Sleuth without a Clue by Janni Nell

Author:Janni Nell [Nell, Janni]
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER 14

I had assumed the talk would be held at the school, but Marion drove the much shorter distance to the Kangaroo Cove Community Centre, which consisted of a small plain building surrounded by gardens of native plants. I was surprised that most spaces in the parking area were already filled. Who knew a talk on spiders would be so popular? Marion drove around until she finally found an empty space near a flowering grevillea. We got out of the car and headed toward the community centre.

On the way, I saw a familiar figure going in the same direction. It was the roofer who’d given me a quote for repairs. Instantly, I remembered how he’d laughed at the sight of a huge huntsman spider, then shared some fun facts about them.

Rory walked over and said, “I didn’t know you were interested in spiders, Briony.”

“Honestly, I don’t know much about them, but I wanted to learn more, so here I am.”

“You’ve come to the right place. Jordan knows more about arachnids than anyone in town. Not that I’m interested in scorpions. My son and I are here for the spiders—” Suddenly, he broke off and looked around. “Where’s my boy gone? He’s always running off. Oh, there he is. Gotta go. I’ll be in touch about a date to repair your roof.” He hurried over to a kid of about eight who was talking to another boy.

Marion and I went into the community centre. Near the entrance was a notice board with a flyer announcing auditions for the local musical society’s new show. I couldn’t help remembering when my daughter, Sally, had tried out for the role of Sandy in her high school production of Grease. She’d been devastated when another girl got the part. After a major hissy fit, including floods of tears, she’d done her best with the role of Rizzo and ended up stealing every scene.

Marion and I continued into the small auditorium and found a couple of seats in the front row. Around us the room was filling up. I was surprised to see so many people including a lot of teenagers, who I guessed were students at Fairwater Grammar.

“Why are all these kids here?” I asked Marion. “Don’t they get enough of their principal during the day?”

“Jordan’s quite popular with the kids.” She waved to someone on the other side of the auditorium.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Fellow teacher.”

“Possible suspect?”

Marion shook her head. “She has the wrong initials. But, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, your roofer has the right initial and an interest in spiders. We need to keep an eye on him.”

I didn’t point out that Sam, along with a lot of other people, also had an initial Evan had written in his notebook. In fact if you included both first and second initials, the percentage of potential suspects in the towns and villages around Port Serenity would be quite high. This case was going to be difficult to solve unless we had a lucky breakthrough.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.