‘Oh. My mistake.’ She slid me a look. ‘Are you still seeing Tom Lagrange?’
‘We never went out together. That’s a stupid rumour and I don’t want rumours spread about me, Betty.’
‘There’s no need to be huffy about it,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry.’ I made my tone conciliatory. ‘I must have got out on the wrong side of bed this morning. How are you, Betty?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m all right.’
‘How is your American boyfriend?’ I asked, hesitantly, unsure how to broach the subject. ‘Is he a Catalina officer?’
‘He’s not an officer. He’s a petty officer; he looks after supplies at the base.’
‘Is he nice?’
‘He’s got personality, that’s for sure, but he wouldn’t win any beauty contests. He told me he met you at the Red Cross dance. His name’s Norbert Wilder. Nobbie.’
‘I remember him.’
‘Nobbie’s all right. You’ve got to know how to handle him, though.’
Enough of the small talk, I thought. I wanted information.
‘I heard Doreen was very cosy with Chad Buchowski the night she died,’ I said.
Betty sniffed and frowned at me over her hankie. ‘What do you care about that? Frank killed her. Everybody knows that. There’s no point in dragging it all up again.’
‘You said Chad hit Doreen. I need to know if he’s all right. We girls need to stick together.’
She sniffed again, looked down and then up into my eyes with a measuring sort of expression.
‘Chad’s got a rotten temper. He takes too many of those pills they give the men to keep them awake on the missions. He can get mad as a cut snake, for no reason at all. It’d be better to stay away from him.’
‘What do you mean, pills to stay awake?’ I said, innocently. Betty worked in the hospital pharmacy and if anyone knew about the pills, she would.
‘Dexedrine. Methedrine. We give them to our pilots, too, otherwise they can’t stay awake on the long-haul missions. But if you take too many for too long they can make you really mean. Unpredictable.’
‘And Chad takes too many?’
‘Seems like it to me. But maybe it’s just his personality.’
‘Why do they let him have so many?’
Betty’s expression became guarded. She shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe they don’t know he’s taking so many. And you can always get what you want, if you pay enough, or you know the right people. Just ask Tom Lagrange.’
‘What does that mean?’ My voice was sharper than I meant it to be.
‘Gee, you’re so naïve, Meg.’ She gave a little smile. ‘Maybe that’s why he likes you.’
‘If I’m so naïve, help me to understand. What are you talking about?’
‘Doreen loved his fine manners. She loved the way he treated her, as if she was special. But it was all just to get what he wanted.’
What Betty didn’t realise was that Tom treated everyone that way: me, Doreen, Nancy Gangemi, the waitress at the Colour Patch. His manners were a part of who he was. I could see how it would turn Doreen’s head. What I couldn’t understand was why Tom had spent so much time with her.
‘You keep saying he used Doreen. What for?’
Her look was almost pitying. ‘If you can’t work it out, I’m not telling,’ she said. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Meg. Why was he so close to Doreen? He wasn’t in love with her. He wouldn’t sleep with her. Maybe she could get him things he needed.’
‘What things would he need? Cigarettes?’
Betty started to laugh, not unkindly, but with real mirth. I felt myself blushing.
‘Please, Betty, just tell me what you mean.’
We had reached the corner. She shook her head and turned away from me to walk down Kanimbla Road. She was still laughing. I saw her wave to someone on the path ahead. Nobbie Wilder was standing there, face impassive. He looked big and a bit menacing. Then he smiled and waved and he just looked like a harmless goof with a missing tooth. I waved at him and turned away.
I pondered what Betty had said as I walked home. Surely she couldn’t mean that Tom took those pills, the ones that made Chad so angry and strange. Tom was nothing like Chad. He never had those terrible rages, for one thing. Not that I’d seen, anyway.
I turned into Megalong Street and heard children’s voices, loud and angry.
‘Aw, don’t be so mean. You’re such a meanie, Fred.’
‘Yeah, Fred. You’re a meanie. You’re just like Hitler.’
‘Shut up, you drongo, or I’ll thump you.’
Fred McLean was on the footpath outside his house holding a paper bag above his head, keeping it out of reach of his two younger brothers.
‘C’mon Fred, give us a lolly. Just one. C’mon.’
‘Nah. Won’t. They’re mine.’
I assumed he’d been begging at the US base again. When Fred saw me he looked a little guilty, but then his face lit up with his usual knowing grin. He ran off down the footpath with his younger brothers in tow, still calling out for a share of the loot.
‘He’s a rotten kid.’ I turned around to see his eldest brother, Stan, coming up behind me with a wagonload of kindling. ‘Got a mean streak, like a yellow dingo. Never shares with the littlies.’
I smiled at him. ‘I hear your dad is off again.’ Joan had heard it from Mrs Phoenix and announced it at breakfast.
‘Yeah. He left this morning and they’re sailing this afternoon. None too soon for me,’ he said bitterly. ‘Mum’s laid up today. Dad caught a skinful last night and took it out on her.’
Stan’s face was tight and care-worn, and I felt sad that he was forced to be old beyond his years. He pushed the little wagon back and forth on the footpath. ‘Hey, Meg,’ he said. ‘Do you think they’ll hang Mr Luca? When they catch him, I mean.’
The change of subject flustered me.
‘I don’t know, Stan. It looks bad for him,’ I said. ‘Although I don’t think he killed Doreen.’
‘I’m sure he didn’t.’
‘What? What do you know about it, Stan?’
He flicked me a glance and kicked his foot against the wagon so that the wood rattled. He seemed terribly troubled.
‘What is it, Stan?’
‘What if you know something, something about a crime? Do you have to tell?’ he asked.
‘No, you don’t have to. But if it means that a murderer gets away free, it wouldn’t be a good thing to do.’
‘That’s what I say. But he’s scared.’
‘Who’s scared?’
Stan shook his head and looked down at the cart. ‘I don’t know what to do, Meg. He’s really scared. He should just tell the police what he knows, but he won’t.’ His expression was suddenly fearful. ‘I think Dad’s been blabbing. He came home really drunk last night.’
I was confused. ‘Is it your dad who’s scared?’ I asked.
‘No, not him.’ Stan shook his head again, emphatically. ‘Maybe we should tell you about it. Sometimes I think my head’ll explode with worry.’
‘Stan, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’d be happy to listen if you need to talk.’
He closed his eyes for a moment, then said, ‘I’ll see if I can get him to talk to you. I can’t tell you anything, he made me swear. But he hasn’t told me everything. He’s really scared.’
It was my turn to shake my head. ‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Jimmy.’
Twenty-three
I waited at home all Saturday afternoon to see if Stan would bring his brother Jimmy to see me, but they didn’t come.
On Sunday morning, when Ma and Joan were at church, I walked over to the McLean house. Marie came to the door, a hand raised to her face. She was trying unsuccessfully to hide the bruises her husband had left there. Anger washed through me like bile. Anger at Cec McLean and Chad Buchowski and all the cowardly men who used their strength to hurt women.
‘G’day, Meg,’ she said softly. Her lip
was cut, too, and she seemed embarrassed.
‘I was wondering if I could see Stan and Jimmy.’
‘They’ve gone to the beach. Left early this morning. They took their lunch and I don’t expect them home before tea.’
‘Would you ask them to come and see me when they get back?’
I walked home slowly with a deep feeling of unease. I had to assume Jimmy knew something about Doreen Luca’s murder. He had been very strange when I saw him some days after we found Doreen, and now I remembered how worried he had been about Frank being blamed. I had reported that to Tom, who hadn’t seemed all that interested, and then I’d forgotten all about it. He’d also asked me about Tom, I remembered. Could that have had something to do with his father’s odd remarks about Tom?
Pushing open the front door, I checked on the lunch – baked rabbit again – and walked to my room. I sat on the bed and tried to think it all through. Jimmy was scared of someone, and Stan was worried that their father had been ‘blabbing’. I remembered that Cec had told me ‘someone’ may have overheard something in the bush that night. It was now clear that he was talking about Jimmy. But how could Jimmy have overheard anything?
And then it hit me. The rabbits! Stan and Jimmy trapped rabbits to sell. Jimmy could have been in the bush that night, on his way home from trapping rabbits. Maybe he saw or heard something then. He was so adamant that it wasn’t Frank Luca who killed Doreen. But why had he asked me about Tom?
I wished I knew what Cec had wanted to tell Tom. What had Jimmy heard? Had Doreen met Tom the night she was killed? His alibi wasn’t foolproof. He could have met her in the air raid shelter. Stan had said that Cec came home drunk on Friday night. Had someone paid him off? Surely it wasn’t Tom. But Tom had said himself that I didn’t really know him at all. How could I be sure about anything? Anyone?
My head felt like it was spinning. I got off my bed and went to set the table for lunch. There was nothing I could do but wait till I saw Jimmy. I’d get him to talk, somehow, no matter how reluctant he was.
After tea I was reading in my bedroom when I heard the front doorbell. I jumped up and ran to answer the door, thinking it was Stan and Jimmy, but Don Dudley was standing there.
‘Good evening, Meg.’ He sounded timid. ‘I was wondering if I could see your mother.’
Don had called on Ma before. They talked easily together and she liked him very much. She said he was lonely and he had told her she reminded him of his own mother. They went into the lounge room and closed the door.
I went back to my novel – The Rainbow, by D.H. Lawrence, as recommended by Tom – and forgot about the time. A knock on my bedroom door dragged me from Gudrun Brangwen’s hectic emotional life and it was a shock to see that it was dark outside. Ma was at the door and she looked worried.
‘What’s the matter? Is it Jimmy?’
‘Jimmy? Whatever has Jimmy to do with anything?’ she said, confused. ‘No, it’s Lieutenant Dudley. He’s very upset. I think you should hear what he has to say, Meg.’
‘What does he have to say?’
‘It’s about Doreen.’
Don was sitting on the couch, his head resting in his hands. He seemed dishevelled and unhappy. When he looked up it was clear he had been crying.
‘Hullo, Don,’ I said gently.
He flicked a glance towards my mother. She gave him an encouraging smile. ‘I really do think you should tell her about it, Donald.’
It was her firm but kind voice, the one that had always convinced me to confess to some misdemeanour or other when I was a girl. She nodded towards one of the armchairs and I sat down. Don stared at the floor for a good minute, before nodding briefly and drawing in a deep shaky breath.
‘I saw her that night. The night she was killed. On the bush path. Doreen. I saw her with Chad.’ Something blazed in his eyes for a second. ‘I didn’t like Doreen. I thought she was immoral. I still think she was immoral. But that does not excuse what I did.’
He looked down at his hands, which were gripped tightly together.
‘She was kissing Chad. He . . . he was touching her. I thought it was wrong for her, a married woman, to be kissing him, a married man, in such a fashion. When Chad left her, I waited for her down the path and I told her so. She just laughed at me. She was drunk.’
His mouth was trembling and I was worried he would start to cry again. But he controlled himself and continued.
‘She said some dreadful things about me and some dreadful things about Chad. I became very angry.’ He took in a shuddering breath and shut his eyes for a moment, then continued, ‘I hit her. I have never in my life hit a woman before. Never. Please believe me.’ His gaze returned to my mother, who nodded at him. She looked sympathetic and he smiled at her wanly.
‘I’m not that sort of man. I hate violence – violence against women especially.’ His voice trembled. ‘I’m becoming the sort of man I despise.’
Now he was looking at me, his eyes wide and frantic.
‘I hit her with the steel frame of the butterfly net I was carrying. I hit her hard, I was so angry.’
He looked down at his hands again and stopped talking.
‘What happened, Don?’ My voice was gentle. My heart, however, was racing.
‘She fell to the ground. I was horrified. I checked on her, of course. She was breathing, but she was moaning. I told her I’d go for help and I made her as comfortable as I could. I put my jacket under her head and then ran towards the camp. Chad was on the path, talking to one of the men, and I told him. He said I should go back to the officers’ quarters and not tell anyone else, and he’d see that she was all right.’
‘And?’
‘I went back with him, of course. We helped Doreen to her feet and she seemed to be fine. I wanted to see her home safely – she was still drunk – but she didn’t want that. She was very angry with me. Threatened to tell what I had done. Chad calmed her down. I think he may have offered her money, but I couldn’t hear and I’ve never asked him about it.’
‘What happened then?’
‘She left us and walked down the path towards Winthrop Avenue. I picked up my jacket and Chad and I walked back to the officers’ quarters together.’
‘Don, I think you should tell the police. She didn’t die from a blow to the head, but it will give them the answer to a piece of the puzzle about the night she died.’
‘You are right, of course. It is the correct thing to do. But what if they ask me about what she said that night?’
I frowned at him. ‘What did she say?’
He looked stubborn. ‘It was mainly about Chad. It was lies. I’m sure it was lies.’
‘Did you tell Chad what she’d said? When you first met him on the path?’
‘Yes, and he was mad as hell. He said she was lying, trying to make trouble for him because he’d turned her down. But when I told him she was hurt, he said we had to look after her. He’s a good man.’
Was he trying to convince me, or himself?
‘Wait a minute, Don. You said Chad had been all over Doreen and that was what made you angry.’
‘He admitted losing control of himself, because she tempted him and he was missing his wife. But he wouldn’t go home with her, as she wanted him to.’
I was sceptical. ‘So what did she say about Chad?’
He held his mouth in a tight frown and looked mutinous. I looked at Ma.
‘Donald dear,’ she said quietly, ‘perhaps it would be best to tell us everything and then we can advise you what to do. You know how fond I am of Chad.’
His face contorted, as if he was in pain. ‘She said Chad had a great many girlfriends and that he was deeply involved in the black market for illegal drugs. And that was why they searched his room that day.’
It sounded as if Doreen was letting fly with the truth that night.
‘It was a lie. They found nothing when they searched his room. Only, today . . .’
He was staring at the floor now, and his hands w
ere clenched together.
‘What, Don?’ I asked.
He didn’t reply for some time, but his knuckles became white.
‘This afternoon I had a headache and I looked in Chad’s bag to see if he had any aspirin,’ he said slowly. ‘I found a great many Methedrine tablets. We’re not on patrol until next weekend, so he has no reason to have so many pills. I need to think about it all. Think about what to do.’
He raised his head and glared at me defiantly. ‘You don’t like Chad any more, do you? But he’s a true hero, you know. Ask anyone at the base. He saved six injured men at Buna. He flew into the middle of the battle and landed by the light of burning palm trees. The enemy were so close, his crew could hear them yelling to each other. He stayed more than eight hours while each of those men was brought out of the jungle, and flew them home to safety. He’s the bravest pilot at the base and I’ll not be a part of anything that blackens his name.’
He glanced back at Ma. ‘I don’t see what good it would do to go to the police. They know it was her husband who killed Doreen. It would just raise unwarranted suspicion against Chad. There may be a good reason for him to have so many pills.’
He was adamant. He thanked me for listening to him, and I went back to my room. Ma spent some more time with him, talking to him, maybe praying with him. When he left she came to my room.
‘The poor man can’t sleep,’ she said. ‘He’s not thinking straight and he’s terribly worried about Chad.’
‘Men like Don shouldn’t be in this war. I think he’s emotionally unsuited.’
Ma sighed. ‘I think most people are emotionally unsuited to war. We didn’t start it, Meg. But it has to be won, or we’ll all be talking Japanese.’
I gave her a small smile. ‘Oh, we’ll win. It’s the cost of winning that worries me.’
I was awake for much of the night, worrying about what Don had said. If I could believe Don, and I had to admit to myself that I did, then it seemed as if neither Chad nor Don had stabbed Doreen. What did Jimmy McLean know about it all?
Twenty-four
I overslept the following morning and didn’t have any time to call in at the McLean house before work if I was to get there before Miss Filmer. She frowned on us using the office telephone for personal calls and I wanted to ring Tom. On the trolleybus into town I watched the river and wondered again about what Jimmy knew. Why was he so scared?
A Stranger in my Street Page 23