Cold Deception

by D. B. Tait

  Norm laughed bitterly. “You think I’d go all righteous and complain then? I just wanted to forget all about him. I still want to forget about him.”

  Dylan leant back and watched him.

  “What did he have on you?”

  Fear replaced resignation on Norm’s face.

  “Nothing. He had nothing.”

  Dylan waited.

  “If that’s all, I have work to do.” Norm lumbered to his feet and out of the office, leaving behind the smell of sweat and panic.

  Chapter 9

  The rest of the week rushed past in a blur for which Julia was grateful. The confrontation with O’Reardon pulled into sharp relief her decision to put the past firmly behind her and concentrate on the future. She would avoid anyone and anything related to O’Reardon. That included Nessa.

  Finding out what she had to organize for her TAFE course, then negotiating with Eleanor and Dee about what needed to be done to the house, took up a large part of her time. That and making sure Blossom was still in detox. Rez seemed to have disappeared. Hopefully he’d gone back to Sydney where it was easier to get lost.

  The gnawing anxiety about the DVD O’Reardon possessed remained with her. How could she have forgotten about Father Pat’s well-known computer skills? She made herself think back to that terrible day, forcing herself to block out the horror of finding Blossom naked and unconscious and instead focused on what was lying around the priest’s house. She had a vague memory of a laptop and a light, some kind of strong floor lamp near the couch. He must have had everything set up.

  Fighting despair, she prayed Blossom would never have to know what really happened that day. There was no reason for her to know.

  To Julia’s surprise, Eleanor became immediately enthusiastic about the house project. A little too enthusiastic. Julia worried she’d take over, then blame her if the end result wasn’t what she wanted.

  “You could fix up the weatherboards and then we could paint the whole house a dark slate gray with white trim around the windows and a thin sliver of fuchsia just around the glass. It would look modern and dramatic.” Eleanor beamed at her with delight.

  “You don’t think some colors more in fitting with the bush would be better?” Julia asked, knowing what her reply would be.

  “Nonsense! Boring! Federation green and that washed out cream? Not on this house.”

  Julia sighed. Her mother had paint samples everywhere. She watched as Eleanor slapped a dark gray patch on the side of the house, followed by a strip of white and a narrow strip of fuchsia. She was right. It looked fantastic. Julia could see the rose garden Dee lovingly tended as well as the old fashioned perennials covering much of the garden would be set off to advantage by these colors.

  But old resentments were hard to let go. She grumbled half-heartedly then was consumed with guilt when Eleanor put down her brush and stepped back.

  “Of course, you’re probably right. Something sensible would be better. You let me know what you decide. I have an account at the hardware store. Just put everything on that.”

  She turned to go back toward her studio in the garden. Julia pulled her back.

  “No, Ma. Don’t go. I like these colors. The garden will look fantastic.”

  Eleanor turned and Julia saw the tears in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Ma. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Her mother nodded then squared her shoulders. “I know you don’t, but that’s what happens. I’m not the same person as I was ten years ago, Julia. But you can’t seem to see that. I know you put up with a lot when you were a child, but that was a long time ago. I’ve been in hospital, in therapy, I go to NA meetings and Dee won’t let me get away with anything. I have a life here with good friends. I’m part of this community and people seek me out for advice and support. But every time I open my mouth around you, I feel like you judge me. I do enough of that myself. I don’t need you to do that as well.”

  Julia opened her mouth to reassure her, only to snap it shut. Reassurance was her typical response. Denial that her mother behaved badly and there were consequences for that bad behavior. She faced her mother.

  “I spent long hours in my own therapy talking about you and what life was like all those years ago. Talking about how I had to pick you up after a bender and get you to a doctor when you went on a wrecking spree. Or when you pushed me out of the house in the middle of the night because I was ‘sucking the creative juice’ out of you. But of course the next morning all was forgiven and I could come back into the house to make breakfast for you and whatever hopeless jerk you were currently fucking. I was removed remember? You were so out of it, you couldn’t look after a seven-year-old child.” She was yelling now and it felt great. “If I judge you it’s because you hurt me. You hurt me…”

  Her voice broke along with her spirit as she stared at her mother’s devastated face. She turned away from her and hid her face in her hands, not able to stop the shuddering sobs. She hadn’t cried like this since that first night when she wanted to kill herself. She would’ve, but they watched her too closely.

  Her mother’s arms came around her and she slumped into them. The familiar smell of turpentine and rose oil surrounded her.

  “We can’t go on like this, Julia. We’re both damaged but we have to stop hurting each other. You’re my daughter and I love you. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of those terrible days and how I hurt you. I want the best for you now. Somehow we have to lay those ghosts to rest.”

  Julia put her arms around her mother and her head on her shoulder. They stood together for a while, leaning on each other. The sobs finally subsided. Julia was the first to break the embrace. She wiped her face and smiled crookedly.

  “What about we have an exorcism before we fix up the house? Get someone to do a smoking ceremony. Cleanse it. Then we can tart it up and you and Dee can live here like the eccentric old dames you both really are.”

  “What about you? You’ll still be here won’t you?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t, Ma. I have to break free from you sometime. You understand that don’t you?”

  Eleanor nodded her head. For the first time Julia could see a network of fine lines in her mother’s classically beautiful face. She looked tired and every inch her age.

  “But don’t go far, will you? Even though it hasn’t been easy between us, I like having you here. And Dee loves you.”

  Julia smiled again. “No, I won’t leave the mountains. I like it here. The bush is my home. Which reminds me,” she said, pulling herself up straight to change the subject. “It’s Dee’s fiftieth birthday soon. What are we doing?”

  “Well…” Her mother launched into a detailed explanation of a party she’d started organizing. Julia smiled as she listened. Eleanor wanted a party and if Julia wouldn’t cooperate with a welcome-home party, Dee’s fiftieth would work. She was at her best when she had a plan. Julia hoped with everything she had that whatever resentment was between them could be laid to rest.

  Her reverie came to an abrupt halt when she focused on her mother’s words.

  “How many people?”

  “Sixty.”

  “My God! What are we going to feed them? And where will we put them?”

  “Don’t worry about that. Sixty people can get into this house easily. And it’s being catered. Everything’s under control. You don’t have to do anything.”

  “But I haven’t done any work on the weatherboards. She still looks terrible.”

  Eleanor snorted. “She’s looked terrible for the last twenty years. A little while longer won’t hurt. After all, she’s been the worst house in the best street for a long time. When she’s tarted up she won’t know herself.”

  She linked her arm through Julia’s. They both stared up at the ramshackle old house.

  She’ll look grand when I’m through with her.

  And then what?

  Julia thrust that thought out of her mind. Concentrate on the now.

  *
>
  Julia peered through the front window of the little cafe in the Katoomba Arcade. It was dark, but she could see Nessa at a table down the back. Ever since Nessa’s phone call and the urgency she heard in her voice, Julia had to fight a growing sense of dread. She wanted to help Nessa, she always had, knowing what she’d gone through in her life, but she wasn’t sure she had it in her to help anymore. Just before Nessa got out the last time, Julia had been convinced Nessa would make it. That didn’t seem to be the case after all, if what she was like when they’d met in the street was any indication of Nessa’s state of mind.

  Nessa lifted a hand and smiled when she saw Julia at the doorway. No way out of it now. Julia sat at the table and breathed with relief when she saw the other woman was clear eyed and alert. Nessa grasped her hands and squeezed.

  “It’s so good to see you,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking but it’s not true. I haven’t used since I got out.”

  Julia winced, trying to turn it into a smile. “That’s okay Nessa. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

  “No, really. I… I have a reason for wanting people to think I’m still using.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” Julia asked, perplexed.

  Nessa looked down at their intertwined hands then pulled away. She dropped her gaze from Julia’s face and much to Julia’s consternation, a tear fell from her eye. She raised her head, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and took a deep breath.

  “I can’t let O’Reardon go on and destroy a whole lot of other women’s lives the way he destroyed mine. I have to do something.”

  Julia’s pulse kicked up. “What do you mean?”

  “I saw you. The other day. That creep Randle was driving you out of the hotel. Why? Why did you see him?”

  Julia stiffened. “I… it has nothing to do with you. Forget it.”

  “He threatened you didn’t he? Told you to shut up about the drugs. He wouldn’t bother with anyone else but with you he would. Everyone knows you don’t use. He’d be scared you’d found out about Ingram. He was right to be scared. I should never have told you.”

  Julia shrugged. “What’s done is done. I don’t want anything to do with him or that world.” She paused and stared at Nessa intently. “If you’re clean you should stay right away from him. Why aren’t you?”

  Nessa fiddled with the teaspoon on her saucer. “I want to hurt him,” she said in a voice of ice. “I want him to pay.”

  Julia shook her head. “That’s crazy, Ness. You can’t do that. Stay away from him.”

  She smiled, a grim, scary slash across her face. “Too late. I spent the night with him last night. He’s letting me stay with him. I told him I was straight and he seems to see that as a bit of a challenge. Keeps leaving stuff around for me to use. Valium in the bathroom cabinet, a bit of coke in the bedside table.” She barked out a laugh. “Fucker. Can’t say I’m not tempted, but I’ve got something else in mind.”

  “What?”

  “Did he threaten you? Your family? You could go to the police. They’d believe you. You could tell them everything about how he gets drugs into jail. There’s a lot I didn’t tell you. We could go now…” Her face lit up and her voice rose several levels.

  “No! No. Stop it,” Julia hissed. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why? Why not?” Her face fell into stark desperation.

  Julia hesitated. “You’re staying with him? At his place?”

  Nessa nodded.

  “He has something that would hurt my sister. A DVD. He threatened to upload it to the internet.”

  “That’d be right. Bastard. What’s on it? Did she do something stupid with a cell phone when she was drunk? Isn’t that what silly young kids do? Have sex with their boyfriends while someone films it?”

  Julia shook her head while her heart pounded. Should she tell her? No one would believe her if Nessa told anyone else. They’d assume she was lying the way she’d always lied.

  “It’s a DVD of the murder of the priest. I… I didn’t do it.” She lowered her voice so Nessa had to lean forward. “Blossom did. She was only a child. But…” she swallowed then took a sip of water. “He molested her, or maybe tried to, and she killed him. He was filming it but O’Reardon got the recording. He kept it. Now he’s threatening to upload it to the internet if I tell anyone about Ingram and the rest.”

  Nessa stared at her with wide, wild eyes. “You didn’t do it?”

  Julia shook her head.

  “Fuck,” Nessa said. She put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. “Fuck. Why on earth…” Her head shot up. “Does your sister know?”

  “No, and I don’t want her to know. She’s got her own problems. This would tip her over the edge.”

  Nessa stared at her with doubt in her eyes. “Don’t you think she’d be happy to clear your name? She was a child. Even I know she wouldn’t be held responsible now? Why did you do it? Why did you take responsibility?”

  Why did she?

  Julia stared down at her hands, aware the usual explanation she gave herself about wanting to save Blossom wasn’t the whole story.

  All those nights in her cell, listening to the nightmares, the moans, the despair of other women was her punishment for her own self-absorbed betrayal of her best friend.

  “I knew about Father Pat quite a while before he attacked Blossom. I just didn’t want to do anything about it. My friend Sally told me months before that day, but we’d had a falling out over…” she couldn’t stop the sob in her voice even now, after all these years, “…over a stupid boy. When she told me about Father Pat, I thought she was being a drama queen. Trying to get attention. She’d done that before, made up stories that weren’t true about all sorts of people. I thought she was doing the same thing. Turns out her lying and crazy behavior were classic symptoms of sexual abuse. She needed me and I wasn’t there for her. What’s worse, she and several other kids had to endure abuse for months before he attacked Blossom. That was my fault.”

  “No,” Nessa murmured. “No, Julia. That’s not your fault. He was the monster not you. Don’t you remember what you used to tell me in jail? It wasn’t my fault that I got raped by O’Reardon. It wasn’t your fault that Father Pat hurt other people.”

  Julia grasped her hands and started picking at her cuticle. “But I could have stopped him earlier. I know I could.”

  Nessa closed her hands over Julia’s and pulled them apart. “One bad choice didn’t deserve ten years in jail.” She sat back in her chair with a look of consideration on her face. “I could get the DVD back. Better that you have it so you can decide what to do about Blossom. Then we could go to the cops.”

  Julia’s heart leaped into her throat. So many problems would be solved if she could get that DVD. But the risk…

  She shook her head. “No. It’s too dangerous. You need to get away from him, away from all the drugs he’s tempting you with. You’ve got too much to lose, Nessa. Give it up and get away. Do you want to stay with me? My family won’t mind, we’ve got heaps of room.”

  Nessa smiled. “You were always so generous, Jules. Maybe I’ll take you up on your offer, but I want to snoop around a bit, see what I can find. He’s got some kind of hidey-hole in his office. He thinks I don’t know, but I know it’s there. Just have to work out how to get into it.”

  “Nessa…”

  She held up her hand to ward off Julia’s objections. “Don’t worry about me. I know how to look after myself. I wouldn’t have survived this long if I didn’t. I’ll get him. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get him.”

  Chapter 10

  Amazing what a week could do in a detox. Blossom looked shaky but much more a real person instead of a wraith. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail which enabled Julia to see just how gaunt she was. But she had more color and her eyes were clear.

  Not so her mind. She tried to put on a good front, but Julia could see she was struggling with some demons. Anger sizzled around her. Anger
with Rez and, increasingly, anger with her family. She snapped and snarled whenever Julia tried to talk to her. Thankfully, she’d taken up Douglas Sinclair on his offer of counseling. Julia hoped she was talking to him. If she was traumatized by that awful night, he could set her straight.

  Julia knew enough about referred pain and the power of suggestion to know that people could believe in events that hadn’t happened. Memory was unreliable and Douglas could help Blossom through whatever she thought had happened that night. There was enough information on the public record that provided an account of the murder of Father Pat. Some of it was even true. If Nessa could just find that DVD…

  A tight band of guilt pulled painfully in her chest. Nessa risked everything staying with O’Reardon. But she couldn’t be reasoned with. She was determined to find the DVD and…

  Then what?

  Julia put the whole dreadful mess out her mind and concentrated on what was in front of her.

  She scraped the chisel over the worst of the flaking paint, happy to be outside and in the sun. The cold snap of a week ago had disappeared. Now it felt like a summer reprieve before winter in the mountains again descended. Not that she disliked cold weather. As much as she liked the glitz and glamour of Sydney, to her mind there were no real seasons there. No frost to make the garden bare and dormant, no occasional days of snow, where everyone went crazy and hurled snowballs, no need for roaring fires and thick sweaters. Sure Sydney got cold, but not that bone deep freezing that made Julia realize deep in her heart that respect had to be paid to the elements.

  She smiled to herself. She was becoming as eccentric as her mother and Dee, philosophizing about the world and her place in it. There were worse things to mull about she supposed. Like psychopathic ex-cops. Or the other cop who visited her dreams with his compelling gray eyes.

  She knew a little more about Dylan but wished she was still ignorant. Dee had taken her aside a few days ago, a look of worry and what Julia could see was embarrassment in her eyes.

  “You know I’m a member of AA.”