Poison Bay (14 page)

Ellen was at his elbow as he hung up the phone. “Katrina and Philip Smithton,” she said, and placed a single page printout containing several photographs in front of him.
 

“That was quick!”

“I rang Bryan’s aunt and asked for them. I’ve just picked them up off my webmail.”

“You did what?”
Ten minutes on her own and she’s contacted the next of kin—why did I let this woman help?

“I told her it was for a project someone’s working on at the university,” she said calmly. “She’ll hate me later for keeping her in the dark, but I’ll just have to wear that.”

“Oh, okay then.” Maybe not a mistake after all.

He gave his attention to the photographs, and placed the open locket beside them. There was no doubt they were the same people. But it didn’t constitute formal identification of the corpse.

“Bryan’s aunt was basically a mother to him while his parents were working overseas,” added Ellen. “Don’t keep her out of the loop any longer than you have to. She needs to know.”

23

Thursday, Five Days Lost

Water blasted from the sky like it was being shot out of a fire hose, thumping onto the hood of Jack’s coat. The drumming noise on his head and backpack was hypnotic.

The good weather had ended with a thundering crash at four in the morning, and conditions today were worse than any they’d experienced so far on this rain-soaked expedition into hell. Even the blizzard was child’s play by comparison. Cliffs had become thundering waterfalls, the ground a series of fast-flowing streams, ankle deep. Visibility was almost zero.

Jack’s boots squelched with every step, the weight dragging on his legs. Yes, the boots were waterproof. But that became academic once the water level rose above the height of the boots and spilled over. Now the fancy waterproofing was keeping the flood in. Like walking with a bucket of water on the end of each leg.
 

Slosh, slide, slither. Lose your footing, teeter sideways, put out a hand to save yourself, slip on the slimy thing you grabbed, jar your shoulder, wrench your knee. On and on it went. Like hiking through one great big jungle-infested storm water drain while someone poured gravel over you from a height and your spirits sank into oblivion.

No one had wanted to leave their sleeping bags this morning and venture into this maelstrom, and who could blame them? The bald facts were these: they’d have stayed put today, ridden out the storm in their rock-walled sanctuary, if it wasn’t for Rachel. She had very few medical supplies left. They had to keep moving. They needed to find rescuers, and fast.

What made it even harder to accept today’s struggle was that they’d had such a good night. So warm and comfortable in the rock bivvy, their stomachs satisfied thanks to the bird. The rise in morale around the campfire last night had been so tangible you could almost have used it as furniture. They’d laughed their way through Jack and Adam’s colorful story of the failed fishing expedition, the lunging into the river that looked ankle-deep and turned out to be thigh-high, the loss of the precious spear. The dismal wander back to camp, empty-handed, only to see the bird scratching in the undergrowth, complacent and barely aware of their presence. The frantic chase and how Adam had finally been the one to nab the fugitive and bring it home.

But Jack had said nothing about what he’d seen in Adam’s eyes. The wiliness and skill and power of him. The clinical way he swiftly wrung the bird’s neck. Jack knew Adam killed things for a living—big game fish, wild buffalo, feral pigs, even crocodiles when necessary. And he’d been more than pleased to have someone with his skill on their team in this survival situation.

But when the crux point actually came, there had been something in Adam’s eyes that unnerved Jack, something cold and pragmatic—a killer instinct. It seemed utterly contrary to the kind and protective face Adam had worn so far.
Perhaps it’s just that I’m a wuss
, thought Jack.
Maybe every “real man” looks like that when they’re killing food.
Or maybe not.

Previously, Jack had found it impossible to cast Adam in the role of Sharon’s murderer, but a tiny, niggling seed of distrust had been planted, and he was wondering how much to let it grow. As he labored through today’s watery nightmare, Adam haunted his thoughts.

He hated suspecting a mate, but someone had killed Sharon. Jack would like to believe Callie was mistaken, but she was no fool, and besides, it actually made sense of the death. Sharon had been so very much improved before they went to bed that horrible night, much warmer, more responsive, and able to answer basic questions, even though she was still weak as a kitten. It didn’t make sense that she’d improve so much and then die of cold in a warm, sheltered sleeping bag. It was possible, but not likely.
 

His mind roiled with the question of who might have helped Sharon into the hereafter.
 

The oxygen tank scenario was possible, but not probable. Bryan’s heavy pack would have acted like a diver’s belt, helping him sink. But the sea was so rough that day it would have been hard to control his descent through the water. And he would have been trying to find the oxygen by touch in the underwater darkness.

As for someone shadowing them, an assassin paid to clean up, that was feasible given Bryan’s immense wealth. And the group would be hardly likely to notice a skillful and stealthy tracker as they blundered their way around the mountains, trampling undergrowth and pillaging the ferneries.

But the most likely killer was someone among them. Someone who wanted to survive, and could best do that by removing any source of drag on the team.
One of us
.
 

24

Sergeant Peter Hubble stood in the living room of Bryan Smithton’s tiny house, listening to the timbers creak, almost sure he could hear his own breathing echoing off the hard naked walls and floors. He’d come here hoping the house might tell him something about Bryan, a technique he’d sometimes used in his days as a city detective in Christchurch, before the marriage collapse and everything else had gotten on top of him, and sent him to the country for refuge.
 

He knew his ex-wife and her friends talked about it like it was some kind of demotion—they couldn’t imagine a bright star from the CIB going back to uniform voluntarily—but it had in fact been his choice. His instincts had been right. Immersion in the kind of country community he’d grown up in had been just what he’d needed. After eight years, he had trouble imagining he’d ever enjoyed a different life.

The death of Bryan Smithton stirred those old habits from the back of the mental cupboard. He felt a strong, slow dragging of suspicion underneath this death. And the fingerprint report had only intensified it.
 

Hardly any prints in the house at all—none on the light switches or handles in the bedroom or office; a few in the kitchen and bathroom, but none belonging to the deceased. It was the sort of thing he’d expect to see at a scene where someone was trying to remove evidence.
This place was wiped. Why?
 

Peter could have put it all down to obsessive compulsive disorder—Bryan seemed a classic candidate—except for the laptop. Who puts a top-of-the-range, late model laptop in a tub of water outside the back door? There were no signs of a break-in, so the most likely explanation was that Bryan did it himself.
Why?

Someone trying to remove evidence.
The words roamed restlessly around Peter’s mind, looking for a place to settle comfortably, but everything had sharp edges and awkward corners. If Bryan was a murder victim, why would he be the one hiding evidence? And who was he hiding it from? An enemy? The police?

And then there was the ongoing thorny problem of making a formal identification. Being ninety-nine percent sure wasn’t enough. Dental records were proving elusive. Bryan didn’t seem to have visited a dentist or doctor for years. DNA could have helped, if they could only find something to match it with. Hairbrush and toothbrush were both impossibly clean and smelled of bleach. It looked as though Bryan had been trying to delay his own identification, if that didn’t sound so far-fetched.

Peter puffed out his cheeks, and slowly blew out the air, thinking, staring at that grid of masking tape on the living room floor. He had a sudden inspiration, and went to the patrol car for the fingerprint kit.

Five minutes later, the fingerprinting dust had revealed what he had hoped for: multiple clear impressions on the masking tape, at least two different fingers, and even a couple of thumb prints.
Whoever cleaned up missed this.
 

He lifted the prints carefully, left the case near the front door and headed down the hall. The room Smithton had clearly used as an office was barely big enough for a desk. Nothing but a local nature calendar on the wall, with one date precisely outlined in heavy black marker pen—last Saturday. Peter frowned and plumbed his memory of the tramping schedule Ellen had given him. That would be the day they were to leave the wilderness. Why mark that, but not the date they all arrived? He made a mental note to review the thought later and turned to the desk.
 

A few neat office supplies in the top drawer. The will that Tom had found yesterday must have been in the next drawer down. A plain vanilla will, leaving everything to the aunt who raised him. A woman who was both bereaved and very wealthy today, but knew nothing of either because Peter was unwilling to contact her till they could pin down the formal identification. He sighed, thinking of her loss and her gain.

His gaze roamed around the room, but found nothing illuminating other than the bare bulb in the light socket overhead. The film of fingerprinting dust on the light switch near the door revealed not a single ridge or whorl.

He continued down the hall to the bedroom, as bare and charmless as the rest of the house. No family photos, no rug, no curtains or blinds. The bed was a single. Clearly Bryan didn’t entertain overnight visitors on a regular basis. Peter crouched and looked under the bed. Nothing. Not even a dust bunny to make the man seem human. He pulled back the blanket and sheets one by one—all old and utilitarian—then lifted the thin mattress and looked under it. Still nothing. It seemed oddly disrespectful to leave it in that mess, so he found himself putting it back together, sheets and then blanket. “I’m not doing hospital corners,” he muttered to the disapproving room.

He stepped over to the quaint old wardrobe and pulled out a drawer, riffling through a thin selection of jocks and socks, finding nothing. Same with a second drawer containing t-shirts.

And then he opened the wardrobe door.

And stood rooted to the floor, stunned.

He pulled out his cell phone. This was not a conversation he wanted to have over the two-way radio. “Tom, did you search Bryan’s bedroom?”

“Yes, sure.” The voice was wary. He must be picking up an undercurrent in Peter’s tone.

“Did you open the wardrobe?”

“I think so.”
 

“Would you come to the Smithton house please. Right now.”

***

Peter had to know if his most experienced constable was incompetent or something worse. He couldn’t decide what that “worse” might be, but the recent odd friendship between the police officer and the dead man made Peter’s thoughts circle uneasily. It was laughable to think Tom could have been out pushing Bryan into a fiord a couple of days ago, but the friendship plus today’s discovery raised a red flag in his mind. Either way, if he needed relief sent out from Invercargill, the morning was drawing on, and he had to get on it. The way things were unfolding, he couldn’t afford to be understaffed.

“Peter?” Tom called from the front door.

“Bedroom.” Peter shut the wardrobe door and waited.

Tom entered the room, his face guarded.

“You searched this room yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Did you open the wardrobe?”

“Yes, I think so. I can’t remember exactly.”

“There’s not a lot of places to look in this room, Tom. Did you open the wardrobe door or not?”

“I can’t remember.”

Peter had his hand on the wardrobe door handle, and he swung it wide, keeping close watch on Tom’s face. “Do you remember now?”

Tom stared at what was revealed. Peter was pretty sure that Tom was seeing it for the first time.

“I guess I mustn’t have opened it. Unless that’s appeared there since then.”

Peter said nothing, just crossed his arms and looked steadily at the other man.

Tom’s face changed. “I’m sorry. I seem to have missed it. I’ve been a bit distracted, with Lily and everything.”

Peter was full of compassion, but he rebelled against having a sick child played as a “get out of jail free” card. It wasn’t the first time Tom had done it.

“Maybe you should take a couple of days off.”

“No! If I sit around at home all day I’ll go mad. And I want to help. I want to know who did this to Bryan and get that body identified.”

There was something not quite right about the last statement, but Peter couldn’t put his finger on it. He could, however, understand the need for distraction in an unsolvable crisis. And so he relented. “All right then, we’ll see how you go. But I want everything checked and double-checked. This is turning into a big case, and this oversight,” he nodded towards the wardrobe door, “has set us back a whole day. If you have even the smallest doubt about your work, ask someone else to check it for you. People’s lives could depend upon it.” He added silently to himself:
And I will be watching you like a hawk.

***

Ellen lingered over breakfast, gazing down over the green lawns to the lake, and sipping hot, strong, black coffee. She’d eaten the full heart-attack meal—bacon and eggs and toast and mushrooms and hash browns—as well as fruit and a blueberry muffin. It would keep her going all day if necessary. The whole expertly-prepared feast tasted no better than dry bran in her mouth, but she knew she should eat it, that Roger would want her to eat it, and so she did. “The machine needs fuel,” he always said, “no matter how the heart feels.” And so she fueled the machine.