by Cat Connor
I opened the door to the stairs again and decided to start with the room at the end of the hall. I walked past another stairwell. So many stairs. The room at the end was a master bedroom, walk-in-wardrobe, en-suite bathroom. Nice.
At the top of a much darker stair case I paused. I could feel cold rising from below but couldn’t see anything. I followed the stairs to a landing. There was nothing on the landing, round the corner more stairs. At the bottom of those stairs the cold grew. A tiled floor, glass doors, on the right a solid door on the left another solid door. The door on the right had a key in it. I turned to the left and opened the other door. A wine cellar. Racks of wine bottles lay covered in dust. No one had been in there for a while.
The other door beckoned. I turned the key and swung the door open. Another garage. A double garage. There was a boat on a trailer on the far side. The side nearest me was empty. No car. Tools. Fishing rods. Life-jackets. Nothing remarkable just functional.
Mitch’s voice rang out. “Coffee!”
I closed the door on the tidy garage and climbed back up the stairs. A loud crash of breaking glass echoed below me. I turned trying to determine where the noise came from. Garage? Cellar?
Cellars don’t have windows but they are full of glass.
Garage.
Mitch’s voice rang out from above. “All right down there?”
“Yeah, not sure what that was,” I yelled back.
“I’m coming.”
My right hand sought the grip of the Glock that was always on my hip and came up empty. I looked down. Nope no gun. No holster. Unarmed. Not good. I took a deep breath.
New Zealand not Virginia.
How bad could a crashing noise really be?
I heard Mitch running down the stairs. He slowed for the last few steps then stopped beside me.
“Garage,” I said.
Mitch turned the key in the lock and swung the door wide. Light streamed from the window on the other side of the garage. It wasn’t broken. Everything looked the same as it had except for a pile of boxes. They’d toppled over. Broken glass spilled from an over turned box onto the garage floor.
“Think we found the source,” Mitch said.
“Why did it fall?”
I wasn’t convinced. I scoured the garage looking for a reason. Another noise. Tapping. Mitch heard it too. He stopped and turned around. My heart pounded. There was something or someone in the garage.
I crouched down, peering across the floor I saw feet way over by the boat trailer.
“A bird?” I said pointing to the trailer.
Mitch pressed a button on the wall. The garage door slowly began to lift. We watched as a large brown bird strutted out of the garage and down the driveway. It was as big as a chicken but with much longer legs and a long pointy beak. Kinda like a taller bigger kiwi just going by the kiwi I’d seen at the zoo in Washington, D.C.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“A Weka,” Mitch replied. “They’re inquisitive. He must’ve got trapped in here.”
“Guess I got him all excited when I opened the door earlier?”
“Yeah, he probably thought you were going to let him out.”
Mystery solved. I smiled. “He was kinda cute.”
Mitch closed the garage door. We locked the interior door and headed back upstairs for coffee.
Half way through my coffee I put my cup down and looked at Mitch.
“Problem?” he asked.
“How’d the Weka get in the garage?”
“I don’t know,” he said setting his cup down. “Neighbours probably opened the door for something …”
That seemed reasonable.
“So, the beach?”
“Definitely the beach. You want to finish exploring the house first?”
“I think so,” I replied. “You could show me to my room?”
He bit his bottom lip. “I could.”
“Did you get our bags?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t see them anywhere.
“Mine is?”
“In your room.”
“Thank you.”
Maybe I should go find out where my room was by myself. I mentally ticked areas of the house off a list. What was left? Up. My gaze shifted from the coffee on the table to the window as I tried to determine time of day. Afternoon. But what day?
“Mitch?”
“Tuesday about three-thirty in the afternoon.”
This time I didn’t question how he knew what I was thinking. Where Mitch was concerned just-go-with-it seemed to be the best philosophy.
A yawn escaped unchecked. Mitch smiled. “Tired?”
“Little bit.”
“Been a long two days.”
Been a long life.
Another yawn crept out.
“Why don’t you go have a nap?” Mitch said. “Your room is upstairs on the right. You’ll find everything you need in there.”
Everything? I doubt that.
“I think I will. What are you going to do?”
“Think I’ll sleep too.”
I stood up, placed my cup in the sink and found my room.
I rolled over, light peeked through a gap in the curtains. Life sang outside. Beautiful songs I’d never heard before.
I was beginning to see what Mitch travelled all the way out here for and why he referred to Marlborough Sounds as paradise.
The clock on the dresser said five-thirty.
I’d slept for two hours and felt fantastic.
With no place I needed to be I rolled onto my back and attempted more sleep. Half an hour of tossing and turning later I lay still and stared at the smoke alarm on the ceiling. Counting seconds between flashes of the tiny red LED that said the alarm was operational.
Counting to occupy my mind.
It failed. My brain was already thinking about Mitch. Was he asleep? I could go make coffee. He might be awake by now? Could I go make coffee? What if he wasn’t up? Take him a cup and wake him up? Risky.
The internal debate raged until I heard a door open and close. He was up. I hit the shower, cleaned my teeth, dressed in fresh clothes, and casually walked down the stairs. I paused at the bottom. Left or right?
Mitch’s bedroom? No. The living area. I turned right. When I opened the door I could smell the coffee. Mitch looked over from the kitchen.
“Morning, sleepyhead.”
Puzzled I joined him in the kitchen.
“Morning?”
“Yes.”
“I woke at five-thirty in the morning? That’s a little more than two hours sleep.”
Mitch grinned at me. “You slept like the dead.”
No wonder I felt so good.
“You know this how?”
“I checked on you a few times,” he replied. “Breakfast. Coffee. Then we’ll go for a walk.”
“All planned then?” I laughed as he poured cereal into a bowl and pointed to a chair at the table. I sat down.
“Breakfast,” he said, setting the bowl in front of me.
“Thanks.”
Breakfast carried on, amicable, chatty, fun. All the things I associated with Mitch.
“Beach?” Mitch asked taking keys from the counter near the back door.
“Awesome.”
We left the house via the back door. I didn’t want to go back down the internal stairs to the door at the bottom. Something about the cold air down there made my skin crawl.
We passed the garage and carried on down the steep driveway.
At the bottom was an upside down dingy.
We carried on following the driveway to the left. Climbing over driftwood.
We stood on the gritty sand. I breathed. Deep breaths. Across the sound a bush-clad mountain rose from the still water.
Paradise.
Mitch walked up the beach. I watched him pick his way around rocks. The tide was out.
“You coming?” he called.
“Yeah,” I replied. Just enjoying the view. Seem
ed best to keep that to myself.
I caught up with him.
A familiar smell wafted on the light breeze. Once you’ve smelled a decomp you never forget it. Dead fish maybe? Hopeful. I knew it wasn’t fish. My stomach churned as I scanned the tree line and the beach. I saw the cause lodged by a tree at the edge of the beach.
“Mitch…” I moved toward the trees. The smell grew stronger and completely over-shadowed the clean sea air. Bile rose. By the time I reached the tree I knew I was right. A body. I struggled not to retch as I saw maggots writhing and wriggling as they fed on the person’s face.
I spun around as Mitch came up behind me.
“Don’t, you don’t want to see this,” I cautioned. “Does your cell work?”
He nodded. I could tell by the look on his face that he’d glimpsed the body.
“On my beach?” he mumbled, dragging his cell phone from his jeans pocket.
“We’re going to need police.”
He made the emergency call.
I crouched by the body and began a visual examination.
Female. Slim build. Light brown shoulder-length wavy hair. Obvious facial wounds. I looked at her hands, no abrasions that I could see. She was wearing a diamond engagement ring. I moved around her, stepping with care. The back of her hair was matted with blood and sand. The body didn’t appear waterlogged. Maybe she hadn’t been in the water or if she had she wasn’t in it long? She was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a fitted tee-shirt. Her clothes appeared dry. I patted my own pockets expecting to find latex gloves.
Nothing.
Damn.
Vacation.
“Hey, Mitch, you don’t happen to have a first aid kit down here anywhere?” Ever optimistic. First Aid kits usually contain latex gloves. I didn’t want to contaminate the body by searching for ID without gloves on.
“Isn’t it a bit late?”
“Not for her. I need some latex gloves.” I had another thought. “Can I use your phone, please?”
Mitch half-smiled. “Sure.” He threw it to me. A thoughtful look crossed his face. “Actually, yeah, there’s a first aid kit under the dingy. I’ll be back.” He took off at a run.
While he was gone I photographed the body and surroundings with his phone.
There was a two foot long broken branch a few feet behind her that interested me.
Hair and blood stuck to it, I only noticed because I got close, the blood splatter and hair strands looked like they were mostly under the branch and divided by a break.
I looked from the wood to the body.
Did she fall and smash her head on the branch? Hopeful but not likely. The way the branch lay, it had been thrown or dropped. Could be a murder weapon. I took a series of photos of the branch and the body.
Mitch appeared next to me with latex gloves.
“Thanks.” I swapped the phone for gloves and pulled them on. I had to search the woman’s pockets and clothing for anything that would tell us who she was. I don’t like unidentified bodies. I like to know who I’m dealing with. She was wearing a backpack. I could clearly see the straps over her shoulder.
“Supposed to be a vacation,” I mumbled and then gave the woman my undivided attention. I rolled her toward me. Maggots fell to the sand. I supported her with one hand and inspected the back of her head. Looked to me like she’d been hit with force. Bits of bark were lodged in a large wound, there weren’t maggots in that wound, yet. I tried to free the backpack with the other. It was quite a struggle. Dead people are heavy. Dead weight is a truism.
I tossed the pack out of the way once it was free and lowered the body back down.
Moving away from the smell I sat on the sand and opened the bag.
It was a daypack.
Snacks. Change of clothes. Suntan lotion.
Tissues. A phone. I set the phone aside. A wallet. A passport. As soon as I pulled it out I knew it was American. My heart sank a notch or two as I opened the passport and recognised the woman on the beach.
“Nancy Medina,” I whispered.
“El?”
“Mitch, she’s American. Her name is Nancy Medina and she’s twenty-three years old.”
I set the passport aside and checked her wallet.
Cash. Credit cards. Travel card. A university identity card. Not a robbery then. “College ID, she attends Caltech.”
I put everything back in her wallet. “Can you photograph the pack and contents, please?” I asked Mitch.
He took his phone back out of his pocket and did as I asked.
I pulled the gloves off, balled them up and dropped them on the sand.
“Okay, done,” Mitch said. “You okay?”
Until he asked I hadn’t realised I was frowning. “Yeah, just, you know, supposed to be on vacation.” I shot him a smile.
“What do we do now?” Mitch asked sitting next to me in the sand. “I’m presuming our day just got screwed?”
“Pretty much,” I replied. “I’m going to use your phone and call a friend, then we’ll know.”
Mitch passed me his phone. I called home. Well, not home exactly but Iain Campbell’s cell phone. I needed to talk to someone in the State Department.
“Hey, It’s Ellie Conway,” I said as he answered. “I got a messy problem.”
“Thought you were on vacation?” he replied. “I’m off tomorrow, good timing on your problem.”
“I am on vacation.” I remembered the conversation with Mike. “You climbing?”
“Yes, heading down to Ecuador tomorrow. Now about this problem …”
“I’m in New Zealand.” I’m at the end of the world and still shit happens. “Just found the body of an American woman on a beach. What now?”
“Seriously? What is it with you?”
“I dunno,” I said with a hefty sigh. “What now?”
“I’ll contact the embassy, we’ll send FBI. You want to work this or walk away?”
I looked at Mitch. I wanted to walk away but I wasn’t sure I could. I could try walking away.
“Send agents. We called local police. I’ll hand over to them and FBI can pick the case up when they get here.”
“Address?” I gave the address and Mitch’s phone number, just in case. “Enjoy your vacation.”
“Yeah, you too.”
I hung up and this time gave the phone back to Mitch.
“Do we have to be here by… Nancy?”
“Yes. But not this close. We could move back down there,” I pointed back down the beach to the jetty. “Should also have a quick look for other victims or the person who did this.”
Mitch touched my arm. “It wasn’t an accident?”
“I don’t think so.”
He breathed in sharply. “She couldn’t have fallen or died of an illness?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think, someone hit her across the back of the head with a branch. And hit her hard enough to snap the branch. I also think the person turned her onto her back. She fell forward, hence the scrapes and wounds on her face. She didn’t put her hands up to save herself. Either it was a fatal blow or she was unconscious and died later. Whoever did it, then rolled her onto her back.”
“Why?”
“Check she was dead? Looking for something? I don’t know. If we find whoever did it, we’ll ask,” I said with a smile. “Shall we?” I pointed to the jetty. “Close enough that I can watch this area, but far enough that Nancy isn’t our only focus.”
Mitch nodded.
He stood up and brushed sand off his jeans. I followed suit.
I sent Mitch ahead of me, then turned back and had a quick look around the area, just in case there was another body or someone lurking. Nothing. No footprints, no sign anyone else had been in the area.
Catching up to Mitch I asked, “How many properties can access this stretch of beach?” I could see rocks and unfriendly coast line to the east and west. Estimating about a quarter of a mile of accessible beach frontage from the land. The sea was a different matter.
“Four, I think, yeah, four.”
“Don’t suppose you know if any of your neighbours rent their houses out or run bed and breakfast accommodation?”
“Sorry, no.”
“When was the last high tide?”
We sat on the jetty. I could see how high the tide rose by the line of driftwood and marks in the sand. Didn’t look as though it went up as far as Nancy’s body, but maybe far enough to wipe footprints from the sand. Hers weren’t there.
Thinking aloud. “She could’ve come off a boat with the Unsub.”
“Unsub?”
“Sorry. Unknown Subject.”
Mitch smiled, nodded, and checked a tide timetable on his phone.
“Twelve twenty-eight this morning. Next high tide will be twelve-forty this afternoon.”
“So if they came ashore from a boat it was before the high tide or during…”
“No footprints,” Mitch said, nodding.
“How long before police get out here?”
“Nearest cop is Havelock, forty-five minutes away, give or take.” Mitch checked the time on his phone. “Should be here soon.”
He bumped my shoulder with his.
“Want something?” I asked nudging him back.
“What will happen when police get here?”
“We’ll give statements. I will hand over the crime scene and we’ll get on with our vacation.”
“Can you walk away?”
“Yes.” Wow, that was definite. I was just a little impressed by how sure I was. That was new territory. Life with Mitch in it had a different focus? “Yes I can walk away. Our State Department will have contacted local police and let them know that it’s my scene until hand over – and who I am. And that FBI agents are on the way from Wellington to assist in the investigation.”
Mitch said nothing. He smiled but he said nothing. We sat, our legs dangling over the water, and waited.
I was conscious that the body was degrading as the minutes ticked by and become an hour in the hot sun. Eventually I heard gravel crunching under foot and two police officers emerged from the end of the driveway.
We stood up and waved. They acknowledge us and waited as we clambered back over rocks to greet them.
“SSA Ellie Conway,” I said offering my hand.
“Senior Constable Simon Curnow,” the first officer said shaking my hand.
The second nodded and shook my hand next. “Constable Jack Barron.”