by Morgana Best
I didn’t need to be told twice. I hurried up the ramp to the composting toilets.
Several minutes later, I was back at the car. “Why didn’t you warn me about the smell of the composting toilets?” I asked Thyme.
She shrugged. “It’s either a ghastly smell, or you have an audience. Which do you prefer?”
I had to admit that she had a point. Soon we were back on our way, winding down the mountain on our way to Wauchope.
It seemed like an age before we were down the mountain, and it probably was, given that I had to pull over for Thyme about three times on the way, giving her the opportunity to walk up and down to get some fresh air.
Mercifully, once down the mountain, the road was fast and flat. “I’m beginning to feel hungry now,” Thyme said.
I pointed to a sign. “Wauchope’s just under an hour away.”
Thyme groaned. “I need to eat before that. Can you stop at Long Flat shop?”
“What do you mean? There’s a long flat shop?”
Thyme laughed. “No silly, that’s the name of the town. Long Flat.”
We bought food at Long Flat and took off all our outer layers. It was so much warmer here than in Bayberry Creek, and it wasn’t all that far away as the crow flies.
“Remind me again why we’re living in Bayberry Creek and not here,” I said to Thyme when we finally reached the outskirts of Port Macquarie.
“You say that now, but wait until we reach the beaches,” Thymes said. “Then you’ll be really sorry we don’t live here. I think there are nine beaches here. We’ll have to come down for the weekend one time.”
My mind went straight to Alder. This would be a great romantic getaway. Of course, thinking about Alder brought up the unpleasant thoughts that had been bugging me ever since he kissed me. Had he only kissed me because I wished he would?
Thyme was punching an address into the GPS. “I only know my way to Port Macquarie, so this will get us to Penny Plank’s address.”
“What are we going to do when we get there?” We had planned to discuss that matter on the way down, but Thyme had been too sick for any conversation.
“Play it by ear,” Thyme said nonchalantly.
“Quick, stop the car!” Thyme said as I turned into Penny Plank’s street.
I did as she asked. “Why?”
“Look, that’s her house over there.”
Penny’s house was a few houses away from where I had parked. She was trying to get five children and a medium sized dog into her car. “That’s a lot of kids,” I said. “I don’t know how she manages.”
“Especially if Scott wasn’t paying child support,” Thyme said. “But how lucky are we! We can just follow her.”
I shook my head. “I still don’t know what Ruprecht expects us to find.”
I turned the car around, and followed her at a distance, until she came to a busy road. I kept a couple of cars between us, and stayed behind her for over five minutes. She finally turned left at a sign that said, ‘Nobbys Beach,’ so I pulled in behind her.
I could see the beach directly at the side of my car, and there was a cliff edge. I was on the outside edge of the road with the sheer drop right next to the car, and I don’t like heights at the best of times. I broke into a cold sweat. To my horror, a huge Jeep Grand Cherokee headed up the hill straight for us. “There’s not enough room for us to pass each other,” I said in a panic.
“Just keep going, you’ll be all right,” Thyme said weakly.
I froze. I stopped the car and just sat there, until the man driving the other car edged past me slowly. I then continued down the short distance to the parking area, relieved that on the way back up the hill, I would not be on the cliff side.
Penny had parked on the left side of the parking area and was getting the children and the dog out of the car. I parked on the opposite side of the parking area, and to my horror, there was another sheer cliff drop. This one was directly in front of me. There was no guardrail and only some tiny wooden stumps between me and a precipitous plunge to a certain death.
“Amelia, can you make really sure that the car’s in reverse when we leave?” Thyme asked, her voice fraught with anxiety.
“You can be sure I will,” I said nervously. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and tried to steady my breathing.
We waited until Penny was out of sight, and then we walked over to the beach, pausing at the top of the long flight of wooden steps down to the beach itself.
“Look, here’s a sign that says ‘Dogs only,’” Thyme said. “We don’t have a dog.”
“It’s not as if anyone’s going to arrest us for not having a dog,” I pointed out. “What will we do? Will we wait in the car until she comes back, or go down to the beach?”
“We’ll be way too conspicuous going down to the beach without a dog,” Thyme said.
I was sure she was right. Everyone on the beach, as far as I could see, had at least one dog. “We could wait to see if she’s meeting anyone, I suppose.”
Thyme clutched my arm. “I have an idea! Quick! Let’s drive back to her house.”
“And do what?”
“We can question her neighbors about her, pretend we’re visiting or something and looking for her.”
I tapped my chin. “I suppose so. But what if someone describes us to her later?”
“She’s never met us,” Thyme said. “Hurry, we don’t know how long she’s going to spend at the beach, but her being here gives us some time to question neighbors.”
On the short distance to the car, at least five people stopped to ask us if we’d lost our dog. We said that we had just met a friend with a dog.
After commenting on how friendly the locals were, I gingerly reversed the car, and then drove back up the steep hill. This time, I didn’t pass another car, but I wasn’t too worried about doing so, given that I wasn’t on the cliff edge this time. The GPS led us straight back to Penny’s house without incident.
“Follow my lead,” Thyme said.
I nodded, wishing I had her confidence. My heart was racing and my palms were sweaty. Thyme walked to Penny’s door and knocked on it, and then made a show of looking around. I noticed a woman peering at us over the fence, so I nudged Thyme.
Thyme waved to the lady and then walked over to her. “Hi, we’re friends of Penny’s from out of town. We haven’t seen her in ages, but she knew we were passing through town today and she’s expecting us. I thought she’d be back by now. She did say she was taking the kids and the dog to the beach first though, so I suppose she just got held up.”
The lady nodded. “Yeah, she only left a short time ago. Perhaps she got the time wrong. Those kids are a handful, and so’s the dog.”
“It must be hard for the children with their father dying recently,” Thyme said.
The woman snorted rudely. “Those kids didn’t even know they had a father. He’s never paid child-support and he’s never even been here to see them.”
“I’m surprised he’s managed to avoid paying child support,” I said, “especially since he has a legal obligation to do so.”
“But that’s what happens when you have expensive lawyers,” the woman said. “Penny often says that he’s probably paid the lawyers more than he would’ve ended up paying in child support, but he’s just so spiteful.”
“I’m not surprised that Penny won’t be going to his funeral,” Thyme said.
“She’s probably just happy that someone did the job for her,” the lady said.
Thyme and I exchanged glances. “What do you mean?” Thyme asked her.
“Well, there was that time when she tried to hit Scott with her car, and he ended up in the hospital.”
“But that wasn’t recently,” I said. I guessed it wasn’t by the way she mentioned it, but I wanted her to think that I knew all about it, especially if she was going to tell us that Penny had actually tried to murder her husband. It seemed to pay off.
“I’d forgotten about that,” Thyme lied
. “Was she charged for it?”
The woman laughed. “No, she wasn’t even charged. It was when Scott came here to yell at her and tell her she’d never get any child support out of him, and she was just on her way out when he arrived. She reversed over him, and broke his leg in three places. You know, she never had any luck with the law over getting child-support, because he keeps delaying it, but Lady Luck was sure on her side that day.”
She paused for breath, and Thyme and I remained silent. Fortunately, she continued. “Scott called the police, of course, but Penny pretended to be upset. She said that he’d yelled at her and threatened to take the kids away from her, and as she was on her way to collect them from school, she became distraught and didn’t realize he was standing directly behind her car.”
“That was lucky for her,” I said. “It seems a rather lame excuse. I’m so glad they believed Penny, though,” I added quickly.
“As you know, Penny’s a drama teacher, so she’s quite a good actress. She had those cops wrapped around her little finger. She was really pleased with herself. She was only sorry she missed him, and only hit his leg.” The woman narrowed her eyes.
Thyme pointedly looked at her watch, and I took the hint. “Oh, I just forgot that we haven’t brought the children any gifts,” I said to Thyme. “You know how upset they get when we don’t bring gifts for them.”
The lady appeared to believe me—after all, why wouldn’t she? “You probably passed a big shopping mall on your way here,” she said helpfully. “Settlement City. I’m sure you’ll have time to go there and buy gifts and get back about the time Penny and the kids get home.”
We both thanked her, and beat a hasty retreat.
“Jackpot!” Thyme exclaimed as soon as we were out of earshot. “Let’s go to the nearest café and google any old news story about it.”
I unlocked the car and jumped in. “There probably isn’t anything about it,” I said once Thyme was in the car, too, “given that she wasn’t even charged.”
Thyme fastened her seatbelt. “Well, we can eat, surely? I’m starved. It won’t hurt to google while we’re stuffing our faces. We can kill two birds with one stone.”
We soon found a cafe on the Hastings River. To our delight, there were tables right by the water.
“We can relax and have a good lunch,” Thyme said. “Penny already tried to kill Scott once. You know what that means?”
“No,” I said. I was busy looking at the menu. “Look, they have organic wine. I can’t have any because I’m driving,” I said as a hint.
“Sorry, Amelia, but I can’t drive back. I know they say people only get carsick if they’re passengers, but I actually get really bad if I’m driving. I’d drive if I could, but I can’t, not around winding roads. Anyway, my treat for lunch, to make up for you driving all the way.”
I thanked her, and then added, “Anyway, what were you going to say?”
“I was going to say that the detectives would have no idea that she already tried to kill Scott once. We’ll have to tell them.”
“But we know that there’s no evidence against her, because she wasn’t charged,” I said, running my finger down on the menu, “as much as I’d like the murderer to be Penny and not Fred.”
Thyme was unperturbed. “That doesn’t matter. They can question her nosy neighbor. Besides, surely it’s on record that Scott called the police, even if they didn’t take any action. There would have to be a police report. Anyway, what are you having to eat? And your usual coffee?”
Thyme went to pay, while I looked at my iPad. As I expected, I couldn’t find a thing about Penny trying to run over Scott. I couldn’t find much on the woman at all. She had a Facebook account, but no Instagram or Snapchat, not even Twitter. The privacy settings on her Facebook account were high, so that was no help, either.
I told Thyme as soon as she returned to the table. “No matter,” she said. “At least we have something to tell the police. You know, the people in Port Macquarie are all super nice. It must be the sea air. They’re all so happy. Weird, isn’t it!” Before I could reply, she added, “Well, I’m sure it’s her. She’s the murderer. Penny killed her ex-husband.”
Chapter 18
It was a long drive home. Thyme wasn’t as sick on the return journey, so we made good time, and arrived well before the Bayberry Creek Police Station closed for the day. We had worked on our cover story on the way.
The detectives were out, but Sergeant Tinsdell and Constable Dawson said they’d pass on a message. Thyme launched straight into her story. “Amelia and I took the day off and went to Port Macquarie. We happened to run into a neighbor of Penny Plank’s, and she told us that Penny hit Scott with her car last year.”
“That’s right,” I said. “The neighbor said that Scott called the police, but Penny wasn’t charged. She broke his leg in three places. There has to be a police report on file.”
Sergeant Tinsdell did not seem at all pleased to receive the information, although Constable Dawson, on the other hand, seemed mighty pleased to see Thyme. “Port Macquarie’s a lovely place,” Dawson said to Thyme, ignoring me. I might as well not have been there. “I was stationed there for a year. I’d love to go back again soon.”
Tinsdell cleared his throat loudly, and Dawson shuffled uncomfortably. “I hope you two weren’t snooping into police matters,” Tinsdell barked. “I didn’t know you girls knew Mrs. Plank.”
“We don’t,” Thyme said. “Well, we have to leave now that we’ve given you the information. We have a baking deadline.”
We hurried out of the police station and got in the car. I cast a furtive glance over my shoulder. “You were right, Thyme! I really didn’t think that would work. I expected Tinsdell would call us back.”
Thyme giggled. “How about I go and fill Ruprecht and the others in on what’s happened? You should go straight home to bed. After all, you were the one doing all the driving. Don’t forget, Camino’s yard sale is tomorrow, and she wants us all to help out.”
I groaned. “I will go straight to bed. I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“And don’t open the door to Penny Plank. I mean it! Murderers always seem to end up at your house.”
“I won’t.” Thyme narrowed her eyes, so I added, “Seriously! I won’t.”
I was ravenous, but I was too tired to go and wait in line for take-out. My back was sore again for the first time in a few days, no doubt from all the driving. I wanted to do nothing more than take a long hot bath, lie on the couch, and stare at the ceiling.
I opened the door to the sound of battle. It was no surprise—the house was still watching the Game of Thrones marathon. Just what I didn’t need, more war scenes. I was in the mood for a good romantic comedy.
After I fed Willow and Hawthorn who made it abundantly clear they wouldn’t leave me alone until I fed them, I ran a bath. On Saturday nights I was in the habit of having a jinx-breaking bath, one into which I’d poured sea salt, Epsom salts, and uncrossing herbs such as rue, hyssop, and lemongrass. I normally bathed between two candles and then air dried myself, but tonight I just didn’t have the energy. I just threw in a handful of sea salt and a handful of agrimony and hoped for the best.
I was relaxed, lying with my eyes closed, when I had the feeling I was being watched. I opened my eyes to see Hawthorn and Willow sitting on the edge of the bath, staring at me. It was rather unnerving, to say the least. “Shoo!” I said, but that, of course, had no effect. They were cats, after all, so they weren’t going to do anything I wanted them to do.
The long hot bath refreshed me. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but it did. I went into my bedroom to put on my pajamas, but decided to look through my closet to find items to donate to the yard sale. After all, it was for charity. I threw a few things on the pile, and then spied my old cocktail dress. It was black, clingy, and oh-so-tight. I loved that dress, but I had no idea if it still fitted. Oh well, there was one way to find out. If it didn’t, I’d give it to
Camino to sell.
The dress went over my shoulders okay, but that’s when things got difficult. I managed, after a bit of struggle, to pull it over my hips. I reached for the zip, which didn’t want to move freely at all. I tugged and tugged at it, but it got stuck half-way. I turned my back to the mirror to see how to free it, and that’s when I screamed.
I had back cleavage.
The cats ran in to see what the emergency was. “I have back cleavage,” I informed them, but they didn’t care. “How did it happen?” I asked my reflection. It certainly wasn’t from my own cooking. Perhaps I’d been eating too many cupcakes. Or perhaps the dress had shrunk. That was more a cheerful thought.
I tried to get it off, but the zip wouldn’t budge. I went into the kitchen to get scissors. I’d have to cut it off. While I was looking for the scissors, there was a knock on the door. My heart beat out of my chest. Was it Penny Plank, here to kill me? The house had let her knock, but perhaps the house wanted us to play Arya Stark versus the Waif.
I ran back into my room and grabbed my phone. If it was Penny, then I’d call the police rather than letting her in. I crept to the front door. “Hello?” I said nervously.
“Hello, it’s me,” said a man’s voice.
“Alder?” I opened the door.
He stared at my dress. “Are you on your way out?’
“No.”
“Do you have guests?’
I shook my head. “No.”
Alder frowned. “Are you expecting anyone?”
“No,” I said once more.
“You’re wearing an evening dress.”
“Yes.” I figured I should explain why I was in the dress, but I didn’t know where to start. “Please come in.” I backed away so he wouldn’t see my back cleavage. I backed all the way into the living room. “Please sit down.” I was pleased that the house had turned off the TV.
“I’ve brought you take-out and a bottle of wine. I don’t have time to stay and eat, but I won’t refuse a small glass of wine, and then I’ll leave you alone to rest. I know you must be tired after that long drive up and down the mountain.”
