The Kristina Melina Omnibus: First Kill, Second Cut, Third Victim Page 22

  I tried to make sense of everything I had read, and how it could fit with everything else I had discovered so far.

  As I returned to my study and sat back behind my desk, I recalled how John Darcy had told me that Jeremy’s decapitation had been performed methodically. This had been established from the formation of the blood droplets around Jeremy’s body. And suddenly the answer as to why Jeremy never fought while getting his neck cut open became obvious. He had been so heavily sedated that he was still alive when she decapitated him.

  I flicked back through the autopsy and found the section examining the quality of the cuts on Jeremy’s neck. Dr Charles W. Main observed that the cutting was a series of quite deliberate pressure cuts and not slashes, which fitted perfectly with John Darcy’s theory that Jeremy couldn’t have been hacked to death.

  I then turned to my log book, and looked back at my entry from the 20th of February. I was looking for the serial number of the knife Frank had found in the back alley behind the Wilson’s apartment. I remembered clearly taking the number down when Frank presented the knife to me at the crime scene. This detail reminded me how vital it was for a forensic investigator to make careful notes of everything at the crime scene. Details, which sometimes seemed trivial at the time, often made the difference between making a substantial leap forward in an investigation or coming to a dead-end.

  I copied the serial number of the knife, G-66923, along with its length, width and other details I had previously taken down, into a small spiral-bound notebook.

  If I was going to prove she killed her husband, I needed to trace the knife back to its place of purchase.

  Michael was home when Garry Wood came to dinner later that evening. I’d been busy with the Wilson investigation, and by 6.30 p.m., I panicked because I hadn’t begun to make dinner. I wondered why the hell I talked myself into this.

  ‘So, who’s this guy?’ Michael asked, shifting from one foot to the other, while I was slicing a butter lettuce into a large glass bowl.

  ‘Someone who works for the telephone company.’

  ‘And what’s he coming over for?’

  ‘Dinner.’

  ‘Like a date kind-of-thing?’

  ‘Yes, like a date kind-of-thing.’

  He tried to make eye contact, but I avoided him. I’d never dated since my divorce, and having my son scrutinising me half an hour before my beau walked in was a rather uncomfortable and embarrassing situation.

  ‘Do you want me to leave?’ Michael asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re saying that, but you’d rather if I left. What if you guys decided to bonk?’

  An alarm rang in my head. Did I hear right. ‘I beg your pardon?’ I snapped, my eyes now digging right into his.

  His face flushed and he said, ‘You know what I mean. Jesus, I’m not ten years old.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ I said, branding my knife up in the air. ‘I wish you’d have a little more respect and stop talking to me that way.’

  ‘Oh, great,’ he said, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Fine, whatever, preach whenever it suits you.’ And he left for his room.

  I paced towards him, the knife in my hand. I stopped, walked back, placed the knife on the bench, and followed him to his room.

  Before I got there, he slammed the door in my face.

  ‘Michael!’ I screamed, ‘I’m not going to take any more of this shit!’

  I sent the door flying open.

  He was sitting on his bed in tears.

  Surprised, I froze, unable to say a word. I muttered something which made no sense to me, nor to Michael.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I finally asked, as I knelt down close to him. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Why are you crying?’

  I’d never seen him crying before, not since he was half the size he was now.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ he whispered between sobs.

  ‘What is it that I don’t get?’

  He kept his eyes to the floor.

  I placed one hand under his chin and pushed his head up. ‘What is it that I don’t get, Michael? Tell me.’ His tears were dripping in the cup of my hand.

  ‘You know.’

  ‘No, I don’t know. If I knew, I’d try to do something about it. Did I do something to upset you?’

  He paused and said, ‘You’re never here. It’s that stupid job of yours.’

  My face creased. ‘I don’t have any choice, Michael. I have to support the both of us.’

  ‘Why can’t you get a normal job like normal people? What do I have to do to get your attention?’

  He’d lost me. ‘You don’t have to get my attention, Michael. Why are you saying that?’

  ‘I took the money from the phone booths,’ he retorted in a firm tone of voice.

  ‘You what?’ I was more shocked than angry.

  ‘I took the money from the phone booths. I knew you were working with the telephone company. I thought that if I’d help you, we’d be spending more time together.’

  My jaw dropped, but no words came out of it. I found it hard to believe what I was hearing. ‘You stole the money from the phone booths?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why did you show me the Jolly Roger website?’

  ‘Because then you’d think I was really clever and want to work with me. Cause then you wouldn’t think it was me, anyway.’

  I pulled my head back. ‘Jesus, Michael, I’ve been billing the phone company through the nose to find out who did it. And now you’re telling me it was you all along?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  I felt a lump in my throat.

  I didn’t know if I was more angry at him or at myself for letting our relationship deteriorate to such a degree that he thought he had to resort to crime to get us back together.

  I placed one hand at the back of his neck and drew him closer.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be all right. We’ll work something out. Jesus, I wish you’d told me that earlier.’

  He whimpered and said, ‘I love you, mum.’

  Michael stayed in his room while I was having dinner with Garry Wood. Frankly, I’d rather he hadn’t come, but by the time I’d made up my mind, he was already at the door.

  I knew I could never have a relationship with this man now. He worked for the telephone company my son had stolen from, which meant I’d never be completely honest with him.

  He was dressed in shirt and tie. Thank God he’d got rid of the hair gel. For some reason, he looked better after hours than at work. In fact, he was goddamn sexy.

  We talked shop over the dinner table.

  After we had coffee, I said, ‘I don’t mean to be rude, Garry, but I’m really tired, and I’d like to go to bed.’

  ‘Wow,’ he said, trying to cheer me up. ‘Sure, bed sounds fine to me. Lead the way.’

  I smiled, half ready to take up his invitation, having waited so long for someone to hold me and make love to me. But instead I replied, ‘Not with you. Maybe some other time. I promise.’

  ‘Hey, it’s all right,’ he said. ‘Never kiss on the first date. My mother told me the same thing.’

  The perfect answer.

  I leaned over the table and said, ‘Well, mine didn’t.’

  I kissed him red and hot, thought what the hell, and led him to my room.

  On Tuesday morning I unsuccessfully looked up every knife shop in the Port Melbourne and St Kilda area.

  The temperature was barely fourteen degrees when I left home, and it looked as if rain would follow soon. For the first time that year, I wore my winter clothes: calf length black laced-up leather boots, a beige woollen overcoat and a green scarf with matching gloves I’d bought down Acland Street two winters ago. I was extremely conscious of looking more like an Eskimo than a forensic investigator, but now that my chest cold was truly over, I wanted to avoid the risk of another one.

  After lunch at McDonald’s, at the corner of Glenhuntly Road and N
epean Highway, I decided to try shopping centres.

  Chadstone Shopping Centre was only twenty minutes away.

  By 2.00 p.m., I’d located the seller of the cook’s knife used to sever Jeremy Wilson’s head from his body. Monique, the sales person at King of Knifes, a shop located on the first floor of the shopping centre, close to Angus & Robertson Booksellers and a Newspower newsagency, was extremely friendly and helpful.

  She identified the knife through immaculately kept records.

  This entire investigation was starting to look like a bad joke. The knife had been bought on the 12th of February by credit card, one week prior to Jeremy’s decapitation. Credit card number 9654 0901 0091 7290 was used to make the purchase. It was a VISA card in the name of Teresa V. Wilson and due to expire six months from now.

  Of course, having bought the knife did not prove Teresa killed her husband. But with all the other circumstancial evidence I had accumulated so far, it wouldn’t take much to convince a jury that she did in fact commit the murder.

  I left Chadstone Shopping Centre with a chocolate éclair from Donut King and a head filled with confusion.

  Crossing the car park, I knew what my next step would be.

  What I wanted now was a confession, and the only way to get it would be to come face to face with her.

  I ended up lecturing at Swinburne University on Wednesday afternoon because I felt guilty I’d missed the previous week’s class. The timing was bad, because my heart was not in it. More important things were pressing my mind. But I knew some students in my class would one day solve important homicides, so I had to take my job as a trainer as seriously as I took my job as a forensic investigator.

  Although I tried to pay attention to what I was teaching, the importance of collecting evidence and making carefully written observations at a crime scene, half my attention was wandering around the Wilson case.

  I concluded if Teresa Wilson was dumb enough to buy a cook’s knife with her own credit card, she had to be dumb enough to have bought a ton of Valium under her name as well.

  This case began to look like Swiss cheese, and I knew it would only be a matter of time before everything would blow up in everybody’s face like a time bomb.

  As much as I was excited to have gone so far, I began to fear the outcome. If Teresa was such a cruel and heartless person, maybe John Darcy had been right when he told me to watch my back.

  I shrugged off the fear, which had slowly crept upon me as the hours went by.

  In spite of my wandering mind, I tried hard to concentrate on giving a memorable lecture to my students.

  On my way back home, just at the corner of Princes Highway and Alma Road, I tried Frank’s home number again on my mobile phone.

  She picked up the call. Her voice sent a chill through my entire body.

  ‘Is Frank in?’

  ‘No, he’s not. Who’s this?’

  I grinded my teeth. It was vital that I sounded relaxed and non-suspicious.

  ‘It’s Dr Kristina Melina. I met you at the hospital.’

  A few seconds silence, and then she said, ‘Oh, hi, Melina. It’s so nice to talk to you. When are you coming around to visit?’

  ‘Well, actually, I was wondering if Frank was there, so the three of us could go out for dinner.’

  ‘I’m afraid Frank is away for the week.’

  ‘He didn’t mention where he was going?’

  ‘No. Is this some type of emergency?’

  ‘Not really. It’s just that he never said he’d be going anywhere.’

  ‘Well, that shouldn’t stop us from seeing each other. I really enjoyed your company at the hospital. Why don’t you come over, and I’ll cook something?’

  My stomach churned. This was not what I had in mind. I wanted Frank with me in case she decided to insert corn-cob skewers in my eyes and cotton wool down my throat as part of her haute cuisine.

  ‘I really don’t want to be any trouble,’ I said, my voice losing its confidence.

  ‘It’s no trouble at all. I don’t mind. I wasn’t doing anything tonight, anyway. We can watch a video afterwards.’

  Damn, she was tempting me, but I knew it was a hell of a risk. I wanted to face her and get to the bottom of this. But not just yet. She took me by surprise. My mind was confused and unprepared.

  ‘How about breakfast in the city tomorrow? I just remembered I’ve still got to go to the gym today.’

  Silence, and she added abruptly, ‘Sure. Breakfast sounds find. You have a good workout. Give me a call in the morning.’

  After I hung up, crazy thoughts crossed my mind. To begin, I was uncertain why Teresa seemed so excited and willing to see me. And secondly, it felt extremely abnormal Frank told no one where he was going. Especially me. But then, the way we’ve been getting along lately, it wasn’t all that surprising.

  What if she’d already killed him?

  I shivered at the thought.

  I had to move on. My choices were few.

  While parking behind my apartment, I decided to backtrack any Valium prescriptions she’d taken out in the last six months.

  I knew of a long way and short way to find out what prescriptions Teresa Wilson had taken out in the past six months.

  The long way was to go to every pharmacy in the area and ask the chemist, who would probably refuse to hand over information without me presenting a warrant of some sort. And I had no way of getting one since I was an unsworn investigator. Basically my powers of search were the same as those of the average citizen.

  The other way was to use my laptop and tap into the easily accessible Medicare database. The database held all personal records in relation to anyone’s medical history, including what doctors were attended and when they were attended, as well as the usual name, address and other personal identifying information.

  I entered Teresa Wilson’s name into the mainframe, and the computer spilled back her entire history since she acquired a Medicare card in 1981.

  I jumped quickly to the last few entries and noted Teresa had attended four doctors in the Port Melbourne area the week prior to the 20th of February. Two weeks before that date, she’d visited four different doctors in the Malvern area in two days. Unfortunately, the Medicare database information was limited. It didn’t tell me why she attended those doctors, and how many prescriptions had been written out for her.

  I knew what I had to do next.

  I printed a list of the eight doctors and was going to pay them a visit the following day, just after I had breakfast with Teresa.

  While the records were being printed on my inkjet printer, something caught my eye. On Friday the 14th of March, Teresa Wilson had visited four doctors in the Richmond area, and on Saturday the 15th of March, four others in the Hawthorn area. My face creased with concern when I realised Frank lived in Richmond, only kilometres away, and she visited those doctors just when he began his week long holidays.

  At first I tried to reason her action. I told myself that she’d probably needed something because of the pain she acquired from her wounds and scratches. But I knew this was nonsense. St Patrick’s Hospital was following her progress, and there was no need for her to consult with doctors, especially eight different ones in two days.

  I printed a list of all the doctors she had seen.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  When I arrived at Terry Bennetts’ Gymnasium on High Street at 9.46 p.m., Ken was doing one-hundred-and-twenty-pound deadlifts.

  ‘You look shocking,’ he said as soon as he saw me.

  I had to admit he looked as good as ever. I gave him a run down on everything that was going on.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear you’ve lost your job,’ he said, ‘but hell, you’ll have no trouble finding something else. You’re such an intelligent person.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want anything else. Right now, I just want to get my life back.’

  ‘Nothing a good workout can’t fix.’

  Maybe that was true in his life as a libra
rian. But my life seemed more complicated than that.

  I nodded and began my stretches.

  No one else was in the gym, and although Ken had always been friendly to me, I was in no mood to hold a conversation. He must have sensed it because he avoided bothering me during my workout.

  After doing forty-pound bench presses, I gulped half the water from my Coca-Cola drink bottle. The temperature in the gym was moderate, but for some reason I was as thirsty as hell.

  I worked my biceps, triceps and abs.

  At around 11.30 p.m., Ken left the gym.

  Even though I was tired, I decided to stay on. Too much energy buzzed in my veins, be it from anger or fear. I kept thinking about the next day when I’d have breakfast with Teresa. God, how was I going to approach the subject?

  ‘Don’t be too harsh on yourself,’ Ken shouted as he disappeared down the narrow concrete stairs.

  Half an hour later, I finished a set of preacher curls, when suddenly I felt the urge to pass water. It must have been all this drinking. I had refilled the bottle twice already.

  I went to the women’s room, which happened to be right in the middle of the gymnasium. I guessed the gym was initially designed for men, but when women began pumping iron decades ago, the owner built a separate toilet. With the lack of room, the only place left was in the middle of the gym.

  When I came out of the washroom, I nearly had a heart attack.

  Teresa Wilson was standing in front of me, dressed in a grey flannel tracksuit with Nike runners and a sports bag by her side. She looked stunning, like one of those girls from the cover of a Cleo magazine.

  I felt heat on my cheeks as I wondered what the hell she was doing here.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ she said casually. ‘With Frank being away, I kept closing my eyes and having nightmares. Plus I needed the company.’

  I nodded but was speechless.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked, obviously realising I was shocked to see her.

  I forced a smile and said, ‘Just tired. I’ve been working out for the last hour.’

  ‘Don’t mind if I join you?’

  ‘Suit yourself, but I’ll be finishing soon. How did you find this place, anyway?’