Ariana arrived at UCLA before Pen, Rube, and I did. I had volunteered to drive, as Pen was so shaken and Rube was so distracted that they would have been a danger on the roads. Rube knew Oscar's body had been found near one of the university buildings presently being extensively renovated. I'd become familiar enough with the campus to make an educated guess where this might be.
As it happened, we didn't have to search for the site, as the irritating strobing of the emergency lights of several patrol cars and the white glare of spotlights made it obvious. As the death had occurred on campus, UCLA's police force was also involved. I parked quite illegally next to sign that read NO PARKING AT ANY TIME and had scarcely stopped the car before Pen was out and rushing toward the lights. Rube and I caught up with her when she slowed suddenly at the edge of the crowd that had gathered. I was sure I knew why. Pen was imagining, like I was, the horror mat would be waiting for her.
Spectators, mainly students, watched everything with avid eyes. They were clustered outside the scaffolding enclosing a red-brick and sandstone four-story building. They were held back from the action by police tape, which was strung around the floodlit area.
Ariana was just inside the police tape talking with a heavily built man with a world-weary expression. Everything on his face had a downward droop)-his eyelids, his cheeks, his long nose, the corners of his mouth, the flabby jowls that blurred the definition of his jaw.
Ariana gestured for us to join them. The curiosity of the crowd was aroused when we were allowed to duck under the tape. Ariana introduced us to Detective Lark, a name that seemed singularly inappropriate for him. As Lark made a perfunctory statement of sympathy, Pen looked past him and shuddered.
I felt like shuddering too. It wasn't like the movies or TV-Oscar's body hadn't been decently covered. I recalled reading somewhere that contamination of a crime scene often occurred when bodies picked up fibers from the material used to hide them from curious eyes. Oscar lay facedown, his limbs splayed. Around his bushy head a dark stain- surely blood-had seeped into the dry earth.
Pen swayed, and seized Rube's arm for support. Obviously fearing she might collapse, Lark took her other arm and together he and Rube helped her to the nearest patrol car.
"Pen shouldn't have seen that," I said.
"Could you have stopped her from coming here?"
I shook my head. "Of course not."
Ariana looked grim. "As next of kin, she'll be asked to identify the body anyway."
I had the unreal feeling I was a character in a script in a TV crime show and that any moment the director would yell, "Cut!"
I said, just as my TV character would, "What happened?"
Indicating the scaffolding looming above us, Ariana said, "It appears Oscar fell from somewhere up there."
I could see figures on the roof silhouetted by the flashlights they were using. "What could Oscar possibly be doing on a building site?"
Ariana shrugged. "As a cop, I found people do the strangest things," she said. "Without a thought of personal danger, they get themselves into hazardous situations. Sometimes it's fatal."
My gaze was drawn magnetically to Oscar's body. If he would only get up, and laugh, and say, "I fooled you, didn't I?" But he would never shake that shaggy head again or exclaim, "Bloody Yarrow!"
"Ariana, are you saying this is just a stupid accident?"
"It's much too early to come to any firm conclusion, but I get the impression Ted Lark is leaning that way."
"You know Detective Lark?"
"Very well. We worked together several times when I was on the force."
I looked over to the patrol car. Rube and Pen were in the backseat, and Detective Lark was leaning through the open door, talking to them. "Something happened tonight that maybe he should know. Pens stalker called the program and said she'd be getting a lethal message."
My skin tingled as Ariana touched my arm. "Can you tell me exactly what he said?"
I repeated the call as best I could remember. "It's recorded, of course."
"I'll tell Ted."
As she went to walk over to the patrol car, I said, "Isn't the question to ask whose advantage it is that Oscar's dead?"
Ariana turned back to me. "You're thinking Jack Yarrow? You see the eminent professor luring Oscar to the top of this building, men shoving him over?"
"Well, yes," I said. "I can, actually."
I didn't get upset until I was back home at Kendall & Creeling. It was almost dawn, and I felt as though I hadn't slept for days. Julia Roberts was my undoing. If only she hadn't purred the moment she saw me. I swept her up in my arms and buried my face in her fur. "Oscar Braithwaite's dead," I told her. Then the tears came.
"I don't know why I'm crying," I sniffled to Jules, who was being remarkably good about the whole thing. "It's not mat I knew him well, but Oscar was my client. And he died in a horrible way."
A vivid picture of Oscar's sprawled body kept appearing in my mind. How long would it take to fall four stories? Only a second or two. Did Oscar have time to realize he was about to die, or be terribly injured? Were his last thoughts for himself, or did he think of his sister?
I'd stuck around and finally driven Pen home while Ariana drove Rube to the radio station to collect Pen's car. Pen had been beside herself with grief. It was somehow shocking to see someone usually full of bold life now so distraught. I'd stayed with her until Rube arrived, feeling totally inadequate. What could I say to comfort her? Not a thing. For want of anything else to do, I'd made her a cup of tea.
I squeezed Jules a little tighter. "Poor Pen," I said to her. "Can you even imagine how she feels?"
Jules yawned. Empathy wasn't her strong suit.
When she struggled politely, I put her down. After Jules had groomed her wet fur into a semblance of order, and I'd managed to pull myself together, and was contemplating a hot shower before I fell into bed, Ariana called.
"That was rough," she said. "Are you OK?"
Tears immediately filled my eyes. "I was until you asked me."
"Are you up to seeing her later today?"
Pen had demanded a meeting this afternoon, insisting that both Ariana and I attend. Rube had said he'd come too. We'd established we'd meet at three o'clock here at Kendall & Creeling.
"I think so." I blinked rapidly. "Sorry to be such a sook."
"Oh, Kylie, don't be so hard on yourself."
There was such warmth in her voice, I said, "Stop it!"
"What?" She sounded startled.
"Don't be so nice to me. It'll make me cry more."
A soft chuckle came down the line. "I'll try to be harsh," she said. "But it'll be difficult."
"I want you to stay on the case, Kylie." Pen Braithwaite was adamant. "Oscar would have expected it. Nail Jack Yarrow as a plagiarist…" She paused, then added, "Or worse."
As it was Sunday, and much quieter than usual in my office, all I could hear of the outside world was a distant siren and the soft rumble of traffic on Sunset Boulevard. Pen, Rube, and I sat around the coffee table I'd recently purloined from Lonnie's office, where it'd been buried under a blizzard of files and papers.
I had the errant thought of how nice it would be to do what I'd originally scheduled for myself-spend the afternoon planting Australian-native bushes in the backyard. I'd only had time to give them a quick watering, so they'd have to survive in their pots another week.
Ariana leaned forward in her chair. "You believe Professor Yarrow had something to do with your brother's death?"
She was casually dressed in what looked like the same well-worn blue jeans she'd been wearing on Friday night. I felt a totally unseemly tug of desire.
Pen, her face gray with strain, said quietly, "I'm sure he's responsible. Yarrow's home free as far as the symposium is concerned. He'll get up in front of his peers and triumph with an address based on Oscar's findings and claim the research as his own. There'll be no one mere to contradict him."
"I'll contradict him," declared Rube stoutly.
Pen patted his hand. "You're such a love to say that, but you know as well as I do that we need hard evidence." She turned to me. "Evidence that Kylie's going to obtain this coming week."
"It would help if I knew what the quokka question was," I said.
"I've no idea," said Pen. She looked at Rube. "Did Oscar confide in you.”
"Not a word."
Crikey, this was no help. "Maybe Erin Fogarty knows," I said. "She worked with Oscar in the field, so she should have a fair idea what was going on."
Pen's expression became bleak. "Erin Fogarty," she said, "broke Oscar's heart. He never got over it."
Rube was surprised. "Why, I saw them talking together on Friday. They seemed on very good terms."
"Where and when was this?" Pen demanded.
"I don't know…I think around four-thirty, when I was leaving. I was walking to my car in the parking structure when I came upon Oscar and Erin, heads together, very lovey-dovey. I didn't like to interrupt, so I pretended I hadn't seen them, got into my car, and left."
Fixing me with a hard stare, Pen said, "You're friendly with this young woman?"
"Working on it."
"Work harder. She's the key. I'm sure of it."
Ariana said, "If this is a murder case-"
"If? If!" Some of Pen's usual spirit showed in her flashing eyes. "Of course Oscar was murdered. I've held back from saying this because I know the investigation's just beginning, but I know in my heart it's true-the same way I know Yarrow had something to do with it."
"What about your stalker?" Rube said. "You know Oscar swore he was going to track him down and beat him to a pulp. And that call last night to your program was a thinly veiled threat. What if he meant the message was Oscar's death?"
I'd had this thought myself, so I waited with interest to see how Pen responded.
"It was so like Oscar to want to protect me." Her lips trembled. "And I laughed at him on Saturday morning when he said he had a lead about my stalker." A tear ran down her cheek. "I hurt his feelings. The last thing he said was that he'd show me."
I could see Pen was about to drop her bundle, so to divert her I said, "Have you opened the envelope?"
"Envelope?"
"Your brother gave us an envelope to be opened if something happened to him," said Ariana. "He said he was giving you an identical one.
"I think I shoved it in a drawer somewhere," said Pen vaguely. "I didn't take him seriously." Her face crumpled.
Rube, obviously seeing she was about to break down, stood up. Taking her arm, he said, "Come on, honey. Let's take you home."
It was an indication of Pen's misery that she didn't protest but meekly allowed herself to be led away.
I saw them out and came back to find Ariana had retrieved Oscar's creased white envelope from the safe.
"Let's have a cuppa," I said, "and we can open it then."
The kitchen was one of my favorite rooms because Ariana had first kissed me there. I couldn't help thinking about that kiss as I watched Ariana's slim fingers opening the envelope.
As I made the tea, she spread the contents out on the kitchen counter. After I'd poured us each a cup of tea-I wondered if Ariana actually liked it, or was just being polite-we examined the material Oscar had thought important enough to include in his after-death missive.
There was a photocopy of a handwritten will, leaving everything to his sister, Penelope Braithwaite. Across the top he had written "Pen has the original."
Several stapled pages were headed "Australian Megafauna." Another set of pages appeared to be an extract of research by someone named Diana Niptucker, Ph.D. The final item was a handwritten letter signed by Oscar Braithwaite.
Ariana read it aloud: "To whom it may concern. If you are reading this, then Jack Yarrow has had me killed. I won't mince words. To put it in laymen's terms, Yarrow has stolen my groundbreaking research on the relationship between contemporary quokkas and their extinct megafauna marsupial ancestors of the early Pleistocene epoch. In order to pass off my discoveries as his own, Yarrow is likely to find it necessary to eliminate the one person who can prove him a fraud, namely myself, Oscar Braithwaite, Ph.D. I repeat, if I am found dead, even in circumstances that make it seem an accident, Jack Yarrow will be responsible. Throughout his career he has stopped at nothing to inflate his reputation, no matter what the cost to others. In my case it may be my life. It is my hope, of course, that no one ever has to read this. Oscar Braithwaite."
"Detective Lark will be interested to see this letter," I said.
"It doesn't prove anything " said Ariana. "He hated Yarrow, so these accusations aren't necessarily well-founded."
"Blimey," I said, "what if Oscar committed suicide, knowing this letter had deliberately set up his great rival, Jack Yarrow?"
"You certainly have a devious mind," Ariana remarked, amused. "I was thinking, rather, that Oscar Braithwaite's death really was an accident, but this letter exists to unfairly implicate his great rival, Professor Yarrow."
"When will we have the results of the postmortem?"
"The autopsy? The week after next, if we're lucky."
" 'Strewth," I said, "that long? Can't you hurry it along?"
"Do you have an idea how many autopsies are performed by the Coroner's Office in Los Angeles every week?"
"A lot?"
"And then some."
I gathered up the stapled sheets. "You take the letter for Detective Lark. I'll read through this other stuff and see if I can make any sense of it."
Ariana stood up, stretched, then covered a yawn with her hand. "We both need an early night," she said.
I just looked at her.
I never seen her blush before. "No, Kylie," she said. "No."
"Why not?"
She didn't meet my eyes. "We have to talk but not now."
"I'm not going to play detective," I said. "I'll wait for you to tell me what it is that makes it so impossible for us to-"
Actions speak louder than words, my mum always said. I took Ariana in my arms and kissed her. For a moment she responded, then she pushed me away. "This isn't going to work."
I didn't say anything as she prepared to leave. At the front door she paused. "The last thing I want to do is hurt you."
"Then don't."
She shook her head. "You make it sound so easy. And it isn't."
I stood there for a long time after she had gently closed the door behind her.