The Spinster and the Madman

By K.J. Stewart

Probationary Constable, Gina Palumbo, is looking forward to an impromptu visit to The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Arranged by her girlfriend, Tara, its a chance for her to unwind before reporting for her first day of duty.

Her plans are thrown into chaos after a strange and unsettling encounter with their friends neighbour. The elderly lady introduces herself as Sylvia, only child of Daryl Jacob Thompson, notorious murderer who tortured and killed eight women in the 1970s, burying them in his orchard in rural Victoria.

Gina soon finds herself enmeshed in the story of Sylvias horrific past, until she begins to question the potential impact of such violence and terror on a persons psyche.

As Sylvias tale races toward its deadly conclusion, Gina must draw on all her internal resources to discover the truth before it is too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Nov 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543404470

K.J. Stewart

K. J. Stewart is a writer of fast-paced crime thrillers whose first book, The Spinster and the Madman, was published in 2017. She is a working mother – or juggler – whose love of writing began in adolescence, a passion which never faded despite life’s best efforts to quell it. Residing in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia, Stewart has completed the sequel to her first offering and is planning a third and final book in the Gina Palumbo series, due out in 2020.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The car rumbled along the snaking road, Gina’s lunch flipping and roiling with each curve. She belched, catapulting a half-digested missile across the dashboard where it splattered against the windscreen.

Ugh, she groaned, dabbing at the globule, which only smeared it more.

Oh gross, Tara said, nose scrunched.

Gina quelled her anger. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t direct it at Tara, despite the indisputable rule of cause and effect. Here, the cause being her erratic driving and the effect, a heaving stomach struggling to contain its contents. But, as her girlfriend had arranged this impromptu getaway, Gina bit back the acerbic comment crouched on her tongue.

She pressed the button next to the window, the air striking her face growing ever icier the higher they climbed. They’d set their GPS for Leura, a village near the top of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney where their friends now lived.

When Akeisha and Bec still called the harbour city home, the two couples were inseparable. In their early twenties–the twilight period between being a student and adulthood- the women embraced its freedom with youthful recklessness.

They’d smoked weed on Gina and Tara’s balcony. Together, they’d discussed modern feminism, and the people flocking to Bondi Beach. In the city’s gay scene, they’d given themselves to visceral experience.

It was a lifetime ago, the booze and narcotics. That a drug-induced vision revealed her current path was an irony not lost on Gina. She left off this detail on her application to the Goulburn Police Academy, opting instead to highlight her academic and athletic achievements.

Sometimes Gina mourned her wild side, the one who made out with her lover on the dance floor. The girl lost to the thumping bass, Tara’s tongue tracing the hollow of her neck. She missed the abandon triggered by chemicals, an inhibition she failed to achieve without it.

Before her future emerged through the gilt-edged mind fog, she’d had no plans. Halfway through an arts degree, she drifted, switching majors twice. While she sometimes rued the lost time, she couldn’t regret her stint at university. It was where she met Tara.

Her mind flashed to their first meeting. Gina noticed the young psychology student at a party; her strawberry-blonde curls, and ivory skin dusted with freckles. Later in the evening, she was sitting in a cluster of students, when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Are you part of the scene? a melodic voice spoke near her ear, raising the hairs on her neck. When she turned, her stomach dropped. Ocean green eyes peered at her, questioning.

Her mouth gaped, lost for words. Gina thought she knew what the girl meant by ‘scene’ but her cautious nature stopped her tongue. Even at university, with its liberal and open-minded student body, she didn’t speak of, or flaunt, her sexuality.

Meanwhile, this gorgeous creature smiled, rosy lips curling at one corner, the dimples creasing her cheeks setting Gina’s heart afire. I’m Tara, the girl introduced herself, holding out a pale hand. They spent the evening talking, never leaving each other’s sides for longer than a trip to the bar or the restroom.

Gina soon learned the doubts that pursued her through adolescence and beyond hadn’t touched Tara. She’d known early she wanted to help people, the quagmire of the human psyche her chosen field.

After graduation, she took a position in a private practice in Randwick, where she treated patients with the same empathy and compassion she did everyone. Gina admired these traits, even while chiding her as a soft touch. Not that she didn’t own such characteristics herself. Rather, she reserved them for friends and family; not every stranger with a sob story.

More than once she’d arrived home to find Tara entertaining such a person. While she listened to Gina’s opposition to the practice, smiling and nodding, she continued to bring strays to their apartment for free therapy and scones.

For Gina, it took narcotics to overcome her innate reticence. Even among friends, she erected barriers. She counted those with whom she was herself on one hand, a number that didn’t include her family.

She realised she was different when she developed a crush on Angelina Ciccano. At aged nine, she announced her intention to marry her friend. Her sisters snickered, then crossed themselves under their father’s glare.

Don’t speak ridiculous, Eugenia, Anastasios Palumbo blustered at his youngest, face reddening. I won’t listen to nonsense. No daughter of mine will talk blasphemy under my roof.

Gina was an intelligent girl. While the lesson was not the one Anastasios intended, it proved invaluable. It was the last time she spoke of her attraction to Angelina, or any of the girls that followed. She became a chameleon, blending in with her peers.

Raised in a traditional Greek household, her father was the unquestioned head. Her mother had been the heart before she lost her battle with leukemia when Gina was still a child.

Her older sisters kept her alive through shared memories, having an extra six and eight years’ worth from which to draw. Five when she died, Gina’s recollections turned opaque over the years, until she could no longer discern dreams from remembered moments. Over time, Stephania Palumbo became a two-dimensional protagonist in her siblings’ stories.

After their mother’s death, her sisters helped raise her. At least they tried. But Gina sensed an internal void she tried to fill with friends, school, sport. In her darkest moments, she believed herself incomplete, a part of her missing, and feared it made her hard. She suspected there was a mother-shaped hole in her where sentiment should live.

We’re here, Tara exclaimed with an excited smile, jerking Gina from her reverie. Thank the Lord, she thought, the return to her physical form triggering a wave of nausea.

The door to a house at the top of a steep driveway opened. Akeisha rushed forward, a huge grin lighting her features. Gina allowed herself a wan smile of anticipation; firm ground beckoned and she could have wept with relief. She’d long suspected Tara’s kindness would cause her demise. After two hours with her at the wheel, Gina believed it more than ever.

Shit love, you’re looking dusty, Akeisha said, eyes taking in Gina’s greenish pallor. The latter rolled her eyes in Tara’s direction.

Oh, okay, she said, her smile widening. This one hasn’t improved? she whispered, her gaze on Tara’s head emerging from the driver’s seat. Gina raised a finger to her lips, a smile forcing its way past a lump of undigested sandwich.

Tara, sweetheart, let me help you with that. Akeisha winked at Gina before reaching for the bag in the young woman’s hands.

Hey you, Tara said, dimples flashing. She drew Akeisha into her embrace, luggage dropped and forgotten at her side. Damn woman, it’s good to see you.

Likewise, their friend exclaimed, losing herself in Tara’s hug. Bec’s gone into town, but she’ll be back soon, Akeisha addressed Gina through a mouthful of coppery curls.

Tara released their friend and turned to Gina. Are you okay, baby? she asked, green eyes wide and disingenuous, as if her illness was random, inexplicable.

I’m fine, T, she replied, catching Akeisha’s grin over her girlfriend’s shoulder. She ducked her head to hide her own, which disappeared when she dry-retched, bile filling her mouth. With effort, she swallowed it, inhaled a long breath and straightened. She drew her lips from her teeth in what she hoped passed as a smile.

I hate to say it Gee, but you’re not your usual ravishing self, Akeisha spoke with head tilted to the side.

Gina wiped her brow, flicking beads of sweat with a brisk shake of her hand. Pretense abandoned, her shoulders slumped, mouth drooping. I need a moment, she conceded through clenched teeth. And gum, she added.

Tara fished through her bag without looking, a habit setting Gina’s teeth on edge. Just open the damn thing, she thought. After two false alarms–a lip gloss and packet of throat lozenges–Tara held up a half-empty tin of gum.

Is there somewhere I can sit? Gina asked Akeisha.

Sure, she replied. Concern etched across her features, she pointed to a gate leading to the backyard.

Gina’s raised one hand, before approaching the fence. Do you want company? Tara called. She shook her head, unable to speak. Through the gate, she followed a pebbled path to the rear of the house where it opened to a wide garden.

Gina’s breath stopped, nausea forgotten. An expansive lawn stretched over three levels, at the bottom of which the land stopped before plummeting into a gorge. The opposite cliff-side rose from a verdant blanket, cracks and gouges in the rock reminding Gina of facial features. Low-hanging afternoon sun sprayed the rock a golden-red, while the Eucalyptus trees shimmered blue.

A series of abdominal tumbles snapped Gina to attention. Sweat broke over her forehead and dizziness swayed her on her feet. With her eyes fixed on a table and chairs at the bottom tier of garden, she staggered toward a set of stairs. On the penultimate step, her foot slipped and she half-fell, half-leapt to solid ground. Veering right, her legs carried her in a zig-zagging march to the nearest cast iron chair.

With a sigh, she plonked onto the latticed seat, torso slumping across the table, head nestling against her folded arms. Minutes passed as Gina waited for the rolling nausea to subside. She was contemplating making herself vomit when a noise probed past the soft flesh of her inner arm.

With deliberate slowness, she raised her eyes, closing them against the sunlight, which hung in the sky in a final blaze of orange.

By increments, she opened her eyelids, blinking until she adjusted to the glare. Silence. She scanned the garden, finding herself alone. It was no doubt the wind, she mused, although she noticed the still branches of the nearby trees. With a shrug, she told herself it must be her imagination.

She rose when the noise returned, drifting over a large hedge between this property and next door. It was a high-pitched humming that rode the breeze to where Gina stood, torso bent forward. In one motion, she straightened her spine, her vertebra settling into place with a series of cricks. The humming grew louder, the melody dancing through the air.

She approached the hedge, peeking through a hole in the foliage. A single tree stood, branches bare. At its base a woman danced, arms twirling to the side.

The dancer was older, hair a silver mane floating below her shoulders. Sunflowers woven together to create a yellow garland circled her crown. The dress she wore was the white of snow, twirling as she swayed to the melody. It reminded her of the satin gown she wore as flower girl at her sister’s wedding. An image of a young person glorying in youth flashed through Gina’s mind. Guilt forced her to avert her stare, and when she looked through the bush again, a lump of disappointment formed in her chest. The woman had disappeared, and she wished she’d kept watching the joyous sight. She sighed, then gasped. A pair of blue eyes fixed on her.

She yelped, stumbling backwards, heart hammering. Time stopped as she returned their stare. A shiver raced along her spine, sending a tingle through her extremities.

Who are you? a voice reached through the hedgerow.

Gina’s head snapped back, and she scrambled to find an explanation for her intrusion. Gina, she replied, then blushed. I mean, I’m Gina and I was . . . She faltered, inhaling damp air, which she released in a shaky breath. I was just -

You were spying on me, is that it? the woman interrupted, her words stripping Gina of her last vestige of composure.

I’m . . . I’m sorry, she stuttered, shame setting her skin alight, tongue swelling until it filled her throat. Laughter broke through her humiliation. Gina’s eyes widened, and her skin flamed.

I appreciate your honesty, the woman said. Nothing worse than a liar, she added, collapsing into mirth. Excuse an old lady her odd sense of humour, she rasped.

I am sorry to intrude, Gina spoke in a controlled voice. I heard humming and . . . I . . . I wanted to see . . . she trailed off, shrugging her shoulders.

Yes, quite, the woman said, eyes squinting. Tell me, did you enjoy my harvest dance?

Gina cleared her throat. Before she could answer, the older lady continued.

Where I grew up, we used to gather in the town centre on the first day of spring. This included those, such as my family, who farmed the outlying land. We girls wore our church dresses, boys their Sunday suits, nervous lest they dirty themselves and face the wrath of their mamas. She giggled, blue orbs disappearing in the gesture.

"An apple tree stood in the centre, a symbolic growth planted by the first settlers to this part of the Goulburn Valley. It represented the natural resources upon which the survival of the community depended.

The girls danced around the tree, white dresses twirling and ribbons fluttering behind us, while the boys stood in a larger circle clapping and performing a boisterous jig. Jim Buggs played the flute until his death, after which his son, Jim Junior, continued the tradition.

For orchards, such as my family’s, harvesting time wasn’t until late summer. However, spring lay the foundation for the season’s yield. The older lady fell silent, head tilted to one side. Humph. Yes, indeed."

Gina frowned, turning when she heard her name called. She swivelled back and shrugged. That’s my . . . my friend wondering where I am, she said. I’m sorry, but I must go . . . before she sends a search party, she said the last with a chuckle.

She raised her hand, turning to face where Tara and Akeisha stood on the back veranda, Bec between them.

Gina, the neighbour called, come over to the cottage tomorrow morning; I’ll give you an apple pie to take to your friends.

The younger woman’s stomach dropped, an unpleasant sensation on the heels of motion-sickness. Okay, she muttered, adding in a bright voice that belied her anxiety, What time?

Any time; just use the front door so we’re not conversing through shrubbery.

The woman’s laughter faded as Gina moved to meet her friends. She frowned, a cloud shifting across her mind. She flinched, shaking her head and grimacing. The strange date was tomorrow’s problem while tonight belonged to good friends, food, wine and conversation; perfect.

CHAPTER TWO

Heat from the fire warmed Gina’s face. Her bloated stomach strained against the waistband of her pants and she popped the top button, exhaling as her flesh expanded. Car-sickness forgotten, she’d tucked into a dinner of pumpkin soup with toasted Turkish bread, tossed salad and a homemade vinaigrette.

The four women sprawled in the open living room. Gina sat sideways in a large wing-back chair, spine braced against one arm while her long legs draped over the other. Tara sat on the floor, head resting against her thigh. Gina stroked her hair, stretching curly locks between her fingers until the tendrils sprang free and snapped back into position.

Her eyes drifted closed, silence from having eaten and laughed too much hovering over the room. The flick of a lighter broke it, followed by the familiar odour of weed wafting into Gina’s nostrils. Her head snapped forward, fingers poised with a strand of Tara’s hair wrapped around them.

Rebecca, she admonished her friend, who grinned and exhaled a billow of smoke in Gina’s direction.

What are you going to do, arrest me for smoking? she said in her huskiest drawl. She swung one leg wide apart from the other, completing the crossover move, sending the women into fits of laughter.

The vintage Michael Jordon Chicago Bulls tee she wore over Mickey Mouse boxers rendered her re-enactment of the infamous movie scene even funnier.

Sorry, Sharon, by all means, puff away, Gina spluttered.

Why thank you, darling, Bec drawled in her broadest Australian accent, but I prefer Shazza.

So, that makes you Shazza Stoned, she quipped.

Once the laughter subsided, Gina nestled into the curved wing of her chair. She refused the joint passed between the women. As their chatter became more inane, Gina closed her eyes and smiled, mind drifting to the encounter she’d had with the woman next door.

She didn’t know her name, despite having supplied her own. Most unlike her, she chided herself. When she reopened her eyes, Akeisha was staring at her. Gina blinked, arching an eyebrow.

There’s another reason we invited you, Akeisha spoke, hesitation in her voice. Apart from celebrating your awesomeness, and the kick-arse police officer you’ll be.

The last wrought a smile from Gina, even as her eyebrow remained in its skeptic pose. I’m off to a good start. She gestured a hand toward the ashtray with its charred butts, the pipe holding the ashen remnants of the last toke.

Tara reached to squeeze her thigh while Bec executed a breezy hand gesture. You haven’t started yet, so . . . she pulled her lower jaw back into a grimace, you’re still a civilian. No harm, no foul, she added, flopping back against the couch.

Bec’s moral gymnastics aside, why did you invite me? I mean, this sounds ominous, Gina said, a frown crinkling her brow.

I swear it’s not, Akeisha said, leaning forward. In fact, I’m hoping it will intrigue you as much as me. She paused for effect, girlish grin spreading. Her dark eyes gleamed, setting off alarm bells in Gina’s mind. She knew that look; it often led to trouble.

It’s the lady next door, Akeisha announced in a hushed, reverent tone.

At mention of the woman she’d met, Gina swung her legs