by Lakes, Lynde
He shook his head.
“When you do, secure it like Fort Knox gold.” Immediately, she wanted to bite her tongue. The needless instruction made it sound like she doubted Lowell’s ability, but nothing could be further from the truth. Lowell was the top man in his field. He knew that evidence and meticulous protection from loss or destruction was crucial. They all knew it. Her need to emphasize the importance of the case rang as an act of desperation and might be regarded as a weakness. Or throwing her weight around. Shape up, Reed.
She looked beyond the Crime Scene Unit’s team of officers, the CSU’s best, combing the area with evidence sacks. By tomorrow the barbed wire fence lining the dirt road would be turned into a memorial. Family and friends would cover the fence with leis and wreaths, marking the site of death, but was this where Kiki had died? Minimal blood, no drag marks, or signs of a struggle suggested she was murdered elsewhere and brought here.
Malia shaded her eyes from the sun and scanned the dirt road near the Mercedes. The deep tread in the dried mud told her that the only other vehicles on this road since the heavy showers this morning were trucks with oversized tires. If the killer hitched a ride to town, one of the truckers could be a witness. She dispatched a couple of officers to the nearby Cuerva Pineapple Farm to check for strangers lurking around, and to secure a list of trucks coming in or out of the property.
Coroner Lee Fong pulled up in his black van, with Honolulu Medical Examiner stenciled on the side, and parked behind Malia. He and his assistant, Irene Chun, ducked under the circle of yellow caution tape securing the murder scene. Chun carried a satchel filled with evidence-gathering equipment. Their preliminary exam might give Malia something concrete to go on. She bit her lip, thinking of the indignities ahead. After they finished the in situ exam, they would put Kiki into a big black body bag and take her to the lab for the autopsy where the pathologist would probe and invade every inch of her body. Malia’s throat tightened. Under her breath she said, “I’ll get this guy, Kiki.”
****
With a phony press card tucked in the orange and white flowered cloth band of his straw hat, Al Lee joined the group of reporters. As usual he wore gloves, makeup and clothing that hid his milk-white skin. He kept his hat low, shading his face. From behind mirrored sunglasses, he smiled at the news hounds. Hello, sharks. You should thank me. I’m the whispery caller who tipped you off. The cops should thank me, too. I called the HPD first.
Al leaned over the yellow tape as far as possible. When he jostled a bright-eyed Japanese reporter, he smiled at her. “Sorry,” he said in his deepest voice.
“No problem,” she said saucily, looking up through thick lashes. She gave him an admiring once-over, taking in his well-muscled physique.
Too bad he didn’t have time for her. He had another focus. He reached in his pocket and stroked the high school class reunion announcement.
Smiling and high on adrenaline, Al snapped pictures of the cops huddled around the Mercedes, looking for non-existent evidence to catch their killer. I’m right here, Guys. But Al knew not to get too confident. Getting his next prey alone might not be so easy. With Kiki, he had called her office and seduced her right over the phone. He had feared that her little rendezvous with Rosado might have quelled her desire. But when he asked her to meet him, she didn’t hesitate. She took him to a vacant house for sex. The same place she’d done it with Rosado, less than a half an hour before they got together. Al had taken his time and given her what she wanted, murmuring repeatedly that he’d always loved her. She didn’t remember him, but they both pretended she did. Later, when he asked her to crouch down on all fours on the heavy blue vinyl paint cover with her back to him and slink low like a tigress stalking her mate, she didn’t refuse. “How kinky,” was all she said, and then she had tossed her hair and laughed. He could still hear the throaty laughter, could still see the blood-red scene of mayhem as her long ago childhood sing-song voice echoed in his head. taunting over and over, calling him Ghosty, the white nothing. Wielding Kiki’s own handheld sledgehammer, he had hit her once. Using the anger-management technique the head-doc at Chino Prison harped on, he had managed to stop at that. For a moment he’d even felt sorry for her. She was so damned easy. So needy. Sex was Kiki’s weakness. What was Malia’s?
A newshound angling for a better shot of the grisly scene jostled Al. He forced his focus back to the idiot cops who were combing the area with evidence sacks, spinning their wheels and wasting their energy. He’d worn gloves the whole time. Condoms for sex. A vinyl drop cloth at the murder scene to catch the spurting blood. Cleaned her fingernails with cotton swabs and bleach. And when he dumped Kiki’s Mercedes to jog to the highway, he’d worn shoe covers.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off Malia. All the cops called her Reed. She wore her masculine-looking pantsuit like an armor of authority. He detected little emotion. She reminded him of an ice sculpture of Venus he’d seen in New Zealand a few months before his stay at Chino Correctional Hotel. He’d expected Malia to faint or break into tears when she looked into the trunk, but she just closed her eyes briefly and then went on with her job. She’s tough. I’ll give her that, but would she be so tough when I turn up the heat?
Al took a deep breath to stave off rage. Watch out, all you bitches who mocked me, threw food at me, or put cayenne pepper and laxatives in my lunches. And watch out Malia, my too-good-for-me friend. I’ll make your days and nights a living hell – then, before I kill you, I’ll inflict mind-blowing pain.
Chapter Two
Damon Shaw tapped the table and glanced repeatedly up at the wall clock. It was 3:00 P.M. He’d been alone in this tomblike interrogation room for at least thirty minutes. How long were they going to make him cool his jets?
When the door finally burst open, he straightened, ready for a battle of wits, but was immediately disarmed by the slender Japanese-Caucasian female detective who entered briskly and slammed a recorder and a file on the table between them. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her. She had slicked back wet strands of hair into a no-nonsense braided knot. A wrinkled pantsuit and blouse hung on her frame like damp laundry.
In spite of her wilted look, she reminded Damon of a woman general he’d known and admired in the air force, the same charge-forward manner, same quiet confidence and military posture. Damon judged the detective to be a little shorter than the general, probably five-five or five-six. It disturbed him that her squared-shoulder forceful entrance didn’t match her red, swollen eyes. Had she stopped in the restroom to cry her guts out? That would make this interrogation personal – and stacked against him.
Her fit-look screamed of a relentless regimen of workouts. Big deal. He worked out every day, too. But it looked better on her. How could someone so slim have such lovely breasts? Heat crawled up from his neck, and he quickly lifted his gaze and stared at her oval, intelligent face with its high forehead and delicate nose. Then it hit him who she was – Malia Reed, Kiki’s best friend.
Damon felt the walls closing in.
He’d only seen Malia a couple of times, during the rehearsal for his wedding, and at the ceremony. She’d been Kiki’s maid of honor, and had looked soft and beautiful in her long, formfitting blue satin dress – nothing like a cop. Her dark hair, with rich burgundy highlights, had flowed down her back. Her slightly slanted eyes, a deep, earth-brown sprinkled with gold flecks, glinted with happiness. His best man, Kirk, and all the single men in the wedding party had made a play for her with no success. Hell, if he hadn’t been in love, he’d have hit on her himself. She was probably the best looking woman any of them had ever seen. Now, seeing Malia looking drained and washed-out, he almost felt sorry for her. Until he remembered – she was the enemy.
Another detective, big enough to be a lineman for the U.H. Warriors, entered the room and stood with folded arms by a wall. Damon suspected the wall was a two-way mirror. His nerve endings burned. How many other cops were watching him, waiting for him to say something incriminating?
“This is Detective Rick Kulukulualani,” Malia said, gesturing to the big Hawaiian.
“That’s a real tongue twister,” Damon said dryly. “I may have to work on getting it right.”
The big guy glared at him.
“Most of us call him Ku,” Malia said.
As though that was the intimidator’s signal to take action, he slapped a file on the table, and the corner of a snapshot slid into view. He stepped back in place like one of King Kamehameha’s guards and resumed his gruff, silent vigil.
Damon loosened his collar. “Am I under arrest?” His throat felt dry, but asking for water would only alert them that they were getting to him.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Shaw.”
Malia’s soft, compassionate voice took him off guard. He managed to thank her, although it irked him that she hadn’t answered his question. Although shock and waves of disorientation rolled over him in a continuous ebb and flow, he knew the full impact of his grief hadn’t yet hit. He’d filed for a divorce, but he still cared for Kiki as a friend, in spite of the fact that she’d slept with his best man and God only knows how many others while he was overseas. Damn. Every time he thought about the betrayal, anger shot through him like a hot bullet. His heart thundered in his ears. Could the detective hear it pounding out of control? He had to rein in his temper, and think clearly. The cops hadn’t brought him here to give their condolences. Husbands and ex-spouses were the suspects they always hauled in first.
Malia reached out and touched his arm. Stunned, he flinched and then silently cursed himself. “I have to ask you some questions,” she said softly, “for the report.” Then all gentleness disappeared, and her voice took on a hard edge. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you I take Kiki’s death personally. And I’ll get your wife’s killer.” Her gaze bored into him, turning the caring promise into a threat aimed directly at him.
“Look, Malia—”
“Detective Reed,” she said, clearly establishing their present relationship – cop and suspect.
Her barked statement stung like a slap, and then to his absolute bewilderment, she softened her voice again and said, “Try to relax.” Although Damon knew better, he allowed her silken voice to wash over him like warm honey. “We’ll make this as easy on you as possible,” she said with a sad smile. “After all, you and I can’t act like strangers since I was the maid-of-honor at your wedding.”
He fought the urge to trust her. Keeping his distance might be his only defense against this smooth cop who knew how to keep a suspect off balance. If the detective lacked anything in physical strength, she made up for it in human skills, and she was reeling him in like an onaga on a velvet hook. “I’d like to call an attorney,” he said before she completely addled his brain.
Her gaze hardened and challenged him with its intensity. He forced himself to lock in on it. Hot sparks charged between them, searing his senses. She thrust a cell phone and a yellow-page directory turned to the attorney section at him. “Pick one, and make your call.”
With knots in his stomach, Damon tried several attorneys, but only reached their damned recorders. “Looks like they’re all out chasing ambulances,” he muttered.
“Too bad for you. If you want an attorney, I can’t ask you any more questions without one present, but I can hold you until your counsel arrives. Which could be overnight.” She paused to let the threat sink in. “Or you can voluntarily answer some questions now and be home in a few hours.”
He boiled inside at her squeeze-play, but he sure as hell didn’t want to hang around here. Malia was good at her job, and to be the focus of her energy scared the crap out of him. “What do you want to know?”
Malia tapped the snapshot file. Her fingers were long and strong-looking for a woman, nails natural and trimmed short. “I have to ask you this question,” she said in an apologetic tone that didn’t fool him. He braced himself for the obvious inquiry. “Did you kill your wife, Mr. Shaw?”
“Hell, no!”
Before he could fully recover, she shot back, “Where were you between 2:00 P.M. yesterday and 3:00 A.M.?”
Sweat trickled down his back. “Holed up in my apartment.”
Her look intensified. Her gold-flecked brown eyes rested on him for the longest time. Silence stretched thin between them. “Can anyone verify that? Neighbors, mailman, pizza delivery?” The last was said with an underlying challenge.
“Holed up means I saw no one. On purpose. I’m writing a novel.”
“You’re a writer? Kiki told me you’ve been unemployed since you left the Air Force.”
The disdain in Malia’s voice galled him. He could imagine the garbage Kiki had told her. He knew how girlfriends could rake a guy over the coals after the romance went sour. “It’s only been three months. I’m not some shiftless bum, and I don’t consider working eight to ten hours a day unemployed. Kiki never supported my writing.”
Malia didn’t look sympathetic. “What was your job in the Air Force?” she asked. “Maintenance? Kiki said you were handy around the house. Good with a hammer, are you?” Malia tapped the file with the snapshots again.
He glared at it. “Are you going to show me the damn pictures, or not?”
She held his gaze, seeming to weigh the significance of his outburst. “After you answer my questions.”
“I worked in intelligence. Investigations. Is that how she was killed, with a hammer?”
Malia’s eyes sparked. “What gave you that idea?”
“It wasn’t a subtle question you asked, Detective.”
She gave an impatient toss of her head. “Will you take a lie detector test?”
Damon silently cursed the sweat that broke out on his forehead. When he’d first entered the room, air had blown steadily through the ventilation system. Now nothing stirred. The cops wanted to make him sweat in more ways than one. “I’ll let you know after I talk with an attorney.” He stood and headed for the door. Detective Ku blocked his way, silently, effectively.
With a jabbing thrust of her index finger, Malia pointed to the chair. “Sit down, Mr. Shaw. We’re not through here.”
Damon plunked down. “Enjoy the hell out of giving orders, Detective?” He admired her confidence and show of authority, but he’d never liked anyone who got off on ordering others around.
Malia merely looked at him. “Kiki said you came to her house several times over the last few weeks. What was that about?”
He felt his pulse quicken. He wished he could get up and walk around – better, he wished he could walk out of here. “I know what you’re thinking, and you got it wrong. Kiki kept some of my things, photo albums, books, files – personal treasures like that. I wanted them back.” Without an attorney’s counsel, Damon knew not to mention their ongoing argument.
Malia leaned forward clearly to intimidate. She was close enough for him to breathe in her scent, musky and salty from hours in the hot sun.
“So you pressured her?” she asked, her gazing boring into him.
Fighting an arousal that made no sense and trying to steady himself as he imagined the floor shift beneath his feet, he said, “That’s not my style.”
“Kiki received some hang up calls,” Malia said. “Was that you?”
“Hell, no. I was trying to keep this divorce amicable. And quick.”
“When did you last see Kiki alive?”
A truthful answer might win him a night in a cell. He shrugged. “A couple of days ago, I guess.” Now Kiki would never keep the crucial appointment. He was in deep bog.
“I need an exact date.”
“Seeing my estranged wife wasn’t something I wrote down on my calendar.”
“I’ll bet a sharp guy like you can figure it out.” Malia’s eyes bored into his.
He rubbed his aching head. “I can’t come up with it right now.” To live in his own skin, he had to help them find Kiki’s killer, but without implicating himself. Kiki, lovable but desperately promiscuous, deserved that much from
him. And her family, whom he loved like the family he’d never had, deserved it as well.
“I know you’ve had a tough day,” Malia said with a hint of sarcasm, “but I’d like the date and time by morning.” Her hand rested on the file. Damon’s heart pounded. Suddenly she flipped the folder open to a close-up Polaroid color-shot of Kiki’s face covered with blood, her glassy eyes bulging.
“Jesus, no!” Bile shot into his throat. Damon had seen death while stationed in Kuwait, but nothing came close to this. This grotesque image was the woman he’d once loved.
“Any idea who could’ve done this, Mr. Shaw?” Malia fired at him, her voice hard as steel.
“No!” He shot to his feet and banged his fist on the table. “What kind of inhuman, unfeeling B.S. is this, Detective?” His throat tightened. Only anger held him together.
Malia watched him with suspicion in her dark eyes. She leaned closer, intensifying the tension in her attack pose. “I’m sorry, Mr. Shaw, but in a homicide investigation we can’t always be sensitive.”
“Dammit. You wanted to see my reaction. Well, did I pass?” He curled his hands into fists. He’d never hit a woman, never would. If only she’d been a man. And not a cop.
“Let me make something crystal clear to you,” she said, sidestepping his question without missing a beat. “If you had anything at all to do with Kiki’s murder, I’m going to make you wish you were dead.”
“We already covered that, Detective. I could never hurt Kiki. I keep thinking about what this will do to her family. Has anyone notified them?”
Malia studied him. Her gaze lost some of its fury, almost convincing him that she wanted him to be innocent. “Do you still have a good relationship with Kiki’s family?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t divorcing them. We had dinner together last Friday.”
“Good,” Malia said. “I have an idea that might help clear things up.”
He didn’t like the sly look that switched on in her eyes, but he wanted to get out of there. “If it’ll move this interview into high gear,” he said. “I’m all for it.”