The Killer of Oz

by Chelsea Field

  I noted he’d used past tense without stumbling over it. Grieving parties would often speak about a recently deceased loved one as if they were still alive before correcting themselves. He’d gotten used to the news of her demise quickly.

  But before I’d finished the thought, his face fell.

  “I can’t believe she’s not coming back this time. We’ve been working side by side for three years now—at least when she’s not flying around the world. It seems unreal…” He patted down his shirt pocket as if searching for something, then let his arm drop. “I suppose that’s what you’re here about? Can I get you a tea or coffee or anything like that?”

  Connor gestured to the satchel on my shoulder. “We retrieved this from her car. Will you see if anything’s missing?”

  “Oh, sure. Let me get the order details so I can double check. I’ll have to leave you up here in the public area, sorry. My company contact didn’t specify whether you had clearance to the lab.” He started walking away, patting his pockets as he went, then turned back. “I’d say don’t worry about the occupants of the room, they don’t bite, but I’d be lying. Just keep the glass between you, hey?” He winked, pulled a key from a chain on his belt, pressed his thumb to a sensor on the wall, and disappeared through a metal reinforced door.

  Which left us to look around the room.

  Museum was a generous term for the place. Glass-fronted enclosures covered the walls—some of their occupants dead and preserved, others alive—but all of them deadly. Information sheets were stuck to these enclosures with Blu-Tack or sticky tape or sometimes both, and these too reflected the passage of time. Some were handwritten, but most were printed—in an eclectic collection of mismatched fonts—on paper ranging from bright white to yellowing with age. The two commonalities I could identify were that none of them matched and each of them detailed facts I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  Having grown up in Australia, it had never felt like a dangerous place to me. But seeing all the things that could kill you in this crowded, peculiar room creeped me out. Not that I was about to admit that to Connor.

  I was relieved when Dr. Pasquel Merlot returned.

  He still moved with an underlying energy, but as he went through the satchel’s contents, referencing the tablet he’d retrieved from his lab, his absentminded air was gone.

  My eyes wandered around the room again. A flash of movement at head-height showed a palm-sized spider lunge in my direction. I flinched backward.

  Okay, so there was glass between us, but instincts aren’t always capable of reason.

  The scientist looked up at my jump. “Oh, don’t mind Sid. He knows you’re way too big to be his dinner. He’s just feeling frisky because it’s mating season.”

  Frisky Sid reared his glossy black legs against the glass, showing off his impressive fangs. I scanned the info sheet. He was a Sydney funnel web, regarded as the most dangerous spider in Australia and possibly the world. Those fangs could pierce a fingernail or shoe leather, and the venom could kill a child in fifteen minutes flat. But never mind that, the sheet assured me. There hasn’t been a human fatality since the antivenom was developed in 1981. And as Pasquel had said, their prey were invertebrates, with millipedes being a particular favorite.

  I was more assured by the fact that Sydney funnel webs weren’t found this far north. Except for the one right here in front of me anyway.

  Pasquel finished his stocktake and closed the satchel. “Everything’s here. But the contents have been compromised, so I’ll have to dispose of it all.”

  Connor placed his hand on the leather. “We’d prefer to keep it with us.”

  Pasquel opened his mouth to object.

  “Until the investigation is concluded.”

  The scientist let go of the satchel. “Right. That makes sense, I suppose. But er, take good care of it, won’t you? The Taste Society wouldn’t want it falling into the wrong hands.”

  Was that natural precaution? Or did he know why someone might be after it?

  “Of course. Tell us about Amy.”

  Pasquel sat down on a shabby stool and looked at his hands as if he wasn’t sure what to do with them now they were empty. Perhaps we should’ve agreed to a drink of some kind so he might’ve had one himself.

  “She wasn’t much of a talker,” he began after a short period of contemplation, “but she was nice enough to listen to an old fart like me yabber on for hours. Good worker too, efficient and careful. Handy with the snakes and other critters we have around here.”

  An irreverent corner of my brain was amused by the extrapolated job description: No communication skills required. Must be good with snakes.

  Thankfully, Connor stayed focused. “Any idea who she liked to hang out with?”

  Pasquel shook his head. “She didn’t. When she wasn’t here or traveling, she was happy in her own company, kept to herself mostly. Only time I saw her at the pub was when she was picking up takeaway.” His hands seemed to fidget in his lap unless he watched them. “She had a few hobbies that kept her busy, collecting… historic postcards, I think it was, and on her days off she’d often go out hiking. But always alone as far as she ever told me.”

  I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. There was only one stool, so we’d remained standing, and I had to resist the ill-considered urge to lean against the wall of enclosures. “Surely she had to mention someone to you. A family member. A love interest. An online friend. Anyone?”

  “Well, yes, there was a woman, Norma… Norma Harris, I think? Not family, as far as I’m aware, but a good thirty years older than Amy. She’s one of those gray nomads and would swing through here a few times a year. She was here this week, actually. I know because whenever she comes, she makes these marvelous lamingtons, and Amy always brings me some.” He patted his stomach appreciatively. “I asked Amy about their relationship once, but as I said, she wasn’t a talker. I didn’t push.”

  Connor made a note and moved the conversation on. “Did you ever see Amy under the influence of drugs or alcohol?”

  Pasquel’s brow furrowed. “No, I don’t reckon so. With the dangerous, precision work we do here, I would’ve noticed if she wasn’t up to scratch. Plus she’s never missed a day of work.”

  “What about in her downtime?”

  “I wouldn’t know, I didn’t see her then. Back before my wife passed away, we had Amy over for dinner occasionally. But I’m no cook, so I didn’t see her outside work after that. Drugs aren’t round these parts much though. Farming is a tough life, and just about everyone’s got too much on their plates to mess around with that stuff. Not like kids in the cities. Of course, there’s plenty of people who’ll down a bunch of beers at the pub, if that helps.”

  “What are the consequences of the missed shipment?”

  Pasquel glanced at the satchel under Connor’s arm. “Very little in all probability. Antidotes are too important to mess around with, so Taste Society policy is that if something strange happens in transit and the vials are separated from the courier for any period of time, they write them off as compromised and get fresh ones. Because of that, there’s a built-in safety factor of several days in case of mishaps like that or any other kinds of delays.”

  He patted his pockets again and rummaged up a pen to keep his hands occupied.

  “So with that safety factor, it should be fine. Another Taste Society courier picked up a new shipment an hour ago, and I had enough stock of everything except for one obscure antidote to tide things over. Even that I’ll be able to send off ten days from now when the batch is done. And its correlating poison is so obscure the chances of someone dying as a result of the delay are so minuscule it might as well be zero.”

  I frowned. “But if someone drugged Amy to make sure the shipment never arrived, wouldn’t that increase the chances of that particular poison being used?”

  “No.” Pasquel waved his hand and narrowly avoided flinging the pen across the room. “Stopping a single shipment is pretty
much useless because without access to the Taste Society’s supply records, there’s no way to tell what, if any, antidotes would be out of stock at any given time in any given location. I certainly don’t have clearance for that. As far as I know, access is limited to a select few.”

  Connor nodded. Maybe he’d known that already. “You probably saw on the news that Amy’s body was found partially consumed by a crocodile? A dead one.”

  “Yeah.” Pasquel’s blue eyes grew shadowed. “I sure as hell hope she was dead first. Though crocs tend to be scarily efficient predators, so I suppose the shock—”

  “Cause of death was drowning,” Connor surprised me by confirming. “But we don’t know what killed the crocodile. Are there any recreational substances a human might take that would be lethal to a crocodile?”

  That caught the scientist’s attention. “Most likely, yes. I mean, toxicity is incredibly subjective. The critters we have in the museum here are rated on how toxic they are to humans. But if you or anyone asks me how toxic something is, the first parameter I need is: what do you want to kill?”

  He motioned to the large black spider that’d made me flinch. “Take Sid there as an example. His venom is highly effective on two groups: invertebrates, as nature intended since that’s what he eats, and primates, including humankind, which was pure mischance. A cat or dog gets bitten, no problem, their systems will neutralize the venom in half an hour. Chickens and other birds can gobble down a Sydney funnel web without harm. It’s basically only people that’ll die.”

  Somehow I didn’t find that comforting.

  “The venom also affects invertebrates and primates in completely different ways. Invertebrates are paralyzed. Handy for eating, see? But in primates, it sends their whole nervous system into overdrive until their system conks out altogether.”

  I eyeballed Sid with renewed distaste. Then tried to remember what Connor’s original question had been.

  Pasquel answered both mine and Connor’s at the same time. “So it’s very possible that certain recreational drugs, relatively benign to humans in the right dosages, could kill a croc. But it’s not something that’s been well-researched.” He ran fingers through his hair and added in a tone of regret, “I suppose funding would be rather hard to come by…”

  I sure hoped funding would be hard to come by. I could think of better uses for my tax dollars than feeding marijuana cookies to prehistoric lizards.

  Like building flood-proof bridges, for one.

  It rained as we drove to Amy Cooley’s home. Not the torrential kind of rain that was partially responsible for her death. Just a steady drizzle.

  It didn’t cool things down, only made the air more humid, if that were possible. I wondered who would clear out Amy’s estate if she was as isolated as Dr. Merlot had made her seem. Had she been lonely, or did she like it that way? My thoughts turned to my own family, and I experienced a wave of gratitude.

  The wave of gratitude when thinking about them wasn’t unusual, but it was nice not to have the pang of homesickness that often accompanied it. I was so glad to be here. Except now I’d found new family in LA as well—not the linked-by-blood kind, but family all the same. Was I destined to be torn between two continents?

  I huffed at myself for being melodramatic and leaned against my seat, enjoying my current circumstances for what they were. Even if that was in the middle of a probable murder investigation. At least I was with Connor, in Australia, and most of my loved ones were waiting for me at the hotel.

  Amy lived in a typical Queenslander home: a raised single-story timber structure with a gabled corrugated-metal roof and a generous veranda. It was mostly hidden by an assortment of trees and shrubs at the end of a long driveway. We turned up the dirt track but had to stop halfway along it thanks to a large branch that had come down from a gum tree. Not all that surprising considering the weather the night Amy had left.

  The branch was large enough that we both got out to move it and still struggled. Well, I struggled. Connor made it look like he could’ve done without my help.

  Lucky he was so handsome, or I might’ve had to accidentally drop some gumnuts down his trousers.

  Unaware of my wayward thoughts, he was frowning up at the tree that had inconvenienced us. “That limb didn’t fall by itself. Someone cut it.”

  “Are you sure?” The driveway was a strange place to leave a tree limb. “Do you think Amy was trying to discourage thieves while she was gone or something?”

  “No. Look, the sawdust is in too neat of a patch for that. It would’ve been spread out by the heavy rains. This must have been done after her departure.”

  On high alert, we returned to the car and drove the rest of the way. I put the satchel over my shoulder. There were no other vehicles visible out the front of Amy’s house, but after last night’s break-in and the strangeness of the cut branch, I wasn’t taking chances.

  Dr. Merlot had given us a spare key. On longer overseas trips, he’d collected Amy’s mail and left it inside for her. We walked up the narrow garden path, brushing past the infringing foliage, and up the steps to the front porch. Connor inserted the key and pushed the door.

  It didn’t open.

  He gave it a shove and it cracked open an inch. Glass shattered inside. His hand went to his gun that wasn’t there. I kind of wished for a Taser or pepper spray myself.

  “Hang on.” I darted for the nearest window. “I’ll check if I can see what’s blocking the door.”

  He looked like he wanted to protest but only said, “Be careful.”

  I kept my body behind the wall as I peered inside. Startled blue eyes met mine through a skewed balaclava. My heart rate ratcheted up.

  The figure spun and disappeared through a doorway.

  “Someone’s inside,” I called to Connor. “I think they’re making a run for it.”

  Connor cursed and shoved the door again. It opened farther this time. “I’ll go through the house. You go round. Stay safe.”

  I was already running, smashing through the overgrown garden. My brain processing what I’d seen. The cut tree limb. The blocked door. The skewed ski mask—like the wearer had put it on hastily. Maybe when the glass smashed. A warning system?

  Amy’s satchel snagged on a branch, and I fumbled to untangle it.

  Everything the thief had done so far had been nonconfrontational. Trying to avoid us rather than harm us. But how would they get away? There’d been no getaway vehicle out front. If they were fleeing on foot, Connor would catch them.

  I got the satchel free and started running again, but slower. What if there’d been a vehicle in the garage? Should I be running toward our car instead of away?

  The fact I was closer to reaching the back of the house than the SUV made the decision for me. I bashed through a few more yards of shrubbery and heard an engine roar. In front of me rather than behind. I leaped a tangle of garden hose, pushed past a tree, and finally had a line of sight.

  The thief—and a second leather-clad person—tore off on a motorbike. I tried to note details, but I knew nothing about bikes. It was black and silver and shiny, and the mud and dust kicking up behind it obscured the plate from view.

  They were zipping down a walking trail our rental couldn’t follow. Connor sped out of the house as the riders disappeared around a bend. He cursed again.

  His adrenaline heightened his attractiveness, his muscles forming tighter lines across his torso, his eyes flashing with danger and… amusement. He walked over to me and brushed my face, then plucked a twig out of my hair. “You look like you were dragged backward through a bush.”

  I grimaced and reconsidered the gumnut thing.

  “You should see the bush.”

  10

  Whoever the ski-mask-clad, motorbike-riding escapists were, they’d been looking for something in Amy Cooley’s home. I would’ve paid good money to know what.

  But there was a chance—given we’d chased them off—that whatever they were after was still here.
>
  Connor and I did a walkthrough together. The front door had been blocked by a hefty sideboard, and the shattering noise had been two wineglasses balanced on top. Definitely a warning system designed to give the intruders a head start.

  Judging by the possessions sprawled over the office, hallway, and living room, the mystery trespassers had searched those rooms before we’d arrived. The rooms that hadn’t been searched were a lot tidier. Two of them were also a lot weirder.

  One was filled with thousands of historic postcards suspended from the ceiling like some kind of strange hanging art installation. Lights shone at odd intervals to highlight particular postcards and cast gently swaying shadows against the black walls.

  The second unusual room was what I had to assume was Amy’s bedroom—since it was the one with a bed in it. Yet on the far side where you might expect a walk-in robe to be, the nonstructural wall had been replaced with glass and the robe space filled with soil, leaf litter, large stones, larger tree branches, and a few tropical plants.

  It looked like something you’d find in a zoo. “What on earth? Is that a…” I couldn’t think of the right word.

  “Terrarium,” Connor supplied.

  “Like, for snakes?”

  “Or lizards.”

  I couldn’t spot anything moving inside, but maybe that’s because I didn’t know what I was looking for.

  Then again, that didn’t bode well for this house search.

  Connor was staring at it too. “It’d be a good place to hide something.”

  I backed up a step. “Nuh-uh, I don’t care if I have a higher resistance to poisons. I am not going in there.”

  Connor accepted this. Possibly with relief. “We’ll see what we can find in the rest of the house, and if we don’t have any luck, then I suppose we can call in a snake catcher.”

  I let out a breath, and we moved on to the garage. It was empty except for a few basic garden tools. No chainsaw although there was a hacksaw someone might have used to chop through the branch. If they had a lot of time. Which seemed a silly way to buy time if you didn’t have enough of it. Maybe there’d been a third person here? Someone with a car and a chainsaw? But then how many people were we dealing with?