Aunt Dimity Down Under (10 page)

I turned the picture over and saw handwriting on the back.

“ ‘Ten June 1912,’ ” I read aloud. “ ‘Mother and Father, on their wedding day.’ ” I examined the photo again. “ ‘Father’ must be Aubrey Pym, Senior—my friends’ banished brother. He left England around 1910, so the date works.”

“Looks like he married money,” Cameron said, eyeing the photograph shrewdly.

“He had a way with women,” I acknowledged. “It’s one of the reasons his father banished him.”

“I’d say he landed on his feet.” Cameron picked up a very old black-and-white photograph. In it, the mustachioed man stood in the arched entryway of a large church, holding a chubby-cheeked, lace-bedecked baby in his arms. Cameron flipped the picture over and read aloud, “ ‘Twenty-seven April 1913, Aubrey and A. J. at ChristChurch Cathedral, Christchurch. Baptism.’ ”

“Baptism?” I echoed puzzledly. “Where’s A. J.’s mother? No mother would miss her child’s baptism.”

Cameron pointed to a black armband on the sleeve of Aubrey, Sr.’s well-tailored overcoat. “Died in childbirth?”

I took the photograph from him and studied it closely. Aubrey, Sr.’s face was gaunter than it had been in the wedding portrait, and the laughter had left his eyes.

“I think you’re right,” I said slowly. “Poor A. J. I don’t know if Bill mentioned it to you, Cameron, but Aubrey, Senior, was killed in 1915, at Gallipoli. If his wife died in childbirth, it means that A. J. lost both of his parents before he was three years old.”

“Poor little guy,” Cameron murmured.

“I wonder what happened to him after his parents were gone?” I said. “How did he go from the doors of ChristChurch Cathedral to a rundown dump in Takapuna?”

“Will answering those questions help us to find Bree? ” Cameron asked.

“It might help us to understand her, once we find her,” I replied. “And I’d like to be able to tell Ruth and Louise something about their family, even if we don’t find Bree.”

We looked at the rest of the photographs. A black-and-white snapshot of a young man in a World War II uniform revealed that A. J., like his father, had served in the armed forces. Unlike his father, however, A. J. had been fortunate enough to return from the battlefield. A second wedding portrait told us that he’d married late in life, and that his wedding had been a much more humble affair than his father’s. The bride wore a plain white blazer and skirt, the groom, a dark suit, and they stood before the blank background of an inexpensive photography studio.

A. J.’s son, Edmund, showed up only once, in a family photo taken on the shores of a steaming lake. In it, Ed, his wife, and their little girl seemed to radiate happiness.

“ ‘Twenty-seven February 1985, Ed, Amanda, and Bree in Roto—,’ ” I stopped reading and looked to Cameron for help.

“Rotorua,” he said. “It’s a holiday spot south of here. Bubbling mud pools, geysers, hot springs. It’s a fascinating place if you don’t mind the smell of sulfur.”

I would have asked him how a place that reeked of sulfur had become a vacation destination if he hadn’t distracted me by pointing to the last photograph on the mantel shelf.

“Bree again,” he said softly.

The last photo—and the only one in color—showed a young teenager standing alone on a beach, with nothing but the sea and sky behind her. Although she was petite, she appeared to be sturdily built. Her heart-shaped face was framed by wind-whipped curtains of lustrous, dark brown hair, and she’d inherited her great-grandfather’s beautiful dark eyes. The pretty floral-print summer dress she wore seemed to be at odds with her expression, which was oppressively somber. I found it difficult to connect the grim girl on the beach with the sparkling toddler on the shores of the steaming lake.

“I wonder what happened? ” I said again. “Did Ed’s drinking drive his wife away? Or did their divorce drive him to drink? ”

“Either way, Bree paid the price,” said Cameron. “Look at the poor girl’s face.” He set the photograph down gently. “Let’s find her room.”

 

 

The Pyms’ apartment contained two small bedrooms and one large one. One of the small rooms, presumably A. J.’s, was suffused by the musty, medicinal stink of a badly run nursing home. The other, almost certainly Edmund’s, was strewn with stubbies and soiled clothes.

The large bedroom had been Bree’s.

Bree’s room was an island of calm in a sea of chaos. The walls were sky-blue, the furniture was white, and the blue-and-white gingham duvet covering the bed matched the pleated curtains hanging at the window. The gray wall-to-wall carpet was spotless.

The back of the bedroom door was covered by a corkboard, and a computer and printer sat on the clutter-free desk. A set of shelves next to the bed held a collection of small stuffed animals as well as books. A gap in the bottom row of books suggested to me that Bree had brought a favorite volume with her when she’d left home. A small indentation in her pillow made me wonder if she’d taken her favorite stuffed animal—her Reginald—with her as well.

I was reluctant to invade Bree’s privacy by going through her things, but Cameron had no such scruples. He systematically searched her dresser, desk, and closet, then knelt to peer under the bed.

“She took the bare essentials,” he concluded, getting to his feet. “She must be traveling light. Unusual, for a female.”

He gave me a puckish glance and I felt my face turn crimson. The suitcase he’d hauled around for me that morning could not by any stretch of the imagination have been described as light.

Cameron seated himself at the computer, and I left him to it. When it came to the digital age, I was a Neanderthal. I could find my way around a corkboard, however, so while Cameron busied himself at the keyboard, I focused my attention on the drawings, magazine clippings, and photographs Bree had pinned to the back of her door.

Bree Pym was clearly fascinated by the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Dog-eared copies of his books were on her shelves and she’d plastered her bulletin board with sketches of hobbits, elves, wizards, and strikingly handsome horsemen in leather-clad armor.

“Bree’s a big fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy,” I observed.

“No surprise there,” Cameron said over his shoulder. “A Kiwi director is making a movie trilogy based on the books. He’s filming the entire thing right here in New Zealand. The first part is due out in December, but they’re still working on the other two. It’s a massive project. Half the country’s been involved in it, in one way or another. If Tolkien were alive, we’d make him an honorary citizen.”

I turned back to the bulletin board. Cameron’s explanation was enlightening, but I wanted to believe that the books had fed Bree’s imagination long before the first frames of the films had been shot. A young girl living with an aged grandfather and an alcoholic father might have welcomed an escape into fantasy.

Scattered here and there among the sketches were magazine clippings of romantic cottages surrounded by pretty gardens. It didn’t take a degree in psychology to figure out why such images would appeal to a young woman living in squalor.

The photographs pinned to the corkboard were casual shots of teenage boys and girls grinning happily or making goofy faces at the camera. The horrible Jessie had commented caustically about her lodgers’ lack of friends, but I wanted to believe that Bree had simply been too embarrassed by the state of her apartment to invite her friends to visit her at home. A girl in her situation needed friends.

A solitary blank spot on the corkboard intrigued me. It measured about six inches by eight inches and had four evenly spaced pins. I wondered what the pins had held, and if Bree had thought it important enough to bring along with her, or if she’d simply thrown it away.

“I know why they stayed in Takapuna,” Cameron announced.

“Why?” I asked, turning to face him.

“Bree went to Takapuna Grammar School,” he said. “It’s an excellent school. Her father—or her grandfather—must have wanted her to have a good education and she didn’t disappoint them. She kept an online file of her test scores and they’re quite impressive. I also know how the family managed to pay the rent as well as her school fees.” He tapped a key and a spreadsheet popped up on the screen. “Bree was the family accountant. She recorded every penny that came in and went out. They survived on A. J.’s old-age pension and the income Bree received from some sort of trust fund. Ed’s contributions are erratic at best.”

“The landlady told us that he sponged off of his father,” I said. “She must have been telling the truth.”

“Jessie may be a heartless cow, but I would
never
call her a liar,” Cameron said sardonically. “Oh, and there’s one more thing,” he added nonchalantly. “I know where Bree went.”

“Why didn’t you say so? ” I pelted across the room to peer over his shoulder at the computer screen.

“It’s a job application for a waitress position at the Copthorne Hotel and Resort in the Hokianga,” he explained. “I found correspondence with the general manager as well. Bree got the job and agreed to show up for work six weeks ago.”

“She must have been pretty miserable, to leave home for a waitressing job,” I observed.

“There’s a phone number,” said Cameron. “Shall we call her?”

I pondered for a moment, then shook my head.

“She doesn’t know who we are or why we’re looking for her,” I said. “If we call her, we might scare her off. Let’s just go to the hotel.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Cameron tapped a few keys and the printer began to hum.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I’m making a copy of Bree’s most recent school photograph,” he said. “It may come in handy.”

As I watched, Bree’s heart-shaped face appeared on a hitherto blank piece of paper. She was dressed in what appeared to be a school uniform—pin-striped blazer, light blue shirt, dark blue tie. Her lustrous hair was pulled back from her face with a pale blue ribbon, and her beautiful eyes were as solemn as an undertaker’s.

Cameron turned off the computer, collected the copy of Bree’s photo from the printer, and got to his feet.

“Where is the Hokianga?” I asked.

“Up north,” he informed me.

I thanked him silently for not blinding me with geography, then inquired, “How long will it take us to get there? ”

“We can be there by this evening,” he said.

I nodded. “How will we get there? Drive?”

“Leave it to me.” He glanced at his watch. “I have to make some arrangements before we leave. Will you be all right on your own at the Spencer for a few hours? I’ll drop you off now and meet you in the lobby at”—he checked his watch again—“four.”

“I’ll take a taxi back to the hotel,” I said. “I’ve decided to stay here for a while.”

“Suit yourself.” Cameron pulled the brass key from his pocket and handed it to me. “If you don’t mind my asking, why would you want to stay in this godforsaken place when you could be soaking in the hotel spa?”

“I saw a box of trash bags in the kitchen,” I told him. “It’s time someone used them. If Bree decides to come home, I don’t want her to break an ankle, tripping over her father’s empties.”

Cameron’s smile was so sudden and so sweet that it took my breath away.

“You’re a good soul, Lori Shepherd,” he said quietly.

“I’m not,” I countered, blushing. “I’m just channeling Ruth and Louise.”

I
retrieved the biscuit tin from Cameron’s rental car before he left, and nibbled on cookies while I waged war on the mess in the apartment. Anzac biscuits, it turned out, were raisinless oatmeal cookies with a pleasing hint of honey and a sturdy texture that kept crumbs to a minimum.

Since the Pyms didn’t own a washer or a drier, and since I didn’t know where to find a Laundromat, I couldn’t do a thing about the unwashed clothes strewn around Ed’s bedroom except to confine them to a trash bag, which I placed discretely in his closet. I filled the rest of the bags with fast food wrappers, pizza boxes, beer bottles, and the refrigerator’s moldy contents, hauled them to garbage cans behind the house, then got to work on some serious housekeeping.

By the time my taxi arrived, the Pyms’ apartment was as clean as I could make it. Although I’d had Bree Pym in mind while I’d vacuumed, dusted, and scrubbed, I’d had her great-grandaunts in my heart. I wouldn’t have been able to face Ruth and Louise again if I’d left the place as I’d found it.

Instead of going directly to the Spencer, I asked the cabdriver to drop me off in Takapuna’s shopping district. I had lunch at Aubergine, a charming restaurant the cabbie recommended, and withdrew eight hundred dollars in cash from a handy ATM before setting out to make a few necessary purchases. The friendly owner of The Booklover bookstore supplied me with a New Zealand guidebook, which I intended to memorize, as well as directions to a store called Kathmandu, where I bought a day pack and a modest duffel bag.

I was determined to prove to Cameron that Bree Pym wasn’t the only female who could travel lightly. I’d been in such a hurry to pack for my unexpected journey that I’d tossed clothes into my suitcase willy-nilly. Now I would take the time to pack intelligently.

When I returned to my suite at the Spencer, I tucked Reginald, the cookie tin, and my brand-new guidebook into the day pack’s main compartment and emptied my shoulder bag into its many smaller pockets. I then pared my wardrobe down to seven basic pieces that would see me through a range of temperatures and a variety of social situations. Those pieces fit comfortably in the duffel bag, with room to spare for toiletries, unmentionables, a nightgown, and a pair of black sling-backs that would serve as a dressy alternative to my sneakers. I’d depend on my trusty rain jacket to protect me from New Zealand’s changeable spring weather.

I left the rest of my belongings in the large suitcase and delivered it, my shoulder bag, and my carry-on bag to the hotel’s checked-luggage room, saying that I would pick them up in a few days.