Bones of Contention (11 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Once she herded the assassin spider up the bathroom wall and out the window, it was a routine shower, considering. Considering a dead crusader for the right to die and an out-of-the-blue greenie on a jihad against polluters. Considering a spoon-pointing Cleon full of hints and allegations. Considering a resentful Lucien possessed by a bone-pointing snake god. Considering sexual undertows and sibling rivalries and somebody who, just maybe, went haywire enough to commit murder. Considering a house full of adversaries who didn’t trust each other and a coming swarm of policemen who never trust anyone.

These considerations orbited her head like killer asteroids as the water orbited the shower drain counterclockwise. When her life was going down the drain back in the Northern Hemisphere, at least it was going down in a clockwise, predictable direction with nothing more disheartening than a crummy job and a plebeian boyfriend. Here in the Southern Hemisphere, everything went down the wrong way, even the water.

She blow-dried her hair, dressed, and slunk back to her room. K.D. was out, thank God. She sat down on the lower bunk, fished a cigarette out of her purse and lit up, trying not to think about the doctor’s purple face.

Somebody knocked at the door. If her caller didn’t shout “Fire” or “Police” she wasn’t budging. And even if it were the police, she could stall them, plead a migraine or post-traumatic stress disorder. Maybe she should plead the Fifth. If it turned out to be murder, she’d be as much a suspect as anyone else.

“Open up, cherie. I know you’re in there. I bring important tidings.”

Shit. She got up and opened the door.

“Mon Dieu, but you do look ragged. Would you like to borrow my Aqua-Pac eye mask? It’ll take care of that puffiness.”

“Stuff it, Eddie
.
”

“Woke up on the wrong side of the sofa, did we?”

“How could you have let me crap out like that?”

“You outlasted Neesha, although she did make it upstairs to bed. Give me one of those.” He flicked a cigarette out of the pack and held it between his teeth for her to light. She did and he took a deep drag. “Have you seen our newest family member yet? Ooh-la-la. Dommage he isn’t gay.”

Eddie’s insouciance had begun to grate. She went to the mirror and combed her hair. “What did you come to tell me?”

“A majestically bizarre policeman is waiting for you in the great room.”

“All policemen are bizarre. They all have two faces and an ulterior motive that’s hard-wired into their stunted little hearts.”

“Of course, you’re bitter about Nick. But this one’s a pussycat.”

“Leading you down the garden path, no doubt. Setting you up for the ambush. And by the way, I don’t appreciate Lucien telling you about my breakups or any other personal business.”

“Well, if that’s how you feel…”

“Don’t make it about you, Eddie.” She was being a blister, but she didn’t care. “Do you think Fisher was murdered?”

He exhaled voluptuously. “Probably some tropical virus.”

Maybe she’d lived with Nick too long, but it didn’t compute that a man who’d forecast a slit throat two days ago would be ambivalent now that there was an actual corpus delicti. And up to the time she passed out last night, Lucien had maintained the cause of death was cardiac arrest.

“How’s Lucien feeling this morning?”

“Hung-over like everyone else. Very gruff and sans joie.”

“A man’s dead, Eddie. Don’t act so flaming Maurice Chevalier.”

“We all have our strategies.” He stubbed out his cigarette and gave her a chilly look. “Alors. Tanya’s on strike this morning so I’m the chef. When the inspector’s done with you, come have a piece of my quiche Lorraine. Maybe that will restore your joie.”

She doubted that very much. She followed him down the hall at a distance, reciting Nick’s advice on how to skate through a police interrogation. Be confident, but not overly. Be cooperative, but don’t donate your own theories. Be polite. Don’t let the cop bait you. Keep your temper. Remember what you say and keep your story consistent. Cops listen for inconsistencies and discrepancies. They’ll jump on anything that sounds hinky. The main thing here was not to say anything they could construe as a motive for murder, particularly anything that might suggest that Lucien had issues with Cleon. Then, if it did turn out to be murder, the police would have to look for somebody with a grudge against Desmond Fisher, which wouldn’t be Lucien because the doctor had saved his life.

By the time she reached the first floor, she was ready for the Spanish Inquisition. She arranged her face, not too downcast. She barely knew Desmond Fisher. But she would show a respectful gravity. Policemen were suckers for gravity. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and stepped into the room.

“You!”

“Hello, luv. Now don’t come the stunned mullet on me. Didn’t I tell you I was the chief walloper in the Top End?”

This was bad. This was the iceberg dead ahead, this was the stalled bus on the tracks, this was the yawning chasm where the bridge used to be and she was hurtling toward it, strapped in, helpless as a crash test dummy. Why did Fate lavish her with so many unnerving coincidences, so many dots she didn’t want to connect?

She replayed her meeting in the Darwin Airport with Jacko Newby, a garrulous old eccentric who just happened to overhear her asking for an earlier flight, who just happened to have a private plane at his disposal, who just happened to have a bee in his bonnet about a murdered journalist and a yen to show her the scene. She replayed the questions he’d peppered her with, questions that zeroed in on her family and their comings and goings. She tried to replay her answers, but the only thing she remembered telling him for sure was that Lucien and Cleon didn’t get along.

And here he was again, with police insignia on his sleeves, in a coincidence so towering she could scarcely comprehend it. A coincidence, the implications of which could only mean one very bad thing. The Australian police suspected that a member of her family, or somebody who purported to be a member of her family, had something to do with the murder of a British journalist on a lonesome beach on an island populated by Aborigines. And now Desmond Fisher was dead. Murdered, if Cleon was right.

“Come have a seat, luv. You look a bit green about the gills.”

She sat. Or rather her knees buckled into a club chair.

Jacko circumnavigated the room, his eyes seeming to sweep in every detail. “Too much of the alkie last night like the rest of the bunch? Understandable. A man drops dead at your feet, it would give anyone a thirst. Have you had your morning cuppa?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve met your family and they’re pearlers, one and all. Razor sharp and all with the gift of gab. Your Uncle Cleon especially. My kind of bloke. Lays the oil on a bit thick, but hits his main point like a mallet.”

Dinah tried to muster her thoughts, remember Nick’s catechisms. Don’t donate an opinion was one. She didn’t.

“Yes, I’ve chatted them all up. Amazing the variety of ideas. But I couldn’t hie off to Katherine without hearing your skull fruit. What do you think? Did the doctor pop off naturally or was he murdered?”

“I don’t know.”

“A smart cookie like yourself, I’ll wager you’ve a good hunch.”

She contrived a tight smile, but she was seething. The cunning old bastard had lied to her from jump, beguiled her with his quirky charm and played her for a fool, and now he was going to beguile her into tattling on her family? He was as conceited as Nick. They were two of a kind, Detective Nick Isparta and Inspector Jacko Newby. Brothers in tradecraft, hiding their twisty machinations behind would-I-lie-to-you grins.

“You’re the pro, Jacko. What’s your hunch?”

“It’s another puzzler, Dinah. Desmond Fisher crossed swords with a lot of people here in Oz with his views on the right to die. Of course, he came from a long line of kooks and quacks. His grandfather fancied himself God’s Gift and tramped about the scrub preaching hellfire and telling whoppers.”

“Oz seems rife with whoppers.”

“I can see you’ve got your back up, Dinah. Maybe I should’ve told you I was a copper. I thought you’d guessed. I thought you were two moves ahead of me.”

“Like you said, it’s the hard-boiled liars that make us cynical.”

“I’m sorry for misleading you, luv. Truly, I am.”

“Right. So why exactly did you latch onto me in Darwin?”

“Dr. Fisher has a shady reputation. I wanted to know what business he might have with your family.”

During their flight to Melville Island, he hadn’t asked her a single question about Fisher. Did he think she was such a ditz she wouldn’t remember? “What do you want from me?”

“I’d like your slant on what happened during dinnies last night.”

“What?”

“The dinner. I understand there was a bit of a blue over the arrival of Mr. Farraday, sharp words were exchanged, and you didn’t get past the reef to the beef.”

She said, “After the fish, everyone was full. We moved on to the great room.”

He walked over to the window and seemed to meditate on the view, leaving her to smolder in silence. What did he expect her to say? What was he after?

After an eon or so, he turned around and gave her an ingratiating smile. “I’d welcome any insights you might have about the doctor.”

“I only just met him. What possible insights could I have?”

“Did you have any discussion with him?”

“I sat next to him during dinner the past two nights. He suggested I get a living will.”

“That how he jollied his way into the family bosom? Pushing the idea of living wills?”

“I don’t know what he pushed on the others. You’ll have to ask them.”

“Did the doctor say anything to you about not feeling well?”

She weighed the question. It would be to everyone’s advantage to play up the doctor’s poor health, wouldn’t it? The sicker he was, the likelier he died from natural causes. “His liver wasn’t right. He didn’t say what the condition was, but he looked unwell. He smoked and drank too much and he couldn’t eat the barramundi. Tanya prepared a separate fish for him. Black cod.”

“It was fugu.”

“Fugu? The poisonous fish?”

“No flies on you, luv. Has to be prepared just so. The entrails are toxic, especially the liver and sexual organs, and they’re not destroyed by cooking.”

If Dinah had looked like a stunned mullet before, she must look even more stunned now. Fugu. Wasn’t that the toxin they used in voodoo ceremonies to turn people into zombies? The fish was a gastronomic treat in Japan, but chefs had to apprentice for years before they could serve it. What manner of moron would let a part-time Aborigine cook who preferred her fish à la paperbark and gum leaves prepare his fugu? That must have been what he was lecturing Tanya about—the liver and kidneys can cause death.

She said, “It had to have been an accident. Tanya must’ve failed to clean out all the entrails.”

“That, or maybe somebody came along after she’d gutted the fish and reinserted a morsel. It’s more than a thousand times as poisonous as cyanide and almost a thousand times pricier.”

Who’d been in the kitchen besides Tanya? Neesha and K.D., Mack, Lucien asking for a poultice, Cleon asking for olives and she, herself, commiserating with Tanya over the meringue pie. At some time, probably everybody had wandered in. Seth Farraday, too? What if he’d arrived at the lodge earlier than he claimed? He could have nipped into the kitchen and tampered with the fish while Tanya was in the dining room serving the soup. Was he also a suspect in the Melville Island murder? Was he the reason Jacko had glommed onto her in Darwin? Had he known that Seth would be joining the Dobbs party and assumed that she knew something about him?

It would be a sad coda to Cleon’s life to find a son he didn’t know he had only to learn that he was a murderer. She said, “Until after the autopsy, you can’t be sure Fisher didn’t die from old age.”

“Anything’s possible, luv, but it’s odds-on for the fugu. The doctor had another of the fat little blighters hidden away in the freezer. There’s no mistaking blowie. I’ve sampled it once or twice on a dare. Tastes a bit like chicken, blowie does, and makes a man feel immortal. There’s some will tell you that a dollop of fugu gonads in a shot of hot sake is the best aphrodisiac in the world.”

“I won’t need to remember that recipe. But if it’s odds-on for the fugu, it’s odds-on that it was an accident. Accidents happen far more often than murder. Statistically.”

“Your uncle’s not a one for statistics, luv. He’s flogging the theory that it was murder and he thinks that he was the intended victim.”

“Well, if it
was
murder and if fugu
was
the cause, then the doctor had to have been the target because he’s the only one who ate the stuff.”

“But why kill Dr. Fisher? You see what I mean about it being a puzzler.”

Apart from a general desire to shut him up, Dinah could think of only one reason. Killing Fisher postponed Cleon’s death. “Have you told Tanya about the fugu?”

“You’re the only one I’ve told.”

There he went again, trying to con her into thinking she was his Watson and privy to inside information when all he really wanted was to dupe her into revealing family secrets. “What makes you think I won’t tell everybody else?”

“Call it professional instinct. I trust you. And I’d hate to see you get hurt trying to cover somebody else’s bum.”

She didn’t know whose bum he was talking about and a still, small voice told her she didn’t want to know. The more she thought about it, the more this whole mess seemed like Desmond Fisher’s own stupid fault. “Why would a doctor, of all people, trust an untrained cook to prepare a potentially lethal fish for him?”

Jacko slipped on a latex glove, took a half-empty bottle of Scotch off a side table, and added it to a box of open bottles on top of the bar. “Some men are chancers. Addicted to risk. It could be that for Fisher a bit of extra risk added to the thrill.”

“I can’t understand why he’d be so harebrained. He was going to run for Parliament. He was on a mission to reform your euthanasia law. Death was all he talked about, not that everyone else in this place isn’t gaga on the subject.”