by Toby Neal
“C’mon out, girl.”
The big Rottweiler jumped down from the Bronco, and Lei clipped the dog’s leash on, letting her sniff and investigate the lot. Maui really did have something uniquely wonderful about it, and it was in the wide-open spaces and warm breeze that tossed her hair.
Lei thought she could smell the salty tang of the ocean just on the other side of the complex. Her chest was tight with excitement—she was finally here.
“I scored a unit on the bottom floor,” Stevens said. “Come see.” He carried the backpack along the cement walkway to a teal-green apartment door marked 101. He set the backpack against the wall. Stuck the key in, turned it, gave the door a little push. It swung inward.
Lei could hear the sound of surf echoing through the sliding door at the front of the apartment. The rhythmic swish was amplified by the walls like the song in a shell. A lance of sunlight reflected off the ocean, bounced off the ceiling, and lit the way in.
He stood still for a long moment, then slowly turned to face her.
“What? Is something wrong?” Lei felt her chest tighten. Was he regretting this? She’d finally learned what she needed more than any job, and she wasn’t going to let any more time go by without telling him so. There were big steps ahead to take, but she’d made up her mind to get through them one by one.
Keiki gave a happy bark, trotting ahead of them into the apartment, leash trailing. The sunlight from the sea reflected off the floor, lighting Stevens’s eyes. There were flecks of white in that crystal blue like ice floating in an Arctic sea. She could stand there, in the doorway, looking into those eyes all day. He seemed to feel the same, looking into hers.
“You’re here,” he said. “You’re really here.”
“Yes.” Lei felt tears well up. She was so happy and so scared. “I have something I want to ask you.”
“What?” His dark brows drew together in confusion as she dropped to one knee, hands twisted together.
“Will you marry me?”
She’d broken his heart so many times. She’d deserve it if he broke hers. She shut her eyes, bracing herself.
Stevens threw his head back and laughed, a sound of hilarity and joy that made the tears she’d been holding back overflow.
“Yes. Yes, God help me, I will.” He reached down to haul her up by the elbows. He hugged her, crushing her with such power she gave a little wheeze. He swung her up into his arms as if she weighed nothing, and she squeaked and laughed through the tears. Stevens stepped over the threshold with her in his arms and kicked the door shut with his heel.
The backpack sat out on the sidewalk for a long time, forgotten.
Monday morning, Lei walked into the meeting she’d asked for with Waxman. He’d beaten them to the conference room, as usual. Lei carried a piece of paper in a sweaty hand, and Marcella and Ken followed her in as she laid it in front of the special agent in charge.
“My resignation. Effective immediately.”
She’d texted Marcella and Ken of her intentions, and their set faces reflected stoicism and support as they seated themselves on either side of her.
Waxman picked it up. Read it. Steepled his fingers as he did so. Removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, sighed. “Where’s your union rep?”
“He advised me against this. I just want to get it over with. I have another job offer on Maui.”
“And a relationship there too.” Waxman put his glasses back on, looked at her. “I’m not blind. And I know this IA thing has knocked you on your ass. I was prepared for this, and I have a proposal for you. How would you like to remain on in a titular capacity as our special liaison to Maui? Whenever we have cases there, you’ll be our go-to support and communications agent.”
Lei felt hope fluttering. “I would love that,” she managed to say. “I hate to leave the FBI. But I don’t know how that role would work with my new job. It’s a full-time lieutenant position with the Maui Police Department.”
“Congratulations on that. I’m sure Captain Omura and I can work something out that will be beneficial to all concerned.” Waxman leaned forward. “I also want to let you know the investigation into Healani Chang’s death has come back with no evidence of wrongdoing on your part. Personally, I never doubted it.” He reached into his briefcase, brought out her two weapons and cred wallet. “For the remainder of your time with us.”
“Thank you, sir. I hope I will be able to be an asset to the Bureau on Maui.” She took the items, shook her boss’s hand.
Waxman smiled. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Agent Texeira. You’ll be missed around here.”
Out in the hall, Marcella embraced her. “Damn girl. Thank God Waxman came up with something to keep you connected to the Bureau!”
“It was such a hard decision, but Stevens and I—we’re getting married.” Lei held out her hand for Marcella and Ken to see the simple engagement band with a channel-set diamond, which they’d picked out that weekend. “You both better come and be in my wedding.”
“Oh my God!” Marcella exclaimed, grabbing her hand. “You’re doing it!”
“Congratulations!” Ken swept her up in a bone-cracking hug, a first from her physically reserved partner. “Count me in. Do I get to be a bridesmaid or groomsman?”
“Your choice.” Lei felt those easy tears that had plagued her since the head injury rise up, and she blinked them back as she smiled at the two agents who’d become her closest friends. “I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world. It was great working with you, and I learned so much from both of you.”
“It was mutual,” Ken and Marcella said in unison, and they laughed as they walked down the hall.
Turn the page to keep reading book six of the Paradise Crime Mysteries, Shattered Palms!
Shattered Palms
Paradise Crime Mysteries Book 6
Proverbs 27:8
Like a bird that strays from its nest is a man or woman who strays from home.
Chapter One
Detective Leilani Texeira wished she’d come to this enchanted place for some reason other than death. She picked her way down the steps of the raised jungle boardwalk, turning her head to look upward at the canopy of interlaced branches of native koa and ohia trees. Droplets of moisture and golden light fell around her on an understory of massed ferns. She’d heard of the native forest sanctuary accessible from atop Haleakala volcano but had never taken the time to visit. Now she wished she could linger and take in the multitextured beauty of the place instead of hurrying on with their grim errand.
“So many shades of green,” Lei murmured, ducking under a lichen-covered branch crossing the walkway. Her curly brown hair caught on it anyway, and she gave it an impatient tug. The ranger who’d found the body, a wiry older Japanese man with the weathered skin of someone who’d lived his life outdoors, glanced back over his shoulder.
“This is what we call a cloud forest, not a rainforest, because it’s mostly watered by mist. All the plants you’ve seen since the helicopter landing area are native Hawaiian species. We’ve worked hard to keep the invasives out of this area.”
“Invasives?” A solitude pierced only by unfamiliar, sweet birdsong brought Lei’s heart rate down after the lurching helicopter ride to the remote area.
“Introduced plant species. There are thousands, and they are smothering the native plants and taking away feeding from the indigenous birds. The biggest enemies of this forest are pigs, axis deer, and goats, and the reason this area is so pristine is that we’ve fenced the entire top of Haleakala to keep them out.”
“Interesting.” Lei glanced back at her partner, Pono, following her, another ranger bringing up the rear.
“I do my part as a hunter.” Pono’s smile turned up his mouth behind a trademark bristly mustache. “Plenny game up here, and they’re all good eating.”
“Well, I don’t know what all this has to do with the body you found.” Lei wove her way around a giant curling fern frond bisecting the path, her athletic
body moving easily even with the elevation.
“I didn’t touch the body, of course, but I think he looks like some kind of hunter,” Ranger Takama said. “He’s in camo gear. I’m no expert, but even I could see what killed him was an arrow, so it was probably a hunter up here that shot him by mistake. If it weren’t for the smell, we wouldn’t have found him at all.”
That smell had been steadily increasing, a sweetish reek that clung to the inside of Lei’s throat like mucus.
“We leave the boardwalk here.” Takama gestured and stepped down off the boardwalk. Lei jumped down beside him into thick underbrush made up of ferns and bushes. “Normally, no one but authorized personnel are allowed off the path.”
The smell of decomp almost made Lei’s eyes water. She dug a vial of Vicks out of her pocket and rubbed some under her nose, turning to hand it to Pono, who’d joined her beside the boardwalk. Takama also helped himself, and they followed him, feet sinking into the deep, soft leaf mulch on the forest floor.
Crime scene tape already marked the area around the body. A first responding officer jumped to his feet, holding the scene log on a clipboard.
“Good morning, sir.” The young man spoke in the nasal voice of someone whose nose is blocked. Lei spotted white cotton sprouting from his nostrils.
“Hey. Nice up here if it weren’t for the smell.” She took the clipboard, and each of them signed in.
Passing the tape, Lei spotted the hand first, extended toward them from beneath the ferns, palm up. The tissue was swollen and discolored, masked in a filmy gray gauze of mold that seemed to be drawing the body down into the forest floor. Lei could imagine that in just a few weeks, the body would have been all but gone in the biology of the cloud forest.
The victim lay on his stomach, his head turned away and facing into a fern clump, black hair already looking like just another lichen growing on the forest floor. The body was at the expansion phase, distending camouflage-patterned clothing as if inflated. A black fiberglass arrow fletched in plastic protruded from the man’s back.
Lei and Pono stayed well back from the body. Lei unpacked the police department’s camera from her backpack, and Pono took out his crime kit. The modest quarter-karat engagement ring on her finger caught a stray sunbeam and reminded her of her upcoming wedding, with all of its accompanying stress. She pushed the thought out of her mind with an effort—she had a job to do.
“How close did you get to the victim?” Pono asked Takama.
Ranger Takama pointed to a in the leaves. “Here. I didn’t need to touch the body to see he was already beyond help.”
“Good,” Lei said. “Hopefully, we can backtrack a bit to where he’s been and identify the arrow’s trajectory.”
“I can help with that.” The second ranger accompanying them finally spoke up. A tall, ponytailed young man with large brown eyes, he’d been introduced by Takama as Mark Jacobsen. “I’ve been doing tracking for the Park Service for years.”
“All right,” Lei said. “Pono does his share of hunting, as you heard, but I’m sure we can use your skills.”
Pono and Lei got to work, photographing the area surrounding the body, then the body itself, finally moving in closer to check for marks and trace.
Lei thought the man appeared to have dropped where he stood. There was very little disturbance in the leaf mold around the body, and the ferns were unbroken except for a few near his feet. A deeper boot impression marked the ground behind the body. The man had a canvas bag attached to his belt, and the pockets on his pants bulged.
“About ready to remove some of these pocket items,” Lei said. “Ranger Takama, do you know when the medical examiner will be arriving?” The Park Service’s helicopter had brought them up the volcano, then been dispatched to fetch the ME and equipment for transporting the body.
“They’re on their way.”
“I’ll go with Ranger Jacobsen to see if we can identify the area where the kill shot came from,” Pono said. He and Jacobsen bent over to assess the damage to the plants and moved away into the ferns.
Lei was already intent on the items dangling from the victim’s belt. She detached a cloth bag with a metal clip first, shooing a slow-moving blowfly away. Rather than opening the pouch here, she slid the whole thing into an evidence bag. It was light, but she could feel shapes inside. She sealed and labeled it, setting it in her capacious backpack.
Squatting on her heels, Lei reached gloved hands carefully into the man’s combat-style pouch pockets, gently tugging out the contents and slipping them into separate bags: a serious-looking bowie knife in matte black and a plastic bottle with a squirt tip of something chemical-smelling, labeled in Chinese characters. Another pocket yielded a metal handle wound with almost-invisible net, fine as human hair. In another pocket was a tiny tape recorder. She pressed the Chinese character on what looked like “play,” and a recording of a bird sounded, a single piercing Tweee! Tweee! It stirred something in her blood just to hear it. Lei wished she knew what kind of bird it was.
This man appeared to be some sort of bird catcher. She continued on, eventually unearthing a cell phone—a cheap burner. She removed a pistol—a matte black Glock .40—from a holster at the man’s hip. That he was armed in a setting like this was alarming. She heard vegetation rustling, heralding the approach of more personnel.
“Try not to crush the plants.” Takama, who’d been so quiet that she’d forgotten about him, chided Dr. Gregory as the medical examiner crunched into view, two assistants carrying a gurney behind him.
“Hey, Phil.” Lei greeted the ME. She’d worked with him on several cases prior to her departure from the FBI. It was good to be back working with both her first partner on the force, Pono, and the portly doctor with his love of bright aloha shirts. Today’s shirt was covered with large graphics of the Road to Hana, the bright red of the Guy Buffet stop signs echoed by red patches on Dr. Gregory’s pale cheeks.
“Could have done without the helicopter ride up here,” Dr. Gregory said.
Lei remembered he hated heights.
“And you gotta love a four-day-old body.”
“So that’s how long he’s been dead, you think?” Lei asked, sliding a sticky loop of wire, the last item from the man’s pockets, into an evidence bag.
Gregory leaned over the swollen body and sniffed. “That’s my guess, pending further analysis.”
Lei gestured to the mold-covered hand. “Do you think maybe the maximum decomp environment up here sped things up? I don’t remember seeing mold like that on a body before.”
“It’s true that this is a totally natural biological environment,” Gregory said, taking out small round magnifying glasses and hooking them over his ears, then leaning in for a closer look. He gave no sign that the stench bothered him. “That may have contributed to some exceptional mold and mildew growth. But it’s not actually that warm up here. Heat is a greater breakdown accelerator than any other factor.”
“From the equipment he was carrying, it seems like he might be some kind of bird catcher.”
Gregory’s thick blond brows snapped together. “Only scientists with special certification are allowed to capture and handle these birds, and they usually work in teams. If he’s a poacher, that sucks. Let me see any bird-related evidence. I’m an avian admirer, and I’d hate to hear that anyone was capturing native birds. They’re highly endangered.”
“Okay, will do.” Lei was already thinking of the lumpy contents of the bag she’d taken off the body and dreading what she might find inside.
Gregory’s assistants set the gurney up as best they could with Takama fussing around the ferns and other undergrowth that they couldn’t avoid crushing. Lei withdrew from the body, walking back toward the boardwalk to get some fresher air.
She was labeling the last of the evidence bags when Pono appeared. The big Hawaiian startled her by looming up beside her. Light on his feet, he moved through the forest without breaking a twig or disturbing the leaves.
; “Pretty sure we found where the arrow was fired from. Want to take a look?”
“Of course.” She got up.
“It’s a hunting blind,” he said over his shoulder.
“Thought that wasn’t allowed up here.”
“’Course it isn’t.”
Lei picked her way carefully after Pono through the dense vegetation, bending to keep from breaking the brittle ferns and foliage as much as possible. He led her to the base of a massive old-growth koa tree.
The native tree, with its sickle-shaped leaves, spread in opulent umbrella-like splendor to shade the forest floor. A few strategically placed knobs of wood were nailed on its silvery trunk, and peering down from the center of the tree, his face almost lost in shadows cast by the sun on the leaves, was Jacobsen. “Up here.”
Lei turned to Pono. “Did you find any trace up there?”
Pono shook his head. “No. Went over it with a light and magnifier. No hairs, nothing.”
“Damn. Is there room for two?” The area where Jacobsen was sitting looked hemmed in by a circle of branches.
“Sure. Once you get up here, there’s plenty of room,” Jacobsen said.
Lei reached up and grasped the trunk, setting her foot on the first knob. She hauled herself upward using arms she worked hard to keep strong, hair catching in the branches again. It was only a few minutes until she sat beside Jacobsen on a smooth branch that had been bent over and nailed down as a seat.
“So what do you think this spot is used for?” Lei’s voice instinctively lowered to match the soughing of a tiny wind in the branches, punctuated by birdsong. The forest was not a place that invited loud voices, and once again Lei wished she’d taken the time to visit earlier.
“This is an observation station. Probably birds. This area is the habitat of some of the rarest birds in the world. One of them, the Maui Parrotbill or Kiwikiu, lives in koa trees and feeds on the bark and insects.”