by Toby Neal
“What did she tell you?”
“That she and my grandmother Yumi hired the contract hit on Kwon.”
Stevens’s arms tightened involuntarily around her. “That’s right, she told you that. Your family is something else.”
“My family is your family now.”
“I guess so. A scary thought.”
“I know.”
“Speaking of family, my bro, Jared, called me in the hospital. He’s transferring in a few months to a job with Kahului Station.”
“Good. It’ll be fun to have him here. The more, the better. I guess I better make some reservations for the memorial.”
“Why don’t we go get Kiet on the way back from the memorial?”
She went still in his arms. “I’m scared.”
“Of a baby?” He smiled, dropping a kiss into her hair. “Guess you better get over that.”
“No. Scared I won’t—love him. Be a good mom to him. Same old shit.” Agitated, she climbed off Stevens to pace. “I’m weirded out about being pregnant, too. But I’m even more worried I won’t have the right feelings for Kiet.”
Stevens shut his eyes, remembering the tidal wave of emotion that had overtaken him in the hospital, holding his son in his arms. Kiet was hard not to love. “I have a feeling it’s going to be fine.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lei held Stevens’s hand too tight on the porch of the foster home on Oahu. She knew she was doing that, but she couldn’t loosen her grip. The social worker had finally finished with her verifications yesterday and had given them permission to take Kiet home. She looked around, at the late-afternoon sun slanting across a bright bougainvillea hedge around the modest house. She smelled the rich sweetness of the plumeria blossoms on the tree beside the porch as Stevens pushed the doorbell.
Lei felt wrung out by the stress of the memorial. Hearing there was no progress in tracking the mysterious nurse who’d left her aunt dead, planted with a bomb and a shroud, hadn’t helped. She and Stevens had stayed in California an extra few days, helping Wayne pack the house and clean it up to put on the market, and that had also taken a toll. Lei was both emotionally and physically drained.
Not the best time to meet her new stepson.
A woman with a kind, freckled face and fading red hair unraveling from a ponytail came to the door. Round blue eyes blinked at them.
“Welcome.” She swung the door wide. “We’ve been expecting you. I’m Sally Goodwin, and this is my husband, Burt.”
Burt was large and on the upside of fifty, and the baby tucked into the crook of his arm looked ridiculously tiny, though Lei knew he was now three weeks old.
“Glad you two could make it. We’re sorry to see the little guy go, but happy he’s going to be with family.”
“Thanks for your kind words and for your kindness to our son,” Stevens said, a tremor in his voice. “Can I hold him?”
“Of course.” Burt handed the child over to Stevens. Lei had never seen the expression that came over her husband’s face before: “dreamy” was the word to describe it. He took the swaddled baby, tucking him against his good side tenderly. Lei felt her throat close at what a beautiful sight it was.
Sally tapped Lei on the shoulder. “I have his things all packed up. He doesn’t have much. Do you have a car seat for the ride to the airport and for the plane?”
“Uh, no. We have one on Maui, but I guess we didn’t realize...” Lei felt inadequate and clumsy as the woman handed her a plastic seat shaped roughly like a scoop with a handle and a cloth shopping bag filled with diapers and other accouterments.
“I made him an extra bottle for the trip, but I hope you have a diaper bag at home.”
“Yes, we do,” Lei said. “Thanks for all of this. For keeping him.”
“Well, this part is difficult for us. We get attached to the babies, you know, and he’s such a happy, easy baby, we’re having a hard time saying goodbye. So it’s better if you two just get on the road.” Lei saw that Sally was fighting tears as she thrust the items into Lei’s arms. “Travel safe. Send us a picture now and again.”
Lei and Stevens got back into the taxi. Lei felt stunned as the Goodwins shut their door. Stevens put the baby into the car seat and fumbled with the buckles until the taxi driver got out and showed him how to strap the seat in, facing backward.
“We have some extra time before the plane,” Lei said. “Let’s go visit my grandfather Soga. Introduce them.” Stevens nodded, Lei gave the driver the address, and they finally got on the road. Lei sat on one side of the baby seat and Stevens on the other. They both looked down at Kiet.
He’d lifted a fist to his mouth and was gnawing on it, and his blue-gray-brown eyes were trained on Lei’s face. She gazed back at him and reached over to brush the thick tuft of upright black hair. “He looks like a little cockatiel or a punk rocker, with this mohawk.”
“His eyes still haven’t changed color,” Stevens said. “They said this color could be brown, or green, or something in between.”
Kiet hadn’t taken his strangely compelling eyes off Lei’s face. There was nothing uncomfortable in his gaze, just a steady acceptance and mild curiosity, as if he’d look at her all day and that would be enough. She brushed his cheek with her finger, feeling how peachy-soft it was, and he turned his face, mouthing for her finger.
“I know what that is,” Stevens said. “Rooting reflex. Helps the baby find the nipple when he’s nursing.”
“Oh,” Lei said, and she could swear she felt her own nipples prickling, as if bearing witness to what he said. Impulsively, she leaned forward, put her face close to the baby’s, into the space between his neck and shoulder. She inhaled the scent, some potent baby perfume that she couldn’t get enough of. She felt that melting sensation around her heart—it was his smell that won her over. “I want to hold him.”
Stevens grinned. “He has that effect on people.”
Kiet just blinked his eyes at them and sucked his fist.
They pulled up at Lei’s grandfather Soga Matsumoto’s modest home near Punchbowl. Lei unbuckled the baby from his straps and hefted him up, supporting his head, against her shoulder. That wonderful baby smell filled her nostrils as his light, springy, soft weight settled in her arms.
Getting out of the taxi, one foot still in the car and one on the sidewalk, Lei realized this baby boy was hers. As much hers as he was Stevens’s. She was the only mama he’d ever have, ever know, ever remember. For the first time, that felt good to her. “Thanks, Anchara,” she whispered, wishing every good feeling these days wasn’t chased by tears.
Lei walked up the cement path, leaving Stevens to pay the taxi driver and deal with the car seat and belongings. She put her finger on the doorbell, and a gentle chime sounded inside. She stroked the incredibly soft back of the baby’s head as she waited, one arm tucked under his protruding rump. Holding Kiet made her feel something totally new—peaceful but strong at the same time. She turned her head to breathe in the smell of his tender neck. “Delicious,” she whispered.
Lei heard her grandfather’s shuffling steps. The door opened, and the stern visage brightened at the sight of her. “Surprised me, Lei. I wasn’t expecting you. Whose baby is this?”
“Your new great-grandson,” Lei said.
Soga broke into a huge grin and gestured her and Stevens, loaded with baby stuff, inside. “How is this possible?” Soga asked. “But give him to me while you tell me.”
So they told him the story, and that another baby was on the way, and he served them tea and wiped his eyes over the news. They fed Kiet and explored the mysteries of bottles and diaper changing.
Eventually, Soga drove them to the airport. Kiet fell asleep in the carrier and caused comment and interest wherever they went. On the plane, with the baby sleeping in his seat between them, Lei looked over at Stevens. “I have a feeling God is breaking us in gently. Are all babies this good?”
“I don’t think so.” Stevens reached across the sleeping infant an
d took her hand. “Are you still worried? About loving Kiet?”
“I didn’t know there was this much love in the world,” Lei said. “It changes everything.”
And it did.
Turn the page to keep reading book eight of the Paradise Crime Mysteries, Fire Beach!
Fire Beach
Paradise Crime Mysteries Book 8
Proverbs 14:11
A wise woman builds her house; a foolish woman tears hers down with her own hands.
Chapter One
“Fire is poetry. Flame is destiny.” The Fireman smiled to himself as he said the words out loud, tasting the way they sounded.
Heading for an ignition site brought that poetic side out in him. Next to him, on the floor of the battered old truck, a rusty gas can rattled as he drove down the deserted sugarcane-hauling road. Harsh red dust rose from the potholed dirt as Maui’s strong trade winds kicked up.
He’d chosen a cane field they’d be burning in a week or two, yellowing since the company’d stopped watering it, fifteen-foot flowering tassels of mature sugarcane waving like mares’ tails. But if he burned it first, the cane company would lose their harvest, two years of work, and thousands of dollars.
The Fireman pulled the dust-covered truck over at one of the points of origin he’d chosen. He splashed the area with a mix of diesel to cling to the sugarcane, plus gas for ignitability, and tossed a match. He jumped back into the truck, feeling that kick of adrenaline, and floored it to the next ignition site, where he repeated the process. And a third time.
The Fireman looked back down the road into the wall of rising flames. It was catching faster than he’d planned. Maybe this one would jump the highway, really put a thrill into the Road to Hana for the tourists.
He stood there and savored a feeling of power as crackling energy released all around him. The sweet-smelling, burnt-sugar smoke soared into the higher elevations and hit colder air, coalescing into mushroom-cloud shapes. White cattle egrets flew in, landing in the road to feast on fleeing insects. A familiar roaring filled his ears as the heat fanned his cheeks.
The fire was a creature of beauty. He extended a hand to the fire, enjoying the multisensory experience he’d unleashed—and a back swirl of wind blew a tongue of flame to sear that hand like the lash of a whip. He howled in pain and hurled the gas can he was still holding into the oncoming inferno before it could blow up in his hand.
He leaped into the truck, threw it into gear, and peeled away. He couldn’t help ducking as the gas can exploded behind him with a boom! He floored it and pulled away, bouncing crazily down the potholed dirt road toward the highway. He lifted his hand, seared across the back in a stripe that looked like raw steak.
He licked the burn, tasting ash and blood. “Bitch. How I love you.”
Behind his racing truck, the wall of flame swept forward into the field with a crackling scream like a thousand demons in chorus. Insects, birds, mongooses, and more fled in futile terror before it.
Lieutenant Michael Stevens picked up a call at his office in Haiku. “Bro, it’s Jared.” His little brother’s voice sounded amped up and hoarse. “I thought I’d better call you. You know that cane fire this morning?”
Jared was a firefighter at Kahului Station, recently transferred to Maui to get away from the holocaust of summer fires in LA—but from what Stevens could tell, Maui hadn’t been the mellow posting Jared was hoping for.
“Yeah, I saw the smoke. Smelled it, too. Thought they were just doing a scheduled burn.” Maui was one of the last places in the United States still growing and harvesting sugar. The plantation operated at an annual loss, in part because of the vast amount of water and resources it took to produce even a single pound of “white gold.” The harvesting process was also pollution-heavy. It began with burning fields to get rid of excess leaves, leaving the stalks behind, heavy with syrup, to be processed.
“No. We think it’s another arson case.” Jared coughed. “We’ve almost got it contained. Remember, I told you there have been at least three of these arson cane fires in the last month. Anyway, there’s a fatality. Tourists found a guy on the side of the road, crispy as a chicken wing.”
Stevens winced inwardly, trying not to imagine what “crispy as a chicken wing” looked like in human form. Likely he’d get to see firsthand. He stood, reaching for the shoulder holster hung on the wall to strap into. “So if it was arson, it’s a homicide.”
“Right. I thought I’d give you a heads-up since it’s in your district.”
As if on cue, his radio crackled with the call to respond. “Thanks, Jared. If I don’t see you at the scene, I’ll see you at dinner tonight. Still coming, right?”
“Right. I’ll bring dessert.” Jared had begun making weekly visits to have dinner with Stevens, his pregnant wife, Lei Texeira, their son, Kiet, and Lei’s dad, Wayne, who lived with them and provided child care.
Stevens hung up and stuck his head outside his office to holler to his veteran detective. “Ferreira! Ten-fifty on Hana Highway!”
They got on the road in Stevens’s brown Bronco, cop light strobing on the dash. Ferreira, a middle-aged man of portly build and grizzled visage, worked the radio, getting as much information as he could. “Ambulance is there. Too late, but at least they can keep the lookie-loos away.”
“How far is the vic from the fire?”
“On the edge of the highway. Fire burned up to the road, like they usually do. Fire department is working on keeping it from spreading.”
“This will add more tension to the whole no-burn movement,” Stevens said thoughtfully, rubbing the tiny purple heart tattoo in the crook of his elbow with a thumb as he drove. A vocal faction on the island had begun protesting the traditional method of harvest, citing asthma and a host of environmental concerns.
“I don’t see how this has anything to do with that,” Ferreira said, frowning. “These burns are just some misguided kids making trouble. Don’t see how arson that’s just killed a man has anything to do with the burns the cane company does for harvest—something they’ve been doing for a hundred years.”
“Okay. I hope you’re right.” Stevens knew Ferreira was from a big family that had come over to Hawaii in one of the original immigration waves, working their way up from the “cane camp” shantytowns to powerful positions in local government and solid occupation of the middle class. He’d heard Ferreira lament the demise of sugarcane agriculture in Maui often enough not to argue with the man. He also knew proponents of the change to machine harvesters would make the argument that drying the fields in preparation for controlled burning provided tempting targets for arson.
They sped down the winding two-lane highway that followed the windswept coastline. Even responding to a call and driving at top speed, Stevens sneaked a few looks out his window at the ocean, a tapestry of blues from cobalt to the palest turquoise at the foam-flecked shore. Surfers, windsurfers, and kiteboarders all played along this coastline, and the colorful sails leaping over the waves reminded him of darting butterflies.
The fire was still smoldering in the charred field as they came around a corner to where barricades had been set up, diverting traffic along an old road that connected above the beach town of Paia. Stevens pulled up and parked the Bronco, snapping on gloves and picking up his crime kit. Ferreira did the same.
“Booties would be good,” Ferreira said, slipping on a pair of blue elastic-edged, fabric shoe covers.
“Good idea. Though I’m not sure how well these are going to hold up on this ground,” Stevens said, looking at the still-smoking rubble that lined the road.
Just as Jared had told him, the fire had burned up to the highway, eating everything in its path down to the black ribbon of road. The fire zone was very close to the oceanfront community of Kuau, a cluster of residences along the coast. Stevens had spent the last year before his marriage to Lei at a little apartment in Kuau and had an affection for the ragtag collection of older plantation-style homes interspersed with oceanfron
t mansions.
They walked down the road and approached the body, draped in a white cloth that was staining in patches from body fluids.
The medical examiner, Dr. Gregory, had beaten them to the scene. Squatted beside the body, he was wearing an aloha shirt decorated with cartoon menehunes, attention fixed on the grisly sight before him.
There was an unpleasant, oily quality to the smoked-barbecue odor of the body as Stevens inadvertently sniffed the air. He was glad Lei hadn’t had to go out on this call. At four months pregnant, his wife’s worst symptom seemed to be an oversensitivity to smells. This stench would definitely have had her running for the nearest toilet.
“Ah, Lieutenant,” Dr. Gregory said, looking up. Magnifying glasses made him look like a bug until he pushed the optics up onto his reddened forehead. “Got a few interesting things about this body.”
Stevens gave a nod to Ferreira to go find the fire investigator. They’d be relying heavily on the fire department’s assessment of the evidence found at the burn site. He squatted beside Dr. Gregory as the man uncovered the body further. Bits of clothing and skin clung to the sheet. “I wish they wouldn’t have covered the body with this,” the ME fussed. “Contaminating the trace here.”
“So this is what human barbecue looks like,” Stevens said. “Not pretty.” He’d seen burn victims before, but not since he’d moved to Hawaii five years ago.
“Not pretty at all. Check out the feet.”
Stevens looked. The toes were burned, the feet curled as tendons retracted. “No shoes?”
“Exactly. I wonder if that’s significant.”