Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series)

by Neal, Toby

  “Eucalyptus. They grow well here and were used to create erosion breaks all over Haleakala. But they also have spread out of control and they have highly acidic footing that keeps other vegetation from growing. Also, the lumber is too splintery to use.”

  “What a waste.”

  “A lot of our early attempts to figure out land use and crops in Hawaii were.”

  They walked on. Lei’s running shoes raised little puffs of fine red dirt. The trees rustled and squeaked in a cool morning wind high above them. Far off, she could hear the native birds. Her heart rate settled and her mind stilled as she breathed the pine-scented air.

  “Tell us more about what you know about the camper,” Pono said.

  “I didn’t know about him,” Takama said.

  “Some of us who patrol through the forest began spotting things that looked like more than just a hunter passing through. Evidence of fire covered up. A forest latrine. Things like that,” Jacobsen said. “I mentioned it to the Hawaii Bird Conservatory people.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Lei asked.

  “I’m sorry. I was so distracted I didn’t think of it.”

  “Do you think a hunter built the blinds?”

  Takama shrugged. “The one we found already seems more like a bird observation post than a hunting blind.”

  “Yes,” Jacobsen agreed. “I’ve found a couple of others. They are usually located in good bird observation areas rather than the areas ungulates typically go once they get inside the fence.”

  Lei glanced at Jacobsen. “Ungulates?”

  “Hoofed invasive animals. Goat, pig, axis deer. Easier to say than have to list the types every time.” Jacobsen held a branch aside for her. “They typically forage along paths because it’s easier access for them. They also have stream areas where they like to drink. These places would make more sense for a hunter to build a blind.” He paused, then blew out a breath. “I have a theory. This camper is someone who has worked with one of the conservation agencies and come back to the forest for his or her own reasons. Seems to have a degree of forest survival skills and to know where to observe birds, not something a total stranger to the forest would know.”

  “That’s a good lead,” Lei said. “I’ll contact the agencies for a list of people who’ve worked with them when we get back.”

  They’d continued descending gently toward the cloud forest area and now were leaving the varied pines of Hosmer’s forestry experiment behind. “Not long until we get to the helicopter landing area,” Jacobsen said. “I thought we could start at the crime scene and backtrack to some of the sites we think the hunter has visited. See if we can pick up any evidence of him.”

  “I like your theory as much as Lei does,” Pono said to Jacobsen. “If we can get a fingerprint, something from the camper, we might be able to identify this guy.”

  “I don’t know,” Lei said, pulling Pono aside to whisper so the rangers wouldn’t hear. “Just because we identify the camper doesn’t mean he killed the bird hunter. And have you thought that the bird hunter might be the camper?”

  They each considered this quietly while they walked on. “No,” Pono finally whispered back. “The guy was staying at the Maui Beach Hotel, short term, paying cash. He wasn’t camping out here longer than it took to catch the birds he was after.”

  They exited the trees and walked into the wide-open clearing above the path leading into the cloud forest. “Anyone feel nature calling? We do all human elimination in this area before we go into the sanctuary area,” Takama said.

  Pono headed into the underbrush along with Jacobsen, leaving Lei with Takama. She eyed the leathery, fit ranger. “You seem to love your job.”

  “It’s important work. It suits me.”

  “I like it out here, in the forest,” Lei said. “I didn’t expect to like it so much. I haven’t spent much time out in the wild.”

  “The forest really hits some people,” Takama said. “And when it does, you want to protect it.”

  Lei tipped her head back, looking at the trees and sky, listening to the wind and the birds. “I guess so.”

  Pono and Jacobsen reappeared. “Lead on,” Pono said.

  They turned down the path into the cloud forest, winding along a switchback trail through graceful ferns. Birdsong rose around Lei like auditory fragrance as they made their way through lush, flowering ohia trees. Takama led them back to the first blind, from which the poacher had been shot, and Lei gazed over to where the body had been found.

  The ferns had recovered, the leaf mold settled. The spot looked as wild and untouched as the rest of their surroundings. Jacobsen checked a compass reading.

  “I have headings for the blinds we’ve found. Follow me, and try not to break or trample the understory.”

  He led them through waist-high ferns, delicate olapa plants, and akala berry bushes heavy with large native raspberries. Lei followed Pono, letting the big Hawaiian forge a careful way behind the ranger for both of them. Progress was slow, and they didn’t talk in case they alerted the camper to their presence.

  The next blind was in an old-growth ohia tree, split by lightning and bowed into two separate arches that had continued growing, branches coming up from the downed halves in a mini-grove effect. Without speaking, Takama pointed out the handholds leading to a perch in the middle of one of the arches.

  “You go. You’re smaller. Look for trace,” Pono whispered. Lei nodded, pulling on rubber gloves and beginning her climb. She was glad she wore relatively flexible shoes as she shimmied up into the tree, easily locating the blind’s sweet spot about fifteen feet up off the forest floor.

  It was ideal for bird watching, with the crown of a nearby ohia flowering within twenty-five feet. Even as she settled onto the bench made of a nailed branch, she spotted one of the bright red, curved-billed birds on the nearby tree. “I`iwi,” she murmured, having taken some time to memorize the birds’ Hawaiian names.

  The showy scarlet nectar feeder hopped from one bright red blossom to the next. Its coloration made sense in its habitat, as it virtually disappeared among identically colored flowers.

  “See anything?” Pono hissed from below. Lei was startled into activity, taking out her high-wattage penlight and shining it over the bench, the bark of the tree, and the branches that surrounded her.

  She descended, shook her head. Jacobsen took a reading and struck off in another direction. This time he led them to a small clearing. He gestured to the ground, artificially swept clean. “I think he was here.”

  Lei and Pono both went to work, scanning the earth. Lei spotted something white under a fern. She dug gently with her hands and uncovered a white cardboard Starbucks cup, holding it up triumphantly.

  “Prints,” she mouthed to Takama and Jacobsen, bagging the discarded cup. She dug some more and unearthed more discarded trash, packaging up each of the items.

  “What’s your most recent camp site?” Pono whispered to Jacobsen. “Now that we have something with trace on it, let’s go right there and maybe we can pick up his trail.”

  Jacobsen nodded, brown eyes gleaming, and set off, his compass out in front.

  “Dogs would really speed this up,” Pono said.

  “No dogs allowed in the preserve,” Takama said from behind.

  “This is a murder suspect,” Pono hissed.

  “Never mind. Let’s just go. If we don’t find anything more today, we can try to borrow the K-9 unit,” Lei whispered.

  They filed after Jacobsen, hiking for a good length of time through increasingly dense underbrush. A light, misting rain began cooling Lei’s hot cheeks, and she could feel her hair corkscrewing even tighter in the moisture. They reached an open spot in the brush, and this time Lei could see a crushed pattern where the camper had slept and a scorch mark where he’d had some sort of camp stove in use.

  Jacobsen left them checking for trace and began casting about, carefully bending and searching, and he gestured. They followed him as silently a
s they could.

  An eruption of movement ahead of them was so startling Lei found herself whipping out her weapon and dropping into a shooting stance—only to see an axis buck leaping through the ferns. Originally from Indonesia and smaller than Mainland deer, the buck was the red of Hawaii earth and dappled with white. Lei jumped as Pono, just ahead of her, took a shot with his pistol. The buck leaped in response and disappeared into the brush.

  “Not what we were after, but some venison stew can’t be a bad thing,” Pono said, his eyes alight. They ran through the ferns, but the deer was gone.

  “You not only alerted the camper to our presence; now you have to file a report because you discharged your weapon,” Lei said. “Oh my God, my partner fires his weapon on the job and takes down a deer.” They all laughed except Takama, a discharge of nervous energy, and continued tracking the animal through the ferns.

  Jacobsen bent a fern to show Pono a smear of blood. “You got him.” A few yards farther, Jacobsen bent over. “There’s a faint trail here.”

  A camouflage-clothed man burst out of the brush in front of them—and Lei was so startled she had to restrain herself from pulling her weapon to fire at him.

  “Halt! Police!” Pono bellowed, leaping after the fleeing man. Between the surprise of flushing the camper and the deer they were tracking and prepared to shoot, both she and Pono were a little trigger-happy. Pono was mowing down ferns and underbrush like a linebacker, Lei in his wake. Their progress was slowed by the dense growth, but Lei was smaller and faster. She managed to edge past Pono to charge after the camper as he bolted along some memorized pathway she couldn’t see.

  “Stop! Police!” she yelled. The suspect poured on more speed, if anything, running like his life depended on it and pulling ahead. Lei could hear Pono swearing as he fell behind, tangled in a clump of low-growing maile vine.

  Lei tried to register as many details as possible even as she ran—approximately six feet tall, male, camo gear clothing, a satchel, a compound bow and arrows slung across his back, a field hat in camouflage. He disappeared suddenly, and Lei, running full tilt, realized why as the ground, concealed by ferns, dropped out from beneath her.

  Lei cried out as she fell through space and hit the ground, rolling down the steep side of a canyon to fetch up with a bone-jarring crunch against a boulder. She lifted her head to see the camper, leaping gracefully and rock hopping down the stream, then disappearing from view through overhanging trees and underbrush.

  “Dammit,” Lei said when she had enough oxygen back in her lungs to verbalize. The suspect was probably young and certainly physically fit, and appeared to know the forest like the back of his hand. Pono peered down at her from about fifteen feet above, his brows drawn down in a thunderous scowl.

  “You okay?”

  “I think so. A few bruises is all.” Lei sat up, feeling her ribs. Taking a deep breath made her gasp. “Maybe a cracked rib.”

  “Tiare is going to kill me if I let you get injured before the wedding,” Pono said.

  Takama was already climbing down. “Don’t get up. Let me check you over.” Jacobsen and Takama helped her climb out of the steep gulch after giving her a quick once-over.

  “You okay to walk?” Pono picked a leaf out of her hair as she was boosted over the lip of the cliff.

  “Just a little short of breath. Maybe I should get my ribs checked out,” Lei said, holding a hand against her side and breathing shallowly.

  “We should go back, have you get that looked at,” Takama said, his angled brows knit.

  “Another reason we try not to move too quickly out here,” Jacobsen said. “All kinds of invisible hazards.”

  “The unsub really knows his way around,” Lei said, as Pono hoisted her to her feet. “I mean, the suspect.”

  “Yeah, that Fed lingo’s still sneaking in now and again,” Pono said, referring to her stint in the FBI. “Tracking is over for the day. At least we know a little more about the guy and we’ve got some possible trace.”

  Jacobsen spotted another fresh blood mark. “We should still get the deer,” he told Pono.

  Lei waved a hand. “Ranger Takama can take me back to the truck.”

  Jacobsen and Pono peeled off to find the deer, and Takama walked with Lei back toward the parking area.

  Lei was in pain, hunched over with a hand pressing her ribs, by the time they’d hiked the two miles back to the vehicles. She lay down on the soft grass beside the parking area to wait for Pono.

  Takama elevated her feet, gave her water, and, after feeling her ribs, said, “Probably just a bad bruise. Just take it easy.”

  “Guess I don’t have much of a choice,” Lei said, sipping from her water bottle. “I’d like to be able to bring some tracking dogs up here, try to get this guy. We know he’s a real pro in the forest now, and that’s going to make it challenging.”

  “We’ll keep an eye out, stay in touch about it.” Takama sat beside her, looping arms around his knees in a comfortable, active pose that revealed a man who was used to living without furniture.

  “Not sure if I’m going to be the one to make it back up here, but I can tell Pono will want to.”

  Just then Jacobsen and Pono appeared, walking through the trees. Pono wore the field-dressed, bloody deer carcass over his shoulders, his face split in a ferocious grin.

  “Gross,” Lei said, gesturing to the stains on Pono’s shirt. The big Hawaiian gave a heave and tossed the buck into his truck bed.

  “Worth the report I have to write.” He pulled an impressive-looking bowie knife from a holster on his belt. “You guys want some venison?”

  A few minutes later they pulled out. The buck lay in the back, minus the hind leg Pono had whacked off to leave with the rangers.

  “To the doctor with you,” Pono said, glancing at Lei’s pale face.

  Her nose wrinkled. “Phew. I’ve never liked the smell of blood.”

  “At least it’s not human this time.”

  Halfway down the mountain, Lei had to have Pono pull over so she could vomit.

  “You don’t look good,” Pono said, as she got back in the cab. “You pregnant?”

  “God no. That would be terrible,” Lei said. “No. It’s carsickness and the fall making me queasy. They don’t tell you how windy this road is in the travel brochures.”

  “What’s so terrible about you getting pregnant? You guys are finally acting like adults and getting married. And don’t start with that ‘I had a bad mother so I’ll be a bad mother’ crap. I’ve seen how you are with dogs. Best indicator of parenting abilities is how people treat their dogs.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Lei leaned her forehead on the cool glass of the window and watched the road, breathing slow to calm her roiling stomach. As they drove down the volcano and headed toward the hospital, Lei considered what he’d said. She couldn’t remember exactly when she’d last had her period, not that she’d ever paid much attention to it. Could she be pregnant? She was on the pill, but lately she’d been distracted and had missed a couple of doses. They’d stopped using condoms once they were exclusive, and somehow, Lei had never imagined the world’s oldest relationship complication could happen to her.

  The weird way she’d been feeling lately was probably just stress with the case and planning the wedding.

  At the emergency room, she called Stevens. “Sorry, honey. I fell down a cliff. I’m at the ER.”

  “Good God, woman. Can’t you get through the week without ending up in the hospital?”

  “Don’t know. Never tried it,” she said, going for humor. “Nothing serious. I’ll be done by the time you come pick me up, I’m sure. They’re just x-raying my ribs.”

  At the radiology lab, the technician handed her a questionnaire, and Lei paused at the question Are you pregnant?

  Her heart sped up, and the print of the letters danced in front of her eyes, turning to hieroglyphics. A wave of nausea swept over her, and she dropped the clipboard to reach for a nearby tra
sh can. There wasn’t anything left in her belly, but when the technician came back, she said, “I could be pregnant. I better find out before I get the X-ray.”

  “No problem. We have some pregnancy tests if you’d like one. You really shouldn’t have an X-ray unless you know.”

  Oh God. She wasn’t even going to be able to procrastinate.

  Lei wasn’t sure she could even pee on the little stick, but finally she was able to go. She set the plastic wand on a paper towel and wrapped it up so she didn’t have to look at it before she washed her hands.

  She’d be a terrible mother. Lei felt sick at the thought of the responsibility, at the possibility of hurting a child as her mother had abused her.

  Lei also couldn’t ignore the leap of something like joy at the thought of a baby with Stevens’s eyes, with her curls. She splashed water on her face and hands, wondering if she had the courage to unwrap the plastic wand and look at it. She decided she didn’t. She put the wand, still wrapped in the paper towel, back in its original box and stuck it in her purse.

  “I need to wait on an X-ray,” she told the technician. “Can the doctor check me out some other way?”

  Chapter 9

  Lei was feeling better the next morning. Her ribs, examined by the ER doc by visual and touch exam, were “probably just bruised”—but that didn’t stop them from hurting every time she took a deep breath.

  “No more chasing perps on foot until after the wedding,” Stevens had said when he picked her up, folding her into his arms and kissing the top of her head. “I don’t want you on crutches or something on the big day.”

  The pregnancy test felt like a lead weight in her purse. She still didn’t want to look at it—she’d open it with Stevens on the honeymoon if her period hadn’t started by then. That way, no matter what the test told them, she wasn’t dealing with it alone.

  Lei booted up her work computer. She had extra lieutenant duties to fit in, including reviewing a patrol’s scheduling, making sure trainees’ ongoing logs were looking good, and other departmental minutiae Captain Omura had lobbed her way. She slurped down a couple of Advil with her coffee, paused to wonder if that was okay if she was pregnant and decided it had to be; she wasn’t going to cut into more lifestyle choices until she knew for sure. Besides, she was in survival mode with her bruised ribs.