In the lab, Alexa set the featherlight bird bag in a box, gathered the camera bag, and hurriedly left for home. She did a quick scan at the entrance to the cottage. No bird. Everything normal, and as she picked up the afghan still on the floor and folded it neatly, she realized getting out of town was a good idea.
The dead bird had sullied her nest.
Alexa forced herself to open her laptop and make a hotel reservation. For a millisecond, she had thought about surprising Mary, just showing up at her apartment. Mary is dead, stupid. Who would empty her apartment? Her office? She wondered if she should offer to help as she placed a call to the Auckland Forensics Department to make sure someone would be there in the morning. Nah. Stay out of it. Finally, with overnight necessities, she flew the coop.
The calming voice of an Aussie GPS app helped Alexa navigate out of town. The Thermal Explorer Highway skirted Lake Rotorua and headed northwest to Matamata, home to the renowned Lord of the Rings Shire. In the States, when she’d mention her New Zealand fellowship, people had asked: “Are you a Tolkien fan?” “Will you go to the Shire?”
Pay good money to see creepy elves and bearded gnomes?
No way.
With a pang, she remembered Mary had been an anti-fan of the Rings hoopla. “Rotorua used to be the number one tourist attraction on the North Island. Now people go to the Shire instead. It’s hurt my cousin’s business.”
“What’s his business?”
“Tamaki Maori Village. You know—song, haka, hāngī feast.”
“Feast?”
“Lamb, kumara, pumpkin, cabbage. The food is covered with flax and leaves and then steamed over hot stones.”
“So you’ll take me there?” Alexa had asked, her mouth watering.
“Well, maybe. It’s embarrassing to see my whānau with painted faces and no shirts sticking their tongues out at tourists. But the food’s good.”
Out of Rotorua’s stinky clutches, the state highway became an undulating ribbon pulled through quaint villages, pastures of sheep and lambs, one-lane bridges, and hills. Alexa’s peripheral vision caught a blur of earthy browns, emeralds, spring greens splattered with pink and purple. Eye candy.
The narrow highway had scarce traffic. Maybe she’d do the Village thingy on her own after the case was solved. And the Shire, why not? Today, she’d drive by. In three hours, she’d be back in the City of Sails.
* * *
Alexa pulled up to the SKYCITY Hotel in the central business district at six thirty p.m. The rate for her room was decent, but she hadn’t factored in the cost of city parking—another twenty dollars for one night in a low-ceilinged garage beneath the hotel. She considered what to do with the bird she had christened Fanny: hotel room or trunk? She pressed her nose to the box and decided to leave it in the dark, cool trunk; the spring night would not hasten decomposition. Plus—it would be hard to sleep with this particular roomie.
Her room was eleven stories above the city, with seductive views of the boat-speckled harbor, the arched bridge, and the slowly revolving Sky Tower. She squinted at the tower, amazed to watch a form jump from the top, plunge straight down, and then jerk halfway back up. The bungee-jumping idiot made her stomach flip-flop, so she erased the view with a swish of drape and flopped on the huge bed. Tension dissipated as she fluffed a second pillow, shoved it under her neck, and promptly fell asleep. Dreamland was not her intent. She’d passed some enticing restaurants on Queen Street—Bistro Enchant, Zomato, Lord of the Fries—and had been excited about a hearty meal and popping into shops if they stayed open late on a Saturday night.
It was nine p.m. when she awoke, groggy and disoriented. Where am I? She wobbled to the bathroom and splashed water on her face and then called the front desk, hoping for room service.
“We have a snack case in the lobby.”
Alexa stayed up another hour, munching a Moro bar and a pack of Krispies and watched two Parks & Rec reruns while taking stock of her six days in Rotorua and the unexpected roller coaster ride it had become.