by Toby Neal
“Like you left me holding the bag when you went to Hawaii five years ago? I dealt with her shit with no help for years after you left.”
“Hey, now. It was time for you to step up, and if I were there, she’d always hit me up first.” Stevens’s voice was rising along with his emotions. Things had been so great since his brother had moved to Maui. Trust his mother to bring old tensions with her.
“I’ll think about it. You don’t know what went down between us before I moved.” Jared hung up abruptly. Stevens slid the phone into his pocket and stood.
“Jared’s not sure he can make it. I’ll take you home, Mom, if you don’t have any other plans?”
“No plans,” she said, a note of relief in her voice. “That sounds lovely.”
Stevens called Wayne briefly to let him know he was coming home early with his mother. Finally, he held down the intercom button, calling Brandon Mahoe at the front desk. “Taking the afternoon off. Getting my mother settled,” he said.
“No problem, boss,” Brandon replied, and Stevens heard sympathy in what he didn’t say.
He picked up his weapon and personal items as his mother stood, smoothing a tunic top she wore over skinny jeans and battered, cuffed boots that had been good quality at one time. She still managed to look classy, if a little run-down. He took her arm, and she leaned on him gratefully.
He had a flash of memory: him on one side of her, Jared on the other. A big copy of The Jungle Book open on her lap. He and his brother had loved that story. She’d been stroking the hair off his forehead. Her voice was husky and hypnotic as she read. He remembered how happy he’d been. He could still see the curve of his brother’s forehead across from him, Jared’s mouth plugged with a thumb.
They’d been happy, once, and she’d been a good mom before the drinking started, and escalated dramatically with his father’s death when Stevens was sixteen.
He walked her through the room, acknowledging the nods from his men. He paused at Ferreira’s desk. “This is my mother, Ellen. I’m heading out. See you tomorrow.”
“Mrs. Stevens,” Ferreira said, rising with old-fashioned gallantry to shake Ellen’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” she said. “Got a smoke?”
Ferreira’s face froze in surprise as she went on. “I know Michael doesn’t smoke, and damn if that plane flight wasn’t a long time without a cigarette.”
“That’s the worst. Sure.” Ferreira dug in his chest pocket for the square pack and shook out two. “Can’t smoke in the station, though, ma’am.”
“Of course.” She took the cigarettes. “I thank you.”
Stevens endured this and walked his mother through the building. As soon as they got outside, she put one of the cigarettes to trembling lips and flicked the old silver Zippo their father had been awarded for ten years of service in his firehouse. Stevens could still glimpse his father’s well-worn initials in the soft glow of the metal between his mother’s thin fingers. Her cheeks hollowed as she drew hard on the cig, and he lost patience with her and the stab of grief he felt at that tiny reminder of his dad. He took her elbow and gave a tug.
“My truck’s over here.”
“Hey!” he heard someone call, and turned to see a minivan with a lighted taxi emblem on top. “That lady owes me for a ride!”
Stevens turned to his mother. She shrugged, making a go-ahead gesture with her cigarette. He shook his head as he walked back and paid off the driver. He then settled his mother in the passenger seat of the brown Bronco he’d been driving for years. He set her backpack behind the seat.
“Smells like dog in here,” his mother said.
“Yeah, a bit. We have a Rottweiler, Keiki. She’s one of the family. She rides back there with the baby sometimes. Wayne Texeira, Lei’s father, watches Kiet for us during the day,” he said, turning on the vehicle.
“That’s nice,” Ellen said without interest. She rolled down her window and leaned her head out. “It’s so beautiful here.” Palm trees lining the main thoroughfare flicked by as Stevens merged onto Hana Highway, heading out of Kahului into the sugarcane fields and farther north.
“Just wait until you see where we live.” Stevens felt his spirits lift as the road took them out of town and they faced the great shadowy purple bulk of Haleakala, wreathed in afternoon clouds, the sky a brilliant blue above. “It’s out in the country. Really green and peaceful.”
“I could use a little peace.” His mother rested her head on the jamb of the door. He looked over a few moments later and could tell she’d fallen asleep by the slackness of her jaw. Her thin blonde hair fluttered in the wind.
He called Lei, but she didn’t pick up. He left a message. “My mom’s in town and going to stay with us a few days. I’m putting her out in the tent, and hopefully Jared’s coming to dinner. Hope you’re feeling up for company.”
Chapter 3
Lei and Pono pulled up a round, curving drive planted with decorative areca palms and parked in front of a large plantation-style home at Makoa Simmons’s parents’ address in Wailuku Heights—a newer, upscale area. Pono was driving his beefed-up purple truck, and Lei reached up to tap the tiny replica Hawaiian war helmet that hung from the rearview mirror. “For courage,” she said.
“We’re going to need it,” Pono agreed, gathering his handheld recorder and a notepad.
Lei opened her door. The truck was jacked up on big tires, so she used a chrome step to hop to the ground. She straightened her clothes and shrugged into the light khaki jacket she wore to conceal the shoulder holster. She liked to use her smartphone for recording, and as she slipped it out of her jacket pocket, she saw that Stevens had called and left a voice mail.
Lei listened to the message as they walked up wide, gracious steps to a carved wooden Balinese-style front door. She grimaced at the news that Stevens’s mother was on-island. She’d never met the woman, but what he’d told her hadn’t impressed her.
“They don’t seem to be hurting for money,” Pono observed, doing a survey of the well-groomed yard in the exclusive neighborhood. This side of the valley had sweeping views of the sugarcane fields, the town of Kahului, and the rising purple bulk of dormant volcano Haleakala. Clouds crowned the summit today, and as she often did, Lei had a sense of the mountain looking down at her benignly. She slid the phone back into her pocket.
“I’m finally going to meet my mother-in-law after work today,” Lei said as Pono rang a brass bell inset in the door.
He raised thick black brows. “Good luck with that.”
“Yeah. Gonna need it.” Lei reached up in a familiar gesture to touch the white gold pendant she wore at her throat. Footsteps echoed, and the door opened. Lei could tell by the woman’s swollen, tear-streaked face that someone had already told her about Makoa.
“Hi. I’m Detective Sergeant Leilani Texeira, and this is my partner, Pono Kaihale, from Maui Police Department. I can tell you’ve heard the news, and I’m so sorry for your loss.” Lei and Pono held up their badges. “I know this is tough, but can we come in? We have some questions.”
“Okay.” Gail Simmons’s blue eyes filled again as she stood aside, holding the door open for them. She was dressed simply, in a floral tunic and leggings. “My husband is on his way home from work. I called him.”
“We’re so sorry.” Pono’s rumbling bass added pathos to the words as the distraught mother covered her face with her hands.
Lei stepped inside a stone-flagged entry with large ceramic pots of ruffled orchids on either side of the door. A sunken great room opened before them with a floor-to-ceiling swath of windows framing a view that led the eye down a grassy field to the cobalt sea. Whitecaps flecked the surface of the ocean, reflecting clouds scudding by.
Lei wished she were anywhere else other than in this elegant room as the grief of Makoa’s mother battered at her own emotio
ns. “Come sit down.”
She put her hand on Gail’s shoulder, and with Pono on the other side, they guided the woman to a beige suede couch facing the windows. Lei felt anxiety tighten her chest as Mrs. Simmons gave way, sobbing on Pono’s bulky shoulder.
She got up and went in search of tissues, her eyes taking in the glossy kitchen, hallway with rooms opening off it, a bathroom lined in shells and coral-embedded tile. She grabbed the box of tissues she found on the back of the toilet and returned to sit beside Mrs. Simmons with a glass of water from the kitchen. Finally, when she had wound down a bit, Mrs. Simmons mopped her eyes and straightened up.
“My husband should be here soon. I also called our daughters on Oahu. They’re both students at University of Hawaii. They’re going to come home as soon as they can get flights.”
“So Makoa wasn’t in college?” Lei asked.
“No. He never went. His pro surfing career began as soon as he turned eighteen, so that was his priority.”
“Did he live here? With you?”
“Yes. He wanted his own place, but I argued that this house was so big, and empty now, and he was on the road so much with contests, that it was no trouble for him to stay in his old room when he was home. Though he often was over at his girlfriend’s. Shayla Cummings.” Gail’s mouth tightened.
“Tell me about his relationship with Shayla,” Lei probed gently. She wanted to get a little more background on the striking young woman who seemed so devoted to Makoa.
“She’s a bikini model. Works at a surf shop when she’s not doing modeling.” Mrs. Simmons blew her nose. “The girl is nice enough, but I wanted more for Makoa. Now there won’t be more. Of anything.”
Mrs. Simmons gazed out the window, balling the tissue in her hands. It was like a switch had been tripped, and she fell silent and still, all animation gone from her face.
The front door flew open so hard it banged against the wall. Mrs. Simmons jumped as Lei and Pono stood, turning to face Makoa Simmons’s father.
“Who’s this, Gail?” Rory Simmons had a booming cannon of a voice and the bright red face of someone with high blood pressure. His thinning brown hair was disordered, and he was panting with emotion.
“Detectives Kaihale and Texeira of the Maui Police Department,” Pono answered smoothly, coming forward with his hand outstretched. His burly presence projected calm authority, and the agitated man—a leathery, heavier version of the young man whose body they had found on the beach—took his hand and shook it automatically. Lei hung back a bit as he came down into the seating area, leaning over to embrace his wife.
“My God. Our son,” he said brokenly. She clung to him, weeping, as he sat beside her on the couch.
Lei and Pono took a couple of soft, suede-upholstered chairs across from them. The light from the bank of windows cruelly lighted every wrinkle and gleam of wetness on the faces of the older couple in front of her.
Lei tried to imagine the magnitude of losing a young-adult child in the prime of his life, when she’d been so recently felled by the grief of a miscarriage. She didn’t even know when she’d be ready to try getting pregnant again. There was no greater risk for the heart than having a child.
Finally Rory Simmons turned his attention to them. “Why are you here? Makoa drowned surfing, right?”
“Yes. We’re here to officially notify you of his death—and to find out anything that might be relevant to it.” Lei spoke carefully, recognizing an alpha-male personality in the bluff, barrel-chested man.
“We always want to talk with families when there’s been an unexpected death, even if ultimately it turns out to be accidental,” Pono said. “What can you tell us about Makoa’s activities in the last few days?”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant to Makoa drowning in the surf,” Simmons growled. “I always told that boy surfing would be the death of him.”
Mrs. Simmons pulled away from her husband. “Shut up!” she screamed. “He loved what he did. He was a world champion! But nothing he did was ever good enough for you!”
Lei scrambled mentally for the information on the Simmons parents she’d quickly gathered on the way over. Rory was a contractor, a self-made millionaire who’d made his money building large housing tracts in Hawaii. Gail, his wife, was a former teacher who was busy with various charities. Apparently there was a long-standing disagreement about their son’s choice of career. Lei helped Gail get up and go to a separate chair.
“You two are in shock. Please take a little time to pull yourselves together,” Lei said. “Is there anyone who can come over and keep you company?”
“I called my sister and my best friend, Sally,” Gail said. She straightened her blouse and narrowed bloodshot eyes at her husband. “I don’t want to hear you say one more negative thing about Makoa’s surfing again.”
“I’ll say whatever I like,” Rory said. A cord stood out from his cheek; Lei could see he was clenching his jaw. “He was my son, too, though you always spoiled him.”
Lei looked helplessly at Pono just as the door opened again and two distraught women, Gail’s sister and friend, arrived.
Rory got up and stomped away down the hall. Pono followed him, trying to talk to him as he headed for some inner sanctum. Lei went back to the kitchen for more glasses of water.
She wasn’t able to get anything useful or coherent from the women, so she took herself back down the hall, only to meet Pono exiting Rory’s home office.
“We need to come back later,” he said briefly, and she nodded and followed him out. Taking charge of this interview wasn’t going well, and she wondered if it was because of her own grief. Sitting with the extreme emotions around her had her stomach in knots, and even though initial statements should always be taken right away, she just didn’t have the heart for it when they weren’t sure that this drowning was anything more than an accident.
Acknowledging that she was still hurting from the events three months ago was hard, but they’d had a lot to deal with. Their house burned down, a violent firefight raid, a hijacking—and worst of all, her miscarriage. She’d carried on, but didn’t feel the same. Coming up soon, she had to go to the Big Island to testify in the trial of her enemy. Her stomach clenched at the thought.
Pono’s truck had almost been blocked in by other vehicles, but with some creative maneuvering they got out of the driveway and headed back toward Kahului.
“That went about as good as could be expected,” Lei said.
“Yeah.”
“Did you get anything off the dad?”
“Not really, nothing more than was obvious in the living room. He didn’t agree with his son’s choice of career and the mother supported it.” Pono rubbed his lips under the short, bristling mustache he sported, a habit he had when troubled. “We need to go back when they’ve settled down a little.”
“I’ll feel better taking a shovel to that shit pile when we know what the ME says about cause of death. No sense stirring all the issues if it was an accident.”
“Agree.”
Back at the station, Lei organized her notes, and side-by-side, Lei and Pono built the case file. Lei was happy to be back partnering with her oldest friend on the force. Captain Omura had reassigned them for a time, but continued restructuring in the department and both their continued requests had gotten them back together. Lei had liked all her other partners—Jack Jenkins on Kauai, Ken Watanabe when she was in the FBI on Oahu, and Abe Torufu while she did a brief stint on the bomb squad—but she and Pono knew each other so well that they worked smoothly and quickly on everything from paperwork to interviews.
“I’m going to call Dr. Gregory. See if he’s got anything off the body yet. We need to keep working the case hard for the next twenty-four if it’s a homicide. If it’s not looking that way, it’s not as important to chase down that windsurf
van today,” Lei said.
“Right.” Pono was uploading the photos he’d taken at the scene.
Lei used her desk phone to call the morgue. “Hey, Doc,” she said when Gregory answered. “I know it’s early, but are you getting anything off the body to indicate homicide? Because if so, we’ve got some leads we should follow up on.”
“Just a minute. I was grabbing a bite to eat at my desk.”
Lei squinched her eyes shut, picturing his desk in the corner of the big, open room full of bodies on tables in various stages of dismemberment. To Gregory’s credit, the doc had a folding screen separating his work area—but still, the smells alone were enough to put Lei off food for hours.
“Okay. Yeah. We haven’t had time to open Simmons up yet, but I found bruising on his throat and the top of his head, hair pulled out even. The more hours that pass, the more we’ll be able to see the soft-tissue damage on the body. But it looks like someone could have grabbed him by the neck and head. Probably held him underwater.”
“Oh, damn,” Lei said faintly. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d been hoping the surf champion’s death was accidental. Murder was going to amplify the tragedy of the young surf star’s death and stir up the close-knit surfing community even more.
“I’ll know more when I open him up and check his lungs, but so far everything else is indicative of drowning as cause of death.”
“Okay. Thanks. We’ll move on this right away.”
“I’ll put him at the front of the autopsy line. I know this kid was high profile. I’ll give you a call as soon as I have anything more.”
“Appreciate that.” Lei hung up and turned to Pono. “Possible homicide. We’d better brief the captain and find that van.”
* * *
Stevens pulled up the driveway to their property out in rural Haiku; an area dominated by jungle and large eucalyptus robusta trees, brought over to Hawaii in a mistaken attempt to grow a lumber crop and now dominating the landscape of that area. He punched the code into the gate and the ten-foot-tall cedar edifice retracted, flush with the wall that circled their two-acre property. He drove the rest of the way through a grove of fruit trees and parked in the open garage area that had been one of the first things completed on the new house.