by Eva Shaw
Henry had certainly never idolized him and I trusted Jane’s grandfather’s take on life.
There was a bit of static and then she said, “He was like Hemingway. He was a man’s man. But his death is real and his killer just made it look like Russian roulette. All lies. I can prove it. Just listen. Remember, his body was never found. Oh, Ms. Dobson, did you know that? Won’t you please listen and help me?”
“Hold on, now. Let’s review reality here. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I don’t see why you called.” I opened the car’s door, swung in, and flicked the key so the windows could roll down.
“Doctor Daddy, that is, Professor Angieski, I mean, and the Slam Dunk band are going to do a benefit concert at the newly renovated Hawaii Theatre. The money is going to help build a cancer ward for at Queen’s Medical Center. You’re going to be there, too. Jane said so.”
Once more, I knew that dear Cousin Jane was guilty of sharing too much information.
“Honolulu is where my father was killed, six days before I was born.”
“But I read that his body wasn’t found. Hence, there was no killing.”
Some people, as you may have experienced just today even, sometimes don’t listen when others are talking and I knew this was the case with me and the caller.
“The article said that the band is going to give a charity concert. I have an elderly aunt who lives in the city, but when I called Auntie, she didn’t know about your arrival.” The woman’s attempt to chuckle came across brittle, and without taking a breath she continued faster. “She never cared much for authors, especially novelists, or singers for that matter. She’s not fond of Christians either—oh, that slipped out. I know Slam Dunk is a Christian band.”
My mouth squeezed into a straight line. It’s been my experience that when people are stressed, like this woman seemed to be, they blurt out things. In the agency, this is useful, but now, well, it was creepy how she talked as if she’d been stalking me, Jane, and Henry.
Henry spent the academic year teaching music, and his fellow rockers were entrepreneurs, a doctor, a mayor, and a retired Marine from San Diego. When they got the platinum record for “He’s Alive,” a song which Henry wrote forty years ago and again recorded last year, it could have made news worldwide. Anyone could have tracked down the band, made the connection with Jane and Henry’s last name, and since Jane’s a well-known author and trouble-maker, she’d be pretty easy to find. Somehow, it all made sense.
“From what I’ve read, Jimmy pretty well had an entourage of willing women, and I believe he was an all-star when it came to romance. If you can prove you’re his offspring, what makes you think that there aren’t a dozen other half-siblings out there?”
“Because he only truly loved my mother,” she said with a sigh and muffled a cough.
“That sounds noble, but from what I’ve read about the nineteen-eighties, love had little to do with procreation. Besides, Henry and a few of the guys in Slam Dunk have talked about Jimmy in passing, especially after that special on Access Hollywood. Henry told me something like, ‘Guy was a wild man. Too full of himself. Last I saw of him, I gave him a week to get sober and find some rehab or he’d be out of the band.’ Jimmy couldn’t or wouldn’t, Henry had said, and that’s the end of story, or so I’ve heard.”
There was a long pause and I would have sworn we were disconnected or her cell died, but I could hear a gulp and then a squishing sound, like she was blowing her nose. “There’s no statute of limitations for murder, Ms. Dobson, and I have to know who killed my father.”
Chapter 2
“Anyone who clicks on Google can find this out,” I wanted to tell the caller. And yes, there was crankiness in the comment, which I blamed on the Playboy Payton encounter.
But instead, I took a long breath and realized that if I were trying to find who killed my biological father, which was highly unlikely since my biological mother refused to name him on my birth certificate, I would plea, bargain, maybe blackmail if that is what it would take to find the truth. So I listened. At least I could do that.
I looked up at the incredible blue sky, breathed in the smell of plumeria in the breeze, saw the swaying palms brought to life by the afternoon trade winds and thought, Could Jimmy have been murdered? Why wasn’t his body found? Did anyone really care after he disappeared, other than that woman, and only now? But it was over. Old news, ancient history, well, at least ancient for that group of teenagers crazed then by bell bottoms and tie dyed shirts. Now? They were Baby Boomers more interested in their 401K and upcoming grandbabies than what had become of Jimmy March; the original bad boy of music, who in a blink, seemed to have fallen off the planet. Sure, there could be a cult out there that thought his disappearance was a government conspiracy, but I’m not even going to go there. You’ll have to Google for that if you want more info.
Finally, I said, “Police take care of things like disappearances, kidnapping, and murder. I don’t care or have time for something that happened three decades ago. For now, I’m on leave from the Bureau.” Then I realized this woman was recounting March’s fame, listing the novels, quoting his poetry, and I was thinking of quitting the career I’d spent ten years with.
“Shoot, who cares?” I muttered. In a split second, I knew the desperate woman cared. Deeply. “Okay, I’ll listen with an open mind,” I replied and was about to give a warning that I doubted how I could help, but she interrupted me.
“Henry, and now you are the only link I have with my father. You have a connection to the bands and musicians who played with him while he was in Hawaii. They’d never tell me anything and when I make inquiries, I’m treated like an outcast. My mother never came forward to claim paternity even after the seven years when he was officially determined to be dead.” There was a long silence. Then she said, “How could she? Mother was Lanie Dupris.”
The caller choked the words, waiting for recognition of the name. I didn’t respond. The name meant nothing. She cleared her throat with a shallow cough.
“Mother’s family used to own half of Honolulu and a major part of Hawaii, before statehood. Her family tree dates back to the original white settlers. When she met Jimmy, it was love at first sight even though she was already engaged to a distant cousin. He was a young businessman in Honolulu, and I think his name was Harrison Yu. Mother said she could never love him since it was always just a business deal, like a merger of two affluent families. Then her true soul mate came into her life, my father.”
That made me stop. The Yu family, Payton Yu, et al. Would I ever get away from him? What were the odds, after all these years, to see him and then hear the family’s name all in a matter of twenty minutes? This time, it was my turn for those steady breaths. I put Playboy Payton out of my mind and said, “Honey, you know that out of wedlock babies weren’t anything new, even in the late eighties, and even in some circles today.”
I knew privileged trust-fund debs who hung around and fooled around backstage listening to rock and roll certainly found themselves pregnant, just like the penniless groupies. Those same wealthy girls surely didn’t have their children without lots of fuss from both sides of the family.
I formed an image of Lanie, a supposedly prim and proper child of Hawaiian old money, and the shock on the faces of family when she strolled home with a rocker wearing some psychedelic shirt and with unkempt hair. That is, if he really did look like the photos I’d seen of him. “Are you telling me because of true love that your mother threw over all of her social breeding for Jimmy?” Yes, that did come out as rude as it sounded.
The woman gulped. “I was raised in Switzerland and that’s where I’m calling from. I’m standing here in the Geneva airport. My flight to New York, then Los Angeles, and finally Honolulu leaves in a few more minutes.”
“Miss Dupris, save time and heartache. You can’t do this on your own. Bring your mother.
That way she can talk with Henry, the older guys in the Slam Dunk band, and anyone who knew Jimmy. She needs to tell the Honolulu PD the truth. All that she remembers and maybe even things she had heard about that night. They’ll need to talk with her.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Of course, it would be embarrassing if she’s been estranged from her sister, your aunt, but sometimes we have to face down our fears,” I said, thinking about how I was absolutely not going to attend the reunion after meeting Payton. And then I heard the hypocrite in me have the gall to say, “Yes, there are times when we have to do the things that are the hardest.”
“You don’t understand,” she protested.
My laugh was brittle. “You might be surprised.” I looked at my watch—the reunion dinner and dance started in three hours.
“Mother died two weeks ago.”
I half expected her to stop talking. I wanted to express my condolences. In the Bureau, I had to do my share of that and while actually pretty terrible, I was good at it. When word spread to the other agents and my supervisor how “great” I was sitting with a victim or their family and telling the worst, I got elected. It helped that I was a Christian, they said, and as a Christian I knew they were right.
“Until a month before she died, she refused to mention my father. Now I know and I have to find out who killed him. You see, Ms. Dobson, Mother was in the dressing room with Jimmy, in the theater, right there in Honolulu on the last night he was seen alive. She heard the shot.”
“Just yesterday, I was in one in those dressing rooms, and if someone came into kill your father—if he was your father—then why didn’t he or she kill your mother, too?” Here’s the deal. Picture a room so small, you’d have to go out in the hall if you want to change your mind.
“She wasn’t hiding, exactly, she told me because she was getting dressed. Mother said she had been watching Jimmy’s door and waiting for a groupie to leave. As the hussy strutted down the hallway, Mother slipped in to be with Jimmy. She was going to go away with him—he’d promised to make everything okay. They had plans. They would have made it work. Mother had so much love for Jimmy. She said they were soul mates. She just wanted to be his wife.”
I could hear the muddled sounds of an announcement in the background.
“That’s my flight, hold on so I can get my ticket out.”
I waited and wondered: where was this going?
“There, okay, yes,” she said and then returned to me as if there was no interruption. “Mother was eight months pregnant. She was a large woman, traditionally built like many who share Hawaiian blood. I was only four pounds at birth, so there wasn’t much pregnancy showing. Our family would have disowned her if she had left Honolulu with Jimmy. It was because he wrote avant-garde novels and sang in bands and surfed. Mother said, ‘Our difference in social status never mattered.’ However, they did anyhow. Disowned her, disowned us. Grandfather saw me only once when I was in the hospital and called me a bastard. How can a grandparent call an innocent baby something like that? That’s who he was, Mother told me, and never criticized him.”
I could hear her breathing. I stayed quiet attempting to wrap my thoughts around how this woman and Jimmy’s X-rated poetry and novels meshed. I’d read an online article from an ancient People magazine that he was reportedly stoned when writing most of his work. They said the writer’s work was avant-garde and I remembered chuckling. Personally, I found the characters fascinating, but I didn’t get some of it.
After a deep inhalation and she continued, “The night of the murder, Honolulu had one of the gusting storms that I’m told blow dash over the land. Mother said she was drenched to the skin just running from the car into the theater. Of course, she’d been hiding in the alley as she waited to be with Jimmy. Jimmy wouldn’t even speak to her, she said, until she changed out of the soaking clothes—he called her his ‘precious Hawaiian diamond.’ He handed her one of the male dancers’ shirts that he’d snatched off a hook in the dressing room, one that could fit over her baby bump, and told her to change into it. She said she was behind a changing screen in the corner of the dressing room as the door was opened and closed and then she heard whispers. How could she be found there? The publicity would have killed her father. She just wanted to go away and let the family make excuses of why she wasn’t at the latest social gathering.”
“And?”
The caller swallowed. When she talked again, that squeaky voice sounded dead serious. “Then there was commotion, a door busting open. There was a terrible bang. A gun had been fired. Then more screams. She flew around the screen, straight into the chaos. Jimmy was lying in a pool of blood. A pistol, a small one that looked like a toy, was next to him. Dozens crammed in the room. Everyone was shouting.”
“Are you certain of this?”
“Ms. Dobson, please let me finish. I’ve been rehearsing what I was going to say to you for days. Mother was terrified, but she reached down and begged Daddy not to die. Daddy said something like, ‘Go with the guys from the band. I’m going to be okay. Go now.’ And one of the band, she didn’t remember who, dragged her from the room. She was sure Daddy would call her, but she never heard from him again. Never saw him again.”
“That’s quite a tale you have. Why now, so long after his disappearance or death?” I longed to hang up, sip forever on one of those ice coffees that Jane guzzled prior to her pregnancy, or even if I could, throw out a bible verse like my cousin loved to. But I couldn’t spout a verse or stop listening.
“It sounds mercenary. Money. I need it.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“Mother was ill for years. Her heart was never strong. The Dupris trust fund took care of most of her medical bills even after the family disavowed any knowledge of us when I was born. I teach French and English at the same school I attended as a girl, but Mother and I barely made ends meet. Now I’m ill.” The words came out flat, as if she was resigned to a death sentence. “I’m heading to Honolulu to plead with what’s left of the Dupris family to continue the trust until Mother’s final bills are cleared. Most of all, I need to find out who holds the copyright on my father’s writing and prove that I am his daughter, his only child.”
I wanted to say, “Good luck with that, kid,” but said, “What is your name?”
“Diamond, Diamond Dupris. Mother named me Diamond because of my father’s pet name for her.”
“Ms. Diamond Dupris, I cannot make any promises. You’re asking me to dig up ancient history. I’m staying at the Hawaiian Hilton and you can find me there. I’ll ask a few questions, but honestly, please do not get your hopes up.”
“Oh, thank you. I just knew you could help me. I have to hang up now, the cabin doors are closing. Thank you and God bless you.”
A kidnapping gone wrong administered by Lanie’s family or even the Yu dynasty? Or just a forever-under-the-radar-for-whatever-reason disappearance? Or a murder? Or bad odds while playing Russian roulette? Was the March Man dropped into some black hole? Where did the greedy little heiress and a wealthy family that seemed to be dripping with money fit in? And who was lying?
Holey moley. This sounded to me more like a Lifetime Original Movie than real life. Phew. Even without meeting Payton again and now being obliged to reconnect with dozens of Kukui high school grads because otherwise I’d be a hypocrite, who wouldn’t have known me then if their lives depended on it and wouldn’t know me now, my day was made.
• • •
I pulled my car up in front of the Hilton Hawaiian Village time share properties where I’d rented four suites; for me, Jane and Tom, Harmony and the dog, and another for Henry. Henry was close to Jane, but at least for me, she was best in small doses. I thought perhaps Henry might like a bit of breathing room, since Jane was even more high strung than when I first met her . . . and that says a lot.
I
was walking through the lobby when I heard, “Not literally, but speak of the devil.” It was Henry.
Henry’s good disposition and gentle nature showed all over him and his ready smile was tough not to immediately duplicate. “You look exhausted, Nica. I thought this was a holiday?”
“The truth is, Henry, I’m conflicted. Jane’s to blame.” Not really, you understand, but it felt good to say it.
“Jane? Since she and Tom conceived that little one, she’s become the energizer bunny. I thought she could run rings around me before, but now the girl never stops. What is this about, honey?”
“I’m troubled about two things, which are polar opposites. One? Am I totally crazy go to the dinner and dance tonight for my high school reunion? I’m inching toward forty, yet inside I often feel like that same geeky kid. Will I regret it if I don’t go? Will I regret it if I do?”
Henry motioned me toward the lobby where there was a group of delicious, big red rocking chairs begging for us to relax. I sat down and could feel my breathing slow as I looked past the beach and to the bluest ocean on the planet. He rocked for a bit and knew I’d go on, I realized, when I was ready. Finally, I said, “When I was at the International Marketplace earlier this afternoon, I bumped into this guy, who happens to have been the superstar quarterback from high school and my senior class. He’d changed and yet, I could see that boyish part of him.”
“Then go. You’ll meet some others you haven’t thought about since high school and gosh, you might even have fun. Remember what you told us when you finished the treatments?”