Scarlet Stiletto - the First Cut

by Lindy Cameron

  One new widow had

  I told him everything I’d overheard, including the conversation on the light rail back in Sydney. I said that I had a theory that something didn’t add up but I kept qualifying what I said. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that a recently bereaved person got herself confused and thought she’d been told that she had to travel or she’d loose the value of her ticket.

  My companion protested again that this wasn’t the case.

  “Anyway,” I rushed on, “most widows would forego the cruise, either way. Perhaps I’ve read too many crime yarns, but I do have the suspicion that there’s something sinister in the timing of the husband’s death. The wife has at least two versions of when she found out about the tickets ... but maybe she’s just confused with everything happening so quickly. After all,” I put it to my interested friend, “if there was any hint of foul play, someone in their own circle would have noticed something. There’d be family, neighbours, friends ... a family doctor. Even if my theory is right and in a rage she’d slipped a cocktail of medicines into his afternoon tea causing his heart to go into shock, someone on the spot would’ve thought the same thing and investigated.”

  “I’m with you,” he said thoughtfully, “up until you translate her rage into action. I’ve observed hundreds of couples on their ‘retirement cruise’. They fight in almost as many different ways as there are couples. Yelling matches are the most embarrassing for onlookers, but I’ve heard some quietly spoken put-downs that were as venomous as a Taipan bite. Body language is the most common form of control ...”

  He went on with his observations, but I wasn’t listening. My mind was locked in on an image. I saw the arthritic hands plucking at the latch of her bag. Her fingers were pick, pick, picking. I saw her companion’s body slump and turn away. Thus she had controlled him ... up until he went to town, cashed in his superannuation and bought the tickets. My sailor friend’s comments had sent my mind racing off in new directions about the old couple. There were clues a good detective shouldn’t miss. I remembered the vindictive tone of her voice when she said that he’d had such a smirk on his face when he showed her the ticket. Perhaps to the husband it had left him as the loving smile that went with offering a wonderful surprise! Even if it had been the smirk of the man with the power to dictate how their money and their futures were to be spent, there had been more than the usual degree of self-satisfaction in the wife’s tone as she described the scene. To her it was a smirk that she wouldn’t have to see again!

  Then I had another flash! She’d been looking to the right when she said it. It was a genuine recollection. I remembered an episode in the TV series, ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’, when that aspect of body language was used to spot a killer. People look to the right when they recall, to the left when they create. I’d been lying at the pool edge when she’d been looking to her left and created the lie, saying, “I didn’t know anything about it until days later.”

  I came out of my theorising somewhat embarrassed. My handsome friend was shaking his head.

  “You haven’t been listening to me but I can tell that you haven’t been idle. What’ve you come up with now?” My speculation got a mixed response.

  “I take your point about the tone of voice but the looking right and left thing? I don’t think that means much. I do know that most murders are committed by someone known to the victim,” he acknowledged. “But men are more likely to be the perpetrators than women.”

  I nodded. “Hard to believe the nagging old woman lost it so completely as to enact her fury.” It was time for a reality check. “It’s almost as hard to believe as me being a genuine crime solver. If I did a fraction of the physical activity that the PIs I read about undertake, I’d be the one having the heart attack.”

  He put his finger gently on the tip of my nose and wriggled it.

  “I’m not familiar with the detective books you read. Surely the key is the observation and the deductions that flow from them. I take you for a modern day Agatha Christie!”

  “Then Agatha needs to take some time out.” I leaned across and pulled him close.

  The next morning I was soaking up the sun when a shadow blocked out the light.

  “Excuse me, madam,” my friend was always formal in public. “Aren’t you the lady who asked me the ‘hypothetical’ about a widow and the refund policy?” I looked up and he smoothly lowered himself down onto his haunches, crouching down beside me. “I’ve just come from a meeting in the officers’ wardroom,” he said quietly. “The captain’s been contacted on the ship-to-shore phone. There’ve been enquiries about one of our passengers and I remembered our conversation. I wonder if you’d come with me?”

  When we docked, no one was allowed to disembark. Rumours flew from one group of passengers to another at the speed of light. Two days before I’d told my story of overheard conversations and observations to the captain and the security officer. Soon afterwards I saw the same officer, now dressed in casual clothes, engaging in a chat with the new widow. The subject was the refund policy.

  “It isn’t fair! I’ll end up loosing money. All these extras! The money from Father’s refund should’ve lasted me the whole cruise. I had my ticket and I deserved a holiday with all the worry I’d had lately. The refund should’ve covered the extras ...”

  I watched as the detectives came up the gangway as soon as it was in place. They collected Mrs Goodness from the ship’s brig. Television cameramen packed the bottom of the gangplank to take shots of the black widow and then, when the rest of the passengers were allowed off, reporters hounded the departing passengers asking them what it was it like to share a cruise with a murderer. No one had a useable quote, or even an intelligent answer. There’d been no weapon, no rivers of gore, no bloodcurdling screams—not one ingredient of a good story. So the reporters had to look elsewhere. Next morning I read their report to my sleepy sailor mate.

  “Ms Cheryl Goodness said she’d been outraged that her mother had gone cruising and was living it up, when her father was still warm in his grave. She’d insisted her brother go with her to the police and demand an autopsy. The body was exhumed and an analysis of the stomach contents confirmed her suspicions.”

  “So, Dad was overdosed,” he grimaced. “You were right. Be pointless trying to hide anything from you, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, if you keep playing with the truth and can’t stop giving out clues. I think hiding things is a mistake, anyway. I reckon that’s what killed him. If he’d been up front and said what he was going to do before he did it, then she’d have been angry, but she wouldn’t have been outraged. They knew they were different people yet they didn’t make allowances for those differences. She was a skinflint, into detail and counting the pennies. He’d known that for fifty years yet he unilaterally makes the decision that shatters her predictable world.”

  “She knew he wanted to do this one extravagant thing. She should have given him some leeway.” I saw his struggle in his narrowed eyes and heard it in his tentative voice. “I spend a lot of time at sea ... away ...”

  “You know the expression: ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’? Can you live with that? I mean, as applied to both of us?”

  The silence lengthened. Slowly he shook his head. “I’d better go.”

  “Right,” I said regretfully. “No argument.”

  “And no poison chalice,” he managed a grin.

  Margaret Bevege

  Malice Domestic, 2001

  <>

  ~ * ~

  What We Do Best

  Inspector Sned scratched her head,

  Gazed upon the tousled bed.

  “No doubt here. The woman’s dead.”

  Her words were stern, yet quietly said.

  She looked around at Sergeant Froome,

  Whose eyes took in the perfumed room.

  The red lamp with its stiffened pleats Cast darkened shadows on the sheets Where lay the woman, all wide-eyed

  As though aghast in sho
cked surprise.

  “Never had a death before,” white-faced and grave, the Madam sighed.

  “I’ve always tried to be discreet—no noise—no fuss— I’ve even tried

  To lead the way in price and style.” She looked away and forced a smile.

  Who was she? asked Inspector Sned.

  She moved much closer to the bed.

  “Has she been here long, then, on the game?

  She really seems not quite the same as

  Some who have for many years

  Lived a life with pimps and queers!”

  The answer came: “T’was Maddy Price—so sedate, and very nice.

  Fairly new, it’s truth to say. Works a few hours every day.

  Quiet, really; I’d assume because she chose a private room

  To meet her clients and be discreet, as they wandered in from off the street.”

  The lifeless form lay semi-prone, makeup marred and smudged away.

  The tongue protruded from the mouth and from the lips came into play

  A frothy substance, clear to see.

  “It’s strangulation. Has to be.”

  Sergeant Froome, alert at last, interest sparked by what he saw,

  Studied Maddy’s injured throat and, as a student of the law,

  Narrowed eyes and felt the wound, spoke several words in dulcet tone:

  “And when they do a quick PM, they’ll find a fractured hyoid bone.”

  The SOCO team had all arrived. The premises were closed, of course.

  The questioning would soon begin by other members of the force:

  Detective Black and PC Jones—the latter fairly new, they said,

  Yet one who seemed to know a lot from TV shows or what she’d read.

  “The family now must be advised. Her papers please,” spoke Dulcie Sned.

  “Who was the latest client for her? Describe him now: who had her bed?

  You say she met them in her room; she did not sit with others there

  To greet her clients as they came, or view them as they climbed the stair.”

  The closet held poor Maddy’s gear. Familiar labels, bra and slip,

  Soft lingerie—some lace embossed, a sleeveless frock with fancy clip.

  A leather purse containing rings, a bunch of keys, a perfume spray

  The usual things a woman needs and carries with her every day.

  “Your wife is dead,” blunt Dulcie spoke.

  The husband stared in disbelief.

  “That could not be,” he loudly said.

  (Too early yet for signs of grief.)

  “My wife’s in town to shop today.”

  He shifted in his city suit.

  “Your wife’s been killed, I’m sad to say.”

  “Where?”

  “In a house of ill-repute.”

  He slumped then in a nearby chair, head lowered and with face in hands.

  “How could this be?” he hoarsely cried. A query that such shock demands.

  “She is the mother of our son.”

  “Where is he now?” asked Dulcie, cool.

  “Thanks to his mother’s saving ways, away from here in boarding school.”

  A big expense, thought, Dulcie, then. I wonder where this fellow works?

  Can he afford a boarding school? Does his job give many perks?

  “What do you do?” she plodded on. ‘Can you afford a school as such?”

  “My wife saved money carefully.”

  I’ll bet, thought Dulcie, but how much?

  “How did she die?” His name was Russ.

  “A crime of passion, one would say—

  Strangulation happened there—the murderer was hardly gay.”

  “Did she suffer?” Russell asked. “I’d hate to think that was the case.”

  “Just a little,” Dulcie cringed, judging by her twisted face.

  “Why are you home in working hours?”

  “Forgot my keys; that made me late.”

  “Did you pass near Riley Street?”

  “Was that where she met her fate?

  Is that where the brothel stands? Why, oh why,

  I’ll never know.

  I thought she loved me very much. But maybe that was long ago!

  She didn’t need to do this thing. I’m quite disgusted, I must say,

  To think my wife brought money in from working there in such a way.

  But, why did someone do this act—to go for sex—and then to kill?”

  “Sometimes,” said Dulce, “it’s all mixed up. It’s all part of a sexy thrill.”

  She studied Russell as she spoke. Dark curly hair, just touched with grey,

  Ice-blue eyes, a trimmed moustache, great teeth, clear skin:

  He’d need good pay.

  He fitted well into his suit. She rather liked the look of Russ,

  Except when he pulled at his clothes. (Perhaps the fellow wore a truss?)

  “You’ll have to tell your son,” Dulcie said,

  “Sadly, though, it won’t be nice.

  We’ll want to talk to you again. Don’t leave the district, Mr Price.”

  Her mind strayed back to Riley Street

  Where Detectives Black and Jones and others

  Were questioning an anxious staff;

  Some were sisters, some were mothers.

  How far had the team progressed? Were the morning clients new?

  How had the murderer entered there? Had his entrance been on view?

  Fingerprints? They must exist. Had transactions been exchanged?

  Post mortem would soon tell all that. T’was action of a mind deranged.

  Dulcie drove back with Sergeant Froome,

  Keeping her mind in some small fashion

  On the girls at Madam’s dwelling,

  How they lived in endless passion.

  Just a fee, an introduction,

  A kiss and sex’s great reliefs.

  Dulcie felt herself get hotter,

  Shifted quietly in her briefs.

  The modern building—shut for business—

  Had a cordon all around.

  Questioning there still continued,

  Ears kept firmly to the ground.

  Madam, pale from shock and worry

  Sat with worker, Lucy Lara.

  Both had lost their strong composure

  As well as lots of fresh mascara.

  “Well,” said our Inspector Dulcie,

  “What’s the story, up to date?

  Many of the girls been questioned?

  Let’s not keep this thing too late.”

  They all sat around with Madam, drinking boring cups of tea.

  Holding friends in shock and wonder, fearful of adversity.

  Fingerprints had all been tested, carefully as that demands,

  But a set was hard to fathom, due to many groping hands.

  “I’m the hostess for the morning,”

  Buxom Betty answered then.

  “I take cash from those who enter.

  This bloke said his name was Glen.”

  “And Glen ‘What’?” quiet Froome demanded,

  Creased his forehead in a frown.

  “I suppose you’ll tell me next

  That his name was Jones or Brown?”

  Buxom Betty ate her orange, separating fruit from pith,

  “No,” she answered through a mouthful.

  “Actually, his name was Smith.”

  Madam allowed herself a giggle,

  “You’ll find these fellows all the same.

  Never let you know who they are

  When they’re looking for a dame.

  We don’t care if they are lying—

  To tell the truth t’would be too hard—

  As long as they come up with money,

  Really, be it cash or credit card.

  “He was dressed in fancy joggers,”

  Buxom Betty carried on,

  “Silken shirt and well-pressed trousers,”

  Remembering hi
m when he was gone.

  “Although he had his head averted,

  Greying in the hair was seen.

  Clipped moustache and nicely perfumed,

  Fairly tall and fairly lean.”

  “What time was this?” asked careful Dulcie.

  “Can your diary tell me when?”

  “You don’t need to check,” said Betty.

  “The time was almost nearly ten.”

  Dulcie sat and quietly pondered;

  How could one here recognise

  A stranger in a city brothel

  By moustache or clothes or size?

  “Anybody ever seen him—

  Has he booked in here—before?”

  Never to expect an answer,

  Dulcie looked down at the floor.

  “Was there any real commotion coming from poor Maddy’s room?”

  Another question put in motion, by Detective Alex Froome.

  “Nothing special,” assured Betty,