Claire McNab - Wombat Strategy

"That was beaut," I said, sitting back with a sigh of satisfaction. "Thank you."

We moved to the living room for coffee. "I'm afraid I'm a poor host," Ariana told me. "I don't have loose tea, but I do have Twinings tea bags. Could you slum, just this once?" She almost smiled as she added, "It's not the herbal tea you so dislike."

I said I'd have coffee, but I was charmed by the offer. Almost as charmed as I was by the house, but nowhere near how much I was charmed by Ariana Creeling herself.

When we moved to the living room, Gussie came too, putting herself beside Ariana's chair. Bob folded himself onto one of the couches, and I sat beside him.

Ariana was all business. "Bob, what's the report on the Challoner case?"

He groaned. "Tracking this particular missing teenager is no piece of cake, especially when her parents are in the middle of an acrimonious divorce and blaming each other for their daughter's disappearance. Add to that the girl took quite a sum of money with her, and she's got an excellent support group. Getting information out of her friends is like pulling teeth, but I'm getting there, slowly but surely."

They discussed the runaway Cassie Challoner for a few minutes, then Ariana said to me, "Let's get to the Deerdoc situation."

"The Hummer?"

"It was an incendiary device. No details yet. Perkins made it easy, as he never bothers to lock his vehicles. The doorman of the building didn't notice anything, but it could have been planted long before Perkins parked the Hummer in Beverly Hills. When he was interviewed by the cops this afternoon, he said he had no idea who could have wanted to harm him."

"Ha!" Bob snorted. "If you included everyone Jarrod Perkins has pissed off, potential suspects would number in the thousands."

"Do you think the bomb has anything to do with the missing therapy session recordings?" I asked.

"It's possible," said Ariana. "I did my best to persuade Dave Deer to tell the police about the blackmail threat, but he insists it's got to be kept quiet."

Bob said, "You don't believe they're one and the same? The thief is the blackmailer?"

"It would be very helpful if it were one person, but I've a strong feeling it isn't the case."

Bob grinned at me. Jerking his thumb at Ariana, he said, "Always trust this one's strong feelings. She's uncanny. Spooky, even."

"Just don't call it female intuition," said Ariana. She handed us stapled pages. "Lonnie and Harriet have completed background checks of the staff. These four have been less than frank, as you'll see. Even so, Kylie, when you're at Deerdoc don't concentrate only on these people. In my experience it often turns out to be the last one you'd expect."

"Like the butler," I piped in.

"There are butlers in Hollywood," said Bob. "The most highly prized specimens speak with that lockjaw English accent. Jarrod Perkins doesn't have one, however. His personal assistant, Sven, fills the role of butler, troubleshooter, bodyguard, enforcer. The whole enchilada."

"How do you know all this?" I asked.

"I've done work for Perkins in the past. Never again. He's an asshole of the first order."

I studied the names of those meriting closer attention: Reuben Kowalski, Randy Romaine, Kristi Jane Russo, and Oscar Sherwood.

I was about to comment if you called someone randy in Australia you would mean they were oversexed, but then I decided this would be entirely too flippant. "How about Deer's personal assistant?" I asked. "Noreen resigned awfully fast today. Maybe she's bailing before she's caught."

Ariana considered this, absently stroking Gussie's head. "Her background checks out, but you could be right. I'll have Harriet take another look at her."

Bob gave me advice for my undercover role. The golden rule, he told me, was to avoid confrontation. "Let's say you catch someone red-handed doing something incriminating, get out of there and call security. Don't try and handle it yourself."

"In this case security's Fred Mills," I said. "He could be worse than nothing."

"You work with what you've got," said Bob.

"Whoopy-do," I said, unimpressed.

"Because you're new, no one's going to be surprised if you ask a lot of questions, but be careful not to overdo it, and always have a convincing reason for asking the question, in case you're challenged."

"I'm a natural stickybeak. How about that?"

Bob patted my shoulder. "With that cute accent of yours, I'm guessing you can ask as many questions as you like."

We spent the next half hour going through the shortlist. Reuben Kowalski had neglected to advise he had an extensive arrest record, spread over several states, for petty theft. Randy Romaine hadn't found it necessary to mention his hobby of celebrity stalking. He'd been picked up several times late at night loitering outside female stars' homes, and in two instances he'd actually trespassed. Kristi Jane Russo was an Aussie with a drinking problem she'd concealed in her job application. In Sydney she'd been involved in two serious traffic accidents, one with fatalities. Oscar Sherwood had never been charged with anything, but in two of his previous jobs considerable sums of money had mysteriously disappeared.

"These four have no idea we have this information," said Ariana. "We don't want to tip them off. After this is over, however, I don't believe they can count on continuing their careers at Deerdoc."

I looked down at Gussie, who had her head resting on her paws but her eyes fixed hopefully on Ariana. "Is she waiting for her walk?"

"I take her every night."

"But she doesn't have a yard, does she? Why don't you bring her down to the office during the day?"

Bob grinned. Ariana sighed. "I'm touched you're worried about Gussie's welfare," she said crisply. "Would it make you feel better to know I have a professional handler who picks Gussie up each weekday, along with a number of other dogs, and takes them running at a dog park?"

"It does make me feel better."

"Is there anything else I can help you with?"

She was being sarcastic, of course, but if Bob hadn't been there maybe I'd have said "Too right, there is!" and leaned over and kissed her.

Or maybe not. Okay, definitely not. But crikey, it was tempting…

I put on the car radio while driving to Beverly Hills for my first proper day's work at Deerdoc. Tarrod Perkins was still the lead news item, popping up everywhere and never missing a chance to plug his latest project, a movie called Primitive Obsessions.

Last night Tules and I had picked up some of the frenzy about Jarrod Perkins on the late TV news, and the story was still going strong this morning. In the kitchen Fran had the teev turned up high. There'd been lots of angles of the Hummer's burning wreckage, breathless theories floated about who might conceivably be responsible-Homeland Security was hinting at an Al Qaeda terrorist cell-and roving reporters shoving microphones under the noses of local residents, who had been variously shocked, horrified, or oddly pleased about the bomb blast in their exclusive area. Unlike Aussies, these people never seemed to get tongue-tied but burbled on freely as soon as the media appeared.

"They'll never eat lunch in this town again," Fran had observed. She'd taken another bite from a ghastly-looking health food bar. "Beverly Hills doesn't forgive."

"What do you mean?"

"It's not done, talking to a reporter in the street. A studio interview, though, would be okay."

I'd been given directions to Noreen's car spot under the building, where there were three floors of parking. The patients had the first floor, the doctors the second, and the rest of the staff was relegated to the bottom parking area.

I didn't have a keycard yet, so I stopped beside the attendant sitting in his little box. He was a middle-aged bloke in a creased uniform who'd quickly hidden the magazine he was reading when I'd pulled up. Without even asking my name, he raised the arm and waved me through.