Southern Sunset: Book One of 44 South

by Nicola Claire

  “It wasn’t Charlie Davis,” I said, laying it out there.

  “It was not.”

  “You know who,” I said, anger making my voice sound like a growl.

  “I have no idea,” she offered politely.

  “You see everything, Alicia,” I pointed out. “You watch it all. You know something.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then spill.”

  “That’s not how the game is played, Sergeant.”

  “This isn’t a game. We’re talking about a man’s death. The innocence of two others. We’re talking about Missy Drake,” I added, lowering my voice and glancing toward the open door to the room.

  “Ah, so you’ve put at least that together. Good for you, Sergeant. I knew you had it in you.”

  “Who did she spend time with, Alicia?” I asked, ignoring the patronising tone. “Who did you see her with?”

  “Bear in mind my static cameras are limited to Main Street,” she advised.

  I scowled at the floor. Then had a thought. “Is the salmon the first flying fish you’ve ever had?” I asked.

  She laughed, a genuinely amused sound. She was delighted I was putting it all together.

  I was revising my earlier belief that I liked her.

  “It is,” she said, dashing my hopes. “But I have three drones.”

  Of course, she did. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  “I don’t use them all the time, of course,” she said genially. “But occasionally they’re good for sightings on arterial routes and their tributaries.” Who said things like that?

  “What on earth did you do you before you sold stuffed kiwis?” I demanded.

  “Now, that would be telling, wouldn’t it, Sergeant?” she said.

  OK. A puzzle for another day. “Tell me. Please,” I added for good measure. “Who did you see Missy Drake with?”

  “The better question, Sergeant, is where?”

  “Don’t play games with me, Alicia. This is important.”

  “Life is important, wouldn’t you say?”

  I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. I’d play. I’d have to. She held all the cards. The warrant had been specifically for that Friday night. Missy had been long dead.

  “Where did you see Missy Drake, Alicia?” I asked.

  “Tasman Road,” she replied smugly.

  “That’s the road the police station is on,” I pointed out. “Of course you’d see her there.”

  “Don’t be so one dimensional, Sergeant. There’s more than one business on that street.”

  I racked my brain, trying to picture the road I drove down practically every day. It was harder than it sounded.

  The police station. The RSA. SuperLiquor. Top Hut Bar & Bistro.

  The mechanic’s shop.

  Son of a bitch.

  “Tattoos and cigarettes,” I said.

  Alicia laughed, then added, “And Red Tussock utes.”

  Chapter 48

  We’ll Do That

  Luke

  I walked back into the lounge with Matt on my heels. The twins had taken a while to calm, but they were both sound asleep in my bed now. Matt had punched a hole in the wall in the bathroom when he’d gone in there to wash his hands. I hadn’t said a word when I found him washing blood off his knuckles.

  There’d be more blood flowing before the sun set today.

  Mac and Annmarie were talking to Maggie. Annmarie had her cell phone to her ear and was relaying part of her conversation to the others. Mac had a phone to his ear too, while Maggie was writing things down on a large sheet of paper.

  It was command central. This was Maggie in detective mode.

  I wondered if she’d miss it. Once this was over and Charlie was dead. I wondered if she’d leave, as I was sure she wanted to leave, and go back to her old job. CIB would be exciting, especially in the big city. How could Twizel compare?

  How could I if I planned to save my brother?

  Maggie stood upright and stretched her back. She was still aching from the accident, and bending over coffee tables was not the best way to recover. But her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed with life and she looked utterly stunning. I took the steps needed to reach her side and began to massage her shoulders.

  “I’m heading out,” Matt said at the open door, a scowl on his face as he surveyed the organised chaos of fighting crime.

  “Wait!” Maggie shouted after him, pulling away from my touch. But he’d already stormed back into the hall.

  “You can’t stop me, Maggie,” he ground out, throwing open the front door hard enough to make it bang against the wall.

  “I can and I will,” she replied firmly.

  Matt spun around and advanced on her smaller form, finger pointed at her chest.

  “This is not Auckland,” he growled.

  “This is not the fucking wild west, either,” she growled back. “Pull your head in, Senior Sergeant, and listen to what I have to say.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said, almost pleading. “He stole my wife! He stole my kids’ mother! We trusted him!”

  “He’s right, Maggie,” I said softly. “Charlie was one of the family.”

  “Well, just as well it wasn’t…” she started, just as the man himself - Charlie fucking Davis - stepped onto the porch.

  Matt let out a shout of rage. Charlie made a pathetic squawking sound, his cigarette dropping from his lips, falling through the cracks of the boards. And then they were rolling off the porch, flying through the air, fists swinging, legs kicking, fingernails scratching, as the rest of us ran out of the house.

  “Matt!” Mac yelled. “Get off him! You’re being a bloody idiot!”

  Matt ignored him. He and Charlie rolled toward Matt’s ute in a tangle of limbs and a roar of accusations, then banged into the right front wheel. Matt took hold of Charlie’s head, his face contorted in rage, and whacked it against the tyre rim. Charlie yelled and threw a punch. Matt delivered a head butt.

  I wanted to help my brother, I really did, but he needed this. If he tired, I’d finish Charlie off, I silently promised. But Matt got first dibs on drawing blood. It was his wife, his life, that Charlie had fucked with. Red Tussock’s claim was well down the list.

  They rolled again, this time under the ute and then out the other side. Annmarie was holding Mac back, who had already received a kick to the chin when he’d tried to separate them, and Maggie was missing. I glanced up at my bedroom window and spotted the twins.

  Torn between going to them and making them step away from this sight, and staying near Matt to protect his back, I stood there like a fucking twit.

  Then Maggie stormed out of the house, her gun in her hand, and fired three shots at the ground within feet of the still fighting men.

  “Motherfucker!” Mac yelled. “You could have hit them!” Maggie looked wild.

  Matt rolled away from Charlie and blinked up at her. She held her gun pointed in the vague direction of his leg.

  “Get up, Senior Sergeant,” she ordered, voice strained. “Get the fuck up, now!”

  “You dumb bitch,” he said, stunned that she’d fired. I was stunned too, but I stepped toward Maggie’s side.

  “Just get up, Matt,” I said. “It’s over.” For now.

  “Your fucking woman is batshit crazy!” Matt exclaimed, but rose to his feet as Charlie groaned on the ground.

  Maggie laughed. It was a little sharp. “I’m batshit crazy?” she said, shaking her head.

  “Matt, “Annmarie said carefully, walking over tentatively to my brother. “It wasn’t Charlie.”

  The world slowed down and then simply stopped moving.

  I stared at Matt and he stared at me, and then we both turned and stared at Charlie.

  “What?” our foreman demanded, spitting a wad of blood out beside him. “Let me guess… you fucked up again, didn’t you, you fucking no good loser drunk. Not enough to piss all over Red Tussock, but you gotta piss all over me, too, now?”<
br />
  “Shit,” Matt said, sinking to his knees, then back onto his arse. Looking dejected. He breathed heavily for a long moment, his face already swelling. His right eye drawing shut. Charlie had landed a few good blows, by the look of it.

  “It wasn’t Charlie,” Maggie repeated, holstering her gun. I realised she’d grabbed it from the office. Somehow fucking opened my gun safe. I was picking she’d used bolt cutters to cut the fucking lock off.

  I smiled.

  She scowled back at me.

  My woman is fierce and quite capable.

  “Who is it?” Matt demanded.

  Maggie crossed her arms over her chest and turned her scowl on him.

  “Sergeant,” Matt growled in warning.

  “No,” she said.

  “Maggie,” he tried and she let out a breath of air so hard it lifted her fringe off her forehead.

  “Jesus Christ, Matt,” she exclaimed. “You went off half cocked after an innocent man.What the hell would you do with the guilty one?”

  I saw the answer in his eyes. He’d kill him. I was right there with that sentiment.

  And then Maggie said. “Look above me.”

  “What?” Matt snapped, already raising his eyes to the second storey of the homestead. His face paled.

  “And that’s only two reasons why you need to calm down and let me handle this,” Maggie said quietly.

  “Damn you, Maggie Blackmore.”

  “Why did you hire me?” Maggie asked.

  Matt glared at her.

  “Because I’m a city cop,” she told him. “A former CIB detective. Because you knew I’d be the only one here who would do this by the book.”

  She looked toward Mac. “Tell me I’m lying.” He slowly shook his head. I realised, Mac would kill the bastard, too.

  Her gaze met mine, something sad and heart wrenching on her face. Something that made my chest tight. Made shame wash my skin in too hot tingles.

  “You too,” she said. I closed my eyes, but nodded my head.

  “And if you called in Justin, he’d be the same,” she guessed. “Hell, Sheila would probably smother the fucker with her muumuu.”

  I tried not to smile.

  “You’re all a little crazy, you know that?” she said. “A little touched in the head.”

  What the fuck?

  “But I find myself liking the unusual, lately. Falling for all the bizarre. So, trust me.” She looked at each one of us in turn. “Can you do that?”

  I’d trust her with my life.

  I looked at Matt.

  I’d trusted her all along with my brother’s.

  “We’ll do that,” I said.

  Chapter 49

  Do You Really Want To Toy With Me Again?

  Maggie

  I watched the mechanic’s shop from behind the blinds at the police station.

  “Told you he was a no good piece of shit,” Sheila said. I didn’t reply.

  Marinkovich’s Garage was open for business. A VW Golf in one bay, up on a lift, a Craggy Range Station ute parked in the other. There was a young guy working on the VW, but Markinovich was nowhere to be seen.

  And more importantly, neither was his big black mechanic’s truck. The one that looked like a Red Tussock Ford Ranger.

  “When did you last see him?” I asked Sheila.

  She frowned, considering her answer. “Yesterday. Yeah, it was yesterday afternoon.”

  “What was he driving?”

  “A van. A white one.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her. “Seen it before?”

  “I don’t watch him all the time, you know? I do have a job to do.”

  “Sheila,” I said in warning.

  She huffed out a breath and said, “No, I haven’t seen it before.”

  I turned back to the window and watched the unimpressive scene across the street.

  “Got an address for me yet, Annmarie?” I called out.

  “Just found it,” she said, emerging from behind the divider. “He lives behind the golf course, on Ostler Road.”

  “Not a lot out there,” I said. “Storage units, fuelling and dump stations, wood supplies. Big lots, nothing residential.”

  “Yeah, I Google Mapped it. Looks like he lives in a converted two storey shed next to some privately owned storage units.”

  I held my hand out for the address and pulled out my cell phone. Twenty minutes later I had search warrants for the garage across the street, the storage facility and Marinkovich’s address. The judge and I were becoming quite friendly.

  “How do you want to do this?” Annmarie asked.

  “Ideally, I’d hit all three locations at once.”

  “We can’t,” she said simply. “Not without Mac and the senior sergeant.”

  “We couldn’t even if we had them,” I pointed out. I’d left Matt and Mac back with Luke at Red Tussock. The thought of having them anywhere near Marinkovich gave me hives. I wasn’t sure how they were fairing out there, but the sooner I got this done, the better for everyone’s state of mind.

  “We do it logically,” I said. “Garage. Home. Storage sheds.”

  “It’s gonna be a long day,” Annmarie pointed out.

  “Suit up,” I instructed. “I’ll unlock the gun safe.”

  Her brow arched and then an excited glint entered her eyes, animating her entire face. “Sure thing, Sarge!” she said, and hightailed it out to the locker room.

  “She’s still so new,” Sheila commented.

  “She’s a qualified and trained police officer. And I won’t let anything happen to her,” I said.

  Sheila held my stare with a momma bear one of her own. “Be sure you don’t, Maggie Blackmore,” she declared.

  As if I didn’t have enough pressure on me today.

  I swiped my phone open again and found the number for the closest police station to ours. It wasn’t ideal. The less people involved the better, but I’d put them on standby. I hadn’t met anyone at the Omarama Station yet, but I outlined what was about to go down, omitting a few pertinent facts, and put the senior sergeant’s cell phone number on speed dial.

  Looking back across the road, I stared at the garage. I’d served search warrants before, of course. But usually with a squad of personnel to back me up. This time I had a probationary officer and myself. Serving three warrants on the same man, consecutively.

  We’d be lucky if he didn’t flee the county by the time we rolled out of the garage.

  I turned back when Annmarie walked into reception and nodded my head at her wide eyed, eager look, then started toward where Matt kept the service weapons under lock and key. I hadn’t even left the reception area when the door squeaked open, crisp winter air rushing in on stomping feet.

  “Ah, Sergeant!” Senior Investigator Everett said. “So glad I caught you.”

  I held back the sigh that wanted out - barely - and turned to face him.

  “What can I do for you, Senior Investigator?”

  He seemed pleased I was playing by the rules today. I just wanted the day to be over already.

  “I’ve found some rather disturbing discrepancies in the filing system here and I wondered if you could help me fill the gaps.”

  Of course he’d found discrepancies. I’d confiscated several files so he wouldn’t read them.

  “That is disconcerting,” I commented mildly. “But I can’t assist you right now.”

  “Why not?” the annoying man demanded.

  I held up the search warrants Sheila had printed out. “I have police business to attend to.”

  “This is police business. The business of clearing everybody’s name in Twizel.”

  “Everybody’s?” I asked steadily.

  “Well, it’s obvious the files relate to cases the senior sergeant has worked on. But that doesn’t mean the senior sergeant has removed them from their rightful location.”

  I couldn’t believe this man.

  “What are you trying to prove, Everett?” I asked. “That ev
ery cop in New Zealand is crooked? You're making a pile of horse shit out of roses,” I pointed out.

  “I’d hardly call officers ‘roses’, Sergeant.”

  “We’ve all got thorns, Everett. Even you.” Although I’d call him more of a weed than a rose. Maybe bramble or gorse, something prickly and noxious.

  “Very amusing,” Everett said. “But I’m watching you very closely, Sergeant. In fact, I think I’ll accompany you.”

  Oh, hell no. I shook my head. “I can’t allow a civilian to be involved in this operation.”

  “I have clearance.”

  “From the Twizel Board of the Mackenzie County Council?” I asked archly.

  “Who else?”

  “Prove it,” I said. “Show me your mandate.”

  He humphed and straightened his shirt sleeves. “You don’t believe me?”

  “I’ve never trusted you, Everett. And I’m not about to now.”

  “Phone them,” he said quickly. “Go on. Give them a call and check it out.”

  I stared at him for a long moment and then slowly smiled. I had no idea who was on the local Council Board, but if Everett had permission to investigate from them, he’d have whipped out the email by now.

  “Sheila,” I said, not taking my eyes off the insipid man before me. “Get me the number of someone on the local Board.”

  “Of course, Sergeant,” she said from behind me.

  Everett twitched slightly.

  “You really are a piece of work, Sergeant,” he snarled. “You didn’t like how I ran your brother’s investigation…”

  “No one did.”

  “… and you obstructed me then, almost losing your job over your uncalled for exploits.”

  “They were called for.”

  “Do you really want to toy with me again?”

  “It’s not toying if it’s justified, Everett.”

  “You are walking a fine line between justice and obstruction, Sergeant. Maybe it will be your name on the next investigation I run.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “I have nothing to hide.”

  “Nothing? I wouldn’t be so sure, Sergeant. Your brother’s unfortunate PTSD symptoms provided a level of protection from reprimand six years ago. But this time you don’t have a mute to save you.”