G'Day to Die Read Online Free PDF

out of it with her cane while the rest of us hightail it to the bus.”
    Nods. Smiles. Grunts of approval. In the next half second Tilly got body-passed from the back to the front, and everyone bunched up in line behind her.
    “Are you okay with this setup, Tilly?” I asked skeptically.
    She stood pencil straight in her madras skirt and visor, looking stern and professorial. “I’ve faced giant dung beetles in Africa and black flies in Maine. I should be able to handle this.” She rapped her walking stick on the floor. “Come along, people! Look lively, or you’ll be using your opposable thumbs to get back to Melbourne.”
    They scuffed across the floor in a solid clump, as if they’d been Super-Glued. “Hey, we still have a vote pending about whether we’re going home. Can I see a show of hands?” Osmond yelled, as they squeezed through the door.
    I whipped out my camera and got off a shot, grinning, as they shuffled across the pavement in caterpillar formation. I could see the caption under the photo in my travel newsletter: TOGETHERNESS, AUSTRALIAN STYLE . I snapped another for good measure, suddenly reminded of what Peter Blunt had said.
    He’d implied that tourists use up all their film shooting pictures of the Shipwreck Coast. But Claire told me she always cut off the heads of her subjects, so she didn’t even own a camera. So if she hadn’t gone back out into the heat to take pictures, why had she gone out?

Chapter 3
    I took an instant liking to Melbourne with its grandiose Victorian buildings, modern high-rises, and colorful electric trams. Back in the 1850s some guy with a lot of vision drew a blueprint for the city, so streets are laid out in an orderly grid that has “Iowa Highway System” written all over it. Even people without maps can’t get lost.
    Unlike Iowa, however, Melbourne leans toward the eclectic. For instance, our hotel was located on a quiet side street around the corner from an imposing stone government building, a five-star Pan-Asian restaurant, and a boutique with a tasteful display of whips, chains, and leather bras studded with metal spikes. Iowans are more discreet about specialty boutiques like this. They prefer them to be located in places that are more off the beaten path. Like…LA.
    We’d made it back from Port Campbell with an hour to spare before our “Meet and Greet,” so after showering and restyling my hair, I zipped myself into a strapless black number with a peekaboo cutout in the back, slipped into stiletto slides, grabbed my shoulder bag, and rode the elevator to the lounge on the top floor.
    The glass-enclosed room afforded dazzling bird’s-eye views of Melbourne’s darkening skyline and city lights. Henry sloshed punch into glasses at a buffet table, whistling slightly off-key to a tune that was being piped in over the stereo system. “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”? Hmm. Was it odd that we were in Australia’s cultural epicenter, listening to America’s greatest hits of World War II?
    I took quick visual inventory, surprised when I found none of my crew in the conversational groupings scattered throughout the room. I tried to ignore a frisson of worry. Five minutes ’til showtime; they should be here by now. I hoped they weren’t all cowering in their rooms, too scared to go out, or…or stockpiling bug killer. That stuff could blow like a grenade if exposed to extreme heat, and not to put too fine a point on it, but it was poison!
    “Are you Emily?” asked a man who spoke with a hint of a foreign accent. “Conrad Carver,” he said, shaking my hand. “I heard your name being called out at the Port Campbell visitor center. Did the coroner give you any idea what might have happened to the Bellows woman?”
    I suspected the reason Conrad Carver looked familiar was because he had Albert Einstein’s hair and mustache. He was short and slightly built, with a unibrow that looked like a happy victim of Miracle-Gro. “He couldn’t tell me a thing, other