Molten Mud Murder Page 16

  DI Horne looked as if he wanted to say more but just studied her, their luncheon argument a Berlin Wall.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In the lab, Alexa set the featherlight bird bag in a box, gathered the camera bag, and hurriedly left for home. She did a quick scan at the entrance to the cottage. No bird. Everything normal, and as she picked up the afghan still on the floor and folded it neatly, she realized getting out of town was a good idea.

  The dead bird had sullied her nest.

  Alexa forced herself to open her laptop and make a hotel reservation. For a millisecond, she had thought about surprising Mary, just showing up at her apartment. Mary is dead, stupid. Who would empty her apartment? Her office? She wondered if she should offer to help as she placed a call to the Auckland Forensics Department to make sure someone would be there in the morning. Nah. Stay out of it. Finally, with overnight necessities, she flew the coop.

  The calming voice of an Aussie GPS app helped Alexa navigate out of town. The Thermal Explorer Highway skirted Lake Rotorua and headed northwest to Matamata, home to the renowned Lord of the Rings Shire. In the States, when she’d mention her New Zealand fellowship, people had asked: “Are you a Tolkien fan?” “Will you go to the Shire?”

  Pay good money to see creepy elves and bearded gnomes?

  No way.

  With a pang, she remembered Mary had been an anti-fan of the Rings hoopla. “Rotorua used to be the number one tourist attraction on the North Island. Now people go to the Shire instead. It’s hurt my cousin’s business.”

  “What’s his business?”

  “Tamaki Maori Village. You know—song, haka, hāngī feast.”

  “Feast?”

  “Lamb, kumara, pumpkin, cabbage. The food is covered with flax and leaves and then steamed over hot stones.”

  “So you’ll take me there?” Alexa had asked, her mouth watering.

  “Well, maybe. It’s embarrassing to see my whānau with painted faces and no shirts sticking their tongues out at tourists. But the food’s good.”

  Out of Rotorua’s stinky clutches, the state highway became an undulating ribbon pulled through quaint villages, pastures of sheep and lambs, one-lane bridges, and hills. Alexa’s peripheral vision caught a blur of earthy browns, emeralds, spring greens splattered with pink and purple. Eye candy.

  The narrow highway had scarce traffic. Maybe she’d do the Village thingy on her own after the case was solved. And the Shire, why not? Today, she’d drive by. In three hours, she’d be back in the City of Sails.

  * * *

  Alexa pulled up to the SKYCITY Hotel in the central business district at six thirty p.m. The rate for her room was decent, but she hadn’t factored in the cost of city parking—another twenty dollars for one night in a low-ceilinged garage beneath the hotel. She considered what to do with the bird she had christened Fanny: hotel room or trunk? She pressed her nose to the box and decided to leave it in the dark, cool trunk; the spring night would not hasten decomposition. Plus—it would be hard to sleep with this particular roomie.

  Her room was eleven stories above the city, with seductive views of the boat-speckled harbor, the arched bridge, and the slowly revolving Sky Tower. She squinted at the tower, amazed to watch a form jump from the top, plunge straight down, and then jerk halfway back up. The bungee-jumping idiot made her stomach flip-flop, so she erased the view with a swish of drape and flopped on the huge bed. Tension dissipated as she fluffed a second pillow, shoved it under her neck, and promptly fell asleep. Dreamland was not her intent. She’d passed some enticing restaurants on Queen Street—Bistro Enchant, Zomato, Lord of the Fries—and had been excited about a hearty meal and popping into shops if they stayed open late on a Saturday night.

  It was nine p.m. when she awoke, groggy and disoriented. Where am I? She wobbled to the bathroom and splashed water on her face and then called the front desk, hoping for room service.

  “We have a snack case in the lobby.”

  Alexa stayed up another hour, munching a Moro bar and a pack of Krispies and watched two Parks & Rec reruns while taking stock of her six days in Rotorua and the unexpected roller coaster ride it had become.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Auckland Department of Forensics was a standalone building adjacent to the Auckland Central Police Station on Cook Street. The main entrance was locked, though Alexa could see people entering the police department next door. She rang the after-hours buzzer and studied the concrete building with interest. Even though she had taught two courses to budding odontologists—Introduction to Forensics Odontology and Forensics Odontology: Research Methods—she had never been here; the lab at the dental school had been adequate.

  No two forensics departments were ever the same. Alexa was excited about seeing New Zealand’s premier lab. A bespectacled man peered through the glass and spoke through an intercom.

  “Ms. Glock from Rotorua?”

  “Yes.”

  The door clicked open. “Dan Goddard, chief forensics examiner,” he said, holding out his hand. Alexa shifted the bird box to her left hand and shook and then handed him her ID. He gave it a casual glance and handed it back. “I was expecting you. How can I help? Something about a bird?” He was boyish, wearing jeans, an untucked navy polo, and red tennis shoes.

  “I hope you didn’t come in on a Sunday morning just for me,” Alexa said. “I need access to your prints equipment.”

  “No, no, I’m on call, getting caught up on paperwork. Nice when the lab is quiet. Come on—I’ll show you around and let you get started. Are you American?” His oversized round glasses slightly magnified his bright eyes.

  “Yes.” Alexa followed Goddard down a corridor that opened into a two-story atrium.

  The lab spread in an arc. From the open area they were standing in, Alexa could see office cubicles and signs for various departments: firearms, biological, trace, prints, toxicology, even a vehicle examination bay.

  Goddard smiled. “It has an open design, as you can see. Enhances safety, according to the design committee, if you can see what your fellow workers are doing.”

  “Looks brand new.” Alexa noted the TV monitors, security call-assistance buttons and, when she walked past an emergency eyewash station and the lights came on, motion detectors. A call-assistance button would have helped her in the Rotorua lab, that was for sure.

  “Ten years old. Hard to believe.”

  A muffled bang made Alexa almost drop Fanny.

  “That’s Jack, our ballistics expert. He’s in the firing range.” Goddard pointed toward the firearms section. A closed door had a homemade sign on it: Loose Cannon—Do Not Enter. “I’m not sure he’s working on a case. I think he just likes to shoot.” Another faint blast.

  “Why do you need ballistics experts in New Zealand?” Alexa asked, thinking of all the gun violence back home.

  “Yeah nah. Mostly, we don’t. Less than two percent of violent crime involves firearms, but we’ve had an increase in hunting accidents.”

  “How many people work here?”

  “Including myself, eight full-time.” Goddard had bright brown eyes and contagious energy.

  “I met Kit Byers when he was sent to Rotorua to help with the mud pot murder.”

  “Good man, Kit. He’s on paternity leave. His son was born prematurely.”

  “I hope the baby will be all right,” Alexa said and wondered if there might be a job opening here in Auckland. She’d like to stay in New Zealand longer. “What are you working on?”

  “Our big case—you probably read about it—is the discovery of two bodies, a woman and girl. In a tidal basin. Buried in salt and mud.”

  Alexa thought of their teeth. “Have you been able to identify them?”

  “DNA is pending, but they match the description of a pair who went missing ten years ago.”

  “Were they murdered?”
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  “No. They got lost while hiking. Washed off a trail in a storm.”

  “Must have been some storm.”

  “A real southerly. But today, I’m compiling a paint analysis. What can I say?” His smile revealed a slight overbite. “It’s not all glam, is it? What have you got?”

  “A bird. I want to take prints from a bird carcass, and we don’t have the fluorescent powders and UV lamps.”

  “I didn’t know you could lift prints off a bird.”

  “Me either.” Alexa excitedly shared the results of the Scottish report.

  Goddard’s eyes gleamed. “Call me in when you get it set up. This I have to see! I’ll be in my office.” He pointed to one of the cubicles.

  Goddard took her to the latent prints department. “The storage closet is here,” he said, unlocking it. “Keep a record of what you use on one of these forms.” He handed her the paper. “I hope you find what you need.”

  He left her admiring the space. She set the box and her camera bag on a fifteen-foot workbench and surveyed her surroundings: a refrigerator, sink, secured evidence locker, and shelves full of reference material and manuals. The storage closet was like a candy store and had its own smaller workbench. Alexa drooled over the array of rainbow print powders and chose green fluorescent, which would fluoresce a neon Granny Smith color under UV light. She would dust Fanny right in the storage room, because total darkness would allow her to best see the results, just as BLUESTAR had detected the blood at the mud pots.

  Supplies rounded up: camera and tripod, fluorescent powder, portable UV lamp, feather duster, lifting tape, black backing card, magnifying glass, specimen tray. Alexa set the camera on a flexible tripod with a shutter release cord and slipped on gloves. It was fantail time. She opened the box, removed the bird from the evidence bag, and slipped it onto the sterile specimen tray. She carefully dipped a feather duster into the talcum-ish powder, just the smallest dip—too much powder would fill in ridges—and then gently twirled it onto the bird’s small breast, resulting in a mildewy blotch, a blight marring Fanny’s down. Turning off the lights, reminding herself to breathe, Alexa turned on the UV lamp.

  It was an amazing sight.

  Under the magnifying glass, she could see a luminous topographical map and, off to the side, in ridged detail, a partial fingerprint.

  She debated whether to turn the lights back on to add more powder in hopes of enlarging the print but decided not to tempt fate. Another swirl could wipe it out. Alexa fumbled the camera on, adjusted the angle, and released the shutter. Zooming in and out, she took a series of photos. They looked clear and brilliant through the lens, and she would enlarge them back in Rotorua. Before she would try lifting the print, which wasn’t recommended with fluorescent powder, she had to show Goddard. Turning the lights on and camera off, she bounded off.

  “Wicked,” Goddard said. “Send me a copy of the photos. I’ll share it with our wildlife specialist. We’ve experienced kiwi poaching. One dude put a live chick in a suitcase.”

  Alexa shook her head and asked, “Can you tell if my fantail is a male or female?”

  “No idea. Male and female fantails look alike. You realize it’s only a partial, right? It won’t hold up in court,” Goddard said.

  “True.” Only ten percent of crime scene fingerprints were usable in court. “But a partial can still further the case.” Especially if it matches the duct tape print.

  “I’m surprised you don’t have fluorescent powders in Rotorua,” Goddard said. “We’ve been using Lumicyano for a year now.”

  They spent ten minutes discussing advancements in fingerprinting. Dan Goddard was a kindred spirit.

  “I’m just working on contract for the mud pot case.”

  “It’s all over the news. The bird figures in?”

  She nodded. “Anyway—my contract is for this one case. Are there any openings here in Auckland?”

  “Do you have a work permit?”

  “Yes. It’s good for another six months and then could be renewed.”

  “If you don’t mind travel, I could use you. Byers doesn’t want to rove the countryside, now that he has a wee sprog.”

  Wee sprog?

  Goddard continued. “Most towns are too small to have a forensics lab. There are only five in the whole country—Auckland, Wellington, and Rotorua here on the North Island. Christchurch and Dunedin on the South Island. If you’re interested, send me your résumé.”

  Alexa left the lab neat and tidy and lingered in the atrium, thinking she’d feel right at home here.

  Excited to get back to Rotorua to do a print comparison, Alexa was also reluctant to leave the country’s largest city so quickly. She had slowly been learning her way around its busy streets when her fellowship ended and now decided to spare an hour for shopping. Everyone promised summer was coming—but for six-plus months, it had been one sixty-degree day after another, so she wasn’t sold, but she did need boots and a yoga mat. Central Mall was on the city outskirts, and she hoped its shops would be open Sunday morning.

  They were bustling.

  Alexa parked and located her need-to-buy list: yoga mat, boots, raincoat. She added sandals and short-sleeved tees.

  The yoga mat was most pressing. Practicing yoga was a way to keep limber and reduce skin tightening that plagued her burn scars. In Auckland, she had joined a yoga studio, but if she was going to be traveling, she’d have to use a yoga app on her phone.

  Her first yoga therapy class had been in eighth grade, thanks to Ms. Turner, a kindly school counselor who knew about the accident and noticed her hunched-over walk, not a great look for making friends or attracting boys, but it had relieved pain from scar tissue busily creeping like ivy to every crevice and ridge not covered in skin grafts. The memory of that first class, lying on her mat, hating her grotesque adolescent body, fighting tears and rage, flashed across her mind.

  Don’t go there.

  There was a purple mat at Farmer’s, a target-twin without red dots, anchoring the mall at one end, but Farmer’s shoes and raincoats were thumbs-down. Alexa then detoured to lingerie and tried on a midnight-blue bra and pantie set that lifted and padded perfectly, the bra anyway. She thought of Mr. Blue Eyes as she assessed her image in the dressing room mirror and sucked in her stomach.

  Not. Bad.

  Stop it.

  The man is close-minded and stubborn. And you’ll be leaving soon.

  A few minutes later, the pricey set was wrapped in tissue and tucked in her tote. Hutchins Hardware had a display of different- colored gum boots lining the front window. They weren’t the black leather boots, she envisioned but gum boots (“We don’t call them Wellies,” Mary had scolded) were more practical. Plus, they were very Kiwi; every other person in New Zealand was wearing a pair. Alexa settled for Red Brand at eighty-five dollars and left the mall pleased with herself.

  The future was looking up.

  * * *

  At half past three, she parked at the Rotorua station, grabbed Fanny and camera bag, and walked through the front entrance. Sharon Welles wasn’t working. A uniformed police officer was sitting at her desk, messing with his phone. He waved her over and studied her badge without speaking.

  “I’ll be in the lab.” She suddenly wanted to let someone know where she was. “I’ll check by on my way out.”

  The lab through the small door window was dark and empty. Alexa unlocked it, turned on the lights, and made herself check the storage closet. The caution tape was gone, and the blood had been cleaned. Lemon disinfectant lingered in the air.

  Alexa slipped Fanny, who now wore a hint of Eau De Rot, from her box into a plastic storage bag. Opening the evidence freezer, she rested Fanny within and shut the door.

  Bye bye birdie.

  Time to upload the photos. They were better than she imagined and revealed at least thirteen minutiae.

>   With a full print, twenty-five or more minutiae points like ridges, islands, spurs, and cores were used to verify a match. The computer would reject a print if it contained fewer than thirteen minutiae. Totally absorbed, Alexa ran the partial through the data bank and held her breath, hoping against hope they might match the duct tape prints or someone on the police department payroll. Cooper? Rangiora?

  But seconds later, a No Match notification deflated her hopes. Whoever left the bird in her house had no fingerprints on file and was not the same person who bound Koppel’s face with duct tape. Another clue flies the coop. Dead as the moa.

  She emailed the print to Goddard and thanked him for his lab hospitality, attached her résumé, and added a note that she was interested in working with him.

  Done.

  Alexa considered checking to see if DI Horne—Bruce—was in his office but decided against it. Her trip to Auckland had been for naught, and she wanted to use her new yoga mat, stretch her taut muscles. She locked up, climbed the stairs to the lobby, and waved a goodbye to the officer on duty.

  * * *

  Trout Cottage looked forlorn, as if Alexa had been away two weeks instead of twenty-four hours. A fierce wind buffeted the lavender stalks as she dropped her new boots and yoga mat on the front porch and fumbled for keys.

  A fluttering note was taped to the front door.

  Her heart skipped a beat. A threat? Alexa unfolded it and read:

  Sunday—Pop over for a glass of wine. Five-ish. Sarah.

  Relief. An invite from the cottage owner. Egg Boy’s mother. It was ten to five. The yoga mat would have to wait. In her haste to visit her landlord, she lost any apprehension about entering the cottage.

  Everything was fine.

  Alexa decided to spruce up. She changed from baggy jeans to tight black ones, pulled on a rose silk turtleneck, and wrapped a wispy Monet’s water lily scarf around her neck. The natural waves in her sable hair looked tame for the moment, and, pleased, she locked the house at 5:05, scanned the property, and hopped into the car. No trail along the river this time.