Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  “Thanks for bringing her back.” Lei was unsure of how to proceed—hug him? Shake hands? Awkward standing, hands in pockets as they watched the dogs, might have continued if she hadn’t gestured to the iron security door. It was the first thing she’d installed upon moving in. “Come in. Let me give you a beer, at least.”

  Stevens looked terrible. His clothes hung on his tall, rangy frame. He’d made some effort to clean up, she could see, because his cheeks were chapped by a recent shave. His hair was tousled and overlong.

  Lei noticed, as she’d noticed before, that he looked good haggard—somehow it made him even more attractive. His sky eyes, flecked with white like ice in a Nordic lake, were even bluer with shadows beneath. She longed to comfort him, run her hands through that rumpled hair, massage the tension out of his corded shoulders. She wondered what was wrong and figured he’d get around to telling her—he always had.

  “Corona?” She took a beer out of the fridge, popped the top, and handed one to him without waiting for a reply. It dangled from his fingers as he turned, taking in the bright, tidy kitchen with an orchid plant over the sink. The room was painted a cheerful yellow, and they sat at a small round table with a couple of chairs.

  “Nice place.”

  She shrugged. “It came furnished. I learned my lesson after my last place. What a hole. Glad you never saw that one, or you might have thought I was depressed.” She laughed a little too loud and drowned the discordant sound with a sip of her beer. “So how’s Maui?”

  “Same old, same old.” Stevens’s eyes had wandered to the bedroom. She’d finally replaced her prized king-sized bed lost in the fire on Maui, and the new one was dressed in plump pillows and a comforter. Lei wished she could get up and close the door. She felt as exposed as if he’d glimpsed her panties—thank God he’d never seen that other bed, the sad little inflatable mattress and nest of blankets she’d lived in too long.

  “What’s happening with the case? We haven’t had much news about it over on Maui.” He turned away from the bed in his line of sight. They’d always been able to talk about work, so Lei was relieved to move on to this neutral topic.

  “Well, Homeland has failed to find any physical evidence to tie Tyson Rezents to the Smiley murders, so that’s sticking to Blackman until something else pops. They’ve charged Rezents with conspiracy to commit terrorism, and he didn’t get the good lawyer Consuelo did—but Watanabe’s defense fund did get a competent guy at least, whose first move was a change of venue. His trial’s been moved to Arizona, where they’re hoping no one’s too familiar with the case. But with the Internet celebrity of those kids, I’m not holding my breath. It’s too bad Blackman went down in the raid. I would have loved to hear what he had to say about Smiley Mafia, which Consuelo started as a kind of idealistic Fight Club–inspired Robin Hood gig.”

  “That’s sure not what it’s become.” Stevens leaned back in the kitchen chair to roll the beer bottle back and forth across his lean stomach. “We’re cleaning up Smiley Mafia graffiti and vandalism every damn day.”

  “Yeah, same here. But there’s no centralized intelligence to it anymore. It’s just kids finding an excuse to trash stuff, like angry kids have been doing forever.” Lei took a sip from her bottle as the dog door, intentionally large enough for the big Rottweiler, burst open, admitting Keiki and her tiny shadow, Angel.

  Lei got up, called the dogs over to a pair of dishes next to the counter—one large, one small. The dogs put their noses down and ate side by side—and they looked as funny together as she’d thought they would.

  Stevens grinned, and she smiled back at him.

  “So, you can come visit Keiki anytime.” Lei felt like one half of a divorced couple, offering visiting rights.

  “I don’t know. It’s hard.” Stevens took his first swig of beer, reached in his pocket and pulled out a ragged piece of paper. Turned to the table, opened its frayed folds. Smoothed it flat. “I have something to read to you. She said I could.”

  Lei’s heart jumped to trip-hammer speed. “She” had to be Anchara. Stevens cleared his throat as if he were going to read the letter aloud, but then didn’t, just staring down at the paper in his hands.

  “May I?” Lei whispered.

  He handed it to her, and she opened it, reading silently. Anchara’s handwriting had a curly, unusual quality to it, attesting to her foreign schooling—but it was beautifully, cruelly, unforgettably legible.

  Dear Michael,

  (You may share this with Lei if you like, so there are no secrets between us. I always liked her, even when I wished I didn’t.)

  I appreciate all you tried to do for me. No one could have had a truer, better friend and gentler lover. You said you’d do your best to be a good husband to me, and you did try.

  I know how hard you tried, always so thoughtful, and careful, and kind. But ever since you heard from her, I’ve seen the torment you try to hide from me. I know again how much you loved her—I saw it from the first—and how you were trying to get over her by being with me.

  Well, it’s not enough. We both deserve better.

  I deserve to be loved for me. I’m strong enough to know that now, and I would rather be alone than settle for crumbs from the table of your love for her.

  I’ve settled for others choosing my fate for me my whole life. It ends now.

  When we fulfill two years, I’ll divorce you. But I need to stay in this country. I need this green card, and we need to be married for those two years for me to keep that. For all I’ve done, all that’s been done to me, I’ve earned that at least.

  I don’t love you. I haven’t let myself. But I could have.

  Anchara

  Lei folded the letter, slid it back to him. Picked up her beer, walked to the sink, staring out the little window. Drank it down past the hard lump in her throat that held tears for the pain they’d all been through.

  Pain they’d each caused each other. Pain she’d felt every lonely night without him and now an inner conflict and sorrow that his marriage wasn’t working. Regret really did come in all sorts of shades and intensities. She could’ve done without the discovery of that. She turned back to him when she was pretty sure she’d blinked her eyes clear.

  “I’m really sorry. It seems like you both wanted it to work.”

  “Yes. Yes, we both tried.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, rolling the empty bottle between his palms, a familiar movement.

  Lei glimpsed the tiny purple heart with her name on it inside the crook of his elbow. He hadn’t lasered it off. The sight of that, more than anything, made her walk over to him, lay her hand on his shoulder. Hesitant. Shy. Conflicted. But reaching out her hand, nonetheless.

  “I sometimes wish I’d never left Maui. The FBI—it’s not what I thought. I—don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “I don’t know either.” He put the bottle down, and his long, hard arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close against his face. Lei felt him shaking, his face pressed into her T-shirt. Her arms stroked his back, comforting, even as her heart ached—he was crying for having lost Anchara, and yet she felt nothing but love for him and sorrow for his pain.

  This depth of feeling, this complexity of love, was entirely new to her. Lei felt it bloom in the exact place where his tears wet her belly, felt it tighten around her heart as his arms wrapped around her waist.

  “I didn’t want to love you. I tried so hard not to,” he said, his voice rough as she stroked his hair.

  “I know.” And in a moment, she was in his lap, a familiar comfort, one of her favorite places in the world. The kiss they shared was messy with tears and longing.

  She wondered how she’d done without him, how she’d continue to—and yet she’d never felt stronger.

  “We can wait.” Lei said it, sitting in his lap, holding his drawn face in her hands, his blue, blue eyes gazing into her brown. “We owe her that. Go home to Maui. And know I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Turn the page t
o keep reading book five of the Paradise Crime Mysteries, Twisted Vine!

  Twisted Vine

  Paradise Crime Mysteries Book 5

  He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.

  Daniel 2:22

  Chapter One

  Corpses shouldn’t look like angels.

  Special Agent Lei Texeira couldn’t get that thought out of her mind as she shot the body with the Canon. A mane of sun-streaked curls haloed the nineteen-year-old’s colorless face. His mouth was turned up in a bit of a smile, long-lashed eyes almost closed. Muscular, tanned arms, losing their definition in death, contrasted with the crisp white bed linens. His hands were crossed on his chest.

  Her partner, Ken Yamada, usually did the photography work, but he was busy doing that other thing he did so well—calming hysteria. This time, Corby Alexander Hale III’s high-powered parents, Senator and Mrs. Hale.

  Detective Marcus Kamuela, relegated to the sidelines, leaned his big frame against the wall of a huge bedroom cluttered with surfboards, skateboards, and a mountain bike. He finally spoke, and his voice was tight with irritation. “Don’t know why you guys got called in on this one.”

  “We’re investigating a series of suspicious deaths, and with this boy’s parents…It’s political. You know the drill.” Lei spoke apologetically.

  Taking over the case had been recommended by Sophie Ang, their information-technology specialist. The tech agent had spotted a trend of inconsistencies in a series of suicides and accidental deaths, and she’d flagged the boy’s death to FBI Special Agent in Charge Waxman when it came out on the scanner. Given the senator’s position, everything to do with his son’s death was going to be under scrutiny.

  On the bedside table, near the boy’s right hand, was an empty syringe, a strip of rubber tubing, and a “cooking kit” with a smudge of black residue left in the bowl of the spoon. Lei frowned as she assessed the scene—it looked too neat, the body artificially laid out.

  “What do you think? This looks staged to me.” Lei shook curly hair out of her eyes.

  “Agree,” Kamuela said. His voice was brusque.

  “So, who found the body?”

  “The maid. Well, whatevahs.” The Hawaiian detective pushed off the wall. He left, giving her one last “stink eye,” which she pretended not to see, lifting her hand in a goodbye wave. Lei remembered the days of catching a case only to have it snaked by the Feds. Now she was one of them and was relieved to see Kamuela go. She was never entirely relaxed in his company—he was the investigator on a cold case that still had the power to derail her life.

  Ken came to the door. “Detective Kamuela’s not happy to be bumped off the case. I put him in with the senator, who’s had a bit too much to drink. The boy’s mother locked herself in the restroom.”

  “Poor thing. This kid was so young.” Lei lifted the boy’s right hand off his chest, turned it over, photographed the inside of the arm. No needle marks on the smooth skin, though the mottling of lividity had begun. “Turn his other arm, will you?”

  Ken did so. Rigor had begun to set in, so the arm moved stiffly. No marks on the left arm, either, but a tiny blood dot on the recent injection site. They both straightened up, and Lei lowered the camera. “Where’s the medical examiner?”

  “Fukushima’s a few minutes away. The parents swear he wasn’t a drug user. According to Senator Hale, he was what this room shows—a top-notch surfer and athlete.”

  “He was also left-handed, which isn’t well known.” Kamuela had given Lei the basic profile he’d procured from the first interviews. They both looked at the empty plastic packet, spoon, tubing, lighter, and the needle set on the right side table. There was a second, empty table on the left side of the bed. An injection site into the left arm meant he’d have had to inject himself with his nondominant hand, an awkward position at best.

  “Wonder if we’ll find prints on the cooking kit,” Ken said, his sternly handsome Japanese face set in what Lei liked to call “samurai mode”—straight brows drawn together, jaw tight, mouth a line. “Kamuela might be pissed now, but with the high profile this case is going to generate, he’ll be thanking us later.”

  Dr. Fukushima knocked on the door and entered. Her assistant, pushing the gurney, closed it behind her. A petite woman with a graceful, upright bearing, she padded across the room in proper crime-scene wear—blue paper booties, a coverall, gloves, a hairnet, carrying her black old-fashioned doctor’s bag.

  “What have we here?” she asked. “Are you ready for me?”

  “Looks like a suspicious overdose. Corby Alexander Hale the third, senator’s son, aged nineteen. And yes, we’re ready to start searching the room,” Ken said.

  “I’m done shooting.” Lei put the camera in its case. Ken slid the items beside the boy’s still form into evidence bags as Lei recapped what they knew.

  Fukushima gazed at the body. “Looks posed.”

  “We thought so too.”

  “Hmm. I’m going to want to rule out homicide,” Fukushima said.

  Lei didn’t have time to reply before the door flew open with a bang. Corby Hale’s mother hurtled across the room, throwing herself onto their crime scene. “Corby! Corby!” she wailed.

  Ken and Lei pried her off her son’s body. Alexis Hale, whom Lei had only ever seen perfectly coiffed beside her husband in media releases, appeared unhinged with grief. Ruined makeup smeared her face, and one ear bled onto the collar of her white blouse where it looked as if she’d ripped an earring out.

  She cried the boy’s name again and again, “Corby! Corby!” as if she could haul his spirit back from wherever it had gone. The sound brought the hairs up all over Lei’s body. She wrestled Mrs. Hale into a nearby chair, keeping her there by crossing the woman’s arms and holding them from behind while Ken ran to find Senator Hale. Fukushima fussed around the disturbed body, hastily bagging the boy’s hands lest any trace be lost and then pulling the sheet up to hide him.

  Lei was able to release Mrs. Hale’s arms when she took hold of herself, hands still crossed over her body, and began rocking. She was crying hard now, and Lei patted the woman’s back, making inarticulate soothing noises. Every phrase she thought of speaking sounded ridiculous.

  Nothing. Nothing could comfort in a moment of loss like this, and Lei had finally learned it was better to say nothing than something insensitive. It had also taken her some years to be able to tolerate the rawness of others’ grief without it activating her own—even now, she slowed her own breathing consciously as Mrs. Hale’s harsh weeping abraded her emotions.

  Senator Hale, pasty under his golfer’s tan and reeking of alcohol, wobbled into the doorway with Kamuela holding him up. Mrs. Hale launched herself from the chair, beating at him with her fists. “This is all your fault! All your fault!”

  Lei and Ken pushed all three into the hall and managed to get the door shut so Dr. Fukushima could get to work in peace, and the next several moments were a blur of managing the fighting, screaming couple, getting them down the hall and into the huge living room, sitting them on separate leather couches like boxers between rounds.

  Lei parked herself beside Mrs. Hale, who had subsided into hiccupping silence, her red-rimmed eyes fixed on her husband. Senator Hale reached for his highball glass from the coffee table, but Kamuela plucked it away first. “I think you’ve had enough, sir.”

  “So, tell us more about yesterday and this morning,” Ken said.

  Mrs. Hale didn’t speak, just kept her venomous gaze on her husband. Senator Hale finally answered, rubbing his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.

  “It’s like I told you. Corby is a student at University of Hawaii at Manoa. He had classes yesterday; he went surfing in the evening. We don’t monitor everything he does anymore, but I knew that because his car was gone.” Lei glanced out the window at the black Xterra parked in the turnaround, stacked high with surfboards. Lucky nineteen-year-old. The waste of his death made her heart squee
ze.

  “Anyway, we didn’t know anything was wrong until Jessie went upstairs to wake him for class. She screamed.” Hale got up and went to the sideboard, a handsome koa-wood unit, and splashed more Maker’s Mark into a fresh glass. The agents looked at each other and at Kamuela. Lei knew none of them wanted to incur the senator’s wrath by taking the drink away again.

  “I went up and saw him there. I tried to wake him.” The senator’s hand trembled so violently he couldn’t get the glass to his lips. The liquid splashed over his hand and he set it down. “I called nine-one-one on my cell and went out of the room. I wouldn’t let Alexis see him. I didn’t want her to see him. Dead.”

  Suddenly the senator clapped his hand to his mouth and ran out of the room. Ken followed him, and Lei heard the man retching in the nearby guest bathroom. Kamuela got up. “I’ll go check the perimeter, make sure it’s secure.”

  Lei looked over at Mrs. Hale, pulled a handful of tissues from the mother-of-pearl box on the coffee table, handed them to her. “Your ear is bleeding. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Mrs. Hale put the tissues against her ear without responding, still staring at the spot where her husband had been.

  “I wonder, was Corby acting any differently lately? Did you have any indications that he was using drugs?”

  “Why is the FBI here?” Alexis Hale suddenly asked.

  Lei took a careful moment to answer—she couldn’t give anything away right now. “Your husband’s high profile immediately bumps the case to a higher level.”

  “Well.” Mrs. Hale seemed to be pulling herself together, having reached some inner conclusion. She smoothed her blond hair, woven with shades from buttercream to platinum, patting it back into some semblance of order, though there was no fix for the spatter of blood on the white blouse from her torn earlobe. She reached over to the expanse of coffee table and tugged another tissue out of the mother-of-pearl dispenser, dabbing mascara out from under her eyes. “He’d been acting different. Quieter. Withdrawn. I thought he was having a tough semester at school, maybe girl trouble. I didn’t pry.”