The Case of the Disappearing Corpse (7 page)

“Frank probably thought he could ask himself in for a cup of coffee and pick Patsy’s pocket while she was in the kitchen.”

Tayla shook her head. “Can’t see Patsy asking him in. She said he was a sleaze. Perhaps he was going to force his way inside as soon as she opened the door.”

“Or he might have been checking the place out meaning to break in later, didn’t know he was being followed, and got himself killed.” I crunched down on a lightly burned fish finger and ate without tasting it. “But
why
was he killed?”

Tayla put down her knife and fork and frowned that wobbly frown she usually gets just before diving under her doona in fright. “Because the killer thought Frank had the film.”

“Which means he’s still after it.”

Tayla’s eyes glazed over. “And now
we’ve
got it.”

“And
keeping
it.”

I slipped the film from the table into my pocket, not letting her spook me out any more. I’d hit on something big here and wasn’t going to be talked out of using it.

Tayla looked down at her plate, gulped and said, for the seventy-seventh time since we’d walked through the door. “We shouldn’t be here.”

“Relax, Tay,” I said, in my most soothing voice. “We’ll be okay. No-one even knows we’re here.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel safer?”

Ignoring the squeak in her voice, I grinned and reached for the pepper. “Isn’t this exciting? We’ve stumbled on the biggest clue yet.”

“That’s not a clue—it’s a time-bomb. And you know it.”

“Geez, Tay, chill out will you?”

I sent her a full-on scowl and banged the pepper pot back on the table. My best friend was making me nervous.

One…Tayla was right.

And two…she was making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and shiver.

“Okay, let’s give Leroy a Tim Tam,” I suggested, changing the subject. “If he’s going to be our guard-dog we’ve got to keep his energy levels up. Make sure he stays a—”

CRAAAAAAAAAASH

My mouth remained open, then closed on a swallow that felt like a large cane-toad had somehow crawled down my throat and got stuck.

Please
let that be a stray cat knocking over a rubbish bin in the back yard.

And not a very disturbed killer here to bump off a couple of nosy kids.

Eleven

“What w-was th-that?” Tayla’s voice sounded as though it had been caught in a lemon squeezer.

I didn’t waste my time pointing out that how the heck would I know—because I really didn’t
want
to know.

Perhaps Tayla was right.

Perhaps not letting anyone know we were at Patsy’s house hadn’t been one of my better ideas. Yet
someone
knew we were here. And they were outside right now, throwing rubbish bins around to let us know they knew.

Tayla grabbed my arm and hung on. Her nails dug into my skin.

“Send Leroy out, Cha. Let him find out what’s going on.”

I peered dubiously down at Leroy, who after sucking up the last crumb on his plate had curled into a ball. By now he was probably chasing Tim Tam biscuits in his dreams.

“Er…Leroy. Do you want to go outside?”

When Leroy opened one eye then shut it again Tayla shook her head. “We’ll ring the police instead.”

“And what are we going to say? Please send a police car immediately because it sounds like a rubbish bin fell over in the backyard?” I shook my head. “Come on Tay, we’ll check it out ourselves.”

“No. Send Leroy out first and if nothing happens to him—
then
we check it out ourselves.”

“But what if something happens to my dog?”

“Leroy’s a guard dog isn’t he? And that’s what guard dogs do. Guard their owner.”

Down on all fours I placed my mouth next to Leroy’s ear. “Pssst! Leroy! Wake up!”

A train could have rattled through the kitchen and Leroy wouldn’t wake up. So I wasn’t surprised when his snores grew louder.

“Leroy?”

Something bumped against the side of the house.

“
Leeeeeroy!
” I screeched.

The dog yelped, shot to his feet and knocked me in the nose. Then, after giving me a filthy look, stalked on bandy legs towards his cushion.

“Oh…No…You…Don’t!”

Before he could cement his eyelids shut again, Tayla grabbed his lead from the kitchen shelf and attached it to his collar.

“Quick…open the door, Cha.”

“Do we
have
to put Leroy outside?”

“Open the door,” repeated Tayla, dragging the reluctant bulldog along the floor on his rear end. “Leroy can look after himself. Hey, he might even chase the bad guys away.”

I tried to bring up an image of my lazy bulldog chasing villains but all I could see was the reproachful look he gave me as Tayla dragged him to the door.

“Here’s the deal, Leroy,” she said, opening the door just wide enough for one very plump bulldog to be shoved through. “If anyone’s out there, bark twice. Okay?”

It took three goes for Tayla to push all the fat bull-doggy bits through the doorway. Once, they even reversed positions—Leroy inside—Tayla outside.

But at last the entire dog was in the backyard.

After a five minute wait I opened the door a crack and we plastered our noses to the gap.

“You okay, Leroy?” I whispered.

Still sitting exactly where Tayla had pushed him, the dog yawned, shivered until all his excess fat quivered, then looked back at me with a pitiful expression.

“He’s okay,” I said, relief flooding through me. “So it must be cats at the garbage bin. I’m going out to check.”

“Oh, no,” moaned Tayla. “You can’t leave me here alone.”

“Well, come with me.”

I slithered through the doorway and grabbed Leroy. With his lead gripped firmly in my left hand and the torch in my right, I stepped off the veranda.

Tayla super-glued herself to my side.

Some
one
or some
thing
had been here because both rubbish bins were tipped over. Lids off. Garbage scattered. My heart skittered up into my throat so quickly, if I hadn’t slammed my mouth shut, it would have jumped out and ran away.

Please let it be cats…

Our eyes and heads swiveled like clowns at a fun-fair as we inched our way across the yard.

“Anyone here?” I croaked, my voice getting tangled up with my hammering heart.

Please, please, don’t let anyone answer.

I took another step forward. So did my two shadows.

Creeeeeeeeeeek!

Mesmerized, I watched the door on the garden shed inch open.

“
We’re going to die
!” wailed Tayla.

She stared at the opening door, her feet nailed to the ground.

“Leroy,” I gulped, dragging him closer with the lead. “Why don’t
you
go look in the shed?”

His eyes rolled in alarm and his rear end sank to the ground.

I glanced across at Tayla. Her eyes were glazed over—probably in the hope that she wouldn’t see anything she didn’t want to see.

Definitely no help there.

Sweat beaded under my armpits as I reached out with the torch and nudged the shed door fully open.

Oh gross!

I stumbled backwards. Let out a scream. Or was that Tayla’s scream ringing in my ears?

For there…stuck between the grass speckled lawnmower and the rusty hedge clippers was a stiff, much-the-worse-for-wear, track-suited body.

Could it be Frank Skinner?

Twelve

The voice in my head screamed, “Run! Run for your life!” But after my mistake with the plastic head and the wig, I had to check to see if the body in the shed was real and not a dummy.

My hands were sweaty. My armpits, forehead, and body were hot—yet I felt icy cold. I could hear a loud rasping sound that seemed to be drowning out all other noises.

It was my breathing.

I clutched the torch more tightly and reached forward to give the dirty grey sneaker on the end of the closest leg a prod. From inside the shed a smell hit my nostrils. A bad, sickly smell, like rotten meat. I gagged. My hand shook so badly, the torch missed the sneaker. Instead it whacked the middle of the leg. Like a nightmare in slow motion I watched the corpse shudder then move toward me.

I let out a scream but no sound came from my lips. I tried to run but my frozen brain wouldn’t send the message to my legs. I tried to close my eyes but they wouldn’t budge.

A family of bull ants were eating the dead man’s face…

Phaaaaaaaw.
The fish-fingers I’d eaten for tea hurtled back out again, followed by mashed up Tim Tams and something green I must have eaten for breakfast.

Within five minutes of ringing the police, half the Port Adelaide Police Department came crashing through the gate and into the backyard. From the kitchen Tayla and I heard them snapping out orders. “Stay where you are!” and “This is the Police!”

Tayla and I sat hunched at the table in the kitchen sipping cups of cocoa and trying to pretend we were invisible.

“How did you girls get in here?” asked a plain-clothes detective whose moustache kept bobbing up and down as he spoke.

“A key,” Tayla whispered.

The detective’s frown deepened.

“Patsy gave us permission,” I hurried to explain before he whipped out his handcuffs. “She gave me the key so we could get inside and clean the house.”

The detective shook his head then moved away to speak to another policeman who informed him the body was sealed off and ready for Forensics. The only familiar face in the room belonged to the junior constable. The constable with the dimple. The constable who’d done his best to stop me from invading the crime scene the day before.

Unfortunately, Constable Nick Roberts wasn’t inclined to talk—except to ask how many sugars we took in our cocoa. He did smile at us once. Just a quick grin of recognition and then it was replaced by his normal starchy face.

“Are you cold? Would either of you like a blanket?” asked Detective Moustache, almost as an after-thought.

I shook my head and warmed my fingers by wrapping them around the hot mug cradled in my hands. A war-dance had started up inside my stomach. It was swirling and thumping and making loud rolling noises. Probably meant I still had a couple of fish-fingers left in there.

“I said we shouldn’t come here,” Tayla mumbled from inside her mug.

“Why not?” I could see the detective’s moustache actually shivering with eagerness as he turned to Tayla.

“What my friend means is that it was a bit scary. You know what with Patsy finding the dead man here and his killer still on the loose.”

I bent down and gave Leroy a gentle shove. He was asleep on my feet. “That’s why we brought our guard-dog with us.”

“Right.” Moustache turned to the other detective. “Has anyone thought to ring the girls’ parents?”

“Yes. They should be here soon.”

That’s when the last two fish-fingers and a whole lot of gunk exploded from my mouth like a missile and landed on Detective Moustache’s bright spit-polish black shoes.

The good part about Mum and Ken arriving at that moment was that Detective Moustache wasn’t allowed to kill me. The bad part was that Mum looked as if she would do it for him.

Ken hurried over, pulled me into his arms and gave me a grizzly bear hug that had me burying my head in his chest and smelling the comforting scent of his favorite old woolly jumper.

All Mum said was, “I trusted you, Chiana.”

The sparks spitting from her eyes told me exactly what
she
thought about me finding a dead body at Patsy’s instead of playing CDs at Tayla’s.

Two minutes later Tayla’s mother arrived, dressed in a faded denim mini skirt, a tiny white crop top and knee high boots. Both detectives suddenly seemed to be having great difficulty with their breathing.

“Naughty girl,” was all she said to Tayla, before fluttering her long black eyelashes at Detective Moustache.

Tayla gave me a wobbly smile and rolled her eyes. Her mum must have been boy-crazy as a teenager and never grew out of it. She seemed to get bored hanging out with the same guy for more than a few months. Even Tayla’s dad. She met him at a dance, married him a week later and split before the honeymoon was over.

In the car on the way home it was icier than an Arctic igloo. Mum chilled right out and even Ken was quiet behind the wheel. I hunched in the back seat with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders and tears threatening to spill over. Tried and sentenced without a word in my defense. A prisoner on the way to a year’s grounding.

The questions started as soon as Mum slammed the front door behind her. She threw her coat at the chair then rounded on me.

“What were you doing at Patsy’s? You told me you were sleeping at Tayla’s.”

“We were cleaning the house.”

“At night?”

“Well, when else could we clean it? We’re at school during the day.”

Mum wasn’t being fair. Didn’t she care that I’d just been eyeballing a two-day-old corpse? My head ached. My stomach was playing hopscotch with my kidneys. And I couldn’t stop shaking.

“Don’t give me any of your lip, young lady,” Mum snapped, digging me in the chest with one very mean finger. “The point is I trusted you and you let me down.”

“Easy, Marg,” put in Ken, his voice soft and soothing. He touched Mum on the shoulder. “Cha’s been through enough tonight. Why don’t we continue this conversation in the morning?”

“There’ll be no television, no computer, no phone-calls, no pocket money, no friends over, no—”

“
Muuuum!
That’s not fair!
”

That’s when I noticed the raw fear in Mum’s eyes. Suddenly I realized
I’d
caused that fear. I sniffed and moved toward her.

“I’m sorry.”

Somehow we found ourselves in each other’s arms. The warmth of her body stopped me shaking. The security of her arms wiped away the nightmarish images. Pressed hard against her chest I had trouble breathing, but I didn’t care. My mum loved me. She might be grounding me for a year—but she loved me.

Thirteen

Two days later things had returned to normal. Sarah was still the flavor of the month and I was still the evil stepsister. Although, when Sarah complained to Mum about me wearing her frog necklace, Mum slipped me a smile and said frogs reminded her of that book she used to read to me when I was little,
The Frog Princess
.