I'm Kona Love You Forever (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series Book 6)

by JoAnn Bassett

  I bent down to take a good look at the gas mask. It wasn’t new; in fact, it appeared well-worn, with cracks along the strapping. Something about the mask was curious, however. Everything else in the carport was coated with dust. But the lens on the mask was shiny and clear, as if it’d been recently wiped off.

  I looked back at Gary’s house one more time. Did I dare take the gas mask with me? Then I recalled another lesson from criminology class: chain of evidence. If evidence is touched or moved, it’s inadmissible.

  I left the mask where it was and hurried back to Malia’s to see how the family meeting was coming along.

  ***

  David and Lili were out front. David leaned against a porch rail, arms crossed. Lili faced him. Every few seconds she dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

  “Everything okay?” I said.

  “Not hardly,” said David. “My sisters have ganged up on us. Shayna says everyone wants us to put off the wedding until—”

  “Until never,” said Lili.

  “No, they didn’t say that,” said David. “They said that out of respect for Mom we shouldn’t get married for a while.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “I don’t,” said Lili. “You promised me we’d get married at the end of January. I quit school and everything.”

  “But this kind of changes things, don’t you think?” said David. “I mean, we need to have the funeral and—”

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Lili broke in. “Why would your mom do this to you—to us? You said she was so happy when you told her we were getting married.”

  “That’s why we need to honor her by putting it off for a while,” said David.

  “I really can’t believe you’re siding with them.” Lili made a pouty fft sound and scowled.

  “David, what can you tell me about your mother’s neighbor, Gary?” I said. I nodded my head in the direction of Gary’s house.

  “He’s an ass-wipe.”

  “I sort of got that from talking to Edie across the street. She said Gary was holding a grudge against your mom. She even hinted he may have had something to do with what happened.”

  “Yeah, well, you gotta be careful with Edie. She’s a nice lady, but she’s kinda paranoid. When we had that earthquake a few years back she ran through the neighborhood screaming about radical terrorists. Said she saw some guys in turbans down on Ali’i Drive in town. She said they’d probably blown up the telescopes on Mauna Kea and that’s what caused the shaking.”

  “Still, your mom and Gary didn’t get along, right?”

  “He kept a bunch of mean dogs. Every time one of them escaped my mom would call the cops. When I was a kid, one got in our garage. I went in to take it back to Gary’s but it went after me.” He traced an ugly red scar on his lower leg. The scar ran from his knee to a few inches above his ankle.

  “Yikes, that looks serious,” I said.

  “Yeah, it was twenty-eight stitches serious. And my mom was seriously pissed. She’d just started at the parks department and wasn’t eligible for insurance for two more weeks. But they paid the bill anyway.”

  “Edie said your mom got laid off because of budget cuts,” I said.

  “Yeah. It bummed her out, but she understood. She was in charge of park renovations. But what with all the cut-backs they weren’t doing renovations anymore.”

  “Did you know your mom was invited to a park blessing at Higashihara Park? It’s supposed to take place this Saturday.”

  “No lie? That’s too bad. She loved park blessings. I don’t remember he saying anything about it, though.”

  “When was the last time you spoke with your mom?” I felt bad reminding him he’d never be talking to her again, but I wanted to check out Edie’s contention that Malia wouldn’t have missed the blessing.

  “About a week ago. I think it was a Sunday.” He bit his lower lip.

  “The blessing would’ve already been scheduled by then, wouldn’t it?”

  “Oh yeah. They plan those things way in advance. They put it in the paper and everything. I can’t believe she didn’t mention it.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to go since she didn’t work for the parks department anymore,” I said. “Maybe she thought it would make her feel sad, or even embarrassed, about losing her job.”

  “My mom? Hardly. She didn’t know the word ‘embarrassed.’ She’d overhear people on the street call her fat and she’d tell them to shut their face or she’d sit on ‘em.”

  “It’s getting late,” I said. “I’ve got the room for one more night but after that I need to get back to Maui. How about you, Lili? Do you want to go back home to Maui or stay at Shayna’s?”

  “I can’t go yet,” she said. “I want to stay for the funeral. You want me to be there, right David?”

  He pulled her close. “I don’t know how I’d get through it without you.”

  I took the two of them to dinner at Jackie Rey’s. I’d really enjoyed ‘aloha hour’ there with Hatch on Saturday and I wanted to try the full menu. It put a pretty big dent in my entertainment budget but at least I could write part of it off as a client business expense. I ordered the seafood trio. It featured four grilled jumbo shrimp, a buttery piece of mahi-mahi, and three large tender scallops. David and Lili both ordered the Black Angus cheddar burger with fries.

  “It’s funny,” Lili said. “No matter how big the menu is, we both always order the exact same thing.”

  “And if they’ve got a hamburger, it’s a no-brainer,” David said.

  After dinner, I dropped David at his dad’s and then drove Lili to Shayna’s. She wasn’t eager to share quarters with David’s crabby big sister, but I was leaving early the next morning and I wouldn’t have time to take her over there.

  “Would you come in for a minute?” Lili said, as we pulled up at the house. “I don’t know Shayna and I want to make sure she really meant it when she told me I could stay with her until the funeral.”

  In the dark we picked our way through broken plastic toys, knee-high weeds, and past a growling brown dog to get to the front door. Shayna’s house was the mirror-image of her mother’s, and once we got inside, it had the same general look of being recently tossed by a disgruntled burglar who’d failed to come across anything of value.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Shayna said, coming out from a back room. The door had been answered by a sullen teenager I assumed was the daughter Shayna had spoken of earlier. The girl didn’t appear to be much younger than Lili but she had the haunted look of a forty-year-old hooker. She had unkempt shoulder-length black hair, a pierced nose ring, and an angry black and red tattoo of a laughing skull on her upper arm.

  “That’s Midge,” said Shayna. She nodded toward the girl who still hadn’t said a single word.

  “Shut up, Mom. You know I don’t like that. My name’s Madeline, like the little girl in the picture books.”

  I smiled and mumbled a “nice to meet you” but my mind was reeling with reconciling the creature standing before me with the charming red-haired girl in the blue jumper and bobby sox in the children’s books, Madeline Goes to Paris, Madeline Goes to Tea, and so on. Madeline Gets a Scary Tramp Stamp just didn’t compute.

  “I hope it’s still all right if I stay here,” said Lili.

  “Sure, no worries. You can bunk with Midge. Right, sister?”

  Midge looked Lili up and down. “I found a cockroach in my room last night this big.” She held her thumb and forefinger apart about four inches. “I squished it, but at school they say they always travel in pairs. Sometimes in packs, like wolves.”

  Lili turned to me. “Can I talk with you a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  Her eyes darted from Shayna to Midge. “Outside?”

  We went out into the balmy black night. Shayna’s porch light was either burned out or she hadn’t bothered to turn it on.

  “I can’t stay here,” said Lili.

  I was about to say “Why not?” just to mess with her, bu
t then figured she’d been through enough the past couple of weeks.

  “I understand. Do you want to stay with me tonight? We’ll have to find you another place in the morning, though.”

  “There’s no way I’ll stay here,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  Lili turned and headed for the car.

  “Hey,” I said. “We need to let Shayna know there’s been a change of plans.”

  “No worries,” she said not breaking stride. “Whatever you tell her is okay with me.”

  I bumbled my way through a pathetic excuse about Lili being allergic to dogs. Shayna countered that the dog never came in the house—which, from the clumps of dog hair on the sofa and in the corners of the room seemed as big a lie as the one I was spinning—but I held firm. I said Lili would see her at the funeral and bolted.

  We made our way back to the B & B for one final night. I checked the flights to Maui and the only flight with a reasonable fare was the first flight of the day—around nine a.m.

  By the time I shut down the computer, Lili had slipped into an oversize T-shirt and was getting into bed.

  I was tired but wired. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling wasn’t how I wanted to spend the next couple of hours.

  “Will you be okay here for a while?” I said. “I have to go out.”

  “Where?”

  “I need to run a quick errand before I leave tomorrow. I should be back in less than an hour.”

  “Okay, but don’t wake me up when you come in. I need my sleep.”

  I shook my head as I made my way to the car. How would it feel to believe the world revolved around you? To think your wishes, your needs, and your happiness were the most important things on earth and everyone else in your life was only there to make sure you were taken care of? Then I smiled. After all, hadn’t I once been naïve, pretty, and almost eighteen?

  CHAPTER 18

  Charlene Cooper’s house didn’t look quite so purple at night. In fact, with the soft glow of lights in the windows and the scent of lavender wafting up from the riotous garden out front, the place looked downright cozy. I associate the fragrance of lavender with my mother. I don’t remember much about my life with her since she died when I was only six, but I can clearly recall nuzzling up to her at bedtime, safe in the bubble of her signature scent.

  I knocked on the door and waited. No one answered. I knocked again.

  “This better be an emergency,” said a husky voice from the other side of the door. The door opened and a wiry woman of about fifty stared out at me with a fierce face. Her orange-colored hair burst from her scalp in a frizzle, circling her head like one of Farrah’s auras. She wore a dark purple shift with a white front panel. The panel was embroidered with a smiling yellow sun with red curlicue rays trailing out from it like petals on a daisy. No doubt Farrah would’ve described Charlene’s choice of attire as “bitchin’ cool.”

  “Whaddaya want?” she said by way of greeting.

  “I’m sorry to stop by so late, but I’d appreciate a few minutes of your time. I’ve got a problem and I think you might be able to help.” In hostage negotiations class at air marshal school we’d learned a good way to approach a defiant suspect is to ask for their help.

  “What kind of problem? You look fine to me.”

  “It’s not a medical situation; it’s a paperwork problem.”

  She twisted her face into an even fiercer scowl. “Paperwork. The bane of my existence.”

  “I’m sure it is. But unfortunately, it’s the life’s blood of Hawaii bureaucracy.”

  She invited me in and I kicked off my sandals at the door. The house looked like something out of a Hobbit movie with oddly carved dark wood furniture, colorful rag rugs, and loudly ticking clocks on nearly every wall. And there were cats—too many to count.

  “Are we going to need to sit down for this?” she said.

  “No, mahalo. I won’t stay long.”

  She crossed her arms tightly and waited.

  “I’m a wedding planner from Maui,” I began. Her face nearly caved in on itself and her eyes rolled skyward, but I soldiered on. “I have a client who was born here on the Kona side and her birth certificate somehow got switched with another child’s.”

  She leaned back. “And just how do you suppose that happened?”

  “Well, I’m not sure. I assume whenever there’s a lot of stuff going on at one time, like when you deliver multiple babies on the same day, it probably gets pretty hectic. And, like you said, paperwork is not a high priority in medical work, and—”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t a priority. I said it’s the bane of my existence. I’m one of only two midwives over here. There’s always some lawyer lurking around trying to trip me up for incorrect dosing or negligence or worse. How’d you like it if your entire livelihood rested on whether you remembered to put a decimal point in front of a number?”

  I nodded my head. “I understand.”

  “I seriously doubt you do.”

  “Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about a birth certificate mix-up from seventeen years ago,” I said.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “I’m afraid not. I think you might remember the situation. A baby girl was born to a woman named Lokelani Kaula Vick. From birth, the little girl suffered from breathing problems. She died four days later.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why would you think I’d have knowledge of that case?”

  “Because you were present when she died. You even signed the death certificate,” I said. “It was back when you were still a nurse at the hospital. By the way, I’m curious what happened with that. With nurses in such short supply here on Hawaii, what could you possibly have done that was so awful you got banished?”

  Her eyes became mere slits. “Get out of my house. Now.” She gripped my elbow and shoved me toward the door. I wasn’t used to being pushed around like that outside of a kung fu fight and my instincts kicked in. I stepped back and stomped on her instep.

  “You bitch!” she screamed. She flayed her arms in an attempt to slap me but I easily ducked her blows.

  I thought she was being overly dramatic. I mean, we were both barefoot. How much could a little foot stomp hurt? And why so much rage over simply being asked why you’d gotten fired?

  I grabbed my rubba slippas at the door and hurried out to my car. I was beginning to think maybe I should invest in charm school. My lack of tact was definitely hampering my ability to get things done.

  ***

  I drove back to the B & B chastising myself for mishandling the meeting with Charlene. In the time I’d been on the Big Island I’d failed to make much, if any, progress in reconciling the birth certificate error. I’d met the two women involved in the mix-up—Loke Vick and Charlene Cooper—but I was no closer to figuring out who had given birth to Lili Kapahu. And, that meant I was no closer to getting my hands on her real birth certificate. Without that, she not only couldn’t move forward with her wedding but her origin remained a mystery.

  But maybe it didn’t matter. David and Lili seemed reconciled with honoring David’s mother by allowing time to grieve following the funeral. In four months they’d be old enough to use their driver’s licenses as I.D. for the marriage license. Maybe I should just leave well enough alone.

  I’d grown up with a murky past history so I knew it was possible to have a great life even with skeletons in your closet. But sooner or later, those skeletons come out. And when they do, you better have friends and family who have your back. From the looks of things, David was willing to step up. But did Lili have anyone else? It didn’t look like she did.

  ***

  The next morning I woke up before first light. I didn’t know where Lili would go after I left, but I hoped David could help her find a place to stay. My roommate, Steve, often chides me about getting too involved in my clients’ personal lives and he’s probably right. But isn’t getting married about as personal as it gets? I mean, every day I
deal with pretty much all of the highly-charged elements of my clients’ lives: money, family, tradition, and, of course, sex. Not that I get that involved with the sex stuff. But believe me, I hear more about it than I’d like.

  I was brushing my teeth, trying to spit quietly so I wouldn’t wake Lili. All of a sudden, my cell phone began chiming. As I lunged for it, I checked the clock next to the bed. It said 5:38. Who’d be calling at that hour? And then I remembered. On the mainland, depending on where they were calling from, it was anywhere from 8:38 to 11:38 a.m. I used to pretend I was wide awake when I got crack-of-dawn calls; as if I was so hard-working and diligent that getting a full night’s sleep wasn’t a priority. But lately I’ve found myself offering mainland callers a pithy tutelage in American time zones.

  “Aloha,” I said.

  “Aloha, babe. Sorry to wake you.”

  “Hatch?”

  “Yeah. Who else would be calling you this early?”

  I could’ve rattled off a few names and explained about the time zone situation, but Hatch had probably meant it as a rhetorical question.

  “I wanted to check in and see how things are going,” he said.

  “At five-thirty in the morning?”

  “Nah. I’m kidding. I’m really calling because I need to ask you a favor.” His voice sounded strained. As if he knew what he was about to say was going to irk me.

  “Okay,” I said, drawing out the word.

  “I need you to pick me up at the Kona airport this afternoon. I forgot something over there and I’m coming back over to get it.”

  “You don’t have to come all this way. Just tell me what it is and I’ll pick it up. I’m heading home this morning anyway.”

  “Thanks, but I need to handle this myself.” Again, his voice was edgy. “Do you mind staying one more day? I’ll get us a place to stay and I’ll pay for your ticket home if you’ll wait and come home with me.”