A Madness of Sunshine

by Singh, Nalini

  Going bright red under the freckled paleness of her skin, she said, “Sorry, sir. I didn’t ­mean—­”

  Will waved off the apology, too damn glad to be insulted. Being officially in charge of Miriama’s case gave him a far better chance of getting her justice. He wouldn’t have to rely on others to access the necessary reports and he could openly interview people of interest.

  As for the skeleton so cruelly laid out on the edge of a dump, it had kept for a long time, and the men in charge of that victim weren’t ­incompetent—­though they’d be handicapped by their lack of knowledge about this town and its secrets. Oh, people would talk to Robert and the others, but whether they’d tell them anything useful was another question.

  Once Will had put Miriama’s ghost to rest, he’d find a way to do the same for that lost woman’s ghost. Because he had not a single doubt that it was a woman’s skeleton Shane had found. The way it had been displayed, the way it had been discarded, that was a thing too many men had done to too many women across time.

  Waving across the new forensic team, he was startled to see Dr. Ankita Roshan with them. “I expected Robert to keep you captive!” he yelled out to the forensic pathologist over the rising wind.

  “Told him I can’t do much with bones!”

  Today collided with yesterday. Because Ankita had called in a forensic anthropologist in the aftermath of the fire, too. The smallest person in the house, the smallest body, hadn’t survived with enough flesh on his bones for a viable autopsy.

  In the now, the painfully thin ­forty-­something pathologist shook his hand. “Let’s get to the remains before the skies open up.”

  There wasn’t anything she could tell him that he hadn’t already guessed. “You’ll have to wait for the autopsy for more,” she said.

  “Ankita.” Will crouched down beside her. “Can you prioritize Miriama?” He lowered his voice. “Everyone’s writing this off as a drowning, but I knew her. She was too smart and athletic to stumble off a cliff or go running along the beach too close to the waves.” He’d had to push to convince the coroner to order a full forensic postmortem, rather than a less invasive evaluation.

  “You don’t have to justify the request to me, Will.” Having already bagged Miriama’s hands, Ankita began to zip up the body bag. “You’ve always had stellar ­instincts—­I’ll start as soon as I get her back to Christchurch.”

  “I owe you one.”

  A ­thin-­lipped smile. “If all the cops who owed me one actually paid up, I’d be a millionaire.” Sharp words, but her dark brown eyes were kind. “I’ll take care of your girl.”

  He helped load Miriama’s body onto a stretcher. The remainder of the scene investigation went rapidly. The team took photographs, even packed up the seaweed, but though they sieved through the sand below the body, there was nothing else to find.

  The wind had already wiped away the drag marks Anahera had created when she pulled the body to safety. It was as if Miriama hadn’t been there at all, as if this had been a black dream that was about to fade.

  50

  Will helped carry Miriama’s body up the narrow cliff pathway, the young woman with a dancer’s grace having become heavy in death. The cutting wind scraped sand across his skin, and he was grateful for the solid grip offered by his boots. Several of the others slipped, but no one fell and they got Miriama safely into the hearse that would take her to the forensic mortuary in Christchurch. A subdued gray with a sleek modern shape that didn’t shout its purpose, the hearse should hopefully slip out of Golden Cove without attracting attention.

  Kim puffed up the track a couple of minutes after Ankita left with Miriama.

  He told her to hold the fort at the station, handle any calls that came for him, and note the names of locals who popped in to see him. Most would be hoping to get information on what was happening, but one or two might have information to share. “Make sure you let them know that I’ll be back either later today or tomorrow morning, and that I’ll speak to them then. Anything urgent, call me.”

  Kim nodded, assiduously writing down his instructions in a little notepad.

  Leaving her to help the forensic team pack up their gear, he made his way to Anahera’s ­cabin—­and found the front door locked. Good.

  He knocked, had to wait a couple of minutes before she opened the door. And she didn’t do that until she’d confirmed who it was. She was wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping wet. Washing away the touch of death, Will thought, trying to wash away the grief.

  Reaching into the pocket of the jacket hanging to her left, she handed over his memory card. “Someone needs to tell Matilda.”

  “She knows we found Miriama.” Will would never forget the raw sound of her keening wail. “I’m on my way there to tell her what we have so far.” Little though it was. “Will you come with me? I left her with Raewyn Clark, but I know she has young kids she’ll have to get back to as soon as her boyfriend leaves for work.” She might’ve already been forced to do so.

  “Give me one minute. I’ll follow you in my Jeep.”

  Anahera was true to her word, returning to him dressed in jeans and a dark green sweater under her anorak, her heavily damp hair pulled back into a ponytail and her feet stuffed into sneakers.

  In her eyes, he saw as much rage as grief.

  They arrived at Matilda’s to find a furious Matilda sitting on her living room couch, her hands closed around a cold mug of tea and Raewyn seated beside her. The neighbor rose when she saw Will. “­Mattie—­”

  “You go, sweetie.” Even in her rage, Matilda found the kindness to give the other woman a gentle pat on the hand. “I know Hem’s boss is a pokokōhua. He’d better get himself to work.”

  “How dare they?” Matilda said the instant the door closed behind Raewyn. “How dare they throw my baby away in the dump?”

  Will spoke before she could say anything else. “We didn’t find Miriama at the dump. We found her on the beach.”

  She just stared at him. “On the beach? ­Then… the police cars by the ­dump…”

  “Something else. Miriama was in the sea.”

  Matilda’s eyes flicked to Anahera. “Ana?”

  “It’s true,” Anahera confirmed softly, going to kneel beside the older woman. “I found her. I made sure Miriama was safe until Will could get there.”

  “I want to see her.”

  Anahera shook her head. “No, Auntie. Remember her as she was. Remember her laughing.”

  Matilda’s shoulders began to shake, her tea slopping out of the mug. Taking the mug, Anahera put it carefully aside, then enfolded the older woman in her arms. As Matilda sobbed, Anahera met Will’s gaze. Her own gaze was dry, but that made her rage and sorrow no less furious.

  Waiting until the crashing wave of Matilda’s grief had passed and before a new wave could hit, Will said, “I know you’ll want to go to her so she isn’t alone.” To sit with their dead, ensure they had loved ones nearby, it was a deeply rooted part of Matilda’s culture. “The liaison officer will be here soon and he’ll organize everything for you.”

  Will could’ve offered to take her, but not only was she exhausted by grief, it’d be better for her if she arrived after the autopsy was complete; she could sit in a room near Miriama without being confronted by the ugly reality of what had been done to the young woman she’d raised. More, she shouldn’t be making the heartbreaking journey without a support system. “You have friends, family who can come with you?”

  Matilda nodded jerkily. “You make sure your people treat my baby well until I reach her.”

  “They will.” Ankita was a woman who respected her patients, for all that they’d already taken their last breath. “And I’ll get justice for Miriama. I promise you that, Matilda. No one will forget your girl.” It was the first time he’d made a promise since the day of the fire that had ended Alfie Hart’s short life. And it tore the scars inside him wide open.

  51

  The next notification was even harde
r.

  Dr. Dominic de Souza refused to believe Will.

  “No. It’s not her.”

  “­Dominic—­”

  “No!” The other man came at Will, punching and shoving while Will tried to keep him contained without doing harm.

  “It’s not her! It’s not my Miriama!” His glasses flew off in the struggle, to land on the beige carpet without a sound. “It’s not!”

  Eventually his words began to tremble, began to turn into questions that pleaded for Will to give the right answer. “It’s not her? It’s not Miriama?”

  “I’m sorry, Dominic.”

  The young doctor collapsed into his arms. “She was so beautiful. So lovely. I thought she’d be mine forever.”

  Nikau responded quickly to Will’s call asking him to stay with Dominic.

  “Thanks, Nik. I appreciate this.”

  The other man shook his head. “No need. This is fucked up. You mind if I get the doc drunk?”

  Looking at where Dominic sat ­blank-­faced in his clinic chair, mindlessly straightening the bent arm of his glasses, Will said, “He could probably use a drink or five.” Then maybe he’d sleep, forget for a minute.

  Tomorrow was soon enough to face the truth.

  Dominic wasn’t the only one who slowed him down. The team dealing with the skeletal remains needed to talk to him about any missing person cases in the region. Will could’ve brushed them off, but he knew Miriama’s autopsy would take time. There was no point in him riding Ankita’s tail.

  He met Robert and the others at the dump. The forensic and police teams were only partially into their painstaking search of the area. Will would bet his badge that there was nothing to find, that the skeleton had been left in this location because it was a way to further dehumanize the victim and cause exactly the kind of pain he’d seen in Matilda when she’d thought someone had thrown Miriama’s body in the dump.

  “Thanks for this, Will.” Robert took out his notebook, his lanky partner beside him. “Look, to be blunt, we need your help. We don’t understand the area or the politics of this ­town—­and I don’t want to waste time running down information you probably have in your head.”

  Will could tell the other man was uneasy about asking, when Will had been pulled off the case, but Will had no desire to play games. “Here’s what I know.”

  The older cop tapped his pen against his notebook when Will finished telling him about the missing hikers. “Residents really believe they might’ve had a serial killer running around?”

  “It’s not too big of a stretch,” Will said. “Not when you take into account the physical similarities between the three women.” He’d brought his laptop and now opened it up, pulling up the file on the three women who’d gone missing over the course of a single hot summer.

  Their ethnicities were different, but all of them had skin of light brown, their hair dark, their bones fine, and their height on the shorter side of average. But it was their smiles that tied them ­together—­there was a primal vitality about the women.

  All three were vividly alive.

  Robert’s younger partner whistled. “Jesus, I see what you mean. Why wasn’t this picked up on before?”

  “I don’t know that it wasn’­t—­it’s just not in the official files,” Will said. “I tried to get in touch with the detective in charge, but he died of a heart attack a few years ago, and the team that worked with him ­could—­or ­would—­only give me what’s already on record.” Wherever Matilda’s junior detective had picked up his intel, no one was willing to discuss it now.

  “How extensive was the search?” Robert frowned. “I’m remembering the cases now, but I’m fuzzy on the details.”

  “It went for ­weeks—­and began after the second missing hiker.”

  “Not the first?”

  “She didn’t file her route anywhere.” Never knowing how easy it was to walk into the bush and never return. “No one knew she was heading to Golden Cove.” A number of the editorials that had come out in the aftermath of that summer had been ­flat-­out cruel, blaming the women for a lack of preparation.

  “And the third?”

  “Reported as missing by her family, but again, with no filed route, there was no reason to connect her to the Cove.” It was a small place in a country full of wilderness. “Then the media began a series on women who’d gone missing and never been found.”

  “Right.” Robert snapped his oddly slender fingers, fingers more suited to a pianist than a cop. “I remember my commander at the time being pleased at the exposure. She was hoping it’d bring closure to some cold cases.”

  “It ­did—­an elderly couple came forward to say they’d given the third woman a lift to Golden Cove, while a bus driver remembered the first one getting off at a trailhead just outside the Cove.” It wasn’t an official stop, but most of the drivers didn’t mind a quick stop so hikers could jump off.

  He brought up the paltry list of recovered belongings: the pack, the water bottle unique enough to be identified as belonging to the first missing woman, and finally, the identity bracelet found at the “cave” on the beach. “The bracelet was discovered two days after the end of the first official search, which focused on the bush trails.” Will had his own thoughts about the timing, but no proof.

  “With the terrain and the lack of any evidence of foul play,” he said, “the disappearances were eventually ruled accidental. Most people thought the women got lost or stumbled into a crevasse or down into the sea. The detective in charge kept making notes in the files after the official accidental death finding, so it’s safe to say he had his suspicions, but he was never able to link another missing woman to the town.”

  Robert’s next question was predictable; he’d been staring at the map of Golden Cove on which Will had marked the recovered items. “How far to where the water bottle was found?”

  “Only about a ­twenty-­minute walk from here.” Will looked over at where Shane had made his chilling discovery. “The relevant track loops around to eventually join the one on which the remains were located.” The murderer amusing himself with a little game of memory. “It’s overgrown but was walked by volunteers during the search for Miriama Tutaia, so it should be passable.” Nikau hadn’t said anything overt, but he’d made sure the search covered all areas related to the lost hikers. “You want to see it now?”

  Robert nodded. “I’ll pull a couple of the SOCOs off the ­dump—­that’s going to take forever. They might as well walk ahead of us and collect any evidence our boy left behind.”

  Will was too experienced a cop not to sense the older man’s skepticism beneath his outwardly cooperative response. Robert was wondering if Will wasn’t stretching the truth to make himself more relevant to the case. But skeptical or not, he was doing Will the courtesy of listening, because once upon a time, Will had been a hotshot cop with an instinct for running down predators.

  The hotshot was gone, but it turned out his instincts had survived the fire.

  Soon as everyone was ready, Will took them to the start of the track and had the forensic people walk ahead about a foot, one on either side of the trail. Tree ferns, their bodies lush and dark and their leaves a silvery light green, grew thick around them, along with taller, more ancient trees that blotted out the cloudy light.

  Moss hung from branches and he saw a perfect spiderweb strung between two ferns.

  In the shady and cool dark, the freshly trampled undergrowth cushioned their footsteps, creating an eerie silence that Will broke. “The water bottle wasn’t found on the track itself, but about ten feet to the left, just lying on the ground.”

  “Like it fell from her pack and she didn’t notice?”

  Will nodded at the younger detective’s question. “Or like she dropped it while disoriented after being injured.”

  This particular track, with its hidden rocks and slight but steady incline, was hard going despite the inroads made by the searchers. He could hear Robert huffing behind him, bu
t the other man kept on going. It was his partner who whispered, “Are we seriously planning to follow the crazy cop deeper and deeper into the bush?”

  Will didn’t allow the question to distract him; he kept an eye on everything around them, just in case the killer had made a mistake this time. “That’s where the water bottle was found.” He pointed out a jutting rock barely visible through the tangled army of tree ferns. “Her family requested and was granted permission to place a memorial plaque against the rock just above where the bottle was found.”

  Stepping off the path, he led the other two detectives to the spot. Such a lonely, quiet place, he thought, looking down at the ­moss-­brushed engraving to a “beloved daughter and cherished child.” He wasn’t a man for prayer, but he hoped she’d been hit from behind, that she’d died without fear and with the sound of songbirds in her ears.

  “Imagine having only this to remember your kid.” Robert’s hand rose reflexively to his jacket pocket, where Will knew he kept snapshots of his wife and son. “Maybe we can give them something to bury at last.”

  Will took his colleagues back to the path in silence, and they carried on walking.

  But there was nothing to find. He could feel Robert and his partner glancing at one another, caught the edges of a furiously whispered conversation. The two scene-­of-­crime officers, however, kept on moving ahead, their white coveralls making them appear ghosts against the dark green of this quiet and whispering place.

  Robert coughed. “We should head back.”

  “It’ll be easier to go this way.” Will had never walked this track, but before leaving Nikau with Dominic, he’d asked Nik to confirm his understanding of how this track connected to the one Shane Hennessey had taken that morning.

  “Are you sure?” the younger detective asked in an overloud tone. “No offense, but I don’t plan to end up worm food in the fucking bush.”