“Not necessarily. The Wahines are still our top suspects.” Joe closed his notebook. “Leroy is our smoker, Camilla has a temper, and the maid acts as guilty as a kid caught filching cookies.”
“Are you going to contact Manano?” I asked.
“No.” He looked like I’d asked him to jump off a cliff. “He wouldn’t do anything anyway, so why share our hard work?”
Yep, my cousin’s ego was showing.
“No, we’re going to bring this culprit down ourselves.” Joe gave a nod to emphasis his point. “This mystery was brought to us. For once, Summer didn’t go looking for it and stick her nose where it didn’t belong.”
“Thanks, I think.” I moved to the window. The noon day sun sparkled on the sand and water, making me realize I hadn’t swam in two days. I hadn’t even put my feet in the water. Now, workers ran back and forth in preparation for the night. Swimming now would be anything but relaxing. “What do y’all want to do for the afternoon? Snorkel? We haven’t been up to the nearby resort yet.”
“I’m taking a nap,” Aunt Eunice declared. “All this sleuthing has me worn out.”
“April?”
“How about shopping? I’m still sunburned from yesterday.” She glanced at her perfectly tanned arm. Sunburned, ha! With her blond hair, fifteen minutes in the sun left her a beautiful shade of brown. Me, I tended to burn and peel.
“Shopping where?”
“Some flea markets?” April grabbed her purse. “It’ll be fun. We can buy muumuus.”
Joe groaned. “If you go out, then Ethan and I have to go. We can’t let you two go alone.”
“Good grief, Joe.” April planted fists on her hips. “It’s just to a local flea market. I think we’re perfectly fine, surrounded by people, if we stay together. It’s almost time to head home and we haven’t done anything non-touristy. All of our suspects are busy preparing for the luau.”
I stood back and watched his face redden. Clearly, he was as surprised as I was at April’s outburst. Usually, she sat in the background, content to be the silent observer. I wanted to cheer.
“It’s not a good idea.” Joe stepped forward.
April took another step to meet him. “I need some girl time without men shadowing us.”
My face hurt from grinning. Ethan gave me a look that said to knock it off. I mouthed, “What?”
“Where are we going to go, Joe?” By now the two stood nose to chin. “We’re on an island.”
“I’d rather go to the flea market than nap,” Aunt Eunice said.
“See, now there’re three of us.” April crossed her arms.
“There were three stooges, too.” Joe shook his head. “I can’t force you to stay.”
Hmmm. Sure he could. Joe had every intention of following. I glanced at Ethan. Yep. We’d have company for sure. Maybe we could ditch them.
I met April’s gaze and knew without saying a word that she had the same idea. We could fill Aunt Eunice in on the plan once we were in the van. I didn’t know, or care, what vehicle the guys would drive.
“I’ll go put on some comfortable shoes. Meet you at the van in fifteen minutes.” I planted a quick kiss on Ethan, then dashed out the door and to our cottage. A Hawaiian flea market ought to be fun. What could possibly happen at one of those?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Not the way I envisioned spending my honeymoon, going shopping with the girls, but so far very little seemed like my original dream of a Hawaiian honeymoon. Oh, well. I snatched the keys from April’s hand. “I’m driving.”
“Have you ever driven a van?” she asked.
“No, have you?” She shook her head.
“I have an idea. Wait here.” Aunt Eunice hefted her purse up on her shoulder and marched for the foyer. Minutes later she returned with a set of keys twirling on her index finger. “Anyone fancy a ride in a baby blue convertible?”
“Yes!” I grabbed the keys and raced to the parking lot. The Wahine B & B tended to have everything a guest could desire, why not a car? “Hurry.” I wanted to put some space between us and the guys. I glanced down the lot. There the scoundrels sat in a black SUV, grins on all their faces. Ugh.
I pulled a wadded slip of paper out of my purse and dug for a pen. “Find another piece of paper. Aunt Eunice, I know you’ll have something in your purse.”
“Why?” She rummaged in her shoulder bag.
“I’m going to jot down some random items and give the list to the guys. We might as well have some fun while they’re following us. Kind of like a scavenger hunt. Winner gets a foot massage.”
“Excellent! Okay, I’ve got it. What’s on the list?”
I tapped the pen against my lip. “A picture of all three of them in muumuus.” If we were going to do this, we might as well be wicked. I knew they wouldn’t turn down a challenge. “A picture of Uncle Roy eating poi.” He’d never eat something so foreign.
“This will be fun.” April laughed. “On our list, it will have to be Aunt Eunice. We’ve got to keep it fair.”
“True. What’s that rice thing with the leaf?”
“Musubi.” April spelled it.
“They have to bring one back. We need some harder things that won’t be readily available at the flea market.”
A knock on the side of the car caused me to scream and drop my pen.
“Yes, Ethan?” I fumbled around my feet.
“What’s taking you so long?”
“Don’t sneak up on me.” I straightened. “Since you’re going to follow us anyway, we thought we’d make it fun. So, we’re coming up with a scavenger list.”
“Fun. Hurry up.” He trotted back to the guys.
“A plumeria lei.” Aunt Eunice leaned on the seat. “I love the smell.”
“A snapshot of a painting in Lahaina’s art gallery.” April wagged her eyebrows up and down. “It’ll be harder for the guys to distract the sales guy in order for one of them to take a picture.”
“Good one.” My pen raced across the paper. “And if we say to meet back at five o’clock, that gives us four hours.”
“Here’s a few things we’ve added.” Ethan appeared at my side again. “Let’s switch lists.”
“What?” No. We had to do the same list or we might not win.
“Fine.” He leaned against the door. “We’ll combine the two. We’ll still win.”
“You’re on. Step away from the car.” The moment he did, I roared from the parking lot and headed toward Lahaina. “What’s on the list he gave us?”
“Well, one thing is a barracuda.”
“Just three?” I pressed the pedal harder. “Does it say the barracuda has to be alive?”
“Yes to three, and no to being alive. It doesn’t specify.”
Aunt Eunice clapped us on the shoulders and then settled back in the back seat. “Piece of cake, sweetie pies. That ninety-nine cent store in Lahaina had a stuffed barracuda, and I know just where we can get a fire eater. Those boys think they can get one up on us, well they’ve got another thing coming. I’ll even be glad to eat the poi, if it means beating them.”
We had this game in the bag. One glance in the rearview mirror showed Ethan driving the SUV and gaining ground on us. Were they going to follow and then get their items from the same places we did? “April, pull up the GPS on your phone. We’ve got to lose those three if we want to win.”
“Take a right through an apartment complex, then hang another immediate right, then a left. That will take you to a road that runs parallel with this one, and hopefully, have the guys searching the complex for a while.”
“You’re a genius.” I followed her directions. When we made it to the other side of the complex, we stopped behind a school bus. Only on Maui would little girls in sun dresses get off the bus carrying their shoes in their hands. Maybe someday, when Ethan and I retired, we could buy a little place here and spend part of every year under the Hawaiian sky.
I checked my rearview mirror. No sign of the men, which meant we lost t
hem. We whooped and hollered for a minute and drove away as soon as the school bus moved.
My cell phone rang. I had April hand it to me. “Hello?”
“Where are you?”
“On the hunt, silly.” I grinned at April.
“Why did you ditch us?”
Uh-oh. Ethan was not happy. “It’s part of the game.”
“It’s dangerous. Tell me where you are, and we’ll meet up.”
“No.” I turned left toward the ocean. “We’ll meet at five to declare the winner. I love you, and us three will be fine. I promise. Bye.” I hung up and dropped the phone in my lap. “They did intend to follow us for every piece of the game. Ethan’s a little upset with me right now.”
“It probably is irresponsible.” April rested her arm on the frame of the car and closed her eyes. “But Joe hasn’t let me out of his sight all week. I was going crazy.”
Hmmm. Ethan and I both lived such busy, full lives, him with high school and football, me with the store, that we were more than happy for large chunks of time together. With Joe a cop and April a teacher like her brother, I would have thought they felt the same way about time together.
I smiled, remembering how Joe proposed at the County Fair right after April handed her County Princess crown to her successor. So romantic. Then, we’d been mauled by a man in a guerilla suit a few minutes later. Oh, good times. There were plenty of memories being made this trip, too, and not all of them were ones I wanted to make.
“There’s the store.” I pulled into the parking lot. “We should start with the hardest thing on the list.”
“Let’s get the barracuda out of the way, then there’s the art gallery across the street. That’s two things in ten minutes.” Aunt Eunice was already climbing out of the car. She dashed into the store and returned with a rubber barracuda. With a triumphant lift of her arm, she threw it into the back seat. “Art photo, here we come.”
Before we entered the gallery, Aunt Eunice lifted my shirt and shoved the camera against my stomach. “I’ll cause a distraction. You take the picture. The other day, I saw a beautiful piece of art embedded in the floor.”
Perfect. Within seconds, Aunt Eunice dropped her purse, scattering its contents. The sales woman knelt to help her, and I had snapped the photo. The three of us collapsed in giggles against the car.
“It isn’t going to be hard, except for the fire eater and the spear,” I said, sliding the camera back into my purse.
“No, It won’t.” Aunt Eunice climbed in the back. “One of the guys who was going to do the luau tonight eats fire, and also has a spear. I know where he lives. Take a right at the next stop sign.”
I climbed behind the wheel. “How do you know this?”
“Well,” she crossed her arms and leaned back, looking mighty pleased with herself. “I heard him get fired yesterday and offered him my condolences.”
“Why was he fired?” I watched her through the rearview mirror.
She shrugged and studied her fingernails. “Not sure, but he was yelling at that Leroy boy. So, with my natural ability for sleuthing, I looked up his address when Mr. Wahine took a bathroom break.”
“Really?” My aunt was a genius. But where had Ethan been? He was assigned to watch Leroy. Maybe the young man would answer a couple of questions for us. “So, we have the fire eater and the list of things to find at the flea market. We’ll be finished early.” Especially since I figured the guys wouldn’t even bother with the hunt until they’d located us.
Aunt Eunice directed us to a small white house with red-and-pink-flowered bushes that covered most of the yard. I decided that was the type of little house I wanted to live in someday, when I won the lottery and purchased a home on Maui.
The three of us scooted from the car and hiked the steps to the front door, which was painted a brilliant turquoise. Aunt Eunice pressed the doorbell in three quick motions, then stepped back.
A very tanned young man with inky hair pulled back into a ponytail answered the door. “Oh, it’s you, Mrs. Meadows.”
Why didn’t he look happy to see my aunt?
“Are you here to ask more questions?” He crossed his arms, drawing attention to bulging biceps.
“No, Kevin.” Aunt Eunice frowned. “We need you to show up at the Wahine B & B for five minutes at four forty five.”
“Why?” He scowled. “I’d rather never step foot there again. Not after the way that weakling son treated me.”
“What happened?” I moved beside my aunt. “They seem so nice.” Wouldn’t it be great if we won the scavenger hunt and went back to the hotel with a juicy nugget of information?
He cursed. “Nice? Lady, you’re crazy. That is one wacked up family. They’re about to go bankrupt, and now that people are dying like flies, well…”
I got the picture. Desperate people took desperate measures. “Why did they fire you?”
“Why not?” He shrugged.
“Weren’t you going to dance in the luau?” Aunt Eunice tried to peek around him. “Do you have a spear?”
“Yes, and yes. But I’m not dancing now.”
“Why?” This cryptic exchange made me want to pull my hair out. Obviously, this guy didn’t volunteer any information unless you asked the right question. “Why were you fired from the luau?”
“Can we see your spear?” Aunt Eunice stood on tiptoe to try seeing in his house. “We need you to bring your spear. You’ll be gone before the luau. Oh, and we need you to eat fire.”
“What do I get out of showing up?”
“Focus, people.” I glanced back to where April sat in the car staring at the ocean through a stand of palm trees. Smart girl.
Aunt Eunice rummaged in her purse. “You show up on time, and I’ll pay you twenty dollars. If you’re late, you get nothing, ‘cause we’ll lose our scavenger hunt.”
“Why are you no longer dancing!” I practically stomped my foot.
“Touchy, lady, aren’t you?” Kevin sighed. “I’m no longer employed because I punched Leroy in the face this morning.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really? Go on.”
“Oh, jeez. I punched him in the mouth because he said I was making the moves on his sister. I’m not, though. I’m dating Malia. Anyway, Leroy said they’d be coming into some money soon, and I wasn’t good enough for a Wahine to waste time on.” Kevin stepped back, one hand on the door handle. “I’ll be there at four forty five at your cottage.” He closed the door.
“With your spear!” Aunt Eunice called out. “Don’t forget that.” She turned to me. “That went well, didn’t it?” She studied our list. “We have one little problem, though.”
“Now what?”
“The list says we have to have a picture of Ethan, Joe, and Roy in muumuus. We didn’t say anything about us having to wear them. How are we going to get that picture?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Good point. I think we needed to be found and the most likely place to find inexpensive muumuus was the flea market. “We’ll find them before they find us and snap their picture while they’re having theirs taken.” Besides, I seriously doubted they would get a fire eater with a spear. That was our winning item, and we got a little more feedback into our mystery.
We made it to the flea market with two hours before the end of the scavenger hunt. Hungry, we bought the seaweed wrapped rice and one extra for proof. Next to the food booth were fresh leis, several of which were plumeria, giving off their wonderful sweet scent. We were cranking on our list.
“Poi.” Aunt Eunice wrinkled her nose. “Who has to eat it?”
“Oh, no.” April glanced at the thick paste. “Uncle Roy does. Another picture we have to sneak. What if he’s already eaten his?”
“There’s no way my husband is going to eat that.” Aunt Eunice took a deep breath. “If I know Roy, he definitely won’t try any. I’ll eat some, you take my picture, and it should still count. Right?” She ordered a small bowl. “Do I have to use my fingers?”
“Yes.” I got the ready camera. “Just one bite. You can do this.”
Aunt Eunice dipped her fingers in the paste and swiped her tongue across them as I took her picture. She worked her mouth back and forth, brows lowered. “Hmmm. Not as bad as I thought. Kind of bland.”
“Look.” April pointed two booths down. “The guys are slipping on muumuus.”
“Great. Y’all stay here.” I fished the camera from my purse and darted behind the booths. When the guys lined up, ready for an older woman to take their picture, I zoomed in, snapped the shot and ducked back out of sight. I was made for mystery and spy work. Within minutes, I rejoined Aunt Eunice and April.
Arm-in-arm, we headed to the muumuu booth to buy our own for the luau later. I chose one with pink hibiscus flowers printed on a purple background. We pretended not to notice the men until I turned to find my nose planted in Ethan’s chest. One glance at his face showed his displeasure.
“Where have you been?” He scowled.
“Finding the items on our list.” I smiled as sweetly as I could and planted a kiss on his lips. “How are you doing?”
“Fine.” He sighed. “Are you done running around without sufficient guardians?”
“Yes.”
“You’re finished with your list?”
“Yes.”
“Stay here.” He darted back to Uncle Roy and Joe. He returned to us within seconds. “We still have a couple of things. Go back to the hotel and stay there.”
I winked at April. Nothing made my sweetheart leave as fast as a competition he was in danger of losing. Since we had everything we needed, going back to the hotel to lounge on the beach sounded like a good idea.
“About something pineapple in a drink?” I started heading for the car.
“The Wahines are probably busy with the luau, and the way they’re firing staff, we might have to get our own drink.” Aunt Eunice bustled past me.
They fired one person. I shook my head.
“You stay at Wahine?” A little Hawaiian woman stepped from behind a booth. “You careful. Bad man.”
4 Maui Macadamia Madness Page 13