“Midnight. I think around then. I helped clean up for a while.”
“Did you go right home?”
“Where else would I go that late? After the dance fiasco I called Lillian when I got home to make sure she was all right. Then I checked some emails and went to bed. Kimo was still here.” She wished she hadn’t said it, but it was true. She’d gone home first.
“He drove his truck to work yesterday like he always does, so we had two cars. He stayed late cleaning up the kitchen. Sophie and Em and probably Buzzy worked late too.”
Roland nodded but didn’t say anything. He walked over to the window overlooking the parking lot, Louie’s crowded yard, and the ocean beyond. Then he turned around again.
“So, you repair cars along with your event planning and hula? You’re one talented lady.”
“Where did you hear that? About the car repairs?”
“Em said you’ve kept Sophie’s junker running.”
Mahalo, Em, for that.
Enough is enough, she decided. She raised her chin a notch.
“I’ve helped Sophie out, sure. My dad had an auto repair shop and taught me to do some basic stuff. So what?”
“Carburetors are basic?”
“Pretty much.” She wasn’t about to let Roland Sharpe railroad her into a murder charge.
“You fix any other stuff?”
“Besides cars? I fixed a toaster oven last week.”
“I meant cars. Do you fix brakes?”
“I know a little about brakes, but my dad did those jobs himself. Liability and all that.” She leaned forward. “Look, Roland, there was no love lost between Marilyn Lockhart and me, but I didn’t hate her enough to kill her.”
“You just hated her a little.”
“I disliked her. I never trusted her. I know she was after the Goddess. She wanted it way more than she loved Louie, but I did not kill her.” She stood up and looked him square in the eye. “If you’re going to arrest me, then do it. If not, then I’ll leave. I’m missing one hell of a party next door.”
20
The Shake Off
Two days later, and another week was already well underway. Em was still waiting to hear from Tom Benton when the coroner’s office called that morning to tell them Marilyn’s body was ready to be released. Em tried to rouse Uncle Louie from his permanent horizontal position on the sofa long enough to ask what he wanted to do.
“I can’t stand the thought of leaving her in a mortuary until we hear from Tom,” he said. “She told me once that she wanted to be cremated, so I guess there’s no need to wait around. We can keep her ashes in a safe place until Tom arrives or he calls and can let us know what to do with them.”
“True,” Em said. With any luck at all, Tom would take over when he arrived on island. If he arrived on island.
While Louie stared at the ceiling, Em made the arrangements. When she was finished, she asked, “What about a paddle out?”
Along with traditional funerals and burials, many families opted for memorials at the beach. Armadas of outrigger canoes filled with paddlers, flowers, and friends ventured out onto the water to pour a loved one’s ashes into the ocean.
“That’s a definite no.” Louie shook his head. “Marilyn never went to the beach, and she hated the ocean.” He reached for the TV remote, turned on the television, and hit the mute button. On the screen, an anorexic blonde was doing some kind of dancer-cize.
“I’m worried about you, Uncle Louie. You need to get up and move around.”
Em missed the old Louie. This spiritless man melting into the sofa was not her uncle. She hoped he didn’t feel responsible for Marilyn’s death.
“Not yet. It’s only been three days.”
“We need you at the Goddess. People come in expecting to meet you.”
“You and Sophie can handle it for a while.”
“We aren’t you. You have more friends than you can count, and now you have so many fans since Trouble in Paradise aired. And what about Dave?” She glanced across the room to where the parrot was staring forlornly through the bars of his cage. “You haven’t put his perch outside since the gathering on Saturday. He needs to get out in the fresh air, and so do you.”
“Not today, Em.”
“At least get up and get dressed. Let me wash that robe.”
His cotton yukata was a crumpled mess.
“I’m fine.”
“You haven’t even mentioned making a commemorative cocktail in Marilyn’s honor.”
“You were right. It’s macabre.”
“I never said it was macabre.”
He shrugged and stared at the ceiling again. “It seems like it now.”
“But it’s the way you honor someone. Celebrate life before we drain the last tiki mug or something, isn’t that what you said? Marilyn would expect it, wouldn’t she? She’d want you to come up with something classy and timeless that would be on the menu where everyone would read it.”
Louie scratched his neck. “Do we have any more of that haupia pudding?”
The slick coconut pudding was an island favorite.
“We had about four trays of it, but they didn’t last through the day on Saturday. We have about twenty-five pounds of potato-mac salad left, though.”
“Okay, I’ll have some of that.”
Since he made no effort to get up and dish it up himself, Em fixed him a big bowl of potato-macaroni salad and opened a bottle of Pellegrino water. He turned off the television and sat up. Em handed him the bowl and set the water on the coffee table. His thick silver hair stuck out around his head in all directions. Em made an attempt to pat it down.
“You need a shampoo and shower.” She stood over him while he ate a couple of bites of salad.
He finally looked up at her. “Did you tell me Precious drank a Gatorade bottle full of tequila? Or did I dream it?”
“She did. It was Flora’s. It was a lot of tequila watered down with a little limeade. By the time Precious realized what was up, she’d already guzzled down most of it and passed out in Nat’s yard.”
“How is she? Do you know?”
“I called her earlier. She said she’d had a two day hangover and went through a bottle of aloe vera gel for her sunburn, but she’s all right.” Em didn’t mention she feared the poor woman might have suffered brain damage. “She says she’s thinking of joining the Maidens. She’s always wanted to hula.”
“Great!” He did a fist pump in the air.
Em smiled at the first sign of the old Louie.
“You think that’s great? She was Marilyn’s best friend, and she wants to join the Hula Maidens?”
“I think it’s fabulous. Nobody else has a hula show with a dancing midget.”
“Little person, Uncle Louie.”
“Nobody else has a hula dancing little person either.”
EM LEFT HIM shoveling down potato-mac salad and headed back over to the Goddess.
The place had been packed for lunch, but the weather was great, so most tourists were still at the beach soaking up sunshine. Kimo was in the kitchen prepping for the dinner crowd. If the trauma of the three murders had shaken the chef, he had never let it show. Em had only heard from Kiki once since half the island turned out for the sympathy gathering on Saturday. Roland hadn’t called at all.
“Hi.” Sophie was wiping off tabletops, moving around the room with the ease and energy of her youth. “Is Louie doing any better?”
“No, and I’m worried about him. He feels responsible for what happened and thinks he should have stopped Marilyn from going home so late. Not to mention calling down the wrath of his first wife, Irene, upon her.”
“What?”
Em explained about his asking for a sign from the legendary Irene that night.
So far he hadn’t looked at a newspaper, nor had word gotten to him, which was a miracle in itself, that Marilyn’s car had been tampered with. Obviously it was the only news Kiki had ever kept to herself. If telling Louie about it would have helped, Em would have passed on what Roland said, but the way her uncle was feeling right now, she was afraid he’d somehow take responsibility for not protecting Marilyn.
The phone rang, and Em walked behind the bar to answer it, told the caller they no longer took reservations and that dinner seating was on a first come, first serve basis and then hung up.
“I’ve got to get Louie up and moving,” she said. “He’s not interested in anything but infomercials and staring at the ceiling. You have any idea how to get him out of his funk?”
“Actually, I do.” Sophie walked back to the bar, tossed the dirty towel into a bin. She disappeared into the office and was back in no time with a newspaper article in her hand. She handed it to Em.
“I was going to give that to him once he was in a better mood, but maybe you should show it to him now.”
“What is it?” Em unfolded the colorful clipping. There was a photo of a row of bright tropical cocktails lined up along a bar top. The banner headline read “National Cocktail Shake Off Coming to Honolulu.”
“There’s going to be a national cocktail contest with a Tropical Tiki Drink division. In six months, the winners from the western region will compete in the regional finals in Long Beach, California,” Sophie said.
“California? Why not Hawaii?”
Sophie pursed her lips. “I guess there is a tiki resurgence in Southern California. Or so the article says. People are getting into tiki and the tiki lifestyle in a way that hasn’t happened since the fifties. What I can tell from the photos in the article, the contest is run by a bunch of nerdy guys with goatees and retro midcentury clothes. But Uncle Louie is the real deal. He should enter.”
Em scanned the article, folded it, and slid it into her back pocket. “Thanks, Sophie. Maybe it’ll work. It’s worth a try anyway.”
Two couples walked in, paused just inside the door, and looked around. The wives were sporting fresh spray tans, plenty of gold jewelry, and new resort wear. Their white shorts were perfectly pressed—a dead giveaway they were tourists.
“Would you like a table?” Em grabbed four menus and walked over to greet them. “Or would you like to sit at the bar?”
One of the men looked at the others and asked in a deep southern accent, “Are you sure this is the place? It sure doesn’t look like it could be the place.”
The tall blonde beside him had been checking out the faded barstool covers before she turned her attention to Em.
“Is this the place on that Trouble in Paradise show?” Her accent was as thick as gumbo. Apparently they all hailed somewhere in the lower forty-eight.
“This is the place,” Em said. “The world famous Tiki Goddess Bar.”
“It sure looks better on television.” This from a short, dark-haired woman who was a good fifty pounds overweight.
Em kept smiling. “That’s the magic of film.”
“Do you think we should eat here?” The first man was staring up at the dusty, antiquated tapa cloth that Louie had tacked to the ceiling sometime in the 1970’s.
“Maybe just one drink.” The short woman was no longer making eye contact at Em. “Just to say we’ve been here.”
“We’ll take a table,” the blonde said. “By a window. Could you turn on the fans? It’s stiflin’ in here.”
Em reinforced her smile and led them to the banquette near the window. Both women grabbed napkins from the basket in the center of the table and wiped off the vinyl chair seats before they sat down.
Em took their order and walked back to the bar.
“They want a round of Mai Tais. Make ’em double fisted. This bunch needs to loosen up.”
“No worries.” Sophie reached for the rum. “I’ll make sure they walk out on their lips.”
More people started rolling in, and it was a while before Em had a chance to fill a glass of ice water for herself. She stood beside the bar, looking around to see if anyone needed anything. Buzzy was at his usual table in the back corner engaged in his favorite sport of tourist watching. Since his break up with his fiancée, he’d taken up hunting for girls in resort wear again. He and the rest of the patrons in the place appeared content for the moment. The quartet from southern Missouri were no longer worried about a little grime. The women were shoving paper parasols from their drinks into their hair, and the men were arm wrestling.
“Better start watering down their Mai Tais.” Em nodded toward the table of four.
“Good idea,” Sophie told her. “Wanna bet they order dinner in a minute? They’re not going anywhere.”
“No doubt about it,” Em agreed. “By the way, before this place gets slammed again, I wanted to tell you I have to go into town tomorrow morning. Hopefully it won’t take long.”
“No worries.”
“Thanks. With Louie still out, you may be on your own for a while,” Em said.
“If Buzzy comes in I’ll have him help out. You running errands?”
“I may need to go in and pick up Marilyn.”
21
The Ride Along
Em was on her way out the door when Roland called and invited her to meet him for lunch at Mark’s Place, a small take-out restaurant in a Lihu’e industrial complex. She ran back into the house, changed from a tank into a top with sleeves and a V neck and added a little eyeliner.
Traffic was the usual back up through Wailua, but it smoothed out after that. She made it to Mark’s before Roland, parked and waited for him at one of the picnic tables out front. He pulled up to the curb in a white unmarked cruiser that wouldn’t fool a four-year-old, rolled down the passenger side window, and called across the front seat, “I’ve got an appointment. Come with me.”
She grabbed her purse, walked over to the curb, and slid into the car.
“You still owe me lunch,” she said.
“For sure.” He pulled away from the curb.
“Where are we going?”
“Talk to the Paradise Produce vegetable distributor. The rep is back from Maui.”
“Do I have to wait in the car like a good girl?” Em batted her eyelashes and thought she saw a flicker of a smile.
“You can go in as long as you don’t say one word.”
“Really?” She was shocked.
Roland shrugged. “Let’s just say I don’t trust you to wait in the car. You’ll find some excuse to follow me in. Besides, you know as much as we do right now.”
“Have you found any connection between the murders?”
“Still fishing, but I have an interesting detail about Ms. Lockhart.”
They pulled up in front of the warehouse, and she knew she’d have to wait to hear the interesting detail. The sign on the front of the building read Paradise Produce, and there was a painting of a bowl full of fruits and veggies.
“This is a new company that’s been going after accounts.”
“You think the rep was so gung ho he drove all the way out to the Goddess to try to land some new business before he took off for Maui? Or maybe the trip to Maui was just a cover up?”
“I have no idea. Can you remember not to talk?”
Em mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key.
They walked across a parking lot full of trucks and vans painted green with the Paradise Produce logo. The huge warehouse was divided into cold storage rooms and crates of produce on the ground floor. A narrow wooden stairway led up to a loft.
A young female secretary seated at a desk at the top of the stairs waved them up.
“Are you Detective Sharpe?” she asked.
Roland nodded. “
This is my assistant.” He didn’t give Em’s name, but she nodded and tried to look official.
The young woman picked up the phone and pushed a button. “The detective is here,” she said into the phone. When she hung up she smiled up at Roland again. “They’ll be right up.”
The loft was full of desks, some folding tables, and chairs. Em looked around while they waited, and within two minutes a local man in his fifties came up the stairs followed by a stocky, younger man in a uniform shirt that was green with the Paradise Produce logo on it. Neither smiled, but the older man was polite when he greeted Roland.
“I’m Edson Shihara, owner of Paradise Produce. This is Keith Daws, the driver you wanted to talk to.”
“Thank you. Is there somewhere we can all sit?”
Shihara glanced at the secretary. She jumped to her feet and started pulling chairs away from the desks. After a second Keith helped. Once the chairs were arranged, the men and Em sat.
The secretary went back to her desk, but Em noticed she was doing more listening than actual work.
“How was your trip to Maui?” Roland asked Keith Daws.
“Great. My auntie came over from the mainland, so we had a big family reunion. Sixty people showed up.”
“You lived on Kauai long?” Roland was jotting down notes. The way he danced around the real questions drove Em crazy, but she knew by now that’s the way he worked. Slow and steady. Kauai style.
Keith shook his head no. “A couple years.”
“You know why we’re here,” Roland said.
Keith swallowed. “Something about a murder at the Tiki Goddess.”
“Right. It occurred the morning you left for Maui. Do you know a man named Bobby Quinn?”
“Never heard of him,” Keith said. “I don’t know what any of this has to do with me. I wasn’t anywhere near the North Shore that morning.”
“Were you with anyone? Somebody who can vouch for your whereabouts that morning before you left for Maui?”
He shook his head no. “I live by myself. I got up, watched some TV, took a shower, packed, and then went to catch my flight.”
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