Chapter 12 #2
‘There she is… That’s Matilda Tilly Dixby.’ Porter approached a woman seated away from the card players, in an upright wooden chair near the towering walls of open glass, allowing the cool breeze of the outback air inside.
Her hands were clasped over her long cane like it was a sceptre.
Her silver-streaked hair was twisted into a no-nonsense bun like Amara’s.
And just like the aged stockmen, Tilly dressed like she had a station to run—faded denim, pearl snap buttons, a wide-brimmed hat within arm’s reach, as if she might get up at any moment and start barking out orders.
Porter murmured beside Amara, shifting his weight to lean closer to her, his masculine scent enticing. ‘She’s still got that look like she’d take a riding crop or a stockwhip to anyone who crosses her.’
Amara pressed her lips together to stop her grin—which was so unusual for her to want to smile so freely like this. Especially when they were here about a cold case, and with everything else going on in the background.
It was the distraction she needed.
‘Just so you know, Tilly helped build Dixby Downs into one of the most respected cattle stations in the Territory. She’s tough, fair, and well-respected.’
Amara could see Tilly was a strong woman. Time hadn’t just caught up with her—it had also stolen her son, the overseer. Was that why she left Dixby Downs deserted? To avoid the heartbreak.
Tilly turned her sharp gaze on them. ‘If you’re here to spoon-feed me sympathy, or that crappy custard they have in the kitchens, you can bloody well turn around and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’
Amara squared her shoulders. ‘We’re here about Dixby Downs, Mrs Dixby. About your son.’
‘Hmph…’ Tilly adjusted her grip on her long thick cane. ‘Who are you?’
‘Constable Amara Montrose. I’m with the Stock Squad.’ Again, Amara showed her badge.
For a long moment, Tilly said nothing, inspecting the shield. Then, with a sharp nod, she gestured to the space across from her. ‘Well, pull up a stump then, so I don’t get a sore neck looking up at ya.’
Porter pulled over some chairs for Amara and himself. His long legs crossed at the ankles as he leaned back as if catching up with an old friend. ‘How’s it been, Tilly?’
‘Can’t complain. I’m still here. Done much hunting lately?’
‘Did some pigs the other week.’
‘Hate them pigs, make a bloody mess they do. What did you do with the meat then?’
‘It went to croc bait. Ranger took some for the cages in the National Park to protect the tourists. Usual story.’ He then leaned forward, hands on thighs, his eyes on Tilly, but his tone was soft, gentle and unassuming. ‘Constable Montrose and I were at Dixby Downs the other day.’
‘Still standing, then?’
‘Someone’s filled up the outstation’s water tanks, and your fences are looking straight as a pin.’
Tilly’s frown seemed to darken her eyes, that narrowed at Amara. ‘You saw it too, then?’
Amara nodded. ‘That’s why I want to help Porter. Maybe find your son, or something, so you can put him to rest.’
‘My son’s not dead,’ scoffed Tilly. ‘That mongrel killed my husband, and he’s gone into hiding. The gutless bludger he is.’
Amara sat back, not expecting this at all.
‘Tilly, the case file said your husband’s death was an accident.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be a good cop, Porter—had some brains about ya,’ she scolded him, ‘I told you to look deeper than that. My husband did not die from falling off the back of a bloody ute. I know that. And you know that. We’ve had this conversation before, Porter.
I may live here, but that doesn’t mean my brain’s retired, too, you know. ’
‘I know. I forgot who I was talking to.’ He winked at the old woman, who slyly grinned at him, along with a sparkle in her eye that was playful.
‘You tell her the story?’ Tilly gave Amara a side nod.
‘Nope. Thought you could, and then the constable can ask you the questions.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I believe you, Tilly. Something is going on, and it involves Dixby Downs. I’ve already agreed to work on this case. And now I have Montrose here to help, we may find more answers.’ He gave Tilly a tender pat on the frail hand gripping her cane.
The sigh was soft, but the relief that someone else finally believed her showed not just in her frail shoulders, but also in the glassiness of her eyes.
Tilly sniffed, her spine straightening as she gave a firm nod. ‘Well, the story goes my husband, Rohan Dixby—a truly good man—died almost four years ago. And since that day I’ve always suspected foul play, but there’s no proof.’
‘What do you mean?’ Amara asked Tilly.
Suddenly it seemed that this cold case file came with layers: a father dead, the mother at the Lodge, the son missing—what was going on at Dixby Downs? And why hadn’t Porter said anything about this sooner when he put the cold case file on the table?
Was Porter deliberately setting her up to fail?
Or had he held back… to let her form her own opinion?
‘Rohan fell off the back of his ute,’ continued Tilly. ‘In his younger days, like most stockmen, my husband would’ve just brushed it off and got on with it.’
Reminding Amara of the silly stockmen playing the game of Hold-My-Beer in the pub’s car park.
‘Being an older man, the fall would’ve hurt Rohan, sure. But it shouldn’t have killed the man, not when he was as tough as saddle leather.’
‘My grandfather fell off the back of the truck once,’ said Amara. ‘He slipped, lost his balance, and broke his hip badly. They forced him into retirement.’
‘But he didn’t die now, did he?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. But she remembered it killed her grandfather’s spirit when they moved him to a home, he gave up.
It made her take another look around the room, at the elderly stockmen and the station owner before her. ‘Do you like it here?’
‘Was the first to sign up for a room before they’d even poured the foundations.’ Tilly tapped her long cane on the floor.
‘Why?’ asked Amara. Tilly may have the grey hair and the deep lines of someone who’d lived a long life under an outback sun, but the station owner seemed too young, too full of life, to be here.
‘We’re all the same here. We’ve all lived this town’s story, and we all share the same love of the Territory’s outback.
She’s a wild beast, this here country is, but she’s beautiful and there’s nowhere else like her.
Even if some of us are forgetting…’ Tilly nodded at Esther playing the piano, smiling as she sang.
‘I admire Esther’s courage for wearing a ballgown and tiara, because she can.’ It was playful.
‘Esther’s like the director for fun in this place.’ Porter grinned at Esther, then shared that same smile, a softer one, with Amara. It was a smile that made her belly spin in ways it shouldn’t.
‘You forget the part where she can be annoying when you want to be a grouch in the corner.’ Tilly may be complaining, but the cheeky glimmer in her eye gave her away—or was that her response to the sly wink from Porter. ‘Where were we?’
‘Your husband had died,’ offered Amara, getting them back on track.
‘Blunt-force trauma, they said.’ Tilly scowled at Porter.
‘Along with a bunch of Mumbo-jumbo for saying he had rocks in his head. But how? Not when his flamin’ hat would've cushioned the blow—especially if he was workin’ on the back of his ute.
The man never left the house without his hat. None of us do.’
Amara glanced between them. ‘What’s his hat got to do with it?’
Tilly’s jaw tightened. ‘It was still sittin’ on the dash—right where he always kept it while drivin’. For almost fifty years, I never once saw that man step into the sun without puttin’ it on first. Not once.’
Her hand tightened on the long cane resting beside her, as the silence settled around them like dust after a storm.
‘If he’d had that hat on, he might still be here. That’s when I knew something wasn’t right.’ Tilly’s gaze then shifted to Amara. ‘You know about hats, Constable?’
‘I make them.’
‘You do?’ Porter arched an eyebrow at her.
‘Why?’ Tilly demanded, screwing up her nose. ‘I get they don’t make ‘em like they used to anymore, but hat making, now that’s a lost skill.’
‘It was something my mother and I did at the station. We’d make our own hats, and fascinators, especially for the race meets.
You should’ve seen the elaborate ones for Melbourne Cup Day…
’ She sighed, looking back at Esther in her ballgown.
‘My mother and I would get all dressed up for the cup, even if it was just us, standing in front of the telly at the station.’
‘Oh, how I do miss a good frock. You know the Ironbark Ball is coming up. You goin’, Porter?’
‘I’m rostered to patrol the roads to ensure people get home safely.’
‘Pity.’ Tilly aimed her cane in Amara’s direction. ‘You should take this girl ‘ere and show her a good time.’
‘Amara’s probably going with her boss already.’ Porter’s grin was pure torment, as if playing on her pet hate of anyone thinking she was sleeping with her boss.
As if!
‘It’ll be for work,’ she snapped out. Not that Finn had mentioned anything.
‘Boring.’ Tilly rolled her eyes, hands folded over the top of her tall cane like a queen holding court from her throne. ‘Can’t work your whole life. Unless you love the job, then it isn’t a job anymore.’
‘Like you did on the station.’
‘I did. Until my husband died.’
‘Why let it go like that? And why do you call your son the overseer? Wouldn’t he be called the boss, the man in charge?’
‘Slow down, Montrose. Tilly can only answer one question at a time.’
‘No, keep ‘em comin’, girlie. Ask away, just give me a chance to answer.’ Tilly chuckled as she sat higher in her chair.
‘But…’ she added with a knowing smile. ‘You’re right.
An overseer is usually second-in-command, and that’s all Sawyer was ever gonna be.
Yet that numbskull thought, with his father gone, that he’d take over the station.
But I wasn’t lettin’ him have none of that.
’ She shook her head, with her grip tightening on her cane.
‘Why?’
‘Sawyer made some bad deals. Overextended his credit. Took a gamble on expansions we didn’t need. Poor management, it was. Only thinkin’ of himself first and not the station’s future.’ Tilly’s scowl deepened.
‘And then, when his foolish schemes caught up with him, his debt got out of control. Especially after we cut him off, once he got into the drugs. My son scrambled for cash, then. Borrowed from the wrong people, thinking he could recover. But instead, he just dug his pity pit deeper. Silly Sawyer figured that once he got the deed to the land, he’d sell off pockets to pay back his debts and keep up that rich-loser’s lifestyle.
’ She then stared through the darkened windows as if whispering to her son himself.
‘I see you, Sawyer. I saw what you were cooking.’
‘Where is the deed now?’ Amara asked. ‘And what would it matter? A deed’s not even useful these days. Everything is registered online with Lands and Titles.’
‘Not if the land was signed over before the Northern Territory split from South Australia,’ muttered Tilly. ‘Porter, you explain it.’
Porter shuffled in his seat. ‘Back then, paperwork was everything.’
‘No computers,’ butted in Tilly with a nod.
‘And since the Dixbys owned the station outright,’ continued Porter, ‘that original deed is considered gold—especially if the transfer was never officially lodged.’
‘So if Seery finds it?’
‘He could contest ownership. And with Tilly living here…’ He glanced around the place full of elderly residents. ‘With the station shut down, it’d put Seery in a strong position to argue that it’s his.’
Tilly scowled as she gripped the head of her cane with two hands. ‘My husband buried it somewhere safe, long before our son was ever born. Somewhere Sawyer will never get his grubby mitts on it. The bludger’s probably still out there diggin’ for it.’
She tapped the corner of her eye. ‘I see you, Sawyer,’ she said again, like a warning from the past. ‘Cunning little mongrel, he was. Always cooking up some crooked scheme or three. Selling off livestock behind our backs. Offloading bikes and farm gear for quick cash—then blowing it in the city on fancy clobber and hotel parties that only racked up more debt from the damage. Pinched cheques from my chequebook, he did—when he wasn’t swiping my grocery money, that we had to lock it away.
His father and I both knew he’d ruin the place we bled for, when Dixby Downs was meant to be our legacy—not his downfall. ’
‘When did Sawyer disappear?’ Amara asked.
‘Six months after his father died.’ She turned to Porter. ‘I know it in the pit of my stomach, it’s connected.’
‘I believe you, Tilly.’ Again, Porter patted Tilly’s frail hand as if to console her. ‘Just tell the constable why you think so.’
Oh, Amara had stacks of questions, but she didn’t want to push the elderly woman any further, especially dragging up the past like this. Hopefully, Porter had done the groundwork with plenty of notes in his file back at the station.
But she did remember Porter telling her that the overseer’s ute was found empty, with blood spilled. And the other question—if Sawyer was so money hungry, why were his bank accounts left untouched? It had all the signs of foul play.
Was Tilly in denial of her son’s possible passing?
Or was this cold case about a murderer on the run?
‘What do you want to do with the land, Tilly? It’s prime cattle country with a lot of good infrastructure.’ It was worth a lot, even if it had no livestock on it, and Amara knew that about stations, whether it be sheep or cattle.
Tilly gripped that tall cane of hers, making her knuckles whiten. ‘I can’t do anything, not while the overseer is still out there.’
‘What do you mean?’ Oh, Amara was gonna grill Porter something fierce about this cold case, right after this conversation.
‘If I sell it, Sawyer will demand his share—and that boy deserves nothing. And nothing is exactly what he got when I pulled the pin and shut down Dixby Downs.’
‘Do you have another overseer out there? A caretaker? A boundary rider or a bore runner—fixing fences and checking watering holes?’
Tilly shook her head. ‘No. When I shut that station down, I made sure there was nothing left for Sawyer to come back to. No stock. No workers. And no reason to set foot on that land again. As far as I’m concerned, no one should be out there.’