Murder of the Hula Dancers

by R. Barri Flowers

  Between kisses, sighs, stimulation, and sexual relations, Leila lost sight—for at least a while—of her latest case. She focused all of her attention on the man who seemed to get her better than anyone else these days, even if she didn't express that to him as much as she should when they weren't in bed.

  For now, he didn't seem to be complaining.

  Neither was she, as Leila reached an orgasm that was so powerful, she all but rose off the bed, legs, arms, and torso. Luckily, Maxwell was there to catch her while not missing a beat as he climaxed hotly, spurring her into another orgasm.

  When it was over, he laughed and joked: "Rough day at work?"

  "Something like that," she confessed, draping her leg across his. "Murdered hula dancer, killer still on the loose; just another day in the life of a homicide detective."

  "And I'm sure you'll get it solved, come hell or high water."

  She smiled. "Well, when you put it that way, maybe things will fall into place."

  "Do you doubt it?"

  "I'm pretty confident it will be resolved one way or the other," Leila admitted. "But when it comes to murder cases, one can never be too sure about anything—other than someone is dead and someone is responsible and has to be held accountable." She kissed his mouth. "Now, how about if we turn off the crime chat and return to what we've been doing for the last half hour?"

  Maxwell licked his lips and responded: "Works for me."

  Leila looked at his body, grinned, and said teasingly: "I can tell."

  They got back to enjoying each other's company in ways that again carried Leila away from the job and into her lover's waiting arms.

  Somewhere between the sounds of intimacy, she heard Maxwell say that he loved her. Then Leila heard herself repeat the same words to him.

  * * *

  Leila was still thinking about the love declarations the next morning when she went home, almost forgetting sometimes that she lived elsewhere other than Maxwell's comfortable ranch. Had either of them truly meant to say they were in love? Or were they just words murmured while they were caught up in the throes of intense sex? Was she ready to be in love again and to be loved?

  It was food for thought that left Leila feeling slightly off balance as she entered her Wainee Street plantation style cottage in Lahaina. It was built in 1934, had two bedrooms, and was formerly owned and occupied by her grandparents. They passed it down to her mother, Rena Kahana. When she relocated to the Big Island of Hawaii six years ago, Leila took ownership of it as her place of refuge.

  Though the cottage had undergone some renovations over the decades, it still had the original wood frame windows and hardwood flooring. For her part, Leila had remodeled the bathrooms, kitchen, and her bedroom, giving it more of a contemporary feel. Now she wondered how long she would continue to live there.

  Would Maxwell ask her to move in now that they had both shared their feelings of love? Or was it best for them to just stay over at one place or the other while keeping some independence by maintaining separate residences?

  Rather than overthink things, as she often tended to do, Leila put those thoughts on hold and changed into a sports bra, running shorts, and sneakers for a quick run on the beach. Never mind that she had spent much of the night working out with Maxwell, in and out of bed. Jogging had long been one of her passions for fitness, reflection, and taking in the beauty the island offered at virtually every turn.

  After the brisk, heart-pounding run, Leila watered her bamboo and orchid plants, took a shower, and headed out the door for another day on the job.

  Her mother called as Leila was on her way to Chung's place to pick him up. She put her on speakerphone.

  "Hi, Mom."

  "Aloha au ia 'oe," her mother said.

  "Love you, too," Leila told her, knowing her mother liked speaking Hawaiian as often as she could, as if to do her part to maintain Hawaiian language and culture.

  Rena Kahana sighed loudly into the phone. "So am I ever going to meet this cook you're seeing?"

  "He owns the restaurant," Leila said, sure she had already told her mother that more than once, but was forced to repeat it anyway. "Maxwell does cook, though, and very well I might add."

  "I'd like to see for myself. Why don't you bring him with you to the Big Island?"

  "I would love to," Leila promised, "but, right now, I'm in the middle of another case that's keeping me busy."

  "Likely excuse," her mother said. "Don't you want me to get to know him? Have you even told him about me?"

  Leila sighed. She was used to the guilt trip her mother was so adept at using when she wanted something. And she usually fell for it.

  "Of course I told him about you, Mom," she said evenly. "Maxwell wants to meet you and I want that too. I promise that as soon as this case is solved, we'll get together and you can check him out and ask all the questions you want." Leila didn't bother to say that it would be up to Maxwell to decide what questions he wanted to answer or not. The one thing she didn't want to do was put pressure on him to do anything he wasn't comfortable with.

  But her mother had a way of grating on the nerves of men she dated. Would Maxwell prove to be the exception? Would he pass the test of worthiness in her mother's eyes?

  "Does he respect our values?" Rena asked.

  "Maxwell respects me. And he wants to be a part of my life, including learning about my heritage and the Hawaiian culture."

  "I'm happy to know that," her mother said.

  "Good." Leila decided it was best to quit while she was ahead, so she said: "I have to go now. Talk to you later."

  "Make it sooner."

  "I will," she promised. "Aloha."

  After disconnecting, Leila wondered if it was best to delay a meeting between Maxwell and her mother. Or was it better to get it over with and hope for the best? As a good Hawaiian daughter, she wanted her mother to approve of the man in her life. But she was also her own woman and needed to be with someone who was right for her, first and foremost. Did Maxwell fit the bill?

  She arrived at Chung's condominium on Kunihi Lane in Kahului.

  When the door opened after one ring of the bell, Leila was surprised to see someone other than Chung standing there. In fact, it was a tall, slim, fair-skinned young woman with gobs of blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was wearing one of Chung's print shirts and nothing else.

  "Hi," Leila said awkwardly. "Is Chung...er, Jonny here?" She knew he was, as she saw his vehicle in the parking lot.

  "Yeah, he's in the bedroom getting dressed." She had an Eastern European accent. "You must be his partner, Detective Kahana, right?"

  Leila nodded. "Yes."

  "I'm Tatiana. Come in..."

  Leila wondered where Chung had met his latest conquest and whether it had any chance of lasting. Or maybe his cute overnight friend had no real interest in anything more than just having a good time with the easily distracted, unpredictable police detective.

  "I'll go see what's taking him so long," Tatiana said.

  Leila looked around at the messy place and couldn't help but think that Chung could use a housekeeper. Evidently his priorities lay elsewhere. She didn't have to wait too long before he emerged from the bedroom tucking in his gray button down shirt.

  "Hey," he said coolly, as Tatiana came up behind him, still wearing nothing but his shirt.

  "Thought we'd head over to get the autopsy results on Yoshie Akiyama," Leila told him. "But maybe I should have called first..."

  "No, it's cool," Chung told her. He turned around and kissed Tatiana passionately before saying: "I've gotta go now. Be sure to lock the door when you leave. Call you later."

  "Yeah, whatever," she said.

  Outside, Leila couldn't help but say: "A bit young for you, isn't she, Chung?"

  He chuckled. "Is she? I hadn't noticed." He glanced at Leila and said: "Besides, all the good, older ones seem to be taken—"

  And for good reason, Leila told herself, with his questionable choices off the job and sometim
es on. "I wonder why?" she asked wryly.

  "Probably because they don't realize what a damn good catch I am," he said, and laughed again.

  She didn't laugh with him. "Right, that must be it."

  Chung grinned. "Hey, I'm just saying."

  Leila was glad they had reached the car, preferring not to carry this conversation further. As she got behind the wheel, she couldn't help but think about her own hot night in bed with Maxwell. He was twice—make that thrice—the man Chung was. Or was she being too judgmental of her partner? After all, he was free to date whomever he chose who was of legal age. Tatiana was, wasn't she?

  They arrived at the Maui County Medical Examiner and Coroner's Office in Makawao, a town located on the slopes of the Haleakala volcano in Upcountry Maui, a mostly rural community of rolling hills, farms, and botanical gardens. Makawao was known for its booming art scene and Hawaiian cowboys, or paniolos.

  Leila was more focused on something far less appealing to residents and tourists alike—murder—as she entered the office of Doctor Patricia Lee, a forensic pathologist and the current coroner's physician on Maui, who conducted the post-mortem on Yoshie Akiyama. As a member of the Hawaii Pathologists Organization, she moved back and forth between the islands, working on behalf of the Maui Police Department, who oversaw all autopsies in Maui County that involved suspected cases of homicide.

  "Aloha," Patricia said tonelessly, as she greeted the detectives.

  "Hey," Leila said back, and studied her attractive colleague and friend, who was Chinese-American and in her thirties with long black hair in a chignon. Behind stylish glasses were small brown eyes. She wore a white lab coat over her clothing.

  "What's up?" Chung said routinely.

  "I have the autopsy results on Yoshie Akiyama," Patricia said, "and I'm afraid they're quite unsettling—even for someone who's used to seeing death in all manners."

  "Thanks for the warning," Leila said humorlessly, bracing herself for what she'd already known was a violent death for the victim.

  "Just lay it on us, Doc," Chung said impatiently. "We can use any pertinent information that will take this case to the next level."

  "All right." Patricia adjusted her glasses and sighed. "Ms. Akiyama was stabbed repeatedly by her killer, who used a knife with at least a seven-inch blade. There were multiple wounds on her chest, stomach, arms, and legs, and two particularly vicious ones across her neck that were so deep, the head was nearly severed from the victim's body. Ms. Akiyama endured a total of fifteen stab wounds."

  Leila winced at the thought of being stabbed so many times. Clearly the intention was to punish, along with kill. The murderer had successfully accomplished this gruesome desire at the expense of the murdered woman.

  "Was the victim sexually assaulted?" she asked.

  "There was no indication that a rape or other sexual victimization occurred during the attack," Patricia answered, "in spite of the fact that her clothes were removed by the killer. That one, you'll have to try to make sense out of yourselves."

  Given that they still hadn't established conclusively that the perpetrator was a male, this left open the possibility that it could have been a female or perhaps a male and female pair. It occurred to Leila that the motive for the murder may well have been nonsexual, in spite of the victim being left in the nude, which could have been more about eliminating evidence. Even if hula dancing by its very nature could be construed by some as sexual, to one degree or another, the evidence or lack thereof, suggested otherwise. In this case, Leila saw revenge and personal hatred as possible powerful incentives for killing the hula dancer.

  Chung groaned. "So the killer gets brownie points for not raping her? I don't think so. That hardly lessens the impact of what he—yeah, I'm saying this was definitely the work of a male perp and probably the victim's ex—did to her. He's one sick bastard, that's for sure." He wrinkled his nose, as if he'd gotten a whiff of something putrid in the air.

  "Tell me something I don't know," Patricia said, clearly in complete agreement with the assessment. "The victim stood little chance of defending herself or running away against a determined killer who had seemingly everything in his or her favor and wasn't afraid to take complete advantage of this."

  "So how did Yoshie Akiyama die?" Leila asked, mainly for the record, knowing that the vicious attack itself was the trigger, but not the medical cause of breathing her last breath.

  Patricia cleared her throat and said: "The cause of death for the victim was exsanguination, which means a massive loss of blood," she explained. "In this case, the blood loss came as a result of trauma to her right jugular vein and right carotid artery, caused by a sharp instrument used on her neck. It left a gaping wound that, with no timely medical attention, along with the other serious injuries, sealed her fate."

  Chung shook his head. "That sucks."

  "I agree, Detective, it does," she said.

  "Murder is never a picnic," Leila made clear, "even in paradise. At least we now know more fully what, if not who, we're up against. What was the time of death?"

  Patricia glanced at her notes. "Based on the condition of the body and other factors, the victim likely died sometime Sunday evening between eight-thirty and ten-thirty—probably closer to the latter."

  "Hmm," Leila muttered to herself. This supported the time frame in which Yoshie left the Moku Club, making it to her car and driving off alone, before she apparently ran into her killer at some point along the way.

  "Sorry to have to be the bearer of such bad news, whether it's my job or not," Patricia said sincerely.

  Leila got that, since she too still found it almost impossible to remain totally objective to the specter of murder and all the lives each and every one tended to affect.

  "You can make it up by buying me and Chung a drink sometime," she suggested half-jokingly.

  Patricia grinned. "Will do. But, right now, it's back to work." She sighed. "Story of my life..."

  "And one you wouldn't have any other way," Leila told her.

  "Back at you," she said.

  Leila accepted this, but wasn't so sure that the path she was on was the one she wanted to stick with until they kicked her off the force. Especially with Maxwell whispering sweet love notes in her ear, giving her reason to believe that she might actually be able to focus on her artwork as a new career without the hazards of police work getting in the way.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  At the crime lab, Chung and Leila paid a visit to Gil Delfino, a forensic examiner and part of their crime scene investigators unit. He had collected and analyzed the evidence from the dumping ground of Yoshie Akiyama's corpse.

  After hearing about the brutal way in which she was attacked, Chung hoped the killer had left some type of physical evidence behind that they could use to identify the son of a bitch and take him into custody.

  Tall and lanky, Delfino was in his twenties and had receding dark blonde hair. He was eating a candy bar when he said comically: "Bet I can guess why you guys are here."

  "You're a regular mind reader," Chung voiced humorlessly. "What have you got for us?"

  Delfino looked at Leila. "What's with him? Did he get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"

  She eyed Chung and said thoughtfully: "Guess that depends on how you look at it."

  Chung grinned, wondering if she had gotten a thrill in seeing Tatiana there, wearing nothing but his shirt. Maybe Leila wished it had been her he had been banging all night long.

  "There's only one way to look at it," Chung said, deciding to take the high road here. "We need to find out anything we can on who might have stabbed to death Yoshie Akiyama. Think you can help us out, Delfino?"

  "Maybe..." He bit off another piece of the candy bar and grabbed a folder off a table. "No fingerprints or DNA that didn't belong to the victim or an animal that happened upon the scene."

  "Sounds like a big help," Leila uttered dryly. "Hope you can do better than that."

  "Hey, it's not exactly li
ke I had a lot to work with here," he said. "The victim was clearly killed someplace else and dumped in that field to get rid of her. As you know, there were no surveillance videos in that particular location to document the action. But the killer, who seemed pretty clever, all things considered, may have left behind a few morsels to chew on..." Delfino paused and looked at a sheet of paper. "The victim's hula outfit had her own blood from being cut into a number of times. But we were also able to extract some fibers from another garment, presumably belonging to the killer. If you find this item, we should be able to link the fibers to it."

  Chung frowned. "That should be an easy slam dunk," he said sarcastically.

  "There's more," Delfino said with a catch to his voice. "We were able to retrieve a single size eleven footprint in the dirt near the body. When we compared it to the footprints of known persons to be at the scene, including the man who discovered the body and both of you, we're left with a person who wears a size eleven male tennis shoe who's unaccounted for."

  "Interesting," Leila hummed. "Finally something we can work with."

  "So the killer may wear a size eleven shoe," Chung muttered, unimpressed. "That's probably about half, maybe three-quarters, of the adult males on the island. Can we narrow it down?"

  "Yeah, we should be able to get the shoe model and manufacturer and who may have purchased such in recent memory," said Delfino. "But the shoe owner could've bought the shoes anywhere, or borrowed, stole them, or whatever, making this a longshot at best. Not to mention, those tennis shoes may not have even been worn by the killer. It's worth a try, though." He paused. "However, there is one more thing that could yield info worth pursuing..."

  "What?" Chung asked anxiously.

  "In the decedent's underwear, we were able to extract some DNA from semen. It may or may not mean anything, other than the victim had sex with someone, presumably the day she was killed."