Venom: A Thriller in Paradise (The Thriller in Paradise Series Book 3)

by Swigart, Rob

  Vincent did not seem to hear. He pulled Shafton out of his seat and lifted him sideways, where he could get a good angle of attack. “You what?” he repeated.

  Chazz Koenig raised his eyebrows and stood up almost languidly. He stretched once and tapped Vincent on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” he began, but just as suddenly Meissner dropped the officer and spun around on Chazz. They moved together almost as if they were dancing, Meissner stepping forward with his left foot as Chazz stepped back with his right. Vincent’s reaction brought him around the corner of the table, his right hand swinging. Somehow the fist, instead of connecting with the wistfully smiling face he wanted to hit, was trapped in a snug nest made of Chazz’s shoulder and right hand, and an unbearable pain was going up his arm. Vincent couldn’t believe how quickly the pain had come. He fell back with a cry, and the pain eased some, although his hand was still trapped. Chazz still looked a little dreamy.

  “Perhaps you didn’t hear the lieutenant, Mr. Meissner. What he said was that assault is not a good idea, and it would be better if you sat down.”

  Vincent found himself reaching back for the edge of the closest empty chair, and Chazz moved forward. Vincent’s arm was zigzagged in front of him, bent at the elbow and wrist. The biologist was relaxed and poised, Vincent’s hand still trapped, the wrist bent toward the inside of the forearm. Whenever he struggled, the pain increased. Vincent sat down.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Chazz shrugged. “I’m just a researcher on the island,” he said. “We’re a little concerned about whatever it was that killed your crew.”

  “Dr. Koenig is something of an expert in aikido,” Lieutenant Takamura said softly. “He claims it is nonviolent.”

  “Well, it isn’t.” Vincent suddenly laughed. “All right, I got a little out of control there. I’m sorry Commander, I apologize.”

  Shafton finished straightening his tie and nodded shortly. “Your vessel drifted into our waters carrying a dead crew. Since we don’t know what killed them, it seems best we investigate. I must ask you if you know of any substance or material on board that could have caused the deaths.”

  “Aside from normal operating fuel and food and crew personal effects and so on, the ship carried printed matter and some scientific equipment. That’s all.”

  “What kind of scientific equipment?” Chazz asked. “It could be important. If something got loose, or some chemical substance— even something innocuous, some household product, mixed with something else, maybe — spilled…” He shrugged.

  “Sampling equipment. Mainly for testing seawater. Radioactivity, salinity, turbidity, some organic chemistry. We were interested in the ecological effects of underground testing in the Tuomotus. The ship was taking regular samples, both of the water and some marine life.”

  Chazz raised his eyebrow again. He was standing now, back to the wall, arms folded across his chest. Vincent, subdued and still breathing hard, shook his head. “What’s that look?”

  “I was wondering what kind of marine life they were collecting.”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me. They weren’t trained scientists, anyway, just people with a belief in stopping the rape of our planet. We are poisoning our own home, and someone has to make a scene or it won’t stop.”

  “You are saying they weren’t trained scientists, but they had scientific equipment on board, and were collecting specimens of marine life and taking radioactive measures and so on?”

  Shafton’s tone held an iron undercurrent that made Vincent bristle. “Advanced degrees aren’t everything.”

  “There were some tanks in the lounge,” Cobb said. “They had marine life in them.”

  “I’m sure,” Vincent said. “Fish, snails, that sort of thing. Small, innocuous life, endangered by governmental recklessness, not to say cynicism.”

  “No need for rhetoric here, Mr. Meissner. We are only trying to find out what killed everyone on board your vessel.” Shafton looked at Carrie again. “You’re a member of this group, are you?”

  She flushed “I don’t see what’s wrong with that. Gaia is a highly respected planetary rights advocacy group. You don’t have to be a scientist to know there’s something horribly wrong with nuclear testing, especially in the South Pacific.”

  Shafton smiled “Of course,” he murmured. “I believe I hear the engines of our tow craft, which means the vessel should be arriving soon.”

  It was fully dark out, so the confusion of lights and engines was profound. Two small craft were manhandling the larger Ocean Mother to a berth against the metal military pier inside the passenger docks. Here a wire fence of the most perfunctory kind was intended to keep unauthorized personnel out. At least that was what the sign said.

  “By the way, Mr. Meissner,” Cobb said in a low, confidential voice. “How many lifeboats does Ocean Mother carry?”

  “Two, of course. Why?”

  Cobb shrugged. “There’s only one there now,” he said, nodding to the empty davits.

  “Maybe they lost one,” Vincent suggested. “There was a storm.”

  He seemed shrunken out here, somehow smaller, and Carrie stayed close to him, drawn to his position and reputation while repelled by his presence. Two sailors clambered onto the pier and saluted. Shafton and Whipple had a brief conversation with them, and the lights and engines gradually died away to relative darkness and silence. Only the one powerful light at the end of the pier cast a harsh monochrome glare over the rusted side of the Ocean Mother.

  The small group stood in the warm Hawaiian night and looked at the Death Ship, a name that the local paper would give her the very next morning.

  SEVEN

  ANALYSIS

  Patria Koenig threw down the paper. “Death Ship! Really. They ate bad shrimp, that’s all.”

  Orli lifted her head from the blanket on the floor and started to fuss. Patria swept her daughter into her arms. “Lunchtime,” she crooned. Orli smacked her lips, rolling the lower one in and out with small grunting sounds. “Lunchtime, lunchtime.”

  Patria pulled up her tank top and offered Orli the breast. “Ooh, ooh, hoo, is that a tooth coming in there, Kiddo?” Orli rolled her deep brown eyes up at her mother and sucked vigorously.

  Her mother leaned back in the battered easy chair with a sigh, snuggling the baby to her. “What it’s all about, Orli, is family structures. Kinship organization,” Patria began. Orli was busy and paid no attention.

  Patria’s hand dropped to the floor, where a book displayed its title: Polynesian Family Patterns. Her fingers caressed the spine absently. “Traditionally, children are raised by grandparents, leaving the parents relatively free for work, travel, or sociability. Children so raised were considered especially lucky, you see.”

  Orli murmured something indistinct. It could have been assent.

  “Ah. You, on the other hand, will no doubt consider yourself fortunate to have such a devoted set of parents, who must do without the aid of grandparents.”

  Orli looked up at this. Her eyes squeezed shut. She took a deep breath and sneezed. Then she spit up on her mother. Patria jumped up with a sharp cry and paced restlessly for a moment, fuming, but she held the child carefully, patting her back absently. “Damn, damn, damn,” she murmured, gradually allowing it to move from a curse to a croon. Orli smiled and made tiny gulping sounds.

  Finally Patria sat down again and let her daughter feed some more. But Patria’s face was dark when Chazz came in.

  “What’s up?” he said. Then he saw her face. “Uh-oh.”

  “It’s nothing,” Patria assured him without conviction. “She spit up on me. I can’t get any work done. Et cetera. Damn, I’m complaining again. I hate this.”

  “Never mind. Let me hold her for a while.” He took the baby and walked her around, mumbling in her ear. “RNA transcriptase,” he said. “Plasmid vector.”

  Orli grinned up at him and drooled. Patria laughed. “How you do talk. All right. What’s going on now?”

&nbs
p; “You read about the death ship?”

  “Of course. The paper’s having a wonderful time with it. A skull chalked on a wall and all that. Any ideas yet?”

  Chazz shook his head. “Six dead. A seventh not quite dead, but near enough. They died of anoxia, otherwise known as a pathological deficiency of oxygen.”

  “You told me that last night. My theory is it was bad shrimp. But how could they have declared them all dead only to have one of them come back to life.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’m a molecular biologist. How’s Plato?”

  “Go check. I forgot all about him.”

  Chazz carried Orli out the sliding door to the lanai at the rear of the house. The house backed up against a densely wooded hillside. Under a broad ohia tree was a saltwater aquarium. Chazz had rigged a filtration system, and tiny bubbles floated around like lost stars in the water. The sandy bottom appeared empty at first, but when Chazz squatted down beside the tank, a bulbous shape nosed around the large rock against the right side of the tank. The rubbery shape withdrew and reappeared shyly, following the tip of a tentacle, which slithered over the sand and tapped soundlessly at the inside of the glass.

  “He still likes you.” Patria said behind him. Chazz held the child up to the glass. Orli drooled at the octopus but said nothing special.

  “I’ll have to let him go soon. I don’t think this tank has adequate filtration to keep him long. It’s damned hard to keep a salt-water tank going, anyway, and we don’t have time…”

  “You don’t have time.”

  Chazz nodded his assent and stood up. He gave Orli a little toss into the air. She did indicate her approval by gurgling, an activity that caused her to drool directly on her father’s forehead.

  Later, when she was asleep, Patria asked him if there was any danger from the Ocean Mother.

  “I doubt it. No one has had any trouble. The Coast Guard was all over it, without protection, and nobody reported any ill effects. Kimiko is fine.”

  “I talked to her this morning. She’s still shaking, but she wouldn’t let Dr. Standish know that. He’d keep her in the hospital forever, and she can only stand reading Hegel for a day or two.”

  “Come on, it would do her good to read more Hegel. Have we got anything for lunch? I’ve got to get back to the lab in a while, and I’m starving.”

  “Peanut butter. Maybe some jam. What’s the rush? We had to race back from the Big Island for this emergency, which seems to be no longer an emergency, so why keep running?”

  “Dr. Shih is sending over some samples for me to look at. And Sammy Akeakamai thinks the whole affair smacks of ’ana’ana. Black arts again, evil magicians praying folks to death.”

  She rolled her eyes, a gesture Chazz loved, since her slender neck swiveled with them, stirring her short, dark helmet of hair.

  He made himself a sandwich and had just settled onto the floor in seiza, the Japanese style of sitting on his heels, when a car pulled up on the gravel drive. He floated to his feet and went to the door just as the bell rang, waking Orli from her brief nap.

  “Damn,” he muttered, opening the door. In the background Patria had picked up the child and was soothing her when Cobb Takamura entered. He saw the mother and child and stopped.

  “Sorry. My untimely arrival awakened her?”

  “Sometimes you start to sound like Charlie Chan even when you aren’t quoting,” Patria said. “She was about to wake up anyway.”

  “Ah. I just stopped by to give you this.” He handed Chazz a wooden slide box.

  “Dr. Shih?”

  “The Medical Examiner as usual seeks your expert opinion. A dust or powder I think she said. Sergeant Handel thinks it is alien pollen, death dust from the stars.”

  “Want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” Chazz asked. “I’m going to have another.”

  Takamura removed his awful porkpie hat and tossed it expertly onto the hall table, spinning it like a Frisbee. “That would be nice. I can tell you about our latest case over peanut butter.”

  They all settled on the lanai. Chazz finished his second sandwich, wiped his hands on his pants and took Orli again so Patria could eat. “Your latest case,” he urged.

  “Best I should wait until the anthropologist in the family is finished eating. It is not so pleasant.”

  They discussed the condition of the surf on the north side, as reported by the county government’s champion surfer that morning. Waves were running to twelve feet outside Hanalei Bay, making for nearly ideal conditions for those hearty enough to spend a number of minutes under water if they fell. They discussed the latest decline in sugar prices and the effect that was having on island economy and, by consequence, the current elevated levels of petty crime. They discussed the ineptitude of the Coast Guard investigation of the Ocean Mother. “I almost hope it does turn out to be a crime so I can take the investigation away from Shafton,” Cobb said with uncharacteristic directness.

  The sun declined, throwing part of the back garden into shade. Patria took the dishes inside and returned. Orli threw her arms in the air and waved them around, squirming. “She’s going to need a jaunt somewhere today,” Patria declared, putting the child on a blanket. Then both she and Chazz looked expectantly at Lieutenant Takamura, who cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “It’s not my case. Taxeira is taking it on himself, since the victim is a tourist. But the case has some strange elements. A woman, wife of a radiologist from Santa Barbara, is found in a room at the hotel, in bed. She is very naked. The maid came into the suite to clean up. She vacuumed. She dusted. She straightened up and opened the curtains. She went into the bedroom to clean. There was a woman in the bed. At first the maid thought she was asleep. Then she got scared, since she had been making a great deal of noise and the woman did not wake up. Then she shook the woman. Then she screamed.”

  “Dead?” Patria asked.

  Cobb nodded “Strangled. A very competent job, according to the captain. Professional, no marks on the throat. Preliminary investigation revealed no indication of sexual activity.”

  “And…?” Chazz urged after a brief silence.

  “And the room is very, very clean.”

  “Sure. The maid cleaned up.”

  “Cleaner than that. No fingerprints anywhere. No sign of use. No luggage. No hair in the sink, no scraps of paper in the wastebaskets. The woman, too. She had been cleaned. After she died.”

  “Who rented the room?”

  Cobb nodded at Patria’s question. “The murderer, most likely. A phantom. Vanished. As if never existed. A Frenchman who called himself Henri Christophe, a clerk in the French consulate in San Francisco. But there is no such person. Immigration has no record in the computers. He checked in the day before yesterday. Paid for two nights in advance with cash from a large folded packet of American money, twenties, used. He tipped generously. Gave a Visa card for identification and guarantee. Also his international driver’s license number. Since he had not charged anything on the card, the clerk did not run the computer check. There is no such card and no such license. He was a nice-looking man with a heavy accent. Nothing else to distinguish him. Brown hair, medium length. Didn’t remember eye color, but they were probably brown. Average height, average weight, average looks. Good clothes but not outstanding. Quiet and polite. Unmemorable.”

  “A real murder, and it isn’t your case?” Patria asked. “If Taxeira is handling it, it will probably remain a mystery.”

  “You are kind to suggest I could do better. But as the great detective Charlie Chan has said, ‘Successful detective is plenty often man on whom luck turns smiling face.’ The captain will need plenty of luck on this one. She had no clothes.”

  “The murderer cleaned up, packed her clothes with his, and left. What kind of luggage did he come in with?” Patria asked.

  “You would make a good detective, Mrs. Koenig. The check-in clerk thought he had a shoulder bag. That was all. Didn’t require a bellhop. He could walk out of the hotel carry
ing it and no one would notice.”

  “Maybe you should be grateful it’s not your case,” Chazz suggested.

  “Mmm.”

  After Cobb left Chazz suggested Patria bring Orli down to the lab with him while he examined Dr. Shih’s samples. “She’d enjoy a visit to the gardens.”

  Patria would have none of it, though. She walked tightly to the bedroom door. “You take her, you think it would be so damn nice.” She opened the door.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She turned. “God damn it, Chazz. I have work to do. I can’t spend all my time baby-sitting.”

  “Patria,” Chazz began patiently. “You wanted…”

  She flared up then. “I did not goddam want! You wanted. You wanted children. I wanted my career. I had a career!”

  “You still…”

  “Oh, shut up! You don’t understand anything.”

  He felt his own anger rising and started to turn away. Aikido was not helping him deal with this kind of conflict. It seemed as if it never did. But he stopped before taking the first step. “We came here, got back together, to get away from the stress of the mainland, competing careers, all that,” he said softly.

  Her face tightened. “I miss the stress,” she said with frightening intensity. “I miss the competition, the excitement. I was publishing important research.”

  “You still publish.”

  “One lousy archeology piece on the Kapuna site for a popular magazine!”

  “You got paid. A lot of money.”

  “Oh, Chazz,” she wailed.

  He went over to her and took her in his arms just as Orli woke up and started crying. They both turned and started toward her. She rolled her head in their direction, her eyes screwed shut. Then the eyes opened wide, and she smiled widely with a hiccup.

  Patria and Chazz both started laughing. Patria scooped the infant up and said, “Okay, okay. Let’s go to the goddamn gardens and show her all the pretty poisonous plants.”

  Chazz took that in silence. The crisis was over, but he knew there would be others.

  The day had darkened as a squall moved in before the trades. A deep shadow fell on the flanks of the mountains, veils of dark gray shrouded the peaks, and the warm drops began to fall as his ancient white van lurched and rattled down the dirt road to the highway. Orli looked around alertly, seeming to take in everything passing by with such wise intelligence that their mood lightened despite the gloom of the afternoon.