Xmas Marks The Spot (Merry Summerfield Cozy Mysteries Book 2) Page 10

  He looked from me to Graham to Paul and back again. No doubt noticed the stack of plates and wine glasses. “Am I interrupting?” he surprised me by asking as he sank rather wearily onto a chair.

  I shook my head. “Have you eaten yet?” I knew there was still a chunk of lasagna in the baking dish.

  “Expect I’ll be home in about an hour. A coffee would go down well though?” Goodness, he was sounding almost human. And smelling a great deal less stinky now his cologne had faded by the end of the day.

  I rose to go and make it. “Talk to the men. We have a theory.”

  “I never doubted you would have, Ms Summerfield,” he said. Was he being snarky?

  To my relief there was no sign of Erik and Heather anywhere near the kitchen. I scooped the remaining lasagna into a bowl, gave it a whizz in the microwave oven, and found a fork.

  The DS swallowed and nodded, apparently lost for words when I presented his impromptu supper. Maybe no-one was ever kind to him?

  “Coffee coming up in a minute,” I said. “Anyone else?”

  Paul and Graham both said yes, so I grabbed the tray of plates and glasses and off I went again, hoping I wouldn’t miss anything.

  And I almost did.

  “His son?” Graham was saying as I returned. “Didn’t know he had one. Perce never mentioned him.”

  Whose son? And what’s he done?

  I set the tray of coffees down, waving at them to help themselves. Paul took pity on me and said, “Did you know Haldane had a son?”

  I sat. “How would I know that? I’ve never met him. The first I knew he existed was that notice I found in the car.”

  DS Carver stopped eating for a moment. He looked really hungry, poor man. “The body on the tree has been formally identified as David Hardacre Haldane, nineteen-year-old son of – ”

  “Beefy!” I exclaimed. “Grandson of either Perce Percy or Maisie Hardacre, or possibly both.”

  DS Carver coughed – either on his lasagna or this information – and cleared his throat. “Who’s Maisie Hardacre?”

  “Mrs Perce Percy of Devon Downs, but I was told that in confidence. She’s dead now, anyway.”

  DS Carver took another mouthful, chewed, and swallowed. “And who told you, Ms Summerfield?”

  I tapped the side of my nose. It was something our dad used to do when he had a secret.

  “It’s the Police asking,” Graham said in a warning tone.

  “And they can look it up and check it in the ‘Hatches, Matches and Dispatches’ files,” I snapped. “I’m sure it’s a matter of public record, but I won’t pass on something that I was asked not to.”

  Bruce Carver surprised me by grinning faintly and loading his fork again. “Fair enough,” he said. He must have been hungry enough to abandon his usual sharpness.

  “So where does that leave things?” Paul asked. “We all know Beefy was seriously into drugs. And now his son’s been found dead. Erik saw a couple of big cannabis plots up on Mason’s Ridge. Maybe the notice in the car was warning Beefy to keep away from there? Or to keep his son away? He did mention Mason’s Ridge to me at the Totara Flats church, although he was so high and drunk it was anyone’s guess what he was really talking about.”

  “Finding Mr Haldane is proving a problem,” DC Carver said with evident annoyance. “Can you solve that one for us too, Ms Summerfield?” What a smarmy tone for someone who’d given him food! He was asking with no expectation of a useful answer.

  I clamped my teeth on my bottom lip and then couldn’t keep quiet. “He’s in an old cottage on Devon Downs – probably on the QE2 covenant land.”

  “And you know that how?” Graham demanded.

  I stirred some sugar into my coffee. “Jim Drizzle told me. I think he and Perce go back a long way. Perce told Jim he’d just given Beefy a job keeping an eye on the wetland area and trapping stoats and possums and so on – being a kind of unofficial warden in return for free accommodation. To keep him out of the way. Perce was hoping a calm atmosphere might help him recover from the war trauma and the drugs.”

  I glanced across at Paul. If anyone knew about wartime trauma it was him. His church had assigned Paul to drowsy Drizzle Bay in the hope the bucolic country atmosphere would help with the PTSD he’d sustained from serving as a chaplain in Afghanistan. Plainly they couldn’t have forecast two local murders in more or less as many months.

  “He’s not going to recover from drugs with a son willing to supply him,” Paul said.

  I shook my head. “But apparently he hasn’t got one any longer.”

  Bruce Carver laid down his fork and remembered his manners. “Thank you Ms Summerfield. For the food and the information.” He reached for his coffee.

  “We haven’t solved it yet,” I said. “We know who the body was on the X, but that’s about all so far.”

  “We know how my car must have been unlocked,” Graham said.

  Bruce Carver shot him a gimlet-eyed glance. Plainly there’d be more questions about that tomorrow!

  “Yes,” I agreed, rushing on, “but we don’t know who hid the beef there, or why they chose to do such a strange thing. Or why it didn’t work as a warning.”

  Graham held up a finger. “I’m betting they wanted Perce to give up Beefy’s whereabouts and threatened to steal one of his stud bulls, butcher it, and put the bleeding leg of beef in the trunk of his prize possession – his new Mercedes – if he didn’t tell them.”

  “Unless it was a cow,” I said. I’d been thinking of it as a cow all along.

  Graham made an impatient noise and kept right on going. “And of course they got no reaction from Perce because they put the beef in the wrong car, so they went ahead and killed Beefy junior to stop their cannabis being stolen.”

  “And with you away at your conference it wasn’t discovered for days.”

  “All-round fail,” Paul said. “But you’re right – there’s no indication of who did it.” He raised a brow at Bruce Carver. “This is all supposition, of course. Maybe it wasn’t them growing the cannabis on Mason’s Ridge? Maybe the Haldane son wasn’t stealing it? Maybe the rustlers didn’t kill him after all? Unless the Police are keeping that under wraps for their own good reasons?”

  The DS took another sip of coffee. “Progress is being made, Vicar,” he said with a bland expression. “Not enough to arrest anyone yet and this now seems to have turned from a rustling case to a murder with drugs on the side. Never say there’s not enough to keep us busy.”

  He swallowed the last of his coffee and pushed back his chair. “I’ll be in touch with you separately if that’s okay. Or Detective Wick will. Get things properly documented.”

  We all made noises of agreement, and from somewhere outside I heard the powerful rumble of John’s truck starting up. Or Erik’s truck. Or perhaps they had one each? Who’d know with those two?

  “The Burkeville truck?” the DS asked. “It was there when I arrived.” Yes, he had sharp eyes for sure. Black truck, dark night.

  We all listened to it doing what sounded like a U-turn and burbling off into the distance as Heather re-appeared from the kitchen, looking dreamy and lacking her lipstick. Of course the lack of lipstick might have been because she’d been eating and drinking. I was probably pretty unlipsticked myself by now. Perhaps they really had been talking about making the possible TV commercial? Or maybe fat pink piggies were flying up and down Drizzle Bay Road…

  The DS gave her an assessing once-over as he turned for the door.

  “Paul’s sister, Heather,” I said as I opened it for him. I waited until he was out in the warm, dark air before closing it and returning to the dining room.

  “What did I miss?” Heather was asking.

  “Nothing at all,” Graham assured her.

  She bent and patted Manny, who was keeping close to his master in case he went away again. Wow – nice view down the neck of her T-shirt – had she intended that? Yes, I reckon so!

  And of course this made Graham putty in he
r small capable hands all over again.

  “That would be wonderful if you could get permission from the old farmer tomorrow,” she said, glancing up at him. “As there are children involved we can’t shoot until school breaks up.” She turned to me and straightened. “When do the Christmas school holidays start here?”

  “Different for older and younger students,” I said, checking the time on my watch. “Want me to ask their mother? Do we know if Erik has already mentioned it to Ten Ton?”

  Heather took her seat again. “I’m sure he has. He’ll be flying the other helicopter.”

  Crikey – the things you don’t necessarily know about your friends. I knew Ten Ton was ex Air Force, but had always presumed he was a mechanic. He’s a gigantic man. Tall and broad, but no way fat. Even so, he must weigh twice as much as little Lisa.

  “Yes, that’d be good,” Heather agreed. “And maybe I could have a word about clothes.”

  I’d parked my cell phone on the sideboard so I reached across for it and scrolled to Lisa. She answered almost immediately.

  “I didn’t wake you up then?”

  She laughed at that. “No chance. I can’t get this lot into bed until after nine.”

  I heard bang-crash action movie noises in the background and assumed the kids were watching TV. “It’s about this filming job. I have Paul’s sister, Heather, here with me now and she’d like a word with you. About clothes and so on.”

  “Put her on. I’d like to know more myself. Ten Ton wasn’t exactly forthcoming with details.”

  I stifled a laugh. “I don’t know there’s much set in concrete yet. Is everything good with you? I haven’t seen you for a few days.” As I listened, the background noise died away so I assumed Lisa had taken the phone somewhere quieter.

  “Everything’s fine,” she sighed. “More or less. My campaign to get Ten back home with us isn’t working yet. We need some time away from the kids, and I want them to go to a sports development camp down in Christchurch. Partly because it will be good for them. Partly because it will give us some privacy to try and sort things out. But the camp’s going to cost a heap and he needs to make a contribution to it. I don’t know why he always claims to have no spare money.”

  “There might be some payment for the TV commercial?” I suggested. “Anyway I’ll hand over to Heather and the two of you can sort things.”

  She took my phone and moved through to the privacy of the kitchen, leaving Graham and Paul and I to eavesdrop as best we could. Not a hard task as it happened – her voice would have projected many rows back in a theatre without a microphone.

  Graham turned his empty wine glass around and around. “To summarize,” he said, “we have beef in my car for no reason at all, so we can discount that. It should have been in Perce’s car. We might have Perce being threatened by whoever killed Haldane junior. Or we might not, of course. But who else would it be? He’s sold the farm, so there won’t be any pressure coming to bear from other land owners.”

  “Until they hear about it,” I muttered. “But if it’s a done deal then they’re too late.”

  “So we’re back to these unknown rustlers,” Paul said. “We know someone has been stealing animals from Jim Drizzle. Are they doing it to Perce Percy, too?”

  Graham looked blank. “He didn’t say so, although that might be the least of his worries now he’s sold.”

  “And who does the pot plantation belong to?” I asked. “Was Beefy junior headed in that direction to make off with someone else’s stash or was he just messing around on the beach?”

  Paul pushed his hair back off his forehead. “He could get up to Mason’s Ridge on a dirt bike. Maybe he’s got his own, or maybe he borrowed Beefy’s? The one I saw at my church?”

  I nodded. “So if he was laid out dead on that tree on the beach, where’s the bike? Still there somewhere, or did whoever killed him make off with it? Always supposing that’s where he was killed.”

  “We’re in Police territory now,” Graham said. “But when we get interviewed tomorrow, we could ask.”

  “DS Carver won’t like that,” I said as Heather strolled back into the dining room and handed my phone to me. “Did you see any sign of a motorcycle by the body?”

  She shook her head. “There was no time to see anything much. Once Erik knew what we were looking at, he zoomed off.”

  “But we could ask him what he saw when he went back?” I pushed the phone at her.

  “Got him on mine,” she said with a smile, sitting and scrolling to him. “Long time, no see,” she greeted him. “Can you pull over for a quick chat?” She was silent for a few seconds. “Okay, well I’ve just had a word with the children’s mother and we’ve sorted clothes. Casual stuff, plus swimsuits, so that’s done. And we’re still talking here, of course. Merry’s asking if you saw any sign of a motorcycle when you went back. Dirt bike?” She looked across at me, listening as he answered. “He says no. I’ll put you on speaker,” she added to Erik.

  “So maybe whoever killed him took it,” I said.

  Paul ran his fingers and thumb up and down each side of his chin. “Unless he was dropped off by someone, but that doesn’t really make sense, does it? And it would take ages to walk that far down the beach. Unless you cut through some of Drizzle Farm’s paddocks.”

  Graham turned his coffee cup slowly around on his saucer, gazing into its empty depths. “Could two men, one riding pillion, have followed him if they suspected him of stealing their pot? And after shooting him on the beach, put him on the tree as a warning to anyone else. One of them could have ridden his bike back. Dumped it somewhere.”

  “Not likely anyone would be passing,” Paul said.

  “That’s really a nasty thought,” I agreed. “But I can’t come up with anything better.”

  “So we might have a couple of killers on the loose,” Graham said morosely. “Killing animals, and now killing people as well. I don’t like this at all.”

  “You don’t know for sure they’re killing the animals,” Erik said. “They might be selling them off alive.”

  “They killed at least one,” Graham said. “How would they transport them anywhere else? They’d need a truck for the job. There are all the usual stock carriers on the roads, of course, given the time of year. Have any of you noticed someone out of place?”

  I remembered our drive back from Burkeville and having to adjust the air intake of the Focus as we got too close to that old green truck. It might have been nothing but it did seem worth a mention. I looked across at Heather and Paul. “Do you remember that truck we were following this morning? Not sign-written as I recall, and it was pretty stinky.”

  “Dark green,” Paul said. “Definitely for transporting stock, but I don’t recall any name on it. Might be nothing. Do any of the farmers have their own trucks?”

  This time it was Graham’s turn to stroke his chin. “It would be unusual. Transporting cattle and sheep is specialized work. I can see it’s a possibility if farmers want to ferry stock from one property they own to another on a regular basis – to make the most of available feed and so on – but I’d lay odds they’d be using professionals to take them to the meat processing plants.”

  We all nodded agreement.

  “They’ll have the usual farm runabouts and all-terrain vehicles of course,” he added, “but not often anything larger. Sometimes maybe a trailer with a cage if it’s only a couple of beasts.”

  Erik’s deep voice rumbled out of the phone again. “Too public to tow that behind a pick-up. You’d see what they were carrying. Heather – do you want to ride shotgun with me tomorrow morning if we get permission to do some aerial surveillance from that old farmer? Two pairs of eyes are better than one.”

  Heather gave a grudging laugh. “Unfortunate description, ‘riding shotgun’.”

  “Yeah – wasn’t a shotgun that killed that kid, though. One rifle shot to the chest.”

  “Don’t,” she said softly.

  8 – Cross Country />
  Erik, being Erik, decided he could fly over anything he wanted to without waiting for permission.

  “So are you on for reasonably early in the morning?” we heard him drawl. “Maybe about 8.30? I have things to do later.”

  “And I suppose you’ll both have to talk to Carver or Wick,” Paul said.

  Heather puffed out an impatient breath. “They can wait. I really can’t tell them anything more than Erik already did.”

  “You got transport or you want me to collect you?” he asked.

  She looked across at Paul. “Is your car fixed yet?”

  “With any luck I’m collecting it from Ten Ton by midday – he was waiting for a replacement radiator.”

  “I can take you,” I said. I remembered Erik and John and Heather had all shared the first flight. Why not Erik and Heather and me this time around? “So we come to Kirkpatrick’s barn around 8.30?”

  “Okey-dokey,” Erik said, although no actual invitation to fly was issued. Surely he wouldn’t be so cruel as to leave me standing by the barn while he flew off with Heather?

  “You know where you’re going?” Graham asked. That was aimed at Erik, not me.

  “Yup – pulled it up on the sat-map.”

  “Devon Downs,” Graham said, wanting to make sure.

  “Yup – can see the lake. Might have to land outside the fenced area if we do this for real. There’s a lot of native forest.”

  “Bush,” Graham said.

  “Bigger than bushes! But yes, I know that’s what you Kiwis call it.”

  “No idea why,” I said. “But it’s the areas of original native vegetation. For instance, you wouldn’t call that pine plantation ‘bush’.”

  “And over in Aussie,” Graham added, “They call everything outside the cities ‘bush’, and it’s mostly open space with damn-all bushes.”

  “Strange world, Down Under,” Erik agreed with a smile in his voice. “Anyway, we’ll have a look in the morning, and if it’s not suitable then no point even asking the owner.”

  “I’ll be phoning him anyway,” Graham said. “See how he’s coping.”