A half hour later Alexa was squished in the rear of a six-seater plane flying over Foveaux Strait. Wallace looked solemn in the copilot’s seat. He’d taken Alexa aside at the airstrip and told her the list of Stewart Island residents with guns had been faxed to the station and included Andy Gray. “Did you find a gun on The Apex?”
“I would have told you.”
“Lisa says Andy carried it for protection.”
People who owned guns had an increased chance of being killed by one—be it homicide, suicide, or accident. This was looking like the Big H, Alexa thought. She studied Lisa Squires and her mother, huddled by Wallace’s SUV as they awaited the pilot. “Can anyone verify where Lisa was Saturday evening?”
“Her mum, Judy, came round, that’s all,” said Wallace.
Maternal alibi was almost as weak as a spousal alibi, Alexa thought.
“Here’s the Death Investigation report on Andrew Gray. The DI said to give you a copy. You can read it on the plane. We put a rush on his bank and phone records.”
Wallace would fly with the mother and daughter to Invercargill, and then the pilot would take Alexa to Dunedin so she could use the university lab.
Now mother and daughter were in the middle row. Alexa didn’t want to stare, so she looked out the window. The sea was kicking up whitecaps, and the plane dipped and shuddered. Death winds. Wasn’t that what Mary had called them? She clutched the armrest.
Lisa spoke. “Sergeant Wallace, I know who wants Andy dead. Stormy…”
The whining engine made it hard for Alexa to hear.
“He… Stewart Island pāua divers,” Lisa said.
Alexa leaned closer, watching the back of Lisa’s head, her hair clumpy and unkempt.
“It’s true, Kipper,” Lisa’s mother said. “I told Nina at book club that PāuaMac needs to back off. They don’t own the ocean.”
Wallace had turned his solid body around. “Ta, Judy. I’ll let the DI know. We’ll haul Stormy in for questioning.”
That name again—Stormy. Alexa’s stomach lurched as she reviewed that pāua diving was a way to make a living on the island and that the cage diving industry was making it dangerous. The thought made her dig in the crime kit for the larger of the two shark teeth extracted from Gray’s body. She palmed it and stared at the beauty and savagery of its serrated edges and crown point sharp enough to pierce her skin.
“Andy. I want Andy,” Lisa mewled. “His mum and dad are flying from Perth. And I’ve never met them. What will happen to the boat? Our business?” Her mewls turned to wails.
The plane vibrated and shuddered. Alexa stuffed the tooth in her jacket pocket and squeezed the armrest.
In Invercargill the two women stumbled out, Wallace following. “A flight back to the island leaves at six. That enough time?” he asked at the threshold.
She gave him a thumbs-up and didn’t envy his tough job ahead: loved ones viewing remains. On the puddle-jump to Dunedin she read the Death Investigation report on Andrew Elkin Gray that Wallace had given her. She skimmed DOB, height, weight, and race. Gray’s “Nationality” was listed as Australian. “Marital Status” snagged her eye. New Zealanders used “partner” regularly, and Alexa wasn’t sure if Lisa Squires and Andy Gray were married. Nope. The “Never Married” box was checked. “Next of Kin” was Harry and Louisa Gray of Perth, his mother and father.
Who made that dreaded call, Alexa wondered? Lisa? Did Andy’s parents know they were going to be grandparents?
“Date” and “Time of Death” concurred with her forensic findings. “Last Seen Alive” was marked Saturday, 7 December, 1:55 p.m., by Lisa Squires.
But besides Lisa—who was last to see him alive? In case Lisa was lying.
“Nature of Injury” was marked as “Multiple”. “Manner of Death” was marked “Pending”. “Place of Incident” was marked “Other”, and vessel scrawled in the blank. Alexa felt clammy thinking of The Apex. She looked out the small window. How did a young man raise the capital to start a cage diving business? The Apex must have cost a fortune. Was Andy in over his head?
Alexa snorted.
She skimmed a second report entitled Solvability Factors. This was information about the crime that could help determine who committed it—like witnesses, serial numbers, mobile phones, photographs, CCTV, fingerprints. The fewer solvability factors listed, the less the chance of solving the crime. The bullet hole in the deck railing—which she had seen with her own eyes—was an example of a solvability factor. Too bad the perp had obliterated it. Most of the report was blank at this point.
Alexa wondered what had happened to Andy Gray’s phone. Not that it would have saved him—the service on the island being sporadic, and that was kind—but where was it? It had probably been in his pants pocket and had joined Davy Jones’s locker.
Momona Airport on the outskirts of Dunedin had a real terminal and a dozen planes. On the tarmac a young cop held an Alex Clock sign. “You’re on time, ha ha, but you’re not a bloke. I’m Constable McFee sent to drive you to the lab.”
McFee talked nonstop on the way, left hand on the steering wheel, the right gesticulating. “I hear it’s not a one-off, eh. The sharks down there are primed from all that chumming, yeah.”
He was winding up, and Alexa let him spin.
“When sharks get a taste for blood, they’ll lurk about, wait for more, just like any animal.” He glanced her way. “No more pāua diving for me, that’s right. I’ll switch to whitebait up the river, New Zealand caviar, eh—have you had some?”
“Had some what?” Rolling countryside had vanished, and they were in a city with Baroque-style buildings. The scent of sea slithered through the officer’s open window.
“Whitebait? Where are you from? Canada? Juvie fish, that’s what whitebait are. Traditional way to eat ’em is in a fritter, but my wife and I fry ’em in omelets.”
Alexa’s stomach was queasy from the plane ride, and fish in an omelet wasn’t helping.
“My senior isn’t closing our beaches, but I think he should. TV bloke said the shark lifted the man a meter high, shook him like a rag, left a cloud of blood.”
“The newscaster witnessed the attack, did he?” She tightened her fingers on the crime kit and spotted a mobile phone shop. “Do you mind stopping? I need a phone.”
If she purchased another iPhone, the clerk promised her data and contacts could be restored. “What about photos?”
“Yeah nah. Shouldn’t be a prob. And you can keep the same phone number.”
Yes, she would purchase a screen protector. And insurance. The bottom line made her cringe. Everything was more expensive in New Zealand.
The forensic lab was two blocks from the mobile store, so she didn’t have time to check her photos. “I’ll pick you up at half past five, eh?” McFee said.
In the lobby she found a directory. Forensic Science Laboratory: basement. Figures. Most labs were in basements, as if the work carried out belonged in the underworld. She took the stairs and entered the room at the bottom. A man looked up from his computer.
“Alexa Glock,” she said, striding toward him.
He stood, short and wrinkled, and ran fingers through sparse gray hair. “Dr. Stanley Kisska. How can I help you?”
“I believe you’ve heard from Sergeant Wallace? Stewart Island?” She hefted the crime kit and evidence bag on a table and fished out a business card.
Dr. Kisska stared through bifocals. “From Auckland? Is Daniel Goddard your supervisor?”
Alexa smiled at the mention of her new boss.
“I taught Daniel in Instrumental Analysis. He had issues with liquid chromatography.”
Issues? “You have a good memory,” she said. “Do you still teach?”
“Forensic Chemistry. Keeps me young. What brings you here?”
“Did you hear about the missing hunter on Stewart Island?”
“I’m surprised he’s been found. Trampers and hunters go missing in the bush. Many are never heard from again.”
He said this as a matter of disturbing fact. “Well, his remains have been found, and there are circumstances I need to check out. Stewart Island doesn’t have a lab. Plus tests I need to run on the shark victim case.”
“I heard about the shark death. Bloody sad, reminds me of the sixties when I was a teen.” Dr. Kisska bowed his head. “Three fatal attacks here in Dunedin. Great whites. It was all we talked about, thought about. It might have been one shark, come back year after year. First attack was Les Marks. I went to primary with his brother. Just a lad out for a surf one morn. His leg, gone. His mates got him to shore, the white circling the whole way. He died from blood loss. Ever since, I spend time on the water, not in the water. Lots of us who were around back then feel the same way.” The scientist’s eyes had a faraway look.
“I understand.”
“Stop by the Harbor Museum. You can see the jaws of a white hauled in from the harbor a couple years later. Looks like a train tunnel. Lots of people believe it’s him, the killer, because the attacks stopped. Let’s get you registered, and then I’ll show you around.” Dr. Kisska pointed to a visitors’ log.
Intrigued by the museum jaws, Alexa signed in and had a tour of the windowless lab. A large workstation formed an L-shape in a corner. Cubicles—one equipped with a microscope—jutted from the opposite wall.
“Evidence lockers and storage are in here,” Dr. Kisska said, opening a door. “A free computer is there.”
The blue fiber from Andy Gray’s palm was on her mind. “Do you have a stereomicroscope?” This microscope provided different viewing angles so that a sample looked three-dimensional.
Dr. Kisska smiled like a proud parent and pointed to a closed door. “In the supply room. Let me know if I can help. I’ll be grading end-of-term exams.”
Alexa removed her jacket, scratched her bug bites, and washed her hands. The hunter, Robert King, wedged his way into her conscience and turned her thoughts to the constellation Orion, or The Hunter. Orion was visible in the northern and southern hemisphere; Bruce Horne had told her this on the dark night they had sat on her cottage porch in Rotorua, admiring the sky. “Make you feel at home, right?” he’d said, sparks fluttering like fireflies between them.
Had a hunter tracked a hunter and denied two daughters a father?
She started with fingerprints from the water bottle and the high-vis vest stuffed under the camo jacket of the deceased. Who had stuffed it there? She guessed the person who dragged the body, not wanting it to be seen. She had used go-to black powder on both, and single-use brushes so there was no cross-contamination, lifting tape and backing cards on which to press the tape. Every kid’s I-wanna-be-a-detective dream.
Alexa smiled. Her throbs and itches faded. Labs were her happy place.
Forty minutes later she had a print from the vest that didn’t match King’s classic whorl. There was no duplicate for the unidentified print in the database. King had been hunting with three men. Had their prints been taken? She jotted a note to ask.
Up next: the cast of a Merrell boot print she had instructed Stephen to make at the scene, size ten, spattering dried mud on the paper-covered specimen tray. She logged into the computer and located the uploaded photos she had taken at the hut of Wallace’s, Scratch’s, and Stephen’s boots.
Scrape the Keen.
Scrape the Scarpa.
The third set were Merrells. Her eyes flicked from photo to cast, back, forth. She couldn’t make out the size of the boot in the photo and hadn’t recorded which boot belonged to which man. Alexa chided herself for sloppy tagging. It had been a long day: storm, ferry, flight, hike, scene investigation. But mistakes were inexcusable.
She’d call Sergeant Wallace to find out. If the boot print matched a hut-buddy, what did it prove? They had all been there. Tramping about. It occurred to her that the rangers Scratch and Stephen could be suspects. Where had they been that day King failed to return?
Let the evidence guide you, her mentor’s voice reminded.
Dr. Kisska interrupted. “Your phone is ringing.”
She hadn’t recognized the ring tone. No barking dogs. “Oh, yes, sorry.” She whipped off her gloves and answered. “Hello?”
“I need you to stop by Dunedin LandSAR offices. Check records on King’s PLB.”
Bruce Horne. Alexa held the receiver a little farther from her ear.
“You there?”
She stayed quiet.
“Alexa?”
“Hello, Bruce.”
“Yes. Hello. Er, sorry.”
She could hear an intake of breath. “What’s a PBL?”
“PLB. Personal locator beacon,” he answered. “ Robert King’s wife gave him one for Christmas. He had it with him, and it’s never been located. It sends a signal to the LandSAR rescue center any time it’s activated. The center is in Dunedin. I’d like you to go, um, please, and pick up all records associated with it. Where and when it was activated. We’ve faxed the paperwork.”
“Hasn’t someone already done this?”
“Not since two weeks after King disappeared. It’s worth another look. Any lab news?”
“I lifted an unidentified fingerprint from King’s vest. We need to compare them with King’s hunting partners.”
“We took prints yesterday when I spoke with the two in Rotorua. I’ll fax them. The other gentleman is from Dunedin. Hold on.” She heard a ruffle of papers. “His name is James Reilly. I’ll get someone to print him today.” Bruce gave her the address of the rescue center. “Get those records. See you tonight.”
It was time to switch to Andrew Gray, the man who would never have the chance to hold his child. (How could Bruce leave his girls behind and move to Auckland?)
The prints she had lifted from the cooler were too degraded to be of use. The blood sample from the chum leakage did not test positive for human blood, so she discarded it.
Two steps back, no steps forward.
She debated whether to complete a diatom test on Gray’s lung tissue. Did it matter whether he was (a) killed by sharks, (b) drowned, or (c) died from a bullet? It might matter to his partner and his parents. She located a beaker to add equal parts sulphuric and nitric acids, sliced a sliver of lung for a negative control test, and added distilled water to both samples. The results—either absence of or presence of diatoms in the tissue—would be ready in twenty-four hours.
She washed up and pulled on new gloves. Fiber time. The inchworms of blue fiber nestled in the evidence envelope. Alexa removed the larger of the two with tweezers, hoping it would reveal answers.
The smell of tuna pierced her concentration. She looked up from the stereomicroscope to see Dr. Kisska munching a sandwich. He must have seen her hungry look. “Would you like the other half?”
“No, thanks. I’ll pop out to get a bite.”
The doctor looked relieved.
Alexa finished the fiber examination, recording length, diameter, luster, dye, and cross section pattern, and then switched back to the computer. New Zealand was the second country in the world to set up a DNA databank, following the UK, but she couldn’t locate a fiber databank. Darn.
Dr. Kisska was munching on an apple.
“Is there a marine shop around?” she asked. “One that sells roping and netting?”
“Of course.” He chewed, swallowed. “We’re a fisherman’s paradise. Fresh and saltwater. Trout, salmon, flat fish, red cod.”
She hadn’t asked for a fish report. “So is there a nearby marine supply store?”
“Taylor’s Rig is my favorite. Two blocks past the corner.”
“Thanks. I’ll be back in an hour or two. Will you still be here?”
“Eh. Be here until five.”
* * *
The streets in the South Island’s second largest city were rush and scurry. No one stared at her. Alexa felt safe. She popped into Percolator Cafe for chowder, bread, and flat white coffee. Tanked up, she dodged tourists and college students as she searched for, and almost passed, Taylor’s Rig.
Bells jangled as she entered and stepped past fishing rod displays. A quick skim of three tight aisles revealed scales, knives, bait buckets, hooks, buoys, and, toward the side, roping, nets, fishing line, and—her gut went queasy—gaffs. Some had hooks, others ended in spears—all meant to stab, and lift, if the poster was correct.
A thirty-something woman in a tight I’m So Fly T-shirt appeared. “G’day. How can I help?”
“I’m looking for rope, or netting, anything that matches this.” Alexa dug out the sample and held the clear bag up for Fly to see. The fiber looked like a blue inchworm.
“Why?”
Alexa showed her ID and explained the fiber was important evidence.
She held out her hand, and Alexa gave her the bag. “It’s a wee bit. Where did it come from?”
“Stewart Island.”
“There was a shark attack there. Great white. Customers have been talking about it all morning. Two blokes bought shark gaffs. I hope they know what they’re doing.” The woman’s face was speckled and windburned. “I think it’s netting. We don’t carry much in blue.”
Alexa and the saleswoman scanned the netting display. White and black nets were most common. “It’s polyethylene, if that helps,” Alexa added. She had discovered this under the stereomicroscope. Polyethylene fiber was strong and light.
The closest to a match was a turquoise cast net. “Let’s check the catalog,” the woman said and reached under the checkout counter, producing a thick Quality Marine catalog. After licking her finger and thumbing through, she showed Alexa two blue fishing nets. “This one is for trawling,” her finger moved to the adjoining page, “and this is a drag net.”
Alexa had never been fishing. “What’s the difference?”
“Trawling nets get towed behind a vessel, and the drag net is thrown by hand. It spreads out, then sinks.”
She thought of the fishing boat docked at the wharf. She’d seen netting attached to a winch. What color had it been? “Do you have these in stock?”
“This drag net will take two weeks. It comes from China.”
No Amazon Prime, Alexa thought. “What about the trawling net?”
“It’s made local. Van Kees Nautical Nets on Cliff Hanger Road.”
Bingo.
“Does Dunedin have Uber?”
* * *
The netting factory, located on the aptly named Cliff Hanger Road, was up, down, and around several hills and perched on a cliff shadowing a rock-strewn bay. “Do you mind waiting?” Alexa asked the Uber driver.
“I’ll have to charge.”
“That’s fine.”
Alexa couldn’t believe her luck. The fishing net was manufactured right here.
She opened the front door of the single-storied factory, noting Van Kees Nautical Nets etched in the glass. The throttle and hum of automated spinning drums assaulted her ears. A technician was monitoring spools of fiber—maybe polyethylene—being woven into an origami of netting cascading onto a conveyor belt. To the left were two similar machines, each with a technician. She stepped forward to inspect the netting, disappointed it was white. Maybe the dyeing process came next.
The female technician smiled at her and pointed to an office to the right.
Alexa nodded, walked over, and knocked on the closed door. A burly man, maybe fifty, opened it and held out his hand. “Guy Van Kees, owner. How may I help you?”
“I’m Alexa Glock, a forensic investigator, and I have a sample of netting that I need to match. It might be one of yours.”
“That’s an odd request.” Van Kees looked at his watch. “I have an appointment.”
“This won’t take long. Look at this.” She cracked open the fiber evidence envelope and let him peek.
Van Kees crossed his arms. “Who do you say you are?”
She closed the envelope and fished for a business card. “I’m working on a missing persons case. Another case as well. The shark attack on Stewart Island.”
He accepted her card.
“This fiber was found on the victim, and I am trying to match it.”
“On the shark victim? How on earth? Come in. I can spare a moment.”
She followed Van Kees into the office. “Do you mind if I turn this on?” she asked, clicking on a desk lamp before he could answer. She extracted a plain white index card from her tote and slid the fiber on it. “Here’s a magnifying glass.”
Her father had given her the glass when she was accepted to the NC Sciences Forensic Institute. It lived in her tote, sheathed in fawn-soft leather. “Look hard at the world around you, Alexa,” Dad had advised, his button-down buttoned to his neck. “But magnifying people’s faults is unbecoming.”
Her father had been in a hard position—married to a woman his daughter despised. The magnifying glass felt hot and heavy in her hand.
Van Kees watched silently. “You don’t want me to touch it?”
“That’s right. Does it match the nets you make here?”
The factory owner took the magnifier, leaned in, and studied quietly.
“It’s two millimeters wide and just short of two centimeters long,” Alexa said. She forced herself to stand still, breathe.
“One of the benefits of polyethylene is that it weighs the same, wet or dry,” Van Kees said. “No absorption. Makes lifting and hauling easier and reduces fuel costs. Stronger than steel, too. No breakage.” He beamed like a proud father. “It’s ours. A trawling net. I believe it’s our Polyurethane Stealth Glider.”
Alexa exhaled a whoosh of air. “I’ll need your contact information, sales records, and a sample, please.”
Van Kees frowned. “Our sales records? What? I can’t give you my sales records.”
She considered calling Bruce, get him to order the guy. She shrugged—it was best to be self-reliant. “I know you want to help with our investigation. What about the past three years in Southland?” She had a map of New Zealand’s sixteen regions on the wall of her new office at the Forensic Service Center so she would know where she was being sent as cases arose. Southland included Stewart Island, Bluff, and Invercargill.
“No. I know my rights. You’ll need a warrant.”
“You’re not a doctor protecting patients,” she snapped.
“I am protecting my customers from harassment.”
This time she did call Bruce. He listened and then asked to speak to Mr. Van Kees.
She left with no sales records. Bruce was no more successful than she had been, which for some reason was satisfying, and would rush the warrant. At least she had confirmation that the fiber was Van Kees’s. The Uber fare was thirty-four dollars. She looked at her watch 2:00—and had the driver take her to Harbor Museum. She could spare a few minutes to see that shark jaw Dr. Kisska had mentioned before she stopped by LandSAR.
The museum was free. “Where can I find the shark jaws?” Alexa asked the woman at the information desk.
“In the maritime section on the second floor.”
When she got there, Alexa’s attention was snagged by a 1968 photo of capsized Wahine Ferry in Wellington Harbor. The caption read: One-hundred-and-fifteen-knot winds and enormous waves thrust the ferry, within sight of land, onto the reef. She thought of her Foveaux Strait ferry ride two days ago: the seething waves breaking over the bow, the fierce wind, sharks lurking below. She knew it wasn’t on her agenda but couldn’t stop herself from watching a five-minute black-and-white clip of the disaster, which killed fifty-four people. “Beneath the turbulent waters, like a row of shark’s teeth, was Barrett Reef,” the announcer droned, “subject of many nautical fears, now deadly in fact.”
“Like a row of shark’s teeth,” Alexa murmured, creeped out and backing away. She searched the area for the jaws. There they were, in a glass box so they could be viewed from all angles, hinged wide open. Enormous and gaping. A woman and two little boys stared at it.
“A monster mouth,” the littler boy piped.
Alexa moved closer and read the placard: From Great White Shark (Carcharodon Carcharias) Caught in Otago Harbor, 1975, Length: 5.2 Meters, Weight: 1,840 Kilograms, Female.
The trio moved to a fossilized shark’s tooth as Alexa stood rooted, calculating that 5.2 meters was seventeen feet. Jeez Louise. Three of me. The white teeth had maintained their calcium phosphate, so they hadn’t fossilized and turned black. They would cut like a knife straight through flesh and bone. She analyzed the teeth. The upper anterior ones were large and triangular, the coarse serrations slightly irregular. The lower teeth were skinnier, pointier, needle-like, and would pierce the hide of a seal—or person—and snag it. When those jaws snapped, anything in its path would be severed. Jeez Louise again—she understood why Andy Gray was missing an arm and a leg. She could be too. As the family moved away, she dug the tooth out of her jacket pocket and held it against the glass.
Definitely from the top jaw, Alexa concluded, and similar in size, indicating at least one shark involved in the Stewart Island attack was close in size to this shark. A voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Where did you get that?” A college-aged boy with spiked hair stared at the tooth she was pressing to the glass. “Is it from a display?”
“No,” Alexa assured. “I brought it with me.”
“Did you find it?”
“Well, ah, yes.” In a body.
“Where?”
“I can’t say.”
He looked at her suspiciously. “I’m in the marine biology department at uni. That’s not fossilized. It’s fresh. Can I have a gawk?”
“Sure.”
“This is worth a lot of money,” the boy said, holding it like a gem. “You could sell it on eBay. Did you know that when one tooth falls out, another spins forward to replace it? Sharks have rows of backup teeth.”
“I’m learning a lot about sharks,” Alexa answered vaguely.
“A whopper, this white was,” the boy said, handing it back and turning his attention to the gaping jaws. “There’s a friggin’ black market for jaws.”
“Really?”
“Are you a Yank?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“White jaws this size would sell for eighty thousand U.S. dollars on the dark web. That tooth you have would go for three or four hundred.”
She squeezed tight the jagged triangle and then slipped it back in her pocket. “Um. So, selling shark teeth and jaws is illegal?”
He looked at her with earnest eyes. “Absolutely. Since 2007. It’s illegal to hunt for white sharks in New Zealand, as well as illegal to trade in any white shark parts like teeth or fins or jaws. If you accidentally catch a white, you need to release it unharmed.”
“Good luck with that. How do you accidentally catch a white anyway?”
“Sometimes they get caught in nets and drown. Or they might get hooked by a fisherman.”
Great. So now she had contraband in her pocket.
* * *
Alexa’s phone map showed the LandSAR office was two blocks from the museum. She walked briskly, her mind a whirl of fiber, shark jaws, boot casts.
Another glass door, another etching: New Zealand Land Search and Rescue, Inc. This door opened into a wood-paneled room void of people. Adventure posters brightened the walls: people snowboarding, river rafting, glacier climbing, bungee jumping. The theme must be different ways to die, Alexa surmised.
A stack of Personal Locator Beacon guides was on a shelf below the bungee jumping poster. Alexa opened one. The gadgets looked like palm-sized radios. They could be clipped on, worn around the neck, or stuffed in a roomy pocket. There were different brands: RES-Q, FastFind, and rescueME, with different prices—from $350 to over $500. Alexa wondered which type Robert King had. She stuffed the brochure in her tote and moved to a large map of the South Island pricked with blue, orange, and red pin flags. Alexa studied it: Certain areas, like Stewart Island, were pin-magnets.
“Each flag is a SAROP,” a voice said.
Alexa whipped around to face a young woman. “What is a sarop?”
“LANDSAR Search and Rescue Operation. Last year we had 495 SAROPs. How can I help you?” Her blue polo was tucked into hip-hugging khakis.
“I’m Alexa Glock, forensic investigator, here to pick up PBL records.”
“PLB,” the woman corrected. “Personal locator beacon. I’m Juta Fowlkes, support officer for Lower South.” She had a wholesome frosting of nose and cheek freckles.
Alexa had met so many people that day that her mind blurred. “I’m here to pick up records from Robert King’s PLB. He’s…”
“…the missing hunter. I heard his body has been recovered.” Fowlkes stood eye to eye with Alexa. “That’s why his flag is red now.” She pointed to Stewart Island.
“Red means dead?” Alexa asked. Damn. Red flags were scattered over the map.
“We refer to them as premature fatalities. I need to stay in the control center room. I’m on call.” She pointed to a hallway. “Do you want to come with me? We can talk there?”
“Yes, thanks,” Alexa said, following.
A row of computers lined the control center. Fowlkes pulled out a chair for Alexa and sat in another. “I am familiar with the case. About a month ago Sergeant Wallace contacted us to search the bush again for the missing hunter, with live transmitters.”
“Live transmitters? What are they?”
“It’s dense bush in Rakiura National Park. Gullies, ravines, creeks, mud.”
Check, check, check, check, Alexa thought.
“Our every move was being tracked back at the station. That’s what live-tracking is. We were wearing transmitters so none of us got lost. Or if we did, someone knew where to find us.”
“Like Google.”
“Yeah nah. We took a fresh look at the missing person, figured in factors like King’s age, experience, fitness level, the weather and terrain—helicopters are of no use out there because of the canopy—and created a search grid.”
Fowlkes’s phone buzzed; she checked the screen, stuffed it back in her pocket. “But in the end, we didn’t find King. How did you do it?”
“Hikers found his remains. The DI asked me to pick up King’s PLB records.”
“I haven’t had time to pull it,” Fowlkes said. “I got busy with a class-three Otago Pennisula rescue. Tourists are overdue from a boating expedition. Had to send in Coastguard and a copter.”
“Jeez. Hope they get found.”
“No sign yet. Visitors don’t understand how quickly the weather changes.” Fowlkes moved to a computer monitor and typed. She rocked back and forth in the roller chair, making it squeak. When a report appeared on the screen, she stilled. “The PLB is registered. That’s fortunate. Some blokes don’t bother to register, and then the locator is worthless.”
“What date did King register his?” Alexa had pad and pen ready.
Fowlkes rocked again as her fingers tapped. “January 2018.” Then she stopped rocking. “This is odd.”
“What?”
Fowlkes double-clicked a link, and another window opened. “King’s beacon was activated ten days ago.”