As for me, I blew my nest egg when Persian Boy ran dead last at Belmont. So I was still working for Claudius Lyon and had to hide my face from Security when we saw Carmen at the Met.
Cold War
by Cheryl Rogers
“The plot for ‘Cold War’,” Australian fiction writer, former journalist, and vineyard owner Cheryl Rogers told EQMM, “came to me after a discovery made by my husband in our vineyard several years ago. The... Queen of Crime competition provided the incentive to research and write the story.” That yearly competition, sponsored by Partners in Crime, Sydney, New South Wales, yielded a win for Ms. Rogers for “Cold War,” one of two suck prizes she has received from the organization.
Typical. I break all speed records, risking double demerits on a designated tourist route, only to find my favourite cop’s beaten me to the action. Detective Sergeant Rod Gudgeon’s handing out barrier tape to a couple of uniforms as I land the company hatchback beside his unmarked V8. So much for my scoop. While the weather may have been psychotic enough lately to rate as front-page news, my dear readers are over it. And I’m with them. Well, weather’s not exactly murder, is it? The suspicious death of a wine-industry patriarch is quite another story.
It’s early afternoon and a skittish, dry easterly’s teasing up the skirts along a chorus line of casuarina trees edging the drive to this vineyard estate winery. It’s in a semi-rural enclave on the outskirts of the city. A river valley bordered by a northbound arterial highway and the meandering vein I’ve just burned, just a hoot west of the trans-Australian rail link.
Picture-perfect lines of chardonnay, Verdelho, and cabernet sauvignon shimmer lime-green against a hard summer sky and even harder red loam. It’s strong soil here, in the valley where I grew up. Plant feathers and you’ll grow chickens, Stefi. That’s what my dad used to say, God rest him. Sacrilege to think of Saxon Swayne staining this honest dirt with his blood.
“Ah, the weather girl,” the DS says tiredly as I break out of the hatchback to front him. Spaniel eyes roll. Must be the heat. “If I’d known you were going to low-fly, I’d have alerted Traffic.”
The mad, hot wind combines with the roar of an inward-bound British Airways jumbo to whip away my crack about raising revenue. Just as well, maybe. Gudgeon and I have a testy relationship. Made worse by the knowledge that we need each other, professionally speaking.
He says he doesn’t trust journos. Though he’s happy enough to use hacks like me whenever he crawls out from under his rock to appeal for public help.
Not that I can claim any lack of prejudice, either. Specially towards pedants like Gudgeon. We’ve had a bit of a mutual Cold War thing going ever since he put my dad in the slammer.
We watch in silence as the jumbo crab-walks through its descent, in deference to some serious buffeting. I wait for the grit to settle, then get down to business. “I understand there’s been a suspicious death, Sergeant?”
“Nah, Stefi.” Gudgeon’s balled fist indicates the uniform crew taping off a patch of chardonnay near a headland, a couple of hundred metres south of where we’re parked. The skittering tape piques the curiosity of a pair of white Embden geese, which move in, honking slander. “The boys’re just marking out a plot for me to grow vegetables when I retire.”
There’s an afternoon deadline looming and I need to meet it to get this story in the evening edition and stay a step ahead of our morning rival. “Can you confirm the deceased is Saxon Swayne, Sergeant?”
“You know I can’t confirm anything until we’ve run a few tests, made the formal ID.” Gudgeon’s as giving as a clam. Rheumy eyes narrow. “How’d you hear about this, anyway? It hasn’t gone out yet on the scanner.”
“Anonymous tip to the news desk,” I lie. “Local knowledge. Educated guess as to the identity of the victim. Any chance of a closer look at the crime scene?”
“Sure.” Don’t you just hate it when a man’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes? “About the same chance as a snowball’s in hell.”
I’m waved away with the promise of a spot at the media free-for-all. That’s several hours away. The smirk on the face of the DS tells me he’s well aware the timing is too late for my deadline.
He’s still grinning as he shuffles off to greet a couple of underlings pulling up in a white Commodore. I recognise my old schoolmate and regular informant, DC Anna Swift, behind the wheel. She’s a fast-talking blonde with a penchant for motors. Got stuck with the nickname “Spanner” in sixth grade and claims to like it. Says it teams nicely with her blue boiler suit and killer heels.
The tall guy unfolding himself from the passenger seat must be her new partner in Major Crime, DC Jack Darwin. Science graduate. Botany major. We haven’t been formally introduced, but it’s another educated guess. He’s wearing a floral shirt. Geeky. Flower child. Even has Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” as the ringtone on his mobile, for Godsakes! That’s the character assassination according to Spanner. Strange she didn’t mention he’s a dead ringer for the eminently edible Rupert Penry-Jones.
I forgo the introductions and wave a brief hello. Don’t want Gudgeon sussing that Spanner’s the reason I’m here. I console myself by snapping a couple of rear shots as the investigative team marches out to the crime scene.
Then I head to the homestead, where a red-eyed Mitzi Swayne, clad in electric blue Lycra and with a sweatband spiking her red curls, confirms what I already know.
“One of the workmen thought he heard a scream early. Later, when Saxon didn’t show up for lunch, he went to investigate. Found him dead as a... what is it? Ah yes! Donut.”
Mitzi’s being comforted by one of Gudgeon’s guard dogs, who concedes to her demand to let me inside when I offer condolences and a quite plausible line about putting together an appropriate obituary.
If it wasn’t for Mitzi, I’d still be languishing on the social pages of our local rag. Then I started trailing the district’s leading socialite through the courts as she graduated from driving offences to fraud. Public opinion is that she’d be behind bars were it not for a slick-talking lawyer spurred to great heights by the size of Saxon Swayne’s wallet.
“How would you describe your late husband?” I say gently as the WPC busies herself making tea.
Mitzi dabs at her cheek with a tissue before giving her considered response. “Corpulent. Arrogant. Flatulent. Merciless. Unscrupulous. Conscienceless. Dishonest...” she says, sotto-voiced. “Shall I go on?”
My pen hovers and I glance uneasily towards the kitchen, where there’s the reassuring clatter of crockery.
“That won’t look good in print, Mitzi,” I say sympathetically, inwardly marvelling at her command of English. It’s Mitzi’s second language and she’s the fourth wife. Eyebrows shot up in the district when Swayne took off on a trade mission to the Ukraine and brought back the flirty-something redhead, half his age. That was five years back and I guess the honeymoon’s over.
“We both know my husband has... had... his share of enemies, Stefi.” She plucks at that tissue, ripping it to shreds. “Is it any wonder that he’s now lying dead in a field, his skull split open like an overripe melon?”
My heart’s sinking at about the same rate as my stomach’s pitching north. Mitzi’s giving me nothing quotable and I need to advise her to soften her delivery when she makes her statement. After all, she only has a couple of squillion reasons for wanting her husband dead.
“Can you think of anyone in particular?” I prompt.