Turtle Island (28 page)

Georgina could see Korjca's sister and mother standing with
Barbara's cameraman, John Keller. The sister was talking with him.
They seemed to be conversing with ease.

‘She speaks English?’ Georgina asked, nodding toward Anna
Piekarska.

‘She wants to meet you.’

Georgina looked puzzled. ‘Why?’

‘She has Korjca's diary.’

Georgina looked at Korjca's sister. The likeness between the
two sisters was uncanny, the only discernable difference being
Anna's slender frame and thinner face. Anna turned her attention
from the cameraman and looked toward Georgina as though she sensed
she was being scrutinised. No attempt at acknowledging the
detective’s presence was made by Anna; she just studied her with
cold eyes.

‘I want to speak to her in private.’ Georgina added. ‘At a
neutral locale, not the police station.’

‘She’s staying at the Meridian.’

Georgina couldn’t disguise her surprise, her eyes raised
almost involuntarily

‘It’s all part of the deal. We paid her and her mother’s
flight, accommodation and expenses.’

‘In return for?’

‘Oh, purely altruistic reason’s.’

‘Yeah those; and the exclusive rights to their
story.’

Barbara smiled. ‘Well...we’re not a charity honey.’

There was something about the smile, which got to Georgina. It
hit a nerve. Maybe it was the first time that she had witnessed the
true reporter in Barbara Dace.

A car honked its horn. Both women turned to find Leroy
entering the car park.

‘Which room?’ Georgina asked.

‘4072. Fourth floor.’ Barbara looked at her watch. ‘Shall I
say about three?’

Something brushed passed her legs. Something soft. It woke
her. Jo-Lynn opened her eyes and the light nearly blinded her, at
some stage he had returned and lit the room. She blinked rapidly in
succession trying to get the pupils to adjust to the startling
glare. She felt the thing brush past her again. Then felt its claws
dig into her leg. Small wiry fingers clamped onto her skin, then
clawed its way up her leg. She felt the tail sweep, in its rear
guard action, confirming what she didn’t want to know. Jo-Lynn
looked down and stared in to the rat’s beady eyes. The water
clinging to its body only added to the revulsion that she felt.
Inside her head she was screaming. Her throat was screaming but all
that emitted was a dull muffled sound, which barely reached the
tape that gagged her. She jerked her legs to try to dislodge it,
moving them as violently as she could. The rat clung on, then made
a run across her nightdress. She felt the tiny wet feet dance over
her. The talon like nails piercing the flimsy material, making
contact with her bare skin. Jo-Lynn jerked her body with all the
force she could muster. The chair rocked side to side, nearly
overbalancing. The prospect of falling back in to the water, now
swimming with rats, - at least so in her imagination - made her
straighten, forcing the chair to stabilise.

The rat clung on unconcerned and continued to walk over her.
The matted fur moved with its body exposing pink flesh.

Jo-Lynn tried to shake the unremitting rodent from her. It
seemed unaware of her presence almost nonchalant. The rat climbed
to her collarbone and sat. Its nose sniffing the air, Jo-Lyn
continued to struggle but the mammal would not dislodge. The fear
that the rat would sink its yellow teeth into her petrified her.
She imagined its teeth tearing at her cheek, gnawing down to the
bone. Ripping away flesh, tearing skin in strips, like old
wallpaper.

Jo-Lynn took a deep breath and threw her weight with all the
force she could muster to her left. She was still screaming inside
when she hit the water. The rat leapt from her shoulder and dived
into the murky water, swimming away unconcerned. It's poor sighted
eyes searching for the next landmass to anchor itself to. Jo-Lynn's
right hand instinctively tried to reach her face. Her head was
still submerged under the water but suddenly she realised her right
arm was free. The tape began to unravel. She pulled frantically.
The claustrophobia of her situation was overwhelming. Her hand then
began to tug at the tape around her chest and shoulders. The air in
her lungs seemed to be expanding, the pressure pushing up through
her chest. She wanted to breathe. Her left arm just as suddenly
freed itself; Jo-Lynn turned her body so she was facing down, her
eyes bulging with fear. This was not how she wanted to die, not
now, when she was so close to freeing herself. She pushed up,
tipping her head back, hoping that the water would be shallow
enough to allow her to break the surface and breathe. She could
feel air on her face and exhaled knowing that if she was wrong it
may be her last breath. The air rushed in through her mouth and
nose. She breathed again and for a moment waited while she regained
control, before submerging once more and turning. Her hands ripped
at the tape that bound her legs. One of her nails bent back
snapping under the force of her actions but she seemed oblivious to
the pain as the nail detached from the skin underneath. Her legs
began to kick. Anger began to combat frustration. She pulled one
leg free and pushed down on the chair with it until her left leg
also became free. Jo-Lynn pulled herself away and rolled onto her
stomach, crawling forward on all fours, lifting her head and
gulping in huge amounts of air, her mind was screaming obscenities.
She turned around and sat up, her hands now pulling the last of the
thick tape from her mouth and arms. She could barely take in enough
air to her lungs. The water lapped around her shoulders, murky
brown with a greenish hue. For the first time Jo-Lynn smelled the
stagnant odour of it. The effort of her struggle had left her
totally exhausted and for a moment she just sat there, trying to
collect her strength and thought's.

The rat swam by looking for an island to inhabit in the water
world. The sight of it no longer bothered Jo-Lynn; she was too
tired to care, there was no sense of elation or freedom, she was
still trapped. Jo-Lynn tried to stand, her legs unsure and weak
beneath her body weight. A wave of nausea passed over her and for a
moment she thought she was going to be sick. She crouched down, and
then knelt in the water steadying herself with her hands pressed
forward on the floor. She cast her gaze around her cell for the
first time. Her chair was lying upturned in the water, its hind
legs emerging through the water. Graffiti daubed the walls along
with newspaper cuttings and Polaroid images. Another seat was in
the centre of the room. Unoccupied. There was no sign of Rick or
her son. The thought that she might have been left, abandoned,
occupied her mind for a few seconds but she dismissed it. If that
were what had happened she reasoned to herself, then she would have
to be more than resourceful to escape. A head filled with panic
would not be helpful.

The hotel rooms in the Meridian Hotel were a cut above
Georgina's dingy motel room. Slightly more than thirty bucks a
night she thought to herself. She was apprehensive about meeting
Korjca's sister. She had left Leroy back at the police station
trying to run the photographs against a huge data bank. A fruitless
job which both of them knew held no chance of success. Nobody
seemed out of place at the funeral. In fact there was only seven
faces that Leroy did not know, most of the mourners coming from
Rick's immediate circle of friends, colleagues and families. Of the
seven, two were Korjca's sister and mother. Leaving just five
faces. The five that Leroy was now trying to put names to through
police and FBI records.

The bellboy asked Georgina which floor she would
like.

She entered the lift.

‘Fourth floor, room 4072.’ She smiled at the youth dressed
nattily in a dark suit and crisp white shirt with an immaculately
tied black bow tie. His hair was sort and extremely neat, held in
place with hair lacquer or gel. Georgina guessed the bellboy was in
his late teens, probably his first job. The doors closed, and there
was an embarrassing silence. There was neither sense of motion in
the lift nor any sound to betray its machination, only the red LED
display silently changing between floors. 2...3...4... the doors
opened.

‘4072 is right along the end of the corridor through the
double doors, ma’am.’

Another dilemma. Does she tip? She chose not to, merely
smiling and saying a feeble 'Thank you’ as she exited. She could
feel the flush of embarrassment rise from her chest, up her neck
and through the now reddened cheeks of her face. She hated
servitude.

The plush deep pile carpets absorbed any sound her shoes would
make. Modern art paintings adorned the walls at intermittent
spaces, mostly collisions of colour, abstract. Georgina thought she
could discern shapes or outlines but wondered if the paintings were
nothing more than colourful Rorschach inkblots. She pushed the
double doors and they opened with silent ease. Everything about the
hotel seemed to be geared toward noise reduction or total
silence.

4069. She was close; her sweating palms had converted to a
nervous stomach. She wanted to know the diary's contents. Georgina
felt that somewhere within the pages were the answers to questions
that she has asked herself during the solitude of night and space.
4072. A deep breath, before knocking.

As he suspected the photographs drew a blank, Leroy leaned
back in his chair stretching the muscles in his lower back, too
much sitting down in the job, too much driving, too much pen
pushing and too many hours spent in front of flickering VDU's spent
doing futile searches. He wanted to ring Lia. The photograph of Lia
at Karl Frost's served as a painful reminder to what he once had,
undervalued and subsequently lost. He fumbled through his pockets
for the scrap of paper, which had Lia's aunt's phone number. The
phone ringing halted his search. Leroy picked it up.

‘Hel-lo. Leroy LaPortiere?’ Leroy didn't recognise the voice
at the other end of the line, a woman from the FBI forensic
laboratory. ‘Hello, Mr LaPortiere. My name is Judy Wells. Agent
Georgina O’Neil sent a tooth, with reference to the investigation
that she's undertaking.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘We have made a match. Is she there?’

‘Nope. She's out for a few hours.’

‘Well, she asked me to pass the information on to you as soon
as we found anything, if she was unavailable.’

‘Okay.’ He placed a pencil on the jotter pad in front of him
ready to write down the information.

‘The tooth belongs to, or rather belonged to a Jordan Montoya
from Chicago. She was killed in a car crash. The tooth matches DNA
from her medical records and is a match from her dental
records.’

The nib of Leroy's pencil began to bow under pressure and
snapped backwards.

Georgina shouldn't have been surprised to be greeted by
Barbara Dace. The reporter showed her into the hotel
room.

‘Bang on time, Agent O’Neil.’

‘Don't like to waste tax payer's money.’ Georgina replied
curtly.

Anna Piekarska was sitting on the edge of a sofa in the huge
lounge. Her eyes told the story of her recent grief. She had not
cried at all during the funeral but as soon as she got back to the
room she found she could not stop.

‘Hello.’ Georgina held out her hand.

‘Forgive me, I am not in much mood for receiving visitors.’
Anna apologised. ‘My mother is asleep. The doctor has given her
some sleeping tablets.’ Anna laughed a scornful snort. ‘Magic pills
that make the world go away.’ Her emotion was raw. The envy in her
voice for her mother's drug induced sleep, unmistakable.

Georgina pulled her hand away, no contact having been
established.

‘I see you have the diary.’

Barbara sat next to Anna, as the young Polish woman
tentatively opened the book.

Georgina took a seat opposite. ‘Only read what you want but
there might be something in there that could help us find whoever
did this.’

Anna tried to smile, a pain filled smile. Her fingers ran over
the cover, passing a page between them before she focused on the
first lines of hand written text. Korjca's writing was neat the
pages, smudge free. Written, then forgotten. ‘This is the diary of
Korjca Maria Piekarska. My life in a strange world....’ Anne looked
up ‘It starts on the day Korjca left home to come to
America.

This morning is the start of a new life. My rudimentary
knowledge of English seems to have held me in good favour and I
have found employment with a family in America. They have just
moved to a new home from Chicago and need a nanny for their young
son. America seems such an exciting place...it seems that anything
can happen here...’ Anna's voice began to tremble, quavering under
the pressure of emotion. She coughed and cleared her throat before
continuing. ‘I am so excited...’ Anna took a sip from a glass of
water. Georgina noticed a tape recorder whirring on the table. A
small black voice activated dictation machine. Anna continued. ‘I
have slept my first night away from my home. The family I am to
look after are lovely. I have a large bedroom with a television and
DVD recorder. They have even bought me some films, plus a small CD
player that has a radio. The boy, Ray is friendly, though a bit
shy. It is sad that he lost his sister.’