The Kiwi Target

roadway. But I can’t buy either of those options. The only tenable conclusion is that the body was thrown, or slung, down onto the roadway.”
    “I’m sorry that Jarvis isn’t here,” Winston said.
    “Now, the body came down right in front of my car—onto it, in fact. Considering its weight, which was close to two hundred by my guess, it would take more than one man to do it. Some of Jarvis’s men went up and examined the locale. What did they find?”
    Clearly Winston wasn’t anxious to answer that, but he needed to keep the conversation going. “There were three of them,” he said.
    “Are any of them in custody?”
    “Not yet.”
    Peter ate a mouthful without tasting it. “The part of the West Coast I saw is thinly populated with a lot of wooded area. A body left up there might not be found for some time. But it was deliberately thrown down. Therefore, the killers wanted the body to be found. If my car had hit it hard enough, the hole through the eardrum might never have been noticed, not with the probable cause of death so obvious.”
    “Accept my compliments,” Winston said.
    Peter ignored that. “Several people knew I was planning the trip. A young lady in Queenstown suggested it.”
    “Yes, Miss Jenny Holbrook.”
    “The rental car people knew and some of the staff at the hotel. I stayed overnight at Franz Josef. So it was no secret that I was there.”
    He waited while the waitress refilled their coffee cups. “Obviously,” he went on, “they were waiting for me. They threw the body down so I would hit it.
    “I think they intended it to land just ahead of you,” Winston said. “Then you would run over it and possibly wreck your car in the process. It’s a small, light vehicle. But they were a little slow and actually hit your car instead.”
    Peter looked at his plate and was surprised at the amount he had eaten. The hum of the dining room surrounded him, reminding him that he was still among the living.
    “They had two purposes,” he said. “To dispose of your undercover man, and to put me on the spot at the same time.”
    “Yes,” Winston agreed. “They got him by surprise, I’m sure of that. They knew about you and where you stayed at Franz Josef. It’s a small place, so we were able to find that out very quickly.”
    “What are they after?” Peter asked.
    Winston took several agonizing seconds to make up his mind. “Peter, I’m going to share a little confidential information. One of the survey people I mentioned got himself into some trouble. A bit too much to drink, a traffic accident, and some property destroyed. We had a little talk.”
    Peter looked up. “I know your little talks,” he said. “You offered to drop the charges in exchange for a copy of his report.” Winston studied him for a moment. “It wasn’t exactly that, but when this gentleman found himself in difficulties, I did point out to him that he would have to appear before a judge and state his reasons for being in New Zealand, among other things. He suggested that if I could arrange to spare him that, he’d give me a look at the survey data. Privately, of course.”
    “Which means you have a copy,” Peter said.
    Winston ignored the comment. “Mr. Kincaid came to our attention very quickly. When he began to show interest in properties here, we checked on him and learned that until quite recently he headed a major Pricane operation in Brazil. Our American friends also told us that Pricane is trying to swallow your company whole.”
    Peter listened as he savored a last bite of sausage.
    “Mr. Kincaid is now up at the Bay of Islands, where he has quite fallen in love with the place. He’s been trying to tie up a certain choice site. A local real estate man is acting for him.”
    “What kind of site?”
    “The whole end of a small peninsula—one with a magnificent view.”
    Peter saw it at once. He sat up straighter in his chair and leaned forward. “He wants to put up a hotel,” he said. “We’ve been fighting Pricane long enough to know how it operates. Once the hotel is built, their travel and tours division will book in hundreds of people on a package deal.”
    He stopped as he caught the waitress’s eye and gestured for more coffee.
    “They’ll operate the hotel and control all the restaurants and gift shops. They’ll conduct a national contest with a week at the hotel for two as the grand prize. Their clothing division will come out with a line of fashions tied in with the