Molten Mud Murder Read online

  “As I said, we have someone coming. If you want a job, you need to apply online.” He smiled briefly and started to turn.

  “Here, take my résumé.” She handed it to him but grabbed it back. “Oops. North Carolina number.” Alexa dug for a pen and quickly drew a line through the number. “Just a sec. I can’t remember what my new number is.” She began to search her tote for the scrap of paper where she had written it, sure this would happen, removing sunscreen, an apple, and a scrunchie in the process. Horne stood patiently, watching her fumble around.

  “Can I hold something?” he asked, one thick eyebrow rising in bemusement.

  It was then she noted the curry stain front and center on her T-shirt. Great. “Yes, thanks.” She handed him the apple. “Here it is.” Number added, she traded her résumé for the apple and smiled into blue eyes. “I hope I hear from you.”

  Horne’s left eyebrow flew up.

  Chapter Two

  Mary’s childhood home was a modest brick ranch in a Rotorua suburb. Alexa parked on the street and, transfixed by the aroma of rosemary and garlic, walked down the driveway carrying a twelve-pack of beer and a bouquet of white roses.

  A dark-haired man in khakis and a polo shirt was standing in the front garden at a barbecue. “Alexa Glock?”

  She nodded. “Terrance Horomia?”

  Terrance had Mary’s eyes: topaz and voluminous. He pressed his nose and forehead against Alexa’s in the traditional Maori greeting. “You had a safe journey from Auckland, I hope,” he said. A tattoo of intricate spirals spilled from his short sleeves and ended at the wrist.

  Alexa flushed, stepped back. “Yes, thank you. I am sorry for your loss. Mary was planning to bring me to Rotorua soon.”

  Terrance grunted. “She barely ever came back. Busy running from her roots.”

  Alexa didn’t know what to say. “Where shall I put these?” She held up her offerings.

  “Leave the brew here. I’ll add it to the chiller. Go meet my wife and children. My mother and cousin are here too.” He turned abruptly toward the rack of sizzling meat.

  “Lamb?”

  A nod as he brushed the crunchy skin with more oil and herbs.

  The foyer opened to a den straight ahead, where she could hear TV garble and giggles, and a kitchen to the right. A plump, gray-haired woman was stirring a pot; a younger woman chopped mint.

  “Nau mai, child,” said the stirrer. “I’m Lorette Horomia, Mary’s mother. It’s good to meet her American friend.” She let go of the wooden spoon and opened her arms, cloaking Alexa in an embrace.

  “I am sorry for your loss,” Alexa said into her soft shoulder and longed to sink deeper. Here this mother was, providing comfort when she should be receiving it. What would the loss of a child be like? Alexa couldn’t fathom it, but she knew the loss of a mother.

  Dressed in black leggings and a red-and-black swirly tunic, the other woman turned and offered her hand. “We will forge a new path. I am Mary’s cousin, Jeannie.”

  No smile.

  “What can I do to help? And where shall I put these flowers?”

  A third woman, spilling out of a tight aqua sundress, walked in. “Kia ora.” She introduced herself as Ellie, Terrance’s wife. Her open smile revealed overlapping front teeth. “Come meet our children, Mary’s niece and nephew.”

  Alexa returned the smile and followed her to the den.

  Two dark heads turned from the flat screen when they walked in, Alexa still holding the roses. “This is Kala,” said Ellie. “Our oldest.”

  “I’m almost nine,” said Kala.

  “I’m Kyle and I’m seven,” her brother said.

  “No, you’re not!” said Kala. “You’re six.”

  “Well, this is Alexa, Aunt Mary’s friend from America,” their mother explained.

  The children eyed Alexa.

  “I’m sorry about your aunt. There were pictures of you two on her desk.” She hoped that was okay to say. Children were as unpredictable as dogs.

  “I saw Auntie Mare dead in her coffin. She didn’t open her eyes,” Kyle said. “Are you someone’s mum?”

  “No. I…”

  “Alexa is going to have tea with us,” Ellie interrupted.

  “Why do you have flowers?” Kala asked.

  “They’re for your family. Do you want to help me arrange them in a vase?”

  “Okay,” Kala said, jumping up. She skipped behind Alexa back to the kitchen.

  The lamb was unveiled in the center of the crowded table. Dishes of roasted spring potatoes, mint sauce, steamed carrots, and green beans were passed around. Jeannie thawed a tad when Alexa complimented her on the mint sauce.

  “Did my sister ever mention moving back here?” Terrance asked, setting down his fork.

  “She talked about all of you. And about Rotorua. She had invited me for the holidays.” A stab of panic. If she stayed in New Zealand, she’d be alone at Christmas.

  “You can still come,” said Kyle. “We’ll have barbie and pavlova.”

  Barbie? Pavlova? Everyone laughed at Alexa’s expression, and Ellie explained the Kiwi tradition of a Christmas day cookout and the whipped cream meringue dessert.

  “Do you have snakes and lions and bears in ’Merica?” Kala asked.

  “We have lots of snakes and a few bears, but luckily no lions,” Alexa answered.

  “You talk funny. We’re having hokey pokey for dessert,” Kyle said.

  “Hocus-pocus? Is that a magic trick?”

  “It’s ice cream!” he screamed.

  “Kyle, it’s rude to say someone talks funny,” his mom said. “You could say, ‘Your accent is different.’”

  “Your accent is different,” Kyle said. Everyone laughed again.

  Jeannie asked Alexa what brought her to New Zealand.

  “I just finished a teaching fellowship in the forensics department at Auckland University. That’s where I met Mary. Her lab was next door. I specialize in odontology…teeth.”

  Kyle stuck his tongue through the gap in his front teeth, and Alexa laughed. She didn’t usually like children, but this one was growing on her. “I work with old teeth, not new ones like yours.”

  “Like Nana’s?” Kyle asked.

  Like dug-up skeletons and plane-crash victims. “Even older.”

  “Will you head back to the States now?” Jeannie asked.

  “I might stay longer if I can find another job. My work visa can be extended indefinitely if I work in a high-needs field. I stopped by the Rotorua Police Department this afternoon. To see if they need help with the death at the mud pots.”

  “My class went to the Waiariki mud pots,” piped Kala. “They’re scary. The mud is alive. Jason said Maori used to cook people in them and eat them. And Samara saw bones poking out.”

  “Is that true, Mum?” Kyle asked in a worried tone.

  A bang came from the end of the table. “That’s enough, Kala.” Terrance’s voice drowned Ellie’s response. “Do not desecrate your ancestors.” Uncomfortable silence followed. Terrance, frowning, said no more, and his clan jumped up to clear the table.

  Chapter Three

  She lay in bed at 7:06 the next morning, cozy, only her nose cold, listening to the faint gurgle of the Kaituna through the cracked window and to a shrill cheep cheep chirrup followed by chattering. New Zealand, she had read in her guidebook, had been isolated from other lands and evolved into an avifauna full of wondrous birds. Many, like the kiwi and kakapo, were flightless because New Zealand had no indigenous land mammals as predators.

  Alexa lay still, imagining an alien world with no mammals and trying to figure out why this was so. She concluded that the land was so isolated—twenty-five hundred miles from Australia, though people tended to lump the two countries together, and three thousand miles from Antarctica—that if you couldn’t fly he
re (hence the birds) or swim (hence the seals, sea lions, and penguins), then it made sense that it would become an exclusive, birds-only party.

  How utterly cool.

  Alexa liked the guidebook story about Captain James Cook exploring the New Zealand coast in 1770. His ship was moored a quarter mile from shore. The dawn chorus of birdsong was so deafening that his crew begged him to anchor farther out.

  But, she had read further, the bird party had come to a disastrous clock striking midnight. The seafaring Polynesians who first inhabited New Zealand had killed off the moa and introduced rats, and the European settlers brought rabbits, possums, stoats, and cats. These party animals had blindsided the defenseless bird population, in many cases to extinction. No more laughing owl, huia, New Zealand quail, or bush wren. The past several decades saw the Kiwis (capital K for people, lowercase k for bird, Alexa had learned) working to eradicate the problem. Programs to erase invasive flora and fauna were underway. Mary had helped instigate biosecurity checks at airports.

  Cheep cheep, chirrup.

  Alexa closed her eyes for a few more minutes, happy for this bird’s song, happy to be untethered, and then the urge for coffee made her hop up.

  Mary’s memorial service was to be at four p.m. at St. Faith’s Anglican Church on the banks of Lake Rotorua. After breakfast, she would take a run along the river. And then maybe sniff around the mud pots.

  She ate quickly and moved to the front porch despite the chill to sip fresh coffee and check her laptop for the latest mud pot news. The Press’s article “Group Tour Views Scene from Hell” included additional quotes from witnesses and a grisly photo of a body partially submerged in mud. “Only two feet were sticking out. I was sickened by the sight.” The New Zealand Herald ran a similar front page article, “Tour Bus of Asians Discover Body,” with another shocking photo. She didn’t think a similar photo would be allowed in an American newspaper, well, maybe a tabloid. She also supposed the photos came from the Chinese tourists’ iPhones and not from the authorities. The body was still unidentified.

  Alexa rose, sipped the last of her thick, nutty coffee, and went to change. A run would warm her up and get her brain in gear. Then she’d head out to the scene of the crime: Waiariki Thermal Land of Enchantment.

  After checking her phone to see if Detective Inspector Handsome of the Rotorua Police Department had called—he hadn’t—Alexa discovered a path through Trout Cottage’s side yard leading to the river. Dense spiky foliage and fern trees, cabbage, and silver crowded the path’s edges and blocked the morning light. Between leafage, the Kaituna flashed green and roiling. A faint lemony scent wedded with river water perfumed the air. Taking deep breaths, Alexa stretched her hamstrings, first left, then the tighter right, and began to run the deserted path, slowly at first, her body acclimating after several non-running days. Then years of conditioning kicked in, and five minutes later, she was running strong and swift like the river. Many people who survive large burns end up with joint pain and difficulty walking or running, and Alexa was sure as hell not going to be one of them.

  Running was thinking. She thought of Jeb—left to find someone else to share his life with. With a jolt, she realized she didn’t care, felt lighter. Free. Was her heart frozen? Was something the matter with her that she couldn’t form a lasting relationship with a man?

  Rubbish.

  Mary had always said “rubbish.” Alexa thought of her instead of Jeb. Mary had befriended her week one in Auckland, popping her head in Alexa’s office and saying, “I’m here to do the official welcome haka.” She had made her eyes bulge and started stamping her feet when another colleague yelled at her to knock it off.

  Now she’s dead.

  A lump lodged in Alexa’s throat.

  Think about today.

  The mud pots. They were calling.

  A reptilian shape across the path made her jump. Heart-poundingly high. Then she remembered: no snakes in New Zealand either. Another reason to stay.

  After a bit more Alexa could hear the thunder of a waterfall and knew she was close to Okere Falls. There had been a page three article in the paper about a German whitewater-rafting tourist who had been helicoptered out from here the same day as the murder, injured while plunging over the seven-meter falls. The highest commercially rafted falls in the world, the article had claimed. Right here. Had the tourist survived?

  When the roar became deafening, Alexa spotted a side path and veered. The path wound downward, narrowed, rock cliffs on either side obstructing light, the temperature cooler, dank, and ended above the falls. Three wooden steps led up to a viewing platform that jutted out above the river. Spray from the falls made her shiver as she climbed them and forced herself up to the edge, mindful of the slippery planks. She hated heights but pushed herself to conquer her fear.

  Now or never, right?

  She grabbed the flimsy safety rail, leaned over, and looked down. Her stomach flipped at the jumble of froth and force.

  * * *

  Showered and ready, Alexa found a brochure in the cottage describing Waiariki Thermal Land of Enchantment: an extraordinary landscape of hot spouting geysers, bubbling mud pools, and colorful sinter terraces. At $32.50 a pop, it was one of several geothermal parks in the area to visit, and the brochure made it sound like a theme park. She had never been to a geothermal area and was excited, as tourist and as scientist.

  After twenty minutes of winding roads from the cottage, she found the entrance and drove up to the ticket booth. The only indication a crime had taken place was a handwritten sign taped to the booth: “Mud Pots Closed.” Lowering the window, she handed over her American Forensics Association membership card, which had a decent photo of her in the corner, in hopes of avoiding the entry fee and asked the attendant for directions.

  “Continue straight ahead, past the turnoff to Waiariki Geyser. Then take the first right. Do you know when the mud pools will be opened?” the attendant asked. She looked Maori and had barely glanced at Alexa’s card before handing it back. Security in New Zealand was a bit more relaxed than in the States.

  “Perhaps soon, but there’s no telling.”

  “The tourists want to go see where the body was found. Our numbers are up. Have they figured out who did it?”

  “No comment. Thanks for the directions.” Alexa pulled forward. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she noted more cars lined up.

  Last night, after leaving Mary’s family, Alexa had Googled Rotorua and found that it had a population of fifty-six thousand, and there had been two murders the previous year. Though rare, murder was not unheard of.

  The turn, a narrow one-way blacktop, was blocked by orange cones. Alexa had to stop the car and move them out of the way, drive through, and then stop and replace them. Half a kilometer farther, a parking area appeared on the right. Two police cars and a white van were parked with no sign of people. Alexa parked next to the van and got out. Scrub and shrubs surrounded the lot; the land was low and eerie and reeked of rotting eggs. Yellow tape and a cordoned-off pathway pointed the way.

  The noise. Alexa stopped abruptly after ten paces. She tensed, listening. Sploosh. Plop. Gurgle. Splat. Onomatopoeia come to life. She increased her pace, eager. Mud pots lay ahead, obstructed by ghostly clouds of vapor. When she reached a clear view, Alexa realized Kala had been right. The mud was alive, dancing, pop- ping, sucking. Alexa moved forward up to a proper viewing area, separated from the living pond of mud by a hip-high fence and skull and crossbones warning sign.

  She had never seen anything like it.

  “You. This area is closed.”

  The voice came from behind. Alexa whirled around to find a female police officer. Her dark hair was mostly hidden by a uniform cap that shaded a broad, smooth Maori face and a blue lip-and-chin tattoo.

  “Hello. I’m Alexa Glock, forensic odontologist. I’m here to take a look at the scene.”

 
“Your badge. No one said you were coming.” The stocky cop looked young, early twenties.

  Alexa handed over the American Forensics Association card, hoping it would keep working. “Can you show me the scene?”

  The cop scrutinized the card, comparing the photo on it with Alexa’s face. She handed it back and said, “Follow me.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Officer Cooper.”

  “Do you know who was the first officer on the scene?”

  “I was.”

  Bingo. “Could I ask a few questions?” Alexa fought to keep her voice neutral.

  “It’s all in my report.”

  “I’m sure it is. How did you know to come here?”

  “Dispatcher.” The young cop looked at Alexa as if she were short a few. “Said there had been an accident. I was closest.”

  “Were you alone?”

  Nod.

  “What did you find when you arrived?”

  “Chinese tour group. Twenty-eight people crowding and shouting on the platform up ahead.”

  The two women were walking uphill on a concrete path that led to another viewing area, this one above the molten pools. From here, tourists could look down into a bubbling Hades. Alongside the platform, a narrow gap led to a rocky hill. Alexa spotted another cop and two men in jumpsuits and booties standing below, within the largest of the taped areas, ten yards from the boiling muck. Yellow caution tape appeared in five different areas, which confused Alexa. A perimeter of a crime scene should be big. (“You can bring it in, but you can’t pull it out,” Dr. Winget always emphasized.) What was with these random areas taped off?

  Clearly, she was needed.

  Drifting steam clouds suddenly obscured the view. “Did anyone leave the platform and go down to the body?” Alexa hurried to ask more questions before they were spotted by the people below.