Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  “How many other women were there?”

  “There are ten in each room. The beds, they—how you say?” She made a gesture with her hands. “They on top each other.”

  “Bunk beds. You speak English well. How did you learn?”

  “I always want to come to United States. I am a teacher in Thailand; I study English for when I hope to come.”

  “So then what happened?”

  “We are cleaned up. They make us exercise in other room with machines. The food good. I think it not so bad; then we arrive in port. We get in dresses, and they drive us to hotel. Then I know it not so good.” She closed those big, expressive eyes for a long moment. “I read little bit, other languages. I see the signs out the window of van. That first port, Singapore. I know what we are now. Whores.”

  Lei felt her heart constrict, and she had to speak up. “Not whores. Slaves. You were taken. You were forced.”

  Marcella shot her a look for interrupting the flow. “What was the name of your ship?”

  “We changed ships two times.” She told the names, neither of which were American. “Then we get on Rainbow Duchess. We go around through Hawaii. Now I trying to escape because I’m in America.”

  “How long did this go on?”

  “I think almost one year before Vixen help me escape.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “Vixen. She from Albania. She never talk much, she never be friends, but we both trying harder than other girls to get away. She hardly speak English, but we communicate how we can. We locked in…what you call…storage room in this island when we come after we…work.” Anchara’s eyes had become wide, the pupils dilated as she tried to find words in a foreign language and remember traumatic events at the same time.

  “Kimo and Celeste, they move us and watch us in this port. The guard, Kimo, he pick us sometimes after we done. He like her; he take her outside. She do something for him. Then she hit him and take the key. She let us all out.” Anchara sighed a shuddering breath. “Most girls, they cry; they not want to leave. They scared of being beaten, no English. But we go.” She wound to a halt.

  “Then what happened?” Gentle prompt from Rogers this time.

  “We run. They chasing us in car. They catch Vixen. But I small, and I crawl between fence they can’t follow and hide until next day. Then I go along road, looking for where people hide. I find the camp with Ramona.” She closed her eyes again. “I think I know they kill Vixen because she make trouble. She never stop trying to get away.”

  “Did you ever hear any other names here or on the ship?”

  “They not talk to us. But I know English, and I listening. I know who in charge of Celeste and Kimo—the boss named Kennedy.”

  Lei stiffened to attention, and so did the agents. “How did you hear this?”

  “They talking about her. She come look at us when we first get in. She tell them how to make us pretty. They scared of her. Sometimes she take one of the men and she beat him.”

  “Men? Where were they kept?”

  “Only a few of them. They kept in different room in storage and on ship. They treated same as us. Only Ms. Kennedy, she like to beat them, do things to them.”

  Lei suppressed the need to get up and pace—the description of the sadistic madam was getting to her. She pictured the arctic-blue eyes, the fury the woman had barely kept in check in the interview room.

  “Did you ever hear any other names? Anything that would help us find them?”

  “Ms. Kennedy, she have boss, too. He called the House.”

  Marcella pounced. “How did you hear this? What was the situation?”

  “Celeste and Kimo, they talking. They did the…what you call? Doctoring with the men when they come back from her. They working on this boy. He only a boy, he crying, and he all torn up outside our door in the warehouse. They grumbling. They say maybe they call the House and tell him she damaging the merchandise.” The last words had a memorized quality. Lei could imagine Anchara latching on to this nugget of potentially useful information and committing it to memory.

  They all vibrated with attention—this was big, the first solid confirmation there was a connection between Magda Kennedy, the House, and the cruise ships. “Did you ever hear that name mentioned again?”

  “Yes. About the safe.”

  “The safe?”

  “In the room on the ship—a big black safe. When we come into port in Honolulu, they make us go to the workout room and they move things in and out the safe. I always trying to see what is inside. I pretend to go back and get something. I see an Asian man, he putting money and bags inside the safe. He yell at me and I run out.” She closed her eyes as if remembering. “I keep watching. I try to see. And I hear them one day talking about the House. It his money going in the safe, his drugs in those bags. Then it come out at the ports—but not Maui.”

  Magda Kennedy must be laundering the money for him, Lei thought. An art gallery would be a great venue for that.

  “What about the other islands?” Marcella asked.

  “It all come into safe from Honolulu and go back out to Kaua`i, Big Island. Then money go in from other islands, I think from the drugs. But not go in from here. Only go out to Maui.”

  Marcella and Rogers exchanged a look, and Lei considered—this accounted for the drugs and prostitution money, but what about the purported guns?

  “Did you ever see anything else being loaded on the ship?” Rogers asked.

  “No. I always watching, but the room we in have no windows.”

  “How did they get you on and off the ship?” Marcella picked up the thread.

  “Late at night we go off the cargo exit. We get in van. We go to the place they keep us. There is one for us on each island.” Anchara lay her head down on top of her knees. “I tired. I can shower now?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Anchara. You’ve been amazing.” Marcella smiled her luminous smile. “We’ll need to talk with you more, but that’s great for now. Get clean and get some rest.” The young woman nodded, unwound from the couch, and padded off to the bathroom. A few minutes later, they heard the rush of the shower.

  “Think that stir-fry’s past ready,” Stevens said, getting up to return to the kitchen. “Wow, is all I can say.” He scooped rice out of the cooker and layered stir-fry over it.

  “Hot damn, that girl’s going to be gold on the stand,” Rogers said, carrying the chairs back into the kitchen and sitting at the table.

  “Yeah, she’s a gold mine, all right. More important than ever that we keep her safe and sound. I’m still worried—we don’t have anything on the guns, and we don’t have anything hard. We can’t make a case this big on the word of an illegal immigrant hooker—sorry, Lei. Human trafficking victim.” Marcella accepted her plate of stir-fry and rice from Stevens and sat down beside Rogers. Lei brought them some Aloha Shoyu and glasses of water and sat down with them.

  “We’ve got solid grounds to search the Rainbow Duchess, though. And we’ve got Anchara and the key to the warehouse, if we can find it. It must be somewhere not too far from the encampment on the bluff,” Rogers said between bites of stir-fry.

  “Yeah. I’ll call the coast guard again with this latest about the safe and confirmation that the Duchess is carrying human cargo. We should do a joint raid on the Duchess as soon as it gets into port, before they have a chance to move anything.” Marcella, as efficient an eater as Anchara, shoveled up the last bite of her stir-fry. “Stevens, you’re welcome to join us.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Lei exclaimed.

  “House arrest. You still have a hit out on you, and we need you to keep an eye on Anchara. Can’t have her giving us the slip at this stage.”

  Lei sulked as she followed the agents out. Marcella was already working her cell phone. She locked the gate as the Acura pulled away, high beams slicing through the velvety plumeria-scented dark unique to Hawaii. She went into the light of the kitchen as Stevens put the leftovers away.

  Lei
could hear the shower still running. Anchara must be a prune by now, but Lei knew how good a hot shower could feel.

  “Poor kid. She looked really wiped out.” Stevens gestured toward the bathroom.

  “Me too.” Lei gave a jaw-cracking yawn. The confrontation with Kwon was catching up with her. She went to the cabinet and took out sheets, heading for the second bedroom. A plastic grocery bag with the girl’s meager belongings had been placed inside the door.

  Lei resisted the urge rifle through it and made up the mattress. She was fluffing the flat polyester pillow when Anchara appeared, a towel around her midsection and another one wrapped into a turban on her head. With the grime off her face, Lei could see the beauty that had made the girl a victim of human trafficking—long-lashed doe eyes, a rounded little nose, full, cushiony mouth. Her skin, the warm gold of honey, was marked only by the shadows cast by a tracery of pleasing bones.

  Anchara unwound the towel, draping it carefully over a chair, and used her fingers to comb out waist-length hair.

  “Do you have anything clean to put on?” Lei asked.

  Anchara shook her head.

  “I’ve got some new clothes—I might have something that fits you.” Lei brushed past and went into the master bedroom, pulling out a set of sweats and bikini underwear that looked small enough for the petite woman to wear. She handed the bundle of clothing to Anchara and went on into the kitchen. They turned on the TV and eventually Anchara returned. Lei gestured to the couch beside her.

  “Come, join us.”

  The girl obeyed with obvious reluctance, curling up in a ball with one of the cushions against her chest, combing her hair with her fingers again.

  “Where’d you go after Ramona’s campsite?” Lei asked.

  A shrug of the skinny shoulders. “I ran because someone was coming for me. I hid and camped wherever.”

  “Well, we’re glad you’re here. We’ll keep you safe until we can close the door on these people.”

  “Are you sending me back to Thailand?”

  “I don’t know.” Stevens answered that one. “Do you want to go?”

  “No. I don’t want to go back.”

  “We’ll talk to the district attorney and see what he says. You help us bring in this case, we’re going to owe you something, that’s for sure.”

  Anchara nodded, lashes drooping in dark fans against her cheek.

  “Why don’t you get some rest?” Lei asked. The woman nodded again and trailed off to bed. Lei indulged in another yawn. “I think I’ll go to bed early, too.”

  “Yeah. I imagine you’re tired from wherever you went today.”

  Lei sat upright, a jolt of adrenaline hitting her like a slap. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.” She glanced over at his narrowed blue eyes.

  He was fishing. He knew she’d left the house, probably heard it from the uniform watching them—but he couldn’t know where she’d gone. Still, she hated lying to him.

  She took a breath. Said it. “I went to Oahu and saw Kwon.”

  “What the hell!” He stood, looming over her, hands on hips. “You never cease to amaze me.”

  “I told you I was going to see him. You’ll be happy to know I left him alive, just gave him a little love tap upside the head with my gun.” Her stomach roiled at the memory—there was much she couldn’t put into words about seeing Kwon again.

  “Thank God. Jesus. And I mean that like I’m praying.”

  Lei got up and took the recently restocked emergency vodka bottle out of the freezer, splashed a portion into two glasses, handed Stevens one. “Medicinal purposes.” She tipped her head back and tossed the shot, burning and painful, down her throat. “I’m not losing one more day of my life over him.”

  “I should have known you’d find a way to go over there. It’s so dangerous, with whoever has a hit out on us still out there, and you. . .” Stevens drank the shot, set the glass down on the coffee table with a thump. He pushed his hands through his hair, leaving tufts of unruly distress. “I want to put you over my knee, dammit.”

  “You can try.”

  “I’m going to. It’s a promise, when we’re not sharing close quarters with a traumatized sex slave.”

  “Don’t be mad. I needed to see him, it’s over, and I’m fine. Unfortunately, he’s fine too, but I’ll let someone else deal with him. My father said these guys tend not to live long, either in the joint or once they get out.”

  “Sounds like a threat. Don’t let Wayne do anything stupid either—you both have a lot to lose.”

  “Don’t worry about that—my dad’s favorite saying is from the Bible—'Do not take revenge. I will repay, says the Lord.’”

  “What did Kwon say to you?”

  “Begged me to kill him, actually. Said he deserved it.”

  “Doesn’t sound like the Kwon you told me about.” Stevens was pacing.

  “Said he was rehabilitated, but that he still deserved it. I was never going to kill him, just scare him straight—but the gun got pretty wobbly there for a minute.” The bomb of warmth from the drink loosened the tightness of her fingers around the glass, but she shuddered, remembering.

  “Jesus, Lei.” He ran his hands through his hair again. “That’s the last thing we’d need—you getting investigated for murder.”

  “You’re freaking out for no reason. I had to see him, I did, and now it’s done.”

  “Don’t ever fucking ask me to cover for you.”

  “You don’t need to say that to me. I know what the law means to you—I just don’t think it always works like it should. Kwon out in five years because of crowding is one of those times. But like I keep telling you, nothing happened.”

  He came to a stop by the sink, staring out into the darkness. Turned to face her, his long, muscled arms braced wide on the edge of the counter. “Don’t do this shit to me, Lei. You’re killing me.”

  She walked toward him, ran her hands up those arms, pulled his head down to her, whispered into his ear. “I’m sorry. That’s the last thing I want to do. I love you.”

  He pulled her into his arms. It wasn’t gentle, and her bruises protested. She ignored them.

  “You’re a piece of work, Lei,” he whispered, as he took all she offered and more, drawing her up against himself. She gave a little hop, ignoring a twinge from her ribs, and wrapped her legs around his waist. He boosted her up against his hard crotch, holding her ass as he walked them down the hall.

  “I told you. I warned you,” she said. “I don’t want to break your heart.”

  “You already did.”

  Then there were no more words.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Lei woke to the combined buzzing and toning of both of their new cell phones. Lei got hold of hers first. Lieutenant Omura’s voice was clipped with suppressed excitement.

  “Coast guard turned up a hidden room on the Rainbow Duchess in Kahului Harbor. Get down there and represent ASAP. Wear a wig and a vest.”

  “On it.” Lei hauled on her discarded jeans from the night before as she closed the phone. So much for Marcella’s order to stay home. Stevens was doing the same on the other side of the bed and looked over at her. “What’re you doing?”

  “Lieutenant called me in. You’ll just have to make sure I don’t get shot.”

  “So much for laying low.”

  “Thank God. I would hate to miss this.” Lei loaded her Glock into the new holster and clipped a shiny new badge onto a belt she still hadn’t removed a price tag from. She hauled on the red wig from the day before, covering it with an MPD ball cap.

  Anchara stuck her head out of her bedroom as they hurried down the hall.

  “Go back to sleep,” Lei said. “Police business. An officer is still watching the house.”

  The girl nodded and withdrew.

  They trotted down to the Bronco, and Stevens fired it up. Lei made sure the gate was locked and shot a salute to the uniform watching the house. They pulled out in full light
s-and-sirens glory, and Lei Velcroed herself into an extra vest.

  White-knuckled minutes later, they pulled up at the harbor. The cruise ship loomed in the early dawn, lights twinkling from stem to stern, a floating city. Marcella and Rogers were conferring on the dock with several uniformed coast guard officers and the captain of the ship. The captain, resplendent in gold-braided white, gestured wildly as the two of them arrived at a run.

  “I had no knowledge of this! I’m telling you, I never would have permitted such a travesty on my ship!”

  Marcella, hair tumbled down her back and shirt buttoned askew under a bulletproof FBI vest, spotted them. “Lei, what are you doing here?”

  “Omura sent me.”

  Stevens finished securing his vest. “We couldn’t keep her back anyway.”

  Marcella rolled her eyes and jerked her head toward the gangplank. “Let’s go take a look.” She led Stevens and Lei up the steep ramp onto the ship and down halls dimly lit, inner doors closed as passengers slept on in blissful ignorance.

  Lei poked her from behind. “Do something about your hair.”

  “You’re one to talk.” But Marcella bundled the fall of curls into a knot as they strode down the hall. “Crack-of-dawn raid, and I had trouble sleeping last night.”

  Instead of down into the bowels of the ship as Lei had expected, they entered the grand foyer, ascending a curving staircase past glowing blown-glass Chihuly chandeliers to a second story. Marcella led them down a wide hallway to a polished wood door crowned by a beveled-glass insert. “There’s a service elevator at the end of the hall they must have used to bring the girls on and off the ship.”

  Two uniformed coast guard officers with rifles stood aside as she opened the door.

  Lei stepped inside and drew her breath in sharply. The stateroom was bare except for a double row of five bunk beds. A cluster of young women dressed in short white satin robes huddled in a corner.

  Against one wall was a handsome carved armoire. Without a word, Marcella led the way to the armoire and threw it open. A big safe squatted inside, its matte black surface seeming to absorb all the light in the room.