Love Under Fire

by Frances Housden

  She’d rolled her eyes at this information. It wasn’t as if the pair of them were joined at the hip. One of them should have stayed behind at the scene. Maybe then she wouldn’t have felt like the middle man in a comedy routine, not knowing which way to turn. If she followed her instincts would it earn her a rap over the knuckles? Or was Bull hoping she would do just that?

  Rowan stepped round her, taking a good hard look at the way the victim had been staked out. “They didn’t make much attempt to hide him.”

  She’d been mulling over that exact thought. “It’s like they were thumbing their nose at the cops. Which shows how much they think about our ability to catch them.”

  “Don’t put yourself down. The other two had this case well chewed over before it came your way.”

  She let out a sigh and let her gaze wander. “They couldn’t have picked a better spot to throw a load of confusion into the mix. This is a well-known short cut. It probably saves a couple of minutes compared to following the path, but it’s not going to make our job any easier.”

  She ran her gaze over the grass and dried mud path, checking it out. “Most of this trash has probably been blowing around for weeks. Also, it hasn’t rained in a while so we can discount the footprints.”

  “Am I included in that our?” he asked.

  “I doubt it. But it isn’t my case, so you should speak to Bull. He’s the man again.”

  “Don’t take it so hard. You’re the one with experience, he’ll be a fool if he doesn’t utilize it.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Bull may be old-fashioned when it comes to female cops, but this one time he’ll have to get over it.”

  Behind her, Harry let out a bark straddling the fence between cough and laughter. “See, he doesn’t think I have a show, either.”

  “The Sergeant will back you. Won’t you, Harry?”

  “On your recommendation, McQuaid?”

  “On her reputation.” The two of them were thick as thieves, but it pleased her that Rowan didn’t trade on it over much.

  As Harry nodded, she said, “Thanks, guys, but this never should have happened and that’s how it’ll read on my record. We all know what happened after my last mistake.”

  Harry coughed again, but there was no telling if it was in agreement or denial.

  “You don’t need to go there, Jo.”

  “It’s no secret, is it? I got sent here for almost killing you. Well, this time I’ve succeeded. Rocky is definitely dead.”

  Her eyes welled with tears as self-pity got in another strike. “Where do you think they’ll send me this time?”

  Rowan carried on as if he hadn’t heard. The plastic covers on his shoes rustled as he hunkered down beside Rocky and she was glad he wasn’t looking her way as she swiped her knuckles across her eyes. Rowan didn’t touch the pale flaccid body, but his hand hovered over the area of the wound and pointed with a ballpoint. “Not much blood.”

  His pen scribed a circle in the air and flicked away a dead leaf that had floated onto the body. “D’you think this was drawn before or after he was killed?”

  Jo heaved in a breath. Inside her navy jacket with Police emblazoned in yellow, her breasts quivered on a sigh, but she felt better. Following Rowan’s example she bent her knees and crouched down beside Rocky’s mortal remains. “After. I’d say.”

  She turned her attention to the ropes on Rocky’s wrists. No bruising. “He wasn’t killed here. They tied him up after death. And look at this.” She lifted one leg to look underneath. “He wasn’t lying in this position till a while after death. Has anyone found his clothes?” she asked Harry.

  “Not so far. I’ve put a couple of men onto searching the park. Once they finish here they’ll start checking out the Dumpsters and the park’s rubbish receptacles. I heard Bull ring Gisborne for reinforcements.”

  “That’s good to know. We’re going to need them, thanks, Sergeant.” Habit took over as she mentally enumerated the tasks ahead of her, unaware of anything else until she lifted her head and her gaze clashed with Rowan’s. It was as if Rocky didn’t exist, as if they weren’t in the middle of a crime scene, but back in the bush, just the two of them. If only.

  His clear green gaze met hers and her heart squeezed. Oh, boy, she was in trouble, deep trouble. Her eyelashes flickered, tangling together, camouflaging her emotions, or so she thought. She felt about Ginny’s age, fourteen with all the uncertainty that comes with burgeoning hormones. Jo licked her lips, but a smile for Rowan still trembled on them. “Did I tell you thanks for all you’ve done?”

  “No problem. Anytime,” he said without a blink, his eyes wide as if she filled his vision.

  A rush of hope welled up inside her and her heart went down for the final count. The future spread itself out before her, beckoning, as if she could have it all, a meaningful relationship, maybe even marriage and a family, but best of all, the love of an honest man.

  Rowan thought he was doing a pretty good job of blending in with the furnishings at the back of the squad room. It was small by Auckland standards, but the best the station house had to offer. He’d also discovered something about himself.

  The pain he’d expected to experience in this familiar milieu hadn’t materialized. Instead, he’d only felt a small pang of nostalgia for the old days. Seemed he’d healed in more ways than one and was ready to move on.

  He watched Jo’s long dark curls bounce on her shoulders as she spoke animatedly to Harry. Soon, he determined, he’d make sure Jo was ready to make that move with him.

  Bull had the floor. “Okay, anyone not know why we’re here?”

  The few grunts his audience emitted appeared to satisfy the D.S., and he continued. “At or about one a.m. Saturday morning, Rocky Skelton went out to the Dumpster after he and his wife had cleaned up. Molly, his wife, went off to bed and fell asleep, not realizing he hadn’t joined her until she woke next morning.”

  Turning to the board his finger underlined one of the police photographer’s shots of Rocky. “Six-fifteen a.m. the victim was discovered looking like this, by a young girl on a bike. She was in the middle of her paper route so if any of you missed out on the morning’s news, you know why.”

  The obligatory titters sounded forced. Murder wasn’t a joke to be laughed at in a town that hadn’t seen one in ten or more years. Bull smiled at the response then spoke to Harry. “Sergeant Jackson, er…where are you up to?”

  Only one day since Ginny found Skelton’s body and already Bull was out of his depth, not that he would admit it. To Rowan’s mind it seemed the first two statements were all Bull had rehearsed.

  “Most of the guys I pulled off the crime scene, now that we have reinforcements, will be doing a door-to-door for anyone who saw Rocky. I know the hour was pretty late, but someone may have heard something. The others will take the streets bordering the park and radiate out from there.”

  “Can I butt in here?” said Jo. Bull nodded.

  “Although it hasn’t been confirmed yet, we ought to keep in mind the victim wasn’t killed at the crime scene. That means they had to move the body, so you’re also looking for a vehicle that may have wakened one or more of the neighbors. My thoughts are that they probably parked at the top end of the shortcut to save carrying the weight uphill, but don’t take that for granted.”

  “You guys keep that in mind.” Bull seemed to find his second wind as if for once having Jo on his side gave him the confidence he needed. “Jake and I have a list of the regulars at the Hard Luck Inn and we’ll check on them today. If you come upon any leads, inform either me or Detective Jellic.”

  Hmmm, Bull was learning Jo was more than a token female cop.

  Bull went to the board. A map with several pins on it, plus notes on everything they’d had so far, were displayed along with crime scene photos and copies of the anonymous notes, both Rocky’s and Jo’s. “And you, Detective Jellic? Have you had a result on these?” Bull tapped the notes with a pen.

  “Forensi
cs say they’re snowed under, but I’ve been promised a full work-down tomorrow at the latest.”

  “Well, keep on them. If we can’t wrap this up in the next few days then we’ll have to put up with cops we don’t know from Wellington.” He looked apologetically in Jo’s direction but it didn’t stop him from saying, “We don’t want them coming here with their big-city ways and looking down on us.

  “Jo, before you do anything else, go talk to the widow. Molly wasn’t up to saying much yesterday. Maybe you’ll be able to get something other than tears out of her today.”

  Bull rubbed the tip of his nose on the back of his hand and sniffed. “Play up the woman-to-woman angle.”

  Rowan couldn’t see Jo’s face, but he watched her squirm in her seat. “I have a few ideas of my own. I’d like to put them into play.” She sounded optimistic. Whatever she had in mind, it wasn’t something she’d shared with him. By his guess it was to do with her still discounting the satanists. For himself, he wasn’t ready to discount anything or anyone, and that was his reason for sitting at the back of the hall.

  Without allowing her to feel crowded, he hadn’t let Jo out of his sight since their return from Te Kohanga National Park.

  While she sat up front, putting forward her take on what they’d discovered so far, the thought that her own life might be in jeopardy appeared to be the farthest thing from her mind, but it was perched right on top of his list. The only way to make him walk away from her now was at gunpoint. Dammit, not even then!

  He’d discovered something about himself, he no longer simply wanted Jo, he wanted to make her happy, but despaired of being the right man for the task.

  If she’d felt the desperation in his lovemaking last night, she hadn’t mentioned it. She’d simply fallen into a deep slumber in his arms, while his own troubles clawed at his gut and refused him sleep, her palm lay against his breastbone as if the pulse of his heart lulled all her worries. And that was only one of his problems. Over the last few days, Jo’s openness had competed with his own ambivalence; he had to tell her the truth about himself.

  The night before, he’d discovered a new Jo in the woman who cried on his chest. “I feel so bad, Rowan. For years…all those years I knew only one gift would do for my father, and I blew it. Rocky was the key, and with him dead it’s too late…too late.” She’d struggled out of his arms and stared unseeing across the dark sea, fist clenched hammerlike against her breasts. “Forgive me, Dad. I should have tried harder.”

  That had been his chance to tell her about his own father, Robert Stanhope, but he’d let the opportunity slip from his grasp. Big mistake. One he had to correct very soon, or he might live to regret the omission. It was no longer any use, telling himself he’d held back, when he realized how readily Jo shouldered other people’s responsibility. The way she had when he got shot. Now he felt like a cur. Her father at least had the excuse of being dead, but what was his?

  A fluttery sensation made Jo’s heart skip when Bull told her, “Might as well take McQuaid with you, he’ll go anyway and it will give me a man to put somewhere else.” Happiness for her had become the glimpse of a tall silhouette out of the corner of her eye, a fleeting touch of his hand as they passed, simple little things that made her feel utterly feminine. Utterly in love.

  She could practically guarantee Molly wasn’t going to be as delighted. And here she was at the rear door of the inn with Rowan at her shoulder, taking comfort from his presence. Or should that be his continued presence?

  Rowan had been part of the landscape all day. How many times had she indulged herself by turning, knowing he would be there?

  The door opened a reluctant inch at a time. Red-rimmed eyes stared through a veil of smoke. “Oh, it’s you. What d’you want?”

  Jo held up her badge as Rowan’s knuckles brushed her tense spine, a reminder she wasn’t alone. “Sorry to disturb you at such a time. My condolences at your loss, Molly. But I wondered if you felt better able to talk today. If anything more had occurred to you about the people who perpetrated this crime. I know you’ll want to find them as much as I do.”

  “You already know. Those devils took him from me.” Loathing seeped out from under her lashes and anger added color to her pinched face, made brighter by the lank silver curls framing it.

  Molly drew hard on her cigarette, her mouth tightened, pursing around the filter tip until her pale lips seemed to fray at the edges. In a cloud of smoke she turned her ire on Rowan. “The Stanhopes have a lot to answer, hanging on to money that was rightfully ours. My man’s dead and no money to bury him.”

  None of this was Rowan’s fault. Jo wished she could find an excuse for the other woman’s bitterness, but she had her own to contend with. Years of living with the lie Rocky perpetuated about her father had seen to that. And dammit all, she was only human.

  “Recriminations aren’t going to bring your husband back,” Rowan replied in a deep voice. Jo felt the rumble vibrate through her rib cage. That was how close he stood. “Rest assured Molly, there will be enough money to bury Rocky in style.”

  The widow rolled her eyes, as if to say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Without another word, she opened the door wide, walking ahead of them into the kitchen, shoulders stooped and back so brittle a light wind would snap it. Molly’s demeanor was surprising. She and Rocky had been married a long time, yet Jo had never gotten the impression it was a love connection.

  A strong odor of bleach and a gleaming kitchen indicated Molly hadn’t spent the whole day smoking and crying. As they got closer to the table, Jo noted a lonely stub in the ashtray sitting next to a half-drunk cup of coffee. Yeah, the woman had been busy. Every surface gleamed; floor, counters, pots on their hooks and knife handles in rows of three in their wooden block.

  Grasping the back of a wooden chair with a hand that looked red and raw, Molly scraped it across the floor, its feet clattering as she angled it into the position she wanted.

  Jo sat opposite, while Rowan settled for hitching one hip onto the edge of the worktable. She watched his large foot swing back and forth as she organized her thoughts. “If we discount the satanists, was there anyone else holding a grudge against Rocky?”

  Molly pounced. “Apart from yourself, you mean?” Her hand fisted on the scrubbed pine counter. There was an intense stillness about the widow, like a cat gathering itself to pounce.

  If it was a knock-down-drag-out fight she wanted, Jo wasn’t about to oblige. “How about that guy, Smale?”

  Molly’s face turned surly. She looked at the floor and ignored the question. Jo carried on. “He was sitting at the bar near the kitchen door the other night. He and Rocky seemed to be having a barney over something.”

  “Credit. He wanted credit. People are always looking for something for nothing. It wasn’t anything worth killing over.” Stubbing out her cigarette, undeterred by the change of direction, Molly went on. “Did you think he didn’t know you hated him for telling the truth about your father?”

  “That may be, but my alibi’s sound.” Jo didn’t utter the words, “How about yours?” But she knew Molly heard them. “If you think of anything else keep us informed, meanwhile I’d like to look through Rocky’s personal effects for any clues to his killer there.”

  Molly jerked her head toward an open door. “Our room’s down there, end of the corridor. Not that you’ll find much, we’d very little left. Take a good look. See how you’d like it. Nice place for a man to spend his last days. It’s clean and that’s all you can say for it. Not what you’d be used to, of course.” Again she aimed her malevolence at Rowan.

  His hand gripped Jo’s shoulder once they were out of sight. “Don’t let her get to you. I’m not. Skelton’s bank accounts had stacks of money in them. They didn’t have to live here, they could have rented a damn nice house, no problem.”

  Jo pushed open the only door at the far end. The room was small and cramped, hardly big enough for the double bed and dresser they’d crammed inside.

/>   “Whauh,” Rowan showed his disgust or maybe it was claustrophobia. “Obviously she had no idea about the money. There was no reason for them to live this way, unless you count greed.”

  “Well, she was right about one thing, it’s clean. I have a feeling that anything of use has already been tossed out.” Jo looked around the room. She’d been hoping Molly had redirected her compulsion for collecting to their sleeping quarters. There wasn’t enough space, though. Inside the room not a particle was out of place, from the hospital corners on the bed to the four-squared pile of magazines on top of the dresser. She wondered how much Rowan would bet on them being stacked by date?

  “We’d better get a move on. By the look of this place our next stop has to be the Dumpster outside.”

  “Thanks, Jo, you just had to make my day.”

  “Boy, am I glad to be heading home.” The last rays of sunset elongated their shadows and the lights in the marina hadn’t come into their own yet. Rowan’s arm was around her, holding her tight, pressed against his side and Jo made no bones about stealing some of his warmth to combat her weariness.

  Heavens, had she really said that? Her tired brain had taken a moment to register her unthinking comment. Flustered, Jo rushed to correct her mistake. “I meant glad we’re finished for the day. I know the boat isn’t home—”

  “Hey, take it easy, peaches. I don’t mind.” A shimmer of emotion curled inside at the inappropriateness of the endearment to someone her size.

  They’d reached the top of the finger where the Fancy was tied up and Rowan stopped under the lamp, turning her in his arms until they were facing each other. “Where do you call home these days? Here, or is it still Auckland?”

  “That’s difficult to answer. I can’t call Nicks Landing home. It’s simply the place where I work. And since Grandma died, even before, my brothers have scattered, one was in SAS, but now I’m not sure what he does. He moves around a lot. So I haven’t had a place to call home. At least not physically. But, Auckland has always been my favorite place.”