Felicity Young - An Easeful Death

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

With a stack of lever arch files in his arms, Monty took the concrete steps up to his flat two at a time. At his front door he discovered a note jammed in the flyscreen and juggled with files and keys to extract it. It was from Mrs Nash, his neighbour. In her italic script she explained how she’d used his spare key to open his flat for a plumber who needed access to work on an emergency in the flat below, but there was nothing to worry about now, all was fixed.

His cop’s antenna was twitching. On entering he made a cursory inspection of his Spartan accommodation, relieved to see that nothing appeared to have been touched: the TV was still there, the sofa and his books—what more did a bloke need?

He dumped the files on the coffee table and rubbed his hands. A heater might be a good addition , he thought as he filled the kettle, the place was like an igloo. But at least it was clean, thanks to his cleaning lady.

While waiting for the kettle to boil he fed Mulder and Scully, the goldfish the squad had given him for his birthday in May. He made smacking noises with his mouth as he watched them dart and splash their way to the food through green-tinged water, promising to clean them out as soon as he’d finished with the load of files.

Coffee made, he settled onto the sofa to refresh his memory of the Park Killer murders. He flicked open the file of the first victim, nineteen-year-old prostitute Kitty Bonilla. Her body had been discovered at first light by a gardener. She was posed on a park bench, naked from the waist down with an empty beer bottle rammed into her vagina. The cause of death was strangulation, the violation occurring after her death. Toxicology tests showed high levels of Rohypnol in her system. Scuffmarks in the dirt around the bench suggested that the murder could have occurred nearby, but no footprints could be isolated because of the sandy texture of the dirt. Her long dark hair had been hacked off and it was assumed the killer took it with him for a trophy.

Monty knew about the posing, but the hacked hair was news to him. Perhaps it was something the investigating officers had wanted to keep from the media. Linda Royce’s head had also been shaved. The similarities were close enough to indicate a link. His pulse quickened.

He turned to the index at the front of the file and traced a finger down the alphabetical listings until he came to the material evidence section. Some strands of long dark hair that matched the victim’s were found at the scene. A shorter hair that did not belong to the victim had also been indexed, along with the bottle and clothing.

Monty checked through it again to make sure he hadn’t misread the notes and then riffled through the pages until he found the lab report. A DNA test had been carried out on the foreign hair’s skin tag, but the results had not been tabled. A side note said, ‘It is to be concluded that the second, unidentified hair sample was a contaminant from the previous occupant of the used body bag, present due to insufficient cleaning by the coronial staff. Disciplinary action has been taken.’

Inspector Peter Sbresni, the lead detective in the investigation, had signed the note.

Monty remembered the gossip about the sacking of the lead detective. The grapevine had suggested it involved missing evidence, though Monty couldn’t recall hearing anything about hair contamination. His eyes drifted over to the fishbowl on the breakfast bar. Mulder was sticking his nose against the glass, gazing out at him with googly eyes.

‘What do you reckon, Mulder, mate? Is the truth still out there?’

Monty stared at the list again, lingering over the clothing and personal effects heading. Red and black lace panties found beside body, black stockings and suspenders found near body, denim miniskirt found near body, red and black bra on victim, white silk blouse on victim.

After staring at the list for several moments he realised what was missing. Jewellery. He’d never known a working girl to go out with less ornamentation than a Christmas tree, but none was listed here. How could any experienced dee not notice this anomaly? Christ, he hadn’t worked Vice for years and even he’d noticed. Could the jewellery as well as the victim’s hair have been taken for trophies? Was this just another of the investigating officers’ negligent omissions?

His finger traced the list of officers’ names. A combined task force of Vice and SCS officers had been involved in the interviews. The names of the two detectives who’d conducted the initial interviews weren’t familiar and he wrote them in his notebook to follow up. He wondered if Tye Davis had also been involved, but found no mention of his name. This must have been about the time Stevie had blown the whistle on him; perhaps he had already been dismissed.

Monty tapped his teeth with his pen and contemplated calling Michelle. She’d feasted on the details of Tye’s sacking and written a scathing report for the local paper, demanding that he be jailed. But the evidence against him had proved too slim for a conviction and after his dismissal he’d escaped up north to work on the mines.

His mind flew to the scene at the Excalibur yesterday. Michelle had hinted she knew a lot more about the KP murders than she chose to reveal—what the hell did she know that he didn’t?

Thinking he might give her a ring he looked at his wrist only to remember that he’d left his watch on his desk at Central. The glowing green of the VCR clock said it was ten already. Damn, Michelle would be asleep. She was an early riser, so many exercise regimes to get through before work; he could almost hear her martyr’s sigh.

Ah, Michelle, fastidious to a fault, how it pained you to live with me—

Monty you drink too much.

Monty you smell like an ashtray.

You’re putting on weight.

You can’t wear that shirt again; you’ve already worn it twice this week.

He hadn’t cared about all that so much, but he’d drawn the line at mandatory condoms on clean sheet nights.

He scowled and headed towards the fridge , ripped off a can from the six-pack of beer and selected a crystal pilsner glass from his cupboard of mostly recycled honey jars. The expensive glass was one of the few souvenirs he’d kept from his marriage, one of a set of six. He’d only taken the one, knowing how a set of five would irritate Michelle. She’d probably tossed the others; she tended to do that with things that weren’t symmetrical, things that didn’t match or fit into her perfectly ordered life.

He poured the beer slowly, lost for the moment in the rising bubbles and the soft fizz, breathing in the scent of hops until he had to tear himself away. It was good to know he could still resist it, but maybe he was taking the control exercise too far. He put the glass down and reached into the fridge for a carton of tomato juice, poured some into an empty honey jar and sprinkled it with ground chillies.

Back on the sofa he lit up, inhaled and tried to blow his bitterness away with the grey cloud. Close eyes, count to ten, open. After a while he was able to turn his attention back to the files on the coffee table.

Kitty Bonilla’s face stared back at him with the complexion of a freshly pulled beetroot—even the tufts of hacked hair resembled wispy roots. He checked her small ears and saw the peppering of empty holes.

He looked carefully at the anterior, posterior and lateral shots of the body, unable to see evidence of anything written on the victim. No Easeful Death on this body.

Turning to the witness section, the gardener’s statement told him little. There was slightly more in the statements of a young couple who’d parked at a lookout near the bench on the night of the murder. They’d claimed that a late model, dark-coloured Commodore had driven past them several times while they were busy finding romance on the back seat of their car. Thinking it was a peeping tom, they’d relocated their horizontal acrobatics to the other side of the park. The police, it seemed, had been unable to go further with this lead.