by Logan May
That might explain the lack of underwear, Lukas guessed.
She added, ‘Your fee is still guaranteed, of course. I’ll personally make sure of that. If it comes to the worst, we can always come to an arrangement.’
‘It’s not a concern right now,’ Lukas said, hoping they were both still discussing cash. Romping around naked with the lovely Theresa in any of the many rooms upstairs was appealing, but didn’t constitute legal currency or even rate a discount. The invoicing would be difficult, too.
Not that Lukas needed it. A healthy investment portfolio provided by his parents, who had retired to a sun-soaked beach in Queensland, catered for everything Lukas could want and plenty more. However, he knew clients tended to be more forthcoming during his investigations, if they were paying a decent fee and expecting their money’s worth.
‘Mind you,’ Theresa said with a false smile, ‘While we’ve been assured you’re the best man for the job, I should warn you that our family isn’t accustomed to failure.’
Lukas suspected he was being threatened with a bad sandwich. He wondered if that justified pulling his Glock and shooting Theresa in self-defense. The plunging neckline swayed his mind.
‘We’ve got a long way to go before anyone starts talking about failure,’ he said, making a mental note, Take-away food at all times during this case.
The door burst open and a younger, even more attractive version of Theresa stormed in. Corrine Rewold was Theresa’s twenty-five year old niece.
‘Aunty Theresa, have you seen where—oh, for God’s sake.’ She gave her aunt a disgusted look. ‘Are you trying to prove your innocence by pushing your tits in his face? I’m sure Mr Boston isn’t going to fall for that kind of trick.’
‘Corrine, hello darling.’ Theresa stood up, smoothing her clothing. ‘This was a private conversation. You should have knocked.’
‘It looks like Mr Boston is the one who was about to get knocked. Flat on his back and mauled like a—’
‘That will do, thank you. You’re being silly.’
Lukas held up his hands. ‘Please, you can both call me Lukas. And I can assure you that I always maintain a strictly professional relationship with my clients.’ Both the women stared at Lukas in disbelief. He added to be safe, ‘Well... okay, not strictly, so to speak. I mean, there have been some rare exceptions.’
Bloody Facebook, Lukas thought. You can never be too sure what they know about you.
Corrine came over and stood close, gazing up at his face. ‘Lukas, surely you weren’t eliminating Theresa from your list of suspects simply because she was flirting with you? Because if that’s all it takes, wouldn’t you rather interview someone a lot younger? Somebody not quite so... stretched?’
A hissing noise came from Theresa.
Lukas was always willing to see both sides of any criminal investigation and Corrine’s shapely, youthful figure had abruptly achieved much towards getting her aunt, who moments earlier was innocent as new fallen snow, convicted, jailed and the key thrown away.
‘Like I said, I’m an expert at being impartial. Please, let’s keep things polite.’
‘Would you like to know what I’m expert at?’ Corrine asked him, fingering his shirt. ‘You can ask me anything you like. I never refuse any reasonable request.’
Lukas was getting curious to know whether the family’s financial constraints had a similar effect on Corrine’s underwear collection. From this close, it seemed so.
Theresa said, ‘Ask her for a cheap rate. Everyone else does.’
‘At least they ask me, Theresa. I don’t need to stalk my lovers.’
They glared at each other.
Lukas said in the void, ‘I think we need a family meeting. Let’s get everyone together and set some ground rules, right?’
‘All right, if you insist,’ Corrine said with a pout that promised this wouldn’t be the last time she got to play with his clothing. ‘We’ll go to the front room. The bar’s in there and grandfather can’t stop us drinking his liquor now, can he?’
You might be surprised, Lukas thought, although he expected that, as it often proved, he was the only person who would ever see Edward Rewold’s ghost.
*****
Three more members of the Rewold clan joined them in the front room.
Agatha Rewold was the oldest daughter and Corrine’s mother. Seriously overweight and perpetually scowling, her marriage to Ted Rooker had become a life-support system for both of them, a stubborn arrangement that neither was prepared to give up. The fact that Agatha hadn’t taken Ted’s name—even Corrine called herself a Rewold, not a Rooker—told Lukas that Ted didn’t have a lot of say in matters. Looking almost gaunt beside Agatha, Ted affected the persona of a fit, well-dressed businessman with many things on his mind. He spoke vaguely, as if his head was filled with important decisions to be made. Lukas had been told that Ted held some kind of nominal position in Edward Rewold’s organisation, a role that involved frequent, long lunches and board meetings that never seemed to achieve anything. The real powerhouse of the empire was Agatha, who carried out her father’s every whim with an iron fist and, no doubt, was now relishing being let off Edward’s leash with his death.
Lukas looked at them both and tried to figure how the gorgeous Corrine had resulted from such a union. It didn’t seem possible. Then, watching Corrine perch herself on a barstool, the skirt riding high, his mind strayed back to the question of underwear again.
Job Rewold was in his mid-thirties, only slightly younger than Theresa. With a beer in one hand he lay sprawled across a couch and seemed bored with the whole thing, toying with a smartphone. Job was slim with a pronounced paunch. It was obvious where much of his supposedly meagre, disposable income was spent. His hair was too long and lank, with a high forehead. Job wouldn’t be bothering hairdressers for much longer.
Self-conscious in front of them, Lukas announced, ‘I thought it best to speak with you all together to explain how we can go forward and make sure you still want my involvement in this investigation. Your father hired me to look into this situation, but since he’s now deceased I need an assurance you’re in agreement that I should continue and I’ll be getting your full co-operation.’
Agatha blinked at him, then rolled her eyes at Ted to instruct her husband that speaking wasn’t necessary and would only annoy her. Corrine slurped on a large whiskey and shifted slightly on the stool to make her dress lift another half inch. Theresa saw this and wiped at something invisible on her chest, prompting some more jiggling that Lukas pretended not to notice.
Job sighed and said, still playing with his phone, ‘Will it take long?’
‘That’s hard to say,’ Lukas said, already deciding this was somehow going to be the fastest investigation he’d ever done and the main priority was getting out of this madhouse.
‘Will you need to interview the house staff?’ Agatha said. She had a wheezing, squeaking voice like she was about to choke any moment.
‘You have house staff?’ Lukas inwardly groaned. More people meant more complications.
‘An incompetent cleaner, a maid who is never here to answer my calls, and a house manager who couldn’t manage a dog kennel,’ Agatha said, grating out every word. ‘I would fire them all, except I don’t have the authority until father’s will is read.’
Job said laconically, ‘What makes you think that’s how everything will work out? It might be me.’
Agatha snorted, ‘Father had a sense of humour, but he wasn’t a complete fool.’
‘Are these staff here now?’ Lukas said.
Theresa answered, ‘Not today. They don’t live in the house and we’ve told them to stay away until further notice.’
‘And, I might say, have you noticed any damned difference?’ Agatha asked everyone.
‘My bed needs making,’ Corrine said, annoyed. ‘And we’ve run out of ice.’ She frowned at her whiskey.
‘I really don’t know how you’ll cope,’ Theresa murmured. ‘Mind you, I was
n’t aware you ever slept in your own bed.’
Ted told them, ‘My appointments schedule has all gone to hell. I’m missing a lot of very important meetings.’
Theresa said, ‘Business should improve then?’
He gave her a droll look. ‘Isn’t it time for your hourly snack, dear? You’re wasting away to a mere mountain in front of our eyes.’
This prompted everyone to begin sniping furiously at each other, ignoring Lukas, their voices getting louder and louder.
Lukas considered pulling out his pistol and firing a few rounds into the ceiling. ‘Is there anyone upstairs?’ he asked mildly. No one heard him and the noise dragged on.
It was something Lukas had always wanted to do.
‘I have another question, Mr Boston,’ Job suddenly announced over everyone, putting up his hand. It made them all stop to listen.
Disappointed, Lukas said, ‘Ask away.’
‘Will any of this investigation be adding to our official police records?’
This was a surprise. ‘Which of you has a criminal record?’
For the first time the Rewolds displayed some kind of family unity, exchanging wry smiles.
Job said, ‘Who hasn’t? Didn’t you know?’
THREE
Lukas was back at the warehouse where Edward Rewold hung himself. He let himself in through an access door that no one seemed bothered to lock. Already the police tape had gone with only tatters still stuck to the beams and walls. The rope had been taken down. A breeze blew mournfully through gaps in the corrugated iron sheeting, bringing with it the cries of seagulls and the sound of the water lapping against the pylons below. Lukas was hoping to answer what he thought was a telling question.
Why did Rewold kill himself here?
As a wealthy man with all kinds of options available to him—and apart from the fact Rewold must have had plenty of ways to avoid suicide in the first place—this place didn’t strike Lukas as being high on Rewold’s list of unhappy memories. Somewhere he might have reason to test his knot-tying skills with a rope around his neck.
‘Why here?’ Lukas asked the creaking building around him.
Something rattled nearby and Lukas spun around, instinctively reaching for his Glock. Outside it was overcast with not much light coming into the warehouse, making it even more gloomy and forbidding. Lukas waited patiently, watching. Nothing was there. As he looked down between a pile of crates to an end wall, a piece of the tin wall lifted back with the wind, letting in a slice of daylight, before springing back with a bang.
Satisfied, he turned back to be confronted once again with Edward Rewold’s corpse hanging from the rafter. This time the body was twisting slowly on the rope.
Recovering from the small fright, Lukas asked, ‘What’s the view like from up there?’
It took a long moment for the dead man’s face to be looking down at Lukas. It was still terribly blue and his swollen tongue poked out. His eyes were open and glaring angrily at Lukas. Rewold spoke with a choking, guttural voice.
‘Where are my socks?’
‘I’d say cold feet is the least of your problems now, mate,’ Lukas said. ‘Tell me, why the hell did you do this to yourself? Couldn’t you have driven your Ferrari into a brick wall or drowned yourself in a bath of Moet or something? I mean, it’s not like you needed to kill yourself on a budget, right?’
The ghost didn’t answer, twisting away again. Lukas tried to follow it. ‘Can you keep still?’ he said, walking in a circle, looking up. Lukas’ foot slithered and he glanced down. In that instant the hanging corpse vanished—as Lukas expected would happen once he took his eyes off it.
He was alone in the warehouse again, if you ever considered a ghostly, hanging man as company.
‘Okay, socks... where are his shoes and socks?’ Lukas asked himself. The likely solution was they had been bagged as evidence and taken away with the corpse. It was something Lukas needed to confirm with Pete Goodall.
He went outside and took in the scenery, hoping for inspiration. The area beside the warehouse was wide enough for trucks. Normally Lukas would have expected to find people fishing from a wharf like this. He guessed the polluted waters didn’t have much to offer or maybe it was just the wrong time of day for fooling fish into swallowing suspiciously convenient worms.
Further down the dirty, uninviting beach was another jetty with a similar line of warehouses. This one wasn’t abandoned, instead the buildings converted into a large markets with permanent stalls, small shops and cafes. It looked more than a little forlorn with its faded bunting fluttering in the breeze, the signs and paintwork peeling. Lukas conceded that the grey day wasn’t helping, but it was still a far cry from Disneyland. His stomach growled and that made up his mind.
‘As good a place as any to start,’ he said.
Lukas had to walk back to the shore, across a car park and out onto the other wharf. A large door had been made in the end of the warehouse with a banner above saying, “Welcome to Wharftown Markets”. A cartoon seagull with a big toothy grin held a packet of chips and a can of drink. Just below the banner was a small plaque declaring that the building was owned and controlled by Windhall Holdings Pty Ltd. Lukas scratched at his memory and was almost sure this was a company owned, at least in part, by Edward Rewold.
He’d need to check, but in the meantime a piece of the puzzle, albeit a small one, potentially clicked into place.
Stalls were erected on both walls of the warehouse and back-to-back in the centre too, creating two aisles either side. Tourists wandered half-heartedly between them. Mostly it was women trailed by dutiful, bored husbands waiting until it was a reasonable time to suggest going to a bar somewhere for a drink. Lukas tossed a mental coin and went left.
Many of the shops were offering the same bric-a-brac, souvenirs and trinkets to lure the tourist dollar. Some of the owners wore hopeful, half-desperate expressions watching shoppers pass by, trying to use sheer will-power to make them stop and browse. Others seemed resigned to their fate and read newspapers or fiddled with laptops and tablets, almost resenting that anyone should disturb them and, God forbid, ask if they might buy something.
A stall dedicated to paintings and poster prints caught Lukas’ eye and he went in. As he took a closer look Lukas realised that what he’d first thought was a Salvador Dali-like theme was simply an appalling lack of talent. Whoever did these pictures didn’t have a trace of artistic ability at all. Worse, every painting was of a cat. Distorted, furry faces followed Lukas around as he did a quick lap of the stall. He shuddered involuntarily, since Lukas had recently had a bad experience involving cats. More to the point, the owner of a missing cat.
‘Are all these from a local artist?’ he said to the stall owner, a small bespectacled man sitting nervously in the corner behind a desk. Lukas only asked, because he accidentally made eye-contact.
‘It’s all my own work,’ the man said, in a piping voice. ‘Only my best work, of course. I have more in my studio at home, if you’re after something different.’
‘Different? You mean, without any cats in it?’
The man blinked. ‘No, why would I do that?’
‘Well, for someone who likes dogs, perhaps?’ Lukas started backing out of the stall.
‘I’m afraid that I only prefer cats.’
‘Right—okay, I’m more of a dog lover, so...’ Lukas raised his hand in an apology and edged further away. The man craned his neck, watching him leave.
Next Lukas saw a cramped secondhand book shop and stepped over the threshold. The shopkeeper was an older, gruff-looking man deeply absorbed in a paperback. He glanced at Lukas and said without greeting, ‘Erotica is on the left there, on the bottom three shelves. Two bucks each or three for a fiver. You can’t browse for long. Pornography might be free on the damned internet, but not here.’
Lukas looked around making sure the man was talking to him. ‘I’m not interested in erotica,’ Lukas said. ‘Or pornography,’ he felt compelled to add.
‘Nope, nobody is. That’s why it’s the biggest industry in the whole world. Magazines are in the racks next to you. The R-rated stuff is in the cardboard box on the floor. Ten bucks each, definitely no browsing.’
‘You’re joking, ten dollars for a secondhand porn magazine? I’ve never—’ Luka stopped himself.
The owner carefully turned a page of his book. ‘These are collectors’ items, guaranteed no stains or torn pages.’
‘Maybe I’ll just have a look around,’ Lukas said, again sliding towards the aisle and escape. The markets were plainly operated by lunatics.
‘Suit yourself.’
Charming prick, Lukas thought. And he’d never pay ten dollars for a used porn mag. That was crazy.
To escape the book store quickly, Lukas crossed to a stall on the opposite side. Too late, he realised it was crowded with hanging mystical orbs, posters on witchcraft and the occult, and shelves filled magical ointments, talismans and charms. It was exactly the kind of place that Lukas’ grandmother would have despised. She had been the genuine thing, a woman with old, gypsy blood in her veins. She’d alerted Lukas to his gift of being able to chat with the likes of Edward Rewold—people after they’d moved on from the living. Since his first experiences with the Afterlife, Lukas couldn’t help feeling disdain for this kind of bogus, commercial spiritualism.
‘What a load of shit,’ he told a bottle of bath salts guaranteed to bring you love and happiness, if you used it once a week.
Nobody was behind the counter and Lukas decided to get away unnoticed, but he bumped into a girl hurrying back.
‘Sorry, I was just in the bathroom,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Is there anything I can help you with?’
She was pretty and petite, one of those women who would have the body of a teenager for her entire life. She had a bob-style haircut, a cute face and a wide, gorgeous smile. Although it was cold outside, she was only wearing a tight tee-shirt and jeans.
‘Hello, I love this kind of stuff,’ Lukas told her. ‘Can’t get enough of it.’