Quokka Question

by Claire McNab

  Oscar gave me his sister's address, and I checked the location in The Thomas Guide. This took a bit of time, as the directory seemed to have a zillion streets, many with the same name. Los Angeles was just too big for any one person to know all of it well. My hometown, Wollegudgerie, would have fitted into one of L.A.'s suburbs a couple of times, with plenty of space left over.

  "There's a fair chance I'll get lost," I said.

  Oscar grunted and closed his eyes.

  We set off into the heavy afternoon traffic, and I quite pleased myself by finding Dr. Penelope Braithwaite's street with only one little detour in the wrong direction. Oscar didn't even notice this small blip, as he was slumped in his seat, now and then mumbling "Bloody Yarrow" to himself.

  When I drew up in front of his sister's apartment block, by extraordinary good fortune snaffling a vacant parking spot, Oscar roused himself to say, "Come on up and meet Pen. You need to discuss how she's getting you into the biology department at UCLA."

  Dr. Penelope Braithwaite snatched open the door of her apartment before Oscar could turn his key in the lock. "Oscar, you silly bastard, what have you been doing to yourself?"

  This sheila certainly made an instant impression. She was oversize in every way, being both taller and wider than me, and possessing a loud, confident voice whose ringing tone I reckoned could be heard out in the street. Her hair sprang from her scalp in tawny waves, cascading down to her broad shoulders. Her face had definite features-huge, lustrous gray eyes; an emphatic nose; a wide, full-lipped red mouth. I caught a glimpse of large, square teeth, which were very white.

  "It was Yarrow," Oscar ground out.

  "Oh, Yarrow," she said dismissively, waving us both in. She shook my hand with a grip just short of painful. "You must be Kylie Kendall, my brother's private eye."

  "G'day, Dr. Braithwaite," I said, wondering if I should set her straight about my trainee status.

  "Shove the doctor bit," she said, flashing her teeth in a big smile. "Call me Pen."

  "Right-oh."

  "I suppose you've already discovered that my brother's a bit of a whinger."

  'Strewth, this was a trifle heartless. The bloke had nearly been killed. "Your brother did say he was deliberately shoved into the traffic."

  She raised her eyebrows. They were significant, like the rest of her. "Yeah?" Turning to him, she said, "You really think Jack Yarrow tried to kill you? If so, he's obviously managed to clone himself, since from early this morning he's been in the same long, boring meeting I've had to endure."

  "Then he paid someone to do it."

  Penelope put her hands on her hips. "Listen up, bro. You spend your life tramping around the bush, taking your own sweet time about things. People in this town are notoriously impatient. Someone at the back of the pack pushes the guy in front of him, who pushes whoever's in front of him, and voila!-you end up on the roadway."

  Oscar jutted out his lower lip. "It was deliberate. If it wasn't bloody Jack Yarrow, it was someone working for him." He shook his head emphatically. "Attempted murder, that's what it was."

  She gusted a large sigh. "And what do you propose to do about it? Call the cops?"

  Oscar jerked his head in my direction. "No need. Kylie here's already on the case."

  "I am?"

  Crikey, I had a suspicion I'd have my hands full trying to impersonate a graduate student and getting the goods on Professor Yarrow about the plagiarism. Adding attempted murder to the mix was a bit much.

  "There's a problem?" Penelope Braithwaite said, towering over me. She'd have been a ripper basketball player.

  "I have to consult with my partner."

  "Fair enough," she conceded. "We'll have to negotiate a larger fee to cover extra services."

  "But you don't think your brother was deliberately pushed," I pointed out.

  She gave him an indulgent look. "He's a boofhead, of course, but if it'll set his mind at rest, it's worth the money."

  Hell's bells! This case was getting complicated. "I'll get back to you," I said.

  THREE

  It was mid afternoon by the time I made it back to Kendall & Creeling. I was absolutely starving, having skipped lunch. I barged through the front door and up to the reception desk, which was empty. This was where Melodie should be-if she hadn't ducked out on one of her many auditions. In theory Melodie was supposed to man the phone in office hours, except for lunchtime, when Fran took over for her. Since Melodie's recent run-in with my business partner Ariana over her many absences, Melodie had promised to try to restrict her auditions to lunchtime or after work-try being the operative word.

  The phone rang. I was about to answer it myself when Lonnie appeared, wandering down the hall eating a pastry. He hastily swallowed a mouthful, seized the phone, and said without much enthusiasm, "Kendall & Creeling."

  The call dispatched to Bob Verritt, Lonnie gave me a glum look. He was usually the happy sort, flashing his little-boy dimpled smile, but right now he was clearly feeling low.

  "Don't ask," he said, then when I didn't, he added moodily, "I can't believe I fell for one of Melodie's heartrending audition stories."

  "You swore the other day you'd never fall for one again."

  Lonnie shook his head, so that a lock of floppy brown hair fell over one eye. "And I meant it. But she's good, Kylie. I was saying, 'No way, Jose' one minute, and 'Break a leg' the next."

  I knew "break a leg" was a traditional show-business good luck wish, but considering the height of Melodie's high heels, perhaps unwise. "When will she be back?"

  Lonnie blew out his lips in an exaggerated sigh. "She said an hour or so. I'm figuring two, at least. So I'm stuck here answering the phone. He gave me a speculative look. "Kylie, you wouldn't-"

  "No way, Jose!"

  Lonnie's shoulders drooped. "Harriet turned me down too. Bob just laughed, and Fran…" He rolled his eyes. "Well, you know Fran."

  I did indeed know Fran. She and I were very often at daggers drawn. "Fran said no?"

  "Fran offered to rip me a new one." He brightened up to say, "There's a message for you from your Aunt Millie."

  A wave of foreboding swept over me. "She's not coming back to L.A. is she?"

  "Unfortunately, she's not," said Lonnie, grinning. He knew very well the trouble I'd had with my Aunt Millie when she'd lobbed over from Wollegudgerie to persuade me to go home to Australia and help run Mum's pub. "She says she's done New York. Now she's on her way to London on a round-the-world trip."

  My spirits lifted immediately. "You beaut! That's bonzer news."

  Lonnie's smile widened. "But she says she had such a great time here, she coming back real soon."

  My spirits sank. "How soon?"

  "She didn't say."

  This was not good. I took myself off to the kitchen for comfort food-a peanut butter sandwich and a good strong cup of tea. Julia Roberts stalked in while I was spooning Twining's Ceylon Orange Pekoe into the teapot. She watched me for a moment, then gave a single plaintive meow to indicate her near starvation.

  "Jules, you had breakfast not that long ago."

  A look of deep displeasure appeared on Julia Roberts's tawny face. She hated to be crossed.

  "Oh, all right," I said, looking in the cupboard for her prawn-and-tuna treats. I only put six into her bowl, not wanting to ruin her appetite for dinner. Jules inspected the six closely, gave me a triumphant wiggle of her whiskers, and walked off, leaving the bites untouched. Score one to Julia Roberts, nil to Kylie Kendall.

  I took my tea and sandwich back to my office and sat down to go through the accounts. As part owner of Kendall & Creeling, I took an interest in the day-to-day running of the place. Back in Australia, I'd handled all that side for Mum's pub, Wollegudgerie's Wombat's Retreat, so I knew my way around anything financial. This last month I'd noticed a big jump in the amount spent on office supplies, so I started to go through the invoices to find out why.

  "Blimey," I said, coming upon an invoice for forty one-gallon plastic
containers of water. What is that for? And the next invoice raised my eyebrows even higher: yards of heavy plastic sheeting plus fifteen rolls of duct tape.

  Time to find Fran. She'd bestowed on herself the title office manager and had taken it as one of her duties to handle most of the ordering, so she was the one to explain why we needed these large quantities of water, plastic sheeting, and tape.

  There was still no Melodie to be seen, and Lonnie had disappeared, but Fran was standing at the front desk, arms folded. She was smiling as she surveyed a large pile of boxes. It was always a surprise how pretty she was when not surly.

  Standing beside Fran, my least-favorite delivery bloke in the world was surreptitiously surveying her cleavage. This wasn't surprising, as Fran had a spectacular bust line that was shown off to advantage with a tight scarlet top that rather clashed with her red hair.

  "I'd like nothing better than to help you out," the delivery bloke was saying, "but my job description says I deliver goods inside the front door. Not one inch more."

  Fran's smile vanished as though it had never existed, and her customary scowl darkened her face. "What? After all the business we give your company, you can't meet a simple request?"

  "Look at it from my point of view. Moving this stuff to your storage room is above and beyond-"

  He broke off as he saw me, and a nasty smile appeared on his face. "And how's the trainee gumshoe today? Putting the wind up the bad boys?"

  This bloke was just a smart aleck in a yucky brown uniform who thought I was fair game for a bit of chiacking ever since he'd caught me studying Private Investigation: The Complete Handbook.

  "Rip-snorting," I said.

  "Rip-snorting?" He chortled suggestively. "What're you saying? That you Aussie chicks are hot stuff?"

  "Dream on," said Fran. "Rip-snorting means excellent." When I looked at her, surprised, she added, "I'm good at obscure foreign languages."

  Of course she was having a go at me, but I didn't rise to the bait. "When you've got a free minute," I said, "I'd like to go over some invoices with you."

  Fran's dark expression got distinctly darker. "And which particular invoices would those be?"

  "Why did you order forty gallons of water?"

  "Disaster supplies."

  "Forty gallons?"

  Fran was like Julia Roberts-she didn't take kindly to being crossed. "Yes, forty gallons," she said in a cold tone, "and that may not be enough."

  "Enough for what?"

  There was a pause while Fran decided whether or not to fill me in. At last she said, "Each person needs at least one gallon of water per day for drinking and sanitation purposes."

  The delivery bloke, who'd been listening closely, sniggered. Hooking his thumb in the direction of the boxes he'd delivered, he said, "If you want disaster supplies, you've got 'em right here. Military food rations, battleground medical kits, disposable face masks, sleeping bags…"

  "You're setting up an army hospital?" I inquired of Fran.

  "Oh, go ahead and joke, but a cataclysmic event could occur at any moment," she snapped. "For example, take a terrorist attack. It could be nerve gas, smallpox, or anthrax, or radiation from dirty bombs, sabotage of food and water-the list goes on. And that's not to mention natural disasters-earthquake, flood, fire, volcanic activity, tsunamis, meteor strikes, tornadoes. Victims who don't die in the first few seconds often linger on to suffer dreadfully."

  She looked quite chuffed at this last statement. Fran really did enjoy the gloomy side of life. "Suffer dreadfully" she repeated. "Beg for death."

  Even the delivery bloke looked a bit taken aback. "It all sounds pretty hopeless, doesn't it?" he said.

  "It's un-American to be hopeless," Fran declared, not impressed with his attitude. "Homeland Security asks every citizen to be optimistic, but at the same time be fully prepared for the worst. That's what I'm doing. Being optimistic about the future, but preparing for disaster."

  I managed not to remark that optimism was the last quality Fran could claim. "You're storing all this stuff in the room next to mine?" I asked.

  "That a problem?" Fran's tone indicated it better not be. "It is the office storage room."

  I had had plans for that particular area, at the moment full of office supplies. My accommodations in the Kendall & Creeling building had a grand total of two rooms: a bedroom with bathroom attached. This adjacent storage area would make a wonderful sitting room, once I had a door installed in the dividing wall.

  Obviously not interested in whether it was a prob for me or not, Fran was off and running. "Apart from ordering emergency supplies," she said, "as office manager, it's my responsibility to bring everyone up to speed as far as disaster is concerned. Later today I'll be putting up easy-to-read diagrams clearly showing escape routes from the building in the event of a catastrophe."

  "Bit of a waste of time," I said, "as there's not much choice. Like, you go out the front door, or you go out the back door. And they've both already got illuminated exit signs. I reckon we don't need a diagram."

  Fran's eyes narrowed to slits. Opposition didn't sit well with her.

  "I'm out the front door," said the delivery bloke hastily. He'd seen Fran on the warpath before.

  She watched him leave, then turned to me. "Coming from the center of Australia, like you do, you can't be expected to appreciate the terrorist situation in the way an American would."

  "Oh, I think I could have a lash at it. Empathy's my strong suit."

  "You don't have a clue."

  "I may have a ghost of an inkling," I said cheerfully.

  I wondered how Fran would go if she were dropped in the harsh Outback. I was sure I could live off the land and survive. I was guessing Fran wouldn't be so lucky, though when I thought about it, she really was one tough sheila. I could imagine her running down a kangaroo and dispatching it with her bare hands.

  "What are you thinking about?" Fran asked, glaring at me suspiciously.

  "I was wondering about the plastic sheeting and duct tape."

  Fran assumed an I'll-tell-you-but-you'll-never-get-it expression. "In a terrorist attack, you need to protect yourself from germ warfare and deadly gases by sealing off all entry points. We'll use the plastic sheeting and duct tape to close everything off. And, as an added precaution, we'll all wear face masks."

  "What about Julia Roberts?"

  Fran gave me a sour smile. "If you can fit Julia Roberts with a face mask, good luck."

  I gave the scenario a bit of thought. "If everything's sealed off, won't we all suffocate?"

  Fran clicked her tongue in irritation. "Eventually, if we stay here long enough, but our battery-powered radios will tell us when it's safe to go outside."

  "What if it never gets safe?"

  Totally fed up with me, Fran snarled, "Then we die, Kylie. We all die a horrible death."

  FOUR

  I was waiting impatiently for Ariana to come back from her appointment in the Valley so I could discuss the developments in the Braithwaite case. Ariana was involved in a detailed security analysis for a furniture company's warehouse, and that would take most of the day, so I knew she might not even bother returning to the office. Still, I could hope.

  Half an hour or so was spent writing a letter to Mum. I'd have much preferred to e-mail her, but Mum said reading on a computer screen was too impersonal. She wanted handwritten communications. Fair enough, but I knew she had an ulterior motive. Mum fancied herself a handwriting analyst, having just completed the course "Handwriting: The Hidden Revealed" in an adult education course held at Wollegudgerie High on weekday evenings. She'd confided to me she'd been quite shocked at what she'd learned from the signatures of various apparently law-abiding guests staying at the pub.

  I suspected Mum would be studying my writing for evidence I was holding out on her and not being entirely open about what was happening here in the States. Fair dinkum, I wasn't keeping anything back, but hell's bells, I was tempted at times.

  She'd had
made me promise to keep her totally up-to-date on my new career. I knew very well my mum was hoping I'd make a proper mess of private-eyeing, and lose interest in staying here in L.A. Pity about that, since I was absolutely determined to become a crash-hot private detective. Besides, there was Ariana Creeling.

  Blond, blue-eyed, self-contained Ariana Creeling. I could visualize her down to the smallest detail, slim and supercool in her customary black. To be realistic, I'd probably never had a ghost of a chance with Ariana, being close to her total opposite, not just in looks but in personality and background.

  The fact that I wasn't thin and had brown eyes, boring brown hair, and olive skin didn't really matter, I suppose. And maybe my coming from a little town in the Outback of Oz wasn't an insurmountable barrier. What did matter was my tendency to be impulsive, to open my mouth before my brain was in gear. No one would call me detached; quite a few would call me a galah.

  I'd already pretty well blown it with Ariana by blurting out that I adored her, just when I'd promised myself the only way to behave was to be offhand and megacasual, and wait for the faint possibility she'd come my way.

  Oh, I knew at heart it had never been likely she'd fall in love with me, but as my mum always says, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I was venturing, in a tentative sort of way, and hoping against hope to gain something. A warm friendship would do. Crikey, I was kidding myself again. I wanted something much more incendiary from Ariana.

  I dragged my thoughts back to my letter to Mum. I dutifully told her all about Oscar Braithwaite and his brush with death, even though I knew when she read it she'd drop everything and rush to the phone. I knew exactly how the call would go. Mum would emphasize that it was only a matter of time until violence came my way, and I might not be as lucky as Oscar. She'd pause for a moment to let that sink in, then she'd demand I come home to Wollegudgerie before I was run down, or shot, or carjacked. Unfortunately, every lurid news item about Los Angeles seemed to make the television news in Oz, so my mum was convinced I was pretty well in danger twenty-four seven.