by Lee Hayton
With a final nod back at Officer Richmond, I walked over and tapped Areanna on the arm, trying for my most soothing tone. “Come on, let's get that coffee, and talk somewhere where it won't be so overwhelming.”
She nodded at me weakly as we walked down to the café on the corner of the street.
I sat down at a table with her and ordered a hot chocolate. She blinked at me, and I gave her a smile.
“Despite what the rest of the department might do, personally I can't stand the taste of coffee. It might be why I’m still a lowly detective constable after so long. There seems to be a lack of trust of people unwilling to drink that brew except in direst necessity,” I joked with her.
Areanna responded with a sad smile. I continued, “What Matt did was neither the right time nor place. But his question is still something we answered. You're hiding something from us.” As her mouth opened to issue an empty protest, I held my hand up to head it off.
“It won't help the investigation nor will it help us find your son,” I said in a pleading tone of voice. “Please, if you tell us everything I promise it won't get back to your husband.”
She sat there silently for several minutes. Then finally she sighed. “My husband has a low sperm count. Jason isn't his son.”
I nodded calmly and said, “Please, give me the name of your son's father. He has to be the chief suspect in this circumstance. I will warn you that if he’s the biological father, he’ll face lower charges when we find him, but at least your son will be back home.”
I hesitated for a moment, spooned the marshmallows from the hot chocolate into my mouth. “There’s also another risk, sometimes fathers of children in these circumstances feel angry with the situation. When they take the child, they take that anger out on them. The sooner we can find him, the lower the risk of that happening.”
She looked at me, took a brief sip of her coffee, then pursed her lips tightly. I could hear the echo as the prison doors slammed closed. Finally, she just shook her head at me.
“Please...” I reached my hands across the table, supplicating.
“No. Locking him up would kill him. He is a free spirit, free as a bird. I won't take the risk that he'll end up in jail. My husband will insist on it. He won't speak up, admit the child isn't his.”
I scowled at her. She was putting me in an incredibly tough situation. Without knowing who the father was, this investigation both got harder and more dangerous for everyone involved. Including the father of the boy.
“If we find him without that information we have to assume he's a thuggish criminal. We might have to call in the tactical squad, and that means guns, Areanna. More dangerous than this man, more dangerous for your boy, more dangerous for everyone.”
Then my phone rang. Looking at the caller ID, it read ‘lab.’ I was a little surprised they had any results so quickly, but considering Mrs Thea was still stonewalling me, any information would be welcome.
“Detective Lind, speaking.”
“Hey, Lou. This is Candice from the lab. We have a report on the feathers found at the scene. It makes absolutely no sense unless the family is in conflict with Ngai Tahu.”
She let a long pause develop, the silence elongating until it began to fray into sound from the strain. I bit my lip to stop myself giving an irritated prompt.
At last Candice resumed, “The feathers could only have come from a Haast's eagle. They’re extinct, but some of the tribal ceremonial items still have feathers from them. But if it were something to do with the local tribe, they'd have come to us first. We have a good relationship with them, at least compared to most departments.”
I sighed into the phone. If it was Ngai Tahu, Candice was right. They would have brought it to us first, well before taking action like this. But if it wasn't a local tribe that her lover had been a member of? Gods knew how likely they'd have been to do this.
This was not going to be a fun case. It had politics of the worst kind written all over it now.
If it was Maori with access to taonga—cultural treasures—then it meant old Maori traditions were at play behind the scenes. With the importance of Ngai Tahu investment in the region and the constant clash of cultures, it could get out of hand.
It could even mean Areanna’s partner had been half-blood Maori, and she'd refused to let them teach him the tribal ways as he was entitled. Either way, it was a bloody awful political mess. And it had landed on my plate.
#
A remorseful mother in tow would be more use to me than dropping her back into Lindsay’s protective clutches. Installing Areanna in the passenger seat, I hauled my arse down to the local iwi headquarters.
The apathetic officials there referred me on to the local Marae. Fantastic. Ngai Tahu were the first settlers around here and arguably New Zealand’s most powerful iwi. Add in my scant knowledge of local customs… This meeting was going to get off to an illustrious start.
Except it didn’t get that far.
A teen hanging around the marae entrance took one look at my car nosing into the driveway and scampered away, returning moments later with an elderly woman with moko tattooed on her chin.
“What’d you want?”
I went to open my door, and she pushed it back in place with the rubber tip of her cane. Never mind. I settled for rolling down the window instead.
“We’ve found Haast’s eagle feathers at a crime scene. Wondered if your taonga’s been raided lately, by anyone.”
Her head was shaking before I even finished the sentence. “Yeah-Nah. We don’t have ‘em here.”
She leant in through the window and took a good gander around the inside of my car, before looking me in the eye and sniffing. “The only ones we caretake are part of a korowai on loan to the local museum.”
I remembered seeing the notice for the exhibition of traditional Maori feather cloaks. Hand-stitched, each constructed from thousands of rows of feathers sewn tightly into place.
Not much into fashion, I’d decided to skip it.
“If you’ve found feathers, we’ll take them under our care once you’re done with them.” She sniffed again and nodded at my companion. “You the one whose kiddie was snatched overnight?”
I nodded on behalf of Areanna, and the wizened elder shook her head. “Nasty business that.”
She met my eyes and bowed her head forward. “If you find it’s one of these fellas,’ she jerked her head back toward the marae, “you let me know, and I’ll drag him down the station myself. We don’t deal with things that way down here.”
Withdrawing from the window, she tapped her cane twice upon the hardened dirt of the driveway. Conversation over.
A wave in thanks and I backed up, revving the engine while I considered where to go.
The talk of eagles made me think of mountaintops, solo and glorious. Barely knowing where I drove, a voice called me until I found myself nosing the car into the turning up to Mount Hutt.
Used to seeing it in winter, where it operated as a popular ski field, there was a marked difference between my fond memories of cold whiteness and the lushness of the green mountainside we drove up. An old yellow Holden in front of me lost speed with each metre we crawled up the steepest stretch of road. No use tooting, the guy thankfully pulled over into the first rest stop past the peak.
A few steep rises later, I parked the car at a tranquil picnic spot and got out of it, stretching my legs. Ignoring the isolated wooden benches, I opted to sit instead on an outcropping of rock. Surrounded on all sides by a festive commune of daisies.
Areanna joined me—if you call sitting on the far edge of the same rock ‘joining.’ With her anxious back to me, I spoke to her in a low hypnotic hum.
“Tell me about him, what he was like. There’s nobody around to overhear.” The awe-inspiring view was empty of people, empty of judgement.
My voice too was non-judgemental, infidelity didn’t bother me. Though, when my ex played that game on my watch, he’d ended up with a face full of brick
wall.
Mrs Thea raised a shaking hand up to her temple. Before my empathy cut-off switch could flick on, I stretched my hand out to touch her shoulder. A tiny rub of reassurance to let her know I was listening.
“He brought me here, once. I thought I was dreaming.” Areanna’s voice was so low a breath of wind stole half of it away.
I shifted my butt cheeks a couple of inches closer and tilted my head toward the gentle curve of her neck.
“Once, after Lindsay and I fought, he left on a sales trip. Three weeks of travel and we’d barely spoken while he was here. Not great for anyone’s marriage.” Her hand moved up to her face again, this time the fingertips glistened as she tucked them back down to her side.
“My lover flew me up here and laid me down on that peak,” she pointed to an impossible ascent, so high the wreaths of cloud obscured a clear view. “His claws were so long, so harsh, I never imagined they could be so gentle.”
I tried to think back to my beginner’s level psych class. Was it transference when you made up bullshit with a grain of truth or was that wanting to screw your shrink?
Either way, if Areanna was serious about flying men, she had a fair dose of make-believe going on. But I still needed a name, so I let her carry on.
As she described the opening moves of her dalliance in more detail, I closed my eyes and could smell the cool, clean air, rising far above the smoggy bands of pollution. The rich scent of soils left undisturbed for years harbouring their treasure of minerals. So very different to the soil tilled and turned, sprayed with pesticides while its bounty was stolen away.
“I took my ring off when we made love,” Areanna continued. She flicked her head toward me to read my expression and though she turned again, this time she only did it half-way. Enough for me to catch the set of her mouth and the crease of her eyes.
“I told myself it wasn’t cheating. Not when the partner wasn’t fully human, and my husband had stormed away overseas.” She twisted the rings on her finger as she spoke, lifting it up to the knuckle as though repeating the same gesture. “I didn’t even know when Lindsay came back if he would still be my husband.”
“Confabulation,” I burst out, then slapped my hand over my mouth. Luckily, Areanna was so wrapped up in her distorted memory that she didn’t react to my outburst. But that was it, confabulation—wrapping a story around a kernel of truth without even the conscious knowledge you were embellishing.
Or bat-shit crazy in other words.
Areanna shielded her eyes against the white-hot poker of the sun and turned her face to look where she’d indicated earlier. Her eyes were unfocused, enraptured, and her melodic voice sounded like it was drifting back through time.
“When he first entered me, it felt like I was flying. Even though by then we were on solid ground. It’s never been like that with Lindsay or any other man.”
She swallowed and shook her head, not in negation but in wonder. Whatever else was going on, this broad had fallen hard.
Her arm lowered, her gaze dropped, she started to twist her hands in her lap like they were snakes fighting.
“The next morning I woke up back in my bed at home. Lindsay called, and I felt so good that I was nice to him. We made up, and when he came home we were fine again.”
She swallowed, her throat ticking with the movement. “I found out I was pregnant a few months later.” A laugh trilled forth, a sweet and winsome song. “When I timed it and thought the baby might be Arnie’s, I was scared my pregnancy would end with an egg.”
That gorgeous laugh again, and I understood exactly why this plain woman had been plucked out of the line-up and danced away by a handsome man. A person could fall in love with that laugh.
Not me, but—you know—a real person.
I tucked away the name for future reference. No need for the voice recorder for that task, though it still hummed away inside my pocket.
“When I went for my first ultrasound, I didn’t tell Lindsay. It meant I had to walk fifteen minutes to the office. After two litres of water, I was fair busting by the time I got there.”
A smile drew Areanna back into the past again. She cupped her elbows and bent forward to place her forehead upon her knees.
“The nurse rubbed that jelly across my stomach, and I could barely catch my breath. Then I saw Jason on the screen—looking like a curled-up ghost—and I cried from sheer relief.”
Enough reminiscing. If Areanna carried on, she’d have me in tears and the entire day wasted. I leant over and put my hand on her shoulder.
“What was his name, Areanna?”
Her muscles tensed under my palm, and I leant forward with expectation.
“Arnie Pouakai.”
I didn’t ask her to spell it, just scrawled the nearest I could get it into my notebook, then stood to jog back to the car. One radio call back to the station and every cop in Christchurch would join the hunt.
“There he is.”
Already a few steps away, it took a second to work out what Areanna was saying. She’d also risen, pointing now into the distant sky. I followed her finger and felt a wash of symphonic music drown out my senses.
A large eagle, wingspan at least three metres across, soared across the sky. The sweep of its wings was majestic, a lump formed in my throat. With tiny movements in its wingtips, like ailerons, the bird steered a path toward the same peak Areanna had indicated. Then a flap and swirl, like the dance of a conductor’s bow, and it landed with grace and walked into human form.
Naked male human form.
A blast of discordant music, like every out-of-tune instrument in the world blew a note in unison, exploded in my head. My teeth hummed as though they’d shatter while the cacophony continued, then ceased as abruptly as it had started.
What were we talking about? My confused brain couldn’t remember. I felt warmth spreading out from my pocket and reached in to see what I’d secreted away.
I pulled out an evidence bag containing a long feather. The rich chestnut brown tips fading into vulnerable grey fluff. Where it had come from, I couldn’t remember. But the sight flooded my head with awesome song, soaring into the highest registers. My chest split open with longing.
I looked over to the far peak and saw a lonely man sitting on its edge. My heart started to pump double time, my eyes bulged in their sockets. What the fuck was that idiot doing?
Suicide?
With no hope of reaching him, I panicked and ran in his direction anyway. Away from Areanna, straight toward the dangerous road. My hand raised in a fruitless gesture. I yelled “Stop!” in a voice snatched away by the cruel wind.
He plunged off the side of the cliff face, falling straight down, head first, like a shag diving into the ocean for a meal.
Like a bird.
A flap and the man grew wings, grew feathers, swooped into flight. The intricate play of sunlight and feathers formed a gorgeous tapestry of colours down his back.
I turned away, eyes watering from the sun. What was I doing?
The world deadened into shades of concrete grey like the world had sludge poured in a thin layer across it, hardening into an immovable state. A life fixed in place. The shrieks of birds and the rustling of trees from the mountaintops were muffled, sheltered by a layer of cotton wool.
I clicked my fingers. A moment ago, I’d been getting my sunnies from the car. Leaning through the passenger side window, I popped the glove compartment open and pulled out the leather case.
When I tried to stuff it, now empty, into my pocket, my notebook and recorder fell out. Arnie Pouakai was written on the first page, underlined.
Fuck, I was losing the plot. Areanna had given me the damn name, and here I was putting on accoutrements like a bloody diva.
I pulled the radio over and called the name into the station. “He’s likely got the child with him, and he’s got a head start of at least,” I checked my watch, “six hours.”
As soon as the dispatcher confirmed the message back, I turned and b
eckoned Areanna over. Her head was tilted to one side, a conspiratorial smile dancing on her lips.
“Time to go back home, love,” I said, feeling a surge of irritation. “If he’s around and about then he’ll be picked up in a couple of hours. Even street scum won’t mind lending a hand with this.”
#
I’d only just dropped Areanna back home when the station called in with a potential trace. Putting my foot down I got over there as fast as I could. Still too slow to beat the uniforms but at least I wasn’t the last.
In the driveway of the target address, a wide yellow Holden sat upon its fat wheels. With a stumble over the curb, I realised it was the same car that had slowed me down earlier. Something tried to click together in the back of my head, but like dub-step in a choral line, the pieces didn’t fit.
“Parental abduction, is it?” the uniform Sergeant asked, walking over.
I nodded in agreement, and he sighed.
“I hope this one doesn’t turn nasty.”
“The mother didn’t seem concerned that he would hurt the child, just wanted him back. Three-way marriage, if you know what I mean.”
An officer called out and rapped on the boot of the car with his knuckles. Each marked vehicle had a gun safe with some powerful stuff. The Sergeant shook his head and wandered over to have a word. As he left my side, I saw the curtain twitch in the front room and took my chance to slip down the house on the opposite side.
Nearing the corner at the back of the house, I tipped my head around for a quick look. The metal netting of a fly screen protruded in a bubble from the back door. If it were off the latch, I’d be in luck. The seconds started to count down in my head.
Four steps to the rear entrance and the screen door pulled open freely, not even a squeak of hinges as I ducked inside. Careful of the potential for a creaking floorboard, I walked as close to the walls as I could get.
Edging slowly into the hallway, I saw the shadow of a man in the front room. Holding my breath, I tilted my head to listen to the ambient noise of the home.
There!
A faint whimper, a noise unlike any a grown man could make. The boy was in the house somewhere, probably in the room off to my left.