Quokka Question

ELEVEN

I ran my quarry to ground in a little office about the size of a broom cupboard. Her lanky body was perched on the edge of a chair as she gazed fixedly into the screen of a laptop. When she looked up, I said with a friendly smile, "G'day. I'm Kylie Kendall. We met earlier."

"Oh, hi."

"You're so lucky," I said, "to be working with Professor Yarrow." I pouted a bit. "I'm stuck with Dr. Wasinsky. I mean, don't get me wrong. He's nice enough, but he's not a world-famous authority like Professor Yarrow."

Erin Fogarty's cheeks flushed, apparently with pleasure at this praise of her idol. "Professor Yarrow is a wonderful man. My dreams came true when I got the opportunity to come to UCLA to be part of his groundbreaking research into Setonix brachyurus."

Personally, I'd have called a quokka a quokka, but if it made Erin happy to use Latin, it was all right by me. "There's got to be a meganumber of graduate students dying to work with someone as prestigious as the professor, but he chose you."

Her blush spread to include her weak chin and long neck. "In fact, you're right. He'd in such demand." She clasped her hands. "But I was the lucky one."

Uninvited, I plunked myself down in the only other chair in the cramped space. Aiming for a tone somewhere between admiration and envy, I leaned forward to say, "I'm guessing luck had nothing to do with it, Erin. I reckon you stood out from the pack, and that's why he picked you."

Her glossy chestnut curls seem to shimmer with added light. "It's nice of you to say so. Actually, Professor Yarrow-he's asked me to call him Jack in private-did say he especially valued the depth of my knowledge in the area."

Stone the crows! This poor sheila was head over heels, no worries. "So you studied quokkas in the wild?" I asked.

She bobbed her head. "Extensively. I spent months in Western Australia observing both the island and mainland colonies."

"You can't beat research in the field," I said. "Who were you working with?"

Her face clouded. "Dr. Oscar Braithwaite. Have you heard of him?"

"You mean the bloke who's going to speak next week at the symposium on the quokka question?"

"Yes." Her lips tightened. "He's already in L.A. In fact, he came to see me this morning. It was very embarrassing."

"Really?" I said in a neutral tone. "Why embarrassing?"

I made a mental note to find out why Oscar hadn't mentioned he intended to front up to Erin Fogarty. Maybe he'd decided to drop in on the spur of the moment. I recalled wondering, during my very first meeting with Oscar, if he'd had a personal interest in his graduate assistant.

Erin was hesitating, obviously torn between sharing the goss with me and keeping it to herself. Goss won. "Actually," she said, "when I was in Australia, Dr. Braithwaite paid me special attention…"

"He was keen on you?"

Her blush, which had faded, rushed back. Scarlet-faced, she said, "Nothing happened, of course, but I knew how he felt."

"You didn't return his affections?"

She drew back, affronted. "Oh! How could I?"

"Professional scruples held you back?" I ventured.

Erin shook her head. "You haven't seen him, have you? Oscar Braithwaite's hairy, very hairy. In fact, he's the hairiest man I've ever met."

"It'd be like dating a gorilla?"

This elicited a small smile. "Something like that."

"Bad sitch," I said. "What did you do?"

"Well, actually…" She paused, her lips compressed. Then, deciding to fill me in, she went on, "It was at this point Professor Yarrow contacted me."

"Crikey! He contacted you? You mean you didn't have to apply to come to UCLA?"

My admiring wonder had the desired effect. She turned a pleased pink. "Isn't it amazing? Professor Yarrow said he'd asked around in academic circles, and I'd been highly recommended to him."

"So you gave Dr. Braithwaite the heave-ho and came over here?"

Erin seemed a bit taken aback at this blunt assessment. "Actually," she said-she seemed to like that word-"there was another reason I couldn't work with Oscar any longer." She looked around as it were possible someone else could be lurking in the tiny room. "In point of fact," she said, dropping her voice, "Dr. Braithwaite had been stealing Professor Yarrow's work and passing it off as his own."

"No!" I gave her a wide-eyed look. "Professor Yarrow told you this?"

Erin suddenly looked uncomfortable, as though she'd belatedly realized she was confiding secrets to a perfect stranger. Indicating the laptop, she said, "Actually, I must finish this. It's urgent."

There was no point in pushing it and having her clam up completely. "See you later, then," I said. "I'd better get back to Dr. Wasinsky." I paused for a small, sad sigh. "I don't mind telling you, Erin, I'd love to be in your shoes, but it just didn't work out that way."

I left her with a slight, satisfied smile on her lips. She thought she was on a winner with Jack Yarrow, but I had a fair idea she was going to come an awful gutser in the near future.

This undercover stuff had turned out to be more of a strain than I'd expected. I was toey as a Roman sandal, expecting any minute I'd say something that would brand me as an imposter. It was a bonzer day, warm and sunny, so I decided to recharge my batteries by having a solitary lunch outside on the beautiful UCLA grounds.

My map indicated a North Campus Student Center. I found it without trouble and joined the students queuing for food. Eventually, I emerged into the sunlight clutching a salad in a clear plastic box, a plastic fork, several serviettes, and a carton of orange juice.

There was one dicey moment when I spied Clifford Van Horden III, strolling along while carrying on a loud cell phone conversation and checking out the female talent as he did so. Fortunately, I managed to duck behind a knot of students, and he passed by, never knowing I was there.

I found myself a spot on the grass in the nearby sculpture garden and sat cross-legged, sharing bits of my salad with a couple of entirely fearless squirrels. It would be easy to doze happily in the afternoon sun, but I had plans to make. Erin Fogarty would have to be carefully cultivated, but I was pretty sure we'd soon be best mates, and she'd be telling me how she snaffled Oscar's research for Jack Yarrow.

For the moment I thought I'd steer clear of Professor Yarrow. Ditto his wife, whose jealousy I reckoned would make her vindictive. Georgia Tapp I was going to see this afternoon. Before lunch I'd popped into her room and made an appointment to see her at three o'clock. I could see my respectful attitude had made a good impression. I hoped this would predispose her to like me, because she should be a terrif source of information.

Rube Wasinsky had set me straight on administrative assistants, and why Georgia Tapp was a very rare bird indeed. Years ago, Rube said, there'd been scads of secretaries to do the clerical stuff, but such resources vanished as government funding to universities like UCLA tightened. Now faculty members were supposed to do everything for themselves on their computers.

Professor Jack Yarrow, however, had access to private funding for a research center within the larger structure of the biology department, and he used some of this to cover the salary of his own personal administrative assistant, namely Georgia Tapp.

Georgia's desk was situated in a room next to Yarrow's palatial office. I put my head through the door at exactly three o'clock. "Ms. Tapp?" I raised my eyebrows tentatively. "Could you see me now?"

Georgia was on her feet, wringing her small, plump hands. Even her wispy hair seemed agitated. "I don't know whether to call the campus police or not," she hissed.

Strike me dead! Had she tumbled on to who I really was? "The cops would be a bit of an overreaction, I reckon."

She wrung her hands some more. "Listen!"

"You're a bloody bastard!" came from the adjoining office. "I'm going to expose you for what you are, Yarrow! A sniveling, pathetic arsehole who has to bloody steal my work to shore up his bloody reputation!"

I wasn't supposed to have ever met Oscar Braithwaite, so I said to Georgia, "Stone the crows! Who's that?"

Her stocky body quivering with distress, Georgia spat out, "Braithwaite. Oscar Braithwaite."

The sound of a loud thump carried through the wall. Georgia seized my wrist and wailed, "I don't know what to do. Dr. Braithwaite is capable of inflicting great bodily harm on Professor Yarrow, but Professor Yarrow will be furious if a fuss is made."

"You bloody bastard!" was followed by something indistinct from Yarrow.

"Perhaps one of us should go in and break it up," I said.

Georgia stared at me, astonished. "We can't do anything like that. They're men. They're men fighting-like primal beasts!"

Primal beasts, was it? I thought I deducted a hint of excitement underneath her chubby exterior.

A door slammed. Through Georgia's open door I saw Oscar Braithwaite's bushy head. "Bloody Yarrow! Bloody Yarrow!" he was shouting as he stamped down the hallway. His voice grew fainter, then there was another, muted slam of a door at the end of the hallway.

Georgia let out her breath in a long sigh. "He's gone," she said. I thought she sounded disappointed.

There was no use trying to pump Georgia, as she was totally atwitter about the confrontation between Oscar and Yarrow, so I said I'd drop in on her tomorrow. I had a quick look around to see if I could eyeball Oscar, but he'd disappeared. I collected my car from the cavernous parking structure and drove east along Sunset Boulevard to Kendall & Creeling.

When I opened the front door, Harriet was sitting at the reception desk reading something and giggling happily to herself. When she saw me, she said, "Message from Ariana. She says to tell you she'll be back here by five-thirty."

Irritated that Melodie wasn't at her post, I said, "Where's Melodie? Don't tell me she's off on another audition."

"Not at all," said Harriet. "You'll find Melodie in the bathroom, piling on the makeup. After work she's going straight from here to the theater to try out for Quip's play." Grinning, she held up the bound pages she'd been reading. "This is the audition script. Melodie's been poring over it all day."

I took a squiz at the two-line tide: LUL (Laughter Under Luna)

"It's a comedy?"

"Tragedy. Intensely dark tragedy." Harriet was still grinning. "I believe Quip's intention is to distill the angst of the early twenty-first century."

"But you find it funny?"

"Hilarious."

She passed the bound copy over to me. "Take a look at the front page."

Under "Characters" appeared the names: Lucy/Lucas, Ricky/ Ricki, Ethel/Ethelbert, Fred/Fredricka.

Below was a Note from the Playwright, which read: "The audience will recognize iconic figures resonating in the shared group consciousness…"

"These names seem familiar," I said. "Lucy and Ricky? Ethel and Fred? It's the cast of that old TV show I Love Lucy."

Harriet chuckled. "Top marks, Kylie, but things get drastically different after that. In Quip's play they're all transsexuals; their genders are changing because of pollutants in the environment. Lucy's in the process of becoming Lucas, Ricky's changing to a very feminine Ricki, Fred's on the way to Fredricka, and Ethel will be Ethelbert any day now."

"Crikey," I said, "which one has Melodie got her sights on?"

"Anything she can get." Harriet's tone was dry.

Fran and Melodie appeared, with Fran holding open what was obviously another copy of the play. Melodie was proclaiming, "Incest, incest, incest!" with great dramatic intensity.

She strode up to us and flung her arms wide. "Fratricide, filicide, matricide, patricide…um…" She dropped her arms and looked to Fran for help. "Drat! I always forget this next one."

"Parricide."

Melodie reflung her arms. "Parricide!"

"Jeez," said Harriet, "I know fratricide, matricide, and patricide respectively mean killing your brother, mother, and father. But what's filicide and what's parricide?"

Thanks to my exacting English teacher at Wollegudgerie High, I was able to enlighten her. "Parricide is killing a parent or similar authority figure. Filicide is killing a pastry."

Harriet shot me an incredulous look. "Killing a pastry? You're kidding me."

I had a bit of a giggle over filo pastry. "I am," I admitted. "That would be filocide. Filicide is killing a son or daughter."

For some reason my Aunt Millie popped into my mind. Was there an aunticide?

Meanwhile, Melodie was lifting entreating hands to the ceiling. "I embody sanguinariness," she announced, having a touch of trouble with the pronunciation. "I am slaughterous, I am-"

"Mortiferous," said Fran.

"I am mortiferous." Melodie bowed her head, then sank gracefully to her knees.

" 'Strewth,’ " I said, "the audience will need to bring their dictionaries along."

Fran, who never took kindly to even a hint of criticism where her husband was concerned, snapped, "Quip is deliberately forcing the audience to surrender to the cadence of the language without necessarily fully understanding what the words mean."

"I was talking to Quip this morning," said Melodie, "to get his thoughts on the essential core of Lucy-Lucas. He explained how LUL is deep-real deep."

"I reckon it's a bit of a challenge starting off as Lucy and ending up as Lucas," I remarked.

"For some, it would stretch their talent too thin." Melodie smiled complacently. "Fortunately, that doesn't apply to me."

"I'm sure Quip's play is very profound," I said to Fran, "but it's a bit beyond me."

For Fran, her smile was quite kindly. "Don't feel too badly, Kylie," she said. "Quip's work is a challenge to an educated American. Being an Aussie, you don't have the cultural references to decode, so yes, you're right. It is quite beyond you."