Rippling red, p.1
Rippling Red, page 1
part #3 of Dusty Kent Mystery Series
Rippling Red
A Dusty Kent Mystery
By
Brigid George
Published by Potoroo Press 2017
P.O. Box 235
Albert Park, Victoria, Australia, 3206
Copyright © 2017 by Brigid George
Rippling Red is Book #3 in the Dusty Kent Mysteries following Murder in Murloo and A Devious Mind.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is entirely coincidental.
Please note: This eBook uses British English spelling. Readers who are used to American English might notice a difference in the spelling of some words. For example: centre (instead of center), colour (instead of color), realise (instead of realize), travelled (instead of traveled).
Kindle Edition
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
About the Author
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
“First you see the top of its head rippling the surface,” said Fossil, a fisherman with a head of thick white hair which continued over his face in a seamless line connected by sideburns, a thick handlebar moustache and a long white beard which, although it did not hang down below his waist, was opulent enough to cause the wizard Gandalf to raise his eyebrows in envy.
Dusty and I were in Darwin to investigate the death of Cody Bongiorno who had apparently killed himself just over two years ago. My employer and friend, thirty-two-year old Dusty Kent, has an impeccable reputation as an investigative journalist who always solves the cold cases she works on. This meant she was in demand and often accepted high profile cases yet she had agreed to look into Cody’s death as a special favour to me. Since arriving in Australia from Ireland, I have worked on two unsolved cases with Dusty after my IT skills had earned me the job of assistant or, as Dusty put it, her maze master.
“It’s as though the wind is kissing the water,” said Fossil. His blue eyes, and a mouth concealed within the facial fuzz, completed the resemblance to a Nordic sailor.
“We’re always on the lookout here in the Territory, for that first ripple.” He moved forward and perched his wiry frame on the riverbank where water was lapping at the edges. “That’s an indication there’s a croc on the prowl. When you see the first ripple, mate, it’s a good time to get out of the water.”
I thought that might be an understatement; it was probably too late to get out by then. As if reading my thoughts, Fossil added with a broad grin, “Fast!”
Craning forward, he scanned the river for signs of a crocodile. His agility seemed a contradiction in a man past his seventieth birthday. “Then you see its deadly eyes, its thick snout, and the ridges along its back as it glides through the water. Silently. Those big reptiles can be ghostly quiet.”
He flipped his red peaked cap, which he had removed briefly to scratch his scalp, back onto his head then skimmed his hand along the surface of the water. Instinctively, Dusty and I stepped back. This river in Beagle Bush Park was known to be ‘crocodile infested’.
“You’d better be extra careful, Sean,” said Dusty, who sometimes liked to tease me. “Didn’t you once tell me crocodiles are especially prone to eating Irishmen?”
Dusty was referring to something I’d told her after my first visit to the Northern Territory. The locals, with earnest expressions of concern on their faces, had warned me that crocodiles leapt out of the water at the first scent of an Irishman.
Fossil turned to look at me and grinned.
“Aye. I heard that too.” He winked at Dusty. “But you’ll need to come closer to see what I want to show you. Here in this spot at sunset you see something you won’t witness anywhere else in the world.” I assumed we were about to experience one of the dramatic scarlet sunsets the Territory is famous for, but Fossil’s next words negated my assumption. “You see rippling red.”
“Rippling red?” Dusty glanced at the glowing sun low in an orange sky.
Even though the sun was in its final stage, Darwin’s humid air still warmed my body. It might be winter in Australia but we were experiencing summer-like temperatures here in the northern part of the country. I would have preferred it to be cooler but Dusty, whose petite body was clad in a long-sleeved cotton dress, revelled in the heat.
“Aye.” Fossil gestured for us to join him at the edge of the river.
A trifle reluctantly, we moved forward and crouched alongside him. I caught the alluvial smell of wet mud. Fossil stroked his beard pensively and studied the sky, apparently checking the position of the sun. When he was satisfied it was at the right angle, he pointed to the river.
My gaze followed the direction of his finger. Incredibly, I saw a strip of rippling red water, about a metre wide, silently running diagonally across the river. It was there for only a few minutes. Then it disappeared.
“Jaysis!”
“What was that?” Dusty’s green eyes were open wide.
“That was Pearl.”
“Pearl?”
“Pearl is the special croc I was telling you about earlier. She’s like royalty around here.” He nodded as if to confirm the wonder of it. “Aye. Pearl’s a royal crocodile, you might say.”
“Why is she like royalty?”
“She’s rare – rare as royalty – a white croc – an albino.”
“An albino crocodile?” I was astonished. “Is there really such a thing?”
“Aye. Had a couple here in the Territory over the years. Pearl, she’s been around for longer than I have. Some say she’s over a hundred years old.”
I let out a low whistle. I had no idea crocs could live that long.
“They were talking about her when I was a kid,” continued Fossil. “Some say, some of the old ones around here, they say she was once a human.”
His eyes had a faraway look in them as he began his narrative. “The story goes that she was once a beautiful young woman who betrayed her husband. He was an old man chosen by her family but she was in love with a young warrior. The tribe punished her for being unfaithful to her husband. They covered her body in white clay and threw her into the river. They say Pearl is really this condemned woman. She roams the waterways looking for her lost lover.”
We had met Fossil at the wharf after being directed there by Cody Bongiorno’s mother.
Chapter 2
We had called at the home of Nita and Mario Bongiorno earlier in the day. After failing to raise a response when we rang the front door bell, we wandered around to the back where we found Nita. Her tall, well-rounded shape was clad in a soft peach-coloured shift. Looking upward into the canopy of a large tree with one hand raised in the act of picking a leaf, she resembled a Rubenesque sculpture looking toward the heavens.
“Cody loved this banyan,” said Nita, after we had exchanged greetings.
The tree had large, glossy green leaves and a mesh of roots around its base. The umbrella-like canopy created a cool sanctuary from Darwin’s heat where dainty birds known as willie wagtails were singing in a language only they understood. “He could see it from his window.” Nita gestured to a building off to the right. “That’s the granny flat where Cody lives…” She lowered her eyes momentarily then corrected herself. “Where Cody lived. Only one bedroom, but it’s self contained with bathroom, lounge and kitchen. Not that he ever cooked anything. There was no need. I always had plenty of food for him in the house.”
Nita cast her eyes over the carefully tended garden that ringed the base of the banyan. “We planted this garden for Cody.”
Dusty, looking cool in Darwin’s heat with her auburn hair swept up and gathered into a frizzy topknot with a turquoise hair tie, nodded in understanding. “A memorial garden.”
“Yes.” A nostalgic smile warmed Nita’s face. “I like to think of him living here now; in the garden. We made a rule that there must be no sadness here. We don’t want Cody to see us like that.” She gestured to a wooden seat under the banyan. “One of his friends made that bench for us so we’d have somewhere to sit and spend time here.”
It was just over two years since eighteen-year old Cody had died so the garden was quite well established.
“They’re all natives,” said Nita, pointing to various plants, naming them as she did so. The most prolific was a magnificent pink flower bush, which Nita identified as a desert rose.
“It doesn’t look like a rose,” I said.
Nita smiled and released an earthy chuckle. Now that she had moved away from the subject of her dead son, some of her vitality had returned. “It’s not. Not even remotely related. Don’t ask me why it’s called desert rose. Looks more like a frangipani, doesn’t it?”
“Perhaps it’s a metaphor,” said Dusty. “A beautiful flower like this growing in dry sandy regions might be considered a rose of the desert.”
Nita nodded approvingly. “You could be right; I hadn’t thought of that.”
When the humming vibrations of a car engine alerted Nita that her husband was pulling into the driveway, we made our way up to the main house and entered through the back door.
Mario greeted Dusty and me warmly with a firm handshake. He apologised for arriving late, explaining that he had been delayed on a building site. His clean cotton shirt and shorts were evidence his role on the site had been supervisory rather than active involvement. I recalled him telling me when we first met that he’d run a successful construction business for over thirty years. His muscular physique was the result of years of manual labour but his paunch was probably evidence of Nita’s excellent cooking.
He thanked Dusty effusively for agreeing to investigate his son’s death.
“My wife and I know how successful you are at getting to the truth.”
Everyone in Australia, even here in the Top End as this part of the country is called, knows of Dusty Kent’s formidable reputation for hunting down murderers. She didn’t charge the families for her services. Instead, she would use her investigation to write a book about the murder – a best-selling book.
“The police,” added Mario, shaking his head, “they won’t listen to us.”
“I will listen, Mr Bongiorno,” said Dusty. “But I cannot make any promises at this stage.”
“Mario. Call me Mario.” He ushered us into the lounge area. “For now, it’s enough that you listen.”
What Mario didn’t know was that Dusty had almost cancelled this meeting after studying the police reports into Cody’s death which clearly indicated no third party had been involved. Cody had hanged himself. No suspicious circumstances.
When I’d met Nita and Mario during my visit to Kakadu National Park last year they told me Cody had been murdered. They were convinced someone had manipulated him into taking his own life. When I mentioned my association with Dusty, Mario and Nita had pleaded with me to ask her to look into their son’s death.
“Why do you believe Cody’s death was murder?” said Dusty, when we had settled into soft leather armchairs and accepted long cool drinks from a tray brought in by Nita. “The circumstances surrounding your son’s death were thoroughly investigated by the police.”
“As good as murder.” Grief clouded Nita’s blue-green eyes. “That’s what I mean. Someone else was responsible.”
She looked across at her husband.
“Cody changed.” Mario ran a hand over his glossy scalp. “My boy changed.” His voice was edged with regret.
Despite the surname, neither of Cody’s parents spoke with an Italian accent. They had told me a little of their family background so I knew Nita had no Italian ancestry. In fact, she was a third generation Greek-Australian, and Mario had been born in Australia to parents of distant Italian heritage.
“This is my Cody.” Nita got up and retrieved a framed photo from a side table. Although a tall woman and well padded, she moved gracefully. When Dusty took the photo from her, Nita remained standing close by as though not wanting to be separated from the image of her son.
Cody’s smiling face was framed by a thick crop of tousled black hair, the ends of which flicked into wavy curls. He had inherited his father’s olive skin, but his striking blue-green eyes were a gift from his mother. Cody Bongiorno looked like a young man who sailed through life without a care.
“He changed after his teacher died,” said Mario.
Dusty looked up from the photo, raising a quizzical eyebrow. In response, Nita pulled open one of the dresser drawers, took out a newspaper and placed it on the low table in front of us. The bold headline took me by surprise.
Jerry Lewis taken by killer croc!
Chapter 3
“It was a shocking thing that happened to Jerry,” said Mario.
Dusty and I scanned the newspaper article together. Thirty-year-old Jerry Lewis, real name Jeremy Lucas, was a performing arts teacher at a local secondary school. The teacher had been missing for some time before pieces of his torso were found in a river in Beagle Bush Park on the outskirts of Darwin.
“Jerry wasn’t Cody’s teacher anymore. Cody was in his final year but Jerry had taught him in previous years,” said Nita. “They stayed in touch through soccer. Jerry coached Cody’s team.”
A photo of the dead man showed him laughing with a row of slightly uneven teeth and ruffled hair. A five o’clock shadow made him look slightly scruffy.
The feelings of his family had not been spared in the journalist’s suggested scenario of what had happened.
Mr Jeremy Lucas had long held a desire to capture on film the elusive albino crocodile nicknamed Pearl. The popular secondary school teacher regularly visited the area where he presumably died, to take his boat out in search of the croc. Police concluded that Mr Lucas was on his boat, possibly with the motor running in readiness to go on the water, and probably leaned over the side as has happened in so many other crocodile attacks. Based on statements from Northern Territory Police we can surmise that the croc was likely waiting below the surface, perhaps attracted by the sound of the motor. The croc has then leapt up and clamped its huge jaws over Mr Lucas’s head and shoulders and pulled him into the water. It would have been all over in a matter of seconds.
“What a gruesome way to die.” Dusty pushed the newspaper away.
“How did he get the name Jerry Lewis?” I couldn’t contain my curiosity.
Mario grinned. “He was a bit of a clown; always playing practical jokes, you know. With that and Jerry Lucas sounding a bit like Jerry Lewis…” He trailed off with a shrug.
“Jerry’s death was a dreadful tragedy,” Dusty said, placing her empty glass on the table and raising her hand in polite refusal when Nita offered her a refill. “But was there any reason why it should have had such a deep impact on Cody that he took his own life?”
I felt Dusty was starting to regret she’d agreed to look into Cody’s death. Suicide is not what she usually chooses to investigate no matter how much sympathy she might feel for the family. Dusty was used to a clear-cut case of murder which had been investigated by the police but not yet solved. She would use the police files as a starting point for interviewing suspects then widen the field of possible murderers after speaking with people who knew the victim.
I found it fascinating the way she honed in on the lies people told using what I call the Dusty Kent lie detector; spotting a lie through a person’s change in voice tone. Closely observing their body language was another skill she used to detect lies. Anyone who lied to her immediately came under close scrutiny. After that, it was a matter of exposing the truth behind those lies. That’s where my professional IT skills, which Dusty more accurately refers to as my hacking skills, come in very useful. As the investigation proceeds and one secret after another is revealed, the big secret, that of who murdered the victim, rises to the surface.
“We think Cody was there,” said Nita. “When Jerry died.”
Dusty and I exchanged surprised glances.
“What makes you think that?” said Dusty.
“It’s like Mario said, Cody changed after Jerry’s death. The strange thing was that he changed before anyone even knew Jerry had died.”
