The Killer of Oz

by Chelsea Field

  I put down a pair of hedge clippers I was fiddling with and returned to the job at hand. We might get more answers if we started our search in earnest.

  “All right. I’m gonna let you search the room with the expensive stuff in it.” I gestured to my scratched legs and leaf-ridden hair—as if Connor needed further evidence of my accident-prone nature. “Replacing collectors’ items is not what I want to use my holiday money on.”

  He nodded. “I’ll go through the rooms that have already been searched too since I’ve had more experience spotting hidden safes, false bottoms, and that sort of thing.”

  “Which leaves me with the kitchen, dining room, and bathroom—”

  “And the bedroom.”

  Dammit.

  “Fine, but I’m not going in that terrarium thingy.”

  “Agreed.”

  We returned to the house, but I hesitated. “Um, what are we looking for again?”

  Any evidence of recreational drugs—whether personal or planted. And any reason someone might want her dead. Bonus points for finding a contact number for Norma.

  We got to work.

  Not for the first time in my glamorous life as an undercover poison taster, I found myself going through the trash. If a person had slipped something into Amy’s food without her knowing about it, the evidence was more likely to be here than in the cupboards. Then again, it was just as likely it had been washed away down the river like so much other evidence.

  At least most opiates and benzodiazepines were relatively short-acting, so I reasoned I wouldn’t have to dig far. That was good because, after two days of un-air-conditioned storage, the bin stank and black mold was already growing on the lid. To my admitted relief, I didn’t find anything worth taste-testing. Egg shells. Dirty paper towel. Several banana peels. Amy had emptied her bin recently, and all the dishes on the sink were clean.

  The fridge contained milk and other perishables, which suggested she’d planned on returning soon. The freezer held espresso-flavored ice cream and a dead rabbit. A whole dead rabbit. Skin, fur, and frozen Popsicle tail. Which I supposed meant she did have a snake in her bedroom. A big one.

  The dining room and bathroom seemed like dubious places to hide things that might convince someone to kill you, so after a quick check of the cistern (I’d watched enough movies to look there), I did a cursory examination of both rooms—poking the fabric of the dining chairs, looking under the table, trying to find loose tiles, and even shaking the curtains which only got me covered in dust. I sneezed. The vanity cupboard held minimal hygiene and beauty products and a very mundane medicine collection: ibuprofen, Band-Aids, over-the-counter cough syrup, and some serious insect repellant which was a requirement for any Queenslander. Not exactly the stockpile of a heavy drug user.

  Reluctantly, I headed to the bedroom a.k.a. the snake room. At least, since Amy must’ve kept most of her clothes in the wardrobe I’d spotted in the study, I wouldn’t have to be here long. Or so I told myself.

  I started with the bedside table, sifting through the two drawers, checking the depth of each in search of false bottoms, and then slipping my hand between the legs of the unit to pat down the underside in case anything was stuck there. Nothing.

  The one piece of other furniture in the room was a comfy-looking armchair with a few clothes flung over it. That and the queen-size bed, which I ought to strip and search. But if I did, I’d feel the need to remake the bed afterward. I’d leave the mattress till last. I could barely be bothered flinging my own duvet and sheet in place most days.

  Connor, despite having a maid, straightened the covers every morning with military precision.

  But I tried not to judge myself too harshly. I came from a long line of animal lovers who valued comfort and companionship over immaculate homes. My grandfather had once kicked his wife and himself out of bed so two dozen baby chickens could warm themselves on the electric blanket during an unseasonably cold night.

  (Mum said grandma bought a heat lamp the next day, but no one knew whether she did it for the chickens or for the crick in her neck she’d gotten from sleeping on the couch.)

  I walked past Amy’s bed to the armchair, which was set back in a bay window near the terrarium. A nice spot to read, I thought, except for its close vicinity to a rabbit-eating snake, anyway. I sorted through the clothes flung over its padded cushions. It was all hiking gear: lightweight breathable pants and T-shirt, gators, and a broad-brimmed hat, with a pair of hiking boots on the floor beneath and a couple of trekking sticks propped against the armrest. The gear was expensive and well-used, which supported what Pasquel had told us about what Amy did in her free time. I checked the pockets but only came back with a damp tissue for my troubles. Eww.

  Wiping my hands on my shorts, I turned and noticed something out the corner of my eye which made all the hair on my neck stand to attention.

  The terrarium had a door. And it was open.

  That pertinent fact hadn’t been apparent from the other side of the room. The front-facing panels of glass were fixed shut, but the unseen door faced the bay window area I was now standing in.

  Not good.

  My gaze darted around the glass enclosure again, searching for anything scaly or poisonous or moving. But why would Amy leave the terrarium open? She wouldn’t unless it was already empty. Maybe whatever she’d kept in there had died.

  Just in case, I used one of the trekking sticks to slide the door closed. Then forced myself to take a few deep breaths. I only had the bed left to search. After that, I would get out of the room and shut the door behind me for good measure.

  Still clutching the trekking stick, I knelt down at a careful distance from the bed.

  What if the intruders had opened the terrarium to let loose whatever was in there and scare us off?

  I gulped. Then gingerly used the stick to lift the valance out of the way.

  It was clear of everything but dust and a collection of gushy romance novels.

  The tightness in my shoulders eased. Feeling silly, I let the valance fall again and sat back on my knees.

  Which was when I saw the giant snake. Right at eye level. On top of the bed.

  I gasped and scooted backward as fast and far as I could. Which wasn’t nearly far enough for my liking. The glass of the terrarium pressed against my back, blocking farther retreat. The snake raised its head and tasted the air with its forked tongue.

  Stuff it.

  I crab-crawled sideways until I reached the sliding glass door I’d closed so recently. Keeping my eyes on the snake, I opened the door by feel and slipped through, closing it again behind me. Before I could exhale in relief, an eerie thought crossed my mind. What if the snake had a mate?

  But no, I would’ve spotted a snake that size in the limited space of the terrarium. I looked around again to be sure. And the slithery thing was way too big to share with anything smaller. It would eat them.

  From my standing position, I had a full view of its sleek, sinuous length and concluded regretfully that it was a good eight feet long. The longest and thickest snake I’d ever seen, and not a species I’d come across in my home state. Which meant I didn’t know if it was venomous. It was a pale olive green with dark splotchy stripes serving as both decoration and warning. It was also between me and the bedroom door.

  I called Connor.

  “Find something?” he asked.

  “Um. Yes and no.”

  “What happened? Are you okay?”

  “I’m not in danger, but I found a snake.”

  “Of course you did.” Can a voice be terse and resigned at the same time? “Where are you?”

  He was going to love this. “In the terrarium.”

  Connor exhaled. I could imagine his head dropping against a wall. “Of course you are.”

  The snake’s head, on the other hand, came up still higher and swiveled around as if searching for something.

  “Care to explain?”

  I did.

  Connor cursed.
“I’m coming in.”

  “No, don’t. I’m safe where I am. And if one of us is going to risk getting bitten, it should be me.” I was the one with the rare gene mutation that increased my resistance against toxic substances after all.

  He cursed again. “Then I’m calling a snake catcher.”

  “Good idea.”

  He hung up. Which left me with nothing to do but stare at the snake.

  The giant, giant snake.

  On second thought, maybe I should search the terrarium while I was in here.

  Especially since, as Connor had pointed out, it was a darn good hiding place. Or at least it had been until the giant, giant snake I was avoiding eye contact with had escaped.

  Traipsing around my new home, I discovered a water bowl, a heating pad, and a bucket tucked behind the rocks. On the lid of the bucket, someone had written SNAKE POOP in permanent marker. Hmm.

  Connor called back. “I hope those tree branches are comfier than they looked.”

  Oh dear. “Why’s that?”

  “The fastest guy I could find said it’d take him two hours to get here.”

  I checked my phone display. Three o’clock. We needed to leave in half an hour to return in time to chaperone Mum to visit Kirk. It seemed kind of silly to me, but Dad had sounded dead serious. And I’d promised him I would.

  “Hang on a sec, I have an idea.” I hung up. Then called the Museum of Venomous Creatures.

  “Dr. Merlot? It’s Isobel, we met earlier today.”

  “Ah, did you get into Amy’s house okay?”

  “Yes. Actually, we’re at Amy’s house now, and I was just wondering whether she has a pet snake?

  “Sure. That’d be Frank.”

  I thunked my forehead on the nearest tree branch. Of course Dr. Merlot wouldn’t think to mention an eight-foot pet snake. To him, that was probably no more noteworthy than a goldfish.

  “Is Frank dangerous?” I asked.

  “No, not really. He’s a carpet python and kills prey by strangulation rather than venom. So long as you don’t let him give you a hug, you’ll be fine.”

  “Oh.” I ought to be able to resist any amorous advances the snake made. “That’s great, thanks.”

  “My pleasure. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  I looked down at the bucket again. “This might be a strange question, but is there any use for snake poop?”

  “Sure. It’s a natural deterrent for mice, so there’s a market for it. Some people swear by it to keep possums off their roofs too.”

  I wrinkled my nose. I think I’d prefer the thunderous thumping of playful possums in the middle of the night to snake poop in my rainwater.

  “Okay—”

  “Sorry, there’s another call coming in. My daughter and granddaughter on holiday in Bali, I think. Call me back if you need.”

  He hung up and left me staring at the bucket. There was no other hiding place in here, and if snake poop was a deterrent to mice and possums, it was just as much of a deterrent to would-be thieves.

  Reluctantly, I held my breath to avoid inhaling any nasty aromas and peeled off the lid.

  Unless python poop looked a lot like a notebook, the bucket had been mislabeled.

  I picked up the Moleskine notebook and flicked through it. Then I dialed Connor again.

  “Good news. Frank’s a friendly pet python who can only kill if he strangles one of us. And I think I found what we’ve been looking for.”

  There was a long pause. “Then I guess it’s time you introduced me to Frank.”

  11

  We left Amy’s house, running only a little late, with photographs of the notebook’s contents, a phone bill we’d filched from the office, and a photo of Amy with an older-looking woman we thought might be Norma Harris.

  Inside the notebook, we’d found a copy of this month’s staff roster at Port Douglas airport—a roster Amy shouldn’t have had—with the date she’d been due to fly out circled in blue marker. That along with the careful records in the notebook itself, sorted into columns and going back two years, exposed a secret we’d never anticipated.

  Amy had been using her Taste Society funded trips to smuggle something out of the country.

  She’d had special dispensation through the Taste Society to fly with liquid vials in her carry-on. But she’d taken that several steps further. The notebook contained entries like: July shipment: 50,000USD. Airport: $5,000. Exch. Rate: 1.27. Paid Winnie $48,500.

  We assumed the amounts listed in the Airport column were bribes to get through security or bribe an airline attendant to do so. Which left Amy herself keeping a cool ten grand after paying Winnie the remainder.

  There were three names Amy paid the larger amounts to: Winnie, Truby, and Rusty. Based on the way the profits were distributed, it suggested those three people supplied the product while Amy was paid for the actual smuggling of the black market goods overseas. So who the heck were Winnie, Truby, and Rusty? And what were they selling?

  There was one entry every few months, ranging from about fifty thousand to two hundred thousand dollars per “shipment.” Which didn’t seem like huge amounts of money in the scheme of criminal activity. Unless the ringleaders of the operation hired multiple couriers, spreading the product—and therefore the risk—around.

  The sole thing we knew for certain was we needed to learn more.

  If Amy had indeed been murdered, our conversation with Dr. Merlot suggested the motive wasn’t related to the Taste Society substances she’d been carrying. Both because he’d confirmed that no vials had been taken from her satchel and that, thanks to the Taste Society’s safety precautions, the missed shipment would have no real impact. Yes, we had at least one thief trying to steal that satchel, but we also had intruders searching Amy’s house. Assuming they were the same party, that again suggested it wasn’t the Taste Society antidotes they were after. Perhaps they wanted whatever product she’d been smuggling and didn’t know where she’d stashed it. Meanwhile, Amy’s isolated lifestyle made it difficult to dig up a personal motive. Which left her secret life of crime as our best lead.

  But how could we follow the trail?

  Connor and I decided to risk asking Dr. Merlot whether he recognized the names from the notebook. If any of them lived locally, he would be a good source of information. Assuming he wasn’t somehow involved.

  But if Pasquel was going to smuggle anything, surely it would be unauthorized Taste Society substances. And if Amy had partnered with Pasquel for that, she wouldn’t have needed the airport bribes since she already had special dispensation to carry such things. Nor would she have needed three sources of smuggling product, which was what the three names implied.

  I called Dr. Merlot as Connor drove. “Do you know anyone by the name of Rusty?”

  “Um, I don’t think so. Not that I can recall anyway.”

  “Ever heard Amy mention someone by that name?”

  “Er, no? Hang on a moment, will you? I’ll put Berta back in her terrarium.” There were some shuffling noises, and I imagined Pasquel wrestling a venomous snake one-handed while holding his phone in the other. “Sorry about that. Now, where were we?”

  “Rusty?”

  “Oh, no, not that I can remember.”

  “What about Truby?”

  “We’re talking about humans, right?”

  It was my turn to pause. “Um, probably? But if you know any animals named Truby, please mention that too.”

  “No, sorry.”

  My hopes sank further. “And Winnie?”

  “Winnie, did you say? Isn’t that some cartoon bear character?”

  I hung up shortly after that. We weren’t prepared to discuss anything else we’d discovered. Not yet. But I did let Pasquel know that someone had ransacked Amy’s house and that Frank was loose and might need looking after.

  As much as I had vastly different ideas about what a pet should look like, I didn’t want Frank to starve.

  That left us with tracking
down Norma in the hopes that she might know something. Given she was the only person Amy seemed in regular contact with outside work, we expected the phone bill we’d taken would contain her number. They’d have to call each other to meet up after all.

  But for now we had to switch gears to chaperone my mother’s visit with Kirk. Heck, there was even a chance Kirk or one of his gray nomad friends would know Norma—since it was the kind of community where the regulars who spent most of their days on the roads would get to know others who did likewise.

  Connor reached for my hand. We’d been driving in comfortable silence for a while and still had a long way to go. “Thank you for coming along with me on this case.”

  I smiled at the man who was handsome enough to convince any woman to follow him anywhere. “You’re welcome.”

  “You know I value your input. Plus I’m rather fond of your company too.” He gave my hand a squeeze.

  “Sure,” I teased, “so why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”

  He snorted. “I mustn’t compliment you enough if it makes you suspicious.”

  I patted his arm. “I’m willing to let you work on that.”

  If he hadn’t been keeping a careful lookout for kangaroos, cows, or motorcyclists, I suspected he might have lifted his eyes heavenward. “Thanks. And you’re right. There was a ‘but.’”

  I waited to hear it.

  “I swear I’m not trying to get rid of you—but—I’m hyperaware this is the first time you’ve seen your family in more than a year, and this case is shaping up to be bigger than anyone figured. Which means it’s going to take longer to wrap up than anyone figured. So I want you to—”

  I tensed, wondering if he was going to tell me what to do rather than talk about it as my partner.

  Being observant, he caught it.

  “I want to give you an out. To give you the option of stepping back, so you can do what we’re supposed to be doing on this holiday and spend time with your loved ones.”