Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  “Unfortunately, I fell for his charm. Shoulda known better.”

  “Hey, listen, want some company on the ride out? I wouldn’t mind getting eyes on this Esther lady.”

  Lei hesitated. There was an element of her relationship with Esther that went beyond the case, and in spite of what had happened with Alika, Lei hoped something of that could be salvaged. On the other hand, she welcomed a distraction, a chance to get to know Marcella better.

  “Sounds good. Meet me at the Bubba Burger in Hanalei town.”

  Marcella Scott sat beside Lei as she drove the winding two-lane road toward fertile Wainiha Valley where Esther lived. The agent wore a pair of cutoff jeans and a tie-died T-shirt with a marijuana leaf on it. Dream catcher earrings dangled from her ears. Lei wore her shorts and crochet top with a man’s shirt.

  “Gotta get into the thrift store and pick up some more hippie clothes,” Lei said. “These are pretty stinky.”

  “Yeah. I need some variety, too, for the Health Guardian.”

  “I think Jazz is the key somehow, but I don’t know what the connection is. He seems so sincere in wanting to solve the case.” Lei tapped her finger on the steering wheel.

  “I’ve seen that a lot, actually,” Marcella said. “The guy who discovers the bomb is the one who set it. The dude who rescues the kid is really the kidnapper. Don’t be fooled by his concern last night—he didn’t exactly step up to rescue us.”

  “I know. What I’m really worried about is that…today’s Halloween. If the perp is going to do Jay—if he’s even still alive—it’s going to be today.”

  “We don’t know there’s a connection between Halloween—or Samhain—and the disappearances. We have no solid connection there, nothing hard.”

  “I know, but I can’t shake this feeling that time’s running out. Jay’s family is in town. Kelly, the girlfriend, brought some posters by the Guardian. I feel so bad for her.”

  “You get used to that feeling. You guys have some undercurrents in this community, that’s for sure. Kaua`i looks like such a paradise, but scratch the surface…”

  “And you’ll find the craziness of any small town.” Lei grinned. “Actually, more craziness than most.”

  “Yeah—no kidding. Kaua`i has a lot of diversity—we’ve been working up an area profile on this island, and the fact is that you have almost as many cultures and religions represented per square mile as New York City.”

  “And throw in isolation, jungle, and economic challenges and sometimes it’s a volatile brew.”

  They bumped up the last bit of road to Esther’s pole house. The dogs swarmed the truck, barking as before, and Esther appeared on the upper deck. She called the dogs as Lei and Marcella got out. She watched in regal silence as they negotiated the muddy driveway and rain-soaked stairs. Lei had brought a bag of lychee from the Health Guardian. She held it out to Esther.

  “I brought you something.”

  The older lady took it, peeked inside at the knobbly red fruit. She looked up and her brown eyes softened.

  “I love lychee. Who’s your friend?”

  Lei breathed a tiny sigh of relief. Esther was going to forgive her.

  “This is Marcella Scott, FBI.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Marcella said.

  “Welcome.” Esther gestured to the open slider. “Come in.”

  The women slipped their shoes off and followed Esther into the living room. She gestured to the couch. They sat.

  “Alika wanted to talk to you, but I told him there was no point. You aren’t going to listen to him.”

  “I can’t, Esther, at least until this investigation is over. I just don’t have anything to say to him.”

  “Well.” Esther arranged the long, graceful skirt of her flowered muumuu over her knees, and calloused bare feet peeked from beneath the hem. “Never mind that. Here is a list of the heiaus and sacred sites between Hanalei Valley and the end of the road at Ke`e Beach.” She handed over a sheet of yellow legal paper. “I also put them on this map as best I could.” She handed a folded map of Kaua`i to Marcella. “Show respect. Don’t move any rocks.”

  It was going to be very difficult to look for bones and body parts without moving a few rocks, but there was no point in upsetting Esther about it.

  “We’ll do our best,” Lei said. “Thanks so much for being our consultant and for all your advice. I appreciate all you’ve done.”

  “Come visit me sometime on your day off. And I have a final word for you. He’s close. Very close. He may know he’s being hunted.” Esther’s wide brow knit, and she gave her head a slight shake, as if trying to hear something just out of range.

  “How do you know?” Lei asked. Marcella had gone still, alert as a hawk.

  “I just know.” Esther closed her eyes, opened them. “I wish I could tell you more.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The women were somber as they took their leave. Marcella unfolded the map and studied it as Lei drove them back to the safe house.

  “How reliable is she?” Marcella asked.

  “Very respected in the community. She’s a spiritual leader and seems to be a bit psychic.”

  “Tested anything she’s said?”

  “We verified what she said about the stones and ti leaves with a University of Hawaii professor—it was accurate. She also said the perp has a cave where he cuts up the bodies, and there are four torches. No verification on that, obviously.”

  “Hm.” Marcella turned on her cell phone and ordered an in-depth background workup on Esther and her family.

  Lei bit her tongue. Alika’s involvement with Lisa Nakamoto had opened the family up to this, not to mention Esther’s feedback on the killer.

  “So we’ve finished our background on Jazz,” Marcella went on after closing her phone. “Not only does he lack the physical strength to be the killer; he keeps a schedule that would make it almost impossible. He’s up at seven a.m. and at that store virtually twelve hours a day.”

  “I know. I was poking around in his office being his 'assistant’ this week and didn’t find anything interesting. But the fact remains, he put together that binder. He had the stones from the disappearance sites.”

  “I agree, but we’re just not making anything stick to him directly. He seems to be what he claims, the Guardian of the hippie community who’s trying to get some justice for the missing.”

  “I just wonder, why does he care so much?”

  “If we knew that, we might be closer to solving the case.”

  They arrived at the safe house and Lei let Marcella out. As she opened the door, the agent turned back.

  “Maybe we’re going about this wrong. Maybe there’s something going on with the meth angle, the cult, and Lisa Nakamoto’s murder that intersects with this case. So what’s happening with the Nakamoto murder and your friend Alika’s charges?”

  “Not sure. I better call and check on it. Now that we have the heiau sites, maybe the cadaver hunt will turn up something new,” Lei said.

  “I’ll call Stevens and see where that’s at. Have a good rest of the day.” Marcella slammed the door. She was already on the phone again as she punched in the gate code.

  Lei called Fury Furukawa as she drove home.

  “Ginger. What’s up?”

  “I’m calling to see what’s going on with Lisa Nakamoto’s case.”

  “Checking on the boyfriend?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” Lei gritted her teeth. “I just got some information from his grandmother, Esther Ka`awai, that’s important to the missing persons case. I want to see what’s happening, make sure we can keep her happy.”

  “A’right then.” He seemed to relent. “It seems Alika’s development company has been in financial trouble for a while. He’s cashed the insurance checks from the robberies but hasn’t replaced what’s missing, so fraud looks like a possibility. We interviewed him again with his lawyer present, but he’s sticking to his story that he knew Lisa in the biblical s
ense but didn’t kill her and is being framed. Hines is looking like the guy.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Guy’s gone into full withdrawals. A total tweaker. We’ve had to book him into the locked psych unit to keep him from killing himself. He’s been rambling that he shot Lisa because she was going to blow the whistle on his operation, but none of it’s admissible because he’s been declared incompetent or some shit by the psychiatrist at the unit.” Fury sounded disgusted. “We have to wait for him to get clean enough for a real interview.”

  “So the murder charges against Alika are falling apart.”

  “It’s looking like that, yeah. The medical examiner came up with a better estimate on time of death, and he’s got an alibi for that.”

  “So is the prosecutor going to drop the charges?”

  “Eventually. We’re letting him sweat a little, see if anything else breaks.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Lei said with false enthusiasm.

  Alika was innocent. She should have felt better, but somehow she didn’t. What if he’d set her up somehow?

  “So, remember that tent and stuff he set up on the mesa? We had a pilot fly us up there to pack up the site and look for any more evidence, and we found some interesting trace.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Evidence of a horse being used for transportation up there. Hoofprints, piles of green crap, you know. We looked around and found some footprints. Bigger than either yours or Alika’s. Looks like someone was spying on you guys. There was a broken branch and shoe prints right below the tent in the underbrush.”

  “Shit,” Lei said, an involuntary shiver passing over her. She turned on the truck’s heater. “Anything else?”

  “You know that crag at the end of the mesa? It’s the site of one of the most sacred heiaus on the island. Stevens is going back with techs and the FBI lab guys because it looks like there was human activity not long ago. A fire pit, recent smoke damage on the rocks. Efforts were made to clean it up, but I think someone’s been using that heiau. Could be our Cult Killer.”

  “Who came up with that tag?” Lei asked.

  “Don’t know, but someone’s leaked it to the press and it’s all over the place. Where you been?”

  “Undercover.” Cult Killer—the moniker was horribly catchy. She remembered that lonely finger of stone rising into the sky on the mesa. She had to get up there and check it out. “When’re you guys doing that search?”

  “We’re all supposed to be doing the cadaver search in Hanalei Valley tomorrow, but Stevens and I are trying to get it postponed until we can check this out. Problem is transportation. The captain is worried about the budget and wants the FBI to pay for the helicopters, so we’re waiting on their go-ahead.”

  “If someone’s getting up there on horseback, it must be accessible on foot.”

  “Like I said, the cap wants the Feds to take the lead. Call Agent Scott; she’ll know what the story is.”

  “I just dropped her off. She didn’t say anything.”

  “Doesn’t mean she doesn’t know anything.”

  “Shit.”

  “You been saying that a lot, Ginger. Take it easy. We’ll call you when something pops.”

  “Thanks, Fury. Hang loose.” She closed the phone, dropping it on the seat beside her. Fury had decided to be civil, but now Marcella was holding out on her. The agent had taken her information and planned a trip to the mesa without her. The tiny bud of their friendship withered and died on the spot—a feeling like nausea. Following that, a wave of rage.

  A junction in the road appeared and Lei whipped a U-turn and headed back to the safe house, turning on the siren and lights. The discordant wail of the siren put noise to what she was feeling. She pulled up and pounded on the door of the safe house. No answer. She called Marcella’s cell phone. It went to voice mail.

  “Agent Scott, you used me,” she said to the empty void of recording. “You just wanted the map with the heiau sites. That was my lead, and I want in on it.”

  There was still plenty of light, and she knew the source of the intel—Esther. She strode back out to the truck and roared back toward Wainiha. If there was a way on foot to that heiau, Esther would know it. She speed-dialed Jenkins as she roared down the narrow road, leaving a message on yet another voice mail.

  “J-Boy—drop whatever you’re doing. I need backup. Come meet me at Esther’s in Wainiha.”

  A faded blue Ford truck was parked in Esther’s driveway. She parked next to it and jumped out. The dogs backed away as she ran up the stairs to the deck and rapped on the glass slider. She peered in. No one visible. She slid it open, stuck her head in.

  “Hello? Esther?”

  No answer from the back of the house. She was probably down in her teaching room with whoever was visiting. She padded barefoot across the living room and down the stairs to Esther’s inner sanctum. She called again, “Esther?”

  The tapa-covered door was closed. She knocked, called louder, “Esther!”

  “Come in,” came the muffled reply.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Lei pushed the door open. Esther was sitting cross-legged on her pillow with her ipu, and seated at her feet was Mac Williamson.

  “Oh, hello Mac,” Lei said. “I didn’t know you knew each other.”

  “Mac’s training. I told you he’s my haumana,” Esther said. “We were just doing a chant.”

  Mac held up his ipu, a decorative gourd used for percussion. “Had to grow it, harvest it, dry it, and carve it,” he said, indicating the patterns on the surface of the hardened gourd.

  “Nice,” Lei said. “Listen, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need that information you gave me and Marcella again. It’s important.”

  Esther set her instrument aside. “What’s happened?”

  “I can’t tell you except that Marcella took the information. She’s gone, and I want to check something out at one of the sites.”

  “Which one?” Mac asked, penetrating brown eyes intent.

  “The spire above the mesa.”

  “I know that site well. There’s a trail to it from the back of my land.”

  “Really? How do you know it?”

  “My training.” He gestured to Esther, who inclined her head.

  “Can you show it to me?” A hasty plan was forming in Lei’s mind. Maybe she could join the investigation from below by scouting out the access to the mesa.

  “Of course.” He uncoiled himself from the floor, and she was struck by the height and power of his frame. She backed up into the doorway.

  “Let me make a quick call; then we’ll go. Thanks, Esther, and I’m sorry for barging in.” She backed away and hotfooted it up the stairs and across the house. She’d left her weapon and cell phone in the glove box of the truck.

  She’d gotten sloppy.

  She jumped into the cab and locked the doors. No one appeared on the deck.

  What if Mac was the guy? He seemed big and strong enough. He lived alone, with access to the heiau and training in ancient Hawaiian rituals. Still, he just didn’t feel threatening to her—she’d always felt safe with him.

  Her head was saying one thing, her gut another. She took her cell out and dialed Stevens. She left a message.

  “Going to the heiau on the mesa with Mac Williamson. He says the trail to the mesa starts on his land. Going to check it out. And I want to talk to you about…”

  I love you. I’m sorry I ever looked at anyone else.

  The adrenaline of the moment seemed to bring the realization into crystal-clear focus. She’d tried so hard to deny what was right in front of her.

  “Stupid melodrama,” she said aloud. At least he would know where she’d gone if something happened.

  A tap at her window. She looked up and saw Mac, his carved wooden staff in his hand.

  “One minute,” she said through the closed window. He got into the blue truck, waiting. She pulled her shoulder holster out of the glove box and shrugged into it, p
utting the man’s shirt back on over it. For once she missed the heaviness of her duty belt, with every possible weapon.

  Her cell rang.

  “J-boy.” Finally a live voice! “Where is everybody? No one’s picking up their phones.”

  “The Feds took two helicopters up to the mesa to check out the heiau site up there. I think Stevens and Fury got to go, and there’s no phone reception. I’m on my way to meet you.” She could hear the scream of the siren in the Subaru. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m going up to the mesa from a trail below. Can you join me at Mac Williamson’s house? He says there’s a trail to the mesa from the back of his estate. I want to take a hike from below and meet them up there.”

  “Why? Can’t stand to have something go down without you?”

  “Exactly. Apparently there’s a horse trail from below. Maybe there’s something there the team will want to see.”

  “Sweets, I’ll be there—with bells on.” He gave an extra blast of his horn for emphasis. “See you in a few.”

  Thank God for Jenkins’s loyalty and enthusiasm. Lei closed the phone and turned it to vibrate, stuffing it into her overburdened pocket. She rolled her window down.

  “I’ll follow you,” she called to Mac.

  He nodded and fired up the Ford.

  The Timekeeper had donned the tapa malo loincloth and set kukui nut oil torches in the four corners of the central area of the cave. The Chosen hunched in his sleeping bag.

  “You’re going to kill me.” His voice was raspy, and the isolation, fear, and darkness had done their work, because there was also a note of hopelessness in it. The Timekeeper lifted his gnarled, carved kiawe staff and approached the Chosen.

  He swung the club at the man’s head, and that’s when Jay Bennett surged up out of the sleeping bag, dodging out of the way. The Timekeeper swung again, and this time Jay caught the staff in both hands. Using his forward momentum, the Timekeeper used Jay’s leverage, pushing against the staff as he did a sweeping kick, and knocked the man’s legs out from under him.