Ten Down (2/3)

Part two of "Ten Down"

The threat that there would be a murder in town the following day set my heart racing. The reason for my reaction was that it suddenly became quite personal for me. That’s the only way I can explain it. Yes, admittedly I lost my head and did something stupid, but even now I wouldn’t do anything differently. It was instinct, you see.

Up to that point the murders had corresponded to the numerical order of the crossword clues. The first murder had been at the albatross colony (one across) and the second at the art gallery (one down). Logically, the next clue in the crossword—two down—was ‘natatorium’ (5), which could only mean one thing: Moana pool. My grandchildren swim there every second day and the thought of some horrible psychopath prowling about in a place that brings my darlings so much joy…well, I was fit to be tied, I really was.

I may look like a frail old lady but I’ll tell you what: once you get my back up you’d better watch out! Turn the other cheek? Hide away chewing my nails? Not likely. I wasn’t going to take this lying down. As soon as Doug left the house, I marched straight to the garden shed and brought out my father’s gun.

Many moons ago I was a country girl. I used to go hunting with my dad and he’d shoot a rabbit for dinner. From the age of five I was hitting tin cans to keep my eye in. Granted, it was several decades since I’d practiced but I figured it’d come back to me. Look, I wasn’t thinking clearly. What can I say?

At 10 o’clock at night I drove up past the pool in a spot away from the streetlights. I wore a balaclava, a dark jacket, warm gloves. I’d had five cups of coffee and the rifle was locked and loaded. I’m sure I looked ridiculous but, as I say I wasn’t exactly in my right mind. I got out of the car and immediately slipped into the bushes, making my way towards the pool under the cover of scrub.

My idea was to surveil the pool grounds, to buttonhole the psycho in the act even if I had to stay up all night. Amazingly enough, it wasn’t ten minutes before I saw the culprit. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was him all right. He was sneaking around the periphery of the carpark, dressed in black and he had a gun too.

Without any hesitation, I brought the gun up to my shoulder, got him in my sights and pulled the trigger. I didn’t want to kill him, you understand. I wanted the chance to tell him what I thought of him, and for him to spend a good many years rotting in jail.

The screaming was horrendous. But I felt zero remorse.

“You disgusting little coward,” I hissed as I heard the moaning. “You can dish it out but one little nibble of lead and you yell blue bloody murder, don’t you.”

My heart was singing, I admit it. I’d done what I’d come to do. He wasn’t going to be doing any damage tonight at any rate, so I could go home and get a good night’s rest. Well, maybe not rest with all that caffeine in me, but I didn’t have to worry about him killing any kiddies. Might get a few crosswords in.

Just as I turned around I was thrown to the ground, my arm twisted back nearly out of its socket and someone started yelling right in my ear, loud enough nearly to burst my eardrum. I was highly indignant and tried to talk but the words wouldn’t come. I got a punch to the back of my head and must have passed out for a bit because the next thing I knew I was in a police cell.

Who should be sitting across from me when I came to but Doug. He looked about as dark as I’ve ever seen him. If looks could kill I’d be six-feet-under nourishing the daisies at this point.

“Mind telling me what you were thinking?” he said very quietly.

Well, I wasn’t too happy myself. I had a tremendous headache and my arm felt like it had been dismantled and reassembled the wrong way.

“I was only catching a killer, wasn’t I,” I retorted. “You’re welcome! He was right there. If I could see him plain as day, then why couldn’t your lot figure it out?”

Doug ran his hand through his hair so it stood almost straight up.

“Deb, you shot a special tactics group guy. He’s in surgery right now. I hope he’ll be able to walk again because otherwise you’re in the shit. No, scratch that, you’re in the shit right now.”

At that moment all the blood left my head and went straight for my heart.

“He was a what?” I whispered.

“He was one of ours. We were staked out ready to see what happened. Then you come along with your geriatric Rambo act—” he stopped himself.

“Sorry,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach. “I don’t know what to say. Looks like I messed up.”

“Yeah, looks like you did,” he said bitterly. His phone rang. He listened for a full minute without a word.

“I’ll be there in ten,” he said finally.

He stood up and avoided looking at me.

“Doug,” I said, remorse choking me up. I hated him being so angry—I’d never seen it before.

“Something’s come up. I’m afraid you’re going to have to spend the night here.”

He strode out and slammed the cell door.

I heard a lot of commotion outside—sirens and whatnot. But even if it had been silent as the grave I wouldn’t have slept a wink. I felt truly ashamed and miserable, about as low as I ever have in my life. I was convinced I’d be put into jail. Thinking of the grandies, I’d miss all the important milestones—school performances, birthdays, family get-togethers... To make things worse, I had one old hospital blanket and the cell was as cold as a witch’s tit. I finally got to sleep just after sunrise and was woken much later by the clang of the door opening. It was my daughter Maureen.

I teared up at the sight of that beautiful face that I would soon never see again (or only at designated visiting hours) and she swooped down and gave me a hug.

“Jesus Christ, what happened to you?”

“Doug didn’t tell you?” I asked, snuffling. She handed me a tissue and I sorted myself out.

“No, but he sounded pissed off. He told me to come and get you.”

“He did? I’m afraid your mother’s made a spectacle of herself, my dear,” I said, then started crying again, mostly from relief.

I told her what had happened and, to my annoyance, she started laughing and couldn’t stop.

“You’re hysterical,” I said snapped. “Pull yourself together.”

“Sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “You’re right. It’s the stress. Anyway, let’s get you home eh.”

Once we got back to my house I saw there was a copy of the Otaki Times on my doorstep and, to my absolute horror, the following headline: “Third Body Found in Crossword Case.”

I felt like I was going to be sick.

“Yeah,” said Maureen, “I didn’t want to tell you but they found a woman in Deborah Bay. Come on, get inside and I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

So while the Special Tactics group and I had been prowling around Moana pool, the murderer had taken the opportunity to take another life.

“He’s never going to forgive me,” I moaned.

“Who, Doug?” she shrugged. “Come off it, he’s probably already forgotten. He has other things on his mind right now.”

“Who was the victim?”

“Rose Pierce. Drama lecturer at the university. I knew her. She was one of those characters—some people found her abrasive, others refreshingly forthright. I liked her. She directed that Shakespeare production I was in a couple of years ago, The Tempest. Remember?”

“Oh yes,” I said. I could picture her now. It was her hair I’d noticed first, shoulder-length cherry-red hair with corkscrew curls. It might have been a wig but even if it wasn’t, the hair seemed to express her supercharged personality. She’d been quite short but projected the voice and personality of a much larger woman. A commanding personality but not unpleasant, as far as I could tell.

“That makes three victims, all connected to the Penguin Players.”

“All connected to the one play, actually,” said Maureen. “The Death of a Salesman.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“I was talking about this with my friend Greg the other day,” she said. “Both Theresa Hill and Craig Thorpe were involved with that production. And Rose was too—she helped with the casting.”

“Um, weren’t you in on it too?” I said, feeling panic start to rise up in my chest.

“In a minor way,” said Maureen. “I was an understudy for the Linda Lowman character.”

You know when your mind is suddenly washed with a blinding color, like you’ve been struck by lightning? It happened to me then.

“Maureen,” I said, “You have to leave.”

“I only just got here!” she said, offended.

“No, I mean get out of town and take the kids. I’m not kidding. You can’t be here while this killer is on the loose.”

“And then what?” she scoffed. “What about my job? I’m not a millionaire that I can just up and leave.”

“I’ll pay for it.”

“How? Thanks ma but no. I’m not going to live in fear just because one nutcase wants me to.”

I pleaded with her but she’s as stubborn as her father and wouldn’t listen to sense.

“At the moment the one I’m really worried about is you, superannuated sniper you.”

For the next week, I felt like I was living in a waking nightmare. I drove Maureen up the wall texting her every hour to see where the kids were and if she was OK. I followed her when she dropped them off at kindy and picked them up. Her nerves were worn ragged and so were mine. We ended up having a shouting match and her walking out and slamming the door.

More details of the case came out the following week. Of course the national media were obsessing over the case and it was analyzed to the -nth degree in the papers, on TV. There was even a True Crime podcast “The Crossword Case” that started up, specifically to track the events as they unfolded. Much to my relief, Doug did not share details of my embarrassing commando mission, otherwise I’d never have been able to show my face in public again.

What came out was as follows. Rose Pierce lived with her partner in a little cottage near Deborah Bay. Her partner Patricia, a GP doing the evening shift at an urgent clinic in town, had left home Friday night at 7.30pm, filled up on petrol at Port Chalmers, arrived at the office at 8pm and remained in the clinic until 4am. When she got home at about five o’clock, Rose was nowhere to be seen and there was no note. What’s more, the two dogs were skittish and vocal. She knew immediately that something was wrong.

Patricia searched the house, realized there was blood on the front doorstep (she’d entered the house via the garage, which joined to their back door) and she called the police. While they were searching the house, police headquarters got a call from someone who was biking on the road out that fringes Deborah Bay. They saw something in the Bay that looked like a seal. When they zoomed in with their camera, they realized it was a human being. That was about the time when Doug was talking to me in the police cell and had got the phonecall.

The coroner determined the time of death at somewhere between 11pm and 1am. It looked very much as if someone had rung the doorbell and bashed Rosie over the head as soon as she’d opened the door. The house was very private—across the road from the bay and secluded in amongst a grove of macrocarpa trees. The closest neighbor was an elderly man who lived about 500 metres away up the hill. He reported hearing dogs barking at around midnight, a sound he noticed because it was very unusual.

The Monday after the murder Doug got one of the dreaded letters. This time it was ten down (2) that had been filled in, the one answer I hadn’t been able to guess. The clue was ‘The End’ and the answer was ‘DB’, I suppose for ‘Deborah Bay’. I obsessed about this for days. I think both the feeling that I’d let Doug down and the fear that Maureen might be a target both made me feel even more that I had a duty to help solve this crime as soon as possible.

Maureen was not talking to me and I knew that this could last a few weeks at least--that’s the Irish in her. Doug was also too busy and too disgusted to have anything to do with me. So I decided to go it alone, but no guns this time.

I started with a trip to the Playhouse Theater and asked if they had an old program they could lend me. This gave me a list of the cast and crew. I realized that I knew a lot of the actors one way or another—a lot of them through Maureen’s theater work over the years but also just because they were local and that’s the way it is in this city, it’s that tight-knit. I just couldn’t see any of them doing something so horrible. They were too sane, too successful—it didn’t make sense. Some people think all murders are senseless but I disagree. There’s always a reason in keeping with the killer’s perspective. This was the act of a bitter failure, someone unremarkable in every way, which is exactly why they had to resort to desperate measures.

What’s more, the clue ‘The End’ bothered me. It was unlike the other clues, which were much more academic in some way. This one seemed more charged. I obsessed about it the way I always do with difficult cryptic clues and it came to me all of a sudden. As I remember it, I realized it in my sleep and the adrenalin made me sit straight up and call Maureen in a matter of seconds.

“Mum? What’s wrong?” she said blearily.

“I just realized something,” I said.

“You know it’s four o’clock in the morning, right?”

“Yes. Listen, ‘the end’—that means that Rosie was the one the killer was really after.”

“Sorry, what are you talking about?”

“’The End’ – it means the goal, the purpose, the whole point. I think the others were a corollary. ”

“Can we talk about this at a civilized hour please?”

“Yes, I need to talk to you. I’m so sorry I snapped at you. Can we meet for coffee at ten?”

“OK, that would be great. See you then,” she hung up.

By the time ten came around, I’d figured it all out. I just had to see if Maureen could tell me what I needed to know. We met at Thyme for T near the Gardens.

To my relief, she seemed to have gotten over her mood with me and greeted me with a hug.

“OK, so let me get it straight: you think Rosie was the person the killer wanted to finish off. In that case, why this elaborate scheme?”

I held my cup of English Breakfast and squinted at the vapour.

“That, I don’t know. My guess? They want to seem clever. They have plenty of anger to go around? But whatever it is, all their vengefulness is centered on that performance of Death of a Salesman. You told me that Rosie was the casting director, right?”

“Sort of. She was in charge of auditions.”

“I see. So my idea is this: maybe someone who auditioned and rejected got angry.”

“I don’t know…it seems a longshot doesn’t it?”

“Was there a list of people who auditioned?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Who handled it?”

“Well, I made my appointment with Joan Firth. She was the director’s assistant. And she was at all the auditions as well.”

“Would she have records?”

“I don’t know…”

“Could you ask her?”

Maureen looked sharply at me, no doubt trying to gauge if I was completely off my rocker or not.

“Please?” I asked.

“All right. I’ll see what I can do. But if Doug finds out…” she shook her head.

“Be it on my head,” I said.