by Toby Neal
Torufu made it to the man first, pulling his hands behind his back and cuffing him as the doorway filled with Awapuhi’s guests, yelling and demanding answers.
Stevens pushed away from the wall of the house. His ankle buckled. “Sonofabitch,” he muttered, limping quickly across the lawn, highly aware of his exposed back and head, and not taking a deep breath until he’d made it behind the squad cars.
“Take Awapuhi down to the station and put him in an interview room,” he told the two officers driving the vehicle in which the Hui leader had been stowed. “The rest of you, clear the people out of this house. I want to search it. We have warrants on the way.” He got on the radio and updated Omura of developments. “I’m going to search for evidence related to the Norwegian’s murder and anything to do with the artifacts,” he told her. “I had a tip-off phone call on my way here.” He told her what Esther Ka`awai had shared—everything but her description of where the artifacts were hidden.
“Go for it, and get back here ASAP. I want to interview Awapuhi with you present. And send a team to pick up Mana Guinamo and his friend Red. Maybe we can flush out ‘the Man’ between the three of them.”
“On it. I’ll let you know when the search is completed.” Stevens hung up the radio in his truck and winced as he set his foot on the ground.
Torufu, Pono, and Gerry came toward him. “We’ve got the house clear.”
“Call a few more units and go pick up Mana Guinamo and his friend Red Toaman. We need them down at the station for questioning in the Norwegian’s murder. I’m going to search the house. Pono, you’re with me.”
“You got it,” Gerry said. He and Torufu peeled off.
Stevens’s phone buzzed again and he looked down—it was Lei. He didn’t have time to talk to her right now. He snapped on a pair of gloves, picked up a crime kit and a box of evidence bags, and headed for the house with Pono and a couple of officers in tow.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lei hung up on Stevens’s voicemail in frustration. Things must be really hot on the Hui case if he wasn’t taking her call.
The response team officers who’d responded to her 911 call had been skeptical of her claim that the nurse had killed her aunt, though the bomb on Rosario’s body, disposed of by their explosive disposal team, lent credibility. She’d known it would take some convincing because her aunt was so clearly very ill, even on the hospice services list. Lei had shown her badge and endured their verification calls home to speak to Omura, but she resented the implication one of the young officers had made, that this had been a good thing, sparing her aunt further suffering.
Bullshit. Her aunt might have had only a few more days, but they were days she was entitled to. The bastard doing this to Lei and Stevens had stolen those days from her.
Lei dashed tears off her cheeks, waiting in the kitchen as they searched the scene and the ME worked on her aunt’s body. She’d called her dad and he’d told Momi; they were on their way home.
And still, tears kept welling up.
Lei went outside and paced back and forth on the lawn, doing her breathing exercises. Being unable to help with the investigation, track down the ‘nurse,’ or anything else, was driving her nuts. And whenever she stopped physically moving, grief was waiting, a black well she felt dragging at her.
Her father and Aunty Momi pulled up, and in moments Lei was surrounded by their arms, their tears releasing her own. “It was the nurse,” Lei sobbed. “She did something to her.”
“What?” Her father lifted his streaming face. “I thought she just passed away!” In the hectic moments of informing Wayne on the phone, she hadn’t had time to tell how Rosario had died, or about the bomb.
“Let’s go in the kitchen. They’re still in the bedroom, checking the scene, but we should go inside.”
The two officers came out of the bedroom. One of them was carrying a large evidence bag labeled shroud. “We might as well hear you tell it again,” they said, and Lei told Momi and her dad how she’d opened the door to a nurse who identified herself, wore ID, and came at the right time.
“I had no reason to suspect anything,” Lei concluded.
The medical examiner entered. He was a short, round Hispanic man, and he carried an old-fashioned doctor’s bag that reminded Lei of Dr. Fukushima on Oahu.
“I know you’re saying this is a murder,” he said, frowning. “But so far I see no signs of foul play. No petechial hemorrhaging, no needle marks, no signs of swelling, bruising, or other trauma. Are you sure your aunt was alive when you took the nurse into the room?”
Lei paused, her hands on her hips. She remembered the total stillness, the waxy tinge of her aunt’s skin when she took the woman back into the room. “I don’t know. I left her sleeping, went for a run, and brought back the nurse. I did notice that her color was poor, and I commented to the woman on it.”
“Well, I won’t know until I do the autopsy, but I suspect your aunt may have died of natural causes—either that, or this nurse was so good she injected her with something I can’t find visually. Tox results should tell us more. I’ll let you know as soon as possible.”
“Well, because of the shroud, I think I was the real target and the bomb was the intended weapon,” Lei said. “Aunty is collateral damage.” She’d gone over all this with the officers, but they wanted to hear again how she’d known how to deactivate the bomb.
Lei, her father, Aunty Momi, and the ME moved aside as his assistant wheeled the body past them, the belted-down black body bag looking tiny on the gurney. Lei held on to a wave of nausea until they’d all followed the body out of the house. She made it to the bathroom just in time.
Resting her head on the lid of the toilet, she remembered she was pregnant. But that just made the tears come again, because it was another thing she wouldn’t be able to share with her aunt.
Stevens and Pono walked into the modest house. Pono flipped on the light switch. Behind a tape barrier the patrol officers had erected, Stevens could hear the muttering of a gathering crowd, watching with folded arms and frowns that echoed that of their leader.
“We should work fast,” Pono said. “And clean up after ourselves. We don’t want to piss off his supporters more.”
“Agree. Shut the interior door and lock the grilled one. We don’t need someone barging in on us.” Stevens flicked on his hand-held light. He told Pono about Esther Ka`awai’s call. “So we want to look for anything related to the Norwegian’s murder, or the artifacts themselves. I’ll take the kitchen, back porch, and backyard.” Stevens went off, moving fast as he searched, but replacing everything he moved. His own rage at coming home to find his house seemingly disrespected was fresh in his mind—no sense inflaming Awapuhi’s followers outside.
Stevens worked his way out to the backyard, finding nothing of interest, and finally faced the yard. It was a big square lot with a locked steel storage unit in back and several spreading kukui nut trees, casting pools of shade over a small Hawaiian-style hale. The barbeque on a cement pad near the porch was still smoldering. He turned it off, checking inside the compartment underneath.
Nothing there.
He had a pair of bolt cutters in his crime kit and took them out as he approached the steel shed, favoring his wrenched ankle. He wasn’t quite ready to put Esther Ka`awai’s psychic moment to the test by checking around the kukui nut trees. Instead he cut the lock off the shed door. There was no lighting inside, and evening tangled the shadows of trees into patterns of darkness. Inside the shed was as black as lava. He flicked on his light and shone it around.
A table, piled high with various folded flags, a megaphone, and equipment that looked like Awapuhi used it for his rallies with the Hui. One side of the shed appeared to be filled with yard tools.
Nothing of interest.
Stevens turned toward the three kukui trees, planted in a rough triangle. The grass was undisturbed around the bases. But in the middle was the small hale built in a rough A-frame shape on a wooden platform,
covered with palm thatch, as was traditional. It was big enough for several people to sit inside. Stevens imagined Awapuhi using it to talk to his inner circle, or for chant and hula practice, as the lawn was smooth as a golf green.
He flicked on the light as he reached the hale and shone it around inside. Nothing. A woven palm frond mat covered the floor. He lifted the mat and flipped it to the side. All along the edge, he checked the boards of the platform, and in the middle, three of them were loose.
He went back to the shed, picked up a shovel, and used the edge to pry the boards up.
Pono came to the back porch. “What’ve you got out there?”
“I’m not sure.” Stevens didn’t look up, instead wrenching up a board with a screech. Shining his light underneath, he could see that the earth looked freshly disturbed. “Come see.”
With Pono’s help, he brought up the other two boards, and Stevens used the shovel to dig into the dirt below. Only a few strokes down yielded a thunk, and he and Pono used their hands to uncover a black plastic bag.
It was extremely heavy.
Stevens felt his heart thudding with exertion and excitement as they hauled the bag up onto the undamaged boards of the hale and ripped it open.
Sure enough, the great smooth stone shaped like an egg that Okapa had described was inside, along with two smaller pieces of stone, rough and raw-edged, about the size of dinner plates.
Stevens was glad he had his gloves on as he picked up one of the rock slices, turned it over, and exposed the deep but delicate tracery of a petroglyph of a dancer under a three-arch rainbow shape.
“Beautiful,” Pono said, rubbing his mustache, a frown between his brows.
“A very interesting development,” Stevens said. “Why would the man who swears he’s all about protecting the heiaus have the looted artifacts hidden at his house?”
“Guess we’ll have plenty of questions for him down at the station,” Pono said.
It took two of the officers who’d been guarding the front of the house and Pono to wrestle the plastic bag they’d uncovered back to Stevens’s Bronco. Even though they’d closed the bag so that the contents weren’t visible, the crowd looking on got to murmuring.
“Coconut wireless is going to be buzzing about this,” Pono said, getting in the front seat beside Stevens. He was referring to the local gossip grapevine.
“Can’t be helped.”
The radio crackled to life. It was Gerry Bunuelos reporting in. “No sign of either of the suspects we’re looking for at their residences.”
“Post a general APB, and fax their photos to the airport,” Stevens said, as they pulled into the station.
Pono had a dolly brought and wheeled the artifacts to the evidence room as Stevens limped into the building, headed for Omura’s office. When he got there, Omura stopped him with a hand. “Shut the door.”
“Thought we were in a hurry to interview Awapuhi?”
“Yes, but he’s lawyered up, so no hurry at the moment. Let them sweat a bit. I might even turn off the AC.” She almost winked, and Stevens smiled, collapsing into one of the chairs in front of her desk and tearing off his perspiration-soaked Kevlar vest.
“We found something big at Awapuhi’s house. A game changer.”
“What?”
“The artifacts.” Stevens described the search. “According to my source, Councilman Muapu is behind all these thefts.”
“Let’s contact Oahu right now. See if they can pick him up. Is your witness credible?”
“Absolutely,” Stevens said, hoping Esther wouldn’t say anything about exactly how she’d known where the petroglyphs were hidden. “She’s a Hawaiiana expert, so high up she was asked to be one of his Council of Five that are guarding the museum Muapu is planning to create with the artifacts.”
They called Marcus Kamuela and, through a snowy Skype connection, filled him in. Stevens sent him pictures of the recovered artifacts. “Awapuhi is implicated by a different witness in the murder of the art thief. We’re going in to interview him now. See if you can move fast to arrest Muapu.”
“Will do. Glad we’re finally getting a break in this case, though I’d almost rather the artifacts were being smuggled out of the country than to find our own people were stealing them,” Marcus said, frowning.
“There are a lot of missing pieces here,” Omura said. “Just bring the man in and try to crack him. Let him know one of his Council is willing to testify.”
Marcus nodded and cut the connection.
Omura looked back at Stevens. Sighed. Steepled her fingers. “I have bad news for you. Of a personal nature.”
Stevens stiffened. “Anchara’s case?”
“Nothing I can discuss with you on that. No, it’s Lei’s aunt, Rosario Texeira. She died today. She was found deceased, covered by one of those shrouds.”
Stevens shot to his feet. “Is Lei all right?”
“She’s fine. Her aunt’s death appears to have been painless.”
“Lei tried to call me, but I was in the middle of the raid.” Stevens ran his hands through his hair in agitation.
“The police officers that responded to Lei’s call in San Rafael were the ones to tell me Rosario Texeira had died and to fill me in on the situation. They wanted to check her creds, position, and the shroud case Pono opened for you guys. Your wife could probably use some emotional support right now, but I need you here and fully present with your game face on for this interview. I almost told you all this afterward, but I thought you’d never forgive me for sitting on it.”
Stevens glanced up. He saw worry in the captain’s eyes.
“You’re right. I wouldn’t have forgiven you. But if you’re worried I can’t focus on bringing down Awapuhi, you’re wrong there. Just give me five minutes to call Lei.”
“Five minutes. Meet you at Interview Room Two.” Omura got up, picked up her file and pen, and glided smoothly out of the room.
Stevens speed-dialed Lei’s number.
“Michael.” Her voice was hoarse, and he heard the clog of tears in it.
“Omura told me. I’m so sorry,” he said, and pressed his fingers into his eyes, trying to hold back his own tears at the memory of Lei on their last visit, snuggled in bed with her beloved aunty. “Did she suffer?”
“No.” Lei blew her nose. “In fact, the ME thinks she died of natural causes.” Lei told him how the nurse had come and she’d thought the woman injected her with something. “He won’t know until the autopsy. And then, there was the bomb.”
“The what?” Stevens’s blood pressure soared as Lei filled him in on the block of C-4 set on Aunty Rosario’s body, and Lei’s deactivation of it.
“And there’s still one shroud unaccounted for. Who is doing this to us?” He heard his voice rising and struggled to control it. “We have to get some traction on this.”
“I know.” A small silence. Their breathing fell into sync.
“I love you,” he said. “I’m glad you knew how to deal with that bomb.”
“Good.”
He wanted to chuckle but couldn’t. “I have some more news. We’re closing in on the end of the heiau case.” He told her about picking up Awapuhi and recovering the artifacts. “Your friend Esther was the big break.”
“Glad she called you right away. I want to come home. Work my case. But I have to stay here until Aunty’s funeral.”
“Well, when my case wraps up, I’ll join you. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Call me when things settle down.”
“I am still waiting for that. Gotta go. Interviewing Awapuhi.”
“I need you.”
“You got me. Talk soon.” Stevens cut the connection and stood. His ankle reminded him of its injury. With a grimace of pain, he hobbled as quickly as he could down the hall toward Interview Room Two.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lei set her phone down. It was dark in California, three hours later than in Hawaii, and in the kitchen she could hear her father splashing around.
He seemed to calm himself by cleaning, and he hadn’t stopped since that afternoon when he arrived back at the house with Momi.
Lei settled back on the double bed in the room she’d painted the blue of Hawaii skies the year she’d moved in with Aunty. Her aunt had taken down her teenaged posters of action heroes and rock stars, but otherwise the simple space was unchanged.
What would happen to the house now? She pillowed her hands beneath her head, thinking through the situation. It would take at least a week for Aunty’s body to be autopsied and released for burial. Aunty had told Wayne and Momi she wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered on San Francisco Bay, and some of them taken back to her beloved Hawaii.
Rosario had come to be embedded in her adopted home of San Rafael. Lei knew her memorial was going to be huge, and a big deal to plan, but Lei just wanted get on a plane and go home.
Home to Stevens’s arms, to her familiar bed, to Keiki. To work, where she had a job to do and could keep her mind off her grief. Home, to try to find a murderer who seemed to be pulling puppet strings all around them.
“It has to be Terence Chang,” Lei murmured, staring at the ceiling. That reminded Lei she hadn’t checked in with Marcella about her friend’s reopening of Chang’s case, and now there was a lot to update her on.
She phoned Marcella, and when her friend didn’t pick up, left a message that it was urgent they speak regarding new developments.
She got up and went into the kitchen. Wayne looked up from scrubbing the sink. His face seemed to have aged in the hours since Lei had called him about Rosario’s death; his cheeks were sunken and eyes hooded. His dark visage reminded her of her first glimpse of him in prison orange, and how things had changed so much since then. She walked to her father and opened her arms. He dropped the scrubber into the sink and embraced her.