by Sue Williams
I was walking back to the car when something tucked in a narrow gap behind a disused fridge caught my eye. I sidled closer. It was brown; looked like leather. Briefcase-shaped. I reached in and tugged. The case was jammed tight against the freezer. I struggled, pulling, puffing. Finally, with a tearing noise, it came out. Yep. Brown leather briefcase, slightly torn. Across the top, in gold looping curls, Pittering and Son. I tried opening it. It was locked.
I started feeling happier once I got back into my car. I’d get the shop open, then later on when things got quiet I’d find a crowbar or something to crank open the briefcase. Although…I sat there a moment. Maybe I should check on Ernie’s shack first. There was that girl, Aurora, I’d like to know she was OK. And Clarence of course.
I steamed along the bitumen, breeze blowing in through my window. Ernie’s place should have been fixed up or pulled down years ago, but since he’s been in the home, he hasn’t had the marbles required to renovate, or even detonate. He still understands money though. There’d be a lot of Ernie’s smelly-breath cackles when I finally gave him Clarence’s five grand. No point in returning it to Clarence now. It was way too late to send these people off before they made trouble. Might be best if I didn’t tell Ernie that his tenant was a suspected murderer with potential Mafia links.
At the turn-off to the shack—close by Perry Lake, only a k or so of desperate mallee scrub away—I stopped. Peered through the windscreen down the track and past the mailbox, a beaten-up old kerosene drum. A white car was parked outside the place.
I firmed my grip on the steering wheel and pressed the accelerator, heading towards the shack. My breath pounded out in between teeth-rattles as the car bounced over the corrugations.
The shack came into view, front verandah all sagging in the middle. Its lacy wrought-iron edging had been pretty once, now it was rusted and forlorn. Broken red bricks lay in a messy heap on the roof where the chimney used to stand.
I pulled up out the front. Next to the shack was a row of four cars, all squeezed in tight. A black Lexus at the front, Mona’s silver Mercedes, a beat-up orange ute in the middle, and at the end of the row, the white car I’d seen from the road. Clarence had a heap of visitors. So much for quiet time to write his book.
A flock of corellas shrieked their way across the sky. An insect hum. No other sounds in the miles of mallee scrub around. Gangland types wouldn’t be interested in this place. Course not. Would they? My legs started trembling, like they do when I stand near the edge of something high. Get a grip, I whispered. All I needed to do was knock on that door and check Aurora was alive. I’ve got my sawn-off star picket, after all. Although it wouldn’t be much use against a gun.
There was a movement at the shack window.
I grabbed Brad’s spare binoculars from my glove box, held them up, scanning the shack. A man was moving around the bedroom. He had his back to me. I could make out blond hair, a leather jacket. I moved the binoculars to view the other window at the front. Nothing. I scanned back to the first window. The bloke had gone.
Crunching-over-gravel noises. I put down the binoculars. My stomach gave a turn. Two men in leather jackets, strolling. A confident kind of stroll, like fellas who know they’re in charge of the planet. One was a stumpy-looking fella, in his forties maybe. The other one was younger, leaner, and a foot taller than anyone I’d ever seen. He had a half-closed eye, like there was something wrong with it.
They were coming towards my car.
I started the car and turned it fast, wheels spinning in the dirt. The men coughed, covered with my spray of dust. I drove quick-smart out of there, skimming over the corrugations on the track, my foot heavy on the pedal.
My tyres screeched on the bitumen as I turned the car out onto the highway. I realised the panting sounds I could hear were coming from my mouth.
I looked in my rearview mirror. One white car, coming up behind. I pushed my foot down. The little engine whined. Like me, my vehicle’s never been in a car chase but unlike me she seemed willing. I rocketed along that dead straight road heading to Rusty Bore.
As the mallee gums flashed by I fumbled for my phone to call Dean. A police siren behind me. Dean? But glancing into the mirror I saw it was the white car from Ernie’s place, blue lights flashing in the front grille. They caught up, effortlessly it seemed, pulling out beside me.
The passenger signalled for me to pull over.
The car parked ahead and the front doors opened with a pair of clicks. The tall man got out first, his calf-length leather coat flapping around him in the wind. That’d have to be a two-cow coat, I thought, he must have been close to seven foot. His half-shut eye looked sleepy.
The stumpy older-looking man followed him, limping. His leather coat was shorter, it only reached his thighs. He had messy hair and a haze of stubble, like a general tidy-up hadn’t been his main concern when he’d got up today. He had the build of a fella that eats like he means it. Smiling, he gave me a little wave.
The tall man came around to my window, held up a police ID. I wound down the window. ‘Senior Sergeant Dale Monaghan.’ He didn’t introduce the other man. ‘Step out of the car, please.’
I held my hand out of the window to shake his. He didn’t take it.
‘Step out of the car,’ he repeated.
I heaved myself ignobly over the handbrake.
‘Can I see some identification?’
‘Oh, you won’t be needing that,’ I smiled. ‘I’m Mrs Cass Tuplin.’ I waited for the surname to sink in.
It didn’t seem to.
‘Mother of Senior Constable Dean Tuplin,’ I said. ‘Leading Senior Constable Tuplin. Our local officer. No doubt you’ve been working with him.’
If he had, he wasn’t letting on. ‘Your driving licence, please.’
While Monaghan studied my licence, I wondered whether I should mention Mona’s body. Maybe Dean had come to his senses and phoned CIU. But CIU was in Bendigo, at least three hours away. No way they would have got here yet. Shut up, I told myself. I didn’t want Dean in trouble.
Then I remembered what Sophia had said, about a fella at Sheep Dip, looking for someone. A mean fella, with a bung eye. Must be this cop, surely. How many strange men with off eyes could there be wandering around the Mallee?
Monaghan handed back my licence.
‘So what brings you fellas here?’ I asked in my brightest tone. ‘Up from Bendigo?’
‘I’ll be the one asking the questions,’ said Monaghan. ‘Now, perhaps you’d like to tell me why you were breaking the speed limit. And what, exactly, you were doing at that property.’
‘And why you left in such a hurry,’ said the other man, scratching a stubbly cheek. He gave me a smile.
Where had I heard his voice?
Monaghan gave him a nasty look, a look that said, Back off mate, I’m in charge.
I drew myself up to my full five feet and two inches, ‘That property is owned by Mr Ernie Jefferson. As his agent, I am perfectly entitled to attend the property. Especially if I have reason to believe the tenant may be under police investigation. And,’ I was on a roll, ‘might I ask if you have a warrant to search the house? I don’t recall the police advising me they would be visiting the premises.’
Monaghan looked off-balance. ‘I see,’ his tone was one degree friendlier. ‘So why did you drive off in such a hurry?’
‘Well, wouldn’t you? Two scary-looking men marched out of the house towards me. How was I meant to know you were police officers?’ I patted down my hair. I must have looked a sight, after the dust storm and crawling around those cars and stinking fridges in search of Mona.
‘Can you tell me anything about Clarence Hocking-Lee’s whereabouts, Mrs Tuplin?’
‘Hocking-Lee? The only Clarence I know told me his surname was Brown. And I haven’t seen him since Friday,’ I said, truthfully.
‘And his relatives? Any idea where they might be?’ He squinted at me with his good eye.
I didn’t care to go into
the whereabouts of Mona. ‘I’m sorry, officer. I’d like to find them as much as you. Especially if he’s in trouble with the police.’
He handed me his card. And with my promise that I’d call him right away if I heard from Clarence or anyone who knew him, he let me go. Without a speeding ticket.
Showered and freshly dressed in an outfit not covered with oil stains, I opened the shop. A quiet afternoon. At four o’clock I put up the Back in 10 minutes sign and headed out.
I walked along Best Street, flicking flies. A flock of galahs, noisy pink, shrieked from the scraggy native pines lining the road. Fifty steps later I was outside Vern’s shop, rusty corrugated iron flapping above walls flaking yellow paint.
Vern’s a blow-in. Only moved here twenty years ago. He stocks the full range from Neapolitan ice cream to header parts.
His grey-muzzled kelpie cross, Boofa, came trotting out and took a leak on the phone booth. That’s Vern’s strategic advantage, the phone booth. And the petrol bowser; the mobile library stop; his post office licence; his agency for the Commonwealth Bank. These are points he makes often. Vern doesn’t need to play Monopoly, he’s got Rusty Bore.
I walked up the three wooden steps to his shop. Vern was lying in his hammock on the front verandah, notebook tucked under an arm, his only arm. He was dressed in a white singlet and blue shorts that were too small on him.
‘Ha. You come to tell me we should merge, have ya? At bloody last.’ He laughed, a sound like a tractor firing up. ‘Economies of scale, Cass. And no one could ever say you’re not a fine figure of a woman.’ His eyes swept up and down my body.
While it’s nice to be appreciated, I’m used to having the run of my own place. And I’m no snob, but Vern’s not really my type. Too much debt and not enough arms.
‘Don’t know how you manage, Cass. You really gotta diversify.’
‘Don’t you worry about me. I’m getting by. Now listen,’ I said. ‘I could do with your help. Couple of things. I’d be grateful.’
‘Grateful.’ He tugged at the crotch of his shorts.
‘First, I need some information. About the young fella I rented Ernie’s shack out to. I’m now thinking that might have been an error of judgment. Clarence, he said his name was.’
‘Young fella.’ Vern stood up, opened his notebook on the hammock and flicked through the pages. He took a chewed-up pen from the pocket of his shorts and ticked something on the page. ‘Yep, yep. Come in at ten past six Friday. Bought one heap of food. Cleared me right out of Tim Tams. Driving a flash car, Lexus. Black. Got his rego here.’ He scratched his chest with the pen.
‘What’s this I hear about a Mafia fella looking for him?’ I kept my voice casual.
‘Hold on, not finished with the young fella yet.’ He licked his thumb, then turned the page. ‘Saw him drive out towards Perry Lake. Out on my hammock, I was, taking in the air. Watching these two blue-tongues. The male, he was going for it, biting her all over, but she just kept scuttling away, wouldn’t let him settle on her. Poor fella. Not an easy life for the male…’
I interrupted. ‘And the Mafia fella?’
‘You mean the bloke was in the Sheep Dip roadhouse? That come from Craig, not sure who he got it from, maybe that Canadian backpacker kid helping at the McKenzies’ place, the one all the girls go mad for. Dunno what they see in him. Perfectly respectable mature blokes available here in Rusty Bore.’ He sucked in a breath. ‘Where was I?’
‘Craig.’
‘Yep, yep. Craig said the story is the fella had a gun tucked under his coat. Said he needed to find some young bloke urgently that had nicked his property.’
‘Could the fella looking have been a cop? Plain-clothes?’
Vern shrugged and scratched his head, thoughtful.
‘Clarence told me not to tell anyone where he is. Sounds suspicious, doesn’t it?’
Vern shrugged again and made a note in his book.
‘Also, Vern, I need a crowbar or something.’
‘Outta crowbars. Sell you a top-notch pinch-bar, though.’
I got back to find a red minibus outside my place. A dreadlocked bloke sat in the driver’s seat. He gave me a cheery wave and a smile full of the straightest, whitest teeth I’d ever seen. The bus door slid open and Brad stepped down, a girl stepping out behind him. She wore a white T-shirt and tattered yellow skirt. Bare feet. And a prominent stomach-bump.
Brad gave me a kiss, then turned and waved as the minibus drove away. Turning back, he said, ‘This is Claire. She’s, um, going to have a baby.’
‘I see. Hello, Claire,’ I said, putting down my pinch-bar. There was a gust of chilly wind. ‘You been abseiling dam walls too?’ It wasn’t the question that was at the top of my mind but I could hardly say, ‘Hello, whose baby?’
‘Oh, no. I’m not too good with heights.’ She laughed, a nice laugh.
‘Claire needs to eat,’ said Brad. ‘You’re staying for dinner. Isn’t she, Mum?’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Course.’ How many months? Looked like the baby could arrive any day. ‘Where you from, Claire?’
‘Perth. I’m over visiting some relatives.’
Where was Brad nine months ago? ‘Oh? In Albury-Wodonga?’
‘Ah, no. Around here, actually.’
When exactly was that Men of the Trees thing he did in WA? ‘And you met Brad…recently?’
‘Jesus, Mum. Let Claire eat before you launch into the full interrogation,’ said Brad. ‘Got any bacon? And what are you doing with a pinch-bar?’
‘Long story,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you inside.’
Over dinner, eggs, tomatoes and bacon, I filled in Brad. Selectively. I told him about Clarence, Noel the birdwatcher without binoculars and the cops at Ernie’s place. Claire listened quietly.
‘Noel?’ said Brad, looking thoughtful. ‘There’s a bloke called Noel emailed my blog last week. He was after regent parrot spots.’
‘You, ah, related to any police, Claire?’ I said, putting down my fork. Might not be a good idea to go into the bit about Mona being dead, not if Claire had big-wig police connections. I didn’t want Dean in trouble.
She glanced at Brad.
‘Why do you ask, Mum?’
‘Well, Dean doesn’t need any more hiccups in his career.’
Brad stared at me. ‘What have you done this time?’
Now or never. I explained about Mona’s body and her disappearance.
Brad put his hand over mine. ‘Mum. Look. Are you really sure she was dead? I mean really really? You remember, um, Ernie…’
‘There’s no need to go over all that again. Can’t anyone around here ever make one tiny error?’
‘OK, OK,’ he said, taking back his hand.
‘Anyway, long story short, I need to get this briefcase open.’ I shoved the pinch-bar into the case and heaved a bit.
‘If Clarence is under police investigation, the case could be important evidence,’ said Claire.
‘Yeah,’ said Brad. ‘You should take it in to Dean. Could be anything in there. A gun. A bomb. Anything.’
I stopped. ‘Nah. Clarence didn’t look the bombing type.’
‘What’s the bombing type?’ said Brad.
Good question. Bearded, maybe? Although I’m not against a bearded person. Those Hells Angels, for instance, they make big orders when they drop by. A rare event, unfortunately for my profit margins. Noel had a beard though.
I held the case to my ear. It wasn’t ticking. I fiddled again with the pinch-bar. No go.
‘Dean’s not exactly talking to me at the moment,’ I said. ‘Best if I leave him alone while he gets over things. I’ll take this up to Ernie tomorrow. He’s always been good with locks.’
On Mondays I close the shop. I drive up to Hustle and visit Ernie in the home. We sit ourselves down in front of the midday movie, him with a rustling bag of mini Cherry Ripes, me with a strong cuppa and some Panadol. You need an adequate supply of Panadol to get through an afternoon with Ernie. Even on a n
ormal Monday.
Today, Ernie didn’t look pleased to see me. I’d slept in after the weekend’s excitement and then got stuck forever behind a road train. The movie had already started when I hurried into his room, puffing.
‘Shh,’ said Ernie, as I took a seat. ‘There’s your cuppa. Probably cold now.’ He pointed at the table beside the Christmas tree, then turned back to stare at the TV. He rustled through a bag of Cherry Ripes with his brown-splodged hands.
We watch the movie in his room, since he doesn’t like the communal lounge. ‘Full of people who’ve lost their marbles,’ he says. He spends a lot of time in his room, when he isn’t lurking on his walker by the roses. He goes out there to smoke. The staff discourage smoking, but he’s eighty-seven, there’s no point him giving it up now.
I sat clutching Clarence’s briefcase in my lap.
It looked like today was one of Ernie’s good days. He lets his marbles come and go, sometimes I think it’s intentional. On his good days he acts as if he’s the one doing the favour when I come to visit, as though he’s humouring a lonely woman with no friends. In fact, there’s a lot of places I could go on Mondays if I had the time.
I sipped my tea. The movie today was The Lady in the Lake, oddly enough. Wait until Ernie heard about the lady in Perry Lake. I fidgeted, looking around at his posters. I’d helped him put them up when he moved in. Battered-looking pictures of pin-up girls from World War Two. ‘Didn’t see all the bosoms in those days. Left a lot to the imagination,’ he’d snickered.
I didn’t want to know about Ernie’s imagination but I guess those posters help distract him from the decor in the home. The lighting throughout is yellow, like the decorator thought people in the twilight of their lives wouldn’t be able to cope with the brightness of white light. The walls are lined with pastel paintings of flowers. It can’t be easy finding a style that keeps everyone’s minds off funerals, and within a reasonable budget.
At the first ad break, Ernie looked at me sternly, his yellowed moustache quivering, the light reflected in his glasses. ‘What time you call this, hey? And why have you got a briefcase?’