Xmas Marks The Spot (Merry Summerfield Cozy Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  “Tea or coffee?” I asked. Once again I was turned down so I led them through to the big front sitting room with its view out over the sea. We went around and around in circles with the questions because I really couldn’t tell them much more than what I’d reported on the phone, and I’d already given them Graham’s cell phone number so they could ring him.

  “Who’s this Beefy Haldane?” I asked when DS Carver finally stopped to draw breath.

  “Ah,” he said unhelpfully.

  “Something to do with the cattle rustling?” (Or possibly sheep rustling for all I knew.)

  “Connected. Connected,” he conceded while Detective Wick opened her eyes even wider.

  “Connected to Graham as well?” I pressed.

  “It’s too early to know,” DS Carver stated, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning further toward me. I edged away to avoid the cologne, which even toward the end of the morning was still super strong.

  Marion Wick smelled fantastic by comparison. Once again I imagined her cuddled up to John Bonnington from the Burkeville Bar and Café with him sniffing her neck and dropping kisses down the front of her shirt. I had no actual evidence of such a liaison, but plenty of suspicions.

  “Well, he’s got to be connected somehow, doesn’t he?” I suggested. “Otherwise, why choose Graham’s car? And how did anyone unlock the garage, unlock the car, avoid making the dogs suspicious, and then lock everything up again? In fact it might have been two people because that meat weighed a ton.”

  DS Carver chewed the inside of his cheek for a few seconds. “We have a theory… and only a theory at this time… that the car may have been tampered with in the parking lot at his place of work. On Friday, perhaps.”

  Huh! Not so stupid after all.

  “But keep that to yourself please, Ms Summerfield. Currently we have no reason to believe your brother is involved in anything illegal.”

  I’m sure my eyes shot so wide open they became at least as large as Marion Wick’s. “I certainly hope not!” I said in my best huffy tone. “He’s a lawyer. He doesn’t need extra money, and he’s boringly trustworthy.” I tossed my head and my pony-tail whacked a china cat off the bookshelf behind me. “For what it’s worth, I like your parking lot theory. I would have heard the dogs if it had been done here.” I picked the cat up. Sadly it was still unbroken. I’d given it to my mother for Christmas when I was a child, and it was kind of too big a memory to throw out while it remained whole.

  “You haven’t been away on any of your pet-minding assignments?” Detective Wick asked, narrowing her eyes at the ugly cat.

  “This week I’m pet-minding right here at home,” I snapped, adding a sniff to emphasize that fact.

  There didn’t seem to be much more to say on either side so they were gone before lunchtime. I slipped into the garage, sprayed another dose of Eastern Rose inside the car, and retired, coughing, to let the spaniels off their chains now there’d be no-one else to chase. Then, finding some common sense at last, I drove the Merc out of the garage, opened all the windows and the trunk, and let the summer sea breeze flow through. It was only then I noticed the beef was no longer in the middle of the driveway. Had the Police taken it as evidence? I decided it was more likely they’d dropped it off at the local landfill for me. What darlings!

  *

  “Hi, Paul,” I said as the vicar pulled his front door closed later that afternoon and the shiny brass knocker bounced with a bang on the equally shiny striker plate fixed to the glossy red enamel paint. He’s painted the church railings, too, and old Peggy Legget’s back porch. Jasper Hornbeam is the village’s ‘official’ handyman, but Paul McCreagh likes doing practical jobs too, as long as he can fly under the radar. They sometimes team up and I think they both enjoy the DIY and the company.

  I looked up at the sky and wrinkled my nose. “Our fine day seems to be clouding over. It’ll be a pity if Heather’s first sight of Drizzle Bay is through actual drizzle.”

  Paul’s far too tempting for a man of God. There’s at least six feet of him, topped by a thatch of short wavy dark hair which matches his mobile eyebrows and dark brown eyes.

  He laughed at my ‘drizzle’ comment. He’s too kind not to. “Do I look okay?” he asked.

  Any other man would be fishing for compliments but I’m sure he simply wanted assurance his sister would approve of his appearance. Dark gray trousers, sage green shirt, shiny black shoes. Totally respectable, and not a hint of churchiness about him. Interesting.

  “Very impressive,” I assured him. “You look exactly right for Graham’s posh car. Hop in, because I have a ridiculous story to tell you.”

  He raised one of the aforementioned eyebrows before pulling the passenger door open and settling into the leather-upholstered seat. He sniffed. “Does your brother like roses?”

  I grinned as I navigated out into the road. It’s a beautiful car to drive but I was conscious of its size, not to mention its price tag. “That’s part of the ridiculous story. I went out to the garage early this morning to remove Graham’s golf clubs so there’d be plenty of room for Heather’s luggage and instead I found a quarter of a cow and a threatening notice.”

  I glanced over briefly to see how he’d taken that.

  “Good grief woman, you attract trouble,” he said in a surprisingly mild tone. “I’m guessing the threatening notice wasn’t meant for you, though? Why would anyone have it in for Graham?”

  “It wasn’t meant for Graham, either. Have you come across anyone called Beefy Haldane?”

  I saw him swallow. “Dammit,” he said. “He’s not a good person to know, Merry. A real loner. A wild man. And I mean that in the sense of a man who lives miles away from civilization and seems to live only by his own rules.”

  The lights on the railway crossing ahead of us started to flash, and as I drew nearer the frantic ‘ding-ding-ding’ of the warning signal became audible. Once I’d brought the big quiet car to a halt I turned to Paul and said, “It wasn’t from this Beefy person to Graham. It was telling Beefy to watch out, but someone had broken into Graham’s car and left it there.”

  I found the photo on my phone and passed it over to him while we were stopped. “Graham’s in Melbourne. That’s why I could pinch his car when yours packed up. I tried ringing him, but I timed it really badly because he was on the point of giving a speech. I’d already called the cops and it’s in their hands now.” I looked at Paul more closely. “So how do you know Beefy Haldane? A loner and a wild man? He doesn’t sound like a church-goer.”

  Paul remained silent for a few seconds and then said with obvious reluctance, “There was an incident out at my Totara Flat church a few weeks ago. He smashed the lock with the big stone we use as a door-stop. There’s no money kept there. The old chap who gives me a hand with the lawns called me and said there was a madman inside.”

  I drew a sharp breath at that. “And I suppose you tore off on your own to investigate?”

  He jerked a shoulder. “I expected a teenager with a bad attitude. Instead I found a man who looked more like a bear – all hair and incoherent growls. My church stank of cannabis, and he’d located the communion wine, too. All gone – not that there was much of it. He was waving a rifle around and taking pot-shots at the rafters.”

  For the second time that day my gorge rose and I thought I might be sick. “Paul!” I exclaimed. “He could have killed you.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, and the corners of his mouth pulled up in the faintest of grins. “But I do have heavenly protection, you know.”

  “Does that work with drunken madmen?”

  He nodded very slowly. “There are some benefits to having been a chaplain in Afghanistan, Merry. We had a long talk about guns.”

  I know my eyebrows rose. I almost choked, huffing in a surprised breath and having to cough a couple of times.

  “He was very keen to get his hands on a military style assault rifle now they’ve changed the gun laws,” Paul continued. “Of course I have no
idea how to get one,” – he rolled his eyes at me – “but I managed to keep him talking until he calmed down, came to his senses somewhat, and staggered out. He took off across the open countryside on the muddiest motorbike you ever saw.”

  “Thank heavens for that.”

  Paul rubbed a hand across his mouth. “There’s one other thing; Roddy.”

  At that moment the freight train reached the level crossing and roared across, making further conversation impossible until it had rattled by. Even the superior soundproofing of the Merc wasn’t a match for a diesel electric engine at full speed and its following collection of rushing, clanking flat-beds with multi-colored shipping containers and piles of de-barked logs from the forests further north. Paul and I looked at each other with apologetic shrugs, unable to continue until we could hear each other again.

  It gave me plenty of time to remember Roddy. The poor man’s surname was Whitebottom. I’ve heard of Winterbottoms, which are pretty bad, and Ramsbottoms, which aren’t much better, but Roddy’s name took the cake. He’d come to Paul for counseling in Afghanistan when his promiscuous behavior got him into trouble, read more into Paul’s concern than religious care, and turned into a real nuisance. Turned up in Drizzle Bay, too, and had to be gently but firmly discouraged.

  Finally the signal gave up its frantic dinging and the lights stopped flashing.

  “We had to get a few holes in the roof mended,” Paul said. “Good thing it was corrugated metal and not hundred-year-old slates or Marseilles tiles. We’d have had a job matching those.”

  I accelerated smoothly away and onto the main highway. The rear-view mirror told me there were plenty more vehicles following us. It’s amazing how traffic builds up, even in such a small place. “So he took off on a motorbike and you were okay?” I was much more interested in Paul’s safety than the state of the church roof.

  “I called the police of course, but as he wasn’t on a public road and seemed to be heading for the hills, I think they concluded he’d be safely out of everyone’s way for a while.”

  “And was he – um – ‘known to the police’ as they say?”

  Paul nodded. “Known many times over. As a nuisance rather than a criminal, but the gun got them rattled. I don’t think they’d tied him to firearms before.”

  I wasn’t letting him get away with raising a topic like troublemaker Roddy and then dropping it. “Yes, so what about Roddy?”

  If ever I’d seen a man who didn’t want to talk about something, here he was.

  He cleared his throat, stayed silent for a while, and finally said, “It turned out Beefy Haldane was who Roddy went bush with.”

  “Well, they’ll make a great pair,” I said unkindly. “A hairy bear and your delicate friend.”

  “Not my friend,” Paul grated. “He’s a good shot, though. And a mischief maker. I don’t imagine they’re up to any good together.”

  I gnawed on my bottom lip. “There was nothing about the church break-in in any of the news feeds.”

  “No. They told me they thought he was part of something bigger and they wanted to stay quiet about it for a while.”

  I immediately thought of the possible rustling on Jim Drizzle’s farm. Lord Drizzle, to be correct. As the last surviving member of a noble old English family he’s inherited the title, but seems a lot happier being a New Zealand farmer than an English lord. He does pop over to England periodically though and do a bit of voting in the House of Lords – no doubt on matters that influence the sale and importation of the beef and lamb he produces.

  I looked sideways and caught Paul’s eye. “Well, I’m swearing you to silence on this, but I dug a little nugget out of DS Carver this morning. They’re investigating some local rustling. Part of a cow left in Graham’s car… beef of course… and a warning message for Beefy Haldane. Possible, you reckon?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Rustling? Good grief – are we in the Wild West?” He reached up and adjusted his sun visor against the bright overcast sky. “I wouldn’t put it past them though.”

  We were coming up to a notorious bend where the Police often waited for speedsters. Sure enough they were there again, right as the lime green and black ‘boy-racer’ car that had been following me too closely chose to overtake with a great roar and a cloud of stinky smoke. I hope they got a good shot of its registration plate.

  “Pack of fools,” I muttered.

  Paul nodded, and then surprised me by grinning. “We were all young once.”

  “I was never that young,” I protested.

  “I’m sure you were a very proper young lady,” he said, smile undimmed.

  Not that proper either, I couldn’t help thinking.

  I turned the ventilation up a notch in the hope it would hurry the departure of the cloying rosy fragrance and the new whiff of stinky smoke. And possibly cool down any extra pink in my cheeks. “I would have been trying to evade the clutches of Duncan Skene at that age. And not entirely succeeding.”

  “Your barely lamented ex?” His gaze sharpened and I wondered, not for the first time, if Paul was interested in me as more than a friend. I also wondered if I’d ever make a suitable wife for a vicar. They might not be allowed to marry anyone who’s been divorced – another thing I needed to Google, although Prince Harry now has his Meghan…

  And I’m probably getting way ahead of myself here.

  2 – Heather for Christmas

  “So tell me more about your sister,” I suggested as we glided along. “Older or younger than you? Single or married?” I was presuming single because there’d been no mention of children coming with her. We’d have needed to hire a minibus if so because I wasn’t silly enough to invite a selection of small fractious English children to romp all over Graham’s pale gray leather upholstery and scuff it with shoe buckles or the studs and zippers on trendy jeans.

  In fact there’d been virtually no mention of a sister at all in the short time I’d known Paul. It was only by chance that he’d been painting the church railings when I stopped to put a notice on the community board about my new live-in pet-minding services. He’d looked nothing like a vicar on that occasion, and to be honest I’d been ogling the tanned legs on the handsome handyman as I drew nearer, and got one heck of a fright to find it was him under the hat. Then we’d had the misfortune to discover Isobel’s body sprawled in the aisle of his church – more of a misfortune for her than us, of course – which led rapidly to my first pet- minding assignment and more of Paul’s company.

  “Two years younger,” he said. “And widowed. I’m hoping this trip to New Zealand will cheer her up a bit.”

  “She doesn’t have kids, does she?”

  “No children, more’s the pity. It would have given her a distraction from Robert’s death. She’s been moldering away for more than a year now. I know that probably seems harsh but it’s how our mother describes her to me.”

  “Moldering,” I repeated. “Sounds so sad.”

  “Sad and a bit self-indulgent, according to Mother.”

  I shot a sharp glance in his direction. “Does Mother still have a husband? Is she in any fit state to judge sorrow?”

  (To be honest, I’d asked Jim Drizzle about Paul’s politician father, but I wasn’t admitting that to him.)

  “No, I no longer have a father,” Paul said, although he had the good grace to attach a smile to his somewhat snarky reply.

  Hmmm. So the sister would be around forty and unhappy. She didn’t sound the ideal guest for our gentle vicar who’d been ‘sent to the colonies’ to try and recover from the PTSD he’d sustained as a result of his work in Afghanistan.

  I signaled to pull out, and overtook an elderly VW Beetle. “It’ll be different for her to have a summertime Christmas instead of a winter one. What are her interests? How are you going to occupy her – apart from some time on the beach?”

  Paul did that thing men sometimes do when they’re thinking… scraping his forefinger and thumb up and down over the bristles on his chin, pur
sing his lips, and considering. “She’s a keen golfer,” he said. “Although there’s no way she’ll have bought her clubs with her. The excess baggage charge would be horrendous.”

  “They’d fit in the back if she has,” I assured him. “Graham mostly kept his there. But either he’d deliberately taken them out so there’d be room for the beef – which is ridiculous – or he’d decided to have a go with the Auto Vac because I found them leaning against the garage wall. Maybe she could borrow his? Or do they have bags and clubs they hire out?”

  Paul gnawed on the inside of his cheek, still plainly deep in thought, and probably no longer about golf. “She likes cooking. Mother was trying to get her to apply for that Bake-off program on TV but she wouldn’t. Last time, while Robert was still alive, she was busting to.”

  “Well, at least you’ll be well fed while she’s staying. Maybe she could see if Iona at the café needs a hand with any Christmas goodies?”

  He stroked his chin some more while he thought about that. “She used to enjoy hiking and rambling,” he finally added. “The English countryside is a lot easier than some of the bush tracks here, but we could try that.”

  We? Was I included? Or did he mean him and his sister?

  “Sounds a great idea,” I said, also giving nothing away. I decided to buy some suitable new shoes, in case. My ratty old sneakers were only good for the garden now and for sure wouldn’t be any use for serious tramping.

  Tramping – hmmm. Kiwi. Rambling sounded English, and I’m sure Americans hiked. You have to watch out for things like that when you’re a freelance editor. That’s what I really do for my living – the live-in pet-minding is an recent added extra to give me some privacy away from Graham.

  Oh well – it would be a calorie-burning walk in the fresh air with trees and views, whatever we called it. I noted that Paul was already referring to our vast native forests as ‘bush’. A tame name for something that included majestic kauri trees sometimes two or three thousand years old and of such a size you gasp out loud when you first see them.

  We drove on, mostly in companionable silence. I suspected Paul was a bit worried about the extent of Heather’s ‘moldering’. I didn’t like to ask, but I pictured his mother as one of those efficient tweedy ladies who bossed English villages around. Always on a committee organizing something. Or perhaps taking a recalcitrant family member in hand.