Broom for One More Read online

  She stared at Persnickle again, probably because he was making grunting sounds. “He only does that when he’s scared,” I told her. “I inherited him from my uncle only recently.”

  She looked at me with renewed interest. “Oh yes, I expect Peter Proteus was your uncle? We’ve had this wombat in before. He doesn’t like vets much.”

  “So is eating a shoe dangerous?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “No, I’m sure he’ll be fine. He didn’t choke on it, obviously, so just keep an eye on him and bring him back if he seems off-colour or goes off his food.”

  I wondered if she would send me a bill. “Is there another vet in town?” I asked her, and to my dismay, she burst into hysterical sobs.

  “No,” she managed to say between her sobs. “Chase was the only vet in East Bucklebury.” She blew her nose so loudly that Persnickle jumped.

  “Do you think I need to take him to another vet?” I asked her.

  She shook her head. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. Like I said, I don’t think you have anything to worry about, just don’t let him eat any more shoes.”

  “I didn’t actually let him eat that one,” I muttered. “Can I get you a glass of water or anything?”

  “No, it’s just a terrible shock.” She was going to say more, but we heard the police sirens. “That didn’t take them long,” she added.

  She crossed to open the clinic door wide and wedged a piece of wood under it. Two uniformed officers presently walked into the room, followed by two detectives. I recognised them as Detective John Walters and Detective Rick Power who had wrongfully arrested my friend, Oleander, after the recent murder of the residence manager of the local retirement home.

  They marched straight over to us. “Names?” Power snapped.

  “Georgia Garrison. I’m a vet nurse here.” Georgia’s voice broke.

  The detective turned to me.

  “Goldie Bloom. I brought my wombat here to see the vet.” As soon as I said it, I thought it a silly thing to say. Why else would I be in a vet’s waiting room, clutching a wombat on a leash?

  Both detectives stared at me. “I know you from somewhere,” Detective Power said.

  I nodded. “Yes, I’m friends with Oleander Blanch and Athanasius Chadwicke-Pryor from the local retirement home.”

  Power glared at me. “Oh yes, I remember you! But didn’t you have red hair? Your hair wasn’t long, straight, and black, that’s for sure.”

  I was horribly embarrassed. “This is a wig,” I said.

  One of the uniformed officers stuck his head around the door and summoned him. “Wait here,” Power snapped.

  When the detectives returned, Detective Power addressed us again. “Do you have any idea why Dr Evans would take his own life?”

  Georgia jumped. “Take his own life? Of course he didn’t take his own life. That’s ridiculous!”

  Power looked at me. “And what’s your opinion on the matter?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t have an opinion. I’d never met him,” I said. “The first time I saw him was when I found him like that.”

  Power narrowed his eyes. “I’m going to ask you both to come down to the station to give your witness statements, but for now, I need you both to tell me what happened. Which one of you actually discovered the body?”

  Georgia winced. She pointed to me. “She found him.” There was more than a little accusation in her tone.

  Once more, I explained the events of earlier. “My wombat ate a running shoe, so I brought him down to the vet clinic to be checked over just in case it was going to make him sick. When I got here, no one was here. I called out and then I saw that the door there”—I pointed to the end of the corridor—“was slightly open. I walked in and saw a leg sticking out from behind the desk, so I hurried over to look and just as I did, Georgia came in.”

  Power stared at Georgia. “Do you two know each other?”

  Georgia shook her head. “I only met her. Just then.”

  The detective looked her up and down. “What’s your version of events?”

  “We didn’t have any appointments until later in the afternoon, so I popped into town. When I got back, I found this woman looking at Chase. He was lying on the ground.”

  Power turned his attention back to me. “Did you make an appointment to see the vet?”

  I shook my head. “No, it had just happened and I thought it might be an emergency, so I drove straight here to see if they could fit me in.”

  His brows knit together. “And why did you see fit to wear a disguise?”

  I was flabbergasted. “A disguise?” I repeated.

  “That long, black wig.” He jabbed one finger in my direction.

  “I damaged my hair with electric rollers,” I admitted.

  “Show me.”

  “Excuse me?” I said angrily. “You want me to take off my wig?”

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t want to take off my wig and show them my damaged hair, but I did as he asked, albeit reluctantly. I dislodged it and then put it back on quite quickly.

  “It does look damaged,” Power said to Detective Walters, who was doing his best to stifle a laugh. To me, Power said, “So that’s your reason for wearing a disguise?”

  “It’s not a disguise!” I snapped at him. “If I was coming here in disguise, why would I bring my wombat? I’m the only person in town who has a wombat on a leash and everyone would know it was me. That’s extremely obvious, I would think.” I shot him my most withering glare as I said it.

  Power appeared unperturbed. He waved one hand at me in dismissal and then walked back into the room where the body was.

  Georgia and I did not speak. I wondered why the detective seemed to think the vet had been murdered when at first he said it was suicide. I hadn’t seen a note, but then again, I hadn’t been looking.

  Chapter 3

  A uniformed officer approached us. “I’m going to perform a gunshot residue test,” he said, pulling strips of paper from a container. “Do either of you have any objections?”

  “No,” both Georgia and I said in unison.

  The officer stuck bits of thin paper or tape—I couldn’t quite tell—over my hands and my clothes and then did the same to Georgia.

  “Will this prove we didn’t do it?” she asked the officer.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I’m only collecting the samples. The detectives are the ones on the case.”

  “But Detective Power told us it was suicide,” I said.

  The officer simply nodded.

  “It wasn’t suicide,” Georgia hissed.

  “In that case, he was murdered,” I told her. “That means we’re going to be the main suspects.”

  A look of shock flashed over Georgia’s face. Clearly, that had not occurred to her. As the officer walked away, she called out after him, “How long do those results take?”

  He turned back to her. “About a week.”

  I groaned aloud. Detectives Power and Walters were the ones who had arrested Oleander on decidedly tenuous evidence. Since I was the one to discover the body, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they had me in prison in double-quick time. I had hoped the results would be instant, or at least take no more than twenty-four hours. I pulled out my phone and googled gunshot residue test. The results were overly scientific, not to mention boring, although I came across the transcript of a documentary that said that if someone sprints from the room as soon as they shoot someone, then they will have no gunshot residue on them. I wondered if Georgia had shot the vet.

  “He was obviously a nice man,” I said to her.

  She looked at me, startled. “What? Oh, sorry. Yes, everyone loved him.”

  “Not everyone,” I said. “He was murdered.”

  Georgia gasped. Finally, she said, “I have no idea who would do such a thing.”

  “Hopefully the police won’t suspect you if you have an alibi in town.”

  I raised my eyebrows, hoping she would divulge the information,
but she simply said, “Yes.”

  I wondered how long he had been lying there, so I asked, “How long were you in town?”

  “An hour,” she said. “I was having lunch with friends.”

  “It’s a bit late in the day for lunch, isn’t it?”

  She shot me a look. “I had to work through lunch. We had an emergency.”

  Power marched back into the room. “I need you both to accompany me to the station and give witness statements.”

  “Accompany you?” I repeated. “We can’t drive there independently?”

  He shook his head. “I’d prefer you to come in the police vehicle.”

  “But what about my wombat?” I said plaintively. “Do you want me to take him to the police station, too?”

  Power’s right eye twitched. After a few moments’ silence, he said, “We will follow you back to your house. After you secure the wombat, you will accompany us to the station.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “Sure.”

  I drove home, followed by the police vehicle containing Detective Power and Detective Walters as well as Georgia Garrison. My stomach churned and my palms were sweaty. It sure was hot under that wig. To my dismay, Power followed me to my door. Maybe he thought I was going to stash a gun somewhere. “Does your wombat have the run of your house?” he asked in disbelief.

  “He’s a pet wombat. It’s not against the law or anything, is it?” I added in a sarcastic tone, but then I remembered that coffee was illegal in this town due to an obscure old bylaw, so nothing would surprise me. I wished I had kept my mouth shut.

  Power simply narrowed his eyes and gestured to the car.

  I shook my head. “Just wait a minute. I have to put on the TV to keep him happy while I’m away.”

  I hurried over to the TV and slipped in a DVD of an episode of Starsky and Hutch.

  Persnickle lowered himself into his dog bed, or should I say, his wombat bed, and made a small grunt of pleasure.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” Power muttered to himself as we walked out the door.

  The drive to the police station across the other side of the M1 was long and boring. No one spoke. I felt like a criminal sitting in the back of the police vehicle, and only consoled myself with the fact that Georgia was a fellow suspect. When we reached the police station, Detective Power parked around the back and ushered us in through a back door. I expected to be taken straight to a waiting room, but he all but pushed Georgia into one room with a uniformed officer and then guided me into another room.

  “Sit!” he barked, pointing to a grey, plastic chair. I walked around the old wooden table and sat in the chair.

  “Do you have any objection to us videotaping this session?” he asked me.

  “No,” I said, “but you said it was suicide.”

  “And you think it wasn’t suicide?” he asked me.

  “You are asking questions that you’d only ask if he’d been murdered,” I pointed out, “and Georgia and I were both tested for gunshot residue. If you truly thought it was suicide, then we wouldn’t have been tested for gunshot residue.”

  Power made no reply but simply left the room, leaving me alone. I surveyed my surroundings. The room was a pale shade of mint green, but the rest of the room was not so tasteful. The door and the skirting boards were bright, full gloss, forest green, and the Venetian blinds over what I could only assume was a one-way mirror were tattered and broken in parts. There was no video camera in the room, so I figured that Power had gone to fetch one.

  I wondered if he would offer me coffee, as it was legal everywhere apart from East Bucklebury. Some caffeine certainly wouldn’t go astray, but I was sure I would be offered a glass of tap water. I always drank filtered water because I couldn’t stand the taste of the chlorine in the local tap water.

  Still, drinking ghastly water was the least of my worries. It was clear to me I was a serious suspect in a murder investigation. I’d certainly had a bad day, running down the street chasing runners from the Netherlands in their orange uniforms, and Persnickle tackling the runner and eating his shoe. I sighed. I wondered if the runner would bring a civil case against me. I made a mental note to go to the health resort with a large box of chocolates. Surely anyone at a health resort would be craving chocolates. I smiled to myself, pleased with my plan.

  Power chose that moment to return. “What are you smiling about?” he asked me.

  “It’s wind,” I said, remembering that babies often appear to smile when they had wind. I had no idea where that thought came from, but I went with it.

  Power sat opposite me, while Walters crossed to one side of the room and set up a video recorder on a tripod. I noticed there were no windows, and I was suddenly hit with claustrophobia. It was a humid day, and while the building had air conditioning, none of it seemed to have made its way into this room. I fought the urge to gasp for breath.

  Power and Walters went through the formalities such as instructing me to state my name, age and address, and that I agreed to be videotaped.

  “Now, in your own words, tell us why you’re wearing a disguise,” were Power’s opening words.

  I fought my growing irritation. “I’ve already told you it’s not a disguise,” I said tersely. “Persnickle saw some runners running down the street and they were wearing orange. He hates the colour orange.”

  I could say no more, because Power held up his hand. “For the record, who or what is Persnickle?”

  “Persnickle is my pet wombat,” I said. I silently added, And he’s my familiar. When he’s around, I can see and speak to ghosts. Of course, I couldn’t say that aloud.

  Power waved one hand at me. “Go on.”

  “I was wearing a French Green Clay face mask, and I had heated rollers in my hair at the time Persnickle decided to chase the runners,” I explained. “I had to run after them in my bathrobe. In fact, you can ask the Dutch people from the health resort. They were taking photos of me, so you can see for yourself that I had the heated rollers in my hair. Anyway, Persnickle hates orange, apart from carrots of course, so he ate a shoe because it was orange.”

  Power pulled a face as if he had no idea what I was talking about. I decided to press on. “Then I ran home quickly and washed off my face mask, and I was about to take Persnickle to the vet to see if eating the shoe would harm him,” I continued. “My hair was horribly damaged and I didn’t want to be seen in public like that and there was no time to order a wig and I didn’t want to be seen in public buying one.”

  I paused for breath. “I remembered I had gone as Morticia Addams to a fancy dress event in Melbourne, so I stuck the wig on my head.”

  Power and Walters exchanged glances. “Who is this Morticia Addams?” Power asked me.

  “You know, The Addams Family.” I hummed the theme song and clicked my fingers.

  Power put his elbows on the desk and rubbed his forehead. “Did you make an appointment with the vet?” he asked when he looked up again. His face was white and drawn.

  “We’ve been through this already,” I said. “No, because I thought it was an emergency. I wanted to get my wombat straight to the vet.”

  “And what did you see when you reached the vet’s clinic?”

  “There were no other cars. I didn’t even see the vet’s car. The door was open so I went in, but there was no one behind the reception desk, so I waited for a while. Then I thought it was strange no one was around, and I noticed the door open at the end of the corridor. I went in and saw a leg sticking out from behind the desk. I went over and saw that the man had been shot. Just at the very second I saw him, Georgia, the vet nurse, came in.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, Power made me repeat myself over and over again. Finally, he seemed satisfied.

  “And you had never met the vet before?” he asked for the umpteenth time.

  I exhaled slowly. “No, and I’d never even spoken to him. I didn’t even know his name. I didn’t even know he
existed.” My tone was firm.

  “And had you met any of the vet nurses or anyone who works for the clinic?” he asked.

  “No. I only met Georgia when I discovered the body. I’ve never met anyone from the vet clinic and I’ve never been to the vet clinic here in my entire life. I didn’t even know where it was, until I googled it today,” I said with a sigh. I wondered how many more times he was going to ask me that.

  To my relief, he said, “That will be all for now, Ms Bloom. We will need to speak with you again at some point.”

  I jumped to my feet. My butt had gone numb from sitting in the uncomfortable chair for so long. “I’m free to go home?”

  “No. Not quite yet. Detective Walters will escort you to the waiting room, because we might need to speak with you further today. Then again, we might not, in which case I will instruct a uniformed officer to drive you home. For now, I’ll ask you to remain in the waiting room.”

  I pulled a face. I thought my early escape was too good to be true.

  I sat in the waiting room, my stomach growling. I was absolutely starving. I wondered why he didn’t know whether he would need to speak with me again, but I figured it would depend on Georgia’s story. If it matched mine, which of course it should, then I supposed they would let us both go. I figured it was only if they found discrepancies that they would question me again.

  The swinging door on the corridor leading to the detectives’ rooms opened, and Detective Max Greyson walked out. A somewhat irritating man, Max was tall, well-built, and rather handsome. If I had to admit it, I would say I had a little crush on him. Sadly, it did not appear to be reciprocated.

  I was shocked to see him and it appeared this feeling, at least, was mutual. “Goldie! What are you doing here?”

  I quickly filled him in on everything, followed by, “What are you doing here? Aren’t you still on leave?”

  “Yes. I just came to get my favourite stapler.” He waved said stapler at me as he spoke.