Quokka Question

EIGHTEEN

The detecting gods smiled on me, for when I got my assignment for the day from Georgia Tapp, I was rostered with Erin Fogarty, our task being to collate the individual information packets that were to be given out to each attendee at the first day registration.

After Erin's revelation as we'd left the lecture hall, she'd had a bit of a crying jag, and I hadn't been able to get another coherent word from her. She'd tottered into the nearest ladies' room to wash her face, and I'd headed for Georgia's office.

Actually, there was another surprise mere for me. I'd knocked politely on the door, and been told to enter. Georgia wasn't alone.

"Sorry," I said, "didn't mean to interrupt."

I'd never met the hulking man standing beside Georgia's desk, but I immediately recognized his too-small shaved head, his beady eyes, and his grossly overdeveloped body. In his photos Wally Easton, Yarrow's ex-brother-in-law, had looked unappealing-in person he was downright menacing.

"Come in, dear," said Georgia, all sweetness and light.

"G'day," I said to Wally Easton.

Easton's flat stare passed over me without interest. He didn't bother replying. I noticed he had disproportionately small, lobeless ears set flat to his skull. Somewhere I'd read that ears like that indicated antisocial tendencies.

"What are you looking at?" he asked belligerently.

He had a high, reedy voice. With a pulse of excitement I realized it was a good fit with Pen's caller on Saturday night.

Both Georgia and Easton were looking at me, waiting for my reply. It didn't seem safe to comment on his criminal ears, so I said, "I was just wondering if you shaved your skull, or if you used one of those hair-removing creams."

"Is she for real?" he demanded of Georgia, who looked embarrassed on my behalf.

"Australian," she said to him, as if that explained everything.

He grunted. Georgia handed me my assignment, and I skedaddled.

I found Erin Fogarty in the lecture room temporarily assigned for symposium matters. She was listlessly sliding items into envelopes and checking off names against a list.

"Are you feeling better?" I asked. Her eyes immediately filled with tears. Apparently not.

We were alone, at least for the moment, so I went directly to the matter at hand. "How could you blame yourself for Dr. Braithwaite's death? It was an accident, wasn't it?"

She looked at me with tragic, red-rimmed eyes. "I hope so."

"You hope so?"

Erin sniffed loudly. "If it wasn't for me, he wouldn't have been there. I'm sure that's true."

I tried a puzzled expression-not hard because I was. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Oscar-Dr. Braithwaite-believed he was meeting me."

"You made a date to meet Oscar on the building site?"

Erin's weak chin trembled. "I did it for Professor Yarrow. How was I to know someone would get hurt?"

"Let's get this straight," I said. "Jack Yarrow asked you to set up a rendezvous with Oscar Braithwaite on top of the building he later fell off?"

Erin drooped her long neck, rather like a dispirited swan. "Not exactly."

Reining in an impulse to shake her until her teeth rattled, I said in a kindly, confiding tone, "Tell me all about it, Erin. You'll feel so much better when you do. My mum always says that a problem shared is a problem halved."

"What do you think of Georgia?"

"Georgia?" Crikey, I was sounding like an echo. "I hardly know her, but she seems nice."

'Nice,' I thought, was a safe word, which combined with 'seems,' didn't commit me to a definite view, so I could shift to agree with Erin, if necessary.

"Seems nice," said Erin. "Seems."

"This has something to do with Dr. Braithwaite falling off the roof?"

"Georgia took me aside and said she had a confidential task for me to do. She told me Jack-Professor Yarrow, that is-wanted me to meet with Oscar and tell him I'd realized I was wrong about Professor Yarrow and that he did steal Oscar's work." She sent me a fierce look, her cheeks glowing in pink indignation. "It isn't true. Dr. Yarrow was taking back what was his in the first place."

I clasped my hands and put an honest but naive expression on my face. "No! You're telling me Dr. Braithwaite stole research from Professor Yarrow? Why wasn't he denounced?"

"Denounced?"

Obviously Erin was developing my echo problem. "Why wasn't Oscar accused," I said. "Condemned, publicly humiliated, forced to admit his heinous academic sins?"

When she blinked at me uncomprehendingly, I spelled it out. "If Professor Yarrow believed his research material had been stolen by Dr. Braithwaite, why didn't he take steps to have this academic theft exposed? Why steal it back in an underhanded way?"

She looked relieved. "Oh, I see what you mean. It's simple, really. It was very sensitive material, a new discovery mat would turn quokka research on its ear. Professor Yarrow didn't want to provoke a scandal because the information would get out prematurely."

"I'm a bit lost," I said. "What has Georgia got to do with all this?"

"I think she's in love with him," said Erin, plainly bitter.

The sheila was getting me het-up, the way she was jumping all over the place. I calmed myself by mentally referring to Private Investigation: The Complete Handbook. There was a chapter on interrogation techniques. I recalled one piece of advice: Be a friend. Make the witness want to tell you everything.

"Erin," I said, "you've been through a lot. People have expected so much of you, but they haven't treated you with the respect you deserve."

She sat up straighten "You're right, you know, Carol. I wouldn't have said it myself, but yes, it's true."

"Kylie," I said. "The name's Kylie, not Carol."

She blushed, which together with her pink eyes and nose made her look positively rosy. "Oh, sorry. I'm just so upset I don't know what I'm saying."

To get her back on track, I said, "About Georgia-Zoran Pestle doesn't get on too well with her. He told me he thinks of her as a 'fat spider in a web.'"

Erin nodded vigorously. "He could be right." She clutched my hand, at the same time looking around the room for eavesdroppers. "I really believed Georgia was telling me what Professor Yarrow wanted me to do," she whispered, "but when I asked him face-to-face, he said he didn't know what I was talking about."

I was fed up with going around in circles. "Erin," I said firmly, "spit it out. What exactly did Georgia tell you to do?"

"I thought it was what he wanted," she wailed.

"Keep calm," I said, more to myself than Erin Fogarty.

She sniffed, swallowed, and thus fortified, began with, "Georgia asked me to get a message to Oscar that I wanted to meet him on Friday afternoon in the parking structure everyone in the department uses. I was to tell him that I…" She trailed off, blushing yet again.

"Yes?" I said encouragingly.

"I was to tell Oscar I still loved him and that I could get the evidence he needed to prove Professor Yarrow had stolen his research. I said I'd send a text message to his cell phone to say where and when we'd meet in the weekend." She snuffled and wiped her eyes. "Georgia told me to say we'd meet somewhere on campus, but it would have to be where no one would see me because I was afraid of Dr. Yarrow."

At last we'd got somewhere. For clarification, I said, "So you text-messaged Oscar to meet you at the building site on Saturday night?"

"Nooooo!"

I was startled. So was a meek-looking bloke on the point of entering the room, who gave Erin a horrified look and shot off.

"No? You didn't tell him that?"

"Georgia told me she'd handle that side of things. All I had to do was say I'd get a message to him." A sob racked her skinny body. "And I sent him to his death!"

I patted her shoulder. Surely she'd cry herself dry sometime soon. "This can all be sorted out," I said reassuringly. "You tell the police what Georgia told you to do, and they'll take it from there."

A few more body-wracking sobs greeted my observation. When she could talk, Erin cried, "You don't understand! When I saw Georgia this morning and asked her why, pretending to be me, she'd sent Oscar to that building site, do you know what she said?"

"Search me."

"Georgia said she didn't know what I was talking about-that we'd never had the conversation on Friday, that I was delusional and needed professional help urgently!"

" 'Strewth," I said, "you've been set up."

"You believe me? Jack didn't." She added quickly, "But he was very kind. He said I'd been working too hard, and had got confused."

"So Jack Yarrow said he knew nothing about this plan that he himself was supposed to have hatched."

"It's not his fault," said Erin, loyal to the last. "Georgia was lying when she said Jack was involved. He knew nothing about it, I'm sure. He's not that kind of man. Why, he-"

She broke off as Winona Worsack glided into the room wearing her usual long medieval dress, her dark hair loose on her shoulders. "You!" she exclaimed, pointing a long, imperious forefinger at Erin. "How dare you besmirch the name of Jack Yarrow! How dare you!"

"But, I-"

"Don't speak. I know what's been going on. You imagine yourself in love with my husband. Deluded wretch. Poor, sick creature. You are to stop pestering him immediately."

"He pestered me first!" shouted Erin, showing some spirit at last.

"That's why I fell in love with him."

"That's quite enough, you stupid little ninny."

I was admiring Winona's vocabulary, having never heard anyone use 'besmirch' in conversation before, and 'ninny' only rarely, when she turned her attention in my direction. Crooking her finger, she commanded, "Kylie Kendall, come with me."

"Are you all right?" I said to Erin, not wanting to leave her distressed.

Anger had stiffened her spine. "I'll cope," she said. She shot Winona Worsack a mutinous look. "You don't understand him. You never have. Jack told me so."

Winona snorted. I felt like snorting, myself. Could Jack Yarrow actually trotted out that ancient cliche and said his wife didn't understand him?

Winona, of course, had to have the last word. "Idiot," she said and swept out of the room before Erin could respond.

"See you later," I said to Erin as I hastened to the door. I didn't want Winona to give me the slip.

"Jack can't leave her," Erin said. "He told me she swore she'll kill herself if he does. That's why he stays with her."

Blimey! This sheila had turned naive into an art form.

"And then," I said to Ariana, "I galloped down the hall after Winona Worsack, who gets a fair speed up on the wheels she seems to have instead of feet, since she glides so smoothly."

It was early evening. We were in Ariana's office, everyone else had gone home, and I was giving her a rundown of my day.

Ariana laughed. "A beguiling picture. What happened next?"

"Winona takes me to Yarrow's office. There he is with Georgia Tapp, both long-faced. 'We have a problem,' he says to me, 'and you appear to be friendly with Erin Fogarty, so you can be of assistance, I believe.'

"And I say, 'Anything I can do to help.' Yarrow looks at Georgia, and she says on cue, 'Erin came to me this morning with the most outlandish story. She accused me of being involved in Dr. Oscar Braithwaite's death. Even more outrageous, she also claimed that Professor Yarrow was the mastermind behind the scheme. I can only think the poor girl is unbalanced.'

"At this point, there's a fair bit of grave head-shaking all round, then Yarrow asks, 'Did Erin say anything to you while you were with her this morning?'

" 'Well, yes, she did,' I say, and I outline the major points of the story, a lot more straightforwardly than Erin managed to give it to me.

"Everyone looks grim. Jack Yarrow says, superindignant, 'I can't imagine why she wants to attack me.' His wife sends a nasty smile his way. 'Because you seduced the silly little fool, Jack. And now you're trying to get out from under. I can understand her motivation-she wants revenge.'"

"Nice and direct," said Ariana, "but is it true?"

"Erin never mentioned being given the heave-ho by Yarrow, but she's not the most worldly graduate student on the block, so it's on the cards she hasn't noticed yet."

Ariana looked thoughtful. "Why do you think they bought you in?"

"To back up their theory that Erin's lost it. She sobbed most of the time I was with her, and it was hard work getting a coherent story out of her, but I didn't think for one moment she was bonkers."

"Consider this " said Ariana. "Maybe Erin is stringing you along. She set up the rendezvous with Oscar and was there when he fell, either by accident or because she pushed him. Now she comes up with this conspiracy narrative, killing two birds with one stone. She punishes Yarrow for ending their affair, and she implicates a rival, namely Georgia Tapp."

"Could be," I said, "but the tears she shed were real. She couldn't act that well."

"They could be genuine tears because she's lost the man she's hopelessly in love with."

I loved doing this brainstorming with Ariana. I beamed at her across the desk. "But if Erin is telling the absolute truth, we then have two possibilities. The first, that Georgia's cooked this up all on her own, and is lying through her teeth when she says Jack Yarrow instigated it. The second is that Yarrow came up with the plan and co-opted Georgia to help him out so that there'd be no direct link between him and Oscar's death."

"Where does Winona Worsack fit in?" Ariana inquired.

"She's worried about Jack Yarrow's rep, I reckon. Otherwise, I can't see why she'd care one way or the other about what Oscar might do at the symposium."

"You've studied the science of detecting liars," said Ariana. "So who's lying and who's telling the truth?"

"You're having a dig at me," I said.

My Complete Handbook contained several chapters on lying, and I'd made a goal to master lie detection techniques. My mistake had been to let anyone know what I was doing. Fran, in particular, had made life hard for a few days.

Ariana laughed. "Only a gentle dig. And I really want to know what you think."

"Right-oh. Erin is pretty well telling the truth, although, of course, she has no idea how much of what she's been told is accurate. Georgia? She's crooked as a dog's hind leg, but some of what she said must be true. The problem is, which bit? And I don't like Jack Yarrow, so I'm biased. It's possible he isn't involved. There's only Georgia's word that he is, and now she denies she even said it to Erin."

Picking up the phone, Ariana said, "I'm going to run this past Ted Lark. He'll certainly want to interview Erin Fogarty. And I'll mention you saw Wally Easton, and think he might be a possibility for Pen's stalker. I'd say, however, at least for the moment, Ted will want to concentrate on Erin Fogarty."

I thought with a pang how upset she'd been that morning. "Erin's pretty upset at the moment. She won't take tough questioning well."

"I'll tell him to be kind," said Ariana.

I left her dialing, and went into the kitchen to feed Julia Roberts. About time, her expression said. "Salmon tonight, Jules. Gourmet stuff."

Watching her eat-she was not a particularly refined as a diner-I began to brood. I was having myself on, thinking I could learn to be a P.I. Hey, I couldn't even tell who was lying to me. I wasn't a private detective's bootlace.

I forced myself to be honest. It was Ariana gently mocking me that had started this downward trend in my mood. It was Ariana having a secret she wouldn't tell me. It was me loving Ariana and her not loving me…

"I'm going to have it out with her," I said to Jules. "Right now."

Jules kept on eating.