Death Takes a Hike

By Peta Fox

Foxy, bisexual, not-so-closet lesbian and ad woman, Jen Madden, moonlights as an amateur sleuth solving sex related murder cases. Her latest account is a Funeral Home franchise run by the mega-rich Sheehan Brothers. At the dynasty’s beach-house party she finds one of the brothers chopped into sections. When the other brother’s wife is pushed over a cliff, her daughter engages Jen to discover who is attacking the dynasty and why.

In between hiking the Great Ocean Walk for a local tourist organisation, Jen unearths the funeral dynasty's multiple family skeletons. Then the second Sheehan, his mistress and younger son are shot.

The police see it as a murder/suicide but Jen sees much more and, by committing her foxy body to various erotic perversions, uncovers blackmail, deception, perversion, lesbianism, necrophilia and greed. Then the oldest son’s wife disappears. Next, the son is shot dead.

Although Jen unearths one killer, she misses the ultimate villain - an almost fatal error. It's another tight,ingenious plot from the mistress of erotic chicklit crime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Buzzword Books
• Release date: Mar 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476359083

Peta Fox

Australian ad-woman, Peta Fox, has made a name for herself with her wry and jaded whodunits featuring the foxy Jen Madden, a bisexual, lesbian-loving Aussie sleuth. The totally pissed-off Jen has a satirical take on life and specialises in sex crimes. Peta has now written three murder mysteries in this edgy, unusual,and brilliantly written series.

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Copyright 2011 Peta Fox

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This edition published by Buzzword Books at Smashwords 2012

First published by Buzzword Books 2011

P.O. Box 7, Cammeray 2062

Australia

Buzzword Books.com

Death Takes a Hike

by

Peta Fox

Other titles in this series by Peta Fox at Smashwords.com include:

Kiss Me Dead

Death Has No Face

Contents

Body count

Wash-up

Night light

Gow

Pushover

Home truths

Cops

Snoop

Life's a beach

Coffin Corp

Sins of Adam

Check up

Last ride

Box seat

Conference

Screw

Mortuary

Din-din

Domestic Diss

Cold call

Security room

Musical beds

Hanky-panky

Big freeze

Six feet down

Reunion

Night light

Murder most chook

Going public

Plodsville

Where there's smoke

Resurrection

Payday

Trace

The fuzz

Caught

Dead meat

Showdown

About Peta Fox.

Other books by Peta Fox on Smashwords

Free sample first chapter from the first book in this series, Kiss Me Dead,

BODY COUNT

Midnight.

The beach-house is lit up like a cruise ship.

The snooty guests are pissed as farts. I doubt anyone's doing lines because the scene's too straight but a whiff of pot drifts from somewhere.

The worst of the male gropers, a drop-kick with a beer gut, comes onto me. 'Hi, Jen. How're you tracking?'

I flash him a back-off-creep smile. 'Need some air. See ya.'

I waltz my drink onto the terrace. The sea breeze is colder than a backyard dunny. I follow my twinkling party shoes down the rough path that leads to the lookout.

The track, hard to see in this thin moon, winds through the low coastal scrub. I hear breakers smashing against the cliff face and should have reached the railed boardwalk by now so must have strayed off the path—clever bunny me.

I reach a clearing where the house lights on the hill gold-fleck the tops of the bushes and almost walk into the back of a woman wearing a black evening dress.

I know that starved racehorse frame. It's Bev Sheehan—matriarch of the clan.

She sways, hand to throat, half turns and throws up. It does zilch for her aristocratic profile but probably adds nitrates to the soil.

She moans—I don't get why—then stumbles up the slope and out of eyeshot.

And, because she lives here and knows the turf, I do a bunk in the same direction. Until my foot snags something soft and sends me face-first into a mouthful of bush.

I stare back along the ground.

I've tripped on a leg.

A leg bare except for a sock.

A leg minus a body.

Hacked off like a Christmas ham.

I straighten up, gagging, and spot more bits. A man's bloodied head with shocked ping-pong ball eyes and a twisted mouth baring expensively capped teeth.

It's Adam Sheehan—one of the two founding brothers who own Sheehan Funerals—the enormous franchised cash-cow I'm about to spend my life writing ads for.

Beneath his swish sports shirt, his gut ends in a sticky pool. His other leg and the remains of his crutch are two metres further off with the pants still caught around the ankle. Sic transit gloria. Sic with a 'k'.

One thing's sure. He's been fatally killed to death.

It could only have been done with a machete or axe. Or a close encounter with a shark, except we're thirty metres above high water mark. Or a Claymore. Except you could count the landmines in rural Victoria on the stump of one hand.

Besides, whoever did this was after the guy's cods—has hacked his wedding tackle so savagely the rest of the chop-fest looks incidental.

Fucking hell!

I swallow bile.

I don't want to know.

Wasn't here.

I never saw this.

Ever!

WASH-UP

I bush-bash toward the lights, trying to put as much space as I can between me and the butchered billionaire. Then...

Jumping Jesus!

More bodies.

This time, alive.

They don't see or spot me because they're in the spin-cycle of a shagfest. And because the crump of waves against the nearby cliff is as loud as a two-stroke mower. And because she's gasping like his submarine is too big for her pen. And because he's doing her doggie-style and her hair's fallen over her face.

I can tell from his fast-curl biceps and grommet-like buns that it's Andy, the steroid-tragic who's been perving down my scoop-top all night.

As for her—she's hot arse. Long smooth legs. Anti-gravity breasts. No baby belly or stretchmarks. Bitch. And her Gucci Roman sandals would leave no change from a grand. I've drooled over those sandals all night. They tag her like registered mail.

She's Penelope Sheehan—wife of Harry.

And she's being bonked by Harry's younger brother.

One way to keep it in the family!

Not that value judgements help. Every pressure cooker needs a safety valve and marriage has adultery. Besides, these rich dudes are my clients. I write their ads but that's where I get off. You can lose accounts by knowing too much—and who's up who isn't my business.

After a couple more pumps she screams like she's impaled.

I back away and—luck of the shickered—find the track back to the house.

The first thing I do when I get there is order a stiffener.

Next, I check my watch. Three past midnight.

Most of the middle managers and their wives have left. But the top brass are still determined to shimmy till they collapse in their own shit. Because they're booked into a local motel and have a shuttle-bus to take them home.

The place is first beach shack I've struck with two stories, three wings and a ballroom. But I move in pretty limited circles for someone who fornicates in triangles.

No, Bev Sheehan isn't screaming the place down. Far too reserved for that. She's at the end of the patio in a huddle with the rest of the Sheehan clan, and their body language tells me they're in damage control.

Bev's bending the ear of her husband, Crandall Sheehan, who everyone calls CD. He's the brother of the butchered Adam and now the surviving head of the firm. Bev's daughter by her first marriage, Kim, and her stepson, Harry, listen in.

It's taken me a while to suss this Death-as-a-Commodity Dynasty. CD's first wife died of cancer leaving him with two grown sons, Harry and Andy. Then he married Bev who had two grown daughters, Kim and Chrissie. I guess, when you tie the knot again in your late sixties, a trail of adult kids comes with the territory.

CD's grim face shows he's got the message. The bothered billionaire starts downloading in the ear of number one son Harry.

Harry listens, head inclined, appropriately serious. His bag is looking appropriate because he's one of those Christian bores who can remain appropriate with a chilli up his arse. Except I bet he'd throw a wobbly if he knew his baby brother had just screwed his wife.

It looks like CD's shifted the prob to Harry, who functions as the family fixer. I watch Harry pull out his brain-burner and thumb in a number while his dad guides his step-mum up the curved pose-value staircase. Bev's a tall, fit bushwalker but he holds her by the upper-arm like she's eighty. But I guess she's at least as old as he is and the shock's probably freaked her out.

There's no visible blood on her dress and she would have been soaked if she'd filleted the guy. So there's no way she did it.

But she could have seen who did!

I stare back at my double Scotch then realise I had a glass when I went outside and must have dropped it near the hack attack. A glass with my prints on it! Leaping shit!

'Where were you?' It's Bev's waistless younger daughter, Chrissie, holding a plateful of Pav. 'I've been looking for you everywhere.'

I duck the question. 'Still feeding face?'

She shrugs. 'I'm on a seafood diet tonight. I see food and I eat it. Well it's almost the silly season. Eat-your-bodyweight time.'

She's a pretty girl with great boobs but more than a tad overweight. Eventually, she'll drown in fat. But, at least, she'll be filthy rich.

I fret about the glass.

She smiles. 'I'm mad for a cuddle.'

We fucked last night and now shed wants me again.

It started at school when we were winsome ankle-biters. Hands up skirts behind the sports shed. Hands linked under the desk in class.

Years later came the school reunion and the fumble at my pad. Two grown kids exploring each other on an unmade bed. Kinky but exciting. Except she didn't seem that turned on. She likes sex like she likes fish and chips. She's sweet. But short on serotonin.

Then came the Great Ocean Walk promotion. It looked a straight client/agency deal until I found out she worked at the Tourist Board. And was interested in my body as much as my advertising smarts.

Her hand touches mine and her finger moves into my palm.

Yes, last night was good but also a bit off because shagging old classmates who turn into clients is not what I'd call exotic. Mind you, she gives good tongue. But I can't think about that now because I'm still getting my head around the prime-cut Adam in the bush. And the glass with my prints on. God knows where I dropped it. No way I could find it in the dark. I'll have to recce tomorrow morning.

Harry puts his mobile away and passes us frowning. 'Where's Andy? Have you seen him?'

I shake my head, the little innocent.

'He went outside,' Chrissie says.

He grunts and heads for the terrace.

I glance at Suko—short for Ritsuko—sitting in a corner alone. She's a stunning, doll-like Nipponese ice-queen and sits in a corner alone. She's also the filleted Adam's partner so everyone's afraid to dance with her. When I look at her, she kicks the splendid isolation bit and walks over. 'What are you two up to?'

'We're deciding who to shag,' Chrissie says.

Suko's face remains the beautiful Asian death mask. 'Do you know where Adam went?'

We tell her no and she does a trippity-trip through the push apparently heading for the downstairs toilet. Why do Jap birds do that apologetic hobble? Haven't they heard of women's lib?

Headlights in the drive. A vehicle pulling up.

The shuttle bus back?

An ambulance?

Police?

No way.

The tires rearranging the gravel belong to a black windowless van with the gold Sheehan crest on the side.

My blink-rate goes up.

Chrissie touches my hand again. 'I think it's time we crashed, don't you?'

I nod and follow her up the staircase to her room. Half way up, through the long window, I see the two brothers, Harry and Andy, near the van. They're yelling at each other. Your full-on robust exchange.

Chrissie has a teddy bear on her pillow. One always travels with her. Her pad is lousy with stuffed toys. As she undresses me, kisses my neck, mouths my nipples, kisses my arse, all I can think about is the chop-fest in the bush.

And the van.

Have the Sheehan's decided to send the murder up the chimney?

If so, why?

I mean, I'm not a total dummy. I know about the euthanasia underground. All those guys with AIDS plus all the other poor shits with terrible diseases, mercifully OD'd or smothered—then cremated fast to protect their helpers from the coroner. Commendable. And I'd expect the Sheehans to do their public duty there.

But disappearing someone chopped into bits by a madman?

Even if you job is handling dead bodies and you own the crematoriums, you don't mess with that kind of scene. You call the filth.

Besides, the mess would be tough to disappear. Unless they had a professional clean-up team and, of course, a tame doctor to fudge the certificate.

Then I think about Bev's daughter, Kim, who was part of the huddle. She's a doctor. Their tame quack?

Would she risk getting struck off by signing away the year's most gory, most reportable death?

And why in hell would she do that?

Because, if someone attacks your family, you don't do a cover up. You yell blue murder, form a posse.

It makes no sense.

NIGHT MOVES

Four AM. and I'm feeling ratshit.

What woke me? A noise or my sick head?

Chrissie snores gently beside me, pale against the gloom. Then a punctured bike tire sound. Gross. She's farted like a bear. I fall out of bed heading for fresher air.

The sea breeze billows the curtains although the window's a crack away from shut. Lights down there. Bright. Like they're filming in the bush. Except it's not something you'd want on your reel.

I leave the window, feel into the en-suite and christen the thunderbox. Then I drag on a wrap, open the bedroom door and tippy-toe to the stairwell window to see if the funeral van's still there.

It's still parked outside like the chariot of doom.

On the way back I pass Bev's room and hear soft contralto sobs. I can't relate to it because I'm desperate for a liver-cleansing puke. Still, a hangover's a small price to pay for an antidote to reality.

I trot to the head again and decorate the basin, then run it down the plughole, rinse my mouth and crawl back beside Chrissie. She's quite a contrast to the hard carcass of John, my regular squeeze, and, right now, I could do with some of his root-canal therapy instead of the fumblings of a daffy half-dyke.

Funny about sex. Once you get it one way you want it the other. Fast.

But John's off fighting some low grade war—taking down terrorists, blowing up weapons dumps, hot-wiring enemy bollocks or whatever.

Bummer, because he knows the scene. And I need to talk this massacre over.

When I open my eyes again it's five AM and dawn's creeping over the horizon like a wounded wombat. I need to find that wine glass before anyone else is on deck.

Chrissie stops cranking out zeds and stirs. 'What's up?'

'Going to look at the sea.'

'Bet you it's still there.'

'Best to check.' I schleppe downstairs.

The Dodgy Brother's van has gone and there's no one around I can see. I head down the track, not sure I can still find the spot. But it's easier now that night's shifted to South Africa. I stumble into the clearing.

No body bits. No blood. A total clean. The sandy soil looks raked, as if they've taken away the top layer in bags. In a day or two, with enough wind, rain, sun, a forensic team will be pushing it to make any kind of case.

I spend twenty minutes faffing around, searching for the glass but no banana. So I'm pretty certain they've disappeared that, too.

I pack it in and walk to the lookout to give my tiny mind some space. The sea-breeze blows my hair and turns my nipples into bullets. I stare out at the Great Southern Ocean. The next landfall is Antarctica and the wind-chill lets you know it. What's great about oceans is they don't give a kransky for anyone. And this one's the coldest and emptiest oceans you'll ever meet.

At beach level, John once told me, a six-foot man can see three miles. And up here, the horizon is probably fourteen miles away. Up here where, last night, some sicko chopped a man into bits.

I think about the van again. I still can't work out why the Sheehans decided to disappear him. To duck publicity is an obvious motivation. But do they really want to give a free kick to whoever did him in?

I head back to the house and warm up under the shower.

There's a smorgasbord breakfast in the big kitchen alcove. Everything from porridge to lamb's fry. There are still two caterers in aprons in the kitchen. Money's no object with the Sheehans. Here, you're tangoing with what test-marketers call the A-B socio-economic group. Except these people are capital A and see Bs as quaint.

There are two takers when I rock in. Bev and Kim.

Bev, her back to me, is hissing at her daughter, '...could throw away everything you've worked for.'

Kim looks up from coffee and crusts to flick mummy a warning glance.

As Bev spots me, she does the smooth segue these people learn at the teat. 'Jen' she smiles, 'Sleep well?'

'Like a log.'

'Sea air.'

'Where's Chrissie?' Kim asks.

'Scraping down her armpits, putting on her face. Whatever.'

Bev adds jam to her toast. Others spread it. She bestows it. 'So how was your walk through the forest yesterday?'

'Great. Those trees!' I roll my eyes. Because I'm tiny, foxy and cute I can lie like a Jesuit and no one picks it.

I don't tell her that yesterday's tramp along fire trails bored me to tears. Because, when the product is a tourist walk, it's not wise to let slip that you hate exercise and would rather be in a Turkish jail getting coshed on the soles of your feet than slogging down their ruddy tracks.

'So you're ready for the trek this morning?'

'No. But I'm game.'

'Better eat up. It's a long way.'

I don't like the sound of that. If this seasoned bush-basher thinks it's a long way, it's half way to Tryton. 'How long?'

'About eight hours.'

'Cool.' I head for the muesli and the bowl of untinned peaches.

'And 'Not always easy going but there are some beautiful views. I'll drive you to Blanket Bay then pick you up later at Aire River.'

'Why don't we take Chrissie's car and you follow us to the end? Then we leave her car there and you drive us back to the start. Chrissie said they do that for walkers at the caravan park.'

'I know. But then I don't get to walk in and meet you on the trail.'

'Why bother? We could just ring you half an hour before we get there.'

'Then you'd spoil my excuse for a walk. Besides there's no reception on the track.'

'Radical.'

Kim smirks at me—the city slicker stranded beyond civilisation. 'There's a tower up on the Great Ocean Road to service the farms around but you'd need to be right on top of the cliffs and in the right spot to get a signal.' She gets up. 'Leave you to it.' As she goes out the door, I run my eye over her canoe-stern arse. She looks so starved that, if she wasn't a GP, I'd swear she was in the toothbrush and bucket brigade and addicted to laxative chasers.

'Morning.' Penelope comes in, wearing a sundress that shows off her olive skin and apple boobs. 'What a night. How awful. I never knew Adam had a weak heart,'

Bev doesn't exactly look daggers at her. More like hatpins. 'Who told you that?'

'Harry. He and Andy were up all night over it.' She drifts to the spread, chooses grilled tomato, bacon and eggs.

Bev dabs her mouth. 'Well I'd better get a move on.'

When she's gone, I give Penelope thirty seconds to be social then do my mistress-of-understatement bit. 'Some breakfast, huh?'

She nods, taught not to speak with her mouth full. The way her thick blonde hair bounces suggests expensive mousse. Even dressed, she's hot. How her wormed and vaccinated, computer chipped dummy of a husband ever scored such a centrefold beats me.

'So he died?' I say.

'Mmm?'

'Adam.'

'Last night. In the garden. Bev found him.'

'Far out.'

'Pretty strange ac-tually.' The 'ac-tually' is one of those essential words rich girls acquire in snooty schools. It tells me that she sends herself love letters and weeps openly when she gets them.

'Where is he now?'

'In their mortuary, I imagine.'

'Not the morgue?'

'No. Morgues are for reportable cases that need autopsies. We have our own central mortuary in every capital city. If you're collecting bodies from nursing homes and hospitals you have to have somewhere to store them. Otherwise you wouldn't get the contracts. Besides, no public morgue could possibly handle all those deaths.'

'And who's in charge of that side of the business?'

'Harry, ac-tually. He's responsible for all Sheehan Brothers mortuaries and crematoriums. But, by trade, he's an embalmer.'

'Nice. I'm trying to eat breakfast here.'

'I know people regard that as unpleasant but he's ac-tually a very caring person. And not to mention a committed Christian.'

Which she's just mentioned, of course, the wanker. 'Uh-huh!'

I can't stand extremists. And that includes people who go to church on Sundays and respect traditional values. Because, if you don't have a foot to put wrong, you're a fraud. Better to be an honest drunk like me.

I have another go at her: 'Aren't Christians supposed to take no thought for the body? And to let the dead bury the dead and that jazz?'

Her nostrils narrow. 'Anyone can quote scripture to make a point.'

We're getting into group dynamics here and I can do without the heartburn. 'So where's Harry now? Sleeping in?'

'Ac-tually, he had to go to Warrnambool early this morning. He has a new franchise