Authors: Toby Neal
“Let’s grab some off the attendant so we can rule him out, real quick,” Lei said.
“Already done.”
They got on the road. Lei put Captain Omura, their commanding officer, on speakerphone as they drove out of town through the waving expanse of sugarcane fields toward Haiku. She and Pono caught the captain up on the case as they wove along the picturesque two-lane road, passing various ocean overlooks and beach parks, the sunset blazing over the nearby expanse of sea.
“I want to go to Oahu tomorrow,” Lei said. “Detective Kamuela can help me hunt this guy over there. I suspect he’s going to have some connection to the pro surf circuit.” Lei told Omura what the girlfriend had said about harassment threats from rivals.
“We have to get an ID on this suspect ASAP,” Omura said in her crisp voice. “I can authorize that trip. Pono, you stay back. You can reinterview the family and run down this Tadeo character. Though it seems a stretch that a jealous boyfriend would hire someone to drown Makoa Simmons…”
“My best guess is that the man who drowned him was a rival,” Lei said. “Another pro surfer.”
“Why didn’t anyone at Ho`okipa recognize him, then?” Pono asked. They had left the darkening sunset breaking through clouds over the West Maui Mountains and turned up the narrow road winding through stands of torch ginger, heliconia, and tree ferns toward Lei’s property. “If he was a well-known surfer, fake ID or not, he’d be recognized. So maybe he’s a small-kine surfer with a grudge, or a hired hitter of some kind.”
Lei had turned on the radio, and the announcer broke in with a news bulletin about Makoa’s “death by drowning under suspicious circumstances” at Ho`okipa Beach Park. She snapped off the car’s stereo, agitated by the reminder of how big this case was, the attention it would get, and how tragic the loss to the whole surf world was.
“Some cojones, going surfing with Makoa Simmons and drowning him in front of witnesses,” Lei said.
“How do you plan to kill someone that way? It would take perfect timing,” Captain Omura said, her voice tinny in the radio feed. “Which leads to the idea that it was an opportunistic crime. But the fake ID, the cash rentals, the quick getaway all point to a calculated plan. In any case, we need to make a public statement. Circulate that sketch here on Maui, at all the airports throughout the islands.”
“It’s circulating already.” Lei was glad they’d been able to get the artist and Shayla together and such a clear image worked up quickly.
“Good. Come back downtown and I’ll call the TV station. We’ll do it at eight-thirty, so they can air it on the ten o’clock news.”
“Okay. We’re grabbing a quick dinner at my house first,” Lei said. Thank God they were home. She’d have time to eat, change her shirt, and do something about her hair, whipped into disarray as if beaten with an egg whisk by the wind at the beach. Lei hung up and punched in the gate code.
“Where are we all gonna sit?” Pono asked. He knew their situation intimately, having been at the house the night of the fire and all through the aftermath. He’d put in more than his fair share of hours working on the new house, too.
As if in answer, they spotted the screen tent erected over a folding table and chairs, nicely set with a cloth and the replacement dishes Lei had picked up at Pier 1 in Kahului. A hurricane lantern with a thick candle cast an inviting glow. Standing on the porch of the cottage was Stevens, with Kiet in his arms.
Lei jumped out of the cruiser. Keiki, her coat still rough and patchy since the fire, greeted her with happy butt wagging. She stroked the big dog’s head and hurried toward Stevens, smiling, her gaze running over his tall body.
Looking at him never got old for her. His light blue eyes were intense under dark brows, shadowed with worry, as they often were, though he smiled back. The baby in his arms reached for Lei, burbling a greeting that never failed to lift her heart. “Ba-ba ba!”
“It’s not far from ba-ba to ma-ma. He’s going to say it any day now,” Lei said. “How’s my happy boy?” She scooped the child into her arms and lifted her face for the quick, hungry kiss Stevens gave her—a kiss that said he was glad she’d made it to the house, wished she was staying longer, and promised more when they were finally alone.
Short as the time was that she’d have with her family, Lei was glad they’d made it to dinner, too. She’d almost forgotten her mother-in-law was there until the woman rose from the rocking chair and came to stand beside Stevens.
Lei assessed Ellen Rockford Stevens automatically: She was taller than Lei at around five foot eight, painfully thin at a hundred and fifteen to twenty pounds. Her bottle-blonde hair had dark roots and hung lank to her shoulders. Her mother-in-law wore a shabby but good-quality tunic top in a blue that matched eyes that must have been the striking shade of Stevens’s at one time but now reminded Lei of bleached sky over desert. Age showed in deep lines on a pallid face, in the loose skin of her neck, in liver spots on her hands. Her expression was pleading and sad.
“Welcome to Maui.” Lei gave Ellen a one-armed hug that squished Kiet in close to both of them, feeling a surge of compassion for this fragile human being: Kiet’s grandmother and the one who’d given her beloved husband life. “It’s great to finally meet you.”
Chapter 5
S
tevens gestured to Pono, who’d been taking his time getting out of the cruiser. “Come meet my mom. Ellen, this is Pono Kaihale, Lei’s partner and one of our ohana.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Ellen smiled and shook Pono’s hand, then gave a little gasp as he took something from behind his back and draped it over her head. It was a kukui nut lei, the polished orbs glossy as black gems.
“Welcome to Maui.” Pono drew her into a gentle hug. Stevens grinned at the consternation on Lei’s face.
“How’d you get that, partner?” his wife exclaimed. “Showing me up!”
“The van rental place had them, and you’d told me your mother-in-law was going to be here. Had to get her lei’d,” Pono said, with a twinkle in his eye that made Ellen laugh. Stevens realized he hadn’t heard that laugh in forever.
Ellen smacked Pono’s arm playfully. “Now, that’s a proper Hawaiian greeting,” she said. “Guess I needed a real Hawaiian to remember it.”
Wayne came to the door, a big bowl of salad in his hands. “Looks like the family’s all here but one,” he said, and then the gate rolled open and Jared drove up in his truck loaded with ocean sports equipment. “Right on cue.”
Stevens saw his mother falter at the sight of his younger brother getting out of his vehicle. He didn’t know what had gone on between them, but he suspected it hadn’t been pretty. When the transfer to Kahului Station came through, Jared had taken it. All he’d said to Stevens was, “I couldn’t deal with her anymore.”
Jared came to the porch with his loping walk, his blue eyes cautious as he looked at their mother.
“Mom.” Jared took her hands and bent to give her a kiss on the cheek. “You made it over here.” Stevens had to admire the phrase for its understatement.
“I did.” Ellen let go of his hands and reached out to hug Jared. Stevens could see how stiff his brother stood. Everyone else had turned away and busied themselves with something: Pono was carrying the salad to the table, Lei was playing with the baby, and Wayne had gone back into the kitchen. “I’m sorry about what happened before you left.”
“You’ll have a chance to make it up to me by staying sober.” Jared’s voice was low and hard.
“I’m planning to.” Ellen’s words quavered, but Stevens could tell she meant it. He could also read that any revelations about her health were going to have to wait until they had more privacy.
Stevens put a hand on their mother’s shoulder, giving her an encouraging pat. “Jared, why don’t you take her down to the seat of honor. I’ll help bring the rest of the food.”
Soon dinner was underway. The pork laulau
was delicious. It was Lei’s turn to feed the baby tonight, so she’d seated herself next to Kiet’s high chair and alternated taking bites of her dinner and working spoonfuls of baby food into their son’s mouth with a soft plastic spoon.
He could tell Ellen was enjoying being at the head of the table with Pono on one side and Jared on the other. Lei and Stevens were across from each other, and Wayne was at the foot. The soft, warm night, filled with the sounds of conversation, leaves rustling, and crickets singing, was a balm to his spirit. He was almost glad in that moment that the house was gone and they could live so close to the outdoors.
Even with all the undercurrents and the full table, Stevens couldn’t help glancing at his wife. Lei was beautiful in candlelight. He enjoyed the slender, toned lines of her body in the narrow tank top and black jeans—she’d left her weapon and jacket in the cruiser. Her tawny skin, stippled with those tiny freckles he loved, glowed in the candlelight. Tilted brown eyes picked up amber and brandy glints as the candles reflected in their depths, and her mouth stretched wide in laughter at the baby’s efforts to grab the spoon. Her wild hair was a curly nimbus that made him think of angels.
God, he loved her.
He caught Jared’s amused eye on him and shrugged. He knew he had it bad, and marriage hadn’t changed that. Seeing Lei laugh hadn’t stopped feeling good after their recent heartbreak.
Looking at his mother in the soft light, almost pretty again, he hoped being here was going to be enough to heal her. But that cynical cop voice in his head told him it wasn’t likely.
Jared and Ellen finished eating first, and he offered to walk her around the yard. They got up, and she took his arm, leaning into her son as he pointed out the trees Stevens had already shared with his mother.
“I have to go to Oahu tomorrow,” Lei told Stevens. “I’m sorry to leave you with all this, but the case is taking me there. I wish I could tell you guys about it, but it’s too confidential. We have to go back out tonight.”
“Those first twenty-four hours are critical,” Stevens agreed.
Lei kept her voice low. “I hate leaving you without any help with your mom. I want to get to know her better.”
“It’s okay.” Stevens took a bite of perfectly spiced and steamed laulau. “Between Jared and me, we can keep Mom busy and out of trouble.”
“Don’t forget me,” Wayne said. “I can take her on an outing or two with the baby. But shouldn’t she have a medically supervised program? I mean, if she’s trying to get sober…”
“I agree,” Stevens said. “I haven’t had time, but we’ll do some research tonight. I plan to dig in a little more on what her plans are.”
“Well, I’ll be back late tonight. I’ll just sneak in as quietly as I can.” Lei’s phone went off, and she frowned, checking it. “It’s Omura. I have to take this.”
She handed Stevens the baby spoon and stood up, then unzipped the tent and stepped out. He looked at Lei’s plate as she rezipped the screen, turning to walk away into the darkness with the phone to her ear. She’d eaten maybe one of the laulau. She’d gotten thinner since she lost the baby—she’d always been fairly indifferent to food, and it was worse now. The shadows under her eyes still worried him.
Lei returned and gestured to Pono, who’d wisely shoveled in his dinner at top speed. “We gotta go into the station,” she said. “So sorry to dine and dash. I’m going on TV, so I have to change my shirt.”
Ellen had returned with Jared. “I hope we have a little time to visit in the next few days.”
“I’m afraid it won’t be right away—I have a hot case. Good thing Stevens understands my job,” Lei said. “Believe me, I’d rather be enjoying family time.” She bent to give Kiet’s head a smacking kiss and worked her way around the table with quick hugs.
She nipped Stevens’s earlobe under the guise of a quick kiss on the cheek, and he felt it all the way to the soles of his feet, his body rising to meet her.
“See you later,” she breathed in his ear. In moments, she and Pono were reversing the cruiser and driving back out.
After he’d put Kiet to bed and Jared had walked his mom back to her tent, where she’d blamed jet lag for an early night, he and Wayne and Jared worked their phones and laptops for a list of treatment options for Ellen.
“Only one on the island is Aloha House,” Stevens said at last. “And they’ve got a waiting list.”
“I know a guy from my church who works there,” Wayne said. “I’ll give him a call, see what he can do.”
“We’d appreciate it.” Jared looked up at Stevens, his eyes blue flames in the candlelight. “It will be interesting to see if she really wants to get sober.”
“Yeah. She said she wanted a change, coming here, but never said those words until you talked to her tonight. What happened when you left?”
“She crashed my going-away party at my LA firehouse. Threw up in the trashcan right in front of everybody. It was the worst I’ve ever seen her.”
“That’s a new low, even for her,” Stevens said. “Could be her way of objecting to you leaving.”
“Yeah, whatever. It sure as hell didn’t make me want to stay. I didn’t say goodbye or give her any contact info when I left. I was hoping to be done with her.”
“Sounds kind of harsh. People make mistakes and regret them. People can change,” Wayne said. Stevens knew his father-in-law was speaking from his own sketchy past as a felon who’d done time for drug dealing and manslaughter.
Jared narrowed his eyes. “You haven’t been through what we have with this woman. She’s a user. Used our dad, used us to take care of her. It’s all about the bottle with her.”
“I’m willing to be hopeful,” Stevens said. “It’s nice to see her with Kiet. Maybe having a grandchild, some sort of different future, will tip her into wanting to get sober and stay sober.”
“We’ll see.” Jared’s mouth thinned. “You’ve just forgotten, bro.”
“We can deal with her together,” he said, making eye contact with Jared. “We can’t let anything come between us. Deal?”
“I can’t guarantee we’re going to agree on how to handle her,” Jared said. His mouth was tight. “You really like your role as the big brother hero, and she likes you in it. I’m pretty sure I’m just the second fiddle. Always have been.”
“Jared. Dammit, bro.” Stevens turned to fully face his brother, leaning across the table toward the younger man as Wayne left them alone. “You saved our lives so recently. You’re the hero. Never doubt it. I don’t want that old shit getting in the way of what we have now, what we’ve built together. We’re family. Let’s agree on this right now—whatever happens with Mom, even if we disagree, we won’t let it come between us. I’m so glad you decided to come to Maui to live, to be a part of our lives. I love you, man.”
Jared ducked his head, but when he looked up, his eyes gleamed blue flame in the candlelight. “I guess I needed to hear that. We’re good. Deal.”
Stevens glanced over at the tent, hidden in the darkness behind the mango tree. He wished he’d searched his mom’s backpack for bottles. He had a bad feeling about her desire for bed and privacy. “I haven’t forgotten what Mom’s capable of. I wish I could.”
* * *
“God, it was hard to leave.” Lei hadn’t had time to do anything with her hair at the house, so was opting for restraint. As Pono drove, she twisted her shoulder-length frizzing curls into what her friend Marcella called the “FBI Twist,” a roll at the back of her head anchored with a row of bobby pins. Looking into the drop-down mirror, she dusted her face with a little powder and whisked on mascara and lipstick.
Pono spared her a glance. “You look fine.”
“You always say that. This is TV. Every time I’ve been on TV, I’ve looked like I was dragged backward through a bush and I have tiny eyes.”
“So. Your mother-in-law. She looked rough.”
“I know. I feel really bad leaving them to deal with her right now.”
“Be glad you’re out of it. Tiare’s aunty drinks. She hasn’t liked my two cents on how she should handle it at all.”
Lei frowned. “So you guys don’t agree on what to do?”
“I’m of the tough-love school. No contact until Aunty gets her shit together. Tiare can’t handle that, gives in to the whining. I think she even sneaks her money sometimes.”
Lei felt her stomach hollow with stress at the thought of the complications Ellen might be bringing. “Just gonna stay positive for now. But I’m glad there are two of them to deal with her.”
“So what’s the emergency that we couldn’t finish dinner?”
“Captain has a press conference scheduled for us at nine-thirty and wants us to have an ID developed from your fingerprints by then.”
“Not gonna happen.” Pono rubbed his mustache briskly. “I’ve got at least fifty prints to process. It’s seven forty-five. We aren’t going to have time to do anything but get there and change.”
Lei and Pono hurried to the fingerprint lab with the samples he’d collected from the van, but there were too many to scan and log. Omura, alerted to their predicament, called every available officer in to help with the scanning, but there were only two machines anyway. Lei and Pono left the other officers at it and, after putting on clean shirts, went to the conference room Omura liked for press conferences. Its gracious koa-wood podium and big brass Maui Police Department emblem on the wall sent a solid and dignified message.
Lei, Pono, and Captain Omura sketched out their announcement, and Lei felt somewhat ready when the reporters and a cameraman from KHIN-2 News came in. Omura brought the conference to order and addressed the group, giving the sad news confirming the homicide in a carefully worded statement: Surf star Makoa Simmons had drowned, and “foul play was suspected.” She introduced Lei and Pono as primaries on the case and opened up the floor for questions.
Lei felt nervous sweat prickling under her arms as she stood beside Pono under the bright camera lights. They ended up having to say, “We can’t answer that at this time,” way more often than Lei liked, but she finally ended the conference by looking straight into the camera and making an appeal.
“This young man was one of the best and brightest surfers to ever come out of our island. If you have any information about who might have wanted to harm Makoa, please call Maui Police Department and let us know.” The hastily-set-up tip line number would run at the bottom of the clip. Once the conference was over, she and Pono went back down to the lab and relieved the officers who’d been scanning the prints.
“I’ll scan, and you get the computer working, looking for matches,” Pono said.
It was one a.m. when Lei called it a night. “You can send me the results if and when you get an identity off these.” She yawned. “I’m going home for at least a couple hours of sleep.”
“Sounds good. I’m going to stay and keep working,” Pono said.
“We have another full day tomorrow. Don’t stay too late.”
Lei drove home on autopilot.
The tent was a dim shape in her yard as she parked, the cottage a dark bulk. Someone, probably her dad, had plugged in a nightlight in the kitchen so she could find her way through the living room where her dad slept, a hunched shape on the couch. She felt her way to the little back bedroom, cluttered with a queen-sized bed and the baby’s crib.
Moonlight shimmered in through the window, and there was a nightlight on in there, too. Lei could see the dark blot of Kiet’s black hair as he slept on his back, one hand curled up beside his cheek, the other down alongside his body. Looking over at the bed, she could see Stevens on his back in exactly the same pose. She smiled at the sight and peeled her clothes off quickly, leaving the garments where they lay on the floor.