by Debra Bokur
She sighed and rose from the steps. “Aren’t we expected somewhere?”
From inside the house, the sound of whining and scratching could be heard.
“Yeah, but you’re driving, and some fresh coffee would be great with this sandwich.” He gestured toward the house with his mug. “Plus it sounds like your horse is trying to break down the barn door.”
They pushed their way past Hilo and entered the kitchen. She watched Walter as he transferred the cold, leftover coffee in the press into a glass measuring cup and placed it in the microwave, pressing the numbers on the timer’s keypad.
“Did Stitches give you any idea why we need to make a trip all the way over to her, instead of just telling you over the phone what she’s found?”
The microwave pinged. Walter removed the measuring cup, carefully pouring the hot contents into his insulated mug waiting on the counter. He tore a paper towel off the roll next to the sink and wiped down a few drops that had spilled onto the counter’s surface.
“Just that the skeleton is male, as you suspected. Said she’d fill us in when we got there. I thought we’d make better time if we took the back roads in your Jeep.”
She regarded him with a small measure of surprise. “Sure. Happy to accommodate. I’m not sure I actually remember the last time you rode in the Jeep without complaining about it the whole time, though. You know—like a little kid covered in mud, bitching about having to take a bath.”
“Yeah, funny,” he said as they left the house. Kali wrestled with the door, which was being pushed from the other side by a newly distressed Hilo, now absolutely convinced that he was, indeed, being abandoned. Walter and Kali made their way down the steps and across the yard. Once they climbed into the Jeep, Kali slipped the keys into the ignition. She revved the engine, and as it warmed up, she pulled her notes from her bag and passed them to Walter.
“You can take a look at what I found regarding pineapples.” She looked at him meaningfully. “And don’t get mustard all over the pages.”
Walter took a bite from his sandwich as Kali pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. She headed south, retracing part of the route she’d taken on her return home from the harbor. He shuffled the papers into an orderly pile, studying what she’d written.
“Native to South America. Multiple cultures, including the Spanish and Portuguese, decorated everything with pineapple motifs,” he read. “It was a sign of welcome. They liked to carve it into furniture, as well as the wood trim in their homes. It’s still used as common ornamentation in modern hotels and inns, signifying hospitality.”
Kali nodded. “The pillow covers in my room at the hotel on Lna‘i had pineapples in the design.”
“Okay, but the hospitality angle doesn’t seem like a connection to the body.”
“Agreed,” said Kali. “At least not on the surface. Lots of immigrants came to the islands, though, including the Portuguese. Big part of the current population. The Portuguese grow pineapples on São Miguel, one of their islands in the Azores. After the fruit was introduced to Europe in the mid-1600s, it eventually found its way to Hawai‘i and became a major money-producing crop in the early 1920s.”
“Right,” he said. “That’s about the time Lna‘i became one big pineapple farm.”
“The research I found said roughly seventy-five percent of all the pineapples in the world were grown in Hawai‘i during the height of production. When the last of the big pineapple companies pulled out, a lot of people lost their jobs. Then the Shandling Fruit Company swooped in and took over the empty fields on Lna‘i in an attempt to revive the industry, but that only lasted a few years before they failed, too—despite all the big promises they’d made to the workers.”
Walter was quiet for a moment, considering what Kali had said. “So there were a lot of pissed off, financially impacted people wandering around without a job to go to in the morning.”
“Yeah,” she answered. “By the time Shandling Fruit packed up and left Hawai‘i in August of 1997 to reopen with a much smaller presence in Central America and Southeast Asia, it seems safe to assume there were more than a few unhappy people. So, not a stretch to think there could be some connection. It’s more than possible that the guy who comes in to tell everyone to go home and stay there, becomes the target of some serious anger.”
“And finds himself headless and stuffed into a refrigerator?”
“Yes, except . . .” Kali looked thoughtful. She eased the Jeep over and around a series of potholes, then turned back to Walter. “Except that he wasn’t stuffed, was he?”
Walter frowned.
“His hands were folded, and it looked to me as if he had been placed inside the fridge pretty carefully.” She hesitated. “Maybe even reverently.”
Walter considered this. She waited, knowing that a thousand different scenarios were likely dancing around in his head. Outside the window, the rich green and turquoise shades of the island’s interior gleamed in the sunlight. They’d passed though Keokea and Kula, and were approaching the turnoff for Highway 37 leading toward the airport and on to Wailuku. When they were less than ten minutes from their destination, she glanced back at Walter, surprised that he’d still made no comment. His head was turned toward the window, nodding gently with the movement of the car. Kali sighed. He was asleep.
She reached over with her right hand and poked him in his thigh.
“Hey there, sleeping beauty—wake up!”
His head jerked upright. “Damn,” he said, stifling a yawn. “Sometimes I forget how mean you are.”
“You used to tell me I was sweet.”
“Yeah, when you were eight.”
That was a long time ago, she thought. Long before she realized the world was filled with thieves and bullies and killers. Long before she knew about rainforests being destroyed and animal abuse and child molesters and garbage filling the seas. When she was eight, she reflected, she could afford to be sweet.
CHAPTER 4
Walter and Kali looked at the skeleton arrayed on the metal examination table. There wasn’t much to see. Stitches had removed the clothing from the body. The hands were no longer carefully folded, nor was the body still bent at the waist and knees. Stretched out beneath the glare of lights, it seemed even smaller and more despondent than it had looked curled within the refrigerator.
Kali moved toward another table, where the clothing had been laid out. The deceased had been dressed in a short-sleeved shirt beneath his overalls, but the cloth had long ago begun to disintegrate. His shoes were leather, but thin and inexpensive, and the soles and heels revealed considerable wear.
“There’s something about these clothes that suggests a different time period, don’t you think?” she asked. “The shoes, too. They look a little old-fashioned.”
Stitches nodded. “Indeed they do,” she said, “that is, if you think the 1970s and ’80s warrants the term ‘old-fashioned.’ And let’s remember: Not everyone has the means to update their wardrobe on a regular basis. Many people hold on to clothing for a very long time, or wear hand-me-downs.”
Kali frowned. “Granted. To me,” she said slowly, walking around the table and viewing the items from different angles, “the coveralls suggest farm laborer, but the shoes say going-to-town day.” She moved closer to where Stitches stood in front of the skeleton.
“Yeah,” said Walter. “It seems like boots would be more appropriate for working in the fields.”
“Again, you’re projecting. Not everyone can afford boots. Or perhaps he’d decided to be ironic when he got dressed the day he died,” said Stitches. Neither Kali nor Walter laughed, unable to separate her humor from her sarcasm even after years of working with her. “If the clothing was his,” she continued, “it’s unlikely he was wealthy, or, say, management. More likely to have been a worker, or maybe someone visiting. The fabric is of no substance, and there are no maker’s labels.” She stood back, allowing Kali enough space to view what was left of the man in front of them.
“That’s all still assuming he was a farm laborer,” said Walter. “And we don’t even know if these were his clothes or if he was associated with the fruit fields. The empty land could have just been a convenient spot to stash a body.”
“I don’t know,” said Kali, still frowning. “The pineapple and the fridge are a couple of steps too far, don’t you think? The pineapple was unlikely to have been a casual afterthought, and as for the fridge, you would not only have to know there was one available, but have the means to move it. It seems unlikely a body would be brought here from somewhere else, hidden in the fridge, carried here in some kind of vehicle, and hoisted into a large hole. How many people would that take, anyway? Minimum of four, I’d guess.”
“Yes, of course there are a multitude of details to consider, but for the moment, shall we stick to the clothing?” asked Stitches. “If these clothes didn’t belong to the deceased, then whomever they did belong to left something in the pants pocket.”
Kali and Walter looked surprised.
Stitches smiled in satisfaction. “Front, right side,” she said, watching them closely. “And he or she must not have wanted to lose it, because the bottom corner of the pocket where I found it was sewn closed to protect it.”
They stared at the plastic evidence bag as she raised it. Inside was a small metal charm that suggested a stylized anchor. Kali took it and held it up to the light. She turned it over several times, then handed it to Walter.
“Sewn shut?” repeated Kali, intrigued.
“Yes,” said Stitches. “Those that were left were small, neat stitches. Very even. I might even say they were made by someone who was handy with a needle.”
Walter examined the charm closely. “Could you tell if there’s any kind of marking on it?”
“There’s nothing. No inscription, no initials, no manufacturing mark.”
Kali’s face took on a thoughtful expression. There was something vaguely familiar about the shape of the metal. Although the suggestion of an anchor was clear, the bottom piece was straight, whereas a typical anchor would generally be curved upward on its two points. “A lot of people, including fishermen, carry talismans,” she said, unconsciously reaching up to slip one finger beneath the neckline of her shirt to finger the leather cord around her neck, from which dangled a collection of small talismans of her own. “Fishing charms. Some of them even keep the charms fastened to their nets to bring good luck.”
Walter nodded. “Not uncommon, especially with the older generation. I’ve seen some beautiful jade and stone examples. But what’s a fisherman doing in a pineapple field?”
“I don’t know,” said Kali. “He could have been a visitor or friend, or someone who had multiple jobs.”
They considered the host of implications and possibilities in silence. Finally, Kali spoke. “Any clue on ethnicity?”
“Ah,” said Stitches. “That may take some time to determine. The shape and capacity of the cranial cavity is usually one of the places we start with skeletal remains. What we do have right now is height. The femur, being mature and fully intact, indicates an adult with a height between five feet seven and five feet ten. There’s also evidence that the right arm was broken at some point.”
Walter sighed as he handed the anchor back to Kali. “That’s something, I guess. I’ve got Officer Hara going through the records on missing persons. Do we at least have some idea how long this gentleman was left in the field? It would help if we had a ballpark date to narrow the search.”
“Not yet,” said Stitches. “Determining that will also be a challenge.”
“I’d guess that someone would have to have known that that part of the field was no longer in use before burying someone there,” said Kali. She passed the anchor back to Stitches, then walked over to a rolling metal cart where the wooden pineapple had been placed.
“The pineapple is a fascinating component,” she said, gazing intently at the details of the design. She lifted it and turned it upside down. It had been created from a single piece of wood. There was a hole in the bottom, roughly square, with a cavity that was about six inches deep.
“I’m not sure ‘fascinating’ is an appropriate descriptor,” responded Stitches, replacing the metal charm back into the small evidence bag. “Though the intricacy of the carving, in my inexpert opinion, appears to be of a high quality.” She followed Kali with her eyes. “I see you’ve noted the hole. Fence post would be my best guess. While you’re sorting out that bit, I’ll be trying to collect enough DNA from the remaining hard tissues in the body for the forensics lab to work with. There’s likely been substantial degradation, though perhaps not as much as would have occurred if the body hadn’t been partially sealed.”
“Partially?” asked Walter. “Looked to me like he was pretty well secured in there.”
“Yes, but the rubber sealing material used to keep the refrigerator door closed had rotted away in large sections, so the interior was not airtight. External microbes had access to the body at that point, though there was likely a delay of some time before that occurred.” Stitches glanced over at the pineapple. “At any rate, it’s all yours. We didn’t find anything on it, so you can add it to your evidence collection, such as it is. The charm, as well.”
She waggled the small plastic bag in front of her, and nodded toward the pineapple. “I left a box in the hall beside my office door. The pineapple should fit.” As Kali and Walter lingered, their gaze on the skeleton, Stitches cleared her throat impatiently. She crossed to the pineapple, lifting it. “I have work to do, and so do you. Let’s get on with it, shall we?” She placed the ornate carving in Walter’s hands and handed the anchor bag to Kali, then turned away from them without saying anything more.
Walter gripped the wooden fruit, raising a brow at Kali. They made their way through the door and into the hallway, pausing outside Stitches’s office door where an empty cardboard box was sitting. Carefully, Walter slipped the pineapple inside, glancing at the writing on the box.
“Bone saw,” he read, then hoisted the box up. “Yikes. When my wife leaves empty boxes around the house, they usually say something like shoes, or wineglasses.”
Kali grinned. “I’d be willing to bet that Stitches gets as excited about a new bone saw as your wife does about a new pair of sandals.”
“Yeah, bet you’re right,” he said. Together they left the building and made their way to the parking lot, where Walter finally shook his head. “And then there’s you with dogs. I understand criminals. Even kids, to some degree. But I don’t think I’ll ever get a handle on the way you think.”
“I wouldn’t waste my time trying if I were you.” She patted the box. “The fence post makes a lot of sense, though. I can see the pineapple sitting on top of it, maybe at the entrance to a road or property.”
They climbed into the Jeep, the box holding the pineapple stored safely in the rear seat. Walter glanced at his phone as Kali started the car and pulled slowly out and onto the road.
“Couple of messages from Hara. We’ve got a good lead on that cock-fighting ring that’s operating up-country, you know, the one we suspect is run by that brother-and-sister duo. The woman just checked in at the emergency clinic covered with gouges that look like they came from a pissed-off rooster. Not to mention, that couple who found the fridge have been running their mouths. We’ve got a ton of calls from everyone including the newspaper in Honolulu asking about it.” He sighed. “Damage control time, I suppose. Other than that, Hara says he’s come up with twenty-two names of still-unaccounted-for missing males since 1997, which is the date I gave him to start with. Seeing how it’s the year the Shandling Fruit Company gave up and left.”
Kali grimaced. “That doesn’t seem like a lot, somehow.”
“A lot of missing people eventually turn up, as you know. Different names, unexpected places, dead, hiding, whatever.”
“Once we have more details, we should be able to narrow the list a bit.”
“Agreed,”
said Walter. “I’ll pick up my car from your house later on. Let’s just head straight to the station.”
CHAPTER 5
Officer David Hara, the rookie who was currently serving under Walter’s supervision at the small Maui satellite police office near Hana, was sitting at his desk in front of his computer, his back very straight, his dark blue uniform shirt neatly pressed. He stood up respectfully as Walter and Kali entered.
“Captain. Detective.”
Walter rolled his eyes.
“Sit down, Hara, for crying out loud. And spill something on your shirt, will you?”
Hara looked confused.
“Ignore him,” Kali said to Hara. She watched as Walter tugged instinctively at the rumpled collar of his own shirt, which was spread to the limits of the available cloth across his wide girth. “He’s just intimidated by anyone who doesn’t look as though they spent the night being dragged through the underbrush by a loose house cat.” What she didn’t say was that she was aware of how Hara’s extraordinary good looks made Walter vaguely uncomfortable, as though he were being personally judged by some unnamed force, and found wanting in comparison.
To help relieve Hara’s obvious discomfort, Kali walked over to a long wooden table where a coffeemaker had been set up next to an electric kettle and a microwave. There was an apartment-sized refrigerator next to the table, and a small, newly erected shelf above the fridge. She took two clean mugs down from the shelf, and placed them on the table’s surface.
“Coffee fresh?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Just made it up,” said Hara.
Kali smiled as she lifted the coffeepot and filled both mugs. “How do you take it, Hara?”
He smiled, looking slightly shy.
“You don’t have to . . .”
“Nice shelf you built here, by the way. If memory serves, Captain Alaka’i said he was going to put one up, but that was what, five years ago? Six, maybe?” She replaced the coffeepot and opened the refrigerator door, reaching inside for a carton of cream. “I think I’ve noticed you like cream but no sugar, right?”