Chapter Two
It was the longest-running joke in Caloundra, one of those harmless jests told so often that it takes on a life of its own - Gina and Nicholas Tiaron were in desperate need of a hobby. Teresa, Scott and I never really understood the joke, and Jason always promised he'd explain it to me one day but he never seemed to get around to it.
Teresa and Scott's parents would never have had time for a hobby anyway, given the demands of looking after a family as enormous as the Tiaron clan. Large families were in their blood, though - both Gina and Nicholas were Italian and proud of their heritage, having married young and migrating to Australia soon after. Nicholas found employment in the financial department of a Caloundra-based corporation, while Gina had worked briefly at the city's major hospital before leaving to become a full-time mother to the growing army of Tiaron children. A job which, to be honest, she vastly preferred.
Their eldest, sixteen-year-old Jonathan, had recently come home with an earring (only to hear his father say that it actually looked pretty cool, which caused a full week of scowling), while fourteen-year-old Katie had multiple trophies for netball, indoor cricket, girls' soccer and karate, as well as the claim that she'd once beaten up her karate instructor. Next were the eleven-year-old twins, Teresa and Scott, who shared that unspoken connection all twins seem to possess and who both had an odd habit of disappearing at unusual times. After them was nine-year-old Rebecca, who idolised her two older sisters, and finally six-year-old Sam, in his first year at school and just learning to deal with girl germs.
Keeping track of no less than six children was an effort, though, but the Tiarons made it look easy. Which is why, as Gina and Nicholas sat reading the morning newspaper while everybody left for the day, both parents grew increasingly curious as to where Teresa was. Scott stumbling downstairs an hour or so after his brothers and sisters was not unheard of - quite a common occurrence, actually - but Teresa was usually awake with the sun.
Walking along the upstairs hallway, a mug of steaming coffee still in hand, Nicholas paused outside Teresa's room and lightly knocked on the door.
"Teresa?" he called, but when no reply came, he gently pushed the door open.
Teresa was sitting cross-legged on the end of her bed staring out the window at the street below, a melancholy look in her eyes that Nicholas could never remember having seen there before.
Hearing her father enter the room, Teresa turned to him and smiled. "Hey dad," she said, whatever she'd been thinking about vanishing from her expression but not fast enough to disguise its presence from her father.
"Good morning Teresa," replied Nicholas. "I called before, I'm sorry..."
"No, I didn't hear you," Teresa said. "Still really tired, I think."
Nicholas nodded, noticing the lines around his daughter's eyes and her tired, defeated look. "You look it. What did you kids all do at that Sam Cranston's adventure camp, anyway?"
Teresa shrugged. "You know, adventure-type things," she replied. "I'll just get changed and come down for breakfast."
"I'll go check and see if your brother's still unconscious," Nicholas said, and with a grin, left the room.
Teresa dressed quickly and hurried downstairs, tying her hair into a ponytail on the way down. Heading for the kitchen, she crossed through the dining room and glanced at the newspaper on the table as she passed. The headline instantly caught her attention, and with a curious knot forming in her stomach, she turned back to the paper to continue reading.
Burned Alive
Four people were brutally murdered behind Caloundra Hotel last night, each victim tied to a stake and then set alight.
The victims were discovered by a hotel employee investigating the smell of smoke, but by then it was too late to save them, nothing left of the bodies but charred stumps.
"They were right behind the delivery entrance," said Joel Pearson, the bartender who discovered the bodies...
"Teresa!" came a sudden voice, and Teresa looked up to see her mother standing in the doorway. Glancing anxiously from Teresa to the paper then back again, Gina crossed the room and quickly swept the offending newspaper out of sight. "Good morning," she said, kissing the top of her daughter's head. "Sleep okay?"
"Great," replied Teresa with a small smile.
Gina nodded, recovering smoothly. "Kate used the last of the milk before she left, you couldn't run down to Kitty's store for me and get some more?"
Teresa nodded. "Sure, no problem."
"Thanks," Gina smiled, "money's on the counter." And taking the paper with her, she disappeared back into the house.
But even as Teresa began to walk down the street towards the convenience store on the corner, she couldn't stop thinking about the story on the front page. It was a bright, clear morning, but whenever she recalled the headline, she felt a sudden chill. The sheer brutality of murdering somebody was sickening, but burning them alive? Shaking her head, she wondered how the other Rangers had reacted to the news. Teresa had stood face-to-face with pure evil - kicked its teeth in too, on occasion - but it was staggering to be reminded that evil was sometimes just as alive in the hearts of ordinary citizens.
Kitty's corner store was a small, dusty shop at the end of the street. Several tables and chairs sat on the pavement outside where Kitty talked to passing pedestrians on the hot, lazy afternoons when she had no customers. Not that it mattered where you were - a trip to the corner store wasn't complete without hearing the latest gossip, and Kitty had been the neighbourhood's most reliable source of information since the 1970s.
"Hello Teresa!" she called brightly as Teresa entered the store, turning away from dear old Mrs Fortescue from number 46.
"Good morning Kitty," Teresa smiled, heading towards the refrigerators in the corner where the plastic bottles of milk lived. Behind her, Kitty resumed her conversation with Mrs Fortescue, and Teresa couldn't help but overhear.
"...anyway, they didn't say it in the papers, but I heard one of them was Luke Fitzgerald," Kitty said, putting peculiar emphasis on the name, and Teresa instinctively knew they were talking about the four murder victims.
Mrs Fortescue was suitably stunned. "Not...you mean, that Luke Fitzgerald?"
Kitty nodded, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "Indeed," she replied. "Good riddance, too, if you ask me. I used to babysit for the family, you know, and you should've seen the change in his son when all that horrible business went on, and what his father did. The poor child was devastated, he could barely leave the house. It just tore the family apart..." Kitty broke off, noticing Teresa approaching the counter. "Just the milk, dear? That'll be five fifty."
Teresa handed her the ten dollar note. "Are you talking about those four people they found last night?"
Kitty nodded, handing Teresa her change. "Dreadful business, all that," she said. "Fitzgerald might've had it coming, but it makes you wonder just where the world is going. Somebody really ought to do something."
Teresa paused for a second, and then nodded. "You're right," she agreed. "They should. Have a good day, Kitty," and taking the bottles of milk, she turned and left the store.
The Youth Centre was steadily filling with people out to enjoy the first morning of the school holidays, but as Teresa entered the building, she noticed the majority of the older teenagers holding copies of the daily paper and speaking in quiet, reserved tones. Behind the Juice Bar, Ernie was wiping down the bench and watching a news report about the earthquake in Taloqan - Teresa recognised the pictures on the screen from first-hand memory.
"Hey Ernie," she said, passing the bar.
Ernie looked to her and smiled. "Oh, hey Teresa," he said, and nodded his head in the direction of the screen. "You been watching the TV reports of the earthquake?"
"More or less," she replied, ignoring the brief impulse to tell Ernie she hadn't really needed to.
"Can you believe the Power Rangers rescuing the entire city full of people?" he said, then grinned. "And they're all ours."
Teresa smiled and turned away, soon spotting Tommy, Jason and I at one of the tables overlooking the work-out area. The three of us looked as if we were about to collapse. Jason was resting his head forward on both hands in a state of exhaustion Teresa could never remember, while I was sprawled in my chair, arms dangling over the arm-rests and my feet up on a nearby chair. Tommy's green backpack was lying on the table, the contents spilling out across the surface, while Tommy scribbled notes in a workbook with all the enthusiasm he could manage.
"Hi guys," said Teresa, walking over to us.
"Hey," I replied, as Teresa sat down next to me. "How are you feeling?"
"About the same as you guys look," she said, "but slowly regaining feeling in my arms and legs. Scott was still snoring soundly when I left."
"Yeah, I slept for about fourteen hours straight," Jason said, emphasising the point with a loud, gulping yawn. "I think that's a record."
Teresa glanced down to Tommy's notebook. "What are you working on, anyway?"
"An English assignment," replied Tommy. "It's due the week we all go back, and I know I'll forget about it if I don't start working on it now. We were studying mystery and horror in classical literature, and I have to write an essay on what defines a monster in classic literal terms."
Teresa glanced across the Youth Centre to a newspaper lying on a table across the room. "You wouldn't have to look far in terms of research, I don't think."
"You talking about what happened last night?" I asked.
Teresa nodded. "You guys all saw the front page of today's paper?"
"Yeah," Tommy replied grimly. "I couldn't believe somebody could do something like that. Not somebody human, at any rate."
"I know what you mean," agreed Jason. "We go to help the United Nations on a massive search and rescue mission, and back home in Caloundra four people are burnt at the stake. It's depressing, I'll give you that."
Teresa nodded. "We should do something, get involved somehow."
"This is really more of a police matter," shrugged Jason. "I mean, I don't think it falls into our jurisdiction."
"It's just not right though," Teresa replied, sitting back in her chair, "that somebody could do something like this."
"You mean like burning people alive?" came a voice, and the four of us turned to see Ian walking towards us. Reaching the table, he pulled out the chair beside Tommy and sat down. The Grey Ranger had a kind of glow in his eyes that the rest of us were lacking, and he looked like he'd jogged to the Youth Centre. "I take it you guys are talking about the murders last night, right?" We nodded. "Well, I wouldn't worry too much, they were already dead when the killer set fire to them."
There was a second of silence, and Jason turned to him. "Partly out of curiosity and partly out of fear, how exactly do you know that?"
"My dad is the officer in charge of the investigation," Ian replied. "He left last night a few minutes after I got home. And this morning, I heard him talking to somebody on the phone, and given this city's usual level of weirdness, I automatically started paying attention to what I was overhearing."
"This from the new guy," I said with a smile.
Ian grinned. "Anyway, there were two really weird things about the murders that weren't mentioned in the papers, right? Apparently one of the bodies wasn't completely burnt, so the forensic guys could perform a fairly good examination of the body. The first thing was that the victims were already dead when the killer set fire to them. Dad mentioned something about blunt trauma..."
"Blunt trauma means they were probably beaten to death with something," mumbled Tommy. We all turned to him, and he lightly tapped his homework. "I had to read an Agatha Christie novel. You'd be surprised the things you pick in those books."
Teresa chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. "But why go to all the trouble of setting fire to somebody if you've already killed them? That doesn't make any sense."
"Exactly why it stuck in my mind," Ian replied. "The second thing was that, according to the police scientists, the bodies burnt like they were doused in about twenty flammable chemicals, but the victim they could examine had absolutely nothing on them."
I remembered some of the things my father had told me about fire-fighting, and scratched my head. "And that's really weird too."
Jason glanced around the group. "You think this points to one of our bad guys being responsible?"
"It's worth looking into," nodded Teresa. "I mean, if the killer isn't human it definitely falls into our territory."
Jason sat back in his chair, deep in thought. "I guess so..." he said. "It's just that all our villains tend to stand in broad daylight and threaten to blow things up. This just doesn't feel like a monster on the loose."
Ian looked from Jason to Tommy. "Do you guys think Rita could be responsible for this?"
Tommy shook his head. "No way. Why would Rita or Goldar be targeting random people? And if they were guilty, Rita would've been bragging about it by now. Same with Goldar, where's the ego?"
"And Rita's been quiet ever since we shut the Gateway anyway," said Jason, then turned to Teresa. "You're right though. If there is something supernatural about these murders, we should get involved." He paused, glancing around the table, and I couldn't help but smile - the fire was back in Jason's eyes, and the case was officially ours. "Ian, find out what you can about the murders from your dad and call me. I'd rather know more before making any kind of decision."
"I'll call tonight," said Ian. "Dad brings his case notes home every night, and that'll give me a chance to see what the police have found discovered, you know, that kind of thing."
"It's settled then," said Teresa, sitting back in her chair. "Thanks you guys, you know I do feel better, knowing we're doing something."
"From one adventure straight to the next," I said, looking over to Jason and smiling. "I guess superheroes never get winter holidays?"
Jason nodded. "It's a contract thing," he said, with a tiny smile in return.
After spending the day helping Tommy with his English assignment, the five of us eventually left the Youth Centre, Ian already thinking ahead as he said goodbye. There was a fax machine that doubled as a photocopier in his father's study - if he remembered how to use the thing, copying the notes shouldn't be too much trouble. But what was a problem was actually getting enough time to read through everything covering his father's desk, find the relevant pages and copy them without being interrupted.
He exercised Fenris in the front yard until dinner, welcoming his father home when the car pulled into the drive. When tea was finished, and his brother was cleaning up while his parents watched television in the lounge room, Ian made his move, quietly sneaking upstairs, avoiding the steps that creaked, and heading towards his father's study.
"Sorry Dad," he murmured, and slipped inside.
Crossing the room, he reached the mahogany desk and realised he'd received some luck - the stack of papers beside his father's briefcase contained everything the police had on the case, and after quickly scanning the documents, he soon found the profiles of the four victims.
He'd just started reading the first profile when the phone rang. Ian jumped about three feet and immediately dashed to the door, opening it slightly and listening for approaching footsteps. He held his breath without realising, his heart beating double-time in his chest.
Downstairs, he heard his father answer the phone. Ian couldn't make out the conversation, but picked up the click of the receiver and heard his father turn to his mother and speak. The conversation was short, in tones barely above whispers, but Ian heard every word, and sighing softly, he raised his communicator and spoke.
"Jason, it's Ian, are you there?"
"I'm here," crackled Jason's voice. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Yeah," Ian said. "Tomorrow morning the twelve of us are gonna have to get involved on this one."
There was a pause. "That bad, huh?"
"A dozen times worse," he replied. "I just overheard my dad on the phone, and they've found three more bodies, all burnt at the stake behind a house in Golden Beach. Jase, it looks like the murderer just graduated into a fully-fledged serial killer, and if yesterday and tonight are anything to go by, then we've got maybe twenty-four hours before he kills again."