Pleasing the Dead

by Deborah Turrell Atkinson

  She looked down at the throttle and carefully pushed it toward neutral. The last thing she wanted to do was run over him.

  “Hey, there are a bunch of people on the beach—” Stella said, but a high-pitched screech from the water interrupted her.

  At the same time, a dorsal fin sliced the sea’s ripples into a smooth V-shaped stream, then disappeared into the cerulean depths. From her high position on the bridge, Storm watched the huge, dark shape circling the swimmer from below.

  The man might not have been able to see it twenty feet below his scissoring feet, but he could certainly feel the vortex of its passing—just as if someone had pulled the plug on a drain.

  His head pivoted from side to side. The racing goggles he wore magnified his terrified gaze to a pop-eyed caricature. Billy emitted a series of terrified squeaks. Everyone else gaped, struck dumb by the apparition that glided beneath the swimmer.

  The sleek, muscular body flashed to the surface of the water without even a splash. Effortless in its liquid element. Huge. Grinning needles, flat black stones for eyes. Impassive, testing, taking stock. Barely a ripple in its wake.

  Though Storm pushed the throttle into gear, twenty yards was too far. The shark moved like a torpedo. The man shrieked again, a guttural and blood-freezing sound. Vertical in the water, he levitated to his waist, while his arms reached for the impassive skies.

  Storm opened her mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. It was like a nightmare where she couldn’t run, couldn’t scream, and was paralyzed by terror. From her elevation, she was the first person to see the enormous creature rise to meet the swimmer.

  The man shot into the air. A sheet of white water shielded the collision, though Storm reflected later that perhaps her brain simply blocked a horror she couldn’t face. The last image she remembered was the swimmer as he windmilled his arms and flopped over. Then he disappeared.

  The shark flashed back and forth, alternating gray and belly-white, a missile of death. The water roiled with activity, and it took the spectators a long moment to comprehend that the attacker wasn’t alone. More sharks than anyone wanted to acknowledge thrashed through the pinkish foam.

  Riveted by disbelief at what they’d witnessed in the water, no one in the cabin noticed Lara, who crept along the same narrow gunwale where Stella and Damon walked only a few minutes before. A faint smile played across her face.

  Nor did any one see Ken make his move. On one leg, he struck like a cobra and shoved Storm from the helm.

  Storm flew off the seat at the first blow. Though she landed hard enough to have the wind knocked out of her for the second time that day, she did not have her feet hooked under the footrest.

  The Quest pitched violently to one side as Ken seized the wheel. He got her steadied just in time to grasp the result of his attack. When the Quest veered, Lara, Damon, and Stella, all in precarious positions and stunned by the scene they’d witnessed, were tossed overboard.

  Ken shot away from the helm and half-scaled, half-slid down the ladder. The fracture was already bad; impact with the deck shoved the jagged bones through the tender and purple skin above one ankle.

  He dashed, bleeding, across the deck. “Lara,” he screamed, and dived in.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Storm stumbled back to the helm. She was hyperventilating with terror, and her hands shook so badly they slid from the round black ball on the throttle. After two tries, she got the engines into neutral so the Quest didn’t sail away from those overboard. Only ten yards from the stern, the gentle turquoise water had been transformed into a pinkish pool, through which dorsal fins still slashed like butcher knives.

  Billy moved fast. He leaped to his feet and climbed, Keiko-style, through his tethered hands. Using the rope that Storm had used to bind Ken, he tied a large loop and lobbed the line into the water.

  The sharks hadn’t yet responded to the new people in the water; blood and other material in the pink pool still distracted them.

  Storm slid down the ladder face out, her feet not even touching the steps. Her eyes were on an implement that she hadn’t seen until that very moment. A long aluminum rod with a hooked loop was tucked under the gunwale along the starboard bench. Yasuko’s message: Help Stella and Damon.

  Storm tugged the pole free of its brackets. Billy pulled the taut rope over the gunwale and backed slowly, grunting with effort. A hand, streaming with seawater, clutched the gunwale. Lara slid onto the deck.

  Storm thrust the looped aluminum tool toward Stella, who was holding Damon afloat.

  “Stella, grab the hook,” Storm shouted. “I’ll help him next.”

  Adrenaline surged through both her and Stella, because Stella pulled hand over hand and flopped onto the banquette. Keiko stepped in to wrap her in a dry towel and safety.

  Storm returned to Damon, whose hands were still tied behind his body. She hooked the rod into the bonds. “Keep your elbows straight as you can,” she shouted, and hauled him up by his straining arms. Keiko got her hand under an armpit. The combination of his hanging weight and hurried tugging dislocated a shoulder, and Damon howled in torment, but the women kept pulling.

  She and Keiko heaved him onto the deck with a burst of strength that bent the pole and knocked the two of them onto their rear ends. The three of them lurched against the exhausted Stella, who threw her towel over Damon.

  Billy still leaned far over the gunwale. “Ken!” He threw his line into the water.

  Ken’s face was waxen, glowing like a dying blossom that had fallen into the sapphire depths. He flailed at the moving line, but missed. Billy drew it back and threw it again.

  Storm rose to thrust the bent aluminum rod toward Ken’s flopping arms, and he managed to wind his fingers through the hooked loop. His injured foot flopped, limp as a dead fish, and a renewed bloom of red curled around his leg. His eyes, blank with helpless terror, rolled between her and Billy.

  Storm and Billy saw the huge shadow at the same time. It looped around from under the Quest and darkened the water under Ken as surely as a thundercloud overhead.

  Billy’s voice broke and shrilled. “Don’t let go. Hold on, stay there. Don’t let go.”

  Ken’s legs thrashed. The pole buckled. Billy gasped, and leaned out to Ken with both arms extended.

  Then Ken jerked below the surface like the plastic float on a fishing line. His eyes looked up at Storm and Billy, wide and white as china teacups.

  Storm and Billy shouted together. “No!”

  Storm yanked the pole, which broke; the lower half fell in the water. But Billy clutched at the sleeve of Ken’s shirt, then got a grip on one of his hands. Together, Storm and Billy lifted. Storm dreaded what she might see, a vision that would stay with her forever.

  Odd that seeing one leg missing was a relief. The shark made another gliding pass at the blood that ran like an open tap from the truncated thigh, and then dived from sight.

  The grinding crunch of the Quest’s contact with submerged boulders tilted the boat in the rescuers’ favor for once, and Ken slithered over the gunwale onto the deck.

  Storm got quivering legs beneath her and staggered to the helm.

  Chapter Forty-five

  If the seas had been heavy, the Quest wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. Even so, the boat landed hard. Stella fell, and Storm would have if she hadn’t had a tight hold on the ladder.

  The boat came to rest at a tilt, its hull shrieking with agony. Its engines were still in neutral, but Storm could hear an uneven thrum that wasn’t there before. The diesels caught and sputtered, as if water was leaking into the engine compartment.

  She knew nothing about mechanics, but she knew the ocean. They had very little time before a big wave came and lifted the boat. Then the Quest would either go out to sea or it would collide with the razor-sharp lava, where it would smash into shards of fiberglass and engine parts.

  “Stella, is there a bilge pump?” she called out.

 
“Yeah,” came a muffled reply. “I’m looking for the switch.”

  Stella was successful; Storm heard the bilge go on. With luck, it would flush enough water out of the hull to lighten the boat. Then Storm would gun the engines and hope for a wave big enough to raise the hull, but not smash them against the rocks. And hope the engines worked. And hope she judged the ocean right. And—

  “Stella, is there a radio?”

  Stella was out of the cabin, holding tightly to the base of the ladder. “I tried it, but the light doesn’t go on.”

  With that statement, the bilge pump stopped. The electrical system had shorted out.

  “Shit,” Storm said. Stella echoed her, then hustled back to the cabin to jiggle wires, look for leaks, or just say prayers.

  Storm squinted into the black vastness of the ocean and hoped she and Stella would get the engine started before it was too late. In the waning light, it was becoming more difficult to anticipate incoming surf.

  What she saw instead was a spectacle that gave hope wings. The bright lights of a good-sized vessel advanced, still far enough away to be visible over the spiky promontory of the bay. Against the indigo sky, the long, sleek vessel looked like a race horse approaching the gate.

  “Hey!” Keiko’s voice called from below and aft. “Someone’s coming.”

  Storm turned around to confirm, and saw a different sight. Keiko couldn’t yet see the seaward craft; her attention was directed toward a small boat that bounded over the waves from shore. The tiny running lights of a dory flickered like uncertain fireflies and its engine shrilled like a cornered hornet. The two men driving the little vessel had the motor maxed.

  More lights appeared overhead, accompanied by the boisterous whopping of helicopter rotors. Someone on shore had noticed their struggle and had called for help.

  The Coast Guard excels at sea rescues. The helicopter lowered a trained crewman and a stretcher onto the deck of the Quest, and the crewman—who turned out to be a woman—strapped Ken in and got him carefully hoisted into the belly of the craft. Billy wanted to go with him, but the rescuer nixed the request. She took Damon, whose shoulder was painful and swollen, instead.

  “Anyone else unable to use their arms or legs?”

  The answer was an uneasy negative.

  “The cutter will evacuate the rest of you.”

  The crewwoman then gave the group a casual salute and a signal to her colleagues, who pulled her up to the helicopter.

  By this time, the Coast Guard cutter had launched a Zodiac, and its skipper pulled to the Quest’s port side.

  “How many people on this boat?” he asked.

  “Seven.” Storm counted heads. Damon and Ken had left in the helicopter, and Stella and Billy were stepping in the Zodiac. “Where’s Lara?”

  Keiko whipped around and without a word, darted back into the dark cabin. A moment later, she re-emerged with Lara, who was still wrapped in a towel. Waiflike, her dark eyes peered out at the group and came to rest on the Coast Guard officer.

  “Dad?” she said in the voice of a ten-year-old. “Did we get him?”

  Chapter Forty-six

  Storm chose to ride with Hamlin and Terry Wu in the dory. The engine’s buzz prohibited conversation, and Storm leaned against Hamlin’s solid warmth, glad that Terry was piloting. Bouncing along in the indigo twilight, she thought about Lara. And sharks.

  Storm had been raised to understand the ocean. Shark attacks on humans, though widely publicized, were rare. When Damon had been forced to creep along the narrow gunwale, he’d been terrified to the point of paralysis. Lara, in contrast, had been rapt.

  A chill passed through Storm, and her fingers sought the emerald-eyed pig at her neck. Lara was convinced that her ‘aumakua had come to her aid. Her ancestral deity had redeemed itself.

  Another insight came to Storm as the dory bobbed across the darkening bay. Lara’s superstitious devotion told another story, and it was the tale of a frightened, lonely little girl. A much more solitary woman than Storm had ever been.

  Whereas Storm had Aunt Maile and Uncle Keone, who had begun taking care of her when she was young, Lara’s family had unraveled. And though people had been there for her, she’d missed their loving intent. As her godmother, Stella was devoted and true. Her father had guaranteed that she was financially secure.

  Lara, however, had been handed insults and failure instead of successes and friendships. She taunted Obake, her tormenter, and held friends who could keep her on at even keel at arm’s length. Stella and Keiko were her closest allies, and she treated them like the roles she’d given them—employees.

  Where was Ryan? Had she betrayed him to be with Ken?

  Meanwhile, Lara talked to ghosts. The answer to her question was yes, Obake was scattered to the oceans. But Lara spoke to the people who couldn’t care any more, and discarded the ones who could.

  ***

  On land, Terry Wu piled Storm and Hamlin into his car. The others were on their way to the police station in Wailuku, where members of several law enforcement agencies anticipated their statements. He did, however, stop at a Bad Ass Coffee shop on the way, where the three of them got hot drinks.

  “We’ve had Akira Kudo, whom you knew as Obake, under observation for a long time, but we sure didn’t see the case ending like this,” Wu said.

  “You were watching him for the prostitution ring?” Storm asked.

  “And other things.”

  “Extortion?” Storm asked.

  “I can’t talk about it. Even though he’s dead, the investigation isn’t closed.”

  “When the shark attacked, I didn’t know who the swimmer was.”

  “Lara did,” Wu said. “So did her friends, Ken and Billy.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Phone records and an informant. Billy was a demolitions expert in Desert Shield.”

  “The bomb last week?”

  “We think so.”

  “Did Ken assist him?”

  “Ken and Billy were in the same squad in Saudi Arabia.”

  “Auwē.” Storm slumped against the seat back. “Do you think Lara was involved in the bombing?

  Wu hunched his shoulders. “I can’t talk about it.”

  “Is that why the Joint Terrorism Task Force is here?” Hamlin asked.

  “Federal agencies are going to scrutinize anything that looks like domestic terrorism. A restaurant blew up and a local politician was killed.”

  “You knew that Obake’s son worked with him, right?” Storm asked. “I saw them coming out of The Red Light together.”

  “Steven Kudo. He’s dead, too.”

  “He is? When did that happen?”

  “A couple hours before the shark attack.”

  “Did Obake know?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. The two guys who were on the beach with him are in custody. They’re pretty shaken up, and they’re talking.”

  “Did Steven drive a black Range Rover?”

  “That was one of his cars.” Wu sighed. “This will all hit the papers tomorrow. Another prominent citizen died, too. You’ll hear about it.”

  “I think the son and another guy broke into my hotel room. They stole my laptop and handbag.”

  “We’ll look for them,” Wu said. “We’ve got the car and a warrant to enter his local residence.”

  “Do you know if Obake or his son threatened Lara?” Storm asked.

  “We’re looking into that,” Wu said.

  “You can’t say she got a shark to assassinate him. He swam to the boat voluntarily.”

  “What if you bait the water?” Wu asked. “That’s illegal.”

  “In state waters, but not outside the jurisdictional limit. I didn’t see anyone drop bait into the water, and I saw the first shark arrive.”

  Storm knew the Quest was closer to shore than the three nautical mile limit. Though she didn’t want to conceal a crime, she also didn’t want be lured
into incriminating her client. The shark encounter was a public activity, and even if Lara and Ken were baiting the water, it depended where they were when they did it.

  Though she, too, had wondered about the variety of sharks gathering around the Quest. She’d seen at least four different species, and a Great White sighting, let alone an attack, was extremely rare.

  “We’ll salvage the boat and search it,” Wu said. “Might clear up some questions.”

  At the police station, Storm was questioned in a room with five officials. Four of them introduced themselves as Joint Terrorist Task Force agents. Carl Moana was the fifth. Moana brought her a cup of coffee and one of the FBI agents, who identified herself as Head of Squad, gestured to a chair that faced a one-way mirror.

  “Thank you for speaking to us,” she said. It was the woman from the car rental office.

  Not that I have a choice, she thought. But she knew what it was like to gather evidence and information.

  The law enforcement officials asked about the nature of her business with Lara Farrell, Lara’s employees, and the events of the last four days.

  “I’m setting up Lara’s Limited Liability Company and her bylaws. That’s public information,” Storm said, “but I’m not free to discuss specifics.”

  “Look, we understand your reluctance to get involved,” another FBI agent said, “but this is a homicide investigation.”

  “Multiple homicides,” said another agent, who took off a jacket that had Bomb Squad in block letters across the back. “This is way bigger than your client confidentiality.”

  “Where did she get the money to buy her dive boats? How about the expensive diving equipment and inventory? Do you know the nature of her relationship with Ken McClure?” asked the Head of Squad, who leaned across the table.

  “She’s an experienced small business owner, and I don’t know the details of her financing. All I know about Ken McClure is that he worked in the dive shop.”