Kauai Temptations

by Terry Ambrose

  There were another half dozen in attendance and I surmised most were from Morah’s work. Apparently, Antoine Figland didn’t intend to be here. Given his recent affair with Morah, that surprised me. But, then again, would I go to the funeral of a woman I was having an affair with if her boyfriend was going to be there? Duh, I don’t think so.

  A representative of the mortuary apparently decided it was time to get going and took the podium. “Welcome, friends and family of Morah Wilkerson. I’m Patrick Stepvogel, the owner and director of Meddle’s Mortuary. We thank you for using Meddle’s for all your mortuary needs.”

  Jeez, was that supposed to be a commercial?

  “Services today will be conducted by Father John Windsong from the family church.” The owner and director of Meddle’s stepped to one side, then went indoors.

  A breeze drifted across the lanai. Father John had thin gray hair that hung long and straight. His black robe was accented by bright red cuffs and some sort of insignia on the back I didn’t recognize. His voice was a monotone guaranteed to put insomniacs to sleep. He kept droning on about the goodness of people, what a wonderful person Morah must have been, and how she was going to a better place. My guess was that Lu had hired him to say nice things, though I doubted he’d ever met the deceased. He finished abruptly and invited Lu to say a few words, which led me to conclude that we’d reached the audience-participation part of the event.

  Lu smoothed her dress and stood behind the podium. Her face was sad, but she shed no tears. The set of her jaw remained firm as she gazed at each one of us. When she saw CJ, she stopped momentarily, a flicker of recognition in her eyes. A fraction of a second later, she moved on.

  CJ whispered, “I’ve delivered packages to her before. I think she remembers me.”

  I nodded while I watched Lu study the small gathering for a few seconds more.

  Several people in the audience shifted position in their chairs, obviously uncomfortable with the silence. Finally, Lu seemed satisfied and began. “My sister didn’t have much use for God.” She gazed at us again, as if to judge our reaction. “Morah was carefree. She lived an unencumbered life with few restraints. I remember once when we were little, I think I was nine and Morah was seven. Mom asked Morah what she wanted to be when she grew up. Morah said she wanted to fly airplanes. When Mom asked her why, Morah said that she wanted to be like a bird. That was Morah. Free. High spirited. Though she never flew an airplane, she certainly lived her life as though she was free as a bird.”

  Lu’s words didn’t fit with her clipped speech pattern. It was like watching someone grind out, “I like you,” through clenched teeth to an enemy. Was she just upset over losing her sister? More likely, based on what Kari had told me, she was still angry with Morah.

  “Most of you know that Morah had been through tough times and was trying to get beyond that. But she had difficulty. Her ex-boyfriend wouldn’t leave her alone. Her choices hadn’t always been the best.” Lu glowered at Kong.

  The muscles in her jaw tightened and she glanced back at her notes. “Her choices certainly were not the ones I would have made. But Morah had to live her life her way. Remember, she wanted to be free, like a bird.”

  Lu seemed lost in thought for a moment, then continued. “But, birds have trouble, too. Morah certainly did. As much as she hated her ex for what he was doing to her, his sudden disappearance caused her even more anxiety.” She glanced up at Kong again. This time, her eyes flashed in anger. “Maybe that’s why she started using drugs again.”

  In the front row, Kong Lam’s posture stiffened. Even beneath his shirt, you could see his shoulder muscles tighten with a power almost ready to explode. He leaned forward and, for a moment, I thought he might rise. Then, he gripped the seat of his chair with both hands. I breathed a sigh of relief because it appeared he and Lu wouldn’t go at each other.

  Obviously, Lu wanted her comments to fully register with her audience. The way she was working the crowd made me feel like a pawn in a game I knew nothing about. I was equally surprised when she ended her remarks right after that. “Morah’s depression got the better of her. I’m going to miss her. I’m sure we all will.”

  Father John gave Lu a hug, then let her return to her seat before he asked for others to speak. I wasn’t terribly surprised to see Kong rise and go to the podium. His jaw muscles twitched as he glared at Lu, but his voice was as soft as the breeze drifting through the lanai. Outside our little ceremony, sunlight danced between tree shadows as though celebrating life itself.

  “Few people knew Morah like I did,” he said.

  That’s not what I heard, I thought, but kept my big mouth shut.

  “Morah and I . . .” He paused and wiped his eyes. “We had a special bond.” He took a deep breath and continued in halting speech. “We had that bond because we both had troubled backgrounds. But Morah had gotten over it. Some would say she had not, but she had. She had her life heading in the right direction. She knew where she wanted to go.” A tear ran down Kong’s cheek; he wiped it away and focused on the podium. “We were going to be married soon—have keiki of our own someday. She’d even asked me to teach her how to surf.”

  He glanced up, his eyes were red with grief. I couldn’t get over the contrast between Lu’s impassive demeanor and his. “The police say Morah was making meth when she died.” He placed his fist over his heart. “Here, in my heart of hearts, I can’t believe she’d ever do drugs again. I guess we’ll never know for sure. What I do know for sure is we should remember Morah the way she was: happy, free and full of aloha spirit. I’ll miss you, Morah. Goodbye, my love.”

  Tears rolled down the jagged lines of grief etching his face. He plopped back into his chair, a beaten man. Having lost the woman I loved, also, I felt a special tie to Kong. Questions and doubts, anger and remorse would fill Kong’s days from this point forward. He and I had something in common.

  CJ poked me in the arm. She was pointing in Lu’s direction. I’d stopped paying attention to Lu because I was so caught up in Kong’s grief. With CJ’s prompting, I watched the side of Lu’s face, which twitched in anger. At that particular moment, if we hadn’t been at her sister’s funeral, I think she might have tried to kill Kong Lam.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lu Tawana’s face blazed hot with fury. A purple vein in her temple pulsed furiously while Kong faced her head on. His sudden shift from grief to anger gave off a fearsome intensity. The scar on his left cheek blazed as he spoke. “You don’t wanna get into this with me.”

  “These are difficult times,” said Father Windsong. “The worst that any family goes through.”

  Lu shot the padre a sideways glance. “Shut up.”

  Kong blinked, probably taken aback by Lu’s treatment of the man hired to regale her sister. On the other hand, I was surprised he’d made any attempt, no matter how feeble, to defuse the situation. Almost everyone else in attendance remained silent, their respective plots to escape the impending scene painfully obvious. Even Father Windsong seemed to be looking for cover. Not me, though, the dynamics fascinated me. Why did these two hate each other so much? Had it been this way when Morah was alive?

  Lu snapped at Kong. “She wasn’t going to marry you. You had nothing to offer her but trouble. You didn’t know my sister at all.” She took a menacing step in Kong’s direction.

  Father Windsong swallowed his fear and moved between them, as though his presence might somehow calm the storm. Kong easily waved him off and the man retreated to the podium, his steps tentative and uncertain. Kong reached into his pocket.

  “You’re the one who knows nothing. Why do you think she hated you so much? Because you always had to make her just like you.” Kong wiped at his cheek, then started to turn away. He shook his head and whirled to face Lu. “She wasn’t using drugs. You only wanted to keep her under your control. She wasn’t a sister to you, she was a puppet for you to manipulate.”

  “Liar!” Lu moved toward Kong, who closed the gap between them i
n a few steps.

  CJ gripped my arm. “Oh my God. What’s he gonna do?”

  Those left in the audience gasped, probably expecting Kong to pick up Lu and throw her across the room. Instead, he reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a small envelope, and extracted a note. “I got this the day after Morah died.” He began to read.

  “My dearest Kong, I have been such a fool and wasted so much time. You have brought me such happiness and joy that I couldn’t imagine my life without you. When you return, I want to marry you right away. I’ll love you always, Morah. P.S. I think we’re going to have a baby.”

  Lu backed away and shook her head. “No. No. That can’t be true.”

  “She’d finally broken free,” said Kong. “We were going to have our own lives.”

  I looked around and saw Kari standing at the back, her jaw hanging open, her hand to her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  It was Lu’s turn to be silent. Her eyes glistened and her lower lip trembled. She had a hand at her throat and bit her lower lip. Her voice faltered when she spoke. “I don’t believe it. It just goes to show what a liar you are. And a cheat. I know what you did when you were on your ‘business trips.’” She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers.

  “Me? I never cheated on Morah. My trips were just that, business. There were no women, no parties. It was just work. Always.” His voice seemed to catch in his throat. “Even, especially at the end. We were in love. We were gonna get married.”

  I glanced in Kari’s direction, half-expecting her to confirm that Morah’s note was real, at least the part about the pregnancy, but she was on her way out the door, sobbing violently, her friend at her side. There went my chance to retrieve the pendant.

  Kong shoved the note in Lu’s face. “Here, read it for yourself. Look at the handwriting—the signature—it’s hers.”

  Tears dribbled down her cheeks as Lu studied the paper. She glanced up, then threw it back at Kong. It flipped a couple of times in the air before fluttering to the floor and landing in the second row. I saw my opportunity for an introduction and made a quick move to where the note had landed. I scooped it up, glanced at the signature, and handed it to Kong. He nodded at me.

  The signature on the note reminded me of the one on my checks. It was the same loopy handwriting used by “Miss McKenna.”

  Lu sneered at Kong. “That means nothing. Nothing, you hear me. She probably wrote that while she was high.”

  Then how and why had she mailed it, I wondered. Besides, the script on that note was compulsively neat and flowed smoothly across the paper. Morah hadn’t been high when she’d written it.

  Kong shook his head. “You’re such a self-centered bitch. You couldn’t even let her have this funeral in peace.”

  “Don’t put this off on me, Kong. You’re the one who’s been screwing with her life, you and that control-freak sister of yours. Where is she, anyway? Huh? Why isn’t she here to gloat over having you all to herself again?”

  Kong had a sister?

  “Leave Des alone. She’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “Other than she’s an unbalanced, out-of-control maniac you’ve been cleaning up after your whole life.”

  Kong flinched. Apparently Lu had struck a nerve. I wondered if he had another note in his pocket.

  Lu continued, “Yeah, Morah told me. You’ll never be free of her.”

  I glanced around the thinning room. Even though the argument was winding down, the rest of the crowd had seen enough. Had Kari left because she couldn’t bear the animosity? Or had she decided she was going to keep the pendant? I’d call her later and hope for the best, still wanting to trust her. I also wanted to know who she’d been sitting with.

  Father John Windsong fluffed up his robes and strode over to Kong and Lu. “I really must insist. I’ve never seen such behavior at a service. Never. Now, both of you, sit down and give Morah some respect.”

  For a moment, I thought the padre might wilt under the heat emanating from Kong and Lu, but he stood his ground. Kong shut his eyes, nodded and returned to his seat while clutching the note tightly. Lu straightened up and faced the remaining audience.

  “I apologize for my outburst.” She took the few steps back to her chair.

  CJ had a self-satisfied smile on her face. She’d taken the confrontation in as if she’d been an extra in a B-grade melodrama. One thing was certain, Father John was right, I’d never seen anything like that before. And now, I had more questions about Morah’s death. While the cops weren’t much interested in her because they deemed it a drug-related accident, I sensed that something more tragic had occurred. My dilemma was who to go after first.

  I whispered to CJ, “You know where to find Lu if I need to talk to her, right?”

  She pushed her shoulder into mine. “Uh huh, I know the clinic where she works.”

  Then I was going after Kong. I’d need to work quickly, but before this service was over, Mr. Scary Surfer-Businessman and I were going talk. My good deed of returning Morah’s note should give me reason to meet him. After that, I’d need some plausible excuse to talk further. My brain jumped into overdrive trying to fabricate a lie he would buy. It had to be one I wouldn’t forget. And something the coconut wireless couldn’t contradict.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Once, when I was a kid, my parents took me to the circus. The animals fascinated me, the high-wire acts thrilled me, the lion tamer inspired me. The man with wavy hair and billowing white shirt faced the King of the Jungle, unafraid, bending the lion’s will to his own. For two weeks, I practiced with my imaginary whip, chair and lion. For two weeks, I relished the danger of facing a man-eating beast. At the end of two weeks, Stevie Wharton, the older of the two Wharton brothers and the authority on most subjects of interest to me and my friends gave me devastating news. He had it on good authority that the lion tamer we’d seen was now dead—eaten alive by my lion.

  According to Stevie, the lion tamer’s death had been particularly gruesome with blood and guts scattered everywhere. Body parts had been scattered throughout the cage. He said the lion hadn’t been hungry for days. In retrospect, I realized how naive I’d been, both about that particular career choice and Stevie’s story. But, approaching Kong Lam gave me the same anxiety I’d felt when Stevie described the death.

  Most of the other guests had already left. Even Lu was outside with two other women, probably friends, which left Kong standing in front of the picture of Morah. He wore scars, both obvious physical ones as well as the unseen others on his heart. My biggest fear was Lu might have pushed him too far; the last thing I needed was for him to snap and strangle me because of Lu’s accusations. His head hung forward, his large mane of frizzy hair and his shoulders shook, though there were no audible sobs. I stood behind him for a few minutes gazing at the picture in silence.

  She’d been a beautiful woman, her blonde hair hung straight in this photo. Her eyes were a pale green and sparkled. Dimples brought out a childlike innocence she hid behind a grownup’s visage. I thought, this woman could do anything. Why had she become an identity thief? Why did she die? I spoke softly, “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?”

  Kong didn’t flinch. Had he sensed my presence? He turned to face me.

  “You knew Morah?”

  “Actually, my friend did. I was accompanying her, but she was pretty upset. About Morah’s death, I mean. It was a meth lab explosion?”

  His fists clenched, then relaxed. His lower lip twitched a few times.

  I added, “Cops can be so wrong about people sometimes, you know? I can’t see why a smart girl like Morah would mess with meth if she knew she was pregnant.”

  He seemed to relax. “Morah was a good person, she’d left that life behind. She wasn’t going to do that again. We’d both reconciled our pasts.”

  “What do you think really happened to her?”

  His eyes were wet. While I was probably safe, it worried me he might start asking questions about
who I was and why I was interested. To my relief, he seemed to want to talk. “Morah had always been, you know, the party girl. But she wasn’t stupid. She knew where she wanted to go with her life. Yeah, she wanted to have a good time, but she’d finally figured it all out. She didn’t do drugs. Didn’t do nothing the cops said. How all that stuff got in her apartment, I don’t know.”

  There was something odd in the way he referred to “all that stuff.” I wondered if he meant something other than the chemicals. “You mean the meth stuff?”

  He shook his head and snickered. He had a weak smile on his face. “Morah couldn’t cook. She owned a few pots and pans, but if it was more complicated than taking it out of a freezer and putting it in the microwave, it was a lost cause.”

  “Could barely make orange juice, huh?” Kong’s face turned stern at the wisecrack. I guess it was off limits for strangers to talk about his girlfriend. “Uh, sorry. I have a bad habit of mouthing off when I shouldn’t. Keeps getting me into trouble.”

  Kong seemed to relax again. “It’s okay. She could make OJ, but her coffee stunk.” He laughed. “I remember this one time, it was after our second date, we’d been out all day at the beach and I was beat, so she volunteered to make me a pot before I had to drive home. Man, it was awful. Like triple Turkish expresso she’d left out in the sun for a few days.”

  We both laughed, but deep inside, I felt Kong’s pain. I nodded toward the doorway. “That Lu, she’s a piece of work, yah?”

  Kong shot a glance at Lu’s empty chair, then his jaw tightened and he let his eyes roam the room. “She’s unbelievable. Her own sister, man. She doesn’t even treat her with any respect. Couldn’t even let her have this. Lu ain’t got the market cornered on messed up. She and Des are so much alike it’s spooky. They both like playing head games.” He gazed back at Morah’s photo. Sadness etched the lines in his forehead and around his eyes. “I miss her so much.”