Claire McNab: Quokka Question

"Maybe Erin does need to see a doctor," I said. "I'd be glad to go with her."

Over at the window, Easton turned his head to look at me. He had a flat, reptilian stare that prickled my skin.

"That won't be necessary," said Yarrow emphatically. "This morning I had a long, intimate chat with Erin, and she's calmed down considerably, knowing I'm taking a fatherly interest in her welfare."

I glanced at Winona, expecting she'd be browned off to have her husband burbling on about an intimate conversation with a female student, but Winona was impassive.

"Erin needs peer support," said Winona, who surely didn't give a brass razoo whether Erin had support or not. "We're asking you to be her friend. Let her talk things through. Find out what's she thinking. Help us to understand her problems."

"I reckon her main problem is she might be charged with murder."

Shaking his head, Yarrow got to his feet. "A tragic situation for everyone. We can only hope the authorities decide it was misadventure and nothing more." He made an attempt at a grateful smile. "Thank you so much, Kylie. I do appreciate your help with Erin. If you wouldn't mind, I'd appreciate it if at the end of each day you report how Erin is faring to my assistant, Ms Tapp."

"Right-oh."

He took my arm to lead me to the door. "And please, at any time I'm available if you have particular worries about Erin's welfare."

I glanced back to see Winona glowering at her husband. She clearly didn't trust him as far as she could throw him, and from the way he was massaging my arm with his fingers, she was right.

Georgia had put me back to work collating stuff for the symposium attendees, and when I got to the room, Erin was already there, wandering from desk to desk, listlessly collecting a page from each neat pile. Apart from us, the room was empty.

"G'day," I said.

"Oh, hi, Carol."

"Kylie."

"Sorry. Kylie."

For a change, she wasn't crying, but sniffs punctuated the silence every few moments. After a particularly loud sniff, Erin said to me, "Have the cops interviewed you yet?"

"About Dr. Braithwaite? Why would they want to? I don't know anything."

Erin's eyes immediately filled with tears. "You're lucky," she wailed. "I've been interviewed twice, and they don't believe me when I'm telling God's honest truth."

"That's rough," I said.

Erin grabbed my arm-she was turning into a bit of a clutcher. "You said I was being set up," she said, "and you were right. I told the detectives that Georgia Tapp was lying when she said she'd never spoken to me about Dr. Braithwaite, but they just said it was my word against hers."

"I'm sure they'll find out the truth in the end," I said soothingly.

"That's what Jack said this morning." Erin had given up any pretense of calling him Professor Yarrow. She released my arm to blow her nose on a tattered Kleenex. "Jack said he'd have a word with Georgia, and find out what was going on."

"So he believes you. That's good."

Whoops! She'd re-clutched my arm, and her eyes were brimming with tears again. "He wants to," she cried, "he really does, but the scientist in him forces him to say he doesn't know what to believe."

"Let's go over it again," I said, "right from the very beginning, when you were working with Oscar Braithwaite in Australia…"

As instructed, before I left UCLA in the afternoon, I reported to Georgia. She was tapping away on her keyboard, and looked up with a rosy face when I knocked.

"Kylie! Come in." Obviously Yarrow had told her to be friendly and welcoming, because she bestowed a bright smile on me. "Professor Yarrow told me to expect you. You're here to report on Erin?"

I gave her back my warmest smile. "Crikey, you work hard," I said admiringly. "All that work organizing people for the Global Marsupial Symposium as well as keeping up with your own job-I don't know how you do it."

Georgia looked gratified. "Working for an eminent professor is demanding," she agreed. "But it's so rewarding." She gestured toward the papers beside her computer. "Truly, I feel I'm part of scientific history, setting down the words of the extraordinary keynote address Professor Yarrow will deliver to the symposium on Friday."

"The one on quokkas that Dr. Braithwaite was going to do?"

A shadow crossed her well-fed face. "Tragic death, of course, but almost like fate had stepped in to save Professor Yarrow from an unwarranted attack upon his reputation." She lay a hand flat on the pile of papers. "These contain the professor's groundbreaking and entirely original research. He's calling it 'The Quokka Question.'"

My eyes were riveted on the pages under her hand. This had to be the only existing version of Oscar's work, stolen by Yarrow. No doubt he'd rewritten some of it, but the basic elements would be the same. If I could only get my hands on those pages…but then I had nothing to compare them with. Erin had told me she'd destroyed all copies Oscar had before she'd left for the States.

"And how is little Erin Fogarty?" Georgia inquired. "Professor Yarrow is so worried about her emotional state."

"Bearing up surprisingly well under the circumstances." I'd decided no matter what state Erin was in, I'd give a positive report. I was working on the principle that Yarrow would not be inclined to fake a suicide, if that was his intention, while Erin appeared to be coping with the situation.

"Indeed?" said Georgia, rather surprised. "I gathered she was, as the saying goes, falling to pieces."

"She's rallied," I said. "I think Professor Yarrow taking an interest in her welfare has made her feel much better."

"It's so typical of the man," said Georgia, starry-eyed. I watched her stacking the pages I coveted and placing them in a folder. She closed the file on the computer, and turned it off. "Academic meeting," she said. "The professor likes me by his side, taking notes on important points."

She put the quokka folder in the bottom drawer of her desk, then locked with a key she took from the top drawer of her desk. This wasn't, I was pleased to observe, my idea of security.

Georgia picked up her notebook, pen, and purse; she ushered me out of her office and locked the door with a key she returned to her purse. Obviously, if I wanted a look at Yarrow's keynote address, it would have to be when the office door was open, perhaps sometime tomorrow.

I'd left plenty of time to get back to Kendall & Creeling for Pen's meeting with Ariana. For once, the traffic was flowing well, so I had twenty minutes to spare when I pulled into our parking area.

Fran was just about to clamber into her SUV. Naturally, it was one of those bulky, looming vehicles-would Fran have anything else?- so it was a struggle for someone as short as she was to make the driver's seat.

"Want a leg up?" I said.

Fran was preoccupied and didn't hear me. "Something's wrong with Melodie," she said.

"What sort of wrong?"

Fran gave me a puzzled scowl. "She's being nice to me."

" 'Strewth, that is a worry."

"She actually said she was glad I was to play Lucy/Lucas. Can you believe it?"

I shook my head. "Amazing."

"Of course I asked Melodie why she'd had a change of heart. She said she'd had a psychic flash about the casting." Fran made a derisive sound. "Like, I believe that."

I shook my head again. "Strange things happen."

With an effort, Fran got herself into the SUV's driver's seat. She put down the window and leaned out to say, "Speaking of strange things, Quip told me what you two were talking about this morning."

"Oh?" I said, wondering what story he'd come up with.

She tossed off a scornful laugh. "Kylie, as if you could play Ethel/Ethelbert!"

"Quip told you I was aiming to audition for the part?"