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

by JoAnn Bassett

  “Where’s he headed?” I said.

  “I think they keep the dinghy over by the private pier.”

  We made it to the beach in less than five minutes. After about ten more minutes a sleek white speedboat came into sight, heading straight toward where we were standing. The boat did an abrupt ninety-degree turn, sending a wave of foaming water crashing toward us. The guy at the wheel waved and I realized it was the bellman.

  “That’s the dinghy?” I said.

  “Yep. You ready to wade out there?”

  “You bet.”

  Ono took my hand and we stepped into the surf. The dinghy captain had lowered a short metal ladder off one side of the boat and we had to swim to get to it. “Sorry you had to get wet,” he said as he helped me aboard. “For registered guests we use the dinghy dock. But I didn’t want my supervisor asking questions.”

  “No worries, man,” said Ono. “We appreciate the lift.”

  The dinghy was as tidy and plush as the hotel. The bellman handed me a fluffy white towel and I folded it into a square and put it down on the Hawaiian-print upholstered bench before sitting down. I was dripping wet but the sun felt good on my skin. Ono draped his towel around his neck and stood in front with the driver.

  A few minutes later we were alongside the Maui Happy Returns. As I climbed aboard the catamaran, I turned and saw Ono slip something into the bellman’s hand. The guy stuffed it into his shirt pocket without even looking at it. Then he clapped Ono on the shoulder and shot him a shaka before he roared away leaving us bobbing in his wake.

  “How do you get someone to do that?” I asked.

  “Do what?”

  “To break the rules and risk his job to help you out.”

  “Ha!” he said. “And you claim to be the kama’aina around here? This is Hawaii. Actually, this is Lana’i, which is like fifty-years-ago Hawaii. You need something done, you ask. Simple as that. And then you offer your mahalos in the way the person wants to be thanked.”

  “But the guy could get fired.”

  “Hardly. It’s hard to find guys like him over here. They’d never fire him.”

  I was about to ask what ‘guys like him’ were, but decided to drop it. Besides, Ono was already taking up the anchor. We were about to set sail.

  CHAPTER 18

  It’s reassuring to see things from a distance. I guess that’s why they call it ‘getting perspective’ when you finally figure something out. A month earlier I’d been able to see West Maui from a helicopter for the first time, and it was spectacular. In much the same way, circumnavigating Lana’i gave me a totally different outlook on the place. I’d been living in Lana’i City almost the entire time I’d been there, so I’d figured most of the island was covered in tall pine trees. But once we got out on the water, I realized how dry and barren most of it really was.

  We sailed in a clockwise direction, which meant once we left Hulopo’e Bay we headed west and then turned north for the first hour or so. I sat on the back deck to be close to Ono while he steered from the aft bridge. The deep swells kept me clinging to the rail, so I didn’t move around much. Occasionally, it would get calm enough to talk.

  “How far is it around Lana’i?” I said.

  “The island’s got less than fifty miles of coastline. At this speed it should take us less than three hours,” he said. “Sometimes you run into heavy chop and it takes longer, but I’m not expecting much of that today.”

  I looked at the sheer rocky cliffs along the leeward side and realized why this island had always been sparsely populated. The place looked forbidding, nothing but rocks and cliffs. There was no vegetation to speak of. I could imagine ancient seafaring people cruising by and saying, No thanks, we’ll hold out for a few blades of grass.

  “It sure looks inhospitable,” I said as we sailed past the cliffs north of Kaumalapau Harbor.

  “Yeah, this part of the island gets hardly any rainfall. Just up there is an area the locals call Keahikawelo, the Garden of the Gods. I haven’t been there, but I’ve seen pictures,” he said. “Believe me, it’s no garden. It’s a desolate stretch of dark red dirt with big rocks in crazy formations carved by the wind.”

  “Huh. I sometimes run on the Garden of the Gods Road,” I said. “But I’ve never made it all the way out there.”

  We sailed for another half hour before the wind slacked off enough that we could talk without shouting.

  “See those black rocks up ahead?” Ono pointed to an outcropping of tall lava rock formations jutting out from the sea. “They’re called ‘The Five Sisters.’ This is where the coastline starts changing from cliffs to beach. In a little while we’ll be passing Polihua Beach, the longest beach on the island. Hardcore types come out here to camp and pretend they’re on ‘Survivor’.”

  Sure enough, before long we were in sight of a wide beach boasting silvery sand and brilliant aquamarine water. The abrupt shift from steep gray cliffs to magnificent sandy beach was startling.

  “It’s almost like it’s not the same island,” I said.

  “Yeah. Wait ‘til we make the turn at the top. The difference between the leeward and windward sides is even more incredible.”

  “What’s that?” I pointed to a huge brown shape in the water dead ahead.

  “Oh, that’s an old ship. This beach is called Shipwreck Beach. Ships have been cracking up here in the Kalohi Channel for centuries.”

  “So that’s a shipwreck?”

  “Not technically. The navy ran that ship aground on purpose. It’s an old oiler from World War Two, one of the many ‘liberty ships’ they used to refuel the Pacific Fleet. It’s made of concrete, with iron cladding. The iron is all rusted, that’s why it’s brown. When the war was over, the U.S. Navy dumped the liberty ships in places like this to make habitat for marine life.”

  “It’s spooky,” I said. “It looks like a ghost ship.”

  “Yeah, but it serves two purposes. It warns sailors these waters are dangerous, and it acts like a coral reef. This is a popular spot for divers and snorkelers.”

  We glided toward the rusting hulk of the ship.

  “Okay, this is where it’s gonna start rocking and rolling,” Ono said. “We’re heading into the Pailolo Channel. The winds here create a venturi-effect. It’s got circular winds as strong as a wind tunnel. It’s gonna get crazy, but once we make the turn and head south it’ll calm down.”

  He wasn’t kidding. Like someone had turned a switch, the wind started howling. The catamaran jumped like it had been goosed, but Ono managed to keep us on course. Before long, we cut across the chop and turned so the land was now on our right, or starboard, side.

  “That was the worst of it,” he said. “See how much greener it is over here?”

  The windward side of the Lana’i—the side that faces Maui—was a bit greener than the leeward side. I hadn’t noticed until Ono pointed it out because I’d been staring at the jagged mountains of West Maui.

  “Is home looking good to you?” Ono said.

  “Better than ever.”

  We dropped anchor back at Hulopo’e Bay at about four-thirty. It had been a great sail, but I was eager to get back to dry land.

  “Got any plans for tonight?” Ono said.

  “Nothing fun. I’m going to clean up the White Orchid for Darryl and Ewa’s homecoming tomorrow morning.”

  “It already looked pretty clean to me.”

  I didn’t say anything. I was really going to be packing for my own trip home, but I wasn’t about to tell that to Ono.

  “What would it take to talk you into leaving the B & B in ‘good enough’ condition and spending the night with me here on the boat?” He’d moved in close and put an arm around my waist.

  I turned and wiggled away from his embrace. I shot him a smile and rubbed my hands up and down my arms as if I were cold.

  “What’s going on?” he said. “What’s the deal? I got kim chee breath or something?”

  “No, you’re fine. I’m just feeling a
bit torn.”

  “About…?”

  “I got a card from Hatch. And it made me realize how much I miss him. Actually, I miss all of them. Farrah, my roommate Steve, Sifu Doug. Everybody.”

  Ono looked out to sea and cranked the wheel around as we made our final approach into Hulopo’e Bay. “I hate to break it to you, Pali, but from the looks of things, some of them have moved on without you.”

  I shot him a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”

  “Let me set the anchor and we’ll talk.”

  After he’d lowered the anchor and the boat was softly rocking in the calm waters of the bay, he sat down on the bench seat and patted the cushion next to him. I plopped down.

  “I didn’t say anything to you earlier because I didn’t want to come off sounding like a snitch,” he said.

  We both caught the irony of that remark and we smiled at the same time.

  “Anyway,” he went on. “Farrah and Hatch are living together now. I guess they must’ve bonded over you going away.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” My voice had the shrill tone of a mother being told her kid had been caught selling drugs at school.

  “I didn’t just hear it, I saw it. Hatch called and asked me to help him move some of Farrrah’s stuff out of her apartment. I helped him carry a sofa down the stairs—.”

  “But that doesn’t mean anything. She had to get out of there. She could have moved anywhere.”

  “—and then I helped him move it into his house in Sprecklesville.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. She wasn’t there when we got back, but she’d made us lunch. And when she finally got back to working at the store again, he started working with her. He’s always with her. Word around town is you never see her without him. He still works his shifts at the firehouse but that’s about the only time they’re apart.”

  I put my head in my hands. This was something I never could have seen coming.

  “I’m sorry to be the one telling you this,” he said. “But I thought you’d want to know.”

  I stared out at the beach. Should I go ahead and go home, or was the universe giving me a kick in the rear so I’d stick around and do the right thing by Tyler?

  “I need to get back to the White Orchid.”

  “I guess that means ‘no’ on staying out here on the boat tonight?”

  “I’ve had a great time today, Ono. Can’t we just leave it at that?”

  ***

  Ono called for the dinghy and this time the guy who answered asked if Ono was a registered guest at the hotel.

  “I’m here to pick up some registered guests,” he said. He gave a name and a room number. I wasn’t sure if the name was somebody in his golf group or he’d just made it up.

  The guy who drove the Four Seasons dinghy out to meet us wasn’t the same smiley bellman who’d taken us out before. Instead, he was a big guy who looked like he would’ve been offered a full-ride scholarship as a linebacker for the University of Hawaii football team if he’d kept his grades up. He told us when to step down into the dinghy but then he didn’t say another word for the rest of the short trip back to the hotel dock.

  When he was out of earshot, I said to Ono, “Not a very friendly dude.”

  “Nope. And I’ll bet he makes half what the first guy makes doing the same job.”

  “The hotel’s allowed to pay them differently?” I said.

  “No, I’m talking tips. I’ll bet the last time that dude earned a tip was like never.”

  ***

  Ono drove me back to the White Orchid, but when we rounded the corner to Kua’aina Street there was a Lana’i cop car parked out front.

  “Not good,” I said, pointing to the white sedan.

  “You want me to take you down to your house?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind. I don’t want Wong to see me. I was supposed to be out running. And I really don’t want him to see you.”

  Ono drove me back to my house. I thanked him for the fun afternoon but left it at that. No kiss, no hug, no heartfelt mahalo for letting me know my best friend’s been shacking up with my boyfriend.

  “Pali,” he said as he helped me pull the picnic stuff out of the Jeep. “I’ll be leaving in the morning, but I want you to know I’ve got your back. If you need anything, and I mean anything at all, give me a call.”

  “Mahalo, Ono, I appreciate that.”

  “And, I’m sorry I had to tell you about Farrah and—”

  “No worries. I’ll get over it.”

  But as I walked up the sidewalk to my lonely little rental house, I wondered if I’d lied. Again.

  CHAPTER 19

  It was a struggle juggling the cooler, the folded-up tablecloth and my beach bag while I unlocked the screen door to my enclosed porch. The porch was cool and dark. I put the cooler down while I fumbled with my key ring to find the right key for the front door.

  “You know this means you’ll be leaving Hawaii,” said a voice from the deep reaches of the shadowy porch. Startled, I dropped the keys.

  “What the hell?” I turned toward the voice. “What’re you—?” I didn’t get to finish before Detective Glen Wong stepped over and grasped my wrist.

  “Penny,” he said looking into my eyes as if he were trying to hypnotize me. “I’m disappointed in you. Very disappointed.”

  “Let go of me,” I wrenched my arm away and Wong released his grip.

  We stared at each other. I was used to staring down kung fu opponents, and Wong probably had a lot of experience staring down perps, so neither of us yielded.

  “Your car is parked over at the White Orchid,” I said. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I’m continually amazed by your lack of faith in me, Ms. Morton. What is it? You think I lack even the most rudimentary surveillance skills? You think I wouldn’t have caught on that your sailor boyfriend had tracked you down? You didn’t think I had the wherewithal to figure out the two of you were down at the beach today?”

  “I thought I was in witness protection,” I said. “Not jail.”

  “Well, it’s all moot anyway,” Wong went on. “With all the media crawling around this island and your pal Tyler Benson demanding we bring you in for questioning, I couldn’t let you stay in Hawaii any longer even if your boyfriend hadn’t shown up.”

  I reached down and snatched my keys up off the porch. Then I unlocked the door. Wong followed me in.

  “By the way,” I said. “How’d you get inside the porch? The screen was locked.”

  “Penny, Penny, Penny,” Wong said, using the voice they probably teach recruits at police academy to make a suspect feel stupid. “This is my rental house, remember? I’m simply letting you stay here. You’re my guest. The only name on the lease is mine.” He pulled a set of keys from his pants pocket and jingled them in front of my face.

  “So, as I was saying,” he went on, “you have exactly one hour to get packed and ready to go. The last plane to Kahului leaves a little after seven. We need to be on it so we can connect to our mainland flight.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going where we’re going. Even if I knew our final destination I wouldn’t be permitted to tell you. Last thing the program needs is for you to call your boyfriend to say ‘good-bye’ and then have him show up in Chicago or Seattle or wherever.”

  “Chicago? I can’t go to Chicago in December. I’ll freeze to death. I don’t even own a coat.”

  “You worry too much about the wrong things, Penny.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder and steered me toward the bedroom door. “Now go in there and get packed. We leave in an hour.”

  He took a seat on the sofa. A few seconds later, I heard him yakking on his cell phone.

  I went in and opened the suitcase I’d laid out on the bed a couple of days earlier. I started banging around, emptying dresser drawers and muttering obscenities. But I didn’t put a thing in the suitcase. I was just making noise while I figured out what to do.


  ***

  I tucked a clean tee-shirt, an oversize sleep shirt, and two pair of panties in my beach bag and took it down the hall to the bathroom. Wong got up from the sofa and followed me to the bathroom door.

  “What?” I said. “I can’t pack my toiletries in private?”

  “I want to make sure that’s all you had in mind.”

  “I need to pee,” I said. I started to push the door closed in Wong’s face.

  “Leave the door open.” He flat-handed the door.

  “What are you, a pervert?”

  “No, I’m the guy who’s been tasked with maintaining surveillance on an uncooperative witness. The door stays open.”

  Wong went back to the living room. I ran a small amount of water in the sink and closed the stopper. Then I turned the tap way down to make a dripping sound into the pool of water. I opened my beach bag and threw in a small cosmetic bag along with my toothbrush and a tiny hairbrush.

  I stepped up on the edge of the toilet seat and carefully slid the window above the toilet open as far as it would go. Then I carefully popped out the screen and sent it sailing into the bushes below. I reached down and picked up my beach bag and threw it out the window. I put my right foot on the toilet tank and pulled my left leg up and over the window sill. I straddled the sill for a couple of seconds and then pulled my right leg up so I was perched on the sill. I looked down at my target landing spot, took a breath and launched myself up and out. I crashed through some thick bushes on the way down but I managed to keep from crying out as the branches scraped my hands and face.

  I hit the ground hard but intact. I stood up, ruffled the leaves out of my hair, snatched up my beach bag and headed down the street.

  Now what? I didn’t know anyone on Lana’i. Even Darryl and Ewa weren’t due back until tomorrow. I was pretty sure Wong had heard the commotion in the bathroom and by now had realized I was gone. It wouldn’t take him two seconds to figure out I’d probably head back to the White Orchid.

  I sprinted to Dole Park, cautiously looking over my shoulder, trying to spot Wong before he spotted me. As I rounded the corner on Lana’i Avenue, I saw it—Auntie Cora’s little yellow bungalow.