Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  “Hey, girls.” The older daughter had turned the TV up and was close beside the toddler, who was seated in a wheeled chair. Both children had their attention fixed on Sesame Street. “What’s Cookie Monster up to now?”

  “He’s trying to steal Big Bird’s cookie,” the little girl said. She glanced at Lei, her dark eyes wary. “Where’s Mommy?”

  “She has a meeting upstairs. Do you have a tutu or an auntie I can call? Mommy needs to go out for a while.”

  “What’s your name?” the girl asked. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

  “Lei. I’m a police officer.”

  “My daddy is a police officer. My name is Anuhea.” Anuhea got up and went to the sideboard, where a cordless phone sat on a charger. “Our grandma is number three. I can call her if you want.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll do it. Do you need any more snacks?” Lei hobbled to take the phone from the little girl.

  “No, thank you,” Anuhea said, with careful good manners.

  Looking down into the child’s dark eyes, Lei saw the knowledge that something was deeply wrong, but the child gave no other sign. She went to sit close beside the walker, where the toddler was playing with beads and watching the television.

  Lei limped out into the hall. Turning these children over to Social Services would be even more traumatic than what they were bound to go through in the days to come. She pressed and held down the number “three,” formulating words that would shatter a parent’s world forever.

  Chapter Twenty

  Stevens picked Lei up at the emergency room after her foot was examined and casted. “Greenstick fracture,” the doctor pronounced. “Stay off it.”

  “Easier said than done,” she’d replied. Now she crutched her way across the lobby toward the entrance.

  Stevens strode through the pneumatic doors, his tall form radiating tension as he looked for her, spotted her, homed in on her. “Sweets. How many times have I had to pick you up here?”

  “Dunno, but this isn’t likely to be the last time,” she said. “I need a kiss. A hug, too.” Right there in public, she reached for him and let go of the crutches. He tightened his arms around her and lowered his head, his mouth meeting hers.

  His eyes were a little hazy, hands sliding over her lightly when he raised his head.

  “Any other damage besides the foot?”

  “Took some blows to the midsection. And my pride,” Lei said.

  He picked up the crutches, handed them to her, and they made their way out the doors. Once in his Bronco, the crutches settled in back, he turned to her. “What happened?”

  “I wanted to stir things up. And I did.” Lei felt her eyes fill, thinking of the little Tadeo girls, meekly leaving the house with their distraught grandmother. Follow-up interviews with other responding officers, the debrief with the captain, and all that time her foot was swelling bigger and bigger until Pono almost had to carry her to his truck to get to the hospital. “I wish I’d gone slower. Been safer. I should have restrained Eli Tadeo, interviewed Rachel Tadeo at the station. I had no idea the situation was as complicated and explosive as it was.”

  “You get all the crazy ones these days,” Stevens said. “I spent my day training Brandon Mahoe and looking for Mom. The good thing is, I found her. And she’s in the Aloha House acute unit now.”

  “Really? That’s great news!”

  “I got to her in time. She was passed out in a cardboard box next to a Dumpster. Totally dehydrated. Looks like she might have some kidney damage, not to mention liver damage from this latest binge. They took her in an ambulance and stabilized her at the ER. When Jared showed up at the hospital, we pulled out all the stops to get her to agree to go to treatment. Emphasized how it could have been her in the canal. She agreed, but it remains to be seen if she’ll stay.”

  “But that’s a start. What did she say about that blonde woman wearing her clothes?”

  Stevens shrugged, his mouth tight. “Like we supposed. She traded her clothes for the bottle.”

  “So what was she wearing?”

  “Underwear. A filthy shirt. But she was in a sleeping bag, so she wasn’t lying around naked, at least.”

  “God, Michael. I’m so sorry.” Lei stroked the corded muscles of his arm, and he took her hand.

  “It will be okay if she stays in recovery. But I’m not holding my breath.”

  “So…what do you think about the Changs, the shroud killer? Think they had anything to do with Adele’s drowning?”

  “I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be a connection.”

  “Thank God for that. I’ll check in with Terence Chang when I go to the Big Island for Solomon’s trial,” Lei said. They navigated the two-lane Hana Highway out of town. Lei glanced at the glitter of sunset glow on the ocean off Ho`okipa Beach, where this case had first begun. She thought of Pippa and Bryan Oulaki. Maybe something would happen there, maybe not. At least he’d shown a prerequisite for real love—willingness to sacrifice for another. None of the other people in the tangled relationships they’d uncovered in this case had known that secret.

  “I can’t wait to get home,” she said. “We’re sleeping with Kiet in the new house, right?”

  “Right.” Stevens smiled at her, his dark hair lit by golden sunset rays through the truck’s window. “Can’t wait to get into that cold shower again.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lei stood in front of Terence Chang’s immaculate house on the Big Island several weeks later. As on her other visits, his two brindled pit bulls roared down off the lanai to hurl themselves at the chain-link fence. Terence eventually appeared at the door. He lifted a hand to her, called the dogs. They subsided as he came down the steps wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, his demeanor casual.

  “Lei Texeira. You keep turning up like a bad penny. Here for Ray Solomon’s trial?”

  “Exactly.” Lei wore her dress uniform for the trial, the brass winking with polish, the commendation she’d earned on Kaua`i so long ago a splash of bright ribbon on her left breast. She wore a little makeup, and her hair had been wrestled and sprayed into a bun. It was fragile armor in which to face the enemy. She’d have preferred Kevlar.

  “What’s the problem this time?”

  “No problem. Just checking in.” She slid her hands into the pockets of her uniform slacks, close to her weapon. Her badge caught the light as the material moved. “I want to make sure we’re still on the same page.”

  “What page is that?” Humor lurked in the crinkled skin beneath Terence’s intelligent dark eyes. “The final chapter?”

  “The chapter where you and I agreed to bury the hatchet. And you told me you were going straight.”

  “Ah. That chapter. I seem to remember some threats, a gun being waved around. Getting handcuffed inside your car, turning on my own flesh and blood to help you and getting little thanks. But hey, no problem—the ol’ hatchet is buried.”

  “Hey now,” Lei said mildly. In spite of everything, she liked Terence Chang. She dared to hope it was mutual. “I came here because—I just want to make sure we’re good. You know, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

  “And which am I?”

  “I’m never quite sure. Hence my visit. Again.”

  Terence grinned, and she noticed how young, how handsome he was. “We’re good. I’m glad to have put all that shit behind me.”

  “Terence? Everything okay?” a light female voice called from the doorway of the house.

  “Nani. Come meet Lei Texeira.”

  “Whoa.” Nani, a pretty, dark-haired local girl wearing a skimpy T-shirt dress, slid her feet into high-heeled rubber thong sandals and came down the steps. “That Lei Texeira?”

  “The very one,” Lei said. “I’d shake, but then your dogs would likely rip my hand off.”

  “You can come in,” Terence said, hooking an arm around the girl’s waist and making as if to open the gate. “Lei, this is my girlfriend, Nani.”

 
“No, thanks. I don’t have time. But here’s my personal cell. I want you to call me if ever—I can help you. Or if there’s a problem.” Lei tried to pass Terence her card through the chain link. Sure enough, the dogs went nuts barking.

  “I appreciate the gesture, but you forget I live most of my life online. I know exactly where you are and how to get ahold of you.” Terence smiled and backed away from the gate with his arm around Nani. “Good luck at the trial. Hope Ray doesn’t ever get out of prison, for both our sakes.”

  The couple went up the stairs. Lei turned to clump back to her rental car in the walking cast she wore now that she was off crutches.

  Lei stood behind the podium beside the judge’s seat in the closed courtroom in Hilo a couple of hours later. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  “I do,” Lei said, loud and unwavering.

  “You are sworn in,” the clerk said. Lei sat down. She gazed out over the packed courtroom and looked into the defendant’s eyes. They were still beautiful. Large and a changeable golden hazel, they stared at her unblinking, radiating hatred.

  Ray Solomon had let himself go in his paralysis. If it were possible, he was even bigger than he’d been when she’d taken him down. Fat surrounded him in rolling layers, overflowing his wheelchair, as protective as a turtle’s shell.

  How she wished she hadn’t taken that last shot at his fleeing vehicle in Volcano Park all those years ago—or at least, having taken the shot, that she’d killed him. This was the worst possible outcome for both of them. He sat there, trapped in his body, with nothing to do but plot revenge, and she still felt guilty about it.

  Hours later, wringing with nervous sweat, Lei clumped in her cast down the steps of the courthouse to be met by Dr. Wilson, her colleague and former therapist.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Good as can be expected. Doesn’t look like he’ll be getting out in this lifetime.”

  “Excellent. My car’s over here. Hop in.” The petite blonde psychologist drove a cream-colored Mini Cooper. “I’ll bring you back to get your rental later.”

  “Please tell me you have somewhere good to eat on the agenda,” Lei begged.

  “I do. The Banyan Tree.”

  They drove to the well-known seaside restaurant, with its view of wind-ruffled Hilo Bay and the song of coqui frogs in the background.

  As they dug into salads, Dr. Wilson smiled at Lei. “You’re looking good. I was worried about you after you lost the baby.”

  “I was worried about me, too.” Lei took a sip of white wine. “It was the toughest thing I’ve ever been through. And I’ve been through some shit.”

  “Seems like you and Michael are doing well.”

  “Very well.” Lei pushed away the worry about Stevens’s drinking and tore off a piece of bread, took a bite. “We’re finally all the way moved into the new house. Having my dad live with us has been great, but it was too cozy all together in Wayne’s cottage. He’s glad to have his space back. We couldn’t do what we do without him taking care of Kiet, and he seems to love it.”

  “When did you finish the house?”

  “We moved into it a month ago. I’m planning a housewarming. You’re invited, of course.”

  “I’d be delighted to come.” The psychologist’s blue eyes reflected the flames of the candle at her elbow. “What’s happening with Ellen Stevens?”

  “She stuck with Aloha House. She’s a week or two from completing their initial program. I guess the drowned woman we fished out of the canal wearing her clothes was bottom for Ellen. She started to waver in the program, and Michael took her to the morgue and made her look at the body. She finally realized it would be her in the canal next if she didn’t sober up.”

  “So I was following your last big case in the news. Makoa Simmons.”

  “Yeah. What a tangled web that was, and we kept most of the juicy stuff out of the news. It ended so tragically.” Lei told the psychologist about the dynamics of two beautiful bikini models in love with the same man and twins in love with the same woman. “I had to make the case by getting a confession, and things went badly at the end, especially for the Tadeos’ two little girls.”

  “What’s happened to them?”

  “They’re living with family. Rachel pled out to assault with a deadly weapon and is doing some time. Eric is being charged with Makoa’s murder, Eli Tadeo’s charged with conspiracy to commit murder, and Shayla Cummings is an accessory. They’re awaiting trial and proving anything against either of them would be tough if I didn’t have recorded interviews. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if Shayla gets off with a slap on the wrist. At least the insurance company has denied her claim and is awarding it to Makoa’s immediate next of kin, which I am hoping ends up being his baby. Pippa is healthy and the pregnancy is going well, and with any luck, she’ll fall a little in love with Bryan Oulaki, who adores her.”

  “So what’s next for you and your family?”

  A small interruption came as the server removed their salad plates and set down platters of juicy steak before each of them.

  Lei grinned. “It’s funny to see you with such a big slab of meat in front of you. Somehow I thought you’d be the shrimp-over-pasta type.”

  Dr. Wilson stabbed her T-bone and sawed. “I could say the same of you. Now you know I love nothing more than a slab of local Big Island beef. But you’re dodging answering my question.”

  Lei took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “I don’t know that I’m dodging the question so much as not sure of the answer. We finished the house, we’ve moved in, which has been our focus ever since the fire. Michael’s hard at work on his training program, and I think he’s finally seen what a good fit that job is for him. Kiet’s getting bigger, going to be walking soon. We adopted another dog, a male Rottie named Conan. He’s keeping Keiki on her toes, really has given her a second wind, just like I was hoping. I keep getting cases. Every one of them interesting.”

  She took another bite.

  “Sounds like a full life.”

  “It is.”

  “Do you ever think of trying to have a child again?”

  “Every day,” Lei whispered, feeling her eyes fill as she looked at the woman who’d been such a part of her healing from the past. “Every day I think of it. And I’m too afraid.”

  Dr. Wilson lifted her water glass. “A toast.”

  Lei lifted hers, waiting.

  “To being afraid. And choosing to live fully anyway.”

  They clinked glasses.

  Lei swallowed a burning sip of wine. She knew she didn’t want to be so afraid of the pain of a possible tragedy that she missed out on another child. Not when she had Kiet filling every day with love and surprises, his dark green eyes sparkling with delight, his big grin lighting up their lives.

  Not when she knew what joy, as well as heartbreak, a child could bring. She still dreamed of Baby. She guessed she always would.

  “Good toast. I should write that one down.”

  “I’m known for quotes,” Dr. Wilson said. “A big part of my therapy technique.”

  “I’m aware,” Lei said. And they both laughed.

  Turn the page for a sneak peek of book ten of the Paradise Crime Mysteries, Bone Hook!

  Sneak Peek

  Bone Hook, Paradise Crime Mysteries Book 10

  The DLNR agent for the area, Mark Nunes, was on his way to meet with them, so Lei took the time to call the University of Hawaii. She was connected with Dr. Rebecca Farnsworth.

  “How can I help you, Sergeant?” The woman’s voice sounded older, deep and confident.

  “I’m calling regarding one of your staff. Dr. Danielle Phillips.” Lei had the case file open. She felt a twinge of sorrow seeing the bright, fresh smile on Danielle’s face in the driver’s license photo.

  “Lani? What’s going on?” Dr. Farnsworth’s voice quickened with alarm.

  “We’re calling to inform you she’s deceased and
that there was foul play involved.”

  “Oh no!” A gasp. “What happened?”

  “We can’t discuss an open homicide investigation, but anything you could tell us regarding her responsibilities for you would help. And if you could assemble a list of people for us to interview, that would be great. Also, keep this confidential for now. MPD is working on a statement for the press.”

  Pono looked up from the notes he was jotting with a nod. Pono was in charge of their PR, never Lei’s strong suit.

  “Okay. Wow, I’m in shock. But I guess, on second thought, I’m not that shocked. I knew what Lani was doing was dangerous.” Lei could tell the woman was working hard to regroup. “She answered to me and she was the senior marine biology staffer here on Maui. As you know, we’re a smaller satellite college in the University of Hawaii system. She was our only full-time marine biologist.”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “She was working on several research projects, most notably a longitudinal fish-populations study for Maui, which was going to be coordinated with projects on the other islands. Oh, dear, what’s going to happen to her research?” The woman was still trying to assimilate the news.

  “Did Danielle have a private office? We’re going to need to search that.”

  “Yes, she does.”

  “I’ll send an officer over to seal it. Please don’t allow anyone in or out until we’ve had a chance to go through it.”

  “All right. It’s kept locked anyway, but I’ll make sure.”

  Lei turned aside to tell Pono about the office. “Seal the home, too,” Lei said. “And get us the search warrants.” Pono got on the phone to Dispatch.

  Dr. Farnsworth went on. “Anyway, Danielle was such a hard worker. She was never too busy to help a student or another staffer. She loved what she did and she will be greatly missed.”

  “I’m sure. What can you tell me about her use of the University’s Zodiac?”