by Toby Neal
“Hey!” Phillips yelled after Lei. “I’m calling my lawyer!”
Lei pushed open the bedroom door. She came to an abrupt halt as a blond woman in the king-sized bed drew black satin sheets up to her chin with a squeal.
Chapter Eight
Frank Phillips, Pono in pursuit, came to a halt beside Lei. “I can’t believe it’s legal for you to barge into my home like this!”
“It’s legal, all right.” Lei felt a righteous anger boil up through her from someplace deep inside. “I’m looking at some nice motive right here. Not sure your wife is cold in the morgue yet, Frank, and yet here you are, banging a bottled blonde.”
“I’m naturally blond, thank you very much. And I’d appreciate a moment to change.” The woman tried to gather some dignity.
“I don’t believe we got your name,” Lei said.
“Barbara Selzmann. Can I get a moment of privacy?”
“This is outrageous!” Frank blustered. “Harassment!”
“We’ll give you a moment. But only a moment. Feel free to call your attorney, Frank. You’re going to need one.” Lei gave him a ferocious smile.
She hated Frank Phillips at this moment. Married to a dedicated, passionate, beautiful woman like Danielle and screwing some country-club matron on the side? That’s what Barbara Selzmann looked like, from her expensively touched-up hair to the diamond tennis bracelet that winked from her wrist.
Lei couldn’t help thinking of Kathy Fraser, sitting at her husband’s desk. Touching his keys. Knowing important business that he hadn’t told Lei, his wife.
Lei stomped through the house, hearing the murmur of Pono’s voice in the background. She looked for where Danielle had been sleeping—because she was almost sure it wasn’t in the king-sized sleigh bed with those tacky black satin sheets in the master bedroom.
Lei turned into a guest bedroom done in shades of turquoise and gold, evoking a beach feel. She pulled a drawer out of the night table beside the bed and looked inside: a vibrator; a dog-eared copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species; a thin, leatherette journal filled with small, precise block printing; and a black Beretta semiautomatic.
Pay dirt.
Lei slid the journal, vibrator, and weapon into evidence bags. Who had Danielle been so afraid of that she needed a handgun? Was it Ben Miller, or was it Frank Phillips? Maybe the journal would hold the answer. She continued on, rifling through the lower drawer, which held nothing but a series of marine biology tomes. A phone charger cord coiled around the nightstand, and Lei realized Danielle’s phone must be in the backpack she’d seen so briefly on the Zodiac.
It was important to get that phone. Lei took out her own phone and made a voice memo of that loose end just as Pono came in, shutting the door behind him.
“Awkward,” he said, encompassing the scene with Frank Phillips. “I got the blonde’s information, in case you’re interested. Both of them are coming in for a formal interview tomorrow morning. Frank said they’ll both be bringing representation.”
“They’ll need it.” Lei held up the evidence bag with the gun in it. “Danielle was afraid of someone. Who was it? My vote is Frank.”
“I’m still not seeing it.” Pono shook his head. “The guy’s a sleazebag, no doubt, but he’s got an alibi.”
“We haven’t checked it yet, and with this other woman in the picture, I want to probe it extra hard.”
“You go right ahead. I just got a call on the radio that they picked up Ben Miller, so let’s wrap this up and get back to the station.”
The two of them went into speed mode, tossing the blankets and furniture, opening cupboards and pulling out anything that looked of interest. Lei bagged all of Danielle’s medications.
“I see an antidepressant here with a psychiatrist’s name on it.” Lei held up a bottle. “What I don’t see is any birth control.”
“He could have had a vasectomy or something. He seems older than her, and obviously they weren’t sleeping together.”
“Obviously.” They were looking at a troubled marriage, and Lei felt a twinge of identification again. They had problems, all right—but she sure hoped infidelity wasn’t one of them.
They swept through the house, making no effort to clean up or replace the items dislodged or overturned, which they would have done if they weren’t in such a hurry. They ended the search in the garage, where Lei pointed out the scuba gear and kayak she’d spotted earlier to Pono.
“This is way too big to be Lani’s.” She held up a large-sized BCD. “I see gear here for two people. He could have gone with her and come back to shore in the kayak.”
“That’s a lot to bring in, and I’m not sure what it will tell us,” Pono said.
“I’ll just photograph everything.” Lei took off a glove and felt the gear. “It’s dry.” She swiped a finger over the larger-sized gear and tank, held up a finger. She showed Pono the dust. “It hasn’t been used in a while.”
“More evidence he didn’t do it.”
“I’m going to get a warrant for his work office and financials.” One of the things she’d taken from Frank’s desk was the card from their Rolodex labeled Financial Adviser with a number on it.
“I still think we should be focusing on the poachers,” Pono said, as Lei took the camera out of her crime kit and photographed the scuba equipment and kayak. “I’m willing to lay money on it.”
“Getting ready for Vegas?” Lei swiveled to shoot the whole interior of the garage in case there was something they missed. “Okay, I’ll spot you lunch if I’m wrong. I think we’re done here.”
Lei suppressed surprise at finding that Ben Miller was a six-foot, good-looking athletic man in his late twenties. Somehow she’d expected someone less attractive. The grad student’s eyes were bloodshot, and he moved with the exquisite care of the severely hungover, resting his elbows on the steel table and combing tousled, ocean-bleached hair with his fingers.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” he said, when they’d Mirandized him and started the recorder. “Lani was an incredible person.”
“Tell us about your relationship with her.” Lei looked down at the phone records for Miller she’d pulled up. They showed multiple, daily phone calls from his number to Danielle’s personal cell, and to her surprise, calls from Lani’s number back to his in the last week.
“We were having an affair. I loved her. I was trying to get her to leave that piece-of-shit husband of hers.”
Lei kept her expression neutral. “When did this begin?”
“Six months ago. I fell in love with her right away. When I first started working with her.”
“You mean when she was supervising your PhD,” Lei said dryly.
“Yeah. It was against the rules and all that, but we’re adults. She tried to get me to give up on her at first, but I wouldn’t let her.” He looked up. The blue of his eyes seemed to burn against the swollen redness around them. “Are you sure there’s no mistake? She’s really gone?”
“Yes. She’s really gone,” Pono said. “And not by accident. We had it from another party that this ‘affair’ wasn’t mutual. That you stalked her.”
Miller made a flicking gesture. “She was married. She felt bad. She needed time to see it how it was.”
Lei felt a chill blow across her skin, raising the fine hairs on her arms. He seemed normal, but what he was saying was downright creepy, and the conviction in his voice and gaze was a little unnerving. “Tell me more about how she felt bad about your alleged affair.”
“She tried to tell me it was wrong, that I was her student. That she still wanted to make her marriage work with Frank. That son of a bitch was screwing around.”
Lei made notes about her impressions of Miller and added an item to follow up on Barbara Selzmann’s background and how she’d connected with Frank.
“So when did you finally wear down her resistance?” Pono had a harsh note in his voice. He was playing “bad cop,” and not doing too poorly at it either. Miller shot him a glare
and then fixed his woebegone gaze on Lei.
“We slept together for the first time a week ago.”
“That sounds kind of recent for a six-month love affair,” Pono said.
“Oh, come on, now,” Lei moderated. “She had a lot at stake, didn’t she, Ben?”
“Yes, and she was always so conscientious. Always putting others above herself, including that bastard Frank.”
“So when you finally…you know…got together…” Lei flashed Miller her dimple, sympathetic and supportive. She should start acting for the community theater; she was getting so good at faking. “Where did that happen? I’m sure it was really romantic.”
“We went night diving. Checked a fish-population-count device. And then—in the boat. Under the stars.” He covered his face with his hands.
“What day was this?” Pono asked.
“A week ago, I said.”
“We can check when the Zodiac was taken out,” Lei said gently. “In fact, we’re going to search it right after this. She died off Molokini. Where were you yesterday? Tell us a step-by-step rundown.”
Miller looked down, picking at a thread on his sleeve. For the first time he seemed uncomfortable. “I was on campus yesterday morning. I have a job at the tutoring center. It doesn’t pay much, but it helps keep me going.”
Pono made a note and dug in. “I’m having a hard time seeing Dr. Phillips peeling out of her wetsuit and doing the nasty in a rubber boat with her grad student when she’d been treating you like a stalker up until then.” He opened one of the files they’d taken from Danielle’s office. “She kept a log of your harassment. The phone calls, the times she had to call security to walk her to her car after dark on campus. This affair was all in your sick imagination.”
“No!” Miller shot to his feet, then groaned and clutched his head, sinking back into the chair. “It might have been that way at first, but she just needed me to show I was sincere, that I wasn’t going to give up. That my love was real. So I respected when she told me to back off, and we worked it out. Then she found out about Frank’s affair.”
“Oh, how upsetting,” Lei said. “That must have been devastating to her.”
“Not really. She didn’t love him. They were separated pretty much. But it was embarrassing for her.”
“So she screwed you to get back at her husband and you took what you could get?” Pono said.
“She was finally ready to accept my love!” Miller had a fanatical glint in his eyes that raised the hair on Lei’s arms for a second time.
“So how many times did you sleep with her?” Pono said. “Dates, times?”
Lei could see this dose of reality was jarring to Miller as he groped for a way to make it seem like they’d been together. “She was working on her divorce, so we—we were waiting. She had to be free for us to be together for real.”
“So you didn’t actually have sex.” Pono squinted.
“We might as well have!” Miller’s eyes were wild. “I mean—we almost did. In the boat that night.”
A pause as Pono rolled his eyes. Lei reached over to pat Miller’s hand. “So you were at the tutoring center all day yesterday?” Lei prompted.
“Do I need to get a lawyer?” Miller seemed to finally realize he wasn’t looking good in their estimation.
“Of course not. Just ruling out everyone close to Lani. Totally routine.” Lei took out the fingerprint kit and DNA swab. Miller opened his mouth and let her collect it and cooperated with the fingerprinting.
“Anything else you can tell me about Danielle, her friends, her work?” Lei smiled encouragingly as she put away the evidence collection.
“Well, she was determined to help protect the reefs,” Miller said. “When we went out together, she was always looking for poachers, trying to gather evidence for the DLNR.”
“Did she have any enemies that you know of?”
“She had one fisherman she’d turned in for illegal aquarium-fish harvesting. I saw them get into it. He came up to her at the docks, and they had words. He threatened her if she ever messed with him. I had to go over, lend backup.”
“Who was this guy?” Pono asked.
“I didn’t get a last name, but his first name was T.J.”
“What did he look like?” Lei was taking notes to crosscheck the list they’d received from Mark Nunes of fishermen who’d been cited.
Miller shrugged. “Five ten or thereabouts, bald-headed and tan, looked like a local. Lots of tats.”
“Did you see what he drove?”
“A white Ford pickup. He used a Zodiac, too. They’re easy in and out of the water, fast for getting into and out of places like La Perouse Bay or Honolua Bay, where there are a lot of fish in protected water.”
“Anything else?”
“I would never, ever hurt Lani.” Lei had given Miller a wipe to get the ink off his fingers, and he was still rubbing his hands with it as he stood.
“Don’t leave town.” Pono opened the door for the young man.
“Screw you. I’d have given my life for her.” Miller brushed past Pono and out into the hall. They waited until he was out of earshot.
“I like him for it.” A wolfish grin showed all Pono’s teeth.
“He’s creepy, I’ll grant you that. I’m looking forward to reading her journal.”
They took the recording equipment and left the interview room. Evening was casting long shadows outside the windows as Pono patted her shoulder.
“I’ll make sure the techs are working on all the stuff we’ve collected. Why don’t you get home to that boy? I’ll call if anything new breaks, and we have a full day tomorrow.”
“Thanks, partner.” Lei couldn’t wait to get home to Kiet and see how he was doing after his rough day at school. She also wanted to talk to her husband on the satellite phone he’d left.
Chapter Nine
Kiet ran out to meet her as he usually did, his face much happier than when she’d picked him up earlier. “Hey, little man. Mama’s going to grab the phone Daddy left and check it; then I’ll throw the ball with you for a while.” Kiet was already wrestling Conan’s favorite ball away from the big Rottie as Lei ran into the house.
“Hey, Dad!”
“Hey, Sweets. Dinner’s ready in a few.” Wayne was in the kitchen, running some water. Lei’s father turned to her with a smile, light from the rustic overhead sconce falling on his salt-and-pepper curls.
“Thanks. I’m throwing a ball for the kids outside.” Lei looked around for the phone.
Stevens had left the satellite phone, a slightly larger and heavier button-type model than her usual one, on the sideboard on top of a boldly printed Post-it note: I LOVE YOU, with his signature smiley face. It made her heart squeeze.
Kathy Fraser was just his work partner. Hell, she told Pono things she didn’t tell Stevens, and it didn’t mean anything.
But some part of her still didn’t believe it.
She checked the phone’s screen. No calls. No texts, either. And now wasn’t the time to try to get ahold of him and text him about Fraser—their son was waiting for her. She slid the phone into her pocket and went outside.
“Do a little windup,” she told Kiet, backing up onto one leg and cranking the old softball that was Conan’s favorite toy. The younger Rottweiler bolted after the ball, his shiny, muscular hindquarters propelling him in great leaps across the length of grassy lawn. He pounced on the ball, his powerful jaws engulfing it, and trotted back, head high and proud. Keiki looked on with dignity, such silliness beneath her in her golden years.
Kiet grabbed the ball out of the big Rottweiler’s mouth and imitated Lei’s windup, but let go of the ball too soon. It hit the ground early, causing Conan to fishtail to a halt and look at the little boy reproachfully.
“I can do it better.” Kiet did his windup, pink tongue showing a little in the corner of his mouth in earnest effort.
Lei felt a pang of love for the boy. The tension unwound from her body as the little boy threw
the ball, and the dog ran, and her beloved old girl Keiki leaned her considerable weight on Lei’s legs. The last of the salmon-pink sunset light bled out of the sky and rendered the yard in shades of deep blue, black, and gray.
“Dinner’s ready!” Wayne called from inside the house, and they went inside to eat. Sitting down at the mango-wood table Stevens had built out in his workshop, Lei touched the wood he’d planed and sanded by hand. It felt satiny and warm under her fingers, almost as alive as skin, and it reminded her painfully of him. She picked up her spoon and dug into the Portuguese bean soup and cornbread her father had made.
“Delicious, Dad.”
“Just a little extra I had left over from the restaurant.” Her father’s craggy face split in a smile. Wayne’s Hawaiian Grinds, his breakfast and lunch restaurant in the old Haiku Cannery building, had been turning a nice profit since the day it had opened.
“I’m surprised you had anything left. This is so ono!” Lei dipped a chunk of the cornbread, speckled with bits of jalapeño, into the soup.
“The cornbread is too spicy, Papa,” Kiet complained.
“That’s why I made you toast.” Wayne pushed a slice of toast on a plate toward the little boy, who dipped it in the soup. “So where did Stevens go, exactly?”
“I’m not entirely sure. He said it’s classified.”
“What’s ‘classified’?” Kiet asked.
“It’s a secret. To make sure everyone is safe.” Lei gave her father a meaningful glance, conveying that he shouldn’t ask any more questions in front of Kiet.
“He told me he was going to one of three places and he didn’t know which one.” Kiet spooned up another bite.
“Is that so, little man?” Lei’s eyebrows went up.
“Malaysia, Afghanistan, or Korea,” Kiet said in his clear little voice, reciting the words as though he’d memorized them.
Lei and Wayne exchanged a glance. This was a lot more than Stevens had told Lei, and each of the names sent a pang of apprehension through her.