Chasing Can Be Murder (24 page)

“I’m with you, one hundred percent.”

23

Five minutes later I heard a car rumble up the driveway and come to a stop. A bundle of nerves, I tweaked the curtain to one side and peeped through the window.

Oh, no!

“It’s Dan,” I gasped. “And Tanya’s with him. She must have caught the first available flight home.”

My legs, limp celery sticks, wobbled beneath me. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. This was my fault. Determined to be an amateur sleuth, I’d put my best friend’s daughter in danger. How in hell could I expose Tanya to the message on my answering machine? How could I stand by and let her listen to Erin’s cry for help?

Ben joined me and after giving my arm a comforting squeeze, slid the curtain to one side so he could get a better view of the driveway. “Jesus! You wouldn’t read about it, mate,” he growled, talking over his shoulder to Scuzz. “They’ve brought the police with them. Exactly what we
didn’t
need.”

As I leaned against Ben, using his solid body instead of the wall to hold me up, Inspector Columbo’s big black bear of a car, which had been following Tanya’s little red
Yaris
, slowed to a halt outside. Panic bubbled up inside me. If the police discovered Erin had been kidnapped, they’d bring in reinforcements. Alert the media. Call in the SWAT team. And then what would happen to Erin? No good thinking the kidnapper wouldn’t hurt a little girl—he’d already taken one innocent life when he stabbed Matt.

“…
if you inform the police of this phone call I won’t stop at her tongue.”

The words hammered away in my brain, blocking every lucid thought and leaving behind a red haze of fear and uncertainty.

I covered my face with my hands. “What are we going to tell the police?” I moaned, struggling not to break down and cry.

Ben held onto my shoulders, shook me gently. “Come on, Kat, don’t lose it now. You’re our rock. When the Inspector questions us say nothing about the message on your machine. Okay?”

I pulled away from Ben and staggered to the nearest chair where I collapsed in a heap.

Some rock!

Ornaments rattled and danced on their shelves as Scuzz clumped across the room toward me. He perched on the arm of my chair and stroked his fingers lightly across the top of my head, much as he would do if he was comforting one of the dogs. Tension eased from my shoulders as I pressed the top of my head into his large comforting hand. No wonder Tater and Lucky loved him.

“Hang in there, Katrina,” he crooned. “Our mission is to save the little girl, which means we must watch what we say to the police. That’s all. The constabulary can still go through the motions of searching for her as long as we don’t tell them she’s been kidnapped. You can do it. I have faith in you.”

And suddenly I
did
feel like a rock—or at least one of those little pebbles you find on a nicely raked garden path. I punched him lightly on the arm, between the word
Mother
and what looked like a tattooed mermaid. “Thanks, Scuzz. I owe you one.”

His answering wink, in any other circumstances, could have been construed as flirting. “No worries, babe.” And then the arm of my chair groaned as he stood up and turned to Ben. “So, what’s the plan?”

Ben shrugged one shoulder. “Simple. Get rid of the fuzz then let Tanya and Dan know what’s happened.”

“And how exactly do we—get rid of the fuzz?”

“Well…”

“Do you even
have
a plan?”

Ben scrubbed his hand across his face. “Well…”

Time for my input. “What say we tie and gag the Inspector and lock him in the closet until after we’ve found Erin?” I suggested, grimacing when Scuzz and Ben rolled their eyes at me. “Okay. Okay. Thought you might object to that one, but what else can we do to get Columbo out of the mix? What if the kidnapper is watching the house right now and noting police presence?”

While Ben paced, Scuzz scratched thoughtfully at a fire-breathing dragon tattooed across his bulging right bicep.

“If only we knew where they were hiding Erin,” I bleated, unable to come up with a better plan. Caller ID had shown the call came from Erin’s mobile but not where she was located.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel outside and raised voices signaled our visitors were approaching the front door. Scuzz, one large finger raised in warning, leaned toward us. “Act blasé,” he whispered. “Let the inspector think we believe Erin is hiding at a friend’s house.”

Tanya, eyes red and swollen, came slamming through the doorway into the lounge room. Worry creased her forehead and her face had that permanently startled expression you often see on a trauma victim. After greeting us with a nod, she strode across the room and stood, back to the television, anger and fear radiating from her like a force-field.

“Are you sure Erin’s not hiding here, Kat?” she asked, her voice tight. “Have you searched the dog kennels? Under the bed? And what about the wardrobe in the spare room? Have you looked in there?”

I shook my head, fighting back tears. “I’m sorry, Tan. Erin’s not with me. I wish she was.”

“Bloody Dan!” Tanya snarled, glaring at her ex who’d followed her in. “Can’t leave the pub long enough to pick up his own daughter. What does that tell you about him as a father?”

Dan looked the picture of misery. In his eyes Erin had always been his one success in life. He adored his daughter. Half the reason Erin was such a pain in the butt was because Dan couldn’t say no to her.

“God, Tanya,” he whined. “How many more times do I have to say, I’m sorry? You know I’d jump in a vat of boiling oil to save Erin.”

“But not leave the pub to pick her up.”

“I told you. My car broke down.”

“If you spent as much money on that bloody car as you do on booze it wouldn’t break down.”

Dan sighed. Since Erin went missing, he’d probably blamed himself a hundred times. He put a comforting arm around Tanya’s shoulders. “We’ll find her, love,” he said. “She’s likely sulking somewhere because you wouldn’t take her on the plane with you.”

Tanya jerked away from him and stomped across the room leaving Dan standing awkwardly by himself. “If she’s sulking somewhere, why haven’t we found her?”

“We will, love. We will. And when we do, I’m going to lock her in her bedroom until she’s at least twenty-one. No way can I go through this again.”

Tanya’s only reply was to snarl and turn her back on him.

DI Adams, who had followed the Ashtons, stood by the doorway, his sharp eyes assessing the situation.

“Ms. Ashton—” he began, taking advantage of the slight pause in Tanya’s tirade.

Still snarling, Tanya swiveled around to face the policeman. “And you! Why aren’t you out looking for my daughter? Kat’s already said she’s not here.”

“I will, Ms. Ashton as soon as you calm down and answer some questions,” he assured her. “I can’t help unless I know what’s happening.”

Tanya’s face seemed to collapse in on itself. She sniffed, scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, Inspector. Of course I’ll answer your questions. It’s just that I’m so worried about Erin.”

“Perfectly understandable.” Columbo dug out a notebook and biro from a pocket deep inside his trench coat, opened the pad and chewed on the end of his pen. “Now...can you tell me how long Erin has been missing?”

Before Tanya could respond, I answered. “Not long, Inspector. Hey, you know what kids are like. They’re always demanding attention by doing crazy stuff.”

DI Adams lifted a questioning eyebrow in my direction then slowly turned back to Tanya.

“Ms .Ashton?”

Tanya sent me a confused scowl. “Dan reckons Erin’s been missing for almost twenty hours. And contrary to what my
best friend’s
inferring, it’s not like Erin to demand attention by doing something as crazy as running away from home.”

Inspector Adams wrote in his notebook before looking up. “Did you or your ex-husband argue with the child before you left her home on her own yesterday?”

For a moment I thought Tanya was going to self-combust. “Hey, hold it right there, buster,” she yelled, her face and neck an unnatural shade of red. “Before I left for the airport, I telephoned Dan and arranged for him to pick Erin up. My mother broke her leg, you know, so don’t go trying to imply that I’m an unfit parent.”

“Calm down. I’m not implying anything. All I am trying to establish is why your daughter ran away.”

“You’re not listening to me!” Tanya growled deep in her throat. “Erin did not run away.”

This wasn’t going well. I glanced at Ben. Hands in pockets, he lounged awkwardly against the corner of the phone table while Scuzz had jammed himself back into the armchair. They’d both either gone to sleep or run out of ideas, so I guessed it was up to me to get rid of the nosy Inspector.

The cause of my discomfort chewed thoughtfully on his pen before turning to me. “Ms. McKinley,” he said, giving the collar of his shirt a claustrophobic yank. The rumpled shirt attached to the too-tight collar looked like it hadn’t seen an iron since the day it left the department store. “It appears you were the last person to speak to Ms. Ashton’s daughter. Can you remember exactly what time that was?”

“Sorry, I had other stuff on my mind when I rang and spoke to Erin.” I looked across at Scuzz. “Do you remember…Theodore?”

“I would say…around eight p.m.”

Columbo took his eyes off me and let them rest on the man-mountain jammed into the armchair. He blinked, as though his more thorough examination of Scuzz had left him disorientated. “This um…
man
…was with you when you spoke to Erin on the phone?”

I nodded.

Columbo, eyeing Scuzz like he was an extra from a Godzilla movie, finally sighed deeply and returned his gaze to me. “Before she hung up, the child told you someone was at the door. Is that right?”

“Yes. But look, Erin and I bait each other all the time. It’s like a game. She probably spun me that line to put me off the scent, hung up the phone, wrote a note saying she was staying with me and then took off to a friend’s house.”

I gazed beseechingly at Tanya, attempting to send her a telepathic message of apology. By the thunderous black glare she hurled back at me, my telepathic powers were abysmal.

The inspector passed a sheet of paper, evidently torn from a school exercise book across to Tanya. The paper was covered in clear plastic. “Is this your daughter’s handwriting, Ms. Ashton?”

Tanya read the words on the paper and closed her eyes, her answering nod almost imperceptible.

“Okay, now try not to worry,” he said, his voice laced with sympathy. “We get kids running off for the silliest reasons, every day of the week. Your daughter is likely hiding out and treating this as a big adventure.”

“Erin is an adventurous kid,” I agreed.

“Ten dollars says she’s hiding in Karen’s back shed or in Susanne’s attic,” said Ben.

“But Dan has already contacted Karen and Susanne,” Tanya bleated. “They haven’t seen her.”

“In that case, I imagine your daughter is playing a game with one of her other little friends,” put in Scuzz, dragging his huge frame from the armchair and standing up.

Tanya, apparently spotting Scuzz for the first time, looked up. And up. And up. She blinked. And by the expression on her face, didn’t know whether to hide or run.

“Oh, that’s right,” I put in. “You two haven’t been introduced, have you? This is my…umm…Jake’s cousin, Theodore Samuel Parkington the Third, better known as Scuzz. He’s one of the good guys.” While Tanya gulped at the size of the hand stretched out in greeting, I continued with my spiel. “Naturally Erin’s friends won’t tell you where she is, Tan. They’re probably in on the conspiracy too.”

“You think so?”

I fixed my eyes on the wall behind her and nodded. I couldn’t look her in the eye. How could I? I was lying to my best friend, stringing her along, encouraging her to think Erin was safe while all the time she was in unbelievable danger. Kidnapped by a monster, so evil, he would hack out a child’s tongue to ensure one of my greyhounds lost at the races.

Probably sensing I was close to blurting out the truth, Ben strung one arm around Tanya’s shoulders and led her towards the kitchen. “Come on, Tan, what you need is a hot drink. I’ll make a gourmet cup of my famous
Taylor
brew, a recipe passed down through three generations of Taylor. Heaped spoonful of coffee, dash of honey, third of a cup of Bourbon…”

“Thanks for responding to our call, Inspector Adams,” I said as soon as Tanya was out of earshot. “Now you’re helping us in the search, we’ll have Erin home in no time. Kids do the damndest things, don’t they? But no worries, Scuzz has his biker gang out on the roads as we speak and they won’t give up until they find her. Will they Scuzz?”

“I have?” Scuzz blinked, momentarily at a loss and then his eyes widened and he nodded emphatically. “Ooh yes. Of course I have. Don’t worry, Inspector, my boys come highly recommended when it comes to finding missing persons.”

“You have
bikers
out there?” Columbo gulped. “Driving through our streets?”

Hmm…maybe that wasn’t one of my better ideas. Maybe we’d have to revert to my original plan of tying the Inspector up. I bit my bottom lip. Last I’d seen the roll of duct tape was in the bottom drawer in the kitchen where I stored my rarely used reels of sewing thread, a pair of broken pruning shears, colored binder twine and my emergency wooden stirring spoon. I took a step toward the kitchen when the Inspector’s mobile went off. I stopped. Who’d have guessed Colombo’s favorite tune was
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town?
Just proves you can never tell a book by its cover.

“Goddamn daughter,” he growled hurriedly bringing Santa’s words of warning to a close. “Thinks she’s a comedian.” With the phone plastered to his ear, he grunted, assured whoever was on the other end that he’d be there in ten minutes and hung up. “Armed hold-up at Munno Para Shopping Centre,” he informed us beetling a frown at Scuzz. “Three big guys dressed in black leather. All on motorbikes.”

“Well, well.” Scuzz grinned. “This must be my lucky day.” He brushed a nonexistent piece of lint from his sleeveless leather jacket and flexed his arms, making several tattoos shiver and shake and do other unmentionable gyrations. “If a police officer should ask me where I was when the Munno Para robbery took place, I’ll smile politely and say, I was with your intrepid Detective Inspector Adams.”