by Eva Shaw
Diamond had a right to the royalties from her father’s estate. Yet, there was no true evidence. Even if Victoria Dupris and Inez were subpoenaed into court, and told the truth, which was doubtful in my mind on the part of Auntie Evil, I just didn’t think that would be enough.
If this were Castle or Hawaii Five-0, everything would be snugly tied up in less an hour. Like magic, and a twist from Hollywood, Jimmy’s body would suddenly turn up. Diamond would be able to prove he was her biological father. Wacky Auntie Victoria would turn all sweetness and light or somehow be eradicated and in the end of the episode, Becket and Richard Castle would make goo-goo eyes. Or more.
I thought about Babes again. I was weary of having people like Pinkie Finger and George Stratford evading the truth and Victoria Dupris threatening me. People stalking me. People in big cars attempt to squish me like a bug. It was one thing when I was working for the Bureau to have scrapes and near-misses happen, but totally a different story when I was merely asking questions for a friend, a friend who I didn’t know well at all. And that’s not all.
There was Payton Yu. Yes, the aforementioned hunk who dashed to my rescue and kept me from falling asleep last night, whether or not I did have a concussion. Sometime between waving goodbye to Inez and pulling into the parking lot of Carlton Villas, it dawned on dunce-me: How did Payton know to call me after the near-miss, scrape with death?
I had allowed myself to be vulnerable, allowed him into my bed (actually, on top of it and nothing happened, but not because I wouldn’t have wanted it to). But Henry and Jane didn’t call him. I certainly didn’t. Could he be playing some perverted game with me again, just like in high school when I never knew if he’d speak to me or make fun of me depending on the crowd he was with?
Confused? Yeah, me too, and especially so as I tried to make sense of what could be Payton’s motives. Suddenly there was George Stratford, the bribe-hungry bartender, strutting out of the nursing home doors. He stood and looked at the sun, preened his fingernails, adjusted his shinny jacket and slipped his fingers around the waistband of his slacks and waited. Then a black Lincoln pulled up to the curb, not twenty feet from where I was sitting.
I held my breath, watching him leer in my direction. I knew what a goldfish felt like until I become conscious he wasn’t looking at this goldfish, but a statuesque Asian woman in the shortest, reddest leather mini I’d ever seen.
I shielded my face with my purse, but George was too glued to the young woman. He called something to her. She sniffed the air as if there was a bad smell and then teetered down the street on five-inch scarlet stilettos. Even behind my purse, I could see the employee lot and Quinn’s Mercedes wasn’t there. Sometimes, the best plans of action come from spur-of-the-moment ideas. That’s what I’ve heard. But for me, right then, I just knew I needed information and knew who could give to me. Right—there was no plan.
I walked straight into Carlton Villas. Tina Yu seemed more bored than ever and brightened when she saw me.
“Oh, you’re back. Babes asked for you, Ms. Dobson. We were playing the piano together and he was remembering so much. I can’t get over it. We talked about you and he said he liked how you smelled.”
“How’s he feeling today?” I asked, more to be polite. So we talked about Babes’s health until the conversation slowed and I popped the reason for the visit. “Tina, I need help. You’re the only one I can ask.”
“Sure, if I can,” she replied, twisting a ringlet of hair around her index finger.
“Before I leave the island . . . ”
“You’re leaving? Payton said—”
“Um, well whenever I decide to fly back to the mainland, just temporarily—” I began, shocked that the Yu Family Communication System was so thorough and quick. “I want to make sure that the payments for his care here will continue.”
“Do you need me to show you the statements, Nica?” she offered.
I grabbed the edge of the faux walnut desk and tried to take normal, natural breaths even if my heart was going to wild, with this wild dream come true. “Yes, that’s what I need.”
“Sure thing. Come around this side of the counter. Or I can print them out?”
I was there in a nanosecond. “Both. Both is good.”
That’s when I saw it. Tina did too. We said at the same time: “The Yu Trust.” And then again in unison, we said, “What?”
“Tina, did you know this?”
“Know that Babes’s care was being paid for by someone in my family? No way. That’s like totally weird. But you knew about it, right?”
“I did, of course,” I lied. If I seemed surprised, I knew, she’d be on the phone or texting someone in the Yu family before my feet met the sidewalk.
Instead, I took the printouts from Tina’s hand, folded them, and slipped them into my purse. I steadied myself, thanked her, and said goodbye.
Like a zombie, I walked to the car. I crawled in and sat. Shocked. So Payton knew about Babes and was connected to all of this. Ergo, he had to have information about Jimmy March and the man’s death. I’d been right about old island moneyed families functioning by a totally different set of rules than us lower-class folks.
“You just never learn, do you, Nica?” I demanded of myself.
The caution of “You are too trusting” came too often from my FBI supervisor’s mouth and at least dozen times on performance reports, which were like black strikes against me. When I got involved with Jane and her now husband Tom Morales in Las Vegas, and with the human trafficking crimes, I had just wanted to help stop the sale of babies, bring to an end of the mess, but instead nearly got Jane killed.
Now? Because of being too darned trusting, I ruined any chance of Diamond getting the life-saving treatments she must have and yes, I’d once more broken my heart. I hated to admit it, but I had fallen for Payton. Again.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I yelled and banged the steering wheel in frustration.
There was only one stinking reason that the Yu Family Trust would be footing the bills for that premier facility. That hit me like a punch in the belly. They wanted to keep him under their thumbs, out of anything that could link one of the Yu family, those influential Hawaiian movers and shakers to a messy murder years before. Especially since Babes could no longer understand how to keep a secret and if I wanted to have anyone throw skepticism on Babes’s credibility, what a perfect scheme. Carlton Villas was made to order. If he ever ranted about who killed Jimmy March, well, who would believe a guy who thought poker chips were silver dollars? For all I knew, Babes and even Payton’s dad could have taken part in dumping Jimmy’s body from a boat miles off the Honolulu coast or taken it to Maona Falls and thrown him over or maybe just drove to some sandy beach on the North Shore, dug a big hole and unloaded Jimmy’s body there. Visitors see Honolulu as a busy touristy city. Yet, if you have a chance to drive the Kamehameha Highway around the island there are hundreds of deserted spots, places to dispose of dangerously damaged cargo, like Jimmy March.
I would prefer to say at this point I pulled out the New Testament that I always carry in my purse to study how Jesus would behave in a situation like this. I’d like to say I drove to Ala Moana Beach Park, took out a blanket, and sat under one of those enormous banyan trees.
Some women would pray and wait for the answers. I didn’t even think of doing that. I drove straight to Payton’s campaign headquarters. There on the street was Payton’s black Suburban and so I pulled up so close that I hoped he’d never be able to get his car out. Then I slammed the car door hard enough to get the attention of a crowd of supporters who were milling around in front of the building. Next I charged right into office and, like Moses and the Red Sea, people parted so I wouldn’t trample them.
Even Payton’s local bodyguards stepped back. Maybe they knew if they hadn’t, I would have slugged them with my purse. I don’t th
ink I’ve ever been so blazing angry. It was one thing to fool me, he’d done that with my heart in high school, but to con the voters and cheat them out of an honest governor was immoral and wicked.
To say I was steaming when I pushed open the door to Payton’s glass-enclosed office would have been an understatement. Thinking back, I remembered what the psychologist at the bureau told me about possibly having uncontrolled emotions. But frankly, I didn’t give a fig. I was screaming, but I can’t exactly remember the words, except they included being involved in a huge cover up of an old murder, causing a defenseless woman to die because she couldn’t afford treatments and to campaign for the highest public office in the state while lying about everything in his life. Or reasonably along that line.
Payton stood up from his desk and you’d expect with me going ballistic his face might have shown alarm. Nope. He didn’t look troubled and definitely not afraid. He just stood there smirking, like a Hawaiian business tycoon and beach boy, wearing cream and white patterned Aloha shirt as crisp and calm as his face.
I took a deep breath, about to spout more accusations and in an even louder voice when I realized we were alone. But I couldn’t stop. “I will see that this entire conspiracy to hide what happened to Jimmy March and the Yu family involvement is spread across the pages of the newspapers here in Honolulu, throughout the islands and the entire the country, Payton.” I took a breath an added, “Enough lies,” I said and my voice now sounded deadly calm.
“Cousin Tina called me,” he replied.
“So you could be prepared when I came to tell the press the truth?”
“Nica, you might want to sit down. This could take a bit.”
“I do not want to sit, and actually I don’t want to be with you for another second,” I barked.
“Wait. Wait for a moment at least because just maybe I saved your life last night. It would have been awful if you’d fallen asleep with a concussion,” he said, walking around toward me, but not within touching distance.
“How can you be sure I even had a concussion, Payton? You’re not a doctor now, are you? How did you even hear I’d been hurt? Besides, how do I know that it wasn’t your big, old black car and one of your goons who tried to run me down? How do I know it wasn’t you or one of your people who got to Pinkie Finger to stop him from telling me anything? How do I know—”
“Because, Nica, you know me.”
“No, I don’t. I thought I did, but you’re—”
“You know me. I’m the same dolt I was in high school. I get myself in all sorts of jams because I can’t say no. I’m that same guy now. Look at me.”
I did. I stopped and looked, and before I could thrust the next accusation at him, he said, “Tina didn’t know anything about my family’s business providing care for Babes.” He held up a hand, stopping me again. “Sure, I knew. But I knew the real reason. Do you want to hear it or are you going to storm out of here like you came in? I wouldn’t blame you.
“Okay. The honest truth? Babes Waller and my dad go back to old army days and the war in Vietnam. I’ve heard the story at least a hundred times. Dad always says, ‘I was caught in an ambush of gunfire. The other guys in my platoon ran for their lives which is what I should have done or they were dead. Babes must have seen some movement in my body, because he ran back in to the clearing and dragged me into the jungle.’ When telling the story, Dad always reminds everyone that both he and Babes were a lot trimmer in those days.”
“Babes saved your father’s life?” I plopped into a chair.
“Yeah, and that was the first of three other times during the war. Either Babes was awfully lucky or the guy was my father’s guardian angel. When Babes started becoming disoriented, my father was the first to notice since Babes ran errands for the company and was Dad’s driver for years. Sure, the trust is paying for his care. There was never any discussion that we would not.”
Okay, do you want to know my pithy reply? “Oh.”
“See, Nica, hold on. If you’d just informed me whom you were visiting at Carlton Villas, I’d have told you all of this. You just said you were looking for answers about Jimmy March, and honestly, I don’t know anything about that.”
“Oh?”
“I’m so sorry. Now you can’t trust me and it’s my fault.” He sat on the edge of the desk, looked down, and ran a hand through his thinning hair.
I stood and put my arms around him. “I’m the one who’s sorry. If jumping to conclusions were an Olympic sport, I’d get a gold medal. But just for sanity’s sake, how did you hear about my near miss with death?”
He looked up and placed his cheek on mine, then whispered. “Do you remember the officer who came to take your report and statement? Susanna is engaged to my cousin Andy, who is Tina’s older brother. Your accident was new on the Yu grapevine. Here’s where I want to say: Let’s start over. But I don’t want to start over, honey. I want to pick up where we could have left off last night. You cannot imagine how I long to do just that. However, if you didn’t have a possible concussion and I didn’t have all of Hawaii putting my every move under a microscope and to be displayed on the news at five, I would.” He pulled back and it was only then that I realized the entire office staff had stopped work and were standing facing the glassed-in office and watching us like we were in a fish bowl.
“Oh. Ohhh, I have to stop saying that. I am so very sorry, Payton, I am,” I said, stepping out of the embrace and moving back three feet, but our eyes were locked.
“Not me.” He laughed. “I need to have a righteous partner in the governor’s mansion, a spouse who tells me when she thinks I’m wrong. You seem to have no trouble doing that, Nica.”
“Oh . . . wait, what? We hardly know each other.”
“Think again. I have known you since you were sixteen years old, Nikky Wikiwiki Ticky. And you hold more secrets about P. Yu than the world needs to know. So as soon as we can have some time alone, I’m going to prove that to you by—”
The pounding on the office door stopped him, but the deed was done, as they say in old novels. I knew we were a couple and as for that being problematic to his election, there were no doubts of the heart, we’d figure the answers in time.
The door pushed open and three of his staff rushed in, one carrying a jacket and white dress shirt with a red and blue flowered tie and two with folders brimming with notes. “Ms. Dobson—we have to get the next governor to the debate. Payton, you’re going to be late. You cannot be late—the press will rip you to shreds.”
Another staffer wrung her hands. “Be late and Miss Margaret will have a field day on how irresponsible you are.”
“Gotta go, boss.”
“Car’s waiting, Payton.”
And he was gone. And I also knew what I had to do and it wasn’t attending a political debate. I had a niggling feeling of dread, something that rarely happened to me, but chalked it up to not having time to eat . . . or perhaps it was the clunk on my head from the previous day. But I knew what I needed to do, and I needed to do it right then. Babes’s name was on the top of my list, if I had a list, that is.
Chapter 17
It was also way past time to talk with Diamond. Alone. I’d heard her story twice, but each time it felt as if she were holding something back. And it had to do with the aunt.
Auntie Evil might be old and angry, but my gut said she was armpit deep in this. That gut feeling shouted that somehow they had a good idea of what happened to the infamous Jimmy March. Could it be that one of them knew where he was living, if he were alive? Or could they know where he’d been buried? Or it could be, as the psychologist told me while being debriefed before my medical leave, “Sometimes after a life-changing event and after time away from the Bureau, our people find they visualize mysteries, conspiracies, and complicated plots where there are none.” Okay, if that were not enough, she also said, “And
don’t be shocked if you have huge swings in your emotions. You’ve been through a lot. You might go from being the ultra-smart consulting agent with nerves of steel to what you think is a fretting teenager with PMS.”
“Oh, goody,” I had replied.
Was I that way? Had I done that about this investigation? Why had finding out about Jimmy become an obsession, so much so that I started to see evil even in Payton? When does obsession turn to paranoia? No, actually, I didn’t have any answers, but I was saved by the ring of my cell.
It was Cousin Jane, and even without caffeine, she sounded wired. “Nica, listen to me. Listen this time,” she ordered like I was family. Wait. I was. “Hey, girl, I can tell when you’re not listening.”
“Sorry, Jane. I was just thinking.”
“You think way too much. You have got to act more and think less,” she reprimanded me.
“Yeah, like you and that debacle in Vegas?”
“Which, as you’ll remember,” she corrected me, “I was able to turn into a book and according to an email I got from my agent, rumor has it that Reese Witherspoon might play me in the movie.”
I shook my head and sat down in the car. Only Jane could turn a near-fatal disaster into a pot of caviar. “So what am I supposed to be listening to?”
“Gramps just called from Carlton Villa. He’s there visiting Babes. You will never guess what has happened. Come on, honey, guess.”
“Jane, oh, hold on, I’ve got another call.” I put her on hold, but didn’t catch the other in time. The message was from Mr. Everett. He said, “Miss Dupris would like to see you as soon as possible.”
I clicked back to Jane. “That was a call from the Dupris’ stuffy butler and Diamond needs me. Could you let Henry know that I’ll call him right after my meeting at the mansion and if he’s still with Babes, I’ll drive over there at afterward?”