Primitive Secrets

by Deborah Turrell Atkinson

  When he lowered her a few inches to the sand, she pulled him close and kissed him again. “Hamlin,” she whispered. “We have enough problems already.”

  Chapter 24

  Hamlin grazed her lips with his and pulled back a millimeter. “Let’s clear up one of them. Call me Ian.”

  She kissed him again, relished the warmth of his thigh against one of her legs. “Not yet,” she murmured.

  “You won’t call me Ian?” He leaned on one arm and smiled down on her.

  “No, I mean I need to slow down.” She ran two fingers down his cheekbone.

  “You? The woman who neutered her mugger?” He kissed her lightly on the lips and cocked an eyebrow at her.

  She drew back a couple of inches. “I’m a cautious person.”

  Hamlin chuckled. “Right.” He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

  Storm pushed up on one elbow. She gazed into Hamlin’s face, then rolled over on her back and looked up at the stars. She could feel Hamlin’s warmth next to her. One of his legs lay nearby and she moved hers a fraction to touch it. “Well, I’m trying to change my habit of barging into things. You know, bulldozing ahead before I think.”

  Hamlin laughed out loud, kissed her on the forehead, then dropped down so that they both lay flat on their backs, hands behind their heads. The heavens spread above them like an indigo dome. “I saw a shooting star,” Hamlin said.

  “Did you make a wish?” Storm’s voice was husky.

  He rolled over toward her. “A couple of them.” He took her hand. “One of them is that you get home safely. It’s after one.”

  Storm sat up with a start. “Oh God, I was going to get to the office early.”

  “Me, too. I’ve got to be in court before eight.”

  They strolled back to the Ama in comfortable silence. The bartender’s bulky frame was silhouetted in the tavern’s dim lights as he lowered the hurricane shutters. One by one, they snapped closed like eyelids.

  Hamlin walked Storm to her car, watched her unlock the door, then put an arm on each side of her body. He leaned in close. “Drive carefully.” He brushed her lips with a kiss, then turned away. Storm watched him go back into the shadowy bar, then she bumped the VW out of the potholed parking lot onto the street.

  She was glad no one was around to see her grin, all by herself at one o’clock in the morning. They’d think she was drunk, driving up Diamond Head Road, beaming like a fool and popping her head out the side window so that she could see the stars. The same stars she’d stared at with Hamlin.

  The tickle of Hamlin’s mustache and his warm kiss stayed on her lips. She ran the events of the evening through her mind, and even the sad parts didn’t seem as bad as they had earlier. The scumbag on the street was exactly that, a pile of garbage not worth any more thought. Next time, she’d remember to put her knee in a vulnerable spot, hard. And Martin would get over his surprise. After all, she had. Plus, they were having lunch together tomorrow. She even had hope for Tom Sakai. Maybe she could help with the bone marrow drive or some of the fundraising. Put some signs up at the courthouse, get some publicity going.

  Storm’s cavorting mind halted. Tom Sakai? She had mentioned Tom to Hamlin by accident and Hamlin had taken it right in stride. He’d said Hamasaki wasn’t depressed over Tom, that it was something more personal. Maybe Hamlin was right, but who had told Hamlin about Sakai and his illness?

  Storm’s fingertips chilled on the steering wheel. She pulled into her carport, turned off the car and sat for a moment, thinking. Had she mentioned Sakai to anyone other than Bebe and Aunt Maile? How about Lorraine? And why was Hamlin so knowledgeable on the subject of family secrets?

  Storm heard Fang meowing outside the car. She stepped out of the VW and leaned down to stroke the cat. Lorraine knew about Sakai; in fact, Hamasaki himself had probably told several people in the office, especially if Meredith, Cunningham, and Wang were counsels for Sherwood Overton, the Unimed honcho.

  She’d seen Overton himself hanging around the reception area. Absently, she walked into her house and flicked on the lights. Fang rubbed against her legs, trotted over to check her dish, then went back to Storm, purring like an outboard motor. Shoot, Overton was a fat cat who had probably been in everyone’s office in the firm. Storm collapsed in a chair with relief. That’s how Hamlin knew about Tom Sakai.

  She dragged herself down the hall to brush her teeth. When she peeled off her jeans and tee-shirt, sand fell out of the pockets. Storm looked at the grains on the bathroom floor, shook her hair out of the French braid and listened to more sand skitter across the tile. Hell with it. She’d bathe in the morning and clean up the house after work tomorrow. She wasn’t going to get enough sleep as it was.

  When the radio alarm blasted some DJ’s giddy voice at her, Storm pried open sticky eyelids. The guy should be muzzled, whooping like that at six o’clock in the morning. She pulled a pillow over her head, snuggled down, and tried to recall the remnants of a dream that still teased her. Something about O’Toole and his hypodermic needle again. Of course, O’Toole was a doctor. He probably gave dozens of injections every day. He gave her a flu shot last fall at Hamasaki’s insistence. But Hamlin was in the dream, too. Telling her about Chris. There was something she needed to ask Hamlin about Chris, but she couldn’t drag the thought back. Storm tried to burrow deeper, but sand in the sheets rasped against her arms. With a sigh, she threw back the covers, squinted against the light, and staggered to the shower.

  In the office, Storm pushed aside files so they wouldn’t get grease spots from the pastries she laid out on the blotter. The two chocolate chip scones smelled so good, she could hardly stand it. For some reason, her office smelled like good, rich coffee, too. Well, what do you know…a hot mug, with exactly the right amount of cream in it, sat on her desk. She picked it up and took a sip. Right amount of sugar, too, and still hot.

  She set it down and walked into the hall. The light was on under Hamlin’s door. She had a hand in the air, ready to knock, when he popped out, walking backwards while talking to his secretary. His briefcase was tucked under one arm and a stack of files under the other. “I’ll be back before noon with luck.”

  “How’d you know I’d get here in time to drink it?” Storm asked.

  He grinned. “You’re not so unpredictable, you know.”

  “Huh. I’d better think about that.” She walked through the reception area with him and opened the door to the corridor. Her dream flickered back to her and she waited until they were alone in the hall. “That drug, the one the frat guys gave to girls in their drinks. It’s tasteless?” She spoke in a low voice.

  “Yeah, the ER docs figured it was in Chris’s beer. He never knew.”

  Storm turned around. “Thanks,” she said over her shoulder and walked with purpose back to the office. The elevator door nearly closed on Hamlin, who stared after her.

  Storm closed her office door, sat down and took a big hit of the coffee Hamlin had made her. It was in his mug, the Wild Bill Hickok one. Storm would have taken time to appreciate Wild Bill’s raffishness, but this morning she needed the stimulating properties of the caffeine on her brain cells. She dropped to her knees and pulled Hamasaki’s cup in its plastic bag out from under the stack of dusty files. She was still stuck with the question of why Uncle Miles would drink coffee. That was a question that needed to be faced, but right now the idea of sedatives was bugging her.

  Storm punched Detective Fujita’s number into her phone. It was seven-thirty, but she could leave a message for him to call her back. She put her feet up on her desk and leaned back in her chair.

  “Fujita.” He barked into the phone as if he’d spent the night at his desk. Maybe he had.

  “Hello, this is Storm Kayama. I know you’re busy, but I wondered if you could tell me a good laboratory for analyzing substances.”

  “What’re you up to, Ms. Kayama?”

  Storm told him
about the cup and how Hamasaki never drank coffee.

  There was a second of silence on the line. “There was coffee in that cup he was holding.”

  “I know. Was there any left in the cup when you found it?” Storm asked.

  “Maybe a few drops and a couple of dribbles down the outside. Some had spilled on his desk blotter.”

  Storm put her feet on the floor and leaned forward on her elbows. “This coffee business is bothering me. I’ll pay for the analysis, of course.”

  Storm could hear a huff of air being pushed from his nostrils. “Try Chem-Tox. It’s a subdivision of one of the big pharmaceutical companies.” He gave her a phone number. “And Ms. Kayama, call me back, okay?”

  “If you call me Storm. Thanks for your help.” She hung up just as someone knocked on her office door. She shoved Hamasaki’s mug between her knees under the desk.

  “Yes?”

  The new receptionist poked her head in. “Martin Hamasaki called, but he wouldn’t hold. Said he can’t meet you for lunch today.” She closed the door again.

  “Dammit.” Storm took a gulp of coffee, and narrowed her eyes at the wall opposite her. She snapped the phone up, and rang the Hamasaki house. Her aunt answered.

  “Aunt Bitsy, is Martin there?” Storm gritted her teeth at her own rudeness. “Uh, how’re you doing today?”

  Aunt Bitsy remained unruffled. “I’m all right, dear. How are you?” She paused while Storm mumbled a few platitudes, then went on. “You just missed Martin. He ran out of here about five minutes ago.” She sounded like she’d been caught in the vapor trail of his escape.

  “Oh. Did he take your car? Do you need a ride anywhere?”

  “Thanks, honey, a friend of his picked him up. Michelle is picking me up for lunch. Then we’re going to the temple to start shoingo for Miles. Would you like to come?”

  “Thanks, Aunt Bitsy, but I’d better stay in the office and catch up. Is Martin meeting you?”

  “No, he even canceled lunch with David. He didn’t say when he’d be back.”

  Storm hung up and sat back with a deep sigh. The bagged mug started to slip from between her knees. She grabbed it, set it on her desk, and stared at it. Martin had never run away from her, even during their few sibling fights. In fact, she was the one who would go lock her bedroom door and leave Martin banging away outside, swearing at her for burying her anger. Maybe she could track him down through Chris DeLario, but she’d have to wait for Hamlin to get back for that. The sculptor didn’t have a listed phone number.

  She finished the last swallow of Hamlin’s coffee, which was lukewarm, grimaced, and stared at the bottom of the mug. Written in rambling script on the inside was, “Hedge your bets and keep your back to the wall. Congrats, Chris.”

  Wasn’t Hickok shot in the back during a poker game? Must be a private joke. She’d have to ask Hamlin. Clever buddies, those two.

  She set the mug down and thought about the Hamasaki family. Jumbled thoughts without any conclusions fizzled through her mind. Loads of questions, no answers, and Martin avoiding contact. She was going to have to stay calm, collected, and exercise patience. A tough order.

  Storm puffed out her cheeks and blew out the breath she’d been holding. At least she could call Chem-Tox and get one question off her mind.

  One of the analysts answered the phone himself, to Storm’s delight. He sounded enthusiastic about her questions and looked forward to seeing her around noon. He’d wait before he went to lunch. Storm put the receiver back and felt the muscles between her shoulder blades unclench a centimeter or two. Martin’s broken lunch date at least gave her time to check the mug.

  Storm jotted the Chem-Tox address in her date book. She had the same kind of date book that Hamasaki had used, the one she’d found in his briefcase. The one where he’d written “S.O.” at six-thirty on the night he died. Another loose end she needed to follow.

  Right now, she had to forget about coffee-stained mugs and get to work on the file Wo and Wang had given her. It was another thread that led to Unimed. Storm scrutinized the front of the document. Dozens of yellow Post-it squares, covered with Wang’s cramped handwriting, poked from between the pages. The guy must own stock in 3M.

  She leafed through the file. Nothing electrifying. Unimed was petitioning the state for a “Certificate of Need,” a requirement in the state of Hawai’i for any multimillion dollar medical expenditure. The health maintenance organization wanted to purchase a magnetic resonance imaging scanner, one of the big diagnostic tools that medical centers clamored to have.

  Storm could find information on state policy at the law library. She vaguely recalled that the state of Hawai’i had set limits on the numbers of certain expensive machines to be purchased within the state, with the idea that hospitals could share them. Maybe the bureaucrats believed that frivolous use of the insurance-guzzling diagnostics would be reduced, or maybe they felt the millions could be better spent in other areas. Storm wasn’t sure.

  She knew that having certain equipment gave a medical center an aura of progressiveness, which in this day and age attracted patients. When medical centers competed for contracts with the state and other large employment groups, they vied for millions. Storm flipped to the last page. Both Wang and Wo’s names were on the contract. They needed her to do some footwork with the state, call the people in control, use Hamasaki’s name to grease the wheels so that the agreement slid through without any hitches.

  Storm went through the papers carefully, writing her own notes on a legal sheet. Sure enough, there were some holes that she knew that the Department of Health would want filled. The people in the DOH were number-crunchers, MBAs, CPAs. She needed to know a few more details before she took the contract over to them. It was a great reason to see Sherwood Overton and ask him if he’d met with Hamasaki one evening about this or a related topic.

  A knock at her door caused Storm to raise her head. “Come in.”

  Meredith Wo opened the door. She looked a little more alert than she had yesterday, though her makeup wasn’t covering the gray smudges under her eyes.

  “Have you had a chance to read over the Unimed file, yet?” Wo asked. “Overton wants to get it to the DOH by Wednesday.”

  Wo’s eyes traveled from the file on Storm’s desk to the bagged mug next to it. “Isn’t that one of Hamasaki’s mugs?” She peered over the desk at it. “What’re you doing with it, having it bronzed?”

  Storm shrugged with what she hoped looked like nonchalance. Damn, she’d forgotten that she’d left it on the desk. “I’m giving it back to the Hamasakis,” she lied. “And I’m working on your file right now.”

  Wo sniffed and pointed at the paperwork on Storm’s desk. Either Wo didn’t give a damn about the mug or she was an excellent actor. But then, most trial attorneys were.

  “How soon can you get the DOH to clear this contract?” Wo asked.

  “I need more information, like what other purchase requests has Unimed submitted?”

  “For crying out loud, Unimed just opened its Hawai’i hospital a little over two years ago. They’ve had all kinds of interaction with the Department of Health. In fact, we got a Certificate of Need for a renal dialysis unit just last February. The state’s probably got all of it on file.”

  Storm cocked an eyebrow at Wo. “How fast do you want this?” She tapped her front teeth with her pen. “They’ll take at least a month to look it up.”

  “Okay, what do you need?” Wo thrust out her hand. Storm handed her the notes she’d taken. Wo looked down the list. “I’ll get back to you,” she said and turned to leave.

  “If you want, I can drop by Overton’s office and pick the data up after lunch,” Storm called after her.

  Wo squinted back at her. “I’ve got to be in court all afternoon. Let me ask Edwin and get back to you.” Her stockings swished out of the office and Storm picked up the next file on her desk.

  A f
ew minutes later, her office line buzzed. “Wang’s busy, too,” Wo said. “Can you get to Overton’s office around one? Go to the tenth floor, Bishop Wing.”

  “No problem,” Storm answered. “If I get what I need, I can take it over to the DOH tomorrow.”

  “Great, let me know.” Wo hung up.

  Storm dragged the next file in front of her and turned her attention to a lawsuit against a local supermarket chain. Some fifty-year-old bus driver, already on disability leave from the city for back pain, wanted to sue the chain for ten million because he swallowed part of a crab shell. He claimed he had an allergic reaction. Why was a guy on food stamps eating crab?

  It was Hamlin’s case. Storm called the state office that handled worker’s compensation claims and found out that the guy’s disability income ended in three months. She couldn’t wait to tell Hamlin whom their tax dollars were supporting. Let the freeloader find another lawyer.

  Fifteen minutes later, after dropping Wang’s files on his desk, Storm was on the H-1 freeway. Hamasaki’s mug sat on the seat beside her, safely wrapped in a brown paper bag from the same supermarket Hamlin’s client was trying to sue.

  Chapter 25

  Paul Andrews was a Ph.D. in chemistry who asked Storm to call him Paul. By his conversation with an employee whom he sent to lunch, Storm figured he either owned the company or was chief manager. Andrews had to be nearly seven feet tall with arms hard as ironwood and skin the color of bittersweet chocolate. Storm figured he weighed at least two-fifty, none of it fat.

  He put on a pair of reading glasses and sat down with smooth, athletic grace on a stool so that he was at eye level with Storm, who, standing, was five-eight. This guy made her feel petite.

  With unconcealed enthusiasm, he unwrapped the mug. “Now tell me what we’re looking for. It helps me decide which chromatography separation to use.” He peered inside. “I gather you want qual rather than quant?”

  “What?” Storm blinked.

  He grinned at her. “Sorry. I meant qualitative versus quantitative analysis.”