by Toby Neal
Lei and Kamuela greeted the landlord, an older mixed Hawaiian man with a buzz cut, going through the ritual of establishing who you are, where from, and who might be relatives. Lei took her backpack out of the truck and turned to Kamuela.
“I’ll call you in the morning. If I’m on a roll with this undercover thing, I won’t need you right away.”
“That’s fine. I can get started on processing and uploading the prints from the hate mail.” Kamuela lifted a hand in goodbye and pulled the truck back out.
“Do you happen to have a camera I can borrow?” Lei asked the landlord. She’d spotted special license plates on his jacked-up Ford F-150. Retired military, Lei guessed. He’d probably bought this house, worth millions now, for a song back in the sixties.
“Sure. Can’t guarantee it has batteries, but I got something you can borrow.”
“Thanks. I just need it as a prop.” Looking around at the scene at Pipeline, Lei had decided posing as one of the many photographers would give her the best ability to move and mingle on the beach.
That, and one other thing.
Lei went into the simple above-garage apartment and dug into her backpack, pulling out the bikini Marcella had talked her into buying months ago, before she knew she was pregnant. Lean to begin with, Lei had lost weight after the miscarriage, and now the cups of the top felt loose. Her hand brushed her flat abdomen in a gesture that used to be almost habitual and now just reminded her of loss. Still, she knew she looked good in the low golden light of sunset falling through the window—honed and toned. Lean and mean. But definitely not like a cop, with her unruly mane of curls and the bronze-metallic bikini setting off her skin.
She came back outside with a beach towel over her shoulder and a long tee over the suit. The landlord handed her a decent Canon camera on a strap. “Turns out it has batteries and an empty SIM card.”
“Thanks. I’ll give you something extra for the rental.”
“You’re working on the Makoa Simmons case, right?” The older man squinted. “No charge. He was a nice kid. Didn’t deserve to go so young.”
“Did you know him?” Lei asked, fiddling with the settings on the camera. It was refreshing to hear something positive about Makoa from someone local.
“Not to speak to. But I watched him surf plenty times. Good manners in the water but didn’t take any shit. A great surfer.”
“That’s what I’ve been hearing. Thanks for the loan.”
“You need one of these. Every real photographer has one.” He handed her a tripod.
Lei set off down the beach. The setting sun was going down behind the mountain that marked Kaena Point, but there was still a crowd in front of Pipeline. Getting into character, Lei tied a knot in the corner of her big MauiBuilt T-shirt, drawing it up off one thigh.
She took long strides, loving the soft feeling of the moisture-rich air on her bare skin, the sensation of the deep coral sand massaging her toes. The camera slung around her neck and tripod under her arm, she kept heading toward Pipeline’s distinctive lineup as she speed-dialed Stevens.
“Hi, Sweets.” His voice sounded tired.
“Hey. Can you guess where I am?” They might not have a clear suspect in Makoa’s murder, but there were a lot of possibilities, and right now she felt good in her body in this place and time. The gorgeous setting was energizing, the regular thump of the surf fizzing her blood.
“Probably somewhere more interesting than me. I’m trying to get some peas and carrots into Kiet. And you know how he feels about peas and carrots.” Lei heard the baby smack the tray of his high chair, burbling. She felt a pang, missing her stepson’s sturdy little body in her arms. Kiet was Stevens’s son with his first wife, Anchara, whose murder had brought on the baby’s birth. Though the events leading up to their adoption of him had been shocking, Lei had fallen totally in love with the happy, easy child.
“Kiss him for me.”
“After the peas and carrots are off his face. And hands. And high chair, and the floor.”
Lei laughed. “I miss the little man. But you’re right, this is prettier than that particular scene.” She described the sunset and the waves, held the phone up so he could hear the thundering surf. “The only thing that would make this better is if you and Kiet were here with me. And we were on vacation.”
“I wish. Mom hasn’t turned up yet.”
“I’m sorry.”
Lei had reached the main surf break and walked right to the edge of a cluster of photographers, setting up her tripod as she listened to Stevens describe his day. “We’re going to give it a few days. See if she calls us or turns up,” he finished.
“Seems reasonable. Though I still think you should put the word out. Informally.”
“She’s made her bed. She can lie in it,” Stevens said. Lei only heard that hard tone in his voice when he was talking about suspects.
“Remember, her addiction is not about you,” Lei said. “I love you. I’ll be home soon.”
“I love you, too. And you’re not coming home soon enough for me,” he said, and hung up.
Lei hit the Off button with a sigh. She screwed the camera onto the tripod, getting into character as she aimed her viewfinder toward the surf and her butt toward the watching crowd.
Chapter 11
Stevens slid the phone back into the pocket of his loose after-work jeans, feeling that negativity he’d been struggling with and not sure what to call it—depression? Loneliness. A sapping sense of futility. He longed for a slug of Scotch, and hated the thought.
He picked up the spoon and focused on the bright-eyed baby in front of him. “One more bite, buddy. Come on.”
Wayne was stirring up something tasty in the kitchen, and after they’d eaten, Stevens thanked him for the meal. “If we didn’t have you helping us out, I don’t know what I’d be eating. Canned beans, probably.”
“I enjoy it. Though I admit, I’m looking forward to your little family moving into the big house,” Wayne said with a grin, touching his root beer bottle to Stevens’s Longboard Lager. “How’s it coming along?”
“The texture and paint crew come in a few days. So we’re close.”
“Lei say when she’s coming home?”
“No.” They cleaned up, with special attention to the circle of splattered peas and carrots around Kiet’s high chair. The baby was crawling around the tiny living room, chasing Keiki who, while tolerating Kiet’s climbing and ear-pulling, preferred to stay just out of reach.
“Listen. I’m worried about my mom. Can you put Kiet down for bed? I want to take a drive out to the usual homeless haunts, see if I can find her.” Stevens found himself putting words to the restless urge that had been building in spite of the bluster he’d said to Lei.
“You know what we call that in the program,” Wayne said. “Enabling.”
His father-in-law had been a social drinker when he got out of prison, but in the last year he’d become a lay minister in his church and had given up alcohol and gotten involved with a twelve-step program.
“Keeping those demons as far away as I can,” he’d explained to Stevens and Lei about his new lifestyle. “Alcohol was never my main thing, but I want to live as pure and clean as I can, and help others do the same.”
Now Wayne fixed Stevens with the dark-eyed, penetrating gaze that always reminded him of Lei. “Ellen needs to hit bottom before she’s ready for change.”
“I know. This isn’t for her. This is for me. I can’t stand the thought of her on the street.” A shudder swept through him. “I know too much. The street’s dangerous, even on Maui.”
Wayne squeezed his shoulder with a big, warm hand. “No problem. We’ll be here when you get back. I hope you find her.”
Stevens put on his badge and gun and picked up a light windbreaker. Kiet, seeing this, sat
up on his diapered bottom and reached both chubby arms for his father, face crumpling.
Stevens couldn’t resist. He swept the boy up and buried his face in the child’s neck, blowing a raspberry. “I’ll be back soon, little man.” He handed Kiet to his father-in-law.
Keiki, moving slower since the fire, got up out of her dog bed and trotted after him, following the truck all the way to the gate, her mournful brown eyes echoing the sentiment of the crying baby in the cottage as Stevens got on the road back to town.
Stevens picked up his radio and called in to the station, letting them know he was out in the field. “Looking for a friend I’m worried about. Radio me with any disturbance calls involving homeless or drinking.”
“Will do, Lieutenant Stevens. Stay safe.”
Stevens hung up the radio, glad he’d at least let the station know he was out. You never knew who was toting a gun these days.
The thought made him press down harder on the gas.
* * *
Lei snapped pictures as the sunset backlit the famous heaving turquoise barrels of the Pipeline at evening. The shifting crowd on the beach around her murmured and broke into hoots and applause at a particularly good ride. Lei had never witnessed such excellent surfing concentrated in one place—but it made sense. Every surfer out there had earned their place in some way, or they simply didn’t get a wave. And, once they had it, there was no better stage for deep tube rides and every sort of trick and aerial, even in the fading light.
Lei had to forcibly remind herself she wasn’t there just to spectate and get pictures. Straightening up from her camera, she turned to the photographer nearest her. “You come here often?”
The guy, a grizzled-looking Caucasian wearing a battered fishing hat and Torque board shorts, grinned. “That sounds like a pickup line.”
Lei laughed, tossing back her hair. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m a photographer from Maui. Lei.” She extended a hand, and he shook it.
“Lee Brannan. Yeah, I’m here most days it’s breaking.”
“I see you’re wearing Torque. Did you hear about their main team rider?”
“I did. Such a shame. Makoa was set to win the Triple Crown this year. Great kid. Photographed well, too. I sold a lot of shots of him.”
“Well, the buzz on Maui is that it wasn’t an accident.” Lei moved closer, leaning toward Brannan as if imparting a confidence.
“No shit! That’s horrible.” Brannan’s eyes widened. Suddenly his attention was caught by something in the surf. “You want to get this one. Oulaki’s on it.”
Lei applied her eye to the viewfinder and snapped off several shots of Bryan Oulaki in a yellow Torque rash guard, deep in a backlit Pipe wave. “He knows how to stand out,” she commented dryly, as the young man kicked out at the end of the wave in a flashy show of spray, his bright red board catching the sunset’s rays.
Brannan straightened back up. “One part talent, one part luck, one part showmanship,” he said. “That’s the recipe for success around here. Man. I’m having a tough time thinking about someone murdering Makoa Simmons.”
Lei pointed at Oulaki, paddling back to the crowded lineup. “There’s all kinds of talk about the rivalry between Oulaki and Simmons. He sure benefited from Makoa being gone from the lineup. I heard he’s in the Torque house front bedroom already.”
Brannan’s face darkened. “That’s just wrong.”
Lei pretended to fiddle with her settings. “I heard another rumor—that Makoa’s been getting a lot of hate mail. You know anyone who had it in for him?”
“Oulaki. Everyone knows about that. But there’s a group of really local North Shore guys, always doing the ‘keep the country, country’ thing. Hassling guys from the Mainland and other countries who try to get into the lineup.” Brannan was still frowning. “I don’t like to pass anything on, because I don’t want to get on their bad side. Photogs they don’t like get their tires slashed, equipment ends up in the surf, like that.”
Lei widened her eyes and pretended to shiver. “What? Who are these guys so I can stay away from them?”
“They wouldn’t hassle a pretty local girl like you,” Brannan said with a reassuring smile. “They call themselves the North Shore Posse.”
“Wow, and I just thought I’d take a weekend and come over here and shoot some pictures,” Lei said, dimpling at him. “I write stories for the surf mags sometimes under a pen name, and I’m planning a story on the Makoa Simmons’s death. Got any names for me?”
“No wonder you’re asking so many questions.” Brannan shook a finger at her. “You be careful stirring the shit, now.”
“I write under a pen name. A male pen name,” Lei emphasized. “What can you tell me?”
“You can’t quote me no matter what your name is. But I’d like to see a spotlight on those guys, especially if they had anything to do with Makoa Simmons’s death.” Brannan gave her several names, which Lei punched into her phone’s notes feature. “Now that I’m thinking about it, I also thought it was kind of fishy how Makoa’s girlfriend’s friend was always hitting on him out here, spending time with him. I met Shayla Cummings, shot her for Maui Girl bikinis, and I liked her. That friend of Shayla’s, Pippa? Not really a good friend.”
Lei felt her stomach lurch at this unexpected news. She’d liked the pretty blonde she’d spoken with, thought she was so supportive of Makoa’s distraught girlfriend. But maybe she’d had another agenda. This was the missing piece Lei had sensed.
“When was she out here last?”
“Just last week. I saw her and Makoa arguing.” Brannan’s mouth tightened. “I was setting up for my shoot for the day. It was early, the sun was hardly up and no one else was on the beach yet, but the house is right there.” Brannan pointed to the beach house Lei had so recently visited. “They came out of the house and were arguing on the beach in front. It seemed like Makoa was giving her a brush-off. First he kissed her, and then he put his hands on her shoulders and talked in her face, really intense. I was feeling bad for watching, so I looked away. Then, when I looked back, he was gone and she had her hands on her hips, just staring after him. I got the feeling she was upset.”
“Wow. I have a lot of leads here. Thanks so much,” Lei said, batting her eyes. The light had gone, rendering the surf into shades of gray. The surfers were straggling in, silhouettes against the pearly sky. Brannan, a dim shadow beside her, shook his head.
“Like I said, you can’t quote me. I hope someone finds whoever killed Makoa.” He unscrewed his camera and stowed it in the heavy Pelican case on the sand beside his tripod. “See you around?”
“I’ll be back out here bright and early in the morning,” Lei said. “I really appreciate this.”
Brannan seemed to be regretting he’d talked to her as he slammed shut his tripod and shoved the legs into it with abrupt snaps, picking up his case and departing. Lei followed suit more slowly, disassembling the tripod and looping the camera around her neck. She was conscious of gathering darkness along the edge of the beach, slanting out from the palm trees and brightly lit windows of the beach houses.
It wouldn’t be a good idea to get caught asking questions out here on the long dark beach, alone and unarmed.
Lei hung the Canon around her neck and snapped the legs of her tripod in. She glanced out at the ocean and noticed that, even though the sun was gone but for a smear of gold at the horizon, she could still see surfers out in the lineup, tiny black blots against the darkening sea.
“That’s how late you gotta stay out fo’ beat da crowd.” A rough male voice spoke from the gloom beside her. Lei spun toward the speaker but couldn’t make out much besides a looming male shadow. She lifted the tripod, trying not to appear concerned or defensive.
“I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”
“Not everyone
around here knows what they’re doing.” His voice was low and unfriendly.
Lei turned to fully face the man addressing her. The beach had emptied rapidly, and somehow she was alone out here with him and the ocean at her back. She didn’t want to escalate whatever his beef was.
“I’m sure you’ve seen a few kooks,” she said.
“And people who ask too many questions.” He took a step toward her. Six foot, a hundred and eighty or so pounds, probably local from his pidgin—but she couldn’t make out his features.
“I don’t know what you overheard, but I’m a writer doing a piece on Makoa Simmons,” Lei said. Her heart was hammering. She never should have left her badge and weapon at the apartment, but they’d seemed hard to conceal with her skimpy outfit. She bent her knees slightly and held the tripod in a ready position, preparing to hit him with it if she needed to.
“No talk smack about the North Shore Posse,” the man continued. “If we don’t speak up, this whole coast going be filled with haoles, Brazilians, and Euros.”
“Hey, I just heard Makoa was getting hate mail and thought it was interesting. Did the North Shore Posse send that mail?” Might as well try to get some information.
The graphic sound of the man hawking a loogie was her answer. “Get gone, bitch, or you’ll find out how we treat outsiders who stir the shit around here.”
Lei backed up until she was on the hard-packed sand at the water’s edge. The man didn’t move as she turned and speed-walked away toward her unit.
She glanced back several times, but he didn’t follow her. She powered back to the vacation rental and didn’t draw a full breath until she was safe inside the unit with the door locked.
She called Marcus Kamuela, her de facto partner here on Oahu. “I met someone from the North Shore Posse,” she said when he picked up. She described the encounter. “It seems like they might be behind the hate mail, at least, though the guy didn’t confirm or deny, just launched a world-class spitball next to my foot.”