Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  “Aunty. You and Momi—you love each other, don’t you?”

  Her aunt turned from gazing out the window to frown at Lei. “Of course I do. She’s my best friend in the world and my business partner.”

  “I mean love, love. Romantic love.”

  “There are all kinds of love.” Rosario looked away. “We don’t need to put words on what we have.”

  “Don’t you think, now, with your health the way it is…you might want to come out of the closet?”

  “Stay out of my business, girl!” Rosario snapped. “You don’t know a thing about it.”

  Lei felt her cheeks flush. Her aunt barked at her so seldom it hurt as if she’d been physically slapped. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

  “Your father would never understand, and she’s married,” Rosario finally said, her voice a whisper. “Not that we have ever been like that, you know. Physical. But I would like to have her by my side at the end.”

  “And you will,” Lei said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  Her aunt’s hand stole over and clasped Lei’s. “Thank you. I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “I just love you and want you to be happy. I’m sorry if I had the wrong idea.” They were both in tears as they pulled into the driveway, and Lei supported her aunt into the house and back to bed for a nap.

  Lei took her phone and went outside. The street was deserted during the middle of a workday, and she had a lot of calls to make. First she called Stevens. He’d just landed on Maui.

  “It’s windy here,” he said. “I wish you were with me.”

  “I know. I’ll be home when the captain says I’ll be cleared to come back on the job, but I need to be with Aunty as much as I can.”

  “I love you. There. You’ve had your daily dose of love.”

  “I wish I’d had my other kind of daily dose of love,” Lei said, smiling at the sidewalk. In all the turmoil, they hadn’t made love since Yosemite.

  “God, I know. I won’t wish you’d come home sooner. That wouldn’t be right. Just know I’ll be missing you.”

  “Love you too.” Lei cut the connection, hardly able to speak. She walked rapidly back and forth on the sidewalk, breathing and getting her emotions under control. She called Pono and asked him about the interview with Rinker.

  “I can send you the recording if you want,” Pono offered again.

  “I don’t want you to get in trouble. Just gimme the lowdown.”

  “Well, he basically corroborated the confession. He agreed to testify against Kingston in return for reduced charges for his role in covering up the body. The DA’s on board with that, and so was Rinker’s lawyer. Captain was pleased.”

  “But why did he agree to cover up Jacobsen’s murder? And what about the poachers?”

  “He claims he doesn’t know anything about the poachers, and he agreed to help dispose of Jacobsen’s body since, quote: ‘He was already dead, and Kingston’s research needed to go forward,’ unquote. Both these guys say they planned to anonymously call in the body dump after the research was published.”

  “Man, they seem to think the research justifies anything! So how’s Kingston doing with his injury?”

  “Slowly improving. Takama’s been charged with attempted murder, you know. Captain told me she was dickering with the DA over charges against you too; they’ve decided on criminal negligence in the care of prisoner, which is a misdemeanor. Captain’s working on a disciplinary plan for you to come home to.”

  “Great,” Lei muttered, rubbing bloodshot eyes. “Thanks, Pono.” A car swished by, putting her back in her body. Well, at least she wasn’t going to jail. She had to focus on the positive.

  “How’s your aunty?”

  “Hanging in there. But something bad has happened.” She told Pono about the package.

  “So that’s where the actual shrouds ended up. Someone’s playing games with your whole family! Pretty theatrical gesture.”

  “I think it’s in keeping with Terence Chang’s personality. In fact, I’ve got to call Sophie Ang about the poaching order on the birds, and I’ll check with her about her impressions of Chang.”

  The next morning, Lei borrowed Aunty’s car while she and Wayne were at work and drove to the Marin Headlands. She set out on a sandy trail through the park, letting a good run sweat out all the worries she was struggling with.

  The rolling hills, carpeted in golden dried grasses and punctuated by the dark green of live oaks, surrounded her with a different beauty than the lush green of Hawaii. San Francisco Bay’s muted, steely blue water glittered far below her, and the sky smoldered with sunshine banked by fog forming on the coast.

  Her heart thudded as her feet pounded, and eventually, that metronome drowned out the buzz of her thoughts, circling endlessly around questions she didn’t have answers for. Finally, she sat on one of the rough wooden benches poised in front of the view, did some stretches, drank some water, and took out her phone.

  “Hey, Lei.” Sophie Ang’s slightly husky voice with its lilt of an accent conjured her riveting friend, almost as if the agent were seated on the bench beside Lei. “How’s married life?”

  “It would be great if we were together, but I’m in California. My aunty Rosario’s got late-stage pancreatic cancer.”

  “Oh no! She seemed so healthy at the wedding!”

  “She puts a good face on.” Lei sighed. “But she’s not getting treatment, and I’m trying to spend as much time as possible with her. Anyway, I called about a couple of things. I wondered if you found out anything about the native bird poaching online.”

  “Oh yes. I didn’t want to bother you on your honeymoon, but I found an order for them, live if possible, from someone in China. Probably a collector or an aviary of some sort. I took the ad down, reported it to Interpol. But it’s always possible they’ll just put up another one, so I’ve got multiple alerts out looking for it.”

  “Oh thanks. Good. The case is wrapping up.” Lei filled Sophie in on Kingston’s confession and apprehension. “Unfortunately, it’s a mess with him getting away and getting shot while in my custody.”

  “I’m so sorry, Lei. For that and for your aunt’s health.”

  “Well, speaking of, there’s this other thing.” Lei told her about the shrouds mailed to her aunt and father and the receipt they’d received in their wedding gifts. “The only person I can imagine who hates me and my family enough for this kind of gesture is Terence Chang. You interacted with him online a lot in our last FBI case together; does this shroud thing seem like something he might do?”

  A long pause as Sophie considered this. “I don’t know. He had a dramatic side, that’s for sure, liked the whole online world of smoke and mirrors. I’d see some sort of Internet-related harassment as more his style—there’s a kind of childish drama about this threat that bothers me. Have you talked to Dr. Wilson about it?”

  “No, but that’s a good idea. Well, at least you found the posting for the birds. Hopefully, we can keep that shut down.” She bid her friend goodbye and got back on the trail. After her cool down at the car, she turned on her aunt’s elderly Honda’s AC, blasting it in her face as she called Dr. Wilson.

  “Lei!” The psychologist’s voice was upbeat. “How was the honeymoon?”

  “You were right when you told me I just needed to follow my head, not my heart this time. It was all amazing. I feel like I passed through a gauntlet.”

  Caprice Wilson laughed, her warm voice a familiar comfort to Lei—though just as often the psychologist had pushed Lei outside her comfort zone and provoked anger and defensiveness. “That’s a wedding, in a nutshell. Only the brave and committed make it through—especially weddings that are postponed a day.”

  “I’m calling you with a question, though. From California.” Lei filled Dr. Wilson in on the honeymoon, her aunt’s illness, and the threats they’d had in the form of the shrouds and their purchase on Maui. “I suspect Terence Chang, the new head of the Chang crime family. Youn
g, creative, and hates me just as much as the rest of his family did. He blames me for his grandmother’s death in that last big case I had with the FBI. So I’m thinking it’s him. What do you think?”

  “I need a lot more information. Can you get me anything from that old case where you discovered each other?”

  “Unfortunately, no. The case where we crossed paths was when I was with the FBI, and I don’t have access to their records anymore. I can write up what I know, though, and you can think about it.”

  “Yes. Happy to help with that under the umbrella of my role as police resource psychologist. Now, you never told me—are you pregnant?”

  Lei realized she’d forgotten all about the question that had seemed so pressing just before the wedding.

  “No. No, I’m not.” Lei sighed, tilting the vent so the air-conditioning blew the curls off her forehead. “We looked at the test together on the honeymoon, and I got my period eventually. I’ve always been irregular, so I shouldn’t have been so nervous about it—but I had those other symptoms too. I think I was just freaked out by the whole thing.”

  “I’m proud of you. You didn’t run away this time.”

  “No, I didn’t, and whatever anybody else thinks, I’m glad I postponed the wedding. Kingston and Rinker would have been long gone when I got back. Not only that, Stevens and I are considering letting nature take its course, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’s a big step—but for what it’s worth, I think you’ll be excellent parents. Send me what you have on Chang, and I’ll venture an opinion.”

  “Will do. That will give me something to focus on in the next few days. It’s so hard being here with Aunty the way she is.” Lei told the psychologist about the constant tearfulness, about crying on her dad’s shoulder. “I can’t believe we’ve come all this way and I’m losing her.”

  “It’s terrible.” Dr. Wilson said. “Life just isn’t fair, is it?”

  “I think I said that first,” Lei said. “But I’m trying to make the best of what we have left.”

  “That’s all you can do. I’m proud of you, my dear.”

  Lei hung up with that small warming comfort, held close against all that was wrong and couldn’t be changed.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The phone buzzing beside her little twin bed roused Lei from a sleeping-pill-induced grogginess. She fumbled over to lift the phone, still plugged into the charger, to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Did I wake you, Texeira?” Captain Omura’s crisp voice brought her awake and upright. “It’s late to be in bed back there.” Lei squinted over at the small old-fashioned clock on the nightstand.

  “It’s ten a.m. here, Captain. Yes, I should be up, but I had to take a sleeping pill last night.”

  The captain’s voice softened. “I was sorry to hear about your aunt from Pono. Listen, I won’t keep you—but I need you to come home. We’ve run into some issues with the Bowhunter case. Shimoda wants to depose you, and we’re trying to keep Kingston’s prosecution out of a full trial, settle it by plea bargaining. He seems to be pulling through, you’ll be happy to hear.”

  “Yes, very much so,” Lei said, getting out of bed and unplugging the phone. She turned and began stripping the bed, her heart accelerating in anticipation at the thought of returning to Stevens and work. “I’ll call you as soon as I land. I will need some more time off for family leave—in the coming months.”

  Rosario seemed to have rallied in the last five days with Lei there, and the doctors had cautiously pronounced her stable for the moment.

  “Of course. Call me when you land.” Omura hung up.

  Lei took her bundled laundry into the laundry room and started the load, going to check on her aunt. She was surprised to see the bed empty and neatly made and a note by the coffeemaker: You seemed to need the extra sleep. Your aunty and I are at the restaurant. Love, Dad.

  Lei helped herself to a mug of dark brew and began making calls for her departure.

  She took a cab to the restaurant, hugging and kissing her aunt and Momi goodbye.

  “I’ll be back in a few weeks. Stay healthy,” Lei ordered her aunt in stern tones, hands on her hips.

  “I’ll do my best,” Rosario said, smiling as she wiped her hands on a dishcloth. This morning she looked bright and healthy, her hair glossy and curling out of its braid, the weight she’d lost complementing her petite figure and bringing out the strong bone structure she shared with Wayne—which he’d passed on to Lei. “I’m going to miss you, but I know you need to get home to that husband of yours. I’ll be fine.”

  “And I’ll let you know if she isn’t,” Wayne rumbled, hugging Lei hard. “Come back soon,” he whispered in her ear. “And thanks for handling that shroud thing.”

  “We’re working on it,” Lei whispered back, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Aloha to all.” She waved to the whole noisy roomful of customers and got into a shuttle to the airport.

  Getting off the plane in Maui was always a relief because the wind made landings bumpy flying into the island. Outside the terminal, on the sidewalk, that same wind tossed her already disordered curls into a frizz, and she was irritably bundling them into a rubber band when Stevens pulled up in his Bronco.

  “Don’t,” he said, jumping out and coming around the SUV. He plucked the rubber band out of her hand. “I like your hair wild.”

  He pulled her into his arms. His kiss was hard and hungry.

  “I missed you,” he said, and she just nodded as they kissed again. “Let’s get home. Now.”

  “The captain wanted me to call as soon as I touched down,” Lei said.

  “This won’t take long,” Stevens said, and Lei’s knees buckled at the promise behind his words and how instantly she responded to him. She had to grab the door handle for support to get into the Bronco.

  That first time really didn’t take long, and it was nowhere near enough. The next time did, though.

  It was a good long while before Lei finally called the captain.

  Late evening on a Tuesday wasn’t the busiest time at Kahului Station. Going into the familiar urban-ugly building had begun to feel like home, and Lei grinned at Torufu, who was looming over a sudoku pad, taking a shift behind the watch desk.

  “Bet you scare everybody straight who walks through that door,” she said.

  “I do my best,” Torufu said with a flash of his giant teeth. “Hey, what ever happened with that metal box you found, the non-bomb?”

  “Case is wrapping up. Someone was trying to poach our rare birds, but I think it’s shut down,” Lei said. “Thanks for your help that day.”

  “I hardly ever get a real bomb,” Torufu said wistfully. “One of these days I’ll get lucky.”

  “We have different ideas of what luck is, obviously,” Lei said, heading to the cubicle where Pono was waiting.

  She hugged her partner briefly.

  “Had a quick stop at the house, I see, and a shower.” Pono winked, tugging on one of her wet curls. “Newlyweds will be newlyweds.”

  “My hair was a mess from the plane,” Lei said, blushing. “Where does the Steel Butterfly want us? And what’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure. I just know she said she was bringing you home ASAP.” They walked down the hall to Omura’s office with a quick stop for Lei to grab a cup of coffee. Omura swiveled away from her computer. As usual, her desk was a pristine expanse and her manicure fresh.

  “You finally got here,” she greeted Lei, sharp eyes taking in Lei’s freshly groomed appearance. Lei decided not to answer, instead sitting on one of the hard plastic supplicant chairs in front of the desk.

  “I got here as soon as I could. What’s going on with the case?”

  “Well, there have been some developments.” Omura aimed a red-tipped nail at Pono. “Close the door, please.”

  Pono obeyed, and he and Lei glanced at each other—the captain seldom shut the door.

  “I was talking with the DA and we were on o
ur way to a deal with Kingston through his attorney, Shimoda. We were going to prosecute him for two second-degree murders and one attempted murder, reducing charges for his cooperation. It seemed like things were moving forward, and then suddenly Shimoda pulled the plug. Petitioned to get the confession excluded, changed Kingston’s plea to not guilty.”

  Lei frowned. “Why change his tune? We still have Rinker.”

  “But we don’t.” Omura steepled her fingertips. “District Attorney Hiromo called. Rinker was out on bail and he’s disappeared. Hiromo tried to bring him in for another deposition, and he can’t be located. I wanted to bring you two in to inform you and brainstorm next steps. We never did pin the poachers onto Kingston—or Rinker, for that matter.”

  “Yeah,” Pono corroborated, looking at Lei. “The bow we recovered had Kingston’s prints on it, but when Gerry and I field-tested it and the other bows we’d collected, it didn’t have the power to penetrate a body as deeply as the poacher was, from the blind’s position.”

  “Well, dammit,” Lei said. “Could Rinker be the one who shot the poachers? Could that be why he cooperated with burying Jacobsen’s body? Or why he fled now? Maybe those two were in bed together on all these murders and were hoping to get away with them, pointing fingers at each other to confuse us. Does Rinker have a bow?”

  “Already checked and searched his house while you were in the Mainland.” Pono rubbed his lips. “And we haven’t found any weapons of any kind at his place.”

  “Not that that means anything,” Omura injected. “He’d have a good incentive to conceal any weapons.”

  “Murders aside, I wonder if he left the island trying to get Kingston’s research published,” Lei said. “Whatever else he and Kingston did, they both believed that project was worth any human cost.”

  “I agree,” Omura said. “I’d already authorized a watch at the airport and a statewide BOLO for Rinker, but it might have come too late.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain,” Pono said. “I didn’t think he was a flight risk. I thought having Kingston’s laptop, which we found in Jacobsen’s house, and lab books locked up, kept that research under control—but maybe Kingston had already given Rinker another copy somewhere, somehow.”