Muzzled

by June Whyte

  DI Adams selected a teaspoon from the cutlery drawer and placed it in one of the mugs before making his way back to the table. For a man who’d only been in my kitchen a handful of times the Inspector seemed rather at home. Although, on reflection, I realized this gnarly policeman had been inside my house more times than my own mother…which was scary.

  Before continuing our conversation, he carefully re-arranged his serge covered backside on the seat of the chair and encouraged Lucky to resume her leaning position against his leg. “Although I’m not saying you shouldn’t be careful,” he warned. “I don’t want you jumping to conclusions and fearing the worst, either. This could merely be the act of a couple of half-witted kids playing out some crime show they’ve viewed on the idiot box.”

  “Or not.” I added and then decided to change the subject. “By the way, did your policeman mates up North fill you in on what happened to Scott Brady? How he was the victim of an attempted murder?”

  “You mean, suicide attempt. Yes, Senior Constable Mark Kelly contacted me yesterday. An interesting case. He also told me about your brave—or maybe some people would call foolhardy—reaction to the event.”

  “It wasn’t suicide,” I growled. “Someone slipped a drug into Scott’s drink while he was at the track and he woke up inside his car with the gas full on.”

  “And you think the message on your front door—you’re next—is from the same someone?”

  “Could be.”

  Adams let out an exaggerated sigh before accepting a mug of coffee from Constable Chalmers. “I warned you, McKinley. I told you there are people out there who get a thrill from hurting others. But no, you wouldn’t listen to me. You had to bulldoze your way in without a thought in your head and tread on toes that didn’t relish being trodden on.” He raised both caterpillar thick eyebrows at me and when I didn’t comment, took a long slurp of his coffee. I was still waiting for mine. Probably still be waiting the day of my funeral—which the way things were looking could be sooner rather than later. “So, is there anything you want to tell me?” he persisted. “Anyone other than me you’ve ticked off lately?”

  Let’s see…

  There was the owner of the grocery shop where I’d tripped and accidentally broke most of the free range eggs in his store display. There was the grumpy sports car driver who shook his fist at me when I cut him off and pinched his parking spot—only because I desperately needed to use the loo at the shopping center. Oh yeah and the tall scruffy guy who I’d first seen in Gina’s barn and then at the track handling the Rambo look-alike. And of course the temporary racing-secretary who enjoyed watching threesomes and was prone to throwing temper tantrums…

  I shook my head.

  Not content to leave it there, Adams hung on like a dog with a bone. “Okay. Anything out of the ordinary you’ve poked your nose into lately that might have brought this on?”

  Should I mention the scam? But what evidence did I have? An altered ear brand on a GAP dog and a slow greyhound I once trained coming in at 50/1? Hardly enough to prove my theory that the killer was also behind a ring-in scam. And of course this would set DI Adams off on another lecture about interfering in police business. I sighed. “You mean, other than looking for my sister because you lot don’t seem to care?”

  He drained his mug and set it back on the table. “Your sister wasn’t actually missing at the time, Ms. McKinley. She was camped out with a mob of protesters whose main grievance seemed to be mining in Arkaroola. And like the other protesters, your sister was doing her best to hinder the workmen and cause them to lose three days’ pay.”

  “But she’s gone missing again since then.”

  Adams gave a low exasperated groan which caused Lucky, still leaning against his leg, to nuzzle his crotch in sympathy. The DI brought out a crumpled carton of Dunhills from inside his coat pocket, extracted one virgin cigarette, stroked its length with the sensitivity of a man caressing a lover’s face, lifted the cigarette to his nose and inhaled. I could see the tension rolling off his face as he spoke. “Is that so?”

  “The last time anyone saw or heard from Liz was when she spoke to Bob Germaine on Friday. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

  “Anything to do with your sister I consider odd, Ms. McKinley.” He slid the cigarette gently back into the carton, returned the packet to his coat pocket and stood up. His frown seemed to suggest I’d spoiled a sensual sexual experience.

  When his pager beeped, he snapped out a gruff, ‘Adams here,’ then listened, his frown deepening. “Right. I’m on my way.” Then he turned to me. “A drive-by shooting has occurred at Munno Para so I have to go. But, don’t worry, I’ve posted two constables on guard duty outside your house for the remainder of the night.”

  He looked at me and his frown softened. “But if you need me at all—I’m only a phone call away. Right?”

  I nodded.

  “Make sure all your doors and windows are locked when I leave. And open to no-one. I repeat—no-one. Is that clear?”

  I nodded again. He really didn’t need to tell me twice.

  25

  I was bent double, one arm hooked around Lofty’s neck and wrestling the dog’s left front leg into a bucket of iced water, when Tanya’s text came through. With Lofty’s aversion to water of any sort—hot or cold—I was too busy to check it out. However, after finally talking the dog into having his jarred wrist treated, I set the ultrasonic machine on pulse and juggled the mobile from my back pocket.

  I’m bored. Zero happening here.

  For a moment Tanya’s message threw me. Then reality flooded in. Damn. What with the scare from the night before, I’d forgotten our plan to watch Gina’s house today.

  A 1 am visit from a killer tends to do that.

  Mind elsewhere, I drew small underwater circles with the head of the ultrasonic machine on and around the greyhound’s left wrist. Should I advise Tanya to go home and forget our plan? Let her know I was officially off the case, and why? Explain that I really, really, really did not want to be NEXT.

  But what about Liz?

  I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. Regardless of whether or not I decided to continue investigating scams, killers and ring-ins—my baby sister was still missing.

  The five minute timer dinged, making me jump. I switched the ultrasonic machine off, toweled Lofty’s leg dry and settled him back in his kennel with a piece of dried liver. Then I clicked on reply.

  Be there in 30 minutes.

  While the kettle boiled to make up a thermos of coffee, I showered and changed into clean jeans and sweater and stashed an apple and banana and three large bags of Salt and Vinegar potato chips into my Simpson’s backpack. Nothing like potato chips to stave off hunger pangs when on surveillance—and the two pieces of fruit would counteract the calories in the potato chips. Funnily enough, I’d discovered this little pearl of wisdom inside a greasy Teen magazine while waiting at the local fish and chip shop for my five dollars’ worth of hot chips.

  Turning onto the road leading to Gina’s property, I cringed. For some blonde-moment reason, Tanya had parked her car right outside the front gate. The flaming red Yaris couldn’t be more conspicuous if it was a wart on the end of a nose. No wonder there’d been no sightings—no bad guys loitering around the house—no sign of Gina doing anything illegal. It was a wonder the feisty GAP coordinator hadn’t stormed out to the car and demanded to know what the hell Tanya was up to. Which is probably what Tanya had in mind—when her hormones are in disarray, she loves nothing more than a reason to rumble.

  I eased my station wagon onto an empty lot across the road from the surveillance point and parked behind a thick impenetrable bush of some sort—never been good at botanical sounding names—and although I could see Gina’s house through a space in the foliage, I was pretty sure she couldn’t see me.

  “Hey, Tanya,” I said calling her on my mobile once I’d switched off the car’s ignition. “Anything happened since your last report?”

 
“Nah. Reckon the wicked witch from Sleeping Beauty cast a spell over the place. I’ve been waiting for Prince Charming to ride up on a white horse so I can distract him, by jumping his bones.”

  Ignoring Tanya’s banter, I quickly filled her in on my early morning, spray-can toting, scary-as-hell visitor. Then, how DI Adams had warned me off the case.

  “Well, what are you doing here?” Her voice rose four decibels and I held the phone from my ear to stave off deafness. “Just drop it, Kat!” she yelled. “Turn the car around and drive away. We can meet up at the pub and have lunch before I go to work. This is crazy. And…it’s—not—your—fight.”

  “But what about Liz?”

  “What about her?”

  “Scott’s clue points to Liz being at Gina’s place.”

  “Scott? How can you trust the word of a guy who’s been in prison?”

  “It’s all I’ve got.”

  She sighed and her voice grew softer. “Let the police handle this, Kat. You don’t know for sure that Liz is at Gina’s.”

  “And I don’t know that she’s not.”

  There was a short silence on the other end of the phone and I could imagine Tanya wrestling with the problem, hormones inciting her to smash the collective noses of my night-visitor, Liz, Gina and even DI Adams. Then I heard her draw in a quick breath. “Okay,” she growled, “but if there’s any sign of trouble, ring me, and I’ll come back. Do not go in there alone.”

  I smiled. That was the third person today who’d told me to ring if I was in trouble. First, DI Adams, then my gorgeous Ben, who also held me in a hug that warmed my bones and settled the scary chills in my stomach, and now Tanya. With friends like these in my corner—the bad guys didn’t stand a chance.

  Expecting Tanya to beep her horn at me as she drove past, I watched her start up her car and drive off. No horn and she didn’t even glance in my direction. Aha, one day my best friend might make an excellent sleuth’s assistant.

  I leaned my head back against the head rest and let out a ragged breath. Hey, if I was going to sit here for the next four hours, I may as well relax. Wriggling my bottom into a more comfortable position and stretching out my legs, I reached for the first packet of potato chips.

  And that’s when Gina burst through her front doorway like a greyhound out of the boxes and sprinted down her driveway.

  Oh no! Surely my cover hadn’t been blown already. What if she came hurtling across the road, breathing fire, ready to chew me out? Or worse? I hunched down in my seat and held my breath as Gina skidded to a halt on the roadway and stood watching Tanya’s Yaris until it turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

  Even from my position behind the bushes I could see how jumpy Gina looked. It was written in every line of her body. Normally prepared for a Women’s Weekly photo shoot, Gina’s hair stood on end, her hands flapped, and her clothes, creased and soiled, looked like she’d slept in them. The moment Tanya’s car disappeared, Gina bolted back down the driveway toward the GAP mini-bus parked near her front door. She used the converted mini-bus to pick up greyhounds or transport them to foster homes or take them to shows where their beautiful temperaments could be displayed to prospective new owners.

  It was hard to assimilate that Gina, the woman who adored animals, the woman I’d always respected, with a woman who had anything to do with murder and corruption. Was it the thought of big money that tempted her? Pressure from her scruffy new boyfriend?

  And where was she off to now?

  Key in the ignition, ready to give chase, I watched Gina start up the mini-bus. But instead of heading down the driveway, she rattled and bumped across a neglected paddock covered in stones and high grass and parked the bus in front of a tumbledown shed at the rear of her property. Tucked away behind decades old gum trees and overgrown prickle bushes, the shed, rusty and in need of bulldozing, looked as though it was now only home to spiders, lizards and dirt. So why was Gina parked there? And who or what was inside the shed?

  Determined to find out what she was up to, I slipped from the car, scuttled across the road and dived under the fence. Then, using trees and bushes and anything that afforded some form of cover, I crept toward the GAP mini-bus. The thing that struck me as strange was the lack of animals roaming the yard. They must all be locked up. Usually there’d be at least three old dogs wandering around, bantams, a couple of pigs and of course, Atticus the goat. It was almost eerie without them.

  With a furtive glance both ways, Gina dragged open the shed door and disappeared inside.

  Coast clear, I jogged toward a hundred-year-old ghost gum that shaded the shed and pressed myself behind the tree’s enormous girth.

  I didn’t have long to wait. Within two minutes, Gina, paler than the cartoon Casper, hurried from the shed to the mini-bus, dragging two greyhounds on leads behind her. The dogs looked unsteady on their feet, as though they’d been drugged. I frowned. What was going on? After helping the dogs through the door of the bus, she scooted back into the shed and appeared minutes later with another two dogs.

  Bile rose in my throat. Now I understood. The two dogs dragging behind her this time were friends of mine. Stanley and Rambo. Stanley, normally rambunctious and bouncy, could barely put one paw in front of the other and Rambo, the slow snail, lay down and refused to move. Gina had to place an arm under his chest to lift him up and help him to the bus.

  Anger, a slow bubbling cauldron, stirred inside me, threatening to turn me into a one-woman police force. Not only was Gina a murderer—she was a fake. She proclaimed herself to be an animal lover, yet she’d used these poor dogs in a racing scam, hidden them on her property, drugged them—and now what? Had she decided to drive them somewhere isolated and dispose of them? I sucked in a huge breath ready to step out from behind the tree and perform a citizen’s arrest, preferably by knocking Gina out with one punch, when a second woman appeared from inside the shed with another two dogs in tow, plus Atticus, the goat.

  My breath caught in my throat, almost choking me. The second woman—dressed in a long colorful skirt, hem dragging in the dirt, scarf covering her head and neck weighed down with wooden beads of all shapes and colors—was my missing sister, Liz.

  “Hey, Gina. Are you sure we need this goat?” she said. “He’s a pain in the butt.”

  “Yes, bring him along. He’s a good influence on the dogs. They like the goat and when we get there, he’ll keep them calm.”

  Liz wasn’t acting like a kidnap victim. She was as determined as Gina to get the drugged greyhounds into the GAP mini-bus. So if she was here of her own free will—a mere ten minute drive from my house—why hadn’t she contacted me?

  Unless…

  Bile rose in my throat and I leaned my forehead against the smooth bark of the ancient ghost gum.

  Oh please, don’t let my wacky sister be involved in the ring-in scam? Raising money illegally for one of her many environmental causes?

  No sooner had that thought burglarized my brain, than another—even more shocking—caused my legs to buckle.

  Had Liz been there, in his house, when Jack Lantana was murdered?

  26

  A tight band pressed against my temples and I clung to the tree for support. No way would Liz be involved in murder. Geez, stepping on an ant sent her into shrieks of remorse. I’d got it all wrong.

  And then my fingers strayed to the bracelet circling my wrist—the bracelet I’d found on Lantana’s desk the night Tanya and I were chased into his house by the two guard dogs.

  My sister Liz’s ruby bracelet.

  Had Lantana become violent, threatened her and she retaliated? Had she fought him off, belted him over the head with a dirty great vase and accidentally killed him—then panicked, rung Gina, and for some obscure reason they’d shoved the body in the refrigerator? Or was it the other way around—had Gina caused the blow and Liz come to her rescue?

  Almost hyperventilating, I watched the two women settle the animals in the mini-bus and prepare to leave.

&
nbsp; “Better grab your backpack, Liz?” said Gina, with another furtive glance over her shoulder. “No way can you come back here after we’ve dealt with the dogs. It’ll be too dangerous.”

  That was enough for me. It was now or never. Sister or not—I had to come out of hiding and protect the hapless dogs from suffering any more pain.

  Both fists tensed ready for conflict, I swept all soft thoughts of my kid sister to the back of my mind where they collided with fantasies of me as a superstar X Factor singer and the one of Hugh Jackman inviting me home for dinner.

  Edging around the tree, I could see Gina, head under the hood of the bus, while Liz, back pack swinging, closed the shed door and ran across the grass toward her co-conspirator.

  It was time to confront them and find out the truth.

  But before I could go into my Xenia Warrior Princess action mode, a quick flash of silver on the far side of the mini-bus distracted me. I paused. Narrowed my eyes and squinted across at the thick tangle of bushes.

  There it was again.

  Stumbling, I quickly ducked under cover of the tree again as a big dark hulk of a man dressed in a long black coat, stepped from his hiding place and moved silently toward the unsuspecting Liz and Gina. I opened my mouth to call out, warn them—but no sound came out. My voice had decided to go on holiday.

  “Going somewhere, ladies?” the man crooned. His voice was soft, flat, and vaguely familiar. The women spun around, fear transforming their faces into chalky masks. When they didn’t answer, the man, clearly intent on menace, deliberately flexed both shoulders, cracked his neck and rolled his head from side to side.

  I leant against the solid trunk of the tree and closed my eyes. Intent on his two victims, he hadn’t seen me—but when he’d turned his head—I’d recognized him.

  Receding hairline, wet thick lips, mouth smiling but eyes telling a completely different story…