Molten Mud Murder Read online

  Alexa frowned. Domestic violence homicide was increasing back home. Was it here as well?

  “Did Ms. Welles get you official?”

  “Yes. I now have a temporary ID and a key card. But she doesn’t like me.”

  “She doesn’t like any woman other than herself. Haven’t figured out why, but it’s best to stay on her good side.”

  Alexa had already blown that with her early morning fly-by. “Roger.” She grabbed an extra napkin on his desk and handed it to him, pointing at his mouth. It was hard to have a serious conversation with someone flaky. “Was it good?”

  Now it was Horne’s turn to be confused.

  Alexa pointed to the wrapper. Georgie Pies, she had learned, were a Kiwi staple akin to chicken nuggets in America. Her stomach grumbled again.

  Horne nodded.

  “Wish I had some Bo.”

  “What the hell is that?” His eyebrows did a jig.

  “Bojangles.” Flirting was safe if a man was married. “Sweet iced tea. Biscuits. Fried chicken. Heaven. Where have you been?”

  His smile made him appear younger.

  “When do you think you can talk with Mrs. Koppel?” she asked.

  “Doctor gave her something to calm her down and just gave his okay. It’s paramount to get to her as soon as possible so her story is unrehearsed. I’m leaving”—he looked at his watch—“now.”

  “Why don’t I go with you?”

  Horne’s left eyebrow went sky-high. “Don’t you have lab work?”

  “It’s five o’clock. I’ve been working all day and have results I can share with you on the way.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Do you mind if we stop at a McDonald’s for a take away?”

  * * *

  Between bites of her own Georgie Pie, Alexa, riding shotgun in the DI’s unmarked cruiser, filled him in on what was happening in the lab. She explained the soil sample she’d taken the night before contained drops of human blood, type A, which matched Koppel’s. He had probably been struck and killed in that spot before being dumped in the mud pot.

  “You know we didn’t find the murder weapon last night. Two soil specimens collected at the scene were inconsistent. The alien soil might indicate an area where Koppel or the murderer had been prior to the killing,” Alexa said with relish. “The young woman in the lab, Jenny, she’s good. She’s contacting those geologists who checked the scene.

  “Liang still needs guidance, but overall, she’s been working out.” Alexa mentioned the blood she sent for DNA testing along with the cigarette butt collected last night. “You have backlogs here like we do in Raleigh,” she added. “Makes me feel at home.”

  “I’ll give them a call to rush them,” Horne interrupted. “This case takes priority.”

  Alexa added that she planned to run the duct tape for prints first thing in the morning and that Trimble had one usable bootprint cast that did not match the brogans Koppel had been wearing. “I agree with that Auckland detective with the ponytail. It’s probably our best clue,” Alexa said. “Size ten Lastrite work-boot.” She wiped her mouth and wished for water.

  Her throat was dry.

  Chapter Six

  Paul and Mindy Koppel’s house was a modest gray cottage partly obscured by boxwoods and blooming hydrangeas. A curved cement walkway littered with leaves and twigs led to a front porch large enough for a glider and two pots of parched petunias. A tall silver-haired man, shoulders squared, answered their knock.

  “Hello. I’m Detective Inspector Bruce Horne of Rotorua Police Headquarters, and this is my colleague Alexa Glock.” Horne showed his badge. “Mrs. Koppel is expecting us. I called ahead.”

  “I’m Jerry Russell, Mindy’s father.” He extended his hand to Horne and then Alexa. “Come in.” He opened the door to a small foyer. “Mindy is in the den. I’d like to sit with her while you talk. Needless to say, we’re all in shock.”

  “That’s fine,” Horne said.

  A sudden shout came from a back hallway. “No! You aren’t my mum. You can’t make me.” A carrot-headed boy shot into the entryway followed by a rail thin woman, her face strained.

  “Pardon us,” she said to Horne and Alexa.

  “What’s wrong, Ted?” Russell asked.

  “Nana wants me to take a bath, and I won’t. Only Mum gives me a bath. I want Mum.”

  “Of course you do. How dirty are you? Rugby or cricket?”

  Caught off guard, the little boy looked down at his fairly clean T-shirt and shorts. “We played football.”

  “Football. No lad needs a bath after football unless he’s goal- keeper. Did you tend goal?”

  “No. Eddie did.”

  “See, Marge? He doesn’t need a bath. Just a flannel behind his ears.” Russell pinched Ted’s ear and made him smile. “Then he’ll be ready for tea. Off you go then.” Before introductions were made, the boy and woman disappeared.

  Paul Koppel’s father-in-law smiled. “Management skills. That’s all it takes. That was my wife, Marge. Ted’s seven. We haven’t let on yet about Paul, but he knows something is wrong. His brother, Casey, is five. Come into the sitting room.”

  Alexa wondered how Nana felt being undermined, but at least Russell had defused the situation. Who cares about clean toes when there’s been a death? She walked with the men into a room of knotty pine paneling and stepped over a plush monkey with a missing eye. A worn beige sofa faced two floral armchairs.

  A woman wrapped in a crocheted afghan slumped in one.

  “Princess, these are the police.” Russell put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Please sit.” He pointed to the couch.

  Seated, a wilted pillow removed from behind his back and placed between them, Horne began. “Mrs. Koppel, we spoke earlier. I’m Detective Inspector Horne, and this is Ms. Glock from Crime Scene Investigation.”

  Mindy Koppel gazed hollow-eyed at Alexa and wiped her large nose with a tissue.

  “I am sorry for your loss,” Alexa said, wondering if Mrs. Koppel had ever considered rhinoplasty, and then chastised herself. Beauty was in the eye and all that.

  “I understand this is a bad time, but we need to ask you some questions,” the DI said. “First off, we need a recent photograph of the deceased.”

  Alexa realized with a start she had no idea what the victim looked like. The man’s blackened, denuded face flashed in her mind.

  Russell strode to a bookcase and lifted a framed photo. He handed it to the DI and perched on the arm of Mindy’s chair. “Taken at a real estate do, right, darling?”

  Alexa leaned close to the DI, curious. Receding brown hair, glasses, forced smile, coat and tie. An average Joe.

  “Who did this?” Mindy rasped. “Who hurt my husband?” She sat a little straighter, pushed lanky blond hair behind her ears, and sniffed.

  “We don’t know yet. We’re doing everything we can to find out. Could you tell me about where you’ve been the last three days and how you discovered your husband was missing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Horne spoke as if to a young child. “Start by stating your name and age, and then tell me where you’ve been since Saturday.” He moved some magazines from the coffee table in front of them and placed a small recorder on it. Alexa pulled a pad of paper and pen from her tote.

  “I’m Mindy Koppel. I’m forty—just turned forty.” She stopped, fiddled with her hair again, and waited.

  “Where have you been the last few days, Mrs. Koppel?” Horne prompted.

  “We were at the bach.”

  Alexa reminded herself that “batch” was spelled “bach” and was Kiwi for holiday house. “The boys and I drove down Saturday.” Pause. “Paul was supposed to come.”

  “Why didn’t he?”

  “Work. Some emergency meeting.” Mindy blinked rapidly. “He’s been working
long hours.”

  “Was anyone else with you at the bach?”

  Alexa admired the way he kept his voice even-tempered, mild. He had a face that most women would find attractive, and Alexa suddenly wondered about his wife, what she looked like, did she have a career, could she make her detective husband laugh?

  “No. Just the three of us. And our dog, Abbie.” Again she pushed hair away from her eyes. Alexa caught a glimpse of a collie dog in the garden through the open window.

  “Do you usually go alone? To the bach?”

  “Not often.” She looked up at her father. “It’s Mum and Dad’s place. Most times, they come too. But Mum had a doctor’s appointment.”

  “When did Paul find out about his meeting?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Thursday. He told me Thursday night he couldn’t come to Papamoa.”

  Surprise meetings and last-minute cancellations bugged Alexa. Mindy pressed her fingers to her lips.

  “Were you upset?” Horne asked.

  “What do you mean?” She straightened and looked him directly in the eyes. Her father put an arm around her.

  “Were you upset that he couldn’t join you for the weekend?”

  “A bit.” Pause. “Paul has been super busy. But that’s good.” She glanced at her father, who gave her a nod.

  “What time did you arrive home today?”

  “Around noon. We had to unpack and then go to the grocery. I called Paul to see what time he’d be home for tea. He didn’t answer his mobile so I called the agency. Joan—that’s the office secretary—said she hadn’t seen him for a few days and didn’t know about a meeting.”

  Alexa drew a star next to this in her notes.

  Horne leaned forward. “What did you do then?”

  “I popped next door to see if the Jacksons had seen Paul. They’re both retired. They said they saw him pull out early Saturday but not since then. They thought he had gone to the bach with us. I got worried, so I called Dad, and he said I should call the police.”

  Alexa studied Mindy Koppel intently.

  “So I did. I called the police.”

  Alexa had conducted a training for the Raleigh Police Force on distinguishing between truth and lies, and she was good at it, or so she thought. Mindy Koppel could have killed her husband. Happened all the time, though most spousal homicide is committed by firearm, not boiling mud. Alexa mentally reviewed the classic signs of deception: holding eye contact, excessive blinking, not using “I” or “me” statements, giving brief explanations, vagueness, slow speech, grooming behaviors, and repeating questions before answering.

  “When was the last time you spoke with your husband?” Horne asked.

  “What?”

  “When did you last have contact with Paul?”

  “I texted to let him know when we arrived Saturday. He texted back, and I didn’t talk to him since.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  Pause. “Not really.” More silence. “Neither one of us much likes yakking on the phone. Paul always says…” Once again, she stopped and thrust hair out of her eyes. Horne waited her out. Voices and the smell of sausage being fried drifted into the room; an unhappy wail made Mindy turn her head.

  “When did you last speak to Paul?” her father asked.

  “The last time we talked was Saturday morning while he was eating porridge and the boys and I left for the beach. He ran after us with Abbie’s lead.” Tears appeared, and underneath the afghan, she produced her phone, staring at it. “I keep calling, and he doesn’t answer.”

  “We’ll need to borrow that,” Horne said, holding out his hand. Russell pried her fingers loose and handed the mobile to the DI, who slipped it into his pocket. “I also need your husband’s mobile number.”

  Mindy looked panicked. “I…I don’t know it. I have it on speed dial.”

  Digital amnesia, Alexa concluded. None of us memorize phone numbers anymore.

  “That’s fine. We’ll retrieve it from your phone. Where is your husband’s car?”

  “I don’t know. You’ve got to find it. Maybe…”

  “We’ll need the make and license.”

  Jerry Russell snorted. “I’ve told Paul he needed an upgrade. A ten-year-old Corolla isn’t the right message to send clients.”

  “The car is fine,” Mindy protested. Despite several checks made to her list, Alexa didn’t think Mindy Koppel was faking shock and grief. But even murderers experienced these emotions.

  “Did you and your husband argue before you left?” Horne said. “I imagine you were angry he couldn’t come.”

  “No.” Mindy Koppel’s nostrils flared.

  “Had your husband ever harmed you? Hit or slapped you?”

  She glared. “No. Paul was a good husband. How dare you.”

  Her father hugged Mindy to him. “My daughter was never physically abused. She would have told me.”

  Alexa knew they would check out hospital records to confirm. She thought of the cigarette butt found at the crime scene. “Did your husband smoke, Mrs. Koppel?”

  Mindy shook her head no.

  The DI stood. “You’ve been helpful. I’ll need you to stop in the station tomorrow morning to be fingerprinted.”

  “Why on earth…?” Russell spat.

  “Procedure. For elimination. One more question.”

  Alexa knew what was coming even before Horne opened his mouth.

  “Can you think of anyone who’d want to harm Paul?”

  “No! Of course not. Everyone loves Paul.” Tears streaked her pale face, and her nose began to run. She tugged the afghan tighter and shrugged her father away.

  Not everyone, Alexa thought.

  * * *

  As soon as their belts were buckled, Alexa looked at Horne. “What do you think?”

  “I’m withholding judgment until her alibi is verified.” He started the engine, lowered the driver’s window, and turned to look at her. “It concerns me that Mrs. Koppel went several days without speaking to her husband. That’s unusual, don’t you think? Wouldn’t he call to ask after the boys?”

  Having zero experience with the dynamic duo of marriage and children, Alexa rerouted. “She failed my lie detection checklist.”

  “Lie detection checklist?” His left eyebrow hit his hairline as he continued to study her.

  She fought to hold his stare. “For three hundred bucks, I’ll hold a seminar for your department. Most people lie three times within the first fifteen minutes of meeting someone new. Mindy Koppel blinked too much.”

  “What were yours?”

  “What were my what?” Alexa asked.

  “Your three lies. When we first met.” His eyes deepened to a sapphire hue.

  “You didn’t give me my allotted fifteen minutes,” she replied, her face heating up.

  Stop flirting. I’m not interested in married men.

  Horne broke the stare-fest. “Continue with your checklist.”

  “Mrs. Koppel repeated questions and kept touching her hair. Classic signs. My guess is she’s holding something back but…”

  “But what?” Horne had finally pulled away from the curb and glanced at her.

  “I don’t think she killed him.”

  “To rule her out, I’ll make sure she was in Papamoa at the time of the murder. Check for witnesses. And I’ll get Trimble to see if there’s a life insurance policy. The Koppels have a modest lifestyle. Maybe Mrs. Koppel wanted more. Maybe she wasn’t content with…”

  Horne became silent, and Alexa wondered where his thoughts had traveled. To his own wife?

  A toot from behind got him to pick up speed. “I have an APB on the missing car, and we’ll talk with the Koppels’ neighbors immediately. They may have seen something,” Horne said. “I’m seeing Mark Haddonfield at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. He’
s deputy mayor of the district council and worked with Koppel, and I want to know what issues they’ve been involved with. Maybe something contentious.”

  “What kind of stuff is going on in Rotorua these days?” Alexa relished this exchange of information. It was all she could do to not rub her hands together.

  “Big-time stuff. Should we raise the speed limit on Watawata Road? Should we grow more timber to sell to China? Add fluoridation to the water system? An art center just opened in the public garden. Maybe the groundskeeper is worried about his roses. I don’t know. Trimble and McNamara are digging up everything they can find on Koppel. Bank records. Affairs. Real estate dealings. Parking tickets. Library card.”

  “Library card?”

  “You never know what he’d checked out.”

  “People do their research on the internet now,” Alexa said, thinking about how she had checked out the detective before they’d met.

  “There’s another press conference tomorrow afternoon, the mayor’s coming, and I want something to report. People are afraid.”

  “My friend’s brother…”

  “Your friend?” They had pulled into the station parking lot.

  “Mary.” Saying the name was a stab of pain. “The one who died. Remember I came to Rotorua for a funeral? Her brother Terrance—that’s his name; he’s a Maori like Mary was—Terrance says this might be some kind of Maori hate crime or revenge.”

  Horne didn’t laugh.

  Alexa continued. “Terrance says that the phrase ‘Go boil your head’ is the most offensive curse a Maori can make toward another person.” She gathered her courage to try the Maori phrase. “Upoko kōhua.”

  They parted in the darkening parking lot.

  Chapter Seven

  Sprinting around a curve at six-thirty Thursday morning, Alexa knocked over a hooded youth holding—what were the odds?—a basket of eggs. The teenager sprawled to the ground, and eggs exploded like sunburst paint balls around him.

  “My bad. I’m sorry,” panted Alexa. She leaned over to help, and a spatter of her sweat dropped on his face.