Murder at Pope Investigations

by Kathi Daley

  “Do you know the name of this woman?”

  Emmy Jean lifted a tanned shoulder. “Unfortunately, I am not privy to any specific information. You know that I don’t like to get involved in those sorts of things. However, not wanting to get involved doesn’t mean I don’t hear things. In this case, what I’ve heard are generalized statements lacking any real details.”

  After I’d gotten everything out of Emmy Jean I felt I was going to get out of her, I said my goodbyes and returned to my car. I called McCarthy, but he didn’t answer, so I left a voicemail asking him to call me. Then I called my dad with the information that Kinsley might have a side job flying people in and out of the islands under the radar. He said he’d look into it, so I headed home.

  After I arrived home, I greeted my dog, Sandy, and then headed toward my bedroom to change into my swimsuit. It was much too beautiful of an afternoon to spend it indoors. The waves were pretty unspectacular today, but an unspectacular day on the water was still better than a spectacular day on land. I glanced at Kekoa’s bedroom door. It was closed, and I hadn’t heard her moving around, so I wondered if she was napping. Her car was in the drive, so I knew she hadn’t gone anywhere, and I knew she hadn’t been sleeping well since her boyfriend, Cameron Carrington, had moved from the island after being offered a job as a Los Angeles County lifeguard, a position that he had dreamed of for most of his adult life. When the job offer came through, I’d been happy for Cam, but sad for Kekoa. I knew from experience that saying goodbye to the man you love is one of the hardest things one can do.

  My relationship with my boyfriend, Luke Austin, had been very much up in the air since the previous October when his father, who owned a huge cattle ranch in Texas, had been injured in an accident. Luke had flown home to help out while his dad was in the hospital. He’d planned to be back as soon as his father was healed enough to take over the management of the ranch, but just when it seemed the end was in sight, Luke’s father suffered a fatal heart attack, and Luke extended his stay indefinitely.

  Luke and I had been trying to hold our relationship together, but I had to admit it was getting harder and harder to do so. Luke’s dad passed away in November, so he’d been forced to cancel his trip to the island for Thanksgiving. I’d gone to Texas for two weeks at Christmas, but while I’d been happy to spend time with Luke, I’d missed my family and the life I’d built here on the island. In January, Cam had announced that he was moving to LA, and I’d made the decision to move from Luke’s place, where I was pretty miserable living by myself, back into the apartment I had shared with Kekoa and Cam before to moving into Luke’s place just prior to his father’s passing. I’d hoped Luke would find his way back to me, but in February, he asked Brody Waller, the friend who was housesitting his property, to accompany his dogs, Duke and Dallas, to Texas. In my heart, I knew that the dogs leaving the island most likely signaled the end, but I hadn’t been ready to throw in the towel, and Luke swore he wasn’t ready to end things either.

  In April, Luke asked Brody to sell off the last of his livestock. Brody still lived in the house Luke owned, and Luke still made noises about coming home as soon as things settled down, but in my heart, I knew he wouldn’t. In those moments when I had the clarity to step back and look at things objectively, I think I always knew that our happily ever after was never going to be.

  Technically, we were still a couple. The calls between us had become less frequent, but we did try to connect at least once a week. The long calls filled with angst and longing we’d once shared had melded into short conversations about local events. The fact that Luke hadn’t sold his house yet, left me clinging to a thread of hope that he actually would return one day, but the fact that I could feel him pulling away seemed to indicate that he wouldn’t. In the eight months Luke had been away, we really hadn’t talked about the future in terms of our relationship, but I supposed that perhaps it was time we did.

  As I walked past the other five apartments toward the beach, I thought about each neighbor. Kekoa and I lived in unit one, and Elva Talbot lived in apartment two. She was decades older than Kekoa and me, but we depended on her more than any of the others. In many ways, she was like a second mother to us. She had been the one to hold me as I shed the zillion tears I’d needed to shed to get on with my life once I realized Luke wasn’t coming back any time soon.

  Apartment three was currently empty. The tenants who had lived there moved to the mainland two months ago, and for some reason, the owner of the building hadn’t leased out the unit to new tenants yet. Carina West lived in apartment four, but she had just become engaged, so I suspected she’d be moving out soon as well. Apartment five belonged to our good friends, Kevin Green and Sean Trainor, flight attendants who were away as much as they were home, and apartment number six belonged to a man I knew only as Shredder. I knew that Shredder was some sort of top-secret spy who worked for an unnamed organization which seemed to have a wide reach and a lot of power. He came and went often, but when he’d taken off nine months ago, he had never returned. At times, I wondered if he was dead, but he still paid his rent, so I supposed that he must be still alive somewhere in the world.

  I unzipped my sweatshirt and was about to toss it down on my towel when I heard my phone ding. I noticed that I had a missed call from Luke. When we’d last spoken, he’d agreed to consider a trip to Oahu at the end of the month, but needed to check on some things first. I really hoped he’d come. This long distance thing was really not working, and I felt the need to speak to him in person about where, if anywhere, we went from here.

  I found a place to sit in the sun and then hit the call back button. It went to voicemail. “Hey, Luke. Sorry I missed your call. I’ve been busy all day, and what a day it’s been. When I arrived at work this morning, I found a dead man lying across the entry just inside the front door. As you know, this makes my third body in twenty days. Jason is working on it, but Dad and I will probably jump in as well. I guess this is sort of a long message. Anyway, I hope everything is going to work out for you to come for a visit this month. I miss you.” I hung up without adding the usual I love you. I wasn’t sure what that was all about because I did love Luke. I really did. Maybe I was pulling away emotionally the way I sensed that he’d been pulling away from me. Maybe we were both just trying to find a way to deal with what seemed to be an impossible situation.

  I grabbed my surfboard and was about to head into the water when I saw Kekoa heading toward me. Deciding to wait, I set the surfboard down. I turned slightly so I could look more directly at my cousin. “I’m sensing that you had another rough night. Cam?”

  Kekoa turned her head and looked at me. “Actually, no. Don’t get me wrong, I still miss Cam, more than I can say, but my funk this afternoon has more to do with the fact that my boss decided to give the promotion I deserved and was led to believe I would receive, to the new girl that started just a month ago.”

  “Oh, Kekoa, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe he did that. You totally deserved the promotion. What was the dude thinking?”

  “I think that he was thinking that he might have a shot of sleeping with Lisa; whereas, I made it clear that I was not interested in sleeping my way to the top.” Kekoa blew out a breath. “I know you have been telling me to quit for months, and I have resisted the suggestion, but I’m done. If the management of the Dolphin Bay Resort doesn’t value my contribution, they can find someone else willing to work so many hours of overtime.”

  I placed my hand on Kekoa’s arm. “I’m sorry about the promotion, but I’m not sorry you are finally ready to quit. I don’t suppose you have reconsidered working full-time for Dad and me.”

  Kekoa frowned. “Actually, I might be willing to talk about expanding my hours. Now that you are getting clients on a steady basis, you really do need someone in the office to answer phones while you and Uncle Keanu are out investigating.”

  I hugged Kekoa. “Great. I think this is going to work out for all of us.”

  Kekoa hu
gged me back just a bit harder than normal. I pulled back and looked her in the eyes. “So is there something else you want to talk about?”

  She shrugged. “You asked about Cam. I guess he is part of my down in the dumps mood. He called me last night so we could talk about the future of our relationship. When he first left, we pretty much decided to try the long distance thing, but after some time apart, I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t a point in trying to retain any sort of relationship other than a friendship. He loves his new job. He shared that he really has no plans to move back to Hawaii, and I just can’t see myself moving to LA.” Kekoa took a shaky breath. “I used to think that I would follow the right guy anywhere. I suppose my unwillingness to move to LA either means that I was wrong or that Cam isn’t the right guy.”

  “I’m sorry. I know how hard this is.”

  Kekoa smiled a sad little smile. “I know you do. And I’ll be fine. I think that Cam and I just need to pull the Band-Aid off and realize that we don’t have a future together. I think we need to accept that there will be a period of pain that must be endured before we can move on, but eventually, we will work through our grief and will be better off for it. It just makes zero sense to hang onto something that is just not meant to be.”

  Chapter 4

  Wednesday, June 26

  It had been three weeks since I’d found Walter Evans’ body lying on the beach behind the condo where I lived. He’d been shot once through the chest, although no one had seen or heard a thing. The body was wet, so initially, Jason suspected that the man had been dumped at sea and had coincidentally washed up at the beach behind the condo. And this could still turn out to be the case, but now that I had found three victims in twenty days, it seemed more likely that the body had been placed there.

  The man had been dressed casually in a pair of Khaki pants and a colorful Hawaiian shirt. He’d been a large man. Before his death, he’d stood six feet six inches tall, and it seemed apparent that he’d continued his fitness routine even after retiring from the service. If a single man had carried Walter from the road to the beach, he would have had to have been a large man himself, so the odds were there were at least two individuals involved, or the body had been deposited on the beach from a boat.

  Dad and I talked about the fact that the extensive traveling the man did before being shot could very well indicate activity other than simply tourism. Like our missing person, Walter had been a pilot, so I had to wonder if he made extra cash by transporting individuals who wanted to travel under the radar. Of course, it also occurred to me that the man might be involved in some sort of spy game, or, perhaps the sale of illegal contraband, or given the fact that he had been in the military, even the sale of sensitive information. Really, at this point, the sky seemed to be the limit in terms of a possible motive, until you factored in the fact that the body of the victim seemed to have been left for me to find and that two other bodies had likewise been left at places I was known to frequent. When you took that into account, the number of motives for any of the deaths seemed to decrease significantly.

  “It looks like the guys are home,” I said to Sandy, as we walked from the beach toward our condo. Sean Trainor and Kevin Green were both flight attendants, who not only traveled extensively for work but traveled extensively for pleasure as well. They’d been away for almost a month, so I was happy to see they were back. As I passed the front window of their condo, I glanced inside to find Sean standing at the kitchen counter, drinking a cup of coffee. I waved to him, and he waved me in.

  “Welcome back,” I said.

  “It’s good to be back.” Sean handed me a cup of coffee and then offered a dog biscuit to Sandy. “Kevin and I had a wonderful time in the Caribbean, but four weeks is too long to stay in one general area. I’m actually looking forward to going back to work next week.”

  “Are you still doing the Honolulu to Las Vegas flight?”

  “Actually, I’m going to be working the flight to Paris for a few months. I’m looking forward to the change of pace.” Sean topped off his coffee. “Listen, if you aren’t busy, Kevin and I want to have the gang over for enchiladas and margaritas tonight.”

  “You want to do it tonight? You just got home. Aren’t you exhausted?”

  “Not a bit,” Sean waved a hand.

  “I’m free. I’ll ask Kekoa, but I don’t think she has plans.”

  “Fabulous. I asked Elva, and she’s in, and I was going to pop by and chat with Carina after she wakes up. It looks like unit three is still empty.”

  “So far, it is. I know the owner wanted to paint the place and put new tile in the entry, so that may be what is holding things up.”

  “Still no word from Shredder?”

  I frowned as the image of the tenant from unit six flashed through my mind. “No. And I have to admit that I’m getting worried. I know he has a tendency to disappear without telling anyone, but it’s been months. Where on earth could he be for so long?”

  “His stuff is still here, so it looks like he is paying his rent. I’m sure he’s fine. Knowing Shredder, he’s just been chasing the waves wherever they’ve taken him. He’ll be back. Eventually.”

  I chatted with Sean for a few more minutes and then headed toward my apartment to shower and change for work. I was curious as to what my dad might have found out about any of our three murder victims or our missing person. I’d chatted with him yesterday afternoon, but at the time of our conversation, he’d still had several leads to track down.

  “Sean and Kevin are back,” I said to Kekoa when she walked out of her bedroom, and into the kitchen. “They’re doing enchiladas and margaritas tonight.”

  “That sounds like exactly the sort of thing I need. What time?”

  “Seven. I figure we should be home from work by six unless we turn up a hot lead on one of the cases we are working on.”

  “Jason called while you were out with Sandy. He was leaving his house and heading into the office, so he said he’d just call you later this morning.”

  “Did he say what he wanted?”

  “No. Just that he needed to ask you about something and would call you later.”

  I topped off my coffee. “Okay. I’m going to jump in the shower. We can ride to the office together if you want.”

  “Sounds fine. I’m going to make a sandwich to bring for lunch. If I am going to exist on only one job now, I’m going to need to learn to budget.”

  Kekoa was one of the most financially responsible people I knew. She made a good salary at the resort, and she worked for Pope Investigation part-time as well, so I supposed that quitting the resort and working full-time for Dad and me would result in a drop in income, but neither of us was really extravagant, so I was sure it would all work out fine.

  After stripping off my sandy clothes, I stepped into the cool spray of the shower. As I washed my hair, I realized that I had never hooked up with Luke yesterday. Sometimes I wondered why we continued to try when the situation really was hopeless. Luke had responsibilities in Texas, and no matter how hard I tried, I simply could not imagine myself living there. Kekoa had made a comment about following the right guy anywhere, and since she’d been unwilling to follow Cam to LA, that must mean he wasn’t the right guy. She’d made a really good point, which the more I thought about it, really did seem to apply to Luke and me as well.

  Kekoa was ready to head out by the time I got out of the bathroom, so I slipped on a pair of capris and a cool top given the heat of the day. I slipped on a pair of sandals, grabbed Sandy’s leash, and headed out to the parking area. Kekoa and I talked about the three men I’d found dead in the past three weeks as we made the drive from our condo to the office, and we both agreed that figuring how I fit into the equation was going to be the key.

  Kekoa got to work making the coffee and retrieving the messages from the machine while I headed directly into Dad’s office.

  “Morning,” I said, sitting down across from him.

  “Walter Ev
ans didn’t stay at the Dolphin Bay Resort, but he did meet a woman there on several occasions,” Dad jumped right in. “The woman checked in under the name Samantha Jones, but it looks like that is a fake name. I have Jason running her photo through the facial recognition software he has access to. Chances are she is in the system.”

  “Okay, so victim number one has a link to the resort where I work one day a week and victim number three sells food out of his truck just down the beach. What about our nightclub owner? I know his body was left at the resort for me to find, but is there evidence he had spent time there prior to his death?”

  “I haven’t found any evidence that he spent time at the resort yet, but I’ll keep looking. The main question in my mind at this point, is even if we can place Vinnie Travano at the resort in the time period leading up to his death, what does that mean? Why would being at or near the resort lead to becoming a victim?”

  “Maybe someone who either works at or is staying at the resort is our killer,” I suggested.

  “Even if that were true, why these three men? And even if we could find the link between the three men, why were all three victims left in locations where you would be the one to find them?”

  All good questions for which I didn’t have an answer. “What if the three men are all part of the same operation? Maybe our well-traveled pilot is transporting some illegal product, and the nightclub owner is laundering the money. I’m not sure where the food truck guy comes in. Maybe he is involved in distribution. Buy a taco for ten grand and get a free firearm, or whatever it is they are dealing.”

  “Sounds like a stretch, and even if that were true, who did the killing and, again, the question of the hour, why leave the bodies for you to find? I guess at this point, we’ll just keep digging. I am motivated to find the woman Evans met with. I thought I’d take her photo down to the area where Hanale’s food truck had been parked, and see if any of the regulars remember seeing her. Do you want to come along? We can grab an early lunch while we’re there.”