Lana'i of the Tiger (The Islands of Aloha Mystery Series)

by JoAnn Bassett

  “Hey, it’s great to see you too,” he said.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…you know. I thought you were going to call first.”

  “I did call. Check your messages. I got tired of waiting for you to show up, so I just came over. I parked a block away so Wong wouldn’t notice the Jeep. Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  “Of course I am.” I must’ve been feeling the impact of Hatch’s sentimental Christmas card, because I was having a heckuva time getting back in the mood with Ono.

  “Is something wrong? You worried about that Benson dude hanging out in jail?”

  “Yeah, that’s been weighing on me.”

  “And how about your buddy Wong? You think he’ll come by here again?”

  “Who knows? But his nickname on Maui is ‘Peeping Wong’ so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s watching us right now.”

  Ono looked around, as if half-expecting to see Wong crouched behind a bush. “Maybe we should go inside.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me make you some killer coffee. I learned how to use a French press.”

  “Killer coffee? Who taught you, Tyler Benson?”

  Ono grinned at his lame attempt at humor, I didn’t. We went inside and I pointed to a seat in the breakfast room. Ono sat down and I got busy making the coffee.

  “Yesterday Wong told me the M.E.’s report showed Deedee and the reporter were killed between six and nine,” I said. I placed two mugs on the table and pressed down on the plunger in the French press. “That means there’s only a slim chance that Tyler was the killer.”

  “Slim chance? What’s that mean?” he said.

  “Well, if they both died between six and nine o’clock, it’s pretty certain Tyler couldn’t have done it. He was with me until well after eight.”

  “Well, that sounds like good news for him.”

  “Yeah, but Wong won’t let me come forward as long as I’m in WITSEC. He threatened to haul me to the mainland if I said anything. But how can I let them accuse Tyler of something he didn’t do? He can’t even grieve the loss of Deedee, because he’s fretting about being convicted of killing her.”

  “Look, Pali, they’re not gonna simply rely on circumstantial evidence in a big case like this. They have the murder weapon. And there are probably fingerprints. And DNA, and all that stuff. It’d be nice if you could verify Benson’s alibi for the time of the murders, but it’s only one of the things they’ll be looking at.”

  “You’re right. I’m overreacting. And please, call me Penny. I don’t like using your wife’s name any more than you do, but for now we both need to stick with the program.”

  “If it’s all right with you, I’d rather not call you anything.”

  “Fine.” I sipped my coffee and Ono did the same.

  “I know you’re right,” I said, breaking the silence. “They probably wouldn’t be able to convict Tyler on such flimsy evidence, but while he’s under this cloud of suspicion his reputation is taking a beating. He once told me the public loves to watch a celebrity’s life go up in flames. It seems having the guy behind the ‘Stony Jackson’ films accused of murder is gonna make for a pretty big bonfire.”

  “If he’s smart he’ll get himself a good lawyer and get the trial moved to Honolulu,” Ono said.

  “How would that help?”

  “You ever see a Hollywood-type get convicted in a big city? Honolulu isn’t LA but it’s darn close. Think about it. OJ and that guy who played Beretta got off. Even that music producer, Phil Spector, got off with a hung jury in his first trial. They finally convicted him the second time around, but it was crazy. I mean, the woman was shot with his gun in the foyer of his house. He claimed she’d committed suicide. How pathetic is that?”

  “But you’re talking about people who were guilty,” I said.

  “Guilty, not guilty—it doesn’t matter. The fact is, nobody’s guilty until a jury says so.”

  “No, what I’m saying is, Tyler didn’t do it. There’s only about a thirty-minute window when he’s unaccounted for. They wouldn’t be leaning on him so hard if I could just come forward and vouch for his whereabouts until eight-thirty.”

  “Okay, a couple of things here. First, Wong will drag you over to the mainland if you do that, and second, thirty minutes is plenty of time to whack somebody.”

  “But is it enough time to whack two people?”

  “Plenty.”

  We finished our coffee and sat in silence for another minute.

  “Well,” Ono said, “I was hoping to spend the day with you while my people golf at Manele Bay. Any chance I can talk you into setting aside your urge to do Wong’s job for him and go out to Hulopo’e Beach with me instead?”

  I didn’t have a thing to do in the next twenty-four hours before Darryl and Ewa came home. And I hadn’t completely given up on the idea of helping Tyler. I was feeling a tiny pinprick of guilt about spending time with Ono when I was desperately missing Hatch. But then, hanging around doing nothing all day wasn’t going to bring me any closer to getting home and getting back together with him.

  “Looks like those wheels are turning,” said Ono.

  “They are. I need to check in with Wong before we go.”

  “Gonna lie to him?”

  “Yeah, why not? He’s the one who made a liar out of me in the first place.”

  ***

  I called Wong and told him I was taking the day off from the White Orchid. I said I’d be going for a long run and wouldn’t be back until late afternoon. He asked where I was headed, and I said I hadn’t decided yet. I figured he had a right to know I wouldn’t be around, but he had no right to keep me under surveillance.

  “We’re actively working the Diamonte/Romano case, you know,” Wong said. “I don’t want you to think we’re over here just sitting on our hands. We’re doing everything possible to find out what happened. And I’m hoping we can wrap this up without getting you involved.”

  I thanked him for telling me that, but when I asked if they’d come up with any solid leads, he balked.

  “It’s an on-going investigation, Miss Morton,” he said. “I told you we’re working it, and I’m not saying anything more.”

  “Seems to me if you had something substantial you’d tell me so I could stop fretting over what I should do.”

  “You already know what you should do. You just don’t want to do it.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it for a moment. Then I put it back. That was exactly the same advice I’d gotten a month ago from my kung fu instructor, Sifu Doug, when I found myself caught up in the mess that had landed me on Lana’i.

  I said goodbye and hung up.

  CHAPTER 17

  Ono and I headed out at around ten and drove down to Hulopo’e Beach Park. The park fronts the swanky Four Seasons Manele Bay Hotel, but all Hawaiian beaches are open to the public so we knew we’d be allowed to lay our straw mats right next to the hotel’s posh cabana chairs if we wanted to. Hulopo’e Beach is spectacular, with sand as white as powdered pearls and clear teal blue water.

  “You want to get some sun or go for a walk?” Ono said.

  “It feels great to be out in the sun after all the shade up in Lana’i City,” I said. “But I’m not big on tanning. Let’s check out the area.”

  We walked along the beach and soon came to a large group of tide pools carved from the rocks. The pools teemed with tiny creatures. There were sea stars, little crabs, miniscule fish, and opihi—‘limpets’ in English.

  I bent down and ran my hand through the water in one of the smaller tide pools. The water was surprisingly warm. Tiny fish darted for cover.

  “Do you get down to the beach much over on…uh, over on Oahu?” Ono was learning to go along with my WITSEC story, but he still refused to call me ‘Penny.’

  “Not much. Between work, kung fu, and hanging out with my friends, I don’t get down to the water very often.”

  “Your friends don’t head to the beach for weekends an
d holidays?”

  “I’m not sure where they go. I’m usually working on weekends and holidays. That’s when people have weddings.”

  “Ah, makes sense.”

  We kept walking and soon we were climbing a steep cliff trail. Ono pointed out a small school of spinner dolphins putting on a show down in the bay. Kids on the beach squealed with delight as the dolphins leapt out of the water, flipped up and around, and dove back down.

  “How do they do that?” I said.

  “They’re really tuned in to each other. I’ve heard they have a sixth sense.”

  We climbed for about ten more minutes until we arrived at the top of a high cliff with a panoramic view of the ocean, the bay, and the vast horizon stretching to what looked like the ends of the earth.

  “Wow. This is amazing,” I said. “It kind of reminds me of when we went up in the helicopter.”

  “Yeah,” he said. He’d moved in closer from behind and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. “You know what they call this place?”

  “No.”

  “Pu’u Pehe,” he said. “Sweetheart Rock.”

  With his body pressed tight against mine, there wasn’t much doubt he was really enjoying the view. I flashed on the Christmas card from Hatch.

  “How’d it get that name?” I said. I pulled away a bit and squared my shoulders as if I’d gotten a crick in my neck.

  “An old Hawaiian legend says a warrior jumped to his death from up here when he heard his wife had died.”

  “Whoa. Let me see if I’ve got this right. So a guy in India builds the Taj Mahal when his wife dies, but in Hawaii a guy leaps off a cliff? My vote for best display of grief goes to the fancy marble tomb that brings in millions of tourists,” I said.

  “Yeah, but they named this ‘Sweetheart Rock.’ His love will always be remembered when people tell the story of his devotion.”

  I was amazed that Ono was able to talk about dead wives so freely. It was his own grief over his dearly departed Penny that made him flee to Hawaii from the mainland.

  “Jeez, I never figured you for the Nicholas Sparks type,” I said. I turned around to face him.

  “Who?”

  “You know, The Notebook, Dear John, The Wedding? Nicholas Sparks writes romance stories that always end up as tear-jerker movies.”

  “I consider myself pretty romantic.” He stared at me, his face edging into a smile.

  I broke eye contact, took another quick look at the view and then stepped back onto the trail. It was time to head back.

  “Hey, where’re you going?” said Ono. “You want me to jump?”

  I shot him a puh-leeze look.

  “What’s going on with you today?” Ono said. “The other day you seemed really glad to see me, but now I’m beginning to feel like an annoying little brudda. What gives?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that,” said Ono.

  “I can’t either. Look, let’s get back down to the beach and take out the picnic. I’m probably just grumpy from hunger.”

  We made our way down the rocky trail. The beach park was green and cool, with picnic tables and barbeque grills. We walked back to the parking area and I pulled the cooler out of the back of the Jeep. I started to lug the cooler across the parking lot, but Ono tugged it away.

  “C’mon. I know you’re tough as nails, but spare me my manhood,” he said.

  “Your manhood won’t be trashed by letting me carry something,” I said. My voice sounded a bit snarly, so I added, “But I appreciate the offer. Here, you take the cooler and I’ll run ahead and get the table set up.”

  I laid one of Darryl and Ewa’s oilcloth tablecloths over one end of a long picnic table. The table looked pretty clean, but there were birds hopping around on the next table over. They were pecking at crumbs and leaving tiny piles of white mess behind. I didn’t want to add ‘bird flu’ to my list of things I didn’t like about my time in WITSEC.

  “What have you got there?” Ono said as I took out containers of cold fried chicken, macaroni salad, sticky rice, and marinated vegetables. “Looks pretty healthy.”

  “Yeah, if you don’t count the mac salad swimming in mayo. Or the deep-fried chicken. Or the sticky rice with mango that’s probably got about ten thousand calories,” I said.

  “But you’ve got veggies.” He held up the plastic cup of carrots, peppers, and celery pieces sloshing around in a tangy marinade.

  “True. And we’ve got fresh coconut cupcakes for dessert.”

  “Yeah. And I’m pretty sure coconut’s a fruit,” he said.

  “It is today.”

  We munched our lunch, neither of us bringing up the subject of why I’d pulled away from him up at the cliff. Normally, I’d have packed along a bottle of chilled white wine for a picnic lunch, but Ono was in a twelve-step program. I wasn’t about to be the one to make him take a header off the wagon. From what I’d heard, his life had been pretty grisly before he’d gotten sober.

  “That was fantastic,” he said. He stood up. “Let me clean up here while you go down to the beach and find us a place to stretch out. It’s nap time.”

  “Do you like shade or sun?” I said.

  “Both. See if you can find us a spot where we can get some sun and then move into the shade if it gets too hot.”

  “Aye, aye, captain.”

  I laid our bamboo mats in a spot close to a tree with low-hanging branches. I opted at first to spread my bamboo mat under the tree, but after a few minutes I relocated it out into the sunshine. It felt so good to be warm after weeks of being indoors or in the shade of the pines.

  “Do you have any sunblock?” I said.

  “Sunblock’s for sissies.”

  “Tell that to the folks in the melanoma ward at Maui General.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, I’ve got sunblock. Here.” He pulled a travel-sized bottle out of his backpack and handed it to me. “Are you gonna put on your bathing suit?”

  “Only if you do.”

  “This is my bathing suit,” he said pulling off his tee-shirt. He was wearing his cargo shorts and flip-flops. “If you were hoping for a Speedo, I think there’s a law against them for guys pushing forty. If not, there should be.”

  Ah, I’d never known his exact age. Did ‘pushing forty’ mean he was forty or he’d be forty in a couple of years?

  “I’ll be back,” I said. I picked up my beach bag purse, which was big enough to carry a couple day’s worth of supplies. In it I had a change of underwear, a swim suit, some first-aid stuff, a couple of trail bars, and a tangle of safety pins. The safety pins were a hold-over from my wedding planning days. No self-respecting wedding planner ever showed up at a ceremony without safety pins, duct tape and a tube of concealer make-up. Since I’d been on Lana’i there were a lot of things missing from my purse. Namely, my driver’s license, my car keys, and my credit cards. But enough was enough. They’d have to pry my big wad of safety pins from my cold dead hands.

  The restrooms at Hulopo’e Beach Park seemed dark after the blinding sunlight but my eyes quickly adjusted. I went into a stall and slipped off my shorts, underwear and tee-shirt and wiggled into my two-piece suit. The bottom part fit okay but the top seemed a bit roomy. Had I lost weight while in hiding?

  I cinched the halter strap a bit tighter and went out to try and make out my reflection in the scratched metal mirror. It was hard to see, but from what I could make out, I looked presentable. Not whoo-hoo hot, but not ‘please put your clothes back on’ bad.

  I picked my way back toward the beach. Ono waved at me from the shoreline. When I got down there, he looked me up and down. “Jeez, woman, you look like you just got off the red-eye from Pittsburgh. Don’t you ever get out?”

  I looked down. He was right. My legs sported a bluish tinge that looked like I’d spent the last few weeks in the hospital.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve gotten any sun,” I said.

  “You want to go fo
r a sail?” He pointed to his catamaran, the Maui Happy Returns. It was bobbing in the clear water out beyond the swimming area. “I can get a guy from the hotel to dinghy us out there. We could circle the island and you could soak up a few rays.”

  “What about your golf people? When are you supposed to meet up with them?”

  “They won’t be done until after four. Then they’ll spend a couple of hours at the bar reliving every hole. We have plenty of time. Lana’i isn’t a very big island.”

  “Sounds great. Truth is, after being stuck over here I’ll probably never want to come back. It’d be nice to get a good look at it before I go.”

  We picked up our things and stashed them back in the Jeep. We drove the short distance to the Manele Bay Hotel and Ono pulled up in front.

  The property was breathtaking, with a profusion of tropical plants and trees bursting from the circular garden alongside the entranceway. The Four Seasons Manele Bay looked just as tidy and luxurious as the Lodge at Koele up in Lana’i City, but with an entirely different vibe. Manele Bay Hotel was beach posh; the Lodge at Koele was country chic.

  “Are you going to valet the car? You think that’s okay?” I said.

  “Trust me. I may not be kama‘aina, but I’m getting wise to how things work around here.”

  A valet hustled over and opened my door while another opened Ono’s. Ono handed over the keys and, after assuring the attendant we didn’t have any luggage, the Jeep was whisked away.

  Ono walked over to the bell captain’s podium and leaned in to talk to the bellman. The guy looked like he modeled for O’Neil Surf Gear. He was taut and tanned, with a George Clooney-esque grin and a hard-to-pin-down ethnicity. He glanced around as Ono talked to him, his eyes darting from the door to the guests and other bellmen standing around. Then he called to one of the other guys to come take over the podium. He said he’d be back in half an hour. We walked twenty yards before he said anything.

  “I’ll meet you down at the beach, left side. Watch for me and then come out. I can’t bring the dinghy up onto the sand.”

  Ono nodded. We broke off to the left and took the stairs to the beach while the bellman went right.