by Matt Lincoln
Maloney’s ears turned red, but more from anger, I suspected. He pulled out his wallet and rifled through until he found the business card he wanted.
“That’s his cell number.” Maloney’s lips twitched. “He only works with high-end clientele. NDAs and all that, but since you broke my bowl…” He shrugged. “Well, it’s your problem now, not mine.”
Meisha tucked the card into the folder’s paperclip. “I didn’t break your bowl,” she said in an innocent tone.
“No, the cow did,” he said with a roll of the eyes. I wanted to punch him in those damn eyes. “I saw her do it. In fact, I think she did it on purpose.”
He stood and worked up to a stiff and screamingly obvious moral outrage. I stepped toward the door of the observation room, but Davis put a hand on my shoulder.
“Chill. They got this.”
“You mean that box?” Stark pointed to the offending package.
“I’m not blind, bitch.” The fake outrage shifted to genuine seething. “You knocked my bowl on the floor. I heard it shatter.”
Stark blinked those baby blues. “Oh, that?” She nudged it with her foot and then dragged it toward her.
“Yes. That.”
Maloney was two steps from seeing my fist in his gut.
“Mr. Maloney, I didn’t break your bowl.” Stark waited for Meisha to stand next to her, and then she lifted the box. “Also, my name is not ‘cow’ or ‘bitch.’” The box rattled as she set it on the table. “And you jump to conclusions far too easily. It’s not good for you.”
Stark pulled the tape off and opened the flaps. She tipped the box up for Maloney to see, and his face went scarlet.
“These were a couple of old mugs from the kitchen down the hall.” She plucked a blue severed handle from the box. “I thought they were ugly and decided to do the kind officers here a favor and get rid of them.” Her smile was sweeter than I knew her to be in her best moments.
“Your bowl is already with our expert,” Meisha informed him. “Why did you think it was in the box?”
“I’m going to kill you for that,” Maloney yelled.
He rushed the women from around the table. Davis held up his hand again, and I kept my head this time. I knew Meisha and Stark both, but I wasn’t used to them working without either Lamarr Birn or me.
Maloney moved like a bear and swung his arms in long arcs. Meisha ducked, knocked his elbow out of the way, and drove her fist up into his solar plexus, which stole his breath. He tried to ram his fist into her side before he needed to gasp, but he couldn’t quell the reflex. Stark ran up, grabbed Maloney’s free arm while he was off-balance, planted her feet, and then sent him flying forward. He landed on the concrete floor face first, and Meisha kneeled on his back as she cuffed him.
“By nothe,” he howled. “You broke by nothe!”
Stark laughed and then cringed. “Yeah, but it’s those fugly cups I’m going to get in trouble for.”
“What were they, anyway?” Meisha asked as she dragged Maloney to his feet.
“Nothing special.” Stark grinned toward the two-way mirror. “Just giveaways from the Navy and Marines.”
I exchanged looks with Davis, and he chuckled. “Well, at least she’s an equal opportunity destroyer.”
Word came in right then that the Honolulu police were bringing in one of Jones’s suspicious sellers. Gary Redding had sold an antique figurine to a known member of the Yakuza out of Japan. The buyer had flown in from Tokyo only three weeks earlier, well within Ronnie’s timeline. The police reported that Redding seemed unsurprised to see them show up at his home and that he was cooperating.
We waited in the break room where Stark had found the coffee mugs.
“What do you think about what Maloney said?” Meisha asked. “I have my opinion, but I want to hear yours first.”
“He’s full of shit,” I said without qualm. “He couldn’t care less about history or antiques. When you told him that the bowl is safe, he gave himself away.”
“Too bad the only thing we can charge him with is assault.” Davis tapped his fingers on the table. “We’ll get him on laundering charges, but not tonight.”
“Once he posts bail bond, he’s going to warn Jones’s ‘expert’ that we’re getting close,” Holm growled.
Stark nodded. “We’re going to need a tap on his phone.”
“That’s not fast enough.” Holm pushed his chair back from the table with a loud screech. “The unsub will spook and hurt Ronnie. We need to put pressure on Maloney. Get him back in there and make him talk.”
Meisha gave Holm a long look. She’d never been afraid to face off with suspects and persons of interest, but she wasn’t a fan of roughing them up when they could be cajoled instead… or threatened in creative ways. She was good at that. On the other hand, when time was a crucial element, she got shit done.
“Let’s see what Redding tells us,” she said with finality. “If he doesn’t give us anything, we’ll pressure them both.”
Holm’s reluctant nod eased some, but not all, of the tension. God knows, I also wanted some time alone with Maloney to cajole him in my own way.
A uniformed officer wandered in and rummaged through the cabinets. He checked the sink and fridge, and then he peeked into the microwave. After rooting around under our growing attention and Stark’s reddening cheeks, he gave up and came to us.
“Have you folks seen a Navy mug?” he asked with what seemed to be his last shred of hope.
I shook my head, as did Holm and Davis, while Meisha hid a grin behind her hand. Stark pretended nothing was going on, although her ears matched her hair by then.
“I haven’t laid eyes on any coffee cups,” I truthfully told the poor guy.
The cop shook his head. “I know I saw it at the beginning of the shift.”
He found a brown and orange cup with a rainbow over the word “Hawaii” on it, filled it from a scaly carafe, and then left. If anyone had told, I had a feeling Stark would be buying a whole set of mugs.
“Got any ideas for Redding?” I asked Meisha.
Her brow furrowed. “I need to get a feel for this guy,” she mused. “I have two or three ideas, but which way we go depends on him.” She turned to Stark. “They said he’s cooperating. Either he’s playing it cool to get out of trouble, or he’s scared.”
“He could be trying to avoid trouble because he doesn’t want the Yakuza to ruin a good thing,” Stark suggested.
Another officer came into the room and straight to the table. He looked at Holm and me.
“MBLIS?” he asked. “I’m looking for a Director Griezmann.”
“That’s Director Griezmann,” I told him with a gesture toward Meisha. “She’s the boss here.”
The guy looked gave her a look that I took exception to, but Meisha met my eye and narrowed hers a little. I bit back my reaction and watched as she leaned back and crossed her arms.
“Your subject, Redding, was hit by gunfire when he left the house with one of our detectives,” he reported. “Redding is on the way to the hospital now.”
Meisha stood so far that her chair rocked back and clattered to the floor.
“Your people said they were bringing him in,” she seethed. “If he wasn’t cuffed and in the car, he was not on the freakin' way.”
“There was a miscommunication, ma’am.” The police officer straightened his posture. “I took the call and presumed they were en route.”
“Shit,” Holm muttered. “Meisha, is there anyone else on Oahu who used Jones’s office?”
Meisha shook her head. “We need to lean on Maloney.” She turned back to the cop. “Get him back to the interview room.”
“About that, Director…” The officer fidgeted. “He’s lawyered up and said he won’t talk. That lawyer is here to bond him out.”
“He hasn’t had time to be processed,” Meisha protested.
“Money talks,” Holm put in. “I’d love to have a few words with him about now.”
�
�Not now, Holm,” Davis told him in a sharp tone.
“Hey, he’s not a child,” I snapped. “I’d be pissy if I were him, too. Hell, I am pissy.” I turned to the cop. “Did word leak out on why they were picking Redding up?”
Holm slammed his fists on the table. Everyone was startled by the sudden sound, especially me.
“We could settle this if we lean on Maloney,” he yelled. “Stop screwing around and find my sister already!”
“Okay, okay, partner,” I said in a calm tone. “You know how this works.”
“Yeah,” Holm conceded. “That’s what’s got me worried.”
CHAPTER 10
Sadie’s shift got extended by a couple of hours after the ambulance she and Wayne drove that day got dispatched to a car fire outside a retired fire station. It seemed ironic, but she heard there were some federal agents in the building who were working a big case. The car seemed to be linked, but nobody knew for sure.
There were no casualties, but an older onlooker named Mimi passed out while watching the goings-on. That meant Sadie and Wayne sat on the scene once the patient woke and went through all the chit-chat with her friends about whether she ought to go to the hospital.
“My friends on Facebook say that the doctors will just give me Tylenol and then charge twenty dollars a pill for it,” she said in a wheezy voice. “I can’t afford that.”
“Ma’am, if you feel you should go, we’ll take you,” Sadie told her with more patience than she felt. “The thing is, we don’t know why you passed out. Only a doctor can tell you that. Maybe you got too warm, maybe not.”
A neighbor whispered into Mimi’s ear.
“Oh,” she cried in a despairing tone. “The ambulance fee would surely ruin me.”
Sadie hated that part of the process, and she had zero say in the matter. People shouldn’t be afraid to get the care they needed, she felt, but it wasn’t in her power to make them go.
“We need to know what you want, Mimi,” Wayne said with a hint of impatience. He’d been talking all day about an online gaming thing he was looking forward to that night. “We can’t help you…”
Wayne’s words faded as Sadie looked up to see rain clouds moving north into the mountains. A faint rainbow shimmered and vanished. She brought her attention back to the scene as quickly as it’d wandered.
“I really don’t hear,” Mimi said slower than before. “I… My nails purple?”
Sadie caught her breath and looked at Mimi’s plump, light-brown face. There was a slight imbalance, but she wasn’t sure if it’d been there earlier. No, no, no.
“What was that, Mimi?” Sadie asked. “Are you okay?”
Mimi blinked, but one side was slower. “Radishes.”
“Wayne, get the stretcher,” Sadie said in a calm yet urgent voice. “Now,” she whispered. “It’s a stroke.”
“Yeah, I gotcha.”
News of the situation spread, and Mimi’s family rushed up as Sadie and Wayne loaded her into the rig. Her daughter jumped in with them, and the rest of the family dragged the grandkids away. Sadie hated that part of the job, but it was better than getting to a stroke patient too late.
“We’re getting her to the ED within the first hour,” Sadie told the daughter as they neared the hospital. “That gives your mom her best chance for a good outcome.”
At the moment before Wayne opened the rig’s back doors, Mimi’s daughter smiled sadly.
“True, but will she be able to afford to eat when the bills come in?”
Sadie couldn’t answer that. These questions bothered her more than seeing crying children pulled away from a relative being rushed to the hospital. The job was breaking her heart, but as long as she helped the people she could, it was worth it.
She and Wayne were stuck at the hospital with paperwork longer than she would’ve liked. The only good part about that was seeing her patient looking better when they stopped by to see.
“She’ll be okay,” Wayne said in a dismissive tone. “My gaming session will be over by the time I get home.”
“Way to show compassion for a patient,” she grumbled just out of his hearing. Her partner was another reason her job was difficult. How someone with so little empathy could be a paramedic was beyond her. “I had things to do tonight, as well.” That’s when it hit her how late it was. “Oh crap, I missed the coffee-house date.”
Wayne glowered as he drove them back to the station for cleanup. She ignored him and went into her texting app. There was a message waiting from Ethan, and wow, she was relieved.
Had something come up for work. Any chance of meeting at 10?
“Your pirate guy?” Wayne asked as Sadie typed a response.
“Yeah. He missed our date,” she muttered.
“Date? I thought you were just meeting.”
She looked up from her phone and felt her ears burn. “I meant our meeting at the coffee shop. Not a date.” She blew a raspberry. “No, no, nooo. It’s about that book I found in the house. That’s all.” Not that she needed to explain herself to Wayne, but it made life with her partner easier.
Happy to, she replied to the text. IHOP downtown.
She hoped this Ethan person wasn’t some creeper just interested in pirate treasure. Erika’s texts from the library were that this guy was related to the ship somehow. And that he and his friends were hot. Erika also suspected the people were some sort of law enforcement types.
Wayne pulled into the station before she knew it, and it was time to clean the rig. Sadie stuffed the phone into her pocket and hopped to it. Time seemed to slow as she and her partner wiped everything down and changed the gurney’s sheets. The overnight shift’s team arrived to take over as Sadie cleaned the back doors.
Sadie rushed through her end-of-shift routine and still barely made it to IHOP on time. She kept telling herself she didn’t care about impressing some random cop who also happened to have a connection to something she’d grown to love. It was simply a chance to talk with someone who shared a mutual interest.
The standard post-primetime bunch inhabited the downtown IHOP, mostly college students. She scanned the dining area and realized she had no idea what this Ethan guy looked like. With a disgusted snort at herself, she took to the phone and wrote a text.
“Excuse me,” someone said from behind.
She looked up and saw a ruggedly handsome man with blue eyes and sun-bleached, light-brown hair. “Are you Ethan?”
“Are you Sadie?”
She felt her ears get hot again as she nodded, and she brushed hair that wasn’t there from her face. For once, her hair was all in her ponytail, and she now had no excuse to push it back.
“Your friend at the library told me you’re a paramedic,” Ethan said with a smile. “How’d the late shift go?”
“It was fine. Good. Our patient will probably be fine, but that’s all I can say because of HIPAA.” She smiled. “Erika said you’re some kind of cop. What department?”
“Ever hear of MBLIS?” he asked.
It rang a bell, but she was distracted by a host coming to seat them. When they were comfortably in a far corner, she took a breath and thought over the day. Of course.
“That’s weird. I think I was outside your office today,” she told him. “Was there a car fire by you?”
His eyes widened. “Yeah. I had to leave, but they got it under control.”
“One of the people in the crowd got sick. We took care of them.”
Ethan nodded and picked up a menu. “Order whatever you want. Food’s on me to thank you for meeting me.” His smile could’ve melted chocolate, Sadie decided. “I’ve been chasing this ship since I was a kid.”
“You must be a good swimmer.” Oops. She hadn’t meant to make a bad joke so soon.
“I am, and I almost caught them scalawags,” he answered with a wink. “If you like those kinds of jokes, you should meet my partner.”
“Your partner?” She felt like a dolt for asking. “Work or personal?”
; He laughed. “Work. Best friend. We were in the SEALs together, and then MBLIS.” He set the menu down. “He’s going through a rough time, though. I miss the bad jokes.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She really was. Everyone told Sadie she cared too much, but she believed the rest of the world didn’t care enough. “Whatever’s going on, I hope it gets better.”
“Me too,” Ethan acknowledged.
“What does MBLIS do? I looked it up earlier. Military Border something Investigation Services, I think.”
His appreciate nod added a little glow to her heart. She wasn’t sure if she ought to be annoyed or happy that he had such an effect after less than five minutes near her.
“Military Border Liaison Investigative Services,” he said with a smile. “The basic version is that we investigate crimes that involve the coasts and seas and also cross international borders.”
“That’s a mouthful,” Sadie laughed.
“Yeah, it kind of is, but I’m not one for taglines.” He rubbed the back of his head. “We solve crimes near the ocean.”
“So you chase pirates,” she suggested with a grin.
“Sometimes.” His eyes somehow twinkled in the yellow light above the table. “We never know where we’ll go next.”
“Where has the job taken you?” She wondered how it must be to travel for work all the time. “The furthest I’ve really been to was to the Big Island for a volcano response training session.”
“I’m based in Miami,” Ethan told her. “We came out to bring a colleague to the new office and get some R and R for my partner.”
“You live on the mainland?” She’d only been once, as a kid for a wedding. “I’m a little confused. If you’re here for relaxation, why are you on duty?”
Those clear blue eyes clouded. “There’s been an emergency. That’s all I can say about it for now.”
Their server arrived to take their orders. Sadie asked for her favorite, two fried eggs over easy and laid across a thick slice of SPAM. Ethan ordered the same, but with sausage and pineapple on the side.