Month: February 2024

Friday Crime Fiction–Under the Bridge (2)

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[A continuation of my foray into crime writing…]

Chapter 1

Part 2

UNDER THE BRIDGE

The Guilt of Omission (part 2)

Saturday June 27, 1980

2pm

Hiking Trail enroute to Mt. Lofty

Lillie

Raindrops stung the frozen tips of Lillie’s fingers. ‘There’s no way I’m staying it’s raining, now,’ she said rubbing her numb digits then taking a few steps along the path. The further she could get from her guilt the better. No one need know. But what if they found out? What if Fifi showed the necklace and the detectives linked her to the man’s death?  Lillie trembled. She’d never get a job, a boyfriend; she’d lose everything—possibly even her freedom.

Fifi blocked her. ‘There’s a cave. You can shelter in that.’

‘What?’ Lillie recoiled. ‘With the body?’

‘It’s dead – just bones, it can’t harm you,’ Fifi said.

‘I’ve got a bad vibe, man! Bad vibes.’ Jimmy paced back and forth, swaying his flowing locks. ‘I’m not staying.’

‘I won’t be long, just thirty minutes at the most.’ Fifi stomped further up the track. The rain intensified, drops pummeling their parkas. She whipped around and pointed at Lillie and Jimmy. ‘You two stay here!’

‘No!’ Jimmy strode a few steps towards her and stopped. ‘Look, I really have a bad feeling about this.’ He looked back at Lillie.

[Photo 1: Ice-Sculpture, Hokkaido © L.M. Kling (nee Trudinger 1985]

Lillie froze to the spot like an ice-sculpture. A flock of black parrots shrieked above in the violet clouds. The birds dipped and whirled on the wind currents. Fifi’s words rang in her head. You have to tell. She knew deep in the emotion curdled base of her stomach, no one would miss that man, that horrible man. Wasn’t my fault, he deserved it. She reasoned and focussed on Jimmy shaking his pink fist at Fifi. The parrots circled above their heads, and as if bored with the rain, darted in formation south. With a dull throb of resignation, Lillie made her decision. ‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘Fifi, Jimmy, you stay here.’

‘I’ll come with you, Lillie,’ Jimmy offered.

‘No, it’s alright. Fifi looks brave, but she needs company,’ Lillie said.

Lillie forced her stiff legs to move, one foot in front of the other, each step she believed closer to a life with no future; her living death. She paced through the driving rain, down the path by the falls leading to the carpark below.

Lillie hopped in the car and hurtled down the winding road to Greenhill Road and then home. She had no intention of reporting to police. What if they suspected her?

[Photo 2: Home in a beachside suburb of Adelaide © L.M. Kling 2006]

7 Months later…

Mum was out cold, stone asleep on whiskey and an afternoon of television serials. Good, Lillie thought as she rushed to her room, pulled her sports-bag from under the bed, collected two drop-waist dresses, a pair of jeans and large tee-shirt from her wardrobe and stuffed them in the bag.

‘Bad timing,’ she muttered.

Winter had rolled into spring, exams, end of school celebrations and choices made that she had begun to regret. Like the body of that man, her friends’ father, who festered just beneath the surface of her conscience, another secret silently grew…

But she didn’t want to spoil Christmas, then New Year and plans for travel and seasonal work in Tasmania. She’d missed three periods.

*[Photo 3: Christmas Tree © L.M. Kling 2023]

 She fobbed off her friends telling them, ‘Yes, I did go to the police, but…you know, they have to keep it under wraps so as to not scare off the killer.’

However, she knew they’d figure it out and her image would be ruined. Francis Renard, the man involved in her bad choices and situation, wouldn’t want her in that condition. And she wouldn’t want him till death do us part—he was too much like her dead-beat father who abandoned the family long ago. She had to get away.

She moved the bed and pushed her fist through a hole in the wall; a hole hidden by an old Sherbert, the band, poster. She fished around before latching onto a small tin and pulled it out. Lillie opened the tin and then scraped out the notes and coins. ‘I have a ferry to catch,’ she said as she inserted the money into her purse. ‘All I wanted to do was have a quiet life with my friends. How dare that creep rear his bony head.’

*[Photo 4 and feature: The crimson rose © L.M. Kling 2006]

She sat down at her desk, picked out a pale pink sheet of paper. She wrote, taking care to avoid the crimson rose in the corner:

‘Dear Fifi and Jimmy,

I have to go away for a while. I have a job in Tasmania. None in Adelaide, ha-ha.

I went to the police station again and reminded them of the bones under the bridge. The nice policeman took down my details—AGAIN! and accepted my statement and said he’d deal with it. So don’t worry, it’s in the hands of the police. They are going to keep it quiet because they already have their suspicions who did it, and they don’t want to scare them off. They reckon they’re getting close. So don’t tell anyone, promise, please.

Take care of yourselves. And look after my brother, Sven while I’m away. I will miss you, my friends.

Love,

Lillie.’

*[Photo 5: My black cat, Storm standing in for the fictional Moe © L.M. Kling 2024]

Lillie sealed the letter in the envelope and pressed the stamp of the queen in the top right-hand corner.

Moe, her black cat scuttled under the table as Lillie raced past and out the door. She headed for the cream and red Kombi parked around the corner at the end of her street. A man with dark curls and a pair of square, black-rimmed glasses, opened the passenger door. ‘Are you ready for a road-trip to Melbourne?’

Lillie panted and then caught her breath. ‘Yes, Francis,’ she said as she scrambled in. ‘Just need to drop by the letter box.’ She stared at the letter addressed to Fifi and Jimmy Edwards. She had another one for Francis Renard. And her mum and Sven, of course. She left that note on the kitchen table.

She planned to travel on the ferry from Melbourne, Victoria to Devonport, Tasmania, alone.

[…continued in a fortnight]

© Tess Trudinger 2024

*Feature Photo: The Crimson Rose © L.M. Kling 2006

***

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The Wends, they were such a gentle group of people…until someone put it in their heads that there were witches amongst them…

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Family History Friday–Detective Work

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In the steps of Sherlock Holmes

This last week, Hubby and I have received our DNA results. Dear Hubby received his last Friday, but mine only arrived today.

So, the last week I have been familiarising myself with the process and slowly building our family trees. Early on, I discovered a truth, you could say a “skeleton” in one of our ancestral lines. I added the details to see if anything further came up. My Heritage, call this a “smart match”. Nothing did, but I left it there.

For certain family members this truth appeared absurd, and too difficult to comprehend. Surely, that ancestor wouldn’t. Didn’t. Noone told us that. You have it all wrong, Lee-Anne.

Hence, Lee-Anne (me) being a good person only wanting the best for the family, deleted the suspect members from that branch of the family.

Then, curiosity set in. Who was that ancestor’s mother? Father? My husband suggested we go down the line to the descendants and put in a particular name.

This I did.

You wouldn’t believe it, but the same results, only this time verified by the official birth and marriage records. My original hunch had been correct. Moreover, in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, I managed to crossmatch the added, yet odd family members with DNA and behold, a match.

Now, the reason I’m being so vague about the whole ancestral situation, which I might add, is responsible for our existence, is because out of respect for some people, the details of such conceptions are to remain private/personal; too personal to be published.

Isn’t it interesting that for people who want to protect their reputation, the unacceptable behaviour of other members of their family, ancestors or close relatives, must remain hidden, buried and plainly, not discussed. Such individuals may even be ostracised from the family.

Yet, such flawed individuals can still be, in other circles, a valued and much-loved member of the community.

My dad’s cousin, Dr. Malcolm Trudinger for instance. The story goes that he had a problem with alcohol. Legend has it that he couldn’t do surgery without a nip or two before the operation.

Malcolm’s alcohol addiction was too much for his immediate family who it would seem distanced themselves from him. Maybe it was the other way around and he felt not good enough for them. Whatever…

According to articles about Malcolm on Trove, he was regularly in trouble with the law. Infractions that in the 21st century, we’d consider a nuisance, or minor, but in the 1940’s and 50’s were serious. For example, his car engine making too much noise at night in town. Or even one time, merely driving his car late at night. Another time he was charged for making a scene at a function.

Despite these misdemeanours, as I see them (glad my brother and I didn’t live in those times—my brother loved doing “donuts” and “burnouts” in his car like in Top Gear at night with his mates in his youth), the folk on the West Coast of South Australia, loved Dr. Malcolm Trudinger. He was their hero. He once helped rescue people from a shipwreck off the coast during a storm. He cared and was always there for the sick and injured.

I remember my mother telling me the story how a person upon meeting my father, and learning his name was Trudinger, sang high praises for his cousin Malcolm. The sad thing was, that although he was still alive when Mum and Dad were first married, Mum never got to meet Malcolm.

[Photo 1: Dr. Malcolm Trudinger © photo courtesy of L.M. Kling circa 1930]

Dr. Malcolm Trudinger was such a vital part of the West coast community, they established a rose garden was in his honour after he died in the early 1960’s. We have heard that rose cultivation was his passion and his roses were prize-winning. My niece discovered the garden when she and her partner were on a road trip passing through Elliston. She couldn’t have been more chuffed having found a Trudinger with a rose garden to his name. It showed Malcolm was a loved member of the community despite his demons.

This is what, I believe, grace is all about—valuing and loving people as they are. We are all flawed. Rather than hide the imperfections, celebrate the person, their life and goodness they bring or have brought to the community. It’s our pride and wanting to look good to others that makes us cover up our sins or those of our kin. But also, we may be protecting their reputation too, which is a reasonable thing to do.

The reality is, we are all fallen and we all struggle. No one is perfect. We are all cracked pots. Yet like in the Japanese art of Kingsugu (the repairing of broken pots), there is beauty that shines out through the cracks.

And so, it is with our imperfect ancestors. When you think about it, it’s the ones whose stories are different and colourful that we find most interesting.

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2024

Feature Photo: Hubby as Sherlock Holmes, Reichenbach Falls © L.M. Kling 2014

***

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Friday Fiction–Under the Bridge

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[Hey, I had planned a profile of an ancestor, but somehow time got away and it never happened. Still more digging and researching must be done. So, in the meantime, here’s the beginning of my attempt at Crime fiction. (I stress that the following tale is fiction, the characters are fiction, and I’m writing under the name of my alter-ego/crime-fighting name, Tessa Trudinger). I’d love to know what you think as I tackle this challenge to develop my Detective Dan series.]

Chapter 1

Part 1

The Guilt of Omission

Saturday June 27, 1981

2pm

Hiking Trail enroute to Mt. Lofty

Lillie

Fifi’s voice echoed through the steep gully, ‘Hey, what’s this? Some cow carcass!’ The blackberry bushes around her rustled in the icy breeze. ‘Come on, Lillie! Have a look! It’s gross! I nearly slid right into it.’

Lillie brushed past the liquorice plants and tottered down the slippery clay of the embankment. ‘I really don’t want to see a dead cow.’ She held out the billy while hunting for clear running water from the storm water pipe. ‘I hope the water’s not diseased.’

‘Nah, you’ll be right.’ Fifi poked her auburn curls above the bush and beckoned. ‘Looks like it’s been there for years – it’s just bones.’ Her russet crown disappeared. ‘Just wait.’

Lillie stepped forward. The clattering of the stream over stone was louder here. She stood still and drew in the sweet, scented blend of rain-soaked eucalypt, liquorice and mud. The aroma awakened a memory. I’ve been here before. She thought. The sun’s golden rays parted a curtain of thick cumulous clouds, causing the droplets on the leaves to sparkle like a million diamonds.

‘Hey, Lillie! A chain.’ Fifi held up a blackened necklace, a tear-drop pendant with a quartz stone shimmering in the light. The hand and chain vanished behind the tangle of mint-coloured leaves and thorny branches. ‘Just a minute.’

Lillie’s heart galloped, slamming against her rib cage as if in a desperate attempt to escape. She wanted to run, straight up the hill back to the campsite, back to the comfort of the fire and Jimmy Edward’s, arms. No, that wouldn’t be proper. He’s just a friend. Fifi’s brother. Her legs turned to jelly and froze. ‘What?’ She squeaked through a constricted throat. She had been here before. Summer, five years ago when she was twelve. The landscape dusted in tan and yellow. The moist green of mid-winter had lulled her into a false sense of ignorance.

[Photo 1: Resting enroute to Mt. Lofty © L.M. Kling (nee Trudinger) 1983]

A scream pierced the winter silence. ‘Oh, my God!’ Fifi ripped through the tangled bush, her freckly face flushed and green eyes wide as saucers. ‘It’s not a cow! It’s – It’s…’

‘What?’ Lillie rasped puffing out plumes of breath into the frigid air. Blood rushed through her head, roaring, while remembering the hike she preferred to forget.

January 1975: She’d only gone to the creek to fill her canteen. On a 38-degree Celsius day, hiking with her friends, the same friends plus her brother Sven, she was thirsty and needed water; they all needed water. That day Fifi had already fainted from dehydration. What was the harm in getting water from the storm water drain? What was his problem? That man?

[Photo 2: Hiking with school friends up to the summit of Mt. Lofty © C.D. Trudinger 1969]

‘Human!’ Fifi announced.

At that single word, the ball of anxiety swirling into Lillie’s chest converged in the sickening centre and dropped, thudding to the base of her stomach. ‘Oh, dear!’ she said as a blizzard of shock swept over her mind blanking out any thought.

Fifi scrambled up to Lillie and grabbed her hand ordering her to see the skull, commanding her to check out the leather coat, demanding she follow her to under the drain bridge to view the grisly find. Her best friend pulled her down to the creek, to the cavity under the bridge, her body meekly following like a frightened lamb to the slaughtered, her mind viewing the sequence of events as if from above in the clouds.

At first the sight before her resembled a side of beef at the abattoir, except the remains of him lay half sheltered at the base of the sand-stone bridge, and melted into years of silt, moss and sour-sobs. The leather hide of dry skin had sunk into the ribcage, and a disjointed hand of bones reached into the subterranean cave.

That time, when she was twelve, Lillie intended to explore up the creek in search of water. She thought she heard the water rushing. She was sure she did. The creek proved disappointing. Just a trickle. The hot northerly breeze had gypped her. She listened. A faint mewing. A kitten? A poor little kitten mewing from further up. Tracking through the dry creek bed crowded with brittle sticks of shrivelled saplings and prickle bushes laden with green unripe berries, she discovered the man-sized drainpipe. Water dribbled out into a stinky puddle surrounded by a cracked clay pan and rocks, broken tree branches and salt bushes caked in white like plaster of Paris. The kitten’s cries echoed in the black hole that penetrated deep into the hillside.

‘There you are! Ripe for the picking.’ A man’s hot breath stung the back of her neck. Cold hard metal gouged into her shoulder-blade. She turned and caught the look in his eyes, glazed, pupils dilated. He looked like a hungry wolf.

Lillie pushed him away and ran, scampering up the slope like a frightened rabbit.

[Photo 3: Calmer times resting by the creek at Waterfall Gully © L.M. Kling (nee Trudinger) 1986]

‘We have to tell the police.’ Fifi stared at the coat of membrane and bones.

‘Why?’ Lillie patted her straight blonde hair. She remembered his boots thumping after her.

‘Cos it’s the right thing to do.’

[to be continued…Friday fortnight]

© Tessa Trudinger

Feature Photo: Waterfall Gully © L.M. Kling 1996

***

Sometimes characters spring from real life,

Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction.

Sometimes real life is just real life.

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Trekking Thursday–Franklin-Gordon River Cruise

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[Last week, Hubby and I were talking to someone who had recently visited Tasmania. They went to Strahan, but for some reason didn’t do the Franklin-Gordon river cruise. We recommended that next time they go to Tassie, they revisit Strahan and do the cruise. Hence, to encourage prospective travellers to Tasmania, a re-visit in my blogs to Strahan on the West Coast of Tasmania. Ah, memories of travels with my husband, his brother (P1), and cousin from Switzerland (P2), to Tasmania; a brilliant and beautiful destination.]

K-Team Adventures—Strahan and Gordon River Cruises

An early start, just what the K-Team love. We were to board the Wilderness Cruise Boat by 8.45am. Not as early as the last time I took the cruise. Then, in 2011, I journeyed with my mother (Mrs T), for whatever reason, the ship departed much earlier than 8.45am. Fearing we’d miss the boat, Mum and I rose at the crack of dawn and ate our breakfast at a hotel opposite the wharf while watching the sun rise on the calm waters of Macquarie Harbour; an oil painting in hues of gold and pink with ducks on the jetty. Mum’s breakfast of Eggs Benedict was less than perfect; uncooked, runny and the “whites” not white. She’s never had Eggs Benedict again. I guess there had to be some compensation for the ideal weather we had that August day in 2011.

[Photo 1: Calm on Macquarie Harbour before Eggs Benedict © L.M. Kling 2011]

Not so for the K-Team in 2016. A perfect mix of personalities, no conflicts—apart from some initial altercation between my husband’s phone GPS navigator and the Kluger’s Pandora navigational system. Now that was something out of the box, so we packed away any semblance of pairing our phones with the car’s computer system and relied on the navigational system God had given us—our brains…and some forward planning with Google Maps. So, instead we had the weather as our thorn-in-the-side member of the K-Team. At least someone up there, I mean God, had been looking after us.

[Photo 2: Sign of weather come. A hiking trail in Hogarth Falls near Strahan © L.M. Kling 2016]

When we booked our cruise, the lady asked us, ‘Do you want to go on the ABT Railway up to Queenstown?’

‘How much?’ I asked.

The lady showed the prices.

‘What time does it get back?’

‘Oh, 5pm.’

‘Nah, we’re meeting my cousin at 4.30pm. So, we’ll take the cruise.’

A narrow escape. We heard that night while dining with my cousin, Kiah who at the time ran the Strahan Visitors Centre, that fallen trees on the railway track had stranded the tourists on the train for several hours. They arrived back in Strahan at 8.30pm. The next day, on the cruise, Kiah overheard some girls who had been on the train trip say they were going to write a reality TV show about bored kids.

[Photo 3: Thankfully, not stranded at Queenstown; ABT Railway Station with K-Team, the younger way back when…Looks like my kids can get bored at Railway Stations too. © L.M. Kling 2001]

The cruise, definitely not boring. First a ride out through the narrow heads and into the full force of the roaring 40’s and rough seas; P2’s highlight of the Tassie Trip. Hubby was surprised I didn’t get seasick. I’d remembered to take my ginger tablets.

[Photo 4: High seas past the heads, but the birds hang on. © L.M. Kling 2016]
[Photo 5: The safety of the lighthouse © L.M. Kling 2016]
[Photo 6: The lighthouse keepers’ cottage? © L.M. Kling 2016]

Then, after returning back into the safety of the harbour, a tour of the salmon farms; big, netted rings full of fish.

[Photo 7: Salmon Farms © L.M. Kling 2016]

Kiah and her team would be our guides on Sarah Island, the worst penal colony in the whole British Empire in the early nineteenth century. We spent an hour or so on the island touring around the various sites, the tour guides giving lively and entertaining accounts of Sarah Island’s history.

[Photo 8: Sarah Island approach © L.M. Kling 2016]

Walking up the gangway, I studied the wilderness mountains jutting above the forest lining the harbour and detected the vague outline of Frenchman’s Cap, clouds shrouding it from a clear view.

[Photo 9: So different with Mrs T; Frenchman’s Cap perfect through swamped trees of Sarah Island. © M.E. Trudinger 2011]

As we raced up the river, the Captain rabbited on about Sarah Island’s convict history and then he said, ‘While we travel up the river, think about what it would’ve been like living in those times on Sarah Island as a convict.’

[Photo 9: The Lookout © L.M. Kling 2011]
[Photo 10: Mrs T contemplates while crowd listens to tour guide © L.M. Kling 2011]

I recalled the play we’d seen the night before, The Ship that Never Was; the political climate and social conditions of nineteenth century Britain that created the huge gap between the rich and the poor, unemployment and homelessness, and the solution to send shiploads of social rejects (the convicts) to Australia—the worst offenders to the most remote place on earth, Sarah Island. Yet, in all of that condemnation and hopelessness, redemption. Some of these convicts, when they received their ticket of leave (freedom), became leaders in the colony; their skills not going to waste. Treat people like they matter, give them a chance. This is how I understood David Hoy, Master Shipwright treated the convicts. I could go on, but best if you ever go to Tasmania, go to Strahan, do the cruise and see the play.

[Photo 11: Scene from the Ship that Never Was © L.M. Kling 2001]

And while we were there, clutching the mini hot water bottles loaned to us for the duration of the performance, and waiting for the play to start, the tour group we encountered the previous day, joined the audience. Some of them ended up participating in the play. So did P2 helping the ship (just a pile of wood, really) sail to close to the coast of Chile…before it…well, you’ll have to see the play to find out what happened.

[Photo 12: Perfect reflections on a perfect day up the Gordon River © L.M. Kling 2011]

After a tasty buffet lunch of smoked salmon, cheese, bread and salad, we had a half-hour walk in the rainforest. Amazed at the variety and abundance of plant-life and how plants grow out of tree trunks and stumps. The old Huon pine stump that had been struck down by lightning a decade or so ago, was now a garden of seedlings, native laurel, moss, lichen, and ferns.

[Photo 13: New Life springs from That old Huon Pine © L.M. Kling 2016]
[Photo 14: A taste of a temperate rainforest © L.M. Kling 2011]

Then the race back to Strahan. In all we had travelled 140km on tour of the Macquarie Harbour, some way up the Gordon River and then back to Strahan.

P1 disappointed with the cloudy weather said, ‘How can I get good photos when there’s no sun?’

[Photo 15: And so, the sun sets on Strahan © L.M. Kling 2011]

‘They’re mood photos,’ I replied. Cheeky, I know, since in 2011, the sun shone on Mum and me, and I had dozens of chocolate-box photos of the Gordon River like glass reflecting perfectly vivid green forest trees. Oh, well. We were blessed that day in 2011. The western wilderness of Tasmania gets on average around 4000mm of rain a year. So more likely to get cloudy rainy days on a cruise than sunny, I guess.

Besides, did P1 have an Eggs Benedict like my mum had eaten that morning in 2011?

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2016; updated 2019; 2021; 2024

Feature Photo: Chocolate Box Reflections on the Gordon-Franklin River © L.M. Kling 2011

***

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