Page 89 of Bay of Plenty

Aroha parked me beside her bed. The arrival of a fresh police guard interrupted our chat. The tall, brawny officer on duty made a rugby-pass motion, indicating we were the next guy’s problem.

A shadow crossed CeeCee’s face. I pressed the pads of my fingers to my lids. We’d both been reminded of Sarge.

“Please go easy on Sarge.” She looked anxious. “I know it seemed like he planned to… harm you.” On the helicopter ride home, I’d described how he’d hunted me down in Te Urewera. “But I’m sure he has an explanation for carrying the gun. Maybe he was only trying to scare you.” She tugged at my sleeve, her tired blue eyes pleading. “I know it’s not right, but everything he did was to help me.”

“He failed to follow up a clear tip-off about your abusive father, then persuaded you to keep quiet about an accident that ended up destroying your life.”

She clenched her throat, unable to contradict that.

“He knew he was changing my witness statement by reenacting with me the night I saw Janey,” I said. “He convinced me the person Janey was talking to was the same height as him. He implicated Snow because he knew that’s where my mind would go. He broke in and stole things from my parents’ property. He tried to pin Janey’s murder on me. He tried to kill me.”

“But I wrote the extra page in my diary,” she reminded me.

“Yes, CeeCee, you are guilty of that and will have to live with the consequences. But twenty years ago, he was the adult—a policeman sworn to uphold the truth—and you were a kid. He handled it all wrong. He broke the law and should not go free.”

Before I could say more, two officers appeared. They were going to give her instructions about what was to happen next.

As I was wheeled back to my room, I couldn’t help thinking that Sarge had taken the word of his old friend Scrumy over that of a young girl, Janey, and had spent the rest of his life trying to atone for his arrogance. Did that make him a monster, or a deeply flawed human?

*

I tried to apologize to Snow when we surfed together after I got out of the hospital, the salt stinging my cuts and scrapes. How could I ever make it up to him?

He said I’d already started. I’d arranged for Kingi to meet with the parole service, the police, DOC, and a representative from the iwi, tribe. Snow had flown him in for that one full day. Snow would fly a parole officer up to the mountains every week for check-ins and the drug testing that Kingi had missed. His lawyers made sure no one pressed him about who’d been involved in the bar fight. Sometimes, knowing that a reporter was writing a story makes these organizations more efficient and understanding.

DOC and the iwi offered Kingi his original mountaintop home, where I’d found him in Te Urewera. Still, he chose to remain in his new place, an abandoned fisherman’s hut on a nearby lake, where his mother and brothers could visit him more easily.

“He can’t do without his mountains,” Snow said as we perched on our boards. “And I can’t do without my waves, so we stay as we are. I was ragging him that he only wanted a postcode relationship, you know?”

I smiled. I knew what the term meant. You get together when you’re in the same postal code, but otherwise, you’re free.

“But nah, ’course it’s not that,” Snow said. “He calls it ‘aroha mai, aroha atu.’ Love received, love returned.”

*

Because the tidal wave hadn’t gouged deeply enough to disturb the remains, they’d been able to dig up Janey’s bones in the campground shed a week later. It was a couple of weeks before they were positively identified. It was hard toexplain how I felt about that. Satisfied? Not exactly. But my gut feeling and persistence had finally paid off. Mr.Saunders had certainty, a painful certainty, but he thanked me and said he finally had some peace.But can you rest in peace now, Janey?

Chapter Fifty-Eight

December 25, New Zealand

Christmas Day wasa quiet day for us despite the sea and sky blazing a hot extravaganza of blue.

I tried not to wonder what Declan was doing. With his family, probably. Was he thinking of me? Did he have any regrets? I pushed all those thoughts away because I wanted to enjoy the here and now.

Mum, Dad, and I wanted to be together, the three of us. After a fish dinner with new potatoes and salad from the garden, we lounged on the sofas. Dad and I talked about the next mystery we were reading. It was time to say what I’d wanted to say for days. I sat beside him and took his hand.

“Dad, I want to say, I love you so much, and I’m sorry that it took you having a heart attack and almost dying for me to say it out loud like that.” My eyes welled with tears. I’d learned not to hold them back. “I want us to be closer. I know neither of us is that good at saying it—we’re alike in that—but I want to say what I love and admire about you. I love how you have such good friends, and you’re so kind to them, and they’re so good to you. That’s one thing I want to change about myself. I want to be better to the friends Ihave. I love talking books with you, but I also want to talk about real things. I know that makes us both uncomfortable, but can we try?”

Dad’s eyes pooled with tears as I spoke, and he sniffed. Mum squeezed my other hand.

“That’s beautiful, honey,” he said. “I know I’m not good at this. But I want to try too. I wasn’t brought up to be open, but I want to learn. My brain’s all fuzzy because of these meds. Can I text you some things when I think of them?”

“’Course you can, Dad.” This was a start. I was disappointed that he couldn’t tell me face-to-face like I had for him. But it was a big change.

I was taking the rubbish out later when I saw his text, even though he was in the next room.

Dad:Isla, you are the best daughter a father could have. I want to get well so we can go pipi-ing like we used to when you were small. And to the library and check out armfuls of books and talk about those books on the way home. (Maybe we can even buy a sneaky bar of chocolate like we used to.) But also talk about things that are troubling us. Things that made us happy that day. Well, that’s easy for me today. Seeing you has made me happy. So, as you can see, I’m not that great with words. I’m better at reading than I am at writing. LAL.

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