Evil Under the Stars

by C. A. Larmer

  They took the cards with some relief. The night had dragged on, and the excitement of earlier had now worn thin. It was well after midnight, and each of them was keen to get out of the cool night air and into their warm beds.

  As they packed up for the final time, Jackson pulled Alicia aside.

  “I need to hang around for bit, but I’ll get one of the officers to drive you home, okay?”

  “We’re fine,” Alicia said. “I’ve got Lynny, remember. We’ll get a cab.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded, so he grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “Maybe send me a text when you get there, hey? Just to be safe.”

  “You think the killer is still lurking around?”

  “I have no idea what the killer’s doing at this point, but you’re officially a witness, which puts you in danger, so just be careful, okay?”

  She nodded again, trying not to let his words wreak havoc with her imagination.

  Despite her best efforts, by the time the book club friends had said their goodbyes and the Finlay sisters were ensconced in a taxi, heading home, Alicia was feeling rattled again.

  Jackson’s words kept circling through her brain.

  He was right, of course. There was a killer on the loose, and who knew where he now was and what his motives were. One thing was certain, however. The man—and she had to assume it was a man, judging by the brutality of the murder—had not only killed a woman in the middle of a public park, but he had done it with dozens of potential witnesses wedged in nearby.

  It was such a bizarre crime, she realised, looking out over the expansive Gladesville Bridge as the taxi rattled along.

  What kind of person does that?

  What kind of person spots a lone female lying on a blanket and somehow wanders over, strangles her to death, and then simply vanishes into the night?

  It was the boldest crime she had ever come across, bolder even than the death they had watched hours earlier on the big screen. At least in Agatha Christie’s story, the killer waited until the suspect was alone on a secluded beach before going in for the kill.

  This assassin was as brazen as he was terrifying.

  Chapter 7

  The brutal sound of coffee beans being smashed to smithereens woke Alicia from a deep sleep. She sat up with a start and, for just a moment, contemplated the ridiculous dream she’d been having, before realising it was no dream at all.

  A woman really had been murdered in front of a crowd of people at a moonlight cinema, and she was one of the witnesses. Yet she hadn’t seen a thing!

  She pulled her quilt back and reached under her bed for her slippers. Finding only one, she groaned and called out, “Maaaax!”

  The lustrous black Labrador was in the kitchen, of course, both eyes watching Lynette at the cooker, a stray slipper under one paw.

  Alicia snatched it up and, noticing it was now soggy with dog drool, held it with two fingers and groaned again.

  “What have I told you about munching my shoes?”

  Max had the decency to look sheepish, but Lynette was having none of it.

  “Leave poor Maxy alone. It’s all my fault. I was late with breaky this morning. He’d been scratching at my door for ages, and when that didn’t work, he tried waking you. I found him shoving your slipper in your face. You didn’t notice?”

  Alicia laughed. “No, I did not.” She bent down and gave the dog a big scratch on the belly he was now producing. “Sorry, Max. I was dead to the world.” Then she winced, remembering the deceased. “What a night,” she added, disappointing Max by standing back up.

  Lynette nodded. “What a night indeed.”

  She placed a fluffy cappuccino in front of her sister and reached towards the fridge.

  “Who would’ve thought?” said Alicia. “You go to watch an innocent murder mystery and wind up in the middle of one.”

  “Are any murders innocent?”

  “You know what I mean. We’re going to get a bad name for ourselves.”

  “Not our fault,” Lynette retorted. “So who do you think ‘done it’? I’ve got my money on the hubby.”

  “You sound like Jackson. Didn’t we establish he was too far away?”

  “He could’ve done it earlier.”

  “Except he didn’t. We saw them arguing at the bar, remember? She was very much alive then.”

  “And it was really her?”

  “Yes, it was really her! This isn’t Agatha Christie, Lynny. They argued, he sat next to us, she returned and flopped down on her blanket alone, and less than an hour later she was dead.”

  Lynette looked annoyed. “Yes, that does kind of upset that theory. Then who?”

  Alicia thought about that. “It’s hard to answer who until we know why. I mean, we don’t know them at all. It could be some grievance unrelated to anyone there.”

  “Except the cops are right. It had to be someone in the immediate vicinity.” She mimicked the officious tone of the police officer from the night before, then added, “Had to be someone with access, otherwise we would’ve noticed a stranger plop down, strangle a woman and then choof off again, right?”

  “Not necessarily. We were all pretty transfixed by the film by then, but even so, people were coming and going all the time, skipping off to the loos, answering phones, grabbing mid-movie drinks and snacks. There were a lot of people there, a lot of movement. I, for one, wasn’t strictly watching who was sitting where. What about the people around her? That father was a pretty angry man.”

  “But would he strangle a woman? In front of his kids?”

  “Well, since you put it like that.”

  “Maybe those two guys sitting nearby could’ve been a part of it. They were a bit sleazy. Did you see how they watched them a lot? One of them seemed to be getting a thrill out of it.”

  Alicia nodded. “And they took off early, before things had wrapped up, remember? That’s a bit suspect. There was also that pregnant lady, she was right there.”

  “Now you think a pregnant lady killed her?”

  “I’m just saying, she had access.” Alicia stopped. “Wasn’t she with someone? A man? Where did he disappear to? I didn’t notice him at the end either. Why would he bail and leave his pregnant partner all alone? That was weird.”

  “I don’t recall who she was with, just that she looked miserable. I wondered why she was even there.”

  “I thought the same about the family. It was hardly a Disney flick.”

  Lynette pulled two large white plates from a cupboard below the bench and then shared the breakfast between them—a poached egg for each of them, a few slices of bacon and some mushrooms, dripping in garlic, and then a couple of cooked cherry tomatoes on top. Alicia grabbed some cutlery from a nearby drawer and was about to tuck in at the kitchen bench when her sister held a hand up.

  “Not so fast!”

  She produced a small saucepan and scooped a thick yellow sauce over the top.

  “Hollandaise?” Alicia asked.

  “Give me more credit for originality than that, please,” Lynette said. “It’s my special breakfast béarnaise, actually.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  She stared at her. “One has white wine vinegar, one has lemon juice. My brilliance is wasted on you! Tuck in.”

  They ate in silence for a few minutes, Max now watching intently, waiting patiently for someone—anyone—to accidentally drop a bit of bacon into his mouth. Within minutes Alicia was doing just that, and Lynette was frowning.

  She adored Max, wasn’t averse to spoiling him herself, but she took it as a personal affront to her cooking whenever her creations were shared with the mutt.

  “What are your plans today?” Lynette asked when their plates were virtually licked clean.

  “Apart from presenting ourselves to that trim-looking detective, you mean?”

  “Oh dear, you’re not jealous are you?”

  “Of Jackson and Detective Inspector Singh?”

  “Singho, I t
hink he called her, yes. I’m sure she’s just a colleague.”

  “I know she is. I’m fine with it.”

  Lynette watched her closely as she sipped her coffee. “Don’t let your mind go there, sis. You will drive yourself insane.”

  “It’s not! I’m not. It’s okay.” She smiled. “Honestly, I can’t seem to muster up a suspicious thought of any kind. Isn’t that, well, odd? I should be jealous, right?”

  “No, you shouldn’t. That’s the whole point. They’re just work colleagues.”

  “Yes, but the old me would be riddled with neuroses, imagining them in some kind of stationery closet tryst.” She blinked several times, staring at the kitchen wall.

  “Nothing?” Lynette asked.

  “Nothing,” Alicia said.

  It was a revelation.

  Lynette waved her hands in the air. “She’s cured! Hallelujah!”

  Max barked, confused by the sudden commotion, and Alicia laughed.

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure my imagination will be back to its old tricks before the day is over. Speaking of which, what are your plans?”

  Lynette reached down and patted the dog, calming him down. “I’m taking this one to the beach. It’s finally warming up, and he could do with a surf.”

  “And by ‘he’ you mean you, right?”

  “Who else?”

  Alicia’s phone buzzed then, followed almost immediately by Lynette’s. They had both received the same message—Claire and Missy were meeting with the detective at eleven that morning and suggested they come along.

  “There goes my swim,” Lynette grizzled as she located a ‘thumbs up’ emoji and pressed send.

  Chapter 8

  Detective Inspector Indira Singh had a confident, no-nonsense look about her. Dressed in a slimming black suit with a starched cream top underneath, she had a tight black ponytail and a light dusting of make-up, two tiny gold earrings at her ears, a small gold cross around her neck. In her midforties, she commanded attention, her staff quieting down instantly and stepping back as she passed them down the long hallway, book club in tow, towards an interview room.

  Claire thought she looked cool, calm, and collected, but Missy was suddenly a basket of nerves, bobbing her pink head around and giggling unnecessarily as she always did when she felt out of her depth. Alicia just watched the detective closely, keen to get to know her better. She had heard Jackson mention “Singho” before—had always assumed it was a man—and only recalled words of praise and respect.

  She was determined to like her, too, even if it killed her.

  Apart from Anders, the entire book club was present, Perry having found some time to slip away from his busy schedule. Newcomer Margarita was there too. She’d arrived on her own and looked even more stunning in the cold, hard light of day, her luscious black hair scooped into a top knot, and her tanned limbs glowing beneath a white summer dress. Her surly expression did not match her sunny style, however, and she seemed deeply annoyed by the whole business, asking the detective several times how long it would take.

  “It’ll take as long as it takes,” was DI Singh’s clipped response.

  The group was soon directed towards several sofas in a small, warmly lit room that was less interrogation and more relaxation. There was a kitchenette at one end, as well as bright beanbags, a shelf of children’s books and a box of plastic toys.

  “This is the family room,” Indira explained. “You’re not here for a formal interview as such. You’re friends of Detective Inspector Liam Jackson’s I believe?”

  Lynette glanced across to her sister, who was now wondering how much Jackson had revealed of their relationship and whether it even mattered.

  “He’s just clearing up another case at the moment, so he won’t be joining us this morning. Is anyone after a cup of something?” She caught the eye of a tall, chinless man who was standing at attention in the doorway. “We have tea that tastes like dishwashing liquid or coffee with the consistency of mud. Anyone?”

  They all grimaced and shook their heads no.

  “Good choice. Let’s get cracking then, shall we? So, about last night.”

  She nodded to the other detective who sat down at a high-back chair on one side of the room, then pulled out a notepad and pen.

  After asking each of them to spell out their full names, birthdates and contact details, she launched in. “I spoke with Constable Thompson from last night, the first officer on the scene who questioned you guys briefly, and he tells me you are Mr Mumford’s best friends.”

  “Mr Mumford?” Alicia said.

  “Eliot Mumford. Husband of the deceased.”

  “Oh we don’t know the man,” Claire began, but Indira waved a hand.

  “Forgive me. By ‘best friends’ I mean, you have provided the deceased woman’s husband with a very neat alibi. Is that correct?”

  The group all nodded, except Margarita. Indira caught that and turned her gaze upon her.

  “You have some reservations, madam?”

  “Yes, I cannot vouch for him. I was not watching that man the entire movie, so I have no idea if he moved or if he did not move. How can I know that?” She glanced irritably at the officer who’d been taking notes.

  Indira said, “Make a note of that then, Pauly. This woman cannot vouch for Mr Mumford’s whereabouts, but the rest of you?” She turned back to the group.

  “Oh he didn’t move, not one inch,” said Perry, flashing Margarita a quick frown.

  “Margarita wasn’t actually sitting next to Eliot Mumford,” Alicia explained. “She was probably sitting the farthest away.”

  “So, what? You think I am clueless?”

  This was Margarita, and she sounded deeply offended.

  Alicia held a palm out to her. “Not at all. I’m just saying, some of us were closer to Mr Mumford so…”

  “So I know nothing?”

  “No, I’m not saying that.” Alicia sighed and gave up, slouching back in the sofa.

  Indira watched the exchange with curiosity and then studied Alicia for a moment. “And you are again?”

  “Alicia Finlay,” she said, thinking, Okay, so Jackson hasn’t mentioned me then.

  “Right, well, thanks for clarifying that.”

  Indira then turned to reach for a plastic container below the table.

  “Okay, now for the fun bit.” She pulled out a large scrapbook. “So I have a little game for you all, a combination of Pin the Tail on the Donkey and a treasure hunt.”

  Missy giggled again, looking delighted, while the rest shared curious glances.

  Indira began tearing blank pages from the book and handing them around. As she did so, the officer produced a box of coloured crayons and placed them in the middle of the table in front of the sofas.

  “We’ve brought you to the kids’ room for a reason,” Indira explained. “They’ve got the best resources when it comes to this kind of thing.” She rummaged through the container again and pulled out a carton of sticky red dots. “Terrific. Thought I’d find something like this.”

  Next to the dots she added some gold stars and some marker pens.

  “So has everyone got a sheet? Good. Here’s how it goes. I want you all to work independently and try to recreate the scene from last night, using the pencils and dots. Place a red dot where the deceased was lying, and try to work out from there. Sketch in exactly how the area looked to the best of your memory, with the screen at the north, so make that the top of the page, and the main entrance at the south, or the bottom.”

  “You want us to do a floor plan of the park?” Claire asked.

  “Exactly. Scribble in where you were seated in conjunction with the victim, and then fill in any other blankets that you recall. You can draw them in as circles or use the stars or whatever.”

  “So you mean draw in where we were sitting as well as that big family, that kind of thing?” asked Missy, and Indira nodded. “But what if we don’t remember it all correctly? It was dark, and there were so many peo
ple there, and well, what if we get it all wrong?”

  Indira said firmly, “Just do it to the best of your recollection, that’s all I ask. Don’t embellish; don’t guess. If you’re not sure, just draw a question mark or leave the space blank. We only want the facts please, people, no creative interpretations. And don’t—I repeat—don’t check with anyone else. I want your individual impressions because the more of them that line up, the clearer the picture will be.”

  “Do you want the snack bars and Portaloos, that kind of thing?” Lynette asked.

  “If it helps to add perspective, sure.” Indira glanced at the wall clock. “I need to run out for a bit, but I’ll give you ten minutes. I don’t think you’ll need longer. And Pauly here will hang around in case you need him. Okay?”

  Perry raised his eyebrows sceptically, but the rest of them looked happy enough to do as instructed, so they got busy scribbling. Several times Missy went to check on someone else’s drawing, but each time the officer intervened.

  “DI Singh has asked that you work independently, please.”

  “Sorry, sir!” she said, then whispered, “It’s just like being back at school, hey, guys?”

  “Humph,” said Perry. “If I’d known we’d be tested, I’d have scribbled a floor plan down my arm last night.”

  Ten minutes and six rather clumsy sketches later, the detective in charge had returned and was gathering the pages together. She asked them all to wait as she quickly glanced over them, then smiled.

  “Jacko’s right. You are an observant lot. These, for the most part, are replicas of each other. No one cheated, right?”

  Missy glanced guiltily at the officer while Alicia was still staring at Indira. Did she just call her boyfriend Jacko?

  So they have nicknames for each other, do they? She was not quite sure what to make of that.

  “No, they didn’t cheat, ma’am,” the officer replied.

  “Good. Well, apart from one or two minor things, they basically tell the same story.” The group gathered around to inspect the results, and Lynette scoffed when she saw Alicia’s attempt.