A Trifle Dead: Cafe La Femme, Book 1 (15 page)

‘Caffeine and electric shocks make you
mean
.’ I bit my lip. ‘This electrocuting ping pong ball—could one of those kill a person? If the charge was strong enough?’

‘No,’ Kevin said primly, sounding like a university professor. ‘The charge you experienced is about as powerful as it gets. An elderly person with a pacemaker who held it in both hands might potentially be hurt, but even then I shouldn’t think so.’

‘How do you know this?’ I accused. ‘I can just about take the mystical knowledge of electrical workings from Stewart, but you’re a kid. Is there some secret boys club that teaches this stuff?’

Kevin tilted his glasses at me. ‘I read books.’

And they say the internet’s dangerous.

‘
I
s Gladstone Street around here
?’ Stewart asked as we left Kevin Darrow and his scary little brain with his nanna.

‘Sure, it’s just up the hill. What’s in Gladstone Street?’

‘Dr Pembroke’s office.’

I eyed him warily. ‘How much coffee have you had? I don’t think a GP will have a stomach pump…’

Stewart laughed, a maniacal caffeine-laced laugh. ‘Dr Pembroke happens to be the well-respected dentist whose wife threw a hissy fit two days ago at the Jiggle Bits…’

‘Jiggle It Fitness Hub,’ I corrected. The words were apparently burned into my brain forever. ‘Stewart McTavish, you’re not doing detective work, are you?’

‘I prefer the term journalism. Want tae come with?’

‘Hell yes!’

‘
Y
ou didn’t tell
me it was a party,’ I complained a little later, as we arrived at the swanky dental offices. What the hell kind of dentist has a ballroom? The reception area looked like something out of a fancy hotel, and was filled with elegant people drinking champagne and orange juice out of flutes.

‘Did I not?’ said Stewart, snagging us a couple of drinks as he surveyed the crowd. He looked particularly scruffy surrounded by the pretty people. ‘Possibly I was afraid ye would add glitter tae the occasion.’

I took my glass of bubbles, and then elbowed him. ‘Luckily, I always look good. They might take one look at your last century jeans and kick you out, though.’

Stewart wasn’t bothered. ‘The trick is to look like ye belong.’

‘I belong everywhere.’ I eyed the
hors d’oeuvres
platters. There’s something very wrong about sushi made with semi-dried tomatoes and pine nuts. Seriously. And the vegetarian sausage rolls looked like something had died inside them. ‘Ten to one their caterers are ripping them off.’

‘Not the story I’m investigating, but I’ll keep tha’ in mind,’ said Stewart cheerfully.

‘Toothpick food,’ I said, wrinkling my nose at a platter of chilli prawns and lemon scallops surrounded by abandoned toothpicks. ‘They never think about where the guests are going to stash them afterwards.’

The crowd applauded. I assumed it wasn’t because of me—it was only a minor snarky comment by my standards.

A very refined looking man had the attention of the crowd. He smiled at them all and—oh. Shiny, shiny teeth. ‘Should have brought sunglasses,’ I said in an undertone.

‘That’s our host, Dr Pembroke,’ Stewart whispered in my ear. ‘Dentist tae the rich and smug. Ye dinnae want tae know how much he charges for a consultation.’

‘His teeth are almost
blue
.’ I wasn’t actually listening to Pembroke talk, but his smile was oddly hypnotic. ‘What are you looking for?’

Stewart’s mouth tickled my ear, and leaning closer was the only way to hear him under the crowd noise and the booming microphone. ‘Suspicious tha’ a man whose wife was arrested for assaulting a police officer three days ago is hosting a party.’

‘Technically it’s a soirée,’ I said. ‘Once you have semi-dried tomatoes and pine nuts in the sushi and women wearing—bloody hell, that’s a fur stole. A real one. Not even vintage or ironic. Who are these people?’

I’d done my share of catering, but mostly for uni students, police officers, hipsters and musos. Even a wedding or two, when I was training. The rare big fancy affairs I’d helped with had been—well. Not quite as
soiréeish
as this.

I’d bet they were paying for each pine nut what I would normally charge for a plate of sandwiches.

‘This is officially the other half,’ murmured Stewart, his attention mostly on Dr Shiny Teeth and his boring speech. ‘And how they live.’

‘This isn’t the other half,’ I scoffed. ‘This is the point one percent. And they should be able to afford better caterers. Maybe I’ll leave my card.’ I hardly knew anyone here. This was not my Hobart.

‘Did ye hear that?’ Stewart said in astonishment as the crowd reacted to something Dr Shiny had said, muttering and gossiping together.

‘No, I was bitching about the clothes and food. What did I miss?’

‘See there.’

A woman stepped up beside Dr Shiny. She wore a simple dress—the kind of simple that costs thousands of Chanel dollars. Her apricot hair was pulled back in a clasp and she wore expensive ‘I’m not wearing any makeup’ makeup.

The crowd stilled.

‘Natasha Pembroke,’ Stewart whispered. ‘Otherwise known as the Jiggle It archer herself.’

‘I barely recognised her out of harem pants, but I did get that,’ I whispered back. ‘Are they going to turn on her like sharks?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Bits of designer frock everywhere?’

‘Tabitha, it’s no’ always about the frocks.’

I glared at him. Was he calling me shallow? This is what happens when you go around snogging people—they get ideas above their station.

Natasha Pembroke was speaking, quiet and uncomfortable. ‘I think most of you know that I had a very busy weekend.’

A few titters. Dr Shiny stood beside his wife, looking so pleased with himself that I wanted to hit him with a plate of chilli prawns. How could he put her through this?

‘I have no excuse for my behaviour,’ Natasha continued. Her shoulders looked … defeated. ‘Except for the one explanation that really is no excuse at all. I was high on prescription medication when I shot that policeman. Prescription medication that I had obtained illegally.’

The whispers exploded through the room.

‘I have been living a secret life for some time now,’ she continued. ‘And I am so grateful to my husband for supporting me after … the rather devastating shock he had upon my arrest on Saturday.’

‘Aye,’ Stewart muttered, eyes on Dr Shiny. ‘I’m sure it came as a massive shock tae the man.’

‘So cynical,’ I whispered back. Stewart had his phone out, and was recording the speech.

Natasha Pembroke spilled her guts before the crowd of her peers. High stress lifestyle … easy access to medication … no excuse. She was in a day release treatment program now, was falling on her sword as far as the police investigation went, there were no excuses for her actions … and oh yes, she was taking the opportunity to make something good out of all this by sponsoring an awareness campaign, and she urged all her friends to contribute.

‘Addiction is not just about the unfortunate, the down and out, the young and the immigrants,’ she said finally. ‘It can happen to anyone. I am very lucky to have a family who will support me through this hard time.’

The crowd lapped it up, applauding and smiling and oh so proud of her. No sharks here, we love you Natasha, isn’t she brave?

I left Stewart to it, and nipped to the loo. ‘I miss anything?’ I asked when I came back.

‘No, I think I’m done here.’ He eyed the crowd. ‘Is it wrong tae think their public support of her is somewhat insincere?’

‘When I was in the stall I heard various women call Natasha Pembroke a silly bitch, a slut, a drug-addled whore and a lying hypocrite. Several of them emphasised that they were friends of hers, which was why it was totally fine for them say that.’

‘Oh, nice.’

‘Two of them were snorting cocaine at the time.’

‘I should blog that.’

‘Best not. I don’t want some mad rich women hunting us down with their Versace fingernails. Let’s go.’ I looked around the room, shuddering a little. ‘I feel dirty. You know what we need?’

‘Coffee?’

‘Down, boy. We need to dry you out.’

W
hen I was a little girl
, Dad used to take me out to his favourite milk bar near the station (probably the last place in Hobart that called itself a ‘milk bar’) and order me lime spiders in glasses so tall I had to stand up to drink them through the straw. It’s basically lime syrup, ice cream and lemonade, thoroughly disgusting, and they never fail to cheer me up.

It wasn’t working. I sat on the café counter, poking my own homemade concoction with a straw while Stewart worked on the mural.

It was killing me to keep Café La Femme closed. Not to mention that it wasn’t the best financial decision I’d ever made.

I didn’t have any specific reason to suspect that Darrow was involved with these odd crimes, but there was a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, and my stomach was usually reliable. Even when filled with sickly sweet bubbles, battling each other for the championship.

Instead of playing with shot glass trifles again, or preparing for tomorrow’s cake crowd, I left a still-jittery Stewart in possession of my café, under strict instructions to a) leave the coffee machine alone, thank you very much and b) not host any gatherings of redheaded women unless I was there to chaperone and c) not invite me to any more shiny-toothed dentist parties, as they are bad for the soul.

I went home to an empty house. Ceege had written ‘Staying the Night at Katie’s’ on the fridge in carmine lipstick, so my first order of business was cleaning that off. Arse.

The thought of that ping pong ball in my handbag was creeping the hell out of me. I didn’t know whether it was some practical joke or an actual warning … but it was icky. The house was very quiet without Ceege thumping around, swearing about elves and flamewars and how hard it was to buy size twelve stiletto heels that were remotely cute.

The one thing I was not going to do was call someone to keep me company. Especially since the first person who came to mind was Stewart. I’d only known him a week, how had he become the most reliable person in my life?

An independent and feisty young woman with awesome hair and a wardrobe of glorious vintage clothes does not need a pet Scotsman to keep an eye on her at all times. Even if he does have nice eyes, and artistic hands.

Blah. None of this was getting me anywhere. What I needed was a repetitive task to keep busy, and shut off my traitorous brain. Cleaning out the fridge would do it. Followed by baking. Much baking.

I flung open the fridge door, and a wave of white ping pong balls cascaded out of the fridge and over my feet.

I screamed and jumped backwards, flailing so violently that I slipped and crashed to the floor, cracking the back of my head on the lino. Shit! Through the panic, I managed to process that many of the balls had touched my feet and legs, but I had felt no electric shocks.

Shock, yes. Electric, no. My head felt like someone had whacked it with a skillet. Or, you know, a floor.

I sat up and prodded a finger at one of the ping pong balls that flooded my kitchen floor. Still no shock. I grasped it firmly and pulled myself to my feet, then put the ball on a chopping board, grabbed my best bread knife and sliced the damn thing in half.

It was a ping pong ball. No circuitry inside, just air. Bloody hell!

I had gone way past scared and was furious now. I shook a garbage bag out of one of my kitchen drawers and started stuffing the balls in, as fast as I could. I was about halfway through when I grabbed hold of the one ping pong ball in the lot of them that actually was electrified.

I screamed and swore, dropping the garbage bag. More of the little sods spilled across the floor.

My house. Whoever was doing this had been inside my house.

It wasn’t a joke any more.

I
t was getting
dark by the time I parked my car in the usual spot outside the café. I sat there for a few minutes, enjoying the illusion of safety. A woman in a parked car in the middle of town at night wasn’t especially safe, but it felt better than my own house right now.

After those few indulgent minutes, I got out and headed inside, around the front rather than through the kitchen. The lights were on, and Stewart was painting.

Many of the figures were fully finished, now. I really did adore that mural—the mashing together of my favourite pop culture characters, the chaotic scene of tables and gorgeous food and beautiful people. It was everything I wanted in a wall, and it absolutely made Café La Femme.

I pushed open the door. ‘That’s it. I’m opening tomorrow. Screw Darrow. Let him keep his secrets. I’m done.’

Stewart literally jumped in the air, and barely stopped himself from crashing to the floor. ‘Bloody hell, Tabitha. Are ye trying tae kill me?’

‘I won’t have Bev’s cakes and bikkies, because I was stupid enough to cancel this week’s order, but I can whip up some caramel tarts now, maybe do a special on scones.’ I could think of nothing better than spending my whole day tomorrow bringing trays of hot scones out of the oven, and serving them to customers. ‘I’ve still got the good jam from the Berry Farm … a few calls will get the usual meats and salad stuff delivered.’

‘Tabitha,’ Stewart said, staring at me. ‘I thought ye were off home.’

I looked him straight in the eye, and lied. ‘I’m fine. Just decided to stop letting a missing landlord rule my life. If you need me, I’ll be burning sugar in the kitchen. With style.’

I made two gorgeous caramel tarts, with flaky pastry and gooey innards. I made three kinds of biscuits—Anzac, cranberry shortbread and Monte Carlos with real raspberry jam. I was cooking apples for a pie when Stewart came in to the kitchen, and sat at the table.

‘It’s almost done,’ he said. ‘Maybe a few more bits to glue on, a wee finishing touch or four. I’ve pinned up a sheet until the grand unveiling.’

I smiled without looking up from the stove top. ‘Excellent. You must get some business cards run up so I can recommend you when people ask who painted it. And I know we haven’t talked about money yet, but…’

‘I didnae do it for money. Tabitha, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong, I’ve got a lot to get done before tomorrow.’

‘Tabitha.’ Stewart had to be the only person I knew who didn’t shorten my name in some way once they felt comfortable around me. He never called me Tabs, or Tabby or babe or cutes—and we won’t even get started on Tish. Even Darrow never called me Tabitha—he preferred the double meaning of Darling, drawling it at me with a smirk every time.

Damn, I missed Darrow.

‘Stewart, I’m busy.’

He reached over my shoulder and turned off the hot plate, then drew me away from the simmering pan of apples. ‘Ye won’t even look at me. What’s going on here?’

‘You’re very alpha male tonight,’ I grumbled. ‘It doesn’t suit you. Remember who’s the sidekick around here.’

Stewart lifted my chin, and made me meet his eyes. ‘Tell me. Why are ye no’ at home?’ His voice and that accent. So warm I wanted to cry.

‘It’s full of ping pong balls,’ I muttered.

Stewart sucked in a breath. ‘Aye, is tha’ so?’

‘They were in my fridge. And now they’re all over my kitchen floor. So I am here, and I am cooking, and you are not going to stop me.’

‘Have ye told Bishop?’

‘No.’

‘Why the hell not?’ I flinched away at his tone, and he calmed down a little when he saw my reaction. ‘Sorry, Tabitha, but this is not someone sticking something in yer handbag in a public place. This is someone breaking into yer home. Ye have to tell him.’

‘If I tell Bishop about this, he will never let me out of his sight again. And if you say that I subconsciously want him to become my permanent stalker, I will
hit you
.’

Stewart folded his arms. ‘Better stalked by Bishop than by an alleged murderer with a trap fetish. The police need tae know about this. They think the Trapper’s our dead busker.’

I knew when to give up. ‘I’ll tell him in the morning. Promise.’

‘Ceege home yet?’

‘Staying the night at Katie’s,’ I mumbled. I wasn’t going to ask, I just
wasn’t
.

‘D’ye have anyone brave who can stay with ye tonight?’

I lifted my eyes, and gave him a hopeful smile.

Stewart groaned. ‘So what yer saying is, ye
want
Bishop to shoot me.’

‘Two kisses does not give him ownership of my affections,’ I sniffed. ‘And by the way, you’d be sleeping on the couch.’

‘Thank Christ for tha’. No offence, Tabitha, but I get the feeling ye’d be a high maintenance girlfriend.’

Well, obviously.

M
y fridge
at home should still have been full of leftover
hors d’oeuvres
from the Oscars party, but the bastard with the ping pong balls had stolen my leftovers before perpetrating the crime. Stewart and I ate pizza on the couch instead.

I put on a Doris Day movie for comfort, but Stewart started twitching in a manly fashion every time she burst into song or moved in for a blurry close up, so I hit the mute button. The living room was dark around us, with just Doris and her cheerful cast for illumination.

‘D’ye think it’s someone ye know?’ Stewart asked.

Darrow, Xanthippe
, my treacherous brain came up with as an instant response. ‘I hope not,’ I said. ‘But then—I know everyone, don’t I? So, chances are.’ I picked a loose bit of cheese and pineapple off the cardboard box. ‘I wish I knew what was going on with Xanthippe. She’s acting stranger than usual—even for someone who is arranging eccentric PR for a rock band, and hunting my landlord down for God-knows-what purpose.’

‘Do ye think she’s the Trapper?’

‘No,’ I said automatically, then let my brain catch up to my mouth. ‘No,’ I said again after a moment’s serious thought. ‘This whole setting traps thing is completely stupid. If she was doing it, it would be stylish.’

‘Attacking a rock band with a knife kind of stylish?’

‘Exactly. Wait, were you being sarcastic?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve lost track.’

I thought about it for a minute. ‘Natasha Pembroke. She talked about the case when she made that phone call to the police.’

Stewart nodded. ‘She said nothing she couldnae have read in the papers. Might have chosen that story randomly.’

‘It makes more sense if the stories are connected. Despite what
Sandstone City
like to claim, Hobart doesn’t usually have this much weird all at once.’ I jumped suddenly, smacking my greasy hand down on Stewart’s leg. ‘Did you see that? Outside.’

‘What?’ He went to the window.

‘Not too close. I saw a light. Someone has a torch out there.’

He peered out. ‘I don’t see anything.’

‘Right.’ I reached under the couch, and came up with a cricket bat and a fishing net, both heirlooms from Dad. Ceege likes to keep them handy for the zombie apocalypse. ‘Choose your weapon. I am not going to let some trap-obsessed creep besiege me in my own house.’

Stewart looked weary as he took the cricket bat off me. ‘Ye say it’s Hobart tha’s suddenly got weird. From where I stand, these things are only happening around Tabitha Darling.’

That was uncalled for. Surely everyone has a stockpile of possible zombie weapons under their couch.

T
here’s
something surreal about creeping around your own back garden after dark. I couldn’t help but feel like I was the intruder. ‘Do you see anything?’ I whispered as we made our way around.

‘I didnae see anything the first time,’ Stewart whispered back.

My ears went hot. ‘Are you suggesting that I made it up?’

‘Did I say so?’

‘You’re thinking it, though.’

‘How can I possibly respond to tha’?’

‘Aha, you admit it.’

‘Let’s do one circuit, then back inside.’

‘Proving that Tabitha was imagining things after all, the silly girl.’

‘Shush.’

‘You shush! Don’t you shush me!’

‘You know,’ broke in a cynical female voice. ‘You two? Not stealthy.’ A shadowy figure stepped out from behind my back door, and I caught a whiff of banana conditioner.

Of course, by the time I recognised her, I had already
died of shock
. ‘Zee, what the everloving
fuck
?’

Xanthippe switched on her torch, pointing it at the grass so that it didn’t blind either of us. ‘You were expecting maybe Humphrey Bogart?’

‘He wasn’t my first suspect, no,’ I muttered. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘In case you haven’t noticed,’ she said. ‘You’re the latest target in the game that our mutual friend is playing. I figured someone had to look out for you—and if it means catching him in the act, all the better.’

I led the way back into the kitchen, where the ping pong balls were still scattered across half the floor, and switched the lights on. ‘You knew about this?’

‘I heard about the one in your handbag,’ Xanthippe said, looking around. ‘This doesn’t surprise me. I intercepted a package on your doorstep this morning.’

I stared at her. ‘A package. What package?’

‘A love token from your imaginary friend,’ she said. ‘A pretty pink box with a ribbon, full of mouse traps. Ever so subtle.’

‘And ye didn’t think Tabitha should know about tha’ earlier?’ demanded Stewart. ‘Or tha’ the police might want tae know?’

‘I can protect Tabitha better than her darling Leo,’ Xanthippe shot back. ‘He has to follow rules, and go home when his shift is over.’

I put the kettle on. To hell with preserving the crime scene, I needed chamomile. ‘This is all very nice, Zee, but you’re working from a false premise. The Trapper is not Darrow.’

‘Come on,’ Xanthippe said incredulously. ‘It’s got his manicured fingernails all over it. Who else would be this bloody dramatic for no evident gain? He’s been messing with everyone’s heads, Tish. Now he’s messing with yours.’

‘Did you see him deliver the package?’ I asked. ‘Did you see him put anything in my handbag? Have you actually seen him at all since you came back to Tassie?’

‘
You
have,’ Stewart said, looking at me.

I glared at them both. ‘He’s driving a taxi. But he’s not the Trapper, and he’s not my stalker, and he’s not a murderer. I won’t believe it.’

‘That man’s capable of anything,’ Xanthippe insisted stubbornly.

I lost my patience. ‘Okay, tell me! I told you about the taxi—that’s the biggest clue yet on how to find him. So you tell me what Darrow did to inspire this obsessive little vendetta of yours, right now, because this is way more than post-breakup mania.’

Xanthippe blew out a breath, looking furious at me, and then threw herself into one of my kitchen chairs. It wobbled under the shock, but stayed upright. ‘My car,’ she muttered. ‘He crashed my car into the Richmond Bridge.’

‘Oh,
Zee
,’ I said, feeling the need for a sit down myself. ‘Not the Lotus.’ I wanted to hug her. Only we didn’t do that. I hated how awkward things were. Ten years ago I would have hugged her and she would have pushed me off, and I would have said something stupid to make her laugh and it would have been okay.

I missed my friend.

‘My personally-restored 1967 Lotus Super Seven Roadster,’ she said miserably.

‘I’ll kill him for you,’ I breathed. ‘Oh, your pretty car…’ Back when we were starting uni and the Lotus was up on bricks in her mum’s garage, Xanthippe and I had planned to go on a road trip around the state, wearing 1960s outfits and playing cheesy nostalgia music. We’d never got around to it, and now we never would.

She shrugged it off, speaking to Stewart rather than me. ‘It was supposed to be safe in storage while I was on the mainland, but he begged me to let him take it for a tune up and a run to keep the engine purring. Like a complete moron, I agreed. Two days later I got a text message—Crashed Lotus into Richmond Bridge, sorry, write off, will make it up to you.’ She growled under her breath. ‘They don’t
make
cars like that any more.’

‘How did I never hear about this?’ I said. ‘Come to that, how did he walk away from a crash like that?’

Stewart snapped his fingers. ‘I remember this. Near Miss for Heritage Landmark. Simon covered the story for
Sandstone City
—not quite a Hobart story, but we do love a sandstone connection. Some idiot left the handbrake off a sports car and it ran down a grassy slope intae the river—technically it only dinged the bridge supports, but the water did the most damage, o’ course…’ He stopped, realising he was being far too enthusiastic while Xanthippe’s face got grimmer and grimmer.

‘Nice car,’ he added weakly. ‘Ye want his head on a plate. Understandable. It was insured, aye?’

‘Insured for its value on paper,’ Xanthippe muttered. ‘Which doesn’t come anywhere near what it actually cost me, in time as well as money. Also, I don’t get the insurance money until he signs the statement about what happened to the damn car. Hence me trying to track him down with my supreme ninja skills. Meanwhile, he’s screwing with my band, because apparently he hasn’t messed my life up enough.’ She kicked the table leg.

‘If he is the Trapper, which he’s not,’ I put in. Now was not the time to mention that her ‘supreme ninja skills’ had yielded zero results.

‘Whatever,’ Xanthippe said, getting back to her feet. ‘It wasn’t an insulin overdose that killed Julian Morris in the net. It was a particularly nasty grade of heroin. He wasn’t the only one, either—there have been more overdoses in the emergency room of the Royal this fortnight than there have been all year. It’s all linked to some new dealer that people are calling The Vampire.’

Stewart dug a battered notebook out of his jeans, and took notes. ‘How do ye know this?’

‘I have my sources,’ Xanthippe drawled. ‘Tabitha isn’t the only one who knows a lot of people in this town. Plus, I listen at keyholes.’

‘And you’re going to be hanging around protecting me on a regular basis, are you?’ I said, very suspicious of the whole thing.