Rip Tides

by Toby Neal

  His phone vibrated and he saw that it was Lei and that she’d called several times.

  * * *

  “Sweets.” Lei heard a roughness in Stevens’s voice when he finally picked up.

  “Michael. I wanted to tell you I’m at the airport on the way to Oahu. I told you I’d probably have to go.”

  “I wish I could come over, too. I could use a distraction.”

  “What? You don’t like the new training detail?”

  “No. It’s not that. Mom skipped out on Jared when he took her to the doctor.”

  Lei sucked in a quick breath of dismay as she listened to her husband’s story about Ellen’s physical situation and then her disappearance. “So there’s nothing you can do?”

  “I don’t see what. I’ve got no grounds to report her a missing person.”

  “But she is missing. You could do a BOLO at least.”

  “And draw attention to the situation? Have one of our teams pick her up, drunk in her own vomit on the street? How would that look for us?”

  A long pause. Lei shut her eyes at the pain in his voice. She rubbed the white gold medallion at her throat. She didn’t care about the embarrassment factor, but he obviously did.

  “She might be in danger,” Lei said mildly. “I mean, the homeless scene’s nicer over here than in some big cities, but we have plenty of overdoses, attacks, rapes, and deaths.”

  “She’s made her choice.” Stevens’s voice went hard. “I came all this way to get away from her, and she followed us over with her shit. Jared and I don’t deserve this.”

  “Honey.” Lei didn’t call him endearments often, but this time one was called for. “I wish I could kiss you and make it better. But it is what it is, and she is who she is. I know because my mother was an addict. Their disease doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

  Another long pause. She heard him blow out a breath. “I know. On one level, I know. But it still feels personal. I guess I need to get over that. I’m sure she’ll call as soon as she needs something.”

  “Probably,” Lei said. “And you’ll help her. Because that’s who you are.”

  “I love you,” he said in a whisper. She could tell he was walking somewhere.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow. Kiss Dad and the little man for me.”

  “I’ll pass on kissing your dad. Kiet can have both kisses,” Stevens said, and Lei smiled as she cut the connection.

  They called for boarding. She stood, slinging her pack onto her shoulder, and got into the line along the huge viewing window, glancing one last time at Haleakala’s shadow.

  The good thing about the flight was that it was short. The bad thing was that she had to fly at all. Lei sat in the window seat of the Hawaiian Airlines midsize jet. Oahu was the hub of most activity in Hawaii, from government to business, and having to take a plane and spend a couple hundred dollars (not to mention renting a car or paying for transportation once you got there) was one of the minuses of living on the neighbor islands.

  Lei felt a painful constriction in her chest as she buckled her seat belt—and realized it was anxiety colored by grief.

  It reminded her of another time she’d buckled into a plane’s seat belt, on her way to another island. She’d been pregnant, and the seat belt had felt tight. She touched her waist now, feeling a familiar pang of emptiness. Sometimes she even imagined she felt the fluttering kick of the baby she’d lost.

  This was the first time she’d been on a plane since the commuter flight she’d been on from the Big Island had been hijacked. After she lost the baby, she had been on that flight back from Kaua`i with Stevens. She’d been so heavily medicated, she couldn’t even remember it.

  Lei couldn’t remember much from that dark time three months ago.

  She reached up behind her neck and took off the white gold medallion she always wore. Thank God she always wore it, or it would have burned, along with everything else she owned, in the house fire that had happened around the same time.

  With the medallion in her hand, Lei settled back, shut her eyes, and began doing relaxation breathing. She’d learned the technique during therapy early in her career on the Big Island. It still worked, but Lei was glad no one had taken the seat beside her. She just wanted to be alone to get through the short trip.

  Once they were in the air, Lei relaxed enough to look out the window at the spectacular coast of Maui on her left. The land draped like crumpled velvet, the clouds a swan’s-down edging. Maui’s rugged topography ranged in color from the deepest, darkest green to the pale yellow of new growth. The edge of the coast was rimmed in black rock and yellow sand, the ocean a navy blue blanket tufted with spindrift far below.

  Lei took out the sketch the artist had done, along with the photos of the two men she was pursuing. She’d taken the copies of Makoa’s professional contracts and told Pono she’d fax him a copy when she got to Honolulu Police Department. Sorting through the contracts, she made a list of contact people and representatives she could interview if she had time—beginning with the personnel at Torque, Makoa’s biggest sponsor. Torque had leased the beach house at Pipeline where Makoa lived during the season along with some of his competitors.

  Lei looked up as the plane began its descent and realized she hadn’t thought about the hijacking at all once they were in the air. The current crime she was investigating was too absorbing. She looked out the window as the plane curved down over the waters of Pearl Harbor, the wreck of the Arizona and its memorial clearly visible under a veil of shallow turquoise ocean. From their line of descent, the iconic profile of Diamond Head was clear in the distance, punctuated by the gleaming skyscrapers of Waikiki.

  Lei’s spirits rose. Since her stint in the FBI and living on the busy island nicknamed “the gathering place,” she’d had a special affection for Oahu, traffic-heavy and crowded though Honolulu was. Marcus Kamuela was meeting her at the airport. He’d texted her that he’d been assigned to be her temporary partner, and she was looking forward to working alongside Marcella’s fiancé.

  She texted Marcus that she’d arrived after the plane landed and got back a laconic ok. She made her way through the airport, inhaling the warm, plumeria-and-diesel scent of the busy thoroughfare outside Hawaiian Airlines.

  Lei was just setting her backpack down when Marcus Kamuela drove up in a black Ford truck with metal racks and a couple of surfboards on it. “Hop in,” he said.

  She grinned, opening the door. “Didn’t know you surfed.”

  “Of course. And we’re going to the North Shore, so we’d better blend.” Kamuela’s brown eyes crinkled at the corners, and his very white grin had a dimple. One muscled arm draped casually in the window frame, he was the picture of laid-back Hawaiian charm—but Lei knew how relentless he could be as an investigator. She was glad to have him on her side for this case.

  “How long’ve you been surfing?”

  “Since small-kid time.”

  “Stevens and I go out. We suck. It’s hard to get better if you start when you’re an adult.”

  “Keep tellin’ yourself that. Maybe you’re just uncoordinated.”

  Lei opened her mouth in indignation and saw Kamuela was teasing her by his grin. He pulled out into the busy traffic. “Listen, I’ve been monitoring your APB on the sketch and airport screen-grab photo. So far, nothing.”

  “I’ve got more now. One of the addresses is in Honolulu, so maybe we’d better go by there before we trek out to the North Shore.” Lei pulled up the address on her phone. “Okay if we get right to it?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Well, we’re going to see August Jones. His prints were found in the van the suspect rented, and he could match our ID mock-up.” Lei pulled out the man’s printed driver’s license photo and compared it to the screen-grab photo. “Too bad the resolution
and angle aren’t better on this.”

  “Can you plug the address into the GPS?” Marcus tapped the dash-mounted device as he continued to navigate the busy morning traffic into downtown Honolulu.

  Lei punched it in, and fifteen minutes later they were pulling into a long driveway with a series of duplex apartments branching off of it. Marcus braked the truck in front of 2A. “This is it.”

  “Gimme a minute.” Lei took her weapon out of its case and reholstered it, put her light jacket on over the shoulder holster, and buckled on her ankle piece.

  “Getting extra-strapped?” Kamuela quirked a brow.

  “This ankle rig saved my life not long ago. I’ll tell you about it later.” Lei got out of the truck, and she and Kamuela mounted chipped cement steps to the apartment’s beige door. Lei knocked. A few minutes later, a young man opened it. He was clean-shaven, around five foot ten with dark skin and black hair. Lei mentally compared him to the sketch and the photo—he could be the suspect, but she didn’t feel a sense of recognition.

  “August Jones? We’re from the police department.” Lei and Kamuela showed their badges. Jones didn’t blink or look worried.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “We were wondering if you could tell us a little about your recent trip to Maui. May we come in?”

  The young man invited them in, and they perched on a stained vinyl couch. He picked up a few pizza containers off the coffee table. “My roommates are a little messy,” he said. “What’s this about?”

  “We just need to know a few details about your trip to Maui, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay.” Jones sat down in a recliner with a built-in cup holder containing an empty beer bottle. “I went over there a few weeks ago to do some windsurfing. I had some vacation time and hooked up with some friends.” He shrugged. “It was fun. Why do you want to know?”

  “Where were you yesterday morning?” Kamuela leaned forward and gave the young man some intimidating eye contact.

  “I was at work.”

  “And where is that?”

  “I work at a dive shop on the North Shore.”

  “Can anyone verify you were there?”

  “Hey!” Jones struggled to get up, but getting out of the chair with its heavy padding and reclined angle made it an undignified process. “I need to know what this is about.”

  “We have reason to believe that someone who rented the same van you did may have been involved with a homicide.”

  Jones had escaped the chair. He put his hands on his hips. “I rented that van two weeks ago! And I was at work yesterday. You can ask anybody!”

  “We will,” Lei said. “Name and address of your workplace, please?”

  Jones gave it, and she noted it down. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

  Back on the road, Kamuela rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Not our man,” he said.

  “I agree, but I’ll check this alibi while you drive.” Lei punched the next address into the GPS. Then she called the dive shop and verified that yes, August Jones had been working the retail end of the shop yesterday. “Does August surf?” she asked on a hunch.

  “Sure he does. You can’t work on the North Shore of Oahu and not surf!” the manager exclaimed.

  Lei smiled at Kamuela as she hung up. “Scratch August Jones. On to Freddie Arenas. He lives in Kahuku.”

  “That little town is out past the Seven Mile Miracle, so we should probably stop at the Torque team house first.”

  “The Seven Mile Miracle?”

  “Nickname for this stretch of North Shore coast with all the surf breaks.”

  “I lived on Oahu a year and a half and never heard that,” Lei said, propping her feet on the dash as they finally left the outskirts of the city. Wide-open farmland, former sugarcane and pineapple fields, opened up before them as they drove through the middle of the island.

  “How many times did you get out to the surf zone when you lived here?” Kamuela drove casually, arm outstretched, hand draped over the steering wheel.

  “Not enough. I was a total workaholic. I think Marcella and I went out to Sunset Beach one time in the summer to lie out and work on our tans.”

  “No cases out that way?”

  “No. And I hope I can get home tonight, but in case I can’t, I better call your fiancée and see if I can spend the night.”

  “I’m sure you’re welcome.”

  Lei phoned Marcella and left a message asking to spend the night at her friend’s apartment. More than likely they wouldn’t get through everything today. “Just left a message. So you guys are good?”

  “Stressed out with the wedding stuff, but that’ll settle down after we get hitched. What about you guys? How’s the house coming along?”

  Lei updated him as they wound down from a higher elevation toward the small town of Haleiwa, where the famous coast began. The road narrowed to two lanes, growing windy and picturesque, lush with tropical foliage and studded with coconut palms. They crested a rise, and the ocean, folding in on itself in corduroy-like lines, generated enough mist from breaking waves to give a gauzy texture to the air.

  “It’s firing!” Kamuela exclaimed, and Lei felt the elemental excitement of the thundering surf give her a jolt of exultation. She’d come late to surfing and still hesitated to even call herself a surfer—but she’d done it enough to know there was nothing quite like the physical excitement of paddling out, punching her board through the walls of approaching waves, finding just the right spot to take off, and then the all-out effort of takeoff followed by the breathless drop, the turn into the curve of the wave, the wall of water pure moving energy beside her, the tuck to try to make it under the falling lip…and the washing-machine ragdolling underwater when she didn’t make any of the steps she tried—which was most of the time.

  It didn’t matter. There was simply nothing like it to take away stress and flush every pore with excitement. And this bit of coast was every surfer’s fantasy—on steroids.

  She bounced in her seat. “We have to look at the surf. Orient ourselves.”

  Kamuela grinned at her. “Want to go out for a quick session?”

  “Oh my God, it’s way too big for me. You know I only started a couple years ago at Waikiki.”

  “We can go to one of the inside bowls.”

  Lei’s heart pounded with fright and excitement. “Is there a beginner spot here? I’m not kidding.”

  “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “One thing I learned pretty quickly in the ocean—no one can really help you when you’re surfing.”

  “And the biggest danger is panic,” Kamuela added. They passed the turnoff to Haleiwa, the little beach town providing restaurants and amenities to the area. “Most of the contests are over already, so that’s good. It’s less crowded.”

  “Still looks full.” Waimea Bay’s parking lot was jam-packed with cars and trucks piled high with surfboards.

  “You’re used to Maui. You folks don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  They drove on slowly, with Kamuela identifying the individual spots for her. “This is Ali`i Beach Park. Got a lot of groms surfing on the inside here. It’s the mellowest spot for us to stop.”

  Lei took in the crowded beach park. The waves on the inside still looked big to her. “You know, Marcus, we should work. Let’s come by here on the way back and check it then. I just feel bad taking that kind of fun break on the county’s dime.”

  “Girl’s gotta grow a conscience, huh? Don’t you think you put in enough overtime?”

  “I know I do, but I came all this way to check out these surfers, and I just won’t be able to enjoy myself until we get that out of the way.”

  “Slave driver.” Kamuela drove them on, pointing out the parks and breaks all a
long until they came to Ehukai Park. “This is Pipeline. Let’s get a look at the scene.”

  They turned into the crowded beach park, and Kamuela pulled up behind one of the lifeguard vehicles, setting his police placard out on the dash. They got out and walked across the bunchy grass, past a billboard advertising the latest Triple Crown event with Torque’s sponsorship emblazoned all over the giant poster trimmed in nailed-up palm fronds.

  Lei sucked in a breath of awe as they approached the expanse of beach. The Pipeline break was so close to shore that Lei could see the huge, hollow wave exploding in both a right-and left-breaking expanse of gloriously bright aqua water, expending itself in surging foamy drifts across great yellow rafts of sandy beach.

  Something about it called to her, as if the blood in her veins was the same consistency as that surging ocean.

  The lifeguard tower was well-manned, a great sturdy yellow steel structure, and Lei spotted the many Danger signs along the beach, marked with red flags. She wondered how any tourists could be ignorant enough of the raw power of the ocean to go out into the pounding surf.

  But the surfers at the break showed no such lack of confidence, jockeying for position across the heaving, glassy surface and taking off in almost synchronized form, pulling deep and working maneuvers that she’d only dreamed of in her own efforts.

  A swath of spectators, everything from tourist families in lurid aloha shirts to bikini-clad beach babes, filled the sand directly in front of the break. Photographers with huge lenses and tripods peppered the crowd, and an atmosphere of excitement lent a carnival feeling.

  Lei and Kamuela drew adjacent to the tower, and Kamuela lifted a hand and went to “talk story” with one of the lifeguards as Lei took in the scene.

  From all reports, Makoa Simmons had been a regular here, well respected in the lineup, and had even frequently pulled off aerial maneuvers at this heavy barrel. Lei squelched the arrow of grief she felt. Regrets don’t find killers. Police work does.