For a Song

by Morales, Rodney;

  I nodded, repeating the street names to myself, shut the trunk and opened the car door. I started to get in my car when I heard him say, “Go shtrait up till almos’ da dead end. You gon see ’om. Cannot mees ’om. Jes’ look for one—”

  “—big pink house on Ko‘oho‘o. I get ’om, litto braddah…. Mahalo.”

  As I started to walk away he blurted, “Hope you find Auntie Kay dem, Mistah PI.”

  Me too, kid.

  3

  It wasn’t exactly pink. It was coral, or sandstone gray with touches of red. Maybe pink in a certain light. It appeared modest, thanks to the trees and shrubbery that obscured much of it. I counted thirty-three steps that curved in winding fashion going up to the only mildly ornate front door. I peeked through the vines and got a sense of the immensity of the property. The house was L-shaped. A good-sized swimming pool sat nicely within the L. Around its edges and all the way to the surrounding fence was a meticulously landscaped garden. I could see potted palms, bougainvillea, two plumeria trees, and shrubbery that featured small, lavender flowers.

  I also saw security cameras on the edge of the roof and on top of the gate that led to the rear. If they were on, I was already on someone’s screen.

  I went to the door and rang the doorbell. Nothing. I tried knocking. It was a solid door that absorbed most of my knock. I tried the doorbell again. Still nothing. I was about to leave when I saw an elderly Asian woman shuffling up the steep steps. She was angular, wearing a Salvation Army–quality loose-fitting dress. She carried three bags of groceries, her arm veins popping out as she struggled with the load. A house servant?

  I reached for what looked to be the heaviest bag, one of those reusable canvas thingies, muttering lemme help. She resisted momentarily, but I was insistent. Once she relented, and once I adjusted to the surprising heaviness of the bag—there must be wine bottles here—I followed her as she walked on seemingly strong legs to the door.

  “Mistah Biden, he not home,” she said when we reached the top step, revealing a discolored front tooth. “He stay in Arizona, by Tucson, on location. He making one movie wit’ dat actress, Jennifah something …”

  “Aniston?”

  “No, not TV. Movie.”

  “Actually, I’m looking for a young woman. Her name’s Caroline.”

  “Plenny girls come by heah. I dunno no Caroline.”

  “Hmm. How about Kay?”

  She scrutinized me for a few seconds, then shifted the one bag she carried from her right arm to her left. She grabbed at the chain around her neck and pulled it up to reveal the attached key. “Oh, dat one,” she said. No eye contact. “She all right. She help out sometimes, wit’ laundry, vacuuming, all kine stuff. Really nice girl.” The woman then inserted the key into the deadbolt lock and gave it a turn.

  “Have you seen her lately?”

  She shook her head steadily. “She went on sailing trip. Wit’ boyfriend. He skippah one boat.”

  “Matthew?”

  She eyed me askance. “Aye, Mat-chew.” She used the same key for the lock below.

  “You know if they sailed to Tahiti? Or somewhere else?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I no ask. Dey no tell me.”

  “When was the last time you saw Kay?”

  “Chee, about chree weeks ago. She argue plenny wit’ Les one night, nex’ night she gone.”

  She saw that I looked puzzled. “Les. Da name on da mailbox. Da owna of dis house. You one p’liceman?”

  “No ma’am, I’m a private investigator. Her mom’s worried about her.”

  “Oh, da actress.” She turned the key to the right and pushed the door open.

  “Actress?”

  “Yah, she made some movies. Long time ago. Befo’ Kay was born. So pretty, she was. I seen pikchas.” I leaned on the door to keep it open as she set down the bags and walked to a panel and pressed the code to disable the alarm system.

  “Ever met her?”

  “No. Not face to face.”

  “Do you know what Kay and Les argued about?”

  “I no know. I no care.”

  She held her hands out. I handed her the bag I had been carrying.

  “How come so much groceries? Anybody staying here right now?”

  She eyed me the way the kid did, and shook her head. “Jes’ me. Mistah Biden, he always say, da house should nevah be empty. O’ wit’out food. Big food allowance, he give. So I stay here, ’cep’ when he stay or when he get visitahs.”

  Like Jennifer something-or-other. I thanked her and made my way down the winding steps, casing the area for a return trip, which would have to be in the dark.

  I doubted she’d been straight with me. That was too huge a stack of groceries for a “just in case people drop by” scenario. At the bottom of the stairs I gazed back. Quite a house, though you couldn’t tell from where I stood. I fired up the Toyota and headed out of Lanikai.

  Not wanting to drive all the way back to town just to return later, I figured I’d hunker down on the Windward side. Funny how when you live on a small island, a mere twelve-mile drive can feel like a major undertaking. Maybe it’s the Ko‘olaus, which not only divide the island into distinct parts, but also form a psychological bridge between life in the fast lane and snail-paced luxury. Or maybe it’s all about convenience. Honolulu is self-contained, offering not only all the institutions and amenities that one relies on to get things done, it’s also a shopping and eating mecca and you’re never far from the beach. You rarely feel the need to get beyond a five-mile radius.

  My cell rang. The voice on the other end was sexy, in a breathy, slightly raspy way. It took me all of two seconds to realize it was Minerva.

  “I just had a thought. You might want to check out this place where she’d often house-sit.”

  “Not in Lanikai, by any chance.”

  “Yes!”

  “Les Biden’s house?”

  “Yes! Boy, you’re on it.” She sounded twenty years younger.

  “Just lucky. Hope it leads somewhere…. Anything else?”

  “Yes. There is. I remembered the house because there’s this friend, Mia. She house-sits there too. In fact, it was Mia who introduced Caroline to Les Biden.”

  “Mia.” I had seen that name on the list. It was followed by a question mark. I had assumed it meant missing in action. This cleared up my confusion.

  “You know her last name?”

  “I’m still looking for it. She’s Asian; quite pretty. Kay introduced me when we ran into her at the mall.”

  “A pretty Asian friend.” Great. I’ll google that and see what I come up with.

  “I think she’s a Japanese/Vietnamese or Chinese/Vietnamese mix. I didn’t list her because I didn’t think they were close, but just now I was going through Caroline’s things and saw that she had written ‘Call Mia’ on a Post-it. That’s when I remembered that they took turns house-sitting for Les Biden. He’s a film director.”

  “I just learned that.”

  “There’s a number next to Mia’s name. I tried calling it and only got one of those ‘not in service’ recordings.”

  “Give me the number. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Minerva gave it to me, Hawai‘i area code and all. It wouldn’t be too hard to get her new number if she’s still on the grid.

  “You could do me a favor,” I said.

  “Of course.”

  “I’d like to take a look at that North Shore house. If Matthew’s gone missing too, I would think his mom has as much of a stake in this as you do. Could you call and tell her you hired me and that she could help by gathering any letters, ticket stubs, receipts that might be lying around? I’m mostly concerned with credit card statements, anything that points to places they’ve been and when.”

  “Sure. I’ll call Connie right now.”

  “Thanks … I may not get there right away. I have other things to check out first—”

  “I’ll let her know.”

  “You got anything else
? Every bit of information counts.”

  She took a moment, then said, “No … I’m sorry. I’m drawing a blank. I … I thought I had…. What was it? … I’m not thinking straight lately.” The agitation was back.

  “No problem. I’ll go with what I have.”

  “Thank you. For doing this.”

  “We’ll find her.”

  “God, I hope so.”

  I stopped at Kailua Beach for a quick shower and change, then continued on to Kailua town and stopped at Kalapawai Market on Kalaheo for a beach burger and a bottle of iced coffee.

  After disposing of the burger I placed my bottled coffee in the cup holder and headed out again, this time for a coastal drive. I aimed north on Kamehameha Highway toward He‘eia Kea Boat Harbor. There was poor radio reception on this side of the Ko‘olaus, but I turned it up anyway. “Margaritaville” sputtered through. I filled out the staticky vocals with my own voice, seeing myself strumming a six string, on my boat rather than on a front porch swing, without a care in the world. What’s up next, Mr. Deejay, “Dream On”?

  When people come to me with missing relatives, all too often the missing person is a child who was “stolen” by the parent who didn’t get custody—an act of madness I never quite understood. Why break the law and behave so irresponsibly? Why kill hopes of ever doing it the right way, should the opportunity come along?

  One case just about crushed me. The father was the obvious better choice. That he didn’t get custody of his two young daughters was an egregious miscarriage of justice. The mother was abusive, cruel. The narrow lens the judge had looked through, however, allowed only for maternal care, regardless of the red flags lined up by the social worker. Ethan—that was the father’s name—he went crazy. He took matters in his hands and hustled the girls to his brother’s house near San Diego. From there, and with the help of the mom’s own parents, as calls from Hillcrest, California, to a small town in Minnesota suggested, he got them into Mexico and as far as Villahermosa. He was planning on taking them to Belize. All I knew when I got the case was that some no-good father had kidnapped his two girls. I chased him down as if I were some dogged bounty hunter. I picked up his trail in Guadalajara, just missed him in Mexico City and Veracruz, then caught up with him and the girls in the provincial capital. There he pleaded his case. I was too annoyed with where the chase had taken me to hear it. I contacted authorities; he was detained, waiting to be extradited; the girls were returned, fighting their repatriation all the way. Dad ended up serving a few months. Mom got the kids. A few months later, the girls were in foster homes, separate from each other, thoroughly demoralized by their psychologically abusive mother, the woman who had hired me. They’re looking at a dim future, if you ask me: a harsh, unforgiving world. And all they wanted was to be with Ethan Daniels, aka Dad.

  As for me, I drank to alleviate my guilt, sought out all-night poker games for the distraction, slept only when exhaustion caught up with me, and sank so low I chased poor Brenda away.

  Well, at least that’s how she spun it.

  When I arrived at the boat harbor, I sought out the harbormaster and asked him if he knew where Matthew Serrano’s boat was docked. Unlike Ala Wai, it was a small harbor and, after we went through the requisite ritual of me stating my case for seeking that information, he identified the specific boat to me by simply pointing. I wasn’t allowed aboard, but there probably was nothing to find on that squig of a boat anyway. I noted the slip number, for a possible return trip. It was an eighteen-foot Catalina cruiser with what looked to be a fiberglass hull. Nice, but small.

  “I was told that he goes to Tahiti a lot.”

  “Not in this rig, if he can help it. Quite a rough going.”

  Could he have had access to someone else’s boat and still gone, I wondered, as the kid had said, to Tahiti? The caretaker woman also placed him on a boat, with Kay tagging along. Which boat?

  “You’re saying,” I asked the harbormaster, “that if he did go, he probably took a bigger boat?”

  “It’s a nice boat. Clean. But small.”

  “You see him around much? Matthew Serrano?”

  “Couldn’t live in it and, maybe I’m too old, but I wouldn’t want to sail very far in something that small.”

  It was like he was seeing the boat for the first time. We stood side by side. I wanted to go aboard, look for some clue, a lead, but I knew the type I was dealing with. It would have to come from him.

  “It is a nice boat,” I finally said, turning away.

  “Keeps a clean boat. I’ll give him that.”

  4

  As twilight approached I entered Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. They don’t call them graveyards or cemeteries any more. Pretty soon they’ll all be like Magic Mountain, with roller-coaster rides for the kiddies while you place flowers on the marble stones of your loved ones and you all go for ice cream or shave ice after. I drove past the Christian Church on the hill to my left and soon passed the marble tombstones, lined up like dominoes, which overlooked the Buddhist Temple that sits at the center of the vast park. Valley of the Temples is so huge you don’t think twice about getting in your car to drive from section to section. After scoping the place, and noting that the May Day flowers had been removed so only a few gravestones were decorated with fresh ones, I drove back to the entrance and asked the park official for the location of the grave of one Merelino Johnson. Minutes later I stood at his stone, a rectangular chunk of cement embedded into the ground. A partially dried-up pikake lei framed these words:

  Beloved Husband, Father, Son

  La sua vita, il suo amore, la sua música—eterno

  21 June 1952–5 June 1989

  Something about life, love, and music. Alongside there was an imprint of an ‘ukulele. When I covered this gangland shooting all those years ago, I pictured a faceless, lowlife thug lying dead in the gutter. Now, looking at his stone, a different picture began to emerge—that of a man who elicited affection, who loved and was loved. I bet his daughter thought this meat-scum was a great guy.

  He died a couple weeks short of his thirty-seventh birthday. Now why did that date, besides being awfully close to the date of my wedding, seem so familiar? I made a mental note to check the newspaper archives on the happenings between May and June of 1989.

  I picked up the dried-up lei. Its buds still exuded a sweet fragrance. My guess was the lei had been placed there a few days ago, which didn’t square with May Day, so someone was here more recently. Someone who still cared. I broke off a few buds and put them in my shirt pocket.

  Back in my Toyota I drove over to the Byodo-In, this vast cemetery’s main attraction. I parked in the huge lot, one with stalls designed to accommodate tour buses.

  I walked up to the entry booth. The guy working there seemed bored out of his skull.

  “Three bucks?” I told him. I remember when it was free.

  “Unless you’re a senior.”

  My expression told him I was no senior. I reached for my wallet. Washington’s profile graced the two bills and the four quarters I threw his way. I suppressed the urge to say double or nothing. He handed me a useless guide, which I pocketed. I was no litterbug.

  The temple and its surroundings were a slice of ancient Japan transported into modern-day Hawai‘i. Next to the temple stood a meditation house that contained a nine-foot-tall lotus Buddha. It was surrounded by a Japanese garden with koi ponds and peacocks. The Meiji Dynasty cottage next door was really a gift shop dispensing tiny replicas of all of the above.

  I couldn’t leave the cemetery without banging on the bon-sho, the three-ton brass replica of the 900-year-old one at the original Byodo-In in Uji, Japan, in homage to the restless spirit of poor Lino. Its deep, somber tone reverberated in all directions. As I had learned in my five years as a PI, cases were like that too.

  I left the fading tones, and the Buddha and the peacocks and my thoughts of Lino Johnson all behind me as I drove out of the Memorial Park.

  Twenty minute
s later I was back at Kalapawai Market, grabbing a sandwich, and loading up on snacks and bottled water. I rechecked the busiest stretch of Kailua Beach, the section closest to the parking lot and pavilion, noting that as darkness kicked in the swimmers, surfers, and sun-worshippers were leaving, speeding away in their vehicles, soon to be replaced by the dealers, the desperate, and innocent lovers seeking a place to rendezvous.

  I slowly turned up Ko‘oho‘o Place. It was a dead-end street and I was glad I had found the house earlier today, because looking up at it in the dark, illuminated only slightly by recessed lights, and partially obscured by the same vines, plumeria trees, and hibiscus bushes that I had seen earlier today, the house looked anything but pink.

  I backed up a bit and parked where a stretch of wild bougainvillea and hibiscus bushes helped hide my Toyota from the view of the other residences. The tinted windows made me virtually invisible in the dark. From my line of sight I could watch the action—if any were to occur. This was the only time I envied cops. Without a stakeout buddy, someone to bounce ideas off or share a crummy joke with now and then, this was the most trying part of the job.

  After an uneventful hour or two, I peeled off my contact lenses, put them in a case prefilled with saline, then put on my glasses.

  A few minutes later a dark green Mini Cooper zipped past me. The driver parallel parked on the roadside and a woman got out. She wore a light-colored sweater and jeans. She had long black hair and though I could only see a partial profile it was obvious she was Asian or part-Asian.

  Was this Kay? Could I be so lucky?

  I got out, quietly shut the door and followed her up the winding steps, moving gingerly. When she turned slightly, as if to look back, I ducked behind tree leaves. I saw her one more time again in profile, and was quite sure it wasn’t Kay, but not a hundred percent.

  She pulled a set of keys out of her jeans pocket, disengaged the locks, and let herself in.

  I heard someone or something coming closer and I got my Maglite out and ducked in the shrubbery. The Maglite doubled as a weapon. It was small and effective; why shoot holes into people when you can rap their knuckles or knock them out? While I did keep a gun, a Taurus PT-945 back in my car—you pretty much have to in this business—except for the occasional target practice, where I worked on not shooting the wrong person, I have never had to use it.