“How can I relax?” I sat up. “Have you seen what’s been going on in my life lately? Has it only been one week since my life was so simple?”
“Simple? Do you mean boring?”
“No, I mean great.”
He laughed. “Tell me more.”
“I’m glad you showed up. I need to ask you something. If you really are my ‘guardian angel,’” I even went through the courtesy of air quotes, “you owe me.”
He waited.
“Can you talk to dead people?”
He just stared at me, waiting.
“You know? Just ask Mike Hokama, the dead guy, his spirit or whatever, who killed him.” I spread my hands out toward him.
“Nice beseeching gesture,” he said.
“Who says beseeching?” I asked. “Besides, I’ve moved onto begging. Please say you’ll do this. We could get Halmoni out of jail just like that,” I snapped my fingers. “Say you’ll do this. Just go back to wherever you go, or wherever you come from and find out for me. Please?”
“Do you really think dead people,” he mimicked my quote marks, “are ‘out there’ waiting to ‘cross over’ and talk to the living?” He shook his big head and pushed the fabric off his lap. “Dead people have way better things to do than come back for a visit and talk to the living.”
“Can’t you run into Mike Hokama and ask him? Come on, give me something. What do they do up there, anyway?”
“Up where?”
“The North Pole. Where do you think? I’m talking about heaven.” My voice lowered on the word. “Isn’t that where you come from? Where all the dead people are?”
“They are dead.”
I wanted to scream. “Since you’re here, claiming to be my guardian angel, doesn’t that mean, by default, that there is a heaven, someone running the show, and some sort of spiritual world?”
“You have much to learn.”
“This is going nowhere.” I got on my knees, atop the bunched material and tried to dredge up long-lost childhood Catholic rituals. I folded my hands and started to whip out an “Our Father, who art in heaven . . .” and since I forgot all the words segued into a “Bless me Father for I have sinned.” My guardian angel just sat there watching me. When I got to how long it had been since my last confession, he started laughing. The guy who wrote “like a bowl full of jelly” sure knew his similes. Mr. Angel grabbed me by my elbows and pulled me up.
“You really expect anyone to believe that you went to confession last year?” He laughed some more.
I crossed my arms. “Are you finished? You are the worst hallucination I’ve ever heard of. If I’m going crazy shouldn’t it be more fun? Isn’t there a purpose to trying to escape reality?”
“Jaswinder, I was just playing with you. We do not ever get to do this. I cannot tell you the answers to your questions because you simply would not understand. There are no words to describe what it is you are looking for. Mike Hokama is not here anymore and he is not coming back.” He looked at me. “Would it make you feel at peace if I said he is on to bigger and better things?”
“Heaven?” I whispered.
“Why are you so eager to pin labels and get definitions? What do you mean when you say heaven?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. You know, paradise, the Supreme Being’s grand plan, land o’ milk and honey?”
He just shook his head once more. “You do not understand. You would not believe me even if I could tell you, which I cannot. The best I can say is that heaven is everything you need it to be. And more. The real question you have to ask yourself, is do you believe the universe is a friendly place?”
“Thank you, Albert Einstein.” I knew nothing about physics and less than nothing about the theory of relativity, so what was Big Boy trying to sell me? That I was about to be engulfed in a black hole? Sorry. That ship had sailed.
“Honey-Girl, the universe gives you everything you need.”
Before I could give him anymore lip, the phone rang and he disappeared as suddenly as he arrived. Who could be calling so late?
Chapter 17
I Love You More
“Jaswinder. Are you still up? I’m sorry to call so late.” Jac’s voice vibrated in my ear, pinging nerve endings on my eardrum that set up the bongos. “I just had drinks with your grandmother’s attorney, O’Boyle. He thinks they are going to set bail tomorrow and maybe even allow her to come home. Because of her history and the fact that she’s never been off of this island, he thinks he can convince them she is not a flight risk. O’Boyle thinks the bail won’t be too much. If you need help with her finances, bring her paperwork over tomorrow and I’ll look it over. What do you think?”
“That would be an answer to my prayers,” I said. I can’t remember everything I said, but I gushed like a girl. “Thank you so much for helping me! Do you really have time?! Oh, I do hope we can bring her home! How will I ever be able to thank you?” I made myself drop the strand of hair I twirled and tried to drop the exclamation points I was using.
“Just come by my office tomorrow morning and we’ll figure it out, together.”
“Together,” I repeated, like I had been the one out drinking.
I couldn’t wait to see Jac. Instead of waking up as I usually did every morning, with my cumbersome time ritual, I bounced out of bed as soon as my eyes opened. Most mornings, I milked it, looking at the clock and giving myself five more minutes, and then, if I didn’t time it right, I would make myself lay in bed until the numbers posted a nice, solid time, like seven forty five, or better yet, eight o’clock.
I also couldn’t wait for the attorney to call me, so I called him.
“Hello, Mr. O’Boyle?” I said as I heard his phone click.
“M,” he said. Not even Mm. I reminded him who I was, and not getting any response, I rambled on even more. I hoped he got paid by the word, because I would certainly be able to afford him. I was not surprised to find that since saying hello appeared to be too much effort, he merely hung up when he thought I was finished.
Nice, I thought. “TTFN,” I said into the phone. If Jac trusted him, though, that was good enough for me.
I put on my jean skirt and tank top, at least it was something Jac hadn’t seen me wear yet. I couldn’t believe how much I missed seeing Jac, or how much time I spent thinking about him. He was the one bright spot in my otherwise shaky universe. It was a good thing he had no idea about my crush on him, he would run for the hills, pae pu’u. He was just being a good guy, a good friend. It was all part of his charm.
I showed up right on time at his office, parking the jeep at the curb in front of the cottage. He sat on the stoop, sideways, leaning his back against the wooden rail, looking very serious.
I walked up the sidewalk and as I approached I heard him ask me the sweetest question. “Do you know how gorgeous you are?”
I stopped in my tracks. My blush started in my heart.
“You have to know how I feel about you,” he said, still not looking me, but looking down at the steps.
I swallowed. I couldn’t believe it. I always thought we had this amazing connection, but I never though he felt this way, too. “Oh, Jac,” I said, taking another step toward him. He looked up at me and held up his hand. I stopped to let him finish. It must be hard for him to lay it all on the line like this.
“I love you. I’ll always love you,” he said.
I almost started to cry, but the smile breaking across my face won out. I loved him, too. So much. This all happened so fast, but I knew it was true. I was in love with Jac.
As my hand fluttered to my chest I opened my mouth to declare my undying devotion. Jac put his hand down and turned to face me. He stood up. “Alright,” he said. “Call me back when you find out. Bye.” With his left hand, he clicked his cell phone off.
My guardian angel damn well better make sure Jac hadn’t seen my face light up and nod in agreement at his pronouncement of love to whomever had been on the other end of his damn ce
ll phone. Damage control, I ordered. Feeling as if I had just been pushed off the edge of Black Rock, I dabbed my ring fingers, one after the other at the corner of my eyes.
“Hey you, finished with your phone call?” Did that sound carefree and breezy enough? I giggled, which was really hard to do considering what I wanted to do was kick him with my pointy toed shoe in his crusty black heart, or points south.
“Yeah. Hey, Jaswinder. I was just talking to Lana. Remember her? You met her at breakfast the other day. She’s going through a really rough time. How are you?” He came down the last step and reached for my hand.
I pulled back and clasped the folder with all of my grandmother’s financial information, with both hands. “I’m fine,” I said. “Just worried about my grandmother, that’s all.” In my head I unrolled a heavy duty piece of plastic wrap and covered up my heart, sealing it tightly to stop the bleeding.
“Did you talk to the lawyer?” Jac asked me.
“I called him this morning. He said they did set bail at two hundred thousand dollars which means we have to come up with a secured bail bond for twenty thousand dollars. He was shocked they set it so high.”
“That is high. They must be worried she’ll run. She does have a couple of priors on her record, and, the Hokama family is pretty powerful. They probably put up a fight.”
“She is a harmless little old lady who spends her days helping people on this island.”
“Hey, I’m on your side, remember?” He smiled. I swear he fluttered those thick, wavy, so unfair eyelashes at me. He’s smoochin’ it up with his lover on the phone and has the balls to flirt with me. What a player.
I followed him inside and stomped extra hard on the wood floor with my heels, pretending it was his heart, or better yet, Lana’s face. We went into his office and he helped me go through the paperwork. “We can drop this off at O’Boyle’s and keep our fingers crossed.”
“Does Mr. O’Boyle have a first name?” I asked.
“Everyone just calls him O’Boyle. I think he left his first name back home with his winter clothes when he moved to Maui. He can be—”
I spoke up. “Obnoxious? Off-putting?”
Jac laughed. “Yes. But he’s a really smart guy and takes his cases seriously. What do you want? Some guy in a three-thousand dollar suit who tells you how pretty you are or someone who will do whatever it takes to win?
Jac thinks I’m pretty? “Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be? I hope I can help. You’re in a tough spot. I know the island, and more importantly, most of the people here. I like your grandmother.” He paused.
Again with the eyelashes? He looked like he was semaphoring “And I like you, too.” How could I have gotten his signals so wrong? I needed to clear this up, and make sure he knew that I knew the score.
He helped me into his car, an older model gray Range Rover, and we headed to the attorney’s office, located in a strip mall a few miles away. “So, how long have you and Lana Ho been going out?” I pronounced her last name like a rapper would have, but Jac didn’t seem to notice.
“We’re not going out. We used to,” he said. I didn’t answer him and just watched cars zoom by. He looked over at me.
My eyes widened.
“What made you think we are dating?” he asked me.
“She’s gorgeous, and talented, and sexy . . . I’d date her,” I finished. “She seemed to really like you, I just thought—”
“Yep,” he interrupted me. “She is gorgeous, and a sweetheart. It just didn’t work out. We went out last year for a little while. We’re still good friends, though.”
I bet you are.
“She’s taking Mike’s death really hard. They used to date. That’s one of the reasons we broke up, I always knew she was hung up on him.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me that? Why don’t the police suspect her? Isn’t it usually the wife or girlfriend who is under suspicion over the random friendly neighborhood grandmother?”
“Lana didn’t kill Mike. She couldn’t have. She was singing the night he was killed. Besides, they were on again, off again. She’s busy focusing on her career and he’s, he was, busy with his development deals. I don’t know if they would have ended up together or not. Maybe. She’s the island darling, and he was the island, well, not so much black sheep, but maybe dark horse.”
“Tell me about him,” I said.
“You met him,” Jac said. “What’d you think?”
“He is very charming,” I said. “He was, I mean. I can give him that.”
“Yes, he was. And he was determined. Determined to make it, at any cost. He did a lot of shady land deals, made promises to locals that he didn’t keep, and ended up earning a bad reputation among some of the islanders. If you burn one too many folks around here, before you know it, your name is mud. Oddly enough, people in Maui were proud of his success, but ashamed of how he got it.”
“It sounds like he had a lot of enemies, right?”
“Right. The police are investigating, it just doesn’t seem like they’ve come up with anything yet. O’Boyle says he’s got the crime scene photos. Do you want to take a look at them?”
No. “Yes,” I said, pretending it was just another day at the office, another day in the ‘hood, another murder I was investigating.
We pulled into the parking lot, as Jac pointed out O’Boyle’s car, a red Camaro, parked in front of his office. “Good, he’s here.”
I nodded. Maybe O’Boyle would turn out to be some kind of Jason Statham, man of mystery, as well as few words.
As we walked inside into his small, cluttered office, Jac guided me with his hand on the small of my back. He could have steered me right off a cliff that way. Jac gave me a little background. O’Boyle, (or OBAD1, as his vanity license plate bore testament) was born and raised somewhere back east, and still carried the remnants of his neighborhood’s accent. He was in his early forties with a thick head of brownish hair that only hinted at grey, or Just For Men, I couldn’t be sure. He seemed smart but maybe that was because he wore glasses. He seemed successful, but maybe that was because his pursed mouth reminded me of Ben Franklin, circa the one printed on Benjamins. Of which he was about to collect ten of mine.
“Can we take a look at the photos, O’Boyle?” Jac asked.
He lifted his head a fraction of an inch in greeting, wow, he and Jac must be super close, and pulled out a stack of photos from a large manila envelope. I sat in the chair by his desk, next to Jac, who translated the silence. “Don’t worry,” Jac said. There’s no real gore here.” Jac looked at the photos before handing them to me. “He looks like he actually died very peacefully. It appears he ingested a sedative with the poison and just went to sleep.”
I took the photos. The first one showed a wide shot of Mike Hokama, looking like he was asleep on his long black leather designer couch in his living room. I flipped through the pictures quickly, which showed other angles, shots of the floor and the furniture. I came to a photo of the kitchen table. On its shiny lacquer surface sat a basket just like the ones my grandmother had in her kitchen. It was filled with herbs in plastic bags. A white towel, that looked like it had been used, lay tossed next to the basket.
“Who found him?” Jac asked O’Boyle.
“Gardener. Next mornin’.”
I nodded and waved the picture. “The basket and herbs look like they came from my grandmother. She has towels like that too, but who doesn’t have white towels?” Other photos, taken at the police station, showed close-ups of the individual herbs and teas, with identifying labels. I handed the pictures back to O’Boyle. “Why, exactly do they think she killed him? And if she did, wouldn’t she have been smart enough to hide the evidence?”
O’Boyle frowned at me. Or maybe that was his pleasant face.
“She says she went over there with herbs to soothe an upset stomach, and there was nothing poisonous in the mix. You saw the shots. Peppermint, chamomile, ginger. Spea
rmint.”
I nodded. “We knew that.”
“She says she didn’t take a kukui nut concoction. He told her he had been under a lot of stress. When he started up about trying to buy her property again, she says she left, but gave him the herbs so he could brew them into a tea himself.”
O’Boyle sighed, as if all those pearls of wisdom he was forced to share with me took a toll on his health. “She said, even if he was an okole, an ass, she didn’t want him to suffer.”
“From everything I know about my grandmother, that all rings totally true,” I said. “It all makes sense. So, why do the police want to pin this murder on her?”
“Mrs. Park talked to people, and let it be known she was angry with him. She is the resident expert on kukui nut oil, the agent used in Mike Hokama’s death. Kukui nut oil, in an extremely concentrated dosage, mixed with traces of belladonna root, distilled into essential oil drops can be fatal to some people. Especially if they’re allergic, or highly reactive, as Mike Hokama obviously was. Whatever he took caused his heart to stop.”
O’Boyle scooted his chair closer to his desk and folded his hands. He seemed puzzled to find I was waiting for more. Again with the sighing, O’Boyle?
“Your grandmother’s basket puts her at his place of death, even though they haven’t found the poison, or how he drank it. There was no teacup or glass found near the body. They think your grandmother gave him a potion to drink and took the evidence with her. They surmise that she either wanted to make him sick, or else thought they wouldn’t be able to trace the poison. Leaving behind her herb basket would look like a good faith effort that she went there to calm his stress and help ease his stomach problems.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “You met my grandmother. She’s not that vindictive or sneaky enough to pull something like that off.”
“Probably not. But the Maui PD is under a lot of pressure to put this thing to bed. People aren’t comfortable with the idea that a murderer is out there running around. If they can pin it on your grandmother and make it stick, so much the better.”
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