An Isolated Incident (15 page)

‘Right.' He turned to leave.

‘Look, it's four in the morning. You might as well stay. I can go on the sofa and –'

‘This isn't okay, Chris.' He remained facing away from me. ‘You can't call me in the middle of the night, come up to me nearly bloody naked and then –'

‘That's not what –'

‘I'll talk to you tomorrow.' He left without looking back.

I put the towel down on my bed, lay on it and stared at the blood streaks on my bedside table. Such a weird thing, isn't it? Leaking blood every month. I know we're meant to be all grown up about it, natural process, happens to half of humanity, why be embarrassed and all that, but honestly? Lying there waiting until it was late enough to go out and buy some damn tampons I almost couldn't cope with it. To have to walk around for days, bleeding. That we have to accept this as girls, accept that some of our time in this world will be spent cleaning up gore expelled from our own bodies, part of our income spent buying mass-produced bits of cotton wool to soak it up, part of our minds spent tracking, remembering, planning so that no one ever notices the fact that we are sometimes transformed into victims of satanic possession, blood gushing out of our uninjured bodies. Pointless loss of blood and pointless to rail against it, I know, but I tell you, lying there that morning I couldn't stop thinking about that joke, the one about not trusting something that bleeds for five days and doesn't die. Stuff of life smeared all over my sheets and bedroom furniture, washed down the drain in the shower. And it's fine! Wake up in the middle of a fucking crime scene, oh, it's fine. It's
normal
. Jesus. Look at yourself! No wonder men back away in fear, shrivel in disgust.

Monday, 13 April

AustraliaToday.com

No answers in brutal slaying

May Norman

13 April 2015

One week after the body of local woman Bella Michaels was discovered on a patch of dirt outside of Strathdee, police are struggling to come up with answers and, in their absence, theories and rumours are thriving among the close-knit community.

Outside Ms Michaels' apartment near the centre of town a single strand of blue and white crime-scene tape tied to a doorframe flaps in the breeze. The doorstep is cluttered with floral arrangements and cards expressing grief and anger.

Ms Michaels had moved into the apartment three years ago after her return from a brief period in Sydney, said Barbara Stein, the building's owner. ‘She was a dream tenant. Quiet, clean, reliable with her rent, always quick to lend a hand with a lost dog or heavy shopping bag.'

Many in town believe an outsider is responsible for the murder, one of the many travellers or long-haul truck drivers who stop here for a meal or a sleep on the road between Sydney and Melbourne. ‘We all know each other here,' said a 37-year-old man who's lived in Strathdee, a town with barely 3000 residents, his whole life. ‘Anyone here who could do that, someone'd be aware before now. Word'd get round. It always does.'

Suggestions that Ms Michaels had been seen hitchhiking close to the Melbourne exit have been dismissed as ‘nonsense' by the police investigating the murder. But the idea that she willingly climbed into the vehicle assumed to have taken her to her death persists among town gossips.

Those who admit to the possibility of a local being responsible point to the fact that there appear to have been no signs of a struggle at the point of abduction as evidence that Ms Michaels' killer was known to her. Talk at each of the four pubs in Strathdee the evening before the funeral included the possibility of a recently dumped boyfriend, a married lover or an obsessed admirer. Police, meanwhile, have refused to comment on whether the popular young aged-care worker was in a relationship at the time of her death, but said that any men known to have been involved with her in the past have been interviewed and cleared as suspects.

‘Still, the cops can't know everything, can they?' a 49-year-old woman shopping at the weekend farmer's market asks. ‘Things happen between people, doesn't mean they post a notice at the community centre announcing it.'

‘She used to come here sometimes with a group from the nursing home,' a barman at the Imperial Hotel recalls. ‘I wouldn't call her a party girl, but she wasn't a shrinking violet either. She was very friendly, sociable. Bit of a looker, too. Always at least a few blokes hanging off her every word.'

Ms Michaels went missing between the nursing home where she worked and her car parked barely three minutes' walk away. Another small shrine has popped up on that street, joining those at Ms Michaels' workplace, apartment and the site where her body was found. This one consists of several small bunches of flowers and handwritten notes sticky-taped to a telegraph pole.

Caitlin Fischer, 23, and her friend Jody McDougall, 22, had brought a bouquet of dahlias that they'd picked and arranged themselves. They laid it at the base of the pole with a note which read
RIP Bella. We'll never forget you.
The women did not know Ms Michaels personally but say they've been deeply affected by her murder. ‘She was just like us. Going about her life, not doing anything wrong or dangerous, and this has happened. You can't help thinking, “It could've been me,” ' Ms Fischer said.

‘Could have been me, my sister, my friends. It just feels so close,' Ms McDougall added.

Asked if they had any idea who might be responsible, the women shook their heads. ‘Had to be a traveller, I reckon,' said Ms McDougall. ‘Otherwise why now? If it's someone who's been here all along, why would he just start doing this now?'

‘Probably a truckie or traveller, yeah,' her friend agreed, tucking her note more securely into the neck of the bouquet. ‘But you don't know, do you? That's what's so scary. It could've been any of us killed and it could've been anyone who did it.'

T
he first time a man hit me I was fourteen. Mum's boyfriend Brett had been living with us for about a month. He told me to clean the kitchen and I told him to get stuffed and he swung his arm and smacked me in the side of the head. I ran and told Mum, who was putting Bella to bed. She asked me to stay with Bella and so I settled in next to her, my darling frizzy-haired little munchkin, snuggled right down under the covers with her. I remember she wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her cheek against my face right where Brett had hit me and from the other room I could hear Mum and Brett angry-whispering and I tried so hard not to cry but the tears came anyway and Bel said,
No sad, Kiss
, which is what she called me then, and rubbed at my tears with her soft little two-year-old hands.

I slept in her bed that night and in the morning the kitchen was clean and Brett had made scrambled eggs and Mum had a split lip and puffy eyes.

I don't know how many times he hit me and Mum after that. It wasn't a lot. I mean, it was, but it wasn't constant. We could go months without being belted. Mum always stuck up for me and I always stuck up for her and I guess that's why usually we both got hit. If we were smart we would've agreed to take it in turns, halving the number of blows we each had to take. We weren't smart though; we were loyal and mouthy and, to tell the truth, if Mum had ever let him touch me without going him herself my heart would've broken in two.

I don't know why I never asked her to kick him out or why it took her so long to think of it herself. I suppose it didn't seem that bad at the time. Mostly he was alright, Brett. He worked hard and was kind and easygoing, except when he wasn't.

Anyway, I didn't reach my limit with him until I was sixteen and Bella was four. Mum was out – it might've been when she worked at the servo – and I was on the phone and Brett was pacing around in front of me telling me to get off. I didn't though. Can't for the life of me remember who I was talking to or what about, but at the time it seemed more important than anything Brett could say or do to me.

This went on for maybe half an hour and then he cracked it. He didn't say anything, just knocked the phone out of my hand and yanked the cord from the wall. Then he picked the handset up off the floor and whacked me on the side of the head with it. My ear was burning and ringing and I'd just had enough. I grabbed the base of the phone – it was one of those old-fashioned heavy beige things with a dial – and I swung it hard and smashed it in his face. He let out a noise almost like a laugh. Like he couldn't believe it. He dropped the handset and covered his nose and mouth. I saw blood and my whole body started to shake.

I ran into Bella's room and grabbed her from her bed. She was asleep and started to panic when I picked her up but I just held on tight to her wriggly body and ran as fast as I could out the back door. I don't know what Brett was doing – cleaning up the blood or finding a murder weapon or sitting on the floor and crying like a baby – but at the time I was convinced he was going to come after me and break my neck.

I ran as fast as I could with Bella squirming and punching my face with her little fists. When I got to the end of our street I slowed to a walk and put Bella down, though held tight to her arm so she couldn't get away. God, she was furious at me!
Why you take me! Bad Chrissy! You don't take me. I don't want to walk!
She got tired quickly though and moved to just giving me an occasional hurt look accompanied by an exaggerated sob.

When we got to the primary school I lifted Bella over the low fence and carried her up to the little plastic playground. She perked up a bit then and happily climbed all over the equipment for a few minutes, which gave me time to sit and really freak out. I couldn't go back. I thought about friends I might go to but they all had the kind of sweet, involved parents who'd want to call the police or DOCS or something and I'd rather get whacked by Brett every day of my life than be put in a foster home.

Bella came and sat on the bench beside me, put her head on my chest and yawned. Her eyes were flickering closed. I carried her up into the little fort and we lay down together, her head on my arm. After a while she said,
I'm cold, Chrissy.
I sat up and took off my jacket and covered her with it.
I'm very, very cold
,
she said a few times, and so I wrapped my goosebumped arms around her and held her tight against my body until she stopped shivering and fell asleep.

In the morning when we got home, Mum was in the front yard crying at a cop. She whooped loud enough to raise hell when she saw us. She kissed Bella all over her face and said,
Haven't you had a big adventure?
and Bella started to tell her about the playground and the fort and how she slept under my jacket and Mum looked at me hard, and for a minute I thought she hated me, but then she said,
I'm so sorry, darlin'. He's gone now. Okay?

And it was. Later that day we had a big D&M about it all and she apologised eight thousand times and promised it'd never happen again, asked me to promise I'd never let a man take me over like that.

‘When I was your age,' she told me, ‘my mum told me that blokes only want one thing and believing that's been half my trouble. The thing you need to understand, Chris, is that a fella who only wants one thing from a woman is a rare find. Most of them want a damn sight more and some of them –' she ran a hand over my red and swollen ear ‘– some of them want bloody everything.'

I hadn't thought about any of that for years and years. I don't know if I'd thought about it at all since it happened. But the morning of the funeral I was putting my make-up on in the bathroom and I heard Bella saying,
I'm cold, Chrissy. I'm very, very cold.
I don't mean I remembered it – that came afterwards, the remembering about that night in the fort.
I mean I heard her. I heard her voice right in my ear telling me she was cold.

I was looking in the mirror and the only thing to see was me, but the voice was as real as mine is right now.
I'm cold, Chrissy.
I'm very, very cold.

The funeral was as terrible as you'd imagine. Nate and Lisa and a couple of Bella's mates had organised it, mostly. I think they went through it all with me the day before, but I honestly can't remember. I suppose I told them it was fine. What on earth difference would it make, you know?

Bella's dad turned up looking a hundred years old. He hugged me for the longest time and though we've never really got on I knew he was really hugging her and so I didn't mind that much. All Bella's workmates were there, including Glen, which was disappointing because it meant he wasn't locked up somewhere being interrogated or whatever. I caught him giving me this hangdog mournful look and part of me felt rotten for him but a bigger part of me wanted to go over and ask him if Bella had been popping up at his windows, talking into his ears. Yeah, didn't think so, mate.

Apparently there were a lot more people outside the church. The whole town, Nate said, but I read later there were a thousand, so that's only a third. Still, nice that they all came even though they weren't allowed inside. I heard that the whole bunch of them from the pub were there and some of the regular customers, too. Again, I thought how good it'd be for Bella to see all this, hear all the love. She was such a goddamn sweetie, you know? And all these people crying over her because of it.

And then there were the news people, hanging around the edges of the car park, a bunch of fucking blowflies around a rotting corpse. Nate's expression. He yelled at them as we drove in. The bastards didn't even flinch. The funeral home knew it would happen, but. They were prepared, had private security organised to make sure no press got in. Thank God for them. I never would've thought to arrange all that. They did it for free, too. Or, no, the security firm did it for half-price and the funeral home paid that. I think that's what happened. I wasn't in the best state in the lead-up to it all, but people were very kind and generous and I let them be.

There was a closed coffin, obviously. Part of me wished it wasn't. Part of me wished that everyone there would be forced to see what I'd seen instead of being allowed to imagine that what lay inside that box resembled the photo placed on top of it. But, of course, that wouldn't be right. I'm her sister, her blood. It's right that I keep her secrets for her, let everyone talk about how beautiful she was and not ever let on that she wasn't in the end.

Old Grey had offered to hold the wake at the pub and I agreed because I couldn't imagine putting something like that on myself. It was only when I was sitting in Nate's car out front that I remembered how much Bella hated the place, would never come unless it was to pick me up and leave right away. I had cried so much all morning that I didn't know I had more in me, but turns out I did. I sat there bawling my eyes out and Nate sat there rubbing my back and handing me tissues.

‘Stop it,' I said to him. ‘Just go in and tell them it's cancelled. There's no wake.'

‘I can't stop it now. People are already in there. Bella wouldn't mind, babe, I'm sure of it. She'd want you to do whatever was easiest on you. She'd be fine with it.'

‘That's just a thing people say after someone's dead. “What she would've wanted.” It's bullshit. You don't know.'

‘On this, I know. I know she would've wanted the people who loved her to be able to sit around and be nice to each other. Doesn't matter where. That's all this is. People who loved her being nice to each other.'