Ukulele Deadly

by Leslie Langtry

  "Oh…well…Dr. Chang should get these results in a couple of days," the nurse says warily before shooing us away.

  "Mom!" I hiss as we get into the car. "Don't say stuff like that!"

  "Oh, calm down, Nani. It's no big deal. Besides, I can't wait until the mah jong crowd hears that you found a dead man at the resort!"

  "You can't tell them. Seriously—you can't say anything about this to anyone."

  If the mah jong crowd thought she was crazy before…they'll kick her out now for sure.

  "It's an investigation…" I bluff. "You can't discuss an ongoing investigation."

  I'm not one hundred percent on that, but it sounds like it could be true.

  Ten minutes later, we are sitting in the police station waiting area. It's then that I realize that there shouldn't be any reason why Detective Ray would want to talk to Mom. She wasn't there. Maybe he wants to back up my alibi—that I went to the Loco Moco to pick up dinner? Should I coach her before we go in? Is that allowed?

  "Hey!" Nick comes toward us from the direction of Ray's office.

  "You're here? Did you talk to the detective? I thought you were coming later?" I ask.

  "I have a lot going on at work this afternoon," he explains, brushing my cheek with a quick kiss.

  "Well? How did it go?" Is it okay to ask? I need to brush up on police procedure.

  "Miss and Mrs. Johnson?"

  I look up to see Detective Ray. How long has he been standing there?

  "I'm ready for you now," he says with a long-suffering sigh.

  Mom and I stand, but the detective holds out his hand to stop us.

  "One at a time. I'll start with Mrs. Johnson."

  "We can't do this together?" I ask, hoping my question doesn't sound too obvious.

  He shakes his head. "I'd prefer to interview you separately."

  I stare at the man as if he's lost his mind. Suddenly I realize he's a lot smarter than I've ever given him credit for.

  "I don't think that's a good idea," I start to say, wondering exactly how I'm going to finish this sentence without looking like a suspect.

  "You don't have a say in this." Detective Ray frowns. He turns to my mother. "This way, please."

  I watch as they walk down the hall to his office, praying silently that the detective remembers that my mom is…well…a bit odd. Too bad they don't have medic alert bracelets that say, This woman is possibly insane. Do not believe anything she says. But it's probably too much to hope for.

  "She'll be fine," Nick says, but his eyes are also following the two as they enter the office and shut the door behind them.

  "Really? I'm not so sure."

  I sit down, rubbing my face with my hands. This could be bad.

  Nick joins me, draping his arm over my shoulders. "It'll be okay."

  I search his eyes. "What did you two talk about?"

  "He just asked for a timeline of the details, to make sure that I was coming over for dinner. I told him I arrived at your house and you told me what happened and that we often order out when I come over."

  "I still don't know why you wanted to be here."

  Nick changes the subject. "Did you tell Hallie what happened?"

  I grumble and cross my arms over my chest. "Yes. She took it well."

  Nick studies me for a moment. He really has the nicest eyes. I just wish I knew what was going on in that room.

  "It's going to be fine. I'm sure." Nick nods.

  And I can see he really believes that. I just wish I did.

  "She doesn't know of an Edward Hopper either."

  Nick's thinking. He's not smiling. That doesn't seem good somehow.

  "I'm sure it'll be okay," he says finally.

  The door opens down the hall, and Mom walks toward me with a huge smile on her face. Is Detective Ray smiling? I can't tell. I hope he is. Maybe Mom charmed him. Or maybe he's smiling because she told him she has the body parts that go with the disembodied heads out in the backyard, and he's got his number one suspect now.

  They stop in front of me as I get to my feet. Mom giggles.

  "You simply must come over for dinner one night, Ray! We can talk about our mutual ancestry." She slaps him playfully on the arm, ignoring that the man is wearing a wedding ring.

  "You're next, Miss Johnson," the man says as he ignores my mother.

  Mom doesn't seem to notice that he didn't respond. Is that her strategy? Flirt with the detective? It's a terrible idea.

  I follow him to the office, trying to come up with a way to find out what Mom said before I tell my side of things. It's hopeless—I know he won't give that up. I'll just have to wing it.

  Ray closes the door behind me and motions for me to sit. An empty chair—the only empty surface in the room—is across the desk from him. The room is a complete mess. A tiny path from the desk to the door has been carved out of stacks of files that reach almost three feet in height. The desk itself looks like a yellow and white confetti canon exploded. The only sense of order is a cup full of pens, but even that's chaotic with the writing utensils sticking out all over like a porcupine's quills.

  "Now, Miss Johnson," Ray says as he settles himself on his chair. It creaks beneath his weight.

  "Please," I say, "call me Nani."

  I'm not flirting. I just think it's kind of odd he wants us to call him Detective Ray, even though he doesn't use our first names. It's too formal for this place. Everything in Hawaii is so laid back. Relaxed. An aloha shirt is the equivalent of a suit jacket, and sandals replace oxfords.

  It's also intimidating. Especially when you're a convenient suspect in a murder investigation. He narrows his eyes at this request, and for a moment I panic, worried that he thinks I'm flirting as well. Maybe he thinks my mom and I are just a family of Jezebels. Great.

  "I'll be writing this down as your official statement on the events of the other night," he says finally, pulling a pen from the cup. There are no notepads in view, and I wonder if he's going to use the only blank thing on the desk—a napkin from the Loco Moco Café.

  Ray pulls open a drawer and drops a beat-up legal pad on top of all the other papers on the desk. It looks as though it's been soaked in coffee and backed over by a police cruiser about fifty times.

  "Start at the beginning, please. And don't leave anything out." His pen is poised dramatically in midair as he looks at me expectantly. It's like a cartoon caricature of a walrus in an aloha shirt with opposable thumbs.

  "I came out of the Loco Moco and found the dying man in the parking lot. He tried to tell me something before he died. I've never seen him before."

  "What do you do at the resort?" Ray asks, which is an odd thing for him to ask because I've seen and said hello to him four times in the last month when he's been at the luaus. He's even seen me perform.

  "I'm a musician. I play at the luaus."

  "And who can I talk to about confirming your whereabouts at the Loco Moco Café?" he asks, leaning back in his chair.

  "The waitress that night. She'd remember me," I answer

  Ray nods. "And what time did you arrive home?"

  I have to think about this. I don't usually check the time when I'm at home. "I'm not sure. I was pretty rattled by what I'd seen."

  Ray nods. He probably got at least this much from Mom. "Your mother claims you had a break-in last night. Why didn't you call it in?"

  I squirm in my chair. "I don't think we had a break-in. She just left the door open."

  Ray taps his forehead with the pen. I briefly wonder if that's what he has to do to get his brain going.

  Ray shakes his head. "Your mother told me…" He squints at a loose page on his desk and picks it up. "You 'roofied' her before doing 'God knows what.'" The detective smiles at me as if I had just confessed.

  My jaw drops open. "She said what?"

  He looks down at the piece of paper and actually repeats the statement. We stare at each other for a moment before I realize I'm supposed to reply to this.

  "You
're joking, right?"

  Ray tilts his head to one side like a sedated Pug. "I don't joke, Miss Johnson."

  "Why would she say something like that? And why would I roofie my own mother?"

  The detective tosses the piece of paper onto the desk. I guess that's where all his notes end up. "She said you roofie her all the time so you can be alone with Mr. Woodfield. She said you always put it into her drink, and she wakes up a few hours later on the lanai or in the living room, wondering what had happened."

  "I've never drugged Mom! She passes out because she drinks too much!"

  A terrible thought pops into my head. Has Mom been telling anyone else that? Covering up her blackouts with the accusation that her daughter is doping her drinks? Has she told everyone at the community center that ridiculous story? Has she told Nick's mom, Vera?

  "She said," the man continues, as if I hadn't said anything, "that you made this one even more potent. She could taste the chemicals this morning and insisted you drive her to the clinic for a blood draw for proof."

  I…can't…I…don't…what the…how?

  "First of all." I tick off on my fingers. "I have never drugged my mother. If I was so worried about her, she'd be in a nursing home. Secondly, I insisted on the trip to MediLab for the bloodwork because I was worried someone else had drugged her. You can ask her physician, Dr. Chang! I called this morning to ask him to order it!"

  My heart is really pounding, and my head starts to throb. What's going on here? Is Ray lying just to get me to trip up? Is he pitting Mom and me against each other? Is that his strategy? I had to admit, that would be a lot better than the idea that everyone in Aloha Lagoon thinks I'm knocking Mom out every night just to be alone with Nick.

  But if she did say it…wow…I don't know what I'll do, but she'll wish she'd been roofied.

  "Did you," Ray asks, completely unfazed, "drug your mother the other night so you could carry out the murder of Ed Hopper and arrive home unnoticed?"

  I shake my head. "No! I told you! I've never met the man before, and I certainly didn't kill him!"

  Ray writes something down.

  "And if she's out cold because I allegedly roofied her," I continue, "how does she know I was out?"

  "So you admit that you might have drugged your mother!" Ray points at me in an aha moment.

  "What? No! That's not what I meant!"

  I take a deep I won't kill my mother breath. And then I take another.

  "Look, it happened exactly as I told you."

  Ray frowns. "Maybe your mother was in on it with you…"

  Argh! Now I've implicated Mom. "That doesn't mean we did it!"

  "Did what?" he asks innocently.

  "Killed that guy!" I'm screaming now. So much for the calming breath.

  "But you don't know for sure." Detective Ray sits back in his chair, a slight smile on his lips.

  In just a few minutes, I went from roofie-ing my mom and killing Ed Hopper to accusing Mom of murder. Do I need a lawyer? I probably just need someone to tase me every time I open my mouth.

  "I think that's all for now, Miss Johnson." Detective Ray stands and motions to the door.

  I remain seated. "Wait, I have to explain…" I remember my conversation with my cousin Andy and the information that Ed Hopper is a police officer back home, who is missing his driver's license.

  "No need. You can see yourself out."

  "But…" Why won't he listen to me?

  "You may go now."

  Fine. If he's not going to listen, he's going to have to wait for this bit of intel. I'll have to have Ed Hopper in Kansas call Detective Ray on his own. I want no more part of this.

  I leave the office and walk slowly down the hall, wondering what in the hell just happened. As I approach the lobby, my heart beats faster because Mom has vanished. I know Nick had to go back to work, but I'd hoped he'd at least babysit Mom till I got back. I turn to the receptionist.

  "The man and woman I was with…where did they go?"

  The receptionist doesn't even look up from her computer. "They left." She says it in a way that implies I shouldn't ask again.

  I head outside. But they aren't there. And neither is my car. I tear through my purse. The keys are missing. Are you kidding me? Mom implied that I killed Hopper, and then she stole my car?

  I dial my cell, and Nick answers immediately.

  "Hey, did you walk out with Mom?" I ask before he can speak.

  "No. She was sitting in the waiting area when I left. Why?"

  "She's gone, and my car is missing."

  "Do you want me to come over and help you find her?"

  He really is an amazing boyfriend.

  "No…don't leave work. I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding."

  Nick hangs up after making sure that I'm sure I don't need him. I don't want him involved. Because when I do find my mother…I'm going to kill her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I start calling everyone I know who might have seen Mom but come up empty. No one knows where she is. She isn't at any of her usual haunts. Finally, I start walking. Aloha Lagoon isn't very big. You can walk across it in twenty minutes. Which is exactly what I do.

  The worst part is hiking up the hill in front of my house. I use the time to figure out whether I'm going to scream at Mom or take all of her mannequins out to the yard for a burning. Part of me wants to make sure she knows that she's implicated me as a prime suspect. The other part just wants to start calling nursing homes in the area and see which ones have same-day pickup.

  "Mom!" I call out as I slam the door behind me. Mom may have taken my car keys, but I always kept a spare house key hidden in my purse. Why? Because she does this all the time. I need to do a better job with my car keys.

  "Mom!" I shout as I walk through our little cottage.

  It takes me a few seconds to find her sound asleep in her bed. She's snoring. I slump like a surly teenager and close her bedroom door. There's no point in waking her. She'll be too foggy to argue anyway.

  I'm thinking about pouring myself a healthy glass of wine, when my cell rings.

  "Dr. Chang," I answer. "Did you get the results already?"

  "Do you have a moment this afternoon?" Uh-oh. No pleasantries. He cuts right to the chase. That's unusual for him.

  "Um, yeah. What time?"

  "How about three o'clock? There's something we need to talk about."

  My stomach drops to my ankles and starts to twist painfully. "Ok. I'll see you then."

  What's that about? I put the wine away and pour an iced tea instead. That's when the doorbell rings. What now?

  "Coming!" I shout as I walk to the door.

  I pull it open and find myself face to face with my cousin Andy and a man I'd never seen before.

  "Hey, Cuz!" Andy throws his arms around me as I just stand there like a statue that's being mugged.

  "Andy? What are you doing here?" I ask a little breathlessly. It was a sturdy Midwestern hug.

  My cousin is about the same age and height as me. He's very fit, probably from tossing sacks of mail around, and has dark red hair. His skin is fair with a peppering of freckles. You can't help but smile when you see him. I haven't seen him in almost two years.

  He turns to the man with him. "This is Officer Ed Hopper. He wanted to come here to find out what's going on, and I have a lot of vacation time and am worried about you and Aunt Hattie, so I thought we'd visit."

  With all that's happened in the last five hours, I can only respond by gaping like a trout that's been denied water.

  My cousin and his friend exchange glances. "Is everything alright, Nani? I know I should've called, but when we found out we could fly right away…" Andy looks concerned. Which is nice, and I know he means it.

  I regain my senses and wave the men in. "Come in! I'm so sorry! Where are my manners? You must forgive me."

  Andy and Ed Hopper step into the foyer and stop cold as they come face to face with a dozen severed heads. Andy looks at me curiously. This might
be a good time to ask if we have any history of insanity in the family.

  I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks as, for the second time in twenty-four hours, I attempt to explain the mannequin heads in my entryway.

  "Mom has a new hobby. Don't worry about it. Let me give you a tour of the house."

  The tour doesn't take long. Our cottage is pretty small. Just two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, kitchen, and dining room. It's a lot smaller than Andy's used to. Our farmhouse in Kansas was a huge Victorian with two stories and a wraparound porch. We end the tour with a pitcher of iced tea on the lanai.

  "This is a great set up!" Andy says enthusiastically. "I love it. Maybe I'll retire here too."

  I'm wondering where I'm going to put these two. I could give up my room and sleep on the couch. But both men won't want to share a bed, I'm sure. Maybe I could send Mom over to Vera's. The idea of plopping her into a nursing home seems better now. One with the highest security on the planet.

  "We're staying at the resort." Andy reads my mind. "We didn't want to put you out any."

  I breathe a sigh of relief (although I did like the idea of the nursing home). "You'll love it there. I'm playing the luau tomorrow. You'll get to see me perform."

  "Your garden is great," Ed manages. "I've never seen flowers like these before."

  I stand up. "Come on. I'll show you around."

  The tour started with the garden and ended with a brand-new gazebo I'd had put in. We never used it, but I hoped some day we would. I'd paid for it with my first check from the resort.

  Andy and I stand back about ten feet as Hopper circles the pavilion, examining what seems to be every blade of grass and every knot in the wood.

  "Seems like Felix has a thorough police force," I murmur to Andy.

  "He's really new. Just a week or so. And he is the police force. The whole police force. In fact, he had to call the county sheriff to send us a replacement while we're here."

  "I can't remember Felix ever having more than one policeman." And they're always called Captain. That's weird, isn't it? Who's he captain over?

  "I'm sorry we just sprung ourselves on you," Andy says after a moment. "That's not what we meant to do. Ed and I were just confused about the whole thing, and hey, neither of us had been to Hawaii, so…"