Southern Sunset: Book One of 44 South Read online

  Mrs Senior Sergeant Matt Drake was missing from this normal, happy family.

  Luke hadn’t answered my question, so I pushed myself back out of the truck and stood up. He was staring hard at me, a puzzled expression on his face. His head cocked, lips thinned. Dark, turbulent eyes unblinking.

  “No one’s told you,” he said. Not a question, but I replied.

  “Told me what?”

  Luke uncrossed his arms and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Missy died six months ago,” he said. “Driving a Red Tussock truck.”

  I grimaced. “A car accident.”

  “You could say that.”

  I met his eyes. “What would you say, Luke?”

  He blinked. Then blinked again. Then offered a shake of his head and a sigh.

  “It was no accident,” he said. “Haven’t got proof of that, of course. But it was no accident.”

  Shit. This didn’t sound good.

  “Why not?”

  “Damn it, Maggie. This is Matt’s story to tell.”

  I shook my head, feeling infinitely sorry for doing this. But Matt Drake lost the opportunity to come clean, when a dead man’s missing wallet turned up in his car.

  “Not anymore,” I said. “Help him, by helping me. How was it not an accident?”

  “She had the twins in the car.”

  I stilled. Images flashing through my mind. Not a car accident, but something else. Guns firing. Muzzles flaring. Dead bodies in a pile on plush carpet.

  Michael.

  “What happened?” I asked, swallowing thickly.

  Luke looked terrible. Utterly spent.

  “She drove into a ravine along Mount Cook Road.”

  I frowned.

  “How was that not an…”

  “Missy drove like a nana when she had the twins in the ute. The tyre marks on the tar seal indicated she was only going about forty. It was a straight stretch. Wide part of the road. It looked like she had pulled the vehicle over, as well. Maybe turning to check on the girls? But somehow the ute ended up sixty metres down a ravine, crushed beyond recognition, Missy dead in the cab, the twins sitting on the side of the road. Unharmed. But not saying a thing.”

  Holy fucking shit. That explained a lot. And also nothing.

  Matt Drake was still number one suspect for James Whiting’s death.

  And now I had a second suspicious death to deal with.

  Chapter 24

  Fuck!

  Luke

  Help him, by helping me. I was a fucking idiot, falling for shit like that. Falling for her. I watched as her police issue vehicle slowly drove back down the driveway, much slower than it had arrived. Because she wasn’t fucking timing it, of course. I chewed on the inside of my cheek, scowling.

  Damn it! Despite feeling like I was trapped in a never ending cycle of betrayal, I still hadn’t wanted Maggie to leave. She was only doing her job. And I knew, realistically, that to clear Matt’s name, she needed to ask those types of questions. And she’d been careful. So fucking careful. Voice soft. Face concerned. Heart in her eyes.

  But I’d still had to watch her leave. Because she was on the clock. And Matt was her prime suspect.

  Fucking hell. James Whiting’s wallet in Matt’s ute. It didn’t make a lick of sense.

  I looked out toward the ranges, toward where Matt would have gone for a ride. He’d looked fit for a hard workout earlier, but even Matt would have to return before the sun got much lower. I scrubbed my face and started toward the stables.

  Matt was already there when I arrived. The stallion’s black coat shining with sweat, the brush forgotten at its side. A bottle of Dewars was open and in Matt’s hand, three quarters full, as he sat in a pile of hay inside an empty stall, staring at nothing.

  “When did you get in?” I asked, purposely not mentioning the liquor.

  “A while ago.”

  I took in the horse as it ate from a feed bag. Its saddle and bridle had been removed, but it hadn’t had a rub down. Nobody leaves their horse like that. Unless a bottle of whisky’s calling.

  I picked up the brush, rubbed it along the outside of my thigh to free the bristles, and then got to work.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Matt said. “I would have got around to it.”

  “He’s cold and wet, and needs a good brushing.”

  “Fuck, I said I’d do it,” Matt growled, placing his bottle down on the floor purposefully and pushing to his feet. He didn’t stagger, but his eyes were glassy in the dimming light.

  “Then grab another brush and help.” I nodded toward the other side of the horse. “We’ll do it together.”

  Matt grumbled indistinctly, but did as I suggested. In five minutes the horse was clean and closing its eyes. We kept brushing for another five, massaging its flank, scrubbing along its haunches. It huffed out a satisfied breath as I led it into a free stall, then closed its tired looking eyes, ready for much needed rest. Matt must have ridden it hard. Running from his life.

  I walked back to find Matt already into the whisky again. He was leaning against the far wall of the stall, staring up at me, a question in his dull looking eyes.

  “Let’s hear it, then,” he said. “The lecture.” He wiggled the bottle in the air, making the amber liquid slosh from side to side.

  I stepped into the enclosure and then slid down the stall wall, settling my arse on hopefully clean straw. I rested my forearms on my bent knees and stared at nothing.

  “Must be serious,” Matt quipped. “You’re not yelling.”

  “I should be,” I said, accepting the bottle from Matt and taking a swig. I handed it back and closed my eyes.

  “What’s going on?” Matt asked, almost sounding like his old self. “I thought this little visit would be about the drinking. Again.”

  I held my hand out for another chance at the bottle, took a deep pull once he’d handed it back, and then held onto it. I didn’t want the fucking thing to go flying.

  “Sergeant Blackmore’s been visiting,” I said.

  “You mean, Maggie.” He let out a laugh. “Or do you call her Sergeant when you’re fucking?”

  Drunks can be mean. Matt is not one of them. Usually he keeps to himself, laughs at nothing, is the first one to suggest a midnight skinny dip in the river. But Matt since losing Missy was another story.

  I ignored the jibe and placed the bottle down carefully on the floor beside me. I didn’t trust myself not to throw it.

  “This is serious, Matt.” I said. “Deadly so.”

  He hung his head for a moment and then rolled it back on his shoulders and stared up at the roof of the barn.

  “I’m not in the mood for serious, bro,” he said.

  “James Whiting’s wallet was found in your truck,” I blurted, before he could cut and run.

  “The fuck?” he said, sounding stunned.

  I looked him in the eye. The glassiness had vanished.

  “What the hell, Luke?” he exclaimed. “I didn’t even know the man.”

  “You never gave him a lift somewhere?” I pressed.

  “No.”

  “Never crossed paths with him in town?”

  He scowled and shook his head.

  “At Smokey’s?”

  “Jesus fucking Christ, you’re my brother! Do you seriously think I could do something to harm another man? Or is this all on Maggie? Sorry, Sergeant Blackmore. Has she got you so gagging for it, you forget your family ties and start throwing around accusations?”

  I reached out with my right boot and kicked him hard in the shins. “Don’t be a fucking prick.”

  “Look who’s talking, arsehole,” he said, rubbing his leg where my boot had connected. “I’m a fucking cop. I would never kill someone.”

  “I know,” I said on a frustrated sigh. “I know, OK. But, Matt, how did it get there?”

  “I have no idea,” he said, looking calmer. Looking lost. “I’ve no fucking idea.” Shaking his head.

  “Does she h
ave a cause of death yet?” I asked.

  “How the fuck would I know?” Said without any heat at all. “She doesn’t advise me of a damn thing.”

  “You’ve hardly been the involved senior sergeant,” I pointed out.

  “Fuck,” he said on a sigh. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” His head banged back against the side of the stall with each word, making Zoro snort and Meg whinny. “Fuck,” he repeated.

  We sat in silence for a while. I was tempted to pick the Dewars up again and have a drink. Instead I asked, “Why was Missy on that road?”

  His head jerked as his eyes shot to me. “This again? I told you, I don’t know.”

  “You’d fought, right?” I pressed.

  “Yeah,” he said, resigned. “We’d fought. She’d stormed out, taking the kids.”

  “And she’d headed toward Mount Cook,” I finished for him.

  “I’ve asked myself, a thousand times, why was she on that stretch of road? Why? No matter what I speculate, all I can up with is…” He stalled. Saying the obvious was too damn hard.

  “She was meeting up with him,” I said.

  “Whoever the fuck he was.”

  My brother is a lot of things. Loyal. Dedicated. Tenacious. Funny. Well, he used to be all of those things. But he was never forgiving. Betrayal of any kind is not tolerated. Hell, he’d even become a cop to right that kind of wrong.

  And Missy had betrayed him in the worst possible way. She was family. The mother of his girls. His wife.

  What would Matt have done when he found out she’d been stepping out on him? What would I do if it was me?

  Fuck!

  And what the hell did all of this have to do with James Whiting?

  Chapter 25

  I Had A Very Bad Feeling About All Of This

  Maggie

  The autopsy report appeared in my email inbox at half past two on Monday. I rubbed my eyes, stretched my neck, and opened the attached file.

  The night had been long and unadventurous. I hadn’t been able to sleep at all. I’d tossed and turned, thinking of Luke and how lost he’d seemed. How the weight of the Drake family was pressing down on his shoulders. How his brother’s involvement in this case had added to the mix, making him almost lose it, completely.

  I’d seen it before. So many times. When one person was head of the family, in charge of the firm, in control of the finances, accountable to all the rest. Luke Drake was station manager of a large farm, answering to many shareholders. All of them family.

  They say you shouldn’t work with family. That it only leads to disgruntlement and fall outs. The Drake family seemed close, and hell, from the looks of it, so did other station families all around Twizel. But I couldn’t imagine the pressure would be any less, just because the people you answered to had seen you in nappies and attended your twenty-first birthday bash.

  I’d felt sorry for him. Inordinately worried for him. And that had clouded my judgement. No matter which way I’d tossed and turned last night, I hadn’t been able to dismiss Matt’s implied involvement. Wallets don’t just find their own way into cars.

  I blinked as I stared at the computer screen, my eyes gritty, my stomach roiling. Nothing I’d done this morning had helped in the slightest, either. Hook remained mute. Alicia wasn’t sharing anymore of her art. And the judge hadn’t called me back with the go ahead for the video surveillance warrant.

  And Matt Drake was missing in action.

  I reread the first line of the autopsy for the third time. Slowly the words filtered through my exhausted brain.

  Indication of hypoxia to extremities. Ventricular necrosis. Fluid in the lungs. Evidence of early stage metabolic deficiency present in several organs, including liver, kidneys, and testes. And over 200 mg of sodium fluoroacetate in his stomach.

  Cause of death: An accumulation of citrate in the blood leading to cardiac arrest and respiratory failure. Time of death: Between 2 - 2:30 am, Saturday.

  A hand written line had been added to the scanned document stating sodium fluoroacetate, otherwise known as 1080, is highly toxic to humans and presents as an accumulation of citrate in the victim’s blood.

  Whiting had been killed by rat poison.

  I leaned back in my chair and thought. Then sprang forward again and lifted up the handset to my desk phone. Within minutes, I had confirmation from the vet that the sheep on Red Tussock land had been killed in much the same way as Whiting.

  But none of this made any sense. Why kill Whiting using 1080 and then kill sheep on your own land with the same poison, thereby linking the two crimes? Add on top of that the sudden appearance of the dead man’s missing wallet in a Red Tussock ute and you’ve got ‘too easy’ written all over the case file.

  This was too easy and yet, I couldn’t figure it out.

  I reached for the phone again and looked up the number for the Timaru Hospital pathology lab. I was put on hold for a good five minutes, but finally struck gold when the chief pathologist, who was visiting from Christchurch, picked up the call.

  “We don’t actually see too many poisonings by 1080, Sergeant,” he said in answer to my question. “But what I can tell you is, it’s likely the victim’s meal prior to death was substantial in order for him to consume enough of the sodium fluoroacetate to facilitate cardiac arrest. It wasn’t in pellet form; no partially digested fragments turned up in the stomach contents. So, we can rule out him mistaking it for a party drug. From what I’m seeing here, it was most likely milled into a paste and added to the meal. But I can’t believe it would have tasted pleasant, even disguised in such a way as that.”

  “Would being under the influence of the amount of alcohol found in Whiting’s body account for that?”

  “Account for his lack of taste? Yes, undoubtedly. He was quite inebriated. But still, mistaking sodium fluoroacetate made into a paste as a garnish for his post-pub meal is stretching it.”

  I stared back at the email containing the autopsy report.

  “You don’t mention any injuries indicative of him being forced.”

  “There were none.”

  “So, the meal was consumed willingly.”

  “It’s hard to say, but from the evidence as it stands, yes. Of course, ethanol has a hand in that theory, too. The amount of alcohol Mr Whiting consumed prior to death was substantial and could have made him quite pliable.”

  “Any way to determine time of ETOH consumption?” I queried.

  “Not really. It could be he’d consumed more ethanol than what remained in his blood stream and was found in his stomach contents at death, as some of it had metabolised already. Or what was found is indicative of time of consumption. To give you a time in that regard, though, would be misleading. And wouldn’t be admissible in court,” he added. “As for the partially digested food: Estimated time of consumption would be three to five hours prior to death. Metabolisms vary; I can’t be more precise than that.”

  I stared at the items listed as being in Whiting’s stomach. Meat, vegetables, and a carbohydrate substance which could indicate pastry. All mixed together in a partially digested sauce. He’d eaten a pie laced with 1080.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” I said, having heard enough.

  “You’re welcome, Sergeant. And good luck.”

  He rang off, leaving me staring at the computer screen and trying to picture Senior Sergeant Matt Drake baking a pie. Of course, he could have bought one and lifted the lid, painted the contents in the 1080 paste, and covered it back up again. In Whiting’s inebriated state, he wouldn’t have noticed his food had been tampered with.

  Had the victim vomited outside of Smokey’s due to overindulgence of alcohol or because he’d eaten a poisoned pie?

  Even autopsies weren’t definitive. I still had too many unanswered questions.

  But what I did know was Luke Drake had been nowhere near James Whiting at his time of death. Unless Matt Drake took the man home to Red Tussock, and the parents and brother were covering up their baking session in the homest
ead’s kitchen at midnight.

  I snorted out loud, garnering the attention of Sheila.

  “What’s so funny, Maggie? Share the joke.”

  “Life,” I said. “Life’s fucking funny and then it twists the knife in your back.”

  Sheila came out from behind the divide that hid the officers’ desks from the front of the station. I reached forward and clasped the mouse, dragging the cursor to the tiny x, forcing myself to be casual in my movements. The autopsy report vanished, and only then did I meet the receptionist’s eye.

  “What’s brought this on?” she asked, not even sparing the computer a glance.

  It could be that Sheila Cooper was more astute than that, and didn’t showcase her talents quite so obviously as to be caught staring at the computer screen whilst spying. The woman certainly knew a hell of a lot of what was going on in and around Twizel.

  Which meant…

  “What do you know about Missy Drake?”

  The small smile that had been gracing her lips vanished and then she sighed.

  “He finally told you.” I didn’t correct her. “That’s a start, I suppose.”

  She looked out into the empty reception area, and then said, “Come on. Let’s go get a coffee.”

  “A coffee?”

  “I need to be far away from here when I talk about this,” she said on a weighted sigh.

  Sheila turned on her heel, her fuchsia and aqua muumuu swaying alarmingly, provocatively even, despite its generous size. I stared after her for a long moment, and then made sure I was signed out of my email account and the computer was shut down before I followed.

  I had a very bad feeling about all of this. And leaving trails behind me didn’t seem wise.

  Chapter 26