by Toby Neal
“Maybe she just needed to drop the Kennedy name around and that was enough.”
“Yeah. But not all Kennedys are ‘the’ Kennedys. It’s actually a pretty common name.”
Bunuelos disappeared and Lei went on digging. It seemed like only a few minutes had passed when Omura rapped on the door frame.
“Got anything for me?”
“Nothing tying her to prostitution,” Lei said regretfully. “What’s more interesting is that she seems to have so little history prior to moving to Maui.”
“When was that?”
“In 2000. That’s when she started Pacific Treasures Gallery and really hit the map.”
“Well, that’s about when everything started to be available online. Prior to that, most things were written records, so I’m not surprised. Anything on the lawyer?”
“Yeah. He’s one of Maui’s priciest defense lawyers. Belongs to the golf club, the country club, all the right memberships in Rotary and such. Works the Hawaiian angle by doing some work for Kamehameha Schools. Guy’s well connected and has probably been working his cell phone the whole time we left them in there,” Lei said.
“Damn cell phones,” Omura muttered. She narrowed her eyes. “Okay. Probably going to have to let her go anyway, I haven’t been able to get the DA to sign her warrant.”
“Too bad,” Lei said. “I was really hoping to see how that white outfit held up in the drunk tank.”
“Me too.” Omura cracked a smile, spun on her considerable heel. “Oh well. I’ll get her next time.” She clacked down the hall. Lei hurried after her, carrying her notes, and ducked into the peanut gallery. She grabbed a seat next to Captain Corpuz, who barely glanced up, intent on the drama taking place inside.
Omura was once again at the table, and she tapped the white business card. The click of her shiny nail echoed through the speaker on the counter into the observation area.
“Let’s start again. Who gave you this card?”
Magda had chewed off some of her red lipstick, but her mouth was set in a stubborn line and arctic-blue eyes hadn’t warmed in two hours. She glared at Omura, refusing to answer.
“Lieutenant Omura. Yes, I know who you are.” Chapman stood up, sucking in his paunch and thrusting out his beard. “I have the mayor on the phone, and he’d like to know what possible grounds you could have to hold us in this hot box without even the courtesy of a restroom.” He held out a squawking cell phone to the lieutenant.
Omura reached out with one of those nails and punched the Off button.
“Need the restroom? Torufu will take you. We aren’t Neanderthals here.”
Abe Torufu lumbered to his feet and cocked his head at the door invitingly.
“I don’t need the restroom,” Kennedy said. “You’re harassing me. We’ll be pressing a civil suit.”
“We are within procedural rights,” Omura said, as the lawyer’s phone chimed. He read the ID, answered the phone, and then held it out to Omura.
“This is the district attorney. You might hang up on the mayor, but this one makes your cases. I think you want to take this call.”
She took the phone and left the room. Everyone in the peanut gallery sighed as Chapman leaned down to his client, patting her shoulder and whispering in her ear.
Captain Corpuz said, “I think the show’s over,” just as Bunuelos returned to the interview room with Torufu and a handcuff key. Bunuelos uncuffed Magda Kennedy.
“You’re free to go.”
“Where’s that bitch lieutenant?” Kennedy said, lips barely moving and face bone white as she stood up, rubbing her wrists.
“She had other business. Said to pass on her apologies for the inconvenience,” Bunuelos said with a straight face, holding out the cell phone to Chapman. The gallery owner’s teeth bared in rage as she tossed back her shimmery hair and cocked her arm. The lawyer caught it, pulled her in and held her against his side.
“Your department will be hearing from our firm regarding this outrage,” he said, marching Kennedy through the door and down the hall.
“Conference room,” Captain Corpuz said. “Find Lieutenant Omura.”
Lei and the other detectives spread out. Lei went straight to the women’s room, where she guessed Omura was holed up, hiding from the rest of the team and hoping Kennedy would need to make a potty stop.
Sure enough, a pair of pointy toes were visible from under the stall.
“She took off,” Lei said. “She waited to pee somewhere else.”
“Dammit!” Omura slammed the door open and put her hands on her hips. “I was hoping for one last word.”
Lei almost liked her at that moment.
“Captain wants a confab in the conference room.”
Omura stalked off. Lei followed, feeling like a remora following a tiger shark.
Chapter 24
The conference room was hot, its AC on the same circuit as the interview room, and Torufu, Bunuelos, Pono, Stevens, and Captain Corpuz appeared in various stages of overheated. Omura was immaculate as usual—the woman hardly had a pulse. Lei sipped a bottled water, feeling itchy in the ill-fitting muumuu and wig.
Captain Corpuz opened the discussion.
“We need something more to tie this whole thing together. So far we have a dead Jane Doe prostitute, a runaway Thai girl, a business card with a procurement service number on it, and someone so pissed off they’re trying to kill Texeira and Stevens. Or at least Texeira. This is a random collection of maybes, not a case. Omura? Opinion?”
“That Kennedy woman is involved,” Omura said. “We have to keep digging. We’ll find something on her. Her past is sketchy.”
“So maybe we find she left a sketchy past behind. So have a lot of people who end up in Hawaii; that doesn’t make her a madam or a murderer. Besides, she’s connected. We aren’t going to get anywhere without some hard evidence.”
“So what about getting the coast guard involved? Make a few calls through our FBI connection and get them searching those ships for sex slaves, money, and drugs. Or, hell, maybe even prizefighting cocks.” Stevens plucked Pono’s overlarge aloha shirt away from his body. “I want to bust not just Magda Kennedy, but the House. Who else has brass ones enough to torch a house where two detectives live? And what’s happening with our injured hit man?”
“Still out, unfortunately. I have a uniform outside the door,” the captain said. “Oh, and the tox screens on Jane Doe came back—she was four times the legal alcohol limit.”
“No big surprise there. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make that scene look like suicide. I agree with Stevens’s idea about the coast guard,” Omura said. “Captain, we don’t have any authority on those ships, and I think we have a viable tip that there’s something illegal going on.”
The captain inclined his head in agreement, and Omura turned to Lei. “Call your FBI friend.”
Omura was showing qualities Lei respected. Decisiveness. Skill. Persistence. Just because she was tiny, perfect, and wore fancy shoes didn’t mean she wasn’t a good cop. Lei hurried into the chilly computer lab, closing the door to make the call on her cell phone.
“Marcella? We need your help.” She described the team’s conclusion and the fruitless interview with Magda Kennedy.
“I know the commander of Maui Coast Guard Station,” Marcella said. “I was hoping you guys would give us enough to move on.”
“Well, we still don’t have anything totally solid. The captain is requesting assistance based on some reliable info.” Lei crossed her fingers at the idea that Silva was reliable, but the man had implicated the House, and so had Anchara, if indirectly.
“I’ll call and see if they can search everything currently in harbor.”
“How about getting a schematic map of the ships and looking for false compartments or mislabeled rooms?”
“Yeah, the coast guard know all those tricks. I’ll give them a call. Commander will probably call back and look for a formal request from the captain.”
“I can get that,” Lei said. Her fingers were still crossed. She hurried back to the conference room, where the team meeting was breaking up, everyone with assignments.
Lei reported to the captain, who agreed to fax over a request for sweeps looking for weapons, drugs, money, and human cargo on all ships docking anywhere on Maui—and a general alert to all Hawaii ports.
Omura ran an eyeball over Lei. “You can’t be seen in public, and I don’t just mean that outfit.”
“I don’t have any clothes.” Lei suddenly remembered the ring, left in the kitchen drawer. That, and everything else she owned, burned to ash. Her eyes filled and she sat abruptly. “I don’t have anything to wear.”
Omura blanched, either at the prospect of losing all her clothes or of Lei crying.
“I think we better get you back to the safe house. Someone can pick some things up for you. You’ve put in enough of a day.”
“Guess it’s catching up with me.” Lei blinked hard, still surprised by Omura’s kindness. The tears receded. “My headache’s back. Stevens and Pono able to shake anything loose?”
“Yes. Sounds like they’ve got some confirmation on Silva’s story about the House. No apparent connection between House and the Kennedy woman, though. That must be through the smuggling and human trafficking.”
“That’s good.” Lei yawned, her jaw cracking. It really was all catching up with her. Omura stood up. “I’ll have Larson drive you to the safe house and keep an eye out. He’s not directly involved with the investigation, but he’s offered to help.”
“Okay.” Lei trailed Omura out and met Detective Jed Larson in the bull pen area. Larson, beefy with a receding hairline, had a forgettable but kind face that helped in law enforcement.
“Sorry to hear about your bad luck,” he said as he led her to the unmarked Bronco he drove.
“Nothing lucky about it.” Lei’s eyes darted around the parking lot, looking for threats, but she felt suitably invisible in her disguise. “I hope we get some breaks on this case soon.”
“Yeah, I heard. I offered to help if your lieutenant or the captain wants any more manpower. We gotta look after our own.”
He turned the key of the Bronco, and the roar of the engine drowned out his voice as she glanced at him.
“Seems like someone’s got a hit out on us. We have an idea who, but nothing to pull it all together,” Lei said, leaning back in the bucket seat and indulging in another jaw-cracking yawn.
“Who are you thinking?”
“Organized crime on Oahu, guy they call the House.”
He whistled. “He’s deep. Good luck getting anything on him.”
“I’d be happy with just getting a good night’s sleep, at this point.”
Lei shut her eyes and leaned back in the seat. In no time they were pulling up to the steep driveway bisected by the six-foot chain-link fence that surrounded the modest ranch “safe” house. Keiki ran back and forth in front of the gate, making sure they knew she was on the job.
Lei got out. “I can take it from here.”
“I’ve got to keep an eye on you until the uniform gets here. Let’s go through the house, do a quick security check.”
Lei opened her mouth to object, to say that Keiki would have kept out any intruders, but someone setting the fire at their house had been able to get past the guard dog, so she shut it again and punched in the code for the gate.
Larson followed her up onto the porch as she unlocked the front door. She took her Glock out of the canvas shopping bag from Tiare, and they did a quick room-by-room check of the house.
“All clear,” Larson said, holstering his weapon.
“Thanks.” Lei put the Glock back into the canvas bag and set it on the gimp-legged Formica kitchen table—the house was furnished with police department castoffs. “This has to pass for both my purse and shoulder rig right now. Pretty sad.”
“Fires are tough.” There was an odd note in Larson’s voice. “I’ll be outside until the patrol unit gets here.”
“Okay. Appreciate it.”
“Least I can do.”
She locked the front door behind him and leaned against it with a sigh. Keiki bumped her thigh with her head.
“Yeah, girl. We need a snack and a nap, don’t we?” She went to the fridge. It was kept stocked with a variety of soft drinks, water, and the basics.
“How about some eggs?”
She scrambled some up, fed herself and the dog, and then went to the back bedroom and fell onto the cheerless gray spread on the bed. She was asleep in minutes.
Chapter 25
Lei woke to the feel of something wet on her ear.
“Keiki!” She lashed out and Stevens yelped, rolling away. “Sorry. I thought you were the dog.”
“So much for the romantic stealth approach.” Stevens wore only a towel. “I guess it’s not any better to sneak up on cops than on ex-soldiers.”
“Come over here. Let me make it up to you.”
“I do need something to distract me from that muumuu—like getting you out of it.”
“Not a problem.” She shucked it off. She’d thrown the wig over the back of the retired office chair squatting in the corner of the room. “I have to admit, it’s comfortable.”
Stevens snorted as he dropped the towel and crawled across the bed, growling playfully. He stopped at the sight of her bruises. They hadn’t improved much in the days since the hit-and-run—just picked up a few more colors.
“Are you okay?” He traced the dinner-plate-sized purple mark on her hip. “These are scary-looking.”
“Kiss them and make them better.”
And so he did.
Later, Lei got out of the shower and reached for her old kimono robe, realizing it was gone, ash. She’d had that robe since high school. She wondered, wrapping up in a towel, when the multitude of little losses would stop hurting. She tucked in the ends of the towel and went into the kitchen, where Stevens was contemplating the bare refrigerator.
“How about eggs for dinner?”
“Already did them.”
“Toast, then. And there are some cans of chili over on the shelf.”
“Sounds like my cooking night.Speaking of, how’d it go with you and Pono today? Flush out any new leads?” Lei leaned on the counter as Stevens applied the can opener to the chili can.
“Nothing new. It was a lot of rattling the same bushes. We did locate the Simmons bridegroom, though.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. He tried to get on a plane out of Oahu, and the new facial recognition scanner at the airport picked him up, even under another name. So he’s busted…But it’s hard to make a charge stick—that property was jointly owned and they were legally married. DA’s going for fraud.”
“Poor lady. How’s she taking it?” Lei gave a little shiver, remembering the cry of mortal pain the woman had uttered when she heard the bank account was empty. Lei never wanted to feel that kind of pain. Ever.
“Not well. Son from her first marriage came to take her home. Nice outfit, by the way.” He tweaked the corner of towel sticking out under her arm.
“Why, thank you, kind sir. Terry cloth is back in among the homeless.”
“It’s missing something.” He tapped the dip at the base of her throat. “My grandmother’s ring.”
“I know. I’m just sick about it. I’d taken it off to take a shower.” It was bad enough that she’d taken it off at all—a little lie couldn’t hurt. Her stomach clenched with guilt.
“Bull. You weren’t wearing it when I saw you at the station after you went to Pauwela Lighthouse with the agents and you guys lost the girl.”
“I didn’t lose the girl. You saying we did something wrong?”
“Don’t try to distract me. You took the ring off, all right—probably when you saw Marcella, because you didn’t want to hear shit from her when she saw it. Were you ashamed of wearing it?”
“Is this an argument we’re having?” “Where in the house did you le
ave my grandmother’s ring? Where should I look for it when the rubble’s fucking cooled off?” Stevens’s voice had risen, his face flushed.
“The rubble’s cool, drama king. Do you want to go now and look for your precious ring? It’s in the kitchen drawer—not that the kitchen exists anymore.”
“In the kitchen. That doesn’t sound like you were taking a shower.”
“I don’t see that it much matters. I took it off, and now it’s burned. Along with everything else.” Lei tightened the towel. Her palm actually itched with the loss of her little black stone—so much less valuable than a diamond ring, but much more valuable to her. All she had left of a precious friend, dead on the Big Island. The ring could be that meaningful to him. “I’m not hungry. I think I’ll go to bed now.”
“It’s six thirty p.m.”
“So what? We already did all there is to do in this fucking house.”
She stomped down the hall, but bare feet on the tatty carpet didn’t do much for sound effects. That called for a good door slam, which she did, and felt a bit better. And when she got into the hard bed with its cheap pilly sheets, she finally cried—cried for her lost four-hundred-thread-count sheets on the comfortable king-sized bed she’d hauled to three islands, her old kimono, her little black stone, and most of all for losing the antique ring she hadn’t really wanted to wear.
“Lei.” He got in bed with her, hauled her stiff body into his arms, smoothed her ruffled, shorn head. “I’m sorry. I was an ass. It’s not your fault.”
“It is. It is. It always is. There’s something wrong with me. You have to get out while you still can.” Damaged goods. That’s what she was. D.G. for short, and unlucky as the day was long. Kwon had made her that way, and she owed him for it. Payback was coming soon.
“No. Not that old shit. Come on. This kind of thing is part of the job. It could happen to anyone.”
“But it doesn’t. It happens to me, and to you because you’re with me.”
“Then I’ll take it. The salt with the sweet, because you’re Sweets.”