“Did you tell Vaughan where you were going?” Tane drove with his elbow resting on the windowsill, the wind blowing his hair back from his face.
Leilah nodded. “Yeah.” She frowned at the memory of Vaughan leaving the lounge as Tane entered it, but suspected it was embarrassment which ate at him and not anger at the sight of their old friend in Leilah’s company.
“What did he say?” Tane eyed her sideways, nervousness making him chew his bottom lip.
“Nothing,” Leilah lied. “I don’t think he cares much. I’ll move on in a few days and probably never see him again.”
“Yeah. He’ll be waiting for that.”
Leilah sidestepped the reprimand and watched Vaughan’s house fade into the distance on her right. She ignored the other structure on the hill, choosing not to look at the pale blue weatherboard house which towered over the younger, identical sibling.
Tane reached for her fingers as Leilah wrung them in the lap of her floral print dress. He held onto her hand, exuding concern and fellowship. “It’s ok to be sad, Lei. It must be hard coming home after all this time. The new folk did nothing with the house; it’s pretty much as Hector left it. They carried on the share-milking scheme he started for a while but the other couple got fed up of doing all the work and bailed out. Shame really because it was a neat little business. Various other people tried to work with them but it never lasted. The old guy sold all the stock to local people and let the place decay. His wife died of a brain tumour and that was it. He lived up there and never came to town. Nobody noticed when he died so no one noticed his body for a few days.”
Leilah linked her fingers through Tane’s, keeping a tight hold even though she knew he needed to change gear. A childish devilment rose up in her around him, as though they were both children again. It served as a distraction, staving off the pain she felt at the sightless gaze of the windows in the foothills of the mountain.
The moment passed and Leilah relaxed. “Tori said he couldn’t have shot himself.”
Tane shrugged. “Coroner said not. We investigated for weeks but nothing surfaced. He ruled death by misadventure and the case is still open.”
“Did you check all the unhappy share milkers?” Leilah asked, staring through the windscreen until the old house became a tiny dot on the landscape, not able to rile her with its memories for a while.
“Wanna do my job, Lei?” Tane smiled and pushed his hair off his face.
“Yeah, ok.” Leilah’s eyes sparkled with mischief and Tane laughed.
“You’d have made a great cop. Constable Relentless we’d have called you.”
“Still might,” Leilah joked. “So, who’s in the frame for the murder mystery?”
Tane laughed at her spooky voice but his face became serious. “Vaughan was questioned.”
“Vaughan?” Leilah’s head whipped round. “Why? Vaughan wouldn’t kill someone, not like that anyway. He’s the bash-their-brains-out-and-ask-questions-later kinda dude, not the sort to stick someone’s gun in their mouth and pull the trigger.”
“How’d you know it was their gun?” Tane asked. “There’s your first wrong assumption.”
“Well, it wasn’t Vaughan’s!” Leilah scoffed. “He detests guns. I don’t think he ever said why, but he won’t touch them.”
“Clever girl,” Tane said, winking at her. “And that’s why we let him go. Remember those weird wounds on his side when we were kids? His step-dad aimed a shot gun at him when he was seven and that’s why his mother sent him to Horse. The hospital removed the pellets and the cops interviewed Gilroy but he and Harvey managed to make it sound like an accident. It’s still on record and Vaughan doesn’t touch guns.”
“I didn’t know that.” Leilah’s eyes widened to accentuate the horror on her face. Down-turned lips and a wrinkled nose finished the effect. “That’s hideous.”
Tane laughed. “Only you use words like that, Lei. Please don’t tell him I told you. He hasn’t spoken to me ever since I let him out of the cell.”
“I’m not surprised.” Leilah sighed. “So, you think someone tried to make the shooting of Mr Baxter look like suicide?”
“Someone didn’t like him for sure.” Tane tapped a beat on the window sill with his long fingers. “But the killer didn’t do a great job of making it look like a well-planned suicide and people don’t tend to get so desperate that they walk to the mail box with a gun and think, ‘Screw this, I’m gonna shoot myself in the head.’ The gun lay on the ground next to what was left of his face but they’d jammed his fingers on the gun as though he’d fired. His index finger stayed on the trigger and the coroner said it wasn’t a likely scenario. Whoever killed him panicked and staged the scene after his death.”
“What makes you think they panicked?”
“The clumsiness of it all. Old man Baxter’s doctor said he developed arthritis in the last five years and couldn’t use his right hand. He’d taken to shooting with his left before he stopped altogether. Yet the finger around the trigger was his right index and rigor mortis had fixed it in place. Towns folk knew he used to shoot possum, but hadn’t done it for ages. He’d got too frail. Why would he be out in the lower paddocks armed? Instinct tells me someone arrived who he didn’t want to see and he went out to meet them carrying the gun. And then there’s the length of his arms in comparison to that of the gun barrel. It wouldn’t be physically possible for someone as bent by arthritis as him to stretch their arm and stick the barrel in their mouth at the same time as...”
Leilah shuddered and raised her hand. “Don’t say anymore or I won’t be able to eat dinner.” She glanced across at her friend, brow furrowed in thought. “What made you become a cop? You seemed more interested in running a dairy farm.”
“Yeah, I was. Dad always wanted to see me in uniform and it made me rebel. When he retired, I realised I’d held out for all the wrong reasons. I joined up telling no one because I didn’t need the pressure if it wasn’t for me.”
“But it was?” Leilah searched his face for truth.
“I mailed an invitation to my graduation parade and it was the first time I ever saw my hard-faced father cry. It was what I needed to see and I decided to make a go of it.”
“Did you come straight back here?”
Tane shook his head. “Na. I did my probation in Auckland and then transferred to Hamilton. I only accepted the vacancy here when Dad’s replacement moved on and I’ve been the sergeant here for twelve years.”
“How did you meet your wife?” Leilah asked, interested.
Tane knitted his eyebrows into a long, dark line and stared at her in confusion. “I always knew her, Lei.”
Leilah shrugged, distracted by the town sign approaching. Tane curbed his speed and steered for his house on the outskirts, near the police station. Leilah’s nerves beat a hefty beat which sounded in her brain, numbing her senses with fear. Tane bumped the car onto a driveway, the adjoining grass littered with children’s toys and associated debris. A Popsicle wrapper danced around an oak tree in the centre of the garden, whipped up by the town’s relentless breeze. The deep seated terror radiated out of Leilah as a pink flush on her cheeks and she grabbed Tane’s hand as he secured the vehicle in place with the hand brake. “I can’t do this!” she said, her voice emerging in a rush.
“Do what?” Tane’s confusion knitted his brows and he put his other hand over Leilah’s. “You don’t have to do anything. It’ll be ok. You’ll love my kids.”
“But will they love me?” Leilah asked, her voice a strangled squeak.
“Of course they will! Silly girl!” Tane patted her hand and smiled at Leilah with fondness. “It’s sweet how much it matters.”
“It does.” Leilah felt her chest hitch. “It really does.” She glanced across to the porch and saw a woman waiting there, watching as Tane pressed his lips against a stranger’s head. The woman scowled and Leilah’s heart sank into her boots.