KK03 - The Quokka Question

by Claire McNab

  "What's so funny?" demanded the object of my flight of imagination. She had none of the accoutrements of a warrior queen, except maybe for the combative attitude and the frown.

  "Not a thing, Fran. Just trying to be cheerful."

  Fran gave a derisive grunt. Blimey, this sheila might be good-looking in a glum sort of way, but elegant she wasn't. She leaned over my desk to slap down a bunch of envelopes. "Mail."

  "Thank you."

  I sorted through them. Somehow, magically, the fact I'd moved to Los Angeles seemed to have got out into the world, and I was starting to get offers I supposedly couldn't refuse. It was amazing how many credit card companies found me worthy of special attention, and how many banks yearned to serve me in every possible financial way. Charities I'd never heard off begged for donations in heartbreaking terms.

  "Ahem!" I became aware that Fran was still there, arms folded.

  "Fran?"

  "Storage of our disaster supplies," she said. "What have you done about it?"

  "Fair go," I protested. "Why's it my job to find somewhere to store the stuff? You're the office manager, after all."

  "There'd be somewhere, if you weren't here, Kylie." She pursed her lips, looking around my office reflectively. "For one thing, this room would be available. And then there's your bedroom—"

  "Stop right there!"

  Fran stopped, but her determined expression didn't change. We had a bit of a staring contest which Fran won because a vision of her as Brunhilda superimposed itself on the real person, and I had a bit of a giggle.

  "I'm working hard to save all of our lives in the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster," said Fran with affronted dignity. "Somehow you seem to find that amusing."

  "Put it down to hysteria," I said. "These are trying times."

  Fran tapped her foot. Clearly she was going nowhere until I came up with a storage plan of some sort. "Garden shed," I said. "You know, one of those green metal numbers. There's room in the backyard for it."

  Fran's expression didn't lighten. "In the event of a gas attack, you'd go outside and die before you got to the gas masks. Same with germ warfare. You'd be fatally infected before you made it back into the building."

  Crikey, she had a point there. "The shed wouldn't be for storage of your disaster supplies," I said quickly. "It'd be for the office supplies. Moving that stuff out to the shed would leave you an entire room to use."

  Fran gave it a bit of deep thought. "Could work," she admitted at last. "When are we getting the shed?" Her frown, which had momentarily disappeared, returned. "I suppose you'll have to clear it with Ariana. That will take more time. Time we may not have. The essence of terrorism is the surprise attack. Could happen any moment."

  I felt a jab of dinkum rage. First Fran wanted to get rid of me, just so she could free up some storage space. That was bad enough. Now she was implying I had to answer to Ariana for every little thing, even though I was the majority owner of Kendall & Creeling.

  "I don't need to check with Ariana," I said coldly. "Go ahead and research what's available. I'll OK the order as soon as we decide the best shed to get."

  "We decide?" said Fran, not willing to give a centimeter. "I am the office manager."

  "Watch it," I warned.

  There was a ten-second battle of wills, then Fran gave me a reluctant smile. "I'll get back to you," she said.

  Fran left. I opened the Yarrow folder once more. I'd only glanced at it before, and hadn't realized what a fascinating record this bloke had. Apart from all his professional achievements and published works— there were pages of these—Lonnie had dug up some interesting criminal items. For example, there were a couple of charges of driving under the influence; two assaults, the victims in each case being women; plus one accusation of plagiarism, which actually made it to court but was settled just before the case started.

  Professor Yarrow had been married three times. His first wife had died of a heart attack. Lonnie had noted there were no suspicious circumstances, as the woman had had a congenital heart problem. The second wife had been the victim in one of the assaults Yarrow had been arrested for, and she'd filed for divorce immediately after the attack. He was still married to his third wife, Winona Worsack, a noted medievalist. Lonnie had attached a brief outline of her career too. She seemed to be quite famous in her field. Next to her name Lonnie had written "old money" followed by three exclamation marks.

  He'd also lifted photos from the Internet. Here was Professor Yarrow at this conference or that; here was Yarrow appearing on 60 Minutes; here the professor and his wife were meeting with the President...

  I studied his face. Jack Yarrow had a high, domed forehead. He brushed his thinning hair forward in a sort of Roman Caesar style. He had a small, puggish nose; a tight, thin-lipped mouth; and slightly protuberant pale eyes. There were two or three shots of him with Winona Worsack. She favored flowing clothes and an ethereal expression. Her straight, dark hair reached her shoulders, and she had those extremely long, thin hands that I always imagined would be cold, like the touch of a skeleton.

  I sighed. Time for some serious study. Rube Wasinsky had given me some general sources for information on marsupials, and Lonnie had searched the Internet for more material, so I had a lot of reading to do before I turned up at the biology department at UCLA tomorrow as Kylie Kendall, graduate student, just off a plane from Australia and thrilled to be there in time to rub shoulders with the luminaries at next week's Global Marsupial Symposium.

  I started with quokkas since Oscar had such an interest in them. I read:

  Quokkas are the size of a domestic cat, and have rounded bodies, a short tail and a face much more flattened than other wallabies. One of the first Australian mammals seen by Europeans, were first sighted in 1658 when Dutch mariner Samuel Volckertzoon wrote of discovering something like a wild cat on Rottnest Island.

  I stopped to consider Volckertzoon as a name. It made Kendall look awfully boring. I wondered if his friends called him Volcky... I gave myself a mental slap. Back to work.

  By the time Chantelle came to pick me up, I was rather better informed about marsupials in general and quokkas in particular, than I had ever intended to be.

  I gave her a hug and climbed into her red Jeep. She loved bright colors, and was wearing a lemony outfit tonight, which set off her satiny coffee skin.

  "You look bonzer," I said.

  She leaned over to give me a kiss. "Not so bad yourself."

  "Did you know," I remarked as we set off, "that quokkas breed once a year and produce a single joey?"

  "Fascinating," said Chantelle, with heavy irony, "but why are you telling me this?"

  "It was hard yakka learning all this info for my new case," I said, "so the least I can do is toss a few facts into a conversation, don't you think?"

  She gave me a sideways glance. "I'd rather you didn't."

  "Fair enough." Then a thought struck me. "You didn't ask me what a quokka is."

  "I didn't need to."

  "Melodie?

  Chantelle grinned. "Need you ask?"

  I shook my head. The receptionists' network was frighteningly efficient. One could only hope it never occurred to terrorists to infiltrate it.

  Chantelle was an excellent driver, so I could relax and enjoy the scenery, which was mostly made up of other vehicles hurrying to apparently superurgent destinations.

  "Tell me all about Dr. Penny," said Chantelle.

  "Didn't Melodie cover everything? She and Pen Braithwaite had quite a conversation."

  "Melodie wasn't up close and personal with her like you, honey." She reached over to squeeze my knee. "Did she try to jump your bones? The word is, she's insatiable."

  "She didn't put the hard word on me, if that's what you mean."

  "She will," said Chantelle with perfect conviction.

  "Crikey, do you really think so?"

  "Count on it."

  Yerks!

  The premiere was being held at a cinema i
n Westwood Village, near the UCLA campus. Chantelle knew every trick about parking, and found a spot on a nearby suburban street. We set off walking. The closer we got to the cinema, the more crowded the footpaths became, until we turned a corner and there it was, all decked out like a Chrissie tree.

  This place put the Regal Picture Palace in Wollegudgerie to shame. Lights scintillated, music played, fans kept up a roar, presumably of approval, as limousines pulled up to disgorge VIPs. There was a constant flicker of camera flashes as photographs were taken of anything that moved. There was even a red carpet for the stars to tread on as they made their way inside.

  Scads of people were pressing up against the barriers erected to keep them from getting too close to the arriving celebrities. TV stations had vans parked nearby, and I recognized an on-air reporter I'd often watched on the local news. He was much shorter than I'd thought and was frowning ferociously, not at all like the cheery personality he projected on the screen.

  Chantelle halted beside the barrier preventing fans from spilling onto the beginning of the red carpet. "Why all the security?" I asked.

  "Celebrity dread," she said, fossicking through her purse. "Drat! I've got to have the passes somewhere, or we won't get in."

  "What are the celebrities dreading?"

  "Ah-hah!" said Chantelle, flourishing two squares of cardboard.

  "Are those tickets for tonight?" inquired a hopeful voice. "I'll give you a hundred dollars for them."

  The voice belonged to a weedy little guy who was oddly dressed in an extraordinarily grubby once-white outfit consisting of many floating panels. I reckoned his face was made up to look like a corpse that had been rotting for some time. Seeing me staring at him, he said, "I'm a Bloodblot ghoul. Didn't you see the first movie?"

  "Sorry, missed it."

  The ghoul's attention was back on Chantelle's passes. "A hundred and fifty," he said. "Each. That's my best offer."

  "Two hundred," someone called, pushing through the crowd in our direction. There was a general murmur of interest.

  "Let's get out of here," said Chantelle, seizing my elbow and heading for two overmuscled security guards. She waved the passes under their noses. "We're with United Flair."

  They did the squinty-eye bit, and then allowed us to join the privileged people on the red carpet. "There's Sigfried Smithey," Chantelle hissed at me. "Not A-list yet, but they're saying this movie should give him a good push in that direction." She scanned the slowly-moving queue of people. "Look over there, beside Demi Moore—that's the newest teen sensation, Godfrey Free."

  "That's Demi Moore?" I said. "Crikey, she looks as fit as a flea."

  "Fitter," said Chantelle. "If she's going to run with a young crowd, she has to be."

  "What's this celebrity dread thing you were talking about before?" I asked.

  "They dread everything," said Chantelle with a touch of scorn. "Celebrities dread being the target of kidnappers—preferably with some link to foreign terrorists—who'll demand millions of dollars to set them free. Then they dread that they're not famous enough to be kidnapped in the first place. And of course they dread not having hordes of paparazzi after them."

  "Stars are always complaining about paparazzi," I pointed out.

  "They don't mean it," said Chantelle. "United Flair has one client who insists we alert the paparazzi every time he goes out in public. Last week he had a knock-down, drag-out fight with one. Broke the guy's nose and his camera." She shook her head admiringly. "You can't buy that kind of publicity."

  "Chantelle! Long time no see!" was shrieked in our direction. The young woman's long hair was a rich red, her hot pink dress was miniscule, her physique anorexic, her delight at seeing Chantelle almost alarming.

  "Ashlee, hi," said Chantelle without a great deal of enthusiasm.

  If this was the Ashlee I thought it was, then the teeth she was flashing were of the snap-on variety.

  Ashlee had turned her fevered attention on me. "And I suppose this is your special friend, Chantelle?"

  "G'day. Kylie Kendall's the name."

  The snap-ons disappeared. "Oh," Ashlee said, "you're foreign."

  "Actually, I'm an American citizen," I said, "thanks to the fact my dad was a Yank, and I was born here in L.A."

  "But your funny accent—Cockney, isn't it?" Ashlee looked quite pleased with her powers of perception. "Cockney," she repeated with emphasis.

  "My funny accent's Australian," I said. "Australian."

  "Oh?" Ashlee didn't seemed convinced. "It sounds like Cockney to me."

  "It isn't," snapped Chantelle. "We've got to move along. See you later, OK?" She watched Ashlee totter off on her very high heels. "Occasionally, you get a bad apple in the receptionist pool," she said gloomily.

  "Ashlee's a bad apple?"

  Chantelle grinned at me. "Rotten to the core."

  NINE

  Very early next morning I kissed Chantelle goodbye and set out to walk the couple of kilometers to Kendall & Creeling. I'd got into the habit of leaving a set of casual clothes at her place, so if I stayed the night, I could change into shorts, T-shirt and running shoes, bundle whatever I'd been wearing into a shoulder bag and jog—or more likely, briskly walk—back home.

  Because I wanted to go through my notes before going to UCLA, I hadn't intended to spend the night at Chantelle's apartment. However, as Bloodblot Horror II had scared the living daylights out of me, the thought of being alone in the dark after what I'd seen on the screen had given me the heebie-jeebies. If I'd had an inkling of how bad it was going to be, I'd have skipped the screening, the way the stars of the movie had.

  Last night, after a reception thingo in the lobby of the cinema, people had started to move into the theater. At that point I'd noticed the celebrities drifting in the opposite direction.

  "Where are they going?" I'd asked. "Is there special seating for them?"

  "They're leaving," said Chantelle. "The stars of Bloodblot II came to be seen by the fans, not to view the movie. They'll slip out the back way, hop into their limos, and beat it."

  After enduring the vile, gruesome images of Bloodblot Horror II, I'd wished I'd done the same. Chantelle, of course, had taken the carnage in her stride. I'd clutched her hand and shut my eyes at the worst spots, but even the screams from the audience didn't drown out the ghastly sound effects of slicing, dicing, and disemboweling. One good riling, though—I'd had no opportunity to brood about Ariana and the Natalie sheila.

  Later, Chantelle had been warmly appreciative of the effect Bloodbot had had on me. "You're clingy tonight, honey. I like that."

  "I wouldn't call it clingy," I protested. "It's just that I'm a bit of a scaredy-cat when it comes to horror movies."

  Chantelle's eyes had lit up. "There's some great ones I'd love you to see. For instance, the DVD of Death Gurgle is out next week. And another really good one, Eviscerate, is already in the stores, and—"

  "Are you serious? Or are you teasing me?"

  Chantelle had given me a ravishing smile. "Both," she'd said.

  Now, in the early-morning light, the butchery of Bloodblot Horror II didn't have the same clout. I felt a little embarrassed that I'd allowed a mere movie to frighten me. Hell's bells, there were enough real horrors in the world without worrying about fictional ones.

  I turned my thoughts to the major challenge ahead of me. Today I was lobbing into UCLA in my undercover role. Before I left for the campus, I'd just have time to shower, dress, gulp down a bowl of porridge, and do a lightning check of the information any real graduate student would know. I reminded myself I'd have to devote a few minutes to soothing Julia Roberts. It seemed to annoy her intensely when I stayed out all night. It wasn't lack of food, as I always left her ample provisions, so I'd decided it was that she missed me. This gave me a warm feeling.

  "Did you miss me, Jules?" I said as soon as I opened Kendall & Creeling's front door.

  Julia Roberts, who was reclining on Melodie's reception desk gymnastically washing her
nethers, paused with one hind leg high in the air. She considered my question for all of three seconds, then resumed washing.

  "Hiding your true emotions, I see. Well done, Jules. It's the way to go these days."

  "Good morning, Kylie."

  My heart did a rollover. "Crikey! You gave me a fright."

  Ariana smiled faintly. "Sorry. I came in early to catch up on some work."

  "Are you OK?" This was the question I'd told myself not to ask, but this morning, looking at her white, drawn face, I couldn't stop myself.

  I thought Ariana would brush me off, but she didn't. "Yesterday I was—I was taken aback. Penelope Braithwaite stirred up old memories. My apologies for leaving everything in the meeting to you. It wasn't very professional of me."

  The impulse to comfort her was almost overwhelming. But if I took two steps and put my arms around her, I was pretty sure she'd freeze me out so fast my head would spin. Instead, I offered the great Aussie restorative, used in situations ranging from a simple case of fatigue right through to the total loss of one's home in a bushfire. "How about a cuppa?"

  "Tea? I'd rather have coffee."

  I followed Ariana to the kitchen, Julia Roberts bringing up the rear. Once there, Jules parked herself in front of her empty food dish and looked meaningfully at me.

  "You ate all the chicken and liver?" I said. Julia Roberts twitched her whiskers impatiently. Last night's dinner was old news. Today was a new gastronomical adventure.

  While getting tuna-and-whitefish bites for her breakfast snack, I noticed Fran had posted a diagram on the cupboard door detailing escape routes from the building, TAKE TIME TO CHECK THE LOCATION OF YOUR NEAREST EXIT she had put in large scarlet letters along the bottom. Since, as I'd pointed out to Fran earlier, the choice was the front door or the back door, this information did seem rather unnecessary. I said so to Ariana.