Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

The thought made her stomach lurch.

  She and Pono followed Dr. Gregory over to a bank of square metal doors. Gregory popped the clasp on one of them with a sound like opening a soda bottle and pulled out the drawer.

  Makoa Simmons’s body was naked. His tan had yellowed as blood drained from his tissues. The Y incision on his broad, once-muscular chest looked cartoonish, the skin rubbery. Lei grasped her hands behind her back as Gregory put his readers back on. He pointed to shadowy marks on the young man’s neck and forehead.

  “See these? Consistent with a forceful grip used to hold him under. I’ve sent the stomach contents and blood work out, but that’s probably not notable. Cause of death is drowning.”

  “So no surprises from your early assessment of homicide,” Pono said.

  “Right. But I’m still wondering how the suspect, whom I heard described as medium height and weight, was able to hold Makoa down. Must have caught him by surprise.”

  “I can’t imagine Simmons saw it coming,” Lei said. “He was at his home break, surrounded by friends. Or people he thought were friendly, at least. A guy dropped in on him—but that guy wasn’t just any ordinary wave-stealing jerk. I wouldn’t have seen it coming, either.”

  “Right.”

  “So do you have anything else for us?”

  “Well, I was hoping to get something more specific off the marks on his neck. Hand size, maybe some trace. But I went over it with a fine-tooth comb, and there was nothing. The ocean removed anything that might have remained.”

  “That’s a shame. We have two possible fingerprint matches from the van the suspect rented, and they both could be the sketch we worked up with a witness yesterday.” Lei drew back from the body, breathing shallowly through her mouth. “We’re going out on a couple of interviews this morning, and one of them is with his parents.”

  “Oh. Then you can give them his clothing.” Gregory pushed the body back into the refrigerated shelving and led them to a locker. “He only had on this bracelet and these shorts.”

  The humble items were in a plastic bag, neatly labeled. The shorts were emblazoned with torque down a side seam, and the bracelet was made of heavy silver links with a tiny plaque on it with the initials “SC.”

  “Shayla Cummings,” Lei said aloud, fingering the bracelet through the plastic. “His girlfriend. She’d probably like to get it back.”

  They swung by a Starbucks on their way out. “So here’s the lineup today,” Lei said. “We have the sketch and APB out on Oahu for our suspect, but I still want to go over and find these two van rental suspects. I have reservations going out this afternoon. We should also interview the parents again and find this Eli Tadeo, the jealous boyfriend.”

  Pono yawned as he doctored his coffee with sugar and cream. “I vote boyfriend first. Don’t know that the parents are going to be in a whole lot better shape to talk than they were yesterday.”

  “Still. They may know something more about his rivals, et cetera. I also want to find out how much the dad was opposed to his surfing career.”

  Pono snorted. “You think that dad would stoop so low as to take out his own son? Why?”

  “We have to follow every line of inquiry. I don’t like to fasten on one theory too early,” Lei insisted. “We need to find out what Makoa’s money situation was, check if there is any financial motivation anywhere.”

  “I have a lead on that. He had an agent. Harvey Nebel. He’s on my list to visit.”

  “Harvey Nebel. What kind of name is that?”

  “The successful kind. Harvey is one of the best sports agents in the country. He represents every kind of athlete, from soccer players to shot-putters.”

  “Okay. Let’s leave your truck here at Starbucks and take mine today. Eli Tadeo, here we come.”

  Stevens walked into the big, square, urban carbuncle of modern utility that was Kahului Station. He’d heard his new office was on the third floor, and he’d be sharing it with the island’s top recruiting officer, Eric Tadeo. Third floor was dedicated to accounting and operations, away from where most of the detectives on the island had cubicles. Riding the elevator up, with his box of personal items, he wondered if this meant he was as sidelined in his career as he felt personally these days.

  Maybe he’d finally be able to keep his work hours as a trainer to a straight forty a week and have more time with Kiet.

  He didn’t fool himself that he’d see Lei more, and that depressed him.

  The door dinged and slid open to reveal a warren of cubicles, much quieter than the bullpen on the floor below. Air-conditioning whispered, and the main sound was the tappity-tap of keyboards as the various support personnel went about their business. Stevens stepped off the elevator and walked around the cubicle perimeter, looking for 312.

  He was surprised to find it was a large corner office, one wall of which was a smoked glass window offering a view of the dramatic crenellated green folds of Iao Valley behind the building. There were two desks set opposite each other, and one of them was marked with a blotter and various personal items: photographs, a baseball on a little stand.

  The other desk was empty except for a new flat screen computer. Stevens set the box on what must be his desk and looked around. The large office area was apparently meant to double as a classroom, because one wall was taken up by a retractable overhead screen with a whiteboard beneath it. A projector on a handy stand was wheeled against the wall.

  This didn’t have the feeling of a demotion. The sight of the teaching tools lifted Stevens’s spirits, and for the first time, he considered looking forward to this new challenge.

  He began unpacking his meager office equipment and realized he’d somehow left behind all of his pens. His roommate wouldn’t mind if he borrowed one. He glanced over at his new partner’s desk, got up and went to it and pulled out the drawer. He picked up a pen and paused.

  A dog-eared Sports Illustrated occupied the drawer, folded open to a photo of bikini model Shayla Cummings. The stunning brunette was seated like a modern mermaid on a lava rock, wearing a skimpy hibiscus-print bathing suit. His nerves on high alert, he glanced toward the door, picked up the pen he’d come for, shut the drawer, and returned to his own desk.

  “Hey.”

  Stevens turned to the voice at the door. A handsome young mixed Hawaiian man with a short, tailored haircut and a painfully neat uniform stood in the door. “I’m Sergeant Eric Tadeo. Recruiter—and your roommate.”

  “Lieutenant Michael Stevens.” They met in the middle of the room and clasped hands. Tadeo’s grip was strong, the kind of handshake that conveyed confidence but no need to dominate. Up close, Stevens could see Tadeo’s eyes were bracketed by fine sun creases. He was older than he’d first appeared, in his early thirties, but Stevens could see why he’d been tapped for recruiter—he made the uniform look good.

  “How long have you been up here on the third floor?” Stevens asked.

  “Just a couple of months. I was down on the first floor with the patrol officers for my first year on the job, but too many of them would come find me and complain the stuff I’d told them when they were recruited was hot air.” He gave a rueful chuckle, hanging up his hat and jacket on an old-fashioned wooden rack. “I asked the captain to move me somewhere less distracting, where I could keep the illusion going.”

  Stevens smiled, going around to his desk and taking the lid off the box he’d carried up. “Well, this is a change for me, too. Had my own command, just a little station out in Haiku, but with the budget cuts, we were reabsorbed. I’m developing a new detectives training program.”

  “Yeah, I heard that was in the works.” Tadeo sat down and booted up his computer. “So you’ve been on Maui awhile?”

  “Couple of years. We bought a house on a couple of acres out in Haiku.”

  “I heard you’re married to a cop.”

  “I am. Sergeant Lei Texeira. She’s out chasing a hot case right now.”

  “She related to the upcountry Texeiras?” Now
they were getting into the history and connections Stevens had learned were always a part of getting acquainted in the islands.

  “No. She’s related to the Big Island Texeiras, and half Japanese from Oahu. Me, just a haole from Los Angeles. You?”

  Tadeo was part of a large upcountry family, of Portuguese, Hawaiian, and Filipino descent, and had a wife and two daughters.

  “Let me know if you ever need any help with your program,” Tadeo offered. “I can work the clicker switching slides while you talk, or whatever.”

  “Will do.” Stevens finished unpacking. He was done stowing everything and had moved on to navigating his new computer when a knock came at the door. “Lieutenant Stevens?”

  It was Brandon Mahoe from his old station. Brandon looked good, clean-shaven and his uniform crisp. Stevens grinned at the sight of him. “Brandon! What are you doing on the accounting floor?”

  “Came by to tell you I’m studying for the detective exam,” Brandon said. Stevens shook his hand and invited him to sit in one of the chairs at the desk, then introduced Eric Tadeo. The two men grinned at each other.

  “I know Sergeant Tadeo,” Brandon said. “He got me to sign up.”

  “Yeah, and I’m off to drag a few more recruits in today,” Tadeo said, grabbing his jacket and hat. He exited, and Stevens sat down, eyeing his former protégé. He was glad to see the young man, and not surprised to hear of his ambition.

  “I’d like to be your first trainee,” Brandon said. “You’ve been a great mentor.”

  “Well, I hope you pass the exam the first time, then. How’s your mother doing?” Stevens and the Mahoes had intersected on a case in which Brandon was injured in the line of duty. They caught up for a few minutes, and then Stevens’s cell phone rang. He checked it and frowned. “I need to take this, Brandon.”

  “No worries. Just wanted to say hello and let you know my plans. See you around the station.”

  The young man exited, and Stevens answered the phone, alone at last. “Hey, Jared.”

  His brother’s voice was clipped. “Do you want the good news on Mom first, or the bad news?”

  “Gimme the good news first,” Stevens said.

  “Good news is we’re at the doctor’s here in downtown Kahului, and she’s had a full physical. Blood work’s already back, and liver enzymes are up, indicating liver damage. Her pancreas is inflamed, and she’s anemic and malnourished.”

  “That’s the good news?” Stevens shut his eyes, running a hand through his hair.

  “Diagnosis: chronic alcoholism. She doesn’t have cancer or even heart disease, amazingly. Ready for the bad news?”

  “If you must.”

  “Mom’s skipped out. She told me she was going to the bathroom, and she disappeared.”

  Chapter Seven

  Lei and Pono went in Pono’s lifted truck this time. Lei glanced at her phone, checking the time. She had four hours until she had to get to the airport, and the day seemed to be slipping through her fingers. There were too many leads to follow. She frowned as the GPS directed them up into the mauka subdivision of Kuau, a section of upscale new development homes off Hana Highway on the mountain side of the road.

  They turned in to a smooth poured concrete driveway trimmed with palms in front of a large, two-story home. Off to the side, Lei spotted an ohana cottage. The cottage made sense as the young man’s possible abode. She and Pono didn’t have anything but the main address, however, so Pono rang the main doorbell.

  A young woman, dark-haired and pretty, wearing exercise clothes, answered the door with a toddler on her hip and a big-eyed little girl hiding behind her legs.

  “Hi. How can I help you?” she asked. Her demeanor was calm and confident. Lei held her ID badge up.

  “We’re looking for Eli Tadeo,” Pono said, with a smile at the kids, who smiled back. “You look familiar. Have I met you somewhere?”

  “Yeah, I’m Rachel Tadeo. Sergeant Eric Tadeo’s wife.”

  Lei glanced from one face to another as Pono and Rachel reacquainted themselves. They had to tread carefully now. Their person of interest was the brother of MPD’s recruiter, the “poster boy” of law enforcement in their county.

  “My partner, Lei Texeira,” Pono finally said, gesturing to Lei.

  “Hey. Why don’t you two step inside? Girls, go clear off the table!” Rachel exclaimed. She set the toddler down, and the girls scampered into the next room. “Come in. Have a drink of something. Eli lives in the back cottage.”

  “I think I’ll go straight there, thank you,” Lei said politely, turning to retrace her steps. Rachel held up a hand.

  “I need to know what this is about.”

  “I’m sorry. We can’t say right now,” Lei said, smiling to take the sting out of her words. “We just have a few questions for him, is all.”

  “I have a right to know what’s going on right on my own property,” Rachel flared. “This is about Makoa Simmons, isn’t it? I can’t believe you could even imagine Eli would have anything to do with that!”

  Lei kept her face still and gave Pono a meaningful glance, spinning on her heel and walking down the steps, hearing Pono’s mellow bass rumble trying to soothe the recruiter’s wife.

  She walked across a series of paving stones to the cottage’s door. It was a cute place with plumeria-print curtains in the windows and a rack of surfboards on the wall beside the door. Several pairs of rubber slippers on the aloha-emblazoned welcome mat indicated Eli Tadeo might be home.

  There was no bell, so Lei knocked.

  And knocked again.

  She turned, looked around. There were cars and trucks parked across the street and along the road, so Tadeo could be home and not answering the door. Perhaps he’d seen who it was, or maybe his car was parked in the big closed garage off the main house.

  She took out one of her cards, jotted call us ASAP on it, and stuck it in the doorjamb, turning and tripping back down the steps.

  Pono was just saying his goodbyes. Rachel Tadeo frowned at the sight of Lei.

  “Your brother-in-law wasn’t home,” Lei said. “Please tell him to call us as soon as he can.”

  “I will,” she said, and shut the door unnecessarily hard. Pono walked down the steps to join Lei.

  “That was awkward.”

  “Yeah. Too bad he wasn’t home. I would have liked to rule him out quickly,” Lei said as they headed back to the truck. “Jealous boyfriend he might be, but getting someone else to do the deed for him? Doesn’t fit the MO for the usual domestic violence offender.”

  “We’re not even speculating that way yet. Right now we’re just interviewing anyone and everyone who might have had an interest in Makoa Simmons’s death. Shaking the trees and seeing what drops. Mrs. Tadeo’s protective, but I found out her husband, Eric, and Eli are twins, so I think I understand her attitude a little better.”

  “Twins. That is close to home,” Lei said thoughtfully, as they got on the road to Makoa’s parents’ house.

  On the way back to the Simmonses’ house, Pono’s phone rang. Lei answered it for him since he was driving. It was Makoa Simmons’s agent, Harvey Nebel.

  “I have a little time now,” the sports agent said. “Why don’t you come to my office in Wailuku?”

  Lei glanced at Pono. “Financials,” she mouthed, raising her brows in inquiry. “Makoa’s agent can fit us in.”

  “Let’s do it,” Pono said.

  Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into the underground garage of one of the few high-rise office buildings on Maui. Located on Main Street in Wailuku, the Iao Office Complex was across from the city and county buildings and commanded a view of the deep waist of the figure-eight-shaped island on one side, with waving sugarcane fields and Haleakala in the distance. Stunning green, waterfall-carved Iao Valley bracketed the other side. Lei got an eyeful of both views as they got off the elevator, stepping into an elegant glass-windowed lobby with a reception desk at one end.

  Emblazoned in gold script above the rec
eption desk were the words Sports Unlimited.

  “I’m surprised the Nebel brothers have such a fancy office here,” Lei said in an aside to Pono. “Maui’s not exactly a sports hotbed.”

  “Bet he has a house here and works virtually most of the time,” Pono said. “Most of the work’s probably by phone anyway.”

  Harvey Nebel was much as Lei had expected from his name: short, balding, with a paunch like a soccer ball and bright blue eyes, crinkled with good humor.

  “Pleased to meetcha.” Nebel came around from behind his desk to shake their hands. “Never had occasion to meet any Maui Police Department personnel before.” His aloha shirt was lurid enough to give Dr. Gregory competition.

  “Nice to meet you as well.” Pono grinned at the little man. “It was great how you got Winston Pepper traded to the Chargers.”

  They went off into football-speak for a few minutes, and Lei used the time to look around the chic space, furnished in shades of slate and silver, with pops of red in a vase and in pillows on cushy-looking chairs set in a conversational grouping. Harvey gestured to these, and they sat.

  “I understand from your message that you need some financial information regarding Makoa Simmons’s career. I’m so sorry, but I can’t provide you with that information without a warrant. I’m sure you understand.” He crinkled his eyes ruefully, turning up his hands.

  “I do.” Pono continued to lead the conversation. “I anticipated you’d have strict confidentiality rules, and I brought one.” He took a folded paper out of a folder he’d carried in. “We need to examine every possible motive for this young man’s death, including financial. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Yes, I do.” Harvey adjusted his glasses as he examined the document. “Appears to be in order. Well, I had my girl prepare a folder just in case. We’re both Boy Scouts, I see—always prepared.” Harvey included Lei in his smile. He got up, fetched the folder off the desk, and rejoined them.

  “Let me explain it a bit to you.” He sat on the low, Danish-styled backless couch between them, and Lei and Pono leaned in from either side to look on. “Makoa has sponsorships of various kinds. Some of them are contingent on completing tasks or events, some of them are monthly stipends, and some of them are what amount to gifts of swag or product.”