A Madness of Sunshine

by Singh, Nalini

  “Yes, I remember your sudden fondness for church.” Josie had made Anahera go week after week.

  Laughing, Josie said, “Faith, keeping his promises to God, that’s always been important to Tom.” Her voice softened. “I knew from the first that Tom Taufa would never break any vows he made to me.”

  A sharp, beeping sound.

  “Oh, I have to go! That’s the oven timer.”

  Hanging up, Anahera wondered what a man of such deep faith would think of a young woman who was partner to the sin of adultery. “No,” she said again, this time with conviction. She’d known Tom his entire life and had never seen him be violent.

  This whole situation was just getting to her.

  She consciously put aside the dark thoughts and got herself ready for the ­day—­and as soon as the clock ticked over to seven, she called Nikau. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t passed out drunk.”

  “I’m making hot dogs for breakfast,” Nik replied. “Want one?”

  “No, thanks, I’ll stick with cereal.” That done, she called Jemima, exhaling quietly when the other woman answered.

  “Anahera, I’m so glad you called.”

  “Is everything all right?” Anahera went to stand in the open doorway, watch dull morning light creep over a turbulent ocean. “You sound different.”

  Jemima laughed. “I’m happy,” she said. “Vincent came home last night with the most gorgeous diamond necklace for me and a huge bunch of red roses. I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but it’s like I have my husband back again. He’s the way he was when we were first dating.”

  Anahera’s hand clenched on the phone, a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I’m very happy for you,” she said, while her mind tried to make sense of Vincent’s abrupt burst of affection. “Are you both going to be in town for a while?”

  “Yes. Vincent doesn’t need me to accompany him to any cocktail functions. He’s also going to fly in and out when he does have meetings. Doesn’t want to be away from me.” The poised and elegant woman sounded like a teenager in love for the first time, a giggly excitement to her.

  After Anahera hung up, she stared at the sea. Was it possible that Will’s interrogation of him had brought it home to Vincent just how much he had to lose? He’d smothered Jemima in love in the aftermath. Edward had been like that at times, so suddenly loving. In his case, Anahera thought it must’ve been as a result of guilt.

  With Vincent, could it be a combination of guilt and fear of losing his family?

  It made sense. But Anahera wasn’t inside the Baker marriage, could only ­guess—­and hope for Jemima’s sake that Vincent wasn’t setting her up for an even worse fall. Because it could be that he’d shrugged off Miriama’s loss and turned his attention to another conquest. It sounded cold, but it was also cold to ignore and isolate your wife while stringing along a gifted young woman full of dreams.

  She called a few others on the pretext of catching up, but no one had worry in their voice for anyone but Miriama. Whatever Will had found, whoever Will had found, it wasn’t a person who’d already been missed. It might, she suddenly realized, not be anything suspicious at ­all—­one of the locals who lived rough could’ve had an accident. Sad, but not a thing of horror.

  Despite that realization, she felt too restless to stay inside the cabin. She needed air, needed the salt, the sand. Pulling on a lightweight jacket, she slipped her phone into a zippered pocket. It was cold out, the sky heavy, but Anahera didn’t want to be too comfortable. She wanted to feel the chill on her face, wanted to experience the wind cutting across her skin, wanted to be brilliantly, painfully alive.

  She closed the door behind herself but didn’t bother to lock ­it—­though, surprisingly, the old lock on the door still worked. Whoever had picked it after Anahera left Golden Cove hadn’t damaged the mechanism. Josie had even dug up a copy of the key.

  While Anahera used it at night, when she slept, she couldn’t see the point otherwise. She’d hidden her laptops, old and new, under a hiding spot beneath the floorboards, and there was nothing else for anyone to take. Anahera wasn’t naïve; she knew people stole even in a small town. But she also knew that if the clouds broke, someone might stumble out of the bush seeking shelter.

  She was halfway down the porch steps when she paused.

  What if the person who’d taken Miriama hadn’t done it because she was Miriama? What if he’d done it because she was a beautiful young woman?

  Anahera didn’t consider herself beautiful by any measure. Neither was she tall and lissome like Miriama, but she was a woman. And some predators weren’t that picky. Frowning, she went back inside the cabin and brought out a blanket to leave on the chair outside. She added a bottle of water and several energy bars.

  Then she locked the door and pocketed the key.

  The winds were hard but not vicious today, and she scrambled her way down to the beach without too much trouble, though she did have to keep her eyes on the path the entire way down. A single slip and she would’ve gone tumbling.

  Anahera did not want her headstone to read “Death by Stupidity.”

  When she reached the beach at last, her heart was racing and her breath coming in hot puffs. Drawing in the ­salt-­laced air, she looked up at the sound of chopper blades. Daniel, no doubt, being an arrogant ass flying in such portentous weather. Her guess seemed borne out when the chopper swept around to face her.

  As if he was saying hello.

  Anahera waved up at him. Yes, he could be an egotistical bastard, but it wasn’t looking like he’d had anything to do with Miriama in life or in death.

  The chopper turned back around, the waves frothing under the wind created by its blades, and then it was gone, sweeping across the water. She wondered where he was going that he was crossing the water rather than heading inland. Most likely, he was taking the scenic route and would swing back inland soon enough.

  Shrugging off the encounter, she began to walk down the beach. The waves were big today, huge smashing things that pounded hard onto the sand. It looked like they’d been in a mean mood the previous night as well; she could see mounds of waterborne debris deposited on the wet gray sand. Long streamers of seaweed; sea glass polished and rubbed until it was as smooth as stone, no edges to it; broken and battered shells along with the odd one in perfect condition.

  Anahera picked up a couple of pieces of particularly lovely sea glass. She’d collected it as a child and as a young woman, lining them up along the window where the sunlight would hit them. She’d thrown away her collection after her mother’s death, but today, she found beauty in watching even the cloudy morning light spear through the glass.

  It was as she was putting a third piece into a pocket that she spotted a huge hunk of seaweed up ahead. It almost looked like the seaweed had wrapped itself around a tree trunk or perhaps the carcass of a dolphin or small whale.

  Anahera walked over, curious but careful. The seaweed sat close to the far edge of the ocean. A single freak wave and it would be pulled back ­in—­and so would Anahera if she got too close. The seaweed fronds gleamed wet and dark, splayed out across the sand like fleshy fingers. The closer Anahera got to the hunk, the less she felt like exploring it, but she couldn’t stop her feet from moving forward. There was something about the shape of it, the way it curved. And the color. Not just green.

  Pink.

  Orange.

  Anahera didn’t realize she was running until she’d reached the seaweed that wasn’t wrapped around anything as prosaic as wood or a whale bone. Her breath painful in her throat, she began to drag the seaweed as far as she could up the sand. She had to make sure it didn’t get sucked back out to sea.

  A massive wave crashed ashore, licking dangerously at her feet. Anahera braced her legs, somehow just managing to keep hold of the seaweed and its chilling cargo. Then she pulled, pulled, pulled.

  Collapsing on dry sand well clear of the water, her knees sinking into the fine grit of it, she forced hers
elf to look at the seaweed ­again… forced herself to acknowledge that it wasn’t seaweed she’d hauled up the beach but a body. A body that was discolored and so badly damaged as to be unrecognizable, but that wore an orange top and black leggings with pink side stripes.

  Miriama’s shoes were gone, but she still wore her socks.

  For some reason, that single detail was enough to crush Anahera’s lungs and drive a scream from her body.

  49

  Will had barely finished organizing for a forensic team to come out to Golden Cove for the skeletal remains when he got the call from Anahera.

  “I found her,” she said in a toneless voice. “The sea brought her back in.”

  Will shuddered, bracing his palm against a tree trunk, the bleached bones of the skeleton in his line of sight. He’d done nothing to disturb the scene, but he’d ventured back to the car to grab his camera, then taken as many ­high-­resolution images as he could, well aware that when it came to the actual investigation, he’d be relegated to the bench.

  As far as his superiors were concerned, he was a ­burned-­out cop with his best years behind him. No one would trust him to be in charge of a case like this. Will wasn’t about to let that stop him. Not having access to the bones shouldn’t matter as long as he could access the report to do with the probable height, age, and ethnicity of the victim in life.

  He didn’t think the forensic team would find any other physical clues.

  Whoever had left the bones, whoever had arranged the bones, had done it with clinical care.

  It was a taunt, that skeleton. And since Will was the only cop in town, the person raking up old horrors, it was difficult to believe the taunt wasn’t aimed at him. But that was no longer important. “Are you sure?” he asked Anahera.

  “Yes.” Her voice almost swept away by the wind, she added, “I’m watching over her. When can you get here?”

  Will stared at the skeleton. He couldn’t leave it, not until another officer got to Golden Cove. The chance of someone disturbing the site was too great. “I need you to keep on watching over her,” he said, his hand fisting by his side. “I’ve got someone else here who I can’t leave.”

  “Just tell me ­this—­is it someone I know?”

  The news would be out soon enough and Anahera wasn’t a woman who spilled secrets. “Skeletal remains,” he told her. “I can’t risk anyone moving the bones.”

  “­Skeletal…” Another harsh wind, ripping away her words.

  But Will had heard the last word she’d said: hiker. It was the same thing he’d thought the instant he’d seen the bones. It could well be one of the three women who’d disappeared fifteen years ago and never been found.

  He called the district commander again.

  It took an excruciating two hours for the first forensic team to arrive. Will had spoken with Anahera several times, both of them caught in their separate hells and unable to move. He’d considered sending someone else out ­there—­there wouldn’t be a crime scene to contaminate, not if Miriama had come out of the ­sea—­but Anahera had said no.

  “Miri shouldn’t be seen like this,” she’d said. “She deserves for us to take care of her.”

  As he’d expected, the forensic crew was accompanied by two detectives. “Will.” The older one of the two couldn’t quite meet his gaze, the wrinkles in his brown skin deeper than the last time Will had spoken to him but his body in excellent shape. “I’m afraid we’ve been assigned the case.”

  “Robert.” Will shook his hand. “Keep me in the loop, won’t you? I’ve picked up more than a bit of knowledge about this town that might be helpful.” He wasn’t used to justifying his need for information, but he needed his fellow detective’s cooperation if he was to have access to the reports.

  Openly relieved at Will’s lack of rancor, Robert immediately agreed to copy him in on any results. “I hear you’ve got a second scene?” he said with a raised eyebrow.

  Will nodded. “I’m heading out to keep it under surveillance until the second forensic team arrives.” He’d argued hard for the first team to go to Miriama’s body, aware it was decomposing quickly with every second that passed, but those in charge had overruled him. In their view, while she’d died more recently, the body of a drowning victim wasn’t going to hold anywhere near the forensic evidence that might be discovered on a skeleton that had been laid out for someone to find.

  In their minds, it was tragic accident versus pathological murder.

  “This Shane Hennessey fella.” Robert shot a look over at where Shane still sat on the crate, his head cradled in his hands. “He a likely?”

  “My gut says ­no—­he threw up halfway into the wait.” Shane had been desperate to get out, go home, but Will hadn’t been able to let him leave.

  “Yeah,” Robert murmured, “whoever laid out these bones had to have ice for blood. Jesus, the bones are lined up as if he used a ruler.”

  “Shane’s a novelist, says he walks this trail in the early morning when he wants to think.” Will wanted to pass on the information, then leave, get to Anahera. “No indications of any violent tendencies and no record in either New Zealand or Ireland.” That information Will had discovered during his initial run on all possible suspects in the Cove. “Shane’s mentored a number of young female writers, but they’re all accounted for.” He’d spent the wait making calls, confirming that. “My ­take—­he’s just the unlucky bastard who found the bones.”

  The two detectives exchanged a look, but Will didn’t much care what they thought of his instincts. They’d come to the same conclusion after a couple of minutes with ­Shane—­the man remained green around the gills. “Look, unless you need something else right now, I have to get to the second site.”

  “Yeah, we’d better go examine the skeleton. I’ll let you know what the bone specialists say.”

  As Will drove away from the site, he saw curious locals beginning to slow down their battered trucks and rusty sedans as they passed the ­dump—­they’d probably come to abandon rubbish, been startled by the forensic van and multiple police vehicles. Just wait until the second team arrived. Golden Cove was about to become a circus.

  He shut his mind to all of it as he drove, thinking about what Shane had found, what Anahera had found. Coincidence? Yes. No one could manipulate the sea. But he’d have to look at the body first to confirm. It’d all depend on how long Miriama had been in the water. Because if you knew the sea really ­well—­as so many of the men and women in this area ­did—­it might be possible to drop a body in at a particular point with a fairly good expectation of it being washed up on the beach.

  Will should’ve gone straight to the beach, straight to relieve Anahera’s lonely vigil, but he knew how fast information could travel in the Cove. And he knew Matilda would’ve heard about the sudden appearance of police vehicles at the dump site.

  So he went to her home. She was waiting for him wrapped up in a faded gray polar fleece robe, her face strangely motionless. “Did you find her?” she demanded. “Did you find my baby?”

  “We found her.”

  She keened and collapsed onto the floor before he could tell her anything else.

  Going down beside her, Will did what he could, but it wasn’t enough. He was grateful to see one of her ­neighbors—­Raewyn ­Clark—­running over, her blonde hair a mass of frizzy curls; Raewyn’s flinty expression told him she’d guessed exactly what terrible news he’d brought. “I’ll take care of her.” The heavily tattooed former gang member went down beside Matilda, put her arms around the broken woman. “You know she’d want you out there, looking after our Miri. Don’t let the outsiders treat her as nothing.”

  Will rose, got back into the SUV.

  It felt as if it took him forever to get to the water, and all the while, the clouds grew blacker and heavier overhead. Scrambling down the pathway after reaching the edge of the cliff, he ran toward Anahera’s seated form. She didn’t get up, just waited for him to come, a silent sentinel
with dark hair knotted by the wind and eyes struck by grief. “She shouldn’t be dead,” were her first words to him. “No one as alive as Miriama was should be dead.”

  Crashing down onto his knees beside her, he took her into his arms. She resisted, stiff and unbending, but he didn’t let go, and at last, she allowed herself to wrap her own arms around him and hold on tight. There were no tears, but he hadn’t expected any. Anahera was used to holding her pain within.

  If and when she chose to share it, it would be on her terms.

  When they separated, he did what he didn’t want to do: he went and looked at Miriama’s body. One glance and he knew that she’d been in the water a considerable time. Odds were, since the day she disappeared. The condition of the body eliminated the possibility she’d been thrown in recently with the hope she’d wash up close to when the skeleton was discovered. That didn’t mean the same person wasn’t responsible for both crimes.

  One new. One old.

  Taking out the slim but powerful digital camera he’d slipped into his pocket before Robert’s arrival, he began to snap. Anahera watched in unmoving quiet. It was only when they heard the sound of a police vehicle getting closer, the siren carrying on the air, that she got up. “I’ll show them the way down. Give me the camera’s memory card.”

  He slipped it into her hand, replacing it with an empty one he had tucked into the case, then put the camera back in his jacket pocket. If anyone thought to ask if he’d taken photos, he’d hand over the camera.

  But when his colleagues finally arrived, all of them ­ill-­prepared for the sand and the waves and the wind, Anahera wasn’t with them. And he was faced with a surprise. It appeared he was still in charge of Miriama’s case.

  “I’ve been sent to assist you.” Short and solid, with a cap of fair hair and wearing a standard dark blue ­body-­armor vest over a light blue uniform shirt, Kim Turnbull was someone Will had worked with on a prior case. “Everybody wants in on the skeleton you found, what with it being all serial killer like, so the junior gets the drowning.” She seemed to realize what she’d implied a second after the words left her mouth.