The Case of the Disappearing Corpse (13 page)

As you can imagine—I was completely gob smacked.

In fascination I watched Nick stagger, topple like a fallen tree trunk then bounce along the ground on his bum. Finally he smacked his head against the cement floor with a lovely loud thump.

And immediately went to sleep.

While this was happening, his gun spun in the air.

Tayla reached one hand out and caught it.

Jack and Sarah dived on Sam.

And six police cars screeched into the warehouse, turning night into day with their dazzling headlights and flashing red and blue sirens.

To say I was totally blown away was to say Mt. Kosciusko was a big hill.

I stood there, mouth open and a wild irrepressible giggle building up inside me. Leroy the Lion-hearted, Sarah the Sassy, Tayla the Terrible and Jack the Giant-killer. All characters from my own private movie show.

At the first sign of the men in blue, the air went right out of Sam’s sails while ex-constable Nick Roberts slept on. Oblivious. The last we saw of them was when one was led past, hands cuffed behind his back and the other was carried by stretcher to a waiting ambulance.

“Well, hello there. How’s my favorite team of junior P.I.’s?” I looked around to find Constable Krystal Masters, owner of Sweetums, the ugliest feral dog in the universe, standing behind us. Arms overflowing with blankets and a large silver police-issue thermos.

“Looks like you’ve wrapped this case up, kids. Though I have to say, it was a really dumb move tackling criminals on your own.”

I blinked at Krystal. “But aren’t you from the Water Police?”

“That’s right. An hour ago we impounded
The Intrepid.
That’s the boat your two kidnappers were expecting to arrive almost an hour ago.”

“Did you make any arrests?” asked Jack.

“After discovering eight million dollars’ worth of illegal drugs aboard, we promptly arrested the captain, the crew and a guy who alleged he was just an innocent passenger.”

“Mustafo?” I prompted, remembering the name of Nick’s contact.

“That’s the one. After we discovered he was a spy wanted in about six different countries we locked him up and threw away the key.”

She turned to me and smiled. “By the way, did you ever find the owner of that pink handkerchief?”

“No, but I’m working on it.”

“I’m sure you are.”

Krystal must have noticed Tayla’s white face and wobbly legs because she quickly wrapped a blanket around my friend’s shoulders, took Nick’s gun from her and eased her to the ground.

“Looks to me like you could all do with a drink of hot chocolate.” she pronounced handing the thermos and blankets to a passing junior constable. “Unfortunately, I can’t stay. I’m needed back at the station. But Constable Schultz here will look after you until your parents arrive.” Her smile took in every one of us. “Next time you’re passing by drop in. Paul and I would love to see you.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll be baking any of that scrumptious chocolate cake?” asked Jack, drooling in anticipation.

Krystal’s smile grew wider as she called over her shoulder. “I’m
always
baking chocolate cake.”

As Krystal moved off, Leroy the Lion-hearted made his entrance, shoulder to shoulder with the white cat. Like a couple of gunslingers entering a salon they swaggered toward us.

I kept getting this awesome picture of Leroy, ragged ears flapping, green slime slurping as he arced through the air. It was
so
funny. I couldn’t keep the gaggle of giggles tumbling around inside me under control any longer.

Of course, once I started giggling, that got Tayla going and before long the four of us were bent double, rolling on the ground, wet-your-pants hysterical.

“The look on Nick’s face—”

“What about when I caught the gun? Couldn’t do that again if you paid me six thousand dollars.”

“What about Jack and Sarah’s footy tackle?”

“Sam didn’t know what hit him.”

“And Leroy! What about when Leroy?” I could barely get the words out through choking chuckles.

At that moment a battered grey Holden nosed its way into the warehouse and pulled up on the far side.

“Uh! Oh!” Tayla, laughter drying up at the sight of her mother climbing out of the Holden and immediately flashing a leg at the nearest plain-clothes detective, shook her head.

Next minute there was a squeal of tires as a red Celica, burning rubber as it broadsided, screamed through the warehouse door and almost collided with the rear bumper of a police car.

My eyes misted over as the car doors flew open and two familiar figures scrambled out. I dropped the blanket and with Leroy and Cat on my heels and Sarah’s hot breath on the back of my neck, I belted across the warehouse toward their outstretched arms.

“Mum!” I sniffed back tears as the scent of her vanilla perfume wrapped itself around me.

Sarah was in Ken’s arms, caught up in a huge bear hug.

“I was so scared, Dad,” she said huskily. “I thought they were going to kill us.”

Then she turned to Mum, hesitant, until Mum’s arms went out to her. I slipped underneath and sought the warmth of Ken’s rough tweed jacket against my cheek, enjoying the security of his strong arms as I snuggled against his chest.

Suddenly we were in a group hug. A hug where no bad guys could get us. No nightmares could follow. Safe. Warm. And loved.

Amid tears, laughter, and threats of life-long groundings, we hung onto each other as though there were no more tomorrows. I burrowed deeper. This was my family. Mum, Ken, Sarah and me. And that’s exactly the way I wanted it.

After Jack took off for home in a police car, Tayla was left sitting in the middle of the blankets. Her mum, busy fluttering long mascara thick eye-lashes at the Chief Inspector, hadn’t even bothered to check on her still shaking daughter.

I pushed away from my warm cocoon and looked at Mum. Mum smiled and nodded. “I’ll go get her,” she said and walked across to Tayla.

I watched her bend down and gently pull the blanket from Tayla’s shoulders, then offer a hand to pull her up. Together they returned to our group.

“I just told this one she’s not missing out on the lecture.” Arm still around Tayla’s shoulders Mum frowned. “I’ve a good mind to bang all your heads together. There’s not a brain between the three of you.”

“Sorry, Mum,” I said, examining the toes of my sneakers.

“Yeah, sorry Mum,” said Sarah, then blushed and grinned. It was the first time she’d used the term, Mum. It was usually Marg.

Without missing a beat, Mum pushed a stray tendril of fair hair from Sarah’s eyes then turned back to Tayla.

“Would you like me to talk to your mother, dear?”

“No thanks Mrs. Ryan, I’m fine.”

Straightening her shoulders, Tayla walked across to the car and took her mother’s arm.

“Come on Mum,” she said leading her away from one rather embarrassed plain-clothes detective. “Let’s go home.”

The last thing we heard as they climbed into the car was, “Why can’t you be a little more considerate, Tayla? You dragged me away from a romantic dinner with Stevie. By the time I get back he’ll probably be gone.”

Mum’s arm tightened around my shoulders and I wondered, not for the first time, how, when God was giving out mothers, I was lucky enough to draw such a good one out of the hat.

Twenty-Three

In a display of lightning fast kicks and a karate-chop to the side of the neck, the criminal sagged to the ground. Beaten.

Rebecca Turnbull glanced across at her canine P.I. assistant. “Everything taken care of over there, Fang?”

Standing over the other man’s body, Fang snarled. A blood chilling snarl that had the man wetting the front of his trousers as he gazed at the sharp teeth millimeters from his throat.

Turnbull strode towards her silver Jaguar. She whistled to Fang as the men in blue tumbled out of their police cars.

Even as she folded herself into the sports-car, her mobile rang.

“Rebecca Turnbull, Private Investigator,” she said, opening the passenger side door for Fang.

“Yes, Minister. The microfilm has been recovered. The criminals arrested. And the case closed.”

I let out a yell and punched the air with my fist.
Rebecca Turnbull:
The Case of the Disappearing Corpse
was finished.

What a beautiful, fantastic, wonderful word.

Placing my fingers on the keyboard, I typed
The End
, then frowned. Unlike Rebecca Turnbull—
my
case was still open.

I had two unsolved mysteries that kept niggling away like an aching tooth. Who owned the pink handkerchief? How did Frank disappear then turn up two days later in the back shed? Sam admitted killing Frank—so why would he lie about shifting the body?

And then it hit me. The last piece of the jigsaw suddenly fell into place. I’d been staring at the answer all the time. It was something someone had said…

Letting out a loud
Whoooopeeee,
I scrambled to my feet. “Sarah!” I yelled. “Time to bring the team together one more time.”

An hour later, I turned into Edward Street and marched right past the house where Patsy had tripped over Frank’s body. The other four members of my fabulous P.I. team swaggered along beside me. Jack the Giant-killer, Tayla the Terrible, Sarah the Sassy and Leroy the Lion-hearted. Cat, much to his disgust, was locked in the laundry room at home.

As we marched past the white picket fence, I noticed the flattened pansies were making a recovery. But we didn’t stop there. We proceeded to the house next door where, stenciled in heritage green paint on the letterbox were the names
Trevor and Katherine Murch
.

Katherine March was the lady I’d spoken to outside the hairdressers the day I’d been tailing Constable Nick Roberts.

With my P.I. cloak firmly in place, I lifted the latch on the gate, strode up the path and knocked on the front door.

“Good afternoon, madam,” I said, smiling at Mrs. Murch while ignoring my four-legged assistant who’d decided the nearest rose bush needed watering. “Remember me…Chiana Ryan? I have a few questions to ask you about a disappearing body. May we come in please?”

Jack’s foot, wedged in the doorway, came perilously close to being cut off at the ankle when the door slammed.

Evidently not…

“Maybe I should go to the police with my theories,” I told the closed door. “They might think you had something to do with Frank’s death.”

The door opened slowly and Mrs. Murch, greasy blonde hair now hanging around her shoulders, poked her head out.

“I didn’t kill that man,” she said, her voice trembling. “I swear I didn’t. And I haven’t slept a wink this past week with the worry of it all.”

Putting myself in her shoes, I could see why she’d have trouble sleeping. But what I still couldn’t work out was why she’d shifted the body at all?

Tayla looked the woman up and down, apparently checking out her scrawny physique. “Frank must have been heavy,” she said.

“Oooh, he was, dear. Far too heavy for me. I actually pulled a muscle dragging him to the car and my back’s been troubling me ever since.”

“How
did
you manage?” Tayla persisted.

“Squashed the body into two large plastic bags, one for each half. Then, while Patsy was inside phoning the police, I backed my car down the driveway.” She shook her head, evidently looking for sympathy. “Almost broke my back, getting that dead weight into the boot of my car.”

Eeeuuw!

“But
why
hide him?” put in Sarah, still confused.

The woman sniffed and her shoulders slumped. As she let the front door swing open wider, her hands fluttered to her sides in surrender. “I thought I’d killed him.”

“Killed him? But how?” asked Sarah.

And
I
still couldn’t figure out the
why
…

“I was bringing over a sack of potatoes from our garden for Patsy and Zoë and I spotted this man peeping in the front window, so I…I bopped him on the head.” The woman breathed a strangled sigh. “Next minute he toppled off the veranda, banged his head on a garden gnome and ended up in the middle of the pansies—out cold.” She wiped her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve and sniffed again. “So I panicked and ran away.”

“And what? You came back later?” Jack, still trying to bring life back to his squashed foot frowned up at her.

“Didn’t want to…but felt so bad about leaving the poor man just lying there. I was scared he’d get up and do something terrible to me for hitting him on the head. But when I got back he was still lying in the pansies. Only now he was looking up at me with this awful accusing face—like he could really see me.” She gulped, wrapped her arms around her body and swayed back and forth. “I felt for a pulse—and—and—there wasn’t one. So I had to hide him.”

Jack straightened up. “Couldn’t you see he’d been stabbed?”

“No. I just panicked. He was lying on his back and there was no knife stuck in him when I dragged him to the car.”

I guess Patsy had already kicked Frank with her Doc Martens by then…

“What about later when you found out the guy
had
been stabbed?” Jack queried.

“At first I didn’t know what to do,” Mrs. Murch wailed. “I knew I hadn’t killed him but was scared no-one would believe me. So when the police left the crime scene, I decided to get rid of the body. It was awful. I couldn’t even drive to the shops in case I was stopped and the police discovered his body in the boot of my car.”

This story was getting wackier and wackier.

“Is that when you decided to hide Frank in Patsy’s shed?”

I was starting to feel a bit squeamish thinking about what Tayla and I found in that shed.

“Yes. My husband pulled a sheet of iron off our fence and helped me carry the body through. He didn’t want to but I was getting hysterical. Later, he fitted the sheet of iron back, so the police wouldn’t notice.”

“Did you know Tayla and I were in the house?”

“Oh, no! We thought the house was empty. I almost had a heart attack when I heard you and your friend talking in the kitchen—knocked over the rubbish bins in my hurry to get away again.”