Lana'i of the Tiger (The Islands of Aloha Mystery Series) Read online

  I mentally chewed on that for a moment. No doubt there was a lot of stuff Wong hadn’t told me. I hoped most of it was ‘need to know’ information that I didn’t need to know.

  “You’re truly a sight for sore eyes,” I said. “What are you doing over here?”

  “Well, first off, I came to see you. I couldn’t imagine you slogging through Christmas all by yourself.”

  “You’re staying until Christmas?”

  “Nah, I can’t take a whole week off. But I’ve got a couple of days. I brought a group of golf fanatics over on the catamaran to play the courses at Koele and Manele Bay. They’ll be playing all day tomorrow and then again on Thursday. We’ll head back sometime Friday morning, the twenty-first.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “You know, that’s kind of pitiful. I mean, sorry to break it to you, but you weren’t that hard to track down. I don’t think the bad guys are trying very hard if they haven’t found you by now. You know how they say there are ‘six degrees of separation’? Well, it took me only three degrees. I talked to a guy at the dock who crews for a big snorkel outfit. He’d heard from the gal who works the ticket booth at the Maui-Lana’i ferry that a cop brought somebody over here last month after that big dust-up at the harbor. Then, this afternoon when I rented the Jeep, I asked the guy at the rental place if he’d noticed anyone new in town. He said a young widow had shown up out of the blue last month and she’d just gotten a job at the White Orchid Bed and Breakfast. Like I said, it wasn’t too tough.”

  “Jeez, so everyone knows I’m here? That’s it, I’m going home for sure,” I said.

  “Whoa, not so fast. The bad guys haven’t all been rounded up yet.”

  “They will be soon. And like you said, if they wanted to find me they would’ve by now. If I go home and keep my head down, I’ll be fine.”

  “Keeping your head down won’t cut it. Those losers know exactly where you live—and where you work.”

  “But they don’t know where Farrah lives.” Farrah Milton, my b/f/f, lives in an illegal apartment above the grocery store she runs in Pa’ia, Maui. No one except her close friends knows she’s up there.

  “Well, pardon the guilt trip, but you’ve already caused Farrah a world of hurt.”

  “What? What’s happened?” I felt panic rising along with the bile in my throat.

  “Maybe the authorities didn’t know she was living over the store, but the drug dealers did. When they couldn’t find you, they went looking for her.”

  I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was drowning. I plopped down on the sofa—hard—and waited for him to tell me about Farrah.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Calm down,” he said. “She’s fine. She had a pretty big scare, but I guess she managed to run the guy off. From what I heard her dog sort of saved the day.”

  He told me apparently Farrah’s Jack Russell terrier had latched onto the guy’s leg and bit him pretty good. But the guy took a few potshots at the dog before fleeing.

  “They said the dog was fearless. Wouldn’t let go, even after it got grazed by a bullet.”

  “Poor Sir Lipton, and poor Farrah,” I said. “It’s all my fault. I got her involved in this mess in the first place.”

  “Don’t worry. Like I said, I heard she’s doing fine. And the store got a bunch more business afterwards. Everybody in town wanted to come by to see the bullet holes. And everybody’s talking about the little dog with the big balls.”

  “Yeah. Well, that’s pretty funny,” I said. “Sir Lipton doesn’t have balls, big or little.”

  “He’s neutered?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What then?”

  “You know that movie, Lady & The Tramp? Well, Lipton’s more Lady than Tramp. But enough about the dog. Where’s Farrah now?”

  “She’s playing the same game as you—hiding out. There’s some old lady running the store most of the time. Farrah’s there every now and then, but she’s never alone. And she sure as heck isn’t living upstairs anymore.”

  “I wonder where she went?”

  “Speaking of wondering, I wonder if you’ve got another kiss in you like the one you nearly flattened me with on the porch?”

  We sat in the great room, snuggling and talking. At around ten-thirty, I offered Ono a room, but he begged off.

  “As much as I’d like to sleep under the same roof—or maybe even the same sheets—as you, I’ve got to get back to the boat. It’s anchored in open water. No way I’ll chance getting it broken into or letting the current drag the anchor.”

  “Are you coming back tomorrow?”

  “Yep. My people are staying up at the Lodge tonight and I promised I‘d join them for breakfast. They have a mid-morning tee-time, so I could be back here around ten.”

  I walked him to the door and we lingered.

  “I really wish I didn’t have to go,” he said.

  “You don’t.”

  “I do. But maybe I’ll check into renting a slip at Manele Bay for tomorrow night. They have security there. No need to sleep aboard.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  ***

  I awakened to the sound of someone pounding on the back door. Had Ono changed his mind? I looked at my bedside clock—it said 11:08. I’d been asleep less than a half hour.

  I got up and stumbled to the back of the house. “Who is it?” I said through the door. My hand was on the deadbolt, but I wasn’t going to twist it open unless the person on the other side persuaded me I wouldn’t regret it later.

  “It’s me.” Male voice.

  “Give me a break. Who’s ‘me’?”

  “It’s me—Tyler. Open the door, Penny.”

  I opened the door to a bedraggled facsimile of Tyler Benson. His clothes were rumpled and sweaty. His face was lined with worry.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “You’re not gonna believe this.” He pushed past me. “Lock that thing up good and tight.”

  I closed and locked the door and started for the great room, but he headed for the kitchen. I turned and followed him.

  “What’s going on? Why are you coming to the back door at eleven o’clock at night? Didn’t your front door key work?”

  “Okay,” he said. “I need you to just listen. Don’t ask questions. Just hear me out.”

  Fine by me. I wasn’t in a chatty mood anyway.

  “Deedee’s dead. She was found stabbed in her room.”

  “She’s dead? Murdered?” My brain was having a hard time imagining beautiful Desiree Diamonte with a knife sticking out of her ample chest.

  “Yeah. After I left here, I started to go back to the Lodge but there were fire trucks and cop cars all over the place. And, a whole bunch of people were standing around outside. A cop was stopping people at the driveway so I just kept going straight. The road turns to dirt and if you stay on it, it takes you to the top of the island. The stars up there were fantastic.”

  I couldn’t believe he was waxing poetic about the evening sky while his fiancée was being stabbed to death in her hotel room.

  “Why did—”

  “No, let me finish. Anyway, I got back down from there a little after ten-thirty. There were still a couple of cop cars out in front of the Lodge. They had the lights going and a few people were still milling around. Last thing I needed to deal with was crap like that with the paparazzi sniffing around. So, I parked at the bottom and walked up. I thought I’d sneak in the back way to Deedee’s room after I’d heard what was going on. I asked an old guy what’d happened and he said a young black woman had been stabbed in an upstairs suite. When I asked him if she was going to be okay, he said she was dead.”

  There was a beat as Tyler wiped a hand across his mouth. Then he blew out a breath. His eyes looked like he wanted to flee.

  “Maybe it wasn’t Deedee. Maybe there was another young black woman staying in a suite on the second floor,” I said. I like to put a hopeful spin on things.

  “Trust me,
it was her. I can’t believe this. I’ve got to get off this island but I can’t fly out until morning because the runway’s closed at night. I’m sorry to wake you up, but my key didn’t work.”

  “No problem. Your key only works for the front door. But you can’t just take off in the morning. The police are going to want to talk to you.”

  “Yeah, well, here’s the thing. While I was driving over here I came up with an idea. I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Sure.”

  “I need you to have my back. I need you to tell the cops I was here with you at the White Orchid. All night. Tell them I never left.”

  “But you weren’t, and you did—leave, I mean.”

  “Look, Penny, it’s no skin off your nose to vouch for me. Just say we went out to the harbor and then we came right back here and hung out until bedtime. It’s not like I’m asking you to concoct a crazy story or anything.”

  “Tyler, I can’t—”

  I was interrupted by loud pounding on the front door. “Maui County Police! Open up!”

  CHAPTER 13

  Tyler pushed past me and ran out the back door. I went to the front to let in the police before they hauled out a battering ram. There were two cops standing on the porch.

  “We’re looking for Tyler Benson. Is he here?” said one cop.

  “He was here earlier. I’m not sure where he is right now.”

  “May we come in and look around?”

  “Sure.” I knew I could demand a search warrant if I wanted to be pissy, but I was pretty sure Darryl would want me to cooperate with the police.

  The cops went through the great room, back into the kitchen and then into each of the guest rooms. I could see flashlight beams outside so I was pretty sure there were other cops searching the yard and the greenhouse, but it seemed Tyler had slipped by them.

  “Which room is Benson staying in?” said the first cop. I looked at the name badge on his chest. It read, “Dado.”

  “Well, Officer Dado—” I said.

  “It’s Dado, long ‘a’,” he said. I’d said it like ‘dad-oh.’

  “Oh sorry. Well, Officer Dado, he was staying back here in the Hala-kahiki Room. In the daytime it has a nice view of the garden.”

  Officer Dado and his partner glared at me as if I’d said something rude.

  “And your name is?” said Officer Dado.

  “I’m uh, Penny Morton.” I really hated lying to the cops. But I figured if I got caught, Detective Wong would run interference for me. After all, he’d chosen the stupid name, not me.

  “When did Mr. Benson leave this evening?”

  “Uh, well, I’m not exactly sure. You see, I usually spend my time out here in the great room. The guests are free to come and go through either the front or the back door.”

  “Then when did you last see him?”

  Okay, this was getting tricky. I opted for as much truth as I could muster. “We drove down to Kaumalapau Harbor to watch the sunset. He hadn’t been there before and he wanted to see it.”

  “And then?”

  “Well, then we came back here.” I said, kind of dragging it out as if I was recreating the timeline in my mind.

  “And then did he leave again?”

  “Like I said, I can’t be sure.”

  “Where do you think he is now?”

  I shrugged.

  “Are you saying you have no idea where he is?”

  “That’s what I’m saying. It’s nearly midnight, officer. I was sleeping when you came banging on my door. I don’t do bed check on our guests. As I said, they’re free to come and go as they please.”

  They both scowled at me as if they were terribly disappointed with my attitude.

  “We’ll be sealing off Mr. Benson’s room. You’re not to go in there until the investigator’s had a chance to look around.”

  I knew I should probably ask for a search warrant before letting people rifle through Tyler’s stuff. But I wasn’t about to call Darryl and Ewa in the middle of the night to see what they wanted me to do.

  “When will the investigator get here?”

  “Probably not until the first ferry docks around seven. We’ve got to bring in a detective from Maui.”

  Oh great. If Wong showed up, there went my spending the day with Ono. I should’ve told those clowns Tyler Benson checked out two days ago.

  ***

  I went back to bed but only slept fitfully until daybreak. I got up and grabbed a yogurt before heading out for my morning run. Instead of running on the roads that lead out of town, I took a right and went toward Dole Park. Nothing that happens in Lana’i City gets by the regulars in Dole Park.

  It was Wednesday, so the tai chi class was assembling. I took a place in the back row, next to a tiny ancient woman with shiny eyes and a quick smile. She looked like a good candidate for instant friendship.

  “Aloha, welcome to our class. I see you here before?” she said.

  “Yes, auntie, I came one time before. But I’ve been busy. I work at the White Orchid Bed and Breakfast over on Kua’aina Street.”

  “Oh, yeah, I hear about that. Ewa has her new baby boy now, eh? I think they named him Ekana.”

  “Yes, that’s right. It’s ‘Ethan’ in English.”

  She shot me a look that said he’d always be Ekana to her.

  “And so you must be Penny, the little widow from Honolulu. I so sorry to hear of your loss.”

  Like I said, the park regulars know everything that’s going on in Lana’i City.

  “Did you hear about what happened up at the Lodge last night?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah, everybody hear about it. Looks like they got big trouble up there. Two people dead. Not good. The police are coming from Maui. Maybe even some from Honolulu.”

  I nodded as if this was old information, but my brain was screaming, two people are dead? I had to play it cool, though.

  “Yeah, auntie, I heard about the young woman. How sad.”

  “And that man. You know, that big ali’i-size man. Some people think he was the boyfriend of the dead woman.”

  I was getting lost, but the tai chi instructor was barking at us that practice was starting. It was all I could do to not grab the little woman by her baggy tunic and beg her to join me for breakfast and blow off exercising for the day.

  I slow-motioned my way through the excruciatingly boring practice. As soon as we did our final bow to the instructor, I turned to the little auntie and asked her name.

  “Oh, I sorry. I forgot to tell you. I’m Cora Escuello. Everybody calls me ‘Auntie Cora’. I live here on Lana’i all my life. My place is right over there.” She pointed to a yellow plantation house that bordered the park. “My husband was a field foreman for Dole. He’s gone now.”

  “Sorry to hear that. But I’m happy to meet you. Can I offer you a cup of tea? Or maybe you’re hungry? I’d love to have your company while I make breakfast.”

  “Do you have guests staying at the White Orchid this morning?” she said.

  “No, not today. But Darryl likes me to stay there in case anyone shows up. I’d love to ‘talk story’ with you, unless you’re too busy.”

  “No, I’m not so busy this morning. I can come by your place for a few minutes.”

  While I whipped up tea and a pile of Hawaiian sweet bread toast, Auntie Cora talked. Her recall of people and events was amazing. She regaled me with stories of plantation days from fifty years ago that were as detailed and vivid as if they’d happened yesterday. I felt convinced that whatever she had to say about what went down at the Lodge at Koele the night before was probably accurate, or at least thorough.

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s bad what happened up there, you know? First they find that young woman, and then that man. The manager up there, you know, Mr. Lyons, he’s so worried. He think nobody will come to his hotel now they got murders going on up there.”

  “Did you hear the names of the two people who were killed?”

  “Lemme see. The l
ady named Deedee Diamond—something like that. Isn’t that a silly name? Sounds like a bad woman, don’t you think?”

  “Her last name’s actually ‘Diamonte’,” I said.

  “Oh, you know this woman?”

  “I met her briefly,” I said. “How about the man? Do you know his name?”

  “His name was—let me think here—his name is George Romano. The girls at tai chi said it sounds Italian. But I don’t know any Italians. You think it’s Italian?”

  “You’re sure that’s his name?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “It wasn’t Tyler Benson?”

  “No, that’s not the name of the man who died. That’s the name of the man who did it.”

  ***

  Auntie Cora drank her tea, munched a couple of pieces of toast and left soon after. Ono showed up at ten, just like he said he would. I started to tell him about Deedee getting stabbed, but he’d already heard the whole story at breakfast from his golf group staying at the Lodge. He said the whole place was humming with a sort of covert buzz. Meanwhile, the staff was feverishly trying to cover it all up and pretend everything was business as usual.

  “You ever hear of this Benson character?” he said.

  “Actually, yes. I guess he’s a big shot from Hollywood. Word around town is he’s been on the island for the past week.” I didn’t want Ono to know I knew Tyler as well as I did. I wanted to hear the unvarnished truth of what was being said. If he knew Tyler and I were friends he’d probably give me the PG-13 version.

  “Well, he’s up to his ass in alligators now. Seems he was on the run when the cops caught up with him at the airport this morning. He was yelling at his private pilot to file the flight plan and get him the hell out of here. But the guys working at the airport went all ‘island time’ on him. They’d heard he was wanted by the police, so they shuffled papers until the cops showed up.”

  “Okay, I know I shouldn’t get involved in this, but I—”

  “No, no, no. Stop right there,” Ono said. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to let you even think of getting messed up in this thing. Have you forgotten what got you stuck over here for the past month?”