Mahu Surfer m-2

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “Hey, there’s two dead guys, too,” Harry said.

  “I know, but I keep thinking that this Lucie is at the center of things,” Terri said. “I’m getting a clear picture of her from the details. She sounds determined to succeed, but it’s not just a lack of money that’s standing in her way, it’s her attitude toward money.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, sitting forward on the picnic bench.

  “You said she loved labels-name brand clothes. Usually people wear those clothes because they want to fit in, to be like people they see as better, and they want everyone to see that they’re worthwhile, too.”

  Harry and I must have both been looking skeptical, because she continued. “It’s like that saying, dress for the job you want, not the job you have.”

  That was a saying I’d heard.

  “Lucie was dressing like the person she wanted to be-successful and rich-the person she wanted people to think she was. Combine that with her drive to succeed as a surfer, and you have somebody who’s willing to do almost anything to achieve her goals.”

  “Okay, I get it,” I said. “So then what do you think got her killed? Somebody who perceived her drive as a threat?”

  “It’s possible. But you also said she was Filipina, right?”

  I nodded.

  “And the Philippines is almost completely Catholic.”

  “Your point?”

  “My point is that she probably had a strong moral upbringing, but her desires overwhelmed her morals. Then maybe something happened that changed the balance again.”

  I was starting to see where she was going. “Mike Pratt was killed,” I said. “You think maybe either she knew who killed Mike, or suspected, and her morals were resurfacing, maybe making her a threat to the killer.”

  “I think it’s a possibility,” Terri said. “Plus you said that Mike had gotten involved with a Christian surfing group in Mexico, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you think maybe he was involved in smuggling some drugs back from there. It’s possible those Christian surfers got him thinking that what he was doing was wrong, and he tried to back out, go to the authorities.”

  “This is very interesting,” I said. “So let me see if I can construct a scenario. Lucie’s this very determined girl who needs a lot of money to feed her habits-surfing and shopping foremost. She overcomes her Catholic upbringing to become a low-level drug dealer. She plans to go to Mexpipe, and makes arrangements to bring some crystal meth back-some of which I found in her apartment.”

  “Makes sense so far,” Harry said.

  “She knows Mike Pratt and knows he needs money, so she recruits him to help her. They come up with a scheme to smuggle the crystal back to the US in their surfboards.”

  I stood up and started walking around. “But while they’re in Mexico, Mike hooks up with the Christian surfers, who make him see that what he’s doing is wrong. By the time he gets back to the States, he’s really upset-both on moral grounds, and because the board he loved is ruined.”

  “Where does the Chinese guy fit in?” Harry asked. “Don’t forget the Chinese guy.”

  “Ronnie was Lucie’s friend, right?” Terri asked. “Maybe she recruited him, too.”

  “Okay, the three of them bring the crystal back from Mexico and turn at least some of it over to Lucie’s supplier. I found the rest behind her medicine cabinet.”

  “Then there ought to be a money trail,” Harry said. “These guys weren’t sophisticated enough to cover their tracks. Maybe the supplier, but not Lucie, Mike or Ronnie. You could subpoena their bank records.”

  I shook my head. “Not without some probable cause. Judges don’t sign subpoenas based on speculation.”

  “I could check it out for you,” Harry said. “I already know how to get into your bank.”

  “I’m still a cop, Harry, as you have already figured out. I can’t ask you to do that-and I can’t use anything you find in court.”

  “Email me their names, addresses, anything you have,” Harry said. “That’s all you need to know. But you still haven’t established why the Chinese guy got killed. Just the haole and the Filipina.”

  “Ronnie disappeared the same day Lucie was shot,” Terri said. “Maybe she confided in him. He was a smart computer guy, right? Maybe she was trying to atone for her sins by finding out who killed Mike, and she recruited Ronnie to help.”

  “That’s as good a scenario as I can get for now,” I said. “Though there isn’t much I can do to prove any of it.”

  “You need to find the supplier,” Harry said. “That’s the guy who has the motive. But I hope you’re not going to tell me you plan to buy some ice yourself. Because you’re not officially a cop up here and you could get yourself into a whole heap of trouble.”

  “The idea did cross my mind,” I admitted. “But I met a guy who bought from Lucie. He must be buying somewhere else now that she’s dead.”

  “That’s the guy who was supposed to meet you for dinner but cancelled?” Terri asked.

  “Yeah. His name is Rik. He’s hard to get hold of because he works at Waimea Falls Park and he’s always having to cover for other guys’ shifts.”

  “Or he’s dodging you,” Harry said. “Is he working today?”

  I nodded. “I see a plan forming. You think we could take the kids over there this afternoon?”

  “It’s a good diversion,” Terri said. “That way you kind of stumble on him. We can keep the kids busy while you talk to him.”

  We agreed to head to the park after lunch, just as we were inundated by a flood of my nieces and nephews, and we gave up on the idea of talking any more then.

  A Walk in the Park

  It was almost two before we could break away a group of kids to head to Waimea Falls Park. Ashley and Jeffrey wanted to keep surfing, and Alec and Keoni wanted to stay in the water on their boogie boards. We left my parents, Lui and Liliha, and Haoa and Tatiana in a pleasant after-lunch stupor to look after them.

  We took a couple of cars over to the park because of the need for so many car seats. I checked with the elderly Chinese woman who took our money and found that Rik, one of the nature guides, was somewhere in the gardens; unfortunately, she couldn’t be more specific. We all took the electric tram up to the falls, but instead of swimming we elected to walk around through the gardens. The four of us concentrated on showing the kids the flowers and the exotic birds, stopping at the country store to buy them candy.

  It was as we were coming out of the store that we ran into Rik. It couldn’t have appeared more innocent, yet Rik was immediately suspicious. Fortunately, just as I said hello, Malia tugged on my pant leg and announced, “Uncle Kimo, I have to go bathroom.”

  “Why don’t we all take a bathroom break,” Terri announced. She picked up Malia and took Ailina’s hand, while Arleen scooped up Brandon.

  Harry, carrying Danny, said, “I saw the bathrooms over there. Kimo, you can wait here, we’ll all be right back.”

  “So you had to miss dinner Friday night,” I said to Rik, as the entourage began its trek to the bathrooms.

  “Yeah, we had a big party here, and a couple of us had to stay late to close up.” He looked around nervously. “I really should get back to work.”

  “Why don’t I walk with you, and it’ll look like you’re showing me the park.” I put my hand on his shoulder and gently steered him toward one of the paths. He was painfully skinny, and I felt like there was almost no flesh between my hand and the bones of his shoulder.

  “Look,” I said when we were out of earshot of the country store. “I know you used to buy your drugs from Lucie, and I’m not looking to jam you up. I just want to find out who killed her.”

  Rik relaxed noticeably. “I want to help you.”

  “Do you know where she got her supply?”

  He shook his head. “I think she was afraid if I knew, I’d go direct.”

  “Did she ever say anything to you about Mexico, about going to t
he Mexpipe competition, about maybe some of the crystal meth coming back with her?”

  “I know she went,” he said. “And the drugs were really good down there. She told me I should go with her next year, that she could make it worth my while.”

  “Was she having any supply problems that you know of? Anybody want her territory, anything like that?”

  He shook his head. “We used to talk all the time. If she was having problems like that, she would have told me. As a matter of fact, things were going really well for her. She was on the verge of making a big deal, she said, and everything was going to be sweet after that.”

  “A big drug deal?”

  “I don’t think so. I think it was about real estate.”

  That was a stumper to me. “Real estate?”

  “She had her license, you know. I think it might have had something to do with that big project of Ari’s.”

  I remembered talking about real estate with Ari at breakfast. “He said something about zoning problems on some big property. You think that was it?”

  He shrugged. “I just remember worrying that if she went legit I wouldn’t be able to score from her. That’s what I was concerned about. You should talk to Ari about her.”

  I stopped and took hold of his arm. “Look, I told you before that I’m not interested in jamming you up, and I’m not, but I’ve got to know one thing. Who took over Lucie’s customers?”

  Rik’s body went rigid. His arm was so skinny I could feel the bone. He looked like he was ready to cry. I didn’t say anything more, though; I waited for him to speak. Finally, he said, “I cop in Honolulu, all right? Through my cousin. After Lucie died I didn’t know anybody else up here to buy from and I didn’t want to risk getting caught. I swear, that’s all I know.”

  I believed him, and I let go of his arm. We started walking again, neither of us saying anything. He had steered us in a big circle, and we came back to the country store just as the rest of the party was exiting the rest rooms. “Great to see you,” he said, when my attention was distracted. “Gotta go. Bye!” And then he was off, down another of the winding paths.

  “Hear anything interesting?” Terri asked as she approached me. The kids surrounded Harry and Arleen, who looked like they were practicing for having a large family of their own.

  “He didn’t know where she got her drugs. But he said she was mixed up in some big real estate deal, that she thought it was going to make her big money.”

  “There’s a lot of money to be made in real estate,” Terri said. We started to stroll slowly down toward the car, Harry and Arleen following us with all the kids. “Especially up here, where there are so many restrictions on building. That jacks the price up a lot.”

  “Since when did you become a real estate mogul?”

  “My family has some property up here.” We stepped into the shade, and she pushed her sunglasses up to her head. She was a very pretty woman, in an all-American kind of way, dark brown hair in a bob just above her shoulders, fine features, smooth skin. I saw those bags under her eyes again, though, and remembered all she had been through since her husband had been killed.

  “You doing okay?” I asked, taking her hand.

  “Today’s a good day.” She smiled. “I’m having fun, and I’m glad to see Danny enjoying himself too. I haven’t been up to the North Shore in ages, though I know I’m going to have to come up again soon, for this real estate thing.”

  As one of the wealthiest in the islands, there isn’t much Terri’s family isn’t involved with. Her father sits on the boards of many of the island’s biggest corporations, and her family trust is one of the biggest donors to island charities. All the money comes from the Clark’s chain of department stores, a rival of Liberty House for the home-grown market. “Clark’s planning to put a store up here?”

  She shook her head. “Not commercial land. Just some property that’s been passed down in the family, by Kawailoa Beach. My grandparents used to have a summer house up there, and my Uncle Bishop lives there now.”

  I remembered that Ari had mentioned a project in Kawailoa Beach and wondered if it was the one Bishop was involved in. My attention wandered, trying to think, and by the time I came back to the conversation Terri had moved on. “Uncle Bishop was supposed to take over the stores, but he wasn’t interested in working, so my dad had to step up. Now Uncle Bishop has run through his inheritance, and all he’s got is this property he lives on, just north of here.” I’d met Terri’s uncle, and knew his relations with the rest of the family were strained, at best. “He wants to sell the property to developers and cash out. That’s why I’ve been learning about all the development restrictions.”

  We stopped at a lookout point where we could look down on the gardens. “Surely they can’t restrict you from building on property your family has owned for generations.”

  “Surely they can.” She waved her hand around. “Most of the North Shore is reserved for agriculture and open space. They’re only letting new housing go up in what they call the infill areas, around existing neighborhoods. And even if they do let you build, you have to reserve a certain number of spaces for what they call ‘affordable’ housing.”

  “Wow. I had no idea. This place was always so sleepy.”

  “When they put the highway through, it made commuting down to Honolulu a lot easier, and more people decided either to move up here, or to keep weekend houses. Even the most run-down old shack is selling for six figures now. The rental market is getting tighter all the time-if you can rent your house out for two hundred bucks a night during surf season, you can afford to leave it empty the rest of the year, and you don’t have to worry about poor tenants tearing the place up.”

  Danny came running up, and she picked him up. “Of course, that doesn’t help the surfers who are making ends meet by working at minimum-wage jobs. Lucie was probably talking about some new gated community with million-dollar homes.”

  “Probably the one Ari is planning to build. But how could she make money from something like that?”

  She kissed Danny’s head and took his hand in hers. “Commissions. Suppose Ari offered her the chance to work in his sales office. She could make a lot of money, legally, and still have some flexible time to surf.”

  I couldn’t put it together, so I kept thinking out loud, as we started to walk again. “But how could that lead to her getting killed?”

  Terri shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense to me. But you’re the detective.”

  “So they say.” Malia and Ailina came running up then, and we had to shelve all talk of murder for the drive back to the beach, and the rest of the afternoon.

  My family began to pack up around five. I was helping Haoa load the barbecue equipment back into his panel van when I noticed a familiar car pull up-Brad’s gold Toyota Camry with its rainbow bumper stickers and a broken antenna.

  “Uh-oh,” I said, as Brad screeched to a halt next to the van. “I’m not getting a good feeling about this.”

  “You know him?” Haoa asked.

  “In the biblical sense,” I said. “You know, not Adam and Eve, but Adam and Steve.”

  “Let me guess,” Haoa said, as Brad jumped out of his car and slammed the door behind him. “You cheated on him.”

  “Well, not cheated, really. I mean, it’s not like we were married.”

  “Yeah, that excuse works,” he said.

  “Boy, you sure get around,” Brad said, stalking up to us. “Where’d you meet this one?”

  “At the hospital, when I was born,” I said dryly. “Brad Jacobson, my brother, Haoa Kanapa’aka.”

  He looked from me to my big brother. Although Haoa is my height, six-one, he’s broader in the shoulders and the waist, and he looks more like the Hawaiian side of our family, with less of the haole than seems to have landed in me. Still, if you look closely, you can see the resemblance. Brad saw it.

  “You still slept with George and Larry, didn’t you, though? Those guys are my friends, Kimo.
You didn’t think that was a little cheap and sleazy?”

  “I don’t think I want to hear the rest of this conversation,” Haoa said, backing away. Although he’s come around, he was the member of my family who had the most problem with my homosexuality, and I could see we were stretching the limits of his tolerance.

  Lui came up then, his newsman’s knack for following the story. “Who’s this?” Brad demanded.

  “My oldest brother, Lui,” I said. “Brad and I had some fun earlier last week, and I didn’t realize I would be hurting his feelings to um…”

  “Sleep with anything with a penis?” Brad finished for me.

  “You could say that,” I said, frowning. “I certainly didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Yeah, tell me another one.”

  I saw my father approaching, trailed by a couple of his grandchildren. “Brad, this isn’t really the time.” I took his arm and steered him toward his car. “Why don’t I come over later and we can talk about it, okay?”

  “Why don’t you stick your dick up your ass and fuck yourself to death,” Brad said, shaking off my arm and stalking back to his car.

  “I don’t think that’s anatomically possible,” I said, as my brothers snickered behind me.

  Brad sprayed gravel making a fishtail turn, then sped out of the parking lot.

  “Oh, to be single again,” Lui said. “Not.”

  “Yeah, I take back what I said about envying you the studly life,” Haoa said. “I’m remembering what a pain in the ass it was.” Suddenly he held up his hands toward me. “Don’t take that literally. And don’t give me any details.”

  There was a lot of kissing and hugging as everyone got ready to leave, and my mother even got a little teary. “You can come home any time you want,” she said, hugging me.

  “I know, Mom.” I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Really, I’m fine. I’m relaxing, I’m surfing, I’m meeting people. I’m going to come home sometime, but there’s stuff I have to work out up here first.”

  I choked up, watching the cars all back out and head down toward Honolulu, wanting so badly to be able to get into my truck and follow them, to reclaim the life I had left behind. But like I told my mother, there was stuff I had to do on the North Shore first.