by Alan Carter
‘You sure about that?’ says Gemma.
‘Let’s get on with it, eh?’
Before leaving home I called over to see Gary. He still carries himself tentatively since his left shoulder muscle was badly shredded by Marty Stringfellow’s knife last year. Marty – an enforcer for a Geordie gangster I once knew – now there was a bloke you could imagine doing those terrible things in the Four Square coldroom. But Marty’s alibied up – dead over a year now. Gary showed me the water tank.
‘Same as ours.’ I crouched down to look closer. ‘Holed low to get maximum leakage.’
‘Deliberate, then?’
‘Most acts of vandalism are.’ We studied the angles, lines of sight for both our tanks. ‘Over the river, high up on the hill. Had to be.’
‘Fuckwits.’
I gave him my spare resin for the repairs and the number for Marvin the water guy. ‘All good otherwise?’
‘Good as gold.’
‘Quiet without Richie around.’ Gary’s black mastiff was taken out by a logging truck just last month.
‘Not much time for hunting these days. But you never know, might get another.’
Gemma coughs politely to start the ball rolling. Scrolls through her iPad while Wonder Boy riffles a hard copy file in front of him and readies his pen and notebook.
‘So we need to account for your movements between about six on Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning. Can you map it out for us?’
I do. The Wednesday is fine: Charlie Evans and Latifa can alibi me for the hour or so preceding the body being found, Vanessa and Paulie will vouch for me being around at breakfast time, and Vanessa will confirm me being in bed with her all night. Tuesday evening I was home, fixing water tanks and being domestic. But the day before that, Monday evening, is a problem.
‘Finished my shift on Tuesday at around four. I was summoned home because there was a leak in our water tank. I left early as there was nothing going on and we closed up the office.’
‘We, being you and Constable Rapata?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then where did you go? Straight home?’
‘Pretty much.’ I give her the details. What a breeze.
‘How about the day before that, Sergeant?’ says Gemma. ‘Monday?’
Shit.
‘Why? I thought the timeframe was Tuesday into Wednesday?’
‘We talked to Gelder’s wife. She hadn’t seen him since Monday. He said he was going off to do some dredging on his claim.’
Gelder had this shack along the road a few k’s. He got the block really cheap, levelled it and put up some kit-build granny flat in a day. It’s got good access to the river and is round a sharp river bend, so any noise is muffled and any activity is out of sight. I’m convinced he’s not been keeping to the terms of the resource consent. I’m sure I’ve heard the dredge going on days he’s not allowed, starting earlier or going later than he should. Maybe I’m paranoid, hearing things. Wrong. Vanessa wants me to let it go. ‘Out of sight, out of mind, Nick. For fuck’s sake, get a life.’
‘Apparently he sometimes sleeps over in his shack, a man-cave type thing.’ Gemma does a swipe on her iPad and looks up. ‘So nobody had seen him for a full forty hours or so.’
A big show of concentrating. ‘Monday. Routine day. Constable Rapata will vouch for that. Close of business I went to the Four Square, got some bits and pieces. That should be on the CCTV. Just before they closed for the day.’
‘Then?’
‘Called in at the Trout at Canvastown, said hello to a few people, had a cider.’
‘Then?’
‘I stopped off just outside the Lodge, halfway up the valley road towards home.’
Wonder Boy makes a note of the property number I give him.
‘Why?’ says Gemma. ‘And for how long?’
‘I’d had a run-in with a fella that lived there. American.’
‘So many run-ins lately. Gelder, and now this guy.’
‘It goes with the job.’
‘Seems to go with yours, for sure. What was special about this one?’
I smile ruefully. ‘He managed to drop me one day last week. I’m not used to that. Been fretting about it. Obsessing.’
‘In what way?’
‘Replaying it in my head. How it could have gone. Should have gone. You know how it is.’
No. By the look of them, they don’t.
She nods at my hands. ‘Your knuckles. Been in the wars? Looks recent.’
‘Line of duty, again.’
She makes a note. ‘This American assaulted you last week. Did you charge him?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Decided to have a word instead.’
Some scrolling through iPads, accessing the database. Wonder Boy looks up. ‘This would be the Brandon Cunningham arrest?’
‘Yes.’
He reads the report. ‘Released with a caution. End of story?’
‘It seems not,’ says Gemma. ‘So you called in on him on Monday evening?’
‘No, I didn’t call in. Just sat outside in the car.’
‘For how long?’
‘Half an hour maybe?’
‘And then where, home?’
‘Yes.’
‘What time was this?’
‘It would be getting on for eight by then.’
‘And home for the rest of the night?’
I nod. Now I just need Vanessa to back up my lies.
‘There was a needle mark in Gelder’s neck. He was drugged before they strapped him to the chair.’
‘They?’ I lift my eyes from my phone screen. Been trying to get hold of Vanessa but to no avail.
‘The pathologist and our forensics crew are now of the opinion that there are at least two killers.’ Maxwell has called me in to his office, a former dressing room behind the stage. On the strength of my statement to Gemma he seems happy enough to assign me a specific role in his team. ‘There are gloved handprints on parts of his body, bruises if you like. Two sets, one bigger than the other. And forensics have identified two sets of fresh footprints, with blood smears to indicate how fresh, again one lot bigger than the other.’
‘Anything else?’
‘They went at him with secateurs, a corkscrew, knives, a broken bottle, blowtorch.’
‘Ugh.’
‘Eyes, ears, nose, fingers. All up for grabs. But the fatal stroke once they’d had their fun was a knife across the throat.’
‘Sweet release, I suppose.’
Maxwell nods. ‘Glad you’re out of the frame, Nick. Thing like this would be bad for PR. Right, let’s give you a job.’
‘Great. I assume Latifa will get support to make up for my absence?’
He frowns. ‘Shouldn’t be an issue. I was thinking some routine enquiries by you to lighten the load for our full-time investigators. Even do it from your own desk up there. Should be able to juggle that with your usual duties, right?’
Sure, not forgetting my vital role as Lollipop Man at the film set. ‘Is that what Keegan had in mind?’
‘I know she thinks highly of you, Nick.’ A pause to let the double-entendre sink in. It seems our tempestuous fling last year is an open secret. ‘But this is my investigation.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘We’ve got a list of plumbing jobs Gelder’s been doing the last few months. Maybe you can follow up on them with a few phone calls, visits if needs be, see if he’s been overcharging or doing bodgy work.’
‘Seriously?’
‘No telling what might trigger these things. Diligence, mate. Crossing the i’s and dotting the t’s. Foundation of all good detecting, you know that.’
He hands me the list and sends me on my way.
Back in our little cop shop, Latifa is fuming. ‘Who does she think she is?’
‘Who?’
‘Gemma Jeez-I’m-Great.’
‘What now?’
There follows a long tirade featuring words lik
e patronising, condescending, some te reo that’s new to me. The gist is that Latifa has offered her services to the investigation and Gemma, as 2-I-C, has rebuffed her. ‘She was the year above me at MGC.’
‘You went to Marlborough Girls College?’
‘Yeah, course I did. Why wouldn’t I?’
No reason. It turns out that Gemma got to be head girl instead of Latifa’s best friend who was, in Latifa’s view, far more deserving and it’s been daggers drawn ever since. We’re talking nearly a decade here.
‘What are you smiling at?’ she snaps.
‘I’m glad you’re human and grudge-bearing just like me.’
‘Just like you? God forbid.’ She flicks on her computer to check the incident log. ‘So you got on the investigation, big shot. What have they got you doing?’
‘Routine stuff.’
A grunt. ‘Another crash on the Whangamoa overnight: two dead. A drowning up at Tennyson Inlet. Bloke dived off a jetty after a skinful and didn’t check the tides. Three reports of vandalism up your way.’
‘Vandalism?’
‘Somebody shooting at water tanks. Usual hillbilly high jinks.’
I log in and check them out for myself. Three properties a little further down the valley, between the six and nine kilometre marks. Then there’s us and Gary. ‘Five water tanks shot out.’
‘Five? It says three.’
I explain to Latifa and she asks why I never reported it. ‘Report what? Some trigger-happy dickhead in the valley?’
‘But now we’re looking at a pattern. A serial offender.’
She’s right and it needs to be nipped in the bud. ‘Want to run with it?’
‘What?’ she says, flushed with mock delight. ‘A case pour moi? All of my own? Oh, my!’
Ignore the sarcasm. ‘Anything else of interest?’
‘Apart from the body in the Four Square, no.’
That reminds me to get on to the list of Gelder’s plumbing jobs. Vanessa returns my call, it must be lunchtime. My rumbling stomach confirms it. ‘You rang?’
With Latifa in the room it’s best not to ask Vanessa if she can provide me with a false alibi. ‘No big issue, it’ll wait until I get home tonight.’
‘So you just called to say you love me, is that right?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Go on then.’
‘What?’
‘Say it.’
Latifa is pretending not to listen.
‘I love you.’
‘That’s nice. Love you too. See you tonight.’
I put my phone away.
‘Sweet,’ says Latifa, sourly.
Allowing for travel time, the plumbing jobs average six a day for the last month. That’s around a hundred and twenty jobs all up. Some are return visits to the same property but it’s still over a hundred enquiries. And if this doesn’t bring any results, Maxwell might well extend the timeframe just to keep me occupied. Why doesn’t he want me in a more useful and central role? Maybe I’m just surplus to requirements and he’s going through the motions for Keegan’s sake. By now Gelder’s name has been released, we’ve all seen his family crying on the TV news, and the people I phone are wondering what the hell the standard of his plumbing has to do with his grisly death. Most folks are suitably shocked and respectful and nobody has a bad word to say about him. There’s the odd joker.
‘Mate, the laundry tap still drips so I just had to take the fucker out. Lol.’ Through the window, dark clouds are rolling in from the north-west. There’s a few rain spots on the glass and the director of Doom Creek is probably pulling her hair out at the prospect of another interrupted filming day. I’m about a third of the way through my list with nothing to show. Then we feel it. Latifa looks up at the same time. A shudder and a jolt, like a big truck just went by – but it didn’t.
Earthquake.
‘Four and a half, five maybe?’ says Latifa. ‘Hasn’t been one of them for a few weeks.’ We check the Geonet website, it’s a six point two out in Cook Strait. ‘Didn’t feel that strong.’
But it’s been enough to trigger a couple of car and shop alarms. Heads are poking around doors, looking up and down the street. A few shrugs and back inside. The landline goes.
‘Sergeant Chester?’ It’s Devon Cornish, from the film set. ‘Hello? Are you there?’ His voice sounds delayed, echoing. Then again it would, it’s being bounced off a satellite somewhere in space.
‘Yes.’
‘You’d better come up here.’
‘Is Cunningham back?’
‘No, there’s been a landslide.’ I can hear other noises now. Screams. Yells. ‘People hurt …’ Interference, dropout. ‘Some … body … dead.’
6.
We arrive at Butchers Flat just ahead of the ambulances and the emergency services volunteers. A big old man pine has come down, demolishing the toilet block and the catering caravan. There are people trapped inside, we are told. Some land has slipped down to the river, taking a couple of crew cars with it. Latifa summons the able-bodied to help bring order to the scene. It’s eerily quiet, the chaotic screams and yelling heard earlier down the phone have subsided. The crushed caravan is the priority. Devon Cornish and Thomas Hemi are among the throng and Hemi seems to be holding up a tree single-handedly.
‘We’ve got her,’ says Devon.
We help pull a young woman out from under a section of tree. It looks like her shoulder is dislocated, otherwise she’ll be okay.
Hemi rests his burden, he’s barely raised a sweat. ‘There’s one more under there, the caterer fella.’
The emergency services team coordinator steps up. ‘We’ll take it from here.’ Hemi shrugs, accepts a pat on the shoulder and a cup of tea from someone’s thermos.
‘How many hurt?’ I ask, noticing a couple of walking wounded at the far end of the campground. ‘Any serious?’
‘No,’ says Devon. ‘Mainly cuts and bruises, twisted ankles. Sorry, I think I might have overreacted on the phone.’
‘Hardly. You mentioned a body, a death?’
‘Not one of ours. It looks like it’s been here a while.’ He nods for me to follow. ‘Over here.’
Where the old man pine toppled, a whole pile of earth came with it. And a body. Well half a one actually, from the waist up. It certainly has been there a while, it seems to be nearer to skeleton than corpse, but with a layer of tattered dried skin and remnants of sinew. Flies and other insects are taking a shine to it and we need to do something.
‘Anybody got a tarp?’
‘Got something better,’ says a recently arrived paramedic. ‘Body bag do you? Brought some spare, just in case.’
‘Perfect.’
He brings one over and we ease the half-body into the bag. The paramedic spots it first where hair and skin has peeled away from the skull. ‘That looks like a bullet hole to me.’
The emergency services team have managed to free the caterer. A toppled bar fridge snapped his ankle and his wrist but he’ll live. The ambulances have shipped out with those who need extra care and the surviving crew and cast are on their way home for the day. Nobody has asked for trauma counselling but it’s available if they want. They’ve been given a helpline number to call if certain shock symptoms develop. The half-body is on its way to the mortuary. So far we haven’t found the other half. All in all it’s been quite a day for Devon Cornish but he remains philosophical.
‘Luckily we’d done most of the shooting we needed to do. We can always come back later for some pickups with a second unit. Insurance should cover the blowout.’
This must be how film producers think, not unlike police HQ bean counters: how disasters impact the bottom line. Thomas Hemi is among the last to leave. ‘Heroic effort there, Thomas. You’re a star.’
‘Wasn’t the whole tree, I just rolled that big branch that’s all.’
‘Still pretty impressive.’
Hemi lifts his shoulders. ‘Pity they’ve finished. Could get a taste for that film lark.’ He s
tifles a yawn. ‘I hear there’s been a few water tanks shot out up and down the valley?’
‘Yep.’
‘Add mine to the list. Must’ve happened overnight.’
‘Bugger.’
‘Yeah. And I never heard a thing.’
‘Slept through?’
‘Not me. I wake up when the birds are clearing their throats. I reckon your shooter’s using a silencer.’
It’s late afternoon by the time I can leave. The emergency volunteers will tidy up the debris and arrange for the cars to be lifted out of the river. Rather than go back to the office I opt to go straight home. Another migraine throbs at the back of my skull. I used to get them often when I was younger but less so these days. Well until recently anyway. The plumbing list can wait until tomorrow and Latifa has added Hemi’s water tank to her investigative caseload.
Vanessa is hosing the vegies as I pull up. ‘You’re early.’ We smooch and I bring her up to speed on the happenings at Butchers Flat. She nods. ‘I felt the rumble but didn’t think it amounted to much. Saw the ambulances zooming out of Havelock. Assumed it was a crash on the highway.’
‘There was this old body there too, uncovered by the landslip.’
‘How old?’
‘Decades maybe? Haven’t a clue.’
She grabs an armful of greenery. ‘Vegie quiche do you for dinner?’
‘Great, I’ll help you chop.’ I look around. ‘Paulie inside?’
‘No, he’s having a few hours at Mim’s after school. I’ll pick him up later.’
‘His new friend? Where does she live?’
‘A farm between here and Pelorus, near Daltons Bridge.’
Fifteen klicks or so. ‘It’s great he’s making some connections. Is she special needs too?’
‘Nah. Straight as.’
I punch her playfully on the arm. ‘Sounding more and more Kiwi all the time.’
‘There’s still a good hour or so before we need to pick him up.’ She runs a damp courgette up my forearm. ‘Any thoughts?’
‘I’ll pop a Panadol and be right with you.’
‘You okay?’
‘A bit of a headache. It’s nothing.’
She pouts. ‘Is that your version of “Not tonight Josephine”?’