by Eva Shaw
“No need to assault me, you creep. Take your grubby hands off me or bring on your buddies here because I can make them uncomfortable enough so they won’t forget me for a long time.” I growled the threat and yanked my arm from his grasp. It was then that I saw the spot where I’d previously been standing now housed a novelty cart pushed into place by two teenagers still texting and oblivious to who or what was in their way.
Before I could save the little dignity I had left, the man squinted, blinked, and then stared into my eyes.
On a scale of one to ten, I would later tell my cousin, he came in at a firm seven, about three inches shorter than me but I’m five foot ten inches without the wedge sandals. Even though I had taken a course to profile suspects, honestly? I was never good at it. This guy was about twenty pounds overweight, but broad shouldered and muscular. His short dark hair was receding a bit at the forehead, yet with that cool bristly haircut head look, it didn’t matter. He was wearing glasses with dark rims and a crooked smile. His features were the typical melting pot of locals with more Chinese than Hawaiian, I thought. I did like what I saw even if he was annoying as all get out.
Apparently he did too because he kept staring until I wanted to poke him. Then the next words from his mouth made mine open.
“Nikky? Nikky Wikiwiki Ticky?” He grabbed me with the arms of a weightlifter and yes, lifted me off the ground. He swung us around. “Of all the people in the entire world, you are probably the one I would never have expected to actually run into. Wow, right here in town.” Finally he put me down, and I’m no lightweight, and stepped back, obviously to get a better view as his eyes did that once over you see in movies or by players in the dating world—at least according to Hollywood.
Here’s the scoop. Wikiwiki was not a name in any way connected to either of my late husbands. It was the appalling nickname I was given in high school. My given name is Monica, but I have always been called Nica. The jocks and the cheerleaders at my high school ruthlessly changed it to Nikky because my last name was, unfortunately, Ticky. Plus wikiwiki in Hawaiian means fast or hurry up, something I certainly wasn’t, but it was the butt of a three-year joke for the cool crowd. The geeks, who also sort of ignored me, but let me hang around with them anyhow, told me to pay no attention to it. I thought I had let that painful adolescent wound heal, until that second, standing there looking eye to eye at someone who knew of my high school trauma. He was now spouting it like he’d just heard that haunting rhyme for the first time.
“I cannot believe it. After all these years. Nikky Wikiwiki Ticky in the flesh.”
“Yes, all of me and in person,” I responded and jerked myself out of the forthcoming hug that I could see was about to pull me to him.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Of course I didn’t, but the guy certainly knew me. So I bluffed. What would you have done? “You must be here for Kukui High’s twenty-year reunion, too. You and your buddies.” I nodded to the muscle behind him.
He tilted his head. He looked squarely at me. Then he smiled, and this time, the crooked front teeth gave him away. I’d seen enough of that smile in homeroom when he was flirting with any girl who would look his way and also as my lab partner in chemistry, when he wanted me to complete whatever assignment we had. I never knew why he joined Chemistry Club, except that our teacher suggested that if he wanted to graduate, it might be a good idea. Yes, I had heard and remembered that conversation.
All that ran through my mind before I said, “Payton Yu. If it isn’t the most legendary all-time superstar football hero ever to grace the halls of, and somehow graduate from, Kukui High? Well, how about that?” And then to myself I thought, And the biggest pain in the butt I ever had homeroom with for three straight years. If I never saw this jerk again, life would be grand. Except my patron of the arts persona kicked in. “How lovely to see you again.” But of course I didn’t mean it. Would you?
“You’ve changed, Nikky Wikiwiki Ticky, and yet I can see the old you is right there, wrapped up right inside this more-than-hot package,” he said, walking around in a circle as someone might drooling over a new Corvette.
“You always were observant, Payton.”
He came to stand inches from me, winked, and added, “And you’re older.”
Talking as I might to my late husband Clayton’s elderly great aunt Gloria—that is, slowly and clearly, bless her little heart and deaf little ears—I said, “Some of us have grown up in the last twenty years, Payton.”
“Whatever you did about growing up, you’ve excelled—and in the right places. If it weren’t for those crystal blue eyes and the way you crinkle your nose when you’re angry, which always made my heart go wild, I wouldn’t have recognized you. Wow, little Nikky Wikiwiki Ticky all grown up.”
“Payton, I’m now called Monica or even Nica, like I preferred in high school. Others call me Ms. Wainwright-Dobson.” And for your information that sentence did come out with icy indignation plus a righteous tilt of my chin. Remember how the popular kids in high school could be brutal when they found a victim? Imagine starting high school at thirteen. Imagine being twig thin, taking advanced academic classes, especially excelling in math, and graduating when I was sixteen, when I was recruited by MIT. Did I mention thick glasses, frizzy hair, and, since my refuge was reading, my tendency to trip over things since my nose was always in a book. Doesn’t take a genius, does it, to see that I had “target” emblazed over me every single day at Kukui High School. Okay, coupled with my teenage looks, if you must know, life was tough until the best parents on the planet Otis and Jean Ticky adopted me when I was seven. They were in their forties, but that didn’t matter. Mom and Dad knew I just needed a safe home and plenty of love.
Does the name Kukui High sound familiar? You’re right. Kukui High School is the same one that Commander Steve McGarrett of Hawaii Five-0 and “Book ’em, Dano” fame supposedly attended. Unfortunately, that fine-looking hunk is a fictional character. But if he had been real, he would have been in the same ultra-hip crowd as the above most-annoying person I had ever met.
Even without my inelegant looks, my adoptive last name would have caused any socially ill at ease teen at least a bit of mortification. Otis and Jean had been parents to other foster kids, but Mom always got so serious when she’d tell me, “When we hugged you, sweetheart, Dad and I decided you were the one . . . the one we were to never let go.” Hence when the official adoption papers were signed, I got great parents and Ticky became my new last name. From Dad, I learned to fish, camp, and cook pot roast worthy of a five-star restaurant. From Mom I learned play a mean game of poker and the piano, and I was good enough that during college, I worked summers at supper clubs and did weddings and anniversary parties in my spare time.
My cousin Jane, who seems to think she’s an expert on such things, says, “That’s why you keep pushing yourself. That’s why you over-compensated and became a FBI confidential consultant.”
She calls me a “McAgent,” like a fast-food variety of the real thing. She says I don’t trust people. Whatever. I certainly was not going to fall into that Nikky Wikiwiki Ticky jab again. I squared my shoulders and forced my eyes into “interrogation” mode, which is what I always tried to use when grilling a suspect. I waited for it to come. It was the barely perceptible nod of acknowledgement from Mr. Big Man on campus. It came from Payton Yu, an heir of the gigantic Yu shipping and transportation dynasty and one of the largest employers in the State of Hawaii and Pacific Rim.
“Nica. Yeah, I remember. I heard from the grapevine that you’d done well in life, but a hyphenated last name is something the old gang forgot to mention.” He stood there shaking his head with just a hint of a smile.
“Nice to see you too, Payton.” I looked at my wrist, which fortunately did have a watch on it. “I’m late, or we could spend more time catching up on the good old days.”
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��How about coffee? A shave ice? Rainbow always pleases the returning kama’ahina and you’re definitely a local. We can go to that cart.” He pointed across the crowded market. “Like the same one that nearly rolled right over you if I hadn’t saved your life. But you can thank me later.”
I didn’t care if he looked like a younger, shorter Asian/Hawaiian American George Clooney, which he did. I didn’t need to rehash the good old high school days with a boy, no a man, I’d only one meaningful conversation with during that torturous time and the person who had personally crowned me with that offensive nickname. Besides, he was definitely playing with the wrong crowd now. If he needed protection during the middle of the day in downtown Honolulu then whatever his career had become beyond shipping, I’d bet my FBI badge that there was a rap sheet with his name on it in the system. I always knew that some of the football players were going to end up on the opposite side of the law than I had, however it still disappointed me. I looked again at the two huge men and thought, Payton, you’ve grown up to be a bigwig with the Pacific Rim mafia or you’re running drugs. But I said, “Not possible. I’m really late.” I backed away.
“Hey, Nikky, um, Nica, you’ll be at the reunion dinner tonight, right? I’ll see you then?” he asked as one of the muscle men with him whispered in his ear. “Looks like this isn’t a good time for me either, Ms. Wainwright-Dobson.” He bowed like Sir Lancelot straight from a play. “Promise you’ll save a dance for me this evening.” He took my left hand. “You really did grow up and fill out well, Nica.”
For a split second, I wanted my right fist to collide with that crooked smile and those white crooked teeth. I wanted him to have a taste of the hurt I suffered because he and his hipster gang had tormented me with that nickname and their ugly jabs. But good manners and the examples of honest parents kicked in. Okay, you want the truth? I knew if I took a swing at him, his bodyguards would definitely win the match. “See you there, Payton,” I muttered, spun around, and dashed toward the parking lot.
Attending the opening events at Kukui High’s twenty-year reunion was now so not going to happen, or so I thought, until I was getting into my car and my cell phone rang. “Hello, this is Nica.” It was a number I didn’t recognize.
“Is this the Monica Wainwright-Dobson? Are you the FBI agent?”
“Well, that is my name . . . but an agent . . . actually, no . . . ” I replied cautiously. “Who are you?” But as I asked, I knew this wasn’t any creative sales pitch. In my ten years with the bureau, I had heard that catch before, the catch of desperation in the woman’s voice. “I’m not currently with the Bureau.”
“It was murder,” was the next sentence.
“Are you in danger right now?” Old habits die hard and I scanned the parking lot to see if I was being watched or stalked by the men hanging on Payton Yu’s every word, but pretended to be involved in the phone call. Best to get the facts straight. Not the time to flinch.
“No. No danger and you don’t understand,” the woman said.
“I don’t. The word murder pretty well defines danger for me.”
“You have to find who murdered my daddy,” came the next breathy sentence. An audible and rough, raspy swallow followed. “I read about you on the Internet. Then I found out that you’re there in Honolulu.”
I waited, having learned early in my career that with silence people often feel uncomfortable. Then suddenly they say what they really mean and more.
“I am so sorry to intrude, you don’t even know me. This all seemed logical before when I talked with her, when I told her I need help and when she gave me your number.” There was a slight German or French accent beneath the woman’s perfect English.
“Her? Who is the ‘her’ you’re referring to?”
“I knew it was foolish. I told her so, and I didn’t want to call. But she insisted I contact you. She gave me your private cell number.”
I leaned against the white BMW, looked out toward the crashing waves on Waikiki. And waited.
“I got it from your cousin Pastor Jane Angieski-Morales.”
“Cousin Jane. Of course,” I replied.
Okay, take a breath, because it’s time for a quick explanation. It’s convoluted, but since the day I collided with the Pastor Jane Angieski-Morales during an undercover op in Las Vegas that went horribly wrong, at least at first, my life had not been the same. What happened left me so disenchanted with law enforcement, I tossed down my badge for a time.
But back to the above mentioned cousin. You see, Jane Angieski-Morales and I are related by a bizarre, somewhat stretched throw of the genetic dice. Jane’s grandfather, the fine musician and university professor Dr. Henry Angieski and my birth grandmother were cousins.
While Jane was working on the family’s genealogy, she found the connection, contacted me again through the Bureau, and insisted that I attend the Angieski family reunion. Little did I know at that point, Jane, Henry, and I were the only members of the clan. Her methods of getting people to do things were familiar to me and the Bureau. When she nearly destroyed five years of painstaking undercover work the Bureau had carefully prepared, I wanted to wring her neck. It all turned out well, but for months the very mention of Pastor Jane Angieski-Morales’s name made my stomach churn. That was two years ago, before Jane and her Las Vegas police captain husband Tom Morales married and BC for me, before cancer.
To say it was a shock to become part of their family, after what was a jarring start, is an understatement. Yet, I’ve grown used to Jane’s ability to jump to more conclusions than a frog on Red Bull. She’s got a good heart, I keep reminding myself, and she’s the reason I agreed to return to Honolulu for my high school reunion. When I was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer, Jane stayed by my side, holding my hands and head through chemo and radiation. When the email came that Kukui High was holding its twenty-year reunion the same day that Jane was asked to temporarily pastor the Church on the Beach, a mission that helps the homeless in Waikiki and holds Sunday services in front of the Hilton Hawaiian Village, she flatly said, “Nica, you know I’m bigger and far more annoying than you are. We can argue about this or you can pack some clothes. You need to be someplace where you can figure out your future, rest, and have fun. And besides, we’re all going.”
“Even the dog?” If you’ve read her memoir, which is now on the New York Times bestseller list, called Games of the Heart, you know all about the dog, Toughy.
“Hush your mouth, Cousin. He’s family. What a silly question.”
Even with my meager combat, martial arts, and interrogation training, thanks to the Bureau, I’ve learned when Jane has made up her mind, it’s impracticable and totally useless to argue. Don’t misunderstand, I like Jane and admire her. You’d better not tell her. And I’ll swear I didn’t say it if you post a message on her Facebook page. It’ll just encourage her to continue to be my BFF, not that it’s a bad thing, but I’ve never had a BFF or been that close to a woman whom I wasn’t wrestling to the ground.
Hence, my new, entire family from Jane, Tom, Henry, Jane’s foster child Harmony, their rather cute little dog, had all taken up residence in suites at the hotel thanks to the generous funds I had received after Clayton’s death. Tom and Harmony were in Maui snorkeling and. because Jane’s baby was due any day, I hoped he’d make it back or she’d probably volunteer me to be a birth coach. Enough said.
As I heard Jane was involved with the caller, my sigh probably rippled the coastline from Waikiki to the North Shore. I formed my words carefully. “Yes, Jane gave you my number. What is it that she said I could or would do for you?”
After a long pause, the woman’s voice went up an octave. “You know people who knew him. That’s why I am calling, because you’re the only one who can help me. Please, Ms. Dobson, help me find Daddy’s killer.”
I leaned back against the car and watched the slivers of sun bounce through th
e mimosa tree that was shading the parking lot and honestly wished I had a mimosa in my hand.
“I think you’d better tell me what you’re really talking about?” In the time it took to ask that and then wonder just what an on-leave and possibly former FBI consultant could do about a murder, I knew, somehow, I was already involved.
“Jimmy March. Jimmy March. People sometimes called him the March Man.”
The name took a long moment to register. I shook my head. “Jimmy’s been gone a long time, since the late eighties, I think. Everybody knows. He killed himself. I remember reading his work in college literature courses, right there with the Beat Poets and Jack Kerouac. But murder? That’s not the way I remember it.”
“But it was. I know the truth.”
“Wait. Let me finish. I’ve always been a fan of his music and some of his novels about the convoluted sixties and seventies. I liked his wacky memoir of the people he hung out with such as Mick Jagger, Janice Joplin, and Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. I remember reading an essay he’d written about the colorful underbelly of Honolulu, with surfers, pickpockets, and gambling dens that were about as hidden as my nose. I even studied his novels in college. But I remember that my professor clearly said Jimmy took his own life. Although, I some tabloid of the time said he became a hermit while another said he was in the witness protection program.” What I didn’t say was that same teacher of mine explained how Jimmy liked to play Russian roulette, so if he was dead, it because he’d been exceptionally stupid and perhaps so drugged out that he thought he was immortal. It happened in those times.
“That’s not true!”
I pulled the receiver away from my ear. The woman could scream. “I’m sorry, whoever you are. I’ve listened to the stories about him; my literature professor mingled with the same group of writers; my cousin’s grandfather Henry knew him, too. When we got to Honolulu last week, Henry even drove us around to some of the places where they’d hung out. He talked about Jimmy’s reckless streak and how he’d go off without telling anyone and disappear for months on end. Jimmy, I heard, would go skydiving one day and then drive fast cars the next. I even remember an article in Rolling Stone about how he loved to play with a pistol.”