My Island Homicide Read Online Free

We have to find this guy. Anyway, I really gotta go.’
    â€˜Jack?’
    He backed up through the doorway.
    â€˜One question. Do you know about the missing person’s report?’
    â€˜Yeah. They say it’s maydh . I really have to go.’
    â€˜Hang on. Who’s Arthur Garipati?’
    â€˜That’s two questions.’ Jack laughed. ‘You’ve been reading the Letters to the Editor?’ I nodded. ‘Arthur Garipati, Chief Mamoose, “mamoose” is the word for “island chief”, from old days, wat . I think, anyway. Uncle Arthur writes to the paper all the time, stirring up people against the bureaucracy and public servants.’
    â€˜Like us?’
    â€˜No, just white ones.’
    â€˜At least half of me won’t attract criticism.’
    â€˜Or a quarter of me,’ he said, chuckling. ‘My great-grandfather was Japanese. Wait, is that a quarter? I’m no good at maths.’
    â€˜It doesn’t matter. These letters are pretty full on.’
    â€˜No-one believes he actually writes them. The word is his wife puts it all together. Hey, Lency.’ She had appeared at my door with a folder. ‘Tell Thea about Arthur Garipati and his letters. I’m going. The JP cracks up if police are late.’
    â€˜His wife writes them,’ said Lency. ‘Everyone knows that.’
    â€˜Okay, then, what about this missing person’s report?’
    â€˜You mean Melissa Ramu? No-one has ever gone missing before, apart from SARs, search and rescues at sea.’
    â€˜Are you serious? Not even a teenager running away or someone with dementia wandering off?’
    â€˜It’s a small island – you can’t pick your nose without someone seeing you. And telling half the island about it. Kids take off all the time, but someone always sees them and drags them back by the collar. One old woman in hospital with Alzheimer’s disappeared last month and the police were out looking for her. She’d gone to sleep on the verandah of one of the doctor’s places, a short walk from the hospital. That’s the sort of missing person’s reports we get and it took three hours to solve, two and a half longer than it should have. But that Melissa Ramu, she’s a funny one. She’ll turn up. If she ever went missing in the first place.’
    â€˜So, it’s not an April Fools’ joke?’
    â€˜April Fools’ Day? I didn’t realise. No, it’s not a joke.’ She handed me a file. ‘Here, staff birthday file and info about the Christmas fund. Oh, you might want to put in for our World Vision child in Kenya. That was Jack’s idea.’
    Out of nowhere came a throbbing, pervasive drone that had woken me twice during the night.
    â€˜Lency, what is that? It sounds like a helicopter.’
    â€˜It is. They land at the hospital. Medivacs. It should have been part of your induction. It happens a lot and soon you won’t even notice the noise.’
    Shay, Jack, and now Lency regarded the missing person’s report without any concern. I dug out the report and skimmed Jack’s handwritten notes.
    Melissa Ramu, European, 33, of 2 Summers Street, went out last night, 31 March, weekly Country Women’s Association meeting. Mr Ramu, migraine, went to bed, separate room. Woke 07:00 hours. No wife. No problem. She walks the dog each morning. 08:00 hours husband realises dog still there. Still no wife. Husband’s mother there. Backs him up. Neither mother nor husband know if Melissa came home during the night. Probably not. Bed not slept in.
    I phoned Shay and asked her to make an appointment for Mr Ramu to come in.
    â€˜Jack thinks she could be another molester victim,’ said Shay.
    â€˜Why?’ I asked.
    â€˜Because she lives on the street near Millman Hill, where the other assaults were. And she walks her dog a lot.’
    â€˜Well, I’ll talk to Mr Ramu and work out what to do.