Chasing Can Be Murder Page 5

One hand still on the gate, I yelped, lashed out with a closed fist in the direction of the voice and connected with what felt like hard bone and soft tissue.

  “Oooomph!”

  Ready to follow up with a knee to the groin if necessary, I swiveled on one foot and peered at the man who was bent double, holding his nose.

  Oh, crap. I’d punched a cop.

  That’s when I noticed a junior officer scrambling from a nearby patrol car hidden in the shadows. All legs and arms, he galloped towards us. “Sir! Sir! Are you all right, Sir?”

  After a quick check of his injured senior officer, he turned to me, keeping a long arm’s distance away. Probably worried I’d let fly with another wild punch. “Sergeant Gregory didn’t mean to startle you, Miss. We’re here patrolling the area because DCI Stevens instructed us to maintain a 24-hour surveillance.”

  I touched the still-moaning Sergeant Gregory on the arm and flinched when he ricocheted away from me like I was a live electric wire.

  “I’m sorry I thumped you Sergeant, but you shouldn’t sneak up like that. You scared me half to death.” I flashed the man a wobbly smile. “Lucky I wasn’t carrying a baseball bat, hey?” His answering scowl sent my smile scurrying for cover. “Um… how about you come inside the house and let me put an ice pack on your poor nose? I could brew some coffee while I’m about it.”

  Exactly what I needed—a couple of uniforms to accompany me through my front door. Detective Chief Inspector Stevens was not only gorgeous he was a living legend for sending these two guys around to guard my house.

  The young policeman looked at his superior expectantly. “What do you say, Sarge? I wouldn’t mind a hot drink.”

  “Who wouldn’t, standing out here in the cold night air,” I cajoled, the idea of going inside that front door alone getting scarier by the second.

  A grunt, followed by a distinct, “No way!” came from the direction of the police car. The Sergeant leant against the bonnet and stemmed a flow of blood from his nose with a large handkerchief. “It’s our duty to prevent intruders from entering your house and we can’t do that from inside your kitchen.”

  Damn.

  I didn’t bother arguing, just hefted myself back into the car and rattled down the driveway toward the kennel-house. After all, with two nice policemen installed at my front gate no murderers could get in. Perhaps I’d even catch up on some sleep.

  No sooner had I unloaded the dogs from the trailer and loosed them into the emptying yards than I heard Tater going off his tree inside the house. He must have heard my car pull up.

  To save disturbing the other greyhounds, I quickly settled my charges into a smaller kennel-house built next to the dog kitchen and fed each dog a sloppy meal of beef and vegetable stew with a kidney flush thrown in. Then I paused to listen. Why was Tater still barking? It wasn’t his “hello”bark, or his “hurry up and feed me”bark, or evenhis,“Ooh goody, my mum’s home—now I’ll have a lap to lie on” bark.

  No. It was his alarm siren.

  I crept up the path toward the house, heart cowering in my black leather flatties. If I refused to acknowledge the trees and bushes that changed into aliens and reached out at me with their twisted gnarled fingers as I passed—it meant they weren’t there.

  Or that’s what I figured.

  The moment I inched open the front door, a miniature hurricane flew through the air and landed at my feet still storming and raging, then catapulted another ten meters up the path. Hair on his back standing on end, he let rip with another volley of frenzied barks before strutting back to me, tail curled high over his back, mouth open in a wide grin.

  It’s okay now, Mum, he seemed to say. Reckon I scared ’em off!

  But whom had he scared off? And what was whomdoing inside my house? And how the hell had whom got in with Cop1 and Cop2 guarding the fort?

  With Tater trotting importantly beside me, I tiptoed through the open doorway, switched on the hall light and, leaving a trail of lights behind me, proceeded to check every downstairs room. Geez…this was worse than the shower scene from Psycho. At least Janet Leigh didn’t know the big scary guy dressed as his mother was a murderer so she didn’t die of fright before he killed her.

  One foot in front of the other, I shuffled up the stairs and stood in front of my bedroom door. Did I really want to go inside? Did I really want to know if the murderer was on the other side of the door waiting for me? Don’t be ridiculous, I chastised myself, drawing a deep breath and letting it out slowly, no one could have broken into the house with the police on sentry duty. It was more likely a feral cat knocked over a pot plant and set Tater barking.

  Eyes scrunched closed, I turned the door knob and edged into the room feeling along the wall for the lightswitch. And when I opened my eyes—there it was—in all its three-dimensional ordinariness. My queen-sized wooden, IKEA bed. And when I snatched a hasty peep inside my mind, I could still see Matthew sprawled on top. His eyes blank, his mouth slack, one of my well-sharpened kitchen knives protruding from his chest.

  The police had removed the bed linen for evidence and all that was left was the bare mattress. They may as well have confiscated that too. It was ruined. And even if it had been in pristine condition there was no way I could ever sleep on it again.

  I edged my way across the room to the window and peered outside. A faint half-moon had slipped from behind the night clouds and I could just make out the police car parked by the front gate. From the kennel-house, Matt’s dog, Queen of Egypt, known to her friends as Cleo, short for Cleopatra, let out a high-pitched howl. Like a cry of mourning.

  I sniffed the air. Was that a faint smell of spice? Had Matt been wearing a spicy aftershave last night? I couldn’t remember. Too many other memories crowding and jostling around in my already overcooked brain. With a shrug, I closed the curtains, walked across to my dressing table and absently studied the collection of dog statues displayed on top.

  My favorite was a shiny black greyhound with two snow white front feet. I picked it up, ran a finger lovingly along the length of its china back and moved it further down the line, next to the brown-eyed golden cocker-spaniel.

  As I turned away, determined not to ever sleep in this room again, I caught something in my peripheral vision that made all my childhood nightmares seem tame. At the end of the line, its tail pointing jauntily towards the sky, stood my cheeky brown and white boxer dog. And next to it, like two tiny pebbles, lay the dog’s broken ears.

  I owned a boxer dog once…hated the thing…tied him to a tree and shot both his ears off…

  The room spun. Nausea ate into my bones, turned my limbs into useless lumps of soggy mush. To keep myself upright, I grabbed for the dresser and held on.

  The murderer had been in my bedroom.

  Again.

  And just like last time…

  He’d left a calling card.

  A scream caught in my throat threatening to choke me. I swallowed it down then forced my eyes away from the mutilated statue. Who or what was I up against? The doors and windows were locked. The police had been crawling all over my house like blowflies on a carcass until a couple of hours ago. And even now—two men-in-blue were staked out by my front gate.

  Drawn against my will, I gazed down at the two broken ears and almost gagged. What if they’d been Tater’s ears? What if this monster had tied my darling little Tater up and shot off his ears?

  If the killer’s aim was to scare me off, he’d sure as hell succeeded.

  Mouth dry, I stuffed the broken statue into the back pocket of my jeans and headed for the open doorway. If this psycho intended using my bedroom as a drop-in centre, there was no way I was hanging around waiting for his next visit. And as for reporting the incident to the police—what could I say? I’d found one of my dog statues with its ears broken off? I’d be laughed out of the station. And if I blabbed about the threatening phone call I’d be demoted from chief suspect to victim in a body bag.

  Poker stiff, breath escaping in short ras
py gasps, I descended the stairs. Was the killer waiting in the shadows? Was he hiding in the linen cupboard ready to spring out at me? Jesus…it would only take someone to say boo right now and there’d be no need for a sharp instrument to the left ventricle. I’d die of fright.

  At last I reached the front door. But as my damp fingers closed around the white plastic knob, I caught a blurred movement off to the right.

  Tater.

  Scooping the scrap of brown fur up under my arm, I yanked the door open and not taking time out to either lock up or switch off lights, stumbled outside. The little dog wriggled in my arms, wanting to get down. I tightened my grip. Cleo let out another mournful howl from the kennel house. It hung in the air, making the hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

  Mouth open, panting like I’d run a marathon, I tossed Tater into the passenger seat of my car, scrambled in behind the wheel, jammed the locks down on all the doors…and burnt rubber.

  Didn’t even stop to let my two protectors at the gate know how completely bloody useless they’d been.

  7

  Body rigid behind the wheel of my car, I stared at Tanya’s front porch. Forced myself to pull in a deep breath. That monster had been in my bedroom again. The bare light globe hanging on a cord set high in the roof of the porch swung in the breeze, throwing more shadows than light. His creepy fingers sliding everywhere. Long formless shadows moved across the red brick path leading up to Tanya’s front door. The same fingers that likely rifled through my underwear, smoothed the fabric on the clothes in my wardrobe, selected the sharpest knife from the drawer in my kitchen and savagely plunged the blade deep into Matthew Turner’s heart.

  I choked back a sob. Tasted raw fear as it flooded my mouth. With Tater clamped in the crook of my arm, I manhandled the door open and threw myself out of the car. Knees weak, I staggered, righted myself, then made a dash toward the light. Desperate to shed the paralysis of my thoughts. Desperate to see a friendly face.

  “Kat?” A face not so much friendly as downright scary confronted me the moment I hammered on the front door. “Jesus, you look awful.” Tanya’s face, covered in this thick greeny-yellow glop had hardened into a mask, but when I opened my mouth to inform her she didn’t look so crash-hot herself—no words came out.

  “I heard you pull up. Did you change your mind about sleeping here tonight?” When I didn’t answer, Tanya blinked, then reacting to my glazed expression, scooped Tater from my arms and set him down on the floor. “Come in and sit down.”

  Like a zombie, I followed my friend into the kitchen. When she pointed to a big old faded green armchair that not only radiated coziness and much loving use but had the added bonus of smelling of cats, horses, dogs and my best friend, Tanya, I moved toward it.

  “You’ll be okay now, Kat,” Tanya crooned as she shooed Sweetie, her large ferocious ginger feline that looked more tiger than housecat off the chair. Even as I sat down I knew I’d never be okay again, but it was comforting to have Tanya fuss over me. Exactly what I needed to chase away the nightmares.

  “Erin, put the jug on to boil and take care of Kat while I dig up a blanket. She’s shivering.”

  Left to the mercy of Devil’s Spawn, I turned away and watched Tater swagger across the kitchen toward Tanya’s hairy grey lurcher, Petunia. When he nipped her on the end of the tail, she butted him away, then gently rolled the little dog onto his back and proceeded to clean his underparts with devoted thoroughness. Tater, drooling in ecstasy, responded with a wriggle.

  “Yuk! That’s totallygross!” Erin regarded the two dogs with a curled upper lip. “You’re agirl dog, Petunia. Where’s your pride?” She perched on the arm of my chair and chewed gum with her mouth wide open. “Is that what Mr. Turner did to you last night, Kat? Is that why you killed him?”

  When I didn’t rise to her bait she sighed, stood up, then sauntered back to her jug-boiling duties.

  “Hey, look what I found?” Tanya, face now scrubbed clean of her garish beauty mask, bustled back into the kitchen, arms full of red tartan quilt, which she proceeded to tuck around me. But even huddled under the quilt I couldn’t stop shaking. And when a hot-water bottle landed in my lap and a mug of hot chocolate in my hand, for a moment, I couldn’t work out what to do with either of them. I could see both Tanya and Erin peering at me like I’d morphed into a six-headed creature from Outer Space, but I could only blink in return.

  “Talk to me, Kat. What’s going on?” Tanya looked worried. Erin highly fascinated.

  Instead of answering, I cuddled the hot-water bottle and concentrated on breathing. In…out. In…out. There was a heavy weight crushing my chest, making every breath painful. It was like trying to breathe underwater. I wanted to tell Tanya about my intruder but couldn’t seem to form the necessary words in my head.

  Gnawing at her bottom lip, Tanya crouched beside my chair. She reached out, one hand massaging my arm as though she could reassure me through the tips of her fingers. “How am I supposed to help if you won’t talk? Are you hurt? Did someone threaten you?” She hesitated for a moment and then I watched her eyes widen to dinner plates. “Oh, no!” She shot to her feet, both hands flying to her mouth. “You haven’t found– please Kat—don’t tell me you’ve found another dead body!”

  When I didn’t answer, she marched across to the telephone, back straight, shoulders tense. “Okay, I’m ringing Ben Taylor. If anyone can snap you out of this weirdness—he can.”

  * * *

  His lips tasted of mint-flavored chewing gum. His aftershave hinted of pine forests on a fresh misty morning. When the kiss deepened, my breathing slowed to a ripple on a lake and I found myself floating, freewheeling, lost in the magic of pure sensation.

  With a moan, I wrapped my fingers in his hair, dragged him closer. Heat or hunger or just plain unadulterated lust pooled in the pit of my stomach. And when his tongue slipped inside my mouth, claiming every nerve end, fireworks exploded in my brain and a bonfire raged in my groin.

  Hell, I’d been waiting my entire life for this kiss.

  “Oooh, yes...” I moaned and transferred my grip from hair to shirt, prepared to rip off the buttons in one jerk if necessary. “Don’t stop! Don’t ever stop!”

  “Hey, she’s talking!” Tanya’s exclamation seemed to be coming from a long way away. “You’ve done your job Ben, so you can unplug your lips now.”

  Oh, no. Come back. Don’t go. The fiery tongue and minty lips withdrew, leaving me cold, lost and disorientated.

  Devastated, I clutched at Ben’s shirt as he slowly disentangled himself, straightened up and flicked a raised eyebrow in my direction. “Hmm...” he said, running an exploratory tongue over his lips. “Not bad.”

  Tanya tapped him lightly on the arm with her fist. “Hey, I didn’t know you were such a good kisser, Benjamin. I might even try you out myself one day.”

  “Sorry, but you’ll need to get on the end of a very long queue.”

  She punched him again, this time, harder. “Don’t get carried away, lover boy. If Kat had been remotely on the ball tonight, she’d have bitten both your lips off and fed them to her dogs.”

  Mind whirling, I gazed up into Ben’s teasing brown eyes and wished I could swallow a “drink me” potion. You know, like Alice stumbled across in Wonderland. Shrinking to the size of a flea sounded a pretty good option right now. A flush warmed my skin as it rose from my toes and travelled all the way to my hairline. If only the floor would lift so I could slide underneath, pull the boards back over me and disappear forever.

  Ben turned to me, lips twitching. “Not a bad technique for treating shock. Even if I say so myself.”

  Ben had kissed me and I’d responded. Boy, howI’d responded. But while his kiss had switched on every one of my fairy lights it meant nothing more than medicinal psychotherapy to him.

  “You know,” he said, hooking a thumb into the front of his jeans like the Neanderthal he was. “I should market fridge magnets. When you need the kiss of life don’t call 911—cal
l Ben Taylor.I’d make a fortune.”

  If I had access to a water hose, I’d drown the big lug. Who needed Ben Taylor anyway?

  Me...a little voice bleated.

  I gave myself a mental slap. Don’t be so bloody pathetic. There are billions of guys out there waiting for a special girl like you. Who needs Neanderthal Man?

  Of course, by now, Erin was hanging over the armrest of my chair, nose twitching, eyes the size of hubcaps. “Did you see that, Mum? Ben and Kat were kissing with their mouths open. Ben’s tongue went right inside Kat’s mouth. Right down her throat. It was totally gross!” She puckered her lips and did a stinky imitation with her nose to show us exactly howgross. “Why were you moaning, Kat? Did Ben’s tongue get hooked on your tonsils?”

  “Erin. Bed.”

  “But Muuum…that’s sonot fair. You always make me miss the good stuff.”

  “You’ll miss the school trip to Monarto Zoo next week if you’re not in your room by the time I count to ten. One...two...three...four....”

  Ignoring the everyday mum-daughter battle of wills going on behind him, Ben dragged up a chair and sat facing me. “What’s that you’re drinking, mate? Hot chocolate?”

  “Mmm...” I nodded, lips jammed together to show exactly how pissed off I was. No way was I anywhere near ready to forget or forgive the reason for that kiss.

  “Hot chocolate’s a drink for old ladies and insomniacs.” While Tanya frog-marched Erin from the room, Ben slipped a hand inside his sheepskin jacket and produced a flat green bottle. “Now, here’s a drink that’ll clear your head and grow hair on your chest. Take a swig of this, kiddo, and you’ll be firing on eight cylinders before you can say, Go the Crows!”

  I scowled daggers at him. First mate now kiddo. What next? Sis?

  On the proven theory if you can’t beat them, join them, I snatched the bottle from his outstretched hand and took an extra long swig. Wow! Liquid fire ripped at my throat and tears ran down my cheeks.

  “Where’d you get this crap?” I spluttered. “Tastes like boot polish mixed with acid.”