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“How long does it take to get from the edge of town to Vaughan’s place?” Wiri cast around for answers, his quick mind picking over his movements earlier that day. A fog descended over his memory and cast a haze of confusion.
“About five minutes less than it takes to get from town to yours.” Tane raised a quizzical eyebrow. His phone beeped, and he frowned as he inspected the text.
“So, about twenty minutes to Vaughan’s and another five to the rental place?” Wiri peered through the mind-fog. “Well, I drove from Larry’s to Vaughan’s house. That’s twenty minutes. Seline answered the door and got weird when I asked for Leilah. I already told you that. I hung around for a few minutes and then drove home. Another five maybe.”
Tane cocked his head, the intensity of his blue irises ramping up to indicate more than a passing interest. “Okay. Weird in what way? Because I have to tell you that my officer just texted me to say she’s denying your visit happened.”
Wiri flapped his hand. “She’s lying!” he protested. “I asked for Leilah and she got snippy. She wanted me to call her Dee or Deleilah, but not Leilah.” He exhaled as the memories tumbled over one another. “I stayed for a minute or two, told her to get her mother to text me and drove home. I don’t understand what she meant about her mother’s name. Or why she would deny seeing me.”
“Right.” Tane jotted down a note. Wiri peered at it but had never succeeded with upside down writing. “How long do you suppose you stayed at the house? I want an exact time.”
Wiri let his mind run over the visit, replaying Seline’s change in attitude and the way she’d rebuffed his question about Vaughan. He pursed his lips and added up the minutes it might have taken for him to drive up and down the bumpy driveway and have the tense conversation with Leilah’s daughter. “I drove real slow because the potholes hurt my back. She made me get out of the truck and walk right up to the door, although I suspect she maybe watched me do it.” He shifted the fingers of his right hand against the table, grateful for the fresh gauze the doctor had added over the ugly stitches. “We spoke for only a couple of minutes. Two at the most. I got the feeling she wanted rid of me. It took a while for me to get the truck turned around to head back to the road.” He sighed. “I’m uncertain how long it all took. I’d need to do it all again and time it.” He scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his right hand. “But it’s irrelevant. Hendricks drove past Larry’s house, so he was still alive then.”
Tane nodded. “I’m just gathering the information for now. I’ll visit Leilah’s daughter myself and ask what she remembers. We’ll go from there.”
“Okay.” Wiri stifled a yawn behind his right palm. “She saved my life yesterday. There’s no reason for her to lie.”
Tane made a sound like a grunt and leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “A witness saw you in a physical disagreement with Hendricks a few nights ago in the supermarket. What would you like to tell me about that?” He jerked his head towards the healing scratch on the back of Wiri’s right hand.
Wiri groaned. “Yeah, that’s true,” he admitted. He blew out a ragged breath. “Perhaps I need Aunty Liza about now.”
“Who’s Aunty Liza?” Tane’s jaw dropped lower and wrinkles appeared around his shirt collar.
Wiri shrugged. “Judge Eliza Du Rose. Aunty Liza.”
A bubble formed on Tane’s lip and popped. He poked out his tongue and ran it in a circular movement as he bought himself time. “I’ve met her,” he admitted. His cheekbone showed as a grim line. Then he swallowed. “It doesn’t matter what I say now, does it?” His tone lost its victorious edge.
“She won’t come herself.”
“No. She’ll send a lawyer who earns more in an hour than I clear in a month.”
“Yeah.” Wiri blinked up at him. “And you didn’t record this part of the interview.”
Tane pressed his lips into a flat line. “Talbot versus the Crown. 2019.”
“Sorry.” Wiri meant it. “Can you imagine the embarrassment of answering exam questions on your aunt’s cases in Legal Studies at school?”
“No.” Tane shook his head. “Do you want me to call her?”
Wiri swallowed. A sigh hissed from between his lips. “I didn’t kill him, Tane. I should call her, but I know I’m innocent.”
“Tell me about the fight.” Tane reached across and activated the recorder setting on the device. He spoke into it, leaning forward with his tone formal and less defeatist. Wiri waited for him to finish.
“Hendricks approached me in the supermarket. He knew my grandfather, or so he said. I believe he was hunting, actually.”
“Hunting?” Tane tapped the end of his pen on the pad. “With your grandfather?”
Wiri considered his words, ordering them into something which made sense. “No. I believe Hendricks gathered dirt on people from anywhere he could. Hunting. He dropped something contentious into a conversation and then mined whatever he got from the reaction. Then he blackmailed them as it suited him. He was trying to find out why I came to work for Vaughan. I got the sense he didn’t want me here.” Wiri dipped his head. “Yeah, I shoved him. The cameras in the supermarket will show you that.” He frowned. “Ted stopped me. Hendricks left.”
Tane cocked his head. “I have the footage. It looked like more than a push.” He jerked his chin towards Wiri’s right hand. “Did he do that?”
Wiri nodded. A frown closed his expression. “Will you test his fingernails for my DNA?”
Tane rolled his eyes. “He scratched you two days before he died. Besides, he’d been in the water tank for a few hours when the girl found him. When did you see Hendricks again?”
“He showed up at our place. Jet can tell you. But he was still walking and talking when he left. I saw him outside Pastor Larry’s earlier today. He slowed down to watch me leaving.” Wiri shrugged. “I didn’t see him again. If he drove up to Vaughan’s place and walked across the property to the tank, where’s his vehicle? That flash Mercedes wouldn’t handle the rough ground. Even on foot, it means he was still alive for at least an hour after I last spotted him.”
“So, regardless of what Leilah’s daughter says, you have no alibi. You claim to have slept through his death. If it took Hendricks an hour from seeing you to getting to the tank, that’s still a total of five hours which you can’t account for until you answered the door to me. I’ll need to check out everything you’ve said.” Tane leaned sideways to the recorder as though giving stage directions before pressing a button to deactivate it. He rose and stowed his pad and pen back in his pockets. “I’ll start with Leilah’s daughter,” he said. Wiri noticed how he referred to Seline without saying her name, as though he nursed a kernel of dislike for her. He ached for the simplicity of home. For Phoenix’s sunny presence and Mac’s silent stoicism. He even missed his complicated half-sister, though he’d shown no affection for Edin despite their shared father. Her tinkling laughter and solid right hook would stand up against the spiteful streak which hid beneath the veneer of beauty behind Seline’s delicate features. Edin would rout her in seconds.
“What’s the matter?” Tane leaned forward and his fringe disobeyed the hand which seconds before had pushed it backwards away from his eyes. It dipped low enough to touch the bridge of his nose.
Wiri sighed. “Missing home,” he replied, the truth hitting him in the solar plexus like a kick. His voice wavered as he stated another, more pressing truth. “I should never have come here.”
