by Toby Neal
Lei flopped next to him, giving up. It wasn’t long before they were digging into the rich, stretchy goo of hot pizza. She hadn’t realized how famished she was until she felt herself begin to relax as satiety worked its way through her system. She sat back and belched behind her hand.
“Feel better?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know I was so hungry.”
“Girl, you looked terrible. And to come home to this…” He rubbed a finger over his lips.
“Thanks for coming over. I hope Tiare doesn’t mind.”
“She wouldn’t like me sleeping over. That’s why I got Stevens doing the night shift.” He leered, looking exactly like an ominous tiki god come to life. “Play it right, you might get more than a bodyguard.”
“Shut up.” Lei punched him in the arm. “I gotta go shower.” She hauled herself off of the couch and went in to the bathroom. Keiki followed and flopped outside the door with a whuff.
Lei just stood for a long time under the falling water. It felt wonderful to wash off all the nervous sweat from the day, to feel safe with her partner downstairs… to know she had some friends. She got out and pulled on her favorite old sweats from high school hanging from a hook on the back of the door.
An hour later, Stevens rang the bell. Lei let him in. His hair was wet, and his eyes were dark with fatigue.
“Second shift,” he said. He carried a small navy duffel.
“You don’t have to do this.” Lei trailed him into the living room. Keiki gave his pants a sniff as he passed.
“Good. I’m off home,” Pono said, getting up. “Don’t let her out.”
“What do you think I’m here for? Gotta keep the vigilante locked up. Yeah, I dropped the letter and hair off and logged them in for your case,” he said, turning to Lei. “Sure wish we could get some sort of break on it, but at first glance it’s clean: no follicles on the hair, nothing caught under the flap, no fingerprints. Cheap plain envelope and computer paper you could get anywhere. It sucks, but there’s nothing.”
“Sick son of a bitch.” Pono banged his beer bottle down.
“What’s sick is that he’s getting away with this and there’s not a thing anybody can do about it,” Lei burst out. She began tidying the pizza debris, blinking rapidly. “I’m a police officer, for godsake.”
“Sometimes that’s what makes you a target. I’ve seen contracts put out on officers in L.A.”
“This isn’t L.A. and I shouldn’t have to put up with this shit, including you guys camping on my couch.”
“Eh then, I going see you tomorrow,” her partner said, giving her shoulder an awkward pat as he let himself out.
“Hey.” Stevens sat on the couch. “It’s okay to be mad. Come sit.”
Lei hunkered down in the corner of the couch and honked her nose on a paper towel.
“Stalkers prey on your fear. Try not to let it get to you.” He picked up the last piece of pizza and took a bite.
“It’s a kind of torture,” Lei said. “I try to make my home safe, and he slips things right in to it…” her voice trailed off and she hugged the couch cushion. He gazed at her, then reached out a finger and brushed a dangling curl off her forehead.
“We’ll get him. I think this is about more than you, somehow.”
“What? Going with your gut now?” Lei said. Immediately she felt bad, but clamped her lips shut on any apology.
Stevens got up and went into the kitchen, getting one of the beers and opening it. He took a long drink, and Lei couldn’t help noticing the wide tanned muscles of his throat working as he swallowed. She made herself look away.
“I guess I am going with my gut,” he said. “I deserved that.” He sat back down beside her, rolling the beer bottle between his palms. “I should have brought my sax over. I could have distracted you with some tunes.”
“I didn’t know you played.”
“Yeah. Not well but with enthusiasm, as they say.” He chuckled a little, rubbed his eyes which looked red-rimmed and tired. “Coming and keeping an eye on you is a helluva lot more fun than picking my mom up from the drunk tank and bringing her home. I used to have to put her to bed, sleep over to make sure she didn’t drown in her vomit or something.”
“Shit. That why you came to Hawaii?”
“In a nutshell. I love the job, the life, the adrenaline hit when you get the call.” He sat back, put his long legs up on the battered trunk. “But when a couple of times a week the call was to pick Mom up for drunk and disorderly, I got sick of it. She’s gonna kill herself and I’m not going to watch her do it.” He finished the beer and set it on the coffee table with a thunk. “Good thing I picked something up on the way over here. Pono didn’t leave much.”
“Yeah.” She laughed, a little watery. She wasn’t the only one who’d had a fucked up mother, but she wasn’t ready to tell him anything yet. “We were both starved. Listen, I’ll make the couch up for you if that’s okay.”
“’Course. No hurry.”
They sat quietly. The TV, muted, flashed luminescence over the comfortable silence. Finally, Lei sighed.
“It’s been a long day.” She unwound her arms from the pillow, starting to get up.
“Stay,” he said, reaching a long arm out. “You look like you need a hug.” He pulled her in beside him with one powerful scoop, and she laughed a little, falling into the sagging cushion beside him.
“Yeah,” she said, relaxing against his side, his arm around her. Her cheek found the hollow between his shoulder and collarbone, and she felt her eyes drift shut as warmth and safety flowed over her.
Chapter 15
Tuesday morning Lei perched on the molded plastic chair in front of the Lieutenant’s desk. Sweat prickled her palms-she rubbed them on her dark blue slacks. She heard the faint buzzing in her ears that signaled she might ‘disappear’ so she dug her thumb and forefinger into the fleshy web of her other hand, anchoring herself with the pain and making it look like her hands were folded neatly in her lap.
Her eyes wandered around the cluttered little office decorated with stacks of papers, a wall of criminology texts, some plaques erupting in rust from the humid Hilo air. She did some relaxation breathing as she looked anywhere but at the bulk of the Lieutenant, his buzz-cut head lowered to read the Incident Report in front of him.
Lei glanced out the window at a pair of mynah birds gossiping in loud chattering voices on the chain-link fence that surrounded the station. The sight calmed her and she glanced back at the top of Lieutenant Ohale’s head as he leafed through her file: the stalker letters, photocopied; the police report for the incident; copies of her Performance Appraisals for the last couple of years.
He looked up at her and sat back, his chair creaking. He took off the tiny reading glasses.
“Relax. I’ve decided on the charges: disturbing the peace and letting a dog off leash in the city limits. Couple fines, a performance review, and mandatory counseling for consequences. Think you should be able to deal with that.”
Lei let her breath out, not even aware she’d been holding it. “Thanks, Lieutenant.”
“Might not hurt to bake your neighbors a few cookies if you do that kind of thing. In any case, that’s the plan. You have a solid record up until now, and while I don’t think you used good judgment, you learned your lesson and no one was hurt. Now, what’s the situation with this stalker? Any suspects?”
“Nothing.” Lei sat back, threw her hands up. “No clues. I can’t think of anybody who this could be except maybe one of my neighbors. He kinda creeps me out but nothing solid to go on. He’s a water inspector-Tom Watanabe.”
The Lieutenant gave her a sharp look, put the glasses back on, and typed Tom’s name into the database. They waited a few minutes for the aged system to process, then he swiveled the monitor so she could see.
“No priors. He’s clean.”
“I don’t know what could have brought this on.” Lei rubbed Stevens’ card which she’d put in her pocket that morning. “I haven’
t even dated anybody since I moved here two years ago.”
“I tell you what’s weird, that a pretty girl like you hasn’t been out in two years. Something wrong with that, fo’ sure. Anyway, how’s helping with the Mohuli`i case going?”
“Okay.” Lei sat forward. “We got nowhere with the girl who ID’d the sugar daddy in the truck, but Stevens is running down some leads on the girls’ cell phone records that might help us.”
The Lieutenant pressed down the old-fashioned intercom button on his desk.
“Irene? Find Stevens and get him in here.”
Her tinny voice echoed: “Yes, sir. He may be out in the field. I’ll let you know.”
The Lieutenant sat back, interlocking his fingers over his belly. He seemed to feel no need for small talk, and Lei slumped a bit in her hard chair. Relief was making her a little dizzy, and she remembered she had been too nervous to eat breakfast.
“Hey, Lieutenant.” Pono stuck his head in, a worried crease between his brows. “Everything okay?”
“We got some consequences for the perp here,” Lieutenant Ohale said, gesturing to Lei. Pono eased his muscular frame into the room.
“Like what?”
The Lieutenant gestured to Lei.
“Fines, a performance review, and mandatory counseling,” Lei recited.
“Whatever it takes to get this girl some counseling,” Pono said, his relief evident in the broad grin he gave them. “She one crazy-ass bitch and I’m not just talking about her dog.”
Lei glared at Pono’s retreating back. She’d get him later. Stevens came in and lowered himself into the other plastic chair in front of the Lieutenant’s desk. She opened her mouth and Lieutenant Ohale cut her off.
“Stevens, report.”
“Yes, sir.” Stevens faced the Lieutenant. “Came up dry on the witness at the high school. May have to broaden the search parameters on that: other brands of trucks, other dark colors. I think she’s a little too eager to rat out her dead friend. Ran down some of the cell phone numbers. Looks like there are some calls to one of our small-time dealers in town who may know something. I’m bringing him in tomorrow.
“Jeremy’s running down the alibi on the stepdad and it still seems to be checking out, the B amp; B confirms they were there. I was thinking Lei and Jeremy could go interview some of Haunani’s contacts today while I try and get in with the DA to discuss the warrant for the Reynolds house. Nothing’s really popping right now but we’ve got plenty of leads.”
“Keep me posted,” Ohale said. “Dismissed.”
Lei stuck her head over the top of Jeremy and Stevens’s cubicle a little later.
“Hey, Jeremy,” she said. He looked up from his computer, serious, his eyes wary. She wondered why she put him so on edge. He didn’t seem to like her, and it was something to do with Stevens but she couldn’t figure out what.
“Hi. Come check out this list of addresses.”
Lei sat in Stevens’s cushy leather chair beside him.
“These are the people Stevens wants us to check out today,” he said. “All the people Haunani Pohakoa called or received calls from in the last month. We’re doing drop-bys for some of them and I called some. They’re expecting us.”
“Okay,” she said, looking at the printed list and the driver’s license photos printed next to the names and addresses. “Looks like kids, mostly.”
“Yeah,” he said. He seemed preoccupied. His short, square fingers flew over the keyboard.
“So, how come you got these nice chairs and we got those crappy old ones from the ’70s?” Lei teased.
“Detectives have a few perks,” he said, shutting down his computer.
“You’re pretty young. How’d you get the promotion?”
“My work on the Kolehole Park case,” he said. “I was able to track down the other homeless guy who beat the victim to death.”
“Nice. Any tips for me on making detective?”
He collected his jacket, gun, and badge.
“Nope,” he said. She followed him out, disappointed. He certainly wasn’t a talker.
She thought back to that morning, coming down the hall in her old kimono robe, looking for Stevens. The couch had been empty, the crocheted afghan neatly folded. Stevens had left a note under the coffee maker, which was already full of hot brew:
Had to get back early. Check in with me later.
He wrote with a bold hand, denting the little notebook. He’d drawn a smiley face underneath, and she found herself tearing off the slip of paper and folding it into a wedge she put in her pocket. The dog-eared card he’d given her had finally fallen apart.
She slipped her hand into her pocket now as she followed Jeremy for a long day of interviewing. The triangle shape of the folded note touching her fingers felt hard and reassuring.
She and Jeremy dropped in on six of Haunani’s contacts, all of whom had claimed not to have known who her “secret admirer” was, nor had any idea who might have had access to Rohypnol or wanted to harm her. A couple of them weren’t home and they left messages with relatives.
Far from the banter and teasing she had with Pono, Jeremy spoke only when necessary, answering her questions with monosyllables. Eventually she gave up, reading her Criminology text between the stops. She found the silence unexpectedly relaxing.
They met Stevens for lunch at Local Grindz, a popular cop restaurant. Lei started on her Japanese bento box lunch as Stevens and Jeremy hashed over the fruitless interviews.
“These kids are really upset over the girls’ murder. I think they’d tell us if they knew anything,” Jeremy concluded. His reserve was gone, she noticed. She stirred chicken katsu into the rice and added a little kim chee on top before deftly scooping it up with her chopsticks.
“What do you think about the interviews so far?” Stevens asked, turning to her.
“Nothing’s popping. Just a bunch of high school kids, and so far they’re broken up when we start talking about Haunani. We haven’t found anyone obvious she could have been getting drugs from.”
They cleared their trays back onto the counter, and Stevens draped his arm over Lei’s shoulders as they followed Jeremy out.
“My back hurts,” he whispered in her ear. “Got anything more comfy for tonight?” Jeremy turned back to them and frowned as he pushed the door open. Stevens dropped his arm when Lei elbowed him hard.
“Forget it,” she snapped. “You’re not getting in my bed.”
“Hey,” he said, trying to sound injured. “I just meant a futon or something.”
“I can work a phone if I need help. You guys are overreacting, seriously.”
Jeremy had moved ahead of them and was already unlocking the car. She hurried after him and they got in and pulled away.
There was no mistaking the icy silence as they drove to their next interview. Lei was equally quiet. Jeremy was jealous. How ridiculous, she thought. Like she and Stevens were anything but colleagues, maybe friends. What the hell was wrong with the guy?
Somehow they completed the rest of the interviews without speaking to each other.
Chapter 16
He sat in his truck across the street from the bar in the waning light of evening. He’d been tracking her patterns, and today she usually finished her patrol shift and went in to eat and change before class. Sure enough, her vehicle roared around the corner and into the alley. She got out, pulling a rubber band out of her hair as she walked briskly, carrying a duffel bag, to the alley entrance into the bar.
He put the truck in gear and pulled across, parking just in front of her vehicle. He checked once again that he had everything he needed, and then slipped into the unlocked back alley door.
Inside, the hallway was empty, dimly lit by a bare, apathetic bulb. The battered door of the women’s room was to his left. He heard splashing from inside. She’d taken her uniform off to change and was having a quick rinse at the sink. He imagined her as he’d seen her through the high louvered window on another day: washing her fa
ce, skin glowing pearl in the dim light, serviceable bra and panties only hinting at her unique treasures.
He put his ear against the door and heard rustling. She was getting clothes out of the duffel bag. He slid the wire through the crack of the door, catching the old fashioned latch and pushing it up and out of its metal loop. He gave the door a hard push and it swung wide.
She jerked upright, clutching a T-shirt against her breasts.
“Hey!” she said indignantly. He registered the swirl of loose hair, startled eyes, white cotton panties: then he shot her.
The prongs of the Taser flew out and smacked her in the chest. She crumpled to the ground, twitching.
He stepped inside, closing the door. He detached the prongs and retracted it. Moving quickly but with deliberation he cuffed her hands behind her back, stuffed a kerchief gag in her mouth. He took the syringe out of his pocket, uncapped it, and drove it into her hip. He dropped a pillowcase over her head, rolled her in the sheet he’d brought. He wrapped a long bungee cord around her a couple times to secure the sheet and pillowcase. He hefted her up, staggering a little, and checked outside the door: empty. Slipping down the hallway and out the back door of the bar, he opened the passenger door of his truck and threw her in. Her head bounced off the dashboard and she slid onto the floor as he folded her legs and shut the door.
He ran back into the restroom, let the water out of the sink, gathered her purse and uniform, and thrust them into the duffel bag. Then he hurried back to his truck. She was still, her head lying near his feet, her body an anonymous mummy. The prey, captured.
The heady power of it surged through his body, a high like no other. He couldn’t resist putting his foot on her. Gave her a little kick, just a sample of what was to come. She didn’t move. He threw the truck into gear and rolled out. Glancing back in the mirror at the red Mustang left in the alley, he smiled.