Raif contributed his two cents. “It had to be one of those protesters. They’ve laid siege to the hotel for a week.”
Logically, Dinah had to agree. She said, “Eleanor Kalolo sought me out at the hotel this morning, Sergeant. She seems bent on exacting revenge against Xander Garst for something or other. She said he’d have to pay for Pash. Do you know what or whom she could’ve meant?”
“No, ma’am. We’ll interview her and see what she has to say for herself.”
Dinah flashed to the sergeant’s conversation with the TV crew last night after the protesters had disbanded. “Was Xander ever accused of foul play by Eleanor or anyone in the Native Hawaiian rights movement?”
“Foul play?” Phoebe was aghast. “Xander?”
“Yes, foul play. Yes, Xander. The only people Claude Ann knows in Hawaii are people Xander knows. Whoever did this did it to get at him. Clearly, the man has enemies and people don’t acquire enemies by being Mr. Nice Guy.”
“It’s because your father was a criminal,” said Phoebe. “You see foul play and deceitfulness everywhere.”
What Dinah saw was red. “You’re on notice, Phoebe. Do not drag my family into this or any other conversation. Ever again. Is that clear?”
Kama ahemmed and thumped his pen against his notepad. “Let’s stay with tonight’s foul play. Can you think of anyone besides Eleanor Kalolo who might want to disrupt the wedding or cause trouble for Ms. Kemper or Mr. Garst?”
“Nobody,” said Phoebe. “Raif’s right. It has to be one of the protesters.”
Xander shouldered through the double doors into the waiting area. His shirt and tux were stained with blood, his hair sweaty, and his face seemed to have aged ten years. “She’s resting comfortably. The doctor says it’s only a hairline fracture of the radius and he doesn’t think there’ll be any aftereffects from the blow to her head. It’s a miracle. She could’ve suffered a serious head injury.”
“Did she say whether she saw anyone in her room,” Kama asked, “or have any idea who the perpetrator might have been?”
“She didn’t see anyone. She went back to her room for her camera and…my God. She could’ve been killed. Did you tell him about the gun, Dinah?”
“Yes, I told him.”
Sgt. Kama went on methodically. “What’s your best guess as to who might have done it, Mr. Garst?”
Xander rubbed his head. “I can’t think. I can’t think who’d do something like this.”
Kama said, “Any idea who might have taken the gun from Ms. Kemper’s room?”
“No. None at all.”
“Is there anyone who might have wanted to get back at Ms. Kemper or you, sir?”
“No. No one who’d do such a thing.” He darted a beleaguered look around the group. “Officer, I’m exhausted. Would you mind if we talked tomorrow morning?”
“No problem.” Kama closed his notepad. “We’ll know more by morning and one of the detectives will want to talk to you.” He handed each of them a card and headed for the elevators.
Xander put the card in his breast pocket and pushed his hair out of his face. “I’m dead tired. I’m going back to the hotel.”
Dinah could scarcely believe her ears. How could he bail out on the woman he claimed to love after she’d had such a horrible experience? It seemed wormy in the extreme. She said, “I’ll wait around the hospital for a while in case Claude Ann gets scared and wants somebody to hold her hand.”
Xander’s eyes showed that he’d felt the cut, but his mouth smiled. “Thanks, Dinah. I appreciate that. If there’s any change, or if she asks for me, please call.”
Phoebe said, “I need to get back and look in on Marywave.”
“Raif, will you give Phoebe a ride?” asked Xander.
“Sure. I’ll drive you both back.”
“No,” said Xander. “No, I’ll take a taxi. I have to drop off a document at my lawyer’s office.”
Phoebe also declined Raif’s offer. “I need to make a stop on the way back to the hotel, too. A friend from my self-mastery seminar is staying downtown and I need to collect some materials from her before we leave for the Big Island. I’ll see you all in the morning.”
Raif gave Phoebe a derisive look, as if to say “your loss.” “I’ll stay with Dinah and give her a ride back when she’s ready.”
“No need.” Dinah didn’t dislike Raif in a small way. She had taken a huge scunner to his sneering arrogance and the sooner he moved on, the better she’d feel. “I may be here for hours. Please, go back and get some rest.”
“I never go to bed before three or four. I’ll keep you company as long as you like.”
Xander and Phoebe left and Dinah sank into one of the chairs lined up against the wall. Raif sat down next to her and rested his head against the wall. Dinah ignored him. She tried to put herself in Claude Ann’s place. What horrors must have reeled through her mind when that bloody deluge hit her? Even if there were no physical aftereffects, there would be emotional ones.
Raif loosened his tie and fingered his Lucky 7 pendant. “You think Claude Ann will give Xan his ring back now and buzz off back to Georgia?”
“I doubt it.”
“Probably not. He must be a prize catch for a girl like her.”
Dinah bit her tongue.
“How did you and poor old Jon hit it off? You’d think he wouldn’t dress like such a slob. It makes him even more of an eyesore.”
“I think he’s rather dashing. And remarkably stoical about his scars.”
“Lyssa worries that he’s turning into one of those antisocial loners, maybe not the kind that amasses an arsenal and goes on a killing spree. But a headcase just the same. She keeps bugging him to have reconstructive surgery. It wouldn’t get rid of all the scars, but it might help him to feel less of an oddity. He used to be a good-looking dude.”
Dinah had no trouble visualizing the intact Jon, or imagining how tough an adjustment it must have been for an attractive man to have his curb appeal so thoroughly demolished. She said, “He obviously doesn’t like to talk about the accident. How did it happen?”
“He was collecting lava samples, not wearing his protective gear. I guess the heat burned through his boots. He jumped wrong and lost his balance. At least, that’s all I’ve ever heard him say about it. You know what Xander said? He said he wished it had been him who got burned instead of Jon.” Raif uttered a bark of scoffing laughter. “Everybody lies about something right?”
Dinah didn’t doubt that, present company in no way excepted. Raif seemed to delight in disparaging Xander. Whatever issues Lyssa had with her father, Raif stoked the fire. Lyssa would naturally be torn between her father and her husband, and maybe between her brother and her husband. It must make her life a tricky balancing act.
She said, “Jon told me that after the accident his father moved in with him to take care of him.”
“That must have been a drag. The way those two circle around each other like a pair of boxers on guard for the next punch, it makes everybody jumpy.”
“They don’t get along?”
“They don’t go at each other. It’s more like the air between them is combustible.”
And how, Dinah wondered, is that different from the air between you and Xander? “You seem to despise Xander. Why?”
“I don’t like the way he leans on Lyssa and tries to tell her how to spend her money. It’s hers. Her grandfather left it to her and Xander’s got no right.”
“He probably resents the way you gamble with your wife’s money.”
“Takes one to know one.” He curled his lip. “At least I’m not a hypocrite. Like they say down South, if you can’t race it, play with it, or take it to bed, who needs it?”
Chapter Fifteen
Claude Ann didn’t call Dinah to come and hol
d her hand and Raif’s snide backbiting taxed Dinah’s endurance to the limit. At midnight, she decided that Claude Ann must be sleeping soundly through the night and there was no point in hanging around any longer. She stood up and stretched. A dull pain drummed against her temples and it occurred to her that she hadn’t eaten in hours.
“Had enough?” asked Raif.
“Yes. Would you mind stopping off for a burger on the way back to the Olopana?”
“Sounds like a plan. I’m hungry, too.”
They left and Raif drove to a drive-in with a blazing neon sign—The Shark Bite. He parked under a carport strung with red and blue Christmas lights. A well-endowed young woman in a tight tee and short shorts roller-skated up to the car window and smiled.
Dinah ordered a burger and fries and a large coffee. She already knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she might as well be fueled to think straight.
“Give me a cheeseburger and a cola,” Raif said. “Any kind. It doesn’t matter.”
While they waited, he lolled against the driver’s door and seemed to consider. “You really care about her, don’t you? Claude Ann, I mean.”
“I really do.” The question surprised her and not only because it came from Raif. It had been a while since she had reflected on the reasons she loved Claude Ann, but she certainly did. She loved her for her loyalty and her high spirits, for her spontaneous and arbitrary acts of kindness, for her lack of pretense and her easy laugh. Claude Ann was the only person outside of Dinah’s family who knew her when. When she was young and trusting. Before Needmore and her father’s betrayal made her cynical. She and Claude Ann were the repository of each other’s earliest history and now Dinah was bearing witness to another crisis in Claude Ann’s life. At the moment, it seemed as if this one, too, was trending toward heartbreak.
She had been dubious about Xander from the start, but with this bizarre attack on Claude Ann, her doubts metastasized. Claude Ann had trusted Xander with her heart, trusted him with God only knew how much of her money. He seemed to be genuinely in love with her, but seeming and being were two entirely different things and so far, he hadn’t shown the kind of commitment that would redeem him in Dinah’s eyes.
The food arrived. Raif pulled a fifth of Jack Daniels out of the glove compartment and added a splash of high octane to his cola. “Want a shot?”
“No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.”
They ate in silence and Dinah began to feel a little better. Less empty, anyway. Tomorrow she’d have a heart-to-heart with Claude Ann and, without divulging her misgivings about Xander or putting Claude Ann on the defensive, she would convince her to wait a few weeks before plighting her troth.
Dinah finished her burger and wiped the mustard off her fingers with a paper napkin. “Thanks for dinner.”
Raif topped up his cola with more whiskey and slid a hand down her thigh. “You want to go to a motel?”
She recoiled and stared at him. “Are you flat-out crazy or just a conceited cheat?”
“Like Mick Jagger says, marrying money’s a full time job. I take a night off now and then. We could say we spent all night keeping vigil at the hospital. It’s the perfect cover.”
“Go to hell.”
“What’s the matter? Aren’t I as dashing as Jon?”
“You’re repulsive.”
He grabbed her arms and pulled her into him, crushing his mouth against hers, forcing his tongue into her mouth. She squirmed out of his grasp, jerked open the door, and jumped out.
He smirked. “Lyssa won’t believe you, so you needn’t bother tattling.”
She slammed the car door, turned on her heels, and fumed inside the drive-in. Some days it was hard not to give up in disgust on the whole catalog of humanity.
***
Her habit of carrying a hundred dollar bill pinned in the hem of her dress had paid off. The taxi dropped her off under the portico of the Olopana and she handed the driver the bill.
“I can’t make change for a century.”
“Keep it. I don’t have a pocket anyway.”
The Olopana looked deserted. The lobby was lit, but the receptionist must have stepped away for a break. Too angry and restless to sleep, Dinah drifted out to the beach, took off her shoes, and started walking. She couldn’t stomach walking where the horror had taken place. Eleanor had said there were no restricted beaches in Hawaii, so Dinah availed herself of the beach belonging to the hotel next door.
The sand felt cool under her feet and the soughing sound of the surf calmed her. Out here, there were no trust issues. Everything was controlled by the gravitational pull of the moon. She waded up to her ankles through the lapping waves and halfway thought about stripping off her blood-stained dress and skinny dipping, but the floodlights around the hotel threw off too much light and the possibility that her blood might attract a shark stopped her cold.
She hadn’t noticed it before, but a hundred yards along there was a lifeguard tower. As she drew closer, she saw Jon, elbows leaning across the rail, staring out at the water.
“Ahoy.”
“Come aboard. I scavenged a bottle of Scotch from the caterers if you’re interested.”
“I could use a bracer.”
He offered her a hand and she climbed up the ladder.
“Dad called and said Claude Ann wasn’t seriously hurt.”
“Not physically.”
They sat in canvas chairs and he drizzled a couple of inches of Dewars into a plastic cup and placed it in her hand. “Soda?”
“Yes, please.” The strong, peaty smell of the Scotch had an astringent effect and, in close quarters, he transmitted a distracting sexual vibe along with the scent of Scotch and sandalwood soap. “Romantic setting, mood-enhancing libation. You’re the perfect date.”
He gave a mordant little laugh. “When the moon’s behind a cloud.” But the moon wasn’t behind a cloud and there was a floodlight at the base of the tower. He replenished his Scotch and brought out a bottle of soda. As he poured, she fixated on his scars. Dashing they were not. And it was curious that he’d made no attempt to get himself surgically reconstructed.
“Hell of a day,” he said.
She thought about Claude Ann’s toast—was it only last night?—to happy days. “It’s a day with nasty repercussions, and not just for the bride and groom. Your Aunt Eleanor is the prime suspect.”
“From what I know of her, Eleanor doesn’t do anything anonymously. She’s pretty much in-your-face.”
That much, Dinah could believe. “Maybe she got tired of Xander being a no-show at her demonstrations. Maybe she decided to do something outrageous to dynamite him out of his foxhole.” She thought about Avery’s sketchy description of Leilani, an exotic beauty who died young—the night-and-day antithesis of Eleanor. But sister love could be strong. Was Leilani’s suicide the impetus for Eleanor’s resentment of Xander? “Tell me about your mother’s death, Jon. If it isn’t huna.”
“I was six years old, Lyssa four. Dad was away in California. I remember her being on the telephone, crying really hard. When she hung up, she said she was sick and had to go to the doctor. She took Lyssa and me to Eleanor’s house in the country. It was the first time we kids had ever met Eleanor. She and my mother had a big fight, mostly in Hawaiian. It sounded like they were calling each other names. Lyssa cried. My mother kissed us, then got in the car and drove away. Eleanor took us to town and bought us a colossal dish of Roselani ice cream—Menehune mint. We never saw my mother again.”
“Did you ever find out who she was talking to on the telephone or what had upset her?”
“No.”
“You’re sure her nickname wasn’t Pash?”
He flicked a sideways glance at her. “Everyone called her Lani.” His gaze returned to the ocean. “I know that from your persp
ective and probably Claude Ann’s, Eleanor is the logical culprit. But I don’t believe it. She wouldn’t do something this cowardly and mean-spirited to a woman who’s done nothing wrong except to fall in love with the man she has a beef with.”
Dinah was prone to agree. Maybe in the fervor of her hatred, Eleanor had made up the word Pash as a sort of curse or incantation. But why did Jon seem so ambivalent about Xander? She didn’t give much credence to Raif’s slurs, but there did seem to be something huna in the way everyone spoke about Jon’s accident. “You were blunt with me, Jon. May I ask you a blunt question?”
“Turnabout’s fair play.”
“How did your accident happen?”
“Like Kamapua’a, I encroached on Pele’s domain.”
It required an effort not to snap at him. Nobody loved a myth more than Dinah, but the idea of Pele as the agency behind every occurrence in the State of Hawaii was becoming tiresome and Jon’s evasions in particular irked her. She said, “I ran across that name in my book of myths. Wasn’t he Pele’s lover?”
“One of them. The goddess favored him for a while, but when he grew too bold, she chased him into the sea with streams of fire.”
“And you identify with this myth because you became too bold to wear your protective clothing?”
“Who told you that?”
“Does it matter?”
Bet Your Bones Page 11