gas masks. Same with germ warfare. You'd be fatally infected before you made it back into the building.'
Crikey, she had a point there. 'The shed wouldn't be for storage of your disaster supplies,' I said quickly. 'It'd be for the office supplies. Moving that stuff out to the shed would leave you an entire room to use.'
Fran gave it a bit of deep thought. 'Could work,' she admitted at last. 'When are we getting the shed?' Her frown, which had momentarily disappeared, returned. 'I suppose you'll have to clear it with Ariana. That will take more time. Time we may not have. The essence of terrorism is the surprise attack. Could happen any moment.'
I felt a jab of dinkum rage. First Fran wanted to get rid of me, just so she could free up some storage space. That was bad enough. Now she was implying I had to answer to Ariana for every little thing, even though I was the majority owner of Kendall & Creeling.
'I don't need to check with Ariana,' I said coldly. 'Go ahead and research what's available. I'll OK the order as soon as we decide the best shed to get.'
'We decide?' said Fran, not willing to give a centimeter. 'I am the office manager.'
'Watch it,' I warned.
There was a ten-second battle of wills, then Fran gave me a reluctant smile. 'I'll get back to you,' she said.
Fran left. I opened the Yarrow folder once more. I'd only glanced at it before, and hadn't realized what a fascinating record this bloke had. Apart from all his professional achievements and published works- there were pages of these-Lonnie had dug up some interesting criminal items. For example, there were a couple of charges of driving under the influence; two assaults, the victims in each case being women; plus one accusation of plagiarism, which actually made it to court but was settled just before the case started.
Professor Yarrow had been married three times. His first wife had died of a heart attack. Lonnie had noted there were no suspicious circumstances, as the woman had had a congenital heart problem. The second wife had been the victim in one of the assaults Yarrow had been arrested for, and she'd filed for divorce immediately after the attack. He was still married to his third wife, Winona Worsack, a noted medievalist. Lonnie had attached a brief outline of her career too. She seemed to be quite famous in her field. Next to her name Lonnie had written 'old money' followed by three exclamation marks.
He'd also lifted photos from the Internet. Here was Professor Yarrow at this conference or that; here was Yarrow appearing on
I studied his face. Jack Yarrow had a high, domed forehead. He brushed his thinning hair forward in a sort of Roman Caesar style. He had a small, puggish nose; a tight, thin-lipped mouth; and slightly protuberant pale eyes. There were two or three shots of him with Winona Worsack. She favored flowing clothes and an ethereal expression. Her straight, dark hair reached her shoulders, and she had those extremely long, thin hands that I always imagined would be cold, like the touch of a skeleton.
I sighed. Time for some serious study. Rube Wasinsky had given me some general sources for information on marsupials, and Lonnie had searched the Internet for more material, so I had a lot of reading to do before I turned up at the biology department at UCLA tomorrow as Kylie Kendall, graduate student, just off a plane from Australia and thrilled to be there in time to rub shoulders with the luminaries at next week's Global Marsupial Symposium.
I started with quokkas since Oscar had such an interest in them. I read:
Quokkas are the size of a domestic cat, and have rounded bodies, a short tail and a face much more flattened than other wallabies. One of the first Australian mammals seen by Europeans, were first sighted in 1658 when Dutch mariner Samuel Volckertzoon wrote of discovering something like a wild cat on Rottnest Island.
I stopped to consider Volckertzoon as a name. It made Kendall look awfully boring. I wondered if his friends called him Volcky… I gave myself a mental slap. Back to work.
By the time Chantelle came to pick me up, I was rather better informed about marsupials in general and quokkas in particular, than I had ever intended to be.
I gave her a hug and climbed into her red Jeep. She loved bright colors, and was wearing a lemony outfit tonight, which set off her satiny coffee skin.
'You look bonzer,' I said.
She leaned over to give me a kiss. 'Not so bad yourself.'
'Did you know,' I remarked as we set off, 'that quokkas breed once a year and produce a single joey?'
'Fascinating,' said Chantelle, with heavy irony, 'but why are you telling me this?'
'It was hard yakka learning all this info for my new case,' I said, 'so the least I can do is toss a few facts into a conversation, don't you think?'
She gave me a sideways glance. 'I'd rather you didn't.'
'Fair enough.' Then a thought struck me. 'You didn't ask me what a quokka is.'
'I didn't need to.'
'Melodie?
Chantelle grinned. 'Need you ask?'
I shook my head. The receptionists' network was frighteningly efficient. One could only hope it never occurred to terrorists to infiltrate it.
Chantelle was an excellent driver, so I could relax and enjoy the scenery, which was mostly made up of other vehicles hurrying to apparently superurgent destinations.
'Tell me all about Dr. Penny,' said Chantelle.
'Didn't Melodie cover everything? She and Pen Braithwaite had quite a conversation.'
'Melodie wasn't up close and personal with her like you, honey.' She reached over to squeeze my knee. 'Did she try to jump your bones? The word is, she's insatiable.'
'She didn't put the hard word on me, if that's what you mean.'
'She will,' said Chantelle with perfect conviction.
'Crikey, do you really think so?'
'Count on it.'
Yerks!
The premiere was being held at a cinema in Westwood Village, near the UCLA campus. Chantelle knew every trick about parking, and found a spot on a nearby suburban street. We set off walking. The closer we got to the cinema, the more crowded the footpaths became, until we turned a corner and there it was, all decked out like a Chrissie tree.
This place put the Regal Picture Palace in Wollegudgerie to shame. Lights scintillated, music played, fans kept up a roar, presumably of approval, as limousines pulled up to disgorge VIPs. There was a constant flicker of camera flashes as photographs were taken of anything that moved. There was even a red carpet for the stars to tread on as they made their way inside.
Scads of people were pressing up against the barriers erected to keep them from getting too close to the arriving celebrities. TV stations had vans parked nearby, and I recognized an on-air reporter I'd often watched on the local news. He was much shorter than I'd thought and was frowning ferociously, not at all like the cheery personality he projected on the screen.
Chantelle halted beside the barrier preventing fans from spilling onto the beginning of the red carpet. 'Why all the security?' I asked.
'Celebrity dread,' she said, fossicking through her purse. 'Drat! I've got to have the passes somewhere, or we won't get in.'
'What are the celebrities dreading?'
'Ah-hah!' said Chantelle, flourishing two squares of cardboard.
'Are those tickets for tonight?' inquired a hopeful voice. 'I'll give you a hundred dollars for them.'
The voice belonged to a weedy little guy who was oddly dressed in an extraordinarily grubby once-white outfit consisting of many floating panels. I reckoned his face was made up to look like a corpse that had been rotting for some time. Seeing me staring at him, he said, 'I'm a
'Sorry, missed it.'
The ghoul's attention was back on Chantelle's passes. 'A hundred and fifty,' he said. 'Each. That's my best
