Wednesday, 12:45 p.m.
Taking advantage of Derek’s reluctant hospitality, I perched on a high stool in his kitchen, a supersized mug of steaming coffee warming my hands while Simon was busy on the phone networking with his sources. Our battered host, after boiling a kettle and warning us to stay put, was safely installed in the shower—presumably shampooing blood, dirt and vomit from his hair.
I glanced around the kitchen. Shouldn’t I be doing more than sit and consume caffeine until my eyes bugged? This was my third cup. The pummeling sounds of fast-running water bouncing off the bathroom tiles meant Derek was still otherwise engaged. So I stood up, dumped the unfinished caffeine in the sink, and wandered into the hallway. For some perverse reason I wanted to see Mary’s room. And although coffee sloshed and heaved in my stomach at the thought of what Mary must have suffered in that room, it was too good an opportunity to miss. Maybe I’d pick up on the dead woman’s vibes, even find a clue as to who murdered her.
I’d grudgingly scrubbed Derek off my list of suspects. Reason one—whoever killed Mary had also attempted to turn her husband into road kill. Reason two—Derek’s hands were blister free.
Simon argued that any killer with half a brain would use fireproof gloves to handle a red hot poker, and the run-in with the Subaru might not have been related to Mary’s death. It could have been a disgruntled player who Derek had forced out of this week’s football team. The enraged husband of some woman Derek was busy bonking. Or even a drug dealer he owed money to.
Whatever. Derek knew more than he was telling us.
I nudged open a door at the end of the hallway and peeped inside. A room with a single bed. How the heck did Derek and his wife expect their love life to be a wild fantasy while balancing two humping bodies on the confines of a single bed?
With browns and grays predominating, the décor definitely spelt male. Dozens of wooden-framed photos—all depicting athletic young men dressed in the Port Adelaide Football club’s colors of black and white, kicking, leaping or running after a cylindrical ball. A 42-inch plasma television with surround sound. The latest Mac desktop computer. And going by the graphic pictures in the magazines open on his bedside table, Derek hadn’t been lying when he said he was “distinctly frustrated.”
Water blasting from the shower alcove in the ensuite bathroom adjoining Derek’s bedroom, suddenly slowed and stopped. I froze…then quickly shut the door and scuttled across the hall to the other bedroom.
Mary’s room.
An icy shiver skittered up my spine, snagged on my heart, and took up residence in the right ventricle. Did I really want to go inside? Mary’s vibes had already left the room. All that remained was a bed devoid of mattress and coverings, empty drawers pulled out to their maximum, and a deadly chill in the air that was like a force field warning me to get out.
The stone fireplace held me like a hypnotist’s eyes. Cold dead ashes spilling out onto the hearth. Blackened brush and dustpan set. Antique fire screen with etchings of golden angels dancing across the front.
Ignoring the horror that held my breath prisoner, I took one step into the room, eyes focused on the large stone fireplace. No poker. Of course the killer’s instrument of death would be bagged and labeled at the police station together with the blood-stained mattress and purple sheets.
I sniffed. Was that a hint of Poison? Mary and Megan preferred the same perfume. Must be the ad on television showing the rich and famous doused in the revolting stuff that made it so popular. Give me Body Shop Vanilla any day.
“Find anything?”
My heart, ready to run up the white flag, did a somersault with a backward flip as Simon’s voice grazed my ear.
“Geez, Simon, don’t sneak up like that! You scared the stuffing out of me.”
“Nothing to find in here, Dani?” he said glancing across at the empty bed. “Forensics would have gone over the room with a fine tooth comb.”
“Just thought I’d take a peek.” I shivered. “Wish I hadn’t.”
His arm came around me as he moved me out of the room and closed the door behind us. “Derek’s finished his shower, so we’d better make like polite guests and return to the kitchen. I want to get him talking about the night of the murder.”
When Derek limped into the kitchen—wet hair pushed back, clean shorts and polo shirt with the Port Adelaide Football club’s motif on the pocket—I was sitting at the table staring into a giant-sized first-aid box that Simon had unearthed from a cupboard. It had so many tubes and bottles and packets of gauze and little tweezer thingies inside, I figured a degree in medicine would be required to identify and classify them all.
“Like me to treat those cuts and grazes?” I asked Derek tentatively.
He smiled. “Thank you.”
Of course, his smile didn’t last long. Instead, he hissed and yelped as I dipped cotton wool in some purple antiseptic and dabbed it on any open cut I could find.
That part was easy, but I couldn’t work out what to do next. Frowning, I picked up a 250ml bottle half-full of thick, green, gooey liquid. Perhaps a dose of this stuff might help. My patient looked as though he needed a boost of something extra strong to soothe his nerves.
“No. Not that!” yelped Simon, his eyes wide. “Not unless you want Derek squatting on the toilet for the rest of the day.”
“Oops!” I dropped the offending bottle back into the box and picked up a packet of what looked like white chalky powder.
“Here, let me finish him off.” Simon reached across in front of me and dragged the box towards him. “I have a certificate in first-aid.”
“You do?”
“It’s a prerequisite to joining the force.”
Pleased to leave the doctoring to an expert, I stood up. And while Simon dabbed and plastered and applied a couple of little butterfly clips to the gash on Derek’s face, I went for a wander around the large living room. A network of computers was set up on desks along the opposite wall. All ultra modern—all state of the art—all flashing menacing screen savers showing severed sections of the human body.
“Into dissecting people, are you, Derek?” I asked him while pouring myself another coffee. After adding a slurp of milk and three heaped spoonfuls of sugar, I straddled a chair and watched as Simon closed the First Aid box and returned it to its cupboard.
“What?” Derek looked up from the bottle of St. Agnes he’d removed from the top shelf of another cupboard. “Oh that? No, I’m a fitness coach. I study the human body.” He turned to Simon and lifted the bottle in salute. “Join me in a brandy?”
“No thanks, mate. I’ve already had one brandy today and I’m driving, so I’ll stick to coffee. But you go ahead. You look like you could use one.”
I drank my coffee in silence while Simon tried to convince Derek that if he wanted to stay alive, he only had two options. Well, three, actually: talk to the police, confide in us, or shift to another planet.
“Confide in you?” Derek, drinking brandy straight from the bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then shook his head at us. “You come here, bang on my front door, chase me up the street, almost get me killed, and now you want me to answer your questions. Well, how about answering one of mine.” Belligerent now, he scowled, slammed the bottle down on the table, and stuck out his chin. “Who the hell are you?”
“Surely we introduced ourselves earlier, Derek. I’m Simon Templar and this is Danielle Summers.”
“That tells me nothing. If you’re from the police, I’ve already answered your questions. In triplicate. And if you’re journos after a juicy story, I’ve had it with the media. You lot are like a mob of wild dogs slathering over a bitch in heat.”
Wow! Perhaps I could pilfer that simile and use it in my column to advise a woman who’d written in about her husband who stalked her for sex every five minutes of the day.
“Okay, Okay,” I said, ready to placate the writhing beast. “We’re not here after a juicy story. We’re here to help you find out who murdered your wife. Simon is a crime reporter for the Tribute, and I write their sex-therapy column.”
“You!” gasped Derek. “You’re Dani Summers?”
Oh! Uh!
Derek’s mouth twisted in a snarl and his hand tightened around the neck of the St. Agnes bottle. Apprehensive of his body language, I braced my hands on the table top ready for a quick getaway if he started swinging in the direction of my head.
“So it was you who wrote that filthy piece about shoving something hot down Mary’s throat?” Derek’s eyes, bloodshot at the edges, bored into mine.
“I didn’t write that letter, Derek. Someone hacked into my computer and changed my column. And once we find out who did, we’ll probably know the identity of the murderer.” I looked pointedly at the rows of computers blinking along the wall before continuing. Okay, Derek may be scrubbed off my suspect list but there was still something suspicious about him. “You seem to know your way around computers. I don’t suppose you had anything to do with hacking into the Tribute’s computer and sabotaging my column?”
“Noooo!” He leaped to his feet, spilling brandy down the front of his clean polo shirt. “Can’t you see I just want to be left alone?” He slammed the bottle onto the table and wrapped both arms around his shaking body. “My wife was murdered two days ago. Even though I have an alibi, the police are treating me as if I killed her. Can’t you understand—I don’t need more of the same from you two.”
Simon took a sip of his coffee and looked over the rim at Derek. “This alibi of yours, mate. Watertight is it?”
Derek threw himself down on the chair again, grabbed the brandy bottle by the neck and took another long swig before answering. “Yes. As a sealed bottle.”
“Are you positive about that? A little bird told me you weren’t in the pub at the time your wife was murdered.” Simon shook his head. “Your alibi is full of holes.”
Derek’s snarl reminded me of a dog that’d just had its bone stolen. “And who’s this little bird?”
“Come on, Derek. Cut the crap. I know you left the pub for half an hour. Enough time to drive home, shove a poker down your wife’s throat, and get back to the pub to set up your alibi.”
Derek slumped into his chair, his face crumpling. “Why would I murder Mary?” he wailed. “I loved her. She’s been part of my life for almost twenty years.”
I felt like crying with him. Maybe Harry and Bettina were right and Derek was innocent. One thing for sure—the man was a nervous wreck. And if Simon continued this barrage we’d have a melted pool of fitness coach all over the floor and no answers to our questions. I reached out and squeezed Derek’s hand. “We really do want to help. Just tell us who rang you that night. Who enticed you out of The Fish Inn on the night of your wife’s murder? Was it Mary asking you to come home?”
Derek snatched his hand away and scrubbed at his eyes. “No, it wasn’t Mary,” he said, his voice starting to slur from the brandy, his eyes bloodshot. “I don’t know who rang me. A woman. Her voice was muffled like she was trying to disguise it.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “She said to meet her at the Port Lighthouse. She threatened to tell Mary I’d been having an affair if I didn’t show up.”
Hmm…so skinny Derek had been having it off with someone other than his wife. I leant forward, my fingers clasping the back of the chair. “And was this mysterious woman right, Derek? Were you having an affair?”
“No.” He opened his eyes, glared at me, and then his shoulders sagged. “Yes. But it was all over. I’d already told the woman I didn’t want to have anything more to do with her. I loved Mary.”
“What was your mistress’s name?”
“None of your damn business,” he snapped beetling his brows at me. “It’s over. And I have no intentions of dragging her name into this sordid mess. Anyway, there was never anything between us other than great sex. It wasn’t as if I’d ever leave Mary for her. The woman was just a good lay.” He shrugged, took another swig of brandy, and then flicked a glance at Simon. “You understand, don’t ya mate? Men can’t do without sex. Mary was always a bit disinterested in bed, so naturally I had to satisfy my urges elsewhere.”
Simon nodded at Derek in a conspiratorial secret men’s business way. I scowled at the pair of them. And here I was currently on the look-out for a man. I’d be better off buying a cat to go with my dog.
“I’m with you, Derek,” Simon said agreeably. “But it might help with our enquiries if you told us the name of your bit on the side.”
Bit on the side?
“Nah! Shan’t tell. Ya wasting ya time.” Derek was smashed. “She might have been my bit of nookie but I reshpect ’er.”
“All women are tarts under their make-up, Derek, so it won’t hurt to whisper her name in my ear.”
Tarts under their make-up?
“Never.” His tongue seemed to get caught up in his teeth and he began to dribble. “You can pull out my fingernails if you like. I’ll never tell.”
Don’t tempt me.
“No woman’s worth the pain, Derek. They’re only—”
The kick aimed at Simon’s shin under cover of the table struck paydirt. I smiled angelically at his muffled yelp of pain. Even though I wanted to know the name of Derek’s “bit on the side” —because hey, here was another suspect to add to our list—even Blind Freddy could see Derek wouldn’t reveal his ex-lover’s name. And more importantly, Simon was pissing me right off.
“Sorry to break up your little boys’ chat,” I said sweetly. “But I have a meeting with my assistant at four and I need you to drop me off at the Tribute first, Simon.”
I turned to Derek who was almost cross-eyed, trying to keep his eyes open. St. Agnes had done her job. “Will you be okay on your own?” I asked him.
All talked out, he nodded.
“Would you like me to call a friend, ask if they’d come and stay with you for awhile?”
This time he blinked owlishly before shaking his head.
“After what happened out there on the road, it might pay to lock your door behind us. Can you manage that okay?”
His nodding head must have been too heavy to hold upright any longer because it bounced off the table a couple of times and then lay still. A second later, the room reverberated with pneumatic-drill snores.
I looked at Simon. “Should we put him to bed?”
“Nah!” He gave the sleeping form a disparaging glance before picking up the empty brandy bottle and tossing it in the disposal under the sink. “Let him be. He deserves to wake up feeling like he’s been chewed up and regurgitated. Anyone who cheats on his wife and thinks it’s his God-given right to do so, doesn’t need our sympathy.”
“You were all for it a moment ago. ‘Men can’t do without sex’,” I said, imitating his voice with an exaggerated John Wayne gruffness. “The way you two were going on, anyone would think sex was an item you picked up and paid for at the corner shop.”
“Of course I went along with him,” Simon explained. “How else was I supposed to get the name of the other woman?” Opening the front door, he beetled his brows at me. “And if you hadn’t kicked me in the shins and distracted him, Derek would have told me her name.”
I glanced at the prone figure slumped on the kitchen chair, head on the table, slack mouth drooling. “I wouldn’t bet on it, Templar.”