Xmas Marks The Spot (Merry Summerfield Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Kris Pearson

  “I’m going to pretend,” Heather said, “he was shot fast and didn’t know anything further. And being put on the cross happened after he was dead.”

  “Good idea,” I agreed. “I can’t imagine it’s possible to make a live person lie down like that. I doubt there were many people there. It looked totally deserted from the quick glimpse of the photo I had.”

  “Just empty beach,” Heather said. “No-one visible for miles. Only sheep and cows.”

  I set my cup down. “I’d love to know who killed him, and why – seeing the leg of beef turned up in our garage. It’s hard not to be curious after something like that.” I looked at her more closely. “Did Paul tell you much about a guy called Roddy?”

  She shook her head. “Something about him having guns?”

  “Yes – he went bush with Beefy.”

  “And by that you mean…?”

  “Took off out into the wild. Don’t you say ‘went bush’ in England?”

  She shook her head.

  Ah. How did I explain Roddy to Heather without letting slip he’d followed her brother from Afghanistan to New Zealand and declared everlasting love. Or lust. Or some sort of other totally misguided emotion? And been overheard by Isobel Crombie, who may or may not have told her sister before she was murdered in Paul’s church? Heather would know about the murder, of course. It was unlikely Paul could have kept that a secret from her.

  “Roddy and Beefy went hunting together,” I said. “So maybe Beefy was still hooked on drugs and went berserk? And was killed because he couldn’t be subdued.”

  Heather grimaced. “By Roddy? So he’d be the murderer?”

  I took another sip of tea. “If that’s what really happened. But it might not have been. Beefy was a handsome hunk before he got so unkempt. I could picture him being popular with women.”

  “You?” Heather asked, sleepy eyes now wide awake. Had she been wondering about any attraction between Paul and me?

  I shook my head. “It’s one thing to find a man handsome, but it’s quite another to do anything about it! I’ll show you what Beefy looked like in his better days.”

  I rose and retrieved my laptop from my office, found some photos of him I’d tracked down, and passed it across to her.

  “Mmm,” she said. “Strong face. Good eyes. I could go for that.”

  I grinned at her candor. “Erik’s sort of build,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

  “So maybe Beefy got involved with a lady or two,” I suggested. “Broke their hearts. And someone decided he needed teaching a lesson.”

  “But not a woman,” she said. “Not to do that.”

  “Wife of someone who hunts? Wife of a farmer who could grab a gun? I’m considering all possibilities here.”

  Heather rubbed her chin. “But how would a woman get him alone on the beach? And arrange the tree thing?”

  “If he was keen on her, getting him alone on the beach wouldn’t be hard.”

  She pressed her lips together, trying to stifle a laugh, I suspected. “Maybe, but the whole scenario’s pretty odd.”

  “Considering the woman theory further, maybe she shot him somewhere else and a brother or husband discovered what she’d done and arranged the disposal side of things?”

  “Not buying it,” Heather said. “If you’d seen it, you wouldn’t think that. You wouldn’t throw a body in the trunk of a car, drive it across the countryside, heave it out on the beach in the open, and arrange it on a tree.”

  We both got the giggles at that. “No,” I conceded. “Probably not.”

  “Be better to tip it down a gully,” she added. “Plenty of lonely winding roads and steep countryside here from what I could see from the air.”

  I closed the laptop. “An aggrieved husband makes more sense as a murderer than a spurned woman. I can picture them wanting to flatten him if they found he’d seduced their wife or daughter.”

  “But again,” Heather said, “How did they get him out there? Either they had to shoot him close to where we saw him, or they had to transport the body somehow.”

  I swallowed the last of my tea. “So we come back to drug-dealing or rustling and skulking around in lonely places. They’re the things that make the most sense.”

  She nodded slowly and raised her cup for another sip.

  I settled further back into Dad’s old chair. “I think I know why he’s called Beefy. He’s Bernard Edward Ewan Forrester Haldane.”

  She stopped abruptly before drinking. “You’re kidding me. That’s a big name for a poor little baby. Huh – B.E.E.F. Yes, I suppose some cruel schoolboy thought it made a good nickname.”

  “So let’s say Beefy is something to do with the rustling from Jim Drizzle’s farm that Bruce Carver doesn’t want us talking about. Beefy might have been trying to make deals on the side to finance his drug and alcohol habit if he knew about all those cannabis plants on Mason’s Ridge.”

  “Drugs and alcohol?” Heather asked.

  I shrugged. “Going by what Paul told me.”

  She set her cup down on its saucer and wrapped her arms over her chest.

  “Are you cold?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “A bit spooked.”

  I reached across and snagged the corner of the big old hand-crocheted rug that had lived on the back of the other cane chair since our mother died. Maybe Graham and I left it there in case she magically reappeared and wanted it again. Heather didn’t need to know that. “Throw this over your legs. If you want to doze off I’ll wake you in plenty of time for dinner.”

  “Erik might call,” she said, avoiding my eyes.

  Might he indeed! I tried to look not the least bit interested. “Your phone will wake you then. I’m popping down to the Mini-mart for a couple of things. I’ll lock the back door. The dogs will bark plenty if anyone turns up while I’m gone.”

  I collected the cups and saucers and took them out to the kitchen, poking them into spaces in the dishwasher, and thinking hard. How could I find out more about the rustling on Drizzle Farm? I was expecting to receive Jim’s memoirs to knock into shape sooner or later, so maybe that was my starting point? And if I was taking the car to carry the groceries I could tootle ten minutes down Drizzle Bay Road and see if he was home (likely) and up for a chat (possible) and willing to talk about the rustling (somewhat less likely).

  I always think it’s worth striking while the iron is hot, and I didn’t have much to lose, so off I went. First to the Mini-mart for wavy lasagna noodles and a couple more cans of tomatoes because once I checked the cupboards I found my offer to provide pasta and salad wasn’t backed up by much in the way of ingredients. They had lovely fat shiny capsicums in the produce department, and really good avocados, too. Would Paul and Heather like avocados? Yes, everyone in the world seems to like them these days. I bought a couple so we could have half each for a starter.

  Starters put me in mind of desserts, of course. Okay, yes, we’d had those delicious white chocolate and strawberry muffins at the Burkeville, but brunch was now hours behind us. A quick visit to Iona Coppington’s café was called for, and what did I find? Darling little Christmas pudding cupcakes with marzipan icing that wouldn’t melt like frosting. Should I ask her to keep three aside for me, or should I risk a trip to Drizzle Farm with them?

  I pointed into the glass-fronted display case. “Will those be safe in the car for a while?”

  Iona wiped her hands on her big white apron and blew a feathery wisp of hair out of her eyes. “Depends if you have the spaniels in there.” She knew their greedy ways from past disasters.

  “No, Iona. They’re at home keeping Paul McCreagh’s sister company.” Not quite a lie, and it seemed as good a way as any to give Heather a mention. “She’s here for Christmas, and for a few weeks to follow. You don’t want any help with Christmas baking for a while, do you? She was going to enter The Great British Bake-off last year.”

  Iona tilted her head on one side. She looks ju
st like one of those white Australian cockatoos when she does that – inquisitive black eyes, beaky nose, fat little face and ruffled white feathery hair. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a crest of Sulphur-yellow plumes zoom up on top of her head and hear a few squawks of indignation issue forth if something really riled her.

  “Why didn’t she, then?”

  I worried at my bottom lip. It wasn’t really my story to tell; I shouldn’t have mentioned her. “Her husband died,” I said. “I probably shouldn’t have told you. Not my business.”

  “Bring her along for coffee tomorrow,” Iona said. “I could certainly do with an extra pair of capable hands for a week or so. I’ll sound her out. See if she’s anything more than a keen amateur.” She blew the hair out of her eyes again. “And the Christmas pud balls will travel fine. Solid as little rocks.”

  Well, that didn’t sound entirely appetizing! Then again, Iona cooked like a goddess so I probably had nothing to worry about. “Right – three of those.” A picture of Graham flashed into my mind. He’d be home later tonight, travel weary, worried about the state of his car, and missing his dogs. “No, better make that four.”

  Iona smiled as she picked them up with her tongs and placed them reverently in a small white cardboard box. “There’s a surprise inside some of them,” she said with a twinkle in her birdy eyes. “I hope you get at least one of the surprise ones.”

  I handed over a twenty dollar note and didn’t get as much change as I expected. They’d better be special for that.

  I put the box on the floor to keep it out of the sunshine and set off for Drizzle Farm. The pohutukawa trees behind Saint Agatha’s were ablaze with scarlet tassel flowers, and I spotted others as I drove along Drizzle Bay Road. Lisa had curled some bright green tinsel around and around the top railing of the fence outside the vet clinic. Talk about spooking the horses! I spotted several Christmas wreaths on doors, and the agricultural pump place had really gone for broke with little twinkling lights back under the eaves so they showed up quite well, even on a bright sunny day like this.

  I felt a bit guilty I hadn’t made more of an effort. Our front door boasted its usual wreath but that was the sum total of my decorations. Graham is not a frivolous person. There’s no chance he’d ever consider climbing onto the roof and wiring a light-up Santa to the chimney. Or standing illuminated reindeer in the front garden.

  But Graham wouldn’t be home for hours yet, and I knew our mother’s old suitcase of Christmas decorations was still stowed on top of the spare bedroom wardrobe. Surely it wouldn’t take long to do a bit of winding and festooning on the lower branches of the loquat tree by our front boundary before he got home? Poor old loquat tree – it was very obliging, living on in the salty spray when people expressed doubt and surprise it could survive at all, not to mention that it produced annual crops of little yellow fruit our mother had never bothered to make jelly from. It had branches I could reach from a couple of steps up the ladder, and they’d be too high for dogs and small children to get at. I could have quite a bit of fun with it before Graham returned.

  Full of inspiration and enthusiasm, I arrived at Drizzle Farm to find the brick gateposts and the black lanterns on top of them looking terribly tasteless and amazingly festive. Someone – presumably young Alex – had really gone to town with the tinsel and baubles and bright foil streamers.

  There was no one in sight so I turned in between the garish gateposts and smirked my way up the long farm driveway. Bright welding sparks were visible in one of the barns before I reached the house, and I thought I recognized those corduroy trousers. I pulled off to the side and waited for the work to stop.

  It took less than ten seconds for the brilliant sparking to die away and Lord Jim Drizzle came stumping out, pushing the visor of his old black welding helmet up and giving me a cheery wave as I hopped out of the Focus.

  “Little Merry!” he exclaimed with apparent pleasure. “Just doing some strengthening on one of the trailers. Can’t have the tow-bar giving away.”

  Indeed! “Good on you, Uncle Jim.” (If it was good enough for him to keep using my childhood name then it seemed fair enough I kept up the Uncle Jim pretense, even though he isn’t.) “Are we on our own?” I asked. “I wanted to sound you out about something a bit delicate. Or something DS Carver asked me to keep quiet about, anyway.”

  Jim pulled the welding helmet off and added a few more wrinkles to his already corrugated face as he frowned. “And that would be?”

  “I understand there’s been some rustling from the farm.”

  “How the…?” he asked, looking none too pleased.

  “It’s not going any further,” I hastened to reassure him. “Has he been in touch with you recently?”

  Jim shook his grizzled head. “Not in the last several days.”

  I leaned back against the car. Someone was still banging around inside the barn, so I dialed my volume down. “Expect a call, then. I found a quarter of a cow in the trunk of Graham’s car. In the garage at home.”

  Jim’s impressive eyebrows rose about half a mile.

  “The hide was still on it,” I added. “Black, so probably Angus. I let the police know of course, and there were fingerprint people swarming around in no time. DS Carver told me to keep it to myself because they’re hot on the trail of someone, but he did mention you’d had rustling problems recently. Have you had any Angus cattle go missing?”

  Jim nodded, looking furious. “Another few gone last week.”

  “And have you heard of anyone called Beefy Haldane?”

  That really got his eyebrows going, and he opened his mouth, presumably to swear, and then thought better of it in a lady’s company. Am I a lady? Possibly, in his eyes, yes.

  He didn’t swear anyway, but he kind of clamped his whole face shut with annoyance for a few seconds. “Worked here for maybe a month, beginning of winter. My farm manager, Denny McKenzie, took him on and then couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was only here for a few weeks. High as a kite most of the time, according to Denny. I don’t mind giving people a chance if they’re down on their luck, but if they soil their copybook then they’re out on their ear.”

  I took a second or two to unravel all the clichés and then I said, “There was a notice on top of the cow which said ‘Beefy Haldane better watch out’.”

  Jim pulled the corners of his mouth down. “Not entirely surprised. He was a soldier once but he seems to have fallen in with a bad lot and gone downhill.”

  “It’s worse than that,” I said. “He’s dead.”

  Jim’s jaw dropped, then he recovered, tossed the welding helmet onto the grass, and angled his chin toward the big old farmhouse. “Cup of tea, eh?”

  I trailed him inside and spilled the whole story as we drank our tea – the locked car, brunch at the Burkeville, and Erik’s unexpected announcement he had a helicopter parked nearby and was willing to give Heather a scenic flight after Beefy Haldane was mentioned.

  And what they’d found on the deserted beach.

  “So,” I concluded, “You can probably expect a call from Bruce Carver sometime pretty soon. I’m not meant to talk about it, but if it’s your cow and Graham’s car then I’m sure we both want to know more as soon as possible.”

  “I knew Haldane was still around the district,” he said. “Last I heard he was doing some wetlands planting and maintenance for Perce Percy at Devon Downs. Perce knew he was pretty unhinged and had given him an abandoned shearer’s cottage rent-free to keep him out of circulation. Hoped he might calm down a bit with somewhere to live and a job to keep him occupied.”

  I sipped the last of my tea. “So he wasn’t living at Mason’s Ridge?”

  Jim shook his head.

  “I’d heard he’d gone hunting with someone else and planned to sell venison and wild pork.”

  “Not up there,” Jim said, pouring us both another cup and nudging the tin of cheese scones in my direction again. I certainly didn’t need one, but Lady Zinnia Drizzle used t
o win most of the baking classes at the annual summer fair, so who was I to turn down such culinary treasure? Not just wonderfully sharp cheese, but delicious little ‘pops’ of something. Whole-seed mustard, maybe?

  She wasn’t visible to ask, but I could smell turpentine wafting from somewhere inside the big old house. These days Lady Zinnia paints exuberant florals in oils. Not the sort of thing Winston Bamber’s classy gallery would ever exhibit, but she donates them to school fairs and other fund-raising events, and I’m sure they’re hanging out there all over the place. Our father bought one a few years ago and it graced the wall of the spare bedroom for ages. And somehow never re-appeared when Graham and I had the room repainted after our parents died and it became his study.

  “There was a bit of a ‘situation’ between old Perce and young Beefy,” Jim added with noticeable reluctance. “As Perce is selling up, and Beefy’s dead, it won’t hurt to tell you.” He looked down at the battle-scarred table top. “Beefy is the bastard son of either Perce or his wife. Wasn’t brought up with them, but rumors were pretty rife years ago.”

  “Heavens to Betsy!” I exclaimed. I’ve possibly not said that before in my whole life, but it seemed a suitable comment on something so old-fashioned and odd. “He fought in Afghanistan, I gather. And ended up badly wounded and hooked on drugs.”

  “Perce is a snob,” Jim said. “Always was. Married Maisie Hardacre back in the seventies and she was even worse. They built a huge house, threw parties you wouldn’t believe. She brought money to the marriage, and they splashed it around like water for a while.” He took another sip of his tea. “And then she disappeared mysteriously for a few months. No one knew for sure if the marriage was in trouble and she’d left him and was enticed back, or whether she went off to have a baby in secret. For sure it wasn’t Perce’s child if that’s what happened or it would have been brought up at home with them.”