To Love and to Perish

by steve higgs

  Mindy said, ‘Okay, Dad. We’ll be good.’

  ‘Yes, Shane,’ I agreed. ‘We’ll just stay in the car and stay out of sight until we hear back from you.’

  Sounding relieved, he said. ‘Right. I’ve got some work to do. I’ll call you as soon as I can.’

  The call ended and we sat in the car, doing as we were told and staying out of trouble.

  How long do you think that lasted?

  News that Changes Everything

  ‘That’s the Bleakwiths’ place right there?’ asked Mindy, peering through her window at a house visible through the trees.

  I nodded. ‘We are looking at it from the back, but I can tell which one it is from the pergola in the garden.’

  Mindy wriggled her nose from side to side. ‘It doesn’t look like anyone is in.’

  It didn’t, but that was hardly a good reason to get out of the car. However, a little voice in my head whispered that all I needed was one little piece of solid evidence and I would be able to blow the case wide open. Wasn’t that what they said on cop shows?

  Expressing my thoughts out loud, I said, ‘I wonder if the tub of cream Joanne had earlier is in the house somewhere?’

  Mindy swung her head around to look at me. ‘Or the chemical she was putting in it to make his skin so bad.’

  It was a dumb idea. It went against everything Shane had said and was breaking the law yet again, but I already knew I was going to do it anyway. I was going to get out of the car where I promised I would stay, and I was going to break into my client’s house.

  I sighed and said a rude word but reached for the door handle anyway.

  ‘We’re going in?’ asked Mindy, genuinely surprised to see me getting out of the car. Getting her answer from the look on my face, she clapped her hands together. ‘Yay! Come on, Buster.’

  Buster was strapped into his harness and trying to get free. ‘There’s adventure to be had and you need an Adventure Dog with you for protection!’ His tail couldn’t have wagged any harder without flying off.

  ‘I’m not sure Adventure Dog is a great name,’ I told him as I unclipped his harness.

  Mindy giggled. ‘Is that what he calls himself?’

  ‘You’re darn tooting,’ barked Buster.

  I put a hand over his mouth. ‘Shhh. We need to be stealthy,’ I reminded him.

  Buster got out of the car and shook himself. ‘The name isn’t the problem, it’s the image. I need a cape. Might need a mask too,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Ooh, ooh, a theme tune. That would send the right message. All the superheroes on TV have a theme that is played when they turn up. So the bad guys know who they’re about to get handed a whooping by.’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Mindy wanted to know.

  I started through the trees toward the Bleakwiths’ back garden. ‘He needs a theme tune and a costume.’

  Mindy giggled again, trying to keep quiet but failing miserably. ‘Is he really saying that? He’s so funny.’

  Buster made an audible growling noise.

  Mindy listened intently. ‘What did he say then?’

  This time I sniggered. ‘That he is not funny. He is a plague upon all evil doers and a curse to all who would challenge him. He is …’ I tilted my head to look down at Buster, ‘Devil Dog?’

  ‘Is that better than Adventure Dog?’ Buster asked with a tinge of sarcasm.

  We were nearing the fence at the back of the Bleakwiths’ property. Unlike some of their neighbours, they didn’t have a six-foot high fence going all the way along. What they had was a post and wire fence, the type that is about three foot high. It would keep wild deer out, which was probably its purpose, but meant getting in for us would be a lot easier.

  Mindy crouched down to smoosh Buster’s face. ‘I think Devil Dog is a great name for you. We’ll get you a cape with a great big D on it.’

  Buster’s tail flicked back and forth like windscreen wipers on fast.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Don’t encourage him, please. He already thinks he’s part superhero.’

  Mindy straightened to full height again. ‘So I guess we hop the fence. Here, I’ll give you a boost.’ Nimble little minx that she is, Mindy would get over the fence without the slightest bother. I can still do the splits with a little warming up – a hangover from my ballet days, but jumping a yard high fence with pointy tops was daunting enough that I was glad of the assist.

  Before Mindy could get into position, Buster happened.

  ‘Devil Dog will make a hole!’ he barked. He was ruining our attempt at a stealthy approach, but before either one of us could do anything to shush him or stop him he added some sound effects for good measure. ‘Dun dun DAH!’ then he ran headfirst at the fence.

  He only covered a distance of about four yards to get there but was moving at an impressive speed when he hit the wooden uprights.

  The thing with this type of fence is that it is only properly anchored every two yards or so. In between, the wooden uprights are held in place with thick galvanised wire and it can flex. Which is precisely what it did. Good thing too because it certainly didn’t give.

  Buster put his head down so the crown of his skull hit the wood. I guess he was expecting it to explode into smithereens or something, but all he succeeded in doing was to shunt it back a foot.

  He made a whining noise as he bounced off, and as Mindy and I rushed to him, he wobbled a bit and then fell over.

  The daft mutt had knocked himself out.

  ‘Perfect,’ I muttered, unable to believe how far I had fallen in the space of a day. Not only was I a fugitive on the run from the police, I was also breaking into yet another house and doing it with a mentally deranged dog.

  His tongue was lolling from the side of his mouth. A beetle walked over it.

  Scratching my head in disbelief, I said, ‘We’d better get him inside. I need to check if he is really hurt.’

  Mindy helped me over the fence, then hefted Buster, struggling under his weight, and passed him to me.

  I almost collapsed when I got the full weight of him in my arms. Remember I said he was like lifting a dead weight earlier? Well, I was wrong. Now that he was unconscious, he was like a dead weight.

  Mercifully, Mindy jumped over the fence like it was nothing and helped me to take his weight before I fell over or dropped him. Just like in John’s house, I had the front end, and she had the back as we shuffled through the Bleakwiths’ garden to get to their house.

  We were quiet about it, sticking to the trees and in the shadows as much as we could. The sun was already beginning to dip. It was coming up on four o’clock and would be dark within the hour. That made it easier to assess that there really was no one home. Had they been, they would have wanted a light on.

  ‘Let’s put him down over there,’ I suggested, nodding to the patio behind their back doors. It was right next to the spot where Derek had fallen, and I could still see the scuff marks in the grass where he landed.

  That was how this all started. Fate had put me in their house at precisely the wrong time. Change my visit by an hour or by a day and I wouldn’t be involved on any level.

  Buster started to come around as we put him down. ‘Whassa? Wass happn?’ he mumbled.

  I was relieved to hear him. He sounded a little dazed, but he was all right.

  Mindy said, ‘I’ll look for a key,’ and darted away.

  Holding Buster’s head and stroking his fur, I asked, ‘Does your head hurt?’

  He squinted at me. ‘Little bit. Did I break the fence?’

  ‘Not even nearly.’

  ‘Really?’ He was both disappointed and surprised by the news. ‘I felt sure that was going to work. I bet it would have worked if I had a cape.’

  I continued to stroke his fur absentmindedly and looked about for somewhere Joanne or Derek might have hidden a key. There were no obvious flowerpots or rocks in sight. I didn’t get to look any further because Mindy appeared at the patio door.

  She took a second to work
out how to open it, but it swung wide when she did, and we were in business.

  ‘You found a key then,’ I said, getting up from the grass.

  Mindy shook her head. ‘There was a bedroom window open.’

  Curiosity demanded I ask how she got up to the bedroom window – I hadn’t heard her moving a ladder about, but I parked it for now – we had evidence to find.

  ‘How’s my Devil Dog?’ asked Mindy.

  ‘I’m not sure Devil Dog is such a great name,’ Buster admitted. ‘I might need to rethink it.’

  ‘He’s fine,’ I told her. ‘Come along, Buster. Stop hamming it up and find the cream.’

  Obediently, Buster the bulldog rolled back onto his feet, gave his head a shake, and trundled into the house. Once in the kitchen he paused to sniff the air.

  ‘Can you smell it?’ I asked him. ‘Can you smell the cream?’

  He sniffed again. ‘I can smell biscuits,’ he replied. Putting the task I needed him to perform to one side, he trotted forward until his face was up against a cupboard. ‘They’re in here.’

  ‘He’s found biscuits,’ I explained to Mindy.

  ‘I need sustenance,’ Buster told me, making his voice sound wobbly and weak as if it had been days since he ate. ‘I feel like I might waste away and my nose doesn’t work properly when I am hungry.’

  ‘We did skip lunch,’ Mindy added her vote.

  I threw my hands in the air. ‘Oh, for goodness sake. Mindy, get the biscuits. Give Greedy Guts a couple, but this really is stealing now. We are bad people.’ Buster was already slobbering in excitement and Mindy had to shove him back a foot just to get the cupboard open.

  ‘Ooh, Hobnobs,’ she declared, popping one in her mouth. I chose to abstain and noted that Buster scoffed three biscuits and licked all the crumbs (evidence) from the floor.

  ‘Better?’ I asked.

  ‘Much,’ said Buster.

  ‘Yes, Auntie,’ replied Mindy.

  Rolling my eyes again, I left the kitchen. ‘Buster take Mindy and find the cream. There might be more than one jar, but we can probably ignore any that are still sealed. I’m going to search this place and see what else I can find.’

  Niece and dog departed, the sound of them going up the stairs echoed through the house. Confident they would return soon, I started to poke around in the Bleakwiths’ living space. I told myself I was justified to do so. Derek had been a friend for almost as long as I could remember, and his wife was not only cheating on him but trying to kill him too.

  He had no idea, but if I didn’t expose the truth, he would regain consciousness only for Joanne and her lover to find a new way to bump him off. I was going to have to save his life. Little old me.

  Now, what the heck am I looking for? Feeling like I should have paid more attention to the detective shows Archie used to watch, I regretfully admitted that I had no idea how to search for clues.

  There was a computer desk in the far corner of the room. On it was a laptop, a sleek new one. I opened it and turned it on but then needed a password I didn’t possess.

  How had Vince hacked into the computer in Orion Print last night? A surge of memory had me looking under the laptop for a slip of paper. There wasn’t one. I expanded my search, checking under the desk and in drawers but finding nothing.

  The drawers were on one side of the desk. On the other was what looked like a filing cabinet. Feeling wretched for snooping even though I also believed it was warranted, I nevertheless hesitated before sliding the filing cabinet open.

  The files were the cardboard drop type, where a slim folder, or stapled sheets could be dropped inside. A plastic tab at the top showed the contents of each file. It was all very neat.

  I pulled out the first file. The header claimed the file contained ‘Expenses’. Inside the drop file was a plastic wallet filled with receipts. It was Derek’s business expenses, neatly filed away for claiming later.

  The next file as I worked my way back was nothing to do with work – it was their house insurance policy. I put that back and lifted out the next one. It was labelled Dream Home. There were cut outs from brochures listing properties in Barbados. I skewed my lips to one side and leaned back in the chair to stare at the ceiling. I had seen a Caribbean homes brochure in the house before but couldn’t remember Derek ever talking about wanting to move there.

  That was clearly what this was and then it hit me – Joanne was going, but she wasn’t taking Derek and maybe she had never planned to. She was going with the doctor!

  I put the file back and took out the next one. It was labelled ‘Minutes’. It turned out it was the minutes of the shareholder meetings and they went back years.

  Guiltily, I knew I hadn’t bothered to read the minutes from any of those sent to me in the last decade. Derek always called to invite me to the annual meeting and lunch. I always declined and later he would tell me what happened and what was decided. I think if he had ever asked to buy me out, I would have handed over the shares at whatever price he offered. I had more than made back the small amount I invested to help get his firm off the ground.

  I skimmed the most recent ones now for no other reason than because I had them in my hand. It was the same mundane, mind-numbing business I had always found them to contain and exactly why I stopped reading them in the first place. It was only when my eyes caught on Tarquin’s name that they stopped to read for a moment.

  I had the most recent annual general meeting minutes in my hand and was reading where the shareholders agreed to bring Tarquin into the fold. They were offering him a small number of shares – a big thing for a small business.

  Tarquin Tremaine, the man who was, according to John, taking the firm to the next level and who had won Tamara’s heart. I was yet to meet him, though I knew what he looked like from the pictures I’d been shown. I could see one now simply by turning my head to look at the wall. Tall and handsome, with a floppy Hugh Grant hairstyle, he was going to make Tamara very happy. Given how well he had done for the firm - I knew this only from Derek talking about him in excited superlatives – it was no wonder they had agreed to give him shares. They wanted to keep him and being invested in the firm would lock him in. That he was joining Derek’s family must have made the deal even sweeter and I knew they offered him the shares because he was the one increasing the share value.

  Mindy and Buster came back into the room just as I was wallowing in how badly I was letting people like Tarquin down today. I had his wedding to plan, a rush job because of Derek’s ill health and … well, if Shane couldn’t make the charges against me go away then they were going to need to hire someone else.

  ‘Found it,’ said Mindy, holding aloft a carrier bag with several tubs of the cream in. ‘I grabbed some of the unopened ones as well. I figured it might be getting into the cream before Mrs Bleakwith touches it.’

  ‘Good thinking.’ I nodded and pushed back from the desk, folding the laptop closed again so it looked as it had when we came in.

  Mindy asked, ‘Did you find anything else?’

  I gave her a glum look. ‘No. I don’t know what else there might be to find, and I guess I don’t know how to find it. I’m not much of a sleuth.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Auntie. You figured out about the doctor and the wife having an affair. That wasn’t easy to piece together.’

  I shrugged in response. About to say something glib, my thoughts were interrupted by my phone ringing. The unexpected and loud noise gave me a start.

  Fishing around in my bag, I got to it before the caller found themselves diverted to answerphone, but my adrenalin spiked when I saw the name displayed: Tamara.

  Oh, my goodness! She knows we are in her house!

  Feeling weak with terror, I thumbed the answer button. ‘Hello,’ I stammered.

  ‘Mrs Philips, it’s Tamara,’ she replied brightly, her voice full of energy. ‘Um, I guess I have good news and bad news.’ I didn’t say anything, still waiting for a SWAT team to burst through the window to get me. �
��Dad’s awake,’ Tamara blurted with a gush of excitement.

  The news hit me like a wet fish slapped across my face – Derek being conscious changed everything.

  ‘I’m on my way to the hospital now. Tarquin said I should drop everything and just go. Well, actually, Tarquin told me I shouldn’t have been in work today at all. Anyway, I thought you would want to know, but I am also calling to cancel the appointment tonight. I’m really sorry. I know we are tight for time, but well, maybe we are not anymore. Mum says dad is much improved and his skin is really healing.’

  My brain was asking what Joanne really thought about Derek’s recovery and what she might be planning behind the tears of joy she was currently fake-crying.

  What I said was, ‘That’s amazing news. Don’t worry about our appointment tonight, we can talk later and rearrange things. If your father is recovering and you want to push the wedding back … we can discuss it all later, like I said. Go see your dad. I’m sure you are desperate to see how he is doing.’

  ‘Oh, goodness, I am. This is the best news ever. I thought I was going to lose him. Oh, I’m pulling into the carpark. I’ll call you later.’

  I let her go and put my phone away while my brain worked at triple speed trying to formulate a new plan.

  Shane wanted us to stay put in Mindy’s car, but I knew the truth about Joanne and Dr Kimble and now I had the evidence. What would Joanne say when I presented her with the cream? I’d seen Patricia Fisher mesmerise a room full of people as she revealed who had done what and why. I was going to do the same.

  If I could reveal the real conspiracy behind the mystery, maybe I could trick Joanne into telling us how she fiddled with John’s brakes to make him crash. The voice I heard talking about destroying evidence last night, could that have been Dr Kimble? I wasn’t convinced, but it certainly could have been. I only caught a glimpse of the man as he went up the street, but he was roughly the same shape.