Cedar Valley

by Holly Throsby

  Thankfully, when he stepped inside the Cedar Valley police station a little after eight, he found the satisfying distraction of the job, and a fax from Dr Ping Williams at Clarke Base Hospital morgue spilling out of the fax machine and onto the floor.

  Simmons tore it off and spread it out across his desk so it fell off over the side. He spent a little while running his finger down the page, looking for sections of particular interest. He was still standing over it when Hall arrived and stuck his head in. He smelled faintly of aftershave; Simmons caught a waft of sandalwood and something floral.

  ‘Morning, boss,’ said Jimmy Hall with forced brightness.

  ‘Jimmy, I think this is getting very interesting,’ said Simmons, whose mood was beginning to lift towards good spirits.

  ‘I thought it was already pretty interesting,’ said Hall, as he came in and sat down, weedy in the chair. ‘Is that the post-mortem?’

  Simmons kept on reading. He ran his finger along as he went and mouthed some of the words. Then he looked up, realising that Constable James Hall had sat down, and he thought Jimmy looked pretty tired really, but he didn’t care enough to ask. Instead he said, ‘Let’s get going with a statement to the press. Where are the photos you took? We’ll need to get a sketch done from the photos.’

  ‘I just picked them up. There’ll be a few more on the next roll, too. Stevie needed the little camera when we got back here so I took the Canon to Clarke Base and got a few ID shots at the morgue. They’ll be better of the face. I’m heading to Clarke now have a sniff around the train station.’

  ‘Off you go,’ said Simmons, and went back to the fax.

  Hall stayed sitting in the chair, looking at the fax and then at Simmons, expecting something more.

  ‘I said off you go, Jimmy,’ said Simmons, fake-smiling, and Hall, appearing stung by the tone of it, said, ‘Oh, right,’ and left.

  Then Simmons picked up the phone and dialled the number for the morgue at Clarke Base and got on to Dr Ping Williams, the woman who had performed the post-mortem examination on the unknown gentleman.

  ‘Hello, Anthony,’ she said, in a cool whisper of a voice.

  Simmons said, ‘Looks like we’ve got a weird one, hey?’

  And Ping Williams whispered, ‘Oh yes,’ before taking a small feathery breath and delivering all she had to say.

  This death was not, Ping Williams explained, caused by any of the usual suspects. The man in the suit, had not suffered a stroke, or an aneurysm, or a heart attack. In fact, his heart was in particularly good condition, normal in every way—‘quite tough and firm,’ said Ping—he was in top physical condition, ‘really rather fit’.

  Simmons wondered how his own heart would fare if Ping Williams were to remove it right then and examine it under an unforgiving lamp.

  Dr Williams went on for a while about the general appearance of the body and its organs. The word ‘congested’ was used several times. Small vessels in the brain were congested. The pharynx was congested. So were the stomach, the lungs and the kidneys. And this was to say nothing of the spleen, which was enormous by usual standards, about three times its normal size—all of which made Ping Williams strongly consider an acute gastric haemorrhage. ‘There’s blood in the stomach, you see? Blood mixed with the food.’

  ‘I see,’ said Simmons, who at that point did not entirely see.

  According to Dr Williams’s calculations, the man’s last meal would have been three or four hours before his death, but it was difficult to be sure of this. Anxiety can halt digestion—Simmons had not known that—so if this man had been anxious about something, his stomach might well have taken its time.

  Was he anxious? Simmons considered this. How could he really know? All he could think of was how many people in town had made a point of saying that the man seemed noticably calm.

  ‘It’s such a conflict of findings, you see?’ said Ping Williams.

  And what she meant by that was this: the man had a normal-looking heart. Normal in every way. Yet the further she looked into it, the more likely it seemed that heart failure was the cause of death. The last straw, as it were. But what had caused such a healthy heart to fail?

  Simmons became confused. ‘But you say it wasn’t a heart attack?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but something stopped the blood from being pushed along, because of the cyanosis, you see?’ said Ping in her lovely soft voice—a voice that could make a phrase like ‘because of the cyanosis’ sound like a line from a lyric poem.

  ‘Right,’ said Simmons.

  ‘The pupils, too, as I said in my report, they’re smaller than I would expect and unusual in appearance. Some drugs can do that. And I suppose the main thing that I am saying,’ she went on, ‘is that I am convinced that this was not a natural death.’

  ‘Right,’ said Simmons, finally feeling like the conversation was reaching its desired destination. ‘Because you’ve written here …’ He looked down at the fax, at the word that had caught his attention.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ping. ‘I believe the cause of death to be some kind of irritant poison.’

  ‘Poison,’ repeated Simmons, because he was rather excited about the word.

  ‘That’s correct,’ said Ping Williams. ‘I believe it was poison.’ And Simmons just laughed out loud at that, a short high-pitched laugh, most unprofessional, and the inappropriateness of it was not lost on Dr Ping Williams.

  ‘I can assure you this was not funny for the deceased,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry, I must be tired,’ said Simmons.

  ‘Shall I continue, Detective?’

  And Simmons said, ‘Yes, I’m good.’

  But there was something rather not good about Ping Williams’s assertion that the man had died from poison. And the problem—and this was quite a sizable problem—was that, despite searching for traces of this apparent poison in all the hidden pockets of a human body where poison might secrete itself, she couldn’t actually find any.

  ‘And I’m astounded that I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I was sure that I would. But I’ve ordered further analysis on some of the organs, and of course blood and urine, so we still may find it.’ Simmons remembered the last time he was at the morgue.

  He pictured a row of the man’s organs lined up in glass jars and then recoiled at the thought.

  ‘But you see, the absence of poison in my finding leads me to think that this was not a common poison. I would have thought a barbiturate, a soluble hypnotic, and that still may be consistent. Some poisons decompose very quickly after death, you see? Certain barbiturates just don’t come up in analysis. But that is extremely rare, Detective. And how a normal person would have obtained such a poison, I just don’t know.’ Ping paused for a moment before adding, ‘Unless he was a chemist himself.’

  Simmons nodded, wrote down Chemist? in blue pen—it looked like the writing of a six-year-old—and he said to Ping, ‘We’ll look into that.’

  Ping Williams said, ‘It’s a very perplexing finding. I detect no mark from a hypodermic needle, so I suggest he ingested it—whatever it was—and I have been compiling a list of possibilities. But whether he ingested it deliberately or not I can’t say. We know he didn’t vomit. Did anyone suggest that he convulsed?’

  ‘Ah, convulsions—no,’ said Simmons. ‘Calm, apparently. People said he looked peaceful.’ And he laughed again, nervously.

  ‘Baffling,’ whispered Ping Williams.

  ‘It is,’ said Simmons.

  ‘And along with the lack of identification, and the labels being removed from his clothing …’ said Ping.

  They were silent for a moment, then Ping Williams gave a tiny cough—a cough like a cloud bursting—and Simmons had a sudden thought. ‘So he’d eaten?’

  ‘Yes, Detective, he had.’

  Looking back at the fax, Simmons searched for the appropriate section, with the receiver cradled between his chin and his moist shoulder.

  ‘A pasty?’ he said, finding the part he was looking for.

/>   ‘Yes,’ whispered Ping Williams. ‘His last meal was a pasty—or perhaps a pie.’

  19

  Benny was sitting cross-legged in the shed among the piles of books, a collection of short stories by Flannery O’Connor in her hand, when she heard a woman’s voice saying, ‘Hello?’ very loudly from someplace in the garden.

  Benny, alarmed, began picking up books in a panic and shoving them back into the box. She plonked the thesaurus on top, most ungracefully, and pressed the cardboard flaps closed. Then she hoisted the box back up onto the shelf with some difficulty.

  ‘Hello?’ said the voice again. It was a yell, really—a woman yelling.

  Benny said, ‘Coming,’ to the garden and she emerged from the shed and squinted into the still-early morning.

  At the back of the house, to the right side, there was a gate, and over the gate Benny could see the top of a head. She went up the path through the garden quickly and unlatched the gate, opening it to reveal a stocky woman in a silk shirt.

  ‘Oh, there you are. Hello. I just thought I’d introduce myself. I knocked at the front door, but …’

  Benny, flustered, looked at the woman and was puzzled for a moment before she remembered where she’d seen her before. It was the woman from the night the man had died on the street—the loud one who’d poured brandy for the ladies in the antique store

  ‘Sorry, I was just in the shed,’ said Benny.

  ‘I’m Cora,’ said the woman. ‘From next door.’ She raised a short arm and gestured at the big old house next door. It was a brick house with big windows, and Benny could still hear someone hosing in the yard.

  ‘That’s Fred in the yard, he’s just watering. Say hello, Fred!’ A man’s voice, just audible above the sound of the hose, said, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Benny to the fence.

  ‘I brought you a couple of things,’ said Cora as she came in through the gate. ‘Shall I pop them inside?’ She walked across the low deck, rather ahead of Benny, and went in through the double doors to the kitchen, and Benny followed along in her bed shirt.

  ‘Oh, you’re not dressed,’ said Cora offhandedly. ‘But now I do know that you’re Benny.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Benny, as Cora put a cake on the counter and then opened the fridge and put a plastic container with something yellow in it inside.

  ‘That’s carrot—’ she pointed to the cake ‘—and there’s some curried egg for sandwiches. My son lives in Sydney now and I don’t have anyone to make sandwiches for.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Benny. ‘Thank you.’

  Then she stood back as Cora surveyed the kitchen critically. She watched as Cora went to the dresser drawer and took out a stiff placemat and a coaster and carried these over to the dining table and, with a proprietorial air about her, put the placemat under a plate of half-eaten toast Benny had left there the night before, and a coaster under the glass of water that was set beside it.

  ‘You don’t want to damage the table,’ said Cora.

  Benny said nothing. That she did not want to damage the table was true. And that she did not care much for the attitude of this woman—Cora—was true also.

  ‘You don’t say much, do you?’ said Cora. ‘But Odette has told me all about you and we’re happy you’re here. It’s nice to see the light on. The last fellow who lived here was one of Odette’s artist friends. I liked the paintings—big kind of abstract faces and stuff like that—but the house just always smelled of paint! He was a funny old thing. Even quieter than you.’

  Then Cora looked at Benny, and her expression softened. It seemed for a moment like she was on the verge of saying something meaningful, even personal. Benny leaned against the counter, in her very little clothing, feeling uneasy and hoping for this woman to leave.

  ‘Well,’ said Cora. She straightened up, as if coming out of a dream, and gave Benny a once-over. ‘You look like you could do with some cake.’

  And then she headed down the hall towards the front door, opened it and stepped onto the verandah.

  ‘I’ll get Fred to come over with the mower,’ she said, giving the lawn a cursory look.

  ‘Oh,’ Benny said, about to protest but deciding against it. The sheer force of this woman, Cora, was something Benny could not be bothered to resist, so she said, ‘Okay,’ by which time Cora was back on her own property and, with a quick wave at Benny, was hurrying up the steps and inside.

  •

  Cora Franks went through her house to the back door, sparkling with nerves.

  Freddy Franks was putting the hose away and she beckoned to him to come inside, so he put the hose down and walked into the house.

  ‘Is she nice?’ asked Fred.

  ‘Shhh’, said Cora, and she led him in from the doorway.

  Freddy laughed, and Cora frowned at him until he stopped.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Fred, smiling.

  ‘Well, she’s shy,’ said Cora in an excited whisper, leaning in to Fred. ‘Painfully. And very young. She’s like a child really. And my God, Freddy, you should see her. It’s uncanny! She is the absolute spitting image of her mother.’

  20

  Gussy Franklin’s hulk of a body perched on the bench outside the police station, where he was taking a short break with a cheese sandwich.

  It was a hot morning, and Franklin sat staring off beyond the hedge towards the war memorial, a statue of a single solider atop a tall column at the end of the rose garden. He was chewing and staring when Simmons strolled out with a manila folder in his hand

  ‘I would have offered you half, mate,’ said Franklin, who would not have offered anyone half.

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Simmons as he leaned against the low brick wall that went around the verandah like a battlement. He put his folder down beside him, folded his arms and told Gussy Franklin how he’d just had an interesting little chat with Ping Williams. He spoke in a low voice—as if they might be overheard—and Franklin, sitting with his tree-trunk legs spread as wide as they would go, leaned in to listen. Simmons, very pleased with himself and his rather surprising information, explained the nature of Ping William’s theory.

  ‘Poison,’ said Franklin.

  ‘Correct,’ said Simmons.

  Franklin raised his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘Well, fuck,’ he said and laughed.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Simmons, and he really did love to tell things to Gussy Franklin. He was a great audience, much more personable than Hall. Simmons squinted over his shoulder into the bright sun—light was gleaming on the war memorial—and then he shifted along the wall for more shade.

  On discussing it further, they both agreed that poison was a compelling finding, that was for certain. Simmons wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he sure was not expecting that, and Franklin wasn’t either. The only problem—and it was a fairly large one—was that Ping Williams couldn’t actually find any trace of this supposed poison. Simmons went to some effort to explain this: how Ping was certain there’d been poison, but that there wasn’t any to be found, and how some poisons decompose in the body very quickly, so you just can’t detect them, or masking agents can be used to conceal them.

  Franklin gave a whistle, one that went from a high note down to a low one and then stopped.

  Simmons went on. Regardless of the science, this poison theory was the GMO’s conclusion. And while it was a slightly tenuous one, given the lack of evidence, Ping Williams was an expert and a professional and no one had ever seen her get fanciful for even one moment. ‘The woman barely talks out of her mouth, let alone her arse,’ said Simmons. She was precise and thorough. And the main thing to remember was that there was certainly no other cause of death apparent. You had the blood in the stomach, the congestion of the organs, the something-or-other that had caused the healthy heart to fail. Ping Williams was ordering further analysis of the organs—a row of clear glass jars full of tissue and fluids—but at this point she had concluded, and may well continue to conclude, that the dead man had died from a mysteriou
s and extremely rare poison.

  ‘So we’re treating it as suspicious?’ asked Franklin.

  ‘Oh, shit, yes. We’re treating it as bloody suspicious,’ said Simmons.

  Gussy Franklin nodded, thinking, and took another bite of his sandwich. It was marvellous how much he could fit in his mouth at one time. He chewed with little difficulty and swallowed.

  ‘But maybe it’s just a suicide,’ he said.

  Simmons nodded. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe. But it’s not just a suicide, is it. If he administered some kind of undetectable poison to himself and then sat down on a public street in his silly suit? Why on earth would he do that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Franklin. He finished his sandwich and considered it. ‘But probably no one else removed the labels from his clothes. You don’t just snip away at some guy’s undies tag without him noticing. And probably no one took his wallet. So obviously he didn’t want us to know who he was.’

  Simmons, his arms folded, nodded again, and Franklin waited a beat before he continued.

  ‘Like, he’s come in by bus,’ he said quietly. ‘He’s not known by anyone and he hasn’t met anyone. He’s died there without wanting to talk to anyone—except maybe this blonde woman who looks like someone out of Days of Our Lives. And he’s got nothing on him but these few items.’

  ‘Young and the Restless,’ Simmons said.

  A bus went past along Valley Road, Gather Region Bus Service written along the side. Simmons turned his head and watched as it disappeared from view, disturbing a flock of cockatoos on the verge as it went.

  He turned back to Franklin. ‘But then why’s he carrying those items at all?’ he said. ‘Why’s he have his cigarettes and his combs and bloody Juicy Fruit and why’s he keep his tickets?’

  ‘Well—why any of it?’ said Franklin, and Simmons laughed loudly at that, because of the deep and subtle truth of it, he laughed.