six p.m.”
I shrug.
“We’re going to need to know what you were doing from when you left work at four-thirty that afternoon. Where you were, who you were with.”
“How do you know I left work at four-thirty?”
“Security records.”
“Of course. Well, Wednesday, let me think.” I pause, and squint in concentration. “Assuming I did leave at four-thirty that day, from the time I got home until the following morning I’m pretty sure I was with Ava. Who your guys have done a stellar job of upsetting.”
Pacitto jots it down. “Did either of you leave the house for any reason, during that time?”
“No. It was a romantic evening in. Something I’m going to have to provide a lot more of thanks to the way they ambushed her yesterday.”
Pacitto opens his briefcase and places a form on my desk. “You’re okay with giving a DNA sample, for elimination purposes?”
My jaw clenches as I sign the form. Despite every precaution I’ve taken previously, my DNA will now be on record.
◆◆◆
The media continues to pump Michelia’s rape announcement for all its worth. The cops are way past pretending it’s not serial. It’s made international news again, as did the last seven.
New Zealanders are united in a revolted but prurient form of disbelief. Wellingtonians share less of the gratuitousness and more of the revolt. I see it in the secretaries at work. Even better, I see it in the professional staff. Especially the young ones.
The police once again are advising young girls, especially those fitting the profile (which is incredibly un-PC), not to go out anywhere alone day or night. The police are also insisting, with growing frustration, that girls be more guarded about their postings on social media. Parents in wealthy neighborhoods are continuing to organize nightly patrols; private schools are providing security guards to accompany school buses.
The most satisfying part of all is where the OIC publicly implored any girls who may also be victims but have remained sile
nt to come forward: “They may have vital information they are unaware of.”
The wretched truth is the trepidation they’re feeling is redundant. There won’t be another Park Rape Team case. For my part I’m nursing a simmering resentment at Jo. Her actions relating to the Belinda debacle have, for obvious reasons, been hugely distracting. Preventing me from full immersion in the public furor at this final Park Rape Team scandal.
Jo is not yet back from her “sick leave”. This is probably a good thing as it gives me the chance to calm down about the fiasco she caused by calling the police on me.
In the meantime, alongside the Park Rape Team commotion, work is heating up. Normally this is good. But normally I have no family to accommodate. Small wonder everyday people always look so beaten down.
William Foster sits in my office explaining some of the extremely obscure findings as a result of due diligence our firm has conducted on a company called Ferramo. Will is the straightest lawyer I know, to the point that he makes me uncomfortable. I suspect he’s a Christian. He squirms under my gaze.
“Are we sure?” I say, finally. “The CEO?”
Normally I’d be psyched by this as I love uncovering dirty secrets, but all I feel right now is hugely inconvenienced.
Will nods. He’s obscenely embarrassed to be discussing such a subject.
“How do we know this? Since when has an officer’s personal life been part of a DD? How did we even know to look?”
“He was really erratic in some of the after-lunch meetings. Then Frederick Young saw him at a rave. He was with a couple of under-age guys. As in, really, you know, ‘with’. Frederick said it was obvious.”
“A rave? What was Frederick doing at a rave?” The lucky bastard.
“He’s young. Single. It’s what they do. But this other guy, he’s late fifties. And married, with kids.”
“Okay, very dubious. But how did we come up with the rest of it? Who the hell looked into it?”
Will takes a deep breath. “I used an expert who consults to Litigation.”