Blood Feud (23 page)

“If that’s the standard of service we are now to expect from the town’s police force, then I will be complaining most vehemently to Superintendent Midden,” she thundered down the phone line.

Blah, blah, blah!
I made a face at the phone before assuming my most polite voice. “A regrettable incident and you have my deepest apologies. It certainly won’t happen again. Now how can I help you today?”

“Somebody has been defacing my re-election posters and I want them stopped.”

Sighing, I reached for my notebook. “Defacing them in what way, Mrs Villiers?”

“Drawing on them.”

“What are they drawing? A moustache? A Frankenstein scar? Horns? Blacking out your teeth? The usual kid stuff?”

There was an embarrassed silence. “Not quite that . . .”

“Hmm?” I prompted, pen poised over the paper.

“Penises.”

“I’m sorry?”

She became strident. “You heard me. Penises.”

I dutifully wrote down
penises
in my notebook, underlined it twice and put two exclamation marks after it. “Um . . . so they’re giving you a penis?”

The Sarge looked over at me in surprise. I shrugged at him.

“No, no! My posters are all headshots. They’re drawing them coming out of my forehead.” I clamped my hand over my mouth and held the phone away from me for a second, trying to maintain my professionalism. When I felt able to continue, I spoke into the receiver again.

“So let me get this straight. You have penises coming out of your forehead?” I repeated, writing down
dickhead!!
in my notebook, underlining it three times.

“Erect penises,” she clarified.

I wrote down
erect
and stifled an immature giggle. “Erect penises coming out of your forehead.”

“With testicles.”

“With testicles.” I wrote down
plus balls
.

The Sarge sniggered and I had to hold the phone away from my mouth again. I threw him a warning glance; I was barely holding it together myself.

“Yes, and also they’ve drawn erect penises next to my mouth so it looks as though I’m performing a very lewd act.”

My face contorting with a desperate need to shout out loud with laughter, eyes watering, I sketched a quick picture of an erect penis complete with testicles next to a smiling mouth. I had the same doodle scratched into the old varnish of my desk at least fifty times by various bored constables who’d served their time in town over the last hundred years. It seemed some graffiti never goes out of style.

She continued, building herself into a froth of fury. “I know who it is. It’s that Caravani man. It’s obvious. He’s trying to derail my election campaign.”

“It doesn’t sound like something Mr Caravani would do, Mrs Villiers. It’s very childish. Most probably it’s some of the local kids. Probably some of the young Bycrafts. It’s the sort of thing they’d find funny.”

“You better find out who it is and stop them,” she demanded.

“Sergeant Maguire and I will look into it today for you.”
Yeah, because it wasn’t as if we had a fugitive and a murderer to track down.

“I’ve taken all the signs down. You’ll have to come to my house to investigate. It would suit me if you came right now,” she insisted imperiously.

Frigging dictator!
I thought as I hung up. The Sarge shot me a quizzical look.

“Someone’s been drawing knobs all over Mrs Villiers’ re-election posters,” I told him.

“What were you up to last night when I thought you were sleeping?”

I laughed. “It wasn’t me! Although you have to admit, it’s bloody funny.” I stood up. “Come on. She wants us over at her house to investigate pronto.”

“Doesn’t she know we’re not allowed to investigate?” he smiled, putting his computer on stand-by.

“Will we hand it over to the Big Town detectives?” I smirked, throwing him his cap and putting mine on, pulling my ponytail through the hole. “The Mysterious Case of the Doodle Doodles.”

He laughed, fishing the car keys out of his pocket. “I don’t remember reading that one.”

“You’ll never guess who the culprit is,” I smiled, closing the station door behind us.

“Let’s see,” he pondered. Our boots crunched on the gravel as we walked to the car. He leaned on the top of the car, looking over at me. “Is it the mousy, respectable woman who lives quietly in the end house tending her rose garden but who is secretly Mrs Villiers’ half-sister who will inherit a fortune if Mrs Villiers dies of shock on seeing many penises without having made a valid will? Or is it the underaged Bycraft lout who spends all day joy-riding, drinking grog, shooting up and vandalising election posters instead of going to school?”

“I don’t want to spoil the ending for you,” I teased, climbing into the passenger seat. “You’ll have to work it out for yourself like a real detective.”

It took barely two minutes to drive to Mrs Villiers’ house. One of her cats, Carrie, batted a clawed paw out at the Sarge’s ankle as he walked past. He would have copped a scratch if he hadn’t been wearing boots. As it was, he didn’t notice, but I did, shooting the cat an evil look as I walked past, daring it to have a go at me too. It sullenly glared back at me, before slinking away into the undergrowth.

Vern showed us to Mrs Villiers’ study without saying a word, and just as quietly disappeared, leaving us to her mercies. She was seated at her desk, two of her cats lying at either end like sentinels, eyeing us malevolently, their tails swishing back and forth. Charlotte and Samantha, I thought. Mrs Villiers shuffled papers for a few minutes, making us wait before deigning to notice us. Without a greeting, she nodded to where she’d stacked the posters up against a cupboard door.

“There’s the evidence, officers,” she said coldly.

The Sarge held them up one by one for us to examine while I took notes. Every poster had been defaced with the crude, childish drawings.

“Yep,” said the Sarge, his lips trembling with the effort not to laugh. “That’s definitely a lot of penises.”

I spun away from him, afraid that the giggles welling up inside me were going to unwillingly volcano out. Mrs Villiers stopped writing and frowned over at us.

“I hope you officers are taking this seriously,” she snapped, unimpressed.

“We take doodles very seriously, Mrs Villiers,” assured the Sarge, deadpan. I giggled loudly before unconvincingly turning it into a cough, drawing the ire of the aggrieved woman and her cats.

“Are you all right, Senior Constable? Do you find the vandalism of my property amusing?”

“Certainly not, Mrs Villiers,” I said, pinching my thigh viciously to stop myself from laughing, blinking rapidly all the while.

The Sarge distracted her smoothly. “I suggest that in future you only place your posters where you can be sure that they won’t be vandalised. Perhaps in the windows of the local shops. Or even some more here on your own property to join the others. I’m sure there are a few patches of lawn free.”

I hid another smile, appreciating the way he managed to have a dig at someone while always sounding so polite.

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me?” she blustered. “That’s not good enough. I want you to catch those responsible. Bring them to justice.”

“That’s going to be almost impossible, I’m afraid,” said the Sarge. “Not unless we catch someone in the act.”

“Aren’t you even going to mount an all-night guard on my posters?”

The Sarge was polite, but firm. “No. We don’t have the resources to do that, Mrs Villiers. There are only the two of us, as you know, and our resources are prioritised at the moment towards the recapture of Red Bycraft and the capture of Miss Greville’s murderer.”

“I will be complaining to the Superintendent about this matter,” she said spitefully.

The Sarge shrugged. “That’s your prerogative, Mrs Villiers, but there’s nothing more we can do. Don’t bother about showing us out. We’ll find our own way.”

Back in the car we laughed for a good couple of minutes. I whacked him on the arm.

“
We take doodles very seriously.
Honestly, why the hell did you say that? It did me in.”

“Sorry,” he chuckled. “Do me a favour and read me your notes.”

I flipped my notebook open to the page I’d been writing on, giggling all the while. “Poster one with penis on head. Poster two with penis near mouth. Poster three with penis on head and penis near mouth . . .”

That set us both off again and we were still laughing as we pulled away from the curb. We drove further down Silky Oak Street, past Teddy and Lee’s building site. Teddy was standing on his footpath, shaking his head at something.

“Pull over, Sarge,” I demanded and he did. We climbed out to find Teddy with his hands on his hips looking at one of his election posters which he’d placed at the front of his site. It was a smart move considering the traffic the site was generating, but it had also been vandalised with coarsely drawn male genitalia.

“Hello, officers. Look at this! Someone’s expressed their political opinion of me. Calling me a dickhead, wouldn’t you say?” he laughed.

“Don’t take it personally, Mr Caravani,” I said. “Mrs Villiers’ posters have also been vandalised. With, um, genitalia as well.”

“Glad to hear that. Gotta love democracy, don’t you?”

“We’re thinking it’s some of the local kids,” smiled the Sarge. “Not a voter.”

“Even better!” laughed Tony, his warm brown eyes twinkling appealingly. “I was worried that it was one vote I wasn’t going to get, and this contest is going to be tight.”

“Do you want to make a complaint?” I asked.

He stared at me in surprise. “And waste your time? Nah, wouldn’t dream of it. Kids will be kids and we wannabe politicians are just asking for it putting up our self-important posters everywhere.” He laughed again.

“Okay then, we’ll see you around,” said the Sarge and we moseyed back to the car.

“Thanks for stopping. I love the personal attention I receive in this town. Beats the city hands down,” Teddy said, waving at us as we drove off.

“I’m going to vote for him,” I decided as we pulled back into the station. “He’s nice.”

“What about his policies?”

“Who cares?”

“Tess,” he objected, climbing out of the car. “That’s not very politically engaged of you. Your vote is a privilege and should be used wisely.”

I smiled at him. “Sarge, my long-standing policy has always been to vote for anyone up against Mrs Villiers. And I don’t care if they’re advocating compulsory cannibalism, I’ll still vote for them.”

He laughed. “Sorry for preaching. I come from a very political family.”

“Really?” He hadn’t told me anything much about his family and being such a nosy creature, it was killing me not knowing. All I knew was that his mother was an attractive, well-groomed woman who was a public servant and that he had an equally attractive, well-groomed, stepfather. And I only knew that because I’d seen a photo of the two of them in his house.

“Yeah. I grew up talking about politics at the dining table.”

“I grew up talking about organic fertiliser and rainfall,” I said wryly. “Politics didn’t come into the conversation much.”

“We didn’t talk about fertiliser much. Not unless it was the kind sprouting from politicians’ mouths!”

“Good one, Sarge,” I laughed. “They’re all full of shit.”

“Not all of them. Some of them go into politics genuinely wanting to make a difference to the community.”

“Sure they do,” I rejoined cynically. “And the generous superannuation and lifelong perks have nothing to do with it.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m not,” I smiled at him. “Not about politics anyway. I couldn’t give a toss to be honest. Different pollies, same old rubbish.”

He tutted about my lack of interest in our country’s leaders as he unlocked the station door. “Just for that indifference to your hard won civic responsibilities, you can do the incident report on the poster vandalism.”

“Sarge! That’s not fair,” I groaned and shoved past him to my computer, sulking for the next hour. But I had my subtle revenge and I smiled to myself as I handed him my report to check, watching as he read it.

He looked up at me, head on one side. “Tess, did you deliberately try to include the word ‘penis’ in this report as many times as possible?”

“Yes,” I confessed. “It took some effort and imagination, but I think I might have broken a world record.”

He exhaled noisily. “I should have been suspicious when you were quiet for so long. It’s unnatural.” He waved the report around. “They’re going to love this in Big Town.”

“Send an advance copy to the Super,” I suggested. “She’ll appreciate it as the work of art that it is.”

I didn’t know what he was going to say next because the bell rang as someone entered the station. He inclined his head as if to say
well, what are you waiting for?
I reluctantly stood up and ambled to the counter. There was rarely anything pleasant awaiting me on the other side of it, but for once there was a lovely surprise.

“Honey-boy!”

I hurried through the counter hatch. He swept me up in his arms and swung me around and around as if we hadn’t seen each other for a year instead of a few days. The following kiss was good. Really good. By the end of it, he had me pinned against the wall and I wasn’t sure if it was my baton or him that was pressing against my leg so urgently. When we separated, we both needed to gasp for air, our pupils widely dilated, senses tingling.