Body in the Gorge (Cockatoo Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) (5 page)

He pulled up a chair. “May I sit.” We both nodded “Yes My name is George and this is my place, I don’t usually prepare the food but my cook bailed on me this morning, he told me he had to talk to the Police, something about a missing niece.”

“Oh my goodness I hope it wasn’t her! Lunch was delicious by the way.” I grinned in memory of the great food.

Becca frowned, “is everyone remembering family and friends who are missing? We have quite a list ourselves and we are not locals.”

George’s brows drew down and he stared out at the squabbling lorikeets. “You know I’ve been here for fifteen years now and I’ve never thought about it before but there are a lot of young people who leave or disappear and are never seen again in Central Queensland. I do remember when Luke’s niece left he was very upset with her because we just assumed she left with a boyfriend, she did have an argument with Luke about her choice of boyfiend the day before she left. He hasn’t heard from her since. We have a lot of backpackers from overseas work here and we don’t expect these young people to stay very long. Its also not unusual in country areas for the young ones to leave, most of them would just move to the city for school or work, but there does seem to be too many who never contact their family again. Where are they? Well on that sobering thought I’d better get back to the kitchen.”

He pushed himself up and moved surprisingly quickly, for a big man, back to the kitchen. I lingered over my drink not in a hurry to leave. The sun came out from behind the clouds so Becca took her camera over to the pond to get some close-up shots of the birds.

The young waitress came back. “Do you want anything else?”

I took in her fresh vibrant looks, the sunlight shone on her long blonde hair, I shivered, thinking of the young woman who lay out in the forest for so many years. I looked at her name tag, “no thanks Tammy the lunch was lovely. What is the name of your chef?”

She frowned, “the chef’s name is Luke Dane but he isn’t here today, George cooked the lunch.”

I helped her gather the plates. “Oh yes George said Luke had a missing niece.”

Tammy paused glad to put off the clearing job for a few minutes. “Yes his brother’s kid, apparently she worked here about five years ago, it was before I came here. I hope it’s not her for Luke’s sake.”

Becca came back from the pond. “Are you ready to go?”

We made our way back to the caravan. Becca yawned, “I’m going to lie down on the bed with a book.”

I pulled out my paints and art supplies and set up my easel on the table under the awning outside the caravan. I wanted to do a quick Carnarvon Gorge painting whilst I was still here. When I’m painting I get in a zone and time passes by. At one stage I could hear snoring coming from the caravan but after that nothing else distracted me and the afternoon slipped by. Even the shower of rain did not distract me. I suddenly stepped back from the painting and gasped. I had included the crime scene in my painting. I began the painting with the moss garden with the hanging moss and ferns, it was the prominent subject taking up half the painting, behind it I had included the Gorge cliffs and waterfall with the creek cascading down the rocks, but to the right of the painting I had included the rocky outcrop where the body was found and the wallaby and echidna were hidden in there too.

The caravan door opened and Becca leaned out “Time for a wine?” I just nodded and put away my brushes and paints. The last of the sun’s rays caught my painting as we sat sipping our wine in front of it.

Becca suddenly jumped up she pointed to part of the painting “Who’s that?”

I looked closer and exclaimed, “I don’t know.”

We both stared at the face of a young attractive woman.

I was dumbfounded. “Well I guess I must have been thinking of the victim, I didn’t even plan to paint the burial site. I started out painting the moss garden as you can see.” I indicated the moss and ferns, Just then the sun caught the back part of the painting of the canyon walls, another face looked at me it was not as distinct but definitely a masculine face this time.

I shivered “Look.” I whispered to Becca “Can you see him?”

Becca gave a little scream. “You’ve painted the killer as well. Do you think her ghost was trying to show you?”

I rubbed my arms I had goosebumps “No, its just my artistic vision of it all, who knows what they look like!”

Becca crossed her arms “Well two people know and one of them is dead.”

The next morning we rose early again, we’d be getting used to this soon, I was kidding myself. Becca wanted to take photos of the wild platypus and I was eager to see the painting in the morning light, convinced we were seeing things last night. But one look at the painting and I could see the faces still there, it was like a dot painting used in colour blindness tests, once you know the image was there it was obvious,, unless you are colour blind of course.

As I was sitting contemplating things over a cup of coffee. Madge walked past, she stopped when she saw me and approached me. “You’re up early have you special plans today? She turned and looked at the painting “This is lovely it really shows the spirit of the Gorge.” She stood there admiring it for a minute then took a closer look. “There’s a face here that is interesting, you know that reminds me of Sally the girl I was telling you about that went missing.” Madge looked at me did you see a photo of her?”

My mouth dropped I was astounded, “I didn’t even know I had painted her I had no idea what she looked like, my style is semi abstract and I just basically throw paint around until I’m happy I don’t usually include people. Its a bit weird isn’t it?”

We both stared back at the painting, I pointed at the other face “What about this one is he familiar too?”

Madge stepped back this time to get a longer view. “I see him, he’s not as clear is he. No I don’t recognize him.” Madge looked a bit uncomfortable. “You know if you paint some more of the Gorge maybe without the faces I would love some small prints to sell in the shop.”

I smiled, “I’d love to, I certainly intended to paint more of Carnavon once I get back to my studio. I can email you.”

Madge looked at the painting again, “speaking of Sally I gave the police her toiletries which she left behind it included a hair brush in case they needed DNA. I’d better get on I have a lot of jobs to get through this morning. Bye for now.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Meeting Cracker

Emma’s property was not far away so as soon as Becca had drunk her second cup of coffee. We headed that way and arrived by mid-morning. She came out of a side gate to greet us. Around her shoulder hung a knitted bag and when she stopped two ears poked up and two brown eyes peered at us. Becca and I were entranced by the furry baby.

“This is ‘Magpie” she’s actually a Whiptail Wallaby otherwise known as Pretty faced Wallaby.” Emma said as she tipped the wallaby gently out of the bag onto the grass.

Becca moved in with the ever present camera. “Well you can see why these wallabies have that name she is very pretty.”

“Magpie still needs milk, but she is starting to eat grass now.” Emma explained.

A loud screeching call sounded from the nearby shed, Emma moved over there with Magpie hopping behind her trying to keep up. We followed to see what made such a loud noise. In a large bird cage on the bench, Becca and I peered in at the comical bird perched in there, It was a black cockatoo chick his beak was wide open begging for food, he had a lot of black feather stubs but still sprouted white down feathers all over and spikes of these white feathers still stuck straight out of the top of his head just like a little punk.

“This cockatoo is another one that needs feeding regularly, we have one more black cockatoo in the bigger aviary outside, that one can feed itself. When this one is weaned we’ll put them together for a while before we release them.”

As we walked around the aviaries and sheds I could see there was a lot of work involved in feeding and housing these animals.

“Do you get much help?” I moved over to a small aviary with a white cockatoo who lifted his yellow crest and piped, “Hello.”

Emma opened the cage and the cocky hopped on to her shoulder, “I do get some help from volunteers and from time to time I get enough cash donations for me to pay a school kid to come out and help out. This cheeky fellow is Cracker he broke his wing, but by the time he was found the injury was days old, the vet couldn’t restore much movement in the wing. He is now in permanent care.”

Cracker did a little dance bobbing up and down, then jumped onto my shoulder, he is clearly a show-off. It was lucky I was wearing a denim shirt his claws are very sharp.

Emma stopped walking and turned to me. “He really likes you he doesn’t usually go to other people.”

We walked to the back room where a range of seed bags and bins were kept, most of them were nearly empty. Emma showed us the large variety of feeds needed when you care for so many different birds and animals. Come and have a cup of coffee and I’ll show you some photos I took of the animals I’ve already released back into the wild. We headed for her house. With coffee and biscuits in front of us we chatted idly about the refuge and admired the photos. Cracker was still on my shoulder so I fed him a bit of biscuit he took in in his claw and daintily nibbled on it.

Emma frowned, “you remember that earring we found yesterday I handed it in to the police but they didn’t seem impressed with the fact the Wallaby found it, they said it could have been caught in his fur anywhere and a tourist probably lost it. I have been thinking, it reminds me of the earrings one of my former helpers always used to wear. Yes, young Amy always wore earrings like that one, she told me her boyfriend gave them to her. But she left home a long time ago, I know her Grandmother misses her.”

Becca looked up at Emma. “Would that be Amy Brown?”

Emma was surprised. “Yes, how did you know?”

Becca picked up her camera and moved in for a close up of the cocky. “Oh we ran into her in town at the cafe, had a little chat until her family took her away.”

Emma nodded. “Her son doesn’t like Amelia chatting to people about the family, makes you wonder sometimes what he has to hide, but I think he’s actually just a control freak.”

Becca brought the conversation back. “So you think the earring may have been Amy’s?”

“Well I couldn’t swear to it, but the earring certainly reminded me of Amy, but I’m sure she left with her boyfriend, she told me her plans in confidence because she didn’t want to leave me short handed when she disappeared.”

After morning coffee Becca and I completed our tour and headed for our car.

I turned to Emma and gave her an envelope “Thanks for showing us around. Here’s a donation, hopefully it will help with the cost of some food I wish we could do more.”

Emma looked at us. “If you really mean that and have some spare time come and stay here for a while you could park your caravan over by the worker’s huts there is a toilet and shower over there, in exchange for some help with the animals you can stay for free. How does that sound?”

I looked at Becca, we both nodded and smiled. “We would love too, our plans are not set in concrete, we just planned to head for the coast next but we are not in a hurry.”

After arranging to bring our caravan to Emma’s place tomorrow we waved and headed out the drive. I pulled my notebook out of my bag. “I think Amy Brown could go to the top of our victim list she sounds like a responsible person who wouldn’t leave her Grandmother grieving for no reason.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Off to Emma's place

When we arrived back at camp we were surprised to find Troy back early and waiting for us. “I’ve some news, I bumped into Chris, that’s Constable Mathews, we are cousins by marriage, anyway they have a hit on the DNA. I’m sorry to say that it seems the body is Sally Cook who used to work here at the caravan park she did not get far when she walked out. Now of course the Police are trying to find the boyfriend. I can’t remember his name he only worked here on and off. That is why the detectives are back, they are looking at Madge’s records seems no one knows much about him.”

“If he only worked part time here where else did he work?” I prompted as we all sat down.

Troy pondered, “I think he may have helped out the helicopter mechanic sometimes and he did odd jobs on the properties around here, he certainly moved from one place to another frequently. Sally was the only one who stayed here for six months or more.”

Becca looked sad. “What if Sally is not the only victim, there seem to be a lot of missing young women from this area. Sally was buried in a remote spot if the echidna hadn’t partly dug her up she may never have been found. What if there are others buried in the wilderness.”

Troy shrugged his shoulders. “Well we cannot make a serial killer pattern out of one body. The most likely candidate is the boyfriend, the police just have to find him.”

I rose to go and make some sandwiches for a late lunch and to give Troy and Becca some time to themselves Troy still had time off work.

As we sat munching on the sandwiches Troy returned to the main topic. “I spoke to my jeweller friend Joe and showed him the photo of the necklace, he recognized it, Joe made it about seven years ago he said. He made six similar sets of necklace and earrings, Joe remembers them especially as he sold them all to one man. That is a big sale for a Sunday market stall and he was paid in cash. Unfortunately he can’t remember what the man looked like other than he was a youngish man and there is no paper trail we can follow as it was a cash transaction. So a dead end really if you’ll excuse the pun!”