White Bones and Red Dust
Another short story!
but this time a crime thriller!!!
White Bones and Red Dust
Ray Wilkins ©2009
Chapter one
She pulled on her coat and gloves and walked out into the night. She was feeling dizzy. No wonder, she thought, after all those beers I had! She kept on walking along the footpath until she could feel the soft grass under her shoes. She could already smell the sour odour of the lake and as she kept on walking she could hear the splash of an animal or fish swimming in the water. She had a feeling that somebody or something was watching her, but that must be just the alcohol, she thought. She didn’t hear the soft steps of the person who now stood behind her and quickly drew the scalpel across her soft throat, instantly cutting into her windpipe preventing her from screaming; she fell lifeless onto the soft damp earth.
Richard turned over in his bed and picked up the ringing phone, his mind still clouded with sleep and fading dreams.
“Richard, there’s been another one. The same style and she’s only twenty-two. Down by the bridge leading up to the war memorial. See you there, okay?”
He climbed slowly out of bed and walked into the bathroom, feeling sad and frustrated. “That’s the third one inside six weeks. Always young women between twenty-one and twenty-five and always around the lake area,” he thought. “No bloody clues and no suspects, not even any traces of sperm.” He dressed quickly and was out the door at the same time as the blood red sun rose over Black Mountain.
He drove up to where the crime tape was strung up between some tee tree bushes. He climbed out and walked over to the small group of people gathered around something covered in a black blanket lying on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin.
“Hey, Rich,” said Yolanda, who was kneeling over the body, examining the almost severed head. “Take a look at this.”
“Jesus Christ! This is bloody awful,” he exclaimed, bending down, first looking into the deep brown eyes of his collegue, Yolanda Eames, then down at the horror lying on the bare grass. The girl had jet-black hair and blue eyes that were now lifeless and staring up into the sky. She was wearing a thick plaid shirt open at what was left of her throat, a black duffel coat and designer jeans. Richard could see the mud on her Blundstone boots. He pulled on a pair of disposable gloves and nodded in the direction of Dr Soames, the coroner, who was sadly shaking his head. Richard thought he could see a tear in his eye.
“The same as the other ones, Rich. A deep cut from right to left across the trachea using what looks like a large orthopaedic scalpel. No signs of sexual abuse, no signs of self-defence. Her fingernails are clean. No bruising or any other injuries. Instant death. The same ritualistic positioning of the body, on her back with the arms outstretched and the legs apart. This man is a bloody beast!”
Chapter two
The new day broke through into the country. The morning dew hanging desperately onto the simple lean-tos dried out and a light mist rose slowly up to the sky, leaving behind the piercing light of the rising sun. The creek running through the camp gurgled softly into the silence, competing with the whispers of the women starting the cooking fires. The scent of sage and smoke filled the air, reminding the still sleeping people about the corroberee gathering and stories told on the previous evening, floating dreams awakening. The screams of the galahs in the nearby gum trees broke the sense of peace and the camp was awake. You could now smell the coffee and the damper baking on the sticks hanging over the fires. Children shouting and running out of the huts into the middle of the camp where the people usually gathered. And if you listened very closely you could still hear the ghost of the didgeridoos and sound sticks playing the songs from the night before. A light breeze blew through the trees stirring up the dust, moving the air lazily around in circles causing willy-willies to form here and there that looked a little bit like mini tornadoes playing between the huts. The camp was surrounded by gum trees filled with silver green leaves and every now and then if you looked closely you could see a koala bear meditating on the new day.
It was a mixed camp consisting of different families; there was a place for healing, a spear maker, a place for music and a didgeridoo maker, three storytellers and two art makers who painted the old images onto bark and didgeridoos, a fisher, two hunters, a group of gatherers who searched the bush for edible plants, fruit, herbs, grubs and roots, and a toolmaker. It was a peaceful community where the old ways and the legends of the dreamtime were part of everyday life. The people here believed that the powers of nature created life and that preserving harmony between man and the country was their lifelong duty and challenge.
Wootara opened his eyes to the day; looking around the hut he could see all the things that were important in his life. The spears, the woomera and boomerangs leaning against a branch sticking out of the wall. The bunch of emu feathers hanging from the roof, and the rainbow stone lying beside his bed, a gift from Yarrawa, his best friend. He jumped out of bed and quickly tied a piece of cloth around his waist. He tumbled out into the dusty, early morning. He shouted out loudly “Yarrawa, Yarrawa, come out, the sun’s shining and we have work to do,” running over to the other side of the camp. The two women tending the fires looked knowingly at each other and nodded their heads.
The young girl crawled slowly out of her hut; standing straight she stretched her arms to the sky. Looking out of the door she could see Yarrawa running through the smoke and on hearing his voice she felt that strange tingling feeling inside that place in her chest, just behind her heart. She , shook out her long, black hair and ran out into the daylight.
“Come on, Yarrawa,” called Wootara. “We have to go down to the river to catch some yabbies. Narranarra is already waiting with her pot on the fire.”
“I’ve got the string and some old meat in my dillybag. Did you bring something to put them in?” she asked.
Wootara showed her the basket his mother had given him to use. They walked slowly down the hill towards the billabong now shining silver in the morning sun, both chattering away, talking about all the songs and stories they had heard the night before. Some of the legends of the dreamtime they had heard many times before but at every meeting there was something new to learn. Wootara said, ”Did you hear that story old Barawana told about the Girl With Nine Toes?”
“Yeah! How she saved a whole tribe of people from starving by giving them the yam root to grow. She is my hero. Maybe we will meet her some day, who knows?”
They continued walking on down towards the water, both now silently thinking their separate thoughts, immersed within a feeling of serenity that had connected them to each other for a long time. Touching the water they looked out to the other side of the billabong where they could see the low red hills starting to light up beneath the rising sun. They bent down together and tied small pieces of the putrid meat to the ends of the string. They threw the baited lines out, to splash into the mirror-smooth waters of the small lake. They sat down on the damp ground and waited for the first tugs.
“Wootara, when you go hunting out into the bush how do you know where the animals and birds are hiding?”
Wootara tried to look as wise and as knowing as it is at all possible for a skinny boy of fourteen to be and tried to explain to his friend the spirit behind Yagdibi, the philosophy of hunting.
“It’s hard to understand, Yarrawa. It’s something like going to sleep when you’re still wide awake. I feel totally relaxed and at the same time I notice everything around me. The smallest breath of wind or even when a small leaf moves on the ground, I feel it. All sounds are much louder than usual, I can hear the animal breathing even when he’s running, miles away. It’s like my mind reaches out into the air, feeling and smelling something that other hunters can only see when they are near.”
Yarrawa closed her eyes and tried to imagine Wootara standing in the bush, together with the other four hunters of the camp. She could see him standing on one leg like a brolga, his head slightly tilted towards the ground, completely still, listening into the silence. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the sounds of the sticks, and the colours behind his closed eyes faded into a mist of orange, red and yellow. Inside the mist he could see a dark figure moving slowly, hiding behind rocks. For some reason she did not feel afraid even though she could not see if the shadow was human or an animal. She saw Wootara still standing on one leg, waiting, watching and listening. She saw him very slowly, almost in slow motion, lift his right arm, his woomera resting softly in his closed fist, a spear lying on top of the spear thrower. He pulled back his arm. Yarrawa could now see that the shadow behind the rock was moving out into the sunlight. It was old male emu, running as fast as his legs could carry him out on to the desert plain. She heard a hissing sound and, turning to look at Wootara, she saw the spear leaving the woomera, flying true to its target, hitting the fleeing emu with a wet thud. The large bird fell to the ground, blood trickling out of his large beak. Wootara walked slowly over to the dead animal and Yarrawa followed. They kneeled down in the dust, dipped two fingers into the blood and painted two circles onto a flat stone. This was the sign, according to the laws of the dreamtime, that declared them witnesses to that moment of time when the spirit of the dead animal had left its body.
Chapter three
He could feel himself slipping away. Richard closed his eyes. Going inside, he searched for that part of his inner self that he had decided to trust, even if he sometimes did not quite understand what it was trying to say. Some people called it intuition. Rich called it Yalamba, the aboriginal name for teacher.
He could hear the voices of the doctor and Yolanda drifting into the mist. He could soon see the yellow and red dust swirling around the huge round stones where he knew he would once again meet Him.
Wootara stepped out from behind one of the boulders and walked slowly up to where Richard was standing. He reached out his hand and pressed it onto Richards’s forehead. “Seek the path of the hunter and know the signs of your body’s senses, your mind’s eye and the courage of your heart.”
He looked into Wootara’s eyes and was amazed at the wisdom and oldness that he saw behind the jet-black orbs of light. “What you sometimes see disturbs your heart and this in turn dulls your senses. At these moments of experience it is important for you to distance yourself from your heart feelings. Imagine that you step out of your body and this mirror self contains all your feelings, emotions and compassion. It leaves behind a mind and an intuition that can work without being clouded and misdirected, a mind that like the spear flies straight to the truth and the woomera, the spear thrower, is once again your intuition.”
“Richard! Richard! We have to go, the doctor wants to take the body to the morgue.” He opened his eyes to see Yolanda frowning and looking a little bit annoyed.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s okay. Let’s go and get a cup of coffee.” He ripped off his disposable gloves, glanced once again at the lonely corpse lying in the mud and followed his collegue to the car.
“What happened back there, Rich? You were like all of a sudden turned off like a light bulb.”
“I hate this bastard. When I see something like this I just go blind, call it blind rage if you want.” He didn’t feel good talking to his partner in riddles but somehow he felt he wasn’t yet able to explain to her what happened when he slipped into that other world and started talking to an Aborigine called Wootara who gave him advice on how to solve his cases.
“I just talked with Ray Brown, the profiler. He’s going to meet us when we get into headquarters. He says he has some ideas and that we won’t like them at all,” she answered, trying not to think that her collegue was starting to go round the bend as well as up the hill.
“Yeah, Ray is good. He has the courage to really go deep into the personality structure but we haven’t got much information for him, have we? I mean, all we know is that the killer is probably male, at least one ninety in height, well-built and may have some connection to medical facilities. Big deal, mate!”
“What’s wrong with you, Rich?” Yolanda said, a little louder than she really wanted to. “The last few months you’re always in a bad mood and so negative. Everything I say you react with a question. My God, sometimes I even feel like the perp. Jesus mate, I know, since you divorced Lucy you’ve had a rough time getting used to a single life again and all those legal hassles with money, the car and the house. But, partner, I can’t even talk to you straight any more. It’s almost like you’re shut up in a little box.”
Rich felt like letting go of the tears that were fighting behind his eyes but instead of that he took a deep breath.
“We’ve been working together now for almost five years. We’ve been through a lot and what I really like about you is that you don’t put any pressure on me about not talking enough, not showing my feelings and all that crap that Lucy used to bombard me with. Please, Yolanda, don’t start doing that too.”
For the next twenty minutes there was nothing but two angry people and an icy silence in the car until they reached police headquarters in the old Civic Centre.
“He’s a monster without any signs of motivation and that’s one of the worst kinds.” Ray was talking to the task team in the operations room that had been set up for this case.
The official label for the case was The Lake Slayer.
Not very imaginative, Rich thought as he was listening to the somewhat mesmerising voice of the profiler. He was thinking about the argument with Yolanda in the car. He knew that he had hurt her with his heartless comparison to Lucy. And what she was saying was right: since the divorce he had changed. He felt less protected and sensitive to everything she said. As well as this he had been falling into the dream world more often than usual. Even though Wootara and the other spirits always had some kind of knowledge to help him find the perpetrators, he somehow felt they were also leading him onto a path, a path that he was not quite sure he wanted to follow.
Ray’s voice cut into his thoughts. “No, we don’t have much information at all. There is no DNA, no fingerprints and, as far as I understood what you have already said, no other clues as to who he is. But, anyway, let’s go through everything again. According to the autopsy report the murderer was left-handed, strong and between one ninety and two metres tall. You all agree that he might have some medical experience; he certainly knows how to use a scalpel. He has no apparent sexual motives, at least not physical. At this early stage all I can say is that he is an extremely disassociated person and has a disturbed sexual relationship to women. This could mean that he experienced a severely traumatic relationship to his mother – he either hated her intensely or had sexual encounters with her. He does some kind of fitness exercises, probably bodybuilding. Judging by the cut he must have crept up very close to her, meaning that he knows how to hunt or stalk. Lastly he has some kind of fixation on the lake. I´m afraid that there is not much more I can tell you all except that this man has no heart and no conscience and that makes him very, very dangerous.”
Nobody said a word but everybody was thinking the same thought.
“We will do everything we bloody well can to catch this bastard,” said Sarah, the chief of the forensics department. Her cheeks burnt a deep red as they often did when she had enough courage to open up her mouth.
Rich walked down to the water where the crime site was taped off; a constable was standing on the rocks looking out at the fountain in the middle of the lake that gave off a light mist and a rainbow.
“Rainbows are a sign of hope, constable, did you know that?”
“Ah, sorry, Detective Jones, I didn’t hear you coming. The ground is so soft and muddy here you can’t hear any footsteps at all.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s why the victim didn’t hear anything either.” Rich looked toward the depression in the ground where the corpse had been found.
“I am just going to be looking around to see if I can find anything, so just ignore me, okay?”
He turned towards the memory of blood and sadness that was burned into his brain and, jumping over the red and white tape, he walked slowly up to where the ground was marked with small pegs, each peg with a number. He went down on to his knees, closed his eyes and called Wootara.
“Every time a man injures or kills driven by hate he leaves a sign. This sign is sometimes hard to see but a good hunter can always find it if he opens his Yibidi, his intuition. Search the ground with your eyes closed using your right hand to lightly brush over the grass. The spirits of your fathers will do the rest. Trust yourself and you will find the answer.” Wootara’s voice blew away on the wind and Rich started searching the immediate area. He could feel the sun shining down on the back of his neck and the tips of the grass brushing against his hand. He heard only the deep stillness of silence and his mind was a void of light standing still in time. The first sound that he heard reminded him of bees buzzing around pollen-filled flowers in spring. It became louder and louder and all of a sudden it stopped, leaving a faint echo in the air. Richard opened his eyes and looked closely at the ground beneath his right hand. He could see something shining red, faintly sticking to the still wet grass. It looked like red dust. Very carefully he reached into his jacket pocket and pulling out a cellophane sample bag he carefully put the blades of grass with the trace of redness into it and closed it tight. He knew without a shadow of doubt that lying in his hand was the answer and a small tear tried to squeeze out of his eye. He ran back up the bank to his car, slammed the car door and drove out onto the road, leaving the constable still staring out at the rainbow, contemplating hope.
“Sarah, warm up the spectrometer. I have what looks like red dust we need to analyse now. And get Yolanda into your office and tell her to bring the Rhyme software archive for earth, dust and stones. I think we’ve got him!”
“Here it is, Rich, the only place where this type of dust is found is that old iron mine out at Ybarra Crossing, and there’s nothing out there except for a few abandoned huts and rusted up trucks and tractors – a perfect place for somebody to hide.”
They ran out to the car, followed by a team of special agents armed with rifles and Kevlar vests.
“You know what, Yolanda? You know what really pisses me off is that if we do apprehend him and he’s proven guilty his lawyer will with certainty plead insanity and he will live the rest of his life sucking milkshakes out on the lawn at the Royal Psychiatric Hospital in Geelong. People like that should be taken out of circulation permanently.”
“Yeah, I agree, Rich, but what interests me more is how did you know where to find that small trace of red dust? Our people went over the area with a fine toothcomb and then did it again! And then you go out there on your own, do some kind of magic trick and, abracadabra, dust particles materialise clinging to slender stalks of grass. It reminds me of other cases in the past where you had some kind of idea or intuition that led to us breaking the case. How do you do it?”
Rich turned to look at her, noticing her concentrating on the road, a frown hidden within her smile. He thought how beautiful she looked in the evening light.
“Let me explain all that to you some time over a glass or two of beer. I owe it to you. Now, keep your eyes on the road!”
They soon turned onto a track leading to the abandoned mine. They could see the red dust swirling up around the cars and transport vans. At the end of the track there stood an old house surrounded by a porch. Inside they could see light burning.
Everybody stood rooted to the spot. Inside the house they had found one large room, walls plastered with photos of the two young women who had been murdered. On a table there was a metal tray full of scalpels in different sizes. In one corner stood a nautilus exercise machine, on the floor next to it lay a dead man, blood flowing out of his mouth and nose. There was no apparent cause of death, no bullet holes, no knife slashes.
Yolanda knelt down and opened up his clenched fist. She saw a very small white bone broken in two. Lying beside his head she saw a small flat stone. It was painted with two circles. The circles were painted in blood.
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