Mai Tais and Murder

by J. C. Long

  I pulled out my phone, sending a text message to Grace asking if she was almost here. I placed the film roll down on the long table for her, occupying myself by looking at the bottles of chemicals and reading their labels.

  The door behind me opened just as I received a text message. “Wow, didn’t take you as long as I thought it would,” I said, glancing at my phone as I turned around. What I saw made me pause, my heart climbing into my throat. The message on my screen from Grace, which I expected to say something along the lines of I’m here, bore a different message.

  Ten minutes out.

  I rushed toward the table, reaching for the film, when a body slammed into me from behind, shoving me down over the table as a hand encased in a familiar black leather glove grasped the film container, the other hand pressing hard down on my head, holding my face against the table. I could smell the traces of the chemicals used before, like someone spilt them on the table and wiped them away without cleaning thoroughly. It made my nostrils burn and my eyes water.

  I struggled against the body holding me down, grabbing for the film myself, but the hand on my head gripped my hair tightly, pulling my head up before slamming it down on the table. I saw stars bloom before my eyes.

  The man must have thought that was enough to put me out of commission because he loosened his grip on me. I used that to my advantage, shoving myself backward, knocking him off-balance. As he recovered himself, I grabbed for the film. When he wouldn’t let it go, I had no choice but to bite him, hard, going for the wrist where his skin was exposed. He cried out in pain, releasing the film, and I dashed for the door.

  Upstairs. I just have to make it upstairs and I’ll be safe.

  Halfway up the staircase, I heard the door behind me open again. I quickened my pace, reaching the top of the stairs. I felt safe, but a hand closed on my shoulder, spinning me around as his other hand backhanded me hard, my head reeling from the blow. Before I could recover, he had me around the neck, shoving me against the wall and squeezing tightly, cutting off any oxygen. I thrashed out with my legs, trying to kick his knees in, but because of the angle he held me at, I couldn’t get any real power behind the kick.

  The man lifted me up with his hand around my neck and slammed me hard against the wall, knocking whatever air I had left out of me before letting me fall to the ground, where I sat, struggling to breathe once more.

  I looked up at the man, determined to remember whatever I could about him. I saw through the ski mask that he was a white man with blue eyes. At least six feet tall, wide shoulders; I’d guess two hundred pounds or so. He was definitely the same guy who broke into my apartment to steal the file.

  Before I could process anything else about him, he drew a gun from behind his back and aimed it straight at me—a headshot. He didn’t want to hurt me; he wanted to kill me. He cocked the hammer back, and I closed my eyes, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop him. This wasn’t how I imagined myself dying. I thought I would die of old age, quietly in my bed, having lived a long and peaceful life with a man I loved—a man who could have been Maka, maybe, given the chance.

  With the gun pointed at my face, the only thing I could think about at that moment was that I regretted not getting the chance to spend more time with the detective, not getting more insight into his mind, what made him tick, what made him happy, what made him sad. There was so much that I wanted to know about him, and now never would.

  The next sound I expected to hear was the sound of the gun going off, so I was surprised when I heard a bell ringing as the door opened.

  “Gabe?”

  I opened my eyes in time to see my attacker turn toward the door. That was Grace’s voice! “Grace, get out of here!”

  The assailant took off running then, just as Grace appeared around a shelf loaded with photo printer paper. “Gabe?”

  She turned her head when the sound of the bell rang again, and I cursed aloud. The film—the last thing we had that might connect Delgado to all of this—was gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Grace insisted on driving my car to the police station, and I didn’t argue with her. I was far too shaken up from having a gun pointed in my face to even think about getting behind the wheel of a car.

  Grace tried to speak to me a few times on the way, but it just sounded like white noise; I couldn’t get my brain to process anything she said. The one thing I could focus on was a question that gnawed at my brain, not letting go: how did he know I was there?

  Had I been tailed ever since my house was broken into? Did this guy see what happened between Maka and me? Would that put Maka in danger? I didn’t know; it all depended on if Delgado was the kind of person who would risk going after a police officer. He was dangerous, yes, that much was clear, but I didn’t know if he would be that reckless.

  It may not even be Delgado.

  The thought would not have crossed my mind the previous day, but now I wasn’t sure. The same man who broke into my house and stole the files attacked me once again, this time taking the camera roll? How did he even know it existed? That part didn’t make sense to me. And even if he knew it existed, how the hell did he know where I would be going to develop it? Only one person, that I was aware of, knew.

  I glanced at Grace, struggling to believe that I suspected her. What else could I think, though? She was the one who told me where to go. She knew about the film; she knew where I would be. According to Maka, she argued with Carrie about money.

  Could my best friend be capable of this?

  She has an alibi, I reminded myself, looking away from her and staring out the window so she wouldn’t see what was going through my head. She has an alibi, so she couldn’t have killed Carrie.

  The thought comforted me a bit, but it didn’t set me entirely at ease. Just because she didn’t kill Carrie didn’t mean that she wasn’t somehow involved. What was going on? How had my life fallen apart so quickly in just a few short days? It didn’t make any sense. All I wanted at that moment was to go back to the point in my life where my biggest concern was wondering when I was going to finally get a job and stop living off my inheritance.

  Maka sat at his desk when Carrie and I entered the station. His desk was near the center of the bullpen, but it faced the door, so he saw us quite plainly. The look of surprise on his face initially faded to one of concern, and he crossed the room in what seemed like just a few steps.

  “What happened?” He eyed my neck critically, jaw clenching. “Wait, don’t answer that.” He led Grace and me into a room marked Interrogation Room 1.

  “Are we being questioned?” I joked nervously, looking around at the sparse room. Television got one thing about police work right, at least. The room was unornamented, the only thing in there a table with two chairs on either side and a camera. No two-sided mirror that I could see; whoever monitored the interrogation probably watched the feed from the closed-circuit camera.

  “What happened?” Maka demanded again, turning expectant eyes on Grace.

  I filled him in on what happened, refusing to meet Maka’s face when I mentioned the attack. He was definitely pissed—I saw the veins bulging in his arms as he clenched his fists tightly.

  “How the hell did this guy find you?” Maka demanded.

  “That’s a good question.” I glanced at Grace quickly, looking away before she caught it. “Maybe the attacker has been stalking me since Friday night. They might have even been at the luau with us.”

  “You two went to a luau together?” Grace repeated, looking between the two of us. “Sounds like there’s a lot you need to fill me in on, Gabe.”

  “Later,” Maka said sternly. “For now we need to figure out who this guy is. Do you know if the shop has security cameras?”

  Grace nodded. “It sells some pretty expensive items, so the security cameras are all functioning, as far as I know.”

  “Okay. Did either of you see any employees while this was happening?”

  “I noticed the shop was e
mpty when I first went in,” I told him. “If there was someone in there during the attack, they would have heard the commotion and come to see what happened. I don’t think anyone was there.”

  “That’s really strange,” Grace said. “Victoria is always there on Sundays. I don’t know where she would have been.”

  “You’re friends with the owner?” Maka asked.

  Grace nodded.

  “Can you give me her contact information? We need to get ahold of the security footage as soon as possible.”

  “Yeah. It’s in my phone…” She trailed off, patting down her pockets. “Which I left in my purse in your car, Gabe. I’ll be right back.”

  When Grace was out of the room Maka stepped close, pulling me into his arms and tilting my chin up so he could examine my neck. “Are you really okay?”

  “I’m fine now. Scared shitless when it happened, but fine now.” I glanced nervously toward the door. “I need to run something by you, okay? Before Grace comes back.”

  Maka listened as I confided my fears regarding Grace. I couldn’t read his face, though, to tell what he thought about it. Once I finished, he sighed. “That’s pretty complicated. But like you said, it’s possible you were being followed from the moment the…items…came into your possession. Do you really think your friend is capable of this?”

  “You did,” I pointed out.

  “No, I just followed the evidence. I don’t know her, so I can’t make that sort of judgment call. You can.”

  “Kekoa, you in here?” The partially closed interrogation room door opened, and Benet popped his head into the room. He frowned when he saw me, the frown growing to a scowl when he saw the way Maka held my arms.

  I took a self-conscious step away from Maka, not wanting to get him in trouble at work.

  “What do you need, Benet? Got something new?”

  “Yeah. Finally tracked down those suspicious financial transactions the victim mentioned in her text conversation with Ms. Park.” Benet waved a sheet of paper. “Also came across an address with no other identifying information found in her office, taped to the underside of a drawer.”

  “Let’s start with the money,” Maka said, taking the paper from Benet and looking at it. I craned my neck, trying to read around him without drawing too much attention from Benet.

  “I highlighted the important part. Looks like three deposits of seven thousand dollars each were made into the company account and then withdrawn in cash from ATMs over the course of a week, a thousand a day.”

  Maka let out a low whistle. “Looks like the largest deposits they’ve ever gotten other than that are for a thousand dollars—and most are much lower. Where did this money come from?”

  “That’s a good question,” I muttered darkly. The money matter made me feel even more uneasy. That much money coming into the company account would require access to withdraw, someone with a company card. I assumed that Grace and Carrie both used a company card when they were making purchases for their cases, which meant there were probably two of them. Who else would have access?

  Why did everything start pointing to Grace suddenly? Or had it always done so, and I just didn’t see it, blinded by the fact that she was my friend?

  “Can I see this for a moment?” I snatched the bank statements from Maka’s hand and stormed out of the interrogation room and through the front door, ignoring Maka and Benet calling out behind me.

  Grace was just about to walk through when I emerged, brandishing the paper. “Did you do this? Did you?”

  Grace stopped, clearly taken aback by my attitude, but I didn’t care. “Did I do what? What are you talking about?”

  “This money—the money that you and Carrie fought about. Did you do this?”

  Grace reeled back like I’d slapped her. “No! Of course not! She accused me of it, and we fought, yeah, but I wasn’t the one who did it! Do you think that if I was I’d still have a job? Carrie would have had me arrested without a second thought!”

  “Look at this,” I cried, shoving the paper into her hands. “Look at this and tell me you didn’t. You have a company card, right?”

  “Of course! It’s standard practice, but…I didn’t… Look, Gabe, I couldn’t have!” She pressed her finger against the paper, forcing my attention to one of the thousand dollar withdrawals. “See? This proves it wasn’t me.”

  I scanned what she pointed at, but couldn’t see what she found so helpful. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look at the time, idiot. The date, too. This is the day you arrived in Hawaii. This was an hour after you arrived—when you and I were eating dinner! Did you see me stop off at any ATMs? Whoever did this, it wasn’t me.”

  “What about the photography place? You’re the only one who knew I’d be there, and I happen to get attacked right after showing up?”

  “You said yourself you’ve probably been followed since Friday night, so that’s what happened. As for the missing employer,” she added, addressing this part to Maka and Benet behind me, “I talked to Victoria, the owner. She’s out of town this week, so she had one of her employees working today, a girl named Lea Harmon. She should have been there when we got there.”

  “Lea Harmon, was it?” Benet jotted down what she said. “We’ll check into that.”

  “Do you recognize this address?” Maka asked, extending the second piece of paper to Grace, who mouthed it as she read it to herself.

  “No. Why?”

  “It was found taped to the bottom of one of the drawers in Carrie’s desk,” Maka explained. “We were hoping it might mean something to you. Maybe in connection to a case?”

  “Sorry, wish I could help, but if it was one of Carrie’s cases, she kept it secret from me. Like the Delgado case.” She handed the paper back to Maka.

  “We’d better get checking in on these leads,” Benet said, stuffing his small notebook into his back pocket. “You two stay out of trouble now, you hear?” He jabbed a meaty finger at me and Grace. “Let’s go, Kekoa.”

  Maka leaned toward me, cupping the back of my head and drawing our foreheads together. “Actually be careful this time, and don’t just say you will be, okay?”

  “Don’t blame the victim,” I said playfully, though I grew serious pretty quickly, seeing his expression. “I promise I’ll do my best to stay out of trouble.”

  Once Maka and Benet disappeared into the building, I turned back to Grace, feeling uncomfortable with what had to come next. “Grace, I’m—”

  Grace raised a hand to silence me. “Don’t. There’s nothing to apologize for. I don’t blame you, considering everything that’s been going on lately. I mean, you’ve been attacked twice in a matter of days. That’s enough to make anyone suspicious.”

  She pulled me into a hug, squeezing tightly. “All is forgiven. Now—” She leaned back so I could see her face and the smile slowly spreading across it one I was quite familiar with. It was her crazy idea smile. “—I know you just made a promise and everything, but what do you say you and I go check out that address?”

  “I’m pretty sure that would annoy Maka,” I said hesitantly.

  “Who cares if your boyfriend gets annoyed? He and that grouchy partner of his could spend all day tracking down bank things, and what if the answer to everything is at that house?” Grace shrugged at my hesitation. “I guess I understand you not wanting to piss off your new boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. At least I don’t think he is. And they took the address with them.”

  “I have it right here.” Grace tapped her index finger against her temple. “I memorized it when they asked me about it. So you in?”

  I didn’t have to give it much thought. I wanted answers, especially now that I’d been attacked twice, and I wasn’t going to get them sitting around on my hands. Besides, now that my attacker had the file and the film, there wasn’t really a reason for him to come after me again. Except maybe unfinished business. I suppressed that thought quickly.

  Grace m
isinterpreted my silence for refusal and shook her head with a loud tsking noise. “Wow, whipped that fast? He must have an amazing cock.”

  “Shut up. Give me the keys. I’m driving.”

  The address turned out to be residential, belonging to a home in an upper-middle class neighborhood. Cars lined the street in front of it, and I wondered what the hell was going on. In front of the house, we found our answer: a sign reading Estate Sale Today.

  Grace and I traded disappointed looks, but decided it would be worth it to at least look around and see if we could find anything.

  “An estate sale might actually be a good thing,” Grace commented to me in a low voice as we approached the open front door. “It’ll give us a chance to look around without raising suspicions.”

  The foyer and living room of the home were milling with people when we stepped inside, everyone engrossed in the elements of another person’s life. Estate sales always struck me as distasteful; I understood their purpose, but to me, the people who showed up to things like this were like vultures, carrion birds benefiting from the death of another person. I needed to put my personal feelings aside, though, and focus on finding anything that might connect the owner of the house with Carrie.

  Since the living room was unlikely to hold any sort of documents like we wanted to find, Grace and I bypassed it, instead heading upstairs where we were much more likely to find something. I noticed right away that there was no one else upstairs, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Less people to see what we were doing, after all.

  The first door that we came to was the bathroom, which we ignored. The next room looked like the master bedroom, which seemed as good a place as any to start. No sooner had we stepped through the door, though, than a voice said, “The upstairs is off limits.”

  Grace and I cringed for a moment but schooled our faces into apologetic expressions and turned around. A young woman, no older than nineteen or twenty, stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes were puffy and red, her face still showed evidence of recent crying. She was at least partially Hawaiian, judging by her hair and eyes, though her skin was pale and white.