The Case of the Disappearing Corpse Page 4

“Do you spend much time outside?” I asked, leading him on in my best P.I. manner.

  “As much as I can.”

  Great!

  “I don’t suppose you were out in your garden around, say, one o’clock yesterday?”

  I held my breath, crossed my fingers, and even tried crossing my eyes.

  “One o’clock…just after lunch.” The man thought for a while then put down his pruning shears and adjusted his teeth. “Why, yes, I was spreading pigeon poo on my roses at around that time.”

  That explained the stink. For a moment there, I thought it was the old man’s armpits.

  “Did you happen to see anyone acting suspicious near the church hall while you were putting the…er…poo…on your roses?”

  “Acting suspicious?” he repeated, slowly. “Well, now you mention it. Yes, I did.”

  Resisting the urge to jump the fence and hug the old guy, I dived nose first into my bag. Scrunched up tissues, loose jellybeans, a brush with no handle, the mobile phone Mum always insisted I carry in case I got run over by a bus and was going to be late home for tea—

  Ah…there it was. My trusty notebook and cool black and gold biro.

  “What were these suspicious looking people doing?” I asked in my most grown-up voice.

  The man examined the sky, did up the top button on his gray cardigan, then scratched his chin. “They were on the roof.”

  Wow!

  After writing, “They were on the roof”, I leaned closer, ignoring the stinky smell of pigeon poo and tapped my foot impatiently. I hadn’t realized the two men watching Frank had climbed onto the roof. Hmm…better check they were the same men though.

  “That’s great. Very helpful, sir. Now, were these people you saw on the roof male or female?”

  The old man blushed. He fiddled with a loose thread on his cardigan and stared at the ground. “Umm…couldn’t really see from here. They were dressed—you know.”

  “Oh. Right.” My jaw almost hit the pigeon poo. I blinked rapidly and tried again. “Well, I wonder if you could tell me what these people on the roof were doing?”

  The old man looked up and gave me another sweet smile.

  “Oh, I know what they were doing, dear.”

  Notebook and biro at the ready, I held my breath and matched him smile for smile.

  “You do?”

  “They were waiting for their space-ship.”

  I could feel my smile melting. My shoulders slumping. My eyebrows drooping.

  “I knew they were from Mars as soon as I saw them,” the old man rattled on, evidently oblivious to my duh expression. “They had this greenish glow about them and two little antennas on their heads.” He bent to cut a rose, de-thorned it and placed it in my limp fingers. “I felt sorry for them when their space-ship didn’t arrive and they climbed down from the roof and got back into their space-mobile.”

  He flashed his bouncy teeth at me. “I did get the space-mobile’s rego number though. Wrote it down with a piece of stick.”

  He plucked his brown-rimmed spectacles from inside his shirt pocket and bent to examine the ground at his feet.

  “MARS 45. Knew it would come in handy when I copied it down,” he said, then peered at me more closely, his head tipped to one side curiously. “Are you an undercover alien from the space-police?”

  I blinked and looked down, half expecting to find my arms had turned green.

  “Grandpa?” Another voice cut through my frozen state.

  I looked up to see a girl about fifteen standing on the steps leading to their front porch.

  “Mum says to come inside. It’s time for your medication.”

  The girl strolled across the lawn, took her grandfather by the arm and shuffled him off inside. I could hear her voice, like a mother talking to a naughty child as she shut the screen door behind them.

  “Grandpa, how many times have you been told not to talk to strangers?”

  Seven

  What was it with me? Did I have the word duh crayoned across my forehead? A note saying, “Kick Me!” pinned to my back? I’d only spoken to two people so far and already felt like a useless blob of chewing gum stuck to the sole of someone’s boot.

  Clinging to my dignity by a cat’s whisker I strolled to the house next door and propped my back against the chain-wire fence.

  Aliens? Space-mobiles? Little green men?

  Geez…perhaps it was time to go home and do something safer…like cut my fingernails with an axe.

  All I wanted to do was solve the riddle of who killed Frank Skinner. That’s all. The entry form for the writing competition said, “Use a true crime as a basis for a story and fictional characters to protect the innocent.”

  Wasn’t that what I was trying to do?

  Behind me was a newly painted white timber-framed cottage. I pushed away from the wire fence, turned around and gave it my most professional P.I. examination. It did look very ordinary. A no-surprises, friendly sort of house. Frilly curtains. A brightly colored window box full of yellow daisies. Happy-faced, green smiling frogs painted on the front door.

  Third time might be lucky.

  And that’s when I spotted the name in clear black lettering on the frog-shaped letterbox by the gate.

  Krystal Masters.

  The leader of the Laughing Class.

  Bingo…

  My luck had changed. Here was a chance to question my chief suspect. So why did my legs feel watery as I forced them to march up to her front door? Why did my breath make short raspy noises as I lifted my clenched fist to knock on the nose of a smiling green frog?

  A shiver straight from the freezer skittered down my spine. What if the killer was waiting in there for me with a Chinese dagger in one hand and a pink handkerchief clutched in the other?

  I knocked.

  And from there, the situation slid very quickly downhill.

  A huge hairy dog of mixed breeding hurled itself around the corner of the house, screaming at me in fierce feral dog language. I froze. It was the biggest, scariest dog I’d ever seen. Gray, with yellow eyes and teeth like a steel trap.

  I couldn’t escape through the front gate. The hound from hell would gobble me up at the halfway mark. My hand made a grab for the door handle. It turned. Thanking the Patron Saint of all knee-knocking, teeth-chattering P.I.s, I whipped inside and slammed the door shut. A millisecond before the dog attacked.

  Legs like runny toffee, lungs screaming for air, I propped myself up against the inside of the wooden front door and struggled to catch my breath.

  So much for third time lucky.

  The door shuddered and bounced on its hinges as the dog threw himself manically at the only thing that stood between him and me.

  There was no way out. I was trapped.

  “H-Hello,” I called out, my voice a frog’s croak. No answer. I peered along the passageway. The silence inside seemed more sinister than the repeated barking from outside.

  “A-Anyone home?”

  I gulped and licked my cracked lips. Krystal Masters could walk in at any moment, show me her collection of shrunken heads then strangle me with a pink handkerchief before adding my head to her collection.

  Throat desert-dry, I sank onto the cold hard floor of the passageway and scratched around in my bag for the mobile phone I was only allowed to use in emergencies. And boy, was this an emergency.

  Wouldn’t you know? The battery was dead.

  I sighed and dragged myself off the floor, then, in search of a telephone, poked my head cautiously into what must have been Krystal’s bedroom. No telephone, but there was a row of shiny well-polished knives arranged in order of size mounted on the wall. Some looked very much like daggers.

  And one was missing…

  However, it was when I walked through the shadows in the lounge-room that my heart did a double somersault then nose-dived deep into my boots. Holding onto the door-frame for support, I stared at the walnut-colored, highly-polished dining-room table pushed up against the far wall
next to the blank screen of the television. It was one of those large old-fashioned tables with thick, knobby legs. But what made this table different from all the others I’d seen—was the decoration taking pride of place in the middle.

  A human head.

  Its long black hair dull and lifeless.

  Its dead brown eyes wide and staring.

  And I, Chiana Ryan, who decided to quit her job as P.I. as of this moment, needed to find a phone, ring my friends and arrange for them to come and get me. Immediately.

  Then I planned to hide in the nearest closet and scream under my breath until they arrived.

  Eight

  “Jack, don’t talk—just listen. I’m in big trouble. I’m like trapped in the killer’s house and there’s a dead person’s head on the dining-room table and a dog with teeth like Jaws snarling at the front door. You’ve gotta come and get me.”

  Shivering uncontrollably, I hunched in a cupboard in the kitchen, the handset of a cordless phone hard against my ear.

  When Jack spoke, his voice sounded scared. Breathless. “Cha, why haven’t you rung the police?”

  “How can I ring the police when I’m not supposed to be in here?” I hissed back at him. “Can’t you imagine the headlines in the paper? Human head found in house along with burglar. Jack, just come and get me. I’ll ring the police later. Like when I’m a hundred kilometers away from here.” I paused and ran a shaky hand through my already tousled hair. “I’m in a house near the church hall. You can’t miss it. It’s the one with the mad dog tearing the front door down.”

  “Chiana—why are you—?”

  “Just hurry,” I broke in, my throat closing around my voice, turning it into a croak. “And bring the biggest bone you can find.”

  I pressed end and peeped through a chink in the cupboard door. All I could see was this huge butcher’s knife lying on the kitchen bench. It mesmerized me. The razor edge sending a chill to the pit of my stomach.

  Okay, breathe.

  Don’t panic.

  Think positive thoughts.

  But what if Krystal Masters arrived home first? What if Jack was so scared he decided not to come? What if the killer-dog broke the door down before any of my rescuers arrived?

  Did I say positive?

  Geez…the only positive thought I could drag up was, if I got out of here alive—and that was a mega-big if—I’d have a great storyline for the contest.

  Huddled in the corner, I strained my ears for sounds of Jack arriving—or the killer.

  Nothing.

  Only the screams and snarls of the mad dog penetrated the silence. The dog’s body slammed against the door and I could hear his nails tearing a hole in the wood. Any minute, he’d smash through and there’d be nothing left of me to rescue. Or kill.

  When the barking abruptly stopped, prickles chased up and down my arms. Had the owner arrived home? Had the head decided to get up off the dining room table and shut the dog up by scaring it to death?

  Eeeeeeeeeww…

  Was that the front door opening? I hunched further into the corner wishing there was a sliding door in the back of the cupboard. A sliding door that led away from this horrible house into fairy-land, or Disneyworld, or anywhere that magic and fantasy replaced killer dogs and scary butcher’s knives.

  “Chiana? Are you there?”

  Ooooh! Thank you, God!

  I pushed against the cupboard door. “Jack?” I croaked. “I’m in here.”

  “Where’s here?”

  Another push and the door opened enough for me to scramble to my feet and stagger out. “I’m coming.”

  I slipped into the lounge-room. With my eyes scrunched tight, so I wouldn’t see the thing on the dining-room table, I tried to run through the room. No such luck. First I knocked over something that sounded like a vase or statue because I heard it break as it hit the lounge-room floor. Then, something that felt like a coffee table jumped out at me, blocking my escape route before it cracked me on the shins.

  “Cha. It’s okay. You can open your eyes,” Jack whispered, his voice so close to my ear I could feel his spit.

  “No way!” My eyes shut tighter. “I don’t want to see that thing again. I just want to get out of here.”

  “It’s okay. I promise. Just open your eyes and see what I’m holding.”

  Feet braced for a fast take-off, I opened my eyes a smidgen. Then blinked and opened them wider. Jack was holding the head in one hand and the long black hair in the other.

  “It’s a wig on a dummy head,” he said, grinning. “How could you mistake that for a real head?”

  I gazed at the now bald plastic thing in Jack’s hand. Its glassy eyes had been painted on with what looked like blue enamel and its mouth with pink lipstick.

  “Well…it looked real in the shadows and I wasn’t going to walk across the room to check it out.” I paused as Jack carefully placed the dummy and the wig back on the dining-room table. “Did Tayla come with you?”

  “Yeah. She’s outside keeping the dog happy.” He pushed past me into the passage. “Now, let’s get out of here before the owner comes home. Being found inside someone’s house could be sort of embarrassing.” He made a face. “Not to mention illegal.”

  “This house belongs to Krystal Masters.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “The owner of the pink handkerchief.”

  Jack looked at me strangely. This wasn’t the time to fill him in so I said, “What’s Tayla doing with the dog?”

  “Feeding him a dinosaur bone,” said Jack. “We’d better hurry ’cos when that dog finishes eating he’ll be looking for a human leg.”

  Opening the front door a crack I could see the big grey monster crunching on a giant-sized marrow-bone as though it was made of marshmallow. He looked up and his mad yellow eyes stared into mine. He was obviously not sure whether to finish his snack or go for the main course.

  Me.

  That’s when a white van pulled up outside the house and a man and woman climbed out. Tayla took one horrified look in our direction and started jumping up and down. She’d drawn a game with yellow chalk on the pavement and was pretending to play hopscotch.

  “Quick! Out the back door.” Jack took off towards the back of the house leaving me still gaping at the white van. Didn’t the old guy next door say something about a white van outside the church hall?

  I shut the door, realized I didn’t have time to follow Jack, so snuck into the bedroom.

  Where to hide?

  I slid the wardrobe door open and stepped inside, pulling dresses and coats around me before closing it again—just as the front door opened.

  “You didn’t lock up this morning, Krystal.” It was a man’s voice, gruff and accusing.

  A woman’s voice answered. “Who’s going to burgle our house while Sweetums is on guard?”

  Sweetums? The dog’s name was Sweetums?

  “Ready for pizza?”

  “Hang on. Don’t start without me,” answered the woman, “I’m just going to put my coat away.”

  Coat—wardrobe!

  Oh no…

  Why didn’t I hide under the bed?

  Footsteps tapped their way into the room. I held my breath until dots appeared before my eyes. There was a shuffling sound like shoes being kicked off then soft footsteps heading toward the wardrobe.

  Would she be carrying a butcher’s knife? Would she grab a dagger off the wall and bury it in my chest?

  The wardrobe door slid open noiselessly. I swallowed hard, peeped around the skirt of a long red velvet dress and found myself gazing into the prettiest pixie-shaped face I’d ever seen.

  Nine

  Krystal Masters couldn’t be a killer.

  She was a magician, a sorceress, or at the very least a fairy princess. How else could her chocolate cake, undoubtedly made from an enchanted magic recipe, melt in my mouth, touching and tantalizing every tingling taste bud before it slid smoothly down my throat?

  With a smile that sta
rted in her eyes and spread across her face she whisked the cake-dish under my nose again. “More cake, Chiana?”

  “Ooooh, yes!” I said, my self-control somersaulting straight out the window.

  Tayla and Jack were also munching magic cake. Well…Tayla was munching. Jack was shoveling the slices into his mouth like a cement-mixer laying a driveway.

  How come I was eating cake in the kitchen and not lying in the bottom of the wardrobe, my chest decorated with a blood stained butcher’s knife?

  Well…when Krystal slid the wardrobe door open I let out this ear-piercing scream louder than a fire brigade on the way to a fire. Next minute, Tayla came running in from the street. Jack burst in through the back door with Sweetums in hot pursuit. The woman with the pixie-like face dropped her coat and screamed even louder than me. And a giant of a man with a bald head and a walrus moustache raced into the bedroom, his dinner plate hands overflowing with pizza.

  Then…by the time Krystal and I had stopped screaming, Sweetums stopped barking and Tayla and Jack stopped yelling, the giant’s pizza had gone cold. So Krystal took us all into the kitchen to reheat it. Demanding answers, she sat Jack, Tayla and me down with great slabs of homemade chocolate cake and listened to our story.

  As soon as I told her about the pink handkerchief with K in the corner, she shook her head and frowned.

  “Well, it can’t be mine. I don’t own a handkerchief. I use tissues.”

  “But what about the dagger?” I asked, not quite ready to give up on my chief suspect yet. “I saw lots of knives on the wall in your bedroom.”

  Krystal exchanged an amused smile with the friendly giant, who she’d introduced as her husband. He was busy feeding pizza into the microwave.

  “Okay. I’ll explain,” she said, still with a hint of a smile. “You know how some people collect stamps or cards or silver spoons?”

  Tayla and I nodded. Jack began to nod but cake crumbs sprayed over the table so he decided to blink instead.

  “Well, Paul collects knives. Every time we go on a holiday he brings a knife back with him as a memento.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Paul, setting the microwave onto three minutes. “Knives are a much better way of remembering a holiday than photos. Photo albums get buried in boxes and only come out once a year to bore friends into leaving early.”