Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  “Or,” Kamuela said, navigating the turn back onto crowded Kamehameha Highway. “It could have been Oulaki. Pippa finds out Makoa’s going to ask Shayla to marry him no matter that she’s pregnant, if she even is. She calls Oulaki and tells him. Oulaki also matches the description Shayla gave. He goes over, rents the van, does the deed, and comes back to Oahu. Now he gets the girl he’s wanted and his rival out of the way, and with this theory, Pippa may or may not be involved at all.”

  “I like Shayla more for it. She’s cold under those pretty tears. Cold, and sure she’s superior. Those are some of the necessary ingredients for murder.”

  “Let’s not forget that neither of these girls actually killed him.”

  “No, but that ring is motive. Just like I thought it might be, and Shayla has a stronger motive,” Lei argued. “She has money on the line in the form of that life insurance policy. She has both money and revenge to kill Makoa. Pippa might have been first in his heart, but Shayla was first on paper.”

  “So what do you want to do next?”

  “Let’s go to the store and find out what we can about that ring, then go get both girls’ phone records and run down their phone calls on the day Makoa was killed.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lei sat on the plane back to Maui, sorting through the cell phone records that Kamuela had been able to get printed up at his station before he dropped her off at the airport. In the end, she was glad she hadn’t had Pippa along for the ride when they went to the jewelry store, where she found out the ring had been purchased two months before Makoa’s murder, pushing the timeline of his intentions toward either of the girls back into the unknown zone. Whatever he’d been planning to do with the ring had preceded Pippa’s announcement, which still needed to be verified—but Lei didn’t think the girl was acting, with all her emotions and symptoms.

  Lei focused on the day Makoa had been killed. His fateful drowning had happened on Saturday morning, so she looked for numbers called by both girls on Friday evening and Saturday morning, and cross-checked them with Eli Tadeo’s and Bryan Oulaki’s phone records. She spotted Bryan Oulaki’s number on Pippa’s records as an incoming call on Friday night.

  So Oulaki called Pippa, not the other way around. Now she had something to follow up on.

  Shayla’s records were less revealing. No calls Friday night or Saturday until after Makoa’s drowning. Lei felt a twinge of disappointment and looked out the round oval window at the rapidly approaching, corrugated green coastline of Maui. She liked Shayla as the force behind this murder: for the way she’d revealed her real attitude toward Pippa, for her confident grab at the ring, for the steely will she’d shown when looking into Lei’s eyes.

  But none of that made the woman a murderer, and with virtually no trace on or around the body, this case was going to be made on a confession or a strong enough circumstantial argument. And whatever had sparked the murder, neither girl had actually held Makoa under.

  That was someone else. Someone with a deep enough rage, spite, greed, or jealousy to take another man’s life in broad daylight, in front of witnesses.

  The plane bounced around as it often did coming in on Maui in the glow of sunset, the gusty wind generated by the deep valley of the central area of the island lifting the plane with some stomach-dropping bumps that made the passengers around her gasp. Lei leaned her forehead on the window, watching the sugarcane fields rising to meet them, and remembered the hijacking of months before.

  But surprisingly, it didn’t bother her. Not nearly as much as the looseness at the waistline of her jeans, the emptiness under the hand that rested there.

  Pono met her at the curb after she collected her weapon and the boxes of Makoa’s belongings. The ring she’d kept close, in her backpack.

  “Hey, partner.” Pono took a box from her, put it in the extended cab. They piled the rest in the back. “How was Oahu?”

  “Busy. Got some good leads. You?”

  “Finally tracked Eli Tadeo. He has an alibi for the time in question.”

  “Shit,” Lei said, hopping up onto the chrome step that led into the cab of the truck. “I have a new theory and I want it to be him.”

  She told Pono her theory about Shayla as they wound through the busy traffic of downtown toward Kahului Station.

  “Motive she might have, but without any record of her contacting Tadeo, and with Tadeo at community baseball practice with his brother, Eric, our MPD poster boy, that theory’s not going anywhere.” Pono pushed his ever-present Oakleys up with a thick finger, and there was a deep dent between his black brows. “I did my best to smooth over the questioning with Eli, but Eric and his wife are pretty pissed.”

  “Screw them. It’s a murder investigation of a high-profile guy,” Lei said. “If Eric Tadeo can’t get the stick out of his ass enough to understand that, he doesn’t deserve the job he’s got.”

  “You’re cranky,” Pono said with a quick glance at her as they pulled into the parking lot of the utilitarian downtown station.

  “I’ve been away from my family for two days working a case with virtually no hard evidence popping and way too many people with motive. We still have a lot of leads to track, and I really just want to get home, have a shower, and see my baby and husband.” Lei opened the door and jumped out of the truck. “But that’s not happening anytime soon.”

  She took a moment to call Stevens as they walked into the station, where Pono said they had a meeting to debrief with Captain Omura, and was surprised when the phone went to voice mail—he’d usually pick up for her, especially after not talking this long. She paused before the big automatic doors to formulate her message.

  “Hey, honey. I miss you like crazy, but we’ve had some interesting developments on the Simmons case. I’m on Maui, meeting with the captain to bring her up to speed, and we have some stuff to process and set up for tomorrow, so I won’t be home until later—but at least I’ll be home tonight. Hope you found your mom. I love you.”

  Lei ended the call and walked through the doors to her meeting.

  Stevens felt the phone vibrate against his side and it semi-woke him, but he couldn’t gather the motor skills to actually deal with it. Lying facedown on the air mattress in the tent, he felt a dark wave of shame roll over him.

  Along with the need to puke.

  He crawled to the flap of the tent and barely unzipped it in time to get his head outside. He vomited violently, a little of the Scotch he hadn’t absorbed coming back up and burning his throat and nostrils even more unpleasantly than it had going down.

  He heaved some more, but nothing came up. He fell backward to sit clutching his head, which felt like it was being stabbed through the temples. He crawled back to the mattress and along the way encountered a gallon jug of water and a bottle of aspirin, along with knocking his knee against the empty Scotch bottle.

  When he was able to sit up, very slowly and carefully, he took several aspirin and washed them down with water. He drank as much as he could hold and lay back carefully.

  Wayne must have put the water and aspirin out for him.

  Shame returned, doubled as he thought of his father-in-law finding him that way, probably carrying baby Kiet and worried. He imagined Wayne looking at him lying facedown in the tent, fully clothed, with the empty bottle.

  Shit-faced drunk like his worthless mother.

  When the memories of all he’d seen, done, and touched in his life overtook him as they had last night, there was nothing he could think to do to shut them up other than drink them into oblivion. Because he was a branch off the same tree as his mother. All his activities were just an attempt to deflect his destiny for another day and mask the rottenness that hid behind his efforts to make the world a better place.

  At least he’d remembered in those wee hours to call his station and tell them he was sick.

  Sometime later, he cracked his eyelids again and looked through the screen across the lawn. The stand of citrus trees on the property shielded
the tent from the cottage, but he could tell by the slant of the light that most of the day was gone.

  He dug the phone out of his pocket, scrolled through missed calls and messages, and listened to the recent one from Lei.

  She is coming home tonight. She can’t see me like this.

  Stevens had a few hours to get himself together. He listened to a message from Jared, asking if he’d found out anything about Ellen’s whereabouts.

  Mom. God. She was what had set him off.

  How he wished she’d never come and ignited the tiny hope that something could be different, that she would act like a mother for once, like the grandmother of his child. Do the right thing.

  And here he was, falling into the same pit as she had.

  He wasn’t ready to face Wayne yet. He got up carefully, unzipped the tent, and staggered to the far corner of the yard, where he let fly with a massive pee that seemed to drain everything out of him. Relieved, he went back to the tent, drank more water and took more aspirin, and went to his work shed, where his tools were stored.

  It was time for him, Kiet, and Lei to move into the big house. Finished or not, Wayne didn’t deserve one more day of having to carry the load and have them all in his meager space. Stevens could finish the master bedroom at least enough to move into, and they could sleep there. The bathroom was at least operational, even if there was no hot water.

  Tightening his tool belt around his waist, then zipping a box cutter through the massive cardboard box holding all the unhung interior doors, he felt a tiny bit better.

  As always, work would be his absolution.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lei had never known Captain CJ Omura to have a bad hair day. Her sleek bob swung in a curtain of silky black strands that didn’t quite touch the immaculate shoulders of her navy uniform jacket as she picked up the ring in its velvet box, turning it back and forth. The one-carat white diamond glared in a sunbeam from the window as Lei and Pono sat on the hard plastic supplicant chairs in front of her shiny black desk.

  Lei felt tired and gritty and knew her hair looked like it had been stirred with salad tongs.

  “So, you think this is motive?” Captain Omura’s dark brown eyes swept over Lei, taking in her travel-worn appearance as she held up the ring box.

  “I do. While neither girl was the one to hold him under, they both have people in their lives with reason to want Makoa dead.” Lei reviewed the theories she and Kamuela had discussed. “I hear from Pono that Eli Tadeo has an alibi, though, so at this point our favorite suspect is Bryan Oulaki.”

  “So you think Shayla wasn’t telling the truth about the suspect she saw and the van?”

  “None of our physical suspects from the van have checked out, and Shayla’s an unreliable witness. It could have been Tom Cruise driving a Ferrari for all we know.”

  “Not quite,” Pono chimed in. “We have a corroborating description of a medium-height mixed-race male with black hair from the surfers who tried to save Makoa.”

  “That’s right.” Lei turned to Pono with a resurgence of energy. “I think we kind of went down a rabbit hole relying on the sketch from Shayla, but we could go back to those surfers with photos of the four possibilities and see if they can identify him.”

  “That, and talk to Oulaki again,” Omura said. “See why he’s been calling Pippa. And get that girl to take a pregnancy test. Report back when something breaks from all of that.” She pushed the ring across the desk to Lei.

  “Yes, sir.” Lei used the moniker Omura had chosen to avoid gender bias and scooped up the ring.

  “Whatever happened with those threat letters? That North Shore Posse connection?” Omura asked.

  “We don’t think they have a connection to the murder at this point,” Lei said, after a glance at her partner. “Intimidation and localism—couple of the hazards of surfing.”

  They dropped the ring off at the evidence locker, and Lei called Pippa on her cell phone as they headed for the door. “Pippa? Did you get out of Shayla’s place?”

  “Yes. I’m at my parents’ house.” The girl’s voice sounded sluggish, as if Lei had woken her up from a nap.

  “Can we come by for a couple of questions?”

  “Okay.” She gave the address.

  “We’ll be by in an hour or so.” Pono was driving them to the addresses of the two young surfers who had tried to rescue Makoa, and on her lap Lei held license photos of Oulaki and Tadeo mixed in with a variety of other photos of roughly the same description.

  Pono glanced over at her as she mixed the photos around and pointed. “Why do you have Eli Tadeo still in there?”

  “You said Eric was the one to alibi him at that baseball game. His twin brother. If it wasn’t Eric Tadeo with all his connections and commendations providing the alibi, wouldn’t we be poking at it? I want to keep the photo in there. Just in case.”

  Pono frowned and rubbed his top lip under the bristling mustache, but said no more as he navigated a run-down area of Kahului, Maui’s main town. At last they pulled into the driveway of a sprawling family home with a small ohana nearby under a mango tree heavy with sweet-smelling fruit. A pile of surfboards leaning against the sliding glass door marked this as Barrett Sharkey’s residence, and the rusting Subaru with racks near the house and the rubber slippers on the mat indicated the young man was home.

  Lei tapped on the glass door and involuntarily took a step back as a wide-chested male Rottweiler galloped to the door and barked at them, the deep-voiced Intruder Alert sound Lei was so familiar with.

  “Don’t see too many Rottweilers around here besides Keiki,” Pono said.

  “Yeah. He’s a beauty.” Keiki was large for her breed, but this one was even bigger, at least a hundred and fifty pounds. He had a wide chest and deep brown, intelligent eyes that gleamed with health and vigor. As they continued to stand there, not backing off, the stump of his tail began wagging even as he continued to bark.

  Lei was smitten.

  Barrett Sharkey came out of a back bedroom, pulling on a T-shirt and yanking the dog back by the collar. His eyes widened in recognition of them. “Let me just put this boy back in the bedroom,” he said. “He’s not too good with visitors.”

  Lei watched the young man wrestle the big dog into the bedroom and shut the door. The Rottweiler was still barking when Sharkey slid the glass door open to greet them.

  “Hi. I remember you from the beach when Makoa died. What can I do for you?”

  “That’s a fine dog you have,” Lei said. “I have a Rottweiler, too.”

  “He’s a handful. I got him from a friend who was moving off-island, and truth is, I need to find another home for him. Too much dog for me.”

  Lei’s mind raced. Keiki hadn’t been herself since the fire three months ago; she’d taken a long time to recover from her burns, but Lei wasn’t sure that was the reason her dog seemed so listless and out of sorts. Her Rottweiler almost seemed depressed, and another dog might be just the thing to perk her up.

  “Let me talk to my husband. I might be interested,” Lei said.

  Pono gave her a look and rolled his eyes. “You need another dog like a hole in the head,” her partner said.

  “Does he have any bad habits?” Lei forged on, intrigued by the handsome dog.

  “You’ve just seen it. He’s overprotective. Scares off the girls,” Sharkey said, with a charming grin. “But he’s all bluster and blow. Never bit anyone that I’ve heard of. He just needs more work and exercise than I can give him. He’s chewing a hole near the door trying to get out.” Sharkey pointed to a hole in the drywall.

  “What’s his name?” Lei asked.

  “Conan.”

  “Conan. And what a barbarian of a dog he is. Come on, Lei.” Pono rolled his eyes again, holding up the folder and waving it in front of Sharkey. “Believe it or not, we came here for a reason. We have some suspects we’re looking at for the guy in the lineup, and wanted to see if you could help us with an identification.”
/>   “Sure.” Sharkey moved a couple of empty beer cans off the coffee table and sat beside Pono with the folder. Lei sat on the other side of Sharkey as the young man opened the folder.

  Lei had hastily assembled photos she’d printed off of driver’s license onto a grid with other random photos. As usual with these things, she felt the gaze of her suspects seeming to glare up at her from the lineup.

  “I think I know this guy,” Sharkey said, pointing to the photo of Oulaki. “He feels familiar to me.”

  “Think back to that day,” Lei prompted. “Close your eyes. Think of the surfer you saw. Are there any details coming back to you?”

  “He had dark hair. A black rash guard and shorts. Brown skin, like a local.” Sharkey frowned in concentration, but a loud whine and the sound of scratching made his eyes pop open. “Mind if I let Conan out?” He jumped up from the couch and let the dog out of the bedroom, and now that they’d been identified as friendly, the big Rottweiler trotted over to Lei, his hind end waggling, and thrust his head into her chest, snorting as he inhaled her scent.

  “Well, aren’t you a friendly boy,” she said, scratching his chest and behind his ears. “What a lover you are.” The big Rottie swiped her chin with his tongue

  “No,” Pono said. “You’re not taking that dog home.”

  Lei continued to pet Conan as Sharkey resumed his seat on the couch and his shuffling through the photos. “This guy looks familiar, too,” the young man said, and Lei was dismayed to see he was pointing to Tadeo.