A Madness of Sunshine

by Singh, Nalini

Dominic’s head jerked up, shoulders knotting. “I’d never hurt her!”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything,” Will said. “I’m wondering if Miriama is the kind of woman who might’ve taken off to teach you a lesson.”

  Frown digging into his forehead, Dominic shook his head. “No,” he said. “That’s one of the things I love most about ­her—­she’s straight-­up honest.” He dropped his eyes to the carpet again, shoulders going limp. “I’ve never had to worry about lies with my Miri. If she’s mad at me, she just tells me to go take a hike. She’d never just run away and make me worry. And she wouldn’t make her aunt worry.”

  Looking up, Dominic exhaled and the air came out in a tremor. “She’s tight with Josie at the café, too, and with Josie so close to her due date, Miri wouldn’t want to cause her any kind of stress. She’s even been talking about learning to knit so she can make socks for the baby.”

  All of that meshed with what Will knew of Miriama. “Is there anything else you think I should know? It doesn’t matter if it’s a minor detail.”

  “I’ve never felt so useless,” the doctor said softly. “My parents are so proud of me for being so educated, but what use are my degrees now? I know nothing about how to search for someone in the bush. Nik and the others, they’re out there looking for her and I’m sitting in here safe and warm and doing nothing to help.”

  “You’re helping by speaking to me.” Will was worried about Dominic’s mental state. As far as he knew, Dominic de Souza had no other family in town. He’d only taken up the position as the town’s GP a year earlier, after the previous doctor retired. “I have one more question.”

  Head still hanging low and his hair falling forward, the doctor took off his glasses and said, “What?” It was a soft, jagged, broken statement.

  “How long have you and Miriama been going out?” Will tried to keep his tone bland, not wanting to trigger the other man’s volatile emotions. “Was she going out with anyone else before you?”

  “We had our ­three-­month anniversary a week ago. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her, but it took me more than half a year to work up the guts to approach ­her—­I mean, she was so young. I still can’t believe she’s only nineteen and a half now, she’s so strong, knows exactly what she wants.”

  The other man put his glasses back on. “Six more months, I said to her at lunch. Then she’ll be twenty and I won’t feel like such a ­cradle-­robber.” Shoving his hands through his hair again, he got up and began to pace around the room. “She said no the first two times I asked her out, but I decided to try again a few months ago. When she said yes, I thought I was dreaming.”

  Stopping by his desk, he stared out the window. “I think she was going out with someone before me, but I don’t know who. I’m pretty sure it was a man outside the ­Cove—­she used to disappear for whole weekends and come back all smiley. But they must’ve broken ­up… And she finally saw me.”

  Will left the clinic soon afterward, stopping outside to make a call to Pastor Mark. “Dr. de Souza,” he said, “could do with someone sitting with him.”

  As he’d expected, the elderly man was ready to help at once.

  After making sure the pastor had a way to get to the clinic, Will drove to the fire station under a sky that had thickened with gray while he’d been with ­Dominic—­what little sunlight that got through was weak. He found Matilda pouring mugs of hot coffee for the volunteers who’d come in for a break. One look at their faces and he knew the news wasn’t good.

  Matilda gave him a trembling smile when he stopped by the coffee station. “They haven’t found anything,” she said, and the words were hopeful.

  Will understood why she was happy, but he couldn’t agree with her. Especially not with rain forecast for this afternoon. If Miriama was lying hurt somewhere, the cold and wet could push her body dangerously close to fatal exposure.

  Going to check the map someone had pinned to the wall next to the whiteboard, he ran his eyes over the areas marked with double Xs, meaning they’d been searched twice. “Has anyone gone out here?” He directed the question at an experienced hunter who lived outside of town, tapping his finger on an area that wasn’t anywhere near where Miriama had been seen, but that was a favorite hangout for the town’s younger people.

  There was a faint possibility that Miriama had met up with a friend and headed that way for a short period, only for something to go wrong. Bad enough that her friend hadn’t reported it. He knew he was reaching, but they had to be sure.

  The hunter looked at the spot Will had indicated, nodded. “Yeah, we should check it out. Might be she got drunk and is just sleeping it off there.” He said the words loud enough to reach Matilda, and Will realized the heavily bearded male was trying to comfort the woman.

  But after the volunteers got back in their vehicles and headed out toward their target locations, Matilda shook her head. “Miriama wouldn’t do that. My girl doesn’t drink that ­way—­I always used to worry she’d get bored and be drawn into the drugs and drinking, like so many of the kids in this town, but Miriama, she’s always had big dreams.”

  Taking a seat, her hands tight around a mug of coffee, Matilda kept on talking. “Half the time as a child, she had her head in the clouds, dreaming of all the places she wanted to see in the world. She even kept a little notebook full of pictures she’d cut out of old ­magazines—­the Eiffel Tower, the pyramids, ­Uluru…”

  Matilda’s smile was fierce with belief, with hope. “I still have that notebook. I’m going to put it in her bag as a surprise when she leaves Golden Cove for the internship. My girl has so much ­talent—­it’ll take her all over the world, to every one of those places in her little notebook.”

  Will sat down on a hard plastic chair beside Matilda. “I need to ask you some questions.”

  Wild eyes, a face going white under the brown of her skin.

  “I don’t know anything,” he said at once. “But while Nik leads the search, I want to check other avenues. Just in case.”

  Matilda shoved her untouched mug of coffee into Will’s hands. “I make good coffee.”

  He took a sip to keep things as normal as he could before he began to speak. “Here’s the thing, Matilda,” he said quietly. “Miriama is a beautiful young woman, and while we like to think of our country as a safe place in comparison to the rest of the world, we have our predators.”

  He’d been worried his plain speaking would further rattle Matilda, but she squared her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. “You’re taking this seriously,” she said. “You’re not treating her like a stupid ­nineteen-­year-­old who couldn’t be bothered to tell her auntie she was taking off.”

  “That’s not the girl I know.” Will maintained the eye contact. “I know she ran away as a child, but she had her reasons.”

  Matilda’s hands fisted in her lap. “My fault,” she said. “But the sweet girl’s never blamed me for it. She’s always had such aroha in her heart.”

  “How friendly would Miriama be toward a stranger?” he asked, staying away from the topic of locals for now. “I’ve seen Cove residents pick up hitchhikers without thinking twice about it. And most people around here are used to helping ­tourists—­would she?”

  Matilda nodded slowly. “A normal tourist who came into the café or maybe stopped her on the main street,” she said, “yes, Miriama would help.”

  Will nodded and took another drink to show Matilda he was listening, that he was present. He’d had to ask, but he wasn’t truly concerned about the tourist angle; had any strangers been spotted in town, Will would’ve been told within an hour of Miriama’s disappearance. The locals liked the money the tourists brought in, but they also never forgot that these were outsiders.

  Mrs. Keith would’ve definitely noticed an unfamiliar vehicle. But, to be safe, he’d also check with the bus that came through Golden Cove twice a day, in case they’d dropped off a passenger in town. He wasn’t expecting a positive answer
. The bus stop was in the middle of town, right in front of the tourist ­center—­a new face would’ve been noticed and welcomed, especially with everyone having been rumbling about how few tourists they’d had recently, with the weather so changeable.

  “But,” Matilda continued, “I don’t think she would stop if an outsider pulled up next to her while she was running on the road, or if they flagged her down on the beach.” She rubbed at her wet cheeks, her tears silent and slow. “You know when those three hikers disappeared, one after the other, everyone thought they’d just been dumb, walked into the bush expecting it to be like some gentle afternoon walk.”

  The latter was a continuing problem throughout the ­country—­people saw the stunning landscape and wanted to explore it. What they didn’t understand was that the beauty had ­teeth—­you had to be ready to handle sudden cold and rain and hail, tracks without guardrails, and isolated areas where you might be the only human being for miles in every direction.

  “That was what, fifteen years ago?” Will, a ­wet-­behind-­the-­ears probationary constable at the time, had been pulled into the search effort as a result of his climbing and hiking experience in the region.

  He could clearly remember the television spots about irresponsible campers and trekkers leading to huge search-and-rescue costs; it had been one of those things that became a minor media sensation because the political parties had weighed in with opposing views.

  Lost in the noise had been the failure of the search effort. “They never found the missing hikers, did they?”

  “They were all women.” Matilda’s voice was raspy.

  Will’s skin prickled, a ghost running her fingers across his nape.

  19

  “I never heard that it was considered anything but coincidence and bad ­decision-­making.”

  “The police never said it out loud,” Matilda replied. “Not in public anyway. But the man I was seeing at the time, he was a junior detective. Probably one of the few good men I’ve ever dated.” A pause that hung in the air.

  Regret, Will realized, had a taste. Poignant and acrid.

  “Anyway,” Matilda continued after a jerky inhale, “he let it slip that the cops weren’t sure it was all accidental. Three women walked into the bush off Golden Cove over a single summer and never came out. They got especially worried after the dogs and the searchers and the hunters never even found one body. Not then. Not since.”

  If Matilda was right, the theory had been kept very quiet. Not one of his senior officers had ever mentioned the possibility of a human predator. Making a mental note to talk to the detectives involved, he said, “Did the investigators have a specific theory?”

  Matilda nodded. “Maybe a serial rapist like they had up in Auckland around the same time, only he was killing the women after. But nothing else ever happened, no other woman ever disappeared the same way, and they figured it had just been an awful coincidence. I mean, it was high season for hikers back when it all happened, and we don’t really have those kinds of killers here.”

  Will had always wondered if that was true, because it was equally possible that New Zealand did have serial killers, but that no bodies had ever been found. If you wanted to disappear bodies in a sparsely populated country covered in dense forests and jagged mountains, deep lakes and rivers fed by glacial melt, the landscape itself would be your coconspirator. “Did people in town wonder the same thing?”

  “There were whispers,” Matilda confirmed, “especially after they found that one girl’s bracelet down on the beach where the kids used to go.”

  Instinct stirred. “The rock cave on the other side of the whirlpool?”

  A nod. “Poor babies never went back there. But after the police found no blood or anything, people started saying the girl must’ve stumbled disoriented out of the bush and got herself drowned.”

  “You didn’t agree?”

  “I never forgot what my cop friend said and I always told Miriama how she should never, ever trust any man who came up to her while she was alone and away from other people.” Swallowing hard, Matilda added one final line. “And those times she ran away to Christchurch, she got scared by men who tried to take advantage of her. Grown men coming after my sweet girl.”

  “She’s approachable, but she isn’t naïve about the world.”

  “Yes, you see what I’m saying. Just last month, my girl was telling me that she’d be fine up in the big city, that she wouldn’t forget all the things I’d taught her about keeping herself safe.”

  Will asked a question Matilda wouldn’t want to hear, but that had to be asked. “Would she be as wary if she ran into a man or woman she knew well?”

  He saw the answer on Matilda’s bleak face; like most of those who lived in a small town, Miriama would’ve assumed she could separate the good from the ­bad—­and it was unlikely she’d have even considered that one of her neighbors might do her harm. But Golden Cove wasn’t immune from the harsh reality that the perpetrators of violent person-­to-­person crimes were most often familiar with and to the victim.

  When it came to sexual and other assault crimes against women, that percentage skewed even further. No one was more dangerous to a woman than a man who’d once professed to love her.

  Will’s hand fisted, nausea churning in his stomach. Forcing it down before the bile could burn his throat, he put down the coffee mug and met Matilda’s apprehensive gaze. “Dominic told me he thinks Miriama was seeing someone from out of town before the two of them got together. Do you know who that was?”

  “She was going out with someone, used to go to Christchurch to meet him”—­deep grooves formed in Matilda’s ­forehead—­“but she just used to laugh when I asked her about him. She said she’d tell me everything once she was sure he wouldn’t be breaking her heart.”

  Secrets were never good. Will had learned that over and over again.

  “I was happy for her.” Matilda’s lips curved before fracturing. “The way she ­smiled… I thought she’d found a man she loved so much that she didn’t want to jinx it by talking about it.” She took the coffee Will had risen and poured for her. “But then she stopped going out of town and started up with Dr. de ­Souza… I’m happy about that, too. I mean, a girl could do a lot worse than a doctor.”

  Unvarnished emotion in her voice as she continued. “Just the other day, I was thinking my girl’s life was ­made—­she’s going off to get the education she’s always deserved, and things are real serious with Dr. de Souza. I know it probably means she’ll end up living far away from here, ­because—­young fella like ­him—­he’s not going to want to stay out here forever, is he? And my Miri’s always wanted to fly.”

  Dark eyes ragged with pain lifting up to meet Will’s. “Dr. de Souza asked me to sneak one of her cheap little dress rings to him. He wanted to make sure he got the size right.”

  “He’s planning to ask Miriama to marry him?”

  “I don’t know if he plans to do it before she leaves for the city or if he’s going to wait until after she comes back for her first break,” Matilda said, “but he’s mad in love with Miri.”

  “You aren’t worried at how young she is to be thinking marriage?”

  “Miriama’s never been young in the head or the heart.” Matilda’s face twisted, but she managed to hold back a fresh wave of tears. “Maybe because of how small she was when her world turned so ugly. When I think of her in that motel room with ­Kahurangi…” This time, she couldn’t stop the tears.

  Wiping them off with the back of her hand, she took a restorative sip of coffee, then carried on. “Miri’s always liked older men. Not old enough to be her father or anything, but men who are settled in life, solid as a kauri tree against the wind. Had the worst crushes on her teachers in school, but I brought her up better than to ever do anything about it.”

  Will had witnessed a much older ­man—­midfifties or ­over—­hit on Miriama. He’d later discovered that same man had once taught Miriama at high school
. She was only nineteen and a half now. It wasn’t a stretch to think that, student or not, certain men would’ve taken advantage of her given any indication of interest.

  “Other boys and men she dated,” Matilda said, “lot of them saw her as a trophy, like she was a pet, or a piece of pottery they’d bought from Sita’s fancy store. But Dr. de Souza, he loves her. I know he’ll treat her right.”

  Will wondered why Dominic hadn’t mentioned his plans to ­propose—­then again, why would the man think to do so when his girlfriend was missing? Dominic was probably praying she’d turn up alive and well so he could carry off his proposal exactly as he’d planned. “Did Miriama ever go out with anyone else in the Cove?”

  “Not really.” Matilda hugged the mug with tight hands. “She’s seen how nasty it can get when people break up in a town this small. She got lucky and never had that with her first boyfriend. That was Te Ariki, Ngaio’s boy. He and Miriama were together for two years, broke it off when they were both fifteen or sixteen. No hard feelings there.”

  Will knew one Te Ariki in Golden Cove. “He’s the one who goes out on the big fishing trawlers?”

  Matilda nodded. “You probably know him because he tends to get carried away when he comes off the boat and home with a paycheck in his pocket.” An affectionate smile. “That’s about as bad as he gets, Will. He gives most of his pay to his mother to feed the littlies, parties hard with the rest, then goes out and works even harder. He and Miri catch up for a drink every time he’s in town.”

  Will thought back to his conversation with the doctor. “Does Dominic know about their relationship?”

  “Miriama invited him along the last time she met Te Ariki.” Matilda looked at Will. “I think Dr. de Souza was jealous before he saw them together, the way men are when they think an old lover is trying to horn his way back in. But there’s nothing like that with Te Ariki.”

  Regardless of Matilda’s take on things, Will made a note to follow up with the fisherman. It was possible that once Te Ariki realized how serious things were between Dominic and Miriama, he’d changed his mind about what he’d given up.