JoAnn Bassett - Islands of Aloha 07 - Moloka'i Lullaby

by JoAnn Bassett

  “But where are you gonna stay tonight?” he said.

  “I’ll go back to George’s. I’m sure he’ll let me stay one more night in the maid’s quarters.”

  “I was really hoping to see you,” Hatch said.

  “Me too. Give Farrah my love and tell her I’ll be there in time to hear her complain about the lousy hospital-food breakfast.”

  We said our good-byes and I went back out to the Geo. Good thing George had allowed me to fill up, since I’d be putting another forty miles on the odometer before I’d be getting out of there.

  ***

  I headed out to George Bustamante’s and parked. I made my way down the leafy sidewalk, dimly lit by ankle-high low-voltage lights every ten feet or so. I glanced over at the pool. The underwater pool lights transformed the water into a dazzling turquoise jewel against the backdrop of the inky indigo sky above.

  The place was deathly quiet; no lights showed in any of the windows of the house. It was only about eight-thirty. George was old, but it didn’t seem likely that even a seventy-something-year-old would turn in that early.

  I went up to the front door and knocked. No response.

  I knocked again, but still no sound came from inside the house or anywhere else on the property.

  I stepped back and looked down toward the ohanas and the maid and caretaker houses. No lights showed there, either.

  All of a sudden, I felt exhausted. My legs trembled and my head felt so heavy I could hardly hold it up. The emotional toll of the past two days and my sleepless night in the hospital had finally caught up with me.

  I went to the maid’s quarters, but it was locked tight and I didn’t have a key. I desperately needed to lie down and close my eyes. The lounge chairs on the pool deck were beckoning, but the wind had come up and in an hour or so I’d probably regret that decision.

  I dragged myself back to the car and called Malama.

  “Where you at?” she said.

  I told her about finding George’s place deserted.

  “Come back up here,” she said. “It’s late. Leonard isn’t going to come home tonight.”

  I thanked her and said I’d be there in a few minutes.

  She met me at the door. I must’ve looked as lousy as I felt, because she hustled me through the house and out the back to the ohana.

  “It’s probably not as fancy as Mr. Bustamante’s,” she said. “But I think you’ll be comfortable enough.” She patted the bed, which was covered in an intricately-stitched green and white Hawaiian quilt.

  I wanted to dive onto that bed fully clothed and not get up for days, but when she left, I carefully folded the quilt and draped it at the foot of the bed. I’d been eying a quilt like that for my own bed in Hali’imaile, but they went for a thousand dollars or more. I hoped maybe if I dropped enough hints maybe my friends would get together and get us one for a wedding present.

  The next morning, I awoke just after dawn but felt surprisingly well-rested. I went outside and sat in the small courtyard between the ohana and the main house. There was no coffeemaker in the ohana, so I sipped a glass of water.

  My body was demanding caffeine, but my mind was already racing. Where had George been last night? It wasn’t as if there was much night life on Moloka’i: there isn’t even a movie theater on the entire island. And I certainly couldn’t picture George bellying up to a local bar. And what about Lono? He’d reclaimed his truck from his mother’s house, but if he’d gone back to George’s, I should’ve seen lights in his caretaker quarters behind the house.

  I felt a pang of guilt I hadn’t told Malama about running into Lono in town. Maybe I could’ve finessed it a bit and left out the part about him drinking. More than anything, I wished she hadn’t shown me the money. Things were piling up against Lono’s claim that he’d had nothing to do with Richard’s accident. He’d slept with the guy’s fiancée; then he’d handed off the guy’s cash roll with almost fifteen hundred dollars in it to his mother; then, he’d been accused of pushing him in the pool. Maybe Lono’s conscience had got to him and that’s why he’d pulled Richard out.

  Malama came outside balancing a tray holding a coffee carafe, two mugs, and a plate of coconut cookies.

  “Aloha. Good morning,” she trilled. She seemed pretty chipper for a woman whose son was still missing, but I wasn’t going to ask if she’d heard anything.

  “Aloha,” I said. “Mahalo for the coffee.”

  “Aloha. My pleasure. Did you sleep well?”

  I assured her I had.

  “I’m feeling better, too,” she said. “I got a call from my pastor. He’s gonna get a prayer chain started to help find Leonard. You know what that is?”

  “I do. My auntie who raised me used to be a prayer chain member. You pray for someone and then call on others to ask them to also pray.”

  “That’s right. Everyone on this island is so kind with aloha. We help each other whenever we can.”

  I recalled how much comfort Auntie Mana had gotten from her church, and I felt a twinge that since her death I’d fallen away. I wasn’t even planning on getting married in a church.

  “I’m sorry all I have is these little cookies,” Malama said. “I usually make a pineapple coffee cake for guests, but I didn’t have the ingredients. You got to get stuff like that down in town.”

  I took a sip of the coffee. It was exquisite: dark, thick, and scalding hot.

  There was a knock at the door and Malama excused herself to answer it.

  I sipped my coffee and listened to the birds chirping in the trees. It was incredibly peaceful, with cows meandering by on the other side of the fence, and vast green rolling hills of pasture as far as the eye could see. I felt as if I’d been transported to Middle America, or maybe even Middle Earth.

  I checked my cell phone for the time. I only had a little over an hour before I had to get to the airport to check in for the nine o’clock flight, and I wanted to stop by George’s to pick up my bag.

  Time to get moving.

  CHAPTER 22

  I went into the house to say my good-byes and found Malama deep in conversation with another woman of approximately the same age. The woman wore a mu’u mu’u much like the ones Malama wore, and I wondered if the ladies ever swapped clothes like high school girls. They looked about the same height and weight.

  “Pali,” said Malama. “This is Tika, my neighbor. She says she heard on the radio there’s been some kind of trouble down at Papohaku Beach.”

  “Oh? What kind of trouble?”

  Tika took my hand, and held it. She scrutinized my face as if she were memorizing it for future reference.

  “Nobody knows,” she said. Her brown eyes were as cool and flat as old pennies.

  Malama touched Tika’s shoulder, and she released my hand.

  “You’re going down that way before you go out to the airport, eh?” said Malama. “Would you call and let me know what’s going on? I’m worried the police may have arrested Leonard.”

  When I arrived at George’s, it looked like the circus had come to town. There were two police cruisers parked in front of the gate with their lights going, along with a bright yellow medical van, and a white plain-clothes police car.

  I find it amusing that Hawaii cops think they’re fooling anyone with their so-called “unmarked cars,” since they’re as recognizable as Lamborghinis. They’re all pretty much the same: plain vanilla Crown Vics, about three or four years old, with plastic wheel covers and a spotlight above the side mirror. Crown Vics have been out of production for a few years, so I’m stumped as to why there seem to be so many of them around. Maybe a large mainland police department shipped its cast-offs to Hawaii when they replaced them. We’re used to hand-me-downs and last season’s this and that. Who needs brand-spankin’ new when we’ve got the best weather in the nation?

  I parked and walked over to a female cop who was blocking the entrance to the walkway.

  “Can I go in?” I asked.

  “Are you ‘
ohana—family?” she said.

  “Sort of. I’m the wedding planner who was hired to do a wedding here.”

  She squinted at me as if trying to figure out how that constituted “family.”

  “What’s going on in there?” I said.

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “My name’s Pali Moon. I’m staying here. My stuff’s in George Bustamante’s maid’s quarters, and I need to go in and get it. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

  She continued with the squint, making no effort whatsoever to mask her skepticism.

  I pulled out my cellphone. “Call him and ask, if you want. His number’s in my contacts.”

  She made no move to take the phone.

  “You’ll have to get your things later,” she said. “We’re conducting a police investigation in there. We can’t have people contaminating the scene.”

  “A police investigation? Are they investigating Richard Atkinson’s death?”

  “Like I said, I’m not at liberty to talk about it.”

  “And you can’t let me in.”

  “Not until the detectives clear the scene.”

  I called Malama, and she answered right away.

  “Pali? What’s happening? What did you find out?”

  “I don’t know. The police are here, but they won’t let me in. Have you heard from Leonard?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I have to get to the airport,” I said. “Please call me if you hear anything.”

  I got to the airport and was surprised to see it bustling. It looked like a family reunion, with people from at least three generations milling about, hugging and taking pictures like they hadn’t seen each other for years.

  I went to the ticket counter. “I’ve never seen so many people out here.”

  “Yeah,” said the agent. “We got our girls’ volleyball team going over to Honolulu for the semi-finals.” The agent, a local woman of about forty, had a plastic yellow hibiscus blossom above her left ear, and a big green and white, “Go Farmers!” button pinned to the yoke of her mu’u mu’u.

  I pointed to the button. “The kids at the high school here are called the ‘Farmers’?”

  “Yeah. The Moloka’i High Farmers.” She raised a clenched fist. “Go Farmers, eh?”

  “I’m checking in for the nine a.m. to Honolulu.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid that one’s oversold.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “I made an online reservation yesterday.”

  “Yeah, it happens. But we got too many people and not enough seats. We already checked in all the people gonna make it on that flight.”

  “But I’ve got to get to Honolulu,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Look around here, eh? We got tutus and aunties cryin’ ‘cuz they can’t get on the flight with their girls. The plane only got nine seats, you know.”

  “When’s the next flight?”

  “The next flight with seats available…” She tapped on her computer. “Looks like two-ten this afternoon.”

  “Aren’t there any flights between now and then?”

  “Yeah, but they’re all oversold, too.”

  “But I have a reservation, and I got bumped. Shouldn’t I get a seat on the next flight out?”

  “Look,” she said in a conspiratorial tone. “I don’ dare give you no seat when these aunties are here carrying on like this. It could get ugly, eh?”

  I left, and called Hatch and told him the situation. He wasn’t happy, but he relayed that Farrah and the babies were still doing well, so I shouldn’t risk “’ohana rage” by trying to arm-wrestle a volleyball mom out of her seat.

  “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Give Farrah a kiss for me,” I said.

  “You really want me to do that?” he said.

  “It’s a figure of speech, Hatch.”

  “Okay. Love you.”

  I drove out of the airport parking lot and took a right turn at the highway to go back to Malama’s. The car in front of me was a police car. I kept hoping he’d turn off every time we crossed an intersection so I could speed up a little, but he stayed the course. When I finally got to the turn-off for the tiny community of Maunaloa, he turned as well.

  The police car pulled in front of Malama’s house and parked. I parked across the street. As I watched, the lone cop got out and went next door to Tika’s. He knocked on the door, and a few seconds later, she came outside.

  I kept up surveillance as the cop and Tika walked over to Malama’s. They both looked stern, and I wondered if Tika had called the cops after hearing something about Lono from her earlier conversation with Malama.

  I rolled the window down halfway so I could hear, but kept my face hidden, hoping Tika wouldn’t recognize me and drag me into whatever snitch-fest she’d brought down on Malama. Once they were at the door, I ducked down and peered over the edge of the car window. I saw Tika walk right in to her neighbor’s house without knocking; the cop trailing behind her.

  I was contemplating whether I should stay put or go to Malama’s defense, when a blood-curdling scream shattered the morning calm.

  I bolted out of the Geo and sprinted up the walkway.

  CHAPTER 23

  I skidded to a stop at the open door like a cartoon character, eyes bulging and arms windmilling. Malama was on the sofa, sobbing; head down, her hands covering her face. Tika was seated next to her with a sturdy arm around Malama’s shoulders.

  Whatever had transpired in the past few moments wasn’t about snitching. It seemed a lot worse. It dawned on me that, in an act of compassion, the police officer must’ve asked Tika to accompany him in an attempt to soften the blow of whatever it was he’d been sent there to say. The male cop was standing just inside the door, and his face looked like he’d rather be scraping road-kill from the middle of the highway than delivering bad news to a nice lady up in Maunaloa.

  I explained to him who I was, and how I knew Malama. Tika concurred that I’d been a guest there that morning.

  “Aloha, again, Pali,” she said in a whispery voice. “Why don’t we go outside for a minute?”

  We went out front, leaving the officer inside with Malama. As we passed by, he shot me a look that said “hurry back.” I’m sure he was praying for his radio to go off so he’d have an excuse to get out of there, but so far, his shoulder mic stayed silent.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “They found Malama’s boy, Leonard,” she said. “You know, the one who goes by Lono.” The way she said it, I was pretty sure there was more, and what she was about to tell me wouldn’t have a happy ending.

  She went on. “Unfortunately, he’s dead.”

  Alarms went off in my head. “Where’d they find him?”

  “Down where he worked; at a house on Papohaku Beach. It seems he took his own life sometime in the night.” Her soft, soothing voice made the grisly news seem somehow easier to bear.

  A thousand questions crowded my mind, but none seemed appropriate except one. “Is there anything I can do?” I said.

  “Mahalo, but no.” She sounded hesitant.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, Malama isn’t taking it well. She’s hoping maybe they’ve made a mistake.” Tika sighed and went on, “The policeman says Leonard’s body was taken to Kaunakakai, and if she wants to go down there to confirm the identity before the autopsy, that’s her right. But I don’t think she’s strong enough to do it. I’d go for her, but my husband’s had a stroke and I can’t leave him alone for such a long time.”

  “I’ll do it for her,” I said.

  “Are you sure? It’s a lot to ask, but I know she won’t be able to accept it until she’s gotten confirmation.”

  We went inside, and Tika whispered to the police officer. He nodded and the two of them went outside. I sat down on the sofa next to Malama. By now, she’d folded her hands in her lap, revealing a tear-streaked face.

  “I am so sorry,” I said.

  “It looks like maybe the pray
er chain worked,” she said. She choked out a sob. “They’re telling me they found my boy.”

  Tika came back to the doorway and waved me over. “Officer Peala would like a word with you out here.”

  Outside, the police officer was leaning against his police car, staring at the soft curve of the hills beyond. His blue and white cruiser said “Maui Police” on the side, and I couldn’t help but wonder how the locals felt about always being under the thumb of their bigger, more prosperous neighbor island.

  “You ever meet Lono?” he said.

  “Yes. He was the caretaker at George Bustamante’s. I’m the wedding planner who was hired to do a wedding there, and Malama and I were working on it together. The wedding got cancelled, so I’m just waiting to catch a flight out of here. Like I told Tika, I’d be willing to confirm Lono’s identity for Malama.”

  “Ah,” he said. “When’s your flight?”

  “Not until after two this afternoon.”

  “So, you think you’ve got the stomach to ID a dead body?” he said. He wore mirrored sunglasses, which made it hard to tell if his gruff comment was the result of him overcompensating for his own sorrow over the suicide of a guy he probably knew well, or was simply an attempt to appear macho.

  “Yeah, I can do it. I’m a former Homeland Security agent with a degree in Criminology from UH, so not much rattles me. And, I knew Lono pretty well.” It dawned on me I hadn’t known Lono well enough to know his last name, but I wasn’t about to blow my credentials by mentioning that.

  He nodded. “Okay. Tika tells me you’re over here from Maui. You know where the hospital is in Kaunakakai?”

  “No, but I’m sure I can find it.”

  I started to go back in the house, but then I turned to the cop and said, “Do they know the cause of death?”

  “Yeah, it was asphyxiation. Seems he hung himself.”

  I’d seen autopsy photos of hanging victims, so I sent up a prayer of my own to thank the Almighty for making my flight to Honolulu oversold that morning. No parent should witness their child’s body after a death like that.