Muzzled (20 page)

The papers on the desk seemed to be mainly racing nomination forms so after quickly flipping through them, I wriggled the flashing red mouse beside the computer until the screensaver disappeared. And did a double take. Oh boy! I grabbed a quick breath and closed my mouth with a snap. Three naked women lay entwined on a bed—and they sure weren’t sleeping. I blinked and felt a headache coming on. Who’d have thought a camera could see that far up…

Bemused, I dragged my eyes from the graphic images and clicked on History. More explicit sites—plus similar breeding websites to the ones I found on Jack Lantana’s computer. What was the significance of greyhound breeding websites displaying the names of racing dogs with their sire and dam and litter mates? Was it a curious coincidence that Bob and Jack shared the same interest in the breeding of racing dogs—or a hot clue? No time to figure that out now. I took a deep breath. Would Stephanie take out her a nail file and open the suspiciously locked top drawer of Bob Germaine’s desk or would she examine the contents of his waste paper basket?

As I wasn’t a nail file carrying sort of person, I upended the waste paper basket onto the floor and surveyed the contents. Screwed up papers, several unwanted brochures, a couple of empty McDonald’s packets and a revolting piece of rubber that looked awfully like a used condom.

“Can I help you, Katrina?”

I froze. Surrounded by incriminating evidence, I grabbed a quick breath and slowly turned around ready to run if necessary.

Oh, God. Half-in, half-out of the doorway, virtually blocking my exit, stood the man I’d come to question, Bob Germaine. As usual, his smile displayed perfectly aligned teeth, but the coldness in those unnerving black eyes reminded me of a snake eying off the tasty live mouse he’d selected for breakfast.

He raised his bushy eye brows. “Tell me, Katrina, is examining other people’s rubbish a bizarre idiosyncrasy of yours—or are you looking for something in particular?”

“Bob?” Even my voice sounded like a squeaky mouse ready to bolt for the nearest mouse-hole. Except the only hole big enough for me to dart through was the doorway and the big bad snake had claimed that one.

“Katrina?”

“Um…” I stared down at the polished wooden floor where a dollop of ketchup had leaked from the remains of a Big Mac packet and left an ugly red stain that could have easily passed for blood. I closed my eyes and asked the Universe for a perfectly good reason to be standing beside this man’s desk surrounded by his detritus. “Well, you know me, Bob,” I said with a self-derogatory shrug, still panning the Universe. “I’ve always been a bit of a klutz. What happened—I was waiting to see you and-and—somehow tripped over the waste paper basket, and tipped it over.”
Phew!
I got down on my knees and reached for a mangy half-chewed biscuit that had skittered under his desk. “Don’t worry though, I’ll pick it all up.”

All except that revolting rubber thing…

Bob Germaine moved three steps closer. I knew it was three steps because with each stride his shiny black loafers slapped against the wooden floor and sent vibrations skittering up through my knees.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Katrina?” His voice mocked me and I didn’t need to look up to feel his eyes boring through the top of my head. “If it’s photo-copying or a nomination query, you’re too late. My staff went home earlier, as soon as the Sunday morning trials finished. In fact, there’s no-one here but me.” He paused and the air chilled several more degrees. “Even old McKenzie out there has finished grading the track and gone home to lunch.”

On my knees I stared up at the man I thought I knew. He’d been a fellow greyhound trainer before giving up to work as a temp on the Greyhound Control Board. From my vantage point on the floor, Bob Germaine appeared seven feet tall and although his smile didn’t shift, the stillness of his mouth made him even more menacing. Butterflies staggered around in my stomach like a mob of drunks. This man may be a killer and I was alone with him. Damn! Why the heck didn’t I let Ben come with me when he offered? My cowboy wasn’t due for at least another fifteen minutes and by that time my chopped up body could be packed and stored in the canteen’s refrigerator.

I stumbled to me feet, dropped the half-eaten biscuit into the bin and wiped my hands on the seat of my jeans. Oh well, if I was going to be murdered I wanted some questions answered first. “Bob, what did my sister tell you when she came to see you on Friday?”

His smile slipped and confusion clouded his eyes. “Your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister, Katrina. I thought you were checking out what I watch on my computer.”

“Bob, I couldn’t care less if your eyeballs exploded from watching threesomes perform in bed. I’m here about my sister. Her name is Liz. A hippy type. I believe she tried to give you information she’d overheard about how slow dogs were winning on country tracks.”

“That’s your
sister
?” His look was almost sympathetic. “That ditzy dame that causes trouble everywhere she goes?”

Yep. Sounded like Liz. I nodded.

He dragged a hand through his hair without disturbing one immaculate strand. Amazing. Must be gelled to within an inch of its life. “Look,” he said, “I’ve already told that other troublemaker, Scott Brady, I haven’t seen his pesky girlfriend since she tagged along with him and tried to create chaos, claiming we were racing greyhounds against their will—which is when I told her if she stepped on the track again I’d ring the police and have her charged with trespass and causing a disturbance. So… I’m sorry, but if your rabble-rousing sister
has
disappeared, I say, good riddance.”

“But she came to see you on Friday.” I crossed my fingers behind my back. “I have proof.”

His smile vanished which was good because the perpetual sight of those whiter-than-white shark teeth was doing my head in. “What do you mean…you have proof? Who told you that fruitcake came here?” His snake eyes turned into sharp pebbles. “You can’t prove a thing. It’s their word against mine.”

Aha. So I was right. Liz
did
talk to Bob Germaine about what she’d overhead regarding the slow dogs winning. Thing is—after their conversation, did Liz walk away from his office and then take off with another bunch of professional protesters—or did Bob Germaine make sure she couldn’t walk anywhere again?

He stepped closer. So close, I could see the ring of sweat forming under his armpits and smell the strong odor of his musky aftershave. “And what if she did come in here with some cock-and-bull story about how there was a betting scam going on?” he growled. “I told her what I’m telling you—keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you. Long priced dogs pop up every day of the week, from here to Timbuktu. It’s the fickleness of the game. As long as the winning dog’s swab comes back negative, it’s all above board.”

“But—”

“Now, if you’ve finished sifting through my trash and checking out my computer—I think you’d better go.”

“How much money did
you
win on the slow dog that won today, Bob?”

“I said, you’ve outstayed your welcome.”

“Are you in league with the scammers, Bob?”

“Are you deaf—or just as thick as your idiot sister?”

“Does that mean you know where my sister is?”

“I have nothing more to say to you, Katrina.” His anger almost palpable, Bob’s mouth twisted and his face, now coated in sweat, came close to touching mine. I cringed away from the sweat and the barely controlled rage, both hands cradling my stomach where butterflies lurched into the air, crashing and bouncing off the walls. “So, do I have to pick you up and throw you out—or are you going to leave on your own two feet?”

There was a shuffling movement near the door and the distinct sound of jingling spurs. “Am I in time for morning tea? If so, I’ll have a strong black with three lumps, please.” Ben swaggered into the room, a borrowed Stetson jammed hard on his head. “And unless you’d rather those lumps were beaten into your head with my fist, Germaine—I’d move away from my girlfriend. Right now.”

21

Fifteen minutes later, Ben drove through the township of Port Augusta and out onto the main highway back to Adelaide. Smiling, I relaxed into the passenger seat. No doubt about it, Benjamin Taylor was handy to have around in a tight fix. Even when we were just good mates, in the days before Ben recognized my womanly assets, he’d always been there for me. Now, however, there was an added dimension to his protectiveness.

Could it possibly be love?

Okay, when my urban cowboy came bursting through the doorway to my rescue, he didn’t actually toss me over the pommel of his saddle and gallop off into the sunset—neither did he leave the bad guy flat on his back, battered and bruised and with his butt well and truly kicked—but his timely entrance certainly changed the dynamics in the room. Immediately Bob Germaine’s ugly threats dissolved into cowardly whines. He didn’t even protest when Ben expressed his opinion that a man who felt the need to become physical and threaten a woman was either insecure—or had been inflicted with a puny underdeveloped penis that he couldn’t get up.

It was a long drive home. With a trailer load of dogs hooked on behind the car we probably had three hours driving ahead of us. What’s worse—it had started to rain again. I shivered under my jacket and peered through the car window. This was serious rain. Large bloated drops that sent our windscreen wipers into a frenzy of activity. Overhead, the sky hung like a thick dark curtain and although the middle of the day, Ben switched on the car’s headlights. Leaning forward, I bumped the heater up a notch then settled back in my seat to mull things over in my head.

Okay, what had I really learned from questioning Bob Germaine? Not much. Perhaps I was wrong about him. Perhaps the man’s temper tantrum was more to do with me poking my nose into his computer’s hard drive and discovering his less-than-moral taste in downloads than any involvement in the slow dog scam or my sister’s disappearance.

Ben shifted in the seat beside me. “You
do
realize you need to work on your interview techniques, don’t you?”

Huh? Mouth open, I stared at him. Was my boyfriend psychic? Did he just read my mind?

I narrowed my eyes in his direction and gave a warning sniff. Nah. He was having a go at me. “What do you mean,
Benjamin
?”

Dark eyes dancing wickedly, Ben shot me a quick grin. “Hey…don’t bite my head off, babe. I’m only basing my opinion on the color of Bob Germaine’s face when I interrupted your interview back there.” He cocked his head to one side, frowned and pretended to deliberate the issue. “And of course your victim’s parting words to me—‘control your girlfriend—keep her on a leash—she’s a menace to society’.”

“Bob Germaine is not a
victim
—he’s a
suspect.
”

“Riiight.”

“And his face was red from temper.”

“So your interviewing technique didn’t have anything to do with making him spit the dummy?”

I wriggled in my seat. “Yeah, but—”

“Remember Katrina, I was also with you the day you grilled Big Mick, our dodgy bookmaker friend, at his house. Mick’s face then was exactly the same shade of puce as Bob’s today.”

I scowled at the passing scenery. Other than spinifex grass, prickle bushes and the occasional stunted tree, the never-ending land stretched flat and brown and wet on both sides of the bitumen roadway.

“Excuse me for breathing,” I growled, “but all I did was what any other concerned citizen would do in the same situation.”

“Which is?”

“I asked Bob Germaine if he had anything to do with Liz’s disappearance or the slow dog scam.”

A smile twitched at the corners of Ben’s lips. “Right. And I suppose you were subtle, delicate, restrained, and the ultimate professional in your approach? In other words you didn’t blast him with these questions straight out? Didn’t indicate in any way shape or form that you thought he was up to his eyeballs in skullduggery?”

“Well…”

“I rest my case.”

Damn.
Maybe I did need to brush up on my PI techniques. Maybe I should watch more CSI on TV, read more mysteries and study how Jessica Fletcher, Kinsey Millhone and Nancy Drew approached the art of interrogation. I blew out a sigh of frustration.
Subtle?
Okay, but whenever
I
attempted
subtle
, I didn’t get a direct answer—more like an eye roll.

I blew out another sigh and relaxed my muscles, one by one. Strung out as I was from questioning Scott at the hospital and then the ill-tempered Bob Germaine, I was surprised to find my eye lids growing heavy. The regular drone of the rain on the roof of the car and the swish of wheels on wet bitumen acted like a lullaby and next I knew Ben was shaking my shoulder.

“Come on Sleeping Beauty, wake up. We’re home.”

“Whaaat?” I said and blinked owl-like at the familiar surroundings outside the car window. My graveled driveway—my chocolate box, two-storied house—the sound of excited barking not only from behind my welcoming front door but from the kennel house at the end of the path.

Ben helped me undo my seatbelt and then stood back and watched as I scrambled out of the car and stretched. “Next time we travel together,” he said, straight-faced, “remind me to store a few clothes pegs in the glove box. You snored like an express train all the way home.”