Bet Your Bones

by Jeanne Matthews

  “Yeth.” Her lips and tongue felt as if they’d been injected with Novacaine. Maybe the effects of kava came on in stages. First the loss of inhibition, then numbness, and soon Stage Three—clairvoyance. She would need a sibyl’s clairvoyance to see through the maze of mysteries surrounding Xander Garst. She looked at the tab, fished the money out of her purse, and handed it over. As she was leaving, a customer in a dark hoodie sprawled face down on the table in what Dinah hoped did not augur Stage Four.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Once again, Dinah was stranded. Fortunately, the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel was only a short walk from Kava Kava and she had no trouble finding a waiting taxi. She returned to Lanikaula Street and looked for Tess’ convertible, but either Tess had parked somewhere else or she hadn’t gone back to work.

  Dinah walked back to the Wrangler and reviewed her Big Island map. It looked to be about thirty miles from Hilo to Kalapana, where Raif had been murdered. Had Xander driven from his meeting with Tess to a pre-arranged meeting with Raif and killed him? Getting rid of a blackmailer was certainly a compelling motive for murder, one of the classics. He’d had access to Claude Ann’s gun, giving him the means. And he had plenty of time to get to Kalapana, shoot Raif, and get back to Volcano in time for the party. It was bad luck that the gun wasn’t devoured by the fire, but it was the chance he took. It made the case against him seem open-and-shut.

  Unless. Everyone deserved at least one unless. Could Tess have killed Raif? Her response to the news of his death had been dramatic, but had she overplayed it a bit? If she could put on an act about being raped, she could put on an act about not knowing that Raif was dead. Hadn’t Avery mentioned that she attended drama classes as a kid? Maybe Tess decided she didn’t want to split the booty with her playmate anymore. Maybe she’d decided she didn’t like playing second fiddle to Lyssa anymore. Or maybe Raif had gone on a Casino Royal junket with some of Tess’ money and either swindled her out of her share of the winnings or saddled her with the loss. Ginning up a motive for the woman was easy and she could have whacked Raif on her lunch hour without breaking a sweat. Putting Claude Ann’s gun in her hand was the rub. Of course, if Raif had stolen the Beretta, it wasn’t unthinkable that Tess could have gotten it away from him somehow.

  On the spur of the moment, Dinah decided to drive to Kalapana. On the way, she might stop off in Pahoa where Raif had said he was going to a private poker game, where George Knack ran an illegal betting parlor, and where Lyssa and Phoebe had spent yesterday afternoon at the spa. Pahoa was a scant ten miles from Kalapana. Come to think of it, Lyssa wasn’t immune from suspicion. Jon had said that everyone knew Raif was a bounder but Lyssa, but she knew he was on the make. And she was insecure enough and jealous enough to warn Dinah to stay away from him. If she had found out about Tess, she would have gone ballistic. It wasn’t unreasonable to think that she could have been inside Claude Ann’s suite alone at some time during the last week and, given her belief that Claude Ann was a gold digger, it wasn’t unreasonable to think that the self-proclaimed “natural sleuth” would have rifled Claude Ann’s room looking for some compromising evidence. She could have glommed onto the gun with the intention of killing Raif and framing Claude Ann for his murder. Two birds with one stone. She could have arranged a secret meeting with Raif somewhere near the spa and opted for a treatment that didn’t necessitate that a therapist be in the room with her the whole time. She could have slipped out from her hot stones or whatever, sneaked away and shot Raif, and returned without anyone having noticed she’d been gone.

  George Knack would have been a dandy suspect except that he couldn’t have gotten hold of the Beretta. Unless. The unlesses were rolling now. What if Raif had pilfered the gun? If he owed Knack money and Knack was pressuring him, he might have felt the need of a weapon. He could’ve trumped up an excuse for going into Claude Ann’s suite. The Olopana staff would have no reason to suspect Xander’s son-in-law. Maybe Knack called Raif to Pahoa and demanded his money, Raif pulled the Berretta, the two struggled, and pow! And since it wasn’t his gun, Knack would have no reason to take it away with him.

  Filled with purpose and awaiting the onset of clairvoyance, Dinah drove out of Hilo and turned south onto Highway 130. Highway 130 was wide and straight, with businesses and subdivisions branching off on either side. It could have been Anywhere, U.S.A., except that somewhere near the place where it dead-ended into the Pacific Ocean, molten lava had ruptured the earth’s skin. The farther south she got, the more farming she saw—papayas, mangoes, anthuriums, orchids. And sooner than she’d expected, she was entering the quaint little town of Pahoa.

  Main Street looked like the set of an old spaghetti Western—raised wooden sidewalks and false-front buildings painted in a who-gives-a-rip patchwork of red and aqua and chartreuse. The hodgepodge of New Agey shops, funky taverns, ethnic restaurants, and Internet cafés conveyed a sort of outlaw ambience wherein smoking pakalolo wouldn’t stir much controversy. She shivered as she passed a sign pointing to the Steam Vent Inn and Health Retreat, but she saw nothing that looked like a betting parlor. She assumed that illegal betting received more scrutiny than illegal smoking and George Knack didn’t advertise.

  Steve’s law office was somewhere in town, but she was too engrossed with thoughts of murder to think about romance. She looped around the town and returned to the main drag. A yellow Victorian house with blue gingerbread trim and flower boxes full of tropical blooms caught her eye. It was set well back from the street with a curved paving stone walkway lined with multi-colored flowers. A sign in the front yard read peacequest and painted on the side of the house was a mural of a sheltered cove under the words Wellness, Rejuvenation, Vibrational Healing, Holistic Therapies, and Ancient Wisdom through Modern Modalities. peacequest was the spa that Lyssa and Phoebe had visited. A young man with headphone cords sprouting from his ears and a baseball cap worn backwards ambled out the front door and paused to light a cigarette.

  Dinah pulled to the curb and parked. While she was in the neighborhood, she might as well have a looksee and pin down the exact time of the call the murderer made to Lyssa on Raif’s phone. It would be a bonus if she could speak with the person who took the call.

  She waited until the young man had loafed down the block. When he was out of sight, she marched up the walkway to the front door and walked inside. Bells on the front door jingled and the heady smells of eucalyptus and lavender engulfed her. The Victorian façade gave way to a thoroughly modern interior with muted colors and Chinese massage music in the background. In the lobby, several ladies in plush terry robes sat reading magazines.

  A wholesome, twenty-something blonde in green scrubs greeted Dinah with a smile. “Hello. Do you have an appointment?”

  “No. I’m, I’m a friend of Lyssa Reid.”

  “Oh, poor Lyssa. How is she? All of us here at Peacequest were blown away to hear about Raif. Nothing like that’s ever happened here. It’s horrible.”

  “You know Raif, too?”

  “He and Lyssa are both regulars. He’s so…I mean he was so good-looking and so good-natured. He always had something nice to say.”

  Dinah didn’t know what parts of the body vibrational healing involved, but she couldn’t picture Raif swaggering into a place like this to imbibe the ancient wisdom. And unless the kid with the earbuds and the cigarette was elderly when he first entered, he didn’t look as if he were in need of rejuvenating. Lyssa wouldn’t have brought Phoebe to some kind of a swingers’ retreat, would she? Dinah studied the blonde’s face. Her smile was as wholesome as a glass of milk. “Were you the person who took Raif’s call?”

  “That was Emily. She’s new and she didn’t recognize the voice. And Lyssa was in the water shiatsu treatment and didn’t speak with him. Was it Raif? The police acted like maybe it wasn’t.”

  “I don’t think they know. Is Emily here today?”

  “Yes, but she’s giving
a Zoku Shin Do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Foot reflexology massage.”

  “Do you suppose Emily could squeeze me in for a short Zoku?”

  “I’ll have to check her availability this afternoon.” She opened the appointment book, but a phone call interrupted her. “Peacequest. Oh, yes, Mrs. Culler. No, Rory’s doing the Kupua this week.”

  An ox-eyed woman with a towel around her head put down her magazine and spoke to Dinah. “If you’re new, I can’t say enough about the Kupua Earth and Fire treatment. I signed up for a full year of once-a-week treatments and it’s changed my life. My fibromyalgia is completely cured and I sleep like a baby.”

  “Sounds wonderful. Is it expensive?”

  “Not if health is your priority. Individually, the Kupua costs five hundred dollars, but if you buy fifty-two, it’s only four hundred per. It’s quite a savings and tipping’s not allowed. Ask George about it. Tell him Sylvia recommended it. Of course, you’ll probably want to try several treatments before you decide on a single therapy.”

  Dinah was impressed. If there were many patrons like Sylvia, this establishment must be a cash cow.

  The blonde finished her phone call. “You’re in luck. Emily can take you at one o’clock. I’ll show you back to the dressing room and, if you like, you can enjoy our Jacuzzi while you wait.”

  “I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”

  “Most of our clientele bathe in the nude, but if you’re shy we have cover-ups.” She stamped Dinah’s credit card and led her down a narrow hallway with closed doors on either side which Dinah assumed to be massage rooms. At the end of the hall was a door to the outside and a breezeway connecting to another, much larger house. Dinah followed her through another lobby where both men and women waited in robes and showed her into a large dressing room replete with all of the spa essentials. She handed Dinah a numbered key. “Leave your clothes and valuables in the locker and help yourself to a robe and towels. You can go into the Jacuzzi or wait in the lobby and Emily will come and find you.”

  When she had gone, Dinah took a bottle of water from a large oval ice bucket on a stand. The label informed her that it had taken two thousand years for MaHaLo Hawaii Deep Sea Water to flow from the glaciers in Greenland to the Water Rejuvenation Zone off the Kona Coast, that it was pumped from three thousand feet below the ocean’s surface, that the salt had been filtered by a patented process while maintaining the ancient minerals, and that there was no purer water on the face of the earth. Dinah removed the plastic cap, drank with all due reverence, and reconsidered why she was wasting her afternoon here. Her initial thought had been that Emily could describe the voice of the caller purporting to be Raif, but voices were impossible to describe and anyway, he would have disguised it.

  In spite of the semblance of purity, something felt wrong about this place. She could see Raif hanging around a place where sex was dispensed, but not holistic therapies. On the other hand, if Lyssa also hung out here, it wasn’t likely that anything nefarious was going on. Maybe Raif just liked to unwind here after playing poker all night.

  Dinah undressed, stowed her things in her assigned locker, slipped on a robe, and went out into the lobby. It was empty now, everyone presumably having moved on to their respective treatment rooms. With time to kill before her Zoku, Dinah went exploring. She walked outside and checked out the large Jacuzzi under an elaborate yellow and blue gazebo. The grounds were meticulously tended in the style of a Japanese garden with lanterns and basins, sand and pebbles, dramatically shaped rocks, mini-waterfalls, and more paving stone walkways. There were several hot tubs behind privacy screens and a few small outbuildings—saunas, probably. She followed the walkway around to a tiny, prefab shed between two huge stone urns containing Poinciana trees. It looked like a child’s playhouse. There wasn’t a Keep Out sign on the door and she went inside.

  It was someone’s office. The wraparound windows under the roof let in plenty of light, but guaranteed privacy. There was a desk, a custom job inlaid with various exotic woods and not a single scrap of paper to hide the sheen, and one sumptuous leather chair on castors. Behind the desk was a credenza with the same beautiful inlay. She was running her fingers along the top when the door opened. Embarrassed, she turned around and stared straight into the reptilian eyes of George Knack.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize this was someone’s office.” She started to leave.

  “No need to rush off. I like to meet the new clients. Take a load off.” The deep-set black eyes behind the thick lenses of the hornrims practically pushed her down into the leather chair. “What’ll you have? Green tea? Carrot juice? Resveratrol concentrate?” He opened the credenza, part of which seemed to be a mini-refrigerator.

  “Nothing, thanks.” She held up the bottle of MaHaLo water she still carried.

  He took out a bottle of carrot juice, twisted off the cap, gave her an assessing look, and leaned his back against the door. “I saw you at Xander Garst’s party in Honolulu. What’s your name?”

  “Dinah Pelerin. I’m a friend of his fiancée.” Her thoughts were racing. Even holding a bottle of carrot juice, Knack looked like a mafioso. She cinched her robe tighter. Was Peacequest a front for his illicit betting operation? She recalled the surprised look on Langford’s face when Lyssa named the spa where she’d spent the afternoon. Maybe the spa was a lawful enterprise and the employees didn’t know about his sideline. He could be funneling his gambling profits through the spa. It would be a perfect way to launder his dirty money.

  “And what brings you to Peacequest?”

  “Lyssa told me it was a great spa. I’m going to have a Zoku something.”

  “Zoku Shin Do.” He took a sip of carrot juice while his impassive eyes seemed to pat her down. “Ever had your feet worked over before?” He made it sound like the treatment would include burning cigarettes.

  “No.”

  “Emily’s good. She knows all the right pressure points. Jessica at the front desk said you were interested in the phone call Raif Reid made to the spa before he died. Are you doing some kind of independent investigation?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t trifle with me, Dinah. Did Xander send you?”

  “No.”

  “Because I don’t want any trouble out of this Reid business. I don’t like the police coming around and roiling the waters. I don’t like anybody roiling the waters. Peacequest is a nice, quiet operation. I aim to keep it that way.”

  She found what should have sounded threatening strangely liberating. If Knack didn’t want his waters roiled, he wasn’t going to work her over or do anything that would call attention to what went on in the back room of Peacequest. “Did Raif owe you a lot of money?”

  “Raif liked the Tahitian black pearl scrub and the Hot Jade Stone Massage. They’re on the high end of what we offer. He always paid, although he hadn’t been as prompt the last few weeks.”

  “I’m not the vice squad. You don’t have to speak in riddles.”

  “I don’t have to speak to you at all.”

  Dinah decided that the only way to extract any information from him was to roil. “Everyone knows that Raif gambled. I think he got in over his head and maybe you leaned on him when he was slow to pay. He’s been blackmailing Xander for a long time, but Xander was in debt, himself. If Xander turned off the spigot, or if Lyssa did, and if the cards were running cold for Raif, he wouldn’t be able to repay you before he went home to Virginia. Viewed in that light, the police could get the idea that you took drastic action.”

  Knack’s black eyes bored into her. “I run a holistic health center. I pay my taxes and keep my nose clean. But say for the sake of argument that a client owes me money. It wouldn’t behoove me to kill him. I’d never get my money back. And if I killed him in my own backyard, the police would s
tart poking around and business would suffer. So you see, killing a non-paying client is a lose-lose situation. Theoretically.”

  “If you weren’t turning the screws on Raif, why did you show up uninvited at Xander’s party?”

  “As a rule, I don’t get involved in my clients’ problems, but every so often there’s an exception. I went to the party to see another of my clients.”

  “Xander owes you money, too?”

  “I went to see Lyssa. She promised to retire Raif’s debts if I helped her take care of another matter. It seems Raif had been seeing one of my employees on the side and Lyssa asked me to put a stop to it.” He finished his carrot juice and tossed the bottle into a metal waste can next to the door.

  The sound jangled Dinah’s nerves. Surely, Raif was too fond of Lyssa’s money to play around with somebody at the spa where she routinely came for lomilomis. “Is Tess Wilhite one of your employees?”

  “That’s right. I asked her to cut Raif loose or see him someplace other than here on my turf.” His phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket and answered. “A lost client? I’ll have a look around. If I find her, I’ll send her to Emily.” He slipped the phone back in his pocket.

  Dinah stood up and stepped around the desk. “Will Lyssa pay you now that Raif’s dead?”

  He frowned. “What’s your angle?”

  “The only thing I care about is making sure that my friend and her fiancé aren’t framed for murder. Do you know who played poker with Raif yesterday?”

  “If he had a game, I don’t know anything about it. Like I told the police, I’ve heard that a lawyer here in town hosts a game from time to time. They might play for money or for matchsticks. I wouldn’t know.”

  Dinah so wished he hadn’t said that. She told herself that Pahoa must be teeming with lawyers. “Will you tell me how much money Raif owed you?”

  Knack walked around her to the credenza, pulled out a slim little notebook computer, and sat down at the desk. He opened it, hit a few keystrokes, and took a pen and paper out of the desk drawer. He scribbled a note, folded the paper, ripped off the bottom half, and handed it across to her. It said $80g/w/vig.