Isle Be Seeing You (Islands of Aloha Mystery Book 9) Page 8

  I broke in. “Far from it, Detective. I’ll admit I attempted to extract information from this officer, but it didn’t work. He’s a pretty closed-mouth guy.”

  Wong pointedly looked from me to Puno and then back to me. “As I said, I better not hear otherwise. Officer Puno, isn’t your shift nearly over? When are you supposed to be relieved?”

  “Three hours ago.”

  “Check out with your supervisor. I’ll take over for a while.”

  Officer Puno slunk away as if he’d been dismissed for dereliction of duty. Wong watched him go, muttering, “They bitch about paying overtime and then they wonder why turnover’s so high.”

  He seemed surprised to realize he’d said it out loud, adding, “Not that it’s any of my business, of course.”

  I jumped at his lapse and pointed at the canopy. “What can you tell me about what’s going on in there?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh come on, Detective. I know this ‘ohana. I might be able to help.”

  “I’m not lead on this. Besides, everything has to go through the Public Information Officer.”

  “Okay, how about I tell you what I’ve pieced together so far and you confirm or deny?”

  “Why would I do that? You’ve got no jurisdiction, no credentials, no possible reason to be concerned with police business.” He pointed at the grocery bag. “I suggest you take your little bait sack and head on home.”

  I felt a jolt of wonder at Wong figuring out my bribery scheme. Then I remembered he was pretty good at his job.

  “Look, Detective, Doug Kanekoa is more than just my martial arts sifu. He’s also one of my best friends. It’s killing me that he’s lost his wife and his kids are now motherless. How am I supposed to sleep, knowing my friend is missing and some nut job killer is still at large?”

  “Could be one and the same.”

  “You can’t possibly think that. Why would Doug call the police if he’d done it?”

  “You said he’s your friend, so you tell me.”

  ***

  I was nearly home when my cell chimed. It was Farrah’s home number. I took the call and was surprised when Ono answered.

  “What’s up, Ono?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.” He sounded cranky.

  Okay. I mentally scrambled to figure out what I may have said or done to upset him.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “What’s this I hear about you loaning my wife money?”

  “Ah, that. Well, actually it’s not a loan. I told her I’d give her what she needed to get your house blessed. She’s been really stressed about that apparition in the back yard.” I’d chosen my words carefully. I didn’t know how onboard Ono was with the whole ghost thing.

  “Don’t you think that’s something you should have brought me in on? It’s my house, my family, my so-called apparition. I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark.”

  It never occurred to me that Farrah hadn’t discussed hiring the kahu with Ono before asking for the money. I wasn’t about to throw her under the bus, though. She had way more to lose than I did.

  “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I convinced Farrah to hire that the guy and I paid before she had time to talk to you. Don’t blame her.”

  The line went quiet for a few seconds and I wondered if he’d hung up.

  “Ono?”

  “I’m here. I was just thinking of how to put this, but I guess there’s just no good way to say it. Don’t you think it’s bad enough my wife is scheming behind my back without you lying to me about it? I thought we were friends.”

  And with that, he did hang up.

  I drove right past the turn-off to Hali’imaile and kept going.

  When I pulled into Farrah and Ono’s place in Haiku it was nearly six. I’d be late for dinner, but there was no way I could let this squabble fester.

  I knocked and kicked off my rubba slippas while I waited for someone to answer the door. After a minute, I knocked again—louder this time. When it became clear no one was coming, I slipped my footwear back on and headed around the side of the house.

  Farrah and Ono were sitting outside on the cracked concrete lanai that served as their backyard gathering place. Farrah’s face was splotchy and her hair more tangled than usual. She looked up and saw me approach, then swiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

  Ono leaned back, arms crossed. His eyes were mere slits. A person didn’t need to be clairvoyant to figure out neither of them was happy to see me.

  “Sorry to intrude.”

  “Then why are you?” Ono snarled.

  “I had to come by and see if we could work this out. I feel bad about what’s happened.”

  Farrah looked at me with a mixture of anger and sympathy. “Not a good time, Pali. I’m not sayin’ you’re not always welcome here, but right now you’re not.”

  I tried to decode that one and gave up after a few seconds.

  “Look, guys. I’ve had a lot going on lately and the last thing I meant was to cause a problem.” I directed my next remark to Farrah. “You didn’t tell me Ono was against the blessing.”

  “He’s not. He’s against you giving me money.”

  “Wrong!” Ono bellowed. “I’m against all of it—this smarmy voo-doo guy, the outrageous cost, and the two of you plotting behind my back. I’m the man of the house here and keeping my family safe is my job, not yours.”

  I felt a tug to point out the obvious sexism, but thought better of it.

  He gathered steam. “You know how it makes me feel for my wife to be paying huge bucks to some con man so she can sleep at night?”

  I looked toward the back door.

  Farrah must’ve picked up on my discomfort. “It’s cool. The keiki are at the store with Auntie Bea. Ono and me will get ‘em after we’ve kissed and made up.”

  From where I was sitting, it seemed Auntie Bea had better be prepared to feed those kids dinner and get them ready for bed.

  ***

  When I finally got home it was almost seven-thirty. Steve wasn’t in the kitchen and when I called for him, he didn’t answer. I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt more desolate. My husband was threatening to end our marriage, my best friend and her husband were feuding over something I’d inadvertently meddled in, and my sifu had disappeared after his loving wife of sixteen years had been found shot to death in their home. Although I felt a twinge of guilt for not making it home in time for dinner, it paled in comparison to everything else swirling around me.

  Steve had left a note on the stairs.

  Gone out. Dinner in oven. C U when I C U –S.

  CHAPTER 11

  Steve’s “specialty” turned out to be a spicy chicken stir fry that had devolved into a mass of unappetizing glop in the oven. But who was I to complain? My culinary skills stop at salad-from-a-bag. And I wasn’t hungry anyway.

  I toyed with the bowl of gunk, picking out the still-recognizable veggies like broccoli stems and chunks of carrot, while considering what I knew about Lani’s murder. I didn’t have much, and nothing had been corroborated by solid sources, so it was a pitiful mash—much like the stuff in the bowl in front of me.

  She’d been killed in their garage, presumably on Monday morning, shot in the head (how many times?), and a window in the back door of the house was broken. Doug had alerted the police and then vanished.

  Where was he? Had the killer taken him hostage? Maybe he’d seen the killer and he was now in hot pursuit. Or, painful as it was to even consider, maybe he’d had something to do with Lani’s death and had gone into hiding.

  That was so unlike the sifu I knew, I quickly dismissed it. He was much more likely to be breaking the law via vigilante justice than cowardly eluding capture. And since he never fully briefed me on what he’d discovered when he followed Lani, I was pretty certain her death would be linked in some way to what had been going on these past few weeks.

  I threw the rest of the glop in the garbage and hid it under a strate
gically placed paper napkin. Steve wasn’t above checking the garbage and launching into a lecture on hungry people on Maui, and in my present state of mind I wasn’t certain I could rein in my urge to punch someone.

  I flopped down on the sofa and clicked on the TV. Nothing but inane reality shows and silly sitcoms I didn’t find funny. The laugh track roared, leaving me wondering if Steve was right about time marching on. Had I become so tired and shopworn that even contemporary humor had passed me by?

  There’s something about lolling in a prone position in the flickering blue light of a television that brings on the munchies. I wasn’t hungry. In fact, every decent thing I considered—celery sticks, string cheese, air-popped popcorn—didn’t inspire me to get up. What did? The two humongous Snicker bars still out in my car.

  I’d pondered the healthy options available for minutes without taking action but as soon as I remembered the Snickers I was up and off the sofa like a shot.

  I’d parked out back. Steve had dibs on the one-car garage, so I rarely even checked to see if it was available. My car was at the end of the driveway about thirty feet from the back door. I tucked my feet into my rubba slippas to avoid stepping on something in the dark and made my way to the Mini. The weak interior light came on, providing barely enough illumination to see my hand in front of my face. I manually searched the cluttered back area—you can’t really call it a trunk since the tiny car isn’t big enough for such an extravagance—until my fingers detected the fake fabric of a reusable grocery bag. I pulled out the bag and jogged back to the house with the anticipation of a kid coming home after trick or treating.

  As the back door slammed behind me I heard a faint ping. I raced to the living room and snatched up my phone. The screen showed I’d missed a call two minutes earlier.

  I can barely recall what life was like before cellphones, but I’m pretty sure it was easier. I resent being tied to a device that can malfunction, run out of juice or be out of range, and costs as much as my electric bill. Owning a cellphone implies a pledge to be immediately available to whoever calls you, twenty-four seven. Not answering is akin to putting your hands over your ears and droning, “nah-nah-nah-nah” when someone’s trying to talk to you. I think it’s anti-aloha to require such an invasion of my personal time and space.

  Once again I’d missed a call from Finn, and once again he left a voicemail chastising me for refusing to take his calls. Worse yet, his short message left me little hope he’d changed his stance on working things out.

  I called Doug’s cell one more time before turning in, but the call went immediately to voicemail. I was brushing my teeth when I got a call back. I spit in the sink, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and grabbed the phone in less time than it takes to sneeze and say “bless you.”

  It wasn’t Doug. And it certainly wasn’t Finn. It was Ono.

  “Hey, Pali. Sorry about today.”

  “I understand. I’m sorry I didn’t get Farrah’s pinky swear that she’d talked to you about it.”

  “Nah, I’m sorry for jumping all over you. I’m actually mad at Farrah, not you, but I didn’t want to go there, you know?”

  “I do.”

  “Speaking of not wanting to go there, I got a weird call from Finn tonight. Can you tell me what’s going on with him?”

  I paused. How much did I want to divulge to my husband’s brother? “Uh, he called when I was outside and I couldn’t get to the phone in time.”

  “Huh. He said something about you not taking his calls.”

  “That’s not it. I’d love to talk, but every time he calls, I miss it.”

  “Okay. Just checking. He sounded bummed out.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “I guess things are pretty rough. I thought I heard an explosion but when I asked, he said they’d cut him off if he said too much. I’m kinda worried, you know?”

  “Me too. If he calls again, tell him I love him and to please keep trying to call me.”

  “Will do.”

  A beat of dead air went by before Ono went on. “Yeah, well once again I’m sorry about today. It’s just hard for a guy like me to not be able to give my wife what she wants, you know? Makes me feel like a loser.”

  “I get it. But cut yourself some slack. Sometimes Farrah wants some pretty bizarre stuff.”

  “Like this Hawaiian witch doctor.”

  I didn’t agree with him calling the kahu a witch doctor, but our truce was fragile so I let it slide. “But don’t you agree if blessing the house will make her feel safe it’s a good thing?”

  “It better. For a thousand bucks I could buy a pretty nice shotgun.”

  How being armed with a “nice gun” could protect his family from a malevolent ghost was a mystery to me, but again, I didn’t argue.

  ***

  I got up Tuesday morning determined to embrace the serenity prayer as much as possible for the rest of the day. Especially the part about “accepting the things I cannot change.” I’m not good at letting things go, which is strange since I’ve had to let so much go in my life: my parents, my longtime boyfriend who chose his career over me, my dream of being “wedding planner to the stars.” Okay, that last one was short-lived and pretty iffy from the get-go, but still.

  Steve was heading out to go windsurfing when I banged into the kitchen.

  “I see you finally got home and retrieved your dinner,” he said.

  “Yeah, sorry about being late. I got in the middle of a dust-up between Farrah and Ono and I wanted to stick around until things settled down.”

  “They’re having problems, too? What’s up with relationships lately? Bad moon rising?”

  “They’re okay now. I gave Farrah money to get their house blessed and Ono didn’t know about it. He got worked up and I apologized.”

  “Sounds to me like Farrah should be the one apologizing.”

  “Yeah, I took one for the team.”

  He grabbed his gear bag. “We still on for ‘Ulupalakua this afternoon?”

  “Yep, ceremony’s at four, so we should get there by three-fifteen. Can you give me a ride?”

  “Can’t. I’ve got a dinner date in Wailea at six and I’m going there right after the wedding.”

  “I’ve got to hand it to you. You sure don’t let any grass grow under your social life feet.”

  “Tick-tock, Pali.”

  Steve left and I hurried down to the shop to make sure everything was still on schedule. I’d ordered a tiny cake from my cake baker in Kula which I’d pick up on my way up the mountain. For small weddings I usually ordered flowers from the Gadda, and Farrah had promised they’d be ready by noon.

  It had been a few days since I’d worked out and my body was becoming peevish. The Snickers attack hadn’t scored me any points, either. I dashed next door, vowing to find something healthy to make up for my slothfulness. I was dithering between Greek or regular yogurt when Farrah sidled over to me.

  “Totally frown-face over getting you jammed up with Ono,” she said. “Buds?” She put out a fist for me to bump and I did.

  “No worries. Better that he’s mad at me than you.”

  “Yeah, but the thing is, he’s still kinda mad at me, too.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “He’s not cool with coming to the blessing ‘cuz he thinks it’s bogus, but he said I don’t have to call the dude and cancel. So, that’s groovy.”

  “Would you like me to be there?”

  She perked up. “That’d be rad. I didn’t wanna ask, ‘cuz, like I thought maybe you were not cool with it, either. I mean, stuff like this is kinda not how you roll.”

  “It’s fine. Tell me the when the guy’s showing up and I’ll be there.”

  We hugged and I returned to my shop, spooning yogurt into my mouth as I walked. It went down cool and creamy, but let’s face it. When it comes to pure eating pleasure, cultured dairy products are a far cry from a Snickers bar.

  At two-thirty, Steve pushed through the door of my shop
. His giddy facial expression reminded me of my little brother racing into the house to tattle to our auntie. I stood to greet him.

  “Guess what?” he said, panting as if he’d run the whole way.

  “What?”

  He blew out a ragged breath. “The police found Doug Kanekoa.”

  “What a relief. Then I guess he’s okay.”

  “Not really.”

  “He’s not okay?”

  “He’s fine, but he’s under arrest.”

  “For what? Going missing?”

  “Nope. Murder.”

  I sank back down into my chair. “Wait a second. Where’d you hear this?”

  “It’s all over town. Besides, everybody knows the spouse is always the prime suspect.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Doug loved Lani. He’d never hurt her. And besides, the police don’t arrest someone without probable cause. What’re the—.”

  Steve cut me off. “My source tells me he’ll be arraigned tomorrow morning.”

  I knew better than to ask Steve to reveal his source, and anyway it wasn’t necessary. He was good friends with Glen Wong and although the by-the-book detective probably wasn’t the snitch, someone in his inner circle undoubtedly was.

  I looked at the clock. “We’ve got to go in a few minutes, and I still need to pick up the flowers.”

  “I know. I wasn’t going to say anything about it until after the wedding ‘cuz I didn’t want you to worry and mess up. But I figured you’d be even madder if I didn’t tell you.”

  I’m not sure where he got the idea I’d “mess up.” After five years I’ve put on so many weddings I could probably do it sleepwalking. The hard part of this job is dealing with the bad behavior that weddings seem to bring out in people. I’ve seen fairy tale weddings devolve into mai tai-fueled cat fights over bridesmaids vying for the eye of a particularly handsome groomsman. I’ve witnessed moms and stepmoms sparring over who stands next to the father-of-the-bride in the “parents-of” photo. In one mom vs. stepmom showdown over the seating arrangement at the rehearsal dinner, both women were wearing Spanx so tight they could barely sit, let alone eat. I’ve poured gallons of coffee down hung-over grooms—and even a few brides—and provided innumerable bottles of Visine to conceal bloodshot eyes at the photo shoot.