4 Toby Neal- Broken ferns

by Neal, Toby

  “Either of them express any particular hostility?” Ken asked. His dark eyes were narrowed against the smoke.

  “Kimo knew he’d been fairly busted. He was happy to just get his last check and take off. But Lehua said she wasn’t going to give up. She’d made a list of employees whose hours had been manipulated or who’d had health care unfairly denied.”

  “Do you have a list of those names?” Lei asked, keeping her excitement under control.

  “Yeah. I told her all sweetlike that I wanted to look into it, talk Max into making it right for these people, and she gave it to me.”

  Lei looked up from her note-taking at Reynalda’s smug face. This woman wasn’t just taking orders—she was enjoying her job of being Max Smiley’s enforcer. Ken, on Reynalda’s other side, must have seen Lei’s face, because he frowned, giving her a tiny head shake.

  “We’d sure appreciate a copy of that.” Lei smiled with difficulty. So far her sympathies were squarely with the employees.

  Reynalda stubbed out her cigarette, tucked the pack into the front pocket on her shirt, and picked up the can. “Follow me.”

  They trailed her to a small, tidy cubicle. Reynalda threw the Diet Coke can into the trash, went to her computer, and punched up a few keys. “I’ll print Rezents’s schedule for you, as well.” A minute later, the schedule and a typed list popped out of the printer. She picked the schedule up, frowned as she looked at it. “Tyson was supposed to be on yesterday. Never showed up.”

  “Does he make a habit of that?” Lei asked.

  “Remember I told you about Max’s criteria for a good employee? Showing up is number one. So no. We write people up and fire them after two no-shows.”

  “Can we get his contact information?” Ken asked.

  “Aren’t I supposed to have a warrant or something?” Reynalda batted her eyes at him.

  “Mr. Smiley seemed to want us to have the company’s full cooperation. I’m sure it’s fine, but you’re welcome to call him and check.” Ken smiled back at her.

  “No, that’s all right.” She punched a few more buttons and they waited for the whir of the printer; then she handed over a copy of Tyson Rezents’s contact information.

  “Thank you. You’ve been amazing.” Lei was already opening the door to leave as Ken doled out his final flirtation.

  “No problem. Call me if you need anything else,” Reynalda said. “Anytime.”

  Lei looked at the new address and compared it with the one she had from the high school. “I’m guessing he’s not with his mother anymore.”

  Ken plugged the kid’s more recent address into the Acura’s GPS, pulled out of the parking lot and back onto busy Nimitz. Lei booted up the Toughbook computer from a modified compartment in the dash. Her fingers flew over the keys as she inputted Rezents’s social security number and birthdate into the database. A couple of minutes later, the boy’s profile popped up.

  “Rezents has a couple of misdemeanors. Drunk and disorderly, a pakalolo possession charge.”

  “Any of them look good for this, then.” Ken’s gaze focused on driving as they wound into the older, run-down McCully Avenue neighborhood where Tyson lived.

  “Except maybe Kimo Matthews—seems like he wasn’t mad at Paradise Air, though he’s a proven thief.” She punched up Kimo’s record. “Looks like he’s got a warrant out; didn’t show for his court date on the baggage robbery charges.”

  “Hm.” Ken was thoughtful, his eyes narrowed. “So what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about family history—with Rezents starting work so early, I wonder if he’s got a chip on his shoulder, maybe because of this druggie mom of his. Decides to stick it to the man in a way that will be remembered.”

  “That works for me, too.”

  “Speaking of working—you worked Reynalda pretty well.”

  “Like you said—the gaydar misses me when it needs to.”

  “I’m not judging. I meant it as a compliment—you do interviewing really well.”

  Ken grinned. “I have my ways.”

  “Now that that other place was hit, don’t you think we should consider whether this is even related directly to Paradise Air and Max Smiley?” Lei asked.

  “I’ve been wondering about that, too, but until we have further leads, we need to keep going in this direction.”

  “Okay.” Lei kept digging, using one of the programs the FBI used to track online activity. “Rezents has an online presence. Pops up in chat rooms on the Occupy movement. He’s also got a Facebook page.” She scrolled through his timeline. “Lots of angry rants about the one percent. I’m liking him more for this every minute.”

  “Any family connections that you can find?”

  “Wait a minute.” She went back to the tax database, pulled up parents’ names. “No father on his birth certificate. His mother is Shawna Rezents—and boy does she have a record. Prostitution, petty theft, and several counts of child abuse. This kid’s had it rough.”

  They pulled up in front of a sun-blasted beige duplex under a tired monkeypod tree in a neighborhood not far from Lei’s. Lei got out, looking for the mid-1990’s white Ford Ranger registered to Tyson Rezents—a vehicle so ubiquitous to Hawaii it might as well be a Toyota Tacoma.

  “His truck’s gone,” Lei said as they walked up a short cement path to the front door. “Doubt he’s here.”

  Ken didn’t answer, just knocked—three hard raps.

  Nothing.

  Ken’s hand was raised for another knock and Lei’s rested instinctively on her weapon as the door opened abruptly.

  A girl hung in the doorframe, blinking at the invasion of sun and law enforcement. Raccoon shadows of old makeup ringed her eyes, and loose breasts fought for freedom in a thin tank top.

  “Yes?” Voice like rattling gravel in a coffee can.

  “We’re looking for Tyson Rezents,” Lei said.

  “He’s not here. He’s at work.”

  “He’s not at work; we checked. Are you his girlfriend?”

  “No. Roommate.” Another shadow crowded from behind—a looming male one. “We share the place with Tyson. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. We just want to ask him a few questions.” Lei didn’t want to tip their hand that the FBI was looking for Rezents if they could help it. She tried a friendly smile—which didn’t seem to be working because the boyfriend moved up into view, meaty hand on the girl’s shoulder, unshaven jaw resting on her bed-snarled head.

  “Who are you?” he growled.

  “We’ll be back,” Ken said. They withdrew, leaving the cave-dwelling couple staring at the Acura as they pulled away. “I like it that I didn’t have to tell you it’s too early for Rezents to know we’re looking for him.”

  “You forget I came up from patrol officer to detective before I joined the Bureau,” Lei said. “Lots of times we wanted to ask a few questions without someone knowing we were cops.”

  “Well, I’m sure they made us for cops, but they don’t have to know what kind. That’s one thing about the Bureau—once people know they’re being investigated, they get scared, and word spreads fast.”

  “I can see that.” Lei programmed the address Reynalda had given them for Tom Blackman into the GPS. “Maybe Blackman’s home.”

  Another run-down neighborhood, this time a little cinder-block cottage with “ornamental” holes in the cement brick lining the walkway. A faded plastic play set occupied a scrap of dandelion-choked front yard.

  “Yes?” A petite woman in a muumuu stood behind a steel-screened door.

  Ken took the lead. “Hi. Do you know a Tom Blackman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he home?”

  “Doesn’t live here anymore.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “I kicked him out. He hadn’t paid his rent. And no, he didn’t leave an address.”

  Lei consulted her notes as Ken fired up the Acura. “Let’s go look for Lehua Kinoshita now—we shouldn’t focus in on
these two too early. Let’s call in that warrant on Kimo Matthews, step up finding him,” Ken said. Lei got on the phone to Dispatch and had them call in to HPD that Matthews was now wanted for FBI questioning.

  “I’m looking for info on Lehua,” Lei said, working the Toughbook.

  “She seems like a straight shooter. She was trying to get justice for herself and others at Paradise. Do you think that fits with a vandalizing burglar?” Ken asked.

  “Not sure, but I agree we shouldn’t zero in on anyone too early.” Lei had Lehua’s profile up. “No criminal activity, not even a parking ticket. She’s clean.”

  “Doesn’t mean she didn’t have an ax to grind with Smiley, though. Do you have an address?”

  “Yes.” Lei plugged it into the GPS. “Next stop, health insurance activist. I think we should also check how far the range is on the Hummel. Maybe we can figure out where the unsub is going next.” Lei worked the Toughbook as Ken negotiated clogged traffic back into downtown. “Whoa. Looks like the Hummel can do up to a hundred twenty-five miles on a tank of gas. That’s range enough to get to another island.”

  Chapter 7

  Suppressed urgency infused the office upon their return—they’d received an abrupt summons back to the Bureau as they left the unoccupied apartment that was Lehua Kinoshita’s last-known address.

  Special Agent in Charge Waxman sat at the head of the shiny fake-burled-wood conference table. Waxman, pale as his name suggested, with a silver comb-over and a dapper suit, opened up a laptop. Special Agent Gundersohn, a large and deceptively slow-moving Swede, sat at Waxman’s right hand. On his other side, Marcella and her partner, Matt Rogers, had taken seats. Lei and Ken took a few more chairs to cluster at one end of the lengthy table.

  The conference room was a strictly utilitarian space, soundproofed walls lined in whiteboard and a single large plaque with the FBI logo on it behind Waxman’s head. A heavily tinted bulletproof glass window looked out on a wind-whipped cobalt ocean dotted with fishing and sailboats. “Lei and I were just coming back from the field to brief you as to where we are on the case.” Ken let his statement turn into a question as Sophie Ang, specialist from the IT department, slipped into the chair beside him, already opening her own laptop.

  “Yes, and I want to hear it—but first you’re going to want to see this.” Waxman pushed a button on the bottom of the table and a projection screen whirred down behind his head. Another button and the webpage on his laptop leaped into view. SMILEY BANDIT REDISTRIBUTES WEALTH was the title of a plain white blog page. Lei’s heart jumped. The unsub was making some sort of move.

  A grainy photo showed a picture of the front of the Institute for Human Services, Honolulu’s biggest homeless shelter. A small cardboard box sat on the cement steps leading up to the shelter.

  Waxman clicked to the next photo. The picture was of the interior of the box. It was filled with a mound of jewelry and stacks of rubber-banded cash.

  “A donation was made to Institute of Human Services in the name of Dr. Nathaniel Witherspoon, part-time Hawaii resident and full-time member of the one percent,” was the caption.

  Ang’s long tawny fingers worked her keyboard like braille, her triangular face intent. She was a tall, fit-looking mixed-race black woman Marcella had introduced as a friend, but Lei didn’t know her well yet. “Trying to get an IP on that blog address.”

  “Whoa. This some kind of Robin Hood gig?” Matt Rogers was from Texas and hadn’t bothered to blend—he wore a blond military cut, extra set of muscles, and boots under his chinos.

  “It’s beginning to look that way,” Waxman said. “This blog link was sent to all the major news networks, and the phones have been ringing off the hook—and we’ve got a whole lot of nothing to say at the moment. We had the shelter put the box somewhere safe so we can pick it up and check it for evidence. In the meantime, I’m bringing Scott and Rogers in on the case for extra support.”

  Waxman hit another button, and the overhead screen filled with a bright silver aircraft—all graceful, rounded lines. It was hard to believe Max Smiley had assembled it from a kit.

  “We had a chance to run a little research. Unlike many ultralights, the Hummel’s more like a real airplane. It has a max speed of eighty miles an hour and a range of one hundred twenty-five miles,” Ang said.

  “We were just looking into that, too. A hundred twenty-five miles is far enough to fly to Maui,” Lei said. “He could escape Oahu.”

  “It would be very dangerous,” Gundersohn said. “There are strong winds; it’s all ocean to cross.”

  “And the maximum height the plane can go is ten thousand feet.” Ang’s eyes were still on her screen as her fingers flew. “I’m not getting anything useful off this blog post.”

  “This is probably a kid. He might not realize what he’s taking on. He might not know how dangerous it is.” Lei pictured the tiny craft bucking its way across that long hundred miles.

  Ang was still working her keyboard but took a second to look up at Lei through the black bangs of a pixie cut. “What makes you think it’s a kid? You sound sympathetic.”

  “I don’t know for sure that it’s a kid, but I think so. We haven’t had time to fill you in on all we’ve pulled together on the unsub.” Lei produced her spiral notebook, earning an amused glance from Marcella, who was always after her to switch to using her smartphone. “We have four possibles with motive and negative history with Max Smiley and Paradise. They’re aged seventeen to early twenties, and Ken and I think the attitude, the graffiti, and the theft of the dog point to someone young and at least a little impulsive.”

  “Agent Scott, take notes for us please,” Waxman said. Lei spotted Marcella’s tiny eye roll; Marcella’s theory about why he always picked her to take notes was that the SAC liked her ass to provide visual entertainment for meetings.

  They all looked at Marcella’s rounded behind as she turned her back to the group, picked up a marker, and uncapped it. She reached high to write TOM BLACKMAN, TYSON REZENTS, KIMO MATTHEWS, and LEHUA KINOSHITA on the boards as Lei read the names off to her, jotting down details under each as Lei and Ken elaborated.

  Lei didn’t see the appeal—Marcella’s ass was round and high, but a little big, in Lei’s opinion. Why just look at that, when one of her friend’s top buttons had come undone, hinting at some truly stunning cleavage? Lei felt a pang of envy—it was hard to look at any part of Marcella without staring.

  “So what else?” Marcella asked, gesturing with the pen.

  “We think Blackman has the strongest motive,” Ken said. “He’s got a record, he has an attitude, and he was fired for threats against Smiley. Haven’t found him yet, though—he doesn’t appear to have an address. Kimo Matthews already has an arrest warrant out, and we bumped that to a priority BOLO.”

  Marcella jotted the information. Her white shirt rode up and exposed a patch of golden skin at her tiny waist. Maybe Marcella’s butt wasn’t really that big—it just seemed that way contrasted with her small waist and those full breasts. This was not a problem Lei would ever have, with her slim hips and B-cup bra size.

  Lei bit the inside of her cheek. She’d never worried about her attractiveness, hardly noticing herself in the context of other women before—she’d been too busy surviving. Since when did she care that other women were prettier?

  Maybe since her ex married a gorgeous Thai girl.

  Lei’s mind provided a mental picture of Anchara’s tiny, round butt with that long black hair swishing over it, so long it touched the backs of her thighs. Lei pinched herself viciously through her pants to stop the mental torture, and her hand crept into her pocket to rub the white-gold disc—but that only reminded her of her loss.

  She yanked her hand out of her pocket. Focus on the case, Texeira! “Tyson Rezents is only seventeen years old. Until this morning, when he didn’t show up for work, he was an employee of Paradise Air.” Lei filled them in on the connections they’d made on Rezents so far.

  Ken gestured
to Lei. “Tell the group why you think he’s good for this.” He was giving her an opportunity in front of the group to expand on the ideas she’d been working.

  “Rezents has had a rough deal. Mom’s a druggie and a prostitute. He’s been in and out of foster care, and he’s got a chip on his shoulder about the wealthy. I saw a Facebook page with a lot of rants about the ‘one percent,’ and I notice that’s in the blog caption.”

  “Here it is.” Ang had been busy. Her screen popped up next to Waxman’s. Rezents’s Facebook page looked like it had been edited. She didn’t see the political cartoons she’d spotted before, and the rhetoric had been purged.

  “That’s not what it looked like when I first saw it,” Lei said.

  “Agent Ang, spend some time on each of these suspects, work up some in-depth background. Also, see if you can put some kind of trace on that website, see where it came from and when our unsub uploads to it. Scott and Rogers, you’re on Tom Blackman. Texeira and Yamada, you’re on Rezents, since you already have some traction there. And, Texeira, you have some law enforcement connections on Maui—alert them. Let’s do an all-islands priority BOLO in case he makes a run for it.” Waxman retracted the overhead screen, signaling the meeting was over.

  Lei gathered her coffee mug and notes. Her heart began a slow thud. She had a reason to call over to Maui, whether she wanted to or not. And she might end up speaking to Stevens when she did.

  Chapter 8

  Lei punched the numbers on the phone decisively.

  “Haiku Station.”

  “Lieutenant Omura, please.”