Southern Sunset: Book One of 44 South Page 11
Luke shook himself visibly, control sweeping down over his thrumming frame in the next heartbeat. And then he was crossing the street and heading off camera.
“Can you follow him?” I asked.
“Yes, but you need to see this first.”
The door to Smokey’s opened again, this time the familiar figure of James Whiting staggered out onto the path. Barely five minutes had passed on the screen from the time Luke emerged from the tavern until Whiting came out and vomited down the drain.
Five minutes.
“What time does that say?” I asked, my body numbing.
“Just after nine-thirty in the evening,” Alicia offered. I could feel her keen gaze on my face.
How long did it take to drive from Twizel out to Red Tussock? How accurate could Luke’s parents be with their timeline for his arrival home that night? Damn it, I needed a confirmed time of death. I breathed deeply through my nose and forced myself to look directly at Alicia Parsons.
“Anything else you’d like to show me, Ms Parsons?”
“Alicia, please, Sergeant. We’re friends.”
“We are?”
“I like you,” she said simply. “If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t be helping you out.”
I wasn’t so sure that was the case.
“Can I have a copy of all your surveillance footage for that evening, please?” I asked, sounding exactly as a police sergeant should.
“Well, that is a little more complicated.”
“How is it complicated?”
“I’ll need to see a warrant.”
I almost laughed. This was fucking Twizel. No one obeyed the rules here. But Alicia Parsons, who was ‘helping me out’ needed to be ordered by law to hand over her tapes.
“Why?” I asked.
“We might be friends, Sergeant. But an artist must protect her copyrights.”
My brow arched. “Copyrights?”
She waved a hand toward her CCTV screens. “This is my work. My art, you see,” she said. “I will not part with it willingly.”
As far as an argument went, it made a certain kind of Twizel sense. Alicia Parsons was a voyeur, who considered her electronic surveillance of the Twizel town centre to be a form of art. I stared at her, unsure if a word she had said was the truth. There was something about this woman that set my alarm bells clanging. I couldn’t pinpoint it exactly. But, come on! Who has thousands of dollars worth of state of the art video equipment in and around their small town souvenir shop?
I nodded my head and offered a smile. I hoped it didn’t look too fake. Now that I was aware of that tell, I was making an effort to be convincing. I wasn’t sure it was working, but rather making me look unhinged instead.
“OK, then,” I finally said. “Can I at least ask that you don’t share it with the press?”
“But it is art, Sergeant. And art is to be shared.”
“But not handed to the police to assist in an investigation into a suspicious death?”
She smiled. It was more believable than mine, at a guess.
“I have helped, have I not?” she queried.
“You’ve been a wonderful source of information, Ms Parsons.”
“Alicia,” she repeated. I just smiled.
I said my farewells then, eager to be away from this peculiar woman, and walked back out onto the street. The salmon followed me.
“Does it have audio?” I asked, holding the door open so its tail fin wouldn’t get crushed.
“Oh, yes,” Alicia replied enthusiastically. “Bluetooth transmission right to the base unit.”
Great. She waved as I closed the door and the salmon floated away. I watched it for a moment, then scanned the street for Mac. I couldn’t spot the senior constable and his recruit. Nor could I see the Timaru Herald woman.
I took that as a good sign and headed toward my police car. When I rolled the unit past Smokey’s, I started the stopwatch app on my cell phone. And then drove flat out towards Red Tussock.
Chapter 22
Step Back, Please
Luke
Maggie was here. I could see her vehicle from the office window as it made its way up our long drive. She wasn’t going slowly. Not hard out, but not dead slow either. I scratched at my jaw and felt my eyes narrow.
“Something wrong, boss?” Charlie asked from over my shoulder. We’d been going through staff schedules and stock weights.
“Maggie’s here,” I said.
“Maggie?”
“Sergeant Blackmore.” It angered me that I couldn’t, shouldn’t, call her by her first name. After last night, she was only Maggie to me. But after this morning, I wasn’t so sure.
“Back again?” Charlie mused. “She’s got a bee in her bonnet over those sheep, at a guess.”
“It’s not just the sheep,” I corrected him. “A man was found dead on our property, of course the police will be asking questions.”
“What do you know about it, though?”
“Same as you, but that’s irrelevant. Dead man and dead sheep don’t exactly add up.”
I turned away from the window and met Charlie’s gaze. Maggie was still a good minute or more away from arriving.
“So, why isn’t Matt looking into it?” he asked.
“Matt trusts his staff.”
Charlie scoffed at that. I could hardly blame him. Matt had been AWOL for a while.
“You better get on to that rota,” I said, nodding to the sheet of paper in his hand.
“OK, boss. Anything else?”
I shook my head and Charlie sauntered out of the office. Taking a moment or two to straighten my desk, I tried to decide if Maggie’s arrival was a good thing or not. Failing to come up with an answer to that, I stopped fussing with my paperwork and flicked my gaze out of the window again. Maggie was pulling her vehicle through the homestead’s gates. Charlie’s ute had already left, taking the back access road up to the main shed, probably.
Allowing myself a brief second to straighten my shirt, I strode out of the office and down the stairs. By the time I reached Maggie, she was out of her car, staring closely at the two remaining Red Tussock Rangers on the circular return.
I stopped at the top of the steps to the veranda and crossed my arms over my chest and just watched. She must have sensed my arrival, because she pulled back from looking in Matt’s truck and offered a smile.
I could almost believe it to be real.
“You’re early,” I said.
“I missed you,” she replied, this time the smile was genuine.
I couldn’t help but smile back. I started walking toward her, taking my time, dragging out the moment. “I’m not above taking advantage of your infatuation,” I admitted.
This time it was Maggie who crossed her arms over her chest.
“Really?” she asked. “And what of your insistence that we meet again tonight?”
“Reality,” I growled, moving closer.
“You live in a very different reality to me, Mr Drake.”
“Maggie,” I drawled. “Are we back to that?” I closed in on her, entering her personal space, forcing her back against Matt’s truck. “If you insist on calling me Mr Drake, I’ll insist on tying you up.”
“Tying me up?” She looked alarmed.
“Making you beg,” I said, wrapping my hand around the back of her neck.
“I don’t beg.”
“Sweetheart, you were begging all last night. And you’ll be begging again, if I say anything about it.”
“You can be extremely cocky for a farmer,” she growled.
I let out a huff of laughter. “And you can be very stubborn for a cop. I will have you again, Maggie. With or without the handcuffs.”
She held my gaze, her pulse fluttering under my thumb. I applied a little pressure, making it thrum. Licking her lips, she sliced her eyes away. I wanted to demand she look back at me. I wanted to tip her head back and devour her mouth. I made a sound, poised to pounce.
And Maggie s
aid, “Red Tussock’s a long way from town.”
What? “Yeah.”
“Took me twenty minutes to get here,” she said.
“You must have been booking it. Lights and sirens?” I asked on a smile.
Her eyes came back to my face and got snagged on my mouth.
“Were you that keen to see me, Mags?” I said, sounding way too sure of myself now.
Her lips thinned. “No pet names.”
“Mags isn’t a pet name. Just an abbreviation of your given name.”
“I’ve already got one abbreviation, I don’t need another.”
“So, it’s Margaret, then?”
“I prefer Maggie.”
“So do I.”
We stared at each other, tension zinging down both our frames. I wanted so badly to kiss her, taste her, consume her, but something was holding me back. Not my fucking libido, that was for sure. My body was tight, my blood was pumping, my skin on fire, desperate for her touch.
My head had other thoughts about the whole seduction thing.
“Why are you here, Maggie?” I asked.
She bit her lip. I’d never seen Maggie bite her lip before. It was cute, in a distracting kind of way, but it wasn’t the Maggie I’d come to know in such a short amount of time. Hell, she hadn’t even bitten her lip when she’d waltzed into the kitchen the morning after the wedding. And Maggie had been nervous then.
“What’s going on?”
“I can’t say.”
I stilled, my hand at her neck aching to flex. To pull her closer. Hold her tighter. Not let this woman get away.
“Am I a suspect again?” I asked, my voice leaden.
Her eyes came up to meet mine. “Twenty minutes,” she said. “Twenty minutes from outside Smokey’s to Red Tussock’s last remaining gate. That’s not enough time.”
“Time for what?”
She let out a long breath of air and stepped away.
“There’s video footage of you leaving Smokey’s.”
Shit. I didn’t like this.
“Just after nine-thirty Friday night.”
“Yeah?” I pressed, because despite her insistence on not sharing with me, this looked pretty fucking much like sharing right now.
“Twenty minutes if you went flat out from town to here.”
“I don’t understand.” But I was thinking I did. I was a suspect again. And Maggie was slipping away.
“It’s not enough time.” She shook her head, her eyes snagging on something inside Matt’s ute. Her whole body stilled. Her hand fucking went to her sidearm. I took a step backwards, my heart in my throat, my eyes bugging, sweat - fucking sweat! - beading my brow.
“Whose vehicle is this?” Maggie demanded. This time when she looked at me she was all cop.
I just stared at her.
“I’m searching this vehicle under suspicion that it contains evidence pertaining to a crime.”
“Maggie?” I asked.
“Step back, please.”
“Maggie, what the fuck?”
Her fingers reached for the door handle to the truck. I stepped forward, scanning the interior of the cab, coming up blank, while I placed my hand over hers, halting her progress.
“Don’t do this,” I murmured.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Step back,” she said, voice quiet.
Fuck.
I stepped back. What else could I do? Maggie wasn’t Maggie right now. She was Sergeant Blackmore, searching my brother’s car because she’d seen something to make her react.
I don’t know what I expected her to pull out of Matt’s Ranger, but it wasn’t a simple wallet. She held it carefully between her finger and thumb by the very edge, then used a glove from her pocket to prevent further transfer of prints on the leather. And then she opened it up.
“Whose vehicle is this?” she repeated.
“Whose wallet is that?” I shot back.
She looked at me then. I couldn’t read her eyes. I couldn’t read her face. This was the cop I’d first met. Unreadable.
“Maggie?” I tried.
“It’s James Whiting’s wallet, Mr Drake. Now who the fuck drives this truck?”
Chapter 23
That Explained A Lot
Maggie
Oh, God. I couldn’t tell the trucks apart. I couldn’t see the licence plates from where I was standing. And I couldn’t seem to walk the few steps required to prove this wasn’t Luke’s truck, but someone else's.
Someone else who belonged to Red Tussock and had possession of James Whiting’s missing wallet.
Please, God. Please.
“It’s Matt’s,” Luke said, sounding stunned.
He should be stunned. I’d been stunned. And now I was relieved, which was just plain wrong.
“OK,” I said.
“OK?” Luke repeated, incredulously. “How is this OK?”
It’s not your vehicle, I wanted to say. Instead, I said, “There’ll be an explanation.” Either one that condemned Matt Drake or exonerated him.
“Damn straight there’s an explanation. Just ask Matt.”
“I plan to,” I said, finally making my legs move.
I walked to the back of my car and opened the boot. Reaching in, I grabbed an evidence bag from my case box, then slipped the wallet inside, sealing it closed. Sealing it away, as if I could seal away this clue. For a second, I just stared at it. What the hell was Matt Drake doing with Whiting’s wallet? And why the hell did he leave it visible, out on the front seat of his ute, for anyone to see? Not only visible, but Whiting’s drivers license had slipped out, making it damn near impossible to miss the significance of the item sitting alone on the front passenger seat.
None of this made sense. But right now, I needed to calm Luke.
“This is ridiculous!” he shouted, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “Matt’s got nothing to do with this.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said. “Where is he?”
“I…” He shook his head. “Maggie,” he said. It sounded lost and afraid and cautious. “I’m not sure how much I should be helping you.”
“Do you want Matt cleared of this crime?” I immediately demanded.
“Of course!”
“Then work with me.”
“But…”
“There’s no ‘but’, only the truth.”
He started to pace. Gravel got kicked up from under his boots. The sun shone into my eyes, making me squint. It was lower in the sky, heading towards Mount Glenmary. Making the snow-capped mountains sparkle like a swathe of diamonds, scattered across the landscape.
How could such a beautiful place be steeped in so much misery?
“He went riding,” Luke finally said.
“Why?”
He turned and looked at me, his eyes begging me not to ask the hard questions. But where Matt Drake was concerned, all the questions seemed to be hard.
“Luke,” I said, moving closer. He stiffened. He wouldn’t have welcomed contact from me right then.
I felt a chasm inside me widen. A hole emerge. I was familiar with its bleakness. I’d only just managed to fill Michael’s hole inside me. With this man.
I swallowed and let out a soft breath of air. “Luke,” I said again. “I need to know what’s going on. If I can find a valid reason for this wallet being inside Matt’s truck, then I can clear him of any wrongdoing.”
He nodded his head, his lips firmly closed.
“Did he know James Whiting?” I asked.
“Matt doesn’t have much to do with the station,” he finally allowed. Every word seemed to be torn out of him. “He owns shares, we all do. So he sits in on shareholder meetings. But, as a rule, he leaves the day to day running to me and Justin.”
“So, he wouldn’t have ever met James Whiting?”
Luke shook his head. “I can’t see any reason for them to have crossed paths.”
I looked out towards the mountains, letting my eyes burn from the sun’s low rays.
Luke shook his head again, frustration marring his features. “He only started drinking heavily about six months ago. Before then, he was straight as an arrow.”
“The good cop,” I guessed.
“His job was everything to him.” Hard to believe now.
I swiped my fringe out of my eyes and looked back at Matt’s vehicle. “I’m going to have to search it thoroughly,” I admitted.
“Ah,” he muttered, looking uncomfortable. “Don’t you need a search warrant for that?”
Fucking Twizel and their search warrants.
My turn to shake my head. “Not now.” I nodded toward the evidence bag in my boot.
“Oh,” he said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “I see.”
“Do you want to watch?” I asked. “Or would it be easier for you to step away?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, then pulled his hands free of his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest. Defiantly. “I’ll watch, thank you.”
My heart weighed a thousand tonnes. My body felt bone weary. I nodded my head, donned latex gloves, and started sifting through the interior of the Ranger. RED 4. That’s what the licence plate said. I was surprised Matt had a Red Tussock truck; I’d seen him in a police ute, as well.
“Why does he have a Red Tussock Ranger?” I asked over my shoulder.
“It pays to have more than one vehicle in Mackenzie Country,” Luke offered. “He keeps this one on rangeland. Uses it, sometimes, when he wants to cut himself off from his day job.”
I stood up from the driver’s side doorway and looked across the bonnet of the car toward Luke. “Like, if he wants to go out for a drink?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Wouldn’t make a difference. Everyone in town knows he’s the Twizel senior sergeant. But occasionally, he’d take the family for a trip up Mount Cook. Or across to Timaru. Things like that. He used this truck for when he wanted to be… normal.”
Normal family. Normal husband and father.
“Where’s his wife?” I asked, leaning back down again to continue searching. I hadn’t met Mrs Matt Drake. I’d gathered she wasn’t around. I certainly hadn’t seen her at the homestead or with her daughters. Matt was always alone. The twins, as far as I’d seen, and admittedly I’d not seen much, had always been with a relative.