Being bereft of tote, phone, and sleep caused Alexa’s feet to drag the next morning. The aroma of sausage when she entered the restaurant brought them to life. She’d stuff her face—a last meal before the gallows. A man in a navy blazer, his broad back to her, was filling his plate at the breakfast bar.
She surveyed the offerings. Scrambled eggs, baked beans, stewed tomatoes, fruit, yogurt, granola, Canadian-style bacon, and lightly browned and glistening sausage. She grabbed a plate.
The man turned. “Alexa. Good morning.”
She looked up. Confounded. “Bruce?” Had he been dragged in to fire her? Could he fire her? She worked for the Forensic Service Center now, which was contracted by, but not run by, the police. The empty plate slipped from her hand to the carpet. It spun and wobbled like her heartbeat. “What are you doing here?”
Detective Inspector Bruce Horne of Rotorua Police Department kept his patient eyes on the plate. When it stilled, he retrieved it, set it on a counter, and turned to her. “I flew in last night. I’m taking over.”
Heat flooded her face. “But…”
Bruce’s blue-sky eyes stayed steady. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
He didn’t appear to be angry. But if he wasn’t here to somehow fire her, what was he doing? “I…I…don’t know. It’s just a surprise. Stewart Island is a long way from Rotorua.”
She had lain in bed last night, shivering under two blankets until she remembered the heated mattress pad. It helped with the shivers, but not with the Netflix horror binge-playing in her mind. When she’d finally fallen asleep, a nightmare—she had been locked out of an underwater cage, banging to get in, sharks circling—jerked her upright at 2:00 a.m. “Why are you here?”
“Sergeants don’t lead murder investigations,” Bruce said. “That’s true in the States, right?”
Rank wasn’t the issue. Distance was. “But why are you here, and not someone from Buff?” Is it because you wanted to see me?
“Buff?” His smile turned warm and sexy. “Bluff is another two-person station.”
“Well, Invercargill or Dunedin.” Clearly, Bruce wasn’t mad. Wallace must not have informed him about her disobedience. Yet.
“Two of Robert King’s hunting pals live in Rotorua. I interviewed them, offered my services—here I am.” He held out a clean plate.
She could confess, tell Bruce about searching the boat. How rain might have destroyed evidence, and that it was the right thing to do. She brushed a wisp of sable hair out of her face. In truth, she had acted without thinking. She kept her mouth shut and accepted the plate.
Constance arrived with a coffeepot. “Morning. Can I pour a cup?”
“Ta,” said Bruce.
“Thanks,” Alexa said.
“I’ll put you here.” Constance righted the cups at a table for two. “Toast? Juice?”
“Yes,” they answered as one.
Oh, brother.
An elderly couple traipsed in, looking chirpy, and stashed guidebooks and binoculars on a table. “I expect there will be a massive shark hunt today,” the man said.
“Oh, my. I hope our bird tour is still on,” the woman said.
Bruce leaned toward Alexa, his voice low. “Sergeant Wallace told me about the bullet in the shark victim’s body.”
She could smell his aftershave—something woodsy and fresh. “Not in the body. It passed through. I’ll send you a copy of the pathologist’s report.”
Alexa buried her plate in food. Bruce followed her to the table. “I’m starved too,” he said. “Between flying from Auckland to Dunedin to Stewart Island, I lost a meal.”
She tamped the flutters in her stomach by forkfuls, and they ate in silence. From all appearances they looked like a couple, tourists, maybe, like the gray-haired birders anticipating the day ahead. There was much to share about the cases, but her tongue hadn’t caught up with her mind. When Theo strode into the restaurant, she waved him over.
“You’ll want a statement from Mr. Hall,” she told Bruce. “He and his wife are visiting from the States and were on a shark dive in the vicinity of the attack. He’s got photos for you, too.”
Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “You know where the attack took place?”
She had misspoken. “Well, the general watery area.” Watery area? She was the village idiot.
“Meredith and I are leaving this morning,” Theo said. “We’ll need to hurry.”
Bruce wiped his mouth and stood. “No time like the present. I’ll see you,” he said to Alexa, “at the seven thirty briefing.”
She watched as he followed Theo to the breakfast bar where the latter filled two bowls with yogurt and granola. Bruce offered him a tray. Maybe Meredith was getting breakfast in bed. Alexa decided she wouldn’t mind breakfast in bed either. With Bruce.
Don’t jump the gun, Glock.
Back in her room, alone with coffee, she turned on her laptop. In a click, the pathologist’s reports were in Bruce’s inbox.
* * *
The door of the police station was ajar, even though the temperature was sixty degrees. Alexa took a fortifying breath and pushed it open. Bruce, conferring with Sergeant Wallace by the coffee maker, caught her eye, frowned, and looked away. Wallace turned his back to her. This was not a good sign, Alexa thought, pulling the door closed.
Constable Kopae waved and turned back to a man in a soft green Department of Conservation pullover. He had flipped up the collar, and his hands were burrowed in his pant pockets. Another ranger, Alexa guessed, setting down the crime kit.
The door banged open, and a young cop in a short-sleeved uniform hustled in and whipped his checkered cap off. “Am I late? The ferry…”
“You’re fine,” Wallace interrupted. “We’ll start in a moment.”
Wallace was calling the shots, Alexa noted. She wondered how the changing of the guard would play out. Would the sergeant resent relinquishing control? Or be relieved?
She was drawn to a map mounted to the wall under the clock. The station buzz faded as she studied Stewart Island’s shape: It bulged in the middle and was almost severed (the image made her cringe) by Patterson Inlet. The shoreline was nooks, crannies, jags. The island tapered to South West Cape at the bottom and Mt. Anglem at the top—or was the top actually the bottom? Alexa located and followed Golden Bay Road to Golden Bay Wharf, harmless when mounted to the wall. To the east, she located Ringaringa Beach, where Andy Gray’s body had washed up. If Gray had been shot in Golden Bay Wharf and thrown overboard—her theory—the current must have dragged his body around Muttonbird Beak. Odd. Would a body wash around a spit of land jutting out?
A rapping sound made her jump.
“Let’s get started,” Wallace announced and gestured to the table. He stood at the head, Bruce at his side.
Alexa scooted a chair next to Constable Kopae, who nodded and handed Alexa her tote. “Found it in the locker area on The Apex when we searched the boat,” she whispered. “Figured you might need it.”
Alexa clutched it to her chest. “Thank you. My passport and wallet…”
“Still there,” Kopae said. “I thought you were right to search the vessel. Lisa—Gray’s partner—gave permission, so entry wasn’t an issue.”
Alexa sat straighter. Kopae’s words provided hope that her transgression would be forgiven. The ranger and new cop sat across from them.
Wallace cleared his throat. “As you know, I’m Sergeant Kipper Wallace of Stewart Island Police. It’s my honor and duty to introduce Detective Inspector Bruce Horne from Auckland Central…”
“He’s from Rotorua,” Alexa blurted.
Wallace looked flummoxed. “Senior?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute,” Bruce said. “Continue, Sergeant.”
“As per protocol, the DI has been brought in to assume responsibility for these cases.” Wallace stepped aside for Bruce.
“Thank you, Sergeant.” He paused and looked at Alexa. Heat jumped between them. “I am formerly of Rotorua Police Department, as Ms. Glock interjected. In a fortnight, I will be commander at Auckland Central. This was supposed to be my holiday time.”
Alexa’s jaw slackened. Bruce was moving to Auckland? What the heck? Why hadn’t he said so at breakfast? He kept speaking, but Alexa wasn’t hearing. What about his teen daughters? There were two of them—braces and sports and needing a dad.
She supposed Auckland Central was a promotion. Rotorua was small potatoes compared to Auckland. And I live in Auckland.
“That’s all about me,” Bruce said, penetrating Alexa’s thoughts. “Please introduce yourselves.”
The ranger guy went first. Ian Lowell was a Department of Conservation supervisor. “Been super for five years,” he said. “Conservation and people manager.” His short dark hair stood at gelled attention. Alexa figured he must be Stephen and Scratch’s boss. “I stopped by to see if I could assist in any way.”
“Supervisor Lowell knows the bush inside and out,” Wallace said, taking a chair.
“How many staff do you have?” Bruce asked.
“I have twelve permanent staff,” Lowell answered. “Busy season is starting, so in addition to my regulars, I have sixteen temps and ten volunteers.”
“We’ll need to tap into them,” Bruce said. “Thank you for offering your assistance.”
Alexa explained who she was.
“Ms. Glock and I worked together on a previous case,” Bruce added.
“Like CSI, eh?” said the young cop. He was Constable Bobby Briscoe, a twenty-something loaner from Bluff. His delicate nose was at odds with his beefy tattooed biceps—a swirling of fern fronds.
“I brought Constable Briscoe over. More hands on deck,” Wallace said.
Alexa wanted to fix Briscoe’s collar—one side stood at attention while the other lay flat.
When the intros were completed, Bruce continued. “Sergeant Wallace is to be commended for his handling of the situations thus far. Look around the table. We are now a team, 24/7, until these cases are resolved. Are we in agreement?”
Everyone but Lowell nodded. “Why cases, plural?” he asked. “I heard about the bullet hole in the hunter’s skull. I get it—he couldn’t have shot himself. But how is a shark attack a case that needs solving? Are you going to cuff the sharks?”
No one laughed.
“Good question.” Bruce uncapped a marker and drew a line down the middle of the board. “We’ll start with the alleged shark attack, since you brought it up.”
“Nothing alleged about it,” Lowell insisted. “I saw the photo on the internet.”
“The victim has been identified through fingerprints. His name is Andrew Gray. He owned White Dive Tours.” Bruce wrote the name at the top of the left column of the white board.
“My God, I knew Andy,” Lowell said.
Everyone knows everyone around here, Alexa remembered. The charm of a small island. Or curse.
Lowell stiffened, like a beagle at scent. “Did he fall overboard?”
“Let’s hold off on speculation.” Bruce’s blue eyes caught Alexa’s. “Is time of death established?”
“His partner, Lisa Squires, took him to lunch at 1:00, and they ate together,” she replied. “Contents of his stomach…”
“A simple answer,” Bruce interrupted.
Bye-bye, breakfast buddy. “The pathologist’s T of D estimate is between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.”
“That would be Saturday, right?” Bruce asked.
She nodded stiffly.
“And this is Monday morning.” Bruce twisted off the marker cap and wrote the time of death on the board. “Ms. Glock made a surprise discovery during the autopsy that will answer Supervisor Lowell’s question. Please continue, Ms. Glock.”
“Gray had a bullet wound in his abdomen,” she said. “He was shot.”
“What did you say?” Lowell asked.
Alexa watched the DOC man. “He was shot in the gut. The pathologist said the wound wouldn’t have killed him instantly.”
“What do you mean?” Lowell looked incredulous. “It wasn’t a shark attack?”
“Not solely a shark attack,” Bruce said. “Sergeant Wallace communicated this unusual discovery to me late yesterday. That’s when the situation on the island went from one case to two cases. I gave him orders to not divulge this information. I’m giving everyone in this room the same order, understood?” He paused, looked at each of them.
Lowell jumped on board quickly. “The pāua divers and shark cagers have been going at it. The pāua divers say the chumming is making their dives more dangerous. They go down, close to shore—no air tanks—and pry the pāua off the rocks. The courts are debating a cage diving ban. It’s been dragging on years. Maybe a pāua diver got tired of waiting. Took matters in his own hands.”
“Stormy Parker is the local PāuaMac rep,” Wallace said.
Alexa perked up at “Stormy.” Where had she heard the name?
“Mac? What’s that?” Bruce asked.
“Stands for management action committee.”
Bruce wrote motive under Gray’s name and paua diver. “Get those men to the station for an interview. What’s the name of Gray’s competitor?”
“Shark Encounter. Owner is Lucas Grogan,” Wallace said.
Bruce added business competition to his motive list. “Others?”
“Islanders who hate cage diving,” Constable Kopae said. “Lots of locals want cage diving banned. And Andy and Lisa’s porch was chummed.” She shoved a hank of dark hair back into her stubby ponytail.
“I made a list of suspects,” Wallace said.
Bruce added local opposition and capped the marker.
“Who was the last to see Andy alive?”
“His wife, we think. Lisa Squires,” Wallace said. “He sent his crew members home that morning. Squizzy Koch and John Lynch. They’re stopping by at 9:00.”
Bruce wrote the names on the board. “Last people to see the victim alive are always first on my suspect list.”
“So the shooter doesn’t know we know about the bullet, right?” Constable Briscoe said. “He thinks we think the bloke died in a shark attack. Brill.”
“Until fifteen minutes ago, that’s what I assumed,” Bruce said. He turned his gaze to Alexa. She knew what was coming. Her heart drummed a minor-key funeral march.
“I learned that Ms. Glock conducted a preliminary search of Gray’s vessel. Last night. She discovered a lodged bullet and then was attacked by an unidentified assailant.”
“The search was against my orders,” Wallace said, his face triumphant. “She jumped overboard to get away.”
“Blimey,” Constable Briscoe said. “So the bloke knows we know.”
Alexa spoke up. “My search last night was unauthorized.” There. Out in the open. The truth. “I was afraid rain would destroy important evidence, and that the unusual circumstances warranted my actions.”
Everyone stared at her. The minute hand on the clock ticked accusingly.
“Unusual circumstances?” Bruce asked.
Alexa shifted, feeling like a third grader in class who called out the wrong answer. “We didn’t have a DI running the case. I believed that if we had one, searching the murder scene would have been first response.”
“Did you know The Apex was the scene of the murder?” Bruce’s expression was cold.
“No way to know that,” Wallace broke in.
Her heart skipped a beat. “I found blood spatter and a bullet lodged in a rail indicating it was the crime scene.”
“Did you know it was the scene of the murder before you searched?” Bruce repeated.
“No, sir. I only suspected.”
Bruce took a tissue out of his pocket, covered his nose, and blew an angry honk. A delay tactic, Alexa suspected, as he figured out whether to fire her on the spot.
Constable Kopae pushed back from the table and walked to the coffeepot. “Anyone for a cuppa?”
Bobby Briscoe started giving instructions, “Two sugars, ta,” but his voice petered out as Bruce threw the tissue into the trash and placed both hands on the end of the table.
“Ms. Glock, you did have a commander.” His voice was calm. “Sergeant Wallace was in charge until I assumed responsibility. I’ll speak with you privately about disobeying an order. Cases are weakened when an officer takes matters into his or her hands. Is that clear?” Relief washed over her. “Yes, sir.” She glanced at Wallace, but he refused to meet her eyes. Kopae gave her a discreet thumbs-up.
“What’s done is done,” Bruce said. “Let’s reap the benefits. Describe what happened on the vessel, Ms. Glock.”
Alexa was glad someone had propped the station door open again. The breeze, carrying salt and sea, refreshed her memory. “I discovered a bullet lodged in the rail on the upper deck. I took some photos, and someone grabbed me from behind as I was putting my cell back in my pocket.” She hadn’t remembered until this moment what she had been doing when hands grabbed her. A tremor infused her voice. “I elbowed him to get away, and then he came at me with a gaff.” Her hand went to the wound on her shoulder. “He swung once, hit the rail, swung again, grazing my shoulder. I jumped overboard. I think jumping in the water, uh, saved me.” She swallowed, trying to moisten her throat. “He threw a cooler of chum on me.”
“Blow me over,” Constable Briscoe said. “That’s harsh.”
“Were you hurt?” Bruce asked.
Darts of pain emanated from the gash. The horror hadn’t diminished by the telling of it. “I’m okay.”
“Report. File a report,” Bruce said. “Do you have the photos?”
“No. My phone drowned when I was in the water.”
“Were your backup and sync activated?” Kopae asked.
She had no idea.
The team members continued staring. “How did you get out of the drink?” Constable Briscoe finally asked.
“I swam to the beach.” As if it had been easy—the terror and loneliness.
“That water is fifty degrees,” Lowell said. “You’re lucky hypothermia, or sharks, didn’t kill you.”
She smiled weakly. “Well, the kelp tried to.”
“Kelp probably saved you,” Lowell said. “The sharks stay out of it.”
Saved by seaweed.
Wallace took over. “We ensured Miss Glock’s safety and then searched the boat. No sign of anyone. The area on the upper deck where Miss Glock thinks she saw a bullet was vandalized—gouged out—and there was no gaff.”
The bullet and gaff. Gone. Alexa worried the team wouldn’t believe her. If she hadn’t searched the boat, no one would have known the bullet had ever existed. Right? She was conflicted. Right. Wrong. Up. Down. It was like being in the cold black water again, disoriented.
“The attack was attempted murder,” Bruce said. “Could you identify the assailant?”
Alexa closed her eyes, conjuring the scene, but the attacker stayed in the shadows. “It was too dark, and it happened quickly. Black clothes, dark hair. Taller than me.” She could feel the man’s hot breath in her ear, the scratch of stubble grazing her cheek. “No beard. He didn’t have a beard.”
Bruce didn’t dwell. “Someone shot Andrew Gray—for what reason we don’t know—was he innocent, or was he involved in criminal activities? And then the perpetrator dumped his body…”
“He might have been still alive,” Alexa said.
“…threw Gray overboard. He was attacked by sharks, washed ashore. And now Ms. Glock has been attacked. Let’s take a ten-minute break before we jump into the case of the missing hunter.”
“Ha,” Constable Briscoe said. “Jump in. Like Miss CSI did.”