by Toby Neal
Tangled in the pile of wet debris was a hand. Mottled, mahogany-brown fingers curled as if in supplication, palm upward. Without the dog, it would have escaped notice, blending perfectly with the branches where it rested.
Lei’s heart picked up speed. A hand was good—the prints might be viable.
“I looked all around,” Tom said. “I had Chelsea search, but this was all we found.”
Lei reached inside her poncho and brought out her little digital Nikon, photographing the hand in situ.
A wave broke nearby, and brown foam rolled up around their feet.
“This is why I called it in as an emergency,” Tom said. “I think this pile is going back out to sea.”
“Looks like it.” Lei walked behind the mound, leaning over to photograph it from above. The flesh was ragged and bloodless, and she could see abrasions on the protruding bone.
“I don’t think this is a recent piece of remains,” Tom ventured, turning to Wayne. Neither Lei nor Wayne said anything, so he went on. “I was thinking maybe someone was buried and the flood washed the body out, and this hand got broken off or something.”
Tom had addressed all his remarks to Wayne, who remained expressionless and silent. He certainly looked like a cop, radiating a natural authority. Lei smiled a little at the irony.
“Can you collect Tom’s contact info while I bag the evidence?” She handed her father a notebook and pen from her backpack.
“Name and address?” Wayne asked.
While they were occupied, Lei took one of the plastic evidence bags out of her back pocket, lifted the leathery hand out of the tangle, and slid it into the bag. Another wave surged up around the pile of wood, underscoring the urgency of retrieval. She put the bag into her backpack.
She turned back to Tom. “Your theory about a burial floating up is pretty good. Can you and Chelsea walk with us down the beach and see if we can find anything more? Her nose will come in handy since this body part isn’t exactly fresh and the color makes it hard to spot.”
“Sure.” Tom’s beady eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. He snapped his fingers, loosened Chelsea’s leash, and the dog put her nose down and set off. Lei and Wayne followed a little more slowly.
The beach was hazardous between the mounds of debris and heaving brown surf. They traversed the length of it slowly, ending at the creek on the other side of the bay. The usually gentle stream was impassable, a violent brown flood a hundred yards wide. Nothing further was discovered but a drowned pig.
Back at the car, Lei peeled off her latex gloves and shook Tom’s hand. “Thanks so much. Call if you find anything else.”
“Will do.” Man and dog disappeared into the drizzling rain. Lei stowed the backpack in the rear of the cab as they got in the truck.
“Didn’t look fresh,” her father commented, handing her the notebook.
“I know. I guess I was kind of hoping it was some evidence of the guy I’m looking for, but on the other hand, I’m relieved it’s not him—there’s still a chance he’s alive.”
It was awkward not being able to discuss the investigation with her father—she wished she could talk about the hand like she might have with Jenkins. She turned the key and listened with relief to the roar of the engine—it hadn’t succumbed to the wet.
They made their way slowly back—the river hadn’t risen any further, and having done it once, both of them were a little more relaxed. Lei parked the truck up against the raised embankment on the opposite side of the road from her cottage.
“I’ll get Keiki; you can deal with the evidence,” Wayne said. Lei nodded and radioed in the collection of the hand and their safe return, then sloshed her way into the house.
She took the hand out of her backpack in the kitchen, giving it a quick visual survey before Wayne came in. It was the dark brown of earth, and desiccated as a piece of leather. The soaking had caused the tissue to plump back up, but even so it had a mummified look to it.
And in the light, saw marks on the bone were clearly evident.
Wayne and Keiki came back in, and Lei held up the plastic evidence bag with its grisly contents.
“Observe me put this into a paper bag,” she said, slipping the ziplocked bag with the hand into a plain brown bag. “I’m sealing this.” She taped the brown bag shut with packaging tape and wrote the date/time on it in Sharpie, signed it with her initials.
“Not that I’ll be such a good witness if you have to testify about this chain of evidence,” Wayne said. “Convicted felons related to the investigator might not make for much credibility.”
Lei pushed her Hot Pockets and frozen vegetables aside and put the brown paper bag in the back of her freezer. With the power out, it was the best she could do.
“Won’t come to that. Besides being an emergency situation, more than likely this is just a burial missing its body.”
Though who would saw a hand off a body that was buried in a grave? And why? The lab might be able to find out more, and in the meantime, hers was a true cop freezer, with body parts among the frozen peas.
The river decided to give them a break and stopped rising five feet short of the back porch. Without electricity, Lei and her father sat on the steps overlooking the river and drank decaf coffee into the misty night.
It was time to tell him.
She took a breath, blew it out. “I need to tell you something that involves someone from your past. Do you remember a guy named Charlie Kwon?”
“No.”
“Small-time dealer. Worked for the Changs in Hilo. Back when you were in the game.”
“Okay, yeah. We had words a few times.”
“Well, he moved in on Mom after you got popped—he got her into the hard stuff, hooked. He did it on purpose.”
Her father’s face had gone stark. Eyes dark pits. Fingers curled so hard around his knees they were white. Lei looked away to say the rest.
“In prison he bragged he got a twofer with me and Mom—because he molested and raped me.” She blew out a breath, looking out into the moonlit river, anywhere but at her father. “Not just once, for months. Mom overdosed when he left her, and that’s why I ended up with Aunty Rosario—child welfare sent me to her.”
“Rosario never told me anything about Kwon. Oh. My. God.” He whispered it like prayer. His hands curled into fists. “Where is he?”
“Lompoc. Finally busted for molesting kids.”
“I’m so sorry, baby. So damn sorry.” He stood up, paced back and forth on the creaking porch behind her. “A pedophile. My God. Oh my God.”
Lei stayed silent. Everything she thought of sounded like a platitude, and she’d never been that good with words. It wasn’t her job to make this okay for him. It still wasn’t okay for her. She reached into the loose pocket of the sweatpants to rub the black stone she always carried.
He sat back down. His piercing eyes fixed on Lei.
“‘Do not take revenge…I will repay,’ says the Lord,” he quoted.
“That might be good enough for you, Dad, but I need my moment alone with Kwon. And don’t you get in any trouble; I’ve got plans for him when he gets out. Unfortunately, not for a couple years.”
“I’m just sick about this. Like it wasn’t enough I lost you both to the game…” His voice trailed off. He sank his head into his hands, and she heard him mumbling a prayer.
Lei felt the shadow cast by Kwon dissolving somehow. Telling that awful secret, telling it to someone she’d blamed for leaving her vulnerable, seeing her father’s pain… It felt like light and air moving across a wound left too long covered up. And maybe his prayers helped too. That loser pedophile didn’t deserve the energy it took to stay pissed. In the meantime, Wayne shared the burden, just as he should—she wasn’t carrying it alone any longer.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Wayne said again, and in the soft darkness, it was enough. For now.
Lei climbed into bed later that night and snuggled into her silky cotton sheets. She was safe. Her father was here, her dog
was here, and, hanging where she could reach it on the headboard, her gun was here. Her eyes drifted shut, and she realized she was still wearing the Ni`ihau shell necklace. Her fingers touched it as she fell asleep.
Chapter Thirteen
Sunday, October 24
The Timekeeper pulled on his rubber boots and slicker. The worst of the rain had passed, but this had been a serious flood and early in the season. He clumped out to the barn and saddled up the quarter horse. Her steady, even temperament would be needed in these weather conditions.
The mare labored uphill through the wet grass and sucking mud. He patted her sweating neck with affection and she snorted in reply. The trail got steeper, and a little rill of water poured down around her hooves. They kept going, splashing through fattened streams until he turned off on the side trail to the cave.
The stream had been in flood during the height of the storm; he spotted tufts of leaves and detritus high in the bushes and nearly to the opening of the cave, but it hadn’t gone into the narrow, slitlike mouth.
He left the mare ground-tied outside and went in with a flashlight and another gallon jug of water. The interior was mostly dry, and he swung the flashlight beam to the Chosen, deep inside the sleeping bag he’d dropped off. He nudged the man with his foot.
Matted blond curls emerged as the Chosen poked his head out. The man’s eyes were red-rimmed as he glared up into the flashlight beam. He’d peeled the duct tape off his mouth and chewed through it on his wrists. Livid red scratch marks circled his neck where he’d tried to loosen the collar.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you.” The Chosen said it as a statement. “What I can’t figure out is why, and why you haven’t done it already.” He coughed, and it didn’t sound good.
The Timekeeper took the bucket of slops out and dumped it into the stream, went back in and set it near the man.
“My name is Jay. Jay Bennett. There will be people looking for me.”
The Timekeeper looked over at the duct tape, handily placed on some rocks out of reach, and decided not to bother. He hadn’t brought food either; the Chosen wouldn’t need it to stay alive for the Time he had left.
He walked out of the cave with its dark and stench and mounted the mare, continuing up the trail to a wide mesa. The island spread out below like a hula dancer’s skirt: yellow sandy beaches, turquoise ocean stained brown around the shore from the flood, green jungle. A rainbow draped a colored scarf off to the north.
He breathed a sigh of contentment to be here, so close to his Source. The Voices were getting bad, and he couldn’t wait for the Day.
Samhain. The day he gave them what they wanted.
He rode the mare across the rocky mesa. At one end, a crag raked the sky. He dismounted at the base and ground-tied the mare, then parted the concealing shrubbery to disclose the stairs carved into living stone and earth.
He climbed up carefully. The stairs were slick, and even though the rain had stopped, it was a long way to the bottom and it didn’t pay to hurry. He grabbed on to roots and the tough growth of waiwi, strawberry guava, and finally came to the place where the Source was strongest.
The heiau altar was intact, a great flat-topped, fire-blackened boulder that had been used for worship by early Hawaiians. All around the spire were special spots where he left his offerings after dedicating them. He checked and they were intact, tucked deep under stones marked with petroglyphs by those who came before him.
He wondered how his other site, the one in Hanalei Valley, had fared. He’d had to go there some years ago when the Voices demanded their due at that forgotten heiau. He hadn’t been able to burn the offering because of the possibility of being spotted. He didn’t like it because it was near the river, which meant human traffic. But the Voices would not be disobeyed.
He sat down in front of the altar stone and looked out across the breathtaking view. Skeins of rain swirled across the ocean in the far distance. The brown slurry of floodwater soiled the turquoise water over the reef—and the sun peeked out, brightening the rainbow.
He tipped his head back, felt the brush of the rain on his skin, a touch like a wind-borne kiss. The Chosen would never feel this again, and he let the man’s name rest in his mind a moment before the Voices squeezed it out again.
Lei blew out of Hanalei toward work, the power of the truck putting speed to her urgency. The beach was too washed out for running and the hand seemed to burn a hole in the backpack holding it on the seat beside her. She’d radioed in to speak to the captain and got on his schedule as first appointment of the day. As she hung up the radio, her cell rang.
“Hello?”
“Still dry?” That deep, warm, teasing voice. Alika. The man should be running a 900 number.
“Barely,” she said. “The flood came pretty close.”
“I was thinking about you. Hoped you were okay.”
“I’m always okay.”
A long pause. “So. You aren’t pining for me?”
She laughed. “Naughty.”
“You called me that already. Gotta come up with something new.”
“Arrogant ass?”
“Hmm. Overused.”
“Okay. Egotistical bastard.”
“Ouch, that one hurt,” he said. And he did sound hurt. He went on, turning brisk. “I wondered if you had any time today.”
“What, I hit a nerve with that last one?”
“As it happens, I am a bastard. But I asked for it, so I can’t hold it against you.”
“I’m sorry.” She whipped around a slow-moving commuter. “You know I was only teasing. There a story there?”
“Not one I want to tell.” He waited a beat as she remembered saying the same to him. “I wanted to see if you’d like to come over for dinner.”
“I’ve got a full day ahead, not sure when I’m going to be done.” She found herself speeding, her heart beating a little faster than it should, and she took her foot off the gas, slowed her breathing. She wasn’t going to let this guy get to her.
“It’s fine. I was just thinking to have you over to the house. I’m in a cooking mood.”
“Well, okay. As long as I can just call you later if it’s not working out.”
“Such enthusiasm. Good thing I’m egotistical and can take it. So do I get to call you a name?”
“Sure. Lay it on me.”
“Ginger. Spicy Ginger, who haunts my dreams.”
The dial tone buzzed in her ear and she closed the phone. He must have heard her call sign, and she wondered how.
At the station she and Jenkins barricaded themselves in the conference room, setting up the board she’d begun and preparing to review it with the captain. Lei showed Jenkins the sealed bag containing the hand. She’d put it in a small plastic cooler with a couple of bags of frozen peas, all she’d had in the freezer that morning.
“This could be the evidence of foul play we’ve been looking for!” Jenkins’s cheeks were pink from shaving and enthusiasm. “I found out more about the stones, what they mean. All three are used in witchcraft ceremonies to enhance the power of the ritual. I think they could point toward some kind of religious sacrifice and have something to do with Samhain, on October 31.”
He’d put the stones in a little plastic tackle box. He pointed to the green one. “This one, chalcedony, is the most powerful. It’s supposed to invoke and channel the creative power of the universe. The jasper is for blood—when blood is given in sacrifice jasper cleanses it. And opal is for magic. It’s supposed to amplify the power of the sacrifice.”
“So there’s literature out there on human sacrifice?”
“Oh yeah. So these stones are significant, and I think when we do more canvassing we should be asking if anyone found stones on a shoe like those that were at Bennett’s disappearance site.”
Lei finished attaching the pictures of the missing in chronological order. She pointed to the total number of victims, looked over at Jenkins.
“I called Stevens for adv
ice when I saw this. He thinks the FBI should be called in.”
“Crap,” Jenkins said, running his hands through his hair and turning it into haphazard misdirected spikes. “We won’t be able to do shit if that happens, and we found this case.”
“I found this case,” Lei said. “You listened to me. Get that straight.”
“Okay, yeah. Well, the FBI would totally take over.”
“I know. I plan to just lay it out in front of the captain, see if he’ll let us do a task force and work it that way.”
Just then Annette, the cap’s secretary, stuck her head in. “He’s on his way.”
Lei smoothed down her blazer, seriously wrinkled from the damp. She ran the wand of lip gloss over her mouth and patted her hair—it hadn’t yet had time to misbehave.
“Relax,” Jenkins said. “He’s too old for you.”
She opened her mouth to retort when the conference room door opened and the captain walked in, dapper as ever.
Michael Stevens followed him.
Laser-blue eyes under slashing brows found hers instantly. Her heart jumped as she drank in the sight of him. Rugged height, shadows under his eyes, rumpled dark hair falling over a high forehead, and that invisible something that made him larger than other men—oh yeah. She still felt something, and it exploded in her chest and expanded south.
“Stevens!” she exclaimed. “What’re you doing here?”
“I’m bringing him in on your case,” Captain Fernandez said. “My old friend Lieutenant Ohale called me last night, seemed to think things were even more serious than you’d led me to believe, and said Stevens had volunteered to help out with the task force he was sure we were putting together. Ohale thinks we’re going to need someone with his level of experience.”
A wave of betrayal washed over Lei. He’d used a moment of weakness to snake her out of her case! She shoved off from the table, fists clenched.