G'Day to Die: A Passport to Peril Mystery - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,82
out pulp all day. Who’s got floss?”
We’d moved Nana’s laptop to make room for the food, and I was happy not to have to look at it anymore. The Google Earth download had been useless. The program finally transferred, but when we typed in Roger’s coordinates, the image it relayed showed Port Campbell National Park as it had appeared three months ago! Remote areas of distant continents apparently got no respect when it came to live satellite feeds.
“I’m offering a toast,” Henry said, raising his juice glass. “May the nixt lig of our tour be nothing like the first lig.”
A resounding, “Hear, hear!” echoed through the room.
Conrad gave Nana a sheepish look as he clinked glasses with her. “I’ve received terrible news this morning, Marion. The disappointment might be too much for you, so you might want to sit down.”
She glanced around the room. “No place to sit. How ’bout I just lean.” She braced her hip against the desk. “Okay, shoot.”
“I talked to the zoological team looking for the desert rat kangaroo a short time ago, and they affirmed my worst fear. They can find neither the creature nor any evidence of its habitat at Sovereign Hill. Wherever he was when you photographed him, he’s not there any longer.”
“So I’m not gonna be famous?”
“I’m sorry, Marion. I’m afraid not.”
“Good thing I didn’t waste no money on a cut and blow-dry, then.”
“Tell her the rest of the story,” Ellie insisted. “Tell her what you’re going to do about it.”
Conrad’s mustache wiggled at the edges. “It’s because of you that I’m staying in Australia, Marion, if I can iron out the paperwork. I’ve been offered a position by Melbourne’s Museum of Victoria to help classify the backlog of unnamed plant specimens they’ve collected through the years. They can use someone with my professional stature and knowledge on staff, and with luck, perhaps I’ll find another sample of the angiosperm we lost at Port Campbell. I still believe your plant is out there, Marion. I’ll never give up.”
“Don’t lose no sleep over it.”
Ellie cuddled up to her husband, their differences apparently forgotten. “And the best part is, free housing and a nice income. And from now on, I’m handling the finances.”
Nana slipped her a business card.
“What’s this?”
“My email address. Drop me a line if you need investment advice. I got the inside scoop on what’s hot.”
“Have you learned any more information about Diana Squires?” Duncan called out to Henry.
“Ah! That’s right. I haven’t gotten you up to speed. Some of you may have noticed that Ms. Squires was taken away by the authorities yisterday. I talked to the main office this morning and from what they’ve learned, she’s been arristed for stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down from her hotel room in Milbourne. Towels. Sheets. Ashtrays. Blankets. Even the phone.”
“What’s so bad about that?” asked Bernice. “Everyone steals things from hotel rooms. It’s expected.”
“Not anymore,” argued Henry. “At least, not in Milbourne. The hotels have agreed to priss charges aginst violators to stop the financial bleeding. The loss of property is tremendous, so they’ve declared war.”
“How’d she fit all those extras in her luggage?” Dick Teig threw out.
“She didn’t pack thim,” Henry said, laughing. “She mailed thim! All the way to America. It cost her more to mail the box than the merchandise was worth.”
I glanced at Duncan, whose crimson neck probably indicated how he felt about his unintended part in helping her mail the contraband.
“But that wasn’t the worst of it,” Henry continued. “David Jones Department Store wants her for shop-lifting, as does the gift shop at the wildlife park in Ballarat. They have surveillance video of her in the act, but they couldn’t idintify her because her face was blurred in every frame. The authorities are theorizing that her makeup contains a compound that blocks a camera’s ability to capture clear visual images. Kind of like lid with an X-ray. Quite the ruse. I bit you can’t buy that at the Estee Lauder counter. I thought she was trying to cover up acne scars with the heavy makeup, but what she was really trying to cover up was a life of crime.”
The backpack made sense now. No wonder she’d bought the expandable model. Over a two-week period, she was expecting to fit a lot in there besides lipstick and blush.
“What about Guy?” asked Tilly. “What’s happened to him?”
“He spint the night on Kangaroo Island, but he’ll be brought back to Adelaide today for procissing. His arrist is going to make