My Island Homicide (6 page)

Chapter 9

My stomach was gurgling with hunger as I made a list of tasks. The media release was the top priority. Once it was cleared through the Media Unit in Brisbane, it would be broadcast on Torres Strait and Cairns AM radio stations and printed in the weekend
Cairns Post
. The dam would need to be searched. I wasn't sure how long I'd been working when Jenny wandered in, nibbling at a carrot as if it were doused in insect repellent.

‘Shay said you wanted to know about Franz Rigel Josef. He's about 25 and is well known on TI. He has never, repeat
never
, come to police attention. Story is he was brain damaged at birth and has never talked. His mother was half-Japanese and half-Islander, and his father a German builder, both deceased. He lives with his much older sister, Izzy Josef, and her husband, Cedric, in the family home. She provides a bed and meals and leaves him to his own devices, which is why he cruises the streets. He's usually outside the IBIS supermarket or Triple F.'

‘What's Triple F?'

‘Fabulous Fried Fish, the fast-food fish and rice shop. It's an Islander family business and I can tell you, Islanders know how to cook fish. You can have it grilled, battered or crumbed, which is what white people like, but the Islanders go crazy for
zura
, fish soup, and wings, the side bits with the fins. The fried heads are my favourite, with soy sauce and fresh chilli. I love sucking the eyeballs out and . . .'

‘So when are we seeing Franz?'

‘As soon as.'

‘Should Salome come with us, since she's the police liaison officer?'

‘She's still on days off. We'll be right. Franz has seen me around, but it's more likely we'll have to talk to Izzy, his sister. She's sort of related to Fred, generations back, but I've never been able to work it out.'

‘
Kai kai
,' said Shay, marching in with two brown paper bags bearing the green triangle recycling logo. ‘
Matha nice
.' She smiled coyly at Jenny and me. ‘Isaac is teaching me Broken English.'

‘Ain't love sweet,' said Jenny, chewing her carrot.

The aroma of heated food sent my tastebuds into a frenzy. As Shay turned to leave, I unwrapped a burger that was so small it was more like a scone.

‘Hang on, Shay. What is this?' The patty was the colour of slime and stuck to some green leafy stuff with a substance similar to mortar.

‘It's a burger with tahini and garlic yoghurt cream.'

‘It doesn't look like a burger. For one it is too small and two, it's green.'

‘It's a vegan lentil burger.' She sort of humphed as if I had asked what the first day of the week was.

‘There is no meat in it. Or pineapple, beetroot or egg.' What was a burger without the essential ingredients? Like low-fat milk and sugar-free cordial. It ain't milk or cordial or a burger!

‘That's why it's vegan. It's got rocket.'

‘What are these?' I pulled out a limp orange strip from the paper bag.

‘
Kumala
, sorry, sweet potato chips. They're low GI and cooked in cholesterol-free vegetable oil. Sven, he runs the cafe, says that canola oil can cause macular degeneration, whatever that is. Anyway, I've got to go. I'm meeting Isaac at Front Beach for lunch.'

Jenny apologised for not warning me about Shay's health-food fad and announced with great pride that she had hidden a bottle of tomato sauce in her bottom drawer. ‘She's only been on this health kick a month. She's trying to get rid of the cream biscuits in the tearoom and make this a healthy workplace.'

‘You know, she's right. We both want to lose some weight and could do with healthier food. I mean, look at her and then look at us.'

‘She's also in her early twenties. Eat that and we'll go and find Franz. I might grab a fried head from Triple F on the way.'

‘No. Eat these.' I held out the paper bag of sweet potato things. Better she eat them than me.

Jenny and I ate in silence at my desk. I don't know about the orange things but the burger had the texture and taste of damp shredded paper.

‘It's no wonder vegans tend to be miserable, I mean thin,' I said.

Although it was just after midday when we left, the sky was like dusk in a thousand shades of grey I'd not known existed. The mango and sea almond trees lining the wide main street thrashed as the angry wind whipped the tiny island. There were no workers walking to or from lunch, no mums pushing prams, no kids cycling with unclipped helmets. The black and white dog that chased us yesterday was curled up under a shop awning but the skinny mutt wasn't outside the council chambers.

The air was like a low-pressure vacuum, pressing insidiously against me. I imagined the barometer plunging and hoped there would be some relief with the first downpour, however violent. I would have been very worried about a cyclone hitting the island but, fortunately, according to my mother, the Torres Strait rarely suffered cyclones. Mum told me she was 12 when the last one blew through and knocked her school down on Warral. I was shocked, but she laughed and said it hadn't been that bad; the school was an old traditional building made of mangrove wood, with walls of plaited coconut fronds.

After several laps of the main street and waterfront without sign of Franz, we headed to the Josef family home at the back of the island. Jenny pulled up at a Federation-style house and I marvelled at the downward curled roof edges, the wrought-iron verandah and the heavy vertical wood panelling.

‘They don't build houses like this anymore,' I said, but something wasn't right about it.

‘On TI, they just pull them down and build 47 units to ease the housing crisis, even though people end up living on top of each other.'

‘Does something look strange to you?'

‘Keep looking. You'll work it out.'

I tilted my head to the left and right several times. Each side of the house sloped downwards from the middle and it was slowly subsiding into an A-frame design. We entered the yard and a large Rottweiler-cross bitch leapt out from beneath the house, barking. Puppies fell off her pendulous teats. I froze, my eyes fixed on the dog's bared teeth.

A double-chinned woman appeared at the top of the staircase and roused at the dog. It tucked its tail between its legs and retreated under the house.

‘Come,' said the woman as she waved with the broom and made for the doorway.

I let Jenny tackle the pitted steps and shaky railing first, not sure if it could hold both our weights. Up close, paint flaked off the tongue-and-groove walls and the decking timber had rotted through in places. The front entrance, minus a door, opened into a large living area and by the time we entered, the woman was sweeping. Jenny introduced me to Izzy.

‘
Yu blong the Dari pamle lor
Warral
,
I bet
.
' She made the same lifted-chin gesture Mrs Bintu had made.

‘Yes, my mother is Masalgi Dari.' Best I stick to English till I found someone to teach me Broken English.

She grunted, which I took to be a non-threatening response, and continued sweeping, her island dress billowing with each thrust of the broom. ‘Your great-grandfather and my great-grandfather were cousins. Been dive pearl shell together.'

I wasn't sure how to respond to the news that we were related. A welcome hug was clearly out of the question.

‘We're looking for Franz,' said Jenny.

‘You'll have to go to the hospital. Cut his face with Cedric's filleting knife. He's spewing.'

‘Franz is spewing?' I asked, thinking he must have a stomach bug.

Izzy paused and gave me a death stare. ‘Cedric is spewing. Franz used his best filleting knife.' Then she went back to sweeping.

Jenny put a finger to her mouth and I knew to shut up. ‘What happened, Izzy?'

Even in the dull interior I could see the sheen of perspiration on Izzy's skin.

‘Never know with that kid. I been wake up early morning. There he was covered in blood. Woulda drilled him, 'cept for the blood.
Cedric been take him go hospital
.
'

‘Has he hurt himself before?' asked Jenny.

‘Yeah, just scratching himself when
em
get wild.'

‘Was he upset about something?'

‘Who knows.
Em
got small boy sense
.
You
sabe em
been brain damage,
wat
. Mama said he got a blood clot when he was born. Something like that, anyway.'

Jenny followed her into a hallway, asking questions. I followed Jenny. ‘Was he behaving unusually Wednesday night, when he left?'

‘
Em
always behave unusual.'

‘Do you know where he went Wednesday night?'

‘I never know.
Em stap haus
to sleep and eat.'

‘Do you know who he was with Wednesday night?'

‘Other wasters.'

The charade was killing me but I could see an end, a wall.

‘Izzy, a woman, Melissa Ramu, has been missing for almost two days and we want to talk to people who saw her before she disappeared.'

Izzy stopped at the end of the hallway. The wind forced itself through gaps in the old frosted louvres in one long, agonising moan. ‘
Em
been
maydh
, that one.'

‘Well, we are following that up, but we know Melissa used to give Franz money for food and he had given her a pearl shell pendant.'

‘Look in room
blong em
,' she said and gestured with the broom to a doorway. ‘
Em
more worser since Mama been dead. Before,
em
been talk with hands
blong em
and help me with chores.
Em nathakind
now.' She walked off and her words faded. ‘Ten years,
em
been like this. I been give up with that kid.'

Franz's room contained a single wrought-iron bed, a bedside table, an antique wardrobe and a large tin chest with a dent on top and chipped brown paint. A yellowed print of a black Madonna and Jesus hung above his bed, which was draped in a faded blue towelling bedspread with tassels that sucked me back to my childhood. I hadn't seen one for years, and without thinking, I sat down and ran my fingers over the raised contours of the swirling patterns, just as I had done as a child. My two brothers and I had been given them as Christmas presents when I was about eight. The boys got the blue and green ones and I got the pink. I begged them to swap but they laughed at me. I complained for days until finally Mum dyed mine dark blue. It ended up a dull grey purple, much better than pink.

‘Get a load of this.' Jenny was kneeling by the tin. ‘There's some birthday and Christmas cards signed by Melissa, a full money box and torch labelled “Ramu”. The rest of the stuff is sheets with crocheted edges and towels and patchwork quilts. They must be tombstone unveiling gifts.'

‘The crocheted linen and the coconut mats and brooms given to the deceased's in-laws for organising the tombstone?'

‘Yes, the
marageth
, the in-laws.'

‘Mum has often gone and bought bolts of island dress material and handtowels and face washers and sent it up to different families for tombstone unveilings.'

‘It takes years of planning and fundraising, but it's worth it. You know something like 80 per cent of Islanders, that's like 40,000, live on the mainland?'

‘Yeah, my mother has said tombstone unveilings are important rituals to reunite families, even for a short time.'

‘Fred's family are organising his father's tombstone unveiling now for December. Have you been to one?'

‘Only as a kid, but I don't remember much. We'd driven down to Townsville. I ended up with gastro and in hospital on a drip. Mum reckoned it was from the turtle or dugong that had been left out for hours before we ate it.'

‘Oh, yeah. That sounds about right.' Jenny laughed. ‘If you don't eat at those feastings regularly, you can get food poisoning.' She pulled out some papers. ‘Have a look at these.'

I was only half-looking. I was thinking about my mother. She'd made a point of saying, whenever the opportunity arose, like when a funeral home or retirement village ad came on TV, ‘Don't forget to cremate me.' It occurred to me, while I was going through the tombstone unveiling gifts Franz kept, that Mum didn't want us to be inconvenienced by her death and the subsequent tombstone unveiling ritual.

I focused on Franz and the old tin box full of handwritten notes, in Melissa's small, flowery script, with little circles on the i's and curled ends on the y's and g's
. If these don't fit I can order another pair for you
and
I picked these up when Alby and I were in Cairns
and
Here's a backpack. I bought one for Alby
.

‘We should take these in case we need them for evidence,' said Jenny. ‘I'll get everything together. Can you let Izzy know we're taking them?'

‘No way. She scares me.'

Jenny went off to find Izzy, who waddled in and peered into the chest.

‘That's the stuff from Mama's tombstone. Franz wouldn't let it go to the relatives. The other stuff is from that
kole
woman, wife
blong
to Robby Ramu.'

‘We'll need to talk to Franz,' I ventured.

‘What for?' She glared at me. ‘He can't talk.' Then she shrugged. ‘Do what you gotta do.
Em
there
lor
hospital.'

We packed the items relating to Melissa into a backpack and yelled our goodbyes to Izzy, who had started sweeping the verandah. She roused at the dog before it could rush out and bark. I gripped the railing and took each step one by one. Jenny bounded down, two by two.

As she drove off, I asked her about the lift of the chin Mrs Bintu and Izzy had made.