My Brother’s Keeper (13 page)

Ned held out a glass of wine to me, but it wasn’t the wine I had to decide if I wanted. I’ve always been a one-guy girl. One at a time, that is. But ever since Robbie had buddied up with Sean something had shifted in my feelings for him. Ned smiled as if sensing my internal dialogue. There was no denying I wanted this man. I looked at him for an indecently long time and then leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

‘Goodnight,’ I said.

‘Are you sure now?’

‘I’m sure,’ I lied. As I limped ignominiously up the stairs, I half expected Ned to call out to me with an offer I couldn’t refuse.

W
EDNESDAY
28 N
OVEMBER
2012

Y
ou’d have to be crazy not to be scared landing at Wellington airport on a windy day, and my way of dealing with fear is to be pissed off. Psychiatrists would have a field day with stuff like that but, honestly, there’s something manifestly wrong when passengers applaud the captain just for landing the plane. Surely landing the plane isn’t an optional extra that deserves praise.

My foul mood hung around like a bad smell. Even the taxi driver didn’t try to engage me in conversation. This was a first. Chats with taxi drivers were often a highlight of my day. In my perversely honest heart I knew the roller-coaster plane landing wasn’t the cause of my bad mood, though it hadn’t helped. What was bothering me was the close escape
I’d had with Ned. The dilemma now was whether I needed to tell Robbie about it. I took a break from my angst to carefully turn my munted phone back on. Two voice messages had been left during the flight. The first was from the real-estate agent, Jason. He started right in, pointing out that this was the second message he had left asking me to contact him ASAP. He used the acronym again. He was the only person I had ever heard do that. My mouth was still working on a response when the second message started up.

‘It’s me. Sunny,’ she said, barely controlling the panic in her voice. ‘Dad’s been arrested. I don’t know who else to call. Please ring me. Please!’

I immediately pressed the dial icon, careful not to dislodge the shattered glass. The call went straight to voicemail. Justin arrested? Fanshaw had convinced me Justin wasn’t responsible for Karen’s death; assured me his alibi had checked out — thoroughly. What the hell had happened to change the cops’ minds? An awful thought occurred to me: maybe Fanshaw told me Justin had checked out just to keep me out of their way. I blushed at the idea of it. If this was so, it was a pretty clear indication the police had lost confidence in me and I had little hope of getting any future work with them. I would have to hang up my missing persons operator boots and do something else for a living. Justin was arrested for Karen’s murder — well, it was what I had suspected. He hadn’t wanted Karen back in his daughter’s life and there was no doubt he was very protective of Sunny. I’d experienced that first hand. How he had got himself to Wellington, killed Karen and made his way back to Auckland in time to take Sunny to the wharf for the
meeting puzzled me. No doubt all would become clear.

Sunny’s call had taken my mind off my own personal dilemma: was I obliged to tell Robbie about my near miss with Ned? As the taxi pulled into the curb and my house came into view, I made a decision. I was being way too serious about the whole thing. Sure, I’d tell Robbie about Ned. Why not? I’d turn it into a story, make a joke of it, cast myself as foolishly swooning for the rakish charms of a flirtatious Irishman. I’d assure Robbie nothing had happened. Because nothing had happened. Ned had held my foot, that’s all. Cupped my sorry ankle, to be precise. There was no reason at all why I should feel guilty about that. I’d done nothing wrong; in fact, I decided, as I lugged my overnight bag up the path, I’d tell Robbie about Ned straight away. Get it over with. He’d wind me up a bit, we’d have a laugh and that would be the end of it.

Robbie was drinking coffee at the kitchen table. Wolf lay across his feet. A bunch of yellow tulips wrapped in white paper lay on the bench. I stalled in the doorway, my mouth ready to deliver the silly story about me and Ned. Robbie stood, his smile already hitched. Wolf dragged himself off Robbie’s feet and arthritically clicked his way towards me. It wasn’t anything like his usual excited greeting. My mouth opened and closed. Robbie’s beautiful smile slowly unhitched. I didn’t have to tell him anything. One look at me and he knew. And just like that I realised why I had been in such a foul mood. Ned may have been the cause or the effect but, either way, my relationship with Robbie was in deep shit. It had taken me all this time to acknowledge it. Robbie knew it instantly. Into the awkward silence that lengthened between us, I garbled something about
having to go straight back to Auckland, deciding on the spot it was what I needed to do.

‘There’s a problem there,’ I said, excruciatingly aware there was a problem right here, too.

‘You do what you have to do, Di,’ he said quietly, and took his cup and saucer to the bench. He placed them carefully in the sink and stayed like that, his head bowed, breathing slowly.

I felt the tears threatening. ‘I can ask Gemma to look after Wolf … if you’d rather.’

My voice seemed to waken him from his thoughts. He shrugged himself into his jacket.

‘No, it’s fine,’ he said, laying an index finger on Wolf’s nose. ‘We’re fine, eh boy?’ I watched the hairs on the top of Wolf’s head rise in response. I think mine did too. I envied the intimacy of that touch. He moved into the doorway where I was still stalled. ‘I’ll pick him up after work.’ He paused long enough to run cool fingertips gently down my face. ‘You’ll be gone,’ he said.

Wolf followed Robbie outside and stayed there watching him drive away. Okay, it’s official: I’m a shit girlfriend; a shit dog owner; a shit missing persons so-called expert; a shit everything. Shit! Wolf didn’t disagree with me one bit. Once Robbie was out of sight, he walked back inside without so much as an affectionate lean on his way past. I followed meekly, determined not to plead or make a craven idiot of myself in any other way. Wolf slumped back down on the floor where Robbie’s feet had been and let out a deep sigh. Fine. Be like that. There was a sheet of paper on the table I hadn’t noticed until now. It bore the letterhead of Jason’s real-estate agency
and was headed ‘Offer on Sale of House’. I skimmed down the page until I got to a number: $860,000. I held the paper up close to my face and counted those zeros again. An eight hundred and sixty thousand dollar offer. It was fifty thousand more than Jason thought we’d get at auction. It should have made me feel good.

My newly independent-minded phone had turned itself off again. When I rebooted it, there was another panicked message from Sunny asking me to
please
,
please
,
please
ring her. When I tried, all I got was her voicemail again. Making true what I had told Robbie, I booked a flight back to Auckland, closing my eyes while the website confirmed my credit card payment. I knew I was perilously close to my limit but I couldn’t work up the courage to check exactly how close. Departing at six o’clock meant I had only a couple of hours to do everything I needed to before heading to the airport. I put my recalcitrant phone on the charger and used the landline to ring Jason. He confirmed the offer on the house was genuine and still live, whatever that meant. If he was expecting a squeal of delight he must have been disappointed. I said I’d give him an answer by the same time tomorrow. He started to remonstrate with me but I hung up. Then I rang Sean and matter-of-factly told him what the offer was.

‘Wow. That’s more than I expected,’ he said, his voice pleased.

‘Yeah. It’s definitely a good offer.’

‘So, what do you think?’ he said, failing to suppress the excitement in his voice.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight. ‘I think we should take it.’

‘Okay,’ he said, a little too quickly. ‘As long as you’re …’ he hesitated, ‘if you think so.’ I knew he was trying to let it be my decision and I appreciated that. ‘Do you want to grab a coffee or something?’ he said. ‘It would be good to talk.’

‘I can’t, sorry. I’m flying back to Auckland this afternoon. But listen, Sean. It’s okay. I’m okay about it. You were right. It’s time to sell up.’

‘Actually, Di, it wasn’t the house I wanted to talk to you about.’

I waited, feeling oddly detached while he struggled to find his opening line. Wolf still lay on the phantom of Robbie’s feet. He had turned his back to me, maintaining an unmistakable posture. Who needs teenagers when you’ve got a dog with attitude?

‘Are you and Robbie going to move in together?’

I wasn’t expecting this. ‘What?’ Wolf’s ears pricked with interest at my raised voice.

‘Robbie’s a great guy, you know.’

I tried for a second ‘What?’ but nothing came out.

‘I’d hate for you to stuff it up, that’s all.’

Finally my outraged voice made it all the way past my throat. ‘What the fuck’s it got to do with you?’

‘Don’t be like that, Diane. I just wanted to say, Robbie’s a great guy and you’re a great, um … woman.’ He ignored my snort and pressed on. ‘You two are good together.’

I sucked in some air and kept my voice steady and quiet. ‘Go fuck yourself, Sean,’ I said, keeping it friendly. We breathed intimately into the silence some more, our breaths mingling in a way they hadn’t for a very long time.

‘Bye,’ I said, and hung up.

It took only a twenty-minute hobbling walk along the lower track of Mt Victoria and the occasional lower back scratch and I had Wolf eating out of my hand again. Literally. Smackos will win over the most standoffish of dogs. Tragic, really. I picked up a pine cone, a young one, firm and closed with a shiny golden sheen the colour of its needles, and lobbed it up the slope. Wolf and I watched it roll back towards us. He glanced at me then continued to breathe deeply at the bottom of a rotted tree trunk. Chasing pine cones has never interested Wolf much. Neither had running round in circles chasing his own tail. That was my specialty.

By the time I was back home re-packing my bag, Wolf and I were best buddies again. He even awarded me his most loving of gestures, a surreptitious lick to the inside back of my knee. I bet he wouldn’t mention that little intimacy to Robbie. The knee laceration worried him and he spent some minutes sniffing a diagnosis, while I tried ringing Sunny’s number again. But what with my useless phone continuing to turn itself off and Sunny’s always flicking to voicemail we didn’t make any voice-to-voice contact. Justin’s arrest would have come as a complete shock to her. As far as I knew, she had no inkling that her father was a suspect for Karen’s murder; in fact, she didn’t even know Karen had been murdered. It was a relief when my phone finally rang. I thumbed the answer icon and tentatively held the phone six inches from my head. When the shattered screen did eventually drop out, I didn’t want it falling into my ear.

‘I’m Manny Spears,’ the voice said. ‘Karen Mackie’s friend.’ He made it sound like he was her only friend. ‘I want to talk to
you.’ This was a bonus. Tracking down the friend Karen had been planning to go to the commune with had been top of my to-do list. ‘Can we meet?’ he said. ‘I want to talk face to face. I don’t like phones.’

I had two hours before I needed to be at the airport. A gust of wind buffeting the house reminded me of what to expect at takeoff.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘What are you doing now?’

Manny arrived less than fifteen minutes later. Giving a stranger my home address is not something I would normally do, but already it felt more like a house than my home. No doubt in preparation for it being sold, I was separating myself from it ASAP, as Jason would say.

Wolf went through his usual theatrical routine with strangers while Manny stood in the doorway: head bent, eyes averted, weighing him up like an old enemy. The prison tattoo on his hands and cheekbone reinforced my suspicion he’d had run-ins with Wolf’s compatriots in the past. Normally I’d tell Wolf to rein in his performance, but this time I let him go the full three acts. After a few days separation from me, he needed to reassert his role in our relationship, and it didn’t hurt for this stranger to know I had an ex-police dog in the room on full alert. Wolf turned on a top-notch performance, baring his teeth and raising his neck hair. I almost forgot myself and applauded. When he had finished announcing his full credentials, I instructed him to stay by the door and offered Manny a coffee.

‘I’ll take a seat but I won’t take up your offer of a drink, thank you,’ he said, and lowered himself tentatively into the
chair furthest from the door. He stole furtive glances at Wolf but kept his eyes out of reach of mine. Once seated, he slid a hand into a pocket and extracted a soft-leather black book. It looked suspiciously like a Bible. I didn’t notice any change in Wolf, but it sure made my hackles rise. Manny made no reference to it, but kept the book squeezed tightly in his palm. The cut in my knee oozed blood as I lowered myself into a chair opposite him. ‘What can I do for you, Manny?’ If he started to preach at me, I’d set Wolf on him.

‘Karen liked you. She thought she could trust you. Thought you were straight up.’ He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. ‘I want to meet Sunny. Karen’s daughter. I want you to arrange it.’

Tiny blisters of sweat formed on his upper lip. It was hard to tell if it was me or Wolf causing them. Maybe neither. The simple act of conversing seemed to be a real strain. He had a past, this man. An unpleasant one.

‘I don’t think I can do that, Manny.’

For the first time he lifted his eyes to mine. I saw the sweat bead on his forehead with the effort. ‘I know how I look with the prison tattoos and all and some folk can’t see past them. I don’t blame them for that.’ He’d reached his limit of comfortable eye contact and turned to look out the window. A fine drizzle slurred the glass. ‘I marked myself as a criminal so the world would know it and I have to live with the consequences of that.’ His hand squeezed the Bible, tightly clutched beneath four white knuckles riddled with tattoos. ‘But this has left more of a mark on me than any ink could.’

I remained unmoved by the Bible, but Manny’s use of it as
an emotional anchor was real enough. ‘Why do you want to see Sunny?’

He struggled with some inner argument before deciding, ‘I can’t tell you that.’

His eyes darted around the room and returned to touch down on Wolf. Possibly he was looking for an escape route that didn’t involve passing my dog. Wolf kept his unblinking stare fixed on Manny. His milky blind eye appeared all-seeing.

I relented. ‘If there’s something you want me to give Sunny, something of Karen’s, I can do that for you.’ This was a big offer on my part. The Bible he was clutching was most likely what he intended to offer and I wasn’t keen on being the gift-bearer of it.