Going with the Gut

There are many problems with writing as many stories as I have over the years, not the least of which is finding new storylines. Another is how to begin a new story, I can't use the same method each time. This stems from the fact that the inspiration of each story is different, some I have the ending before I start, while others I start at the beginning. Some I begin with the ending (Out of the Mist) and develop the storyline to show the protagonists' lives in their journeys from point A to . . . point A.

If I'd wanted to prostitute my art I would have signed a contract to churn out trashy romance novels where the heroine is a teacher/governess/nurse/florist, who falls for the dashing Lothario who is a racing driver/soldier of fortune/rock star/whatever, throwing over her steady boyfriend who is a construction worker/vet/teacher/doctor. After a torrid affair with a lot of hinted at bosom heaving sexual activity, she realises the error of her ways and returns to the waiting arms of the solid as a rock boyfriend who forgives her and they live happily ever after.

All that I would need to make my fortune is a computer-generated formula storyline and blanks for the variables. But this is not me, I would rather be an impecunious struggling author with dignity.

GOING WITH THE GUT.

One of the more common TV crime situations is for the investigating officer to state that, while he has no proof, his gut tells him that a person of interest is guilty. Invariably his gut is proven to be correct.

I wouldn't normally have been called out for a missing person case, but someone thought that this case was in need of my homicide experience.

It was my day off and I had been sent to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains to join a search operation for a woman who hadn't been missing for more than a couple of hours, but the person who reported her missing was insistent and persistent.

In real life, I have not in the past relied on my gut to solve a crime. Gut feelings do not hold up in court, so why is my gut telling me that there is something amiss with Byron Spencer's story?

"Emma and I had lunch together and when I told her that I would need to go back to the hotel and finish up some work for Monday she got upset. She told me that the reason that she had agreed to come away with me for the weekend was to get me away from work. I told her that I simply had to get this done, and that was when she told me that I was selfish, unfeeling and impossible and stormed off. I went back to the hotel fully expecting her to return when she had calmed down. When she hadn't returned by five I tried calling her mobile phone but it went straight to voicemail. That's why I called you guys."

"Do you have any idea where she went?" I asked.

"She was heading for the Giant's Stairway. I thought of going down to see if I could find her, but then I thought that it would be better for me to wait here and contact you. You have the resources to find her quicker than I could on my own."

"How do you know that she was heading for the Giants Stairway?"

"That was one place she wanted to see, and the last I saw of her was at Echo Point."

"There are several walking trails that start from Echo Point, she could have taken one of those."

"But she was keen on that one in particular."

"What was she wearing?"

"She was wearing jeans and a light blue hoodie, blue sneakers and a blue knitted beanie. According to the Weather Bureau, the temperature is going to drop down close to freezing overnight, she's not dressed for that."

"You're right there. The sooner we get organised the better. It will be dark soon and I don't want the searchers out there in the dark."

This is where my gut kicked in. The searchers were sent off to cover as many trails as possible. In the time since she was last seen she could be in any number of places, but the soon to be famous gut was telling me that she didn't get far. My backpack contained a laptop and my new toy. It was a drone with a small thermal imaging camera connected wirelessly through the remote control. If I found anything that could be an indication that she was nearby I would send the drone up and look around.

That sign was just off the trail about twenty metres from the valley floor. It was her beanie caught up in a bush a metre from the track. I would never have found her by just searching, but my toy found her within minutes. I scrambled through the bush to where she lay, barely conscious. "Emma, can you hear me?"

"Mmmmm, what, where am I? Who are you?"

"Name's Scott, Scott Bevan. Don't move, let me check you out first." She had a sizeable lump on the side of her head and her hair was caked in dried blood. I checked her arms and legs for fractures, one arm had a simple radius and ulna fracture. She had scratches on her face consistent with having crashed through the underbrush. I took a look at the surrounding brush, there was a trail of broken twigs leading from the trail, but there was something odd about this. If she had stumbled from the path the damage would have started at the trail, but it didn't. The first damaged brush was a good two metres from the trail, it almost looked as if she had been picked up and thrown from the trail.

"Rest here for a moment or two while I check the surrounding area."

I sent the drone up again and set it to carry out a grid search, photographing every centimetre of a search area of five metres either side of the trail and five metres up and down the trail, and recording it on my mobile phone. After completing the search the drone returned and landed at my feet. I packed it away. Checking the video, something caught my attention, it was on the other side of the downhill track, I marked it, photographed it with my mobile phone, bagged and tagged it and placed it in my backpack. "Apart from the lump on your head and your broken arm, your injuries are superficial. Can you tell me what happened?"

"Not really. I remember having an argument with the bastard and storming off. I came down this trail and I was almost at the bottom and then, nothing."

"When you say 'the bastard', do you mean Byron Spencer?"

"Yes, you got it in one. I suppose that he's spun a yarn about how I had a hissy fit and stormed off for some minor reason."

"You could say that."

"We came away for the weekend to take a break from our work and it was strange from last night. We had dinner and were about to go to bed for what I expected to be some quality loving and he just wasn't interested. I asked him what the problem was and he refused to tell me, until this morning that was. After trying to interest him in sex I gave up and we went out for lunch, and that's when he accused me of being a prostitute. He accused me of, and these were his disgusting words, 'hawking the fork', of having sex for money. I was shocked that he would think such a thing, after all, I have not had sex with another man, or woman for that matter, since we got married, but here he was accusing me of not just having an affair with another man, but having sex with many men."

I lifted her to her feet and very carefully removed her hoodie. I put it back on her but this time her damaged arm was inside the torso with the sleeve hanging loose.

"We'd better get you out of here, do you think you can walk up the trail, or should I call for assistance?"

"If you call for help he'll expect me to return to the hotel. That's not going to happen."

"I need to let the search teams know that you're safe, and I don't know how I'm going to do that without him finding out." I thought about it for a while. "Do you think you can walk around to the Scenic Railway? We can catch that up to the top and I'll call an ambulance from there to take you to the ER. If, when he finds out, he asks to see you I'll tell him that you're suffering from exposure and concussion and will not be well enough to see anyone. That'll keep him away for a while. We'll transfer you to Sydney this evening and 'find you' in the morning."

"But he'll want to see me in the morning."

"I'll call him in for interrogation, that'll keep him away for a while, especially after I ask him about his whereabouts yesterday afternoon. I'll check the hotel for his movements to see if there are any discrepancies in his story." I pushed a path through the brush to the trail on the valley floor.

We took it slowly and made it to the railway before they shut down for the night. When we got to the railhead I called for an ambulance When I got back to the assembly point I spoke with the search leader and got the searchers to stand down for the evening. "Emma has been assaulted and needs hospitalisation. I believe that Byron Spencer is responsible, so I think he should be kept away for the time being. We'll resume the search in the morning and 'find her wandering dazed and disoriented' and in need of urgent medical attention. In the meantime, I want to question Mister Spencer about his movements this afternoon. I'm going over to his hotel to check on CCTV to see if he left the hotel after arriving back at lunchtime or if he never made it back as he told us."

"Why do you think that he's involved?"

"In a high percentage of cases such as this, it's usually a partner, family member or close friend that's involved. My gut feeling is that he's our man."

"Since when have you had these gut feelings?"

"Since this evening, there was something not quite right about his story. Her story is totally different. Sure they had an argument, but it wasn't about him wanting to work, but about him accusing her of being a prostitute. She claims that she isn't, that will be easy enough to check out on the Sex Worker Database."

"What if she's using a different name?"

"I've taken a photo of her and will run it through the facial recognition database and see if it pops up with a result."

"Okay. I'll see you in the morning."

Emma was released from hospital early the next morning. The medical examiner had been over her body with a fine-toothed comb and apart from scratches from her crashing through branches, made some interesting discoveries, like bruising on her good arm consistent with her being grabbed forcefully, possibly from being picked up and thrown from the trail, bruising on her back and an open wound filled with soil from when she landed.

"Have you had breakfast?" I asked as we walked across the car park.

"They brought me something that I didn't much like the look of, so no."

"There's a café just down here, you can have whatever you want."

"Do you do this for everyone?"

"No, only those that I want to answer questions."

"What do you want to know?"

"I want to know more about your relationship with Byron Spencer, like, where and when did you meet and under what circumstances?"

"I'm a Trauma Counsellor and he had just lost his wife Julie in a car accident. He wasn't coping with the loss so I was asked to provide counselling. That was five years ago."

"How did you come to marry him, surely that's against all the rules?"

"It sort of snuck up on me. I was keeping it friendly in a professional way and during one session he invited me to have dinner with him. I knew that it was wrong, but I liked him and didn't see the harm in it as long as it didn't go any further. It did, and a year later we were married."

"Were there any problems with the marriage up until yesterday?"

"I didn't think so. Don't get me wrong there were the usual arguments, we were both professionals and busy with clients."

"What does he do for a living?"

"He's a Clinical Psychologist."

"I find that interesting."

"In what way?" She asked.

"Unless he has a motive for doing it, why would a competent Psychologist accuse his wife of being something that she isn't? It was a matter of 'due diligence' that I should check up on you. We have no record of you ever having been a sex worker, either using your name or any other. I never thought that you were by the way, but we must check these things."

"I was going to ask if you had checked if I had used another name. I'm glad that you did, but don't know how you did it so quickly."

"We have two databases that we can tap, we have a list of all registered sex workers working under their real or assumed names, as well as that we have a facial recognition database that we can use. There is no record of anyone of your name or anyone that looks even remotely like you, on either of these databases. So I can safely say that there is no truth to his accusations, the next question is, why would he make them?"

Emma had demolished a sizeable breakfast and we were both on our second cups of coffee and I was rapidly running out of questions and any reason to stay with her. "Have you got a place to stay? I don't think it advisable for you to go home."

"I could stay with my mother and father."

"Again, not advisable, that's the first place he'll look, now that he knows that you're not dead."

I took her to a hotel just down the road from the police station. "We are covering the cost of this palatial accommodation so I'd appreciate it if you go easy on the mini-bar. If you need a drink, give me a call and I'll get it for you." I handed her my card.

"Where is he now?"

"Being interviewed by a couple of colleagues and probably getting a tad angry about now. We are going over his story to see if it changes at all. It'll be around now that they will tell him what you have told us to gauge his reaction."

I wish that I had been there. When I replayed the record on interview his reaction was pretty much what I would have expected. "The lying bitch!! Why the fuck would she make up a story like that?"

"You tell me." This was the calm voice of Doug James.

There was a pause for some minutes. "I guess that it's time I became a Psychologist and not a husband. If the truth be known there has been something bothering me lately, on occasions she has seemed a little distant as if she wasn't happy. When I ask her if anything was wrong she said 'no, just pressure of work.' I did suggest that maybe it was time that we thought about starting a family. She seemed cold to that suggestion. Then there were the late nights when she wouldn't get home until ten o'clock. Again, when asked, it was the pressure of work."

"Did you suspect that her of infidelity?"

"I didn't want to, but the thought did cross my mind." (He's good, he answered without answering.)

"Is that why you accused her of infidelity?"

"I didn't accuse her of anything, she was unhappy that I had brought work with me on this weekend off."

"Was the work that important that you would let it spoil your time together?" (Doug sounded more like a Psychologist than a policeman.)

"I didn't think an hour or two would matter all that much. I had planned to make it up to her later."

"As my wife would say, 'woopdie-do.'"

"When can I see Emma?"

"Not for a while yet, she's suffering from exposure and hypothermia, the hospital wants to keep her in for another day or two."

"Surely I'm allowed to see her."

"I'm afraid not. My orders are that she's to receive no visitors for twenty-four hours at least." That wasn't entirely true but Byron wasn't to know that. When I heard his record of interview, my gut kicked in big time. I accessed the files of his previous wife's death, and it made interesting reading indeed.

There was an undertone to the investigation that suggested that he could have been in some way responsible for the 'accident', but nothing could be proved. Any evidence of wrongdoing was lost in the fire that engulfed her car. From the evidence, what was known was that she had driven from their home, down a reasonably steep hill, and when she arrived at the 'T' junction at the bottom of the hill, her brakes failed and she slammed into a tree on the opposite side of the road. That collision was not fatal, it was the rupturing of the air-conditioning hose, releasing a flammable gas under pressure, that was ignited by a spark from the ignition, that did the damage. She was burnt to death. Traumatised witnesses heard her screaming.

The evidence that sounded the alarm was the stream of brake fluid on the road before the intersection. Because the brake callipers and lines were destroyed by the fire, there was no proof that he was in any way involved, that he had tampered with the brakes.

The Coroner brought down an open verdict, meaning that if new evidence emerges, we can re-open the case.

I have an urge to stir the pot a little.

The interrogation was still in progress and Doug was just coming at him from a different angle when I had entered the interrogation room and took over the questioning.

I sat and opened a file before looking at him closely for several seconds. "Mister Spencer, can you explain to me the facts surrounding your previous wife's death?"

He almost managed to conceal his reaction to this question, but not quite. "That is a matter of public record, you can read it for yourself. The death of my wife was, and is, a painful time in my life, to bring up this at this time is callous, to say the least."

Curious to say the least, the response was from a Psychologist, not a grieving husband. "It says here," I tapped the file, "That the Coroner brought down an open verdict, this means that at any time if we have any new evidence pertaining to that case, we can re-open it."

"What new evidence?"

"The fact that there are doubts about your recollection of the events leading up to your wife's disappearance yesterday that have set off alarm bells. This has caused us to re-visit the death of your previous wife. More than that I can't reveal at this time."

"I think it's time that I speak with my Lawyer."

"By all means, I also think that it would be a good idea. When he tells you that, as you are now a person of interest in this investigation, you are not to make any attempt to contact your wife."

"Am I being charged, and if so, what with?"

"We'll start with attempted murder."

"What? Do you have any evidence to support this outrageous charge?"

"Short answer, yes. What it is I can't tell you at his time, we are awaiting the results of forensic tests. If the results confirm our opinion then it's just a formality that you will be charged. In the meantime, you are to remain here for further questioning. If you wish for your lawyer to be present, by all means, make the call."

I shut down the interview and left him to ponder his situation.

"Piss off!" Not the kind of welcome that one would expect from a professional person, but very much what I expected from Doctor Melanie Foster, the Forensic Pathologist and long time, in relative terms, friend. "I only got these samples a short time ago, and as they are pretty far down the priority list, I have not even looked at them."

"What do I have to do to bump them up the list?"

"Dinner would be nice."

"And you think I can afford that on my miserable salary?"

"A girl can dream, can't she?"

I don't know how she would react if I actually agreed to take her to dinner, we never got that far. This was all a part of the by-play between us that made life interesting.

She took the rock from the evidence bag and looked at it. "I'll need a blood sample from the recipient of this boulder so that I can do a match. I assume that she is not eighty-four in the shade and ugly as sin, because if she was you wouldn't be hassling me for a result. Tell Aunty Melanie all about her, is she pretty? Is she young, and by that I mean is she in your ballpark?"

"Yes and yes."

"How soon before I meet her? Professionally that is."

"Half an hour, give or take."

"Okay, bring her to me and I'll take a swab and a blood sample, you'll have a result by close of business."

"Great, thanks."

"For this, I'll expect a five-star eatery, not Macca's." She called to my retreating back. One day I'll surprise her.