by Toby Neal
The dogs greeted him, as did Kiet, and it wasn’t long before he was walking through the house to Lei. She was stirring something on the stove, wearing a once-baggy T-shirt dress that now barely contained her. Her hair was twisted up in a knot speared by a chopstick. He pulled the chopstick out and growled kisses into the back of her neck, making her laugh.
“Didn’t know if you’d make it home for dinner.” She leaned back into him, turning her face for his kiss as he embraced her. A moment later she pushed away. “Gotta make sure the chili doesn’t burn.”
“Oh, my favorite of your two specialties.”
Lei smacked him. “Shut up. I do three now. Remember those enchiladas I did not long ago? And, now that I’m home, I’m planning to diversify. Might challenge myself and do lasagna or something.”
“A man can dream.” Stevens turned, hands on hips. “Son! Time for dinner!”
After dinner, Kiet’s bath, reading bedtime stories, and a little TV with Lei snuggled against him, Stevens took Lei to bed.
Making love to her at this stage was tender, awkward, funny, and still sexy as hell. He’d never get enough of her, round or slim, and their child between them made it all the sweeter.
The fragrance of night-blooming jasmine that Wayne had planted under their window wafted in on the evening breeze, cooling their bodies. Stevens propped himself on an elbow, spooned against her. He stroked the side of her belly. “Baby’s quiet in there.”
“Been quiet all day,” she murmured. Her hair tickled his chin and he smoothed it aside, feeling a quiver of worry. Beneath his hand, her belly tightened, the silk of her skin covering muscle that had gone hard. His anxiety intensified as her breath shortened.
“Are you okay?”
“Just a little Braxton-Hicks. Been having these for a while now. Just my body getting in shape for the big event.” Lei sounded sleepy and unconcerned.
Sure enough, the flesh beneath his hand went soft again. He continued to stroke, imagining touching their child’s back. “You’ll let me know if anything more gets going right away. Promise me.”
“Worrywart. I’ve got this. I’ve been training like it’s a marathon, and you know I can handle pain.” That was so Lei, thinking of the birth as an athletic challenge. That explained why she’d been swimming almost every day after work and doing yoga and flexibility exercises at every opportunity.
He hoped he could handle his own shit when it came time. He’d delivered a baby while on duty one time in LA, right on the side of the road. Poor woman had been trying to take a cab to the hospital and hadn’t made it. Fortunately, he’d taken a pretty comprehensive first aid course, though there really wasn’t much to do but get ready to catch what was coming and hope for the best.
He’d never forget the sight of the woman’s straining, red face as the baby’s head crowned into view. The child had almost stuck there, but one more massive heave from the mother and a little boy had shot into his arms, slick and intensely alive.
An amazing experience. Watching his own child being born was bound to be even more so. Yeah, he could do this even if he was a sniveling coward, terrified of seeing Lei suffering, terrified of something going wrong.
He lowered himself to lie beside his wife, drawing her just a little closer against him.
Stevens picked up his desk phone at work the next morning. “Captain, Mahoe and I are going out to Feast to pick up Winston Noriega on an assault and battery charge.” He told her the situation with Elena. “I filed the paperwork on a prior charge, but it won’t hurt to put him in jail over the weekend, make sure the wife has some breathing space. He’s still our best suspect for the murder, too.”
“I agree. Go for it.” There was a note of vicious satisfaction in the captain’s voice. “Hopefully he’ll think twice about hitting his wife after a weekend in jail.”
Stevens and Mahoe got on the road for Lahaina, calling for a backup unit to transport Noriega back to the station.
“I thought about what you said, LT.” Mahoe’s voice was subdued as they drove. Stevens glanced at his partner’s face: the square jaw was set, the young man’s dark eyes on the road. “You’re right. I need to make some changes in my life. I need to get my own place, maybe with some other guys or something.”
“And try asking out a few women,” Stevens said. “You might be surprised at what they say.”
“Iris in accounting is pretty cute.” Mahoe stared out the window. “I’d need to go out with someone who understands the crazy hours we keep. I haven’t been dating because I’ve been so focused on getting to detective.”
“Well, watch out, or life can pass you by. If you get nothing else from this case, remember that.”
Mahoe nodded.
Feast was still closed, but a staffer was polishing the brass fittings on the door when they drove up, the cruiser close behind.
Stevens showed his badge, and they were admitted into the dim interior. The restaurant smelled of cleaning products, wine, and frying garlic. The deep, rich colors of the walls and furnishings glowed as they walked through.
Winston Noriega was in the kitchen, searing a massive amount of garlic in a big frying pan. Flames licked up around it as he swirled the pan masterfully. Stevens waited until he set the garlic down, aware that a hot frying pan full of sizzling garlic could be quite a weapon. “Can you turn that off a moment, Chef?”
Noriega did so, heavy brow knit with irritation. “What is it now?”
“Winston Noriega, you’re under arrest for the assault and battery of Elena Noriega,” Stevens said. He gestured to Mahoe to cuff the chef.
“What the hell. That bitch!” Noriega turned to his assistant, an olive-complexioned reedy young man wearing a chef’s hat. “Get my lawyer on the phone.”
“Boss, I don’t have the number,” the kid quaked.
“In my office, top right-hand drawer. Have him meet me at the station.”
Mahoe cuffed the chef, handing him over to the officers who’d followed them in.
“Take him back to holding at the station,” Stevens told them. “I have a few more people I need to talk to here.”
“Yes, sir.” The officers accompanied the surly, muttering chef out to the cruiser.
Stevens pulled out his notepad and addressed the young man. “Where’s Sage Bukowski?”
“I don’t know. He was supposed to be in already.” The assistant’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “I gotta do like Chef said.” He darted for the office.
“Mahoe, cover that garlic. It’s giving me a headache.” Stevens looked around as the young man did so, putting a lid on the pan and making sure the overhead hood was turned all the way up. “I need to talk to Bukowski about that group he’s likely a part of. But in the meantime, let’s see if we can verify the report he gave Kathy about the people he saw go in and out of the walk-in.”
“Not many staffers around, though,” Mahoe said.
“Yeah, I guess since the restaurant’s closed, Chef didn’t have many employees working today. Why don’t you cruise through and see if you can find anyone else to question. I’ll talk to this guy here and then we’ll go to Bukowski’s.”
Mahoe nodded and set off. Stevens popped the door of the refrigerator, still barricaded with crime scene tape, and peered inside.
A low-level stench, of spoiling food and old blood, hit his nostrils. Thank God the massive appliance was still on and not at room temperature. He felt sorry for Noriega’s staff—cleaning it was going to be a bitch. Stevens headed for the office just as the assistant chef was exiting.
“I don’t believe we got yours in our first round of statements.” Stevens flashed the smile he used on new trainees to put them at ease. He gestured to the office. “Let’s go in here a minute. Tell me about yourself.” He held up his spiral pad and the stub of pencil.
“Not much to tell. Been working here six months. Name’s Felipe. Felipe Souza.” The man’s throat bobbed again. He was older than he’d at first seemed—at least mid-twenties.
/> “Thanks, Felipe. So what’s your role here? What do you do?”
“I was kitchen prep under François. Now I got promoted.” Souza straightened his apron. A dull red stained his cheekbones. “I wanted to move up, but not this way.”
“Were you working the night of the murder?”
“No, sir. I did stop by to pick up my paycheck that night, though, so a few people might have seen me.”
“What time did you come by the office?” They were standing right outside it, so Stevens turned to look at the door of the refrigerator. “You have a clear line of sight from here. Did you see anyone entering or exiting?”
Souza tipped his chin up a little and shut his eyes as if remembering. “I got here about nine-thirty. We pick up paychecks in our individual locker boxes. Elena puts them in there so we can get them anytime.” He gestured to the row of small steel lockers lining the wall beneath the window into the office. “I don’t remember looking over there. I just came in and went out.”
“Who might have seen you?”
“Debbie, the hostess. She said hi.”
“Thanks. Anything else you think might be important to the investigation? Anything at all.”
“I overheard Kitty and François arguing. They were in the pantry.” He gestured to a niche-like alcove off the main kitchen. “Things were calming down after the rush. Chef was in the office. I could see his outline inside even with the blinds down. I couldn’t help noticing them over there.” He pointed to the alcove as his small dark eyes shifted nervously. “Kitty was begging him not to break up with her. Said he had a good thing going; they were making money, and he’d be crazy to quit their partnership.”
Stevens’s pulse picked up. “And what was Métier saying?”
“He was speaking low, so he was harder to hear—she was pretty loud—but I thought he said he didn’t give a shit, that he was done with her.”
“Did you ever hear anything about marriage? A proposal or a ring?”
“Hell no. He was holding her by the arms, trying to keep her hands off him.”
Stevens flashed to the DNA under Métier’s nails. It was probably Summers’s. “Overhear anything else?”
“Métier noticed me and told her to shut up. Then they were both staring at me. I grabbed my check and left.”
“Thanks. You’ve been very helpful.” He noted the young man’s contact information and bade him goodbye.
Mahoe returned.
“See anyone else?” Stevens asked.
“I got a statement from the exterior cleaner guy. Nothing of interest.”
“Well, I just got a little lucky. Let’s get over to Bukowski’s and hit him up about that group trust thing.” They headed out. On the way to Sage Bukowski’s address, Stevens filled Mahoe in on the statement from Souza.
“I knew there was something off about that porn star,” Mahoe said.
“Gotta agree with you there. Why don’t you contact Dispatch, and we’ll have her picked up for an interview while we do this one? Then we can pound out interviews with both Noriega and Summers at the station.”
Mahoe picked up the radio and called it in.
The GPS guided them to a run-down aqua building deep in the shade of several huge mango trees. The fruity smell of fallen mangoes dotting the base of the tree was thick in Stevens’s nostrils as he and Mahoe climbed the exterior stairs, footsteps ringing on metal treads.
“Sage Bukowski! Maui Police Department,” Mahoe called as he rapped on the door.
No answer.
A pair of better-quality Reef slippers rested on the plain rubber mat, and Mahoe pointed down to a plain white Ford with pipe racks, a couple of kite-boards and windsurfers strapped onto them. “His truck’s in the lot. I checked his vehicle description and plate number before coming here.”
They turned back to face the sun-faded turquoise door.
“Bukowski! We know you’re in there. Open up. Maui Police Department.” Stevens pounded this time. In the next apartment over, the door opened.
“What’s going on?” A pretty young woman in a tank top and shorts poked her head out the door to peer at them.
“Police business,” Mahoe said. She pouted and withdrew into her apartment.
“Try his phone,” Stevens said. Mahoe flipped through his notebook and plugged in a number while Stevens tried to peek between the blinds.
They were rotated shut, but not all the way. He could see a tipped over chair and a shattered lamp on the floor through a narrow slice of view.
“We have a situation in there,” Stevens told Mahoe with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. They heard the distant ringing of Bukowski’s phone inside the apartment. “Exigent circumstances.” Stevens tried the door. It opened and swung inward with an unsettling creak.
Chapter Fifteen
Stevens
Stevens and Mahoe both pulled their weapons in the doorway of Bukowski’s apartment. Stevens stepped in first, walking light on the balls of his feet into the living room. Signs of a struggle showed in the broken lamp and upended chair. He gestured to the hall on the other side of the attached kitchen, and Mahoe went ahead first. A bathroom and a bedroom opened off a short hall, and Mahoe poked his head into the bathroom.
“Clear,” he said.
A metallic, potent smell wafting from the bedroom told Stevens what he’d see when he looked inside.
The room was simply furnished with a queen size bed, dresser, desk, and laundry hamper. Blood spatter decorated the walls in arcs of red droplets, leading the eye to the body on the bed.
Sage Bukowski lay in a pool of black blood that had soaked into the bedding. He was sprawled on the bed facedown, hanging partway off the end, as if he’d fallen there while running to escape. His face was turned to the side, eyes open, and he wore nothing but a pair of board shorts soaked with blood.
He’d been stabbed so many times that the killing blow was going to be tough to determine, but exsanguination was the ultimate result. As they stared at the gruesome sight, a large, iridescent fly drifted casually over to land on the victim’s open eye.
Stevens leaned forward to inspect the body and swished it away. “Amazing how flies always manage to get in so quickly. From the color of the blood, I’m guessing this happened yesterday.”
Mahoe didn’t respond, and Stevens glanced at his young partner. His brown complexion had yellowed.
“Yeah. Looks like it.” Mahoe gulped a couple of times. “I’ll go get the barrier tape and call for Dr. G and backup.” He fled.
Stevens stepped carefully over the blood trace on the worn carpet to lean closely over the body, counting the stab wounds. He lost track at twenty-two. The murder weapon, another of those expensive chef’s knives, protruded from Bukowski’s back, elevated and clearly stuck in a rib, protruding at an almost jaunty angle.
Unlike the almost surgical precision of the Métier killing, rage was written all over this crime scene. This was what he’d have expected from someone with Chef Noriega’s temper—but why would the chef kill Bukowski? Because of the blog? Perhaps Bukowski had known more than he’d told them about Métier’s murder?
Stevens straightened up, reflexively shooing the fly again. He surveyed the room carefully from his position near the body. The blood spatter was extensive, and no attempt had been made to hide or clean up the crime.
He slipped on a pair of gloves and, stepping carefully to avoid the blood on the carpet, moved to the side of the bed, his gaze drifting over the entire corpse.
One of Bukowski’s hands was clenched in the covers. Near it were some smears, standing out because of their straight lines. Stevens circled again, bending to look down at them.
From above, they looked a whole lot like a K.
“Kitty Summers?” Stevens looked over at Sage Bukowski’s slack face, feeling a pang at how young and handsome he’d been. Funny and smart, too. The kid had had a lot of potential. “Were you trying to tell us something?”
He straightened up and di
d a long, slow survey of the room, his gaze stopping at a woman’s gold bangle bracelet lying on the carpet beside the bed.
Wasn’t Bukowski gay?
Stevens pulled a pair of gloves out of his pocket, padded carefully over, and picked up the bracelet in his gloved fingers, peering inside for an inscription. Happy birthday, Kitty! Love, Mom and Dad twined around the inside in delicate script.
“Mahoe! Bring my kit!” Stevens yelled.
“Doc’s on his way. I’m on it, boss!” Stevens heard the clatter of the young man’s feet on the stairs for a second time as he ran to obey.
A few minutes later, they were both combing through the room, dropping markers at spots to take blood samples from later, and Mahoe was handling himself well by keeping focused on the task. Backup arrived, and Stevens set them to securing the area and canvassing the rest of the building for information on who might have visited Bukowski—this murder couldn’t have been quiet.
He also called in an urgent APB on Kitty Summers.
“So, didn’t Kathy interview Bukowski yesterday?” Mahoe asked, picking up a hair near the body with a pair of tweezers and sliding it into a small evidence bag.
“Must have happened that evening.” Stevens photographed the bloody markings near the man’s hand. He frowned as he shot the hand, the bunched covers, the wobbly K done in blood. How would the dying man have had the presence of mind to pull that off?
Dr. Gregory arrived with Dr. Tanaka. Today’s shirt was purple with cartoon rainbows. Stevens felt a smile tug at his mouth in spite of the circumstances. “Where do you find those atrocities, Dr. G?”
The doc’s eyes swept the room. “eBay, mostly,” he said absently, scanning the scene. He approached the body. “Someone wanted this guy good and dead. Went all Dexter on his ass.”
“Not pretty. Everything’s pointing to a porn star waitress he worked with at Feast. But why is another story.” Stevens filled the medical examiner in as both he and Tanaka moved forward to investigate. “I haven’t touched him. There was plenty to keep us busy just looking around the room here.”