South Seas Shenanigans

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “You weren’t very furtive in investigating me,” Elenoa said.

  Good girl, Elenoa, don’t believe Miss Vivee’s fibs.

  Elenoa was beautiful, and looked innocent, and from what I’d seen extremely clumsy. But when she spoke, it was easy to see that she was smart, too. Maybe too smart to let Miss Vivee slip one of her untruths past her. She seemed educated, and she didn’t have a Fijian or British accent. She looked Miss Vivee right in the eye, and stared her down.

  Miss Vivee eyed Elenoa momentarily, then she changed her stance and jutted out her chin.

  “If you really did love him,” Miss Vivee said, “then it would seem to me that you’d want the truth to be known.”

  Ooohh. Good one, Miss Vivee.

  Elenoa took in a breath. “What do you want to know? I mean I never would have thought he was murdered, so I don’t know what I could tell you that would help.”

  “You don’t know anyone that was upset with him?”

  “Well yeah,” Elenoa said. Miss Vivee gave Mac a lopsided grin, happy she’d accomplished her goal. “A lot of people. Cam wasn’t well liked.”

  “I thought he was a pretty decent guy,” Mac said.

  “You probably didn’t know him very well,” Elenoa said matter-of-factly. “Cam was manipulative. He’d say or do anything to get what he wanted. He was arrogant.” A smile crept across her face. “But that was one of the things I loved about him.”

  “So is that why he was taking steroids?” Mac asked. “Doing anything to win a bike race.”

  “No,” Elenoa said and furrowed her brow. “He didn’t care about that race. And he wasn’t taking any steroids, he knew I wouldn’t approve of anything like that.”

  “But he was entered into a competition, right?” Mac asked.

  “Yeah, he entered it,” Elenoa said. “And paid big money for it. Had to because that’s the only way he would have had a reason to come back here without any suspicion.”

  “Suspicion about what?”

  “Me,” she said.

  “You?” Mac asked.

  “Mmmhmmm.” She nodded. “He wanted us to be able to spend time together without the interference of his wife. So that could give you two suspects right there. And was that other woman murdered because-”

  “Madda Crawford?” Miss Vivee said. “No.”

  “‘Because’ what?” Mac had caught she was going to add something to her question. “Why do you ask?” Mac said.

  “Because I would have placed her murder squarely on Temo and Avvy.”

  “Really?” I said. I usually left the questioning to Miss Vivee and Mac, but that suggestion intrigued me.

  “Because they are the ones that put her up to all of her pranks. They wanted to run this place without the interference of Rigieta.”

  “What did she have to do with it?” Miss Vivee asked.

  I recognized the name as the old woman that lived with them.

  “She owns the Likuliku. Outright. They wanted to scare her enough about the pitfalls of owning a business that she’d give it to them. If there was too much trouble here, she wouldn’t want any part of it.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Kind of devious.”

  “Their heritage dictates better care and favor than that,” Elenoa said. “I think they were looking to Miss Crawford to invest once they owned it free of Rigieta.”

  “Who are your two suspects for Cam’s death?” Miss Vivee said, evidently moving on.

  I wanted to hear more.

  “Harley Grace Manicore and Gregory Can. I would add his wife to that list, but she didn’t get here until after he was dead. I don’t even think Cam knew she was coming.”

  “What makes you think they’d be suspects?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “Because they both had motive.”

  “How so?” Mac said.

  “He led Harley Grace to believe she’d be his trainer. Fly her back to the states, pay her all of this money, make her rich.”

  “But he didn’t do that?”

  “Nope. Led her on. Was still leading her on the whole time he was here.”

  “Harley knew she wasn’t his trainer?”

  “If she did, that would have been the reason she killed him. He told her she was, to keep her hanging on, and to keep his wife from knowing that coming down here to train was all a ruse. Harley thought she was going to be his trainer. She would have been really mad to find out anything differently.”

  “Hmpf,” Miss Vivee let out a moan.

  “And what about Gregory Can?” Mac asked.

  “Greg broke his collarbone because of Cam.”

  “How did he do that?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “Cam ran into him, knocked him off his bike.” She shook her head. “Cam really didn’t have any business on that bike. He used it for an excuse to come here and be with me, but deep down I think he wished he was better at it. If he was on his own, he probably would have given it up, but since his wife paid for it, he just kept going.”

  “What is going on between you and Gregory Can?” Miss Vivee asked.

  She had no problem getting personal with Elenoa.

  “What do you mean?” Elenoa said and frowned.

  “I saw you and him together. He was coming out of your room.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but Miss Vivee had said she’d seen them together. I hadn’t believed her before, but why confront Elenoa with a lie that involved her?

  Elenoa tilted her head and thought about what Miss Vivee said. “Oh,” she said and smiled. “He came to me for the salve I made for him. For the collarbone injury I just told you about. I had forgotten about that.”

  “What kind of salve?” Miss Vivee asked. Her voice softened, and for the first time in her conversation, her annoyance with Elenoa seemed in abeyance.

  “A salve I make from the oil of the botebotekoro and coconut. I also added vau and few other plants.”

  Miss Vivee cocked her head to the side. “Vau. That’s hibiscus,” she said. “And coconut oil?”

  “Yes,” Elenoa said.

  “I have a greenhouse at home,” Miss Vivee said. “I grow all of those except for the first one you mentioned.”

  “Botebotekoro,” she said. “It’s native to the island. I can get you some if you like.”

  “I would like some. Mac has a bad hip, and I can tell that your salve not only helps with healing, it’s a muscle relaxant as well.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He was in a lot of pain. And since it was Cam’s fault, I kind of felt obligated to help.”

  “Well, I’m impressed,” Mac said. “Not everyone knows about natural cures.”

  “Most people around here do,” Elenoa said. “Our medicine grows naturally everywhere.” She spread her hands out. “But, also, I’m in school for it.”

  “Really?” Mac said. “May I ask where?”

  “I attend the University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine in Connecticut.”

  No wonder it didn’t seem she has an accent to me, I thought. She goes to school in the states.

  “I’ll graduate next year.” Elenoa hung her head. “That’s what we were waiting on, Cam and me. For me to graduate. Then we were going to be together. Forever.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I skipped lunch with the Whitson newlyweds. I was too excited about seeing Bay, and didn’t think my stomach would hold down any more food. It was still rebelling against the breakfast I’d eaten that was still stuck in my throat. Nor did I think I could stomach Miss Vivee and her criminal pursuits any more.

  I stayed on the verandah of my bure and waited until I saw the boat I knew he would be on come into view and I ran down to the dock.

  Miss Vivee and Mac were already waiting there for him.

  “How long have you two been standing here?” I asked.

  “Long enough to find out that the lovo has been sabotaged again,” Miss Vivee said.

  “Oh no!” I said and looked out as Bay moved closer to shore. The lovo w
as something I really wanted us to do together.

  “No need to worry,” Mac said. “They fixed it.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Miss Vivee. Why was she trying to upset me?

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “Remember those missing kayak oars?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “The ones Madda Crawford supposedly took.”

  “She did take them,” Miss Vivee said. “But I guess her spirit has returned because they were found broken in half and lain across the pit where the food for tonight had been buried.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Who could have done that?”

  “I just told you,” Miss Vivee said. “Madda’s ghost.”

  “They think Hank Harrison did it,” Mac said.

  “Who is ‘they,’” I asked.

  “People in the know. Oh look,” Miss Vivee said, and started waving. “Bay’s here.”

  My heart did a flip-flop, and I knew I was grinning from ear to ear. I watched Bay step off the boat and come my way. My heart was beating so fast, and I couldn’t stand still. But instead of the meeting I’d imagined all morning, I got, “What in the world have you two been up to?”

  Well, “Hi honey,” to you too!

  He hadn’t even gotten both feet planted firmly on the ground before he started. I had a sinking feeling that what he really was saying was “What had Miss Vivee been up to,” but somehow I always ended up getting caught up in her mess.

  “I didn’t do anything.” I threw my hands up. “Talk to your grandmother.”

  I wasn’t even sure what he was talking about.

  “Hello, Grandson,” Miss Vivee turned her cheek and pointed to it. “Where’s your manners? Is that how you greet your grandmother?”

  “My meddling grandmother?” Bay said. “And today it is.” He bent over and kissed her.

  I contorted my face, bracing myself. It sounded like the both of us were in trouble, whether one of us was innocent or not.

  “I couldn’t even get off the plane from home without being summoned by the Fiji police to their headquarters. I almost had a heart attack. I thought something had happened to one, or all of you.”

  “Did they think you were smuggling in drugs?” Miss Vivee asked.

  “Grandmother!” “I’m beginning to think I am the only law abiding citizen in this group.” He looked at Mac. “Why do you let them drag you into this stuff?”

  Them?

  Me, too?

  “Bay, I can tell you,” I said. “It wasn’t me. I’ve been trying to steer away from all the drama and supposition that is your grandmother.” I looked at Miss Vivee. “What has she done now?” I looked back at Bay. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t play innocent with me.” He arched one eyebrow. “The police wanted to know if I would help in an investigation that’s going on here. They said that my grandmother said there had been a murder.”

  “Eww,” I said and turned up my nose. “That is bad. But I didn’t have anything to do with that. Case in point – they said ‘your grandmother’ did it.”

  “Somehow,” he said. “I knew you would say that.”

  “Because it’s true,” I said. I was trying not to whine, but my voice was awfully close to it. I’d been trying, like always, to stay clear of her conspiracy theories. I didn’t want or need him dragging me into them. “Your grandmother is the one that decided that a man who went off into the water on a moped was murdered.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard the story,” he said. “And it made me look crazy. They think I condone the actions of two amateur sleuths.”

  “Well are you going to help them?” Miss Vivee asked. “Because if you are, we need to fill you in on our theory and who the suspects are.”

  I didn’t even know who the suspects were.

  And it definitely wasn’t my theory.

  “Not my theory,” I said it out loud. “Their theory.” I pointed to Mac and Miss Vivee.

  “I don’t need you to fill me in. I talked to an Inspector Tomasi Walota. He’s supposed to get the results from the autopsy back tomorrow and they want me to come and go over their notes with them. Look over the report. But to do that, I’ll probably have to go over to the American Embassy and get approval. That could take all day.”

  “But you came here for a vacation,” I said. I really wanted to do a “Sassy Pout.” Was that how she kept her man?

  “So did you tell him that?” Bay said and looked at his grandmother. “Because you two were supposed to be on your honeymoon.”

  “Tell who what?” Miss Vivee said innocently.

  “Inspector Walota,” Bay said. “Did you tell him that you saw someone murdered?”

  “Well we can’t spend all our time doing honeymooner stuff,” Miss Vivee said like that was an excuse. “Mac’s got a bad hip.”

  That made me want to throw up.

  I covered my ears.

  “Listen,” Bay said pulling my hand down. “You three have got to stop suspecting murder at every turn.”

  “The man was murdered,” Miss Vivee said. “How am I supposed to change that? What? Do you want me to just ignore the facts?”

  “There are no facts,” I said my comment directly to Bay. “She thinks that he died from water intoxication. Something she could not know.”

  “Water intoxication?” Bay looked at me. “He did drown, right? I heard they drug him out of the water.”

  “She’s not talking about him taking too much water into his lungs,” I said. “She’s talking about too much water into his stomach.”

  “Stomach?” He frowned up and looked at Miss Vivee, then back at me. “He drank too much water?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then how was he murdered?”

  “With the water,” Miss Vivee said like it was obvious.

  “You can’t murder someone with water,” Bay said, “unless you hold them down under it.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “But her theory is that someone here I guess, she doesn’t yet know who, made him drink enough water to kill him, put him on a moped and pointed him toward Madda Crawford.”

  Bay started to laugh but looked at Miss Vivee who was giving him the evil eye.

  “Grandmother.”

  “Don’t Grandmother me,” Miss Vivee said her ire struck. She didn’t like people to question her opinions. “Logan is trying to poke fun at it, but, except for putting him on that moped, that’s exactly what happened.”

  “Not only shouldn’t you be upsetting the folks around here about it being a possible murder, your plot doesn’t even make sense.”

  “She told his wife that he was murdered, too.” I felt like a kid telling on my little sibling, but she was getting me into trouble with Bay. I couldn’t have it. And she should understand that. She didn’t like it when, as she had put it, I tried to cause a rift in her marriage.

  “You are such a tattletale,” Miss Vivee pointed her boney finger at me. “And I don’t appreciate the two of you having a conversation about me, and I’m right here.” Believe what you want, the man was murdered.”

  Bay made his eyes wide, “Logan is a tattletale? Grandmother, really. How did officials in Nadi know I was coming? Better yet, how did they know that I was FBI?”

  She stood quietly for a moment. I think mulling over whether she should lie and blame me or Mac for Inspector Walota knowing about him.

  “The point is,” Miss Vivee said and waggled that finger. “The man was murdered and I’m just trying to find out what happened. I’m trying to help.”

  “That’s not your job, Grandma. Not here. Not in Yasamee.”

  “You mind your manners, boy. Telling me what my job is. You ain’t too old for me to still tan your hide.”

  “How about I’ll be good, if you’ll be good,” Bay said and winked.

  That surely didn’t help Miss Vivee’s anger. “No ultimatums with me,” Miss Vivee said, her voice louder and higher than usual. “You’ll behave yourself and watch how
you talk to me and that’s the end of that.”

  I’d never seen Miss Vivee so upset with Bay. He was her pride and joy, and usually could do no wrong. I think trying to convince us that a murder had occurred was taking a bigger toll on Miss Vivee than I realized. But it was so far-fetched, I wasn’t even sure that Mac believed it.

  And while I was standing there thinking how crazy it sounded, and seeing how upset it was making Miss Vivee that we’d question her suppositions, I thought about all the other deaths I’d seen with her. For every one of them, there hadn’t been any obvious evidence that a murder had taken place, either.

  Gemma Burke had just keeled over into her bowl of bouillabaisse. There was not one sign of foul play. I’d thought she’d had a heart attack. But not Miss Vivee. From the moment it happened she knew it had been murder. Oliver Gibbons was found on the shoal not fifty yards from his house. He had a cigarette in his hand, and a burn mark on his lip. Nothing looked out of the ordinary there, either. Just as I had suggested with Gemma Burke, I’d determined that he’d had a heart attack. Miss Vivee knew it was murder. Jackson Wagner had been a judge at a pie eating contest, his wife told everyone she believed he had had a heart attack. I agreed with that idea because there were no obvious signs of anything different. But, not Miss Vivee. She knew it was murder. Kimmie Hunt was out jogging. Died from a hornet sting. If not a heart attack, my now go to answer for sudden deaths, I would have put money on it being an accidental death from the venom of that little bugger. Not Miss Vivee, she knew it was murder. And my thought was: How can you kill someone with a hornet while they’re outside jogging? But it turned out to be true.

  So maybe killing someone with too much water was true, too . . .

  I looked at Miss Vivee facing off with her twice-as-tall-as-her grandson.

  How could I doubt her?

  All those times I had been wrong and Miss Vivee had been right. It was murder every time.

  “No ultimatums, Grandmother,” Bay was saying. “I’ll mind my manners.” He reached under her arms, lifted her up and kissed her on her forehead.

  Bay was giving into her, maybe I should too?