Burning at the Boss (A Johnny Ravine Mystery) Page 6

  “I’m sure they don’t. But when there’s a murder they have to check out every angle. Often it is relatives who are involved.”

  “They even asked where I was on Monday night. I was where I always am. With Jonah. Actually, I’d been watching his cricket training for most of the evening, with all the other mothers. So it can’t have been me.”

  I looked at her, her head turned away and her fingers cradling her mug of hot tea.

  Miriam was a young teacher when she got married. Her husband was a fine young man, a good Christian, kind and gentle, heartily approved of by her domineering father.

  Just one problem. After a couple of years it transpired that he was…well…not really interested in women. He had married a fine young Christian lady to appease his own domineering father. The marriage broke up, Miriam reclaimed her maiden name of Reezall and some years later had a brief fling during a trip to Asia with a man who was a friend of her father’s and became pregnant with Jonah.

  Now, I was no psychologist—I struggled to understand my own self-destructive behaviour—but I wondered how easy it would be to develop a relationship with Miriam, a single mother with one failed marriage behind her. But still I found her intensely attractive and desirable. She was intelligent, warm, caring and disciplined.

  “Is Jonah at school?” I asked.

  “Yes, I gave him the choice of staying home. But he wanted to go to school. Why does he need to stay home and mourn a grandfather he hardly knew?”

  “What about your sister Sarah?”

  “She’s arriving this afternoon. Flying down from Sydney. I have to leave soon to pick her up from the airport.”

  “I can drive you.”

  “Oh Johnny. You’re so sweet. Really you are. I don’t know what I would have done without you. I don’t like to admit it, but I do need a man. Sometimes. But no, I’d rather be alone with Sarah. I’ll pick her up.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “The traffic shouldn’t be too bad. I don’t need to leave for at least half an hour.”

  “So I think I need to ask you some of the same questions as the police.”

  “It wasn’t me. I swear. I have witnesses.”

  I smiled. “I’ve brought my handcuffs, just in case.” Then I paused. “Do you think your father had enemies?”

  “You mean apart from the Australian general public?”

  “Apart from them.”

  “I can’t imagine who. That’s what the police kept asking me. But I couldn’t think of anyone who really hated him personally. Enough to kill him.”

  “Did he have any problems of any kind? Any worries?”

  “They asked me that, too. No, nothing I was aware of. Apart from what I’d heard on the radio. About that financial planning firm. I didn’t even mention that to the police. It was so vague. Johnny, do you think I should have said something?”

  I shrugged. “Right now I can’t think what it means.” I told her about my visit to the radio station, and how I had been able to listen to her father’s last broadcasts. “You’re right, they were very vague. Anyway, I have an appointment with the financial planner later this afternoon. Maybe that will help give us some answers.”

  She began sipping at her tea. “You know, I hadn’t seen Dad for a few weeks. I had to tell the police that. It wasn’t easy. Goodness knows what they think of me.”

  “The police don’t judge these things. They’ve got plenty more to worry about.”

  “But maybe my father had some recent worry. Some sort of problem. And I wasn’t there for him. And somehow that got him killed.”

  “It sounds to me that your father wasn’t scared to speak out. If there was something you needed to know he would have told you. How long had he been living in that house?”

  “He moved there about five years ago. After my mother died. He had nothing. I told you. All the money he raised went to his charities. The orphanages in Asia. He was living on support from lots of Christians. And then someone from his church offered him that house. Until then he’d been renting a cheap place somewhere in western Melbourne. But this house was free. And he was told he could have it until he died. It was a pretty basic place. Actually it was a dump. A shack out in the country. A derelict converted farm shed with a corrugated iron roof and some basic plumbing. Freezing cold in winter and boiling hot in summer. But he didn’t care about that.”

  She went silent again. “I sometimes wonder if he didn’t move there to be nearer to me. I was twenty minutes away in Healesville. Maybe to try to reconcile. Maybe to have someone to look after him as he grew older. He didn’t have anyone else after Mum died.”

  “Don’t keep beating up on yourself.”

  “But whenever we met we’d end up arguing or something. You know what people say about Dad. That he’s a typical judgmental Christian.

  Well, he was. Berating me for not believing the things he believes about sinners and heaven and hell. And especially about Jonah. He could never accept that I could have a baby without being married.”

  “And the father was one of his friends.”

  “Grapper. Yes. That’s right.”

  I paused. “Who did you say?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Grapper?

  I tried hard to recall if Miriam had previously mentioned to me the name of Jonah’s father. Almost certainly she hadn’t. I had never asked. Probably I was scared about what she might start telling me. Somewhere deep down I think I had told myself that I just didn’t want to know about the circumstances of her trip to Asia and how she became pregnant. But of course, I did want to know.

  “Grapper. That’s what everyone called him. He was an associate of my father’s in Asia.”

  “I knew a man named Grapper. A long time ago. When I was a freedom fighter in East Timor. I only met him once. He supplied me with guns. But…” I paused, and thought of the right words. “He was middle-aged then. As best as I could tell. Eleven years ago, when you met him, he would have been, well, quite old.”

  She laughed. “He was a friend of my father’s. So he was quite old. He was my father’s age.”

  “You got pregnant with a man your father’s age?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did he sell guns?”

  “Yes, he told me about that. That’s what he did. Though it seemed he did everything. He traveled all around Asia. He was a kind of adventurer. But he had a special passion for East Timor. We had that in common. He told me how he’d helped the freedom fighters there, supplying weapons. I think that’s how I fell for him, when I heard that. And he was full of funny stories. He had me laughing all the time.”

  Well, not all the time, I wanted to say. I was jealous. I had yet to make it as far as kissing Miriam on the lips. “And you ended up having a baby. Was that planned?”

  “Of course it wasn’t planned. Maybe deep down I think I was trying to upset my father.”

  Again I tried to be tactful. “You must have wanted a baby?” At last I was getting a chance to ask the questions I had wanted to ask from the time I first met Miriam. I cursed myself again for being such a wimp—the tough-guy private detective who freezes in fear when it’s time to develop a relationship with a woman.

  “Yes, there was that. I wanted a baby very much. But you know something? Those three weeks with Grapper changed my life. Before that I was the dutiful daughter. Do you know what it’s like having a pastor as a father?”

  I wanted to reply that I’d have welcomed a father of any kind. But I simply shook my head with as much sympathy as I could muster.

  “We always had to buy the cheapest stuff. Often we lived on handouts. I never had pretty clothes. I was never allowed make-up. I couldn’t go to clubs or discos. And do you know what happened when boys started coming round?”

  Again I shook my head.

  “A boy would arrive at the front door and my father would open it and comment on what a lovely day it was. The boy would agree and then my father would say: ‘And to think this is th
e day the Lord made.’ Then he’d try to talk to him about the Bible. Of course the boys never came back again. My sister Sarah moved to Sydney as soon as she graduated. I should have done the same. Instead I moved to Healesville. It wasn’t Melbourne, but it was only an hour’s drive out of Melbourne. I was still the dutiful daughter. Still around for my father so I could be there if he needed me. And still under his influence. I’d have loved a little sports car, but instead I bought a sensible Toyota Corolla. I could never buy flashy clothes. I wanted to, but I knew it would make me feel guilty. I could never spoil myself. Or take a nice holiday.”

  “But then you went to Asia.”

  “Even that was for my father. I was meant to take over his ministry. Did I talk to you about that?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I’ve been telling you about how I didn’t get on with my father, but of course I admired what he was doing with all his charities. So ten or eleven years ago he said to me that he was getting older and felt I might be the person to take over running them all.”

  “So he sent you to Asia to learn the family business?”

  “The family business. Very good. That’s it. I decided to take a term’s sabbatical from teaching, and see if I wanted to run my father’s charities. I mean…” She paused. “Look, if you want to know, what was probably happening was I was having a bit of a personal crisis.”

  “A bit of a personal crisis?”

  She laughed. “That’s rather dramatic, isn’t it? I’m such a calm and measured person. I don’t have a full-blown personal crisis. Just a bit of a personal crisis. I’d been married and divorced, and of course I blamed myself, even though Greg—that was my husband—even though I can see now that he wasn’t really interested in women. Then I had a couple of relationships, but they went nowhere. I’d stopped going to church, but then I’d start going again, and then I’d get into yoga and meditation and all the other stuff that my father hated. I liked my job, teaching English, but I was in my mid-thirties and felt life was going nowhere. I didn’t get on with my father, but I still admired what he was doing. When he suggested that I might like to take over running his ministry—well, it sounded like the chance for a real change in my life. Raising money for all those orphanages. Doing something to help the world. With regular travel to Asia thrown in. And of course, deep down, I was still the dutiful daughter.”

  “But something went wrong.”

  She laughed again, a bright sparkling Christmas-bells sound that gave me pleasure. “Something went right. I spent a while learning the ropes here in Melbourne, working together with my father. That wasn’t easy. Then I went to Thailand. And one of his associates was there to meet me. We were meant to spend time together at some of my dad’s orphanages.”

  “Grapper.”

  “Grapper. That’s right. We were together for three weeks. I didn’t spend much time at any orphanages. Just one day, I think—that’s all. We spent most of our time in a cabin in the rain forest. And I completely changed. For the first time I felt free. You can’t imagine what it was like. Grapper taught me all about life. About myself. I’d never met anyone like him before. He was someone who just did whatever he wanted and damn the consequences. I decided to do the same. After three weeks I came back to Australia a completely different woman. In just three weeks I’d gone from pastor’s daughter to free woman.”

  “And pregnant.”

  “Yes, soon after I got home I found I was pregnant. And Dad essentially cut me off. Didn’t want me helping him anymore. He was furious.”

  “You said it wasn’t planned.”

  “No, no. Of course it wasn’t, but…” she shrugged her shoulders. “I’m an adult. I know the facts of life. I guess I didn’t care. In a way I was kind of tempting fate. Or as I said before, wanting to infuriate my father. And I did want a baby.”

  “But didn’t you want to get married? Make your father happy?”

  “I think that marrying Grapper would have made my father even angrier. One of his friends. His own age. Twenty-five years older than me, or whatever. Actually, I don’t even know his exact age.”

  “And Grapper was happy to have a child at that age?”

  “After I got pregnant I was able to contact him. He’s not an easy man to find. He moves around a lot. I got in touch and told him I was pregnant with his baby. He wrote and said he couldn’t come back to Australia.”

  “Come back?”

  “He’s Australian. Didn’t you know?”

  “No I didn’t. I only met him once, and we didn’t talk much. And probably it was all in whispers. I’m pretty good with accents now, but at that time I doubt that I would have recognized an Australian accent. And I remember that he even spoke a few words of my native language. But why can’t he come to Australia?”

  “It seems he has problems here. I don’t know what kind...”

  “Maybe a string of Australian mistresses.”

  She laughed. “Maybe that’s it.” I had been trying to make her angry, but it seemed she relished the notion of being one of a string of mistresses. “He’s a real man of mystery. I had the most exciting three weeks of my life with him and now I’ve got beautiful Jonah. But we never had any sort of future together. It’s better that he can’t come here.”

  “So he’s never met Jonah?”

  “No, never.”

  “Does he try to support him? Do you send photos? Christmas cards?”

  “No, no and no. I’ve completely lost contact. I think my father still saw him now and again. But it seems Grapper has no interest in Jonah. That’s sad, I guess, but really, in some ways it suits me. I can look after myself. I have a good salary. Marriage with Grapper would never have worked. And I’m happy that I don’t have to share Jonah and fight Grapper for custody. It sometimes seems that half my friends have been involved in custody battles at some point in their lives. That’s not fun.”

  She went silent. I brooded on all this. “Did he ever tell you any details about when he visited East Timor to supply guns?”

  “He had so many stories.” She thought. “Yes, I think it was East Timor. He told me how the first time he went there he met the commander of the freedom fighters.” She laughed. “He said this guy was so uptight and rigid and unbending that it seemed he was walking around with his rifle stuck up his backside. He told me he was the most humorless guy he’d ever met, that he…” Suddenly she paused and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh Johnny, I’m sorry. Was it you? It must have been. I wasn’t thinking…”

  “Yes, it must have been me,” I muttered.

  I had come here seeking clues concerning the pastor’s slaying. Instead I had learned far more than I ever expected about Miriam. I changed the subject. “Your father’s attack on the financial planner, during his radio show, it’s so vague. But right now it’s about all we have to go on.”

  “I can’t think why my father would have any connection with a financial planning firm. He’s never had any money of his own. He doesn’t even have superannuation or private health insurance or anything like that, as far as I know. He always said God would look after him.”

  I shrugged. “Families are complicated. I’ve come from talking to my own pastor. He thinks we put too much emphasis on family. He said it leads us away from God.”

  “I think having a pastor as a father led me away from God. Have you heard of Philip Larkin?”

  I shook my head.

  “He was a famous British poet. We do a bit of his stuff in the students’ final year of school. But one of his most famous poems we don’t do, although it seems some of the kids already know it. It says: ‘They mess you up, your mum and dad’. Except that he doesn’t use the word ‘mess’ but another word, beginning with f, that I’m not going to say. And then the poem says that your parents pass on all their faults to their kids. That’s what happened to me. With my dad. He messed me up. And it’s what I’m trying so hard to avoid with Jonah. He doesn’t need a dad who’ll mess him up. He’s better off without
Grapper.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Don’t forget. Today is another day of total fire ban. And we have reports of another outbreak, two miles north of the town. The latest news is that it’s under control, but we’ll keep you posted.”

  The announcement from Boss Radio came just as I rounded a sharp bend and spotted a funnel of smoke, somewhere in the far distance, above all the trees. It gave the appearance of a miniature white tornado, twisting slowly through the still air to the sky. I wondered if experts could look at the smoke and discern something about the fire, the way that meteorologists could decipher clouds.

  Thanks to some intense study of the Melway book of maps I was now confidently maneuvering my way through the twisting lanes that linked Healesville with Yarra Boss. I had also succeeded in locating Boss Radio on my car audio and was listening to a woman announcer who played hip hop music that was even more in-your-face than Rad’s program. Did anyone actually listen to this station?

  I arrived at Yarra Boss and quickly discerned that the main street was considerably more alluring at night, when all the restaurants were brightly lit and patrons spilled out onto the footpaths. Now, in the bright sunlight, it could be just another Melbourne suburban street, albeit one with a farm supplies store at one end, and a preponderance of antique stores and upmarket drinking spots.

  Certainly it was a strange mix. Many of the buildings—such as the one housing the farm supplies store—were new. But others were old stone structures that spoke of an earlier age and revealed a grand heritage. One greystone building had engraved above the door ‘National Bank.’ But it had been transformed into a restaurant. Then there was the gracious old stone church, now The Steeple wine bar.

  I couldn’t help wondering about this place. Some perfunctory online research at home that morning suggested that Yarra Boss was once a dignified country town, dedicated to serving the prosperous farmers of the region. Hence the stately old buildings. So how would the farmers of old have regarded this transformation of their town into an expensive watering hole for lawyers and stockbrokers who come here to frolic after tours of the Yarra Valley wineries during the day?