Murder with the Lot (2 page)

From his ripped-up sleeve, three drips of blood splashed on my floor.

‘You all right? Need a bandage?' I said.

‘Nah. It's…nothing.' He didn't sound too convinced of that.

‘I'll phone the doctor for you.' There's no doctor in Rusty Bore but the hospital in Hustle is only forty clicks away.

‘No!' His voice was sharp. He limped over to the door, peering up and down the road. ‘Anyone been in looking for me?'

I stared. ‘Not unless you're called Minimum Chips.' I tried a little smile to ease the tension.

‘You're sure? No one's been in after me?' His voice was high.

My skin prickled.

‘I need somewhere quiet to stay for a while.' The sleeve dripped more blood in my doorway.

I wiped the sweat from my hands onto my floral apron. Maybe I should phone Dean. Leading Senior Constable Dean Tuplin. My eldest. Only a senior constable at the moment, but on a career trajectory. I didn't like to bother Dean without good cause, though. Not in view of that slight fiasco regarding Ernie.

‘So I can write my book. I've got to do it straight away,' he said.

I gave his chips a little shake, put the basket back into the oil.

‘I can pay all right.' He walked over, flipping open his wallet with the bloodied hand, still holding onto his case with the other. Inside the wallet was a photo of him with a girl, their heads close and cosy. Nice-looking girl. Maybe he had hidden talents under the unfortunate weaselly exterior.

He laid the wallet on my counter, slipped out a pile of shiny one-hundred-buck notes. His wallet was thick with them. ‘How much?'

I hooked up his order to drain and did some rapid thinking. There was Ernie's old shack up at the lake. Ernie could do with the money, it would help him pay for his care now he's in the home. ‘What's your name, anyway?'

‘Clarence…Brown.'

‘Where you from?'

‘Ah…Melbourne. Looking for a sea-change.'

We're approximately four hundred kilometres from the sea, but coming here would be a change all right. A million acres of wheat stubble. Good long stretches of red dirt. One salt lake. Shimmering.

I turned around and flipped his burger, laid out some bacon on the grill, turned back to face him. ‘What you do in Melbourne?' I probably didn't need to know that. But around here grilling a stranger for their secrets is better than a holiday.

He gave me a glassy look. ‘I'm…an accountant.'

Aha! But what kind of book would an accountant want to write? Some kind of textbook, maybe? Without delay, though? How urgent could an accounting textbook be? I kept my gaze fixed on Clarence. There was something about him that made me think of the time a huntsman spider found its way down my neck. The bristly soles of its too-many hairy feet against my skin. Ernie wouldn't want any trouble.

‘And I don't want some journalist getting all the credit.' His voice was low, fierce. ‘This book's gunna be a bestseller. Then they'll see.' He gave me a look that meant it.

‘Who'll see what?'

He shrugged, staring at the floor.
Mumble, something, mumble, Muddy Soak
.

I stacked up Clarence's burger then wrapped his order and put it on the counter. He handed me a wad of hundred-dollar notes. I counted them. Jesus. Five thousand dollars. For a place without electricity? I paused a tick. Well, what harm could he do to the place? It was pretty much a wreck. Ernie would be bloody happy to see the money, he'd be giving me one of his smelly-breath cackles when I took it up to him. And Ernie's been good to me ever since I was a kid.

‘It's up by Perry Lake. Make sure you keep the gate shut.' I handed Clarence the key.

‘Thanks. And…just keep it to yourself…where I am,' he whispered. Another drop of blood splashed onto the floor.

I woke the next morning as a car pulled up outside. Very early, just on dawn. I don't like being woken by the sound of early-morning cars. Sometimes it's followed by the sounds of smashing glass and of me yelling at kids to leave my bloody windows alone and bugger off.

I live in the weatherboard house behind the shop, it's just me. And Brad, when he's not away, tying up banners to save rivers, trees, birds or blue-tongue lizards.

I got up, pulled on my dressing gown and peered out of the window. The sky was slashed with jet trails tinted orange by the sunrise. I grabbed the sawn-off star picket I keep beside my bed. Bustled up the hallway, firmly dressing-gowned and star-picketed, ready for rodent kids. But it wasn't a rodent-kid kind of car. It was a clean-looking white car, a late-model Commodore. A dark-haired man in sunglasses sat at the wheel. He darted a look at my shop window, flicked out some chewing gum, then drove off. I went around the place, checking all my windows, my door, the till. All seemed intact. I grabbed my handbag. Check. It still contained Ernie's wad, his five grand.

After breakfast I checked the bag again and headed out. I'd get Taylah to lock the money in the safe at the home, then I'd bank it for Ernie on Monday. I glanced at my watch. Nine o'clock. If I made it quick I'd be back before opening time.

My sky-blue Toyota Corolla might, like myself, be past its heyday, but it's still a goer. The lock on the driver's door was broken since someone tried to break in a couple of months back. I'd have to ask Brad to fix it, somehow get him galvanised. I sighed. Another pep-talk.

I got in the car from the passenger's side, squeezing myself over the handbrake and gearstick into the driver's seat.

I drove along Best Street, which some argue is Rusty Bore's only street, illogically in my view since we've also got Second Avenue. I headed past the closed hardware shop, its dusty windows covered in graffiti. Past the old town hall, Rusty Bore's own leaning tower of Pisa, propped up along one side with steel girders. Me and Piero danced at discos there in the early eighties. Him in his green Miller shirt, me in a silky white dress and long pearls from the op shop, deep into my Ultravox phase. It was there, out the back, that I first encountered Piero's overactive fertility.

Piero would have known what to say to Brad. Thing is, the boy needs a skill, something practical to earn a living. What Brad hasn't realised is that while everyone wants the planet saved, kind of, no one actually wants to pay for it. Still, he's building important retail expertise in my shop. I hope.

‘How can you do it, Mum?' he'd asked on his first day, when I got him to cut up a couple of fresh yellowbelly. ‘See their eyes? The way they look at you, full of blame?'

‘You just cut off the heads and pop them quick into the bin,' I said. ‘Why would you need to look into their eyes? You're not asking them out on a date.'

Really, if I faced facts, it was more than possible Brad wasn't going to make it as a top takeaway monopolist. Not that my monopoly was doing all that well these days, in any case. No, the survival of the Rusty Bore Takeaway was entirely dependent on low overheads.

Of course it was all different back when Piero and I set up our place nearly thirty years ago. Back then we still had rain and the full attention of the attendees of the annual show.
Rusty Bore—Original home of the Mallee Farm Days
, proclaims the weathered yellow sign at the entrance to the town. It's pretty sad our only claim to fame is what we used to have. We lost the Farm Days to Hustle back in '91.

I passed the row of three steel silos shimmering in the heat and took the turn onto the highway, heading south. The sun was already a hot glare in a polished blue sky.

They were good little eaters, those Farm Days visitors. They came from all over the country to look at the agricultural machinery on offer. It's hungry work, people used to tell me, looking eagerly at our lunchtime specials board. I could understand. I'd have been starving too after a morning of climbing around tillage and seeding machinery, nodding my head thoughtfully as I considered belt grain conveyors, chaser bins and land rollers. Even the Federal National Party member for the Mallee used to come in for a feed.

What would I say if I got the chance to update that welcome sign?
Home to a row of wheat silos and derelict railway sidings
might be fair but it doesn't have the upbeat tone I'd be looking for. We've got the Murray Matlock Dryland Tank Museum up the road, of course, with its array of old header parts, remains of a blacksmith's shop and an extensive bottle collection. They've even got a website. Although I don't think it gets a lot of hits.

Acres of greying wheat stubble drifted on by. A little dust devil whirled over the paddocks beyond.

A clammy twenty minutes later I was in Hustle, parking outside the squat apricot-brick building of the Garden of the Gods Extended Care Nursing Home. I struggled out of the car and crunched my way across the gravel car park.

Sophia was coming out the front door. ‘Ah, Cassie, my little
bambina.
'

I'm not Sophia's bambina but she's Piero's mother and I don't argue with Sophia. Never, not even now Piero's dead. At ninety, Sophia still dresses with more flamboyance than anyone I've ever met. She describes herself as a geriatric starlet. A couple of art galleries have put on shows of her clothes.

Today she was wearing an emerald green shirt, huge flared pants and a chunky gold necklace. Ronnie, her second husband, is in the room next to Ernie's.

‘Poor Ronnie,' she sighed. ‘He move back ten more years, now he thinks we're in 1973. He keep asking when we gonna go see Mr Whitlam. I tell him next week, all set for lunch in Canberra. How's he, your Mr Jefferson?'

‘I've got great news for Ernie.' I told her about Clarence and the rent. ‘Writer bloke. Fella handed over five grand.'

‘You joking. What is he like, this rich man?'

‘Young fella. Dark hair, bit oily looking.'

She looked thoughtful. ‘Not that young man the other man he's lookin' for?'

I stood still. ‘What other man?'

‘I don't remember now who tell me. Perhaps Vern. He knows many things.'

That shop of Vern's is just an elaborate device for sucking news out of the veins of anyone passing by.

‘A man, he was askin' in the Sheep Dip roadhouse. Not very friendly, Vern say. He have a gun.'

My skin chilled. ‘Gun?'

‘Yes. Underneath his jacket, Vern say. And there was something about his eye, it was, you know, really off.' She gestured vaguely at her own eyes, bright unexpected blue behind huge flying-saucer glasses.

‘Looking for the young fella, why?'

She leaned forward, lowered her voice. ‘Mildura Mafia, most probably.'

‘The fella looking say that?'

‘
Omertà
, Cassie.' She nodded significantly. ‘These men do not break their code of silence. Don't you watch the movies,
cara
?'

Suddenly, Ernie's five grand felt very heavy in my handbag.

‘But I must not keep you,' said Sophia. ‘Is new-stock morning in the Op Shop. I'm lookin' for some nice thing to wear to Laura's deb.' She bustled off to her car.

Clarence was a normal customer, just slightly injured and carrying a lot of cash. Course he was. What was it he'd said?
Keep it to yourself…where I am.

No way I was giving Ernie Mafia money. I turned around and strode back to my car.

‘Dean?' I spoke into the mobile. ‘Got someone you better check on, pronto. Bloke by the name of Clarence Brown. Possible Mafia type. Says he's a writer from Melbourne.'

‘Really.' Dean's voice didn't have quite the sense of urgency I was looking for.

I explained about Clarence's blood, his mysterious book, the mean bloke at Sheep Dip looking for him. ‘We don't want a gangster battle breaking out in Rusty Bore.'

‘Gangsters. Right. Mum, why are you so sure he's a criminal?'

‘I'm not sure, that's the point. That's why you need to check up on him.'

He sighed. ‘This is the fourth time in the last two years you've asked me to check up on someone. And on each occasion they turned out to be completely normal law-abiding people. One of them was the mayor of Randall.'

‘No one more devious than a politician, everybody knows that.'

‘Look,' his voice softened. ‘I'll try my best to get over tonight for a cuppa. I know you're lonely. But I can't go looking into people's personal details, not unless there's an actual crime I'm investigating. Reasonable grounds for suspicion, at least.'

‘I've just explained all that. I've definitely got reasonable grounds.'

‘Mum.
I've
got to have the reasonable grounds, not you.' He hung up.

Great, thanks Dean. I spent a moment drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. Time for a change of plan.

In fact it was obvious. Clarence could have his five grand back. I started the car. Yes; I'd tell him the place was double-booked. Big rush on Christmas tourists. I took the turn onto the highway, wound down my window to get some breeze.

I swerved, dodging a rabbit on the road. It was embarrassing I'd taken that money in the first place. I hadn't even asked for references. How bloody hopeless was that? Ernie didn't need Mafia fellas stamping around the home.

But would Clarence be the type of bloke to just accept his eviction without an argument? Did he have a gun? I shivered, despite the heat. No one would hear a shot at Ernie's place. Nothing around but miles of mallee scrub. Maybe I should have brought along my star picket. The car shook as a truck carrying irrigation pipes thundered past.

There was a car parked by the roadside ahead. Silver Mercedes, no rust, no dust. A girl was walking around the car holding out a mobile. Looking for a signal. She had honey blonde hair and wore a floaty apricot dress. She'd be lost, headed for one of the fancy river towns up by the Murray. Or broken down. There was nothing for her here, not unless she was in the market for a silo.