by Toby Neal
Keiki, their Rottweiler, greeted him with a single bark, pressing in against his leg as he opened the door of his Bronco.
“Hey, old girl.” He stroked her head and played with her silky ears. Keiki hadn’t been the same since the house fire, when she’d been traumatized as well as burned. Her energy just seemed lower. But now she scented Ellen and sniffed loudly, shooting Stevens a glance as if in question. “Yeah. My mom’s here.”
His mother was still asleep in her seat, so Stevens took a moment to look around. His father-in-law’s cottage, where they were all currently residing, was a cheerful little home with a sheltered front porch and two red hibiscus bushes bracketing its steps. Beside him the harsh-looking concrete walls of their new house, built for security and stability rather than looks, were complete. They’d spent extra for a terra-cotta-colored, metal tile roof. Pretty soon, the stucco guys would come and apply exterior texture that would make the house, currently looking like a barracks, more attractive.
Stevens didn’t much care what it looked like. After living through two fires, he just wanted to sleep in a place where that particular nightmare would never happen again, and if it cost more and took longer, his nightmares might at least decrease.
He reached over and shook his mother’s shoulder gently. Her bones felt brittle under his hand. “Mom. Wake up. We’re here.”
Ellen sat up, blinking, and he got out and came around to get her backpack and open her door, surprised when he saw moisture in her eyes as he took her hand to help her out of the seat.
“Thanks, Michael,” she said. “You know how to treat a woman. I’m thankful.”
Keiki sniffed around her legs and slowly wagged her stump of tail as Ellen stepped out of the truck with dignity. Stevens felt a tug of soft nostalgia as she took his arm.
“Where are you putting me?”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Stevens gestured to the looming bulk of the house beside them. “We’re still under construction here after a house fire, so we’re going to have to put you in a tent out in the yard.”
He led her across the smoothly mowed lawn, which Wayne kept shipshape, to a large tent, already set up with an air mattress in it, back behind a mango tree. He and Lei slept out there when they needed more privacy than the tight quarters of Wayne’s cottage provided, and it was also a fun place for Kiet to play.
“This is nice,” she said, looking around the interior, furnished with a patterned rug, a chair and camp table, the already-made bed, and a playpen filled with toys for Kiet.
“Yeah, this is our little getaway when any of us thinks the cottage is getting too cozy,” Stevens said. “You’ll have to go in the new house for the bathroom, though, but at least the plumbing is in and working there. We’re a ways away from being able to move into it.”
Stevens decided not to say more, wondering how long she was planning to stay and afraid to ask. He set her backpack down next to the desk and couldn’t miss the longing glance she cast at the bed, like she just wanted to get in and sleep.
“Come meet Wayne. We’d be lost without his help with the baby.”
Ellen followed him across the yard, silent as he pointed out the various kinds of fruit trees on the property: breadfruit, mango, Hawaiian orange, macadamia, tangerines, and a stand of coffee and cacao trees in one corner, which were Wayne’s experimental project.
Wayne met them on the porch, Kiet, crowing with delight, in his arms. The older man’s gaze sharpened as he shook Ellen’s hand and took in her appearance.
“Pleased to have you visit,” he said graciously. “This is Kiet. Our grandbaby.”
Stevens took the child into his arms. His mother stared at the baby as if mesmerized. “Kiet Edward Mookjai Stevens,” Stevens said deliberately, so Ellen would know that he’d given Kiet his father’s name.
“He’s beautiful,” she breathed. Stevens knew it was true. His son gazed at his grandmother from remarkable jade-colored eyes. His thick black hair shone in the sun, and his skin was the color of taffy. The baby extended a chubby, dimpled hand to reach for Ellen, and she reached for him as well.
Stevens hadn’t anticipated the emotion that would tighten his chest and clog his throat as he handed his mother her grandchild for the first time. But it was there, and it was as real as her thin arms, which encircled the child as she buried her face in his tender neck. Kiet swiveled back toward Stevens, uncertain, and then, as if deciding to sample the wares, he patted Ellen’s head.
She sat down in a nearby rocker with the baby in her arms, and Wayne cleared his throat. “I’ll throw some extra food together for dinner. Jared coming?”
“Thanks, Wayne. We hope he’ll make it.”
“I just needed to see my boys,” Ellen said. “I didn’t know any of this was going on.” Her voice was muffled in the baby’s neck.
“Well, better late than never, right?” Gentle humor in Wayne’s voice took any sting out of the words. “We’ve been through a rough time in the last six months.”
“I’m glad to be here,” Ellen said, rocking Kiet.
“Good to have you,” Wayne said. “Mike, can I have a word?”
Stevens followed his tall, rangy father-in-law back into the house, and the man turned to him in the tiny kitchen, pitching his voice low as he ran a hand through salt-and-pepper curls.
“Is she sick?”
“An alcoholic, like I told you a while ago,” Stevens said. “Still drinking and smoking, from what I can tell so far.”
Wayne frowned, his dark eyes worried. “I bet she’s got something more going on.”
“Jared’s pissed at her. I’m not sure he’s coming to dinner tonight, but I’m sure we’ll find out more. I don’t know how long she’s going to be staying.” Stevens felt the familiar frustration and worry thinking about his mother brought. “We can put the screen tent up on the lawn so we can all sit down together.”
“Got some laulau stashed in the freezer for a rainy day,” Wayne said. “You better give Lei a heads-up.”
“I left her a message.” Stevens looked down at his phone, clipped on his belt and vibrating. “Speaking of…” He answered the phone and went back onto the porch as Wayne took a foil-wrapped packet out of the freezer.
His mother was rocking Kiet on the porch, humming a little melody that Stevens recognized in some deep place as he took the call from his wife. Her voice sounded tight with tension.
“Pulled a homicide. I won’t be home until late. We have to dig in hard until we run out of leads. It’s Makoa Simmons. Looks like he was drowned on purpose out at Ho`okipa.”
“Oh crap.” Stevens walked down onto the grass and out to the metal storage shed where they kept the screen tent and foldable table and chairs. “That’s just tragic.”
“I know.” Lei sighed. He could picture her rubbing the medallion she wore on a chain around her neck, a habit she had when she was stressed. “How’s it going with your mom?”
He’d reached the toolshed, a simple metal structure, and pushed the sliding door open, taking out the long plastic bag that held the tent.
“She’s not too well. Really skinny and seems exhausted. She bought a one-way ticket over.”
A long pause as Lei thought this over. “Is she staying long?”
“I don’t plan for her to.” Stevens blew out a breath. “But she doesn’t seem to have anywhere to go.”
Lei didn’t question this further, and he liked that. He knew it was at least in part because in Hawaii culture, family came first. No one would put a relative out on the street who needed shelter. “Is she staying in the tent?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure Jared’s coming to dinner, so it would be great if you could make it home for that, even just an hour or two.”
“I’ll try. May have to bring Pono, though. We’re moving on in this, so we’ll
need to keep it short.”
“That’s fine. Whatever works. She’s really taken to Kiet.” He turned to look back at the porch. Kiet had rested his head on his mother’s thin chest, and they both appeared to have fallen asleep in the rocking chair. The sight moved him. “She was surprised to find she was a grandma, but I can tell she’s happy about it.”
“That’s good. So…Makoa Simmons.” Lei was obviously still thinking about her case. “We’re just sorting through the possible motives, but it seems like there was a lot of professional competition out there with the other pro surfers along with some sour grapes. Discord in the home, too. I may have to follow the case to Oahu, where he lived.”
“Well, it’s a high-profile homicide, so do what you gotta do.” Stevens heard frustration about his reassignment come out in his voice as he said, “We’re almost out of the old station. Captain put us back into the main station house like I told you was happening, and I’m now the new detective trainer for Maui.”
“You’re going to be great at that!” He hadn’t expected Lei to sound so enthusiastic. “You are so good at teaching and getting the men to dig deeper, make their best effort. Captain’s smart to put you on that.”
“I suspected she was going to give me some other duties. I’m just not sure how I feel about not having active cases anymore.” He hauled the heavy tent bag to the open area where they liked to set up for dinners outside. With his mother here for a while, he planned to leave the tent up so they’d have room to sit down at meals. The roof would keep the rain off, and the screen was absolutely necessary to keep mosquitoes out. With the two tents in the yard, they’d effectively increased their living space.
“Well, you know Maui. I bet you just get started and develop the program they want and then, at the same time, we’ll get a bunch of nasty cases and you’ll have to work those, too.”
Stevens smiled. “Might happen like that.”
Talking to Lei had lightened his mood. He pulled the tent out of the bag one-handed, and the metal poles clanked onto the grass.
“Times like this I just…” He dropped the bag. “I miss you being here.”
“Yeah. I’d rather be there than here.” He heard by her breathing that she was on the move. “What time are you eating so I can try to swing by then?”
“Probably around six-thirty, when, hopefully, Jared gets here.”
“Okay. Save some for us.”
“It’s laulau your dad’s been stashing for a special occasion.”
“Laulau!” He knew Lei loved the steamed Hawaiian meat dish, slow-cooked in kalo leaves. “We’ll be there for sure. I gotta go.”
“I love you. There. Pau for today.” He’d said he’d tell her that every day after they were married. Though they joked about it, he still felt good about trying to stay faithful to his promise.
“I love you more.” He heard a vibration of conviction in Lei’s voice as she hung up.
Chapter 4
Lei and Pono tracked down Shayla Cummings’s home address. As they got ready to go out with the station’s on-call sketch artist, Lei’s phone lit up.
She saw it was her friend Special Agent Marcella Scott, on Oahu. “I need a couple minutes,” she told Pono. Her partner nodded and headed out to claim a cruiser with the sketch artist. “Marcella! How are the wedding plans coming along?”
“Okay, but that’s not why I called you.” There was a serious note in her friend’s voice. “I wanted to let you know Ray Solomon is out on bail.”
“What?” Lei felt her stomach drop, her mind’s eye filling with her last view of Ray’s face, those distinctive golden-hazel eyes sunk deep in pouches of fat, filled with a hate that burned her as totally as he’d burned their home. She shivered involuntarily. “I think Hilo PD should’ve let me know he is out. I have to go there in a few weeks to testify at his trial.”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on him for you,” Marcella said. “He’s in a group home type place for the indigent disabled. He doesn’t seem to be doing anything but watching a lot of TV.”
“Marcella, don’t let his paralysis deceive you. Ray hates me for his disability, blames me for all that’s gone down with the whole Chang family.” The history was long, and had its roots all the way back a generation. “I’m a handy target. But finding out he’s out of jail doesn’t help me rest easy.”
“I’m sure there’s too much heat for him to do anything, even if he had the connections anymore. Without his partner, Anela, who was the legs of the operation, he seems to be totally shut down.”
“Does the FBI have surveillance on Terence Chang anymore?” Lei asked, worried about the young man who had helped them with the Big Island case—but for his own, not entirely clear, reasons.
“No. After Ray was in custody, we pulled the surveillance on Terence. We had no grounds.”
“Well, thanks for the heads-up. I may get to see you, sooner than later. I have a big case that may bring me to Oahu. I’m hoping Marcus can partner with me on it.”
“I’m sure he’d be delighted. Call me when you get here.”
“Will do.” Lei wrapped up her goodbyes, and frowning with the worry of this news, trotted through the station to find Pono and the station’s contracted sketch artist.
They piled into one of the station’s police cruisers, as neither of their trucks had a third passenger seat. The artist, a skinny young man named Kevin with a spindly goatee twisted into a braid and gauges in his ears, leaned his head in between the seats as Pono pulled the vehicle out onto the busy traffic of Hana Highway.
“So am I sketching the guy who offed Makoa Simmons?” he asked, the late-afternoon sun winking on a little red stone in his nose piercing.
“It’s a lead. Nothing more,” Lei said. The department contracted with the young man and he’d signed confidentiality agreements, but Lei was always cautious of civilians’ commitment. “You can’t discuss it.”
“Of course.” The artist reached up and played with the big, metal-lined hole in his ear.
“Why do you do shit like that to your body?” Lei asked. “I’m curious. I really want to know.”
“It’s a style thing. An aesthetic.”
Pono eyed the young man. “Those holes in your ears look like handles for grabbing in a fight, and a punch to the nose is really gonna hurt with that piercing,” he said conversationally. “But that’s just the way we cops think.”
“Good thing I leave the brawling to people like you,” Kevin said, contempt in his voice.
Lei grabbed his ear, her fingertip digging into the gauged hole and giving just enough of a tug to show the young man how easily she could rip his lobe off.
“Respect,” was all she said, and let go.
He sat back and shut up.
Shayla lived in a small cottage on the property of a house in Kuau. Lei had an affection for the little neighborhood, a mishmash of expensive beachfront mansions mixed with run-down old plantation-style homes right on the ocean near Maui’s best North Shore surf and windsurf spots. Stevens’s old apartment building, where Jared now lived, wasn’t far from the bikini model’s cottage.
They pulled up at the address and got out. Shayla’s house was in the back, and they went around the garage, following a path of beach stones set in the grass. A wide-branched old plumeria tree sheltered the tiny cottage, and Lei breathed in the warm, sweet scent of the big white blossoms that dotted the lawn and the porch.
The same girl who’d been comforting Shayla at the beach opened the door. “She took a sleeping pill and she’s in bed,” the friend said. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She wasn’t as pretty a crier as Shayla was.
“I never got your name,” Lei said, taking out her trusty spiral pad.
“Pippa Thomas,” the woman replied, pushing long blonde hair back behind her ears. “I’m Shayla’s best frie
nd, and I loved Makoa, too.”
“Well, I know this is a hard time, but we need Shayla to work with our sketch artist here on a likeness of the young man she saw drop in on Makoa,” Lei said, indicating the artist, who’d followed them into the small, tidy space.
“I’ll see if I can get her up. Have a seat.” Pippa indicated the faded, tropical-print couch and went into the back.
“Pono, why don’t you have a look around? I’ll talk to her friend.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Pono was already browsing the pictures in the hall, looking for any with Makoa in them, when Pippa and Shayla returned. The surf star’s girlfriend had hastily donned a too-short embroidered satin robe. Her long, tanned legs, loose breasts, and tumble of waist-length brunette hair caused the sketch artist’s jaw to drop.
“Are you feeling up to working with us on a sketch of the guy you spotted coming in from the water?” Lei asked.
“Okay.” Shayla sat in a flounce of satin on the couch. Her eyes were half-closed, her voice hoarse. Lei wished she’d had the sketch done at the beach, when Shayla was more alert.
“Hi. I’m Kevin. I’m going to ask you some questions and keep showing you what I’m working on so you can help me stay on track,” the artist said. He sat gingerly on the couch beside Shayla with his pad and pencil.
Lei pulled Pippa aside. “Can I speak with you privately?”
“Okay.” The girl’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but she followed Lei back outside under the plumeria tree.
“We’re not ready to tell Shayla yet, but Makoa’s death is looking suspicious,” Lei said.