Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 10/01/12 Read online

The Women's Camp, a cluster of humpies sheltered by low acacia trees, was on the bluff above the beach. Leonard parked his vehicle within shouting distance and waited by its door until, with no hurry, a figure came out of the grove toward him and halted a few steps away. "This is Women's Camp."

  "I know. I'd like to talk with Clara Wiggin."

  The woman's eyes held the familiar animosity toward policemen. "This is native title country. You don't belong here."

  That issue had not yet been settled by the court, but Leonard smiled. "I'm not here to arrest anyone. But I need to talk to Clara Wiggin."

  Finally, she tilted her head toward a stunted wattle tree spreading its shadow on the sand. "You wait there."

  A few minutes later, Clara Wiggin, thin figure draped in a patterned cotton dress, plodded toward him. "What you want with me?"

  "I understand that Nancy Ngambe came to meet you last night."

  "Why you asking?"

  "She was found dead on the beach this morning."

  "Oh—oh no!"

  "Did she come to see you, Clara?"

  A nod. "For a singing. Learn woman's song."

  "When did she leave here?"

  "This morning, real early. Just before sunrise."

  Which would have been around five. "Do you know where she went?"

  "Went with her grandfather's brother's son's son."

  "His name?"

  "Kevin."

  "Where'd they go?"

  "Fishing."

  "She told you this morning that she was going fishing?"

  "Last night. Said she was going to cut bait today."

  "Cut bait?"

  "For the white fellas to fish. Kevin, he's crew on one of them flash fishing boats in Broome. Sometimes he needed her to help out with the fisho's."

  A fancy charter boat. "You saw her leave with Kevin Yaburara?"

  "Heard her. Heard his ute drive up, heard her say hello and get in, and they drove away."

  "You're sure it was his vehicle?"

  She nodded. "Got a hole in the exhaust. It was him."

  "That was this morning before sunrise?"

  She nodded again.

  "Did she and Kevin ever have words? Maybe go drinking together?"

  "No! Her mother's father, he's an elder. He wouldn't put up with no humbug from her or Kevin."

  "Maybe he didn't know about it."

  The woman slowly shook her head. "I don't think so. Billy was teaching her stuff about the animals and tracking and stuff. Not man's business, not that. But the stuff anybody can know: how to read the tracks, what animals like to do and where they stay. Where they find water in different country." She shook her head more emphatically. "He wanted her to be a ranger, first ever woman ranger, and she really wanted to be one."

  "Any reason why Billy Yaburara would be afraid of something or someone?"

  "No. Nobody do him no harm."

  Leonard studied the cluster of acacia trees. "Where does Kevin live?"

  "Sometimes here with his father's father, sometimes in Broome with his mother's people."

  "Where's his father's father?"

  Clara pointed to a roof on the far side of the village.

  Leonard rapped on the doorpost. Like his brother Billy, Lazarus Yaburara had a gray beard and a suspicion of police. As he listened to Smith, his wide nostrils flared as if smelling something unpleasant. "What you want with Kevin?"

  "Was he here last night?"

  "No. Went out yesterday, fishing."

  "Yesterday? Did he say anything about taking Nancy Ngambe along?"

  "Nancy? No. But sometimes she goes with him, when they need more crew."

  "Who does he crew for?"

  "Captain Parker. The Lucky Lady."

  "And you haven't seen him or Nancy Ngambe today?"

  "No." Still no unease at hearing the name.

  "Any idea where he stayed last night?"

  "Probably in Broome. When he's not fisho he's a jackeroo. His mother's sister has a camel station in the back blocks." He added, "And slow as this fishing season's been, he's there a lot."

  Two hours and a phone call later, Leonard guided his Tojo down a sandy lane carved through the bush on the outskirts of Broome. A rough sign painted on a plank marked a narrow drive leading to Outback Adventure Camel Rides. The screen of low trees opened to a wide clearing that revealed a house huddled in the shade of gums. The rest of the station was a sprawl: a low work shed, a few small outbuildings, and several sturdy pens where camels stood or lay watching Leonard's vehicle jounce to a halt. Three or four rusty automobile bodies, cleaned of anything useful, were scattered about; near the work shed a well-used red ute was parked under an acacia. A tall young man came out of the shed. Long curly black hair and sideburns framed a strong face that had a hint of moustache over the corners of his full mouth. "G'day."

  "Kevin Yaburara?" Leonard introduced himself. "When's the last time you saw Nancy Ngambe?"

  The youth's eyes widened, and he wiped a nervous hand down the front of his shirt. "Dunno. Couple days ago, maybe."

  "You didn't pick up Nancy this morning in Ganlargin?"

  A silent shake of the head as if distancing himself from the girl's name.

  Leonard glanced at the ute. "That's your vehicle?"

  "Yes."

  "You let anybody use your ute this morning?"

  "No."

  "Then who drove it up to Ganlargin to pick up Nancy Ngambe?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Nancy told Clara Wiggin she was going to cut bait for you today. Clara heard a ute pick her up about five this morning. Said it was your ute—said she knows the sound your ute makes."

  The youth's tongue wiped across his lower lip and he seemed to shrink from Smith.

  "It would be better if you told me about it, Kevin."

  Silence.

  "You told your father's father that you were going out on the Lucky Lady yesterday. But the harbormaster's office told me that boat's been moored to its buoy for the last three days." Leonard waited, but Kevin was concentrating on something in the trees.

  "Kevin, you know Nancy Ngambe's dead. Tell me why."

  He shook his head.

  Leonard spoke softly, reasonably. "You picked her up this morning at five, maybe five thirty. A half hour or so later, she was bashed and thrown over the cliff. She landed in the water, Kevin—high tide. High tide was near six. But bodies don't float until after two, maybe three days, so when the tide went out, Nancy stayed there and was found. You drove her there, Kevin. Did you bash her too?"

  "No!"

  "Then who? And why?"

  No reply.

  "You were with her," Leonard said again. "If nobody else was there, it had to be you. Murder means a long time in prison. Maybe you'll die there, a long way from your people."

  Kevin took a deep breath, eyes closed.

  "They'll find out if she was raped. Down in Perth, the medicos will find out."

  The youth said nothing.

  "All right, then. Let's go to the station. You can tell me about it there."

  Two hours later, Leonard once again halted his Tojo in front of Billy Yaburara's house. By now everyone in the community had heard about the death, and a small gathering sat on the ground in the long afternoon shadows of the gum trees. Two men beat slow time with clap sticks, and from the cluster of men and women came a gentle chant like a low moan. It was the beginning of Sorry Time, Leonard knew that much. When Nancy's body came back from Perth, there would be a Sorry Camp and funeral songs with didgeridoos, a chorus of clap sticks, traditional chants, and community dancing to ensure that she would find her way to the Dreamtime and her ancestors.

  Smith rapped on the door. The man who answered let him in and said over his shoulder, "Billy, it's that copper. He wants to talk with you."

  Yaburara sat on a sagging couch, his gaze wandering from one item to another in the room as if he could not find what his eyes searched for.

  Leonard drew up a battered wooden chair
and studied the old man's lined face. "Kevin Yaburara's in the Broome lockup. He's being charged with her murder."

  The man's lips tightened as if to hold back words.

  "He said he didn't do it, but he won't say anything more. I think he's afraid of something." Leonard waited, but Billy Yaburara did not speak. "When you and I talked this morning, you already knew she was dead, didn't you?"

  The lips remained clamped.

  "Why didn't you tell me you knew?"

  Yaburara's dark eyes avoided Leonard's face.

  "You're afraid of something too."

  In the silence, the chanting outside rose and fell, paused and started again. "I need to know what happened before she was killed, Billy. I need to know why she was killed."

  The man stared at something hanging in the space in front of him.

  "I need to know motive—why Kevin would do it." Leonard studied the lined face that looked back at him through layers of mistrust—mistrust of officialdom, of white man's law, of the copper who stared at him. "You knew she was dead and you said nothing, and you and Kevin are both afraid. Those things bother me—those things make me wonder."

  The singing outside the house rose for a few moments, then grew quieter.

  "Maybe Kevin didn't do it, maybe he did. Tell me a reason why he would do it." Leonard thought he saw something behind the mask of the man's face. "Prison's a death sentence for a lot of people like Kevin—a lot of Aboriginals give up and die in prison. If you know something and don't tell me, you could become Kevin's killer, Billy."

  Some inner tightness went out of the man. The sagging flesh of his face clearly showed his pain and all his years. Yaburara drew a deep breath. "He wanted a permit to land on the islands. People pay a lot of money for turtles and dugong. Even for birds and eggs. One-time permit, he said. Just to get through this bad time, he said."

  The Lacepedes were nothing more than treeless sandbars, and anyone landing on them would be seen and questioned by fishermen or Sea Rangers. "You said no?"

  "I told him no. He said I would be sorry. He went away for awhile. Then he came back this morning. Said she was dead and if I didn't give him the permit Ronald would be dead next. Said if I told anybody anything about it, Ronald would be next."

  The vision of the girl's lonely body on the empty sand flooded across Leonard's memory. That was the motive: Greed was what wasted her life and the dreams she pursued. "Kevin can't hurt Ronald or anyone now, Billy. He's locked up. He'll be locked up for a long time."

  "Not Kevin." Yaburara's eyes, burning deep beneath the ridge of heavy brow, stared intently at Leonard. "Captain Parker."

  "Parker! Parker wanted the permit? Not Kevin?"

  "Him."

  "Why didn't you tell me this morning?"

  "White man, white man's law."

  Leonard saw it now: Kevin was Parker's access to the girl. He could deliver her to the man with no trouble—she would trust Kevin, would get quietly into his ute to go cut bait. Kevin may or may not have known what was going to happen; maybe Parker said he only wanted to talk to her. She would be puzzled to stop at the cliff, to see Parker waiting in the early light. Not yet afraid—or too late afraid. And if things went bad, Parker could say the black man killed her. It would be a black man's word against a white man's in a white man's court.

  But the only one with motive was the white man.

  "You and I, we'll go talk to Kevin, make him tell us what happened. He will spend time in prison—can't get around that—but not so much as Parker. Ronald will be safe, Billy. Parker will pay for what he did." Leonard wanted in some way to allay the man's hurt. "Ronald will be safe," he said again. "Parker will be in prison for a long, long time, and Ronald will be safe."

  But the bitterness was still there. "That won't bring her back."

  There was nothing Leonard could say to that.

  Copyright © 2012 Rex Burns

  The author would like to thank Mr. Terry Thornett and Senior Sergeant Jon Kazandzis for their linguistic and technical help.

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  FICTION

  MAD DOG

  JAS. R. PETRIN

  Art by Jorge Mascarenhas

  "It's him," Robert told us. "I know it is."

  We were at Pappy's, a local steakhouse, a place we'd frequented in our twenties but had gotten away from in recent years. Recent decades, more like it. I was shocked at their appearance: Robert, rotund, wheezing and tonsured; Eddy, gaunt, bent at the shoulders, and sporting old-fashioned spectacles with built-in hearing aids.

  What I looked like to them I couldn't guess.

  "And you say he's where?" Eddy refilled his glass and knocked back half the contents. There was a fine web of broken blood vessels in his hawk-bill of a nose.

  "At River Glen. One of those retirement homes."

  "I know it." Eddy shuddered. "A hellhole."

  I shared that opinion. I'd made a service call there once, just before giving up my heating and air-conditioning business, and it had almost caused me to shelve my retirement plans. Empty-eyed inmates drifting about like zombies. One old codger staring at a television that was displaying only drifting lines. A lady who looked at least a hundred, tied to a chair so that she wouldn't hurt herself.

  "How can you be sure?" I asked. "It's been a long time."

  "A hell of a long time," Eddy said. "And you never actually saw him back then, did you, Rob?"

  Robert gave a dry smile, a grim twitch of the lips. "I saw his picture. It gave me nightmares. I've never forgotten it, believe me."

  I believed him. I refilled my own glass, folded my arms, and contemplated the ruby liquid.

  It certainly had been a long time . . .

  In our small, peaceful city of Easton, back in the summer of 1957, something terrible happened. Young men began to go missing. It didn't attract a lot of notice at first; the police weren't anxious to get the citizens riled up. And the first few victims were apparently transients, and disappearing is what such people do. But then local boys started to vanish, and terror began to stalk the streets.

  Even in our neighborhood, parents were anxious, and we lived in a part of the town where indifference to current events was endemic—more important was where next month's rent was coming from, or tomorrow's groceries. Still, I recall my mother's face flushed with apprehension if I came home late from school, or stayed out with a friend too long.

  To me and the guys I chummed with, a kidnapper—hell, even a murderer—was about as relevant as the atomic bomb. Something you heard about on the radio, not something that actually touched your life.

  But that was before Eddy's mad dog.

  "Crazed," he assured us. "Foaming at the mouth. Out by the city dump, chasing some kids."

  "What kids?" Robert looked horrified.

  We were walking home from school along Birch Street and had reached Bestway Grocery, where we generally stopped for candy if we had any money: red licorice, jawbreakers, sometimes flat, dusty sticks of chewing gum.

  "Where? Where did you see this?" Robert wanted answers. "You mean where the creek comes out behind EAGLE OILS?" When we spoke that name, we saw it in upper case. It was to us the equivalent of a haunted castle.

  This time only Eddy could afford to duck into the store and buy something: He had a job delivering fliers, which meant he usually had more pocket money than Robert and me. Which was fair, and as it should be, since his dad was never home and his mom couldn't give him an allowance. He came out with jujubes and shared them around.

  "You mean behind EAGLE OILS?" Robert repeated.

  "Uh-huh." Eddy popped a cherry jujube into his mouth and chewed it with his mouth open. We began walking again. "Mad dog. Foaming at the mouth. We could head out there tonight after supper, and I could show you guys."

  "And we could get our butts chomped off," Robert said with a scowl. But he looked interested. I was fascinated myself. I liked dogs. And a truly mad one? Yikes.
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  Robert asked suddenly. "What were you doing out there?"

  I was wondering about that too. Excursions to the mountainous landfill that was the city dump we generally made as a group.

  "I was looking for stuff," Eddy said. And it made sense. That was the reason any kid went to the dump—to find stuff. We'd struck upon many treasures there over the years. I brought home a birdcage once, slightly squished, which after a few twists and straightenings was practically as good as new. And you could always find wheels there for any racing cart you were building. But my prize item was an old square-framed Remington typewriter with a couple of wonky keys. I used it for years.

  "You could've told us," Robert said.

  "Yeah, well, you weren't around. You're around now, so are you coming or not?"

  "There's that kidnapper. Our parents won't let us."

  "They're not gonna know."

  "What about the dog?"

  "It's the reason we're going."

  Robert thought for a minute. "Well then," he said finally, "maybe we should each take along a stick or something."

  In those days our fathers were powerhouses. Mysterious, remote, and unfathomable. It didn't matter that one of them lay on the front room couch and snored his lungs out most of the time; or that another spent almost every evening in the tavern at the end of the block, and threw up by the back stoop when he came home; or that one went away on long unexplained absences, leaving his wife to scurry along the street avoiding people. They were powerhouses. You didn't screw with them.

  That, at least, was how we saw them. They lived in a world entirely removed from ours, as distant as gods on Olympus.

  Which I suppose was why—later—we couldn't go to them.

  When I got home my father was lying on the sofa with his face planted in the back cushions. He didn't come to dinner. He rarely did. My mother and I ate in the kitchen, keeping our voices down so as not to disturb him. I think we had stew that evening.

  "Did you come straight home from school, Will?" my mother asked. She had a strained tone in her voice. I heard it a lot.

  "Yup."

  "I hope you're not planning on going out somewhere with your friends this evening."