The Milburn Big Box Set

by Nancy McGovern

  “He told me he’d take it to his cottage until we were done,” Tom said. “He put it in the tiny cage and took it away. Didn’t he say anything to you? You met him at 9 am, didn’t you? He had the snake in his cottage then.”

  “Well, I didn’t go into his cottage,” Degas said. “I met him outside, and Haku looked a little nervous. He told me something about…” A strange look passed over Degas’ face. “He was still upset about last night, with the parrot. He told me he felt sure that Akamai had done it.”

  “That stupid parrot!” the police chief cried. “How can you care about the parrot when Haku is dead? Stop dragging Akamai’s name into this.”

  “I’m just telling you what he said,” Degas protested. “Look, I don’t know how this is possible.”

  “I do. My son was murdered by an animal,” the chief said. “We both know that your snake did it, Degas.”

  Degas looked to the ground, utterly ashamed.

  “You’ll be hearing from my lawyers about this,” the chief said. “That is, if I can’t book you for manslaughter or carelessness first! You better believe that I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Haku’s death is avenged.”

  “It was an accident,” Degas said, still upset. “I don’t understand how it happened.”

  “Haku even told me he was going to be extra careful with the cage since the snake had just escaped yesterday,” Tom said. “I don’t understand either. How could he be careless enough to let it escape?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t,” Nora said. Everyone turned to look at her.

  “What?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t careless,” Nora said. “Something strikes me as odd.”

  “What’s that?” Degas asked.

  “Tom, you found the body, right?”

  “I did.”

  “Who else was with you?”

  “Well, Terry and Lou were having a smoke right outside. They’ll tell you, I knocked on Haku’s door twice. When he didn’t answer, I tried the door and it was open. He was the first thing I saw. He lay slumped over his desk. I yelled, and all three of us rushed inside. But he was dead already. Bitten by the snake.”

  “Right,” Nora said. “Where did you find the puncture marks?”

  “On the neck,” Tom said.

  “But there were no marks on his arms?” Nora asked. “He hadn’t tried to defend himself?”

  “The snake moved fast,” the police chief said. “If it escaped from its cage, maybe Haku didn’t have time to defend himself.”

  “Did you see the snake in the cottage?” Nora asked. “What was the scene exactly, Tom?”

  “Well… I entered the cottage, and Haku was slumped over his desk. Behind him, he’d kept the cage on his bed, with a pile of clothes. The cage was open. The snake was gone,” Tom said. “The window was open, too.”

  “The door, the door was closed though, right?” Nora asked.

  “Yes.” Tom nodded. “I mean, it wasn’t locked, but it was closed. I knocked twice and then entered. It was open when I tried it.”

  “Right. You mentioned that earlier. It’s clear, isn’t it? It’s impossible that the snake did this,” Nora said definitively. “There’s no way it could have happened the way we’re imagining.”

  “What are you talking about?” the chief spluttered. “My son had the cage, the snake escaped and bit him. My son moved to the desk, perhaps to call someone, and he died slumped over it.” A sob escaped him, and he turned away, his shoulders shaking. “Oh, poor Haku. His mother… his mother will be devastated.”

  “I didn’t even know you were his father,” Tina said sympathetically. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “I was his stepfather. He was estranged from the family for the last two years, but I loved him still. Poor Haku!”

  “Chief Kahane,” Nora said, “I really think you should consider opening an investigation. Haku was murdered!”

  “She’s right,” Simone said. “If the snake had bitten him, he would be in too much pain to crawl to the desk. He would have died by the cage. Degas told us yesterday that death would be instantaneous.”

  “Well, perhaps he was at his desk when the snake bit him,” Degas pointed out.

  “Why would the snake do that?” Nora asked. “You said yourself that snakes are shy creatures. The cage was on the bed, by the window. If the snake had escaped, it would simply have slithered out the window without harming Haku. It would certainly not cross the room, creep up his chair, bite him on the neck, and then slither back across to escape via the window. It makes absolutely no sense.”

  The chief’s face was turning red and then purple. “You might be right,” he said. “You might just be right.”

  “If this incident were standalone, perhaps we could still believe it was an accident of some kind,” Nora said. “But take into account that Tutti Frutti was murdered just yesterday.”

  “Who? What?” The chief looked confused.

  “The parrot. Tutti Frutti?”

  “That parrot!” the chief growled.

  “The parrot’s death is definitely linked to your son’s,” Nora said.

  She watched as the chief’s face contorted. He took a deep breath, and said, “I need time to think about this.”

  Degas jumped up. “Time? What do you need time for? You need to go find Akamai and arrest him immediately.”

  The police chief’s face was a study in contrasts - on the one hand, he had pain, on the other, fear. For now, it seemed clear - one of his sons had just died, but the other might be the murderer!

  “There’s really no proof Akamai ever tried to hurt that parrot,” the chief said finally. “He had no motive, and he was with his friends.”

  “Oh, but he did have a motive,” Nora said. “Haku showed us a video before he died.”

  “A video?” The chief looked interested. So did Degas.

  “Yes, it showed him and Akamai getting into a fight, and then Tutti Frutti attacking Akamai. Akamai sounded rather furious. You’ll probably find it at his desk. It’s labelled Tutti Frutti.”

  “We’ve finished our search of the cottage,” the deputy said, “We still have to catalogue everything, but I’m sure I didn’t see any CDs in his desk.”

  “What? There were a stack of them. At least ten CDs!” Nora exclaimed. “In the first desk drawer.”

  “The drawer is empty,” the Deputy said. “I’m sure of it. If those CDs ever existed, they certainly aren’t here anymore.”

  *****

  Chapter 6

  The Fiancé

  “Haku!” A lone figure appeared on the edge of the horizon, a girl dressed in thin cotton shorts and a denim shirt. Her hair, tied in a hurried pony tail, unraveled as she ran toward them, tumbling around her shoulders. “Haku!” she screamed again, as Degas caught and tried to restrain her. Her shoulders began shaking, and she buried her face in his chest.

  Degas stood stiff, patting her gently on the back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Elly. He’s gone.”

  “He can’t be gone. He can’t be! We met just yesterday. I danced with him!”

  “I know.” Degas looked uneasy. “I’m sorry. So sorry.” He wrapped his arms around her, and let her wail, stroking her hair occasionally.

  “There now.” The police chief stepped forward, and patted her on the shoulder. “Let’s not make a scene.”

  Violently, Elly shrugged away from him. “Don’t you touch me. Haku hated you! He hated your whole family.”

  Chief Kahane winced. “We had a rough few years. But I wouldn’t go as far as saying hate. At any rate, Elly, you don’t want to bring that up now, do you? We have a funeral to plan.”

  “Haku wouldn’t want you there,” Elly said.

  Degas gave the chief a look, then tried to lead Elly away. “Elly, come on. Let’s go get you a drink, okay? This isn’t the right time.”

  “No.” She shook him off. “I need to see him. I need to see him with my own eyes.”

  “Can’t do that,”
Chief Kahane said. “This is a crime scene, and a family member has already identified him. So…”

  “What family member? You?” Elly laughed. “Please.”

  “I’m his stepfather,” Chief Kahane said. “I raised that boy, and I loved him. Some people don’t understand that bonds can be real even if they aren’t blood related.”

  “Elly, really. Please,” Degas said. “Let’s go elsewhere, all right? This is just a terrible time.”

  Looking more than a little angry, Elly reluctantly allowed Degas to lead her away. Nora and Simone came after them when Degas nodded, while Tina chose to go home, feeling uncomfortable in her damp wetsuit.

  Elly seemed to be in shock. Her eyes were blank, gazing off into the horizon, and she let Degas lead her like a puppet back to his home. In the kitchen, Degas poured out some iced tea from bottles in the fridge, and handed each of the girls a glass.

  Nora felt extremely uncomfortable. Grief like this was personal, and she almost felt as if she were impinging on Elly’s privacy. Yet the look Degas gave them said that he couldn’t possibly handle this alone.

  “Elly’s parents?” Nora whispered to Degas, getting up to help him in the kitchen as he bought some coke out of the fridge.

  “They’re touring Southeast Asia,” Degas said. “Won’t be back home for another three months, though now they might take the next flight back. I don’t think she has any other family here. I don’t know who she can call.”

  “No friends?” Nora asked.

  Degas looked uncomfortable. “The thing is… when she and Haku chose to work for me, a lot of the locals weren’t very happy with it. They saw it as them choosing money over their family. I guess she doesn’t have as many friends out here as she did before I showed up.”

  Nora looked at him, wondering what it was he wasn’t saying.

  Simone had her arm around Elly, and to Nora’s surprise, Elly was letting herself be comforted by a near stranger.

  “I talked to him just… just today morning,” Elly said, letting out a little sob. “He was… he was just himself, you know? I don’t feel like he’s gone. I feel like he’s in the next room, that he’ll burst out any second and tell me it’s all a large prank. Can you tell me that, Simone? Please tell me it’s just a prank!”

  “I’m sorry,” Simone said, helpless. The words were so useless, she thought. They couldn’t bridge over the pain Elly must be feeling. “I met Haku yesterday. He showed us some tapes at his cottage. I know… I know he loved you very much. He spoke about you with such respect.”

  “I always wondered why he chose me,” Elly said with a sniff. “He was the tribal leader’s first born grandchild. He could have chosen any girl he liked. I was lucky he loved me.”

  Nora would ordinarily have felt sympathy, but there was something about the way Elly said it that struck her as odd. Haku had been a good man, but not even his mother would say that he was particularly handsome, while Elly was the type of gorgeous woman that you saw on magazines and TV. She had a perfect body, silky hair, and even with her face puffed from crying, it was apparent that she had beautiful features. Perhaps Nora was being judgmental. After all, people tended to underestimate their own beauty sometimes. She looked up at Degas, puzzled.

  As if he’d read her mind, Degas nodded at her to come over to the other side of the room. Elly was too wrapped up in her crying to notice.

  “It’s a case of ugly duckling,” he said to Nora in a low voice.

  Nora raised an eyebrow at him, and he took a long gulp of the cola before replying. “See, Elly… well, growing up, I told you I was friends with Haku, right?”

  “Yeah,” Nora said.

  “Elly was our friend as well,” Degas said. “Everything we did, we did together. Elly, at the time, was plain ugly. She was gangly, had braces, and had enough pimples that the kids at school nicknamed her pizza face. I guess she never realized how she changed. Or maybe she did, and just stayed humble.”

  Or maybe, Nora thought, she’d acted this way as a way to smooth over Haku’s insecurities. She thought about the look on his face when he’d showed her the video of Akamai. He’d been jealous in that video, and furious that Akamai had disrespected him. Even when he spoke of Elly, he’d talked as if he were talking of an angel, someone far out of his league.

  Frowning, Nora wondered just what it was about Elly that gave her pause. The girl’s tears were real enough, and so was her sorrow. But underneath that, there was something else. Some other emotion Nora couldn’t identify.

  Elly wiped at her eyes, and then looked up as Degas across the room.

  “The snake did it, right?” Elly asked. “He was too careless while handling it, right?”

  Degas shrugged, looking like he wanted to dodge the question.

  “What is it?” Elly asked. “You’re hiding something.”

  “We… we don’t quite know the cause of death yet,” Degas said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Degas took a deep breath, looked at Simone as if he needed support, then turned back to Elly. “We think it might be… something else.”

  “Something else?” Elly looked very confused. “What?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Degas said.

  “Degas, he was 28. Haku was in his prime. If it wasn’t the snake that killed him, then what happened?” she asked.

  Degas didn’t look at her. “We don’t know.”

  “Was it…” She took a deep breath. “Was it an overdose? Is that what you aren’t telling me?”

  “An overdose?” Nora asked. “I didn’t know that Haku did drugs.”

  “He was clean the last two years,” Degas said. “He used to have a problem with them, but then he sorted himself out.”

  “That could explain the puncture marks,” Simone said.

  “Puncture marks?” Elly’s head swiveled as she turned to face her.

  Everyone fell silent, Nora and Simone feeling increasingly awkward. The three women turned to face Degas, who was rubbing his forehead with his thumb.

  “It’s been a horrible day,” he said. “Just horrible.”

  It was about to get worse.

  Before Degas could explain anything to Elly, the front door opened, and Akamai stormed in.

  Degas immediately got on his feet, and pointed at the door. “Get back out, before I call the police.”

  “Oh, sure, call the police,” Akamai sneered. “What are they going to do, arrest me? I don’t think so.”

  “Your father should have taken a belt to you early,” Degas growled. “Maybe then you would have been less of a punk.”

  “Oh, I’m the punk? You badmouth me in front of my father, accuse me of murdering my own brother, and I’m the punk?”

  “You fought with Haku on 5th September, didn’t you?” Nora said. “We saw the tape.”

  “Tape?” Akamai looked genuinely confused for a second, and then shocked. “There was a tape?”

  “So now there are three of us willing to testify what we saw,” said Degas. “And there’s Elly. She was there when Tutti Frutti attacked you.”

  “That is one stupidly named parrot,” Akamai said. “But what does that tape prove anyway? Nothing. So we scuffled a bit. All brothers do. I wouldn’t kill Haku.” He turned to Elly, and his voice became softer. “You know that, right Elly? I wouldn’t hurt Haku.”

  Elly’s face was cold. “Your brother hated your entire family. You most of all.”

  “Well, we hated him!” Akamai said. “Couldn’t help it, could we? After what happened.”

  “It wasn’t his fault!” Elly exclaimed. “It wasn’t his fault, but your entire family made him feel ashamed. He was just a child.”

  “He was her older brother!” Akamai shouted. “He should have made sure she was all right. She’d be alive, she’d be here right now if Haku had just paid attention.”

  “And maybe Haku would have been here right now if you and your family had paid attention!” Elly shouted. “He moved out of your home because of h
ow badly you treated him. It’s your fault he died, in a way.”

  “You know what, I wouldn’t regret it even if it was,” Akamai said.

  Nora and Simone gasped.

  Elly stepped forward, and with all the force she could muster, she slapped Akamai hard across his face. Akamai stumbled back a few steps, and then raised his hand to his cheek, stunned that she’d hit him.

  Degas planted himself between the two of them. “All right. That’s enough. There’ll be no more of this.”

  “You hit me,” Akamai said, with wonder in his voice.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t kill you,” Elly shouted. “Don’t you ever talk about Haku again, you or your wretched family! I loved him. The rest of you can just go—”

  “Elly, enough,” Degas said gently. “Please.”

  Immediately, she stepped back, and sat on the sofa. Burying her head in her hands, she began to sob softly.

  “I’ll be back to deal with this girl,” Akamai said. “As for you-” He pointed at Nora and Simone. “-if I hear you spreading tales about me, or that little scuffle I had with my brother, let’s just say you’ll be very sorry.”

  “We don’t take kindly to men who threaten women,” Nora said.

  “It’s a promise, not a threat,” Akamai said, and as Degas stepped forward angrily, Akamai slipped between the doors and vanished.

  Degas sighed, and shut the door, then stayed there, resting his forehead gently against it. “What a mess,” he said. “What an absolutely horrible mess.”

  Nora looked at Simone. “We should… we should get going, shouldn’t we?” she asked. “Tina’s alone at the cottage.”

  “Stay,” Degas said. “Please. I don’t think I could bear to sleep alone in this big house today. Elly, you’ll stay too, won’t you?”

  “I have nowhere else to go, really,” Elly said quietly. “Yes, I’ll stay till my parents return. I’d rather be surrounded by strangers than be alone right now. As for Akamai and his family, they’re worse than strangers.”

  “We’ll stay,” Nora said. “I guess we can call Tina over.”

  “I’ll send a car over to fetch her,” Degas said.