KK04 - Dingo Dilemma

by Claire McNab

  Not recognizing the sound of my car, Ariana's German shepherd barked a warning when I pulled into the parking area behind Ariana's house. Poor Gussie had been left alone for one night already, and even though I knew a professional dog walker took her out every weekday, she must have been fretting for Ariana's presence.

  Ariana called out Gussie's name, and the barking stopped immediately. We both got out of the car. Ariana looked at me. So there'd be no confusion between us, I said, "I'll see you inside, then I'll go. As your car's still at the office, what time do you want me to pick you up in the morning?"

  "Eight? Would that be OK?"

  "Right-oh. Eight it is."

  She put a hand on my arm. "Kylie, thank you."

  I felt awkward and a bit embarrassed. If Ariana could read my mind she'd know how much I wanted to come inside, to make love with her, to banish, if only for a few moments, every thought of grief and loss from her thoughts.

  ****

  As instructed by Ariana, when I got back to Kendall & Creeling I double-checked the area before getting out of my car. No one was lying in wait for me. I expected, after everything that had happened, that I wouldn't sleep well, but as soon as my head touched the pillow I was unconscious, and didn't stir until the sound of the industrial-strength vacuum woke me up.

  First impressions can be indelible, I'd found, particularly with our cleaner, Luis. He had never quite got over our initial meeting, when I'd appeared waving a golf club to defend myself against a supposed intruder, not knowing that he came very early several times a week to clean the offices.

  For that reason I was always very circumspect with Luis. I tried to avoid walking up behind him and I kept a good bit of personal space between us when we spoke. Even with this care, he continued to treat me like an unpredictable and possibly deranged individual.

  I showered and dressed, then headed for the kitchen to grab a quick breakfast before I picked up Ariana. Turning a corner, I almost ran into Luis, who started violently, then murmured something in Spanish, possibly an appeal to a saint for protection.

  How ridiculous was this? A cleaner terrified of me, of all people? "G'day, Luis," I said in as friendly a tone as possible. "Nice weather we're having, don't you think?"

  He nodded slowly, all the while looking at me warily.

  "Look," I said, showing him my hands. "No golf club." He took a step back. I took a step forward. "Trust me," I said sincerely, "no weapons of any kind."

  I'd been trying to pick up a little Spanish from a traveler's phrase book, since so many people spoke the language in LA. I gave Luis my version of: "Hello, my name is Kylie. How are you today?"

  Perhaps my accent needed work, as Luis said, "I go," and rapidly went.

  I was in the kitchen bolting down the last of my porridge when Lonnie appeared holding a McDonald's bag containing his customary fast-food breakfast. "Catch the news this morning?" he asked.

  "Not yet. What's up?"

  "The Collie Coalition has gone public. Threatened Darleen in particular and Bellina Studios in general, if their demands that Darleen be replaced with a pure-bred collie are not met."

  He turned on the kitchen TV and flicked around stations until he found a local morning show. The story was top of the news.

  "Beloved dingo Darleen of Darleen Come Home finds herself in peril this morning, Rod!" an anorexic, white-blond young woman exclaimed to a sleek bloke with blow-dried hair, a deep tan, and very white teeth.

  His smile disappeared, replaced with a grave demeanor. "Peril indeed, Delia! A previously unknown group, calling themselves the Collie Coalition, using untraceable e-mails, have made grave but unspecified threats against Darleen and the studios where Darleen Come Home is produced. Their demands include the immediate replacement of Darleen with a collie dog."

  "So sad!" exclaimed the blond. "Let's cross to Gloria on location."

  The screen changed to show a rather windblown brunet clutching a microphone and looking intense. In the background I recognized the industrial street fronting the studios I'd visited the day before.

  Gloria had the same breathless, hyper-enthusiastic delivery as the anchors at the station. "Delia, Rod, I'm at the fabled Bellina Studios, home of so many award-winning shows. Now a pall of fear and confusion lies over every soundstage. An atmosphere of pending peril is in the air. Earlier this morning, I spoke with renowned director Earl Garfield..."

  The picture switched to a shot of a black limo drawing up to the entrance. As it slowed, Gloria galloped forward, microphone at the ready. She tapped on the window, calling out, "Mr. Garfield! Mr. Garfield! What are your feelings about these ominous threats to Darken, the star of your show?"

  The window slid partly down and Gloria shoved her microphone into the opening. Earl Garfield's face was barely discernible, and the two words he said were impossible to make out. Reading his lips, it appeared he had told her to get lost, using a more basic term.

  Now Gloria was back on camera in the present. Shaking her head, she said, "Reclusive director Earl Garfield was far too upset to make a statement at this time, but it seems he has every confidence that the authorities will track and bring to justice the perpetrators. This is Gloria Soames, reporting from Bellina Studios. Back to you, Rod and Delia."

  Rod and Delia has been joined at their elaborate desk by a solemn bloke with a crew cut and a badly fitting gray suit. Delia smiled at him with every evidence of deep delight. "And here with us this morning is our terrorism expert, Hadley Charles, author of the best-selling book on domestic terrorism, Not If, But When.'

  Rod chimed in with, "From your wide intelligence experience, Hadley, what can you tell viewers about the Collie Coalition?"

  "They're an intensely secret organization, Rod, thought by some to have ties to terrorist groups outside the country. Al Qaeda has been mentioned."

  Delia raised her eyebrows. "Really, Hadley? But there's been no statement this morning from the White House."

  "My sources," snapped Hadley, obviously irritated to have his statement questioned, "tell me that the threat the Collie Coalition poses is, as we speak, being discussed at the highest levels of national security. The highest levels."

  As the station went into one of its interminable commercial breaks, Lonnie said to me, "I told you, didn't I? Homeland Security are on the case, pity help us. Most of them wouldn't know if their pants were on fire."

  ****

  I picked Ariana up at eight sharp. She was somber, but seemed rested. As I drove down from the Hills, she said, "I'll tell Bob about Natalie, and of course my sister will have told Fran this morning, but I'd rather no one else knows. Lanette said she'd ask Fran not to discuss it in the office."

  "Right-oh." I broke the silence that followed by saying, "Darken Come Home was in the news this morning."

  "I heard it on the radio."

  "The intelligence expert I saw on television said there might be an Al Qaeda connection."

  "It's highly unlikely. Here's a group whose stated aim is to have a collie replace a dingo on a TV show. It seems quite a stretch to paint them as linked to international terrorism."

  "Lonnie says he's heard that Homeland Security is involved."

  "That'll please Fran," said Ariana with an acerbic smile.

  As I parked the car, I automatically checked the vehicles already there. I'd put Dad's Mustang away in the garage accessed by a lane at the back of the building, so it wasn't in view. Ariana's dark blue BMW was, of course, and Lonnie's nondescript Nissan was parked in his usual slapdash manner. Harriet's black VW Beetle was missing. Neither Fran's bulky SUV nor Melodie's red sports car had yet arrived, but Bob Verritt, who'd recently purchased a silver Lexus—his pride and joy—drove in behind us.

  "Well, what do you think of our Kylie?" he said to Ariana as he got out of his car. "Trainee private eye, amateur architect, media star...the girl's got talent coming out her ears."

  "Architect?" said Ariana, eyeing me. "You don't have some new plan, do you?"

 
"Nothing new," I said. "Just the sitting room I've mentioned before."

  "Don't trust her," said Bob, grinning. "Turn your back for five minutes, and she'll have a wall down."

  He walked with us into the building, still chuckling. Ariana said to me that we should speak to Fran about her underhanded deal with the furniture later today, after Ariana had caught up with the work that had piled up while she'd been absent.

  She disappeared into her office and I went along to my room, deep in thought about Dingo O'Rourke. Now that the news was out about the Collie Coalition, maybe he could relax a bit, as surely all this publicity would make an attempted dingo-napping much more unlikely.

  I opened my office door, and was astonished to see Quip lounging in a chair waiting for me. As usual, he was wearing a tight T-shirt to highlight the impressive physique he'd achieved with regular sessions at the gym.

  "Quip? Is Fran here? I didn't see the SUV."

  "I'm driving a rental. I left it on the street."

  I remembered Ariana's remark that she thought she'd seen Quip sitting in a parked car near our gates. "You were there last night, weren't you?" I said.

  His handsome face flushed with chagrin. "I didn't think anyone saw me."

  "Ariana did. What were you doing?"

  "Did Fran tell you I'm writing a novel?"

  "Titled J, Developer , featuring Morris Rainey, a barely disguised portrait of Norris Blainey," I said.

  "So you understand why I've been shadowing Blainey, hence the rental car. I'm gathering material for my book. I follow him everywhere he goes."

  "Crikey, Quip, isn't that dangerous? He's got a rep as a mega-ruthless bloke."

  Quip flexed a muscle or two. "You think he'd be any match for me?"

  "I reckon he'd pay someone else to deal with you. He wouldn't get his hands dirty himself."

  "I can handle it," said Quip, jutting his manly jaw. "Besides, I've got a contact in Blainey's office, so I'd get some warning if he was up to anything like that."

  "The contact wouldn't be a receptionist, would it?"

  I felt quite chuffed when Quip gazed at me with open admiration. "I can see you've got a handle on this detecting routine already," he said. Then his expression changed to one of concern. "Kylie, it's vital you don't mention my receptionist contact to Fran. Promise me you won't. She wouldn't understand."

  I understood why he was worried. Fran was notably possessive. "Good-looking is she?" I asked. "And blond, I bet."

  "Blond, yes. Good-looking, yes. But it isn't a she—it's a he."

  I didn't comment. Fran and Quip's marriage was a mystery to me. Angels would possibly fear to tread in this area—I certainly did.

  To fill the moment of awkward silence, I said, "Have you got any useful material, with all this lurking around?"

  "Have I ever! Sensational stuff! Corruption, kickbacks, politicians in his pocket..." Quip gave me a brilliant smile. "Help me out here, Kylie. Give me word for word what Blainey said to you and Ariana last night. I heard him pounding on the door. I couldn't see clearly from behind the fence, but after a short time I did see you walk him to his car."

  Obviously Quip hadn't realized I'd had Norris Blainey's arm up between his shoulder blades, and I wasn't going to admit to losing my temper, so I said vaguely, "He didn't say much. He mentioned how generous the offer he was proposing was, we basically said we weren't interested and asked him to leave."

  Disappointed, Quip asked, "No swearing? No threats? I need the raw immediacy of the real-life interactions to make my protagonist, Morris Rainey, live and breathe."

  "Can't say there were, not really." As I said this I remembered the venom in Blainey's voice when he'd choked out the words, You bitch. You'll pay for this.

  ****

  After Quip left, clearly dissatisfied with the quality of information on Blainey I could supply, I spent an hour answering e-mails and getting my files up to date. Then I decided a cup of tea would hit the spot, so I headed for the kitchen. I came through the door to find Fran, Harriet, and Lonnie already there.

  "Someone shut Julia Roberts in the storage room holding the disaster supplies," Fran was saying in a militant tone. "Melodie says it wasn't her, so which one of you was it?"

  "Not me," said Lonnie far too quickly. We all looked at him.

  Fran fixed Lonnie with a basilisk stare. "Why did you do that, Lonnie?"

  "What makes you think it was me? You know I'm allergic. I do everything I can to keep away from that cat."

  Harriet said helpfully, "Earlier, I saw Julia Roberts pawing at the door. Perhaps she managed to open it herself."

  Fran didn't shift her gaze from Lonnie. "You let that cat into the storage area, didn't you?"

  Lonnie shot out a mutinous lower lip. "So what if I did? What was the harm? I figured if Julia Roberts was in the disaster supplies, that meant she wasn't trying to get into my room."

  "The harm," snapped Fran, "was that she managed to open a container and make herself a nest in what were previously sterile field dressings. Dressings, I might remind you, that are essential in the treatment of the seriously wounded."

  "Cats love boxes," I said. "It's natural she'd want to get in one. And Jules wouldn't have known they were sterile field dressings."

  "Fran! Fran! Come quick!" Breathless, Melodie ricocheted into the kitchen.

  Fran scowled. "What the hell is the matter with you?"

  "It's not me," Melodie gasped. "It's Quip. He's hurt. There's blood everywhere!"

  Ten

  "It was nothing," said Brucie modestly, leaning with a nonchalant air against Melodie's fake-Spanish desk. "I came upon two yobbos beating the living daylights out of a bloke, so of course I waded in."

  Melodie gazed at him with something approaching adoration. "Oh, Bruce, that was so brave of you."

  He gave her an unassuming smile. "Thanks, but anyone would have done the same."

  I recalled that Brucie had played on the Wollegudgerie footie team and had never been afraid of a bit of biffo. This was fortunate for Quip, who'd been ambushed in our parking area. But for Brucie's intervention, he would have sustained even more damage than he had.

  The ambulance had left with Fran accompanying a semi-conscious Quip. He had a broken nose, eyes swollen almost shut, and a split lip, and possibly a couple of cracked ribs. The hospital ER would ascertain if he had any more serious injuries.

  The cops had been called, of course, and Ariana had dealt with them. They'd interviewed Brucie, who hadn't been able to give much more than a vague description of the two thugs because they'd bolted the moment it was clear Brucie was more than they could handle.

  The phone rang and Melodie picked up. "Lexus, hi! Can't talk. Call you back, OK?"

  "That Lexus," Brucie said with a reminiscent grin, "she sure knows how to party."

  Lexus—actually Cathy, but she'd changed her name to something she considered more upmarket—shared an apartment with Melodie.

  "So Lexus joined you and Melodie painting the town red last night, did she?"

  "Bright red! Lexus is a bit of all right, I can tell you."

  Melodie frowned, obviously not too happy to hear this glowing description of her flatmate. She opened her mouth to say something, but the phone rang again. "Taylor? Hi! Yes, awesome. And the blood!" She looked at Brucie. "He's right here. An Aussie. Can't talk now. Call you back. Bye."

  Another call came through. "Mandy, hi! Like, just outside the door. His face? Mask of blood. But can't talk now. Call you back."

  It was clear that the news of Quip's bashing and Brucie's intervention was already burning the lines of the receptionists' network.

  Almost immediately, the phone rang again. "Yancy, hi! Yes, you heard right. Ambulance just left. No, I can't talk now"—she looked meaningfully at me and Brucie—"because I'm not alone..."

  "Come on," I said, taking Brucie's arm, "Melodie has some serious networking to do." I'd only taken a few steps down the hall before it struck me. "Hang on for a mo, Brucie."
<
br />   "Bruce!"

  "Sorry. Bruce. I have to ask Melodie something..."

  I went back to the reception desk. "Melodie?"

  "Hold for a sec, Yancy." She looked at me impatiently. "Yes?"

  "Yancy's a man's name."

  "So? Yancy's a man."

  "And Yancy's a receptionist?"

  She gave an irritated sigh. "There's a sprinkling of male receptionists around town. A couple are quite good."

  "Yancy wouldn't work for Norris Blainey's company, would he?"

  Now Melodie was seriously peeved with me. "Receptionists shouldn't be judged by the companies they work for," she said sharply.

  "I wasn't judging Yancy. I want to talk to him. Will you put him through to my office, please?"

  The question of why I wanted to talk to Yancy trembled on Melodie's lips, but wisely she didn't put it into words.

  "I have to take a call," I said to Brucie. "Why don't you check on Lonnie?"

  When Melodie had appeared with the news that Quip had been hurt, Lonnie had hurried up to reception with everyone else. Big mistake. He'd taken one look at Quip slumped in a chair, his face covered with blood, had gone weak-kneed and had to be helped to a chair himself.

  When Lonnie had recovered enough to wobble his way to his office, Bob had kindly escorted him to his door and seen him safely settled at his computer. Since then, there'd been no sign of Lonnie at all.

  I expected Brucie to say something disparaging about Lonnie, along the lines that he was a sook for nearly fainting at the sight of blood, but Brucie was surprisingly sympathetic. "One look at a hypodermic and everything goes gray and I fall over. Just have to see a doc's white coat, and I feel woozy. It's embarrassing, but I can't help it. So I get what the bloke's been through."

  With Brucie safely dispatched in Lonnie's direction, I zipped into my office to take the call. Julia Roberts, who'd obviously been seriously inconvenienced by all the activity this morning, was curled up in my chair. She was quite put out when I gently tipped her onto the floor.