Molten Mud Murder Read online

  Alexa hated this odd Kiwi saying and fixed the senior officer with a stare. His arguing was fraying her nerves, but if she called him on it in front of Cooper and Walker, who silently watched, there would be hell to face.

  “Walker, get back down there and man the lights,” Rangiora finally said. Cooper mumbled something as Walker clambered down.

  “Do you have something to add, Officer Cooper?” Alexa asked.

  Blue lips pressed together.

  “Go ahead and prepare the spray,” she told the senior officer. BLUESTAR came in a tablet and needed to be dissolved in water. She loved the stuff that glowed in the dark when it came into contact with blood. “Do a double dose and then join me. Keep the lights on until we tell you to cut them,” she called to Walker. Alexa climbed down just as a waft of sulfuric mist concealed the route. She slipped two feet, camera bag careening, but caught herself before landing on her butt. On level ground, she took a few moments to still her heart, busying herself with getting the equipment ready. She finally walked over to the corner of the squared-off area. More mist obscured the view. “You there?” she asked Walker.

  “What, ma’am?”

  “Never mind.” Carefully, she lifted the ribbon, squatted, and started slowly sweeping the ground with her Maglite, which provided a brighter and more direct beam than the two portable lights. It was difficult discerning dark, muddy terrain from dark, bloody terrain. She got onto her gloved hands and knees and moved an inch at a time, the oozing mud pits sounding closer and louder. A rock jabbed her knee. “Dammit.”

  “You right?” came Rangiora’s voice.

  “Yes. Stay back there until I call you.”

  Meticulously, she swept the strong beam back and forth, crawling forward. Bloops and splats and gurgles became crazy background elevator Muzak. The breeze carried sulfur stink but then glided on, leaving the air dank and muddy again. Back and forth. Rangiora clearing his throat. Soft murmurs of the other two officers. A laugh. A plonk. A stink. The dark earth looked darker as she neared the center of square two. She shone her light back and forth to make sure.

  “Officer Rangiora, follow the way I just came.” Quickly, he was by her side, squatting.

  “Spray here,” Alexa instructed. She could hear Rangiora breathing steadily as he doused the area.

  “Ready,” he said.

  “Lights off,” Alexa called, tense and expectant.

  An aurora borealis luminescence shone on the ground.

  “Bull’s-eye,” Rangoria said. “Come here, Coop. Look at this.”

  Science—what was not to love? Alexa thought.

  Officer Cooper had been standing beyond the caution ribbon. “Looks like glowworms,” she said.

  “Turn the lights back on, Walker. We need a negative control sample.” Rangiora sprayed more BLUESTAR in the next grid, and he and Coop fist-bumped when nothing happened in the dark. Alexa set the camera on a tripod, readied the flash, and carefully pointed the shutter at an angle to avoid hot spots. Finished with the still photos, she switched to video and recorded the glowing area for ten seconds. The up and down was killing her knees, and the lights on and lights off gave her a headache. “Let’s get this soil bagged now,” she said to Cooper when she finished. “I’ll run it in the morning.”

  She stayed and helped search the rest of the area, perhaps eking a crumb of respect from her new colleagues. The eerie explosions of plops and bloops faded into the new normal, barely discernible. An hour later, they had a single cigarette butt to add to the collection. No murder rock.

  Chapter Five

  She had timed it: it took twenty minutes to drive to the police station from the cottage, but Alexa had not factored in rain and rush hour traffic, naively certain that rush hour did not exist in Rotorua, New Zealand. She’d left at seven thirty, figuring that would leave her a few minutes to pop into the ladies’, subdue her quarreling dark locks, and dab on lipstick.

  But now it was 8:05.

  Dashing into the station and ignoring the waving hands of Ms. Welles, Alexa took the stairs two by two. Out of breath, she knocked on DI Horne’s office door.

  No answer.

  She heard voices coming from down the hall, licked naked lips, and entered a large meeting room. Detective Inspector Bruce Horne was standing at the front by a corkboard. Alexa quickly scanned the room and counted the three officers from last night plus two men in civvies.

  All eyes turned to her.

  “Ah, Ms. Glock,” Horne said. “Let me introduce you to the team.” She nodded as officers Rangiora, Cooper, and Walker were introduced.

  “We’ve met, sir,” Rangiora reminded Horne.

  “And these two gentlemen are loaners from Auckland,” Horne said. “Detective Trimble is undercover, and Detective McNamara is from homicide.” Horne turned back to the team. “Ms. Glock will act as lead forensics examiner for the case. Any finds from last night’s search?”

  “What happened to Byers?” interrupted the homicide detective. His stringy ponytail, faded blue jeans, and loose beige fisherman’s sweater contrasted sharply with the other detective, who was closely clipped and wearing a suit.

  “Byers had a family emergency,” Horne answered and turned back to Alexa.

  “Possible blood and a cigarette butt, sir.” The word “senior” flashed in her mind, but it was too unfamiliar for her to use. “No murder weapon.”

  “Good you got there last night before this rain washed trace away. Any word from the dental community?”

  She had tried to check from home but hadn’t been able to get a connection. “I’ll check ASAP. Dental clinics are probably opening up around now.”

  Horne’s eyebrows furrowed. “We still don’t know who our victim is. Body was found three days ago. Why hasn’t someone been reported missing?”

  No answers.

  “What did we find out from the person who spotted a car leaving the scene?”

  “Dead end, Senior,” said Walker. “She had her dates wrong.”

  “Figures. Are we done with crime scene witness statements?” Horne looked at Officer Rangiora.

  “Bloody hell it’s been,” Rangiora answered. “Twenty of them didn’t see anyone. Three claim a car was leaving as the bus pulled up, but they don’t agree on the color or make. One insists she saw a bearded woman down by the mud pool. I think she has her gender pronouns backward. The rest don’t speak English, so we’re sending a Mandarin interpreter to meet up with them.”

  “One or two tossers have sold pictures to the newspapers,” Walker added. “The photos have gone viral.”

  “Over a thousand hits,” Rangiora said. “It’s shambles. The tour group left the North Island this morning—we couldn’t force them to stay any longer. They’re on the ferry to the South Island. Impossible to do follow-up questions.”

  “The tour director was fuming that the group missed Tamaki Maori Village. They wanted their hāngг and haka, Coop, right? Doesn’t your uncle run that place?” Walker asked.

  What the heck is hāngī? Alexa wondered but kept her mouth shut.

  Officer Cooper glared at Walker.

  Horne began issuing directives when the detective with the ponytail interrupted again. “The bootprint found at the scene is the best evidence we got.” He held up two clear bags. “This duct tape recovered from the body is too damaged to use.”

  Alexa was a duct tape geek. “Maybe not,” she said. She knew tape was commonly used to bind victim’s hands or mouths. It could be dusted for fingerprints, swabbed for DNA, or, if it looked like the criminal had ripped the tape with their teeth, used for dental comparisons. In a recent court case, she had superimposed the suspect’s dental model with a duplicated model of the marks of recovered tape. Presto: busted.

  When the meeting ended, she popped over to the loaner cops and started talking. “Mind if I see the tape?”

 
“The heat from the thermal mud destroyed any evidence,” scowled Ponytail.

  “The duct tape around his hands wasn’t boiled. It might yield information,” Alexa said, pulling out a chair and sitting.

  “Where is it you’re from?” asked Ponytail, scratching at some irregular beard growth.

  “Auckland via Raleigh. In North Carolina, where I’ve worked in forensics for the past ten years.” She remembered an exciting story. “Back home, we had one case where a body was discovered after being buried in a riverbank for a decade. The skull was wrapped in Scotch 110–3 Multi-Use like a mummy. That stuff is indestructible. I retrieved teeth-mark patterns, and they matched the husband’s.”

  “And they lived happily ever after, eh?” asked Ponytail. His hair needed a shampoo.

  “Lighten up,” the other detective said. His wireless glasses had slipped down his nose as he scrutinized the tape.

  “Mind if I look?” Alexa asked.

  “Sure.” Trimble pushed the two clear evidence bags over to Alexa. The tape in the first bag formed a wadded black blob. Dr. Hill had said it had mostly been eaten by acid. The tape in the second bag held more potential. She studied it. Flat, about seven inches long, one side covered in dried and flecked mud. The reverse side was slightly cleaner.

  “Too bad it’s not fabric. Prints adhere better,” she said. Some steel gray peeped through dried mud. “Gray. Narrows it down to about one hundred brands. In the U.S., anyway. How about here?”

  “Higgins carries six types of gray duct tape. We were about to head over there,” Trimble said. He looked to be midthirties and had pale-green eyes and a bump at the end of his nose to catch his glasses.

  “Looks heat-resistant. That will narrow it down,” Alexa added. “I’ll take it back to the lab. I can identify the brand, separate it, and check for bite marks. Lifting prints will be difficult. But not impossible.”

  “Waste of time,” Ponytail mumbled, standing.

  “Take it,” Trimble offered, also standing. “We can use the photos. I’ll head down with you. I want to check out the footprint cast.”

  Alexa, who was chomping to check email and test the blood spatter, followed Trimble down the hall, examining his neatly pressed suit. In her experience with the Raleigh Police department, homicide detectives wore suits and undercover agents were scruffy. This role reversal intrigued her.

  “Why are crime labs always in basements?”

  “Beats me, but I like it,” the undercover cop replied. “Sunlight hurts my eyes.”

  Trimble opened the lab door and announced to a young woman standing at a microscope that Alexa was her boss for the mud pit case and asked for his boot cast.

  The young Asian woman pointed to the cast and then turned her bright, eager eyes toward Alexa. “Hi. I’m Jenny Liang.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you,” Alexa said. “What are you looking at?”

  “I’m comparing several different soil samples collected from the scene. I hope that’s okay. Evidence was piling up.”

  “Glad you took the initiative,” Alexa replied.

  Liang lowered her head and looked through the scope. “I’m seeing two unique patterns consistent with being from different locations.”

  “Excellent. Write that up. Let’s meet in thirty minutes to go over what you have so far. Where can I test this tape?” The Raleigh computer system could access the FBI’s National Forensic Tape File, which held samples of any type of duct tape known to man, woman, or hardware store. Would she be able to access it from a lab in Rotorua, New Zealand? And was the blood collected last night human blood? If so, whose? She rubbed her hands together and first logged into the lab computer to see if she had heard from local dentists. One reply only, and it was to solicit her business.

  Alexa was soon using alcohol to clean a section of the tape and was happily immersed in the messy world of identifying the glue, fibers, and plastic backing of duct tape. She probably wouldn’t need the FBI files anyway. And she couldn’t wait to get to the samples collected from last night. A shoulder tap an hour later interrupted her happy flow.

  “Here you are,” Ms. Welles said sternly. “Didn’t you see me waving at you earlier?”

  “I apologize,” Alexa said.

  “Paperwork. You need to fill out paperwork if you want authorization to be using this equipment and have access to this lab. Come with me.” Ms. Welles’s forehead was bunched into two distinct knots.

  Alexa mentally kicked herself. This was an opportunity she didn’t want to jeopardize, so she obediently followed the straight- backed secretary.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. The bloodstained soil collected last night had occupied her for ninety minutes in the lab. Fundamentals of blood forensics: First, is it blood? The BLUESTAR indicated that it was. Alexa did a quick check to confirm the findings. Yes. Second, is it human blood? The quick serum protein check she ran indicated it was human blood. And finally, what blood type? The blood type test indicated type A, second most common blood type. Now she would send it off for DNA testing.

  Assuming it was the murder victim’s blood, Alexa hurried to upload the photos she had taken at the scene last night. The lighting was good. She studied the patterns of blue-green swirls on the computer screen. BLUESTAR evidence always told a story. Alexa puzzled over the plot. There were no drag smears, so she surmised the man expired on the spot. Had he been standing when he was killed? Or kneeling? An exclamation-shaped bluish blob indicated the man had been moving when he was hit, perhaps turning. The spatter measurements indicated he had been standing upright. Some of the story was unfolding.

  This was way better than looking at dental bitewings.

  Alexa readied a DNA sample and asked the lab assistant where to send it. Later, she and Jenny started working on separating the duct tape that Alexa had identified as Scotch general purpose duct tape in silver, made in the United States, “good quick stick to many surfaces, easy tear, used for splicing, waterproofing, bundling, tying, sealing, protecting,” and, Alexa added to the advertising attributes, murder. It was unfortunately carried by almost every hardware store in the dual-island country.

  “Because it’s easy tear, we won’t have teeth marks,” Alexa said, more to herself than to Jenny.

  Another disappointment had been that the prints on the slicker outer layer of the tape were too contaminated to be of use, just as Ponytail dude had predicted. Alexa was hopeful that the inner layers might yield prints. She had read about a case in the Journal of Forensic Sciences where tape was unwound using a tape-release agent and prints were viable from the inner layers. Jenny carefully dripped a two percent chloroform tape-release agent over the stuck-together area while Alexa painstakingly pulled the tape apart, bit by bit.

  “I didn’t learn about this at uni,” Jenny said. “My boyfriend, Evan, is studying forensics at Auckland now, and I can’t wait to tell him about this. He can impress his profs.”

  Jenny was a talker. Alexa learned that this was her first “real” job since earning a postgraduate diploma in forensic science from the University of Auckland and that she was sick of roommates and currently apartment-hunting. The nonstop chatter was pleasant, and Alexa found herself smiling and relaxed.

  She showed Jenny how to lay the tape flat, sticky side up, to dry overnight. “We’ll check it for prints first thing in the morning,” she said when the lab door opened abruptly.

  “Happy Smiles is trying to reach you,” said Ms. Welles, her mouth doing Angry Frown.

  Alexa stared blankly.

  “I’ve transferred the call.” Welles pointed to a wall phone and left.

  Jenny shrugged, and Alexa, removing her gloves, picked up the phone. A man identified himself as Dr. Jason Paley of Happy Smiles Dental Clinic on Milton Road and excitedly launched into consent releases, proper warrant, a gold alloy replacement, and an amalgam restoration match. “I’ll go ahea
d and tell you, his name is Paul Koppel. I’ll release the records as soon as you fax the proper documents,” Paley said.

  “So he’s local?” Alexa pressed.

  “Yes.”

  “His address, please.”

  Though he shouldn’t have, the dentist seemed thrilled to be involved and blurted the address. “Haven’t seen him in a few, but his lads are regulars.”

  “Do you happen to know his blood type?” If Koppel had had any oral surgery, it would be in his chart.

  “Type A.”

  Time to impress the boss.

  Sprinting up two flights of stairs and down the hall, Alexa rapped loudly on Horne’s door. He was in, wolfing a pastry at his desk. Her stomach rumbled at the sight.

  “I’ve just received a call from a local dentist,” Alexa said before he could swallow. “I know who our victim is.”

  “Right,” Horne said. Crumbs littered his lips. “So do I.”

  Alexa’s mouth dropped.

  He wiped his lips, crumpled the napkin, aimed, and swished it into a trash can. He had missed a few bits. “A Mrs. Mindy Koppel called an hour ago to report a missing husband. When we asked if he had any identifying scars, she described the one on his right thigh.” Horne paused and gulped, swallowing either pastry or the memory of mud pot man. “Officer Rangoria picked her up and went to the morgue. She recognized the scar. A fishing knife accident, apparently.” He shook his head. “Family liaison took her home and called her parents and general physician. She’s hysterical. There’s two kids, boys. You can confirm with his dentals.”

  A flash of anger. “Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “I’m informing you now.” His blue eyes challenged her.

  This time, the heat flash wasn’t anger but something else. Alexa flicked it away.

  Horne continued. “Paul Koppel. Forty-two. Lives on Hanrahan Road. Real estate agent for Bowen Realty Group and a district councilor.”

  Alexa checked her scrap of paper. Yep. “Why did Koppel’s wife take three days to report him missing?”

  “She and the children just returned from their holiday cottage at Papamoa Beach. They hadn’t spoken all weekend.”