My Island Homicide by Catherine Titasey

Fools’ joke.’
    Jenny chuckled. ‘You create your own reality.’
    â€˜That sounds cosmic. Did you make it up?’
    â€˜I read it on your desk calendar when I went to answer the phone. Nothing important, just a wrong number. Want to know about Melissa’s lover, Dave Garland?’ I nodded. ‘European, 49, married to a local woman, Leilani Isi, two daughters. Arrived ’83, first teaching post on TI, three years later made principal of the high school. Two years ago transferred to the primary school to fix up a range of problems – poor outcomes, attendance, behaviour. He turned the school around within two years. Can you believe it?’ She looked at me. ‘Never been done before. Just this Australia Day, he was awarded an OAM for his service to education in the Torres Strait.’
    I was impressed. I’d read reports in The Cairns Post about poor educational outcomes in the Torres Strait without paying too much attention. It was a case of same old, same old, poor outcomes for Indigenous people in education, health, employment and criminal justice. I’d skimmed stuff in the papers about a new style of teaching in the Torres Strait that was supposed to work wonders. My mother and father, both retired teachers, always had their two cents to say about each article or documentary. Education was one of the few topics they still spoke to each other about.
    â€˜Masalgi, do you remember that report in the late sixties?’ said Dad to Mum, while reading one such article last year. ‘Forty years on and nothing has changed.’
    Mum cursed the lowering of standards and Dad said something about reinventing the wheel. They could have been talking about any Indigenous issue.
    As Jenny pulled into an undercover area, I figured that Dave Garland had achieved an admirable result and good on him. Indigenous kids deserved the best and, finally, someone had made it happen.
    The undercover area didn’t provide any relief from the rain that flew in sideways with the wind. I followed Jenny along a maze of paths and we ended up in the staffroom, face to face with the solid-featured Dave Garland, whose eyes were the same pale grey as his crew cut. Age had been very kind to Mr Garland. He introduced himself with a handshake of steel, apparently well recovered from his gastro wog.
    He and Jenny chatted about fishing and Fred losing the last three pool comps to Jonah, who I think Shay had mentioned.
    I apologised for disrupting his Easter but he said he always came in on weekends to catch up on work. He had charisma, presence, whatever you call it, directing all his attention to me when he spoke in a deep, convincing voice. I bet he had done several personal development courses, like how to win friends and influence people. And probably one on how to charm younger, vulnerable women. Oh, supremely suspicious one, Thea.
    I mimed writing on my hand so Jenny would take notes.
    â€˜I didn’t sleep last night after hearing about Melissa,’ he said. ‘Please, take a seat.’ He motioned to some lounge chairs. ‘I know why you’re here. I’ll be honest,’ he said as he held his hands up in surrender. I bet he also learnt in those personal development courses to admit defeat to a lesser wrong to slither out of the really bad shit. ‘We were having an affair, but I have no idea where she is. Her husband told you about the affair?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜But she told him a month ago.’
    â€˜She told you she told him? When did you last see her?’
    â€˜Wednesday night. She came to my house because my wife and daughters were away. She would have told her husband she was going to the CWA meeting.’ He forced a laugh. ‘It was very deceitful, as affairs are, and I was never comfortable with the dishonesty.’
    â€˜Can you tell us what happened? How was her mood?’
    â€˜We shared a bottle of wine, a 2008 chardonnay I’d bought