The Musubi Murder

by Frankie Bow

  “You have to travel?” Donnie asked. “Why?” He sounded surprised.

  “I go to conferences in my field to put my research out there, and get comments and criticism, preferably the constructive kind. Then I work on it some more, and send it out to get published. I have to publish to keep my job.”

  “That must be where the saying ‘publish or perish’ comes from.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How often do you need to go off-island?” he asked.

  “Couple of times a year. I have a conference coming up in San Francisco pretty soon. I’m still putting the finishing touches on my presentation.”

  “That’s a long trip,” he said. “Who’s going with you?”

  “No one. With the budget cuts it’s hard enough to get travel funds for one person, let alone two. It would’ve been nice to have Betty come with me—she’s my coauthor—but only one of us can go.”

  Donnie stopped walking.

  “You should be careful,” he said. “A young woman traveling alone. When is the conference?”

  Was he thinking of flying out to join me? Stephen never would have done that. I told him the dates of the conference and the name of the hotel, making sure to repeat the information so he wouldn’t forget.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I inhaled the cool evening air and felt warm inside. Donnie was actually planning to take time away from Donnie’s Drive-Inn to be with me in San Francisco. Naturally I would insist on his taking a separate room. Donnie impressed me as somewhat old-fashioned, and I didn’t want to scare him off by appearing too brazen.

  “Davison has an aunty in the Bay Area,” Donnie said. “I can arrange for him to visit her, and while he’s there he can check in on you too.”

  “What? No! I mean, no, don’t go to all that trouble. I’ll be fine. I’m just going straight from the airport to the hotel. It’s very safe.”

  “It’s no trouble at all. I can’t get away from the restaurant, but I’d feel better knowing someone was watching out for you.”

  “I appreciate the thought, really—”

  “Let me know the flight times and record locator numbers, and I’ll set it up. Maybe Davison can even fly over with you.”

  “I don’t remember the exact numbers right now,” I said.

  “You can email me your itinerary.”

  “Sure. I could do that.”

  Donnie brushed my shoulder with his fingertips. “I’m glad you have such a good relationship with Davison. That’s important.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  We strolled side by side around the perimeter of the expansive backyard. The temperature was dropping, and the gentle evening breeze was refreshing. This seemed as good a time as any to ask nosy questions.

  “So Donnie.”

  “M-hm?”

  “Are you married? Or what?”

  He paused for a long time before he spoke.

  “The last time I saw Davison’s mother was when Davison was eight years old.”

  “Oh.”

  That didn’t exactly answer my question.

  “So you’re divorced now?” I asked.

  Another pause. Why was he pausing?

  “I could have filed for divorce after three months.”

  “Could have filed?” That came out sounding more confrontational than I had intended. But I was a little startled to find that no, he’s not divorced. I could imagine the conversation with my mother: “Molly, a divorced man?” “Well, Mom, the good news is, he’s actually not divorced . . .”

  “On the grounds of abandonment,” Donnie said. “She left us.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “You probably want to know why I didn’t file right away.”

  “Probably. I mean, yes, I do.”

  “I wanted to keep her on my insurance,” he said. “She wasn’t well. In case she decided to get treatment, I wanted the option to be there for her. Wherever she was.”

  “But that was . . . what, eleven, twelve years ago?” I said.

  “Yes. It’s been a long time. A long time. Davison was a little boy when it happened. He’s a man now.”

  I would never have described Davison Gonsalves as a “man.” A “guy,” or a “dude,” maybe. A “bro,” certainly.

  “But Molly, I want you to know something.”

  Now what? What kind of married-man excuse was he going to come up with? She doesn’t understand me. We have an open relationship. The divorce isn’t quite final.

  “I have filed the paperwork. It’s in process now.”

  “Oh. So you’re saying the divorce isn’t quite final.”

  “It’ll be another two months, give or take.”

  I wanted to ask when he filed the paperwork. But that would sound like I was fishing around to find out whether the decision had anything to do with me. There was no way for me to ask that question that wouldn’t make everyone feel uncomfortable.

  “Do you know where she is now?” I asked.

  “Somewhere on the mainland, last I heard. I never tried to look for her. I don’t really want to know. When you care about someone it’s hard to watch them self-destruct.”

  I watched my feet as we stepped over the uneven lava rock. The conversation about Donnie’s wife (wife!) hit close to home. I understood what Donnie was saying about watching someone self-destruct. I wondered about Stephen. Whether his rehab was going as well as he claimed. Whether he ever did succumb to the urge to strangle Isaiah Pung. How Jimmy Tanaka’s disembodied (not decapitated) head managed to find its way into his prop room. What Stephen remembered about any of it.

  “Are you okay, Molly?”

  “Yes. I’m just thinking about what you said.”

  Something on the ground caught my attention. There, sitting in the rubble of the sticks and bones and leaves piled at the base of the chain-link fence. I did a double-take and then looked away quickly.

  Donnie was on my left. We were walking counterclockwise around the property so I was between him and the fence. I closed my eyes briefly and tried to think. My first impulse was to point it out to Donnie and demand that we call the police immediately, but then I reconsidered. How well did I really know him? I didn’t even know he was married (married!) until two minutes ago. At that moment, I didn’t trust him.

  But I had an idea.

  I clapped my hand over my right ear.

  “Oh, no!” I exclaimed, trying to put exactly the right note of dismay in my voice, “I think I dropped an earring.”

  “I’ll help you look.”

  “Hey, do you have a flashlight?” I asked casually, as if the idea had just occurred to me. “It’s starting to get dark. If we shine a flashlight across the rocks, maybe we’ll see it reflect the light.”

  “Sure. I have one in the kitchen.”

  Luckily I had worn fishhook earrings, the kind you can slide out quickly with one hand. By the time Donnie came back out with the flashlight I was crouched down examining the ground, wearing only one earring. I hoped Donnie didn’t notice the uneven bulge in my little red evening bag. Donnie shone the flashlight along the ground. The silver and marcasite sparkled, and he quickly reached down and recovered the earring for me. Normally I would find this gesture gallant, but now I resented him for being such a control freak. Why couldn’t he let me pick up my own earring? Calm down, Molly. There’s probably a perfectly good explanation for all of this.

  I thanked him and asked if I could use his bathroom before we left for the dinner. I spent a long time in Donnie’s immaculate bathroom, washing my hands.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Every woman in the Maritime Club (where the Business Boosters held all of their major events, including tonight’s installation dinner) was wearing either a knit suit or a flowery muumuu. The men, of course, all wore aloha shirts and black dress slacks. I knew I looked out of place in my beloved lipstick-red vintage Lilli Ann tweed coat dress, but that was the least of my concerns at the moment. I stowed my little red purse
under my chair and scanned the room for Mercedes Yamashiro. I saw her in the entryway, magnificent in a tiered lavender and green muumuu, her hair (now a glossy blue-black) cut in a sassy bob. She caught my eye and glided over to our table. I exhaled with relief. Mercedes would keep the conversation going. All I had to do was sit and listen.

  Mercedes did not disappoint. She had some interesting news, she said, and shifted to what was intended to be a conspiratorial whisper. A nice group of young people had come to volunteer on the small organic farm connected to the Cloudforest B and B, she told us.

  “I remember Iker Legazpi telling me about that,” I said. “That’s working out?”

  “Oh, the young people are always so nice, Molly. But this time, one of them was someone I had already met. I didn’t recognize her at first. And guess who she was!”

  “One of my students?”

  “No!” Mercedes exclaimed. “The former wife of Bill Vogel, your dean!”

  “Bill Vogel’s ex-wife is still around?” I said. “So Vogel’s not keeping her head in the freezer after all?”

  My hand flew to my mouth. Why did I say that? That was not at all appropriate dinnertime conversation. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Donnie give me a strange look.

  “Oh, Molly,” Mercedes said. “Anyway, she wasn’t wearing any makeup, and her hair was in those kine snakes, those dreadlocks.” Mercedes made expansive gestures around her own sleek hair. “Still a pretty girl, though.”

  I nodded quietly, not trusting myself to speak.

  “And that’s not all!” Mercedes stage-whispered, gesturing toward her abdomen. “Hapai!” Then she added, “Oh, that means pregnant, Molly.”

  I already know what hapai means, but I just smiled agreeably. I knew that Bill Vogel’s wife had been out of the picture for at least a year. The former Mrs. Vogel had apparently moved on. I wondered where Donnie’s wife was.

  The evening proceeded uneventfully, if you don’t count the fact that my heart felt like it was going to pound right out of my chest and shoot across the dining room. From time to time I glanced uneasily at Donnie. I’m pretty sure I managed to hold up my end of the dinner conversation, although I don’t recall being particularly brilliant. I remember Donnie saying something about the rice not being left to settle long enough in the cooker, which was why it tasted spongy. We probably talked a little about my upcoming conference presentation. But all through the Business Boosters anthem, the wait at the buffet line, and the speeches, my mind kept wandering back to the bag under my chair.

  During a short break between speakers I excused myself to the ladies’ room and texted Emma.

  RU there i need 2 talk important!!!

  No reply. I texted again:

  emma answer me

  Nothing. I called her. No answer.

  Seconds later my phone buzzed with this reply text:

  CALL ME 2MORROW HAVE FUN 2NITE

  Pat lives way up the mountain, where the phone coverage is intermittent at best. I tried to call him anyway, and got the usual error message. I considered calling the police, but decided against it. I still wasn’t sure what I had, and chances were that it was nothing. I’d just be wasting their time and embarrassing myself in the process. No, Emma was the one I needed to talk to.

  Donnie seemed relaxed and cheerful on the drive back to his house. Either I was hiding my stress well (unlikely) or Donnie had decided it had nothing to do with him (wrong). I did not want to HAVE FUN 2NITE. I wanted to get away from Donnie and back to the safety of my house as quickly as possible.

  I was out of Donnie’s car almost before it stopped moving. I hurried around the back to the driver’s side, as if the Lexus were a horse that would kick me if I lingered back there too long. I waited for Donnie to step down, gave him a quick, halfhearted hug and thanked him for a lovely evening. I couldn’t read the expression on his face, and didn’t want to stick around and puzzle it out. I fled down the dark road toward my car.

  I pulled up into my carport, let myself out of the car, and sucked in a big lungful of the cool night air. The individual coqui frog chirps from earlier in the evening had massed into a wall of noise whose volume was somewhere between a vacuum cleaner and a Black Flag concert. I locked up the car and carried my misshapen purse into the kitchen. I opened a drawer and dispensed a length of wax paper, then snapped off a paper towel and went directly to the dining room table. Using the paper towel, I pulled the thing out of my little red purse and set it down on the wax paper. That purse wasn’t going to get used again until I had it professionally cleaned. Who was I kidding? I’d never use it again. Might as well donate it to the St. Damien’s rummage sale.

  Maybe I was overreacting. I hoped so. I had to make sure. I went online and searched for images of cow and pig skeletons. I found some good high-resolution pictures, mostly line drawings, but also some photos. I examined the images carefully, especially the leg bones. Nothing on those pictures matched what I had picked up from Donnie’s yard. I searched for illustrations of human anatomy, just to be sure.

  There was no doubt. Sitting on my dining room table was a human elbow joint, with stubs of two slender bones—the radius and ulna—protruding from it. The ends were jagged and chewed.

  I didn’t sleep well that night.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The sky was still gray when I woke up, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep with a human elbow joint sitting on my dining room table. It was too early to call Emma. I would drive over to her house instead. I sent her a text to let her know I was coming. The facility on campus wouldn’t be officially open today, but I hoped Emma had a key. I didn’t want to wait until Monday.

  The front door cracked open as soon as I pulled up. Emma shuffled out into the cool morning, unsmiling and bed-rumpled. She gripped a weathered blue travel mug from a few PBS pledge drives ago. She yanked open my car’s passenger door and crawled in.

  “Hey, thanks for getting up,” I said.

  She clutched her coffee cup silently as I backed down her driveway and out onto the road.

  “I got your text,” she said. “It made my phone buzz. Woke me up.”

  “Oh, sorry about that,” I said, unremorseful. I was glad that she was awake and ready to go.

  “I think Yoshi slept through it, though. Probably for the best. He’s such a pain when he doesn’t get his eight hours.”

  “You have all your keys, right?” I asked. “You can get into the lab?”

  She turned to squint at me.

  “Molly, what on earth is going on?”

  “Look in the back seat.”

  She did.

  “What’s inside the box?”

  “Do you still have the sequence from Jimmy Tanaka’s toothbrush?”

  She held up her keys. An enameled USB drive with the logo of a biotech company dangled from the key ring.

  “Right here,” she said. “We won’t need it until after we sequence whatever is in that box back there. That’s what you want me to do, right?”

  “Yes! I knew I did the right thing getting hold of you, Emma.”

  “We have to set it up first. It’ll be done by tomorrow morning. Then it’ll be really quick to compare the two sequences.”

  The sky was beginning to lighten when we arrived at Emma’s lab. I carried the towel-wrapped bone, which was squashed into a plastic Ziploc bag and sitting inside a cardboard box. As Emma was about to insert her key into the lock, the door opened. A hollow-eyed young man drifted out, rubbing the stubble on his cheek and staring straight ahead. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week.

  “Grad student,” Emma whispered to me.

  There were two more of them inside, young and sallow, hunched over a small tray on the counter. They didn’t even glance up as we entered.

  “Okay, let’s see that,” Emma said.

  I handed it over and let her unwrap it.

  “Aah! Geez, Molly, where did you get this?”

  The two grad students perked up.
I glanced over and they quickly averted their eyes. I hopped onto one of the rolling stools and slid it right next to Emma, and in the quietest voice I could manage, I told her the whole story. She burst out laughing at the part about the earring. I didn’t think it was funny at all.

  Then she lowered her voice to match mine.

  “Why didn’t you just leave it there and call the police later?”

  “Think about it. What would I say when I called in? Hi, go look in the backyard of one of the most successful and respected businessmen on our island. Pick up every bone splinter on his three-acre lot and see if anything looks funny to you.”

  “Maybe they would’ve . . . nah, you’re right,” she said. “They woulda thought you was lolo.”

  “Besides, Emma, this is all because of you.”

  “What? How is this my fault?”

  “Remember Trivia Night at the Pair-O-Dice? You were explaining about the bones of the arm, the radius and the ulna, how in four-legged animals those bones are fused together to support the body weight, but in humans the bones are separate like two sticks.”

  “I said that?”

  “Yes, you did. So I saw this on the ground, with the two bone pieces sticking out like two sticks, and I remembered your explanation.”

  “Oh. Well, I must be an amazing teacher. I managed to teach you something about human physiology.”

  “So was I right? Is this really a human elbow?”

  She poked at it with some sort of stainless steel implement.

  “Sure looks like it. Did you actually pick this up with your bare hands?”

  “Yes. I did.” I winced, recalling it. “And then I put it in my bag. The red clutch with the gold clasp.”

  “Oh, the one that goes with that cute red dress?”

  “Yes, and that dress is really hard to crouch down in, it turns out.”

  “The coat dress? I thought that used to be loose on you.”

  “Anyway, I scrubbed my hands in Donnie’s bathroom afterward for about ten minutes straight. I probably used up half of his L’Occitane verbena soap. Then we drove to the Business Boosters event in his car and I ate dinner next to him with the bag sitting under my chair the whole time like the Telltale Heart.”