“Yes—I know. Your mother will kill you.”
I nodded
.
“I’ll let you off with a warning this time Chiana—but it’s against the law to enter a crime-scene without authorization. Understand?”
I nodded again. Felt like one of those nodding dogs you sometimes see sitting in the back window of a car.
As Constable Nick Roberts frog-marched me through the gate onto the footpath and sent me on my way, I could hear Jack’s bright voice, saying, “It’s okay, folks, I’m fine now. My stomach-cramps have disappeared. Must have been that sandwich I ate for breakfast.”
“Sandwich
?
” An elderly lady clutching a yapping Chihuahua under one arm stood regarding Jack as if he shouldn’t be out without a keeper.
“Yeah—baked beans, peanut butter, raspberry jam, sliced pickles, pineapple and a great glump of tomato-sauce. Yummeeee!”
I stifled a giggle.
The scary part was—that’s probably what Jack
did
have for breakfast.
“Meet you at the water-fountain,” I yelled.
While waiting for my two assistants to catch up I jogged to the Esplanade and put my mouth under the water jet. This detective stuff was thirsty work.
Tayla flopped on the grass beside me and giggled. “Wasn’t Jack a hoot?” I shook my head. Even ‘flopping’ Tayla still managed to look cool. Whenever I flop I hit my bum on the ground and it hurts.
Jack took a swig of water then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Reckon I’ll be an actor when I leave school.”
“When you clutched your stomach and staggered around like a drunk I almost wet my pants,” Tayla said and laughed.
“Now
that
would have caused a diversion.” Jack grinned at Tayla then turned to me, his face suddenly looking anxious. “You okay, Cha?”
“Sure.”
“We didn’t have much luck, did we? No new info. No clues. Nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
Both heads snapped to attention and swiveled in my direction.
“What did you get?” Jack asked.
“I think the killer could be a woman.”
“A
woman
?”
“How do you figure that out?” Tayla said.
Daa daaaaa…
Like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat I whipped the pink handkerchief from my back pocket and waved it over my head like a trophy.
“Look what I found in Patsy’s garden.”
“Of course you’d find it in Patsy’s garden,” Tayla said like she was explaining something to a prep kid on her first day at school. “She lives there.”
“Or it could belong to Zoë,” Jack added.
Smugly I pointed to the large embroidered
K
in the corner of the handkerchief. “Since when does the name Patsy or Zoë start with a K?”
Four
“It’s
Good-Dog time,” I called out as I opened a packet of canine kibble.
Like bullets from a machine gun, the brown, yellow and green kibble rat-tat-tatted against the aluminum sides of the dog-dish.
Leroy’s mouth gaped. His wide brown eyes followed my every move. The loose skin around his jowls dripped with long stringy strands of drool. A slimy pool of saliva formed at my feet.
In fact, Leroy reminded me of Jack—just before he ate a chili-dog smothered in tomato-sauce and mustard. Or a family sized pizza with the lot. Or a heaped bowl of ice-cream covered in chocolate sauce, strawberry jam, broken bits of Flake, half a packet of nuts and topped with an extra-large scoop of thick clotted cream.
But that’s where the likeness ended. Jack was always on the move. I looked down at my bug-eyed bulldog. Moving certainly wasn’t
Leroy’s
favorite pastime. Evidently he’d used up his energy quota for the day doing strenuous activities like breathing and eating. He was currently using my sneakers as a mattress.
“Where the heck were you when God dished out energy?” I asked, shaking him off my foot and bending to set the bowl of Good-Dog under his nose. “Taking a nap under His heavenly chair?”
The dog, unaware of his short-comings, lifted his head as high as the bowl and began munching steadily; his rear end sprawled on the tiled floor.
“But I love you.” I screwed up my nose as his rasping tongue coated my cheek with a mixture of drool, dead-rat breath and crunched up kibble. Leroy couldn’t help being lovable instead of handsome. Snoozy instead of hypo. He’d been that way ever since he wandered into my life just over two years ago for a sleepover.
And he’d been ‘sleeping over’ ever since.
Leaving Leroy to his meal, I plucked a packet of caramel fudge Tim Tams out of the cupboard, grabbed a Coke from the fridge and tiptoed up the stairs to the study.
The room was empty. Great. While no-one was around I could make a start on my true crime story. I turned on the computer and opened a new document in Word, then typed:
“Rebecca Turnbull P.I.: The Case of the Disappearing Corpse.”
Thanks to the guy getting killed on poor Patsy’s doorstep I had the beginnings of a story. And with the help of my trusty P.I. assistants I intended to work my way through to a satisfying ending. Hey, I’d already found one very important clue.
A wet nudge on my leg broke my concentration and heralded Leroy’s
look-at-me-I-actually-dragged-myself-up-the-stairs
arrival in the study. Instead of his usual horizontal sprawl, he sat, his stumpy tail thumping on the carpet. His head tipped to one side.
Doggy love?
Nah.
Leroy’s way of begging for a Tim Tam.
“Okay, just one,” I agreed, plucking two biscuits from the packet. I popped one in the dog’s cave-like mouth and one in my own, then, after licking the chocolate off my fingers, I began to type.
“The sun beat down on her bare head as Rebecca Turnbull, Sydney’s fearless female Private Investigator, strode purposefully up the path towards the front door of her mansion. Fang, the mean Doberman with eyes the color of fire, trotted at her heels.
The day had been productive, as usual. They’d solved two cases that had baffled the police for months. Now they’d been hired to find the missing daughter of a visiting Sheik.
Turnbull stopped. Senses on full alert. There was a strange man sleeping on her front lawn and he sure as hell hadn’t been there when she’d left home that morning. Whipping out the snub-nosed revolver she always carried in her pocket, Turnbull hurried forward. Her mind took in every little detail, including the fact that the strange man on her lawn was not asleep—he was dead!
‘Fang!” she called. “You check around the back. I’ll take the house.’
Barging through the front door like an army tank, she—”
“It’s
your
turn to do the dishes, Chiana. I can’t. I’ve washed my hair and if I don’t put the straightener on it immediately, it’ll go fuzzy.”
Wouldn’t you know it—Turnbull had Fang—I had a self-absorbed step-sister with a hair obsession.
I gritted my teeth. “Get lost, bucket-head. Can’t you see I’m busy? Go straighten your hair in the kitchen sink while you’re doing the dishes. And make sure the water’s deep enough to cover your nose.”
“Marg said it’s
your
turn and she wants them done
now.
” Sarah came into the room and stood, arms folded, as immovable as the ancient rock, Ulura. “You shouldn’t even be in here. It’s
my
night to play on the computer, so get lost, lame-brain!”
“I’m not
playing
, Sarah—I’m writing a story.”
She shook her long hair, still princess-like, even when damp.
“Don’t know why you bother,” she taunted. “No-one wants to read the garbage
you
write.” She paused, gave me one of her wicked-witch-of-the-west looks. “Like…now, what was it again? Oh, yes, I remember.” She put on a goofy face and preened herself like a featherless peacock. “
Before getting under the shower this morning I looked at my body in the bathroom mirror…”
Oh…my…God! Sarah had read my diary. I’d have to chop her into little bits, put her through the blender, and then kill her.
In my eagerness to begin the chopping process, I shot to my feet, screaming like a cat with its tail caught in the fridge door. The computer chair tipped backwards. The mouse ended up dangling by its cord. And the rest of the Tim Tams found their way into Leroy’s waiting jaws.
“And I’m sure my boobs have grown at least half a centimeter since I checked them last week.”
Sarah choked hysterically over the memorized words, her body shaking with laughter so much she almost fell down the stairs.
At the kitchen door Sarah repeated the words on top volume. Smirking, she turned to me. “You are
so
lame, Chiana. Boobs wouldn’t be seen dead on your skinny chest.”
I’d more than kill her—I’d roll her in pigeon poop, stick a stamp on her head and mail her to the North Pole. With any luck the elves might use her to fertilize Santa’s roses.
“Mum!” I yelled, bursting into the kitchen where Mum was mixing up a batch of cakes. Ken, my besotted step-father, was nuzzling at her neck and dipping his finger in the mixing-bowl. Even after six months of marriage they still smooched like teenagers and made goo-goo eyes at each other. Sickening.
“You have to do something about Sarah,” I wailed. “She’s been in my room again and this time she’s read my diary. My
diary
. I don’t let
anyone
read my diary.”
“Chiana’s growing boobs. Chiana’s growing boobs.” It was Sarah, her sing-song voice like a chant from a skipping game.
Ken, in the act of licking his finger, looked down at Mum and raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t Chiana a bit young for boobs, Marg?”
“You’ve got a lot to learn, Ken,” Mum answered, rapping him across the knuckles with the wooden spoon as he reached for another finger full of thick yellow cake-mixture.
“Mum…
do
something!”
Putting down the spoon she ruffled a floury hand through my hair and I could see her lips twitching as she spoke. “Have your breasts
really
grown, Cha?”
My life as a member of this insensitive family was over. Terminated as of that moment. I’d join a circus. Spend the rest of my life dressed as a clown riding on the back of an elephant. Or perhaps I could fly through the air doing death-defying acts on the trapeze.
I could feel the mortifying heat creeping up my neck, spreading across my cheeks and threatening to make me look like a totally dumb jerk.
“I’m going to visit Patsy,” I mumbled.
They’d all be sorry when I solved this murder and was presented with a commendation from the Chief of Police.
Mum went back to stirring the cake-mixture and added more cinnamon. “Why don’t you take Sarah with you, Cha—introduce her to Patsy’s family?”
As if…
The front door, already a little weak, shuddered on its hinges as I slammed it for the second time in one day.
Five
Home sucked.
As I crunched up Patsy’s driveway, I shoved aside my angry thoughts and swallowed the cement lump in my throat.
Sarah wasn’t going to win.
Instead, I’d interview Patsy—and as they say in cop-shows—see if she could help me with my investigations. Hey, if I helped catch the killer and wrote a mega-story, maybe my family would stop treating me like the last sweet in the bag, the one that dropped on the pavement and everyone trod on.
I kicked at the gravel and sent shiny white pebbles clattering onto the cement base of an ugly birdbath. It was so ugly no bird in his right mind would come with a hundred meters of the thing.
Patsy’s family lived in a sprawling, odd-shaped house. It reminded me of the old woman’s shoe in that nursery rhyme where she has ‘so many children she doesn’t know what to do.’
The bright orange and purple front door swung open as I approached. I smiled. “Hi, Mrs. Turner. Is Patsy home?”
The woman standing there was so skinny if a strong wind gusted through town it would lift her off her feet and blow her away. But this woman was what people called ‘wiry’. She’d brought up nine kids, the eldest Patsy, down to the youngest, a jammy-mouthed toddler who was poking his tongue out at me from behind his mother’s legs.
“Hello. If it isn’t little Chiana. We haven’t seen much of you since you grew too old for Patsy to baby-sit. Come in, love. Patsy’s in her room.” She stood aside to let me in, not stopping for breath before continuing. “Real shook up Patsy was about findin’ that dead bloke squashin’ the pansies in her front garden. Why pay good money renting a house, I keep telling her, when there’s a perfectly good one here. Time enough for that when she finds the right bloke to put a ring on ’er finger.
“Not like her ex. That good-for-nothing Zane. Back-packin’ across Europe. Huh. If I had my way I’d send him down Niagara Falls stark naked and without a barrel. Strings my girl along for over a year then up and leaves. Always said he had mismatched eyes. Told my Arthur he was a good-for-nothing lay-about. He didn’t have a job for the last twelve months so where’d he get the money to go traipsin’ across Europe? That’s what I’d like to know.”
Her unbroken chatter flowed like a tap turned on full blast. I followed Mrs. Turner through cheerful rooms chock with everything from colorful graffiti to towering piles of well-read comics and magazines. “And as for this dead bloke up and getting himself killed in my Patsy’s garden—don’t know what the world’s coming to.”
She bent down and slapped the little boy hanging onto her skirt. “Johnny. Stop pokin’ your tongue out. A big blackbird will come and peck it off if you’re not careful.” Her gaze swung back to me. “That happened to one of my brothers years ago. He was forever poking out his tongue and one day this kookaburra came flying down out of a tree and must have mistook it for a worm. He couldn’t talk for a week—tongue too swollen to eat anything but strained soup and custard.”
By this time we’d passed through the house and onto the closed-in back veranda where Patsy slept. Mrs. Turner’s voice didn’t stop. I blinked and rubbed a hand between my eyes. A headache, woollier than an old jumper, was starting to unravel inside my head. No wonder Patsy had wanted to move out.
“Look who’s here to see you, love. Little Chiana Ryan,” said Mrs. Turner, poking her nose inside Patsy’s door. “Remember the time she blocked our toilet trying to flush sausages away because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings by not eating them. Turned out they’d gone maggoty and I hadn’t noticed.”