Dead On Arrival (A Malia Fern Mystery)

by Kym Roberts

  “Thank you, Kionni,” I mumbled.

  “What? I’m sorry I didn’t hear you.” I knew he had; he just wanted to make sure I knew that he knew he had saved my butt once more.

  “I said THANK YOU.”

  “Anytime, sis. By the way, under the seat is the charging cord. It will only go for two to three hours before it needs charged again. You’ve got a full charge now. A hoi hou.”

  “A hoi hou aku.” Goodbye and good riddance is what I wanted to say.

  My brother pulled out of the gate as Pai was coming in. I saw Kionni nod in Pai’s direction and take a second look at the incredibly hot man driving toward me. He blatantly spied in his rear view mirror and I waved him on, not wanting my little brother to see my interaction with Pai. Or for him to hear Pai call me Baby Doll. Word would get back to my parents, and within moments, they’d be calling a wedding planner.

  As far as I was concerned, my family and friends would find out about my wedding after it happened, and not before.

  Once Kionni was gone, I straddled the scooter and started it up. Pai pulled up next to me and gave me that lopsided grin of his.

  “Baby Doll, can I see the melons that go with that orange?”“I used to think you were funny, Pai.” I said in utter amazement over his telepathic gift.

  He laughed at my attempt to be mad, which was impossible, and I grinned back at him. One day, I might look back and think the vision of me on this mini-monster was funny. Like when I was a hundred years old.

  “My orchard princess. Baby Doll, I will dream of all the delectable fruits you can offer me.”

  “Good night, Pai, get some sleep.”

  “A hoi hou, Ki`i pēpē.”

  I winked at his Hawaiian version of Baby Doll, unsure which one I liked best. I headed down the drive on my new orange burst of power, feeling as stupid as I looked.

  Normally when I drive, I have a tendency to people watch. I’ve always loved checking out the tourists and their goofy outfits. Now, I looked like one of them. I drove straight to my apartment with blinders on.

  As I pulled into the lot, I saw my brother John waiting for me, a blank expression on his face. At first, I didn’t think he recognized me. Then I figured he must have pity for my plight that kept him from laughing. I took the helmet off, waiting for a burst of laughter or a choked back gurgle, but his face remained blank. If he wasn’t going to bring it up, neither was I.

  “Knock, knock.”

  “What?” What the hell was he talking about?

  “Knock, knock,” he repeated as the light bulb went on in my head.

  “Very funny, Johnny baby.” I thought Windy’s nickname might distract him, but was disappointed when he continued with his poor attempt at humor.

  “Knock, knock,” he repeated with the deadpan expression of a hardened cop. I glared but gave in since he wasn’t going to stop until I played along.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Banana.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Banana who?”

  “Knock, knock.”

  “Enough already, John.” He continued to look at me, his eyebrows raised, waiting for me to respond. “Alright! Who’s there?”

  “Banana.”

  “Banana who?” I walked toward my apartment, forcing him to follow me if he wanted to continue his juvenile antics.

  “Knock, knock.”

  I reached for the key above the door and unlocked it before asking, “Who’s there?”

  “Orange.”

  “Orange who?” Finally, he reached the punchline I knew was coming.

  “Orange you glad you aren’t a banana? A banana helmet would drive all the monkeys crazy.” He laughed at his poor attempt at being a comedian.

  “That’s pathetic. You need some sleep if you think that’s funny.”

  John plopped down on my sofa bed as if he owned the place, and missed my snarl. I went to the fridge, poured the two of us a glass of iced tea, and then plopped down on the couch next to him. I guess I owed him a little kindness after getting him out of bed for nothing last night. Especially since he looked like he hadn’t been home yet.

  “What’s with the board?” John nodded toward my dry erase board.

  Crap, I forgot about that. “Nothing.” I took a drink of tea.

  “Malia, this isn’t a game. It’s time to let me do my job, and you go back to your surfing lessons.”

  I bit my lip. He was tired. And he was definitely NOT telling me I was just a dumb surfer.

  John’s humor ran out right after mine. “Where’s Mr. Lincoln?”

  “Uh…who?” I asked a little taken back.

  “Alapai Lincoln. I’ve been to his office, I’ve called his cell and office number. I even called Lani’s after Dad told me they knew each other. He doesn’t seem to have a home address except for on the Big Island, and I have no idea where he’s at.”

  “Oh, well, why would you think I knew where he was?”

  “Because, this morning, you left the scene of a wild goose chase with the man who was supposed to bring you home.” His voice tightened with displeasure.

  Evading his question, I asked my own. “Why are you looking for Pai? You’ve acted like this case was an accident from the beginning, so what’s the point of taking his statement?”

  “Because Peter Johnson was murdered. Someone bashed in his skull and then dumped him in the ocean. The toxicology report came back clean and the ME ruled he was dead before he hit the water.”

  “But what about his partner, Daven Raines? He was there, too.” I insisted.

  John’s brow lowered. He wasn’t pleased I knew as much as I did about his case. Too bad. I stared back at him. He shouldn’t have asked me to get involved.

  He closed his eyes. I’m pretty sure he was seeking the support of a Tiki god. When he opened them he gave me more information than I thought possible. “Daven Raines had a date the night Mr. Johnson disappeared. She picked him up at the Garden of the Gods and left Mr. Lincoln with the victim.”

  “That’s impossible.” I argued. “Have you talked to her? Did she identify Pai?”

  John nodded, forgetting all the competition between us. “I took her statement this morning.”

  Unease spread through my gut. I wasn’t ready to believe what John was trying to tell me. “But—”

  “Windy identified him, Malia.”

  “Windy?” I jumped off my couch, walked the distance of the room to the door, and turned around to face off with my brother. If we were any closer I might strangle him. “Windy! You believe that skank?”

  John stood up and closed the distance between us, his face washed with sympathy. “I’m sorry. I know you like this guy, but I have two witnesses who have given statements to the fact that Alapai Lincoln was the last person to see Peter Johnson alive.”

  He put a tender hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off and opened my door.

  “Where can I find him, Mal?” John asked.

  I thought of Pai lying in bed, sound asleep, and I did the unspeakable. “I have no idea,” I lied.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I left Pai about twenty messages before I went to work. The guy must sleep like the dead, but I knew I couldn’t go back to Lani’s to warn him. Especially when I saw John’s car sitting down the street from my apartment. So I went to work and watched my brother drive past the parking lot when we arrived. I wanted to flip him off, but he’s ohana and he was just trying to do his job.

  It was a perfect day for surfing — if you were a five year old, or a haole who’d never seen the ocean until yesterday — the swells were about twenty-four inches. The fronds of tall palms swayed in the breeze, and I spotted a lone Hawaiian monk seal playing along the lava rocks on the sandbar. At seventy-five degrees, the skies were clear with a few puffy white clouds, and Poipu Beach wasn’t, for a change, jammed to the brim with tourists.

  Just surf instructors training to be sharks by stealing my customers. I literally watched two students saunter off with the compe
tition as I walked up to the metal shed with the sun-bleached sign, Aaron’s Surf Zone painted on the front. The move was classic – offer the same price, throw in a free t-shirt, and my big fish was hooked. Grumbling I unlocked the shed and pulled out several old boards and stacked them against the wall.

  When I was seventeen, we were ‘the’ company to go to. Today our owner, Rob Aaron, didn’t care that we were being destroyed by fancy tents with loudspeakers and rockin’ boards. Not to mention good-looking instructors who didn’t mind being island fantasies. Rob didn’t care; he was living the dream in a tent on the beach. He also swore he had a big deal in the works to get us a new stand at a great spot. (Did I tell you Rob’s head was in the clouds?)

  Most of our instructors had moved on to greener pastures, like the stand selling “I Survived the Big Waves at Poipu Beach” t-shirts. In return for my loyalty to my first job ever, I was stuck teaching with Rob. We worked together mostly, though his brother had come in from Oahu to help out for the last six weeks, and taught on our days off. I’d never met him, but Dave and Rob were twins, so it wasn’t like I was missing anything.

  This was the price of monogamy — a partner in his fifties going on thirty, a beer gut with a distorted lizard crawling across it and long stringy hair — on his back. His head was shaved bald. I’d hinted (more like told him flat out) that he should let his hair grow out and shave his back.

  He thought I was funny.

  It was the only serious conversation we ever had. (I tried to sneak it in every week.)

  “I don’t need lame land instructions, I dominate mountains. Let’s hit the waves, Hot Cheeks.” Our star pupil interrupted Rob’s instruction about the importance of a properly performed belly flop.

  This was the part of the job I hated. The ‘professionals’ who knew everything about nothing. Before I could put the know-it-all-snow-boarder from Utah in his place, Rob piped in.

  “No problem, brah. Malia will take you out.”

  I looked at Rob. He winked.

  I smiled. He hadn’t let me teach a real lesson in years. I almost felt sorry for the tanned-face dude with the ghostly white body.

  “Yeah, Malia,” he fist bumped his buddy, “I’m ready for some private lessons.”

  Nope. I felt no remorse whatsoever. I let my eyes travel the length of him. He had fairly large feet for a guy under six feet, which could help or hinder him, depending on his balance. His droopy board shorts had seen better days, but at least they covered his pasty knees. His chest must have been waxed a month ago, as stubble covered every inch. The ewww factor was off the charts with this dude; his chest somehow managed to glow through the stubble as well. He had extra full lips that might be acceptable on a woman, but on a guy it was just plain creepy. His eyes were lost behind aviator sunglasses and shaggy blond hair.

  “You should leave you sunglasses here,” I advised.

  “Nah, I never go without them.”

  I shrugged. He would in five minutes. “Grab your board and carry it on top of your head.” I showed him how to balance the board.

  “That’s for girls.” He put his board under his arm.

  I shrugged again, and headed for the beach.

  “Hey! Watch it, buddy.”

  Obviously, my pro didn’t carry his own snow skis either. I didn’t look back; I knew what happened. Mr. Pro had smacked someone with his board. I smiled. This was going to be the highlight of my day.

  Two hours later, my shift was over. Normally, I hated to see it end, but today I counted my blessings. Mr. Pro smartass snowboarder ended up dry-heaving salt water on the beach without his sunglasses, (we did manage to find them — broken), while his buddy managed to hook up with a cute college chick on spring break during the ‘lame land instructions.’ Both of them got up several times, riding their waves into the beach to follow them up with flirtatious high fives. Mr. Pro wiped the coral reef with his shoulder and had large raw bloody patch to prove it. (He also didn’t get the phone number he’d been vying for.) Belly flops are so important, but you learn all about those while you listen to the instructor, on land.

  A forty-ish woman came out to scratch something off her bucket list, and turned out to be one hell of a surfer. (Remember, we were on baby waves.) A family of five tried it and had a great time laughing, falling, and catching maybe half their waves. They enjoyed the whole experience — together. That’s what it’s all about.

  I tried Pai’s number again, but got voicemail. Frustrated, I stomped my way down the path to the Mauna Koa Resort, a high end hotel at the western edge of Poipu, covering 7,000 acres. The hotel had rented Rob a spot on their land since the late eighties. The luxury resort had two hundred units spanning across the property, four pools and a two-acre lazy river, and three restaurants. Not to mention numerous bars that I’ve visited a few times. With Rob’s rental space, we were allowed to change in the restrooms off the luxurious open air lobby. We were also allowed to pitch our classes twice a week to their clientele, who lounged and chatted in the plush seating area. Lately, however, I got the impression that Rob’s relationship with the hotel was sliding downhill, he’d canceled three of our last six sales pitch sessions — and they were our major source of customers.

  I changed into Lani’s borrowed clothes and hit the road with my backpack and orange helmet. Even the tourist staring at me on the mini-monster didn’t faze me as I rode past Spouting Horn, remembering the times my brother had threatened to throw me into Puhi’s dangerous lava tube. The rock formation brought in droves of tourists, who loved watching the water spray fifty feet in the air. For the locals, it was wrapped in tales of danger and human triumph over a giant lizard threatening anyone who dared swim or fish in the area. (And brotherly threats to scare the crap out of their younger siblings.)

  What did bother me was the marked patrol unit that followed me from the lot at Mauna Koa through the old town streets of Koloa, right up until the very moment I turned toward my apartment. Then it continued on toward KaPa’a and I pulled into my spot, not knowing how I was going to get to Pai without leading my brother straight to him.

  The surprise waiting for me in the parking lot brought back all the confused emotions I’d been able to forget about for a few short hours. Despite knowing he was a player of the worst kind, my heart fluttered when I saw Makaio standing with his back to me at my front door. His short, cropped hair displayed an attractive head. I know, right? How can the back of a man’s head be attractive? (I work for a bald, middle-aged man. Heads can be sexy — or not.) Makaio’s shoulders bunched with muscle under his grey t-shirt and stood the breadth of my doorway. His back V’d into a tight waist with a rounded ass my hands were dying to latch onto.

  He heard my approach, turned and grinned. Not the full-blown smile his cousin would have given me; rather, the sexy, smart smirk I’d already come to adore. I waved and parked the scooter in my spot while he took the steps down two at a time to stand next to me as I dismounted. When I turned around, he was in my space, making it hard to breathe. Or think.

  His eyes traveled from my chest, draped in a green halter with pink lace that hugged my curves and gaped in all the right places, to my wrinkled capris. Then he took my helmet off for me and my hair fell to my shoulders.

  “Do you have any melons to go with that orange?”

  The dumb look on my face along with the slight amount of drool dried up instantaneously. I glared at him, lips pursed, hand on hip. I was pretty sure he’d mistake the twinkle in my eyes and the increased rise and fall of my chest for anger. I didn’t need him to know it was from his proximity.

  “I could kill Kionni,” I confessed.

  He frowned. “Who’s Kionni?”

  “My brother. He gave me this stupid scooter and this ridiculous helmet. Then he proceeded to tell me all the guys would ask that same, stupid question. And so far, you’re the second man to ask. Why did you ask me that stupid question?”

  “You have a green top with pink lace that clings rather nicely to your
…your body.”

  I looked down at my chest from a new perspective.

  “You had another piece of fruit on your head.” Makaio held up the orange helmet.

  I needed to change. Driving around like an orange was one thing, combining it with a watermelon top was just asking for trouble, or stupid comments.

  “So tell me, who’s the other guy asking about your melons?”

  I rolled my eyes and walked around him toward my apartment. I was not going to get in the middle of Makaio and Pai anymore than I already was.

  “I brought your stuff from your car, but before you get your hopes up, you need to know Pearl’s truck leaked oil all over everything.”

  I stopped and looked at the bag he held out for my inspection. My anger returned hotter than ever. I was pretty sure he could see smoke coming out of my ears. It had to go somewhere. If it stayed inside, my head would have already exploded. I clenched my teeth and snatched the bag out of his hand.

  I should have thanked him. My mind, however, was preoccupied with hate for my car’s murderer.

  “That bitch is going to pay for this,” I ground out and stomped up the stairs.

  Makaio’s phone rang behind me.

  “Natua,” he answered.

  I looked back and found him staring at my ass.

  “Yeah, what do you need, John?”

  I listened with unabashed interest to his conversation with my brother, anger dripping off me in chunks.

  “The cause of death was blunt force trauma?” He listened to my brother for a moment, his eyes still admiring my backside even though I’d turned halfway around. “Okay, so why are you calling me?” Makaio’s eyes left my body and traveled across the parking lot to the back entrance of the ice cream shop across the street.

  Part of me hated losing all that attention, the practical part understood that cause of death and sexual heat didn’t mix. But still…

  Makaio’s teeth clenched together. “Pai.”

  Oh, crap. I bit my lip and waited for the hammer to fall. His gaze turned back to me, accusingly.