One of my better choices with regard to the band was to recruit a gifted keyboard player. She was Joan Oliver, my flatmate. Apart from her skills, which she also taught me, she shared my mother’s name. She looked a bit like her too, with curls around her oval face. And best of all she sang like Joan Baez, one of my favourite folk singers. She wasn’t liked in parts of the South ’cos she went on the marches and the freedom rides with Martin Luther King. I was aware of that on my tours in the early days and always careful with my speeches on stage.
However, Joan was unlucky in love because of the choices she made in men. Most of them were snorting cocaine every chance they got and spending Joan’s money – she was wealthy thanks to her interest in real estate and accountancy. In time the gamblers got the flick.
She also hated smoking, because the smell of nicotine made her sick. It was that which eventually attracted her to another good old boy and former marine named Victor Marshall, who apparently had been wounded in ’Nam. He hated smoking. He was a Washington police detective around her age. Never married, no kids and quite wealthy, a bit of a surprise for a cop. And from Arkansas. I wondered whether Martin knew him but let it go. The less talk about us two the better.
I have an instinct about some people. I either like or dislike them; there are no in-betweens. In Victor’s case I disliked him intensely. He was fond of bragging about the Purple Heart he had been awarded in battle. Martin, my dad and my Uncle Adam rarely ever speak about their medals.
My affinity with some groups extends to cops. My cousin Rosemary was an Australian federal cop until she was wounded in Afghanistan. She came out a hero after saving a child’s life on a dusty road. She almost lost a leg in the explosion. She’s now invalided out and married to Westie, a war correspondent who was at the scene of her bravery and wrote about her. I have a copy of her letter with the newspaper cutting about the action she was in. She was given a medal and now illustrates children’s books where she lives in Canberra. And then of course there’s my brother Shane, who is a Victoria drug squad detective.
Marshall’s traits were obvious. He was a sleaze, but Joan would hear nothing bad about him. From what I picked up, the sex was good so in that area I guessed they might make it. Her only child Annette lived with a healer in Brazil, which Joan did not approve of. Joan is agnostic. Not like me, who talks to God or whatever spirit comes through. My mum comes through at times. I’ve not seen her full-on but hope I will one day. She appears in dreams and frequently sends messages like ‘Watch Marshall’. However, I just turn over and go to sleep. How could I tell Joan about a message from beyond? She would just laugh.
Until the day I was woken up by a disturbing phone call from the local hospital. Joan had been bashed and wanted to see me. I scratched off a note to Martin and fled out the door.
Her face was puffed around the eyes and black bruises were showing up, yellowing at the edges almost while I watched.
‘Don’t tell me, Joan. It was Victor.’
She nodded with a painful move of her head.
‘Why?’
‘We had a blow-up. He wanted access to my bank deposit box and I refused.’ Joan groped in her handbag and produced a duplicate key, and asked that I keep it. She added, ‘My will is also in the bank box. You’re written in it with my daughter Annette.’
‘Stop, stop. You’re not dead. You’re going too fast for me.’
She looked at my face just like Mum did and read my next response, just like Mum would do.
‘No. Not going to the cops. I just want him out. They wouldn’t believe perfect Victor the non-smoker could be a crook.’
I was intrigued by the remark about him being a crook and she saw the question on my lips.
‘Yes. He’s a big drug dealer. Can’t stand druggies but doesn’t mind fuelling them.’
‘How do you know he is?’
‘Phone calls all hours, creepy people banging on the door. And then I spotted a stack of coke in his car.’
She was exhausted by all of the emotion so I left her quiet and headed towards the cop shop.
‘Where is Victor Marshall?’ I demanded from the young cop. I showed him my White House staffer’s pass and he almost jumped to attention, calling me ‘Ma’am’.
‘Cut the crap. Get me Marshall now – right now.’
Victor came to the counter all silly smiles. ‘What’s up, Suzie?’
But I wasn’t in a smiling mood. I was in a rare rage at that point and would have hit him if he’d stepped too close. ‘Don’t call me Suzie. Come outside.’ Outside, I went on, ‘You’re fucking lucky she won’t press charges. Stay away or I’ll get some high-powered people to fix your wagon.’
‘Oh, oh, I’m so scared of big White House staffer.’ He turned away, walked back into the police station and lifted his middle finger at me.
I watched the arrogant walk and thoughts pounded in my head like ‘Mate, you have no idea what I’ll bring down on your head, you arsehole.’
*
Victor went back again and bashed her. She reported him to the police and told them the whole story. They found masses of drugs in his unit. He was arrested and charged. When I told Martin about Victor, he remembered him from 1968 but hadn’t been aware of his police career.
We sat together in the court when Victor was sentenced to a long stretch. He was about to be propelled out to the cells by the guards when he looked up to where we sat and saw us three. It must have dawned on him that Martin and I worked together. He probably knew what Martin’s secret role was. Probably made enquiries, unbeknown to Martin.
‘Fucking dogs,’ he yelled when they carted him away. ‘I’ll kill you’ were the words on his lips as the cell door was slammed shut.
A man in a crumpled suit sitting in front of us turned round and studied our faces. I instantly felt the danger and the revolving gut. I scratched the top of my itching head and knew by the features of the man that he was a close relative. He turned out to be Mark Marshall, Victor’s younger brother. A person of interest; a man with a mission.
Joan’s breast cancer began that year during the terrible time.