Sex on Tuesdays (9 page)

The man behind the bar, busy stacking glasses, had his back to us. His hair was shorn in a buzz cut, but judging by his enormous size and shape, I guessed he must be Harry. Okay, ten years older than the Harry on the wall poster, but The Fish Inn's illustrious proprietor was still a formidable presence.

“Hi, Harry, you old cobbler. You're looking as ugly as ever.” Simon strolled up to the bar and threw a ten dollar note on the counter. “Why don't you stop admiring yourself in the bar mirror and pour us a couple of your best malt whiskies? None of that watered down muck you sell to the drunks, either.”

Harry spun around, a smile on his battered face. “Simon Templar.” His cultured voice took me completely by surprise. Harry the Hump could be a voice-over for the next James Bond movie. “Bettina, honey, come see who's graced us with a visit,” he called out, his head turned towards the back room.

Almost as wide as she was tall, a woman with masses of dark hair streaked with grey, peered through the beaded curtains that screened off the back room. “What d'ya want now, Harry?” she scolded. “You know I'm in the middle of—”

She suddenly spotted Simon and let out a school-girl squeal. “Oh, my stars—it's Simey! Come here and give Bettina a big hug.” Laughing, she didn't wait for Simon to come to her, but ploughed through the curtains and lurched herself into his arms.

“How's my lovely girl?” Simon swept the woman off her feet and swung her around as though she weighed a mere 50 kilos instead of close to 130. “Are you still breaking the sailors' hearts and the brawling drunks' heads?”

Grinning broadly, Bettina punched him on the arm. “You and your blarney. It's the little folk who'll get your tongue one day and then how will you manage?”

“Don't say that, love.” He gave a fake shiver and rolled his eyes. “Without my tongue I wouldn't manage at all.”

She let out a lascivious laugh that rocked the glasses lined up on the shelves over the bar.

Standing to one side, I watched the interaction and smiled. Simon wasn't kidding when he said these people were good friends. They had him on a solid gold pedestal. I half-expected Bettina to reach down, take off his shoes, settle him on a nearby couch with half a dozen puffed up pillows and feed him grapes while her husband fanned him with the sporting pages of the newspaper.

“What are you doing in the Port?” Harry broke in, beaming at his wife's exuberance. “If you're looking for a spot of fishing, there's some sizeable whiting running off Wharf no. 6, by all accounts.”

“No…I haven't time for fishing, Harry.” His arm still around Bettina, Simon shrugged. “Been a bit busy lately.”

Amused, Harry shook his head as he poured whisky into two glasses and topped them up with soda water. “Tut! Tut! And here's you retired early so you could live the easy life. I recall when you gave up your badge and a promotion. That was the day you said to me, ‘Harry, my old mate, I've had it with arresting the scumbags of the earth, only to find them back out on the streets before I've even changed my socks.'”

Ah. So that's why Simon retired early from the force.

Harry wiped a damp cloth over a spill. “‘Now it's
my
time'”, you said. “‘Until they kick the dirt over my coffin, I'm going to relax and enjoy life. If you're ever looking for me, I'll be out on the golf course, at the race track, or maybe sitting under a tree with a fishing rod.' Remember saying that, my friend?”

Harry's strange yellowish eyes suddenly lit on me and he smiled, a sweet smile, incongruous on such a beat-up face. “Unless it's your lovely female companion who's been keeping you busy,” he crooned. “Now
that
I can understand.” Leaning both elbows on the bar, he winked before turning to Simon. “Didn't your mother ever teach you any manners? You haven't introduced us to your lady friend.”

“Oh. Right. Danielle this is Harry and Bettina. Harry and Bettina—Danielle.” Frowning, Simon dragged one hand through his hair, while I found myself inexplicably winking back at the still-grinning Harry.

“Any lady friend of Simey's is a true friend of ours.” Bettina moved out from under Simon's arm and engulfed me in a bear hug that had her huge bosoms squashing the air from my lungs.

“Um…Dani isn't actually my lady friend,” protested Simon. “Well, she's a lady…I guess…and she's definitely a friend, but….” Flustered he gave up on the subject of our non-relationship and downed half the drink Harry had placed in front of him.

I raised both eyebrows at him in query. He
guessed
I was a lady!

“Aaaha…” put in Bettina, also with raised eyebrows and a teasing smirk. “Why doth the man protest too much?”

Exactly!

His frown deepening, Simon galloped on. “The reason we're here, Harry, is to question you about one of your customers.”

“Oh, and which customer is that?” asked Harry, enjoying his friend's discomfort.

“Derek Foster, husband of the woman who was murdered two nights ago.”

Harry shook his head, immediately serious. “Terrible business that. It's difficult to imagine a person doing such a shocking thing to another human being. Bettina and I had a visit from the police yesterday. They wanted to know if he was here on the night his wife was murdered.”

“And was he?”

“Yes, all night, as far as I know. It was extra busy that night. We had the Magpies in here celebrating their win over Central Districts, a regular mad house. Derek's the football club's fitness coach and he was as excited over the win as the lads.”

“Not
all
night,” put in Bettina thoughtfully. “Derek
did
leave for a short time after getting a phone call.”

“Phone call? Derek left the pub?” Harry cocked an eyebrow at his wife. “You didn't mention that fact to the police, my love.”

“Why should I? No way would Derek kill his wife.”

A tiny alarm bell rang inside my head.
DF
's alibi wasn't one hundred percent watertight after all. Where exactly did that leave him in relation to the murder? And where did he go when he left the pub? I sat myself down on a bar stool in front of the counter and swiveled towards Bettina, who had joined her husband on the other side of the bar. “How do you know he had a phone call, Bettina?”

“I took the call, didn't I? Derek was giving a celebratory speech to the team when his mobile rang. His phone was on the table where I was serving drinks. Derek asked me to field the call and tell whoever it was he'd ring back later. This woman with a funny breathy voice answered, and she said it was urgent. As soon as he finished speaking, I gave the phone to Derek. It wasn't long after that I saw him slip out the back door. At the time I was a bit worried, thinking Mary, his wife, who'd been feeling a bit off-color lately, might have taken a turn for the worse and asked a neighbor to ring.” She jerked one shoulder. “But he came back about half an hour later.”

I held my breath. “What time was this?'

“Around midnight.”

Bingo.

“How far to his house?” Simon asked.

“Ten minutes by car, I suppose. He lives in Taperoo, which is on the other side of the bridge, almost to Outer Harbour.”

“Time to murder his wife and get back to cover his alibi,” Simon murmured.

I let out my breath and shook my head. Almost impossible. “Half an hour to drive home, attack and tie his wife to the bed, light a fire in the grate, wait for the poker to heat up, shove the murder weapon down his by now screaming wife's throat and then drive back to the pub. He'd need to change into his Superman costume,” I told Simon. “And why use a poker? Wouldn't it be easier to stab his wife, or shoot her or…I don't know…hold a pillow over her head and smother her? Much quicker, considering his time limit, and a lot less messy.”

“If Derek hacked into your computer and changed your column, it meant he
had
to use a poker.”

“But why go to the trouble of changing my column in the first place? Derek doesn't know me. I don't know him. What reason would he have to frame me?”

“A person who kills his wife in such a sick manner doesn't have normal bells, whistles and electrical circuits, Dani. Perhaps he wasn't so much interested in framing you as making a theatrical production of the grisly act.”

I shook my head. Still didn't make sense.

Simon turned from me to Bettina. “Can you remember what Derek Foster was like when he returned to The Fish Inn?”

“What d'ya mean?” A slight frown of annoyance creased Bettina's forehead. “Did he have blood on his hands? No. Did he look upset? Yes. I asked him if he was okay, and he said he had personal problems to sort out, but I was not to worry my pretty little head about it. I still thought he meant Mary wasn't well. Look, Derek's been coming here with the Port Adelaide football club for close to three years, and in that time we've got to know him well. I can honestly say Derek Foster is a pussycat. A real sweetheart.”

Harry joined in, his voice as adamant as his wife's. “When Derek called in to see us yesterday, he looked awful. Couldn't stop crying. I tell you, the man would need to be a bloody good actor to pretend such grief.” He shook his head. “No, Simon. If you think Derek killed his wife, you're looking in the wrong direction.”

“You're a good judge of character so I'll take that into account.” Simon finished his drink and stood up. “But someone tried to involve my friend, Dani, in this murder. In fact the police had her in for questioning yesterday. I think it's time we paid Mary's husband a visit, because there are three important questions I'd like him to answer. Who rang him on the night of the murder? Where did he go? And what did he do during those thirty minutes he was away from the pub?”

Good questions. I smiled at Simon. If he was ready to go find out the answers, so was I. I quickly downed the last of my whisky and grabbed my tote.

“Once a policeman always a policemen,” said Harry.

“Maybe you're right.”

I frowned. Was Simon helping me because he cared—or was he only after a scoop for his Police column at the paper?

Okay, I guess that was a bit harsh but I was still a bit pissed from his “I
guess
she's a lady.” Not nice.

Still, either way, having a
black belt
beside me while visiting Derek had to be a bonus, and who knows, if Derek didn't murder his wife, he might have a good idea who did.

9

Wednesday, 11:30 a.m.

So…Harry and Bettina considered
DF
a pussycat…a real sweetheart. Isn't that what people said about Ted Bundy?

Not totally convinced, I buckled my seat belt while Simon set the nose of his car in the direction of Taperoo, a seafront suburb on the Peninsula. Simon was interested in where Derek went and what he did during that half-hour he was away from the pub. I didn't think he'd have much luck there. If Derek murdered his wife, wouldn't he evade the questions? Or lie? Might be a better idea to check out the man's hands.

As we drove onto the bascule bridge that spanned the Port River, we were greeted by the strident clamor of a warning siren. From above, a black-and-white barrier flipped down in front of Simon's little red Echo. He stopped suddenly, reached for the handbrake, and slipped the car into neutral.

The driver in the car behind us, obviously frustrated with the delay, leant on the horn. I glanced in the rearview mirror. A large Subaru 4-wheel drive with tinted windows and black exterior. Cool.

The bridge readied itself to break apart and rise skywards. This was a novelty for me. I rarely visited Port Adelaide so, eager not to miss out on the experience, poked my head through the open car window and drank in the scene below. On the river, a small, single-mast fishing boat looking more like a child's bathtub toy than a reason to open a bridge, cruised casually toward us.

“Typical,” Simon grumbled. “Spend a great chunk of taxpayer's money on building a bridge and then forget to measure the bloody masts on the boats that sail underneath.”

Built to service both road and shipping traffic through the port, the half-century-old bridge broke apart before our eyes, shuddered like an old dog with constipation, creaked ominously, and then slowly lifted each heavy leaf into the air.

“Do I detect a note of jealousy?” I accused, as Simon's eyes strayed to the fishermen below who were waving to us as though time meant nothing to them.

Simon gave a deprecating shake of his head. “Not a bad way to waste a morning.”

“Have to be better than poking a stick in your eye.”

Simon laughed. “Ever been fishing?”

I shook my head. My fish always came battered, with hot chips and vinegar.

“Okay, how'd you like to go fishing with me? We could chill out, catch ourselves a meal and let the world go by.”

Strangely, that appealed to me. I suddenly liked the idea of spending time relaxing one-on-one with Simon. Until the night at Erika's, he'd been background wallpaper in my life. Always there—but never in my face.

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Although I'm not sure about sticking a hook through a worm's belly. That would have to be your job.”

“Fishing is one of the things I promised myself I'd do when I left the force.” Simon leaned back in the driver's seat, deep in thought, letting his arms hang loose beside him.

“Why
did
you leave the force, Simon?” I asked after a moment's silence. “Did something happen to put you off policing? Was there a special bad guy you put away who—”

He pulled himself back from wherever he'd been and frowned at me. “I just got tired of it all. Needed a change of pace. Alright?”

Loathe to let it go but unsure of my reception if I pushed him harder, I studied my friend's familiar craggy face. Had work scarred him? Was the ugliness, the hatred associated with catching bad guys, the reason he'd not only quit the force but never married?

All these years I thought I knew this man. Perhaps I didn't know him at all.

My cell phone, vibrating insistently, brought me back to earth. Fishing it out of my tote bag, I checked caller ID. It was my animated assistant, ex lady-of-the-night, Megan Starr.

“G'day, Megan. What's up?”

“What's up?” She snorted. “Nothing on the guy passed out in my bed…but that's a completely different story. Hey, girlfriend, you seemed on the verge of a meltdown last time I saw you. Everything okay?”

“Bit stressed out, that's all. I'm fine. Are we still on for that meeting at four o'clock today?”

“No problems.” Her voice faded out and then came back again, so I missed the next few words. “…you now? Sounds like you're in the middle of a traffic accident. What's with the sirens?”

“Simon and I are on the Birkenhead Bridge at Port Adelaide.
I'm
enjoying the scenery while my grumpy companion is grizzling because the bridge has gone up. He reckons it takes too long for a fishing boat to sail underneath.”

“Men! No patience in or out of bed.”

I caught my bottom lip in my teeth. Why was it that the word
bed
seemed to slip into most of Megan's conversations? A
real
sex therapist, with certificates on her wall, would have a feast digging into Megan's psyche.

“Anyway, what are you and Simon doing at Port Adelaide?”

“Nothing special,” I told her. “We had a drink at a local pub and now we're on the way to see Derek Foster, the husband of the woman who was murdered. Remember, I told you about her yesterday?”

Megan let out a low growl. “And you're going to see this guy because…?”

“Well, for starters, I need to find out if he's the one who's been playing around with my column. Someone changed it again today. Did you read it? They suggested using purple sheets—the same color sheets as the murdered woman had on her bed. Is that freaky or not?”

“Hmm…so you're visiting a man, who in all likelihood heated up a poker and stuffed it down his wife's throat, just to ask him to leave your precious column alone. Dani, leave it to the police. You have other things to concentrate on.”

Our car began to move forward again. “I have?”

“Yes…finding Mr. Right.” She paused, probably to glance in the mirror and admire her flawless beauty. “And talking of Mr. Right, did I tell you Edward Granger has two tickets to
Singing in the Rain
at the Festival Theatre tonight?” Megan paused again. When I didn't bite she went on. “You
do
remember me mentioning Edward Granger?”

“How could I forget?” I made sure my voice remained neutral. “Handsome. Rich. May or may not be connected to the Mob?” And definitely
not
a musical type of guy. So, what was going on here? Was I being set up with this Edward for a reason—or was I just getting paranoid?

“Are you interested in seeing
Singing in the Rain
with him?”

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Simon's ears flapping.

“Well, I adore musicals, and
Singing in the Rain
is my all-time favorite,” I told her, my lips twitching as the scowl on Simon's face intensified. “And you
did
say the guy was loaded.”

“Massively.”

“And good in bed.”

“Wicked.”

Simon's eyes left the roadway in order to flick his bulldog scowl in my direction.

“Sounds good to me,” I said into the phone. “But tell Eddy I'll meet him
outside
the Festival Theatre a quarter of an hour before the show starts. That way, if his Mafia connections look too intimidating, I can make like a chameleon and disappear.”

“Okay, but whatever you do, Dani…do
not
call this guy Eddy to his face. He hates it.”

“Right.” Geez, what was I getting myself into here? “Better go now. Simon dropped his chin on the floor when I said the
Mafia
word, and I probably should help him pick it up. See you at four.”

The drive along Victoria Road was completed in silence. I was chewing over Megan's reasons for foisting this Eddy guy onto me. Simon was most likely thinking over what happened during and after my last blind date. Especially
after
. Would he follow me this time? I frowned at the thought. I didn't need a keeper.

It wasn't until we turned off Victoria Road into
DF
's quiet tree-lined street that Simon voiced his thoughts on the subject. “What's the big deal about finding Mr. Right?” he asked. “Surely, after living alone for so long you'd find it impossible to share your space with another person.”

“That's
you
, Simon. Not
me
. I've found it's no fun coming home to an empty house night after night.”

“What's wrong with Horace?”

“Horace is a dog.”

“So?”

“So…it's not the same thing. The mind boggles with what you're suggesting here.”

“I'm only saying you're not coming home to an empty house. Horace is always there for you. Just like Garbage Guts is for me.”

“I have a dog waiting for me and you have a cockatoo. Do you realize how pathetic we sound, Simon? How pathetic our lives are?”

“Speak for yourself. I'm happy exactly the way I am. However, if you're looking for company in your old age, I know a guy who might suit you. He's a bookie at the greyhound track. Wears sharpish suits, likes animals, and goes to Bali once a year on holiday. Name's Gavin. What say I line you up a date with him?”

God, I was starting to sound like a slave on the auction block. Next I'd have dirty fingers in my mouth examining my teeth.

Dejected, I slumped back in my seat. The thought of Simon offering to find a prospective husband for me made me sad and angry at the same time.

“Thanks, but no thanks, Simon. I'm not keen on blokes called Gavin. I had a bad experience with a Gavin way back in primary school. The little fart dobbed me into the teacher for selling handwritten punishment lines on the black market. I'd even given the little creep my favorite red sparkly ballpoint pen as a bribe, and he still squealed on me.”

“If you want my opinion, I don't think you should have anything to do with this Edward Granger guy. He sounds decidedly dodgy to me. And what was that about the Mafia?”

“A joke, old buddy. A joke. Now what number are we looking for?”

“One forty-five.”

I checked out the number on the closest letter-box. “Right, it'll be on this side of the street. That's number ninety-nine.”

“It used to be my job to get the truth out of bozos like Derek Foster, so leave the talking to me.”

“Okay, but remember you're not on the force any more. This guy doesn't have to talk to either of us if he doesn't feel like it.”

“I'll make sure he
does
feel like it.”

“While you're doing that, I'll check out his hands.”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons.”

Simon nosed the Echo into the curb in front of number 145, a red brick house with landscaped gardens leading from a traditional white picket fence to an ivy clad veranda. As we crunched up the driveway, I noticed about forty garden gnomes placed in various locations. The statues had been cast in the act of jumping, dancing, playing musical instruments and even kissing. A lump settled in my throat. I imagined Mary Foster collecting these little fellows over the years, washing them down, talking to them as she pulled weeds from her lovely garden—never dreaming of a night of terror when a madman would walk through her front door and proceed to tear her throat out with a fiery poker.

“No one's home.” Simon stepped back from the door after repeatedly banging on it with his fist, while I bent to examine a gnome so ugly it would make a cane toad squirm.

“I guess we should have phoned first.”

“And given the perp time to abscond?”

“Duh.” I replied sounding like a thirteen-year-old pressing a point. “He's not here anyway, is he?”

At that moment, a tall thin man dressed in a grey tracksuit came jogging along the street. He reached the gate, slid his hand onto the latch, and then noticed Simon and me. Instantly his jaw clenched. “What are you doing here? Who are you? Cops or blood-sucking journos?

“We're here to talk to Derek Foster,” said Simon, evading the question.

“Well Derek Foster doesn't want to talk to you,” the man yelled. “Why can't you piranhas leave him alone?”

Undeterred, Simon went straight into cop mode. “Who rang you at the pub on the night of your wife's murder, Derek?”

“Up yours!”

“Where did you go after the phone call, Derek?”

“Jump in the lake!”

“Did you come back here and heat a poker in the fire so you could poke it down Mary's throat?”

“Leave the memory of my sainted wife out of this.”

“What did it feel like watching her choke to death, Derek?”

“Pig!” His face a blaze of red, Derek wiped sweat from his eyes and took off up the street again.

So much for leaving the talking to Simon.

I whipped through the gate and quickly caught up to the thin, tracksuited man. If he was guilty, surely handling a red hot poker would leave blisters on his hands.

“Hi Derek,” I said, jogging along beside him and casting my eyes downwards. Damn. Damn. Damn. Today his hands were encased in thick woolen gloves.

I could hear Simon's footsteps pounding the footpath behind us. “Hang on, mate!” he called out. “We only want to talk to you. We're on your side, you know.”

Derek put on a spurt. “Could have fooled me.”

“Um…aren't you hot, Derek?” I gasped, cursing the fact that I'd given up on my gym membership six months ago—all due to that one twig-thin woman in the class sniggering at the way my tummy roll jiggled when I bounced on the mini-trampoline. “Come on, Derek,” I cajoled placing a hand on his arm as I ran. “Why don't you dump those hot gloves?”

“Fuck off!” he snarled. Giving me a dig in the ribs with a pencil sharp elbow that had me momentarily struggling for breath, he cut across in front of me and dived off the footpath onto the road.

As I followed him, I saw in my peripheral vision, a dark-colored Subaru 4WD pulling out from the curb on the opposite side of the street. Tinted windows, coal black exterior….