Kaua'i Me a River

by JoAnn Bassett

  Sunny came out of the kitchen. “Aloha, Kiki. Good to see you again, although once again it’s under sad circumstances.”

  Detective Kiki Wong gave Sunny a tight smile. “Yes, Mrs. Wilkerson. Sad circumstances are an unfortunate part of the job.”

  She turned to me. “We got a tip that Mrs. Margaret Chesterton was out here last night talking to you before the accident.”

  I considered what Valentine had said about saying nothing, but then decided that nipping this in the bud would be the better option. “Yes, Peggy came over last night totally ‘ona, you know, drunk. She and I chatted for a couple of minutes and then she left.”

  Both detectives gave me the cop squint. Then Wong went on, “So you allowed an intoxicated woman to get in her car and drive away?”

  “I, uh.” I tried to come up with a good excuse, and Valentine’s words echoed. “You know, I don’t think I want to talk about this anymore without my lawyer present.”

  I looked over at Sunny. She shrugged. Then she leaned in and whispered, “You want me to get Valentine on the phone?”

  “I guess you better.”

  ***

  The cops were kind enough to give me a lift to the station. The back of the cop car was like you see on TV, a slick vinyl bench seat and no door handles. Through the wire mesh separating the back from the front I could see all kinds of high-tech stuff. They had a GPS screen, an on-board computer, dash-mounted camera; the whole nine yards.

  “Wow, you guys are well-equipped,” I said. “The cops on Maui would love to have that much hardware.”

  Neither cop turned to acknowledge me.

  After a few moments, Akanu said, “You ride in cop cars much on Maui?”

  I decided to shut up for the rest of the trip.

  They took me inside and brought me to an interview room. I’ve been in a few police station interview rooms before. It’s not like I’m a habitual criminal or anything; it just seems I’m a person that cops like to talk to.

  Valentine arrived minutes later. She and the detectives greeted each other. I felt like a dog at the pound. Like I hadn’t done anything to deserve this, but now my fate was in total strangers’ hands.

  “Anyone want coffee? How about some water?” Akanu played the gracious host while Wong glared with her arms crossed. Valentine established the pecking order by declining for us both. I could’ve gone for a Diet Pepsi but I didn’t want to cross her.

  “Let’s start from the top,” said Wong. “At what time did the victim arrive at your premises?”

  Oh great. So now they were referring to Peggy Chesterton as ‘the victim’. I glanced at Valentine and saw she’d picked up on it too.

  “You don’t have to answer that, Pali.”

  “We’re just trying to establish a timeline, here, Ms. Fabares. Nothing more.”

  “My client doesn’t wish to assist in establishing your timeline unless you plan to charge her with something. What difference does it make what time Mrs. Chesterton arrived?”

  “Can I answer?” I said.

  “No,” said Valentine. “You may not.”

  I leaned in and whispered in her ear. “I have no idea when she got there. I was asleep on the sofa and when I woke up she was at the door. I don’t wear a watch and I didn’t see a clock so I can honestly say I don’t know what time it was.”

  “My client doesn’t recall what time it was,” Valentine said. Not nearly as good an answer as mine.

  “Okay,” said Wong. “Does your client recall if it was light outside or dark?”

  There was no way I could avoid answering that. I looked at Valentine.

  “My client doesn’t recall.”

  “Why don’t you ask your client if she’d like to answer before you answer for her?”

  “Because this is a waste of time. My client has no knowledge of anything regarding Mrs. Chesterton’s tragic automobile accident.”

  “Your client has already told us that Mrs. Chesterton appeared to be impaired when she left the premises.”

  Valentine said, “Peggy Chesterton had a severe drinking problem when she was younger. But she’d been clean and sober for years, maybe decades. It wouldn’t have taken more than a couple glasses of wine for her to appear more impaired than she probably was. But regardless, my client has no medical or police training to allow her to ascertain a person’s blood alcohol content.”

  I was baffled by the logic, but I’d put my trust in Valentine’s lawyering so I kept quiet.

  “True,” said Wong. “But regardless of her BAC, if she appeared impaired, she was most probably impaired.”

  Detective Akanu maintained a zen-like smile but his eyes bore into mine as if he was trying to fit me for glasses.

  The two detectives exchanged a look and then Wong got up and left. After a half-minute of silence Akanu spoke up. “You know, all she’s trying to do here is get to the bottom of this. No one’s accusing anyone of anything. But when a respected citizen such as Mrs. Chesterton runs off the road and into a tree for no apparent reason, we like to find out what happened.”

  The guy sounded like Dr. Phil. And, like a guest on the Dr. Phil Show, I really wanted to tell him my story.

  Valentine said, “Detective Akanu, I respect you’re just doing your job. But I’m doing mine. My client has nothing to say.”

  Akanu got up and left. I turned to say something to Valentine but she pointed to the camera in the corner. I folded my hands on the table and stared at the mirror on the other side of the room. Twenty minutes later we were told we were free to go.

  We walked outside and I said, “Why won’t you let me tell them the truth?”

  “Because they will use it against you.”

  “But I don’t know anything.”

  Valentine turned on me. “Look,” she said. “Don’t you ever disregard my instructions again. I told you to say nothing. I’m doing my best to distance you from this. From now on, do exactly what I say. It’s your only way out.”

  Not much of a vote of confidence.

  She asked if I wanted a ride to Sunny’s and I nodded.

  “I don’t have anything to wear to court tomorrow. Do you know of a shop in Kapa’a that’s open today?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t leave the compound. Why don’t you see if you can borrow something from your step-mother?”

  We pulled out onto the highway and I said, “Do you think I had anything to do with Peggy Chesterton’s death?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t want to know,” she said.

  Nope, not much of a vote of confidence at all.

  ***

  When we got to Sunny’s I called Farrah. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk very long this morning. I didn’t get a chance to ask you how things are going with Moke.”

  “Oh, Moke’s great. In fact, in a few minutes Hatch is taking us all down to the beach. We’re gonna dip his little feet in the ocean for the very first time. I wish you could be here.”

  What? Hatch was helping Farrah bond with Moke? He’d done a complete about-face since Friday when he’d been ranting about child endangerment and kidnapping.

  “Oops. Sorry Pali, but I’ve gotta run,” she said. “Hatch is out there blowing the horn and I still have to pack the diaper bag. I tell ya, Pali, this mother stuff isn’t for wusses.” She trilled an aloha and hung up.

  CHAPTER 20

  Sunny buzzed Valentine through the gate but I asked to be dropped off at the ohana rather than the main house. I wasn’t in the mood to give Sunny a play-by-play of what’d happened at the police station. I was afraid she’d enjoy it too much. Instead, I went into the guest house and crashed on the sofa. I awoke to the phone ringing. It was Sunny, asking me if I’d like to join her for dinner. I didn’t feel hungry, but I was going to have to hit her up for something to wear to court so I accepted.

  “I’m not a great cook,” she said as I came in. “But your dad didn’t mind. We ate out a lot and he was mostly a steak and rice guy. He bought himself a fancy gri
ll and got a rice cooker for me and we were good to go.”

  She seemed awfully chipper under the circumstances. I told her about Valentine not allowing me to defend myself. I also told her about Valentine’s seeming lack of faith in my innocence.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she said. “Valentine’s a worry wart. Goes with the territory, I guess. She used to drive your father nuts with her nit-picking and her ‘sign this’ and ‘initial that.’ When we got married and he told her he wanted to sign everything over to me as community property I thought she’d have a heart attack. She didn’t want him to leave me a dime.”

  I asked if she’d mind loaning me something to wear to court and she invited me into the master bedroom. I felt uncomfortable looking at the king-size bed set against the wall. It was much too intimate a reminder of her relationship with my father.

  She went into a walk-in closet and came out with a beautifully-tailored deep green linen sheath. “How about this? It will go great with your eyes.”

  “Oh, wow. That’s really nice. But what will you wear?”

  She flicked a finger for me to join her in the closet. The room was as nearly as big as her kitchen, with fancy shelving and shoe racks. It even had a center island with drawers and a granite top. I stood slack-jawed, staring at row upon row of dresses, blouses, skirts, and pants. All were grouped by color. Her shoe collection took up an entire wall.

  “I think I’ll be able to find something. Now, how about shoes?” She looked down at my rubba slippas. “What are you? About a seven?”

  I nodded. She handed me a pair of taupe-colored sandals that probably cost more than the Kelly Blue Book on my car.

  “Mahalo. I’ll get this dress cleaned and send it back.”

  “Oh puh-leeze. Keep it. Since Phil bought me all this, half of it is yours now anyway.” She laughed but it made me almost as uncomfortable as staring at the bed.

  We went back into the kitchen. She pulled some salad makings out of the refrigerator and asked if I’d do the honors.

  “You never answered my question about how long you two were married before my father died,” I said.

  “I know. I guess I’m a little touchy about it. See, I took care of your dad for nearly two years before we got married. Then—’ She stopped and I looked up from making the salad. She was biting her lip and blinking back tears. It was the first time I’d seen her show any emotion over the death of my father.

  “I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” I said.

  “No, it’s fine. I can’t believe it still gets to me. We both knew what was going to happen. It wasn’t like it was a shock or anything.”

  “But still, it’s hard,” I said.

  “Yeah. I feel bad that you never got to know him. He was one in a million.”

  “Sounds like it. But I’ve got to say, it’s hard for me to bring up good feelings about him. And now that I know he knew my mom had been killed and he never came for me… Well, all I can say is I’m lucky Auntie Mana stepped up when she did. My brother and I had nobody.”

  “Your father cared for you in the only way he knew how. But he had to keep a low profile.”

  I stared at her. “A low profile? Sounds like he was anything but low profile.”

  “Oh, it’s complicated,” she said. “And anyway, I’m starving.”

  We sat down to a simple dinner of barbequed chicken breasts and salad. I poked at the chicken but ate more than my share of salad.

  Sunny looked at my plate. “Are you a vegetarian? I forgot to ask.”

  “No, I’ve been known to knock back many a harmless creature,” I said. “But tonight I’m more tired than hungry, I guess. If you don’t mind I’m going to head off to the ohana as soon as we’ve cleaned up the kitchen.”

  “Don’t worry about it. My housekeeper comes tomorrow. I’ll just throw the dishes in the dishwasher and leave the rest for her.”

  I went off to the guest house thinking how different my life would be if I could just pay someone else to clean up my messes.

  ***

  On Monday, Sunny pulled up in front of the ohana in the Range Rover. “I’m going to drive since Timo’s got things to do and who knows how long this court thing will take,” she said.

  We pulled in at the courthouse and Valentine was standing outside with a grim look on her face. I smiled as we approached but it wasn’t returned.

  “I don’t want to go into it now,” Valentine said when we’d gotten within earshot. “But the preliminary autopsy report on Peggy Chesterton has been released and it doesn’t look good.”

  “They did an autopsy on a Sunday?” I said.

  “Yes, Peggy’s death is all over the news. After all, her father was the former mayor. I’m sure they called the ME right away and told him to get right on it.”

  “Well, don’t leave us hanging,” I said. “What didn’t look good?”

  “It seems she was extremely intoxicated at the time of the accident. But the tox screen was inconsistent with regular alcohol intoxication.”

  “So what made her drunk?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question. The ME is considering a more sophisticated test, but he says it might not be worth the trouble since the markers degrade with time and refrigeration.”

  Sunny shook her head. “Poor Peggy. Makes you wonder what happened. You know, come to think of it she didn’t look at all good. I wonder if she might’ve been abusing pharmaceuticals or even street drugs.”

  “It’s hard to imagine, but you never can tell,” said Valentine. “Well, let’s get inside. Judges don’t suffer late-comers gladly.”

  We went up to the second floor. The courtroom was smaller than the one I’d been in on Maui, but then Kaua'i has half the number of residents of Maui. The judge was conferring with a court clerk when we slipped in and took our seats.

  I’m not sure what I expected, but our courtroom appearance took only minutes. Valentine was approved as the executor of the estate and Sunny and I were noted as being the named beneficiaries in the will. It was all very matter-of-fact.

  The judge ordered the notification period to begin. Documents were signed and stamped, fees were paid, and we were back outside in less than half an hour.

  “That was easy,” I said.

  “Well,” said Valentine. “What we accomplished today was simply to open probate. The process itself takes months, sometimes years. And if there’s mediation involved—that is, if someone else comes forward to contest the will—then it can drag on and on.”

  “Oh, great,” I said.

  “But don’t worry about it,” said Valentine. “That’s my job. Your job is to get the documents the judge requested. Sunny, I’ll need originals of Phil’s life insurance policies, deeds to the homes, and investment statements. Pali, all I need from you is your birth certificate.”

  I nodded. “I’ve got it at home.”

  “Go ahead and fax me a copy. Before the final settlement I’ll need the original, but I have a hunch that will be months from now.”

  “So, we’re done?” I said.

  “I can’t see any reason for you to stick around,” said Valentine. “I can take you to the airport right now if you want.”

  Sunny and I hugged goodbye.

  “Can I ask you a favor?” I said as Valentine and I walked through the parking lot. “Do you have time to drop me by the The Garden Island newspaper office? I need to check on something.”

  “Sure. I don’t have appointments until after lunch. What do you need?”

  “I’m hoping it will only take a minute. I want to see if there were any news stories about my mother’s death back in 1981.”

  Valentine drove me to the office on Kuhio Highway and I went inside. She stayed in the car returning phone calls.

  “Aloha, can I help you?” said a young local guy at the counter. “You want to set up a subscription?”

  “No, I’m here to see if you can find something for me in your archives.”


  “We post our archives online, you know.”

  “Yes, and I checked it. But this is about a killing that happened in 1981.”

  He squinted up his face as if realizing I was going to be a tough customer. “I don’t know what we’ll have from back that far. We had a fire in the building in the middle eighties. Lost a lot of microfiche. Back then, we put all our archives on microfiche.”

  “Would you mind looking anyway?”

  “Sure. Give me the date. I’ll look it up and let you know if we have anything.”

  “Can I give you a month and year?”

  He really squinted at that one. “That will take a while to go through. How about this? Do you have key words or maybe a name? We’ve put the big stories from the archives in a computer database. If I can find the exact date it will speed things up.”

  I gave him my mom’s name, Marta Warner. I figured if they couldn’t find it by her name then the microfiche had probably been lost in the fire.

  He typed in the name.

  “Ah. Seems we have a hit for Marta Warner on April 17, 1981,” he said. “Would you like a copy? We charge a dollar a page for microfiche images. But I have to warn you; sometimes they’re kind of blurry.”

  “That’s okay. How many pages is it?”

  “Um, looks like just one.”

  “Yes, please print it out for me.”

  He left, and a few minutes later he came back with the print-out. I took a dollar out of my purse.

  “Nah. No charge. I looked at the story. Was she ohana?”

  “Yeah. My mom.”

  “Sorry.” He gave me a sympathetic nod and we held eye contact just a tad longer than was comfortable. “We publish good news too, you know? So if you ever want to sign up for home delivery…”

  “Mahalo, but I live on Maui now.”

  I folded the print-out and went out to Valentine’s car. She was still on the phone but she signed off a few seconds after I shut the door.

  “Did you get what you needed?” she said.

  “Yes, mahalo. I appreciate you waiting.”

  We drove for a minute and I said, “I was surprised to learn how long it’s going to take to get the will through probate.”