Broomed For Success

by Morgana Best

  A look of doubt crossed Max’s face. Still, he said, “That’s a good idea.”

  I waved him inside. “Come in while I call them.”

  I was glad I was already dressed for the day and had my make-up on. I had been going to get an early start in the office. What if Max had come an hour earlier and had seen me in my natural state? I shuddered. That certainly wasn’t worth thinking about.

  Oleander said she and Athanasius would be happy to look after the office for me. I gave them some quick instructions. Athanasius said they could get a lift to town on the retirement home bus, so everything was working out well. Plus I would get to spend some alone time with Max.

  I hurried to the TV and put on a DVD of Starsky and Hutch to keep Persnickle happy while I was away. I set it to repeat. That would keep him happy for hours.

  I grabbed my handbag. “I’m ready.”

  “Just let me check first,” Max said. He peeked behind the curtains and then said, “I’ll go out the back to see if the investigator is hanging around. I’m sure I gave him the slip, but I can’t be too careful.” Moments later, he hurried back. “Quick, Goldie, let’s go! We’ll get coffee on the way,” he added.

  I smiled at him. He really was the perfect man.

  Max took the back roads. “We’re not going on the M1?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “No, just in case that investigator’s around. He’s not from these parts, so I’m sure he doesn’t know the back way to Helensvale.”

  My spirits fell. I had hoped to spend more alone time with Max than the twenty or so minutes to Helensvale. “So we’re meeting this detective in Helensvale?” I asked Max, doing my best to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

  “No, we’re meeting him outside the surf club at Mermaid Beach,” Max said. “It’s just that I’m taking the back road to Helensvale and I’ll continue through Broadbeach to Mermaid Beach.”

  I nodded. “Oh, I see.” I smiled to myself. “So what do you know about this detective?”

  “Retired detective,” Max said. “He’s in his late seventies now. He was the youngest detective on the job. He’s not exactly chatty. And he can’t wait for us, so fingers crossed nothing happens to delay us.”

  “Then we had better get coffee after we speak to him,” I said, and Max readily agreed.

  “Have you had any more trouble with your ex-boyfriend?” Max asked me.

  I shot a look at him, but he was staring straight ahead. “Not since yesterday,” I said. “With any luck, he’s flown back to Melbourne by now.”

  “He must have deep feelings for you if he’s gone to all this trouble to try to get you back,” Max said.

  I held up both hands, palms upwards. “Who knows? He’s not a nice person. I have no idea what’s going through his mind.”

  “At some point, you must have thought he was a nice person,” Max pressed me.

  I looked out the window. “I suppose so. Still, when I was dating him I saw him kissing Alexis, another real estate agent from his firm. I far outsold her, but moments after I saw him kissing her, he came into my office and told me he was promoting her over me and he was sending me to run the office in Southport.”

  “What? Southport at the Gold Coast?”

  “Yes, thousands of kilometres away from Melbourne,” I said.

  “You didn’t object?”

  I nodded vigorously. “Of course I objected but he made it quite clear that it was either Southport or he would fire me.”

  “You didn’t think of going into business for yourself like you are now?”

  “No, it’s difficult in Melbourne,” I said. “The office rents are far more expensive than here, obviously. There was no way I could have made a go of it in Melbourne, not on a limited budget. Anyway, just after that happened, I found out my uncle had passed away and left me the house at East Bucklebury and a small inheritance.”

  “And Persnickle,” Max said with a chuckle.

  I laughed too. I wished I knew more about Max. Now he knew about my ex-boyfriend, but I didn’t know anything about his past girlfriends. I wondered how I could get some information out of him. “So, have you lived in East Bucklebury for long?”

  “Yes,” was his only reply.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “The traffic isn’t too bad at the moment,” Max said. I wondered if that was an attempt to change the subject.

  “It usually isn’t on a Monday. I wonder what this guy can tell us?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up, Goldie.” Max accelerated to beat a truck on the roundabout that was coming at us way too fast. “He might not know anything.”

  “So he didn’t say anything on the phone?”

  Max shook his head. “No, he wasn’t forthcoming at all. We had quite a brief conversation, actually.”

  We spent the next twenty minutes in companionable silence. At least that’s what I hoped it was. It was silence, at any rate. When we reached Mermaid Beach, a bout of nerves hit me. “I hope he has something useful to say,” I said.

  Max got lost and drove around the block a few times before he found the surf club. “That must be him,” Max said, indicating a tall, grey-haired, fit looking man leaning back against his car and looking at his watch. Max pulled in behind him.

  The man strode over and offered his hand. “You must be Detective Max Grayson.”

  Max shook his hand. “I am, and this is Goldie Bloom.”

  The man shot me an appraising look and shook my hand.

  “What can I do for you? I don’t have much time.” He tapped his watch.

  “As I said on the phone, I’m on leave, but I’m looking into this unofficially.”

  The man raised his eyebrows but did not comment.

  “Angus Burns’s body was found in the house of Ben Parrish’s son, time of death estimated last Friday night.”

  “Chris Coleman and Martin Deakin are also deceased.”

  Max nodded. “That’s right. Laurence Pattinson-Smythe lives at Tamborine Mountain. We managed to track down a son of Chris Coleman and a daughter of Martin Deakin. Interestingly, Martin Deakin’s daughter appeared in East Bucklebury a few days ago.”

  “Now that is interesting.”

  Max agreed. “Like I said on the phone, there was a recent article on East Bucklebury in a Sydney paper with a captioned photo of Ben Parrish in his youth standing outside the house. The house was listed for sale around that time.”

  “So the address would have been easy to track down,” the retired detective said. “How can I be of help to you?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Max said with a little wave of his right hand. “Is there anything you can tell me about the case? I’ve told you everything we know—do you know anything thing else? Any motives for Burns’s murder?”

  “We do know one other thing,” I said. “Laurence Pattinson-Smythe told us the other robbers gave some of the gold bars to Angus Burns. They trusted him and they thought if the police found where they’d hidden the rest of their gold, then they’d have the bars Angus hid for them as backup.”

  The detective looked out to sea for a moment before saying, “That doesn’t surprise me. Chris Coleman and Martin Deakin were the first gang members we were onto. We did find some of the gold hidden at Coleman’s and Deakin’s houses, but it wasn’t all the gold. It makes sense they would have given it to someone else to hide.”

  “Did you ever find any of Angus’s gold?” Max asked him.

  He shook his head.

  “We never found as much as one bar of Angus Burns’s gold or of Ben Parrish’s gold. They must have hidden it quite well. Angus Burns lived it up in Dakar, in Senegal. In those days, there was no extradition agreement with Australia.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if Australia has a bilateral treaty with Senegal now. Maybe we do; maybe we don’t. Burns came back and lived a modest existence in Adelaide.” He looked at his watch again. “Well, I hope I’ve been of some help.” He shook hands with us again before striding to his car.
>
  I looked at Max. “That was interesting. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s time for a hearty breakfast,” Max said, rubbing his stomach. “How about I buy you some breakfast, Goldie? And some good coffee?”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said.

  “I believe there’s a nice little café nearby. I had a friend who used to live in Mermaid Beach,” Max said.

  My stomach tightened. Was it a girlfriend? I wished I knew something about his past.

  “He was a cop who moved up to East Bucklebury but didn’t like the quiet life so transferred to Sydney,” he added.

  I was relieved. I must admit I was a little jealous, but why would I be jealous of an ex-girlfriend? I silently admonished myself for being so silly.

  “Come on, let’s have breakfast and we can talk this through,” Max added.

  I wondered if this was sort of like a date? Or did Max simply want to discuss matters with me as a friend? Had he friend-zoned me? I really had no idea. Maybe I would think better on a full stomach and with elevated caffeine levels.

  Max found a parking spot in a little laneway that led to the beach. It was the only parking spot left and he did well to find it. The café was in a cute little building, all whitewashed timber and glass. It would have been nicer if we were overlooking the ocean, which was just over a rise.

  However, the waitress at the front desk was rather unfriendly. “Table for two?” she snapped in an accusatory tone.

  Max answered in the affirmative, so she showed us to a table at the back. Max ordered coffee and said we needed it urgently.

  I glanced at the menu. “That coconut breakfast bowl looks good, and so do the buckwheat and banana pancakes with maple and coconut yoghurt.”

  Max raised his eyebrows. “That’s very healthy of you, Goldie.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll drink enough coffee to counteract any health benefits,” I said with a laugh. “What did you make of that?”

  “Of what Detective Bob Phillips said?”

  I nodded. Max tapped his finger on the table. “Okay, it seems that Chris Coleman and Martin Deakin did give some of their gold to Angus Burns. There’s your motive right there.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you!” I said.

  Max looked up, surprised. “What is it?”

  I caught my breath. I had almost told him that I had spoken to Angus Burns’s ghost and he had vanished as soon as I asked him why someone would want to murder him. In hindsight, it was his guilty conscience. Now I was certain that Chris Coleman and Martin Deakin had given Angus a good portion of their gold.

  Of course, I couldn’t tell Max any of that. I said, “Silly me, it’s gone straight out of my head.” I forced a silly laugh, which came out as high-pitched and vapid. “Must be a lack of caffeine.”

  At that opportune moment, a waiter placed coffee in front of us.

  “Well, surely that will help,” Max said with a smile.

  I automatically wrapped my hands around the latte glass to warm myself. It was an old habit from living in Melbourne, drinking coffee on cold early mornings. Now that I was at the Gold Coast, I needed cooling down not warming up, but old habits die hard.

  After we had finished our coffee, I said, “So Angus Burns was likely murdered by a relative of Chris Coleman’s or Martin Deakin’s.” As soon as I said the words, I remembered that Max didn’t know about Martin’s daughter, Melissa Fowl. “Max, that’s what I forgot to tell you. Oleander and Athanasius found out last night that Martin’s daughter, Melissa, started work at the East Bucklebury retirement home only three weeks ago.” He looked shocked as I filled him in on all the details.

  “I’m sure Power doesn’t know that,” Max said.

  “Then can you tell him?” I said. “But won’t he ask you how you knew? He’ll be angry with you.”

  Max tapped his chin. “I know, I’ll tell Walters. He’s halfway reasonable and I’ll suggest to him that he let Power know he himself found out. I’m sure Walters would be only too happy to take the credit for it, and Power will be none the wiser.”

  “That is a good idea,” I said. I hoped the food would be a long time coming, so I would have more alone time to spend with Max. There were sparks between us, at least on my side. I wondered again if it took two people to feel chemistry or whether it could be entirely one-sided. Just as I was thinking this, our food was deposited in front of us, much to my disappointment.

  I laughed when I saw how much Max had ordered. “You can eat all that?” I said.

  “Just watch me,” Max said. He called the waiter back. “Another round of coffees please, same as before.”

  I swallowed my mouthful of banana. “Thanks so much, Max.”

  “Anytime, Goldie. This is fun, isn’t it, just the two of us…”

  I melted at his words and his tone. He was going to say more when I heard someone clear their throat behind me.

  “Goldie Bloom? Imagine seeing you here!”

  Chapter 10

  “Thomas! What are you doing here?” My stomach sank. Thomas had ruined my lovely breakfast with Max. I really was going to have to put my foot down.

  He held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m staying nearby, truly I am. It’s a coincidence that I’m here. I’m staying at a bed and breakfast near the beach, only a short walk from here. What? You didn’t think I was stalking you, did you?” He made a derisive snort.

  “Why haven’t you flown back to Melbourne yet?” I asked him.

  He pulled a chair from another table and moved it over to our table, and sat in between us. “Goldie, I really need to speak with you.”

  I set down my spoon with a clatter. “Not interested.”

  “It’s a business deal,” he said. “I’m sure you need an investor.”

  “I don’t need anything from you, Thomas,” I said through gritted teeth.

  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Max’s phone rang. He looked at it and said, “Sorry, Goldie. I have to take this.” He shot a glare at Thomas and added, “I’ll be right back.”

  Thomas sat in Max’s vacated chair. “Now just hear me out, Goldie. If you don’t like what I have to say, I’ll leave.”

  “Promise?”

  He did not respond but pushed on. “At first, I thought East Bucklebury was a back block of civilisation dump, but then I did some research. I see that a lot of developers are buying up land and selling small plots for a good price. It’s a glorified swampland.” A snorting sound burst from the back of his throat. “I think you could make a success of it, Goldie, but you don’t have the money to fund it. You need to get involved with one of these developers. I could pave the way for you.”

  I stood up. “Thomas, you need to leave. I don’t want anything to do with you on a personal or a business level. I don’t know how I can make that more clear to you. I want you to go away and never come back.”

  “Goldie, you need to see a therapist.”

  I sat down, confused. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  He leant across the table. “Goldie, I’m sorry to say I heard you talking to yourself the other day. In fact, I heard you having a long conversation with yourself. That’s not normal. You know, Goldie, that’s not healthy. It’s clear that our breakup has caused you to have a mental breakdown.”

  I was so angry I couldn’t speak at first. “Why, why, you’re so egotistical and conceited!” I sputtered when I finally found my voice.

  He went to lay his hand over mine, but I snatched it away. I picked up a fork and looked pointedly at his hand on the table. He wisely withdrew it.

  “Goldie, this is hard for me. I hope you understand. It’s hard to see someone you love having a mental breakdown. You really need professional help. You know what they say—talking to oneself is the first sign of madness.”

  He held up a palm towards me. “Not that I’m saying you’re mad, of course. No, not at all, but you have clearly taken leave of your senses. Any woman in her right min
d would like to take me back. I am offering myself to you on an open platter, so to speak. You’re living in a terrible place out in the middle of nowhere. Why, coffee isn’t even legal there! And you say you like it? That’s a sign you’re not in your right mind. A further sign is that you are having conversations with yourself. And of course, the concluding piece of evidence is that you don’t want to take me back.” He shook his head sadly.

  There was no response. I stormed out of the café just in time to see Max put his phone back in his pocket. “Get me out of here,” I said angrily.

  I hopped into Max’s car, trying not to notice how much it smelt like him. “I don’t know if Thomas is following me or not.”

  Max shrugged. “I have to pop back into the café to pay. Then I thought we could go for a lovely walk on the beach.”

  “I’d love to Max, but I think Thomas would follow me.”

  “All right, let’s do it. You leave Thomas to me. I’ll take care of him.”

  I smiled at Max, immensely relieved. I felt all warm and protected and cozy.

  I took off my heels and left them in Max’s car. I walked over sparse grass down to the beach with Max. It was a beautiful morning, and Max and I walked on the hard sand along the edge of the lapping surf. We walked north in the direction of Surfers Paradise. “This is lovely, Max,” I said.

  “I’m enjoying it too, Goldie,” he said. “What happened with Thomas? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

  I told him what Thomas had said.

  “Gosh, it’s hard to believe someone would actually say those things,” Max said.

  “He’s making me quite tense. I wish he would go back to Melbourne.”

  “I wonder why he thought you were talking to yourself?” Max asked me.

  My spirits fell. What happened when Max found out I was a sea witch, and could see and speak with ghosts with the help of Persnickle? He would no doubt think I was quite mad. It had been a lovely day and now I felt it was ruined. I realised Max was expecting an answer, so I said, “He no doubt heard me speaking to Persnickle. Thomas doesn’t have any pets so he doesn’t understand that people speak to their pets.”