If you stroll around Dunkerton long enough, you’re bound to find a dead body.
Ep 17: Like A Dunk To Water
It was eight on a Friday morning and I was awake, which was bad enough. But already being at work? Absolute murder.
Ha. That was a good one. Please look forward to me reusing it constantly.
The summer sun was doing its best to start a bushfire and the atmosphere was so thick you could pour it on pancakes. I pulled my white shirt away from my chest to try to get some air flowing through, but it didn’t do much good against the inescapable January heat. Perspiration dripped from my every crevice. There was enough sweat collecting below my tette to fill a swimming pool.
I took a deep breath of the sunscreen-laced air, the chemical smell clinging in my throat. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but at least it meant I couldn’t smell the BO of any of the tourists. Sometimes their odour was bad enough that you could literally taste it. The babble from today’s group bored into my brain, making the headache from my mild hangover even worse. At least my period was finito so I wouldn’t spend the entire day feeling like someone had kicked me repeatedly in the stomach and kidneys.
This shift I was giving my least favourite tour. The one that ended at the site where the Emu’s last victim was found, on the forest trail by the beach. Mostly all the discussion of murder and crime scenes didn’t bother me, but the rainforest gave me the heebie-jeebies. You never knew what was lurking amongst the trees, be it serial killer or serial urinator. Either way, it wasn’t someone I wanted to spend time with.
The designated meeting place for the tour group was outside the offices of The Dunkerton Daily, our local paper and one of the least ethical journalistic enterprises in the country. The tourists were thrilled just to be here at the sight of the infamous Front Page Flayer’s first crime. I was less excited. I’d briefly dated one of the guys who worked here, and you know what that means. He was a bag of scum. The kind of green scum that grows on top of stagnant pools of water, in case you want a visual.
Needless to say, I didn’t want to run into him, and definitely not while wearing this outfit. He’d love it. I needed to get this show on the road as quickly as possible.
With as much fake enthusiasm as I could muster, I checked tickets. My face had morphed into some version of a smile, though I probably looked more like a plasticine model that had been dropped on the ground.
Then I heard a familiar voice from behind me. “Morning.”
Not pond-scum ex, thankfully, though I probably should have been even more cautious around this guy.
I exhaled, turning slowly. If Cash kept up with his campaign of annoyance, his voice was going to lose its ‘did I just develop incontinence or is that – oh wow’ effect on me and my underwear.
“It is morning,” I replied flatly. “You’ve got a good eye.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Not a fan of the early shift?”
“Not a fan of any shift.”
“If you don’t like working here, I’ve got a great solution for you.”
“Cash…” I began, but I trailed off when he handed me a warm travel mug. It was baby blue, printed with palm trees and hibiscus flowers. “You brought me coffee?”
“I did.”
I eyed the cup suspiciously.
Cash raised an eyebrow at me. “What, do you think I slipped something in it?”
“Well, I do now.”
His lips curled into a smile. “You got me. I asked them to add vanilla syrup.”
I frowned at him. “How did you know my order?”
Cash smiled, the corners of his eyes wrinkling in a way that had me momentarily questioning whether he was really as bad as I kept telling myself he was. Damn it. I needed to stop doubting his arseholishness. He was a terrible person and this was all a ruse. I knew better than to judge a book by its cover. The outside might be gold embossed and promise a life-long favourite, but inside it was a text on summoning demons. “You post to social media about your coffee a lot.”
“You checked my social media? Exactly how extensively did you rifle through my metaphorical drawers?” I paused. “I mean drawers as in furniture, not the kind of drawers I’m wearing under these shorts. Or mostly under these shorts. I’m sure some part of them is hanging out the bottom.”
He looked at me for a moment, amused and confused. Not the worst combo of feelings I could bring out in someone. Though it did seem likely he wouldn’t be rifling through my pink spotty drawers any time soon.
“When you work for me you’re going to be doing social media for the podcast, so I spent a while checking you out.”
Checking me out? Maybe he did want to take a look at my drawers.
With a faux-casual shrug, I tucked my hair behind one ear. “You can have a closer look after the tour if you like.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “If you come back to my place, I’ll show you my studio.”
My pulse picked up at his offer. “Do you want to check out my… references?”
“Already have,” he said in a low voice. “Extensively.”
I swallowed thickly. “And?”
“They were highly favourable.”
A bolt of electricity shot through my tummy. “Stop, you’re making me blush.”
“I’m sure you can handle it.”
I was suddenly kind of breathless as I realised how close we were standing. Had I moved nearer to him? Him to me? Both? “Are we still talking about the job?”
“We are.”
Damn.
“Pity.” I took a sip of the coffee, though if I thought that was going to help me cool down I was sorely mistaken. “Vanilla’s nice, but for future reference, before a Friday shift I’d prefer you add whisky.”
“I’ll bear that in mind when you come to work for me.”
“You’re ignoring some strong red flags in this hiring process.” I took another sip of the coffee. “Is this from Flamingo Joe’s?”
“It is.”
“You’re dangerously close to making me swoon.”
“Would it help if I said something to make you dislike me?”
“Maybe, but just a warning, if you’re planning to be mean to me it could have the opposite effect.”
He tilted his head, studying me while that ever-present smile stayed on his lips. His delicious, delicious lips. “I don’t think there’s any danger of that.”
“Say it, then.”
“I spoke to Phil earlier.”
I blinked at him. “Wow, you’re right. That was like a verbal cold shower.” At the mention of my current boss, I think I might have actually heard my vagina clamp shut. I’d have to ask Cash to confirm. “He’s already up? That’s unlike him.”
“I don’t think he’d gone to sleep yet.”
“On a Thursday night?” I nodded. “Sounds about right. What did you talk to him about?”
“I offered him a bribe to fire you.”
For a moment I stared at him, genuinely speechless. “And how did that go?” I croaked when I’d finally remembered how to speak.
“He turned me down, but he’s thinking about my counter-offer.”
“Are you for real?”
“I am.”
I stepped back to put some distance between us, shaking my head in disbelief, mouth hanging open. “You’re worse than pond scum.”
“I’m not sure what that means.”
I put one hand on my hip. (I would have done both, but I was still holding the coffee he’d brought me. Probably meant as another bribe, since now I knew he wasn’t above that sort of thing.) “You would seriously get me fired so I’d have to take a job with you?”
“Have you listened to my podcast?”
I didn’t answer the question. Obviously I had, and now that he’d asked, I kind of got his point. He was tenacious – and perhaps slightly underhand – when it came to exposing killers. I guess his recruitment strategies were similarly ruthless.
“Are you trying to make me hate you?”
He tilted his head, though I don’t think my reaction actually surprised him. He still seemed to be finding this whole thing funny. “I thought we were getting along quite well.”
“You’re bribing my boss to fire me.” I gave an exaggerated shrug. “You see how maybe I’d be put out by that, right?”
“You won’t come to work for me because you’re worried it will upset your friend. But if you get fired, he can’t begrudge you taking another job, even if it is with me.” He said it like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. “A much better job, where you can stay in the air conditioning all day.”
I huffed. “I admit, the air conditioning is tempting, but I don’t want to gloss over the fact that you’re trying to get me fired.”
“You don’t even like this job.” He nodded at me. “Look at you. You’re miserable.”
“That seems unnecessarily rude.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Am I wrong?”
“Maybe I’m just like this when you’re around.”
He narrowed one eye, studying me. Still half-fucking-smiling. “I don’t think so. You seemed happy enough when I invited you back to my place.”
I glared in return. “That’s because I thought it was a social invitation.”
“Which proves my point. If you’re happy to hang out socially, then you must like me at least a little. I think we’d work well together.”
I wished I was a more violent person. Then I might be able to bring myself to throw the cup of coffee in his smug face.
“I know I’m not exactly putting my degree to good use as a semi-dressed murder tour guide, but here’s the thing.” I leaned in, giving him a tight, fake smile. “I care a lot more about my friendships than where I work, which means I’m never going to use Jed just so I can have a better job.”
He shook his head. “I honestly didn’t know you lived with him when I first contacted you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Like I’m going to believe that. Now, thanks for the coffee, but I’ve got to get to work. Try not to annoy me on the tour or I’ll expose your identity to all these true crime fanatics and you’ll spend the whole time signing I Anatomically-Correct-Heart Dunkerton T-shirts and arguing over cold cases. ”
“Ruthless,” he replied with a grin. “I like it.”
Ignoring him for the sake of my blood pressure, I turned and called everyone’s attention to me, putting on my best spooky voice as I gave the tour introduction. To be honest, my face at this time of morning was probably scaring people more than anything I was saying about the murder sites we were going to visit, but it all added to the ambience.
“In 1946, Egbert Sheety made the news when he used the printing press in this very building to publish his recipe for lamingtons… on the skin he’d ripped from his first victim’s dead body. You might know Egbert better by his other name – the Front Page Flayer.”
Insert gasps of awe.
Cash kept his distance throughout the morning, listening politely to whatever I said. He was a model tour-goer. He even glared coldly at the know-it-all Margaret until she stopped interrupting me at every crime scene to blurt out random facts. Maybe I should be the one offering him a job. I could use a full-time glarer. Too bad it would mean spending more time with him.
I guided the group through the stabbing fields of Sweaty Pete Switchblade, herded them past the aviary of the Budgie Smuggler, stopped so we could all have a pastry at the bakery where the Four Pies Killer had worked (and disposed of victims in the most delicious way), and hustled toward the beach where the Chummer had fed his four wives to bull sharks.
Seventy-two minutes after liftoff, the tiny shorts of my tour guide uniform were riding up my arse and my thighs were rubbing together in a way that told me I hadn’t put on nearly enough anti-chafe cream before starting my shift. I had to walk with that weird wide-legged gait you take on when you’re trying to keep your thighs from making out so furiously they give each other pash rash. Despite the impending thigh fire, I did my best to pretend everything was totally normal as I led the gaggle of murder obsessives down to the shore.
It was a pretty typical east-coast Aussie beach – perfect pale sand, water so blue it looked like it had been dyed, seagulls soaring overhead as they surveyed the land with their beady eyes, looking for some fool who’d left their food unguarded. The sand was peppered with the stripy beach towels and shucked thongs of swimmers and surfers. Foam fizzed and water splashed as kids in legionnaire hats (those caps with a mullet) played in the shallows, screaming in delighted terror as the surf nipped at their ankles.
“We’ve nearly reached the place you’ve all been waiting for,” I announced to the tour group in my best spooky voice. “The site where they found the first victim of the notorious serial killer known only as the Emu.”
Personally, I think I was doing pretty well to not sound creeped out. This was it – the stop on the tour that I hated. We were trudging towards a secluded spot where the forest backed on to the beach, away from the houses and the township. It bordered the national park and wasn’t a great place for swimming or surfing with all the rocks, so it was usually empty, other than when murder enthusiasts stopped by.
We hadn’t reached the crime scene yet, but just being close seemed to be enough for these people. They let out oohs and aahs as they snapped pictures on their phones, some taking it in turns to lie on the sand, pretending to be a corpse so they could get their holiday pictures to post online.
Margaret, who was wearing a Knife to meet you T-shirt, completed her charming dead body photo and climbed to her feet, power-walking to catch up to me. “I bet I know more about the Emu than you. I’ve been obsessed with him for years. Do you know, you’re actually –”
“Exactly the Emu’s type,” I finished, trying not to sound as annoyed as I felt. “I’ve heard that once or twice before.”
Actually it felt more like several thousand times, including whenever I went to a bar. So every night. ‘Hey, little lady. You know, you’re just the kind of chick the Emu would bundle into the boot of his car before performing a weird occult ritual on your lifeless body in the dead of the night.’
I don’t know what they expected in reply. Golly, you’re so charming, take me now! But people couldn’t help but tell me. It was a compulsion. I was reasonably sure that was how I’d ended up with this job in the first place. Well, that and the fact that I had boobs.
Margaret seemed upset that I’d known what she was about to say and slowed her walking speed so she could go back to her group of friends and compare corpse shots. Cash decided to take that opportunity to bother me again. Maybe he was getting sad that he hadn’t had the chance to annoy me in over an hour.
“I’m not changing my mind,” I said flatly, keeping my eyes focused in front of me. I didn’t want the sight of his face undermining my anger.
“I haven’t even said anything yet.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe you’re trying to get me fired.”
“I’m not trying that hard.”
I glared at him, forgetting about his face’s magical powers. Luckily I was angry enough that they didn’t seem to be working. “That makes it worse! You can’t even be bothered putting in effort because you assume it won’t take much for Phil to get rid of me.”
“You can’t be insulted. I’m doing all this so that you’ll come to work for me.”
“Not because you think I have skills.”
He smiled. “Because I know you have skills.”
“Jed’s not going to share details of his cases with me.”
“Great. Now that you’ve told me that, you have nothing to worry about. I still want to hire you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I don’t believe you.”
“There’s one easy way to find out. Come work for me, and when I don’t ask you to abuse your friendship you’ll know I was telling the truth.”
I sighed, officially exhausted by this conversation. Right now I had other things on my mind. “Cash, can we talk about something else? We’re coming up on my least favourite part of the tour and arguing with you is making me even more jittery.”
He frowned. “None of the other sites bothered you. What is it about this one?”
“You’ve been here before, right?”
“I have.”
“Seen pictures of her body?”
“A couple.”
“Then do you really need to ask why I find this place so creepy?”
He didn’t push, but I got the sense he suspected there was more to the story.
I shivered as we reached the trail that led amongst the palms and buttress roots, towards the bridge where the Emu’s victim had been displayed. Most people thought the rainforests around Dunkerton were beautiful, with their lush greens and their wildlife. All I could think about when I came in here were the dead bodies and unmarked graves fertilising the vines. The wet leaves of a fern brushed against my arm and I yelped, yanking away before I realised it was a plant playing a prank on me. Argh. I was officially past my spine-chill quota for the day.
Cash stopped walking abruptly, putting his hand in front of me to stop me too. “That’s a dead body.”
“No, that’s Margaret pretending to be dead for some holiday pics,” I said, stepping around him.
“Not her. Her facial expressions are not at all convincing.” He caught up to me easily and nodded to something among the trees ahead of us. “Up there.”
“Are you trying to creep me out because you saw I was getting anxious? That is super low, Cash. Even for you.”
“It does sound like something I would do, but no. Look.”
“All I see is darkness.”
“Poetic.”
“But true.” I patted his arm. His lovely firm arm. “Maybe your mind is playing tricks on you. It happens a lot on these tours – I get at least three ghost sightings a week.” Nevertheless, I continued scanning the road before us in case a cadaver popped out. You never knew in the Dunks.
He kept his gaze ahead, brow furrowed. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt it.”
“Is that your motto in life?”
“It is.”
“You sound like a great guy to work for.” I frowned as we rounded the corner, finally seeing what he was talking about. My stomach dropped so far it practically ended up on the gravel. “Oh, fuck.”
Cash was right. There was a dead body ahead, lashed to the bridge.
She was wearing a white dress, long enough that I could barely see her toes poking out from underneath it. He’d arranged her like he always did. Strung upright, like she was floating. Behind her, sticks and emu feathers had been fashioned into a crude circle. The nest, the psychologists called it. The rest of the world just called it sick.
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t lead a tour group to a fresh body. Either they’d run screaming or they’d take photos to post online for clout. Not to mention they’d likely trample the scene and ruin evidence. Jed would be pissed. He was forever complaining about people not handling crime scenes correctly and making his job a million times harder.
I was starting to feel a little lightheaded. The Emu was killing again. He was here, in town, stalking the streets, leaving women in the forest. Hanging them up for all to see. I knew I had to do something, but I couldn’t concentrate. How could I get everyone out of here without tipping them off about a dead body?
My breath was coming fast and hard, stars dancing in my eyes. “We need to – get them – out of here.”
“You need to slow down your breathing,” Cash replied calmly. “I’ll deal with them.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance.
Know-it-all Margaret had spotted the woman on the bridge. With a scream of delight, she ran around me and towards the crime scene.
“There’s a dead body up there!”
“Wait –” I croaked, but she didn’t listen. Neither did most of the other tourists.
They rushed around me and bounded towards the corpse like a stampede of kangaroos, whipping their phones out on the way. Cash’s warnings about compromising evidence did absolutely nothing to dissuade them. They’d smelled blood, and they were going to sink their teeth in, consequences be damned – exactly like a mob of kangaroos.
(Trust me, I’m Australian. I know what I’m talking about.)
Cash managed to make it to the front of the pack and turned, stopping the tourists with just the look on his face. “If any of you take so much as one photo, I’ll string you up on this bridge myself.”
Even Margaret lowered her phone.
“The tour’s over.” Everyone grumbled, but Cash managed to silence them with a single eyebrow raise. I needed to master that move. “Walk down the trail to the beach and turn left to get back to town.”
No one seemed happy about it, but they listened to him more than they ever had to me. I wondered if it was his height or his lack of tette that afforded him that level of respect.
“Are you okay?” he asked when we were alone. “You can leave if –”
“I’m fine. I was overwhelmed at first, but I’m alright now.” I stared at the body, unable to tear my eyes away.
“You should call Dr Chen and tell him about this.”
I nodded, pulling my phone out of my pocket and ringing Jed. It wasn’t a long conversation.
“He’s on his way,” I said when I’d hung up.
Cash made a sound of acknowledgment, but like me his attention was consumed by the corpse.
There was something strange here. The longer I stared at it, the more I thought the scene seemed a little… off. I guess there were a lot of things off on a fundamental level, but it was more than that. This didn’t look right.
The branches forming the nest hadn’t been woven together. The whole thing was a bit dodgy, actually. It had been a few years since the Emu had made his last nest, so maybe he was out of practice. But that wasn’t the only thing wrong. The woman looked kind of… bent out of shape.
I took a few steps closer. Yes. She was definitely wonky. And maybe – wet?
That wasn’t part of his MO. She was strung up over a river, so maybe he’d dropped her in the water before he had the chance to secure her properly. Maybe he was getting old and his upper body strength wasn’t what it used to be. I took a few more steps. If I could get a better look…
But when I got closer to the body, close enough to see her face, my legs gave out.
I knew that face. My friend’s face.
It was Lisa.
As I knelt there like I was praying, staring up at the woman in the white dress, my phone buzzed in my hand. I glanced down at it, dazed, and saw the message lighting up the screen. It was from Phil.
I was fired.
What a fantastic morning.