Turtle Island (9 page)

‘Maybe I will have a break, get a coffee.’

Dr Martinez picked up Stephen’s chart and noted his body
temperature and pulse rate before signing his initials and logging
the time. ‘Tell you what, we have a private room for relatives, it
has got a bed and a telly, picks up cable.’

‘Wow, cable hey?’ Cara mocked, smiling for the first time in
ages.

‘There’s no one in there right now, why don’t you get a coffee
and something to eat and rest in there for a while.’

The prospect of a few hours rest appealed to Cara.

‘And you’ll call me if Stephen wakes?’

Dr Martinez crossed his heart with his index finger. ‘The very
minute he wakes, I will personally call you.’

‘Okay.’

Ned pulled the Ingénue to a halt by the side of a quay and
leapt onto the wooden platform with impressive agility. He tied the
ropes to a mooring ring and called his dog. Although equally aged,
Nemo leapt with similar impressive style.

‘That completes the tour, you’ve circled the entire
island.’

Georgina O’Neil felt disappointed. She didn’t know what she
expected to find but felt somewhat cheated as to gaining anything
new, except for a greater acquaintance with the lay of the land.
She had studied and noted the location of houses, both empty and
occupied. She had made notes of possible places that were more
likely to be where she would choose to, if that way inclined,
kidnap and torture people. Singular, isolated properties close to
the river. There were three in particular that she wanted to have a
more detailed look at. Two of them, Rick informed her, were vacant;
the third occupied by Chris Hurley, owner of the local radio and
television stations.

It was four o’clock and the sun was still high in the sky,
Rick and Leroy were both of the impression that they had wasted a
day; that the world was moving apace without their presence. This
was not how they liked to work, but Frusco insisted they
co-operative with O’Neil fully. There were worse ways of spending
an afternoon other than sightseeing around Turtle Island with a
beautiful woman.

‘Your cars should be about half a mile beyond the trees.’ Ned
said, watching the landlubbers disembark. Georgina had phoned ahead
and asked Frusco to get some deputies to move their vehicle to
their new location, just by Independence Bridge. Rick thanked Ned;
Leroy swigged on his bottle of coke and saluted the captain and his
dog.

The trees Ned pointed at were Oak and Tupelo, the wild grasses
that ran to meet them were waist high and peppered with wild
flowers. Agent O’Neil nodded a curt goodbye to the smiling seafarer
and was already strolling through the maize fields toward the thick
clump of forestation.

‘Frosty.’ Ned informed Nemo. ‘That’s why I don’t like women.’
He rubbed his faithful friend’s head. ‘Only whores and
dogs.’

Nemo barked approval.

It was a rare moment, the house was totally silent. Narla
Fleisher sat drinking black coffee enjoying the tranquillity.
Harley was visiting friends after school and Charles was working
late, so she contemplated an evening reading by the river with a
bottle of wine and a Korean take-away from the village. She
breathed in quietly, listening to her heartbeat, the sensation of
beginning to drift away made Narla sit up sharply and shake her
head. God, she’d have to go easy on the wine tonight. One glass,
two at the most. Narla stood and gulped down the last of her black,
sugar free, coffee and decided that she had to wash her face to
shake of the after effects of last night. As usual, it was only
now, some nine hours after she woke that the full force of her
hangover kicked in. She made her way to the bathroom, where she
threw cold water over her face, enjoying the coolness from the
oppressive mugginess that pervades the long hot days. Water from
her face ran down on to the silk blouse she was wearing.

‘Shit.’ She grabbed a towel and dabbed it, the droplets formed
tiny circles on the fine material, which unless immersed in water
would dry to a stain. Narla quickly undid the buttons and filled
the sink before immersing it, she watched the material absorb the
water, slowly sinking under its mass. She envied the blouse and a
cool bath now seemed a priority. With just her skirt to loosen,
Narla was soon duplicating her blouse and immersed herself in cool
clear water. She rarely wore underwear on really hot days, except
for when Charles requested it. Some days they would meet for lunch
and take a stroll in the country park or across the fields, which
invariably led to them making love alfresco, the danger of getting
caught by passers-by really gave Charles a thrill and her to, if
she was honest. His erections always seemed harder, longer, their
lovemaking more frenzied, passionate.She smiled as she lay in the
bath, memories of close encounters turning her on.

The sound of a voice calling out, ‘hello’, downstairs, sent
Narla into a panic. ‘Fuck.’ She remembered that it was Friday, the
groceries were always delivered on Friday and Mr Johnson would
expect paying too. She looked around for a towel. ‘Damn.’ All the
towels were used, lying in the laundry basket. She stood and let
most of the water drip from her body before deciding to streak
across the hall to the bedroom. She grabbed Charles towelling robe
and wrapped it around herself. She quickly brushed her wet hair,
slicking it back, and making sure she was not about to give the
septuagenarian grocer an eyeful that would surely kill him and ran
down the stairs to be greeted by his wizened features.

‘Hello, Mrs Fleisher.’ George Johnson smiled, handing Narla
the bill for the three bags of groceries that were sitting on the
floor next to the old man. Narla took the receipt from his shaking
wrinkled hands, the bones around the knuckles, arthritic,
stretching the thin waspish skin almost to breaking
point.

‘
Have to be a cheque, George. Fool husband of mine's taken all
the cash.’ She instinctively put her hands in to the pockets of her
husband’s dressing gown. Her fingers wrapped around two thin pieces
of what felt like card. ‘Hang on a moment George. The check book is
in the kitchen.’

George nodded.

As Narla walked to the kitchen she pulled out the pieces of
card from her pocket. The black backing surrounded by the white
border told her instantly that they were Polaroid photographs. She
flipped them over and visibly staggered when she saw the images of
herself naked on the bed.

Rick, Leroy and Georgina entered the office to find Barbara
Dace waiting. She was smoking a cigarette; patiently waiting for
their return. She had been there for over an hour. Barbara stubbed
out the remainder of her cigarette and stood to greet the three
detectives. She lit up another cigarette and pulled sharply on the
long stick, orange embers raced towards her lips. Her gaunt cheeks
sucked in, causing hundreds of thin lines to gather around her eyes
and mouth. She exhaled a bank of blue smoke, which she directed to
the rotating fan in the ceiling, where the swirling blades
dissipated it. Barbara sat on one of the chairs that faced Rick
Montoya’s desk.

Leroy opened the refrigerator. ‘Cool, the fridge fairies have
been.’ He pulled out a cool beer from the freshly replenished
appliance. ‘Beer anyone?’

Georgina raised her hand.

‘Mrs Dace?’ Leroy thought it only polite to ask. She surprised
him by accepting. Rick already had his hand out ready to receive.
As the sound of beer cans being opened filled the office, Barbara
began to answer.

‘This story is big.’ She drew down to the filter tip, whilst
pouring the beer simultaneously. ‘It’s the sort of story that if
you worked in a major city like LA or New York comes along every
other week but you’d still kill for, pardon my choice of words. But
to happen here in a small community like Turtle Island, this is my
one shot. I know what you’re thinking; who is this middle aged
woman?...but... something happened this morning.’ She stubbed the
half spent cigarette out on the rim of her beer can, letting the
smoke escape from her lips as she spoke. ‘I received a package to
my house a couple of hours ago...’ Barbara put a Jiffy envelope on
the table. It was A4 in size and the addressed to Master Robert
Dace in purple ink, hand written, delivered by courier.

‘As you can see it was addressed to my grandson. I’ve advised
my son and family to go back home until this thing sorts out...I
think it will be safer.’ She lit another cigarette.

Georgina pulled on a pair of latex gloves and opened the
envelope. A videocassette fell out. ‘Have you played
this?’

Barbara drew hard on the cigarette. ‘You see these?’ She held
forward her trembling hands, smoke from the cigarette was drawn
upwards by the rotating ceiling fan. ‘I recommend something
stronger than beer before you view it.’ She stubbed out the
remainder and immediately lit up another.

‘Mrs Dace, I’m going to have to ask you to give us your
fingerprints and a DNA swab. Although I very much doubt it, there
may be a chance that our killer may have left some incriminating
evidence on the cassette or envelope, it will cut out confusion.’
Leroy tried to be sympathetic asking an awkward
question.

‘Yeah, sure.’ The smoke drifted into Barbara’s eyes stinging
them.

‘Was there anything else, notes, messages?’ Leroy was eager to
view the video; he needed to make a connection with the
murderer.

Barbara shook her head

‘Has anyone else seen the cassette?’ Georgina
asked.

‘Chris, that’s all.’

‘Chris Hurley?’ Rick asked.

‘Yeah.’ Barbara sighed expelling a vast amount of
smoke.

O’Neil exchanged bemused glances with Leroy.

‘Did he make a copy of the tape?’ Rick asked before downing
the last drop of cool amber beer.

‘I don’t know, ...I mean he could have. I took the tape to his
office. We watched it there. It’s possible he could have ran a
duplicate simultaneously.’

Georgina picked up the cassette, carefully holding it by its
edges, mindful of any prints that could get smudged by her latex
gloves. ‘It’s Showtime.’

‘Should we run the tape down to the lab first for prints and
analysis?’ Leroy said somewhat nervous of exceeding
protocol.

‘That will take them the best part of two hours, maybe
longer.’ Rick argued ‘I say we watch it now.’

‘Send the envelope down to forensics; get them to check the
gum for DNA.’ Georgina said.

Barbara stood. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ve no desire to push it
into the Nielsen’s by viewing it again. Once is more than enough.
Before you play it, I think I should warn you that there is a
message directly aimed at the investigating team right at the end.
I’ll be waiting outside if you need me.’

‘Go down to the second floor and get printed. It’s gonna save
a whole load of trouble later.’ Leroy said. ‘You gonna be all
right?’

Barbara Dace shook her head. ‘I seriously doubt it but thanks
for asking. Thank God I’ve got a bulletin to get together for the
six o’clock to keep me occupied.’

‘You sure?’ Georgina reiterated.

‘I’ll be fine.’ Barbara said. She walked out of the
office.

Georgina span around. ‘Right, let’s get it on.’

She held the tape in the mouth of the eagerly waiting jaws of
the V.C.R. The tape was snatched from her hand and consumed into
the stomach of the black box. The telly screen was awash with
dancing static until the cassette slotted home and began to play.
Montoya, LaPortiere and Agent Georgina O’Neil sat in the darkened
room holding their breath.

Narla didn’t know what to do. Should she ring Charles and
question him? She looked at the pictures once more. Sitting on the
lounge suite in the living room with a glass of brandy in one hand
and the photographs in the other, she tried to understand the
significance of the images. Although she was naked in one of them,
she appeared to be asleep. A thought flashed through her mind. What
if there were other photographs hidden around the house? Maybe
there was other women?. The thought had never before entered
Narla’s mind during their entire relationship, it was a giant leap
but the photographs disturbed her. The thought came like a
sledgehammer; her mind began to think about Charles’s late work,
his long hours, and his business conferences away from home.
Suddenly Narla’s life was unravelling in front of her. His study
and gym, that’s where he’d hide anything from her, he knew she
rarely entered his domain. It seemed to Narla to be the obvious
choice. Charles had specially converted the old summerhouse at the
foot of the garden by the river. He ‘needed somewhere where he
could train and study in peace’. Narla knew the summerhouse would
be locked, there was a spare key somewhere, now where was
it?

Charles washed and shaved in his small but well appointed
personal office suite. It was handy to keep fresh after strenuous
gym sessions or other strenuous sessions with female clients. Half
an hour till his date with Karen Fuller. The Kingsley deal was
wrapped up as he’d expected. Charles was feeling good, he was going
to give ‘Miss’ a night to remember? He brushed his teeth, grimacing
wide-mouthed in front of the mirror, studying the two perfect rows
of white tombstone teeth for unwanted debris. Dining in one of the
local restaurants would be too risky, so Charles had booked a table
at Palacs, a quiet restaurant outside Missouri in Campbelltown. He
had used it many times before and felt comfortable there. The staff
were discreet and the atmosphere conducive. An expensive dinner
there had always brought its rewards later in the evening. Though
tonight, Charles knew there would be no doubt about the
consequences. Karen Fuller was the find of his adulterous life, a
borderline nymphomaniac with an insatiable appetite for wild
uninhibited sex, almost paralleling his own. The meal was merely
foreplay, something he knew Karen would find torturous.