“In and out.” Big Estelle copied her.
“Whuhuh lamuuph cuz?” Unable to get her lips to work right, Kiki had meant to say, “Where are we, a Lamaze class?”
“Close your eyes and sit back.” Em patted her shoulder. “Please, Kiki.”
The door opened, and Sophie, bless her, entered carrying a chilled martini glass full of vodka. There were four olives skewered to a plastic sword in it.
“Here you go, Kiki.”
Kiki held out her hand for the drink, but she was shaking so hard Sophie set it on the desk in front of her.
“When you’re ready.” Sophie went back to work.
“You want the drink?” Kimo was leaning over her.
Kiki bobbed her head up and down.
“Then sit back and close your eyes,” he ordered.
She leaned back and closed her eyes.
“And don’t worry,” Em added.
Don’t worry! All she could do was worry. Kiki’s thoughts were tumbling over one another faster than water in a waterfall during a rain storm. She snapped her eyes open and glared at Em.
“Okay, so worry. Just don’t try to talk yet,” Em advised.
They hovered over her until she’d stopped quaking like a volcano about to blow. She opened her eyes and pointed to the martini.
Flora handed it to her. Kiki barely sloshed any vodka as she raised it to her lips.
Calmer now, she said, “Mudluker.”
“Kiki. I mean it. Don’t try to talk.” Kimo wiped his brow with his T-shirt sleeve. For his sake and his alone, Kiki shut up and downed half the martini.
She took deep breaths. Closed and opened her eyes a few times. She caught Kimo staring at the cleaver on the desk.
“Orders are backing up,” he said.
“This is an emergency,” Em told him. “Don’t worry about it.”
Kiki pointed toward the kitchen and nodded.
“Will you be all right?” He didn’t look like he would leave her.
Kiki nodded and held up the martini. No worries, she wanted to say. I’m feeling better.
All she could do was nod and smile.
Em sat on the corner of the desk. Flora went out to get their straw bags, and when she came back she had drinks for both herself and Big Estelle.
Sophie brought in a second martini, and once half of that was gone, Kiki was ready to try again.
“I will . . . mot be . . . shang-roaded.”
“You mean shanghaied?” Big Estelle said.
“Or railroaded?” Flora laughed.
“Either one,” Kiki assured them. “I’m not going down for a brime I didn’t commit. Crime,” she amended.
“No one thinks you will,” Em said.
“He does. That nephew does. I’m not going to jail. Not on his life. Private dick or no private dick.”
“What?” Em was staring at her.
“It’s from the old movies,” Big Estelle told her. “They called detectives private dicks.”
Em looked puzzled. “Why?”
Big Estelle shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll ask my mother.”
“Hey! I’m in rubble. Trouble.” Kiki took a deep breath. “I won’t sit here and do nothing and end up in prison for life in Arizona or some other godforsaken place.”
“Good lawyers are waiwai.” Flora pulled a lime wedge out of her drink and started chomping on it, rind and all.
“Not to mention expensive.”
Flora swallowed. “That’s what I said.”
“Are you going to be all right, Kiki?” Em stood up.
“Of course. I’m all right. I’m sure Sophie and the others need you. Get back out there and make money.” Kiki faked a huge smile. She reached up and made certain the flowers anchored on her head were still in place.
“You’re sure?”
“Really.”
“Tom Benton is just in shock, and he’s angry,” Em said. “He’ll calm down. There’s no way anyone can prove you did this, even some imported detective.”
Kiki wished she could be as certain.
“I think one of the girls should drive you home,” Em suggested. “How about you, Big Estelle?”
“I’d be happy to, of course.”
“Nonsense,” Kiki told them. “You have to get home and make sure Little Estelle isn’t up to any of her tricks. Flora, you have to get back to your store. Make sure those Tiki Goddess items are still moving.”
“No worry there,” Flora told them. “People are hoarding T-shirts and mugs since the murders. The Lillian Fan Club is stopping by in a couple hours though. I should be there when they make a run on the store.”
“You go right along,” Kiki said. “I’m feeling much better.”
The world always looked better after a couple of good stiff martinis.
“You all go on.”
Flora and Big Estelle picked up their bags and headed out into the bar. Kiki stopped Em and asked her to tell Kimo she needed to talk to him for a minute.
She sat alone in Louie’s office, tempted to kick back and put her feet up on the desk for a while and stare at all the photos of Louie with politicians and celebrities. The shot of Louie and Irene with Elvis on the set of Blue Hawaii was one of her favorites.
As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t a bit sad about Marilyn’s death. The Goddess and Louie would be better off without her.
Kimo stepped into the office wearing his stained apron and carrying a wire whisk. With the tour van there along with the usual lunch crowd, he’d had one heck of a morning in the kitchen.
“What’s up? Feeling better?” he asked.
“Of course. I don’t want you to get upset, but I need to tell you something.”
His face creased with worry lines. “What?”
“I don’t know of any other way to save ourselves. We have to get out of here.”
“What have you done, Kiki?”
She gasped. “Nothing! I haven’t done anything, but we have to run, Kimo. We need to hide out for as long as it takes. We have to hide like Ko’olau the Leper and his wife, Pi’ilani.”
“Don’t be crazy.”
“I’m not crazy. I’m thinking clearly for the first time in a couple of days. That nephew of Marilyn’s is as evil as she was. He’s going to try and pin her murder on me and the cameraman’s murder on you.”
“He’ll never prove it.”
“I’m not going down for a crime I didn’t commit, and neither are you. I have a plan.”
“What kind of plan?”
“We have to get off the island.”
“I can’t leave. I’m out on bail. How far would I get?” He shrugged. “They’ll have my name at the airport. If I did manage to get off Kauai it would only make things worse. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Boat. We could take a boat.”
“I’m not running, Kiki.”
Kiki started to gnaw on her lower lip. “You really won’t even consider it?”
“Count me out.” He pointed the wire whisk at her. “You are not going anywhere either. Go home and take a nap. Things will look better after you get some rest.”
One of the hardest things she ever did was smile back and agree.
KIKI TOLD everyone at the Goddess goodbye and assured them the full effects of the martinis were nearly gone. Sophie made her drink a glass of water and gave her a handful of olives tucked in a napkin, and she was on her way.
Once she was home, she pulled into one of the parking spaces beneath the house. Because it was located in a tsunami area, the single structure was a good twenty feet off the ground, floating above vast open space below. Adding an elevator had been Kimo’s idea, and now she didn’t know what they would have ever done w
ithout it. She couldn’t imagine schlepping groceries, not to mention all of their hula adornments and costumes, up and down the long flight of stairs to the living quarters.
Once inside, Kiki headed straight for her bedroom. She opened the closet and dug around on the floor for a nylon backpack she hadn’t used in years. It was small and lightweight and would hold a few essentials but little else. She carried it into the master suite bathroom and tossed in some nighttime wrinkle remover, a tube of eyelash glue, toothbrush and toothpaste, and a big bottle of Tums. Then she hurried into her craft room and grabbed a package of raffia off the table. She opened a drawer and stared at a pair of scissors and some short-handled pruning shears and tossed them in thinking, you just never know.
After rolling up two batik pareaus, wide colorful lengths of fabric she used as sarongs, she shoved them into the pack, pulled a sweatshirt and a pair of yoga pants out of a drawer, and put those in too.
Almost done.
Writing a note to Kimo was the hardest part. She didn’t want him following her, nor did she want him to panic. She stared at a blank page of lined paper for a couple of minutes. She picked up a pen and started tapping her front teeth with it. It took her a while to compose, but once she was finished she was satisfied.
She purposely left her cell phone charger on the kitchen table near the note where he’d see it. If she didn’t answer the phone he’d think she forgot the charger and wouldn’t panic. She opened the freezer and took out a zip lock that was marked prime rib. There was a block the size of a thin brick of cash inside wrapped in foil. Kiki tucked it in her backpack and picked up her car keys and purse. On the way out of the kitchen, she opened the liquor cabinet in the dining room and grabbed a half gallon of vodka and a jar of olives.
Less than twenty minutes after she got home, Kiki was on her way.
28
Uncle Stirs Again
Em didn’t get a chance to run over to the house until seven that evening when she took Louie a plate of barbecue ribs, garlic mashed potatoes, and steamed string beans tossed with mac nuts. She was pleased and surprised to find him up, dressed, and behind the tiki bar making notes in his three ring binder, the Booze Bible.
“Hi.” She held up the plate wrapped in foil. “Brought you tonight’s special with extra barbecue sauce and some croutons for Dave.”
“Yo, ho, ho!” Letterman squawked.
“Mahalo.” Louie reached for the plate.
Em pulled a little paper sack with croutons out of her apron pocket and tossed a couple into Dave’s food dish before the parrot could dart over and take off one of her fingers.
“I’m starving,” Louie said.
Another sign of recovery. She was relieved to hear it.
“Let me get you some silverware.” She headed for the kitchen while Louie pulled out a chair at the dining table and sat down.
“Tom Benton stopped by earlier today.” Louie carefully opened the foil.
“I wish I’d had time to walk over with him.” Hopefully he hadn’t been rude to Louie after his confrontation with Kiki. “How was he?”
“He’s furious, you know. He’s convinced Kiki tampered with Marilyn’s brake line.”
“He really upset Kiki earlier. I thought she was going to croak.”
“Is she all right?”
Em nodded. “Hopefully. It took a couple of martinis to calm her down. She left for home hours ago.” She handed Louie a fork and knife. He dug into the mashed potatoes.
“I tried to tell him Kiki did no such thing,” Louie said between bites. “I couldn’t convince him otherwise. He had a couple of valid points though.”
“Such as? Surely he didn’t convince you that Kiki’s capable of murder.”
Louie tore a rib off the half rack. “Who else had motive?”
She debated telling him anything about Orion, but the truth would come out sooner than later.
“Actually, Roland found something a little suspicious.”
“What?” He stopped eating.
“There were a couple of one a.m. phone calls on Marilyn’s cell right before she died. Calls from Orville Orion.”
“Orion? No kidding?”
She could see the wheels turning in his mind as Louie stared back at her. Then he merely shrugged and chewed the meat off a rib.
“So,” he said.
“Aren’t you even curious about what Marilyn and Orion had to discuss at one a.m.?”
“They were friends. I wouldn’t worry about it. Will it clear Kiki?”
“I don’t know.”
“Those calls were probably about nothing that matters.”
The truth would no doubt hurt her uncle. She didn’t want Roland to know she’d confronted Orion either, so she gave up and shook her head.
“No, I guess not.”
He picked up another rib.
“Do you have plans to use your truck tomorrow morning?” she asked.
“No. Go ahead if you need it.”
“Nat has to go back to L.A. for a writers meeting. I volunteered to drive him into the airport. His flight leaves at nine, so I’ll be heading in early.”
“No problem.”
“Would you like to ride along? We could go out to breakfast afterward.”
“No, thanks. Some other time.” Louie made short work of the meal. After he took the plate to the kitchen sink and rinsed it off he headed back to the tiki bar.
“Dave and I have been working really hard on a couple of new drinks,” he said.
“I thought you both had a sparkle in your eyes.”
Letterman was in his cage munching on a crouton.
“I played catch up first, finally got around to putting the finishing touches on the Final Cut in honor of Bobby Quinn. Then I refined Marilyn’s favorite, the Fizzy Lady, with champagne and liliko’i syrup. Now I’ve cleared the decks to work on a drink for the state competition in Honolulu.”
“That’s great news. Are you ready to share the details yet?” He sometimes kept the details between himself and Dave until a drink was perfected.
“I’ll tell you the name, if you’ll promise to keep it under wraps.”
“Shoot.”
“Flaming Inferno.”
She smiled. “I like it. Inspired by the Kalua dance number, of course.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Can’t wait to hear more.” She glanced at the clock on the stove. “I’d better get back.”
“How are things going over there?”
It was the first time he’d even asked about business since Marilyn’s death, another sign that he was coming out of his depression.
“We had three van loads of Lillian’s fans from Iowa in for lunch. Thankfully things settled down after that. In fact, we’re a bit slow. Kiki and the Maidens didn’t come in to perform tonight since they were here to entertain the tour group. Trish and Suzi waited tables at lunch.”
“Kiki didn’t even come back tonight to dance solo?”
“She was really upset.”
“She must have been. I’ve never known her not to show up.”
“Tom really got to her. I hope he calms down. He’s going to step on a lot of toes and never get to the truth.”
“He even seemed pissed that I wasn’t doing more to find Marilyn’s killer.” Louie walked across the room to the small bar and picked up his reading glasses. “I told him that’s what Roland and the KPD are for.”
“Good thinking.”
“Besides, if someone around here is nuts enough to cut a brake line, not to mention stab someone with a sashimi knife, I don’t want to be out looking for him. Or her. Or whoever.” He tipped his head and peered at her over his glasses. “I don’t want you out looking for them either, young lady.”
Em no
dded. “Got it.”
She was almost at the front door to the lanai when she thought of something he’d said earlier. She paused and turned back.
“Uncle Louie? About that drink for the contest.”
“Flaming Inferno?”
“Promise me you won’t blow yourself, the house, or Dave to smithereens.”
29
Em Confesses
The next morning it was pouring rain, the sky full of gray clouds hanging so low they looked close enough to touch. Em was up early, dressed and ready to drive Nat into Lihue to the airport. She called and told him to stay put and that she’d drive the truck across the lot and pick him up so that he didn’t get soaked.
He was waiting on his lanai, ran out, and tossed his leather backpack in the back seat of the truck cab. Then he took off his glasses and was wiping the lenses dry as Em started to pull out on to the highway.
“Click it or ticket,” she reminded him.
He fastened his seat belt. “Are you sure I’m not taking you away from your duties?”
“We open late on Sunday,” she reminded him. “I re-stocked the bar last night before I left. It’s nice to get out of the hood once in a while.” Without traffic it was an hour drive to the airport, and the long stretches with fantastic views helped Em clear her mind.
“Hope you don’t mind riding in this thing.” Her uncle’s truck was old but he loved it.
“Not at all. For once I might look like I belong here.”
“I thought you could do most of your work over here, even take meetings.”
“Usually,” he said. “But this is a biggie with the producers and network. I have to be there.”
“Will you be gone long?”
He had another home in the L.A. area as well as an apartment in Honolulu. Sometimes Nat was away for weeks at a time.
“I never know,” he shrugged. “Boy, the rain is really coming down.”
“We needed it. I just feel sorry for the tourists who came to get tan.”
They went around a curve, and a flagman at the side of the road beneath a huge day-glow orange umbrella slowed them to a standstill. Up the line of cars ahead of them, they could see a bulldozer moving rocks off the highway.
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