by Chris Bauer
“Toggle. Listen to me. There’s a reason why it’s illegal to sell your organs. Telling you it would be a risk would be an understatement. And how many too-good-to-be-true offers like this ever make any sense to you? Don’t do it. These are unlicensed procedures, performed sometimes at locations no better than Third World MASH units.”
“How do you know all this? You’ve seen them?”
She could not be totally truthful, otherwise he’d ignore the message and instead key on the messenger. “I know crime scene cleaners, even worked with them. I’ve cleaned up some nasty, nasty messes that needed remediation. Hacks posing as transplant specialists for black-market organs on the mainland. Big money, and most times no issues, but too many times… I refer you to my first statement: I know crime scene cleaners.”
“Okay, I hear you. We’re here.” Helmet, goggles, and gloves found their way into bins on the cabin’s back porch. They went inside, the café there with a menu geared to decompress adrenaline-fueled customers.
Kaipo eyed the offerings on a blackboard. “Sit with me a moment. I’m buying.”
Two sarsaparilla bottles and bags of red-hot potato chips littered the table between them. Kaipo hadn’t heard from him what she wanted to hear. “So? What do you think? Promise me you won’t tempt fate?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. Like I said, my cash flow—”
“One last time, Toggle: it’s too risky, which is the reason for the high payoff. Promise me you won’t go near these people. Please.”
Another sip of soda for him; he was still on the fence. She had to go for the throat.
“Think of your parents. They’ve already lost your brother to one tragedy. Think of them, if you won’t think about yourself.”
Soda swirled in his mouth, his eyes down, unfocused; he slipped into a slouch in his chair. Kaipo figured he was visiting a place in his head that had something to do with his dead brother.
“Unfair, Kaipo. Okay. Fine. I promise.”
Kaipo exhaled. “Super. Excellent. I’ll call you later in the week just to see how you’re doing. You’re a good-looking Hawaiian guy. Maybe look for some modeling work, or do some temp office work…”
He smiled, embarrassed at the compliment, then perked up, suddenly aware of his sexuality, also suddenly more aware of Kaipo’s, too. “I’ve had offers as a gigolo. I’m serious. Maybe, um, see, maybe you and I, we could, um—”
“I’m flattered, really I am, but no.” She grabbed his hand, opened it, tucked a hundred bucks inside. “Your tip, Toggle. My advice, stay away from the cougars and the bored mainlanders. No porn films, either. Too many diseases. I gotta go. Thanks for a great morning.”
Her list was in her head. The people who had relocated, the families who had stayed. Fewer and fewer had remained on the island over the years, from what Kaipo recalled. The helicopter pilot, the research doctor, the street performer, all had lived off-island, now all were gone, in gruesome, sensational fashion. But the three hours she spent today with another relocated Miakamiian had been worth it. Time to drop back in at Vena’s for a bio break, then she would get back at it.
The Uber idled in Vena’s driveway. She took a long look up and down the street before exiting. No lingering BMWs with shady drivers. Kaipo got out, the Uber left. She entered the open garage and knocked on the interior door. No answer. She tried the doorknob; unlocked. She poked her head inside the mudroom.
“Vena?” she called. “Get your lazy ass out of bed, you queen, it’s one o’clock. Vena…?”
The over-under washer-dryer unit was tilted, leaning on two legs, a laundry sink propping it up at an awkward angle. This lit up her senses; there’d been a struggle in here. Kaipo reached behind her back, under her blouse, slipped her handgun from its holster and listened, heard the fridge motor kick in, nothing else. A two-handed pose with the gun led her into the next room.
The kitchen. Drip coffee maker was off, the carafe half full, the way Kaipo had left it. One bowl in the sink, a spoon in it, the aftermath of Kaipo’s breakfast Cheerios. No indication Vena had made an appearance.
“Vena? Vena honey?”
Slow steps forward, Kaipo now almost out of the kitchen, except—
The backsplash. One cracked tile, ruining the bold orange look of the southwestern kitchen. Not cracked, it had a hole. Next to it, two holes in the drywall. If she dug inside all three holes, she knew she’d find bullets. Her eyes darted everywhere, her pulse quickening.
Fight or flight? The urges for both cartwheeled around her head. She had a reason to run, also had a larger reason in the person of her friend to stay. On instinct she eased forward, kept walking on quiet, steady feet, into the living room, resisting calling Vena’s name again.
The deadbolt for the front door was engaged but the door chain hung loose. Had she been chased, with not enough time to open the door? The coffee table was pushed against the sofa, making a wider path. Blood droplets peppered the light-colored rug, continued onto the hardwood floor, into the hallway. No bullet holes visible anywhere in the living room, nothing obvious in the dining room either. Kaipo moved down the hall, past the empty bathroom, the door open. A cursory look inside, nothing of interest, the shower curtain pulled back from the tub. She reached Vena’s bedroom. The door lay flat on the bedroom floor, the doorjamb around it splintered.
Where Vena had made her stand. Kaipo swallowed hard, stood evaluating the damage from the doorway. “Oh my, Vena. Sweetie. Please, please, please don’t be in here…”
Her raised gun preceded her into the bedroom.
Pockmarks speckled the resting door’s off-white panels, one, two… a total of five bullet entries and exits in the top half of the door, fired from inside the bedroom. She turned back to check the other side of the hallway, where the bullets would have entered the wall if they hadn’t hit anything, found holes in the drywall. She counted only three.
Kaipo shuddered, but her heart also leaped with pride; she wanted to pull her friend in close to her right now, to hug her. The blood drips she’d seen in the kitchen and the living room—still viscous, maybe only an hour old—Kaipo was sure they were from bullets four and five, was sure they had found their way into Vena’s assailant.
“Good for you, Vena,” she said, a whimper. “So proud of you, baby…”
Inside the bedroom now, she treaded lightly. The dresser drawers were upended, flung into the corners. A crack in the wardrobe door. A shattered mirror, table lamps in pieces alongside their nightstands. An overturned mattress. A circular divot in the drywall, probably from the snow globe tossed with bad intentions, now on the carpeted floor. Kaipo’s Christmas gift to her from the tropics-averse, wintry eastern coast of the mainland.
Two more bullet holes in the ceiling, directly above the bedframe. That brought the bullet count to ten, the Glock clip’s official capacity. Vena had emptied her gun. “That’s my girl…”
She slid a pillow out of the way with her foot to see the floor on the other side of the bed. Here was the Glock; Kaipo retrieved it. Still no Vena.
The master bathroom: the door creaked open when she entered. No signs of a struggle, the shower curtain closed, covering a tub/shower combo. The bathroom sink was discolored, hair dye trails left to dry. Vena had been coloring her hair when the attack went down.
Something chirped. Vena’s cell phone, on the clothes hamper. A text had queued up. Kaipo read it.
It was from Kaipo. She’d sent it two hours ago, had only just arrived.
On my way back.
This did it. The text was what finally made Kaipo cry, a short burst of tears. She backed out of the bathroom, Vena’s phone in her pocket.
She retraced her steps, came up empty searching the rest of the house. Vena had put up one helluva fight. Kaipo quickly realized she had to leave, like, right now, would need to do it by leaving behind no trace of herself. Not a problem for her to leave undiscovered, considering her after-hours work for Ka Hui, except… she had no supplies. Nothing other
than whatever cleaning solutions Vena kept on hand.
She made do. Toilet cleanser, kitchen cleaning sprays, plastic gloves from an open hair dye package when she couldn’t find any others. Fingerprints removed, glasses, bowls, utensils washed, DNA neutralized, hopefully. No attempt at remediating the bedroom crime scene; that was the assailant’s problem. Kaipo gathered up her cleaning materials into a plastic bag that would leave with her.
Vena, gone. Why? Where to? Taken by whom?
The horrible thought, the one that nagged her as soon as she saw the first blood specks and bullet holes, was back: it was more likely that Kaipo was their target, not Vena.
She booked an Uber, stood inside Vena’s garage wondering how the neighbors hadn’t heard anything. Fucking suburbia.
Her own phone was a burner. She’d crush and lose it as soon as her Uber driver dropped her off, replace it with another. Vena’s phone, in her pocket… she’d keep that one, look for any leads, lose it later today.
Wait. Vena’s phone, Kaipo’s delayed text to her… it had been a distraction. Had she missed something when inspecting the bathroom? Had she checked inside the tub…?
Back in Vena’s master bath again. She pulled back the tub’s shower curtain.
“No. My dear baby… Oh no. Vena—”
Tucked into the tub, her face and neck streaked from black hair dye, her torso splayed open bad as from a wild animal attack—her blood had pooled at the bottom of the tub, frozen there beneath the ice chunks surrounding it. Dry, not regular ice. So savage an evisceration… was it payback for harboring Kaipo? Had she been tortured? Why not wait for Kaipo to return?
She had to get out.
The Uber arrived and she climbed into the back seat with her backpack, her guns and phones tucked inside, plus a trash bag that included everything she used to clean up after herself. The car door closed. She reconfirmed with the driver a destination, held herself together until she no longer could.
The wave of guilt and remorse finally breached the levee, her eyes streaming tears from behind her sunglasses. She let them fall, unrestrained and with abandon, maintaining as best as she could a stoic appearance as her tears wet her fidgeting hands. Vena’s house faded in the rear view.
“You okay, miss?” the driver said, focused on her in the mirror.
“Turn at this next corner, please. Stop the car and wait while I make a quick call.”
Kaipo opened the door, stood outside for privacy, and made an anonymous 9-1-1 call to report finding Vena’s body. Back inside the car—
“Let’s go. A different address than what I gave you, please. It’s not as far.”
She wanted a drink, she wanted drugs, she needed to numb her conscience into the next millennium.
15
At Home with the Waumami Family. It would make a wonderful weekly radio program, Ella had often told Ben. She pulled apart more lobster meat, fed herself from the comfort of her canvas lounge chair. She and Ben were on the beach, a campfire between them. They’d scattered their rock lobster shells within tossing distance, which was also within picking-up distance, because that’s what they would be doing after they finished their dinner. Always leave your environment cleaner than it was before you entered it. Another Logan family saying, and a good one. It kept Miakamii the paradise that it was.
“Just like that Prairie Home Companion on the radio, my love. I miss that program so much. Horseback riding, farming, picket fences, porches, bicycles. Our bees. The island’s livestock. Our shell jewelry. Our church services.”
“Indeed,” Ben said. “People could learn how little they need to enjoy their lives.”
They had radio feeds from the mainland, had an old Philco tabletop, a Cathedral model, with a battery backing up its solar-generated power; a few stations at least. They’d listened to Garrison Keillor religiously while he was still on the air. The Philco was good enough for their parents for entertainment, and their grandparents, so it was good enough for Ella and Ben.
The sun to their backs, low in the sky, reflected off the glistening swells of the Pacific rising and falling between their island and Kauai. A different reflection caught Ella’s eye.
“Some late-day company,” she said. The glint of binoculars from one location, a boat. Something they were accustomed to because of the scrutiny the island received. “More voyeurs, Ben.”
“Interested in watching us eat our dinner. They’re harmless. I saw them motor up then stall their engine.”
Always under a microscope. Something the past and present Prohibited Island residents had to live with; decades and decades of busybodies. Distant envy at their little paradise.
Time to give these gawkers a little show, Ella thought. Let them see the Miakamii savages doing what savages do.
She removed her hunting knife from its hand-sewn leather sheath, all ten inches of shiny steel, and began picking her teeth with it. Ben used his own hunting knife to remove the meat from another spiny lobster shell. These were their standard responses to behavior that was so rude and presumptuous. After their displays, Ella retrieved her binoculars to give their observers a taste of what it felt like to be watched.
“Benign tourists, Ben honey,” she said, lowering her spyglasses.
“Yes. But something has changed.”
Ben reached for and found his wife’s hand and gave it a loving squeeze, the two of them enjoying the last rays of sunlight slipping below the tree line behind them, illuminating the ocean, a sparkling, tropical postcard view.
“Ella dear, I must give you my regrets. It’s been a wonderful dinner. I want to check on a few traps, maybe stop into the church before we retire. Would you mind—”
“I’ll clean up and put out the fire, sweetie. I’m going to relax here a little longer.”
Ella awakened with a minor start, the sea in front of her dark now below the stars, the lights of Kauai on the horizon. She’d drifted off to the rolling waves and a pleasant breeze, the tide on the rise but not a challenge to where they’d placed their chairs for their evening dinner. The noise of an airplane engine had jerked her awake, was gaining strength. Not a jet, but rather a piston-driven propeller aircraft. Ella concentrated on the sound.
“A Staggerwing,” she said to herself, satisfied at having identified it by the engine noise. A Beechcraft product, a biplane revered for its beauty and performance and place in Americana, the model dating from the thirties and forties. She’d familiarized herself with many aircraft sounds after repeated visits to Hawaiian island hangars over the years. “How nostalgic,” she said before settling back into the white noise of her dreamland’s soundtrack.
The noisy engine sounds morphed. Ella’s eyes opened again, were slits, her foggy brain analyzing brassy bursts of gunfire somewhere in her dream, layering them into hazy memories of childhood days at school and in church, and in the fields on the island. Oddly enough, they fit into all of it, much like the other white noise of the crashing waves, and the seagulls, and the foghorns, and the tinkling of an ammunition belt feeding an airplane gun, interrupting the baseline purr of the plane’s engine.
Ella didn’t try to wake up, this soundtrack lifelike, soothing, making her smile even in her dream. She’d cuddle with Ben soon, pull him into her after a few more minutes of peaceful sleep here, on the beach, in their paradise.
16
Police Chief Terry Koo sent Philo a text. Mister Trout. I know this is highly irregular…
It was nine p.m.-ish, and he and Patrick were beat, had each retired to their rooms at their cottage. Philo also suffered from the incredibly spicy Mexican food from their lunch at Da Crack. Chief Koo’s text said to meet them at a crime scene that was “right up your alley,” and gave them the address. The irregular part:
Scene’s not cleared yet. You know your shit, Trout, so get over here now, please. Ask for me at the door.
Ten p.m. Philo and Patrick arrived at Pakala Village, a neighborhood on Kauai’s southwestern shore. They negotiated its tidy, quiet street
s, no house number needed, the police activity visible from half a block away. The front door to the address was open. A uniformed cop guarding the entry stepped up to stop them before Philo even had a chance to open his mouth.
“Sorry, sir, but it’s not going to happen. Please leave the premises.” Tall, gaunt, Caucasian, the officer and her bug eyes keyed on Philo and his cup of contraband Dunkin’ in hand, no badge, no other proper law enforcement ID to give him rightful entry.
“Philo Trout and Patrick Stakes. I’ll leave the cup outside. Chief Koo said to meet him here—”
“At an active crime scene? I don’t think so, sir. Turn around and leave, please.”
“But—”
“Get going, poser,” she said, puffing up her upper torso, her nitrile-gloved hand now resting atop her sidearm.
Philo held back and chose not to argue regardless of how over the top her hard-ass attitude sounded. “Fine. Sure. Patrick, we need to back up, bud. Officer, please tell Chief Koo that Philo Trout and Patrick Stakes stopped by per his request—”
“Trout!” The shout came from inside, carried across the crowd of crime discovery personnel milling around the house’s living room. “I’m in the hallway,” Chief Koo called, then, to the officer, “Give them some supplies and let them through, Officer.”
Wide-eyed from the caffeine, Philo navigated his way through the knots of gloved detectives and techs wandering the interior, Patrick right up his ass so the sea of people didn’t need to part twice, the two of them gloved and masked, their footwear covered in elasticized pull-ons. Philo managed glances into the kitchen and the hall bath on the way past. They arrived at the bedroom. Chief Koo wiggled his upturned hand, had them enter.
“Some blood here, some in the kitchen,” the chief said. “We’re thinking none of it is from the victim, at least not in here, but we’ll know later. Looks like it was one hell of a struggle, Trout.”