A week later, in an Auckland coffee shop, Alexa was poring over the New Zealand Herald. Mud pot murder news had faded. “Maori Celebrate as Chief ’s Skull Returned” was today’s front page news. According to the article, an international smuggling sting, headed by Customs Agent P. E. Wilkie, confiscated a skull in Singapore and returned it to Rotorua during freak gale force winds. There was a photograph of Agent Wilkie. Alexa looked.
And then looked again.
Still in ball cap and shades, Agent Wilkie looked suspiciously like Philip from the spa.
Bare butt guy was an undercover customs agent.
Alexa laughed and went back to reading the article. The distinctive facial patterns, smoked to permanency two and a half centuries ago, made identification easy. Respected Maori leader Lee Ngawata was quoted: “A traditional ceremony will reacquaint our ancestral chief with his pito and whenua (umbilical cord and placenta) so that his spirit can sleep the sweet slumber of eternity and then the gales will cease.”
Reunification with the rest of the skeleton and ultimate burial would take place in a secret location.
Alexa sipped her flat white coffee and considered Ngawata’s words: only then will the gales cease. She whipped out her phone to check Rotorua weather: severe nor’easters battering Bay of Plenty area; many without power.
A gust of wind blew the café door open. Three hours north of Rotorua. They had better hurry up with the reburial.
Maybe it’s time to bury some of my own baggage too?
Alexa picked up the paper to finish. Other items, including human bone fish hooks and greenstone clubs intended for the overseas black market, had been recovered and also would be returned to local iwi.
She kept reading. Detective Inspector Bruce Horne was quoted, “Individuals in Rotorua, Auckland, Wellington, and Singapore were participating in criminal activities including conspiracy, trafficking in and possession of stolen antiquities. We are proud to have worked together with national and international agents to end this assault on New Zealand’s rich cultural history and to have solved the connected murders of Paul Koppel and Ray Herera.”
Buried treasure had lured William Dittmer to kill two men and attempt to kill Jenny. But what about Paul Koppel? Why had he risked his cosmos for a few thousand dollars? Didn’t he realize the riches of his ordinary life?
Alexa finished the article and set the paper down. She took a last sip of her flat white and thought about the message she had received two days ago.
“Horne here. Er, I mean Bruce.”
Alexa had laughed. Finally, we’re on a first-name basis. The message had ended with a brief “About that rain check. Give me a ring.”
She thought of the glacial eyes and hard body. The man had his own buried treasures and woes. She wasn’t sure she wanted to dig them up and so far hadn’t returned his call. Her fingers brushed over the numbers, but then she dropped her cell into her tote and looked down at dirty Keds.
Tomorrow.
Time to go. She had an interview with Dan Goddard, Mr. Red Sneakers, at the Auckland forensics lab. Fingers crossed, she headed for the door that New Zealand had flung wide open.