A Stranger in my Street

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘We have to tell Detective Munsie about this,’ I said, and had a sudden thought. ‘But Tom, why didn’t the police pathologist mention this possibility in his report?’

  ‘Because he’s a fool. I had a long meeting with him and Munsie weeks ago. I put all the information I’d turned up in front of them and asked to see the autopsy report. They refused that request, and appeared committed to the idea that it was her husband and he’d stabbed her in the laneway or in the shelter.’

  Tom put the pencil on the table and sat back in his chair. He seemed tired, and pinched the bridge of his nose as if he was in pain.

  ‘To be fair,’ I said, ‘Detective Munsie wouldn’t be likely to consider it a reasonable theory if the police pathologist didn’t agree.’

  Tom sat up and regarded me with a quizzical expression. ‘Speaking of that, I’d be very interested to know how you got all of this information.’

  I met his stare blandly and raised an eyebrow, just as he did when he wanted to avoid answering a question. The corner of his mouth quirked up in amusement, but before he could speak, I went on. ‘Tom, who swapped your morphine for sedatives? How many pills were swapped? And how did they do it? And do you think they wanted you to be blamed for whatever has happened to Jimmy?’

  ‘To answer the last question, it’s certainly possible. I can’t think why else, and the timing is suspicious. I’m not sure how many pills were swapped. I didn’t keep many drugs at Phyll’s and I threw away what was left. As to the who and how, I have absolutely no idea. Phyll’s apartment isn’t at all secure. She thinks it’s middle class to lock up, so she never does. We were out all Sunday afternoon, so I suppose it was done then. Whoever it was must have known quite a lot about my routine. Known that I kept drugs at Phyll’s flat and when I took them. It doesn’t make any sense.’

  I remembered the many tubes of pills and syrettes I had seen in the bathroom at Tom’s flat. Presumably he had enough morphine at his own flat to keep going with.

  ‘Where was Chad on Sunday afternoon?’ I asked.

  Tom gave me a surprised look. ‘He was where Phyll and I were. At a garden party in Dalkeith, the home of the US Consul.’

  ‘None of it makes any sense. There are too many mysteries. Like why Doreen was in the Phoenixes’ air raid shelter.’

  ‘I think Jimmy McLean helped her into the Phoenixes’ air raid shelter.’

  Jimmy! I’d forgotten about him. There were so many tangled threads I was trying to hold clear in my mind.

  ‘So you think he found her in the laneway, after she had been stabbed?’ I said. ‘Because he was out trapping rabbits that night.’

  ‘Yes. I think he found her, and she asked him to take her somewhere safe.’

  ‘Poor Jimmy. An air raid shelter would seem to be a safe place, to a boy.’ Misery washed over me as I remembered Jimmy and his jokes and his air of bravado. Maybe he had tried to help Doreen in the best way he could.

  Tom’s expression was bleak. ‘Yes, it probably would.’

  There was one thread I wanted to pick at again.

  ‘Tom, listen for a moment. We know Frank Luca saw Doreen being hugged by a big man. That must have been Chad Buchowski. Frank walked away in disgust, but do you think that Chad might have been stabbing her, not hugging her? Chad has a terrible temper. I think he takes Methedrine pills all the time, not just when he’s flying. Oh, and I haven’t told you this yet – it was something Don said – Doreen told him that Chad slept around and was involved in black market drugs, and Don told Chad what she had said. Maybe that would have made Chad angry enough to kill her.’

  Tom looked directly at me, holding my gaze. ‘Why do you suddenly dislike Chad Buchowski? Did he hurt you?’

  ‘No.’ I felt myself flushing. ‘He got fresh once or twice, but I coped.’

  Tom nodded and looked away, but I had seen the flash in his eyes. I touched his hand, but he pulled it away from me and pushed it into his hair distractedly.

  There was something I had to ask. I said, in as cool a voice as I could manage, ‘When Betty told me about the argument, she said that Doreen told you she’d do anything for you, get anything for you.’

  He picked up his pencil and started to draw a star on the page in front of him.

  ‘Did you want her to get anything specific? Any thing or any information?’

  ‘No.’

  He shaded the points of the star.

  ‘Detective Munsie said that Doreen was suspected of pilfering from the hospital.’

  Tom stopped drawing. He managed a smile, but it went nowhere near his eyes.

  ‘Tom, did Doreen steal morphine for you from the hospital?’

  He held my gaze. His expression was unreadable. Then he looked down at the paper and scribbled over the star.

  ‘Meg, I’ll take all of this away, if that is all right with you.’ His voice was briskly efficient. ‘I want to think about it some more. I want to talk to young Stan McLean. From what you said, Jimmy told him something that may be important. And he may not have shared it with the police yet.’

  I wanted to cry, but I said, very calmly, ‘Can I be there when you speak to him?’

  ‘No. I think it would be best if I spoke to him alone.’ I opened my mouth to argue the point, but he shook his head. ‘I’d prefer to talk to him alone. I’ll let you know what he says. Meet me tomorrow after work at the Esplanade Hotel.’

  He pulled my notebook and scraps of paper towards him and put them into a dispatch satchel that he had brought with him.

  We walked in silence to his car. To my astonishment, after putting the satchel in the car, he turned to me, pulled me abruptly towards him and kissed me hard on the mouth. Before I could gather my thoughts, before I could react at all, he got into the car and drove away.

  Twenty-seven

  I sat at a table in the crowded lounge of the Esplanade Hotel and tried not to think about Jimmy while Tom went to order drinks. There still hadn’t been any word of the boy.

  The room was full of servicemen and all around me was the clamour of American voices, talking, arguing and laughing. Sometimes it seemed as if we had lost Perth to the Americans. It was a (not very funny) joke that after the war we’d petition the US to become a state. Annie dreamed of marrying an American serviceman and going to live in the United States, but I had no such ambition. I liked Americans, but I liked Australians better. I supposed I’d feel differently if I was in love with one of them. The trouble was that I couldn’t imagine being in love with anyone whose name wasn’t Lagrange.

  I saw Tom returning with a beer for himself and a shandy for me.

  ‘What did Stan say to you?’ I asked as soon as he sat down.

  ‘Hold on a minute. I want some beer.’

  He raised his glass and took a long drink, before setting it down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘That’s better. It’s thirsty work, investigating a murder.’ He sighed. ‘And depressing.’ He reached into his top pocket for his cigarettes, but let his hand drop without taking them out.

  ‘Tom, what did Stan tell you?’

  ‘Patience, my Meg.’

  ‘I’m not your Meg,’ I said. ‘Stop saying that.’

  I got a lazy smile in reply, then Tom became serious. ‘Stan didn’t tell me very much, really. He’s beside himself with worry, poor lad. Stan was at work when Jimmy disappeared, but according to the younger brother . . .’

  ‘Fred.’

  ‘Yes. According to Fred, Jimmy was fine in the morning, but something happened after lunch. Fred saw Jimmy in the street at around two o’clock, and he seemed frightened, but wouldn’t say why. Then he walked off and hasn’t been seen since.’

  ‘Jimmy did tell Stan something about what he saw the night of the murder, I’m sure he did,’ I said.

  Tom picked up his glass again and drained it. ‘I’ll just get another,’ he said, and headed off to the bar. I was in a fever to know what he knew, and when he returned I glared at him.

&
nbsp; ‘Tom Lagrange, you sit down and tell me what you heard, or I swear I’ll tip that beer over your head.’

  He moved the glass protectively towards his chest. ‘Just listen to the nasty girl. And me an invalid,’ he said, in a stage Irish accent.

  ‘How much have you had to drink?’

  ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘All right, I’ll tell you. Stan says that Jimmy was up late that night, in the bush by the base. He saw Doreen twice and he did help her into the shelter.’

  ‘What was he doing there?’

  ‘Just as you thought. It was the rabbit traps. A fox got the last lot, so Jimmy was checking them.’

  ‘Start from the beginning, when he first saw Doreen on the bush path. What did he hear?’

  ‘He heard Doreen talking to a man. I think that must have been Chad, because he described him as “a really big and tough-looking Yank”. Doreen wanted to know if this Yank could get something for her. The Yank asked if she wanted it for her boyfriend, “the grange”, or so Jimmy heard it.’

  ‘What was she trying to get for you?’

  ‘Jimmy couldn’t hear that bit. Cec was operating on the off-chance that I’d be able to be intimidated.’ Tom’s eyes narrowed and his tone was dismissive. ‘As if someone like that could intimidate me.’

  Tom raised his glass for another long drink.

  ‘Jimmy always went home through the laneway. He’d climb over the fence into their backyard so that he could slip into the sleep-out that he shares with Stan and Fred, and their mother wouldn’t know he’d been out. Stan heard Jimmy get back late, because as soon as he got into bed he started to throw up and couldn’t stop. Stan got his mum. She didn’t know he’d been out at all.’

  I waited while Tom took another mouthful of beer.

  ‘Two days later, after we found Doreen and everyone was talking about the murder, Jimmy told Stan that he’d seen Mrs Luca and other people in the bush that night. Fred overheard and told their dad, who was as heavy-handed as you’d expect in asking Jimmy questions. Jimmy told him only that he’d heard Doreen asking the big Yank for something for the grange.’

  ‘So did Jimmy say anything at all to Stan about Doreen’s death?’ I was sitting on the edge of my seat.

  ‘He told Stan he saw Doreen in the laneway as he was coming home. He said she was crook as a dog and she was scared. She asked Jimmy if he knew somewhere safe for her to stay until it was light. Jimmy suggested the Phoenixes’ air raid shelter.

  ‘She told him she was meeting a friend in the morning, who would be able to help her. I assume she was referring to me. Fat lot of good I was.’ Tom’s voice was bitter. He picked up the glass and took another deep swallow of beer. ‘Jimmy got her comfortable on the camp bed.’

  ‘Oh, no! She died when he was there, didn’t she?’ I said. I remembered what Jimmy had said to me, that no one should have to find the body of someone they knew.

  ‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘He got a rug to put over her because she was shaking. But when he turned around again she had died. Just like that. Jimmy saw the blood on her chest when he shone his torch on her.’

  My heart ached for Jimmy, all alone and confronted with that horror. I could work out what had happened next. ‘So he didn’t know what to do and he ran home? He must have been terrified.’

  Tom nodded.

  ‘So do you think whoever killed Doreen got the idea that Jimmy knows something and has . . .’ I couldn’t finish. I didn’t want to think what might have happened. ‘We’ve got to go to Detective Munsie with all this, everything we have. We’ve got to find Jimmy before . . .’ I trailed off again. I wanted to cry.

  Tom grimaced. ‘I spoke to Munsie today, after I’d seen Stan. He knew most of it from Stan already and he’s not interested. He finds it hard to accept that Doreen could have walked all that way with a wound to the heart. He still thinks that the most likely explanation is that Frank Luca stabbed her in the laneway, just before Jimmy found her. Frank has a motive that the police understand.’

  I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t Frank. He wasn’t like that. And he couldn’t have taken Jimmy.’

  ‘Munsie thinks Jimmy’s run away because he’s scared he’ll be blamed in some way for Doreen’s death.’

  ‘That’s crazy. Why would he wait until now to run away? He’s said all along that he thought it was an American who killed Doreen. And it’s awfully coincidental that Jimmy disappeared at the same time as you were drugged.’

  I remembered something Chad had said. Something that had worried me at the time. ‘Tom, what have you been investigating at the Catalina base? Chad was really angry about it the last time I saw him.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been doing for the past week. I’ve been heading an investigation into a big black market ring. It involves US personnel and Australians.’ There was a flicker of excitement in his eyes. ‘If I can do this, if I can get convictions, then it will prove I can be trusted to do more than attend cocktail parties with Phyll and butter up the US Consul.’ He gave me a quick smile. ‘I’m not very popular at the Catalina base because we’ve been searching rooms and interrogating personnel for the past few days. I spent a particularly tiresome few hours this afternoon with your friend Norbert Wilder. And I spoke to Chad. It’s safe to say that I’m not too popular with either of them at present.’

  ‘Nobbie’s not my friend,’ I put in quickly. ‘Nor is Chad. Are they involved?’

  ‘Wilder is a supply officer. Yes. I think he’s involved in the ring. He’s cleverer than he looks, though, and so far he’s been able to cover his tracks. There’s no evidence against him yet. Chad? Maybe. Probably not.’

  ‘What sort of black market stuff? Drugs?’ My mind had made connections. Nobbie went out with Betty, who lived with Doreen, who I suspected got drugs for Tom. Nobbie was at the base with Chad, who probably took too much Methedrine.

  Tom had become very still, apparently watching the condensation on his glass. ‘It’s mainly supplies – petrol, liquor, food, luxury items. Yes, some drugs, but probably not morphine,’ he said at last. ‘The American authorities are worried that another type of drug – amphetamine – is going missing from the base dispensary. You mentioned Methedrine yesterday. That’s an amphetamine used by Americans. We tend to use Dexedrine. They call them “pep pills” or “go pills” and give them out to the pilots to counter fatigue. The pills induce sensations of wellbeing, confidence, relaxation, elation. The Americans don’t believe they are particularly addictive, and use them extensively. But there’s a concern that some of the pilots and ground crew are taking too many and they’ve recently introduced stricter measures for handing them out. Now it seems likely that they’re being sold on the black market.’

  ‘What do you think about them?’

  ‘They’re definitely addictive. I’ve seen men go crazy wanting them, needing them.’ He looked at me directly. ‘I don’t take them.’

  ‘Just morphine?’

  He shut his eyes for a moment and then said, ‘Meg, I have to go now. I’m meeting Phyll at the Adelphi.’

  I’m avoiding the question yet again as I go to meet my two-timing fiancée.

  I kept my face as emotionless as I could, but then I remembered something that I’d read in the statements I’d transcribed.

  ‘Tom, Nobbie was at the party the night Doreen died because he was on punishment duty. Did you know that? Was the punishment to do with black marketeering?’

  He smiled at me then, and it lifted my heart. ‘Yes, he was on what they call KP – kitchen patrol – because he’d been caught pilfering supplies. If I can tie him to this black market ring he’ll get more than KP duty. He’ll get a short holiday in Fremantle Gaol before an all-expenses paid journey back to the United States to face a court martial.’

  Tom drained the last of his beer and we left the hotel together, but we went our separate ways at the Terrace.

  On the bus home I stared at the poster above the seat across from me. Hitler was under a table at a restaurant taking notes as a co
uple chatted away. ‘Careless talk costs lives’ was the caption. Jimmy hadn’t said anything, and not talking might have cost him his life.

  I tried to order my thoughts. Despite Tom’s evasiveness, it seemed clear that Doreen had been stealing drugs from the hospital for him. Had she also been stealing them for Chad? Or Nobbie? Or both of them? That could be a reason to want her dead. If Chad didn’t stab her, did he get someone to do it for him? Don said that when he ran down the path after hitting Doreen, he found Chad talking to one of the ratings. What if Chad was instructing the man to murder Doreen? I had a hunch that the rating was Nobbie Wilder, the ‘big man with the box’ who had dug the convenient hole in the bush, and who I now knew was probably involved in the black market.

  The next morning I sent a note to Don Dudley at the Adelphi, asking him to meet me at five o’clock in the hotel foyer. When I got there, Don was sitting in a large armchair in the lobby, looking nervous and tired. There was a red mark on his face, like a bruise. He stood as I approached, and gestured towards the seat next to him. I thanked him for meeting me with so little notice.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, without thinking.

  ‘No. It’s Chad.’ Don shook his head. ‘I’ve been worried about the number of Methedrine tablets I found in his bag on Sunday. This morning I flushed them all away. I tried to make Chad understand why I’d done it, that it was wrong to take so many. I said I’d help him overcome whatever problems he had. But he was furious.’ He gingerly touched his cheek. ‘We came to blows.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think Chad’s the man I thought he was.’ Don sighed. ‘I don’t know what to think, really. Why did you want to see me, Meg?’

  ‘Would you mind answering a couple of questions for me?’

  He looked nervous, but nodded. ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘On the night that Doreen died, when you and Chad went back and helped her to her feet, did she walk down the path away from you alone?’