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

  “Hardly,” I said. “Oh, and speaking of that, I don’t think we’re going to be able to hang out together today. I’m expecting our mutual buddy, Detective Wong, to show up here sometime this morning.”

  “He’s been assigned to the case?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s likely.”

  “Then I better get going,” he said. “If he sees my ugly mug, he’ll go nutcase.”

  “Well, he’s not here yet.” I said, sitting down on the sofa and patting the seat next to me. “Until he gets here, why don’t you indulge my morbid curiosity in this very juicy murder by telling me what you heard at breakfast this morning. All of it.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Ono seemed eager to relay the sordid details. “Yeah, seems this Hollywood dude and his girlfriend had a big noisy fight over her calling in the tabloids to cover their wedding up at Koele. She told the wedding planner she’d been offered half a million bucks and the cover of People magazine. I thought it was weird, since I’ve never heard of either one of them.”

  “What I’ve heard around town is he’s a big-time producer,” I said. “He does the ‘Stony Jackson’ movies. And his fiancée was trying to build a lingerie empire on Home Shopping Network. I guess their wedding was newsworthy because they’re pretty secretive. The Stony Jackson movies are big box office so getting a scoop on the wedding of the guy who makes them was a big deal.”

  Ono looked annoyed I’d broken in, interrupting his flow.

  “Anyway, as I was saying,” he went on. “People think maybe the dude barged in on his fiancée messing around with the reporter guy. He probably got pissed and tossed the guy off the balcony. Then he did in the girlfriend. Rumor has it she was stabbed with a room service knife.”

  “You’d have to be pretty strong to kill someone with the measly knives they give you with room service,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I heard this Benson’s in pretty good shape. And, he must’ve been totally furious.”

  “Tell me about the other guy. The dead reporter.”

  “No one knows much about him. They said he was huge, like three hundred pounds huge. He worked basically free-lance—it’s called being a ‘stringer.’ He sold stuff to the big national rags, but he hadn’t had a major story since he got an exclusive from Michael Jackson’s chauffeur right after MJ died.”

  “Wow, that’s quite a dry spell,” I said.

  “Yeah, but those guys get paid six figures for an exclusive. It only takes one or two hits a year to make a decent living.”

  “Huh.”

  “Oh, and here’s something strange. No one knows who first found the body. They think it might have been the maid, because a maid cart was parked right outside the suite. But no one reported to the front desk, or to security. Instead, someone pulled the fire alarm.”

  “A fire alarm? Was there a fire?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Why would someone pull a fire alarm to report a murder?”

  “Beats me. That’s pretty much all I know,” he said. He squinted at me. “I’m not liking that look on your face, Pali. What’re you thinking?”

  “I’m not thinking anything. Oh, and over here my name isn’t Pali, it’s Penny. Penny Morton.”

  Ono’s face looked like he’d been gut-shot.

  “What’s wrong?” I said. Then I remembered. “Oh my gosh, Ono, I forgot. I didn’t pick the name. Wong came up with it when he brought me over here. They needed a ‘P’ name. You see, my initials are still ‘PM’.”

  My feeble explanation didn’t seem to lessen the sting.

  “That was my wife’s name,” Ono said. “How could you forget? Why’d you let them call you that?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”

  Ono got up and walked to the window. He stood there for a minute, staring out at the garden. “It’s funny, you know? I just can’t seem to shake losing her. Just when I think I’m completely past it, something like this comes up.”

  I got up and put my arms around his waist. “If it’s any consolation, I’m only going to have this name for a couple more days. Then I’ll be back to Pali.”

  He turned and took my face in his hands. “You know, you kind of remind me of her. She would’ve been a few years older than you are now, but the two of you are alike in so many ways.”

  “That’s a good thing?” I said.

  “For me, it’s the highest compliment I could give a woman.”

  I wasn’t thrilled at the notion of being compared to his perfect, although deceased, wife, but I suppose it was better than the alternative.

  “Do you know where Tyler Benson is now?” I said.

  “I heard after they caught up with him at the airport they took him into custody and flew him over to the Wailuku jail on Maui. The little jail here on Lana’i is pretty sad. It’s essentially an outbuilding with a chain-link box out back—like a dog run. But why do you care where he is? I hope you aren’t thinking of getting on the visitor list.” He grinned as if it was the craziest notion in the world.

  “No, of course not,” I said. “I was just wondering.”

  Ono gave me a hurried kiss. “I better get going. Let’s talk after you hear if Wong’s been called in. We might be able to get together after all.”

  ***

  Detective Glen Wong showed up a half-hour later. Apparently he’d called me at my rental house and he’d even gone by there, but he knew where I worked so I wasn’t able to elude him for long.

  “Miss Morton,” he said in that fake jolly voice that’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. He came inside and pulled the door closed. “I hear you’re a slow learner.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “It seems you’ve got yourself involved in another tourist crime. Is there something about the phrase, butt out, that you just don’t understand?”

  “I’m not involved. What are you talking about?”

  “Well, before I left this morning, I had a chance to chat with a Mr. Tyler Benson at the Wailuku jail. He claims you’re his alibi witness for his whereabouts last night.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is that true, Miss Morton? Are you prepared to sign a sworn affidavit to that account?”

  “Uh. Well, I—”

  “Let me make myself perfectly clear, Penny,” Wong interrupted. “If you have any intention, on any level, of signing the name ‘Penny Morton’ to a sworn affidavit, then we’re going to have a problem. Do you read me?”

  “Yes, sir. Loud and clear.”

  “Now we need to decide where we go from here.” He sat down on the sofa and I took a chair opposite him. “I’m going to be lead detective on this case, so I’ll be based here on Lana’i until we finish the investigation. But as soon as that’s handled, you and I need to seriously consider our trip to see the family.”

  He rambled on about Disney World, punctuating it with nonsense about my ‘cousins’ inviting all sorts of ‘family members’ to join the reunion and what a great time we were going to have. I couldn’t understand why he felt the need to couch everything in goofy coded language. Did he actually think someone would bug the White Orchid?

  Before Wong left, he pulled a white envelope from his inside jacket pocket and laid it on the coffee table. “Here. I brought this for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s part of my job to deliver official correspondence. It’s no doubt something regarding your upcoming mainland travel plans. I’m assuming it might be a day pass to Epcot Center or something of that nature. The family likes to show its appreciation to people like you who are coming from so far away.”

  ***

  By the time Wong left I was drained and it was only noon. I went to the kitchen and scrubbed the counters. Then I wiped off every spice jar in the cupboards and generally got the place in shipshape order for Darryl and Ewa’s arrival on Friday.

  The manual labor energized me. I went back to the great room and noticed the white envelope on the coffee table.
I hadn’t opened it after Wong left. The last thing I needed was a bit of bribery from a bunch of federal bureaucrats who didn’t give a damn about me, but merely saw me as a minor cog in their behemoth crime-fighting machine.

  I picked up the envelope and stuffed it in my apron pocket.

  Ono called on the White Orchid phone line at about two o’clock. “Is the coast clear?” he said.

  “Yeah, for now. But Wong was assigned to the case. He’s going to be sticking around for a while.”

  “Can you sneak out?”

  Sheesh, I hadn’t heard that phrase since high school.

  “I don’t know, Ono. If I get caught…” Yeah, definitely high school.

  We agreed to go to the first overlook on the Munro Trail. Ono would drive, and I’d walk up and meet him there. I wanted to meet somewhere out of town. Lana’i City was a tiny place and I didn’t want Wong to catch me with Ono. They’d met before on Maui and I couldn’t risk getting busted fraternizing with someone from my former life.

  I took the shuttle up to the Lodge and then started up the trail I’d walked the week before. After a night of little sleep it was slow going. About fifteen minutes into the climb, a Jeep skittered to a stop beside me. Ono’s grin–and the promise of a lift—buoyed my spirits.

  “Hey, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said as I climbed into the passenger seat.

  “Well, you’re pretty easy on the eyes yourself,” he said. Okay, maybe we were taking the high school thing a bit too far, but I was loving it.

  We drove to the overlook and parked.

  “I found out some more stuff about that Benson guy,” he said. “And I’m not too happy about it.”

  Even though I was pretty sure what was coming next, I kept quiet and waited for him to continue.

  “Seems he told the cops he was with you all night.”

  Oh great. This was really getting sticky. I decided a strong offense was preferable to a weak defense. “Where’d you hear that? This town is full of gossip, you know.”

  “Don’t worry about where I heard it. Is it true?”

  “Okay, let me start by saying I know Tyler Benson. When he first got to Lana’i he stayed at the White Orchid. But when Deedee showed up, he spent most of his time up at the Lodge with her getting ready for their wedding. Last night when he found out she called the tabloids, he came down to talk to me. He was pretty steamed. He sounded like he was thinking of calling off the wedding. I wanted to help him get his mind off it so I offered to drive him down to the harbor to watch the sunset.”

  “You two went out to watch the sunset? Like on a date?”

  “No, not like on a date. I was helping an upset friend get a little perspective. I thought if he got out and focused on something other than the paparazzi it might help him stop ranting and raving.”

  “Look, Pali, one of the reasons I like you so much is you’re a really nice person. You help people, you care about people. But this is nuts. Think about it. You’re already in witness protection and now you’re hanging out with some Hollywood Joe who whacks out and tosses a guy off a balcony and then stabs his girlfriend.”

  “Tyler hadn’t killed anybody when we went down to the harbor,” I said.

  We looked at each other, both realizing what I’d just said.

  “You think he did it,” said Ono.

  “No, I don’t. But it doesn’t really matter what I think, does it?”

  Turns out, it did.

  CHAPTER 15

  Luckily for me, I was back at the White Orchid when Detective Wong showed up again at three-thirty.

  “Bad news from the medical examiner’s office,” he said as soon as I’d opened the door.

  “How so?”

  “Seems Miss Diamonte was killed sometime between six and nine p.m. last night,” he said. “And the other victim, a Mr. Romano, died during the same time period.”

  It took me a minute to process the significance of what he was saying.

  “Oh. I get it. That’s when Tyler and I were out looking at the sunset,” I said. “So if I could corroborate Tyler Benson’s alibi, that would bolster his defense.”

  “That’s correct, Miss Morton. And since you’re already in WITSEC, there’s no way we can allow you to do that. As far as we’re concerned, he remains unaccounted for during the time of the murders.”

  “That’s nuts. You expect me to throw Tyler under the bus?”

  “Perhaps there were others who saw Mr. Benson during that time period?”

  “Look around, Wong. There are less than three thousand people on this whole island. During the hours you’re talking about, Tyler slipped away from the paparazzi and we went out to Kaumalapau. Then we came back here. I’m the only person who saw him, and I’m the only one who can vouch for him.”

  “Maybe Mr. Benson shouldn’t have been so camera shy.”

  “Detective Wong, you and I have had our differences in the past, but as a sworn law enforcement officer, I’m sure the last thing you want to see is justice denied. I was with Tyler Benson during the time his fiancée and that reporter were killed. You have to allow me to speak up for him.”

  “Miss Morton, I appreciate your eagerness to get in the middle of this. After all, it’s your modus operandi, is it not? A mainland tourist gets into trouble with the law and you jump in to save the day. Well, this time I’m afraid I’m going to have to nip any such notion in the bud. I’m warning you. If you so much as breathe a word to anyone about corroborating Mr. Benson’s alibi, I’ll have you on the next thing smokin’ out of Hawaii. Are we clear?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t even nod. I just glared at him.

  ***

  After Wong left I went to the kitchen to make myself something to eat. I wasn’t really hungry, but I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and, besides, it gave me something to do. I slipped my apron over my head and felt the crinkle of the envelope I’d stashed in the pocket.

  I took it out. Maybe the powers that be at WITSEC had something to tell me that would shine a light on when they’d be finished with the drug sting. Then maybe I’d be free to lend my voice to Tyler’s defense.

  I slit the envelope open with a table knife. I pulled out the contents, surprised to see it was a Christmas card with a funny Santa in a grass skirt under a palm tree. Santa was flashing the shaka sign—the ‘hang loose’ with thumb and little finger extended. Inside, the card said, Mele Kalikimaka, the Hawaiian way of saying, “Merry Christmas.”

  On the facing page, someone had written me a note in longhand.

  Hi, I know I’m not supposed to put your name on this, but you know who you are anyway, ha-ha! I miss you. I didn’t want Christmas to go by without letting you know how sorry I am about the way we left things. Stay safe. I couldn’t bear to have anything happen to you. Merry Christmas. Love you, Hatch

  PS Wahine says bow-wow (which means I miss you too).

  I put the card down and stared at the back wall. Why had Wong agreed to bring this to me? I know he and Hatch had worked together some time ago at the Honolulu Police Department, but from what I’d seen there wasn’t much love lost between them. Especially since Hatch had given up being a cop to become a firefighter. I couldn’t imagine why Wong would be willing to break the rules for Hatch Decker.

  Then it hit me. I was thinking about the how and why of the card showing up to avoid thinking about the card itself. I missed Hatch. I missed Farrah. I missed Steve and Keahou and even Hatch’s dog, Wahine. I missed every person, every dog, every palm tree, every wide sandy beach, every towering green mountain. I missed everything about Maui.

  I missed my life and most of all, I missed my sweet fireman ipo, Hatch Decker.

  ***

  At seven o’clock that night the phone rang. It was Darryl.

  “Hey,” he said. “I hear they got some trouble up at the Lodge.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t involve locals.”

  “Good. So how’s everything going?”

  “It’s going okay,�
�� I said. “But I’ll be glad when you guys come home. I need to spend some time at my own house. The cockroaches have probably rearranged the furniture by now.”

  “We’re booked on the eight-thirty flight Friday morning. My mom’s making noise about us not sticking around for Christmas, but Ewa’s anxious to get back home and get the baby settled in. You gonna be able to help out? We’ve got folks coming in for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. In fact, we’re totally booked.”

  “I’m not sure, Darryl. Can we play it by ear? I’ve got a few things stacking up.”

  “Sure, no worries. I just think it’s gonna be kinda crazy with the new baby and all of our rooms filled and all.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Oh, and do you have a way home from the airport?”

  “Yeah, we got like six offers for a ride. Everybody wants to be the first to see Ekana.”

  “So you’re going with the Hawaiian name?”

  He whispered, “As long as I’m within earshot of my mother-in-law I am.”

  We said our good-byes and hung up. I felt bad running out on them when they needed help, but I felt even worse thinking about not spending Christmas on Maui.

  That night I walked back to my rental house with a lot on my mind. Tyler was in the Maui jail probably wondering why I’d hung him out to dry. Ono had come to Lana’i to see me and we were sneaking around like teenagers breaking curfew. And Hatch had sent me a ‘miss you’ note via Wong, which must have been hard for him since they’d been rivals for the same job in Honolulu and Wong had won out.

  I should’ve been pleased by all the male attention. Too bad instead of making me feel flattered, it just made me feel guilty.

  CHAPTER 16

  On Thursday morning I slept late. It was nearly eight o’clock by the time I unlocked the front door to the White Orchid and went inside. I glanced out the side window and was surprised to see Ono sitting on a stone bench in the garden.

  “What are you doing here?” I said as the screen door slapped shut behind me. “Your Jeep isn’t out front.”