I shook my head and smiled at the old coot. “Ford Transit,” I said.
“Bingo! That’s the one.”
Only the most popular van in New Zealand.
“Windows? Signwriting?” I pressed “License plate?”
“I told you, Summer. I didn’t think much of it until I noticed the footprints in the garden bed the next day. If I’d thought it was up to no good, I would have paid more attention.”
“That’s OK, Mr Henare. A white Ford Transit van is at least a place to start.” A very teeny, tiny place.
“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
“You’ve been brilliant,” I told him, giving his gnarled old hand a squeeze.
A door slammed over by the reception area, and we both looked up to see the beanpole watching us. No one had appeared from the two occupied apartments. The Range Rovers were still exactly where they had been. But the “resort” manager was definitely on the prowl for something.
“Better leave you to it, then,” I said, wondering where I’d go from here.
“Nice seeing you again, Summer. Say hello to Sadie for me.”
“Will do, Mr Henare. Don’t work too hard.”
I waved at the gardener and then waved at the property manager just to be ornery. I received only one wave in return.
“Oh, hey, Summer?” Mr Henare called when I was a few paces away. I turned and shielded my eyes from the sun to look at him. “There was something written on the side. In orange and red.”
“A company name?”
He shrugged. “Just remember thinking it matched the dahlias.”
Orange and red. Orange and red. I couldn’t think of a company logo that matched orange and red. I thanked the gardener and turned to leave when a lick of heat washed over my neck. The fine hairs on my arms rose with the sensation, and then a shiver ran through me. My steps faltered, but I forced myself onward. The burning sensation got hotter and hotter; it felt like the skin on my nape might blister from it.
And then the smell of petrol reached me.
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Not that I thought the Shimmering Sands Apartments might blow up, but because fire and gasoline were not a good combination at a holiday spot.
Nor were they welcomed at a petrol station.
I slumped into the Mighty Micra and closed my eyes, then rolled down all the windows. Even with the sea breeze wafting in through the openings, I couldn’t dislodge the scent of petrol. I shifted my head on my neck and then started the car.
Danvers hadn’t mentioned a white Ford Transit van, so he’d not bumped into Mr Henare. Or he’d simply not asked the right questions. People could be cagey like that, especially the locals. If they didn’t know you, they’d not relax. And one thing I’d discovered since becoming a private investigator, people talked to people they trusted.
It wasn’t Detective Douche’s fault; he was new to town, that’s all.
But I wasn’t. I knew who to ask and what questions to ask. And I also knew which petrol station was likely to be the one the van driver used to fill up at. Mangonui was more well known than Taipa. Taipa was a blip on the map. Mangonui was a historic settlement. People came from all over to see the old buildings and fish and chip shop. But to get to Mangonui, you had to take a side trip from State Highway 10. And the one road along the waterfront was it. There was nowhere to hide and nowhere to blend in. The harbour on one side. The historic buildings and Aunt Sadie on the other.
So, the little gas station on Waterfront Drive was out. But the big Z petrol station on SH10 was definitely in. I drove there.
The Micra wasn’t a gas guzzler by any stretch of the imagination, so the fifteen dollars and thirty cent top up I did wasn’t going to win me any favours.
The fact that Greg Childs was behind the counter, however, did.
“Well, hello, Summer,” he said as I handed over my credit card. “Long time no see.”
His gaze tagged my boobs. Or Animal. But I was betting it was the boobs.
“Hey, Greg. I heard you were back for the holidays.”
“Auckland’s got nothing on the North.”
“I hear ya,” I said, leaning down on the counter and emphasising my cleavage. Animal was reluctant to give up the goods, but I persevered.
Besides, a girl’s gotta use her talents to get ahead in life. And Greg was nothing if not a connoisseur of girls’ talents.
“Maybe we could hook up while I’m home this summer,” he suggested, without any preamble, I might add. “A little taste of Summer over the summer months.” He laughed at himself.
I tried but, good grief, it was hard going.
“Depends,” I said, flicking my hair over my shoulder. “Who else are you hooking up with?”
Greedy Greg, as I’d called him in high school, was never satisfied with one girlfriend. He’d had a plethora of the darn things. I didn’t doubt for a second that he had a plethora of girls back in the city.
Is it a plethora of girlfriends or a gaggle, like geese?
I smiled, thankfully Greg thought I was coming on to him. It didn’t take much for him to think that, unfortunately. You had to be careful what you did around Greg, lest he think you were offering up your girl bits for his summer studies.
“Oh, don’t be like that, Summer,” he drawled. “You’re more than enough of a handful to keep a guy busy.”
Shoot me, now. Please.
“Tell you what,” I said, running my finger across the countertop. “Show me your office, and I’ll think about it.”
“My office, eh? You naughty, naughty girl.”
There were customers in the petrol station, and it looked like Greg was the only one on the counter, but that didn’t stop him. A man on a mission, that was Gregory. He opened up the door to the back office and followed me in, turning to shut the door behind him. If he trapped me in here, I’d probably not see the light of day until winter.
Greg might like to share it around, but he was thorough about it. Or so Tia told me. I wondered if Tia knew he was back. And then I wondered if Tia would gossip about Greg with me once she heard what I was working on for the cops.
I shook my head, spun around, and pressed a hand into Greg’s chest, halting his forward momentum.
“You’ve got customers,” I told him.
“Stuff them, Summer. I can do quick.”
“Just what a girl likes to hear, Greg,” I muttered.
“Come on, babe. A quickie just to get us started, and I promise I’ll take care of you later.”
I shook my head incredulously. “Word of your prowess has been greatly exaggerated,” I told him.
“Let me show just how much prowess I’ve got.”
The bell at the counter dinged.
“Customers,” I repeated. “You deal with them; I’ll wait patiently.”
He studied me for a moment and then nodded his head. Leaning toward me, he kissed the side of my neck and then whispered in my ear, “Don’t start without me, baby.” He pulled back and added, “Or if you do, make sure you take a picture.”
I snorted. Then pulled my cell phone out and wiggled it at him.
“Sure thing, stud,” I said.
“Thatta girl, Summer. Knew you weren’t as stuck up as everyone said.”
With that lovely compliment hanging on the air between us, he pushed through the door to the front of shop and then closed it behind him. Perhaps he didn’t want anyone to see me getting started without him. And then I spotted the camera hanging on the wall in the corner of the office; red light blinking.
“You naughty, naughty boy, Gregory,” I murmured, and sat down at the desk.
Finding the video surveillance for the date in question wasn’t hard, fast forwarding through hours of footage in ten minutes flat just about did me in. But by the time Greg came back for his little bit of Summer nookie, I was out the back window, license plate number in hand.
My finger wave to the camera might have been a bit on the nose, but I thought I de
served it.
Orange and red. I knew what the colours stood for now. And Detective Douche was gonna love me.
Chapter 12
A Sneaky, Suspicious, Skimpily-Clad Spider
I didn’t get to Detective Danvers’ house until after sundown. Doug choked on a chicken bone, and I had to rush him to the vets. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars later, a drugged up dog overnighting at the animal hospital in Kaitaia and a tearful great aunt husking way too much corn on her front porch, I found myself on the detective’s doorstep. He opened the door to my tired knocking in running shorts, a sweat-soaked t-shirt and a sign that read Lick Here across his forehead.
No, on second thought, the sign was all in my head.
But at least I wasn’t tired anymore.
“You look like you’ve had a hard day,” he said.
You look good enough to eat, I thought.
He grinned at me.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Come in,” he offered. “There’s beer in the fridge.”
“Are you drinking?” I asked, as I stepped past him and tried not to inhale too deeply.
“I’m on call.”
“Then I’ll pass.”
“Don’t hold back now, Ms O’Dare,” Danvers said. “Besides, I need a shower. And I’d rather you sat back and drank a beer than snoop around my house while I’m occupied.”
I snorted and went in search of the fridge. As if a beer would stop me snooping.
The man didn’t know me at all.
I was flicking through his unopened mail on the hall stand when he came out of the bedroom; hair still wet, shirt pressed, jeans and bare feet completing the image nicely. The clean, masculine scent of soap wafted out to greet me.
“You haven’t changed your address yet,” I remarked, noting the forwarding address used on the envelopes. He’d been a Wellington cop from the looks of it. The capital to Northland in one easy step.
“It’s been less than a week,” he told me.
“And yet you would have known about this transfer for quite some time, Detective. Why the hesitation?”
“Why are you here?” He did that. Answered a question with a question to deflect.
I let him have this one. The answer was obvious. He wasn’t committed to the position in Mangonui yet. If he had been, he would have changed his address.
An out of towner for a local cop was one thing. An out of towner who still dreamed of being out of town was another. Northland needed commitment. I bizarrely hoped Suzy would stick with this one instead of her usual kiss and run technique. If she stuck to Detective Douche, maybe he’d stick to us.
It was something.
I took a swig of my beer and watched as the detective crossed the open plan living area and took a seat in an armchair. None of the furniture was his; he would have been given this home to live in fully furnished by the police. Part of his employment package, no doubt. But somehow he made the decor his.
A rock climbing magazine lay open on the coffee table next to a murder mystery. In the corner sat a surfboard, it had to be his as Detective Pieters, the former inhabitant of the house, had been closing in on sixty and suffered from arthritis in his hips. A small reference library had been started on a bookshelf across one wall. The Sanctity of a Crime Scene was one of the books. French Cuisine was another. A bottle of scotch and a crystal decanter stood on the sideboard. The scotch was full, the decanter empty. I bet my next donut fix that it would remain that way for the duration of his stay in Northland.
There was little other clutter, but I did notice a brass figurine hidden amongst the reference books. The three wise monkeys. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. It about summed the detective up, I thought.
I took a seat opposite him, and for a while, we just stared at each other. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking; he kept his features schooled. I smiled. He didn’t.
I wasn’t sure Detective Douche smiled much at all.
I suddenly wanted him to.
“Knock-knock,” I said.
He blinked at me.
“This is where you say, ‘Who’s there?’”
He said nothing.
“OK, I’ll do it. But you should know, I failed drama in high school.” I cleared my throat. “Knock-knock,” I repeated in my normal voice. “Who’s there?” I said in a mock imitation of his deep timbre. “It’s the police.” Danvers pinched the bridge of his nose. “What do you want?” He closed his eyes. “We just want to talk,” I said. “How many of there are you?” He let out a little sigh. “Two.” I tried not to smile. “Then talk to each other,” I finished in a now raspy voice.
I let a little cough out with a giggle and took a swig of my beer.
“I’ve got more,” I told him.
“Please don’t.”
“You need to laugh a little.”
“That wasn’t funny.”
“Like I said, I’ve got more.”
“Why are you here, Ms O’Dare?”
“Do you think you’ll ever call me Summer?”
“If you promise not to tell me any more cop jokes.”
“But knock-knock ones are OK?”
He looked at me.
“I know a knock-knock joke about donuts.”
“Of course, you do.”
“It might make you smile.”
“Finding the murderer and solving this case would make me smile.”
“I get it. Business only. I found out how they got close enough to steal Big Wig’s corporate secrets.”
His head shot up, and he speared me with an intense look.
“What do you know?” Not, how do you know? We were making progress.
I pulled my cell phone out and scrolled through my pictures, then presented him with one of the security footage on the computer screen at the petrol station. I wasn’t stupid enough to have taken the video itself, but the image was clear and the license plate was identifiable.
So was the courier company logo.
“What’s this?” he said, reaching out and taking the cell phone from me. He stared at the picture and then swiped to the next. Then he proceeded to swipe through my entire cell phone’s photo album.
“Ever heard of privacy?” I demanded.
He smiled. And all it took was a picture of me wiping out on Charlie’s surfboard.
He turned the cell phone around and presented me with the picture of the Range Rover license plates.
“You went to the Shimmering Sands,” he said.
“I did.”
“And confronted Mr Carmichael?”
I shook my head. “Mr Henare,” I told him. “The gardener.”
“The gardener,” he repeated and then, “Huh.”
“That van was spotted parked outside the back fence of the Shimmering Sands Apartments the night before Carmichael reported his intellectual property stolen. The thief used the van to access Big Wig’s laptop via wifi. That driver is your man.”
He stared at the photo for a long time.
“This is an Auckland courier company,” he finally announced.
I shrugged. “Big Wig is an Auckland based corporate douchebag.”
He looked up at me. “This is good.”
“I know.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“Thought you might.”
He stared at me, the cell phone forgotten in his hand. I met his gaze, but it was getting harder. I saw the doubt there. I saw the questions. I saw the moment he decided not to ask them, and the moment he chose to use my intelligence to catch a murderer.
Even good guy cops could turn a blind eye when it suited them.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I said, standing. I walked the empty beer bottle into the kitchen. Danvers followed.
When I turned around, he was holding out my cell phone.
“Good work, Ms O’Dare,” he said.
I sighed but accepted the cell phone without a rebuke. If he couldn’t call me Summer, then he would forever be called Detective
Douche.
“Catch ya on the flip side,” I said.
He snorted softly and showed me to the door.
It was only after I reversed out of the parking spot in front of the police station that I wondered where Suzy was. The convertible MX-5 was conspicuous in its absence.
And it left me feeling all kinds of bubbly inside.
Stupid sexy cop.
I considered visiting Aunt Sadie and checking that she was all right. She’d been cut up about Doug. But it was after ten, and even if she’d stopped husking the corn, it was a little late for a visit. I thought about phoning Tia; she’d still be up. But I couldn’t face my BFF and the lies I’d have to offer.
So, I drove home and walked down to the beach. There were a few late night beachcombers, but not many. The moon glinted off the water, reflected like a swollen marshmallow in the sky. I stripped off my t-shirt and shorts and then walked into the water in my boy-short undies and bra. From a distance, it’d look like I was wearing a bikini.
The water was warm, salt licked my skin, and with one deep breath of air sucked in, I dived under.
If only it were that easy to wash away the guilt.
I slept fitfully and woke with a headache. And I couldn’t even blame the single bottle of beer I’d had at Danvers’ last night. Aspirin, coffee and the last Coffee Cube donut did the trick, but the two messages from Tia on my cell phone left me feeling sick inside.
I ignored them, grabbed my handbag, complete with gun and the case file, from inside the safe in my office, and headed for the kitchen counter. Charlie was MIA, as was the Holden and his surfboards. The dude was getting a heck of a lot of surf time in. I could hardly blame him; surf was up at Tokerau. Or so his note said.
I was just flicking through the file Danvers had given me one last time when someone banged out an urgent refrain on my front door. It didn’t sound friendly. I placed the file back down on the counter, swung my bag across my chest, released the clasp to ensure I’d have easy access to the gun inside, and crossed to the front door.
Peering through the peephole, I spotted a teased up head of blonde hair.
“Great,” I muttered, sealing up my handbag again. Keeping temptation so readily accessible was not a wise idea with Suzy in attendance.
Chasing Summer Page 10