G'Day To Die Read online

Conrad gave Nana a sheepish look as he clinked glasses with her. “I’ve received terrible news this morning, Marion. The disappointment might be too much for you, so you might want to sit down.”

  She glanced around the room. “No place to sit. How ’bout I just lean.” She braced her hip against the desk. “Okay, shoot.”

  “I talked to the zoological team looking for the desert rat kangaroo a short time ago, and they affirmed my worst fear. They can find neither the creature nor any evidence of its habitat at Sovereign Hill. Wherever he was when you photographed him, he’s not there any longer.”

  “So I’m not gonna be famous?”

  “I’m sorry, Marion. I’m afraid not.”

  “Good thing I didn’t waste no money on a cut and blow-dry, then.”

  “Tell her the rest of the story,” Ellie insisted. “Tell her what you’re going to do about it.”

  Conrad’s mustache wiggled at the edges. “It’s because of you that I’m staying in Australia, Marion, if I can iron out the paperwork. I’ve been offered a position by Melbourne’s Museum of Victoria to help classify the backlog of unnamed plant specimens they’ve collected through the years. They can use someone with my professional stature and knowledge on staff, and with luck, perhaps I’ll find another sample of the angiosperm we lost at Port Campbell. I still believe your plant is out there, Marion. I’ll never give up.”

  “Don’t lose no sleep over it.”

  Ellie cuddled up to her husband, their differences apparently forgotten. “And the best part is, free housing and a nice income. And from now on, I’m handling the finances.”

  Nana slipped her a business card.

  “What’s this?”

  “My email address. Drop me a line if you need investment advice. I got the inside scoop on what’s hot.”

  “Have you learned any more information about Diana Squires?” Duncan called out to Henry.

  “Ah! That’s right. I haven’t gotten you up to speed. Some of you may have noticed that Ms. Squires was taken away by the authorities yisterday. I talked to the main office this morning and from what they’ve learned, she’s been arristed for stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down from her hotel room in Milbourne. Towels. Sheets. Ashtrays. Blankets. Even the phone.”

  “What’s so bad about that?” asked Bernice. “Everyone steals things from hotel rooms. It’s expected.”

  “Not anymore,” argued Henry. “At least, not in Milbourne. The hotels have agreed to priss charges aginst violators to stop the financial bleeding. The loss of property is tremendous, so they’ve declared war.”

  “How’d she fit all those extras in her luggage?” Dick Teig threw out.

  “She didn’t pack thim,” Henry said, laughing. “She mailed thim! All the way to America. It cost her more to mail the box than the merchandise was worth.”

  I glanced at Duncan, whose crimson neck probably indicated how he felt about his unintended part in helping her mail the contraband.

  “But that wasn’t the worst of it,” Henry continued. “David Jones Department Store wants her for shop-lifting, as does the gift shop at the wildlife park in Ballarat. They have surveillance video of her in the act, but they couldn’t idintify her because her face was blurred in every frame. The authorities are theorizing that her makeup contains a compound that blocks a camera’s ability to capture clear visual images. Kind of like lid with an X-ray. Quite the ruse. I bit you can’t buy that at the Estee Lauder counter. I thought she was trying to cover up acne scars with the heavy makeup, but what she was really trying to cover up was a life of crime.”

  The backpack made sense now. No wonder she’d bought the expandable model. Over a two-week period, she was expecting to fit a lot in there besides lipstick and blush.

  “What about Guy?” asked Tilly. “What’s happened to him?”

  “He spint the night on Kangaroo Island, but he’ll be brought back to Adelaide today for procissing. His arrist is going to make quite the splash here in South Australia.”

  Guy said he liked splash, but I imagined this wasn’t the kind he had in mind.

  “These are yours.” Bernice shoved a couple of photos at Nana.

  “My Polaroids! I thought they was gone forever. Well, I’ll be. I knew if I kept prayin’ to St. Anthony, they’d show up. Where’d you find ’em?”

  “I didn’t find them exactly; I borrowed them.”

  “See, dear?” Nana held them up to me. “This one’s a little anthill that was right off the parking lot, and this here’s one a the ants. Never seen an ant what looked like that before. See how the body’s almost transparent?” She snapped her gaze back to Bernice. “What do you mean, ‘borrowed?’”

  “That photographer was making such a fuss over your pictures, I thought I’d borrow a couple. I figured I’d study what you did right so I could get the same effect in my pictures and maybe land me a job like you were being offered. I knew you wouldn’t mind. In fact, I thought you’d be flattered.”

  “You stole Nana’s photos?” I accused.

  Bernice rolled her eyes. “You are such an alarmist. I told you. I borrowed them, and now I’m giving them back. Damned if I could figure out what was so special about them. Dirt. Rocks. Ants. You know what I think? I think your fancy-schmancy photographer was full of crap.”

  I looked from Bernice to Nana, suddenly enlightened. “So if Bernice took two of your pictures—”

  “—Claire probably took the other one,” said Nana.

  “And if she was the only person to recognize the angiosperms when the photos were being passed around—” said Tilly.

  “Then no one would have any reason for wanting to kill her!” I exclaimed.

  Bernice squinted at the three of us. “You people are Looney Tunes.”

  When the desk phone rang, I scooted down the hall and picked up in the bedroom.

  “Imily? This is Peter Blunt in Warrnambool. I apologize for taking so long to answer your call, but we’ve been swamped. If you were calling about Ms. Bellows’s autopsy, I have the results.”

  “Let me guess. It wasn’t foul play, right? We just figured it out, and I have to tell you, I’m so relieved. You wouldn’t believe what we’ve been through, trying to piece together why anyone would want to kill her.”

  A pause. “Didn’t I mintion there was no evidence of foul play at the scene?”

  “You mentioned it, but were you a hundred percent sure? You seemed a little iffy to me.”

  “I wasn’t being iffy. I was flirting with you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Claire Bellows died as a result of deep vein thrombosis. Have you heard of it?”

  “I’ve heard the term, but I’m not sure I know what it is.”

  “It’s a blood clot in a deep vein in the leg. In Claire’s case it formed above the knee, then broke off and traveled to her lungs. It can happen to folks during long-distance travel, especially if they don’t exercise their legs or stay hydrated. We’re will aware of the problem here since there are no short flights from Australia to anywhere ilse in the world, so we’re always preaching comprission stockings.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Graduated comprission socks. They’re tighter at the foot than the calf, which hilps with circulation. Just about every store sills them. They’re a bit pricey, but we ricommind them to anyone who boards a plane, especially people over forty who are carrying a bit of weight.”

  “But Claire wasn’t over forty!”

  “Goes to show you. You just never know.”

  I hung up the phone, overwhelmed by a sense of dread.

  “Problems?” asked Duncan, stepping into the bedroom and closing the door behind him.

  “You bet.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  “Can you persuade eleven money-conscious Iowans to spring for compression stockings?”

  He grinned. “You’re on your own with that one. I couldn’t convince your two Dicks to fork out five cents for toothpicks at the café yesterd
ay.” He kissed my hand and sat me on the bed. “You have a good group, Em. I’m going to miss them.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I told you in Italy that Lazarus men have a reputation to uphold. We pursue relentlessly until we get the girl. Remember? But we’re not entirely stupid. Some of us can actually tell when it’s time to throw in the towel.”

  I felt a little hitch in my throat. “You’re giving up?”

  “Not because I don’t love you, Em, because I still do. There’s a part of me that’ll always love you. But I know the way you look at Miceli, and I know the way you look at me, and it’s not the same. Something gets lost in translation when you look at me.”

  “Oh, Duncan, that’s not tru—”

  “Yeah, it is true. But that’s okay. It was a fair fight, and the best man won—but you tell Miceli that if he’s not good to you, he’ll answer to me.” He kissed my forehead, and whispered, “Be happy, pretty,” before taking my hand and escorting me out of the room.

  “You know the one thing I’m not going to miss about your tours?” he asked when we reached the suite’s main door.

  I forced a smile. “The body count?”

  “Always being last in line. No one ever gets ahead of your group. What’s up with that anyway? Let me know when the engagement becomes official. The first magnum of champagne is on me.”

  “Who was on the phone, dear?” Nana asked when I rejoined the group in the living room.

  “Peter Blunt,” I said, suppressing a pang of wistfulness. “He had the results of Claire Bellows’s autopsy.”

  Silence descended. All eyes turned to me.

  “I still bet she died of thirst,” said Lucille.

  “She died from deep vein thrombosis. That’s what can happen when you sit in a cramped airplane seat for fifteen hours and don’t exercise your legs. A blood clot can form and travel to your lungs. And it often happens to people who are over forty and have lost their youthful figures.”

  Awareness registered on everyone’s face. Eyes shifted nervously. Mouths twitched in alarm.

  “I told you we should travel first-class,” Helen Teig said as she thwacked Dick. “There’s more legroom there.”

  “Do I look like I’m made of money, Helen?”

  “A lot of good your bankroll will do if you’re dead!”

  Lucille brightened. “Of course, if he did die, Helen and I could room together and I wouldn’t have to pay the extra charge for a single room anymore.”

  “The Aussies apparently wear compression stockings when they travel,” I continued. “They promote circulation so clots won’t form. Peter said you can buy them anywhere.”

  “Are they expensive?” asked Dick Stolee.

  I went in for the kill. “They’re a lot cheaper than a first-class air ticket.”

  Juice got chugged. Plates got dumped on every hard surface. A little pushing and shoving, a slight bottleneck at the door, and they were gone.

  I checked the second hand of my watch. Twenty seconds. Not bad. I smiled at the people who remained in the room. “Gee, that went well.”

  “Me and Tilly are going, too,” said Nana. “You want we should pick you up a pair?”

  “Sure, if there are any left.”

  Henry set down his plate and glass and peeked at the Polaroids Nana had dropped on the desk. “Did you shoot these, Marion?”

  “Yup.”

  He leaned over for a closer look. “Do you mind if I ask where?”

  “At that Twelve Apostles place.”

  He stared some more. “I’ll be damned. Do you know what you have here?”

  “An anthill.”

  “No, it’s much more than that. I know a thing or two about insicts, and what you’ve found here looks like a rare species of ant that hasn’t been seen since the eighteen-eighties!”

  Nana arched an eyebrow. “Sure, sure.”

  “Really! Marion, this is a significant discovery.”

  “Right.”

  “We need to call someone. The state university. The government. You could become famous!”

  “Uh-huh.” Nana grabbed her pocketbook. “You ready, Til’?”

  “You can’t ignore this, Marion! You need to do something about it.”

  Nana picked up the photos, ripped them into shreds, and threw them in the wastebasket. “How’s that?”

  A horrified peep escaped Henry. Nana grabbed Tilly and headed out the door. “See you later, dear.”

  Henry stared helplessly at the wastebasket before scooping it off the floor. “Would you mind if I took this back to my room, Imily? I might be able to tape the pieces back togither.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Etienne leaned against the frame of the patio door and toasted me with his juice glass. “Another successful gathering, bella.”

  “You think?” I collapsed on the sofa. He sat down beside me and gathered me in his arms.

  “You gave me the worst fright of my life yesterday, Emily. Please, don’t ever do that again.”

  “If you thought you were frightened, you should have been in my shoes.”

  “I thought you’d drowned. When I grabbed Madelyn, I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands.” He twined his fingers with mine. “I wanted to kill him. If he had harmed you in any way, I would have.”

  I turned his hand over, wincing at his bruised knuckles before feathering a kiss on each one. “Your timing was impeccable.”

  “I’m Swiss. How does one live around so many clocks and stay unaffected?”

  I felt that familiar hitch in my throat again. “Thank you for being there when I needed you most.”

  He kissed me gently. “Ti amo, bella,” he whispered against my lips. “Ti voglio anima e cuore. Voglio restare con te per l’eternita.”

  I sighed. “What does that mean?”

  He reached into his pants pocket and presented me with a small drawstringed pouch that was stamped with gold lettering.

  “Rees and Benjamin?” I said, perplexed. Untying the strings, I upended the contents and quietly let out my breath, for there in my palm lay an elegant gold band in a lacy filigree pattern, quite the most beautiful ring I’d ever seen. “The ring from Sovereign Hill.” My eyes welled with tears. “Oh, Etienne. How did you know?”

  “I went back and asked the clerk what you’d been looking at. She showed this to me and said it fit you as if it had been made to order.” He slid it on my finger. “Sposiamoci, Emily.” He brought the ring to his lips and kissed it. “Will you marry me?”

  Unlike so many of life’s challenging questions, there was only one answer to this one. “Okay!”

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18