Broom for One More

by Morgana Best

  After what seemed an age, I came to another 1K sign. “You can do it,” I exhorted myself aloud. “Even if you have to walk.”

  My vision had gone funny, and I realised I was weaving all over the road. I kept going, and then I found a 500M sign. I couldn’t believe my luck. In five hundred metres, this infernal run would finish. I would have smiled, only my facial muscles were too tired to move.

  Finally, I saw the finish line in sight. As I approached, people shot me worrying looks. The last thing I remembered was crossing the finishing line.

  I awoke in the medical tent. Georgia was bending over me. “Have I died and come back as a dog?” I asked her.

  She laughed. “No, I’m helping out by volunteering.”

  “But you’re a vet nurse,” I said.

  “I’m also a qualified nurse, a human nurse,” she said with a laugh. “That was my very first job when I left school.”

  “Oh, I thought you were a trained actor,” I said.

  She shot me a black look. “Who told you that?” she snapped.

  “Adrian.”

  She handed me a bottle. “Drink this. It’s electrolytes. You’re dehydrated.”

  “I feel awful,” I told her. “I didn’t realise it would take me so long to run five kilometres.”

  She shot me a look. “You ran ten kilometres.”

  I shook my head. “No, I definitely went in the 5K race.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she insisted.

  “No wonder it took me so long!” I said, sitting upright quickly. A wave of dizziness hit me, so I lay back down.

  “Sit here for a while until you feel better and make sure you drink all that, and then drink this water as well,” she told me.

  I had some sort of aluminium blanket over me, and I clutched it to me. I felt cold all of a sudden.

  “I don’t feel well,” I admitted. “Everything hurts. My legs hurt. My lungs hurt. My face hurts.”

  “You are bright red,” Georgia said. “You can have a free massage once you’ve rehydrated.”

  “I can’t imagine how I ran ten kilometres,” I told her. “Oleander and Athanasius must’ve been right. They said when people run too hard, all the oxygen leaves their brain.”

  Georgia merely laughed.

  After I drank two bottles of red electrolyte drink as well as a bottle of water, Georgia released me. She said I could jump the queue to have a leg massage, but I desperately wanted a bathroom break after drinking so much. People were lined up outside the portable toilets, much to my horror, so I had to wait.

  After my bathroom break, I was heading back for my free leg massage when I ran into Athanasius and Oleander.

  “Goldie, are you all right?” Oleander asked. She seized my elbow and stared into my face.

  “No, and it’s all your fault,” I said, on the point of tears. “I accidentally ran the ten kilometre race instead of the five kilometre race. I have no idea how it happened.”

  “We saw you,” Athanasius said. “We were there to cheer you on. You took a cup of water from a spectator and threw it over your face. That seemed to give you a new lease of life, because you took off at a fast sprint, and instead of sprinting for the finish line, you sprinted off on the 10k course.”

  “Yes,” Oleander said. “I thought you must’ve been dehydrated and when you had that drink of water, I figured you must’ve felt so good that you decided to go on the 10k race instead.”

  “That was coffee,” I muttered angrily. “And I didn’t drink it.”

  “Coffee?” they both repeated, their faces scrunched up.

  I waved my arms at them. “Yes, coffee!” I yelled. “Someone handed me hot coffee. At least, I don’t think she meant to hand me coffee.” Athanasius and Oleander looked confused. “I threw the coffee in my face and it stung and I couldn’t see. That must’ve been when I took off in the wrong direction because I couldn’t see,” I said again.

  I put my hands on my hips and glared at both of them. To my disgust, they were clutching their sides and doing their best not to laugh.

  “Have you had a chance to speak to any of the suspects?” Oleander finally asked me.

  “No, they all ran much faster than I did, so they’ve probably all gone home by now,” I said pointedly. “Georgia treated me in the medical tent.”

  Athanasius rubbed his forehead. “Georgia? But she’s a vet nurse.”

  “She is a people nurse too, apparently,” I said. “Have you seen any of the suspects?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “I’m going for a free leg massage now.” I made to storm off, but my legs wouldn’t move.

  Chapter 20

  After the race, I took two Nurofen, turned on the TV for Persnickle, and went to bed. I wanted to have a nice hot bath filled with Epsom Salts, but I was too tired. Every muscle hurt, and I couldn’t bend my knees. My feet sported the most horrendous blisters.

  I had trouble getting to sleep. Still, I must have fallen into a deep sleep because I was shocked when I looked at the time on my phone upon awakening. It was already afternoon, and I had a therapy wombat session that afternoon.

  I had started the therapy wombat idea as a ruse, but the East Bucklebury Retirement Home had latched on to it with glee. I had no option but to continue the charade, and besides, the residents enjoyed their visits from Persnickle.

  I gingerly lowered myself over the edge of the bed. My whole back ached, and the sides of my knees felt like someone was sticking red hot pokers in them. I could bend my knees a little more, but I still couldn’t bend them fully. I winced and rubbed my eyes. I staggered for the bathroom and turned on the hot water, before throwing in a whole packet of bath salts.

  I picked up my phone and stared at it more closely. There was a missed call from Max. What on earth did he want? With my heart thumping, I called him back, but it went straight to message bank. I hung up.

  There was also a missed call from a number I didn’t recognise, but I was sure it was the police. Why would they call me on a Sunday, if not to ask me to come in for questioning? I hobbled over to the window and looked out. There was no sign of them and they hadn’t left a voicemail. That had to be good.

  I lowered myself into the bath, and soon the hot water was soothing my aching muscles. Even my shoulders hurt. The hot water stung my blisters, but there was nothing I could do about that. I would just have to wear stilettos with straps thin enough to avoid all my blisters on my heels and my toes.

  I didn’t want to get out of the bath, and kept topping it up with hot water, but time was ticking away. I finally managed to climb out of the bath and get dressed. I had even been too tired to cleanse my face, so I just plastered more make-up on top of it. I grabbed my bag of wombat treats and popped them in my handbag, and then fetched Persnickle’s car harness and leash. When he saw me, he did a happy dance. “You have to be a good wombat today,” I told him. “It’s a therapy wombat session.”

  He obviously didn’t care less where he was going, so long as he was going in the car. I fastened his therapy wombat blanket over him and then attached his car harness.

  I managed to lift Persnickle into the car, but when it came to getting into the front seat, my legs wouldn’t bend. I had to sit on the seat with my legs outstretched, gently bend one, and lift it in, and then do the same with the other foot. Why did people run? The attraction simply escaped me.

  I drove to the retirement home, wishing I had brought more Nurofen with me. I could certainly do with another dose. Maybe Oleander or Athanasius had some.

  When I reached the car park, I was surprised to see one of the nurses waiting for me. “Ms Bloom, I’m so happy to see you,” she said. “The residents have been talking about it all day. They absolutely love your wombat, Chris Nickel.”

  “Persnickle,” I corrected her.

  She looked puzzled, but smiled and nodded. I got Persnickle out of the car, and followed the nurse to where the residents were waiting under a pergola sagging under the weight of hea
vy grape vines.

  The nurse smiled. “When my uncle died, my mother couldn’t bear to look inside his casket, so she asked me to put some of her gold jewellery in with him. I stole it. To this day, she thinks it was buried with him. And you know, I don’t even feel guilty, because he won’t need it in the afterlife. It’s not as if he’s an ancient Egyptian, is it?”

  I was dumbstruck. I had no idea what to say, so I simply nodded.

  “I think I would have made a good professional thief if I’d lived in the city,” she continued. “I would have only stolen from the rich and given to the poor, like Robin Hood, with one small difference—I wouldn’t have given it to the poor. I would have kept it for myself. Apart from that fact, I would have been just like Robin Hood, and everyone admires him. So what’s the harm?”

  I rubbed my forehead hard. I had no idea people harboured these sorts of secrets.

  Thankfully, the nurse stopped speaking when the residents let out gasps of delight to see Persnickle, and he hurried over to accept pats and affection. Clearly, he liked the residents.

  One of the more elderly ladies was the first to speak. “I have five nieces and five nephews,” she told me. “I told each one of them in private that I was leaving my fortune to them. I swore them to secrecy.” She broke off with a laugh. “Each one of them thinks they’re going to inherit everything from me. But there is nothing to inherit.” She laughed so hard that she coughed, and one of the nurses patted her on the back.

  “You’re not supposed to pat someone on the back when they cough,” Harriet told the nurse, who looked quite put out. “What do they teach you young people these days?”

  Another lady piped up. “If I was rich, I would buy an old, scary house in the middle of nowhere that looks haunted and invite all my relatives. In my will, I would state that they all had to stay there until there was only one of them left alive. The last person left alive would inherit my fortune.”

  “I think I saw that in a movie once,” I said, wondering if she was serious.

  “I don’t like any of my relatives,” she continued. “They’re waiting for me to die so they can inherit, so I’ve left all my money to charity. I haven’t even left them any money for my funeral. As far as I’m concerned, someone can dig a hole with a shovel, throw me in, and then put a bit of tin over me like they do in the outback.”

  I was shocked. “Surely they don’t bury people like that in the outback?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “Yes, our family used to live near Coober Pedy, and there was a man who stole my family’s opals so they did away with him. They dug a hole and pushed him in, and put some tin over him. No one ever talked about it and his body was never found, not to this day. Not as far as I know, anyway.”

  I realised my jaw was hanging open. She continued, “Now don’t you go looking sorry for him, Goldie. That was the way of it. Bush justice.”

  I shut my mouth, and then said, “Oh.” I hoped they wouldn’t tell me their medical problems. Thank goodness Harriet had already confessed everything, and I was glad my spell only worked the first time I encountered someone.

  “My husband always thought I was a natural blonde,” another lady said.

  “How long were you married?” Harriet asked her.

  “Sixty-five years,” she said.

  All the ladies laughed. “Of course he would have known you weren’t a natural blonde after all that time,” Harriet said scathingly.

  The woman looked surprised. “How would he know? I never told a soul.”

  All the ladies flushed red, and Harriet whispered something in the lady’s ear.

  She turned bright red, and then said, “We had a lights-out policy at, you know, those times of course, and I always kept my petticoat on.”

  I rubbed my forehead. This was going from bad to worse.

  “I was having an affair with Henry Swan,” Julie Medina piped up.

  I felt sorry for her. At first, I thought she had murdered the horrible residence manager, Ursula Hackles, but it turned out that Henry Swan had done it.

  “I was in love with him,” Julie said. “He strung me along for years. How could I have been so stupid?”

  Everyone hurried to comfort her.

  “You didn’t know,” I said. “I’ve been fooled by men, too.”

  There was a general murmur of agreement. I thought of Thomas, my cheating ex-boyfriend who had sent me to the Gold Coast to get me away from the woman who had replaced me at the Melbourne office. She had turned out to be his other girlfriend, much to my shock.

  A slender woman stood up. “I switched my friend’s butter with the cheapest margarine I could find when she was baking her sponge cake entry for the local show, and she came second. She always used to win. I beat her that year!”

  The man sitting next to her laughed. “My wife once sent me to buy pure woollen socks. I came back with acrylic socks. I assured her they were pure wool, and I spent the change on the pokies!”

  “That’s not so bad,” one of the nurses said. “When I take you all to golf, I kick all your balls into the sand trap. You never notice as I can walk much faster than you all and my eyesight is better. That’s why I always win.”

  There was a collective gasp, broken only by the man who had confessed about the socks. “Speaking of golf, I once keyed my friend’s golf cart. He’d upset me badly, you see, because he said Greta Garbo had thunder thighs. The nerve of him! But that’s not the worst thing I did.”

  I held my breath.

  “Once I ate all my grandchildren’s Easter eggs that my wife had hidden in a cupboard, and to cover my tracks, I told the kids that the Easter Bunny was a drunk and he’d got lost. My wife was angry with me and bought them more Easter eggs.”

  “I have the most dreadful, embarrassing medical problem,” another lady said. “You won’t believe the symptoms!”

  At that point, I stuck my fingers hard in my ears. I wondered how I could reverse the spell. At least it had taught me a valuable lesson—I was going to be far more specific in my spells, because I certainly couldn’t stand to listen to any more true confessions.

  I looked up to see Persnickle standing on his hind legs, trying to reach grapes. “Treat!” I called out.

  He trotted over to me and I gave him one of his promised treats, just as Oleander and Athanasius arrived.

  “We have news,” Oleander said.

  Chapter 21

  We were sitting in my living room. Paddy was sitting on top of Persnickle, much to Persnickle’s disgust. I had even shown Persnickle one of those videos where cats sit on turtles, but it had clearly offered him no consolation at all. “What was so secret you couldn’t tell me at the retirement home and hurried me back here?” I asked them.

  “While everyone was busy confessing to you, Athanasius and I talked about the case,” Oleander said. “You said you would suspect Georgia Garrison only for the fact that she was so surprised when she saw the body.”

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  “What did you say?” Oleander asked me.

  It was raining heavily, and the rain was pounding heavily on the corrugated iron roof. Normally, it was a pleasant sound, but not when I had to raise my voice to make myself heard. I had opened all the windows to let in the cool air, enjoying the brief respite from the humidity.

  I repeated what I had said, more loudly this time.

  “And you said that you would have thought she did it, only no one could be that good an actor,” Oleander continued. “And then you said you found out she used to study acting at NIDA.”

  I could see where she was going with this. “Just because she studied acting, doesn’t mean she wasn’t genuinely shocked,” I protested. “I actually don’t think she’s the murderer.”

  Athanasius and Oleander exchanged glances. “I don’t think you can dismiss her that easily,” Athanasius said. “If she was accepted to NIDA and then studied there, she must be quite an accomplished actor. I think you should consider the possibility.” />
  “Okay then, I admit it’s a possibility,” I said. “What was her motive? The fact that she was having an affair with Chase?”

  Oleander took the throw rug off the back of the sofa and wrapped it around her, just as a gust of wind blew through the front windows. “Perhaps she found out he wasn’t going to leave his wife for her. I believe murders by mistresses are not uncommon.”

  “You do have a point,” I conceded.

  “And you told us about the message left on his screen,” Athanasius said. “It seems a rather poor attempt to set it up as a suicide. That bungling Detective Power didn’t even think it was a suicide, so what does that suggest to you?”

  “That he’s not as stupid as he looks?” I offered.

  Athanasius narrowed his eyes. “No, that the murderer must’ve been in a hurry and did not have time to set up the murder thoroughly.”

  “Shooting someone with a rifle is hardly a crime of passion,” I said, and then qualified my statement by, “That is to say, if people were out shooting and had an argument, then I could perhaps understand someone turning the gun on the other, but this was a vet in his office. Someone must have been in a terrible rage to have time to go home and fetch a rifle, and then come back and shoot him. If it was a crime of passion, then that emotion lasted a long time.”

  “How long did this rage last?” Oleander said. “This is a small town, mind you. The murderer likely lived no more than five minutes away. So if the vet did or said something to upset the murderer, then the murderer had time to go home get the rifle while remaining enraged.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “It’s a bit much for me to take in,” I admitted. “I think that run has taken all the oxygen from my brain, like you said. I’m not sparking on all fours at the moment.”

  Athanasius waved one hand at me. “In a nutshell, Oleander and I believe that the murderer did not have much time to stage the murder as a suicide. Otherwise, she or he would have done a better job.”