by Toby Neal
“Got a little tissue under his nails.” Dr. G picked up one of the hands, shining a penlight on the fingertips. “Maybe he got a sample of the killer for us.”
Tanaka, her elegant form graceful as a dancer’s, bent and opened a kit. She slid on plastic bags to cover the hands. “We’ll pull what we find and have it sent to Oahu for DNA testing.”
“There wasn’t any useful trace on the other body. Let’s hope we get lucky with this one,” Stevens said. “Just doing a visual, what do you think time of death was?”
“Sometime yesterday evening or later.” Dr. Gregory dropped the man’s arm. “Rigor is almost gone. Happens faster in this heat.”
The ME and his assistant dusted the handle of the murder weapon for prints. Dr. G removed it with a grunt. “Stuck in the bone.”
He handed it to Stevens, who bagged it. Dr. G rolled the body with Tanaka’s help to check liver temp. Stevens scanned the front of the body. “Several of these strokes went all the way through.”
“Like your other body,” Dr. Gregory said. The ME continued to prep the body for transport as Stevens and Mahoe did a quick search of the room.
The radio on Mahoe’s hip crackled to life, apprising them that Kitty Summers had been picked up at her apartment.
Stevens straightened up from looking under the bed, arching with his fists on his lower back to stretch his spine. A brief flash of Lei doing the same thing, the curve of her belly echoing the arc of her back, distracted him. Protect them, please, God. Don’t let anything go wrong. “Nothing more this scene can tell us at the moment. Let’s go grill Summers and Noriega.”
Chef Noriega was pacing back and forth in the interview room when they arrived. Keone Chapman, his lawyer, set down the digital tablet he’d been working on and rose to his feet.
“You took long enough,” he greeted Stevens and Mahoe. “I was going to lodge a complaint in another five minutes.”
Stevens ignored this as Mahoe turned on the recording equipment and Mirandized the chef after he sat down at the table. Stevens studied the man, his gaze wandering over the powerfully built chef with his air of barely leashed aggression.
Noriega had dark circles under his eyes, and the knuckles of his right hand were bruised and scuffed. He’d hurt his hand beating his wife. Anger tightened Stevens’s gut.
“Where were you last night?”
“At the restaurant,” Noriega said.
“Can anyone verify that?”
The chef just snorted. “I was doing some reduction sauces for when we’re open again. I had two helpers.” He gave names and Stevens noted them.
“What is your relationship with Sage Bukowski?”
“Sage?” The chef’s eyebrows lifted, intelligent brown eyes going wide. “What’s he got to do with anything?”
“Just answer the question,” Mahoe barked.
“He’s an okay runner and busser. Does his shifts as scheduled. Gay, and a gossip. Thought he might be the blogger, but I didn’t have any proof or I’d have fired the guy,” Noriega said.
Stevens resumed the thread. “So when did you get off work and go home last night?”
“I got done at nine and went home. I went straight home last night as soon as the kitchen closed down.”
“So you could beat your wife?” Stevens locked eyes with Noriega in a hostile stare.
“No comment,” Keone Chapman answered for his client.
“What are you holding me here for?” Noriega snapped.
“Assault and battery.”
“Elena won’t press charges.”
“She doesn’t have to. We’re bringing them against you for her.”
“I want to see the arrest warrant,” Chapman said.
“It’s pending. We’re holding you until your arraignment Monday, when you can see about bail.”
Stevens rose. They weren’t getting anything more out of Noriega with Chapman muzzling him, and if he’d been at Feast all evening, he couldn’t have killed Bukowski. Elena had already told Stevens that Noriega had come home at nine-fifteen p.m., when their fight had begun. “Have a nice weekend.”
He left Chapman trying to soothe the enraged chef.
Stevens poked his head into the observation room, where Captain Omura was tapping on her phone. “That was brief and not amazing,” Omura said.
“Sorry, Captain, but he’s got an alibi. We need to check it, verify the trace from the room and the body. That’s what will win this case.”
“Well, bring in the porn star, then.” She made a shooing motion.
Stevens turned to Mahoe. “Book Noriega into jail and put Summers in the interview room.”
“You got it, LT.” The young detective hurried off.
They were about to close this case, and Stevens needed to be at the top of his game. He headed for the break room and found it mercifully empty. He poured himself a cup of thick coffee and took a couple of ibuprofen—the headache was back.
Stevens shut the door of the break room and did some stretches, working the muscles of his side and back, where his gunshot injury had left stiffness and scar tissue. He hung his head upside down for a few minutes to get circulation going, a post-traumatic brain injury strategy his doctor had suggested to increase alertness. Fifty jumping jacks and another fifty push-ups later, he felt ready for the next interview.
Kitty Summers was already seated with her lawyer, Davida Fuller, a strong litigator. The athletic attorney looked stylish in a black jumpsuit with a massive turquoise necklace. She stood as he entered, reaching out to shake his hand in an overly hard grip. “Lieutenant Stevens.”
“Ms. Fuller. Nice to see you again,” Stevens lied. “Detective Mahoe, have you apprised Ms. Summers of her rights?”
“I have, Lieutenant.”
Stevens checked that the recording equipment was on, then, waded in. “So. Kitty. A lot has happened since we met you in the victim’s apartment a few days ago.”
“Really? What kind of a lot?” Kitty blinked wide blue eyes. She wore a simple chambray sundress and little makeup, going for an innocent look, but no bra—those round, pointed tits couldn’t be real. “I was just minding my own business when your officers busted into my apartment and brought me here . . . for what?”
Stevens ignored that. “Tell us, for the record, about your relationship with François Métier.”
“We were lovers. Going to be more than lovers.” Kitty eyed Stevens defiantly. “He was going to ask me to marry him.” Summers’s bravado was unconvincing.
“And you knew this—how?” Stevens leaned forward.
“I saw the ring. On the day he was killed, actually. I knew he was just waiting for the right moment to ask me.”
“Ah. Are you sure it was you he was getting ready to ask?”
Summers flushed and glanced at Fuller. “Of course it was me.”
“Interesting. Because we have information from reliable sources that Métier had his heart set on someone else and was breaking up with you—in spite of your mutually lucrative porn business.”
“You don’t have to answer,” Fuller told Summers. “Just say ‘no comment.’ They have to prove their case with evidence.”
Stevens pressed on. “Where were you yesterday evening?”
“At work.” Kitty fiddled with a charm bracelet on her wrist.
“I thought the restaurant was shut down?”
“My other job. Video production.”
Stevens felt Mahoe give a little jerk beside him. He’d give him a lecture later about reacting visibly to a suspect’s disclosures.
“Acting or producing?” Stevens said.
“Both. We did some of both yesterday.”
“Seems like you were really brokenhearted over Métier’s death,” Mahoe said. “Must have been tough to get back in the saddle with another man so soon. In a manner of speaking.”
Fuller frowned at Mahoe. “Your sarcastic attitude does you no credit.”
“The videos are work,” Summers snapped. “Not a re
lationship. Not like with François.”
“So who were you with? And during what hours?”
Stevens jotted down the names and times. Summers could have had time to go stab Bukowski. “So how well did you know Sage Bukowski?”
“Sage?” Kitty raised her brows. “Not well. He’s that busboy and food runner with the dreads, right?”
Stevens narrowed his eyes. “He’s the blogger who wrote about Feast. And he certainly knew a lot about you.”
Summers shrugged. “Oh, he was the blogger? I enjoyed following it. And if he called me a porn star now and again on the blog…Well, it’s true.” She examined her nails.
“So you two never had a problem with each other?”
“No.”
“So what was your gold bracelet doing near his bed?”
Summers looked up, completely blank. “What?”
“Show us this item,” Fuller demanded. “And why were you in Sage Bukowski’s place, anyway?”
“Because we found him murdered today,” Stevens said. “With the same kind of weapon that was used on Métier.” Both women gasped. Stevens gestured to Mahoe. “Bring the bracelet and photos in from evidence, please.”
“Right away, LT.” Mahoe left.
Stevens stared at the two women, waiting for one of them to attempt an explanation. The bracelet, so conveniently inscribed, seemed like overkill paired with a K written in blood, but this interview was the only place to start to find answers—and as he’d told Mahoe, most times the obvious was the obvious.
“I didn’t do anything.” Summers lifted her hands in a “surrender” gesture. “I barely knew the guy. I swear.”
“So why did he spell out the letter ‘K’ in blood on his sheets?”
The color drained from Summers’s face. She looked ready to keel over. Davida Fuller grasped the woman firmly by the shoulder. “I’m directing my client not to answer any more questions. This interview is over.”
“We’re done when I say we’re done,” Stevens said. “Kitty Summers, you’re under arrest for the murders of François Métier and Sage Bukowski. You had the means, motive, and opportunity to do these murders.”
“Circumstantial,” Fuller argued. “The bracelet could have been planted.”
“And the victim writing your client’s initial in blood?”
Silence from Fuller, then: “Lots of names begin with ‘K.’ And it could have been done postmortem, by another party.”
“I didn’t do it!” Kitty shrieked. She covered her face and began to sob. “Why would I kill either of them?”
“We can think of lots of reasons,” Stevens said. The door opened, admitting Mahoe. The junior detective tipped the bracelet out of its evidence bag onto the table, and it spun in a little circle before coming to rest.
“I left that bracelet in my locker at work and I haven’t seen it in days. I have no idea how Sage Bukowski had it.” She hunched over, covering her face again. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Where were you last night? Take us through it step-by-step. Again.” Stevens was relentless. Summers was an actress, after all, and histrionics were bound to be part of her repertoire. The scene had looked staged to him, but until he had a way to rule Summers out, he had to follow the evidence.
Fuller blocked his further questions doggedly, and finally he directed Mahoe to put Summers through the booking process into the county jail until her arraignment.
“Get me out of here!” Summers wept to Fuller as Mahoe put cuffs on her and led her out by an elbow. “Please, do something.”
“You’ll be fine. We’ll get you out on Monday,” Fuller assured her. Mahoe shut the door, and the sounds of her sobs were cut off.
Stevens was alone with Fuller. The attorney narrowed her hazel gaze at him. “Kitty is a lot of things, but she’s not a killer. I’ll tear a hole in your case so wide you could drive a Mack truck through it.”
Stevens leaned back, widening his chest and crossing his arms so that his muscles bulked up. Fuller mirrored his posture, and damn if she didn’t have some fine arms. He felt a reluctant smile tug up one side of his mouth—Fuller was earning his respect.
“That’s between you and the DA, Ms. Fuller. I like Summers for it. As I said: means and motive on Métier. A witness saw her begging him not to break up with her, and another witness saw them go into the walk-in. She could easily have stuck him in the ribs from behind and wiped the handle. Sage Bukowski, now, that was a brutal slaying. Lotta rage behind it, total loss of control. Good luck getting her out of this.” He stood, picking up his notebook. “See you in court.”
“Yes, you will.” Fuller followed him out, walking to the front of the building as he headed upstairs to his office.
Kathy was at her computer, looking serious. A huge bouquet of roses took up one corner of her desk.
“Whoa.” Stevens leaned over for a sniff. “Got an admirer?”
“Is that so strange?” Kathy snapped.
“Not at all.” Stevens continued to his desk. “Just haven’t seen such a big ‘morning after’ bouquet like that on your desk before.”
“Wasn’t a morning after,” she muttered. “We haven’t even kissed.”
Stevens booted up his computer. “Forget I said anything. I’m just putting my foot in it. You deserve some fun and happiness.”
“Glad you think so. Since it’s your brother who sent the roses.”
Stevens turned to fully face Kathy. Her dark blue eyes blazed at him from across the space between the desks. “Yeah. Jared sent the flowers. We’re dating and it’s not going away. Get used to it.”
Words jostled behind his teeth, but Stevens bit them all back.
There was nothing he could say that would go over well. Truth was, he’d said his piece to Jared. If his brother had made a move and Kathy liked him, great. And if Jared broke her heart and made things tougher in his office . . .
“Hey, that’s great.” Stevens infused his tone with warmth. “Jared’s a good guy. And if he doesn’t treat you right, I’ll kick his ass.”
Kathy smiled. “You won’t have to. I can do my own ass-kicking.”
Chapter Sixteen
Wayne
Wayne
Wayne drove out to Teo’s farm the following day, noticing the increasingly gusty wind and gathering clouds. That tropical depression was definitely on its way.
His friend had a crew out harvesting. Workers in wide hats and long sleeves bent over, weeding and harvesting though a sprawling patch of summer squash, the plants’ palmate leaves flecked with white like paint.
“Hey.” Teo pushed his ball cap up and wiped his gleaming forehead with his arm, leaving a streak of iron-rich red dirt. “Come to see what I’ve got?”
“Yeah. Looks like squash. I can make that work.”
“For starters. Follow me.”
Wayne had to stretch his legs to keep up with the shorter man as he moved rapidly down the heavily mulched path between rows. “So you doing okay with Feast not ordering anymore?”
“Yeah. I picked up one of those farm-to-table grocery delivery box services,” Teo said over his shoulder. “They’re coming by every time I call and taking all I give them.”
“Nice. Such a cool way for people to get the best produce coming right to their homes. We get a lot of fruit a couple times a year out at our place; wonder if they’d be interested in picking up from us? We can only eat so many avocados and oranges.”
“Sure. I’ll give you the number.”
Teo led Wayne to the section devoted to string beans. “Got some nice multicolor beans ready. They look good in a chilled salad.”
“I’m all over it.” Wayne shook open his canvas harvesting bag and Teo helped fill it.
“Your son-in-law never contacted me,” Teo said.
“Really? I told him you’d be a good person to talk to.”
“Well, I’m worried about my contact at Feast, Felipe Souza. I wouldn’t call him a friend, but I know him fairly well, and the
kid is really rattled by what’s happening over there.” Teo’s strong brown hands moved at twice the speed Wayne’s did, reaching in to pluck yellow, purple, and green string bean pods from among the vines. “There’s been another body?”
“Yeah. Sage Bukowski. My son-in-law told me.” Stevens had called him briefly with that update to the case. “He was a busboy at the restaurant.” Wayne shook his bag to help the beans settle further in, enjoying the familiar tug of pleasure that the rich smells of earth and growing things brought him. He had a small plot going at the house, but since starting his restaurant, he hadn’t had time to develop it any further. He kept it planted in lettuce and tomatoes for home use.
Ellen liked to garden, too. Often when she came over, she’d go out and weed, water, or harvest. He smiled, remembering her slender figure, sun bright on silver-blond hair as she sprayed the plants with a hose and turned to laugh at something he’d said. He wasn’t sure when their friendship had begun to change, and he wasn’t sure if his growing feelings were reciprocated. But she’d been the one to keep hold of his hand at dinner the other night…
Teo’s voice pulled him back to the present. “Well, Felipe knew Sage pretty well. Sometimes Bukowski would come with him to pick up vegetables for the restaurant, and they were tight, from what I could tell.”
“Probably really upsetting to hear his friend had been murdered,” Wayne said. The hot sun on his head made him wish he’d remembered a hat.
“It’s more than that. I think Souza’s hiding something. Maybe he knows something about who did it,” Teo said.
This caught Wayne’s attention fully. He glanced at his friend’s sun-seamed face, shaded by the bill of his worn hat. “What makes you think so?”
“He’s always been the one to keep me up to speed on what’s happening over at that restaurant. Yesterday he came by. Chef wanted some fresh garlic, which I had. But Felipe was just not right. Totally shaky. Seemed like he couldn’t even remember his own name.”
“Huh.” They’d reached the end of the row and switched to the next one as Wayne filled his second bag. “I’ll call Stevens and remind him to contact you and pass this on.”