Livin' Lahaina Loca Read online

  “No, I need to speak to Detective Wong. This is Pali Moon, returning his call.”

  “Please hold while I transfer your call.” There was a click and then an earnest-sounding male voice came on to scold callers about the dangers of drinking and driving. After half a minute, he was cut off mid-sentence.

  “Detective Wong here.”

  “Hello, Detective. It’s Pali Moon. I’ve got something you need to see.”

  “Another donation for ‘Locks of Love’, Ms. Moon?” I heard the chuckle in his voice, but I let it go because once he realized why I’d called he’d be apologizing. He’d be hard-pressed to sell his Halloween prank theory now.

  “No, what I’ve got here is even more disturbing.”

  “Before we waste my time and yours, why don’t you just tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “Fingernails.”

  “Fingernails? I’m afraid I’m not following you, Ms. Moon.”

  “I’ve got the missing girl’s—I mean, young woman’s—fingernails. They were left at my shop door while I was over in O’ahu.”

  I waited while he took a moment to connect the dots.

  “Ms. Moon, I’m afraid I’m still not following you.”

  “What’s to follow? Remember I told you about that bridesmaid who went missing on Halloween? Well, now we’ve got her hair and her fingernails. And besides that, I also have a recorded voicemail from a creepy guy who’s threatening me.”

  “Where are you right now, Ms. Moon?”

  “At my shop in Lahaina. I’m upstairs, above Hargrove’s, the restaurant on the corner of—”

  “I know where Hargrove’s is, Ms. Moon. Stay right there. I’ll be down within the hour.”

  So I had an hour to kill. I plucked up the fingernails and laid them out in order, like two phantom hands with the flesh missing. All fingers and thumbs were present and accounted for. I scooped them up and poured them back into the pouch. Then I listened to the four messages on the landline phone in my shop. Each was a check-in call from a vendor—the Plantation Inn confirming the reception date, Keahou confirming the cake delivery, the gal making the bridesmaids’ leis, and finally, my roommate Steve announcing he was prepared for the photo shoot on Saturday.

  I called Steve on our home phone. When he didn’t answer, I left a message telling him I’d made it back to Maui but I had a few things to deal with at the shop and I wouldn’t be home for awhile. I thought about calling Hatch but decided against it. I didn’t want to get into a long-winded discussion of my trip to O’ahu and then have Wong show up in the middle of it.

  Finally, I called Keith but he didn’t pick up. I left a message asking if he and Nicole could meet me at my shop at eleven o’clock the next morning. We’d go over the wedding schedule and discuss any last-minute concerns. I tried to sound as nonchalant as one can while staring at a pouch containing the ripped-off fingernails of a missing bridesmaid.

  Wong made it in forty minutes. He managed to find the back stairs in the pitch black alley and was rapping on my shop door as I came out of the restroom.

  I turned the latch and let him in. “Sorry I didn’t leave the door open. I was so creeped out by the fingernails I locked up before going to the bathroom. Have you been waiting long?”

  “Just got here.” He looked around the cramped space. “This isn’t as nice as your place up in Pa’ia.”

  I said nothing. To my knowledge he’d never been in my old shop on Baldwin Avenue. But Steve had told me Wong was the consummate busybody. Rumor has it on his time off Wong checks out people, places and things all over the island like a king checking the nether reaches of his kingdom. Steve said behind his back people refer to the detective as ‘Peeping Wong’.”

  “Well, this is the best I can do for shop space right now,” I said. “And it looks like I may be here even longer than I’d hoped. The Mo’olelo Society has decided to turn my old shop into a visitor center.”

  He nodded as if it was old news.

  He pointed to the desk phone. “May I listen to the voicemail you reported?”

  I walked over and picked up the receiver before realizing the sinister voicemail wasn’t on my shop phone, it was on my cell.

  “It’s in there—on my cell phone,” I said, pointing to my overnight bag.

  Wong waggled his finger in a ‘bring it here’ gesture.

  I rummaged through my bag for the phone and when I looked up, Wong’s eyes were darting around the room, taking in everything.

  “Nothing much escapes you, does it?” I said.

  He shot me a half-smile, as if he wasn’t sure if I’d meant it as a compliment or criticism.

  I punched in my voicemail number and entered my code. When the robot lady announced the time of the creep’s incoming message, I passed the phone over to Wong.

  He put the phone to his ear and I waited while the message played.

  “What was the caller referring to—about being ‘serious’?” said the detective. “Maybe it’s a supplier you’ve forgotten to pay? Or maybe a potential wedding client? I don’t hear the threat you claim to be hearing, Ms. Moon.”

  “The guy said I’d be sorry—that sure sounds like a threat to me.”

  “Well, maybe you’d be sorry to miss out on some new business. Or maybe it’s a florist who wants to tell you about a great deal on orchids.” He smiled a ‘there, there, little missy’ kind of smile and I shot him some stink eye.

  “Okay, if it would make you feel better, I’ll run the number through our database and see what comes up.” He listened to the message again, jotted something down in a little notebook he pulled from his shirt pocket, and then handed the phone back to me. “If it turns out to be anything significant, I’ll let you know.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I reached over and picked up the silk pouch from the desk top and silently held it out to him.

  He waved it off and pulled two latex gloves from his pants pocket. He snapped them on and took the pouch from me. Then he shook the fingernails into his open right hand. Ha! I thought, as I watched him examine the nails. He’s left-handed. Wong’s not the only one with an eye for detail.

  “Okay, Ms. Moon, I’ll take these in and see what we come up with. Until then, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this to yourself.”

  “No problem.”

  Even though he’d been stingy with an apology for blowing me off last Thursday, his attitude change was reward enough. He returned the fingernails to the pouch and slipped it into a small plastic evidence bag he’d pulled from another pocket of his pants. He borrowed a black marker pen from my desk and wrote the date and time at the top of the bag. Finally he wrote Lets Get M, Lahaina/P. Moon on a large white square in the middle of the bag. I couldn’t help but be impressed he remembered my business name, even though he shortened it and he left out the apostrophe in Let’s.

  When he finally left, my anxiety level dropped a notch with each of his footfalls on the outside stairs. I worked my jaw back and forth a couple of times to loosen it up. My concern over Crystal’s welfare had been a heavy burden I was happy to hand off. The authorities had what they needed to start looking for her, freeing me up to concentrate on the task at hand: Keith and Nicole’s fast-approaching Saturday wedding.

  I locked up and skipped down the stairs feeling ten pounds lighter.

  CHAPTER 12

  It was a little after eight when Wong left—not too late to call Hatch even on a night before he’d be going back on shift. Not even too late to drop by if he was around. I wanted to share my cheerful mood after being relieved of the Crystal dilemma.

  Hatch picked up on his cell number after two rings.

  “Hey, are you home?” I said.

  “Yep, I gotta go to work tomorrow morning.” His voice had an edge I hadn’t noticed before.

  “Can I come by for a few minutes? I won’t stay long.”

  “It’s a free country,” he said. Then, as if he realized how snippy that sounded, he continued, “No
really, come on over. I’ll be up ‘til ten.”

  Hatch lives in a swanky neighborhood called Sprecklesville. Not a very Hawaiian-sounding name, the area was established over a hundred and fifty years ago as a thriving sugar mill operation owned by “boss man” Claus Spreckles. Now the sugar refinery is gone, and what’s left is a pristine beachfront community of multi-million-dollar homes. Hatch’s cottage sits at the entrance to a sprawling property owned by an Australian film producer. The movie guy and his entourage show up a few times a year. The rest of the time Hatch pretty much has the run of the place. He’d become a de facto “boss man” himself, managing a small army of landscapers, housekeepers and maintenance people who troop through, day after day, keeping up the main house, three guest houses, two pools (salt- and freshwater) and assorted outbuildings and gardens. The property even boasts a heli-pad and an observatory complete with mini-Hubble telescope for stargazing.

  As I was making my way through the West Maui hills, my cell rang. I’m usually good about not taking calls while driving, but I was concerned maybe it was the weird guy who’d left the threatening message. I didn’t want to miss talking with him in person.

  “Ms. Moon?” I was wrong, it was Wong.

  “Yes, Detective.”

  “Good news. Our forensic tech worked late tonight and I was able to catch her before she left. I showed her those fingernails. Seems they’re fake. She said they’re called ‘silks,’ made from a silk fabric which is applied over a woman’s natural fingernails. Manicurists use them to strengthen the living nail and make the fingernails stronger and appear longer. They’re easily removed with acetone and are believed to be easier on the nail bed than acrylics.”

  Did he call to give me a beauty school lesson?

  “Anyway, I think the prankster is still just messing with you,” he said. “Are you sure you can’t think of anyone who might be behind this? Maybe someone who’s faking foul play to get you to drag the police department in on the joke?”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer before going on. “You know, if we had any cause to believe this was for real, we’d be hard at it. But seventeen years on the job tells me we’ve got a practical joker here. You see what I’m saying?”

  “No, I don’t, Detective. Look, a woman is missing. Whether the hair and fingernails are real or fake doesn’t change the fact that Crystal Wilson vanished nearly a week ago.”

  “We’ve gone down this road before, Ms. Moon. Right now we’re working at least a dozen complaints involving visitors. We’ve got some who racked up big hotel charges using phony credit cards. We’ve got abandoned rental cars. We’ve got one case that’s similar to yours where the so-called boyfriend took off and left his girlfriend stranded here with no money and no plane ticket home. Tourists pull the disappearing act all the time.”

  “So that’s it?”

  “For now. But don’t hesitate to call if something new turns up.” He said it the same way a shop clerk would chirp Have a nice day.

  I turned off the Hana Highway at the sign marking the entrance to the Maui Country Club. Then I made a sharp left into a leafy lane that winds around the backside of the golf course. Hatch was sitting on his front lanai when I pulled up. He gave me a wave and pointed to a spot where I could park the Geo. When the owner was in town Hatch liked me to park out on the road, preferably a block or two out of sight of his landlord. Not that the TV producer was a prude about Hatch’s love life; I think it had more to do with the aesthetics—or lack thereof—of my trashy-looking ride.

  I got out of the car and took a deep breath. This area smelled like the exact opposite of my funky shop over the fish restaurant. Here, the wind carried scents of plumeria, gardenia and freshly cut grass. The hush of on-shore waves beyond the foliage was accompanied by lungfuls of oxygen-rich ocean air.

  I approached the cottage and Hatch’s Jack Russell-mix pup came charging through a hole in the screen door and out onto the lanai in a hail of high-pitched barking. Wahine—the Hawaiian word for ‘lady’—never let physical barriers slow her down. She’d been known to leap from a moving boat to take a swim, and once she’d chewed through an inch-thick rope in mere minutes when Hatch tried to tie her up outside.

  “She thinks getting tied up is like working a Sudoku—it’s just a puzzle begging to be solved,” Hatch had said.

  When Wahine clearly saw me, or smelled me, or whatever means she used for ID’ing humans, she abruptly stopped barking and her tail went into overdrive.

  “Hey, sweetie.” I bent down and rubbed her chin, then moved to her chest, while she attempted to lick every trace of sea salt residue from my neck. I’m not a dog-person, per se, but I make an exception for ‘Heen’, Hatch’s shortened-up name for her.

  When I looked up, Hatch was waiting for me on the lanai. He was holding two wine glasses—white for me, red for him.

  “Bed,” he said in his daddy voice, and Heen trotted over and plopped down on a wadded-up blanket near the door.

  He kissed me lightly on the lips, then handed me my wine.

  “When you didn’t call me back yesterday I thought maybe you’d decided to dump me but forgot to clue me in,” he said. His voice was teasing, but in the meager glow of the yellow bug light I noticed a tight line across his forehead.

  “No, I’m sorry, I was working. You know that guy, Ono, whose catamaran you recommended for this weekend’s wedding? Well, his cabin girl got sick so he asked me to help out with a gig he had over in Honolulu.”

  Hatch raised his glass and took a long time, sniffing and swirling. He was no wine connoisseur, and chances were good the wine had come out of a box, so I figured his sommelier act was more a stalling tactic than an attempt to impress me with a newfound interest in oenology.

  “You have a good time over there?”

  “It went fine. I stayed with the woman who owns the boat. She’s a really nice lady, and her condo is spectacular. She even gave me a silk bathrobe.” Okay, I was laying Tomika’s gender on a little thick, but I didn’t want Hatch leaping to conclusions about the sleeping arrangements.

  “I thought we had a date for Sunday. You didn’t even bother to call and let me know you wouldn’t be around.”

  “Again, I’m sorry. We left really early Saturday morning and then the weekend just sort of flew by.”

  “But I called you Halloween night and told you I would be off on Sunday. In fact, I left you a bunch of messages.”

  I only remembered one message, but I was already in the wrong so I didn’t want to quibble. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. It took a day to get over there and then we had to get ready for the party, and then it took another day to get back. All I can say is I’m really sorry.”

  He started the wine swirling thing again.

  “Look, Hatch. I don’t know what else to say except ‘I’m sorry.’ You’ve been busy, too—going out fishing and all. Can’t you just accept my apology? It wasn’t as if I purposefully didn’t call you.”

  “So, what’d you think of Ono Kingston? Quite a guy, huh?”

  I know a loaded comment when I hear one. “He’s fine. He keeps the boat really clean and he’s a good sailor. We made the crossing to O’ahu in about twelve hours.”

  “Did you get seasick?”

  “Not really. I kind of liked the rockin’ and rolling.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you did. And I’ll bet he did too.” By now my eyes had grown accustomed to the dark and I couldn’t miss seeing his clenched jaw working a muscle in his cheek as if he was a cow chewing its cud.

  “What’s wrong with you? If you have something to say, then say it. I’ve already apologized for not calling. But I earned two hundred bucks for helping out with a boat party for the owner’s business associates. That’s it. If you’re implying it was anything more than that, then say so.”

  “Pali, Pali.” He said it as if he was talking to a kid caught playing with matches. Hatch had been a cop for seven years before switching to firefighting. He acted liked a fireman but
often still thought like a cop.

  “What, Hatch?” I sounded cranky, but I’d groveled enough.

  “I don’t have a problem with you doing stuff on your own. You’re free to come and go, no problem. But in the case of Ono Kingston I feel kind of responsible for your safety since I’m the guy who gave you his name.”

  “My safety?”

  “Look, I don’t want to dis him or gossip or whatever you call it in Hawaiian—”

  “Ka’ao. Gossip is called ka’ao.”

  “Anyway, it’s just that although he seems like a stand-up guy, there’s more to his life story than meets the eye.”

  “You mean about his drinking?” I felt a twinge betraying Ono’s confidence, but I wanted to put the brakes on Hatch’s holier-than-thou lecture before it really got rolling.

  Hatch downed his wine. He crossed the lanai, settling into one of two sling-back chairs set on either side of a massive square ottoman. He pointed to the second chair in an unspoken offer for me to join him. I weighed my options.

  “C’mon,” he said after a few moments. “I’m the good guy here. It won’t kill you to hear me out.”

  I plopped into the chair and put my feet up. The shush-shush of waves rolling in on the nearby beach tempted me to close my eyes and drift off. I was beat after the long day of sailing. If I hadn’t been obliged to stick around as payback for blowing him off on Sunday, I’d have given Hatch a peck on the cheek and gone home. Instead, I braced for a sermon.

  Hatch had only gotten a few words out when a wide-body jet on final approach to Kahului airport roared overhead. It was so low I could count the tires on the extended landing gear. The deafening din of the turbine engines rattled our wineglasses on the side table. As Farrah would say, the airport noise was karma in action. The swanky community sits smack dab in the flight path, only a few miles from the main runway. Usually, the planes come in from the other direction, over the cane fields. But when the wind shifts, they switch and come in over Sprecklesville. Each of those wide bodies is bringing in tens of thousands of tourist dollars, so the locals’ calls for noise abatement procedures mostly fall on deaf ears. As the Maui Tourist Board likes to remind us, It’s not noise, brudda, it’s the sound of full employment.