Blossoms in the Wind Page 14

  She sat up and glowered as he sat on the bed and laid a Sunday newspaper before her.

  "I don't read Sunday papers," she muttered. "All they have is crime, gossip and sport. Why did you bother buying it?"

  "The article on the front page is all about my old man."

  The half page photograph had David Sutton superimposed over a scene that showed a helicopter hovering over a bush area with a wheelbarrow being winched up beneath it

  The headline read. Was this wheelbarrow used to dump an Auckland businessman's body?

  What followed was a fairly accurate account of everything about the whole scenario since David Sutton's body was discovered. What was of interest was the news that a wheelbarrow had been found in a nearby gully and that police had confirmed that tests proved that his body had been in it. Fingerprints had also been found but the police would not confirm that they belonged to their chief suspect, one of his former partners.

  "So they're still trying to pin the murder on Nicole?"

  Jeff shrugged. "That's what this article insinuates. Mum doesn't think she did it, though."

  "And you?"

  Jeff shrugged. "I don't know. She was pretty ruthless in abducting Shona and Mum could have been taken in by her situation."

  "So the article does little except sensationalise everything?"

  "But it will get readers talking. Perhaps that is what the police are counting on. They often approach news-media to run something in hope of finding more clues."

  "True," Ava said. "If they had hard evidence surely they would have arrested Nicole by now. Could they have slipped the paper news about the wheelbarrow? Otherwise, how come the photographer just happened to be there when the wheelbarrow was being hauled up?"

  "It's an aerial shot too so must have been taken from another helicopter or plane."

  Ava sighed and changed to topic. "Are we still going over to get the Mount Albert place tidied up? I want that front hedge cut."

  Jeff grimaced. "It's going to rain."

  "Possible thunderstorm late in the afternoon. Stop procrastinating. It'll only take an hour or so."

  "If you say so," Jeff muttered. He'd planned the day at a beach but realised that this was more important.

  Ava grinned. "The traffic to the beaches will be bumper to bumper anyway. Half the city will be heading for them. We could always have a swim on the way home at one of the bays."

  "Yeah, after slaving away on that hedge I'll need one, though we could have a cold shower together."

  "Jeff!" Ava retorted and the pillow she heaved at him was deadly accurate.

  EVEN WITH THE HIRED hedge trimmer, the hedge was hard work. Many parts had thick branches that stalled the trimmer. However, Jeff persevered and, bathed in sweat, he was glad when the top was cut. Ava had piled the branches and leaves by the front door and had also managed to cut half the roadside part with hand clippers.

  He grinned at her and admired her stamina. She barely had a sweat up and grinned at him as the last top branch fell to the ground. "Now the rest of the outside part," she said. "Should be a breeze with the hedge trimmer. Afterwards we can do the inside and we've finished."

  "Doubt it," Jeff replied and nodded up at the sky where huge black clouds gathered before the sun. Now on the shady side, the temperature dropped slightly but was still hovering close to thirty degrees Celsius. "That thunderstorms coming."

  It did! They barely had time to remove the final debris from the footpath when forked lightning shot across the sky followed, mere seconds later, by the rumble of lightning. A few large drops hit them as they dashed for the front veranda.

  Another clap of thunder seemed even closer than the first before down it came; a torrent of rain dropped vertically on the front lawn and pounded the roof. The spouting couldn't cope and at the front corner a cascade of water streamed down onto the driveway. Luckily the car was parked in the garage for water poured across the drive and ran out to the kerb. There it met water from further along the road while the rain continued to pour down.

  Jeff grinned at Ava. "That's the end of our hedge cutting for a while. Shall we go inside?"

  "Might as well."

  Terri had left the house quite clean and tidy and her personal items had all gone. Now, for the first time it began to feel like their own place. They walked through to the kitchen and unwrapped some sandwiches that Mum had made for them, the kettle was boiled and soon they were sipping coffee and munching lunch.

  Meanwhile, outside the summer deluge of rain continued, more lightning flashed and thunder roared. Rain rattled on the roof and front waterfall from the overloaded spouting added to the flooded driveway.

  Ten minutes later it stopped, the clouds rolled away and the sun shone. Steam rose off the paths and road and a current of water rushed down the slight drop on the road but fifty metres away water pooled where the road dipped slightly.

  "Doubt if we'll get the car out," Jeff said a few moments later as he waded bare feet through knee high water while holding Ava's hand a few moments later.

  They chatted to a couple of neighbours who were also inspecting the flooding before they retreated back inside.

  "What now?"

  "We explore the house," Ava replied. "I think I prefer the second bedroom to the one that Terri used. It's lighter and has that corner window."

  Both rooms contained a double bed and other furniture so, to Jeff it didn't really matter. They had already discussed getting in other students and Deanne had already hinted that she was looking for a place to stay for she had also enrolled at Auckland University. Perhaps because of this, they had decided that in the meanwhile they preferred to be by themselves.

  The thunderstorm moved on but was soon replaced by continuing showers with a wind that came up and lashed the building. Ava found the house was in good condition with little that needed to be done, maintenance-wise. All they really need to do was to personalise the place, install their television and connect it up to the optic fibre that came into the living room. This had been modernised a few years back when walls were removed to create a large open space living and kitchen area. Off this was a small hallway with the two bedrooms and a bathroom off it. On one side was a narrow stairwell that led upstairs to a landing and an attic type bedroom with an A-frame ceiling and one small window facing the street. It contained two single beds that looked unused for there were no mattresses. At the other end was another door that led into a storage room that had floorboards but no interior lining. Again, a small window, this one facing the rear of the house, provided light. Unlike the rest of the house this was cluttered with boxes and other items that could have been there for years.

  "Terri obviously never came up here very often and forgot to clean it up. Not that it matters, she did a wonderful job with the rest of the house," Ava said.

  "It's not all old junk," Jeff said. "Those boxes just over there seem quite recent" He nodded to the left. "Perhaps she poked stuff up here and forgot to come back." He walked across and opened the top of one box. "Looks like old text books and so forth."

  "So leave it. When we get her address we can ask if she wants it. There could be old family stuff that is valueless to anybody else. I know my mother had old photographs she'd kept since Grandma's time."

  "You're right," Jeff said and lifted out a photograph album from one box. It looked old and had black pages with fading colour as a well as black and white photographs that were held in place by triangular corner adhesives. He thumbed through the pages and grinned. "Looks like Terri's childhood," he said. "When they first started colour photographs they turned sort of yellowy over time. There are some quite recent ones at the back. Teri would be a teenager, I guess. " He chuckled. "Yes, here she is in school uniform, some with other girls at what could be a school ball, a couple with boys and some back yard shots."

  "Jeff," Ava said. "Just leave them, will you? Other people's photos are personal. I wouldn't want strangers looking through my old photos."

  Jeff turned th
e page and was about to shut the album when something caught his eye. It was a backyard scene that showed Terri grinning at the camera. She was dressed in summer shorts and top and the view was of the back of the house they were in. He recognised the back veranda and old style rotary clothesline that was still there. More interesting though was the object she was standing beside. It was a wheelbarrow piled high with weeds.

  "Doesn't that look like the wheelbarrow suspended beneath the helicopter in that paper?"

  Ava studied the photo. "Could be," she said. "But there must be thousands of wheelbarrows around the city."

  "It's an old type one with a wooden top and steel wheels. All the new ones have rubber tyres and metal or hard plastic tops. There aren't too many of these old ones around."

  "So?'

  "Perhaps it was Terri and not Nicole who killed my father and used that wheelbarrow to dispose of his body."

  Ava screwed her nose up. "It's a bit of a long shot," she said.

  "I guess," Jeff replied but took a photo of the wheelbarrow scene with his iPhone. "Wasn't there a number at the bottom of that article that one could call if they had more information?"

  "I think so. The paper's still at home or there'll be an online copy of the story."

  Jeff reached for his iPhone. "I'll check it out," he said and brought up the newspaper's home page.

  Ava, however, reached across and held his wrist. "No, leave it," she said. "Even if she did kill him it was highly likely that she was acting in self defence. Think what it would have been like if you had killed your father when you retaliated after years of abuse suffered by Chloe and yourself?"

  Jeff grimaced. "I suppose. After all, we're only guessing that this old wheelbarrow in the photograph is the one used to hide my father's body."

  Ava shrugged. "We could approach Terri and tell her what we know."

  "If that's what you want to do," Jeff muttered. He remained doubtful but respected Ava's reasoning

  AFTER CONTACTING TERRI, fabricating a story about travelling through Hamilton and offering to deliver the boxes she'd left in the attic. Ava and Jeff set off on the following Saturday to visit her. Hamilton was a hundred and thirty kilometres south of Auckland.

  Ava drove her Honda Jazz as the three boxes would not fit in Jeff's sports car and found Terri's address in an older suburb of the city. It was a run down sort of place and a far cry from the Mount Albert house. They found her apartment down an overgrown driveway and Ava knocked on the door.

  "Oh hell," Ava whispered to Jeff when Terri opened the door.

  Terri grimaced and stared at them. "Yes I'm pregnant," she said as she rubbed a hand over her swollen stomach. "It's David's child, you know though the bastard never wanted it. Wanted to abort it."

  "Hence the reason that he attacked you?" Jeff asked.

  Ava glowered at him for sometimes he could be a little blunt but the words had already been spoken

  Terri, however, ignored his comment. "You'd better come in," she said.

  She showed them into a small but quite tidy kitchen and offered them a coffee. "Not as nice as my Mount Albert place," she said. "But it'll do in the meanwhile."

  "I'll get your boxes," Jeff said and made a hasty retreat.

  Ava accepted the mug of coffee and muffin and frantically tried to think how to begin the conversation. Terrie placed Jeff's coffee on the table, sat across from her, grimaced and sat down to sip her own coffee.

  "You're here for more than just delivering my boxes, aren't you?"

  Ava nodded. "It's really nothing but..."

  Terri sighed. "There's always a but," she whispered. "You were going to say it is none of your business but my pregnancy threw you both, didn't it?"

  Ava nodded. "We found something and decided to ask you about it rather than reporting to the police."

  Terri bit on bottom lip and her hand holding her coffee mug shook. Jeff returned carrying one of the boxes, placed it on the floor and just stood there

  Ava glowered at him. "Sit down, Jeff," she said. "Terri wants to know why we're really here. Show her the photograph."

  "Here! Now?" he gasped but did sit down and muttered thanks for the coffee Terri slid across the table for him.

  "I'll get it," Ava stood, walked across to the box and was glad it was the one that contained the photograph albums. She lifted the one she wanted out and placed it on the table. Somewhat embarrassed now, she muttered an apology about going through Terri's personal items and turned to the page that a ribbon marked.

  "This is the one we noticed." She pointed to the wheelbarrow scene.

  "You saw that Sunday newspaper article two weeks back, didn't you?" Terri asked.

  "We did," Ava replied. "It was your wheelbarrow, wasn't it?"

  Terri just stared at her before she gave a tiny nod. "I've been waiting for a knock on the door ever since that article came out,"

  "So no police have come to interview you?" Jeff asked.

  "Not since the initial interviews they were giving everyone after David's body was found. I guess you had them, too." Without warning her face contorted with emotion as tears rolled down her cheeks. "I thought he'd kill me," she sobbed and continued on to describe how and why she had shot David Sutton. With really no encouragement from either Ava or Jeff, she continued on to describe how Yolanda and herself had decided to hide the body, how the wheelbarrow was used and their utter devastation when his body was washed up on the beach.

  "I guess we were both cowards but neither of us have ever trusted the police." She gulped down the last of her coffee. "You're the only ones I have told. If Yolanda was here she'd call me an idiot for admitting anything."

  "Is Yolanda still in Auckland?" Ava asked with empathy in her voice.

  "She chickened out," Terri whispered. "Gone to Australia to live. She wanted me to go, too."

  "Why didn't you?" Jeff asked.

  "My baby. I could not afford to pay for maternity care over there, as they are tough on immigrants. As you know, here in New Zealand, everything is free for us, I have found a wonderful midwife and..."

  "How long before the birth?" Ava interrupted

  Terri smiled through her tears. "A bit over a week. After he is born, it's a little boy, I was going to follow Yolanda to Aussie." She shrugged. "But I can't just keep running, can I? I hear that anybody wanted by the New Zealand police is immediately deported from Australia, anyway."

  "Have you a lawyer?" Jeff asked.

  "No. Can't afford one. Don't trust them either. Charge you a hundred and twenty bucks an hour, Yolanda told me."

  "You miss her?" Ava asked.

  Terri nodded. "There's been nobody else. Mum's dead and my father walked out from us when I was at high school. I have had no contact with him since then," She began sobbing again. "He didn't even come to Mum's funeral."

  Ava stood, walked around the table and placed an arm around Terri's shoulders. "So you're all alone in a strange city?"

  "More or less. I have a good job as a receptionist with a real estate company. They're pretty supportive and I've become quite good friends with the agents. Most are women. They have quite a generous maternity leave package that offers more than the government requirements. I started maternity leave last weekend."

  "But from what you said you've not confided in anybody about my father's death?" Jeff asked.

  "Too scared I might lose my job if I said anything. They're so kind but I don't see them out of work hours." She grimaced and blew her nose on a tissue. "I'm between the rock and the hard place, I guess."

  "I think you need a lawyer," Ava said. "If you wish, I can contact Dad. He has a good knowledge of lawyers in Auckland and would not tell a soul about your situation."

  "Adrian is great," Jeff supported. "He helped Mum in her fight against David." He continued on with a brief summary about what had happened and their family situation.

  "So she's got a new baby?" Terri asked and appeared to relax a little.

  "Yes," Ava replied. "Shona's is o
ur half-sister but through our different parents. Dad and Chloe actually met through us." She smiled. "I can call my father right now, if you wish. I can promise you that nothing you've told us will go beyond our immediate family no matter what you decide to do."

  "Thank you," Terri replied. "It has been pretty lonely, especially at night and during the weekend."

  Ava glanced at Jeff who just nodded encouragement before she called up her father with a video link. "Dad," she said. "I'd like you to meet Terri Cox who needs our help." She briefly explained everything to him before turning the iPhone so he could see her.

  "Hi Terri," Adrain said.

  "Hello Mr Knight," Terri smiled at the iPhone.

  "Could you wait a moment?" Adrian reached out of sight for a second and returned with Shona in his arms. "This is Ava and Jeff's little sister. Chloe's out with some friends this afternoon and I've got the job of babysitting her. She's just woken up."

  "She's beautiful. Mr Knight." Terrie said.

  "Call me Adrain," Ava's Dad smiled. "Now about your wee problem..."

  CHAPTER 15

  In a North Shore Police Station interview room, Detective Inspector Andy Tullock glanced sideways at Detective Sergeant Gloria McKenzie then at Terri Cox and her lawyer, Richard McCartan, one of the top defence attorneys in the city. He had heard that Adrain Knight and Chloe Sutton had employed him for there was no way that Ms Cox could afford the lawyer's somewhat exorbitant fees.

  The interview had continued for an hour and ten minutes and was the result of McCartan approaching him in person to say that Ms Terri Cox wanted to make a voluntary statement about David Sutton's death and would admit that the wheelbarrow to do with the case was owned by her.

  "Thank you, Ms Cox," Andy said to the pregnant woman. "You have been very forthcoming about your involvement in David Sutton's death and the efforts to hide his body afterwards. I believe you are being honest but have a few last questions."

  "Terri has found this interview extremely distressful, Detective Inspector," McCartan cut in. "She has volunteered to come forward and, to date, no charges have been made against her. With all due respect, I believe there is little more for her to add."