The Shirt
Budgerigars and other thugs
There are several reported clues (for want of a better word) in the police report that have always seemed inconsistent to Ray and Jennie’s family and friends. The loaded rifle left laying unconcealed in the car. Ella the Great Dane’s reported actions. The allegation that they were ever simply lost. These items and more burrow into your brain and make you want to scream—and sometimes you do—because they are simply not possible to have been the actions of their own doing; but, unfortunately you cannot prove or disprove otherwise. So, the clue sits inside your mind for years, gnawing away trying to find a logical explanation.
I recently had an epiphany of one such item: The Shirt.
Ray was never to be seen sitting around camp, or home, or even the beach without a shirt on. So, when the description of how he was found—laying on his back, feet shoulder width apart facing away from the shaft, wearing boots, blue work trousers, a pair of gloves in his pocket, but no shirt—all the family raised a chorus: “Ray would never be wandering around without a shirt on!”
It may seem an arbitrary item to focus on in the scheme of things, however the devil is in the detail, as they say.
Earlier this year, I was on a site visit to one of the many mine sites that scatter North West WA. This particular site mined iron ore, and is owned by the same company who Ray and Jennie worked for. The landscape is very similar to the Goldfields, too—a hostile, scorched, red-hot terrain with plants that shimmer from a distance then stab you violently when approached. Such locations were only naturally habitable for about seventy-nine thousand eight hundred and fifty years, now it is only possible to survive there if housed inside a campsite that contains a gymnasium, dry-mess, and (most importantly) a wet-mess.
The camps out at these sites are a sight to behold: thugs and murderers (or those in training) all seem to congregate there. They all wear their work uniforms day and night, too; some no doubt even sleep in them. Blue King Gee type trousers, and bright yellow shirts with high-vis stripes. The scene of them all flapping around the wet-mess at night, chattering away as if a contest for who can talk loudest, reminded me of those flocks of budgerigars that swoop in on outback waterholes—thousands of bright yellow squawking parrots upsetting the serenity of the outback.
Sitting there in my work uniform, sculling Bush Chooks while contemplating thuggery and murder, a lightbulb went off inside the dark void of mysteries and clues. I immediately contacted the only copper I trust, Steve.
“Steve, I feel like an idiot,” I began. No doubt he would agree, and is forever regretful for having given me his mobile number. “I have only just realised why Ray didn't have his shirt on . . .and I feel stupid for having missed the connection previously. I've just spent the last week up on a mine site out from Panna.. Thank Christ I don't have to come back, what a shithole. Anyway, Ray's missing shirt… He was otherwise wearing his work gear—boots, gloves, blue trousers—so likely he'd have also been wearing the budgerigar coloured high-vis shirt all these blokes have on up here. No doubt if someone wanted to take every possible precaution that he not be seen from above, that shirt would need to be taken away… Can't have a piece of high-vis clothing accidently flapping about, disrupting the serenity, can he.”
“Mate, that is actually not a bad theory about the shirt.” Steve replied. “Makes sense. Proving that is obviously the hard part.”
“Can’t believe it took six years for that penny to drop!” I said, all the while thinking can anything, anything at all be proven, or disproven?
We chatted further and I soon let Steve loose, until next time. In my mind, the mystery of the shirt solved, and one less clue now gnawing away.
I returned to the wet-mess. The budgerigar flock was growing evermore raucous. I ordered another Bush Chook and found a quiet corner of the waterhole, to continue planning my upcoming first murder.