“Got a couple possibilities. We could check them out once you’ve eaten. They’re basically back-yarders—they only do it as a sideline to raise some extra cash.”
I pulled out the fry pan, shoved it on the stove, then looked around. “You’ve got their addresses?”
He nodded. “One’s in Vermont, the other in Keilor North.”
Talk about hiking from one side of the Berren to the other. Still, it wasn’t like I had any real work waiting for me—not unless Ceri had managed to drum up some business after I’d gone to bed last night. The fry pan began to smoke, so I dropped the tuna steak into it then placed some bread into the toaster.
“You available to go out there tonight?”
“Certainly am.”
“Go where?” Keale asked, as he wandered into the kitchen, pizza box in hand.
“To chase down a lead on the removal van Rebecca hired.” I flipped the tuna. “Did Kaij ring you about blood tests today?”
He nodded. “I got the impression he thinks it’s as big a waste of time as I do, but he got me in straight away.”
“It’s hardly a waste of time if it saves you from going to jail.”
“Maybe, but it doesn’t negate the fact I killed four people, Harri. Nothing will.”
“No, but it will negate the sentence.” I raised an eyebrow. “Or do you want to be locked up for the rest of your life?”
He snorted. “Of course not. It’s just that-”
“Keale,” I said, pulling the fry pan off the gas. “If someone drugged you in order to make you to hit that helicopter, then they’re responsible for the crash, not you. You’re just the weapon used.”
“And he was one hell of a weapon,” Guy commented, snagging a piece of pizza from the box Keale held.
Keale gave him a sour look. “A weapon that killed four people.”
Guy slapped him on the shoulder. “You can’t be responsible for what you can’t help. It’s just a fact of life. Like farts, really.”
“Only an ogre could equate death with farts,” Keale muttered, then glanced at me. “You want company chasing down this lead?”
“Yes, but you’re staying here with Moe. You need to keep your head down and out of any sort of trouble right now.”
“Staying here doesn’t seem like it’s a guarantee of avoiding trouble. Guy told me what happened last night.”
“And how you slept through it I have no idea.” I buttered the toast, spread some tomato relish over it, then put the salmon steak in between the two of them. “Guy, is Moe okay to stay here until we return?”
“Sure. Curly will be here soon, too—he had to stop to get some beer.”
I raised my eyebrows. “How does he order anything if he doesn’t speak?”
“Self service, of course.”
“But they do have voices, don’t they?”
Guy grinned. “Yeah, but five years ago they decided to have a contest to see who could remain silent the longest. There’s five slabs riding on it.”
Only an ogre would carry on a daft bet like that for this long. “Can they talk when they’re alone?”
“Nope. Not a all. The first one to break buys the beer.”
“What about Shemp? Isn’t he married?”
“Yeah, but not talking is the best way to get on the good side of an ogress, I tell you.”
I snorted softly. “They must be fun phone conversationalists.”
“Talk your ear off, they can,” Guy said. “You just have to learn to read the finer nuances of their silence.”
“Ah-huh.” I dug my credentials and wallet out of my handbag, then grabbed my sandwich and said, “You ready to go?”
“Sure am.” He snagged the last bit of pizza, then waved me ahead of him.
“Be careful,” Keale said. “And remember, if you happen to find Rebecca, don’t antagonize her. She may be going off the boil but she’ll still be as touchy as hell.”
“Only a male would equate not being in season to going off the boil.”
He grinned. “Hey, in this case it’s nothing but the truth.”
I shook my head and left. My watcher was still present but that was okay. Kaij knew about my suspicions when it came to Keale; it was the ones I had about Lyle I didn’t want him aware of just yet.
Once we were in my car, I grabbed the Melways from the back seat and handed it to Guy. “Tell me where I’m heading.”
“Drive across to Canterbury Road. I’ll direct from there.”
“Might help if you hold the street directory the right way around.”
He grinned and turned it right side up. “Harri, you have no sense of adventure.”
I snorted and started the car. The last time Guy had let his sense of adventure get the better of good judgement, we’d ended up in Dandenong. Which wasn’t a bad thing unless you were actually headed for Healesville—the opposite direction.
Despite the remnants of peak hour still hanging around, it didn’t take us that long to get across to Vermont. Guy directed me through a maze of side streets, and eventually told me to slow down. My gaze flicked to the rear vision mirror. Down the other end of the street, a car I presumed was Kaij’s tail pulled to a stop. They were good—I hadn’t actually spotted them much on the journey over there, despite knowing they were somewhere behind us.
“It’s number nine, if my information is right,” the ogre said, peering out through the windscreen.
Number nine, it turned out, was down the other end of the street, and there was a big white truck parked in the driveway. I maneuvered the car so the headlights hit the trucks side—the words “Mark’s Express Removals’ were plastered on the side, but there wasn’t a little truck doing wheelies to be seen anywhere.
“Not the right one,” I said.
“Well, fuck them,” Guy muttered. “Keilor North here we come.”
I did a U-turn and headed back the way we’d came. It took almost an hour to get across to Keilor thanks to the road works on the Calder Freeway. As we neared Keilor North, Guy flicked the internal light on and squinted at the directory. “Take the next left.”
“You sure? That’s the speedway exit, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but it heads back towards Sydenham. The house we want is just off the Sydenham end of Calder Park Drive.”
“You’re the navigator.” I swung left.
“Scary thought, isn’t it?” He grinned.
Only if he got us lost again. Which he hadn’t. We found the house we were looking for pretty quickly, and the truck we wanted was parked in the vacant lot beside the house.
I stopped. “I’ll go question them. You’d better stay put.”
“You don’t think I could charm the information out of them?” he said, and let tip with a fart of such power it had me scrambling so fast to get away I practically fell out of the car.
Guy’s laughter followed me as I walked up the steps to the front door. I pressed the doorbell and waited.
After a few seconds, footsteps echoed, then a middle aged woman opened the door and raised an eyebrow. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so.” I dragged my PI credentials out of my pocket and showed them to her. “I’m trying to track down a woman named Rebecca. I believe you helped shift her furniture a few days ago.”
The woman looked me up and down, then sniffed. She didn’t look impressed and I couldn’t say I blamed her. Between the bruises, the cut on my head, the faded jeans and baggy sweater, I probably didn’t give a great impression.
“Is she in trouble or anything?”
“No. But we think she may have been a witness to an accident my client was involved in, and we need to talk to her.”
“If it involves the police, why aren’t they chasing them down?”
Good question, I thought. “Because the police have better things to do than waste time chasing down a woman who may or may not have witnessed an accident.”
She looked me up and down again. Not exactly believing my story, but not disbelieving either. I half wished I could apply some siren charm, but even if I could get it to work on females, she didn’t actually look the type who'd be charmed.
“How did you find us, then?”
“Her neighbor in Research gave us the name of your company.”
“That tart,” she muttered. “She was out the front, watching everything we did, taking notes, like she expected us to steal something vital.”
And thank God she had, otherwise I might have never gotten even this close to finding Rebecca. “Would you be able to give me the address you took her goods to?”
The woman considered me through slightly narrowed eyes, then said, “I’m running a business here. I don’t give anything away for free.”
I sighed and dug out my wallet. “I’ve only got twenty on me.”
“That’ll do.” She snatched the note from my fingers, then said, “Wait here.”
She disappeared down the hallway, footsteps echoing on the polished floor boards. I waited as directed and, after a few minutes, she reappeared and handed me a torn off sheet of yellow note paper.
“We took her stuff to a place in Greenvale. Near the school it was.”
“Anyone else living there?”
The woman shrugged. “Didn’t see anyone.”
“Thanks for the help, then.”
“No probs.”
She closed the door, and I headed back to the car—only to discover Guy had not been idle while I’d been questioning the woman. The air was thick enough to carve.
“Any luck?” he asked, as I climbed back in.
“Yes.” I hastily wound down the window. “And can you please restrain yourself in restricted areas?”
He grinned. “As my grandmother used to say, wherever you be, let your wind go free.”
