The Final Alibi

by Simon King

  “Jim, you OK?” Steph yelled to me but I was already crawling back. She held my arm as I manoeuvred myself back out onto the roof and told her what I had seen. “I’ll call it in. Get the guys to keep an eye out for Clancy. We’ll find him.”

  “Wait, Steph, this isn’t Clancy.” I said to her.

  “But the wrapper,” she began.

  “Even if the wrapper was Clancy’s, and if we find out that the person that crawled up into that roof to eavesdrop on the Chief was him, someone put him up to it, Steph. Someone is leading him, getting him to do these things. And I’m not sure that Clancy would be capable of inflicting that damage to those people. They aren’t small animals.” She began to nod again, understanding my point. If we were going to get to the bottom of all this, we needed to find out who was guiding him. “OK, let’s put the call out for him, see if anybody can pick him up. Worst case is we get to question him. I’d prefer to catch him ourselves. Be a lot easier to question him in private without someone looking over our shoulder.”

  “I’ll make the call,” she said and began to climb back down the tree. A few minutes later, I followed.

  11.

  After she had contacted Chief Richards, we climbed back into the patrol car. We wanted to go by Clancy’s house and see if he had returned. It was a long shot but Clancy was feeble minded and he may just be stupid enough to return home. I asked her to swing by the hotel first. I wanted to pick up a jacket and also to see Tami quickly, to fill her in and also ease her mind in case she had already heard. I wasn’t sure if she had returned to work and gossip in a small town, regardless of how delicate it was, had a way of making the rounds quickly. Sometimes, too quickly.

  She dropped me out the front and told me we would meet back in 15 minutes. She wanted to duck home and check on Mrs. Wong and Judith. I jumped out of the car and watched her drive down the street, then raced up the stairs, three at a time. I retrieved my jacket from the room, used the bathroom, then headed back down. The bistro was empty and the main bar only had half a dozen or so patrons, quietly sitting around with beers before them. It was just another quiet Sunday night in Cider Hill.

  I went back outside and waited for Steph by the lamp post. I was leaning against it, running the previous hours’ events through my mind when I heard a noise off to my right. I looked and barely made out a shadow standing across the street from the far side of the pub. Because I was standing under the light and the shadow was standing in darkness, it was impossible to see who it was. I took a few steps out of the light but the shadow began to walk down the alley, its head never turning, as if watching me. As I stopped, it stopped. I took another couple of steps and the shadow took a couple as well. I started getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, panic setting in. The lane that he was standing on was where Tami lived. If he was watching me, then maybe he was planning something.

  Without thinking, I sprinted to the corner, rounding it just in time to see the shadow jump one of the fences that fronted the line of flats. There was at least a dozen or so and, in the dark, found it difficult to know exactly which one he had jumped over by the time I had reached the spot. I was only a couple of doors away from Tami’s and could see her kitchen light on. I couldn’t see into the window as the curtain was drawn but I knew she would be home. Keeping an eye behind me and walking slowly, I opened her gate then walked to the door, knocking on it gently while listening for any noise.

  The door opened and she flung herself out at me. I almost raised a fist as she leapt from the doorway, throwing her arms around my neck as she always did. When she finally pulled away a little, I saw her trademark Cheshire grin, her eyes beaming with happiness.

  “I’m so glad you’re back,” she said, taking my hand and pulling me inside. Those words were the last words I ever heard my beautiful Tami say. It was also the last time that I saw her alive, her beautiful smile extinguished from this world forever.

  “Tami,” was all I had time to say as I heard the click of the gate behind me. “Too late,” was the only thought I had as I saw Tami turn her head back towards me, our eyes meeting for the final time, then looking past me, her face contorting in terror. The scream that followed sounded a thousand miles away as something hard exploded to the side of my head and I fell, not only to the ground, but also into darkness.

  Chapter 9: Remembering

  1.

  The events that immediately preceded and then followed that terrible night are still mostly flashbacks as well as information given to me by the people that were there. I need you to understand that I am writing this book many years in the future and have the passage of time to help me. But at the time, things were much more difficult. For one, Tami’s final moments didn’t come to me again until a good week afterwards. The head-wound I suffered put me into a coma for three days and I woke up at Daylesford Hospital on the Wednesday night. Whoever decided to thump me, also very nearly broke my left leg as well as actually breaking 2 ribs on my left side. It was believed to have been a metal pipe that took me out and the doctors told me that I was extremely lucky. Any harder and I would have been eating my food through a straw, or worse, not at all.

  When I finally regained consciousness, Steph had been sleeping in a chair beside my bed. The table next to me was covered in flowers and get-well cards. A jug of water was also there and that was what I needed first. The dryness in my throat was painful, the scratching unbearable. I reached for it with my right hand, almost managed to grab it, then pushed it off the table, the explosion of glass sending shards in all directions. Steph leapt from the chair, a pistol in her hand ready to fire. I flinched a little and a bolt of pain went shooting down my left side from my shoulder all the way to my toes.

  When she realised it was me, she holstered her pistol and bent over me.

  “Jim, oh my God, you’re awake.” She hugged me as the door suddenly opened and another officer as well as a nurse came rushing into the room. When they saw that I had awakened, the officer left while the nurse went to fetch a broom. She returned a minute later, carrying a fresh jug of water. Steph stepped back a little as a doctor came in and began doing some tests on me, torch in the eyes, listening to my chest, stuff like that. He asked me my name, James Lawson, whether I knew what day it was, Monday, and who the lady standing in front of me was, Stephanie Connor. When he was satisfied that I was OK, he waved Steph forward and after informing me that it was actually Wednesday, left the room.

  “Jim,” she repeated. I looked at her, my heart in my mouth.

  “Where’s Tami?” was all I could ask, the only question that was burning into me. She looked away, hesitated. “Steph, where is Tami?” I repeated.

  “Jim, we can talk about that later. For now-”

  “NO,” I cried out, “NOW. WHERE IS SHE?” She still didn’t answer me and I began to sit up, trying to get myself out of bed. Steph lunged forward and pushed me back down, trying to keep me down. I did as she wanted, then took hold of her hand until she looked into my eyes. “Steph, please. I need to know.” My voice sounded so quiet; I wasn’t sure whether she heard me. But when she began to nod and sit on the edge of my bed, never letting my hand go, I knew to expect the worse.

  “She’s,” she began, then paused and looked away as a tear spilled down her cheek. ”She’s dead, Jim. I’m so sorry.” The words punched a hole through my heart, my own tears then coming in streams. I don’t remember screaming, but she later told me that I did.

  2.

  They didn’t find Tami for two whole days. After the killer had taken care of me, he had hidden her. By the time Steph found me, she was gone. She had known to look for me at Tami’s because she knew I was going to pop in to make sure she was OK. When I didn’t show up out the front of the pub, she had driven down the lane and found me crumpled up at Tami’s front door, bleeding profusely from a wound to the back of my head. An ambulance had taken me straight here, to Daylesford Hospital, while Steph remained in town, partnering up with Alec Rawlins, another young constabl
e from Daylesford.

  They had gone to Clancy’s house but only found his brother and mother at the house. He still hadn’t been found by the time I woke up. They spent almost 36 hours straight following up any lead that the police were able to get hold of. One person thought that a car, a Mini, had been seen driving erratically from town, out towards the old mill, but the mini was never found, the mill standing abandoned. Up to 40 officers and hundreds of volunteers had begun searching the surrounding farmland; searching every dam, lake and puddle. Every shed, building, home, stable and outhouse was examined. There were even volunteers making the trip from Melbourne to help with the searching, all the radio stations covering the events of that Sunday. Steph showed me the newspapers, local, national and even one international, all including Cider Hill in their dailies. The Herald Sun had a four-page spread, including the front. It had a picture of Tami taking up almost the entire page, except for a small picture of the Chief and Melanie. Their story was on Page 3.

  Tami had been found in the unlikeliest place imaginable. They say that the chances she was still alive by the time Steph found me, were almost 100%. They believe she was still alive an hour later as officers walked through her home, looking for any sort of clue to her whereabouts, the killer keeping her silent either by rendering her unconscious or subduing her into submission.

  It was only because of the passage of time that they found her. Time had allowed for certain events to take their course and combine to reveal her location. A heavy thunderstorm had hit Cider Hill on Tuesday, hard enough to cause flash flooding in some parts, damaging roofs and uprooting trees. Her roof had sprung a leak, one of the tiles damaged. When the rain water had leaked into the roof cavity, the congealed blood that had pooled beneath her body became watery again, slowly weeping through the ceiling plasterboard. A large red patch of moist sludge had formed in the middle of her living room ceiling. When Lester and another officer had returned to the home on the Tuesday afternoon to search for any missed clues, they made the grim discovery, finding my Tami tied to her own rafters in the ceiling space. She had been there the entire time.

  3.

  It took a lot of pleading for Steph to finally show me the photos of Tami. At first, she refused to even listen to me, saying that they were police evidence and she was unable to get them. The she said that she didn’t want to show them to me, that they weren’t for me to see. One look into my eyes and she knew that that line was not going to work. I practically was police as much as she was. Then she told me that it wasn’t a good idea with my injuries, needing rest and relaxation to heal quickly. But with each plea, I could see her walls slowly crumbling. I eventually told her that if I didn’t get them from her, then I would get them from someone else, like Lester. She knew that I was right and so, with dread in her eyes, she handed them to me the following morning.

  “You can have these, Jim, but I won’t stay while you look through them. I don’t think it will make things any easier for you, but if you insist, then I won’t stop you.” She let the envelope go, then without another word, turned and left the room, closing the door behind her. I held the envelope for close to ten minutes, tears building, then slowly tracing their path down my cheeks. My heart was truly aching, my belly on fire with rage. My leg was throbbing and my chest felt like a spear was lodged in it, a piercing bolt of pain cascading through my body with every hitching breath. I tried to prepare myself as best I could, trying to picture the horror I was about to see.

  Nothing can ever prepare you for the moment you see the love of your life dead and lying on some slab, the inflictions of a madman visible in the slashes and cuts and bites that would adorn her body. Her Cheshire grin now gone forever, her beautiful eyes closed, the happiness in them extinguished for all eternity. I took another painful breath then slowly opened the envelope.

  There were six photos in all. I don’t know how many I was expecting but as I held them in my hand, they felt meagre compared to the life-changing event they were about to show me. The first photo was of her face and I felt a wave of relief as I saw that it was untouched, her beautiful eyes closed as if in an eternal sleep. The second was of her legs, again, untouched and unmarked. The third photo showed her back and buttocks while the fourth was of her wrists, deep ligature marks showing how the rope that held her had bitten into her soft skin, leaving identical wounds on each wrist. The fifth photo was of her upper torso and showed her naked breasts and stomach as well as her upper arms. The scar she had suffered twenty years earlier was visible on her upper left arm, just below her shoulder, a deep hole that had healed itself over time but never able to replace the missing muscle tissue. There were no visible marks of any kind.

  I was beginning to think that maybe he had simply strangled her, her body seemingly untouched and devoid of major trauma. But then I looked at the last photo, and my tears began to flow, the levee broken. It was a photo of her neck. It had one single bite mark on its left side, deep enough to open the carotid artery that pulsated with each beat of her heart. He had taken a single bite, then watched her bleed out, if he had indeed waited to confirm her death. My guess was that he probably did wait, long enough to ensure that she was gone. But something struck me as odd.

  I suddenly wanted to speak to Steph, the urge almost overwhelming. I called out but no one came. I yelled louder, then waited. After a minute of nothing, I screamed at the top of my lungs. The door crashed open a few seconds later and a nurse and a policeman burst through the door. I sat up, looking at the cop and asked him to get Steph. He looked at the nurse and when she nodded to him, he left the room.

  4.

  We waited for the nurse to finish her checks and leave the room before speaking. Once the door was closed, I pulled out the photos and held them in front of Steph.

  “This makes no sense,” I said, shaking them up and down.

  “Jim, I know how you feel.”

  “DAM IT, STEPH!” I yelled, my emotion temporarily overwhelming me. She flinched away and I pulled back a little, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to yell. Steph, this doesn’t fit.”

  “I’m listening,” she replied as she lit a cigarette.

  “You’ve seen Clancy, spoken to him. Do you think that he has the strength required to lift Tami and drag her up into the roof of her home?” Steph looked at me with an expression of intrigue. “And the wound. Tami, you saw the chief, you saw Melanie. That was a different person, I’m sure of it. It’s almost like we’re chasing two different people. The controlled one like Tami and Rita Carlisle and the out-of-control one. Whoever killed Tami had the presence of mind to control their emotion. The chief and Melanie, and that girl,” I clicked my fingers in the air, trying to remember her name,” Rita Hayman, they were all pure rage.” At that moment, there wasn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that whoever was killing these people, had an accomplice. An accomplice also capable of taking a bite out of someone.

  “We have to find Clancy, he’s the key to everything now. Without him, we have nothing.”

  “A lot of officers are out looking for him,” she said, stubbing her cigarette out, “and there’s also the Levinson thing.”

  “The Levinson thing?” I asked. She frowned a little.

  “I went to see him again. He’s got a house in Daylesford and Alec and I went to talk to him. You know, to ask him about Lightman again, to see if he knew anyone else that could be involved.”

  “What did he say?” I asked, trying to prop myself up, but the bolt of pain that shot through my chest convinced me not to.

  “Never got to talk to him. Guess who was standing on his porch talking to him when we arrived?” I didn’t have a clue.

  “Richards.”

  “The new chief?” I asked, surprised.

  “Just the temporary one, but yeah, the chief. And they weren’t having a friendly conversation either. He was right up in Levinson’s face, finger pointing and stuff.”

  “Did you hear what they were talking about?” I asked but Steph sh
ook her head.

  “They stopped the second we pulled up. Didn’t see them at first, a big bush near the front gate shielding them. But when we came up the path, there they were. Richards stepped toward us and asked us what we wanted. When I said we wanted to speak with the good doc, he shook his head. Told us that he was questioning him personally and we were to return to Cider Hill and help locate Clancy Higgins.”

  “Why would he-” but Steph stopped me with a hand held out, motioning for me to wait.

  “Wait, there’s more.”

  “More?”

  “Aha. Alec is stationed in Daylesford and remembers pulling over a car a couple of months ago, out on the Daylesford- Ballarat Road. He was sitting on the side of the road watching for traffic when this car sped past, driving erratically. It was a black Mercedes.”

  “The doctor’s?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not the interesting part.”

  “Steph?”

  “The doc had a passenger.” I looked at her, unsure of why she wasn’t just telling me.

  “Who was it?”

  “Jim, it was Tami. And Jim, she wasn’t just a passenger. He said she was sitting pretty close to him. VERY close to him.”