Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  Jay went down hard, his naked body smacking against the stone floor and head snapping back against the rock.

  He didn’t get up.

  The Timekeeper laid out the unconscious body on a plastic tarp, spreading the arms and legs wide according to the rules the ancient Voices had passed down to him. He tenderly removed the collar and washed the Chosen in kukui nut oil, wiping away the excess with a tapa cloth square.

  The man who had once been Jay Bennett gleamed in the flickering light, a golden statue, perfect and unblemished. Tumbled yellow hair framed a face like a fallen Nordic god, and in his beauty he seemed eternal to the Timekeeper, the plastic beneath him glimmering like water.

  He began to chant, sharpening the knives on the whetstone: a cleaver, scalpel-thin fillet knife, and a handheld meat saw. The rasp of the whetstone punctuated the rhythms of the timeless song.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Lei was impressed by the beauty and size of the estate as she followed the Ford up a long winding driveway. The spread was nestled between two rain-sculpted mountains with the mesa in the background, a further range of jungled peaks beyond. Blooming oleander hedges bordered a rolling lawn with the gracious main house set like a wedding cake in the center.

  “Lotta mowing,” she said as she got out of her truck in the gravel turnaround. She was glad she’d put her athletic shoes on that morning.

  “Cal does it,” Mac said, taking a water bottle out of his truck. “I couldn’t keep up a place this size without him. ’Course, I do a lot too. Keeps me in shape.”

  “I’d love to get the tour sometime, but I’m eager to make it up to the mesa and back before dark.”

  “Not a problem, though I’m not sure what you’re in such a hurry for.”

  A partial truth was in order.

  “Remember Alika? He took me up there on a date, and that’s where I found some evidence linking him to a murder. I want to get back up there, see if there’s anything else.”

  “I heard Alika was arrested. Shooting some girl seems out of character.”

  “I think so too. I’d like to clear his name,” Lei improvised.

  “He’s my brother, you know.”

  “What?” Lei took a bottle of water out of the truck. She locked it, turning to face Mac, eyes wide. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Half brother, I should say. We have the same father.”

  “So your dad was the guy who wouldn’t do right by Alika’s mom,” Lei said. She patted her cargo pockets to make sure she had her phone, keys, and, of course, the Glock. The shoulder rig already rubbed her bare side.

  The band of tension across her chest loosened as Jenkins’s Subaru tore up the driveway, light spinning.

  “He was already married, thank you very much.” Mac seemed indifferent to the approaching vehicle, intent on his story. “When Lehua showed up here pregnant, you can imagine my mother wasn’t very happy. She was pregnant with me at the time.”

  “So did you spend time together growing up?”

  “Little as possible. Doesn’t mean I want to see him charged with murder.”

  “I wonder why Alika never told me you were related.”

  “He has a chip on his shoulder. Even though he’s done well for himself, he didn’t get all this.” Mac gestured to encompass the sweep of the estate.

  Jenkins trotted up. He was in chinos and a polo shirt, sweat already marking rings under his arms. “Where’s the trailhead? Damn, they’re going to be surprised to see us come up from below.”

  “Mac, this is my partner Jack Jenkins. I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you I’m a cop. I’ve been working undercover.” Lei took her badge out of her pocket and showed it to him.

  “I guessed. When you were with that other woman at the papaya farm.” He seemed unfazed by her revelation. “Is this hike part of your investigation?”

  “Maybe. I think we should be looking for anywhere that…” Lei paused awkwardly. The urgency she’d felt all day, with it being October 31—Samhain—seemed to thrum along her nerves. “Let’s go.”

  They set off across the rolling lawn at a fast clip and passed the last oleander hedge, planted in an overlap so the gap was hidden. A barn and corral were on her left, and she smelled the warm scent of horses.

  “We could ride, but I don’t think you’re dressed for it. You ride?” Mac asked.

  “No, and today’s not good for my first lesson,” Lei said, remembering Fury’d said there was a horse on the mesa. She looked at Mac’s feet—they weren’t small. Her gut clenched as she wondered what his shoe size was. She dropped behind him a few more feet and signaled Jenkins to keep an eye on Mac. They both loosened their weapons for easy access.

  They hurried past the barn to where the trail began in earnest, and soon their conversation was limited to huffing and puffing as it ascended steeply, winding around boulders and trees, switching back every now and again as if to spare them the grade for a few minutes.

  Lei’s gun rubbed and straps chafed. She finally took the rig off and put it back on outside the shirt, buckling it as they walked.

  “Don’t know why you need to bring that thing.” Mac stopped, leaning against a kukui tree and wiping his forehead with his forearm. “Nothing out here but a few wild pigs.”

  “Detectives always carry a sidearm,” Lei said, snugging up the strap but keeping the snap off the holster. “Nothing personal.”

  Mac’s shoulders relaxed a little as he turned back to the trail. Jenkins raised his brows.

  Lei felt the pump of adrenaline waning. It was hard to stay keyed up with afternoon sun beating on her head and birds singing. Mac still carried the carved hardwood staff, using it as a walking stick.

  “Nice staff,” she said at a level spot in the trail. “What are the carvings?”

  “They’re petroglyphs. It’s actually a narrative of my life. I’ll explain it to you sometime.”

  “I’d like that,” she said. The niggling doubt came back—could Mac be the guy? The victims had been hit on the head with something, and it could well have been a wooden staff.

  They reached a stream that bisected the path, and Mac jumped from rock to rock, crossing to the other side. Lei looked up the stream to the series of waterfalls that flowed into it. One of the cliffs was bisected by a dark cleft. She remembered Esther’s psychic moment a few weeks ago.

  “Are there any big caves around here?”

  “I don’t know about big. Farther up we cross again, and not far from there is one big enough to sleep in.”

  “I’d like to check it out,” Lei said, digging her nails into the pad of her thumb to keep her excitement under control. She picked her way across the stream, Jenkins splashing and cursing behind her.

  “Guess we can take a side trip there if you want, but I thought you were in a hurry to get to the mesa.”

  “No, I’d like to check out the cave,” Lei said. “Seems like we have plenty of light for both.” Behind Mac’s back, Jenkins nodded eagerly.

  Mac set off again, and another half mile or so higher, the trail crossed the stream again. A faint path, little more than a goat trail, forked and followed the water upstream, almost obscured by ferns.

  They turned onto the side trail and soon reached a cliff. A slitlike, almost invisible opening marked the cave. Mac gestured to the rocky edifice, a trickle of water bouncing down from above, tender maidenhair ferns trembling in its path.

  “This is why we have to switch back and forth so much that last mile or so to the mesa. Too many waterfalls.”

  Lei stood at the edge of the clearing in front of the cave entrance, assessing. The grass was trampled but recovering. A blackened fire ring marked the center, piles of old horse dung around the area. Robust, pale green kukui nut trees encircled the open space. The stream burbled nearby.

  “Someone camped here.”

  “Yeah. Cal likes to come here, be alone with nature.” Mac wiped his forehead with his arm. “You wouldn’t happen to have a flashlight?
”

  “So just the two of you at the estate?” Lei found herself hesitant to approach the cave. The hairs on the back of her neck had begun to quiver, never a good sign. She reached over to touch her weapon, and as she glanced back she saw Jenkins do the same.

  “Yeah.”

  Mac led them forward into the dim space of the cave, a rocky passage that obscured what lay ahead. The smell hit first—musty but sweetish, with a ripeness that clung to the back of the throat.

  “Stinks,” Mac said. He’d gone farther forward. “Phew.”

  Lei’s eyes had begun to adjust. She thought she saw a reddish gleam of light.

  She moved along slowly against the wall. If anyone was going to jump her, this was a great place to do it. The smell, like an animal’s lair, made the hair rise all over her body. She kept her hand on the Glock.

  “I think we should come back with flashlights.” As she stepped around an outcrop, she could see the light of flickering torches in the main cavern. She pulled her gun and heard the snick of Jenkins taking out his weapon behind her.

  The stone-floored cave opened into a spacious main cavern. The roof was at least ten feet high, stippled with the pitting of cooling lava that had formed the bubble of space. The floor of the cavern was swept clean but patchy with wetness that had dripped from above. The torches’ flame barely held back dense shadows just outside a circle of wavering light.

  Reddish torchlight flickered over a long backlit shape hanging in the center of the space. There was something odd about the shape—until Lei’s brain finally told her it was a man’s body, upside down. His ankles had been lashed with rope and threaded through a hook in the ceiling. A black plastic tarp beneath the figure shone like water in the flickering light.

  Mac, ahead of them, gave a cry. “Oh my God!” He ran forward, grabbing the body, hoisting it up. “Help me!”

  Lei put her hand back against Jenkins’s chest, holding him against the wall. “Is he alive?”

  “I don’t know! Let’s get him down!”

  “Whoever put him there might still be here.” Lei and Jenkins approached, crouched and scanning. The edges of the room were impenetrably black as they sidled their way to the body, back to back.

  “I’ll cover you,” Lei said, and Jenkins holstered his weapon and seized the lower half of the body, raising the head to waist level. The face was dark with congestion, eyes closed, and mouth duct taped. His hands were bound. Even with dark, engorged features, Lei recognized the distorted face.

  “Jay Bennett. This is my missing guy,” Lei said.

  “He’s got rope around his ankles. Lei, can you get my knife? It’s on my belt,” Jenkins huffed. “This guy is heavy.”

  One last glance around the cavern, and Lei holstered her weapon, unclipping Jenkins’s belt loop and pulling out a wicked-looking combat knife. She reached as high as she could but couldn’t touch the looped rope around the man’s ankles. “Mac, you try; you’re tallest.”

  She traded places, lifting Jay’s inert, slippery body around the waist while Jenkins held up the man’s head and shoulders. The body’s smell was consistent with being held captive in a cave for a couple of weeks, and Lei took shallow breaths through her mouth, noticing the sheen on Jay’s skin, the tang of kukui nut oil.

  Mac reached up, sawing at the rope.

  Lei barely had time to register movement out of the corner of her eye before Mac hurtled into her with a cry, knocking her into Jenkins. They both lost grip on the slick body, falling to the ground, and Lei heard the clatter of her pistol flying out of the holster. She scrambled onto her hands and knees, crawling backward, trying to see, even as she felt on the ground for the weapon.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  A tall, dark shape, backlit by the torch, swung a staff in a hypnotic arc. Mac was down—still—but Jay Bennett’s body swung back and forth, gently spinning.

  “Chalcedony. I don’t like being called Cal anymore.” Voice a light tenor and oddly conversational. “I told you that, Mac.”

  “Chalcedony. And his brother, Jazz—for jasper.” Lei whispered the names of stones found at the disappearance sites. She’d met Jazz’s brother in the Health Guardian, and he’d told them who he was every time he took a victim. She inched backward, still feeling for the gun, as Jenkins stood up beside her, his voice booming in the cave.

  “Drop your weapon! Police!”

  The staff swung, and Lei heard the crack as it connected with Jenkins’s weapon, the grunt of pain he gave as it was knocked out of his fingers. Cal followed it, moving in on Jenkins. He stalked forward, the club whirling, just a blur in the dim light—the man obviously had some martial arts training.

  Lei’s fingers connected with the Glock and she brought it up.

  She couldn’t see what was happening enough to take a shot—she might hit Jenkins. She heard muffled thuds and grunts as she stood, backed toward the cave opening—she needed the light behind her.

  The end of Cal’s staff caught Jenkins in the ribs, and she heard the punch of air leaving his lungs as he went down, saw the tumbled legs. As he turned her way, she saw that Cal’s bare torso gleamed with kukui nut oil and he wore a tapa-cloth malo.

  They must have interrupted his sacrificial ceremony.

  “Drop your weapon! Police!” She didn’t recognize the scream as her own.

  She could see his eyes now, and they were ringed with white. He moved forward, the staff in a ready position at chest height. Light gilded bare, muscled arms as he emerged like a nightmare from the dark.

  She pulled the trigger. The report smacked her ears in the confined opening of the cave, deafening her. She’d hit him in the shoulder, and he reeled back but kept coming.

  “You think you can stop me. No one can.”

  She felt more than heard the words, vibrating between them, as he took another step.

  She shot him again, this time in the chest. He dropped the club, covering the wound, but kept coming, one hand reaching for her. Those white-ringed eyes filled the horizon, their expanded pupils darkening her vision.

  He was almost on her.

  She shot him one more time.

  He plummeted like a felled tree, landing on her—a weight like a blow. She jumped back with a cry, resisting the urge to empty the clip into him as he hit the ground at her feet. She sucked a breath, holding the gun on him.

  He was finally done moving.

  She holstered the weapon and ran over to Jenkins. He had a fine red bubble on his lips. It looked black in the dim light.

  “Think my ribs are stove in,” he said. More blood. More bubbles.

  “Just relax. I’m calling for help,” she said, thumbing open her phone. No reception. She ran outside the cave. The light hit like a blow. She dialed Stevens because her finger knew that key on the pad—and the helicopter on the mesa was their best way down.

  “Lei, we’re in the middle of something.” Stevens sounded annoyed.

  “Send the copter down—J-Boy’s injured. Emergency.” Adrenaline jittered her voice.

  “You’re not making sense. Calm down.”

  “Where are you?” Icy tone, Marcella’s voice. The agent must have grabbed the phone. “We heard you were coming up on the trail.”

  “I shot the suspect—the unsub. He’s dead, but Jenkins’s injured—badly. Our guide’s down too. Jay Bennett’s in here, strung up. Don’t know if he’s alive. Fly down here. We need medical assistance!”

  “Texeira, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.” Lei could hear the accelerating whine of rotors through the phone.

  “And I’ll do it. Just get here as soon as you can—I think Jay’s lung is pierced.”

  “Repeat, where are you? Need a landmark.” Good, they were coming. She took a breath, getting control, and looked around.

  “We’re about two-thirds of the way to the top. Small clearing by a cliff. I’ll be signaling.”

  “Roger that.”

  Lei ran back into the cave and knelt beside Jenkins.
/>   “Help’s on the way.” His breathing was like a kettle on the boil. “I’m going to elevate your feet.” She put a rock under them.

  “Cold,” he muttered.

  “You’re in shock. Try to relax. They’re coming in a helicopter, but I have to go outside to signal. Okay?”

  He nodded and closed his eyes, pale as a mushroom. Mac was up, and he was sawing at the rope around Jay’s feet. She ran forward and lifted Jay’s head and shoulders just in time before his feet hit the plastic tarp. She didn’t want to think about what that tarp was there for.

  “You okay? Where’d he hit you?” Lei asked.

  Mac sawed at the duct tape on the young man’s arms.

  “Head. Glancing blow or I wouldn’t be here anymore. Cal’s always been good with his staff.”

  Lei ripped the duct tape off Jay’s mouth, set her ear against his oiled chest. “Still got a heartbeat. Can you get his breathing going? I’ve got to go signal the helicopter.”

  “I’ll try.” Mac tipped Jay’s head and blew into his mouth as Lei ran back outside, tearing off the holster and man’s shirt. She waved the shirt in the center of the clearing, hearing the percussion of the chopper. Her phone rang and she answered it, still waving.

  “Lei, we can’t find you.” Stevens.

  “I can hear you. Down and to the right.”

  Already her arm ached from waving.

  “We see you.” Stevens’s voice in her ear was a lifeline.

  “I love you,” she blurted as the helicopter descended.

  “Adrenaline talking. We’re almost there.”

  The copter landed, the roar of the rotors overwhelming. Prop wash stung her eyes with a million flying particles. She withdrew into the cave opening.

  The copter doors flew back. Marcella was the first out, running to her, hunched beneath the whirling blades. Her eyes widened.

  “You hit?”

  Lei looked down. Blood splattered her arms and torso. She could only imagine her face.

  “The other guy.” She pointed to the face-down corpse inside the cave entrance. “Jenkins’s inside. He’s bad off—I think a broken rib pierced his lung—and Bennett’s barely alive.”