by Toby Neal
The corrugated metal hit a parked car and the alarm went off. C.J. called in a unit to secure the area as Mahoe turned the cruiser into the older jail facility in Wailuku, a low complex of metal-roofed buildings inside a fence topped with double layers of razor wire.
“Let’s see what kind of interviewee Kitty is,” C.J. said after they were admitted, following a correctional officer down a hall lit by dim emergency lighting since the power was out. “She might do better with me as bad cop.”
“I think so, from what I can tell at our other interview.” Mahoe gave her a sideways glance. “Summers doesn’t like other women and thinks she can manipulate men.”
This was a surprise—maybe Mahoe had more going on upstairs than she’d given him credit for. C.J. nodded in acknowledgment and let Mahoe request the prisoner and an interview room.
In the bare cubicle with its bolted-down table and chairs, C.J. resisted reminding Mahoe to Mirandize the suspect as Summers was brought in, looking sallow and unkempt in prison orange. Summers would never be pegged as a porn star now. Her straggling blond hair showed roots, and without makeup, she looked a homely fourteen.
She was also sporting a black eye.
Mahoe turned on a recording device after greeting her warmly and reciting the Miranda warning. C.J. was glad she’d bitten her tongue on reminding him.
“How are you holding up, Kitty?” he asked, all sympathy.
“Are you here to let me out?” Summers’s blue eyes darted toward the door. “I want to lodge a complaint. I was assaulted by another prisoner.”
“This is jail. What did you expect, a Holiday Inn?” C.J. smiled without humor. “We’ll pass your concerns on to the management.” Ah, bad cop. Her favorite role.
“I’m so sorry that happened, Kitty. For sure we’ll let the CO know you’re being harassed. We’re just here to get your help on the case, though, unfortunately,” Mahoe said. He had a cute face when he smiled, square and earnest, and if he dressed better, the kid wouldn’t be half bad. “Some new information came in, and we have someone in custody.”
“Oh, yeah?” Summers lit up, obviously thrilled she was no longer suspect number one. “How can I help?”
“Take us through your talk at Feast with the first victim on the day of the murder,” C.J. said. “We found a few discrepancies between your original story and some eyewitness testimony.”
“Oh. Well, yeah.” Summers pushed her lank hair back behind her ears. “I’ve had a little time to think in here, and I want to revise my statement.”
“Please. We appreciate that.” Mahoe made an encouraging hand gesture.
“Okay. I wasn’t totally candid earlier. François was the one doing the sabotage at the restaurant—not the cash register ripoff, though. That was someone else.” Summers told them how François would get mad at Chef and “accidents” would happen in the restaurant. “François wanted everything Chef had, from the restaurant to Elena Noriega. He was obsessed.”
“So tell us again about the night Metier was killed.”
“François was breaking up with me. We argued. I wanted him to give me another chance, but he told me he was serious about someone else. Elena Noriega. He showed me the ring.” Summers’s eyes filled, and she covered her face. “I was devastated.”
At last they knew who the ring was for. “And what else?” C.J. prodded, unimpressed by the woman’s crocodile tears.
“I followed him into the walk-in. The door was open, but they had the plastic cold retention panels hanging over the entrance. I knew we were alone in there, and I begged him not to go ahead with it. I told him Chef would come after him if he tried to steal his wife as well as his recipes. I guess Chef did.” Summers looked at them triumphantly. “Maybe Chef overheard us? I thought he was in his office, but maybe he came in and stabbed François after I left . . .”
“Hmm, seems possible. Please continue,” Mahoe said.
“Well, he said he’d think about what I said. He was looking for some scallions for his sauce. I left, and I passed Chef on the way toward the walk-in. That was the last time I saw François.” More tears spilled.
“Interesting.” C.J. reached into her pocket and removed the device that André Métier had directed them to find in his interview earlier in the day. “This phone was retrieved from Sage Bukowski’s apartment.”
The color drained from Summers’s face.
“Perhaps you’d like to tell us what’s on this recording?” Mahoe prompted gently. “We haven’t listened to it yet.” A lie, but then, investigators were allowed to manipulate the truth in their quest for answers once the suspect had been apprised of his or her rights.
Summers covered her face with her hands.
C.J. thumbed to the voice memo feature. “I really want to hear what’s recorded that’s worth killing for.”
Summers sat back. Folded her arms on her chest. “I’m done talking.”
“Let’s listen together, then, shall we?” C.J. pressed Play on the time-stamped, dated recording and turned up the volume.
A rustling sound. Voices arguing, getting clearer. “Please, François. I’m begging you. Don’t do this.” Summers’s voice.
“I told you, Kitty. It’s over. Show some dignity and get the hell out of here.” Métier’s tone was cold and haughty. “Unless you know where my scallions are?” C.J. could tell by the sound quality that he’d turned away.
There was a sudden, deep grunt—a shocked sound of pain—and then a heavy thud. “You stabbed me,” Métier gasped, the last word bubbling into silence. They also heard the shocked intake of breath made by Sage Bukowski as he recorded the events.
“Here are your scallions, you arrogant prick.” The sound of a kick, followed by a moan. “You had it coming.” Summers’s voice sounded rich with vicious satisfaction.
A whispered, “Oh my God,” in Bukowski’s Brit accent. A rush of feet. The recording ended.
Bukowski had hotfooted it out of the doorway and back to his workstation before Summers discovered him.
Summers tightened her lips and glared defiantly. “I’m not sure what I was hearing there. A court won’t be sure, either.”
“Oh, I’m pretty confident we can reconstruct the events in a convincing way and match these voiceprints to you, Métier, and Bukowski.” C.J. leaned forward. “Tell us about your relationship with Sage Bukowski. Again. Since your testimony was that you hardly knew the guy.”
“I did hardly know the guy.”
“So you didn’t go to his apartment after he threatened you with this recording, and murder him?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, he didn’t die right away after you stabbed him. He left evidence that you killed him—your bracelet and the letter ‘K’ written on the sheet of his bed in his own blood. These things you already know.” The color had drained from Summers’s face, leaving her harshly plain in the dim glow of the emergency lighting. “And that’s not all,” C.J. went on. “He’d told his cousin about recording the murder and called him to come over and join him when he met with you about the blackmail. The cousin, who you know as Felipe Souza, was late getting there—which gave you time to kill Bukowski. But Souza was in time to hear Bukowski name you as the murderer.”
“Bullshit. Bukowski was dead when I left. Dead, dead, dead!” Summers screamed, cords standing out in her neck. The woman was close to coming unglued, but they had her now.
C.J. smiled—a slow, wide smile. Yes, she’d missed this part of the job.
Summers hunched forward and covered her face with her hands. “Oh God. I need a lawyer.”
“You sure you don’t want to share your version of the events?” Mahoe asked. “Must be so stressful carrying those memories around inside you.”
“Think I don’t know what you’re trying to do?” Kitty sat up. Her eyes were dry, her expression defiant.
“We can show that Sage Bukowski was spying on you at Feast, gathering information for his blog. He followed you to the entrance of the walk-
in, recording you on his phone for his gossip column, and inadvertently recorded the murder on voice memo. He decided to blackmail you. You went to his apartment and killed him for the recording, which, ironically, was in his back pocket the whole time. Souza found it there when he arrived too late to save his cousin. If you hadn’t been so busy stabbing him, you might have found it.” C.J. tapped her nails on her folio. “Souza found the phone instead and set you up by planting the bracelet and writing the letter ‘K’ with the victim’s blood.”
“I want a lawyer!” Summers looked up at the surveillance camera’s round eye in the ceiling. “Guard! I’m being harassed by these police officers!” Summers screamed full volume. C.J.’s ears rang.
The CO appeared in the doorway. “What’s the problem here, ma`am?” He addressed C.J.
“You can call me ‘sir’ or Captain, thank you. This witness is going back. Put her in solitary. For her own protection. Since she’s been assaulted by someone in gen pop.”
“Yes, sir.”
Summers’s eyes went wide. “Solitary?” The blond woman was hustled past them by the correctional officer.
Summers gone, Mahoe turned off the equipment. C.J. stood, brushing down her uniform briskly—just being in this room, made her feel dirty.
“We got her,” she told Mahoe, and grinned. “That was fun.”
Esther
Esther had decided to ride out the storm in her teaching room, the safest room in the house. Added on below the upper floor, the room was a solid heavy wood bunker with small, louvered windows set high around the ceiling to admit light and air flow—but no glass anywhere.
Esther unfolded her trusty futon mattress and toted her bedding downstairs. She set her bed up in the middle of the room on a lauhala mat. She brought in a hurricane lantern for when the power went out, as it always did during big storms in Wainiha. She filled the two bathtubs and all her spare jars with water, in case the water went out, too.
She would never forget the two hurricanes she’d lived through in this house: Iwa in 1982, and Iniki in 1992. Her home, built on heavy recycled telephone pole pilings sunk deep into Wainiha’s valley walls, had only lost some roof and a few windows—but many trees had fallen to block the road, and she and her family had been trapped in the valley for days without power or water.
Her beloved Kimo had been with her then. This time she would be alone.
Her daughter, Lehua, had called, offering to come over, and so had her grandson, Alika; but she preferred solitude in times like these. Solitude to meditate, pray, and to feel the feelings that rode through her—and solitude to ride the winds from a spirit body.
Esther took her precious collection of Hawaiian musical instruments down from the narrow shelves, in case the wind got bad, and stacked them against the wall. She’d already secured the garden beds and the chickens, and had kenneled the dogs.
Now it was time to wait—and pray.
Esther sat down and got comfortable on her teaching pillow, a plump little round that made it easier for her to sit cross-legged. She closed her eyes and alternated murmuring the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23, bringing herself into a calm place of listening trust.
The wind grew louder, keening around the louvers like a lost wild creature. Torrents pounded on the leaves of the sheltering kukui nut and mango trees near her house. Fingers of breeze teased in through the high louvers and swirled around her with the promise of movement.
Esther flew up from her seated position as an iwa, a great black-winged frigate bird, rose above the sturdy roof of her house to soar over the valley. From her bird’s-eye view, she could see that the Wainiha River was already swollen and brown, surging against the metal bridge, making it hum with the pressure of water pushing against the struts.
She rode the winds easily with just little adjustments of her wings or tail, all the way to the estate outside of Kapaa, where Alika lived. She glimpsed him through the window just above the ground in the downstairs wine cellar he’d built for that showplace of a house. He was stripped to the waist, pumping weights to pass the time—and his once-broken body was magnificent again. She could hear music cranked up loud to drown out the sound of the storm.
After all of Alika’s injuries and heartbreak, Esther was blessed to remember that he was healthy and strong now. He is safe.
Esther flew on, past turgid waterfalls and whipping coconut palms to the sturdy cabin in Kilauea, snug against the lee of a sheltering hill that Sean Wolcott had built for her daughter, Lehua. She swished by their windows and saw the couple playing cards on a picnic cloth in front of a wood-burning stove. They are safe.
She flew to check on more friends and relatives, finally turning the bird’s sharp, long-sighted gaze toward Maui—but that was too far away to see.
Esther felt the dilation of that inner eye that meant a knowing was imminent. She left the body of the iwa and returned to her sanctum. She smiled at the fancy of her imagination that allowed her to soar with the birds—but sometimes it felt so real that she was sure she really could. Esther closed her eyes, waiting, and a moment later, that inner knowing eye opened.
Once more she saw Lei straining in labor—and this time, Esther knew she was seeing events in real time.
The storm was just as strong on Maui as it was as on Kaua`i. Water pummeled the land. The wind winnowed and thrashed, tossing trees whose roots struggled to grip the deeply drenched soil. A huge tree fell, trapping the little family inside the house.
“Oh, Lord, please protect them,” Esther prayed. “And whatever happens, give me the name of their child. They need that name, no matter what. You’ve always been so faithful to tell me before.”
She opened her eyes. The studio had gone dim beneath the sheets of rain and howling wind. She heard nothing but the chaotic voice of the storm.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lei
Lei struggled to stay in her body, not to dissociate, even as she was racked with pressure and pain in a way she couldn’t have prepared for. A stretch of measureless time went by, filled by increasingly long contractions and shorter rest periods. Tiare coached her through the wrenching cramps. Stevens comforted her with his solid physical presence. Thus she endured. There was no room in this terrible landscape for anything else.
And then it was time to push. Just like Tiare had said, the urge was unstoppable, the need to rid herself of the massive bulge in her belly beyond any extremity.
Voices said things to her, hands supported her, but Lei was barely aware. She bore down with all her strength, biting her lip and tasting blood, struggling forward through a red haze to some unknown promised land, pressed against Michael’s chest, riding it out in his arms.
A cresting of agony was followed by a whoosh of relief.
Lei collapsed, eyes shut, unable to even lift her head as Tiare exclaimed, “You did it! It’s a girl!”
She felt Michael weeping, shudders of joy and relief trembling through his arms as they held her. Then Tiare unbuttoned Lei’s shirt and set the baby, warm and slippery, on her chest.
Lei struggled to focus, feeling disoriented. Was the ordeal really over?
Her arms came up to hold the baby purely by reflex, and Stevens scooted her to sit higher in his lap, cuddling them both close.
Lei finally opened her eyes and looked down.
Their daughter had a lot of wet, curly brown hair, and she’d hunched her tiny body like a turtle. Her eyes were tightly shut, but she began snuffling and rooting, clearly looking for something.
“See if she’ll nurse,” Tiare directed. “That helps the placenta be delivered.”
Stevens helped Lei put the baby to her breast, where she clamped on with vigor, making Lei jump and both of them laugh.
“Rosie,” Lei said tentatively. Lei didn’t recognize her own voice, it was so raspy and tired. They’d decided on Rosie for a girl, a shortened version of her beloved aunt’s name. She tried out the word again. “Rosie. You’re really here.”
As if she reco
gnized her mother calling her name, Rosie opened cloudy, dark eyes. They fixed on Lei’s face. Her tiny hand spread on Lei’s skin. Lei felt a prickle of tears and a swelling sensation in her chest.
“My beautiful baby girl,” she whispered. “Hello, darling.”
The afterbirth arrived with no fuss, and Tiare gathered the linens and tidied up efficiently. “I’m trying the phones again. You both did fantastic.” With kind tactfulness, Tiare left them and shut the door.
“You did it,” Stevens murmured into Lei’s ear, looking down at Rosie’s face. “You were amazing.”
“We did it.” Lei turned her head. His lips met hers in a tender kiss. “And she’s here now, and all that’s behind us.”
“Never to be repeated, if I have anything to say about it.” Stevens pushed Lei gently upright and eased out from behind her. “My nerves couldn’t take doing this ever again.”
“What? You don’t want to get started on another one?” Lei grinned, settling the baby closer. “It was no big deal.”
“No big deal. Right.” Stevens held out his arms so she could see the marks on them, bruised by Lei’s relentless squeezing. “And I lost a patch of hair, too.” He shuddered, lying down on his belly beside Lei to watch Rosie nursing. “I was a wreck the whole time.”
“You were a rock, you mean. You kept me going. And Tiare! What a saint.” Lei couldn’t tear her gaze away from Rosie’s sweet, tiny face as the baby nursed. “I can’t believe how strong she is.”
Stevens reached out a long finger to touch the baby’s cheek. “She seems to know what she wants. Takes after her mama.”
“What would we have done without Tiare?”
“I think I heard my name.” Tiare opened the door carefully, balancing a plastic basin of warm water on her hip. “Stevens, you get to bathe the baby when she’s done nursing.”
The wind and rain seemed to be backing off, and the premature dusk had given way to weak afternoon sunlight when Rosie finished her first meal and burped delicately. Lei watched as Stevens took his tiny daughter and bathed her carefully in the shallow plastic basin, clearly enraptured. The baby didn’t even cry, just looked up at her father from eyes Lei could tell were going to be big and brown.