by Toby Neal
“Fabulous,” the blonde said, sizing them up. “I have some lovely giclee prints over here.” She led them toward the back of the gallery, Lei taking everything in. Pono suddenly dug his heels in and turned to Lei.
“Let’s get the manager out here,” he whispered. Before she had time to respond, he commented loudly.
“Nothing too good for you, baby,” he boomed in pidgin. “I goin’ buy you anyting you like.” He raised his voice after the saleswoman. “You stay showing us these kine because you don’t think we can afford one real painting?”
“Oh, no, I just thought…something modest…” The saleswoman sputtered. “Young couple, starting out—”
“So what you mean is, local people can’t buy art here? This one haole-only kine place?” Pono’s voice had begun to climb.
Lei put her hand on his arm. “Now, baby, no make one scene. I’m sure the lady only meant fo’ be helpful…”
She glanced up. In the corner were surveillance cameras. Pono continued to agitate. She could tell he was enjoying this on one level and venting some long-simmering frustration on another.
“This land was our land, stolen from us; now we can’t afford to even own our home here. You insult me! I like speak to your manager. No, your owner! I like look ’em in the eye, the person who wen’ take my land from me!”
A few minutes more of that and the saleswoman fled through a door at the back. The redhead was already gone. A few minutes later, another woman entered, the blonde following. She was tall, with shimmering black hair that contrasted with a cream-colored pantsuit. Dark blue eyes took in the scene. Weighed them up—and found them wanting.
“Jillian, get these newlyweds some champagne.” Jillian hurried away.
Pono drew himself up to his not-inconsiderable height and breathed through his wide nose, thick arms crossed on his chest. “Your girl, she one racist.”
“My apologies. My saleswoman knows better than to profile our guests; I’ll see to it she’s disciplined.”
Her use of that word struck Lei oddly, and she darted a glance at the woman’s face, an inscrutable, beautiful white oval. She extended a hand, which Lei touched with limp fingertips, intimidated by the gigantic sapphire ring on it.
“Magda Kennedy. I own this gallery. And you are?”
“Lani Hale and this is my husband, Kimo. We’re on our honeymoon.” Lei spit out the first names she could think of. Cool amusement lit the woman’s eyes before she turned back to Pono.
“I understand and appreciate your position, Mr. Hale. I value the support of our local people and again, I hope you won’t take offense. Congratulations on your wedding, and take this champagne with our compliments.” She handed the bottle the saleswoman had brought to Pono.
He looked down at a magnum of Cristal, flummoxed. Police officers weren’t supposed to receive anything over fifty dollars’ value. Lei stepped in, conscious of the video cameras on them.
“We can’t be bought.”
She shoved the champagne back into Magda Kennedy’s arms and herded Pono out into the hot and crowded street. They hurried down the crowded sidewalk to a scrap of lawn in front of the picturesque Missionary House Museum.
Lei turned and lit into him. “What were you thinking? We were supposed to be keeping a low profile!”
Pono lowered the mirrored Oakleys over his eyes and set his chin. “Thought it would be a good idea to see who’s behind the operation there.”
“We are totally on their radar now. They’re never going to forget the local guy with the chip on his shoulder and his idiot bride. Not to mention, if we have to get more formal and question that Kennedy woman, she’s going to be pissed we went in there on false pretenses.”
Pono turned and walked away, giving her his back. He’d had enough, but she hadn’t.
“Also, I think there was something off about her. Like, she wasn’t totally buying the act.”
“She bought it. Enough to give me that bottle of Cristal.”
“Are you kidding? I saw the way she was looking at us—she wouldn’t hesitate to turn us in for taking a bribe if she ever got wind we were police officers, and I still think she made us somehow. C’mon, Pono—you know that went badly.”
She could tell by the red on the back of his neck and the way he pushed his way through the street that she’d had her say. The ride back to the station was long and uncomfortable.
Chapter 9
The Steel Butterfly was tied up in a meeting in her office when Lei and Pono got to the station, requesting an immediate meeting to brief her on the day’s events. They settled into their cubicle to wait.
Neither of them wanted to look at the other as they booted up their computers and scrolled through departmental e-mails. Lei started in on her notes for the Jane Doe case, writing up their two meetings while Pono called his contact at Kahului Station about the missing Simmons groom off the cruise ship.
He hung up the phone and turned to her. “They haven’t picked up anyone of his description off the BOLO or at the airlines.”
“Okay.”
April Morimoto, the dispatch manager, stuck her head into the cubicle. “The cruise ship bride keeps calling. Wants to know what’s happening.”
“We just got in and the day’s almost over! We don’t know anything,” Lei said impatiently. April handed her a stack of pink phone call slips.
“Call her and tell her that yourself, then.” She disappeared.
“Damn. I need coffee for this.” Lei stood up.
“Want me to do it?” Pono reached over and picked up the stack of call slips. Lei sighed with relief at this olive branch.
“Thanks, partner. You know broken hearts just aren’t my thing.” He did know, and he smiled at her as she left. She headed into the break room and poured a cup of coffee for herself and one for Pono, chipping hardened coffee creamer out of the jar of Coffe-mate and stirring it in until the color had lightened a fraction.
As she headed back, the lieutenant’s office door opened and dapper Captain Corpuz of Kahului Station came out. He grinned and reached for one of the mugs. “I could use a little of that.”
Lei laughed. “You’re not that desperate.”
Lieutenant Omura followed him out of her office, spike-heeled slingbacks clipping the floor.
“Get Kaihale. I need to speak to you two.”
The captain winked as he put his dress hat back onto a full head of wavy silver hair. He had an almost jaunty bearing, and she’d never seen him irritable. She saluted, wishing, not for the first time, that he was her commanding officer instead of Omura. Stevens spoke highly of how he ran the much larger downtown station.
Lei fetched Pono and they sat in front of the lieutenant’s desk. Lei wrapped her hands around the hot mug of coffee. It felt stabilizing, holding her in the chair.
“Report.” Omura sat down.
There was a new brass plaque that read “LT. C.J. OMURA” on her pristine desk. Lei wondered what C.J. stood for, not for the first time. The lieutenant opened the drawer of her desk and got out a tube of hand lotion, rubbed it into her hands. It smelled of rich tropical tuberose.
Pono summarized the situation with the cruise ship and the missing groom. He’d contacted Clara Simmons to update her on the nothing they’d discovered and settled her down with soothing male attention.
“Did you check on all the airlines going out since the time of his disappearance?”
“Yes,” Pono said. “But he might have made a run for it under an alias.”
Eyes sharp as a crow’s took in Lei’s frizzing hair and crumpled jacket. “You’ve been quiet, Texeira. Thoughts?”
“I think he made it off the island and it’s going to be a dead end. On the other hand, we’ve had a lot of movement on the Jane Doe.”
She filled the lieutenant in on the interview at Kahului Station, the trip to Wylie Construction, and what the developer disclosed about hiring hookers. That trail had led to a pristine art gallery on Front Street.
&nb
sp; “So we went there to check it out,” Lei finished.
“What happened?” the lieutenant asked after a long moment.
“We were just going to case it, get a sense of who this was, recommending call girls. We’re pretty sure Jane Doe was hooking after that slimeball positively ID’d her from a lineup of girls. Anyway, it’s a classy place. The owner is a sharp woman.”
Lei could feel tension pouring off Pono in waves. She wished she could reassure him that she wasn’t about to throw him under the bus in front of the lieutenant—no matter how he’d screwed up.
The woman in question rubbed the scented lotion into her hands, paying special attention to her cuticles.
“I think I’m going to reassign the cruise ship case to detectives Benito and Franco. I want you two to focus on the cockfighting ring and the Jane Doe. I have a feeling there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
Lei let out her breath in a whoosh. She hadn’t even realized she was holding it.
“Thanks, Lieutenant. I think we may be onto something, but we’re going to need to do more interviews, really dig in.”
“Keep me posted on whatever you find out about this House character. Seems like a tie to organized crime. We have a task force at Kahului Station working on the organized gambling in our area; contact them and liaise that connection, see if anyone else has heard of the House.”
She flicked a hand in dismissal. “Keep me apprised. Oh, and there’s no overtime, so you’re off the clock in a few minutes.”
Lei and Pono went back to the cubicle. Lei finally took a sip of her coffee, now cold.
“Thanks,” Pono said. “I know I screwed up back there in Lahaina. I don’t know where we should go with it from here.”
“It’s okay. We’ll think of something.” Lei powered down her computer. “Let’s ‘liaise’ with Kahului tomorrow, find out who’s in the organized crime unit. I’ll ask Stevens tonight.”
Lei hooked her jacket up and she and Pono exited, peeling off to their respective trucks.
* * *
I’m still in my office, but everyone is gone for the day when I use the burner to call my MPD mole. It’s unbelievable that Texeira and Kaihale found their way to the gallery—someone must be talking.
He says he didn’t know anything, that they must be off the grid on the investigation because they hadn’t even shown up at the station that day to check in. He has to lay low, he says, but he thinks they might have gotten one of the men rounded up at a cockfight to recognize the girl and tell them something.
“Cockfight?” This squeezes my chest with a new band of stress. The cockfights are House’s thing. He isn’t going to be pleased to have our worlds intersect. At all.
“Yeah, they did a raid, brought in a lot of guys. Texeira was showing the photo of the dead girl around. It’s been ruled a homicide.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” I keep my voice controlled. “There is a pretty little girl and her mama who are going to be very disappointed to see the activities Daddy really enjoys when he’s supposedly at training.”
“No need for that. I didn’t realize you wanted daily updates.”
“I told you I was interested in anything to do with that crash. That certainly includes the fact that they’re investigating it as a homicide.”
“I promise I’ll get you anything I can.” He sounds suitably motivated.
“Find out who talked from the cockfight and what they said.”
I hang up the burner and make another call—this one to Healani Chang, our connection on the Big Island. I’ve been wondering if she’s run across Texeira or Kaihale, since they’re from there. Maybe she’ll know something useful or have some leverage on them.
The call is illuminating—turns out there’s bad blood going way back between the Changs and the Texeiras. Healani laughs her smoker’s laugh and says, “I should have taken care of that girl last year. Call House and tell him I know a guy who gets it done. I’ll pay for it myself.”
One more phone call to go. The House isn’t happy to hear from me. He never is.
“What?”
He has a voice like stones rolling around at the bottom of a well. It makes me hot, always has. I like imagining him hanging from my bondage ring, but he isn’t ever going to go willingly. Probably would want me to be the one hanging from handcuffs.
“Giving you a heads-up. I had to take out some trash, and security are on it. They got someone at one of your events to talk. Thought you should know.”
A long silence. The House couldn’t have gotten as big as he is without being cautious. We have a little code going, using “security” for cops and “events” for his cockfights. Not that anyone can trace these phones…but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.
“Healani’s going to pick up the tab on dealing with the security—but only one of them needs to go.” I’ve done my homework. With Texeira out of the way, Kaihale couldn’t detect his way out of a paper bag.
“Keep me posted. Funny how accidents happen.” The House hangs up. God, that man speeds up my blood.
Good luck, Texeira. You’re going to need it.
Chapter 10
Morning filled the back bedroom of the cottage with soft gray light. Lei’s eyes wandered over the plain white ceiling, lath and plaster that muffled the pattering of rain on the tin roof. It was going to be wet out when she went jogging. Lei had gone to bed early, too tired to do much more than eat leftovers and watch TV with Stevens. She rolled over and looked at the back of Stevens’s head, rumpled and dark beside her, his long body still a country of compelling mystery to her. She so seldom could really look at him—they both were people who stayed in constant motion.
Lei put out her hand and touched his hair. The texture of it was springy and alive, the strands a little coarse under her fingers. The feeling of his hair was an antidote to the slippery feel of a drowned girl’s trailing black silk. The tragic case in Hilo where she’d met Stevens two years ago still haunted her.
Stevens turned over onto his back. Dawn slanted through the big old-fashioned window with its louvers below. Pearl gray and soft, it gentled his rugged profile. He breathed evenly. The long ferny shadows of his eyelashes clung to deep caves of shadowed eye sockets, calling to her. She touched them with the tip of her finger.
Lightning fast, he grabbed her hand—the pressure crushing.
She cried out, and he turned toward her, springing awake.
“What are you doing?” He loosened his grip. Her bones seemed to moan as he released them. She rolled away and sat up, rubbing her wrist.
“Remind me never to touch you while you’re sleeping.”
“I’m sorry.” He followed her, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her in, rubbing his face into her side, his rumpled hair silky against her skin. “War reflexes.”
“Two years in Iraq did this to you?” She knew he’d done a tour early on in the war, but he never talked about it. She kept finding things out about him, nuggets he dropped like bread crumbs on the trail of knowing. This was a big one. He scooped her in and pulled her down beside him on her back, propped himself on an elbow to look down at her.
“Between being a cop and a soldier…I’ve been like that ever since. Attack first, ask questions later.”
“Makes me realize it’s a good thing I keep my hands to myself.”
“Not necessarily.” His open hand had begun to wander. Her body woke up, sensation trailing his touch like phosphorescence on the tide. Her nipples tightened, and she shivered under his hand.
“You have really long lashes. It’s not fair.”
“So do you.” He leaned down, kissed her eyelids. Found the ring on its chain at her throat, hooked it up with his index finger.
“I like seeing this on you.”
“It’s a little bulky.”
“It wasn’t designed to wear around your neck.”
She felt self-conscious and closed her eyes. Even in the dim light, she felt like he could see into her s
oul—utterly exposed and at his mercy. That vulnerability hadn’t stopped being both scary and thrilling.
He explored the stretchy elastic of the soft boxers she wore to bed. Her stomach fluttered and twitched beneath his hand in anticipation. He lifted the cotton tank top and leaned over to string a row of kisses along her sternum, tracing the triangle of her ribs above her abdomen. She bit her lips to stop a moan as he slid the shirt higher, circling her small, tight breasts with his fingers and tongue.
When she reached for him, he caught her hands and covered them with kisses, the faint rasp of his tongue awakening a flood of sensation that rippled up her arms and down into her torso and below, as if her fingertips were plugged into a vital current.
He nibbled and kissed the tender skin of her wrists. “I love you,” he might have said before the song of love he played on her body drove all thought from her mind, replacing it with sensation.
Chapter 11
Much later, she rubbed her hair with a towel and reached for her sports bra. He climbed out of the shower behind her.
“Good thing it’s Saturday morning. We’d both be late.”
He encircled her from behind, nibbled on the top of her ear. “It’d be worth it.”
She pushed away with a laugh.
“Insatiable. Thought old guys like you were supposed to be slowing down.”
“Who’s old?”
“Thirties. That’s old.” She pulled on her running clothes. “Wanna go with me for a run?”
“I’m surfing this morning.” Stevens had taken up surfing and, as a beginner, he got pummeled regularly.
“Well, I want to go back out to Pauwela Lighthouse today. See if I can find out anything more showing the photo of the girl around. I have a weird feeling about that place.”
“Doesn’t seem like anyone would know anything more out there. Besides, it’s the weekend and I know you aren’t getting any overtime.”
“Who needs the OT? I just want to get out there while the case is hot.”
She trailed him into the kitchen. He poured them each a cup of coffee from the automatic coffeepot, set the night before.