“Maybe?” He looked at my mother. “Why did Carmen leave the Wacky Gardens? She tell you that?”
Mother tapped her trusty clipboard. “Ki asked her to quit once he and Buster inherited the place.”
Louise jumped. “So maybe this does work, Wilson! Maybe Ki was jealous. He didn’t like Carmen being around her old boyfriend Davy, so he made her quit. But then, maybe he was still jealous, so he killed Davy anyway!”
And maybe Wilson would have given this theory some thought, but my mother interrupted. “No,” she said. “According to Carmen, Ki was only thinking of the other staff when he asked her to quit. He didn’t want things to look unfair with the two of them so involved—him being the new owner and such.”
“Because Ki’s so fair-minded?” I said sarcastically.
“Mm-hmm. Carmen says he’s a very level-headed fellow.”
“Ki Okolo?”
Wilson squeezed my knee and suggested we move on. “Where’s Carmen work now?” He pointed to the clipboard. “Did you get that?”
Mother flipped through her notes and pointed to something on the third page. “I’m afraid the poor girl still isn’t making a decent living. She drives one of those Beyond the Beach tourist busses.”
“The big green busses?” Louise asked. “We saw a few of those this morning!”
“That’s right.” Mother nodded. “In fact, I caught Carmen just as she was getting ready for work.”
I turned to Wilson. “We could go this afternoon.”
“What about the surfing lesson?” he asked.
What about it?
I argued that a bus tour with Carmen Dupree was much more important.
“Why?” he asked. “It’s not like she’s gonna lecture us on the details of her love life. She’ll be talking about the volcano.”
I was about to argue some more, but Mother reminded me how “disappointed” Chris would be if I stood him up. “He so wants to help you hang ten, Jessie.”
Much to my chagrin, even Louise agreed with this faulty reasoning. She suggested we wait until the following day for our Beyond the Beach tour and asked if she might tag along. “I’d love, love, love to see more of this island!” She hazarded a glimpse at my mother. “Tessie drove by things pretty quickly today.”
“Oh?” I glared at my mother, and trust me, Tessie Hewitt the mind-reader knew my exact meaning. But she pretended otherwise.
She held up her hands and declined the non-invitation. “No thank you, Honeybunch. Even if I am just another old lady, Carmen would likely recognize me if I climbed onto her bus.”
“But how will the rest of us recognize Carmen?” Louise asked. “Did anyone but Tessie get a good look at her?”
Wilson and I shook our heads while my mother again rummaged around in her purse. This time she held up her cell phone.
“Tessie Hewitt, you are a genius!” Louise exclaimed as she reached out. “Genius, genius, genius!”
Wilson looked at me. “She didn’t?”
I pointed to the phone Louise was now holding. “Apparently she did.”
Louise tossed the phone to Wilson, and I leaned over to get a glimpse of Carmen Dupree, a very attractive brunette.
He looked up at Tessie. “I cannot believe she let you take her picture.”
“It was part of my survey, wasn’t it?”
He glanced back at the phone. “Genius,” he mumbled.
Louise folded her arms and smirked. “Told you so.”
Chapter 14
Wilson swatted at my computer. “Where’s Russell Densmore when you need him?” he asked.
“Probably enjoying a week without his irritable boss.” I leaned back in my chair and pointed to the bougainvillea vines surrounding our porch at Paradise. “I wonder if I could grow those in Clarence.”
“Too cold,” Wilson said without looking up.
“But they would get lots of sun.” I pictured my rooftop garden back home. “I could bring them inside in the winter.”
“Yeah, and who’s gonna lug the things up and down that stupid stairwell for you?”
“Well, you.”
“Good thing they have thorns,” he said and banged a bit harder on the keyboard.
I glanced over at the poor innocent machine and suggested we go get Ki. “He’s the computer expert, no?”
“That would be great. We could ask him to help us Google his girlfriend.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” I pretended to glare and leaned over to rescue my computer from further abuse. I might suck at the internet searching thing, but no one could be worse at it than Wilson. I set the machine on the coffee table, cleared the screen, and asked what I was looking for.
“Anything,” he said and spouted off an array of topics I might try, including Carmen Dupree, Ki, Buster, and Pono Okolo, Rachel Tate, Bethany Iverson, and the Wacky Gardens in general. “And try Derrick Crowe, too.”
Ah, yes. The guy who fell off the face of the earth. Where was Lieutenant Denmore when you needed him? No doubt the computer whiz extraordinaire of the Clarence PD and Wilson’s right-hand man would have no problem finding useful and informative clues on the internet. All with one or two deft and efficient clicks of the mouse. But Wilson’s extensive list could easily keep the far less skillful me busy for hours, if not days.
I whimpered only slightly and began tapping away while Wilson stood up to pace the porch and complain. “Research!” he said impatiently and spun around at my left. “That’s what Densmore’s for.”
I lifted my eyes and watched him do another lap. “Even Russell Densmore wouldn’t be able to concentrate with you jumping around like that,” I said. “Make yourself useful and go get me a Pele’s Melee.”
“We’re due for a surfing lesson in half an hour, Jessie.”
Alas, no pink drinks. But at least Wilson did sit down, and at least I located the local paper’s website. We found Davy Atwell’s obituary, informing us the memorial service was postponed until after the holidays.
“Why is there nothing about the family?” I asked, exasperated. “And absolutely no mention of those children? Why, why, why?”
“Jessie,” Wilson scolded. “We have no proof any of Carmen’s kids are Davy’s.”
I shrugged and moved on to find the report on the murder. That article was downright miniscule, but it still managed to include a disconcerting quote from Captain Vega, wherein he assured the public that the tourist who committed this terrible crime would be apprehended shortly.
While Wilson muttered a few four-letter words, I continued onward. Or rather, backward. I found Pono Okolo’s obituary and a mention of the transfer of the property to Ki and Buster. I even found a few advertisements for the refurbished, remodeled, and renovated Wakilulani Garden Resort. The ads included photos of the newly redecorated bungalows, the new koa tree beds, new kitchen, new dining room, new you name it.
“Altogether uninteresting,” I concluded.
“But I bet the history of this place is important.” Wilson stood up to resume pacing. “Find out more about the dead grandfather.”
I saluted and resumed my efforts as the Hoochie Coochie brothers resumed yet another rehearsal over on the Song of the Sea porch. Despite myself, I just had to listen. What was that?
“Oh, my Lord,” I said as it finally hit me. “Is that the “Chattanooga Choo Choo?””
Wilson stopped and perked up his ears. “Don’t you need a horn section for that?” he asked and unwittingly began pacing to the beat.
I was repeating my observation that a pink drink would be nice when I actually found something that seemed promising. I gestured to Wilson, and he sat down to read as I clicked on an article from one of the Los Angeles papers. It was over a decade old, but it was an extensive travel piece on the Wakilulani Gardens, and even included a picture of Pono Okolo, his bird, and his chef.
I smiled at the screen. “Look at Bee Bee.”
“You found him?” Buster called out as he and Louise raced toward Paradise. W
ilson nudged me, and I closed my laptop.
I noticed the binoculars dangling from my agent’s neck. “Is he still missing?”
Buster whined and raced off, calling Bee Bee’s name.
“We’ll take that as a yes?” Wilson asked Louise.
She waved her arms and acted frantic, even by Geez Louise standards. “Faye was right to be concerned this morning! Bee Bee is gone! Vanished! Poof!”
She flung her hands about, making poof-gestures, and managed to bop Buster in the nose as he emerged from a thicket of ferns.
“He’s been lost all day,” he informed us once he let go of his nose.
We asked for the details of the disappearance and got a lesson on the parrot’s routine. Apparently Pono had established the rules decades earlier, and Buster had continued to follow them. As such, Bee Bee was always safely tucked away in his cage every night before the evening dinner rush.
“His cage gets covered up,” Louise explained. “Birds need a dark, quiet place like that to sleep. Buster’s been teaching me. But the cover was off this morning, and Bee Bee was gone! Poof!” she added, and Buster jumped back a step.
Wilson checked his watch. “And you’re only now starting to look?”
“Well yes.” Buster hung his head and wrung his hands. “Some mornings Bee Bee gets impatient and lets himself out. He can open the cage door. And he likes to drag the night cover around the balcony.”
“So maybe his disappearance isn’t that unusual?” I asked.
“But not for this long, Jessica!” Louise flapped her arms, and Buster jumped back yet again. “He’s run away! Flown the coop!” With that, she was off and running, scurrying around the perimeter of our porch, her binoculars poised at every tree, shrub, and flower.
Meanwhile Buster became engrossed with something at his feet. He bent down to pluck a few tiny weeds between the stepping stones.
“Bee Bee, Buster!” Louise shouted as she rounded the porch.
He jumped to attention, dropped the weeds, and hastened off toward the ukulele players, all the while calling his bird’s name.
Louise caught my eye. “Poof!” she said and disappeared in the opposite direction.
***
“Heebie jeebies,” Wilson said firmly when he saw the look I gave him. He pointed past the manicured garden, and I wrinkled my nose at the jungle beyond Paradise.
“I suppose we would have to go off the beaten path if we helped out?”
“They don’t need us anyway.” He leaned over and opened my computer. “Sounds like Bee Bee’s done this before. He’ll find his way home.”
I remained concerned, but Wilson tapped at the mouse pad until the screen came back on, and I was reminded of another missing creature—Derrick Crowe—who was “talented and edgy” according to that article from the LA newspaper.
“Chef Crowe has the high-strung personality so important to any great artist,” we read. “He insists on only fresh, local ingredients.”
“He was localvore before the word even existed,” I said.
“Davy was cutting-edge, too.” Wilson pointed to the passage about the bartender, and we read about the Pele’s Melees.
“Containing six fresh fruit juices and untold quantities of vodka and rum, these cocktails are not to be missed. Be sure to admire the little gold umbrellas, and Davy might refill your glass on the house.”
I looked up from the screen. “It sounds like this reporter was charmed by all the Wakilulani guys—Bee Bee, Pono, Davy, Derrick.”
“Derrick, like in the old chef?” A bathing trunk-clad Chris Rye appeared at the edge of our porch. “Bethany says he disappeared off the face of the earth after Ki fired him”
“Old news,” I mumbled under my breath as Chris sat down next to his father.
I closed the computer and asked what else Bethany had said, but Chris was already distracted. He picked up the clipboard on the coffee table and started shuffling through the pages. “This is your mother’s?” he asked. “She told me what you guys did today.”
Wilson pointed to the notes Tessie had loaned him and explained what she had learned, but Chris was only half-listening. I couldn’t blame the kid—he had discovered my mother’s drawings tucked away beneath her notes.
“I didn’t know Miss Tessie’s an artist,” he said, and I had to smile. My mother is far too humble to ever claim such status, but she does draw. And as Louise would say, her pictures are fantastical.
“She complains her hand’s becoming too unsteady,” I said. “But she’s still pretty good at pen and ink.”
“Really good.” Wilson leaned over to once more admire the drawings he had found after our lunch at The Nettles Corner Bistro.
I stood up and hovered behind the two Ryes, and we chuckled at Mother’s rendition of Louise’s first solo swim. Chris was also most amused by Tessie’s drawing of me fighting the waves and/or my surfboard. And all three of us were charmed by her drawing of Bee Bee playing with the fake daisy on my flip flop.
“He’s missing,” Wilson said, but Chris had already been informed. He assured us he was on the lookout.
I was busy feeling forlorn about poor Bee Bee when Chris flipped to the next page, and we admired a most forlorn Buster. Mother had certainly captured the man’s essence. The younger Okolo brother was wringing his hands and looking altogether anxious about who knows what. No picture of Ki yet, but she had managed a sketch of the Hoochie Coochies and their ukuleles. We listened to a few bars of “String of Pearls” as Chris flipped to the next page.
“There’s Dad hanging ten.” He pointed. “But he hasn’t done that yet.”
“Yet,” Wilson repeated.
“Mother does most of her drawings from up here,” I explained and tapped my temple. “From her memory or imagination.”
“And here’s me.” Chris flipped to the last page.
Wilson groaned. “You need to stop hanging out in bed with old ladies.”
“You’re one to talk.”
I resisted the urge to smack the kid upside the head, and took another gander at my mother’s portrayal of Christopher Rye, bare-chested and lounging on her bed, a tall Pele’s Melee in hand.
“At least you’re wearing shorts,” I mumbled.
“Of course I am. You’re the Hewitt in charge of pornography.”
“Adelé Nightingale is not a pornographer,” I said indignantly. “I write romance fiction.”
“Yeah, right,” father and son said in unison, and Chris dropped the clipboard onto the coffee table.
“Surf’s up!” he informed us and bounded down the porch stairs.
I sighed dramatically, reminded Wilson I would require a very large pink drink when the torture was over, and went inside to change into my swimsuit. But Wilson did not follow. In fact, he was still studying Tessie’s clipboard when I stepped back onto the porch.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked.
“Go ahead,” he said distractedly, his eyes still on the clipboard. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Testimony to how much I wanted the lesson to be over and the pink drinks to be flowing, I didn’t argue and flip-flopped my unwilling body down to beach.
***
Pink drinks, pink drinks, pink drinks, I thought to myself over and over as Chris kept drilling me to “Paddle, paddle, paddle already!”
He had gotten Mother and me into the water, and we were furiously paddle, paddle, paddling to catch a wave when Louise arrived.
“Bee Bee?” I shouted over the waves and she shook her head no.
No?
Another wave slammed into me. Or more accurately, slammed into my board, which in turn, slammed into my head. Wilson showed up just in time to watch me almost drown. He gave me a thumbs up when I reemerged from the watery depths, and commenced demonstrating how handy upper body strength can be. The show-off barely had to paddle at all before catching a wave. And then another. He wasn’t standing up, but he was clearly his son’s star pupil.
I was deciding h
ow jealous I should feel when yet another wave slammed my surfboard into the side of my head, and I went under again. Was this fun or what?
I remerged to see Wilson standing up. Up!
“He’s up!” I shouted and pointed. “He’s hanging ten!”
“Fantastical!” Louise shouted back, and my mother slapped her surfboard in glee as Chris joined Wilson for a father-son surfing-duo moment.
Dare I say, it really was a moment? I gave both of the Ryes my most joyful smile, and they both returned my effort. Both of them.
We decided to quit while we were ahead. Chris helped my mother, Louise and I managed to get ourselves in to shore, and Wilson came in riding another wave and grinning from ear to ear.
We women were too exhausted to congratulate the guy properly, however. More or less in unison, we staggered up the beach, rid ourselves of the stupid surfboards, and dropped, knees first, into the sand. It took us about three seconds to realize kneeling wasn’t going to cut it. Again in unison, we twirled ourselves around and got horizontal. The sand in our hair be damned.
I reached out blindly and found my mother’s hand. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Fine,” she said in a rather small voice. “But I do believe I’ll sleep well tonight.”
I reached out my other hand to Louise. “How about you?” I asked.
“Pink drinks,” she mumbled. “An enormous vat of them.”
“Pink drinks!” Chris said enthusiastically from above us, and I heard his young feet racing off, hopefully toward the tiki bar, as Wilson plopped down somewhere near my feet. I tapped one of his knees with my right foot. “Congratulations, Captain Rye.”
He tickled a few of my toes and insisted I would soon be hanging ten myself.
Me hanging ten was about as likely as Delta Touchette sailing off into the sunset with Urquit Snodgrass, but I was too weak to argue.
***
We had managed to sit up, and were even offering my triumphant beau a few super slow-motion high fives, when Chris returned with a drink-laden tray.
Mother offered an enthusiastic thanks as he handed her the first plastic glass of Pele’s Melee. “And look at the color, girls. They’re pink again.”
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