Thin Blood

Craig Edmonds stared at hands
sticky with darkening blood.

His hands.

He held them
away from his body and looked down at his chest in horror. Large, dirty-red
blotches marred the once pristine white shirt. Forgetting the blood on his
hands, he tore at the buttons, ripping the shirt open.

Breathing in
short, sharp gasps, he frantically examined his torso, looking for the wound.
No cuts. No injuries. No holes where there shouldn’t be any. His chest heaved
in relief. He wasn’t dying, after all.

But then,
mid-sigh, it struck him: if it wasn’t his blood, whose was it? His head whipped
around, his eyes scanning the room like radar on overdrive.

Even in the
half-light, he quickly saw all was not as it should be. The glass shade from
one of the bedside lamps lay in shattered fragments on the floor. The curtain
rail over the bedroom’s bay window hung at a precarious angle. Usually a
black-and-white photo of a nude, tattooed woman hung above the bed; now the
frame lay in pieces in the doorway.

He focused on
the queen-sized bed. His stomach clenched as he took in the twisted and
dishevelled bedclothes. Instinctively, he knew the dark patches on the sheets
weren’t shadows that would disappear once the curtains were opened.

He swallowed,
the acrid morning-after taste of whisky harsh in his parched mouth.

“Kirsty?” he
croaked. Clearing his throat, he called again, hesitant but louder.

In the crushing
silence, time stood still.

“Kirsty!” he
screamed, as he dashed into the master bedroom’s compact, white-tiled en suite.
He stumbled, clutching at the doorframe. He took in the bloodied handprints
adorning the vanity unit and walls like some sort of macabre finger-painting.
Fighting an intense wave of nausea, he looked down at the blood-smeared floor.

Trying
desperately to rein in his growing panic, he raced to the main bathroom. His
wife wasn’t there either. Next room.

Out of breath,
heart hammering, he reached the internal door that led to the double garage and
opened it. The external roller door was down and his red Alfa Romeo and
Kirsty’s silver Lexus were parked next to each other.

Gripping the
door handle, he sagged against the door. He took a deep breath. Fought for
control of his adrenaline-charged body. He lurched into the kitchen, heading
for the sink.

Hands shaking
violently, he somehow managed to turn on the cold water tap. He watched,
mesmerized, as the blood from his hands, diluted by water, swirled in a pink
eddy in the bottom of the sink before disappearing down the plughole.

Oblivious to the
water dripping from his hands, he dropped onto the pine storage-box-cum-bench
beneath the window at the end of the kitchen. Elbows on knees, he dropped his
forehead into his hands. If only the infernal pounding would let up, he could
think straight.

His memory of
the previous evening was patchy, to say the least. He had a vague recollection
of arriving home stressed after a late-night meeting at the office and,
bypassing the dried-out dinner Kirsty had kept warm for him, heading for the
bottle of Chivas Regal. After that, it was anyone’s guess as to what had
happened.

A series of
short clips flashed through his mind. In one, he saw himself shouting at
Kirsty, her throwing up her hands and yelling back. What had they been arguing
about? In another, he was picking up his car keys, and…

Damn it! Why
can’t I remember?
he thought, glancing towards the door leading into the
garage. It was then he saw the set of four smudged, rust-brown streaks low on
the doorframe. He closed his eyes, praying for the nightmare to end.

Except he had a
feeling the nightmare was only beginning…

‘MISSING’ shouted the large, white
capital letters. Jacinta Deller studied the green and white poster pinned to
the shopping centre noticeboard. Underneath, in smaller type, was the question,
‘Can you unravel the mystery?’ The rest of the poster was taken up with a
collage of headshots of men and women missing from all over Australia.

She edged
closer, setting down her heavy shopping. The white noise of voices, footsteps
and cash registers, echoing in the domed confines of the multi-storey shopping
centre, receded as she concentrated on the small print under each photograph.

People of all
ages and ethnicities were missing; had been missing for months, years and, in
some cases, decades. Had these people met with foul play, or had they
disappeared of their own accord? Whatever the reason, what must have been the
impact on the family and friends they had left behind?

She could
understand what might drive a person to up and leave, to start life anew
somewhere else, as someone else. A fresh start. That, or jump off the nearest
bridge.

The look on her
boss’s face that day had told Jacinta the news wasn’t good, but she hadn’t
expected to be sacked as investigative journalist for
The Acacia Tribune
.
Technically, not sacked… ‘retrenched’ was the word used. It made no difference
to her, though. The end result was the same: she was out of a job.

Stunned, she had
left the building carrying only her handbag and the meagre few personal
possessions collected from her desk. She hadn’t stopped to say goodbye to
anyone; nor did anyone stop her. Perhaps they thought it might be contagious.

Her life was a
mess. Even with a job she had struggled to meet her monthly mortgage payments,
and more so after kicking out her slob of a flatmate. On top of that, and only
five months earlier, her mother had died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm. And
to make matters worse, she and Brett Rhodes, her boyfriend of three-and-a-half
years, hadn’t been on speaking terms as a result of a massive row. Sparked by
something trivial, no doubt. She couldn’t remember what exactly.

When Brett had
stormed off, all she had wanted to do was run as far away as possible. Away
from all her problems. Away from her screwed-up life. How much easier it would
have been than staying and facing reality. She wondered if that was what some
of the people on the poster had done – she liked to think so, anyway, because
the alternative was certainly far worse. With a sigh, she picked up her
shopping and headed for the underground car park.

“That’s odd.”

“Hmmn?” Jacinta
said, her attention not wavering from the laptop’s screen.

Brett stopped
munching and set his bowl of corn flakes and milk on the frosted-glass
tabletop, amidst the screeds of printouts and lined pages of scribbled notes.
“That,” he said, stooping and pointing at an one of the many webpages she had
printed. He swallowed the mouthful of half-chewed cereal and tapped the corner
of the picture under the banner, ‘Have you seen this person?’

She frowned,
first at the bowl of cereal plonked in the middle of her research, and then at
the photograph of the young fair-haired woman Brett had his finger on. “What
did you say?” she snapped, making little attempt to hide her irritation at
being interrupted.

“I said, that’s
odd,” Brett repeated, picking up his bowl from the table.

He had her
attention now. She leaned back in her seat and, turning her head toward him,
waited for him to go on. Instead he winked at her, continuing to spoon his
afternoon-breakfast, as he called it (one of his little idiosyncrasies she
still hadn’t quite come to terms with), into his mouth from the bowl cupped in
his left hand.

She sighed. And
though too many hot, sleepless nights on end had left her feeling tired and
cranky and definitely not in the mood for Brett’s games, she took the bait.
“What’s odd?”

Brett’s hazel
eyes widened. “What? You mean you don’t remember the case?”

Remember what
case?
she thought, shifting in her seat so she could see him without
twisting her head right off. With one hand resting on the back of a dining
chair and the other balancing the cereal bowl at shoulder height, he looked
like one of those bronze male nude statues bearing a light-filled orb.

She reached for
the webpage printout.

“The Edmonds
case. Surely you can’t have forgotten, even if it must be nearly ten years. It
was in the news for months on end. You couldn’t turn on the TV or open a
newspaper without seeing something about it.”

“You’re
forgetting, I wasn’t in the country when this happened,” she said, running her
finger down the listed details. Name, date of birth, last seen, age, hair,
eyes, complexion, weight, height. “This woman,” she checked the name, “Kirsty
Olive Edmonds, disappeared four months after I went travelling overseas.” She
continued reading. “It says here she’s been missing since the twentieth of
January 1996, from her home in Camberwell, Victoria. Left wallet and personal
effects… Motor vehicle still at home… There are grave concerns for her safety
and welfare.”

Brett
spluttered. “Grave concerns? You can say that again! Doesn’t it say anything
about the two murder trials?”

She raised her
eyebrows and scanned Brett’s face, looking for confirmation he wasn’t winding
her up, and then back at the printout. Besides a link to another website and
what she had just read out, there was no further information. “Why don’t you
just tell me about it?” she said, exasperation tinging her voice. She was
grumpy enough without having to contend with her boyfriend’s teasing.

After getting
over the initial shock of sudden joblessness and not having the security of a
weekly pay packet, she had decided freelance was the way to go. She had always
wanted to be her own boss. All very well in theory, but theory didn’t pay the
bills. Sure, she’d had some success in the intervening year, with a few
articles published and even others that had been commissioned, but not enough
if she wanted to eat
and
keep a roof over her head.

When Brett had
suggested he move in, she thought all her prayers had been answered and readily
agreed but, almost at once, had had second thoughts. Financial hardship was not
a good reason to move your lover in. In fact, it was a bad reason.

She loved him,
he made her laugh, made her feel alive. But, they had only just made up – what
woman could have resisted Brett’s corny ‘roses are red’ apology and
white-handkerchief surrender on bended knee? Despite her misgivings, she helped
Brett shift all his stuff, clearing wardrobe and drawer space like the dutiful
girlfriend. Had it been a mistake? Lying awake at night worrying only made her
less tolerant, solving neither her love nor money woes.

“Fill me in. I’m
listening,” she prompted as she reached for her notepad and pen.

Brett pulled out
a chair, straddling it backwards before launching into a monologue about ‘The
Edmonds Case’, as he referred to it. It had a practiced air, as if he had been
rehearsing, waiting for the right moment.

His take on the
case had stockbroker Craig Edmonds slaughtering his wife, Kirsty, bundling her
up in a blanket, dumping her in the boot of her car and then driving who knows
where to dispose of the bloodied corpse.

Her husband reported
her missing a couple of days after this. What had started as a typical missing
person’s case soon evolved into a full-blown homicide investigation when blood
traces and dark-blonde hairs were discovered in the boot of Kirsty Edmonds’
Lexus, parked in the garage of their home.

Forensic
investigators found further evidence pointing to foul play inside the house,
particularly in the master bedroom and the adjoining en suite. The house had
been thoroughly cleaned, but although the bloodstains weren’t visible to the
naked eye, they were still there.

Further
suspicions were raised when the police delved into the affairs of the Edmonds.
The couple had taken out term life insurance policies of $1,000,000 on each
other’s lives, less than six months prior to Kirsty’s disappearance. Kirsty was
worth more dead than alive.