by Alan Carter
The phone goes. I hand the paper over to her and go inside to answer it.
‘You’re famous.’ It’s DI Marianne Keegan.
‘Back from Perth, I presume?’ An affirmative umm. ‘Anything worth pursuing with Patrick Smith?’
‘Maybe. But I’m just calling to say sorry all this had to happen. I saw the paper. You deserve better.’
‘Thanks.’ Vanessa has just come in with the empty cups and the newspaper. She raises a quizzical eyebrow and mouths: Who is it?
Work, I mouth back.
‘If there’s anything I can do.’
‘I don’t think so. The boss is pretty pissed off.’
‘Is there anything in it? Your theory?’
‘No, I just grasp these things out of thin air. Make it up as I go along.’
‘Testy,’ says Marianne. ‘Maybe we should catch up for a beer on neutral ground and you can run it past me?’
‘No, it’ll work out.’
I wrap the call up under subtle scrutiny from Vanessa. ‘Was that DI, what’s her name, Keegan?’
‘Yep.’
‘Are you in more trouble?’
‘No, she was just ringing to find out what’s been going on, she’s been out of town.’
‘She offered sympathy?’
‘Of sorts.’
‘Does she know about the evidence you’ve been gathering? She might give it more weight as she’s not connected to McCormack.’
‘No, she doesn’t.’
‘So you’ve arranged to meet her, to pass it on?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
I hesitate. Only briefly, but enough for Vanessa to register it. ‘I need to gather more. I’ll present it to her and the DC at the same time so they can’t ignore it.’
‘Right,’ she says. ‘Good idea.’
But there’s a seed of doubt there now which I fear will germinate over the coming days.
I spend the afternoon being a farmer, tending to the goats and chickens, fixing fences and tightening wires. If anything it makes Vanessa even more edgy and suspicious. In her mind if I’m doing good things around the house I must have done bad things elsewhere for which I’m trying to compensate. She’s not having any of it. She’s gone off to pick up Paulie from school and even though she left with a smile and a wave, it’s obvious I’m in for it.
What to do? Go honest and admit to the one-night stand with Marianne Keegan? Or keep shtum and tough it out? It has to be the latter. Or something in between. But the whole unvarnished sordid truth will just bring everything crashing down. I think about that midnight earth tremor in Seddon. That’s all it takes. One slip.
‘Fancy a walk down by the river?’
She doesn’t, but we will. We plant Paulie in front of TV Spongebob with a muffin and a Milo. We follow the same path I usually take to drown the cats caught in the trap: a feline Via Dolorosa. The river is low and it’s that time when the sandflies go into a last-minute feeding frenzy before daylight disappears. We stand at the water’s edge slapping at the insects and staring into the deep dark pools where the eddies swirl.
‘The answer is yes.’
She turns to me, tears in her eyes. It’s like I’ve just hit her and, in a way, I have. ‘When?’
‘When you were in the safe house in Nelson. I thought you’d left me, you and Paulie. I thought it was all over. I was drunk and didn’t think there was anything left to lose.’
‘You were wrong.’
‘Yes.’
‘You stupid, fucking, selfish bastard.’ She walks away along the river’s edge. Arms folded, shaking her head.
‘It was a mad, stupid time. You’d gone. Marty was coming after me. I was expecting to die any day. Crackers, I was. Off my head.’
‘Where?’
‘Some motel in Blenheim.’
‘How many times?’
‘Once. Never again.’
She’s heading back up the path towards the house. ‘I’ve finished talking.’
There’s a cloud of sandflies in front of my face and this beautiful place feels like hell on earth.
It’s been a cold, tense evening and Paulie is troubled by the atmosphere. He’s clingy and takes a while to settle in his room. In bed, Vanessa puts her light straight out and turns away. I contemplate heading for the spare room but I suspect that may make things even worse.
In the middle of the night I’m woken by a hard punch on the shoulder.
‘Was she any good?’ Vanessa has her bedside light turned on and shining in my face Stasi-style.
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
No more lying. ‘Not bad, I mean, aye, canny, you know.’
‘Is that “not bad” as in canny good or fucking mind-blowing?’
‘No, definitely not mind-blowing. Just alright, like.’
‘What about her? Did she enjoy herself?’
‘I dunno. Probably.’
‘Probably? How do you know?’
‘Well she made all the right noises.’
‘Noises?’
‘Kind of snorting, heavy breathing stuff.’
‘Snorting? Like a pig? Like this?’ She makes the noise then punches me again. ‘Fucking stupid bastard.’ She makes me sit up and pay attention. ‘You don’t fuck anybody else ever again. Even if I do leave you. Even after I’m dead. Never. Ever. Got that?’
‘Yes.’
She turns and puts her light out.
And snorts.
42
There’s a very slight thaw, enough to hang some hope on. But I’m obliged to get my own coffee and breakfast even though it’s her turn. A gusty wind sweeps up the valley shaking the trees and sending clouds scudding across the sky. After the weekend break the loggers are back at work over the river: a constant stream of trucks and other machinery up and down the skid. They start early and finish late, arc lights illuminating their progress during the dark hours – the place resembles an alien landing pad. Or our very own Mordor. McCormack is ratcheting up the spite. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t worry me as much anymore. My marriage is still intact, only just. The noose was around my neck and the hand was on the trapdoor handle. Now we’re just checking the wording of the reprieve note.
The phone goes and Vanessa eyes me suspiciously from her position at the washing machine. But it’s Detective Maxwell.
‘Heard from your mate Gary Farr?’
‘No.’
‘There was a house firebombed in Palmerston North last night. A bloke called Ronnie Parata. He and Gary go back a long way. But not as friends.’
‘And?’
‘Tragically Ronnie didn’t make it out. Luckily he was the only one there at the time.’
‘Will he be missed?’
‘Well the crime stats will go down in the area so there might be a few redundancies.’
‘Sounds like a win-win.’
‘Look, to be honest, we’re not going to bust a gut investigating Parata’s demise, and Johnny Fernandez is no great loss to society either. We’ll go through the motions. But if Gary calls, tell him to stop, now. He’s made his point. This isn’t the wild west.’
Since when? ‘I’ll pass it on.’
‘Do that. Make him listen, for his own sake.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah, we’ve been going through Johnny Fernandez’s phone and internet in more detail. Did you know he and Des Rogers were buddies? Didn’t you have a bee in your bonnet about Rogers?’
‘Des has only been retired a couple of years and Johnny’s record goes back a while. It’s likely their paths would cross professionally.’
‘As recently as a month ago?’
Maxwell knows I’m suspended – it’s all over the bloody papers after all – so he’s not prepared to send anything through on email or keep on talking on the monitored phones. He wants me at arm’s-length. We rendezvous in the Pak’nSave car park on the outskirts of Blenheim, where the stolen meat handovers usually take place. The
gist is that Johnny Fernandez is believed to have been one of Des Rogers’ snitches, which fulfills another local rumour about the ill-fated lad. But after Des’s retirement the contact continued, less frequent, more sporadic. Maybe Johnny was feeding the odd titbit to Des who would pass it on to colleagues in return for favours, money, spare drugs, whatever. The most recent contact was in the twenty-four hours following my meeting with Rogers in Kaikōura. Coincidence? Who knows.
‘Did anything at the Fernandez crime scene jar?’ I ask.
‘You were there first. You should know.’
Apart from the possum trap on the hand, the head caved in with a hammer, and lashings of blood, nothing had jumped out. The place was a halfway-tidy tip, which is what you come to expect from a useless recidivist with a girlfriend and a baby. Any tidiness was probably down to her.
‘I didn’t do a detailed examination,’ I say. ‘I saw the mess and called it in.’
‘From what we could see, Gary was trying to find something. The drawers and cupboards had been turned out. The possum trap on the hand wasn’t an accident. It was an incentive to reveal information.’
No, I’m thinking. Not Gary. ‘Let me know if anything else comes up.’ I offer a flag of truce. ‘And if Gary calls, I’ll have a serious talk with him.’
‘Saw you in the paper.’ A chuckle. ‘Good one, I reckon McCormack’s a prick as well.’
I drop by Charlie Evans’ place. He buried Beatrice a couple of days ago but I was too busy tilting at McCormack’s windmills.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Charlie.’
‘No worries. I probably wouldn’t have noticed you anyway.’ He seems lost.
‘No Denzel today?’
‘I told him to stay away for a while. I need some time to myself.’
I leave him to it. Back in mobile range, I call Latifa and ask her to meet me at the marae.
‘Okay. And thanks.’
‘What for?’
‘Putting the word in for me with the DC. I’m back at work from tomorrow.’
It wasn’t my doing but right now I need all the friends I can get, so credit gratefully accepted. ‘I suspect he’s just calmed down and realised he went a bit far.’
‘Whatever.’
At his house near the marae, Uncle Walter is in his front yard mending eel traps. Denzel is mowing the lawn while something doofs out of his iPod headphones. ‘Got him well-trained these days,’ I say to Walter.
He smiles. ‘It’s that Charlie bloke. He’s got a good spirit. Passing it on to Denzel.’
Latifa pulls up in her Subaru. ‘Yoo-hoo.’ She seems drowsily happy and we both know why. She gives me and Uncle Walter a hug each and brings the sun out from behind a cloud. Throws a wave and a wink at Denzel who doesn’t know whether to scowl or blush.
‘I need a word with the boy. That okay?’
Walter summons him with a lift of the chin. A supplementary glare from the old man and Denzel realises he needs to remove the headphones.
‘You remember Johnny Fernandez?’ I ask Denzel. A hawking spit from Uncle Walter.
‘Yeah?’
‘You were mates.’
‘Not for a long time.’
‘When?’
‘When we was kids. I was, I dunno, eight, nine, ten?’
‘And he was about four years older?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Why’d you stop?’
A nervous look at Uncle Walter. ‘He was always gettin’ blazed. Got boring.’
‘Was he with you that day the pakeha car came through?’
He narrows his eyes. ‘Yeah, why?’
‘Did he recognise who the bloke was in the car?’
‘No.’ There’s a ‘but’ in his voice.
‘But what?’
‘About six months ago he reckoned he saw him.’
‘Did he give a name?’
‘No. He said it was a secret.’
The ‘but’ is still there. ‘He give you a hint?’
‘Like I said, he was always gettin’ blazed. I asked him where he got the money from. No job, no dole. Not even doing any stealing or anything since he met Shania. He reckoned this rich bloke was sending it his way.’
‘Rich bloke?’
‘Yep.’
‘You never mentioned this before.’
‘And have Johnny thinking I’m a snitch? No way.’
‘But now Johnny’s dead.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good riddance,’ says Uncle Walter.
Why would this rich bloke tolerate Johnny’s blackmail for several months before killing him? More answers raising more questions. Either way it’s enough for me to try a second push with the DC but I need reinforcements. I need DI Keegan. I call Vanessa to let her know I’ll be meeting Marianne and why.
‘Fuck’s sake, Nick,’ she says. ‘Grow up.’ But she signs off with another pig snort to let me know I need to lighten up too.
In Nelson, DI Keegan meets with Latifa and me at a coffee shop in Trafalgar Street. She hears me out, looks at the photo from Des Rogers’ bach, and agrees it’s worth another chat with the DC. I ask about her trip to Perth and the scuttlebutt on Patrick Smith.
‘Sordid and sleazy, but in the end a waste of time. He was still employed at his private school in Perth five years ago so he couldn’t have done Prince Haruru.’
‘Wouldn’t you know that before you went over?’ asked Latifa. Marianne isn’t used to the lower orders speaking out of turn. ‘People go on holidays, they act in concert with others, there were any number of permutations. I needed to see the records for myself and posh schools like that want you to ask nicely. Ask your mate here,’ she nods towards me. ‘See a wild goose and sometimes you just have to chase it anyway.’
Marianne leaves to lay the ground work with the DC. She’ll call us when she’s ready. Latifa brings back two more coffees and some ginger slice. ‘Body language between you two,’ she says, breaking her slice in half. ‘If I was Vanessa, I’d be packing my bags.’
Ignore that. ‘How’s the study going?’
‘Not bad.’
‘That essay you were doing about utu?’
‘Haven’t got it back yet.’
‘Fingers crossed.’
‘I think the profs will like it. Utu, payback. They love that shit. They’ve got photos on their office walls: tribal warriors from PNG, All Blacks doing the haka, the Black Panther salute at the Olympics – accessories to go with their lumberjack shirts and skate shoes. None of that is ever going to threaten them and what they’ve got.’ She reaches for my untouched ginger slice. ‘You eating that?’
‘Help yourself.’
‘Heard from Gary?’
‘No.’
‘If you don’t think he did Johnny Fernandez, you’re going to have to move fast to prove it.’ She finishes off the slice and wipes her fingers on a paper napkin. ‘Or they’ll kill him, those AOS blokes. Nobody wants a crazy Maori on the loose with a grudge and a gun.’
The call comes through from DI Keegan. DC Ford will see us now.
DI Keegan does most of the talking. I think she’s already given the DC the gist, but she’s running through it again and stopping every now and then to check details with me, bring me back into the fold.
‘We can’t ignore it, sir. We need to ask him some questions, if only to eliminate him from our inquiries.’
The elephant in the room is the clout that McCormack carries in the nation’s capital but this isn’t the time to force ‘fear or favour’ down the DC’s throat. He looks at us each in turn and finally gives a terse nod. ‘Your call, DI Keegan. You’re the one running this inquiry.’
The threat is clear. Her head is also on the chopping block. He hasn’t finished.
‘I still don’t want you anywhere near this, Nick. There’ll be a disciplinary hearing next week. I suggest you call the union lawyer and get some good advice.’
Marianne shakes her head. ‘All very well, sir, but I need him on the ca
se now, briefing my team. He’s the one who has put all this together. We need to be on firm ground with McCormack.’ She looks my way. ‘As firm as possible, anyway.’
The DC doesn’t seem to be enjoying his day. He gets on the phone to his higher command to start the arse-covering.
Together DI Keegan and I brief her team and there’s to be a consequent revisiting of all the gathered evidence in the new light. There’s a nervous hubbub about the Incident Room: renewed focus and a big scary target make for a certain frisson. By video link the Kaikōura-based Ds get a kick up the bum. We really want to know about calls to and from that phone box near Des Rogers’ bach and we want CCTV and forensics re-examined.
‘Maxwell needs to be brought into the fold too.’ I share Latifa’s concerns: if Gary didn’t kill Johnny Fernandez, we need to settle that and get the AOS dogs off his scent.
DI Keegan is straight on the case and after a one-sided and seemingly tense phone call she arranges for me to call into Blenheim to bring him up to speed.
‘He lacked enthusiasm,’ she said.
Understandable. It’s his murder and he’d no doubt like to keep it that way. I shrug. ‘He’s the one that brought me the link between Fernandez and Des Rogers. He must have known I wouldn’t let it go.’
‘He’s probably concerned that I’m empire building and that I’ll swallow him whole.’
‘Will you?’
She grins wickedly. ‘Absolutely.’
On the way back through to see Maxwell, I drop Latifa off in Havelock. Before she exits the car she gives me a sideways look. ‘DI Cheekbones definitely likes you. Anything I should know?’
‘No. Nothing.’ She doesn’t believe me but it doesn’t matter. ‘We need to talk to Beth about the Woodbourne Tavern again, without leading her. See if there’s any more she can give us.’
‘Even if she can suddenly name him, I don’t think her dark aura shit will stand up in court.’
‘Still, a bit of spiritual reinforcement wouldn’t go amiss. And it does tie McCormack and Rogers together if she can have them at the same table that night.’
That fresh wind from this morning has shifted around to the south and blown some bigger and darker clouds our way. A steady drizzle sets in as I cross the Wairau River and look out on to the vineyard where Qadim Reza was discarded. According to Jessie’s article in the Journal, both the Rezas and Rileys are disgusted by my accusations against McCormack, affronted at having their misery appropriated for my personal vendetta. There was a photo of them all together, united in their hurt.
