Claire McNab: Quokka Question

By the time I got Oscar into my new car-I'd collected it just two days earlier-he'd worn himself out with all that yelling. He settled into the front seat, a bad-tempered hairy bundle.

My new vehicle was a dark-gray Toyota Camry. It was nice enough but rather boring. It wasn't half the fun to drive as my dad's restored red Mustang but much more suitable for surveillance operations, where I was supposed to blend in with the traffic. Not that I'd done any proper surveillance yet, but I'd practiced a few times. I had to admit I needed to polish my skills a bit in that area. One bloke I'd picked out to follow had pointed me out to a motorcycle cop, and I'd had to talk fast to get out of hot water.

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.

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.