The plan was that Sergeant Kramer and Constable Bartlett would stay at Pompolona Lodge to interrogate Cassandra Perry and dig deeper into Perry’s background via Constable Cooper in Auckland. “Keep it light,” Bruce warned. “If Perry is guilty and feels cornered, she could be dangerous. Don’t let your guard down. If Perry isn’t guilty, someone else nearby is. This murderer hasn’t left the park.”
Alexa wrapped her arms around herself.
Bruce, Constable Chadwick, and she would spend the night at Dumpling Hut. Bruce and Chadwick would interview the independent hikers to see if any of them had connections with Dr. Clark or had run into her between the shelter and Pompolona Creek on Saturday. Alexa would take fingerprints and examine trekking poles.
Most important, they’d home in on Stead Willis. “He could be dangerous,” Bruce said. “We’ll let him think we are at the hut only to investigate Dr. Clark’s death.”
The team, plus Charlie, had a meal together. Chef and Silas hovered like mothers, making sure they had enough lemongrass soup, merino lamb rump, and crispy sweetbread. Alexa had seconds; the calories would keep her going. Sergeant Kramer took a phone call during the meal and wrote down the list of registered independent hikers. Bruce tucked it in his pocket.
Charlie didn’t want Alexa to leave. “We’ll be back at eight a.m.,” Bruce told him. “I’ll make sure Lexi is safe.”
Lexi? How had Bruce picked up on that?
They were walking to the waiting helicopter when Sergeant Kramer ran after her. “Urgent phone call,” he said.
“We’ll have the pilot wait,” Bruce said.
In the command room Constable Bartlett handed her the phone. “It’s the lab. They said it was…”
“Hello?”
“Ms. Glock, it’s Pippa Day. I have some results for you. I did an overlay of the hiking pole tip with photographs of the puncture wounds. The serrations match the spacing and distribution of the victim’s left puncture wound. Also, the trace you extracted from the wound wasn’t organic. It’s carbide steel and matches the pole tip.”
“Is it a direct match to the pole you have there, or could it be another Black Diamond tip?”
“It’s a direct match. I can see where the fragment broke off.”
The pole she had retrieved from the cliff bank was the murder weapon. One of them, anyway. When she could speak, Alexa asked, “Have you had time to run the fingerprints?”
“I knew you’d ask, but you didn’t have much, eh? A couple partials I couldn’t work with, but there were two almost completes. I ran them. There are no matches in the National Fingerprint Database.”
The helicopter rotors were spinning. Alexa didn’t know if she could do it, but the pilot motioned for her. She ducked and ran. Bruce extended a hand to pull her in. Alexa adjusted her headphone set as the copter lifted. She hoped her sharp intake of breath hadn’t been noticeable. She would share her news when they landed.
Rain smeared the glass. Alexa pushed back against vibrating vinyl and closed her eyes. Her endless day had started with breaking the rigor mortis of Diana Clark’s fingers and going back to the scene of the crime. Charlie swirling in the rapids, a return to the skeleton to find the bones buried by rock. She opened her eyes and looked past Constable Chadwick’s profile, startled to be flying in a sea of azure above a cloud duvet. She was so struck by such hidden beauty that her mouth opened. She expected a mountain peak to cut through the cloud cover like a shark fin. Wind buffeted the thin metal cocoon. She gripped the seat.
Bruce covered her hand with his, gave a squeeze, let go. He took the papers Sergeant Kramer had given him and showed Alexa. Together they perused the list of Dr. Clark’s patients and compared them to the registered hut guests. Alexa was startled to see her own name. It made her dizzy, thinking of herself down there when she was up here.
There were no matches. Dr. Clark’s patients probably couldn’t hike anyway, with their injured knees and arthritic hips.
After ten minutes of grazing the clouds, the helicopter punched a hole through them, making Alexa feel slightly sick, and slowed above a canopy of trees, rain again pelting the glass. A meadow appeared. The copter hovered over a barracks-style building with a metal roof, and veered to a helipad behind it.
Dumpling Hut was a single building instead of three separate ones like Clinton Hut. When they set down, Alexa grabbed her things and clambered out behind Bruce, her legs shaky. Behind her, Constable Chadwick’s poncho whipped in a frenzy of rotor draft. They watched the yellow bird lift off into the clouds.
Alexa explained to Bruce and Constable Chadwick that they had a murder weapon.
“Good work, Ms. Glock,” Bruce said. “How does this change things?”
She had been pondering the same. “I can quit examining hiking poles, but I need to keep taking fingerprints. They could be key to finding the murderer.”
Bruce nodded. Constable Chadwick’s eyes gleamed.
They sloshed through spongy meadow, trampling small, white flowers, and rounded a bathhouse to the front of the hut. A wraparound veranda offered shelter. Bruce took a radio out of his backpack and turned it on. “Check, check,” he said. “Over?”
Hiking poles and a few raincoats hung from hooks. Waterlogged boots and a set of pink Crocs nudged the wall. Alexa counted: thirty-one pairs. There had been thirty-five independent hikers, including her and Charlie. So two hikers hadn’t left their shoes here. None of the boots were Stead Willis’s CAT brand. She checked her watch: seven thirty. Even with his delayed start, he should have been here by now. “Willis’s boots aren’t here,” she said.
“We should go looking for him, sir,” Constable Chadwick said.
Bruce frowned. “Ms. Glock—pop in and double-check he’s not here.”
Through steamy windows, forms moved about. She struggled out of her boots and pulled on her Tevas. Inside, people gathered at metal-topped tables. The cooking area was empty, as if everyone had already eaten. A lingering scent of curry mingled with damp clothes and unwashed bodies. She recognized the German women poring over a map. A bearded man laughed over something another man said. One of the American nurses, dressed in bright floral tights, arranged drooping socks on a drying rack near a blazing woodstove. Alexa set her belongings down, unzipped her raincoat, and headed toward a staircase. The mother who had yelled at her at Clinton Hut clomped down in clogs. Alexa let her pass and climbed to a musty-smelling bunk room. The woman’s two children read books in their bunks. The father struggled to open a window. “This room is full,” he said.
She returned to the main level and asked the nurse by the fire where the ranger was. “I haven’t seen him. Did you take the side trail to Sutherland Falls? Wasn’t it awesome?”
Alexa remembered the nurse’s thick braid and glasses, but couldn’t remember her name. “Yeah, great.” It appeared as if no one had noticed she had disappeared for a day.
At the other end of the common area was a room with skylights, and puddles on the floor. Three older men in flip-flops conversed in low tones. A small hallway led to two more bunk rooms, each messy with backpacks and hanging clothes. She returned to the porch. Constable Chadwick waited alone.
“Did you see Willis?” she asked.
Alexa shook her head.
“Detective Inspector is at the ranger’s quarters,” Constable Chadwick said, pointing.
A small square cabin was hidden in the trees. Bruce and a male ranger exited the door.
“The DI decided we shouldn’t go into the woods to find Mr. Willis,” Constable Chadwick said. “We’ll wait for him to come to us.”
Bruce crossed the grass briskly and introduced them to a gangly young ranger, Nick Llano. “Ranger Llano will take the lead inside,” he said, removing his ball cap.
“Time to collect tickets,” the ranger said, tapping a clipboard.
Alexa decided it wasn’t her business to tell Bruce or Chadwick to take their boots off. The ranger kept his on, too. People looked up as they entered.
“Kia ora, welcome to Dumpling Hut,” the ranger said loudly. “I’m Ranger Llano. Fine day, eh? Once you climbed out of the rain? What did you think of Mackinnon Pass?”
“Epic,” a man shouted.
“Ve popped out of the clouds, and it was sunny,” one German woman said.
Ranger Llano called up the stairs, “Hallo? Meeting. Come down.” He made his way to the back rooms. “Meeting, meeting,” he called. “Bring your hut tickets.”
Hikers at the tables hopped up, presumably to fetch their tickets. There was commotion as other hikers arrived from the bunk rooms. Alexa realized she had hut tickets, too, somewhere in her pack. They made her miss Charlie and the Milford experience that would never be.
The door opened. Alexa expected Stead, but it was the heavyset woman from the ranger station, the one who had dropped a postcard. Postcard Woman lowered her head and plodded through, her raincoat dripping on the floor.
“A straggler,” Ranger Llano said. “Welcome.”
“Hang your coat up outside,” the bossy boot woman said. Postcard Woman ignored her. Alexa remembered she had arrived at Clinton Hut late, too. A tortoise, not a hare. She made thirty-three, and Charlie would have been thirty-four.
Only Stead was AWOL.