Dead Men Don't Order Flake

Sue Williams is a science and travel writer and a chartered accountant who also holds a PhD in marine biology. She lives in Melbourne with her husband. Her first Cass Tuplin / Rusty Bore mystery,
Murder with the Lot
, is also published by Text.

https://sueiwilliams.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @suewill999

Facebook: Sue Williams

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The Text Publishing Company

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Copyright © 2016 by Sue Williams

The moral right of Sue Williams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

First published in 2016 by The Text Publishing Company

Cover design by WH Chong

Page design by Text

Typeset by J&M Typesetting

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry : (paperback)

Creator: Williams, Sue I., author.

Title: Dead men don't order flake / by Sue Williams.

ISBN: 9781925240948 (paperback)

ISBN: 9781922253569 (ebook)

Subjects: Detective and mystery stories.

Dewey Number: A823.4

For Ross

1

Dead men don't order flake. But that's exactly what Leo Stone asked for the April afternoon he strolled in, his gladiator shoulders filling up my shop doorway. A blast of cold wind whirled in behind him, slapping the fly strips against the wall.

‘Leo?' I grabbed the glass counter for support.

He closed the door; the bell jangled. He stamped the red-brown dirt from his boots onto my mat and sauntered over, doing a damn good impression of a fella categorically alive. Leo's skin was smooth and tanned; he hadn't lost any of the blond superhero hair either.

I stood there in gobsmacked silence. Twenty-odd years ago we had a top-notch memorial service for Leo. Every one of Rusty Bore's hundred and forty-seven residents made it. The church was full of the sound of stifled sobs by the time Ernie got up to do the eulogy.

I let go of the counter and ran a shaky hand across my
forehead, then touched the counter again. Normal cold glass: it felt reassuring.

‘Been a while, hey, Cass.' Leo gave me a long look.

His voice was low and husky. He certainly didn't sound dead. And there was nothing dead about the way he made me feel.

He shot me his killer smile. ‘But you haven't changed a bit.'

Not entirely accurate: only a thousand years of extra smile lines, two adult sons, supplementary stretch marks. But he looked as though he meant it.

He put a hand onto my counter, about a centimetre from mine. A very warm hand for a dead bloke. And a hand I wouldn't have minded having nearer.

I stepped away quickly; busied myself tidying my precision-stacked pile of white paper.

‘Any chance of a piece of flake? And some of your chips? I bet they're still the best in the world.'

I'll admit I pride myself on quality chips: crisp on the outside, fluffy in the middle. I scooped up a generous quantity plus a piece of fish and put them in a basket. My hands were unsteady as I dropped the basket into the bubbling oil, but I managed all right. Comfort food's been in my family for generations.

I stood there staring at the vat a moment, trying to get my brain cells reorganised. There was never any actual confirmation of Leo's death: no body, obviously. But we all knew he was on that woman's yacht. Showbag checked it all out.

A thousand questions bubbled up as I stared into the oil. First, obviously, where have you been and why didn't you contact anyone? I don't mean me, of course, not given
everything that happened or, to be more precise, didn't happen between us. But couldn't you have given someone, anyone, a lousy little phone call?

I turned back to face him. ‘So. How you been, anyway?' My voice didn't sound right. I cleared my throat.

He shrugged.

‘You seen anyone in town yet? It's just, err, one or two people thought you might have…'

‘Died. Yeah, I heard.' A laugh.

Leo's laugh. I'd forgotten what it felt like to hear that.

‘The rumour mill never stops, does it? And what's this I hear about an inscription for me on my folks' gravestone? Crazy, huh?'

It had been my job to come up with the heartfelt wording for that inscription. It hadn't been hard to be heartfelt.

I turned away quickly. Shook his order in the oil. Stared ahead, blinking fast.

‘Serena reckons it was the best thing I ever did, getting out of this joint. Although…'

Serena?

‘I've missed you, Cassie.' The husk in his voice went up a notch.

I carefully avoided turning around; it was really better if I didn't look at him.

‘Did a heap of travel though. Been all over. DRC mostly.'

‘DRC? And that is…?'

‘Democratic Republic of the Congo.'

‘Right. Doing what?' Knowing him, it probably involved something glamorous. I wondered for a moment if glamour was feasible in the Congo.

A sudden memory of Leo, at that doomed function
years ago at the Hustle Golf Club. In his James-Bond-suave dinner suit, surrounded by frocked-up women fluttering long champagne flutes and longer eyelashes. Leo always had a gathering of women.

Strictly speaking, I wasn't at that do in a Leo-surrounding capacity: I was serving platters of upscale finger food. He'd brushed my hand as he took a caviar-smeared square of toast; flashed me a secret smile.

Leo strolled over to my shop fridge to examine the drink selection, busy ignoring my query about his Congolese activities. He opened the fridge door and took out a can of Solo, wandered back and put it on the counter.

‘What were you up to over there?' I said, and then regretted it. No doubt he'd be getting the full interrogation from everyone. Rusty Bore's inhabitants might have convinced themselves that I'm their personal private eye, but they all ask a lot more nosy questions than I ever could.

And frankly, if I'd just returned from the dead, Rusty Bore would be the last place I'd be headed for. I'd be on an unstoppable quest for freedom. Around here, freedom's a commodity in short supply, with everyone's nonstop scrutiny of your business.

‘Oh, I did a bit of this and that. Worked with Médecins Sans Frontières mostly. You should have come over, Cass. Looked me up.' A lopsided smile.

‘Hah. How exactly would I have done that?' Since you, Leo, were apparently dead and some of us were doing our best to get over it. I turned, shook his order back and forth in the oil with more force than was strictly needed.

‘I should have kept in touch. You know, I thought about you. A lot.' His voice softened. ‘Sorry to hear about Piero.
You been OK here, on your own?'

I hooked up his fish and chips to drain. How I'd been since Piero died wasn't any of Leo's business, not these days.

I turned and faced him. ‘You're never actually on your own in Rusty Bore. You forgotten that?'

I haven't studied it scientifically, but I'd say there's roughly zero chance you could die at home alone in this town and get eaten by your Alsatian. There'd be fifty people tramping through looking for you before the Alsatian had a chance to get in its first bite.

‘So how long you back for?' I said.

‘Depends.' His blue-green eyes darkened.

I didn't ask what on; just wrapped up his order in crisp white paper.

‘Anyway,' he said, ‘got my own business these days.'

‘Right.'

‘With Serena. Yeah, met Serena in Kinshasa.'

None of my business who Leo met and where, but for some reason I froze for a moment.

‘And I've found a place not far from Hustle. We should catch up some time.'

‘Uh huh.' Over my Alsatian-ravaged body. ‘That'll be nine-fifty.' I held out his parcel.

He rummaged around in his wallet and held out the cash. Leaned across the counter, his white T-shirt stretched tight across those shoulders.

‘Cass, you know, I can't quite believe you're still here. I thought you'd have escaped this town by now.' He smiled, the Congo-sun Serena-kissed lines around his eyes crinkling. ‘I figured you'd be off travelling, finally getting on with your life, properly.' He paused. ‘You gotta grab life
by the throat, you know. No point in allowing yourself to moulder into the ground.'

Yeah, thanks. It was true my life wasn't powering through its most vibrant phase at that moment: serving takeaway and a weekly visit to see Ernie in the retirement home pretty much summed up the Cass Tuplin action highlights.

But life advice from Leo Stone? At least I knew enough to pick up a phone and let people know when I wasn't dead.

Leo left with his white paper parcel and I spent a few minutes wiping down my spotless counter. There's nothing like a bit of auto-cleaning to soothe the reeling mind. I had to hope this wasn't the beginning of another chapter in my complicated non-history with Leo. I really needed to develop some kind of immunity to men. To him, certainly.

Still, Leo would be off to somewhere else far-flung pretty quickly, I reassured myself. He'd be keen to get out of here before he, too, mouldered into the ground. I gave the glass front of my bain-marie a vigorous windex-over.

What Leo didn't know was that after my shop burnt down sixteen months ago, I did in fact give serious consideration to leaving. After all, growth hasn't been part of the business model in Rusty Bore for decades. The town consists of Vern's general store and my shop, along with a row of three galvanised-steel silos. Admittedly, Vern does an impressive job of waxing lyrical about the sunsets over those silos, when he manages to find someone prepared to listen.

But I've never been entirely comfortable with the idea of deserting everyone. Especially Ernie. That reminded me: Ernie's birthday next week, his eighty-ninth. I'd tuck
some money inside a card and take it up to him at the home, enough to put a bet on the dogs. I could work harder at discouraging his betting, but Ernie hasn't got a lot of vices left.

I put down my cloth: the bain-marie was spotless. The whole shop was pristine. The rebuild had turned out pretty well, I must say. Wall to wall stainless steel. Fresh new tiles, blue and white. And a flash rotisserie for a whole new line in BBQ chickens.

The place looked quite up-market, apart from the skewiff verandah. The state of my verandah was thanks to Vern, who managed to back a speedboat into it just after the builders left. Showbag's speedboat, or so Vern claimed, but what Showbag was even doing with a speedboat beats me, since he's afraid of everything beyond his front gate. And Perry Lake contains, at best, six inches of water.