The Bone Riddle by Sara E. Johnson

Author:Sara E. Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks

Chapter Twenty-Two

No one said anything after the DI stalked out. Alexa heard Sergeant Atkins’s nasal breathing, a pull and then a wheezy release. Maybe the nose ring was obstructing her airflow.

“Who knew about the weapons?” Bruce asked.

Constable Gavin patted his cowlick. “The team. The OCU lads. Maybe Lynn Lockhart? Maybe the Cobbs? We had a graveyard shift officer out there patrolling.”

“Lot of good it did,” Sergeant Atkins said.

Alexa looked to Constable Cooper to see her reaction. She was impassive as a carving.

Bruce stood. “Let’s create a timeline of the case while DI Steele sorts things out. It will help Constable Cooper and me get the big picture.” He wrote HQ last seen by wife on the board and waited.

“First of April, sir,” Sergeant Atkins said.

“When did he arrive in New Zealand?”

“I’ve been working on that, see?” Constable Gavin said. “He wasn’t on any passenger manifests in Auckland? Don’t know when or how he arrived.”

Bruce’s eyes darkened. “A billionaire probably has a private jet. Have you checked the smaller airports?”

“Good idea, sir.”

DI Steele rushed in. “The weapons are gone.” She turned to Alexa. “Get your kit. You’ll ride with me to Black Reef.”

They left the station quickly and pulled out onto Eastbourne Street West. DI Steele gunned the Volvo through a yellow light. “I’m fucking toast.”

Alexa gripped the seat, glad the Sunday morning traffic was sparse. She tried to think who would steal the weapons, but came up blank.

“I should have removed them last night instead of waiting for the OCU to get their asses out there.”

Alexa silently agreed.

The DI leaned forward in the driver’s seat, her sharp chin inches from the wheel, as if that would get them to their destination quicker. “It’s my first big case. Eyes are on me, waiting for me to fuck up. Now this. Guns stolen under the nose of Hastings’s new female detective inspector. You know how it is, eh?” She looked Alexa’s way. “A woman in a male-dominated field?”

Alexa’s forensics program at NC State had comprised seventy percent women, but DI Steele didn’t give her a chance to respond.

“All this, plus what’s going on with Joe.” She braked for a turning car. “I got home past eleven last night. Kersten was asleep. Went to check on the boys. They bunk together. Joe was gone.” She exited a roundabout. “He came home at three a.m. We had a row. His hand was bloody. Wouldn’t say what happened or let me look.”

Alexa had no idea what she would do in the DI’s place.

“I can’t handle him. Do you have children? How do you do it?”

“No kids,” Alexa said. “I have two nephews. Benny and Noah.”

DI Steele banked a curve, thrusting Alexa into the passenger door. “That’s me, six months ago. Two nephews, no kids of my own, not that Kersten and I aren’t trying. Sperm donation, two failed intrauterine inseminations. You know.”

Alexa did not know.

“We’ve stopped all that now, since the boys. If it weren’t for Kersten, I’d have turned in my badge.”

Alexa had never juggled family life with work.

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