Big Island Blues

by Terry Ambrose

  I extended a fist toward Alexander. He ignored it, chuckling instead. “I think maybe McKenna don’t like talking about periods.”

  Benni snorted. “Serious?” She stared at me.

  My cheeks felt hot. I supposed women talked about that kind of stuff all the time, but I wasn’t one of the girls and we weren’t going to share hoo-hoos about cramps and bloating and all that homicidal maniac stuff that happens during The Week. Right now, unless we were talking about the end of a sentence or a hockey game, I’d have to find alternatives for my use of the P word.

  Alexander didn’t seem fazed. “Benni, this makin’ McKenna uncomfortable. Look at him, he’s all queasy like.”

  “I’m fine.” But, he was right. I was queasy. And it wasn’t the P word. No, this talk of being Benni’s secret agent had me worried on every level. I could lose my best friend if I botched this. I could alienate a mother and daughter. I could—oh, boy, could I. So many things could go wrong. The more I heard, the less this sounded like anything more than a mother-daughter tiff. “She only said she was going to the store?”

  “What about her dad?” asked Alexander. “Did she go visit him maybe?”

  After a long pause, Benni waved away our questions. “You know what, I can’t ask you to do this. If she finds out I’m having her followed, she’ll go ballistic.”

  I was stunned. We’d flown to this island at her request, she was worried to death, and now we weren’t going to help? “But, I thought you were desperate for help. That’s what Alexander told me.” I shot a glance at my best friend. He was avoiding my gaze by staring at the pavement, his face red. I should have been pissed, but his desperation to help his sister made sense. “You lied to me.”

  “Sorry,” he said as he glanced at me.

  I gave him a gentle punch on the arm. “It’s okay. I understand.”

  “Snoopy? You told me you two were coming over for the jazz festival anyway. I told you I’d think about having McKenna help—not take over. You lied to him? And me? This is getting out of hand. I don’t want to make things worse with my daughter.” She straightened up and took a deep breath. “What matters is that you’re here. Are you two ready to go?”

  The uncertainty on Benni’s face, the worry in her voice, they both had me wondering if there was more to this situation than Benni was letting on. I filed my doubts away until Alexander and I could talk. Until I could ask those questions, it was time to be a good guest. “I’m ready.”

  The brakes on the shuttle bus pulling to a stop in the loading area squealed and Benni jumped, glared at the bus for a second, then swore. “Damn busses!” A second later, she winced. “Sorry, I overreacted.” She gave me a weak smile. “My little brother’s been bragging about you solving murders, McKenna. I’ll deal with finding Andi. And, my client’s not your problem either. All you two need to do this week is enjoy some jazz. Andi’s band is going to be hot this weekend!”

  I kept my mouth shut. Benni’s bravado and cheerful attitude were clearly for our benefit. There was something so wrong with this whole situation and from what I could tell, this was shaping up to be anything but a “no worries” trip.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We walked to Benni’s car, three sets of slippas clip-clopping on the already scorching asphalt. The rest of the world calls this type of footwear flip flops. I have a simple response—chillax—chill out and relax, which is exactly what I figured I wouldn’t be doing for the duration of our stay on the Big Island.

  While Benni and Alexander chatted, I brought up the rear. “Snoopy” seemed to make his sister laugh easily despite the tenseness hanging over everything. Alexander had told me they hadn’t seen each other in years, so I wanted them to have time together during our short stay. They were reminiscing about their childhood when we reached the car. Benni unlocked her door and I yelled, “Shotgun!”

  They both jumped and gawked at me. “What da kine?” said Alexander. “You calling shotgun on me?”

  I shook my head. “I’m calling shotgun for you. I’m riding in back so you two can catch up.” Let’s leave out the fact that riding in back would let me watch Benni’s eyes in the mirror when I slipped in an occasional question about Andi. I’d be watching for a rapid change, anything from happy to sad or spontaneous to hesitant. I would be watching for exactly what the Big Island is known for, stark contrasts.

  “Hey, Benni,” I said. “I heard that you can drive to the snow on Mauna Kea in the morning, gather up a few buckets of the white stuff, then drive like mad to the shores on the Kona Coast and rinse off in the warm surf. Is that true?”

  She checked her rearview mirror, shrugged, then said, “If your bucket’s big enough.”

  In the eight-mile drive from the airport, we’d left lava flows and arid countryside behind and were entering urban sprawl overflowing with lush green.

  A lull in the conversation on the outskirts of Kona gave me my opening for my first question. “Benni, are you on Facebook?”

  She glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Yah, isn’t everyone?”

  “I should send you a friend request. What about Andi? She’s probably got thousands of friends.”

  Benni nodded absently. “That girl, she’s a social-media diva.”

  “Snoopy doesn’t believe in that stuff. He’s old school.”

  “No way. Snoopy, is that true?”

  Alexander twisted sideways in his seat. “McKenna, you lucky I’m strapped in. You call me that again and I might have to mess with you for real.”

  I smiled. “Right.” But, inside, I was contemplating the derivations possible from that one name. The Snoopster, Snoop Man, and more. The list could take days to compile, months to use as torture material.

  “I don’t got much time for diddling around,” said Alexander. “You try running a business with two keiki and one more coming.”

  “I’d say Daddy Alexander had plenty of time for snooping around someplace he shouldn’t have, yah? Benni, you agree?”

  Benni glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “You know what’s good for you, McKenna, forget you heard that nickname.”

  I winked at her. “Right. Sorry. I couldn’t resist. It won’t happen again.” At least, not in the next ten minutes.

  Benni broke eye contact as the stoplight turned green. We made a left onto Henry St. A block later we turned right into the parking lot of a little strip mall complete with the requisite Starbucks, a bakery, and a cell-phone shop. “I just wanted to check something.”

  I guessed the “something” was Andi, but wasn’t about to embarrass Benni by asking. We turned back onto Henry, this time heading west and crossed the Queen Kaahumanu Highway. With its lava rock retaining walls and lush tropical vegetation, the Queen K was a pretty face designed to welcome tourists. We made turn after turn toward Benni’s apartment, going from the Queen K’s upscale feel to the backstreets and reality of life for locals. Benni lived on Ala Onaona Street, where stone walls, sidewalks, and multiple lanes had given way to narrow streets, no curbs, and cars parked on the shoulder between uncontrolled landscaping. Overhead, power lines snaked from house to house along streets and alleys.

  Our destination turned out to be a second-floor apartment. Even though it had two bedrooms, it would be considered tiny on the mainland. By island standards, it bordered on spacious. Being a landlord, I sometimes found myself comparing other complexes to the Sunsetter. Although she had me beat on the unit’s size, my complex was more modern and, I judged, better maintained thanks to my own personal crusade to make it top notch. I also won in the view category. Sorry, Benni, but beachfront beats out distant ocean every time.

  I was assigned Andi’s room, which I accepted reluctantly. Furniture-wise, it contained a day bed, a small dresser, and a computer desk. The furniture shared the room with the important stuff—two guitars, a keyboard and a small amplifier. The desk overflowed with handwritten sheet music. Each page had a song title, a date, and Andi’s name at the top.

  On the computer de
sk, there was a laptop. I felt betrayed by my own Type A personality. I'd moved to the islands hoping to work my way down the alphabet, instead, I was licking my lips at the thought of having someone to find. Hide and seek, one more time. Andi’s laptop. How much more golden could I get? The urge to fire up that baby burned in my head like a raging wildfire. Then, the mental debate ensued.

  Good McKenna jumped into the fray—Do not snoop. Do not snoop.

  Bad McKenna countered—Go for it, who’s going to know? Everybody wants you to do this; they just won’t admit it.

  —Don’t be an idiot, this is your best friend’s sister. They’ll throw you out on the street.

  —That’s ridiculous, they’re going to fall at your feet and thank you for being so helpful.

  I stood there, fallen arguments littering my mind like dead bodies at Gettysburg. “Enough!” I hissed. “Fine, I’ll do it. But only to help my friends.” These people were, after all, the closest thing I had to ohana.

  When I opened the lid of the laptop, a flood of messages filled the screen. I was shocked. The kid probably used her phone extensively, yet she hadn’t accessed her email since Sunday? Very strange, indeed. I put a hand on the back of my neck to rub out the growing worry. How was I going to pull this off without getting caught?

  Skimming through the messages, I found emailed receipts from a bakery in Kona. Both were for less than ten bucks. Those purchases alone confirmed that Andi was alive and eating. A crook would have done one small charge, then gone for the big bucks. The amateur skip didn’t know to handle all transactions in cash. I still couldn’t see Andi as a skip. She was a kid who’d had a disagreement of some sort with her mom. On the other hand, emotions made people do stupid things. That might be what worried me most.

  Many of the messages were feeds from sites about old Hawaiian culture, the most prominent of which was one with the acronym KOLA—Keep Our Legends Alive. Oddly enough, Andi’s email contained no social media notifications. Not one. Did that mean Andi wasn’t the diva Benni thought she was? There was one easy way to find out, take a peek at her Facebook account.

  I found icons for Facebook and Twitter. On Twitter, she hadn’t posted a thing since Sunday even though she had more than 8,000 followers. When I got to her Facebook profile, I stopped and stared at her picture. Andi was the image of her mother—long dark hair, bronzed skin, almond eyes. A smile that could stop a man in his tracks. The only difference was that this girl’s beauty hadn’t fully matured.

  Prior to Sunday, Andi had posted numerous times each day. Her Facebook friend count was an impressive 4,589. That number was about 100 times larger than my own and definitely put her into the social-media-diva category in my estimation. Obviously, she was considerably better at mixing online than I would ever be. She had 149 notifications waiting for review. If I had three in one day, that was an avalanche. In any case, now I understood why she didn’t need notifications, she always had something going on and had turned off the emails to avoid getting buried. I winced at the thought of that word—buried. No, she was alive. She had to be.

  This kid was definitely a world-class Facebook blabber. The temptation was more than I could stand, so I scanned through the list. Soon, patterns emerged. The most frequent name in the list wasn’t really a name at all, it was a handle: “Blueslover.” There was also a message from Blueslover open at the bottom of the page.

  “That’s weird,” I said to the computer screen. “Why aren’t you using a real name?”

  I clicked the link to view Blueslover’s profile. There was no picture, nor were there any details about him, other than he was male and in a relationship. With Andi? Or someone else? Why would he share almost nothing? I murmured, “You’re not very social, are you?”

  The other thing that was odd was that Andi hadn’t responded to any recent messages. Was that normal? Without going into the Facebook black hole where I’d lost countless hours trying to connect and “be social”—a task at which I’d failed miserably—there was no way to tell. While Blueslover disclosed nothing about himself, he did list his location as Hawaii. Big Island? Or the state?

  I said, “You’ve only got thirty-eight friends. And most of them are musicians. You’re a weird duck, aren’t you?” Great. Now I was having conversations with a computer. “Alexander’s right, I’m a one-man pity party.”

  Blueslover’s last message to Andi read, “cn u mt at the bean?”

  The time on the message was Sunday morning at 10:48 a.m. After that, there had been no activity on any of Andi’s social media accounts. What was so important about that meeting? Why hadn’t she taken her laptop with her? And how the hell would I ask about this without exposing what I’d just done?

  CHAPTER THREE

  The tantalizing aroma of barbecue drifted through the window, extracting me from my ruminating about Andi’s sudden disappearance. It was nearly five-thirty and the primal urge causing my stomach to growl reminded me that ignoring food for most of the day was not a wise choice. I’d done enough snooping. It was time to go in search of the source. With luck, it was Benni’s barbecue and not a neighbor’s.

  I’d learned a long time ago how a missed opportunity could mess with the future. Missing dinner wouldn’t kill me, but why was Andi not buckling down when the opportunity of a lifetime was fast approaching? On the other hand, perhaps she had a different dream. Benni’s reaction at the airport didn’t make a lot of sense, either. One minute, she was the protective mom, the next she was dismissing her daughter’s behavior as a simple overreaction. I wasn’t believing that option for a second. There was something else at play here and I was determined to find out what it was.

  Outside and alone, Benni stood next to the grill, gazing off toward the ocean. Red tank top. Cutoff jeans. A stunning figure. And a voice to match. She sang a sad, soulful melody to herself. She stopped to rub at her cheek with delicate fingers.

  “That’s beautiful,” I murmured.

  When she started and put a hand to her chest, I tried to sound more businesslike. “Alexander told me you were a professional singer.”

  Benni flushed. “I thought I was by myself. Snoopy’s in the kitchen.”

  I was suddenly embarrassed by the realization of how caught up with Benni I’d been. I hadn’t seen Alexander as I’d walked past him. “Why’d you stop singing?”

  She flashed me a smile and tilted her head up slightly. Her dark hair was pulled back on the right side. There was a fresh plumeria flower over her right ear, which, for you mainlanders, means “I’m available.”

  Alexander approached with a wineglass in each hand. He extended the glass of red to me. “I know, I know, doctor’s orders.” He crossed to Benni, who took the other glass and raised it in the air.

  “Mahalo for coming,” Benni said.

  Alexander grabbed his beer from the lanai table and we all clinked glasses. Now, I was more intrigued than ever. Benni had a songbird’s voice, yet she no longer performed. She obviously wanted to bring her daughter home, yet seemed fearful of saying or doing the wrong thing. And her daughter was no less bewildering.

  I echoed Benni’s cheerful tone. “And mahalo for hosting us!” So many things about this trip were off-kilter. This would definitely not be a carefree vacation. “What’s on the grill?”

  “Turkey burgers.” She shrugged. “We make do with what we’ve got. Neither of us eat red meat, so I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Love ‘em.” Smoke rose from the grill, then drifted away, riding the breeze until it dissipated into nothing more than a faint aroma. “Got a question, Benni.”

  Alexander sat at the table watching his sister. “Me, too. I’m goin’ first. You gotta wait, McKenna.”

  Benni pushed at one of the burgers with the spatula. “These guys need a few more minutes.”

  “How come you not worrying about Andi?” asked Alexander. “You always been a very protective mom. Now you don’t care?”

  I hadn’t noticed the laugh lines around the corners of her eye
s until this moment. Now, they became more obvious as they filled with worry instead of the crinkling that comes with enjoying a moment. Benni chewed her lip and stared off at the distant ocean, her hand resting on the grill cover. She jumped when I stepped closer to put my hand on hers. Her startled smile was fraught with concern as she closed the cover. A moment later, she said, “Like I said, I think maybe she just needs a little time away. We argued about a few things. A few more years, Snoopy—you’ll understand when yours are doing the same thing.”

  “Like Blueslover?” My response had been automatic, based on years of experience looking for people in the field. The little demon Bad McKenna was already ranting in my ear—Ixnay, dumb ass, you’re going to out yourself! At times like this, I cursed the little bastard—who had a fondness for Pig Latin, got me into trouble, and then chewed me out when I got busted.

  “Who’s that?” Benni asked.

  It was too late, the proverbial cat was out of the bag. “I saw it on a scrap of paper in Andi’s room.” It was just a little lie—not even a lie—just a . . . rephrasing. Besides, she didn’t even know about him. “The note said something about meeting him at the bean.”

  Benni eyed me suspiciously. “Nothing like that around here except maybe The Roasted Bean. It’s downtown.”

  “You been checking things out?” Alexander was obviously pleased, but I could have shot him. How did I tell him he could kill my investigation before it even had a life?

  Benni opened the lid of the barbecue, but she kept one eye on me as she flipped one of the burgers. For some reason, I couldn’t take either of mine off her or that plumeria.

  A six-inch flame shot up, the perfect complement to her growing suspicion. “Andi was meeting a guy at The Roasted Bean?” She winced as she searched Alexander’s face. “That’s Warren’s business you know.”

  “Warren? Crazy Warren? Your ex?” Alexander had his arms at his sides, but he’d clenched his fists.