Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  “Sounds likely.” Stevens reached for his phone. “I’ll check with Ross and we’ll have her picked up for questioning.”

  He made the call while stirring the soup and dishing it up. Lei listened with half an ear to the discussion as she spooned up the tasty chicken noodle, getting up and serving herself seconds. Eventually he closed the phone, spooned up his own soup.

  “Not as good as Aunty’s,” he said.

  “Good enough. I was hungry.” She sat back, eating a cracker from the pile he had served with the soup. “What a long, god-awful day.”

  “Glad you’re still here to bitch about it. That was some gunfight.”

  “I don’t like you being on my case.” She got up, cleared her bowl to the sink. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t want you involved. It’s a conflict of interest.”

  “Tell the Lieutenant, then,” he said evenly. He opened a file on the table. She realized he hadn’t looked at her all evening, and seemed to be holding himself in check with an effort. “He assigned me as backup for Ross and Nagata.”

  “Shit.” She could hardly stand to look at him the pull toward him was so strong—and yet, she was so wrong for him.

  “You know what?” He slammed the folder shut. “You seem to think you get to be the only one who has anything to say about this relationship. You seem to think that because some pedophile called you “damaged goods” and did a number on you, you’re going to be messed up forever. What a load of crap. You think you’re the only one who knows about pain and dysfunction?” He put his hands on his hips and finally looked at her, and when he did his Viking blue eyes were blazing. “I’m not buying that old shit. I know what we had, what we could have, and you’re not getting rid of me that easily. That’s what I came to tell you this afternoon while you were out trying to get shot in the park.”

  She couldn’t think of a thing to say, and found herself scuttling to her room and locking the door.

  “I’m going to be around whether you like it or not,” he said through the closed door. “You’re damaged. I’m damaged. So what. Now get some rest.”

  She climbed into bed, exhaustion and the safety he brought making it possible for her to snuggle deep into her silky sheets, relaxing. She closed her eyes, a smile curving her mouth. He might just be even more of a glutton for punishment than she was.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Lei sat on the floor of the kennel the next day and stroked Keiki’s big square head. The dog’s eyes looked up at her trustingly as she played with the light-brown eyebrow patches, stroked her satiny ears. Keiki lay on her good side, a big white cone around her neck to keep her from biting at her bandages or the veterinary staff.

  “She’s looking good,” Dr. Westfall said, pocketing the stethoscope he’d used to listen to her lungs. “The bullet came in through her chest but missed any organs, and exited the shoulder as you can see. The biggest concern right now is blood loss and infection. I’ve got her on a fluid drip of antibiotics. If we can keep her sedated and resting a few more days I think she’ll be out of the woods. Later on, our concern will be the mobility she will have through that shoulder.”

  “Thanks, doc,” Lei said, resting her cheek against Keiki’s. The dog stuck her tongue out, trying to lick her, and she laughed blearily. “You have no idea how much this means.”

  “You’d be surprised,” he said. “Animals can be closer than family.”

  “This one is family.”

  She didn’t notice when he left the kennel, closing the door softly.

  Nagata was waiting for her on the worn little porch when she drove up. She hurried to join him on the top step.

  “So far your story is checking out about what went down in Volcano Park. Lieutenant wants you on admin leave until this whole thing gets sorted out.”

  “That sucks. I’m going to go nuts with that much time on my hands. What’s happening with the Chang thing?” Lei rubbed the black stone in her pocket as she talked with the detective.

  “We’ve had Anela picked up in California. Ross is flying back there to interview her. The local PD in San Rafael don’t know enough about the situation to get us what we need. Ray Solomon’s stable in the hospital and has admitted to doing the stalking campaign.”

  She’d thought as much, but it was good to have it confirmed.

  “Anyone been able to find out anything about Kwon?”

  “Yeah. He’s in Lompoc Federal Prison for molesting some kids.”

  Lei rocked back as she absorbed this, standing on her porch. The weak sunlight of an overcast day gilded the tilted aluminum pole of her mailbox, the chipped cement steps, little rag of lawn. She was disappointed Kwon was out of reach. Part of her had fantasized pointing her Glock at his crotch and pulling the trigger.

  “We still don’t know how much the other Changs are involved in this and if Healani Chang has authorized any further action against you. Lieutenant would like you to come to the county safe house,” Nagata said, adjusting his dapper button-down shirt as he went down the steps.

  “No. They’re sending Keiki home tomorrow, and she needs to be in familiar surroundings,” Lei said, adjusting her sling as she walked down to the sidewalk beside him.

  “Yeah, we know how you feel about that dog,” Nagata said with a twinkle, as he got in the unmarked Bronco. “Okay. We’re sending a uniform out to do sweeps by your house.”

  “Thanks.”

  She watched him drive away with a tremendous feeling of relief. She was almost sure whoever was left in the Chang conspiracy would think twice about messing with her now that she’d shot Ray. Lei hurried up the stairs into her cottage as Nagata drove away, punched in the code and re-activated it behind her.

  Sighing, she went to the kitchen and ran herself a glass of water, drank it at the sink, then went and took a shower. Feeling a little better, she sat down at the little Formica kitchen table wrapped in her robe.

  It was taking a lot of showers to feel like the blood had finally been washed off.

  Stevens had left behind the file he had been studying last night. It was full of photocopied records on various members of the Chang crime family. She perused the records on the patriarch, Terence “Hatchet” Chang.

  His rap sheet had close to fifty different drug, racketeering, and trafficking charges, many of which had been dismissed. Eventually he’d been convicted of felony drug trafficking and second-degree murder. His cause of death three years ago was listed as homicide.

  No assailant name was listed on the criminal report, but Lei knew that name was Wayne Texeira and so did the Changs. She looked at the next of kin—Healani Chang, 221 Olomua Avenue in Hilo—the crime boss was guardian of the teenage boys she and Pono had brought in for tagging, and their neighborhood wasn’t that far from hers.

  I wonder what would happen if I just went there and talked to her, checked up on the boys...Send her a message I’m on to them. I might be able to clear this whole drama up myself.

  Hiding out at the house was just not Lei’s style.

  Galvanized, she changed into running clothes, strapping on the shoulder holster with the old Glock since her new one was at Ballistics. She filled the pockets of the windbreaker with handcuffs, cell phone, and badge. Not that she was investigating or anything…

  Lei got in the truck, feeling the hum of adrenaline in her veins as she turned the key. She remembered Stevens’ lecture at the restaurant about taking care of herself, and felt a stab of guilt or maybe apprehension—none of the team working her case would think this was a good idea. But if she could just talk to Healani, maybe it could all be cleared up.

  Lei threw the truck into reverse and pulled out before she could change her mind.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The Chang house was in an older, poorly-maintained neighborhood. It was a dilapidated plantation style that had been added onto until it sprawled in all directions, filling a large corner lot. Several expensive cars were parked on the strip of dry, weedy grass, and a pit bull in t
he side yard barked ferociously as she pulled over onto the curb in front.

  “Hey!” A dark figure appeared at the iron latticework security door as Lei got out. Her hand settled on the Glock. “What you doing in our neighborhood?”

  She faced the house. Several other shadowy figures had clustered around the one addressing her.

  “You talking to me?” Lei put cop in her voice.

  “I said, what you stay doing here?” A reedy timbre—one of the teenagers.

  “Coming to talk to Healani Chang. You got a problem with that?”

  The door opened. It was the lanky kid she had run down in the alley. He was wearing a red do-rag on his head, gang colors.

  “This is harassment,” he said. Three other teens came out, ranging behind him, their arms folded over their chests as they tried on attitude.

  “Chill out.” Lei took her hand off her gun, opened her arms. “I just want to talk to your grandma. Is she home?”

  “What you like with her?”

  “Nothing. Just saying hi, and hope you boys are staying out of trouble.”

  Her nonaggressive stance and calm voice were working.

  One of the boys turned and yelled back into the house, “Tutu! Get one cop out here like talk to you!”

  A few seconds passed and the screen door creaked shut behind an older woman in a scarlet muumuu, frowning as she wiped her hands on a dishcloth. She made shooing motions.

  “What you boys doing? Get back in the house!”

  The teenagers scattered, only Do-rag pausing to give Lei the finger behind his grandmother’s back.

  Lei waited as the Chang matriarch came down the steps and stood a few feet away. She reminded Lei of a beautiful warship’s figurehead after it had been through some long campaigns. She folded arms on an impressive chest and gave a good staredown.

  “You Wayne’s girl,” she said. Healani Chang knew exactly who Lei was.

  “Yes.”

  A long moment passed.

  “Someone been making trouble for me. I like you make it stop,” Lei said in pidgin.

  “You think I care?” Healani Chang laughed, a rusty cough. Lei stared into the woman’s rich, chocolate-brown eyes.

  “Please.” She softened her voice. “I just want it to end. I got no beef with you. The cops will be all over you folks if they aren’t already.”

  Healani said nothing, staring at her unblinking.

  Lei turned away at last. It had been worth a try.

  “Wait.” The older woman’s voice was husky, as if from smoking or yelling at the teenagers. “It was Ray, and that other girl Anela in the Mainland. Thought if they made trouble to you, took you out, I’d recognize them and give ’em a part in the family business. It was never going to happen. I told Ray if he kills a cop he brings trouble for all of us.”

  “Glad you see it that way,” Lei said. Her ironic tone was lost on Healani.

  “I was never going give nothing to Terry’s bastards,” Healani spat. “No matter what they did.”

  “The cops took Anela into custody and Ray will have trouble ever shooting anyone again. Know anything about Charlie Kwon? Any way he was involved?”

  “Charlie, he my cousin.” Healani nodded as Lei’s eyes widened. “Damn child molester deserves to be in Lompoc and I hope he stays there a long time, but he still family. He always had it in for Wayne from going against him on the street, and he tol’ us back in the day what he did to you and Maylene—getting her more hooked by the day until he broke her. From prison he gave Anela information she wen’ pass on to Ray.” Her flat eyes reminded Lei of a moray eel as she shrugged. “They thought they’d impress me with that? I play the game, but I play straight up. So I telling you I had no part in going after you, nor any of my children.”

  Lei struggled to assimilate this. Apparently Charlie’d got her mother deep into her addiction on purpose, and raping Lei had been a nice perk along the way. Her vision dimmed, but she dug her nails fiercely into her palm to anchor herself.

  She’d deal with Kwon someday. It was a promise.

  “So it’s over.”

  “It was over when you shot Ray. Stupid bastard.” The way the older woman said the word Lei knew she meant its literal meaning.

  “All right, Mrs. Chang.” She couldn’t bring herself to call the older woman ‘auntie’ as would be customary. “Goodbye then.”

  Healani didn’t answer, just looking at her with that basilisk stare as Lei walked toward the truck.

  Her scalp prickled, a feeling like a thousand fire ants crawling over it. She always knew when someone had a gun on her, and as she glanced up into the doorway she could see Do-Rag waving a massive silver .357 Magnum at her. Talk about overcompensating. She walked away and got in the truck, pulling away sedately, ignoring the tingling at the back of her head.

  She gunned the engine when she reached the end of the block and thumbed open her phone to call Nagata with the details. She’d taken a risk and for once it’d paid off.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Everything was in its place: the paintings, the Japanese sand garden, the doctor in her lounger. This felt good to Lei and she breathed a little easier as she sat back on the couch in Dr. Wilson’s office.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Where do you want to begin?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They sat in silence for a while. Lei took the black stone from Mary’s memorial out of her pocket and rubbed it in both hands. It felt substantial enough to anchor her, a tiny black bit of the earth’s blood that would always remind her of her lost friend.

  “Okay then. Why don’t you begin at the beginning. Tell me about child Lei.”

  “Why? What’s that got to do with trauma debriefing, which is what I’m here for?” The old defensiveness raised its voice. Lei wished it would shut up.

  “Everything has to do with everything else—you know that by now. So begin at the beginning, and it will lead to the end.”

  So Lei told about losing her father to a drug bust. About how that loss led her mother Maylene further into addiction, how Charlie Kwon came into their lives. What Charlie did and how he’d made her Damaged Goods.

  Now she remembered everything, and couldn’t dissociate anymore, even when she wanted to. In the midst of all that, she had been stalked by a rapist and murderer. A man who saw himself as an artist. A man who had betrayed all their trust, whom she’d killed with her bare hands.

  She described how she’d been with and broken up with Stevens. She told about an illegitimate son named Ray who desperately wanted to prove himself worthy of inclusion in a powerful crime family. Ray recruited his half sister Anela into a revenge plot against their father’s killer and his daughter.

  Anela sent the panties and hair, and gleaned information about Lei’s sexual abuse from Kwon in prison. Ray had masterminded the stalking campaign, and when that wasn’t enough to impress Healani, he’d tried to kill Lei.

  “I’m still missing some pieces. Where do the chases with the black truck come in?” Dr. Wilson asked. Lei dragged the tiny rake through the sand garden on the low table and set her stone in it, making a scene of simple beauty.

  “I think the first time it was Ito. He was scoping out Mary or me, had taken his crime vehicle out to do that. The second time it was Ray.”

  “Too many dark Toyotas in this town,” Dr. Wilson said. “Wow.”

  “Wow is right.” Lei looked down at her hands. The right one was still in a cast, the webbing across her palm peeling and grubby, the left relatively unharmed. Her good hand—one of the only parts of her body that wasn’t bruised, scratched, bitten, or broken.

  “They’re calling me Hurricane Lei in the station,” she said. “Funny nickname.”

  “I heard.”

  “It seems to fit.”

  “It may not, anymore. That part is up to you now.”

  “I just want to...get back to normal. I feel like I am always going to be cov
ered with blood.” Lei shut her mouth, tightening her lips into a thin line. She saw Ito’s ruined eye, Mary’s bruises, or the faces of two drowned girls every time she closed her eyes. She pinched the web of her hand between her thumb and forefinger but it didn’t help.

  “You’ve had more than your share, that’s for sure. Everyone is accounted for who needs to be, right?”

  “I guess. Ross and Nagata interviewed Healani Chang. She’s claiming that Ray and Anela acted on their own. I think we just have to accept that though I wouldn’t be surprised if Healani instigated the whole thing.” She fiddled with the cast. “I’d love to find Charlie Kwon someday and kick his ass, but yeah, I guess things are pretty sewed up ...I just can’t relax. I can’t take enough showers to feel clean.”

  “That’s an understandable post-traumatic stress reaction. Be patient with yourself. Let’s talk every day until the flashbacks get better. It also might help to have your partner or Stevens stay with you for a little while.”

  “Stevens—I don’t know what I’m going to do about him. I broke up with him and I don’t know why I don’t feel better about that.”

  “Ambivalence maybe?”

  “I guess.”

  “Huh.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Lei said with a little smile. “It’s not a good sign when you say ‘huh.’”

  “Really? Well, I go back to my original thought—sounds like you’re ambivalent about breaking up. Why did you?”

  “Oh, damn.” Lei looked at the time on her cell phone. “Looks like our time is up, Dr. Wilson. Catch you tomorrow.” She got up and left with a little wave, pretending not to see the psychologist’s ironic smile.

  Lei pulled into her driveway and got out of her truck, walking around to the passenger side. She opened the extended cab door.

  Keiki lifted her head. She was lying in the back passenger seat, the white funnel collar still in place, her side bulky with strapping. Lei lifted the big dog and struggled toward the front porch.