“What do you mean?” Alexa asked. A dead man can’t send an SOS.
“On 28 November, the PLB was activated.” Fowlkes studied the screen. “Whenever a beacon is activated, our first step is to call the emergency contact info on the registration form and check things out.” She read from the screen. “That would be Danita King, the hunter’s wife. But before my operator could do that, the owner called and said it was a mistake. There was no emergency.”
“Did you notify the police?” Alexa’s voice was sharp.
Fowlkes’s face hardened. “Around a third of our calls are accidental activation. It’s good the owner called before a rescue team was assembled.” She paused and read the screen. “It says the bloke apologized and assured the operator he was fine. He bought the PLB from a friend and hadn’t registered it yet. The operator took his name and number, called back to verify. That’s our procedure.”
“Didn’t the operator know the beacon belonged to a missing person?”
“That connection wasn’t made. We’re not police.”
Morons, Alexa thought. “Give me the name and number, please.”
Fowlkes read the name of the caller: Doug Clifford, and number.
Alexa whipped out her new cell and punched the numbers before formulating a plan.
“Hell Pizza.”
“Hell Pizza?” Alexa repeated.
Silence.
“Ah, is Doug working?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Doug Clifford.”
“No one by that name works here. Do you want a pizza or not?”
“No.” Her stomach rumbled. “Do you keep a record of customers?”
“You’ll need to speak with a manager,” the person said and hung up.
Alexa punched Bruce’s number, but she got a “no service” message. Urgency swirled in her mind. What good was a three-hundred-twenty-seven-dollar phone if there wasn’t service? She shoved the worthless device in her tote and stood.
Someone had activated King’s beacon. Maybe the person who shot him.
Alexa regarded Fowlkes. This woman spent her days helping people, rescuing them. “I know your operator did her best.”
“His best,” Fowlkes said. “I can tell where it pinged from. Would that help?”
For real? Alexa fought to keep her voice nonchalant. “Yes.”
Fowlkes jumped into action. The ping had come from Fern Gully Road on Stewart Island.
* * *
Alexa returned to the lab and intermittently interrupted her work to call Bruce. She never got through. Dark ages, she thought. Total dark ages. At 5:00, she thanked Dr. Kisska for his lab hospitality.
“I’ll email the results of the diatom test in the morning,” he said.
On the way to the airport she had Constable McFee reach Sergeant Wallace by radio. “King’s PLB pinged,” she shouted.
“What?” Static, static.
“From Fern Gully Road.”
“Can’t hear you,” Wallace replied.
She repeated, slowly. “Tell Bruce,” she added and then cringed. “I mean, tell DI Horne.” Out the car window, trees twisted in a stiff wind.
McFee dropped her off at the airport. The pilot—his name was Joe—paced by the Cessna. “Rough ride ahead. Fasten your seat belt.” He unlatched the plane’s door and pulled down the steps.
She must have looked stricken.
“Storm coming,” he elaborated. “No landmasses between us and the South Pole to block the high winds and rain coming, eh, it’s the roaring forties. If we leave now, I’ll be able to return home after dropping you off.”
With foreboding she clambered into the middle row. How much excitement could she take in one day? Bruce showing up this morning, her confession to the priestly team, the jaws at the museum, lab tests, beacons pinging. Who lived on Fern Gully Road? The first ten minutes of the flight were normal, but then gusts and judders knocked the plane about like a shark’s tail hitting a cage. With each slam, she squeezed her eyes and inhaled sharply. Bumper cars collided in her stomach. She couldn’t bear to speak with the pilot—what if panic infused his voice?
Twenty-five minutes later they touched down. Her grateful smile changed to a frown. The airstrip was deserted. This morning there had been a couple cars, two planes, and six people. Now—no one.
“Any chance of a lift to the station?” she joked.
Joe laughed and unlatched the door. “I’ll radio—let ’em know you’re here, lass.”
Before she could thank him, he yanked the door closed. The plane turned, wobbled down the runway, lifted like magic, banked left, and, frail bird that it was, headed toward the mainland above the infamous strait. “Be safe,” she whispered.
When the plane vanished, panic descended. She tried her phone again.
No connection.
Cut off, that’s me, Alexa thought, turning in a circle. The grass blew slantwise, the wind carried threats of rain, the gray shed stood empty as the oyster shell at her foot, which she kicked. Nothing was like it should be. Phones should work. Airports shouldn’t be deserted. Dead people’s PLBs shouldn’t ping. Shark victims shouldn’t have a bullet in their gut.
She was in full-temper mode like a little kid.
Buck up, Glock.
She hitched the crime kit to one shoulder, tote on the other, zipped her jacket to the chin, and set off on the one-lane road, her pace spurred by impending rain. Forest encroached on either side, shielding her from the worst of the wind. Oban was four or so miles away. After a few minutes, a dark gray bird landed a few feet ahead of her, cocked its head, puffed its white belly, and said, “Chuk, chuk, chuk.”
“I know,” Alexa answered. “It’s going to rain any second.”
“Chuk, chuk, chuk.”
“I know. It’s getting late.” It must be almost seven, Alexa thought, too encumbered to fish out her cell and check. She worried suddenly about the young woman on the beach she’d met, Madalyn the kelp expert. Kopae had promised to get a ranger to watch over her. Had she remembered?
As soon as Alexa got within a few feet, the bird flew ahead, landed, puffed, cocked, chukked. After the fourth time Alexa paused, and her little friend hopped close, cocked its head, and pecked at her boot with its tiny black beak.
“I’m hungry too,” she said.
She heard an engine. In a sound wave, panic was back, and the bird was gone. Someone on this island still wanted her dead. She checked the tangle of trees to her left—ready to dash and dive—as the Stewart Island Police SUV rounded a curve.
Wallace screeched to a halt. Bruce was riding shotgun, so Alexa climbed in back, cringing at Wallace’s jerky five-point U-turn.
Bruce’s half-smile didn’t erase his worry lines.
“Fern Gully Road is Stephen Neville’s address,” Wallace said. “We’re on our way.”
“Whose address?” she asked.
“Stephen Neville—ranger from the woods, eh?” Wallace caught her eyes in the rearview mirror. “The one who hiked with us to retrieve Robert King’s body. King’s PLB was activated from his address.”
Alexa pictured the shaggy-haired ranger. He had saved a baby whale, had rescued her from the sea lion and quicksand. She searched for the seat belt buckle, her hands shaking. Rain began pelting the car. Maybe the storm that the pilot, Joe, had been trying to out fly had arrived. “Why would Stephen have King’s locator?”
Trees flashed by. Wallace was flying. She looked at Bruce, who stayed facing forward. The skin visible between his dark hair and shirt collar looked tender and touchable.
“Lowell checked the records,” Wallace said, turning on the windshield wipers. “Stephen Neville was in the Hellfire area the day King disappeared. There are witnesses—the Māori group who came to carve up the beached whales. Stephen led them.”
“But that doesn’t prove he shot King,” she said weakly.
Bruce turned, his eyes bright. “He had a DOC shotgun checked out, from euthanizing the whales two days earlier. Never returned it. Therein lies the opportunity.”
“He told me about euthanizing the whales.” About their big eyes and tears.
“Probably mistook King for a deer,” Wallace said.
Out the window, ferns drooped. Alexa couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that Stephen had shot the hunter, stolen his PLB, and hidden the body.
“Then he didn’t man up,” Wallace continued. “Skulked off like a coward.” The radio squawked, and he grabbed it. “Eh?”
“Constable Briscoe and I are here, Sarge,” Constable Kopae said.
“Stay back until we arrive.” Wallace pressed the SUV’s pedal a notch. “ETA five minutes. Neville is armed.”