by Susan Harper
He laughed. “Who told you that?” he asked. “Not me. Well, not anymore. That was five years ago. She beamed me in the head with a picket sign. I filed for a restraining order, but frankly, that has been put behind us. Makani has been helping us with getting information on some local drug operations. I finally convinced her that picketing was not the only solution to local problems.”
“You had her doing undercover work?” Kendell asked.
“Nothing of the sort,” he said. “I would not send a civilian for something like that. She already knew some local dealers, and she had been sending me information.”
“We think the drug supplier that Makani was going to out to you might have gotten her,” Kendell said.
“Well, that would certainly make a lot of sense, but our local officers arrested the supplier that Makani gave us over a week before her death,” the mayor said. “He already is sitting in a local jail cell waiting for his prison sentence.”
“So, Makani already got that information to you?” Kendell asked.
“That’s right,” the mayor said. “Months ago. She was currently working on locating some of his dealers for us, though. I told her to back off, but Makani was hardly someone to listen to a person of authority. Having the supplier behind bars was going to make change happen in time.”
“Could Makani’s killer have been one of the supplier’s lackeys?” Pauline suggested. “Someone taking revenge for their boss and for ruining their business?”
“That’s certainly possible,” the mayor said. “And I’m sure it’s something local police are looking into. That is their job, after all.”
“We understand that the police are looking into things,” Pauline said. “And we certainly are not trying to step in on the toes of local authorities. We are just looking into it, is all. Talking to friends and family. Like we said, trying to make sense of it all.”
“Well, I can tell you that the operation Makani was helping us to uncover was a very sophisticated one,” he said. “The suppliers were using scuba divers to trade the drugs and money.”
“Scuba divers?” Kendell questioned. “How were they using scuba divers?”
“The divers would swim underneath ships that were transporting the supplies. They would have cages hooked under the ships. It was quite impressive ingenuity, honestly,” the mayor explained.
Kendell’s mind started going off in a thousand different directions. “What kind of ships were being used?”
“Mostly tour boats. The dealers would drive out to sea where the divers were stationed nearby. They would just go out on one of their tours. Then the divers would fasten the drugs in the steel cages under the ships. Later, the dealers would dive off the side of their ships while it was in dock to collect the drugs. It was no wonder it took so long to find the supplier.”
“This was very helpful,” Kendell said.
“Listen, ladies, the last thing I need is two tourists winding up dead in my city,” the mayor said. “Do be careful and let the police handle the real investigations.”
“Understood,” Pauline said, standing with Dot’s carrier thrown over her shoulders.
Kendell and Pauline left City Hall, calling for a cab out front to take them back to the resort. As the two of them arrived, Kendell went and located the photos from hers and Pauline’s underwater sea adventure. She could almost recall seeing something in the photographs, but she wasn’t sure.
Eventually, she found one of her favorite pictures. It had caught just herself and Pauline, and they were looking straight at the underwater camera in their full snorkeling getup. But, in the background, you could see the tour boat. Specifically, you could see directly under the tour boat—where there was a small metal trap welded to the bottom of the ship. “Pauline!” Kendell called for her friend, who was currently on the phone ordering room service.
Pauline held up her finger to let Kendell know to give her just a moment. Kendell shook her head. The woman was a nut at times. She ordered everything off the resort’s menu that they had not already tried so that they could feast. The woman was truly enjoying her vacation, even with the craziness of a looming case over their heads. When Pauline finally got off the phone, she scurried over to the couch next to Kendell. “Ooh, are you looking at our pictures from the shark diving!” Pauline exclaimed. “That was just so much fun.”
“Yeah, well, check this out right here,” Kendell said, pointing to the small metal box on the bottom of Johnny’s boat. “Sound familiar?”
“That’s just what the mayor was talking about,” Pauline said. “Do you think Johnny could have been one of the dealers Makani was looking into?”
“Johnny is probably Mikey’s dealer,” Kendell said. “They run in the same crowd. Maybe Johnny and Mikey kept it quiet, but then Makani started working on getting Mikey clean. It messed with Johnny’s business. Then, she got Johnny’s supplier arrested, and that would have completely ruined him.”
Pauline nodded. “That is certainly a possibility. And Johnny has been trying to put everyone on Bane’s tail. Bane would be a first instinct for both the police and for Makani’s friends and family, especially if none of them knew that Johnny was Mikey’s dealer.”
“And Johnny was there at the beach when Makani was killed,” Kendell said. “And if Makani didn’t know that Mikey’s dealer was Johnny…then she wouldn’t have known she was in danger when Johnny showed up at the beach with her that morning.”
“Oh, my dear, I think we just cracked this case wide open! Excellent detective skills, Kendell,” Pauline said.
“Me? You’re the one who got us in to talk to the mayor!” Kendell cried. “You are quite an impressive woman!”
“So, what’s next?” Pauline asked.
“Well, you did just order a bunch or room service,” Kendell said. “So, after we stuff ourselves silly, I say we go talk to Johnny.”
“But the mayor told us to stay out of it,” Pauline reminded her.
“Yeah, well, we could report it to the police, but we don’t have a lot of concrete evidence other than this picture,” Kendell said. “We need to see if we can find out more. Otherwise, Johnny could walk.”
“Excellent point,” Pauline said. “We’ll be careful, though. Let’s go talk to Johnny…but you’re right. Food first.”
“Exactly,” Kendell said, laughing. “I do love food.”
“We are on vacation, dear. Remember that!”
Dot began barking as though she was letting them know that she too was ready to eat. Yes, they were on vacation. But, strange as it was, sleuthing was one of the most relaxing and fun things Kendell had ever done. Maybe I chose the wrong career path, Kendell thought with amusement. Room service arrived, and the women laid out the various plates that Pauline had ordered. They weren’t in a hurry. Johnny had no idea that the two tourists were onto him, after all.
12
After finishing the ridiculous feast that Pauline had laid out for them, the women lounged around a bit, a little overcome from their gluttonous experience. They each sat on the couch, discussing the possibilities of the case. “Ikaika and Mikey have no motive, same for most of the people on that beach who had attended the luau outside of the surfing competition,” Kendell said. “Plus, Makani helped them both in some way. For Mikey, she helped him get clean. And, as a local borderline celebrity, Makani making Ikaika’s bar and grill her regular hangout probably helped his business.”
“If what the mayor told us is true, sounds like Makani was starting to make amends with a lot of the local officials she had been known to harass,” Pauline said. “She was starting to work with them rather than against them. So, I think that rules out most everyone at City Hall.”
“Other witnesses would be you, me, Brandon, Nick, Johnny, and Bane,” Kendell said.
“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty confident that we can rule out you, me, and Brandon. We all heard Makani talking about her morning surf, but as out-of-towners, none of us would have known where sh
e would have gone—not without getting lost, at least. Plus, no motive. And it’s not like your friend Brandon didn’t like his brother’s girlfriend, so it’s not like Brandon was trying to get rid of an unwanted potential in-law. And it obviously wouldn’t have been some sort of get back at my brother thing, because he and Nick get along wonderfully.”
“Agreed,” Kendell said, but frankly, she knew even if there was evidence completely stacked against him, there wasn’t any scenario where she would ever believe that Brandon would hurt anyone. “So that really just leaves Nick, Johnny, Bane, and the group of surfers who were at the luau.”
“Well, before we start diving into random surfers who barely even spoke to Makani at the luau, let’s look at Nick, Johnny, and Bane,” Pauline said. “I think it’s safe to say that Nick had nothing to do with this, unless he just an incredible actor. He was obviously in love with that girl. They didn’t seem to be fighting. She seemed to be in love with him too. He’s an amateur surfer from New Jersey, so it’s not like he stood a chance in the surfing competition against anyone, even with Makani out of the running.”
“I agree that we can totally just take Nick from the suspect list,” Kendell said. “And, honestly, I’m starting to feel the same way about Bane.”
“I wouldn’t jump the gun on that just yet,” Pauline said. “He has a lot of motive. And it’s hard to tell when someone is faking feelings for a person. But I do think it’s highly unlikely. The fact that the police have already investigated him, that he cooperated fully, and that they have supposedly cleared him is making me suspect him less.”
“And that leaves us with Johnny as our most likely suspect,” Kendell said, picking up the photograph of her and Pauline in their snorkeling gear surrounded by sharks. “While his motive was probably not the surfing competition since he has a reputation for being a lousy surfer, if he has been dealing drugs and his supplier happened to be the same person that Makani went after… Well, she probably just swiped half his income out from under him.”
“Let’s go over what we do know for sure,” Pauline suggested. “Then we speculate.”
“Okay. So, Johnny was definitely at the luau, and he spoke with Makani plenty that night. He most likely knew her intentions to come to her morning surfing spot,” Kendell began.
“He was there on scene when we arrived,” Pauline said, and then her eyes lit up as though she was recalling something. “His hair was soaking wet.”
“So?”
“Think about it,” Pauline said. “Johnny acted like he had shown up at the beach and saw those surfers crowded around Makani and had joined them after the police had been called. Why would his hair have been wet already if he never made it out into the water?”
“Okay, so that’s definitely something,” Kendell agreed. “Let’s see… What else do we know… We know that Mikey knows a dealer but that he hasn’t revealed the dealer’s identity to his group of friends. Which meant that if the dealer was within Makani’s group of friends, said dealer could have approached Makani without her putting her defenses up. It could easily be Johnny...or Bane. We also know that the operation the locals are currently trying to break up used tour boats to stash their drugs and that Johnny owns a tour boat. And, from the look of this picture, the drugs could be stashed in that little cage.”
“I don’t think Bane is our dealer,” Pauline said. “He’s former Navy, and he has a steady job. He also has a good surfing career ahead of him. I don’t think he would jeopardize it selling drugs on the side. Not to mention, he worked with Makani on some of her various causes, like the veterans group. So, while it’s true he could have just been doing that to impress his girlfriend, he might be a little bit of a social justice warrior like Makani was. That would make sense, and it would have been something other than just surfing that the couple had in common. I doubt a fellow social justice warrior would sell drugs to his local community and then murder someone who was actually making a difference.”
“True—if he is, in fact, that type of social justice person,” Kendell said. “I say our next step is to look more into Johnny.”
“Excellent. I concur,” Pauline said, pulling out her phone.
“What are you doing?” Kendell asked.
“Johnny schedules his tour times on his website. I’m just going to make sure that he doesn’t have any coming up soon. We know where his boat docks. I say we go take a look,” Pauline said with a smirk. “Okay, good, he doesn’t have another tour scheduled for at least two hours. If we book it, we should be able to make it down to the docks before Johnny shows up from his break.”
“Great,” Kendell said, standing and immediately feeling the lethargy after all the food she and Pauline had just devoured. “Okay, I have a new rule for us to follow for our vacations.”
“What’s that, dear?” Pauline asked.
“No more ordering multiple meals from room service. One meal per person,” Kendell said, touching her stomach and groaning a bit. “That’s twice we’ve done that here in Hawaii.”
“I told you, this was the one place I was most looking forward to,” Pauline said. “It’s the place my husband and I always talked about going. I’m trying as much local cuisine as possible!”
“Fine, but after Hawaii, we have got to chill,” Kendell laughed, and Pauline agreed.
The two women got dressed and hurried out the door, Dot in her pink carrier as always. They called for a cab that met them out in front of the resort, and away they went. Kendell sat behind the driver, staring out the window and enjoying some of the beach scenery during their drive. Dot sneezed, and Kendell glanced down at the little pooch. “Oh, wow, when did you bedazzle her carrier?” Kendell asked.
“Oh, my goodness. Early this morning before you got up, I headed out to get some ice cream. Don’t know why I was wanting ice cream so badly, but I needed to stretch my legs and it was hot. So, I wandered away from the resort a good bit and came across some street vendors. One of the vendors was a group of young girls selling bedazzled items. They were just so adorable. Reminded me of some of my great-grandchildren. I offered to pay them to decorate Dot’s carrier. They had so much fun playing with Dot and taking turns bedazzling the carrier that they bedazzled her little pink collar for free.”
Kendell laughed so hard that she snorted. “How many little adventures like that do you go on that I completely miss because I’m sleeping?”
“Probably one every morning, dear,” Pauline said. “I’m old. I’ll sleep when I’m dead!”
Kendell’s phone buzzed, and she picked it up. It was Brandon. “Hey! What’s up?” she asked. “Where were you at today? I thought you were going to be at the resort?”
“Um… You realize the surfing competition starts today?” Brandon questioned.
“Wait, what? I thought it wasn’t for another day or two?” Kendell shrieked.
“The finals are in a couple of days. It’s several days long. Today is preliminaries,” he said.
Kendell turned to look at Pauline. “The competition is today!” she squealed.
“Whoops!” Pauline said, shaking her head. “Should we have the driver turn around?”
“No, we’re almost there, we should be able to make it,” Kendell said and then turned her attention back to the phone. “Brandon, when will Nick be surfing?”
“Not for a few hours,” Brandon said. “You should have time to get here. You two running an errand or something?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Kendell said. “We shouldn’t be too long.”
“Okay! Awesome,” Brandon said. “See you there!”
Kendell hung up the phone just as they were arriving at the docks. There were signs all over the place saying things like, “Closed for the Surfing Competition!”
“Looks like Johnny’s probably down at the competition today too,” Kendell said. “Those tour times you saw are probably canceled today.”
Pauline and Kendell approached Johnny’s boat, and sure enough, there was a closed for
the competition sign there as well. They stepped over the ropes blocking off the end of the dock and made their way toward the rickety vessel with the large steel cage sitting on deck. “We could have died,” Kendell said as she took her second good look at the ship. It looked very sketchy. They walked all around the deck before entering the ship’s cabin and snooping around, looking for anything that they could find.
Pauline opened a small chest sitting near an old fridge, and Kendell heard the woman gasp. Kendell hurried over. “What did you find?”
“I think I might have found our murder weapon,” Pauline said, pointing. Inside the chest was a large rod with various points on the end.
“What is that thing?” Kendell asked, noticing one of the tips was chipped off and there was dried blood along the points.
“It’s called a fishing spear,” Pauline said. “Usually used for making catches for larger fish, but…I bet working a tour boat that drops people off in shark-infested waters, it’s probably used to scare off the sharks if they get a little testy.”
“So, before we jump to conclusions, that could very well be the blood of a shark, right?” Kendell said.
“Probably,” Pauline agreed. “Or it could be Makani’s. They found metal fragments in her skull, remember?”
“I remember,” Kendell said, taking a picture of the tool/potential murder weapon with her phone. “Let’s keep looking.” The women continued looking around the cabin, not finding much until Kendell stubbed her toe on a rug. “Hmm…” she said, noticing a bump in the rug. She rolled it back, and there was a wooden plank with a hinge.
“What did you find?” Pauline asked.
“Not sure,” Kendell said, grabbing the little handle and opening the makeshift hatch. The hole opened up below the boat. There was a rope, and Kendell grabbed it and pulled. She heard the water drain, and as it did, they discovered a small crate full of plastic bags of a white substance. “So, this is how Johnny gets the drugs out from underneath his ships. The supplier’s lackeys use scuba divers to sneak the drugs onto the ship, and then Johnny just pulls this rope, and he is able to sneak the drugs off the ship by just putting them in a fishing bag or whatever.”