Free Chasing Can Be Murder by June Whyte Page B

around inside my pockets until I found an unfinished Snickers bar.Naturally it had hairs and bits of fluff stuck to it, but Lucky didn’t seem to mind. Racing dogs are rarely allowed chocolate due to its caffeine content, which is probably why Lucky, new to the role of house pet, struggled to break free from Jake and explore my pockets for more of the same.
    “Oh, and Jake, if you get time, ice Flynn’s track leg. He can get a bit wimpy when he sees the icepack, but play his favorite Jimmy Barnes CD, Shout! and he’ll stand for hours, no worries. Okay?”
    “Roger and out, boss lady!”
    Throwing a wet towel at Jake’s head, I settled Lofty into his kennel with a bowl of milk, glucose and a dehydration mix.
    Then flicked my magic cape and changed into Kat McKinley, Private Investigator.

9
    I parked my station wagon behind a cluster of thick bushes twenty meters up from Peter’s tire warehouse. Noone in sight—all clear and ready to proceed. Tanya had taken a couple of hours off work to cover the first shift while I collected Lofty. And figuring Peter would recognize our personal vehicles, our surveillance car was an ancient Holden Kingswood belonging to Ben’s dad.
    “Seen anything suspicious?”
    Tanya jerked forward as though stung by a bee. Coffee sloshed from her open thermos onto her miniscule French Connection skirt. “Oh, geez…it’s you Kat,” she gasped, winding the window down. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
    “Of course it’s me. Who were you expecting, Jack the Ripper?”
    “Not funny. There’s a killer on the loose and we haven’t a clue who he is.”
    “Any movement from Peter?”
    “The only thing moving near that warehouse is the sign out the front and that’s only because the wind’s blowing. I don’t know how Peter makes his money, but he sure doesn’t make it selling tires.”
    “Perhaps the tires are a cover for something else.”
    “Like what?”
    “Well, derr,” I said, sounding exactly like Devil’s Spawn , “that’s what we’re here to find out.”
    We quickly swapped cars, Tanya grumbling because although late for work she now had to go home and change her skirt.
    “Why bother?” I said, burying a grin. “Just take the skirt off and wrap your scarf around your waist. No one will know the difference.”
    “Hilarious.” Her glare could have burnt holes in steel.
    After Tanya drove off in my car, I shifted Mr. Taylor’s Kingswood further along the road and parked behind a sprawling bottlebrush. Being such a distinctive old heap, a passerby might get suspicious if the car stood in the same spot for too long.
    From my new vantage point, I had a clear view of the front of the warehouse, but felt confident no one inside the building could see me. Satisfied, I started poking around the car’s dashboard. Fair dinkum…it was out of the Ark. No CD player, no tape deck, no demister, no air-con and for some unknown reason, no windscreen wipers. I also discovered, very quickly, that there were more wire springs in the driver’s seat than stuffing.
    I wriggled my rear end until I found a more comfortable position. Things had been turning over at a mighty fast clip over the last twenty-four hours. There’d been no time to get my thoughts under control. Especially with the police overrunning the house, firing questions, taking my fingerprints, subjecting me to narrow-eyed suspicious looks.
    I sighed. Twiddled the thick plastic wrapping on the end of the broken gear stick. I hadn’t even had time to grieve for Matt. Until the killer was behind bars, there’d likely be no real closure. There again, if the killer wasn’t caught soon, my friends could soon be grieving for me.
    Bored, I tipped back in my seat, prepared to spend a couple of hours studying the exciting visual of wheat growing in a nearby paddock. I should be home working on the dogs. This surveillance stuff was a complete waste of time. What on earth did I expect our suspect to do? Run outside waving a