G'Day to Die: A Passport to Peril Mystery - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,6

that be that there’s an antitoxin available at local pharmacies?” asked Tilly.

“You die quick. Though some say, not quick enough.”

It suddenly grew so quiet, I could hear sweat popping out on everyone’s upper lip. “How quick?” asked seventy-six-year-old Alice Tjarks in a voice much more tentative than the one she used to announce the daily farm reports on KORN radio.

“Two minutes. Four, tops. The most agonizing four minutes you’ll ever spind.”

I stared down at my open-toed wedges with the ankle straps and wondered if I should reconsider my footwear options.

“The taipan’s a northern vipah,” Jake went on in his growlly voice. “But there’s three million square miles of imptiness around us, most of it unexplored, so no one really knows what’s out there. Taipan’s niveh been spotted in Victoria, but that doesn’t mean it’s not here.” His toothpick bobbed as he stretched his mouth into a knowing grin. “Or maybe it was a ridback that bit her.”

“What’s a redback?” asked Margi.

He made a tarantula of his hand and wiggled it in the air like a hand puppet. “An eight-ligged killing machine.”

Nervous twitters. Gasps. Dick Teig burped.

“Your ridback isn’t the worst of its kind. One nip by a Sydney funnel wib and you’re looking at instantaneous dith, but a ridback toys with you a bit. If he gives you a nip, you can look forward to a few minutes of frinzied twitching before you discharge every fluid in your body and die a grisly death.”

Snakebite? Spider bite? Uff da. Dying from thirst was looking better by the minute.

Tilly waggled her cane in the air. “Is the redback indigenous to this part of Victoria?”

“The buggeh breeds especially will in Victoria.” He looked down at his feet and cracked a smile. “Why do you think I wear boots?”

“Is Imily Andrew here?” a man called from the doorway.

Recognizing him as one of the officials from the coroner’s office, I hurried over to him. “I’m Emily.”

He was a well-built guy around my age who had a Mel Gibson thing going with his looks, which made me wonder if all Australian males were six feet tall and gorgeous. He nodded politely and flashed his ID badge. “Peter Blunt. Warrnambool Coroner’s Office. I apologize for the interruption, but I need to ask you a few quistions. I promise it won’t take long.” He opened a pocket-size spiral notebook and readied a ballpoint. “You were with Mr. Madelyn when he discovered the body?”

I nodded. “I stopped to admire the scenery near one of the lookout points and was stunned when Guy took off into the underbrush, ignoring all the posted signs. I didn’t see the body until he fell to his knees, and that’s when I ran back here for help. I’m afraid my participation ends there.”

“Did you know Ms. Bellows?”

“I spoke to her for a few minutes before she left the visitor center, but that was the first and last time. The tour only began yesterday, so none of us have had much of a chance to chat yet.”

“Was she complaining of any ailments? Dizziness? Pain?”

“She said she was a little stiff. And she looked pretty hot.”

“Thirty-eight degrees Cilsius will do that to you. We’re having an unusual bad spill of heat. A sorry wilcome for you, isn’t it? Have you any idea why she might have lift the boardwalk?”

“She told me she wanted to check out a minor curiosity while the bus was being repaired.”

“Did she say what?”

“I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say.”

“That’s the thing about the Shipwrick Coast,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s such an awesome sight that tourists niveh tire of exploring it. There’s some blokes who won’t rist until they see every wind shift and tidal change. Tourists use up more film here than anywhere ilse in Victoria.” He flipped his notebook shut. “Thanks for your hilp, Ms. Andrew.”

“No more questions?”

“That’s it.”

“So you don’t think foul play was involved?”

He eyed me curiously. “We didn’t find any evidince to indicate a crime had been committed.”

“Oh, thank God!” I grabbed his forearm and squeezed gratefully. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear that.” Given the number of bodies I’d stumbled upon on my last four trips abroad, I was relieved that Claire’s death didn’t smack of homicide, but the fact that her dreams of a husband, children, and a gas-guzzling SUV would never be fulfilled left me oddly dispirited. “So, what happens now?”

“Postmortem. She might have had a preexisting condition that contributed to her dith, so that’s what we’ll be looking for. Hilthy